A bug's life

The last few days of the holiday club, before the week-long  break, were business as usual except for a trip to the pool in El Porvenir with the kids, and then their ‘graduation’ from the holiday club on the last Friday. Each year group put on a performance representing a country. A lot of effort and creativity had gone in to costumes, make-up and even scripts and line learning for some of them. I was pleased to be (somewhat) involved in the occasion, having made all the certificates that the children received.

From Friday afternoon, it was more or less a beach holiday – a night in Huanchaco with some surfing, then on the Saturday night we travelled over night up to Mancora, a renowned surf beach near the Ecuador border. Five of us shared a sea view, balcony room for around £4 each. Sounds idyllic? It was until The Curse of the Big Black Beetles descended each evening. This was bed time in ‘Hostal Sol y Mar’ or 'Sun and Sea Hostel' (skip to the final minute if you’re in a hurry)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARUzoPWS4Uk.

Accurate for the quantities of both sand and beetles.

Beetles seem to LOVE my rucksack – I won’t be surprised if a couple turn up in my things later on in the trip. The highlight, after constantly crunching them under foot (both with and without shoes), was probably waking up with a beetle in my hair. Big Beetle. In my hair. 

 It’s hotter further north on the coast with more bugs generally, but the sea is warmer and the stretch of sand is bigger. I was travelling with 4 Americans – 2 male, 2 female; 3 from Colorado and 1 from  Oregon. At times, there may have been as many language barriers with them as there are with Spanish speakers. Sometimes it’s just easier to adopt Americanisms. Even so, they observe that I'm 'obsessed with tea' (don't they know that it solves everything?!)

On the first night, we ventured out in two ‘moto-taxis’  to some nearby hot springs/mud baths. The taxis took a lot of negotiation – several were competing to take us from outside our hostel, while the super cool, somewhat amused hostel security guard said we were mad for going in the evening because there are no lights there. It turned out that going in the evening was brilliant. After a bit of a mishap on the taxi ride where one of them went the wrong way, causing the 2 parties to lose each other for a worrying 30 minutes , we walked the last mile to the baths with an impressively colourful sunset and mountain scenery. It was already dark when we arrived at the pool -  a rectangular, muddy hot bath with thick silky mud all over the bottom. I try to avoid thoughts about how fresh the mud and water were.

The walk back to the road was very dark, with only the lights from the taxi drivers’ mobile phones to help  us. I say taxi drivers, they were more like guides in the end; and very good although they found it hilarious to flash in one of my photos taken at the baths in the dark. Swift delete.

Mancora is very much a beach resort so we spent the evening getting in to the swing of that, then we headed over to a quieter beach on the second day. We saw some turtles at the fishing port and then walked along the deserted sandy beach to a spot with a natural rock pool, intensely salty ‘hot tub’.

We didn’t have a lot of luck with the moto-taxis. A flat tyre, a break-down and a route mishap all in 2 days, plus a thorough shaking on one of the trips down a rocky track so one of the drivers could stop off at his mate’s to pay a debt with our taxi fare.  I hasten to add that this bone-shaking detour happened without our prior knowledge or consent.

The surfing in Mancora was interesting..it’s great if you’re great. I’m not great, so once I’d sussed that there were a lot obstacles in the form of rocks and other surfers, and weighed this up against my inability to control which direction I go or how I fall, a quiet paddle around on the board was definitely the best option. The 3 more experienced of the group either cut themselves on the rocks or damaged their boards. Good call for me and my fellow beginner. For £2 per hour, a surf board is a perfectly good lilo-kayak.

I decided against Ecuador. I parted company from my 4 American travel buddies, spent a relaxed final day in Mancora and headed back to Trujillo on the over-night bus. Since I can work as and when, I’m going to work on the annual report for the rest of this week and have a few extra days to travel at the end. This avoids any more book-throwing type frustration over the sheer size of this country and extra time required for things like altitude sickness. It also provides ample time for Cusco and Machu Picchu before going home. So, a quiet house in Trujillo while most people are away travelling and still plenty to see and do in between working.

I’m pleased to report that my Spanish is steadily returning to the standard it was 7 years ago. When the locals start asking how and where you learned, it’s a very good sign. No more French words creeping in and fewer mental blocks. They would have to have different words for some things here (different from Central America) though, just to confuse matters. 

A quiet few days now (well that’s the plan!) before people return on Sunday and the new volunteers arrive. I’m nearly half way through already!

The watch is on clock

This was an English translation of a Spanish note on the notice board this morning. Once I'd deciphered it, it made me chuckle. The main wall clock is not fast or slow, it's bang on time.

A bit more about leisure time:

This was Friday night on the beach.

It's not very Peruvian but I had smores for the first time. At least the beer was local. I seem to be getting as much of an insight in to north American culture as I am to the local culture, possibly more. It's a nice mixture - a bit like the Spanglish we speak in the house because few of the English speakers have perfect Spanish and few of the Spanish speakers have perfect English. Sentences often start in one language and end in another.

Saturday I saw a bit more of Trujillo - some of which I never want to see again. A few of us went to one of the markets and it was much too hot, too busy and thoroughly exhausting. I earned an afternoon on the beach at nearby Huanchaco, where the surf's up. It's a different world to Trujillo - much more laid back. The beach is black but it doesn't burn your feet like some I've been on.

In the evening, there was a party for one of the volunteers who is leaving. The apartment block where the party took place had a great roof terrace with a view of the whole city stretching back to the mountain skyline. There were regular visits up to the roof just to cool down. The only places with air conditioning seem to be the supermarkets and Starbucks (Yes, I've been to Starbucks. Sorry but it's quiet, cool and has wifi so it's perfect for getting some work done when the house is too hot/hectic).

On Sunday, 4 of us headed north to the Chicama Valley to see a Moche archaeological complex (the Moche civilisation was around 100 BC-650 AD) known as El Brujo (The Sorceror). Unfortunately the famous mummy of an ancient female ruler that was found at the site was "in the laboratory" but it was a fascinating place. Particularly fascinating was the amount of security at the enormous guarded iron front gate when, as we later discovered, you could very easily just walk in around the back.




This is a family that gave us a lift in their pick-up. We were just walking the 4km from the village to the site when they passed, tooted, pulled over and waved us on.When we got out after the 5 minute ride, they all piled out and wanted a photo with us by the truck. There aren't very many "gringos" around here, but still, not sure why we were holiday snap material.(not all of these were in the truck, some were following in a 'support vehicle' behind).


We ate lunch in the nearby fishing village, which, as always, was a major challenge for the vegetarians.

This is a translated summary of the exchange, which is apparently very typical:

-What is there to eat?
-Ceviche or chicharron (fish marinated in lime juice and chilli, or fried fish)
(The meat eaters order either ceviche or chicharron, vegetarians enquire after other options:)
-Have you got salad?
-No, only ceviche or chicharron
-No salad?
-No salad.
-Have you got Cuban rice (rice, egg and vegetables )
-No.
-I don't eat meat
-We have chicharron!
-I don't eat fish
-But it's really good!
-I don't eat fish.
-What?
-Can you do some rice and vegetables?
-No we don't have any rice.
-Do you have beer?
-Yes
-Ok 1 beer please
*she goes away for a few minutes and comes back*
-We don't have any beer
-Ok water please
-Ok
*another few minutes*
-We can do some rice and fried banana with egg
-You do have rice?
-No.
-Ok great.
*rice and banana etc appears a few minutes later*

*a few more minutes and it's followed by the ceviche and chicharron, each served with a load of vegetables and salad*

Turns out that, although delicious, the ceviche was a bit dodgy anyway, which isn't that surprising because this village didn't seem to have any running water and I can't imagine how they keep the kitchen clean...

I'm looking forward to more such adventures next week when SKIP has a week holiday. A group of us are heading north up the coast and possibly over the border in to Ecuador. It's a nightmare to get anywhere here - it's too big and there tend to be mountains in the way so you usually have to go back to Lima and out again. You also have to factor in a day or two to adjust to altitude if you go inland so my idea of heading north and then just 'nipping in' to the jungle or mountains on the way back down was apparently laughable. A bit of research in my Rough Guide and I was ready to throw it at the communal book shelf in frustration (where there are two more identical copies, hardly used and completely free). So it turns out that Ecuador may be easier with only a week to travel. Vamos!

No computers at the office

I can't lie about this, the marmalade search was over on day 1. Or is it just orange jam?!

Surfing: stood up the first time and then every time. It's seriously fun.

I might need some new objectives. Suggestions welcome.

Thursday morning was my first visit to SKIP in El Porvenir, a very deprived suburb of Trujillo. At the moment it's the holiday club while the children are on school holidays. They have classes at SKIP, in English, maths and sports, plus other activities like swimming, cooking, surfing and art. SKIP has 6 departments: Education, Economic Development, Social Work, Psychology, Volunteer Co-ordination and Finance. All of this has been going on around the holiday club. I might go in to more detail later on when I've learned more about it all.

The volunteers all go to work in taxis, the morning expedition leaving at 7.30am. They are just normal sized taxis but there were 8 of us piled in on my first trip, excluding the driver. Everyone thanked him for taking a detour when he saw a police car up ahead. I guess it's not legal then.

As we pulled up to the SKIP office, there were kids waiting outside and the taxi was greeted by squeals and a shouting of "SKIP!" Before you know it, they are opening the car doors and hanging off you as you get out. Even though I was a new volunteer ("es una nueva!"), some of the bolder children threw their arms around my neck to give me a kiss on the cheek. As the morning went on, I wasn't wearing quite as many kids as I might, because they are so excited by cameras and were all keen to stay well within my view (there are some really big posers; a child modelling agency would have a field day here).

In general, volunteers aren't allowed to take cameras to the office, or phones or computers. If you work on a computer, you work at home. If the office gets known for having valuables then break-ins and robberies would almost certainly become a problem. I  have special permission as it's for my work, and this also means that I'll be sharing a lot of photos of the children with the other volunteers because opportunities to photograph them are quite rare.

My tiny memory card could not cope with the endless photo opportunities. Whether studying in class, playing games or making fruit salad kebabs, the children provided Kodak gold at every moment. The whole place is a whirlwind of colour, beaming smiles, faded Disney princess t-shirts and the kind of school work and art you'd expect but made using a collage of scraps of paper, cardboard, recycling. Art materials and books are extortionate in Peru and posting them causes problems.

When my camera memory card was full to the brim with no more possible deletions, I got involved in a less violent version of British Bulldog. Still not quite right after the journey (i've been given various possible explanations for extreme water retention, whatever it is, I seem to have expanded by at least 10%) and not yet used to the heat, this was strenuous. Those fruit kebabs were a life saver.

El Porvenir reminds you that we're really in the desert here. It doesn't rain much but the seem to be big on watering because there's lots of greenery in the main city. El Porvenir is sandy, dusty and it feels very hot at the SKIP office. Most of the buildings around are either unfinished or in disrepair. According to the info I have for the Annual Report, 14% of the population in this area live without running water, 18% have no electricity and 58% live in houses with earth floors. 15% of the children under 5 years old are chronically malnourished. I don't have the references yet but I can add a link to the report when it's finished.

SKIP do amazing work with the families  - helping them with finance (loans for businesses, housing repairs etc), talking therapies and parenting workshops as well as assisting them to educate their children. It's all about giving them the means to improve their own situation.

So far though, I've mostly seen 100 or so kids having a great time (that's holiday club!) and a very impressive bilingual operation to make that happen.

6000 miles

That was a bit of a mission. Something like 32 hours door to door, probably slept around 4 or 5, and now, suddenly, not sure quite how, I'm sitting calmly at the dining table of my very international house eating a yogurt and thinking about social media strategies. There's a light breeze blowing in from the courtyard with hammock gently swaying and various accents and languages being bandied about.

It's a world away from the hectic crowds and traffic of last night, when I fell out of Lima airport and in to a shuttle bus shared with a grumpy Ukrainian man and a cheery Cockney. Most of the non-Peruvian arrivals seemed to be lone-travelling middle-aged men actually. All very nice and with excellent Spanish.

This morning, I woke up on a very plush coach with seats a bit like lazy boys. Despite the luxury, there were unreasonable levels of humidity due to an unreasonable lack of ventilation. Waking up in the middle of the night only to realise that what's coating your face, and all the windows, is actually the saliva and perspiration of 20 sleeping bodies is not something I'd like to think back on much

Still, can't complain when you wake up in the morning to cinnamon tea and the breath-taking desert scenery of the Pan-American highway. This called for a 'Tiny Dancer moment' - a tradition I have of listening to the 1971 Elton John song whilst on a bus ride in order to re-live that classic scene in Almost Famous (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qn3tel9FWU for anyone who doesn't know it). I mostly limit the tradition to adventures in to the unknown, preferably with a back drop of mountains.

Trujillo (pronounced troo-hee-yo with emphasis on the 'hee'), my home for the next month, is bigger than I expected. It's very hot, not as developed or touristy as I imagined, but lively and colourful with friendly people and not so much of the feeling that everyone is out to rip you off.

I got my first re-induction in to Latin American culture on the plane from Amsterdam. Someone was putting a bag in the overhead locker behind where I was sitting and a strap of some sort just lightly tapped the back of my head. This was closely followed by a rather slow, tender stroke of my hair where the tap had happened. I whipped round to see an apologetic Peruvian woman standing behind me. Nothing like the disturbing images that fleetingly flashed across my mind pre-head-whip! I'd forgotten how tactile and affectionate the women are with one another. You often see clasping of hands and stroking of hair and faces. Of course my initial reaction tends to be - Wo! Boundaries!! Must learn to relax about that, although I'm not sure I'll ever reach face-stroking levels of intimacy with near strangers.

Apparently there are about 15 people living in the SKIP volunteer house. I could swear I've met about 30. Lots of Americans, only 1 other English. My room mate is German and she prefers speaking Spanish to English so that will speed up the dusty language neurones. It is a holiday today so may not be representative but the living room is a mixture of people working, people cooking/eating/chatting, someone playing guitar; it's all so laid back that it isn't the slightest bit distracting. Or maybe that's just my very warm and sleep-deprived state.

Talking of the sleep deprived state, I caused havoc in the local shop earlier when I 1. forgot my wallet and didn't realise until it was time to pay and 2. on my return, with wallet, sent a row of coke bottles cascading across the floor. Steering clear of that place and sticking to the markets now where you can as many bananas as you can carry for about 20p. It seems like a good idea, and not that many, when you're in a market aisle made of MOUNTAINS of bananas.

It looks like I'm going to make a good start on at least one of my objectives tomorrow.
Whilst at Banana Mountain, I learnt that one of the American volunteers teaches surfing and we can start tomorrow afternoon! There's an incentive to get cracking on designing this report...

South of the Equator

It's actually going to be my first time. I have never seen water go down the plughole the opposite way (it's on my to-do list to drain some water a few times before leaving, so that I actually notice the difference). This coupled with the fact that most of my vaccinations are at least 7 years out of date feels a bit shameful. My younger, ethnic jewellery adorned, hedonistic self would be bitterly disappointed. Still, I'll tell her it worked out for the best.

If you're reading this then you probably already know that I'm going to Peru for 6 weeks to volunteer for a charity called SKIP (Supporting Kids in Peru http://www.skipperu.org/) as a Communications Officer. SKIP is based in Trujillo in the north of Peru, near the coast - about an 8 hour drive north of Lima.

Why? Just because, really. Rewind 6 months or so, I was suffering from a severe case of itchy feet and, what with not having so much as a rental agreement holding me back, I did something about it. There's a great website - http://www.volunteerlatinamerica.com/ - that put me in touch with the opportunity with SKIP  (among other organisations). I emailed them my CV and then, whilst on holiday in France last August, in the one room in the villa that could manage a smattering of wifi signal, I got an email from the Director asking when I could get there. That was pretty much it.

Now, with 3 days to go until the however many hours/days journey to Trujillo via Amsterdam and Lima, and not really having any idea what to expect, I've set a few objectives that shouldn't get in the way of just going with it and not allowing any room for any possibly interpretation of failure. It is only 6 weeks.

1. Put together at least the second best annual report that SKIP has ever had.

2. Learn to surf. It's on the doorstep (the sea, the surfing, the means to surf, that is), there is no excuse.

3. Much as I love the crumbly, shabby, painted room in this background photo, I'll get some of my own up here.

4. Find some actual Peruvian marmalade. Paddington Bear came from Peru (his Peruvian name is Pastuso but the Brown family re-named him Paddington after Paddington Station where they found him) and Marmalade is his favourite. Apparently he was eating it on the boat over to England so he MUST have got it in Peru.

I think that's enough. Sometimes plans get in the way of possibilities.

Over there, it is SUMMER now. Proper summer. So, warm-weather gear dusted off; various over-priced bottles of suncream, mozzie repellent, after sun, after bite (only to find them at a fraction of the price at the first supermarket on the first corner on the first day) bought and packed; an unreasonable collection of electronic things, cables and chargers (these things were not here last time i did this); and my trusty, ancient, leech-magnet walking boots that looked like they belonged in a museum and/or on a well-travelled grandad even when they were new,

it's nearly time.

All being well, I will continue this on the other side...

...of the equator...