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!"

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

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.

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.

¡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.

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.