Just back from a wonderful week in La Florida, Peru in South America. It is a small village at the foothills of the Andes about two hours south of the capital, Lima. I was one of approximately forty voulunteers that participated in the 3rd annual Millard Fuller Legacy Build. Millard Fuller was the co-founder (along with his wife Linda Fuller) of both Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Centers. He passed away a few years back after a sudden illness. The Legacy Build is aptly named as his legacy and goal to eliminate poverty housing worldwide continues on without him here. I arrived in Lima early Saturday morning and was met by Hailey who was on Fuller Center staff and was one of the main coordinators of the event. Already with her there at 4 am was a couple from Las Vegas, and Elmer from Ohio. Hailey guided us back to the Word of Life Camp where we would be staying for the week. As you will see from some of the pictures, La Florida is at the foothills of the Andes and the landscape there is somewhat reminiscent of the moon. There is no vegetation of any sort on the hills. They say that is is actually a high desert that receives only less than an inch of rain per year. Nevertheless, most of the people of the village are farmers. Extremely resourcefull farmers. They have cultivated fields in and around the town with a series of ditches that allow the water to flow here and there to feed the crops.   Our task for the week was to complete ten homes in five days with forty ferners and local "maestros" or tradesmen as well as the homeowner families. As with any blitz, they cheated a little bit and had the foundations in and the brick walls up when we got there. On the Sunday before the build started, we were treated to two opening ceremonies. The first was put on by local gubment officials. It featured a large Peruvian flag that we marched around the village square, a small military color gaurd, and some speeches. The second was put on in front of the Fuller Center office and that was where we were introduced to the ten families that we would be working together with that week. Also, as with any blitz, you can plan all you want, but on Monday morning at the start, it's be patient and flexible and let's see what develops. I was to have been house leader on house # 2 and I made it a point to introduce myself to the homeowner family. They had a friend there with them who was an English teacher, so I was able to make all kinds of promises to them like that we would have their house finished by Friday. As it turned out, ahem, I never set foot in their home. Worked on three others though, and finally settled down to house #10, the future home of Juan Carlo and Kelly, a local pastor and his wife with two kids. Bill Lifsey, a friend who works a lot with Habitat International was there and did a lot of the on the ground prep work and was liason for the local maestros or tradesmen. His spanish is pretty bien. Another excellent Spanish speaker is the head of the Fuller Centers, David Snell. He actually translated a number of the speeches for us while we were there. David and his wife Sheila were on my team along with a dentist from Nawlins named Randy and also his son Zane. The other man overall in charge together with Bill was Frank Purvis. They had us bouncing around house to house a bit the first few days. The two major tasks were the installation of the roof system and the pouring of the concrete floor. Couldnt do both on the same house same day so we did harf and harf. That ended up making specialty teams who could do one of the activities and then they got shifted to the next houses. Somehow, these things always work out. There was a woeful shortage of power tools available. The power itself (220 v) came strung on hundres of feet of two wires from God-only-knows-where. Lots of hand sawing of wood. Which is fine. Power tool appreciation week.
I got a little ding the first day . I was doing three things that I shouldnt have been doing. Standing on a ladder too straignt up, using a masonry bit on wood and using my left hand for the drill.   Pushing hard on the drill to burn the hole through the wood, suddenly the bit goes through and in front of my finger is a little chunk of re-bar and, ding, off comes the top half of my finger nail. Oops. I hate it when that happens. I'm sure it hurts more hearing about it than it did me. They bandaged me up and back I went. Had a doctor on my crew. Well, a dentist, but close enough. Randy actually took very good care of me for the rest of the week. Met lots of new friends and re-met some old. Karen (aka Toolie) and I have been on a number of builds together. She is from my home state of Virginia. She sponsored two of the homes on this build. Another of our mutual Virginia friend who was a major sponsor of this build was Richard Semmler. He is a professor of mathematics at NOVA and has given away tons of money for both Habitat and Fuller Center Projects. Part of the activites this week were installing streets signs that his funding provided as well as trees for the center islands of the streets here.    It was a great week. Beautiful people both the Peruvians we met along with the volunteers who came to serve. I am writing this now back in Tuscaloosa. At one of the meals at the camp during the week, I asked Ryan if I could put in a shameless plug and invite for those present to come to work with us in Tuscaloosa and I did so. Let's see. As Millard used to say, he tried the ask and the don't ask and he found that the ask works much better. That's all for now. Suarte (sp?)