Beginnings in Occoruro

Today definitely started out a bit rough. Waking up at 6:30 was not easy, especially since I have gotten used to waking up at 10 or 11 at Duke, and even in Cusco, I had been waking up around 8:30. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed, excited for the day ahead of me. I had breakfast at the house, which was cereal and milk. Something I felt that was interesting is that people in Peru do not drink cold liquids. For example, milk comes in cans in an extremely concentrated form. To put the milk into a more normal form, the Peruvians mix it with boiling hot water. Not only does this kill the pathogens (milk is sometimes not pasteurized here), it also makes it have a more liquid-like consistency. It was definitely a new experience having this hot milk with our corn flakes.

After our breakfast, we took a taxi to the ProWorld office. There, all of the Cusco volunteers got into a bus. The ride to Occoruro was a little bit bumpy, as it followed much of the same road that we took to Maras and Moray. However, once we got there, all was well. In fact, we were so intrigued by the community that we forgot about the bus ride.

Occoruro is a relatively poor community. When people think of a poor South American village, they think of one consisting of little or no electricity, huts made of adobe, and a large agricultural community. Well, Occoruro is exactly that. When we first got out of the bus, we went to the community center to wait for some of the families. The community center is a closed area with different supplies and a couple of houses. In general, it seemed as though the community center is used for gatherings, general messages, and other communal events. As we waited, we watched the community leader go to the front of the area, and speak through a megaphone. This was really interesting for me. Because of the community organization, I had assumed we would just tell the community leader that we had arrived, and she would tell the entire community, with the information eventually spreading to everyone. However, after the community leader had spoken over the megaphone, we had a couple of families rush over and ask for help. We divided into groups, with two or three people in each group. Each group would work with a single family on a project, whether it was a stove, shelf, ecological refrigerator or sewing curtains for the shelves.

Today, I worked with a family on both the ecological refrigerator and sewing curtains for the shelves. When I walked into the house, the first thing I noticed was that the ceilings were really low. Most of the Peruvians are really short. In fact, I am actually tall by Peruvian standards. Additionally, the organization of the inside of the house is a little crazy. I did see a clean burning stove, one of ProWorld’s most successful projects. However, the ground was quite uneven (it was just the dirt), and there were guinea pigs and chickens running all over the place, not to mention a couple of dogs and occasionally a pig. Now, I can truly understand the impact we are trying to have on the families in this community. The theme of our projects is viviendas saludables, or healthy living. Throughout the next eight weeks, our group will look to help the families in Occoruro change the way they live, hopefully resulting in a healthier way of living.

Today, my partner and I first had to put some of the finishing touches on an ecological refrigerator. The way that this “refrigerator works” is not like those that we are used to. This refrigerator uses no electricity; rather, it has a large bucket of cold water on the floor of the refrigerator. As the cold water evaporates, it keeps fruits and vegetables “fresh”, at least for the day. Each day, the family changes the water, replacing the old bucket with another one with cold water. When we got to the house, the inside of the refrigerator was just the mud, with a couple of shelves. Our job was to line the insides of the refrigerator with plastic, to help prevent any moisture from condensing on the mud. If this happened, it could contribute to disintegration of the mud and eventually the ecological refrigerator. Using a measuring tape, scissors, and basic plastic sheets, we completely coated the inside of the refrigerator. It was a little bit difficult to nail some of the sheets in, since the mud kept falling apart. However, in the end, we figured out that the best way to attach the plastic was to push the nail in by hand at first and then to hammer it in really gently.

The second project that we had to do was to cover the shelves of the alacena with cloth, or tela. While this seems relatively easy, it was actually pretty difficult. The cloth we had available to us was tough to measure and cut, especially since there really wasn’t a clean surface in the house that we could use for support.in the end, we decided on putting part of the roll of cloth on the table and measuring and cutting off the table. For each shelf, we made the cloth cover not only the entire shelf, but also the piece of wood showing on the front side. Additionally, we glued the cloth to the wood on each of the shelves. Next, we had to sew curtains together for each of the shelves. This was done by taking a piece of cloth, folding part of it over onto itself, and then putting a string through the newly created hole. The hole was then sewn shut. The purpose of these curtains is to help keep bugs away from the food. Currently, the families have a lot of problems with bugs going in their food, not to mention eating it. By putting the curtains up on the shelves, we could help control the bug problem.

Before today, I honestly have never sewed before. Laugh all you want, but this was honestly a new experience for me. We measure the lengths of each of the shelves to be about 60 centimeters long. To provide a little bit of leeway when would tie the knot and put the curtains up, we measured pieces of string about 70-80 centimeters long. Each shelf would have its own curtain, and each curtain would be made of two parts that could slide apart to create an opening that family could use to get their food from the shelves. The first half of a curtain I sewed was really awful. Not only were the stitches really big, I couldn’t figure out how to end my stitching or how to keep the string within the stitching (again, please feel free to giggle, chuckle, or whatever you please). While my partner and I were struggling mightily with these curtains, the lady who lived in the house came in to check out what we were doing. Not only did we get to talk to her and understand more about the culture in Occoruro, she also showed us a much better way to sew. Initially, I was going one stitch at a time, taking the needle completely out of the cloth after every stitch. She showed us how to simply fold the cloth over on itself to make the stitches smaller and to make the process faster in general. As a result, my second half of the curtain was loads better than the first. Next, we had to put the string through the stitched hole. Naturally, this was a problem, since the string wasn’t actually stiff enough to pull through with ease. Once again, the local woman was able to help us out. She tied the end of the string to a nail, and then threaded the nail through the hole we had sewn. Inspired by her brilliance, we proceeded to try out the new method, and naturally, it worked great. We then put up the curtains on each of the shelves, nailing them into the mud and adobe bricks.

After a long day at Occoruro, we came back to our host family for lunch. Lunch today was rice and chicken, which naturally was delicious. I then took a little bit of time off and took a short nap. Shortly thereafter, I went to Spanish class again. Our class runs Monday through Thursday, with 80 minutes of class per day. Again, I worked on the present tense with my teacher, looking at irregular verbs as well as the difference between verbs of similar meaning. While I initially thought I was completely comfortable with the present tense, I realized that there were a couple of concepts that it wouldn’t hurt to review.

After returning from Spanish class, I had dinner with my host family. Like yesterday, dinner was fried eggs and rice (no fried bananas this time). After eating, I read for a little bit, watched the Thunder-Mavericks basketball game, and finally went to bed.