Peru

Ayer por la tarde Hugo Mancha falleció. Yo trabajé con el en el Diego Thomson en Lima, Perú. Allá el era profesor en informatica. El también se tomó tiempo para mostrarme Pachacamac por un día. Me da mucha pena escuchar esta noticia, y mando muchos saludos a su familia y sus amigos. Que Dios les ayude en este tiempo. Yesterday in the evening Hugo Mancha died. He was a computing teacher at the Diego Thomson and a friend of mine. I worked with him during my civilian service in Peru last year. During my time in Peru he also took some time off to show me the historical place Pachacamac. All the best to his family and co-workers and I hope that God helps them through this time of sorrow. ...

Next Sunday the Peruvians will elect their next president. Or much more likely they will just elect the participants of the second round. Currently it looks as if no candidate will get majority the first time round. The race will most likely be decided between Lourdes Flores and Ollanta Humala. Flores is very pro-business, though she claims to be more to the center than before, and Humala is extremely leftist. Though Humala doesn’t have a clear policy, because he mainly gains votes by declaring that all other politicians are corrupt and that he is not. For quite some time Flores led the polls but currently Humala leads by a few percent points. For the second round it’s very undecided yet with one poll claiming Humala’s victory and others claiming that Flores will win. Flores uses the general opinion that women are not as corrupt as the men in her favor. Many Peruvians don’t have much hope, though. I mean just look at Alan García. He is currently at third place and for some time it looked as he might just win the election. He already was president before and his presidency was probably one of the worst the world has ever seen. Knowing that he might get elected really makes you think. Many Christians hope that Humberto Lay of Restauración Nacional will get some points - or at least that his party gets some congressmen. Lay is a christian pastor and the party as well is christian. As a candidate for that party, one person of the Diego Thomson is running for congress as well. ...

Yesterday I had the unpleasant experience of being robbed. A young man grabbed me from behind and another young man with two boys (about eight years old) took all my things. Luckily I wasn’t traveling with too many things: just a bit of money, my pocket knife and my Bible. I sure am glad that for quite some time now I never travel with my identity documents or credit cards. The whole thing happened about one block from the church and during the day, at ca. 16:30. Not the one to give up easily, I went looking for police. When I asked people in the street, where I could find police, they didn’t know. The first police car I saw on the street ignored my request to stop, even though they confirmed that they had seen me. The second car had to stop at the red light, so I talked to the policemen in the car and told them about the incident. They didn’t really care. They were kind enough to drive me back near to where I live, but they had no intention to go looking for the kids and make them return the stolen stuff. And that was the really disappointing thing. Peru is therefore a country where not even the police has the courage to stand up to crime. And that’s pretty sad. I was told today, that groups like that are called Pirañitas (“little piranhas”). And that’s already the second time, where something was stolen from me in Peru. In Arequipa someone stole my digital camera - which thought me to be a bit more careful with my stuff. Not enough, yet, it seems. ...

I taught another Skolelinux lesson on Saturday. This time to five teachers who are not from the Diego Thomson. I showed them how to install the standalone client including how to partition the disk. They were very content and one of the participants commented that it’s easier to install than Windows. And that’s exactly my opinion as well. The only thing that makes a Linux installation more difficult than Windows nowadays is the fact, that it doesn’t come pre-installed. Only very few people actually install Windows themselves, while most people just use the pre-installed OEM versions. I’ll have a lesson with the same people again at one of their colleges to install Skolelinux clients in their network. ...

Eine Weile hat es sich abgezeichnet, doch erst seit letzter Woche ist es definitiv. Ich habe die Möglichkeit in Lima, Peru einen Teil meines Zivildienstes zu leisten. Für die Tear Fund werde ich dort am Lehrerseminar Diego Thomson im Bereich Informatik-Ausbildung arbeiten. Dabei handelt es sich um eine Fortsetzung der Arbeit, welche Matthias Stürmer im Frühling dieses Jahres dort gemacht hat. Den Oktober werde ich aber erst in Arequipa an der Sprachschule verbringen. Danach bin ich für ca. sechs Monate in Lima. Abflug ist bereits morgen, am 29. September. Ich freue mich auf diese geniale Gelegenheit und werde hier versuchen fleissig zu bloggen. Sicher fleissiger als im letzten Monat… ;-) ...