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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.