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Published: December 24th 2009
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Mi casa
La cocina Arrived in Ayacucho after the two day bus journey, it was half seven and the town is already very busy. I had managed to pick up my emails in Lima while waiting for my bus change, so had a name and address for the orphanage - Av. Independencia, 600. URPI.
I decided that I was within walking distance and loaded myself up with my two packs, heading off towards Av. Independencia. I hadn´t realised the Avenue was the length of the town! Eventually I arrived at URPI where a young lad let me in and took me to an office. No one spoke any English, and while I have been practising my Spanish I had also endured a two day bus journey, so the young teacher and I opened Google translator and had a conversation that way. Much easier all round, I love Google!
Turned out that the teacher was the orphanage´s psychologist, he is called Edward, is 27 and very shy. He had no idea where I was supposed to be, who was supposed to be meeting me or what I was supposed to be doing! Eventually we found an address which was possibly where I needed to
Mi casa
La cocina go, so I loaded myself up again and this time got a taxi, back to the other side of town where I had started out. On arriving at a street called 2 de Mayo I searched for number 668, eventually finding the number chalked on a tiny hobbit sized wooden door. Rang the bell and was taken inside to a room with three metal frame cot beds and lots of Spanish for English speakers books, guessed I was in the right place. The lady who let me in spoke only Spanish and I worked out that the project manager would be in bed until midday so I was to have a shower and sleep and generally stay out of the way until 1pm.
About half an hour later there was a phone call and I was asked to take it because the person the other end was maybe speaking English. Turns out it was the second volunteer, a Japanese girl called Ai. She was in a taxi and lost, and between her, me, the lady in the house and the taxi driver we had a phone conversation which eventually got her to the right place. It turns out there
Mi casa
Mi dormitorio will only be the two of us on the project, not a bad thing as Ai speaks no Spanish and it will mean I get a lot of practice.
Anyway, we aren´t meeting the boys until tomorrow, so today we were taken for lunch and had the local speciality of cow heart casserole with rice. We then had showers, our shower is a cold tap in the wall above the toilet which someone has thoughtfully strung a shower head to. Cold or not, it was very welcome after the long bus journey! We also had a look around town, its very dusty and busy but I have a feeling it will be like Iquitos and I will warm to it, it seems very friendly and is very colourful with lots of mototaxis and there are also loads of students - there are two universities in the town.
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