Day 8

22-10-09

Surprisingly it wasn´t the silly cockerel to wake me from my slumber this morning, but it was Millie! At around 4am this morning, Millie turned over in her bed and the whole thing collapsed!! Poor girl definetely got the short straw with the beds as the other night it was raining and there just happened to be a hole in the roofing right above her head and she was woken up from a cold raindrop dropping in her ear! I offerend Millie just to bide in my bed but she said she´d probably end up spooning me and didn´t feel we were at that point in our relationship yet. So she grumpily arranged her sleeping bag on the concrete floor grumbling "In the morning this is going to be soooo funny, but right now I am NOT impressed!"

Today wasn´t the most productive day for building as we had to give away our boogie....which is what they call a wheelbarrow here. There´s only 3 boogies to share amongst 5 teams and as we had it yesterday and made quite good progress, it was another teams turn. So we blamed our lack of progress on the boogie; we couldn´t blame it on the sunshine afterall as it´s actually quite cold where we are. Because we are situated so high up a mountain, it´s rather chilly however even though its been cloudy since we arrived last week, a lot of us have still gotten sunburnt! Sneaky sneaky rays! I´m hoping it´s going to get warmer soon as the majority of my clothes are summer wear. This morning it was so misty that when I walked out my front door I felt like I´d stepped into a cloud! It was eerily like being back in Scotland.

This afternoon the whole group went shopping in Ventanilla. In the market we had to get several security guards to escort us as a few questionable characters were hanging around a bit too closely and following us around the entire time. Me and Millie purchased a cute pair of Pucca slippers for our lil baby sis Nicole, and a few packs of "Al Fondo Hoy Sitio" stickers for Carla along with a purse, a giant lolly, and hasir clasps. We also briefly met up with the other group which was nice - I think we´re all meeting up again in Lima for Halloweén weekend, wooot! Millie, the sweetie that she is, bought me adorable Pucca clasps which I proudly wore home and after we´d given Carla and Nicole their presents, I attempted to say to Carla in Spanish that Mille had bought me these awesome Pucca clasps and I showed her one. Carla, holding the clasp I was showing her with much glee, then said "Gracias!" and put it in her hair. Forcing myself to hold a fake grin on my face, I turned to Millie and said "I REALLY need to work on my Spanish" to which Millie replied "Yep, you reeeeally do!".

Despite accidently giving away my much adored clasp, it was a great evening; Carla did my nails, taught me one of those clappy hand thing schoolgirls do, did some funny exercise routine, watched The Simpsons and of course Al Fondo Hoy Sitio during which Carlos came in. I don´t think I´ve mentioned Carlos yet, but he´s gained the name amongst our group as "The Devil Child". He´s Carla´s cousin and lives in Sara and Lauren´s house (other volunteers). Since we´ve arrived he´s been very difficult; rude, hostile, and menacing. Whenever you say "Hola!" to him, he never replies and just gives you a dirty look.

So this evening when he came over, I said "Hola Carlos!" to which I got the usual reply of a silent nasty glare. Surprisingly though, we ended up playing catch together and Carlos was actually smiling, laughing, interacting, and he even asked me over to his house to play some more but I said it was too late so I´d play tomorrow. It then occured to me after he left - and this could be completely far-fetched and ridiculous - that Carlos may have special needs. Not that I¨m an expert on the subject but I suspect he may be on the autistic spectrum. It´s just when I was playing with him, the way he was interacting and communicating, along with some other things and the fact that last week Lauren was saying she was speaking to his mum about him, and Lauren seemed to understand that Carlos wasn´t hers but she loved him just the same. But I wonder if the language barrier and rubbish mime mislead Lauren to interpret that wrong. Maybe. Maybe not. Just to me, there does seem to be something quite different about Carlos.