Spring 2015 Week 6

It's been a cloudy and rainy week in Trujillo! The city has never this much rain this time of the year. We were walking home from dinner trying to avoid getting splashed with water by car when all of a sudden we were being interviewed by a news station.

This week we've been progressing in all of our classes at DanPer, Huanchacito, and the Employment Center. It's great to see that the students are getting more comfortable asking questions and making comments.

Spring 2015 Week 3

This week we made a lot of visits to current businesses. Most seem to be doing well but some have fallen behind and we will continue to try and help them with their loan payments.

We started teaching the classes within Danper in the main plant. The students seem to have quite a bit of interest but we will see. It has been extremely humid this week and has made the classroom a little uncomfortable but that's to be expected in Peru. We also started teaching the classes in Juan Cakito. The students are also very interested and many have already spoken about their business ideas. The ideas include a guinea pig farm and a corn mill.

We continue to gain momentum with the employment center classes as well. Many of the people already have experience within their industries and are eager to learn how they can improve. A word of advice for future interns is to organize the employment center classes well, because sometimes we are locked out of the main chapel and have to go to the institute behind.

This weekend we went to Huanchaco with some members of the church who have family members within the program. The sun was blazing hot so it's a good idea to wear sun screen. Often times the beach is good from about 11 am to 2 pm and then clouds and potential storms tend to roll in.

Spring 2015 Week 2

Last week, we went with Elena and Milagros to visit several businesses. We first met with Gloria who has a restaurant businesses that provides food to DanPer workers in the fields. She spoke to us about some of the issues she has been having. The main theme in each issue seemed to be the lack of clear communication in how many lunches she has to prepare as well as accessing certain areas of the field. Later in the week we met with Bertha who has an internet cafe in her home whom expressed her gratitude for the program and how it has helped her.

At Gloria's restaurant with Milagros 

We also visited Rossi, who has a beauty salon, she told us that her and her daughter Ana Cristina have been having trouble trying to keep their business open at times due to their busy schedules. Rossi is currently working a DanPer, going to school, and working at the beauty salon while Ana Cristina works at the beauty salon and goes to school. There are times when customers come looking for a haircut and the business is closed. At the moment they can't hire a hairstylist because the income doesn't lend itself.

This weekend we got to call ourselves tourists as we went on a full day tour to Chan Chan, Las Huacas del Sol y La Luna and Huanchaco. It was fascinating to learn about the Moche and Chimú and their beliefs. On our tour we also made new friends from Switzerland, Peru, and Argentina.

Museo Huacas de Moche 

Spring 2015 Week 4