I leave in a few hours for field based training in Piura. It’s about a 12-14 hour bus ride, but from what I understand the busses are pretty nice. I’m not bringing my laptop, so there won’t be any updates for the next week, but I’ll be sure to let you all know all about it when I get back.
As for this past friday and saturday – I’ll give you a quick update right now while I still remember. Friday started out dramatically, to say the least. We were going over the schedule for the day with our training coordinator (the nicest woman ever, Kathleen)… and she was telling us that the country director would be coming in after lunch to quiz us on the Volunteer handbook that we received. Suddenly, one of the other volunteers, with an obvious look of frustration on his face, interrupts and says… “seriously? We got this book like two days ago and we’re getting quizzed on it today, not to mention the binder of information we have here… I mean… we have two fucking years to read this shit. This is ridiculous!” and at first people are laughing because a) there’s a lot of truth to what he’s saying and b) there isn’t much else you can do in this situation. So Kathleen tries to diffuse the situation and let him know that’s it’s ok to feel this way and that they can just talk about it later. So he stands up, really frustrated like he’s about to make a scene and then seems to get control over himself and sits back down and tries to brush it off. But then he keeps working himself up. “I’m so fucking sick of all of this – I mean we are here nine hours every day and all we ever do is talk about cultural sensitivity and rules and I’m just sick of it! Jesus. This is ridiculous!” At this point, there are still a few more giggles, but people are sensing that the situation is getting touchy. One of the other volunteers gets up and tries to calm him down, and then the first volunteer gets on his feet, throws down his volunteer handbook and says… “No… you know what Kathleen? You wanna schedule something? You can schedule my flight out of here because I fucking quit!” and throws down the volunteer binder and storms out of the room. At this point everyone is just awestruck. Nobody knows what to say, all of the facilitators are standing, mouths open, watching this go down. And then one of the volunteers starts to cry. So Kathleen tries to tell us that it’s ok, these things happen, sometimes people just get fed up, it’s not the end of the world. Then people start to get increasingly upset and they come back into the room and say that it was all a huge joke. They just wanted to infuse the day with a little humor and it happened to backfire a little bit because people took it very seriously. So nobody actually quit, but it shook us all up a little bit. That being said, a few people have started talking about how they’re not exactly happy here and are considering going home, but that’s something that might or might not change after Field Based Training.
Moving on – after all the drama, we talked about what being professional means in a foreign context, then a representative from the Security department of the US Embassy in Peru came and talked to us about restricted areas of Peru and jobs in the State Department. Then we had a talk about dental hygiene and nutrition and received a manual of amazing recipes put together by previous Peru volunteers. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We went to happy hour, I tried to meet with the director of the school for my project, but my partner and I got stood up again, I managed to fall through a hole in the ground and scraped up my knee a little, then I went to burger night and had a grand time.
Saturday, I tried Ceviche for the first time with my host family! It was delicious. A lot like sushi, but spicier and with more lemon and lime. It was also incredibly filling. After Ceviche I took a bucket bath, did some laundry, took a little nap and went over to Chacrasana to hang out with some other volunteers. There was supposed to be a birthday party that started at 2pm that day. So counting on things starting on Peruvian time, I got there between 4 and 5. The party didn’t end up starting until 8:30pm. We played an impromptu game of beer pong on the roof of the house using bottle caps, tiny plastic cups, plastic chairs, and a piece of plywood. It was hilarious. Especially when the bottle caps landed in chicken poop – repeatedly. There were live bands playing at this fiesta. I ended up in a couple of drinking circles, danced a little, and generally had a good time. I was really there for the BBQ chicken, which was supposed to be around at 2pm. It ended up being served after midnight. So I had to be accompanied home by one of the volunteers, which made me feel like a child. I mean, I definitely appreciate it and it would have been awful if anything had happened, but chances are nothing would have and he had to pay to take the combi there and back and it just generally made me feel like a pain in the ass. Oh well, such is life as a female Peace Corps volunteer. I’m just still adjusting to the lack of independence, I guess. Well, I’m all packed up and ready to go, so I’m gonna go make some phone calls before I have to be on my way.
Miss you all tremendously,
Sasha
Leaving for Piura October 26, 2008
the secret to life is to fall seven times and to get up eight times October 23, 2008
Well, today was an infinitely better than the rest of my week. I’m sure it had a lot to do with my attitude. Let me start with an update about the accident situation. Today, the municipality installed 8 new stoplights in the km of highway in which all of the deaths were occurring – 6 for vehicles and 2 for pedestrians. Today. People continued to riot on the next km of highway. I am literally watching footage of the riot with my host family as we speak. People are throwing boulders at police officers in riot gear. I hate to get excited over violence, but I have absolutely no sympathy for these police officers and it seems like everything has worked out karmically – the tables have turned on the police, and social activism actually worked to create positive change. I’m nearly at a loss for words, I’m so excited about this. I was so down about it because I was certain that no form of justice would ever be served in the matter, but I was so so wrong.
On a different note, I made a few other observations about Peru today that I thought I could share. To start – the idea of media distraction is universal. Two days after the appointment of Yehude Simon, some popular journalist/TV personality was sentenced to 5 months in prison for defamation of some other famous Peruvian. And it’s the only thing that’s been blaring all over the news every day. It’s like the war in Iraq being trumped by Paris Hilton’s snatch in the American media. Hilarious and disturbing all at once.
Also, the host moms here are hilarious – well some of them, in their attempt to compete for the love of all of the gringos. One of the other moms today bought a cake and made hot chocolate for a group of about 15 volunteers. She told us not to tell our mothers about it, because she doesn’t want them to be jealous, but really it’s because she doesn’t want them to know that she’s blatantly trying to one-up them. There was even a #1 mom mug involved and a toast the best host mom. It was ridiculous. But I got warm cake and hot chocolate, so I can’t actually complain. But the amount of passive aggressive behavior here is really outrageous.
Today was a pretty relaxed day all around – I got some more work done on my projects, got to watch some wonderful presentations on other parts of Peru, played some volleyball in a circle and did some yoga. Now I just can’t wait to get to Piura for field based training!
Amazed,
Sasha
We need to be the blind kids with the M16s playing soccer October 23, 2008
Well – it has continued to be an odd week here for me. It just seems like I’ve been going through the motions. As an update on the situation with the car accident… Apparently, in ñaña, there was another fatal car accident yesterday. Two little girls were killed. There was an article in the paper about their single mother and her outrage. And then – a protest/mini riot. The carratera was shut down, people flipped over cars and set things on fire in the middle of the street. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I am all excited that people are getting angry and the show of apathy I witnessed is not universal. I’m also always excited about any “power to the people” type of situation – it’s something I feel is sadly lacking in contemporary American culture. On the other hand, it’s hard to see how flipping cars and burning things in the street is really accomplishing anything. ñaña is a major passageway and it is effective in that when you block of the carratera there, anyone who is trying to get anywhere near here is immediately immobilized (including all of our trainers), but that also makes the mob mentality even more frightening.
Hard to say.
Maybe things have been weird because the temblors have continued. There have been 3 or 4 this month that I have been able to feel. I know it’s odd, and most people freak out and run outside of the house, but I think they’re very peaceful. It reminds me that the earth is there, doing it’s thing, moving around. They usually only last about 10 seconds or so, and when I go to bed early and they happen around 10:30pm, it’s very relaxing to feel them right before sleep.
I also got another package from my parents. My amazing mama sent me halloween window clings. I turned it into a whole-family activity and they’re hanging up all around the house now. It really makes things feel a lot homier and I’m incredibly grateful. And also for everything else that was in the package.
Today, my language group had to do a presentation on the province of Huarochiri. It was pretty awkward speaking Spanish in front of all of my fellow trainees, but I think everyone made it through as gracefully as possible. I also made a huge dent in my community diagnostic project with Amy. We revised our solicitud and sat down and wrote a detailed lesson plan for our presentation, so as soon as we get a date approved by the school director, we’re good to go on wrapping up that project. And then I got some good work done on the timeline project I’m planning for field based training to work on with the kids, so really, I feel like a lot of the stress I’ve been feeling lately has dissipated because we had time to work on our 80 billion projects. I still have to visit the health post, but maybe I’ll find time for that tomorrow.
We also went out to lunch with our old language facilitator, Isabel! She treated us all to Chifa (Chinese food with a Peruvian influence, is how they explain it, but it’s really just more rice). It was delicious nonetheless and it was really nice to see her again – she has a way about her that really puts me at peace and she pulled me out of the funk I had been in. We talked about the accident for a while in Spanglish, because it’s hard to express emotion in Spanish still, and a lot of what she said really was exactly what I needed to hear. So I’m breathing it out and smiling through it and tomorrow I hope for a return to normalcy – whatever that is here.
But it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. October 20, 2008
Weird isn’t the right word, but it’s the only one that comes to mind. The last few days have had a different tone to them to say the least. I came to a realization that being in this PC training situation has made me lose sight of who I am and who I like to be to an extent. In class, I’m somehow less than satisfied if my opinions aren’t heard, which is something I’ve been trying to work on. I need to listen more. I always feel as if I have something to prove to the PC facilitators here – to make it clear that I’m capable and determined and flexible and motivated and I think that stems from some advice I had gotten from a RPVC – to take training seriously. But I can take training seriously and learn to take a backseat sometimes, to work on not making my presence overbearing. Something about being in an environment where nobody knows anything about me or who I am or what I believe in or stand for makes me feel so vulnerable that I overcompensate by imposing my opinion and that concept kind of crashed into me at some point this weekend. So that’s my goal for this week – to find the middle ground I had back in the United States – to know my audience and react appropriately – to find my social niche.
Sunday started out with an odd tone. One of the other volunteers, with some of the host mothers, organized a family picnic at a nearby “club” (big park area with amenities) for all of the volunteers and their host families. Only a handful of families showed up, but I’m uncomfortable with large groups anyway, so I thought it was perfect. There was a swimming pool, so I got to swim for the first time here in Peru. There was a huge water-slide, so I felt like a kid all day and had the time of my life. On the down side, the pool was 33% chlorine, so it dyed my green towel a little orange, but it’s probably the cleanest water I’ve seen in over a month. The families played futbol, tug of war, and volleyball (with a soccerball and a piece of rope tied between two trees). We ate ice cream, I read a little bit of my book, and a group of us tried to climb a mountain, but were stopped by a vigilante, telling us we had gone high enough. I put on SPF 80 in the morning before I left and then again waterproof SPF 45 when I arrived and still managed to get a sunburn with my vampire skin, but I really had a good time. We even grilled some meat and had a delicious lunch.
And then the mood changed.
My family and I left early because my little sister was staring to get cranky and my host dad needed to get some work done. We were walking out of the park and took a mototaxi to the carratera (main highway) where we could catch a combi. But traffic was stopped and people were running around frantically. Apparently, there had been an accident (which isn’t really surprising at all considering how people drive around here). But it wasn’t just any accident, a little 6 or 7 year old girl had gotten hit by a car. When we got there, she was still alive – but badly injured. There was a police car parked less than a 100 yards away. My uncle started yelling for the policeman. Rapid fire spanish… cursing… “excuse me, I’m eating icecream” the police officer says. More rapid fire spanish and frantic cursing… “you asshole! It’s a little girl! She’s going to die! She needs to get to fucking hospital. Forget your ice cream!”… maybe 5 minutes later when a small mob starts to form and the officer is done eating his ice cream, he starts running toward the scene of the accident. “stop running! take your car! she needs to get to a hospital! What the hell is wrong with you?” But the man ignores us and continues to run toward her. But it’s too late now. She’s already dead. So a local security truck pulls up and they gently place her in the back of the pickup truck – a man lays down on top of her so she doesn’t fall out of the truck and they take off. A few moments later, the firefighters arrive, but it’s too late… and traffic resumes and it’s as though nothing ever happened.
I later asked if this was a common occurrence here. And the answer I received was almost as sad as the actual incident: apparently the police here are so used to the era of terrorism that lasted from 1980-1992 (but really about 2000)… that they’ve seen so much terribly violent death and they no longer care about the value of human life – they see it as just another life lost.
Now so as to avoid getting in trouble, let me say that this is not a reflection on Peru in general – this is just something I happened to experience. I obviously don’t know anything about the inner-workings of the Peruvian police or how other similar situations are handled… I can only speak to what I saw yesterday, and choose not to generalize the experience.
So that makes 2 people I’ve watched die in a motor accident in the last year. And it doesn’t get any easier.
Today Spanish class was a little overwhelming – maybe my head just wasn’t in the right place. Then after lunch, a friend and I decided to go to the store for some oreos and sodas. We decided to try to give a different store some business, since all of the Peace Corps Volunteers always go to one particular store – so we walked in and immediately noticed an I (heart) McCain sign on one of the refrigerators. We ask who wrote the sign, as it clearly intrigues us, and the store owner raises his arms in the air and cheers for McCain. So we look at him, clearly confused and he keeps saying that McCain is the next president of the United States. So my buddy says…. “I sure hope not”.. and the store owner asks us if we’re for Obama or McCain – we tell him we’re for Obama and he looks at us clearly confused. He says “Obama/Osama, si?” and we say no.. not quite the same thing. And he asks us if we really believe that a white man can vote for a black man and we look at each other and say yes, of course. And he cringes and says “black power?” and we just laugh, trying to pay for our items. He then asks if we think the KKK will kill him and we say no… that we seriously doubt that will happen.. and he says “what a shame” and then he starts ranting about a return to the reagan regime and my buddy tries to argue with him, but the spanish is lacking so we leave, feeling dejected. Haven’t heard open racism like that in quite some time.
Upon returning to the training center, we had a phenomenal session on Peruvian history, which made me miss college a little. We talked about the phases of landownership in Peru as well, and I realized that I really have a lot of socialist leanings that I’m going to need to keep to myself during my service here, because the history is painful and recent and I am an idealist and that can get me in trouble, especially with the recent political activity.
So there you have it – weird isn’t the right word, but it’s the only one that comes to mind.
Keepin it real,
Sasha
I feel like a kid in a cultural candy store October 18, 2008
This week has absolutely flown by. There have been more language classes, more lectures on parasites and diarrhea, charlas about incident reporting and being an aware adult, and more technical classes. I’ve fallen into a real routine here, which means I find myself with a lot more time for listening to music and reading.
Technical class this week was pretty interesting – we made recycled paper, and I’m going to make some more with my family next week, we had mid-training evaluations, so I got to express all of my frustrations with the class format in a constructive way, and we did some work on our projects. I did a FODA (SWOT) for Huascaran again and Amy and I got Callie’s host mom to talk to the school director for us and arranged for us to do a charla on healthy homes for all of the empleadas (maids, ish) in the barrio during one of their night classes sometime before week eleven of training. We need to work on our solicitud and lesson plan and then just set up a date to join the class and we should be done with that. By the end of training, we also have to write up a report about the entire process and what we think the consequences are, but I’m not even going to worry about that for a few more weeks. We also got a project which involves finding the local health post and asking them a bunch of questions, but somehow only my teammates were given the details of that project (we had different teachers that day…) so I don’t know how difficult it should be, but that’s something we’re going to worry about next week. Next week we’re also doing presentations with our language classes on a region of Peru for our host families – my language class got Huarochiri, so we’ll see how that goes. Basically – there are a ton of projects in the works right now so everyone is incredibly busy… and this is on top of the regular spanish homework and after-training activities (like yoga) that people are involved in.
In other news, thanks to Jason, I got my absentee ballot and sent that back, so I’m excited that my vote actually counts this election (maybe). I also got a care package from my parents, which was adorable, and again made people jealous because I keep getting packages… awesome. Please keep them coming, it was perfect, I was having kind of a bad day until I got them.
And as for having bad days… it’s not so much that days here are bad ever… it’s just that I see the same 47 people for at least 9 hours a day 6 days a week for 6 weeks now… and since we’re all so similar, and yet so different, there are a lot of personality clashes, which makes training frustrating some days.
We got more details on field-based training, which we’re leaving for next saturday or sunday… It’s a 14 hour bus ride to Piura city, where my group will be staying in a hotel, so nothing too serious. We will be doing activities with two groups of 40 kids, a presentation to a campo village, visiting a city famous for its ceramics, going to the beach and then a halloween party. So I’m considering it my vacation, which is starting to become pretty necessary with the amount of scheduled activities we have every day.
Little bit of chisme about my barrio… according to the host family… there’s a woman that lives up higher on the hill who was pregnant, but isn’t anymore. And now she doesn’t have the baby. So they think she sold it. And come to think of it, she’s been pregnant three times before and doesn’t have any of the babies, so maybe she has a baby-selling business. But we’re not sure if it’s to foster families or for organ harvesting. The end.
Today instead of just going to the agricultural university, we went to a little farm (chacra) called CasaBlanca. When they first told us where we were going, I thought… that’s odd, Morocco seems so far away… alas, in Peru we stayed. CasaBlanca is actually the culmination of the life-work of this adorable old couple. He claims to have a PhD from Cornell and to have met President Kennedy, but I generally take everything with a grain of salt here. That’s not to say the man isn’t educated, but he was a little condescending and it immediately makes him lose credibility in my eyes. Anyway, he and his adorable tiny wife were incredibly in love and talked about their “little” farm as if it were their child. I put “little” in quotations because it really wasn’t even that small. They have a little cuy farm and the infamous “biodigestor”. This is exactly what is sounds like – a biodigestor – a 10 cubic meter cement enclosure which collects cuy feces mixed with water. This airtight enclosure then somehow turns this manure into liquid biol, solid waste, and methane gas, which they use to cook with and which they put through a generator to make electricity. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. He kept saying that it was Chinese technology and that there are other forms of the same concept and so it’s a grand mystery why this isn’t used as a natural form of energy on a larger scale – they haven’t had to buy gas in decades. The biol and solid waste, which they only clean out annually is then used as fertilizer for their farm. It’s brilliant.
After the biodigestor, Kate and I decided to go to the National Museum in Lima. It had been closed, but they had reopened the first and sixth floors while the rest is under construction. We ended up spending most of the day there. The first floor was a little barren, but the sixth floor was an emotionally draining experience to say the least. The exhibition is called Yuyanapaq, which in the Quechua language means “to remember”. It’s an area of commemoration, using photography, of the terrorist era in Peru from 1980-2000 and became a final visual report for the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation about the acts of the Shining Path and MRTA during this time. There were 179 images: it involved a lot of reading in Spanish, and standing around going “wow” “holy crap” “no way”. It reminded me a lot of a holocaust museum, because to be honest it wasn’t much different from a holocaust… if I remember correctly (and understood correctly in Spanish), about 70,000 people were killed in Peru over this 20 year period, which is more than in all civil and international wars in the history of Peru combined. I was surprised to see that it took over 12 years for the international community to become involved in helping with the problem and that it isn’t something that is talked about more – both here and abroad.
Walking out of the museum shell-shocked, Kate and I stumbled upon a tiny hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant and feasted over a little Sangria, which was the perfect end to the perfect day.
At the museum, I had heard someone speaking English and thought it was German – if that’s any indication of how my Spanish is coming along. We also ran into a couple of French hippies, which brightened up my day.
And then came the combi ride back home, which made me feel like I was in a fishbowl, as usual. Literally everyone stares at Kate and I like we’re aliens and the combi driver starts to play Queen on the radio, so we start rocking out, because there’s nothing you can do but laugh at yourself at this point. Then the combi driver tried to charge us 2 soles, and we are so sick of getting ripped off because we’re white that we just looked at him, shook our heads no and handed him S./ 1.50. He looked at us like he was about to argue, but then stopped and accepted it, which made me feel pretty good about the situation.
Last night at burger night, I ate three burgers and tried this really sweet red wine, which still had the fermented grapes in it. They kept calling it the wine of the Selva and it was delicious. I love friday nights here. I also decided that instead of buying new pants, I’m going to buy some baller suspenders and call it a day, because I’m poor.
I finished reading “The Alchemist” today, so tonight I’m going to start “One Hundred Years of Solitude”. I have to go start my second dinner of the night now, so I’ll leave you with some wise words from Paulo Coelho that have been traveling with me…
We know what we want to do, but are afraid of hurting those around us by abandoning everything in order to pursue our dream. We do not realize that love is just a further impetus, not something that will prevent us going forward. We do not realize that those who genuinely wish us well want us to be happy and are prepared to accompany us on that journey.
Thank you all for accompanying me on my journey.
Sasha
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there. October 14, 2008
Well, as predicted, having a new language teacher is a bit of an adjustment. Every time I switch language facilitators, I feel like I can no longer speak Spanish well for a few days. It’s a frustrating adjustment, but a temporary one. My new teacher, Edith, is hilarious. She’s taught me how to say useful things like “friends with benefits” and “excuse me, can you please help me break in my new mattress?”. Apparently she also writes awful pick-up lines and calls herself a poet. This should be a riot. However, she gives an obscene amount of homework, including at least one essay/story every day (plus research of a region and work in our book and handouts and talking to our family assignments). So next week I should be right back in the swing of things with Spanish and I’m sure it will be fine.
In case you guys haven’t heard, a lot of incredibly interesting things have been happening here in Peru (especially if you enjoy politics). Disclaimer: I learned and read about all of this in Spanish so if there are problems in the details it is due to my lacking Spanish skills – but here is the gist. Last week, the Prime Minister and entire cabinet of ministers resigned amid an epic corruption scandal regarding bribery and rigging large oil deals. After a phone tap tape was leaked to the media, they were forced to resign, basically. So this past weekend, Alan Garcia (the president – Peru’s equivalent of Bush… it’s bad) appointed a new Prime Minister – Yehuda Simon. This move has gotten mixed reactions from the people I’ve talked to about it. Yehuda Simon is a Peruvian – his father was Palestinian and his mother was Italian and they moved to Peru to open up a zapateria (shoe store/factory?). During Fujimori’s regime, he was arrested – sentenced to 20 years in prison for alleged associations with MRTA (Movimiento Revolucionario de Tupac Amaru) and for having fundamentalist communist beliefs. He served 8 and a half years and was pardoned in 2000 under Toledo’s regime. Since then, he’s been the president of the Lambayeque region and has a really good track record: for transparency in policy and good education and health reform. Anyway – here we are with a new Prime Minister who happens to be an extreme leftist (socialist, communist) – this was definitely a strategic move on Garcia’s part since there are separatist parts in the South of Peru that will approve of this move and be less likely to try to secede violently. Also, APRA (the current leading political party) is known to be more conservative (derechista) and the appointment of a leftist prime minister gives the illusion of balance. This should also help Alan Garcia’s abysmal approval rating. However, there’s some concern over having a Prime Minister that has been active in a terrorist group. So we’ll see how this plays out. Most of the other 16 ministry posts have gone to the members of the previous cabinet, but there’s a new minister of Health – and that’s basically all I really know about it right now. At any rate – this is what we call “a time of change” here in Peru. We were told to be careful about being associated with communist leanings once at site, and I’m a little concerned about getting my visa since I was born in Russia, but I really probably don’t have anything to worry about.
Speaking of visas, apparently in order to receive a visa here, you need to turn in a resume, in Spanish, so I’ve been translating mine this afternoon – not as easy as it sounds, especially on a day when your confidence in your language abilities is lacking.
Oh! and speaking of terrorism…. the shining path (el cendero luminoso) has been surprisingly active this past week in the southern highlands (coca territory and drug trafficking land) of Peru. There are four regions (to which we aren’t allowed to travel, don’t worry dad) which have declared a state of emergency because of the remaining presence of the Shining Path there. On Friday, in the region of Huancavelica there was a roadside bombing, which killed 14 people – 12 military personnel and two civilians. On Sunday there was an attack in Hunin that killed one soldier and today there was guerrilla attack in Ayacucho which killed two soldiers.
On a lighter note – my uncle brought home “Eleven Minutes” by Paulo Coelho in Spanish yesterday. I’m currently reading the Alchemist in English, so we bonded over a common love of Coelho. I traded another volunteer as well, she’s going to read Choke and I’m going to read one hundred years of solitude. And then I’m going to try eleven minutes in Spanish. So I’m feeling ambitious, but I absolutely love all of the reading I’ve been having a chance to do. Oh – and high point of my time in Peru… I was able to maintain a conversation about Peruvian politics with my host father for nearly two hours in Spanish… patted myself on the back for that one.
In two weeks we’re going to be gone for a week, so I may be out of touch. I’ll be hanging out in Piura and practicing giving charlas on environmental issues in my potential site. I’m incredibly excited for this, but it’s realistically still two weeks away, so more on that later. It’s been kind of a weird day.
I love everyone and miss you guys!
More to come,
Sasha
In memory, everything seems to happen to music October 12, 2008
Well it’s official – I’ve lived in Chaclacayo for a month now and it already feels like home. My Spanish gets better by the day, I can get around the greater Chosica area with minimal problems, I don’t let people give me crap for being white and “rich” and am always finding something around town to do.
Let me start with some quick general observations that have been made about me, to my face, since I’ve been here – apparently, I don’t dance: I float, which is just fine with me. I also bob my head in an aggressive angry large black woman way when I get angry and look like I’m bisexual (all the time). There are more, but these were the ones I either got most frequently or thought were the most hilarious.
I also had a little problem last week when I realized that I’m close to the only volunteer that doesn’t call her host mother “mama”… I just call her Silvia – she’s only 36 and I don’t feel comfortable calling anyone but my actual mother “mama”. I gave it a lot of thought and eventually one of the Bolivian volunteers recommended that I just call her Mamita – it’s endearing and it’s not mama, so I decided this was what I was going to do, because the woman really does a lot for me and I know for a fact that the previous volunteer that lived here called her mama, so it’s a fair compromise.
Moving on to training – thursday was pretty intense. After all morning of language class, we had all afternoon of technical training in Spanish too. It was really interesting, we had professionals from INRENA and another governmental environmental agency come in, but it was difficult to keep up with the Spanish technical terms, since we were talking about different types of soils and how to prevent soil erosion and protected areas… but apparently we’ll get all of the information on powerpoint at the end of training, so I’ll have time to look over it again when I have downtime at site.
Friday was an absolutely freaking amazing day! In the morning, we grouped all the novice level spanish classes together and watched the Motorcycle Diaries in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. Then, we got the results of our language placement interviews. I got placed into Intermediate Medium, which is the level you need to be at in order to be sworn in as a volunteer, so that’s a relief. This also means that I don’t have to have tutoring after class anymore. So basically I’ve moved up four spanish levels (from novice low to intermediate medium) and six spanish teacher levels in four weeks. My spanish teacher told me that I’ve earned a nickname among the Spanish teachers at the center – they call me “the sponge”, which I think is pretty freaking cute. When we were finding out our language levels, our teacher gave us the incredibly beautiful gift of her book of poetry (in Spanish). She is a poet and won some sort of award for this book last year, so she signed our copies and gave them to us as a parting gift. Then she started to cry and told me that I was the best gift Betty (my first teacher) has ever given her, which made me cry. Freaking emotions. We bought her a cake – it was basically just cute city.
After this lovely lunch, we got the “rape talk” from our PCMOs – what to do in case we DO get raped. It was just more reminding us to be reasonable adults and let Suni give us the rape kit even if we’re not sure we want to press charges – same as in the States… but some of the girls got really riled up over the video we had to watch, because it basically reiterated that you can’t ever trust anyone a hundred percent, not even your fellow volunteers. But again, this is no different that in the United States, so hopefully everyone just calms down a little bit and uses good judgement and nothing bad will happen (I’m not naïve, just realistic – which is why I was surprised to find that I was the only girl in the group that brought pepper spray with me…) but that’s another issue.
After the rape chat, I did some yoga, which was necessary and everyone went out for friday night beers before we went to Chacrasana for delicious burgers at Mateo’s house. I ate two burgers, which made me stop and think – when I left DC a month ago, I couldn’t even finish a burger to myself and now I eat SO MUCH FOOD. Friday, for example, I had a bowl of cereal and an omelette for breakfast, an eclair and an orange for midmorning snack, a huge plate of rice, chicken, and potatoes for lunch, then another orange, some candy and a piece of cake, some of other people’s lunch, then two hamburgers and some dried bananas. And this is how I eat here every day. And I’ve lost weight. And I haven’t had diarrhea like others, so I’m going to just say that the yoga, walking endlessly and just being healthier all around is what’s doing it, but damn.. I need to buy new pants.
Anyway, these burgers were damn delicious and afterwards, we all gathered at Brian’s house to watch this movie called “Volunteers”. It’s from 1985, with Tom Hanks, it’s a spoof about the Peace Corps and none of us had ever seen it, which made it an even funnier watching experience. I highly recommend it to everyone. Volunteers.
Saturday we went back to the agricultural university, which I love, and learned about cuy (guinea pig) raising and how to properly take care of them so they end up being good for eating. We also learned about how to work with bees and turn it into a profitable secondary project, perhaps. After La Molina, a group of us went to a polleria to watch the Peru – Bolivia futbol game. Which was predictably embarrassing for Peru. The six of us split two and a half full chickens, two large salads, and two heaping plates of fries, with six liters of beer and three liters of inca cola. Have I mentioned that I’ve been eating a lot? Well, at about halftime I had to use the bathroom – which was occupied. For a very very long time. When the woman finally left, I walked in only to find that the toilet didn’t flush and she should probably see a doctor about what I saw in there. So I tried the men’s – which wasn’t much better. And so I went upstairs to try the other bathroom up there. The men kept telling me it was cool to use it, even though it’s the employee bathroom and the women employees were pissed that I was using it. I used it anyway. And then I found out how the dishes were washed at the restaurant: in the sink of the employee bathroom without soap. I literally stood and watched a waitress rinse out a cup and rinse off a plate and bring it back downstairs to put food on. I wanted to pour hand sanitizer in my mouth, but the damage had already been done. So we bought some overpriced soft-serve ice cream at KFC and made our way home.
I got home and my host mom told me that we were going out for dinner in Chosica tonight – to a polleria. I almost threw up in my mouth. Saturday was a grand fiesta in Chosica, to celebrate it’s 114th birthday. There was a big concert in the main park and my family just wanted to make sure that I was going to find my friends alright in the crowd. I found them and my host family took off. We stood around and tried to dance for a little while, but the crowd quickly got thicker and more drunk and people started calling out the gringos in our group for being so tall, so the majority of my friends left around midnight because we didn’t want to test our luck.
Sunday I went back to Hare Krishna to show some other friends how beautiful the temple is and whatnot. So two of the tallest men in our group (six foot four) and I show up and clearly stick out like a sore thumb. Almost immediately, what appeared to be a harmless old man came up and started asking my friend Brian where he is from, the usual question… and when Matt and I walked up, this old man started going on about how he used to belong to this institution, but now all the works on is self-realization and how the entire world is a big matrix. He asked us what the most transcendental moment was for the United States of America. When we couldn’t answer, he started going on about some PhD who wrote a book and was surprised that we hadn’t heard of him. We told him there were a lot of people with PhDs and he refuted, saying no – you have to be superhuman to earn one. Then he told us there was a hundred and fifty years of technology that “they” were hiding from us and that it was our quest to find where this technology was. He said we were all androids and we were trapped in this matrix and the only path to true self-realization was escape from the matrix of society. Then he told us he hoped that he hadn’t offended our egos and rode off on his bicycle. After this, at the Hare Krishna service, the preacher? kept talking about how there wasn’t a written record of anything in the past because people used to be smarter and have a higher capacity for memorization and that technology was proof of our increasing mental incapability. It was delightful. I’m going to need a few weeks away from the temple, I think…
I went back to Chacrasana with Brian and had lunch with his host family – where we talked at length about how marriage isn’t the solution to pregnancy, which was a fun topic.
We walked over to Matoe’s house, where his whole family was hanging out, and his uncle was passed out drunk at 4pm on a sunday. I love Peru.
A group of people from Chacrasana got together and we went into Chaclacayo for a beer and some ice cream. When I got home, my parents surprised me with a…. NEW MATRESS… it’s the best present they could have ever gotten me ever. The old one had a dent in the middle, which made it hard to sit on and I woke up several times every night, sometimes with back pain. I never complained because I didn’t want to be a prissy American, but I’m glad to know that it was bad, even by their standards… So I can’t wait now to go to bed!
I’m going to stop typing now because I’m sure that my blog entries are frustratingly long to read, but I send my infinite love!
Sasha
Yom Kippur in Peru October 8, 2008
I cannot believe this week is halfway over already! I’ve had really long days every day. Monday was one of the easiest days of training so far. For language class in the morning, we learned about cooking vocabulary – by cooking. For breakfast, we taught our teacher how to make blueberry pancakes – some of which were delicious.. except for the ones I tried to make, of course, which were burned and awful and embarrassing. For lunch we made Chifa, a mix of Peruvian and Chinese food which was basically a kilo of rice mixed with green onions, soy sauce, chicken, hot dogs, fried eggs, and hot peppers. Twas delicious and best of all, we got to listen to Ozomatli and Manu Chao the entire morning. Moreover, there were adorable clean one month old puppies in the house that I got to play with. Suffice it to say, the morning was incredible.
After we got back to the center, the country director had a little chat with us about responsible sexual behavior, which was a little awkward and a lot hilarious. In the middle of our laughter, he started a movie about HIV positive PC volunteers and their stories, so that brought us all down a couple of notches into depression. We talked about the stigma of getting tested, about relationships with Peruvians and the dangers of those relationships ending poorly. It was all basically about being a responsible adult and realizing that you’re a representative of the PC wherever you go and how there’s never an excuse not to protect yourself. Nothing we didn’t all know already, but a good reminder nonetheless.
There was a panel of current volunteers – an African American volunteer, a Jewish volunteer, a Hispanic American homosexual volunteer, an Asian American volunteer, and an older lesbian volunteer as well. They all got to tell stories about their experiences in the PC and techniques for coping with discrimination as well as express their current concerns. After the panel, we did the activity that I had planned last week with Kathleen, which I think went rather well (I hope at least) and then broke up into smaller groups to discuss further.
Then came my hour of tutorial, which involved walking to the pastry shop where my teacher bought me an eclair and a glass of hot milk – which was delicious and now makes me feel so spoiled!
And so there you have it – easiest day of training so far.
When I got home, my parents told me that there was going to be a protest in Lima on tuesday – to raise wages because the cost of living had gone up and that I shouldn’t use public transportation during the day because things could get sketchy. Luckily, I live walking distance to the training center, so that wasn’t a problem.
Then I experienced my first earthquake. Nothing major, but definitely a nice tremor. Everything is definitely fine – just a moment of excitement! Also, apparently the structure of the houses is not very secure here, so we’re not supposed to stand in the doorway, we’re supposed to run out into the middle of the street far away from the house. Lesson learned. I think October is considered tremor month, so this isn’t an unusual occurrence.
Tuesday was a pretty long day – it was really warm out so it was difficult to focus. We had some volunteers come in and talk to us about the education system in Peru, composting, and eco-tourism and their projects, which was much more informative than any of the technical training we’ve been getting from our trainers. Then, Amy and I went to talk to our technical trainer about issues we’re having with our community based project – basically, we wanted to write a solicitud to the Municipality and ask them to put in raised wooden blocks for people to put their trash bags in on trash collection days, because as it stands right now, the dogs get to the trash before it gets picked up and it makes a mess. We talked to our families and found out there is a lot of beef between the community and the municipality because the municipality hasn’t been doing it’s job (keeping Huascaran clean, putting in parks, etc) and the people of Huascaran are talking about withholding tax money. Also, we found out that in other parts of Chaclacayo people pay for these wooden bins out of pocket and that it’s just logistically not a very good idea. We have two weeks to complete this project and we feel really rude imposing our American ideas on a community we’ve lived in for about a month that has been nothing but hospitable to us. And when we voiced our concern about making the PC look bad or making ourselves look insensitive to the people that have been kindest to us, we were told that the point of this project is for us to fail. They want us to fail while we’re in training surrounded by friends instead of when we are at site alone. I think this is ridiculous and hate being specifically set up for failure, especially since it’s completely unnecessary but also I think it’s a slap in the face to our communities. We’ll see what happens next with this whole ordeal.
Tuesday night was another volunteer’s birthday party. We all wore white shirt and brought markers and wrote all over each other. There was a pinata and jello shots and crates upon crates of beer. I had an amazing time all night. And then – at the end of the night…. somebody’s host brother followed me to the bathroom. Waited for me to come out, got in my personal space and asked me how to say I like Sasha in English… Nothing happened, but it was after one in the morning, alcohol was involved, it was outside and dark and I was alone. Sketch City. I basically ran back inside and got everyone that lives in my community together and we left immediately. Lesson learned – always go to the bathroom in pairs.
Today was my language interview, which went much much more smoothly than the first one. Would have probably been better if I wasn’t hung over, but such is life.
After the interview, Kate and I caught a ride into Lima to go to the PC office there and meet up with the country director for Yom Kippur Services. We are the first trainees to have seen the office – all the other groups have had to wait until after swearing in… so that’s fun. The place is incredible! They have hot water and it’s a mansion! I got to spend some time in the infamous PC office library and there was a lounging room. We spent a few hours there waiting and got to read some old Newsweeks and a National Geographic from the 60s. It was grand. Then the country director came by to drive us to the temple.
The temple was in Miraflores, which is the very posh part of Lima. There was a lot of security at the temple and they had really strict rules about being on time. We sat up top and got to meet another American. She is a volunteer living in Lima for 2 months while working for the Cultural Exchange Service, an American-based company. Her Spanish seemed even worse than ours, and there was nobody there holding her hand the way the PC holds our hand, so we felt really grateful for all of the training we’ve been getting. The service was pretty comparable to a US service, except for the sermon in Spanish, but it was beautiful seeing all of these Peruvian jews coming together in the same way as we do in the US. The country director dropped us off at the combi stop and Kate and I ate some of the most delicious street vendor food I’ve had yet and hopped a combi home. So here I am – but it’s late so this is all of the catching up I can do.
Shana Tova
Sasha
somewhere beyond happiness and sadness October 5, 2008
The second half of week three flew by incredibly quickly. I received three packages last week! Two from Jason and one from my parents and it was awesome! It’s such an incredible feeling to know that there are people back home thinking about me and sending their love. So that was pretty awesome – thank you a billion times over! muah muah!
I watched the vice-presidential debate with some friends. It physically pained me to hear an educated woman repeatedly say nuculer and dog-gone-it on international television. This isn’t really the problem I have with Palin, but am trying to keep politics out of this blog, so we’ll leave it at that.
On friday morning, it got really cold all of a sudden and I felt a little bit of rain – maybe just a slight mist for a minute – I guess that’s the extent of rain here in Lima. All the grayness was a little hard to deal with though. On the upside, we got to make banana bread from scratch and eat it (as part of a demonstration on nonformal education techniques).
The bomberos (volunteer firefighters – one of which is Suni, one of our medical officers) came in and taught us first aid techniques – cpr, the heimlech, safely moving immobilized people, and fractures were the areas we discussed.
We voted on our junta directiva and named a president, vice president, social events organizer, treasurer, etc. I had to have tutoring when all the nominations happened last week, so I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on or what their specific jobs entail, but we seem to have chosen some very motivated and organized people, so that should work out nicely.
After all of this on friday, I did yoga with some of the other volunteers for the first time and it was great. My butt is still sore, days later and I finally feel like I’m not wasting away in a classroom all day. I think I’m going to do yoga whenever it is offered from now on- maybe three times a week?
After yoga, we all went out for friday happy hour drinks at the same pub my birthday party was in, which seems to be getting a LOT of business from the gringos lately.
Small observation – women’s volleyball is a pretty big deal here in Peru. Apparently there is some sort of South American international volleyball competition going on right now and it is literally the only thing my host family has been watching on TV.
I went to bed at like 9pm on friday because I’m been so busy lately that I feel like I’ve been slacking on sleep an I knew Saturday was going to be a long day – and I was right.
Let me preface this by saying that Saturday was by far my favorite day in Peru so far. Gorgeous.
Waking refreshed and ready on Saturday morning, I got to the training center at a quarter to 8 so we could leave to go to la Molina (the agricultural institute). At La Molina, we got a couple hour long powerpoint presentation about farming in Peru, which was awesome. Here are some facts we learned if you’re interested – if not feel free to skip to the next paragraph:
- There are fourteen “megadiverse” countries in the world (in terms of climate): Columbia, Mexico, Brazil, and Peru among them
- Coca and Coffee plants coexist very closely in the agricultural world – they both grow in the same climates, which is an obvious problem
- Peru is the fourth largest exporter of organic coffee in the world
- 3 million peruvians still speak Quechua as their first language
- the poverty rate in Peru is dropping and is currently estimated to be around 40%
- Most wheat and soy beans are imported into Peru, so the supply is greatly affected by foreign economies
- Commercial farms in Lima (ex. lettuce farms) often use pure sewage “water” for irrigation
- Peru is the only country in Latin America without an extension system (Fujimori shut it down)
- Peru is the number one exporter of paprika and fresh asparagus
- Peru has the largest avocado farm in the world (which happens to be in the middle of the desert)
That’s just a taste of the amazing free education I’ve been getting. Best language education in the world and awesome hands-on technical training. I freaking love every minute of it.
After lecture, we learned how to make compost on a larger scale than what we might have worked with in the past, which isn’t really that different from other composting projects, but it was fun to get my hands dirty.
After La Molina, my first (and probably favorite) Spanish teacher, Betty, waved us into her car as we were walking to the street so five of us hopped in. Somehow I ended up in the front seat with four others in the back, so it was a pretty comfy ride. She took us about halfway to Miraflores, which was where we wanted to go and then bought us all icecream. It doesn’t really get much better than that. I got to talk to her the entire way there and practice my Spanish and she told us exactly how to get to Miraflores and back. It was incredibly useful. She made sure we all safely got on the right combi to Miraflores and sent us on our way.
We made it to Miraflores alright and found a little Brazilian restaurant for lunch. I split tomato soup and a banana and cheese sandwich with Kate and had an awesome rum and coke. Don’t worry – it was after noon. We walked about a block or so further and found the little strip of tattoo shops that was recommended to us by several different people as being safe and least likely to give us the hiv or hepC. We looked around for a few minutes and settled on the one with the english speaking attendant who showed us their sterilization methods. They don’t use community ink jars and I watched him unseal the package to the needle, so I’m pretty sure it’s fine – not to mention it looked clean. Five minutes and 20 dollars later, there’s something permanent on your body and there’s nothing to do but move on. So we did.
To the beach! Well, not the beach exactly, but the edge of the water? There was a way to get down further to the beach, but we stayed along the edge of the cliff higher up. It was basically incomparable – to watch your thoughts fade away with the waves of the Pacific… Intangibles like friendship and love overcome you and all that’s left of you is a vessel of pure human emotion, free of the burdens of the mind. There are no words to describe this feeling, for it seems that only you are capable of feeling exactly this. It can never be replicated and certainly should never be clung to and it seems apparent that the closest thing anyone else will ever feel to this is some sort of variation – like a shade of a color.
And the Park of Love in Miraflores: sounds nice in theory… but when you can count 11 couples within a quarter turn of your head making out, it makes you think of sad and lonely things… like a Tennessee Williams play.
We stayed along the coast until it started getting dark and tried to make our way back to Chosica in time for hamburgers in Chacrasana. But traffic in Lima is unpredictable and public transportation unreliable so we packed into standing-room only combis and busses until we made it back, nearly two hours (maybe more) later. We missed hamburgers, but after dropping Geoff and Jason off in Huascaran, Kate, Mark and I went to the big tres de Octubre party. It was Oct. 4, so there was a barrio-wide celebration for the anniversary of its inauguration. Lots of cervesa and traditional dancing. They specifically honored the PC Volunteers for their good turnout in the soccer tournament some of them have been participating in and one of the volunteers, Ryan went up and gave a short little speech thanking the fine people of Tres de Octubre for their hospitality. More cervesa and more dancing and then it was time for fireworks. This is when they find an incredibly inebriated person to put on this costume (resembling a dragon of some sort). There are many many fireworks attached to the costume and the point of the activity is for him to light them off and run into the crowd of people. It was awesome. This would never happen in America. There is no such thing as a safety code (or traffic law, for that matter) in Peru. I love it (Note: this is not sarcasm… I love fire and danger…)!
I made it home with the help of my lovely friends and slept like a rock, for it had been quite the adventurous long day.
Woke up this morning and after breakfast Sarah and I went climbing up the mountain again – this time way past the cross. Still haven’t made it to the top – but maybe next Sunday. Bought some notecards and need to start studying. Someone got my host sister one of those toys that makes the noise of various farm animals, but is also a phone that says numbers and rings and is awful. I want to find this person and inflict physical harm upon them. I may have to go out to the playground to actually get any studying done.
Next week tuesday is James’ birthday party and then wednesday is a national holiday, so we don’t have regular training, but we have new language interviews so all of our classes will get shuffled around again. My teacher told me she thinks I should be able to test into intermediate medium, so I will likely have a different teacher yet again, but this also means that I won’t be getting any more tutoring. I’ve never been good at tests though, so that’s probably not going to happen.
After the language interview, I’m going to meet up with Michael Hirsch, the PC Country director, who happens to also be Jewish and we are going to go to Yom Kippur services at a reform temple in Lima.
More information to come.
With infinite amounts of love and affection,
Sasha
P.S. A bird pooped on me today – which makes it the second time this year. That is all.
without access to true chaos, we’ll never have true peace October 1, 2008
Well…. if I thought that last week was long and busy and stressful, I could not have possibly been more wrong. This week is definitely the difficult one. Yesterday wasn’t too bad actually – Spanish class was at my house and most of the other students stayed for lunch, which was a nice change of pace to sitting with 50 people. After lunch, we had free time until 3:45 because our technical training was in our communities. My friend Sarah and I decided to walk over to the famous cemetery and see what it looks like from the inside. It was unbelievably beautiful. We took a lot of pictures and had a lot of girl chat, which was fun for a change. When we met with our technical groups, we talked a little bit about what was happening in the environment classes and what we would like to be different and then talked about the environmental problems we have noticed in our city. Waste management and clean water seemed to be a recurring theme with all of the volunteers. We split up into two groups (one group of two, me and Amy, and one group of three…). In these groups we have to do a little bit more of a community diagnostic and come up with some projects to do in and with the community to help rectify the identifiable environmental problems. Amy and I are going to write a solicitud to the municipality asking for them to put in trash bins or posts with baskets to put trash in so it is not on the street, where the dogs can strew it around before the municipality has a chance to come and collect it. We are also considering an environmental education project with a local school – probably something to do with clean water habits, and maybe a community dog washing project as well. We are all meeting tonight to come up with more ideas and split up the responsibilities. This project needs to be completely in motion in two weeks and completed in three, which is not a lot of time, so I am suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed.
After receiving the assignment, I didn’t have tutoring because my teacher wasn’t feeling well, so instead I went over to Callie’s house for tea, which was a nice change of pace. It’s also nice to see where and how other volunteers live. After dinner at home, I sat and literally did homework until I needed to fall asleep. In fact, I looked over all 112 pages of the PC Diversity training manual and came up with some ideas for the presentation on Monday. I am pretty sure I don’t actually have to be a part of the presentation, which is nice. And it’s also nice to know that the activity was my idea and that the format I believe it is going to take place in was also due to my input. It’s a little more work, but I really enjoy working with diversity issues, so I didn’t really mind.
Today, Spanish class was in my house again. There isn’t really much to say about Spanish class. I’m learning new things every day – we’re really starting to emphasize pronunciation since our sentence formation is getting better and at this point it’s basically straight vocabulary memorization, so I think I’m going to buy some index cards tomorrow. I no longer get frustrated during class and now that I feel like a part of the group, Spanish is coming a lot easier to me. I’m able to make better jokes and my host family is surprised that I am familiar with the chisme (gossip) of Chosica… For example, there is a huge rumor that the mayor of Chosica is gay and has AIDS… and we had a good chat about homosexuality and beards and whether or not that should affect his standing as mayor. I’m glad I’m actually able to tackle subjects like that comfortably in Spanish.. Oh and that I can do it using Peruvian slang 
After language class I was feeling a little cranky and overwhelmed because I hadn’t had a chance to listen to any music basically since I got here because I’m never alone. So when all of the other volunteers left to go back to the training center, I took some time to decompress by myself and on my walk over to the training center 20 minutes later, I walked with my ipod on (bad, I know, but necessary) and got to belt out son of a preacher man at the top of my lungs while I walked which was the best thing I have done for myself since I’ve been here.
When I got to the training center, I talked to Kathleen and she agreed to let a group of us work on a world map project for the training center. We picked out a wall and when I figure out what kind of materials I need, I will ask the right person and get the ball rolling on that project with a few of my favorite ladies. It probably won’t start until next week due to the ridiculous amount of work I have to do.
And then I finally got to meet Alyssa!!! She’s the volunteer currently in Santo Domingo in Piura whom Diego told me I was going to be replacing. We got to chat for a while about the projects she has tried – what worked, what didn’t work, what kinds of possibilities there are for me there, and what the site was like. Apparently, there is a very well functioning environmental sector in the municipality currently and it’s a fairly developed city. They have youth groups and a great waste management project put together by an earlier volunteer. Basically, there are a LOT of options of projects that I can attach myself to and try to improve or expand upon. I will have a site-mate from the water and sanitation program. Apparently, they have running water 12 hours a day, but it is basically poop, so the water and sanitation person and I will be able to work together on a project for clean water. They will handle more technical building things and I will handle more political and educational aspects of it (probably?). Also, there is the potential to work with reforestation, although Alyssa didn’t choose to, but I think it’s probably something I may want to try. I don’t know – obviously I’m just going to have to wait until I’m there and figure things out for myself. Talking to her was a huge relief and got me incredibly excited to go there, so I hope Diego doesn’t change his mind about sending me there! She is going to email me the community diagnostics and whatnot, but basically I have a pretty clear understanding of the possibilities of my site, which is more than any other volunteer can say at this point. She also talked a lot about the dynamics of the host families in Santo Domingo compared with the other sites and that they are slightly less conservative, but generally not as overbearing as I have heard other host families can be, which is probably the most important thing about the entire experience for me. With knowledge comes power – but the influx of information is also a little overwhelming considering all of the other things I am trying to remember right now! I’ll probably talk more about my site again some other day. It’s just a lot to process today.
After talking to her, I went back to my technical training group and there were two other current volunteers there talking about project possibilities – organic farming diversity expansion, cost-benefit analyses, agroforestry, irrigation projects, gardens, thatch-roof greenhouses, biol, etc. They also gave us advice on our community mapping projects and how to conduct a community diagnostic without being ridiculously intrusive, which was really helpful. When they were done, we talked about healthy rural homes and grassroots organization and the importance of perpetuity.
After technical training I had tutoring for an hour. Let me tell you – nothing will knock you down a peg or two like trying to read an Alan Garcia book about globalization and development out loud with perfect Spanish pronunciation. I felt like a mentally challenged sixth grader learning how to read.
We also got bank accounts today. Apparently, in Peru, you need to sign 80 billion forms and give your fingerprint in order to get a bank account. We got the card, but need to wait for the paperwork to go through for it to be activated and from now on, our “allowances” will be given to us directly into our bank accounts instead of in cash.
So… long story short – I’m really really incredibly busy. Between the world map project, my normal Spanish homework, the environmental project, talking to my family, and occasionally helping with other side projects… I don’t have time to breathe. Except when I start doing yoga for an hour after training tomorrow… which is both going to be relaxing and stressful because I know that’s just another hour I’m taking out of my day. I think it’ll be worth it though.
With tons of love,
Sasha
