Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Una actualizacion

Just wanted to update that I am alive and well. I just got back from Lima after spending Thanksgiving there. Maybe I´ve been in Peru too long, but this second time around, I did not experience quite as much homesickness (no tears even!).

Everything with work is fine. I presented my project to a big beer company who may be able to help finance the construction costs of the ¨Comedor¨ dining room. (I know it´s like selling your soul to the devil—pleading with the local booze factory for a kid friendly soup kitchen—but I don´t know if I have any shame left in me. See next paragraph.) They will let me know their answer in a couple of months. So, in the meantime, I am a sitting duck just waiting. Grr…

As for the personal, I feel like I could really use an intervention. I think I hit rock bottom! It was over Thanksgiving weekend when I was in the mall at my capitol city. The bathroom had really nice liquid soap for once (which is really rare for Peru). The next thing I knew, I found myself taking out my little bottle of liquid soap that I carry with me and refilling it to the brim! Then, as if that wasn´t enough, I took toilet paper from one of the stalls and stuffed it into my bag. Oye. Someone needs to intervention my ass…I am a poor person´s cry for help!

Anyways, to make myself feel better (and richer), I took advantage of Cyber Monday. This must be a new thing. I would have remembered something so magical…I mean, free shipping everywhere! When I find out about stuff like this, I almost feel like God has laid a hand on me and gave me the blessing to shop so it´s like I have no choice but to obey. (Yes, I´ll lay off the Glee ¨Grilled Cheesus¨ episode.) No worries though, I didn´t ¨balla¨ it out with my American Express, only USD $26.03 was spent. But still, it was enough to make this Peace Corps volunteer feel much better!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Lo Logramos!

Here it is, everyone! What you are viewing is an important document that even spelled my name correctly (so you know it´s legit). Loosely, it translates to, ¨…to cordially make known that in Advisory Session No. 019-2010, held on the 7 of October 2010, that the project of Comedor Estudiantil, presented by Katie K. Hui, Peace Corps volunteer of the Youth Development program, was approved, approving as such the plan of administration and budget…¨

Run-on sentence aside, what it means is that my team and I did it!! Cajabamba, Peru will have its first soup kitchen for students next April when school resumes in Peru! It´s what I´ve been working on for the past year and it makes me so happy that the people in my town really came through on this project. I felt so grown-up yesterday as I got to sign the important document yesterday at the municipality in front of everyone! (I couldn´t stop smiling although I tried so hard to look serious, ie constipated.)

What´s next for us is that I´m going down to my capital city this week to meet with other potential donors. Right now, the soup kitchen only has the capacity to cater to the students at one school. However, if we were to have sufficient space for, say 100s of students, we could potentially cater to the students at other schools. I will hold my breath though. The cost of the construction will require about S/. 111,000 (USD $38,000), which is a lot for any country´s standards. But all I can do is try!

So ignore my previous post. Maybe the s--- will hit the fan tomorrow and something will go wrong (gaw, I hope not), but as of today, I am loving the Municipality of Cajabamba!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Polly quiere una galleta?


Another reason I love it here. Where else can you go but to look up while you’re washing your clothes and see a parrot staring at you? But while I have written many posts about all my good feelings for this country, I should also be fair and counterbalance it.

For one, the length of time that it takes to get things done here drive me nuts. (Also true for the US, I suppose.) The Municipality of Cajabamba has verbally promised us that it would fund all of our start-up costs for the soup kitchen project. This is really good news and would fulfill everything that I had been working towards…if only I had it in writing. The municipality promised us weeks ago that they would draft this happy document, but still, I find myself without a celebration and without a cheap bottle of Peruvian wine at my side to celebrate. :(

Sometimes, I leave meetings somewhere between disgruntled and pissed off; so much bureaucracy and time delays. The professor who has been working on me on this project (whom I´ve now made Director) used to try and un-disgruntle me by bribing me with ice-cream. (How sad is that that my inner fat kid is so apparent? Shamelessly, it worked, too.) But now, because of a much lighter coin purse and being used to me ranting and raving under my breath in every language I know how, he just laughs. On the upside, I would like to think that because of me, he´s learned quite a few ¨street words¨ in both English and Chinese!