Tuesday 28th October: arrived in Arequipa.

Just gone 1am the bus pulled into Arequipa bus station. The taxi man, Miguel, was waiting for me with a 'Kate Feamley' sign and I was so relieved to have arrived on time with no problems. Miguel took me to the house where all the other volunteers were staying, I briefly met my new roommate, a lovely young Canadian girl called Quentin and went straight to bed.

In the morning, I headed to the 'traveller not tourist' office to discuss which of the 3 projects I'd be working on. The charity runs 3 projects; a community classroom (Villa Chachani), the construction of a new school (Flora Tristan) and the orphanage (Casa Hogar). Villa Chachani is in a very deprived community on the outskirts of Arequipa, where the charity runs a type of afterschool classroom from 3.30pm until 5pm where children can voluntarily come to learn English. Flora Tristan is the construction of a new school on a donated piece of land close to the classroom in Chachani, as the current one is getting too small for the amount of children who come to the classes.

Casa Hogar is an orphanage set up in 2006 by a couple called Jay and Luis, Jay is from Sheffield and Luis is from Peru. However, I didn't get to meet them as they were both in the UK, as Jay was heavily pregnant. The orphanage receives no funding and relies solely on donations…

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