GUNIEA-PIG!!!! A minor-ly early morning of breakfast at 8 and leaving by 8.30 found us driving into the countryside again! We were a happy set of girls that departed the house that fine morning, breezing along the (relatively) smooth main road and bumping along the (extremely) rough dirt road until we reached our destination which was:

A small, mud-brick house looking out onto a sloping field of maize and potatoes with rock-tumbled mountains filling the horizon with their craggy presence. Chickens scuffled through the dirt and pigs lifted their snouts in a welcoming snuffle as cows crunched heavily on the rain-green grass.

After a ?snack? of egg-and-chicken soup with hot-green-stuff (incredibly spicy paste made from herbs ? one drop in your soup is enough to set your mouth on fire!) we all went out into the potato fields and began the morning?s work accompanied by the farm owners and friends.

The smooth thud of potato hoes piercing the silty loam of the red earth is lit by the hot mountain sun, spilling out of the celestial blue sky which is scarred by high-flying cirrus clouds and the soft, fluffy cream of thunder bearing cumulonimbus? clouds. The gentle crack of the plants being unearthed, leads to the precious store of golden fruit being exposed and laughing smiles when we miss the sack we throw them into.

Three and a half hours passes quickly, painted clear rainbow colours by the soft worship songs sang on the thin, morning air - English and Peruvian alike. Rain at one o'clock puts a stop to further harvesting, so we all troop back to the farm and wash our mud-caked hands and broken nails under the hand pump, before settling down to a lunch of maize, potatoes, salt and hot-green-stuff for starters and then a main meal of rice, more potatoes in a delicious yellow sauce and the Peruvian delicacy: Guniea-Pig! (sorry to all those pet-lovers out there!) I must say I'm not a great fan of it, especially when you could see the heart and kidneys still attached to the rib cage but I ate it all!

After learing a folk song from Terese, one of the ageing ladies on the farm, we drive back in the pick up singing to the cool rain on our wind-blown faces.

The evening finds us learning some more dances for the children's show we are doing in two weeks time for Operation Christmas Child (where children from other countries e.g England, America, Europe send shoe boxes filled with goodies for the children in places like Peru, other areas in South America?India?Africa etc) and after much exhaustion we have team-time, supper, and then bed!!