Day 26: Huancayo and hail

Today's shape of the day was the triangle. And a very important shape it is. I found myself thinking about the Grand High Triangle Lover from Sesame Street (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_sN0P89S4&feature=player_detailpage), and wondered what he'd think of today's activities. We pegged up triangles on a skipping rope, then drew triangles in red crayon and punched holes in them with dead biros. Then in the afternoon Juliana came to film me with the kids - we did jigsaws, played with trains, and one of the boys put a ring of toys around my neck and said that I was a princess. How we laughed!

I had lunch at Nelly's house - it was great seeing her and the maid Dina again, who I hadn't seen since I was there two years ago. We ate with Nelly's father, then we went up to the rooftop. It was so strange seeing the room where I'd stayed before. It was really sunny, so Nelly brought me up a chair, and I stayed there for a while soaking up the sun. Then Hector came back from his office, so I went to say hi to him. Two minutes later, we saw that it was raining, so Nelly and I dashed to collect the clothes from the rooftop. Two minutes after that, hailstones the size of my thumbnail were falling. It was quite remarkable to watch. I stayed there a while waiting for the two new volunteers who were due to arrive at Nelly's that afternoon - an hour after they were due to arrive, I gave up and wandered to the internet cafe.

In the evening I went to Juliana's house - there I chatted with John, a volunteer who arrived on Tuesday (Daniel and I met him briefly before we went to Hualhuas yesterday), then we went to pick up the volunteers from Nelly's house. They're a couple, Jesse and Jenny, so we chatted on the way back to Juliana's. There Juliana's mum made a dinner of causa and some fruit salad for us all - me, John, Jesse, Jenny, Oscar, Sonia, and a new volunteer called Danny who also arrived today. It was Sonia's last day - tomorrow she and Oscar are off to Huaraz, then she'll go home while Oscar comes back - so we said goodbye. I said goodbye to Oscar too, since he'll come back when I'm already in Lima. It was a great evening chatting, then we all went back to our houses.

Day 25: Huancayo/Hualhuas and squares

Today we learned about squares. Unlike circles, squares have four corners, and four sides. Pretty much the same games as yesterday were played - some of the younger ones brought up circles instead of squares, which wasn't surprising. Then came the children's task of ripping paper up into little squares, and I'd stick them inside a big square, one square per group. This was much more successful - my little group of five all wanted to stick on the squares themselves, so with the proviso that I'd be the only one putting glue on the paper, I had no issue with this. We were all very proud of our square. Then came lunch (a few tears, a few refusals to eat, a few threats to sit at the 2 year olds' table), then an afternoon of jumping, building houses (I'm the official house-builder and jump-facilitator), cutting nails, doing up shoelaces, and brushing hair and teeth. The children leave the playschool very clean.

In the afternoon Juliana had said that her friend Daniel would take me to Hualhuas, a place known for its wool products. So Daniel and I set off - it was great chatting to him, and I had a nice afternoon. It was about a 45 minute journey by bus, which took us into more rural areas - I saw some pigs and cows munching grass on a train track, and we were fairly close to the mountains when we got off the bus. We looked around the artesans' market, then found a place where they sold alpaca wool, then walked around the town square for a bit before heading back.

I'd arranged to go to the cinema with Yesy and Juan Jose in the evening, but when I got there half an hour late, they weren't there. I called Yesy, no reply. I wandered around the shopping centre for a while, eventually she called me while I was munching some KFC - she was inside the cinema now, a horror film was about to start, would I be joining them? I'm not the hugest fan of horror films, so I said I'd see them back at the house. I wandered about town for a little, bought some churros, then got on a bus to Juliana's (I'd left my shopping from Hualhuas there earlier). I chatted to her mum for a while, then Juliana and Nelly turned up, and the four of us chatted until it got dark. Juliana's mum made us a dessert of peaches in jelly, she says that during Holy Week it's custom to eat this dessert in her hometown of Tarma. Then when it was dark, I grabbed my shopping, then headed back to Hilda's.

Day 24. Huancayo and circles

This morning we learned about circles. Circles are round, like wheels, they have no corners. So the littlies played a game of finding circles in the room - a few of them got confused and brought over their books or toys, others decided that batting together two squares was good enough. Bless! Then they drew over a circle in crayon, then rolled up tissue paper into balls and gave them to me to glue onto the circles. Well, that was the plan - the result was mainly strips of paper being glued on, some of the littlies getting glue on their faces, and I ended up with some in my hair. I still don't quite know how that happened...

In the afternoon I went round Juliana's - we chatted for a while, then I helped her translate a few things, then she said that Nelly, the woman whose house I'd stayed in two years ago, was still in Huancayo. So of course, I went over to visit. It was lovely seeing her again! We chatted over grapes and coca tea, then I went with her as she ran some errands in town. Then back to the house for a 'lonche' (afternoon-tea?) of bread rolls and manjarblanco. We had a lovely time, and she invited me over for lunch on Thursday. Then I hopped on a bus back to Hilda's - I managed to miss my stop while the conductor was getting my change, so I ended up in another part of Pio Pata. Fairly interesting, I just crossed the road and took a bus in the other direction until I knew where I was and could walk back. I'll probably explore that other end of Pio Pata another day.

Day 23: Huancayo and my littlies

It was so wonderful seeing the littlies again, I'd missed them since Thursday! We crawled and jumped and coloured in and sorted toys into piles of yellow, green and blue. The day's activity was parts of the body - stretch the arm, wave the leg, show your middle finger (that one always makes me laugh). Ah, my littlies! After they ate their lunch, we went upstairs to the playground. Health and safety would have a field day here: concrete floor, relatively low wall. But the children were happy playing in the sun; chasing, going on the slide, on the seesaw (although little Allison fell off and cried).

After lunch, I did a bit of work at Juliana's, then internetted (I've somewhat given up on the idea of getting my coursework done here, it's kind of hard to concentrate on writing a report when there're trucks hurtling past every few seconds) then at 5pm met up with Mum's friend Doria. We had a great evening, We went for milkshake and cake in town (she invited me) and we chatted for a good hour and a half or so, until we saw it was getting dark. Then she put me on a bus, and I headed back to my house. I chatted for a while to Hilda's mum, who tells such wonderful long stories, then went for a relatively early night.

Day 22: Huancayo and elections

In a way it feels like I've been in Peru for less time than three weeks, and in a way it feels like I've been here for longer.

I went for a walk in the morning, just around town. It was fairly sunny, but I was still wrapped up warmly since I don't want to risk getting ill again. Then I met up with Yesy and Juliana for lunch in a seafood place - I dislike seafood as a rule, so I got ceviche (raw fish left to cook in lemon juice - it's quite nice, if very lemony). The three of us then went to visit Oscar and Sonia for a bit, then back to Juliana's to watch the prelim results of the presidential elections.

As Hilda later explained to me, voting closes at midday, and the results of the polls are shown at 4pm (not the actual results, although Yesy said that there's a very small margin of error). If nobody gets more than 50% of the vote, then a furhter election is held later on between the two most popular candidates. So... in early June, it'll come down to an election between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-13027410)

In the evening I went out with Juliana and her friend Daniel - we ate hot dog and chips - 'salchipapas', it's called over here. On a side note, did I mention how cheap food is here? A good plate of salchipapas (I couldn't finish them all) in a cafe in the shopping centre cost the equivalent of 1.75 pounds or so. After dinner, we saw Rio in the cinema, that was good fun. We smuggled in drinks (strictly speaking we can't bring in food from outside of the cinema - there are attendants to check bags for food and cameras, but so far I've been lucky), at one point in the film mine fizzed out of the bottle and the people in the neighbouring seats turned to stare - joyous... other than that, I really did have a great evening.

We came across Hilda and Yesy while trying to get a taxi back, so the five of us got a taxi together - Juliana and Daniel got off outside Oscar and Sonia's, then the rest of us made our way back to the house.

Day 21: Huancayo and a reverse-day

This morning I woke up just after 8, feeling ready to greet the world. I'm still on antibiotics for the next few days by order of Hilda and Mum (she rang twice yesterday when I texted her to say I was ill), so after breakfast I went out to the pharmacy to stock up on meds. For some reason most people here buy individual tablets, so I wasn't able to get a complete box, but I was able to get enough of everything except for paracetamol, and that I have in my first aid kit anyway. I ended up in a different area of town while searching for the pharmacy, on a side-note there I saw for the first time a statue of the Virgin Mary. I wonder if she's not venerated quite so much in Huancayo as in Lima? Or if their veneration is shown in other ways?

I got a call from Tio Alejandro's girlfriend Yessica, to say that she was in Huancayo, and would I like to have lunch with her? So after finishing my laundry and quickly checking my emails, I waited for her in the house. She called just after 12 to say that she was nearby and couldn't find the house - in all fairness you can't see it from the road - so I went outside, and saw her in a taxi by the park. It was great seeing her!

From there, the day was almost the opposite of my first Saturday in Huancayo back in 2009. We went to the Parque de Identidad, a beautiful park of statues and a favourite haunt of couples (we saw a newly-wed couple still in their dress and suit), where we saw some people in their costumes doing dances typical of the Jauja area. We climbed up a 'for children only' area, and the park keeper blew a whistle at us until we came down... Then we went to a small artesans' market in the park, where Yessica bought us both necklaces with our star signs on them (she's Virgo, I'm Sagittarius), and I bought a lovely jumper that I've been wanting for a fair while.

After that, we got in a taxi to her house - she lives about 5 minutes' walk from Nelly's house (Nelly being the head of the family I stayed with in 2009), and her house overlooks the orphanage where Oscar works, the one that I visited with Juliana. Such a small world! We had lunch with her mum, a really funny woman who insisted that I come back even after Yessica returns to Lima on Monday. Then Yessica took a short nap while I watched TV, then we went to the zoo by bus. The bus was quite small - I was reminded of Hilda's cactus, which is just outside the front door: it's bent over in a strange shape, with the top of it brushing against the ceiling of the porch area. Get rid of the spines and change the colour, and that's me on a bus. Many of the people who live in the mountains are short compared to me - Juliana's fairly tall here, and I'm easily another 2 inches taller than her. Occasionally I have to stoop down quite a bit to enter a doorway of some of the buildings here. I'm digressing, so I'll get back to the day with Yessica.

The zoo's improved quite a bit since I was last here, in that the animals now have more room to walk and climb. There were some leopard-like felines the size of domestic felines, and I saw 'Paddington Bear' and thought of my uni friends. Then we went for anticuchos, Yessica told me afterwards that I'd just eaten heart (I'm almost glad I didn't know this before eating them, I'm not a huge fan of the idea of eating organs for some reason), followed by picarones (doughnut-shaped, but with a nicer taste) and a type of chicha typical of the mountains. I say that whis was a backwards day, in that in 2009 I went with the other volunteers to the zoo first, then to the park.

Yessica went with me in a taxi back to my house, where I called Juliana (I'd missed a call from her in the afternoon). She said that she was in the cinema - oops! On a side note, of the times I've been to the cinema in Peru, not once have I seen a 'Turn your phone off' advert, and many times someone has a phone conversation while I'm trying to watch the film. I'll give her a ring later, hopefully tomorrow we'll do something.

It's 7.30pm now, and I have ten minutes left before my time in the internet cafe runs out. It's a 3 minute walk to the internet cafe from Hilda's house, so I felt perfectly safe, even though it's dark now. I quite liked walking in the evening here: there's a small party outside a neighbour's house, with music and neighbours sitting around and lazily drinking. There're children playing ball games in the street, and mothers chatting in the park while their children chase each other. When I was in Lima when I was younger, Mum and I would often go to the park near my grandparents' house, sometimes with my cousins. There we'd play, or run, or I'd do handstands, and just enjoy breathing the night air, before praying at the statue of the Virgin before returning to the house. I thought about that as I watched the children play, and thought how much I enjoyed those evenings in the park.

Right, I'll pack up in a bit, then take my second dose of antibiotics before bed. I feel nearly-fine though, hopefully I'll keep recovering.

Day 20: Huancayo and bedbound

I couldn't get up this morning. I heard my alarm go off, but after turning it off I couldn't get up. At 8.15 Hilda came to check on me, I was able to get out of bed and open the door for her, but she took one look at me and sent me straight back to bed, and offered to ring Juliana to say that I couldn't work today. I just felt too ill.

I was able to get down for some bread and camomile tea, then went back to bed. When I woke up, Hilda had bought me some antibiotics from the pharmacist - an hour after taking them, I felt more alive, and I could speak again (my throat had packed up on me). I spent the rest of the day sleeping and doodling cats with wings, and reading and even trying to do some revision! At one point I was woken up by a band playing outside, while usually I love the music of that they play, today I just groaned and tried to get back to sleep. I ate about half of lunch, then slept some more until Hilda came with more medicines. 3 tablets cost about 1 pound in total - I had a flashback of being about 11 and having very bad sunburn, and Mum wishing that she'd thought to bring calamine lotion since many healthcare products are expensive in Peru - but they're really effective. By 7pm I felt almost fine, and stayed reading a little more until I fell asleep.