New Years and New Beards

Christmas and New Years are a funny old thing in the southern hemisphere. Firstly it seems that no one is that bothered about Christmas here. You don't hear "Merry Xmas Everybody" or "Mistletoe and Wine" in the two months leading up to the holidays and there's no-one going around getting battered just because it's Christmas. No one buys turkey, there are no crackers, the shops are a little more crowded than normal and most importantly, you don't feel forced to be jovial. One of my least favourite things in the world.

Even the few recognisable things still seem out of place, Christmas carols in Spanish and the Father Christmas in the shopping centres look distinctly uncomfortable as they're sweating their testicles down the drain in the 30 degree plus temperature.

So on Christmas Day we found ourselves once again on the roof of the newbies apartment block enjoying a barbeque, drinking copious amounts of boxed wine and crap beer and burning to a crisp. It's really quite a spectacular place to spend Christmas as here is the view.

Granted, this may not be the best pic for it, what with the minging apartment block and all, but the 360 degree panorama of Santiago and the Andes really is quite awesome. I won't go into a lot of detail about the barbeque except that there was a water balloon fight, we played table football using hockey terminology ("Faceoff!) and using a bauble for a ball, some of us threw things of roof, we played roullette using a roullette table that cost approximately 2 pence and I saw a Canadian man's genitals.

But the biggest thing to come out of the Christmas Day barbeque (after the genitalia) was that all the men in VE decided it would be a fabulous idea that we should all grow beards.

Now, being a Wiggins male, I have inherited several undesirable genetic traits: being able to fall asleep everywhere and anywhere, extreme gangliness, a terrible sense of smell and the total inability to grow facial hair. So the last day we all shaved was December 25th and the next time we would be able to shave would be January 21st, when one of our volunteers Brys left. As a Wiggins, facial hair progress was painfully slow, I barely moved out of the bumfluff stage, but when I did, I jumped straight into the "This man should not be working with children":



And generally, I hated most of the entire experience. It was nice not shaving for a month, but it itched like hell and looked utterly rubbish. I counted down the days till the Great Shave-Off and when it finally came, I set about the "beard" with a rusty bic razor with glee.

Now, looking at the rules of the competition, this was about having the Best Facial Hair, not the most. All the lads would shave a new creation, give it it's own name and the women would vote for a winner. All the men went about doing bizarre and un-godly things with their beards. Frenchy hacked chunks out of his eyebrows, Matt emerged with dreadlocks and Jack went Taxi Driver on us. Brys and Pharoah dazzled us with the gingerest beards ever seen. Brooke, who clearly had the best, emerged with a beard that said "I've spent 4 months felling redwoods in upper British Columbia with only the love of a grizzly to keep me sane".

And me, well I called my creation "El Conquistador" but "A Weasel's Arse" would possibly have been more appropriate. The whole concept was brilliantly inane, all the boys were giddy about their chances of success and the girls just rolled their eyes. There was no prize, but massive amounts of pride were at stake.

And who won? Well, I did of course. And this proves several things:

1. Women don't like facial hair or stupid competitions.
2. If you lobby enough for the sympathy vote you might just .
3. You should have a German friend called Eva to persuade, cajole and bully everyone to vote for you.
4. The democratic process is alive and well. You can't argue with the voting process. And there can be only one true winner. Ladies and Gentleman, may I present you with the winner of "VE Global Best Facial Hair":