Alright, here I am! Back in my spiritual home of Pisco, the new Financial Manager of Pisco Sin Fronteras!! The moment that I have quite literally been dreaming of for the last two years has finally arrived. So here we go. For those who haven't read my blog before, basically it isn't really a blog, more of an online diary for me to look back on one day and for my parents to get off my back a bit about what I'm up to!!

2nd May 2012

London Calling

My arduous trip from York to Pisco started on Wednesday afternoon, when I said goodbye to my Mum and Aunt who had taken me to the station, where I got on a bus down to London. After a quick stop off in Leeds I completed the 6 hour trip and headed towards my mate Sam's house on the underground. He came to meet me at his stop and we went back to his, where we had a quiet night watching the apprentice (very good STRATEGY!). I kipped on his sofa bed and was well rested next morning.

On Thursday morn, having say goodbye to Sam, I went on a quick mission to find some power tools and some kinder Buenos that Gabby, the Volunteer coordinator asked for by email. I couldn't find the specific tools she was looking for, but bought a couple of Kinder Buenos at extortionate London prices! After that, I headed for the airport by underground and got on the plane to Madrid, my second port of call!!

3rd May 2012

The Rain in Spain (Doesn't Just) Fall on the Plains!

Ok pretty boring stuff so far right? Well, Madrid was where I started to have some fun. I got to my hostel at about 9pm in the rain, where I was told there was an awesome party across the street for all the local hostel-goers. So, after dropping off my stuff and saying hi to my roommate for the night, Marcelo, I headed out to the fabled party! After finding it, I was a little disappointed by the fact that there were only about five people occupying the basement bar! There was a DJ, a photographer, a portrait painter etc, all ingredients for a good party, but alas only a handful of people. But what people!!! That night I met some really awesome people including Virgil, an American former market trader, Jacqueline a Canadian woman working for a travel website and Robert. The amazing thing about Robert was the remarkable way his life mirrored mine; A North Yorkshire lad (Robin Hood's bay in his case) who had always done well at school, who then went to Uni in the North West (Liverpool for him) but had since been stuck in a bit of a rut, working in a pub!! Needless to say we talked for a good hour or so, before a handful more people came in and we had the semblance of a party. After a bit of dancing and some more drinking, I met a few other guys from America and we started a few drinking games before being ushered out to start a pub crawl. I made it a couple of pubs in before I went back, ready for bed in my drunken state.

4th May 2012

Jet Setter

The next morning I had a minor heart attack when I realized I had both slightly overslept and had also misplaced my bag! Of course drunken Tom had just taken it out and left it in the hall (that guy's a complete idiot!), so after getting my stuff together, I dashed off, with about 3 hours until my flight. After another quick subway ride I made it through check in with about an hour and a bit until my flight. After a pretty brutal, sleepless 11 hour flight I finally made it into Lima. After been taken for a ride (in more ways than one; 25 soles for taxi- just saying!!), I made it to my hostel in Lima. There I met another set of cool guys, this time a group of Israelis, who took me to a sandwich place, which was apparently quite famous in the area! After getting an admittedly pretty awesome sandwich, I headed back to the hostel where some festivities were getting underway, including a few rounds of flip cup, table football and pool. At about 2 am, having been awake for now 24 hours, given the time difference, I finally hit the hay.

5th May 2012

The Prodigal Son Returns

The next morning I got up pretty early, eager to make it to PSF before sundown. After having a quick walk around Lima, I got in a taxi, then a coach and headed to Pisco!

After the five hour drive I finally, after a good three days of trains and planes and automobiles, made it to PSF, where I was greeted by Happy, the Community Support Manager, who gave me a quick tour of the much changed PSF site. The bio-diesel area was bigger, tarps were hanging above the yard, giving much needed shade and perhaps most importantly of all, they had gotten a new cat, Sphinx!!! I was also informed of a party going on that night, to raise funds for a new concrete roof for a modular house. After spending a couple of hours meeting and greeting both new and a few old, familiar volunteers, The party got in full swing, with fairground like games, such as rope a dope (bit like tug of war), Cream me, blow me (where you had to race to find a bit of bubble gum in a plate of whipped cream and successfully blow a bubble!) and a sock wrestling tournament (where two people each wearing one sock had to take the opponent's sock off!). Afterwards there was a talent contest, which included a pretty impressive rap, some magic tricks and a dance troup, after which I headed to bed feeling exhausted from the weeks festivities!

6th May 2012

Son of a Beach

Sunday was a lot more chilled, as I spent the afternoon just watching some DVDs, before heading down to the beach to play a bit of Frisbee with Sandy and Laura, a couple of volunteers I had met the day before. After Sandy and a couple of others went for a quick swim, against my warnings (regular readers of my blog will remember the story of Kate and the killer stingray on this particular beach!!), we headed back, then went to a restaurant to get some chicken.

After watching another DVD, I went back to bed.

7th May

How Does an Accountant Relieve Constipation (He Works it out with a Pencil)

Right then finally on to some work!! I woke up early on Monday, eager to get stuck into some finances. After breakfast, we had the morning meeting, where I and the other new volunteers had to introduce ourselves and say our favorite pun. Mine was "I love puns, in fact I entered a pun telling contest, writing ten puns. I wanted one to win, but unfortunately, no pun in ten did!"

After that abomination, I got taken to the office, where Keith, the previous Financial Manager, took me through the current computer systems. This included a spreadsheet with all the incoming donations and outgoing bills and receipts, a simple accounting program, where these were then allocated to the relevant project or fund, and the monthly report sheet where all this data was collated at the end of each month. After then showing me the other things such at the receipts cupboard and answering the many questions I had, he left me to it. After inputting the few receipts and volunteers contributions I had gotten that morning, I started clearing up my area, which was a complete mess, with everything from receipts from a year ago, to bits of a guitar and, my favourite, a giant novelty pencil. That took over most of my morning and some of my afternoon, after which I started to play around with the software, trying to fix a few things that were bugging me about the spreadsheets. At five o'clock, when people were starting to come back from work, I set up my money box and ledger outside to get people to pay their contributions. After an hour or so of intermittently doing that and taking in fresh receipts from the days work and logging them on the computer, I got dinner. After bullying a handful more people in giving me their lunch money (or contributions as we call it!!) I headed to my room to start writing the first of many blog posts!!! And that's where I am now!! As you can tell from the length of this post, it's been one hell of a week!! Really looking forward to the rest of my time here now! My Financial Manager Responsibilities shouldn't keep me busy all week, so I may well get myself on some projects later on in the week!! Will upload some photos soon. Ciao for now!!