Well hello there and welcome to part 12 of my blog, will try and keep this blog short as I've finally had a comparatively quiet week! JUst passed the half way mark on the trip, but I'm already dreading having to go home.

Ouch!!
So I left you last blog on tuesday with Isabel's room put on hold. After dodging work for the rest of the day, and after eating dinner we went for our weekly game of football with the locals, however there was a blackout, so the pitch was not floodlit in the pitch black!! After realising there was another pitch nearby (but with no ball), I started to jog back to the house to fetch our ball. However a few steps in I stumbled on the bumpy, dark road and twisted my ankle!! After hobbling back I (wrongly) decided that I was ok to continue and walk to the other pitch. After 10 minutes or so of playing in goal I realised that my ankle was really swollen so I decided to stop. After hobbling some more back to the house I got my ankle seen to by Kate, who is luckily a medical student!! A quick bandaging and an ice-packing later, I headed to bed to rest for a while, but feeling tired and in pain, I just crashed for the night.

Fiesta!!!!
Wednesday was one of two Independence Days in Peru, the other being the following day (long story!), so we had the day off. This was handy as a lie in was definitely necessary! I spent the morning walking around the market with a few others getting breakfast, then after eventually eating at 12.30 or so, we sat around playing some games before we started a rather premature fire to sit around. Later in the night we got another music night going, with Sandy, a newish Scottish guy substituting in for the absent Ben as the music maestro!! Shortly after I headed to bed.

Thursday was day two of Independence day, so after a Wewdnesday spent doing nothing Peruvian at all, we resolved to go to a school where we had helped out before and join their celebrations. This involved eating some tasty carapulcra (kind of spaghetti with a tomato and potato sauce and chicken), drinking a bottle of Pisco between all of us and watching their "Parade" which consisted of a dozen or so cute 5-year olds dressed up as Peruvian historical figures and being introduced by the teacher. This lasted about 20 minutes, after which the celebrations ended. We stayed behind for a bit to talk to some of the teachers and dance a bit to the music before heading back to PSF.
When I got back to PSF, Anton, Yani and Emily, a rare breed of volunteers who have been at PSF as long as I have, were heading over to the old school house for some darts and a DVD, so I decided to tag along. After half an hour trying to explain the british facination with darts to the Australians and Canadian, we headed up to Yani and Emily's room to watch Inglorious Basterds. After this I headed back to the main house where I met up with Kate and her friends who were making cheese toasties for tea. I had one to go with the bread and cheese I had left over. We later headed back to the School house in a big group to watch Toy Story 3, Which I had seen a couple of weeks ago, but decided t tag along for the ride. After a while of sitting by the fire afterwards, I headed to bed.

On Friday I was eager to get back into some proper hard work, so I was excited when I was called up to run the cement mixer at Blanca's house. For this house we were required to pour a cement floor for one of the bedrooms. This would have been extremely difficult if it wasn't for Paul, an older Scottish guy, who is a builder by trade and made the awkward floor look easy!! We were using two types of cement, with two different colours, so the floor looked a bit weird, but nevertheless it was nicely done! After we had finished Blanca got us all a bottle of sparkling wine to share, which was really nice of her!! I had signed up to do breakfast on Saturday morning, so Kate, Tom and I headed to the supermarket to get supplies before coming back late to cold dinners. I was planning for a nice early night, but when I heard it was a few people's last night I joined in with a few drinking games, which I was road-testing for our weekend in Huacachina!! After a few hours of drinking I finally headed to bed.

When Saturday morning came around I was gutted to remember that I had signed up for breakfast, so I dutifully got up at 6.30 to start breakfast. We made eggy bread as well as fruit salad, which seemed to go down really well. Still feeling queasy, I signed up to clean the house. This meant spending a couple of hours washing the windows, before nipping out early to pack for huacachina.

Huacachina Baby!!!! (Part 3)
Having been to Huacachina twice before, I had designated myself the "Wacky Captain" for a trip to the oasis where I was in charge of booking the hostels, making sure everyone got there okay and most importantly that Juanita, our Huacachina mascot (a plastic cow) was brought and taken care of. After getting the bus down there and settling in at our hostel, and after I had dropped the bottle of rum that I had brought on the concrete floor, we went to get dinner at the local pub. I shared a huge pizza (which I hadn't had in the two months I had been here!) with Sarah and a few others. We then headed back to the hostel's bar/nightclub to play a few drinking games. After an hour or so of heavy drinking, I rallied the troops to go and climb the sand dune. About 15 people set off up the punishing ascent, but only a half-dozen of us actually made it to the very top to enjoy the awesome view and even more awesome sense of accomplishment!! I had also managed to carry Juanita up the dune to enjoy the view with!! After a couple of drinks at the top, we headed back down the dune, just in time to watch Sarah vomit everywhere!! We headed back inside at which point a pretty lame "singer" was clearly lip-synching to some songs, so after he had finished we hit the dance-floor. After a bit of raunchy dancing with Juanita, I started feeling both the effects of the alcohol and the freezing Peruvian winter nights and went to curl up in bed at a ridiculously early time.

Lazing on a Sunny afternoon
On Sunday, still feeling really worse for wear I went for a sunbathe by the pool, until Carolina (the woman who helped to start Pisco Sin Fronteras) and her friends started splashing me to get me to come swim in the pool, so I reluctantly complied! After an afternoon dealing with an upset stomach and with my ankle still a little sore I declined to do sandboarding and had a little nap in front of the pool before gathering some people together to go to Ica to get food. I shared another bucket of KFC with a few others before heading back to Pisco and shortly after falling asleep.

On Monday I mustered the energy to do another cement pour, only for yet again the project to fall through. With little work to do around the house I took the morning off to try and hone my Spanish skills, which had been kind of lain to rot over the last few weeks. Later in the afternoon I found a bit of work to do helping to move and cut some metal strips to be used in the construction of the roof of the new dorm. Monday was Pete's birthday, who is one of the oldest, longest serving and best loved volunteers at PSF. It was also Sarah's last night, which was really sad as she has been one of my best friends at PSF. This prompted the usual trip to the Pisco Sour Bar, where we had a few drinks on the roof and some general good times reminicing with Sarah about our last two months which prompted a few waterworks from Sarah!! We stayed pretty late before finally heading back to the house.

Having felt a close connection to the roof team in the half an hour or so I was working on the roof I decided to return to construct the metal beams for the roof on Tuesday with Jarri and Ben, who had returned the night before. This was a bit more uneventful than I had anticipated and so I spent the majority of the day watching the maestros working in between intermittently doing bits of odd work that needed doing. The team went for dinner along with Sarah and Lise-anne another girl who was leaving for Macchu Picchu tomorrow. When we got back it was more of the same before we finished at about 4. On the evening I went to the Selection criteria meeting, where we discussed ideas to improve the selection process for new projects.

And that brings us neatly to now!! Like I say, it has been a pretty lothargic week or so, so sorry for the lack of drama and tales of adventure!! As always I'm still having fun, in spite of twisted ankles, upset stomachs etc..

Tom x