lookin´ back

So it´s been seven months in site. After spending some quality time with PCV friends in Piura this weekend, I realize that we all have the same thoughts running through our troubled minds: "OK, grace period is over, what will I be doing for the next year and a half??" When we first started, we were reassured by the fact that you´re not supposed to "know what you´re doing" until 3 months in when you start defining your project...but it´s still not definite. After a year, you´re supposed to feel a lot more settled in and understand what your role will be. Now that we´re in between, I feel like I just graduated and now need to decide what to do with my life. Like I better figure it out now before I look back at my 2 years in Perú and ask myself why I squandered my time as well as hard-earned taxpayer money. It´s good to talk to friends and ask ourselves the same questions at the same time so we know it´s normal to be unsure.

For me, I´ve been trying to sipher through what has potential to be a long-term project and what I´d be happy doing. Many people view Peace Corps volunteers as idealistic freaks who just want to be altruistic. Not true at all for most of us. Idealists we may be, but I certainly didn´t come to sacrifice myself nor did I come for purely altruistic reasons.

So what are my plans?
1) I´m going to follow-up with teachers to support them in using an experiential method of teaching that we´ve offered workshops on. It´s called "Enseñanza de la Ecología en el Patio de La Escuela" and the Audubon Society promotes it, in case you´re wondering. I went to one school today to see it in action for the first time. It was cute to see the kids outside playing with ants and presenting findings to scientific inquiries. One thing I definitely want to support the teachers with is the art of graph-making. They are atrocious at deciding what graphs to use to represent data. Not too important, but it pains the nerdy side of me.

2) I´m going to work with a school to create a garden where they can do all sorts of lessons about the environment, the hard sciences, language, values, math, nutrition, culture, etc. It´ll be fun working with the kids and rewarding to see things grow. It will definitely be an organic garden. I like this activity because there is a lot of room for creativity and ingenuity. Plus, I like working with this school. The director, teachers and kids are great (even though this is the failed recycled paper project school). My dad thinks it´s funny I´ll be doing a garden, probably because I didn´t show any interest in his garden growing up...well, except to eat fresh tomatoes and strawberries.

3) Creating a youth environmental leadership club. Working with youth will be much easier and rewarding than working with adults. They have more time and energy, and are more easily molded. Again, there are a trillion things I can do with them, so I´m excited about it. TV or radio shows, mural painting, kids clubs, public awareness campaigns, community service, advocacy, educational plays, etc. And if you were wondering about this right after reading my last entry about how I hate adolescents...well, the kids in my town are different from the kids I´m working with now. They are more confident, there is more gender equality, and I´m going to work with a slightly older crowd. I´m going to start a "leadership day camp" during their week-long school vacation in early August.

4) Working to improve management of the Mangroves with the Municipality...and an NGO I´ve been working with that has extremely limited capacity and needs a lot of help. Unfortunately for them, they don´t recognize it. Why do they lack in capacity? Poorly defined leadership structure, poorly defined vision or mission, activities are determined by funding rather than what´s needed, extremely weak links with the community they are trying to help, no concept of civil society participation, very little technical background for the work they´re doing, lack of group cohesiveness except among the group of friends who started the NGO, and in my opinion, they even lack passion for the community. It seems a bit paternalistic, perhaps because they are relatively richer folks who live in Piura, the city. I´d prefer not to work with them, but that would be irresponsible since I think this would be part of my job definition. Besides, they are doing work here and they have funding. Plus, I studied the world of NGOs...I should probably utilize my background in it. It will be difficult since I don´t particularly like the "leadership", so it´ll be an interesting personal experience I guess.

That´s probably a lot already, but there´s some other stuff I want to do, such as making that book about birds of the Mangroves with a teacher activity guide. It seems badly needed. And figuring out possibilities of alternative incomes for fishermen...especially the artisinal ones. My counterpart wants to start aquaculture activities, but that is a very bad idea. If we raised shrimp, we´d cut down the mangroves. If we did freshwater fish, we´d be using up badly needed water here in the desert. I´d also REALLY like to figure out how to work part-time in La Tortuga, the artisinal fishing village on the beach an hour away that is still part of my Municipality (see one of my previous entries). OK, so obviously I still haven´t figured it all out. But at least I´ve given up on trying to work with teachers at every single school to develop their environmental lesson plans.

OH, and of course many people have been asking me about what World Cup Fever has been like here in Perú. It´s been relatively tame, but there is definitely still a Fever. I´d say it´s like a 99 degree F fever. For example, when I met the mayor of La Tortuga, he had us finish our conversation in a room that actually had the games showing. Everyone tried watching the finals, or at least listening to them on the radio. And of course some lucky kids got new Argentina or Brasil jersies. Although South America didn´t advance to the finals, everyone still watched excitedly...for the love of the game. The "Cerveza (Beer) de Perú," Cristal, had a huge campaign about how they will be donating money trying to build up Perú´s fútbol team so in 4 years, we can live the dream...so drink more beer, make Perú proud. Great message.