Over the last week our 50th day on the road passed by, it’s gone so quickly and already I’m looking ahead to volunteering at the Olympics and beyond to Uni at Edinburgh. For now though, there is plenty in Pisco to keep me occupied.
Since coming here I have been involved in over 10 different projects, taught English at 3 different schools and have gone from being a disgrace to the DIY world to reaching a solid mediocre level. One of the biggest achievements involved inspiration from home as Ed, Joe and I cooked a 3 course evening meal for 40 people. As 5 days have gone by and there have been no reports of Typhoid, I can safely say it was a great success. If any of you are interested we made a classic sausage and bacon casserole. We are doing it again on Thursday so any suggestions would be appreciated!
Outside the kitchen there has been a range of interesting projects taking place. New ventures are happening all the time so there is a great opportunity to get acquainted with several. The earthbag project is the construction of a community centre made out of sustainable and earthquake resistant dirt bags. The dirt is mixed with concrete and water and it is designed to move with the earthquake if such an event occurs. Its hard work and it is where Joe has spent the majority of his time.
FMB is the generic nickname given to most wood work projects. Ed and I have been building some stations for the exercise part of the park including chin up bars, tricep dips and sit up benches. It’s a shame they have only just been put in place for my last week but at least Ed should be able to get some deserved practice after his shocking personal best of 2 chin ups today.
The final project I will talk about is the Aceros wood collection. PSF gets the majority of its wood for free from the massive steel factory about an hours drive away. You get to experience Peru’s public transport at its worst (best?) as we catch a ‘colectivo’ to get there. A colectivo is basically the same size as a small people carrier in the UK with up to 35 people crammed on to it. Breathing is a luxury in such vehicles but for 38p for a 50 minute ride I guess you can’t complain. You then load a truck with various bits of wood, tyres and whatever else you can find before climbing up on the back and enjoying a precarious ride home on top of your recently collected haul.
I hope that through reading between the lines you can tell that all of these have been great fun and hugely rewarding. I would highly recommend this place if you ever find yourself in South America. One more week to go and it’s going to be sad to leave this place!
No comments:
Post a Comment