The time spent working on the site had a number of notable memories. Rather then give you a chronological order of events I will paint the picture of the stay using some notable highlights of things that I will always remember.
Showers -- They should always be described, as "exhilarating", "brisk" and "invigorating" and never "cold". The best part of them is that if you peeked out the top vents you had a shower with a view of the Pacific Ocean.
Watching the building change daily-- One of the joys of working on a physical construction with a team of people is that every day you could see the site change. We had the joy of getting a building with a roof but no flooring, and by the time we left, the concrete floor was poured, all the windows and doors were framed, and the interior walls were beginning to be laid out and framed. I will always think of the floor as mine, and the third terrace (of 5 terraces) as something that I built for the community center.
Las Terrazas -- We spent a night on the balcony of a restaurant serenading downtown Ancon by having one of the locals (Henri) introduce us to the owner's son who set up for us two electric guitars. We had Billy (the lead singer of the Dusty 45's) play music with the owner, a couple of his own pieces and even encouraged the rest of us to sing along with him or play ourselves. The night included me singing El Rey with Machado both in the bar downtown and as through the city streets as we walked back up to the work site. It was a beautiful night of drinking beer, pisco sours, whiskey, wine and sharing a moment in time with new found friends.
Police -- One day the police showed up and wanted to know if everything was going well on the site. We had a large number of the volunteers throwing rocks down the hillside above the site collecting them for a rock wall we were making to surround half of the building. The police came by to find out if what was happening was what we expected. The local Peruvians thought they were just looking for a "mordita", but I was more than willing to play the ignorant American and answer their questions about, what we were doing, which week we were in the project, and why people were on the hillside. When the police initially offered their help by asking me, "What can we do?", I asked them if they were willing to go up the hill and help us collect rocks. They laughed. It got even better when Nico told them it was his birthday and we proceeded to have them take pictures with us and we were able to lead the 6 of them singing "Las Mananitas" to Nico for his birthday. Humor saves the day. They gave us their cell phone numbers and told us to call if we ran into any problems.
Port-o-potties -- The hardest part to get used was having to dispose of the toilet paper in a waste paper bucket and not down the toilet. I would have that would have been gross, but that was not as bad as you think. The worst part was only when the port-a-potties were delayed in getting cleaned and you had people who weren't quite used to the food yet trying to get to a normal bowel movement.
The Daily Schedule -- Up by 5AM. Working by 6AM and ready for lunch by 12:30AM. The second half of the day was 2pm to 5pm. A half day of work was easily 6-7 hours, and a full day was 10-11 hours. The stretches were broken up by a mid-morning snack at 10:30AM of a piece of bread and diluted juice. Exhaustion usually capped the day having us wanting to crash by 9pm for our next 5am wakeup call.
Carol's food -- Carol who was the cook (but not a professional cook) would make meals inspired by the fresh food of the day. Fortunately for us, the fresh food of the day was everything as the fruits and vegetables were excellent and Carol was inspired to make salsas, granitas and even cooked up pork shoulder roasts. I have to admit I can't necessarily be a fair judge, because after every grueling day, every meal tasted like the best meal ever which was common to feel after being exhausted. But as always, "Por la boca, entras el corazon".
Translator -- Nico and I worked as translators for the site. The best part about this role is that we were called in not only for the important conversations between the lead engineer, and the team, but also for the casual conversations between the other volunteers and the local kids and volunteers. This allowed for a unique opportunity to get involved in everyone's discussions once the topics began getting beyond the basics of just "Buenos Dias" and "Pisco Sour". The most poignant moment in the role was translating the "Thank you" speech on the last day. "Se siento como un sueno, un sueno de no queremos despertar" -- "It feels like a dream, a dream that we don't want to wake from". The speaker was in tears, I had some manly welling going on, it was beautiful.
Flucker's food -- Flucker was the cook for the Peruvians who made and served food out of his house one block away from the site. He made a delicious pasta with pesto, escabeche, lomo saltado, cuy, and causa all of which I had the good luck to taste and enjoy. Even better, he gave a full cooking class to myself and Amy another volunteer how to make Alfajor cookies from scratch. In the process of making the cookies and talking about him about his cooking, I learned that he was taking classes on making Turkish and Arabic rice dishes at a cooking class in Lima. My opinion of his cooking shot up as I realized he was still challenging himself in broadening his own cooking skills. His best cooking ingredients were love and a sense of humor.
Dancing with the local kids -- One night the 14-17 year old kids asked us to go to one of their houses to go dancing. The only problem was that it was a little awkward in that the dance was basically simulated sex on the dance floor. It looked like they took the dancing straight out of the inner city and imported it to a sand riddled district an hour north of Lima. Given the age and other issues, I and the other volunteers found it best to dance with each other using a less aggressive style.
Music and Guitar Playing -- The work site was frequently filled with music as the local kids kept wanting to borrow our ipods and listen to the latest and greatest music. When they weren't listening to the music (or looking at the pictures) on the ipods, they would play a guitar which was alternately a 6 string (or 5 string if a string was broken) and play into the night.
There are other moments I may remember later, but these vignettes are the ones that capture the highlights of working on the site.
