April 5th - Chincha and our first day in Peru

We started our morning by eating breakfast and visiting with several Chincha peruvians. Throughout the day we met several rotarians who hosted us generously which included:  Jose, Patty, Diogenes, Rosanna, Norma, and the Chincha Rotary club's president Piero. Our first official visit was to a school, Visita a Institucion Educativa Melchorita Savaria in Chincha.  We met with the school's adminstration and watched the Chincha Rotary club deliver text books.  

After touring the city of Chincha for a short time we went and visited two other schools in areas outside of Chincha.  These schools were Chincha Baja and Santa Rosa.   The rotarians also delivered textbooks to these schools. We were able to spend some time in the classrooms and share some small gift items with the students.  From there a few of us visited some houses in Santa Rosa where they are currently working on building roofs from bamboo and mud.  We had the opportunity to visit with some of the people living in these houses.

Next we visited the winery run by Chincha's rotary club president Piero Bailletti.  He treated us to some free samples of wine and Pisco.  Pisco is a locally made liquor that they use to make Pisco sours.   We then were treated to lunch at a local restaurant.  After lunch we returned back to the winery and were given a tour about how they make the wine and Pisco.  This particular winery has grown significantly over the past few years and is a strong business in the area. 

After the winery we visited a farm called La Calera.  This was one of the most amazing things any of us has witnessed.  This particular farm was located outside of Chincha.  It is run by a man Tallo and his wife.  They currently farm 950 hectares of mandarins, avocados, and chickens.  They raise 4,000,000 egg laying chickens.  They choose to use all manual labor to be able to employ local women for the fruit harvest and 1,500 men for maintaining the chickens.  The fields are irrigated from well water otherwise it would be desert land.  Tallo and his wife were very gracious and own a beautiful home in which they welcomed us and served wonderful fresh mandarin juice to us. 

Lastly, we ended our evening with our first Rotary meeting at a restaurant.  We met more of the Chincha Rotarians, gave our presentation, and we were surprised by a performance of local afro-peruvians music and dance.