Back to Paucarbamba

George, Cathy, Amanda, Alex, Carlos and I, along with some Peruvian friends, took along the regular food delivery to the community of Paucarbamba today. We are currently providing food for this community which is delivered 3 times per week.

As ever the community were pleased to see us and as we drove up lots of people were working on salvaging items from their houses to assist with the rebuild.

The comedor we provided is being used and it made me chuckle to see the meal times pinned to the front wall.

We then spent lots of time speaking with the people of the community to try and understand what they need to get themselves back on their feet and to make themselves self sufficient on the coming months, easing their dependence on the food line.

We have lots of things to think about and organisations to approach. Watch this space! George, Cathy, Amanda, Alex, Carlos and I, along with some Peruvian friends, took along the regular food delivery to the community of Paucarbamba today. We are currently providing food for this community which is delivered 3 times per week. As ever the community were pleased to see us and as we drove up lots of people were working on salvaging items from their houses to assist with the rebuild. The comedor we provided is being used and it made me chuckle to see the meal times pinned to the front wall. (insert photo) We then spent lots of time speaking with the people of the community to try and understand what they need to get themselves back on their feet and to make themselves self sufficient on the coming months, easing their dependence on the food line. (insert photo) We have lots of things to think about and organisations to approach. Watch this space!">

Update from the Sacred Valley

George, Cathy, Carlos and I headed back into the Sacred Valley and to the community of Paucarbamba about 2 hours by car from Cusco. On route we stopped at San Pedro market to buy meat and bread for the damnificados (those affected by the flooding) and to buy more wood to construct tables and benches.

When we arrived we dropped food at a community in lower Paucarbamba and Carolos showed us the proposed site for a second comedor to benefit this community. As ever the women were busy cooking lunch in a lean-to and children were playing outside.

After this we drove up to the higher community of Paucarbama where we were all delighted to see the comedor (that we had built on Saturday) was being put to excellent use. The gas hob had been moved in and the women were busy peeling hundreds of potatoes to be used for lunch. It was obvious that more tables and seats were needed- lucky Carlos had instructed us to buy more wood!

It was obvious that the Peruvians were far more skilled at woodwork than us, so we decided to head back to Huayronkoyocoyocpampa to see if we could offer our strength for the salvage work.

Here we came across a family, desperately digging out their home. The women were using pick axes to free up the wood beams that could be salvageable, and Cathy, George and I quickly formed a chain to move the wood to safety where it could be stored before it is needed.

The family had lost everything. They had spent years constructing a 2 story house, from money that Roberto had made working on construction sites in the nearby town. However, as with most of the houses here, it was made from adobe bricks which were unable to stand the quantity and force of the water.

The family are living in the local school and have no idea of where they are going to rebuild and how they are going to find the money. Luckily their small piece of land where they grow maize for domestic consumption and to sell was unaffected, so they should be able to generate a little bit of cash from this, but obviously not enough to rebuild.

Meetings in Cusco

Monday was spent getting organised after the weekend and having meetings.

We met with Carlos, our Peruvian contact and with George and Cathy of Desana Inc. George and Cathy founded and run a charity which supports projects in Peru and Russia. When they heard about the floods they flew straight down from the USA to help and brought with them dollars to buy food and wood for the community of Paucarbamba.

Our meeting was to discuss whether it would be better to pool their resources and ours to ensure that we are benefiting communities in the right way and the decision was made that yes, we should. We also agreed that our purpose is get the community of Paucarbamba to be self sufficient again and therefore research needs to be undertaken over the next few weeks to find the best way of doing this.