more thingssss

14 de Octubre 2008
Well, Saturday I ended up having an empty class!! After I woke up early to prepare then had class at 3:30, I thought, no one came! Well all for the better I guess, I don’t know what I’m going to do with English classes. Well then at night I was supposed to have a meeting with one of the organizations in my house. However, I think there was a theme of sticking up the gringa, so that never occurred, but 3 people did come. Domingo, nothing happened too special I went to the mass for the celebration of Jesus Cautivo. This was the ceremony I filmed earlier this month, though when I was explaining it, I explained that I thought they walked 8 days to the spot of the miracle and killed a cow or something, well its not like that, they might kill some chickens to eat or turkeys but they walk 8 days to Ayabaca. The reason I was confused was porque the name of the town, Ayabaca, sounds like vaca which is cow. Lol There are many of these instances because I’m still learning. It’s quite funny. Okay so I went to the 6:00 mass with La Angelica my mom, but in true Latin American fashion, the mass began at 6:30! =) I got a kick out of waiting in the church for half an hour. Then I came back and went back to bed till about 9:30. Then, I headed back to the church for the parade of Jesus Cautivo. But that was the slowest march of my life so I walked for a 2 blocks and went home. Seriously! Lol they stopped every block to drink chicha, I did not have the time to do that when I had more important things like sunbathe and read my novel. Then at 4:00 I was to have a meeting with Karrie, because Monday we were going to el gobierno regional to meet with the director there of the artesanas de bajo piura. (The same lady I met with on Friday with all the artesanas.) That didn’t happen though because she was stuck in Piura so I watched some movies with my sister, in Ingles and translated it for her. (There were only subtitles in Frances y Ingles). That was annoying and I don’t want to do it again lol. I slept well, but for some reason I woke up like 4 times with diarrhea and vomiting then when I woke up in the morning and it was gone!
Monday I was up at 6 and out of the house before 7 to head to the city. I got into the city about 7:30 to have breakfast with Marian. She is living in the Sierra and was back only for the previous night and was heading back to site at 11. After breakfast Karrie and I headed to our meeting at 9. Our meeting lasted about 2 hours. We were basically asking for a meeting in a sense of the responsibilities of the artisans with the government. Yes, there is a lot of money for the government to give to the artisans but many times, they are just receiving it and not doing anything to earn it or to control it. We wanted to collaborate with the government, that to receive money the assoc needs to write a plan de trabajo of what they would like to do with the money and how much it will cost. Because, when karrie and I express the importance of this is doesn’t register. I mean, would it, if you didn’t have to write this information in the first place to receive money? Would you write a formal plan? No! So we got the yes, we understand and we will start asking for things instead of just giving. But not for plans, that’s apparently to intense and demanding, but other things like all the groups need to register their members. Because as of right now the list says there are 3 artisans in Bajo Piura! Imaginate! So yeh, poca a poca. But they def got the jist of it, which was our goal. After our meeting, I headed back to site for my meeting with the math teacher at 12:30. I made it there with a minute to spare! But she was 20 minutes late so I could catch my breathe. I met with her to talk about the change I was going to make in the sessiones de tutorial. Instead of how I was having the sessions, which was basically, me helping kids from different grades individually and trying to give all individual attention in 2 hours. It’s just not possible. So I thought about what I could do and of course came up with the most sensible which is to work with the professor to ask the kids in the class that are the most intelligent and grasp math to tutor those who need it and ask for tutoring. Also, the kids who the teacher asks to help and say yes, will receive extra credit in the class. She thought this was a great idea, so I will prob meet with the kids, 2 from each grade, (just in case the hour of tutoring one can’t make it and also to let them have a system of switching on and off each week) this week or next week sometime and go over with them about turoring and their ideas of what days/hours are the best as well as which is better to assign the kids with bad marks to tutoring (like the teacher wants) or to have the optional hour open to all students with each class being about the tema of that week that was in class ( like I wants). We’ll see… Either way I think it’s much better to have tutoring between the students who are in the class. And, it’s also a lot more sustainable, which is PCs #1goal and fav word. Then after that I ate quickly then headed back to the colegio to continue work on the mapa mundial. Basically, though my lists has about 15 boys listed with only 1 girl, it was me, my friend Brenda and the one girl who signed up!! Some of the boys stopped by and graced us with their presence but left to play soccer! It’s def because were only in the beginning stages, not in the painting or drawing stages. Well, we are drawing but only the cuadras to draw in, therefore it’s prob below them… excuuuuse me!! Lol. Then after that I headed back to grab dinner then head to a meeting with Martha about the associacion. She told me she didn’t have time to have the meeting because she was leaving to teach, then continued to talk to me for 45 minutes about how when I leave I will bring her or her daughter to the states to set up a business there and sell straw products… yeh just a normal daily conversation with her, never about the things I want to talk about just what I can do for her to get her to the states or sell directly there. She constantly asks for my list of contacts to export too, I say to her… listen there is no one in their right mind sitting in the empty store twiddling there fingers saying…OH I hope a straw purse made from artisans in Peru comes in the mail today!! And plus she doesn’t have the organization for exportation, she can’t read email! Well, enough about that, all of that is annoying and things I have to deal with daily. Speaking of, I have a meeting right now with her, so I will head over there right now!
OCTOBER 16
The meeting went well enough, we ended up making the products of tela with paja and we’ll get to show them off at the Cuerpo de Paz feria which is next week on Friday and the Christmas Bazaar fair is Saturday the 25th. I will be leaving for Lima on the 22 then heading back to Piura on the 25th, yeh 14 hour bus trips! Okay where did I leave off, oh I believe Tuesday. Well in the morning I had a meeting at the gobierno regional, and was the first one to arrive 10 minutes late and was the only one there for about 1 hour, until more people came. After, Karrie and I went out to grab lunch then I met with Wilfredo to talk with him about some concerns I have… Then I went back to site because I had my first jovenes emprendedores class in my town. To jostle your memory, it is basically the FBT course I did in Cajamarca but extended into a two month course. At the end, the participants receive certificates. I had a great time doing this; it really was a break/confidence booster for me to do something I was confident in. Many times here it’s just hard to be looked at as knowing solutions about problems, when in reality I have no knowledge in the matter. It also was a slap in the face that I had my lecture all on the computer and slides to use with a projector, when guess what happened. Like they say in the pc nothing ever goes as planned. The projector wasn’t returned to my boss, so I wasn’t able to bring it back to site with me. But I was content to just use my comp and then when I got to the building, found that the electricity that was to be restored, never was. So I basically threw up some papelotas (big papers) and went from memory! Which was fun. I had 11 people come from the 15 that signed up, I considered that a success. And to add to that, they were on time. Then after when I got home, like I said I had a meeting with Martha to go over the meeting that was in Piura and to talk about a few other things.
Wednesday, though I was supposed to run to Catacaos to buy a few things, I ended up doing my laundry, my sister claimed the heavens were about to fall and La Angelica said it was a miracle lol. But I cleaned all my clothes and dusted my room floor to ceiling. I also put on the new egg crate mattress thingy mom and dad sent on my bed and now I can’t feel the wood planks underneath!! Woo hoo! Though I am afraid to say sleeping 6 weeks on the planks has done some damaged. After my morning doing that, I ran to the municipality to have a quick meeting with Esther and Miguel about Club de Madres. We planned a meeting with 3 of the groups for Friday at 4 so hopefully this time, they will come to get me and not forget about me. I prob should be writing my agenda for the meeting instead of a blog entry, but such is my life as a procrastinator! I had a meeting with one of the professors in the colegio but she was busy. She ended up giving me a list of the students who wanted to participate in the tutoring program. Now I have to write a plan de trabajo and invitations to them… Wed afternoon I ran into Catacaos with Mari and ran into Karrie with her sister there. Then I came home and was a little sick, I think it is from the bread they have here… I can only attribute that to the difference in my diet on the days I get sick…
Today was a bit like yesterday I didn’t want to do anything and didn’t feel like talking Spanish lol. But I had a meeting with Esther in themuni to talk about the library project and ludoteca then I was asking for her help in the rifa for the kids shoes. I got a really interesting phone call from one of my tech trainers, Ivan, the aspirantes from Ambiente (environment) are coming up for their FBT in Piura and they are seeing a bunch of sites in the sierra as well as in the city of Piura. He asked if I had a colegio in my site (which I do) and if maybe the director would be interested in having 5 aspirantes come to do charlas about education ambiental, which of course I said I would ask him because I had a meeting with him conveniently that day. I headed to the colegio to meet with the director first to ask about a few things and also about the charlas, he of course said yes he would love them to come. Then I met with a professor’s daughter who comes for free to do charlas about autoestima and liderazco to the kids. She is studying at the universidad de piura for a degree in psychology. She’s going to the US to work for 3 months in a program through the university. I gave hermy cousins number bc she did the same program about 2 years ago, then I asked her if she wouldn’t mind coming and helping me with the Club de Madres here. She said of course and also through her I could solicit more students from the university to come and talk according to their specified specialty, for free!! Cool, no?! All in all pretty good day, though I got nothing done that I needed to get done like my questionnaire for the artisans and also the one for the community and I didn’t further my efforts in the rifa around town. Okay well I’m tired and tomorrows another day and hey maybe I’ll get some things done =) I mean I couldn’t use mycomp all day bc we didn’t have electricity, which has been really faulty lately and its like the only person that cares is my sister who goes into the city and ask about every time it goes out. The other week it was out for 2days.
Un beso-Elizabeth