After living in Peru for over two years, I arrived home during the first week of December. Leaving my site was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I'm not complaining; I'm just stating the facts. People cried. I cried. My host-brothers actually sobbed. A dozen women and girls accompanied me out of my site on moto-taxis, blowing whistles and horns the entire way. The whistles were a bit much but I appreciated the gesture. Leaving was obviously something I had to do but that didn't make it any easier.
Then I got home and lived for two weeks as an anti-social being, holed up in my parents' house with random forays into society to run errands with my family. Nothing about the U.S. overwhelmed me as much as one might suppose. I expected the shopping malls. I expected the SUVs. I honestly was feeling a bit guilty about not experiencing the typical effects of reverse culture shock. I was starting to feel like maybe I was just forgetting Peru too quickly.
Then, I actually left my house and started interacting with other people. Little did I know that I had just been living in ignorant bliss. Apparently, the vast majority of the privileged U.S. population is living in ignorant bliss of another kind because they don't truly seem to care about anything going on outside of their own lives and certainly nothing going on outside of their own country. Hence, what follows is a bitter parody of the SNL segment "Really?" which, unlike the SNL version, has no intended humour.
Really, you think I want to listen to you talk about how a meal is just so much nicer with a fine, pressed damask napkin?
Really, you're really going to check Facebook on your portable phone machine in the middle of our conversation? Really?
Really, you bought your young children Motorola Droids for Christmas? I don't even know what those are. Really.
You seriously think you need to replace your HUGE television with an even more GINORMOUS television? Really?
You're actually going to talk about yourself for, oh, 3 hours and not even bother to ask how I've been? Well, that REALLY happened.
You really think that the way you live doesn't have implications? Really?! You don't think that just maybe you really aren't entitled to everything you have?
REALLY?!
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
After two years in Peru, I...
...Finally understood a joke about rice preparation and actually thought it was funny.
...Am still constantly baffled by Peruvian medical remedies. Suffering from a wound or perhaps the common cold? Try kerosene. I hear it works wonders.
...Continue to laugh in people's faces at inappropriate moments because I'm positive that they are joking and, go figure, they're not. Case in point: I was recently told by my host-brother, who is 15, that his feet grew so much because he wore sandals and watered his feet. "Just like plants," he said.
...Point out Gringos as if I were not one myself.
...Am completely unfazed by any invasion of my personal space.
...Have kind of, maybe, gotten used to seeing my primary school students at parties.
...See no problem with referring to someone as Chino.
...Still don't understand why many Peruvians are called Chino when they have no characteristics meriting the nickname whatsoever.
...Love chicha.
...Would rather drink about anything other than lukewarm Peruvian beer.
...Feel like my Spanish language level may have advanced from that of a 6 year-old to that of a 6.5 year old.
...Am certain that my English language level digressed.
...Feel like an 8 year-old because I've reverted to wearing clothes that were picked out by my mother and eating whatever my Peruvian host-mother puts in front of me.
...Feel a little sad that I won't see my younger host-brother grow up.
...Am looking forward to being able to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
...Do not regret not being able to eat what I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it for the past two years.
...Am still constantly baffled by Peruvian medical remedies. Suffering from a wound or perhaps the common cold? Try kerosene. I hear it works wonders.
...Continue to laugh in people's faces at inappropriate moments because I'm positive that they are joking and, go figure, they're not. Case in point: I was recently told by my host-brother, who is 15, that his feet grew so much because he wore sandals and watered his feet. "Just like plants," he said.
...Point out Gringos as if I were not one myself.
...Am completely unfazed by any invasion of my personal space.
...Have kind of, maybe, gotten used to seeing my primary school students at parties.
...See no problem with referring to someone as Chino.
...Still don't understand why many Peruvians are called Chino when they have no characteristics meriting the nickname whatsoever.
...Love chicha.
...Would rather drink about anything other than lukewarm Peruvian beer.
...Feel like my Spanish language level may have advanced from that of a 6 year-old to that of a 6.5 year old.
...Am certain that my English language level digressed.
...Feel like an 8 year-old because I've reverted to wearing clothes that were picked out by my mother and eating whatever my Peruvian host-mother puts in front of me.
...Feel a little sad that I won't see my younger host-brother grow up.
...Am looking forward to being able to eat what I want to eat, when I want to eat it.
...Do not regret not being able to eat what I wanted to eat, when I wanted to eat it for the past two years.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
That would be mine.
I've broken/lost 5 pairs of sunglasses while in Peru; hence, with only a month left to go, I decided that it was not worthwhile to replace my current pair which have a cracked frame. Besides obviously being tacky, the lens also randomly pops out, leading to some rather awkward situations. Recently, my lens suddenly popped out just as an elderly man was climbing onto the moto-taxi next to me. My lens landed precisely where he was about to sit down which I realized at the last second. In an attempt to recover the lens my hand shot out and, of course, both the lens and my hand ended up under the man's butt. An alarmed expression which said, "Is that really her hand touching my butt?!" crossed his face before I could explain the situation. Luckily, the lens was unharmed and the man laughed. I popped the lens back into place and we were on our way.
The One and Only
Two years have gone by. The important part of that statement is not that two years have gone by since I arrived but, rather, that two years have passed since the previous volunteer left. Two years after Rob departed he is still beloved by all. Not only do they remember him fondly but he keeps coming back to visit. In May, he visited and happened to show up at an ECO event that I was also attending. Of course, the announcer introduced Rob like this: "And now, lets give a big welcome to ROOBBEERT ELLIOT!!!" He proceeded to introduce me and a random French girl as their "other friends from other countries." I had to laugh. I wasn't actually surprised because I never work with ECO and Rob did, but still, the disparity was kind of ridiculous.
Now, the Peace Corps is going to send another volunteer to Rob's site (I live in a neighboring community). The local rumor is that Robert is actually coming back to live. I suppose they'll be in for a surprise when the new volunteer arrives and looks nothing like Rob.
Ingleesh
In many Latin American countries, certain English words have been absorbed into the local vernacular. Obviously, English words are commonly used for items which have been introduced from abroad, such as technology -- USB=flash, mouse=mouse, laptop=laptop, to click=hacer click. However, other words that have been borrowed seem somewhat random. In Peru, for example, a toilet is called a "water." It is difficult to predict when locals will opt to maintain the English word for a particular object. One time I spent a good 15 minutes trying to buy masking tape to discover that it is called, go figure, cinta masking.
English is also used in some rather unexpected ways, often in advertising or as a status symbol. For example, the other day I encountered an advertisement for the "one-piece legend" toilet. The entire sign was in Spanish except for the words one-piece legend. First of all, what kind of toilet deserves the name one-piece legend. Also, since most Peruvians can't even understand those words, to them it is actually the "a bunch of gibberish" toilet.
Also, some words maintain the proper English pronunciation while others acquire a Spanish twist. Consider the word huachiman, a botched version of watchman which is pronounced watchymon. Or brother, used as slang for friend and pronounced bro-der. For the English speaker, this unpredictable use of English can be confusing. Once, at Starbucks, I tried to order a "moofeen" only to have the girl behind the counter confirm my order of one muffin. Then Susan, confused because at Starbucks muffins were actually called muffins, attempted to order a cookie and received baffled looks because they had no idea what she was talking about. My friend Michelle once called a hostel called Hobo Hideout and, of course, pronounced it in Spanish (Hobo He-dow-te). The receptionist was like, "Um, Hobo Hideout?" As a general rule, it is safe to assume that, when using English in Peru, you, the English speaker, will always be wrong.
- - - - - - -
The other day a Peruvian doctor was practicing her English with Susan and I when she reacted to something Susan said with "Oh baby!" I don't even remember what Susan had said but it certainly didn't merit an "Oh baby!"
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Nicknames
In Peru, a complete stranger can get a person's attention by calling him fat and no one takes offense. First of all, Peruvians are fairly unconcerned with political correctness. Case in point, during the recent soccer match between Paraguay and S. Korea, a Korean man's face flashed up on the screen and my host-dad literally said, "Oh, the Chinos...," and started laughing at the man's face. However, in Peru, it is also commonplace to refer to people by their physical characteristics. General nicknames which describe a particular attribute are used to address both acquaintances and strangers. The following examples are all frequently heard in Peru:
Gordo(a) - fat one
Flaco(a) - skinny one (also used as a term of endearment, regardless of weight)
Chato(a) - shorty
Negro(a) - black person or darker-skinned person
Zambo(a) - curly-haired person
Pelado(a) - person with little hair or buzz-cut
Colorado(a) - light-skinned person
Paisano(a) - light-skinned person from the Sierra
Gringo(a) - white person
Chino(a) - person with Asian characteristics or not
Other names, which are less descriptive, are also used to address people:
Joven - young man
Chibolo - young boy
Niño(a) - child
Amigo(a) - friend; used to address pretty much anyone in casual situations like at the
market or in a restaurant; not used to address professionals or the elderly.
Tio(a) - uncle/aunt; used to respectfully address anyone old enough to be your aunt or uncle.
Hijo(a) - son/daughter; used to talk to someone who is sufficiently younger than you; used
without regard to relationship
Mamita - woman
Seño - short for Señora
Cholo(a) - mestizo; used to refer to anyone, but specifically used among lower classes and
working class.
Pato(a) - slang for friend; used frequently among younger males
Huevon - tool; offensive but used infrequently among males in an inoffensive way
Certain names are acquired with professional status such as:
Profe - teacher
Maestro - master; used to address people of skilled trades like contractors
Licenciado - licensed professionals
Ingeniero - engineers
Of course, general names used to address women must also be included:
Guapa - pretty
Preciosa - precious
Princesa - princess
Reina - queen
Muñeca - doll
Nena - babe
Mamacita - woman
Gordo(a) - fat one
Flaco(a) - skinny one (also used as a term of endearment, regardless of weight)
Chato(a) - shorty
Negro(a) - black person or darker-skinned person
Zambo(a) - curly-haired person
Pelado(a) - person with little hair or buzz-cut
Colorado(a) - light-skinned person
Paisano(a) - light-skinned person from the Sierra
Gringo(a) - white person
Chino(a) - person with Asian characteristics or not
Other names, which are less descriptive, are also used to address people:
Joven - young man
Chibolo - young boy
Niño(a) - child
Amigo(a) - friend; used to address pretty much anyone in casual situations like at the
market or in a restaurant; not used to address professionals or the elderly.
Tio(a) - uncle/aunt; used to respectfully address anyone old enough to be your aunt or uncle.
Hijo(a) - son/daughter; used to talk to someone who is sufficiently younger than you; used
without regard to relationship
Mamita - woman
Seño - short for Señora
Cholo(a) - mestizo; used to refer to anyone, but specifically used among lower classes and
working class.
Pato(a) - slang for friend; used frequently among younger males
Huevon - tool; offensive but used infrequently among males in an inoffensive way
Certain names are acquired with professional status such as:
Profe - teacher
Maestro - master; used to address people of skilled trades like contractors
Licenciado - licensed professionals
Ingeniero - engineers
Of course, general names used to address women must also be included:
Guapa - pretty
Preciosa - precious
Princesa - princess
Reina - queen
Muñeca - doll
Nena - babe
Mamacita - woman
What's Done is Done
While visiting families to check up on their BRAND NEW stoves, I was kind of surprised when one woman hesitatingly informed me that she was not impressed. Our conversation went something like this:
Her: Senorita, excuse me, really don't take offense but, please I don't want you to get mad, but
the stove doesn't work well...I don't know, but it's not good.
Me: I won't get mad. Tell me. I want to know if you really like it or not.
Her: Well, the flame doesn't reach the pot. Don't get mad...
Me: Did you insert the metal slats to control the fire?
Her: Don't worry. Don't get mad, it works now...I broke the "burners" so now I'm using it.
Me: Broke? You broke your stove. Seriously?
So, she took me to see the stove and, indeed, she had smashed out the rims of all three of the "burners" so that she could literally put her pots through the holes and into the fire. She kept insisting that she could use it as is and I explained that, by breaking the stovetop as she had, she had completely defeated the purpose of reducing wood consumption. I did not get mad but I could not hide my disbelief. If she had bothered to insert the metal slats she wouldn't have had a problem. I told her that I could NOT believe that she hadn't bothered to ask me first. Then, as I was in the middle of saying, "After all this work...," I started crying. I told her that I was not mad but really hurt and that nothing could be done to fix it. Then she started crying. She was really embarrassed and she kept telling me not to tell anyone else. Momentarily I thought that maybe it was my fault for not explaining it earlier but, who on earth would do that without consulting someone first? She actually took a hammer to it a matter of days after it was completed. A S/.200 stove.
Her: Senorita, excuse me, really don't take offense but, please I don't want you to get mad, but
the stove doesn't work well...I don't know, but it's not good.
Me: I won't get mad. Tell me. I want to know if you really like it or not.
Her: Well, the flame doesn't reach the pot. Don't get mad...
Me: Did you insert the metal slats to control the fire?
Her: Don't worry. Don't get mad, it works now...I broke the "burners" so now I'm using it.
Me: Broke? You broke your stove. Seriously?
So, she took me to see the stove and, indeed, she had smashed out the rims of all three of the "burners" so that she could literally put her pots through the holes and into the fire. She kept insisting that she could use it as is and I explained that, by breaking the stovetop as she had, she had completely defeated the purpose of reducing wood consumption. I did not get mad but I could not hide my disbelief. If she had bothered to insert the metal slats she wouldn't have had a problem. I told her that I could NOT believe that she hadn't bothered to ask me first. Then, as I was in the middle of saying, "After all this work...," I started crying. I told her that I was not mad but really hurt and that nothing could be done to fix it. Then she started crying. She was really embarrassed and she kept telling me not to tell anyone else. Momentarily I thought that maybe it was my fault for not explaining it earlier but, who on earth would do that without consulting someone first? She actually took a hammer to it a matter of days after it was completed. A S/.200 stove.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Veneration of a Saint: Town Festival Take Two
October 4th is the birthday of San Francisco, who also happens to be the patron saint of Huaca Rivera. Last year my parents were here for the celebration and several people asked if they were coming back this year. Obviously, making the trip all the way from the U.S. just for my town festival didn't top their list of priorities so, this year, I had to go it alone. Fortunately, with another year of integration under my belt, I found the festival to be quite pleasant.
Of course, like last year, the festival commenced with the band blaring through the streets of Huaca at the absurd hour of 6 AM. Everything that followed was, thankfully, more entertaining than obnoxious. The mass was, more or less, what you would expect of a mass, with the exception of certain details which lent it a less solemn air. The clothing choices -- low cut tank tops, skin-tight, bedazzled jeans and high heels -- of some of the younger women, for example, would have astonished almost anyone, in any congregation, of any denomination in the States. I was also surprised by the upbeat music and clapping which accompanied the mass. Furthermore, exactly as the Priest was offering the Eucharist, the band started up and fireworks were set off in the church entrance, effectively drowning out his words. I assumed, erroneously, that this was the result of poor timing; however, given that no one was visibly upset and that it happened again one minute later, it was apparently purposeful.
For lunch I was invited to my ex-host-mother's house where the band was to be served. Since she long ago took to calling me ingrata (ungrateful one) because I never visit, I figured that I should not decline. An entire sheep had been prepared for the occasion and, despite the fact that I lived with this woman for over a year and never once ate meat (besides fish), she still tried to serve me a piece. She did, in her defence, instruct her sister to only serve me one piece since I don't eat much meat.
After lunch, I stopped by my friend Soledad's food stand to say hello. One of her uncles (El Chino) was there celebrating his birthday with about 10 other drunk males. He introduced me as his pata (slang for friend) which made me happy because no one has ever called me that. That's about as enjoyable as the moment got though because, in my presence, tipsy Peruvian males tend to start speaking in undecipherable English and proposing marriage.
Luckily, I escaped quickly because I was participating in a fulbito tournament with the girls. (Fulbito is basically soccer played on a concrete pad with 6 players per team.) We even had uniforms, which were urgently borrowed for the occasion. (I had, at an earlier date, suggested to the man who got them for us that we play "así, nomas" (as we were, in normal clothing), which was apparently the worst thing I could have said because he repeated, "ASÍ NOMAS?!" in horrified voice and slid into an explanation about why that simply could not be. We were, after all, representing our pueblo.) Only two other teams showed up, but the crowd of people watching was at least 200 strong, way more that I would have expected. We ended up playing twice, winning the first game in penalty kicks and losing the second.
Around 9 PM the saint was removed from the church for its annual procession through town. I was elated to find that, unlike the year before, I could actually detect forward movement. However, my joy was short-lived because tradition demanded that the saint be paraded around at the slowest pace possible and people started to insist that the rapidity with which the procession was moving was sacrilegious. My ex-host-mother's brother, the same man who put me in the uncomfortable position of asking my parents if they still "blow," was there and had clearly been drinking. He was doing his own thing, dancing and singing, when he spotted me. First, he tried to get me to do the two-step. When that failed, he settled on serenading the saint and trying to get me to join in.
The day was ended and the next begun with a dance. After two years I still felt somewhat out of place, primarily because I felt so ridiculously tall. Also, most of the local boys are still afraid of me, so I ended up dancing with older men and boys from other towns. It was memorable nonetheless. One young man, determined to win my heart, sang every song in my direction, oblivious to the fact that he was dancing with other girls and half-way across the room. The singing was, of course accompanied by exaggerated hand-movements.
Day 2: I woke up to the cacophony of the band at 6:30 AM, after a mere 4 hours of sleep, which was pointless because nothing of note occurred until 4 in the afternoon when the marinera contest took place. In true Peruvian fashion, no participants showed up. Rather than cancel the event, contestants were found in the crowd, including my host-mother who begrudgingly participated. Her partner was an older man, a bit crazy and so enthused that he insisted on dancing in his socks, knocked off his toenail and splattered blood all over the ground. Not surprisingly, they lost the contest.
- - - - - - -
Two town festivals down, zero to go. Only 6 weeks left to go in my site. During the festival, it started to hit me that I'll really be leaving this place, and soon. About a month ago, I was more ready to go than I have ever been. To be perfectly honest, going home was pretty much all I could think about. I'm still ready to go home, but I'll never be completely ready to leave. Walking around Huaca during the festival, with everyone out and about, it finally clicked that this whole experience has been very much real and that I've been here for two years. No one ever really wanted me to be here, but I showed up one day and stuck around long enough that I became a normal part of a random, tiny, unknown community in rural Peru. While people still don't really get why I'm here, they no longer think it is strange that I am here. And they certainly don't want me to leave. Some people will even cry, and I'm fairly certain I'll be in tears on the moto-taxi the day I have to say goodbye.
After the second soccer game, I nearly started crying because, as I was looking around at the girls, I thought about a comment that one of them had made earlier. She said, "If you hadn't been here, we never would have started playing soccer." And now, here they were playing in our town festival. Huaca Rivera, with all its characters and scenes, will become like a story in my mind, granted, a story I have lived, but a story nonetheless. The thing is I am part of the story. It will go on without me but I will always be a tiny part of it.
Of course, like last year, the festival commenced with the band blaring through the streets of Huaca at the absurd hour of 6 AM. Everything that followed was, thankfully, more entertaining than obnoxious. The mass was, more or less, what you would expect of a mass, with the exception of certain details which lent it a less solemn air. The clothing choices -- low cut tank tops, skin-tight, bedazzled jeans and high heels -- of some of the younger women, for example, would have astonished almost anyone, in any congregation, of any denomination in the States. I was also surprised by the upbeat music and clapping which accompanied the mass. Furthermore, exactly as the Priest was offering the Eucharist, the band started up and fireworks were set off in the church entrance, effectively drowning out his words. I assumed, erroneously, that this was the result of poor timing; however, given that no one was visibly upset and that it happened again one minute later, it was apparently purposeful.
For lunch I was invited to my ex-host-mother's house where the band was to be served. Since she long ago took to calling me ingrata (ungrateful one) because I never visit, I figured that I should not decline. An entire sheep had been prepared for the occasion and, despite the fact that I lived with this woman for over a year and never once ate meat (besides fish), she still tried to serve me a piece. She did, in her defence, instruct her sister to only serve me one piece since I don't eat much meat.
After lunch, I stopped by my friend Soledad's food stand to say hello. One of her uncles (El Chino) was there celebrating his birthday with about 10 other drunk males. He introduced me as his pata (slang for friend) which made me happy because no one has ever called me that. That's about as enjoyable as the moment got though because, in my presence, tipsy Peruvian males tend to start speaking in undecipherable English and proposing marriage.
Luckily, I escaped quickly because I was participating in a fulbito tournament with the girls. (Fulbito is basically soccer played on a concrete pad with 6 players per team.) We even had uniforms, which were urgently borrowed for the occasion. (I had, at an earlier date, suggested to the man who got them for us that we play "así, nomas" (as we were, in normal clothing), which was apparently the worst thing I could have said because he repeated, "ASÍ NOMAS?!" in horrified voice and slid into an explanation about why that simply could not be. We were, after all, representing our pueblo.) Only two other teams showed up, but the crowd of people watching was at least 200 strong, way more that I would have expected. We ended up playing twice, winning the first game in penalty kicks and losing the second.
Around 9 PM the saint was removed from the church for its annual procession through town. I was elated to find that, unlike the year before, I could actually detect forward movement. However, my joy was short-lived because tradition demanded that the saint be paraded around at the slowest pace possible and people started to insist that the rapidity with which the procession was moving was sacrilegious. My ex-host-mother's brother, the same man who put me in the uncomfortable position of asking my parents if they still "blow," was there and had clearly been drinking. He was doing his own thing, dancing and singing, when he spotted me. First, he tried to get me to do the two-step. When that failed, he settled on serenading the saint and trying to get me to join in.
The day was ended and the next begun with a dance. After two years I still felt somewhat out of place, primarily because I felt so ridiculously tall. Also, most of the local boys are still afraid of me, so I ended up dancing with older men and boys from other towns. It was memorable nonetheless. One young man, determined to win my heart, sang every song in my direction, oblivious to the fact that he was dancing with other girls and half-way across the room. The singing was, of course accompanied by exaggerated hand-movements.
Day 2: I woke up to the cacophony of the band at 6:30 AM, after a mere 4 hours of sleep, which was pointless because nothing of note occurred until 4 in the afternoon when the marinera contest took place. In true Peruvian fashion, no participants showed up. Rather than cancel the event, contestants were found in the crowd, including my host-mother who begrudgingly participated. Her partner was an older man, a bit crazy and so enthused that he insisted on dancing in his socks, knocked off his toenail and splattered blood all over the ground. Not surprisingly, they lost the contest.
- - - - - - -
Two town festivals down, zero to go. Only 6 weeks left to go in my site. During the festival, it started to hit me that I'll really be leaving this place, and soon. About a month ago, I was more ready to go than I have ever been. To be perfectly honest, going home was pretty much all I could think about. I'm still ready to go home, but I'll never be completely ready to leave. Walking around Huaca during the festival, with everyone out and about, it finally clicked that this whole experience has been very much real and that I've been here for two years. No one ever really wanted me to be here, but I showed up one day and stuck around long enough that I became a normal part of a random, tiny, unknown community in rural Peru. While people still don't really get why I'm here, they no longer think it is strange that I am here. And they certainly don't want me to leave. Some people will even cry, and I'm fairly certain I'll be in tears on the moto-taxi the day I have to say goodbye.
After the second soccer game, I nearly started crying because, as I was looking around at the girls, I thought about a comment that one of them had made earlier. She said, "If you hadn't been here, we never would have started playing soccer." And now, here they were playing in our town festival. Huaca Rivera, with all its characters and scenes, will become like a story in my mind, granted, a story I have lived, but a story nonetheless. The thing is I am part of the story. It will go on without me but I will always be a tiny part of it.
Friday, October 2, 2009
¡Cocinas!
Something crazy is happening—improved wood-burning stoves are actually being built in Huaca Rivera. Four stoves have now been built and another one is being built today. With each stove I’m starting to feel an inkling of progress.
While watching the construction of the first stove, I realized how unnecessarily difficult the process has been up until this point. First, I waited an entire year to get funding from the local municipality. Various time-consuming and frustrating episodes were endured during that year. Finally I realized that if I actually wanted to build stoves I would have to get funding from elsewhere, so I wrote a SPA grant which was approved and efficiently processed. (Note: the part handled by the Peace Corps was the most efficient part of the entire process.) Then I had to purchase the materials and transport them to my town which also involved the local municipality and, thus, was a near disaster. I had to coordinate with each of the project participants to make the necessary adobes and to build the base of the stove. This required that I give each participant at least 3 copies of the adobe and base measurement handouts, as they repeatedly lost the information. (Unfortunately, less than half of the participants have actually constructed their bases which will cause a delay. Some of them seem abnormally perplexed by the idea of the base—a rectangle made of adobe and filled with earth—while others can’t seem to grasp that it is their responsibility to build the base, regardless of how many times I tell them. I’ve heard a lot of “You mean, I have to build the base?!”) I also had to get a contractor to make the stovetops and a slight altercation ensued when he just didn’t show up. Go figure, he blamed his kidneys.
All in all, the physical installation of the stoves is by far the easiest part. In a stroke of luck, I found two men to do the job who actually show up punctually and who are not confused by the concept of rectangular bases.
While watching the construction of the first stove, I realized how unnecessarily difficult the process has been up until this point. First, I waited an entire year to get funding from the local municipality. Various time-consuming and frustrating episodes were endured during that year. Finally I realized that if I actually wanted to build stoves I would have to get funding from elsewhere, so I wrote a SPA grant which was approved and efficiently processed. (Note: the part handled by the Peace Corps was the most efficient part of the entire process.) Then I had to purchase the materials and transport them to my town which also involved the local municipality and, thus, was a near disaster. I had to coordinate with each of the project participants to make the necessary adobes and to build the base of the stove. This required that I give each participant at least 3 copies of the adobe and base measurement handouts, as they repeatedly lost the information. (Unfortunately, less than half of the participants have actually constructed their bases which will cause a delay. Some of them seem abnormally perplexed by the idea of the base—a rectangle made of adobe and filled with earth—while others can’t seem to grasp that it is their responsibility to build the base, regardless of how many times I tell them. I’ve heard a lot of “You mean, I have to build the base?!”) I also had to get a contractor to make the stovetops and a slight altercation ensued when he just didn’t show up. Go figure, he blamed his kidneys.
All in all, the physical installation of the stoves is by far the easiest part. In a stroke of luck, I found two men to do the job who actually show up punctually and who are not confused by the concept of rectangular bases.
¼ Century
Three of my birthdays have now passed while I’ve been in Peru. In Lima I turned 23, after less than one day on Peruvian soil. My 24th birthday was somewhat traumatizing, as it involved being yelled at by my ex-host-mother for attending my own party at her brother’s house. Possibly because my 24th was so dramatic, a special effort was put forth to celebrate my 25th.
On my birthday, the female park guards prepared a lunch in my house to celebrate. A meeting was even held to coordinate and each of them put S/.5 toward the purchase of food, “wine” and cake. (Unfortunately, that is more than they are willing to do for far more important matters.) Susan also came and was seated front and center with me at the only table in the room. Sitting sans table like everyone else would have been impossible since we were each served three generous plates of food—arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), ceviche (raw fish cured in lime), papa a la huancaina (boiled potato covered with a spicy cream sauce) and the requisite pitcher of chicha.
Lunch was followed up with a very ceremonious order of events which is typical of many Peruvian celebrations. First of all, the man of the house, who happened to be the only man present, was required to make a toast. The toast was given with the “wine” which according to the label was black wine. Black wine is apparently synonymous with cough syrup. Luckily, I was given a larger glass than everyone else. Then, “Happy Birthday” was sung, first in English, then in Spanish. Just like in the States, they put candles on the cake and I had to make a wish before I blew them out. I also had to pretend to cut the cake so a picture could be captured but then the cake was set aside for later.* Finally, I had to dance the waltz with every single person in attendance, which was around 20 people. While I was actually listening to the music, each and every one them was decidedly dancing to their own tempo. This combined with the fact that I was two heads taller than many of them made it rather awkward.
Of course, the real party started with the dancing. After the waltz, the music changed to a mix of cumbia, marinera and huayno. And the party kept going and going because they pooled their money to buy a crate of beer. Awhile later another two crates appeared. Eventually, even Susan was dancing marinera and huayno. By the time she left, the women were tipsy enough to swarm from the house and surround the moto-taxi that she was on in order to hassle the driver. One woman actually told him, at rather close range, that if he raped Susan, all twelve of the park guards would find him the next day and gang rape him. Literally, she said that. Maybe she was joking? She was also the last woman to leave the party.
*I am still confounded by the Peruvian custom of not eating the cake during the party. Rather the cake is distributed at the end and often sent home with partygoers or hand-delivered to their homes the following day. More than once I have been surprised to have cake delivered to my door the day after a party. Peruvians, hosts and guests alike, are also very adamant that everyone present receive his or her piece of cake. Honest to God, someone recently told me about that one time that Robert, the volunteer I replaced, was gifted a cake at a meeting and took it home, heaven forbid, without proper distribution. That was over 2 years ago.
On my birthday, the female park guards prepared a lunch in my house to celebrate. A meeting was even held to coordinate and each of them put S/.5 toward the purchase of food, “wine” and cake. (Unfortunately, that is more than they are willing to do for far more important matters.) Susan also came and was seated front and center with me at the only table in the room. Sitting sans table like everyone else would have been impossible since we were each served three generous plates of food—arroz con pollo (chicken and rice), ceviche (raw fish cured in lime), papa a la huancaina (boiled potato covered with a spicy cream sauce) and the requisite pitcher of chicha.
Lunch was followed up with a very ceremonious order of events which is typical of many Peruvian celebrations. First of all, the man of the house, who happened to be the only man present, was required to make a toast. The toast was given with the “wine” which according to the label was black wine. Black wine is apparently synonymous with cough syrup. Luckily, I was given a larger glass than everyone else. Then, “Happy Birthday” was sung, first in English, then in Spanish. Just like in the States, they put candles on the cake and I had to make a wish before I blew them out. I also had to pretend to cut the cake so a picture could be captured but then the cake was set aside for later.* Finally, I had to dance the waltz with every single person in attendance, which was around 20 people. While I was actually listening to the music, each and every one them was decidedly dancing to their own tempo. This combined with the fact that I was two heads taller than many of them made it rather awkward.
Of course, the real party started with the dancing. After the waltz, the music changed to a mix of cumbia, marinera and huayno. And the party kept going and going because they pooled their money to buy a crate of beer. Awhile later another two crates appeared. Eventually, even Susan was dancing marinera and huayno. By the time she left, the women were tipsy enough to swarm from the house and surround the moto-taxi that she was on in order to hassle the driver. One woman actually told him, at rather close range, that if he raped Susan, all twelve of the park guards would find him the next day and gang rape him. Literally, she said that. Maybe she was joking? She was also the last woman to leave the party.
*I am still confounded by the Peruvian custom of not eating the cake during the party. Rather the cake is distributed at the end and often sent home with partygoers or hand-delivered to their homes the following day. More than once I have been surprised to have cake delivered to my door the day after a party. Peruvians, hosts and guests alike, are also very adamant that everyone present receive his or her piece of cake. Honest to God, someone recently told me about that one time that Robert, the volunteer I replaced, was gifted a cake at a meeting and took it home, heaven forbid, without proper distribution. That was over 2 years ago.
Monday, September 21, 2009
New Pictures
I recently posted new pictures...click here to view.
Michelle and Elida - Festival of Santiago - Sicaya
Lake Churup - AncashMonday, September 14, 2009
La Porcina
My mother was concerned, while the rest of my friends and my sister seemed to find it rather hilarious that I was recently stricken by the infamous pig flu. In fact, while the worst of the symptoms hit me about two weeks ago, I am, in fact, still recuperating. It actually wasn’t that horrible except that, as I was getting better, I got an ear infection which I let go on for a number of days before visiting the doctor.
The ensuing visit to the doctor’s office was rather disconcerting, as I had no idea what was going on. Not only did they fail to tell me what was going on but I also couldn’t really hear. First, I was seen in the emergency room where three people at the same time took my temperature, my pulse, my blood pressure, looked in my ears and listened to my lungs. From there, I was sent into a room for a nebulization treatment of some kind which was supposed to help my breathing but didn’t. That lasted an hour and then I had to wait three more hours to see, yes, a rhinoplasty surgeon. Apparently, the normal ear, nose and throat specialist wasn’t in. The man who saw me not only insisted on calling me his reina (queen) for the duration of the visit but he also tried to convince me that I needed nose surgery. He was certain that with just a little bit of work he could leave my nose bien planita (very straight). As Michael Jackson is really popular here, I opted out of the nose surgery. Finally, he looked in my ears and confirmed what I had expected all along. Indeed, I had an ear infection.
Honduras
I have yet to mention that I accepted a one-year extension with the Peace Corps in Honduras. While I actually found out that I was offered the extension in June, roughly a week later the Honduran military decided to oust the President in a military coup. Thus, I remained fairly skeptical that the transfer would go over successfully. However, in light of the fairly stable political situation and the permanence of Peace Corps in Honduras, I am now fairly certain that, after one month of vacation in the States, I will be transferring to Honduras in January. According to the information that Peace Corps has sent me, I will be working with the Protected Areas Management program. I’m still not sure in what capacity I will be working, but I should be living in the buffer zone of a protected area, aiding the local population to implement sustainable natural resource management practices.
I am really very excited to be able to continue to live and work in another Latin American country for another year. At the same time, I feel that one more year will be very much sufficient. In particular, I am happy to be going to Honduras because it is supposedly very beautiful, predominately mountainous and has a long-standing and well-respected Peace Corps program.
The ensuing visit to the doctor’s office was rather disconcerting, as I had no idea what was going on. Not only did they fail to tell me what was going on but I also couldn’t really hear. First, I was seen in the emergency room where three people at the same time took my temperature, my pulse, my blood pressure, looked in my ears and listened to my lungs. From there, I was sent into a room for a nebulization treatment of some kind which was supposed to help my breathing but didn’t. That lasted an hour and then I had to wait three more hours to see, yes, a rhinoplasty surgeon. Apparently, the normal ear, nose and throat specialist wasn’t in. The man who saw me not only insisted on calling me his reina (queen) for the duration of the visit but he also tried to convince me that I needed nose surgery. He was certain that with just a little bit of work he could leave my nose bien planita (very straight). As Michael Jackson is really popular here, I opted out of the nose surgery. Finally, he looked in my ears and confirmed what I had expected all along. Indeed, I had an ear infection.
Honduras
I have yet to mention that I accepted a one-year extension with the Peace Corps in Honduras. While I actually found out that I was offered the extension in June, roughly a week later the Honduran military decided to oust the President in a military coup. Thus, I remained fairly skeptical that the transfer would go over successfully. However, in light of the fairly stable political situation and the permanence of Peace Corps in Honduras, I am now fairly certain that, after one month of vacation in the States, I will be transferring to Honduras in January. According to the information that Peace Corps has sent me, I will be working with the Protected Areas Management program. I’m still not sure in what capacity I will be working, but I should be living in the buffer zone of a protected area, aiding the local population to implement sustainable natural resource management practices.
I am really very excited to be able to continue to live and work in another Latin American country for another year. At the same time, I feel that one more year will be very much sufficient. In particular, I am happy to be going to Honduras because it is supposedly very beautiful, predominately mountainous and has a long-standing and well-respected Peace Corps program.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Half-walls
My host-family’s kitchen table has a 13 year history. More holes than table, it is covered by a plastic table cloth which has offered it one last breath of life. Any newcomer to the table must first acquaint himself to the table’s surface, or lack there of. No longer a newcomer, I no longer cause lunch-time disasters. The table also came with chairs but those were long ago relegated to the trash pile. Now we sit on chairs of the plastic variety, the only chairs in the house, a house which contains a mere 5 rooms and a smattering of possessions.
Some people go camping with significantly more possessions than my host-family owns. And, of those possessions, many have seen better days. The radio is from another era and the cell phone barely rings. The black-and-white TV is only borrowed and promised to someone else. The calendars, all nine of them, were free. The mirror is scratched and awkwardly small. By the end of the month, they’ll run out of soap and bathe with detergent.
Of the 5 rooms the house contains, 3 of them, the bedrooms, are divided by partial walls which make no false pretenses of reaching the roof. With only a half-wall, any feelings of independence remain at a minimum. If I so much as sniffle during the night, my host-dad asks me over breakfast how I got another cold. I wake up to the sound of my host-mom tinkling into the pee bucket. At 4:00 AM the light shines into my room before the sun, when my host-dad wakes up to transplant rice. Nonetheless, my host-family likes to feign the existence of an impenetrable barrier between their rooms and mine. My brother will frequently say, “Lazy, you slept in until 7:00...I was up at 5:00,” to which I reply, “Thanks, so was I, loudmouth.”
To a certain extent they’re correct, even half-walls remain walls, albeit, incomplete. On my side, you’ll find privilege; on their side, you’ll find something resembling desperation. Possessions don’t represent a person’s well-being but, if I run out of soap, I don’t have to wait until the next month to buy more. And, in the States, cups don’t fall through my kitchen table. This is not a picture of suffering; on both sides you’ll find happiness. However, I’m willing to bet that on one side you’ll find struggle and a family falling short of opportunity.
Sometimes I naively wish I could feel that, briefly, just to know what it’s like. But, as a volunteer, I live surrounded by a half-wall. I integrate but I don’t become. I see what living poor can mean, but I don’t feel the fear or the complacency. Probably, I never will. I just have to remind myself not to forget that it’s there on the other side of the half-wall.
Some people go camping with significantly more possessions than my host-family owns. And, of those possessions, many have seen better days. The radio is from another era and the cell phone barely rings. The black-and-white TV is only borrowed and promised to someone else. The calendars, all nine of them, were free. The mirror is scratched and awkwardly small. By the end of the month, they’ll run out of soap and bathe with detergent.
Of the 5 rooms the house contains, 3 of them, the bedrooms, are divided by partial walls which make no false pretenses of reaching the roof. With only a half-wall, any feelings of independence remain at a minimum. If I so much as sniffle during the night, my host-dad asks me over breakfast how I got another cold. I wake up to the sound of my host-mom tinkling into the pee bucket. At 4:00 AM the light shines into my room before the sun, when my host-dad wakes up to transplant rice. Nonetheless, my host-family likes to feign the existence of an impenetrable barrier between their rooms and mine. My brother will frequently say, “Lazy, you slept in until 7:00...I was up at 5:00,” to which I reply, “Thanks, so was I, loudmouth.”
To a certain extent they’re correct, even half-walls remain walls, albeit, incomplete. On my side, you’ll find privilege; on their side, you’ll find something resembling desperation. Possessions don’t represent a person’s well-being but, if I run out of soap, I don’t have to wait until the next month to buy more. And, in the States, cups don’t fall through my kitchen table. This is not a picture of suffering; on both sides you’ll find happiness. However, I’m willing to bet that on one side you’ll find struggle and a family falling short of opportunity.
Sometimes I naively wish I could feel that, briefly, just to know what it’s like. But, as a volunteer, I live surrounded by a half-wall. I integrate but I don’t become. I see what living poor can mean, but I don’t feel the fear or the complacency. Probably, I never will. I just have to remind myself not to forget that it’s there on the other side of the half-wall.
Monday, August 17, 2009
¿Adónde bueno?
In mid-July I visited my friend Val in La Florida, Cajamarca along with fellow volunteers, Sara and Susan. Val’s site is located just over the border between Cajamarca and Lambayeque, at the end of a long agricultural valley. Since her site lies in the foothills, the elevation change along the road up from the coast causes a dramatic shift in scenery. The bumpy 5 hour bus ride provides a good view of the changing ecosystem which transitions from desert to dry forest to wetter dry forest. Once in La Florida, the view is dominated by green hills, bamboo, bananas and coffee plants. Bamboo is the most prominent crop and has almost completely replaced the previously wooded landscape. A monoculture, bamboo eliminates understory growth due to shade and a shallow, interconnected root system.
In La Florida, we stayed at Val’s house, a rambling two story structure filled with incredible amounts of random stuff. Val’s host-mom was extremely welcoming and attempted to feed us every couple of hours. When not eating, I spent my time ramming my head into the awkwardly short doorways.
On day two we took the local bus further up into the mountains to Neipos, a quaint and classic looking sierra town with an beautiful view of the valley below. The ecosystem of Niepos would technically be classified as cloud forest except that there are no longer trees. In general, the Peruvian sierra has suffered an incredibly high amount of deforestation. Glancing across the valley one notices the marked difference between the hillsides. While Neipos is now a treeless landscape dedicated to dairy cattle, across the way the mountains are thickly covered in forest, a glaring reminder of the human impact.
In Neipos, we were privileged to stay in the guest quarters of the local church due to Val’s host-mom’s connections to the Catholic Church. The church itself is 400 years old and an impressive example of the Catholic Church’s colonial efforts. The priest graciously treated us to dinner at a local pensión (house/restaurant where all patrons eat whatever dish was prepared that day.) Unfortunately, the plate of the day was mondongo, pig or cow intestine. However culturally inappropriate it was, our faces froze into similar looks of horror and dismay. I’ve consumed mondongo before and I wouldn’t want to do it again, under any circumstances. Most volunteers have similar sentiments. Hence, Val’s mom took care that all of the intestine was removed and we ate the remaining carrots and potatoes.
The next day we opted to walk back to Val’s site, a pleasant four hour walk down the hillside. On the way down we stopped and visited with Sam Goodman, another volunteer from our group and Val’s sitemate. Sam is currently in his second site, as he was abruptly forced to move from his first when his host-mom was found in bed with the local religion teacher and the family fell apart.
In order to get back to Chiclayo, there were two options: the 1:00AM bus or the 3:00AM bus. We opted for the latter to avoid arriving at Chiclayo at 5:00AM. No buses leave La Florida by day, as the majority of the people who travel to Chiclayo are transporting goods for the market and prefer to arrive by early morning. Sleeping on the bus was next to impossible as every new passenger was wide awake and chose to loudly greet all of the other passengers upon boarding.
In La Florida, we stayed at Val’s house, a rambling two story structure filled with incredible amounts of random stuff. Val’s host-mom was extremely welcoming and attempted to feed us every couple of hours. When not eating, I spent my time ramming my head into the awkwardly short doorways.
On day two we took the local bus further up into the mountains to Neipos, a quaint and classic looking sierra town with an beautiful view of the valley below. The ecosystem of Niepos would technically be classified as cloud forest except that there are no longer trees. In general, the Peruvian sierra has suffered an incredibly high amount of deforestation. Glancing across the valley one notices the marked difference between the hillsides. While Neipos is now a treeless landscape dedicated to dairy cattle, across the way the mountains are thickly covered in forest, a glaring reminder of the human impact.
In Neipos, we were privileged to stay in the guest quarters of the local church due to Val’s host-mom’s connections to the Catholic Church. The church itself is 400 years old and an impressive example of the Catholic Church’s colonial efforts. The priest graciously treated us to dinner at a local pensión (house/restaurant where all patrons eat whatever dish was prepared that day.) Unfortunately, the plate of the day was mondongo, pig or cow intestine. However culturally inappropriate it was, our faces froze into similar looks of horror and dismay. I’ve consumed mondongo before and I wouldn’t want to do it again, under any circumstances. Most volunteers have similar sentiments. Hence, Val’s mom took care that all of the intestine was removed and we ate the remaining carrots and potatoes.
The next day we opted to walk back to Val’s site, a pleasant four hour walk down the hillside. On the way down we stopped and visited with Sam Goodman, another volunteer from our group and Val’s sitemate. Sam is currently in his second site, as he was abruptly forced to move from his first when his host-mom was found in bed with the local religion teacher and the family fell apart.
In order to get back to Chiclayo, there were two options: the 1:00AM bus or the 3:00AM bus. We opted for the latter to avoid arriving at Chiclayo at 5:00AM. No buses leave La Florida by day, as the majority of the people who travel to Chiclayo are transporting goods for the market and prefer to arrive by early morning. Sleeping on the bus was next to impossible as every new passenger was wide awake and chose to loudly greet all of the other passengers upon boarding.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Work Update
Vivero
The tree nursery is still successfully operating! It is small but mighty. Okay, it’s actually tiny and could probably hold a maximum of 500 seedlings at a time. But the important thing is that, even when I leave, the women continue to work there. At this point, the forest service employees have taken about 500 seedlings from the women to reforest the area of the park which was invaded.
Cocinas
The improved cooking stove project continues to be ongoing and never-ending. However, I finally gave up on the local municipality and decided to write a SPA grant, a U.S. government grant available to Peace Corps Volunteers and their communities. In June the grant was approved and the money was expediently delivered to my account. In order to receive a stove, each participant must assist three training sessions, make a pre-specified number of adobes, and be present the day her stove is constructed.
So far, I have completed two of the training sessions, one about healthy households and the other about household waste-management. The final session will be based on the themes of protecting the dry forest and natural resource management. Honestly, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the first session went. Everyone was there within 30 minutes after the scheduled starting time. Some were even there early which is basically unheard of. People paid attention and participated. Only a couple of families didn’t arrive. The second session was good enough, but several families were no-shows due to another meeting which was held at the same time. They just assumed that the Señorita Karen would make an exception for them and allow them to participate anyway. And so it is. I momentarily contemplated informing them that they would no longer be receiving a stove, but then realized that I would rather see more improved cooking stoves implemented than teach them a lesson about responsibility and respect. Nonetheless, it was frustrating because they didn’t seem to care that they were making more work for me, as I will now have to repeat the training.
-------
One of the downfalls of being a Peace Corps volunteer as opposed to a NGO worker or a host-country professional is that, because you more-or-less become a member of your community, you are often not viewed or treated as a professional. Therefore, in my case, my fellow community members expected me to make an exception for them because I am their neighbor and their friend, because I see them everyday and talk about the mundane and discuss the town gossip. Clearly, this has its benefits. On a personal level, I am certainly cherished more than your average NGO worker; but, on a professional level, I am often dismissed.
The tree nursery is still successfully operating! It is small but mighty. Okay, it’s actually tiny and could probably hold a maximum of 500 seedlings at a time. But the important thing is that, even when I leave, the women continue to work there. At this point, the forest service employees have taken about 500 seedlings from the women to reforest the area of the park which was invaded.
Cocinas
The improved cooking stove project continues to be ongoing and never-ending. However, I finally gave up on the local municipality and decided to write a SPA grant, a U.S. government grant available to Peace Corps Volunteers and their communities. In June the grant was approved and the money was expediently delivered to my account. In order to receive a stove, each participant must assist three training sessions, make a pre-specified number of adobes, and be present the day her stove is constructed.
So far, I have completed two of the training sessions, one about healthy households and the other about household waste-management. The final session will be based on the themes of protecting the dry forest and natural resource management. Honestly, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the first session went. Everyone was there within 30 minutes after the scheduled starting time. Some were even there early which is basically unheard of. People paid attention and participated. Only a couple of families didn’t arrive. The second session was good enough, but several families were no-shows due to another meeting which was held at the same time. They just assumed that the Señorita Karen would make an exception for them and allow them to participate anyway. And so it is. I momentarily contemplated informing them that they would no longer be receiving a stove, but then realized that I would rather see more improved cooking stoves implemented than teach them a lesson about responsibility and respect. Nonetheless, it was frustrating because they didn’t seem to care that they were making more work for me, as I will now have to repeat the training.
-------
One of the downfalls of being a Peace Corps volunteer as opposed to a NGO worker or a host-country professional is that, because you more-or-less become a member of your community, you are often not viewed or treated as a professional. Therefore, in my case, my fellow community members expected me to make an exception for them because I am their neighbor and their friend, because I see them everyday and talk about the mundane and discuss the town gossip. Clearly, this has its benefits. On a personal level, I am certainly cherished more than your average NGO worker; but, on a professional level, I am often dismissed.
Denial
Quite possibly I’ve been in a state of delusion and denial for some time now. By this I mean to say that, after being here for nearly two years, I’ve become just a bit too accommodating and a bit too lackadaisical.
Precisely, I remember thinking just how fantastic it was that my socks had held up so well for so long. A week later, upon not-so-close inspection I realized that they were see-through and causing blisters. Again, without thinking, I bought a sewing kit off the street to patch my underwear even though I have plenty of money to buy new underwear. The one pair of jeans I brought with me has two holes in the crotch and I wear them anyway, as if it were perfectly appropriate. (In one of my many moments of illogical reasoning I decided to bring with me a four-year old pair of jeans that was already falling apart.) My mattress was so hard and causing me enough hip pain that I finally, after 1.5 years, inflated my sleeping pad and situated it on top of the mattress. Admittedly, this is because I was cheap and opted for the $35 mattress. The mice in my room have become more like pets than pests. My friends Ryan and Leslie sent me tea from the U.S. and I think I experienced feelings which must have been on par with those of Europeans receiving shipments of spices from India during colonial times. Furthermore, I became excessively allergic to my low-quality pillow, so allergic that I was starting to get an ear infection and a cold. The pillow was that dirty. So, I decided to wash it which apparently isn’t possible. It turned into an even lower-quality disaster of lumpiness. Finally, I broke down and bought a new one. The thing is, had I not still been allergic to the pillow, I would have continued to use it, lumpiness and all.
Precisely, I remember thinking just how fantastic it was that my socks had held up so well for so long. A week later, upon not-so-close inspection I realized that they were see-through and causing blisters. Again, without thinking, I bought a sewing kit off the street to patch my underwear even though I have plenty of money to buy new underwear. The one pair of jeans I brought with me has two holes in the crotch and I wear them anyway, as if it were perfectly appropriate. (In one of my many moments of illogical reasoning I decided to bring with me a four-year old pair of jeans that was already falling apart.) My mattress was so hard and causing me enough hip pain that I finally, after 1.5 years, inflated my sleeping pad and situated it on top of the mattress. Admittedly, this is because I was cheap and opted for the $35 mattress. The mice in my room have become more like pets than pests. My friends Ryan and Leslie sent me tea from the U.S. and I think I experienced feelings which must have been on par with those of Europeans receiving shipments of spices from India during colonial times. Furthermore, I became excessively allergic to my low-quality pillow, so allergic that I was starting to get an ear infection and a cold. The pillow was that dirty. So, I decided to wash it which apparently isn’t possible. It turned into an even lower-quality disaster of lumpiness. Finally, I broke down and bought a new one. The thing is, had I not still been allergic to the pillow, I would have continued to use it, lumpiness and all.
Peruvianisms: Accurate, Albeit, Sweeping Generalizations about Things Peruvians Do and Believe
1) In Peru, all modes of transport are considered to be safe and valid. Mind you, modes of transport include the trunk, the aisle, and the roof. While running the 10K in Pacasmayo, a man waved at me from the trunk of a passing car. The trunk was completely open, blocking the driver’s rear-view. The passenger, by all appearances, was elated to be riding in the trunk. Yet again, on a bus from Huaraz to Chavin, I was slightly dismayed by Peruvian transport. Mid-way through the 3 hour ride through the mountains, the bus attendant made all of the people in the aisle get off the bus and ride below in the luggage storage compartments. Because this concept was altogether too ridiculous to comprehend, I assumed that the passengers had actually just gotten off the bus. However, after passing the “highway patrol” checkpoints, they were released from the underneath compartments over an hour later. Yet, the most absurd passenger placement I’ve ever witnessed did not actually involve humans but donkeys. Although I saw it with my own eyes, I still remain skeptical about the feasibility of getting two live, adult donkeys onto the top of a bus.
2) Peruvians have a penchant for writing intimidating, long run-on sentences. Case in point, the following sentence is an excerpt from a letter written by a Peruvian which I was asked to translate into the English.
“I could continue giving more reasons: the aspect of social work the race includes, the involvement with the population, the diversity of categories, etc., but it would be lengthy to tell, I just want to finish by saying that, in Perú, the only way that races of such quality will continue to be organized is if we participate in them, for this reason, I invite you to participate in the 2010 marathon and, as of now, put it in your athletic calendar, for my part, I want to offer all of my support to the organizers and to thank them because, even though many of them are foreigners, they give a token of affection to Perú that we, as Peruvians, should imitate ourselves.“
3) Wind kills. That’s all there is to it. On the same bus to Chavin, I ever-so-slightly opened the window to snap a photo and was instantaneously accosted by a fellow passenger whose 6th sense alerted her that her life was being threatened by air she could not yet feel. Maybe I’ve been here too long or I’m suffering some kind of delayed culture shock, but I’ve started to get confrontational and I wasn’t at all happy that I was being yelled at because of some mis-informed belief. Thus, there ensued a slight altercation. I yelled back that the air would not, indeed, send her to an early grave. By this time I had shut the window but everyone on the bus was staring at me contemptuously. She yelled back that maybe the wind wouldn’t kill me but that it would certainly hurt the mountain folk. Then her baby coughed and I could hear her passive-aggressive muttering for a good 15 minutes about how her baby would now fall ill as a direct consequence of the now-closed open window.
4) Honking is a fine art. Since no apparent traffic rules exist, honking has evolved into an elaborate communication system of sorts. That said, drivers are pretty much always honking and possess almost no restraint when it comes to the horn. Really slick drivers fork over the extra dough to install special horns that sound like a cat-call whistle. Let me tell you, nothing impresses me more than being whistled at by a decrepit combi.
5) All food is tastier with hot dogs, raisins, or olives. Since all food is clearly more delectable with these additions, Peruvians slip them into everything. I spotted a hot dog croissant the other day at the grocery store which would have horrified anyone who had ever remotely heard of France. Hot dog pizza is another option. I’ve encountered raisins in cake, rice pudding, tamales, popsicles, rice and fish. Tamales often include both raisins and olives which makes for a really tantalizing taste combination.
6) In Peru, anytime and anyplace are an opportune moment and the perfect venue for selling your wares. Rush hour at a busy intersection in Lima? You’ll probably be able to buy anything from shoes to a miniature artist kit from wandering vendors. Inside of a movie theater during the most suspenseful scene of Harry Potter 6? An employee will probably pop out of the dark to ask you if you’d like some chocolate. (That actually happened to me and I’m still recovering.)
7) Peruvian families tend toward the larger size. Six to eight children is nothing too unusual. The other day I witnessed two young women being chastised by slightly older women for not having a sufficient number of children. One of the women already has three children all under age 7. Not that these women should actually preoccupy themselves with having children of their own, because I’m sure someone else would happily gift them a child. When I first got here, I always thought people were joking when they would say that they had either gifted one of their children or raised a child that had been gifted to them. In fact, gifting children is commonplace and most likely an economic necessity. They even joke about it in that slightly demented way my parents used to joke about amputating one of my limbs anytime I cried about a slight scrape.
8) Much political advertising is done in the form of banners painted on walls and houses. Peruvians seemingly think nothing of letting a political candidate paint his campaign slogan in huge letters across an entire side of their house. Recently I spotted a smattering of new signs for a party which appears to be called Cuchara or Spoon. I have a secret suspicion that my old host-mom must be backing this party since she was obviously so hell-bent on hoarding her spoons.
9) Invitar. To invite. In Peru, it is customary to always invite others to share your food and drink. If someone, even a stranger or a traveling salesman, happens by at mealtime, they will be served without asking. The most humble family will give the best of what they have to an unexpected guest. Even little kids invite each other to their most cherished sweets without hesitation. It is by far one of the most beautiful and unselfish practices in Peru.
2) Peruvians have a penchant for writing intimidating, long run-on sentences. Case in point, the following sentence is an excerpt from a letter written by a Peruvian which I was asked to translate into the English.
“I could continue giving more reasons: the aspect of social work the race includes, the involvement with the population, the diversity of categories, etc., but it would be lengthy to tell, I just want to finish by saying that, in Perú, the only way that races of such quality will continue to be organized is if we participate in them, for this reason, I invite you to participate in the 2010 marathon and, as of now, put it in your athletic calendar, for my part, I want to offer all of my support to the organizers and to thank them because, even though many of them are foreigners, they give a token of affection to Perú that we, as Peruvians, should imitate ourselves.“
3) Wind kills. That’s all there is to it. On the same bus to Chavin, I ever-so-slightly opened the window to snap a photo and was instantaneously accosted by a fellow passenger whose 6th sense alerted her that her life was being threatened by air she could not yet feel. Maybe I’ve been here too long or I’m suffering some kind of delayed culture shock, but I’ve started to get confrontational and I wasn’t at all happy that I was being yelled at because of some mis-informed belief. Thus, there ensued a slight altercation. I yelled back that the air would not, indeed, send her to an early grave. By this time I had shut the window but everyone on the bus was staring at me contemptuously. She yelled back that maybe the wind wouldn’t kill me but that it would certainly hurt the mountain folk. Then her baby coughed and I could hear her passive-aggressive muttering for a good 15 minutes about how her baby would now fall ill as a direct consequence of the now-closed open window.
4) Honking is a fine art. Since no apparent traffic rules exist, honking has evolved into an elaborate communication system of sorts. That said, drivers are pretty much always honking and possess almost no restraint when it comes to the horn. Really slick drivers fork over the extra dough to install special horns that sound like a cat-call whistle. Let me tell you, nothing impresses me more than being whistled at by a decrepit combi.
5) All food is tastier with hot dogs, raisins, or olives. Since all food is clearly more delectable with these additions, Peruvians slip them into everything. I spotted a hot dog croissant the other day at the grocery store which would have horrified anyone who had ever remotely heard of France. Hot dog pizza is another option. I’ve encountered raisins in cake, rice pudding, tamales, popsicles, rice and fish. Tamales often include both raisins and olives which makes for a really tantalizing taste combination.
6) In Peru, anytime and anyplace are an opportune moment and the perfect venue for selling your wares. Rush hour at a busy intersection in Lima? You’ll probably be able to buy anything from shoes to a miniature artist kit from wandering vendors. Inside of a movie theater during the most suspenseful scene of Harry Potter 6? An employee will probably pop out of the dark to ask you if you’d like some chocolate. (That actually happened to me and I’m still recovering.)
7) Peruvian families tend toward the larger size. Six to eight children is nothing too unusual. The other day I witnessed two young women being chastised by slightly older women for not having a sufficient number of children. One of the women already has three children all under age 7. Not that these women should actually preoccupy themselves with having children of their own, because I’m sure someone else would happily gift them a child. When I first got here, I always thought people were joking when they would say that they had either gifted one of their children or raised a child that had been gifted to them. In fact, gifting children is commonplace and most likely an economic necessity. They even joke about it in that slightly demented way my parents used to joke about amputating one of my limbs anytime I cried about a slight scrape.
8) Much political advertising is done in the form of banners painted on walls and houses. Peruvians seemingly think nothing of letting a political candidate paint his campaign slogan in huge letters across an entire side of their house. Recently I spotted a smattering of new signs for a party which appears to be called Cuchara or Spoon. I have a secret suspicion that my old host-mom must be backing this party since she was obviously so hell-bent on hoarding her spoons.
9) Invitar. To invite. In Peru, it is customary to always invite others to share your food and drink. If someone, even a stranger or a traveling salesman, happens by at mealtime, they will be served without asking. The most humble family will give the best of what they have to an unexpected guest. Even little kids invite each other to their most cherished sweets without hesitation. It is by far one of the most beautiful and unselfish practices in Peru.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Soda Crackers
Otherwise known as the Peruvian national cracker, the soda cracker reigns supreme in this South American country. In Perú, you are just as likely to spot a soda cracker advertisement on a billboard as on prime time television. A quick count in the market reveals the existence of at least 10 different brands.
At my house soda crackers are a staple part of the diet. Actually, I consume more of them than my family because I prefer them to rice. A common breakfast or dinner might consist of soda crackers and cheese or soda crackers and tuna fish mixed with French fries and really sweet tea. Sometimes we eat soda crackers and popcorn. The other morning I was actually served soda crackers and margarine. The thought of that combo was actually repulsive so I just nonchalantly avoided the margarine.
Amazingly, Peruvians can distinguish a marked difference between the various brands. I randomly brought home a new brand, “Soda V,” and my family had a five minute discussion about how much better they were. According to my mother, the new crackers were crisper, more golden and more flavorful. My brother agreed, adding that they didn’t break as easily, another plus. I actually preferred the other brand so my soda cracker palate clearly isn’t up to par.
At my house soda crackers are a staple part of the diet. Actually, I consume more of them than my family because I prefer them to rice. A common breakfast or dinner might consist of soda crackers and cheese or soda crackers and tuna fish mixed with French fries and really sweet tea. Sometimes we eat soda crackers and popcorn. The other morning I was actually served soda crackers and margarine. The thought of that combo was actually repulsive so I just nonchalantly avoided the margarine.
Amazingly, Peruvians can distinguish a marked difference between the various brands. I randomly brought home a new brand, “Soda V,” and my family had a five minute discussion about how much better they were. According to my mother, the new crackers were crisper, more golden and more flavorful. My brother agreed, adding that they didn’t break as easily, another plus. I actually preferred the other brand so my soda cracker palate clearly isn’t up to par.
Monday, June 22, 2009
.jpg)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Travel Nuisances: Strikes and ATM Booths
When my sister and I recently met my parents in Lima they were wearing matching outfits. Both of them were sporting the typical tourist uniform: khaki, neutrals, quick dry, and outdoorsy. I had a great time making fun of them until it was pointed out that I fit right in. Matching we were.
My sister came to my site after finishing her semester abroad in Ecuador. She spent $30 and roughly 20 hours on sketchy buses to get to my site. With the help of a 7th day Adventist named Ralph she managed to cross the border. For the good part of one week she stayed with me in my site before we headed to Lima to meet our parents.
As this was my family’s second trip to Peru, we opted to visit the famous Gringo Trail. Starting off in Cuzco, we visited colonial churches, Incan ruins (Sacsaywaman, Pisac, Ollantaytambo), the Sacred Valley, Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu. Our visit was more stressful than I would have hoped, especially given that I had planned it all out in advance. The farmers of the region went on strike the very day we were supposed to go to Aguas Calientes, blocking the roads and preventing our train from running. We ended up going the next day but it was a hassle trying to reschedule everything. The very day we went to Machu Picchu, my sister and my mom fell ill. My sister was down for the count for a number of days. I have numerous pictures of her sprawled out at the various Incan ruins we visited. Basically I took pictures of ruins and I took pictures of my sister sleeping on ruins.
In Cusco one afternoon my Dad decided to withdraw money from an ATM machine located on a busy corner of the central plaza. A couple of moments later I turned around to see my Dad pacing back and forth in the booth looking trapped. A look of furor flashed across his face. He couldn’t figure out how to get out. The booth was primarily constructed of glass walls, making his plight all the more obvious. On the outside of the booth I noticed that it had one of those things which requires you to swipe your card through to enter. I figured that we would have to wait for someone to come along who was a member of the bank to swipe his/her card and open the door. Turns out there was a button right by the handle ...
From Cusco we took a bus to Puno. Stunned by the price of the tourist bus, I opted for the more economical, local bus. Later my parents gently hinted that I could spend more the next time. Regardless, the ride was gorgeous. Puno is not gorgeous but it makes no false claims. Puno is cold, so cold that I actually used a down jacket.
In Puno we took a tour which visited Lake Titicaca, the Islas Flotantes (floating islands), Isla Amantaní, and Isla Taquile. The Islas Flotantes are tiny man-made reed islands where members of the Uros culture live. Only a few families live on each island. Our guide said that the Uros people have always lived in the lake, suggesting that they have never lived on land, but I’m fairly certain that there had to be a decently strong motive for them to just up and start making their own islands. You don’t just randomly do that. We spent the night on Isla Amantaní in the house of a local family. Amantaní is isolated to a certain extent from the mainland so visiting it feels somewhat surreal especially at night. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen stars quite as brilliant as I saw that night on Amantaní. While there, we ate a ridiculous number of potatoes or I did at least. Not even my Dad managed to put a dent in his. We also drank delicious muña tea.
The last stop of the vacation was Arequipa, the second largest city in Perú. Kelly and I only stayed for two days before heading on to Lima for Kelly’s flight back to the States. My parents stayed behind, albeit apprehensively, to visit Colca Canyon. On the taxi ride to the airport our taxi was stopped twice, once by a frantic French woman from the consulate and once by a police woman, to write down the driver’s info. Apparently, there had been an assault on two young tourists the night before. Flustered, the taxi driver spent the entire ride explaining what we should do every time we take a taxi: Call someone to let them know where you are going and discreetly detail the driver—his name, taxi number, characteristics—making it seem like you are just having a normal conversation. Make sure to include observations about his mental state. For good measure he added that it was not recommended to get in a taxi with a driver that looks sketchy. Is the driver wearing dark sunglasses and a hat? A ski mask? Don’t take his taxi.
My sister came to my site after finishing her semester abroad in Ecuador. She spent $30 and roughly 20 hours on sketchy buses to get to my site. With the help of a 7th day Adventist named Ralph she managed to cross the border. For the good part of one week she stayed with me in my site before we headed to Lima to meet our parents.
As this was my family’s second trip to Peru, we opted to visit the famous Gringo Trail. Starting off in Cuzco, we visited colonial churches, Incan ruins (Sacsaywaman, Pisac, Ollantaytambo), the Sacred Valley, Aguas Calientes and Machu Picchu. Our visit was more stressful than I would have hoped, especially given that I had planned it all out in advance. The farmers of the region went on strike the very day we were supposed to go to Aguas Calientes, blocking the roads and preventing our train from running. We ended up going the next day but it was a hassle trying to reschedule everything. The very day we went to Machu Picchu, my sister and my mom fell ill. My sister was down for the count for a number of days. I have numerous pictures of her sprawled out at the various Incan ruins we visited. Basically I took pictures of ruins and I took pictures of my sister sleeping on ruins.
In Cusco one afternoon my Dad decided to withdraw money from an ATM machine located on a busy corner of the central plaza. A couple of moments later I turned around to see my Dad pacing back and forth in the booth looking trapped. A look of furor flashed across his face. He couldn’t figure out how to get out. The booth was primarily constructed of glass walls, making his plight all the more obvious. On the outside of the booth I noticed that it had one of those things which requires you to swipe your card through to enter. I figured that we would have to wait for someone to come along who was a member of the bank to swipe his/her card and open the door. Turns out there was a button right by the handle ...
From Cusco we took a bus to Puno. Stunned by the price of the tourist bus, I opted for the more economical, local bus. Later my parents gently hinted that I could spend more the next time. Regardless, the ride was gorgeous. Puno is not gorgeous but it makes no false claims. Puno is cold, so cold that I actually used a down jacket.
In Puno we took a tour which visited Lake Titicaca, the Islas Flotantes (floating islands), Isla Amantaní, and Isla Taquile. The Islas Flotantes are tiny man-made reed islands where members of the Uros culture live. Only a few families live on each island. Our guide said that the Uros people have always lived in the lake, suggesting that they have never lived on land, but I’m fairly certain that there had to be a decently strong motive for them to just up and start making their own islands. You don’t just randomly do that. We spent the night on Isla Amantaní in the house of a local family. Amantaní is isolated to a certain extent from the mainland so visiting it feels somewhat surreal especially at night. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen stars quite as brilliant as I saw that night on Amantaní. While there, we ate a ridiculous number of potatoes or I did at least. Not even my Dad managed to put a dent in his. We also drank delicious muña tea.
The last stop of the vacation was Arequipa, the second largest city in Perú. Kelly and I only stayed for two days before heading on to Lima for Kelly’s flight back to the States. My parents stayed behind, albeit apprehensively, to visit Colca Canyon. On the taxi ride to the airport our taxi was stopped twice, once by a frantic French woman from the consulate and once by a police woman, to write down the driver’s info. Apparently, there had been an assault on two young tourists the night before. Flustered, the taxi driver spent the entire ride explaining what we should do every time we take a taxi: Call someone to let them know where you are going and discreetly detail the driver—his name, taxi number, characteristics—making it seem like you are just having a normal conversation. Make sure to include observations about his mental state. For good measure he added that it was not recommended to get in a taxi with a driver that looks sketchy. Is the driver wearing dark sunglasses and a hat? A ski mask? Don’t take his taxi.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Current Events
Here is a link to a news article about an ongoing indigenous strike happening currently in Perú.
Peru's Deadly Battle Over Oil in the Amazon
Indigenous Peruvians vow more attacks over control of the Amazon
Peru's Deadly Battle Over Oil in the Amazon
Indigenous Peruvians vow more attacks over control of the Amazon
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Plastic Utensils
Shortly after returning from my trip to Ica, my 8 year old host-brother spied my newest possession: a complimentary plastic silverwear set which I acquired on the busride home. A keen interest shone in his eyes. He wanted those utensils and he didn’t hesitate to ask me for them. For some reason I thought I was going to use them, so I told him no.
A week later they still lay in the same location on my floor and he asked me when I was going to gift them to him. I relented and he quickly scooped them up, running from my room shouting with excitement. He proceeded to show every member of the family his prized possession. He set his place at the table with them in some kind of never-before-seen radial fashion. It was the first time he had ever used a fork, and really, a knife for that matter. It showed. He grabbed the fork in a fist and clumsily attempted to cut apart a chicken leg with the unserrated plastic knife, a difficult feat even for the accomplished utensil user. To eat his rice he proudly insisted on using his new tiny plastic spoon rather than the more efficient large metal spoon which lay rejected beside his plate. At the end of his meal he had me tear off a small portion of his paper napkin to wipe off his face and his hands which were clearly dirty due to his inability to correctly use his silverware.
The plastic silverware set appeared at the dinner table for the next few days until the fork tines broke off. He ate one meal with only two tines. For his birthday I bought him Colgate toothpaste, most of which he ate. Maybe for Christmas I’ll buy him a fork.
--------
I find it rather amusing how people chose to explain to others what exactly I’m doing here. Inevitably, the response has something to do with studying. The people I work with directly know a little more, but they ususally have a narrow view and think that I only do whatever activity it is that I do with them. In my free time I am certainly studying. My host-family should know best, but the other day a random woman chose to ignore the fact that I was directly in front of her and the fact that I speak Spanish to ask my host-dad what exactly I am doing here. He got this baffled look on his face before confidently responding that I am here to work with compost. Just compost.
------
A mouse ate a portion of my toothbrush bristles. I was less than thrilled. I forgot to buy a new one so I was forced to use it anyway.
------
A teacher I know introduced me to her sister. The sister looked at me and exclaimed, “You have such beautiful green eyes! Would you marry my son?” She was only half joking. This type of comment is not uncommon. Susan was told that she needs to birth children here to improve the race and whiten the babies.
-------
Loco Zapote. Second-in-command to the mayor. The worst listener I’ve ever met. Unfortunately, I have to talk to this man ALL THE TIME. I’ve always suspected that he didn’t really listen but the other day it was painfully clear. I went to the municipality to turn in a solicitud (a formal document which is used to solicit something) and, per usual, it had to do with the never-ending and never-progressing stove project. I told him why I was there, explaining that I wanted to turn in a solicitud to request the donation of a few materials. He went on a tangent about his zapote project. I reminded him why I was there. He told me that I would have to write a solicitud to request materials. I reminded him that I had just told him that I was there to turn in the solicitud which I had already written. He told me that I had no idea what I was doing, that I would have to learn how to write a solicitud. While pulling out an example of a solicitud to teach me with, I read him my solicitud. Shaking his head with disappointment, he informed me that I would need to specify exactly what I was requesting. Finally, I made him read it himself. He read it and exclaimed, “It’s all right here in your solicitud...Why didn’t you just tell me you had a solicitud?”
A week later they still lay in the same location on my floor and he asked me when I was going to gift them to him. I relented and he quickly scooped them up, running from my room shouting with excitement. He proceeded to show every member of the family his prized possession. He set his place at the table with them in some kind of never-before-seen radial fashion. It was the first time he had ever used a fork, and really, a knife for that matter. It showed. He grabbed the fork in a fist and clumsily attempted to cut apart a chicken leg with the unserrated plastic knife, a difficult feat even for the accomplished utensil user. To eat his rice he proudly insisted on using his new tiny plastic spoon rather than the more efficient large metal spoon which lay rejected beside his plate. At the end of his meal he had me tear off a small portion of his paper napkin to wipe off his face and his hands which were clearly dirty due to his inability to correctly use his silverware.
The plastic silverware set appeared at the dinner table for the next few days until the fork tines broke off. He ate one meal with only two tines. For his birthday I bought him Colgate toothpaste, most of which he ate. Maybe for Christmas I’ll buy him a fork.
--------
I find it rather amusing how people chose to explain to others what exactly I’m doing here. Inevitably, the response has something to do with studying. The people I work with directly know a little more, but they ususally have a narrow view and think that I only do whatever activity it is that I do with them. In my free time I am certainly studying. My host-family should know best, but the other day a random woman chose to ignore the fact that I was directly in front of her and the fact that I speak Spanish to ask my host-dad what exactly I am doing here. He got this baffled look on his face before confidently responding that I am here to work with compost. Just compost.
------
A mouse ate a portion of my toothbrush bristles. I was less than thrilled. I forgot to buy a new one so I was forced to use it anyway.
------
A teacher I know introduced me to her sister. The sister looked at me and exclaimed, “You have such beautiful green eyes! Would you marry my son?” She was only half joking. This type of comment is not uncommon. Susan was told that she needs to birth children here to improve the race and whiten the babies.
-------
Loco Zapote. Second-in-command to the mayor. The worst listener I’ve ever met. Unfortunately, I have to talk to this man ALL THE TIME. I’ve always suspected that he didn’t really listen but the other day it was painfully clear. I went to the municipality to turn in a solicitud (a formal document which is used to solicit something) and, per usual, it had to do with the never-ending and never-progressing stove project. I told him why I was there, explaining that I wanted to turn in a solicitud to request the donation of a few materials. He went on a tangent about his zapote project. I reminded him why I was there. He told me that I would have to write a solicitud to request materials. I reminded him that I had just told him that I was there to turn in the solicitud which I had already written. He told me that I had no idea what I was doing, that I would have to learn how to write a solicitud. While pulling out an example of a solicitud to teach me with, I read him my solicitud. Shaking his head with disappointment, he informed me that I would need to specify exactly what I was requesting. Finally, I made him read it himself. He read it and exclaimed, “It’s all right here in your solicitud...Why didn’t you just tell me you had a solicitud?”
Saturday, April 25, 2009
New Photos
To view pictures of my trip to Ica, follow this link:
http://picasaweb.google.es/karen.b.petersen.
http://picasaweb.google.es/karen.b.petersen.
Huacachina Sand Dunes, Ica
Huacachina, Ica
Islas Ballestas, Paracas Monday, April 20, 2009
Happy Feet
Since 80% of the Peruvian population is catholic, Holy Week is one of the largest national holidays of the year. I ended up spending Holy Week in Ica, a coastal department south of Lima, with a few other volunteers. Amazingly, Ica is actually drier than my site but has a similar appearance. Algorrobo trees also dot the landscape; however, in Ica these trees are called huarango. Ica is known for its wineries and as the hub of the small Afro-peruvian population. It was also the epicenter of the 2007 earthquake which struck shortly before I arrived in Perú.
My vacation in Ica included stops in Chincha, Ica, Huacachina, Pisco, and Paracas. Chincha turned out to be a typical Peruvian coastal town, not very noteworthy and not a tourist destination. We attempted to visit an old hacienda there but after a S/.30 taxi ride we discovered it was still closed due to the earthquake.
In Ica we stayed at Huacachina, an odd but pretty oasis in the midst of sand dunes. It’s overrun by tourists but worth a visit nonetheless. Once a ritzy resort for wealthy Limeños, Huacachina is now popular for its dunebuggy rides and sandboarding. While this activity sounds innocent enough it’s really somewhat dangerous. I should have known better as soon as we boarded the dunebuggy with our driver, a Jean Claude Van Damme type who didn’t bother to acknowledge our existence, filled the gas tank while lighting a cigarette, nearly ran into someone before leaving the parking lot, and didn’t wear his seatbelt. Regardless, the dunebuggy portion of our trip turned out to be the safest part. The sandboarding, which is like snowboarding but on sand, was not. Proof in point, I nearly made it down the final hill standing up but terminated my run spiraling around and slamming my head into the ground, hurting my neck in the process. Jean Claude did not ask me how I was but rather commented that everyone breaks their clavicle that way. I’m still not sure how I would have broken my clavicle but who am I to say. Later that night I saw him drinking at our hostal. He mumbled some gibberish to me which must have meant, “How’s your neck?” and then hit me on the back of my neck. Literally, he hit me.
While in Ica we also visited a couple of wineries and an excellent chocolate factory (Helena’s.) Rather than opting for the hostal’s package tour we did this on our own which cost less than half as much. We spent the savings on chocolate.
The final stop of our trip was Pisco where we stayed in the room of a fellow volunteer, Aaron, who has the good fortune to step out his front door to a beautiful ocean view. Pisco was hit hard by the 2007 earthquake and, approaching two years later, the effects can still be seen. On the outskirts of the town the shantytowns are much larger than I expected. Adobe houses which were left standing are mixed with a smattering of temporary housing.
From Pisco we visited the Islas Ballestas on a boat tour. The islands are part of Paracas National Park, a coastal desert ecosystem preserved for the large amount of coastal wildlife it protects. Called the “Poor Man’s Galapagos” in Lonely Planet, the islands don’t really compare to the Galapagos but are home to an incredible number of birds including penguins. A secluded nesting beach overflowing with hundreds, maybe thousands, of sea lions and their cubs, reminded me of a scene typical of National Geographic.
-------
I wear a seatbelt so infrequently in Perú that I don’t think twice about riding in a vehicle without one. More than once I have had a seatbelt available to me which I didn’t even wear because encountering one here is such a rarity that I no longer bother to check. Moto-taxis clearly don’t have seatbelts but I’ve always just assumed that they were a safe form of transport. On the moto-taxi back to my site after vacation I was feeling particularly safe, especially in comparison to my recent dunebuggy ride. Then, rounding a curve near my community, the moto-taxi I was on collided with an oncoming moto-taxi propelling the driver of my moto-taxi through the air. The moto-taxi almost landed on top of me but, luckily, we were going slowly and I only bruised my arm. The driver of the other moto-taxi started yelling at the poor kid who went flying through the air before he was even standing. Seriously though, the accident was absurd. Both of them were driving on the wrong side of the road. My moto-taxi driver decided to move to the correct side while the other driver decided to do nothing. As we were approaching the other moto-taxi I recall thinking that surely one of them was going to stop or move out of the way. Instead they just ran right into each other. Just kept going straight ahead as if there were no other option. To top it off, they decided to settle the matter somewhere else and drove off without a word, leaving me and the other passenger, an old farmer, standing on the side of the road to wait for another moto-taxi.
-------
Happy Feet was on television last Sunday. My little brother could hardly contain his excitment. Halfway through the movie he turned to me and declared matter-of-factly that all those penguins weren’t actually real but rather they were humans dressed up in penguin costumes. He sounded so proud that he had figured out the trick that I felt bad informing him that it was actually a cartoon.
During the movie my host-mom also told me that for two years while she lived in Lima, she had a pet penguin which they had discovered one day in the Río Rimac, the major river which runs through the city. His name was Juan. Just to clarify, penguins are NOT natural inhabitants of Lima.
My vacation in Ica included stops in Chincha, Ica, Huacachina, Pisco, and Paracas. Chincha turned out to be a typical Peruvian coastal town, not very noteworthy and not a tourist destination. We attempted to visit an old hacienda there but after a S/.30 taxi ride we discovered it was still closed due to the earthquake.
In Ica we stayed at Huacachina, an odd but pretty oasis in the midst of sand dunes. It’s overrun by tourists but worth a visit nonetheless. Once a ritzy resort for wealthy Limeños, Huacachina is now popular for its dunebuggy rides and sandboarding. While this activity sounds innocent enough it’s really somewhat dangerous. I should have known better as soon as we boarded the dunebuggy with our driver, a Jean Claude Van Damme type who didn’t bother to acknowledge our existence, filled the gas tank while lighting a cigarette, nearly ran into someone before leaving the parking lot, and didn’t wear his seatbelt. Regardless, the dunebuggy portion of our trip turned out to be the safest part. The sandboarding, which is like snowboarding but on sand, was not. Proof in point, I nearly made it down the final hill standing up but terminated my run spiraling around and slamming my head into the ground, hurting my neck in the process. Jean Claude did not ask me how I was but rather commented that everyone breaks their clavicle that way. I’m still not sure how I would have broken my clavicle but who am I to say. Later that night I saw him drinking at our hostal. He mumbled some gibberish to me which must have meant, “How’s your neck?” and then hit me on the back of my neck. Literally, he hit me.
While in Ica we also visited a couple of wineries and an excellent chocolate factory (Helena’s.) Rather than opting for the hostal’s package tour we did this on our own which cost less than half as much. We spent the savings on chocolate.
The final stop of our trip was Pisco where we stayed in the room of a fellow volunteer, Aaron, who has the good fortune to step out his front door to a beautiful ocean view. Pisco was hit hard by the 2007 earthquake and, approaching two years later, the effects can still be seen. On the outskirts of the town the shantytowns are much larger than I expected. Adobe houses which were left standing are mixed with a smattering of temporary housing.
From Pisco we visited the Islas Ballestas on a boat tour. The islands are part of Paracas National Park, a coastal desert ecosystem preserved for the large amount of coastal wildlife it protects. Called the “Poor Man’s Galapagos” in Lonely Planet, the islands don’t really compare to the Galapagos but are home to an incredible number of birds including penguins. A secluded nesting beach overflowing with hundreds, maybe thousands, of sea lions and their cubs, reminded me of a scene typical of National Geographic.
-------
I wear a seatbelt so infrequently in Perú that I don’t think twice about riding in a vehicle without one. More than once I have had a seatbelt available to me which I didn’t even wear because encountering one here is such a rarity that I no longer bother to check. Moto-taxis clearly don’t have seatbelts but I’ve always just assumed that they were a safe form of transport. On the moto-taxi back to my site after vacation I was feeling particularly safe, especially in comparison to my recent dunebuggy ride. Then, rounding a curve near my community, the moto-taxi I was on collided with an oncoming moto-taxi propelling the driver of my moto-taxi through the air. The moto-taxi almost landed on top of me but, luckily, we were going slowly and I only bruised my arm. The driver of the other moto-taxi started yelling at the poor kid who went flying through the air before he was even standing. Seriously though, the accident was absurd. Both of them were driving on the wrong side of the road. My moto-taxi driver decided to move to the correct side while the other driver decided to do nothing. As we were approaching the other moto-taxi I recall thinking that surely one of them was going to stop or move out of the way. Instead they just ran right into each other. Just kept going straight ahead as if there were no other option. To top it off, they decided to settle the matter somewhere else and drove off without a word, leaving me and the other passenger, an old farmer, standing on the side of the road to wait for another moto-taxi.
-------
Happy Feet was on television last Sunday. My little brother could hardly contain his excitment. Halfway through the movie he turned to me and declared matter-of-factly that all those penguins weren’t actually real but rather they were humans dressed up in penguin costumes. He sounded so proud that he had figured out the trick that I felt bad informing him that it was actually a cartoon.
During the movie my host-mom also told me that for two years while she lived in Lima, she had a pet penguin which they had discovered one day in the Río Rimac, the major river which runs through the city. His name was Juan. Just to clarify, penguins are NOT natural inhabitants of Lima.
Issues
In the past month I have started at least five different blogs on random topics and I haven’t finished a single one. Rather than continue on this path of complete unproductiveness I realized that I could probably write one blog and convey the same thing. It’s surely for the better because I can’t imagine many readers would have survived five such blogs.
Education:
In Perú, the education system is abysmal. Really horrible. My 15 year old brother didn’t know what an island was. He couldn’t even locate Perú on the map. Believe it or not, he is actually intelligent; however, he has been subjected to one of the worst education systems in the Western hemisphere, second worst only to Haiti. Not only is the teaching method antiquated and devoid of creativity but the schools lack resources and teachers. Futhermore, of those teachers that are teaching, the rare few are outstanding. It is not unheard of for teachers to arrive at school drunk or just not arrive. It is also common for students to pay teachers to pass them.
Asistencialismo:
Asistencialismo is a word that doesn’t even exist in English, at least I can’t find it in my Spanish-English dictionary. Asistencialismo is a dependence on government handouts, welfare, and outside assistance. In Perú this phenomenon has been inculcated by its own government. During the rule of Fujimori, or “El Chino” as Peruvians call him, a huge number of social welfare programs were created. People became accustomed to free government handouts and now they expect them. Despite Fujimori’s highly questionable human rights record, many Peruvians love him. El Chino gave them free tin rooves and abundant food to cook in the local comedores populares, soup kitchens. What happens when the government has no more to give? Well, what has happened on the rural Peruvian coast is that people got so used to government assistance that they now take little responsibility for getting things done themselves. If they don’t get something free, such as a kilo of rice, they don’t participate.
Corruption:
The Peruvian government is corrupt. Peruvian police are corrupt. Even the teachers are corrupt. Money moves under the table and everyone knows it. Not everyone participates directly in the corruption, but it is an accepted part of life. For example, the mayor of Pacora spent S/.6.000 ($2,000) on his birthday party using local funds which must have involved some shady maneuvers. No one did anything. Nothing. Now the municipality claims to have no money. Until someone does something nothing will change. To quote a Calle 13 song, “Aprendí que mi pueblo todavía reza porque las fucking autoridades y la puta realeza todavía se mueven por debajo de la mesa.” (I learned that my town still prays because the fucking authorities and the bitch royalty still deals under the table.)
La hora peruana:
I’ve mentioned la hora peruana before. It is basically the widely accepted idea that Peruvians operate on their own time, which is an hour behind real time. For example, when scheduling a meeting, you will be told to schedule it at 3:00 so that people will get there by 3:30 but they will actually arrive at 4:00. While most people from the States literally could not handle this lackadaisical concept of time, la hora peruana is not the end of the world. If everyone knows and accepts that things will actually happen an hour after they are supposed to, well, I guess that is okay. However, if you actually want to get something done, la hora peruana can be exasperating. In the last year, every single meeting I have ever had has made me feel awkward because I feel badly for the few people who arrive on time but have to wait up to an hour for the meeting to start. I never know when to start the meeting, asking every five minutes if we should start yet, always told patiently that there is no rush. Inevitably the meetings always end up being less productive than they should be because people continue to arrive after they have already started and those people who arrived on time lose interest. Interestingly enough, la hora peruana bothers me more now than it did initially. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that punctuality is actually important when attempting to get things done. And, clearly, there is no shortage of things to be done.
Education:
In Perú, the education system is abysmal. Really horrible. My 15 year old brother didn’t know what an island was. He couldn’t even locate Perú on the map. Believe it or not, he is actually intelligent; however, he has been subjected to one of the worst education systems in the Western hemisphere, second worst only to Haiti. Not only is the teaching method antiquated and devoid of creativity but the schools lack resources and teachers. Futhermore, of those teachers that are teaching, the rare few are outstanding. It is not unheard of for teachers to arrive at school drunk or just not arrive. It is also common for students to pay teachers to pass them.
Asistencialismo:
Asistencialismo is a word that doesn’t even exist in English, at least I can’t find it in my Spanish-English dictionary. Asistencialismo is a dependence on government handouts, welfare, and outside assistance. In Perú this phenomenon has been inculcated by its own government. During the rule of Fujimori, or “El Chino” as Peruvians call him, a huge number of social welfare programs were created. People became accustomed to free government handouts and now they expect them. Despite Fujimori’s highly questionable human rights record, many Peruvians love him. El Chino gave them free tin rooves and abundant food to cook in the local comedores populares, soup kitchens. What happens when the government has no more to give? Well, what has happened on the rural Peruvian coast is that people got so used to government assistance that they now take little responsibility for getting things done themselves. If they don’t get something free, such as a kilo of rice, they don’t participate.
Corruption:
The Peruvian government is corrupt. Peruvian police are corrupt. Even the teachers are corrupt. Money moves under the table and everyone knows it. Not everyone participates directly in the corruption, but it is an accepted part of life. For example, the mayor of Pacora spent S/.6.000 ($2,000) on his birthday party using local funds which must have involved some shady maneuvers. No one did anything. Nothing. Now the municipality claims to have no money. Until someone does something nothing will change. To quote a Calle 13 song, “Aprendí que mi pueblo todavía reza porque las fucking autoridades y la puta realeza todavía se mueven por debajo de la mesa.” (I learned that my town still prays because the fucking authorities and the bitch royalty still deals under the table.)
La hora peruana:
I’ve mentioned la hora peruana before. It is basically the widely accepted idea that Peruvians operate on their own time, which is an hour behind real time. For example, when scheduling a meeting, you will be told to schedule it at 3:00 so that people will get there by 3:30 but they will actually arrive at 4:00. While most people from the States literally could not handle this lackadaisical concept of time, la hora peruana is not the end of the world. If everyone knows and accepts that things will actually happen an hour after they are supposed to, well, I guess that is okay. However, if you actually want to get something done, la hora peruana can be exasperating. In the last year, every single meeting I have ever had has made me feel awkward because I feel badly for the few people who arrive on time but have to wait up to an hour for the meeting to start. I never know when to start the meeting, asking every five minutes if we should start yet, always told patiently that there is no rush. Inevitably the meetings always end up being less productive than they should be because people continue to arrive after they have already started and those people who arrived on time lose interest. Interestingly enough, la hora peruana bothers me more now than it did initially. I’ve arrived at the conclusion that punctuality is actually important when attempting to get things done. And, clearly, there is no shortage of things to be done.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Photos
I finally got around to posting pictures.
To view, follow the link below...
http://picasaweb.google.es/karen.b.petersen.
http://picasaweb.google.es/karen.b.petersen.
ECO chocolotada.
Huaca Rivera grade school promotion.
My sister, Kelly, at Colca Canyon, Arequipa.Saturday, March 14, 2009
Chew Your Food Completely
Noodles can look like worms to the untrained eye. So can onions and bean sprouts. Months ago I thought I encountered a parasite in my stool only to discover that it was actually an onion. This past weekend I was so convinced that I had discovered a worm floating in the toilet bowl that I actually removed it and showed it to my friends Val and Susan. In fact, I was so convinced that I took the worm all the way to the hospital in my pocket to have it examined in the laboratory. The man in the lab was extremely professional but his first question was, “Have you eaten chifa (chinese food) recently? Of course I had eaten chifa the day before. Regardless, he examined my “worm” under the microscope and confirmed that the worm was indeed a noodle. Yes, a noodle.
-------
I’ve recently spotted some more catchy T-shirt phrases.
Greenish Kansas Kids
WOW! You have nine babies! Chick
-------
Since January, Susan and I have been working on a solid waste management diagnostic of Pacora. Amazingly, the endeavour is actually going well. Honestly, I’m amazed it’s even going. We have formed a committee which is formally named the “Comité de Apoyo al Manejo Sostenible de Residuos Sólidos del Distrito de Pacora.” The name is a bit cumbersome in my opinion but typical of Peruvian titles. I’m just surprised it hasn’t yet been given an equally absurd acronym, another common Peruvian practice. For example, COAPMASOREDIPA would be a viable option.
The committee, consisting of 5 local representatives, includes the director of the health post, the president of the women’s association, the president of the beekeeper’s association, a high school teacher, and a city council member. A couple of our meetings have been canceled and the majority still does not arrive on time, but I think we are making strides. Besides the committee, numerous local citizens have been attending and support seems to be growing.
As part of the waste diagnostic we organized a group of people to do household surveys. We divided Pacora into zones and assigned a couple of people to each zone. Susan prepared very clear maps so that they could easily orient themselves and figure out exactly which houses they were to survey. Now, I should not make sweeping generalizations but, from our experience it appears that Peruvians from Pacora can not read maps. Pacora is not even that big – it has something like 10 streets – but we had to explain the maps to every single person. For example, one seemingly capable committee member appeared to understand his map, but as Susan was doing her surveys she began to encounter random houses in other zones that he had surveyed. Once we found him wandering through the plaza heading away from his zone on his way to conduct more surveys.
Susan and I also took on our part of the surveys. I forgot how entertaining these can be. In one house I was sat down in a tiny pink children’s chair while the person I was surveying sat across the table from me in a normal sized chair. Other chairs were available. Another woman gave me a huge guava which made surveying the remaining houses awkward. Really, has anyone ever arrived at your house to do a survey with a riduculously large green pod sticking out of her purse? Probably not. At one house I surveyed the woman outside who was selling slushies and cebada, a common local drink made from barley and flavored with sugar and lemon. Several men were sitting around and they all insisted on answering every question that I asked her. One of them invited me to a cebada which I actually like in normal quantities. Unfortunately, this cebada came in pitcher size. The first half was fine, but I actually thought I was going to vomit as I attempted to drink the rest. Concentrating on the questions at hand became difficult because I could only envision how I would explain hurling my cebada all over the place. One teenage boy who had recently returned from Lima could not understand me and I had to repeat EVERY single question. An ancient woman with crazy hair could not see me but still let me into her house. I was moving along at a decent rate before I got to her house. By the time I left I was even privy to the type of canned milk that she uses. I don’t really think she got the point of the survey either. When asked where she disposes of her trash she told me that she sometimes throws her trash over her wall into the neighbors house to get even with them.
On Wednesday we collected the surveys and now we have to compile the data. Next comes a study of waste generation and separation...
-------
The female volunteer park guards who have been working with me on a tree nursery have reverted to sweeping the forest. I went to the nursery on Tuesday to work and no one was there. It is what it is. I'm not surprised. However, what bothers me is that they are following the instructions of a local "environmental" NGO that is currently doing a project in the buffer zone which requires that the women are sweeping in order to recieve monthly food handouts. Now, I approached one of the NGO workers, a girl my age and supposedly a biology graduate, and told her my thoughts. My thoughts being that sweeping the forest is not only illogical but also hinders soil recuperation. Apparently she didn't comprehend. Furthermore, it really bothers me that the women do not take a proactive role but rather blindly follow the orders of whichever authority figure commands them. It is easy to assume that the women are genuinely interested in conserving the forest because they are volunteer park guards. Not so. They really have never bothered to understand the importance of conserving it. This may be due to a lack of access to education and custom but, partially, it is just apathy.
-------
I’ve recently spotted some more catchy T-shirt phrases.
Greenish Kansas Kids
WOW! You have nine babies! Chick
-------
Since January, Susan and I have been working on a solid waste management diagnostic of Pacora. Amazingly, the endeavour is actually going well. Honestly, I’m amazed it’s even going. We have formed a committee which is formally named the “Comité de Apoyo al Manejo Sostenible de Residuos Sólidos del Distrito de Pacora.” The name is a bit cumbersome in my opinion but typical of Peruvian titles. I’m just surprised it hasn’t yet been given an equally absurd acronym, another common Peruvian practice. For example, COAPMASOREDIPA would be a viable option.
The committee, consisting of 5 local representatives, includes the director of the health post, the president of the women’s association, the president of the beekeeper’s association, a high school teacher, and a city council member. A couple of our meetings have been canceled and the majority still does not arrive on time, but I think we are making strides. Besides the committee, numerous local citizens have been attending and support seems to be growing.
As part of the waste diagnostic we organized a group of people to do household surveys. We divided Pacora into zones and assigned a couple of people to each zone. Susan prepared very clear maps so that they could easily orient themselves and figure out exactly which houses they were to survey. Now, I should not make sweeping generalizations but, from our experience it appears that Peruvians from Pacora can not read maps. Pacora is not even that big – it has something like 10 streets – but we had to explain the maps to every single person. For example, one seemingly capable committee member appeared to understand his map, but as Susan was doing her surveys she began to encounter random houses in other zones that he had surveyed. Once we found him wandering through the plaza heading away from his zone on his way to conduct more surveys.
Susan and I also took on our part of the surveys. I forgot how entertaining these can be. In one house I was sat down in a tiny pink children’s chair while the person I was surveying sat across the table from me in a normal sized chair. Other chairs were available. Another woman gave me a huge guava which made surveying the remaining houses awkward. Really, has anyone ever arrived at your house to do a survey with a riduculously large green pod sticking out of her purse? Probably not. At one house I surveyed the woman outside who was selling slushies and cebada, a common local drink made from barley and flavored with sugar and lemon. Several men were sitting around and they all insisted on answering every question that I asked her. One of them invited me to a cebada which I actually like in normal quantities. Unfortunately, this cebada came in pitcher size. The first half was fine, but I actually thought I was going to vomit as I attempted to drink the rest. Concentrating on the questions at hand became difficult because I could only envision how I would explain hurling my cebada all over the place. One teenage boy who had recently returned from Lima could not understand me and I had to repeat EVERY single question. An ancient woman with crazy hair could not see me but still let me into her house. I was moving along at a decent rate before I got to her house. By the time I left I was even privy to the type of canned milk that she uses. I don’t really think she got the point of the survey either. When asked where she disposes of her trash she told me that she sometimes throws her trash over her wall into the neighbors house to get even with them.
On Wednesday we collected the surveys and now we have to compile the data. Next comes a study of waste generation and separation...
-------
The female volunteer park guards who have been working with me on a tree nursery have reverted to sweeping the forest. I went to the nursery on Tuesday to work and no one was there. It is what it is. I'm not surprised. However, what bothers me is that they are following the instructions of a local "environmental" NGO that is currently doing a project in the buffer zone which requires that the women are sweeping in order to recieve monthly food handouts. Now, I approached one of the NGO workers, a girl my age and supposedly a biology graduate, and told her my thoughts. My thoughts being that sweeping the forest is not only illogical but also hinders soil recuperation. Apparently she didn't comprehend. Furthermore, it really bothers me that the women do not take a proactive role but rather blindly follow the orders of whichever authority figure commands them. It is easy to assume that the women are genuinely interested in conserving the forest because they are volunteer park guards. Not so. They really have never bothered to understand the importance of conserving it. This may be due to a lack of access to education and custom but, partially, it is just apathy.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
¡Ay, Caray! Los perros no me dejan…
I have a history with dogs. Twice when I was younger I was bit by dogs; once it was a fairly serious attack. I actually love dogs, probably more than normal given the circumstances. Nonetheless, I still have a residual fear of them which I thought I had conquered in Perú out of neccessity because psychotic dogs abound here. My friend Sam Goodman, aka “Buenhombre,” has been bit 5 or 6 times here, so many times he’s lost count. Sam is basically oblivious to life which might have something to do with it, but he had never been attacked before coming to Perú.
Lately, one dog in particular has been inhibiting my ability to go to the bathroom. It started one night when it was raining. During the early evening I went to use the latrine and I encountered a new dog which looked like a pit bull. I approached with caution, it sniffed me and wagged its tail. However, at two in the morning I had to go to the bathroom again. There was no sign of the dog but, as I emerged from the letrine, it was rounding the corner of the house, trotting in my direction. The dog sniffed me again and then started playing which is normal, except that it quickly got out of hand. The dog was riled up and it started jumping around and mouthing me. Luckily I grabbed a nearby shovel and it ran away. I was certain that it would have otherwise attacked me.
For several nights I did not go to the bathroom after dark which led to some very uncomfortable mornings. Finally I got up the courage to visit the letrine once again to find a donkey blocking my path. I shooed it out of the way, which startled it. It sprinted towards the latrine, in the process disturbing the menagerie of animals which lay sleeping on top of a nearby pile of corn stalks. Calves, chickens, at least five dogs, including the pit bull, and a disconcertingly large pig all rained down from the pile of corn stalks shrieking and generally causing an uproar. In the pandemonium, I became convinced that the pit bull would attack me and sprinted towards the house. I must have looked absurd.
A couple nights ago I was going to the bathroom before I went to bed and the pit bull was once again outside. I went back into the house and my little brother who is seven years old was still watching television. I asked him to accompany me to the letrine because the dog was outside. Of course, I let him go first and when he saw the dog he simply yelled at it and told it to go home... “¡Caramba!Vaya a la casa. ¿Qué haces por acá? Vete.” The dog ran off with its tail between its legs. My brother stood guard outside the letrine but the dog was no where to be found. Last night my brother ran the dog off again. My brother is seriously not even half my size. I think that maybe tonight I can go it alone.
Lately, one dog in particular has been inhibiting my ability to go to the bathroom. It started one night when it was raining. During the early evening I went to use the latrine and I encountered a new dog which looked like a pit bull. I approached with caution, it sniffed me and wagged its tail. However, at two in the morning I had to go to the bathroom again. There was no sign of the dog but, as I emerged from the letrine, it was rounding the corner of the house, trotting in my direction. The dog sniffed me again and then started playing which is normal, except that it quickly got out of hand. The dog was riled up and it started jumping around and mouthing me. Luckily I grabbed a nearby shovel and it ran away. I was certain that it would have otherwise attacked me.
For several nights I did not go to the bathroom after dark which led to some very uncomfortable mornings. Finally I got up the courage to visit the letrine once again to find a donkey blocking my path. I shooed it out of the way, which startled it. It sprinted towards the latrine, in the process disturbing the menagerie of animals which lay sleeping on top of a nearby pile of corn stalks. Calves, chickens, at least five dogs, including the pit bull, and a disconcertingly large pig all rained down from the pile of corn stalks shrieking and generally causing an uproar. In the pandemonium, I became convinced that the pit bull would attack me and sprinted towards the house. I must have looked absurd.
A couple nights ago I was going to the bathroom before I went to bed and the pit bull was once again outside. I went back into the house and my little brother who is seven years old was still watching television. I asked him to accompany me to the letrine because the dog was outside. Of course, I let him go first and when he saw the dog he simply yelled at it and told it to go home... “¡Caramba!Vaya a la casa. ¿Qué haces por acá? Vete.” The dog ran off with its tail between its legs. My brother stood guard outside the letrine but the dog was no where to be found. Last night my brother ran the dog off again. My brother is seriously not even half my size. I think that maybe tonight I can go it alone.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
JANUARY
The Move:
I believe that I had partially convinced myself that I would never actually change houses. However, in the first week of January, I finally did. With much help from Susan, I moved my things down the street to my new house. We walked all of my things from one house to the other, even my denser-than-lead mattress.
Everything went smoother than I had imagined it would. I was worried that the entire town would emerge to watch me move but the town was silent. Even the gossip I feared seems to have been held at bay. Having to, once again, tell the moto-taxi drivers where I live has really been the biggest nuisance. Not once have I regretted moving. My new family--a young family of four--probably talked to me more in the first day than my old host-family talked to me in an entire year.
The Vacation:
lima:
After more than a year my sister came to visit me from the States. I went to pick her up at the airport in Lima on Sunday night. Waiting at the airport in Lima is different than waiting at an airport in the States. A large crowd of anxious relatives mixed with hotel and tourist agency representatvies huddle around the exit waiting for flights to arrive. The hotel and tourist reps are all waving around signs on sticks with the names of the tourists they have come to collect. The awaiting family members exuberantly rush to meet loved ones who often now reside in another country.
My sister was taller than I remembered which might have had something to do with the new straight-leg jeans she was sporting. I regretted not having made one of those signs on a stick to grab her attention. She would have appreciated the humor.
The next day we went to visit my Lima host-family. On the way there, Kelly, unlike most tourists, actually saw the vast impoverished urban sprawl which comprises most of Lima. The visit was wonderful as always. Kelly was subjected to a viewing of the infinitely long and horribly edited video of the Santiago festival that I attended in July, the same video my parents got to watch. She also got to go on her first moto-taxi ride.
It was interesting to see how my Lima family has changed since they hosted me, especially since they have since hosted two other trainees. One notable difference is a marked improvement of the pronunciation of their dog's name, Snow. It actually sounds like English now. Also, my host-mom, who used to fret and think I was crazy for running all the time, told us, in all seriousness, how she had tried, in vain, to convince the last two trainees that they needed to excercise.
I managed to leave my footprint in the newly poured concrete step in front of the house. I don't know how I didn't realize that I was supposed to step over it. My host-sister, Rosa, stopped before going over it and asked me to go first because she wasn't sure how to avoid the step. I, oblivious, didn't understand why she was so perplexed and stepped directly onto the wet concrete. A few minutes later, my host-Dad came in chuckling and said that it was just like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
For dinner we had the traditional holiday meal of hot chocolate and panettone. Kelly made me look a little less stupid by biting directly into the paper wrapper of the panettone.
arequipa:
The next morning at 4:00 AM we had to go to the airport for our flight to Arequipa, a one hour flight which costs nearly the same price as the 14 hour bus ride. Stepping off the plane was the prefect antidote for sleep deprivation--snow capped mountains, crisp air and the early morning sun.
Arequipa is one of the southernmost provinces of Perú. The capitol city, also named Arequipa, is an impressive city, with abundant colonial architecture. It bears the nickname the "White City" due to old proclivity for building with the white volcanic stone common to the area. Arequipa houses numerous churches and monasteries. On our first afternoon in the city we visited the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a rambling old convent which occupies an entire city block. We didn't leave without trying some of the famous desserts prepared by the current nuns.
Not one to mess around or to allow time for relaxing when on vacation, I scheduled a bus trip to Colca Canyon for 7 AM the next morning. Sometime before the end of her first 48 hours in Perú, Kelly became convinced that it was actually her 3rd day in country.
The bus ride to the canyon was a trip in itself. Much of the route passed through the Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca, an austere altiplano reserve which is home to vicuñas, llamas and alpacas. At its highest point the road reaches an elevation of 4800 meters.
We arrived at our destination, Chivay, a small town at the mouth of the canyon, mid-morning. After breakfast, we walked to some local hot springs. Somehow we ended up in the pool with all the other tourists. Roughly four guides attempted to get us back on their tour bus before they left, as they were convinced that we must have been on their tour. Either way is was very relaxing.
The following day we visited La Cruz del Cóndor, a short but picturesque busride away from Chivay. La Cruz is now a popular tourist stop on the Gringo Trail due to the Condor family which resides in that particular section of Colca Canyon. The Andean Condor is considered by many to be the world's largest flying bird, with a wingspan reaching up to 3 meters. Nonetheless, it may come in second to the Wandering Albatross. Kelly and I waited long enough to see the condors pass within several meters. The closest condor to pass us I actually watched through binoculars. The view clearly would have been better without them but I was too dense to figure that out. Rather I got a very good look at a blurred mass of black feathers. Binocular use has never been my forte.
Colca canyon provides a beautiful backdrop to the family of condors. At a depth of 3191 meters, Colca canyon is the second deepest known canyon in the world. The deepest known canyon, el Cañon del Cotahuasi, is actually also located in Arequipa, several hours to the north.
Our last day in Chivay we walked a little over an hour through the valley to the neighboring village of Corporaque. It was a beautiful walk through the bucolic countryside of the sierra, passed fields and terracing. The town itself was nestled among hills with a sweeping view of the valley and a tranquil plaza.
After another day in Arequipa, which we primarily devoted to walking around, we flew back to Lima. Being back in Miraflores was bizarre as always; it doesn't really fit with the rest of Perú with its fancy beachfront highrises and hotels. Kelly was a little sick which probably resulted from the fact that I encouraged her to eat salad and street food. I've clearly been here too long.
huaca rivera:
At the combi stop for Pacora in Chiclayo, we were greeted by the driver with, "So, you're headed back into the war zone...there's gonna be blood." Indeed, I took my sister back to my site on the eve of the removal of an invasion of people from a section of the Bosque de Pomac. Called a desalojo, or eviction, it was a government action to recuperate close to 1200 HA of the dry forest reserve which also houses archeological remains. The situation was rather complicated because around 200 families were implicated and, of those, some had lived there for 9 years. The government itself funded the construction of a health post and a school. And, in a country basically comprised of invasions it's difficult to pick and chose who to evict.
Anyway, nearly 2000 police came into the area for the desalojo. In the end, the "invaders" were heavily armed and 3 policemen were killed. Everyone in my site, was clearly preoccupied with the daily events. I decided against taking my sister for a walk in the woods. On the third day of the desalojo, my P.C. boss called to ask if I had heard what was going on, as if the people in my town would be completely oblivious, and told me that I should probably be careful.
Another visitor from the U.S., Susan Abraham, arrived in Pacora on Wednesday morning. Within an hour of her arrival she was serrenaded by the gerente of the municipality, aka Loco Sapote. We also went to visit the 83 year old store owner, whose birthday party I went to awhile back. As the mid-year festival of San Pablo was coming up, nearly the entire plaza was surrounded by restaurant booths and stands. Nonetheless, in front of our friend's store, there was, indeed, a 3 meter empty space, which she informed us that she had purchased in order to be able to watch the action uninhibited. She actually seemed annoyed that they would even consider blocking her view.
Susan and Kelly both adapted wonderfully to my site--except for a few issues with the outhouse and hard mattresses. They, both vegetarians, even ate fish. We played soccer a couple of times with the girls and transplanted some seedling in the tree nursery. My little host-brother, Patito, grew quite attached to them within the first day. By the time they left they were sad to go.
Since my sister is studying in Ecuador during the upcoming semester, her and Susan had to head north to Quito. I took them as far as Mancora, a popular beach in Piura. Amazingly, it was even hotter there than my site. We taught Susan how to dive under waves rather than simply being destroyed by them. However, while unsupervised she chose to practice in about one foot of water and ended up diving directly into the sand, scraping her forehead and smashing her nose in the process.
I believe that I had partially convinced myself that I would never actually change houses. However, in the first week of January, I finally did. With much help from Susan, I moved my things down the street to my new house. We walked all of my things from one house to the other, even my denser-than-lead mattress.
Everything went smoother than I had imagined it would. I was worried that the entire town would emerge to watch me move but the town was silent. Even the gossip I feared seems to have been held at bay. Having to, once again, tell the moto-taxi drivers where I live has really been the biggest nuisance. Not once have I regretted moving. My new family--a young family of four--probably talked to me more in the first day than my old host-family talked to me in an entire year.
The Vacation:
lima:
After more than a year my sister came to visit me from the States. I went to pick her up at the airport in Lima on Sunday night. Waiting at the airport in Lima is different than waiting at an airport in the States. A large crowd of anxious relatives mixed with hotel and tourist agency representatvies huddle around the exit waiting for flights to arrive. The hotel and tourist reps are all waving around signs on sticks with the names of the tourists they have come to collect. The awaiting family members exuberantly rush to meet loved ones who often now reside in another country.
My sister was taller than I remembered which might have had something to do with the new straight-leg jeans she was sporting. I regretted not having made one of those signs on a stick to grab her attention. She would have appreciated the humor.
The next day we went to visit my Lima host-family. On the way there, Kelly, unlike most tourists, actually saw the vast impoverished urban sprawl which comprises most of Lima. The visit was wonderful as always. Kelly was subjected to a viewing of the infinitely long and horribly edited video of the Santiago festival that I attended in July, the same video my parents got to watch. She also got to go on her first moto-taxi ride.
It was interesting to see how my Lima family has changed since they hosted me, especially since they have since hosted two other trainees. One notable difference is a marked improvement of the pronunciation of their dog's name, Snow. It actually sounds like English now. Also, my host-mom, who used to fret and think I was crazy for running all the time, told us, in all seriousness, how she had tried, in vain, to convince the last two trainees that they needed to excercise.
I managed to leave my footprint in the newly poured concrete step in front of the house. I don't know how I didn't realize that I was supposed to step over it. My host-sister, Rosa, stopped before going over it and asked me to go first because she wasn't sure how to avoid the step. I, oblivious, didn't understand why she was so perplexed and stepped directly onto the wet concrete. A few minutes later, my host-Dad came in chuckling and said that it was just like the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
For dinner we had the traditional holiday meal of hot chocolate and panettone. Kelly made me look a little less stupid by biting directly into the paper wrapper of the panettone.
arequipa:
The next morning at 4:00 AM we had to go to the airport for our flight to Arequipa, a one hour flight which costs nearly the same price as the 14 hour bus ride. Stepping off the plane was the prefect antidote for sleep deprivation--snow capped mountains, crisp air and the early morning sun.
Arequipa is one of the southernmost provinces of Perú. The capitol city, also named Arequipa, is an impressive city, with abundant colonial architecture. It bears the nickname the "White City" due to old proclivity for building with the white volcanic stone common to the area. Arequipa houses numerous churches and monasteries. On our first afternoon in the city we visited the Monasterio de Santa Catalina, a rambling old convent which occupies an entire city block. We didn't leave without trying some of the famous desserts prepared by the current nuns.
Not one to mess around or to allow time for relaxing when on vacation, I scheduled a bus trip to Colca Canyon for 7 AM the next morning. Sometime before the end of her first 48 hours in Perú, Kelly became convinced that it was actually her 3rd day in country.
The bus ride to the canyon was a trip in itself. Much of the route passed through the Reserva Nacional Salinas y Aguada Blanca, an austere altiplano reserve which is home to vicuñas, llamas and alpacas. At its highest point the road reaches an elevation of 4800 meters.
We arrived at our destination, Chivay, a small town at the mouth of the canyon, mid-morning. After breakfast, we walked to some local hot springs. Somehow we ended up in the pool with all the other tourists. Roughly four guides attempted to get us back on their tour bus before they left, as they were convinced that we must have been on their tour. Either way is was very relaxing.
The following day we visited La Cruz del Cóndor, a short but picturesque busride away from Chivay. La Cruz is now a popular tourist stop on the Gringo Trail due to the Condor family which resides in that particular section of Colca Canyon. The Andean Condor is considered by many to be the world's largest flying bird, with a wingspan reaching up to 3 meters. Nonetheless, it may come in second to the Wandering Albatross. Kelly and I waited long enough to see the condors pass within several meters. The closest condor to pass us I actually watched through binoculars. The view clearly would have been better without them but I was too dense to figure that out. Rather I got a very good look at a blurred mass of black feathers. Binocular use has never been my forte.
Colca canyon provides a beautiful backdrop to the family of condors. At a depth of 3191 meters, Colca canyon is the second deepest known canyon in the world. The deepest known canyon, el Cañon del Cotahuasi, is actually also located in Arequipa, several hours to the north.
Our last day in Chivay we walked a little over an hour through the valley to the neighboring village of Corporaque. It was a beautiful walk through the bucolic countryside of the sierra, passed fields and terracing. The town itself was nestled among hills with a sweeping view of the valley and a tranquil plaza.
After another day in Arequipa, which we primarily devoted to walking around, we flew back to Lima. Being back in Miraflores was bizarre as always; it doesn't really fit with the rest of Perú with its fancy beachfront highrises and hotels. Kelly was a little sick which probably resulted from the fact that I encouraged her to eat salad and street food. I've clearly been here too long.
huaca rivera:
At the combi stop for Pacora in Chiclayo, we were greeted by the driver with, "So, you're headed back into the war zone...there's gonna be blood." Indeed, I took my sister back to my site on the eve of the removal of an invasion of people from a section of the Bosque de Pomac. Called a desalojo, or eviction, it was a government action to recuperate close to 1200 HA of the dry forest reserve which also houses archeological remains. The situation was rather complicated because around 200 families were implicated and, of those, some had lived there for 9 years. The government itself funded the construction of a health post and a school. And, in a country basically comprised of invasions it's difficult to pick and chose who to evict.
Anyway, nearly 2000 police came into the area for the desalojo. In the end, the "invaders" were heavily armed and 3 policemen were killed. Everyone in my site, was clearly preoccupied with the daily events. I decided against taking my sister for a walk in the woods. On the third day of the desalojo, my P.C. boss called to ask if I had heard what was going on, as if the people in my town would be completely oblivious, and told me that I should probably be careful.
Another visitor from the U.S., Susan Abraham, arrived in Pacora on Wednesday morning. Within an hour of her arrival she was serrenaded by the gerente of the municipality, aka Loco Sapote. We also went to visit the 83 year old store owner, whose birthday party I went to awhile back. As the mid-year festival of San Pablo was coming up, nearly the entire plaza was surrounded by restaurant booths and stands. Nonetheless, in front of our friend's store, there was, indeed, a 3 meter empty space, which she informed us that she had purchased in order to be able to watch the action uninhibited. She actually seemed annoyed that they would even consider blocking her view.
Susan and Kelly both adapted wonderfully to my site--except for a few issues with the outhouse and hard mattresses. They, both vegetarians, even ate fish. We played soccer a couple of times with the girls and transplanted some seedling in the tree nursery. My little host-brother, Patito, grew quite attached to them within the first day. By the time they left they were sad to go.
Since my sister is studying in Ecuador during the upcoming semester, her and Susan had to head north to Quito. I took them as far as Mancora, a popular beach in Piura. Amazingly, it was even hotter there than my site. We taught Susan how to dive under waves rather than simply being destroyed by them. However, while unsupervised she chose to practice in about one foot of water and ended up diving directly into the sand, scraping her forehead and smashing her nose in the process.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
