Hello all fellow travelers,

I have only been at Pisco Sin Fronteras for a few days and as soon as I arrived I was

overwhelmed by how poor the conditions are and how much of a catastrophic effect
the earthquake has had on such a seemingly peaceful Peruvian town. I knocked on the
front door and was greeted and towered over by an Irishman named Kevin (and im not
small 6’3) who introduced himself and showed me around the volunteer house to get me
familiar as to where everything was. I arrived in the afternoon so there were not many
people around as they were out giving their all at a hard days graft. At 5pm we had a
meeting which consisted of all the rules and regulations of the house and what we as
volunteers would expect from working with PSF.

The first time I got to see everyone as a group was at dinner, which I must say with
the large amount of people and the little budget we have to work with was pretty darn
impressive. After Dinner the director, TBC, asked anyone if they had any comments
or contributions they would like to address to the group. From the very off there was
a real sense of unity throughout the whole group. I found out later that some people
had only been there a little longer than I have, so it was just amazing how warm and
welcoming everybody was and how everybody was willing to help with any questions
or problems you may have. The inputs that people had were generally how to improve
the orginisation, how to improve anything on the work site and any problems in which
people had. After dinner is wind down time where people do there own thing or sit round
a fire and have a few cheeky bottles of beer and a chat. As this was my first day I went
to bed earlyish so I was bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for what the next day had in
store for me.

7:30 Alarm goes off, I wake up, gather myself together and head down stairs to get a
bite to eat, fill up on those carbs ready for the day ahead. After we had dinner, TBC got
everybody’s attention with a booming “GOOD MORNING PSF” and asked if anyone
had any issues or comments to make. Once that was done its down to the volunteering!
First things first, the cleaning, every Morning we need a group to help with cleaning
dishes in the morning and afternoon, cleaning the bathrooms, cleaning the tables, make
breakfast for the following day and make dinner. TBC will then announce for the day
the modules in which we will be working on, after each one, the team leader from each
module will explain what is being done and needs to be done. We then have the choice of
which modular you would like to work on for the day (each modular will have a number
next to it indicating how many people are needed for that day). The modular choices
we had consisted of things like construction, daycare, English lessons and cooking! My
choice was Pedro’s House!

So I head down to my main man Pedro’s house and was greeted by the great man
himself. A 60 something year old man who has a better work ethic than horse!!! I have
been working at Pedro’s house for the last 3 days. we have been indulging ourselves in
making door frames FROM SCRATCH to hang the doors and chiseling at concrete so
that the plumbing can be inserted. The first thing that I perceived was how the simple
things back at home like buying a wooden frame or even a length of wood are taken
soo much for granted. We had to plain down, cut and sand a few lengths of wood which
took about an hour. Its then you stand back, reflect and think to yourself, if I was back in

England,I could go down to the local B&Q/Wickes and buy these at perfect lengths for
a mere few quid, where as these guys have literally got to start from scratch. The locals
have no chance of getting their hands on electric power tools everything is done with
hammers, saws and chisels!! So along with the creating of the frames for the doors I had
to chisel at concrete on the floor and walls to make enough space to fit plastic piping.
When it came to lunch time, Pedro asked us to take a seat as he had been down the local
store. We indulged in Avocado roles and some local cake, with a bottle of Coke Cola to
wash it down with. After lunch we were back at work and took us pretty much the whole
day to create a coupe of frames and to chisel through the concrete.

We finished work around 4pm and we jumped into a tuk tuk and headed back to the
Volunteer house. For the next few hours it was chill out time, so you have some time to
yourself before dinner is served at 6pm. So this was my first day at PSF. All I would like
to say is if you are looking to meet brilliant new people, try something different, learn
new skills and make a huge difference by helping these people to get the simple things in
life that we take for granted then this is definitely the place to be. So I hope to see you all
soon!!!

On Saturday morning I got up at about 8am, headed to the yard for breakfast, then sat down for the morning meeting. A typical morning meeting consists of new volunteers introducing themselves to the group, then any anouncements are made, which range from anything like "make sure you clean the kitchen on the weekends" to “Huacachina trip this weekend!”  Next cleaning jobs are volunteered for (cleaning bathrooms, sweeping corridors, washing dinner dishes etc.) before the project manager, Thays takes over to assign jobs for the day. These are all written on a big whiteboard and range from building houses to making bio-diesel. This meeting was kind of special as TBC (real name Dave Gwyther), PSF's director had returned from a month-long break the previous day and had to re-introduce himself. On Saturday, having seen a couple of projects I liked the look of fill up remarkably fast, I signed up to teach English at Ludotecca, the child care centre in the poorer district of Alameida. It is run by Vitalina, a enthusiastic and caring woman who has been working there since UNICEF built the centre after the earthquake. So after gathering my materials and reading through the lesson plan, I hopped in a tuk-tuk and set off for the centre. There were two sessions, one from 10-11am, which was for young children and one from 11-12pm, which was for older children and adults (although no adults showed up for this particular one!). The morning session was particularly challenging as the kids had pretty short attention spans. The lesson plan also recommended that I give out random books to the kids in order to demonstrate the words my, your, their, his etc.  I also started teaching them the daily routines in English, then asked them to mime the routines and see if the others could guess the action. In the later session I had one particularly clever twelve year old, who before the lesson started took it upon herself to teach me Pythagorus' theorum!! I did the same lesson, but with fewer interuptions and dare I say more success!

Saturday afternoons are often rather lazy and quiet around PSF, so I retired to my room to start reading up on my Macchu Pichhu trip (which I'm starting this weekend), before I went with Michael, my new roommate to the market to find him a towel then heading to the plaza de armas (the very centre of the town centre) to get some money out. We also had a look around a few bars and cafes to see if they were showing the Arsenal vs Liverpool football game (Michael is an avid gunner!). When we headed back, with the yard still pretty quiet, we headed to the old school house, a hostel that used to be the PSF HQ, to watch a DVD. Later on in the evening a big group of us headed to the town centre to get pizza (the first I've had since arriving in Peru two and a half months ago!) and ice-cream. The place we got Pizza from had a darts board, so we had a couple of games during the long wait for pizza. Afterwards we headed back to the house and had a couple of beverages before I threw in the towel and headed to bed.
 
Remember, Remember the... 15th of August?
Sunday was a pretty important day for Pisco as it marked the 3rd anniversary of the Earthquake that shook the town and destroyed 80% of the buildings. So after watching the first half of the football with Michael, most of the volunteers headed over to the Blind People's Modular, where we had built them a modular house for them to make handbags, belts and other woven items in. Sunday was the inauguration of the modular, so about a dozen of the blind association joined us for a party. After about half an hour of meeting and greeting, some of the women started singing us songs, which TBC was forced to dance to along with a few others. The grand finale culminated in Thays, the house's godmother and the president of the Pisco Rotary Club, the house's godfather, smashing a bottle of wine over the door frame to officially christen the house which was followed by some speaches by Thay's TBC and some of the blind association. The vast majority of the volunteers and the blind people's association then headed over to Diana's, a big restaurant popular amongst PSF volunteers for lunch. We had to hurry our food because we had planned a march down to Pisco playa to commemorate the anniversary of the earthquake and the great work completed since then. All of the volunteers, along with past project families and friends of PSF set off down the road with our banner and signs with slogans on them, while we chanted and hollered!! Quite a few people cheered us on and a few even joined the parade. At the end of the parade a few speeches were made before we went back into the house and said our goodbyes to our guests.
 
Happy Birthday PSF!!
Monday was another special day, as it was the 2nd birthday of PSF. For this we had the day off. In the morning I had the genius idea of making a bacon sandwich, again the first I've had since arriving in Peru. After chatting with some people and hanging around the house, I spent the rest of the day killing time, first at the internet cafe, then at the old school house watching another DVD. When the evening finally came around we gathered at the house for an extra special meal cooked by some local Peruvian women. We were given massive portions of chicken with avocado, peas and salad. Later we had a PSF birthday party, with Vitalina and Flaviola, the woman who runs the cake and beer shop around the corner, coming over and making us a birthday cake. After a few beers I headed to bed.
 
On Tuesday, eager to get stuck back into some dirty hard work, I signed up for the French School project. This is currently the biggest project at PSF, concieved by the French charity organisation La Gout D'eau. We were building a dining room and toilet block for the school, who were promised free meals from a government organisation on completion of the construction. That day we were pouring concrete foundations for the toilet block, so after an hour or so of preparing the metal columns and clearing up the debris from the trenches we started mixing the concrete. Concrete pouring involves three main steps: first pouring a couple of buckets of water into the cement mixer and adding cement, second shovelling the sand and rock aggregate mix into the mixer and finally pouring the mixed concrete into wheelbarrows to be dumped in the trenches. We knocked the trench out in about an hour, leaving me the afternoon to help make metal cages for the foundations, while the professional architect, structural engineer and builder volunteers worked out the dimensions and measurement of the trench for the dining room. At about 4.30pm we packed up to leave.
In the evening we had our weekly football game against the tour guides, a group consisting of Harold (PSF's founder and President) and his work friends. Traditionally we have had a pretty bad record against them, with us failing to win a game in about 6 months up until last week, when their two best players (harold and his cousin) joined our team. This week we had our turncoats again and subsequently squeezed out another heroic victory, this time 5-4, with some amazing goalkeeping from our star player (Me).
After the game, with the Gentlemen's club (a small 4-man room) getting a bit cramped, I moved into the School house (I had spent most of the last week there!). After showering a group of us gathered by the fire for Lizzy's (a long term volunteer) last night, where she sang some songs and played her mandolin. After a rousing rendition of "Wagon Wheel" I headed to bed.
 
How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck....
On Wednesday I headed up a team of ten people to go to Aceros Arequipa, a huge steel factory, to collect our free wood that AA donate to PSF, which we then make in to panels for our modular houses. We got a tuk-tuk to the market, then after wandering around lost trying to find a bus that goes via Aceros Arequipa, we finally found one. We arrived at the plant at about 10am, then after meeting with Leeward, the environment department manager, we were escorted to the metal cage where the wooden palettes are stored. After about an hour of sorting and loading the wood into a truck, we moved on to loading tarps, which are used on roofs and also on the wooden panels. After sending the first truck away a second truck was summoned and was loaded with two piles of 4x4 planks by a massive forklift truck. I rode the second truck back to the wood yard, where I organised a group of people from the house to unload the truck. After about half an hour of work we had dumped all the wood out. Half of us then headed to Chicho's, a nearby restaurant and had lunch. After lunch we went back to the wood yard to organise the unloaded wood and sorted them into piles of good, usable wood and bad wood that would either be given away or used for the fire.
After that was done we started de-nailing some of the planks we had collected before calling it a day at about 4.30pm. After getting dinner and desert (that is sold every Wednesday to raise money for PSF) a group of eight of us headed over to the school house for a game of poker. My run of form playing poker at PSF to this had been nothing short of dismal, with me not winning a single game. However after a shaky start, I started getting into my stride and after an epic heads up battle with Anton, I finally got the monkey off my back and won!!
 
I signed up to do dinner duty on Thursday with Delia and Martin, two Peruvians, for which we were making Lomo Saltado, a Peruvian dish consisting of beef, tomatos and onions, served with rice and chips. We first had to get the ingredients, which required running around the market to about five or six different stalls finding the various foods. When we got back I had about an hour of cutting vegetables before being dismissed for lunch. Liz, the other person cooking, and I had some leftover scones and jam before heading back to work, only to find that Delia and Martin had it covered, so I was again dismissed until I was required to set up tables and plates. After enjoying the fruits of my labour we went for another game of football, this time just PSFers vs PSFers. We split into Britain and Ireland vs the rest of the world and after a hard fought battle, the Brits prevailed 6-5! Tired, I headed back to my room to watch TV before crashing at about 11pm.
 
Demolition Man!
On Friday I headed over to a nearby house to work on a demolition. This project required a pretty big floor to be demolished to make way for a new house. This entailed using the jack-hammer to smash through the top layer of the floor, then the rest was pick axed and breaker-barred out and shovelled out into a pile of rubble. This was back breaking labour, but it made the beer at the end of the day that little bit sweeter! On the evening Emily, the events co-ordinator organised a bingo night, with four games with prizes of chocolate, alcopops and a PSF T-shirt. We had one round played regular, one round in Spanish, then one in Swedish (by Simon, the Swedish-Australian kitchen manager, with translations in English) and finally a speed round. I didn't win anything but still had a good time. Afterwards we fired up some more drinking games, before heading out to Afro-Cafe again and dancing the night away!!!
 
So that's a (sort of) typical week in the life of a PSF volunteer for you. For anyone considering volunteering here I couldn't recommend it enough. The few months I have spent here have been without doubt the best months of my life. I have met so many interesting people and learned so much stuff I thought I'd never learn. If you want to hear more about my times at PSF I do a blog for my friends and family at www.offexploring.com/tom-janes which also has a few photos (from before I broke my camera!) so check it out. Thanks for reading!
Tom Janes x

On Wednesday evening, August 15th, 2024, several hundred people attended a funeral mass in Pisco, Peru. Family and friends gathered together in three-hundred-year-old San Clemente Cathedral, located on Pisco’s main square. During that mass, an 8.0 earthquake struck Southeastern Peru. Pisco would be the hardest hit city.

Those who have been in a significant earthquake can tell you the first indication Pisco’s residents had of the impending disaster: the sound of it. The mourners heard a thunderous approach that resonated within their chest cavities. Perhaps they confused it for grief. A split second later, with the initial great shake the congregation rose up and fled outside into the central plaza. There were nearly sixty people still inside when the roof of the church collapsed, including fifteen family members of the deceased. Of those left inside only the priest, standing under a recently reinforced dome, survived. Around them, eighty percent of Pisco was suddenly, devastatingly destroyed.

Today the space where San Clemente Cathedral once stood is an empty dirt lot. The streets of Pisco are still strewn with rubble. Residents tell stories about the neglect and corruption of the government. They claim the majority of international and federal aid promised them has disappeared. They laugh bitterly at so-called “Walls of Shame,” superficial brick walls standing along the sides of many central roads, walls built to give the impression of the government’s commitment to rebuilding Pisco. The Walls of Shame look, from the street, as if they are the front walls of newly built houses. In most cases, there is nothing behind them.
In a time when the world’s attention is focused on the recent earthquake in Haiti, it is important to remember Pisco. In many ways Pisco can serve as a warning, of what happens when we look away too soon, when powerful opportunists are allowed to intercept needed aid, when a destroyed region is left to fend for itself. And yet amidst the tragedies and failures of Pisco, there is another altogether more heartening lesson. Not everyone has forgotten Pisco. There remains a small but dedicated group of international volunteers donating their time, their sweat, and even their health to rebuilding the city. Operating locally, without major funding, a group called Pisco Sin Fronteras (Pisco Without Borders) is working in Pisco. And they are making a difference.

Beginning
Pisco Sin Fronteras began with Harold Zevallos Salas, a Peruvian resident of Pisco, on the one-year anniversary of the earthquake. Before the earthquake Harold, then twenty-three years old, had been a tour guide in nearby Paracas National Reserve. After the quake, he spent the first night going around with his brothers clearing rubble and helping neighbors escape their fallen homes. As in Haiti, many people were unable to return to their now structurally unsound homes and were forced to move into makeshift camps. Harold soon met Marc Young of Hands on Disaster relief. Initially he helped Marc by translating. Over the course of the next year Harold became more and more involved in the international relief and reconstruction efforts in Pisco, and as Burners Without Borders took over the effort from Hands On, Harold found himself leading projects. As Burners Without Borders prepared to leave in August of 2024, Harold decided to keep their work going. Many people still needed their help. Harold founded Pisco Sin Fronteras.
In the early days of PSF (as the volunteers call it) Harold and other Spanish-speaking volunteers walked around the city in their distinctive sky blue t-shirts looking for jobs. They would simply approach people in the community and ask if they or someone they knew needed help. It took some time for their reputation for free and reliable work to build, but before long PSF stood in good standing in Pisco and the surrounding communities, home to some 110,000 thousand people. They began combining their work for individual families with projects designed for the larger community, building a school and community toilets with plumbing. Now instead of looking for work, every day people come to the PSF volunteer house with requests.

Hard Day’s Work
A workday at the Pisco Sin Fronteras volunteer house begins with the 8 o’clock morning meeting. Newly arrived volunteers are asked to introduce themselves. Anyone leaving that day is given a chance to say an often-emotional goodbye to the group. The day’s projects are outlined, and volunteers raise their hands to join the work site they’d like. After a hearty breakfast PSF’s volunteers walk or hail rickshaws (called tuk tuks or motos) by nine in the morning to begin the day’s work. They will pour cement and move rubble, destroy old foundations and build walls, work with children and teach English. If the family or group a volunteer is working for can afford to, they will provide lunch.

Pisco is in the desert, and workdays are often hot and dirty affairs. PSFers return to the volunteer house in the afternoon and catch a nap or hang out with the house animals, dogs Gringo and Manchas and cat Minipeng, before dinner. Two or three of their fellows will have volunteered to stay behind and spend the day cooking. Around the volunteer house’s tables you will find all manner of people, Brits, Peruvians, Americans, Australians, Japanese, Israelis, Germans, French, Swiss, Canadians, Irish, Spanish, and more.
Volunteers are welcome to stay for as long or short a period of time as they like. The group’s leaders are, often, simply those who have stayed the longest. Many a volunteer will tell you they planned to stay a week or two and yet, four months later, they remain. Many are backpackers looking for an experience beyond the usual tourist destinations. Age and experience range from eighteen year olds who just finished high school to professional architects in their fifties. All that is asked of a volunteer is that they work. And they do. Hard.

Volunteering for PSF demands sacrifice. Exceptionally poor water quality in Pisco means that most volunteers, at one time or another, will become sick with dreaded ‘Pisco Belly.’ Most volunteers bunk together in dorm style rooms in one of two volunteer houses. Conditions can become cramped. Showers are often cold. There are times when a family having work done for them will seem ungrateful. And yet ask a PSF volunteer about their work and they glow with excitement. They will talk about the familial bonds that grow within the group. They will brag about bruises and cuts and the huge freaking wall they just tore down. They will tell you about the stranger who came up to them out of the blue with tears in his eyes and said thank you, thank you.

The Next Steps
As of January 2024 Harold turned over the Director’s position of Pisco Sin Fronteras to David Gwyther, longtime volunteer turned Assistant Director, known in Pisco by his nickname, TBC. Harold, now 25 years old, needs to pursue his career as a tour guide to support himself and his family. PSF as an organization, however, continues to grow in its mission to rebuild Pisco. Volunteer coordinator Jysae Hair conceived of and organized a recent fundraising event, Pisco Unido, that included local and national dance, music, and theater performers and headlined the Peruvian pop band Afrodisiaco. PSF hopes the increased publicity will help bolster its funds so that they can purchase their own building materials for projects, such as community bathrooms, designed to help as many people as possible at one time.

Pisco Sin Fronteras is an example of what will be needed in Haiti years from now when we have turned our attention to some new disaster. It is a grassroots, sustainable organization, responsive and adaptive to local needs, working from within the community it seeks to help. It is comforting to think that when our attention is turned away there are those who remember and who go long, long out of their way to help, asking for nothing in return but the satisfaction of a good day’s work.

.Is Pisco a beautiful place? If beauty is defined by the amount of fancy houses and expensive cars a suburb has; by the high class restaurants and shopping centres; or maybe even the amount of nice parks and gardens that can be explored during quiet afternoons; then no it isn't. But if you measure beauty by the character, the comradely, the good will and the unity that this town produces day in and day out in desperate times of need; then Pisco is amazingly beautiful. This place is a roller-coaster of mental, physical and emotional challenges. You have your days when you feel on top of the world, and you have the days where you want to cry. But at the end of the day it's the smiles, the laughter, the tears and the efforts from volunteers all over the world ready to make a sacrifice and commitment that make this place unique.  

Pisco Sin Fronteras is a place where the expression 'blood, sweat and tears' is taken in its most literal sense. People often use this saying to describe a time when great mental, physical and emotional strengths are pushed to the very limits, and extraordinary results are produced. This expression  epitomises the non-profit volunteer organisation Pisco Sin Fronteras and the work from all the volunteers that come through the doors and make this place amazing. Volunteers come to PSF with the intention of only staying for a couple of weeks, and they end up staying for months and months.

 

For people who are unaware of the situation in Pisco, Peru, here is a bit of a back story. In the evening of August 15th 2024 Pisco was hit with a catastrophic earthquake measursing 8.0 on the Richter Scale. As a result, 80% of  Pisco was destroyed and over 500 people perished. However, for Pisco, the long-term damage far outweighed the short-term crisis. For the local people of Pisco this earthquake took away not only family, friends and houses; but it reduced the community to nothing.

 

Some of you may remember reading or hearing about the devastation in Pisco 3 years ago; or some of you may have never heard about it all. Whether you had or hadn't heard about the devastation in Pisco is not the problem; the problem is that Pisco is still a place in desperate need of assistance. And this isn't just a problem with the troubles of Pisco, this is a problem with many large scale tragedies around the world. At the time they are the buzz word amongst newspapers, people, organisations and sponsors getting on-board to help out the cause. By no means is this assistance without appreciation, but what many people seem to forget is that once the media buzz leaves these places for the next tragedy (think Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, etc) the former place is often forgotten in their wake. The reality that people need to understand is that the work is far from completed in these areas of need. Pisco received support in the beginning of the rebuilding stage, but by no means a feasible amount to make this city a minute percentage of it's former self.

 

What the people of Pisco Sin Fronteras are trying to do is get Pisco operational again. This does not always mean clearing rubble, digging trenches, pouring concrete, laying bricks, constructing roofs, hanging doors and making windows; even though we do all this work. PSF tries to make Pisco sustainable and able to self manage. PSF cannot be here forever. Everyday we overcome obstacles to remain here as long as we can and support the people of Pisco, but it doesn't come easy. Lack of funding is our primary concern; next is a shortage of professionally skilled labour.

 

Now, after two years in operation, Pisco Sin Fronteras is about trying to make Pisco sustainable. At the beginning it was all about getting in and helping where they could, however now a lot of the work at PSF is not just about helping to rebuild Pisco, but helping the people and the city help itself. Whether it's perfecting the bio-diesel project so locals can learn how to make their own fuel from left over cooking oils, whether it's teaching people how to make their own soap to enhance their hygiene with  the possibility of turning it into a profitable resource, whether it's teaching English in the community to help expand the possibilities of employment or maybe it's passing on some skills to local volunteers who can now take these skills back to their communities and carry on the rebuilding process. What ever the project, PSF is here to help.

 

From Torquay i work as a high-school teacher in the outer-metropolitan suburbs of Melbourne. I was never good when it came to construction and building. A lot of my friends are in trades and amongst them i became quite a running joke when it was considered i could be capable of skilled hands on work. However in the last month at PSF i have learnt some amazing skills that I'm putting to use for the people of Pisco. I'm being trained in the finer arts of concrete mixing and pouring (this includes pouring floors, roofs and columns), I've built roofs out of traditional sugar-cane, laid bricks (somewhat unsuccessfully in the beginning) and refined my power tool skills. Everyday i get the chance to learn new skills and help pass on my skills to those around, however at the end of the day everybody is here to help and is equal. Whether you are a professional in your field or a first timer; everybody has the opportunity to contribute to this fantastic cause. Even the people who make up our administration (all initially volunteers themselves) continually emphais how anybody who walks into PSF has the ability to make a difference and step up to positions of responsibility and leadership. This is not a bureaucracy, this is a family.

 

Since being here i have been witness to some amazing stories and examples of these highs and lows. Upon my first week i was unfortunate to have missed out on one of the most amazing projects to date in PSF history. It was called 'Extreme Make-Over: Pisco' and it involved building a new house for a family who, for the past three years, have been living in a tent that the immediate disaster relief supplied. With the work of 2 dozen volunteers, over the course of a single week, PSF were able to construct a house for a family for a little over $500. This process is done with a little bit of hard work and a lot of resourcefulness. PSF receives shipping pallets from the local steel factory in Pisco. From there they dissemble the wood and reuse it to build wall panels. Once they have enough panels for a house they pour a concrete floor and pop the panels together like a jig-saw puzzle. An extremely straight forward project and now a family is left with a house and an opportunity to improve their standard of living. This should bring home some reality for a lot of people. Before i left for my global travels i could waste this amount of money over the weekend with a good night out, a bit of shopping and some irresponsibility. Now i look at the amount of disposable money we are privileged to back home and can't but help feel guilty when i know how far this can go for people in need.

 

This remarkable story is just one of many. In my short time here i have seen many special people enter this magical organisation, I've seen many people leave and i know in the times ahead there will be plenty more similar stories. Most people don't leave this place without a teary eye, without a heartfelt story or without some experience that will change their perspective on life forever. I have not set a date for my departure, and to be honest i don't want to think about it. This place is hard work, but being in this environment makes me feel privileged to be a part of it. The hard work does not come without the rewards. Para los niños!

I’ve only spent a short time here in Pisco, Peru... but it has been amazing! Pisco is impoverished and greatly damaged from an earthquake that hit several years ago, which destroyed a significant portion of the town, as well as took many lives. Pisco Sin Fronteras is an amazing organization that is helping to rebuild in all sorts of ways. The people who make up Pisco Sin Fronteras are individuals from all parts of the world who have come together for a common purpose, and we work hand in hand beautifully together... This is how the entire world should operate.  I’ve only been here a short while, but I already feel like I have become part of not only a group dedicated to helping the people of Pisco, but also part of an amazing family... people so full of love for the world. 

Two days ago, I had one of the most amazing days of my life. I got the honor of being a part of the finishing day for a local family’s new house.  This charming couple and their adorable 6 year old daughter had their home decimated in the earthquake and have been living in a make-shift shelter for the last 3 years.  This “house” that they’ve been living in had a dirt floor and walls made of tarps and blankets, which were far from wind proof and forced them to spend many very cold nights. Thanks to help from volunteers here, they have been able to build a new home, with solid brick walls and a concrete floor.  The new home… which by American standards is very small and basic… is everything to this family.  Seeing the joy on their faces when we moved their things into the new home was so heartwarming.  All day, the couple seemed like they were floating on a cloud, having finally achieved something they’d been waiting for for so long. It is so special to witness lives changed by such simple acts, such as a little hard work and sweat.   Seeing how happy these people were for such simple things has made me realize how much I take things like electricity and toilets that flush for granted. After the work was done, we celebrated with the family and their neighbors, and danced for hours after the work was done. This is great... and I'm learning so much Spanish!and danced for hours, with way too many people squeezed into the new home.

Being a part of something so special is truly an honor. I spend the days doing hard labor that I wouldn’t normally do at home…. but the rewards are so great, and I am so glad to do it!  Witnessing the way of life here has been both eye opening and humbling… and getting the pleasure of helping the people here has caused a purpose-less person (myself) to go from semi-lost, to feeling like I have found my calling. Pisco Sin Fronteras is truly a special group to be a part of, and I am so lucky to be here!

The Biodiesel room, just completed with western style swinging doors, is located in the corner of the lot and has the largest footprint of any other project. The rig was once operational but, since it was moved from the old house, it’s been in need of some help. That’s why I’m here: to turn this array of tanks, pipes, and pumps into a fully functional Biodiesel Station.

                I have begun work redoing some of the plumbing, and building a Methoxide reactor.  I must have been to the market a dozen times by now - good thing it’s only one sole fifty (about 50 cents) and a bumpy mile ride via a mototaxi.  Also known as Tuk Tuks, these are three-wheeled mopeds with a metal shell like a small VW Beatle.  The driver sits in front navigating the rock, dirt, and concrete road using handlebar steering, while two to three passengers sit in back. 

Today I made lots of progress on the Biodiesel Rig – I have nearly all the plumbing complete. The pump I found has machine threads as opposed to coarse piping threads; nothing a proper welder can’t fix. However, finding the right materials required a good hour and a half, three moto rides, and now I have extra plumbing with no threads.  I’m happy so far with what I’m doing on the Rig, despite the troubles. I have to embrace some Peruvian/ BURNER ingenuity, and make what I have work. It’s a good lesson in being resourceful; this place might as well be called CAMP RESOURCEFUL!

Today I drilled a hole in the concrete and, with Justin from Oregon, and Nick from England’s help, we pounded a piece of rebar into the Earth to ground out any static electricity from the methanol pump. Thank you to Kevin (Twitch), my brother, for researching that. Nick made a mount for the pump while I went to market twice and got a piece of pipe welded for 5 soles (about two dollars).

It is great to work in this team. In the evening Alex from Scotland approached me and said, “TJ, were you looking for some cable?”

“Yes”, I said.

“Is this exactly what you’re looking for?” he asked as he gave me some wire. It is fantastic to work with such enthusiastic, resourceful people.  I look at my dirty pants and the dirty clothes of others; they signify a good day’s work. I’m not only learning Spanish by being here, but also English dialects from around the world.

Yesterday we worked all day to perform a titration test on the oil to determine the catalyst needed for our reaction.  I thought finding a flammable liquid pump was a challenge, but this time Kevin and I were trying to find a digital scale accurate to a gram and less in a market that sells kitchen supplies and food. We ended up estimating using amounts accurate to a gram with the scale that we have and made four, liter size, mini-reactions with different amounts of catalysts. Once we had a successful mini-batch we pushed our first batch of biodiesel through in the new methoxide reactor. It got stuck, but Kevin with his gentle giant strength was able to turn the pump through. We let the reactor process for two hours before turning it off and letting it sit for the night.

Today I drained the reactants and found glycerol and a liquid that appeared to be Biodiesel. A quick ph test and the golden brown fluid tests right for BIODIESEL!!! Now it’s time to prepare for Biodiesel phase 2: the Methanol recovery project. Michael, who preceded me, began building the still.  Now I have to put it into operation!