Yoooooooo!! Welcome to part 5 of my blog about my fun times in Peru. This weekend has been a bit of a damp squib to be honest, with almost everything I had planned at the end of my last blog falling through; the Paracas camp-out was cancelled because we couldn't get enough people together, the dinner with Michael (the man from Aceros Arequipa) was postponed until Monday and the football match at the school football pitch we built was also put back. And the godawful bore draw in the England game also didn't help matters! I've still had a good weekend though, despite the set backs!

That Friday Feeling
On Friday I headed back to Florangel's house (the one I got put in charge of on Thursday). On the menu for Friday was more concrete mixing, again by hand due to the lack of a cement mixer. The wheelbarrow we were using on Thursday was also unavailable, meaning we had to use an old, broken one with a punctured tyre, which made an already difficult task a complete pain. The concrete was then poured into forms which we made earlier in the day in order to lay the foundations of the brickwork. The plan was to stay until lunch, then leave the rest of my (non-English!) team and go and watch the game, however by lunch we had got all of the work we needed to do done, so we all headed back. I ended up missing the first 15 minutes, which by the sound of things was no great loss! After the dullest, least awe-inspiring game of football ever, I headed back to base camp. I had signed up to do breakfast on Saturday morning so I went with Imran and Cath to go get the ingredients from the market in town. This was deceptively difficult because not only did we need to find the ingredients, but we also had to find them from a stall that would give you a reciept to take back to prove your purchases. After about an hour of shopping we headed back just in time for dinner. Later on in the evening everybody headed to the hell-hole that is Timberland for some drinks and music. After a few hours there most of us got a tuk-tuk into town. We went to the "Pisco sour Bar". Not sure if that's its real name but they do an awesome Pisco Sour cocktail there! This place was also kind of cool because they give 10% of the money they make off us back to Pisco Sin Fronteras. After a couple of Pisco sours we then headed to Afro-cafe, another bar in town, then after a bit of dancing and another drink I headed back.

One Dissapointment After Another!!
On Saturday morning I was rudely awaken at 6am by Cath. Oh yeah, I had signed up to do breakfast!! That was a bad idea! Feeling a little queasy I chopped up some vegetables and cracked som eggs for our "huevos rancheros" which was basically scrambled egg with onions and tomatoes. Since my house project wasn't on, and still feeling worse for wear I signed up to clean the house. However after an hour of work I was ready to collapse, so I sneaked out to have a little nap. I got a strange sense of deja vu when I was again rudely woken by Cath, this time to go to Michael's house for dinner. After a hectic tuk-tuk drive, with the driver seemingly oblivious to the house numbers in the area, then after about five minutes of searching we finally found the house, only to be greeted by Michael's wife who said that he had been called away and that we would have to reschedule for Monday. Feeling dissapointed and hungry, we headed to a restaurant after dropping off the cake at the house. After a good meal I headed back to the house to meet up with everyone for the football game at the school, only to be informed that that too had been postponed until next week. Undeterred, we hopped in the truck and booked an hour at our regular football venue playing against each other.

Toga! Toga! Toga!
When I got back from football I had a few drinks, then headed over to the old school house, a hostel when many of the volunteers stay. There was supposed to be a toga party there, but when I arrived nobody had made the effort!! Nevertheless as the party got going more and more people turned up in togas. Feeling pretty left out I finally succumbed to peer pressure and donned my blue patterned bed sheet and clipped it together with a safety pin. It was a poor design and it kept trying to come undone, so I changed back out of it later in the night. With the party winding down I headed back to bed for some much needed rest.

On Sunday Morning I woke up to find a load of work going on in the house. They were working on a project called "Extreme Makeover Home Edition: Pisco" where we are building a modular home for a woman who has gone away for five days. So with that going on outside and me feeling a little worse for wear I sneaked away to my room to listen to some music for most of the day. There was talk of going to the circus in the evening which I was told was amazingly bad, but apparently it wasn't on, so I spent the rest of the night watching some of the others play risk (maybe the most depressing night so far!!).
Also Happy Father's Day dad!! Annoyingly the internet cafe was closed and the gas station internet wasn't working on Sunday so I couldn't send an email!!

Back to the Grind!
After my lazy weekend I was ready to get stuck in again on Monday. It was business as usual at Florangel's house, however today we had the use of a cement mixer, which cut down our work immensely! We spent the morning moving bricks into the house, since the mixer wasn't working and Ed, the driver needed to fetch a tool to fix it. After lunch we set about cement pouring. What was a four hour job by hand took us a mere 45 minutes with the mixer, however when we tried to phone the office to get them to come pick us up, they weren't answering so I had to get a tuk-tuk back to the house and fetch Ed. This ate up a good hour that we saved using the mixer!! Nevertheless we got the mixer back safe and sound and I had an hour to help finish off work on a dog house for the Extreme Makeover house.

And that bring me up to now!! Gotta dash because I've got my team leader's meeting in 20 minutes!! Will do another blog in a few day/ a week depending on how busy I am!! Again no pictures, I promise I'll put some up next time! Hasta luego!!

Tom x