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Published: March 21st 2008
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One quite important thing I forgot to mention before I stopped working at the Casa, i.e. before Xmas, yes, way back.
Anyway, the last month of working at the Casa I was all over the place. I was already doing some translations, I was still working with the kids, and at least twice a week I worked at the
terreno.
What is the
terreno? It’s a large piece of land located a 15-min walk away from the Casa where Gil and Chantal plan to build two houses to serve as two separate orphanages. One will be run by them, while the other will be run by a Belgian couple. In the front yard of the house there is going to be a spectacular playground open to the public. A French organization called
Hilo de Oro (transl. thread of gold) is in charge of the playground project, which they are mostly funding through their NGO, I believe. Because in November and December there were more volunteers than the Casa needed, instead of getting more an extra day off, the volunteers were ‘rerouted’ to work on the terreno. Although work on the terreno is technically optional, it is administered through silent
coercion. Even though the work is hard the atmosphere at the terreno is better than the one at the Casa so at times it was a welcome change. Also, terreno hours are 7am-12am, so although the work is difficult, it’s technically less hours. Also, volunteers at the terreno are not directly supervised so the atmosphere is more easygoing.
What did we do at the terreno? Good question! Previously, the piece of land had a single-floor house, which was meant to be a (illegal) brothel, and the large hole in the ground was meant to be a pool. It turned out that the brothel was not as feasible as predicted and Gil was able to buy the land for a good price. Unfortunately, the house on the land had to be demolished because it could not support an additional floor on it, which Gil plans to make on both houses. So the early days of the terreno consisted of moving rocks from one part of the terreno to the other part with a single (broken) wheelbarrow and very very bad gloves because a truck was too expensive. It was such a useless (not to mention difficult) task that you could
not help but laugh (see photo!). Apart from when the mosquitoes kicked your ass.
The second stage of the terreno comprised work in the former-to-be pool. After making the hole bigger with dynamite, new wheelbarrows, and my (and many others’) new-gloved hands, the pool is to become an ‘underground’ chill-out place from where a wooden playground-like tower will be erected. The final result of the terreno will no doubt be impressive but we got to do the difficult boring stuff. As a girl, however, I am not required to ‘drive’ the wheelbarrow, I ‘just’ fill it up with rocks with the help of a shovel or my gloved hands (depending on rock size). After the terreno experience I can truly say I have done some construction!! Depending on the other volunteers that you’re working with for the day (there could be as few as two of us and as many as six), it could be quite fun. We also took well-deserved breaks to rest our aching bones and dust-filled mouths. There are also a number of chickens living on the terreno, which I find hilarious.
Other volunteer-involved projects that I took part in:
1. Making
cuadernos (noteboooks,
which in effect serve as info booklets) on each kid so that volunteers can integrate into the functioning of the Casa faster. There is a chronic lack of official information from the part of the Casa to the volunteers which means that it takes a lot longer to adapt to the work and atmosphere.
2. Because some volunteers have not been happy with their experience at the Casa and most of the time there are more volunteers than needed (they obviously have very good promotion), a number of other NGO-projects in Ayacucho were visited. Their need for volunteers has been assessed and currently, a website is being made, listing all of the projects so that potential volunteers have more options in choosing their volunteering sites and are able to find different areas of work, such as working with children, adolescents, the elderly, prisoners, etc.
As part of that project I got to visit the local maximum security penitentiary. Prisons seem to follow me around, or I seem to be following them 😊 In Peru, as part of the measures to protect the family, children up to the age of 3 are allowed to live in the prison with
their parent (usually mother) if the parent decides so. Although there are currently 15 children in Ayacucho’s prison there are no child professionals. Alberto, one of the kids at the Casa, was actually born in prison, and was taken in by Los Gorriones only after allegedly falling into a pot of boiling water for which he had to be rushed to the emergency room. Since, he has only gone to visit his parents in jail, with his sister, Ciliana, who also lives at Los Gorriones.
As for volunteer interaction… When there were many volunteers group cohesion was minimal, which is normal, but some people took it personally so there was plenty of tension. At one point it became a real Big Brother show, with me as the star villain, of course! Since our Xmas trip and the volunteer group becoming small again, things have pretty much settled down.
All in the day of a Los Gorriones volunteer.
Spanish Word of the Day:
cuaderno =
notebook, copybook
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