Sweat for Smiles: rebuilding a home

From left to right: Melisa, her daughter Luz, and her daughter Nacha standing in the back of the house area where we have dug up her old pipes and built the new pipe trenches.

By: Tierra entre de los Ojos

The first thing you need to understand is just how hard it is to get in on a construction project here. Volunteers at Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) are amazing. Every person is looking for hard work. Every individual wants to make a difference. And everybody sweats buckets just to see the smiles left on the faces of the people with whom we work.

Two weeks ago I was finally able to edge my way onto a project called, “Melisa’s Pipes.” Melisa is a woman living in Pisco with her husband and four children. A few years ago she inherited a small plot of land and a modest home from her mother, though modest doesn’t do justice to the bamboo walls and tarp-roof under which the family lives. In the 2007 earthquake, the pipes running below Melisa’s home burst. For three years the family lived over open sewage; and toilet water and waste seeped to the surface of the dirt floor on which her children sleep. Over the last three years, each of Melisa’s children have suffered from typhoid fever, which is a disease caused by the ingestion of fecal matter.

When I arrived at Melisa´s home for the first time, I looked at what lay before me and my heart sank. The dirt floor upon which they lived and slept had three huge puddles filled with trash and sewage that had seeped up from below.

Her children sat in the back yard playing and laughing, and Melisa greeted us with a smile. When we began to dig the trench for the new pipes, I felt as though I was digging into a landfill. With every shovel full of dirt, came candy wrappers, chicken bones, and old clothing. As we uncovered the old pipe system, we were overwhelmed by the stench of rotting feces and urine. With the hard work of 14 volunteers, we were able to dig the trenches and replace the pipes in a week and a half. What is most amazing though, is that every volunteer helping Melisa for the last two weeks has done so, every day, with excitement and without a single complaint. The first day digging the trenches, I don’t think I put my shovel down for 3 hours straight.

When I finally looked up, I saw a line of volunteers covered in dirt, dripping with sweat, and laughing. One boy had taken a break to put on a dance show while three others backed him up with a song in cock-eyed harmony. Another had gone to get us all cold, sweet, delicious orange soda (my favorite!). We were having a great time, and all the while Melisa dug hard, raked evenly, and sweat by our side.

As volunteers we are here to help. We are enthusiastic because we know it makes a difference. When I leave Melisa´s house at the end of the day she smiles so wide she can barely open her eyes. She kisses me on the cheek and I can just barely see the hint of a tear in the corner of her eye.

We finished Melisa’s pipes last Thursday. When we were in the process of leveling the floor, PSF’s director, TBC, came to give Melisa news. PSF volunteers had raised enough money, including a large donation from two volunteers who started the project, for Melisa to also have a concrete floor and a new modular home built for her. Shortly after TBC left, Melisa came to me, thanking me, the rest of the volunteers, and PSF for helping her and her family. I could tell she was fighting back tears as she gave me a hug and said, “gracias, son mis angeles” (thank you, you are my angels).

Last week I had a skype conversation with the Edge Academy students. One student asked me if I believe in Karma and if I believe that the work we do helps people to be happier and, in turn, they pass on their joy to others. My answer was yes, and Melisa helps reinforce this belief everyday. Since our work started two weeks ago, more of Melisa’s friends and family have shown up to help everyday. Her neighbors offered us their bathrooms while we were fixing Melisa’s pipes, her sister cooked lunch for us, and her father-in-law helped us fill buckets of water for concrete today.

When we walk through Pisco, everyone recognizes us as PSFers. We are pretty much the only gringos in the city and we are always covered in dirt from head to toe. They stare because we are dirty, sweaty, and different, but they always smile and say hello because I believe they appreciate the help we offer in rebuilding their city.

The Earthbag Project: PSF’s builds a more sustainable Pisco

By: Tierra entre de los Ojos





PEDAL for Change has embarked upon a journey this year in order to help our classroom partners learn about sustainability across the globe, and particularly in South America. Our goal is not only to see and write about sustainability throughout our journey, but also to experience and help collaborate on sustainable projects as we travel, meet new people, and get involved with new communities. The job of our students, YOU, is to read our blogs, give us feedback, and come up with innovative ideas of your own. Most importantly though, your job is to get involved and realize you are as big of a part of this project as Kether, Rayna, and myself. Here is a project that you can all be a part of! The Earthbag Project at Pisco Sin Fronteras.




What are Earthbags?
Earthbags are bags filled with earth. Most commonly, recycled rice bags or woven polypropylene sacs are used and filled with soil, sand, gravel, or whatever earth material that surrounds a particular building site.





Why build with Earthbags?
Millions of victims of wars and natural disasters need low cost housing and temporary shelter. More durable than tarps and more comfortable than tents, earthbags work perfectly since even unskilled workers can build their own shelters - all without destroying local resources. The structures are strong, make protective barriers, and can be used for flood control. They are useful in housing projects for the same reasons that they make good barriers. Since the walls are so substantial, they resist all kinds of severe weather and also stand up to natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.
Currently, the only building material that is proven to endure 7+ magnitude earthquakes are earthbags. This method is favorable not only because the earthbags can move with the ground and absorb tremor vibrations, but also because the materials are cheep and easy to use; thus, they can be erected simply and quickly with readily available resources for very little money. In Haiti’s recent earthquake, earthbag homes stood strong while the earth shuttered during their 7.0 magnitude quake.

Something really neat is that earthbag homes can be built in almost any style or shape of imaginable: domes, vaults, structures with vertical walls, curved ‘organic' designs, roundhouses. This makes earthbag construction ideal for a variety of projects, from family houses to community centers.


Most importantly, earthbags are sustainable! Using materials surrounding the construction site means using abundant resources in the nearby area. Because earthbags move in an earthquake, walls of an earthbag structure should stand through even the worst conditions. In addition, earthbag home construction has a very little environmental impact.

PSF and Sustainability:
At the moment, most homes and structures that PSF builds are made from recycled tarps and pallet wood, have concrete floors, and are topped with bamboo roofs. While these buildings provide a temporary solution to living on dirt floors with open sewage systems, these structures are not made to withstand another major earthquake.

In many ways PSF does build sustainably. They use recycled materials, which reduces what they consume and what others throw away. However, building structures that will eventually be destroyed will ultimately produce more waste and leave people homeless once more. Recently PSF has adopted the idea of earthbag construction and working on converting all their projects to this method. Building with earthbags is the first step in PSF’s goals to becoming more sustainable. In the future PSF would like to build all their structures with earthbags and go on to teach locals how to adopt this method for themselves. PSF will become more sustainable not just through their building methods, but also through education and getting more involved with the community.

PSF’s first Earthbag Project:Volunteers here in Pisco have already started the construction of PSF’s first earthbag project. The structure being built is a community center. This center will be used to host community meetings and give members a place to come and learn. In addition to English classes, cooking classes, and fundraisers that will be held in the center, the people of Pisco can learn how to build their own earthbag homes.


This is a project that has a lot of potential in the community of Pisco. Not only will it build a nice community center, but it can potentially save lives. If the community members see that building with earth bags is indeed effective, others will begin to build with this new technology, making safer homes that will have the structural integrity to remain standing.

These two pictures (above and below) show volunteers building the bathroom for the community center. The volunteers leading the project are currently in Lima collecting supplies and hope to return by Monday to continue construction. They predict it will take two months to complete once construction starts again.



How you can be a part of the Community:By Thanksgiving, PSF needs to raise 4,000 soles in order to complete this project. If you believe in this project and would like to support sustainability at PSF and in Pisco, please buy a PEDAL for Change T-shirt. 75% of the proceeds will go to both the community center project as well as future earthbag construction projects. In addition, anyone who buys a shirt will have their name written on the wall on the community center once it is complete. Through other volunteers’ pictures and the PSF website, we hope you will all keep in touch with what is happening with the project and the progress it is making.

If any of you have other ideas for fundraising and/or want to promote the earthbag project on your own, please do! Let us know your ideas and if there is anything we can do to help!

Also! check out the PSF website for more information: http://www.piscosinfronteras.org/

And the following video/slide show will give you a little look at the devistation from earthquake in Pisco, how people live here, and what PSF does to help. Some of our upcoming blogs will address the projects that deal with some of the things you will see in this video.

“The City of Contradictions” The Realities of Social Extremes

By: Rayna (Arena)

I´m sitting in a café (Harrys on Avenida Arequipa) and enjoying a chicken sandwich and french fries during lunch hour. People are chatting on their I-phones, drinking lattes, and taking pleasure in their mid-day break from college or work. All the streets are meticulously clean and skyscrapers are lined with glass windows that reflect one another’s shimmering surfaces. The trees and flower beds along the boulevards are perfectly trimmed. The city reminds me of the flawlessly groomed streets in Edward Scissor Hands. However, if you travel towards the outskirts, in any direction for twenty minutes, you will find yourself gazing at miles and miles of shacks made from dirt and straw hardly supported by the desert sand. This is Lima.

“The well established cliché is to call Lima a city of contradictions, but it’s difficult to get beyond that description. Here you’ll encounter grinding poverty and conspicuous wealth in abundance; the hardships of the poor in this sprawling metropolis of 8 million inhabitants are all too evident in the lives of those struggling to get by in the crowded streets and frantic bus lanes.” (Footprint, Peru)

For the last two weeks, we have been graciously hosted by generous friends of Mira Flores, Lima, Peru. Mira Flores is one of the nicest parts of town and our hosts have been living comfortably here for many generations. Our Mira Flores friends and I had a discussion about the realities of Lima one evening at a 21^st birthday party. They explained to me that when they drive to the outskirts of Lima, they don’t notice the shanty towns because they have become so use to the contradicting social realities of Lima.

“I have a friend that lives in this Mira Flores bubble and is so isolated that she has no idea about the poverty that surrounds us. Poverty doesn’t even seem real to her,” said my host.

I compared this image to people who live in New York City who walk past homeless people everyday only to take the elevator up to their beautiful Central Park apartments. However, the extremes in Lima are much more apparent.

I explained to our hosts that the US has services provided by the government, for people who cannot provide for themselves. For example, there are homeless shelters, food stamps and welfare. I then inquired about those types of services in Peru. The answers provided lead me to believe that Peru does not offer such services.

“If you don’t work, you don’t eat,” exclaimed my host.

There is a huge discrepancy between the rich and the poor. The question is: how did it become like this and what do we do about it? In the States, our government and our politics are constantly squabbling over this issue. Where do we begin when thinking about a solution for everybody? This is not only a complex issue in the States, but also a debate all over the world. Will there ever be a solution or consensus between the haves and the have-nots. I don’t know, but what I do know is that Lima is in need of serious brainstorming to help find a solution to the iniquitous social injustice.

An introduction to Pisco Sin Fronteras

By: Tierra Entre De Los Ojos
What fueled the fire:
“On August 15, 2007 a 7.9 magnitude earthquake shook the coastal region of Peru, devastating local infrastructure and claiming 514 lives. Pisco, a city located on the southern coast of Peru, suffered the greatest impact in the worst national disaster to strike Peru in three decades. The situation in Pisco was catastrophic; an overwhelming number of homes, buildings and schools were reduced to rubble leaving countless Pisco residents without adequate shelter or sanitation facilities. According to the official United Nations count, 40,035 families were rendered homeless.

“The most gruesome aspect was the death toll, which was so great that bodies were stacked in the streets due to overflowing hospitals. Widespread power outages further increased the strain on hospitals, and ruined highways disrupted patient transportation. The Peruvian president declared a state of emergency in the province of Ica, which encompasses Pisco,” ( http://www.piscosinfronteras.org/about-us1.html).

How it all began:
As many of us have seen, when disasters like the earthquake in Peru, the tsunami in Thailand, or hurricane Katrina in the United States occurs, people rush in from all over the world to aid the families in distress. However, after a certain amount of time, people, organizations, and aid leave the site and return home.

In Pisco, many international aid foundations saw the disaster in need of much aid. USAID provided $100,000 for supplies and transport of supplies to Peru. Direct Relief International supplied the area with $1.1 million in medical supplies. Oxfam International built temporary schools. While all this aid was helpful, it was also temporary. An organization named Burners Without Borders (BWB) recognized that it would take nearly a decade or more to fully reconstruct Pisco and the surrounding area. Thus, BWB made a commitment to the city and the people of Pisco to set up a long-term foundation that would help citizens to rebuild their homes, work on economic development, and reconstruct an adequate sewage system.

Pisco Sin Fronteras:
A local Peruvian, Harold Zevallos Salas, saw the dedication of the volunteers with BWB and made a decision to create a Peruvian organization that would be affordable for all who wanted to help. On August 15, 2008 Pisco Sin Fronteras (PSF) was born.

The goal at PSF is, “to see everyone affected by the dereliction caused by the earthquake in around the city of Pisco, move into permanent, strong, safe, and clean housing with proper access to sanitation. [They] want the local people to be empowered with the knowledge, motivation and skills necessary to help themselves rebuild their community and build a better future for themselves and their children,” (http://www.piscosinfronteras.org/about-us1.html).

First encounters:
We have been in Pisco for only four days worth of work, but have already been able to experience many projects offered at PSF. PSF coordinators highly encourage all volunteers to get involved in all aspects of the community. This means each volunteer has the opportunity to do everything from cooking dinner for 90 volunteers to breaking down pallets for 8 hours in a day to playing with local children, pouring concrete, and teaching English to locals. On first impression, I see the organization to be extremely diverse in volunteer opportunities, learning experiences, and community goals. I appreciate and respect the ambition and objectives held by all members of PSF, and I only hope I can help make a significant difference within the town of Pisco.

This next week Kether, Rayna, and I will be delving into new and different projects. We will write about our experiences volunteering. We are excited to share the people we meet, the places we go, and the work we do!