I´m back in my booth and I´ve got my sprite again, but this time I´m wearing jeans. Over the last few weeks it has become clear that a South American winter means that it is a lot colder at night, while retaining the intense heat of midday. It´s pretty much the perfect climate - although I still managed to get myself quite badly burnt a few weekends ago when we spent the whole day at a nearby beach called Yumaque. I hadn´t before realised that sunburn could give you swollen feet for 3 days.........
So, we´ve been here a month now and we´re pretty settled. We´ve not been able to do as much work as I would like, but our progress is, nevertheless, marked. We´re ready to concrete the foundations of the kitchens, having dug the trenches and made all the steel supports; it´s just a matter of when we can get concrete mixers in. The recent high demand for the machines is enouraging though: people are clearly startng to rebuild. We´ve also done quite a bit of removing rubble, as well as building the perimeter fence of the church compound.
Work aside, it´s just been great just getting to know people and practise my Spanish, as well as taking every opportunity to see and do as much as we can. The people at the church are quite protective of us, which is understandable but sometimes quite stifling. Still, we´ve had some awesome ´team days´: we went sandboarding at the desert oasis of Huacachina, and watched the Sun go down over the sand from the top of the highest dune we could find, and this Saturday we had an absolute treat at las Islas Ballestas. These islands were described to us as Peru´s Galápagos, but I reckon the Poor-Man´s Isle of White is probably a more fitting title. After you´ve seen a hoard of roaring sealions on a beach and a cliff face veiled with Chilean boobies, you really start to look forward for everything else you´re gonna see. But that was, I´m afraid, all there was. Just more of the same around a really large island. At least you can go bowling in Cowes.
Once again I hope everybody is well back home. I really appreciate all your emails and facebook messages - keep them coming! :D I´ll wave adios for now and try to post again as soon as I can. And remember: you may start the day wearing trainers, but that doesn´t mean you don´t need to put sun cream on your feet when you take them off.