Happy St.Peter and Paul`s Day!
I had big plans for this post to have pictures in it, and make a little picture story out of it. Turns out thàt`s beyond my capabilities so I`ll have to post the pictures up later the old fashioned way. I`m more than a little disappointed about this.
At least I think today (June 29th) was St. Peter and Paul`s Day. Either way it was a public holiday and we took the opportunity to go on a day trip. Not quite sure where we went but it was a very enjoyable day out.
We started packing up the school bus around 8.30. I wasn’t sure who was going and who was just helping out but in the end everyone piled in In the 23 seater mini bus we had Elsa, her husband Pedro and their three children, Fanny the social worker, her husband and their three children, the three women who work in the kitchen Ana, Maria and Carmen, two of whom brought a child, the two nurses Pamela and Yaneth and Yaneth’s two children, the guy who works in the garden and his son, the eight children in the home, Betty the child protection officer, Janice (not her real name) the psychologist, Michael and myself. As well as our troup we had a bicycle, a barbeque and enough food for all of us. Along the way we stopped to pick up a birthday cake for Pedro. It was really hard to sit and look at it for so long, no one does cake like the Peruvians.
The hour long trip turned into a two and a half hour trip. We had many stops, one for the people we had forgotten, who we met on the way. At one stage Pedro grabbed the bike and ran across the road and returned a moment later still clutching the bike. I’ll never know what that was about. For the duration of the trip I had a sick 5 year old on me. Little Annel didn’t take to the travel too well. I overheard the words ‘mal’ (sick) and ‘nausea’ in a conversation between herself and the nurse and I knew I was in trouble. The nurse gave her a drink and took her temperature but never thought to take her off my lap. I willed her to keep whatever was inside her inside her. The was trying to sleep and her little head was bopping off the window, which I thought was cute, but then Cielo took off her jacket and made her a pillow and Jackeline made her a blanket out of her jumper. It’s like the movie Annie where some of them look after the little one. She nodded off for a while and on waking up decided to sit next to me for a while where she emptied out her stomach a bit. She looked up apologetically but I was delighted it was on the floor and not my pants.
We drove out of the city and up the mountains. We’d been told it gets hot an hour from where we are. The Peruvians sure know Peru, almost exactly an hour after we left, all the jumpers came off (these kids do everything together). It was mostly desert up there. Lima is just a little north of the driest place on Earth. That’s what I heard, could be wrong. The water in the sea never heats up enough to evaporate and go up into the air, so it never rains. The mountains we passed looked like they were made of gravel. I couldn’t understand how the odd house that was on them stayed in place. One shower and those people are screwed.
We stopped off at the Santa Rosa de Quives Holy Place (may have made up the last bit there!). I thought we had finally found this swimming pool I’d heard so much about over the last few days. All anyone had asked me since Tuesday was whether or not I was going swimming. I figured out fairly lively that this was a place of worship, not recreational sports. There was a well there that for 50 centavos (about 9 cents) you could write a wish to St. Rosa and throw it down. I decided to take the opportunity while everyone else was checking out the chapels to make a few requests and then check out the bathrooms. Pamela laughed when she saw me heading for the bathrooms. I knew then it wouldn`t be fun. The three women who work in the Casa were outside and Ana apologised to me for the state of the toilets. She seemed embarrassed. She needn’t have worried. I’ve seen a lot worse in my time, they even had paper. They weren’t marbled floored or anything but easily usable.
After some ice cream and crisps we were back on the trek to find the ever popular swimming pool. We drove up through the arid mountains, asking for directions quite often. And then I saw it! It was like a holiday resort in an oasis in the desert. It had two pools, a slide, deckchairs and a building with a straw roof that looked like it could be a poolside bar.
But that was only from a distance. Close up, the pool had no water, and I doubted there was alcohol this far into the mountain. We pulled in and after a big cheer we ran straight for the playground. We then moved onto the football field and I was getting worried I’d find myself in one of those never-ending football matches. Betty was going around with a bag and people were picking bits of ribbon out of it. They were blue and pink and whichever you picked decided which team you were on. Everyone on the teams wore them like wristbands. My football fears were put to rest and we played some games that I assure you will be played at my next birthday party. First up each team was handed ten A4 sheets of paper with a number on them. Betty shouted out a number like 5,436 and the people with 5, 4, 3 and 6 had to run up and form that number. We were absolutely brutal at that game. The only time we got the numbers right we had them backwards. I watched in agony as the other team each got chocolate bars.
We fared a little better in game No. 2. In this we had a representative who went up and got an order from Betty. One was ‘two different socks’. Then our team rep had to race back, tell us the order, get two difference socks and run to Betty. Our rep ran to us, then said the order, wheras the other team’s rep scremed it while running so they were always a little faster. The best was when she ordered Michael to carry Janice up to her. I didn’t know what was going on, she sort of lunged at him, and I thought she had been ordered to kiss him at one stage! I don’t know was it out of pity or what but we were declared the winners of that and each got a cereal bar.
The next game was charades; cartoon style. The children had to act out things like the Pink Panther and Tom and Jerry, they were really good! Finally we had a jigsaw making competition. It was said that this was only for the children. But after I saw Pedro basically making the other teams for them, I jumped in there and took over. I remember snapping at one child for holding pieces I needed in his hand. I’d been unknowingly training for this for the last two weeks, jigsaw making for hours in the Casa Del. And sure enough we walked that one. No one beats me (suppose I should say us) at jigsaw making.
I still hasn’t discovered at this stage why we weren’t all in the pool. I suppose someone had announced at some stage that it had no water, and I probably nodded at them, but was still oblivious. We found a nice spot under some trees to start the barbeque and while some tended to that, some more of us headed down to the river. While sitting at the edge washing my feet I thought I’d finally try and figure out why it was now 1pm and we still hadn’t got to the pool. Three of the older girls had stormed off in a huff, so I knew something was amiss. I approached Liselith, who’s always up for explaining things slowly and in baby talk. I asked if this was the pool they had all been talking about. I thought maybe in Spanish ‘pisina’ might be the word for any mass of water in which people swim. She looked shocked that I could be so stupid and explained really slowly that this was a river, not a swimming pool but a river. I was almost afraid to ask my second question which was why the hell we were paddling in moss instead of a nice clean pool. Again she looked at me not quite sure how I’d missed the memo and said ‘Pisina no agua’. I finally clicked and jumped into the river.
It was a delightful swim. I decided against stripping down to my togs when I realised the childrens´ togs were their pajamas. I got Cielo and Michael to come into the deep bit with me and I almost lost Cielo at one stage to the strong rapids. I plucked her from the water again a little later when she was absolutely fine and put on my heroic look for the camera.
Amazingly enough I managed to find a warm shower in that middle of nowhere. You wouldn’t get that kind of service in Ireland. On the way back I was attracted to a smell of steak coming from our direction. I hoped and prayed that it was our barbeque and indeed it was! My plate was so full they had to tier it. I didn’t realise what other food I had until I’d eaten some of the steak. Maria caught me burying some of the corn in the sand. I really did try to eat some of it. I was washing it down with Inca Cola (the yellow Red Bull) but even that wasn’t working for me any more.
After dinner we had a massive man hunt for Kevin, the new kid. Seems this communal living wasn`t quite suiting him, so he wandered off. We all walked in different directions getting very worried about the little guy but he was evetually found playing by the showers. Wouldn`t have wanted to have to explain to social services how we lost a kid only 2 days after he was put in our care. Although I would more than likely not be the one chosen for explaining, unless social services is good at charades. Kevin was in trouble a good bit during the day, he tried to make amends later by bringing some moss back from the river. The lady he gave it to didn`t seem to appreciate the gesture and he was send on his way to return the moss.
A little later on, I noticed a brown bottle being passed around. This intrigued me earlier in the day when I saw it being brought onto the bus. At the time I thought someone had emptied the previous night’s chicken fat into a 3-litre coke bottle. But here they were all drinking it. I was given a bit, Elsa has noticed my appetite for Peruvian cuisine and ordered them to give me a little bit. It was actually the first thing I truely liked. But being an ass my first mouthful went down the wrong way and I coughed and spat it up to the horror of the people who’d been watching me taste their native drink. This drink, who’s name I will not attempt for fear of insulting it (something like Chicha a Whore-a!) was the drink of the Inca’s. It’s made from the corn I had just been busy burying and is what is said to have made the Inca people as strong as they were.
After some more playground fun it was time to head for home. Before we left we all sang Feliz Cumpleaños (Happy Birthday) to Pedro and helped him eat his cake. Michael wooed the crowd with his rendidtion of a U2 and then a David Grey song. On the trip home I again played bed for Annel who was thankfully better by then. I minded her stone collection while she took a nap. I had learned from my earlier experience and made her a pillow from the nearest jumper and found another to act as a blanket. I think I saw her laugh at me a bit. I may just get this parent thing yet.
Tags: 2 - Peru
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