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!

ngo slackers

was walking around town earlier today with my ngo coleague when she mentioned to me how one of the guys she works with wasn't really pulling his weight. i.e. pushing his own responsibilities onto her, facebooking the day away, not giving her credit for work she did, etc. sound familiar? interesting to note that this kind of stuff doesn't just happen in investment banks.

its so interesting to me. never have i been so motivated to get things done in my life. earlier today, walking to the taller or workshop of some artisans i am working with, i realized that 2 years is not a lot of time. i've already been here for a month! 2 years is going to go by like that. i see the work i've done so far and i think there is a lot of potential to get things done. the only thing left to do is get the people i'm working with to be as excited as i am to get stuff done.

on that note, yesterday walking home from the medical post, i stopped by the taller of another artisan i'm working with. the last volunteer here in grocio prado got an artisan fair project going with some of the artisans on the block I live on. she left and the project died more or less. i talked to one of the artisans yesterday and he sounded like he wanted to get it going again. so i told him to talk to some of the arisans that were involved in the project. looks like he did! they ended up forming (or mejor dicho are in the process of forming) a new association. i'm going to try to get them ready for an artisan fair that will be going on for a little more than a week for the fiestas de Chincha in october. wish me luck!

buen fin de semana a todos!

reality check

it is becoming increasingly clear that here in grocio prado/chincha "social conscience" doesn't translate so well...

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...