Ryan's PC Extravaganza

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

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

Thursday, March 26, 2009

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

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

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!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

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.