Our third day in Peru started off with a short (distance wise) trip to Cafe Verde. We'd gone to it on our last trip down, and we all loved it. What we didn't realize was, it was much further away than the last time. So, going like 10 miles it took us over an hour to get there! UGH! The last time it took us about 10 minutes to get to the coffee shop. We all enjoyed our coffee, and bought bags to take home with us. From there we headed off to Alcance.
Dave & I were chatting as I snapped a photo of the guy in Cafe Verde roasted the coffee. Fred was in love with the coffee maker.
On the very left of the left photo you can sort of see a guy. His job? Just to open the door. Love it! Miss Tammy got what she needed for her morning!
We painted the wall the first day working at the outreach center. The second day we learned we'd be painting the sidewalk. To begin, we had to sweep the sidewalk. Funny thing was, the wind was working against us. So, we had one person sweeping as we painted.
Can't be the hubby & wife duo of Pastor Chuck and Tammy!
We started out at one end of the block with blue paint. That's where people can ride their bikes. We were given buckets of paint and paint brushes. I kind of felt like we weren't being very productive in the way we were going about it, and I started pouring the paint onto the section we were in. So much better, and easier, than dipping our brushes into the buckets. lol
The painting begins! We were in teams of 3-4.
Here we have Tammy dipping into the paint, Molly trimming the edge, Frieda sweeping, Denise sweeping, and apparently Mark supervising. heh heh heh
See the guy in the above photo, sitting on a chair in front of the the building (it's a house), in front of the SUV? Little swindler. He's an older man, probably in his late 60s, early 70s. A lady helped him outside, and I think there was another lady and a boy. Well, with them was a beautiful dog named Cici. Of course we had to pet it, so Denise and I gave it some loving. After we were done, the old man says, "Cinco soles," with a little chuckle. I was like, "¿Cinco soles? No, no, no," hahahahaha He was trying to get us to give him money for petting his dog!
Denise and Cici
See the brick up there? We'd be "painting" that a bright red later that afternoon. At one point, a gal and possibly her son, showed up and wanted to paint with us. The little boy was so funny. He kept stepping on the areas we were painting, and ending up with paint on himself.
This was a long, arduous day of painting, but it was so awesome to see the bright color on the sidewalk. you can see how drab the blue is above everyone, and the brick is just as dull. The reason we were asked to paint was they wanted this block to be a beacon to everyone. They want to take their district and give it color, and life!
Another great couple team of "Papa Noel" aka Dennis aka Denny & Denise. I seriously loved this couple as I got to know them more. They were so smart, they brought knee pads!
At one point, Fred had to mix more paint, and he ended up with some helpers. Axel was always one of the first kids to show up. He comes to the outreach center because he was kicked out of school for fighting. He'll be able to try again next year.
We had an amazingly delicious lunch once again prepared by Rosa and Juanita. I'd be a rotund lady if we lived off of their cooking. Actually, I probably gained 5 pounds while we were down there. I typically leave half of a meal when we eat. Not the case at the center. I cleaned all of my plates every time.
Lomo saltado: steak with fried potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and rice.
After lunch, we went back out to do a second layer of blue, and this time we were able to roll the paint! Halleluia! Once that was rolled, we started with the red "paint". I wasn't part of the creation of any of paint. I just painted. Then...oh my...then all of the kids started showing up. And just like any other child, they wanted to help. We were swarmed by them. lol Thankfully I had my phone with me, and I gave it to a little girl and let her play my son's game. What kid doesn't want to watch goats poop?
Me and Axel. Looks like I have some paint on my hands. lol
Now, let me explain to you about this red "paint". As I mentioned earlier, I wasn't part of the creating the paint process. We got probably half of the block painted in red. What we didn't learn until the next day, was we pretty much had just wiped wet chalk onto the ground.
Made sure to grab a pic with Pastor Trent...because he's from MN!
I woke up the next day and was trying to decide which sweatshirt to wear. It was strange at first that I was able to wipe the red off my gray sweatshirt. Slowly I began to get an idea of what had happened. When we got off the bus the next morning, I went over to the red and wiped it. Sure enough, it came up onto my fingers. We looked around and there were red footprints EVERYwhere. I just cringed.
Then I started formulating a plan. Maybe we could seal it. I didn't want our work to turn into a nightmare for the center. People walking around getting red all over themselves. The sidewalks looking worse than when we started. Could we seal it? I had to look at the bags they used to create the "paint" to see what we'd actually used. Turns out it was just a pigment. lol It should've been mixed with paint. As I kept thinking about sealing it, I realized it wouldn't stick. UGH! Next idea, contact my old co-worker who's now an assistant store manager at a Menards. His response was exactly what I expected. There wasn't a good way to fix it. We ended up having to leave it, and I was very disappointed.
It came time for us to head out, so we went to the mall and ate at a burger joint! We couldn't really read the menu, but Bernie helped us all figure it out. Something they do at restaurants down in Peru is offer a lot of sauces to go along with the meal. Much of the time they're hot sauces so I just stuck with ketchup.
Have you ever had a painting disaster?
1 comments:
I think it's wonderful what you and the group did in Peru. God bless you all.
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