Settling In

Have been here nearly a month now and am starting to feel that I'm finding my feet a little bit. I've begun to master the busses in the city (or at least the ones to and from the office and the centre) and that gives me a little bit more freedom and flexibility to get around when and where I want. Also my Spanish has defiantly improved. It's kind of strange because I don't know how it's improved, I only know a handful of new words since I arrived, and although I've meant to sit down and study the grammar I've sadly been neglecting it. But I understand more and people have said that I'm talking more fluently so something must be going right.

Another thing that has helped me settle is getting to grips with what is expected of me. Before I came out I had a job description of sorts, but it was the kind of document that said alot without saying anything; very ambiguous and open to interpretation. I wasn't surprised at the time because I was aware of how things work in this kind of situation and that I could have a concrete job description before hand, but as soon as I arrived here the realities and opportunities would change this beyond recognition.

Over the last couple of weeks thought I've come to understand my role a little better. At the beginning I was translating the website into English, which was fine until I found out that much of it was under revision. Also the structure wasn't quite right. It was a little convoluted and difficult to navigate around, some parts were too wordy and other didn't answer questions that would be likely to be asked. There were pages about projects and about volunteering but specifics were missing and as I was translating the page I was thinking "If I read this is wouldn't make me want to sign up."

This is then where I've started to develop my role. As well as wanting volunteers to come out, the organisation also wants tourists and for people to be able to donate directly. In order for this to be a success these sections need to be better developed and it's not a question of just translating them into English.

Over the coming months I hope to visit some projects so that I can write more efficiently about them, the needs, wants, what's been done, what needs to be done, how volunteers can help, how donations can help and other things like that. Once I have that down then I need to be trying to attract volunteers, tourists and donations which is no small task in itself. I'll try and go through people who I know, friends who might want to come out, and a few links to universities where visiting development projects or even just visiting Peru is likely to find interest. After that though there is room to contact other agencies and organisations, set up links and partnerships, even advertise in brochures. It's no small job and I don't know if I'll reach the end, but at least I have a plan to follow. However it all starts with getting the web site in order first.