I arrived as the second last member of the team on a Saturday afternoon while we were having a day off. The rest of the group had gone swimming earlier that afternoon for the first time, and were drying off as I got in. Pretty quickly I experienced my first dance rehearsal. Thankfully, due to the fact that the show was the next day, I didn’t have a dance of my own, but the rest of the group all had individual dances which they did with the Peruvian kids from the school. Afterwards everyone took part in a big group dance which was like a 16 minute long, well-choreographed Zumba workout. Later, I found out about a song about a duck falling in love with a butterfly, in which I would be playing the part of a butterfly! It mostly just involved me flapping my arms and trying to avoid Harry dressed as a duck on the stage. The actual show went really well. I was surprised at how many kids showed up, and how much they seemed to enjoy it, especially when we threw sweets out!

The next day we took a group trip to Miraflores, which was where I had been staying for the two previous weeks in a Spanish school, but the rest of the group hadn’t seen before, so I showed them around for a while rather than the other way around! We all went out for a really nice dinner, and then headed back to Villa Maria.

The next day was my first proper day of work, and we went and played with some kids from Casuarinas. We normally start the kids off playing individual games for a while, before finishing with a group game such as dodgeball, or bulldog, which are always my favourite part. That afternoon we took some kids from Virgin de Coucharas swimming after we played with them, which was absolutely crazy. The swimming pool was completely packed with overexcited kids, and I’m pretty sure that none of us saw straight for the whole hour given how much we got splashed!

The rest of the week continued as usual, being varied by painting in San Pedro, cinema nights and dance practices. The cinema nights are always popular with the kids and the team (we secretly quite like the opportunity to watch kids films) and are always a nice way to spend an evening (even if we did have to go back and get the projector we had forgotten one time).

The second show had a traditional theme and was even better attended than the first. This time I was in a dance with Matt, which passed in a blur of confusion, except for the part where I pick up my partner and carry him off the stage, which got quite a few laughs!