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.