Peru 8 - The Exploding Veggie in Eco Disneyland Park

Oct 14, 2011, 4:22pm, the Palapa “Bar”/Restaurant, Eco Truly

I sit in the large outdoor restaurant near the front entrance of Eco Truly – with its palapa roof and the sound of the surf, one could be anywhere in Mexico. But as a Krishna centre, there will be no alcohol served here, nor any fish nor carne. Its currently only used by the odd worker for lunch, but I suspect it becomes busy with tourists in the height of summer.

Caigua birds

I feel if I eat one more vegetable, I will explode with bits of corn, caigua, potatoes, lettuce and other assorted veggie shrapnel flying in all directions. As a dairy-grainaterian, I love not eating anything with eyes, but I don't think I have ever eaten so many veggies in my life – veggies for breakfast, veggies for lunch, and veggies for dinner, then repeat next day. Mind you, I am enjoying it, but am starting to miss pancakes, donuts, cakes, and PB M&M's.
This mornings breakfast was a real treat and exception to the norm. We had a mixed cereal (shreds of coconut, puffed wheat, crushed faux sesame snaps (a bit like styrofoam in texture) and other unidentified cereals) with warm milk (combo of cow + rice milk), topped with our fresh strawberries and chunks of pineapple. Yummmm!!! :)
I worked in the garden this morning – madly chopping lettuce, oregano, mint, etc for the market stand rush, then a more relaxed planting of new parsley-like shoots with Rosario the Gardener, then some weeding and raking.
Over 200 people from Lima arrived this morning by 1/2 dozen buses, for quick tour of our grounds. The Krishnas donned their official guide hats, and the gardener volunteers worked furiously to stock the market cart by the front entrance; for after the tour of the Bio-Huerta (organic gardens), most of the visiting women wanted to buy our fresh produce – the oregano and strawberries flew out of the cart and into the bus caravans. The place felt like Disneyland for a couple of hours.

 Eco Truly volunteer castle

The sun has been out for two days in a row – halleluiah!!!! After a week of fog and cool temperatures, it is nice to feel some heat for a change. Even my laundry (hand-washed before breakfast) was dry by noon – solar dryers rock. But already in the shade the wind feels cool again – back to long pants and a jacket.
Yesterday I went to Chancay with a couple of volunteers – an afternoon in the big (relative) city! I needed a data cable for my Nokia phone (to download pictures), plus another battery or charger for my camera battery, plus we all wanted to find an internet cafe to catch up on emails. Arriving at the town plaza (quite nice and spacious), we walked into the first corner store beside us – it looked like an ice-cream shop, and was about the size of a bedroom. Lo and behold they also did photocopies, and sell USB data cables the fit Nokia phones – AWESOME!
Then we walked down a narrow street filled to the brim of local vendors sending everything from fruit to CDs to TV remotes to fake Nike shoes. Then I stumbled past this tiny electronic vendor stall – could you help me senor? I showed him my dead camera battery. He pulls out a lithium-ion universal charger, demonstrates how it works (it even has a USB port for charging), and sells me it for 9 sols (around $3US) – VUNDERBAR! The universal charger I forgot back in Eugene cost me around $60. So lets say the $3 charger cost the vendor $1.50 wholesale. It is plastic, but contains a PCB computer board, USB port, and supports 120-220v. Its shipped from China – halfway around the world. It amazes me to have this device for such little cost – I am sure even child labour couldn't keep this price so low. But what do I know – nada – Yo se nada.

After emails at the internet cafe (no cafe actually, just internet) we board a shared taxi for home, and arrive in the dark for 3 sols ($1) each. There is no taxi dome light, so I pull out my tiny flashlight to count the change. A successful day! Now lets hope my camera battery doesn't explode when I attach it to the new charger.

My solar water heater project has been not completely successful. As a wimp, my daily cold showers are not the highlight of my day – but the other volunteers are amazed I bathe everyday – they hold out as long as possible before doing the cold rain dance. So when I found a 2.5 litre water bottle lying in a corner, I thought here was my shivering salvation. Gathering some broken mud bricks (everything here is built out of mud bricks), I made an open air oven outside – two towers of bricks – just below my window and placed my full water bottle between them, envisioning the hot sun creating boiling water by the end of the day. A week of fog prevented any rise in water temperature, but todays sunshine has given me new hope, and for the first time I could end my shower with less-than-lukewarm rinse. Since my window wall only gets sun in the afternoon, perhaps I will need to move to a sunnier location.

The shower head has vanished – I scrounge around in the other shower stalls until I find a spare shower head on the floor behind a sink. But now the water pressure is so low that its almost better to shower without the head. Water pressure is created by gravity feed from tanks on the roof, so as the tanks get lower in volume, pressure decreases. There is no power here to generate water pressure via pumps. To get an idea of the pressure coming out of the tap on the sink: cup your hands, place under faucet, count 4-5 seconds, then your hands will be full. Shower volume is a little better, but I find rinsing from my 2.5 litre bottle more effective than waiting under a dripping shower pipe. Interesting fact: your body will feel warm about 5-10 minutes after taking a cold shower.