Vinnie Rodriguez

Feb 17

Let’s take a break from Peru for a minute and flash back to another grand opportunity Wentworth granted me in October last year (2009).

I attended my second We Are Boston event, held at the Hynes Convention Center, with 5 international students: one from Burma, one Venezuela, one Iran, one a country in Africa (I don’t remember the name), and one Italy.

The We Are Boston event is and event run by the Office of New Bostonians in the City of Boston to recognize and honor the efforts made by immigrants from all different countries who have spent their current lives in Boston impacting their communities and those of others. It was great because we had the opportunity to network with business, college, and community leaders, including Mayor Menino.

The event started with a networking social and silent auction in one venue that included a light reception and various cultural musical performances by afro and Latino bands. Then, everyone moved into the main grand ballroom area into their reserved tables and the program continued from there. There was a Chinese dragon performance, and actually a Peruvian folkloric dance performance called Huayno, which I didn’t even recognize at the time because I didn’t even have plans to go to Peru yet. Check them out on video below.

Yo Yo Ma then capped off the night by delivering an unforgettable performance and inspiring speech; he was honored that night for all of the efforts he has done, initially in New York when he resided there, but then in Boston, his real self-proclaimed home away from China. It was a true culmination of diversity and interculturalism. It was a great experience.Hear his words and music below

Wentworth Institute of Technology President Zorica Pantic is and has been part of the Board that puts this event together for a few years, so Wentworth Is always highly represented here. I attended last year and remember speaking to her there. That’s one thing I really enjoy about being a Wentworth student: that any student at any given venue can meet the President and have a candid, casual conversation with her. Below you can see all of us with the President in the middle.

One of our students, Francesco Tena, spoke in front of this huge crowd of over 800 professionals to honor high school students with scholarships for doing great things in their school community. I think this was a great opportunity to expose some of those international students who have never had experience networking in this type of venue. We were all invited by Jeanmarie Ambrose, the International Student Services advisor of Wentworth.

I think it was great that they opened up this opportunity to international students, because it gives them a feel for networking in an American environment. Thanks to the opportunity by Wentworth to send me to this event that I wouldn’t have been able to afford from money out of my own pocket, I was able to comfortably approach the President afterwards and offer suggestions for next year when they send international students to this event. The suggestion is that next year Wentworth do a pre-event workshop on networking in the American business realm, that way international students can further expand their knowledge of American networking by practicing those networking skills at the event.

Feb 16

The Road to Chirimoto

December 29-30, 2010: After another amazing breakfast and lunch in Lima, we caught the 4 pm bus to Chachapoyas, the capital district of the Amazonas region, which is another region outside of the Lima provincial area. We had to be prepared for a 23-hour bus ride, so we went shopping at the Metro, the Peruvian version of Wal-Mart.

I learned that, even though the exchange rate at the time was 2.80 Peruvian soles to 1 U.S. dollar, many things were still very cheap. I was upset when I saw the same exact sleeping bag I bought in Wal-Mart for US$30 for only about 8 soles in Metro. We stocked up on food for the long trip and also took a tour around the area/neighborhood, split up into “cuadras”, or specific blocks. We stood in Cuadra 2 Torre Junin.

We got onto the Movil Tours tour bus to Chachapoyas. The bus ride felt so long, I must have fell asleep at least five times and still didn’t arrive yet. Actually, it’s because it wasn’t the 23 hours we expected. It actually ended up lasting a few hours longer. However, it was worth it. I saw so much of Peru on the way. We traveled 1,183 kilometers, or in U.S. terms 735 miles, which is the same distance from New York to Chicago, or from Miami to Dominican Republic.

On the way through the outer parts of the city, I especially got to see a lot of the poorer areas, and this made me wonder. Why is it that we have to travel through all of the poorer, more desolate areas? Maybe these poorer areas just happen to be geographically in the same direction, but what if the President of Peru’s house was in that direction, do you think we would cut through his property? I highly doubt it. It made me think about how people who live in these areas have historically had their communities intervened and interrupted by foreigners and/or people of higher power. The Aztecs felt this when the Spanish built Mexico City on top of their ancient metropolis Teotihuacan. The Native Americans experienced this when the British invaded their lands. When I lived in the Bronx ghettos as a kid, I lived right across the street from the Yankee Stadium that is highly visited by fans from all over the world and of all socioeconomic classes, but I have never been to a game. So, even though it was in my geographic region, it wasn’t a part of my community. Till this day I have never attended a single game there, but I could hear the #4 train swoosh by every 15 minutes, preventing me from my sleep. But now that I am in Boston in a better socioeconomic condition and with all of the opportunities and resources offered to me by the privilege of college, I can choose to avoid the fire trucks that, similar to the #4 Bronx train, siren their way out of the fire station adjacent to our campus by choosing a dorm where that noise is not so pressing. However, to those without the choice, like those who belong to the poorer Peruvian communities to which I refer, the choice to preserve their community is limited.I thought about suburbs, and questioned whether I ever saw in the suburbs one of these big buses I was riding in–nope, couldn’t think of an example. It’s similar with dumps. Why are dumps built in towns that are poorer? I saw a lot of accumulated trash heaps and dumps in those areas and agricultural sites around which we drove that had houses stuck together with clay. What does this say about the poorer people’s voice and right to privacy if a huge bus can cut right through their neighborhoods? Did they allow this? If not, were they ever even communicated about it?

Once we finally entered into the Amazonas region, I really began to see nothing but preciousness as we headed into the rainforest. The power of it’s silence from inside the bus spoke novels to me . It told me how something so natural, so real in essence, can be so hidden. How have I never been exposed to this natural beauty that provides the water to the rivers to the water-bottling factories that make the water I drink everyday? How do I truly make sense of the human relationship with this Amazonian unknown, when technology is very different, then what I understand? Take a ride with me below.

For more videos on the bus ride, visit my YouTube page: http://www.youtube.com/user/123vinnier

Feb 15

Initial Talks About Enabling Community

Day 2: we woke up and had breakfast made by Claudia’s grandmother. It was very light and simple because, like other Latin American countries, lunch is the most important meal.

The house was big, which fit many generations of the family. The grandfather lived there too, and he was a well-known folklore music pan-flute player in the country. He makes the pan flute from bamboo and wood that he has to get directly from the rainforest, and to make one is a several month process. He was a very funny and engaging guy, always seeing the positivity in things and always joking around.

In the house you will find some unique things you can’t find in the U.S., but that are characteristic of Peru. All of the outlets require 220-240 V plugs, so if you directly connect an American plug (which is 100-120 V), it will fry your electronic device. So, we used converter for everything–cameras, laptops, bettery chargers, etc.–until we found out last day in Lima that actually some of our electronics (like the Lenovo laptops Wentworth gives us) can be plugged into any outlet with a voltage of 100-240 V, so didn’t need the converter!

We later ate an amazing lunch before we headed to visit Luis “Lucho” Chavez, a literature professor at BU, who is “Chirimotino” (from Chirimoto, the village where we were heading to do work) and very passionate about developing his village. Here’s the amazing grand lunch I previously explained. The dish I refer to in the video I later learned is called Lomo Saltado–probably my most favorite meal in Lima.

At the meeting, we had very deep, passionate discussions around the importance of economic development in the region, what does Chirimoto bring to the Peru socioeconomically, how to enable community to develop economy, political issues and factors that may be obstacles towards economic development and how to relinquish that, and opportunities and areas for growth for the village. This really pumped me up.

After our meeting, we the boys headed out to the nearby parks. At one park, a local passed us and mumbled repeatedly “yo no robo” (I don’t steal), and I initially didn’t understand. We thought he was a drunk local actually tricking us to calm down so that he can steal from us, but once he got closer, we found out that he was actually upset we were taking pictures in the park. His reasoning came out of pride and protection of his community. He said we could have been anyone–tourists, reporters, developers, etc. and could potentially do anything with those photos, when we return to our home country. that could exploit, offend, or harm their community and he did not agree. In addition, he repeated that they wouldn’t rob us, rather they recycle bottles, so we should respect their actions in that sense and their sincerity by stopping the photo-shooting, so we honored that wish and left. What he said really resonated with me. Taking one picture of anywhere you travel means you are taking away with you that piece of community from the people that live there; especially since you don’t even belong to that community, you have really no validity in taking that digital representation of what means home to them–if they don’t allow you to. That’s why when traveling, it’s always recommended to ask the person from that area for permission to take a photo, because taking it might be against their opinion. This is always a touchy issue and lesson to learn about traveling and engaging with different communities–make sure that whatever photo you take has meaning to it, otherwise, why ar you taking the photo in the first place?

Feb 15

Wentworth, Community Co-op & Where We Fit In

This video was shown at an alumni donor appreciation event, showing them all the great things students are doing on campus. I was one of those students they highlighted. They focused primarily on my co-op in the community center I had at the time, and about the impact I was making through that co-op. This is important for any prospective students to know what you can make out of your co-op experience, and the opportunities at Wentworth. Speaking of opportunities, in this video, you will learn about the tons of opportunities offered to you by the Center for Community & Learning Partnerships (CLP). You can do community work studies, Alternative Spring Breaks, Voluntary Income Tax Returns, Community Co-op’s, and much more. What I like about the office is that if you don’t see an opportunity you want, you can make it happen. To access more information, click here or o go to www.wit.edu/clp to see all of their programs.

Feb 14

The beginning of the Peruvian adventure

Hello everyone and happy new semester, Valentine’s Day and President’s Day. It’s been a while since I submitted my last post. From here on, I will be submitting blogs from my experiences in Peru. The focus of my month-long project visit was to aid a Wentworth professor in an economic development plan with the community in a village there. This basically means that day by day, the professor and I would talk to people in the community, learn about the issues they are having, what they aspire to acheive, revive and improve in their community and being that tool/resource (and if we cannot be that resource, we could find the appropriate resource) to enable them to facilitate those goals they have. We were accompanied by four other students: three more from Wentworth and one from MIT. Of the three other Wentworth students, two are civil engineering juniors named Jose “Tito” Arevalo and Starling Espaillat who’s focus was to design a sand filter for the water in used in the community, and the third is Eric Danforth, a junior in Architecture who’s focus was on renovating the “Casa del Colibri” (Hummingbird House) community center in the village.

I have practically not slept since before Christmas due to all of the partying of the holidays during vacation and lack of sleep Saturday night because I missed the last commuter rail from Boston finishing up some emails for the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) at my school, to make sure they are set up and can transition smoothly while I’m gone for those six weeks in Peru. I got to East Boston at 3:30 in the morning and slept until 5:30 a.m. when I headed to the airport. After going through security and check-in, I passed out at the Gate waiting for the connecting flight to Miami. The flight left at 8:30 a.m. and after a long layover, boarded the 5-hour afternoon flight to Lima.

I particularly enjoyed this flight, despite the length, because I sat next to a Peruvian woman and we ended up talking the whole flightdown. We talked a lot about cultural differences in Peru and the U.S. and comparing those differences to other traveling experiences we have each had. It was a great orientation to Peru before even arriving. I learned about how Peruvians use the language (we spoke Spanish the whole way through), similarities and contrasts to cultures we have each been exposed to (i.e. Bolivia, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico), immigration and emigration patterns of populations like the Japanese in Peru, and different approaches to tourism that aren’t so exploitive of a country’s culture. We talked about the importance of bilingualism when raising children in the U.S., and I explained how my just learning Spanish is very reflective of my generation of Latinos that don’t speak Spanish as much anymore. She explained to me how unique Peruvian culture is in that it is so diverse compared to other Latin American countries, which largely due to its broad range of climates.

Lima is a coastal desert, yet Chirimoto, where I am going to spend most of my time and where the economic development project is focused, is a mix of the Amazon rainforest and the mountains of the Amazon. Closer to the Andes mountains of Peru, it gets very cold and it snows in other parts of the coast there are beaches where people surf. She stated that geography determines a lot about the culture. She was familiar with Chachapoyas, which is the closest well-known area to Chirimoto (it’s the capital of the Amazonas department, which is in Peruvian terms like a State) and after I asked “what is typical Peruvian food like?”, she supported her former statement by saying that it depends on the region we’re talking about. She said ceviche–a South American dish usually consisting of shrimp or other sorts of seafood–is the most popular dish of Lima, which makes sense due to its coastal orientation on a map. She stated that rather than that, in Chirimoto and Chachapoyas, and I am more likely to find plantains and yucca, which makes sense because of these greens grow in moist, dense areas like the rainforest. She lastly gave me recommendations on fun and authentic places to visit and things to do during my week-long pre-Chirimoto stay in Lima. We exchanged contact phone numbers and Facebooks and exited the plane.

While waiting for a few hours after getting through customs for Claudia, an MIT senior in Environmental Engineering that will be focusing on proposing systems for more healthy and efficient sewage systems in the village, the Wentworth students, professor and I went to grab a bite. Take a look at our arrival

I tried a Peruvian empanada de queso (cheese empanada) that tasted very good.

We took two taxis to Claudia’s grandmother’s house (yes, folks, that means she’s Peruvian-American) because our luggage combined could not fit in one, as you can tell below.

Once we got to the house, we immediately rested. Arrival at house from airport: click to here my thoughts.

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