Adios, PSF

The sunny days of earth bags are over. It seems that since we pounded in the last bag a week ago, the seasons have changed. Apparently it has been warm longer than usual- I think the gods were blessing our earth bag project with good weather. Now, it´s winter. The sky has shifted shades and the sea, ever obedient, has followed. Shades of gray, whitecaps breaking.

Fisherman, daily catch

 One morning last week, I sat nursing my hot mug in the morning and watched the overcast sky and felt a nudge of nostalgia. The weather right now is in the sixties, during the day, and at night, frigid. Last night I slept with two wool blanket and a hat and was still cold. I wondered what was wrong with me until I realized we don’t have heating and we leave our window wide open all night. It´s kind of a nice change from the unbearable heat in Nicaragua, but its only going to get colder. Huaraz, my next destination, is in the mountains and I assume it is freezing even in the depth of summer. Hopefully this will make me appreciate a humid Wisconsin summer when I return to the states in July.

The changing temperatures have made me anew friend: Tea. If Americans are crazy about coffee, Brits are insane about their tea. Or shall I say, positively mental about their Proper Tea. ¨proper Tea, unfortunately, we do not have in Peru (still not sure exactly what the difference is). Over each of the 10 odd mugs of tea my English friends down on a typical day at PSF, there will be at least a couple baleful sighs, and then, “Oh, how I wish I could have a cup of proper tea”. One day an English girl admitted she had a stash of the stuff. It was like piranhas smelling blood- the entire PSF UK population pulled in for the attack, their eyes lit up manically… There is no holding them back from their proper tea.

The earth bag house isn’t quite finished; there is still concrete to lay across the final layer of bags and a roof to build on top, let alone render to lay. But I thought I’d give it a rest and try something else for my last week. My plan was to do something different every day so o I could cram in as many new skills as I could in a week´s time. That didn´t happen. I started in on a mural project on Monday and stuck to it through Saturday. It´s really hard for me t o start a project and not see it through. I also became the official “people drawer” for the mural, so to maintain some consistency, I stayed on to paint all the faces.

The mural is designed as a comic strip, and the idea is simple: to stop kids from throwing trash all over the ground, or “no botar basura en el suelo”. The story starts off with a melancholy frame of a city scape; it´s all shades of gray and there are two kids wearing super hero costumes standing on a tall building and gazing over their gloomy domain. The kids become the main characters for the saga to follow: Next, a man walks down a Pisco street and makes the mistake of casually tossing a cup of Inca Cola over his shoulder and onto the sidewalk. Bam! In comes Super Heroine Extroardinaire. In the third frame she tells him the issue with tossing garbage around. Next we see a “perfect world”, AKA an idealized scene of Pisco without trash, and finally a picture of the world with “The world is in your hands; it´s up to you to keep it clean and beautiful” or something along those lines.

Along with the mural, we wrote a child friendly to read to the preschoolers. It´s about a boy who cleans his room and picks up trash along his street and discovers how beautiful his home and city can be. I was surprised how well the children listened when we read it aloud; the teacher asked check in questions at the end and they were able to answer every one, down to listing the specific animals our main character had as pets. We had a coloring sheet as well, and passed that out to the class afterwards.

When the mural is done, the plan is to lead a trash pickup around the school with the kids. If they pick up five pieces of trash, they are given the honor of dipping their hands in paint and putting their handprints on the world in the last scene.

I wasn´t able to see the mural to completion. I worked on it for six days, Monday through Saturday, went to the Ballestas Islands on Sunday, and took off on Monday for Lima along with Ed and Sarah. I´m expecting to get pictures of the finished product though, which I will send along.

For our last day, Ed and I signed up to lead the Morning Meeting. We wanted to do something memorable, but in the chaos of the weekend never made plans. On Sunday night, we sat down and found a song which suited the occasion- It´s Brittish, so most likely none of my dear readers will recognize the title, and if you do, props- “Dry your eyes” by The Streets. Our changed lyrics went as so: (It only really makes sense if you know the song).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHOf3s70w-c

In one single moment your whole life can turn 'round

Coming to PSF where all the people are so sound

Building a modular, then cooking a feast

Each week cook once, clean twice, at the very least

Please let us show you where you could go, with PSF

You can change and you can grow but you’ll have to adjust

The wicked thing about PSF is we always have trust

We can even get fucked up if we must

We stare at Pisco and she almost stares straight back at us

and we reach out our hand without making a fuss

We’ve had an awesome time but we must continue our journey

Once we walk out the door this place will keep rollin for sure

Dry your eyes mate

I know it's hard to take but our mind has been made up

we’re off on our way to Huaraz

Dry your eyes mate

I know you want to make us see how much this pain hurts

But we’ve got to walk away now

It's over

Weve been slammin on earthbags for weeks and weeks

wielding our straight edges and dressing like freaks

sit on the roof and turn your head to face the skies

Pisco sunsets are amazing we tell no lies

We know you can't imagine life without emma and ed

There's things I can't imagine doin', things I can't imagine seein'

we hope you keep on raising money in the swaffel shed

Changing pisco isnt supposed to be easy, surely

Please, please, I beg you please

so get your hands dirty, you’ll never wanna rest

working with this bunch of people, you know you are so blessed

Theres something really special about this place

If the jungle calls we’ll come back in haste

Dry your eyes mate

I know it's hard to take but our mind has been made up

we’re off on our way to Huaraz

Dry your eyes mate

I know you want to make us see how much this pain hurts

But we’ve got to walk away now

It's over

We dressed all in black, complete with dark shades. We were all seriousness. Even when the background music mysteriously cut off halfway through and we got off beat and the makeshift shaker I was using (sprinkles in a Tupperware) was completely off from the music and we couldn’t read the words off the sheet correctly… but it was worth it, and at least we got a good laugh.

Huaraz Huaraz Huaraz Huaraz. Ever since I had promised Laura I´d meet her in Huaraz on the 21^st and convinced Ed to come along, the word has been floating around in my head. Mountains! Huaraz is my chance to FINALLY be in some real mountains.