Day 5 was partly spent assisting in the production of concrete and cleaning up the site in Nuevo Esperanza where we have spent the majority of our time during the week in Lima (a close second is spent sitting in traffic). The other part of Friday was spent with children; giving out presents and our clothes that had been washed by local mothers.
The children were very appreciative of the work done on their elementary school, and many hugs an 'muchas gracias' were given to their new Canadian friends. Near the end of the day we sat down for a meeting with the principal of the school and the leader of IFEJANT, dwc's host partner organization in Lima, Peru. We gained some additional understanding of the lives of the children after hearing of the work and learn program at the school that teaches the working children work skills as well.
After our meeting we were invited to a classroom where we received key chains made by the children and traditional Peruvian blankets. Then we were entertained by a children's dance and an entertaining performance by Michael and an older local woman, followed by a group dance party. It was wonderful to hear the children express their gratitude towards our help and we left feeling very appreciated.
Overall our time in Lima was fantastic. It was not a holiday, but an eye opening experience to be immersed daily into the culture and lives of true Peruvians. We worked hard but it was worth every bucket of concrete, shovel of dirt, and row of bricks to be able to gain insight into the impoverished areas very few westerners ever see. The children are unbelievably talented and beautiful, and only further enhanced our time in Lima. From what we have seen of this diverse and colorful city, it has certainly enticed us all to go further into exploring Peru and consider participating in future DWC volunteer experiences.
Tony, Mike, Graham, Kathleen, Rob, Sara, Anita, Phil, Dana, Doug and Vic
DWC Team
Lima, Peru October 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Lima, Peru: An eye-opening experience
Hola Amigos!
Day 4 of our volunteer experience was much less physically demanding and very enjoyable - but productive in a different way than previous days. While Tony stayed at the school work site fixing up the fine details on the stairs to the second floor, the rest of us on invitation visited some homes of the families whose children attend the school. Bringing flowers to accept the families' hospitality, we soon realized we had underestimated what we would see. To summarize the experience, it was nothing short of eye-opening. The level of poverty present in their community made us all reflect on and appreciate the day to day luxuries we often take for granted. However the children are always smiling and happy both at school and at home, and were proud of their homes, trying to drag us to visit their families too. It was a humbling experience, and the gratitude expressed to us from the mothers and fathers was a blessing, affirmation that assisting in building this school is truly worth all the work we have done.
After we returned and ate some lunch, we continued to add to the brick walls we have been working on all week. We are becoming very skilled and efficient brick-layers! Next on our schedule was play time, where we played assorted relay games and (of course) soccer on teams with the children. They are fantastic 'football' players, and have so much energy! Candy and pencils were handed out at the end, and exhausted we headed to the hotel once again.
As we look toward our last day with bittersweet feelings I will say ciao for now.
Dana Schreiner
DWC Participant
Lima, Peru October 2011
Day 4 of our volunteer experience was much less physically demanding and very enjoyable - but productive in a different way than previous days. While Tony stayed at the school work site fixing up the fine details on the stairs to the second floor, the rest of us on invitation visited some homes of the families whose children attend the school. Bringing flowers to accept the families' hospitality, we soon realized we had underestimated what we would see. To summarize the experience, it was nothing short of eye-opening. The level of poverty present in their community made us all reflect on and appreciate the day to day luxuries we often take for granted. However the children are always smiling and happy both at school and at home, and were proud of their homes, trying to drag us to visit their families too. It was a humbling experience, and the gratitude expressed to us from the mothers and fathers was a blessing, affirmation that assisting in building this school is truly worth all the work we have done.
After we returned and ate some lunch, we continued to add to the brick walls we have been working on all week. We are becoming very skilled and efficient brick-layers! Next on our schedule was play time, where we played assorted relay games and (of course) soccer on teams with the children. They are fantastic 'football' players, and have so much energy! Candy and pencils were handed out at the end, and exhausted we headed to the hotel once again.
As we look toward our last day with bittersweet feelings I will say ciao for now.
Dana Schreiner
DWC Participant
Lima, Peru October 2011
Lima, Peru: Hard work and good company
Our second and third day was a little demanding but this group, it seems, would not have it any other way. The skills that were displayed were amazing. Abdios, the site foreman, begins the day by explaining what has to be done (all in Spanish) and then we turn to Doug for the real directions. Doug and Sara make up the 'A' for laying bricks, Anita and her mate Pedro make up another team while Sara, Kathleen and the rest of the 'Boys' spend most of the time giving each orders about how things should really go!!
While we work the kids from the school, like kids everywhere, want to hang around and watch skilled craftsmen and women work. These kids who make up some of the 250 pupils at the school have the largest brown eyes and eye lashes my wife would die for. They are keen to know our names and always seem to be laughing. Kathleen is determined to have them clean up around the school and even bribes them with candies when they fill their respective bags. Of course some of the kids have figured it out that if they get garbage from the already filled bags (it's kind of a Peruvian recycling plan) they still get a candy.
Tony Dufficy
DWC Team Leader
Lima, Peru October 2011
While we work the kids from the school, like kids everywhere, want to hang around and watch skilled craftsmen and women work. These kids who make up some of the 250 pupils at the school have the largest brown eyes and eye lashes my wife would die for. They are keen to know our names and always seem to be laughing. Kathleen is determined to have them clean up around the school and even bribes them with candies when they fill their respective bags. Of course some of the kids have figured it out that if they get garbage from the already filled bags (it's kind of a Peruvian recycling plan) they still get a candy.
Tony Dufficy
DWC Team Leader
Lima, Peru October 2011
Lima, Peru: Our first day on the project
We were taken from our hotel to the headquarters of the partner operation for our project. Each day our rep, Señora Luz, from IFEJANT, comes to the hotel and travels with us to the site. We stop off at the Lima Walmart every morning where Team Leader, Tony buys our big jugs of water for the day. We travel, for an hour each way, in a 1980's 12 passenger van that is expertly driven in the beyond chaotic traffic of Lima by our driver and his wife who navigates out the side window. At the headquarters we were introduced to our young and accomplished interpreter, D'Angelo, who will be with us a few days. We were thanked by one of the board members and provided an orientation of the schedule before we drove to the school. The school is on the outskirts of Lima in a place named Neuevo Esperanza. The school is on the side of a hill/rock and presently has about 6 classrooms full of the most happy and darling children. We were taken through 3 of the classrooms to be introduced to the children. Their interests were what our names are and how old we are. Sara lies about her age at home and keeps it up in Lima! They smile when they hear that Phil is Dana's father and when Graham tells them, in Spanish, that Mike is his 'padre'. Graham is very helpful with the translation from his Spanish classes and travels. We learned in a grade 1 class that Peru has a RAT that takes your teeth instead of the toothfairy. His name is Rocotta! After the tour it was down to work. Michael is the fashionista on the site in his black, denim man pries and stylin' t-shirts. Days into the job the quips keep coming!
Our work entails construction of the second floor of the San Jose Obrero School. Doug's construction expertise has been appreciated by our foreman Abdios and when in doubt we qll defer to Doug. Classes operate in our full on construction site with the children running about the danger zone; the sounds of their singing, voices and smiles is definitely motivating. The upper floor has no safety barriers, rebar poking out every where and we are fully exposed to the sun all day. When you pause from your work on the top of this building and look out you see the children's homes terraced up many hundreds of feet. A larger home is about 20x40; most are smaller. The work on this day was preparing for and pouring concrete slab and stairs. We worked an hour longer to 6pm to try to get it finished while the concrete machine was on site. The process was primitive and exhausting but luckily aided by a team of 7 locals that carried tins of concrete on their shoulders, along side our guys, up and down a steep ramp to the top floor. Other team members mixed the concrete, rock and Anita, Dana and Sara carried 100 buckets of water across the street for the mix. They were not dry at the end of the day. We felt very satisfied at the end of this work day to see all the concrete poured and the stairs to the floor done!!! We headed home at 6pm sunburnt, tired and dirty!
Evenings are fun. We feel good to be clean again and begin the hunt for a place to eat and 2 for 1 pisco sours!
Haste luego!
Tony, Mike, Graham, Kathleen, Rob, Sara, Anita, Phil, Dana, Doug and Vic
DWC Team Leader and Participants
Lima, Peru October 2011
Our work entails construction of the second floor of the San Jose Obrero School. Doug's construction expertise has been appreciated by our foreman Abdios and when in doubt we qll defer to Doug. Classes operate in our full on construction site with the children running about the danger zone; the sounds of their singing, voices and smiles is definitely motivating. The upper floor has no safety barriers, rebar poking out every where and we are fully exposed to the sun all day. When you pause from your work on the top of this building and look out you see the children's homes terraced up many hundreds of feet. A larger home is about 20x40; most are smaller. The work on this day was preparing for and pouring concrete slab and stairs. We worked an hour longer to 6pm to try to get it finished while the concrete machine was on site. The process was primitive and exhausting but luckily aided by a team of 7 locals that carried tins of concrete on their shoulders, along side our guys, up and down a steep ramp to the top floor. Other team members mixed the concrete, rock and Anita, Dana and Sara carried 100 buckets of water across the street for the mix. They were not dry at the end of the day. We felt very satisfied at the end of this work day to see all the concrete poured and the stairs to the floor done!!! We headed home at 6pm sunburnt, tired and dirty!
Evenings are fun. We feel good to be clean again and begin the hunt for a place to eat and 2 for 1 pisco sours!
Haste luego!
Tony, Mike, Graham, Kathleen, Rob, Sara, Anita, Phil, Dana, Doug and Vic
DWC Team Leader and Participants
Lima, Peru October 2011
Lima, Peru: 2nd October DWC Team Arrives
The team departed Kamloops on Friday night, Oct 15th and arrived in Calgary to join up with the 3 team members from there. We were hosted by team member Sara for a little farewell party in her home. We flew Calgary-Houston-Lima and arrived at 11:30pm, after sitting on the tarmac for an hour; free drinks from United Airlines. We checked into the pleasant Bayview Hotel after a very long travel day. The resident turtles were there to greet us in the charming inner courtyard.
Sunday would be our only free day so we set out to see a bit of Lima. Our hotel is next to the Marriott in the ocean side Miraflores district. It just happened that Justin Bieber was arriving at the Marriott that day so mobs of teen girls were gathered outside singing his songs and screaming for him ALL day and night. When the girls knew that we were from Canada they would ask if we knew him! We walked up one of the main avenues and experienced many sites including Lima's Run for the Cure, one of the many cathedrals, 1700 year old Lima peoples ruins and a local craft market. On the way, walking through a park, all of us were randomly hugged (abrazo) and danced with a big group of locals; a great sign of the fun to come! Our Team Leader, Tony, took us to lunch at a fun outdoor restaurant on the square where we were served our first pisco sours, some tried cuy (guinea pig) and alpaca. Rob had his second encounter with a surprising foot fetish friend!
The rest of the day was spent doing whatever we were interested in (nap). We walked up the street for a nice dinner at what has now become very comfortable..."Tablo for 11, por favor". A night is not complete with out 'a stop off ' at the neighboring sports bar. The same 2 corner tables seem to be waiting for us each night and Vic.
Tony, Mike, Graham, Kathleen, Rob, Sara, Anita, Phil, Dana, Doug and Vic
DWC Team Leader and Participants
Lima, Peru October 2011
Sunday would be our only free day so we set out to see a bit of Lima. Our hotel is next to the Marriott in the ocean side Miraflores district. It just happened that Justin Bieber was arriving at the Marriott that day so mobs of teen girls were gathered outside singing his songs and screaming for him ALL day and night. When the girls knew that we were from Canada they would ask if we knew him! We walked up one of the main avenues and experienced many sites including Lima's Run for the Cure, one of the many cathedrals, 1700 year old Lima peoples ruins and a local craft market. On the way, walking through a park, all of us were randomly hugged (abrazo) and danced with a big group of locals; a great sign of the fun to come! Our Team Leader, Tony, took us to lunch at a fun outdoor restaurant on the square where we were served our first pisco sours, some tried cuy (guinea pig) and alpaca. Rob had his second encounter with a surprising foot fetish friend!
The rest of the day was spent doing whatever we were interested in (nap). We walked up the street for a nice dinner at what has now become very comfortable..."Tablo for 11, por favor". A night is not complete with out 'a stop off ' at the neighboring sports bar. The same 2 corner tables seem to be waiting for us each night and Vic.
Tony, Mike, Graham, Kathleen, Rob, Sara, Anita, Phil, Dana, Doug and Vic
DWC Team Leader and Participants
Lima, Peru October 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Lima, Peru: Memories and gifts to last a lifetime
I can´t believe that two weeks have come and gone. This has been the most amazing time of my life working with such energetic and fun loving people on such a worthwhile project. I am so proud to have been part of such a hard working group.
We managed to cut rebar to specific lengths with just an ordinary hack saw. Then these were bent into shapes for the rebar column. The rebar columns were held together by twisting wire around the shapes.The rebar columns were then erected in their specific places. Next we had to haul up bricks from the floor below. The children would come and help us on their breaks passing bricks along a line. The last person on the line would then throw them up to a catcher on the second floor. Miraculously no bricks were lost this way (our foreman kept mentioning that bricks were $1 each).We had lots of fun joking with him. Then we had to haul sand up the ramp in buckets. The children would do their bit as well. They were so enthusiastic helping. It was hard for the teachers to get them back to class. It was wonderful to see them so busy and helpful. We also mixed the cement for laying the brick walls. It had to be just the right mixture. This was very hard work. Once that was done the bricklaying began. That was fun. We managed to get 6 walls erected before our bricks ran out.
We were very lucky with the weather. I doesn't really rain here , just gets very damp when the clouds are low. It is very cool in the morning and evening but when the sun finally breaks through you definitely need sunscreen. As it is spring here in Oct we weren't bothered by any mosquitoes.
We were able to have lots of interaction with the children which was a great highlight for all of us. Every morning the children would have dancing lessons to Peruvian music outside. On occasion we were able to join in. That was great fun.
On our last day , it was a holiday for the children and it was strange being at the site with no sound of childrens voices. Later in the afternoon they showed up for more photos. Then we were called in for a debriefing while the children, teachers and parents got a room ready to give us a show. They had dancing, music, Inka Cola and cookies that the children had baked in class for us. The children presented us with a going away gift which will always be treasured.
For helping with the project IFEJANT gave us each a Peruvian manta (blanket) . These will be treasured forever as well. The schoolmaster mentioned that the children will pass through the school but our bricks and mortar will last forever as a reminder of all the work we have done. He also mentioned that inspectors would drop by and because the project has been coming along so well the school would be able to have more donations from the government. What a truly amazing project we have been able to do.
Every little bit helps!
Lorna Stephens
DWC Participant
Lima, Peru October 2011
We managed to cut rebar to specific lengths with just an ordinary hack saw. Then these were bent into shapes for the rebar column. The rebar columns were held together by twisting wire around the shapes.The rebar columns were then erected in their specific places. Next we had to haul up bricks from the floor below. The children would come and help us on their breaks passing bricks along a line. The last person on the line would then throw them up to a catcher on the second floor. Miraculously no bricks were lost this way (our foreman kept mentioning that bricks were $1 each).We had lots of fun joking with him. Then we had to haul sand up the ramp in buckets. The children would do their bit as well. They were so enthusiastic helping. It was hard for the teachers to get them back to class. It was wonderful to see them so busy and helpful. We also mixed the cement for laying the brick walls. It had to be just the right mixture. This was very hard work. Once that was done the bricklaying began. That was fun. We managed to get 6 walls erected before our bricks ran out.
We were very lucky with the weather. I doesn't really rain here , just gets very damp when the clouds are low. It is very cool in the morning and evening but when the sun finally breaks through you definitely need sunscreen. As it is spring here in Oct we weren't bothered by any mosquitoes.
We were able to have lots of interaction with the children which was a great highlight for all of us. Every morning the children would have dancing lessons to Peruvian music outside. On occasion we were able to join in. That was great fun.
On our last day , it was a holiday for the children and it was strange being at the site with no sound of childrens voices. Later in the afternoon they showed up for more photos. Then we were called in for a debriefing while the children, teachers and parents got a room ready to give us a show. They had dancing, music, Inka Cola and cookies that the children had baked in class for us. The children presented us with a going away gift which will always be treasured.
For helping with the project IFEJANT gave us each a Peruvian manta (blanket) . These will be treasured forever as well. The schoolmaster mentioned that the children will pass through the school but our bricks and mortar will last forever as a reminder of all the work we have done. He also mentioned that inspectors would drop by and because the project has been coming along so well the school would be able to have more donations from the government. What a truly amazing project we have been able to do.
Every little bit helps!
Lorna Stephens
DWC Participant
Lima, Peru October 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Jaen, Peru: Working away!
We have made major progress on the site today. Concrete is being made, and painting is progressing well. Richard and his crew show the volunteers how they can mix several bags of cement into concrete. In other countries, the workers mix one bag at a time. Here is the process: Step one, add all ingredients and dry-mix. Step two: make a huge cauldron for water. Step three: add water, and start mixing concrete at the edge, continuously sliding the mix into the trench.The method yields a huge amount of concrete, which is a good thing, because the footings are 1.7 cubic meters each. Empty cement bags are filled with sand to create a dam for the footing. They are removed after the concrete sets in about 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, a new addition to the world arrives, Evelyn Rosemary, born just after her pregnant mother attended our "meet the parents" evening last Thursday. Her proud mother and father show her to each of us.
Volunteers have moved to the school stairwell, scraping, washing and painting. There's still a lot more digging and painting to do, but spirits are high as we progress through our work.
Cam Grant
DWC Team Leader
Jaen, Peru: October 2011
Meanwhile, a new addition to the world arrives, Evelyn Rosemary, born just after her pregnant mother attended our "meet the parents" evening last Thursday. Her proud mother and father show her to each of us.
Volunteers have moved to the school stairwell, scraping, washing and painting. There's still a lot more digging and painting to do, but spirits are high as we progress through our work.
Cam Grant
DWC Team Leader
Jaen, Peru: October 2011
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