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Published: November 3rd 2007
Anyway, before I get into details of the accommodation let me explain the current situation a little bit. According to the administrators, currently there are a lot of volunteers. Actually, what happened was that suddenly there are a lot of people who are staying over two months. Usually, most volunteers come to stay for a month or two (which means there are goodbye parties almost every week). I don't understand how you can have too many volunteers (some people who were in Ayacucho for others reasons and wanted to be volunteers for a while have been turned away), just give others more days off. Lol. That's me being lazy. Eight volunteers at a time is a correct number, but there are 9 beds available so I don't understand the logic. Sufficely to say, I am not happy with the organization of the volunteers (I didn't study management for 4 years to not be able to recognize ineffective organization when I see it, lol).
Anyway, Gil and Chantal are the French-Belgian couple that run the Casa and the NGO that funds them is located in France or the french-speaking part of Belgium so many volunteers are French. When I arrived, it
was me, a German girl, and eight French-speaking people. Most of the French people do not speak Spanish (or English) that well so communication was difficult and therefore, limited. The Casa does not have a good system of orientation or receiving new volunteers so I felt quite left out and basically, miserable. My miserable-ity had a lot to do with my bed as well. How, you might wonder? Well, let me tell you a little bit about the house.
The living conditions of the
Volunteer House are... interesting. Some key points follow.
The toilet is 'outside' (you exit the house to get to the little toilet house) and it is a cemented hole in the ground. You fill a bucket with water and spill it down the hole to flush. My only complaint with the toilet is that the hole is quite small so it is kind of hard to hit the target, especially for women, if you know what I mean :p The toilet paper is not flushed down with the water but placed in a bag, which is later burnt (more about waste management later).
Vista Alegre has running water, but the
fregadero (sink) is
located on the outside of the house, where dishes and clothes are washed. It being outside is very practical because you don't have to worry about spilling water and the sink is very large. Peruvians seem to have a necessity for large sink, as a result I actually don't mind washing dishes here. The shower is also outside, surrounded by a meter-high wall and in the open air with a view. It is hidden from curious eyes by large blankets placed over a metal fence which faces the house's yard. The water is fairly cold, but if you spent every day of your summer at the beach (like I did :p) it's just like taking a shower at the beach after you've had your swim - minus the swim and the swimsuit 😊. Conclusion: I loved the shower! Unfortunately, my health didn't since I caught a cold soon thereafter.
The volunteer house consists of three rooms. One is a bedroom-type room with three beds, two of which have REAL matrasses. The other room is a kitchen/dining room with a gas stove, a table, and plenty of kitchen utensils. From the kitchen you enter the yard, which has its own
My Space in the volunteer house.
Yes, that is humitdity. My expression cannot possibly convey the uncomfort of the bed.exit. The third room is the largest and it also has a door to exit the house. The third room currently has six beds (with two beds that are folded, waiting for new volunteers). The beds are basically a very bad metal construction on top of which you place something resembling a mattress. The metal bars on my bed could be felt through the so-called mattress so for the first week I was not getting enough nor quality sleep. That, compounded with my 2-week adjustment to the altitude (not enought red blood cells in my blood stream), the disorganization of the Casa and volunteers, and the energy-wanting kids, left me miserable for two weeks. Back to the beds. I was so frustrated one night with my bed that I put my so-called mattress on the floor to get a good night's sleep. The next night, after cleaning the disgustingly dirty floor that hadn't been cleaned in who knows how long, I was very excited to go to sleep on the floor and get a good night's rest. As I was drifting to sleep, I kept hearing a scratching sound. After 10 minutes I used my cell phone for light and
I discovered that the scratching sound was a cockroach very close to where my head had been. In true Lara Croft style I calmly killed it with my shoe. Yay for me! Sufficely to say it took me a while to get back to sleep. Luckily enough, I only had to sleep one more night on the floor (more info on that in another entry as well 😉. The third room also has a large TV, which, surprisingly I do not watch at all. However, Tito, a volunteer from Lima (who doesn't live in the house) comes every night to watch TV, which is annoying if you are trying to sleep, as I was many a night. The irony is that he, as a Peruvian, is the only volunteer that ever watches TV, so everyone just wishes he would take it to his private accomodations 😊
Many parts of the walls of the room are covered in funghi from humidity and it just looks terrible as you can see from the picture. There is very little furniture to put your things on. Equally questionable is whether you would want to put your clean things on such furniture so I
Neighbors.
The mamita daily spreads out yellow flowers on the roof in the morning and collects them in the afternoon (as she is doing now in the photo). We assume she dries and sells them. Peruvians work very hard. literally lived out of my suitcase - what an apt phrase.
Generally, apart from the lack of privacy and the bad beds, the house is entirely liveable.
The house is located across the street from the Casa. The volunteer house is on the ground floor and a Peruvian family of four live on the floor above. The toilet, shower, and yard are shared. There are two sinks - one for the volunteers, one for the family. The house is also located on my favorite street, which is generally peaceful, especially around noon.
From what I've seen in Vista Alegre the volunteer house is representative of the houses in Vista Alegre in terms of facilities and aesthetics.
With the photos, I think you get the picture of what the volunteer house looks (and feels) like.
Since there are suddenly a number of people staying for at least six months (at least 7, including me), there was not enough space in the volunteer house so Gil encouraged us to find alternative accommodation, which we would have to pay. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because our
new apartment is fabulous! It is located
View from our balcony.
Ready for a rainy evening. To be fair, our view is pretty good. That's what you get for having an upstairs floor and thus being the tallest building in view ;) I have the same view from my bedroom. two streets down from the orphanage so still very practical and closer to the local market. Photos from the new apartment start from the photo - MySpace in the new apartment. So that first photo is my room. I share a room and queensized bed with my roommate, Marei. The apartment has three bedrooms, a kitchen, a balcony, and a living room, which also functions as a hallway to go upstairs. The apartment is on the first floor (for the English & Croatians) or on the second floor (for the Americans), which reduces the amount of flies in the house. Generally, the apartment is what most people living in areas with paved roads think is normal 😊 so I don't think I need to explain much more. So I live with Marei and four French people who arrived to the Casa at the same time that I did and they are an agreeable bunch even if communication is exhausting at times 😉 Just yesterday I bonded with two of them, Florian and Jerome, over dinner, on the topic of American TV shows and their internet downloading. Random fun fact: 8 million people in France downloaded (illegally) the first season of
Everybody hanging out in our living room.
We have little or no furniture so our living room consists of a blanket on the floor and two fruit boxes, which act as a table. It's quite cozy and hippie - I like it. We also have little pillows to sit or lean on, courtesy of my genius. Heroes.
Anyway, apart from the kitchen, we didn't get much furniture except for the beds so we bought wooden boxes from the market (used for fruit and vegetable transportation) for 1-2 soles each. Marei painted hers. I bought colored cartulina (cardboard) and covered the insides of the boxes with it. I ended up buying a total of seven boxes to fit all my stuff in comfortably. As you can see from the photo, it looks fantastic! I also bought a night light (to read, very important! 😉, plastic containers to wash our boxes in and such. All good investments, I hope.
The rent is 150 soles, and among six people turns out to be around 26 soles + minor utility expenses, which is a really good deal, although it is a tight fit. Basically, it's more than worth it.
A few random facts about the apartment:
The bathroom does not have a door (again, more money is needed), so a sheet acts as a door - very embarassing at times but you learn to live with it, as well as ask if there is anyone in the bathroom before you enter.
On the floor above up, which
The bathroom in our apartment.
The whole house is tiled except for the bathroom because the landlord didn't have enough money - welcome to the Balkans #2 :p will also be an apartment, a bigger one, but currently it just has the foundations, is where we wash our clothes and hang it out to dry. It's quite exciting because the landlord finally finished it today so we can wash our clothes! Yay! Will take photos of it soon.
That is all for now for this very long entry.
Ending with...
Spanish Word of the Day -
fregadero =
sink
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Ivanchica
non-member comment
On the upper floor stairs of the apartment in my Playboy "slippers."---- I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS ONE. you look gorgeous and satisfied (no perv-ee tho!!) and content and happy. I'm loving the boxes you made, your quite a craftsman ; might take you up on this one to make something like that, as well ;) Marei is such a pretty name. I was REALLY surprised to see someone from the volunteers actually smokes. Grrrrr. But you already knew this hehe. KISS. Ivana