a very long week...

September 30, 2009

This week has been one of my busiest yet, or maybe it just seems that way. I have a bunch of projects that are lined up to do on top of my daily computer classes and work with the association. The director of small business has asked me to do a workshop for all the artisans and the volunteers on selling and stand presentation before the annual pc fair in Lima. This won´t be that difficult bc I´ll be using the materials from the volunteers who presented this past year, but I def still have to tweak it a bit. Also my friend Vince called me and wants me to come to his site and help him facilitate a 2 day workshop on product design and marketing. I have a prior compromiso to do a workshop on youth career planning with another volunteer, in his site the same week as Vince´s. Also I was asked to write up an article for Washington on a work success I have experienced during my service with my artisans. This is all going on right after site visit when my boss came to go over the projects I have done, the ones I am doing, and what I am going to focus on my 2nd year of service.

Speaking of which, on a suggestion from Alfredo, I have decided to do a pc artisan shop in Piura. This will include all the products from the different groups that small business volunteers of Piura are working with. There is another shop like this in Cajamarca that a Peru 2 volunteer set up. This is going to be a mountain of a project that if I can develop will be an amazing accomplishment. I kinda think that this is what I could leave behind as the mark of my service. I have gone over the idea with Iris and she said she would be more than willing to help me. So we have to start with getting an oficio written up, which is basically our plan of what we want to do and send it out to the other artisan associations to see if there is an interest and by how many groups. This wills tart the ball rolling. From there we have to figure costs, requisites to put products in the store and then also how to get the startup capital. The previous volunteer who undertook this venture used a spa grant that pc offers. I might be doing that. (…then I will def be contacting my Aunt Ba!!)…We shall see how this idea of mine unfolds.

I am also in charge, well technically I put myself in charge, of making the despedida shirts for Peru 10 who will be leaving in November. I need to get that done in order to give the t-shirt making company plenty of time to mess up and re-do. (Not that they would…)

The most exciting thing I am trying to plan is the jungle trip I´ll be taking with my brother, grant in November! I can´t wait! We´re going to go inside the Amazon´s National Reserve where you can hold monkeys, sloths and see the rare pink dolphins! Which reminds me, I have to call the man who will be our guide tomorrow to reserve the dates I want.

And last but not least on this short blog entry… I took some footage of the women I work with weaving, another on the taller where I work and finally one on how the women dye the straw.

Pardon my spanglish on the tapes, but I think you all are used to it from these entries

Miss you all
Elizabeth xoxo