One of the things plaguing development, especially local development is the proliferation of ‘white elephant projects’. ‘White elephant projects’ are ones that are constructed with the best intentions and for the simplest reasons (bathrooms or wells for instance), but are not utilized by the community after the project is completed. Obviously, this is a waste of resources for human capital, financial capital, and time.
Largely, white elephant projects come about when not enough research is done in the community beforehand. Research and conversations and the community needs, customs, behaviors, and beliefs. I am often reminded of a story passed onto me from a Wooster grad about a white elephant project in Africa. An NGO saw that women in the community had to walk an hour to the river to get water, and then carry it back. Therefore, it only made sense to build a well close by as to cut down on the transportation time. Well, the NGO successfully built the well but it was never used. The women continued their hour walk down to the river with their buckets and ignored the well. When asking why the women did not use the well and continued with what seemed a slightly absurd practice, the women commented that collecting water was a social event. The time spent collecting water was time spent outside the house and time with their neighbors and friends. While collecting water, the women would chat, pass gossip and news, and just socialize. By using the well, an important part of the women’s social life was being reduced. Perhaps if the NGO took this into account, they may have planned differently or included a project or initiative to make up for the lost social gains of water collecting.
One of the things that Peace Corps in Peru presses is a behavioral evaluation model, which seeks to examine why people do certain practices (not use condoms, use campo abierto) and then to examine how these practices can be changed. This is part of the reason why the first three months at site, we actually don’t do any projects. Instead, we do community diagnostic work such as interviews, community mapping, FREESOP, and seasonal calendars to better understand how the community works. These create conversations between the volunteer and the community to exchange information about the community but also about the volunteer and allow both to get comfortable with each other. The idea is, with community information and community input, the volunteer and the community can formulate plans and projects that the community sees as necessary and wants.
Development
It’s been interesting to think about my role in development and what really is development. Is development formalizing a national banking sector and stabilizing currency fluctuation? Or on the other side: bathrooms, clean water, and cocinas mejoradas?
Development can and most likely should be all these things; they all signal different levels of faults in the country for different peoples. At the top down approach, having banks can help investment (both foreign and domestic) grow and lead to more job, advancing industries, and more opportunity for unique growth. Currency stabilization allows for assurance in the higher levels of the banks, but also the government and allows people to have confidence that their investments will not devalue or skyrocket too soon. Bathrooms/clean water/cocinas mejoradas signal a lacking for society in a different perspective. But at both ends of the spectrum, it’s not enough to simply creature these things. Rather, much training and convincing is required in order for people to want to use these things. And that’s a large part of the job in the Peace Corps.
You see, many people are used to living more or less the same for generations. They’ve had the same water, crapped in the same spots in the fields (and consequently had the same illnesses) for generations. So why does that need to change? And in developing countries, banks have never been too stable, so confidence is low. And what’s the point of saving money in a bank when you can do it at home [Note: several investigations have pointed to the fact that ‘poor people’ do want to save and, in fact, can save some money but do not have the channels to do so]?
So maybe a big part of development is changing attitudes? Not necessarily cultural and societal beliefs (but then again, maybe to an extent), but understanding the root causes of the repetitive actions and beliefs. From there, it’s necessary how to figure out how to adapt and change these beliefs to compliment this development, whether it’s changing attitudes about why they should use a bank or why a latrine (or better yet, an eco-baño!) is a better and healthy option than the fields. I really think this is a major part of development that is strongly overlooked. It’s the old saying, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. People hate changes, because many times it signals instability. If people do not trust and have confidence in the changes, the projects will become the infamous white elephants of development; such as latrines used as storage sheds or for animals.
This is also why not only economists and politicians should be involved in development, but other types of professions. Health promoters, sociologists, psychologists, communicators, scientists or whomever really. Development is a multi-step process, and really if anyone knew ‘what worked’, it would have been done. But rather, things work but more often they fail in development. And that’s why new approaches, such as more instruction and understanding, must be explored.
Development can and most likely should be all these things; they all signal different levels of faults in the country for different peoples. At the top down approach, having banks can help investment (both foreign and domestic) grow and lead to more job, advancing industries, and more opportunity for unique growth. Currency stabilization allows for assurance in the higher levels of the banks, but also the government and allows people to have confidence that their investments will not devalue or skyrocket too soon. Bathrooms/clean water/cocinas mejoradas signal a lacking for society in a different perspective. But at both ends of the spectrum, it’s not enough to simply creature these things. Rather, much training and convincing is required in order for people to want to use these things. And that’s a large part of the job in the Peace Corps.
You see, many people are used to living more or less the same for generations. They’ve had the same water, crapped in the same spots in the fields (and consequently had the same illnesses) for generations. So why does that need to change? And in developing countries, banks have never been too stable, so confidence is low. And what’s the point of saving money in a bank when you can do it at home [Note: several investigations have pointed to the fact that ‘poor people’ do want to save and, in fact, can save some money but do not have the channels to do so]?
So maybe a big part of development is changing attitudes? Not necessarily cultural and societal beliefs (but then again, maybe to an extent), but understanding the root causes of the repetitive actions and beliefs. From there, it’s necessary how to figure out how to adapt and change these beliefs to compliment this development, whether it’s changing attitudes about why they should use a bank or why a latrine (or better yet, an eco-baño!) is a better and healthy option than the fields. I really think this is a major part of development that is strongly overlooked. It’s the old saying, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. People hate changes, because many times it signals instability. If people do not trust and have confidence in the changes, the projects will become the infamous white elephants of development; such as latrines used as storage sheds or for animals.
This is also why not only economists and politicians should be involved in development, but other types of professions. Health promoters, sociologists, psychologists, communicators, scientists or whomever really. Development is a multi-step process, and really if anyone knew ‘what worked’, it would have been done. But rather, things work but more often they fail in development. And that’s why new approaches, such as more instruction and understanding, must be explored.
A Campo Christmas
“Campo Christmas”
So much like the USA and around the world, Christmas has come and gone. And while it definitely wasn’t the same as passing Christmas with the family (including missing the annual cousin’s breakfast and gift exchange), it did pass bonita y linda for sure. The days leading up to Christmas, people put up decorations to various degrees. Some had lights in the windows, with others had garland hanging around their house. Most houses had small artificial trees, but every house had their version of the manger scene. Usually it’s multi-level and filled with a wide variety of plastic animals that may or may not have been hanging around the manger roughly 2030 years ago. The town square had a small manger scene similar to one that you might find in front of a church in the states.
So how do you celebrate Christmas in these parts? Well, Christmas Eve, everyone works regularly until around noon or so. And the big hullaballoo happens at midnight, where families gather in their houses and toast to health and love and a happy Christmas. Then out comes the paneton (think fruitcake, except everyone loves it here) and hot chocolate. After that is turkey, chicken and whatever else the family has prepared is served and enjoyed. Then usually the family will stay up partying and talking until the early morning. I stayed up with the family until around 5am on Xmas eve, now knowing what to expect the next day.
So I wake up around 11am on Christmas Day, and most of the family is up at the farm preparing lunch. I have a cup of coffee, shower and walk on up to the farm saying Merry Christmas to friends in the community. I show up, and more family had shown up for Christmas Day and had already started eating Ceviche and cracking open some beers. Wanting the full cultural experience, I dived into both. Next up was the chicken, rice and Peruvian potato salad (potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas with mayo). And we just sat around and ate like any normal day really. The men got hammered while the women sat around, talked and did all the work. I didn’t get hammered that day as I just wasn’t feeling it…that and I just couldn’t bring myself to bring more of the same beer I had been drinking since I arrived last month. If anyone wants to send me some Great Lakes Christmas Ale, that would be fantastic!
Christmas Day was different as it was kind of quiet, but also passed like any other day for the most part. The big show is the midnight meal, and the party that follows after it (whether it’s in the community or your house). The other very different part is that gifts are only given to the children, which took a lot of pressure off of Christmas here. Although, I did receive a gift from my good Peruvian friend…he got my a Lima Alianza soccer jersey, which is really cool.
While I wouldn’t call it the best Christmas ever, it was really nice to pass it with all of the (Peruvian) family and in a different way. I really liked the midnight dinner and the celebration that ensued afterwards, but having Christmas Day being more or less a normal day was weird for me.
So much like the USA and around the world, Christmas has come and gone. And while it definitely wasn’t the same as passing Christmas with the family (including missing the annual cousin’s breakfast and gift exchange), it did pass bonita y linda for sure. The days leading up to Christmas, people put up decorations to various degrees. Some had lights in the windows, with others had garland hanging around their house. Most houses had small artificial trees, but every house had their version of the manger scene. Usually it’s multi-level and filled with a wide variety of plastic animals that may or may not have been hanging around the manger roughly 2030 years ago. The town square had a small manger scene similar to one that you might find in front of a church in the states.
So how do you celebrate Christmas in these parts? Well, Christmas Eve, everyone works regularly until around noon or so. And the big hullaballoo happens at midnight, where families gather in their houses and toast to health and love and a happy Christmas. Then out comes the paneton (think fruitcake, except everyone loves it here) and hot chocolate. After that is turkey, chicken and whatever else the family has prepared is served and enjoyed. Then usually the family will stay up partying and talking until the early morning. I stayed up with the family until around 5am on Xmas eve, now knowing what to expect the next day.
So I wake up around 11am on Christmas Day, and most of the family is up at the farm preparing lunch. I have a cup of coffee, shower and walk on up to the farm saying Merry Christmas to friends in the community. I show up, and more family had shown up for Christmas Day and had already started eating Ceviche and cracking open some beers. Wanting the full cultural experience, I dived into both. Next up was the chicken, rice and Peruvian potato salad (potatoes, sweet potatoes, peas with mayo). And we just sat around and ate like any normal day really. The men got hammered while the women sat around, talked and did all the work. I didn’t get hammered that day as I just wasn’t feeling it…that and I just couldn’t bring myself to bring more of the same beer I had been drinking since I arrived last month. If anyone wants to send me some Great Lakes Christmas Ale, that would be fantastic!
Christmas Day was different as it was kind of quiet, but also passed like any other day for the most part. The big show is the midnight meal, and the party that follows after it (whether it’s in the community or your house). The other very different part is that gifts are only given to the children, which took a lot of pressure off of Christmas here. Although, I did receive a gift from my good Peruvian friend…he got my a Lima Alianza soccer jersey, which is really cool.
While I wouldn’t call it the best Christmas ever, it was really nice to pass it with all of the (Peruvian) family and in a different way. I really liked the midnight dinner and the celebration that ensued afterwards, but having Christmas Day being more or less a normal day was weird for me.
The Accident
The Accident.
Something very weird and something unforgettable happened to me December 23rd. As I was traveling back to my site via collectivo, I was spacing out. Crammed in the backseat of a car, I was staring off into the mountains, thinking of what I was missing at home with family and friends. Tired after sleeping only a few hours the night before, and then spending the day in Trujillo. Out of nowhere, everyone else in the car started screaming and yelling ‘Stop, Stop!’ much to my bewilderment. So the car pulls over and I see another car on the other side of the road, and to my right I see another car flipped over in the irrigation cannel, and screams coming from inside the car. The next thing I know I ran down into the cannel to help people get out of the car, where a good portion of it was submerge in the water. We pulled two people out of the backseat, and I leant my knife to cut the seatbelts up front. Then about six of us lifted the car up so the women could crawl out of the ditch and onto land. I checked on that women and then asked and looked to see if there were any injuries to the other people. I had a towel in my bag and I gave it to a woman to cover up and try to keep a little warmer. And thankfully, there were only minor scrapes and everyone went home that night.
It all happened so fast, and it is kind of a blur in my mind. But it was a very impactful scene. Just thinking more of everything surrounding the accident. I didn’t get the full story of what happened, but I heard that the overturned car was cut off by a drunk driver. And seeing as the road to my site isn’t in the best condition (still under construction), it’s easy to see how the driver probably swerved to avoid the collision and ended up in the ditch. Also rare is that the police didn’t show up. They called to the station and since everyone was rescued and there were no major injuries, they had to go to the police to file the report. Our taxi driver called for anther driver to come pick up the family, and then when that car came along we left.
The other thing was that this type of thing is somewhat normal in the community, and since there were no deaths it wasn’t really sensationalist. I told my family about it and their reaction was only with mild surprise and then changed the subject. Even after we left, everyone in my car was kind of joking about the situation and that the family wanted to go into the car to get their things. IT just struck me as odd that an event where people could have died was taken so lightly. Maybe it’s just culture…after all, nobody did die so where was the gravity of the situation. And is it worth it to stress over it?
So what do I take from this? We could talk about revaluing life and making the realization that things happen so rapidly for both the bad and the good. You could talk about faith and whether divine intervention was involved or you could talk about fate and whether the car was meant to fall into the ditch or I was meant to be in the car behind. All I know is that now I carry my knife with me all the time.
Something very weird and something unforgettable happened to me December 23rd. As I was traveling back to my site via collectivo, I was spacing out. Crammed in the backseat of a car, I was staring off into the mountains, thinking of what I was missing at home with family and friends. Tired after sleeping only a few hours the night before, and then spending the day in Trujillo. Out of nowhere, everyone else in the car started screaming and yelling ‘Stop, Stop!’ much to my bewilderment. So the car pulls over and I see another car on the other side of the road, and to my right I see another car flipped over in the irrigation cannel, and screams coming from inside the car. The next thing I know I ran down into the cannel to help people get out of the car, where a good portion of it was submerge in the water. We pulled two people out of the backseat, and I leant my knife to cut the seatbelts up front. Then about six of us lifted the car up so the women could crawl out of the ditch and onto land. I checked on that women and then asked and looked to see if there were any injuries to the other people. I had a towel in my bag and I gave it to a woman to cover up and try to keep a little warmer. And thankfully, there were only minor scrapes and everyone went home that night.
It all happened so fast, and it is kind of a blur in my mind. But it was a very impactful scene. Just thinking more of everything surrounding the accident. I didn’t get the full story of what happened, but I heard that the overturned car was cut off by a drunk driver. And seeing as the road to my site isn’t in the best condition (still under construction), it’s easy to see how the driver probably swerved to avoid the collision and ended up in the ditch. Also rare is that the police didn’t show up. They called to the station and since everyone was rescued and there were no major injuries, they had to go to the police to file the report. Our taxi driver called for anther driver to come pick up the family, and then when that car came along we left.
The other thing was that this type of thing is somewhat normal in the community, and since there were no deaths it wasn’t really sensationalist. I told my family about it and their reaction was only with mild surprise and then changed the subject. Even after we left, everyone in my car was kind of joking about the situation and that the family wanted to go into the car to get their things. IT just struck me as odd that an event where people could have died was taken so lightly. Maybe it’s just culture…after all, nobody did die so where was the gravity of the situation. And is it worth it to stress over it?
So what do I take from this? We could talk about revaluing life and making the realization that things happen so rapidly for both the bad and the good. You could talk about faith and whether divine intervention was involved or you could talk about fate and whether the car was meant to fall into the ditch or I was meant to be in the car behind. All I know is that now I carry my knife with me all the time.
So what do you do once you´re at site?
So I’ve officially been a volunteer for a month, and probably doing stuff. So what exactly have I been doing? Good question. To be fair, my family asks me the same thing and I think they’re still kind of confused about what I do, as is the town in general. My days may consist of riding along with the trash collectors, meeting with the health post, going out to the chacras to talk with farmers, chilling at the municipality office, talking with random people on the street, teaching English, or chilling in a bodega. I guess the part I love about my job is that every day is different, and I do get to make my own schedule of sorts.
The first months of a volunteers service are used as a period to conocer the community better. This is everything from simply walking around the community, doing formal interviews with families, having kids draw maps of the community, and attempting to do things like FODAs, FREESOPs, and seasonal calenders. All of this work lays the base and starts the volunteer thinking about potential long term projects that may be planned and realized. Additionally, these activities help the volunteer integrate more into the community, to talk to the community about their job, why they’re here, and create a mutual understanding. And in turn, this helps the volunteer know more people in the community, and who potential leaders may be.
So my day? Well, I’d love to say it starts off around 630 but really it’s closer to 5/520. That’s when the bread store opens, and my room has a window attached to one side of it. Could not exactly tell you why…maybe it was an addition? Anyways, I’m usually woken up first by noise coming from there, and try to sleep in until around 630. I roll into the kitchen at 630 and prepare some sort of breakfast and coffee, and try to prep it quick otherwise the very helpful 15 year old and the 71 year old will come into the kitchen thinking I’m lost or something, and offer me 20,000 different things and try to talk to me way more than I like being talked to first thing in the morning. And from there, it varies. I may visit a school to talk with the director, or walk up to the municipality and talk with some people. Maybe I’ll walk around and try to meet people, or I’ll go with my socio-communitario to a meeting and do some more formal introductions. Usually the more serious work and meetings get done in the morning. I eat lunch with the family around 12:30 or 1, and then in the afternoon it’s pretty open. Health post and community meetings are in the afternoon, I also teach English every Thursday during the afternoon. And the nights are up in the air….I’ll chill with the family, call other volunteers, do prep work for meetings/classes/presentations, or just watch the Simpsons in Spanish (the possibilities are endless). I’m usually in bed by 930/10 and sleeping soon after.
But like all Peace Corps experiences, everything varies. Some days I’m booked solid, and others I may be killing time by just sitting around drinking a Coke in somebody’s shop. But it’s all part of the job…to get to know the community better and start integration. Because being a part of the community will allow the volunteer to know more about the history, how things work, who does what, who’s the town drunk, how we can fix the problem of these damn kids that just run the streets, etc.
It’s slightly frustrating as I have very little concrete to show for a month in site, especially since I’m used to not wasting too much time with projects. One trick I made is to use iCal to track what I did during the day. I have different colors for different Peace Corps and WATSAN objectives/goals, and I try to fill in what I did that day. And when I fill it in, it shows my days are actually a lot fuller than I realize. And I guess something else to show that I’m getting on alright is that more people are actually calling out my name rather than just calling out Gringo in the town. While being called gringo isn’t anything derogatory, it’s nice to have a firmer sense of identity in the town.
The first months of a volunteers service are used as a period to conocer the community better. This is everything from simply walking around the community, doing formal interviews with families, having kids draw maps of the community, and attempting to do things like FODAs, FREESOPs, and seasonal calenders. All of this work lays the base and starts the volunteer thinking about potential long term projects that may be planned and realized. Additionally, these activities help the volunteer integrate more into the community, to talk to the community about their job, why they’re here, and create a mutual understanding. And in turn, this helps the volunteer know more people in the community, and who potential leaders may be.
So my day? Well, I’d love to say it starts off around 630 but really it’s closer to 5/520. That’s when the bread store opens, and my room has a window attached to one side of it. Could not exactly tell you why…maybe it was an addition? Anyways, I’m usually woken up first by noise coming from there, and try to sleep in until around 630. I roll into the kitchen at 630 and prepare some sort of breakfast and coffee, and try to prep it quick otherwise the very helpful 15 year old and the 71 year old will come into the kitchen thinking I’m lost or something, and offer me 20,000 different things and try to talk to me way more than I like being talked to first thing in the morning. And from there, it varies. I may visit a school to talk with the director, or walk up to the municipality and talk with some people. Maybe I’ll walk around and try to meet people, or I’ll go with my socio-communitario to a meeting and do some more formal introductions. Usually the more serious work and meetings get done in the morning. I eat lunch with the family around 12:30 or 1, and then in the afternoon it’s pretty open. Health post and community meetings are in the afternoon, I also teach English every Thursday during the afternoon. And the nights are up in the air….I’ll chill with the family, call other volunteers, do prep work for meetings/classes/presentations, or just watch the Simpsons in Spanish (the possibilities are endless). I’m usually in bed by 930/10 and sleeping soon after.
But like all Peace Corps experiences, everything varies. Some days I’m booked solid, and others I may be killing time by just sitting around drinking a Coke in somebody’s shop. But it’s all part of the job…to get to know the community better and start integration. Because being a part of the community will allow the volunteer to know more about the history, how things work, who does what, who’s the town drunk, how we can fix the problem of these damn kids that just run the streets, etc.
It’s slightly frustrating as I have very little concrete to show for a month in site, especially since I’m used to not wasting too much time with projects. One trick I made is to use iCal to track what I did during the day. I have different colors for different Peace Corps and WATSAN objectives/goals, and I try to fill in what I did that day. And when I fill it in, it shows my days are actually a lot fuller than I realize. And I guess something else to show that I’m getting on alright is that more people are actually calling out my name rather than just calling out Gringo in the town. While being called gringo isn’t anything derogatory, it’s nice to have a firmer sense of identity in the town.
Thanksgiving
So as of writing yesterday was Thanksgiving, and it was the second Thanksgiving I’ve spent away from family. The first time I was in Oman and I remember just sitting around all day, watched X-Men 2 on TV and really felt a bit homesick. I lived a good 45-minute adventure from my good friend there, and transportation was always a shit show, so I just kinda chilled at home. So being in Peru, I definitely didn’t want to repeat this experience. And thankfully, a day after, I can say that this was a very memorable Thanksgiving.
It sounded that for the most part, volunteers from Peru 14 clustered together in their various regions to celebrate in whatever style was available. Some had lunch while others gathered on the beach with volunteers from current groups. I spent the morning visiting an annex of my community known as ‘Las Pampas’ and doing an inspection of some of the water wells and organizing a meeting for the following week. Lunched with the family and got some things together, and headed off to meet two other volunteers who are about an hour or so from my site.
Oddly enough, while picking up some lovely campo wine I ran into another American in my town. Her and her Peruvian husband where in town for a few days visiting his family before heading back to California. Pretty weird.
So Travis and Melissa went into Trujillo to pick up some household stuff and also the Thanksgiving dinner materials. I didn’t know what they were grabbing, so anything was in the air. Travis’s friend, Yuri, is a trained chef so maybe we were going to be dining on something exquisite. I finally rolled into the plaza and met Travis and Melissa and it turned out we were preparing spaghetti with homemade sauce that evening.
After walking around the town a bit, we crank up the iPod speakers and begin the complex art of spaghetti-making, much to the bemusement of Travis’s family, who sat in the kitchen watching and talking to us. Yuri was always looking over our shoulders closely to see what we were doing and giving us a few pointers here and there. Every now and then we attracted an audience as the kitchen was more like an open-air garage (CORRECTION: they were turning the space into a restaurant). We also were playing feel-good songs on the iPods, lead by Travis’s large country collection, and followed by Melissa’s varied musical selection (we were also singing along at times, much to the chagrin of our Peruvian friends). By eight or so, we had everything ready and invited a fair amount of guests: the whole of Travis’s family, his two socio-communitarios, and a few other friends of Travis…about 13 or 14 in total. We started dishing out the spaghetti, Travis said a few words of explanation and then we dug in. Not quite a turkey dinner with the trimmings, but it worked. After we were done, everyone said a few words and we thanked them for coming and sharing this experience and custom with us, and they thanked us for the invitation and for simply being in Peru to work and we all agreed we were thankful. We spent the rest of the night talking, and listening to some Beastie Boys and The Clash.
It truly was a unique and rich experience to celebrate Thanksgiving in a manner so different, but with the same ideas at heart. Preparing the meal with Travis and Melissa was a lot of fun, and was also a good break from being at my site and having my meals prepared for me. Talking and getting to know our guests was also a really incredible time, as we talked and joked throughout dinner and even though I had just met them, they were still very warm, open, and acted as if we had been friends for years. I was really taken back with how welcoming they were to the three gringos and their half-assed attempt at making a dinner. And although I was far away from home and the usual Thanksgiving with the family, I didn’t feel homesick this time around. Even if my Thanksgiving was in Spanish.
It sounded that for the most part, volunteers from Peru 14 clustered together in their various regions to celebrate in whatever style was available. Some had lunch while others gathered on the beach with volunteers from current groups. I spent the morning visiting an annex of my community known as ‘Las Pampas’ and doing an inspection of some of the water wells and organizing a meeting for the following week. Lunched with the family and got some things together, and headed off to meet two other volunteers who are about an hour or so from my site.
Oddly enough, while picking up some lovely campo wine I ran into another American in my town. Her and her Peruvian husband where in town for a few days visiting his family before heading back to California. Pretty weird.
So Travis and Melissa went into Trujillo to pick up some household stuff and also the Thanksgiving dinner materials. I didn’t know what they were grabbing, so anything was in the air. Travis’s friend, Yuri, is a trained chef so maybe we were going to be dining on something exquisite. I finally rolled into the plaza and met Travis and Melissa and it turned out we were preparing spaghetti with homemade sauce that evening.
After walking around the town a bit, we crank up the iPod speakers and begin the complex art of spaghetti-making, much to the bemusement of Travis’s family, who sat in the kitchen watching and talking to us. Yuri was always looking over our shoulders closely to see what we were doing and giving us a few pointers here and there. Every now and then we attracted an audience as the kitchen was more like an open-air garage (CORRECTION: they were turning the space into a restaurant). We also were playing feel-good songs on the iPods, lead by Travis’s large country collection, and followed by Melissa’s varied musical selection (we were also singing along at times, much to the chagrin of our Peruvian friends). By eight or so, we had everything ready and invited a fair amount of guests: the whole of Travis’s family, his two socio-communitarios, and a few other friends of Travis…about 13 or 14 in total. We started dishing out the spaghetti, Travis said a few words of explanation and then we dug in. Not quite a turkey dinner with the trimmings, but it worked. After we were done, everyone said a few words and we thanked them for coming and sharing this experience and custom with us, and they thanked us for the invitation and for simply being in Peru to work and we all agreed we were thankful. We spent the rest of the night talking, and listening to some Beastie Boys and The Clash.
It truly was a unique and rich experience to celebrate Thanksgiving in a manner so different, but with the same ideas at heart. Preparing the meal with Travis and Melissa was a lot of fun, and was also a good break from being at my site and having my meals prepared for me. Talking and getting to know our guests was also a really incredible time, as we talked and joked throughout dinner and even though I had just met them, they were still very warm, open, and acted as if we had been friends for years. I was really taken back with how welcoming they were to the three gringos and their half-assed attempt at making a dinner. And although I was far away from home and the usual Thanksgiving with the family, I didn’t feel homesick this time around. Even if my Thanksgiving was in Spanish.
Digging in the sand...
With swearing-in so close, it was time to break out of the training center for some more ‘hands-on’ experiences. Wat-San, in particular, went to visit a current volunteer in Ica and aided in constructing five different styles of bathrooms. My team in particular built a baño de arostre (sp?), or a pour flush latrine. This is essentially a regular bathroom (complete with shower and sink) without running water. So to dispose of waste, you just pour the water down the toilet, which goes into a septic tank that we also constructed. The idea here is that the municipality was to create a waste-water system within the next year in the neighborhood, and that this bathroom would be able to be hooked up to the system when the time comes. That’s thinking ahead for sure, but also allows for a backup plan if the system **somehow** didn’t get completed when it was supposed to.
While we were originally supposed to start on Thursday afternoon, the supplies hadn’t arrived at the site yet. They did arrive later in the afternoon, but by then the day was shot. Welcome to Peru. We spent the good part of Friday morning planning out how exactly everything was going to be laid down, but by the afternoon we made great progress in laying down the base slab, figuring out the plumbing and laid the foundation down for the septic tank. That left us with Saturday morning, where we essentially just laid down the brick wall in the septic tank, and added a ventilation tube to the waste line to avoid a gas build up in the septic tank. Minor stuff. It’s kinda weird to say it, but it was a fun weekend. It did feel like being on a spring break work trip or something like that since we were just in and out with the construction.
This work trip was also a good break in to getting used to how projects will work in the future. With tech theatre, supplies were delivered on time or earlier, and there was a lot of planning before actual construction hit. And then every project had a time-table, and there was a certain deadline for the set being ready, the lighting and so on. While people who had done this project before obviously took care of most of the planning, we just kinda went in blindly, step by step figuring things out. And it took a bit to adjust to having to wait for supplies and shuffling our feet here and there at the beginning. So it was definitely a good break in period for me, especially since we start field based training in a week and then we leave for our sites in a few weeks.
It was good practice for us, but also the volunteer who organized the program. Builders without Borders, an organization that sends high-schoolers to do development construction work, will be coming and joining a couple Peru projects in the late winter and early Spring. This will be one of the sites where they’ll be working, and our presence helped the volunteer better understand the logistics needed (they spent most of the time moving from work site to work site and coordinating than anything else) and how to manage all these projects going on at once. And there’s a chance that some of us will return to either this site or the other one or two that will have Builders without Borders to help lead the building teams, which would be really cool.
So overall it was a win-win-win.
While we were originally supposed to start on Thursday afternoon, the supplies hadn’t arrived at the site yet. They did arrive later in the afternoon, but by then the day was shot. Welcome to Peru. We spent the good part of Friday morning planning out how exactly everything was going to be laid down, but by the afternoon we made great progress in laying down the base slab, figuring out the plumbing and laid the foundation down for the septic tank. That left us with Saturday morning, where we essentially just laid down the brick wall in the septic tank, and added a ventilation tube to the waste line to avoid a gas build up in the septic tank. Minor stuff. It’s kinda weird to say it, but it was a fun weekend. It did feel like being on a spring break work trip or something like that since we were just in and out with the construction.
This work trip was also a good break in to getting used to how projects will work in the future. With tech theatre, supplies were delivered on time or earlier, and there was a lot of planning before actual construction hit. And then every project had a time-table, and there was a certain deadline for the set being ready, the lighting and so on. While people who had done this project before obviously took care of most of the planning, we just kinda went in blindly, step by step figuring things out. And it took a bit to adjust to having to wait for supplies and shuffling our feet here and there at the beginning. So it was definitely a good break in period for me, especially since we start field based training in a week and then we leave for our sites in a few weeks.
It was good practice for us, but also the volunteer who organized the program. Builders without Borders, an organization that sends high-schoolers to do development construction work, will be coming and joining a couple Peru projects in the late winter and early Spring. This will be one of the sites where they’ll be working, and our presence helped the volunteer better understand the logistics needed (they spent most of the time moving from work site to work site and coordinating than anything else) and how to manage all these projects going on at once. And there’s a chance that some of us will return to either this site or the other one or two that will have Builders without Borders to help lead the building teams, which would be really cool.
So overall it was a win-win-win.
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