And a happy New Year...

Hey hey,

First and foremost I should say Happy New Year, hope a good time was had by all. Our New Year was... well different to say the least. Cusco is (so I am told by many a cusquenan) one of the two best places to spend New Year in South America and word had definitely got out to the ENTIRE population of Peru. As ridiculous as this may sound I can honestly say I have never seen so many people in such a small area. Imagine Plaza de Armas was some kind of rotting animal and we were all the little maggots out to feast; in short, the square was heaving mass of drunken revellers. Add to this every form of alcohol imaginable, millions of pairs of yellow underwear (its tradition), cigars, Salsa girls in tiny, shiny red thongs, and every third person drunkenly setting off fireworks in the middle of the crowd. The sky looked like something from Star Wars (Janek’s words not mine), and the noise was deafening... if the beginning of Saving Private Ryan had been accompanied by Salsa music, it would have sounded something like New Year in Cusco. We spent most of the evening in and around the square, mainly because it was almost impossible to move anywhere else. There was dancing, drinking, more fireworks, probably several burns victims, numerous sandwiches and a potato. I’d definitely recommend it to anyone.

New Year is probably a pretty good benchmark for our Christmas period more generally. Being away from home at Christmas is not ideal for sure, but if I were to spend it anywhere other than with my family I’d pick here. Obviously my opinion is somewhat biased, but the bosom of the Yanapay family almost made up for the missing family members and friends back home. Not to sound too A Christmas Carol esque but there was an awful lot of Christmas spirit floating around: the kids Christmas party almost made me feel like a child again there was so much excitement in the air, and then Christmas eve at Yuri’s mum’s was I suppose a heady concoction of part family Christmas, part office party! Also, having spent every Christmas before this one at home, being absent from my usually festivities made me realise how awesome they are... next year I am fairly sure I will be the biggest pain in the arse over Christmas time, what with my new found enthusiasm for the whole thing!

So now, after about a week off, we are back to normal life here. School started again yesterday and although it was a quiet day in terms of numbers of kids, it felt pretty good to be going back to work. The kids were decked out in the new clothes Yanapay gave them for Christmas, and although you always get hugs and kisses when you turn up at school, the ten day break the children had had meant that those usual greetings were that little bit more intense. On the down side, we lost a lot of good volunteers over the Christmas period, so it was a little strange to be going into school and not knowing everyone there relatively well. People coming and going is something Jan and I are going to have to get used to, but I think even though I know that fact, when people who I really like leave I will always be trying to persuade them to come back (you know who you are).

When I wrote on here before I mentioned that Jan was going to write something explaining a bit more about what we do. Well, we never quite got round to that as you may have noticed. On the upside though, Janek has made a video explaining how the project functions and why. And this time there are subtitles.

watch it here: http://vimeo.com/18195024

I think that this is probably a better representation of the project than my rambling anyways... and to my family and friends who I abandoned this Christmas, I hope when you see this you will realise that I had a pretty good excuse for being absent.

Con amor,

xxxxxx