Back to School

Hi guys,
so just as a heads up it looks like I'm going to be fairly busy here from now on so I'll definitely be posting once a week (internet availability dependant) but I can't garuntee more than that.

So this week I've been spending a lot of the time going to our two local schools in Pilcopata and Patria where we're getting them into composting and where we now have weather stations based. It turns out the stations were actually donated by Edinburgh university which is a funny kind of coincidence.
During our last school visits I was asked to say a little something about myself too (instead of just sitting quietly at the back of the room). Normally I would have no problem with this as many of you know I'll happily talk to anyone about anything, however this was a bit different - I had to talk in Spanish. Now for those of you know don't know my Spanish capabilities are pretty much zero, but I translated a little something and read it out on command and thankfully not too many of the kids laughed at me.


While we had school visits practically every day last week I still had quite a bit of free time during the day - which I've ben using to study. I've had a bit of a problem with my university work in that due to past module dates I was under the impression I could take my next course after I got back in February, apparently this is no longer an option and the course only starts in October. They told me I wouldn't be able to enroll late into the course for this term so I'm stuck officially not studying until next October. However I have a friend studying the same course this year so I now have the first lot of coursework so I can teach myself the subject now - so I can take it officially alongside my originally planned other courses from next October, once I already know the content. That may or may not actually make sense but that's the plan anyway.
I've also been spending a little time trying to start improving my Spanish but so far that hasn't been quite so sucessful.

This week the centre has actually been pretty quiet due to the fact we're missing over half the normal people here. The School for Field Science group that are staying here have their mid-term break so they're all off in Cuzco, and some of the volunteers and researchers also left for a short break.

On the other hand we had a few extra visitors here - a TV crew from a Peruvian station making a documentary about various environmental stations in the area. They spent some time just filming the place itself but before long they started looking for 'volunteers'. They needed people to pose in certain areas and look busy around the centre, and since I was one of the only people around they got me, and a Finnish guy whose here, to help out. It felt a bit silly pretending to weed or make notes on camera but at least that was really all we had to do. Apparently It's going to be on Peruvian TV in about 3 weeks if anyone wants to try and find it for me then!

Today a couple of us decided to head up to a little animal centre nearby where a little old lady looks after a few animals which I guess aren't healthy or have suffered in the wild. I'm still not to sure on the details of the place because the woman seems to only speak Quechua but it was interesting to see the place. She had a few monkeys around including a tiny little Wooley Monkey which didn't exactly look ill but looked pretty sad, there were a couple of really friendly Peccary as well the the standard Macaws and Guini Pigs which seem to be everwhere around here. She had a Tapir too but it was being kept inside when we went.

Other than that I can't think of much else that's been going on here - it really has ben a quiet week. It hasn't rained since last Sunday and the place seems to have ground to a halt with the heat, which is pretty funny considering the same thing happens almost as soon as it starts raining.

Well it looks like I've got to go - just been asked if I want to head out to the river for a swim so I'm not gonna pass up that chance. Speak to you all again soon!!