much ado about chiclayo

Hola amigos,

Sory for the utter lack of updates thus far on the trip. My updates are a fairly accurate reflection of the Peruvian lifestyle—scattered and not adhering to any type of schedule.

Oh, the things we have learned about this crazy country. For some ridiculous reason, we told our boss Oswaldo that we wanted to fully immerse ourselves in the local culture and live “like typical Peruvians”. If only we had known what we were getting ourselves into.

Oswaldo has taken our statement to heart and has ensured that we do everything in the “typical Peruvian” way. The six of us squeeze into typical Peruvian “buses” (white vans meant to carry about 8 people…but in Peru they manage to carry 15-17 passengers). We walk the streets of Chiclayo like typical Peruvians (even though we stick out like sore thumbs and everyone whistles and yells “ey-lo” and “ow-arrr-jou”—trying to speak English to us).

We even tried our hand at eating like typical Peruvians, but ultimately decided that the Peruvian diet was not a very healthy option. (Probably could have figured that out just by looking at the plump Peruvian bodies around us.) It’s funny because the Peruvian diet and the Argentine diet are fairly similar (lots of meat and potatoes – but the Peruvians eat more fish and the Argentines eat more pastries…) yet the Argentines are all super skinny while the Peruvians are all full-figured. Strange.

Here’s a comparison between typical Peruvian meals and what we’ve actually been eating:

Peruvian Breakfast: in the morning, they eat a meal that Americans would usually consider dinner. Since we’re living in a coastal town, they generally eat fish for breakfast – perhaps rice and ceviche (raw fish with lime/cilantro/vinegar sauce) or rice and shrimp. Don’t know about you, but my stomach definitely can’t handle fish anytime before noon.

Our Breakfast: toast, scrambled eggs w/ham, coffee (they serve you a mug of hot water and then you add in espresso to your liking…) and fresh squeezed juice (ahh the juice here is amazing. Usually we get pineapple, but sometimes they have strawberry juice too!! deeelish)

Peruvian Lunch/Dinner: Specialty – Especial de Lunes (Monday special – a mixture of all the food leftover from the week before. And no, it’s not just something people eat at home – they actually order it in restaurants.) Other options: Ceviche with rice / Chiccharon de pollo/mariscos/calamar w/ papas fritas (Fried chicken/seafood/calamari with french fries) / Arroz Chaufa (basically like chicken fried rice) / Parilla (mixed meat grill) w/ fried yucca (a root vegetable) / Humita (tamale) / Spanish tortilla (like an omelet pancake with meat mixed in)/ Cabrito (translates as “kid” which I guess means goat?). And everything comes with a side of red onions, marinated in ceviche sauce (that cilantro/vinegar/lime sauce). Alba and Danielle can’t stand that flavor but I love it.

Our Lunch/Dinner: We’ve tried pretty much all of the Peruvian dishes, but we’ve found each found our favorites and we’ve tried to make them a bit healthier. The Peruvian salads are an upgrade from the Argentina ones (at least here they have lettuce, even though its iceberg…). However, all of the veggies here are canned, which is pretty gross. Last night Danielle ordered a side of asparagus and she got a plate of white mushy half stalks. Yucckk.

Most of the time we eat breakfast around 9 am and then we have a big lunch around 3 or 4 PM and then a small dinner around 8 or 9 PM. Oswaldo is paranoid about making sure we only eat at “certified” restaurants to make sure that we don’t get sick while we’re here. Therefore, we’ve been making the rounds between 4 different Chiclayan restaurants (we’re practically VIPs at all four of them). All of the restaurants offer practically the same food and they’re all pretty mediocre. However, our favorite is Hebron because they have free Wi-fi. But El Rancho is also nice because the waitresses are the best. I made friends with one girl named Ana Liz who wanted to become pen pals! So cute.

And sometimes we just skip the dinner and hit up the fruit trucks, where these little ladies sell pineapple and watermelon chunks for 50 centimos (about 15 cents). Watching these ladies cut the fruit is amazing—first they hold them vertically, make five swift chops to get rid of the skin, and then turn the fruit horizontally and slice these 5-inch thick round chunks of fruit. Makes a perfect afternoon snack. Luckily, none of us have gotten severely sick from the food thus far; however, immodium AD has definitely been our friend.

And now, an introduction to our boss and his family:

Oswaldo Tello – our “boss” and “president” of CIDE.

Short and plump, Oswaldo fits the anatomical image of the typical Peruvian male. He’s got an idealistic mind (as you will understand when you read about his goals for CIDE) and he’s got a sing-songy voice (as you can hear when he gleefully answers the telephone with one word-- “holasoyoswaldo!” His email address is Peruvian_Jedi – a perfect combo of his Peruvian pride and his obsession with American culture (he especially loves American music from the 70s…)

Ozzie (as we affectionately call him) is also a proud Mormon. Although he was raised Catholic, he was converted by missionaries when he was young. During his 2-year mission in Peru, he worked with 12 Americans and picked up a good bit of English. Although Ozzie’s ability to read and write English is quite strong, his conversational English leaves him sweating. His listening skills are a little weak too – often we’ll try to carry on a conversation with him and all we get in response is a cheesy gleeful grin (as he just pretends to understand what we’re saying…). For that reason, we try as much as we can to communicate with him through email. So every day he sends us articles about management strategy and acheiving your dreams and other fluffy stuff. Although his ideas and his optimism are good, we're trying to help him educate him on more practical things like the basics of finance and saving and such. This all kind of scares us considering he's held an executive position at a bank for a few years...

The Tello Family

Oswaldo’s family consists of:

-his wife, Vicki (late 40s, plump, doesn’t work because women in Peru typically only work if they have to for economic reasons)

-son, Javier (20, lives at home, studying to be a chef. Very quiet. Plump. Loves American movies, television and pop music)

-daughter, Laura (19, studies nutrition at a university in Lima)

-son, Rafael (10, also loves American movies, TV and music)

-daughter, Jasmine (6, dances the marinera (typical Peruvian dance with an adorable costume), is learning English in school and has picked up the phrase “Oh my gosh!” from us)

Last Monday night we got to know the Tellos pretty well -- we finished our workday around 8 and then we were invited into the family room to join the weekly Tello “family time.” We sang hymns, prayed and went around in a circle telling stories of times when people did unexpected good deeds for us. It was cute to watch their family ritual, but a little awkward for us.

After the discussion, we played some cute games, watched Jasmine’s performance of the marinera dance and ate empanadas and deeelicious apple pie. Yum yum.

Tuesday:

One of Oswaldo’s friends/business partners, William, took us on a tour through a few local markets. [Sidenote: William is the owner of the hotel where we’re staying, therefore we’re getting the rooms for half price, aka $5 per night!] The first market was made of indoor booths and sold items like clothes, electronics and toys. The next market was made of oudoor booths and focused more on food and household supplies. There were carts selling hardboiled quail eggs, booths selling fish smoothies (YUCK) The second market also had a huge section for homeopathic/voodoo medicine and herbs. Both of these markets are dirty little outdoor booths with stray animals running around (there was even a guy carrying a monkey!)

After seeing the markets we went to an established grocery store and then to the Chiclayo shopping mall (which was very similar to an American shopping mall- there was even a pizza hut).

At the end of the market/mall tour, William explained the Peruvian socioeconomic class system to us (classified by the letters A, B, C, D and E). The first market we saw was for the middle-class Peruvian (B-C), the second market was for the lower class Peruvian (C-E) and the established grocery store and shopping mall were for the upper class (A-B). It was hard to hear about this classification system and think about how each of the markets would rate on the American socioeconomic scale –the products in their upper class mall would probably be the equivalent of our Walmart.

Tuesday afternoon we went to Oswaldo’s house and got to work. By this time, we realized that our initial perception of the “organization” we’re working with was completely wrong. Initially we thought that we were going to help a social venture capital non-profit named CIDE (the Center for Entrepreneurial Development) to organize their business model and their website. Then we found out that Peruvian law regarding non-profits is super strict; therefore CIDE is actually just the non-profit branch of a for-profit organization called NPIC (North Peruvian Investment Corporation), which is going to handle all of the financial transactions. Hypothetically, NPIC is supposed to be the filter for social investors to help fund budding micro-entrepreneurs and then CIDE is supposed to be the educators who teach basic business skills to the entrepreneurs (however, CIDE needs a little money for administrative costs and such, so NPIC has to pass some money under the table to CIDE…a little shady). From the emails we got from Oswaldo, it sounded like both CIDE and NPIC were established organizations that had been working in this field for awhile; however, we gradually came to realize that both CIDE and NPIC are all hypothetical – Oswaldo’s idealistic plan to cure North Peruvian poverty. And we are here to figure out how to actually implement his lofty dream. Although Oswaldo has some great ideas, he has no concept of reality. Every day, he changes the focus of NPIC – going back and forth between microenterprise (funding small businesses) and microfranchise (funding successful small businesses to help them grow). He’s counting on thousands upon thousands of dollars in donations from investors for a non-profit that has no track record and no plan for the future.

So over the past week we’ve tried to: create a business model for CIDE/NPIC, create a website for CIDE/NPIC, create an operations manual for CIDE/NPIC, create an model operations manual for microfranchisees, establish protocol for documenting investments and return, and educate Oswaldo on basic finance concepts.

Like I said before, the concept of social venture capital/microenterprise/microfranchise is good. NPIC will pool money from investors and then will give a loan to an entrepreneur. Through that loan, the investors will own a certain percentage of that enterprise, thereby giving them the opportunity to make some money if the microbusiness is successful. The hope is that eventually the microentrepreneur will make enough money to buy back their company from the investors, thus creating sustainable way to bring people out of poverty.

Wednesday:

Met William at Oswaldo’s house and geared up for a day of sightseeing in the nearby town of Lambayeque. Went to the “bus station” (aka- the side of the road where white vans stop and yell the names of various towns so that passengers can pack in the appropriate vans like sardines). All of the vans smell like fish + body odor. That first time riding with the Peruvian minivan system was kind of overwhelming, but now it just feels like the norm for transportation.

Our first stop for the morning was the town of Tucume, “Valley of 26 Pyramids” - a pre-Inca city that flourished around the 7^th and 8^th centuries. We wandered around the museum, saw some of the pottery and textiles that were discovered in the area, and climbed up some of the ruins of the remaining pyramids

Next, we headed to the Museum of Sipan – the richest burial site discovered in the Western Hemisphere. King Sipan is considered the “King Tut of the Americas” and wasn’t discovered until 1987! Sipan’s tomb is a sight to be seen— he was buried with a few virgins, some children and some llamas to serve him in the afterlife. Twelve other tombs, along with gobs and gobs of gold, ceramics and gemstones were also buried in the surrounding area. The museum was enormous and the displays were in good condition. I was in awe of the massive jewelry and ornamentation of the Moche people. For some reasons, they loved making jewelry out of human and owl heads.

If you want to see some pictures of the Sipan treasures, browse through the galleries in the two links below:

Sipan Gallery1

Sipan Gallery 2

After the museum, we stopped by the San Roque factory. San Roque is a dessert company that makes this cookie thing called “King Kong” (which is basically a giant alfajor – two crackers with sweet stuff and or jam layered in between) [sidenote: Argentina alfajores are much better than Peruvian alfajores]

We didn’t realize how long our Wednesday excursions were going to take, so when we got back to the office around 4 PM we prepared for a long night of hard work. Unfotunately, mother nature had other plans – around 6 PM we were interrupted by a natural disaster. As we were working, we felt a slight swaying in the floor. None of us said anything for about 20 seconds because we all thought we had just imagined the movement. But then we all looked up and saw the lamp swaying back and forth and we realized that we were feeling an earthquake! Turned on the news and saw that a 7.9 earthquake hit Lima (a few hundred miles away from us) and I said a little prayer b/c I was in the Lima airport just three days before! Over the next few days we heard about the hundreds and hundreds of bodies found in the earthquake rubble. It made me want to go to Lima and help out, but I had to remind myself that what we’re doing here is just as important.

Thursday:

Another one of Oswaldo’s friends/business partners, Yonni (Johnny) [Sidenote: Yonni started with only $40 in assets and is now worth $60,000 thanks to a loan from Oswaldo that helped his taxi service enterprise] brought us to a wholesale fish market and processing plant in the nearby town of Moshoqueque. We saw sharks, rays, octopi, shrimp, eel and dozens of varieties of fish. Talked with some women working in the market and heard their entrepreneurial stories.

Friday:

Went to one of the best elementary schools in the area and talked with the kids, professors and administration. One of the professors talked to me for half an hour about his campaign to teach chess to the children. Then he gave me a CD about the program and asked for my email so that I could help him out with his stuff. Even though I probably won’t be much help, I couldn’t really refuse his request for my email. Being here and listening to all of these requests for help has made me really upset because I’ve realized that my idealistic dream of helping everybody is impossible.

Next we visited a few shanty-towns. These villages reminded me of Honduras (maybe a small improvement) -- adobe walls, stick and fabric ceilings, torn-up, raggedy furniture, kids wearing no underwear...just heartbreaking. One of the mothers we met was a cleaning lady who makes about $1 a day, which she uses to support 5 kids and 3 nephews.

Then we met with the president of “El Club de Madres” – a small soup kitchen that provides meals for working women and their children. Fortunately, this group receives government funding; however, like all non-profit institutions, they could always use more money.

Then we started driving to our next location and ended up passing through a slaughter-street. From far away, it looked like there were dozens and dozens of dogs napping on the street, but in actuality it was goats and cows and pigs with their legs tied up, laying down and waiting to be killed. Once I realized what the area was, I burst into tears. Not just because of the harsh reality of where meat dinners come from, but because the animals are just like all of these people stuck in poverty. None of these people chose to be born into poverty, but that's the card they were dealt and their hands are tied. Most of these people are working 12-hour days and making $2-3 a day. They're stuck in a cycle of poverty and will need a LOT of help to get out of it.

Friday night we did some more work and then Oswaldo surprised us with 20 minutes of disco music videos to celebrate the end of our work week. I think we were more entertained with Oswaldo’s dancing than we were with the music videos. However, since being here we have aquired an obsession with modern latin american music videos-- especially Enrique Iglesias' song "Dimelo."

Saturday:

Met up with Oswaldo, Vicki and Jasmine at 9 AM and headed to the Chiclayo bus station. We thought we were heading on a relaxing weekend excursion to a poolside resort/beach hotel; however, it ended up being a tour of dirty North Peruvian cities. Took a 3 hour ride on the top level of a double-decker coach bus to a small city, then transferred and rode another 30 minutes in one of the infamous Peruvian white buses to the city of Cataccaos (where the markets sell the finest “handmade” arts and crafts in North Peru) This fine artwork was actually just mass-produced junk. Plus a few just plain weird things – like a stuffed (as in taxidermy stuffed) dog! But some of the girls found some cute ceramics…

Took another 30 minute bus ride back to the big city, then got on another bus to get to the beach town of Tumbes. Before we boarded this bus, they documented our fingerprints and took our pictures with a digital camera (a bit sketchy). Oswaldo told us that this second bus ride would be about 3 hours, but it ended up being 5 ½ hours. By the end of the ride, our patience was basically gone. Then we made the mistake of asking Oswaldo about our hotel plans for the night (his response was “Umm…haha…I don’t know yet.” Apparently this is the typical Peruvian way of traveling.

Arrived in Tumbes around 11:30 PM and when we didn’t see the beach or water anywhere, Oswaldo informed us that the beach was ANOTHER 30 minute bus ride back to a town that we had just passed through! Apparently the hotels in Zorritos (the beach town) were too expensive, so we had to stay in crappy Tumbes. Luckily we found a hotel with rooms available. However, this hotel had bedbugs! And when we complained to the front desk and Oswaldo about this problem, they didn’t seem to think it was a big deal!

Oswaldo and Vicki also decided to make our weekend excursion into a honeymoon for themselves by asking Danielle to room with their 6-year-old daughter for the night. Jeanne and I didn’t want to leave Danielle alone, so we just had a big slumber party in her room. Stayed up half the night freaking out about what would happen if a rapist entered our room and plotting ways to stop him. Here was our plan: Danielle would use her pottery to knock him over the head, Jeanne would use her hand sanitizer to squirt in his eyes and I would use my self-defense skills to make him fall to his knees.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to put our plan into action. Despite all the partying and chaos going on outside our window, we eventually fell asleep and woke up in the morning safe and sound. Went to the bus station to reserve tickets for our 8 ½ bus ride back to Chiclayo that evening. But surprise!—there’s no room on the Chiclayo bus! That’s what we get for living like typical Peruvians.

Fortunately, we found another (much more cramped) bus company that did have seats available. We snatched those up, jumped into the Peruvian white vans and headed to the beach town of Zorritos. Spent six fabulous hours baking in the sun, floating in the salt water and walking in the sand. By the end of the day we were fried to a crisp (thanks to our close proximity to the equator) but we were happy that at least part of our vacation was relaxing and fun. Headed back to Tumbes, packed our bags and boarded the crappy bus. Rode along for 8 ½ hours, frustrated because the bus driver would not turn off his loud salsa music and because the lady sitting in front of me thought that the entire bus wanted to hear her conversation. The bus was stopped twice by Peruvian police who had to inspect the bus and make sure we were not smuggling drugs across the Peru/Ecuador border. Crazy.

Arrived back at our hotel at 4:30 AM. Passed out in our wonderful, bedbug-free hotel rooms.

Monday:

After our weekend adventure, we resolved not to trust any more of Oswaldo’s plans. We made a pact to stop getting discouraged with the project and decided that we would just do the best job we could.

Woke up late, grabbed a leisurely lunch at Hebron and went to work. Worked on the operations manual. Went to Hebron for dinner. Had banana splits for dessert.

Tuesday:

Went to work. Had lunch at a Chinese restaurant so that Jeanne could determine whether Peruvian Chinese was up to her standards. As soon as we entered, some Peruvian guys started cracking up and yelling “Chino!” (because Jeanne is Chinese). They brought out the owner of the restaurant, tried to make him talk Jeanne, and then spent the next half hour staring at us, pointing and laughing (by now we’ve gotten used to this). Unfortunately, the food didn’t make the experience any better – it was pretty bland. On the walk back to work, someone threw water on us from their second-story window. We’re definitely feeling the love here.

Went out to dinner at the one and only Hebron. Again.

Wednesday:

Brought Danielle to the airport. She’s the first to leave b/c she has a wedding attend this weekend. I was sad to see her go b/c she had been my super wonderful roommate for the week.

And now there are four.

Worked all afternoon, paused for lunch, worked some more and chatted with Oswaldo. Had a very interesting conversation about logos when Ozzie got home:

Ozzie: "ey-lo girls. how you like the CIDE logo?"
us: "what are you talking about?? did you send us an email that we missed?"
ozzie: no no...the logo that was in the CIDE powerpoint
(we open up the powerpoint and scroll through)
ozzie: "there, there -- the missle!" (points to a photograph of a missle)
us: "oswaldo - that's a picture...you can't have a photograph as a logo..."
oswaldo: "why not?"
us: "you just can't...a logo has to be a unique image"
oswaldo: "well what do you think of the idea of a missle?"
alba: "no. no. i don't like it. missles are too aggressive. missles are usually associated with killing and stuff"
susan: "well i helped some companies create logos this summer and i like the idea of the upward motion..."

Oswaldo: “well you make me logo”

Susan: “no oswaldo, that wasn’t part of our job description. We aren’t graphic artists…we don’t have the skills to just make a logo”

Oswaldo: “well you try”

The discussion went on for another half hour – and by the end of it Oswaldo still couldn’t understand why he couldn’t use a photograph as a logo. And he couldn’t understand why we didn’t have the ability to create a logo for him. Then Oswaldo informed us that his CIDE/NPIC organization also has two additional branches: NPTC (North Peru Trading Corporation) and CSNP (Centro de Servicio de North Peru?). I don’t even know any more…every day it’s another surprise.

Left Oswaldo’s house quite frustrated and went to Hebron for the third night in a row. Went back to the hotel and fell asleep while watching Message in a Bottle.

Thursday:

No hot water in the hotel. I decided to put off showering til tomorrow. Now we’re at work and we just talked with William, who just gave us a completely new description of how CIDE/NPIC/NPTC/CSNP work together. This afternoon we have a meeting with Oswaldo, William and Yonni…so hopefully we can clear things up once and for all.

Back to work. If you read this whole novel, thanks. And I’m sorry for boring you.

Ciao,

Lindsay