lJanuary 27, 2009
Me cansé! Yesterday and today I think have killed me. Yesterday I started off the day extremely annoyed because like good to herself Martha style, she promised to help me with the registration of the artisans that is due Friday and wasn’t home. She “had” to go to Lima and didn’t even let me know she couldn’t do the registration. I was so angry and my sister (who is always my voice of reason) told me to go and do it sola. I knew I could but looking back on it I was hesitant because I was scared to do it for many reasons. One, Asking for peoples names and DNI which is like their identification number as a gringa is always questionable, because what exactly am I using it for. Two, many of the artisans aren’t part of the Assoc of Martha and since I work with her, might think that it’s a survey for her. Three, I have no idea where anyone lives, not to mention only know like 15 on a first name basis. After saying all this to Mari she told me to just do it or it won’t get done regardless if it pisses off Martha (which was my 4th concern). She took me to the first artisan’s house then to the second’s and there I met Eudocia. She was extremely nice and help me on Monday morning to do the south side of Calle Comercio and Calle Carmen. We went house to house, explaining what the registration was for and taking down each artisan’s information. Then in the afternoon I had my 4 hour classes of computation. There I teach an artisan from Pedregal her name is Mary. I told her my dilemma of not knowing anyone in Calle Carmen who weaves as well as the rest of Calle Comercio. She kindly offered to help me on Tuesday morning. Then by 8 I was in bed.
This morning I woke up and went to Martha’s house to ask her what happened to our meeting Monday morning to register the artisans, she had the NERVE to scold me and ask why I never went to her house. What a b****. Just like everything else, she is a liar!! I told her exactly how I felt about our situation and I’m only working for her and I’m not doing anything productive for the artisans or the people, just basically her and her relatives. I can not express to you all who are reading the frustration and problems I am having with her right now. Not to mention she loves to talk in circles and blame me for not somehow “knowing” when she needs me to do something. I’m not telepathic. Whatever, I’m in a good mood right now and writing about that is making me annoyed all over again!! SOO I left her house.
Mary came at 9 on time, because she attends my computer class she knows I like people on time lol. We headed north up Calle Comercio and looped around Calle Carmen to finish off. It was sooo hot out. I did get to talk to her though about the assoc and the issues it has. She wants the changes and to have a more open assoc, especially because she told me the “real” prices of Martha. For a sombrero that Martha shipped on a recent pedido the artisans got 20, Martha sold them for 40…where did the other 20 go… Martha’s pocket, (more accurately her daughters’ Piura apartment and University tuition). She told them that she uses the money for shipping. HELLO, the client paid for the shipping!! The artisans are so blind to how they are being robbed, it’s absurd. It’s one thing to be a bitch to me but to cheat a whoel assoc is too low and plus now that I have the knowledge of it ohhh ohhh there will be something done, even if it means not working with her anymore. That is just too unjust for me to deal with. (And this isn’t the first time that I could prove these price “gaps”). Uhhh if you people only knew!!
Anyway another thing that is bringing down… moving on. Okay I remember mentioning in October something about another assoc forming with the people unhappy in the assoc of Martha. They actually stopped forming it because no one got their act together besides one of the women, Maria. She ended up forming La Assoc Imaculeta Concepcion (Because the formed it on December 14, obviously). When I was registering more women in the afternoon at her house, I was able to talk with her and she would like my help to form the assoc, do fund raisers with her and also start the assoc open with codes and all so artisans can know what their product sells for. I’m really excited about it and I hope it goes better than things with the witch. I have a meeting with the artisan of I.C. tomorrow at 4, after I finish registering the artisans of Molina Azul. And can you guess whose supposed to help me, La Martha. We shall see if she even has time for me… grr…
Okay that is all for tonight I’m going to pass out!!
Xoxo ekh
The day after…January 28
So Martha did come with me a whole30 after I told her I wanted to leave. This is important because it is so hot that you want to get everything done before mid-day sun. Because of her tardiness I was out till 12:30 and thus getting sun-burn, which I have managed to avoid my whole time here (minus once). What I realized as I was registering the artisans, there was a certain aspect different about today than the other two days. I had a variation of artisan groups. Some people belonged to the one in my town, others to the surrounding assoc, and then others were just selling to Catacaos directly. Buuuut, because I was with La Martha, everyone said her assoc. Which angered me, because I know that isn’t the truth, she was just so intimidating, after each artisan saying, they’re apart of my group. By 12 I wanted to choke her, because the registro didn’t even want which assoc. that information was just for me (Yes, I told her that, she is still the most annoying person on earth). I also once again, tried to explain my job with her and ask her why we cant do projects to better the assoc as well as get more money to the artisans. She just went on a tirade about how there are no pedidos (orders). I mentioned that she has 2 right now and that she had one a week since I’ve known her, she “informed” my business ignorant mind that those weren’t orders. Orders are 2,000 or 5,000 of one product. I told her those are big orders, but correct me if I’m wrong, but an order of 100 baskets is a pedido/order. And I know what you may think maybe it’s a language barrier..uhhu I checked. I said oh I’m sorry you’re right I don’t have any business knowledge whatsoever, you are always right, she responds, I know. Ohhh sarcasm. At this point, I am not lying to you, I thought I was gonna hit a bitch. I have never wanted to sucker punch someone so bad in my entire life. She just wants me to do her things, regardless of the others; I still have yet to tell her that I can’t work with her anymore. I’m waiting till site visit on Feb 4th when Wilfredo and Alfredo will come to see my site so they can handle it better than “calm” self could… PS there is like whoooaaa a lot more to this story but I’m not writing it, this was just a longtime coming.
After that lovely morning, I had tutoring that the kid again didn’t show up for though he sees me every other day… just don’t get it, I need to stop preparing things because when I don’t prepare, he comes. Of course! At 4 I had a meeting with the women from the new group. They are really excited and seem open to my suggestions and to each other. They are doing a cevichara on Sunday. Which is like our equivalent to a bake sale, but they are selling plates of raw fish. Lol. We did the whole cost analysis of the venture and determined that we would make 100 soles minimum. Which is good, I’ll be getting up at 5:30 to go and help them on Sunday before I head to the Jovenes Emprendedores (Youth Entrepreneurs) Charla in San Clemente, where a youth volunteer has asked me to teach the two month course to her youth group, because they want to form businesses. Of course, now that actually another town “dare” get this course, my town is like we want it too, I said and I gave it to you 2,no one came, call me in 2months if you’re still interested, no one will.
Tomorrow should be just as not fun as today, I have to get up early and head to Catacaos because I have filled the second stack of forms they gave me, then register the last part of Pedregal with the princess Martha, and of course I forgot to mention that Consuelo the dir of artesania for Piura, found out that I’ve advanced really far, more than others who did this in the past. Last time Martha told me it took 30 university students a month to do what took me what will be 4 days…ridic. So theyre comingto do a foto-opp and prob take some pics of them filling out 1 or 2 forms and of course Martha will prob take credit for what I enforced, uhhh. I am a volunteer, I do not get credit. (Must repeat in my mind, continuously.) Also, in the end all the artisans are registered which is what they wanted and I got to meet the majority of them, by meet have a convo with them. (Small Victories…Small Victories) Another phrase I find myself saying often.
Will post hopefully tomorrow and you all can read this while I’m experiencing the above, in 100 degree weather, ya… pray for me.
Peace ouuut - elizabeth
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Blogs from this weekend
17 de enero de 2009
Well today is the second day of Camp ALMA, which stands for Actividades Liderazgo para Mujeres Adolescentes (Leadership Activities for Adolescent Women). This camp is set up each year by the volunteers within each department that wants to participate. This year the volunteers of Piura were joined by 2 volunteers from Tumbes. Each volunteer can bring 1-3 girls in Secundaria. In the states Secundaria is about 7th grade till Junior year in high school. I brought 3 girls from Pedregal Grande. One girl is entering 3rd which is Freshman year (mas or menos), one girl entering 5th grado (Junior Year) and the third just graduated in December from Secundaria. (Remember we are on opposite seasons so December for them is the start of summer like our June, hence the end of the school year for them, like June is for us.
This weekend we planned all sorts of activities, (Icebreakers, Teambuilding, Trust-building, Self esteem, Brain teasers) and held speakers, (Talks of Auto esteem, Reproductive Health, Being a Woman, Taking Risks, Professional Woman in Today’s Workforce). The girls seem like they are taking in the information well and I hope this really motivates them to work hard to do better for themselves in their lives. Some of our speakers could really relate with the girls from poorer backgrounds, being someone who didn’t have money growing up, she worked in order to pay for college and go into med school. I really hope this hits the girls and they are excited to do more and try harder. I would be happy to help them along their path toward their dreams.
I have helped a lot in order to have this weekend go smoothly and I hope it continues to do so. (Ask my mom she knows I was constantly working on it!!) We did have some bumps though the first day and I def think that they were coming. We have issues in PC with the whole role of a Leader. Yes, I know, we are at a leadership camp, but that’s also the problem. Though all volunteers come from different backgrounds, with different experiences, and different education, there is one thing that links every volunteer together, the ability to lead, hence where our issue came from. When you have 20 people in the same room that lead and lead well, with each having amazing, creative ideas, and also the small factor of being head strong, it becomes a little difficult on the compromise issue and problem solving. Yesterday I think gave us all the realization that we need a bit more preparation than 2 meetings (with everyone in attendance) to go over the whole schedule and be done sooner, with more participation from all volunteers. But turns out that all is well in Camp ALMA now and things should be running rather smoothly for the duration.
Okay well I’m going to continue my main job this weekend filming and photo taking; therefore, unfortunately, I will prob be in one or 2 photos!! Will write more later.
18 de enero – Back at Site(Reflection)
As the weekend progressed things really began to mesh well and we didn’t have any more serious issues. I went to bed early on Saturday night because the food was awful and I got sick along with 5 other volunteers. Sunday morning the last speaker (which was my responsibility) came and actually did a great job with an activity as well. Then things for wrap up continued. Basically the focus on Sunday was how to replicate a mini-“Camp ALMA” in their home towns. If and when they do, they receive the cd from the weekend with the photos and videos that the volunteers and I took, that being my job to combine all the cd photos and film. Woo hoo! Still debating if I want to edit all the film to create a video of the weekend…bc that’s a lot of work. Especially by Tuesday when I have an appt with my laundry basket for like 6 hours then I have computer classes with the artisans in Catacaos from 3 till 7 tomorrow. All the volunteers are getting together Tuesday for the Inauguration and probably staying the night, going out. Right now I’m focus on how Not to melt from the heat and not to be eaten alive by the multitude of Mosquitos. Not to mention, trying not to inhale too much because I raided the shit out of my room, I think its bad to have too much contact with Raid, because my skin is tingling… woops… at least no bugs are biting me now =)
19 de enero de 2009
…Just got back from teaching computer classes. We had back to back session 3-5 for artisans of Paja Toquilla (Straw Weaving) and then 5-7 for artisans of Joyeria (Jewelry – Silver). It was really successful, both classes were filled. One issue that we had was the different levels that the artisans were on. In the paja class some were young and just wanted to do messenger the whole time and some people couldn’t move the mouse! So that was interesting, but everyone learned fast. The only people we are going to have serious issues with are the people that can’t see. I mean there are def 2 people (1 in each class) that could be on the border legally blind. But hey, if they want to learn and show up… why not? There was only 1 artisan who didn’t turn up, who do you think it was?...Martha… my counterpart. Que roche! I was so angry with her and I left her a message on her phone at about 3:30 and then she had the nerve to show up at5:30 to be like ohhh I had something urgent to do in Piura sorry. I was so angry and also I now have to teach her personally the lesson that she missed today. I was supposed to be at her house right now, but I feel really sick and my head hurts so I’m proud not going to head over. PS im soooo tired because of the 4 hour class and what I did earlier today!! What did I do earlier today… I know you all want to know…
WELL…. I woke up to do the laundry that I have been hiding from for 2 ½ weeks (yes, we do have a washing machine, but no desague, so that means I fill up a bucket or several and have to bring it back into the corral and empty it and I have to be next to the machine so the buckets don’t overflow and flood the house.. its annoying and a workout. While I was doing that I always dust and sweep my room like usual, but this time I decided to tackle… the bathroom. It is extremely dirty and I didn’t want to just start cleaning a room of the houses when I first got here, but I decided enough was enough and the nastiness had to go, so I filled up a bucket with bleach and went at it…3 buckets of bleach and water followed but just hot water bucket, not to mention the 4 hours it took… Ladies and Gentlemen we had a …semi-dirty bathroom. I’m not shitting you!! How awful!! I spent 4 hours scrubbing it but it just wasn’t enough. I’ll be getting back to it next week for sure. Anyway so back to the story, so I cleaned and then I Raided the bathroom to I could feel the poisonous liquid entering my bloodstream. When my sister came home, I asked her when the last time that bathroom was cleaned. She told me that it was when the bathroom was painted… which my friends was not this year nor last, it was January 2002. Yes, 7 years of filth. I feel gross that I went this long not cleaning it out of “respect”. Lol. But hey I cleaned it and now when I just went to the bathroom a few minutes ago…there were no bugs and no grime on the walls, in my book, a success.
Okay I’m going to rest my head it pounding.
Well today is the second day of Camp ALMA, which stands for Actividades Liderazgo para Mujeres Adolescentes (Leadership Activities for Adolescent Women). This camp is set up each year by the volunteers within each department that wants to participate. This year the volunteers of Piura were joined by 2 volunteers from Tumbes. Each volunteer can bring 1-3 girls in Secundaria. In the states Secundaria is about 7th grade till Junior year in high school. I brought 3 girls from Pedregal Grande. One girl is entering 3rd which is Freshman year (mas or menos), one girl entering 5th grado (Junior Year) and the third just graduated in December from Secundaria. (Remember we are on opposite seasons so December for them is the start of summer like our June, hence the end of the school year for them, like June is for us.
This weekend we planned all sorts of activities, (Icebreakers, Teambuilding, Trust-building, Self esteem, Brain teasers) and held speakers, (Talks of Auto esteem, Reproductive Health, Being a Woman, Taking Risks, Professional Woman in Today’s Workforce). The girls seem like they are taking in the information well and I hope this really motivates them to work hard to do better for themselves in their lives. Some of our speakers could really relate with the girls from poorer backgrounds, being someone who didn’t have money growing up, she worked in order to pay for college and go into med school. I really hope this hits the girls and they are excited to do more and try harder. I would be happy to help them along their path toward their dreams.
I have helped a lot in order to have this weekend go smoothly and I hope it continues to do so. (Ask my mom she knows I was constantly working on it!!) We did have some bumps though the first day and I def think that they were coming. We have issues in PC with the whole role of a Leader. Yes, I know, we are at a leadership camp, but that’s also the problem. Though all volunteers come from different backgrounds, with different experiences, and different education, there is one thing that links every volunteer together, the ability to lead, hence where our issue came from. When you have 20 people in the same room that lead and lead well, with each having amazing, creative ideas, and also the small factor of being head strong, it becomes a little difficult on the compromise issue and problem solving. Yesterday I think gave us all the realization that we need a bit more preparation than 2 meetings (with everyone in attendance) to go over the whole schedule and be done sooner, with more participation from all volunteers. But turns out that all is well in Camp ALMA now and things should be running rather smoothly for the duration.
Okay well I’m going to continue my main job this weekend filming and photo taking; therefore, unfortunately, I will prob be in one or 2 photos!! Will write more later.
18 de enero – Back at Site(Reflection)
As the weekend progressed things really began to mesh well and we didn’t have any more serious issues. I went to bed early on Saturday night because the food was awful and I got sick along with 5 other volunteers. Sunday morning the last speaker (which was my responsibility) came and actually did a great job with an activity as well. Then things for wrap up continued. Basically the focus on Sunday was how to replicate a mini-“Camp ALMA” in their home towns. If and when they do, they receive the cd from the weekend with the photos and videos that the volunteers and I took, that being my job to combine all the cd photos and film. Woo hoo! Still debating if I want to edit all the film to create a video of the weekend…bc that’s a lot of work. Especially by Tuesday when I have an appt with my laundry basket for like 6 hours then I have computer classes with the artisans in Catacaos from 3 till 7 tomorrow. All the volunteers are getting together Tuesday for the Inauguration and probably staying the night, going out. Right now I’m focus on how Not to melt from the heat and not to be eaten alive by the multitude of Mosquitos. Not to mention, trying not to inhale too much because I raided the shit out of my room, I think its bad to have too much contact with Raid, because my skin is tingling… woops… at least no bugs are biting me now =)
19 de enero de 2009
…Just got back from teaching computer classes. We had back to back session 3-5 for artisans of Paja Toquilla (Straw Weaving) and then 5-7 for artisans of Joyeria (Jewelry – Silver). It was really successful, both classes were filled. One issue that we had was the different levels that the artisans were on. In the paja class some were young and just wanted to do messenger the whole time and some people couldn’t move the mouse! So that was interesting, but everyone learned fast. The only people we are going to have serious issues with are the people that can’t see. I mean there are def 2 people (1 in each class) that could be on the border legally blind. But hey, if they want to learn and show up… why not? There was only 1 artisan who didn’t turn up, who do you think it was?...Martha… my counterpart. Que roche! I was so angry with her and I left her a message on her phone at about 3:30 and then she had the nerve to show up at5:30 to be like ohhh I had something urgent to do in Piura sorry. I was so angry and also I now have to teach her personally the lesson that she missed today. I was supposed to be at her house right now, but I feel really sick and my head hurts so I’m proud not going to head over. PS im soooo tired because of the 4 hour class and what I did earlier today!! What did I do earlier today… I know you all want to know…
WELL…. I woke up to do the laundry that I have been hiding from for 2 ½ weeks (yes, we do have a washing machine, but no desague, so that means I fill up a bucket or several and have to bring it back into the corral and empty it and I have to be next to the machine so the buckets don’t overflow and flood the house.. its annoying and a workout. While I was doing that I always dust and sweep my room like usual, but this time I decided to tackle… the bathroom. It is extremely dirty and I didn’t want to just start cleaning a room of the houses when I first got here, but I decided enough was enough and the nastiness had to go, so I filled up a bucket with bleach and went at it…3 buckets of bleach and water followed but just hot water bucket, not to mention the 4 hours it took… Ladies and Gentlemen we had a …semi-dirty bathroom. I’m not shitting you!! How awful!! I spent 4 hours scrubbing it but it just wasn’t enough. I’ll be getting back to it next week for sure. Anyway so back to the story, so I cleaned and then I Raided the bathroom to I could feel the poisonous liquid entering my bloodstream. When my sister came home, I asked her when the last time that bathroom was cleaned. She told me that it was when the bathroom was painted… which my friends was not this year nor last, it was January 2002. Yes, 7 years of filth. I feel gross that I went this long not cleaning it out of “respect”. Lol. But hey I cleaned it and now when I just went to the bathroom a few minutes ago…there were no bugs and no grime on the walls, in my book, a success.
Okay I’m going to rest my head it pounding.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
8 de enero de 2009
Okay well its been two days since the opening of the sign up sheet and how many people signed up…0. Que triste! I made sure to go out of my way to talk some of the people I new from the surrounding towns to have them pasa la voz (spread the word). So I will continue from the last time I wrote.
For New Years me and some of the other volunteers went to the beach. It was a good time, but not as relaxing as I had hoped*. And now I’m back to the grind getting a few things done for the artisans. My basic goals for the next month is to start a computer class for the artisan groups in the area, register all the artisans from my association and/or town in the records of the Regional Government, continue and implement the product codes with my association, start the product catalogue for a rival association (we’ll see how that pans out when Martha finds out lol), and to organize a filing cabinet (archivador) for the association. Probably only 2 of the above will get done, I’m being optimistic. It’s not that it just won’t get done, its just that everything gets put off for “tomorrow”, or “the next week”, or “…just after I finish this”. Extremely frustrating when I know it wouldn’t take that long and also I will be working on increasing and better or materials of promotion, business cards, catalogues and banners. This too is a bit frustrating because my assoc doesn’t want to put in that much money into the promo materials, but it needs to be done to look professional. Also I think I have to do some fundraisers with the association and track the funding… I’m not accusing anyone, but money seems to be disappearing…
All the while pushing for these “Jovenes Emprendedores” classes to be successful. I know it seems like random amount of stuff, but this all needs to get done, though I don’t know if it will, because it needs two parties to accomplish things. In good news though, Camp ALMA (Actividades liderazco para mujeres adolescantes) Leadership activities for adolescent women, will be this up coming weekend and should prove to be successful. Two girls from Pedregal will attend and hopefully listen and put to use the information that will be presented. Speakers will be discussing themes like, self esteem, stereo types, breaking the glass ceiling, machista, Si se puede (yes you can), motivation, Querer es poder. This should be very educational for the girls.Two speakers though just dropped out yesterday so I’m kinda freaking out because that is my job so today I think I’m going to visit the municipality of Piura to try and persuade the mayor (who is a woman, of course) to come in and do a speech. We shall see…
Okay I have to head into Catacaos and Piura about now, but hopefully all of you have had a great week and will have a nice January. Sorry about those videos if anyone knows how I can download them that would be extremely helpful, I think the file is too big or something. I might have to start using Youtube.
I’ll keep you updated..
Much love xoxo ekh
For New Years me and some of the other volunteers went to the beach. It was a good time, but not as relaxing as I had hoped*. And now I’m back to the grind getting a few things done for the artisans. My basic goals for the next month is to start a computer class for the artisan groups in the area, register all the artisans from my association and/or town in the records of the Regional Government, continue and implement the product codes with my association, start the product catalogue for a rival association (we’ll see how that pans out when Martha finds out lol), and to organize a filing cabinet (archivador) for the association. Probably only 2 of the above will get done, I’m being optimistic. It’s not that it just won’t get done, its just that everything gets put off for “tomorrow”, or “the next week”, or “…just after I finish this”. Extremely frustrating when I know it wouldn’t take that long and also I will be working on increasing and better or materials of promotion, business cards, catalogues and banners. This too is a bit frustrating because my assoc doesn’t want to put in that much money into the promo materials, but it needs to be done to look professional. Also I think I have to do some fundraisers with the association and track the funding… I’m not accusing anyone, but money seems to be disappearing…
All the while pushing for these “Jovenes Emprendedores” classes to be successful. I know it seems like random amount of stuff, but this all needs to get done, though I don’t know if it will, because it needs two parties to accomplish things. In good news though, Camp ALMA (Actividades liderazco para mujeres adolescantes) Leadership activities for adolescent women, will be this up coming weekend and should prove to be successful. Two girls from Pedregal will attend and hopefully listen and put to use the information that will be presented. Speakers will be discussing themes like, self esteem, stereo types, breaking the glass ceiling, machista, Si se puede (yes you can), motivation, Querer es poder. This should be very educational for the girls.Two speakers though just dropped out yesterday so I’m kinda freaking out because that is my job so today I think I’m going to visit the municipality of Piura to try and persuade the mayor (who is a woman, of course) to come in and do a speech. We shall see…
Okay I have to head into Catacaos and Piura about now, but hopefully all of you have had a great week and will have a nice January. Sorry about those videos if anyone knows how I can download them that would be extremely helpful, I think the file is too big or something. I might have to start using Youtube.
I’ll keep you updated..
Much love xoxo ekh
6 de enero 2009
Happy New Year!! Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Missed you all incredibly as you all probably missed me therefore as I suspected, none of you had fun nor smiled from Thanksgiving till January 2. I know, I know, life just does not go on without me. I don’t fault you for not trying; I personally don’t think you should move on and should just wallow and cry for the remaining year and a half that I will be gone. … okay I guess that was enough, though I could go on for about ohhhh another page and a half.
Okay so I haven’t written in a minute, that’s not acceptable, I am aware of that, I have just been really busy. What’s new you ask? Well I shall cuentate, I went to the Christmas fair right before Christmas in Lima. The fair was horrible, the time I spent in the wonderful, air conditioned with hot water embassy mcmansion was wonderful. The fair wasn’t horrible per se but it definitely wasn’t what it should have been considering it was held in Jockey Plaza, basically the main shopping place of all of Lima or Peru for that matter and it was during the prime shopping time of the week, fri sat and sun, not to mention the highest retailers sales time of year, Christmas season. (on average each store making 40% of their profit at this time) That was basically the set up of every artisan’s dream,right? Wrong. MYPE who held the fair, they are the business department of the Peru’s government, did no promotion, nada, nothing, zilch, zippo, if I could think of another synonym, I would. It was awful. The fair was basically dead on Friday; we had one sale to another vendor! Saturday picked up but nothing crazy probably only because the people in charge realized their faux-pa and started hard core pressing promotion in Jockey Plaza. Sunday was decent but it was def too little too late for many of the artisans who lost money, not selling enough to cover their gastos. Just awful. I def made a point to mention it to the people in charge, although they claimed to have promoted all month, highly impossible. Though I should give a little slack because this is their first annual Christmas fair, however I will make sure there is promotion before we waste our pasajes to go this upcoming year. So we did well making just about 700 soles so that helped out the ladies with costs for the holidays in their households. Though honestly being in that house making homecooked dinner every night and watching cable totally made the sitting in the same chairs for 10 hours in a fair where we barely sold, worth it!!!
I went into Piura to have Christmas Eve breakfast with one of my friends, Marian, who was in town and alone without her host family until later that night. Christmas Eve night was great I did put a clip up but its like 3 secs, I know, I have the longer one but it keeps getting stuck before I upload it all. Also, I did make a Christmas greetings for all of you but that is having issues posting as well, got to love developing technology here! Hopefully I’ll get it to download by Easter! Christmas Eve is the big celebration here in Peru with hot chocolate and champagne at midnight and they have a ceremony of letting the guest of honor, this year me, putting baby Jesus in the nativity scene at midnight. Which I believe you all did see the clip of.
ON Christmas day, I continued the celebration with other volunteers in the area and heading to Colan, a beach town about a 1 45 minute ride from the city. Most of you have probably scene the wonderful beach pictures I put up on facebook, this would be explaining where that is!! It was a really nice time. Then heading back to site I started my promo for the Jovenes Emprendedores classes that I will be starting this week. I am really excited about this and I hope it works out this time. If some of you remember I tried starting this class back in October but because I let someone in the municipality take of it I don’t think it got promoted well and being new then I didn’t question, this time, yours truly took over. I really want this class to be a hit with the kids that just graduated from secundaria and don’t have enough money to go into the institutes or university prep schools. IT gives them another outlet to getting pregnant and married at 16!! SO here’s to hoping!
Okay well I do have more to write but its 12 on a Tuesday night that’s never heard of for me in my normal routine so I think that’s enough craziness for me for one night… hopefully ill write soon
Xoxo
Elizabeth katherine
Okay so I haven’t written in a minute, that’s not acceptable, I am aware of that, I have just been really busy. What’s new you ask? Well I shall cuentate, I went to the Christmas fair right before Christmas in Lima. The fair was horrible, the time I spent in the wonderful, air conditioned with hot water embassy mcmansion was wonderful. The fair wasn’t horrible per se but it definitely wasn’t what it should have been considering it was held in Jockey Plaza, basically the main shopping place of all of Lima or Peru for that matter and it was during the prime shopping time of the week, fri sat and sun, not to mention the highest retailers sales time of year, Christmas season. (on average each store making 40% of their profit at this time) That was basically the set up of every artisan’s dream,right? Wrong. MYPE who held the fair, they are the business department of the Peru’s government, did no promotion, nada, nothing, zilch, zippo, if I could think of another synonym, I would. It was awful. The fair was basically dead on Friday; we had one sale to another vendor! Saturday picked up but nothing crazy probably only because the people in charge realized their faux-pa and started hard core pressing promotion in Jockey Plaza. Sunday was decent but it was def too little too late for many of the artisans who lost money, not selling enough to cover their gastos. Just awful. I def made a point to mention it to the people in charge, although they claimed to have promoted all month, highly impossible. Though I should give a little slack because this is their first annual Christmas fair, however I will make sure there is promotion before we waste our pasajes to go this upcoming year. So we did well making just about 700 soles so that helped out the ladies with costs for the holidays in their households. Though honestly being in that house making homecooked dinner every night and watching cable totally made the sitting in the same chairs for 10 hours in a fair where we barely sold, worth it!!!
I went into Piura to have Christmas Eve breakfast with one of my friends, Marian, who was in town and alone without her host family until later that night. Christmas Eve night was great I did put a clip up but its like 3 secs, I know, I have the longer one but it keeps getting stuck before I upload it all. Also, I did make a Christmas greetings for all of you but that is having issues posting as well, got to love developing technology here! Hopefully I’ll get it to download by Easter! Christmas Eve is the big celebration here in Peru with hot chocolate and champagne at midnight and they have a ceremony of letting the guest of honor, this year me, putting baby Jesus in the nativity scene at midnight. Which I believe you all did see the clip of.
ON Christmas day, I continued the celebration with other volunteers in the area and heading to Colan, a beach town about a 1 45 minute ride from the city. Most of you have probably scene the wonderful beach pictures I put up on facebook, this would be explaining where that is!! It was a really nice time. Then heading back to site I started my promo for the Jovenes Emprendedores classes that I will be starting this week. I am really excited about this and I hope it works out this time. If some of you remember I tried starting this class back in October but because I let someone in the municipality take of it I don’t think it got promoted well and being new then I didn’t question, this time, yours truly took over. I really want this class to be a hit with the kids that just graduated from secundaria and don’t have enough money to go into the institutes or university prep schools. IT gives them another outlet to getting pregnant and married at 16!! SO here’s to hoping!
Okay well I do have more to write but its 12 on a Tuesday night that’s never heard of for me in my normal routine so I think that’s enough craziness for me for one night… hopefully ill write soon
Xoxo
Elizabeth katherine
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