Ellie Goes To Peru: 3rd Week In Peru

This week we have had a very long week, most days we’ve had to go into work at 7am as some of the young ones in Casa 5 have been ill so the Tias have been taking many trips to and from the hospital all week. This also meant we haven’t had our usual 2 hour nap time break most days (which has really caught up with me now it’s the weekend!). It really does show how much hard work goes into being a Tia in the Aldea, they are such hard workers, especially when babies wake you up at 1:30am and you don’t get any sleep and have to deal with cheeky children for the rest of the day too! To treat ourselves after a long week we bought a toilet seat, which has made us feel very happy however I feel I deserve another treat after the amount of effort and ‘ews’ it took to put it on the toilet.

Even we can’t manage a nap in Casa 5, if you try it becomes ATTACK OF THE CHILDREN!!!

Despite work we have also been able to spend more time in the aldea, many more of the other children have been speaking to us, despite us being very confused on what they’re saying!

On Thursday evening we attended a fiesta which turned out to be a baby shower of one of the workers in the Aldea. It was actually pretty funny, we rushed to get ready for 8pm (when it began) however hardly anyone turned up until 9ish, typical Peruvian Manana Manana attitude right there! All the staff played games, including 3 pairs racing to feed the other a pot of baby food,

a race to crawl to ‘mama’ and drink the bottle of juice

and a race to put a nappy on a doll and get it dressed the quickest too!

We thought we had got away with not having to take part in such humiliating but hilarious activities until Luis and Ronan were called up for a game and we were picked to play too! Hannah and I had to put our nappy training into good use and raced to put a nappy on them both. It involved many many many fits of laughter but everyone was really encouraging of us taking part-it’s lovely to feel so welcomed.

Also this week we have said our goodbyes to one of our children, Luana and her two older brothers have been adopted and left for their new home! It wasn’t long until a new little one arrived though; meet Já, once he stopped crying and realised he was in a safe place now where he can play with toys and be loved dearly I snapped a few pictures of him! So far all I can say is he’s 1 year old and loves his food; he will eat his dinner even quicker than Ariel (which is incredibly impressive!).

In our free time this week we also decided to go do further exploring in Piura. After spending some time in the local park the other day we returned to see what was going on there today. There were stalls selling items and food, with entertainment from dancers, which were very impressive. Hannah and I would love to be able to do some traditional dancing whilst in Peru, despite having two left feet! At the park there is a skate park, I felt like I was 13 again, spending my time at the local skate park with Hannah Beech watching everyone do their impressive tricks.

As we couldn’t tell what meat was being cooked we went elsewhere for lunch!

To practise our Spanish we decided a trip to the cinema would be a good idea too, we saw ‘Vacaciones’ which was hilarious, despite not understand what they were saying, I really recommend seeing it for those who love a good comedy!