I’ve been extremely busy having fun and neglecting this blog (for my sake I did try and update on the 21st, but blogger.com was being weird...), so here is an update about some of my adventures and the progress of my work here. I’ve gone to Cuzco, Machu Picchu (it’s an incredibly beautiful place). Traveling with a couple of other AIESECers was great too. There were even more of us AIESECers, seven girls to be precise when I went to Puno, Uros, Copacobana, and then La Paz. As much as I’d love to give everyone a chronology of what I’ve done exactly you’d get bored and just go to the pictures, so I won’t. I’ll just gloss over some of the highlights of these travels: In Cuzco I saw Sacsayhuman—ruins just as cool as Machu Picchu, got saroche (altitude sickness) with Deena, another AIESEC CEEDer, and the best part of all…lying on the grass, taking a rest after the saroche before departing to the rainforest which was surprisingly cold (the monkies I saw made up for the cold though); In the travels to La Paz, I froze in Colca Canon, ate more crackers than I ever have in my life, walked on floating straw islands, admired majestic snow capped mountains from Isle de Sol, and ate Burger King in La Paz.
Now that my CEED here is almost over, I can say that I have learned so much, made amazing friends, and overall, had an incredible experience full of personal growth. As far as the work I set out here to do goes; it has evolved. There were great challenges in terms of time commitment, and in that context taking an idea and molding it into a reality. I was fortunate to meet with an amazing AIESECer with so much energy and enthusiasm from Ecuador, Xime. She’s a coordinator for implementing the Explora program in Ecuador. Briefly, Explora is a program that allows AIESECErs to go on an internship in Latin America with an NGO. I saw a lot of synergy between the objectives of Explora and the (PBoX) Project Based on Exchange that I was working on before. I also figured that the social objectives of my PBoX, would be better met by a program (long term) as opposed to a project (short term).
We want to make @Arequipa an AIESEC LC with a great Explora program that promotes awareness of sustainable development challenges in Arequipa. After much hard work (including one 12 hour work day), we have a lot including a strategic plan for one year, the beginnings of a formal partnership with CEDER, a mentor who is in charge of coordinating the Explora program in the Spanish Speaking Growth Network, and a team of highly motivated people! We do have our challenges too, which at this point are a lack of human resources from the months of December to April. We have planned to accommodate for this challenge though through doing most of the important work in planning the learning activities and raising the traineeships before they leave, and using CEEDers like me if we can during these months. As we slaved away planning we made a roll call (which is an AIESEC song with a dance) to George Harrison’s, I’ve Got My Mind Set on You. Like Harrison sings, “I know if I put my mind to it…I know that I really can do it” but of course “it’s going to take time…a whole of precious time…it’s going to take patience and time…to do it right!” But we’ve all got our minds set on the trainees that will personally benefit from a great internship with an NGO, and the NGOs and people of Arequipa that will benefit from the creativity, passion, talent and leadership of youth.
