How to crush a non-informatic virus by using your fingertips

The World Bank states 1.6 billion students around the planet are not attending the school due to Covid-19, the new kind of corona-virus. In Peru, the (theoretically) mandatory quarantine imposed to hold the virus was extended until April 12th. Considering the classes began last March 16th, it means a 2020 Annual Course’s month is lost, and it’s possible that coming back to the classroom takes more time.

Around the globe, the initiatives to avoid the students to lose the scholarship’s rhythm are beginning to outbreak and that’s good. Many teachers have recalled a not-so-new ally to achieve it – information technology. And they are taking any resource, any platform to continue, because it’s not about we are on vacation, we have kept not to infect. It’s not the same thing.

Along Peru, the government is setting up a whole platform including the public radio & television, the Ministry of Education, and some associations which are implementing collaborative and friendly environments. Along Piura? I learned this week it does, and it happens in Sullana Province, Marcavelica District indeed, more specifically in Vista Florida Village.

Virtual classroom

14854 José Santos Chocano School, as thousands of schools across Peru, is closed doors but not its communication channels. So Principal Leonila Saavedra had the idea to do in virtual environment wwhat was interrupted in physical or presential ones.

Let’s push pause here because this school and this principal don’t appeared in the air after a blink. It was one of the seven schools across Piura Region recognized by the Ministry of Education (Minedu, as its acronyme in Spanish) with Valora grade, a kind of certification granted for innovating all processes of management and teaching, three years ago.

In José Santos Chocano’s case, its competitive advantage was precisely the use of tools based on information technology. Let’s get back to March 2020. Mrs Saavedra summoned the engineer Iván Martín Rotta, who worked with the platform that allowed her the Minedu’s recognizement in 2017, and who has developed interesting related ideas about this issue at Piura’s César Vallejo University, where he studied.

The engineer designed a virtual classroom as a technologic solution, first for the teachers to coordinate strategies and contents, then for the parents to join the companion of their kids, ultimately to incorporate the children in the whole process. Look what an interesting strategy to add all the members of the basic educational community. If they can add later to the ones who are not part of this community but who are going to contribute in the process, perfect! They’re going a good way!

The teachers who participate in this experience see it much expectant, judging what they have shared on the virtual classroom’s forum. How did I have Access to the system not having an user and a password? Surprise, surprise! When my radar detected this story, I asked Iván to launch two simple questions: what they think of the environment, what challenge it produces them. Then, the quotes you’ll see on this op-ed are spontaneous reactions of those proffessionists. Get your own conclusions.

“They’re the right place to ask questions, to propose activities, or to solve doubts, because there’s no only interaction by asking the teacher, but seeing also what other students ask,” teacher Luis Estrada wrote.

“The virtual education is other vogue in those times and its use gets into different current spaces, although it also has some inconsistences, for example, not all the parents know those virtual environments, who will accomplish a very important role in this process,” teacher Paola Farfán adds.

“Anyway, despite social disagreements, the current scenario makes the virtual education to be already the solution for the problems in Peruvian education. It’s true that a big advantage of virtual education there is a lower Covid-19 contagion risk, because to access the classes for the students, eliminates the displacement to a specific location, situation not able to be done in this emergency,” teacher Yuliana Astudillo complements.

Growing hurts

For the teachers to adapt to the environment, even borning in the Informatics Age, has not been easy because the traditional education usually trains everybody for a predictable space: the board in the background, the door beside the board, the desks in front of the board, teacher’s desk beside the board, wide windows, four walls and a ceiling.

But in the virtual environment, that fades, and especially another factor – time. Perhaps it’s not necessary the 45-minute pedagogical hour. Perhaps you require more time, perhaps you need less. Everything is going to depend on your attention and understanding rate.

And that has been the same challenge of the teachers in Vista Florida, Marcavelica. Let’s reflectionate through their own reactions on their school’s virtual classroom.

“Too much confused in the beginning because we have changed our traditional way to work in classrooms due to the use of a mobile device, lap-top, or computer,” teacher Farfán underlines.

“However, when investigating a bit more and having an virtual education technology  back-up, I feel more secure. That’s why we have focused that in this emergency it’s important to strengthen the interaction media among the students, teachers, and contents, as well as promoting the use of infovirtual tools because the educational stakers will move in a digital environment,” shee adds.

“It’s complicated in the beginning, but to have the motivation of knowing that your students will not lose the Academic Year, makes we work hard on learning with the expert Iván Martín Rotta these virtual educational environments, those are also totally free, so facing this emergency,” teacher Astudillo opines.

“It has not been easy to enter the field of virtual education, but with the back-up of technology we are receiving by the expert Iván Martín Rotta, the learning becomes easier,” teacher Estrada says in his side. “Meanwhile, I can opine that the virtual education requires teachers with technological profiles, but also human, practical, pedagogical, and ethical, different to presential education’s.”

Well, it’s overunderstood that one of the contributions of the Internet to the life of everybody is now we can custom the contents we receive, precisely, to give utility and pleasure to our experience. And why shouldn’t the education be also a pleasant experience, as well as useful?

“The education in virtual environment also will help to improve the student’s mood for not feeling missed. We also ccan approach the care measures before the Covid-19, helping the work the Peruvian State comes doing,” teacher Astudillo stresses.

And this is every crisis’ about, putting creative, not letting to overwhelm by the problem and the impact it can have over our lives. It’s about how we turn every problem into a solution, but also, and this is the lesson of the story I share you today, how the unity of many talents and wills can make something more than solving the problem – innovating, reinventing, becoming a better version of who I used to be.

And Peru is rich in that but it fears to leave the comfort zone (I’m not meaning you go out your home during the quarantine). Vista Florida is understanding it, and according to engineer Rotta told me, other schools are thinking to join. Congratulations about that! Goa head!

My radar also has detected that a similar initiative is making in Fe y Alegría 48 Network in Tambogrande. I don’t have hard facts, but I promise when I know something else, you’ll know it on here.

As simple as if you cut it off, it will cut you off

Sullana, Peru-based small businessman Mario Sarango is worried because the deforestation and the climate change are risking his business – apiculture. The news is not new but it is crucial from the sustainability point of view of its entrepreneurship as well as our whole life. And when I talk about our life, I’m talking about our life on the Earth.

But before we go to the very global, let’s try to understand the Sarango’s preoccupation in a most local sphere, and the best way is remembering our high-school first grade little classes, or less, when we learned about ecosystems and food chains.

One of the most remarkable species in Piura Coast is our kind of carob tree, the Prosopis pallida, that is something like our national tree. Native of South-American Central-Western edge, it’s not only is a source of food, fertility, and life, but its complex system of roots allows to fix the soil and capture the underwater that sustains the so-called Equatorial Dry Forest while no rain drop falls from the sky.

And when the sky hugely loads, the carob trees, in alliance with other tree species, prevent erosion and keep the fertility levels, plus being the shelter of a hundred species living among their trunks and branches. Yes, like the waltz sings it.

One of those species are the bees, those within other things don’t only help to pollinate everything, then propitiating the growth of our food, but they also make the whole list of products in their ives, which the honey is just the top of the iceberg. And that list is the sustain of hundreds of people in our community who gain their life by caring the environment and giving jobs to other people and sustaining one of many value chains where even the people who never knew an ive in their lifetime end to benefit.

Let’s get back to the pollination issue, the action through the bee, working to extract the nectar of the flowers for giving to eat its wwwhole community, gets its little paws sticked with pollen, that tiny mostly yellow dust that once carried to other flower of the same kind, fals down inside it and allows the fertilization. So, the formation of a fruit, and that fruit turns in our food… unless the bee enjoys to eat corn.

If we take the bee out or eliminate it of the picture, the natural process of pollination will not be possible, then the formation of fruits either. The human being can artificially intervene pretending to be a bee (and I’m not talking about costuming such as a bee), but if there is already a species that manages this issue efficiently, then there’s no reason why the human being, as it uses to do, break down that balance.

The protection of bees doesn’t only mean not killing the bee, although more than a guy falls in panic because the bite, while others have a justified fear because an overreacting consequence of the body if that accident came to happen – the so-called anaphylactic shock.

The protection of the bees goes through also protecting the spaces it uses like a house and the spaces where it flows through looking for its food not damaging anybody, rather the whole opposite.

Here is where the carob tree plays its part because many bees, due to some good reason, like to form their ives or their ives to be installed next to the carob trees. Even, the existence of carob fruits, which starts other value chain that the algarrobina is another iceberg top, highly depend on pollination that our buddies know to do excellent.

How are we responsing them in practical terms? We are cutting off the carob trees for diverse purposes, but the recurrent ones are the expansion of agricultural surfaces, the horizontal growth of the cities, or the making of coal that it’s usually consumed by the restaurants offering broaster chicken or the BBQ’s through many people are looking for extra money.

Our replacement or reforestation policies of individuals we have cut off are inexistent in practical terms in spite of many people say to have it written, or sstill the worst, when it is reforestated, early or fast-growth species aare used, those are not native of our ecosystem, then what we have is short-term trees but not integrating to the chain set with the carob tree. If the chain cuts off, everything cuts off, especially the natural production of food for human consumption.

And if that is a bit, in times of climate change, the carob trees cut-off also seems to be weakening other carob trees. When they don’t find conducive fertility conditions to blossom their flowers, it’s impossible the individuals replace each another ones in a natural way, like the carob tree itself were letting to die. Bad news for the bees because without flowers, they won’t have pollen to carry. And without pollen, there won’t be fruits neither, so they are also bad news for the humans.

Here is the Mario Sarango’s preoccupation: to protect the carob trees and the bees not much because his business gets protected so, that is a valid purpose since his business is benefitting the whole community, but the protection of bees and carob trees suppose the protection of humankind.

As Sarango has told me, what he has got as an answer are from indifferent attitude to arrogant attitude at any local or regional government office he has presented to expose his arguments. And, look, Mario is not any rookie on the spot because he has experience in funding, authomation, aand where you see him, he has traveled twice to Australia for having internships those allowed him to perfectionate in apicultural management. He is also an enthusiastic advocate of the activity  next to other partners across Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and Canada, he uses to participate in advocacy and training activities with all them, and he’s a lover of Sullana’s traditional tales and our folklore too. Yes, he doesn’t fit quite in the profile of the average businessman or entrepreneur, as we have in the local market. And that’s good!

The problem with Mario, as I said him many times, is this campaign to protect the carob tree and the beess has not to entirely lay over his shoulders, despite he has stated on his Facebook posts that he is addressing part of his gains to reforestate (and somebody should deduct it from taxes in case of success), but he should be, at least, a province-wide campaign. Forget if the municipality passes a resolution ruling about because it uses to be useless, although if it does it is useless either. It should be a commitment of our whole community.

Now the school is up to begin, for example, a pretty school project could be to reforestate and sponsor a carob tree. I don’t know, and I wonder, for example, and look at me releasing a name  because I meet him, former Bellavista’s Councellor and teacher Hary Piedra whose (yes, he’s going to kill me for uncovering private chatting) I certify the ecologic issue fascinates him and he has tried to hold campaigns about, during his administration in that metro district. I think Mario has an excellent ally there, as he link other district adding to his.

Yes, I know it’s bad education to point out, but, people, keep the shyness for other moment and lift up to the adventure of making alliances, damn it. Let’s continue.

As I said it in other op-ed, behind his house lives a follower of mine and also lover of local folklore called Luis Enrique Curay, who is entrepreneur and athlete too. We also have Sullana Museum’s Carmen Cruz, who Mario knows very well and supports a lot. We have there two more allies. Here, the whole El Regional de Piura and FACTORTIERRA.NET newsrooms, if my senior publisher doesn’t pull my ears, also can join that campaign by publishing and educating, I think.

And so and so, you, you, you, you, and you can also join, and when we have the less awareness, all Sullana is part of the change, and a change able to measure, see, and reply. It’s no other additional promise that never becomes real.

Do you realize? The thing is as simple as understanding the problem and joining. Will the little bees and the carob trees thank it to us? Yes, of course. They will do it. How? By preservating us as a species. A more practical action like that is imposible and is crucial for us to continue living. Of course, we have to link that to a policy of water, energy, and resources saving. Anyway, changing our mind and and that mind that comes us back to the simple life, provides us prosperity.

Rather, and only for satisfying the bureaucracy in Piura and Sullana, Mario and who join that campaign actually should quantify how much we have lost, how much we need, what the loses will be in every sense and every term. You know, the typical bureaucrat, if you don’t overflow with statistic, will feel you are teaching the cathecism – pure good will, zero commitment.

Thus, we already know what our upcoming work is for now: to prevent that the deforestation of more carob and native tree species surface follows up, and we have effective alert systems that allow to preserve out there when we can’t put the eye because they are too far away, like the rural zone. Obviously, the authorities have top lay their part, but we, who are the majority, also have to play the ours. Let’s start.

Send me your comments on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Two marketing ideas you can invest in Piura Region

Because of the show I am hosting here in Piura region –well, mostly Sullana City, were I live-,

I have the opportunity to meet some interesting people who are launching and managing diverse entrepreneurships. Although I’m requesting my producer to have some episodes in English, I get no results up to today. Actually, my producer (on the photo beside) says it’s planned but the time is not now yet. Despite, I could make a couple of English-spoken videos about.

In that sense, I noticed some interactions from the U.S. West Coast on my Twitter account, and all from people involved in marketing. And if limes rain from the sky, why not I make lemonade? So, I wondered what ideas here could be interesting for you to develop, especially in terms of funding.

Fortunately, Peru is a free-markett economy, what promotes competitiveness. The problem for many Peruvians, including me, is we have not been educated in what the innovation is. In consequence, we ever are waiting for somebody saying what we have to do, or where to send our resumé for becoming another employee. We name ourselves as entrepreneurs, but we don’t highlight to be ultimately original. And the original ideas are never known because their creators are shy or jealous, ignoring how to pitch them by themselves or via alternative media, as our FACTORTIERRA webpage.

The conditions to be a formal business in Peru are easy. The paperwork is fast and almost free. Establishing a company doesn’t cost more than 150 dollars in the worst scenario, and the title is eased in one month at most. But, how does it connect to the show I’m working on? Simple! There are actually good ideas to invest, but we are understanding through this production the people in charge are not promoting them in the right place, or they are not SIMPLY promoting them. Yes! The promotion is the trouble.

In my case, I have a strong feeling in tourism. I’m convinced, because my job as a journalist, that Piura has a lot of chances for rural tourism because our agriculture, forest management, cattle, and even magic rituals at the highlands (only to mention what I remember now). My problem is I’m not a good salesman, I recognize. However, my huge talent is I can motivate, inspire, pitch before a camera, a microphone, on the keyboard. I speak TWO languages, as you see, and my skill to create copies is the ADMIRATION for everyone who knows me, even when I have to only-speak. I’m an anchor, indeed.

And the show is teaching me I can be an excellent conduit for those ideas to be know for the world, ideas which you can put your money and make real good deals. Just take two of the episodes: one dedicated to the Museum of Sullana and another dedicated to products made of environmentally-sustainable prime matters.

Let’s start with Museum of Sullana. Yes, it combines education and culture, but tourism across Chira Valley (where Sullana City is located) too. The museum hosts a little-but-attractive collection of ancient pottery coming from cultures those flourished around before the Spaniards officially arrived here in 1532 AD, where they founded San Miguel in Tangarará Town, just 15 miles away Sullana City.

First, the museum needs to invest in improving the security and the administration of the space it occupies. The curator Carmen Cruz (on the photo beside here) does it for free, what represents no problem for her, but the only fact to receive visitors and guide them through is a huge job. Plus, many pieces here are still uncathegorized, so urges an archaeological research and survey that needs to be funded too. The entrance to the museum is free, but even charging a dollar or less per visitor, it doesn’t cover what a good research demands. Then, about results, integrating it into a local touristic circuit where the starting point to be this. What about related merchandising? It’s another great idea. Local tourism operators have no plans about, as much as I learned. However, I was talking with the manager of a local hotel, Luis Curay, who is highly interested in exploiting that idea, so he could be a great local partner for you, I promise.

And I think the keyword is that – partnership. And partnership could work perfectly in the second range of marketing ideas. While we were producing the show, we met Medellín, Colombia-native Marlon Lugo (on the photo beside this), who is an exchange student in Piura City. He is involved in all related to sell products manufactured under estrict environment respect rules. Actually, he is representing Dagua, a little entreprenurship based on Marina del Rey, Calif., that is selling teethbrushes made from bamboo wood. The story interested us for the main reason that we use the ones made in plastic, that is producing a global problem because of the pollution, especially to the sea. But the other thing I realized just when my producer told me about it was the fact that Piura crops bamboo, particularily in Andes midlands, but it is used mostly to make rustic furniture and house decoration at beaches and farms. Obviously, Peru doesn’t export that, but what about if a similar industry to the teethbrushes cand base in Piura and use the local resources obtained as part of communitarian projects to avoid deforestation and soil erosion?

I have no clarity about the Dagua’s business model, but the bamboo comes from Colombia, and it’s purchased from California. What about if you can establish an industry using Piura’s local resources and purchasing from here, taking advantage of free trade agreements we have wit some countries, including the U.S., the European Union,  and the Pacific Rim?

And I’m not only talking about bamboo. Piura crops organic coffee, cacao, and makes organic sugar,all for exportation. I recently learned that a rural community in Sóndor District, Huancabamba Province, in the Andes, is making essential oils from mint and a local plant called lemongrass (yerbaluisa in Peruvian Spanish). And this is just two species from the hundreds with medicinal purpose, even. My contact is called Jesmir Núñez, by the way, and I have a pendant visit to the town to train the people for using the social media in order to marketing their products. Oh! And I remember about the chocolate that Palo Blanco Community, near Chulucanas City, wants to move on. And, in fact, rural tourism could be great choices for both places.

As you look, I am talking about just two ideas. I think that if we explore across Piura Region (around 20K square miles), and we go through each of its 8 provinces (counties) and 65 districts, its two metropolitan areas… well, across Piura, we are goind to find more opportunities, many looking for funding, markets, promotion, placement – marketing.

Indeed, I want to explore, and with your help and your requests, I think we can do a great job together for improving life conditions here and abroad. You tell me where we can start on. Use the comment box, or my Twitter account, or my Facebook account to stay in touch directly with me.

#unabuenahistoriaparacompartir 100% #ecoamigable y #ecorresponsable

Hoy transmitimos desde 26 de Octubre, en el Área Metropolitana de Piura, Perú. En un webcast anterior les hablábamos sobre reciclar plástico. Como saben, el reciclaje nos permite reducir la cantidad de basura que generamos.


Hace unos días estuve cubriendo un evento, y a quienes participaron les dieron un morral y una porta-laptop. Según dice el impreso en la confección, se hizo reciclando botellas de plástico. Para los especialistas en mercadeo, como verán, además, es una excelente oportunidad para generar merchandising o mercancía promocional.


Pero el reciclaje es solo parte de toda la industria ambientalmente sostenible. Muchas empresas han preferido evitar el uso del plástico y regresar a los materiales tradicionales como la madera obtenida sustentablemente. Y si recuerdan otro de nuestros webcasts, les hablé cómo productos que usualmente utilizamos para alimentarnos o refrescarnos, pueden darnos múltiples usos más allá del fruto o la planta, como el caso de los cocos y los cocoteros.


Por eso en este webcast, tenemos a un invitado especial con quien vamos a conversar sobre eso: la industria ambientalmente sustentable. Hoy me acompaña Marlon Lugo, quien viene de Cali, Colombia

Como siempre, si ustedes tienen ideas similares que nos quieran contar, búsquennos en Facebook como “Una buena historia para compartir? O @BHCoficial
También pueden hallarnos en YouTube, Twitter y Blogger con el #unabuenahistoriaparacompartir.

Lon-term love is possible and sustainable

Ayabaca is a lovely place to me because has been the destination of my mid-year vacations. My mother’s parents, as many Ayabaca-natives know, lived at the right entrance, where Piura and Arequipa Streets begin at the same time, just in front of so-called White-Trunk Cross, on a promontory from where you could look at the three emblematic mountains of the Ayawaka people, especially Aypate, toward the Sun rises.

So my earliest memories start in that my grandparents’ big house, now remodeled as a restaurant and  home (after my grandparents passed away, my family sold out the estate), those continue downhill passing beside the cemetery, the long flat sometime called Maracaná, until following down the road to Suyupampa, finding some of those doors, going down through a path to a place called Rosales, where one of the Castillo Family’s acres where located.

To satisfy the curiosity of the one reading or listening to this op-ed, the other acres where located on the path to Montero, just at the site known as The Devil’s Nose, the most complicated place to advance for who pilgrim to the Captive Lord Festival every October.

Then, even when it doesn’t seem, Ayabaca is an issue I’m concerned about by a double reason: first, by my interest as a journalist, second, because of that emotional connection. That’s why when the Ayawaka Cultural Association invited me to join a debate about development chances for the zone, it was impossible to say not. But what development does Ayabaca need?

First step – Think of multi

A couple of months ago, the local people, or a portion of it, demonstrated against a mining project that is being announced 15 years ago, and what, anyway, because an opposition in Ayabaca and Huancabamba Provinces as well, it’s not possible to start. I was wondered about that protest because its advocates insisted of its local development model was based on the agriculture and the tourism. Great, we already evolved!, I said, because monocathegorizing a development model is the same than considering a person as monotalented for the lifetime, and the truth is that’s not true. The persons, if they want, can be multitalented.

The same happens to the development model at any territory. It should be multicathegorized, and the reason why is such simple as the development is built by the people, not the schemes. If you take the person out the scheme, the scheme borns dead.

The agricultural development model for Ayabaca, priorly, has no discussion, and who doesn’t convince, walk just a mile away the city and get without doubts. And the agriculture comes together with the cattle, if not, it becomes unsustainable. And inside the agriculture itself, the idea would be to have a whole stock catalogue this land could grow for good. The question is – which ones?

Second step – Love the numbers

And the interesting thing comes here. Many people defend development models based on slogans, the priorly, but when you ask someone to sustain it in a real way, the problems begin. First lesson: the priorly could motivate me but is not enough to me because in most times, it comes from an anticipated judge, and that’s a big mistake.

The real way to sustain that your development model is the model is based on diagnosis made with field information as well as statistics. Yes, I know that the numbers have nothing romantic, but the numbers help us not to put the chariot before the horse… although almost nobody uses horses.

I remember that after that demonstration, I wrote an op-ed on El Regional de Piura where I left a homework for Ayabaca people, and for everybody who reads me in general, that we start with a key index saying us how much sustainable we are in terms of economy, the gross domestic product. It seems an interesting basis to me to know what the GDP that Ayabaca has got because its agricultural-cattle activity, for instance. Does somebody know it? As I said then, the information is available on the National Institute of Statistics and Informatics, even by clicking. So now, what is it? Just as a clue, the Peruvian agricultural GDP is more than 7%, the double of the Peruvian general GDP projected for 2019 in 3.6%.

OK, if we can’t unfold at that level, at least what the Ayabaca Province’s or the District’s GDP is. Of course, the GDP is not the only index, but it is indeed fundamental, what must complement to  others as the existent land surface, the land proportion dedicated to cropping, cattle, forest conservation. In the end, numbers, numbers, numbers, and you’ve got my number.

If you want to pitch your development model to who you want to convince or debunk, I should stand up strongly on those indexes, and honest indexes, not supposed, not guessed, not made-up. It’s going to cost us to work but the true loves are not easy. I’m sure about that.

Third step – Turn-on the fan for refreshing the air

And not only with the agricultural-cattle sector. The same, priorly, I believe that the tourism in Ayabaca has an amazing potential, but it’s priorly, and we already established that holding to the priorly is a huge mistake. If we think of Ayabaca being Aypate, we fall into a dangerous reductionism, very similar to the people have about Talara when they believe that everything is Máncora, or when they believe that Piura is only beaches. And here I pay the attention about why we don’t end to convince everybody that Piura is touristically multicathegorized around and across.

Let’s return to Ayabaca. Reducing the all beautiful to Aypate already means a problem to me as a journalist and more as a tourist, because after Aypate, what? I know as a journalist that there is also Samanga, that I’m personally much interested on, or Huamba, or Cujaca, or Yanchalá, or El Toldo, or Olleros, or Yanta, or Culucán, or very near the city, in Socchabamba, or still pretty near the city in Yacupampa, where that beautiful combo is, composed by the Yantuma, the Chacas, and the Cuyas-Cuchayo clod forest. And I learned around of some waterfalls those somebody wants to launch. Excellent!

And even the Ayabaca City itself is able for beautiful urban circuits those you, at the most, haven’t realize like one that my producers and I were invented, beginning at the Main Square, going through all the balconies of Arequipa Street, reaching my granparents’ former house, resting for a while in the White Trunk Cross, and going down along the Piura Street until arriving to the Main Square again. And there is another through the path to Pampa de Lobo. And look - I don’t live in Ayabaca.

Until there, the existent offer. Now, what services do we have to offer to the tourist considering just two basic aspects like assistance quality and essential services: safe water, adequate management of spaces & supplies, safety. We have to quantify all that. Of course, the romantic ones will say me “the troublemaker is already here”, but if you already convinced that the priorly is not enough, you are ready for upgrading the next level. Once we quantify all, we have to specify which ones apply for minimum quality standards those motivate the tourist to come once, twice, and everytime, and bring more people. Right then, we’ll have a sustainable model!

Fourth step – Project to the world

Once we have all this well fixed, we can put that other component right, that’s my best professional talent – how we release it to the planet. Not your next-door fella, not the Ayabaca-natives living abroad, but the whole planet, where you truly contest, and where even you have to speak in codes we haven’t grown.

And, sure, how to feature all this with a text, picture, sound, hook production of marketing that makes irresistible going to Ayabaca, but once you be in Ayabaca, prove it’s better than they told it to you. And here is when the romance just borns strong and everlasting.

Fifth step – Real goals

In this sense, Ayabaca can place as a brand, the Ayabaca Brand. I know many people have thought on that, but if you pretent to get it by skipping from A to Z not passing along the whole alphabet, you’re going to give up. And the successful way to go along starts from knowing wwhat we have, knowing how it is, knowing what we can improve, knowing how we’re going to feature, knowing how we’re going to react before the response, and knowing how we’re gonna to evolve upon the first results.

In other words, people, strategic planning, because it’s not worthy to me that something is beautiful if I don’t have a whole network behind pointing me out goals, activities, resources, persons, results those allow me to measure if I am advancing through the right way or I am falling down. Yes, something like going madly the Yantuma uphill from Yacupampa, and getting unsteady and releasing you had no liferope once you reach the summit.

Sixth step – Be proactive

So now, I know very well that many people will say this is the authorities job, and notify us when you have it already to see how I take advantage. I’m sorry but I have to inform that in the Peruvian context, that is the simple and fast way to give up.

I understand that the ideal is in the social construction of every community, our leaderships open the way, or at least they say us where it goes, but the reality has proven that our leaderships have shown to be incompetent, selfish, and even corrupt. Then, what do we do? Unmotivate? No, that’s not the choince.

If the formal leaderships are not as high as the challenge that demans to launch a brand like Ayabaca, don’t cry, don’t regret. Let’s bet for our own initiative capability, and in that aspect I consider that the private initiative, even being incipient anywhere, can be the same or the better good than the public initiative. And I’m not talking about corporations. Peru has proven it moves 70% of its economy because the little companies, as well as the many independent entrepreneurs (including me). So, if it rains limes, make a lemonade. I mean, if your productive system is mostly the littlest or the independent, build your social network from there and manage the development model from there.

Yes, the authority is going to feel lost but I think there’s no most punishment for any leader when sees not to have a place in the picture. And that’s what the world demands! If you see the international reality, the governments are not those moving the processes but the people like you or me who do it. It happens exactly to a community like Ayabaca!

Then, when that attitude changes, and moves the things into a most proactive direction, believe me that the human asset will be an irresistible added value for that natural, archaeological, commercial, agricultural, cattle, touristic assets, whatever you decide for Ayabaca, looking for including everybody who wants to work on and get it. In other words, when a community becomes competitive, when it transcends from the priorly to the factually, it’s when it really improves the things, and when the things improve, it’s when we have a good story to tell, and when there is a good story to tell the world, well, it’s when you count on me.

Pleased again for the trust, and how good that the Ayabaca people are looking for solutions everywhere. If you keep that way, I guarantee you have a good portion of the success for sure. And if somebody wants not to join, you know?, don’t lose your time by criticizing. Get focused on the good that you’re getting because you’re going to get so far that way.

A Promised Bridge That Seems To Continue As a Promise

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo I will remember 20 years next September since I arrived for the very first time to Malingas Community (Tambogrande, Peru). As I ever say, the first picture receiving to me was that typical one you draw when your teacher asks you to represent the countryside: blue sky, hills, trees, and a river. As the Rousseau-inspired rural imaginery of our childhood was ever there, and, of course, I was wondered about the width of San Francisco Creek’s course. Effectively that in September, when here we migrate from the Winter to the Spring, the amount of running water is almost irrelevant – just 16 feet width, almost 2 feet depth. The van in malfunction process that transported me that time could pass over with certain care but not a major difficulty. However, the prints of how big it could be were there, bared-eye, both banks. And I became to prove it the next Summer when the rains started to fall and the van was not possible to cross it over, and we got to use the human chain, then the cart over some tables were set like seats, and even the truck wheel balloon over that also some tables were set like a boat, and the flow advancing beneath, strong, blurry, massive. The same question repeated during the shortage periods as well as the overflow periods – why not is a bridge built over San Francisco Creek? For sure, that even sounds sketchy to see how the local people engines one with trunks and mud, but the work lasts what the flow allows. Then, whywas an everlasting work never proposed? Malingas is located almost in the middle of Tambogrande and Chulucanas Cities, going from the northwest to the southeast, and adding to the people transportation whatever, the zone is agriculturally productive and the mango is one of its major crops. The campaign of tthis fruit includes the whole Spring and the half of the Summer, this means until mid-February. But if it starts to rain before, it has to be interrupted and the whole production has to lose whether it is impossible to transport, or because the rain begins to damage it. When FACTORTIERRA.NET worked The Malingas Initiative between 2009 and 2011, the bridge issue jumped up again, and the Development Committee of Malingas Zone –because the mayor did not have any initiative- sent letters again and again to any government office they could reach, at least to try a technical brochure, but nothing. It was said when the road between Tambogrande and Chulucanas was asphalted almost a decade ago, however the project never included a bridge, and we talk about a creek that can oversize until 1400 feet width and 20 feet depth, just guessing. San Francisco’s is a natural spillway of San Lorenzo Dam, located in Las Lomas District, and feeds with little flows and agricultural drains, plus the own rainwater those end to turn the pacific flow into a colossal punch leading in Piura River, and that explains why it overfed suddenly during 2017 El Niño to flood part of Tambogrande, Piura, and Castilla Cities and the Lower Piura Valley ultimately. Yes, people – simple Geography of Piura’s Coast. Let’s continue. The Municipality of Malingas Town as well as the Municipality of Tambogrande District, which Malingas depends politically of, coincide that the construction of the bridge on San Francisco’s is a priority not temporary but permanent. And this is not the only critical point of the Tambogrande-Chulucanas Road. Leaving out the first city is Carneros Creek, another little water flow that grows as much as San Francisco’s when it rains, and it’s the first blockade point on that way affecting directly the zones of Curván, Hualtaco III, and La Pala. Following up that way, another critical point is Socarrón Creek where a speed bump survives protected by a reedbed, but if interrupted, it can isolate Las Mónicas Sector and the entrance to Palominos Sector. Then, we arrive to San Francisco’s where the major problem is. If we get to cross over, leaving Malingas, the trouble begins in Paccha where Sáncor River fflows down, and Sol-Sol Creek more to the south is infamous because it kills people every highly rainy Summer. By the way, the road from Yapatera to Chulucanas also has a little creek that means a warning. Plus, we have to reinforce the southern gate of that last city at Ñácara Bridge toward Fernando Belaúnde Terry Highway that connects Paita City to the Peruvian Jungle. And why? I insist because it is about a highly productive zone in terms of agriculture, agriexporting, and agri-industry. Also, it is an alternative route and a shortcut for example between Ayabaca and Huancabamba, or between Sullana and the Peruvian Jungle, and even between Ecuador and Brazil. That is the level we are talking about. In consequence, Peru’s Presidency of Ministers Council or the Ministry of Transportation and Communications at least, San Francisco Creek is going to overload again and again every Summer raining more than usual. And it is goin to interrupt again and again a highly productive zone. Favoring the connectivity or condemning almost 20000 people directly involved to repeat the same claim every year, or risking their lives at the point of losing? More than a promise, they right have the skill to improve the life quality of those people. [Opine on your social media by using the #NelsonOpEd hashtag