Here’s the latest from the Villa Maria Team’s time at the project – keep up the good work guys!

Tuesday started as usual, we had breakfast and then visited one of the local communities with an array of games and activities in hand to amuse and entertain the children. Despite the sweltering heat, we managed to have a good time and eagerly returned to the house for lunch. We then visited another community in the afternoon and had another trip to the pool…definitely an exhausting day.

This was pretty much our routine for the next few days however Wednesday was quite significant as we had two major events occurring. First was the entry of Caitlin into a life of adulthood filled with responsibility (LOL)! We celebrated her birthday by having a few drinks and feasting on a barbecue.

The second (and very sad) event that occurred on Wednesday was the imminent departure of our beloved leader…Pedro :(. He was leaving very early on Thursday morning so Wednesday night was filled with lots of weeping, mourning and wailing as well as some speeches and presentation of gifts. Pete you will surely be missed.

The next morning, (as soon as Pete was out the door), we had a massive party to celebrate him leaving!! Then we continued with our usual routine although we did visit different communities all the time. We also put on a few cinema nights in different parts of VM, they were eagerly received by both children and adults.

The weekend came very fast, with the animal themed feria, all of us had loads of fun dressing up. The games were all themed around animals like, pin the tail on the camel, face painting and drawing animals. After the feria we took the children for a swim in the pool, which was very cooling after the morning in costume. The afternoon was pretty chilled and an early night was had.

 

Sunday morning we were greeted by pancakes after an extra hour lie in. Sunday was a very lazy day except for dance practice and the evening dance show which was another excuse to dress up as mimes and dollies – we even had Jimmy join the dollies. After the show packing began and the excitement heightened – we were off on an adventure in Lima the next morning.

Monday morning was an early-ish start, we caught a bus into Miraflores and headed straight to our hostel to drop our bags off. After we got settled in we went to a very American mall for lunch where emormous hamburgers, chips and cold drinks were consumed. When we were finally able to leave out seats we wondered around the mall eventually finding a starbucks. A few of us went looking for go cart racing but gave up us we had no idea where to start looking. A trip down to Parque Kennedy was taken, which was interesting as we got to explore Miraflores. We headed out for dinner in a very nice little restaurant with a friendly waitress. It was an early night by our standards, although we still had a good evening.

Tuesday morning we said goodbye to Lima until next week. The trip back was uneventful, we arrived back in time for a morning playing with the children.

P.S. Thanks to our chef photographer Olivia Hill. The photos are great.