21 Julio 2008

Cajamarca: San Miguel
Buenas! Sorry its been some time; I was in Cajamarca for FBT (Field Based Training). I’ll start off explaining our 3rd trip to La Agraria. This time we learned about how to clean seeds and in what climate each seed (fruit or vegetable) is best grown in. Also, one of the professors there did a presentation on the 3 different regions of Peru; the coast, the silva, and the sierra. This day is basically a blur to me, I think due to the anticipation of leaving for FBT. Business was allowed to leave Saturday, the day before YD (Youth Development) because we cut funds out of our travel costs. Therefore, we were able to add a day in San Miguel, now traveling at night. The buses we travel on are luxury… high class. But, I think because so many people use public transportation and buses as means to travel instead of cars. Who knows though? Before we left Lima, a group of us went to see Hancock (Movie with Will Smith as a superhero) did not like it. But I think that’s only because it just wasn’t what I expected to be about. Also, I was able to see the main PC building in Surco. That was really cool. It’s right next to the University of Lima. Our bus left at 8 and we reached Cajamarca at about 11. We had a 2 hour lay over in Cajamarca, were we got lunch and walked around a bit. The views of the Sierra are amazing, as you can see through the pictures I have posted!! It was beautiful, though the roads were another story. Most of the roads aren’t paved. So you’re climbing a 3400 m mountain in a Combi packed to the brim and flying around mountain bends like no problem. And somehow it seemed I was always on the window side/the side that was hanging over the edge. A few times I was close to dying of heart attack and many times I found myself closing my eyes and saying a few Hail Mary’s just to get through. Not to mention the immanent fear of death that comes with these roads, but also the fact they are insanely bumpy. Thank god for Dramamine, without it I think I would have needed a barf bag. Thankfully, no one threw up in our group (on the way up), but apparently it’s pretty common for that to occur. After lunch we hopped onto a combi, roads def worse this time and headed to Chilete (2 hour drive) and then from there, another 2 hour car ride up to San Miguel. All-in-all I think mas o menos 23 hour travel time.
We stayed at a nice hotel, the town had about 8,000 so not to big, not to small. I would actually prefer this population for my site. Bron, the volunteer we met there, said that San Miguel is called the site that has everything you need, just not everything you want. Which I believe is true. She works with artisans there and I bought a scarf, excellent quality, really cheap! I guess I will explain a little bit about FBT. My group at San Miguel consisted of 9 (1/2 the bus aspirantes), 3 groups, each having 3 people. Mark and Kevin were in my group. (I posted pics of us teaching in front of the class) Each group had to teach business concepts on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then on Thursday we had a mini-simulation of the businesses. Each class was split into 4 groups, each group responsible to plan a business, take a loan, run the business on Thursday morning, then return the money to the bank with interest. The business concepts we focused on were; Entrepreneurship, Micro-Negocios, FODA (I have explained this earlier, and like the exercise I did previously in Chosica, each of our groups in class had to do a FODA of their community) Market Analysis, Finance, Marketing, and Business Plan. I think, or what I was told, the position I held in my group was the planner. I put a loose outline of the days together and then eventually the boys would wing it; until they ran out of things, look at me and say, okay now what? Ha, but they gave me a lot of shit for being too worried sometimes, which as usual, I was. I just wanted to do a good job explaining the concepts, so our class would do a good job in the simulation. As far as my Spanish speaking skills were concerned, I think I did pretty well. Although, through FBT I realized I have a lot of work to do!! The difficultly is not only being understood in the general day to day language but then we all have to become familiar with technical terms of business. Any who, I’m alive and now I know I can survive charlas and such at site. Which I believe is, of course, the biggest thing on peoples minds about now… 4 more weeks till site!!
Oh yeh, we were supposed to have hot water in the hotel, which would have been great for those who are unlucky and don’t have hot water in their houses, but it really didn’t work in our hotel. Only a few rooms had it, mine wasn’t one. So, being spoiled with the hot water then switching to cold for the week was interesting, but at least I experienced it, and I’m still alive and clean! But honestly, cold waters are like not cold but freezing. Bron was saying how people in her town think its unhealthy to shower in hot water… that may be something to hard to explain, kind of like how people should have toilet seats. Yeh, that’s a whole other convo. But fortunately I’m spoiled in this aspect as well, My family has a toilet seat, gotta love Julia!
Well all week I had the healthy diet of Roasted Chicken and French fries, literally, every night. Yeh… I was talking to some locals about this and why they don’t have more restaurants and why they don’t have vegetables in their diets. They just simply said its not their custom too; which is a very common explanation. Many questions are answered with this phrase. I mean in perspective, it’s the best answer to give. They don’t have them because they haven’t had them. And if no one changes it then it just stays the same. I don’t know if that is making sense to you, I can’t come up with the right words to explain this. So anyhow, I’m glad to be back in my house with vegetables and my mom’s cooking! (Because I def gained some Lbs this week!)
The business simulation was on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. All but one group did food, which is common. The one group that was different did a movie night at the institute we taught at on Wed night. They showed Titanic. They didn’t charge on an entrance fee, but rather charges for food they sold there. They sold out within 1 hour, I think about 300 people showed up, which is a huge turn out. Then on Thursday the rest of the groups sold, including all 4 in my class. One group did Papa la Hauncahina (Which is potatoes in a cream pica salsa served with an egg); Another group did a Jugeria (Sold juice, pound cake, and fruit salads); Another was The Milk-Men (haha postres tipicos de Peru like Arroz con leche and other desserts) The 4th group I forget right now but it was sausage and corn on a plate and it sold out the quickest. I was extremely full and grateful (because I didn’t have to eat roasted chicken and French fries at the Polleria). All groups paid back the loan and made a decent profit. The profit at our site, San Miguel, beat out the other site with 9 volunteers, Contumaza. Which was a friendly competition with no real bet, but I guess bragging rights. Our last night in San Miguel, the institute held a dance for us. It was a lot of fun, I danced with a lot with the kids, well, and they’re not kids because they were all between the ages of 18-24. Then, I went to bed early because we had to leave by 9.
About 9:30 we headed out back down the roads to Chilete (2 hours) unfortunately, Kelly, the other girl on my trip wasn’t feeling well and we ended up stopping the combi for her to throw-up (only once though). We had a lay over of about 2 hours, were we just sat around before getting on a bus for a 5 hour ride to Trujillo. There we met up with the other group of volunteers and stayed at a really nice hostal. Trujillo is beautiful and has some of the best surfing beaches and is known for having the best looking people in Peru. Or so I was told. Also, it is called the city of eternal spring, which I think is pretty self explanatory. The weather was amazing and we had a great time on Friday night, most of us went out together dancing. On Saturday, after breakfast we met 2 other volunteers and hear about their experiences. One of which, is Steve. He started a marathon event here which most volunteers, including myself plan to run in the 2nd one next year. We also met Javier another business volunteer as well. Then we all headed to the beach to get some sun. All the boys went surfing, because the waves are amazing. Nothing like I’ve ever seen in Sea Isle…but as always our beaches are def better. The sand just doesn’t compare also the bottom of the ocean is really rocky. I gave a boogie board a try but the ocean is so strong I didn’t feel very safe without a wetsuit and better leash. Next time, def will have another go at it. WE headed back to the hostal to get our bags, which were in storage because we checked out in the morning. This was also a pain because we couldn’t shower. So I had sand in my hair all day and night for the trip back. Gross. WE got into Lima around 7 am from there I took a taxi back to my fav place Chacrasana and took a looong shower and did my laundry, cleaned my room from all the dust the accumulated over the week and lunched!