So this is Christmas

By Alisha

Our first Christmas in Peru has come and gone without some of the usual fanfare that we are accustomed to in the States. It was my first Christmas without snow, Christmas music and decorations were sparse, and gift giving wasn't a focus. Micah and I traveled to Lima and spent Christmas Eve and part of Christmas Day with our host-family from training. All of the celebrating happens at midnight of the 25th and includes dinner, gift giving, and fireworks. Also very popular is hot chocolate and panetón (a sweet bread with dried fruits) at midnight. Our host brothers and sisters were pretty excited for midnight and probably asked what time it was every fifteen minutes until it was time to celebrate. Once the clock struck midnight we were simultaneously opening gifts, shooting off fire works, and eating a meal of duck, chicken, panetón, and, of course, potatoes. The kids went nuts at this point and stayed up until past 4am playing with their new toys. Micah and I were pretty tired from our bus ride and went to bed "early" at around 2am. Somehow the kids were up again at 6am playing and continuing to go nuts with their toys. We had a great time celebrating with the family. We are now gearing up for the New Year's celebrations in Chota.

Extreme excitment and anticipation!

The three youngest in their new outfits.
The much celebrated panetón
All good things must come to an end/coming down from a sugar high

I had to also include the lyrics to one of my favorite Christmas songs. Happy Holidays!

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young

A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Christmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
And so this is Christmas
And what have we done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear
War is over over
If you want it
War is over

¡Que vivan los derechos humanos!

By Alisha & Micah

In commemoration of this month's 60th anniversary of the UN's Human Rights Declaration, we had a parade! There is a NGO in Chota that works to promote human rights and access to the justice system in rural areas. This organization along with other organizations in Chota sponsored the parade.

The slogan on the poster (pictured above) is "I can't wait 60 more years for my rights," so we wanted to share some information about human rights in Peru.

• The country as a whole is still coming to terms with the violence of the internal conflict between the Maoist terrorist group Shining Path and government military forces. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found evidence of human rights violations on both sides of the conflict.
  
• Access to quality public education, especially in rural areas, is severely lacking.
• 15% of children and adolescents don't have any form of identification documents .
• Indigenous communities are constantly marginalized and ignored by the government, especially in terms of land rights as mining is taking on more importance in mountainous regions. This is a very controversial issue because while mining creates economic opportunities and stimulation, many rural and indigenous populations argue that the mines are detrimental to the environment and traditional ways of life.

Boys Meet World

By Alisha

The world map is complete! Micah and I started this project the beginning of October with 12 students and two professors at the largest high school (over 1400 students) in Chota. While the group dwindled down to 5 boys and the professors disappeared, we managed to finish up with a great looking map. Along the way we did presentations on the continents (students here are taught that there are five continents: America, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania). The process was tedious at times, but I really feel like the youth that stuck it out learned a lot.

Patron Saint of Chota Day

By Alisha

For the past week or so Chota has been celebrating its' Patron Saint, Mary the Virgin Mother. The streets are decorated and people set up small shrines outside their homes that are lighted at night by candles and Christmas lights. Today is the day of the Immaculate Conception, which is a national holiday in Perú. Micah and I went to check out the celebrations this morning.



Decorating the streets
The view on our way to the church
We arrived a little bit early
Almost two hours latter and everyone has arrivedGetting ready for the procession following the mass

Reconnect & Thanksgiving

By Alisha & Micah

Last week we headed down the mountainside to the beach! We spent three days in Pacasmayo, a beach town in the department of La Libertad.
We met up with the volunteers from our training group for Reconnect, which is more or less a conference that occurs three months after swearing in as volunteers. We had workshops in which we talked about our experiences thus far in site and all of us had the opportunity to present about our communities. It was great to see pictures of the other volunteers' sites and see their different work opportunities. We even had a Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey and pumpkin pie.

After Reconnect we spent a few days in Trujillo (capital of La Libertad) and Huanchaco (a popular beach town close to Trujillo). We spent time with friends, relaxed, and ate to our hearts content.
Ruins at Chan Chan outside of Trujillo

Now we are back in Chota and are gearing up for summer vacation projects. School will be finishing up here in the next couple of weeks, and we are planning to have some youth groups as well as sports and arts workshops.

Beginning to take form

By Alisha

A quick update on our world map project. Things are beginning to take form and the group is doing a great job. We thought we might be done by now with all of the painting, but there is still some work to be done.

We will be spending next week on the beach so stay turned for pictures!

Update in Photos

By Alisha


Chota celebrated its 456th anniversary the beginning of this month. I headed out to the parade to take part in the festivities. Since the Plaza is still under construction the parade was held near another park on a street that had almost no room for people to stand and get a glimpse of what was happening. Additionally, the parade "route" was literally only one block long. Luckily I am an almost a foot taller than the average Peruvian and was able to see over the crowd that had gathered to watch the parade. Above is a picture of one of our community partners, Carmen, and her daughter who had just participated in the parade.
Micah and I continue to enjoy our time spent at the children's shelter. We feel like we are getting to know the kids and plan to develop some more formal workshops and activities to do with them during the upcoming summer vacation. One of the younger kids, Ana, loves animals and had me take a picture of her with every dog and chicken she could get her hands on. Yesterday we spent a good portion of the day at the shelter for the baptism of three of the kids. It was a really nice ceremony and the kids were really excited about their big day.
After the ceremony we ate a serious amount of aji de gallina!

In about a week we will head to the coast to our three-month (in site) conference. We will meet up with the other volunteers from our training group to share our experiences thus far and have the opportunity to celebrate Thanksgiving together. We are really looking forward to seeing everyone, to enjoy some time away from the rain, and to check out the beach.

World Map and Cocina Pictures

Buying sand is harder than you think...

by Alisha

A group of health volunteers from Peru 12, who are currently training, were in the Chota area last week observing different projects of current health volunteers. Micah and I tagged along a little bit to meet some of the new volunteers and to learn more about one of the projects they completed at the orphanage that we have been visiting. We all learned about the process of building a cocina mejorada which is basically a wood burning stove that is used for cooking. The idea of using this model is that it efficiently burns the wood and also includes a chimney that takes the smoke out of the house and thus prevents repertory problems. This stove was being built outside, but usually they are put inside the home.

Micah and I helped out by buying some sand that was needed for the project. We were instructed to pick up 17 latas (cans) of sand by the volunteer who was coordinating the project. No problem, right? It took us a little while to find the guy that sells the sand, but after finding him we figured we were home free. When we arrived he asked us where our bags were to take the sand. Not knowing we needed to bring anything with us, we asked if we could purchase the bags from him. He said we would have to walk to the market to get the needed bags. We returned about 20 minutes later with the bags. The price for the sand was negotiated and I asked if they could transport the sand for us to the orphanage. He said no problem and the price for transportation was added. We then went to the sand pile and discovered that one "can" of sand was actually a 5 gallon bucket of sand. I started to get worried about the transportation of all of this sand to the orphanage which is just outside of town. While the guy was bagging up the sand for us he decided that he wasn´t going to transport it for us after all. He gave us our money back and said he would find us a moto-taxi (a motorcycle with a buggy on the back) that would take it to the orphanage for us. After many unsuccessful attempts to find a moto-taxi driver that would take all of the sand, one agreed. It took three trips to get all the sand out to the orphanage and at times the driver got out of the moto-taxi to push it (while running) up some hills. You would think that the guy who sells the sand would also sell the bags to put the sand in as well as the transportation, but you would be wrong. After an hour of trying to buy sand, we determined that buying sand is harder than you think...

We have also started writing narrative of our diagnostic report which is a culmination of the last two months of work. It is going well so far and we are finding that we have a lot to write about our community and the potential projects that we can develop.

Work has also continued on our World Map project; however, the rainy days are slowing our group down a little bit.

A big thanks to everyone who has been sending mail!

This post is dedicated to Yanni

by Micah

Normalcy has found its way back to Chota now that the 5-day strike that ground virtually all human activity to a hault has finished. Schools, business, and other organizations have re-opened their doors, so Alisha and I are back in action gathering diagnostic information.
We're also making progress on the world map we're painting at a local high school. Yesterday, after concluding a fruitful session of painting and grid-drawing, we ran into the bike gang pictured above. Don't let their sweet faces fool you: this is by far the edgiest, most hardcore bike gang we've come across in the Southern Hemisphere. After exhausting their knowledge of the English language on us (hello, good morning, good afternoon, good evening), one of the ringleaders asked us, "So, what are you?" Not knowing how to handle this question, we paused, which allowed one of the girls to quip, "Obviously, they're people!" We all got a good laugh out of that. Then we delved right into a nuanced international economics discussion: the smallest kid in the picture said "The exchange rate for the Euro is 4 soles, and the dollar is 3 soles." Not what you would typically expect from a seven-year-old.

Now, you're probably wondering why there's a magnificent picture of Yanni looming just above the text you're currently reading. Here's why . . .Last night, Alisha and I were invited to a friend's house to watch a documentary about Atlantis as part of a series of documentaries and other films of "high cultural value" that said friend shows on Thurday nights in an attempt to increase high-culture offerings in our small, isolated, rural city. So, Alisha and I were the first to arrive, and when we did, our friend was watching a a DVD of Yanni in concert. As if that weren't enough of a gem in and of itself, a few minutes later, another of the guests comes strolling in, and he bore a striking resemblance to the entertainer on the screen: long, luscious locks and a mustache to boot. Additionally, he possessed an uncanny amount of trivial knowledge about the life of Yanni, such as the fact that Yanni's hometown, Kalamata, Greece, is the site of none other than the ancient city of Sparta. We're still processing the whole experience.

Picture Time

Students in our world map group.

Preparing the wall at the school for painting.
Cuy. These little guys are pretty tasty.
Happy Bithday to our host mom (far right). Could I be any taller?