We arrived in Trujillo in the morning after an overnight bus ride from Lima. Bus travel in Peru is pretty good. We usually travel with what could be considered 2nd class- seats that lean fairly far back on the top section of a modern bus. The lower section (what I'd consider 1st class) has seats that become beds.





Our main reason for being in Trujillo is Chan Chan

as well as the Huacas del Sol and Luna. I was a bit worried that Chan Chan would be a disappointment. It is the largest adobe city in the world but since it is 700 years old and has weathered floods and rains, how much could be ecpected to remain? I was worried it would just be bunches of mud piles.

Well, a lot of it is but that is because it hasn't been excavated yet. However, the part we went to, the Tschudi Palace, has been restored in sections and was quite impressive. The palace was surrounded by high walls, though the guide assured us they had been a lot higher before they were destroyed by El Nino floods. What I found really unexpected were the designs on the inside. There were rows of pelicans, some stylized into weird geometric abstractions, waves of fish and rows of fish net patterns, all fashioned from mud.




In the center of the complex was a huge pond filled with water lillies, ducks and reeds.

After lunch at a vegetarian restaurant, we went to the Huaca de Dragon, another Chimu site. It is a huge pyramidic structure covered with strange stylized murals of a rainbow arch, dragon like creatures and weird humanoid characters. The design seemed to be repeated all over the Huaca.





In the evening while relaxing at the hotel, the air became filled with a tremendous ammount of drumming. Our room overlooked the street so we could see what was going on from our window. There was a procession of children carrying colored lanterns in the shapes of fish, dinosaurs, and other animals and characters. The lamps were made of colored cellophane and each had a candle inside.

We are back in Lima. We decided to leave Pisco on Saturday instead of Monday since I'd been sick on Friday and both Rowshan and I needed a clean place with hot showers to recupperate.

All in all, it was a very good experiences, though short. In a week we helped clear 8 lots as well as helped tear down a few unstable walls and ceilings. Rowshan spent a day assisting a group from France, Terre des Hommes. They moved a water sanitation system

and installed another toilet in a 200 person camp which only had one toilet

(and we were going crazy with 2 toilets for 25 people!) Rowshan also helped with a beach cleanup on the day I was sick.

At the house, Rowshan came up with the idea of heating water on the fire (using scrap wood we salvaged from some of the sites) so everyone could have a hot bucket shower.

The fire pit was an old broken concrete pipe that Rowshan, Tim and Jeff salvaged from the dumping grounds on the beach
.
Originally they found a metal drawer but somehow a member of the Earthquake Mafia had given himself the right to sell the metal items in the dump so they found the concrete pipe which worked better anyway.

Both Rowshan and I are really glad we did volunteered with Hands On. Even though the work was hard, it was great to see that even without experience in disaster response, we could still help people.

Today was our first real work day. We were awakened early by people talking loudly outside and Doggie barking. After breakfast we hit the street for our first job.

It was clearing the footprint of a house for a family. They had their tent set up next to the neighbors' wall which looked fairly precarious, and wanted to move it into where their house had been. We started breaking down the remains of walls with sledgehammers, lugging stones, shoveling lots of debris and carting them to the street where trucks will eventually come to haul away the rubble. It started out that just our group of 7 was working. Then the father started helping. By the time we finished the whole family, including the 2 little girls were all working with us. The girls were delighted to sweep debris onto shovels and carry them.

It was then I realized that perhaps one of the most important thing we were doing was just getting the job started. I have to admit I did have some doubts on if we were actually going to be useful... after all there were people being paid by the government to clear stuff. However, there is so much to be done that people need all the help they can get. Many people don't have the tools for clearing the rubble and it must be a sad depressing thing to face: having to clear all the piles of debris which once were your home. By diving in and starting to work and providing tools, the daunting task became possible.

I have to admit I feel really positive about this organization: Hands on Disaster Response. Stephanie and Mark have done a great job getting everything set up: from identifying projects to finding a great place for the volunteers to live to getting all the necessary tools enabling us to start working very quickly.

Another thing that has really changed in a positive way since we started working is the attitudes of locals towards us. The first day we spent here, we probably appeared like tourists coming to gawk at their misery. Now as we walk down the street, dust covered with our tools, everyone says "hola!" and smiles.

The children come up to us while we are working and some, even want to help.

At the last house we were at, a little boy seemed delighted to wield a heavy sledgehammer and cart debris to the piles with a wheelbarrow (which is extremely hard on the forearms).

Tonight we took a "shower" using water poured from half a water bottle with holes punched in the lid, a Rowshan invention. So I'm feeling cleaner than I've been since we came down here. It is dirty, dusty work but it is incredibly satisfying.