The first sounds I hear when I squint my eyes to let in some sunshine at 7:00 are the desperate shouts of the salesmen, beginning their daily route through the neighborhood, on their bicycle with their fruits in stowe: “Pina, Papaya, Platanos!!” And don’t you fear, if you didn’t hear it the first time, he will repeat it about 20 more times before he reaches the end of your street. After eggs, toast and Pineapplae juice for breakfast, I head off on a twenty minute walk through the market to the Church of Santisimo Sacremento, which hosts the social program that I volunteer for. SOme days, there isn’t much for me to do; however, if the construction team is out, I am eager to jump on the back of the truck and head to the “barrios pobres”.
About 12 of us – mixed Peruvians and Americans – pile into the back of a truck with ladders and tools, and enjoy the packed, rickety ride to the shanty towns where we’ll get down to business. The villages usually have no electricity, no running water, thatch houses with dirt floors, and dirty dogs running everywhere. As a team, we start by tearing down whatever structure is attempting to remain standing at the site so we can replace it; this is when all the little critters like mice and scorpions come running out of the sand to make the day a little more interesting. After teardown, we begin with the most difficult task of the day: using old, rusty post-hole diggers to dig 5-foot deep holes in the dry, sandy desert – I can only help you imagine how difficult this is. Bamboo is placed in these holes as the wall support. Woven thatch is then run from each bamboo pole to another, creating the walls, which are held together by simple wire. Rather than nailguns and levels being the most important tools in the US, wire cutters and saws are highly prized here – I would say about 20 nails are used in total. The Peruvians usually handle the roof of tin material and attach a door – which probably has the only real lock on the block. No floors, no insulation, no separate rooms, and no electrical outlets. This simple structure, however, changes the lives of every family, which come out crying when they see their new sleeping quarters, and are to provide up to 7 years of stability. The equatorial sun beats down pretty hard in the afternoon, and water is hard to come by, but it is pretty neat working with Peruvians and gazing at their almost acrobatic constructional techniques.
If I don’t go to the church, sometimes we go to the Community Center to see our roomate JA at work. In his time here, JA has noticed the lack of discipline and and lack of encouragement for creativity or goal-planning. To incorporate these important methods he has implemented the use of the wonderful game of Chess. It’s incredible to see the transformation from chaotic mayhem when I first walked into the classroom, to complete silence and concentration as the Chess boards were revealed. It helps them practice staying focused for long periods of time, and to set long-term goals – in order to Checkmate, they have to know the extended goals of their opponent and try to decipher a counter attack far in the future.
I run in the afternoons, which I wish I could say was motivated by my overly-ambitious personality (!), but truly its because I’m trying to get as sweaty as possible before stepping into the stream of icy water in the shower that causes continual shivers for the entire 10 minutes I suffer in that damn thing! Dinner is usually a satifying meal: we have Chinese, Pizza, Hamburgers, and even a little Cuban place that has traditional Peruvian food – all for around 4$ for a full plate and a beer.
We have a different bottle of wine each week (Argentinan and Chilean wine are so cheap here!), and head off to bed fairly early after reading a bit.
Next stop – the Valley of Longevity in Ecuador tomorrow!
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