I continued working on the mural during my entire third week which brought with it some rather unusual extra curriculum activities....

On Wednesday night we were invited by the maestro (some of the larger projects have local builders working alongside the PSF project leaders) of the French Hospital project to a big event that happens in Pisco every month: a c*** fight. The maestro, Eduardo, had one c*** fighting in the tournament (which is knock out...not really sure how that works when there's injured animals in the equation but hey..) and his son another. They were competing in fights number 8 and 10 respectively meaning we had to sit through 7 rounds of gruesome battle before we got to see the main event. It took me a bit of persuading to go along... seeing c*** get blades strapped to them in order to slice to death their opponent is not exactly my idea of a ideal Wednesday night but in hindsight I'm actually quite glad I went. I was a huge wimp and hid behind my scarf for the first 5 or so fights and then became brave enough to watch a whole fight without turning away. It was all very serious business... Each c*** was presented to the crowds in a wrestlemania type way before bets were taken and there was a bit of pre-match build up where the c*** got a couple of second of fight so punters could place their money on whoever looked most aggressive. Despite some of the horrible, horrible things that were seen during those bloody few hours, what surprised me and the other volunteers most was how good the structure of the c*** fighting ring was! Considering this is an area which was 80% destroyed in the earthquake, the ring was a perfectly constructed and a perfectly circular building made from bricks and cement with full electricity and plumbing, significantly better facilities than those in peoples homes and a much sturdier building than the houses PSF were building for families in need! Get your priorities right guys!! Anyway, lots of the volunteers came home happy after betting for the maestro's c*** who came away a winner. I made a swift exit after the 10th fight...back to my bunk bed where I tried my hardest not to have nightmares about chickens and knives.

After another amazing meal on Friday due to yet another bank holiday (we had hog roast and goats cheese pizza this time which were awwwwesome!) a group of about 30 of us headed over to Huacachina for the weekend. We chartered a 'party bus' (ie a local driver who allowed us to drink and generally get rowdy on board his private bus) to take us direct to our hostel in Huacachina which is famous for it's high and mighty sand dunes and thus a place tourists flock to go sandboarding. After we were settled in to our 30 man dorm, we took to the bar for drinks and yet another BBQ. We were lucky (?!) enough to have the local club attached to our hostel so we soon took to the dance floor (I say floor but again I'm ashamed to say more shapes were thrown on the bar than on the floor.) The club also made the mistake of giving out balloons (the long thin ones that you make balloon animals out of) which myself and another culprit (Martin Bounds) used more as weapons from our position on the bar. If you were lucky you got a simple tap on the head as you ordered your drinks but the unlucky ones (i.e. anyone who got in the way of our dancing) got a severe beating. At about 4am I took myself to bed, a bed which shook from the vibrations of the bass of the clubs music. Good job I had that 14th cocktail or I probably would have had no sleep at all...

Rising at about midday, some looking more fresh that others (Martin Bounds) we got our tan on by the pool before heading out sandboarding. About 15 of us piled into a sand buggy which then took us on a crazy (somethings too crazy- had the driver been drinking cocktails too?) ride over the dunes which can only be compared to an insane rollarcoaster ride! At times we were literally falling vertically in our buggy which felt like it had left contact with the sand but still managed to land us safely. After about a 10 minute buggy ride which also tackled going up some pretty steep dunes (at times I thought we would never see the top) we got out for our first sandboard. But before we set off down the slopes, we paused for a quite photoshoot on the dunes where something terrible happened... I broke my camera :( I was clearly getting way too involved in the creative jumping and diving shots we were trying to achieve and managed to get a whole dessert of sand behind my lens. Despite the efforts of the most practical PSF volunteers my little camera could not be saved and now mental pictures (and of course lots of posing in other peoples pictures) were the order of the day...that is until Sam arrived bearing her many pieces of audiovisual equipment! But back to the sandboarding... for those that don't know, sandboarding is basically the same as snowboarding only on sand (duh!) I thought the tour guide would start us off on easy dunes, baby ones that weren't too steep that would help us learn technique and build confidence but oh my day was I wrong. Instead we
were driven to the top of what felt like a 100m vertical drop which we were then expected to elegantly glide down. I let the others go first whilst I pulled myself together (emotionally and physically) but this turned out to be a mistake as it meant the whole group was watching as I came down, adding to my nerves and my inability to stay standing. After a while I somehow managed to slip and slide my way down to the bottom
of the dune although this was more on my bottom than my feet. My second attempt was a little more successful and by the time we reached the 4th or 5th dune I was practically a pro (hmmm...) For the last dune (the most frightening of all) I forgot about all technique and lay belly down on the board in order to slide down the dune head first. Unlike some of the braver members of the group I used my feet to decrease the pace of my ride down the dune but nevertheless I was still very impressed with my courage and gave myself a secret pat on the back. After 30 mins and several hundred attempts to get our sand buggy out of the dune we were stuck in, we made it back to the hostel for the journey back to PSF (a much more tame event than the outgoing journey!) Once back we all went our way to our separate rooms saying we were going to eat/ shower but there was only one place we all knew we were all going and that was bed, to recover from the previous nights debauchery!

Another great memory I have of that week at PSF was the auction night held the following Wednesday. Unfortunately, one of the longterm volunteers received some news that a little girl from one of the families close to PSF had fallen off the roof of a building she was playing on and had broken her back. She was in hospital nearby but needed to be transferred to a hospital in Lima, Peru's capital, for more technical operations which would cost a lot more than the family had access to. PSF therefore stepped in and organised a fundraiser! After a fish and chips supper and a raffle which saw volunteers win many sought after (!) prizes we had an auction, whereby volunteers bid on prizes offered by other volunteers. These included receiving salsa lessons from one of the local volunteers, Russian lessons, 10 PG Tips (which i did bid for but unfortunately didn't win...£60 for 10 tea bags seemed a bit excessive..) a tube of vegemite (which is highly sought after by Ozzies but instead an English guy brought and squeezed on the floor to torture his fellow volunteers) and the most bizarre... people paid for two volunteers to drink blended frogs from the crazy alternative medicine lady at the market. Altogether almost 5000 soles were raised which equates to about £1000, enough to not only pay for the girls operation but also contribute significantly to post op aftercare, rehabilitation and physiotherapy...Not bad for a bunch of skint back packers! Its amazing to see how much difference a simple fundraiser can make and in this case literally give this girl and family another chance. I'm now determined to run my own fundraisers to provide for such a worthwhile cause. Watch this space people...