Just finished painting my toenails and thankfully it is the end of the long Senor de los Milagros celebration in my town. Before I go ahead and tell you about my day, I’ll give a brief about my trip to Lima.
It ended up really being beneficial for me, regarding the relationship I have with my artisan and vice versa. We left Wednesday night from PiuraI took Ittsa which is a bit of the luxury bus here and was okay about the price tag because for this event PC pays our pasajes. Anyway, I get all excited because I think I’m going to get at least 5 hours of sleep on this bus, wrong!! Just so happened that all the 2 and 3 year olds that live in Piura decided to head to Lima on the same exact bus as me. I had a screaming and kicking toddler behind me named Sebastian, the mother had no control over him and a peek-a-boo poking 3 year old in front of my named Olivia. Trust me on a 14 hour bus ride cute is not the word that will come to mind with dealing with them not to mention the other 5 playmates scattered throughout the bus! Well we arrived about 8:30 in the morning and I headed to Flores (another bus line) to meet up with my artisan. Then we headed to the office got there a little after 10 dropped off our products and headed to the US embassy for the workshop. I spent the whole day feeling disgusting and just waiiiiting to take a shower in the hotel room. Which turns out, when we went to check in, occupied. My artisan and I went to about 3 different hotels before we found a room thank god. I got showered and changed and headed out to a sports bar to catch the Phils game with a couple of the volunteers. The next day was the fair at the embassy it well extremely well for us. In a matter of speaking because some groups did about 2000 soles while mine did about 780. This is when my artisan saw the benefit of not only going to contact/exhibition fairs but also to selling fairs. She’s a bit too focused on exportation to remember basic rule number 1 of business sell your product to whomever would like to buy it, 1 or 20 of them! Also the capacitation the day before really helped because the volunteers who presented really focused on the topics I have been presenting to my artisan and who’s not been taking it to heart. Maybe it was the amount of other gringos and my bosses there made her realize that yes we do need a finance book and to keep track of inventory. And new designs can be made from existing talents, not every design needs a capacitation. Also we did sell the products with the ribbon which I don’t have a picture of sorry but we plan on making more in the future. Due to all the compliments and the suggestion we should do more did my artisan finally agree =)
Saturday we had the Christmas Bizarre at Colegio Roosevelt (the pic is obvi from there). The event was alright most groups lost profit because of the high entrance fee and low sales. I didn’t think we did that well, but we did make profit therefore my artisan was happy. And she learned to write sales down in the finance book!! Score! Also, we have been working on the whole email process, going well, slow but well. I headed back Saturday night and am pleased to say that from my pure exhaustion from the previous 2 days and the fact I took the Sofa-cama bed home, I slept 10 hours on the bus!! Oh! I forgot to mention that at the bus station the night before on my way back to Piura I ran into the health aspirantes (trainees) from Group 12 who were headed out to their FBT. (My FBT was during training and I went to Cajamarca). I was telling them that 5of the environment trainees will be heading to my site on Thursday and I was my usual over excited self gabbing away… they didn’t seem all to into it. Haha I am a bit overwhelming at times. I got back about 9:30ish on Sunday and went to have breakfast with Glen, Marian, and Erin who were staying in for the weekend in the capital. After which I took a nap and showered, used internet and waited for the Phils to start!! Oh ps trying to explain to your family why you’re staying to watch the world series because your team hasn’t been in it since 1980 and it’s kinda a big deal and you don’t know when this will happen again during the time of a festival in your town that everyone is wasted at and apparently you should be too, is a no-go. So I stopped answering their 20 phone calls to come back and party and watch my game and ate a hamburger! (PS the music started up again, damn! This won’t end till 12 tonight!) and lucky me the celebration is at the house across from mine.. yeh!
Monday was a lazy day I was trying to get things, loose ends tied up on a couple different things, met with my artisan to talk about what we learned form the training and how we can better the association. Then on Tuesday I headed into a town nearby to have an email session with my artisan and at 5 had my Jovenes Emprendedores classes. Which onlyb about 5 people come too but it makes me so happy to do this because I actually know what I’m doing and am passionate about it, I can’t stop! Lol, I shouldn’t really be holding a class with 5 students but I just have too, for my happiness at least! Today I went to the Colegio to set up everything for tomorrow (Jueves) when the trainees will come to do a charla about the 3 R’s. Personally I think we should start with charlas about don’t throw your excretion in the street before we should have them on reduce reuse recycle, but who am I. Also I am finalizing things with the math professor regarding the new tutoring sessions. When I got back to the house I finished up my laundry that I started on Monday and ate lunch with my family though I was invited to the house of the celebration to eat lunch there. 20 minutes later I was being served a 2nd lunch to my dismay. I just don’t get it, no wonder I’m gaining weight, we’re always eating, and to refuse food is like a slap in the face. They were trying to get me to drink chicha but I didn’t. I just give the little kids I play soccer with a hard time about it so I don’t want to be like saying one thing and then when they’re sitting there getting wasted the next day on chicha. I told my family I’ll try it when my family comes from the states. So get ready family for some serious moonshine.
Well that’s about it I have to go to bed early though really 9 is my bedtime, because I have to notify the mayor before I leave to get the trainees in Piura and I have to make a fruit salad for them and also have to take down my laundry. (Omg those trumpets…they have got to be kidding me!! Seriously though this is the 5th day of an apparent 3 day celebration! I don’t know how anything gets done here! WOO RA Jesus!)
Un beso - Elizabeth
PS a good read is Three Cups of Tea, about a man named Greg Mortenson building schools for girls throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan, really interesting read, will def increase your understanding of the central asia area
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