Site change. June 21, 2009

So as many of you may already know, I got a site change… for a myriad of reasons. And I’ve been busy moving and starting over. And it’s HARD. Leaving my beloved Santo Domingo was hard. Coming to the new site – even harder. It’s beautiful, but man.. it’s going to be a long year and half.
Well, to start with, I was a bit sick when I got to the new site (I see a pattern) – but this time instead of the bacterial infection, it was some crazy skin fungus, plus what was originally thought to be a viral sinus infection, but now seems more like a cold, and some sort of dysentery. I still think giardia, even if the stool sample disagrees. We’ll see. So that made everything seem even harder than it already is.
The food is cooked on a wood-burning stove, which makes everything taste the same – like smoke.
It’s COLD. I’m at 3600m (about 12,000ft+). The mountain casts a MEAN shadow. At night, I sleep in my 2 degree (C – 35degrees F) sleeping bag, in 2 shirts and a sweatshirt, fleece pants, wool socks, gloves, in a scarf and a hat and under 4 wool blankets and I still sometimes wake up in the middle of the night from the cold. During the days, the sun is STRONG. Even the Peruvians get sunburns here. It’s too hot to stand directly in the sun for more than 10 minutes and too cold to stand in the shade for as long, so you have to alternate throughout the day. Also, my family is really poor. When I first got here, they didn’t use toilet paper – used notebook paper instead. And we only eat meat once a week if someone brings alpaca meat down the mountain. If not, we have trout. Other than that, it’s half a plate of rice, half a plate of potatoes, with the occasional bean/vegetable combo thrown in. It’s not easy. And sound carries in this house, so I am always listening to the music the teenagers are listening to directly above me… and my ceiling is made of moldy newspaper, which means it probably leaks in the rainy season. *sigh*
On the upside… I live on a natural reserve in Peru. And that’s pretty sweet. We’re so high up, that on a clear night, you can see the entire milky way. The waterfalls and lagoons are breathtakingly gorgeous. I see condors and flocks of green parrots. My host family is adorable. My host dad, Antonino works in construction and is the “Judge of Peace” in the town… which means nothing. My host mom, Sulma, is a houswife. I have three host siblings living with us in the house. The youngest, Aldair, is 6. And he’s a SMART kid. I had him adding in English after 2 days. And he’s a sweetheart. But we need to work on boundaries still. The next oldest is Eliana, 14. She’s awesome – plays volleyball, is really welcoming and outgoing and not so self-conscious that she’s awkward yet. And the oldest, (get this, mom and dad), BLADIMIR, is 16. And he’s super awkward. I’ve actually made a game of it to have entire conversations with him without him saying a word because he will not talk to me. He barely talks to people in his family, definitely not the weird gringa who lives downstairs. It’ll go something like this me – “did you have a good day at school, Bladi?”
me – “why, yes, thank you for asking, alex, and how was your day?”
me – “my day was great too, thanks”
and he just stares at me until I walk away. I’ll break him yet.

Ah yes… that reminds me. I go by Alex now. No more Sasha for me. Because, well, as it turns out, in Quechua (and this site speaks even more quechua than sto. domingo did), Sasha means incompetent. When they told me it meant “difficult” in training, they were trying to be nice. In Spanish, the V and the B both make a B sound, so my last name sounds a lot like “bitches”… and that’s a word everyone knows in English… so the long and the short of it is that my name means incompetent bitch. I figured if I have to start all over anyway, I may as well not be a joke this time around. So I’m Alex. And I like it.

It looks like I’ll be teaching at the secondary school every thursday – something about the environment… and aside from that maybe sitting in on a few english classes and helping out with the “tourism class” – they’re making a video next month and I’ll be helping out with it.

It’s kind of a slow start here – I lost a few days to sleep. The altitude makes it really hard to breathe, and I was sick. I still need some furniture, but things are starting to look up here.
Oh, and there’s no cell phone or internet here. There’s a community phone which is solar powered and there’s a computer with internet, but it’s also solar powered, so you can’t use it before 4pm, there is always a line, and it is slow and expensive… so I’m just going to say there is no internet. But that leaves me a lot more time to write out blog entries ahead of time and post them when I go into the city every two weeks or so.

Life is divided up into phases. Each one is very different from the others, and you have to be able to recognize what is expected of you in each phase. That’s the secret of successful living. A new phase begins now…

Here’s to new beginnings,
Alex.

Perspective is a luxury when your head is constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons May 18, 2009

“Do you want to come to mass with us tomorrow morning?” She asks, anticipation in her eyes…
She must not know. How is this possible? Nobody invites me to church anymore. As if it’s not bad enough that I’m not Catholic, I’m also a single woman in my 20s. I may as well be the antichrist here.
“Well, 7am mass is pretty early”, I say, “But if I wake up in time, I’ll go with you”
“It’s for Salo’s mother – she died 12 years ago tomorrow”.
Oh…
I find myself waking up at 6:30 and debating it in my head. But they’re my host family and they’ve been good to me. It hurts my heart to think of not going. Damn it. I’m off.
And I’m basically the first one there. Punctuality in Peru? I don’t know why I bother.
25 minutes later we’re walking back to the house together. My host dad tells me it cost them 50 soles to have the mass for his mother (not a small sum of money, especially not in the campo). What? 50 soles for a 25 minutes half-assed mass? The priest didn’t even try – he didn’t set up a microphone, he mumbled the words to the songs (I suspect he might not know all of them), and he looked like he was just going through the movements. At least one of our dogs, Benji, followed us into the church, ran up to to the podium, full of curiosity, and proceeded to pee on the podium. For 50 soles, that dog can pee anywhere he wants, as far as I’m concerned.
Then the priest went off to give another mass in one of the caserios. It costs even more there, I’m told. This priest makes more than a doctor! Goodwill and brotherhood, my ass. I should probably leave the churchgoing to Ryan from now on… Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it absolutely terrifying.

On a sunnier note, since I’ve been back, my relationship with my host mom has changed a lot. Before, it was funny misunderstandings and awkward, frustrating “I don’t understand what you’re saying!” moments because she has a really strong campo accent and uses a LOT of slang. But I’m back and suddenly it’s like we’re old girlfriends, inside jokes, hardly any misunderstandings and a lot less annoyance. At the rate I’m going, by the time I leave Peru, I might fancy myself a cook. I already make a pretty good Chaufa and orange chicken and there’s nothing but time left to learn. However, my host grandma, Carmen, schooled me in the art of tamale making today. I failed. It is not as easy as it looks.

I’m walking through town, looking for my counterpart, printing things out, making copies, running from place to place. I walk past the old man on the corner – I’m sure to slow down so he has time to process my “buenos dias” and say it back. His eyes crinkle behind his thick glasses and the corners of his mouth turn up, hinting at a smile. Later, he’s gone and a kitten lays on the corner, keeping his spot warm for when he returns. It reminds me of how adorable everything in this town is, and I keep walking with a little extra skip in my step. And then I see it. It’s a dog. It’s convulsing. There’s a crowd gathering… “maybe it has epilepsy”, I think naively. “Ooohhh.. it was poisoned” I hear an onlooker say. Fuck. I’m just going to keep walking. I come back a half an hour later to run another errand and what do I see? The poor, helpless creature is still convulsing on the ground. “It’s almost dead now” someone says. I keep walking and hope someone puts the poor thing out of it’s misery. 10 minutes later, I have to walk by again (it’s not a big town), and it’s still convulsing. I’m repulsed. How can you spend 40 minutes of your day watching a dog die?
I get home and the doctor that lives in the house with us is crying. Jesus – so much for cute fuzzy adorable happy day. It’s been raining. A camionetta flipped over in a caserio about 40 minutes away. 3 people died. Her friend was in the car. Some days just have to be about death, I guess. The night is just a part of the day.

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry May 13, 2009

It’s nighttime in the big city… a drunken security guard drops his flashlight, three homeless men share a bottle around a trashcan inferno, and somewhere a car alarm goes off. The noise is as deafening as the silence. And suddenly I’m back. Back in the land of empty carbs, where people call pigeons doves (they’re not the same bird), and think it’s acceptable to lick your face in greeting. Oh, how I’ve missed it.
In the past two months (since my last update) I have lived and died five lifetimes. I’ve learned the true meaning of incompetence and injustice, of betrayal and loss, of anger and pain and hatred. And I’ve learned that among all that darkness, love always prevails. Beauty, friendship, healing, inner strength, and LOVE (healing, gorgeous, intense, unforgettable love). When the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me…  and I have learned to let it be.
I’ve traveled from Peru’s border with Bolivia to the border with Ecuador. I’ve seen Lake Titicaca, Machu Picchu, the largest reservoir in Peru, and the mangroves furthest South on the Pacific coast.
I’ve hiked, climbed, swam, ran, fallen on barbed wire (I’m an idiot), gotten in a car accident, hit a cow with a car (different incident), and gently nudged a donkey with the same car.
I’ve lost a friend (Rest easy, Steve – you are missed, buddy), and I’ve made new ones.
I’ve spent nearly a week in the trunk of a Peace Corps vehicle, I’ve witnessed a mini-social-uprising in the most dangerous city in Piura, which left the road blocked and impassable (they didn’t have water for 4 months), I’ve learned that even in 3 months it is possible to create sustainable projects, and I’ve gotten yelled at in public (some things never change).
I’ve learned that laughing is easier than crying, that music is magic healing goodness, that having too many orgasms at extremely high altitude can cause one to lose consciousness (hi mom and dad), that I have the best friends in the world, and that life is truly about balance, in every sense of the word.
On a side note: a 15 year old girl was walking home from school last week in Sto. Domingo and slipped on some of that ridiculous green moss that covers the roads because of all the rain and fell backwards, hit her head, and died instantly. Ain’t that some shit.
Ok. well, it’s obvious that I’m going to be incapable of writing anything in depth about the last two months right now. It’s been an adventure, a wild ride… and man.. I’ve got stories.
For now, I’m trying to reacclimate to site. Reintegrate and start my projects back up. There is a Project Design and Management workshop at the beginning of June that I need to prepare for in Chiclayo (more travel… yay). I’m also planning a trip to the jungle for Fiestas Patrias.
I went around with the garbagemen today and to my absolute delight, the medical waste program continues to run perfectly, which means this is the last wednesday that I need to go around with the workers… sustainable project number 1 completed.
Tomorrow, the kids and I are going around and putting up their “why it’s important to protect the environment” posters around town. There are 16 so far from the one school and we need the second school to finish theirs and then that will be sustainable project number 2 completed I call it a sustainable project because a lot of the work was done while I was away and I was told “sasha, you put so much work into this project, I thought it would be unfair not to complete it”. That’s what I’m talking about!! I’m just here to facilitate, people! Get it done. Eso!
Until next time,
un fuerte abrazo y un monton de besos,
Sasha

It’s like putting pants on a baby March 12, 2009

I know, I know… I’ve been terrible about updating lately. Things just suddenly got really busy. Since my last update, I have moved houses, been to a monthly meeting, worked on my projects, and started preparing the ridiculous amount of paperwork and powerpoint presentations I need to complete by the time Reconnect rolls around next week. So, you know… sorry.
Let’s see – at the monthly meeting Jenna and I presented our peace corps week radio ad, which was clearly a hilarious mistake as people continued to sing “te vas te vas te vas con cuerpo de paz” at us for the rest of our time there.
When I got back to site, it became evident that my current living situation wasn’t going to work out, so the very next day I moved into Teo’s house. And holy crap have things turned out to be way better. I have to pay a little more for the room, but it is much bigger, I have more privacy, and there is a window to the outside so I actually get natural light now! We still have two dogs, but these dogs are way cuter. They aren’t confined to the roof – they are well fed and have room to run around and as a result don’t spend the whole day barking and making my room smell like poop. Awesome.
Teo also happens to be the absolute best cook in Peru that I have encountered. I get balanced reasonable meals and have already started to feel healthier.
Moreover, the house is just always full. Teo runs a “pension”, which means she cooks for a bunch of people every day. Most of the people are doctors, since the health post is next door, so I am getting to know a lot of them much better. The dental intern (Carol), who I did the dental charla with lives here too, which is sweet because she’s 21 and from Lima and we have a lot in common, so it’s a huge breath of fresh air to finally have a friend my age in town. Unfortunately, interns rotate out every 3 months, so she will be leaving soon, but it’ll be good to have a constant young presence in the house.
Teo’s full name is Teofila (which I think is awesome) and the pension is a huge source of income for the family. Her husband, Salo (Salomon), is quite possibly the sweetest person I have ever met. He is just sooo nice and you can really tell that he loves her. It’s pretty much adorable all the time. They have two kids, MariCarmen, who is 17 and going through her last year in secundaria and Pedro, who lives in Piura. Salo’s father also lives in the house, but I really hardly ever see him. Salo works on their granja (farm) – they have ducks and chickens, rabbits, guinea pigs, and currently are growing corn.
The house is pretty huge – even with all of those people living there, there are extra rooms and I don’t feel at all crowded.
Plus, the yard is amazing. We have canaries and a lime tree, which Teo makes fresh lime-ade from every day and there is a little gazebo-type area where they set out a couch after rainy season.
So moving and settling in took up some time, but I’m really happy there now.
I’ve been going around with Nilda presenting our project to everyone that needs to know, which in a bureaucracy, is everyone. We are trying to find funding for the 3-ply and paint we will need for the final slogans, but unfortunately, due to the economic crisis, all municipalities have had their funding cut immensely – ours alone was cut something to the tune of 120,000 soles. So no more little handouts. Money goes ONLY to essentials.
I’ve also started working on helping figure out how to get the animals (horses and donkeys) that people bring from the caserios off the streets. Apparently it’s actually illegal and there is a fine for tying large animals up in the street, so what needs to be done is a training campaign and a search for safe alternatives of places where people can put their animals.
On the upside, the medical post has exceeded all expectations in trash separation and now is doing things literally perfectly. Apparently all it took was buying some red trash bags. Sweet.

For International Women’s Day, which was March 8, Jenna and I made 2 more radio programs. We didn’t sing for this one, but it involved Christina Aguilera singing in Spanish (almost as bad), and a few interviews, a few kids yelling about women, and some poetry. All around, it was pretty adorable.
And beside all that, I’ve been preparing for reconnect. Reconnect is a 3-day program in Pacasmayo where everyone from the training group gets together and we talk about what being a volunteer is all about. We get help with our diagnostics and we all get to see each other again. This is great, but it also involves a lot of paperwork and presentations. I have to do a site locator form for where I live… which may not prove very difficult for others, but they want us to draw three maps: a birds eye view of my town, a map of how to get to my site from Lima, and how to get to my house in the middle of the night… an unreasonable thing to ask of someone who couldn’t navigate her way out of a paper bag. There are questions like “where would be the best place for a helicopter to land?” and “what is the number and street address of your house?”. Where do you think our sites are, PC? We don’t have house numbers and a helicopter can land quite literally anywhere – it’s all open fields, as long as you can land on a mountainside. It’s a little frustrating.
In addition to the site locator form, I have to do a powerpoint presentation on the progress of my diagnostic, which I’ve been procrastinating on, and we have to make a little poster presentation about our progress in site. As if that weren’t enough, my APCD called me a few days ago to inform me that this year they have decided to have one person from each technical group (health, environment, and wat-san) do a presentation on what they have been doing in site so far, so that everyone can get an idea of projects that people do and he has chosen me to do this presentation. Just another thing to add to the list. I’m happy to do it, but it doesn’t leave much time for blog updating, as you can see.
At any rate… I’ve been a busy bee. Lucho (the man that called me fat), received his present (the photoshopped picture of him) and luckily thought it was hilarious. He jiggles my arm fat as I walk by, so I ask him when his baby is due… same old, same old.
Other than that, not much has changed. Now that I’ve moved, I have to walk farther up the mountain to get anywhere, so it’s good exercise. I’m leaving tomorrow to go back to Piura. Instead of paying my family in soles, I’m buying things for the house… like a toilet seat and a microwave. I don’t understand how a house with two T.V.s doesn’t have a toilet seat, but whatever, that’s about to change. Then, I’m going to Pacasmayo for reconnect and hope to spend a few days after doing all sorts of shenanigans before the Grupo 5 concert on saturday the 21st. I’m about to give March Madness a whole new meaning
Missing and loving everyone who cares.
Paz,
Sasha

is she a sphinx or merely stupid? February 26, 2009

So I started out this week thinking it would be a lot less busy than the last, but this was not the case. Which is great. Because not only do I feel more productive and hence successful, but also it leaves me less time to do what we call “anxiety eating”, which leads to a slight weight loss. All around – awesome.
Last saturday, I went to San Fransisco with the dental intern to give a charla on dental health and hand out the toothbrushes and toothpaste and floss that MamaCepela so graciously sent over. We ended up giving one toothbrush per child and one tube of toothpaste and floss per family. The dental intern did most of the talking, which is really for the best, since she is the professional, and everyone thanked us profusely as we left. It was amazing to see the difference in living standards between the part of Santo Domingo where I live and a caserio only a 40 minute walk away. To keep a record of who received dental supplies, we went around the room asking for names and ages and numbers of children and it was incredible. There were 19 year old girls with two kids who looked like they were well into their late 30s. There was not a single person present with a full set of teeth, and even some of the children were hard to look at, with their front teeth brown and half there, rotting out. Just another reminder that poverty is relative.
Sunday I went to San Miguel for a continuation of my micro landfill presentation. We were able to bring the projector this time, so I got to show off my nifty powerpoint presentation. By the end of the meeting, I had 17 families signed up who were interested in building micro-landfills. So we made an “environmental committee”. There is a president and two secretaries and they are in charge of all future environmental projects in San Miguel. Every family that ends up building a micro-landfill will get free seeds to reforest their land. We will start construction in April, when the rainy season passes, so they don’t fill up with water while in the process of construction. Now I have to put together informational packets on how to compost, the technical aspect of building a micro-landfill, worm horticulture, reforestation, and trash separation for the families that have shown interest. Frankly, this is a lot more progress than I thought we would have achieved at this meeting, and I’m pretty excited about it.
At some point that night, my power went out. Just mine. Nobody else’s. Since my host family is still on vacation, I had to ask the neighbors for help before it got too dark out. This somehow ended with a drinking circle outside my house and 7 neighbors pooling their efforts so that the “gringita doesn’t get left in the dark, alone… someone might steal her”. Cute. I love living in a town where half a dozen families will stop what they are doing to help you. Well, unfortunately, nobody could figure out how to fix it, so we wired my house up with the neighbors, and voila! I’m using the neighbor’s electricity! I keep trying to pay them, but they’re so adamant in their refusal.. I’m going to have to buy them something. I would have gotten a technician to fix it the next day, but I’m pretty sure my host dad knows how to fix it and I don’t want to pay a technician to do what he can for free.
Monday was the second set of presentations about trash separation. Maybe half the people showed up this time, and we didn’t spend too much time talking about trash – however, I did learn that there is a project in the works to poison all of the street dogs. Well, as you can imagine, I flipped out. It wasn’t elegant, it wasn’t pretty. I started yelling about right to life and how inhumane it was and blah blah blah and the end result was a group of Peruvians silently staring at me like I was insane. However, I heard that there is some neighboring town where an NGO operates a shelter. I’m going to have to look into that. It might end up being my 2 year project. Cuz hell no, you can’t just go around poisoning dogs because you don’t like them. Man, I’m all riled up ten ways to sunday.
I have also been working with Nilda, the secretary of one of the high schools on the slogan competition. We went around yesterday to find “strategic locations” to put the winning slogans up. We found 26 spots – sides of buildings, walls, etc. throughout ALL of the urban zone of Santo Domingo. I’m almost surprised we were able to find that many! We also finished writing up our project proposals and solicituds for financial support today, so now we’re just waiting on an answer from the department of education in the municipality to see if they will help us with paint and 3-ply and other materials for the actual final product. If that’s approved, we just have to propose it to the other high school and we’re in business. The due date for submissions happens to be on Earth Day, which was a complete accident, and makes me smile.
I’ve been going around with the trash men every morning, as well. Generally, this goes well. Sometimes I get an eye roll when I tell people that plastic is not, in fact, organic, but for the most part, people are really nice about it. Today was a different story however. It is one of the rules of the trash program: we do not collect materials used for construction. It’s too heavy for the men to carry and it’s the responsibility of the owner. Everything was going fine, until we got to one of the highschools. We hold institutions to higher standards because they are supposed to set an example for the rest of the town – so the health post, the schools, and the municipality should all be perfect in their separation. Well, the school didn’t have ANYTHING separated. We called out everyone who works there during summer hours and showed them what was what. We found some pieces of a wall in the bin and told them that we don’t collect that. Suddenly, one of the teachers starts arguing with me, telling us that if we don’t take it, some kid will throw it into the street and that’s not constructive. I didn’t like his tone, so I told him it wasn’t really our problem. We collect the rest of the trash and start walking away. Then, this man, this grown ass adult, who ran for mayor three times, who is an educated teacher at a local institution, picks up the pieces and throws them into the middle of the street. Awesome. Great example you’re setting, buddy. I’m glad you’re responsible for molding the minds of the children of this town. Sometimes I just feel like I’m babysitting.
So that’s basically it. I’m going into Piura tomorrow. Lately it’s been weird watching life back home move on without me. People getting married, engaged, having kids, moving, people not keeping in touch, etc. It’s just weird. It’s this completely narcissistic feeling, but sometimes it feels almost as if I’m getting left behind. I guess when the alternative is being there and having a stupid 9-5 job that I would hate, it’s really not so bad, but it is really weird.
On an unrelated note: the fleas and bedbugs and mosquitos are gone…. well, not exactly gone, just not biting me anymore. I haven’t been itchy in 2 weeks now. But I do still feel things crawling up my pants all the time. Also, the rats ate all of my guaba seeds, so I guess I’m not going to reforest any of that in the near future. At least I still have my lovely pomarosas.
Yours truly, with besitos (that’s little kisses),
Sasha

bathing in the glory of my liberated soul February 20, 2009

So many things.

This has been, by far, one of the most productive, successful weeks I’ve had here so far. To start with, I finished my taxes, which is a nice feeling. Then, Jenna came up from Ñoma and we recorded a radio spot to celebrate Peace Corps Week, which is the last week of February – Peace Corps’ anniversary. We started off by starting a band. It’s just me and her. We call ourselves grupo gringo (the most popular band in Peru is called grupo cinco). We found the instrumental version of one of their songs and changed the words and recorded our voices over it. It’s pretty awful (my voice), but I like to think it’s the thought that counts. Then, we wrote a story about the history of the Peace Corps, especially in Peru. We wrote it in the form of a fairy tale and had one of the interns at the health post read it. Then we set it to some music off the Harry Potter (Sorcerer’s Stone) soundtrack to make it sound more like a fairy tale. After this, we introduce ourselves and have 2 community members interview us about anything they want to know about us or the Peace Corps. Lastly, we had Pasion, the leader of the womens weavers association talk about her experiences with Lillian and Rachel, the small business volunteers that helped put the organization together. It turned out to be nearly 12 minutes. We bought spots at the 2 radio stations for it to play every day over Peace Corps week. Turns out the radio stations reach nearly all parts of Piura. I’m pretty stoked to see if any other volunteers end up hearing it while eating dinner with their families one day. ha! I have it in mp3 form. It’s in Spanish, but if you want to hear it, let me know and I’ll send it to you. It’s good for a laugh.

Moving on – I also started working on a project with Nilda, the secretary at one of the secondary schools. With the environmental books I bought in Piura, we put together a plan of attack for this project. We are going to start a competition between the students of the two secondary schools. Those students that want to participate will come up with a slogan to encourage people to protect the environment, and draw something to go along with it. A panel of judges will pick some of the best ones and those will be painted on buildings and walls throughout town – propaganda, if you will. The winners will also get something like a notebook and some pens as a prize for extra incentive. We still have to work out the funding for the paints and get permission from the other school, but the wheels are definitely in motion.

I went around with the trashmen a few times this week as well. Both to check up on how the health post is doing with medical waste and to see how people are improving with separation of organics and inorganics, and what I found was basically just amazing. I am already starting to see significant behavior change, just through my monitoring project. Basically all parts of the health post are now separating everything correctly. On tuesday, we found some bloody cottonballs in with the normal trash, so the guy didn’t pick it up. Today, however, everything was perfect. For the first time since I’ve been here. Perfect separation of medical waste!!!!!! SUCCESS!!! And when I was going house to house, I only ended up having to talk to 4 houses about what exactly organics are vs. inorganics. Last time, I had to talk to something like 15 houses. That’s a pretty significant improvement. That makes me smile. I also had my first presentation yesterday about the competition we are starting. We are going to give something small, like a broom and dustpan, as a prize to the houses that separate their trash well in the zone that separates their trash the best. The garbage men will judge. Prizes will be given out every 2 months. Next week, I’ll be giving every house handouts to help them distinguish between organics and inorganics. I have the next presentation on monday, and then the competition starts on March 1. The meeting got a little off topic when people started talking about creating a place to put horses and donkeys for when people come in from the caserios. Apparently, they don’t like walking past horses and donkeys tied up next to sidewalks. I’ll agree, the streets are always covered in poop, but I like having the animals around. Apparently, I’m in the minority.

I had another run in with Lucho, the man who thinks my parents should be ashamed of my fat ass… you remember the one. It started with me shaking his hand and saying “hola, gordito (fatty)”. He looked surprised and said “me? no!! you!!!”… this turned into another conversation about our weights which ended with him telling me that I should start giving my lunches to Ryan. I don’t need them, and he does. Besides, it looks like I eat 3 kilos of rice a day. (I swear I’m not that fat. haha). So since there’s absolutely nothing I can do about this situation but find it unbelievably hilarious, I have decided to turn this into a running joke between us instead of turning him into an enemy. I photoshopped a picture of his face onto the body of a morbidly obese man. I wrote “I eat 3 kilos of rice a day” in a word bubble next to his face. I put it in a sealed envelope on his desk and he will get it when he gets back from Piura on monday. Immature? Perhaps. Hilarious? Definitely. I have to keep myself entertained somehow.

So now that I’ve had a taste of pulling pranks, I remember how fun it is. I’m starting a “pranks from peru” business. Pro bono. Have an asshole neighbor? Give me the address, I’ll send them a postcard from Peru telling them to watch their back. It’s confusing and effective. Tell your friends. I spent this morning helping the dental intern prepare a charla. Tomorrow, we are going to San Fransisco to give the charla and hand out the toothbrushes and toothpaste MamaCepela sent. I’ll be sure to take pictures

So there you have it. I’ve been BUSY. Not once this whole time was I at home, reading, thinking… hmmm… I should be doing something else. I am tired, I wake up early and I work late, and it feels good. People keep asking me what I do every day, what’s my routine, and I always get to answer with “I’m busy all day every day, but every day is different” and that’s awesome.

Moreover, the more I look around my site, the more I hang out with people in my community, the more I’m convinced that I hit the Peace Corps jackpot. People don’t try to hit me up for money, they are respectful, open, hospitable, and they come to ME with ideas. My site is gorgous. Just straight up beautiful. And everyone and everything is just damn adorable. The people are cute, the kids yelling about energetic donkeys, running around, giggling, dogs with limes tied around their neck, everything. In fact, I can’t imagine NOT being happy here. It’s just so unfathomable to me. How can you be sad when everything’s so freaking cute? My soul is flying, almost touching the ceiling, experiencing a sense of profound peace.

Guess what? Chicken butt. It’s what’s for dinner.

Sending you all my lovin,

Sasha

all of us, one way or another, are insane February 15, 2009

Today, a fat old man told me I was fat. And not in an endearing way. It went a little something like this:
Him: “Wow, you got fat”
Me: “well, yeah, I put on some weight… that’ll happen”
Him: “No, I mean, seriously – look at you. You looked so much better when you got here. What happened? Seriously.. what happened? Do your parents know? I would be ashamed to show them. Yep… you’re definitely a fatty. Ryan’s not fat. It doesn’t make sense.”
Me: *resisting the urge to stab him
This was Ryan’s counterpart as well as the director of one of the secondary schools, so I couldn’t even tell him off. Also, for the record – it’s not like I’m morbidly obese or anything, I still fit into all of my clothes. I put on 5, 10 lbs.. it’s like the freshman 15 thing – just need a few more months to get used to the diet, I think. I’m putting down the cake and picking up a salad… Just… damn.
Ok. Moving on from being insulted for like 10 straight minutes. I have a rat problem. This started when my host mom left town with a sink full of dirty dishes, which I came home to two days later. Also, there was an open bag of rice on the ground in the kitchen. Rats are gross. I have been contemplating setting traps, but then there’s the nasty cleanup… and poison sounds good in theory, but what if they crawl off somewhere and die in a wall somewhere. Then I would have to find it and deal with the smell… It’s just a hassle. So I keep a clean kitchen and the rats and I have this understanding. After it gets pretty dark and I’m done with the kitchen, I just kind of retreat to my room and close the door and they don’t bother me. And this worked for us for a while. But now, the bastards have started to eat my seed collection. This aggression will not stand, man. I’m gonna have to do something about them now. It’s on.
In the “weird things about Peru” file: I saw a dog the other day with a bunch of limes tied around its neck so it could deliver them to a neighbor. A lime delivery system? A trained dog in Peru? I’m so confused.
On the work front, I had a meeting in San Miguel with the authorities of the town to see if there was interest in the micro landfill idea. They seemed really excited, but also really distrustful because on a number of occasions, NGOs have come in and made promises and never come back to follow through. I guess there’s only one way to prove that’s not going to happen. This meeting was also an opportunity to see how a small town meeting in a caserio is conducted. All of the women sit separately from the men, even though there are more women in the group. And then, it’s just a matter of who can talk the loudest. That person gets heard. It’s actually rather amusing to observe.
Later that week, I went by the heath post to see if they were doing any better at separating their medical waste, only to discover that yes, although improvements have been made, the newest complaint is that they throw placentas in with the regular trash. This resulted in an uncomfortable conversation with the head doctor about why this is a bad idea.
I also got to talk to one of the school secretaries for the secondary school. She is adorable, busting with ideas that never get heard because she’s not a teacher. So we’re going to put together a competition/project for the kids where they have to make huge posters relating to why it’s important to protect the environment and the best ones will be hung up around town. We wanted to start with finding some simple basic books on environmental protection in Spanish for the kids. So I went into Piura this past weekend, and found hardly anything. It’s amazing how little there is in the way of children’s books about the environment in Spanish. I’m gonna have to see at the next monthly meeting if anyone else has had better luck in that regard…
Speaking of going to Piura – I was supposed to go down on Thursday with my counterpart in a camionetta. But he got drunk really really early in the day, forgot to confirm our seats in the car, and then passed out and didn’t wake up until midday the next day. Way to go, Jorge. So I got up at 5am and sat outside the municipality building in the rain waiting for either Jorge or the car to show up.. and neither did. It’s actually kinda funny in hindsight.
I finally did get into Piura on Friday and ran errands all day. Saturday, for Valentine’s day, I hung out with the few volunteers that were in town and went out later that night to hang out with the volunteer expats. The French guy was having a goodbye party at his house for one of the Spanish girls. And these people were freaking AMAZING. They all work on environmental/agricultural themes as well, or they work with children. There were people from France, Spain, Holland, Norway, Peru, and the US. And we were all hanging out, eating delicious couscous with vegetables, drinking (in moderation, like adults, instead of like Peruvians usually drink – to get drunk), speaking Spanish (My spanish is GREAT when I drink), listening/dancing to Reggae, talking about the spirit of volunteerism, doing language and music comparisons, you get the picture…. They had dreds and piercings and tattoos and free spirits and holy crap!!!! I found foreign educated hippies my age!!!!! And they are all fabulous beautiful people. I am beside myself with excitement about that situation. Clearly.
Also, since my last post, I read American Taboo, which was a lot drier than I expected. Wasn’t really the attention-grabbing page turner I expected, but it’s a good story nonetheless. And I read V for Vendetta, which is actually a novel based off of the screenplay, instead of the the other way around, which was weird. It’s a fun mindless read. I prefer it when it’s a book first, and then a movie, though, for sure.
So that’s that. Hopefully my fat ass doesn’t shame my parents.
Miss you all and love you!
Paz,
Sasha

i want to paint visions of paradise February 7, 2009

I have recently finished reading “Veronika Decides to Die” by Paulo Coelho. It was incredible, as I have come to expect from Coehlo’s works. It touches on the subjects of perceived insanity, social conformity, and the consequences of free thinking. Downright delightful. There was one phrase that stuck out to me more than the rest, though…

“Insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It’s as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that’s going on around you but incapable of explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don’t understand the language they speak there.”

It’s probably rather obvious why this in particular stuck out to me. What gets me is just how accurate it is. You lose a part of yourself when trying to express yourself in a language you do not have a complete grasp of. You have to settle for close-enough substitutions in words to describe what it is you are feeling or asking, with slightly different connotations than intended, so that no matter how hard you try, nobody here really understands you completely. They may understand the the things that you are saying, but they have no way of really understanding you. At first, this feeling can be frustrating, followed by somewhat romantic – being somewhere foreign, it’s just part of the territory… but after living somewhere for months and months and being incapable of forming anything other than surface relationships with your neighbors, with the people you interact with daily, it gets to start feeling a little lonely. And the problem isn’t just a language barrier, but a matter of having true understanding – What is the other person’s life really like? How can they possibly imagine your life in the US? How can you break past the stereotypes and assumptions people hold about you? What topics are completely taboo to discuss? At least I felt some sort of connection when there were people my age in town – people off to university, curious, thirsty for education… but now that it’s rainy season, nearly everyone has escaped the mountains until the rain passes, and that means certainly everybody near my age. Perhaps things will change when people start coming back.

Well, moving right along, being in Piura was a lot of fun, as usual. It took us eight hours to get there this time instead of the usual four. Not only were the roads atrocious, but the bus broke down about halfway there. By 7am, we found ourselves exploring the mountainside, climbing trees to gather fruit for breakfast. I even had to do a little real mountain climbing to find a spot to pee far enough away from any creepers who might be able to see. When we got into Piura, we were dirty, tired, and still hungry, but at least we had a good story.

February 1st, nearly everyone came into town to watch the Superbowl. Volunteers and Peruvian/European friends of volunteers overtook the entire hostel for hours. I found refuge on the roof a few times, until people decided to move the party up there. There were just way too many people there. I was sure we were going to get kicked out. But it’s Peru. So we didn’t.

While in town, I got a package from Nick – thank you! It’s great! So so so much chocolate. I get full just looking at it all..

Monday, we had another regional meeting. It was incredibly helpful, as usual. We learned about our new tri-annual report system and then worked more individually. We broke up into groups, so I got to meet with other environment volunteers from Piura and the third year environment volunteer, our coordinator. We got to bounce ideas off of each other, pool resources, and I think I got a few people riled up about the medical waste situations at our sites. There was talk of coordinating with the health program to come up with a national Peace Corps Peru policy on how to work on problems of medical waste. It also helped to put things into perspective – my health post might not always throw bloody cotton balls into the correct place, but other health-posts burn all of their medical waste mere yards away from volunteers’ homes. This means, syringes, placentas, glass, everything. I also asked about where I would be able to obtain the kind of plastic trash bins we’re looking for for the public trash can program I’m working on. I went around to a few stores recommended by the regional coordinator and found that they not only don’t really have what we’re looking for, but the prices are way out of our range. So I’m going to have to do a little more looking before we can get this off the ground.

Tomorrow I have a presentation in San Miguel about micro landfills, assuming everything goes off without a hitch. There’s usually a hitch.

Teo presented a brilliant idea to get people to separate their trash better, which as of right now is making great progress. The idea is to give people an incentive to care. Make it a competition. Every two or three months, the garbagemen will choose one family that separates their garbage better than all the rest, and they will get a small gift from the municipality – something for the house, like a broom, for example. It’s inexpensive for the municipality and people don’t really care what the incentive is – it’s about competition. If people want to be better at separating their trash, I will be holding two training sessions on how to properly separate trash which anyone is welcome to attend. I have also made posters. I will be going into Piura at the end of this week to print up the posters with my counterpart and we have meetings scheduled to announce the program and do the training sessions. It will be announced on the loudspeaker in town and on the radio. Way to go Teo with the idea! And way to go Jorge with pushing it through… this is exactly what facilitating is all about. It was an idea brought about by a community member, which will be implemented – it’s just a matter of putting the idea into practice. I’m pretty excited about it.

I came back from Piura on tuesday, with Jorge (the Peace Corps doctor) and Josh (Ryan’s third year volunteer coordinator) in tow. I had a really great time while they were in town. It’s always refreshing to see Santo Domingo through someone else’s eyes. It helps remind me how lucky we are to be here. It’s just so damn beautiful.

I am expecting a package of seeds in the mail from the Peace Corps office, which should help add native species to the reforestation projects in the works. I also found out that one of the projects I’m working with is much larger than I originally anticipated. In fact, the plan is to plant 80,000 falso roble trees starting in March, using the man-power of all of the environmental groups. That’s amazing.

In less important news: since it’s always raining and humid (although I think humid is an understatement – it’s more like… wet), random things have started to mold. And by random things I mean anything that doesn’t get touched for a few days. For example, hemp necklaces, clothes, backpacks… everything. I have a feeling I’m going to come out of this rainy season with half of the things I came in with. We’ll see how this continues to pan out.

Also, I noticed a little while ago that when I help Teo cook, she uses the same cutting board for raw meat and vegetables. And since we usually don’t have water, I was thinking this can’t be helping keep me healthy. So I bought her a new cutting board and made sure to explain that one is to be used to meats and the other for vegetables. She seemed pretty excited about it, and I haven’t been sick since I gave it to her, so there’s a step in the right direction!

Speaking of helping people cook… I have discovered the most incredibly boring job in the entire world. Not that cooking is boring in general, but sorting through rice is. When you have to sit there and sort through individual grains of rice and pick out the garbage (dirt, bad pieces of rice) before cooking it. Every time I get stuck with this job and it is starting to discourage me from wanting to learn how to cook. At first it was soothing, relaxing, even… but now it’s just so incredibly boring. I don’t recommend it.

In the spirit of Peru being completely random: when I came home from Piura this time around, I found that the neighbors had put a machete through the wall. The walls aren’t very thick – you can hear everything… and they’re made of adobe brick.. so the neighbors just went ahead and stuck a machete through one of the holes between the bricks. It makes me smile every time I see it.

Well, I’m going to post this before the internet goes out again. Miss everyone tremendously.

xoxo,

Sasha

strange in a familiar way, familiar in a strange way January 31, 2009

The night’s grown and it seems to holler and glow…
Those of you that know me know that I will try most anything twice. Most everything. There is a small list of things I won’t try – the obvious: PCP, heroin, international drug trafficking, slavery, being a country music star, voting for McCain… and then there’s the less obvious, apparently: for example, drinking chicken blood. When I was generously offered to join a group of individuals this morning with a fine refreshing drink of chicken’s blood, I found myself having to politely decline… that’s a first for me in Peru. “You see, ma’am, I’m sure your particular chicken blood with small chicken organs mixed in for good measure is, in fact, the most delicious chicken blood in the land, and yet… I’m just soooo full, I couldn’t possibly…” Geez ow. So there’s that.
And I remember the storm was wet like birth
And the hail would lick the weeds
And the battling of trees
Above the earth
There was a pretty bad motorcycle accident in town a few days ago, which kind of shook everybody up. One of the men that works at the municipality was on a motorcycle with Humberto, Ryan’s host brother, when he ran into a pole head first without a helmet on. He then started bleeding from every orifice in his face. This is not the kind of injury we are equipped to handle at the health post here in Santo Domingo, so he had to be transported to Piura city. I hear he’s magically fine now, but jesus. *note: Ryan’s host brother walked away basically uninjured.
Where my plate is empty thinking of the plenty noon emotions ‘cross the ocean…
In work successes: The garbage men have made a compactor (basically a slab of concrete attached to some iron) to compact the landfill, so the garbage will take up less space over time – which is an issue because the land that the landfill area is on is rented by the municipality an will eventually run out.
I went to San Miguel (one of the caserios) to set up a date to present the micro rilleno project to the authorities of the town and got to meet several of them, make a good first impression, and gauge their interest in the project.
I am ready to start planting! Just need to wait for some people to get back in town so I can put together a team of students.
I made posters about separating inorganic and organic trash, and now only have to wait for them to be approved and printed.
We have emailed the plastics company for quotes on prices for all of the trash equipment we are looking to buy and are waiting on a response.
And lastly, I have started getting solid feedback/ideas from interested town members, both formally and informally – written and oral – about ways to get people to protect the environment better!
And here, home is darker than a river of ashes, but there in the morning, the sun’ll do dances for you…
Peace corps disappointments: I am no longer able to go to Carnival in Cajamarca. We were originally told that we would be allowed to go even though Carnival falls something like 10 days before the time my training group is officially allowed to travel. However, that decision was recently changed and we were told that this was no longer a possibility. Rough. I’m currently seeking something comparable and local. I’m sure there will be celebrations, although nothing as fabulous as Carnival. Good thing there’s always next year.
I have finished reading the Life of Pi. Finally! That’s been on my list of books to read since my freshman year of college. Part one was rough to get into, but once you get going, it’s amazing. Read it. I’m about to start Veronika Decides to Die.
We continue to have water problems. I desperately miss bathing regularly. People are starting to get all riled up about it and there is even a rumored protest set to go down tomorrow. I believe a compromise has been reached where we will have water from 8am to 4pm every day until the situation is corrected, but I don’t really trust what the engineers say anymore because they’ve been really inconsistent, and so it is entirely possible that we will continue to have an hour of water or so every day or two. And I really hope that’s not the case.
A few fellow Peace Corps Volunteers visited this week, Jenna and Peter. Peter is our “warden”, which means he is responsible for making sure everyone is happy and safe at their site and in case of an emergency he would be the one to contact us, I believe. I’m not sure on the details. At any rate, when he and Jenna were in town, the four of us had a lovely dinner feast. Rolling blackouts and lack of running water notwithstanding, we really held our own, I think. It’s funny being around other volunteers because the things that have become habit are suddenly magnified as being odd. For example, when we haven’t had running water for a few days, it seems perfectly normal to me to set out large buckets to collect rain water and the roof runoff. Then, I pour these buckets into a stone filter, which will filter the water almost painfully slowly, after which I boil it before using it for consumption. This is normal to me, but hilarious when other Americans are around. Or for example, when instead of throwing the organic waste into the organic waste bucket, Peter decided to make pig slop out of it, not thinking for a second that there was a possibility that my family didn’t have pigs. Mark showed up today wearing 1 dollar sandals made out of used tires. That’s about as campo as it gets. Readjusting back to America is going to be hilarious.
So that about covers things here. I’m going back to Piura for another regional meeting. I leave tomorrow and will be back probably Wednesday.
Love. love. love.
Sasha

unsnarling tangles in the body, mind, and spirit January 25, 2009

It’s somehow getting harder to keep up with the blog. I don’t know why, exactly. The internet here is really slow and hence time consuming so I try not to be on it for too long. Plus, things that I initially found eccentric or interesting or worth mentioning have become rather ordinary to me, so I find it harder to know what to write about.

I went into Piura for a few days this past week. It was probably the most fun I have had in Piura thus far. The drive up and down the mountain is hazardous, to put it lightly. On the way down the mountain, I went in a municipality owned pickup truck with four wheel drive and we still almost slid off the side of the mountain a few times. If I had taken the bus down (which we passed), it would have taken something like 8 hours to get to Piura, including a lot of getting out and walking in hazardous parts/ to cross rivers, etc. From now on, until the end of rainy season, I have to bring my boots with me every time I go into the city due to the amount of walking required on the trip. Que locura.

Monday, we had our monthly meeting. I got to talk to our regional coordinator one on one for a while because I am the only environmental volunteer in Piura/Tumbes from my group. He gave me some really good advice about my diagnostic and I think I’m going to focus on one caserio: San Fransisco to start a pilot micro landfill program and if it succeeds, take it to other caserios. I will still be going around seeing which caserios have legitimate interest, but to start working will focus on San Fransisco. Quite nearly every single volunteer from Piura and Tumbes came down to watch Obama’s inauguration. This means that I finally got to meet a bunch of environmental volunteers from Peru10 that I hadn’t met yet who turned out to be some of my favorite people so far! While in town, I also got to hang out with my host sister, who is studying in the city, for a while. That is always more fun than I anticipate, and next time I’m in Piura she’s going to take us out dancing!

I got back to Santo Domingo on Wednesday. My host family is all in Piura city, fixing up the house that the kids live in, so I have the house in Santo Domingo completely to myself. This is both amazing and difficult. It’s amazing because I don’t feel like a child anymore – don’t always have to account for my whereabouts, explain what I did that day, what my plans are, why I don’t want to eat more rice…. On the downside, since we don’t have running water 24 hours a day, I am frequently not home during the hours that we do have running water (which vary). This means that I can’t really collect water. So I’ve been using rain water, filtering it, and boiling it, but I just don’t know that it’s clean. I’ve been eating lunch every day with Teo and all of the people she cooks for, which are mostly doctors, so I’ve been getting to know a lot of new people, which is nice.

Mama Cepela sent me an EPIC package. I can’t even list everything that was in it. But thank you, thank you, thank you! Among the things in the package were dental samples. The dental intern who is here from Lima and I are putting together an oral hygiene charla for the caserio of San Fransisco. This will happen in the beginning of February. At the charla, we will be giving out the samples you sent and some smaller children’s toothbrushes that she brought from Lima. We expect to be able to help somewhere around 30+ families! You should expect a more detailed thank you letter/package within the next 2 months (I’m on Peruvian time now… things move slowly here). But THANK YOU.

Also, I got a bajillion amazing packages from my REAL (only) mama! Including amazing sheets! Holy crap, I don’t even know why, but sleeping on these sheets is so much more comfortable than sleeping on the sheets I had. There is no comparison. These are just more inviting and homey. I have already put up the dry erase board, which is perfect, and thank you for everything else as usual. THANK YOU.

Moreover, I got a package from Smashley! More incredibly adorable letters from the kids in the world wise exchange program and cleaning supplies and candy. You know me too well. Oh! and the 52 projects book is going to keep be busy. And when I’m done with it it’s going in the library. Volunteers will eat that crap up. THANK YOU.

Ok. Ok. I will thank you all again individually. Just thought you all deserved a shout-out on the blog for making my week a gazillion times more exciting and full of joy!

So I went out to the campo today with Luz again. That’s right… got up at 7am on a Sunday to go out and feed the pigs and take care of the sick cow, Lady. We’re walking down to the pig pen and she asks me to wait for her for a second… she has to grab something from a friends’ house. She comes back out with a pig in a bag thrown over her shoulder and says “we’ve gotta fatten this one up – can you carry the pig slop?” Holy crap.. I’ve got to grab something? since when does that mean a freaking pig? Well after chuckling to myself repeatedly I got smacked in the face with the reality of the rainy season… after several weeks of rain, we get…. sinkholes. It took me about 5 times of getting stuck to the point where I had to take off my boots and maneuver around to figure out how to recognize a sinkhole and avoid further public humiliation. After feeding the pigs, I milked 2 cows (poorly), and we went down to see Lady. We spent a good 2 hours will Lady. Her chest is swollen and her sides are scabbing over. It’s better than it was when we first noticed it, but she’s still pretty sick. So as hard as I thought it was to milk and/or wrangle a cow… it is even harder to force-feed a cow. You have to stick your hands in its nose and pull up and try not to get bitten. It’s pretty intense. Especially when you’re trying to force-feed it like 10 liters of suero to keep it from getting dehydrated.

After spending the morning with the cow, we collected some pomarosas and went back to Luz’s house. We spent a few hours in the garden, prepping for her rose planting and setting up the nursery for my plants. I have plastic bags and soil ready to go – I just need to put the seeds in and we’re off! That’s good progress! Oh, and I finally got to use my gardening gloves! Thanks mom! After gardening, we started making lunch… fruits and vegetables a plenty – they try not to feed me too much rice or potatoes anymore. It’s amazing. I picked my own fruit for my fruit salad! Fabulous. Finally after lunch, I came home, swept the house, mopped the house, watered the indoor plants, bathed, and here I am…finishing up this blog, about to do some yoga. Crazy productive sunday. Who am I? What is this?

I really have no idea what my plans are for this upcoming week, since plans change… all the time. Jenna should be coming in to town tomorrow. She lives about a 2 hour walk away and is one of my favorite people, so that is always a treat!

I miss everyone back home and thank you all for always sending your love. It really does make a difference.

Paz,

Sasha