Un techo para mi pais

So Im gonna talk about my little volunteer trip i had... it was grand.

There was a pretty devastating earthquake that struck Peru last year in August, where thousands upon thousands lost their homes to the quake, so almost immediately some youths decided to do somethin about and started the program un techo para mi pais (a roof for my country). They get volunteers to rebuild houses for all the families that lost them, and now its rollin pretty well.

So i decided to do it, since i am a pretty big fan of Habitat for Humanity. I went over to the Techo building, which is actually just a house and seems more like a hang out spot than a formal office. i signed up and i get teleported by some random invention they made and its friday... night.

They got a huge turn out for this trip, over 300 volunteers, all between the ages of 18-30.. their goal is 75 houses in one weekend.. yeah i dont know how either... we all met up at a stadium at night... the planned departure was probably around 9 pm.. but being in peru, where everything is formally an hour late, we didnt leave the place until 11:30... and the city (Chincha) is over 3 hours away.. WOOHOO

on the bus, sittin next to Elaina (stephanie, samantha, aaron, jamie, and john all came too from my program) she could pleasantly sleep while i couldnt.. which would turn out to be the rest of the trip It was a rough ride, squished and miserably wanting sleep..

We arrive at our school where we are going to spend the nights, and its like 2 am.. im ready to pass out.. but what do the leaders do??!? They have an icebreaker activity to get to know names!! Why sleep, they ask me, why sleep!?

so of course us (gringos) being not so chipper, we complain and give mean faces as everyone is somehow ready to build houses in that moment... next its 3 am and someone is brave enough to ask what time well be gettin up cuz ya kno we need like 7 hours sleep for this work right?!!?

We'll be waking you up at ooo 6:30

What.... did you just say, jefe? not even 3 hours of sleep for the first night.. and its really nice being in room that makes my nose act like a dam for air and 30 people sleepin around you on a floor

so im thinkin everyone is gonna be miserable.. but who gives us a chipper howdy in the mornin? the directors ... Do they even need sleep?

for breakfast some tasty stale bread and juice.. alright go build! im with 3 people to make a house.. they house is 6 meters by 3 meters.. so almost the size of an average room in an american house.. made out of wood.. we have two days to build.. my jefe for the group is gustavo, and theres an exchange student from france named cristelle and a highschooler named tamia... we are the dream team

the first thing we gotta do is level the land... thats nice... we start levelin with a shovel and other inventions that dont use electricity until we get to a part... hmm it seems kinda rough we think.. so we bash it a little to see that its just a big ROCK... so lets level rock with some simple tools... i got my pick and was wailing on it... for 2 hours..

the rock.. NEVER.. ended... so we failed and had to raise the land a little.. a good compromise since its the first day, hot, and im miserable.. so go take a good swig of water and what did i buy!?! CARBONATED WATER... you see, regular water and carbonated water are popular in Peru, and you have to read it before really knowing.. and i just took one... so i drank it, almost gagged, and i never truly quenched my thirst that day..

we work until late.. we probably worked 8 or 9 hours thatday and just finished gettin the floor in. everyone is smelly and dirty and we go back to the school, where there isnt a clean bathroom and definitely no showers.. we are goin dirty the whole weekend.

the cool thing thatr kept my spirits up was meetin a group from Loyola university in LA. i was chillin with some guys form there and had a good time until we had to pass out.. one guy was actually on the show NEXT on MTV.. how.. weird..

so was pass out at 3:30 am i guess, i dunno.. and i was like good lets get some sleep, i dont care that my nose is completely stopped up... im passin out... but Halleluja a director bursts into our room at 6 or 7 and tells us Buenas dias

im glad i didnt have a shoe in my hand... but i looked up and the guy was wearing a clown suit... i looked deep into his eyes... i saw that he was literally insane.

so i got some more stale bread in me and we hit the road.. gotta finish the house
the house is made of wood with a tin roof, pretty simple really with two windows and a door (i want to make a house without a door)

we were cruisin and i got to know my group pretty well and we were jokin the whole tim.. for lunch the family prepares us meals and we sat down and watched a dvd on 70s and 80s american music.. HELL YEA! got some Blondie, Grease, Jackson 5, and disco.. cant beat that.

so we finished the house at like 5.. it looked nice we tried not to mess up any but its hard with our inexperience. everything looked good, we hugged the lady of the house and took a break. and i was like yes lets hit the road i gotta get home sleep and do work.. but NONE of the hosues were finished... so even though i was hallucinating i was so tired i had to go work more.. cheers, we got done with the houses at around 10 or 11 pm, and i had school the next day... i woudlnt get home until 2 or 3ish... i havent recovered yet.

in the bus ride, i was talking to elmer fudd at a coffee shop. it was cozy, occasionally wed be interupted by scary 18 wheelers being 5 inches away from our bus and passing us. Elmer told me somethin about some rascaly rabbit that always messin with him.. i was like , yo fudd, take it easy, let the rabbit be.. there are other rabbits out there to eat.. we talked some politics, and he had to go to mrs fudd, who was piggy from the muppet show.. i thought she had a thing for mickey mouse. i didnt ask..