all the bisnasty volunteers at Alfredos house for our last meal before we left
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
my room... kinda like my frosh dorm in Rodney
here is my room right after i finished it though its even changed since then bc i put up all the letters you have given me as well as some other things on the wall
a bit more pics from end of training/first week
still a work in progress...
my room a work in progress...
another part about Chosica ill miss
Me and some of the chacra moms and volunteers
3rd Post and Prob last till next week!! Hope you enjoy!
Labor Day!!
I hope you all are having a very relaxing time at the beach. Right now I am working on my plan de trabajo for my tutoring sessions of Math and English, I start this week. This morning I was up at about 6 to get ready for my presentation at 7. It didn’t start till 7:30 so that was nice; I did have time for coffee. Though not enough for food, which maybe for the best because as I put on my pants this morning, they were a bit snug…thank goodness my exercise class begins today at 5!
At the ceremony, we said some decades of the rosary jk just a few prayers then did their national hymn and their national anthem. I do know the words to the latter so that was fun to be singing. But probably the coolest part was that I got to raise the bandera (flag)! No, I didn’t get a pic because my sister ended up not coming. Something went wrong with the tractor that she had to take of. After, I was given the honor of giving a speech to everyone…yeh that was awful. The kids were laughing; I was so unprepared for that, though thank God I had a copy of an old speech I gave already. I did meet the Math teacher and tomorrow I will meet the English teacher, then on Wednesday I am going to present them with my planes de trabajos.
After this I went to the Municipalidad to talk with the Alcalde and the Regidores. I basically finally explained clearly the importance of completing my CDA (Community Diagnostic Analysis) before I begin any real workshops that they want. (Like cuye farms… I think I might not do that out of principle ha, and cheese making) Now I have 3 months to interview as many people as possible about the town and do my FODA and other processes of evaluation. Though I am presenting the ideas I have for right now in a plan de trabajo on Wednesday to the Alcalde and we’ll have a meeting next Monday to discuss them. We also ended up discussing the artisan group that’s in my community. I ended up having the time and opportunity to meet the Secretary of the group today. I got to ask her some general questions to get an idea of their more or less position. They still are not formalized and don’t have books, personal or for the association. The lady I spoke with is going to set up a meeting for me to meet the other 70 artisanas with the president of the group as well. They seem really nice and tranquilo, therefore I am looking forward to working with them. In training we did receive a lot of insight and materials on how to formalize an association and create books. Also, there is something about starting from scratch with a group that somehow makes it easier to mold them into the format that is more or less how it should be, regarding books and keeping them, so on and so forth. At least this is what I think.
When I came home, I sat down to start finishing my own informal excel plan de trabajo and write my formalized ones for the Math and English teacher, as well as the Alcalde. I also had the time to write out all my notes that I had regarding the Associations and I know what I’ve written earlier, but I think I can handle this a lot easier now, especially with all my notes in front of my face on the computer screne. I was able to write out goals I had, ideas for products and of course all the facts that I know about the association. I was thinking about presenting this to my socio-comunitario to see if I understand correctly the association itself and how it works.
Oh forgot to mention, this past weekend in Piura I was able to buy freshly ground coffee from the sierras, actually from another volunteers house mom who grows the beans, as well as a nice French press. No more instant Nescafe for me!! I think what motivated me was the beautiful blue tulip mug Aunt Ba sent me… I think it would have been insulted if I put that awful coffee inside it.
Okay well I must go make some afiches (posters) for my exercise class!! Some serious work there!
Peace! ekh <333
Just an update: 15 people atended my class!! Yes you heard right 15!! That’s awesome well I don’t know I consider that a perfect success considering that not many people knew about it, talk about pasa la voz as a way of communication. Well, I guess it shouldn’t count that 6 were my friends and felt guilty if they didn’t, but I am counting them so there! And I taught a class of Yoga, who’d of thunk it? Okay well I’m beat and I have to get up again really early to go to the school to meet the Ingles teacher. Grrr…Oh and ps everyone was on time 5 en punto…go figure.
I hope you all are having a very relaxing time at the beach. Right now I am working on my plan de trabajo for my tutoring sessions of Math and English, I start this week. This morning I was up at about 6 to get ready for my presentation at 7. It didn’t start till 7:30 so that was nice; I did have time for coffee. Though not enough for food, which maybe for the best because as I put on my pants this morning, they were a bit snug…thank goodness my exercise class begins today at 5!
At the ceremony, we said some decades of the rosary jk just a few prayers then did their national hymn and their national anthem. I do know the words to the latter so that was fun to be singing. But probably the coolest part was that I got to raise the bandera (flag)! No, I didn’t get a pic because my sister ended up not coming. Something went wrong with the tractor that she had to take of. After, I was given the honor of giving a speech to everyone…yeh that was awful. The kids were laughing; I was so unprepared for that, though thank God I had a copy of an old speech I gave already. I did meet the Math teacher and tomorrow I will meet the English teacher, then on Wednesday I am going to present them with my planes de trabajos.
After this I went to the Municipalidad to talk with the Alcalde and the Regidores. I basically finally explained clearly the importance of completing my CDA (Community Diagnostic Analysis) before I begin any real workshops that they want. (Like cuye farms… I think I might not do that out of principle ha, and cheese making) Now I have 3 months to interview as many people as possible about the town and do my FODA and other processes of evaluation. Though I am presenting the ideas I have for right now in a plan de trabajo on Wednesday to the Alcalde and we’ll have a meeting next Monday to discuss them. We also ended up discussing the artisan group that’s in my community. I ended up having the time and opportunity to meet the Secretary of the group today. I got to ask her some general questions to get an idea of their more or less position. They still are not formalized and don’t have books, personal or for the association. The lady I spoke with is going to set up a meeting for me to meet the other 70 artisanas with the president of the group as well. They seem really nice and tranquilo, therefore I am looking forward to working with them. In training we did receive a lot of insight and materials on how to formalize an association and create books. Also, there is something about starting from scratch with a group that somehow makes it easier to mold them into the format that is more or less how it should be, regarding books and keeping them, so on and so forth. At least this is what I think.
When I came home, I sat down to start finishing my own informal excel plan de trabajo and write my formalized ones for the Math and English teacher, as well as the Alcalde. I also had the time to write out all my notes that I had regarding the Associations and I know what I’ve written earlier, but I think I can handle this a lot easier now, especially with all my notes in front of my face on the computer screne. I was able to write out goals I had, ideas for products and of course all the facts that I know about the association. I was thinking about presenting this to my socio-comunitario to see if I understand correctly the association itself and how it works.
Oh forgot to mention, this past weekend in Piura I was able to buy freshly ground coffee from the sierras, actually from another volunteers house mom who grows the beans, as well as a nice French press. No more instant Nescafe for me!! I think what motivated me was the beautiful blue tulip mug Aunt Ba sent me… I think it would have been insulted if I put that awful coffee inside it.
Okay well I must go make some afiches (posters) for my exercise class!! Some serious work there!
Peace! ekh <333
Just an update: 15 people atended my class!! Yes you heard right 15!! That’s awesome well I don’t know I consider that a perfect success considering that not many people knew about it, talk about pasa la voz as a way of communication. Well, I guess it shouldn’t count that 6 were my friends and felt guilty if they didn’t, but I am counting them so there! And I taught a class of Yoga, who’d of thunk it? Okay well I’m beat and I have to get up again really early to go to the school to meet the Ingles teacher. Grrr…Oh and ps everyone was on time 5 en punto…go figure.
2nd Post!
31 Agosto 2008
The first week in site…
Okay well for starters, I ended up not going to that meeting, instead went to another meeting on Wednesday with my socio-comunitario to discuss with the Regional Engineer (Head) of the Artisans in Piura the problems my association is having with the other “rival” paja associations. Apparently this has been aggregating over the past couple of years and is now at its peak, basically people… shit’s about to hit the fan lol. But in reality, there is a lot of disunity among the artisans and even within my group. I have determined that this will be my first challenge with my group the disunity and cohesiveness of the group itself in regards to communication and even capacitaciones (of skills and so forth). I think I’m having some reservations about starting with my associacion/my primary project and have decided, well, please take into account that this is the first week, hence first impressions, but I think I’d rather focus on something else here and that being my 3 objective of Small Business the Youth entrepreneurship and development. I think maybe working with the youth here, I can ease myself better into the community and at the same time I am starting my exercise class this week that will consist of, lets face it, my friends at site and my sister, who will feel bad if no one shows up overlooking the fact that they hate exercising and most of them don’t need it!
I don’t know really how I feel about the situation with my association, I think I may be a bit intimidated by the whole picture/all the problems I do see within the association itself that I am dreading to encounter. If that is me cowering, then so be it, because honestly as of the first month I think I’d just rather have pilates class and have the kids plant some trees. No really it isn’t that simple that was just a joke. But I am doing pilates and something with the kids to plant trees!! It’s actually pretty interesting what I came up with. The town wanted some sort of beautification project started to introduce more green into the community, because I’m in the desert/coast so there isn’t much unless you tend to it. And the youth organization wanted me to of course approach the temas of liderazco and autoestima to the children here in my community, as well as, violencia familiar and other topics. I came up with the idea, multi-tasker that I am, to have each child who comes to the class for ambiente plant a tree in town as their own, this they will have to care for and learn the value of being responsible for something else as well as making sure the area around it is clean, hence keeping the area clean of trash, another problem here, and then talking about the temas of leadership and autoestima attached to having something to call your own. Also, to earn money for this I was prob going to write a solicitud to the Univ. de Piura Agraria to get the semillas to start it, but then after for the following groups teach them how to replant trees from the ones that are existing already, which I learned myself during the session at the Univ of Lima Agraria. But this is all just random plans that who knows if they will ever unfold. I mean I’ll let you all know obviously. This is just one projectI have written in my project plan I have about 7, therefore I swear I’m not sitting on my butt during my time here (though I would like too!!) But shhh, I do love the people here and I’m glad my community is so motivated because I did talk to some volunteers who are having difficulties in this area and have gone to their site and the people are like um alright there’s a gringo and let’s continue on with our lives.
Right now its 10:30 prob one of my latest nights I’ve been up here, except for last night I did go out dancing. But I’m going to go to bed, because I have to be up at 6 am because I have a 7 am introduction ceremony at the Secundaria y Primeria. And also, for the record, that whole Latin hour or so called Latin hour when if you say 7 they come at 9…I don’t think my town got that memo they love to be en punto and then tell me, “Mira! We are here at 7 (big smile) American time!” (me not smiling at 7 in the morning) “Yeh!” Haha… no but seriously, this aspect is just another reason my town is the best and I’m so happy to be here because you don’t find this type of town often! After the school thingy I am heading to the Muni (Municipalidad) to talk with the alcalde about my plan de trabajo here as well as my CDA which I have to hand in at the end of 3 months along with my tri-annual report… yes this is a job people, we have tri-annual reports in the PC. And I kinda, no that’s a lie, I sneaked my way out of not doing my artisan’s groups book review tonight, so now that’s my project tomorrow night. Followed by the ultimate show-down, aka the meeting with all 4 paja groups on Tuesday with the Engineer himself (drum-roll please!). I can hardly contain my excitement. Haha I’m awful. Okay well obviously this is a pretty big week for me so I’m going to bed my dearest. I wish you all the best on this Labor Weekend, hoped the annual bbq was amazing and everyone jumped in the water for me! (Because that’s the only thing I falta the water, as I was sweat today standing in the sandy group at site I realized this is the same feeling I have right before I jump in the water, oh instant gratification, well en vez de eso, “Sand in my shoes, Jersey shore in my heart.”
Te quiero! Elizabeth
The first week in site…
Okay well for starters, I ended up not going to that meeting, instead went to another meeting on Wednesday with my socio-comunitario to discuss with the Regional Engineer (Head) of the Artisans in Piura the problems my association is having with the other “rival” paja associations. Apparently this has been aggregating over the past couple of years and is now at its peak, basically people… shit’s about to hit the fan lol. But in reality, there is a lot of disunity among the artisans and even within my group. I have determined that this will be my first challenge with my group the disunity and cohesiveness of the group itself in regards to communication and even capacitaciones (of skills and so forth). I think I’m having some reservations about starting with my associacion/my primary project and have decided, well, please take into account that this is the first week, hence first impressions, but I think I’d rather focus on something else here and that being my 3 objective of Small Business the Youth entrepreneurship and development. I think maybe working with the youth here, I can ease myself better into the community and at the same time I am starting my exercise class this week that will consist of, lets face it, my friends at site and my sister, who will feel bad if no one shows up overlooking the fact that they hate exercising and most of them don’t need it!
I don’t know really how I feel about the situation with my association, I think I may be a bit intimidated by the whole picture/all the problems I do see within the association itself that I am dreading to encounter. If that is me cowering, then so be it, because honestly as of the first month I think I’d just rather have pilates class and have the kids plant some trees. No really it isn’t that simple that was just a joke. But I am doing pilates and something with the kids to plant trees!! It’s actually pretty interesting what I came up with. The town wanted some sort of beautification project started to introduce more green into the community, because I’m in the desert/coast so there isn’t much unless you tend to it. And the youth organization wanted me to of course approach the temas of liderazco and autoestima to the children here in my community, as well as, violencia familiar and other topics. I came up with the idea, multi-tasker that I am, to have each child who comes to the class for ambiente plant a tree in town as their own, this they will have to care for and learn the value of being responsible for something else as well as making sure the area around it is clean, hence keeping the area clean of trash, another problem here, and then talking about the temas of leadership and autoestima attached to having something to call your own. Also, to earn money for this I was prob going to write a solicitud to the Univ. de Piura Agraria to get the semillas to start it, but then after for the following groups teach them how to replant trees from the ones that are existing already, which I learned myself during the session at the Univ of Lima Agraria. But this is all just random plans that who knows if they will ever unfold. I mean I’ll let you all know obviously. This is just one projectI have written in my project plan I have about 7, therefore I swear I’m not sitting on my butt during my time here (though I would like too!!) But shhh, I do love the people here and I’m glad my community is so motivated because I did talk to some volunteers who are having difficulties in this area and have gone to their site and the people are like um alright there’s a gringo and let’s continue on with our lives.
Right now its 10:30 prob one of my latest nights I’ve been up here, except for last night I did go out dancing. But I’m going to go to bed, because I have to be up at 6 am because I have a 7 am introduction ceremony at the Secundaria y Primeria. And also, for the record, that whole Latin hour or so called Latin hour when if you say 7 they come at 9…I don’t think my town got that memo they love to be en punto and then tell me, “Mira! We are here at 7 (big smile) American time!” (me not smiling at 7 in the morning) “Yeh!” Haha… no but seriously, this aspect is just another reason my town is the best and I’m so happy to be here because you don’t find this type of town often! After the school thingy I am heading to the Muni (Municipalidad) to talk with the alcalde about my plan de trabajo here as well as my CDA which I have to hand in at the end of 3 months along with my tri-annual report… yes this is a job people, we have tri-annual reports in the PC. And I kinda, no that’s a lie, I sneaked my way out of not doing my artisan’s groups book review tonight, so now that’s my project tomorrow night. Followed by the ultimate show-down, aka the meeting with all 4 paja groups on Tuesday with the Engineer himself (drum-roll please!). I can hardly contain my excitement. Haha I’m awful. Okay well obviously this is a pretty big week for me so I’m going to bed my dearest. I wish you all the best on this Labor Weekend, hoped the annual bbq was amazing and everyone jumped in the water for me! (Because that’s the only thing I falta the water, as I was sweat today standing in the sandy group at site I realized this is the same feeling I have right before I jump in the water, oh instant gratification, well en vez de eso, “Sand in my shoes, Jersey shore in my heart.”
Te quiero! Elizabeth
Start here...
25 de Agosto 2008
Bienvenido a mi cuatro! I hope you all like the virtual tour I put up (or at the moment hope will DL properly onto the internet)! I left at about 4ish in the afternoon today to head to my site with my socio-comunitario, Martha. After arriving here, I hauled my entire luggage up at an early dinner and then started unpacking and cleaning. I just showered and am sitting on my multi-colored bed, extremely tired, therefore, I am going to give you a half-assed explanation of my ceremony on Friday and my trip up to here. Friday we went to the center to give gifts to all the professors/facilitators that helped us over the past 3 months. We played this awesome dynamica where the facilitators sat in a circle with their eyes close, then one of the girls in my group would say something like: “Touch the shoulder of the person who gave you advice when you needed it…Touch the shoulder of the person who gave you strength during one of your low points…Touch the shoulder of the person you admire…” So in the end, basically everyone was crying, it was extremely moving. Then after this we went home, for our last supper or lunch with our families. Then we headed back to the center at about 3ish to start the ceremony. There they called us up one by one and then as a group we said our oath and took pictures. It was a very short/sweet ceremony, lasting about 40 minutes. After we ate with our families and some of the facilitators gave their students gifts, I got pairs of earrings, then we took more pictures and got ready to depart on the buses for our last night in Lima together. In Lima, we went out to a great Sports Bar called, The Corner, then we headed out to some club that over looked the water on a cliff. It was all a lot of fun, the next day we basically just all hung out, got some Starbucks, and laid around. My bus left for Piura at 7 so we left the hostel for the bus terminal at about 5:30ish. That was a crying fiesta, everyone was wishing each other luck and promising to call/visit. I don’t like goodbyes as most of you know, so I held up pretty well until my taxi came then I started balling.
The bus ride to Piura was fine same as before except I wasn’t throwing up so I slept most of the 14 hours. Arrived in Piura at about 10ish on Sunday hung out got some food met other volunteers, then went to bed. Woke up on Monday had a meeting with our Regional Coordinator, Wilfredo, then went to the market where I purchased my laundry basket, hangers, and clear nail polish…the essentials. Then we went to this great vegetarian place where they actually have real salads, so that was delish! Then I headed to purchase a pillow, so mom you don’t need to bring that, and of course my rain bowed colored sheets. We were going to open our mailbox, but decided against paying a whole month for only the 5 remaining days, so envez de eso we will open one up on Sept 1 which then, I will give out my new address!! So sorry for that everyone! Most of you know by now I do have a cell phone, feel free to contact me at any time… I’ll be here, in Peru, doing stuff.
Okay I have to get to bed, because unlike every other volunteer (that may be an exaggeration) I actually have meetings on my second day at site. While all other volunteers are going to wallow in their depression I will out and about… boo hiss I really thought I was going to get some reading done!! Well this entry was a lot long then I had anticipated, so lucky you!
I will be writing as often as I can and posting probably once a week! Sorry about that, but I don’t have internet at site, and don’t feel like driving in every other day to update a blog for you people!!
Much Love> ekh
Bienvenido a mi cuatro! I hope you all like the virtual tour I put up (or at the moment hope will DL properly onto the internet)! I left at about 4ish in the afternoon today to head to my site with my socio-comunitario, Martha. After arriving here, I hauled my entire luggage up at an early dinner and then started unpacking and cleaning. I just showered and am sitting on my multi-colored bed, extremely tired, therefore, I am going to give you a half-assed explanation of my ceremony on Friday and my trip up to here. Friday we went to the center to give gifts to all the professors/facilitators that helped us over the past 3 months. We played this awesome dynamica where the facilitators sat in a circle with their eyes close, then one of the girls in my group would say something like: “Touch the shoulder of the person who gave you advice when you needed it…Touch the shoulder of the person who gave you strength during one of your low points…Touch the shoulder of the person you admire…” So in the end, basically everyone was crying, it was extremely moving. Then after this we went home, for our last supper or lunch with our families. Then we headed back to the center at about 3ish to start the ceremony. There they called us up one by one and then as a group we said our oath and took pictures. It was a very short/sweet ceremony, lasting about 40 minutes. After we ate with our families and some of the facilitators gave their students gifts, I got pairs of earrings, then we took more pictures and got ready to depart on the buses for our last night in Lima together. In Lima, we went out to a great Sports Bar called, The Corner, then we headed out to some club that over looked the water on a cliff. It was all a lot of fun, the next day we basically just all hung out, got some Starbucks, and laid around. My bus left for Piura at 7 so we left the hostel for the bus terminal at about 5:30ish. That was a crying fiesta, everyone was wishing each other luck and promising to call/visit. I don’t like goodbyes as most of you know, so I held up pretty well until my taxi came then I started balling.
The bus ride to Piura was fine same as before except I wasn’t throwing up so I slept most of the 14 hours. Arrived in Piura at about 10ish on Sunday hung out got some food met other volunteers, then went to bed. Woke up on Monday had a meeting with our Regional Coordinator, Wilfredo, then went to the market where I purchased my laundry basket, hangers, and clear nail polish…the essentials. Then we went to this great vegetarian place where they actually have real salads, so that was delish! Then I headed to purchase a pillow, so mom you don’t need to bring that, and of course my rain bowed colored sheets. We were going to open our mailbox, but decided against paying a whole month for only the 5 remaining days, so envez de eso we will open one up on Sept 1 which then, I will give out my new address!! So sorry for that everyone! Most of you know by now I do have a cell phone, feel free to contact me at any time… I’ll be here, in Peru, doing stuff.
Okay I have to get to bed, because unlike every other volunteer (that may be an exaggeration) I actually have meetings on my second day at site. While all other volunteers are going to wallow in their depression I will out and about… boo hiss I really thought I was going to get some reading done!! Well this entry was a lot long then I had anticipated, so lucky you!
I will be writing as often as I can and posting probably once a week! Sorry about that, but I don’t have internet at site, and don’t feel like driving in every other day to update a blog for you people!!
Much Love> ekh
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
