My Future Town (s)

August 14^th, 2006 Chulucanas, Peru

Chulucanas, Peru

This city has a population of about 40,000 people and is fairly modern. It is about an hour bus ride from the departmental capital. It is home to some of the most famous ceramic work in all of Peru and I think is fairly popular in the world market. Rumor has it you can find pottery of the style of this particular city on Worldstock.com. There are a few decent restaurants, internet cabinas, an all important ice cream stand, and some other amenities such as a market I won’t have in my site. Therefore, I will probably make the 20 minute trip frequently to this town for necessities. The volunteer who is currently serving here, Terry, is not receiving a replacement and I may eventually do some work with the artisans in this town also if time permits.

La Encantada, Peru

This small town of approximately 5,000 people will serve as my home for the next two years. The name means “Enchanted Place”. Lets just say that very few find it enchanting. Actually another trainee who lives nearby said that the residents in his town were even talking bad about the town and how rough it is. For the most part La Encantada resides in the middle of the desert. There are basically four very long dirt roads lined with houses. This pueblo is one of the poorest in Peru and my future house is a good representation of the poverty and the priorities of the people.

There is a pad lock on the front of the house and our method of locking while sleeping at night is to place a stick under a ledge to prevent intruders. The floors consist of dirt and the walls are made of low quality mud bricks. The roof consists of thin metal and there are a few gaps. There are only two bedrooms in the house. Mine is partitioned off by a sheet from the entry although I will have to install a wall with a door and lock in order to pass Peace Corps safety regulations. The other room is occupied by my host sister and her husband and their 8 month old son. The rest of the house consists of roofs made from bamboo and metal open to the outdoors. They cook with fire. I use a latrine for the facilities. For those of you unfamiliar with latrines, I will describe it to you. Basically, they dig a huge hole in the ground, and place a cement piece over which to aim. This piece has three metal walls and a door made of paper to grant some privacy. Essentially, I am camping for the next two years. We do have electricity all day but only have water for two hours in the morning and everyone tries to fill as many buckets as possible during this time. Despite these conditions pretty much everyone in my town does own a television for the 3 channels they can receive. I read an article that the reason the impoverished usually buy items we can consider luxuries before investing money in their living conditions is because they do not own the titles to their homes and thus have a sense of insecurity.

Although, I have only spent three days with my family so far, they are great. My father is the President of the association with whom I will be working. And my brother-in-law is 22 and should be a good friend. Mom is sweet and is very concerned that I am comfortable and grow accustomed to the town. Once I get to know them better, I will give more detail.

So this isn't a vacation....

Free Day in the Capital

We caught a bus back the 4.5 hours back to the Capital where we grabbed more seafood for lunch and dined on ice cream. We did a little exploring of the city and found a really good supermarket with a lot of American stuff although I was a little disappointed. Although they had Dr. Pepper and Kraft Ranch dressing, they were both of the diet variety. I am told normally they carry the regular though. Hopefully that is the case while I am there. Tomorrow, we each individually go to our sites for 3 days and see what life is going to be like for the next 2 years.

August 12^th, 2006 Fique, Peru

Petrogliphics and Bamboo Construction

This might have been my favorite day of the Field Based Training. We took a taxi 15 minutes to a volunteer named Nick’s site. We hiked through the forest for half an hour before arriving at some huge boulders. Petrogliphics had been carved into the stones by pre-Incan civilizations. Due to the recent pollution the acid rain was beginning to erode these precious historical boulders and thus we assisted some locals in constructing a structure to redirect water runoff. We had to cut down 8 meter long bamboo trees and then strip the branches. After hauling these through creeks and navigating between the foliage we had our infrastructure. We set them in holes we dug and then bound them together with chicken wire and nails. It was a long process but quite rewarding after we finished constructing our structure.

We rode back to Canchaque and made dinner at Ryan’s house. It was nice to have something other than rice and chicken. We kicked back and played cards. We play a lot of cards here, mostly Spades. I am not complaining.

August 11^th, 2006 Canchaque, Peru

Pig Farm and Coffee Picking

We headed to the pig farm that Kevin helped start during his service. The pig technician gave us some history on the pigs and technical knowledge on the raising of pigs, which are absolutely disgusting animals. After making some pig feed we picked coffee beans in some the farmers fields and received a presentation on the coffee production process. I learned quite a bit actually. After a hard afternoon’s work we participated in the production of ropompe. This consists of separating egg whites and their yolks. After smashing the yolks and beating the whites into a foam you combine the raw eggs with canozo, a liquor made from sugar cane with a 80% alcohol content. The initial sip is somewhat like a thick milk shake but the fourth or fifth sip of raw egg really wears on you. The natives love it though.

We then hike an hour through the mountains to a soccer field where Ryan, a current volunteer in Canchaque, was hosting practice. It was quite beautiful because the field was nestled in a valley in the midst of mountains. After scrimmaging the Peruvians who kicked our butts we had to hike the hour back in the fairly dark.

Field Based Training

August 10^th, 2006 Canchaque, Peru

Water Slides

We grabbed breakfast and then boarded a bus for 3 hours. A few of us ended up standing the entire ride even though we had previously bought tickets and were supposed to be guaranteed seats. This actually was a somewhat tense issue between some of us volunteers and I have intentions of writing an essay on sacrificial living and perceived racism eventually.

We arrived in Canchaque which is absolutely beautiful. This is my good friend Cheridyn’s future site. It is in the mountains of Alto Piura. Vegetation coats the entire area and the mountain formations are exquisite. We all hiked half an hour to a water fall with a couple of pools of water. Kevin is the 3^rd volunteer who serves as coordinator and lived in Chanchaque during his two years of service. He showed us how you can slide between two of the pools of water. After I went, my friend Peter did so but gashed his foot pretty bad on some rocks. Luckily, the town nurse was up at the waterfall herself and got him all bandaged up. Today was pretty much a free day because the next two would be work days.

August 9^th, 2006 Chulucanas, Peru

16 Steps of Making Ceramics

We caught a bus an hour and a half to Chulucanas where we dropped our luggage off at the hotel and then headed to La Encantada. This is going to be my future site but more on that later. An artisan group gave us a demonstration on the 16 steps that are involved in creating their particular style of ceramics. It was pretty neat to practically see a piece go from start to finish in front of our eyes. After lunch, we headed the 20 minutes back to Chulucanas and visited some other artisan workshops.

August 8^th, 2006 Piura, Peru

Oh, the joy of luxuries

We arrived at our hotel which had hot showers. Lets just say cold showers really suck. The first hot shower in 7 weeks felt tremendous. I actually showered 3 times the first day and again the next morning just because I could. We then headed to a local seafood restaurant. The capital is only about 45 minutes from the coast so the seafood is tremendous. We enjoyed many a plate of fried calamari and cebiche mixto. Cebiche is basically raw fish that is “cooked” in lime juice and aji (a pepper kind of like a jalapeño). It is really tender but you must realize it is not cooked with heat. Those future volunteers who are going to be living in Piura met with the current volunteers of Piura and had a panel about the department. Then we all grabbed hamburgers and Mexican food at this cool joint near the plaza. We wrapped up the night with some delicious homemade ice cream. I think I will enjoy this city on the weekends once in awhile.

Bull Fight

August 7^th, 2006 Lima, Peru

Travel to Sites

The bus ride was 14 hours to Piura City which is the departmental capital I will be frequently starting in September. The bus ride is really not that bad because the seats are like business class in an airplane and the ride is from 6:30 to 8:30 in the morning which allows for the greater portion to be spent sleeping.

August 6^th, 2006 Santa Eulalia, Peru

Bull Fight

I attended my first standard Latin American bullfight this afternoon. For $3 my brother and I were able to watch 4 bulls be slaughtered by a group of about 7 bull fighters. The bulls started small and progressively increased in size as the show continued. The fighters would entice the bull with their red cloth and then stab them with a sword concealed by said cloth. Personally, I found it somewhat inhumane and barely entertaining. Therefore, it is more than likely my last bull fight as well.

Site Placement

August 6^th, 2006 Santa Eulalia, Peru

Site Placement

On Tuesday I found out I will be spending the next two years in La Encantada, Piura. This small town of 5,000 people is about 20 minutes from the city of Chulucanos, a decent size city. It is about another hour from Piura City in the department of Piura (kind of like a state). Piura is in the north of Peru and although the department is on the coast, I will be a few hours from the Pacific. It is quite near the equator, and I am actually closer to the capital city of Quito, Ecuador than I am from Lima ( a 16 hour bus ride).

I am replacing another Volunteer named Tom who visited us earlier during training, and whose attitude is great. I will be working with an artisans association which produces ceramics. My secondary project will be working with a restaurant. There is no restaurant in this town but a decent amount of tourists pass through to see the artisans at work. Supposedly, 2000 of the 5000 people are ceramists. I will be going to visit Piura for field based training on Monday and visiting my site also so I will be able to tell you guys more later when I have visited it.