Round the World with Us

a boy from the village stands in the existing community kitchen

After seeing the Tierra y Ser nursery school, Karla took us to the nearby village of en Tierra Prometida in Comatrana in the district of Ica, Peru.  Our van pulled up in front of a shack made of poles and woven grass.

the community kitchen is currently just a small grass shack with only one unsafe burner for cooking - there is not affordable day care, so many mothers cannot work or leave their young children alone during the day

Mothers and children smiled and greeted us warmly as we stepped inside the community kitchen.  There was a list on the wall of all of the women who used the kitchen, how many children they have and on which days they were to cook for everyone.  The Peruvian government provides some food for community kitchens like this one.

The structure was in poor shape and the flames of the only working burner were very close to the dried grass walls.  It was about 8 feet by 12 feet and had one table and a couple of benches.  Light streamed in through the poor quality roof.  Since the earthquake in 2007, many of the houses in the community are of similar woven grass contraction, as their mud brick houses were destroyed.  The use of mud bricks in that area is now forbidden and families do not have the money to construct red brick houses or community buildings.

Karla explained that the members of the community, many of them single mothers, want to build a better kitchen and also a nursery so they can take turns caring for each other’s children while the other mothers go to work.  They have organized their own community association, and with Tierra y Ser’s help they have building plans and the volunteers they need to construct the facilities they need and to run the kitchen and day care.  We met a few of the volunteers and they were very enthusiastic about the possibility of being able to improve their own community.  The problem is that cost of the building materials and of hiring a construction supervisor is about 15,000 soles (about US $5,000) and this is an insurmountable sum for a community made up of mostly poor single mothers.

We didn’t  have time to see the houses around the community kitchen.  Karla explained that they are worse off than the people we had visited in the shacks surrounding the nursery school in the other village.  (Please see our previous post about the Tierra y Ser nursery school near Ica, Peru).  I tried to imagine worse living conditions than what we had already seen, but was difficult to do.  In spite of their living conditions, the people we met seemed bright, enthusiastic and very hopeful about the future.

Doug and I were so impressed with what we saw that we committed told Karla, the President of Tierra y Ser, that our new charity, Change a Life, Change Your World, would raise the money to fund the community kitchen and day care.  The project has all the right elements of empowering local community members to help themselves in a sustainable way, and we will be working with Tierra y Ser, a very high quality NGO with a proven track record of success.  It’s amazing to me that for about $5,000, we can help a local community provide their children with better nutrition and, through the new daycare, a means of earning a better living.

Please make a donation to make this worthy project possible!

You can e-mail roundtheworldwithus@yahoo.com, call (US) 978-621-3410 to make a donation or mail a check made out to “Change a Life; Change Your World” to 464B Boston Rd Groton, MA 01450.  We are in the process of getting our 501( c ) 3, but IRS regulations allow use to acknowledge your tax-deductible contribution immediately.  We would like to help the village right away as their winter season is approaching and there is a great need for decent facilities.  We hope to start the project in early June, 2010.

Our new friend in Peru, Vanessa , will be going down to the village with Karla this week to interview some of the members of the community about the need for the project and how they will volunteer for the construction as well as to run the facility when it is complete. If we are successful in raising the funds, one of our Board members, Anna Davis, will travel to Peru to film part of the construction and the completion of the project so you will be able to see first hand the difference you have made in people’s lives.  We hope this will take place in late June.

I spent the rest of our short stay at the community kitchen playing with the children, who were delightful.  As we left, there were kisses and hugs all around.  I got the idea that they would have welcomed us and kissed and hugged us whether we were there to help or were people who just needed a good meal ourselves.  Now, more than before, I would like to spent set up a home in a village like this one, see what day-to-day life is really like, and share it with all of you on this blog.  Something tells me that, in spite of the poverty, there is something very beautiful that we can learn from the people who live there.

some of the women who are helping to organize the project thanked us for visiting and bid us farewell