Claire takes on the world….

I`ve finally caught up with this earthquake entry. All previous entries are under it. I promise I won`t fall so far behind again!

At 6.43 on August 15th, 7 hours before Stephen and Jennifer were due to leave for the airport, I heard my new least favourite sentence. Pamela, the children’s nurse said “Vamos afueda tranquila”, and everyone was freaking out, but I wasn’t too sure what was going on.
I was on the first floor of Casa Hogar, reading the card the children had made me for my imminent departure and it took me a few seconds to realise why she was telling us to go outside. I knew I was moving from side to side but presumed it was from some child tugging at me. When I heard someone shout “tremblor” I knew it was not just me and that it was time for us to run.

Seems like everyone’s panic buttons went off simultaneously, everyone except Annel’s who was jumping in Jenny’s arms saying “What fun, what fun!”. It was like a school fire drill, us all trying to get down the stairs as quickly as possible whilst making it look like we weren’t running. Someone said they heard a smash from our floor. I hoped my laptop hadn’t a fatal accident. I breathed a sign of relief when we made it downstairs, thinking we were safe but my Peruvian buddies knew better. In case of earthquake one should go to open ground where nothing can fall on you, I know that now. We all followed Pedro, Elsa’s husband out and just as he went through our massive industrial gate it swung shut behind him. I freaked thinking we would be trapped in the garden with the mini zoo and screaming children while the house fell down around us. At this stage things were getting fairly noisy what with the moving buildings, the crying and the dogs going nuts.

We made it out to the green in front of the house. Our neighbours had already assembled. I felt safer being moved around on the grass than the footpath. The earth was moving in waves, it was like someone had added water to the earth and made it jelly-like. I missed the apparently amazing sight of the school bus being tossed back and forth. All the lights in the surrounding areas went out. I looked around for a child, felt I should be looking after someone. I can’t even remember who I ended up clutching to, think it was Cielo. The wind picked up and the sky filled with flashes from falling power lines. The shaking just kept getting stronger and stronger.

Things really took a nosedive when the women started praying. Up until then I had convinced myself that this was routine, these people always have these. But to see people pray so hard together that they looked possessed brought it home that this was a bit bigger than normal. It sounded like chanting and I just prayed that they’d stop praying. The stronger the shaking got the harder they prayed.

The praying seemed to work because while they were at it the quake stopped. It was like someone just flicked a switch and the grass was solid again. I’ll admit I felt a little comforted by Pamela’s explanation that God was just doing some strenuous washing.
Through the mist we saw the light of a VW Beetle. My first thought was that Fr. Tony, the founder of the projects here, had jumped in his car when it started and drove like mad to save us. Turns out he was just up the road in his car, on his way to visit us when his car starting moving from side to side. He said it had been the biggest he’d felt in his 12 years here.
After a bit of hanging around waiting for whatever comes after an earthquake. Pamela decided to go back into the house to get candles. We all gave her some words of encouragement. I must have looked calmer than I felt because she turned and asked if I’d like to join her. There was no way I was looking like a wimp in front of the children so I ventured back into the building with her. There was no obvious damage but I was convinced if I tipped the wall it would fall down around me. We made it up to the first floor and found candles but I suggested we go high tech and look for torches. Never did I think I would have use for two torches but I was damn glad I’d packed both of them. We fumbled around my room until we found them and made our way back outside to guide in the crowd.

It’s very possible that the absolute worst thing one can do after an earthquake is sit around in a circle waiting for an aftershock. And that’s exactly what we did. The eight children, four gringos and two minders sat around in the children’s living room just waiting. Jenny went up to our floor for something but ran down a few minutes later screaming “It’s going again”. First aftershock arrived just half an hour after the main shake at 7.15. So we upped and legged it. Got to the front door when Fanny, the social worker, told us it was fine, there was no need and we shouldn’t freak out the children by going outside again.

So we went back up to the living room and huddled under blankets on the couch. Pamela had the great idea of reading us a story, the Pied Piper. For a while everything was good, we all relaxed and heard about how the children got taken away by the scary man. She even quizzed them at the end to make sure they had been listening. At 8pm we all felt happy and relaxed enough to go to bed. We didn’t realise the devastation that had just occured a few hours south. The children were hesitant to go alone but we convinced them God was finished washing. We headed back upstairs and were even laughing about the whole thing a bit. Had a few ‘did you see that’ moments. I was telling Jenny how lucky myself and Aisling were that at the last minute we decided not to go shopping. If I’d been in Huandoy when it happened I know I’d have have been a blubbering wreck. Jenny was mocking me for being so concered about my mom bringing me Lucozade just a few minutes before it all began.
Her teasing was interrupted by a loud ‘Chao’ which I think came from me. The ground started moving again, and although I knew pretty much nothing about earthquakes I knew being on the second floor was a bad thing. The other three ran down after me and we arrived back on the children’s floor and I could tell Pamela wasn’t too pleased that we’d frightened the children with our dramatic entrance and panting. The shaking had stopped by the time we made it down the few steps. Kevin had his own little earthquake going on. Jenny had pointed out to me that he was shaking like crazy. I had to see this for myself so I went over and put a hand on his shoulder and he was indeed a trembling wreck. We knew there was no way anyone was going to bed after this. Pamela came up with a plan to all sleep in the same room. Some people were sent off to clear out the office downstairs while others were sent to prepare the children. I was sent with Kevin and Michael to the boys side of the house. We only had the light of my cell phone to find our way to Michael’s room where he grabbed blankets, a pillow and shoes. Next we headed to Kevins room to do the same and made our way downstairs to the others. The office was a pretty small room but the eight children seemed comfortable in there. Pamela stood watch at the door while myself and Jenny snuggled in with the kids.
At 8.15pm, only and hour and a half after the quake Jenny got a text message from a friend saying she’d heard about it on the news and about the tsunami warning. The tsunami didn’t even register with us, but were suddenly worried that our familys had heard about this and may possibly be wondering where we were. I had managed to get a text message through to home straight after the quake but by that stage all the phones were down. Frustratingly enough we could recieve calls on the land line but not make them, and none of us had given our parents that number. We could also get text messages but not send them, so had to just wait and hope the people texting weren’t too cut up about it.

We went back to the kids in the office but both myself and Jenny couldn’t handle the dust in there. My asthma very rarely bothers me but so much dust had been created by the quake that it I really cooudln’t breathe. I had to retreat to the tiles just outside the children’s room.
I went back to the second floor to get blankets and realized once I got in my room that I would hate to have to stay in it alone. So while the others went and packed I pretended to be valiant and trekked back down under the pretence of looking out for the children. I told Pamela I’d be there to get people out if it started again and curled up on the tiles, trying desperately to get my blanket to cover me and go under me. I must have been a lot of help to her because a half hour later she shook me awake saying I could go back upstairs. I think my breathing reached that horrible loud stage and I was probably scaring the children.

Back up on the top of the building I started writing this blog. I was doing fine until around 11pm when I heard a door close in the distance, then my window started shaking. I think I was up and out of the room even before the ground had a chance to move. I hightailed it into Jenny and Aisling’s room and didn’t even have to say anything. Aisling saw how freaked out I was and pulled back the covers. I snuggled in next to her but neither of us were in any state to sleep. And so started hours of waiting for the next rumble and trying to decide when to run, which we never had to do again that night. The hardest thing for the whole evening was trying to guess when we needed to go outside and when it was best to act cool for the children. If we went outside unnecessarily we would get them all wound up again but if we waited too long….. well, we’d have a lot of angry parents.

At 3am we all got up to bring Stephen and Jenny to the airport. Elsa had been standing our kitchen calling ‘chicos’ for 45 minutes while we all slept through our alarms. We rushed out and drove through the pitch black street. I didn’t see much damage but my eyes weren’t quite as open as I’d liked. The airport seemed to be back up and running so after 37 days of fun and racist comments (only against Northern Irelanders I swear) we said our goodbyes and myself and Aisling headed back to see what had become of our dear Tres de Mayo.

My return to 3 de Mayo wasn’t quite as graceful as I’d hoped it would be. Kelly had come to meet me at the airport, and just as we were approaching her house I sort of broke into a slow jog type thing on seeing her entire extended family out at the door to meet us. They all did a collective “Ahh” type thing when I very obviously stepped in dog poo. It’s just impossible to miss it here. Children are pension plans, and dogs are house alarms, so everyone has plenty of both. The whole gang came out to try and get me into the house when I refused until it was all gone but they kept saying it was fine and I should just come in. I decided I absolutely had to take them off but as I tried to about 3 of them dashed for my feet to stop me and dragged me poo and all into the house.

It was the start of a very cool and very crazy last week in Casa Hogar, with the eight kids I’d lived with for 2 months. I only had 5 days of work left in Casa Del Ninos. Stephen, Jenny and Aisling arrived home from Cusco a few hours after me and our Team Peru was reunited when we met Michael back in the house. But we only 2 days left as a group. The day after we arrived back, 35 of us from the place we lived and worked all went out for a meal to say goodbye to Michael. The two of us had been working as part of Maynooth Mission Outreach, a group in our college, for 8 weeks (there for 9 with one week off), and now it was time for him to leave.
On departure day, all eight Casa Hogar kids accompanied us to the airport. Again we were each given one to not lose and I’m delighted to say I didn’t. I returned Cielo just as I had found her. Michael bought sweets for everyone, including us big people and left. He was the first of our team to leave.

The place was very quiet without him but we struggled on for our final week of work. I decided to keep working while waiting for my mom to come out here to celebrate her birthday. We had big plans to do some more salsa dancing in our last week but every night we were too wrecked or had presents to buy for the people here and at home, or else we just wanted to hang out with the children.
Our last day of work was, I think, one of the best. It all started in the Scoilita, the school for the children with special needs we worked in. They put on one hell of a display for us, with dancing and cake. And every class had been given one ‘gringo’ to make cards for. I got some crazy spellings of Claire on the cards but you know, no one could say my name, so I was never really expecting them to be able to write it. The most popular spellings were Clear and Clerr. Aisling helped one class and they got it almost right with Clare.

After cake No. 1 we headed home to Casa Hogar for lunch with our housemates; the eight little people. There, there was another cake waiting for us along with some really nice food. We ate, we mingled, we took lots of photos, and then headed to our other place of work, Casa Del Ninos, in search of more cake.

And cake we did find. First, we had to work. Goes with the territory of ‘going to work’ I suppose. We had lots of goodbyes to say the couple of hundred children who come to play there everyday. My final hour in the house of fun was spent in the creche section, where I said goodbye to the really little ones and my co-workers there took advantage of my crazy height one more time in making me hang decorations.

After work all our co-workers stayed behind to give us a Peruvian send-off. Kelly made sure they played all the songs she knows I like, and we were all dragged out into the hall to dance in the middle of a big circle of people. The guys can really bust a move here. I thought them being good would make me better but it doesn’t work like that apparently, I still sucked. Looking back I wished we hadn’t danced so long, it was because of our dancing that a lot of our co-workers were in the street or in taxis, and not with their families when the earthquake struck. Because only 15 minutes after we’d been salsa-ing across the floor the whole place started rocking….

Saturday night we were back in Paddy Flaherty’s for what I think was the fourth time in three days, they do do the best coca tea. We met some very interesting Irish lads in there. One wanted to take Aisling as his wife, but it was his friend I found more interesting. This guy stood at our table for a good ten minutes and told us why the Celts were better than the Incas.

“It’s not that I wasn’t impressed with Machu Picchu, but, it’s been done”.

He then went on to say how the Celts in Ireland made Newgrange 5000 years ago, but the Incas only managed to make Machu Picchu in the last 700 years or so. He seemed to think people should be doing a four day hike up in Northern Ireland not out here in the mosquito ridden Andes.

While this guy stroked the egos of my three Belfast companions who already think Northern Ireland is better than the south, I looked around and contemplated how important nationality is in this travelling world. The first question we’re asked is ‘Where are you from?” and then people are grouped accordingly. We’re expected to drink til dawn, because we’re Irish. There’s loads of French people here but no one seems to talk to them, or else they don’t talk. Everyone loves people from Australia and New Zealand. The British all seem to be on package tours, I’ve yet to meet one out on their own. There must have been a sale on those in London recently. Every time a Peruvian walks in they’re pounced on. Talking to a real life Peruvian is a bit of a novelty up here in Cusco, there seem to be more tourist than locals. The Americans get the worst time of it. Every time a tourist with a massive camera, lightweight fleece and zip off pants walks past someone whispers “American”. And all anyone seems to want to talk about is the war.

Well that’s what we found ourselves talking about the following day at a post-white water rafting dinner, but seeing as it’s the dry season here it should be renamed ‘Quiet stroll down the river rafting’. At our table there were 3 Israeli guys, two US marines, a Peruvian, a Dutch man, a New Zealander, us four Irish, and a lot of English people I unfortunately didn’t spot sooner. I made myself instantly unpopular by being a little too over enthusiastic with my ‘No!’ when asked by the New Zealand guy if I was British. He became person No. 348 on this trip to hear about Ireland’s bid for independence, and why Jenny has a British passport but calls herself Irish.

A little further north of the Irish/New Zealand contingent the US marines and the Israeli’s were having a chat about what else but the war. Nothing too crazy seemed to be happening in what was just inside my ear shot, they all seemed to be agreeing on something which must be a good sign.

On the bus home that evening the war talk continued. Jenny was grilling one of the marines on why Peruvians are fighting for the US in Iraq. He was very willing to tell us all about it and how their families get $25,000 if they die so a lot of them are signing up. He said he didn’t know too much though because they’re not allowed socialise with them. But the poor lad was on his holidays so we all forgot our day jobs and just enjoyed the trip back to Cusco.

The rest of the week was spent lounging around, looking at colourdy hats. The other three headed to Machu Pichhu on the Monday and I became part of a very tiny group of tourists who visit Cusco but not the ‘lost city’ of Machu Pichhu. I did learn from them, however, that if one is not hiking the trail, a good way to see the sunset up there is to stay in Aguas Calientes and get the first bus up. They also missed the busy tourist time in the afternoon and didn’t waste time listening to a tour, just occasionally eavesdropped on other peoples!

I spent those two days practicing for my solo travelling by heading back to the Irish bar and making conversation with people. Damn it’s hard! I eventually retreated to my Harry Potter book and wrote in my diary, eagerly awaiting the return of the Belfastians.

My three new room-mates from Belfast had booked a holiday in Cusco for the end of July. I had no intention of joining (I was waiting for my mom to come over to see this part of the country) but after a particularly stressful day in work I changed my mind. On the third floor of Casa Del I found one of the kids I live with. I thought she had her face into the corner for counting purposes in some game but when I turned her around her neck was slit and her hands covered in blood. I rushed her away, possibly a little too dramatically, and handed her over to the boss. One of the other kids I live with had done it in a game, never did find out was it done accidentally or what. So after that I decided maybe I should take the week off I never took and booked myself on a flight to Cusco for the following day.

Stephen, Jenny and Aisling had arrived a day before me and came to meet me at the airport. First impression of Cusco; what a pretty place! As sappy a word as pretty is it’s all I can really think of to describe Cusco. All the streets are narrow and cobblestoned. The only thing that could possibly take away from the niceness is the air, or lack of it. We were all on altitude pills and still found it hard to breathe. Our hotel Casa Del Campo, was up in San Blas, which was quite a hike from the main square, then when you reach there it’s upwards and onwards again, and when you get past reception there’s another 30 or so big stone steps. I now have major respect for anyone who survives the Inca trail. Putting one foot in front of the other is a challenge here.

Like the magnets that we are, we instantly found the Irish bar. The highest one in the world; Paddy Flaherty’s. While talking to two Irish girls we realised I hadn’t had the necessary Coca tea and mid-day nap needed to acclimatise so I set about doing the two of those before I collapsed from lack of oxygen. It’s the pressure that’s the problem here, so you really have to remind yourself to breathe, it doesn’t just go in as much as it normally does.

We decided to do some adventure-type things while in Cusco. In my absence the others found an adventure shop to see what we could do. First up: horse riding. I have had a long bad history with horses and generally prefer to just look at them from a distance. I was going to make up some elaborate excuse to get out of this when I discovered my team weren’t much better off. Jenny was still traumatised from an incident a few years back in which she rode a horse with hiccups. Stephen had never been on a horse before, and Aisling is allergic to horse hair, but figured she might be okay seeing as we were going riding in the open air. With that information I confidently got out of the taxi in Sacsaywuman (pronounced sexy woman) and started looking for these beasts. Confidence left me once I saw them riding over the horizon in the distance. I like nice, tame, well-disciplined horses, and these seemed to live easy in the wild. I made sure the tour guy gave me the smallest horse, but noticed he conveniently kept the ‘littlest’ one for himself. We were put with three British students and an Australian lady.
Once my horse got over his unfortunate twitch we all set off over the mountains. It was incredibly peaceful, even for a horse-phobe. We stopped at the Inca’s moon temple and snooped around where they sacrificed animals. Then set off up over the mountains looking at other random things for a few hours. Saw some people herding sheep, one horse drank some water. It was nothing crazy but it was just really amazing to be up there, on a horse and have no one else around for miles.

We stopped at a little town for lunch, but being cheap we had a packed lunch ready to go. The other four in our tour were taken off to check out a water fountain the Inca’s had but, again, we couldn’t go for financial reasons. The four of us had decided we didn’t want to do enough of those archeological things, to fork out $21 for a tourist ticket needed to see them. So we sat in the sun and enjoyed our cookies.

When the other four rejoined us we set off over another mountain on the horses that I was now starting to like. But they seriously need to change their diets. Even with limited horse experience we figured it couldn’t be normal for them to ‘break wind’ so often. I freaked out whenever my guy went to close too the rear end of another horse.

On the last leg of the journey everyone got a little more confident and broke into a gallop through the forest. To savour the scenery I decided to scream at my horse everytime he attempted to go faster than a slow walk. Some pedestrians passed me out at one stage but they were walking fast-herding sheep. Eventually I was alone in the forest but perfectly happy as I could see the others racing each other in the clearing up ahead. Silly gringos, someone should tell them what happens to people who ride horses without helmets.

The horse day ended up being one of the best in Cusco. I can’t believe I’m recommending horse riding as a thing to do but for $10 it’s well worth it. And the most fun is to be had on the smallest and slowest horse, remember that.

On Saturday July 21st I had the honour of attending a Peruvian baptism. I was still in trouble stomach-wise after my dodgy chicken but I was determined to struggle through. Kelly and her family had put a lot of work into that party so I was not missing it because of a stupid piece of poultry. She even brought me shopping for clothes for the occasion. She helped me pick out a very exciting jumper and shirt. I was shocked and appalled to learn that the shop I was in rewards rich people, seemingly just for being rich. If one earns a certain amount every month they can apply for a card that gets them up to 50% off everything. Being a student on a part- time wage Kelly doesn’t have one of these but still wouldn’t let me pay full price. She went around the entire department store asking just about everyone if they had a card and if they did would they buy my clothes for me. They must have thought I was one tight ass gringa because by Irish standards the clothes were still pretty cheap. She eventually found a nice couple who did the deed and saved me what is usually my weeks budget.

Fast forward a couple of days and I’m sitting in a (this time roofed church) with Jenny, Stephen and Kelly, who chose to sit next to us over her family. The service started at 8pm which is very different from the early morning baptisms I’m used to. The people of this town reminded us of their disregard for institutions and acted very much the way people unused to a church would act. Kelly answered her phone early on and I instinctly gave her a ‘the hell are you doing??’ look. I felt pretty stupid when I realised what face I had on. So she chatted away while people walked around, found some different people to talk to, chased some misbehaving children and all the while the priest was talking away. It looked more like a First Communion to me. About 20 kids were there to be baptised, all sitting scattered around the church in their white dresses. Most looked around nine or ten. The priest called out all the names and we all made a point to make it known that we had actually heard the names of Kelly’s sisters. Things went back to chaotic after that. I think the priest walked around blessing people or something. The lights from the camera crew blinded me for a bit. When the priest got back to talking (or maybe praying) everyone stood up, but as they got tired they just sat down. I was admittedly the first to sit. The climax of the service came when all the children went up for the water part of the service. No one paid any attention to other people’s children, they seemed to be busy readying their own little ones. Luckily I spotted Kelly’s sister Samantha heading up and told Jenny and Stephen to look interested. Good job we were looking interested because Kelly looked back while on a stroll to see if we were looking. I think we cheered a little after the second sister, Emely, was done and the service just seemed to end after that. Guess it wasn’t a mass after all. That or the priest didn’t want to break bread with non-regular church goers.
I had to leg it out of the church to get some sort of sugar into me. Even if I wasn’t sick the sudden lack of sugar and salt in my diet would knock me out. Everything is laced with either salt or sugar, and very often both. Doctors orders are no fried food, sauces, salt, sugar or fizzy drinks. I broke all of them at once on Sunday by skipping off to McDonalds. After some fruit punch soft drink type thing I was ready to face the photo session that followed. Myself and Stephen made excuses that we had to take the photos ,to get out of being in the photos. Usually I’m not one to shy away from a camera but being centre stage of someone’s baptism photos would be a little weird. So we let Jenny do it on her own. There’s now a few lovely photos with the two girls, their Godparents and parents, with a blonde Irish girl bam smack in the middle.

While on our way back to Tres de Mayo I realised I had forgotten the white and pink frilly bell decoration I had won the previous week. I had been telling people in work about this all week and how I was going to bring it to the party. So I had to drop in home, pick it up, have a beer and make Kelly late for the biggest celebration her family has had in a long time.

When I walked in I was absolutely bowled over. It seems to be a tradition here to not have furniture at a party, but to empty the room and have white plastic chairs along the sides. It’s a great set-up for dancing, if you’re that way inclined but I’d love to know where these chairs come from. No one seems to have any on a normal day of the week but once someone has a fiesta they suddenly have 50 or so. The Ruizs had put all their furniture on top of their house to facilitate our partying. It was like Barbie’s dream party. Big pink and white streamers everywhere. I think I’m going to have to post another photo because there’s no way I can describe this. I have one photo of Samantha over in the food area of the house and if you look at it briefly it looks like her head if floating because her pink clothes blend in so well. They had a little fountain on the table and two three-tier cakes (one of those tiers made it back to my house). Because of my illness, I had to sit a lot and observe. I saw Stephen and Jenny struggle with the food and try all the tricks I’d tried over the weeks to hide bits behind other bits. I was amazed by the dancing. Young and old were able to dance properly together because they all knew how to salsa. It was cool to see big middle aged men glide lightly on their feet and for the women it was all in the hips. They couldn’t understand why Jenny or Stephen wouldn’t dance with them. I used my old ‘I’m sick’ line. To convince the other two to get grooving they put on some English music. Out came ‘Hits of the 80’s’ and it was very appropriate. With the pink and white steamers, grey suits and mullets the evening did have a distint 80s feel.

Many speeches were made and photographs were taken. The ‘padrinos’ aka Godparents traditionally organise the party (and pick op the bill). In return they get a gui (guinea pig) and a chicken. Both of these were received dead, cooked and on a bed of lettuce. I got up from my seat long enough to take a few photos of the animals and make jokingly disgusted faces at Kelly. After the ‘thank yous’ the two newly baptised chicas went around to everyone in the room and gave them a momento of the evening. These reminded me of the type of thing you would get after someone dies. Samantha’s had her photo on hers, together with the date of birth and the day’s date. Emely`s was simpler. It was a tiny baby figure with a ribbon containing her details. Soon after getting these we had to hit the road. It was looking suspicious how I had missed two days of work and was now out past midnight at a Latino fiesta. We had some trouble getting out of there without dancing, apparently no one leaves without dancing, but after doing the usual kissing rounds of the room we were on our way.

Amazingly it was only a small part of her family at the celebration. It was at least 5 times the size of my extended family. I’ve often seen the stereotype Latino family on TV where they have a cousin for every occasion. Kelly seems to really have an unending supply of cousins and one seems to be trained for every sort of service one could possibly need. And each and every one of them looked like they might be a professionally trained dancer…

Might as well throw up a few photos of Paracas.

Since writing my last blog I heard that Huacachina survived the Earthquake unharmed. I hope that´s true. This is the magical place.


The dune buggies we sped around in. Unfortunately the only photo I have has three people posing on it. Try and ignore them to see the wonderful buggy.

This is me going down the first dune. It doesn`t look half as bad as it was. But it was, I tell you! My hands were supposed to be under me but they`re very much dug into the sand.

What else would we do in the desert but pose like fairies??


This is the photo Adrian jumped off the boat to get. He was supposed to have been getting the young Che Guavara who`d to the left of us but he didn`t do too good a job.

Señor Mono! This is the monkey (seen here drinking from a cup!! Can you believe it??). Great guy.

The gang! Or Team Peru as I like to call them. Here we have Adrian, Michael, Jenny, Stephen, Kelly and Aisling, all ready to leave in the Pisco bus station.

Day two of our two day holiday started with me having my coldest shower of the summer. Usually when the water is below boiling I can only stick it for one or two quick twirls but seeing as I was with so many people I figured I should be hygienic and stick it. I shivered all the way back into the bedroom ready to break the bad news to Kelly but she just skipped past me into a nice hot shower. Turns out ‘C’ stands for caliente (hot) not cold! Bugger.

After a terrible shower I was determined to have a good breakfast. We went to the nearest restaurant so as to maximize our eating time. But the bread had hardly reached my face when we were shuffled out, time for us to go bird watching out on the Islas Ballestas, known here as the poor mans Galapagos. Being such a small town, the man running the restaurant was also needed to run tours so when we’d all eaten he shut up shop and headed to his next job (he was back again by lunch). The seven of us walked along what looked like a promenade to get to the massive collection of tourists all waiting for their boats. I made a swift dash to the beach which was only a few feet away to try and walk off the dog poo I stood in. But no one was fooled, there is only one reason people quietly dash away form the group here! Our boat was bigger than I was expecting, had around 30 or so people on it. Some of the cameras were so big they should have had their own seats. We zoomed around the islands looking at bird after bird. But, what really made our morning was finding a guy who looked like a young Che Guevara on our boat. He was a dead ringer for him. Aisling and Jenny both spotted him and when they finally pointed out the right guy to me I had to agree. Suddenly all cameras changed directions and our new challenge was to get a photo of him without him noticing. We finally came up with a fool proof plan. We asked Adrian to jump up on the bank when the boat docked and take a photo of the three of us, but really getting young Che. Think he did quite a good job.

The islands were fine if you really like birds. It was Adrian and Kelly’s first time on a boat so I had fun freaking them out. Convinced them more than once that the rocking meant we were about to flip over. We saw penguins, and now know they don’t only live in cold places. Other things we learned on that trip include there being a house out there that one has to be a researcher to stay in, and, some star fish are red. Well worth the €8.

After lunch Jenny, Stephen and Michael set off sandboarding; an exciting sport that is similar to snowboarding, the names suggests the difference. Adrian already decided he didn’t feel like going, so then Kelly wasn’t going to go, so I wasn’t going to go and somewhere along the way Aisling said she wasn’t going either. Then Adrian changed his mind, so Kelly went, and I was back on board and then Aisling. Wow we’re mature!

At €25 our trip was at the upper end of snowboarding excursions. I’d read that one can rent a board and work away for $1 an hour so I was wondering what sort of golden boards we must be getting for that price.
We weren’t disappointed. We got picked up in a silver people carrier that was just for the four of us and lunched on bananas and chocolate for the hour drive to Huacachina. Now, there aren’t many places in this world that I’m absolutely dying to go to, but Huacachina was definitely one of them. Ever since I saw the photo of the tiny oasis in the middle of the desert in the 2005 edition of Lonely Planet it’s been the place I’ve most wanted to see. When these lads said that’s where I was off sandboarding I could barely sit still in the car. I’d presumed I wouldn’t have time to get there on a two day holiday because bus journeys are so damn long here.

I didn’t recognize my oasis when we first got there. All I could see were wooden shacks where the tour operator worked and some buildings. I asked a few people where Huaca was and they just pointed in the direction of the sand, not very helpful in the desert.

We were brought to our dune buggy, put on our attractive goggles and headed into the big mass of sand. I was somehow left the front seat and regretted it a few times. We took off at a crazy speed with a nice young guy called Caesar, who likes to drive with his eyes closed. We went up over the dunes and flew down the other side. It was like a massive rollarcoaster. Some of the drops down the other side were almost 90 degrees, one had to be at least 87 or 88. Caesar kept accelerating the whole way down. Once I started feeling confident he started doing the same thing only at an angle so we were up on the side. I felt incredibly sorry for lying to the others when I said it was perfectly safe and people never get hurt when I really hadn’t a clue what I was talking about and we were in all likelihood going to get hurt (word on the street is that two people died doing this the next day – but I didn’t see it in the news). I kept thinking if another buggy came over the same hill we were screwed!

Eventually we stopped for photos but soon enough were off again sailing across the sand dunes. I decided to be polite and offer the others my front seat, Adrian obliged. When we reached the top of one particularly steep dune Caesar stopped, handed us the boards and seemed to expect us to go down that crazy dune, on our bellies no less. I was just about to protest about how absurd that would be when I saw Aisling lie down head first and push off down the dune.

Aisling kept getting smaller and smaller as she sped off further down the hill until eventually the black dot waved back at us to indicate she’d made it alive. I quickly gestured Adrian forward to go next and we had a little scuffle over it but he agreed to let me hang on a bit while I contemplated the whole thing. There just didn’t seem to be anyway to stop or slow down. The ‘using your feet as a brake’ thing didn’t make sense to me. Adrian, probably not wanting to look wimpy in front of his girlfriend got down, tucked his arms underneath his body and Caesar pushed him off in the direction of the dot below. He screamed a lot more but by the movement of the second dot below I could tell he’d also survived. Looking at Kelly I knew there wasn’t a hope of convincing her to step up to the plate next. I walked over to Caesar and asked him to repeat the instructions, wanted to be absolutely sure I made it through this. Seemed pretty simple, lie on board, arms tucked in, legs out the back as breaks.

Well it didn’t quite work out like that. Caesar got a hell of a lot of abuse for trying to help me off my launch pad. I did not want to be pushed down that thing. My arms stayed intact for about 2 meters, after which they were over my head trying desperately to slow myself down. My arms didn’t take too well to being in a position they shouldn’t and kept going further and further into the sand. Only my head was keeping my shoulders above the surface. My legs were cramping up trying desperately to dig into the sand. Caesar kept yelling at me to move my arms but at that stage I couldn’t have moved them even if I had wanted to. My body was going fast but my arms were dragging slowly in the sand. And I was still going faster than I’d wanted to. Then the middle of my body started to cramp up. I think part of me wanted to wet myself while the other half remembered my age. I eventually bumped along to the end of the dune where Aisling and Adrian were waiting to cheer me in. The only words I could muster were “I think I broke a kidney”.

In all my worrying about myself I had forgotten Kelly was still at the top of the dune. I jumped from the sand and started yelling to her about how easy it was and how much fun it would be. After a lot of coaxing Caesar finally pushed her off. I decided then we should really tip that guy well.

We took off to some other spots in the desert stopping twice more for sandboarding and once to visit a little oasis, even smaller than Huacachina (but it didn’t have a lagoon). Aisling got terribly excited when she found an Incan road. On one of the runs I got a pants full of sand and Adrian came running over to photograph my ‘man muscle’. It sure looked like one. That was big news for a while.

After another terrifying trip through the desert Kelly casually said “Oh there’s Huacachina”. Everything went into slow motion. It was even prettier than I’d expected. I could fit the entire place into the screen of my digital camera, it’s that small. There’s a lagoon in the middle with a few buildings around the side and that’s it. What a cool place!

We got into Huacachina with only 20 minutes or so before our shiny silver car was due to drive us back to Paracas. We took loads of cheesy tourist shots and I picked out where I would like to work and where I would live, even met a cool jewellery seller I decided I could be friends with.

On the way home we stopped in Ica to use the ATM. I was glad we’d asked the driver to take us there because a few weeks later it was ruined by the earthquake. 80% of the buildings there were destroyed. And Adrian’s extended family who live there are now homeless. I’m still waiting to hear what has become of Huacachina.

This was written before the earthquake, I’ve just been very bad at posting lately. These won’t be the most exciting entries but I want to remember these places pre-earthquake. Everywhere we visited (besides Lima) has since been flattened.

It’s holiday time here in Peru. 28th of July is Independence Day and it seems the city has been preparing for it since we arrived 7 weeks ago. Everywhere is covered in white and red decorations and just about everyone is wearing Peru badges. From the homework I’ve been helping with, I get the impression almost every class lately has been about Peru and how they freed themselves from the Spanish. If I have to draw Simon Bolivar’s face one more time I may call the Spanish and ask them to come back to stop the torture!

Independence Day started slow and groggy for us as we had our introduction to the latin club scene the night before. We woke up very unsure of what we were doing. Our plan to watch marching with the kids was thrown out when someone decided it would be too hard to mind 8 small people on the busiest day of the year. So we tagged along with Kelly’s gang to the park. Our gang is now quite large. As well as myself and Michael we had new arrivals Stephen and Jenny and even newer arrival Aisling, another Belfastian. Aisling arrived the night of the Baptism to join us in Casa Hogar. Kelly’s crew consisted of her boyfriend Adrian, his cousin Eric and her two little sisters Samantha and Emely. We presumed we’d be sitting on a rug all day eating a picnic but were pleasantly surprised. Emely starting talking to me on the way there and I just about picked up every 10th word. I definitely heard the words for monkey and elephant. ‘The park’ turned out to be an incredibly well stocked zoo. Peruvians are very proud of their three different regions; the coast, the mountains and the jungle. The zoo was divided in four parts, one devoted to each of Peru’s regions and an international section. Each section was designed to look like the region and had the local animals. It was as cruel as most zoos are, the lions looked like depressed monkeys in their tiny little cage. Speaking of monkeys we saw some so small I thought they were rats for a while. Zoos are like Christmas; better when accompanied by children. We were glad the little ones had tagged along, and the day probably deserves it’s own blog entry but I’ve a lot more writing to do tonight so I’ll solider on.

After working six days a week for seven weeks we got incredibly excited about the idea of a long weekend. But being the beavers we are we didn’t have time to plan anything. I decided weeks ago that I wanted to go south for a while but was struck down with food poisoning on our week off. To make up for that I decided to head to Paracas the day after Independence Day. I mentioned it to Stephen and Jenny and they immediately jumped on. Then when Aisling arrived she said she was up for it too. Michael came back from Cusco on Friday and said he’d be more than happy to join us on Sunday. To complete our group we asked Kelly and she brought her boyfriend. My solo trip suddenly turned into a group excursion, and I’m glad it did.

The trip was so badly organized that about half an hour before we were due to meet Kelly, Jenny looked up from her Frosties and said “Oh, are we really going?” I said sure we might as well. This was my one Monday off for the summer so I was determined to go somewhere. We made a Plan B which consisted of sleeping in Lima if we couldn’t find our way out of the city. We decided not to mention Plan B to Kelly for fear that she wouldn’t come with us.

Once the 5 of us gringos met up with Kelly and Adrian we realized how badly we needed them. We looked around Tres De Mayo not quite sure of which way to go but Adrian led the way and we got one of the crazy mini buses to the centre of Lima. These are incredible little things with a person whose job it is to keep their head out the window and shout the name of their destination.

We made it into the centre of Lima and probably annoyed our Peruvian buddies by running all over the place when they were trying to direct us to the bus. We had to make calls, change money and visit the ATM but eventually trotted on to the bus terminal. It didn’t seem to be a terminal just a street with a load of buses but somehow Kelly and Adrian knew the right one. Must be a Peruvian thing.

When we climbed on the bus we made the most amazing discovery. One which made Aisling (or maybe it was Jenny) proclaim that it made their summer. Up where we were about to put our bags was a monkey. The most tame and friendly monkey I’ve ever met. Also the only monkey I’ve ever been properly introduced to. He was the best in-bus entertainment possible. He sat, stood, jumped, did all the unremarkable things that are suddenly amazing when preformed by a monkey. He sat on my lap for a while drinking orange juice from a cup and nibbled on my chocolate bar. After all the excitement he got up on his owner’s shoulder, leaned over his chair and fell asleep. This meant his head was about a foot from mine (I was behind the owner). 6 of us bombarded the guy with photos but turned off the flashes to let him sleep. He had a real determined look on his face when he slept. It’s now the background of my laptop.

First stop was Chincha, a tiny town two hours south of Lima. Jenny said the nicest thing I ever said to her was “You pee, I’ll pay” when we made it to the bus station toilet. That’s a completely useless piece of information I’m only writing to embarrass Jenny. After lunch we got back on a monkey-less bus. We had decided to get shorter, local buses to Paracas because the tourist ones went to Nazca and we would have had to pay full price for going on part of the way.

On the second bus we started thinking that we should sort out the whole accomodation thing. Paracas is an incredibly small place and finding nice, cheap beds for 7 people might prove difficult. We were told it was an two hour journey to Pisco, the nearest big town to Paracas. An hour and half into the journey we got Kelly to ring a company to make sure we could go sandboarding the next day (priorities first). The said we could and also set us up with accommodation and a boat trip. We were very happy with ourselves until the man asked Kelly to describe our surroundings. From what she told him he could tell we’d gone way past Pisco and were almost past the Paracas turn-off. God knows how he knew that from her description because it can’t have been more than “we are in the desert, now we’re passing sand, now more sand….”

So we leapt from the bus and stood at the side of the road waiting for the guy from the sandboarding company to come save us. He drove off with us in another direction with us until we reached the beautiful beach resort of Paracas. Our hotel (whose name escapes me) was delightful. After an awkward ‘do people share rooms before marriage in Peru’ moment we decided I should share with Kelly, and the boys should be kept a good distance away from us.

We had made an effort of be in the El Dorado district. Seeing as you could walk around the whole of Paracas in a few minutes we really needn’t have worried. The little town has no money machine, which was cute but damn annoying. It’s the poshest place I’ve been to in Peru. Everyone seems to have their boats and sailing seems to be popular. Some Peruvian kitesurfing champion does lessons there too which I might try sometime if I feel my wallet is too heavy. After strolling around for while, and Stephen posing like Horatio from CSI Miami, Kelly and I decided to turn in for the evening. That didn’t happen when the lads turned up with beer and Aisling said her now infamous “Sometime I just like to stand” line when offered a seat. We did eventually sleep early, ready for some bird watching the next day.

Well it had to happen eventually! After two summers of watching people getting sick and surviving without a scratch, I let my guard down and ate something I maybe shouldn’t have. That something is now the new flooring in my bathroom and the bathroom of the local school! On Wednesday we headed up into the sunshine in the Lima countryside and got some lunch. I learned a valuble lesson that day. That is, when you get a chicken that is floating in its own blood on your plate, you don’t simply ask for it to be cooked a little more, you run! I knew straight away after that meal that something was wrong. I was fine Thursday, even went out for another chicken and chips and polished it off with a few beers and a strawberry cheesecake. Friday morning, while engrossed in a ‘How one uses the exclamation mark’ class it suddenly hit me over the head! It felt like my stomach was at war with the rest of my body. I had to go around to all 10 students and glue a picture into their copy before I could run for it. Around student number 5 things really took a nose-dive and I couldn’t stand up straight. Luckily Lizbeth decided at that moment to be a helpful student and started handing me the correct page I needed to stick next which hurried things along a lot. When that was done I heard the ‘Creo’ shout and knew it was lunch. I ran to the staff toilets, redecorated it and apologised over and over to the principle while I skipped past her. I ran like a gazelle home. Trying to keep my strides long so as not to upset my stomach. When I got in the door of the house Kevin had a drawing he had to show me. I shuffled from foot to foot while he tried to find the page it was on. After giving him some sort of approving comment I jumped up the stairs and commenced two hours of clogging sinks. When I eventually emergered people went crazy calling other people trying to figure out what to do with the one passing out in her summer attire in winter. 5 year old Annel came up to feel my forehead and cheeks and told me I had a fever. Betty from Casa Del Niños somehow got the job of taking me on the twenty minute taxi ride to the clinic. Alredy I’ve seen a few reconstructions of my leap from the taxi on a busy road while I fled to throw up the sip of water I’d had. After various tests and a wonderful injection (never felt such instant relief) I was on my way. After a big grocery shop Thursday night, I was running low on cash had to choose which medicine to get between nausea pills, diahorrea pills and antibiotics. I managed 8 antibiotic pills, two diahorrea ones and a nausea pill.
So here I am sitting on my bed on what should be the first day of my week long vacation trying to keep down a bit of water. Michael is after heading to Puno and Cuzco for a week. I’d planned on going to the jungle for a few days to read the Harry Potter book in peace. Maybe it’s a sign that I shouldn’t go to the jungle on my own! I bought a cell phone for protection, have a few people I can ring if I get kidnapped! The plan now is to head to Paracas to see some animals next week if I’m ok.
Just realised the events of my last blog entry happened over two weeks ago. Wouldn’t want my granchildren thinking I did nothing for two weeks of my trip when they read this around 2055, so I´ll recap briefly.
Last Saturday we got two new recruits. Stephen and Jenny are from Belfast and have just finished their A Levels. They don’t have the address of this blog so I don’t have to say nice things, but dammit they’re cool! We’ve been taking little trips to restaurants to have a beer in the evenings. It’s weird to see them do the things we did a month ago, and a little cringe- worthy. Stephen will never hear the end of the head-butt incident. This ‘kissing everyone on the cheek thing’ takes a little getting used to, and rookies have been known to head-butt people. Stephen apparently did this to our Peruvian friend Kelly one night, and I can tell by her head movement when talking that she’s still telling people about it. Secretly, we are too! I remember I did it a few times when I first arrived but I won’t be telling him that.
They seem to be handling the Spanish better than we did. There’s not as many hand movements. Jenny occasionally makes the mistake of thinking I can translate. On Thursday I was busy hacking away at a chicken in one of the many, many chicken joints here. Kelly and Jenny were having a ‘Spanglish’ conversation when they ran into difficulty. I looked up from my chicken to find them both looking expectantly at me, awaiting the translation. After a few seconds the metaphorical penny seemed to drop and they both started laughing. I just went back to my chicken. Around the Casa Del I have been able to translate a few things. People seem to know what words to stick to around here. I was getting very confident until I went to the doctor´s surgery on Friday and hadn’t a clue what he was saying. I knew I was sick and I knew he’d make me better. So I went back to my smiling and nodding regime.
Jenny has bowled the place over with her vegitarianism. It’s just not a concept here. Almost every restaurant seems to have chicken in the title. Especially down the local mall. We went there for lunch one day and only the Pizza Hut out of the 15 or so restaurants in the food court had a vegitarian meal. In work, one of the psychologists seemed to be studying her one day over lunch, trying to figure out why someone wouldn’t eat meat. So she’s the ‘different’ one around here, the only blonde and vegitarian in the village.
During out last weekend as a ‘twosome’, myself and Michael went on another ‘paseo’. Paseo seems to be the word for trip or excursion or something. This time it was with the Casa Hogar kids, the eight small people we live with. We headed into the centre of Lima. Pigeon feeding is a big thing here and Kevin seems to have a thing for terrifying the little things. At every pigeon hang-out, there’s someone selling food for them. The kids each got a bag and went nuts with it. When the food was gone, they just chased the pigeons away, upsetting the food seller lady, so we had to move on. We went to a naval museum and I didn’t even try to understand the tour person. She seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere and I just couldn’t keep up. I had Kevin with me most of the time (we each had one kid) and stopping him spitting at antiques was a full time job!
We went to visit a few churches. No one seems bothered by the fact that mass was on. We still strolled all around even up as far as the altar talking and pointing at things. Most of the local people were saying their own prayers over at the sides of the church. Although Peru is very religious,it’s not institutionalized. The people here don’t see why they need a priest between them and God so mass isn’t a big thing here.
After that,we had a picnic of apples, mandarins and popcorn and headed for the train. Along the way we spotted a celebrity (there was supposed to be a photo of Barney here….). The train was just a small novelty one. Luckily I had been left with the picnic
basket and was seated away from the group with Cielo. By the end of the short train ride we had significantly reduced the amount of left over food that had to be carried home. We just wanted to make life easier for the people carrying it.
Sunday I woke up unsure of where I was going. I was wrecked after getting up at 3am to meet the new arrivals in the airport and we stayed up until about 8am talking. I was told I was going to some sort of festival with ‘all the kids’. So I asked Liselith and Kevin what this trip was about. They reminded me that Sunday is family day in Casa Hogar so there was no way anyone would organise a trip for them on a Sunday. Hate when they make me feel stupid….
So I hopped on the bus and saw Michael sitting there among about 20 kids dressed in colourful traditional Peruvian clothes. I recognised one or two of them from the Casa Del Niños and when I asked Elsa, the co-ordinator, where she got them I’m pretty sure she said ‘just from around’. We arrived at what I knew was the church I had gone to on my first weekend in Peru with no roof. I did some mingling and talking and discovered we were at a fundraiser for the church. There was a make-shift bar, food, loud music and game where you gave one Solee for a mystery prize. A little kid got the bottle of champagne I’d been eyeing up but I won …… a thing. For the first time on this blog I’ve no idea how to describe something. It had white netting and pink ribbon and was in the shape of a bell. I presumed it was a hat but by the reaction I got I knew I had had another social screw up. Turns out it’s a decoration for a 15th birthday party, the big one in Peru. I kept it for the upcoming Baptism.
The food was as good as I was expecting. Hate to be mean but I’ve learned that where red meat is concerned here it’s best to run. I later discovered it’s beef heart we’ve been eating. I noticed at this church fete that the adults were being served before the kids. Now usually I would let a child eat before me but I thought I could make it work to both of our advantages. The little ones didn’t know they were being fed on this trip so I turned to the one next to me and acted all ‘I love children’ and offered her one of my heart scewers. She was delighted to get it and shared it with her friends. I was just handing her my second one (I had three) when she copped on to the fact that they were getting fed too. I decided to try honesty for once and told Elsa I just couldn’t eat it. She found some people who gladly ate my meat and I went and filled up on cakes.
I stood at the bar for a bit with my Inca Cola and the men there said something about my eyes so I quickly salsa-ed on past them over to the dance area. The kids we’d brought were the entertainment for the afternoon. I made a video of it which I might actually try upload here. But I’ll more than likely fail.
That was supposed to sum that last two weeks, but it seems I’ve only talked about two days. Monday to Saturday I just work work work. Like a little beaver I am. I’m now in the creche type area in Casa Del Niños and I must say I like working with the really little ones. I had an awkward moment the other day when one of the social workers happened upon me sitting in the bucket swing thing being pushed by a kid. After some nervous laughing I jumped and gave her a kind of ‘she made me do it’ look. Other than that I think been doing ok!

It dawned on me today while strolling with Kelly, my Peruvian buddy, that I have forgotten to mention the cool people who are making our stay here all the more fun. So I thought I’d give them a little shout out.

First we met Richie. Richard Montenegro is the son of Ana, a woman who works with us here in Casa Hogar. He just quit his job to record his album. He was a teacher but controlling the kids was straining his voice, so now he`s a recording artist. He said he’s going to help us out with Spanish which would be great. Shouldn’t be too hard for a guy who speaks Spanish, English, French and Italian. He has one of his songs translated into 63 languages. It’s a project he’s started and it looks amazing. He has a book with all the different versions of his song written in it. I’m translating it into Irish at the moment. He asked Michael to duet with him on his album. Mike’s been entertaining people all over the place here. They can’t understand why I won’t sing a little something for them. I’m sure after a few bars, with my voice, they’d understand alright!

Another cool person I’ve met here is Kelly. I first got to know her at the theatre festival two weeks ago. On Sunday she really bowled me over with her hospitality. It really makes you think about how foreign people are treated in Ireland.

She invited me out for bowling with her friends. Michael had already accepted an invitation to go to a concert at a local school. We had planned to meet outside the Casa Del Niños at midday. I happened to finish up my phone calls earlier than expected, so I got there a little early. I had forgotten people live in the Casa and the woman of the house, Penny, came out to see why I was sitting on her front door step. I quickly apologised and said ”I’m just waiting for my friend”. She asked me who my friend was but in my confusion I forgot what “Quien” means and said 12 o clock instead of Kelly. When Kelly arrived at 12 on the button she was mortified that she’d made me wait. She later told her mother and her boyfriend about the ‘unfortunate’ incident, they were both shocked, I hadn’t even thought twice about it.

Her mother welcomed me into their home. I made as much conversation as I could, thankfully Kelly was there most of the time for translation purposes. Her mother is a sewing teacher and had made me a little purse. I couldn’t believe she’d made it for me, (must get my mother to start making things for my friends when they visit!).
I was terribly nervous about lunch. I had decided that no matter what was put in front of me, I was going to devour it. I had not eaten all day, figured being hungry would help. But I was pleasantly surprised. We had chicken and savory rice, which was absolutely delicious. I was pretty sure eating Kelly’s leftover wasn’t the polite thing to do so I worked away on dessert, which I had brought in an attempt to equal their niceness. I ate with Kelly, her mother and her two younger sisters. During dinner I got invited to one of the sisters, Emily’s baptism. I’m not sure how old Emily is but she was well able to invite me to her own Baptism. That’s on July 21st, which is our week off so my travelling plans have been put back a bit to go wet Emily’s head.

After lunch we met Kelly’s boyfriend, Adrian, and headed into town. I had one more of my social ‘screw ups’ when my foot got tangled in a lady’s foot on the bus and I fell out the door into Adrian’s arms! Luckily Kelly saw the funny side. We met up with four of Kelly’s cousins and then, when walking through a mall bumped into one of the cousin’s friends, Katy. In true Peruvian style Katy shut up the shop she was working in to join us for the afternoon. I presumed she was just popping out on her lunch hour and had to shut up because she was the only one working. But no, she stayed with us all day!

We went for another lunch. And the 7 of them couldn’t comprehend why I wasn’t hungry! Even Kelly ate again. I absolutely couldn’t, so as I type this there is a quarter chicken sitting next to me in a box. The menu was gringa friendly and had photos of all the meals. They were all squares of different types of meat. But one caught my eye. There was no denying that it was a rodent. It had a body, two legs and a two arms. I asked Adrian and he said that yes, it was indeed a guinea pig. They asked if I wanted to order it and I tried to think of a way to explain how a former hamster owner could not eat a guinea pig!
All I could think of to say was “This, in Irlanda, amigo”. All conversations stopped and they all looked at the one who had just called a rodent a friend. I said something like how in Peru dogs are friends, in Ireland guinea pigs are friends. Not entirely true but it got the message across.

I’ve discovered that bowling is thee best way to get to know the names of a group. After looking at the names on a screen for an hour I finally got them all, but can’t recite them right now. It was a close game, only about 5 points between first and last place. I missed about 15 minutes of the game trying to get some drinks in. Efficiency is not a big thing here. I’m blaming that 15 minutes for me not winning. It was cool little place with the Pussycat Dolls blaring and floresent lights.

We strolled the streets for a while after that. I felt I had to work off the food I’d been eating all day. We came upon one of the cousins from Raul’s apartment. I wasn’t too sure what was going on until he pulled out a deck of cards. I was hoping and praying it wasn’t poker, as I have never been able to grasp that. But what ensued what the most fun card game I’ve ever had. You know it’s been a good game when my bloody finger is only one of the many injuries, and my hamstring is aching!

It was a game I’d played at home, people pass cards around until you get four of one type. But the added Peruvian element was that there were 7 spoons in the middle. When someone gets 4 of the same card they had to shout “Chancho”. At this everyone dropped their cards, let go of their common sense and lunged at the table. At one stage the leg of the table came off. People were dashing all over the room to get a spoon; if someone managed to get two they’d fling one as far as they could. The name of the game was almost changed to “Chinchewy” to accomodate me since I kept getting the word wrong. It’s hard to think when you’re jumping out of your chair after a plastic spoon.

Katy got through the whole hour long game without losing once. She is just one of those uber cool people. She never got violent or crazy like some of us, just gracefully and speedily got the spoon. She impressed me earlier with her nonchalant, “Ok, I’ll just close up the shop” attitude. She won bowling and then crushed us all at cards. I’m mad I didn’t get all of their email addresses. Hopefully I’ll see some of them at the Baptism.

To make me feel at home this game, and another one was played in English. Everyone made an effort to speak English and all the numbers were said in English. I would have loved to have said, “Actually if you don’t mind, could we do this in Irish? I prefer that language”, but I figured they were putting themselves out enough. All day, everytime a seat became available on a bus, everyone looked at me and wouldn’t let me not take it. They wouldn’t let me pay for the buses and everytime we went to a new place or even on to a new street, someone made sure to tell me all about it.

Peru was definitely a good choice to start my travels in. Just wish I could take all these people with me!