I just want to start my blog today by saying a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to papa Parrott, I’m so sad I couldn’t be there for the birthday celebrations today but I’m glad you had such a lovely day and evening and I can’t wait to see you on Saturday, in… FOUR days!

P.s the wifi is finally working well enough to upload pictures and so my blog from yesterday is now full of them!

Today at El Kinder, it was our last proper day as assistant teachers as the next few days there are different activities and events scheduled, leading up to the children’s holiday. After starting their day with marching round the garden, they split into their classes to start their lessons. My class’ teacher wasn’t actually here for the start of the day and so along with the actual assistant teacher, I gave out the children’s work books and got them started with their patriotic colouring and learning about the Peruvian flag. They’re not a stupid bunch and were finished very quickly and with no other work set, they were free to grab some puzzles off the shelves and basically play for the rest of their lesson. Soon it was break time and while Juliet and I sat in he sun, we were bombarded by all of the children hugging us, and kissing us and telling us just how much they loved us! We’re really going to miss them. Soon enough though, they always get bored and run off to play and only a few are left. Along with lots of the girls in my class who always play hairdressers with my hair, it’s always the same two who are left with me, Sandra and Rayli.

This is Sandra:

She is a four year old little girl, with an absolutely huge smile. She is always the first child to run over and hug me at the start of the day, she thinks my feet are an ideal seat, she’s always dressed in pink, super friendly and obsessed with taking photos and then looking back at them! And although I shouldn’t be saying it, I’m probably going to miss her the most once the volunteering is over.

This is Rayli:

Rayli is also four years old and quite small for his age, he doesn’t really talk… Ever and is violent towards the other children and even teachers if they don’t do what he wants or likes. And it’s Rayli’s story that has probably touched me the most while I’ve been volunteering. He lives in Ccorao with his mum and doesn’t have a dad, however his mum works in Cusco, which is forty minutes away. El kinder starts at 9am and ends at 1pm, Rayli’s mother works much longer hours than this, meaning that in the morning, Rayli wakes up on his own and packs his dog shaped backpack full of fruit and popcorn, himself, and then walks to El Kinder, again all by himself. The children receive breakfast at El Kinder at about 11am, normally it’s milk and biscuits, they don’t get lunch. At home time Reyli then walks home alone, or sometimes one of the other mums who lives close walks with him, his mum doesn’t get home until the evening. I think the reason he doesn’t talk is because he has no one to talk to, and doesn’t know how to interact with the other children for the same reason, he has no one to interact with at home. Sometimes he doesn’t even come into El Kinder so he must spend the while day alone. Last Thursday he fell over on the patio and hit his nose which was bleeding everywhere, he didn’t come into the kindergarten on Friday and on Monday when he arrived he still had dried blood all over his face, no one had cleaned it up for him. This week he’s had a serious cold AND conjunctivitis, he’s just such a sweet little boy but such a troubled case. While all the children sit on he floor to eat their milk and biscuits, Reyli will wander into the classroom and bring out a chair for himself to sit on. He’s hilarious, he opens his doggy backpack and will have an unbelievable amount of fruit and popcorn in it, because he packs it himself. He doesn’t match or sing, he’ll stand with the teachers in the middle and if anyone tries to stop him, he’ll hit them or lie on the floor and scream. He’ll sit on the floor if he’s right next to me and can lay his head on my knee and if he’s crying and I go over he’ll stop immediately. He always offers his fruit to everyone and despite not talking, he’s actually very polite. One moment he’s he sweetest little boy and the next he’s the devil child and I’ll definitely miss him so much too! I just hope his whole home situation gets a lot better.

For lunch today, Juliet and I went to Presada, the yummy vegetarian restaurant and had an extremely healthy meal, before coming to Basilica for a cake! (It works out evenly that way)

This morning Juliet and I had breakfast in our cafe before heading back to the house to pick up all the ingredients for our FIESTA at El Kinder. This included… Popcorn, mashmallows, coca cola and… GLOBOS! (Balloons). While the children practiced their marching, national anthem singing and then went into their classrooms for a short lesson, Juliet and I cooked popcorn in a huge pan, blew up hundreds of balloons until we practically passed out (it’s very hard in the altitude!) and set about making party bowls for all the children.

Once the lessons had finished and Juliet and I had managed to tackle all the children away from the door so that we could get them to sit down, we picked three of them to help us (they were so so happy by this) and served out the bowls of biscuits, popcorn, marshmallows and the cups of coca cola. Obviously the children then became VERY hiper, with the mix of sweet food, coca cola and the music that was playing from the huge stereo, they were all extremely happy! Especially with the marshmallows as they’ve never had them before and absolutely LOVED them. Soon it was time for the balloons to come out, once again the children tried to break into the room where we’d stored them but the stereo was in the way and Juliet and I were batting them right into the middle of the garden and all of the children were running after them, screaming, trying to get one of their own and then not letting any one touch it. It was absolutely hilarious to watch and also so exciting as the children were literally so so happy, they kept shouting GLOBOS GLOBOS!!!

Soon the balloons started popping which was absolutely hilarious. Juliet and I thought it could be a problem but once the children had got over the shock of the first few balloons, they found it really funny and laughed at whoevers balloon was the next victim. Those with balloons left kept a close eye on them, not letting anyone else near them incase they popped too! Juliet went over to a little girl, Nicole, to start playing with her balloon and popped it! The little girl ran away crying!!! It sounds so awful but it was so funny at the time as Juliet literally only touched it once and swore never to touch a balloon again!!!

The children were absolutely thrilled and so were we.

It was then photo time and the moment Juliet and I got our cameras out, the children all gathered round to show off their balloons and their biggest smiles and silly faces.

When it was home time, those children with balloons still alive, proudly ran over to their parents to show them and then carried them all the way home. They were still so happy and excitable by the days events. One little girl, Sandra, who had been so fixated on my camera and taking millions of photos, hadn’t realised that her balloon had been taken home by another child in all the excitement. Soon most of the children had gone and the minute she realised that along with the other niños, her balloon was also gone, she started wailing and sobbing and wouldn’t stop! We had to promise her that we’d bring her another present tomorrow just to stop the noise! It goes to show how important a simple thing like a balloon is to a little girl…

With a day of sunbathing in the park with a picnic planned for yesterday, Juliet and I were very disappointed when we woke up to cloudy weather. Instead we made the most of a lazy day to relax. We did exactly what we’d do on a Sunday morning at home… And stayed in bed. Eventually we really did need to get up, had breakfast, and spent the next hour being seamstress’ and sewing on our Argentina badges to our backpacks (we didn’t realise we were going to be going there when we first bought badges).
After our exhausting hour of sewing (never again) we drew up an exercise circuit, moved the kitchen table into the corner and started our hour long home work out, including jumping jacks, press ups, sit ups, squats and many more.
Feeling very proud of ourselves and what we’d done that morning, we decided to treat ourselves to a vegetable sandwich in Basilica, where we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, reading and facetiming.
It was then time to do our supermarket shop. Since today at school is Juliet and my desperdida (goodbye party) we have to provide the party snacks for 60 kids and so stocked up on popcorn, marshmallows and coca cola. We then started buying the ingredients for our dinner of guacamole and Doritos. We bought tomatoes, and onion, a lime, the potato chips… And when we went to buy avocados, they had none. So typical! Lucky we discovered that there is another much bigger supermarket nearby and there we bought our avocados, and lots of fresh fruit for a fruit salad for desert, and headed back to the house to cook up our meal and watch a few movies.

This morning Juliet and I had a lovely lie in, after a lovely sleep. There were no annoying Americans ringing the doorbell at 4am, no housemates waking us up at midnight and no alarms going off for volunteering. We went to, yes obviously Basilica, our favourite cafe for a long breakfast before heading into Cusco to explore. Juliet and I had made up our minds that this weekend would be sunny and so our weekend plans are arranged around beautiful weather. We even decided this morning that despite the grey clouds in the sky and the not very bright day, not shining through the window, that we were not going to wear trousers as usual, and headed into the city, me in a dress and Juliet in shorts. It was horrible weather.
We were optimistic when we started our walk to the plaza as it wasn’t too cold, in fact we were a perfect temperature. We’d spent such a long time relaxing in the cafe, and walking slowly, chatting away that by the time we were at the plaza it was mid day. We happened to pass “Jack’s Cafe”, a restaurant and bar highly rated in the lonely planet, with all day breakfast, fresh juices and yummy food, that always has a queue out of the door and down the street. We’d been wanting to try it and so joined the queue and a short fifteen minutes later we were seated at a back table with our food in front of us. Lonely planet were not wrong, the food was delicious. It’s obvious, however, that everyone in the restaurant had read the same as us, as there was not one local in the cafe. I think only one table was actually speaking Spanish, the rest English and all of the waiters spoke English as well – a real tourist location.

While we’d been inside eating, for the first time since we’ve been here, the heavens in Cusco decided to open and absolutely pour with rain, filling the cobbled streets with puddles, making them ridiculously slippery. As Juliet and I left Jack’s the rain had stopped – perfect timing, and we carried on our journey to San Blas. Everyone we’ve met has raved about San Blas, a small quaint plaza, close to the plaza de armas and although we both decided it would be infinitely better in nice weather, the open markets and huge water fountain feature with the mountains behind, were very pretty.
(We also enjoyed the different market stalls with handmade items… Especially Juliet and the hats!)

Although San Blas was lovely, it was very small and it didn’t take us long to browse the market stalls and enjoy our surroundings. On the way back down to the plaza we decided to stop in some of the funny looking shops that we always avoid, full of weird and wonderful things.

Juliet finally found the alpaca blanket she’s been searching for since we arrived in South America (hurray!!!) and we both soon found ourselves snuggled up in Starbucks with a chocolate chip cookie and The Book Thief (we’re both reading it hehe). People were rushing into Starbucks with hats and scarfs and Juliet and I were sitting their reading in our summer wear.. We’re stubborn and will be wearing summer clothes until the sun comes out again!!!
Eventually it was time to head back. The traffic in Cusco, well all of Peru, is absolutely insane and crazy. There’s usually two or three lanes on the roads, but no lanes if that makes sense… No markings, so the cars cut each other off and abruptly stop and over take and BEEEEEP the whole time. Combine that with the fact that every taxi beeps a million times and pulls up next to Juliet and I as we walk down the street because they see tourist and assume taxi, so these taxis are cutting off other cars while they beep at us and the other cars beep at them. THEN there’s the busses, that also beep at every opportunity, every person they think might want a bus and every bus stop, AND they have their bus conductors hanging out, shouting all the places that they stop while people on the street are rushing to jump on. The busses also cut every single person off, while beeping and causing more beeping. So as you can imagine, we don’t have peaceful walks to and from the main city, in fact their havoc and I reckon if we counted how many times we’re beeped at in one walk, it would be over a hundred.
Anyways, we’ve found ourselves back in Basilica, with our usual… A vegetable sandwich, to share, on two plates, no mustard, hot, POR FAVOR. We don’t even need to order now when we come in here… Every single waiter knows our usual, based on the time of day – how embarrassing.

Yesterday when our bus pulled up to the bus stop, the head teacher at El Kinder was sitting inside it waving madly at us and then on the journey to the kindergarten she waved down the other two teachers who joined us in the bus. It was strange as this is the first time in two weeks that we’ve been on the same bus as the teachers even though we all come from the same place! As a lot of the student have been ill this week with colds and flu, the mornings lessons was just a chance for all the children to catch up with work that they’d missed and needed to complete. Then it was time for the “Fiesta de Comida!, the food party. That week the children had been sent home with letters to their parents, asking them to prepare one of a list of types of food and yesterday all the children came in with tupperware boxes full of food. As the children have spent the week learning about different regions in Peru and the animals that go with each region, today was the day to learn about the food with each region and to eat it! To be honest Juliet and I couldn’t really work it out as there was rice, sweet potatoes, fried sweet potato, sweet potato chips, normal potatoes with cheese and then fried bananas. It seemed to us that the point that the lesson was making was that Peru likes it’s carbs. Each class took it in turns talking about the food and the youngest class had even dressed up in their costal regions typical clothes!

After a very sweet potato orientated lunch, Juliet and I got the bus back to Cusco and arrived in our quickest time yet! We went to Basilica, obviously, for a drink before walking to the Spanish school. On Monday at the kindergarten we are having a desperdida (goodbye party) as it’s the start of our last week and Horti told us she had some balloons and other party things that could be great for it. We picked up the balloons, a huge packet, after promising we wouldn’t let the children blow them up (huge choking hazard), had a chat with Horti and headed back to… Yes ofcourse, Basilica for a cake a some FaceTime.

As it was Friday evening, Juliet and I decided to treat ourselves and ordered a large Italiana pizza, chicken, peppers and mushroom, took it back to the house and had a twilight movie marathon (so happy about this) before falling asleep.

Yesterday we completed our normal morning routine with so much ease. We got up and walked to our bus stop, just as one of the smaller mini busses, with spare seats (!!!) pulled up and we hopped on.

Obviously it was a much nicer journey up the mountains and we arrived at El Kinder early and not feeling sick! A good start to the day.
The children’s day began with marching practice, which they’re getting used to now. There’s a few children who still refuse and sit in the corner or have to be dragged round by me or Juliet but apart from that, and under the promise of prizes for the best marcher, they all stomped round in a circle swinging their legs and arms high. In the class room, after id finally finished all of my paper folding, I got given a new stack today, I helped the children in my class design their ideal garden. It had to be beautiful and with a lot of colours and while a lot of them struggled to even draw a flower, I went round adding my touch to everyone’s work. (Most people requested butterflies with cool colours and designs). I spent most of the time with a little boy called Migiel, who at 4 years old is the youngest in the class and also doesn’t really know anything that’s going on in class, or what they’re talking about but woos the teacher by giving her hugs often when he’s put on the spot. We made his drawing absolutely fabulous, full of colour, butterflies and lots of flowers.

Soon all the children were posing for photographs with their work.

Today was a bit different in the sense that while all the children ate their usual breakfast of milk and biscuits, the teachers also brought out some special food – vegetable tortilla that they’d just made in the kitchen. They then brought out plates of food for Juliet and I, rice, tortilla and salad and then afterwards along with the teachers we went into one of the class rooms and had some coca tea, and while the children played and we chatted over tea, time passed and soon the school day was up.

After a quick lunch, obviously in Basilica, Juliet and I ran some errands including buying milk and toothpaste, all very fun before heading to the house to relax for a bit.
That afternoon/evening, we went to El Museo Del Pisco, the Pisco museum to do a Pisco tasting and have dinner. Pisco is a liqueur founded in Peru and only made in Chile and Peru. It’s made with grapes but is clear and very very strong. Although the tasting was fun and we learnt all about the fermentation process and the different ways it can be made, we couldn’t have more than a tiny sip of our straight Pisco without wincing. We did however, both agree on our favourite, and obviously it was the most expensive.

The staff soon realised that the straight pisco was way too strong for us both and made our remains into cocktails instead! (Well that’s what they said… They actually used new Pisco but heyho we weren’t being charged so we weren’t complaining!) and both of our cocktails were delicious. Juliet’s was a cosmopolitan with pisco and mine was pisco, passion fruit and ginger ale.

We then had a delicious meal before heading home, watching Clash of the Titans and going to sleep… Or so we thought…
At 3.45am we were woken up by the doorbell ringing constantly, as if an annoying child was trying to be seriously seriously annoying. Furious at our housemates for forgetting their key again and being so, well, annoying, Juliet and I stormed downstairs and outside to let them in. Only to open the door and find an American girl standing there saying sorry she’s not looking for us she’s looking for our housemates. We were so angry, she’s the girl that always comes home with them, shouting and talking so loudly and waking us up most nights however this had taken it to a new level. We told her we didn’t think that they were in and she asked if she could check and marched through the door. Obviously having just woken up and it being 4am Juliet and I were not impressed and told her exactly what we thought of her and the whole situation. She told us she “knew all about the rules” (that she’s actually not allowed in our house, guests aren’t, let alone to stay over) and marched into our two house mates room, woke one of them up and then the two of them went into the kitchen, and while he whispered saying shhh, she had a full blown conversation / argument with him in full volume American accent – SO ANNOYING. It was half 4 and they still hadn’t shut up so Juliet and I went out to the kitchen, he apologised but the noise didn’t stop and soon I screamed, from my bed, WILL YOU PLEASE BE QUIET and the house was silent again. Unfortunately Juliet and I were very awake by this point and literally didn’t go back to sleep… So two very tired volunteers are off to work this morning… And two house mates will be getting a big talking to this afternoon.

After not sleeping so well last night, due to bizarre dreams, house mates who went out at 11 and came back at 3am, both times making a huge racket, and the once again absolutely rubbish Peruvian curtains that let every single tiny bit of light in as soon as the sun comes up, Juliet and I woke up earlier than normal, to get wifi in Basilica, our favourite cafe. We then headed to the bus stop to see what was in store for us today.
This time it was about 20 minutes before one of us busses showed up and today it was ‘Ricardo’ the bigger bus that was absolutely heaving to the brim. They assured us there was room and so along with about 5 other people at the bus stop, we crammed into the bus. There were 9 of us and two babies all squeezed into the doorway of the bus, winding up the twisty roads up the mountain to Ccorao… Boiling hot, unable to breath, both babies crying… You can imagine how Juliet and I felt when we finally arrived… RELIEF!
We were a little bit later than normal when we arrived at volunteering and the children were already in their classrooms waiting for their lessons to begin. Well all of them except the ones that we’d met on the walk from the bus stop who screamed AMIIIIGAAA as they ran up to us and held our hands in a long train as we all walked to El Jardin.
My job today was to get the millions of thin rolls of coloured paper that were in a box at the back of the class room, unroll them fold them up flat and then pile them up under some heavy books so that they get pressed flat. It wasn’t a hard job but soon my hands were stained with the colours of the paper and I found it more interesting mouthing answers to the children in the class so save them getting into trouble for not knowing the days of the week or the animals of Peru. When it was break time Juliet and I were both absolutely exhausted still and so found a spot in the sun to sit. We weren’t alone for long when soon we had a circle of children around us and on our laps. A lot of them just come and sit by us in groups and play there, it’s so sweet because they basically just want to be close but are happy enough getting on with their own games. Of course Sandra, my little niña, ran over and literally jumped into my lap – something she found hilarious and repeated several times before she got bored and started eating her orange (spilling juice all over me and my already filthy clothes). When the orange eating saga was finished, with some very skilled pip spitting (coming very close to Juliet, who was having trouble with her own child’s fruit juice) Sandra found a small ball and soon a game of catch had risen with Juliet and some other children eventually becoming involved by no choice of their own… Let’s just say throw isn’t their main skills! It was very fun, as it was a squishy ball so no matter how hard the children chucked the ball at each other, it bounced off arms, elbows, legs, even heads with no harm done.
Then it was back to paper folding, however one of the Peruvian animals that they’re learning about in class in the tortoise – which I have at home. So I stood up and told them all about Henry’s pet Tommy and how my family had decided to tie a balloon/ball to it’s back so that they don’t lose it in the garden. I went round each of the children showing them a picture of Tommy and his new coat, which they all found both hilarious and absolutely fascinating as they were seeing a real tortoise and not a cartoon picture.

When school was over Juliet and I hopped on the bus with two of the little girls from El Kinder and their parents (this time a much nicer, smaller bus, where we had seats) and headed back to Cusco. For lunch we went to one of our usual cafés with a two courseMenu Del Dia and reliable wifi so that we could FaceTime our families.
The plan for the afternoon was to visit the Cathedral but after sitting outside of it most days and already knowing how spectacular it is, Juliet and I decided to give our cultural experience a miss, and headed to the Spanish school for our meeting with the head teacher. We needed to find out if I need to have had the Yellow Fever jab to enter into Equador, like some of the doctors in Europe seem to think, and whether Juliet can stay in our housing for extra nights. The answers were simple no and yes, however on my request more research is going into the Yellow fever mystery as I don’t want to be turned away at the Equador boarder!

Obviously this evening we’ve ended up in Basilica, and as we’re now probably their most loyal customers, they even re set the whole wifi just for me and Juliet. As a thank you, (to them or us we don’t know) we decided to try out two (yes two… Piggies) of their homemade cakes of the day – a strawberry cheesecake which was like rubber, looked delicious and tasted… Not so delicious; and a lemon tart which was actually lovely but by the time we got close to finishing it, both Juliet and I felt very ill (serves us right really).