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.

Flood Damage in Cusco

On Tuesday 2nd February we met Nelly Munoz to travel to her district to see the damage caused by the river breaking its bank on Sunday 24th January.

We walked down the first street which was still damp and sodden with mud. A few people were attempting to remove parts of the homes that had fallen down and picking through the remains of the houses. We asked to take photos and explained that this was necessary in order to raise awareness with our friends and contacts in the UK and around the world. At first the people were reluctant, unsure whether we were genuinely there to help. Nelly explained that tragically there had been few opportunist individuals that had looted what was left of the people's possessions in the neighbourhood.

We then walked down another street where the effects of the flooding were quite apparent. The walls around the buildings showed watermarks up to two feet and there was evidence of the walls cracking due to damp conditions. A woman came to greet us, Victoria, who was kind enough to show us how the flood had affected her home. Her modest home was completely damp and uninhabitable. The floors were covered in mud and the walls again showed evidence of cracking. Victoria told us that she and her husband and their 3 children were living in a nearby school which was currently under construction.

Before visiting the school we stopped by Nelly's own house, again, we could see how the flood had affected the walls and structure of the building. There was concern that the structural integrity of the buildings affected by the flooding had been compromised and that further homes may be at risk of collapse. We then moved on to the school to see where the people who had been displaced were living. The entrance to the school was via a plank of wood placed over a small stream of filthy water. We walked into the main school yard where workmen were working on completing the schools construction. Victoria had decided to accompany us and she introduced us to her children and the children of her neighbours.

Victoria then took us to her temporary accommodation. A classroom which could accommodate around 25 children which was currently occupied by 5 families. Victoria and her neighbours had saved a few possessions and there was a small camping size stove for cooking. We were also taken around a few further classrooms where other families were living. Although we could not identify precise numbers we could see that most of the classrooms were occupied. Sanitation appear scant. We could not see any showers or places set up for bathing and washing, in fact we could only see two portaloos, clearly insufficient for the number of families and small children occupying the space. Nelly then explained to us that the families would only be able to stay until March as the school would be opening. We asked what would happen then but no-one seemed to know.

The Peruvian government and regional government have promised aid to the people affected by the flooding however our visit took place over a week after the flood and we could not see any aid that had been providing. Noone save a few of the residents were attempting to clean up the area and no tents, blankets or places to get fresh water could be seen. If aid has been promised it appears that it has not reached this area, one of the poorer areas of the city of Cusco.

MySmallHelp want to support the people of Cusco as well as that of the Sacred valley. Not only is money needed for providing immediate aid in the form of sanitation, fresh water and cooking equipment but also in the longer term money is needed to help rebuild the homes and strengthen the structures those that have been affected in order to offer the people like Victoria, a safe and clean space in which to raise their family.

Please help in any way you can...

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.

Putting money to work

Thanks to a stirling effort by Bullfrogs nightclub in Cusco, a few thousand soles were raised from one of their nights to put towards the efforts of Asociacion Casa Hogar del Sol , a project founded and run by Carlos Gibaja Tapia. Priorities for Carlos were to create a covered communal space for the homeless members of the Sacred Valley communities to be able to cook and eat, providing an end-point for the food lines that he had already been set up. Solutions for housing would be shortly to follow, replacing the crowded Ministry of Defense tents that had been distributed in limited amounts around the affected communities. Thanks to connections with Leander, founder of the UK charity MySmallHelp that was acting with Carlos to receive donations from overseas, our presence was requested to assist with the building of a comedor, or cantina.

We met Carlos early on Saturday morning and shot down into the Valley in a hired truck to pick up some wood to build the frame of the design that he had been drawing up over the previous couple of days. A straightforward timber frame affair with tarpaulin sheet walls and a corrugated plastic roof, it wasn't going to win any design awards, but it was relatively cheap, quick to put up and apparently very durable. A similar design had been installed in a community a few years back and was still standing to date.

We arrived in the community and got to work straight away, the community members levelling out an empty patch of ground with picks and shovels, shoring up the downhill side of the plot with stones. Throughout the day I was very impressed with the skill that the locals showed in everything they did, shaving paper thin layers off wooden beams with unwieldy picks and knocking 7" nails into wood with a couple of blows after I'd bent a handful trying to do the same job, cursing for all I was worth.

Lou, Carlos, the locals and I worked together for about 3 hours until a couple of trucks rolled up stuffed with volunteers from Bullfrogs, Hostal Pariwana and a Cusco-based social project that Lou worked for, Aldea Yanapay. Despite the enthusiasm of the volunteers, there were more hands than tools and tasks and progress actually slowed for a while as people charged around the crowded plot trying desperately to find ways to assist.

Eventually a debris clearing operation was found a little further down the valley and half the mob left in the trucks to pull building materials out of flattened houses. The pace of work picked up again, and soon the comedor was taking shape, as Lou and I committed our efforts to make a table for the comedor. After our cheerful construction of a frame that could only be described as 'functional', idle locals descended upon our efforts to finish the job, resulting in a pretty decent looking piece of furniture.

We finished the comedor in about 8 hours of solid work, and as night fell the last nail was hammered into place. The structure was christened with a meal from the food which had the result of donations from two lovely Americans, George and Kathy (founders of www.desanagiving.org) simple but wholesome fodder of noodles, potatoes and meat. Beer bottles arrived to toast the efforts of the construction crew, and by the light of the single bulb suspended from the rafters of the roof, Carlos thanked all present for their efforts and instructed them to make the most of their new facility.

It was a fascinating experience in which to be involved, and very interesting to see the interaction of volunteers with the work effort of the locals; there's a great deal to be said for striking the balance between helping aid recipients to build their own facility, but giving them the lead in taking ownership of the resource that should be theirs for years to come.