From the Peruvian coastline

Early on Monday morning, I met up with a local artist and Eliana (who does “accountability” work for CARE Peru) at the bus stop at the appointed time. Challenge #1: the bus is not running. So we have to go to another bus just a few blocks away. It’s not a direct bus, but still should leave us with plenty of time.

We arrive in time, but as soon as the dubbed movie starts playing I have my doubts about this bus company. The chosen feature film is called “Human Trafficking” and is an incredibly graphic and very over the top film in which all sorts of bad things happen to innocent girls. Yuck.

All along the Peruvian coast were clouds. Cloudy grey sandy grey grey clouds. Sure, the ocean was nice looking (there was a tide and there was sand), and the conical like sand dunes rose up all around them. The sun does not seem to shine on this side of the Peruvian coast.

Arriving in Chincha, we headed straight to the CARE office (see left) where we were warmly greeted and then promptly told that everything we had set up had been changed. We were left wondering if anyone would show up for our focus group. Luckily Eliana was a pretty demanding coordinator and was not shy to tell them exactly what we needed. Exactly the type of person I want to be working with!

Side note: my Peruvian mission is as follows. First…rewind! A number of the leading humanitarian agencies, through the Emergency Capacity Building project, have identified “beneficiary accountability” as both a priority and a gap in expertise.

That is to say—if I am Juana in Huancavelica and I have a problem with the reconstruction project, how do I make that known? How are the NGOs who are raising money on my behalf accountable to me? Am I involved from the beginning to end of the project? Am I given opportunities to input? Are my inputs than put into the project itself? etc.

So these fine agencies created something called “The Good Enough Guide” which is essentially a pocket guide for field staff who are implementing programs to know what are their and the communities’ rights and responsibilities.

It’s an awesome guide.

Now—the guide has been widely distributed and is well known in the NGO development world. But that is to say people like me working in headquarters know of it and get it. But people in the field—both communities and those field staff—don’t necessarily get the messages and in most cases aren’t aware of their rights & responsibilities. The biggest challenge, of course, is turning these priciples into action.

So this lil’ project that I’m on is to develop supplemental communication materials to help roll out these important messages.

That takes me to Peru, where I now am. Here I am meeting with senior leadership at NGOs as well as field staff and beneficiary communities. The field consultations are the priority, really, and we bring together “focus groups” to ask them about these messages and then to draw these messages in a way (via the artist) to communicate them.

It’s a beautiful project and fits exactly my desires and interests.

Back to the focus group: at 3pm, the stated starting time, 2 women have arrived. No one else arrives until 3:45, and then they keet trickling in throughout the 3 hour period. Regardless of the extreme tardiness (!!) we do some excellent work done together with a very chatty and excited (not to mention diverse) group of women.

Later, I eat a 75 cent “papa rellena” as my main course, which is a mashed potato deep fried in the shape of a potato with meats and spices in the middle.

All's well that ends with a papa rellena.