Trip Down the Pacific Coast and visit to Chincha A

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  Lima, Utah, Peru
Saturday, November 29, 2008

Good Saturday Morning to you.
Yes, on Wednesday afternoon Fr. Moe Schroeder and yours truly boarded a bus for the three hour journey down the Pacific Coast of Peru to Chincha Alta. What an eye opener of an experience, the entire landscape seemed to be speckled with thousands of 4' X 8' abodes crawling all the way up the side of the mountain. Some are made of mud bricks others of cement blocks. The population of Peru, I am told is nine million, and that in itself
must be one of the reasons why people are forced to live this way. It is hard to wrap your head around the expansive poverty until you see it.
In Chincha Alta, Blaise MacQuarrie an Oblate from Cape Breton, NS, and who came to Peru in 1957. His first
twenty years were in the jungle and he has been building and repairing houses here for the past twenty years.Thursday morning Blaise had me ride shotgun on the big truck as we hauled gravel from the gravel pit
to the homes that had to be rebuilt. On August 15th, 2007 a earthquake hit Chincha causing the death of
two hundred people and flattening very many of the houses made of mud bricks and whatever else they were constructed with.  The piles of tubble, the remains of what used to be homes, give evidence of the strength of
the quake. Blaise and his crew of twenty-two muscle-bound men are presently rebuilding the homes were hit the hardest and  really at high risk for the safety of the people. On the top of the list are people who cannot get help
in rebuilding and have no means of support. Balise talks about the poor and then the "really poor". The latter are the first on the list. We visited some of the homes that have been completely distroyed. They have absolutely
nothing, and yet the resiliency of these people is remarkable, just to pick up the pieces and start all over again.
No free-bees here, if a family needs help, everyone grabs a pick and shovel and goes to it, ladies included. This human condition is worse than my days in riot torn city of Detroit in the 60's with Box-car Benny and One-arm
Archie, fine geltlemen given to the joys of the grape. Here in Peru, with the great masses of the people
scurrying about like a hive of bees to answer the call of responsibility 'say yes to life' and squeeze out a place on earth for themselves and loved ones. I don't have to look any farther than the eyes of the little lady who squeezes
the fresh orange juice, that Moe sends me out to buy before breakfast, to witness the udaunted human spirit in 
a life that has meaning. For her it's loving the gorgeous little four year old daughter who needs her two front teeth from Santa this Christmas. They give me a great gift as I bend down and the little one plants a kiss on my cheek.
There is where I meet Christ. The Montreal Canadians and the Toronto Maple Leafs are really great but I don't
think too many people know much about them. My half day with Blaise was amazing, as we made the deliveries
of construction material to the houses there was not a soul in Chincha who was not giving Blaise the "high fives"
and a great big smile. The gravel pit mentioned above, is just like any big gravel pit in Canada, only this one was  
dug by hand, incredible to say the least. 
Moe wants me to go shopping, so when he calls I'm going to hit the "send " button and pray this gets on the air waves. No pictures with this,OOOOps  Moe just said "2 minutes.
Adios,
Vaughan



 

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