Industria Interview
This year is the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps foundation in 1961. In honor of the celebration there have been various activities to commemorate the role of Peace Corps throughout the world. Recently my regional coordinator was contacted by the big Trujillo newspaper, La Industria, who was interested in putting together a story about Peace Corps volunteers serving within the district of Trujillo. They sele
cted me, Ian, and Melissa to participate in the story, and visited each of our sites, armed with cameras and various questions about our work, experiences, and integration. The details about this interview were unclear, so when they arrived at my site I was still in the middle of my baking club in the health post. I greeted the reporters with about 10 teenage girls and hands dripping with chocolate, but it ended up being a good context for an interview. They asked me about my work, my thoughts about Poroto and the culture of Peru, and also had a chance to speak with the health post staff and girls with whom I’ve been working. We also walked around town as they inquired further about my perceptions of the community as a Peace Corps volunteer.
The full-page article came out o
n February 24th (they even acknowledged my birthday!), and featured large pictures and an extensive story about the three of us. Although they took a few liberties with word choice and focus of our interviews, overall it was a really cool article. Attached is the article, but I thought I would do my best to translate it into English (a lot of it won’t make perfect sense, but it will at least give you an idea!).
La Industria- February 24, 2010- Trujillo, La Libertad
Anniversary- Peace Corps celebrates 50 years dedicated to community service
Dame Que Te Doy (Give Me What I Give You)
Three volunteers from the United States enjoy the virtues and endure, with enthusiasm, the apathy of the people of La Libertad
Kelsi Ward celebrates her 23rd birthday today and will celebrate it in Poroto, thousands of miles from her hometown in Pennsylvania (USA) where her parents, sister, and brother wish they could have her with them on this special day.
Kelsi doesn’t seem to be sad, on the contrary, she seems to emanate a rare emotion, maybe because today she will eat a spicy ceviche dish, just the way she likes it.
Kelsi loves Peruvian food and ají is her weakness. In the home in which she lives in Poroto, known for their exuberant production of pineapples, her family has a batan where they can grind their own aji, because as Kelsi says, “I just love the spicy food here, its delicious,” she confesses.
Kelsi breaks the prototype of a foreigner who can’t be convinced to enjoy the intense, and sometimes painful, flavor of aji.
Kelsi also destroys the mold of your average citizen. She is one of the few who abandoned the comforts and commodities of life in the first world, and decided to move to a far corner of the world to assist, support, and get to know the people there. She forms part of Peace Corps, an organization founded to promote community development and foster peace and friendship between the United States and other countries.
She has been in Poroto since August of last year and has initiated various actions oriented towards the youth of the town, in aspects of leadership, reproductive health, health promotion, environmental awareness, and others.
Together with a group of Porotinos, they are ready to launch a new blog, created to promote Poroto as a tourist destination. During this summer, she has developed a baking workshop, and yesterday afternoon they learned how to prepare bread pudding.
One of the centers in which Kelsi works is the community health center. “We are all very happy with Kelsi. She supports us significantly in everything that relates to the development of youth in Poroto, who are exposed to various social vices” expresses Doctor Roman Caycho Chumpitaz, who abandons the habitual motorcycle to walk to the faraway caserios with Kelsi because the volunteers are not permitted to travel in motorcycles.
Walking to the principal plaza, Kelsi speaks of the virtues of the townspeople. “They are extremely enthusiastic and work for the advancement of their town.” She advances and a little girl eating a mango greets Kelsi from the door of her house, “Hooooooooola Kellllsssiiiiiii.” “Hola Celeste”, she responds.
A few feet ahead, from inside a kiosk, a teenager asks if the baking classes have started. “Yes, but its ok… you can still come”, answers Kelsi.
In the park, Kelsi refers with much difficulty to the negative aspects she has found in Poroto. “There are many people who have a very narrow vision of life and devote time and energy purely to diversion. Although fiestas have their place, they seem to often dominate the lives of the citizens of Poroto” expresses in chewed Spanish. Minutes later, a beer truck passes next to her.
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