Kristin

Hurray! I did my first jogging trip this morning, in the sun! It was extremely hot, so I was about to die on my way... Well, at least I gave the old peruvian women something to look at as they were on their way to the market to sell their vegetables. These days are very beautiful, the sun shines from a clear sky, which makes the fertile landscape marvellous. Its a pity I will have to sit indoors most of the time writing on my assignment- it will be on coca production and its consequences in Peru. It´s very interesting though.

I just posted about 14 new pictures in the Chota album, same album as before. Click on "my other albums" down to the left on this page, and then click on the Chota album.

The last week has gone by really fast. We start meeting people here in Chota and make some friends. On sunday we went to a small protestant church which I think we will be joining this year. It reminded me a little of the Norwegian "bedehus", but I think me and I.M. will like it there. Afterwards we started talking to a guy in a farmacy, who invited us to eat supper with he and some friends. It seemed the cook was french, and the food turned out delicious. Thank goodness we understand more and more spanish and are more able to communicate with people. But still new words pop up like commercial windows on the Internet... After 2,5 weeks we are in the process of adjusting to the new place, the market,  the huge half pigs hanging outside the slaughter, the peacocks and dogs making terrible noise constantly, and all the new and exotic animals... Last sunday we encountered a TARANTELLA in the stairs.. Inger Marie (IM) discovered the creature and started screaming, without telling me nada of what it was. I had to pass it and call our colleagues to have them come and help us. Joel showed up and thankfully he managed to kill the beast with a piece of wood. Uh- ridiculous. Hope it will never happen again in my lifetime.

Besides that the days are also filled with more comfortable things such as bunches of laughter in the office and confusions when it comes to culture. For instance, putting your pointing finger and your thumb together, while stretching the other fingers, in Norway means "perfect" or "brilliant". Well, here in Peru it turned out yesterday that it means something totally different. While working in the childrens festival yesterday, packing and loading all the stuff in the truck, IM did this "signal" a couple of times to coordinate with our coworkers. They seemed a little confused and a smile occured, but she assumed the smile was because of someting else. At the end of the day we asked them what this signal means to them. Giggling they told us it means "gay". So much for that. "Bedre lykke neste gang"...

Today we visited a community situated at 3500 metres above sealevel, called Moran Alto. Each community in the Andean mountains has it´s circle of "Rondas", which is like a rural police. About 20 years ago the farmers had to sleep besides their animals to make sure they were not stolen by robbers. The police didn´t engage in these problems, and this forced the farmers to take care of their security themselves. Nowadays each man has to spend 15 years in the local Ronda. This means that he, every 14 days, spends a night walking around in his community with his fellow men in the Ronda, making sure the robbers stay away from the caddle. Besides taking care of local security, the Ronda is a forum for communication and exchange of knowledge and ideas in the community. CODE (and thereby Stroemme) now supports several Rondas with material and lectures on general knowledge, conflict management, how should a family function, rights as a human being etc. The men in the highland meet once a month and receive lecturing and also get the chance to create friendship and reflect upon problems they might have. It´s important to organize to strengthen your confidence and be able to achieve more power and authority. Together it´s easier for the farmers to stand for their rights. And also they are encouraged to develop as humans, and work for their country´s  development as well. 

Inger Marie and I told them a little about Norway and what it is like there. It´s really strange to represent such a developed and rich country. How can we answer the question why we ended up this way? Is it because of our system of welfare and taxes? Petroleum? I would love to have comments on this- so please post your opinion underneath!!

A huge problem with Peru is their high level of corruption. The country has plenty of resources- all kinds of nature and great condicions to grow things. The sad part is that the presidents have sold the ownership of their resources to foreign countries, probably to gain immediate benefits themselves.  For instance, foreign companies bought the gold mines in this area and now get 90 % of the profits... the receeding 10% end up as 5% in corruption and 5% eventually to the local community.... In additon, the local drinking water is polluted and not drinkable for all the people living in nearby villages. Why??

I am blessed with good Internet abilities here in Chota, so I managed to put out some photos from the first days here. Click on "my other albums" down to the left and the album called "Chota 1" on the other blog page. ¡Disfruta, muchachos!

This thursday started out early- we left at 7:30 and drove for 1,5 hours in the car before reaching Acabamba (I have no idea if that was correct), which is a small town faaaaaaaar out in the mountains. After eating breakfast in a local restaurant we headed further up in the mountains, passing by those scaaaary sites where you would like to stay on the road... Up there were super cute peruvian kids waiting for us in their primary school. CODE (and Stroemme) is giving support to this school when it comes to training of teachers, teaching material and facilities as chairs and buildings. They support with 40% of the costs to run the school, and sign a contract with the local goverment to have them contribute as well, with 40%. The final 20% is covered by the students´ families. Many families don´t have too much money to give, so they take responsibility in more practicle ways such as constructing the school buildings. CODE wants the government to take part in the education proyects as well, since in this manner the proyect is more sustainable in the long run. Also, the parents need to be involved in their children´s education. This is why CODE won´t cover a educational project a 100% economically. "Help for self-help", which is the motto of Stroemme Foundation, here expresses it´s purpose.

Inger Marie and I presented ourselves for the kids and said some phrases in Norwegian, English and Español... Tonight we will have to figure out some good spanish sentences to say for the next time... They served us fresh milk and bread for lunch- mmm! I guess straight from the cow:) We also got to eat a great meal together with some of the teachers. They have great hospitality here! And they really appreciate the support given by Stroemme Foundation. Inger Marie and I are the ones receiving all the thanks. We feel like embassadores! It´s really great to see that the resources reach out.

When we arrived Cajamarca Joel and Theodoro picked us up on the airport rightaway- luckily their spanish was understandable and they seemed to be really nice. It was absolutely great to see mountains all over the place and meet a smaller place than Lima. CODE (the organization I will work for) has a landrover car, which took us all the way to Chota, passing by amazing mountains, tiny peruvian ladies carrying wood on their back, children playing in the fields, and super steep hills... Chota was bigger than I had thought, they even have moto taxis here! Really weird to come to such a "big" town in the middle of nowhere. We met with all the crew yesterday and they all seemed nice. One young woman and 6 men! Really fun people- they seem to laugh a lot, which is good. Now: off for almuerzo (2 o clock meal) in a local restaurant.

Monday at dawn Inger Marie and I will take off for Chota and the mountains. We will fly to Cajamarca and have a 5 hour drive to Chota from there. After a meeting in the Stroemme office here in Lima with more information, I am eager to take part in the CODE project up in the "sierra". I look forward to breath in some fresh air, hike around in the beautiful nature and not having to be afraid of getting my things stolen and look over my shoulder anymore... And of course I enjoy starting the work that we are here for- meeting my colleagues and get to see what they are doing up there. The time in Lima has been unforgettable though- first of all with my host family. I have been taken to a peruvian lutheran church and a "celular" group, been dancing salsa to reggeaton music with my "cousins", watched out on the city from a beautiful viewpoint by the ocean and met the girls in the center for young mothers. And much more, as you can tell by my blog. What I can sum up about Lima is only that its very big and diverse... I have seen so many sides of it, you wouldn`t guess it`s the same city. A very interesting stay. Good food, and above all, very nice and friendly people.

Some days ago we went with Claudia and Carmen (two sisters) to the center of Lima, which is an own district. The city is really huge, it takes 1,5 hours to reach downtown by bus from where I live... There are a lot of great buildings in the center which were built when Peru was a spanish colony. We visited a cathedral and went down into the catacombs.. there was a bad smell of dead people and kinda dark and disgusting... Underneath the altar of the church the most important people were buried.

Peru is heavily influenced by the Spain, which is really strange since its so far away. Especially the center of Lima with all its european architecture show how much power the spanish men had.

I managed to post 5 more pictures in the Lima album! Hurray... it takes forever to download. I would wish to show all the pictures I have, but it takes too long, I am sorry.

Today we visited one of Stromme´s partners here in Lima called Asidme, which does micro finanze. Its about giving out small loans to persons that are so poor they are not given the possibility to loan from a bank etc. This loan will make them able to for instance buy equipment to produce things to sell. One of the ladies we visited (in their homes) was making small teddybears, sowed by hand and sold for about 1 Sol (2 kr) each. Most of the time she exports them to abroad, because the competition is really tough here in Peru. In this manner she can provide financial support to her family and make a living. Everyone receiving this loan has to be part of a "grupo de confianza", which consists of about 25 people (mostly women- because Stroemme sees a real potential in these). This group meets regularly to exchange experiences and knowledge, but also to receive teaching on different subjects as for instance how to do business and also more human knowledge such as their rights as women/humans. They are also given the opportunity to learn to make soap and other things to make a business out of. If a person cant pay her/his interest, the group as a whole has to help her economically that month. In this way, being a member of the group is a form of insurance. Very interesting to see that micro finance actually helps people to make a living! I could tell by the womens smiles... 

Click the link to the left saying "my other albums"! There I have put some pictures taken her in Lima.