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Kearney Volunteers
It's all 'para los ninos'.
Everything at Pisco Sin Fronteras. Whether it be signing up to a particular project at the morning meeting, shaving your head to raise money for the miracle fund, or buying the 'death-by-chocolate' cake on dessert night in the yard, it is all suffered ´para los ninos´. Or so the running joke goes here.
Pisco is what I would describe as a s***hole. The 2007 earthquake was announced as measuring 7.9 on the richter scale, but many believe that it was actually closer to 8.5. It is suggested that the discrepancy in its recorded size arose from the fact that earthquakes which reach over 8 on the richter scale require a more substantial level of state funding for aid. The city was reduced to rubble - schools, houses and buildings destroyed completely, power outages and no sanitation facilities. The Pisco earthquake, which claimed 514 lives and left over 40,000 people homeless was announced by the Peruvian government as only measuring 7.9. How convenient. Did they do that 'para los ninos'?
Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) was borne of a volunteer group called Burners Without Borders (Burners). As far as I can make out, these were a bunch of highly motivated and skilled hippies who attend the Burning Man festival in America, and who on hearing of the catastrophe in Peru, travelled down to Pisco to help out in any way they could. After the initial aid, the larger international volunteer organisations pulled out of Pisco, so Burners set up PSF, to act as a foundation for the long-term redevelopment of Pisco.
With this background, there was always the danger that PSF would not be for me. Being from Warrenpoint, I find it difficult to listen to long haired people wax lyrical about sticking it to the man. I can at once be interested in conservation and carry around some form of social conscience without hugging trees or putting on fire shows. There is a reason that I do not have many close friends who are vegetarians and use the word 'dude'. But as much as my small-minded Irish small mind hates over-sentimentality and baggy trousers, I cannot help but find this place inspirational. At each morning meeting, I listen to the project leaders summarise the projects they will be tackling that day and I am motivated to get to work. The morning meeting takes place at 8.30am every day after breakfast. New people are introduced, leavers cry, and announcements are made concerning the running of the organisation. People are asked to sign up for cleaning and cooking jobs and then we run through the projects and you can sign up to whichever one inspires you the most. Every Wednesday the morning meeting is conducted in Spanish, but I usually just pick up on the words 'para los ninos'.
The projects are varied. At the minute, we are building a modular home for a 71 year old guy called Ismael, found wandering the streets by a local church, with no family or no possessions. The volunteers involved with this project were so bowled over with the gratitude shown by Ismael that they began making him tables and chairs for his new empty home. Soon he will have his dignity back. Then there is Percy, a little kid with a serious blood disease who lost his leg due to his illness. We are improving the conditions in which he lives - one volunteer even went about making him a set of crutches. Yesterday I poured a concrete floor at Cesara´s house so that there is a greater chance that the ten kids who live there do not join the thousands of dust floor Pisco residents with respiratory problems and other illnesses. She made us lunch and bought us some Inca Cola. Today we finished putting on a roof. We have been invited back for a Pisco Sour fiesta with the family on Saturday. Yesterday I saw a grown lady cry as volunteers began the foundations for an earthbag wall at the front of her house.
My back is sore from shoveling and there are irremovable chunks of concrete in my hair. This place is riddled with sickness. One of the main problems is that the earthquake destroyed whatever limited sanitation system there was in Pisco before 2007 and now the water makes everyone, including about 8-10 of the 80 plus volunteers a day, extremely ill. We call it Pisco belly. Chalk it down. Offer it up for the souls in purgatory. Or ´para los ninos´.
Obviously most projects revolve around construction but we have built up relationships with a huge steel and timber facory called Aceros Arequipa who contribute free materials and there is work to be done in collecting this. There are also community based projects, for example, where PSF volunteers go once a week to the fishermans centre in Pisco to offer computer literacy classrooms, or where volunteers go to ludateca to play and educate the local kids in the true sense of ´para los ninos´. PSF also produce their own biodiesel, which they collect as vegetable oil from local restaurants to power the PSF truck, with a view to selling this on to generate a more sustainable income for the organisation.
Generally the way that PSF works is that locals come and ask for help in certain house building or community projects. Usually they are able to provide materials through a grant from the municipality and PSF can provide the free labour. PSF just doesn't have the funds at the minute to get involved with those who are in a position where they can't even afford to provide the materials, although there exists a miracle fund, set up by the volunteers here specifically for that purpose. Last week we ran an auction for the miracle fund. The PSF girls auctioned off a naked calendar of themselves holding tools in strategically placed areas. I put in my services to play music during a romantic dinner which is being cooked for the highest bidder. An American girl is getting a tattoo of a c*** and balls on her ass. All of this ´para los ninos´.
One thing that has struck me about being here is the 'ownership'. Here, you are in charge. If you have an idea that works you can run with it. The reputation of the gringo volunteers amongst the locals is extremely high and on one of my first days going to work I saw an English volunteer being hugged by the father of the woman on whose house we were going to be working, before even a trench had been dug or one brick had been laid. The house rules are that PSF volunteers don't drink excessively or do drugs or generally behave in any way which might jeopardise the fantastic reputation of the organisation and so all the debauchary is safely stored away for the weekends, when trips are arranged after the half day of work on Saturday. If people want to let off some steam after the week's work, they can head to the party town of Huacachina to sandboard, go camping in Paracas National Park, or just head to the cinema and a pizza hut in Ica, about one and a half hours bus trip away.
Indeed the amazing social scene among the volunteers only serves to strengthen the camaradie at work. Every night of the week, there is an event. Football against the Peruvians, boxing training, camp fires, basketball, poker nights, table quizes, video nights and of course, the most passionate and emotionally draining games of flip-cup in which anyone is ever likely to partake. This Friday night coming, myself and a Californian volunteer are organising a PSF speed-dating night ´para los ninos´. On Saturday, we are going down to the beach in Pisco for a ´Burning Man´ party.
We have volunteers from all over the globe, currently numbering 85, but with a surprisingly high proportion of Irish. Last night, the Irish picked up dinner duty and all day long the tricolour was hung in the yard walls with Luke Kelly and the Saw Doctors blasting from the kitchen while spud after spud was peeled. I´m enjoying hanging round with a group of Texans who really don´t have any clue what I am saying most of the time, but who have all promised to sort me out with a cowboy hat and some spurs if I can make it to Houston. And with so many volunteers here, we have added a nickname rule which comes into play where two people share the same name. Joe number 2, then, is now called ´the Wolf´, and Adam number 2 has to live with the nickname, ´Jesus Dragon´. You´d take a nickname, though, if it was for the children. ´Para los ninos´. Right?
Everything at Pisco Sin Fronteras. Whether it be signing up to a particular project at the morning meeting, shaving your head to raise money for the miracle fund, or buying the 'death-by-chocolate' cake on dessert night in the yard, it is all suffered ´para los ninos´. Or so the running joke goes here.
Pisco is what I would describe as a s***hole. The 2007 earthquake was announced as measuring 7.9 on the richter scale, but many believe that it was actually closer to 8.5. It is suggested that the discrepancy in its recorded size arose from the fact that earthquakes which reach over 8 on the richter scale require a more substantial level of state funding for aid. The city was reduced to rubble - schools, houses and buildings destroyed completely, power outages and no sanitation facilities. The Pisco earthquake, which claimed 514 lives and left over 40,000 people homeless was announced by the Peruvian government as only measuring 7.9. How convenient. Did they do that 'para los ninos'?
Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) was borne of a volunteer group called Burners Without Borders (Burners). As far as I can make out, these were a bunch of highly motivated and skilled hippies who attend the Burning Man festival in America, and who on hearing of the catastrophe in Peru, travelled down to Pisco to help out in any way they could. After the initial aid, the larger international volunteer organisations pulled out of Pisco, so Burners set up PSF, to act as a foundation for the long-term redevelopment of Pisco.
With this background, there was always the danger that PSF would not be for me. Being from Warrenpoint, I find it difficult to listen to long haired people wax lyrical about sticking it to the man. I can at once be interested in conservation and carry around some form of social conscience without hugging trees or putting on fire shows. There is a reason that I do not have many close friends who are vegetarians and use the word 'dude'. But as much as my small-minded Irish small mind hates over-sentimentality and baggy trousers, I cannot help but find this place inspirational. At each morning meeting, I listen to the project leaders summarise the projects they will be tackling that day and I am motivated to get to work. The morning meeting takes place at 8.30am every day after breakfast. New people are introduced, leavers cry, and announcements are made concerning the running of the organisation. People are asked to sign up for cleaning and cooking jobs and then we run through the projects and you can sign up to whichever one inspires you the most. Every Wednesday the morning meeting is conducted in Spanish, but I usually just pick up on the words 'para los ninos'.
The projects are varied. At the minute, we are building a modular home for a 71 year old guy called Ismael, found wandering the streets by a local church, with no family or no possessions. The volunteers involved with this project were so bowled over with the gratitude shown by Ismael that they began making him tables and chairs for his new empty home. Soon he will have his dignity back. Then there is Percy, a little kid with a serious blood disease who lost his leg due to his illness. We are improving the conditions in which he lives - one volunteer even went about making him a set of crutches. Yesterday I poured a concrete floor at Cesara´s house so that there is a greater chance that the ten kids who live there do not join the thousands of dust floor Pisco residents with respiratory problems and other illnesses. She made us lunch and bought us some Inca Cola. Today we finished putting on a roof. We have been invited back for a Pisco Sour fiesta with the family on Saturday. Yesterday I saw a grown lady cry as volunteers began the foundations for an earthbag wall at the front of her house.
My back is sore from shoveling and there are irremovable chunks of concrete in my hair. This place is riddled with sickness. One of the main problems is that the earthquake destroyed whatever limited sanitation system there was in Pisco before 2007 and now the water makes everyone, including about 8-10 of the 80 plus volunteers a day, extremely ill. We call it Pisco belly. Chalk it down. Offer it up for the souls in purgatory. Or ´para los ninos´.
Obviously most projects revolve around construction but we have built up relationships with a huge steel and timber facory called Aceros Arequipa who contribute free materials and there is work to be done in collecting this. There are also community based projects, for example, where PSF volunteers go once a week to the fishermans centre in Pisco to offer computer literacy classrooms, or where volunteers go to ludateca to play and educate the local kids in the true sense of ´para los ninos´. PSF also produce their own biodiesel, which they collect as vegetable oil from local restaurants to power the PSF truck, with a view to selling this on to generate a more sustainable income for the organisation.
Generally the way that PSF works is that locals come and ask for help in certain house building or community projects. Usually they are able to provide materials through a grant from the municipality and PSF can provide the free labour. PSF just doesn't have the funds at the minute to get involved with those who are in a position where they can't even afford to provide the materials, although there exists a miracle fund, set up by the volunteers here specifically for that purpose. Last week we ran an auction for the miracle fund. The PSF girls auctioned off a naked calendar of themselves holding tools in strategically placed areas. I put in my services to play music during a romantic dinner which is being cooked for the highest bidder. An American girl is getting a tattoo of a c*** and balls on her ass. All of this ´para los ninos´.
One thing that has struck me about being here is the 'ownership'. Here, you are in charge. If you have an idea that works you can run with it. The reputation of the gringo volunteers amongst the locals is extremely high and on one of my first days going to work I saw an English volunteer being hugged by the father of the woman on whose house we were going to be working, before even a trench had been dug or one brick had been laid. The house rules are that PSF volunteers don't drink excessively or do drugs or generally behave in any way which might jeopardise the fantastic reputation of the organisation and so all the debauchary is safely stored away for the weekends, when trips are arranged after the half day of work on Saturday. If people want to let off some steam after the week's work, they can head to the party town of Huacachina to sandboard, go camping in Paracas National Park, or just head to the cinema and a pizza hut in Ica, about one and a half hours bus trip away.
Indeed the amazing social scene among the volunteers only serves to strengthen the camaradie at work. Every night of the week, there is an event. Football against the Peruvians, boxing training, camp fires, basketball, poker nights, table quizes, video nights and of course, the most passionate and emotionally draining games of flip-cup in which anyone is ever likely to partake. This Friday night coming, myself and a Californian volunteer are organising a PSF speed-dating night ´para los ninos´. On Saturday, we are going down to the beach in Pisco for a ´Burning Man´ party.
We have volunteers from all over the globe, currently numbering 85, but with a surprisingly high proportion of Irish. Last night, the Irish picked up dinner duty and all day long the tricolour was hung in the yard walls with Luke Kelly and the Saw Doctors blasting from the kitchen while spud after spud was peeled. I´m enjoying hanging round with a group of Texans who really don´t have any clue what I am saying most of the time, but who have all promised to sort me out with a cowboy hat and some spurs if I can make it to Houston. And with so many volunteers here, we have added a nickname rule which comes into play where two people share the same name. Joe number 2, then, is now called ´the Wolf´, and Adam number 2 has to live with the nickname, ´Jesus Dragon´. You´d take a nickname, though, if it was for the children. ´Para los ninos´. Right?
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