Not really part 2...

If anyone expected this blog to be ordered, structured, chronological or such, well, you'd be wrong. It's more likely to be chaotic, impulsive, disorganised, a stream of consciousness, spontaneous...kind of how my brain looks.

It would be remiss of me to let this weekend pass by and not comment on it in my new bloggy-style. You see, I've just spent the weekend with nearly 200 teenagers, aged between 11 and 18, building 12 houses for desperately poverty stricken people in Chincha, Peru. Backstory is that there was a huge earthquake (8.0) here in 2007 which killed hundreds and left countless (I really don't know the figures) without a home. A very good friend of mine and a group of his friends went down from Lima and began constructing 'chosas' - houses made out of plants - to give people at least some shelter. 11 years on and there are people who are STILL living like this. No 'proper' shelter, no proper access to running water or electricity. It's mind boggling. I will post some photos tomorrow to give you an idea of the conditions.

Kids getting their build on

This is the running water beside the 'bathroom'

When you live in the bubble that I have been fortunate enough to live in, having been teaching internationally for the past 9 years, the disparity between rich and poor becomes shockingly apparent. I never really knew what class was, growing up in Scotland. I was aware that some people had more than others, but I didn't really think in terms of class as such. Having experienced the upper echelons of society, both here and in Venezuela, it really is Another World. And having spent time volunteering in the lower echelons...well, you just don't know how good you've got it. It occurs to me, quite frequently now, that the ONLY reason I have the life I do is because I was lucky enough to be born where I was born, to the parents I was born to and with the colour of skin that I have; it has very little to do with anything other than luck.

So anyway...this friend of mine has grown the project over the course of the years, taking students down to Chincha to build houses. I think we just finished house number 277 today. I volunteer to be an adult on this exceptional trip, which teaches the kids leadership, collaboration, service, KINDNESS, amongst the gazillions of other things they get out of being sky rocketed out of Their World and smashed quite crassly into The Other. It really is How The Other Half Live. And the feeling I have come away with each and every time is that these children are incredible. They give up their weekend, and sure they have fun and they enjoy camping and being away from their parents and staying up late and all of that, but they work bloody hard! They do manual labour I wouldn't have dreamt of as a teenager. They build a freaking house in 2 days!! They take orders from their peers, they lift heavy walls, they don't have all of the creature comforts that they are so bandaged up in in their regular life, and they build an actual house for a family that don't have one.

Putting the panels together

Always a wee dog friend

And we have a house, people!

My favourite slide...but I fails this trip. Too tired to climb up!!

People criticise this project for all kinds of reasons. Often they haven't been to work on it. Sometimes they think rich kids showing up is a smack in the face. Sometimes they just moan coz that's what they're good at. But I am back from a weekend that's left me exhausted but with my heart bursting with pride and love for this - well done, you little stars. You gave someone a home today. xxxx

Favourite parts:
'Are you a Gap student?'
'You're like the fun mum from Mean Girls'
...I think you'll find she's a 'wannabe fun mum'...
'Yeah, you are ACTUALLY fun.'
Kids all dancing to a local live band in the plaza, waitresses from various restaurants serving shots of wine samples all round the plaza. Marianne looks on, bemused, thinking 'someone needs to tell that waitress these kids are not allowed to drink'.  Then realises, 'SHIT! I'M the adult here!'