Attempted robbery at the top of a small mountain

Yesterday was our first day of 'working' at Tancarpata school in Cusco! We were taken there with two other volunteers Matt and Ben by a small Peruvian woman who spoke no English and vaguely pointed out the bus that we would have to take the next day as we flew by the stop in a taxi (with 4 of us in the back seats!). We arrived at the bottom (sadly) of a small mountain and were then told that the school was at the top...disappointed sigh...
The four of us, plus small Peruvian woman that spoke no English and was surprisingly sprightly in her approach to the aforementioned mountain, crawled, wheezing and gasping up to the top...beginning to question adjective 'small' with reference to mountain.
We arrived at the school, greeted with shouts of 'Gringos!', their name for foreigners, as an entire herd of rowdy Peruvian children came hurtling towards us. The girls promptly began to treat us as climbing frames, asking our names and holding our hands...whilst subtly trying to steal our jewellery. First lesson...don't wear anything sparkly! Rebecca entered the school with hair clip and left, a victim of theft, without said hair clip.
We were then abandoned by our small Peruvian woman that spoke no English, and told that there was to be a festival at the school on friday so most of the children were practising for plays and doing arty things. They asked the four of us to help with these preparations this week and start teaching English next week, which was fine by us as preparations involve cutting and sticking and papier maché masks...we feel about 10 again.
Getting home was interesting to say the least...this involved deciphering a small piece of pink paper with various codes written on it, which turned out to be the names of various buses and the stops we should leave at. It was not entirely clear which was which. However, we soldiered on down the small mountain, and caught a bus, which is more like a gutted VW campervan but with 10 times the amount of people it's meant to hold, making for an experience rather like sardines in a can. The up side is, it only costs 0.60 soles, the equivalent of about 15p for any journey!
After lunch, we went up to Plaza de Armas where the festival for the Virgin Mary was taking place, Cusco is BIG on festivals! There was music and many elaborate costumes and dances that probably had some meaning if we'd had any idea what was going on!
Later that evening, we went out into the town with the other volunteers to a 'discoteca' where there was a live band with a lead singer from Chicago. They were surprisingly talented and we had a really good night.
TODAY (wednesday), we had to get up at the crack of dawn (6.30) to get to school. We experienced much the same traumatic bus journey and the mission of climbing the mountain, to be greeted with similar enthusiasm as yesterday but today as 'africanos' (irony perhaps?!). We spent the day painting leaves  and flowers (fake ones) made from plastic bottles, and created with great artistic skill papier maché rocks that the children promptly started to use as bolis (footballs)...
This afternoon we had both signed up for a tandem session, which involves meeting up with a native peruvian so that they can practise their english for half an hour and we can practise our spanish too. Rebecca's was rather more successful than Annie's, who's tandem was a classic "over-sharer", who after a mere 5 minutes had shared stories of molestation in the work place and her dead father... happy days. Fortunately and entirely coincidently Annie's had to change hers as the woman has an exceedingly tight schedule - a lucky escape. Rebecca's was a 17 year old peruvian girl who is studying tourism at the university of Cusco, and is very nice.

Some of the volunteers on our project, us four nearest the front are the newest volunteers here, and the only English speakers.

The playground at the school with 'Tancarpata school' painted on the fence

The view from the small mountain across Cusco

A poser from the parade. Not sure what he was supposed to be but his outfit was cool.

Dancers from the parade

BIG NEWS OF TODAY...

REBECCA AND ANNIE FIND ENGLISH TEA IN PERU

After Annie's panicked calculations that in 3 weeks she would miss 168 cups of tea, action had to be taken. We walked up to the San Blas area of Cusco and located possibly the only cafe in the entirety of Peru that imports British tea! It was heavenly.

That's it for now...dinner time!

Lots of love Rebecca and Annie
xxx