I decided to treat myself to an extra long lie in and got up around 9am - this was partly due to me not wanting to face more difficult communication problems. However it turned out to be a lovely day!
When we first arrived in Peru, we were all warned that we were most likely going to put on weight during our stay as their diet is so starchy and full of carbs. Well todays breakfast just took the piss: rolls filled with rice, chicken, potato, egg, and mayonnaise. Really tastey but I´m sure I´ll be paying for that soon enough with a new layer of MENTECA!
After breakfast we all went to Pachacutec market, and Sara came along too. Our Mama and Papa bought food for Cerviche - a Peruvian dish consisting of raw fish, chili, onions and lemon - fantastically tastey! The food section of the market is so chaotic! Narrow lanes lined with many many food stalls. The place was heaving; with so many people crammed and bustling in such a narrow space made the environment insanely uncomfortable and chlaustrophobic. The smell was gaggingly overpowering and the sight of a large pile of chicken legs, insides of chickens hung up, and a disply of ipg heads - all enough for the stomach muscles to tense up a bit.
Whilst wandering around I found a DVD of Carla´s favourite boyband "Aventura", so I bought her that and we watched it over lunch. I was again a bit nervous about lunch without Millie as my Spanish is rubbish and I was worried about looking rude for not making much conversation, but on the contrary lunch lasted a very long time as Papa Milvor was teling me about his side of the family. His parents are famers up north in the highlands. Papa Milvor proceeded to take out photo albums to show me his family and home up north, which was just lovely! Afterwards, Papa Milvor and my uncles sat outside drinking beer in the scorcing sun whilst me, Carla and Mama Juli sat watching Fater of the Bride and flicking through Avon and shoe magazines. It was a lovely girly session. Who would have thought you´d get avon out here??
Sara then came round for me and we went to get Jack and Sadiq, brought a guitar and my sketchbook and went to climb to the very top of the mountain that we live on. It was a very very steep climb but didn´t take long, maybe around 15 minutes, and we were at teh top, playing guitar, sketching, and enjoying the sun. We could see right over most of Pachacutec, and out to the sea. We could see our houses as tiny little dots below and it was bizarre to see our small community layed out, part of something soooo much bigger. These last 3 weeks I´ve felt so great about being here and I´ve felt on top of the world about the work that we are doing, but seeing the vastness of where we are, just made the work that we do feel like we´d only started cleaning a giant dirty floor with a child size toothbrush. We were looking over a murky sight of pollution, over-populated, unhygienic "houses", disease, and ultimately people in need. I´m already jealous of the next batch of volunteers who get sent out here to work, help, and live.
The four of us went to explore another hill close to where we were and discovered a large patch of untouched white sand. It was like finding gold amongst the unclean murky sand we were used to walking upon. We played around like carefree kids, jumping off steep edges and rolling around. We had such fun that we stayed until the clouds had gathered so thich around the top of the mountain that we could no longer see Pachacutec beneath us and could see as far as 5 metres perhaps.
When we got back down from the top, we hung out at Sadiqs for a while watching video clips from my birthday party, which was hilarious. Before dinner, me and Sara briefly hung out a Jack and Gazz´s and seeing their house made me realise how well off my family are in comparison to some of the other families here. Jack and Gazz´s bedroom in tiny; only enough room for their bunkbed and then space beside it to get in. Their roof is only made up of black bin bags and they don´t have a proper floor, just sand. Me and Millie are so lucky with the family that we have. Jack and Gazz´s mum kindly fed us desipte us just about to leave for our own dinners back home, but it was very yummy hospitality. When I did go home for dinner, a very hungover Millie was back! We caught up on eachothers weekends over dinner and then watching some more Aventura with Carla.
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