A river runs through it

February 9th, 2007 La Encantada, Peru

The River

When it rains real hard in the mountains, La Encantada has a river that runs through it. And although neither the words crystal nor clear can be used to describe it, it is quite refreshing to take a dip when the temperature is topping 105 ºF every day. So Friday, I gathered a couple of 5 to 11 year olds in my town and another teenager to help me supervise and we headed to the river. The river was only waist deep for me and the kids took turns having me dunk them and launch them through the air. Kids are so refreshing. But still kids, as they took twice as long to walk back to town as they did to get there when they were excited causing me to nearly be late for my computer class.

February 7th, 2007 La Encantada, Peru

Compost Capacitation

I had a presentation on how to construct a compost pile using materials found around the home and from the farm fields. We will use these piles as natural fertilizer for the gardens we have started recently. I didn´t think that many people would have started their gardens already but over half the group started preparing their soil after the first presentation only a week ago. It is great to work with such a motivated group.

Superbowl and Grandmas Birthday

February 5th & 6th, 2007 Piura, Peru

Sunday Meetings and the Superbowl

This weekend marked the first time I saw the other volunteers of the department of Piura since New Year’s. That meant 5 weeks. That’s a long time considering its custom for us to meet every 2 to 3 weeks. It was really fun to see everyone. We went to the pool one day, made the market trip, danced it up one night and then Sunday held many a meeting before the Superbowl.

First, I met with Wilfredo to discuss his experience raising ducks which I will begin with some families in my site quite soon. Then all the volunteers met because we are starting a theater group to give health presentations drama style. We will then travel from site to site performing health dramas. Finally, we met to discuss an ALMA camp we will be hosting in June. This camp is for teenage girls and is a camp to capacitate them as leaders within in their community. It’s a good project.

After the marathon of meetings, we all settled down to watch the Superbowl. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to watch the commercials because the station was in Spanish and therefore didn’t have the rights to the game. It was a pretty good game though.

February 4th, 2007 Piura, Peru

Grandma’s Birthday

Today I traveled to Piura with my host family to celebrate the 81st birthday of the mother of my host dad. It was a fun time. Almost all of the siblings of my host dad live in Piura and they all gathered at my host grandma’s home to celebrate. We ate a nice dinner of lamb that my family killed just hours earlier in La Encantada. Talk about fresh.

Around 9pm grandmas was growing quite tired and asked her kids to dance. A Peruvian isn’t considered successful unless multiple people dance for an extended period of time. We danced until 1am more or less before retiring for the night. It was a good time.

Site Visit and New Projects

January 16th to 30th, 2007 La Encantada, Peru

Animal Husbandry and Family Gardens

The past couple of weeks I have been talking to families in the area about starting both an animal husbandry project along with a family garden. I am pretty excited about this project, mostly because the families I am working with are very enthusiastic and the projects complement each other so well.

Basically we are going to raise small batches of animals to sell in the community, eat in the homes and sell in the larger city markets. We are going to start with turkeys and ducks. Next week I have a meeting with the regional director of Peace Corps from Piura to discuss the possibility of attaining a loan to pay for the initial capital required. What´s great is that we can mix the animal excrement in with our compost piles for the family gardens. The nutrition level isn´t very good here and hopefully family gardens will at least induce some families to start eating vegetables.

January 15th, 2007

Site Visit

The APCD (Associate Program Country Director), Alfredo, for the business program made a site visit today. The first half hour or so we just chilled out in my house and chatted with my host family. Then Wilfredo, the regional director for Piura, checked out my room to make sure it complied with Peace Corps regulations. My doctor, Sunni, loaded me up with any medicines I made need.

We then met with some of the leaders in my town to discuss Peace Corps and the role of a volunteer in the community. This meeting went quite well. After checking on the progress of some of my projects, we headed to Chulucanas to meet with my counterpart. We then ate a decent lunch in town before they all departed to the next site to visit in the sierra. It was a good site visit and felt good to get the first one over with.