Day 20 - Turning 22

03-11-09

Best birthday ever, hands down!! Really didn´t think I´d be saying this 3 weeks ago as I didn´t think many people out here would even know it was my birthday, but I don´t think I´ve ever had such a fuss made over me! I´m jitteringly buzzing just thinking of the whole of today!

My being of 22 began in the early hours of the morning when I was awoken by not the cockerel, but by my brother David ringing me from New Zealand having seriously worked out the time difference wrongly! So after a brief happy birthday from him I went back to sleep as of course I had building early in the morning. So as per usual I woke up at 6am, but unlike most mornings I awoke to see balloons hanging above my bed which Millie had hung up last night while I was dead to the world. Appropriately she had drawn on the balloons for them to read "Happy Birthday Ken!" Seeing that I was awake, Millie then proceeded to make quite an excited racket, gushing out many a Feliz Cumpleaños! Then our bedroom door opened and in came Carla with breakfast in bed which consisted of a cereal bar and a fancy-muffiny-bread-type-thing with a candle on top - whilst Millie was belting out Happy Birthday in the background! Mama Juli then came in with a homemade card from the whole family; the most precious card I´ve ever received. Inside on one page was a hand and foot print from baby Nicole, then the next page was from Mama Juli which I can roughly work out as translating into:

"Angela I am very happy that you are here as part of our family and I wish you a very Happy Birthday. We love you very much."

Then she wrote "Japi Verde Tu Yo Angela" - which totally makes no sense in Spanish and took me ages to work out that she was trying to write Happy Birthday in English as their J´s can be pronounced with a weird groggy H sound and they pronounce all their V´s as B´s, bless her!

The next page was from Papa Milvor, which again roughly translates into:

"Angela me and my family are very blessed to have you here. Sorry but I have to leave before 6am but I hope you find someone to spend the rest of your life with. We love you very much. Happy Birthday." - bit of a weird message, could be wrong with the translation and i suspect i am however Misael (our peruvian supervisor) reassured thats what it said....I´m thinking that Milvor´s handwriting is just really awful, either that or he was seriously tired in the morning! Or maybe thats a normal birthday message in Peru!

Then the next page was from dear Carla:

"Angela I don´t know if you can understand but I love you very much and I hope that your stomach ache is better. Please don´t forget me when you return. Very Happy Birhtday!"

The last page was signed by Millie:

"Happy Birthday Hermana Anckkkk! Have a bloody lovely day! Thankyou for being born, I am so grateful to have someone as wonderfully fantastic as you to share this experience with. Love you lots Ken, Millie xxxx"

Then beneath that it reads: "Te Quiero tu simbolo sexual, Mozo xxx y moz hermano xx"

What a touching start to being 22! It was nice meeting a large group in the morning for work and receiving lots of warm birthday wishes. Eké even serenaded me in the middle of the park with a funked up Happy Birthday! Dancing n all! He´s definetely the clown of our group!

Today work was a laugh as usual with Teamo Supremo! We discovered that the cat belonging to the family of the house we´re working on, has had 4 kittens! But to our dismay the children were throwing the poor things around as if they were stuffed toys! The parents blatently didn´t care so me Jack and Yas took them off the kids just as an automatic reaction and tried to show them to be gentle, and they obviously didn´t care either. We had to get back to work but I was soooo reluctant to give the kittens back. I know it doesn´t make it right, but I suppose when you can barely afford to feed and shelter your family, animal welfare doesn´t really rank high in your list of priorities. It´s hard trying to accept a completely different mindset in a completely different culture. Feeling that we couldn´t really do anything in that situation, we were obliged to leave the kittens and return to building.

The workshops today were music and circus but I missed most´ve music to phone home and I wish that I stayed on the phone longer as circus was awful today! It was the very first time I´ve had a real battle trying to communicate and understand people and I was getting ridiculed by 12 year old boys for my very poor Spanish. It was so embarrassing and humiliating. The most I could work out was that they were laughing at the fact I turned 22 today as I look 15. Burn!! Alhtough to be fair it is true ha! I decided to leave early as the struggle was starting to get to me and I felt really helpless so I just wanted to run home to learn more Spanish but we noticed Dina had burst into hysterical tears and ran to José the Youth Worker. She was in a panic saying that her Mum had gone into a man´s house just next to where we were all playing. José told her not to worry, that everything was going to be fine and that he´d called the police already. We were all so confused. Dina´s peers were going up to the wooden shack her Mum had entered and were trying to listen to what was going on through the wood. We slowly picked up that Dina´s mum is a prostitute and was there on business. She came out a while after looking dirty, off her face, and utterly rancid. She walked straight past Dina without even looking at her, which made Dina cry even harder. I have never seen such a repulsing set up; a 10 year olds own mother flaunting her dirty work right on her doorstep, infront of all her friends, and more people. I can´t imagine what that must be like to deal with!

I left that workshop feeling pretty low and helpless. I really need to speed up my learning in Spanish so that if any of the kids just want to talk, I can at least be there to listen and hopefully understand fully! Following that upsetting episode I briefly went to the internet shack for a spot of cheer as I received many lovely birthday wishes =) and that brief connection with the otherside of the world lifted my spirits somewhat!

Jade then popped in and asked me if I´d help her pick up a big water tank thing from Mikel´s house to take down to hers so of course I came to help! On the way to Mikel´s, the sky looked like it was flaming irn bru! Was such an immense sunset I just wanted to stand and watch it til it was gone. When we got to Mikel´s, not only was Mikel there, but the WHOLE group to yell SURPRIIIISE! To my utmost astoundment, they´d decked the house out in purple balloons, Pucca stuff everywhere, and a giant banner saying HAGGIS BIRTHDAY, and pics of me from Halloweén. They presented me with a purple tiara and a giant homemade purple card with a group photo on the front and everyone had left lovely messages inside. Cringingly Sadiq was recording everything all night on his video camera, although that isn´t so bad as the next part of the evening I would love to re-live again and again and again. We were all directed outside and made to sit in a giant circle. Lauren sat down with a guitar, and I may add that Lauren can´t actually play the guitar yet and so was just banging out random bung twangy chords to which Millie was singing along to; they´d written a comical song about me with the funniest lyrics - once I get a copy of them off Millie, I´ll have to post them, or even better, if Sadiq uploads the video I can display the most performace ever witnessed! As if that wasn´t immense enough, Mikel was dancing along in the middle of our circle illustrating the song through the art of immpresionist dance. How he kept a straight face the whole time, I´ll never know. I almost passed out from laughing so hard! Locals were walking past with the most confused, bemused, and horrified expressions - this is probably what they think the average Brit acts like now.

When we got back inside I received a lovely rendition of Happy Birthday and was presented with a giant piece of break shaped into a turtle with birthday candles! So course I made my wish, and then everybody started singing Happy Birthday again...strange? I thought so too. Out they brought a fudgingly maheeeeesive purple beauty BEAST of a cake! So I got another wish!!

Spoilt enough?! Oh no! In true birthday style we had a game of pass the parcel; in every layer there was a lolly and a dare! The music stopped on Yas first who had to sing me Happy Birthday Marilyn Munroe style....he failed epicly but as ever sufficed to entertain us all! Mikel had to sing whenever he wanted to speak, Richard and Gazz had to swap clothes and act like eachother...there was many many more fun things but I´m sure they´d be boring to read to anyone else´s eyes!

Spoilt enough?? Oh no! They´d even bought a Pucca costume for Sara to wear so I could have my own life size Pucca, AND at one point she was made to dance to the Jackson 5!

Spoilt enough? Oh no! They´d even got a giant Pucca píñata. Apparently I almost took a few people out whilst trying to hit it...way off, way off! I probably wouldn´t have been much better without the blindfold!

Spoilt enough?? Oh of course no! Present time! I can´t even list everything that they got me, bless them, it just seemed to keep coming and coming. I was stunned! Can´t believe they´d put so much effort and thought! Even Misael got me a present!

Spoilt enough? Not quite! They´d bought me Beauty and the Beast on DVD in Spanish, which we all watched at the end of the night as Misael allowed us an extended curfew and let all our families know! Millie and Laren were even thoughtful enough to read out the subtitles in a Scottish accent just to be sure I understood what was going on, as of course English subtitles can always be tricky.

It was such a fun-filled evening! Leaving Mikel´s and walking home just felt magical looking over the lights of Ventanilla! Me and Millie reluctantly said Buenos Noches to the rest of the group and crept in home as everyone was asleep. I totally can´t sleep! Absolutely buzzing! Still can´t believe the guys actually organised such an epic entertaining party! We all had such an amazing amazing time and there wasn´t a drop of alocohol in any of us! I´m soooo soo so happy here! I love being 22, I love my group, I lvoe my family out here, I love Pachacutec. Life is pretty sweet right now. I´m so lucky!