I’m still in Peru

So, it’s been a long time since I’ve written… Sorry about that. I actually have a good reason for not writing as frequently but it’s a secret so you’ll have to email to figure out what it is… :)

Anyway, I’m not sure how or why but electricity seems to be a more consistent thing in San Marcos now and since the telephone pole in front of my house is all fixed, I am now working hard on the radio show. After some hang-ups, I think we have the times all worked out and people have told me that they are going to be listening.

Next Tuesday I will be stalking most anyone I know though to get them to listen…and then stalk the radio to make sure they transmit the show (‘cause both have been known not to happen, though most of my concern lies with the latter action not happening.)

Well, good things and bad things have happened since I last wrote. The school garden we started is now producing lots of vegetables and looks good. But the cool-yo meeting that I was supposed to have on Thursday to coordinate with all of the professors in the area is not going to happen…at all. Yesterday, (Thursday) I was up and going to Chavin at 6am but still managed to miss the professor to ask her if the meeting was still on. So, I figured out where “Quercos” was and even found a woman who was going there too so we could find a ride together (this entire process took two hours so don’t think it was a walk in the park). I finally get to this town…to the school…and no one knows what I’m talking about. Yes, there is often a meeting at the end of the month but no one has told them when and its certainly not going to happen today. Awesome.

So, I walk down the highway for a half an hour and find myself at the base of the “Tanin” hill when I realize that my week of unanswered phone calls, meetings that don’t exist, and trips that may or may not happen will all be resolved if I walk twenty minutes up this hill… So, I do.

Just as expected I’m greeted with a, “Hey Amanda! How are you doing?” [aka-oblivious to the fact that we might have had an important meeting scheduled for today whereupon they had told me I was to make a two hour presentation.] I ask about the meeting and they tell me that oh no, it was never scheduled for today, it was scheduled for Saturday.
Me: “Oh, so we’re going to have the meeting on Saturday, then?”
Them: “Oh no, we probably won’t have it until March.”
Me: “Right.”
And so it goes…

So, I walk down the hill, continue another fifteen minutes up the road to another town I’ve never been to and go to my Plan B meeting (because I kinda figured that Plan A might not work out). It was a nutrition “training” for health promoters by another NGO that has recently come to, well, Ancash, it appears. They are basically doing the same thing I am so I’ve been trying to meet with the coordinator ever since I’ve heard of them to work together….seeing as they are cooler than me anyways.

Therefore, at the end of my very not productive and very frustrating day, a ray of light came down and hopefully I can coordinate with ADRA because it appears there is mutually beneficial work to be done. Yay. Unfortunately, I was very tired at this point so they may think that they have agreed to work with a sort of zombie type being.

Anyway, I peaced out of the workshop early to run back to San Marcos, find my counterpart to run a document over to the elementary school (by the way, that didn’t work out either… in another famous conversation with the c.p. I said, “Hi Marleny!” and she said, “I’m going to lunch.”
“So, tomorrow then?”
“Uh.”)
Good and bad, productive and not, another day in the Cuerpo de Paz.