Proyecto Número Dos

Main cathedral in Cusco at night

So after 7 weeks in the very urban El Alto, and a week long holiday in Bolivia (Alex and I were toying with the idea of cycling death road, I'll link a clip of that below) our team changes tact somewhat with our second project...

Our project in Peru is centred around the historic city of Cusco, the old capital of the Inca Empire. It lies in the south east of the country and is a very popular tourist destination as many flock to do a variety of different trails, incorporating many Inca sites, to Machu Picchu the famous Inca civilization.

Our time in Peru, will be spent at two locations south of Cusco: Hanocca and Urcos. We will be completing a 'mini' project lasting 3/4 weeks at each, and the first project at Hanocca is as follows...

Hanocca...

As you can probably tell Hanocca is a tiny bit more rural than El Alto

The community of Hanocca is rural, and most live a very basic subsistence lifestyle, growing crops and grazing livestock around the lake. Most of the people are indigenous Quechua speakers, however most (especially the young people) also speak Spanish. It is situated on the outskirts of the town of Layo – a small, rural town set in the Andes, 3 hours south of Cusco by road.

In Hanocca we will be working at a regional training centre that belongs to the Independent Evangelical church of Peru (IEP), and functions as a base for hosting conferences, retreats and training events. A little bit like a Peruvian Heatree.
Our main project involves laying a concrete sports pitch and finishing a room to be used as a kitchen. This room has already been built but needs a floor, plastering, and painting etc. to make it usable. But (just like in El Alto) we'll end up doing all kinds of work, with all ages.

Urcos...

The town square in Urcos

After having experienced the extreme urban of El Alto, and the extreme rural of Hanocca (google maps couldn't even find it, its that rural!) team Bo-ru heads on to Urcos, a small market town with a mixture of rural and urban inhabitants, around 45 minutes’ drive south of Cusco. 

Here we will be involved in a similar project extending the kitchen/dining area of another training centre of an IEP church that hosts larger scale events. The improved facilities will make it possible to hire it out to other church groups and denominations, making the centre more self sustainable. 

And, that's right, you guessed it, we'll also be involved in all of the activities currently being run by the congregation of around 300. 

JJ

Urcos

Death road clip, (Top Gear) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXLxszv9eCM