"So... what exactly are you doing?"

Hello again, everyone.  Pardon my prolonged absence from writing in here.  This week I just passed my two month mark in site, and continue to acostumbrar, as they say.  According to those who have much more knowledge on the subject than myself, this part of Peru is finally beginning to demonstrate just how hot it can get.  Both pairs of black shoes that I wear almost exclusively are starting to come massively undone as I'm guessing the heat from the road melts the glue that used to keep it whole.  I'm told to look forward to next month when the only solace one can find from the mid-day heat will be to lie on the cool cement or tile floor of a well-shaded room.  Yaayy...

I recently walked into my house from spending the better part of the day with one of the several other Peace Corps Volunteers who live within an hour of my site.  He lives in an area just outside of the main entrance to the Bosque de Pomac, and he's been largely helpful in showing me around and filling me in on any questions or curiosities that I've had up until this point.  To give a little bit of background information on where I am and on some of the places I'm likely to mention, take a look at some of the map's I've included.

Map of my Department.  The shaded areas are the protected areas found within and just outside of my site.  To give a reference of time, to travel by car from my capital city of Chiclayo to my site is just about 20 minutes.  To get to the Bosque de Pomac is about another 30, more or less.

Here is a map of the many archeological sites found within the Bosque de Pomac.  The vast majority have been looted and the excavation of them has been minimal so far. 

 

(I live in the city of Ferrenafe.  The Bosque de Pomac is the 'protected area' that I will be working on with SERNANP.)

To go into more detail on the Bosque de Pomac, you should know that I work for a part of the Ministerio del Ambiente (Ministry of the Environment) called SERNANP (Servicio Nacional de Areas Protegidas - National Service of Protected Areas) that focuses on conservation, archeological preservation and general environmental education with regards to the Bosque de Pomac in my particular area.  Two years ago on the 20th of this month, there was a large police operation done to evict the people who had unlawfully taken up residence in the Bosque de Pomac - see link below.  This type of illegal settling is not uncommon in Peru - especially in rural and/or impoverished areas.  In fact, I've been told that the vast majority of the images people see of adobe houses constructed on what appears to be a rather inconveniently located area aside a mountain is often the result of illegal settling.  

What made this invasion worthy of police intervention, however,  lies with the archeological areas and natural resources located within the borders of that brown shaded region on the map above.  The Bosque de Pomac has significant cultural, environmental and archeological value to this area.  The specific kind of forest that makes up the Bosque de Pomac is very unique in that it is a dry forest which many native birds, plants, and tree species call home.  Additionally, the Sican people laid claim to this land and built Huacas (pyramid-esque structures built from slave labor and used for a variety of ancient practices including storage of valuables, religious ceremonies, protection, etc).  To make this area even more appealing to the invaders, the wood that makes up the dry forest is in demand to make one of the most popular dishes in all of Peru,  Pollo a la Brasa, which is cooked using the wood from trees found in the Bosque de Pomac.  Not only did the invaders cause an unbelievable amount of damage to the archeological sites in the way of robbing them of their valuables and destroying their archeological integrity, but they also deforested a large portion of the forest by selling the lumber and making way for crops, houses, and so forth.   I'm unsure of what finally catalyzed the event, but they eventually set out to evict those who were squatting on land that they had no rights to.  The sights of what unfolded are pretty powerful, especially in an area that I've seen to be fairly quiet - aside from the noise made by the political groups connected with the sugar industry, but that's another story for another day.  The settlers, unfortunately, were not the only ones who suffered a loss as a result of  the police's operation, however.  Sadly, during the operation two police officers were assassinated by a sniper who I imagine lived among those being evicted.  There is an absolutely incredible collection of photos taken during the eviction that can be found at this link (mind you, this all took place just 30 minutes outside my site):

 http://blogs.peru21.pe/imagenes21/2009/01/desalojo-en-el-santuario-histo.html

(Warning: The 9th picture in the slide show might be hard for some people to look at.  Also, bit of interesting information, but the police officer in the picture of the truck with all the people waiting outside it is a family friend.)

Here is a map about the various risks present in and around the Bosque de Pomac.  In order on the legend, they are: Trash, Risk of Invasion, Overgrazing, Noise, Deforestation, and Archeological Erosion. 

Furthermore, an example of one of the Huacas, or archeological sites, can be seen  just below.  When I first glanced at them, I had no idea they were man-made as they're massive in size and not particularly representative of something carefully planned due to erosion and lack of preservation.

(Huaca de Oro)

Atop one of the Huaca's looking down at the dry forest. 

In addition to collecting this information on the Bosque de Pomac and what the SERNANP office is doing, I've been working on a handful of other projects in my site as well.  The second largest thing that has taken up my time has been working with an organization abbreviated by the letters UGEL (Unificados Gestion de Educacion Lambayeque - United Development of Lambayeque Education).  I've been working with them to develop a plan for the environmental education in the schools in and around Ferrenafe.  Recently, the Ministry of the Environment has put into place a set of criteria to be taught to the kids regarding environmental themes.  While that may seem like a good thing, the way in which they are monitored and scored is a far-from-ideal system.  I've spent the past month or so coming up with subjects that can be taught to various levels of classes and at the end of February I'm going to give a presentation to several teachers and school directors on how to include these lessons in their classes.  I'm hoping to be able to give some good examples of what type of activities can be done as well as how you can incorporate environmental themes into a variety of subjects.  I haven't stressed too heavily on this task yet, as the end of February has always been several weeks away.  We'll see how tranquilo this Gringo can remain as this month quickly disappears.  I have had a few meetings with people from the SERNANP office as well to see how we can all work together on this particular project.  I'll be teaching these lessons myself in one or two schools to start off.  In addition to the lessons themselves, I have been tasked with organizing a festival around Earth Day and putting together one or two marches (very popular social awareness activity for schoolchildren here in Peru).  

Aside from that project, I have been working with a woman who lives in my town to plant some things in a park located on the outskirts of my town.  This area, called Pueblo Nuevo is a poorer area that has a pretty dismal looking park as its town center.  Her and I are hoping to successfully jump through the various required hoops to ultimately build a nursery for this area in hopes of having the required material needed to liven up this scorched, dirt-road town.  Myself and a few other volunteers got together a few weekends back and planted about 30 different plants in the park.  Our aim was to not only show a sign of good faith, but to also demonstrate the cooperation of the various organizations and NGOs (i.e. Peace Corps, SERNANP, APROTUR (association for the promotion of tourism) to the mayor so he'll be favorable of the idea of future projects.  So, fingers crossed on that one, I suppose.  

TO SEE PICTURES OF THE PLANTING EVENT, CLICK HERE 

Lastly, I had a meeting last week in Lima with both the outgoing and incoming Volunteer Coordinators for the Environment Program here.  Based on the outcome of that meeting, it looks like I will also begin work on a tourism-focused project that deals with Lambayeque.  As I've alluded to slightly above, this area is part of a large archeological route - Ruta Moche - which isn't exactly well organized in my neck of the woods.  There is a neighboring sector of tourism guide, organizations, and promoters from another city just South of us called Trujillo.  They are much better organized, and have, in fact, already begun expanding some of their programs into the Lambayeque area.  Based on what I understood from the meeting I had, myself and one other volunteer who lives nearby the other protected area Chaparri will need to come up with a report on the situation of things out here.  We provide the free and available labor that would be far too costly for someone all the way from Lima to execute themselves.  The Ministry of Commercialism and Tourism wants to have this area be more tourist-friendly and I'm interested to see what role I can play in that as time goes on.  

Work aside, however, things are going well for me in Peru.  Some days you feel like you're a hilariously small part in something so immensely incomprehensible and other days you feel accomplished and even sometimes vindicated from your own internal ridicule and questioning.  That incessant mental nagging can be as equally motivating as it can be debilitating.  

Fortunately, however, there exists a pretty solid network of more experienced volunteers to turn to as well as those like myself who can sympathize with the plethora of challenges and emotions we endure.  In the end, however, everything seems to always work out, doesn't it?  A mere 48 hours ago I was feeling completely overwhelmed with what lies ahead of me, and by this afternoon I felt re-energized and excited for the possibilities that await for me depending on the effort I put forth each upcoming day.  

Viewing your situation from many angles can also be helpful.  For example, as I was sitting in the Combi (about the size of a full-size van which holds ~20 people, no joke...) this afternoon on the way back from my site-mate's site, with the sun setting and the sky looking sleepy with a rare company of overcast clouds, I couldn't help but almost laugh at the thought of what I looked like stuffed inside this clown car.  I was lucky enough to be given one of the seats that face the opposite way of everyone else.  With my knees crushing the unlucky passenger in front of me as she refrains from even the slightest constraint in looking unhappy about my being there, and the other people looking at me like I am Santa Clause from those old Christmas M&M commercials where the Red and Yellow M&M unexpectedly run into Santa in a faint-worthy realization (*gasp* "they DO exist!!"); I just looked out the window and shrugged off everything besides the beautiful mountains, bright green sugar cane and rice fields, and all the other things that make this place an adventure.  My Spanish might not be great, and sure, I still have absolutely no idea about almost everything that surrounds me, but I'm here and I'm having a blast trying to figure it all out.  As the popular saying here goes...

Poco a Poco