Exploring Lima!
/Shannon Kuyt - Junior Team Canada Ambassador
Since it was Sunday, the team was free of meetings, but that didn't mean that we didn't have work to do. We congregated at 10AM for personal meetings with our leader-from-afar, Terry Clifford. We discussed my mandate for Priestly Demolition and he gave me some ideas of key questions to ask when I meet with business leaders in construction. He also helped boost my morale by reminding me why I am here on the ground and we also discussed my interest in Global Vision.
At the end of my chat with Terry, I had formed a plan to find some construction sites in Lima to get an understanding of the players in the game. I was also curious about the set up of the sites, sign postings and notice of projects in place. Since the rest of the team was working on their mandates or further exploring the city, I decided to wander through Lima and discovered some construction sites nearby. At one site, a trailer was set up with information about the new condominium, which was to be built. A lady sat at the desk and with my limited Spanish, her lack of English and many hand signals, we tentatively set up a meeting for later in the week when the project supervisor would be back. Hopefully, that is what I understood.
After that success, I met up with a few other ambassadors to explore Kennedy Park, an area where artists lined the sidewalk, music filled the air and the smell of picarones filled the streets. Picarones are a type of Peruvian style donuts that are covered in honey. We tried our hand at negotiating with various street vendors, had a picarones and watched people dancing in the streets. Our outing was cut short because we needed to rush back to meet our Peruvian friends for dinner where we had chifa (A fusion of Peruvian and Chinese food).
Overall - the day was filled with discovery as we learned more about Peruvian culture; I discovered a little more about the construction industry, and I tried my hand at a little Spanish.
