An Education in Tourism

We woke up at 6:30 to start packing the box lunches. The tour bus picked us up at 8:00 and we were on our way to Atuncolla, a small community outside of the Sillustani Funeral Temples (about 45 minutes away from Puno.)

It seemed like a normal tourist outing, but in reality, the big yellow tour bus of All Way Travel hauled out a special group of passengers: Nina Fogelman, Director of Ancient Summer Enterprises, Inc., Mery Calderón, Director of Kuoda Tours Agency, Victor Pauca, Manager of All Ways Travel, Jeny Juño, President of the Chamber of Hotels and Owner of Kusillos Posada Hostal, her son, Gerson, Enrique, and myself.

The bus was also hosted boxes of story books, encyclopedias, and a bookshelf. The purpose of the trip was to inaugurate a new approach to tourism, connecting tourists with locals, and both parties to education with the objective of supporting the educational potential rural youth. The tourism project is based on the curriculum that Victor and I developed during my first months here as a Fulbright. Now, it seems, our dream is becoming a reality. Victor, Mery, and Nina are very committed to supporting the development of social conscientious tourism that promote local, culturally sensitive development in the rural communities of Puno. Nina brought together a very gracious donation of books and shelves. All three are hopeful that their clients will be interested in participating in the tourism route.

During our trip, we gave books to children in a local kindergarden and elementary school. Money was also raised by Nina and her contacts to improve the sanitation services for the elementary school.

The amazing part of this whole effort is that tourists can participate both directly and indirectly.

Those that wish to visit the communities can take part in the trip through any of the three tourism agencies. They can visit the schools, meet the children and work with them as tutors to read and with other academic development needs. At the same time, they get a chance to see the BEAUTIFUL lagoon and the temple ruins of Sillustani or Lake Titicaca.

Those that do not want to visit the sights, or want to support indirectly can make donations (monetary or in the form of academic materials like books, pencils, etc.) either to Nina in the US or with Victor in Puno. If anyone would like to see the profile of the program, I would be happy to mail them a copy via my work email: samka_puno@hotmail.com

Our Little Dream...

I am happy to announce that my professional reason for being in Puno (of course many of you know my personal rational) has begun to take life. More than a year ago, Qiqe and I spoke of meshing our passions: his love of high class, highland Peruvian cuisine and mine for rural local development in indigenous society.

Question-What do you get when you unite a Peruvian Restauranteur...soon-to-be Cordon Bleu Chef with a Fulbright Scholar?

Answer- A Socially Consientious Dining Experience!

We had our first planning meeting with IRPA, the Rural Institute for Andean Progress, made up of a team of agronomist and microfinanzers who will help us develop our Fair Trade Quinua Project, Samka (which means dream in Aymara).

As some of you know, quinoa is a very impressive grain that originates from the Andes. It is high in protein, and is a great healthy substitute to rice and pastas. If you enter a Whole Foods or other organic food store you will certainly see quinoa. But look closely, and you will notice that the majority of the grain comes from Bolivia :( Our goal is to change this tendency and develop a fair trade, organic market on the Peruvian side of the border.

Our project is a bit different, though, than a typical fair trade effort. Generally, fair trade supports producers by providing them a fair price for their quinoa, incluiding a premium above the market price. This premium is used (as designated by the association of producers) for local development projects. In this case, though, the producers have a large market, normally in Europe or the US, that supports their efforts.

As we are beginning a this project, with completely inexperienced producers and a NGO that has never worked under the stringent guidelines of Fair Trade, Qiqe and I are offering a different approach supporting the growth of the Fair Trade, organic, quinoa market.

First, we will serve as a local market, to ensure income for the producers at a fair price (at or above the local market level).

Next, we will raise the price (2-3 soles) on our plates that present the quinua (as soup, taboule, qiunotto) in order to funnel the extra earnings into a fund for projects in the community. Its a little different than the general fair trade model, providing upfront premium, as we are trying to provide incentive and motivation to our producers as well as our clients in the project.

I will have more information to come, but that is the basic idea of the project. We will market our effort in our restaurant and our website. After the producers are selected (by the local NGO), Qiqe and I will meet with them in order to iniciate the work before the planting season (in late August).

End of Month

I can't believe over a month has already past! While the time has flown, it certainly has not been a piece of torta.

Last night we had our first monthly meeting with the restaurant's staff to summarize the activities, advances, problems, etc. of the restaurant. Things have become smoother as Qiqe's parents returned from Argentina, the staff and I are getting use to one another, and our projects are beginning to come to life. We still need to improve on a lot of things, but I am finding a great need to be patient with myself. Like I mentioned, I am use to working in restaurants (or more importantly, management) that have years of experience and knowledge. Now, I am the management working with my partner of a mere 2 year. Man do we have a LONG way to go!

The waitresses and I are starting to warm up to one another on a professional level. I have been friends with them for more a year now, and we really do like each other. Now, it's just a question of figuring one another out in the working environment. On the other side of the house, I love our kitchen staff! We get along so well, they are such hard workers and really do the restaurant proud. They all want to learn English, and so everytime I enter the kitchen, they ask me a new word. They all seem to get a kick out of the silliest things like "lettuce" or the American pronunciation of "hamburger". Though, the past few days, I have protested my English instruction because the chef keeps walking around with the skull of a cuy (guinea pig) in her apron, trying to convince me to use it as decoration for our dishes (we served cuy to a Portuguese group upon request, and I almost lost it...the kitchen won't let me forget about that for a while.)

Today...or tomorrow (because this is Peru, of course who knows what time it will actually be....) we are hoping to introduce our new menu! Qiqe and I have slaved over the details for a few weeks, but are quite happy with the results. Of course, we had to redo a lot of the English when the printing company prepared the final copy. I think they spelled mushrooms about 5 different ways! Additionally, the menu helps resolve cost issues. The past month has seen signs of inflation in the market prices, though the past few days costs seem to be lowering again.

Tomorrow we have our first planning meeting with the NGO...so I will have more to share after that.

OH!!!!!!!!!! And our new website is up!!!!!!!! www.mojsarestaurant.com CHECK IT OUT!!!! The English translation should be up soon.