Elections! Here comes the Parade!

This Sunday is Election Day in Peru. The past couple of weeks I haven't heard about many debates, but I have seen parade after parade. The tactic that many politicans take here in Peru is to put on a good show, have a catchy tune and hope that the clown will convince you to vote for his candidate. Local races this year. There must be nearly a dozen candidates for Mayor. Which means a lot of parades. I am not sure if I will go out and witness voting on Election Day, as I hear it can get intense with joy and disappointment, but there are still a couple of more days left of the parade.

The little pig visit

The surprises of working here in and outside of Cajamarca is that sometimes when I go to visit a loan recipient I get to witness her recently, less than a day, old piglets. Desy and I had to visit a crochet class yesterday outside of Los Banos. Before visiting the crochet students we made a visit to another loan recipient's house closeby. Juana and Silvia are in the village bank Azucecans that formed only 2 months ago. Since I haven't seen them since they formed their village bank I wanted to see what they were up to and why they haven't come to classes at the Hope House.

Well, my answer was clear.
1. Their pig was giving birth that very afternoon and (pictured above) you can see the new piglets. They were attentive to the pigs needs, as they didn't want Mama pig to squish little piggies, which have a market value of about $50 each.
2. They have to take care of their pigs and give them a good amount of food every afternoon. The pig feeding and cleaning starts at 4 and goes until 6pm. That is when most of our Hope House activities are planned.
3. Their houses are not next to the Hope House. They have to walk 10 minutes to the street where buses pass, get on a Cajamarca bus for about 1/2 hour before they are within close walking distance to the Hope House. When classes end around 5:30-6pm, they have to do the same thing in reverse. So, it is not that easy to just sign up for a class.

Desy and I were getting a taste of the campo reality that doesn't allow all our loan recipients to easily sign up and participate in our learning opportunities that Hope House offers. Solution: Let's do a class here in your house. We are in the midst of looking for another sewing machine so we can hold a sewing course in Silvia's house. Then, the only people that need to travel are Desy, myself and the teacher!

P.S. I don't know if I introduced Desy in a previous post. She is my new co-worker and I love having her here! There she is, modeling a scarf with our knitting class this week.

Celebrating Literacy Day and Welcome Desy!

This Monday was a special day for a lot of us in Cajamarca with DiscoverHope
1. We celebrated Literacy Day out in the campo with one of our literacy groups. Literacy Day in Peru is actually September 8, but it is never too late for brownies and coffee!
2. To help us celebrate, Desiree - our new addition to the village bank project, arrived just in time for the festivities. Desiree volunteered with us last year and is back for 3 months to help DHF on the ground and do and learn program coordination in the Hope House.

Cheers to all the literacy learners and all the good work that we still have yet to do! And, Welcome back to Cajamarca Desiree!

First Aid Check

On Saturday we finished the 2nd part of our First Aid series. Last month Elizabeth talked about preventing infections and healing wounds. This month she talked about burns and what to do/what not to do. The group had me laughing along with them, as we talked about commonly used household goods that are often thought to cure and help burns, like tomato, hot pepper (!) or potato. We not only talked about burns and treatment of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, but actually practiced our new found skills using different scenarios. This got the group laughing even more, especially when the patient pretended to scream and then when water was poured on one of the other patients during her scenario. They all said they wanted to come back next month for First Aid classes, but I think on top of all the new information they received, it is also because they had such a good time with Elizabeth.

Photo Show Success

Hugo's photo inauguration came and went. And, there was standing room only by the time the show started. There were some beautiful Andean tunes that started the show. Father Miguel Garnett very eloquently presented Hugo and the idea of art through photography in a completely poetic way. Father Garnett is a priest from England who has through time become Cajamarcan, and furthermore is well known as a writer and artist himself, including author of various books about the region that he now inhabits. Hugo got a little nervous when it got to be his time to shine and speak to the crowd about his art work. But, he did a fine job. After the presentations the crowd moved into the patio to give a toast to Hugo's work. The crowd stayed and mingled and enjoyed the artwork and appetizers that were passed around. After we all marveled in his work and the friends crowd moved into celebration mode that lasted until, well, the following morning.

Photo Show

Hugo's first ever individual photography show is tonight. "The Color of Voice" and we will be celebrating until the wee hours afterwards!

Full House at Hope House

Yesterday we had a Full House here at the Hope House. Days like this feel good and crazy and satisfying. In our computer room we had 6 students take their pre-test to measure their initial computer skills. Our computer course that began yesterday is focusing on creating documents in Word and a brief introduction of Excel. The course that began yesterday will end in November; thus completing 12 sessions in total. The students that finish the full course will receive a course certificate that may help them find a job and definitly beef up their computer credentials. The idea is to prepare them for a job with computers, for example as a secretary or computer lab "typer," which is a popular job here in town.


In the other room we had 14 knitters creating a new poncho stitch. Last month our loan recipients reported a total of 408 soles of additional income due to new techniques that they learned at the Hope House and then used in their knitting businesses. 408 soles = about $150 of new income! Every month I encourage women to fill out their earning/savings sheet that indicate to DHF how much our classes are helping our women economically with their businesses. In August our knitters had good business sales, compared to other months where the women collectively reported less than 300 soles ($100) in knitting additional income.

We're done already?

That was the response I got yesterday as we finished the 3rd leadership workshop with our village banks here in Cajamarca. One of the participants, Carmela, said "This is the last one? We're done already? But these workshops were so helpful and it feels like we just got started." It touched me to hear that my passion and energy in forming these workshop touched someone deeply. I mentioned to Carmela I would consider holding more leadership workshops for those loan recipients that are thirsty for more knowledge.In the 3 workshops that were organized for our Cajamarcan loan recipients we worked on a couple main themes: identifying good leadership qualities and defining what leadership is, identifying leadership qualities within each of us, and talking about the importance of communication and working in groups (as leaders). I think the 3rd workshop is the best of them all. Why? Because we get to play communication games like; How do you feel today? (making gestures and have the audience guess our emotion) and Car and Driver (in pairs the "Driver" gives instructions to her blind "Car" about where to go), thus using fun activities to talk about the importance of verbal and non-verbal communication. Then we end the workshop by building sweet marmellow towers and test our group communication skills. We reflect about the process of building towers in a group and what worked well, what didn't. It is a great way to bring the women together and talk about leadership in a non-threatening way.

That's the news from the leadership corner. Stay tuned for more to come!

Kuntur Wasi

After nearly 3 years now in Cajamarca, I finally made it out to Kuntur Wasi. What is Kuntur Wasi you ask? Pre-incan ruins that are known throughout Peru as famous burial grounds where gold beyond imagination was discovered. The small museum down the way from the ruins displays elegant gold crowns and earrings bigger than your head. The ruins themselves have been escavated and then covered again, so there is very little to see as far as intact ruins. But, the view up top the mountain we climbed was spectacular. We went with a fun group of Spainish, Italian, French and Peruvian friends. It was an international day.

We took the new highway to the town San Pablo (that is 1/2 hr. from Kuntur Wasi) from Cajamarca- 1 and 1/2 hours of beauty. The highway was built with money from the mine that has a big presence in the area. The ride was smooth and gorgeous. I need these reminders that I am in a country filled with spectacular views and mountains that sing to you.

Literacy Check

On Monday, when everyone else was celebrating the Saint of Santa Rosa, I was checking in on our literacy group. (Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining!) I went out to Tartar Chico, outside of Banos de Inca, to visit our women in the village bank Strength and Blessings and see how the 2nd cycle of literacy classes was progressing. They were working on numbers and greater than, less than, equal to signs...which will eventually lead them into the topic of money and making change. Our women always complain about not getting the right change in the market, or sometime for their very own business transactions. We want to prevent that and give women the math skills to manage their money in a honest and correct way. And, on Monday that starts with bottle caps. Women were learning the greater than, less than sign through a bottle cap activity. Lily, our literacy teacher, never fails to amazes me with her creativity and fun and practical activities that she brings to every literacy class.