Building on the rock

Views from La Roca


Mark has planned a really busy time for me whilst i am here which is great as i will hopefully get to see a really good variety of things, meet lots of people and see different areas. My first full day we went to visit a church called La Roca, where a couple work as leaders of the church and Mark works as a kind of support for them checking how they are etc. The leader had been in the drug business (and i dont mean the medical kind) before he became a Christian and when we got there he told us how 3 people had attacked him from a taxi that he had tried to get in the shanty town that the church is in, but he had managed to fight them off and break there knife, not your average pastor you may think.

The church

The couple live in the church at the moment through money from a missionary charity they are building a second storey to the building which the family will live in so that the whole downstairs will be able to be used for the church. The building was right on the top of the hill in the shanty town and to get there we took a bus across the city and then a motor taxi which is a little 3 wheel device where you get in a cage at the back sat behind a driver steering with what looks like motorbike handlebars, lots of fun on the downhill but with me and Mark in the back not so great uphill. That goes so far into the shanty town and then we walked the rest of the way up the hill. This is quite a developed shanty town where most of the buildings are brick built and have electricity but not many have running water to them as it is so expensive to get connected due to government corruption.

The next day we headed further back past the airport and i went to see another building project where a few of Marks friends Alfredo and Carlos are building a new school which they are hoping to have ready for the middle of March, ready for the new term. This area is called Ventinalla and is a bit outside of the city itself on a hill made of sand which i dont think i had ever seen before. It is noticably poorer than the previous Shanty towns i had seen and was a lot less developed. Apparently what tends to happen is people get the land and then build a small shed like structure and as they make money they add slowly to it either by adding bricks or by making it gradually bigger. We met the guys building the school which was going to mean that the children (primary school age) would not have to travel the long way they currently do to another school and the school will be a lot cheaper than other schools, especially the Christian schools (you pay for all schooling here). As we arrived i thought there is no way this will be finished in time, there was no roof on, they have only got 1 of the 6 teachers needed to open. The toilets are not in and i could go on but they are confident things will be ready in time - time seems different in Peru.

It was great to see the guys working on the building for free because they realised how much difference it would make to the area. They also told me about the builder who Alfredo had had to sack because he had been stealing. At first i thought it was sad that he would steal from his own project that was trying to help the children here but then they explained he had been stealing materials from other places to help build the school, maybe not quite so bad. They did have a guard on which seems wuite normal here to stop stealing.

Me and some of the guys

Mark and the school

On Mark and Annas street they have a man called a watchyman who work 24 hours on 24 hours off to make sure nobody breaks in. They also live next door to the chief of police who has between 2 and 6 guards around his gate all the time so its pretty secure here.

Other customs i am learning to deal with/enjoy. You can't drink the water it has to be boiled first and tastes horrible. You can't put toilet paper down the toilet. I get to kiss lots of women (i have to its the custom).