More tasty and healthy products from our kitchen garden at the refuge … a barrowful of sweet potato and aubergines. Project Peru keeps growing, thanks to your support.
And as part of our ongoing attempts to be involved in the local community we invited a group from one of the local shanty town settlements to come in and help with a ‘Spring clean’ at the refuge, at the same time as we were doing some painting and decorating … and they were rewarded with generous supplies of basic food items we had been given.
Where possible, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve been able to act in this way as a local hub to help distribute donated staple food supplies to individuals, and also to go out to some of the local community groups who have set up ollas comunales [emergency community kitchens] to support the people there. We have plans to do more of these activities.
But then … the nearby beach at Ancón which our children visit sometimes …
[see A long walk to the Pacific] … was one of the casualties of a major oil spill in Peru as a result of a tsunami which had originated in Tonga over 6,500 miles away across the South Pacific. The submarine volcanic eruption in Tonga on 14th January sent shock waves across the ocean. A tanker unloading crude oil near the coast of Lima was hit by this tsunami and caused almost 12,000 barrels of crude to spill into the ocean. The Peruvian government declared an environmental emergency, and at least 29 beaches on the Pacific coast north of Lima have been contaminated by the oil spill, causing enormous damage both to wild life and to the physical environment.
