"Alcohol is your enemy, God is your creator"

Today the Municipality marched through the streets along with hundreds of little schoolkids in uniform against alcoholism, and I ran along with them for more than an hour under the cruel desert sun. Along the way, we tried our best to avoid the horse or donkey poop in various stages of freshness or decay as farmers shooed their little flocks of sheep out of the way. Mototaxis drove by us with kids standing on the back holding up more signs that said "Avoid alcohol and drugs, remember God." This tells you two things:

1) Alcoholism is a problem in my town. My host family tells me that kids as young as 13 are alcoholics. They catch fish, sell their fish to a middle man and then use the money for Cristal (Peruvian beer), not for their family or for food.

2) The Municipality and the community as a whole are very organized and will confront problems with dynamic solutions. I´m always impressed at how many activities the Municipality is responsible for and how well they understand the problems they face. The question is whether their solutions are effective. That´s where I hope to come in, as far as environmental conservation is concerned.

Now I know that my sunscreen rocks. It was also a good time to hang out with the other people at the municipality in a casual setting. I also met some more employees, so that made my week much better. Then afterwards, I had a cold one (Inca Kola, not beer!) at the local restaraunt with a few of them...and they invited me to try ceviche for the first time! Ceviche is raw fish, which is awesome because it´s like I´m eating sushi but not. My stomach feels fine right now, so I think it was clean. It´s a hit or miss dish. Today, it was a hit!

Then during lunch, a woman who works in the community with the local branch of an international development NGO, CARE, walked in and had lunch with me by chance. They have been working on water projects as well as trainings on hygiene and conservation. Their goals reflect my own, so it was very lucky for me that she popped in. She told me that the caseríos (see 2 entries ago) have water 2 hours a day, but that in reality, the quantity of water is sufficient. The problem is that there is a lot of water wasted through people washing their patios, leaving the faucet running, or not fixing leaks. Their solution has been to first make sure every house has a water meter so everyone knows how much water they´re using. Then, the municipality is going to privatize the water system so that people will have to pay for their water. In various communities worldwide, privatization has been hurtful to the water users in the past, cutting off their access to water completely or making them pay a good chunk of their salary for water use. However, if the charges and methodology of payment are fair, in this case, the results might be positive. It´ll be really interesting to see what happens. Another happy thing about my conversation with her: I understood the majority of what she said and was able to sound somewhat intelligent as I spoke.

Anyway, I give this day 4 out of 5 stars.