Cilia

Cilia
Social Impact Design

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Halfway through training!





Its hard to believe that I am already halfway through my training. This past week was quite different that all the others. We had Field Based Training, meaning that my group of 19 went on a field trip 5 hours south of Lima.

Driving down the Pan American Highway revealed some amazing views of the Pacific. Between the sand dunes and steep rocky cliffs, I saw the waves crashing onto the sand. The sunset was also really breathtaking.

The first site we visited was in Cañete. We visited two married volunteers who had been living in a small pueblo outside the city for about a year. It was really nice to actually see some of the projects we will be doing in the future, instead of just having lectures about it.

The first day, Dan showed us how the gravity fed water system worked. We walked from the canal, past the pre-sedimentary tank and along the distribution line. The system serves a village of 85 families, who work in the chacras (farm land) surrounding their small community. We walked past potatoes, apples, artichoke, alfalfa, and many exotic fruits (Lucama, mariculla, pepino to name a few). Cañete is a desert climate, but the canal coming from the mountain provides water for the chacra and the village.

The quality of the water varies throughout the year. In the spring, when there is rain in the mountains, there is a lot more sediment in the water. This often causes issues with the simple water system, because it requires more maintenance of the settlement tank. There are only two people who “work” with the system, and they do it without being paid.

Often, people in the villages have to relearn how the system works, because information is not passed down, and there are no diagrams of where different components are located, and most people done know how it functions. This is why the Peace Corps stresses capacity building, training and education. If you find money and build something to help a village, it won’t mean much if there is not someone who knows how to maintain it.

After the water passes through the system to a tank above the village, it moves through a basic sand filter to remove larger particles. In a proper water treatment plant, chlorine is added to kill bacteria and viruses, but this village is not as fortunate. Everyone needs to boil their water before drinking it, otherwise they will get sick (often in the form of diarrhea or vomiting).

One of my main tasks in Peace Corps will be to facilitate Behavior Change. Its one thing to have town meetings about the importance of washing hands, boiling water, and using the bathroom in proper places, but it is a whole other thing to change the habits of people who have been doing something one way their entire life.

Day two, we learned about solid waste management. Yes, that’s right, I work with bathrooms and trash. Many volunteers work with the municipality to implement recycling programs. As it is now, no one recycles, even though plastic bottles, paper and tin cans are worth money. There are only 3 landfills in Perú, meaning that most towns just collect the trash and dump it a pile in the desert. Many times, there is no trash collection, and people just burn their trash. Everyday I smell the fumes of plastic and paper.

Although there is an informal recycling industry, it is dangerous for the people who do it. Basically people dig through these huge piles of burning trash looking for plastic bottles, without any protection on their hands or mouth. Many get lung cancer or other illnesses from the rotting trash they dig through.

Many Peace Corps Volunteers create pilot recycling projects, sometimes working with other NGOs. In Nazca, one volunteer created a program with 500 houses, with collection twice a week. It was great to see how much one person could do for a community.

The last two days were in Ica, a very hot and dry city in the south of Perú. We toured a school and saw how a volunteer started a recycling program there. The students use the money from the program to improve their “green spaces” in the school, buying flowers and trees.

The whole trip was quite amazing. The food was great: Sopaseca, chicharones, tamales and the Pisco. The last day we went on a dune ride: unbelievable. In addition to the rollercoaster like drops we drove down, we sandboarded and used sleds to ride down the fine sand. I have a lot of videos, but not sure how soon I will be able to upload them.

That’s all for now! My birthday is next Friday and the Monday after that, we find out where we will be placed for the next two years! I will let you know soon.

Oh PS: we got our phones! My number is 51-979-585-414.



Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Solo fotos, nada mas

The futbol field outside of my house has soccer ever sunday. we sit on the roof, with great view


They play until sunset



Last saturday, the water sanitation program visited Ayas, a town of 85 families about an hour and a half away from my host community. we hiked for about 2 hours to inspect their gravity fed water system. The view along the way was stunning.


Visit of Ayas





Town of 85, at 2500 meters above sea level




A short rest, about an hour hike above the town.




Sunday:

The town of Santa Eulalia has a festival every year called Pachamanca. It even has the guiness book world record for the largest amount of Pachamanca. It has three types of meat, potatoes, and sweet potatoes, all slowcooked in the ground with hot rocks. Very very filling and delicious





This is my host mother. I am the 7th volunteer she has hosted, but all the others have been girls. She is very understanding and hospitable. She makes cakes for special occasions, but mainly attends to the household. She is very motherly towards me, and always reminds me not to drink cold things at night, because it will give me a cold.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Videos!

Video 1: Procession of the cross- when the spaniards converted the Incans to catholisism, they put crosses onto the mountains that the Incans worshiped. So now there is a tradition of carrying crosses from town to town. This video is from the first night I got to my host family




Video2- This is the party we had with the church after the procession, with free food, free drinks and free dancing. My mom is part of the church group and so she helped prepared everything. This is the convent, where they have pet llamas.


Video3-Hora Loca. So last saturday I went to a 2year olds birthday party. It was very intense, with clowns, a walking mini mouse and all sorts of treats. Then at one point, it became hora loca (crazy hour), where the clown sprayed us with silly string and handed out whistles and balloons and crazy colored hats and snake ties and all sorts of stuff. it was probably the most intense hour of my life. later that night, another volunteers host grandfather was turning 70.



He had a 5 horn band, a harp, a violin and beer for all. About 20 volunteers showed up, as well as his family. It was in a small barrio higher up in the mountains, and the view at night was stunning. After about two hours of dancing around to the saxiphones, all of a sudden a whistle blew....and guess what? This 70 year old man had the exact same hora loca, dancing clowns and all. And when I say dancing clowns, I mean they were grinding, hardcore.


Sorry the internet is supper slow and I cant upload all the videos now. I will soon though