I am the treasurer and a trustee for a small Perth based Christian charity that works with people in the Peruvian Andes who were displaced and impoverished by the violence and upheaval in Peru during the 80s and 90s. The charity is called Perperu. It was previously known as Ayllu Kuy, which means "helping hand" (or something like that) in the native Peruvian Quechua language. The name had problems from a marketing perspective, i.e. no-one could pronounce it, spell it, remember it or understand what it meant. We're hoping the new name will work better!

Please get in touch if you're interested in our charity or you'd like to support it.

Our worker in Peru, Ingrid Ramirez from Perth, has been doing fantastic work. Lately she and her husband Rafael have been building up a programme to give poor children in the city of Ayacucho a good lunch. Many children in Peru have to walk a long way to and from school. They don't have enough to eat at lunchtime, and their health and their studies suffer as a result.

Ingrid and Rafael have also been working in the prisons of Ayacucho, acting as prison chaplains, spreading the gospel and helping the families of people who have been imprisoned. Many of the prisoners are poor people from the countryside who have been tricked by drugs dealers to deliver parcels by bus. The victims are often caught and receive draconian jail sentences. Ingrid and Rafael have been doing educational work to alert people to the dangers of being unwittingly drawn into the drugs trade.

Ingrid and Rafael joined in the relief effort after the Peruvian earthquake in August 2007. She gave an exciting account of their adventures.

Hello to you all from sunny Ayacucho! Praise the Lord this department was not affected by the earthquake on the 15^th as the epicentre was off the coast altho' we did feel some hefty tremors. Rafael, Juan (a young missionary friend) and myself were away in a village at the time and on returning to Ayacucho on the Friday afternoon Rafael read an email from a friend in Lima.

This friend was concerned about the fact that all the aid was going to the major towns on the coast which had been affected and the inland rural areas which had also suffered were being ignored. He mentioned in particular a village called Tantara in the department of Huancavelica, about 50 miles inland from the coastal town of Chincha and where a third of the houses had been destroyed or badly damaged. As both the road up from Chincha and inland from Huaytara were not passable they were not receiving any help.

 

Anyway Rafael and I decided that we could reach this place from Ayacucho and so Saturday we bought a 50kg sack of sugar, 60kg of rice, a case of tuna, 20lb salt, 100 boxes of matches, 100 bread rolls, a 100m x4m roll of heavy duty plastic sheeting and together with a couple of sacks of kids and adult clothes we were ready to set off Sunday 6am. We would have liked to have been able to take much more but knowing that there would be no chance of getting petrol for the return journey we also had to take 4 x 5gallon canisters of petrol plus of course all the other gear we always have to travel with ie toolbox, under car jack, sleeping bags, own food for a couple of days etc.

So Sunday 6.30am we left the outskirts of Ayacucho with a hand drawn map taken from the internet. We were able to take the main asphalted road for the first 130km and then turned off onto country roads, stopping at many villages on the way to check directions with villagers or the local police and enquire which route was open. It had been difficult to calculate the distance in advance due to lack of information and we had been wildly optimistic in thinking we could do the journey in 6-7hours, unload, spend the night in the car and return following morning.

After 12 hours arduous driving we arrived at the village of San Juan 2 hours from Tantara and stopped for the night. A number of houses had been affected here and the mayoress asked us to give our aid to help there as food supplies were running out in the shops, but we insisted that Tantara was our objective. 6am the following morning we set off again and finally arrived at our destination.

It had taken us 14 hours driving to cover 340km (210 miles). Country roads in the mountains are very narrow at the best of times and we had to negotiate a good number of landslides which made the roads even narrower. Not so bad if it weren't for the fact that many times on the off-side was a precipice of several thousand feet! At times Rafael had to get out of the car and go ahead to make sure the car could make it, often with only an inch or two to spare. (see photos) God's angels were definitely around us and I do thank all of you again and again for your prayers for our safety here.

Well in Tantara folk were overjoyed to see us. We were told 60 families had been badly affected and people were camping on the sports field and in the square. About 30 families on the sports field had erected a large communal tent out of bits of plastic sheeting, card board, sacking, any material to hand and were all sleeping in it using any mattresses and blankets they had been able to rescue. Not everyones house was totally destroyed but many were so badly damaged the people were afraid to stay in them in case they collapsed as there were still occasional after tremors.

We were told it had been a miracle no one had been injured as every Wednesday 5pm just about everyone gathers at the sportsground to watch the guys play football and so when the quake happened everyone was outside. Anyway we unloaded our goods amid many thanks. The one good thing was that we saw the people pulling together, sharing and they had also set up a communal soup kitchen from which they served us corn soup for breakfast. It was so sad that we couldn't have brought more yet the people were so appreciative just of the fact that we had taken the trouble to come such a distance as no other help had as yet been able to arrive.

Some of the women cried and one women went to her garden and brought me a bunch of flowers and another a little bag of potatoes and yet another presented us with two gourd-like marrows. I felt so humbled that these folk who had lost so much could still be so generous.

Following breakfast we took a walk around, took photos and video footage then set off again at 11am hoping to find somewhere to stay the night at nightfall. However there was no accommodation where we had hoped and having heard the road to Huaytara was now passable we decided to just continue in the dark and stop there. At 9pm and a mile out of Huaytara the car engine stopped.

We were by now on the main road albeit still mountainous with heavy lorries passing. Behind us was a sharp bend and a few yards in front another sharp bend yet just at that spot was a small pull-in place where there were a couple of cottages so we could stop safely and spend the night in the car. "A miracle!" we declared to each other. Stopping anywhere else and we could have been mown down in the dark by a lorry.

The following morning early Rafael walked into Huaytara and came back with a mechanic who was able to trace the fault to air in the fuel line. And so we were able to continue back to Ayacucho but passing many places where the main road had been reduced to single lane due heavy rock falls down the mountainside.

The people of Tantara were able to receive this help because of kind donations made to Ayllukuy Trust (Scotland). Petrol, food supplies and plastic sheeting cost in total £170. More important to them though was the knowledge of the solidarity that we felt with them and they praised God. Please keep this village of Tantara (pronounced with the accent on the last "a") in your prayers, that the people will receive help from their regional government of Huancavelica to rebuild their houses before the rainy season starts and that they will continue in mutual support and be encouraged. 1 John 4:7 "Beloved let us love one another for love is of God"

Blessings to you all

Ingrid