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?

Mmmmmm...Cuy!

by Alisha

Micah and I visited the orphanage outside of Chota yesterday and had a great time teaching the kids Uno, playing soccer, basketball, and volleyball. We are planning to continue our Saturday morning visits so that we can continue get to know the kids better. Already I see a lot of potential in working with the kids and the married couple that runs the orphanage. There are currently 10 children living at the orphanage and like most things here there is a serious lack of funding. Although we can't jump in and provide the needed funding, we have found that the community in general does not know much about the orphanage or the needs of the kids living there. We have also found that a number of the high school students that we have surveyed so far have expressed an interest in doing community service projects. Ideally, we will be able to get the community more informed about the orphanage and form a group of youth interested in volunteering to do programs with the youth living there.

Yesterday we celebrated the birthday of our host mom. We had a lunch of fried cuy (guinea pig) complete with rice and potatoes. Cuy is a traditional dish in the sierra and a favorite of our host family for special occasions. My host family is aware of my dislike for what I consider some of the more exotic cuts of meat (cow tongue, chicken liver, cow stomach, etc.) and they gave me quite a hard time about the cuy. I was a good sport and ate my portion. My host mom had been kind enough to give me a portion that did not include the head. Overall, the cuy was pretty tasty as most fried foods are! Our lunch was followed by a family get together that was laid back and did not involve any dancing. Not the traditional Peruvian party and much more my style.

In other important news a regional strike started yesterday to protest the poor road conditions from here to Chiclayo, an important coast city to Chota, where most consumer goods come from. This basically means that there is no transportation in or out of Chota. People who tried to get into the city today by walking where turned around and told to go home by strike participants. Almost all businesses where closed yesterday and today and the city feels pretty empty especially for a Sunday since today is normally a big market day. Originally, the strike was scheduled to end today, but we have heard it will continue on into next week. The teachers from all of the schools are also participating so that means no schools will be in session until the strike ends. We have also heard that during strikes it is not uncommon for water and electricity services to be cut off. We will likely we taking it pretty easy until things get back to normal. Hopefully the schools will be in session again by mid week so that we can finish up our survey and continue with our map project.

As Promised

by Alisha

A couple of pictures for those who are clamoring to see the monkey we discovered down the street. Micah and I hung out with him one afternoon and snapped a few photos. It is pretty sad that he is chained up all day. However, we did enjoy it when he threw a plastic spoon at a dog (in rage).

Lessons learned: beware of holes in the sidewalk and chained monkeys

by Micah

Life in Peru continues forwards much like it does elsewhere in the world. We seem to be getting busier as time goes by, which is a good feeling. As has been mentioned in previous entries, our first three months or so are to be almost entirely dedicated to a thorough Community Diagnostic, and lots of the time we spend "diagnosticating" basically boils down to having conversations that range from very informal interactions to somewhat formal sit-down interviews. Although we've been busy with that, sometimes we just don't feel that busy, so the fact that our time is becoming more and more occupied is nice. To give our diagnostic process a bit more formality, we have developed and begun implementing a survey with high school students, which has taken up a lot of our time this week. The only official project we're supposed to initiate during our first three months is the painting of a world map with a group of youth in some sort of public space. After a series of meetings with administrators and teachers at one of Chota's high schools, we finally had our first meeting with the group of students with whom we'll be undertaking this project. They were a bit reserved during the first meeting, but I think that once we put brush to wall, they'll start having fun. We'll be sure to post pictures as the process unfolds.

Some other highlights since the last update include a trip to Cajamarca, our departmental capital, last weekend. It's a seven-hour bus ride, so we don't go too often. Actually, this was my first trip since arriving at site in August. (Alisha stopped there on her way to a meeting in Lima several weeks ago.) We saw a bunch of people from our training group, and we had a lot of fun. Also, Alisha fell into a hole in the sidewalk and sustained some massive bruises. I was unable to aid her, since I was already occupied with helping a blind gentleman find his way to the plaza. It's not often that all of those circumstances present themselves at once, so we've had some good chuckles about it.

In other news, we were walking around one day when we heard this loud animal screech somewhere above our heads. We were surprised to discover that the screech's source was a small monkey chained to a second-story balcony. We plan on capturing a picture very soon...