Manos arriba!

The past week has gone so fast! From starting at the Guarderia and finally knowing where to get off the trufis/micros and meeting other volunteers I'm starting to settle in really well. And for those of you that haven't heard, if the C**tservat**ts get into power (even if it is with the LibDems) I'm staying put, so it's a good job I'm getting settled.

Mothers Day today... So happy mothers day mummy! It's not mothers day for another week or so in Cochabamba so the kiddies are learning a load of songs to sing for the 'Mamas' in the Guarderia and also a dance. The dance will be great once they all practice and focus, but what 5 year old wants to focus on a dance with sticks for more than 5 minutes? Because of this they're all dancing like John Sergeant of Strictly fame (except for Alicia who is loving it and is like a mini Shakira) and bumping into eachother or giving up halfway through to pick their nose or have a mini fight with eachother. As you can hear, they're quite hard work but it's so fun and the time passes so quickly that I wouldn't have it any other way. To carry on learning about fruit, and also to blend it in with learning right from wrong we did 'Las Frutas de la Amistad' (fruits of freindship) with sayings like 'don't fight' or 'share'. Hopefully it'll teach them to stop fighting in the middle of dancing and they'll be like mini Alesha Dixons and Tom Chambers :)

I have also got a new Bolivian phone! Exciting times. It's about the size of a brick and you can play snake on it. And space impact too. Haaaaa :L

Yesterday Luke (another guy staying in the house for a couple of weeks from Philladelphia) made traditional American macaroni cheese which was soooo good. And he made American biscuits which are basically savoury scones which were really nice too. After that I had a little siesta before going out in the night.

A couple of other volunteers and I went out to the Feria last night. Luke said that during the day there were quite a few industrial things and it was a bit weird and boring. Granted, they were selling dentists chairs, lorries and giant women made out of terracotta but they also had 2 stages with a load of bands playing. Plan B were playing on Friday night but I missed out on that! We went over to the main stage where the first band playing were amazing! They're called Los Rabanes and you need to check them out Max. They're a mixture of Rammstein, 3OH!3, rock, samba, reggae and ska. All I can remember from their set was them shouting 'Manos Arriba' and the whole crowd waving they're arms in the air. Soooo good.

The next two bands weren't so good. The second was playing covers of English and American songs really out of tune... I think the worst was Sweet Child of Mine which he didn't really know the tune to so was practically rapping the words. Totally bizzare. And the next band had this woman on the stage going totally crazy. So we left the feria after that at about 1ish and got a cab straight away which charged 30Bs (3 pounds) for the three of us to take a 30 minute journey. I love how cheap everything is here!

Today we went to have Chicharrón, a typical Bolivian lunch that Cochabambinos have on a Sunday. It consists of boiled pork and fried pork rinds (I never said it was healthy!) and a potato on a bed of maize, which looks like giant sweetcorn with a picante sauce. I don't think I've ever seen such a big pile of food in my life. They cook it in giant pans (as you can see in the photo... for some reason my shoulders have decided to rise uncontrolably and it's so bright I have to wear my super giant sunnies that I love :L) and it tastes amazing! While we were there, a guy kept coming over trying to shake our hands, talking to us in crazy english and offering us Chicha (a fermented maize alcoholic drink). Me thinks he'd had too much!

So that's my busy weekend! Shall tell you all how the dancing goes and see if I can video it.

Adios!

A x