Ancash pics and new design

Hey all,

You may have noticed the new design, which was a long time coming. I finally figured out how to spice things up with pictures and such (it really wasn´t that hard). Also, after the dour tone of the last post I will be rolling out a solutions themed essay whenever I get around to writing it. Enjoy the pictures, and here´s a link to the newest from my vacation to Ancash-

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/Ancash#

Rant

I’m going to rant about work here, just this once. For a young idealist, development work seems just about perfect. You’re helping change the world a little at the time, travel, and experience new cultures. In reality, the travel and culture are certainties, but the changing the world is anything but.
Let me demonstrate with a small, seemingly inconsequential episode. A Peruvian NGO approached me earlier this week about helping set up a workshop they had planned. They had all the details of the workshop planned out on their end, but needed me to recruit interested young people to take part and make sure they got to the regional capital for the event. Just about every expense was covered and the information looked good with potential to spark some change on important issues. They just forgot one little detail, and one little detail is all that it takes to tank a development project.
That small detail was the lack of funds to cover transportation to the regional capital. We’re only talking 8 soles roundtrip, or a little less than 3 bucks. The young folks that were interested in the workshop weren’t interested enough to pay to go, and the NGO was too dumb or stubborn to provide the funds themselves. I wasn’t too surprised, so I asked the municipality for the funds, which was truly small change for them. Unfortunately, they had to sign it off with the mayor, and since he’s never in town… I had to go to the municipality every night of the week to get the runaround I knew was coming, and, of course, nobody went to the workshop.
It really was no big deal, but it demonstrates the fundamental problems with each of the major players of the development game: the NGOs, the local government, and the people themselves. NGOs just offer workshop after workshop, with little to no follow-up. They never get to know the people enough to cover the small details that sink projects, and their hand-out attitude often spoils the people for anybody that is really interested in affecting change.
The local government, like all politicians, has its sights set on first staying in power and only secondly accomplishing things. That’s the bane of democracy; elected officials always have to look over their backs and that can get in the way of performance. This automatically puts the focus on the short-term win over any long-term project which limits the effect you can have.
Finally, you have the people. Since the default setting for people anywhere is complacency, getting them moving towards anything is a Herculean task. Not that there aren’t motivated individuals in town, there just aren’t enough, and eventually they fall under the influence of the others or cut loose from a sinking ship and seek their own fortunes in bigger ponds. You can’t give them an excuse to not try (like not paying for their ride into town) or they just won’t.
So, I’ll probably walk out of here after two years without having anything concrete to point to as an accomplishment, or even a tiny footstep towards that “changing the world”. And that’s development work… beating your head against the wall and hoping that there’s not just more brick on the other side. I have some time yet, but I can tell you now that I won’t regret my time here. The last two goals of Peace Corps, learning something from other cultures and teaching them that Americans don’t eat babies, will be accomplished, and I will have gained great relationships and stories from these two years. I will certainly continue to make project plans with the few folks that are interested in change, and maybe that mythical successful project will come down the pipe, but I’m not holding my breath.

Ancash and comings and goings

Back from vacation finally. Not me that is, but the schools. Vacation was extended another week on account of the pig flu making its way around and it’s just this week that I’ve had anything to do. The environment project was on the skids until the students got back (some were I the capital doing odd jobs), and it’s almost like starting from square one again, but we’ll get it going again.
As for my vacation, Ancash was beautiful. While the elevation isn’t as intense as where I live in Arequipa, there are many, many more snow-capped mountains. I finally felt like I was in the Andes there. I spent two nights in the city of Huaraz, which wasn’t terribly impressive, and two nights camping by a beautiful glacier lake up in the Huascaran National Park, named after the tallest tropical mountain in the world, which is also pretty impressive. Well, I don’t feel like waxing poetic at the moment, but trust me, Ancash is well worth the visit and pictures will be a-comin’.
The last item of interest these last few weeks is the come and go of volunteers in Arequipa. Training class #9 is on their way out, and #13 is coming in. We will be getting four new volunteers who we’ve already met and seem pretty cool. We’re also getting a transfer from my training class, Sal, who was one of my best buds in training. It’s sad to be losing some good friends who I’ve spent the last year with, but it looks like we’ll have a pretty good group as well for the next year and should both have plenty of fun and get some quality work done.

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.

Pictures!

Hey all,

Nothing much to report here except that I finally got the chance to upload all the pictures from the last few posts- including those of Holy Week in Ayacucho, my vacation to Macchu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, and my brief foray as a bullfighter. All of those can be found here-

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/AyacuchoCuscoPunoAndBullfighting#

Enjoy!

Bullfighting

Well, I did something a little dumb but exhilarating this week. I bullfought, toreador style, in the next town over.
We´ve been celebrating the festival of San Isidro this weekend, which seems to revolve round bulls more than anything. The people of the town brought their yuntas, or plowing pair of bulls, to the church to get them blessed on Friday, followed by the usual marching around with a band and dancing that all festivals here seem to feature. On Saturday, the next town over, Lari, had a bullfight. I had heard that they would let whoever felt like it enter, and had been mulling it over, because as experiences go it would be one of the more unique I´d likely have to boast of in my lifetime.
It turned out that indeed amateurs were allowed in the ring. I decided to check out the first bull and see how that went. One guy got knocked out and as I was taking a picture of that the bull turned and threw another one about five feet up and out. These two were drunk, as were the majority of the amateur talent out there. After that a real toreador showed up, in costume and all, and I figured that that was the end of amateur night, but as it turned out a few folks jumped in anyways. In one of the less thought out decisions I´ve made I hopped right in as well.
At first I just intended on using my coat as a kind of makeshift cape, but the mayordomo, or the guy financing the festival, took off a decorative cape he was wearing and let me use it. The first bull I tried was a pretty mad one (or maybe it was a cow- as it turns out they get just as pissed off when goaded and their horns are just as sharp, so there were a few mixed in with the bulls) I soft-stepped up to it and got it to paw the earth at me, but I was a bit surprised (I have no idea why) when it actually charged. I was able to misdirect it with the cape and hightail it to one of the board set up for toreadors to duck behind when a bull is right on their tail. The next few I was more daring on and I even faced off a group of three who in the end didn´t do a whole lot. All-in-all I fought four bulls (not including that lame group of three) with increasing confidence and walked out of the ring without a scratch and a lot of enthused drunk folks (who had a habit of falling of the wall surrounding the ring and having to be helped up in the middle of fights) yelling for the gringo toreador.
So, I´ll get those pictures up this next Friday when I´m in the capital and the internet can handle it. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries half way through so I only have pictures of the first couple of bulls and the group of three, but you´ll get the idea. And mayhap I´ll try it again at my town´s bullfight in July...