Back to basics.

Went horseriding today on a black frisky horse that would not stop making the most awful gas noises you have ever heard! Road through the country side and past some springs. It was amazing to see how everyone lives and how self sufficient they are. Looking at children that sit on the side of the road and play with pebbles, others with plastic bottles....and they seem so content. Corn being hung and dried in rows, or hanging from a washing line. People making their own mud bricks to extend their homes. Loads of cows, pigs and piglets, and of course my little chickens. I so do want chickens one day! I sometimes think we have missed the boat and need to go back to basics. Realise that pebbles and bottles, mud and corn are there for a reason. We almost need to learn how to live again. We then went to the hot springs, and had a bath, an actual bath in warm water. You have a little room to yourself and fill it up with water. I do miss having baths. It is amazing how tired a bath makes you feel. That must be the reason for me always wanting to go to bed before ten!

Practical Thinking

Am exhausted. Slept in the centre alone last night, (Sharon was sleeping out) and after a very late night was awoken by massive rattling from the kitchen. Someone was trying to get in, and I did think that my last living moment would be amoungst a pile of unwanted clothes! After much rattling, I heard movement towards my window and saw a shadow peering through, decided to lie very still and not make a sound. Did wish I had a knife under my pillow, but all knives had been sold the day before. Thought about reaching for my hairdressing scissors....but my clothes were all over the place, and the last thing I would be able to find in a stuffed backpack would be scissors. Have now placed scissors at the top of my backpack for quick stabbing if needed. Anyway, after about an hour of someone pacing backwards and forwards from the door to the window, they left. By then it was already 2:30am and there was no way I was going back to sleep. No way! I remember telling God that this was not the place for me to go and that no one would know, or even realise I was missing, but then thought about it and decided if it was meant to be then it was! Felt like coming straight home, but then realised I have no home, and it is too cold for a tent. So decided to get up, and brave the world. Leave on a bus for Lima tonight, and then many more to get to Bolivia. Am quite glad to be surrounded by many people, even if they do snore!

New Place

Have found great place for Chocolate Cake! Very happy, have decided that life is okay as long as you have chocolate cake. Can now understand why my mother was always baking one! More so, why we had it for breakfast. What a great way to start the day!

Days in Huaraz

I brought the sunshine with me! Have decided that when I wake up, so does the sun. Am very proud of my obvious gifting, which only lasts till lunch time and then it buckets down! Yesterday, Sharon and I spent the day packing, moving and sorting. The centre here is closing down, and everything had to be moved back to Trujillo. I am still amazed at how quick it went. Get up in the morning, call big moving truck, chuck things in boxes. Truck arrives, takes down beds, writes numbers on all objects and then leaves! All in a days notice!
Have been walking up a mountain, not so big this time, not sure I am able or brave enough. The later being far more relevant! This place is great though, for anyone who loves hiking, camping, trekking, rock climbing, ice climbing, snow boarding, rafting, horse riding....and the list goes on. Tomorrow we are going horse riding in this amazing, green, lush place called Maraca. Then in the evening we leave for Bolivia, two days on a bus...but a very nice one. Am getting earplugs to avoid any snores and screams.

Bus Journey

The bus is far beyond anyones imagination.....for Peru...the seats are devine, and sleeping on them is no prob! EXCEPT.... After a very sad goodbye to everyone, and my little world, I got onto a bus full of men. Only three women, excluding the hostess. The man sitting next to me was lovely and I knew his whole story before even leaving Trujillo. Watched a dodgy movie, had a bit of food, and then lights out. Yippee, best part, to sleep, and not be able to do anything else! I was just entering my little Conny dream, when the biggest, loudest snore you have ever heard came from behind me! Really the loudest....everyone kept turning round, someone muttered a few incomprehensible words in Spanish, and someone shook his chair....back to quiet. Bus settles, then a baby starts to scream, for an hour straight.....baby finally settles.....yes, snoring man starts again. Well the pattern really continued for about six hours. When I finally did fall asleep, man next to me, who is fast fast asleep, allows his arm to flop onto me, with dead weight and sound of it all, I woke up screaming and in turn woke up whole bus. All in all, bus ride was not the most peaceful. But something to talk about.

Leaving

Tonight I leave this little place! Can´t believe it really is happening, to think I might never see this place again or the people. I just cannot for now understand how and why.

Have managed to pack my bag, and somehow seems like less than when I came. (Have lost a few things on the way). Am looking forward to the moutains again and just chilling out in a few odd places. Hopefully I won´t be as affected by the altitude! Will wait and see.

Golden Locks

A moment of absolute madness, boredom and what I can only explain as a ´conny moment´! Yes it was a Sunday, and that obviously explains so much more. Everyone had a go at hacking away, absolutely loving their moment in a hairdressers world. Keep putting my hand behind my back while I wait to cross a road, and there isn´t any hair to play with anymore....But my new moto is....no regrets, they are a waste of time! Gosh the wisdom of sayings just seems to be flowing. I feel much better now that the old is away with the old! So moment of madness has worked for now.

Thank you for all your messages, I love reading them!

In Spanish!

Trying to sort out where to go and when is proving to be the hardest thing ever! And with my awful sense of direction and time scale it just is not worth thinking about. Some of you might find this kind of stress difficult to understand, but others who have had me lost and crying won´t! I keep picking up that guide book...but it all is far to much information. I did however manage to phone a bus company and ask for all the details in Spanish. The most amazing thing was....I understood most of it! Feel slight achievement of the spanish language! Hopefully I will be crossing a border of some sort, and hopefully I will get there before my visa runs out!

Swarming through

Went looking for children yesterday in the community where my school is. Nuevo Jerusalem, which is mainly sand dunes, and more sand dunes, with lots of dogs, fleas and other insects I don´t want to know about! We got to one house, and had to walk through a swarm of flies. Now I really don´t mean a little swarm, I mean thousands and thousands, and there was no other way but through it. Similar to the bear hunt story...we can´t go over it, we can´t go under it....oh no, we have to go through it! It definitely could have been a reality TV show moment of fear factors. The worse part was the horrible sound they made. ugh! just horrible. BUT I closed my mouth and my eyes, well kind of as I still had to see where I was going, and stopped breathing for a minute. Yes, I went through it. When there is no choice you just do it don´t you! Can feel another saying coming on. This must be the month of sayings.

My little world

Choice is change and change is choice....my new saying for the day!

I cannot believe that I leave in a week! I have become so settled being here, and know shop owners by name! My days usually start with a ballet class at the end of my road. Collecting fruit from the shop on the way home. Going to school most mornings, apart from the last week where we have been looking for children. Then a little nap in the afternoons before teaching English in the evenings.

Weekends are usually at the beach, or wandering around the Plaza de Armas, chatting to the most random of people, and occasionally buying food for the ones who are sleeping on the street. Sometimes watching a film at the local cinema, pot luck to whether it will be in Spanish or in English with Spanish sub titles.... On Sundays I go to a little corner shop to buy water, oreos and a phonecard, each week the same. Amazing how in the madness of it all, there are things that are so familiar.

I love the little coffee shop that has the best chocolate cake in town. The book shop that sells second magazines and books. The Internet cafe that now gives me 15 minutes extra on my time, and saves my stuff on their computers. The man on the corner who always stops a taxi for me and opens the door. The post office lady, that knows what I want before I ask. The friends I have made and see during the week for a bit of Spanglish in return. The church I go to, where most words are not know, but now end up staying for an hour chatting....

In just three months I have this world. This place that I call home for now, and in a week it will end. I have realised how lucky I am to have been part of this world. To discover the little shops, places and people that have affected me and helped me survive.

To live in a place is to discover, to visit a place is to see.

shoestring budget

I have finally learnt how to save lots and lots and lots of money! The other day I asked for the menu, and due to me not really being able to speak in Spanish, instead in Spanglish, which is English with a Spanish flare or vice verca. I got an option of three local dishes, including starters, main and a free juice! The real word for menu is La Carta, and that has the "to be prepared" food, which is also three times the price! So my mistake was great! Obviously you can get very ill from the "menu", as you have no idea to how long it has been standing there....but my shoestring budget is obviously protecting me from many aliments!
So I thought I would share my knowledge last night, and went to a great restaurant...asked for the "menu" and guess what! It worked! Kept feeling air on my legs, finally looked under the table expecting to see something.....Under the table was the biggest, fattest, whitest, fluffiest rabbit you have ever seen. Legs stretched out and having a great snooze! She (like to think of all lovely animals as girls .....) eventually moved under my chair, only to make herself comfie and go back to sleep. Have decided that instead of just having chickens and ducks in my tent garden, I now want rabbits as well! Am also contemplating the idea of having a cow, but must research and see how one pasteurises milk, and whether goats milk is healthier! Bless the person who lets me have a tent garden!

Why is a banana crooked and not straight?

A week of sorting, cleaning, planning and deciding who goes where and why. I feel like I am back in school, planning English lessons, school lessons and my life! Things sometimes don´t change. We have been looking for new children this week, children that are obviously not going to school, instead working in the streets, selling sweets or chewing gum. Each night there are the usual faces, and some I even know by name. They are aged between 4 and 8, sometimes with a baby sister or brother toddling beside them! These babes are usually only allowed to go home at 11pm (when the shops close) or until they have sold all. For some of us, this might seem mad, allowing a four year old to go on their own into a busy street and sell goods until 11. Can you imagine the uproar, if they were left for a minute!

Then there is also the old lady that always sits in the same place all day, but cannot be bother to get up, so wees or poos in a plastic bag beside her! Amazing the things you see. It´s sad how self respect goes so quickly. Sometimes I think the world is so cruel and that God is so unfair, I don´t understand why we all have such different lives, and I can´t comprehend why we do. Is it really just luck, fate, to where you are born, who you are born to, or is each birth planned as the perfect place for that person.