Wednesday evening after leaving the pink district we went on a bit of a city tour before dinner. We went to the city center and saw union members striking in the plaza - which apparently is a common occurrence. We learned that the fountain in the center of the plaza gets filled with Pisco - the "national alcoholic drink of choice" every June 16th and people come and fill up their glasses and celebrate. We learned that that statue in the middle of the plaza was ...

Wednesday was our day dedicated to "White-Peruvians" and our service learning experience. We started off with a group presentation on the white population in Peru. We learned again that "whiteness" is associated more with class and not necessarily with race. In Peru, similarly to in the US, Hispanic is a term used for anyone of Spanish decent-who speaks Spanish. Latino is a term used for anyone from Latin America. There is self-identification and then there is ...

For dinner Tuesday night we went to a restaurant in an outdoor mall on the ocean. It was gorgeous. We had a causa - potato, filling, potato sandwich, and salted lamb - lomo saltado. I sat next to Tim, Nehemiah and Ka'ohe and learned that Tim grew up really rough without a father figure and worked really hard to make it out of the hood. Nehemiah was home schooled and ended up playing college ball at Arkansas. Ka'ohe grew up in Hawaii and is of Japanese and Chine...

MIDIS is the Ministry of Inclusion in Peru (Ministereo de Desarollo e Inclusion Social). It is a branch of the Peruvian government, similar to how we have the Ministry of Defense, or the Federal Reserve. They take up an entire high rise in Lima. They have their own glasses etched with the MIDIS logo that we drank out of. We weren't allowed to bring our cameras inside. Security guards escorted us upstairs. There was a huge, 5 story traditional nativity scene in...

El Bien Comun, or, Institute for Common Good, is a NGO (non-governmental organization) in Lima focused on protecting common resources in Peru such as water, soil, etc. The Director is Richard Smith - a white guy from the Springfield area in the US who came to Peru as a Peace Corps volunteer and never left. He talked with us in particular about helping the Indigenous populations secure land rights. They are funded by various foundations and the Spanish governmen...