Peace Corps: Peru

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Location: Lalaquiz, Piura, Peru

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Computers, Josh, Beach, Coffee, Soccer

I believe I had mentioned before that I will be working on a video project for the Small Business Development segment of Peace Corps Peru. Well the Peace Corps here doesn´t have a computer that is capable of video editing, so i decided to be adventurous and build my own "super computer". I ordered the parts last month when I was in Lima and finally recieved them about two weeks ago. Having no computer building experience, i thought it´d be a interesting/useful experience. So i brought all the parts here to Tunal and assembled the computer with my friend Josh Geebers who came to visit (whom i´ll mention later). Magically it started up on the first try.. without any major problems.... well... until the next day, when it showed absolutely no sign of life. I was a bit bummed as i had thought that we had done sucha great job putting it together. Today I finally found the problem. The power supply unit is bad.. imagine that. I guess i should have known when we found a loose screw in it when we took it out of its box. Now I´ve got to wait until i go to piura to buy a replacement. Fortunately, however it´s the cheapest component of the computer.

Anyway, i mentioned that Josh was here. He came for a week, spending the majority of the time here in Tunal. We took a number of walks to surrounding villages, played a lot of cards, and watched movies. My family wasn´t around so i took advantage of that, cooking up some of the foods i miss most from home. After four days in my site we went to piura for Semana Santa, or holy week. I wanted to show him a little more of Peru, so we decided to go to the beach. It was the first time that i had been to that particular beach, which is about 3 hrs from the city by bus. It´s one of the most touristy sites in Piura. There we met up with a few other volunteers and enjoyed 24 hours of relaxation. The following day we went to Catacaos to buy pottery and savor some of Piura´s finest ceviche.

This past saturday I presented a potential small business initiative to some of men in the municipality, hopìng that they would be willing to work with me on it. The idea deals with creating a small business which would market organic coffee packaged in mini hand woven sacks to the tourists that visit Peru. As of right now, the famers sell the coffee by the 55 kilo bag for less than a dollar per pound. We would try to increase the value of the beans by roasting the coffee... a little vertical integration, so they call it. I got really positive feedback, so it look like a definite possibility for a long term project.

Finally, a couple weeks ago i was invited to play on Tunal´s soccer team in the local league(of four total teams). The way it works is there is a tournament amongst the 4 teams, and the winner moves on to play the winner of the next district. That winner moves on until there is one champion in all of peru.... it´s call the Peru Cup. Anyway, yesterday was our first official game. Our vigerous (or no so vigerous) training began 5 days before, which was an experience in itself.. So yesterday a few hundred people came from all throughout the district to watch the games. We were given uniforms about 30 minutes before the game started, few stretches and then played ball... I was a bit nervous, since i´m really no a soccer player... and it´s not like i really blend in with the rest of the guys on the field. But i gave it my best shot. The team we played against was supposed to be the best team in the league, but we took it to em, winning 2 to 1. No, i didn´t score any goals... but i was about a foot away from putting one in from mid field...(i mean, who really trys to score from midfield anyway???) overall, though, i held my own. I did, however, end up with huge blisters on both of my feet from the cleats that i wore which were a couple sizes too small and had no insoles...