Villa El Salvador

One of the other volunteers, who works in the community theatre CIJAC, took me on a tour of Villa El Salvador. It was pretty awesome. I’m not going to lie. I got to watch one of their rehearsals for the 40^th Anniversary celebration. Then a few weeks later I returned to watch the show and to take pictures.

The show was based on the history of Villa El Salvador. It showed how the people came from all over Peru to found their own community, how they worked together to build their houses and to defend the
land that they claimed as their own, how they received documentation for their land claims and how they came together as a community. The actors wore costumes in styles from all over Peru. It was interesting to watch the intersecting of
cultures.

Villa El Salvador has attracted attention in the International Development community for its strong political leadership. Community leaders from the beginning fought for education and sustainable
economic development. The results of which are obvious. Now Villa El Salvador has a manufacturing industry which makes clothes, furniture and other products that feed into the large department stores in the more prosperous parts of Lima. Their main commercial street also sells these products for lower prices!

Villa El Salvador also has a community radio and television station. I got a chance to talk to one of the organisers of the radio station on my personal tour. He told me that they have community talk radio in the mornings and early evenings – the rest of the time they play music. The television station is mostly local news shows but they are hoping todevelop some children’s shows in the near future. It’s so important in political and economic development for a community to have a method of communication where they can share the news and events that are happening in the community.

Mil gracias to my coworker for showing me this impressive community.

Manuela Ramos

(Photo credit: Swamy DeLeon, CUSO-VSO Volunteer)

My roomie works in one of the CUSO-VSO Peru partner organisations called Manuela Ramos so I popped by for a visit! They are a women's organisation that works all over Peru fighting for women's rights. Manuela Ramos has quite a reputation as a feminist organisation which is great. They certainly are a lot more liberal than any other group I've visited. For example one woman heard us say that we lived together and assumed we were lesbians. Even though we're not lesbians I loved that that was her first thought and that it was said without judgement. Unfortunately, most of Peru deals with a lot of discrimination based on sexual orientation, sex and race which is why the liberal attitude at Manuela was a breath of fresh air.

I got a bit of a tour of Manuela including the store where they sell handicrafts. I walked away with four stuffed animals for my future nieces/nephews who will be arriving this summer. They are just the cutest things ever!! I couldn't resist!! You can see the catalogue online in English here including the teddy bears and bunnies that I bought: http://www.casadelamujerartesana.com/eng/index.html

IDL

I went to for lunch at one of the other CUSO-VSO partner organisations on Tuesday called IDL. They are situated in this house with an office building attached to it. Five floors of lawyers, reporters, radio announcers and admin staff all working towards defending human rights in Peru. There was a definite buzz in the office in the aftermath of the elections. Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala will be entering the next round of elections since neither of them won enough votes (50%+) to win outright. Fujimori is the daughter of the former dictator/president of Peru who is now in jail for human rights violations, and Humala is a relative unknown who won the majority of the seats in rural Peru. It's going to be interesting to see who wins the second round because regardless it will mean some serious changes in Peru.

Two of the CUSO-VSO volunteers work there. One is involved directly in defending human rights and Annie, who gave me the tour, is writing for their newspaper and managing their twitter feed. Fascinating work!

Here's IDL's website http://www.idl.org.pe/

Elections!

Yesterday Peru held their first round of elections. The politicians in the running include the daughter of the former dictator, an ex-president and a host of other lesser known candidates. Check out the BBC break down of the election here.

As the results come in the second and third place winners are still not clear. I think they have until tomorrow to officially announce the winner.

One thing was clear though that throughout the election the people that I've met have been engaged in politics to the extent I've never seen before in Canada. My coworkers constantly talk about the election in the lunch room and almost everyone I meet from taxi drivers to students in my dance class wants to offer their political opinion to anyone who will listen. It's fascinating. The attitude is mostly that the individual has to choose the best candidate out of a bad lot. Mario Vargas Llosa likens the possiblity of having to chose between Keiko, the dictator's daughter, and Ollanta, a left-wing politician, like having to chose between AIDS and cancer.

Although I would never liken Harper to AIDS, I think it's a great lesson for the upcoming Canadian election. If we want more young people to be involved in politics - why not talk about it? Fight voter apathy through lunch room conversations and elevator speeches!

Humboldt

In my spanish class we're reading a book of short biographies related to people who have influenced Peru over the past few centuries. The first story was about a young German named Alexander von Humboldt. In 1818, Humboldt lived in Peru for 5 months. During that time he managed to completely change the understanding of the currents in and around the Peruvian coast (he even has a current named after him), discovered uses for guano (a specific kind of bird poop) as fertilizer, contributed to research on the flora and fauna of the Andean and Amazonian regions, and documented what the social life was like here at the time. I found this completely shocking since I've now been here for almost 5 months and I still have not found many uses for the guano that I encounter in my day to day life. The message in the story was that he was able to accomplish all of this because he made an effort to document the things that he observed. This got me thinking of all the things I observe that I don´t write about and Humboldt inspired me to write more. Thus I will be making more of an effort to entice my readers with my observations of Lima, Limeño culture and the life of an ex-pat. Don´t worry I have no illusions of grandeur that someone will name a current after me!

CUSO-VSO's Youth Employment Strategy

March 28th, 2011, CUSO-VSO and Kallpa one of the local partners held a conference for youth employment centres in Peru in Bolivia. This was a very special event because it celebrated the work that CUSO-VSO is doing in Bolivia and Peru in the area of Youth Employment.

Over half of the volunteers with CUSO-VSO in Peru are a part of Kallpa. The Centro de Jovenes y Empleo - CJE is one way that Kallpa is contributing to the development of youth. The CJE provides opportunities for young people to access job-based resources and enhance their capacities to find a job or to become self-employed. Many of the CUSO-VSO folk work in this area giving workshops and developing programs.

The CJE's are based on a concept from a Canadian organisation called Carrefour Jeunesse-Emploi de l'Outaouais in Gatineau, Quebec. Strangely I came across this organisation when doing some research on volunteer centres in Canada for Oxfam Canada before I came to Peru but I didn't put two and two together until I got here. Anyhoo, this partnership has been growing for a few years now. The youth employment centre in Gatineau is involved in sharing information and best practices with the CJE's here in Peru and in La Paz, Bolivia. All of the organisations are working right not to help support the growth of a new centre in Santa Cruz, Bolivia where CUSO-VSO recently sent a South-South volunteer from the CJE in Peru to help develop their programs.

It's amazing to observe the transfer of information and skills that is taking place between Peru and Bolivia thanks to the leadership at both CUSO-VSO and Kallpa.

Check out this YouTube video from CUSO-VSO about it the CJE in San Juan de Miraflores, Lima! No seriously, click here! It’s got English subtitles!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywjhjovUq0

Partner visits

One of the great things about being an international volunteer is the opportunity to enjoy getting out into the community and visiting the projects. Although some volunteers have the opportunity to work directly with the population my jobs in International Development have always been based in the institution. Thus, these opportunities when they arise are very exciting for me! Right now since we're in the training season (when the students aren't in school) I've been visiting partners about once a week!

Last week CAPLAB put on a workshop on how to use the big fancy sewing machines with the help of a local sewing machine store called Maquicentro. One of CAPLAB's roles is to provide equipment for technical colleges (CETPRO's) based on their individual needs. In some CETPRO's that we support that means providing sewing machines for courses in tailoring and dressmaking. So CAPLAB has had a relationship with Maquicentro as a consumer for our projects. Then, out of the blue, Maquicentro approaches us with this workshop on how to use the industrial machines that do embroidery and detail work so that our teachers will be able to teach these skills better. I thought it was a great example of how industries can use their skills and abilities to help the local community.

I have some how become the staff photographer... which I have to say I'm pretty happy with this role! It gives me the opportunity to see the world from the outside and at the same time have an excuse to interact with the students, facilitators and sponsors.

So here's a link to our picasa photo album of the event. https://picasaweb.google.com/ongcaplab/ManejoYAcondicionamientoDeAditamentos#

¡Carnival!

This past weekend was carnival! I spent it with a theatre group in my neighbourhood, Barranco. Carnival hasn't been celebrated that much over the past few years and the people of Barranco were hoping to bring it back in style this year.

So in the spirit of celebration a few friends and I painted ourselves blue and became cyclops' for the day. The idea was that we were supposed to 'fight' with a group of purple people but I didn't really understand what that was about. We spent most of the day marching through Barranco getting water and paint thrown at us and dancing to the bands that accompanied us. In fact I didn't really stop dancing for the whole parade. It was so much fun... but removing the paint was tricky!

The South Coast

I had one of my closest friends, Kelly visiting me the past two weeks from Canada so I took some time off from the hustle and bustle to spend with her. We managed to cram in quite a bit of touristy things during her short visit here including a trip to the South Coast of Lima.

We started off in Lima and took the bus along the Panamerica Sur to Ica where the largest attraction is the opportunity to go sandboarding (think snowboarding on sand) in Huacachina desert. Huacachina is an oasis in the middle of the desert about 10 minutes from Ica. The lagoon is lined with hotels and restaurants and street vendors. We stayed in this beautiful hotel with a swimming pool for $20 a night!

The sandboarding was awesome! They take you out in this oversized dune buggy. You're strapped into the buggy like on a roller coaster ride and that's exactly what it's like. I was squeezing Kelly's hand so hard I'm surprised I didn't hurt her! Once you arrive at a good spot the guide shows you how to hold your body so you don't hurt yourself and then he sends you flying. We had a Grandmother, Mom and son on our dune buggy and the Grandma was the first one down each time - which made me feel like a chicken when I refused to do the last one. It looked like a 90 degree drop!

From there we made our way to the nature reserves in Paracas. There are two nature adventures you can go on there and of course we did both! The first was the National Park which was pretty cool with some scenic views and lots of pelicans. We stopped at this gorgeous fishing village which reminded me of Hall's Harbour because it was just boats and restaurants. I could have stayed there all day watching the birds and the kids enjoying the beach.

The next day we hopped on a boat tour to the Ballestas Island. It was incredible. There were so many different kinds of birds all living on that one tiny island alongside hundreds of seals. As we were sailing back to Paracas we were pursued by thousands of birds who eventually passed us!

It was an amazing adventure and made even better since it was shared with one of my favorite people. It's incredible how comforting it can be to have someone you love visit you when you're living abroad. I just wish she could have stayed longer!

Arica, Chile

So it's been a while since my last blog post which I regret because I had some really good feedback on my last post about photography. On the plus side I have been experimenting with your tips and tricks. Thanks so much! I had no idea I had so many friends interested in photography!

Last week was a full week of workshops for me and my co-workers from all over Peru. I was the official photographer and managed to take a few good shots. I'm even more proud of the fact that during my presentation (eek scary presenting in Spanish!) someone asked me a question about how to take a good photograph (which was not in the script) and I was able to lay down three of the main rules of photography off the cuff.

I spent the weekend of Jan 22 renewing my travel visa in Arica, Chile. While I was there I took a few pictures which sum up my trip nicely.

This is a picture of the Morro (Wall) a big cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Arica, Chile. This wall was the host of a long war during the 1880's and 1890's between Bolivia, Peru and Chile. I found this really fascinating because in Bolivia there is an intense dislike of Chileans because of this war that meant Bolivia lost access to the ocean. However, while perusing though the museum it was quite evident that Bolivia played only a small part in the war which was mostly fought by their allies in Peru. Chile made their way quite far up the coast of Peru before the border disputes were finally settled. Further than Lima!

This picture is of a Happy New Year Sign which was affixed to a gazebo and a few park benches. I found this very entertaining and ingenious.

The is picture of some hieroglyphics that were dug into the mountains. I hired a taxi to take me out to see them and we drove right up past the farmer's fields to get a good look. You can see the shadow of a monkey in the rearview mirror. Of course the closer we got harder the hieroglyphics were to see but the farmer's tomatoes were very impressive up close.

Photography in Peru

One of the most pressing issues in communications at my NGO is how to take a good photo. This is a particular challenge here since 1) I don’t really know what I’m doing and 2) the light is crazy intense – I’m talking white, bright, blinding light - and then when it’s not intense it’s overcast and grey which means that you’re fighting what feels like a losing battle.

I've been soliciting help from my friendly neighbourhood photogs (including Heather Rushton, professional photographer and entrepreneur from Twin Bridges Photography in NS and Jay Aggarwal, amateur photographer and fellow CUSO-VSO volunteer in Ghana). They have really helped me address point number 1 (my general photographic incompetence) so I thought I would share these websites which helped me to understand basic composition and light.

Pro Photo Life: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pro+photo+life&aq=f
About.com http://photography.about.com/
Photo Composition Articles: http://photoinf.com/General/Peter_Ensenberger/Improving_Your_Photography_Lesson_Two_Composition.htm

The light issue is solvable but I’m going to need to experiment with my camera. Here's an example of what I’m talking about:

On the left her hand looks like she's been stuck inside for at least a year with no sunlight. On the right I've adjusted the white balance for more natural color.... Now I just have to figure out how to make the adjustments before taking the photo!


Keeping with the theme, here are some amateur photos from National Geographic Travel that manage to overcome the light in Perú. http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/your-peru-photos/#/andes-salkantay-peru_30282_600x450.jpg

Please feel free to share any photography articles or tips and tricks you find helpful!

Social Media for NGO´s

Lately I’ve been doing some hard core research on social media and communications for NGO’s. For me it’s a fun and a great way to let my nerd flag fly in my new job. There’s so much out there to learn and so many different ways that people are approaching social media at NGO’s.

Our new website at CAPLAB is going to be in blog format to allow for us to announce events, share stories and present information like our reports, manuals for students and professors and other materials. I’m also looking at how to incorporate pages like facebook, twitter, youtube, picasa and my new obsession: Scribd. (Scribd is a document sharing system and it’s awesome because it has built in analytic features that allow you to see all sorts of information about the people who are reading your documents. For instance you can see how long an article was read, where in the world the hits are coming from and which websites are showing your document. http://www.scribd.com/caplab)

The real challenge is trying to understand the reality of both our audience and the staff. What are the technology limits for students and professors? How much time can staff devote to updating our blog? How can we consolidate these tools so that time online is maximized?

Any feedback out there from tech savvy communicators would be great!

Jin, Chin, Gene

A few nights ago I had dinner at a coffee shop called Gloria Jean’s. I went in there specifically because I was feeling a little homesick for coffee shops in Canada like Just Us in NS or Raw Sugar in Ottawa. You know the ones with the big windows that you can look out and idly observe the passers-by while getting lost in your own thoughts. I also wanted some comfort food.

Anyhoo after taking my order and my name I found it ironic that the barista at Gloria Jean’s couldn’t spell Jean. It was written on my receipt as Jin. I wonder if it was my fault because I didn’t do my regular routine of "Jean, you know like the pants". But it seems even when I give my Jean/pants performance people still can’t seem to spell my name.

It’s not just the Peruvians that have trouble understanding me. Last night a Canadian friend sent a text to "Gene". Then a Brazilian girl confessed that she thought my name was actually "Chin" until she read a note I’d left her with my name on it. Maybe I should change my name to Juana... let me know if you have any other suggestions!

Until next time,
Chin... er I mean Jean

Christmas traditions

(Christmas Dinner with Work Colleagues)

When my boss heard that I was going to be spending Christmas alone/on the internet talking on skype, she invited me to spend Christmas Eve with her family. Unlike in Canada, where Christmas centers around the 25th, in Peru the 24th is when all the magic happens. Family comes together for mass and then gathers at the family homestead to enjoy some longstanding traditions. So at 10:30 pm I made my way through the city and through the pop, pop, pop of fireworks to enjoy some family time.

At precisely midnight we popped the champagne and had a toast, wishing each other a Merry Christmas. We then went out to the park outside the house to light up our own fireworks and sparklers. I shared my families tradition of oohing and aahing over each individual firework and got my boss to write her name with the sparkler like my cousins and I used to do when we were kids.

After all that excitement we sat down to share a meal together. Here's where I found the little differences to be the most pronounced. When discussing Christmas traditions at work food came up all the time but we focused so much on the commonalities I thought that the only difference was going to be cranberry sauce vs. no cranberry sauce. Most Peruvians have turkey for their Christmas meal and my experience was no exception. However they paired it with slices of pineapple, rice, salad, candied yams and a spicy brown sauce. It was delicious!

Finally the gifts were opened and we all headed to our homes to fall happily into bed.

The next day I had a non-traditional feast of pizza and pisco sours with a friend from Argentina. The sun was shining and I may have gotten a bit of a sun-burnt. Definitely not like any other Christmas I've experienced!

Happy Holidays to all!

One-Monthaversary

Yesterday marked my one month mark here in Lima, Peru! I can hardly believe it! I've barely settled in and in just 11 months I'll be back in Canada... well I guess I shouldn't count on that if things go well there is always the opportunity to stay on in Peru or to move to another Latin American Country where CUSO-VSO works... Honduras or Jamaica sound nice!

Since it's my one-monthaversary I thought it's about time I get around to giving my first impressions of the city.

First it's massive. I have never lived in a city larger than 1-1.5 million people and Lima has 8 million. I am having the hardest time understanding how that works. I live and work in Miraflores and it is the most western section of Lima with big shopping malls, nice restaurants and North American housing prices. Miraflores is like a little city in itself. That much I understand... but then Miraflores is surrounded by other little cities that each have their own shopping centres, restaurants and economies. What I don't understand is how everything can be so separate yet so interconnected. I also have this sneaking suspicion that there must be some secret for finding the best spot for everything.

Second living in Miraflores you don't really get the sense of what Peru is all about. I don't mean that to sound dismissive because sometimes when travelling people do dismiss this place or that place as being "too western" or "too touristy" but those places are as much a part of the place as the so-called authentic places. What I mean is that Miraflores is only a small part of a much more diverse country. Peru has one of the most diverse collections of flora and fauna in the world with the Amazon, the Andes and the Pacific Coast. Each region has developed their individual cultures around the environment thus there is a great diversity of cultures as well. So what I have seen so far is only the tip of the iceburg. Good news is there may be some visits to CAPLAB's local offices in my future!

Finally, the people here have been warm, welcoming and very willing to help me with my problems. For example, yesterday I had to find Adobe Photoshop in order to view some files. My colleagues were more than willing to drop what they were doing to point me in the "right" direction or to offer possible solutions to my problem. Finally after a few hours of checking on various computers and consulting with people I was able to view it a the local internet cafe. Apparently there is one computer that has Photoshop here but it is nowhere to be found! ... well now there's two since I got it installed yesterday afternoon.

Today is our Christmas party at work! So more pictures will be coming soon!

Christmas Time!

I wanted to share with you the awesome mountain of gifts that my office has put together to send to a children´s organsation for Christmas. I added a few gifts to pile! Today is my birthday so I was pretty happy to spend some time thinking about how excited the kids will be seeing the presents after opening my own birthday presents! It´s nice to share the love this time of year.

UPDATE JAN 6TH: CAPLAB received a wonderful thank you letter from the sisters at Misericordia de la T.O.R. de San Francisco saying how much the children enjoyed the presents!

Pachacamac

Last week I went with CUSO-VSO Peru on their annual retreat. All of the volunteers from Cuzco were flown in to participate with the rest of us from Lima. It was a great opportunity for me - right off the bat - to meet, to learn from and to get to know the other volunteers here in Peru.

We stayed in this beautiful retreat in the area of Pachacamac called Attinchik. They specialize in corporate retreats so everything was set up nicely. The food was amazing and so pretty that I took pictures. They also had this huge garden set up all around us and all the plants were labelled with their Latin names. I woke up early on the first morning, took a stroll around the gardens and relaxed in one of the hammocks. While I was there this squirrel came up to me to check me out. I´m not going to lie - I felt a little like Snow White.

I took a walk through the mountains to the town with two of the other participants. They were real mountaineers and just charged right through while I struggled with vertigo. In Bolivia, I went on a hike with some friends and had to turn around I was so scared of spontaneously falling off the mountain. So it was a real accomplishment to make it to the peak! When we got to the town it was exactly what I expected Peru to be like (so nothing like Lima). It had this big beautiful town square with fantastic gardens. There were tiny corner shops and narrow, dusty streets with three-wheeled moto-taxis zipping all over the place.

We ended the day at the retreat with a grand fiesta - Pisco sours, guitars and dancing! So much fun! I wish I could have stayed there!

http://www.atinchik.com/casa_atinchik.htm

First Impressions

I arrived in Lima after a particularly long in-flight movie marathon on Monday and was greeted by CUSO-VSO in the airport. However, that did not end the whirlwind that I've been experiencing over the last few months! I was pulled directly into training where I spent the last four days learning about Lima and how the topics of Gender, HIV/AIDs, Child protection, Discrimination and Security apply in the Peruvian context. It was pretty awesome! We had guest speakers from other NGO's come in to talk to us and I got to learn a little bit about what's happening in the NGO community here.

One presenter told us about the Sierra Productivo which is an organisation that uses traditional methods of capacity building to improve farming techniques. The person who passes on technical information is called the Yachachiq. Farmers visit the Yachachiq to learn more about farming techniques in general and then they start implementing some of these ideas. Once they've had a chance to try out some of these ideas the Yachachiq visits their farm and helps them to fine-tune the process. What an awesome way to draw on local expertise and knowledge to produce sustainable results!

One theme that has come up over and over again the past few days from the Peruvian presenters is capacity building. The presenters were all really engaged with the idea of improving access to education opportunities and information for their specific topics. Perhaps the emphasis is due to the connection with CUSO-VSO values which are all about providing learning opportunities both for the volunteer and the organisation. However, I find this exciting because it means that there are local professionals who are engaged in the development process that I perhaps I can contact to solicit advise and expertise.

Seeing as I have spent my first days in the CUSO-VSO office I will save my first impressions of the city and culture for further posts! But let me just say that the food here is amazing and will need one or two entries of its own. Yum!

Check out the Sierra Productivo website (in Spanish) http://www.sierraproductiva.org/ or read the BBC profile on them (in English) http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/2010-finalists-project03.php