Turbulence

I don't recall much of my early years of life, but one of my first memories as a child was the day I went on a trip to Orlando with my family. I was only about 3 to 4 years old back then, and I was sort of scared of planes; most of all ascending into the air, and the turbulence that we might experience along the way. As I was sitting down on a seat much to big for my size, I recall looking up at my dad, who sat besides me, and saying: "Dad, I'm scared." He Bent forward, to reach eye level with me and said: "Don't worry honey, as long as you know where you're headed towards, as long as you know your destination, the turbulence along the way is just a small bump in the road." He then sat next to me and held my hand as the plane reached its peak height. After that, the plane ride passed by quite quickly, yet I don't know if it was the feeling of fear that filled my body, or the relief of listening to my father speak, but for some reason or another the memory stuck with me.

Much like the turbulence on the plane, this passing week our project was faced with an obstacle that we thought would be hard to overcome. For a while, the issue was that the president of La Asociación Gremial de Pescadores en Pucusana was not formal, in the means that he did not pay taxes and had no bank account nor RUC; And he had no interest in formalizing. This put a damper on our project, seeing as these were prerequisites Vivanda had that were necessary in order to work along side the community of Pucusana. We must have spent hours figuring things out, for a whole week questioning the essence of the project. We realized how depending on people can sometimes be a burden; because when we needed people the most, they were not replying straight away, putting us in some sort of emotional limbo in regards to the project. 

When we were faced with this problem, I went back to what my dad had said to me on that flight to Orlando: "As long as you know where you're headed towards, as long as you know your destination, the turbulence along the way is just a small bump in the road." And a bump in the road was all it was. Knowing the final goal, knowing our journey's end, we were able to figure something out. We called Jessica Pinos, our contact in the Ministry of fishing, and she told us they in fact did have a formal system that could benefit us in this project, so we were back on track.

Even though we were able to recover from this issue, it did in fact make us reflect and go back to the point of start. We decided to make a report to document our findings, so that in the case we weren't able to reach the 'destination', then at least the plane wouldn't crash.