Argentina/Community Leadership/The wind again…

I recently made a trip to Argentina which was my first rather large vacation and my first outside of Peru. We spent the most time in Buenos Aires but also made it up to Iguazu Falls and made it across the river to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. These two side trips were definitely the coolest portions of the trip. Iguazu is one of those things that pictures really don’t do it justice. Colonia is just a really cool, picturesque town in Uruguay and is very easy to get to. There is a ferry that takes about an hour which runs everyday. However, you must buy your tickets in advance! The best way to get to Iguazu is by bus which is an 18 hour trip up and 18 hours back. This takes a lot of time but is totally worth it. As far as Buenos Aires is concerned, the nightlife is great, lots of restaurants with real pizza and pasta as well as the steakhouses. There’s also a really cool Japanese garden. Another must do is a Boca Juniors game if they are playing at home when you are there. That was really cool.

Back to real life. Once I got back from Argentina we partnered with an NGO from Arequipa called COPLAN and held a workshop on community leadership and teamwork. This will be the first workshop in a series of three. The partnership actually is a win win for both sides because COPLAN would never be able to coordinate something like this without us and we get access to having Peruvian young adults come to speak to the kids. The first workshop seemed to be a success. Hopefully all the kids continue to come.

Oh and the wind. A couple of days ago I woke up with a back pain which was connected to the movement of my head. Therefore, I figured it was because I slept incorrectly. Two days passed and I still had the pain. However, that day my host parents were going to harvest some potatoes and wanted me to come. I said no because of the back pain and of course they immediately were very worried. Everyone was telling me oh it must have been some bad air or the cold etc. Whatever, I’m not going to try to argue with them. I ended up getting some sort of plant which I cut open and rubbed the inside on my back. Then, at night my host mom made this woman come to do something. She through some plants on top of what looked like burning coal (it wasn’t) and then put the smoking bowl in my sleeping bag and made me take a breath of the smoke. Then, she put the bowl underneath my bed for a couple of minutes. Who knows what that was supposed to do. I do feel a little better today but I don’t think I’m going to give the smoking bowl the credit.

Mine or no mine

Last night, a rather large multi-national mining company named Newmont came to Lari to give a presentation on what they wanted to do in Lari. Many might already know Newmont as the company which has the largest gold mine in the world which is located in Cajamarca, Peru. Because of this, I believe many of the community members already knew them as well to some extent. The informative meeting was supposed to alleviate any doubts or concerns the community members had about what the company would be doing. So, what exactly does the mining company want to do?

Well, apparently there are seven stages to mining. The first of which is sampling which Newmont has already completed in the targeted area. The second stage is exploration. According to the Newmont brochure I received, exploration is “the development of geological studies, geophysics and topography to determine the possible sites of mineral concentration.” This is the stage which Newmont would be performing over the next 6 months. The company does not need permission from the community to carry out this phase. However, I believe they tried to be respectable in case they needed to perform some more drastic tests in the future so they had this meeting.

Well the meeting was a complete and utter disaster for Newmont. Basically, they made a presentation on mostly the benefits of having them in town and kept on reinforcing that they would be socially responsible (to the tune of 25 soles a day for 8 hours of work of a community member, hmmmmm). Also, they explained the fact that this phase of work would not require permission, because it really did little harm to the land. Now, before the meeting I was informed that no one in the community wanted the mining company to do anything except the community president. After the meeting, I can confidently say that the information I received was 100% correct. Almost every community member expressed, rather fervently, his or her concerns to the mining company. It became more of a debate than anything. The thing I was confused about was why the mining company stayed for so long. It was rather clear the community wanted nothing to do with any sort of mining activity whether it was harmful or not.

It was rather difficult for me, because I knew I could not take part in this meeting. I could only be a spectator. Getting involved in such a meeting would probably leave me much too involved in the politics of the town. However, I am definitely against any sort of activities done by the company. First, supporting the company in their endeavors to do exploration would almost be like endorsing them for the stages to come. Second, the company can express their desires to fulfill their social responsibility. However, what is the one thing we all learn in business class? We learned that a company’s top priority is satisfying their stockholders, which means making profits. Unfortunately, that is what will always come first. So, yes they might provide some benefits to the community but probably the minimum. Third, if there is a mine here, the development will not be sustainable. The mine won’t be here forever and once it is gone, the community will be so used to the economic benefits the mine has produced, it won’t be able to produce any benefits for itself. Fourth, although a mine can do everything in its power to prevent pollution or accidents, there is still a great risk of something of the sort happening, and pollution is a major risk for an agricultural community.

So, clearly I have many problems with the whole idea of a mine here, haha. Last night was rather interesting to see though. I was surprised that no one in the community came around to the idea because of the economic benefits. Apart from that big news, my tourism association president is going to resign which will provide another large bump in the road, but thus is life here in peace corps. There are a heck of a lot of bumps, but we continue on nonetheless.

Puno/Cusco Post

So, this past week I went with my parents to puno and cusco, two definite must sees in Peru. Puno is located on the coasts of lake titikaka, the highest navigable lake in the world. In Puno, we ended up visiting the floating islands of the Uros. The uros people speak a language called aymara which is native to Peru. The floating islands were pretty cool but it seems to me that presently most of the people who live there are there for the tourism more than anything. There were just so many tourists visiting the islands, which kind of took the charm of the islands away. After visiting the floating islands, we traveled to an island called Amantani. Here there are about 11 communities, which have a total combined population of about 5,000. The communities on this island speak mostly quechua. The tour agency we booked through is using money they make from tours to build libraries in these communities, which I thought was pretty cool. So, we ended up being dropped off on the island and we ate lunch with our host family then went up to the library. We read a story or two to the kids there and then played games with them. After that we ended up climbing to the top of the mountain to see the sunset. Then, we ate dinner with our host families and spent the night there.

The thing that really surprised me about the families in the community was how much quechua they spoke. In my community most people will speak Spanish first instead of quechua. In these communities, the people spoke quechua first even the younger community members. Also, when we ate our meals, no one sat at the table with us even though they knew I could speak Spanish and some quechua. The families were incredibly conservative and timid in this respect. However, as usual, the people were very nice and hospitable.

From Puno we traveled to Cusco. Cusco reminded me of a Spanish town because it has very tiny streets in places. It’s a really beautiful town. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to spend in the city of Cusco. We ended up taking a tour of the Sacred Valley one day which was really beautiful, but as many will tell you, it’s overflooded with tourists. I’d say that’s the only draw back of Cusco. It’s kind of like the Peru show instead of the real Peru. When you travel you want to see the sites and at the same time get a feel for the culture of the country. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can really do this if you just visit Cusco even though its necessary to visit Cusco. The next day we woke up at about 445AM to wait for the bus up to Machu Picchu. The reason we woke up so early was because we wanted tickets to climb wayna picchu. The INC only allows 400 people a day to climb wayna picchu. When we arrived to Machu Picchu by bus, it was very cloudy. Therefore we opted for the 10AM tickets to climb wayna picchu instead of the 7am tickets. It was good that we did. Until about 9am it was raining and cloudy. After 9am, the sun started breaking through and cleared the sky up. The climb up wayna picchu was rather difficult because the steps were stones which were wet due to the rain earlier in the day. Also, some parts were so steep they had cables you could hold onto. However, everyone made it up to the top including my mom which surprised me haha. The view up top made the climb totally worth it. I think the most dangerous part of waynu picchu is the decent especially for people with huge feet like me haha. The stairs were about half the size of my feet haha. Machu Picchu was pretty amazing though. It’s just so big that pictures really don’t do it justice.

Puno/Cusco Pictures

machu picchu....wayna picchu...the one we climbed...is on the right...the bigger one
cool pic

steps to get up
at the top its just boulders and u have to slid down one haha

got the whole world in my hands


bus track up


machu picchu

llamass



it was really cloudy in the morning






where we ate lunch on tequile
titikaka at night



the town we stayed in
floating islands

Movies To See

In no particular order:

Manhattan
In Bruges
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Ghost Town
Kramer Vs. Kramer
Frozen River
Rachel Getting Married
Maria Full of Grace
Y Tu Mama Tambien
Gol
Great Debaters
Slumdog Millionaire
In the Valley of Elah
Milk
The Reader
Frost/Nixon
Benjamin Button
The Visitor
The Wrestler
Doubt
Revolutionary Road
Waltz with Bashir
Man on Wire

A day in the life: Tourism Meeting

Yesterday, Tuesday that is, the junta directiva (basically the e-board) and I were supposed to meet to make a project plan for the tourism association. Of course I was rather excited due to the fact that making plans and associations in the campo just do not go together. However, since my host dad and I went to our project design and management workshop, he has been rather gung-ho about doing a plan for the tourism association. So, even though most things fall through in Lari, I had high hopes for this meeting. I felt it could be a huge step for the organization and really the community in general.

Well, we arrived at the meeting yesterday at around 930AM even though the initial start time for the meeting was supposed to be 9AM. At 930AM there were about 2 people there, my host dad and I. I wasn’t worried because I knew no one would be there that early. Yes, I said that early haha. We waited around for about an hour and at around 1030AM we began the meeting. All the papolotes (which are big pieces of paper like in the pictures) were up on the front wall ready to be written on, there were about 20 people there ready to contribute, everything was set. I gave a little lecture on how the project planning process would go and such and then we were ready to begin. Everything seemed to be going very smoothly which I should have known was too good to be true. Then, an older man who is on the junta stood up and started talking about how representatives from the municipality weren’t there and how the mayor should be there blah blah blah and that we shouldn’t proceed with this. After that, someone else stood up and mentioned something to the same extent. I was like, here we go again. I could also see that my host dad was getting annoyed. It appeared as though this meeting was going bad fast.

So, my host dad stood up and said that we have to proceed because this sort of thing always happens and if we don’t do anything today we will just be moving backwards as always. I was like thank godddd. Afterward, another man stood up and said something similar about not going forward with the plan until we have a representative from every NGO and from the municipality there. I was thinking to myself, wow there’s a great idea, I wonder why we’ve never thought of that, oh maybe because the likelihood of getting all those people to show up to the same meeting is about as good as my likely hood of marrying a girl from Lari (which is low for the record). Then, I stood up and said something to this extent: “I’ve been here for 6 months and have attended many meetings and at every meeting I really have never seen anything accomplished. Everyone talks a lot and says many things but no one actually does anything. I don’t want to offend anyone but if you continue this way you will not make any progress in your community. I think we need to do this plan today with or without the municipality because as you have seen they are irresponsible. There are many other organizations out there whom can support us financially if needed. We’re all here now, let’s write up a plan and then present it to the authorities later so they can plug gaps.”

That was definitely something I had been wanting to say for the 6 months I’ve been here. The end result of all that arguing was that we continued and worked all day long and came up with a vision, strategies, goals and objectives for the tourism association. It was probably the best day I’ve had in site in these 6 months as far as work goes. We also made a map of all the touristic sites in Lari and made a little circuit for visiting the sites. It was a greatly successful day. The great thing about it was that I was only a facilitator for the discussion. I did not come up with the ideas, I only provided suggestions and tweakings which is really what development should be all about. So, our next step is to present our plan to the members of the association and then form plans of action with activities, people responsible for carrying out the activities, and dates for the activites. However, I think the community and the association has taken a huge step in the process of bringing tourism to Lari and just functioning better as a community!

Fortaleza, PDM and School finally starts…

So, lots has happened since my last post. First off, I hiked up to the Fortaleza in Madrigal again with Zach and his community. It was the anniversary of the Fortaleza. So, the community did some rituals and sacrifices to Pachamama up at the fort which we participated in. Of course all of the rituals include taking a shot of horrible liquor which is unwelcomed but a necessary evil. The view from the fort is amazing right now because the whole canyon is green. Also, the climb up to the fort was a lot less demanding than before. However, on the way down, Zach took a little spill (his nickname is Surgeon Spills, but for other reasons) and almost spilled off the side of the mountain haha.

Anyways, I also went up to Pacasmayo en La Libertad with my host dad to a Project Design and Management Workshop held by Peace Corps. The workshop was rather painful for the volunteers I thought. It was kind of like being in business administration class again. However, it was very helpful for our community partners. My host dad seemed to understand why it was important to have like a vision, goals, objectives, a plan, etc. So, hopefully we can transfer this knowledge into the tourism association. That would be ideal. However, we will see.

Furthermore, my boss came to visit my site yesterday which went rather well. We had a meeting with what people we could gather up from the tourism association at 3PM which is probably the worse time for meetings haha. However, we had about 13 people all of whom we’re curious and asked my boss lots of questions. It was actually nice to have him there to clear up doubts about my role in the community. I can say all I want about my role in the community and sometimes it just goes in one ear and out the other but I think and hope they were listening to him. One guy started going on a rant about how the US after World War II was stealing riches from Peru. I really don’t know what he was talking about but it was interesting to say the least.

Well, it seems like work is actually picking up again now that the rainy season is almost over. It’s really weird how Peace Corps works. During the rainy season there was really nothing to do and now it seems like there’s a lot more promising work out there. It’s definitely a series of ups and downs. Apart from the tourism association, I met with the director of the high school to speak about the new program I wanted to implement there. The program will consist of some vocational training, providing the students with information on how to apply to college, how to prepare for the entrance exams and we hope to bring professionals from a variety of professions into town to describe a day in the life so that the students have an idea of how the professions are. I really think apart from computer training or English this is the most beneficial thing for the students because as of now information on these topics in non-existent.

That’s all I’ve got…there are some photos of the fort and carnaval celebrations. Hope all is well.