Ramil Blog

Well, I'm back from my long hiatus, and I've go a lot to show and tell you. Since the last time I blogged, I've been on 3 continents, in 4 countries, and taken 6 planes. It's been a very exhausting week, but it's been one of the best, and I have no regrets about any of it.

So, last Monday, I got to Peru and got introduced to my homestay family, and with ProPeru, the NGO we were working with in Urubamba. Living in a homestay was an interesting, new experience. The food was also... interesting. The language barrier wasn't as huge of an obstacle as I thought it would be, especially since one of my roommates spoke Spanish fluently. Claro, I couldn't speak a lick, but I was surprised at how much Spanish I was able to understand on my own.

So what did I do in Peru, you may wonder? Well, for the first half of my trip, I stayed in the tiny town of Urubamba, which is where ProPeru has it's headquarters. Here's the play by play: Every morning, I would wake up to stomach pains, so many birds, the sun and the cold at 5:30 , deal with TD, then wake up my lazy roommates around 7, eat a traditional Peruvian breakfast, head over to ProPeru by 7:45, and then get to the work site in Chinchero around 9:00. Then, we worked from 9:00 to 5:00.

The entire group of MLK Scholars (around 50 of us) were split up into four work groups: a medical campaign, a clean burning stove project, and two bathroom construction projects. I was part of one of the bathroom construction teams. Now, you might be thinking that these jobs may not sound very demanding -- that's what I thought before I got to Peru. But there are so many basic luxuries that we take for granted in the US that people in the Sacred Valley don't have access to that makes even the most basic of needs -- like sanitary waste removal -- so hard to come by.

Constructing the bathroom in Chinchero was an extremely difficult, strenuous, and often frustrating process. First of all, there is no Home Depot in Peru. There's not even a Walmart. So all building materials have to be made from things found naturally. Instead of wood or bricks, they used adobes, which are big, hardened blocks made from a mixture of clay, hay and water. They are used in many nations around the world to build structures. Another fun fact about adobes: they each weigh anywhere from 30 to 60 lbs. After loading and unloading truckloads of adobes, carrying adobes up the mountain, and lifting adobes to the tops of walls, I probably handled like 700 of those dirty, bug-infested blocks.

Adobes are the basic building block of Peruvian construction, and barro is the cement used to fuse the bricks together. Barro is made from the same clay as adobe bricks, but does not contain hay and remains wet. It looks like mud, but it hardens into whatever shape you want it to be. To make the barro, first we had to take a pick axe to the side of the mountain to collect dirt. Then, we had to mix it with water, and stomp it with our bare feet (like when you're making wine) to give it an even consistency.

Ramil after making barro

Urubamba from above

Lunch break at the work site

We climbed to the top of Waynapicchu

Most of the skilled work was left to the local Peruvian builders, who we called Maestros, and who called us, "Adobe, adobe!" or "Barro, barro, barro!" There were a lot of times when I felt like I was too tired to work, or when I had trouble motivating myself, but in the end, I was really proud of the work that my team and I were able to accomplish. Despite the long hours and the grueling labor, we were able to help the community complete the bathroom (sans roof), and have a lot of fun while doing it. I learned a lot about the culture of the Sacred Valley, especially during lunch breaks and chicha breaks.

For the final couple of days of the trip, the MLK Scholars and I toured much of Peru, including the ruins of Ollaytantambo, Machu Picchu, and Moray, the salt mines of Pisac, and the cities of Aguas Calientes, Lima, and Cusco. My trip to Peru was a great experience, and I liked the balance of volunteer and tourist activity.

Even though my group and I were working with the Peruvians for less than a week, it really opened my eyes to the real conditions of rural life in a developing country. Don't get me wrong though; I don't mean that it's all hardship and sanitation issues. I guess I used to think that "developing" countries were places that needed fixing, places that were somehow broken. But after spending time with some of the people and listening to their stories, I don't think that they're broken anymore. They need some touch-ups here and there -- a bathroom here, some clean stoves there -- but their culture and communal way of life is very much in tact, and very much a reason for their survival.

UPDATE: Here's an overdue video with some footage from Peru. I didn't get that many chances to tape because I was working all the time, and because this guy used my entire battery to tape some stupid futbol game, but here's what I managed to get away with. I'll post some pictures, too.