I'm slowly trying to catch up on blogging!
Sunday
On Sunday, I decided to get out and walk around for a
while. So I spent the afternoon walking
to La Molina Plaza which is a small complex with fast food restaurants, stores,
a gym, and a movie theater. I browsed
around one of the supermarkets there and found a bottle of limonada, which is
limeade and seems much more prevalent/popular here than lemonade. It was delicious!
 |
| Molina Plaza |
 |
| The strange escalator/elevated walking ramp in one of the grocery stores |
For lunch, I broke down and had a McDonald’s hamburger. That might not sound terribly appetizing, but
for me, it was nice to have a familiar burger and fries! Afterwards, I had
wanted to go to a movie but I prefer having Spanish subtitles to voice-overs
and there weren’t any that sounded good with subtitles, so I walked back and
was able to relax a bit more before I started work on Monday.
Monday
Monday morning, I went to the aeroponics greenhouse and took
the measurements (height, number of leaves, SPAD, and stem diameter) again. Afterwards, David gave me some brief
instructions, and then I entered the data and used a computer program to help
create a statistical analysis and box plot graph for each type of measurement
and for both weeks (for a total of eight).
Then I observed the emergence of the greenhouse plants. Only
three hadn’t come up yet, which meant there was over a 98% emergence rate. For the rest of the afternoon, there weren’t
any additional tasks, so I continued reading scientific publications.
Tuesday
Tuesday was not a terribly busy day. In the morning, I went out to the aeroponics
greenhouse with David to take pictures of the plants. The plants were growing
well, and it was the last set of pictures before the first harvest of 1/3 of
the plants.
Afterwards, I went and measured the plant height and number
of shoots for the other project, and nearly all of the plants have
emerged. That afternoon, I helped Ximena
enter data for some of the seeds in cold storage.
Wednesday
On Wednesday, Ximena lent me a short DVD on how CIP makes
crosses, maintains its breeding lines, and processes the seeds. Overall, I thought it was very interesting to
see such a different side of the work at CIP.
Also, it came in very handy to have a basic understanding of the processes,
but more on that later.
That afternoon, I helped measure out the water for the
greenhouse experiment and water all the plants.
Afterwards, I had a long discussion with Flavio and David about the experiments
to try and answer my questions so I can work on the paper for the World Food
Prize.
Thursday
When I came in to work on Thursday morning, I had an
unexpected invitation waiting for me… I was going to Huancayo! This was my
first trip out of Lima, and I was invited to join Benny Ordonez and some of the
other pre-breeding group on their trip to this CIP research station. Huancayo is located northeast of Lima, in the mountains,
and I was thrilled to have the change of scenery!
So for the rest of the day I
read about Huancayo and went over my notes from the CIP DVD to get acquainted
with the methods.
Friday
On Friday, there still was not much to do with the two
projects I’m working on. So in the morning, I worked with Ximena on setting up
a weather station for a new project. We collected the various pieces from the
storage room (including a temperature sensor, a relative humidity sensor, an
anemometer, etc.) and brought them upstairs for assembly.
Afterwards, I helped do some transplanting for another
project. The seed tubers were planted in
shallow trays with sand substrate, so I had to separate the roots of each
sprout, and pull the sprouts off the seed tubers and rinsed them.
However, the guys running the experiment only
wanted sprouts that were less than an inch and a half tall, we only ended up
with nineteen plants out of 150 transplanted.
Then I helped Luciano and David attach thin rods to the plants
in aeroponics to give them support as they continue to grow.
Saturday
At about noon, I went with Liliam and Daniel to a party in a
neighboring district. From what I
understood, a couple that was from Huancayo (where Liliam and Daniel are from as
well) hosted a large mass and gathering to commemorate a local patron saint
called Señor de la Agonía (which looked like a really morbid Jesus).
There was a large mass, which I found even
more difficult to understand as the priest spoke in both Spanish and Quechua (a
native Peruvian language). Afterwards,
everyone danced to Wayna music in large circles.
Then we were finally able to eat lunch at about 3pm, and I don’t think chicken
has ever tasted so good!
Sunday
On Sunday, I decided to try one of the churches that Carmen
had suggested. I thought I would make sure I could find the church and then
return at noon when the next service started, but when I got there people were
still straggling in so I decided to just go in.
I quickly found a spot towards the back, and as I was shuffling past
people in the row I heard my name called – it was Carmen! After the service
(which I understood most of, yay!) Carmen introduced me to her mother and her
nieces, and I was invited back later that evening for the youth group service.
After youth group, I went home and packed for my trip to
Huancayo. Overall, it was a nice end to
my fourth week – halfway done with my adventures in Peru!
No comments:
Post a Comment