Day 385 Sports Day Parade 20/7/2012

Michael loves his food, especially whilst wearing his fashionable "Pikachu" hat.



Rocio was asked to be the godmother of the sports day at her college. This involved her dressing in a really quite impressive dress, made by the students from crepe paper and balloons!



There were speeches and singing of the Peruvian and Huancaino National anthems. I hadn't heard the Huancayo one before, only the folk music unofficial anthem. The various groups from the different sections of the college lined up and stood to attention through all this. There were woodworkers, welders, engineers, Rocio's Food Industry groups and others I can't remember.
If you look closely you can just make out Michael who had snuck into the back of the group to visit his friends before it all got too official for me to remove him.



They then marched a circuit of the arena and then the games commenced. Football for boys, volleyball for girls and table tennis. We had to leave a little early but I think they finished with three-legged races and egg-n-spoon races, thing like that.
Michael never likes to wear a hat but we try very very hard to keep one on him.
Here he is pulling it off for the hundredth time that day.

Day 381 Immunistaions 16/7/2012

A little late due to having to go to Lima too often we took Michael for his 12 month immunisations. It was at the same place we went for his health check and like the other time we waited for a long time in the alley next to the clinic with many other Mums and children. Michael had a fine time again getting to know the other children. Eventually we went in and pretty soon Michael had his injections, one in each arm. He did cry, especially with the second one which didn't take him by surprise, but only for about a minute then he was fine.
Since then he has looked a bid sad and not been up to his normal energy levels but he has been laughing and messing about and getting into trouble so we're not too worried.

Day 380 House Warming 15/07/2012

So we were invited to a house warming celebration at our cousins place in the fields on the edge of Huancayo. The house isn't actually finished yet but by Peruvian tradition there must be a celebration for the new roof.
It was a wonderful warm afternoon. Now it's full summer in Huancayo there are always wonderful hot sunny afternoons. It hasn't rained for weeks now and everything is dust dry all the time.
Rocio, her Mum , Michael and I went first to town to buy presents. Lots of sweets and plastic toys and importantly flowers.
We met Uncle Adam on the way up the hill to the party, he was with the other orchestra members getting ready to play at the party. We tried to buy beer to take too but strangely couldn't find any in the local shops.
The party was very laid back by Peruvian standards, not much drinking and dancing, in fact only Rocio's Mum and I danced. There was much sitting around talking and watching the men put the concrete roof on the house.






Here is Michael with some of his many relatives who were there.



He had a wonderful time crawling around on the grass. He had a bit of learning to do as the grass was a bit steeply banked but he got around quite nicely in the end.
Uncle Adam's orchestra "Los Principes de Huancayo" (The Princes of Huancayo) played




My Uncle Adam is third from the left in picture but 1st 4th and 5th are also his brothers, my uncles. The clarinet player on the far right was very kind to me and lend me his clarinet for a while. I had never played one before but I managed to get a few notes out of it. Not that I need to take up another instrument when I'm still fighting the violin.


They gradually got more members in the orchestra as they turned up. At one point Uncle Adam received a phone call from and missing member and stood to "Call" him with some loud , but tuneful, blasts of saxophone.



There was meat and potatoes and salad to eat. As it was just getting dark the real ceremony started, with Rocio's Mum and the Madrina, or Godmother of the event.



She stood on the very new roof of the house with the flowers and gave a short speech before the all important throwing of the sweeties. We all fought to get as many sweeties and plastic toys as possible in the growing dark and then it was time to go home.
Here's Michael in the bus on the way home. He loves the buses and almost always makes friends wit the people around.

Life in Lima again Day 371 6/7/2012

So we had to go to Lima again. I am still fighting to get my residency in Peru sorted out and it's still not going that well.
We took the overnight bus from Huancayo again, an expensive on this time with super wide seats for us to sleep in, which really does make a difference when, as Rocio does, you are sleeping with a baby. The trouble is always that it isn't all that far from Huancayo to Lima and leaving at 11.30 at night we get to Lima at about 6.00 a.m. Lima is miserable at any time of day but what can you do with a one year old at 6 in the morning? We just have to hang out in the bus station until we can go for breakfast somewhere. It's boring AND stressful. Bloody Lima seems to have a policy of not being comfortable anywhere at any time. At least in a city like London for example you could find somewhere to sit down. In Lima everywhere is dangerous and dirty. After much walking about and buying drinks we didn't want in dirty cafés we eventually got into the first office of the day and after some arguing got Rocio's ID card sorted out. This took until about midday but was by Lima Bureaucracy standards quite a success. So we went to the Krishna Restaurant to eat. We had a disappointing time last time we were there but this time the food was great and the people friendly and we can now recommend it again. Mike had a fine time crawling from table to table introducing himself to all who were there. He also managed to eat a lot too. He is so good at eating these days.




And so to the Immigration Office in the afternoon to finally get my residency application applied for. Only to be told that they are not open in the afternoon. So infuriating. Why not open in the afternoons? They are packed out in the mornings. This of course meant staying and extra day in stinky Lima, in a hotel again and delaying our return to Huancayo where Rocio needed to help her Mum with making hats for the very important Santiago season. The busiest time of year for hat making anmd a good time for the family to make money. The officials in Lima don't care about any of this and so far have delayed me applying for residency for about 3 months. I only have a 3 month visa each time. So this is very annoying. Each time my visa runs out I have to leave Peru, if only for a minute, by crossing the border with Bolivia or Chile or Ecuador but this means about three days travelling and hotels and all the other wastes of time and money.
We went to our favourite hotel near Immigrations and in the evening across the road for chips. We know all about this little part of Lima by now as we have spent several days here being messed about by Immigrations. One of the best things about being in a hotel in Lima is the hot shower and we made very full use of it. It is really luxurious after months of cold showers in Huancayo.
We were back at Immigrations very early next morning and used Rocio's "Preferential" status to jump all the queues. My silly problem with officially having returned from Bolivia despite never officially leaving has now been rectified I'm told but it's still bad news about the application for residency.
Apparently the officialised ( I don't know a better English translation for this very Peruvian pass time ) copy of our wedding certificate that we took them is now out of date. They only last three months and ours was three months and about three days old. So we have to get a new one from Huancayo, take it to Lima again, pay to have it officialised again and try applying again. Of course more travel and expense and hotels etc. etc. It is getting very near time for a new visa for me too, so perhaps I'll have to go to Chile AGAIN too. I've been to Chile I think 4 times now. In total I've been in that country for about 1 hour. I cross the border, get a bus tot he nearest town, buy a fizzy drink paying with Peruvian money and get the bus back to the borer.
So we had nothing else to do in Lima and wandered about for ages before going to the bus station very early, buying our tickets to Huancayo and waiting about 10 hours for the bus.
We were bored silly buy the bus station but Michael had a really good time. He loved crawling about on the big slippery floor and introducing himself to everyone. He learnt how to operate the light switches and turned the lights on and off and on and off. He found a group of older children with balloons to play with. They were very kind to Michael and made sure he could join in all their fun. He learnt how to open a screw top bottle.



He discovered the headphones on my MP3 player and how to unplug and plug them in again (Fiddly work for his little hands but he is so determined in these things) he also seemed to discover his own ears and where they are. At first he was putting the ear piece just anywhere on his head but he soon caught on that he could hear the music if he put it to his ear, so he did that to himself and to me and danced to the Santiago music it was playing.
The bus journey back was really hard. This bus was not luxurious and Rocio hardly slept as Michael hardly slept. He seemed realy uncomfortable and we were not best pleased when the bus broke down a couple of hours from Huancayo. It was still dark and we were far from and town. It seems one of the air filled bags that act as suspension had burst and it looked like it would be hours before any help arrived. Many passengers were trying to hitch hike with passing cars and lorries or trying to pay to get on other passing coaches. We managed to beg a ride with a car that I don't think was stopping to help. Just stopping to let the children inside change seats. The couple in the car were friendly and really helped us and I appreciate it but they did not want to talk so we sat almost silent in their car for an hour or so until a town called Jauja where we got a bus to Huancayo. It was very strange to me they weren't at all interested in who we were or what had happened or anything. Still they were kind to us and I'm grateful.
Bus and taxi later we arrived home and Rocio's Mum made us a great breakfast. Which Michael didn't want to eat. We found out later why when he started throwing up. Just like the other time. Great fountains of projectile milk. He was very floppy and unwell and Rocio and I carried him around all day. He didn't want anyone else and he really didn't want leaving anywhere. Luckily we still have his sickness medicine from last time and it's still in date so he is back on that.
Now the next day he seems much better, he's playing again and quite lively and there is no diarrhoea so I think he is on the mend. We are blaming it on a banana drink he had in Lima which might not have been made with boiled water but just the muck that comes out of the taps there. We will be more careful in future and perhaps avoid taking Michael to Lima at all.

School Days 2/7/2012 day 367

Mike still likes to go to classes with Rocio. I still don't know what they get up to really but there are some photos.

Michael's Birthday 1/7/2012 Day 366

So Michael is one year old already. I know it's a cliché thing to say but "Don't they grow up quickly?"
We spent the morning cleaning and sorting out the living-room for the party, putting up balloons and streamers and busying with the jelly and mazamora (It's a lot like jam, made from red corn and you get to eat a whole bowl full of it).

Here is Mike in his Captain's hat



I tried very hard to get a picture of Mike with the piñata clown, to show that they were almost the same size, but he was far too interested in grabbing it to stand and pose.



I went out at midday to collect the Pocoyo cake we had ordered especially for Michael. I was so looking forward to seeing him recognise Pocoyo, his favourite cartoon character, on the cake. When I got to the shop they brought out a lovely cake with a hideous drawing on the top. I regret not taking the camera to the shop to photo this monstrosity. Also the cake was smaller than the one I had chosen and had the chocolate decorations missing from the side. As usual the young girls in the shop didn't give a toss that the cake was bad and just kept repeating "This is what the owne left for us" One girl proceeded to attempt to write "Happy Birthday Michael" in chocolate icing directly on top of the bumpiest part of the decoration. Of course most of the lettering fell off and it was unreadable. I told them I wasn't happy and they could give me another cake. So they got a small wafer and wrote Happy birthday again and leant it in front of the bad lettering. I explained that I still needed my chocolate decorations, the bad lettering removed, a bigger cake (or discount) and something done about the ugly unrecognisable picture but they weren't listening so I walked out and left them with the ugly cake. I was expecting to be chased down the street as they won't be able to sell that mess, but they let me go.
So I went and bought a chocolate cake from a nearby shop and had Happy Birthday written on it whilst I waited. Much simpler but I don't get to see Michael recognise the Pocoyo.

The party was a great success with lots of children and Mum's turning up. We sang songs and ate lots of stuff and did the Hokey-Cokey (in English) and a very popular train game around the garden to a favourite merengue



and then it was time for the piñata. I only vaguely knew ow to organise this so my cousin Sara took over and we all had a great time smashing the clown with a big plastic mallet until the sweets and toys came out.
Here he is leading the way



At which point there was a real scrimmage for the things on the floor. It really reminded me of the Corta Monte in Mentushari where Bob earned his small plastic in-tray.





Here's Michael's birthday table



and Michael doing the "mordita" or little bite, where by tradition he has to take a little bite directly from the cake and also by tradition someone pushes his face right in! We only did this very gently for Mike but sometimes it's a real face full.



At the end of the party after all the guests had gone (all taking balloons with them even if it meant climbing the furniture to take them off the walls!) we had Michael's present opening. He was burried in a mound of presents and rather overwhelmed by them all. He did rip some open but then wouldn't look at the others because he had enough to do with the lorries and motorbikes and yoghurts and balls and biscuits he found inside.



Here he is with parts of a lorry-of-pop he was given. He isn't crying but he does still have cream on his face from the birthday cake.



Strangly after all this we received our late comming guests. Daena (a blind girl we have recently met) and her little sister. I never quite worked out why they came so very late but they were very welcome and we still had a little cake, popcorn, jelly, chocolate drink and birthday cake for them.



I think Michael loved his party and he even had an excellent time the next day pulling all the decorations down with me and having a wild time in a pile of balloons.

Invitations and milk

Here is Michael sporting his Father Christmas look.



We have been preparing for Michael's first birthday party, buying plastic plates and balloons, a piñata and having invitations printed. The last was made extra complicated by the people in the printers being idiots. They took our order and said it would be ready the next day. We decided to have a little invitation with a photo of Michael on the front, unfortunately we hadn't brought a nice portrait of Michael with us to the shop so we had to make do with the recent photos we happened to have in Rocio's camera phone. The best of them of him with short hair was a bit blue, which I pointed out to them and they said would be OK. I knew you couldn't really improve the colour as I had already tried on the computer.
Returning the next day we found they had done nothing and they asked us to come back again 30 mins later. We went back a couple of hour later and they had still done nothing so we waited in the shop for them to do it. One of the staff decided I was Rocio's spokesperson and throughout the time I was trying to talk to the man on the computer about the picture she continually hit my arm and repeated in Spanish "Does she want a stool? She can sit here. Does she want to sit down?" etc. I refuse to insult Rocio by talking for her so I ignored the persistent woman.They then told us "The picture is too blue" we will try to fix it.
Here's Mr Blue you might recognise him from the Facebook icon.


Despite telling them several times not to bother they spent 15 mins or so failing to fix it before letting me give them another better (although hairy) picture of Michael. This turned out fine and they recruited the other customers waiting in the shop to help fold and glue our cards. Michael helped out with the big piñata mallet we had just bought.



This is all standard customer care here in Peru.
The best bit about it all was when we had finished they put one of Michael's invitations on the wall as a model.



The other event this week was Rocio's "Vaso de Leche" club, or glass of milk club, a government funded system of local groups supporting mothers. They get together every week and try to help each other and a few times a year ( I think ) the government gives out free milk in tins. Here they are sitting on the grass where the meetings are always held. Usually this works out fine. I don't know what happens when it rains.