so there is still an hour of the work day left, but i am going to be doing research all night I think so I thought I would take a break. I just wrote up a draft of guidelines for Initial Meetings with potential beneficiaries and Technical Site Assessments for potential projects for PSF. At the meeting we had the other day Imran strongly pushed for more efficiency as far as data collection and passing along experience and knowhow to new volunteers. It inspired me to compile what I learned in my 3 days of site-assessing, from my personal experiences and from the guidelines I was given (which were inconsistent day to day). The draft compilation would help make the process more regulated allowing us to serve people faster while also collecting semi-standardized data about the people we help. This information, according to Imran, is essential for gaining funding and other sort of external support for PSF. He and I are also going to talk to Admin about how we can also create a process for follow-up on projects so we have data to show that our work actually does improve the living quality of people in and around Pisco. We need both these processes to be fairly standard in order to gain any information that could be used in statistics or just conglomerate information. We need to also look at how to merge the two sections of data collection and integrate them in some sort of system of comparison to make the information most useful.

Al and I did another round of assessing this morning and it went alright. We went up to Villa de Tupac Amaru which I sort of dreaded since that's where the dogs (and the people) seem to be in the worst condition. I felt like we made some good advancements on the sites we looked at, but it was today that I really realized how inefficient this technical assessment can be if, first, we dont have all the initial information we need, and second, we dont get all the new information we need to get for a decision to be made. Its hard to keep track of everything we need to bring/ask/look into, and until now there was no real document outlining it all. I hope what I compiled is helpful. If I can't get someone in Admin to look at it tonight then I am gonna stick around this weekend and work it out some more. I assume there are people who kinda stay on the clock all weekend to keep this place up and running. It's hard cause I dont want to drop this and have it be forgotten when I leave (on Monday??). There are alot of important people leaving soon. Jimmy (and Lynn?), Alex the tool guy, Mike for biodiesel, ect. Its scary, but there are also lots of new people who seem to have real drive and good assets that are going to be useful at this time.

Anyway, I also found some really good resources on buildings and codes and materials in Peru/Pisco. I need to either print those off or take good notes on them tonight. I am inspired to write a paper for class if I get the information I need. I remembered recently that I had put all of my project stuff from Fall and Winter (as well as my eval drafts) in my Google Docs account, so that will help me draw some comparisons for this new work I want to put together. Obviously it wont be too extensive, especially since there is still some work for PSF (Fisherman's Project, ect), some traveling back to Cuzco, and some site-seeing (Machu Picchu) that we are trying to do before next Friday.


Random things before I get back to work:

Alex Mahy called me last night announcing his surprise arrival to Pisco. I told him it was not smart to be wandering Pisco alone at night. His phone cut out when I was trying to explain not to get in to a tugtuk with more than one driver ("even if the other person is holding a baby, there is probably a gun or a knife under the baby") just as we were told. I was afraid he would get dropped off at the old house too... and he didnt call me back and he took like an hour to get here. I was convinced he had died. But no... Ben walks back from Cake Lady with Alex in tow. -big sigh- We took starving Alex to get food. Then to get more food. Then Ben and I needed to sleep.

Thai green curry for dinner tonight.

Yea, there's more, but I gotta go.