Ministry of Culture

Semana Santa ended in a flurry. Saturday, I treated myself to a day at the beach and seafood – ceviche and Mahi fingers - at Cerro Azul, a pleasant little beach resort, with great seafood, 15 minutes up the coast. I took the packed combi up – it was a good day for the beach. All the restaurants were packed, so I wound up sharing a table with a couple that I took for Americans, from their perfect English greetings. Not so – Peruvians from Lima, both educated in the US. Conversation was mostly about gun control in the US. Not much of an issue here, as few Peruvians own guns. They prefer to have armed guards outside their homes and on neighborhood patrols. They gave me a ride home in their new BMV SUV. There are clearly two Perus. I prefer the less-Americanized version.

The big meeting with the Ministry of Culture was beyond a success. Angel and I rode the bus up to Lima. The Ministry of Culture is quite an imposing building and also houses a cultural and art museum. After the requisite security check, we ascended to the opulent 8^th floor offices where we were joined by Francesca, the archeologist who will be leading a Stanford dig on the Cerro de Oro this winter. Our team met with the Vice Minister and the Director of Archeology to discuss permission to construct access gates, eco-banos and visitor trails on the Cerro, which is a designated archeological site. I was delightfully surprised when they not only approved of our project, but offered to assist. The Ministry will refurbish the large concrete site marker, provide posters and materials discouraging looting and provide training and workshops – better than any of us had hoped for. Now we wait for the paperwork.

In the meantime, I’ve arranged for two teachers from the Colegio Mixto to attend a wonderful conference, sponsored by the US Embassy, to teach best methods of teaching English. All the HS students have English classes, but only 2 hours per week – not really enough for them to be near fluent. The current methods are all “call and response” repetition and the gals are excited to learn some tools to make their classes more interesting and effective. The workshop will be held at an old convent, right on the ocean, just south of Lima. It’s also quite a treat for them to get expense paid time away from San Luis and meet other teachers from all over Peru.

I’d like to attend with them, but I’ll be working with Brian and Will – two of my favorite PCVs and friends – to write a “master” document for Cocina Mejorada (improved cookstove) project planning and construction. I’ve built 15 of these here in San Luis. They replace the practice of cooking INDOORS over an open fire and eliminate the smoke and back problems from stooping. We’ll be taking all the bits that various PCVs have written to form a cohesive, practical document.

A group of Small Business Development PCVs and their community partners from Arequipa came by to find out about the Cerro de Oro project. They have similar, but not as spectacular archeological sites in their area and are interested to learn how we structured our project. And of course an impressive tour of the Cerro. Sadly we found two new holes – very recently dug.

I’m also enjoying my consulting role on solar and biodigester projects, helping other PCVs through the process. Doing these projects early in my service has given me a good chance to follow-up and revisit the projects and see any post-installation problems.

After, the Cocinas gig, I’m taking it on the road for my 3^rd vacation – this time up north to Chachapoyas in Amazonas, where several of my PCV friends live – 22 hours of bus from Lima. The Quelap ruins and Gocta waterfalls (2^nd largest in S America) await. Only 6 days, as I must return to set-up the big ECPA renewable energy conference I’m hosting here in San Luis at the goat farm.

The big local news is ASPHALT !! Our town’s streets are about to get paved. What a delightful and clean change that will be. But, to get there , we must endure street closures, noise and all sorts of prep work. Huge front-end loaders and dump trucks rule the streets and shake the ground – like mild earthquakes. After the paving is done, I’ll be coordinating a community effort to plant beautiful Poinciana trees – my Florida friends know these well. My only fear is that they grow slowly – it will be a few years before they are sturdy enough to withstand much abuse. I’m counting on civic pride to negate vandalism.

Speaking of quakes, there have been 7 in Peru in the last week. All of them in the 4-5 range and 5-10 second range, just the way we like ‘em. They keep those big, destructive >7 shakers from happening. I’ve felt two – a 4.6 about 20 miles away and a bigger 4.9 about 150 miles off. Very similar to my time in Southern California.