Work and stuff

Well, this last week or so has been especially fruitful from a work standpoint. I’ve been talking for awhile with several groups about possible environment projects, but this last week everything has started to fall together.
The first project that showed promise was a grant the high school wanted me to help with to make a plant nursery for trees to combat erosion and a grass crop called tara that has commercial value for a number of reasons. After that, I finally got a youth group interested in doing a recycling business going. One kid, Ivan, has a lot of ideas and determination and will be going somewhere in life. After that, I finally got started with a nurse interested in doing environmental projects from the Health Post. With the Environment Committee of the municipality getting interested we now have the opportunity to do something really special.
As of now the idea is to educate the populace on environmental themes. Then, if we can get an ordinance requiring the separation of organic and non-organic materials passed, the kids’ recycling business will receive the non-organic materials and the organic will go to a related composting project. The kids will receive the proceeds of recycling in the town minus a choclatada (holiday party with hot chocolate and sweetbreads) for the populace and the cut that the “recycling association” needs to sell the non-organic materials to the nearest big town and after that the capital. It should be a good youth, business, and environment project all rolled into one.
Of course, the likelihood of us coming out of this with nothing is pretty high considering all of the other projects I’ve tried and seen wither. There should be a stat for projects attempted in the tri-annual reports we do. This is simply the most promising project I’ve seen to date and with the most interested and dedicated people to see it through.
So, besides trying to marshal the forces I’ve been working with the nurse and some of the youth in sorting through the local throw-away spot. You can’t really call it a landfill because it’s pretty much just a cliff that people throw their trash off of. We’ve got a pretty good quantity of metal, plastic, and paper to sell already, which will be a nice start to the project as a whole. I also worked with some folks making the famous Incan-style andenes, or farming terraces. It’s some hard menial labor that I’m not getting enough of these days.
Another interesting factoid from this week is that I weighed myself at the health post and came out at 82 kilos, which is about 185 pounds. Considering I came to Peru at around 230, that’s pretty crazy. I’m not sure if I believe it, but I’ll get the official stats at our one-year medical checkups in September.
The only other news to report is that I’m looking forward to going to do some nice hiking in the mountains in Ancash, one of the more spectacular hiking destinations in the world. I’ll be there in about a week and can’t wait.

Volcano climbing

Well, I have really falling down on my blog duties lately. Been awhile. There´s not really a whole lot to report in the world of work and play. I´m starting the steps necessary to build a library in town, but that will take awhile. Still teaching an unhealthy amount of English, and looking forward to my next vacation possibility at the end of this month. I´m thinking of going to Ancash, one of the great hiking destinations in the world, but after my recent climbing experience, mayhap I should have second thoughts (I don´t).
I recently attempted the climb Misti, the iconic volcano that overlooks my capital city of Arequipa. It is 5800 meters tall, making it taller than any mountain in the contiguous United States and taller than the tallest mountains in Antartica, Europe, or Australia, and darn close to Africa´s tallest as well. It´s a two day hike, starting at around 10 a.m. the first day. You hike to base camp, which takes until around 4 p.m., set up camp, and settle in for a cold, cold night. At midnight everyone gets up and sets out for the summit, to get there in time for the sunrise at 6 a.m.
Unfortunately, that was not to be for me. An hour into the hike I vomited, and afterwards I was so fatigued putting one foot in front of the other was a huge chore. I gave it a shot anyways and hiked on for another two hours, but when I started feeling nauseous enough to puke again it was obvious that I was suffering from altitude sickness and there was no more point in going on. I went back with one of our guides, who had seen suspicious lights around our campsite. The way back down was for a change kind of fun. Misti has vast slopes of black volcanic sand stretching from the summit almost all the way down, and you can slide down on your feet in a kind of snowboarding sort of way and get some pretty good speed going. Doing this in the dark with only your headlamp is a bit of a rush.
When I got back to the camp I settled in until the sunrise, which was still not bad from my vantage point at around 4000 meters. One beautiful facet of it all that I forgot to mention is the city itself. It´s set out like a giant glittering Maltese cross in the night and this view just about made the other depredations worth it. In the end, I got to 5300 meters, as high as I´ve been and still quite a bit higher than any mountain in the U.S. outside of Alaska. With some training I think I´ll try and tackle Misti´s taller partner, Chachani, which is apparently the easiest mountain over 6000 meters to climb in the world. Still, this body was not made for mountain climbing, but I won´t let that stop me just yet.