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

Tilly Pitt and The Dune Buggy Adventure

"I've just seen a Peruvian man's willy!" If I heard Clare say those words once, I heard her say it at least 10 times. Now, this was not some wierd swinging weekend away, it was the fact that the men as we went south from Lima seem increasingly happy to just wap it out wee in the middle of the road. They have no embarassment and do not care who is watching, after a while I even joined in "willy watch" (coming to a BBC early eveing TV slot soon!).
After willy watch unfortunatley came poverty watch as the divide between the rich and the poor in Peru became increasingly apparent. The journey started in Miraflores (land of the rich) but as we headed onto the PanAmericana road, the rich are quickly left behind and the average Peruvian is seen with shocking regularity. We saw people washing their clothes in streams, children covered in dirt walking to their hut of a house and thousand upon thousands more of those hut 'shanty' homes. It is impossible for a western mind to imagine living in these conditions and the voyeuristic creature lying within us all very quickly springs to the surface as we pass a world unknown, unseen and often hidden from us for most of our lives. I have taught this geography for years but seeing it in such vast numbers is still hard to witness and impossible to actually describe.
The journey we were taking was to carry out a geography 'reccy' for a new fieldtrip. The IB have changed their syllabus and so there is no more ecosystem studies and therefore no more Tambopata, those Capucine monkeys will not be seen again for some time! The new destination will be the desert settlements of Ica and Huacachina (still a vast difference from the Land that Time Forgot that is Morecambe Lancashire).
As you approach Ica, the fields become more fertile as desert farming dominates the landscape and then civilisation again surfaces as you hit Ica. The hotel was called Belle Sands and although very average looking from the outside, the place itself is beautiful and will be a luxury stay for the kids when they come here in August. Our stay was only slightly marred by the fact that the Ica football team were also staying there. A strange bunch who seem to have John Terry as a role model judging by the fact that they were oggling Clare en mass even though I was holding here hand and she was carrying Tilly at the time.
We wnet from the elite professional sportsperson hotel to the oasis resort of Huacachina. Here, we hired two guides to take us on a dune buggy tour. Now anyone from social services may want to stop reading now as we also took Miss Tilly on the dune buggy. We asked that the driver went very very slow but still the looks we got from Peruvians as we drove off in the buggy made us feel like we had just won worse parents in the world award 2010! (Mrs Matthews was not nominated this year). The Peruvian idea of parenting is however very different to ours. Why change your child or give her food if another option is to wrap them in even more layers of clothing and blankets!!!
We drove around the dunes for about half an hour and I was not prepared for the spactacle that we saw. The dunes come very close to Iguazu falls for the most impressive geographical features that I have ever seen. The photos look impressive but they do not do these 200metre high piles of sand justice. They really are breathtaking! and any waorries about Tilly were quickly banished after our first stop when rather than being terrified of the bumpy ride or crying, she had instead fallen fast asleep in the carrier strapped to my chest.
The second stop then saw the drivers go to the back of the buggy and bring out wooden snow boards that they handed to us. The 45 degree slope was suddenly no longer a geographical feature - oh no! - it was now a challenge to be sand boarded down.
"lie on your front and use your feet as brakes" the driver recommended. I may have forgotten to use my feet as brakes and so one bruised hand, sandy pants and broken camera later, I found myself at the bottom of the dune.
The guide clearly gave a sigh of relief when he realised that I not was going to sandboard with Tily on my chest. Although judging by her sleeping during the buggy ride, I think she may have enjoyed it!
The buggy then toured us around the biggest dune in the dune field, to another natural oasis and then to the edge of the dune above the main oasis where we took photos with the camera that still worked.
We then sat at the edge of the oasis having pisco sours until it was time to return up the PanAmericana and back from teh glorious desert sunshine to the cloud and fog of Lima. Just another day in the extraordinary life of Tily Pitt.


p.s. I have found a way to locate all the Flickr photos of our travels onto a map. Just go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnypitt456/map?&fLat=-13.5071&fLon=-73.1469&zl=12&order_by=recent to see the map and understand a bit more about where we are and what we have been doing.

Adios

Mrs Pitt Signing In.........

This will probably be the only time I will write on the blog as there is no way I could ever possibly compete with the 'Thomas Hardy' of Lima! Well where to start on our first week in Lima.
Tilly was amazing on the flight, I was prepared for hell and I was armed with my pack of pacifiers (dummies!) but she was an angel. This could not be said about the poor peruvian baby next to us who cried the entire 12 hours but maybe the ten blankets, hat, gloves and the fact he couldnt breath from being smothered by his mother didnt actually help.
Day one and we jumped in a taxi with Tilly strapped to Jon's front, the taxi driver as he asked us to pay upfront this is unusual behaviour(we are talking 5 soles which is roughly £1.25) after giving him 3 of the 5, he shook his head and claimed it was all 'falso', he asked to see more money 'falso tambien' and by means of offering a solution he very 'kindly' offered to take us to the bank.....I dont think so!well we didnt last long in the taxi as Jon started shouting 'dimembarko' and we found ourselves back on the street and away from the dodgy driver.
Jon tactically kept certain things quiet before our arrival.... I am a great believer in if you have a baby noone actually wants to hear about how many times he/she poos, what colour it is etc etc the fact is everyone i have met so far will inevitably at some point talk about their own toilet habits and their motions, simply because the amount you become ill in Lima is clearly more than anywhere else in the world. When you greet people with the puruvian one cheek kiss you then talk about your bowel movements, put it this way I am dreading when that time comes!
Crossing the roads........Jon never mentioned you take your life in your hands when you cross the road in Lima literally 'Frogger' eat your heart out (For Those of you too young to understand what frogger is - a 1980's amstrad game where a frog tries to cross the road without getting killed!) I have been shouted at numerous times because Tilly has only one blanket wrapped aroung her (as its 30 degrees!!) by not only numerous old ladies but even an 11 year old begga who told me off for Tilly not wearing a hat (this was in the Brazilian bar drinking the 2 for 1 cocktails like responsible parents that we are!) Tilly is also seen as being a freak here; she is a Gulliver like giant in the land of the Munchkins, the fact she can hold her head, smile and is now gurgling at just over 2 months....?dos mesas no no quatro mesas? the peruvians try to insist......
(Editor back again) Having Clare and Tilly here has made me feel like a tour guide through this mad city. Leading them through the life or death guidlines of how to cross the street, which roads to avoid, when to say 'si' and when to say 'no gracias' at the checkout for shopping and trying to combine all the high points of Miraflores, Surco and Barranco into the first week. I had the nervewracking job or trying to sort out injections (many thanks to Mrs Reeves ((with an 's')) for helping Clare with the job of a 6-in-1 jab! and taking her to the most religious clinic in the whole world (large Jesus statues peer down on you as you sit in the clinic and I have also been told that in the operating theatres they have paintings of Jesus guiding the hand of the Surgeons ((I pray they have also had some kind of training too)).
Then taking them to Barranco to try out the wierd and wonderful world of Peruvian food - Lomo Saltado is salted meat with Sweet potatoes and a red onion sauce, it has to be tasted to fully understand just how tasty this is. Also Cevice, which is raw fish dresssed in a lime and red onion sauce (again a Taste Sensation!). Barranco also enabled Clare and Tilly to see their first humming bird and for Clare to stare up at the sky as about 8 vultures circled overhead.
Today was health check day at work. You turn up and then wait in queues with other teachers as step-by-step you are taken through a health production line. Blood test, check. Height measurement, check. Weight, check. Eye test, check. Chest X-ray, check and general MOT overview, check. Everybody seemed amazed that it was all offered free as the Private health clinics pilled advert after advert into your hands for laser surgery, illness insurance plans and (most surreal of all) a man dressed as a giant tooth handed out balloons and dental insurance plans (free indeed!!!!. Anywho - back to today's guest editor.

Anyway I am missing a brilliant game of rugby ( Toulouse V Biarritz, vivo en ESPN mas) so to sum up: the house is amazing ( the boy did very good), the people are kind, the food is great if a little crazy at times and The Pitts are settling well into our life in Lima.
P.s I am now officially a lady that lunches...........

chiao

Tilly Pitt "no pictures please"

Jungle Boogie Capuchin monkey style!

The week has finally arived. The Pitt family are re-united and Life in Peru (the name of the blog) can finally actually start. However, before we get into that, there is the small detail of Tambopata to talk about. Tambopata, for those of you not in the know, is the Peruvian rainforest about 2 hours flight East of Lima.
The flight was an early one and so after moaning about teachers' moaning in the last blog, I have to admit that getting up at 4 o'clock on the first day of holiday did magically transform me into one of those moaning teachers. This moaning did quickly fade once I glanced at the magnifiscent mountain scenery over Cusco and faded into obscurity once I was gazing over the meandering Tombopata river as we approached landing.
The airport we landed in was little more than a glorified shed. For those of you that have had the pleasure of visiting the late, great Coventry airport - this made Coventry look like Heathrow and JFK combined! we were met by our guide for the week (Carolina) and we were quickly transferred to a bus and driven down dirt roads lined with the poorest Peruvian people I had seen since my arrival. I was again in real Peru and what a breathtaking experience it is.
The bus was followed by a boat trip down the river that we had spied from the plane. We passed farmers in their boats, people seiving gold in the river, people using long sticks to push their boats along, children in tattered clothes staring at the rich people travelling past with ipods on, cameras out and a whole world that has been taken forgranted. It was also made very clear that this river was the only way to reach our destination. Even the town we had landed in only had one dirt road connecting it to Cusco and that would take 12 hours. We were in total isolation and any thoughts of British risk assessments were rapidly cast aside knowing that this trip is more important than that for the pupils. This is about being remote, not being in the pampered, protected world of Miraflores but in the absolute wilderness with killer snakes, killer spiders and killer diseases. I was finally fully immune from these diseases but only after a visit to a perverted nurse (push your sleeve higher - no higher - no higher - oh actually can you take your shirt off please!). But thankfully I had recovered from this sexual exploitation by the time I was on the boat down the river. The kids however, were not so re-assured by their injections and insect spray. One particular pupil was terrified after watching an episode of House where a person died of a strange mosquito induced disease and thanks to the glory of Wikipedia he has also researched into this more and found that the disease was indeed to be found in the Peruvian rainforest. After much calming words or rather taking the mick out of somebody basing their medical knowledge on House, we managed to get him onto the boat to go to our first destination - Posada.
The whole area is managed by a group called Rainforest. They are a preservation and travel company that offer Eco-tourist trips and help to sustain the local community and protect the rainforest. There is only electricity for 4 hours a day in their lodges, there is no hot water and you can only use bio-degradable shampoo and soap. The showers are therefore cold- freezing cold- and the soap feels like it has been made from the floor sweepings of a branch of Lush. However that was not the worst part of the showers; the worst part was that there was no lock on the door (thank you Mr German man for walking in on me ((and it was a very cold shower by the way)) and also the wooden wall at the back had large gaps in it that faced onto the girl's rooms. This meant tactically timed showers before the kids were awake (I hope anyway).
The activities were also eco-tourist based and were hugely impressive. We walked up a canopy tower to view over the rainforest and the soaring vultures, went on a night walk to see Aligators, tree frogs and tarantulas, went to a clay lick (Culpa) and saw hunders of Makaws arriving to feed (another 4am start for that one) and we went on a boat trip to see Giant otters. This trip was yet again a 4am start but also ending in no giant otters beind seen (maybe thats because Otters are too sensible to get up at 4 in the morning!!!!!!!!!!!!). I did however endanger the Piranha population of Peru. We were given the chance to fish in the river as long as we returned the fish to the ox-bow lake. I fished away and after about 5 minutes I had a bite. I wrestled with the 5cm long beast and managed to get the piranha out of the water only for the little bugger to fly off the hook and slide across the boat and down a gap in the floor. Never mind, I thought, he will just have plopped back in the water.
I have got to go and mark and wash some clothes and baby bed sheets. I will finish this post tomorrow.
..... continued........
the next stage of the journey into The Heart of Darkness saw us have to travel 6 hours by boat via 2 checkpoints and to TRC (Tombopata, Research Centre). 7 of the pupils had already been staying there for a week on Biology trip and thanks to the extreme discipline of their stay, they were wild, loud, excitable and blue!!! On leaving school, we had be warned about the infamous Huito fruit. It is an inocuous looking fruit that when mixed with pure alcohol (in a bowl not via ingestion) turns your skin blue once applied. We had been asked not to let the kids use it on their skin but the Biology group clearly had and it looked as though we had entered the set of Avatar 2. The look of shock on some of the tourists faces as they disembarked from the boat and came face to face with the Markham Savages was hilarious.
Thankfully the savage period lasted for only an hour and the Biology group quickly transformed into mild and gentile Geographers within no time (however, Mr House was slowly turning into an extra from Lord of The Flies as the worry of killer insects and killer spiders became slowly more and more a reality).
The first killer spider that we saw was on a web about 50 metres from the lodge. It was pointed out by the guide who then started poking the web and asking the kids to come closer for photos. I can clearly remember the words "more poisonous that the black widow" and "yes we have the anti-body, but that just buys you time" being uttered by the guide. Buys you time, I thought, how does buys you time help when we are 8 hours by boat from the nearest twon and from the look of it, that town is not exactly the sort of place that top medics would be choosing to stay. Although who knows, maybe top doctors like living in shacks, riding in rickshaws and going to the impressivley named 'sexy car wash'.
The kids also told me that they had saved one of the teachers from death last week as he took them on a midnight hunt for mini-alligators. They were wading through a swamp in the pitch black when one of them spotted moevement in the water, turned their torch to see what it was and discovered the most poisonous snake in the Peruvian rainforest. The snake was heading towards the teacher and if the kid had not have spotted it, said teacher could have been "buying time" and hoping the 8 hours and shoddy hospital saves him!
Then came the actual work. After a couple of days of travelling and looking at the nice wildlife, it was time to actually study the rainforest and the kids excelled. Having to hack a transect through the actual rainforest was very different although I couldn't help thinking that the machete may have been more useful on the transects we did in Morecambe and Middlesbrough!
got to go again - its a tough life this being a dad thing! The jungle adventure continues soon! with the capuchin monkey comment explained along with much more....
The transect study was completed in a separate part of the rainforest located next to a very impressive beach that had been made by the river deposits. The view of the sun setting as we sat on the beach was breathtaking and was so beautiful that all the kids could think about was "MUDFIGHT!". One hour later the kids were no longer blue, they were now head to toe in brown mud and every last one of them had a huge smile on their face. They came to the rainforest to see amazing wildlife, incredible animals and have a once in a lifetime experience but almost half of them put 'mudfight' down as their favourite activity in the lodge survey. Kids will be kids whether they are in Birmingham, Bogota or one hour from Bolivia.
Now to explain the capuchin monkey comment. I was walking along with my group in the jungle when fruit started to fall from the trees around us. Looking up, we saw a troop of 7 monkeys looking down at us from the canopy layer. The boys started giggling and said "at least its not capuchin monkeys sir. We are safe for a while". I ignored the comment and we walked on. About 10 minutes later we heard more monkeys and this time, they were capuchin monkeys. "Watch out sir!" "Don't drop the soap". I had to know more. The story of the capuchin monkey is a strange but apparently true one. The capuchin monkey is a strong monkey that can easily grab fruit from trees but the Squirrel monkey is much weaker and so has to rely on picking up leftovers from other monkeys. They are therefore known to follow the capuchin monkeys around picking up bits and pieces oif fruit - so far so good. Unfortunately, if the squirrel monkey gets too close to the capuchin then it will grab it, beat it and in extreme cases....... rape it! The capuchin monkey has been seen sexually atacking smaller monkeys and it does not matter whether they are male of female, the capuchin is not a picky beast. So there you have it, the unpleasnant story of the capuchin monkey and the reason why the week was scattered with capuchin monkey jokes and comments - again kids will be kids whether they are in blah blah blah!
The final day saw us transferred to Refugio Amazona and back up towards the airport. This location was picturesque and looks a lot more like an exclusive hotel than the other two locations. The place had an impressive restaurant, massage room, bike hire centre and hammocks hung from the beautiufl rafters upstairs. It was packed with tourists but by this time the Markham Savages were tame and they sat an played chess from the hammocks as the sun set, with barely an inch of blue left on their tired looking faces. By half 9 as the electicity cut out for the last time, the kids had already taken themselves off to bed and were asleep ready for their boat trip and flight home the next day. No need for teacher patrols, no need to tell kids off, just a very pleasant group of kids shattered after a very tiring week in the jungle.
Thankfully there are no volcanoes spewing ash along the way back and so our flight was on time and everyone arrived safely; even Mr House had managed not to get biten by any killer bugs and thankfully none of the other passengers understood the capuchin monkey jokes being stated in the queue for bags.

A evry exciting week which is currently being followed by another very exciting week in Lima as Clare and Tilly arrive in the Peruvian capital to experience in reality what I have just been waffling on about in this blog for the past 3 months.