25/08/2011

So, volunteering is getting better. We’ve disassembled about a million pallets (those of you who have worked with pallets will know how satisfying this is…) and turned them into many panels that will eventually turn into walls. Hopefully this week or at least sometime soon we’ll be able to get out on site and see the panels going up and being made into houses. We can also make panels with window holes and shutters. Maz is getting better at hammering than Tom and may have found her forte!! Although it is one of the, by far, less glamorous jobs it is satisfying. Apparently on some of the sites there is a lot of standing around as there is not enough work for everyone. On FMB (as our project is called) there is always, sometimes a lot, of work to be done.Today we decided to take a walk down to the beach as it is only about a 7 minute walk (it’s not 5 mins and it’s not 10!) away. It was beautiful but, unfortunately, it was rather overcast and slightly chilly (still in t-shirts though!). If it was clear and sunny, like it was yesterday (tut), we would have been able to see clearly the Ballestas Islands which are, apparently, the ‘poor man’s Galapagos’! We fully intend to take a trip out there at some point but all we want to do at weekends is sleep! The work is 9-5 all week and 10-1 on Saturdays, all of hard labour, so it’s completely understandable! Maz has got 4 callouses from all the hard work. And many bruises.

Today we went on a tour of the Pisco (local drink) bodegas. This was meant to be a chance to try some nice Piscos and see the country, this it was but it soon became a piss up as well. After taking about an hour to find an open bodega everyone wanted a drink and after having a tour of how the drink was made they then took us to a bar and gave a whole heap of free tasters, they even gave me a 3/4 bottle of free expensive wine-great times!!! We then went to second place which pulled us in off the street and gave a a load more pisco. In this place we also met a 92 year old lady who told us all about how her parents had set the bodega up 100 years ago. The third place we went had award winning pisco and had even had awards in Europe. This place was a bit of a blur by now and although interesting did not have the character of the previous bodegas. After this we rushed back for the PSF (our charity were working for) rock concert. There was a Peruvian band playing who helped them record the PSF song and were actually really good. There was a lot of dancing and singing around the fire and plenty more to drink.

Today we went on site to help put up a modular house. This was good to do because we had been making the modular panels for so long that it was interesting to see how they went together to make a house. Although the site was overly crowded, about 18 people made up of three separate projects, we managed to keep busy and soon had the process of putting up the panels down to an art. Food was also given to us by the family there and although it was very tasty it soon made many people, Maz included, feel very ill so came back to the Hostel a bit earlyDuring the day we made modular panels as we do most days.

Tonight was the PSF auction which was to raise proceeds for the charity. This started with a silent auction and then a proper auction where people were raising money by selling things from favours, meals to getting tattoos of various things. Don’t know how much this raised but it must have been a lot because everyone was drunk and buying stupid things for increasingly large amounts of money. After this we went to a nearby club and danced it what was a really dead dance floor, although there were a lot of us so this didn’t matter too much!!Today and yesterday show some examples of what has been our day to day routine at PSF. Yesterday we were making panels and tidying the wood yard (Bollywood). Also Chris made us a very fancy scrap wood box with wheels and everything.

Today we went to Aceros Arequipa (local steel mill) for the 4th or 5th time to get scrap pallets which we break down to make the modular panels..