artisan fair y otras cositas

so, it's been a while since i've posted. apologies but i've been extremely busy since my jefe's site visit. most of my attention has gone to prep work for the peace corps artisan fair in lima. all in all, very very happy with the way things turned out. i was supposed to attend the fair with three groups of artisans, but in the end only one artisan attended. i like to think that he was one of the most successful artisans at the fair. our stand was located at the entrance of the artisan fair, so everytime someone walked into the fair, his stand was the first one that they saw.

in the beginning, alex (yes, my artisan's name is also alex) was a bit shy. this was the first fair he'd been to and i don't think (1) he really knew what to expect and (2) he didn't really know how to talk to the asistentes. any time someone stopped to check out his pieces (he brought a chair tipo fred flintstone, two mirrors, and a biombo, pictured below and translated roughly as folding screen or room divider lol), i encouraged him to start up a conversation. at times it was tough being that a grand majority of asistentes were americans and some did not speak much spanish. i told him that they liked his work and wanted to learn more. i encouraged him to befriend them and to take down contact information of those that were interested in learning more and in possibly making a purchase. in the end, alex sold one of the mirrors he'd brought to the fair and a juego de muebles, a set of two chairs and a table for a living room space. but, i think overall he took back home with him his first feria artesanal experience. people here in grocio prado are so used to staying here and at times, actually appear afraid to leave. for example, i believe that one of the artisans i was planning on taking to the fair did not go precisely for this reason. everyone here always says, but what if it doesn't go right? but what if i don't sell it? yeah, there is always the chance that you don't sell. but you'll never know if you never try. and with good preparation, you're more likely to have success than not to have it.

bueno, in the end, very happy and very impressed with alex. even though not everything has gone right for me thus far, i think this has been one of my early successes and i am really looking forward to working with him for the two years that i'm going to be here in grocio prado.

on another note, on thursay, i had the opportunity to present in the u.s. embassy in lima on the tema de cómo armar un stand que llame la atención or how to put together a stand that attracts attention. i did it not so much because i am an expert in desiging artisan fair stands, but more for the experience speaking spanish in public -- not an easy task. on that note, yesterday i had another opportunity to put my spanish public-speaking skills to use in cañete. there are two business volunteers from my promoción within an hour's drive of me -- patrick and jason. we are planning to do talleres on how to write a business plan in each of our sites, starting with patrick in cañete. yesterday jason (from pisco) and me (from chincha) headed up to pat's site for a charla to discuss what cuerpo de paz is, what we do, and why a business plan is so important. the audience was primarily made up of farmers from the area and it seems like they could really use our help. we are going to do our first taller in cañete in january and then go forward with talleres in pisco and chincha after. all in all, a very successful charla. everyone in attendance seemed excited about our presence -- hopefully everyone shows up for the taller in january!

in other news, no one showed up for the first reunión of my club de orientación vocacional tipo career club today! this past tuesday, we had the second reunión of the club we're doing with high school juniors. today's meeting was supposed to be for seniors. the seniors are going to be graduating in december so if this tema is important for anyone, it would be them. qué se yo...


so, yeah, having finished up with the artisan fair, it looks like alex (the artisan), gino (his brother, also an artisan) and i are going to continue working together. looks like our first goal is getting a website going which we will then send to the people we met during the artisan fair in lima. other than that, i am going to keep the club de orientación vocacional going with the juniors.

it's truly amazing that i've already been at site for three months. have learned a lot during my short time here. have learned that i take my education for granted. that as a develoment worker, you can't work with everyone and shouldn't work with everyone. that sometimes you are going to fail. that sometimes you are going to succeed. that sometimes you don't really know if something is a success or a failure -- at least at first. ya.


all in all, been having a great time. hopefully i can keep this going for another year and nine months...

estrés y éxito

so today was a semi-big day for me. after a few weeks of anticipation, we had the first reunión del club de orientación vocacional (o sea career club) and por casualidad today was also the day of my site visit with the APCD (o sea Associate Peace Corps Director del programa de pequeños negocios), the regional coordinator for ica, and the PCVC (o sea Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator for el programa de pequeños negocios).

preparation for the career club has been in process for a while and although i had planned everything out, somehow, as always, i end up leaving stuff for the last minute and getting a bit stressed out.

my day:

7.30am to 8 - wake-up and go to the colegio Melchorita Saravia to collect permission slips and to remind the kids from cuarto año de secundaria (the equivalent of junior year in high school) that the first meeting was to be today between 3pm and 5pm.

8am to 9 - sleep

9am to noon - cleaned my room since we were told that the site visit would include a quick look at our rooms, showered, shaved (which is not something i've been doing so often!), breakfasted, and lunched.

noon to 1pm - went to the comedor to prepare materials for the career club -- papelotes (o sea big pieces of paper -- not actually sure what the english translation is) and cut-outs of my hand for one of the exercises we were going to do.

1pm to 3 - went into chincha to print some documents for the career club, to buy tape and markets, and to print out some photos to show everyone at the beginning of the meeting.

at 3pm, i was at the school en punto ready to go. sadly it was just me and Miss Lidia, the English teacher that is working with me on the career club project and on some other things i am doing at the school. thankfully, helping me avoid the potential embarrassment of no one showing up, kids trickled in one by one. at about 3.30pm, we had 25 kids. 33 had signed up when i had gone classroom-to-classroom signing people up last week, but just 16 had turned in their permission slips. thus, i was a bit surprised!

i kicked things off by talking about my life in the united states, showing pictures of washington, then talking about buenos aires, showing pictures of friends, family, and alejandra (sorry 15-year-old grociopradinas, i'm taken jaja).

at that point, my colleagues from peace corps showed up. i introduced them to the class and then alfredo, the APCD gave a short talk on what peace corps is and basically what i'm going to be doing here for the next 2 years (which is now just 22 months!).

Miss Lidia then spoke for a few minutes, talking to the kids on a more personal level about her life and about the three years she spent in the united states. in perú, schools are extremely formal and there is not much one-on-one personal contact between teachers and students. teachers come (or don't come), dictate class, and leave. in the u.s., based on my experience, i feel like kids and teachers are able to form relationships, talking with each other outside of the classroom and just getting to know each other on a more personal level. anyways, Miss Lidia did a great job.

i then had the kids get in groups, having them introduce themselves to one another, talk about their interests, and finally their expectativas for the club (i.e. why they were there). after a few hick-ups (in that the kids weren't speaking with each other!), we got things rolling. after giving the kids a chance to talk in small groups, they came up to the front of the room one-by-one to introduce their partners to the rest of the class. seems like this isn't something many kids are used to, but i think it really helps build self-confidence (o autoestima) in the kids, so i hope to incorporate more excercises like it in the future.

i then talked about the topics we will cover between now and the end of the school year in december and had the kids make a list of rules that they then agreed to abide by. to end the session, i passed out cut-outs of hands to the kids and told them to write in the center of the hand their dream and then in each of the five dedos, a characteristic of theirs that will help them achieve their dream. the kids then taped their hands on the árbol de sueños. i thought this excercise was a bit corny, but it was actually a great success!

after the reunión, my colleagues from peace corps and i had a meeting with the head of the office of tourism in chincha and the head of fovida, an ngo that is doing a tourism project here in grocio prado and chincha. we talked about ways that the office of tourism (dircetur), fovida, and peace corps can work together on projects designed to improve the situation of the artesanos in grocio prado.

needless to say, it was a long, stressful day. but, in the end, it was a successful day! one recommendation the apcd had for me is to slow down, to not try and do everything at once, and to not try to do too many things at one time. i think, the fact that my last "real job" was in investment banking makes me prone to want to get things done quickly, efficiently, and comprehensively. i am realizing that things here in grocio prado don't function like they did at the investment bank. things take longer. and maybe the results and successes are not as concrete as they were at the i-bank. after having pushed really hard over the past couple of days, tomorrow i'm going to try and take it easy. next week, i'll be in lima for the peace corps artesan fair (thursday). on wednesday, i will present during the day of talleres, or workshops, given to the artisans. so, basically, i'll have a lot to do the rest of the this week, this weekend, and next week. should be a great experience -- i'm really looking forward to it!

me duele la panza

translation: my tummy hurts. yes, i've been like this since friday when i ate some dubious-looking lettuce and tomatoes masquerading as a salad. so now i am taking cipro and spending a lot of time feeling tired and resting since i really don't feel good enough to go to the gym. it also sucks because the peruvian diet is not really so conducive to getting me the food i need to feel better. lots of oil and fried things. but i will survive. just trying to be optimistic...

bueno, in terms of the projects i've been spending my time on, i've got a few in-process.

(1) in the high school here, i'm trying to get a pen pal program going with peruvian 10- and 13-year-olds here and kids of the same ages from a bilingual school in d.c. turns out that the 5th grade teacher mentioned something about a trip to perú that the school is trying to orgranize -- not sure if it would be community service-ortiented or what but it would be awesome if we were able to get a written correspondence going. then when the kids from d.c. visited, they could meet the peruvians they'd been corresponding with.

(2) un club de carreras. i did a survey of kids in the last two grades of high school and it seems like there is a great lack of preparation for careers in that kids grow up without any real goals or plans. they leave high school and they don't know what to do or how to do it. basically with the career club, i want to teach kids to set goals, think about what kinds of careers they want, and finally achieve their goals and become, for example, a doctor or a lawyer. i'd like to start the club with about 25 students. i've been working with the english teacher at the high school (i'm also working with her on the pen pal project) and she seems really optimistic about both projects.

(3) this saturday i will be starting a boys club at the comedor here in grocio prado. kids 11 and up are invited to participate and my goal is to focus on getting the kids to talk, teach them leadership skills, talk to them about safe sex, controlling their anger, eating well, having goals and aspirations, etc. this saturday i am going to start with a "getting-to-know-you" thing and to try to develop some sort of trust. then, in future sessions, we can begin to talk about more serious temas. if anyone has recommendations for things i could do, please let me know!

(4) the artisan fair in lima. all of the sudden, prospects for the fair look pretty dim. i've just been informed that it doesn't look like we are going to be able to bring furniture into the embassy in lima. my star artisans are artisans of furniture made of wood and vegetable fibre -- think beach house stuff like chairs, mirrors, tables, etc. it's all really nice stuff but now the peace corps is telling me we can't bring it into the embassy. fock. so, i'm not really sure what i am going to tell the artisans. we have already started the capacitaciones and it would be a shame for them not to end up going. also, the other group of artisans i was going to take is not interested. after having told me that they were going to attend, they received another large order and said that they will have to spend their time filling that order rather than preparing for the fair. they also left me hanging today after having told me this morning that they would be attending my training session at 4 p.m. ¡qué boludo!


(5) other than that, i've started working with the owner of a restaurant close by with marketing. he is 23-years-old, just opened a restaurant in the center of town, and is a really nice guy. he moved back to grocio prado after having spent 4 years in Ica (the capital of my departamento, or state) and has a vision muy amplia for what his restaurant/hotel empire will eventally look like.

i've also started talking to people about a women's artisan group that would meet on wednesdays to talk about temas like marketing, pricing, costs, accounting, attending artisan fairs, etc.

i've got a lot of good ideas -- hopefully some of them actually come to fruition!

late peruvians

i love peru. the people are great (most of the time), the food is great, and things are always interesting. but i don't like lateness and i guess tonight i get a taste of my own medicine. i know that i haven't always been the most on-time of people and tonight i have to admit that it sucks. and the even more suckier thing is that there is probably a lot more of it to come.

basically, i was supposed to have a training session with two artisans that i am going to bring to lima for the peace corps artisan fair (this group makes some really cool chairs, mirrors, couch-type set-ups, etc.). they are 24- and 20-years-old and i guess the positive is that they are young enough that i can teach them to not keep me waiting!

the session was supposed to start at 6pm in the comedor. at 6.30pm i walked over to their taller and one of them was in the house and the other was in the taller or workshop. i asked them what the deal was, and they asked me if just alex (yes, one of their names is alex) could attend. i said no, that they should both come. we then settled to meet up at 9.00pm at the comedor.

i was at the comedor at 9pm en punto y nada... at 9.30pm i left the comedor to come back to my house. i'll deal with them tomorrow.

update: setbacks

just got back from the house of the artisans that i want to take to lima for the peace corps fair and i've somehow convinced them to come. crossing my fingers that everything works out!

setbacks

just got back from the house of a family of artisans i was working with. i was going to take them to the peace corps artisan fair in lima at the beginning of november. we were going to begin preparation for the feria on wednesday. i arrived and they told me that they couldn't go -- that they had just received an order that they had to have ready in 5 weeks and that they wouldn't have time. based on my calculations, they will be making 1.350 soles which is not a small sum. but the sad thing is that they are going to be working extremely hard for a month just to give the product to someone else who will be re-selling the product for two times the price she will have bought it for. i tried explaining to them that they have to be the ones selling their product to the final consumer but they are older and have little formal education and just don't get it. it's unfortunate and i am not giving up just yet, but it was hard news to hear. i was really excited about working with them but a little bit nervous about their lack of education. looks like i've got to look for some other artisans to take to the fair!

a full

it's amazing. i remember sitting in an office on the 35th floor of 181 w. madison in chicago basically dreaming about what it would be like. and i'm here! thanks to so many people (they know who they are) who helped me. and every day i am learning un montón about what it's like to live in a developing country. from walking into a home furnished with a laptop and flat screen tv with a floor made of tierra to learning about why the artisans here don't like working with each other. from what i gather so far, most things come down to confianza or trust.

got some cool things in the works, including a pen pal program involving a bilingual school in dc and the local colegio here in grocio prado, an artisan fair project, an artisan association project, and seemingly an endless array of other opportunities. every day i am learning something new about myself, about the people of grocio prado, and about the world. sometimes things seem like they are lost as in when on a survey i gave today to about 200 high school students here almost all responded SÍ when asked whether they like reading when some couldn't even spell simple Spanish words. and then i remember i have two years here.

so much to do...

one month

i've been here in grocio prado for a month now -- i can't believe how quickly it has passed by. basically getting to know the community. every day waking up, going out and just chatting with people. trying to get the lay of the land before i start my projects. i've got to say that back when i applied, i thought it was going to be easier. i had this vision that i was going to come into my site and change things right away. here in grocio i'm confronted with behaviors that have been passed on generation to generation and a way of life people are used to. as a gringo, the first thing people assume about me is that i have money. i'm here to give people things. peace corps is about giving people the tools they need to provide for themselves, without having to rely on hand-outs on others. and so i say no -- that i have no money to give but that i'm willing to give my time and do the best i can to teach people everything i know that can be of use to them.

one of the first things i realized upon arriving to grocio prado is that it is a town of artisans. very very talented artisans who have learned their craft from their parents who learned from their parents and so on and so forth. tremendous talent. but a lack of business know-how. that is where i come in. my job is to teach people with little formal education how they can make more money and salir de la pobreza.

grocio prado, just like any other area in the world is complex. and so getting to know it takes time, it takes sitting down and talking to people, having conversations, asking questions, taking chances, and looking in all nooks and corners. if you asked me tonight what i'm going to do tomorrow, i'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what i'm going to do. that is pretty much the story day-to-day. generally, i have a loose plan as to what i am going to do -- but that plan quickly changes.

I'm hereeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Helloooooooooooooooo/Holaaaaaaaaaaaaa a todos.  Here I am in Perú in the middle of my fifth week.  I am staying in a small neighborhood about an hour away from the center of Lima.  It is called 3 de octubre (3rd of October).  Every weekday (and some Sundays) we go to the Peace Corps training center in Chaclacayo (about 15 minutes away from my house by combi).  My fellow volunteer Lindsay picks me up at 7.45am and we arrive at 8am or shortly thereafter.  At the training center, we have between 2 and 4 sessions per day—language/culture class, classes on small business concepts, safety and security sessions, and medical sessions (sometimes we are lucky enough to get shots, too!).

I live with a Peruvian family with a mother (Trinidad), her two sons (Enrique y Gustavo), and one of her son’s esposas.  I see Trinidad’s son Carlos, his wife Rebecca, and their two daughters almost every day (Yanela y Yerlin).  I have a lot of fun with my family and I think they have a lot of fun with me.  They get a big kick out of my Porteño dejo and like to make fun of me for it (much like the other volunteers do), but it’s all good.  It’s kind of sad that in another 5 weeks, I’ll be in another part of the country probably a few hours away from my host family.  (Volunteers from this group are going to be sent to Piura, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Cajamarca y Arequipa).  Arequipa is supposed to be a beautiful mountainous department south of Lima.  The other four departamentos are to the north of Lima.

This weekend in fact, we are heading to Cajamarca for “Field Based Training”.  We will be teaching a three-day class (apparently from 4pm to 10pm) on entrepreneurship to students studying in a technical institute.  On the fourth day, the plan is that they will simulate a business of their choice using a loan from el banco del Cuerpo de Paz.  Should be a lot of fun!

The following week will be a short one (Fiestas Patrias are celebrated on Thursday and Friday—the 28^th and 29^th).  However, I should note that that week I will find out where the Peace Corps will be sending me for the remainder of my service.  Wish me luck!