The kid next to me says, vamos a matarles!

19 July, Sunday Feliz día!

Wish Brooke a happy birthday when you see her next.
It’s an early start cause we’ve got a mountain of work in front of us. But FIRST, a tamale. Hooray for all night cooking, black waters, and delicious interiors. We were told to meet at the Soyuz bus no later than 6:15. People start trickling in at 6:25ish. We don’t leave until 6:40.

Peruvians, I hear, have an issue with punctuality.

Once we’re in Chincha, we have the most delicious breakfast of mystery meat sandwiches and strawberry milk honey shakes. Then we taxi over to Pueblo Nuevo. Pueblo Nuevo is at the very top of the Chincha region nearby Chincha Alta and Grocio Prado. The area has a beautiful center square complete with a highway lined with palm trees. Apparently, the plaza was fine after the earthquake, but many of the buildings around it have broken windows and cracks down their sides that reach towards the roof.

There are volunteers here from the municipality too. One for each of us. Hugo and Brooke. Raúl and Adam. And after a lengthy diatribe sobre the encuestas, we have to head out to begin, an hour and a half late. We plan on returning back at 1pm for a quick lunch at a polleria. And after we see Javier, our leader, do a practice run, set off by ourselves.

We average about 10 surveys an hour at first. The houses are divided in manzanas (yes, that’s an apple). Imagine a big grid where the lines are streets and the squares are lined with homes with free space in the middle for back yards. That square is a manzana. So if you have to do houses 1 to 15 on manzana A, and then 3-8 on mnzana B, you end up on the other side near manzana C and then have to back track.

Everyone we talk to was eligible for bonuses or BanMat cards (materials bank). No one received money or supplies. Many people are only able to reconstruct with their own money or through a Techo Proprio program. With the recent changes they’ve made to their business, many people are unable to pay the monthly bill. We try hard to finish off just one last manzana before going back for lunch. CARAPULCRA! So good. Heavenly, I’d say.

After lunch it was already around 2:30pm. Javier, the NGO rep in charge, decided we would stop all encuestas at 4pm to ensure that we were all back in well before dark set in. Unfortunately our local municipal guides, who know the places like the backs of their hands and even have little hand-made maps of the layout, have to leave for a 3pm meeting. We reorganize and decide we cannot finish today and will have to leave some sectors for next weekend.

Since Brooke and I were given the shortest list of encuestas, we both finished ours by 4pm. Out of 7 surveys, 3 were finished and the others had around a total of 100 encuestas left for next weekend. At 4:30pm we were all accounted for, reimbursed for travel expenses, and invited to stick around to join the beer circle. We do for awhile. They say its birthday beer.

Since we are in the area we decide to spend the rest of our time hanging out with Choche and his family. As expected they treat us to much food and drink. Choche says its birthday wine. Then we fall asleep, psyched for waking up early.

18 July, Saturday WORK IT
“Yo puedo cocinar huevos.”

In the mornings, as the sun starts to rise in Peru, robots flood the streets. They equip themselves with megaphones and drone their messages to wake up the unsuspecting. “Breeeeead! French breeeead!” “Apples, oranges, oh so sweet!” ...Not really, but most mornings sound like a robot battle in the streets. Street vendors ride around on bicycles with a load of fruit in a front trailer. But the doppler effect and the distortion of the megaphone combined with the monotony of hearing about pan or frutas over and over again makes it seem like electronic war could be being raged outside our windows. It's a strangely pleasant feeling.

Today we took a leisurely breakfast in the market at the normal quaker lady with a new twist. We brought our own homemade bowls (the bottom of 2.5 liter water bottles), plastic spoons we've been saving through all our meals, and a bottle of soy yogurt. Our plastic spoons have managed to survive at least a month now because we take care of them each and every time we're done eating by licking every bit of food off. It grosses Lauren out. Heh. On a side note, soy products cost significantly less in Peru since being a hippie, vegan, save-the-planet freak isn't popular and ergo a non-profitable business.

Our recently set routine is 3 soles of surprises, 2 soles of bread, and 2.10 soles on quaker. Each day we venture further into the depths of the market in search of surprises, and now we know (very well) the sleeping beast within. Our surprises range from peanuts to apples, oranges, bananas, peaches, and plums. So we shake up a fruit parfait and chug quaker. Maybe it's because it's a Saturday, but all the vendors were lazy today. Usually we ask for 1 sole of apples and they fill up a bag, weigh it, and tie a cute little knot for us. Today, sin embargo, they just hand us bags and tell us to do it ourselves. A day of rest? Who knows.

Since we have 2 conflicting appointments again, we plan on splitting up. There is a Cáritas Fair in San Juan Bautista and an architecture/urban planning class with UNICA. We all ride to the Cáritas office and split up from there. Adam hops in a cab with a Cáritas chica, and the girls set off to find class.

The first UNICA we stop at isn't the UNICA we're looking for. It's just one branch of many. There is, in fact, a Pisco UNICA and a city of ICA UNICA, and a Pan-American UNICA. I suspect there are more, but the one we are looking for is a good 3 kilometers outside the city. I thought it was going to be a day of rest. When we arrive, we come encounter a 50 student classroom of fourth years who are studying a variety of topics (architecture, urban planning, civil engineering). Only 5 or 6 are female. Everyone explains that most girls at UNICA are more interested in Human Rights or Communication. Everyone wants to know what it's like to take courses in the United States. Curious is a nice word for - acting like high school monkeys who know how to make paper airplanes and are are happily swinging about in the jungle.

Profesora Rosario is thirty minutes late for her class. When she enters, everyone settles down but the rowdiness is bubbling right underneath the surface. She discusses how a city is like a living organism, what proportions of what kinds of buildings make up urban centers, and the upcoming project. Today we are going to visit La Tierra Prometida to do encuestas and to see for ourselves what kind of conditions the people are living in. What does the air feel like there? How do the people live? What kind of soil? Before this, she asks Lauren to stand in front of the class to introduce herself. Afterwards, she asks three volunteers to tell us about Ica and how the city relates to their studies. Her sole goal is to embarrass as many people as possible in front of a large group. One says that engineering work is important since they are located on a fault line near a beach where the soil is not very anti-seismic. Check. Or at least that's as much as I understood. Another talks about how there is a lack of soil studies done before constructing which then leads to unsuccessful buildings. Check.

Then we head out. We watch the students do encuestas under a scorching sun from the shade.

Upon our return to Ica proper, Lorena chows down on two ice creams. Then we share a soup. Then a rice dish with chicken adobo. More water. Oh so much water.
Back home, we all do laundry together. In the same bathroom. One at the sink, one in the shower, one hovering over the shower. All squished into a bathroom (so tiny!) laundry doing party. The floor was wetter than our clothes, and I'm not entirely sure how clean everything can really be, but it's better than it was before. We think. Except the shirt that fell in the toilet. Oops.

Tonight's din din is on Proética since we are going to be waking up at the crack of dawn for them tomorrow morning. In addition, we are attending an orientation meeting at 8:00 to learn the survey before we enseñar our mirror group mañana in Pueblo Nuevo. Proética is a pro-transparency NGO. Our branch focuses on government corruption. Our surveys ask how many are in the family, how bad the destruction was after the earthquake, whether the house has a “certificado damnificado;” and which reconstruction program (6.000 soles or mivivienda) they were eligible for. The kicker is that almost al the homes in my sample were deemed eligible but have yet to receive their bonuses. Lauren walks in an hour late to the meeting, elbow deep in a bag of 5 soles worth of animal crackers. That translates to something around a kilo’s worth. Ai mamí!

The volunteers hail from UNICA and study civil engineering, communications, or law. In order to collect them up, Leonardo had to go to several universities to give a short talk about his work and ask in person for volunteers. What we see today is only half of those that agreed to help. Apparently participation is a tough deal in Perú. All the NGOs we’ve worked with have had issues with attendance so it’s no surprise. After many clarifications, we all leave the meeting to hang out and eat pizza in the plaza. And guess what?? The pizza’s from Lindsey’s favorite ice cream place! So she has two cones-worth. She might have had three if it weren’t for other limiting factors. Her dessert stomach is NOT a limiting factor (as she explains, there are two stomachs. One for food. One for sweets. Guess which one is never full?).

Oh yeah, like always, we sleep at the end of the night.