Friday, June 14, 2013

Lima, Wednesday's Post

Not having to be ready until 9:00 is such a great feeling. You can sleep in, have a late-ish breakfast, show up to your meetings late because the door key to your room doesn’t work, etc. It really beats getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning.

Our first meeting was up stairs in a conference room in our hotel. A representative from MIDIS (don’t ask me what the acronym is) came and spoke to us about social inclusion. He talked about their doings, which was similar to welfare programs in the States. He said that even though some people may have one factor of what they need to get out of poverty, but it can be worthless unless other factors are there. Por ejemplo, a person may have a bank account set up for them (which in some of the programs, they automatically do it for them), but if an ATM or bank is not near their village or community, they cannot take advantage of it. Overall, it seemed that their program was setting up incentives to keep people dependent on the state, which caused many pointed questions on our end. We all talked with each other after and exchanged ideas, all of which were critical of his presentation.

We had a couple of hours to kill before our next visit, so we took advantage of the time and went to lunch. We walked down to the main circle again and dropped by the TGI Fridays. It was about triple the cost than my meal yesterday, but still pretty good. After lunch, I took a nap and did some pre-packing for the flight the next day.

We gathered in the lobby to depart in our taxis to Prom Peru, which is government entity in charge of tourism. They gave us a Peru bag, a hat embroidered with the marca de Peru, a notebook, and a pen, and because nobody sat next to me, I took another one from the empty chair. The presentation was very professional, the powerpoint was well designed, and the presenter was very knowledgeable. There was a server who brought us dough balls, little sandwiches, and orange juice after the lecture, and it was weird to be catered to in such a way.

The hotel welcomed us, Susana, Brennon, and myself left shortly after to go to Susana’s cousin’s house. If I haven’t said already, Susana is from Lima and has family still here even though she grew up in Switzerland. She is coming back to Lima after we finish in Trujillo to spend some time with her family here, so she packed a bag and left it at her cousin’s place. It was an interesting place. Not that it felt sketchy, but it felt like authentic Lima. We were in an apartment complex where it was filled mostly with Peruvians; we seemed far away from San Isidro, the rich part of Lima where our hotel was.

Before we had left for Susana, we had decided to meet up at a mall that is right on the beach. We surprisingly had to trouble finding the others, but we didn’t do any shopping. The sight was so engaging. The waves would roll in on the beach far below as the lights gleamed from the city behind us and on either side. There was a cross that was lit up on one side, and there were lighted pillars that marked where the mall stood. Brennon and I went on a small adventure in the mall to figure out movie times for Fast and Furious 6, and we had a great chat. The others followed (Shannon, Tyler, Susana, and Cooper) and we watched the movie like they do down here: In English, but with Spanish subtitles. Everybody loved the movie; I’m a little critical, so I thought it was alright, but not great.


Our last night in Lima was really fun. Overall, I did not get the best impression of the city, but I would really love to come again with somebody that knows the city well.

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