Field Based Training: Cajamarca

Field Based Training: Cajamarca

It’s Sunday night, July 19th and I’ve been in Peru for 6 weeks now! This morning I got back from Field Based Training – we went to the provinces for a week to put what we’ve learned so far in training to practice. We left last Saturday after a day at Agraria (the agricultural university/institute we’ve been having classes at). We had a boring 4 hour lecture on raising guinea pigs and we were not happy about it. We spent the rest of the day at Jockey Plaza (the really nice mall) shopping, eating and preparing for the 16 hour bus ride to Cajamarca. Cajamarca is north of Lima and is in the sierra (mountains) so I was really excited to see a different part of Peru since Lima is on the coast and is very urban. Cajamarca is known for its dairy products and it’s also a traditional area of Peru – lots of people still wear traditional dress (including the hats you see in travel guides about Peru). Basically, before I came to Peru, Cajamarca is what I pictured.

Both the business and youth sections of our training class divided in two (so we had 4 different groups total) to travel with. We all went to different sites and met current volunteers and learned about their projects. In my group, we had 9 trainees, our tech trainer Kathrin, and a language facilitator, Edith. Our bus left at 7 on Saturday night and we settled in for a long ride. We were in the VIP section of a double-decker bus so the seats were really comfortable and declined to an almost horizontal position, but an 18 hour bus ride is still an 18 hour bus ride. We arrived in Cajamarca City (the regional capital of Cajamarca) and had lunch there. Immediately after getting off the bus you could see the change in the atmosphere. You could see the sun and the sky was clear, which is a huge difference from Lima where it is always smoggy. People were wearing different clothes and the view was breathtaking. After lunch, we left pretty quickly because we were running late for our next destination. That night we were going to stay in San Miguel with a volunteer so we decided to take a taxi for the 3 hour ride. There were only 2 taxis available so the 11 of us had to squeeze in with all of our luggage. The ride was uncomfortable to say the least. But for how uncomfortable it was, it really was gorgeous. We took a back road (the driver wanted to see if it would be faster and decided to experiment with the gringos) and most of the way we were riding on unpaved roads. The mountains around us were all green (again, different from Lima) even though it’s the dry season right now. We eventually came across a part in the road where we had to cross a “bridge.” This rickety contraption was the weakest excuse for a bridge I have ever seen. Before passing over it, we all thought we were going to die. There were 3 pieces of wood supporting it over this river some 50 feet below and it was noticeably sagging in the middle. As we start to go over we get stuck. We all had to disembark (all on the same side because there wasn’t enough space to walk on both sides of the taxi) while the driver checked out the problem. Turns out, the parking break cord that hangs from the bottom of the cord got stuck on one of the wooden planks. We were finally able to get across and, miraculously, we all survived.

We arrived in San Miguel without further incident and met up with Braun, the volunteer that currently lives there. She’s from Peru 9 and is about to leave and she’s getting a replacement volunteer, so one of the business trainees will be going there. The town itself is very quaint, but there are a lot of amenities (electricity, internet, etc) so it’s the best of both worlds. She has a couple projects going on at once – she works in a dairy institute that makes cheese and teaches students how to make dairy products and sell them, and she also works with an artisan group that will be ready to start exporting soon. That night we went to the institute and hung out with some of the students there, made some pizza, took pictures with the cows, and then went back to our hotel. I took my first (and only) hot shower in 5 weeks and it was an incredible experience. I showered for a half hour and STILL did not want to get out. I was amazed that there was actual steam on the mirror! After talking about the showers for about an hour afterwards, we all went to bed because we had another busy day. We visited Braun’s artisan group in the morning and saw some of their products which were really nice, and then left San Miguel to go to San Pablo where we would spend the rest of the week.

In San Pablo we met up with Kenneth who is from Peru 11 and has been at site for about a year now. He works for the municipality and also teaches economics at the local institute. San Pablo is a little bigger than San Miguel and not quite as picturesque in my opinion but it’d still be a cool site. We arrived on the day of independence for their town so there was a big festival going on which was exciting. We stayed in a church for the week which actually turned out to be pretty nice (except no warm water). I shared a room with all the girls that went – there were 6 of us in a big room with bunk beds. There was a living room area for us to hang out in and also a work room so it was perfect. That night we went to Kenneth’s house and had a bonfire there which was a lot of fun and lasted all night!
The next morning the work began – we had to prepare our sessions for Field Based Training. Basically, we were holding sessions for about 100 students at the institute called “13 de Julio” on business. The sessions lasted from 3-8pm every day. The goal was to prepare the students to start a mini business which they would then realize on Friday. They would be able to take a loan out from the “Banco de Paz” and they got to keep all the earnings they made beyond that amount. Before they could do this though, we had to teach them about several basic themes. Day 1 was Basics of Entrepreneurship and Market Analysis (interviews, surveys and FREESOP). Day 2 was SWOT, accounting, and marketing. Day 3 was Business Plan and filling out forms for their loans. All in Spanish.

I was in a group with Siobhan and John and we had done a lot of preparation before so we didn’t have to do a lot of work during FBT besides just organizing and choosing different dinamicas to do with our group. We ended up having about 30 students in our class so it was a fairly large group. We learned a lot on Day 1. For example, we decided to play a dinamica first thing with them to get to know everyone. They had to go around and say one truth about themselves, and one lie and then the group had to guess which was true and which was false. This was painful. First of all, most of them were so painfully shy that it took a lot of coaxing to even get them to talk. Second, all of their truths were “I went to colegio for 5 years” and then the lie would be “I played professional soccer.” They were not creative at all and I was even bored. Later in the session, we decided to give them a break. We told them to be back in 15 minutes. A half hour later, only half of the class had come back so we just started without everyone else. An hour after that, more people showed up. The whole class never returned. That was how we learned not to give them breaks.

We had a lot of successes throughout the week as well though! We played a dinamica that involved chasing each other around with clothes pins which sounds stupid but is actually hilarious and they loved it. We started giving candy away in exchange for participation and that was also a huge hit. I led the SWOT analysis portion of the sessions and we did an example of Inca Kola and gave them Inca Kola and they did a great job with that. The students ranged anywhere from 16-50 and there were some that were really excited and really wanted to learn. When they had to present to the group they would start by saying “Buenas trades, companeros, it’s a pleasure to be here, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today” and then continue with the presentation. Nearly every group decided to sell food for the final project. One group decided to have a soccer tournament and every team would pay an entry fee and the winner would get a cabrito. What is a cabrito you ask? A goat. So naturally the trainees entered and it was the guys’ dream to take the cabrito to Lima with us. Unfortunately, and predictably, the gringos lost in round one, but we had a great time cheering them on. Other groups made tamales, trout, mozamorra (a purple jelly like substance that actually tastes really good), hamburgers, cake, etc. Basically all day on Friday we walked around the market eating everyone’s food. The big success was that everyone was able to pay back their loans!! We had final presentations where our class gave us about 70000 rounds of applause and thanked us a lot and then we went to the closing ceremony where we had a little surprise for the students. The trainees had been planning and choreographing the Thriller dance to perform at the end of the ceremony. Justin had the video on his Ipod and Alayna watched it and taught us all the dance and we thought it was absolutely hilarious. When we were performing though, none of the students laughed until we started to laugh. I don’t think they understood it was a joke. We have some great videos of the dance though!

Overall it was a great experience. I have mixed feelings about my Spanish… I think I’m getting better but I also know that I have a LONG way to go. I felt like we were actually doing something worthwhile during FBT and I have a good understanding of what I might be doing at site. I also got to see another part of the country and do some cool things. One morning we got up and went on a hike to see some Incan ruins which is not something you can do every day. On the other hand, I did get really sick for the first time and had to spend Friday night in bed which was a bummer. I still felt really sick on Saturday morning when we left at 5am to go to Trujillo (another part of Peru on the coast). We took a semi-private bus and got there at about 1pm. We then went to Huanchaco which is the beach there and walked around, shopped, ate and drank. Some of the guys went surfing and we watched them and sat on the beach. After a week in the sun in Cajamarca, it was a letdown that it wasn’t nice for our day on the beach, but again, it was nice to see another landscape and we met up with the other group of business volunteers and heard about their adventures. We spent the rest of the night in one of Peru’s only microbreweries called Hops in Trujillo and boarded our bus at 10:30 last night. We got into Lima around 7 this morning and I got home around 8am. Since then I’ve been faking an illness to avoid going to a family birthday party tonight that will most likely last until 4 in the morning. Thanks to a pep talk from my real mom, I was able to successfully say that I wasn’t going to go and am now relaxing in my room writing this exciting blog post! I definitely have issues setting boundaries and that is something I’m going to have to work on for when I go to my site.

This week we’re going to continue with our classes. I think there might be another strike on the 21st by the transportation workers so I don’t know what they’re going to do about that. We find out our sites on Friday!!! I can’t believe it’s so soon! We’ll all be talking to our APCDs this week to talk about sites and then we get our site announcements at the end of the week! That means that you can all start planning your visits, and more importantly that I’ll know where I’m going to be living for the next two years! I’ll post it as soon as I know, but for now, nos vemos!