Chau Iquitos, It’s Been Real…

Hola readers!

Well, what a journey it has been. As I arrived at my grandma’s house this afternoon, she told me she’d been reading my blog, ‘Where in the world is Kerryn Kapitola?’ and we were able to answer – well, right now, at Grandma’s house!

… Australia.

Sorry for the failure to write during my last week in Iquitos, like I expected, time slipped away from me like an unwinding string on a reel and within moments it was Thursday morning, and I had possessions given away, bags packed, ticket in hand.

Saying goodbye to some of the awesome people I’d shared five months with was pretty yuck. Some I wondered if I’d see again; some I knew – with a fair amount of certainty – that I wouldn’t. My way of life, my existence in Iquitos up to that point, was finishing.

One last motocarro ride to the airport, a check-in, a last-minute visit from two amigas and through security. Chau Iquitos, it’s been real.

I stayed the night in Lima with the same family I’d stayed with during the Equipo Movil in October. They were very friendly, considering my contact had forgotten to mention that I was coming… there were a few awkward moments of like, ‘oh, you’re here, with your bags… hows it going?’ but they were so hospitable anyway.

The next day, I was back at the airport, big long itinerary in hand, backs full, nervousness mostly suppressed. I was convinced: nothing was going to go wrong with this journey home…

Handing the check-in guy my itinerary, he asked my where I was going and on what flight. After a brief slightly-daunting miscommunication about my first flight, we realized I was actually on it and I could book in for all of my flights home…

The thing was, I was booked into fly to Perth. Since I would receive no refund for cancelling my Perth flight, and they wouldn’t let me change the route… I didn’t cancel it. I decided I just wouldn’t show. I was planning on flying to Adelaide, after all. So there was this small worry at the back of my mind that my bags wouldn’t show up at Sydney International Airport for the customs run, but rather in Perth… where I wasn’t going to be for another two weeks.

Oh well, couldn’t help that.

Lima to Santiago. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Six hours in the airport, got cold by the end and hadn’t packed a jumper so out came the credit card. Now I have a fully awesomely over-sized and warm fleecy jumper. I’m pretty sure it’s for men. Oh well, you know the saying…cold, bored, Australian girls can’t be choosers.

Santiago to Auckland. Thirteen hours of FUN!

Yep, sure.

We went into sleep mode pretty early in, but really, sleeping on a plane with my body isn’t something that is going to happen very easily. I eventually managed a few positions akin to a faetus, so I managed to get just barely enough.

It was a long flight.

Auckland. One hour stop-over. Their airport is cool.

Re-boarded with a new neighbor – a New Zealander girl who acted ditzy but was studying her Masters in Economics… go figure. She liked to talk.

As we were about to pull out and FLY… the Captain came on and said we had some technical difficulties and had to go back to the gate to get them rechecked. Twenty minutes he said.

Twenty minutes, I had.

One hour and thirty minutes, I just barely had.

That what how long we were delayed for before our flight took off.

Cue: Sydney Airport and the notion that if I raced through, I might catch my flight to Adelaide in time.

Immigration, bags, customs, bus, check-in. Forty five minutes.

How strange that the things I thought would eat my time – immigration and customs – probably actually took less time, in total, than I had to wait for my bags. (Which for ages I had concluded had been sent straight to Perth… how to survive Adelaide without anything… hmmmm).

I jumped on the shuttle bus, arrived in Terminal 2, raced to the Jetstar counter…

“10:10…Can I still check in?”

“No.”

But she said it really nicely.

Good thing I’M SO DARN SMART, because I’d bought a JetFlex ticket, knowing that if any flight was late my connections would be tight, so I rocked up at the assistance counter and changed my flight to the next one. At 5:10pm. Another seven hours at the airport to kill.

Kerryn, you should have gone into the city and…

No.

Thirty-six hours of travel and sightseeing on the fly was not what I needed.

So, I waited. I talked with two Australian Federal Police, who smashed any stereotypes I had of them, and drank a milkshake.

Sweet.

Then, finally, I boarded.

My fifth and final flight in order to see my parents.

How was that flight? I don’t really remember. I was sleeping.

Then, plane landed, disembarked, walking the bridge and through the tinted glass of the full length windows facing the airstrip, I saw them.

Mum and Dad!

I may have skipped a step or two to get to them.

Reunions are great, one of the best parts of travelling actually. And my next three weeks will be filled with them. In two days I will see my NEPHEWS! (And my brother and sister-in-law). I’ve been seeing family over here in staggered formation and when I return to Perth, a whole new group of people will await me… family, friends… I cannot wait!

Jetlag’s not been so bad, mainly cos I was just so spent from the 42+ hours of travelling I’d just undertaken that sleep came easily that night. And the next. And now I’m here, day 3 of returning.

And I miss Peru. I do. I miss speaking Spanish and I miss the heat and I miss some of the great people I met. But Perth is my life too, and I can’t be in two places at once.

Because, really, if I had a choice, I’d be in five.

More to come when I regress to Perth, but for now, from South Australia, adios, chau, hasta luego and I’ll see you around like a rissole.

Kerryn.

Supervivencia

Tengo polvos. Tengo hambre. Tengo sueno. Tengo dolor.

(I have dirt. I have hunger. I have dream. I have pain.)

But… it was totally worth it!

This crazy weekend just past, I packed my bags, jumped on a motorcycle and headed off out of Iquitos to a campsite to join 185 kids, 30 parents, 15 youths and 9 staff for the experience of a lifetime.

And here’s how it went…

How to do a children’s camp without Duty-of-Care restrictions?

It was really interesting to experience a camp situation in another culture. The main difference I noticed was the non-existence of Duty Of Care, which we have in Australia. Pretty much, Duty Of Care is basically: ‘…if anything goes wrong, it’s the leaders’ fault’. There is a high emphasis on risk-management and all the responsibility falls on the directors and leaders of the group.

In Peru, I’m pretty sure the legality of Duty Of Care doesn’t exist. This means, responsibility falls on the child to take care in how they act.

For example, in Australian camp, there is a risk that a kid could fall out of a tree he was climbing and injure himself. His parents will ask, how come my child is injured, and why wasn’t anything done to stop this? Then, because the responsibility falls on the leaders, a rule will be put in place that no kids can climb trees, lest they falls and hurt themselves.

In Peru, if a child climbs a tree and fall out, his parents will ask how come my child in injured, and then probably scold the child for making a bad decision to climb such a high tree.

Same situation, different mindset.

That’s not to say that adequate care wasn’t taken at this camp, it’s just to say that there is a lot less pressure to moddy-coddle kids into what they should be doing.

Also, there is a lot less pressure in situations where staff are low in numbers. For example, usually in Australia, if a child needs to go to the toilet, it’s possible that two people need to accompany the kid, so they everyone knows that no abuse has taken place. Here, it’s just like – alright, I’ll take you – and no one thinks twice, or their older sibling will take them (and if they get up to trouble whilst they are gone, the older sibling gets in trouble), or they just go on their own, or they pee outside.

Yeah, that was the funniest part.

The kids were very accustomed to peeing anywhere, even the girls, so for the age group I was working with, whenever they needed to pee, it was like, ‘yep, ok, just go around the corner and be quick.’ So much easier!!

So, in terms of the caring for children, I think Australia could afford to lax it’s rules a bit. We could afford to let some of the responsibility fall on the kids to make better decisions.

Program

The days started at 6am with a small group devotion. Yep, started at 6am. I was a stranger to sleep all weekend. After 30 minutes, shower time, breakfast, waiting for breakfast to be cleaned up, crazy celebration of praise time, general devotional, classes with the different age groups (kinda like a Sunday school-type thing), lunch, rest, afternoon activities – one day it was a massive ‘wide games’ with water, another day it was another class with with a baptism, more showering time, dinner, more celebration, drawing/colouring/speaker for the youths and parents, bed time!

Christmas!

On Monday morning, we had a Christmas breakfast with Paneton and hot chocolate, then a Christmas celebration, then the opening of presents, then a Christmas lunch. It was pretty cool.

Heat

We were 30 minutes out of Iquitos, so not quite in the deep jungle yet, although for sure there were enough palm trees and vines and bugs to go around. It was hot and humid all the time, but luckily not as hot as I remember the deep jungle – there was a breeze once in awhile.

But trying to have a nap in the tent at 1pm in the afternoon with afternoon sun coming and hotness all around?… lets just say not much nap was had.

Translation

The hardest thing I found about the camp was not being able to understand a lot of what the kids were trying to tell me. I knew words like ‘orinar’ and ‘yo quiero dormir!’, but when they rattled off a long fast sentence in a quiet voice, I was stuck. It was really frustating and along with that, I struggled to say what I wanted to. Sometimes the kids needed to go away because other kids were still in class… and while I could tell them that in Spanish, I didn’t have enough Spanish to bust their chops when they decided to see if I really was serious. Now, normally in Australia, I have no problem with this, but here, it was so frustrating! I would say, ‘go play in your dorm’ and they would just smile and grab onto me and continue making noise…

Eventually, I discovered the best thing to do, if I could, was just grab another leader, tell them what I wanted the kids to do. Two words from someone that could bust their chops and the kids were outta there!

If ever there were a zombie invasion…

The kids liked to hug me. And hold me. And grab onto me. And jump in front of me to hug me again…. At times it got a bit hard to go anywhere. There was one time that I just needed some SPACE, so I escaped the kids and ran into the hall, where they weren’t allowed to go. They waited outside for me.

As I leant on the open window (as in, just air, no glass), they would come around the side to grab onto me. Same thing with the other side.

I decided I needed a drink of water – in the dining room – about 10 metres away. So, distracting them by standing by a window so they’d all come to one side, I bolted through the hall and out the door.

But they were fast! Kids were jumping on me from all sides and hanging on as I trudged, almost like walking through mud, kids hanging off me, to get to the Dining Hall, where they also weren’t allowed.

Finally, I got there, told the kids they couldn’t come inside and concluded if ever there were a zombie invasion, I’d be fine.

Bites

I have bites. Yep.

Sleep

Not a lot of sleep took place, we finished our responsibilities at about 11 or after and were up by 5:30am for the devotional in the morning. Did I manage to nap during the day? Not a lot. I slept in a tent on the ground, with a thin thin mattress.

I am sore and I am tired.

Kids

There were, like always, a few kids that really stood out to me. Whether it was their nutty personality or their quiet shyness, by the end of the camp, I was pretty sad to say goodbye to these guys.

There was Liset, who was the sweetest little 5 year old around.

Roger, the kid that bounced everywhere and did everything with 200% energy.

Angel who was part of my zombie-crew and kept saying ‘mira abajo – tu trabajo, mira al frente, presidente!’.

Daniel, the little smiler.

Another little boy, whose name I can’t remember, who was the happiest 2.5 yr old I’ve ever seen. He wanted to play all the time and didn’t mind that I was a gringa, and would wrap his arms around my neck and give me big sloppy kisses on my cheek.

A whole bunch of 6 year old girls who thought hugging me was the best thing possible.

And a whole bunch more.

Crazy kids.

So, more or less, that was my camp experience. Fun, nutty, crazy, hard work, awesome.

Thanks for reading.

Now, I’m going back to bed.

Kez.

On One Hand

It’s not like it’s unusual – every surface of my room being covered in clothes, books, bags, photos, papers and stuff. But this is one of those unique times when all that disorder serves a purpose.

I’m packing.

Firstly, I have the kids’ camp tomorrow. Four days, 185 kids, 15 youth leaders, 30 parents and 9 YWAM staff… and did I mention 185 kids?

I’m packing for that.

But as I go, I am also sorting out what clothes I am going to give to whom when I leave, what I’m bringing back to Australia and what I already have in Perth that I have to ask mum to bring over for the two weeks in Adelaide.

Brain hurty much?

We’ve hit the final straights. I can count the number of days left in Iquitos on one hand. Every night that I go to sleep on the top bunk, looking out over the lights of Iquitos, I try to imprint the sensation into my mind.

I’m a bit sick again right now, but with the vision of being in Australia soon, it’s not anything that I can’t handle.

See ya on Monday!

(if I’m still alive)

Peace,

Kerryn.

It can't be classed as messy if it's only temporary... right?

What I Meant to Say, Before WordPress ATE ME BLOG!

[Kudos to my brother for sending me this copy of my initial blog, before I re-posted with a photo and instead, lost the entire thing. Gracias!]

Hey, um, didn’t I just get here??

Nope, five months down, ten days to go!

And in that time is a kids camp, a goodbye party, packing, saying goodbye, sorting out what stuff I’m going to haul all the way back to Australia and catching some planes, all resulting in getting the heck outta here! But I will be sad to go. Bittersweet. There are some great people I’ve got to know here and some crazy experiences that I never could have predicted would occur in my lifetime, so I’m thankful for the five months that Peru gave me.

In other news, the money for the Kids’ camp came through – sweet – so they are extremely grateful and I heard the word espectacular come out of David’s mouth numerous times… as in, this blessing is spectacular and its going to be used for spectactular things. We tried to say that we don’t use spectacular as a word as much in English, but then I thought, well, why not… This can be a spectacular blessing!

Thanks to the guys that gave, you are a spectacular blessing!!!

If you missed out this time around, you can still give to this ministry… I’m only here for ten more days so get on it Next year the base will filled with DTS students and teams and staff and people coming and going and so both kitchens are going to be FULL… the children’s ministry is looking at getting some of their own kitchen equipment to be prepared for this time, so any money you give now, will go toward that. Some of my money that I had planned to give for the camp (if all the money didn’t come through) is going to go towards that, because I can’t ask people to give if I’m not invested into this as well. And I am.

That doesn’t mean I’m not incredibly freaked out about the camp, though!! 180 kids, heat, four days, spanish ALL the time… AHHHH!!!… *sigh* The joy of the Lord is my strength. THE JOY OF THE LORD IS MY STRENGTH!!!…. keep saying it Kerryn. I know God will pour out His blessings on these kids during this time, and what a privilege to be a part of it, hey. You all wish you were me! Yeah!…. ok.

Peace out dude, more updates to come as I begin my final preparations for the camp and for coming home…

Chau amigos,

Dios te bendiga!

K.

Hey, um, didn’t I just get here??

mmm-mmm, don't leave home without it, kids

Just a hint, don’t anyone EVER sign up to WordPress. It ate my blog again. But in happier news, here’s a picture of the tablets I’m taking, they are antiparasitic and fantastic! Mmmm-mmmm.