Lynne's PSF Blog

By way of background, Pisco Sin Fronteras is a charity which was set up to help the people of Pisco following an earthquake in 2007, which flattened most of the town. The community has recieved very little help from the state. Immediately after the earthquake, an organisation called 'Hands On' arrived to help the locals in the immediate aftermath, they were then followed by 'Burners without Borders' another NGO which aims to help communities following disasters. PSF replaced this charity about 2 years ago and have continued the work started by the two former aid organisations. The charity relies on word of mouth to attract volunteers and raises money with the help of volunteers and their friends and familes, as well as through approaching Peruvian businesses for assistance with projects. All members of management are volunteers who give up their time to help the community of Pisco.

So we arrived on Sunday night and were met out the taxi by some other volunteers heading off to the pool...'the pool, this isn't going to be as tough as we expected we thought'!!

Monday morning started at 7.45am for breakfast with all the volunteers in the yard of one of the Casas de Voluntarios. Volunteers take it in turns to cook breakfast so we were treated to scrambled eggs, fruit and bread this morning. The morning meeting kicks off at 8.30 with announcements and introductions from new volunteers, hence David and I had to stand up, like new kids at school, to tell the group about us. After this, TBC, the charity's director (real name Dave) gave us a summary of each project going on that day and the required number of volunteers for each one.

For Monday I ended up on dinner duty with three other volunteers, after a quick chat we decided to make spaghetti bolgnese and two of the group headed to the market to purchase the ingredients while I helped other volunteers breaking up pallets until my group returned. I then spent the rest of the morning on the roof of the house chopping up enough vegetables to feed 70 people!! We finished chopping around 2pm, and I headed back to the market with Gemma, another volunteer to buy the mince meat and a few other bits and pieces. Around 4pm we started cooking the bolognese sauce and the garlic breads, it was quite a job cooking for that many people but we pulled it off, serving up the pasta, sauce and breads by 6.30pm. Luckily for us there were another group taking care of dinner dishes so we could have a bowl of bolognese and relax!

Tuesday, I volunteered to attend two child daycare centres (ludotecas) in some poorer communities of Pisco. The first was El Molinho , a neighbourhood in the desert, where a number of people relocated to when their homes collapsed in the earthquake in 2007. PSF had built a ludoteca there and supplied volunteers every day to help out the lady who runs it. That morning there were only 4 kids there, although there can be as many as 30 some days. They range in ages from 2 – 14 but were all younger this morning. So I spent the morning playing football (badly!), pushing swings and working on the alphabet with one little boy.

In the afternoon we attended Alameda Ludoteca. This is even busier that the morning's one and is run by one volunteer lady who can have as many as 50 children running riot! For the kids this is a really important part of their lives, many of them have few toys to play with at home, so they get really excited when the Ludoteca opens and run in grabbing at the toys and games. They are really energetic and need a little more discipline than the morning's kids, they are constantly shouting for your attention and you have to try and be a bit more strict with them, not letting them walk all over you or spoil games that other children are playing! I really enjoyed volunteering here, although it was exhausting!! We played lots of catching games and building (and destroying!) sandcastles, it was great fun and you really feel that the children are benefiting from the centre.

We headed over to the volunteer house later that evening, where a feast of chilli, beans, rice and salad awaited us!

Wednesday, I volunteered to go to Las Dunes to dig trenches for house foundations. The community of Tupac Amaru was badly hit in the earthquake, many residents are now living in temporary accommodation in the desert and a church group has donated funds to help them build more permanent homes. PSF have volunteered to aid the residents digging trenches required for the foundations. David had done this the past two days and was aching from the work so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about!! It was tough...we were digging trenches, chipping away at the rocks and taking the waste away in wheelbarrows to dump. After just a few minutes on site, everyone was dripping in sweat, as the sun was relentless with no shade over the site. We worked until 12.30, then took an hour for lunch, prepared for us by a group of residents. The food at this project is well known among volunteers to be really good and plentiful, and indeed it was!! After lunch we continued the work until 4.15, when I was pleased to be able to down tools and climb into the van heading back for a much needed shower and well deserved dinner!! The team cooking today (including David) had prepared Lomo Salteado, a Peruvian dish of rice, chips, vegetables and meat and it was awesome!!

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I was on the moving team, helping to move the contents of one of the volunteer houses over to a new place that the organisation was relocating to. I started the day, working in a group to clean the rooms of the new house. Then I joined in with various groups moving items across to the new house... not quite as rewarding as some of the jobs out in the community but a necessary job nonetheless and physically tiring.

I started the next week once again on the moving team but the dreaded Pisco belly struck me on Monday night and so I spent a very boring day on Tuesday in bed eating very little and drinking lots of fluids, hoping to recover for the next day.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday:I joined a team of four of us working on a local school project. Tupac Amaru School was built by PSF, financed by some previous volunteers, as a place where local people can go to learn practical skills such as cooking, building, carpentry, sewing, etc. While I was there we worked on fitting the roof, securing the walls, digging a trenches for the new plumbing, building tables, sanding furniture and painting murals. This was a really great project and meant we got to meet and spend time with the local lady who was going to run the school. Everyday she cooked us an amazing meal at her house for lunch and came round at the end of the day to talk excitedly about her plans for the school. I was sorry that we would be leaving Pisco before the school was finished and opened for business but happy and proud that the murals we painted would adorn the walls of the school, the tables would be used by new pupils each year and the trenches we dug in the blistering heat would provide water to the school for years to come.

The following week, David and I decided to do a few more jobs together, one of the days we helped out in the Alameda Ludoteca together, playing football with the locals kids, with David teaching them a few tricks! In the afternoon we ventured to Olga's house, Olga is a local lady who is trying to build her own house, fitting the building work around her schedule as a teacher at a local school. David and I helped her and her husband fit the re-bar for the concrete columns they would pour the next day.

Thursday was one of my favourite days at PSF, it will forever be known as 'Kathryn and Hugh's Concrete Floors Day'! Kathryn and Hugh are two volunteers who had raised money from friends and family at home to finance concrete floors for two local families. So many families in Pisco live on dirt floors, this is what their children play on and where they sleep, it is no way to live but concrete floors are a luxury they simply can't afford.

The two houses had been cleared the previous day and one, a modular (shed-like) structure had been moved and the floor area marked out. We spent the first couple of hours levelling the floors with pick axes and shovels, before laying out the plastic under layer. Then the fun began!! There was about ten of us working on the project, taking it in turns to shovel aggregate into the mixer, cut and move cement bags, wheelbarrow the concrete to the houses and level the concrete once poured. By 2pm we had one floor done and a tasty lunch awaiting us cooked by the families.

House two wasn't quite such a smooth operation, the concrete company hadn't delivered all the cement we had ordered and the aggregate was running low. Being the alpha males (!) David and Hugh went off to pick up the remaining ten bags of cement, unfortunately on the way back the wheel of the trike bust under the weight of the cement, they valiantly trooped on in the blistering sunshine to deliver the cement to us. Then David headed back with the trike to fix the puncture while Hugh and Kirsten accompanied him with wheelbarrows to pick up more aggregate!! Luckily some neighbours had a delivery of aggregate unused (only in Pisco!) and agreed to lend it to us, so between that and the deliveries from Hugh and Kirsten we managed to produce enough concrete for the final floor! Big high fives all round, it was an awesome day, physically exhausting but well worth it!!

Well after the euphoria of the day's work we all looked forward to a beer. It was also Nathan's last night, another volunteer we had become good friends with, so that was all the excuses we needed for a good 'ole celebration!

Friday was a slightly hungover day!! David and I took different approaches to this, he decided to sweat it out on another concrete pour while I opted for a sedate day, cooking dinner with Kirsten and Simon (resident chef). This basically meant another trip to the market, following Simon around as he decided what he wanted to cook, then an afternoon of shelling peas and chopping veggies...with an hour break for a snooze!!

Saturday morning we all headed over to the modular house where we had poured the concrete floor, to move the house back onto its new concrete base. It was great to see the family moving their furniture back in, happy with their new floor!

Monday, I took part in another concrete pour, unfortunately this was not to go so smoothly as the previous! This was part of the 'Miracle Floors project', the charity had raised money throughout the year through various events and had decided to spend the money providing concrete floors to a number of families in the Alameda district of Pisco. When we arrived at the first home in the project, the aggregate mix of sand and stone was yet to be delivered, despite being ordered the previous week. This meant we couldn't really get started until 11am, then about 30mins in, the mixer broke down. As we had started pouring the back room floors for one house we wanted to ensure the room was finished, which meant about 2 hours of hand mixing concrete!! We finally stopped for lunch around 3pm, when (hurrah!) the mixer was returned in full working order. So we got back on track at 4pm finishing the remaining floors in house number one and continuing on through sunset to complete all the floors in house number two. We returned to the volunteer house just after 7pm, very tired, hungry and with aching muscles!

After the strenuous day previously, I was back on the Tupac Amaru School project for my final day...it proved to be a good choice as it was a fun day of sanding and painting desks!

Wednesday, our final day at PSF!! After 3 ½ weeks of work and play we were sad to be leaving all the fantastic volunteers. The management team do such a fantastic job, we both have a profound respect for these people who dedicate their time selflessly to the aid of others. Our time there allowed us to meet so many lovely people from all over the world, we feel very privileged to have been part of the PSF family!