Peru: The Work Begins

I totally have this post out of order. It got lost amongst the other posts I have written. Sorry!
I woke up extremely excited about our 3rd day! It was time to work. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of work we were going to do, but I was ready to get about it! Adam picked us up along with Daniel and drove us to a hard part of the city. Our group got to the building and we learned that a woman pastor had decided to have a church for delinquent teenagers (I think that’s what we were told). It wasn’t a big church.

It would’ve been bigger and better, but she had been swindled by the contractor who had built the rest of the building. He had used sub-grade products and hand’t done the project right so she had to start over entirely. We were there to lend a helping hand. Pastor Christian and I were sent along with Daniel and one of the construction workers to find plastic bags to cover all of the musical equipment and other things in the sanctuary.

We walked to a nearby neighborhood market and it was our first experience with their “local grocer”. Somehow, the construction guy knew exactly which booth to go to to get the plastic bags. lol It was interesting! We walked back to the church, dropped the bags off and then headed to the hardware store. Ok, we had just talked about suffering while we were down there and I probably should’ve sent someone else because going to a hardware store is hardly suffering to me. *wink*

The ride took us over an hour and a half I’d say. Unfortunately, Toby didn’t know where he was going. lol He kept asking people for directions, doing u-turns, etc. Pastor Christian told me his story and about his family! I can’t wait to meet his wife and daughter. I’d already met his son at the fund raiser we’d held at the church. At one point, we had gotten so close to another van/bus and well, sort of cut him off, the guy was smacking the side of our van!!! It totally freaked me out, but Toby, meh, he didn’t bat an eye.

We got to the hardware store and, sigh, inhaled the hardware smell! It was quite the experience, and I have to tell you, it reminded me a lot of Menards. The workers approached us and one woman sold us the entire job! She took us to each thing we needed and hefted it all down. I totally wanted to hi-5 her!

On our trip back, Daniel explained that the area we were driving through used to be the hub of the city! That it used to be as lively and beautiful as the district we were staying in at our hotel. Looking around, you would’ve never known that. Of course that was 100 yrs ago he said, so I guess maybe not so surprising?

As soon as we got there, everyone went to work. We were sanding, puttying, scraping, mixing things with our hands, painting, priming, etc. We were all trying to get as much work done in the small window of time we had! As we were coming somewhat to the end, I had started painting one of the ceiling beams. As I moved along the beam, I happened to look back and oh my goodness, there were huge air bubbles everywhere. I thought I hadn’t painted right, but what was happening was, the paint underneath was reacting to the new paint.

I had to stop what I was doing. We ended up wetting the entire beam with water, thanks to Fred, and scraping off all the bubbling up paint. In a way it was good because it was peeling off all of the bad paint, but it just took so much longer to get that one more thing done. I think to a degree we had all hoped to get more done, but we were thankful to know another team would be coming in a couple of days and could take over where we left off.

Before we left, Pastor Christian and I took a tour of the upper levels. lol I honestly can’t put into words what an experience that was. We live with so many codes and rules and laws that if any American building inspector would’ve seen it, they probably would’ve had a stroke.

Limbs of trees, bricks, and anything else they could find was all that held up the third floor. Standing on the second floor, we could hear the guys working above us and actually see them. Pastor Christian seemed to have me pegged because he climbed up to the 3rd floor and called to me saying I’d want to see it.

We were up there and the view was beautiful and it was so amazing seeing what they were doing. The workers all pretty much learn on the job and their way of life is to learn pretty much all of the trades so they can do anything when they’re building!

After the day at the church, we headed back to the hotel to rest before we headed to…the cat park. Oh yea, Mira Flores has a cat park! Basically, it’s several streets worth of parks that are filled with cats. Some had been domestic cats and were dropped off by families, others were just feral. I really had no idea what we were headed for.

When we got there I was in absolute heaven! There were literally cats everywhere! I would find one and do some petting and then I’d see another one I just HAD to love on. The rest of the group was just walking along like it was just some everyday park. Fred would call me, “honey, I think there’s a cat you want to see here.” Yea, you think? hahahaha

It was another full and beautiful day! I accidentally did my days out of order! We worked on the wheelchairs the next couple of days.