Interpol now has a file on me.

Captain's log: Stardate 05021.6

You may remember from one of my past posts, that we need to get a specific purpose visa before we can get our year long visa. So we've been working towards that. One of the requirements is a police record from your home country. According to migration we can use an interpol police record if we need to. That has been our main goal these past few weeks.

The requirements for an interpol certificado de antecedentes are:

1. A letter written by a lawyer to the director of Interpol, stating we would like a certificado de antecedentes.
2. A colour photocopy of our passport's ID page, entry stamp, and visa slip.
3. 4 photographs against a red background in 4x3 format. 3 Profile, 1 half profile looking left.
4. A photocopy of our National ID (not needed as we don't have national ID cards).
5. A photocopy of a certificado de antecedentes from the FELCN (drug trafficking police).
6. Marriage certificate Legalised in the country of issue at the Bolivian consulate, and in Bolivia too. (Not applicable luckily)
7. A photocopy of our rent contract (confirmed by a notary).
8. A photocopy of the deeds to the property you live in.
9. A photocopy of the owner of the property's ID, signed by the owner.
10. Photocopies of power and water bills, and taxes.
11. A photocopy of your student certificate (not applicable).
12. A photocopy of your work contract (volunteering in our case).
13. A sworn declaration of financial solvency from a notary.
14. Separate deposits of 50 Bs and 15 Bs into Interpol's bank account.
15. The original documents to back up the photocopies.

Of course this isn't listed on Interpol's website, oh wait they don't have a Bolivian website. You have to go to the office, oh wait, where is the office? So yeah that was the first step, finding the office, eventually we found that in an old petrol station a bit out of town, and got the above details (by taking a photo of a piece of paper outside).

So looking through that list, the first thing seems to be the certificado de antecedentes from the FELCN. They actually have a website! Which lists the requirements as:

1. A letter written by a lawyer to the director of the FELCN.
2. A photo in 4x4 format against a red background, in profile.
3. Two photocopies of your passport's ID page.
4. Your passport (to show).
5. A deposit of 25 Bs into their bank account.

So first we found ourselves a lawyer who our friend warned us may well try and convince us just to bribe interpol. From him we got two a letter for interpol and a letter for the FELCN stating that we were living at Sustainable Bolivia's volunteering house, as that's what SB put on our initial application for the visa de cortesia. Costing 40 Bs per letter each.We also got some photos taken, and photocopied a bunch of stuff. After that we paid money into to the bank account listed on the FELCN's website.

What the website doesn't say is where their office is in Cochabamba, so we ask a bunch of people and take the consensus (since we got about 4 different replies), and got a taxi across town to a centre of police offices next to the FELCC (where I went 3 times when my phone was stolen). Turns out it isn't there, so we got a taxi all the way back across town to the FELCN's office, which actually was there, however was not where they issue the certificates. So we get another taxi back across town again to near the airport, to transito which is where the certificates are now issued.

Finally there, we present our documents and find out that actually we paid the money into the La Paz office's account (we had checked that this was OK with our lawyer first). So another taxi takes us to the bank, where we wait some more, and make another deposit. The final taxi takes us back where we actually get issued with the certificate straight off. Not sure if they actually checked anything or not, but we know have a certificate with our photo and thumb prints stating that we are not drug traffickers!

Then we head to SB and ask them about the rest of the certificado de antecedentes requirements for interpol. Remember the one saying that we need the deeds to the house we live in? Well turns out SB hadn't been bothered to read the e-mail we sent them, and actually they can't provide the deeds, because the lady who owns the house doesn't have them... So we wait a few days over the weekend and go to interpol with SB's lawyer to check, and sure enough .. yes you actually need all the documents that are listed as being required ... who'd have thought it.

Suffice it to say, we are even more pissed off with SB than normal, they do try and be helpful, but seem to fall short at every hurdle. Remember we paid $485 each to get the visa de cortesia through them, and pay them $150 each per month, for the privilege of working. Oh and on the note of SB, it's carnival this weekend, SB were offering a "fantastic" package for only $150 with accomodation, travel, seats, VIP area, etc... with the wonderful accommodation option of the floor of a restaurant, but don't worry, there's a lady around the corner that sells cardboard for you to sleep on! Oh and they throw in a free rain poncho and a whistle!!!! Lets say I ranted a fair bit about this, and decided that I was not going. Amy has actually just left for carnival although with a different group that charged about $110 and actually provides a bed.

Also on the note of carnival the chamber of heavey freight are protesting against taxes ATM (yes a government agency protesting) and there are road blocks all over the country and the cities. Amy was meant to leave early this morning, but was delayed 13 hours due to the buses not being able to go. Oh and when there's road blocks here, people set of dynamite charges, so there's been lots of quite load bangs across the city for the last few days. Not sure if the situations been resolved or not, but Amy's off, we'll see if she actually makes it there or not.

So back on topic, we found that we can't actually use the FELCN certificate we just got, because it has the address on, and it needs to match the address on the deeds that we provide to interpol. So we take a week off so that we don't go back to the FELCN 2 days later and ask for another certificate at a different address. We check with the family we are living with if they have and will provide everything we need, and then we go to a lawyer and get the two FELCN and two interpol letters written again (another 40 Bs per letter each), do some more deposits and go back to the FELCN (luckily we know where it is now). We get another certificate with no issues, explaining that we moved as we couldn't get the deeds to the over place. Now we have two FELCN certificates, definitely not drug traffickers!

We then return to the lawyer and get a rent contract drawn up (200 Bs), sign it, and go down the street to a notary who charges us 60 Bs to stick our thumb prints on it and stamp it. While at the notary we get our sworn declaration of financial solvency (she didn't even look at my bank statements). That was another 60 Bs each, plus some more for a few photocopies.

We pick up the deeds, and bills and owner's ID and with the help of the mum of our family (a lawyer) we get everything photocopied and what not. Then run off to SB to get the work contracts, which their lawyer had signed Amy's but forgotten mine. So we wait until the next morning and head back, get that signed, photocopy some more stuff, and go to interpol who say everything is good, so then we get the go ahead to go back to the back and pay the deposits in. Returning back to interpol we go through all the documents and they actually get accepted. 

Finally there was just the matter of taking my fingerprints (not just my thumb print, all of them), every single fingertip was dyed blue for the rest of the day, and asking me to write down my UK address and parents' names. (Mum, Dad, if anyone asks then that's why).

So now all that's left is for us to wait 10 to 12 working days and go back and pick it up (assuming it's actually ready by then).

Once we have it, then all we need to do is apply for the Specific Purpose visa which we can either do here or go back to Puno in Peru (another 14 hours each way in buses, assuming there aren't more roadblocks). It costs $85 in Puno, and more here, although we don't know how much more, some say it'll be about $450, others say about $100... who knows. Oh and we also need more paperwork for that, although hopefully it's easier to obtain. The main thing is they also want the sworn declaration of financial solvency backed up with 6 months of bank statements. Obviously the only bank statements we have are printed from online banking or printed scans. Hopefully they'll accept that. With how it's going, we'll go to Puno, spend 5 days waiting, find out it's been rejected because our bank statements are printed, and then we'll not be allowed to return to Bolivia.

We'll make the Puno VS here decision in the next couple of weeks.

So yeah visa are FUN!

Here's a baby Elephant from when I was in Thailand in October 2014 to take your mind off visas.

Other than that I've been improving my OpenGL's pipeline and doing some interesting stuff wit that. Once I've got a bit further I'll probably do a blog post talking about that and showing images of what I've got. I've also been reading the wheel of time by Robert Jordan which consists of 14 books each of about 1000 pages each, I'm on book 7 now, almost halfway through, at a rate of one book per week. With which:

May you always find water and shade.

Croquembouche

Captain's log: Stardate 12011.6

First of all apologies for the hair.

I spent the last four days slaving over the replicator making this croquembouche, it is one of the most complicated recipes I've every made. Pretty much every list of the most complicated cakes in the world features this one.

It consists of approximately 125 profiteroles filled with one of dulce de leche, lime custard or white chocolate ganache, and held together with more white chocolate.

Firstly you make a cone out of A1 card, and line it with foil. Then spend around 2 days working out how to make profiteroles (for extra fun, do this at altitude where nothing cooks correctly). The first 6 batches (150 profiteroles) failed to rise, but then I cracked it. The trick is to cook your butter, water flour mixture for 5 minutes and leave to cool completely before adding the eggs. So my subsequent 75 profiteroles were reasonable, a bit doughy in the middle, which made them hard to fill but they at least rose enough to use in the cake. The final 50 profiteroles came out perfectly, well risen and properly hollow. So once you've got all of that done. Make the filling(s) of your choice. After that use a piping bag to fill them all. Then melt some white chocolate with a bit of cream if needed, and use that to stick them all together in side the cone. Refrigerate for a bit (if you have a fridge big enough to hold it, and you're good to go. For extra flash, spin some sugar into tinsel and wrap it around, and / or add some sugar flowers.

All in all if you want to make this cake, you are slightly insane, but good luck. Here's the recipe I used: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1801/croquembouche however I suggest using this one for the profiteroles http://www.kimberlylow.com/2011/04/28/i-made-profiteroles-and-they-finally-rose/

Next up is a marjolaine cake https://www.google.com.bo/search?q=marjolaine+cake&espv=2&biw=911&bih=445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimyqbM2KTKAhWHXB4KHY4UDHcQ_AUIBigB which is also on efo the most complicated cakes in the world :) I would also like to make a Baumkuchen: https://www.google.com.bo/search?q=marjolaine+cake&espv=2&biw=911&bih=445&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwimyqbM2KTKAhWHXB4KHY4UDHcQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=german+baumkuchen but I need a rotary spit for that.

New year and visas

Captain's log: Stardate 09011.6

To get our new shiny volunteering visa we needed to first have a specific purpose visa, rather than our current tourist visa. So on the 27th December we headed to the bus station in Cochabamba in the evening. The way bus tickets are sold here is people go around shouting place names, and then you follow them to their stand where they tell you times, prices and coach type. After a bit of wandering around, we found a coach going to La Paz at 2130 and so booked tickets for that. They were £6 each for an 8 hour journey, with decent comfy seats, possibly the most comfy coach of the entire journey. That was then us until we arrived at 0500 in La Paz. We had booked a tourist coach to Cusco in Peru that picked you up from your hotel at around 7. Since we didn't have a hotel we had arranged to meet them at the Adventure Brew hostel not far from the bus terminal, at 0700. Luckily the staff let us in to sit somewhere warm and read for a couple of hours until the coach turned up, so that was good.

The coach turned up on time and we set off towards Peru. Around 4 hours later we arrived at lake Titicaca, and had to get out of the coach and take a motor boat across, whilst our coach was driven onto a wooden raft and floated over the narrow stretch of water.

After that there was another 45 minutes of driving and we had reach Copacabana. On the Bolivian side of the border to Peru. We had 6 hours there, and so we grabbed some food and walked down the sea front a bit. Near Copacabana there is the sun island and the moon island, which is where at least some Inkas believed that the sun and moon were born. So on the sea front we found these statues dedicated to them:

We had booked a boat trip to visit the sun island. Which was 1.5 hours each way, with a 1 hour walk in the middle. It started quite nice, hard work due to the altitude but pretty. Later on we reached the centre of the main town, which small as it was was rammed with tourists, and locals trying to sell you stuff. Eventually we found our way back to where the boat was and only just within the allotted one hour too.

With that it was off on buses again. We quickly reached the border, and left Bolivia and then entered Peru. Swapping to a different fancier although not all that comfy coach on the way. Two and a half hours later we had reached Puno, where we stopped for dinner, and then another 9 hours overnight until we arrived in Cusco. Finally there, we found our hostel and luckily got a bed within an hour or so, and slept until lunch.

Cusco is nice enough but again very touristy. We quickly got annoyed at being asked to view a menu or have a massage or have our boots shined etc... Although the ladies walking round with animals were quite cute. We had a picture with an Alpaca, who was just so fluffy! Unfortunately we turned down the lady with the baby goat. We didn't do a huge amount that first day as we were still pretty tired after two nights on coaches.

The next day we took a collectivo to Pisac, a town about an horu away that was meant to have some nice ruins to see. It was also pretty touristy but we soon left that behind as we decided to walk up the mountain to the ruins, rather than get a bus or a taxi up like everyone else. It was a long climb, but totally worth it. We saw no one else going up, and only a few people on their way down. Their was an awful lot of up involved in this, which we quickly began to realise was a theme for the rest of our trip.

We got a taxi down in the end because we were a bit hungry and wanted to go to one of the other sites covered under our entrance ticket.

So we got a taxi down and the driver dropped us at a local restaurant that had a sign outside saying: "Hoy menu familiar", which pretty much means, "the usual menu". It was pretty tasty though and really cheap as well. After that we got another collectivo to Urubamba and from there another on to Ollantaytambo.

So we started off climbing up the ruins there, yes more up. This was a much smaller site than Pisac, but the ruins were even more impressive. Also at the bottom we found a herd of the local majestic furry land slugs.

We stayed in town to have a snack and a few drinks before getting two more collectivos home. The next day we went out to a third site covered on our ticket: Chincero, where they had a weaving centre that Amy was interested in. They showed us how to turn a sheep into string, my science officer said Alchemy is a fools game, but they went and did it in front of our eyes anyway. Then they showed us how they make dyes out of natural ingredients such as insects, corn, rocks and two year old fermented baby urine.. Amy bought some sheep and is working on making string now. After this we climbed up (yes again) to more ruins, which were interesting but not as good as the others.

This was new years eve, so we headed back into town and got ready for the night. With a few beers in our pockets we headed to the main square Plaza de Amas, and arrived just before midnight. For about a solid twenty minutes there were fireworks everywhere. Turns out that Peru doesn't really have restrictions on fireworks, and so from every direction there were fireworks going off, some of which narrowly missed the crowd. It was packed full of people, and if you found any open space at all, it was because someone was about to explode something. We didn't stay too long, as it was kind of hectic, and we were both pretty tired.

On our final day we obtained some dollars that we would need on the border to buy our new visa, and recovered from everything. In the evening we got our bus, and arrived back in Puno the next morning at around 0500. We booked ourselves on an afternoon bus to La Paz and another boat trip to see the floating islands, then had some breakfast and went on a trek to find decent coffee.

The floating islands are artificial islands made by the Uros, the islands are made out of reeds. Using 3 meter blocks of roots to float the island, and then multiple layers of the stems to make a mat that you can walk on albeit springy. Their houses are made out of reads too, as are their boats. Their diet consists largely of reeds and fish. It was a really interesting tour and completely not what I expected.

Once we made it back to the border, our troubles began. We were told by two different border guards that we could not get a specific purpose visa on the border. Despite what our immigration lawyer had told us. So we had to enter on another tourist visa, luckily they gave us another 30 days in the country, which we can probably extend to 90 days as before. They told us to get the specific purpose visa you had to go back to Puno or to La Paz. We decided to stay in Copacabana which is roughly in the middle of the two, therefore abandoning our onward ticket to La Paz. However after about an hour of franticly checking every hostel and hotel that we could find, we decided that there was no space at all in Copacabana. Abandoning that plan as well, we found ourselves a bus to La Paz and took that. There was a traffic jam, so the 45 minute journey from Copacabana to the ferry crossing took actually about 3 hours. We made it across and found our bus again and slept most of the rest of the way to La Paz, arriving at almost 2 in the morning still without anywhere to stay. We went back to the Adventure Brew hostel where the staff let us check in even at that time, so that was great.

In the morning we managed to contact the organisation sorting out our visa stuff and they told us they'd get back to us by the next morning. So we spent the day in La Paz, which is quite a cool city, although it has quite a bit of up, and some dodgy wiring. For dinner we got the cable car up to El Alto, the satellite city on the mountain plain, the highest city in the world at 4,100m. We found a pizzeria after a bit of wandering and had the biggest pizza ever, all freshly made. Then took the cable car back down. Not a very interesting day, but we got to explore La Paz a little.

The next day we were told to meat the organisations Tramitadora (lawyer thing) at immigration in the afternoon. After talking to people in immigration we went to the Consulario where we talked to 3 different people all of who said something different. Finally after about two and a half hours we managed to work out that we did need a specific purpose visa, and you can get those in La Paz or Puno, but you need more documents than we had. Including a UK police record and proof of financial solvency. We figured we couldn't do any more in La Paz so got a final night bus home to Cochabamba.

So after almost 50 hours on buses we don't have the visa we wanted and are a bit tired and grumpy. We had a meeting with the organisation and found out we can get a police record from interpol without having to return to the UK (hopefully) and so that's good news. Unfortunately it takes a month and because of the way the visas are done, you have only a month to get the volunteer visa after you receive the no objections letter. So since we received that almost 3 weeks ago, we are going to run out of time before we can get the police record.

Luckily the organisation got back to us yesterday saying that the people who deal with the visa understand our situation and will still give it to us once we have got a specific purpose visa. So as long as they don't change their minds we should be OK.

Llamas and up

Captain`s log: Startdat 03011.6

Very quick update as I´m on a computer in my hostal with a barely functionong keyboard.

We went to Cusco, saw some Llamas, alpacas a baby goat and some other stuff. We walked up some mountaiins, saw some ruins, walked up more stuff, etc... There was a tonne of fireworks at new years, kind of hectic, they don´t really beleive in controlling them in Peru, so occasionally you saw a group of kids running away fast, followed by a very loud bang.

When we returned to Bolivia, the border guards refused to give us the specific purpose visa, and said we have to go to La Paz or back to Puno. So that sucks, but we got another 30 days of tourist visas, so we are back in the country at least. What we do next is being worked on, we´ll see.

In sumarry we sat on buses for 39 hours, spent a buunch of money and were away from friends at new year for nothing. We had a good-ish time, but are kind of pissed about the whole thing.

More to come, with pics when we get home, and I can use my laptop again.

Integrating with society

Captain's log: Stardate 24121.5

If you have a light cycle that is accelerating at rate $A$ units per frame and also turning $C$ degrees per frame, and you need to work out an equation to describe the light trail (a spiral), so you can do collision detection, then you're in the same boat I've been in for the last few weeks.

If not then feel free to skip down to after the maths for some other updates and pictures.

First a few definitions:

• $u$ - Initial speed in terms of units per frame.
• $a$ - Rate of acceleration in units per frame per frame.
• $c$ - Angle in radians the bike can turn each frame.
• $\theta$ - Initial angle of bike in radians (0 is +ve Y).
• $t$ - Time in frames.

The speed of the bike at time $t$ is defined with the standard equation: $s = at+u$

The direction the bike is pointing at time $t$ is defined by the vector:

$\bar{d} = \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}$

Therefore the velocity of the bike at time $t$ is defined by the vector:

$\bar{v} = (at + u) \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}$

As we all know, position at time $T$ is $\begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \end{pmatrix}(T) = \int_{0}^{T} \bar{v}dt$

\[\begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \end{pmatrix}(T) = {\displaystyle \int_0^T} {(at + u) \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} = \underbrace{ {\displaystyle \int_0^T} {at \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} }_{\displaystyle \text{1}} + \underbrace{ {\displaystyle \int_0^T} {u \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt}}_{\displaystyle \text{2}}\]

Lets tackle this in two parts. First 2) the simpler term:

${\displaystyle \int_0^T} {u \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} = {\displaystyle \frac{u}{c}}\left[\begin{pmatrix} -cos(ct + \theta) \\ sin(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}\right]_0^T = {\displaystyle \frac{u}{c}}\Bigg(\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} -cos(\theta) \\ sin(\theta) \end{pmatrix} \Bigg)$

Now 1) the more complicated term:

${\displaystyle \int_0^T} {at \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} = a{\displaystyle \int_0^T} {t \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt}$

We have to do this by parts. Remember:

$\int udv = uv - \int vdu$

So we define:

• $u = t$
• $dv = \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt$

Which gives us:

• $du = dt$
• $v = {\displaystyle \int} {\begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} = {\displaystyle \frac{1}{c}} \begin{pmatrix} -cos(ct + \theta) \\ sin(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}$

$\begin{split}{\displaystyle \therefore}\quad a{\displaystyle \int_0^T} {t \begin{pmatrix} sin(ct + \theta) \\ cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} & = a\left[{\displaystyle \frac{t}{c}} \begin{pmatrix} -cos(ct + \theta) \\ sin(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}\right]_0^T - {\displaystyle \frac{a}{c}\int_0^T} { \begin{pmatrix} -cos(ct + \theta) \\ sin(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix}dt} \\ & = {\displaystyle \frac{aT}{C}}\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - {\displaystyle \frac{a}{c^2}} \left[\begin{pmatrix} -sin(ct + \theta) \\ -cos(ct + \theta) \end{pmatrix} \right]_0^T \\ & = {\displaystyle \frac{aT}{C}}\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - {\displaystyle \frac{a}{c^2}}\Bigg(\begin{pmatrix} -sin(cT + \theta) \\ -cos(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} -sin(\theta) \\ -cos(\theta) \end{pmatrix}\Bigg) \\ & = {\displaystyle \frac{aT}{C}}\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} + {\displaystyle \frac{a}{c^2}}\Bigg(\begin{pmatrix} sin(cT + \theta) \\ cos(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} sin(\theta) \\ cos(\theta) \end{pmatrix}\Bigg)\end{split}$

So finally we can add terms 1) and 2) together to get the position of the bike at time $T$

$\begin{split}\begin{pmatrix} x \\ y \end{pmatrix}(T) = & {\displaystyle \frac{u}{c}}\Bigg(\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} -cos(\theta) \\ sin(\theta) \end{pmatrix} \Bigg) + \\ & {\displaystyle \frac{a}{c^2}}\Bigg(\begin{pmatrix} sin(cT + \theta) \\ cos(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} sin(\theta) \\ cos(\theta) \end{pmatrix}\Bigg) + \\ & {\displaystyle \frac{aT}{C}}\begin{pmatrix} -cos(cT + \theta) \\ sin(cT + \theta) \end{pmatrix} \end{split}$


So there you go, you can sleep easy tonight knowing the maths has been done, and with that working I can collide with a spiraling light trail.


In other news, it's christmas! Amy spent the day making mince pies, and I spent it doing maths. We're about to have a big dinner with the family we live with.

Other than that we're heading to Peru on the 27th, and when we return on the 2nd we'll get a specific purpose visa, which we can use to apply for our proper visa. Our previous application was just to see if they objected to us, which they have replied saying they don't so all should go well with the actual application, giving us the right to stay in the country for a year as volunteers that definitely do not work with children.

We finished work last Sunday and are off until the 18th January, so that's cool. Lots of time to code more stuff! We finished work with a Christmas party for the people of one of the communities we work in. Tonnes of people turned up. We made Api (hot purple corn based drink) and Pastel (deep fat fried dough). Here are some pictures.

Api and Pastel

Here is little John riding a horse. He's the son of

the organisation's chef.

Here's me holding a tiny bunny rabbit that we found in a shop.

Here's a dog dressed as santa that we saw on the way to the shop.

Our clowns

Some of the people at the party.

In this you can see the typical attire

and dual plaits of the local women.

Everything hurts

Captain's log: Stardate 11121.5

It's been a while, because I wanted to wait for a few of the bigger things to occur before posting an update. Also Santi wasn't willing to pay me $10 for a speedy update.

Firstly here's a couple of pictures.

The view across the valley from Alta Buena Vista.

The rubble pile that we climb up and down to get to the centre.

The lady in front of me is Daniella one of the two Bolivian circus directors.

Me learning to club pass with Adaly, the other circus director.

Unfortunately he's leaving for the US soon.

Bex, if you are reading this, then know that I wanted to buy this for you.

The view down part of the vegetable section of La cancha (the big market).

Two of the kids we work with club passing, while one is riding a giraffe.

The 6 month old goat that lives at one of our training centres.

I got to stroke it's head the other week :)

Two kids passing fire clubs back to back.

Adaly and a kid passing fire clubs while both ride giraffes.

John the founder with Escarlet (the lady going to study in the US).

So one of the big things that happened, was last Friday (Stardate 04121.5) which was the kids put on a show in an open air theatre in town. We sold around 80 tickets, which isn't a huge amount, but was enough, and raised some money for the upcoming Christmas party (where I've been informed I'll be dressing as Santa). So yeah the show went pretty well, a lot of it was kind of sloppy, but what do you expect from a group of kids. However everything they did was really impressive. Here are a few pics.

The final act was my favourite and was a seriously impressive doubles silks routine with Adaly and Carlos (one of the kids). Unfortunately we don't have pictures of that, and TBH the only thing that would do it justice would be a video.

Amy found a man with a very small dog in the street and got pretty excited.

So the next big thing that happened is we too kthe kids on an excursion to an eco-lodge not too far away from one of the centres. So there's ~56 kids, 4 directors, 4 volunteers, some crusty Argentinian street jugglers and 3 mothers, and around 5 babies. For two days and a night camping. Oh and also 2 llamas. There was a swimming pool, the water pretty steadily got darker and darker over the two days, so we didn't end up swimming, just hanging around hoping that none of the kids managed to drown. It went  pretty well, but we're still really tired after sleeping for 12 hours last night.

On the first day we arrived, set up some tents, the kids swam for a bit, did a bit of juggling, and then we had a sports day kind of thing. With sack races, egg and spoon races, a tug of war and so on. In the evening the kids and Argentinians put on a bit of a show, which went pretty well, other than one of the kids falling off the shoulders of Adaly who was stood on a teetor board, both of which holding fire clubs, but kids bounce, at least here they do, and so he shrugged it off with nothing more than hurt pride. One of the Argentinians did a very impressive act with cigar boxes, which is one of the props I've never been able to do any of. After we ate dinner and watched some films and then went to bed. Most of the kids slept in tents we brought, with Amy, I and a few of the others sleeping on crash mats under a thatch roof (but no walls) thingy. We were woken up at about 0430 when the kids decided to wake up and start juggling and riding unicycles around where we were sleeping. John the founder told me later that he had asked them what they were doing, they responded with "Oh sorry John, we didn't see you there.". To which he replied: "Yes because it''s still dark, go back to bed.". This highly amuses me, although I'm not sure why. So yeah, I finally got out of bed at about 0600, and proceeded to join the kids in juggling around the sleeping people.

That day there were a few more activities but was mostly a "we're too tired to do anything because you woke us up at 0430, so go do whatever you want" kind of day. So I spent most of it learning new club juggling and helping John and Adaly BBQ a metric tonne of meat, and two vegetables. It was pretty good, but I had to carry 50Kg of charcoal and now everything hurts more.

Finally we packed everything down and loaded the kids in buses, and jumped in ourselves. There were about 4 or 5 kids in every set of two seats, it was quite impressive, it only could have been better if all the kids were dressed as clowns.

The llamas (please read in Spanish as yamas).

The egg and spoon race.

Me having a tug of war with one of Daniella's kids.

She started crying because I won and she fell into a plant...

Other than that we've been getting the Alta Buena Vista site a lot more organised, and I'm making a lot of progress in teaching them silks which is cool. We're going to get a couple more silks in the new year which will help, and then I want to start focusing one day a week or an hour a day or something on exercise, so they can actually do a lot more stuff without me having to lift their legs over their heads for them. Amy and I have run that centre by ourselves for a couple of days now, and unless we find more circus directors instructors soon, it looks like we'll be doing a lot more of that.

I've done a fair bit more work with the website, still really slow, but constantly learning and so getting faster and faster now.

Finally been doing more stuff with my Tron thingy. I know can drive the bike around, produce light trails that fade away when you disable them. Accelerate and Decelerate and show your speed in a bar in the top right. I'm working on collision detection, but I need to think about this carefully as these trails could get quite long. I decided I could have the straight bits as single rectangles which are easy to detect collisions with, and the curves I can store as circles which again are easy to detect collisions within. What gets harder is that since I can accelerate and brake, it's now possible to have spirals, so I'm trynig to work out how best to model those. Once I can get collisions working, I'll probably put a bunch of effort into graphics and try and make it a lot prettier than it is now, which is the main reason I'm doing any of this.

With that I'm done for now. We should hear about visas in the next week, so that will probably be when I next update.

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