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Published: November 17th 2005
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Lesley leads the Ayacucho conga!!
This one is alittle dark-next one is better. Thanks to Eileen for the photos!! The guy in black 2 behind me is they guy from the band who dragged me up!! Hi all,
Wednesday today and halfway through my 6th week here. It´s really flying. Starting to feel pretty sad about saying cheerio to the Wawa Wasi ninos this Friday. I´ll really miss them lots, but know it´s time to move on. Figure I should try and experience as many projects as possible whilst here. Planning to work at the orphanage 4 days per week and go to the prison on Fridays. The women in the prison have their children locked up with them until the age of 3. CCS do a lot of work taking the kids out on Fridays for excursions, so plan to get involved in that.
Forgot to mention that Pancho (the guide I was at Nasca with and who Vicki and I will be travelling with) was round at the house last night after dinner. Had been chatting to him when we were in Nasca to see if there was any local community/volunatry work I could do at the weekends which tend to be pretty slow. I have another three weekends here before I head of travelling and bid a sad farewell to Ayacucho. He came round last night to see if Vicki and I
Caught on Camera!!
Please note Vicki in the purple fleece four from the end in absolute fits of laughter!! Rick is the very tall guy right at the end. would be interested in visiting some shanty towns in the mountains. One of them is apparently having a big meeting this weekend to discuss the way forward in terms of progress for the village. Plan to take some fruit and some bread for the people we meet (who will have absolutely nothing). Pancho has also suggested that any clothes we don´t need would be more than welcome, so currently trying to rationalise my very limited wardrobe even further. I can always buy more when I get to the USA. We´re heading off with Pancho on Sunday, so the diary update for then should be pretty interesting!!
Was at Wawa Wasi today - again a full compliment of kids. We played in the morning, and I had taken lots of templates along for them to make the cardboard angels (thanks again for the idea mum!!) which they could paint and decorate. Needless to say that wasn´t to be. After the morning milk, Julia decided that we would vamos to Marruja´s WW. Think we arrived there at 10.30am. The next hour and a half was a bit of a struggle. It´s very difficult to structure anything with 16 wild kids and
Traditional Dancing
The girls dance holding up their skirts at the front so you can see their beautiful lace underskirts. It was really elegant!! two WW Mamas who only really want to have a blether!! Worked on some jigsaw puzzles with some of the kids and taught Anna and Karina how to play ´Donkey´ with a soft ball. Finally sat and chatted to Julia and Marruja in ´Spanglish´. They were asking about when I´m going home as they know I finish at WW this Friday. Guiltily explained to them that I´m going to work at the orphanage, then travelling for a week before I head to the States for Christmas. I felt bad because even though they are similar in age to me, it´s very unlikely that they will ever have similar opportunities!! The differences between my privileged home life and the life of the people here are really brought home to me at times!!
Headed home for lunch and a warm(ish) shower. Caught up on some washing and hung it out on the roof, and did some reading up there whilst I was waiting for the machine to finish.
We had been told that there was a traditional dancing evening on in the Gringo plaza last night, so the gang (Wendy, Eileen, Rick, Vicki, Caroline, Illona, Katherine and I) decided to
Handkerchief Dance
Karen - I think they might have nicked this idea from Girls Brigade!! Do we have copyright?? have dinner out and go to see the show. We went to the place where we normally enjoy our Pisco Sours and had dinner there. I had veggie pizza which was delicious. We spotted two of the younger volunteer boys sitting at a table a few away from us. One of them bought us a large (and I mean large) bottle of beer between us to apologise for his antics in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Fortunately I slept through it, but Caroline wasn´t so lucky!! He was up in the wee hours of the morning banging door, and shouting using very choice language which is just completely unacceptable!! Caroline had a word with Rudy (the Ayacucho manager) in the morning, and one of the other volunteers who suffered also tore strips off him. I thanked him for the beer and he apologised profusely saying it wouldn´t happen again - watch this space!! Next time he wakens me up I´ll be turning on my Govan charm full force!!!!
Anyway - we managed to get front row seats for the show which was good. One band came on to sing, and a couple of the band members pulled some
Traditional Costumes
The colours were great -photos don´t do the outfits justice!! of the audience up to dance. I reckoned I got off lightly as they picked on Illona, but that just wasn´t to be. A couple of dances later they decided to do a conga round the square which was packed with locals to see the show. They picked on Rick, Vicki and myself. Rick ended up at the front and I hid at the back - which was fine - until they decided to turn it around and I ended up leading!! Photos attached should give you a laugh. Please note that I´d only had one bottle of Cristal (beer) the whole night!!
After our dancing came the traditional dancing. As I had a front row seat, I was able to get some good photos. Hope that you like them!!
After all that excitement, we headed home and fell into bed. Had a great nights sleep - totally uninterrupted!!
Enjoy all and take care!
Lesley x
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Manuela
non-member comment
diary
reading them is the highlight of my day! I guess I missed a lot by not staying longer, now I am really sad about it! You should change career and become a travel photographer/writer! Best, Manuela