Tuesday, 28 March 2006
Delivering school material
Today the trip goes to Chalamarca, and a whole lot of other schools. I am sitting here waiting in the office, my colleagues were supposed to show up half an hour ago, 6:30am. Why couldn’t I just sleep a little more? Lately we have really experienced how the Peruvian time concept is completely different from the Norwegian… People show up 1 hour late, and no pasa nada- no bad feelings or angry expressions. Being Norwegian I am always the one having to wait, because a deal is a deal, isn`t it? Please tell the others, will you…
Another great (?) event is what happened on thursday – the president candidate Ollanta Humala came to visit tiny Chota! If you ask me, I think he might get to win the eleccions. The people were going crazy with their flags and banners, shouting slogans to the former military leader. They like how he “favors the farmers”. For example, the other candidate Alan Garcìa arrived on sunday, but he arrived in helicoptre, while Humala arrived by car. The latter is more down to earth!
The friday coming up Inger Marie and I will travel to Trujillo, a city on the coast, and stay there until tuesday night. We have some friends studying there, and hope to meet with them and also go to the beach to have some sun.
Have a nice week my friends!
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Monday, 20 March 2006
Peru againts a new chapter?
In Tacabamba CODE arranged training for teachers, of the primary schools with which we have cooperacion. Every fourth year the educational plans, and thereby the curriculum, changes with every new government. Recently Peru was on the last place in a research based on the countries` educational systems in South America. Until now, the peruvian teacher has dictated and told the children what to learn and what to think. The government has been contemplating, and has mailed the teachers a new kind of curriculum, implying that the teaching should make the child take a bigger and active part in their education. Peru needs children that have self esteem, that think themselves, and are aware of their own reality, so that they are able to improve their life conditions, and develop Peru as a country. Since the government doesn’t take their responsibility to implement all the plans they are collaborating, non-governmental institutions like CODE will have to step in and fill “the big holes” that the state leaves when it comes to education. A lot of the teachers don`t care about changing their strategy of teaching, that’s why CODE wants to motivate them, and suggest to them how they should organize their work.
The elections for a new president are coming up- April 9th. The two most popular candidates are Lourdes
Flores (a woman!) and Ollanta Humala. Even though most Peruvians have given up hope when it comes to presidents not keeping their promises, a lot of people put their last piece of hope on Lourdes. They think that maybe a woman will be more honest and trustworthy. Humala is a good friend of the radical Bolivian new president, and will probably go for a military dictatorship if he gets to power in Peru. He is travelling to the highlands and to the hidden small communities of the jungle to gain support among the poor farmers and other people without education. He is a candidate very different from the others, and promises to take away all the corruption in brutal way, and he has many strange ideas such as to give every child in primary school a bread made from coca every day. It will make them grow (most Peruvians are very low in height) and solve the problem of bad nutrition.Ojalà (=lets hope) the new president will invest more resources on education. As of today, Peru spends 3,6 % of their income on education, while Norway spends like 6-7%. About 20 % of the national income is used to pay back external debt. It’s a crazy world. In my opinion boosting the expenses on education would be a main factor for Peru`s progress. But most important of all: it would make the everyday for the Peruvian much better.
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Sunday, 12 March 2006
Baile, que baile, mueve tu cadera
Recently I started to take part in a course of tradicional peruvian dance with my colleague Mary. I wanted to learn after watching their anterior dance show. So now I will be jumping and waving with my arms and my head for the coming weekends, three hours every saturday and sunday!! Its a lot of fun, but indeed a whole lot of excercise. Among others we have learned the dance of the condor, which is from Puno and Lake Titicaca.
These days its a great challenge to get out in the countryside/mountains, as the rain is amazingly heavy. The other day we were to leave from Tacabamba (1,5 hours away), and we encountered varios great rivers crossing the road and trees and rocks and sand and earth blocking our passage... We had to take another route, but over there had a mountain of a rock fallen down, and the mayor (ordfoerer) had come and used his dynamite to split it. But the two parts blocked the road even more... And the mayor had run out of dynamite... Two trailers of milk were parked up, replacing AAALLL the milk from the one car to the other, to save it from get spoiled, because the trailer with deliverance of milk couldnt pass... After varios hours waiting in the rain and cold, someone managed to move the one stone and Joel, our chofeur, drove quickly towards Chota. Well, it ended up taking 6 hours in stead of 1,5. I was glad we didnt have to spend the night in the car at 3000 metres above sea level.
I dont have more space to put out more pictures, so for that I am sorry. I will see if I could try and work it out in a way or another. Until then - Cuidanse mucho todos mis amigitos! Un abrazo
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Wednesday, 01 March 2006
¡CARNAVAL!
This weekend we learned a new word: BULLA! (=noise). We went to Cajamarca, a city in the mountains, 6 hours away, which is well known in Peru for its carnaval. The moment we stepped out of the bus saturday evening, I got a bucket of dirty water from the streets in my face. Driving in a taxi to the hotel, we saw a terrible sight; all the cars, buildings, people, were painted (not voluntarily) in all kinds of colors... It appeared this was the entrance day of the carnavals, and the day for painting... So we went straight to the market to buy some clothes we could risk be painted. The same night we met with some friends from Chota. One of them had his typical carnaval drum, which he constantly played on during the night... The peruvians started to sing/shout carnaval songs, which are short verses- invented as somthing happens in front of them or someone passes by. For example, they could sing "Que bonita señorita, que bonita señorita!" (Oh what a beautiful girl x2) when a pretty girl passed by. A lot of fun, but the melody was kind of monotone, so I ended up with this song in my head at all times of the weekend... In the nights all the youths hanged out in the main square, in groups, singing, playing and dancing the characteristic carnaval dance. An exciting and inspiring environment! But the fiesta included a lot of drinking, and there were a lot of drunk peruvians and tourists that had too much of the peruvian maiz drink "Chicha".
The next day we went out to have breakfast at the main square. Returning to the hotel, we didnt have a simple idea of what was awaiting us. The street outside our hotel was all of a sudden filled with loads of people, with their buckets of water, water balloons and water gunners and all kinds of equipment for a real WATER WAR!! As we ran into the entrance of the hotel we were already soaked to the bone. Almost the rest of the day we spent on the third floor of our hotel, watching the carnaval parade that passed by. People of all ages dressed up as clowns, fairies, devils, angels, cartoon figures, and all kinds of animals, jumped and danced around. A lot of joy and laughter- really pretty. In the afternoon we had to eat SOMETHING, so anxiously we stepped out on the street and took the first taxi we could find to go to a china restaurant. The water war continued all weekend, so we ended up taking taxis all over... Nevertheless, Inger Marie ran out of dry clothes and sat there shivering, pobrecita. The last day, monday, there was a new parade. This time all the districts had their own part, and they showed their local "señorita carnaval", or carnaval princess. There was a jury that at last found a winner district, with the prettiest costumes, performance and princess. An experience to watch, and especially feel the environment around, as people had met 4 hours before to find some good seats and start the water battle, while they were drumming and singing and dancing. I returned to Chota with a new impression of the peruvians: a crazy but friendly and happy people.
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