Stucco, Staff Day, and Bamboo Fun

Posted on October 13, 2019 by Lark

I know what you’re thinking. “Lara, it’s only been a week and you’re writing again? What, is the world ending?” I know, I haven’t been very consistent with this, but my original intention was to actually write weekly, so don’t be too surprised! And part of the reason I’m making such an effort is that I know there’s no chance I’ll be writing at the end of this week. We have two teams coming in back-to-back… aka as one team leaves Saturday night, the next team will be arriving which means we get no break at all for the next two weeks. Don’t get me wrong – it will be great. It’s always great to have teams here. But it also means that personal time is essentially nonexistent, and every workday is totally draining because I’m interacting with people all day and running around trying to make sure things run smoothly. So here I am, catching you up again before you can expect two weeks without a peep from me.

First, here are some pictures of the construction. I don’t have much to say because it’s all mostly superficial work now… so enjoy these pictures of things starting to look pretty!

Second floor with some of the posts removed. I like how you can see the bricks and the formwork from below even though they’re all hidden from above now.

Second floor from inside. Looking good! The right side of the picture will be two classrooms, and the corridor is to the left.

Third floor with the half-wall completed. Now all that’s missing here is the bamboo roof! But this is going to remain a huge open space which will be awesome!

I like this contrast… un-stuccoed wall to the left, pretty finished wall to the right.

The side of the building before stuccoing…

… and after! It was funny to watch like 8 guys working on one wall at the same time. They did that so they could get the stuccoing finished in one go, rather than having to do it in stages. It turns out better that way!

It’s so satisfying to look at the finished walls! And that crisp line above the windows is beautiful. When it’s painted, the first level will be orange (ick, but that’s the EA color scheme) and the upper floors will be off-white.

Electrical tubing going in! These will be hidden behind a layer of drywall.

The building in context. Our existing classroom building is the one running along the right side of the picture, and the new building is in the back.

We had a funky schedule last week. Most of the kids were off of school on Monday. Brace yourself as I attempt to explain why (parents would lose their minds if this happened in the States). The school decided to have a mandatory event on Sunday, and then they cancelled school on Monday to make up for it. We found out about this about 2 weeks ago which, given how far in advance we usually know about these things, is pretty darn good. This is something I’ll never understand, though. How can you just change the schedule on a whim like that? And expect everyone to come on a Sunday instead?? This kind of thing is nothing new, though. There are approximately a thousand holidays and festivals in Peru, and every time one comes along, it seems like there’s literally no one who knows whether the kids will have school. And then we find out the day before. To me, it seems like SOMEONE had to know if there was going to be school, right? (If not, we have bigger problems than I thought.) So why is that person keeping secrets? Just tell everyone so we can all share in the joy of knowledge!

I may not understand how they can operate like that, but I have gotten to the point where I expect it and am not fazed by it. I mean, lucky for me, the kids’ schedules don’t affect mine very much. School or not, it’s all kind of the same to me. But if I was a teacher, I don’t know if I could handle it.

This boat appeared in the middle of our street a couple of weeks ago. They were out painting it last weekend when we went to get cheesy bread, and in the time that it took us to walk there, eat our cheesy bread, and walk back, they had painted the entire boat. Ha! Today, it was gone again, I suppose back to the ocean.

Anyway, Monday was a “holiday” for the kids, but we all worked anyway. Then, Tuesday was an actual national holiday. All of the schools were closed, and none of our programs were operating. We still “worked”, but it was a Staff Day which is usually a training and team building day for the national and missionary staff. This time, they did something a little different and it was more of a rest and reflection day. Jim broke down the Lord’s Prayer, and we had time to ourselves to sit and pray over/reflect on each part. It was really nice. I felt like God used that time to help me work through some things I’ve been sitting on for a while. It was hard, but I felt so much better afterward and like I regained a sense of direction that I had lost a while ago without even realizing it.

On top of that, it was just nice to have time to spend with the rest of the staff without having to worry about the kids! We played an elimination-type game together before lunch, and it was hilarious watching how competitive everyone got. It was one of those games where someone calls out commands (a little like Simon Says), and some of the commands require you to get into groups of various numbers. When a command was called, everyone was grabbing people left and right to drag them into their group to get the right number. I was practically in tears from laughing so hard.

I had already been eliminated at this point…

The rest of the week was basically just spent getting ready for the team. I went over my notes and plans, made a shopping list, went over my notes and plans again, checked to see what materials we have in stock, went over my notes and plans again, spent time worrying that I was forgetting something… you know, a very efficient use of my time. I think I have it all under control, I really do. But I won’t lose that feeling until the teams are gone and I know for a fact that I had everything planned to a T.

Friday had a “fun” surprise… Remember how Milton and I supervised the digging of a pool to chemically treat the bamboo for the new building’s roof? Well, they put some pieces in to soak on Monday, and Debbie asked me to give Milton a hand taking them out. “Okay,” I thought. “No problem. That’ll be easy.” HA! Joke’s on me. First of all, these bamboo pieces are 10-15cm in diameter and 6 or 7 meters long (sorry for the metric but that’s now the world in which I operate). Second of all, you know those lines you see on bamboo stalks? Those are the knots, and there’s basically a disk of bamboo there (so you couldn’t see straight through a stalk, for example). One of the dads worked to hammer a piece of rebar through all of the knots so that the chemicals could run all the way through the inside of the stalks… which meant that they were all filled with water. Which meant they were even heavier than before. And third of all, because there’s just a hole in the middle of each knot, the only way to get all of the water out is to stand them up nearly vertically.

Milton and I eventually got somewhat of a system down, but it was dependent on one person holding one end of the bamboo down against the ground (when all it wanted to do was seesaw up) while the other person walked their end up until it was completely vertical. The harder part was lowering it. There was one time with a particularly heavy piece of bamboo where I couldn’t keep the ground end down, and I basically nearly crushed Milton because as my end went up, the other one went down, and he was caught in the middle. At one point, we were holding a piece upright, waiting for it to drain, and he says totally seriously, “We’re going to die.” I burst out laughing but then also agreed with him… It did feel a bit terrifying every time. Thankfully, Debbie came to help with the last half, and with three people, the whole thing was significantly less precarious.

Milton and Eddy, two of the national staff, working in the bamboo treatment pool. Looks fun, right?

Milton and me holding up a bamboo flagpole. I feel like Milton looks a little tense in this picture, and I promise my smile is fake.

We now have 19 treated pieces of bamboo… out of 180. So, what I’m saying is, we’re nearly there! Ha. Haha. But, I do think there are plans in the works to build a structure to prop up the bamboo so that every bamboo-draining day isn’t the most terrifying day of everyone’s lives.

In conclusion, never bank on the accuracy of a Peruvian school calendar, chemically treating your own bamboo is neither as easy nor as fun as it sounds, and wish me luck for the next two weeks. See you on the other side!

Zoo-ming Through September

Posted on October 5, 2019 by Lark

Can you believe September is over??!! I can’t, and I also can’t say that I’m very happy about it. It was a great month! Everything was normal – no crazy modifications to the schedule or extra things to worry about. The rest of the year isn’t going to be quite as calm. I know that the next few months will fly by even more quickly than September, and I’m trying to keep myself from stressing out about it! We have two team weeks in October, scheduled for consecutive weeks. November will be filled with the chaos of trying to pull together the finishing touches on the building and freaking out that I’m going to run out of time to do everything on my list. And I’m only going to be here for about a week and a half of December, so it barely counts at all. Ahh!

I could drag you with me down the black hole of swirling thoughts that keep my stress level at a steady higher-than-it-needs-to-be, but instead, I’ll spare you and talk about the last few weeks since I haven’t been doing very well with my “weekly” posts (a consistent theme, it seems).

The building. My gosh, the building. We have all three floors in place, and they’re starting to work on the finishes! EEK! There’s still definitely a lot to do, but the general shape of the building is there, and it’s huge. This is the only building on the property that has a 3^rd story, and it’s so cool how much more of the neighborhood we can see from up there! It’s probably not cool for our neighbors because now we can see over their walls, but oh, well. Our one neighbor has a 2^nd-floor balcony facing our property, so it’s not like privacy was ever much of a thing around here.

This is about where we left off last time… plus a little formwork on the second floor.

Over the next few weeks, it’s going to start looking like a whole new building. Only the brick walls are up now, and they’ll begin working on the drywall soon which means that we’ll really be able to see what the spaces are going to look like. Currently, they look super nice and well-lit by daylight, but that’s because most of them only have two walls! On top of that, Debbie is working on finding people to build the doors and the windows, and the electrician is going to start coming more regularly to start the wiring. Oh!! And the roof! The roof is going to be supported by a bamboo structure, and we started the whole bamboo preparation process this week.

On Tuesday, I got to work early and helped Milton, the maintenance guy, get everything ready for the bamboo delivery. Debbie was at the bamboo store picking out the individual pieces of bamboo… 180 pieces of 6ish-inch diameter, 6 and 7-meter-long bamboo. Yes. 180 pieces. Together, Milton and I supervised the removal of the rubble pile on the construction site, followed by the digging of a “pool” to be used to soak the bamboo in anti-bug chemicals. Yum. Then, he and I created an area for the bamboo to be stored while it dries. When I called Debbie to tell her we were ready, she said that the delivery truck was already en route! Geez! Then we had to unload it all which, thank goodness, the construction guys helped with. Even with the help, it felt endless! So now, we have a LOT of bamboo. And it all needs to make its way to the 3^rd floor eventually.

The front-end loader clearing away the rubble pile. This is the same guy who cut practically every single pipe on the property when he came to dig the foundation holes, so we were supervising him extra carefully this time. The only problem? No one remembered that there was a wastewater pipe running straight through the space where we wanted to put the pool. So yeah, that got cut (whoops!) and subsequently fixed the next day after we realized it was something important rather than just random, buried pipe scraps (because that actually is a possibility here. There’s so much junk buried on the property that you really never know what you’re going to dig up).

Ready for the bamboo! The area on the left is to store the pieces, and the “pool” on the right is to soak them in chemicals to protect against bugs.

On the topic of transporting things to the third floor… have I told you about how they move bricks there from the ground? I don’t think I have. They throw them. Yes, they THROW them. Watching them get the ceiling bricks to the 3^rd floor was my favorite thing. One guy stood on the 10ish-foot-high pile of bricks… and I’m still not sure how it seemed like it never got any shorter because he was taking bricks from the pile he was standing on, but anyway… He threw them one by one to a guy standing on “scaffolding” (aka one board on a shaky metal frame) about halfway up the second floor who threw them up to a guy at the edge of the third floor who threw them to a guy in the middle of the third floor who put them in a stack. Three throws per brick. No pressure. I have a video, but Debbie told me not to post it because “it’s not really how they’re supposed to do things”. Maybe it’s not the safest in theory, but while watching them, I never felt like there was anything to worry about. I can show you the video another time.

THIS is the pile of ceiling bricks they had to throw up to the third floor. What. The. Heck.

Here are some pictures to catch you up on the progress!

Starting to build the formwork for the second-floor ceiling/third floor!!

The brick structural walls are going in as well, as you can see in the back. I’ll never get tired of seeing the building change so quickly!

Front view… they had to put up some protective netting to make sure nothing fell on any kids going to use the bathroom (which is below the netted area)

The formwork for half of the floor. They still need the second half (up to the brick wall in the back) and the area to the bottom left above the corridor.

They put in the half-wall railing along the 2nd-floor corridor! And that guy standing at the top is there to pour concrete into the column below him. It looks like he’s standing on basically nothing… and that’s fairly accurate. This is their version of scaffolding.

One of the walls on the first floor with pipes for a bathroom on the left and tubes for the internet on the right.

Same wall after the stucco job… it’s like there are a bunch of secrets hidden within this wall!

Putting the finishing touches on the third floor before the pour. The electrical guys are working on getting the million electrical tubes into place.

The finished slab! The two bricks sticking out of the middle are for drains. We actually weren’t there during the pour (stressful) because we were at our church’s women’s conference, but we were happy to see the finished product when we got home the next day!

Exposed brick walls outside of the second-floor classrooms.

This is how they get the concrete up to the third floor for the columns. Since the concrete mixer is on the ground, they mix it down there and then send it up to the top in 5-gallon buckets on a pulley system.

Three men working on three parapet walls.

Outside of work, the last few weekends have been super fun! Since “birthday weekend”, we’ve been doing our best to put things on the schedule for the weekends, no matter how simple. The first weekend after “birthday weekend”, we didn’t go anywhere crazy or do anything elaborate, but we did take some time on Saturday to play outside. Jocelyn and I started off playing 2-square (not the most exciting game… it ends up being a social time while simultaneously bouncing a ball between us), and eventually, Julie and Debbie joined and made it a full-on game of 4-square! Everyone gets a little competitive (though probably mostly me), so it was a lot of fun. It’s kind of ideal that there are 4 of us; it’s the perfect number for nearly every game. We should take advantage of that more often!

The following weekend was the women’s conference at our church. I didn’t know what to expect, and even if I did, I think my mind would have been blown. It’s quite the production. There were over 800 people there, and not just from Peru. There were big groups from Mexico and Argentina, plus people from Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile… craziness! The weekend was full of performances and different speakers and really amazing worship. It was fun to be a part of it. And the speakers were in English with translators, so I didn’t even have to focus super hard to understand what was going on. Julie, Debbie, Jocelyn, and I stayed overnight in Lima on Friday and Saturday, and besides having a great time at the conference, it was so nice to be outside of our property walls for a change!

I don’t know how to even begin describing this. We were driving through Chilca on a Tuesday night when we ran into this marching band blocking the street. They were getting ready for a “toro loco” (crazy bull)… aka this dude wearing a bull mounted on a metal frame and covered in FIREWORKS. They played a song while he danced around and fireworks went off. It was ridiculous. And also kind of terrifying. You couldn’t pay me enough to wear that thing! And when it was over, the band dispersed, like that was the only reason they all gathered together. It took maybe 3 minutes total, and it was three of the strangest minutes of my life.

The staff before heading off to the women’s conference!

A picture from one of the worship sessions during the women’s conference. So many people!!!

Last weekend was actually Jocelyn’s birthday weekend (unlike the fabricated Julie-and-Lara birthday weekend), and we went to the zoo to celebrate! It’s interesting to visit zoos in different parts of the world because while the major animals are the same, there’s a ton of diversity in the other animals depending on where you are. This zoo had so many varieties of birds and monkeys because they’re all native to South America, and some of them were things I’d never seen before. The highlight of the day, though, was in the “international” section of the zoo… they had three 1-month-old baby tigers!!! EEE!! They. Were. So. Cute. I could have watched them all day. There was a huge crowd around because the obsession with baby animals is universal. I mean, how could you not love them?

BABY TIGERS!!!! Definitely the highlight.

The zoo crew! Me, Jocelyn, Vanessa, and Julie

I kept staring at these zebras, confused because I didn’t think I’d ever seen anything like them before but almost certain that it wasn’t my first time seeing a zebra. Turns out, there are three varieties of zebras. These are Grevy’s zebras which are less common than the other varieties. They also have much tighter stripes…

…as you can see. These are the more common Plains zebras which are probably the ones I’m used to seeing. What strange animals.

In case you’re curious about what you’ll get if you order a hot dog at a Peruvian zoo… They put those crunchy fries on top, and the “ketchup” is NOT normal ketchup. It’s weirdly pink and doesn’t taste especially good.

Anyway, as you can see, we’ve been busy, if only because we’re making up ways to keep things interesting. But the building project is definitely heating up, I’m starting to accept the reality that we have two team weeks coming up, and we’re all bracing for a truly busy October. Let’s see how long it takes for me to write again! (Ha!)

“Birthday” Weekend and Another Floor!

Posted on September 10, 2019 by Lark

It’s been a fun couple of weeks! Ever since I got back from the States, I’ve been feeling so much more at ease and like I have some sort of control over what happens each day. I’m working on not needing to be totally in control in order to feel okay, but it is nice to at least feel like I have my feet on the ground instead of being sent this way and that by whatever wind happens to blow at the moment. I’ve pieced together a routine for the mornings and evenings during the week, and since our schedule is much more regular when teams aren’t here, I’ve actually been able to stick to it.

We’ve also been trying to be more productive with our weekends, getting out and doing things instead of rotting away in our apartment, and that’s been helping too. When all you do is work and rot, life passes by incredibly quickly. And it gets old and boring. I’m neither old nor boring, so why should I let my life be?

Mountains and moon — Super clear night! Check out those mountains in the background and the moon up above!

Anyway, I’m letting myself get sidetracked before I even begin! Work has been 1 part fun and 1 part tedious. The fun part is the construction! Two weeks ago, they finished laying out the bricks and the conduit (for the electrical wiring) and everything for the first ceiling on Module 2. I had to check the box locations and how they ran the tubes to make sure it all matched up with my plans, and that Saturday, they poured the concrete! This isn’t the first pour they’ve done, of course, but I had the best view of this one. I went up on the third floor of Module 1 and watched from above. The pump truck came in and set up, then the concrete trucks came, and I got to see the whole pouring procedure from start to finish. It was awesome! And since I was technically on the site, I had to wear a hard hat the whole time which made me feel like a big deal even though I was literally doing nothing but taking pictures and trying to stay out of the way.

Here are some pictures so that you can experience the fun! Also, the thought has just crossed my mind that you might not find this nearly as interesting or exciting as I do, but try to imagine that you helped to design a building, have a strong case of imposter syndrome (aka I don’t feel like I’m completely qualified for the role that I’m playing) (though don’t let that worry you because I truly am confident in my design), and despite that, people are listening to you and actually doing what your drawings say… and the building is going up before your eyes. Welcome to my life and the reasons behind my super excitement!

More bricks for the ceiling — Adding the bricks in for the future floor/ceiling. This is Module 2 (I’m standing on Module 1, on the third floor, to take this picture). The area on the left side is going to be the corridor. The completed two sections of brick are a classroom.

Putting in PVC pipe for the future wiring — Working on adding in the conduit for the 1st floor lighting/fire alarm/ceiling fans and 2nd floor outlets

Lots of PVC pipes — So much conduit! This is where everything needs to go to make it back to the panel, so we have a lot of tubes coming together here.

Two of the construction guys — I was creeping around taking pictures, and the guy on the right yelled for me to take a picture of them 🙂

PVC pipes for formwork clamps — Looking down into the biggest beam in our building. See those PVC pipes inside? The wood is clamped together with the help of steel bars running through those pipes, making sure that it won’t move during the pour and the beam will come out exactly as it should. Thanks to the pipes, the clamps can be removed after the concrete is in place.

Module 2 completely ready for the concrete pour — Okay, time to pour!

Pump truck unfurling its arm — This was so much fun to watch. This is the pump truck for the concrete. It has this super long arm so that it can reach every point on the floor.

Pump truck with its crazy arm — Look at it stretching across the building!

The concrete pour — This is how the pouring process goes… The guy at the bottom in the white is controlling the pump truck’s arm. The guy in the green shirt is guiding the tube to make sure the concrete goes where he wants it. Then, the two guys behind him come through with vibrators to help the concrete settle and make sure there aren’t any air pockets. The guy in the orange uses a rake to even out the surface. Finally, the guy in the back in the grey comes through with a piece of wood and smooths it out. Whew!

Nearly halfway finished — Making some good progress

Working in the final section — Just a little more!

The finished pour — Finished! (well, except for the last corner but essentially finished)

Junction boxes and conduit cut into a brick stairwell wall — Future light locations in the stairwell! This is going to be a regular light and an emergency light

Concrete-mixing station — Column-pouring day! Here’s the concrete mixing station. You can see the piles of sand and gravel next to the mixer, plus the concrete and water are nearby. Can you see the shadow Lara nearby?

Guy on a ladder with a bucket of concrete — After the concrete was ready, they put it into 5-gallon buckets for this guy to carry up the world’s most rickety ladder. He handed it to the next guy who walked it over to the guy on the “scaffolding” who dumped it into the column

Using the vibrator to get any air pockets out of the column

Parapet wall on the 3rd floor — The 3rd floor in Module 1 is coming together too! It’s going to have a half-wall, so that’s what you see the beginnings of here.

Parapet wall with columns — Parapet making good progress!

The building from behind — So tall! And there’s not even a roof on it yet!

Two weekends ago was a big deal, not only because the concrete pour was on Saturday morning (working on a weekend is not the best, but that was cool enough that I could get over it), but also because Julie and I declared it Birthday Weekend and created a schedule of events for Friday – Sunday. For those of you who know when my birthday is, this may seem strange… because it’s in December. Same with Julie’s. BUT, ever since we realized that no one is going to be around during our actual birthdays, we’d been talking about having a joint half-birthday party. Well, that would have been in June, and June was a busy month. And so was July. But now, things have settled down a bit, and what better way to celebrate than with a 2/3 birthday party! (Interestingly enough, not my first 2/3 birthday party. I used to throw those every year in high school… but that’s a story for another time.)

Neighborhood mountains — We had a nice, clear day for once. Look at how pretty the mountains look!

We didn’t go TOO crazy with the event planning because no one is going to sign up for an all-consuming not-actually-your-birthday weekend. So, this is what we ended up with for the schedule of events:

Friday night – pancake dinner followed by a bonfire dance party (including s’mores because why else even bother with a fire? Certainly not because we just like smelling like smoke.)

Bonfire and s'mores! — Post pancakes, mid-dance party/s’mores-making

Saturday – concrete pour (not an official part of the birthday events, but part of the schedule nonetheless), hike to the green mountains near the neighborhood (same thing we did the weekend before, but it was such a nice break that we wanted a repeat), eat cheesy bread (the easiest way to make a good day into a great day), and watch the first half of North and South (a fantastic 4-part mini-series based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell)

Selfie in the green mountains — The hiking crew! Me, Debbie, Julie, Jocelyn, and Dina and her daughter Rachel

Funky cacti surrounded by green — Weird green desert

Me with the green mountains — Such a pretty view!!

Green mountain view — Seriously, how much better is this than brown mountains?

The girls with their backs facing the camera, looking out over the neighborhood — Debbie, Julie, and Jocelyn were all wearing different EA shirts

Sunday – church, birthday brownies, and the second half of North and South

Me lighting the second candle on our birthday brownies — Birthday brownies!

Me and Julie with our brownie "cake" — The “birthday” girls

The weekend was a great success! Debbie and Jocelyn even obliged our request for presents and gave us chocolate bars and mini-Oreos. And they sang to us and let us blow out candles even though we hardly earned it. It doesn’t get much better than that! Everyone who participated in any or all of the events said that we need to do it again sometime, so we’re currently in the process of assigning every remaining weekend to someone’s birthday celebration. It’ll probably be Julie and my turn again in November. Kidding! But it was fun having an agenda for the weekend, and I think we all realized that we need to keep planning things to look forward to, or else time will go by without a passing glance.

Playa Yaya — This past weekend was slightly less eventful, but we dragged ourselves out of the house to the beach! (The beach looks kind of nice in this picture, but don’t be fooled. It’s pretty gross, to be honest, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go swimming in the water.)

Back in the Groove and a Weekend Adventure

Posted on August 26, 2019September 5, 2019 by Lark

I’m back in Peru! I got in late last Monday night and spent Tuesday wrapping my head around the fact that they poured another floor while I was gone. That’s right, we have a 2-story building now! And even though there are no walls on the third floor, we can walk up there and see what the view is going to be like when it’s finished (the other buildings on the property are only two stories or less, so this is a new experience for us). Essentially, all the third floor means, view-wise, is that we will be able to creep on our neighbors exceptionally well. Like the ones next door who have a pool that we’re all very jealous of (though to be fair, we already knew about that thanks to the drone).

Mountains from the 3rd floor — 3rd story views

View of the new building from behind — As you can see, we have two stories on the left (Module 1) and one story on the right (Module 2). The existing bathroom building is in the middle (with the bricks piled on top).

Construction site — With our new view from the “3rd floor”, you can get great pictures of the rest of the property. Here’s the construction site, and at the top of the picture, you can see the septic gardens (top right) and the equipment/workshop building (top center).

Concrete mixing area — Here’s the area where they do the concrete mixing (bottom left). You can see the piles of different materials, and they usually have the mixing drum right in the middle. The long, bamboo-fenced area running along the top of the picture is where we store a lot of construction materials (for maintenance and stuff, not for the actual construction project). And you can kind of see the neighbors’ pool deck.

As I was saying, the construction has made big strides since I left. I was a little sad to miss out on some of the fun, but no need to get too upset about it because there’s still much to do. Now, they’re starting to work on the first-floor ceiling on the other side of the building (Module 2). I wasn’t super involved with the foundation phase up until they started the ceilings, but now they’re finally installing electrical-related things which means I have more to do! As they’re laying things out, I’m making sure that everything is in the proper location and that it’s going to work the way I designed it. It’s crazy getting to see it all come together!

Ceiling scaffolding — There’s nothing like a good scaffolding forest…

Looking through the roof supports at the existing building — Standing in the second floor hallway looking towards the new building… these buildings are going to be connected when we’re finished!

Module 2 in progress — Ceilings coming soon! The beginnings of the ceiling for the first floor on Module 2!

Boards covering half of the Module 2 classroom — Halfway there!

Module 2 from above — Adding in the steel for the beams

Junction boxes on Module 2 — You can see the little, white electrical boxes sitting on top of the wood. Those are for the lights, ceiling fans, and smoke detectors in this classroom.

Stack of bricks on the ceiling formwork — Nearly ready to start adding the bricks!

Looking up at the ceiling — This is what the ceiling scaffolding/formwork looks like underneath after the bricks are added. Between the bricks, above where the wood planks are, is the poured concrete.

I’ve also had fun getting to be somewhat hands-on in the construction process. For example, the electrician came last week to direct the construction crew on where he needs tubes for the electrical wiring, and first, he and I walked around and made sure that we were happy with the locations of the devices. I chalk-marked the walls in the stairwell showing where I want the lights, and he and I talked through some locations for the electrical boxes. This is way more than I would be involved with on a job in the States. There, the engineer essentially just shows the way they want the system to work and then leaves the details to the electrician. Here, I had to include much more installation-related information on my plans, and now, I’m getting to see it all through. How cool!

Me and the electrician on site — Me talking to the electrician and looking very official in my hard hat (though not wearing appropriate footwear).

One of the guys standing on a board spanning between a ladder and a water drum — Do you like this work platform? Very safe… Don’t worry, he’s not doing anything dangerous… just using a saw to cut the channels in the brick wall for the conduit

Box and conduits set into a wall — Nice and ready for some wires!

Mason putting stucco on the wall — Applying the stucco

Half of the wall with stucco, half still brick — Stucco job in progress

Mason smoothing out the stucco — The mason working on the stucco. I’m still not quite sure how he manages to get it from this lumpy mess to completely smooth. He’s using that piece of metal in his hands to level it out a bit, but that seems like a very long process

Besides the construction, things have been nice and chill since I got back… well, with the exception of actually getting back into the country. I had a little scare in the airport on the way in because I’ve already overstayed my welcome for the year. You can technically only stay for 90 days each year without additional paperwork. When the lady at immigration told me I had already exceeded my allowance, I was worried that they were going to put me right back on a plane home! But thank goodness they let me back in, only giving me a 30-day visa instead of a 90-day… which just means that I definitely can’t leave the country again this year until I’m sure that I’m ready to be gone for good, and when I do leave, I’m going to have to pay 60-days’ worth more for the exit fee (that’s the punishment for overstaying your visa, a fee that accumulates for each day beyond your allowed stay).

Aside from that whole mess, though, things have been good. I’m not feeling overwhelmed or overworked (yet). I’m happy to be back working on the project. It’s been a fun week of hanging out with the roommates and getting back into some good habits. I think my trip home came at just the right time, and now I’m back and feeling ready to have a strong finish to my time here.

I want to make the most of the time I have left, so I’m trying to be more proactive about doing things on the weekends. On Saturday, Julie, Jocelyn, and I went on an adventure walk (aka a hike, but Julie thinks that doesn’t sound fun enough). The mountains near where we live are usually nice and brown, adding some extra brownness to the rest of the brown of the desert landscape. Since it’s been such a humid and misty winter, some of the mountains have turned green! I don’t know how so many little plants managed to spawn in such dusty ground, but I’m not upset about it! From a distance, the mountains look like they’ve just gone a bit moldy.

Road cut out of a brown mountain — Spot the moldy mountains

A half-green, half-brown mountain — How weird is that line between green and brown??

We’re starved for green landscapes here, so we decided to take advantage of this favorable development and investigate. What does that entail exactly? Well, we had to cross over one row of brown mountains before getting to the green ones, so we looked for a path that didn’t seem too exhausting. We walked from our property through our neighborhood and the next one until we got to the foot of a low point between two peaks. I thought maybe that would mean it was easy to cross over. No. I was wrong (rare occurrence, but happens every so often).

It wasn’t “easy”, but we made it over after nearly 30 minutes of walking up a mountain slope that might as well have been vertical. Seriously, it had to be at least a 75-degree incline. And then we had to walk around the mountain on a skinny, slanted path, only one foot-slip away from a tumble all the way down the steep mountainside. The verdict? Not the best route we could have taken, but live and learn!

Climbing up the mountain — Julie and Jocelyn having so much fun…

The neighborhood from the top of the hill — The neighborhood!

Selfie at the top — We made it!… to the top of the “gap” between mountain peaks

Jocelyn walking on the little path — The long, winding path around the mountain

Selfie in the wilderness — Our discussion topic at this point: “When I imagine the wilderness, it looks something like this.”

After that, though, it was heavenly! We learned that the moldy green is mostly wildflowers! There was practically a line separating the brown from the green, and after we crossed over, it didn’t matter how steep the path. We were too busy raving about the smell of plants in the air and the fact that there were actual flowers (no irrigation system required!) and marveling at how much happier we felt being surrounded by green life instead of brown dust. It was magical.

Pretty green mountains — It’s like we’re not even in Chilca anymore! (spot the Jocelyn)

Green mountain selfie! — Just happy to be here, breathing in the fresh, plant-supplied air

Green mountains — It doesn’t even look real!! Such a vibrant green

Mountain color progression — Contrast… Green to less green to less green to BROWN

Cactus in a field of green — Despite the addition of these new plants, we’re still in the desert!

More green — Can we live here? I’m moving.

Line of identical little houses — We walked through this weird little neighborhood on our way home. This is what they usually do when they’re marking out plots to be sold. You get this wonderful patch of dirt and this completely customized hut with your purchase!

Little, purple flowers — Flowers!!! SO MANY FLOWERS!

More purple flowers — Can’t. Get. Enough.

On top of all of that, and I’m sure that I cannot possibly convey the extent of my excitement for this next part, we discovered a new neighborhood gem. One of my favorite things to eat here is cheesy bread… exactly what it sounds like. Cheese + bread = Lara dream meal (I’m very easy to please). Our usual cheesy bread supplier is at least a 15-minute drive away, and it’s been closed for the last couple months with no explanation. BUT we recently discovered that there’s another cheesy bread place just a 15-minute WALK from where we live. We walked there to check it out at the end of our hike, and they have now been quality approved by us. This is life-changing! (no exaggeration… it doesn’t take much) I’ve never meant it more when I say that the future is looking bright!

Cheesy bread!!! This one has ham in it too

Another Team Week… and a CEILING!

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Lark

Us with an American flag at the beach volleyball court

Whew! It’s been a while since we last talked, but for once, it’s not because I’m just super far behind on updating you. This time, the delay is because of a much-needed vacation! I’m actually in the States at the moment, and I have been for a couple of weeks now. I’m headed back to Peru soon, but it’s been a very refreshing time catching up with friends and family.

The last two weeks in Peru before I left were fun and busy. During the first week, we had another mission team visiting, this time from Kansas City, Missouri. Like I said in my last post, this was an extra exciting team week for me because the team included a couple of electricians!! I spent the two weeks before the team came trying to get everything ready for their service projects, and the electrical projects added some extra complexity into the usual planning. It was cool, though, knowing that I was going to get to watch everything come together. I guess it’s kind of the same with the building project, but that seems like a much more overwhelming situation whereas the team projects feel manageable.

Brown brown brown neighborhood — The neighboring neighborhood (hehe) where a bunch of our families live. You can see some of the team members climbing up the hill!

The demographics of this team were also a little different than what is typical. Often, there are a few team members in their teens, maybe one person in their 30s, and everyone else is 40s and up. This team had the whole range of ages represented, but there were more 30-somethings than the usual. It felt a bit like hanging out with my friends from home which was a lot of fun.

The team with our neighborhood in the background — The team!

The team's boat heading out to sea — Headed out on the boat ride! I haven’t been joining the teams for the boat ride recently because last time I went, the water was really rough and I mostly spent the ride with my eyes closed trying not to puke. Not my favorite feeling.

On top of all that, Betsi’s (a 3-week intern) mom came with the team, and Betsi filled her in on how much we like brownies (we’re basically in a constant state of desperate for anything that feels like home). She brought 5 BOXES of brownies with her. Talk about an MVP. They made three of them during the week and left two for us! I know that this probably doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but just trust me. There’s nothing better than having our weekly Sunday movie night with a warm brownie on the side.

Selfie with Dina and Betsi — Me with my friends Dina (she’s a translator at EA) and Betsi

In general, it was a great week. The brownies didn’t hurt. Also though, it was fun working with everyone, they got an amazing amount of work done, and the results of their hard work were super visible. For example, the property has felt very dark since the construction started because they took out some of the exterior lights, and there weren’t very many to begin with. The electricians installed a bunch of new lights outside, so the night after they put them up was the first in a long time where I was confident that I wasn’t going to unexpectedly walk into/trip over anything while walking around the property. Imagine that!

Electricians at work — The electricians installing some switches for the irrigation pumps we have underground

Disassembling the temporary roof on the bathroom — There’s been a “temporary” roof over the bathroom building for the last 5 years, but it needed to be removed because part of the new building is going on top!! The team helped to disassemble it. This new building is getting VERY real!

The bathroom without its roof — No more roof! And within an hour, the construction team was already storing materials up there… probably not the best idea structurally to have stacks of bricks on a roof not designed to hold them… but no one else seemed to think it was a problem sooo here we are.

Parade in Chilca for Peruvian Independence Day!

Colorful Barranco buildings — Lima sightseeing with the team!

Friends! — Jocelyn, me, Betsi, and Julie in Lima

I was the most excited about the lights along the sidewalk. They’re the first lights that I’ve picked out that I haven’t just felt neutral about. Usually, I’m picking things that are simply functional. These are functional, AND I think they look cool. They turned out exactly how I hoped, and the fact that we found lights that were actually what I was looking for is a miracle in itself.

Linear lighting underneath the walkway roof shade — The new walkway lights!! Aren’t they cool? (Feel free to keep your opinion to yourself if you don’t like them.)

Pump house with a new over-door light fixture — This is also the best thing… The front of this building used to be completely dark, so good luck trying to find the keyhole to unlock the door. But now there’s a light right above the door! And it’s also overgrown with the passion fruit vines, but that doesn’t matter for lighting the keyhole.

I’m going to totally overuse the word “exciting” in this post, but I’ve accepted it and you should too. Do you know what else was exciting? The construction! GUESS WHAT? We have our first ceiling!! It’s crazy because now I feel like I can really begin to imagine what the new building is going to look like. It’s the ceiling for the first floor on module 1, and that’s the side of the building that’s adjacent to the existing 2-story building. There’s a railing between them still, but you can climb over it and move from construction site to existing building. It’s awesome.

In the process of preparing to pour the floor/ceiling, they put in the electrical conduit (the tubes they’ll run the wires through) for the lights on the first floor and the outlets on the second floor. I had to dimension my drawings… talk about stressful! I had to make the exact final decisions about where things should go, and now there’s no changing my mind because it’s literally set in concrete.

Getting the ceiling ready for concrete — Almost ready to pour concrete! The big brick area is over/under classrooms. The corridor is the bricks to the left. The stairs are the bottom right where there is SO MUCH steel

Formwork in place for the stairs — Future stairs!

Electrical conduit zig-zagging the future ceiling/floor — This mess is all of my electrical conduits. Not quite the same way it would look in the States… Debbie and I went and checked to make sure that everything was in the right place before it was time to pour the concrete.

Ceiling with tubes in place — It looks like someone threw a handful of giant spaghetti at the roof and then decided to use that as a guide for the tube placement.

Pouring the ceiling!!!! We had two concrete trucks bring the material, and it was crazy how quickly it went compared to when they’re hand-mixing it

A dude with a board texturizing the top of the concrete — I was totally fascinated by the whole process. This guy came by after they made sure there were no air pockets in the pour and finished it off

Almost finished pouring the concrete — Just a little bit more…

Module 1 second floor! — The next day… voila! New floor!

Debbie using a hose to water the concrete floor — Debbie watering our new concrete floor to help it cure

Module 1 second floor with the beginnings of a wall and some columns — Wasting no time after putting in the floor… it took one second before they were working on the walls and columns for the second floor!

Two brick walls on the second floor — I love how quickly the walls go up

Finishing the second brick wall — Almost there!

Back view of Module 1 and the bathroom building — It’s starting to look like an actual building!

Since I left for vacation, they’ve been working on the ceiling on the second floor. Eek! It feels like they spent forever getting set up for the first ceiling, and I wasn’t prepared for Debbie to send me a picture of them already working on the next one. I feel like I’m missing too much! But I can’t be in two places at once, and this really has been a nice break. So, who even knows what it’ll look like when I get back? We’ll be surprised together.

Oh! I almost forgot. One more exciting thing! Every four years, in the year before the summer Olympics, the Pan-American Games are held. It’s like a mini-Olympics just for countries in the Americas. This year, Peru was the host country! Julie, Debbie, Jocelyn, and I bought tickets to watch beach volleyball. I don’t think any of us were expecting much, but it was a ton of fun. We cheered on a bunch of random countries until the last match where we got to see the U.S. women beat Paraguay in the quarterfinals (they ended up winning the gold). It was cool getting to see an international competition live. Now I feel like I need to go to an Olympics someday!

Us with a Lima 2019 sign... and the "9" is cut off — We asked someone to take our picture… and this is what happened. LIMA 201!! Hahaha

Selfie with the sign — We decided we’d better just do it ourselves

El Salvador vs. Guatemala men's match — There were two courts: the “A” court with the big games, and this one, the “B” court with the losers’ bracket games. We went here first and had fun being 4 of maybe 7 people in the stands. We picked whichever country to cheer for and then screamed our heads off.

Selfie at the main volleyball court — At the main court

USA vs. Paraguay beach volleyball game — We moved closer before the USA match, and we ended up with awesome seats!

We Have Floors!!!

Posted on July 31, 2019 by Lark

Rebar for the beams and the beginnings of the ceiling formwork

I feel like a broken record, but I’m going to say it anyway. Even after the team from Hudson left, the following two weeks were still chaotic. I’m sure you’re not surprised. More surprising would be if I actually said that a week was calm and relaxed. Ha! If there is such a thing as a calm week here, I have yet to experience it.

The Hudson team left on a Saturday night, and by Monday, we were already planning for the next team, coming just two weeks later. It seemed like an early start, considering we started planning for Hudson about three days before they came, but we had much more to figure out this time. This team was bringing electricians with them! We were all super excited about this, but probably no one more than I was. It’s nice to have people around who speak the same language (in this case, I’m referring to the language of electricity… hehe), especially because I’ve been trying to troubleshoot some problems, and it’s hard to do that without anyone to bounce ideas off of.

On top of that, we had a looong list of electrical projects for them to work on. It’s always exciting when people with very useful skills come, and we do our best to take advantage of their knowledge and abilities while they’re here. That meant that I had to do a lot of planning to make sure that they could work efficiently, like making diagrams showing what we wanted, figuring out how/where lights should be installed, and buying the equipment and supplies we needed to be prepared.

Besides the electrical stuff, we had a bunch of other mostly finished projects that needed to be completely finished sooner rather than later… so we were hoping that the team could get them done. Practically, I think that smaller teams are better because everyone can really get to know each other. When I’m puzzling over how we can possibly finish everything that we need to during a team week, I wish that every team had 40 people.

Sesame seed-covered cookie — Debbie and I were out shopping for supplies, and I smelled something amazing… usually the air smells like garbage, so this was an especially welcome change. I followed my nose to a little, hole-in-the-wall bakery, and Debbie asked what smelled so good. I had my doubts when the woman pointed to this cookie, but it was SO GOOD. Moral of the story: trust your nose.

Aside from the planning work, there was some extra excitement as well (I know, there’s always something extra). A few of the Hudson team members stayed for one more week to do a medical clinic, plus we had a short-term intern, Betsi, who arrived the night the team left and stayed for three weeks.

Debbie "proving a point" — It was Betsi’s birthday, so we went to buy her a cake! This is Debbie proving to me that she doesn’t need a new organization system in her purse because her car keys are “right here!” She has things from her purse under both arms and her chin while also balancing the cake box. (If you’re wondering why I’m not helping, I was already holding her water bottle and mine, some snacks we bought from the bakery, and our notebooks.)

Betsi with her birthday cake — Happy Birthday Betsi! It’s a Peruvian tradition to crack an egg on the head of the (un)lucky birthday person, but Betsi made it clear that she wouldn’t be happy. I’m with her.

The medical clinic was great! It’s run by a husband and wife, a doctor and nurse duo, plus their daughter, who have been doing this for the last few years. At this point, they have ongoing relationships with some of the patients which is pretty cool. Often, when medical groups come in, they focus on the kids in the program, but this one is primarily for the parents, staff, and people connected to them. It’s a big blessing for the people in our community to be able to visit a doctor who really knows what he’s talking about! I could tell you dozens of stories about doctor-related headaches here. It’s hard to find a doctor you can trust, and sometimes, it’s hard to find a doctor at all! Once, one of the kids had a medical problem, and the staff had to take her here, there, and everywhere to find someone who would help her. I can’t imagine how frustrating it must be for that to be your ongoing reality.

I only popped in a few times during the week, but it was fun to see the clinic in action. People asked questions about whatever aches and pains were plaguing them, they gave out reading glasses to people who needed them, one of the moms brought in her 1-month-old baby for a checkup… It made me so happy that all of these people could see a doctor who really cares and knows his stuff.

Illuminated waves — Night ocean views in Lima

Googly-eyed head with grass hair growing out of the top — One of the younger classes made these little seed-heads. I’m pretty sure they’re essentially pantyhose stuffed with dirt and seeds. Once the “hair” started growing, they stopped looking like creepy potatoes and started looking kind of cute! And hilarious. Do you like this one’s hair tie?

Googly-eye head with a haircut — This one is a little disturbing… someone cut his hair and now he’s sitting on a bed of his own hair clippings. Eek.

In construction news, THINGS ARE HAPPENING! I still haven’t gotten used to the fact that the building looks more and more like an actual building each day… I’m still in “foundations” mode where I think that we’re going to move at a snail’s pace for the rest of forever, and we’ll never make it above ground. Silly me because like I said in my last post, we have walls! And now we have the beginnings of windows! And WE HAVE FLOORS! And they’re working on making it so that there are CEILINGS too!

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Duh, Lara. You’re just listing all of the parts of a building. You knew that they were building a building, didn’t you?” YES, I DID. But seeing it come together right in front of me is a whole bunch of insanity. And now, take a gander at the pictures and please also be awed by the fact that what was once a hole in the ground is now actually starting to look like something that could be recognized as a building.

Module 1 with completed brick walls — Finished walls in Module 1!

Module 2 with new walls — More walls in Module 2! And you can see the wooden formwork for a concrete bench in front of the building

Wall and columns in Module 2 — After they finished the brick for this wall, they poured the columns so that the entire wall/column structure is working together.

Brick wall with a column in the middle — Here’s one of the wall-integrated columns.

Window holes in Module 2 — This is how they frame out the windows in a brick wall. They basically pour mini-columns on the sides and frame out the top and bottom with steel and concrete.

Module 2 with formwork around the mini-columns — These are the same windows, now with the formwork for the concrete.

Window hole with concrete surrounding it — One of the finished window frames on Module 1. I’m so excited about these windows! These classrooms are going to have way more natural light than the other rooms we have.

Module 2 walls — The bench has been poured! (See above the blue tarp) and you can see the window wall going up in the background

The top 2/3 of this wall is going to be exposed brick, and the bottom 1/3 is going to be covered. Can you see the difference? The brick pattern on top is different, and they clearly put a lot more effort into making sure it looks nice and neat.

Freshly poured concrete floor in Module 1 — MODULE 1 FLOOR!!! It’s like a real room now! They were still in the process of pouring the back of the room in this picture.

Construction guys preparing concrete for the floors — The concrete mixing station. For big pours, they’ll call a concrete truck, but even for these floors, they mixed the concrete themselves using this concrete drum. Concrete, gravel, water, sand, repeat. Pour days are always VERY long, and I’m sure they’re exhausting.

Ground level view of the new floor — This is just the sub-floor, so there’s going to be another layer of concrete on top of this… but we have a floor!! Can you tell I’m excited?

Floors in Module 2 — Floor in Module 2! There’s a floor inside the classroom, plus they poured the walkway outside.

Concrete floor in the future staircase — Future staircase! It’s cool to see everything starting to take shape.

Sticks holding up some planks — Next step: ceilings! This is the very beginning of the “scaffolding” they built to hold the ceiling up.

Framing out the beams — These horizontal pieces of wood are where the beams are going.

More rebar for the beams — Almost finished with the beams!

Sticks to support the ceiling — Stick forest. Jocelyn was laughing at their strategy for making the sticks the height they need to be… what do you think? Seems very stable…

There you have it! See? It’s like a real building now. Hopefully you’re not bored of all of these construction pictures because there are many more to come. I think the process is fascinating! And sometimes mildly terrifying, but mostly fascinating.

We Have Walls!!!

Posted on July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 by Lark

I barely had a chance to settle back in after coming back from the States. My first day back at work was a Tuesday, and by the next Sunday, the next team was here. Talk about a reality check! Not only was the actual team week full of extra responsibilities, but I also did more than usual for the pre-week preparation. Debbie put me in charge of making the work schedule and supply shopping list. No pressure! She was there if I had any questions, of course, but it was still stressful because I wanted to do a good job. Thankfully, the projects for the week were pretty straightforward, and we already had a lot of the supplies we needed. That made for a short shopping list… which almost worked against me because I felt like I must be forgetting something. (Spoiler alert: I didn’t! We had everything we needed, and the projects all went just fine. Phew!)

Green mountains out of the bus window — This is the craziest thing. These mountains are all usually brown. This is right near where we live. Recently, they’ve been turning green because it’s been such a damp winter. I wish they looked like this all the time! I like calling them the moldy mountains. The so green that they’re practically glowing, though. Radioactive moldy mountains.

This team was from Hudson, North Carolina, and it was my first time having a team come with a few people I already knew! When I was here in 2017, I was around for one team week, and it was this church. The only repeat people were the two team leaders, Rick and Kirsten, but it was exciting to see some familiar faces! Last time they were here, Rick helped Debbie and me with the soldering for our robots, so they hold a special place in my heart.

I feel like I say this about everyone, but every time I say it, it’s absolutely true… this team was so much fun! Team weeks are an extra burden no matter what because there’s simply more work to do, but there are things that can be made easier by a good group of people. Everyone listened and wanted to do a good job on the work projects, and on top of that, they were all interesting and entertaining people. We have a unique opportunity in being here to build solid relationships with people from all sorts of different places and backgrounds. It’s pretty cool!

Selfie by the ocean — Me and Jocelyn by the ocean on our team sightseeing day in Lima

We kept plugging away at the work projects, and guess what? The bamboo fence is finished!!! It only took like 3.5 weeks’ worth of work. Like I said in my last post, the team from Pleasant Ridge finished putting it together, but there was still a bunch of detail work left. My Hudson fence crew helped with some final sanding, stuffed the tops of the bamboo with this material that I think is a type of plaster? (not really sure about the English translation, but we put it in there to keep the kids from sticking trash inside – hehe – and to keep bugs out), reinforced the connections between the poles and the horizontals with wire and wicker, and finally, touched up the varnish job and varnished over their wicker wrap. Things I never thought I would do in my lifetime: wicker a fence. What a ridiculous concept! So yeah, that all took seemingly forever to finish, but now it’s done and I’m a bamboo fence expert!

The fence with all of its beautiful, finished details — IS FINISHED! Look at that fabulous wickering! (Wrapping pattern designed by wicker experts Lara and Jocelyn.)

One of the other work groups kept going on the trench for the septic system. That has also been an endless project, and I still have no idea what they’re doing. I assume they did a good job… they dug and dug and the hole looks different from when they started, so let’s just say that everything went well.

Wooden thing getting varnished — One of the side projects was finishing these wooden covers. They’re going to go in the ground to cover holes in the sidewalks where we have water tanks/pumps/whatever other secrets are hiding down there.

The last big project was setting up an irrigation system for some new plants with the optimistic goal of actually planting them before the team left. Have you ever installed an irrigation system? It’s not terribly easy. I mean, I suppose someone thinks that it is, but that person has probably done it a million times. All I know is, getting the system to work across the entire planter was quite the feat.

The trench the team dug for the irrigation line to the new plants — The irrigation trench

Friday morning was a stressful mess of adjusting the pipes, raising and lowering them to try to get water to flow the way it needed to. It seemed like maybe it wasn’t going to happen, but after lunch, Debbie announced that we were going to plant the flowers! I can’t take any credit for getting it to work, but I was happy to share in the fun of planting. It was exciting to see that project finally coming together, too. If you count from when they started building the planters, it’s been a work-in-slow-progress since March!

Team members digging out holes for the plants — Getting the planter ready!

The irrigation tubing in the planter — Check out that beautiful irrigation line

The flowery plants that we put in — Pretty flowers!

Cutting off the bottoms of the plant bags — Getting the plants ready to go in the ground

In other news, WE HAVE WALLS! Sorry, topic change. The construction is moving! We’re making some VERY visible progress. WE HAVE WALLS!! Enjoy these pictures of the construction site that actually is starting to look like a building! AHHHH!

Brick walls in progress — Starting to lay the brick for the walls in Module 1

Walls starting to look more wall-like — A mere 5 hours later…

Finished walls in Module 1 — We might as well stop now because it’s basically finished

Module 1 with its brick walls — Like… what is this? It’s like a real building! Almost. Nearly. You can see the formwork up for the column in the back right corner.

Brick walls around the future stairwell — Future stairwell

Pouring the concrete for a column in the dark — A little late-night concrete column pouring in Module 2

Module 2 with formwork-encased columns — Here are the Module 2 columns still in their formwork

Module 2 looking good with those fresh columns

Module 2 with some new brick walls! — Anddd walls!

And so, we wrapped up another successful team week. As always, it was sad to see everyone go. This time, I was half asleep because we didn’t say our goodbyes until about 10:30PM (I started feeling like I was falling asleep around 8. Is this old age setting in?), so it wasn’t as traumatic as usual. Plus, a few members of the team were sticking around for another week to do a medical clinic for the families, so it wasn’t a full goodbye. AND we picked up a new arrival from the airport, an intern, Betsi, who is going to be here for three weeks. So even though one busy week ended, it didn’t mean things were going back to normal. I’m not sure I even know what normal looks like anymore.

Wave coming into the beack — We stopped at the beach along the way to Lima, and though I don’t think the picture shows it very well, the waves were huge!

The group walking through the pretty walk to the ocean — Sightseeing with the team in Lima

Foliage-covered walk down to the ocean — So much green! (This is all it takes to make us VERY happy. We’re very easy to please, after living in the brown desert.)

June in a Nutshell

Posted on July 9, 2019July 19, 2019 by Lark

Me and a team member working on the fence

Remember when I said that I was going to post weekly blogs? Well, if you don’t, then please, continue to not remember. If you do, whoops. As you can see, things aren’t exactly going as planned. The thing is, life has been VERY busy. I know, life anywhere is busy, but there’s something about being here that makes everything a little bit harder and a little bit more tiring. Recently, with all of the teams coming through, it’s been extra hectic. When a team is here, we’re running around and trying to manage everything that goes along with that. When there isn’t a team, we’re running around and trying to catch up on the things that fell to the wayside when there was.

So, what has happened since my last update? That’s a big question! It’s been five weeks, but I’m going to focus on the first four right now because that’s basically the month of June and is already far too much to talk about in one post. The first week was another team week, two days after the previous team left. The second was a “normal” week, the third I was in the USA, and the fourth was another normal one. My gosh. Like I said, I definitely need to be better about writing updates because have a lot of ground to cover! Let’s start with the team week…

Team selfie on our way to Pucusana for lunch on the team’s first day

Last time, I told you about the team week with ACF, a Christian student ministry at Penn State. Usually, teams are here for seven days. ACF was here for TEN which is essentially a 10-day marathon. And on top of that, they’re a bunch of college kids with lots of energy (they made me feel old, but I’m surprisingly okay with it). So, at the end of that “week” we were, understandably, all feeling a bit drained.

They left on a Thursday afternoon, giving us only two days to recover before our next team arrived. This one was also 15 people, they flew in Saturday night, and we hit the ground running on Sunday. It was interesting going from the college crew to a team with more varied ages and skills. This team was from Pleasant Ridge, a church in rural PA. I can’t possibly say enough nice things about them, and it’s not even just because I’m putting this on the internet for the world to see. They were incredibly hard workers, fun and nice and interesting people, and thankfully very easygoing. It was such a joy to have them here.

Sea lions flopped on the rocks — So many sea lions! Also, the sea was INCREDIBLY choppy, and except for the moments when I opened my eyes to look at the animals and take these pictures, I was trying not to get sick from all of the rocking and bobbing we were doing. I don’t get motion sick easily, so it was an exceptionally rough ride.

Penguins on the rocks by the ocean — Can you see the penguins? I’ve never seen so many at once! Though this is kind of a terrible picture. They blend in a bit with the white poop-covered rocks.

Selfie with Pleasant Ridge at Huaca Pucllana — At an archaeological site with the Pleasant Ridge team!

We made an amazing amount of progress on the service projects! We had one crew, mostly of the younger guys, who continued the work ACF started on the trench for the septic system pipes. They worked like a well-oiled machine. I felt like every time I looked over to check on them, they had a new piece of pipe installed, the dirt filled in on top of it, and a new section of trench already dug out.

The three trench-digging guys working hard — The trench squad, doing an awesome job (Pic by EA photographer David)

Small remaining section of trench — Where the trench people left off. The pipe they installed stretches straight from here to the end of the concrete patio you can see on the left

The septic pipe route — Then, the pipe cuts diagonally along this whole stretch of dirt

The septic trench stretching across the property and under the swing set — Here’s that section before it got filled in. Look at how deep and skinny it is. I honestly don’t even understand how they managed to dig it so skinny.

The last stretch of septic pipe — And it goes underneath the sidewalk and through the grass patch… you can see exactly where it goes because the grass was removed during the digging process, and the grass around the trench died from getting stomped on so much.

My bamboo fence squad finished installing the fence posts, and at the end of the week, it finally looked like a real fence! It’s a bit of a pain, though, because it’s one of those jobs that is 95% finished, but the last 5% of work seems to take as long as the first 95. There’s lots of tedious detail work to do after the posts are installed, and that’s slowly been getting checked off in the weeks since.

Two of the team members attaching vertical poles to the bamboo fence — The two most dedicated members of my fence team. They made it happen! They were determined to finish attaching the poles by the end of the week, and they did it! (Pic by David)

The fence, nearly completed — The fence! The fence! They’re almost finished!!

Besides those two big jobs, they crossed off so many other, small jobs that have been lingering. For example, there were some concerns about the construction fencing near the school buildings because the little kids are completely oblivious, and there was a real chance of one of them wandering past and falling into one of the foundation holes on their way to the bathroom. We had some of the team members build a more substantial barrier using plywood which has been very good for the peace-of-mind of our teachers.

The soccer court with a new wooden wall — The new construction site wall separating the site from the school area. It’s so much better!

Team member taking some measurements for the construction barrier — Putting together the construction site barriers (Pic by David)

Some of the team members painting the workers' shed exterior — Finishing up a second coat of paint on the workers’ shed. (Pic by EA photographer David)

The new ties to attach the canopies to their frames — They also helped out with a project to fix the shade canopies we have. They were all falling apart, getting disconnected from the frames every other second. One of the team members and I came up with a new system for attaching them (see the ties on the corners and the middle of each side?), and so far, it’s been working!!

Julie toasting a marshmallow with her hat pulled over her eyes — At the end of the team week, we had the world’s hottest bonfire. Julie used her hat to attempt to block her face from some of the overwhelming heat while toasting her marshmallow

Me, hiding behind a chair to toast my marshmallow — We all had our own strategies for staying protected from the heat… mine involved sacrificing a chair to save myself. Just kidding, the chair survived unscathed. My fingers still nearly melted off.

Meanwhile, the construction has been steadily moving along. The foundations are finished! No more giant holes in the ground (so I guess there’s no more danger of the kids falling in, but definitely still better for them to be kept away from the site either way). It’s exciting/nerve-wracking/strange to see something that looks like a building finally starting to take shape! They poured the bases of most of the walls which means that we can actually see how big the interior spaces are going to be. I’m starting to go into a bit of a panic because this means it’s nearly time for some of my conduit to be installed (the pipes that they put the wires in), and after that, it’s concreted in which means it isn’t changing. I hope I didn’t mess anything up! Eek!!

Rather than trying to explain everything that’s happened, I think it’ll be much more effective to show you in a series of approximately 1 million pictures. So here you go! (Brace yourselves, it’s going to be a looong ride.)

Foundations of Module 1 — Module 1 foundations, poured and with the formwork removed and the foundation coating painted on

Foundations with dirt haphazardly thrown on top — After the foundation hole was filled in… they didn’t do a very good job of compacting as they added the dirt, so re-doing that process correctly was a big pain.

Columns going into place in Module 1 — Putting on the formwork for some columns!!

One of the construction workers leveling off the dirt in Module 1 — Leveling out the ground. And check out those columns!

The dirt in Module 1 looking nice and level — Nice and flat!

Packed dirt in the footprint of our stairs — The beginnings of our staircase!

So that’s the first side of the building… and now, on to the other side:

Rebar for the building foundations — The steel for the foundations on the second side of the building (henceforth to be known as Module 2). The foundations for this building are CRAZY. Look at all of that steel!

Rebar for one of the big foundation beams running underneath the classroom — LOOK AT ALL OF THAT STEEL!

The foundations in Module 2 with the formwork for the concrete — The formwork for the foundations. This side of the building is just out of control. So. Much. Wood. So. Much. Steel. So. Much. Concrete.

Module 2 foundations setting in the formwork — After the concrete was poured for the foundations

Module 2 after the foundations were poured — A view from (kind of) above

Module 2 foundations without formwork — And the formwork was removed!

Module 2 with the beginnings of the walls in place — This is how it looked when I came back! The ground is getting filled in, and you can see the concrete has been poured for the bases of the walls!

Front-end loader moving dirt into the foundation hole — Starting to fill in the dirt in Module 2 with some help from our friend the front-end loader

Module 2 with some new formwork on a column — Getting ready to pour some more columns. You can see the new formwork on the middle column on the right.

Two guys working on wrapping the rebar around the columns — Working on the columns. Is this not the sketchiest scaffolding you’ve ever seen?

They have already installed the conduit that goes underground from one side of the building to the other, so I’m crossing my fingers super tight that I sized those correctly. My gosh this is a stressful situation! Why on earth did I become an engineer? I should have picked something where mistakes are more easily remedied. Not that I think I made any big mistakes (I already found and fixed a few little ones), but I think it would be abnormal for me to NOT panic at least a little about this whole thing. It’s my very first time having a design that’s all mine actually get installed. Sure, when I was working, there were a few projects where I played a large part in the design and felt a sense of ownership when I walked through the finished space, but this is different. This is me being trusted to make the major decisions and hoping more than anything that I’ve created a design deserving of that trust. No pressure or anything.

I’m rambling, I know, but I ramble when I’m nervous. I’m nervous. It’s weird because I really am confident in the work I’ve done so far, but it doesn’t matter. Until this building is finished, everything is installed, and it’s operating properly, I won’t feel completely at peace. I’m insane, I know. It’s going to be a long year of unrest, that’s for sure.

With all of that happening, it was probably a great time for me to take a break and go back to the States for my friend’s wedding. It was fun getting to catch up with friends, plus the week I had at home beforehand was so nice and relaxing. I think I needed it, and it left me feeling prepared to come back and jump right into the work ahead.

Sunset view from the airplane window — The sunset on my flight back to Peru

We had another team here about a week after I got back, so it was back to the chaos of running around and managing service projects and hoping that things go according to plan. It’s always fun to get out of the office and actually get my hands dirty, but it also makes for an exhausting schedule! I’ll tell you more about that week in my next post… which is coming soon (and by “soon” I mean definitely before another 5 weeks go by).

All of the Things, All at Once

Posted on June 2, 2019June 2, 2019 by Lark

One of the team members and me working on the fence

Are you tired of reading updates where nothing has changed? WELL, then today is your lucky day. Things are happening! My gosh, and it’s such chaos that part of me wishes FEWER things were happening, but isn’t that always the way these things go? There’s nothing nothing nothing and then EVERYTHING hits at once.

I’ll start off with the words I’m sure you thought you’d never hear… construction started!!! We had the first workers onsite two and a half weeks ago, and things really got going about 4 days in when they brought the front-end loader back onsite to dig the foundation holes. That was also the day when our next mission team arrived, 15 people from ACF, one of the Christian campus ministry groups at Penn State.

The site with construction materials organized — The site back when it still looked remotely organized. The wooden formwork for the concrete is in the background, the concrete mixer is to the left, and the steel rebar for reinforcing the concrete is under the blue tarp.

If that sounds like a lot happening at once, just wait. To say that construction got off to a rough start would be the understatement of the century. In ONE day while they were digging the foundation holes, they cut FOUR tubes that were not supposed to be cut. Four tubes that were in known locations. It’s so sad that it’s almost comical, but at the same time, it’s not funny at all because that kind of thing should not be happening. The water lines to the two back buildings were cut, plus the electrical ground line to one and ALL of the electrical power to the other. So besides being a bit stupid, it also had the potential to be dangerous. Thankfully, no one was electrocuted, the water lines were quickly repaired (though then there was dirt in the lines which clogged up the plumbing fixtures. So, all of the toilets ran constantly after the first flush until they went through the property’s entire water supply. A water truck came to refill our water tanks, and the toilets were shut off and bucket flushed until the dirt could be cleaned out. Fun, right?), and the electricity was restored a few days later when we luckily already had the electrician scheduled to come.

The front-end loader getting ready for another go at the hole — The front-end loader digging out one of the foundation holes. This was pre-pipe breaking.

A large hole in the ground — The second foundation hole

A giant pile of dirt from the foundation holes — Our lovely dirt pile. The grounds are looking a bit rough at the moment…

Thankfully, since then, there have been fewer… mishaps… with the construction, though every day still does seem to have its share of crises. They poured the concrete for the foundations on one side of the building on Friday, and now they’re working on setting up the steel for the foundations and columns on the other side. Seeing the columns sticking up makes it easier to imagine a building there, and it’s insane. This building is going to be huge compared to the existing buildings because it’s going to have a whole extra story! I don’t think anyone really understands how massive it’s going to look.

The beginnings of the foundations — On side #1, they started by assembling the steel for the foundations and attaching the columns. You can also see the wooden formwork starting to go in to contain the concrete when it gets poured later.

The building progressing — More steel, more formwork, and the world’s most terrifying scaffolding.

Most of the rebar and formwork for the foundations on side #1 — Almost ready for concrete!

Concrete pour in progress — The concrete was poured on Friday, and it was an all-day event. They had extra guys working, and it was nonstop mixing and dumping wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of concrete into the foundations. The guy at the bottom is using this tool that vibrates to help the concrete settle and eliminate air pockets.

Concrete foundations poured! — The end result

The concrete mixer, piles of materials, and crew — The mixing crew. Gravel, sand, concrete, water, repeat.

The construction alone is enough to make life here crazy, but that’s not all that’s been going on. Like I said, we had FIFTEEN additional people on the property for the last week and a half. I didn’t think the number sounded like a lot until I saw it in human form. Trust me, it’s a lot. Especially when they all need to be managed and directed. They mainly worked on three projects: 1. Digging a trench to put in a new septic line (at the deepest point, it had to be something like 2 meters deep), 2. Finishing the drywall and painting the bathroom/break room for the construction workers, and 3. Building a new bamboo fence near the soccer court.

My major job while they were here was managing projects #2 and #3. You ask, “What do you know about drywall, Lara?” WELL, I watched a very informative 2-hour-and-15-minute video about drywall installation, so I’m basically an expert now (I can send you the link if you’re interested. It’s truly thrilling. Strongly recommend watching it at 1.75 speed). You ask, “What do you know about bamboo construction, Lara?” WELL, um… nothing. You know that saying “Fake it ‘til you make it”? Story of my life right now. It’s the same strategy as when I’m in an unfamiliar city and don’t know what direction I need to walk… so, I take a guess and march confidently in that direction until I get my bearings. And then I turn around and march confidently in the opposite direction.

Debbie and the two bamboo guys looking for the perfect bamboo — Debbie picking out bamboo from the bamboo store for our fresh bamboo fence… because obviously there are bamboo stores because where else would you go to buy bamboo?

Bamboo standing on end at the bamboo store — Bamboo forest

The delivery truck loaded up with bamboo — Our bamboo delivery vehicle.

Debbie did go over the general processes before releasing me into the wild, but as clear as everything seemed when it was being explained, it was a whole different story when we got to the actual execution. I had a lot of follow-up questions.

How did it all turn out? Surprisingly well, actually. The drywall/painting project is finished and looks better than I expected, honestly. There are definitely some parts that are a little rough, but it’s a utility space which means that’s not a huge deal. It’s just going to get banged and dirtied up anyway. The most important thing is that it’s finished, so the construction workers can actually start using it for their break room/changing area instead of the little closet they’ve been crowding into.

Mudding over the joints to get ready for painting — Some of the drywall/painting crew, hard at work.

The bamboo fence is still a work in progress, and I’m very optimistic about how it’s going to turn out. So far, we have all of the pieces prepared (they had to be cleaned, cut, sanded, painted with insecticide, and varnished), and the columns are in place. At least half of them are properly aligned which is promising. The other half was just installed, so we haven’t checked the fit of the horizontal beams yet. Fingers crossed! Hopefully the next team (which is already here. They came in last night!) can finish it off this week.

Bamboo laying out to dry — The treated and varnished bamboo for the fence

Me and a team member tying caution tape around our fence-in-progress — Putting up a worthless caution-tape barrier around our columns as their concrete footers set. The kids all proceeded to ignore the caution tape completely during recess. We basically had a human wall in front of the columns, trying to keep balls and kids from knocking them out of alignment before the concrete could harden enough to hold them in place. (Pic by David)

The septic trench is also not finished, though they did make amazing progress and even started to lay the pipe. The deepest part is finished, there’s a tunnel underneath the sidewalk, and the next segment is marked out and started. It’s crazy! They managed to make it so deep and skinny; it’s like a crack in the earth. They started having to reassign the shorter people on the team to other projects because the sides of the trench were getting too high for them.

The trench and under-sidewalk tunnel — The tunnel under the sidewalk! So glad I wasn’t involved with the digging of that…

The team standing in their trench, holding digging tools — The team in the trench. I’m looking awkward on the far left. Also it looks like I have a double hand and super wide arm, but I promise I haven’t mutated in the last few months, so we’ll blame it on the picture.

The final craziness of the last few weeks is EARTHQUAKES! During the 10 days that the ACF team was here, there were THREE that we very clearly felt. The first happened on the team’s third day. We were at lunch, and it was super short but felt STRONG. In my head, it was like I was seeing through broken glass. Sharp and very pronounced. I don’t know how else to explain it. There was no question in my mind that it was an earthquake, and the kids and staff were on the same page because we all stood up practically in unison to evacuate… except for the team. The teachers started grabbing little kids out of their chairs, and everyone started moving to the doors. I figured I should clue the team members in, you know, just in case the building was going to decide to fall down. I thought that they’d figure it out quickly once they saw me, but that was definitely not the case. It went something like:

“EARTHQUAKE!” At this point, I was yelling because it was loud but still very calm.

“What??”

“EARTHQUAKE!!” Starting to lose my calm…

“Huh?”

Jocelyn and me in front of a pile of mud bricks — Jocelyn and me at Huaca Pucllana, an archaeological site in Lima. We went with the team on their sightseeing day. That’s a giant pyramid of adobe bricks behind us!

“EARTHQUAKE! WE NEED TO LEAVE!” I signaled with my hands. I was ready to just leave them if this didn’t work. Finally, they got it and joined the crowd headed out to the soccer court. Geez, good thing the building didn’t fall down! No one on the team felt it, and I think they were a little skeptical that it even happened until enough other people confirmed it. Really though, why would I make up an earthquake??

The next one was the extra crazy one. It happened at 2:40AM last Sunday morning. I woke up VERY quickly, and when we were still shaking after like 10 seconds, Debbie and I got up to leave. She pounded on Jocelyn’s and Julie’s doors on the way out, and when we got downstairs, it was STILL going. Our “safe area” is in the dirt outside, and usually, once you get off the sidewalk, you can’t feel anything. Not this time! Even on the ground, we could absolutely feel the shaking, like a deep rumble underneath our feet.

It seemed to go on forever. In the quiet of the night, Julie’s cat meowed his distress from inside his crate. Our metal stairs “thunk, thunk, thunk”-ed against the building, and the steel for the new building’s columns clinked together like wind chimes in the distance. And all we could do was stand there and wait. It was eerie. In the morning, Debbie said that it lasted 2 whole minutes. Two eternities in earthquake time. It was an 8.0 magnitude earthquake about 500 miles away from us, at the edge of the Amazon, 70 miles below the surface. Whatttt?! I don’t think there was much damage, thankfully, because of the location, but you can bet that EVERYONE was talking about it the next day. What a weird thing. As someone who comes from a nearly earthquake-less area, the feeling of the ground shaking beneath me is insanely discomforting.

The EA family — The kids, teachers, team, and us. I’m sure it looks just like the picture from the last team that visited… and I’m wearing the same shirt but shhh. It’s different, I promise.

There have been a LOT of smaller earthquakes since then, way more than the usual (aftershocks maybe? I don’t know how these things work). Two nights later, there was another one strong enough to make us evacuate. Three in one week, and one an 8.0! What is happening!?

I know, this was quite the long update, but I suppose that’s what happens when things get busy and I don’t write for three weeks (oops). I’ll do better next time!

Same Old, Same Old

Posted on May 13, 2019 by Lark

There’s a reason why I haven’t been posting every week. Well, there are two reasons, and they’re rooted in the same thing. First, I’ve been so busy that every moment not occupied by work is taken up by me trying to maintain my sanity (aka flopping on the couch and doing nothing productive). Second, work is essentially all that’s been happening, so there’s nothing exciting to report anyway. If you feel like my last three posts have been almost the same, you’re not wrong. Things are chaotic, I’m not sleeping enough, and I continue to hope that the light at the end of the tunnel will appear anyyyy second. I’m sure it’s just around this bend…

Yellow and orange flowers — Pretty flowers in Lima!

Flowers strung up across the sky at the mall — Decorations at the mall for Mother’s Day.

Remember when I said that construction was starting on May 13^th? Well, make that May 15^th. And this time, it’s actually going to happen. Really, it is! Are we ready? Hmm. I can say for sure that I’m not. I don’t know about Debbie. I still have things to finish figuring out in my designs. This whole “designing a building” thing is a lot of work!

Things are definitely coming together, though. Last week, Debbie and I went shopping for light fixtures! Up until then, I was making lighting designs with hypothetical fixtures and crossing my fingers hoping we’d be able to find something similar. If you think that sounds less than ideal, you’re right. I didn’t realize how much that was weighing on me until after our shopping trip when I finally felt like I had a grasp on things.

Light fixtures hanging from the ceiling — Most of the pictures I’ve taken over the last few weeks have been VERY exciting shots of light fixtures. This is from the lighting market where we went fixture hunting.

After our shopping trip, we met with the guy who is going to do the electrical work. He’s done work at EA before, and he’s also an engineer which means he can help to make sure that my designs make sense! Hooray! It’s VERY reassuring to know that my plans will have a second set of eyes checking over them. Even if I was fully confident in everything I’m doing (which I’m not), I would still want someone looking things over. People make mistakes! And it’s like anything else. When you’re staring at the same thing for so long, you get to the point where you don’t even really see it anymore. You look at whatever you’re working on at the moment and ignore the rest. Even though I walked out of our meeting with drawings covered in notes about things to fix or change or update, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted. Yes, I have work to do, but at least I know I’m headed in the right direction.

So, all in all, things are good. Crazy, but that’s to be expected. Construction starts on Wednesday, and our next church team comes on Tuesday… and then they’re here for a week and a half, and the next church team comes two days after. Like I said, no “light at the end of the tunnel” in sight yet, but I’m holding out hope that it’s coming soon.

Jocelyn's classroom with her new projector — This job has been a long time in the making. I finally finished mounting the projector in Jocelyn’s classroom! We installed the outlet for it like 5 weeks ago when the team was here, and last week I got the wood ready for mounting to the beam. And now it’s finished! Fingers crossed it doesn’t fall from the ceiling. A nice, low-pressure job.