'Ive never been happier to navigate my way through a dark, delapidated brothel....' (Roo Stainton 2011)

We returned to Cusco from Macchu Picchu shattered and slept for two days. After our marathon rest we started out, refreshed and ready for another adventure, by finding the correct bus that would take us to Huambutio to our second Peruvian volunteering placement. We jumped in the back, threw our bags on the roof, and off we went. No more than two miles into our death-defying, buttock-clenching journey did something fly off the roof. To my dismay, I soon discovered it was my expensive coat, and not only has it fallen off the roof of the bus, some other bus had stopped in the middle of the road and a theiving Peruvian fleece stealer had nabbed it! We shouted something loudly, not in Spanish or English, maybe in French and the driver made a handbreak turn and that was it, we were off on a high speed, South American car chase! Everyone in our bus was ready, if neccasary to jump out and hang off the window wipers, wing mirrors, or any protruding part of the enemy bus to ensure the safe return of my coat. My quiet mutters of 'its Ok' and 'I could just buy a new one' fell on deaf ears and we quickly overtook the offending bus. We performed another handbreak turn and stopped head-on infront of the bus. The Peruvian fleece stealer, faced with a bus load of angry faces, wisely decided to return the stolen object and threw it on the bonnet of our bus, causing woops of delight from the passangers. Feeling slightly embarrassed to have caused such a to-do, we thanked the driver who looked extremely pleased with himself and we carried on with our journey.

Feeling slightly sick from the whole experience we were glad when the sign for Humbuatio came into view. ´Get off at the bridge before the town´ Enrique had emailed me, 'you´ll see a big white house, thats where we live´. As the bridge came into view we told the driver to stop. He didn´t stop. Over the bridge, past the big white house we went. The passangers shook their heads and pointed down the road. Almost 2 miles later the bus stopped, ´Huabutio´everyone said in unison. We got out, picked up our bags and started the long trudge down the dusty road, up a hill, blaming each other for not getting out earlier.

We arrived at the big white house, thirsty and dusty and introduced ourselves to Victor and Enrique, who has to be the tallest man in Peru at 6ft 7. I was quite relieved as I have been feeling like a giant. Everyone in Peru(except Enrique) is shorter than Emma, which is really quite short. We were shown around the house which has 10 bedrooms, a pool (empty), massive gardens and outhouses. We were told it used to be a hotel for gentlemen....... Enrique now rents it and runs it as a cultural centre and somewhere for local kids to come and ride bikes, draw, cook and play sports. He also throws the odd rave.

After our tour of the ´brothel´as it will now be affectionately known, we we taken to the local primary school, a sweet litte school which prides itself with recycling everything it uses. The chairs and tables are made from plastic bottles taped together. They compost all their food waste, have a solar powered shower and their school books are made from recycled paper. This is a bit revolutionary in Peru as most people just chuck their rubbish in the street.The school has 16 kids in total, 11 board as they live too far to walk everyday. The school day ends at 1pm which is when their teacher leaves. The principle, a fantastic lady called Janet lives at the school, with the boaders as a volunteer all week. She devises after school activities for them, makes sure they take showers and looks after them like her own kids. She gets to go to her own home at the weekends. Without Janet volunteering in this way, these 11 kids wouldn´t be able to have an education. Anyway, we were thrown into the deep end on our first day and told to take an english class. The class consisted on 7 kids between the ages of 6 and 12- none of whom spoke any english, and we dont speak any spanish. As you can imagine it was a bit of a disaster, which ended up with Emma having her hair braided and nails painted. Luckily for me, my hair is too short to be appealing to small Peruvian girls so I escaped with just a few pink nails.

The next day we spent the morning at the secondary school, teaching pronunciation to 10-12 year olds. They were more terrified than us, which could have something to do with their teacher. Dragon doesnt come close! She forced them into a circle and made them say vegetable and animal names in English one at a time. Thnakfully she left us in charge of the group so we deviated from the lesson plan slightly and played a running, chasing type circle game which seemed much more exciting to me. In the afternoon we went back to the little school and helped with some gardening.  The days passed happily like this for a while, going to school, coming back to the house where Victor would cook fantastic meals, make the odd cake...etc etc. Until Enrique had a great idea.....

´Lets go to a small, remote mountain village´ he said. ´We can start a recycling project there´. Brilliant we thought. The trip to the mountain village happened to coincide with the biggest festival this side of Lima, thrown every year in aid of some virgin or another. Thousands of people flooded the town for a weekend. After catching two buses in the blazing heat, carrying 4 bags the size of tables Emma, Victor, Pepe (Victors brother) and I arrived in Puecotambo sweaty and kanckered only to find Enrique chilling in the sun having ridden his motorbike up a few hours earlier. We carried the bags to the local campsite which consisted of a field and one broken toilet. Brilliant. We put up the tents, and to our dismay, discovered that we were to share with Victor and his 17 year old brother. This would have been fine, they are lovely boys, excpet for the smell of Pepe´s feet. In an attempt not to vomit, we opened the door of the tent all night, braving the freezing temperatures.

 In the morning, Emma was a treat. Having forgotten all our money, having no sleep, being cold, not being able to wash and having no clean drinking water seemed to put her in some kind of angry trance. We ventured into town to find water, like two nomadic tribespeople, only to be engulfed by drunkem mob of dancers. We were thankfully pushed towards a samll shop where we bought water and waited for the rush to subside. By now Emma was beyond angry- steam was escaping from her ears, I dared not to ask for anything to eat as we trudged our way back to the campsite. The final straw was when Enrique suggested we move our tent, Pepe´s feet and all,  onto the road, infront of the truck we were to catch a ride in at 4am the next morning. We promptly packed our bag and caught the next bus back to Huambutio. Nonoe was perticularly amused, but Emma meant buisness, and if you know Emma, she´s not to be messed with if tired, cold and hungry!

We arrived back at the house in the pitch dark. Struggling with the big bunch of keys, trying not to jump at all the strange noises that old houses make, we managed to find our way to bed to sleep in a war(ish) room on matresses and have a shower the following morning! Bliss!