Stuff and things

Captain's log: Stardate 21111.5

We've just finished our second week of work. Everything hurts, but it's probably good for me, maybe... 

This week I've done more work with the website, still trying to sort out the translation stuff, but I think I've cracked it now using the xili-language wordpress plugin. Just need to fiddle a bit more to get it working the way I want. 

I also worked with the kids more, doing bits of silks and juggling. I learnt to club pass, which was way easier than expected. 

We went to a language exchange thing in order to sell bracelets made by the kids and their families, music CDs made by the kids, and raffle tickets. I now appear to be on Bolivian television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWgsxfbdsgg which is slightly weird but cool, hopefully nobody from immigration sees that and recognises me ... 

Yesterday we went out with the kids to a field nearby to do some theatre exercises, lead by n new American volunteer called Janet. On the way there was a herd of sheep in the middle of the field and one of the girls ran forward and picked up the tinniest sheep ever, and I got to stroke it and squealed quite a lot :) SO CUTE! The kids were mostly unimpressed with the theatre exercises, refusing even to look each other in the eyes, we have a lot of work to do, trying to build up their confidence and self esteem.

I also worked with one of the older girls to help her with her maths homework, for around an hour yesterday, and it looks like I've got more to do on that next week. She said I was a good teacher and way better than her school's teachers, so that's nice, and know I now how to do maths in Spanish.

I had another Spanish lesson on Wednesday which went well, it's quite amazing how much my language skills have improved in the last two to three weeks, but my vocab is still really lacking, so understanding people is still really hard.

We had a meeting about visas, and the process is under way, this weekend I need to update my CV and translate it into Spanish. Not sure why the Bolivian government wants that but it shouldn't be too hard.

We went to "urban fest" last night, which was slightly strange, and seemed full of hippy stands. Amy was pleased as she managed to get a soya burger, which was actually pretty good. The music started as pretty terrible hip hop, but progressed into some more dub stuff later on, so that was better. Despite it being a "clean" alcohol free thing, I managed to "win" a beer from someone working a stand by spinning poi and playing with my contact ball.

Last weekend we went to a kitchen shop and I spent £6.50 on a pretty decent sharp knife. Our host mother was amazed we had spent so much, since all of hers were around £2, and unsurprisingly blunt as hell. This is slightly strange as she seems to mostly spend her time cooking. I tried to make scones, but I used weird flour, and they came out a bit hard and chewy :\ oh well. I plan on making an apple crumble this weekend, and it seems like we've been invited to a BBQ tomorrow, so that's cool.

I've been working on my Tron thing a bit more too. I know have an arena floor and I can drive my bike around using the arrow keys. The lighting is weird and so I need to work that out. Tthe bike is too square, but that can wait. I need to add walls and scenery, multiple floors and a physics engine to deal with jumps. However the next thing on my list is to add the light trails. This is a bit tricky as it's constantly updating, so I need to look into OpenGL streaming techniques, which sound a little complicated. I need to work out how to render to textures, so I can do reflection, and make the bike glow more. So yeah, lots to do, but it's still kind of fun. Wish I had more time to work on it, as I'm slightly worried I'm losing momentum and will get bored in probably not too long. Luckily we have a 1 month break from work in a couple another 3 or 4 weeks, so I can get back to it then, although we'll probably use some of that time to travel a bit.

I finally have a phone, it's possibly even worse than Amy's :( however it was free, given to me by the lady who runs performing life, and I can use it until I get a new one or stop working there. So at least I can call Amy now, and stop bothering her for what time it is.

Finally, the charity we're working for is trying to raise a bunch of money to help fund a local lady go to university in America. If any of you fancy reading more and / or donating then the link is here: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/part-2-sending-escarlet-to-college