Tilly Pitt's New Adventures in Babysitting

Before I even start to pretend that anything else is on my mind, I have got to have a quick rant about England. Not the rugby team this time as we finally won - in spite of Johnson's inadequacies as a tactician and manager - they beat the Aussies and finally selected the awesome Ben Youngs at scrum half. No, I have to rant about the bloody footballers!!!!! How they can earn over £100,000 a week for not caring about their country, I have no idea. Its like they don't know I am out here being ridiculed by Peruvian kids for their uselessness, do they not care about me?I have to turn up to work and face a barrage of abuse from kids, I have to watch the matches in the common room with Peruvian staff laughing at me and the team and I have to walk around the streets with taxi drivers and street vendors laughing at the useless English team. They are turning the country into a place to be laughed at - but at least BP and British airways are doing their best to recify this!
Right rant over, oh apart from the fact that I had to miss most of the match yesterday as I was teaching. Now I know that I did not miss much but knowing that England are playing in the world cup and I am teaching 11 year old kids last lesson on a Friday (when they do not want to be there)is difficult. My frustration with watching the first 20 minutes was clearly taken out on the kids as my sharp response level went up to a ten. If I was doing this to miss the football, then they were going to work!!!
However, work the rest of the week was enjoyable. My S2 class (Justin Bieber and Fifi the invisible dog) finally seem to be getting ineterested in geography as well as random chit chat, my S3 class are working well and my P6 (year 7) class asked some impressive geography questions that meant I finally got to use my brain and have one of those lessons where you seem to navigate the whole of the wonderful world of geography in a 40 minute lesson. The highlight of the working week was going on yet another trip (I feel like I am out of school more than in it at the moment). This time the trip was to Macapaca or Packamacka or somewhere that sounded either like a character from In The Night Garden or a portable rain coat. I did find it funny that we were going on a trip to Packamaca and we would not need a rain coat as it is in the desert. It should be called, Don't Pack a macka (yes, I still tell awful jokes in my lessons and get even fewer laughs than I did at King Edwards). The best joke this week has been - what is the difference between Robert Green and Justin Bieber? ..... Justin Bieber knows how to drop his balls! But at least it is a British spillage that the Yanks are happy about!
The trip saw us go about 45 minutes from school and visit a site of Inca ruins. We carved Inca figures out of soap, we learnt how to make Quipu (ancient abacus), visited a racreated Ica settelment and drank Chica (fermented corn which has had its creation aided by adding saliva! nice!), got growled at by Peruvian hairless dogs and dug for ancient pottery in the sand. The day was not exactly full of learning for the kids but it was fun and gave you a good understanding of the life of the Incas. The digging for artifacts in the sand was at a location that looked perfect for an Indiana Jones film and was amazing how quickly you could find bits of pottery and plates from 700 years ago (although knowing this place, it is not beyond the possibility of the staff planting bits of pottery into the ground for the kids to find). The hairless dogs are a feature of the Peruvian urban and rural landscape and no matter how many times you see them. they never fail to shock you as to just how ugly a dog can be! The beautiful beagles that we see in the park outside our living room window just add to how ugly the bald dogs look, especially when they are seen in the packs that seem to control the night-time streets of Lima.
After the awfulness of the England match (last refernce I promise) it took me a while to get back to myself again but the thought of Clare and I getting to go out on our first date in almost 9 months was enough to lift me from my duldrums. We had booked a babysitter and at 6 oclock we met her at our house (now when I say 6, of course I mean 6 oclock Peruivan time, so more like 6:40). She was impressively late but had come recommended by teachers at the school so she got the benefit of the doubt. We gave her some quick instructions with Clare 'I am ok with this' Pitt, talking at ten to the dozen and hoping that the poor girl could actually understand everything that Clare 'I am clearly not ok with this' Pitt was telling her. The only thing that I am confident of is that Clare said very clearly and slowly that the babysitter would not have to feed Tilly and that we would be back by the time she needs her next feed. I then repeated the fact that Tilly would not need to be fed or changed (So even you readers should be clear of these insructions and also I can imagine that you know where this tale is heading). So mummy and daddy Pitt went out for a curry with friends from school and then went to a nice romantic pisco bar in Miraflores. Curry, alcohol and no pram - it all seemed strangely memorable, like we had done this sort of thing before. We had a vague memory of a life where this sort of thing happened quite regularly. It was lovely to have an evening to ourselves and we had a fantastic night but even with our slightly fuzzy heads from the pisco, we were both keen to get back to our beautiful daughter and make sure the babysitter was as good as the reviews seemed to suggest.
So we got in and there were feeding bottles in the sink and a changed nappy in the bin. Hmm, strange considering the insructions! Was everything Ok, we asked. Oh, yes was her reply. She woke up so I fed her and changed her. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! she had fed her, she had broken the routine, she had gone against the Gina Ford, baby Bible. We had had two weeks of sleep, we had Tilly more trained up that a North Korean footballer and she knew the drill. Now one night with a babysitter and we both saw our sleepless nights returning, we saw a crying Tilly Pitt at 3 and 4 and 5 in the morning coming back and we saw our settled evenings and 7 hours sleep per night being threatened by a babysitter. That night we put Tilly to bed both fearing the worst but the worst did not arise. Our little angel slept through, we woke at seven to feed her and she even went back to sleep after to allow us a lie in!
The day before had even been a day when Tilly had another of her bank busting immunisations. The prices still remain high despite promises that health care is cheap here. Cheap compared to what we keep thinking? Cheap compared to a Ferrari, cheap compared to a Rolex watch, cheap compared to a Tiffany ring but definitely not cheap when compared to free health care back in England! You would have to be an England footballer to find this cheap as they are paid so much to not even try - to walk around the pitch without a care in the world (last mention I promise). The clinica is called the Clinica of Good hope (bodes well), you want more than just hope, I want a trained doctor. Or maybe its just hope that it wont cost as much this time!
Anyway, the injection went well. Tilly was asleep and then woke with a start when the huge needle was inserted but half an hour of cuddling later and she was back to normal, sitting in front of the football (her favourite thing to do it seems) and watching Germany lose- always a good thing!

So that ends our adventures for another week and yet another exciting week in the land of the giant guniea pigs and humming birds (we saw one flying around the flower bed outside our living room window today). I think this week I may start doing what the kids here do and pretending I come from a different country. They all support any country that speaks Spanish as Peru did not qualify for the World Cup. Unfortunately if I follow the same rule it means supporting a team that speaks English and last time I checked Australa and New Zealand weren't exactly doing well in the cup either. Oh well, as their fans are probably also saying at least there is always rugby!

Adios

Andean adventures y La Copa Mondial

Tilly Pitt's fourth week in Peru has seen her witness the biggest build up to a world cup that I have ever known. The people her go mad for it (even though Peru were no where near qualifying!). The supermarkets are filled with world cup flags, posters, offers and games and the kids in school can only talk about the world cup and mainly how unfair it is that they cannot watch the football in lessons (I have to keep up the school policy even when every part of me would love to give in and put the football on!).
I was not going to write the blog today but after getting up at 5am to watch England versus Australia (in rugby rather than any football ((havent seen any of that yet as I have been at work!)) and whilst watching I have finally come to the conclusion that we are actually not very good. Johnson has not got a clue about how to coach rugby and we look like a bunch of headless chickens running around after some austarlian chickens that clearly have their heads securely and fully attached. I am therefore writing rather than getting very annoyed at the players and shouting obsecenities that would most likely wake up my wife, daughter and everyone else living within a two mile perimeter of the house (about 2 million people then!).
This week has not only been an odd one due to world cup madness but also because it has been patriot week. On Monday it has patriot day and the whole country honours the Peruvians that died in the great Chilean invasion of .... (dont know the year as the assembly was all in Spanish). It is a great idea to have such a patriotic day and the idea of honouring the dead and putting such an importance on the raising of the flag is something that only the BNP manage back at home but even with all the resonance and heartfelt sincerity being spoken by the speakers at school, I still found the whole experience highly surreal and a little bit hiralious. The entire school was standing on the filed watching the flag being raised and this flag raising was preceded by the school prefects pretending to be soldiers and standing to attention, they then raised the flag like the military and the raising was accompanied by the cheesiest music heard since I last turned off a Peruvian soap opera after the tears of laughter starting stinging my eyes and then (as always) it is folowed by the longest national anthem known to man. Now do not get me wrong, the national anthem is also one of the best I have ever heard. It is fun, it has an upbeat repetitive tune and lots of repeated words, but... it is very very long. And finally the best bit. Once the flag had been hoisted and the anthem finally sung, the Peruvian head (yes, there is a Peruvian Headmaster and a normal Headmaster (not that Peruvians are not normal I am just saying that there are two of them) shouted Viva La Peru! and every kid and memeber of staff then shouts "Viva!". It took me quite by suprise, the force, the ferocity and the Communism of it all.
Clare witnessed the same later in the week from our living room window. The local Patriot flag raising gathering was held in the park outside our house only this one was also host to armed soldiers, a huge flag, a big band and an even louder shouting of Viva!
The day after the flag raising assembly saw my second fieldtrip with Len. We went up to the start of The Andes in the middle of Peru (about a 2 hour drive from Lima) and what an eventful trip this was. The madness started within 10 minutes of starting off as we went to enter the main highway. The drive onto the highway was going slowly and we soon found out why. The slip road was being obstructed by a car driving the wrong way up it. This was the equivalent of the entry lane to the M5 and so this car had driven the wrong way down a motorway! And the funniest part was that when we drove past, I looked into the windows of the car and it was full with about seven family members of the driver and not one of them looked concerned, or worried or even like this was a strange or uncommon occurance for them. It was actually probably a much quicker way for them to get around as the other acriiageway was full of traffic, at least people get out of their way on this carriageway.
This country is filled with incredible landscapes and geography that whilst I understand the theory behind it, still seems incredible when witnessed in person. The geography today was shanty towns, huge mountains, massive landslides and the phenomenon of the weather getting clearler, less foggy and less cloudy as you drive to higher altitudes (The equivalent of driving up Snowdon and getting sunnier and warmer weather at the top rather than at the bottom -only we drove up to twice the height of Snowdon).
The mountains were impressive, the mountain villages were a mystery and again it was a trip that geographers and geography teachers in England could only dream of. The village of Mutacana where we ended up at is a geographical suicide village. It is in the path of two potentially catastophic landslides (Huaycos) or mudslides (Lloquias)and would be wiped out should one occur, oh and add to that the fact that this is a huge earthquake risk area!. The goverment do protect the areas but the people are not the target of these measures, only the railway and roads are really saved if a Huayco was to happen. The people would mainly be killed and this was made extra pertinent by just how amiable and nice these people were. Only walking into the village, we were met by kids coming out of playschool just to watch us walk past and wave to us "hola, gringo" was the main gist of their statements aimed at me. I was a celebrity for a day - the Blonde White man comes to town! In the village more kids came up to our group and when I went into a shop, I turned around to see that I had been followed in by 3 local kids who quikly ran off giggling when I said hello.
The impressiveness of the scenery and the combination of human and physical geography was not even spoilt by some of the kids answers; the idea of water moving uphill, the random guesses at geographical answers, the response of 'filtration' to any question asked. "Why do you keep saying the same word?" I asked "becasue it is usually the right answer" said one pupil, "I use vegetation as my random answer" said another - I give to you, The Elite Pupils of Peru!
I will sign off just as England somehow close to within 4 points of Australia - I have no idea how, I just know that the Aussies still don't know how to scrummage. And go off to settle into a weekend of sport (Rugby matches x 3, football matches x 6, grand prix x1, basketball NBA finals x 1 and baseball x 2). Te Amo ESPN!

Adios y vamos Inglaterra.

Eggheads Peruvian style

Clare and Tilly Pitt's third week in Lima saw the family settle down into the reality of life in Peru. No exciting trips to deserts, no fun filled evenings with trips to Barranco. No, week three saw us settling down in front of the TV at night and had Tilly waiting for dad to get home from work (or rather Clare doing all the baby stuff by the time dad got back from work or meetings or just generally marking).
The week did see some excriment, sorry I mean excitement, for Clare who somehow managed to get projectile poo on her face and in her hair! She had Tily in nappy changing position, laid back with legs in the air, only for Tilly to brew a big wet fart that flung a light brown/green fecal matter into her mother's face! Disgusting but very funny once Clare had smeered the mess from around her mouth.
The evenings have seen us watching more films than any other people in the world but when a copied DVD from the local DVD man costs only 4 soles (about £1) and the picture quality is perfect, there seems no reason to not get all the recent cinematic blockbusters to fill our evening viewing slots. It is either that or some awful US series on the WB channel or listening to awful music on MTV (Justin Bieber seems a favourite over here). I have just about managed to avoid Beiber Fever as it is called even though certain girls that I teach are obsessed with the floppy haired, girlie voiced, pre-pubesent singer. Although the fact that he has made it into the blog may actually show that I am coming down with the first symptoms of Bieber Fever!
The murder in Lima has been somewhat of an exciting addition to life in Miraflores (It has been covered by CNN but I do not know if the news made it over to Blighty ((or anyone else at KES for that matter!)). A US tourist (although they now seem very keen to state his Dutch origins) used a baseball bat to brutally murder a Peruvian lady in a local casino. The story has been all over the news and it was only today that I discovered that the casino and hotel in question is directly opposite Markham College. The Murder Casino is now a new destination on the tourist route of Miraflores and was also first on the list of places the S3 kids wanted to go to on their Miraflores investigation trip. This trip also saw the pupils approached by a wierdo that had them terrified until one of the girl seemed to belatedly realise that the man was not a wierdo and was in fact her Uncle! and saw us witness a motorcycle crash as well as featuring some actual geography on the trip out of school.
The trip was given a more surreal feel by the fact that I had knocked myself out the previous morning by walking into a wall in our house. The attractive arches that decorate the walls are also a deathrap for clumsy oafs to walk into and then slowly stagger about before collapsing into a heap on the floor. I can only assume that it must have looked painful as Clare came running over looking very concerned rather than laughing at me for being an idiot! I do however aknowledge the idioticness (yes I know it is not a word but this is my blog and so I can use whatever words I see fit) of walking into a wall. If it had been Clare claiming that she had walked into a wall I am sure that the police would have wanted to have words with me (although I do not think the Peruvian police really care about much really). My forehead now has a certain C.J.ness to it (no I dont look like the biggest pillock on TV, but I do look like a bit of an Egghead with the lump seeming to grow by the second like some sort of Tom and Jerry cartoon effect).
The rest of the week sees me on another fieldtrip with Len the geography Legend on Thursday and probably a few more DVDs whilst the Pitt family sit on the sofa.

My final comment of this post must be to mention the sad news of Old Joe's passing. The Old Father Time of the Reeve Kennels was sadly put to sleep today and so our thoughts are with John and Denise, especially John who has always had a special bond with Joe and I know will sorely miss one of his best friends. Rest in Peace Joseph.

Adios