Current/Ongoing Projects
Intercambio
Intercambio is a language exchange program that we started in October 2008. As mentioned before, speaking English in this city drastically improves your chances at a decent lifestyle. A lot of the people cannot afford to go to school and if they can, English is only taught once a week. So we try and offer Intercambio for the community twice a week. Recently we even had the opportunity to divide up into groups. One was with older kids who had already learned a bit of English and just wanted to practice with someone who was a native English speaker. The second group was a bunch of younger children that either just had a basic grasp of a little English or absolutely none at all. The street we live on is full of children and a lot of the ones that came were from our street. It is amazing how enthusiastic they are about learning. Now we can walk up and down the street and there are five year olds saying, "Hello! How are you?" which is one of the neatest things to see.
Casa de Jesus
Jesus was one of our first Peruvian volunteers. He is 21 years old and came to us after he had saved up enough money to buy the materials to build a house for his mother. Up until this point they had been living in a temporary modular house with about 5 people living in it (keep in mind it is a single room, 5x3 meters). First we poured his foundations, then his bases (which the bricks are then laid on). We had his cousin, who is a maestro, come begin laying bricks with us and we got about half way done with the brick laying. It got to the point where we needed some sort of scaffolding in order for us to get any higher with the bricks. Two of our wonderful volunteers, Cole and Liffy, decided they were up to the task of building a bamboo scaffold called, "Stairway to Heaven" (if you build/buy anything for the organization you get to sign it and name it... obviously).
One of the other things we helped Jesus with was a bathroom. Two of our first volunteers, Uncle Iain and Any, donated some toilets their friends no longer needed in from Lima. They gave us three toilets and for Jesus' birthday we gave them all to his family. His brother, Jose, lives in a modular house next door, and his sister who lives down the street. After we gave them the toilets, Jesus told us that even before the earthquake his family had never had a toilet. Working in Pisco, we have gotten use to poverty everywhere you look, and until this point the majority of us had assumed everything (including peoples toilets) had been destroyed in the earthquake. This was a poignant example of the commodities we all take for granted on a daily basis.
Sadly, we have come to a stand still on Jesus' house. The walls have been bricked half way up, and at this point we need to finish the brick laying and then pour concrete columns for structural integrity. In order for us to build any higher, we need to be ready with wood to put up against the bricks in order to pour the columns. Wood is expensive, and borrowing expensive items, even from friends, in Pisco is a bit tricky. The possibility of theft is always there, because you need to leave the wood up for at least a day while the concrete sets, and living in a poverty-stricken area anywhere in the world, theft is always a huge risk. So until we can either raise the money or someone is willing enough to let us borrow their wood for a few days, we just have to wait to finish his house.
Trenches for UNICEF bathrooms
As on organization, we are not working directly with UNICEF. However they have been doing amazing work building bathrooms all around Pisco. To date (March 2009) they have installed close to 300 bathrooms all around the area. They have left it up to the families to dig the trenches for the plumbing to be connected to the city sewage (they are providing the plumbing and installation of that), so this is where M.A.D. has stepped in. A lot of the families are either working all day or, for various reasons, are incapable of digging the trenches themselves, so we have been following up with some of the families and have dug the trenches for them, including one for Jesus where he has installed the toilet we gave him.
Casa de Ceasar
Ceasar is a man we met when we first started working. As mentioned, in the beginning we were working along side teams of guys who were pouring concrete, and this is how we met him. Pouring concrete in general here, is always fun, but working with Ceasar was an experience all to itself. The Peruvian laborers work like machines, and unlike most people the harder the work the faster they go. Ceasar always makes a game out of pouring concrete and has a smile on his face the entire time. Since the earthquake, Ceasar and his family (his mother, brother, wife, child, and himself) have been living in a temporary esterra house. He has finally raised enough money to buy a plot of land close to the beach and build a house for everyone in his family. We have just finished digging the trenches for his house (20 x 8 meters), which was quite a task in the hot sun. Also, another fun fact learned, the trenches are below sea level so they fill up with water pretty quickly. Never the less we managed to dig some pretty straight and pretty long trenches. The next phase (which we will start soon) is digging meter by meter by one-meter deep squares in the ground for his columns. Next we will pour concrete into the trenches (lined with plastic to keep the water from soaking into the concrete) and slowly but surely, from there we will build the rest of his house.
Virgencita de Fatima
This was a fun project. There had been another organization that had begun working on the school but, unfortunately, due to internal conflict within the organization they could no longer finish the project. Soon, it will be home to 30 children and M.A.D. Volunteers was excited to work on our first school. Helping to build a school is, as an organization, one of the most long term contributions we can make towards a better future for the city of Pisco. The funding for the school was running low and they desperately needed as much help as possible. There was enough money to hire three guys to properly finish the walls, but they needed help pouring the floors and the roof. The guys we were working with were only 18 years old and were interested in learning English, so when we were done for the day we sat around drinking a couple cold beers and helped them work on their English.
Collecting Plastic and Metal
This is probably one of our most simple jobs, yet most rewarding. Walking back from a job site one day, we spotted a lady and her two children digging through rubbish piles looking for any recyclables. M.A.D. had been saving plastic and metal to make a little extra money for the organization, but when we saw here we knew what needed to be done. So now, every Monday morning around 8:30 she comes by with her beautiful daughter and collects all the plastic, metal, and cardboard used by the volunteers.
Carlos' Columns
Carlos is a man that has helped us enormously. He is the man that knows how to build anything and everything. At different stages, we have helped him build parts of houses for his elderly father, his sisters and brothers, and even some of his extended family. In return, we have learned the majority of what we know about construction in Peru, from him. Currently we are digging a trench for the front of his house. When we are finished with this (hopefully it should only take a day) we will help him pour the foundation for the front of his house and then the columns so he can have a proper entrance to his house (up until now he has just had esterra and pieces of wood to keep unwanted people from entering his house).
