Page 21 - 2010 AMA Spring

from mud and straw, there was only one phone in the village and only recently had the village been connected with electricity.
The next day we started building the accommodation for the school, which will house kids from the local villages. On the way to the site, we bumped into the remains of the celebrations from the previous day. After several shots of homebrew, especially enjoyed by LCpl Porte, we were allowed to continue to the site by the rem- nants of the party, where fully fortified, we started the building.
Our job was to dig the foundations for the new building, gather straw for the brick and facilitate the brick making by redirecting a nearby stream. After a certain amount of marking out of where to dig by the engineer, we started.
Over the next three days, the foundations began to take place and the villagers were extremely impressed with our efforts. So much so that when we visited another village, we were treated amazing- ly well and shown enormous hospitality by
people who, relative to us, lived in extreme poverty. Here, having concrete sprayed on your
walls was a luxury that few could afford, meaning your house would last about thirty years before rebuilding rather than five years without the concrete. We were invited into lots of homes and given a locally made corn drink called chicha and various nibbles made from the locally grown multicoloured corn.
After a couple of days of showering in brisk mountain water and truly stunning views, we were joined by a team of OTC from London University. They were to take over from us on the building and we worked with them for the last day. After some very fond farewells to people who had really taken us into the hearth of their village and shared everything they had with incredible hospitality, we made our way to Huaraz where we were surrounded by tall, ‘touching the void’ style, pointy white peaks. In every direction there seemed to be a mountain to climb, with the culture of moun- taineering seeming to be an undercurrent for everything, even the hostel had a cuckoo clock on the wall.
From Huaraz we planned three trips into the White Mountains. The first trip was really to put our new mountaineering skill into practice in the field. We camped in a cow ridden plateau in a high sided val-
ley with a powerful looking glacier at the top. The valley extend-
Digging the foundations at Sanayca
The team descending from the summit of Ishinca
Dave Brown, LCpls Kirchmair and McGreavey and Cpl Lloyd
ARMY MOUNTAINEER 19