The first to go

October 4, 2006 Piura, Peru

The first to go

I just said goodbye to Jorge. The first Volunteer left today. Another person left during training, but it was the first week and a little early to develop any sort of real attachment. But Jorge has been here for 4 months now. I had a particular attachment to Jorge because he was from San Antonio, loves basketball and was the Volunteer living in closest proximity to me.

He said he realized he couldn´t work with kids for 2 years and that his heart wasn´t really in it. I would think it is a little hard to really know, considering he had only been in site for a month, but I am not him. Well, goodbyes suck.

September 21st thru October 2nd, 2006 Encantada, Peru

It’s great to be busy

My artisans have been busy than ever. It has been great. We have a ton of orders going on right now and are preparing for two fairs. On the 13th of October, we have a fair in Lima at the U.S. Embassy. This should be fun because I will get to see many of the volunteers I have not seen for a month and a half. Right now we are working on an order for a 1,000 pieces for an organization called ProPeru that is due on the 8th. We are also producing 300 pieces for a fair in Colombia, which unfortunately I do not get to attend. This is an incredibly important fair because all the major world exporters will be there making contacts and checking out suppliers. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that our pieces are of the highest quality. We also just received an order for 18,000 pieces from an exporter they made contact with in June. Needless, to say it is exciting times at the local. They even worked on Sunday. This is huge because sometimes they don’t even work on Monday.

Quality Control

This will be one of the first presentations I will have to give because the order for ProPeru was the first major order they had ever received and we have had some major quality control procedures, especially with the initial formation. My counterpart, Mario, and I examined each piece and only 42% made the cut. I don’t know what the industry average is, but there is some definite work to be done. Thus, a lot of pieces had to be remade for that order and the low quality ones will have to be sold at worse prices in local markets.

University Service Club

The universities here don’t really have extracurricular clubs. After speaking with some of the students there appeared to be interest of starting a service club where the students would act as volunteers in the development of Encantada. I spoke with Consuelo, and met with some other directors at the university and it appears as if we are going to try to gauge the interest of such a club. The university is only about 1 hour and 20 minutes away, located in the department capital. This would be truly exciting if sustainable.

On the Social Side of Things

I attended my first quinciyero. This is the special party for girls when they reach the age of 15. It was somewhat interesting but didn’t differ all that much from normal Peruvian parties.

I got to play basketball with my counterpart last Saturday, which was great. It was difficult though because they played zone the entire time. Who plays zone for pickup basketball? Anyways, I was a little frustrated because no one ever moved; they just stood around the perimeter. But it was fun to play ball.

Tuesday was also the “despedida” (departure party) for the Peru 4 volunteers who are leaving over the next month. I am replacing Thomas, who is leaving in October so I headed out there with my counterparts Mario and Luiggi. Yeah, the Mario Bros. are my counterparts. They are both pretty cool guys. It was fun to get to meet all the volunteers who live in Piura from Peru 4 thru 6.