Mini FBT

Our Mini Field-Based Training (FBT, you will see this acronym again in about 10 days) was more successful than I had feared. I thought since we'd only have a few hours to talk to people and then create a presentation for them about improvements to their problems, we'd surely miss the mark. Either because we didn't have enough time to properly learn about the town, or because we wouldn't be able to get anyone to take us seriously and come to our meeting. Peruvians are notorious for being late at least an hour, and only inviting people a few hours before the actual presentation was more than a little risky. However, these worries while valid, didn't stop us from having a great time and maybe even helping a little bit.
But first, let me describe to you the trip to San Pedro de Castro which is where the interviews and presentation took place. We got on a bus at our Center at about 7:30am. The rented combi bus smelled strongly of diesel or some oil. It was very hard to get on the bus knowing we had about two hours of travel ahead of us. For this reason (por eso razon) we all opened the windows as much as we could. While this helped dispel the smell and provided us an opportunity to take pictures, it also let in all the dust. Being covered in dust and feeling dirty at the start of two and a half days you know you're not going to shower was a little sucky. We exited Santa Eulalia headed northwest up the only road. At the beginning of the week, I started power-walking up the road for 40 minutes, so I'd gotten a decent ways up, but most of us hadn't seen any of the road past Santa Eulalia. The road is mostly dirt, although for a ways its partially paved. We curved along the left mountain, showing the steep barren sides of mountains with a deep valley of green and river. The view reminded me a lot of the foothills of the Sierras except to a more extreme level. As if all the hills were stretched out 5000 feet higher, but not forested. There was scrub and brush in some of the granite but for the first hour or so, the mountains remained barren. 
During the drive, we had to make two pit stops for bathroom breaks which one of our Tech trainers was unhappy with, but the second stop allowed me the opportunity to breathe fresh air and take a nice picture of the river running along the bottom of the valley. Most of the trip was along the left mountain side as I mentioned, and I unfortunately sat on the left side of the bus. This provided me with a nice pretty view of dirt and rocks about a foot away from my window, while the other side of the bus got breath-taking views of steep drop-offs, and the beautiful winding valley getting lost among the mountains in the distance. The road was only wide enough for one vehicle in 90% of it, so at every curve, the bus driver would blast the horn, trying to ensure we didn't careen into an oncoming taxi. In the 5 weeks I've been here, we've heard on the news of at least 3 accidents on this stretch of road. Particularly, I remember one of a bus going off the side of the cliff because of an oncoming truck that was in a rush and being reckless. I think one kid survived that accident, but everyone else did not. 
At about the one and a half hour mark, our door guy decided to pick up an Andean woman dressed in traditional garb, and then shortly thereafter an older gentleman. I was a little surprised at this, since I knew we had rented the whole bus, but I understood, since we were hours away from everything and climbing up steep roads. I wouldn't care to walk when I'd seen a bus that had room on it pass by too. Our tech trainer was a little upset about it since it's against PC protocol, but at that point there wasn't much she could do about it without being a terrible person. Soon enough we saw a decent sized town/city nestled on the top of a ridge above us. 
San Pedro de Castro is bigger than I had anticipated, being home to about a thousand people, but it retains the small pueblo feel. You can walk the entire place on a few small streets, and there aren't any vehicles around except for the buses that bring people and supplies and one van I saw the Mayor (Alcalde) in. We stayed a hostel that was rather big, with 4 floors I believe. In the center there was a cool little courtyard, where a woman had a big pot of soup simmering on a fire. This is where we all gathered and grouped up to get our rooms. I roomed with Annie, who has been struggling with being sick. We were all happy she'd made it (and sad that another of our 17 didn't), but I knew she'd be sleeping most of the time. So I dropped my stuff off in the room, added a few more layers of clothing, because it was chilly, and headed out. 
My group was tourism, and the five of us were to interview people who had to do with tourism in SPC. Then after lunch, we would have a presentation about solutions. I think here is a good spot to point out that we were now at 3500 meters which is roughly 10,000 feet I believe. You can look up the conversion if you want. We gathered in the Plaza, and then had to walk up a short incline to the Comite of Turismo building. Perhaps 10 steps up at a normal-stairs-level incline. Accomplishing this feat definitely made us all out of breath and had our hearts racing. 
After climbing up the little hill to the tourist building, I briefly interviewed a tourist who was a pastor from Washington volunteering his sixth time here. It was a little interesting that he'd been here so many times and still didn't know Spanish. His one wish was that someone in the place spoke English; he thought this would provide a better tourism experience. After gathering this info, we also learned from other people that only one woman had internet there, but it was very slow. Also, they don't have very good advertising on the Web or in other places. Lastly, we learned that most of their tourists are actually Peruvians from Lima that throw trash everywhere and only come during certain times of the year like Semana Santa (the week around Easter) and overwhelm the local populace. These were all interesting pieces of information that we felt we could make suggestions about and so we easily developed a general idea of what we wanted to talk about in our presentation (charla). 
40 minutes after the time we'd invited people for our presentation, nobody we'd actually invited was there. At this point, we went to the Municipality building and used the loudspeakers to announce it, twice. Also, we began shouting and shepherding random people into the room. This was pretty fun, and by an hour past our scheduled start time, we had roughly 15 people and were ready to start. We did a funny little skit at the beginning to break the ice and get our crowd relaxed and laughing. Sarabeth did an awesome stereotypical tourist and others of us played the guide and information desk. I added a little bit about how Marcahausi (the Stone Forest above SPC that people visit SPC to go see) is a special place and you need to pack out all the trash you pack in. This was one of our suggestions for improving tourism. This whole skit was a big hit and after that people were really willing to volunteer ideas and were engaged. They were leaning forward and nodding along, it was a really great feeling. I'm not sure how much will actually improve, because while the general populace we had there was very positive and happy with our suggestions, the President of the Committee of Tourism was very negative and liked to talk a lot. With him in control, I'm not sure if people will organize to get a project going with the Municipality to fund internet service, or fund an English program, or start a Web page. 
Seeing the town and a bit of their troubles and political dynamics, I was very encouraged about my future site. If my place is anything like SPC, I think I can make a difference. The whole point of the mini FBT is to get us out in the field to see a bit of real town dynamics and start us acting as leaders individually. I felt like all of us really accomplished this goal, and I feel excited and motivated for the real FBT in two weeks. 
Friday, we all got on horses and rode up to Marcahuasi. I cannot begin to describe this place decently, so I'm not really going to try. I took a lot of pictures, which I hope will be posted on Facebook eventually. Hopefully, all of the pictures combined will give you a little idea of what it's like. We saw ruins of a pre-Inca civilization, rocks in the shapes of faces and animals, and a lagoon nestled in the granite plateau. I watched the sunset while sitting on a granite boulder overlooking the entire valley below. The colors of sunset, sounds of wildlife and nothing else, and fog creeping up among the boulders was inspiring and incredibly tranquil. While it was incredibly cold, Jaymee, one of our two Tech trainers, did an incredible job preparing and had rented us blankets, as well as sleeping bags. With layering and the blanket, I managed to not be cold. I didn't really sleep either of the two nights, but that was due to my trouble sleeping in new places without a routine and not because I was cold. The last thing I'll mention about our time up in Marcahuasi was the night sky. We had a bonfire that I laid next to, wrapped in a blanket gazing at the stars. I could see the Milky Way, and as many stars as I've ever seen. I couldn't make out any constellations which was pretty neat to me. It all felt very different and curious. I could tell I was on the other side of the Earth from where I grew up gazing at stars. 
If I do get placed in Junin, I now know I can survive it, although I'll be incredibly pale constantly wrapped in clothes.