Sudden Change of… Lung!

Let´s just say, ALOT has happened since we last updated our blog!

TUESDAY – August 17th 2010

When Matthew was sitting in the back of the minibus as we drove down the very bumpy roads to La Paz, he felt a sudden pain in his shoulder. He carried on chatting to everyone, trying to learn some spanish, but when I looked back to see if he was ok, it didn´t look too good.

It was too late to see a doctor and Matthew always prefers to wait a while to see if it is serious (especially since in Bolivia you have to pay for medical care… just to speak to a doctor is 200 Bolivian Dollars!) So the following morning, we made an appointment with a doctor recommended by the British Embassy, Dr Portugal, for 5pm. Since we made that appointment, it´s been a rollarcoaster of a ride for us!

 WEDNESDAY - August 18th, 2010

Matthew and I set off to La Paz from Huajchilla (where we live) The journey takes approximately an hour… as long as there are minibuses or ´trufis´around! Here´s a round up of our journey to the hospital:

Minibus to Mallasa (nearest villiage where we can get transport to La Paz)

In Mallasa, hunt for a minibus to Arce, La Paz, which is the main street with all the embassies and clinics.

Walk to Dr. Portugal´s office, get checked out by him, he couldn´t spot anything wrong with Matthew´s chest but just before we were about to leave we showed him Matthew´s last xray, taken two weeks before. Dr. Portugalsaid it looked normal, but then Matthew pointed out the line on the left side of his lung which made the Doctor stop in his tracks. After a few phone calls were made, we were adviced to stay in La Paz and to go have a catscan at another clinic. We were given the address written on a little piece of paper and off we went again. We were just about to walk out the practice when the receptionist shouted after us… we forgot to pay ha -ha!

Next, we hailed a cab down to take us across town to get the catscan, the taxi driver couldn´t find the building so he dropped us off and we walked up the hill to find it! Arrived there and straight away we were prompted to pay 950 Bs for the catscan! Matthew had the scan done… waited for half an hour… then the nurse came out with the scans in an envelope and was about to walk away! She then told us that the doctor´s report is inside with the scans (in spanish ofcourse) and we had to go find our Dr. Portugal again for him to explain it to us.

By this time, it was about 8pm. We travelled back to find Dr. Portugal but everyone had gone home, luckilly the receptionist was still there! (She didn´t speak any English though!) After having to make a few phone calls and getting the receptionist to translate the report to the doctor, we were finally given instruction to go to ´Clinica Alemana´where Matthew will be treated. So we walked to the ´Clinica´which was actually a private hospital a few streets down from his office.

Can I just say…. Matthew did all of this with a collapsed lung!

The hospital didn´t really look like a hospital, but it was meant to be the best one in La Paz! They took us to our room, where I was happy to find another little bed in the corner for me… atleast it wasn´t a chair like in England We had our own room with bathroom and shower and cable TV which was nice! We were informed that we would see the specialist, Dr. Malaga, in the morning.

THURSDAY – August 19th 2010

We learned that Dr. Malaga was a busy man and always had two younger students following him! So we waited a while to see him, he spoke some English but it was a little difficult to understand. The Doctor came in to meet Matthew and said that a drain would have to be put into his side to let the escaped air from his lung out. Not many questions were asked about Matt´s past medical history which worried Matthew a bit. Our lovely friend, Carla, came to visit and helped us sort out communication with the Docs. She came with me to the British Embassy to contact emergancy doctors in London so they can call Dr. Malaga with Matt´s past medical history which reassured us both! The doctor said he would be back in the evening to do the procedure…

FRIDAY – August 20th 2010

Which turned into the following morning because they said the pharmacies were closed and if Matt was in pain, the nurses wouldn´t be able to get him pain killers! So, at 10am sharp, Matthew was taken away to Intensive Care to have his procedure done. We were told about half an hour before that he will be under LOCAL anestetic.

After an hour of anxiously waiting, Matthew was wheeled back into the room, looking pretty wild-eyed and out of breath. The Doctors´said all went fine and the tube in his side would stay in for atleast three days. I sensed that Matthew shouldn´t be out of breath after the procedure and asked for some oxygen to help him breathe… which didn´t come! When everyone left the room and Matthew caught his breath, he told me that it was the scariest experience in his life! If I was him, I would of probably passed out anyway! He is pretty brave, being awake whilst your skin is being cut to have a tube placed into you, feeling your lung collapse fully and then the Doctor saying you´ve had an allergic reaction to something… I feel squimish just writing that! Aaanyway… it was done and all we could do then was wait now!

SATURDAY AND SUNDAY – August 21st and 22nd 2010

The weekend consisted of watching lots of movies, lying in bed, pain killers every 4 hours, trippy dreams whenever Matthew managed to get a tiny bit of sleep aaand gurgling noises coming from Matt´s chest… which the Doctor said was normal!

MONDAY – August 23rd 2010

Xray today! Once the xray goes well that means Matthew would be free to go after a day under observation! Which, luckilly, Dr Malaga said it was all perfect! In the afternoon, all the nurses, doctors and students came in for the grand finale (kind of!) It was time to take the tube out of his side! I conveniently found something to draw in the hallway whilst this happened… but I thought it might be a bit scary for Matt so I went back in to make sure Matthew was ok, the tube was already out and Matthew said it wasn´t as bad as the surgury but they yanked it out pretty swiftly! :-O Well atleast it´s over now!

TUESDAY – August 24th 2010 (Present Day)

It was the first night that both Matthew and I slept until it was daylight! No pain in the middle of the night or strange dreams because of the pain killers! Just SLEEP

After lunch, Dr. Malaga said we were free to go (after we pay our bill…) So, we ate some lunch. I went to the Embassy to call the parents to let them know everything was ok and then packed up to leave. Paying the bill was a bit more complicated than we thought, thank god Tatiana and Julissa came to help us! It didn´t help that Matthew forgot his bank card in Haujchilla ha – ha! So after a couple hours of going to different cashpoints around town so we could all withdraw cash out to pay the 14,000 Bolivian Dollar bill, we could finally leave the hospital!

Tatiana kindly took Matthew, Julissa and I to our next destination: Franco´s house in La Paz! Franco´s Dad is a doctor and is the loveliest man in the world! So all of us have told Matthew that he has to rest here until Friday, when we see Dr. Malaga. He is itching to go back to the site to help out and see the children!!! The Doctor said that Matthew is allowed to fly 14 days after the tube is out… and guess what, in exactly 14 days today, we fly home! Which is pretty lucky!

Matt and I just want to say ´Thank you´to all the people who helped us get through this time and we really appreciate all the visits we had from our friends in the hospital!

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GUESS WHAT! … We´re alive :)

As we were sitting in the backseat of the taxi last night, smelling highly of the coca leaves that the taxi driver was chewing to stay awake… I thought about updating our blog for some strange reason, possibly because I wasn’t sure if we were going to arrive home alive! HA!

(And for those of you that don’t know, in Bolivia, coca leaves are still used on a large scale by many of the local people. In the past, people have chewed the leaf for extra energy, to help with altitude and just to keep going. So when your taxi driver is swaying from left to right on the road… it is probably just because of the extra buzz he is getting from the coca leaves!)

Matt and I are just entering our 6th week here in Bolivia, so far, it has been such a big learning experience for us! The main thing I have learnt on this trip (especially from our taxi rides home!) is to have TRUST! Trust that your taxi driver will get you home safely, trust that the workers know what they are doing and trust that we will finish this project on time!

You will all be happy to know that we have pretty much finished the foundations and we are working at ground level finally! Matt is currently in charge of the Bolivian workers, helping them set out the pre-cast concrete slabs capping the foundations while I am having to think ahead to the end of the project, getting the canvas roofing material for the central canopy cut to size and sewn up.

I’m happy my fashion and textiles degree has come in helpful in the project. Now we are out of the ground, the construction should hopefully speed up. Matthew has been busy looking at the design and making changes where appropriate to make the building more robust so it will hopefully last forever! While also trying to save time and money.

When it comes to a point where changes need to be made, we all get together as a group and have design charrettes. These little meetings have turned out to be extremely useful because a lot of the design has had to be thought through again.

Here is a short round up of what has been keeping us busy in the past weeks:

Week 3: Mixing concrete, setting cages out, our first design charrette and the water ran out for three days! On the weekend, we explored La Paz, watched the University Parade (which finished the next morning apparently!) and finally, on Sunday, Rob, Matthew and I went to visit the Tiwanaku Ruins which was nice to see some uncovered history that no one knows much about

Week 4: Due to the changes we discussed, the brick work on the foundations started. The fabric for the canopy arrived, although I was ill for 3 days so only started on Thursday!

Unfortunately Matthew has another mini hole in his lung which we had to get medical advice for. Although, the doctors decided not to take further action after taking a few x-rays of Matthew’s chest. Well, atleast we got to keep the x-rays which was quite exciting, we will show it to our doctors back in England because Matthew’s lung was meant to be healthy after the operation earlier this year… so we have a bone to pick with our British doctors! He did take a day or two of strictly no heavy lifting even though I couldn’t keep him off the site, lol.

On Thursday, we announced to the children that we were having Sports, Dance/Performance and Art workshops with them every Thursday until we leave. Chris Niem was in-charge of sports, Su Mei did dance/performance and I have taken up the art challenge! YEY! The kids were very excited to sign up!

 

(So this didn’t turn out to be a short round up of the week but A LOT happened this week… and we haven’t even got to the weekend events yet!!)

On the Saturday, it was Chris Niem’s 21st birthday, so we decided to cycle down the ‘Most Dangerous Road in the World’! Which would be a pretty epic story when he’s older!! But that wasn’t enough, his 21st birthday story didn’t end there! After cycling for 20 minutes down the windy roads (with AMAZING views) Chris flipped over his handle bars and landed on his shoulder. Let’s just say that he was in a whole lot of pain! He was then taken back to La Paz to go to a hospital where he was told that he need surgury!

 

In the end, it was only Matthew, Rob, Bindi and I who reached Corioco safely, Rob and Matthew managed to cycle the whole road without any breaks on the bus! Well done guys!! I got to know the bus driver pretty well though! (even though he didn’t speak a word of english! We pretty much laughed when we saw people get splashed with water or fell over, pretty much best friends after that! Ha ha!)

 

 

After the exhilarating ride down the extremely thin road, we arrived to an animal sanctuary for lunch! This was a nice surprise for us, it’s basically a place where they let the animals roam free (such as monkeys, macaws, ant eaters, funny looking turkey-bird things etc!) and the humans sit inside a netted little house to eat lunch! I didn’t want to leave! But we had to go have our ‘Zip-line Adventure!!’ It was called ‘The Flying Fox’, there is basically 3 different zip-lines, approximately 500 metres long, stretching across the beautiful valleys of Corioco.

 

 

When we arrived to the first line, let’s just say… we were all bricking it!!! It looked so high and so fast!!! After about 20 minutes of pondering, Matthew, Bindi and I braved it, it wasn’t scary at all, it was beautifully relaxing actually! Unfortunately, Rob is quite afraid of heights so he had to pass on the stupidly high sight seeing tour! I can’t blame him! But he had a brilliant time cycling which made up for it

 

When we arrived to our hostel, which was on a hill overlooking the mountains, we decided that we were just going to RELAX after such a busy week! And we did and it was amazing! (Other than Roberto getting badly sunburnt, but he’s all good now!)

Week 5: Unfortunately, Chris Niem had to go back home to Hong Kong to have his surgery. Within hours of his departure, our last volunteer for this project finally arrived! Lynn Ho, who is from Taiwan and grew up in Canada, has been our final addition to the OrkidStudio team!

On site, I’ve had to cut all the fabric to size with Bindi and Lynn’s help… the fabric is very heavy and covered in a pretty intoxicating substance to make it waterproof! The crates that we had ordered for the walls were meant to be delivered on Monday BUT the driver decided that he needed to get drunk the night before… so they didn’t arrive until Friday! Gotta love Bolivians! Ha ha!

We carried on making changes to the design of the building due to certain issues arising. This week I had the first art workshop with the children! Which I thought went pretty well considering that the Sports workshop the day before didn’t go so well as the boys wanted to watch movies instead! Ha ha! Matt and I bought lots of colouring pencils, markers and pens for the kids to draw! They were really well behaved and it’s so nice spending time with them! I got the volunteers to pair up with the kids and they drew portraits of eachother, we have some really great artists amongst the children!  We have collected all of their drawing and hope to made a book out of them at the end of our project!

 

After having a lovely time with the kids on Thursday, it was back to work Friday and on the weekend, most of us headed to Lake Titicaca for a relaxing weekend. We stayed in Copacabana, where they have the best trout! Matt and I dined at a really nice restaurant, I honestly felt like we hadn’t eaten in weeks! It was nice to eat a proper meal before heading back to work on Monday!

We have just started Week 6, the formwork has been taken off of the foundations and the concrete columns. (Matthew is currently detailing the building design from the wall make-up to the interior layout and right down to the measurement of a single brick! So once he is finished, we hope to give you all more images of what we are actually building so you have a better idea!

 

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 Until our next update, much love and thanks for reading our blog!

Matt & Sam x

Only 4 weeks left in Bolivia!

Hey Everyone! Sorry we haven´t had a chance to update the blog… we have lots to catch up on! But for now , here are just a few photos that we have managed to upload….

We are both well and trying our best with the project at the moment. As you can tell, it has been really busy recently! So until we next get a chance to get to the internet, enjoy a few pictures from Bolivia!

Ciao!

Sam & Matt x

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Week Two!

 Sorry our update is a little late this week! This is because we have been very busy working of course!

 As we enter our third week of work here on the construction site in Bolivia, we face issues involving limited timescale, lack of workers and the good old Bolivian work ethic (meaning they don’t usually turn up when you need them too ha-ha) But throughout the last week, as a group, we have been trying our best to combine our strengths to make our plan work! Off site, there have been little teething problems but we are a very easy going bunch so they were resolved pretty quickly!

Things we have done this week:

 Cutting and bending reinforcement bars.

Making lots of reinforcement cages.

Start mixing gravel, sand and cement for the concrete foundation.

Hunting for fruit crates on the market to build some of the walls.

Spent time with the children!

And of course, the long awaited beard shaving!!!

For all of you that don’t know, for our fundraising, Matthew decided to grow his beard for his graduation. But unfortunately, because of his time in hospital, he will be graduating next year! So, for all the people that donated towards his ‘Hairy Face Challenge’, we decided to wait until we got to Bolivia and get the children of Alalay to shave his beard off! And guess what……………… they didn’t only shave his beard off! Here are some pictures for you! Thank you all who donated towards Matthew’s challenge, it was definitely worth it!

 

BEFORE (6 months of beard growing!)

After the 2-8 year old girls were done with him!

We really are enjoying the time that we spend with the children! After hearing all that they have been through and meeting some of the street children yesterday, it touches our hearts to see them laugh and play and just being themselves with The Alalay Foundation’s help.

 

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Speaking of yesterday, it was a very eventful day! Three times a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) volunteers go out into the city to work with the street children. The Alalay Foundation has an open policy, they never refuse children that ask for help and you are allowed to leave the program if you don’t like it. As a way of building up their trust, the volunteers play football with them and bring them food and drinks. When we arrived, I wasn’t expecting to see so many older homeless men and women. There were two young children and a few boys playing football. Unfortunately, we were told that not so many young children have been coming to play with the volunteers because it is believed that the cold of the Bolivian winter has got the better of them. With such bad news, it made us realize that we really want to try our very best to help because not everyone is as fortunate as we are.

After a few games of football, we heading to San Miguel where we planned to hold our Design Charette. If you don’t know what a charette is, it’s basically when a group of people come together to combined their ideas to create the best possible solutions. It was actually a very good exercise for all of us because we learnt more about what will be happening on site, we made changes to the original design to minimize costs and prioritize what we need to do first!

Our plan after we had the Design Charette!

Unfortunately that’s all I’ve got time for, there is so much more I want to write about but must get back to work now!

 

Week One!

It has been a week since Matt and Sam have arrived in La Paz, Bolivia!  After the last update we have had our first week of work on site. It has been full of laughs and drama but in the end we have finished the week on schedule. Here are some more highlights from the week…

Before the other volunteers arrived on Wednesday, we managed to mark out the site (showing where the foundations should be dug) and had our first go at excavating. With the whole building marked out it was the first time we had a true sense of how large the project is. And with Matthew’s first swings of the pick axe we soon came to realise that the task of excavating may be too much by hand.

Later in the week, along with the arrival of the last volunteers, we resorted to hiring in a local digger which failed to arrive on site day after day. The Bolivian ethos of work is a little different than in the UK. However on Thursday we found another digger who was willing to start straight away. Eloy, the digger operator, was extremely efficient and worked with Matthew on the site excavation, which is now finished. Meanwhile, Sam has been busy with the construction of the reinforcements.

“We have bought the 12mm bars in long lengths then cut them down in size, bent them and then used a smaller section of steal to hold them in cages” - Sam

The site now looks a bit like a bomb site but this will hopefully be the messiest stage of the construction.

“I find it very interesting how the tolerances on the construction site compare to the way we draw them in Architect’s drawings, In the future I may be a little less specific in my drawings.” - Matt

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Next week we will be finishing the reinforcements, constructing the formwork and pouring the foundations.

Other than work on the site we have been spending even more time with the children. Matthew managed to twist his ankle while overdoing it in a football match and has since been putting it on ice and hobbling around the site, hasn’t stopped him from working though. Sam has spent some time with the older girls, they have taken to her and enjoy teaching her Spanish, and who can forget the younger girls who are as adorable as ever!

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Wish us luck for the week to come, it is promised to be the most physical of the whole build.

Matt & Sam xxx

Hola from Bolivia!

We are finally in Bolivia

After a 25 hour journey (Heathrow > Miami >5 hour wait >El Alto > La Paz) we have finally reached the site where we will be working for the next two months! It´s only been 3 days but I can tell you that so far, we are so very grateful to be apart of this project! When we first arrived to The Alalay site, there was a group of children there to greet us, all very welcoming and happy to see us!

It was beautiful to see how the children are so happy and how they look after each other. Within the last couple of days, Matthew and I have managed to start getting to know the children here and slowly remembering their names too! Here are a few photos so far from Bolivia!

Currently, we are here with 5 other volunteers for Orkidstudio. There is Rob (who travelled with us), Su Mei and James (Two of the Orkidstudio founders), Chris N. and Chris L. There are a great bunch of people and we look forward to the last 3 volunteers arriving soon! So altogether, there will be 10 of us working on this project! And of course, there is Franko! Who we met on arrival to Bolivia, he works for the Alalay Foundation and has been really great with helping us with the project and translating!

On Sunday, we all went with the children to Church. It was really beautiful to see everyone singing and being so involved!  Both of us ended up with children falling asleep on us as the service went on, they are soooo adorable.

We all started work yesterday, marking where the foundations of the building will be going. The site where we are building is quite big, there will be 3 workshops and a pavilion (Will give you more details soon!) There is a pig pen just behind our building site… next thing you know, the pigs escaped and were chasing some of the volunteers (they liked Chris L. in particular haha) But by the end of the day, after attempts of trying to get the pigs back in, one of the kids came and put the pigs back in the pen quite easily!

As some of you know, La Paz is one the highest cities in the world! So we have also been trying to adjust to the altitude. luckily for Matthew and I, we haven´t had any bad altitude sickness. Although, all the volunteers have been getting a bit out of breath as we get used to the thin air!

Despite the altitude, Matthew and the boys have managed to play a few games of football and basketball and it was great to see some of the children come to join in! Whilst they´re playing, the girls of Alalay are teaching me some spanish, which I love! All the children are friendly and very caring. I hope by the end of two months, we will know quite a bit of spanish because we would love to communicate properly with the kids!

Well, that´s all we´ve got time for I´m afraid! Although, we hope to be updating the blog at least once a week so we can keep you all informed on our progress! Thank you all once again for all your support, we couldn´t of done it without you!

Sam & Matt x

The Last of Our Fundraising!

As Bolivia approaches very fast, we are now tying up loose ends and making the last preparations before we go!

As you all know, Matthew and I are leaving for Bolivia on Friday July 9th to complete 2 months volunteer work with a Scottish charity called OrkidStudio. When we found out in January that we were selected to be apart of the project, we started plans to raise money to get to our £5,000 target.

Since then, we have been very busy with balancing work and fundraising. From bake sales, beard growing, car boot sales, a ‘Walk for the Future’, Yatta dancing  and sketchbook making to working, completing a degree, applying for jobs and, quite simply,  trying to stay alive!

The deadline we were given for our fundraising was July 1st 2010! Up until this period, we were both busy packing up our belongings and taking them back home to Suffolk! So it was goodbye Cardiff and HELLO FAMILY We managed to hand in all of the money we have raised to Julissa and Su Mei before we departed and started to focus on getting ready for Bolivia! Although, Matthew is STILL having to work hard to finish his degree (Poor thing!), we’ve managed to find time for packing and spending time with our families!

Our very last attempt to raise funds for Bolivia was at the Woolpit Carboot Sale! It was nice to finally get rid of some junk and things that we haven’t used in a while. The weather was lovely and sunny… not so good for our hay fever but we survived Knowing that all the things we were selling was going towards charity made it all the more fulfilling. Before we even opened our car boot, there were a crowd of people already prying through the windows and pointing out what they wanted from all the lovely old things we had in the car… As this was my first car boot sale, I found this slightly worrying! But they were just very enthusiastic buyers!

After 4 hours of standing in the sun, selling our old stuff, we managed to raise an amazing £132.41 for charity!!! We were surprised and delighted! A big thank you to our family for donating their old things for us to sell at the carboot sale!__________________________________________________________________________________

And the biggest THANK YOU has to go to all the kind and thoughtful people who have donated towards our fundraising and wished us luck with our volunteer work!

With your help and encouragement, you have helped us raise a staggering £4,469.23 towards building a new school in Bolivia for orphaned and abandoned children! Matthew and I have chipped in ourselves to bring that to £5,000! We really couldn’t have achieved all of this without your help!

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Now that our fundraising time is slowly coming to an end, it’s time for us to prepare for our time in Bolivia. Already today, we have been spending hours sorting our Malaria tablets, confirming our flights and, of course, keeping you all updated on our blog!

Speaking of that, when we are out in Bolivia, we plan to keep you all updated on our progress and all the stories and adventures that happen. We will try to give you weekly updates, although, this depends on what access we have to the internet.

Thank you everyone once again for all your support. Until our next update, wish us luck and keep in touch!

 

And the Countdown Begins!

From this Friday, it’s only 4 WEEKS until Matthew and I leave for Bolivia!!! As every day passes, we are getting more and more excited! Until it’s time to leave the UK, we both have a lot that will be keeping us busy.

 Since our last update, we received a cheque for £300 for the Live Yatta Performance at the Architect’s Eco Awareness Ball, sold some CHAITOO DESIGNS sketchbooks… in the process of making more for a fundraiser in Scotland held by James Mitchell (one of OrkidStudio’s founders) Also, Matthew’s beard has grown a tremendous amount since he started The Hairy Face Challenge a few months ago!

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Unfortunately, Matthew is still having to spend a lot of his time completing his degree because of the lung condition that happened earlier on this year… but we aren’t giving up! Going to Bolivia with OrkidStudio, for such a good cause, means so much to both of us and we are prepared to work as hard as we can for it! So as Matthew is busy drawing plans and doing all things architects do, I have been preparing all the things we will be needing for Bolivia and making sketchbooks to sell for our fundraising!

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We have found out our deadline for our fundraising, which is JULY 1ST 2010! If you would still like to donate, just remember you haven’t got long left! Donate at: http://www.challengemenow.com/challengemenow/formularios/FORM_SEG_RETOS.PHP?txtCodReto=FIN-0000981

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Even though our fundraising has been going a bit slowly in the last month, we have been so grateful for the cheques that we received in the post recently from friends who have found our letters under a pile of papers on their desk! It means a lot that the people we know are still interested in what we are doing and want to show their support! Also, since Matthew already had most of his vaccinations before climbing Mount Kilimanjaro a few years ago, I had to spend a couple of weeks getting over my Yellow Fever, Swine Flu and other jabs that I can’t even pronounce! I am VERY glad those two weeks are over! Although, I think I may have possibly got over my phobia of injections… for now.

So, as we slowly start ticking off things on our to-do list, Matthew and I are getting closer and closer to possibly one of the most life changing projects of our lives. We haven’t heard much details about where we will be staying or what our agenda is in Bolivia but that can be quite a nice feeling. Anything can happen! And we will make the most of it

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Thanks to all the people who have donated towards our fundraising towards our Bolivia charity work with OrkidStudio! So far, with only £1,000 left to raise, our GRAND TOTAL is…

£4,000

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The Long Awaited Update!

Hello Everyone! As most of you know, Matt and I have been busy with making sketchbooks and organising the Yatta performance! Since our last update, we managed to have another bake sale at the Malaysian Food Fiesta, have a sketchbook sale at Bute Building, round up a group of brave architects to do a remake of the YATTA Dance video AND get involved the the Architect’s Eco Awareness Ball 2010 to raise money for OrkidStudio!

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To continue our fundraising efforts and with the help of our friends, we managed to successfully recreate the Yatta Music Video. Yatta is all about happiness and thinking of things in a positive way. If you enjoy watching this film and you want to be apart of our charity work, please join us and donate towards our fundraising by visiting http://www.challengemenow.com/challengemenow/formularios/FORM_SEG_RETOS.PHP?txtCodReto=FIN-0000981

 

Now here it is… the long awaited WSA YATTA REMAKE!!

 

Since the video went so well, the dancers decided they wanted to do EVEN MORE dancing! So we got in touch with Peter Scotney who was an organiser of the Architect’s Eco Ball! With every ticket sold, it was possible for a small donation to go towards OrkidStudio with the added bonus of a LIVE performance at the Ball!

The SAWSA Eco Awareness Ball – The big event happened last night and went swimmingly! (Speaking of swimming, we also had a couple of guys that wanted to help with our fundraising by travelling by BOAT to the Coal Exchange, where the Eco Ball took place! I have to admit, their little inflatable boat did look rather small but they, in the end, made it there safely! A big thank you to Tom Sykes and Steve Ranson for getting involved and being apart of our fundraising!)

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A BIG THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT WAS INVOLVED!  We really appreciated your participation!

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Latest news!

So, now that Matthew is fully recovered and back on track, we have been busy catching up and organising future events!

It’s been confirmed that Matthew and a group of volunteers will be doing a Yatta dance at the Cardiff University Architecture Eco Ball on April 30th 2010! Here’s some info about ‘YATTA’ for everyone who is wondering what it is!

  

 ”Yatta!” is a 2001 parody song by a fictional Japanese band called Green Leaves. The song title, “Yatta”, is the past tense of the Japanese verb yaru (“to do”) and is also the familiar short form of yarimashita, an exclamation meaning “It’s done!”, “I did it!”, “Ready!” or “All right!” The song was first performed as a sketch on the Japanese sketch comedy show Adventures of a Laughing Dog, known as “Silly Go Lucky” in the United States.

The video features its members singing and dancing exuberantly while wearing only underwear with a large green leaf on the front. The six band members’ synchronized dancing and personalized poses for the camera to parody the boy band craze. (Wikipedia Definitions)

While everyone is getting creative and making their outfits for the Eco Ball, the guys doing the Yatta Remake will be practising their dance moves!

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Next is Matthew’s Beard! Matthew has raised enough money to not shave his beard until JULY!! Even though he has been extremely busy with catching up with his university work since the last hospital episode, he managed to carry on collecting donations around Bute Building! Now that we received enough money for his Beard Challenges, focus has been turned towards the next events such as the Yatta Dance and Bake Sales!

The last picture didn’t work, so here’s a picture of Matthew’s Beard Progress!

Whilst Matthew is busy dancing (and working hard!) Sam has been hidden away in her room writing and sewing! CHAITOO DESIGNS has kicked off to a great start and people are giving a positive response. So, hopefully the embroided sketchbooks will help raise more money towards OrkidStudio’s plans in Bolivia to help the community and children!

What else is there to update? …. WE HAVE A NEW VOLUNTEER! Recently, Sam’s little sister has decided to help out with our fundraising by doing a sponsered silence for a day and not watching TV for a week! This was such a lovely gesture and we are very proud of her because she is only 9 years old and she wanted to help so much! THANK YOU!!!

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Anyone is welcome to be apart of the fundraising to help raise money for charity! Working together is an important part of OrkidStudio and we would love anyone to join in! Please contact us at schaitoo@live.co.uk for more information.

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Last but NOT least! I’m sure you all are very interested to know how much money we have raised so far towards our £5,000 target. Since we received our OrkidStudio acceptance letters and information packs back in January, both Matthew and I have been busy brainstorming fundraising ideas, sending out masses of letters to our friends and family and trying our best to make time for OrkidStudio. We love doing this charity work and even through the hard times, we know it will be very worth it in the end! We are extremely happy to say that with everyone’s support we have raised…

* £2999.37  *

Over halfway there, with just £2000.63 left to raise towards OrkidStudio, Matt and Sam will carry on fundraising and with your help, we will get to our £5000 target!!

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