Happy New Year and all that

Hello everyone, Elizabeth here. Sincere apologies for our last, less than scintillating entry, I shall try and make this one a little more exciting for you. Hope you all had jolly Christmases, we had a cracking time despite the rather disconcerting hot weather. We started the celebrations on Christmas Eve with a party at the childrens home, I had had rather a harrowing time the previous week buying 75 toys at the market but it was all worth it. Our good friend Peter dressed up as Papa Noel and did a marvellous job despite almost being knocked over by the howling mob who charged at him as soon as he walked in. I think he quite enjoyed it and amused himself by telling the more naive children that he was two thousand years old and had once had breakfast with Jesus. He was less amused when little Gisela, who was sitting on his lap and had eaten too much pannetone, made rather a mess of his beard.

Christmas Day was lovely, the turkey was excellent even if I do say so myself, and Sam was a great help, peeling an incredible FOUR potatoes. What a hero. One of our guests had been sent mince pies by her mother which I was very excited about until I realised they had nuts in them at which point I nearly cried. We did have an enormous chocolate cake though, so I managed to rally my spirits a little. We then played Trivial Pursuit for about 400 hours. Unfortunately it was the American version and to get anywhere you have to know obscure Vice-Presidents and who played the organ during half time at the 1954 Superbowl.

After a few days mainly occupied eating turkey sandwiches and turkey soup we went to a Bolivian wedding last night which was interesting. After a couple of hours of more traditional folkloric music they switched to some good old wedding classics and we were able to impress the salsa-ing locals with a stunning display of gringo-dancing to "YMCA" and "Ra Ra Rasputin". They were all pointing and laughing with great admiration as you can imagine.

We are off to Cochabamba tonight for a few days, so I must go and pack, hope you all have a very HAPPY NEW YEAR.