Archive for October 2012
Barbie’s Pregnant Friend
Meet Celina, this girl comes complete with baby that can reside within or out of her stomach. Perfect gift for any child, too bad it’s super expensive to send packages from Peru.
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Ubicación:Los Claveles,,Perú
La Parada Marketplace
A couple weekends ago the water group and I drove by this well known squatter marketplace (La Parada in La Victoria Lima)… busy and full of people. Unfortunately, city officials recently have targeted this place for too much black market activity… or something, still trying to understand the situation.
Click Here for News Story of Recent Riots…
Hopefully the worst is behind us, fortunate to get information as to areas of town that get heated.
Combi Livin’
Each and everyday, this community relies on the use of somewhat mini-buses to transport themselves along well traveled routes. The use of combi’s is central to Peruvian culture and really pretty convenient too. 24 hrs/day u can flag down a bus and hop on. Pay the cobrador (man or woman standing at the doorway) ~ S/. 0.5 for hops within town, or ~ S/. 1 for routes to the next town. Make sure to yell ‘Baja’ when your stop is coming up and that’s it.. easy peasy.
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Ubicación:Los Claveles,,Perú
Hauri Burial Grounds & Alpaca Love
Last day/morning in the San Vicente de Canete area and it sure was an interesting one. After breakfast current volunteer Goyo took us Water people around to some of the most interesting locations around his site… Including a Huari Burial Grounds and Ruins site at Cerro de Oro.
Local Peace Corps personnel and authorities are pretty murky on what the Huari were doing in this area and what came about, but fortunately past grave robbers did not damage many of the site’s pots and intricate textiles.
Headed then over to a goat farm at a super tranquilo beach community named Santa Barbara. A very warm and friendly family allowed Goyo to set up a variety of alternative energy solutions, including: a biodigester with methane stovetop, solar panels, and water bottle light bulbs. There was even a rasta alpaca that ran around thinking it was one of the regular goats.
Cookstoves and Biodigestors
To round out our trip south of Lima, the Water group spent a good amount of time building and learning about two separate technologies that can be utilized right away..
Behold the improved cookstove… with the guidance of a few stellar current volunteers, we constructed an ‘Inkahuasi’ stove for a day there. The idea behind this stove is that it is designed to better insulate a small fire and cook using 50% less wood. Plus, it conveniently channels most smoke away from the kitchen.
The next interesting project we saw was the biodegestor. This 30-50 ft long plastic bag works to break down any fecal matter you should put in. What results after exposing it to sunlight and an anaerobic condition; is a plant fertilizer called ‘biel’ and plenty of methane gas that is piped to a collection bag and can be eventually used to run a stove or light or indoor heater. Appears to be alot of potential for this device.
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Ubicación:Los Claveles,,Perú
Purple Robes and Happy Wells
On the start of a 3 day long visit to see the peace corps water projects down around San Vincente de Cañete. Nice coastal community about 2 1/2 hours south of Lima. Most of this month the town is celebrating El Señor de los Milagros de Nazarenas (or lord of miracles) which has to do with a mural of Jesus in Lima that remained standing after a massive earthquake in the 18th century. Processions go through the town with people wearing purple.
On the first day we did get to visit the nice community of Roldan where the water authority are very proud of their town well. This unit serves the ~2500 people in town.
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Ubicación:San Vincente de Cañete
Peruvian BBQ
All u need is some open space, some charred wood, and a whole lot of meat.
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September Pictures
After a big Pachamanca Meal
Only had half of last month in country but finally able to get all the pictures online of our activities. Be aware this is the raw full set of pictures, but thumbnails make everything easier.. I hope the link works, please let me know if it doesn’t… To access the pictures.. CLICK HERE…
Biosand Filter
Simple as rocks, then gravel, the course sand, then fine sand… fill it up with dirty water and let the magic happen. Not enough time to get this one working properly but really do hope to build more and teach folks about them in the future.
CAWST
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Ubicación:Los Claveles,,Perú
Peruvian Hamburger
Really pretty tasty, the crunchy French onion strips, chunks of cheese and mayonnaise make the difference. Nice meal before the debate tonight. Also, little Mota is recovering just fine.. walking more and more day by day.. almost think she is soaking up the attention.
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Peru or Bust, one couple's journey to represent USA abroad and aid in ways small and large. 