Day 4 and Day 5 of the trip took place in Independencia, a poverish community about an hour away from the Y in Lima. Both days revolved around our work project, which was continuting the help up building a pharmacy for the community.

Our group's task was to make concrete for the Peruvian workers that were making the walls of the building. This was a strenious task but something that the group was able to actually visualize the impact that they were making. On Monday afternoon we had to take 20 barrels of sand, mix that with 10 bags of cement which took about 20 minutes. After that, we create a crater like formation out of the pile and begin to add water. While the water is setting into the cement and sand mix, we begin to haul down buckets of rocks closer to the pile. As we add rocks and water to the cement and sand mix, we have to consistently mix the concrete with shovels. Once the concrete is ready to transport, we formed an assembly line and passed buckets to the future pharmacy building. This process took about 5 hours to complete. We were all exhausted, but a sense of pride was definitely over the group. After a night of sleep, we woke the next day and headed back to the work site for more mixing. Today we needed to leave Independencia around 2pm, so we only mixed 5 bags of cement. Again we worked hard but we had fun doing it. With music (both spanish and english songs) in the background, we were able to dance and sing. There were definitely sore muscles and blisters formed from the work. We left Independencia around 2:30pm and we were heading back to the Y in Lima with one thing on our mind.... a shower!

With Independencia being more poverish than the other parts of Lima that we have seen, it was an interesting aspect to witness. On Monday night the group had a great discussion around the life that they saw in Independencia. For a community that isn't as technologically advanced as most parts of the USA, the community rallies around each other and their is a sense of pride in their daily life. The children in Peru continue to amaze us, as the ones around our work site would come and hang out and chat with us. They were excited to see everyone when they got out of school on Tuesday afternoon, and came to the site with hugs and kisses on the cheek.

While spending the night in Independencia, we spent our Monday night with a trip to the mall just outside Independencia. We all ate dinner at Bembos in the courtyard, which is a popular fast food chain in the country. Most everyone either got a burger or chicken sandwich with fries and a drink. However, there toppings on the sandwiches were the interesting aspect. Options ranged from pineapple, avocado, grilled bananas, an egg, and more. After dinner, we had a brief amount of free time to walk around and most of the group treated ourself to icecream, yogurt, or a milkshake. It was great!

After heading back to the Y in Lima, we are going to repack our bookbags, eat dinner, and then head to the coast at Y Camp for the remainder of the week. Y Camp is essentially their version of Camp Seagull/Seafarer that we are accustomed to. There are awesome views! We won't have an opportunity to post something until Thursday evening since we will be sleeping in the desert tomorrow night!

PS - The blog and the internet service isn't cooperating with us tonight with uploading some pictures... Sorry...