Wednesday, November 30, 2011

My busy month of November

Hello everyone,

I'll take a few minutes to update you on my life - a bit behind schedule, but that's okay (better late than never, right?). The beginning of November was pretty quiet in my life (although quite hectic everywhere around me - see my last blogpost to find out why). But once the first weekend passed, the rhythm of things picked up quite a bit.

On Tuesday, November 8th, I successfully completed my first solo trip in Peru: nothing big, but I went to Lima alone. I was let out of work a bit earlier in the afternoon so that I could catch my bus and get to Lima before the sun went down. The trip went very smoothly: I arrived in Lima shortly after 6pm and then took the bus straight away to Miraflores (the safest, cleanest, nicest part of Lima). When I got off the coach bus I was excited to be travelling alone again; I had forgotten the rush of how it feels. I mean, I carefully researched exactly where to go so I wouldn't look lost and would be efficient with my time, but it was nice to be independent and self sufficient. SUCH A GREAT FEELING. And I felt much safer this time in Lima. Probably because I know from where to where I was going and now I am familiar with the area, so it is not as scary. Also, my Spanish is much better than when I first got here (I kept thinking back at how much time had passed since the first time I did the trip from Lima to Huacho).

Saturday, November 19, 2011

November is a month for changes

Hello everyone,

Sorry I haven't written in a while - I mean, really updated you on things. Friends have asked me for updates and guess that it has just been 'life as usual' here, so not much to update on. Or at least, nothing really concrete. But all month many things have been changing, so as I am sitting in the Lima Airport waiting for my flight to Tarapoto, I guess I'll update you on some things.

The first thing is a work. Most employees at EMAPA Huacho don't have very long or permanent contracts - they are often 1 or 3 months in duration (sometimes longer), but this means that at certain times of the year there is a high turnover or a loss in productivity while new contracts get drawn up and signed. So, at the beginning of the month, this is what happened. The 31st of October was a Monday, and then the 1st of November was a national holiday, so the beginning of the week was pretty slow (and relaxing too, we went to the movies on our day off!). But then the rest of the week was chaotic as people moved offices, or departments, or came back to EMAPA to try to negotiate their contracts, or ask for an extension.... Juan Candia, who I am working with, received quite a nice promotion: he moved from being the head of the project planning section to the manager of the entire engineering department responsible for project planning, execution, and follow-up (and the person who used to be in that role took his old role). With this new position came a new office for him, so we are no longer working side by side in the office. And rumours spread pretty quickly around the company, so by lunch I had been approached by quite a few people saying that I would no longer be working with him and that I would now be working with the new head of my section - WRONG. They all jumped to this conclusion without even knowing that Juan and I had already talked about it, and that I would continue to support him and work with all of the different departments: still completing environmental assessments for the project planning team (as well as a few other documents that they require), but now I am also focusing on the project management for the entire department, quite a big task!

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Happy 137th birthday Huacho!

Hello everyone!

So today, November 10th, it is the 137th anniversary of the city of Huacho. For the past week there have been parades, music and dancing shows, a huge bingo in the central square (that lasted 8 hours - we did not last that long though), culinary festivals, and even bull fighting! And to highlight the week's festivities today there was a 'desfile', where many companies and organizations paraded down the central street (28 de Julio) and in front of the mayor and other important people from the city.

Here are a few clips from the event:


If you pay close attention you'll notice me holding the front of the banner (and slightly struggling because it was quite windy that day).

All in all, it was a fabulous day: we got out of work in the morning to go attend the desfile with many other people from the company, and then we all went for lunch together (there must have been at least 40 of us present). In the afternoon, a bunch of us went to play soccer (we usually do every Wednesday after work, but this Thursday was a special exception!). To top it all off it was warm and sunny, so you couldn't ask for a better day.

Sheila