Yesterday I crossed almost all of Sweden. So to speak, or at least the population of Sweden, if you count in numbers. Let me explain. Lima has around 8 miljon inhabitants, which is (almost) the same population as all of Sweden. And yesterday I left Lima to go south, starting off from the north. So I figuere i must have passed 8,000,000 persons. Well, it made sense while I sitting in the bus watching all the people we passed by.

I had decided to go to Pisco, a small coastal village with a neraby nature reserve where there lives flamingos, sea lions and penguins. But... we had passed so many villages on the way that I didn´t get that I had to get off at one of them. So I ended up in Ica (not the grocery store in Sweden). Ica´s nice with a lot of cultural heritage and a good museum with pre-inca findings. In the morning I called one of my collegues who lives in Pisco and said I had considered coming for a visit. And she said: COME COME! So I got on the bus again, paid 1 dollar and travelled two hours and still got here in time for the morning press-conference. Afterwards we met with the Mayor and he invited us for a... pisco (peruvian brandy... a very very very strong sort!).

In the evening we had another meeting with the air quality team of professionals who conveniently enough had to make a decision on what to have as the official statement on the health effects on the pollution in the area. It was a heated discussion which I gladly participated in. Afterwards we shared some good laughs and I realized that I´m turning peruvian.

Well, let´s see if I´ll manage to stay away from the rest of the meetings as I´m not officially working now and I probably won´t get paid for days like today. Then again, I can´t think of a better way to get to know a country than to engage in their everyday life (even if my collegues are better off than the vast mayority of peruvians... but don´t my collegues and most of my friends at home also belong to somewhat of an upper class. COME ON! Admit it!). Besides, I think it´s time well invested because I am networking like crazy and getting quite good at my profession.

Well, bye for now. Will return later to better up the english, add new photos and add comments to all the photos here.

Hot shot top knot

Okey, I just had my last meeting in Lima (I hope!). The meeting was held on the rooftop of a 10 stories high building on one of Limas most contaminated streets. Eventhough it was a saturday morning the traffic was unbearable, and the heat too. And it would have been unbearable even if I wasn´t hungover and had slept 2 1/2 hours. But somehow I managed to appear proper (thank god for buisinessuits) amongst all the politicians and reporters. I was even able to make some reasonable statements in the media. I´m gonna have to watch the news tonight, but I don´t think they´ll show me and my red eyes (thank god for sunglasses).

I only have one photo from the event witch I will publish soon enough.

So now an update

Hot shot top knot

Okey, I just had my last meeting in Lima (I hope!). The meeting was held on the rooftop of a 10 stories high building on one of Limas most contaminated streets. Eventhough it was a saturday morning the traffic was unbearable, and the heat too. And it would have been unbearable even if I wasn´t hungover and had slept 2 1/2 hours. But somehow I managed to appear proper (thank god for buisinessuits) amongst all the politicians and reporters. I was even able to make some reasonable statements in the media. I´m gonna have to watch the news tonight, but I don´t think they´ll show me and my red eyes (thank god for sunglasses). Lovely decadense!!!!

I only have one photo from the political event witch I will publish soon enough. Regretfully I have no photos of me and my collegue grinding on the dancefloor from the night before.

So now an update. Many of you don´t have a clue of what it is that I´m actually doing here. Well, let´s start with the basics. I have a bachelors in statistics and an (unfinished) masters in human geography. My specialties are environmental health and politics from an epidemiological, demographical and geographic perspective. Does it make sense? Or does it just sound dry and geeky? Well, if it does you´ve probably understood it correctly. But I enjoy my job. The project I´m working on in Peru is to measure the health effects of air pollution. The conditions are very special here, partly because of the high levels of contamination but also because one of our studies is done in an andian city 3.800 meters above the sea level. My job has been to learn about the possiblities of obtaining healthdata and to teach (in spanish!!!) how to measure the health effects with these data. And yes, I DO actually enjoy my job. After this mornings lobbying I´m more or less finished for now and can take a couple of weeks vacation (going to Machu Pichu and Nasca).

In May-June I´m going to Chile to do a completely different study. There I will study political activity amongst youths these past 50 years. There´s a theory that when a country experiences an excess of young adults they also tend to have a higher level of political activity. This is explained by life cycle related behaviour. (blah, the guy beside me is farting!) But in most Latin American countries this trend is not so evident wich can be accounted to other factors, and in Chile Pinnochet was reining during most of the youth-bulge years and his dictatorship... well, you get the point. But there are as mentioned earlier some financing problems. Three days before my flight they informed me that I have to take a two day course before they can hand me over the $$$. Now, I know I was crushed about it but I just haven´t had time to fix it yet so... the story is to be continued!

Summer = Sweden = Weddings (he he, none of which are mine). And this fall I have plans on working in Nicaragua and Costa Rica with similar questions as here in Peru. But there is also a question of financing. So the story contines.

WAKE UP!

Ok, lets get to the juicy details. I´ve decided not to become a Latin American drugtraffiker (although I bought Miya a pair of earings with glassed in cocaleaves - they´re really nice. This is true! But I don´t know if they will cause problems in customs). My columbian boys are out of town and I don´t think I´ll wait for them. While they´re gone their Peruvian not-so-stable-or-reliable friend is trying to conquier me and he´s telling a whole bunch of stories back and forth which cause some tension. So I leave this behind. Basically I miss my friends and family at home, and the short and shallow substitutional relations here will have to do for now.

But some relations are quite interesting, may I add!? There is a lot of talk about politics now as the presidential elections will take place in less than two weeks. Basically there are two runner-uppers (from 24 candidates). The one is a right-wing woman with an exceptional rhetorical ability. She tries to be... with the people (folklig) but the people know better and most of my collegues who live in nice neighborhoods in big houses and drive nice cars will vote for her. Because her politics will be fruitful for them. The other runner upper is a left-wing militar with no previous political experience (apart from being chum with the Venezuelian president). He´s not very media active and he doesn´t drive any major propaganda on the streets. But the poor majority are hoping for him although they fear that it will be another Toledo-routine (the now governing president who was born poor, used this to win the ellections and once he got in power used the taxpayers money to cover up various family-miss-affairs).

And me, I try do understand the vast differences in classes but it becomes more and more evident that I can live in a cockroachhotel all I want, but I´m still a part of the second faze of collonianism. That´s why I am able to run around to fancy dinners and change hotels whenever I get fed up with the water running properly. I realize if I ever meet a lover here he would have to be from a fairly high socioeconomic class because the poor get a glazed look in their eyes when I say: of course we´ll take a cab (which can cost 1-3$ to cross town - keep in mind that crossing a town of 8.000.000 inhabitants can take a while). One guy had saved for over a week to invite me for an ice cream at the mall. ( Mall = developent, access, dreams, consumption ). And even most of the fairly well off are hoping for a visum. This inequality bothers me in ways I never thought it would and in ways that I´m ashamed of.

On this note I will go to bed and sleep some hours before going to a folcloric dance-performance at some fancy restaurant tonight with some collegues.

ok, no text yet but some photos for now

One week of heat, sticky men, and fleas

I just love the mirrors here. The right kitch for me!
Actually, it is like it seems.


Really.





I did some tourism with my friend Orlando (Rolando is his brother). Orlando is a peruvian living in Chile and seems quite bitter that I get to see more of Peru than he does.

Hello again.

One very long week has passed. A lot has happend but now things are slowing down and I´m back to my regular workoholic schedule.

I´m still staying at the insect-infested place down town Lima. It might be somewhat crusty but it´s cheap enough and it´s practical. Last night most of my Swedish collegues arrived and I went to their tripel star hotel to meet up with them. Now I am SOOO looking forward to my meetings... because planned meetings means payed hotel and payed hotel means that hotel and it is SOOOO clean!!!

My friends have left and we have talked about meeting upp in Equador to do some travelling together when I´m finished the meetings and my course in Huancayo. This is great because hanging with these guys means that all the other sleazy guys that crawl around me stay away. But then again my travelbuddies have som shifty-looking friends that make me think that it might not be too good of an idea to cross the border toghether with them... We´ll see. I won´t be finished my work here for another couple of weeks, and I might get a better feeling for who´s who and what´s what and then leave with them or take off on my own.

Bye for now!

Ingetur Peru

Well this will be where you can read about my fashinating trip to Latin America 2006!

I was off to a rough start and just before leaving I was asking myself why the heck I was doing this!!!

Things were just not turning out as I had hoped. The trip got more and more delayed which caused some stress... especially since I was living at other peoples houses. I wanted to stay out of the way but at the same time be to hands. And then there was my work that needed to get done.

Finally I got a departure date! I was do fly the 3rd of March. So I started running around doing all that last minute stuff one always has to do. But the products I needed to buy were sold out, I couldn´t get a hold of the people I was supposed to and when I finally got a hold of someone I didn´t get the answers I needed, and... well... then there´s the fact that I´m not perfect :-) In all this chaos I made a whole bunch of mistakes and didn´t get some of my work done the way I should have.

Looking back at it doesn´t seem like too much of a problem, but I got quite stressed in the end.. and then... three days before I left I found out that the funding for Chile might not go through!!!!! For a technicality that easily could have been fixed if I would have just known in time. But what to do... I couldn´t get a hold of the people to fix it... so I decided to just get to Lima and fix the things from here.... easier said than done! The flight got more and more delayed due to fierce snowfall in Holland (where I had my transit flight). Finally we arrived in Amsterdam but the flight to Lima was cancelled.

So I had a day in Amsterdam. Great! Or not. I was dressed for the Peruvian summer and of course Holland was experiencing one of their coldest winters ever. But I did some tourism anyways. Mostly to get away from the hostel where I was staying, a crowded and smelly place with the beds in tight rows. I had to lay next to a couple of spanish young men who had come to Amsterdam to enjoy all of the legalleties. They weren´t expecting that I could understand spanish and to be quite honest, I would have rather not. But I wasn´t in the mood to strike a conversation with any of them so I pretended to sleep. Besides from them having the munchies every two seconds they seemed to have other needs to satisfy... So when my alarm whent off early in the morning I let it ring... and ring... and ring... revenge CAN be sweet!!!


Anyhow, the next day I caught my flight and thank god I had already ordered a taxi to pick me up at the airport in Lima. The agency is suitibly enough called Ingetur Peru which in swedish translates to No Luck Peru. It was overpriced but it was worth it given the circumstances. And the next morning when I ate my first mango all was forgiven and after my first banana all was forgotten.

My hotel is in the centre of Lima, where I have a small room on the top floor overlooking the city. The cockroaches are small enough but there are some cute cats that live here and two turtles. And a lot backpackers. Of course I make way too many friends right a away so we hang out instead of me working 12 hours a day as I had planned. But it´s way too hot to work all day!!! And who do I befriend the most? Of course the most doped out, half-freaky but oh so fun latinos. But I´m the "mami", the calm one with her feet on the ground keeping track of everybody. At least I´m practising my spanish and actually I feel surprisingly fluent already. Good thing I decided to come a few days earlier.

You will be able to see the pictures soon.
So long for now!