At the Pitzer College graduation in May, senior Emma G. asked me if there was anything she could do to work with some of our farmers. Careful what you ask for! We immediately signed her up for our exceptionally cool Javatrekker internship program. We connected Emma G. with our good friends at Pangoa Coop on the slopes of the Peruvian Amazon, and arranged for her to spend a month or more teaching English, doing environmental work and assessing our past and current development projects with Pangoa. Emma G. left last week in a flurry of excitement, but as is often the case with development work, not all the details had been worked out. The phones weren't working too good at Pangoa, nor were they answering emails regularly. They knew Emma G. was coming and were going to meet her at the airport, or was it at the hostel in Lima, or was it at the end of the ten hour bus ride to Pangoa? When we last left Emma G., she was on the bus to Pangoa, but the ten hour trip was doubled by the road construction over the Andes. The original hotel ended up being completely booked, but we did get her into a great second choice! Who needs hot water, right? Through it all, her mom and executive agent, Barb, kept calm and in moderately good humor while we tried to locate her daughter. We will keep you informed as we wait to hear if she has arrived in Pangoa yet. Thanks for hanging in there, Barb and Emma G.! Welcome to the world of people-centered grassroots development!
