Getting my hands dirty

Tuesday, July 4, 2006

Somehow it is already Tuesday afternoon. I am somewhere far out in the countryside of Peru, about 2 hours from Cusco by van. We are at the home of one of the children that goes to school at the Albergue helping to build an oven in their home. It is early afternoon and we are all taking a lunch/relax break so I thought I’d lie here in the sun and write a bit more about the trip and about yesterday.

On a slightly funny note, I don’t have any paper with me to write on. I dug around in my back pack and found some sheets of paper that actually ended up being a receipt from the Oriental hotel restaurant in Bangkok dated July 2, 2005. Apparently the group of us spent 14936.13 Thai Baht for dinner and James put it on his credit card. The Amex number and expiration date are both clearly printed on the bottom of the third page of the receipt – he’s lucky I’m a nice person or I could have some shopping fun with this ;)

Anyway, yesterday (Monday) was our first real work day. We woke up at about 7:00am and had breakfast of tea and bread. We then went outside to begin building a wash area for the hostel. The children currently do all of their wash in tubs that they must carry to the side of the Albergue and fill with water – one tub to wash and one to rinse. The wash area that we are building is complete with drainage and will in some small way make their everyday life a little easier.

My first job was to load rocks from a rock pile into a wheel barrel and haul them to the wash area. Jacy, Brian and I completed our 4 loads pretty quickly and then went to help arrange them in the dug out area that we would later cement. With help from our contractor we figured out how to arrange the drainage pipe and what area needed to be dug out to lay it in. We all took turns digging and shoveling out the dirt. When the area was just about ready it was time to make the cement. Nothing about that process was fun. First, Jacy, Alice and I had fill 12 wheel barrels full of 2 different kinds of dirt and rocks and then make trips hauling it to the wash area. Cement was added to the pile and then we all had to take turns shoveling the huge pile of dirt from one area to the next in order to get it all mixed up. Finally we had to add water and, using a pick and shovels, manage to mix it into the correct consistency for cement. We all took a lot of ‘catch your breath’ breaks and I could feel muscles aching that I didn’t even know I had.

Once the cement was a heavy, wet consistency we could start shoveling it onto our wash area over the rocks we had placed earlier. I swear it said in the Globe Aware information that we would not be doing manual labor like digging ditches…hmmm…

As we filled in the area 2 people in the group began smoothing it out with wooden boards. I will say the area we got done looks great – too bad we only had enough cement for about half the area! Guess we know what we’ll be doing on Wednesday morning…

At about 4pm we started to clean up as the sun goes down about 5pm and it gets pretty cold pretty quickly at that point. Jacy and I took cleanup duty while the others went to plan for the hour with the children that we were having from 5-6pm. Unfortunately that hour with the kids ended up not being particularly organized and really only ended up being about 30 minutes of a game to practice their English. At least I got to practice my Spanish at the same time!

After the game we all went inside to take quick showers. All of us were pretty ready to head into Cusco central for a nice evening and a few cocktails. Jacy, Alice and Tami wanted to shop before dinner. Brian, Brian and I went into a nice little British pub for a beer instead! Dinner was at a little Peruvian restaurant on Plaza de Armas called Pattiti. I went with the local specialty of guinea pig. It was okay – there wasn’t really much meat on it although they were kind enough to serve me the whole body, head and all.

We went through numerous bottles of wine and everyone was feeling pretty happy when we finally exited the restaurant. An excellent time to go grocery shopping, right? The market across the street turned into a field day for all of us as we loaded up on snacks and bottles of wine and Pisco. I went to look for Mate de Coco and found Lipton Yellow Label tea instead! 3 boxes – 150 tea bags – made it into my cart. It is pretty funny to look at the piles of snacks and groceries that we all bought.

Knowing that we were leaving at 8am the next morning forced us to finally head back to the Albergue for some sleep. While it was a very long day it was such a good one. I’m not particularly a fan of getting dirty and doing outside labor, but there is such a sense of accomplishment with that kind of work. I even kind of enjoyed the aches and pains that I was feeling because it felt rather therapeutic to have worked my body so hard, and for such a good cause. It is also so nice to have the group that we have this week on the program. Everyone is getting along so well, and we all really had a nice evening together.

Today (Tuesday) has been an interesting and odd day so far. Tami and Brian got up at 6:30 to go to the airport because their luggage was supposed to finally be coming in. Unfortunately it did not make it. Jacy, Alice and I got up around 7:30 and went down for breakfast. We are fast learning that ‘we are leaving at 8’ means ‘you should probably be ready by 8:15 or 8:30 and we may leave by then’. We climbed into the van to head to the country around 8:30 and settled in for what turned out to be a miserable 2 hour drive. The roads were one lane and unpaved the whole way. The dust and dirt that the van stirred up infiltrated the vehicle and made it hard to breath. My ipod wheel was gritty to turn and I kept having to wipe off the layer of dirt that settled on it. I know that none of us are looking forward to the ride back.

We got here to the middle of nowhere in the hills of Peru around 10:30am. The itinerary for the day is to build an oven for the family of Luis, one of the children at the school. The first thing we had to do was carry some big mud bricks down the hill. I’m apparently a wimp because I made it about ¾ of the way and then had to hand my brick over to Brian to take the rest of the way. I felt better about myself when I saw Jacy and Alice coming down the hill carrying one between them, but that quickly went away when I saw little Luis carrying two by himself.

Once we had carried down the bricks we realized that in fact the entire home was made of those mud bricks. It was explained to us that the clay, water and straw mixture will last about 20 years and that most of the homes in the poorer areas of Peru are made this way. The mud mixture is used to make everything from walls to, well, the oven that we were building. So our next task was to make some of the clay mixture. Tami and Brian volunteered to mix the mud in the traditional way – with their bare feet. Alice went about taking pictures. Jacy and I sat on the hill watching and cheering them on while soaking up some sun…

We made up for it a little later when all of the wood had to be cut to create the structure that would hold the clay. As we were taking turns sawing away with a little hand saw I couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have one of my dad’s power tools at that moment. I guess it is all in what you know, and this life is so foreign to someone who is used to having so much.

It was just crazy to be a part of building this oven. The kitchen that we were building it in was a one room building that housed the stove and cooking supplies on one side and guinea pigs on the other. I won’t lie, it grossed me out a bit to see these little rodents running around the kitchen. But the family raises them to sell because they make ‘a lot’ of money from them as they are a delicacy. Having eaten one last night I have to disagree that they are such a fabulous food, but that is beside the point.

The oven base and chimney was made from cutting down trees setting them up to resemble a chimney. Small branches were then cut and tied on to intermittent nails. I asked why they didn’t just nail in each piece the way I would have expected, and it was because nails are too expensive to use that many of. The twine is cheaper and can be used to secure the branches using a third or a fourth of the number of nails. Once this base was created and the chimney structure was in place it was time to throw the mud. We all grabbed handfuls of the mud/straw mixture and threw it at the structure so that it would stick. When there was enough mud on there it was smoothed out and any gaps were filled in. The only thing about this stove that was not made completely from the natural resources in the immediate area was the clay cooking base that we had brought with us. This was bought using our volunteer money and that, along with our time, allowed this family to have a stove/chimney in their kitchen rather than essentially cooking over a bonfire right in the house. They showed us the ceiling and walls to point out the black soot from having an open fire in the home, and it was explained that this was so appreciated because the smoke would actually go up and out of the kitchen now.

As we were packing up to go there were hugs all around. In my everyday life I work long hours in an office and I stress about things like fonts on power point presentations. Here, in just a few hours, I was a part of a team that changed a family’s day to day existence for the better. My fingernails are covered in mud (and I don’t want to think about what was in that mud, considering the number of animals running around and the fact that there is nowhere to sit on the ground that is safe from some sort of animal crap), my clothes are probably ruined between the cement and mud etc, my face is supremely sunburned, and yet all I can think is that it was such a good day. I came here hoping to gain some fresh perspective on a life that has at times gotten away from me. It has only been a few days, but I already know that this is one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself and that I will never forget this trip.

The trip back as been as bad as we all feared, but thankfully we are almost there. My ipod battery died about 30 minutes ago, which gave me some time to finish up this little report on the day. I have a feeling we are all going to be eating dinner and heading to bed pretty early. After all, we need to be refreshed and ready to mix more cement tomorrow...

Cultural Immersion

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Amazingly 2 days have already gone by in Cusco. I got in yesterday at 7am and was promptly met by the Globe Aware coordinator. Within a few minutes 2 other members of our group Tami and Brian also arrived. We waited about 15 more minutes for Jacy to arrive and then headed to the car for the short drive to the Albergue aka the childrens hostel. Our coordinator Brian gave us a tour of the facilities and then we decided we all needed a nap.

3 hours later Tami, Jacy and I finally woke up. I was pretty surprised to have slept so long. We got changed and headed downstairs. Everyone wanted to check in with people back home plus just explore the area so we headed down the street to the internet café. Brian and I sat in the sun and watched the locals perform an intricate dance that was apparently a religious celebration of some saint. Lunch was being served at 2pm, so once everyone was done in the internet café we walked back to the Albergue. Apparently that high altitude air gave us all an appetite as everyone ate a significant amount of the chicken and rice that Carlotta prepared for us.

The plan for the late afternoon/early evening was to go to the baptism of the child of a friend of Carlottas. I think that we all expected that we would go to the baptism and that was that, but it ended up being a whole evening worth of activities. It was one of the most amazing evenings that I have ever experienced anywhere in the world. We went back to the home of the childs parents where we spent that next 3 hours being inundated with alcohol and food. We were welcomed as part of the family and were pulled up into the dancing and also participated in the traditional hair-cutting ceremony. It was truly so funny to watch the hosts circulating with bottles of beer and a glass. They would come to you and pour you a glass of beer and then say secca which literally translated means dry but actually meant chug. The festivities did get more and more lively the more times the husband and wife circulated with the alcohol! The food was served to each of us on an overflowing plate and included a huge piece of pork, corn tamales, and potatoes.

I think all of us were a bit amazed and overwhelmed by the experience. It is a rare opportunity to visit a country and get to step inside the lives and homes of the people who live there in the way that we did.

Around 9:30 or so we decided it was time to head into Cusco center and try out the local scene. We wandered around Plaza de Arms before settling on a bar. I tried my first and second Pisco Sours drinkand I think I liked them way too much! I am definitely going to have to pick up a bottle and make some on our family vacation this summer. Anyway, we had a few drinks and hung out chatting and some of the group even hit the dance floor. We finally decided we should probably head home around midnight, considering that not only was it our first night but also that we had an early morning and busy day planned for Sunday.

I must say that Day 1 was so far beyond my expectations that I wouldnt even know how to express it.

Day 2 Sunday (today) started with Brian waking us up around 7:15am. We all rolled out of bed and got changed and then had a continental breakfast of bread, jam and yogurt. The van that would take us around for the day arrived at 8:30 and we were off.

Our first stop was the Alpaca farm Awana Khancha. Although Im definitely not usually an animal person I have to admit that it was pretty cool. We all walked through and fed the Alpacas and took some pictures and then spent some time shopping for products made from Alpaca wool. I found a beautiful fushia Alpaca and silk scarf which I bought for myself as my first souvenir. We only spent about an hour in total at the Alpaca farm before heading off to Pisac.

Pisac is a town in the Sacred Valley that has a large open market on Sunday. Apparently we are a group of shoppers as the 6 of us managed to spend 3.5 hours at the market. I didnt buy too much an Alpaca wool blanket for myself and one for my parents, a cute little hat and scarf for Jordan, and a hat for myself to keep warm this week. It was a beautiful sunny day I had a fun time bargaining and trying out my Spanish.

After leaving Pisac we drove for a while and then stopped at a grassy spot along the river to have a picnic lunch. We discussed the plans for the week, specifically the work we would be doing on Monday and the hour of game time with the children in the late afternoon. Everyone was pretty lazy by this point and it was nice to relax in the sun. I probably should have applied some sunscreen, as evidenced by my now red nosebut that is another story.

Our last stop of the day was the salt mines. I have never seen such a unique thing. The whole side of a mountain is nothing but salt mines that they shovel and filter. We got to walk along and see it up close. It was hard to not think of it as snow when you looked at the whole mountain covered in white.

It was getting late in the day when we left the salt mines. We headed back to the Albergue for dinner a delicious pasta and vegetable dish this time - and then all generally crashed. We hung out in the bedroom for an hour or so just chatting and getting organized. Everyone has crawled into bed now Alice is just about asleep, Jacy is watching a movie, and Tami is writing in her journal. I am feeling quite tired myself and since I am finished writing I am going to head to bed as well.

Spending the night in LIM airport

Saturday, July 01, 2006

The flight to Lima finally departed Miami at about 10pm last night. Business class was completely empty of the 30 or so seats there were only 4 filled. Coach looked to be pretty full. One would think that with only 4 passengers and 3 flight attendants service would have been pretty good, but I have to say that was not the case. I ate the tuna appetizer with a glass of wine, but a bite of the pasta was about all I could do. I really wasnt that hungry but there is something about getting on an international plane in business that makes me not want to go to sleep immediately. I read through a magazine and had a glass of port for dessert. At that point I decided I should probably get some sleep so I turned out the light and took a nap.

I was awoken by the flight attendant a few minutes before 2:00. Immigration was a breeze, especially since I was the first person in my line. Luggage was another story. I swear my bag was the last one of the plane. I finally claimed it at about 2:45. Not that I was in any rush I had cancelled my reservation at the Sheraton when I realized how late we were going to be getting in because of the delay. I had read that a lot of people spend the night in the airport to catch the early flights to CUZ, so I figured I would join them. Since my flight is at 6:00 I really didnt even have that much time to kill.

I cleared customs, although I did get my first ever red light and had to go through secondary screening. It turned out to be a painless process of putting your bags on a belt and picking them up on the other side. I then made my way through the airport to find a cash machine, which I quickly located. I headed upstairs to the food court and shopping area. Amazingly everything was open and going strong. Too bad I wasn't hungry - I love Papa John's! I had no problem wasting an hour perusing the shops. I even made my first purchase Nivea deodorant. I dont understand why they dont sell that in the US, but as I am running out I was so happy to see the display of it in the sundries store.

At around 4:30 I went back downstairs to check in for my flight. Baggage checked and boarding pass in hand I went up to pay the departure tax and go through security.

I am now sitting in the boarding area waiting for my Taca flight to Cusco. We should be boarding in about 20 minutes. I think this is my first ever night spent in an airport. Not that it was really a whole night, but still. It has been a long travel day. The flights have by far been the shortest parts. I guess I cant complain too much since it is a pretty last minute business class ticket and thus free to me. And to be honest I enjoyed most of the day in Miami catching up on my life, and even kinda enjoyed the few hours exploring Lima airport. It is definitely a unique airport in that there are so many people hanging out in the middle of the night. Sitting in the food court it felt like the middle of the day. I am feeling a bit tired now. A nap on the next (short) flight will no doubt feel good. I know there isnt much planned in the way of activity today which is definitely good planning on the part of the program.

Well, here we go on to Cusco.

Peru - the Volunteer Vacation begins

Friday, June 30, 2006

Today begins my adventure known as a volunteer vacation. Im looking forward to the week. I find that Im not nervous but also not excited in the way that I sometimes am for trips. I think there is just so much unknown to me about this. But Im so glad Im doing it this feels like the best decision Ive made in a long time.

I got up this morning at 5:00 to get ready and head to STL airport. I am on an award ticket STL-MIA-LIM-CUZ. STL-MIA was on AA metal. It was a 757 and although I was in 3F I traded with someone so that a couple could sit together and ended up in 4F. I read some of my book on Cusco and the Incan Trail when I first got on the plane, but pretty quickly felt sleepy and took a little nap. I woke up for breakfast and had some really bad pancakes before falling back to sleep for a bit.

Got to Miami at about 11:00 and my flight to LIM wasnt scheduled until 6:45pm. I went into the Admirals Club prepared to fork over the $50 for a day pass, but the nice lady at the counter let me in on my LAN Business Class ticket. I settled in for the next 6 hours and finally got caught up on all of the personal stuff that I hadnt been able to get to due to the craziness that is work. When I finally wandered out I headed from the D terminal down to A a good 25 minute walk, especially at my leisurely pace. Unfortunately the departure board in terminal A was now showing my flight to Lima delayed until 9:20. Whats a girl to do but shop? After perusing duty free and finding a book at the newsstand I went into the Tequileria for dinner. That is where I am sitting as I type this. Ive been perched at the bar for about 2 hours now. I had some horrible black bean soup followed by really nasty quesadillas. At least the margaritas are good. I should start boarding within about 45 minutes, and hopefully I will sleep well on the plane. I was originally planning to go to the Sheraton tonight, but with the delay I dont actually get to LIM until 2am. By the time I clear customs/immigration it will be at least 2:30, and I need to board my flight to CUZ at 5:30not really enough time to go to a hotel and back. So it looks like Ill be camped out in the Lima airport for a few hours. It is a good thing our schedule for Saturday is very light, because I have a feeling I am going to be pretty tired.