Welcome to Peru!

We spent this week getting oriented in Trujillo - visiting DanPer, meeting with past loan recipients, and reviewing project financials. Elena has helped us to jump right in and kept us busy.

On Monday, we toured the DanPer facility and learned about the production of artichokes, asparagus, mangoes, pimientos, and salsa. We also met Alejandro, the director of Sembrando Futuro. We'll be working with him more to evaluate the program's success and promote growth. At the end of the day we got to take a tour of the plant and see just how they process the asparagus and get it ready to be packaged and shipped, it was pretty sweet!

 We got to start working with a few of our clients from last phase as well, on of which is named Bertha. Bertha, received a loan to make modifications to her home to prepare it for an internet business she wants to run in her neighborhood. The interns before us helped her with the construction part and we got to help her find, buy, and install her new computers in her house! It was amazing to see the before and after pictures. Bertha and her daughter were so proud of what they had accomplished, and their joy was infectious. We were grateful to be able to help them!

We spent a lot of time getting to know several of our clients this week. We made trip to Huancaquito to visit the Panaderia and we also went to Moche to do small business checkups with several businesses, all of which seem to be doing well and making great progress with their businesses.

This week in Peru is the celebration of spring so we had a fun night in the Plaza de Armas listening to musical groups play and we got to see a huge group of queens from the Lions Club come through the plaza. It was a super fun night and it was cool to see other Americans in the celebration who we could speak English too!


We love Trujillo and the work we've been able to do with SEED so far! We start teaching our classes next week so we have lots of preparation work to do this week in order to be ready for that experience.

Welcome Peru Fall Interns

Friday brings the start of a new class and the beginning of another internship.  Here is a little bit about the interns that will be working in Trujillo Peru this fall.

Dalton Birky

Sophomore – International Business

My name is Dalton Birky, I am a 21 year old resident of Logan Utah and student at Utah State University. I come from a family of eight, and have lived in Logan all my life. I served an LDS mission in Argentina, which is how I learned my Spanish, and developed my love for South America. I am a sophomore in college and my intended major is International Business, I have always been interested in business and I would love to continue to use my Spanish in my job somehow. I love to dirt bike, camp, fish, shoot guns and go digging! Pretty much anything outdoors interests me.

When I was first introduced to the SEED program I knew it was something I wanted to do because it’s the perfect way to not only learn the basics of how to create and manage a business, but it is also a great way to share what I have learned thus far.  Hopefully this will be an experience that will take not only my knowledge but also my experience in the business field to the next level. I plan to use this experience as a base for my future studies and career decision.

Katrina Nieveen

Senior – Accounting with MIS minor

I love to learn, particularly through reading and traveling. I especially enjoy Jane Austen and Shakespeare, along with contemporary literature discussing ethics and gender roles. I also like to spend time outdoors: swimming, hiking, canoeing, and camping.

I was interested in a SEED internship as an opportunity to help give back while expanding my own understanding of business concepts and entrepreneurship. I’m excited to get to know and work with the people of Trujillo.

A Time for Reflection

Wow, I can't believe that three months has already come and gone! I have really had a great experience here in Peru. This past week I have had a lot of time to reflect on the things that we've done and the experiences we have been through and I would have to say that it has been worth the trip. So to end off I would just like share a few of things that I think have made this an excellent internship and experience.

The Work

As a SEED Intern I was able to get a lot of exposure to creating business plans and financial projections for real people. It really brought to life a lot of the basic business principles that I had learned throughout school. Also it was neat to be able to go and visit already existing businesses and to see their successes and struggles and then try and find ways to help them overcome those struggles or become in more successful.

The Culture

I don't think there's a better way to get to know a foreign culture than actually visiting the country and surrounding yourself with it. Really throughout the three months that I have been here, the Latin-American culture has continued to grow on me. Everyone is so nice to visitors and you know that the family is one of the most important things to them. Also, even though the music is a little more reggae than I'm used to, I somehow still managed to kind of learn how to dance to it.

The People

I can't even express how great the people are down in Peru.There are the people I worked with, Elena Pajilla, Jacqueline Saavedra and Alejandro Falcón. Each one of these people have been nothing but nice to us and have gone out of their way to make sure that we are comfortable and have everything we need and not to mention that they've become our friends. Also Dallin and I have had the opportunity to make friends with a lot of other peruvians and it has definitely enriched and made our experience that much better.

I'm excited to come home, but the thing I'll miss the most are the people, the friends that I have made here in Peru. Thank goodness for Facebook!

And now I would like to end by saying the SEED Internship is definitely a most do for college students!

Penultimate Semana

As our title suggests, nearing the end of our experience here, we are getting really good at mixing languages. Some words are just better expressed in Spanish while others are better in English. It's nice having another bi-lingual friend to share so many wonderful experiences with.

Good News! This week we issued our first official loan during our stay. Santos, a long time loan client whom we trust very much, requested about a month ago a medium sized loan to prepare for the Peruvian Independence holiday. The holidays took place this past weekend on July 28th and 29th. Santos owns a mini-market in a town outside of Trujillo called Alto Moche. She has a great location right off the Plaza in the center. She requested her loan to increase her inventory expecting to have high sales during the weekend. As we have not yet been in contact with her since the holiday, we do not know how well it has gone for her, but we expect to find out sometime this week. Santos has been great to work with. She constantly is thinking of ideas on how to expand and grow.

As for us, we spent our weekend participating in LDS Young Single Adult activities. Starting on Friday, regional YSA activities have taken place in various locations and we were able to spend time with the great young adults of this area. Monday the 29th we traveled with hundreds of young adults to a recreational park and participated in various activities throughout the day including soccer, group games, a dance, and other competitions. We had a great time!

Most of the group after the activities!

Life After Work

Today I wanted to talk a little bit about what Dallin and I do after we are done working. The regular workday here in Peru goes from about 9:30 in the morning until 7:30 at night. Somedays we are working the entire day, while other days we are able to get off earlier and spend the day doing some different things. So what do we do when we're not working?

Chili's Friday Special!

Dine Out
Well usually the first thing we do is we go out and eat. We don't have our own kitchen, so we have
spent the last few months finding our favorite places to dine out. These include american food places like Papa Johns, Chili's and Gringo Loco (a hamburger joint owned by a texan, great burgers!). It also includes a few peruvian restaurants where we can get some of our favorite dishes like aji de gallina, lomo saltado, sandwiches and pollo a la brasa.

Go Exploring
When we first got to Trujillo we spent a lot of our free time exploring. We went out to see some of the big markets where we could by inexpensive souvenirs or just walk through downtown trujillo checking out the old buildings and parks that are scattered around.

Movies
In Trujillo there are three different movie theaters and Dallin and I have seen a movie each of them. We watched Star Trek and Man of Steel in Spanish and then just last week we watched Now You See Me in English with Spanish subtitles. The movies were great but I definitely get lost sometimes while watching a movie in Spanish.

Adriano's 7th Birthday Party!

Hang Out with Friends
Dallin and I have been able to make a lot of new friends by attending a local church here in Trujillo. Everyone we have met have been super kind to us and we have always been invited to attend different activities and many other things. So far we have gone to two birthday parties, a game night, played soccer and volleyball, made american pancakes, and gone to a bonfire. Spending time with our friends here in Peru has been a great way to get to know and see peruvian culture at its finest!

Netflix and Monopoly
Also since its winter here and it gets dark around 6:30 to 7 p.m. there are a quite a few nights where we don't really feel like exploring or getting out to much. So instead we have become good friends Netflix. In Peru Netflix even has a different variety of shows and movies to watch and one of our most recent series that we have gotten into is Community. Also, if we don't feel like watching Netflix, we have borrowed Monopoly from some friends.

Oh P.S. Jacque had her baby!!

A Typical Business Visit

Last Wednesday, we had a long and productive visit with Jeanette who raises cattle to sell the milk. This gave us the idea to give all you readers a better idea of what we do when we visit the current projects. I will describe a typical business visit.

Preparation: Before we make any visit, we take a few minutes in the office to determine what our goals are for the visit. After we have defined our goals, we ensure we have everything we need to take with us. This could include blank reports, a computer, or materials from a previous visit.

Evaluation: After greeting the person, one of the first things we do is talk about their past performance related to reports or other documents they have given us. Usually the people don't really have a good idea of how they are doing financially so we take their documented numbers and organize them to help them see how their money is being used (or made). We deliver this report during the visit.

Mentoring: When we deliver our reports, we give our interpretation of how we think their business is doing. At this time we also give them suggestions on how we think they could improve or better use their resources. We also love listening to them and learning more about their business and why they think some ideas would work and others would not. We learn just as much or more from each project as they do from us.

Improvement: After we take the time to hash things out, we usually end up with some great ideas to implement in the future. Sometimes the clients will make suggestions on how we can improve the format of our reports (like in the case of Jeanette) or we come up with new ideas for their reports or operations. We then set up a return appointment to check up on the new ideas.

Time has flown by for us here in Peru. We only have three weeks left, and we can't believe how much we have done and how much there is left. We've tried to stay busy with current projects and second time loan prospects as we continue to wait for the final decision on first time loan applicants this year.

There and Back Again

This past week Dallin and I spent a total of 62 hours on buses and 12 hours in layovers in order to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu. You may be asking yourself, "Why didn't you just take a plane?" Well the bus was significantly cheaper and we wanted to save money for souvenirs. You may also be asking yourself, "Was it worth it?" Absolutely!! I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Cusco - Outside of the Chocolate Museum

Machu Picchu

Dallin's Armrest

Yeah I get air...

The two of us celebrating Dallin's B-Day!