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...

The #1 Threat to Chota's Youth...

Our demolished Plaza
Our friend Sal's birthday party
Host dad César hard at work
Members of our host family at the birthday party for our host dad and grandmother


by Alisha & Micah

It's been one month in site. Slowly but surely we are finding our niche. We have had a lot of meetings, done some serious Arrested Development viewing, read 15 books between the two of us and Alisha made a trip back to Lima. Sometimes we feel like we are busy and other times it seems like we are doing next to nothing. Overall, we are very content. Here are some highlights from the first month.

• Visiting some rural areas surronding Chota. A few weeks ago we (along with our host family) visited our friend Sal's site for his birthday, which coincided with his town's patron saint festival. With kids in tow, thing were pretty tame, and we really enjoyed the expansive beauty of Sal's community. We also had the opportunity to travel to another nearby town with one of our community partners to visit families of child laborers with whom he works. Being able to see this whole valley dotted with dozens of rural communities from an elevated perspective was amazing. (Thanks to Micah for not bringing the camera.)
• While Alisha was wining and dining in the upper clase suburbs of Lima, Micah was in Chota participating in the festivities of the "Semana de la Juventud" (youth week). One day there was a workshop with fun activities and informational sessions for local high school kids. However, to begin the event, as is customary with any sort of workshop or training event here in Peru, a figurehead not involved in the actual event gave a speech to inaugurate said event. He started off talking about how important youth are to the future, you know, the usual stuff. Then he he went off on a tangent about hippies and existentialism, the latter of which he identified as the one of the main threats to the moral well-being of all of the youth in our community. We had no idea that Peruvian high-schoolers could be so philosophically savvy.
• During a meeting with the director of a local school we spotted a crate of empty beer bottles in his office. This was not at all schocking to us.
• When we arrived in Chota, we were impressed by the beautiful plaza in the center of town (see picture from previous post). A couple of weeks after we arrived, the plaza started to be demolished (see above picture). This demolition included the cutting down of enormous trees and a debate as to whether the four palm trees should also be cut down. The verdict is still out on this...we will let you know.

That's all for now, but we will try to update more regularly.

2 Weeks, 2 Days

Micah speaking at our swearing in ceremony
The Peru 11 Group
Our Chuck Norris look-a-like signing autographs for our host dad
Now in Chota, a picture of our English class
by Alisha

I wanted to update everyone with a few pictures. I realized that we hadn't put any pictures up from our swearing in ceremony, so the anticipated wait is over!

We have now been in site for just over two weeks. We have been meeting with community members and organizations that work with youth here in Chota. The first three months in site will be spent getting to know the community better and working on a community diagnostic that will help us formulate our future projects. We have been having a very warm reception from the community members and have been keeping busy. There are also 6 other volunteers in the general area of Chota who we are looking forward to coordinating projects with in the future. We also will be trying to get our World Map project started with a group of youth in the near future, so we will keep you updated on that!