elections, coffee, studying..

Today is election day in Perú for about 195 province mayors, 1838 district mayors and 25 regional presidents. About 19 million peruvians will vote today, as it is obligatory once you turn 18 years old. Since I've been here I've noticed the campaigning.. in Lima this has meant posters and road side billboards with candidates smiling and catch phrases, a few commercials (but they don't seem to be the opponent-bashing ones like we have, then again, maybe they are?) and in the country side a lottt of painted buildings with party symbols and names. I'm not sure of the exact year Americans were aloud to start coming here in programs like mine, for Study Abroad, but I've heard it's relatively recent. That being said, the 20 year terrorist war in Perú (which we NEVER learn about in U.S. textbooks) is also historically recent. I feel like these elections hold a lot of emotion for a lot of Peruvians and so I'm really hoping for the best candidates to win to help this country progress. There are many underdevelloped areas and projects (urban and country) in this country and a lot of racial/political tension still exists, and is rather evident. My hostmom is working for a leftist political party on behalf of a woman named Susana Villarán making sure votes are not altered and that all votes in her school are counted accurately. Here, everything is a paper vote. To me, it seems like that could make it easier for corruption in counting votes... hence, jobs like that of my host mom. Anyways, I'm not sure when winners will be announced but my hostmom told me to look out for parades and celebrations. She also asked if we had political parades and big celebrations in the United States (i think that's what she was asking) and i just thought.. DUHHHHHH, we are the USA. best country in the world. okayy, i'm just kidding, but yeah of course.

For me the elections mostly just mean no going out. They stopped selling alcohol in stores on Friday night and bars and restaurants aren't serving all weekend until elections are through to prevent fights and rowdyness.

So anyways, back to the recent history of Perú. I still don't understand a lot of it, but that could partially be because I've never had prior education about it.. and I think that's something U.S. textbooks need to include more of, Latino history.



Sooo last night I met with my tutor again to keep working on my project. We went through interview translations and have kind of discovered some weak areas in the fair trade cooperative I am working with mostly. Such as... farmers not really being able to identify what FAIR TRADE means, they're undereducated about their own certificates and daily regulations which are only supposed to be helping them. So this is interesting and in my next interview, with FLO (the organization that acredits cooperatives with the certificate) I'm going to be asking things along the lines of how they make sure they're farmers are aware.... because it seems like theyre not. Wilson, the most successful farmer for my coop at an international AND national level started talking about organics when I asked what fair trade signifies to him. The two are worlds apart and while most coffees that have one label have both, they're completely different and he seems completely unaware. So where DO the extra premiums go? and why doesn't he understand? this project is reallyy fascinating. Next week I'll be collecting quantitative surveys from a lot of customers at La Arábica café to find out what consumers know about it.. I like where this project is going, still, and I think I've found a climax to it. Starting to identify some of the behind-the-scenes issues that exist in the industry.

Today = lots of more studying for Peruvian Social Reality. hmmm...