Stepping the Mud

The building continues. Its slow, but it continues. We have a handful of things working against us, but thankfully, I have discovered that I enjoy building with adobe. It kind of takes me back to playing with Legos when I was but a wee little lad. Its just so nice to be able to do work that you can stand back and look at when the day is done. Marked progress. Its even better knowing that this particular model has probably never been done before. The style and shape of the house is very old, but this is probably the first time that the whole structure has been covered in chicken-wire before plastering, thus rendering it more stable and earthquake resistant. It has occurred to me that I am probably the world´s foremost, leading expert on the application of chicken-wire to ancient, Indian, adobe structures. I don´t know that I´ve ever been the world´s foremost, leading expert on anything, but I never dreamed it would be for something like this.

This is mostly true because the leader of the project went to Chile for 2 weeks, leaving Nati and I, to build the house on our own. He went to lead a few weekend meditation workshops to earn some money for the project. A part of me thinks it might have been nice for him to have some money before he started the project, but... so it goes. He doesn´t have much more experience with this kind of construction than we do, but he has some, which is more than either of us. But I´ve always been the independent sort anyway, and it´s been nice going at my own pace, juggle breaks a´plenty.

The initial idea of this project was to try to get the locals involved in construction, thereby educating them on alternative ways of building, but so far we only provoked mild curiosity. People stop by to see what the gringos are doing, say they´ll return to help (often promising a hearty group of friends), but we generally never see them again. There´s a guy named Jhonny who stops by almost daily to videotape our progress. He wants us to come build something for him. He´s very interested in ecology and alternative building, but not enough to get his hands in the mud. He´s a nice guy though, and at least he shows genuine interest in learning.

Not even the family we´re building the house for seems all that interested. They help every once in a while, but usually just for an hour or so. They´re generally to busy screaming at each other.

I really probably shouldn´t talk shit about the people we´re trying to help but... so it goes. It kind of makes me sick sometimes, and it definitely affects my mood, but the only way they seem to know how to communicate is by screaming. The whole neighborhood is that way. All day long. It´s exhausting. Adults to kids. Kids to adults. Adults to adults. And everyone to dogs. And there´s lots of dogs. And you guessed it, the dogs are barking at each other all day long too. One of the more tragic examples of late, was a lesson in writing from the mother of the house to her four-year-old daughter. At the top of her lungs and angry : ¨Why are you writing outside the lines!¨ ¨Do it like the picture!¨ ¨You don´t learn! When you were little I had to hold you under the water to learn! And know I have to do this!¨

Crazy. I wish I was exaggerating. I´ve never seen or heard any physical violence - maybe a spanking here and there - but the verbal and emotional abuse is through the roof.

I was walking behind an older lady the other day for about 10 minutes, and the entire time, she was screaming at dogs, throwing rocks at them and swinging a big stick around. She´s like this most of the time.

I don´t know if it´s just post-earthquake stress, or the big electrical box that we live under, or if its just always been this way. Its really hard sometimes though. Its hard to stay positive in an environment like this one. A big part of me thinks we jumped in to this location to soon. We were lead to believe that things were further along than we thought before we came here, by the project leader, and the local government. But here we are and we are doing our best.

I´ve started meditating which helps a lot, and we´ve started showing movies at a vegetarian restaurant in Ica 2 times a week to help draw attention and potentially raise some money (2 Soles suggested donation). The films are documentaries (What the bleep, Inconvenient Truth, The Corporation, etc.) and somewhat connected to the general theme of our project. Partly though, its just a chance to escape our tent for a while and watch a movie.

We´re also going back to Lima this weekend to sell some more stuff, hopefully see Stardust, and drink coffee, la verdad. A mini vacation. And hopefully we´ll pick back up with the travelling again in the first part of November, Brazil-bound. There´s a Rainbow festival in Bahía that we´d love to get to in time. Vamos a ver.

And here´s a few pictures for the folks who don´t like reading.

This is how we mix the mud and squish the mud. It´s mostly just earth, with a little horse shit thrown in for flavor.

This is my expertise. The whole structure will be covered in this fashion, then plastered. It hurts the hands, but there´s nothing quite as soothing as submerging your hands in mud and horse poo, after a long day of bending wire.

And this is where the house is to date. If you´re the kind of person that likes to date houses.

Building, building, and child labor

The house is coming along, slowly but surely. We waited for government rocks for a while, but they arrive, and as of now, have been used to build the foundation wall. The adobe walls are next, and our great egg will start to take shape. Here´s some photos of the work so far, and an explanation or two.

This is part of the project called digging. Digging make back strong. We dug the hole, then filled it with old, broken cement that we found in the surrounding area, and some of the mixture used to make adobe. The rocks, and wet cement were added when the hole was almost full, and continued into a short, rock wall.

This is us inserting a large metal pole in the center of the house. It will be used in conjunction with lengths of bamboo, to insure that the walls are all the same distance from the center point of the structure. Lebn and Jess were only with us for a couple of days, but Ian (project leader) didn´t want to let them leave.

And Lebn looks like he´s about to sneeze.

I can´t remember if he did.

This is me enjoying a beer and talking to the father of the house who gave it to me. It may appear that I´m idle, but I carried many rocks before this photo was taken. This beer was the first of many and a good conversation about life after the earthquake. It was nice to finally make a connection with the father. He works a lot, and it must be kind of weird for him to have a bunch of gringos living in a tent in his front yard.

This is the wall going up and our little army of child labor. The kids in the house have been really helpful in its construction. They´re between 9 and 15, but they work hard and ask many questions. Usually its just how to say things in English, but sometimes its about construction.

This is Ian and an up close look at the wall construction.

And here´s where we live and some fun ones.

A Cloudy Capital, A Juggling Festival, and a Starbucks

We went to Lima for the weekend to attend my first South American juggling festival, and to try and make some money to support our new volunteering habit. We were successful on both fronts. We arrived on Friday and headed to the house of a friend of a friend, who agreed to put us up for the weekend. And not only was it a free place to stay, but it had a hot shower, a firm mattress, and it was located in the heart of Miraflores, a ritzy hot-spot for Lima. We waited for my friend, Grillo, to get off of work, and we had the good fortune to wait in the neighborhood Starbucks, and I had my first real cup of ¨American¨ style coffee in over eight months. It was so good. So good. It cost more than a cup of the same coffee in a Starbucks in the States, but it was worth it.
When Grillo (Spanish for cricket and only a nickname) got done with work, we headed off to the other side of town to go to the festival. When we got there we were almost instantly greeted by a guy who had passed through the house in the Sacred Valley, and it wasn´t long before I encountered half a dozen more. I was hoping to see some jugglers that I´d met earlier in my travels, but old friends from Harin proved good enough. I got some good juggling in, saw some better juggling, and a great fire show ended the night. Pictures appearing now:

They look just like every other photo of a fire show, right?

We got a slow start on Saturday. We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in a well-lit kitchen, with a lovely conversation with our cleaning lady. We stayed in a nice place. After breakfast, Grillo came over and we all went to a fabulous little vegetarian restaurant to get some lunch. Ahh, life in the big city. Hang out and eat. Hang out and eat. After the restaurant, we went to an outdoor organic market that´s in a nearby park every Saturday, and stocked up on some food to take back to Ica with us. And after that it was back to the festival for more juggling.

I think we missed all of the workshops, as we arrived a bit late, but we saw the competitions and a puppet show. Both entertaining. All in all, it was a good festival, but it kind of just reminded me of the Sundays we spent in Parque Forestal in Santiago. Only, I believe there were actually more jugglers (and better ones) that hand out in that park every single Sunday. But it was still a great time.

Sunday we decided we should actually try to sell some things. We thought we were going to have some space on a table in a big craft fair on Saturday, but the fair was cancelled at the last minute and we were left to look for some space in the street. We´ve been making clothes and bags out of used clothes that we´ve bought along the way. Nati can be seen modelling some of the finer products below. She, of course, is responsible for both of these. My products are generally a little cruder, and more like t-shirts. Exactly like t-shirts. But I´m honing my skills and hope to make something ¨pretty¨ someday soon.

We went to an area called Barranco, where we heard we may be able to put down a blanket, and after a little exploration and enjoying the view of the Pacific, we found a great spot on the porch of an abandoned colonial building. We thought we might get hasseled by the local cops, but they seemed overjoyed to see us and stopped and chatted for quite a while on several occassions. We had lots of chatty visitors, sold a good amount of our store and may have even recruited a volunteer or two for the project. We´re definitely going to return to that spot, probably in a couple weeks. Ian is leading a few meditation retreats in Chile for the next two weekends, so we´ll be in charge and won´t be able to get away.

I liked Lima. I was already looking forward to returning over my morning cup of Starbucks. But its good to be back at the project too. We should started working with adobe tomorrow. Yay!