Thanks to Alex for our latest update

Day 5: Today was our first day of construction. We are building a house for a single mother and her son who has severe hip problems. The cost of his six operations has made the family very poor and for the last 15 years they have lived in a house made of cardboard that lets rain in. The sad reality is that they live near the top of huge hill strewn with rubble that is difficult to climb. We are all really excited to get started.

Day 6: In the morning we continued with the construction and finished two more walls and a door and thankfully there are no broken fingers from hammering… yet (although some people have come pretty close!) After lunch, we went to a small community football pitch and played with some children. We brought skipping ropes, footballs etc but as always we ended up doing piggy back rides for the main part. A hit head for Nikita, a bruised knee for Hannah and back ache for all. Finally, we finished the day with a superb dance lesson that has now become competitive due to eliminations starting on Sunday.

Day 7: Due to the school breaking up for the winter holidays they celebrated their national independance day early with a parade (that we headed dressed as builders) and a dance performance from every class that represented all regions of Peru. The kids looked adorable in their outfits. Afterwards, we finished the house and painted it with a base layer using the yellow paintbrushes of doom! As always, we finished with a dance class.

Day 8: Today we installed our first house after tearing the old one down. You could literally rip the walls apart with your hands. Thankfully we have a ‘chica alta’ Alex to help reach the top of the house! A neighbouring family and the owners also kindly made us traditional Peruvian coffee that created split opinions, accompanied by amazing breads.

Day 9: On Friday we made the finishing touches to the house and built a kitchen for the family and their 6 adorable 3 week old kittens. Half way through, the family made us a traditional Peruvian dish called Gallina with chicken, potatoes, rice and a mild yellow chilli sauce. A local girl played hand games with us and showed us her incredible house that had no back to the property. Finally, we had another dance lesson before the show along with homemade burgers by Nikita and James.

Day 10: Today we dressed up as clowns and hosted a local fair para los niños. It was great fun and the kids seemed to love it! We took loads of games and made the most of the wet weather.

Ciao!