Day 112 in Peru

So, It has been about 2 months since my last entry so I will try to make this one as long and entertaining as possible.

Where we left off was the beginning of March, where I had just finished pouring the cement for the trenches of the earthbag project. Now the earthbag building is almost complete. If you want to see pictures of the project from start to finish click here.

Then on March 17 a giant group of us all went to Lima for Saint Patrick's day and partied it up. Then I was supposed to go to Cuzco to meet up with some PSF friends but there was a miner's strike so all the buses going south were delayed for 3 days. I didn't want to wait that long so I decided to go with a group of awesome girls to Huanchaco.

After the 9 hour night bus ride north, we arrived at 5am to Trujillo, the second largest city in Peru. From there, we took an hour long, bumpy, sketchy, crouded, 1 sol bus ride to Huanchaco.

Let me just say this to describe Huanchaco: I want to live there forever. It is this small sunny beach surf town, not much unlike Santa Cruz. There are little shops everywhere and an adorable AWESOME market that I didn't get lost in (unlike the massive Pisco market). I love it. AND, I just found out there is an NGO there that is in constant need of volunteers... (hmmmm gap year #2?...)

The hostel that we stayed at in Huanchaco was 15 soles a night, which is around $5. It had really comfy beds and it had an entire camping area with a campfire and a 'kitchen' , if you can call it a kitchen. It had three gas burners. lol. And a fridge. But we made some epic meals in the three weeks I was there.

Yes, I ended up staying for three weeks. What did I do there, you may wonder... Well, multiple people from PSF met us there and at one point we were up to 12 of us. Every morning we would go to the market to get food for dinner then we had lunch at Luca's a super cheap super awesome italian man who made super amazing pizzas and pastas. Then we would normally have nap or bracelet making time then around 4:00 we would start cooking dinner. YUM! That's about all we did in Huanchaco. I surfed one day, I was aweful.

The thing that made Huanchaco the best time ever was the amazing people I was with and the awesome conversations and fun times we had together. It's amazing how close you get to people who you've only known for a month or two, but when you are living, eating, and working with them every day, its hard NOT to get to know them. I am having such an awesome time here.

After Huanchaco, I went to Iquitos, then back to PSF. More to come on that in the next few days or so, when I have the motivation to sit down and type with my aching hands. To see pictures check out my Peru, Wanky Hipster Photography, tagged photos, and In the Jungle albums on Facebook.

Day 42 at PSF

This week I worked on the Earthbag project. I've been working on it since its first day where we started digging holes to get to the good dirt. Then the project took a couple weeks off, but it just started up again and 2 weeks ago we started leveling the ground and digging the trenches. Then this week we finished pouring the cement for the foundation. YAY! I also taught a few English classes. I love them all! The three fisherman that I teach told me that I could go out harpooning octopi with them some weekend!!!! there's a ton of new people here which is awesome and they are all really great! Also I might be taking over an admin job here in the next month or so which will be cool. I already have been doing a lot of PR and networking online and editing the facebook page and twitter accounts for PSF. Like our page on FB please!!!! http://www.facebook.com/PiscoSinFronteras

skipping a few weeks.... Day 33?

Its so easy to lose track of time here in Pisco. So much has happened in the past few weeks. About half of the volunteers have left, so our numbers are down, but there have been new people arriving everyday, many of them staying for a long time. So today is friday, and on tuesday, I stepped on a plank with a 4 inch nail sticking out of it, and the nail went through my boot and about a half inch into the ball of my foot. It didn't actually hurt that bad and after about a half hour it stopped bleeding and I went back to work. Then the next day I woke up with a really high fever, so I went to the clinic to see if they had the tetanus anti imuno injection, but they didnt so they told me to go to the hospital. So David took me to the nicer private hospital and they were being so rude and unhelpful, some local lady told us to go to the government hospital. So we went there, but they told us that you can only get the tetanus injection in the morning. So they gave me an injection to make my fever go away, in a TENT. a tent. then we had to go back yesterday (thursday) morning to get my tetanus shot. Then I found out I have to get another one in april then another in august. :( Then last night my fever came back, BLEH, but today I feel better, so my antibiotics are probably starting to kick in. YAY!

Day 18: Tuesday, February 7th

Today I worked on the Earthbag project. This project is eventually going to be a community center in a small rural area outside of Pisco. We are also going to build a garden and a bridge that goes across the little creek. The reason it's called "earthbags" is because we get these bags and fill them with a mixture of dirt and sand and flyash, and that is what we build the center out of because its very flexible in case there's an earthquake.

We basically dug for 8 hours... lol. But it was actually quite fun and we got a good workout.

Day 17: Monday, February 6

Today I did DEMOLITION!!!! So there was a family whose store/house was essentially just rubble and brick walls and the government gave them about 2 weeks to clear the land or they would lose it, so we finished breaking down walls, pulling up the tile and clearing the rubble. There were some brick walls, concrete pillars, and the floor was tile, so we had to get rid of everything and level it down to the dirt. Today was almost the last day, so all we had to do was finish taking down three pillars and the brick wall. I got to use the pick ax which was really fun because I just got to hit a wall as hard as you can. It's very emotionally therapeutic. Then I got to use the jack hammer, which was so much fun but very heavy.

Around 1:00 these sweet old ladies brought us homemade lunch which was of course delicious. Then Kathryn, one of the Australians, and I went to Senati to teach. :)

Then we had dinner and bed time. woo!

FYI: PICTURES

So I've taken over part of the Education position for PSF, so I have been super busy this week so that's why im so far behind on the blog. But im sick today and hopefully i can get this week blogged. :) If you want to see pictures now, because it will take me awhile to post them here) you can go to my fb page, add me as a friend if we arent already then go to my peru album. :)  my facebook page:   http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=589252676

the album: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150548393717677.373340.589252676&type=1

Day 16: Sunday

The next morning we all woke up from the sun beating down on us because we all fell asleep next to the fire. I got out of my sleeping bag, then fell back asleep. Finally around 9:00, it got too hot, so I went in the water. Then I got out of the water, sunscreened up and laid out in the sun and slept. That's basically all I did the entire day, ocean, sunscreen, sleep.

We left Paracas at around 4 and went back to PSF and cleaned up then went over to the gas station/restaurant/bar/store and watched the Superbowl! Go Giants... I guess...

Day 15: Saturday February 6th

Today we had a half day. YAY! So I taught the Intercambio English classes today which is the free walk in classes that we have at the PSF HQ. I ended up teaching three 9 year old girls. They barely knew any english but they were so excited to learn. We learned some verbs then played charades. Then I drew a super ugly person on the white board and we learned the parts of the body. It was really fun. We ended around 12:30, then I ate, showered, then had a meeting at Senati (which I am now the team leader of, YAY!) and then I came back and packed up all my camping gear to go camping in the Paracas national park! WOOO!!!!

We took a super ghetto, falling-apart bus for about 30 minutes through a desert til we finally got to this massive cliff overlooking the beach. We had to walk down a super steep incline for about half a mile with all of our camping gear including food and wood and tent supplies, but we finally did it and got everything set up. We made a fire and cooked some stew. We had wonderful conversations, telling stories and jokes.

And now for some really bad pictures...

Day 14: Friday February 8

Friday I taught classes at the San Martin colegio (high school). Then later that afternoon, I went and taught at the Senati (a technical school) classes, which is supposed to be just assisting the teacher, but instead, the teacher just handed me the book and told me, 'this is what chapter they're on" and had me teach the two hour class.  I honestly don't remember much about the rest of the day or the details because Friday night was Auction Night.

AUCTION NIGHT: most epic night ever.

So basically Auction Night is a fundraiser in which volunteers can auction off some of their personal items or services, most people auction off services. For example, I auctioned off an hour long massage and being someone's slave for a week. Other people auctioned stuff off like, a private dinner for two, beer runner, a concert, spanish lessons, german lessons, their virginity (he's a 30 year old man who is definitely NOT a virgin), and other various services that may be too inappropriate to mention... haha. Anyways, the auctioneers basically get everyone drunk so people just bid like crazy. And it worked. The auction went on for almost three hours and we raised over 4,000 soles, which is about $1,500!!!

After the auction, I found out that one of the Australian dudes bought me as his bitch for a week... I start on monday.

After the auction everyone went out to MYSTICA! It was fun and awesome. Then we came back and went to bed. :)

Day 13: Thursday February 2nd

Today we had a plan to cook dinner. I had just found out that there was going to be a cooking competition for the best meal of the week, so I got super into it and our team was determined to win! We decided to have a grand american classic. Burgers. So we went off to the market.

We got ground beef for the burgers and black beans for the hippie burgers. We also got basil and tomato and cheese to make a caprese salad. Then we decided to do a chocolate cake for dessert. We also got about 50 potatoes to make potato wedges.

After prepping everything, around 5 I began grilling the burgers on the outside grill. It was so hot and smoky that my eyes were watering the whole time. I was surprised I even had any tears left because I had been chopping and carmelizing onions the entire day and crying because of that.

Once the burgers were done, we served everyone and with our grilled pineapple and carmelized onion toppings we were sure that we had won the competition. But the earlier nights were incredible delicious as well so we'll see...

Day 12: Wednesday, February 1st

Today I taught my first large English class to teenagers! There was about 60 of them! But between Jo, Madi, Claudia, and I, we were able to split the class up into groups of 15. So I went to the whiteboard and began attempting to teach my lesson plan that I had wrote last week.  First, we began talking about contractions and I gave some examples of spanish contractions. Then we went into talking about English contractions such as "what's" and "it's" and "they're", etc. Then I would ask them to give me more examples or ask them what the contraction of "it" and "is" was, but they were all so shy and distracted because they are all around 14 years old and technically they are on their summer vacation, so they weren't too keen on participating. 

Eventually, I just ended up making them each give me an example of a contraction and they understood the concept, so I told them after one more activity we would play a game. So I split them into groups of four and I wrote 5 questions on the board in English, "What is your favorite band?" "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" "Do you have any pets?" etc. Then they had to ask each member of their group each question in english and write their response in english as well. Once they got started, I went around the class and asked them if they had any questions and I asked them to translate each question into Spanish to make sure that they understood the question. They actually asked me some questions about what certain words meant and how to pronounce words. Once they were done I had each group write two of the questions and two of their answers up on the whiteboard. Then they had to present their two questions and answers to the rest of the class. They were so shy and embarrassed; they kept laughing and I kept telling them, "No necessitan tener miedo! Son tus amigos!" (you don't need to be afraid, they are your friends!) They loosened up a bit, especially with my terrible spanish accent and grammar. Once each group presented I told them that we would play a game because they all did really well. 

For the game I had each of them write a spanish word on a piece of paper. Then they had to crunch the paper up into a ball. Then we had a 'snowball fight', throwing the papers around the room. Then I told each of them to pick up a piece of paper and open it up. They had to say the spanish word, then say what the English translation was. After that, we still had some extra time so I suggested Charades because, I mean, who the heck doesn't like Charades? Apperently, they don't because I acted a few words out first and no one wanted to guess because they didn't want to act in front of the class. So I changed the rules a bit. I told them that whoever guessed the word got to pick someone else to go act out a word. All of the sudden they were shouting out the answers to they could embarrass their friends. We finished our lesson and I was mentally exhausted but in a good way. I have so much more respect for my spanish teachers growing up now, lol. I had an amazing sense of accomplishment and I couldn't wait to go back and fill their little minds with knowledge!

After going back to PSF HQ for lunch, I went to Ludoteca. After playing a few games of UNO, the kids worked on long multiplication. I sat there and helped them and corrected their papers when they were finished. It was awesome, because math is the same in every language. After playing games for a little bit longer, Robbie began the English lessons with the older kids. We went over how to order food in a restaurant. Robbie is Irish, so of course all of his pronunciations of everything was wrong. LOL

After Ludoteca, we went back to PSF and had a delicious German meal cooked by the four German girls. Afterwards, I had a nice sleep. :)

Day 11: Tuesday, January 31

Today I woke up feeling just super awesome because I am not sick anymore! YAY!!! After breakfast, I went with Sandra and Wera to the sports program. We took a collectivo (taxi) to a little town just outside of Pisco which was basically just a desert with little shacks everywhere. But in the middle of town there was a very nice concrete soccer field. There were about 15 kids, mostly boys ages 5 to 12 and three girls. We started out cleaning up the field which surprisingly the boys got pretty enthusiastic about; they liked using the giant brushes to sweep the sand off the field.

Once the field was clean, we played a game kind of like duck, duck, goose. Then we played freeze tag. It was exhausting. Those little buggers sure can run fast! After freeze tag we did some body warm ups. Then the boys played soccer and the girls, Wera, and I set up the volleyball net and started doing warmup exercises. The girl I was warming up with was Nicole. She was very good already and she was only like 12 years old. She was definitely better than me! I told her that she should play in high school and then she could get a scholarship to college. She told me that he whole family plays and she practices all the time because she really wants to be on the high school team. After we warmed up a bit, we attempted to play a game but it was really hot and the 2 little girls were tired so Wera and Nicole played and I 'refereed' the boys' soccer game while Sandra played mini-soccer with the little kids.

An hour and a sunburn later, we packed everything up and said goodbye to the kids and took a collectivo back to PSF HQ. I tried to get as much sand off of me as possible then scrounged around in the fridge for some lunch.

After lunch I went with Claudia, Robbie, and Noemi to Ludoteca, which is the daycare sort of facility. First the younger kids came and I tried to talk to them. I kept telling them to speak slower and that they needed to help me practice my spanish. They would laugh everytime I said a word wrong but then they would help me pronounce it correctly. :) They were so sweet and courteous, when they came in the building they automatically gave you a kiss on the cheek and said, "Hola". We played with marbles, did puzzles, and played chess. Then when the older kids came we played a series of very intense UNO games.

At 4:00 we went back to PSF HQ. I showered, ahhhhhh. And now I'm just waiting on dinner. YUMMM!!!!! :)

the boys at the soccer field

cleaning the field

boys playing soccer

 ludoteca

 claudia playing with the kids

little stories by the kids

Day 10: Monday January 30th

At around 12:15am this morning there was a 6.3!!!! magnitude EARTHQUAKE! I sleep on a top bunk, so I thought it was just my roomie moving around in the bed, but then everyone is screaming EVACUATE!! EARTHQUAKE! So I jumped off my bunk and we all ran downstairs and outside to the earthquake spot. For a lot of people, this was their first earthquake so many people were really freaked. I didn't think it was that big of one, because nothing even fell over and it was really short, but a little while later I looked up on the computer that it had originated about 7 miles south of Ica, which is about an hour south of where we are now. The earthquake that hit Pisco in 2007 was an 8.3, so this was nothing compared to that. As far as I know, no one was injured and nothing collapsed. When we were able to go back to bed, we were instructed to keep our passports and some money with us in case there were more tremors, but luckily there weren't. :)

This morning I feel a lot better, but still not up to work, so I am blogging and cleaning around the house. YAY!

Day 9: Sunday January 29th

Sick again today, but feeling a bit better I guess. I ate some rice for dinner and some crackers. Layed on the couch in the common room and watched like 10 minutes of Cowboys and Aliens until it stopped working, then watch a BBC documentary on South America which was actually very interesting. Then went to bed. another boring sick day.

Day 8: Saturday January 28th

I woke up feeling awful so I went to the clinic with Carlos, a Spanish and English speaker. In the clinic, you pay 30 soles for a consultation with the doctor. We only had to wait like 5 minutes then the nurse called us in. She took my temperature and my blood pressure. My temperature was 39 degrees Celsius, which is about 102 degrees Fahrenheit. I needed to get tested for infections and Typhoid but they said they couldn't test me until my temperature went down. So they gave me two GIANT injections. One in my hip, and the other in my arm vein. Each shot took like 5 minutes to push in because she had to do it so slowly. It hurt pretty bad, especially because I already felt like crap. But after about 20 minutes, my fever was practically gone and I didn't feel nauseous anymore. So they tested my blood for typhoid, and about an hour later I found out that YAY I'm Typhoid free. :) But I do have an infection. I got some antibiotics, so I hope these things work.

Day 7: Friday January 27th

Today I woke up with a fever and was very sick. I basically laid in bed the entire day, so unfortunately I have nothing interesting to report. :(

Day 6: Thursday January 26th

Today I woke up so sore from yesterday's FMB work. My forearms hurt the most from wheelbarrowing all the bricks. So after the morning meeting and breakfast I was on FMB again, so I headed over there and for about 3 hours, I broke down pallets.

Breaking down pallets is an exhausting process. First you have to move two concrete cylinders into position on the ground. Then you set the pallet in between the cylinders. Then you take a long wooden plank and slide it through the pallet and put the ends of the wooden plank on the cylinders. Then you get a thick plank of wood and put it underneath the other side of the pallet. Then you get a small wooden block and place it between two of the panels of the pallet. Finally, you take the big-ass sledgehammer, like a boss, and swing with all your might and hit the block which should separate the planks from the crossbars of the pallet. I did about 4 pallets, and they went pretty fast, until I started getting to the stronger, newer, pallets. These took about 20 or so times to even loosen up. At this point I started feeling dizzy, so from 11 to noon, I denailed some panels.

After lunch, I realized I didn't feel very well, so for the rest of the day I made a lesson plan for the English class. It was really fun, I made up a three page word document of games to teach English.

Later that day I got to go to San Andres, a big fishing town about 10 minutes away, to teach a small group of fisherman. They were so friendly and willing to learn. We went over verbs with them: past vs present tense. We also worked on pronunciation and we tried to get them to form sentences. Finally, we played charades, where we took turns acting out verbs and they had to guess the verb in English.

After teaching, we went back to PSF HQ and had dinner then went to bed. :)

Day 5: Wednesday January 25th

Today I worked at FMB (aka Bollywood) which is the warehouse where all the wood and supplies are stored that are used to build the modular houses. For the first half of the day we unloaded bricks off the roof and loaded them into wheelbarrows which we then wheeled over to Schoolhouse (another PSF house/storage area). Then we stacked them neatly against the wall. After the bricks came the cinder blocks, which we also stacked. After that was done we went back to PSF HQ and had lunch.

After lunch we took a minibus over to Aceros Aeroquipas (I probably spelled that wrong) which is a steel mill that donates its pallets and wood to us. Once there, we loaded a bunch of pallets and wooden planks into the truck. After we were done loading everything up, we got into the back of the truck and were driven all the way back to Bollywood. We formed a 'chain' to unload everything from the truck. We finished around 4:00pm. From 4 until 5 we started de-nailing planks. At 5, we packed up, locked up Sphinx the kitten, and headed back to PSF HQ.

We had a delicious, as always, dinner then later that night went out to Mystica, one of the discos (nightclub). They played a lot of american music, but the dancing is so different than in the States, they actually do real dancing which of course I have no idea how to do. So, some of the Peruvian girls taught me how to salsa, kind of... I was terrible but at least I tried... Sorry, no pictures of that... too embarrassing. :) So, that was my wednesday.

Day 4: Tuesday January 24th

Tuesday I signed up to cook dinner for everyone, so three other girls and I had the day off so we could go to the market and prepare everything. We made a list of all the food and portions we would need to make our meal. There's about 50 people to cook for, which is why we get a whole day to do it.

We went to the market and got a ton of vegetables, fruits, and a giant slab of pork.

We spent the rest of the day cooking our butts off.

We finally finished dinner by 6:30pm. Our feast consisted of bbq pulled pork, coleslaw, cornbread, baked beans, salad, and for dessert, apple crumble. Everything was made from scratch and it was pretty darn good if I say so myself.

Day 3: Monday January 23rd

Monday morning I woke up at around 6 then walked down to Pisco Playa (the beach) with my roomies, Lobb (another Englander), and Gringo the dog. We did some "yoga" on the beach for awhile, watched the waves, saw a jellyfish washed up on the sand, played with Gringo, then headed back to PSF headquarters for breakfast.

For breakfast, they had prepared warmed fresh-baked rolls with an assortment of avocados, tomatoes, cheese, and meat. Also, a fresh fruit salad, oatmeal, coffee and tea.

After  breakfast I had my first morning meeting. This is where everyone gets to choose their work assignments for the day. It being my first day, I was automatically signed up for the freshman orientation.

After everyone signed up for what they wanted to, the other 'freshman' and I watched a movie of the actual Pisco earthquake that happened in 2007. I found out that the earthquake was actually an 8.4 on the Richter scale, but the government only reported it as a 7.9 so they wouldn't have to pay more to their citizens. The video that we watched was heart and gut wrenching. The main part of the video was a group of people trying to pull a man out of a bunch of rubble. All you could see were his eyes and blood on his face. Everything else was just gray. Everyone should see this documentary. It's called Terremoto and it has footage from 8 different earthquakes.

After that video we took a tour, with Hanna as our guide, around Pisco. We saw many of the areas that were mainly affected by the earthquake such as the Playa and the Plaza de Armas (I probably spelled that wrong). Afterwards we got to go to the market, which has all the fresh produce, meat, cheese, clothes, basically anything you could want. It's kind of like a GIANT flea market/farmers market, but like 20 square blocks. It's probably less, but it seemed huge! We had a delicious lunch at the market, for 5 soles, about 2 dollars, I got a huge plate of food!

Our tour finished early, so Madi and I started helping Jo formulate a lesson plan to teach english to kids, teens, and adults. I got really excited about this and got really into it. I found and typed up a list of 'learning english' games and their instructions. I even made up my own version of Jeopardy and Hot Potato to help teach English. I think I may be teaching my first class on Wednesday, so we'll see how it goes!

For dinner, we had pasta with meat sauce which of course was delicious. I got to meet more people and everyone here is so welcoming and nice. I already feel like I fit in. I am truly having the time of my life, and everytime I think about the fact that I'm staying for 6 months, I get even more exciting at all the work I get to do and all the people I'm going to meet and the friendships I'm going to form. :)

 the PSF courtyard

 the woodshop

 gringo

 pisco playa

 jellyfish

 earthquake destruction in downtown pisco

 lolz

 the new church 

 Yummmm arroz con pollo

 Monday lunch in the market