After Salt Tour, I needed a day or 2 to get over my altitude sickness so we spent a couple of days in Uyuni, there really isn't anything here and I think we have broken the world record for staying the 2 nights. Our plan was to wait for George and Hannah to get here with Aaron's Ipod and they arrived on the Saturday we are now officially their new stalkers after sneakily planting our ipod on them to make friends with them; how lame our we? We had been thinking about doing some volunteering with them in a school, so when we met up with then they told us the plan was to make the trip to Villa Tunari that very night, it was going to take around 20 hours and there was no direct bus, so we decided it was safer the more of us so we tagged along with them.20 hours and 3 buses later, the last one being the coldest journey I have ever had the joy of taking, we arrived at the small village which was Villa Tunari the town is right bang in the middle of Cocaine growing region (there was a check point outside the place we stayed), we showered then went straight out to dinner with the other volunteers. They filled us in on all the gossip, the director of this foundation had been arrested and was awaiting trial for having a couple of 12 year old girlfriends, since this all happened it has been volunteers and staff (not getting paid due to all the funding being cut off from the catholic church) keeping the program alive. Children had been left at home all day long while their parents went to work, and were talking from 6am until 9pm some days, and kids between the ages of 2-5, with not much food or water and certainly no medical attention. So the foundation was set up guaranteeing that they get picked up every morning, and are given breakfast, dinner and a snack, all the medical attention and dentistry they need. This alone made the child mortality rate drop from 50% to 3%, how amazing is that. The foundation desperately needs funding, and to top it off there is an animal sanctuary next door, which is listed in the lonely planet and has a waiting list to get in…the foundation isn't listed and has no waiting list so they are living hand to mouth. The cooks and teachers are working for free at the minute, they received a token payment when we paid our fees for the week, but haven't been paid since November 2007. We also found out that the day before there had been a public hanging of a guy who had raped a girl, villagers took the law into their own hands, so god help the director if he doesn't go to jail!We met the children the very next day, all we needed to do was hand out breakfast, which was normally bread and a warm drink and then be in the class room to help out the teacher. Lunchtime was fun, it was all hands on deck with nearly a 100 mouths to feed. The children were in some dyer need of medical attention, mostly had coughs and conjunctivitis, most of them were well behaved but the naughty ones stood out like a sore thumb from the beginning, its wrong i know but we all had our favourites even Rob a British Army trained killer melted by the end of the week.The volunteers had set up a fun day for them, a whole day without lessons and lots of treats for them, we all sat up making medals out of cut out circles of cardboard and filling up balloons with air and water, we set up football goals and a basket ball hoop as they had nothing to play with in their breaks. The sports day was fun and was the first day we saw George, as he had been ill off the meal from the first night with it coming out of all orifices, its was such a fun day, very hot but the water fight at the end cooled us off!We were here for a week, and Friday the kiddies were off for a holiday Semana Santa so most of us went to the other school which was smaller and in the middle of the jungle where they need a water tank, so they started the preps for this and we went to jolly up the playground with some head down arse up shovel work and heartbeat paintwork, it was amazing how much difference a little paint and sand can make to the expression on a child's face. We had such a great week, feeling like we were doing something to make a difference, and met some really great people all that was needed was Carole Smilie to do the big unveiling.In the evenings we either headed into the village for a few beers, played 5 a side or played with the 2 little girls who lived where the volunteers stayed, Myda and Iraida, these were gorgeous little girls, so patient with us with our stupid Spanish! and taught us more than the Spanish Classes in Mendoza.We were sad to leave it felt like home, but needed to get the word out for more volunteers!Love Miles and Jones X