Peru’s challenge officially starts today! In the morning, we rolled out with Jane to tour Pumamarca…well once we gave a pushing start to the van for our morning breather. Then we were off to the hillsides of Cusco. Peru’s challenge has been working with the village of Pumamarca for a successful 8 years, as the villagers led the initiatives in this fourth project site of Peru’s Challenge. As we gazed over the fruits of the collaboration between Peru’s Challenge and villagers, we firsthand understood the impact we signed up to make and Peru’s challenge model of sustainable projects to get Pumamarca, or soon for us Miskiumo, chiming on their own. These such villages among others initially were all very undeveloped with low average household incomes of 3 USD per week, no land entitlements, lack of clean water resources, lack of education, etc. During the past 15 years, Peru’s challenge has helped outlying local villages to Cusco significantly develop by bringing land rights, irrigation, small businesses, schools, and health projects to each village – while leaving locals to decide how they want to grow and shape the village since Peru’s Challenge transitions out after roughly 10 years. Now for example, Pumamarca families have become self-sufficient with access to clean water and a drastically improved weekly household income of 60 USD. Then for long term goals, children have access to excellent education opportunities ranking about 2nd across the board. All the while, Peru’s Challenge helps restore and maintain the integrity of the village culture once disrupted by past terrorism and Cusco tourism. In Pumamarca, we ran into the 18 year old daughter, Alexandria, of the family that the first EGL Peru VA built a greenhouse for. As Jane brought us to this invernadero, we found it relieving that although Maria and Jesus (parents of this family who passed away recently) the 3 children are doing well with income from these greenhouse flowers. Hearing such stories from Jane is really an eye-opening experience, especially the gratitude of the villagers shown through calling us amigos not gringos. Alas we comprehend the magnitude a simple helping hand brings to the families. These villagers have the knowledge, skills, and ambition, yet lack resources to pursue their ideas and small business. Projects like building a greenhouse gives families the opportunity to start these pursuits so as to eventually fulfill their vision with better lives.
After the lessons of Pumamarca, we stepped over (literally next door) to our site, Miskiumo, where in the next week and a half we will help a patient family build their greenhouse. The family welcomed us with words of gratitude and a Quechua tradition, sprinkling a handful of confetti on our heads with a warming hug. It is truly heartwarming for how appreciative and hospitable the family is, motivating us with the passion to take on Peru’s challenge.
For some of us, this is our first time building anything from ground up. Everything is a new insight, new experience, new memory. We arrived to a half laid out foundation from the family; thus today focused on finishing laying the rest of the foundation for the greenhouse. This foundation required a trench that is 40 cm deep and 40 cm wide, which would be filled with large rocks and later a rocky cement mix.
Time to break ground! We began with digging the trench using pickaxes and shovels – most of us have never done such intensive physical labor. Not to mention the high altitude definitely made it even more difficult. As we dug away, we slowly organized into 3 groups: digging, shoveling, and rock breaking. Through collaboration and encouragement, the team managed through physical exhaustion to finish our target within 4 hours! The best delight to this came with a surprise from the family. While laboring away, the family baked potatoes in earthen clay ovens through Quechua tradition to welcome us. It was fascinating learning this process of food prep by how these families build a new clay oven each time to then collapse heated clay on top of the food to complete the baking process.
Overall, this day was rewarding by the traditions learned and sights seen. After learning the true impact of Peru’s challenge and delving into our first construction experience, we’re excited to see what we can accomplish tomorrow!
EGL Family Abroad 