Waiting for New Supplies

June is a "fiesta" month, especially in Cusco, Peru’s tourist center. Almost every day, there are parades featuring participants in colorful Peruvian costumes. The highlight of this time of festivities is Inti Raymi, the old Inca winter solstice celebration. As a local, this is a time to avoid Cusco: many streets and squares are closed off, the city is crowded and taking a cab is an unpleasant experience, as we realized – once again, during a shopping excursion to Cusco last weekend.

The week on the construction site, however, was uneventful.

The first floor ceilings are finished, and we are only waiting until the concrete has completely hardened. The form work is now being used for the ceilings on the next floor. Since we don’t always have welded reinforcement steel mesh, this construction phase requires a lot of work.

The ramp for the concrete beams is finished and we might be able to start pouring the ceiling concrete next week. But in order to do so, we need the ordered supplies. A truck loaded with our 600 bags of cement is stuck near Puno due to a strike. The sand supplies haven’t arrived either because there is an issue with the license for the river sand.

With faith in God, we are waiting for this next week to start.

Greetings from Udo