Peruvian Journeys

The end of our summer assistantship became crazy as we attempted to finish the education in emergencies report and also complete all of our site visits and interviews in Peru as well during the same week.

Because of scheduling conflicts we ended up with our last scheduled work week taking place in Peru, and the Peru office really wanted us to visit the Cusco office for site visits because that is where many of their emergency responses have taken place. Because of this fact, we ended up flying from Panama City to Lima, Peru on Sunday, from Lima to Cusco on Monday morning, from Cusco back to Lima on Wednesday, and from Lima to Panama City on Friday morning. On Saturday I was scheduled to fly from Panama City back to the US, so even if we had been doing interviews alone it would have been a hectic week.

Enjoying the Starbucks in Lima

Despite the craziness, however, it was impossible not to notice the exceptional beauty and otherworldliness of Peru. In some respects walking around in Peru feels like walking on the moon. The natural features of the country are so exaggerated and there are so many mountains everywhere. Leilani and I were shocked during our only real down-time in Lima to discover that there is a Starbucks at the mall in the downtown area (and many throughout the city, as we later discovered). To see women on the sidewalks dressed in the traditional bright indigenous sweaters and bowling hats before turning the corner to a modern Starbucks with the typical smooth jazz and Carmel Macchiatos on tap was just a bizarre experience.

We had been told that the food in Lima is some of the best in the world, and we were not disappointed. Although I maintain that any meals where someone else (aka the “man”/ the NGO) is picking up the tab is double-y delicious, our first dinner in Lima was especially tasty. I think the trick is all of the flavor that each part of the meal contains, coupled with the fact that they mix so many different food items together in one dish. For example, the traditional Peruvian dish of “causas” is something like mashed potatoes layered with greens and then chicken salad on top. It may sound like a bizarre food combination but it really is very very good. If I had stayed in Peru too long I think I would have gained another ten pounds to add to the ten already packed on during grad school.


Unfortunately, we had to leave for Cusco bright and early the next day. We both were kind of dreading the altitude sickness which we knew was inevitable because Cusco is nestled up in the mountains, but also excited to see a new place. Cusco is gorgeous and actually reminds me a bit of Antigua, Guatemala (probably my favorite place in the world) but colder. It was down in the 30s at night, a fact that we were not prepared for. We met a lot of interesting people in Cusco and were able to journey out to a site visit in Pampa Corral where we saw a community that had suffered a landslide a few months before. We had to spend about 4 hours in the car each way to reach this isolated community but our time there was well worth it because we were able to talk with 3 different age-groups of children for focus groups and also with their parents, who were extremely helpful and insightful about the needs of the community.

Beautiful are near Cusco, Peru

After a brief three days in Cusco once again we were back in the airport, this time for Lima where we had one more day of interviews. Again we traveled to a community on the outskirts of Lima, about two and a half hours from our hotel (Lima is a huge city with 9 million people, almost reaching the status of mega-city). There we met a group of elementary school kids who are learning how to form brigades and evacuate appropriately in the case of a disaster (and their school is in an earthquake zone on a rocky hill so a landslide would not be a complete surprise). They did an example evacuation drill for us and it was really cute.

After a very busy week in Peru I was ready to head back to Panama City and then onward to the US. The summer was an incredible but completely exhausting journey across two continents, five countries, and dozens of cities and towns. All in all we interviewed over 60 people and wrote a 52 page report (255 if you include the annexes) about Plan’s education in emergencies programs in these countries. A summary of our report and findings will be presented at Plan’s regional conference of the Americas this month and our findings will be combined with those conducted in other regions and presented in a published report at a UN cluster group conference in September. All together, a very valuable experience and a fascinating way to spend the summer.

Now back to DC and back to school!

VIP Movie-Going

Nothing beats watching the very guapo man in Captain America at the VIP Theater in Panama City. This VIP treatment means that for $10 (the price of a regular ticket at home!) you get to lay back in a Lazy-Boy, have waiters come to take your order and bring your beer, wine, sushi, caramel popcorn, or whatever your heart desires (my heart desired a hot dog on this particular night), and watch the movie in style. This is the life.

Return to Panama City

We’re back in Panama City and working furiously on our report which we hope to have nearly finished before leaving for Peru next Sunday.

A beautiful Panama City skyline

We took a break from the stress earlier this week to go get my hair cut. The humidity in Panama turns my hair into something resembling Diana Ross’ hair-do, it is truly awful. So I figured now would be as good a time as any to just get as much of it as possible chopped off. I went to a nice looking hair salon in a strip mall, and Leilani was nice enough to come along for moral support.

As I sat down in the chair I asked the stylist how much this haircut was going to cost me, hoping to avoid a surprise charge of something crazy like $100 later. He said eight dollars and thirty-five cents. As much as I could get onboard with that low price I now began to get nervous about what kind of haircut I was going to get for only eight dollars—this was made worse by the fact that he began patting my hair and smoothing it down in a way that did not inspire confidence that he had much experience cutting hair or had been through some kind of school or program. He seemed perplexed by my hair.

Next he took his water bottle, sprayed my hair down, and began to cut large sections of hair straight across with the scissors, rapidly. And I mean large sections. I’ve never seen anything like it. As I saw chunks that constituted at least one-fourth of my hair falling to the ground in one swoop I was about to have a heart attack, but the thing with hair cutting is that there is no good time to tell someone to stop cutting your hair, because I didn’t want him to stop half way through. I ended up with a bit of a duck-tail in the back but avoided having some pretty awful bangs added to the haircut. All I have to say is: it will grow out (hopefully sooner rather than later).

The rain continues in Panama City almost every day, and ruined our planned beach trip on Saturday. But when I hear about how hot it is back home this summer in D.C., I have to say that I would take 80-some degree weather with a lot of rain over 110 degree weather any day. It feels rather tropical here. We have a balcony and a hammock and that is all I need to relax after a long day of typing interviewing notes, coding them, and writing non-stop.

El Salvador Part II

Friday we went out to the field again, this time to Pequeña Inglaterra. This village houses many refugees from another village which was destroyed by an earthquake in 2001. Hundreds of people died in this quake, and those who were left had to find another place to live, as their houses were destroyed by landslides and rubble from the quake. Plan helped them with immediate needs, and a donor stepped in to fund a housing project in a new village that would have a school, businesses, and homes. The original houses in this village all have a Plan logo outside of the door, meaning that the materials that constitute the house were funded by Plan (the people had to help with the construction of their houses in order to qualify).

Village life

We were allowed to spend some time with the young children in the ECCD (Early Childhood Care and Development) programs, split into three classrooms of children 0-3 years, 3-4 years, and 4-6 years. They were absolutely adorable, as you can imagine. Then we conducted a focus group with various people from the community, including teachers, parents, health workers, and young people. All had a story to tell about the earthquake and the rebuilding, and how it affected their lives. One young girl was only 7 when the disaster struck. She is 17 now and is in charge of the “Youth Brigade” which educates other people in the community about disaster risks, preventative measures, and healthy lifestyles. I wish that I could share pictures of some of the teachers and children we met, but due to the privacy policy, no photos of children are allowed to be shared online (and for good reason, obviously).

El Salvadorean countryside

After a very interesting day in the village we drove back to San Salvador, finished up some final interviews at the office, and had one last lunch with our new friends. We finally wrapped everything up and decided to go to the beach at Playa Truncos the next day. The Playa is only about 45 minutes away from San Salvador, making this city an ideal place for anyone who loves to get away to the beach on the weekends. We had a lot of fun (I attempted to learn how to surf!) and met a lot of interesting surfers, most from Brazil (who knew El Sal is the vacation destination of choice for Brazilians?)

With our friend David from the San Salvador office (photographer extrordinaire for the week)

All in all, our week in El Salvador was a raging success. Now we are back in Panama City for the next two weeks to actually write up our report about what we’ve seen in the different countries so far. This is the hard part. On August 7 we leave for our last interview country, Peru, and then the assistantship comes to an end. Time is slipping away, as it usually does. For now, back to work on this report.

El Sal!

Current stop on the summer whirlwind tour of Latin America: San Salvador, El Salvador. This country is truly amazing. This time of year the grass, tress, and mountainsides are all a lush blooming green and the countryside scenes seem to go on forever. San Salvador is your typical city, except that from wherever you are you can look up and see the volcanoes and mountains surrounding the valley where the city is situated. The beaches, too, are a natural wonder that attract many tourists here (those willing to brave the daily news reports of violence and gang murders).

We arrived on Sunday afternoon after a very early flight from Quito to Panama City to San Salvador. The security in the airport was super-strict, with army men in full outfits and with huge weapons dangling from their shoulders sauntering around, looking suspiciously over the arriving passengers. A very cute German shepherd was walking on the luggage belt, sniffing each bag as it went by before jumping over it to get to the next one. It was adorable. Going through immigration I was next to a Latino who appeared to be traveling on business and was unsure what hotel his driver was going to take him to. They were giving him the rundown and asking all kinds of questions, so I was very happy to say yes and move on when the woman took one look at my face, my US passport, and asked “turismo?”

El Salvador has one of the most developed and necessary education in emergencies programs so we have been very busy this week talking to many people who were involved in these programs. There is so much to learn and so many people to talk with. Yesterday we went out to the town of El Zapotal, which was a guerilla stronghold during the Salvadorian civil war from 1980-1992. Similarly to Guatemala, there are murals on the sides of school buildings depicting the government’s attacks on its own people and the names of the dead heroes from each town. According to Ricardo, our guide for the week, Plan continued to work in El Salvador throughout the war, using its status as non-politically affiliated to bring much needed food and clothes to small towns such as this. Even then it was not allowed to work everywhere, only where the government would allow it.

Today we went to a community along the coast (which meant we got to each lunch by the beach!) and talked with a lot of young students who had formed themselves into a “committee” of knowledgeable students who can respond appropriately the next time a natural disaster hits their area. The last time a disaster hit, Tropical Storm Ida, they were out of school for a month while the school was used as a temporary shelter for members of the community who lost their homes. It was really interested talking to the headmaster of the school and the older kids who could describe their experiences. We also happened to be visiting during a “field day” when all 870 kids were playing futbol (soccer) and other games outside, it really felt more like a carnival than a school day.

All in all this has been an exhausting but worthwhile week. Tomorrow we head out to a village called “Pequena Inglaterra” (Little England), presumably because the donors who gave the money to fund this refugee village were from England. I’ll let you know after tomorrow!