Saint Patrick & Material Purchase

As you probably know, Saint Patrick day is an Irish Holiday, celebrated every 17th of March, which usually known by its legitimate excuse for heavy drinking, but I’ve never expected I’ll be blessed that day with a real saint, who is ironically also named Patrick and is also Irish.

Patrick is a builder and a carpenter who came to cusco with a goal in mind: Building a house for someone who lost his home in the recent flooding. The world has conspired to help me and we happened to meet quite coincidently at a local bar.

(Saint) Patrick is now part of the team and I feel extremely blessed with it as he’s not only a very skilful builder but also a great guy who’s committed to help those in need.

Yesterday was a long day for both of us. Saint Patrick and I spent the morning calculating how much material we need for the new house. We also drew a new plan as the old ones were simply too expensive.
Next step was to go to Chinchero and get an approval from the house owner. The family consulted and agreed to the new plan which includes 4 rooms, one at the attic level. As soon as approval was granted we took the bus back to Cusco in order to get for the best deal in town. We didn’t want to compromise on quality and eliminated any factory that had cheap products. We still needed a good price though so we explored every shop in 2 industrial areas of the city.

Finally in the evening, just before it turned dark, we closed deals with 3 different factories for the initial martial we need, around 5 tons in total. The cost: Close to $2800, quite a bit more than what I’ve fundraised but it was definitely not the right time to back off.

Currently there is a glaring minus sign on our donation status but both Patrick and I have a good faith that the universe will help us along the way.

Donation numbers till this date are:

Total Donations: $2273.65 (42 People, Thank you!)
Total Expenses: $2989.5
Donation Status: $-715.85

Back in town we both agreed its time for beer. We sat at the bar and discussed our next day. Patrick will start placing stones and leave enough room for the cement and I will be responsible for delivery & payments. As we’re discussing the guy who sat near me offered his help. He’s a engineer in Canada and have a lot of experience with structures. Again, the world conspires to help us!

Big hug from Peru
Tal

For Donations: Donate page

Photos of Visits 4 – 6 (18-22 March 2010):