My latrine project is done. This picture is old, but now there are 46 latrines like this that are complete with doors, floors, ventilation tubes and even a transparent section for the roof that lets in light, so they can have diarrhea under starlight. All of the latrines are now painted a reddish-orange, so they look pretty nice against the background. Our closing party is Friday the 17th. There will be present 250 community members, 15 people from World Vision, 5 from CARE and hopefully some Peace Corps volunteers. We are hiring a band from a nearby community, and will eat guinea pig and drink warm beer until we run out of potatoes. It feels so good to get this project done; we have been working for eight months and ran into a lot of problems. It was mostly due to the rainy season, but we also had problems with the ground here. Latrines require a big hole, about two meters deep. If it fills with water, it can’t be used. If you dig more than a meter here, there is water. So we had to build a platform to compensate for this. But it’s finally done and the latrines are well made and will last. The people are really happy and it was nice to see everything come together after a long period of time. They are already talking about what project they want to do next, and are eager to meet the new volunteer in Novemeber. I thought that this was going to be my last project here, but I am now going to do an even bigger one in another community. Since Peace Corps and World Vision have seen that the people work well with me in my community, I secured 24,000 soles for the construction of about 60 more latrines. I will manage the project exactly the same, but have to get it done before November.
Two weeks ago, I went on vacation with my parents and aunt and uncle. We had a great time; went to Cuzco and I finally got to see Macchu Picchu. It was definitely worth the wait. I was originally supposed to go to a nearby department called Arequipa after my parents left, but the country was been having a lot of strikes and the road was blocked. As a result, I missed my plane out of Arequipa and had to endure a not so pleasant 22 hour bus ride to Lima, and then another nine back to Huaraz. After a good week and a half out of my site I came back not so well rested and but at leastwell fed. I really have no good stories or news for this entry. My time is winding down here, and things are going really well in site. The group of volunteers that came in three months before I did are on their way out. We just had a good-bye party for the four of them here in Ancash. It will be sad to see them go, and weird to be one of the senior volunteers here in Ancash. There is one new group of volunteers in training, and another coming in September. The group that comes in September will be my group's replacement. Other than my latrine project, I have a lot of fun stuff to fill up my time until November.Next week, I am starting a climbing trip with three friends from the north. Our goal is to summit three mountains: Pisco, Chopicalqui, and the tallest tropical mountain in the world, Huascaran.
And since I have nothing new to write about, I thought I would write a little about Peru and what is going on right now. The first topic is strikes: Every once and a while herre there are strikes for various reasons. I usually don't pay attention to them because they mostly affect other areas or or really small. But recently, the whole country has been in turmoil. Like I said above, I couldn't get to Arequipa becasue of a road block. especially in the jungle and the south, the native people had been protesting and mostly blocking roads all of the place. They were protesting unfair government protection of foreign companies. Basically companies come in, take of land and trash it. I see this in my site everyday. There is a US gold mine that works an hour up the mountain. It contaminates the water and the soil of my site and the surrounding communites. The national government protects it while the community basically gets the shaft. I wish the communites would unite and get rid of it, but there is really nothing they can do. And just last week, there was a general transportation strike, which meant no one worked in my site, or could come or go. Think a snow day for adults plus beer. I was stuck in site too and probably left my room twice becasue of the drunks. I finally escaped once it was over. Now I am sitting in a cafe in Huaraz writing this and I am watching a mototaxi protest. They want more streets apparently. I am sitting here, eating a cheese sandwhich while people are screaming and trying to storm the municipality.
This is a picture of me at sunset with Huascaran behind me. It looks pretty peaceful, but its not. On Monday I saw and heard two avalanches from my site. Last month a football field size chink of the glacier fell off and landed pretty close to base camp. The scariest thing about living at the base of this giant is its history. In 1970, there was a huge earthquake in the region. My capital city Huaraz was 97% destroyed and 70,000 people were killed. Of the 70,000, 25,000 died really close to me in a city called Yungay. If you look at the left peak on the picture, you can make out a big chunk that is missing. This part of the snow and ice was pried loose during the earthquake. This came barreling down the mountain and buried Yungay, killing 25,000 people instantly. You can visit the site where it happened and see the tops of the palm trees that weren't quite buried. Up to 30 feet of mountain buried the entire area. Yungay was rebuilt a few miles down the road in a suppoedly safe are, but who knows. Its just another reminder of my own mortality in this country.
My last topic is the pig flu. It was big news here for a while when it was spreading up north. We were flu free here for a while, but the cases have started to explode. I think there are currently 1,400 cases nation wide. The government is getting more concerned, and have shut down school for the next two weeks. I think this a pretty good idea in theory. All of the town professors are excited; more so than the kids. On the day this was announced, they all ended classes early and started drinking at ten in the morning. The kids however, were sent straight to the fields to do manual labor. Doesn't seem like a fair trade for them. It should be interesting down here when the real flu season starts. There is a lot of movement of people here and a complete lack of hygiene and uniform government policy. I have my peace Corps issued mask and Tamiflu ready to go though. That's all I have for this month; I need to get going. There's a lot of potatoes to eat and only three months left to do it.
My latrine project is done. This picture is old, but now there are 46 latrines like this that are complete with doors, floors, ventilation tubes and even a transparent section for the roof that lets in light, so they can have diarrhea under starlight. All of the latrines are now painted a reddish-orange, so they look pretty nice against the background. Our closing party is Friday the 17th. There will be present 250 community members, 15 people from World Vision, 5 from CARE and hopefully some Peace Corps volunteers. We are hiring a band from a nearby community, and will eat guinea pig and drink warm beer until we run out of potatoes. It feels so good to get this project done; we have been working for eight months and ran into a lot of problems. It was mostly due to the rainy season, but we also had problems with the ground here. Latrines require a big hole, about two meters deep. If it fills with water, it can’t be used. If you dig more than a meter here, there is water. So we had to build a platform to compensate for this. But it’s finally done and the latrines are well made and will last. The people are really happy and it was nice to see everything come together after a long period of time. They are already talking about what project they want to do next, and are eager to meet the new volunteer in Novemeber. I thought that this was going to be my last project here, but I am now going to do an even bigger one in another community. Since Peace Corps and World Vision have seen that the people work well with me in my community, I secured 24,000 soles for the construction of about 60 more latrines. I will manage the project exactly the same, but have to get it done before November.
Two weeks ago, I went on vacation with my parents and aunt and uncle. We had a great time; went to Cuzco and I finally got to see Macchu Picchu. It was definitely worth the wait. I was originally supposed to go to a nearby department called Arequipa after my parents left, but the country was been having a lot of strikes and the road was blocked. As a result, I missed my plane out of Arequipa and had to endure a not so pleasant 22 hour bus ride to Lima, and then another nine back to Huaraz. After a good week and a half out of my site I came back not so well rested and but at leastwell fed. I really have no good stories or news for this entry. My time is winding down here, and things are going really well in site. The group of volunteers that came in three months before I did are on their way out. We just had a good-bye party for the four of them here in Ancash. It will be sad to see them go, and weird to be one of the senior volunteers here in Ancash. There is one new group of volunteers in training, and another coming in September. The group that comes in September will be my group's replacement. Other than my latrine project, I have a lot of fun stuff to fill up my time until November.Next week, I am starting a climbing trip with three friends from the north. Our goal is to summit three mountains: Pisco, Chopicalqui, and the tallest tropical mountain in the world, Huascaran.
And since I have nothing new to write about, I thought I would write a little about Peru and what is going on right now. The first topic is strikes: Every once and a while herre there are strikes for various reasons. I usually don't pay attention to them because they mostly affect other areas or or really small. But recently, the whole country has been in turmoil. Like I said above, I couldn't get to Arequipa becasue of a road block. especially in the jungle and the south, the native people had been protesting and mostly blocking roads all of the place. They were protesting unfair government protection of foreign companies. Basically companies come in, take of land and trash it. I see this in my site everyday. There is a US gold mine that works an hour up the mountain. It contaminates the water and the soil of my site and the surrounding communites. The national government protects it while the community basically gets the shaft. I wish the communites would unite and get rid of it, but there is really nothing they can do. And just last week, there was a general transportation strike, which meant no one worked in my site, or could come or go. Think a snow day for adults plus beer. I was stuck in site too and probably left my room twice becasue of the drunks. I finally escaped once it was over. Now I am sitting in a cafe in Huaraz writing this and I am watching a mototaxi protest. They want more streets apparently. I am sitting here, eating a cheese sandwhich while people are screaming and trying to storm the municipality.
This is a picture of me at sunset with Huascaran behind me. It looks pretty peaceful, but its not. On Monday I saw and heard two avalanches from my site. Last month a football field size chink of the glacier fell off and landed pretty close to base camp. The scariest thing about living at the base of this giant is its history. In 1970, there was a huge earthquake in the region. My capital city Huaraz was 97% destroyed and 70,000 people were killed. Of the 70,000, 25,000 died really close to me in a city called Yungay. If you look at the left peak on the picture, you can make out a big chunk that is missing. This part of the snow and ice was pried loose during the earthquake. This came barreling down the mountain and buried Yungay, killing 25,000 people instantly. You can visit the site where it happened and see the tops of the palm trees that weren't quite buried. Up to 30 feet of mountain buried the entire area. Yungay was rebuilt a few miles down the road in a suppoedly safe are, but who knows. Its just another reminder of my own mortality in this country.
My last topic is the pig flu. It was big news here for a while when it was spreading up north. We were flu free here for a while, but the cases have started to explode. I think there are currently 1,400 cases nation wide. The government is getting more concerned, and have shut down school for the next two weeks. I think this a pretty good idea in theory. All of the town professors are excited; more so than the kids. On the day this was announced, they all ended classes early and started drinking at ten in the morning. The kids however, were sent straight to the fields to do manual labor. Doesn't seem like a fair trade for them. It should be interesting down here when the real flu season starts. There is a lot of movement of people here and a complete lack of hygiene and uniform government policy. I have my peace Corps issued mask and Tamiflu ready to go though. That's all I have for this month; I need to get going. There's a lot of potatoes to eat and only three months left to do it.
