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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