Fish, Rob & Snails

So my future site has now been visited. I like it and I think I will end up liking it a lot. It’s actually quite beautiful although not quite as picturesque or dramatic as some of the other sites. Some of my fellow trainees will be heading for the mountains and the cloud forest but over half of all the environmental trainees are being placed in the dry forest. My caserío, which is kind of like a spread out tiny town, has about 500 inhabitants.

My host-family really does just consist of an older woman and her 16 year old great-niece. However, they are basically related to everyone else in the caserío so other people are always stopping by the house. Also, I do have water and electricity but it is not as posh as I was imagining. The electricity is primarily used to power the constant flow of telenovelas (soap operas) blasting from the television. I have a lightbulb in my room but no switch to turn it on. The water comes for just one hour each morning and during this time they have to fill buckets with water to last for the day. My room is pretty large but I think when I return I’m going to make some improvements like putting in a concrete floor instead of dirt and installing a window. Perhaps I’ll reverse the door so that the lock on my room is on the correct side. As of now they can lock me out of the house but I can’t actually lock my room. I also think that plugging up some of the gaps between the wall and the ceiling is in order as I received nightly visits from rats darting across one of the ceiling beams.

Luckily my host-grandmother accepted my vegetarianism very well. For some volunteers it can be a source of contention. People can’t truly fathom why anyone would chose to be a vegetarian. Rather the concept often seems inconceivable. Of course vegetarians eat chicken as it is clearly not meat. Fish is also not off limits. Hence I ate fish for 11 consecutive meals in a row during my site visit.

People in the campo (rural countryside) seemed to have a harder time understanding my Spanish. Some of them seemed surprised when I told them I spoke English. Apparently they thought I lacked all capacity for speech and that I didn’t actually speak any language fluently. I’m not sure what that suggests about their opinion of my intelligence level.

They were also very glad to hear that I came from the campo in the US. Most people thought I would be from the city. Unfortunately they now also believe that I’ve grown up raising chickens and sheep and tending mango trees in my backyard. I got several questions that threw me off guard like “What do you feed your turkeys?” Did I say I had turkeys?!?

During my site visit I spent much of my time listening to the people talk incessantly about Rob, the volunteer I am replacing. Without exception, EVERYONE loves Rob. This is somewhat intimidating but I am also encouraged because it appears that what Rob did is not actually important. While I do believe that he probably accomplished a lot during his two years, the people chose to avoid this subject entirely. Rather they concentrated on the fact that Rob now dances and drinks chicha, the local alcohol. In fact Rob also now loves the Peruvian food so much that everyone is convinced that he literally won’t be able to digest US food when he returns. This subject apparently never gets old as my host-grandmother brought it up hourly.

One afternoon I visited with Rob to chat with him about the site, etc. It was good to get his perspective on things and to listen to his advice. While I was there I joined him on the weekly community cleanup organized by the local women. Assuming that in his two years he had managed to convince them to incorporate picking up trash was horrible misguided. Rather each woman had her own broom and in a condensed group they walked down the road sweeping whatever lay in their path. What resulted was a swirl of dust and occasional piles of garbage on the side of the road. Robert, being a dedicated Peace Corps volunteer, brought along his trash bag and politely reminded them that they should be collecting the trash. Of course they complied, knowing it would appease him. However, upon reaching the end of the road they quickly took to burning the trash. Rob’s bag was taken by his host-mom to the nearby micro-landfill. Thinking that perhaps at least his mom had been converted into a little environmentalist, I had to stifle back laughter when she informed him that she too was going to burn the trash. Rob tried in vain to explain that it would be better to cover it with dirt. Thus, while she was temporarily preoccupied he attempted to slyly kick dirt over the top. Despite his efforts, his mother was undeterred and returned to light the trash afire. Poor guy…two years of service and this is what he had to show his replacement volunteer.

This just in: Before I had time to post this entry I was accosted by one of the over-zealous host-moms in my neighborhood. I was talking with my friend Sara when her mom spotted the minor burn on my arm which I got from the steam exiting a hot-pot. She informed me that she had just the cure and started saying something about caracoles. Not knowing what that meant I assumed when she started heading for her plants that it was something like aloe. Wrong indeed. I spent the next five minutes with a family of snails on my arm—one big one and two little babies. I had to let them be until they had covered the wound with a satisfactory amount of goo!