Cuenca, Cuenca, Cuenca.

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Well, have now nearly been here for three weeks, so thought I should prob let you know how its all going as this will be my home for 4 more months!

Basically my family is amazing. Me and Kat are living here are having a fab time. Although I don´t actually understand a word my dad says..but Sonia and Juan Pablo are very understanding and its all good! We´re picking up the lingo fast, including coloquial stuff, like chévre, which is my new favourite word! They use it a lot here! Also, no one pronounces ´g´ which is bizzare...also me and Kat are rubbing off on each other, I am losing my Sheff accent (noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo) and Kat keeps sayin ´bonkers´and ´wicked´- much to my amusement! The house we live in is fantastic, we have a maid who does way way way too much, and is majorly pregnant...not fair at all. Especially as I don´t think our mum works and the house is huge. We have 3 living rooms!! Will try and put some photo´s up soon, as I have realised me an Kat can share the link cable she has! Yay! The other great thing about living here is that we eat SO well! Brekkie in morn is prepered by me and Kat and usually consists of milky coffee and OJ, but lunch is amazing, there is always way too much too! Soup for starters, usually with popcorn in it - don´t knowck it till you´ve tried it! Chicken, Steak, Fish - everything! Plus rice, potatoes and salad followed by pudding! Awesome. We normally have coffee and bread when we come in from school too. Kat hates it as she doesn´t eat very much at all and is complaining of putting on weight, but i´m actually losing weight which is awesome!! Lol.

Ok, i´ll try and go through what we´ve done since we got here...bear with me, this could be a long one!!

Ok, so on our 1st full day, we went to visit the placements that we´re working in. I seem to have got some really good placements, the disabled school looks really hard work, but all the teachers are lovely and I think it will be really rewarding, they really need us too which is good as Matt and Sophie aren´t really needed at their private school. The orphanage I work at in the afternoon´s is lovely, the nuns are all really sweet and they definately need our help (more so than Adinea - the disabled school) but its in an old hotel and the facilities are really nice, although it doesn´t cope so well with the rain and we´ve had to endure some very cramped and difficult days sorting the roof out. The kids are all fantastic, they are all very happy generally and are treated very well. I hope that I won´t want to bring them all home. The two Sophies are working at another orphanage in the afternoons which looks really tough, they have older kids and adults even that have learning and physical disabilities. I hope that they´ll be ok because it seems like a very emotionally draining placement. Matts street project looks good though, and he is definately needed there too. I´ve not seen either of Jacks placements but his afternoon one (in the conservatorio) seems to be like a bunch of kids trying to play violin and sounding like they are injuring cats...good times. Bel got the best school I think, its right up in the mountains and the kids are so lovely, and the teachers really want her to be there, I think she´ll really enjoy it. So far I love my placements despite them being quite tough, they are fun and very rewarding. It makes you realise the real reason why were out here, and to actually be making a difference is great.

On Friday we all met up in the centre of Cuenca for a bit of exploring, found a nice little cafe and ha some brekkie! We went to the main square and found the cathedrals - Cuenca has two - the only city in Latin America to do so. (I learnt something too) And we went to a museum, whcih was amazing, the had an art exhibition of photo´s taken by a Cuencan (a person form Cuenca?!) from all over South America - really beautiful, definately worth a visit when in Cuenca. We walked home after that because we live very close to the centre, very useful as some of the others are miles away.

We had a very civilised Friday night, there was a concert in the centre of town opposite the old Cathedral, all Bach, by the Cuenca Symphonie Orchestra which was really lovely. Then we went to a little italian round the corner and had a glass of some very lovely local red wine (its not poison that we were promised!) and went home at the respectable hour of 11:30. Lovely. Matt took our taxi with us, so we know we´ll always get home ok, having a male companion is definately a detterant for the incessent honking you get when you walk down the street here! Although that is the only main problem, in terms of safety we´ve had a few hiccups, including me getting my purse nicked and a few other little things, but I think it´s just made us all more aware of what we do.

On the Saturday (10th) we went on a day trip with the family to meet everyone, thier family is huge!! Just with Paul´s Parents, brothers and sisters, they´re wives and their kids there were 28 of us! The house was amazing though, views like you wouldn´t believe. They had their own pool, tennis court, separate maids house and two actually houses...oh and they all ride around on dirt bikes! Mental. Shows the horribly unfair divide of money here though. Which is becoming more and more apparent the more time I spend here. We passed through Guyaquil last weekend (i´ll get to that later) and the houses were just tin huts by the side of the road. Poverty like i´ve never seen anywhere else.

Ok, i´ll skip the ins and outs of the week, but my general conclusion was that I would prefer to work all day in the orphanage. While I love the disabled school, my class and the kids, they need help so much more at the orphanage. Without volunteers the place would fall apart. Nevertheless, I enjoy Adinea and can´t swap to the orphanage full time I don´t think as there are american volunteers there as well. My class at Adinea is a very lively one...I only have 6 kids but with the amount of mess, noise and chaos they bring with them you would think it was more like 70..interestingly, i´m also teaching spanish not english as most of the kids can´t count to ten in spanish. Patience is an absolute necessity, and its improving my spanish ten fold. Very rewarding though. At the orpahange, I work in ´cunes´which is ´cots´ and the oldest child, Alexandra is nearly two. We also have three babies, all who are 3 months. The law about adoption here is very strange. You can´t adopt any child before the age of two here and four for international adoptions. Seems ridiculous to me as the kids that are there for that long are always going to have been institutionlised in some way. The older kids live in ´casas´ or houses, but they are very small and the kids are confined to cages when they play. All quite hard to take in in the first week.

For a bit of r´n´r at the weekend we went to Injapirca, some Inca ruins north of Cuenca. We lost Bel along the way though, but she managed to get the last bus from Cañar! It was freezing in Injapirca!! We got a well basic hostal for the night, but they gave us some awesome chicken and it was $5 dollers a night which you can´t complain at! We all had to snuggle in one bed for a while to warm up...that is after we smashed one of the beds in the room and had to do a crystal maze stylee fixxy up! Amazed Bel slept on the damn thing! The Inca ruins were...well ruins but there were some lovely views so it was worth it in the end! Couple of hours back and then a bit of internet and shopping in the afternoon. Was a much needed break after an emotional week.

At the beginging of the next week, I got my purse nicked, so Mon and Tues nights were spent trying to sort that out. Thanks to my lovely Mum, its now all fine and a lot easier to sort than first anticipated. Mainly because a man rang up and gave me my cards (some already cancelled mind!) back to us as my address was in my purse - very lucky!

Wednesday night was good. Wed is our going out now! Jack was in Cañar for a concert that he was playing in through one of his placements but came out after. We were all a bit tired though so didn´t really do alot! Thursday was better as we went to a free concert after running from our house! It was amazing - really fantastic. Lots of frenchie music and drumming and rhythmy ness. It was amazing. Went for a sneaky drink after and toddled off home.

On Friday we managed somehow to get the day off school, and we were silly enough to decide we wanted to go to a beach...Montiñita. Unfortuntely maps are very small and it looks a lot closer than it is! Met at 9am at the bus terminal and erm...after a short hour and a half stop in Guyaquil we arrived at Montiñita at 8pm..! Really beautiful though. We got a awesome hostal spot on the beach and then had some lovely food, a drink and a nice beach walk! Lovely jubbly. Saturday was beach day and after a well deserved lie in we went a got some tasty breakfast and then headed off to the beach for a very relaxing day of sun, sea, sand, hackies, juggling and well tattoos and beer! Lol. (Tattoos are not permanent, don´t worry i´m not that crazy) Really fantastic day. A bit rosy afterwards, but nothing too bad!! Had some crazily good fish for tea and then went and played some pool with a very cute cat! Jack and Kat got sun stroke, completely lost it and went home..very strange. Too much sun is a dangerous thing. So after we went home to our little hostal, we did some serious chilling in the hammocks and slowly peeled off to bed. Me, Sophie and Matt went for a little beach wander and then sat up until 3 setting the world to rights. Exactly how it should be done - on a hammock facing the biggest water mass in the world by starlight. Perfect. Sunday was also very chilled, but we left Montaiñita at 1 and got back at 9. Straight to bed! Fantastic weekend, will definately be repeated soon me thinks! Well worth the 17 hours on a bus to get there! Which sounds awful, but I actually love our bus journeys and 5 hours now feels like nothing after the Quito trek!

Nothing exciting happened on Mon or Tues so I won´t bother, except we have started salsa lessons on a Tuesday night which is excitamundo. Last night (Wed) was fun times! Was a little confusing to begin with as Matt´s phone isn´t working and no body called me to tell me where and when we were going anywhere as the girlies had gone to see Jesus Christ Superstar, unfortunately there were no tickets for me...phew. Anyway, I took a chance and managed to find Matt on his own in a bar until Jack got there! Had some very very tasy Mojito´s an some pool...which I suck at, still comedy times! Then went to meet the others at a regular bar of some of Sophies sister here´s mates (if that makes any sense!) Lots of very tasty Cube Libres (don´t worry, they are harmless) and then much much salsa when they closed the bar except for us!! Had to go because the boys were bored. Damn them! Lol. Awesome. Love the salsa culture here!

And that is about it kids! Will be back with another exciting enstallment when we are back from our 10 day travelling trip! Wohoo!

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Photos

Cuenca!
The pretty, new cathedral in Cuenca

Cuenca 2!
The Cuenca Crew and their team bracelets...minus Bel unfortunately..

Cuenca 3!
The Cuenca Crew (again minus Bel) in Parque Calderon

Cuenca 4!
Rio Tomebamba

Cuenca 5!
Pretty pretty sunset on the way home from town

Ingapirca
The Cuenca Crew at Ingapirca (slightly edited!!)

Ingapirca 2
Inca Ruins at Ingapirca

Ingapirca 3
The Cuenca Crew at Ingapirca in front of the "Sun Temple"..

Ingapirca 4
Me looking pretty on a rock..!

Montaiñita
Jack

Montaiñita 2
The view out of our balcony..