Day 14

28-10-09

Did a bit of brick laying and cementing today and felt like a proper builder! If I hadn´t have given up chocolate for my new years resolution, I´d well have eaten a yorkie whilst working away! I love building!

Took our second English class today where we were teaching numbers and days of the week. Again, I somehow managed to wing it with nothing prepared and without knowing much Spanish. Although it was enjoyable, I felt quite drained so I just spend the rest of the day sitting in with Carla.

It seems that quite a few of the people in the group are getting really really homesick. Personally I think its wonderful here and can´t imagine being homesick as I´m having such a brilliant time. I´m sure I will though at some point. Although nobody has much out here, and people in the UK would see this way of living as being extremely poor and undesirable, I see it as ideal. Yes ok I´m only here for 10 weeks and I would most likely choose my life back home over here but really if you strip it down; sure nobody has much here and there is some struggle in their ways of living, but on the whole it´s not what I would call a devastating condition. Nobody is starving....excluding dogs on the street. Kids are getting education, food and shelter. At night time they have the best view as being so high up, we can see over Ventanilla all lit up....although Lauren pointed out the other night that it isn´t pretty in her eyes as she thinks about what each of those lights represent: more streets and streets of the one we were standing on, with shacks, stray cats and dogs and just a typcial scene of the developing world. I do see that a lot of helt is needed, for example water and sanitation is an issue but from my perspective, although living like this may not be what we call the most ideal way of life, but nontheless its THEIR way of life; a non-materialistic kind of life. Nothing showy, very modest and humble. Remarkably I find that despite them having so little, they have amazing spirit, joy, and sense of family within their community. Our materialistic desires can cloud out what is really important but over here, through choice or not, its all stripped down to the bare values that matter and some may see that as unfortunate but I feel people here are just as ruch as us back home if not more.