Happy thanksgiving everybody! Today was a lovely day for us here in Peru. We had a lovely breakfast of donuts and juice with our training classes and talked about what we are thankful for. We wrote a letter to ourselves which we will read in exactly one year. We had a thanksgiving lunch for the volunteers with turkey sandwiches and apple and sweet potato pie. Sweet potato when mixed with cinnamon tastes surprisingly like pumpkin, which was amazing. After thanksgiving lunch, we had an afternoon ceremony for our host families to thank them for everything. We gave them flowers and photos and sang and there was food and a slideshow of pictures of volunteers with their families. I also went out and printed out some pictures I have of us together and bought a frame and made a little collage for them. Every single volunteer did something for the celebration today. We had little chores, and everyone came together beautifully to make this a great day.
And best of all – I have so much to be grateful for. I’m grateful for my family, Jason, and my friends who have been an amazing support system for me back home. Thank you for keeping in touch and making sure I never forget that there are people that love me back home. I am grateful that tomorrow I finally get to swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer – something I have worked incredibly hard to achieve for the last year and three months. I am grateful that the Peace Corps sent me to Peru to work on the environment – it is great to be part of the environmental revolution in a hands on way in one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. I am grateful for all of the new friends I have made here in the PC. I am grateful for my trainers, who have gone above and beyond their required jobs to make sure that I am happy, healthy, comfortable, and learning. I am grateful for my amazing host family, without whom my training experience would not have been complete or nearly as rewarding. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to grow up in the United States – where access to clean water is taken for granted. I’m grateful. (There’s more). So thank you everyone who has been a part of my adventure thus far.
Ok – moving on from the sappy stuff…. My little sister was freaking hilarious at the family celebration today. She almost jumped in the pool, ran up on stage while Robyn was giving her speech thanking the families, ran away from her parents several times, stole another child’s chocolate, blocked the screen to the projector on the picture slideshow, and was generally a little devil. One more day.
Tomorrow I swear in and then it will be official. I will receive a cell phone. I will be in the process of moving away from Lima to Piura for good.
Well it’s time to pack up my things now, so I’m going to keep this short. I learned this week that I prefer chicken heart to chicken tongue and that my dreams will set the tone for the rest of my day. That is all.
Much love, peace, and agradecimiento,
Sasha
It took Madonna to end that party November 27, 2008
I dream I’m floating on the surface of my own life, watching it unfold. November 25, 2008
Only four more days until I am sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Training is over and we are working on wrapping up loose ends and making final preparations for departure. We learned the Peruvian National Anthem, which we will apparently have to sing in conjunction with the American National Anthem during our swearing in ceremony. Nothing makes me feel like more of a socialist or more indoctrinated than singing any national anthem in a large group of people. It really is a fairly unique feeling. Last week we also wrapped up with an intense Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament among the volunteers which people gamble their soles away on. It’s amazing the ways we come up with to pass the time.
We learned about Peruvian Andean cultures, customs, and mysticism last week as well, with little lessons about medicinal herbs, Incan beliefs about balance, shamanism, etc. I had my palm read with amazing accuracy, which freaked some of us out a little, and makes me want to find the nearest shaman to my site and see what that is all about for real.
On Saturday all of the volunteers received a certificate of completion from the Agricultural Institute, which we were told we could somehow use to better our resumes, so that was a nice ceremony to be a part of. After going to the agraria, I returned back to my host family home to meet the girl who lived in my house before me. She is really nice and her Spanish has greatly improved, but she’s also gained a lot of weight in the last three months, which makes me a little nervous. She is having a hard time navigating the sensitive line between not offending her host family and making healthy choices for herself and it was a good reminder that I need to be really careful to make sure that I do a good job setting my boundaries with my new host family early on.
On Sunday, we had an ice cream social for the host families in Huascaran. We made banana splits to share a part of American tradition with them, and it was really nice to see all of the families together with their gringo children, having a good time and seeing how really integrated we are becoming into this community. It’s a shame we’re leaving just as it’s becoming so much like home.
Today, I went to the post office during lunch to send a package home. The woman was really rude and kept lecturing me on how I shouldn’t reuse envelopes and wouldn’t let me send any honey home because it’s a liquid and kept repeating herself over and over and over again about how I was doing everything wrong. It was pretty stressful. On the one hand, I didn’t want to say anything because I wanted her to handle my package correctly and make sure it actually gets sent out, but on the other hand, she was being a bitch. She dumped out all of the contents of the package and started haphazardly picking things up and banging them down on the counter, even when they were clearly wrapped in bubble wrap because they are fragile. At the end of the whole process, she took my money, but I didn’t watch her put stamps on it or seal it because she kept yelling about how she was late for lunch, so I really hope it gets sent out. Let’s all cross our fingers and hope against all hope that is somehow arrives at its destination in America.
After lunch, we had a meeting with our amazing APCD, Diego. He gave us 5 children’s books on endangered species in Peru so that we can use them to help with the environmental education part of our program. He also asked us to reflect on how well trained we thought we were in the objectives of the environmental program. And this is where things really got put in perspective. With everyone’s input together, we basically established that we received less hands on training in environmental issues than the volunteers in the water and sanitation program did, that the only useful things we learned, we learned outside of the training environment, on our own time, using our own resources, that we didn’t plant a single tree, work on a single compost project, learn how to make a micro-landfill, get practice teaching lessons, writing solicituds, learn about tree species, ANYTHING. I really hope our feedback helps him to ensure that the next environmental group of volunteers that goes through the program doesn’t have the same disadvantages going in as we do this time around.
Speaking of being poorly trained – I got the results of my Spanish interview back today. I have advanced another level. I am now at Intermedio Alto. So I’ve gone from Novice Low to Intermediate High. Not too shabby. Patting myself on the back. I was still a little miffed about being denied a proper lesson on the subjunctive, though, so I talked to my original Spanish teacher, Betty about it today and she looked confused. Why would my teacher NOT teach us the subjunctive in an intermediate medium class? Good freaking question. So Betty dug through her materials and handed me a folder full of information on the Subjunctive for me to go over and return to her by the end of the week. What a godsend! Now was that so hard? No. Thank you Betty, for being a good teacher and truly caring that I learn Spanish.
The municipality has been working with large machines directly next to my house for the last week. They are taking pieces of the mountain “because we don’t need it” (according to my host mother) to build a barrier on the banks of the river so that rainy season comes it doesn’t flood? I’m not sure on the details. It has been affecting our internet access though, so its been sporadic this week. Nothing surprises me anymore. Of course the municipality needs pieces of the mountain. How normal.
Tomorrow is a community dinner put on by our host parents in Huascaran to say goodbye to us. Then Thursday is thanksgiving and the host family party and Friday is swearing in. This week should fly right by. I cannot wait to finally be at my site and settled in. The transitional period is starting to feel like matrosskaya tishina. I just can’t get out fast enough.
Anxiously anticipating,
Sasha
Afternoon Lethargy November 20, 2008
I’ve been restless lately. Training is wrapping up, but my head’s just not in it anymore. I’m ready to be at site. I’m ready to start to settle in. I feel trapped between two places and it’s unsettling. I never did well with transitional periods, anyway.
On the upside, I’m starting to perfect my homemade guacamole recipe. It’s good stuff.
I had my final language interview today. I’m feeling a little apathetic about it. I don’t know if I’ll move up a level or not. I’ve been frustrated with the way Spanish classes have gone this past month, in that I don’t feel like I’ve been taught much Spanish at all. My interview lasted 45 minutes. The tape ended and she kept asking me questions. They’re only supposed to last 15-30. At one point, she asked me why I like politics, which is difficult to answer for me even in English. There was a lot of ummm…ehhh…uhhh. Then she asked me if I thought democracy was the best form of government. That really got me going. haha. I may have tried to use the word homogenous. Way to not talk myself into a corner… We get the results on Monday.
On Wednesday the volunteers went to the Peace Corps office in Lima to learn more about Peace Corps policy. We learned about the four universal PC initiatives – HIV/AIDS (which involves the PEPFAR grant), gender equality, work with youth (because they are our future), and Information Communication Technology. It was somewhat informative and definitely fit into my comfort zone with social relations and policy, so I’m excited that all volunteers have to work in these sectors.
We also took pictures for our Peruvian IDs that day. And as usual, for me it was a bit of a fiasco. I’ve never been really photogenic. And that’s fine. When I got my license picture taken, the woman retook it 5 times of her own initiative and threatened to hop over the counter to make me look good in the picture. This was no different. For Peruvian ID photos, we are not allowed to wear glasses. So I took them off. Then the photographer took a few pictures, told me my eyes were too squinty and to try again later. I came back half an hour later. He told me to take my glasses off and keep them off and to go relax because he was saving me for last. When I got in the room, they called me “china” because my squinty eyes make me look like a person of Asian descent. (In Peru, all people that look Asian are called Chinas or chinos. It’s not meant to be offensive, just descriptive. They call em like they see em. If you’re a little heavy, they will call you gordita, or fatty; if you’re skinny they’ll call you flakita, or skinny; if you’re white, you’re a gringo, black is negro. It’s generally meant with affection). Then they turned off the light in the room, thinking my eyes would be less squinty. I tried to tell them that it’s just the way my face looks, but they kept trying to fix it. After a few more times, I was told that it was “good enough” and they stopped trying. So we’ll wait and see how that comes out. I’m sure it’ll be a delightful photo.
I got three packages this week, which was freaking awesome as usual (two from my parents and one from LarLar). The first one had an awesome shirt in it that everyone complimented, so thank you mom. It also had a Dora the Explorer book for my host sister. I used it as an effective bribery tool. I told her I had a present for her, but would only give it to her after dinner and only if she promised not to hit anyone, yell at anyone, throw anything, or generally be unpleasant during dinner. It was the most peaceful dinner I’ve had here in Peru. Amazing. She said please and thank you and finished her plate, she didn’t yell or cry. I was appalled to know she had it in her. I gave her the Dora book and she couldn’t get enough of it. I have woken up to the sound of it every morning since. So thank you again, mom. They love it. I also got the package with the raspberry tea. Magic. I had three cups today. I missed raspberry tea more than I knew. Oh! And the Economist! Thank you thank you thank you. Keep those coming! And if anyone gets a subscription to Time or Newsweek and loves me and wants to send me some of those that would be greatly appreciated. And thank you LarLar for the amazing rubber duck wall hangy. It’s going to be the first thing I hang up in my new room. I’m so freaking excited you don’t even know! Freaking love you.
APEC has descended upon Lima. Allegedly President Bush is here. The end of this week has been declared a holiday, so nobody works today or tomorrow. The post office is closed, schools are closed, businesses are closed. It’s pretty insane. Lima’s incredibly crowded. But we’re far enough away from the center of the city that we haven’t really experienced any real APEC side effects. On Saturday there will be an anti-bush protest in Lima held by the Peruvian leftists who don’t want to see Bush in their country. It should be fun to watch.
Well, I think that’s probably about it for now. We have our last session at the agricultural university on Saturday and will receive certificates of completion. Sunday, we have a banana split party planned for our host families, and next week is our makeshift thanksgiving celebration and swearing in. I will soon be a real live Peace Corps Volunteer. Crazy.
Much love,
Sasha
P.S. Read Mountains beyond Mountains. It’s good stuff.
I was so very very hilariously ill…. November 17, 2008
Well, what was arguably the best week of training thus far was only slightly tainted by the taste of my vomit. Considering I produced what I had previously believed to be humanly impossible amounts of both diarrhea and vomit on literally THE most important day of training, things really went very well. The whole trip was slightly surreal, starting from the very beginning – the trip up from Lima to Piura city.
Not all bus camas are created equally. We depart from Lima once again to begin the most exciting week of training. Having settled in and watched the day slowly fade to night, the fog descends and we begin to drive through the clouds, the Pacific on our left, the Andes on our right. The road is windier than I remember it being and not as continuously paved. The PanAmerican highway seemed smoother last time. Somebody really should have checked out the driver before we got on the bus to make sure he wasn’t drunk. But it’s too late now. Sleep comes and goes in waves. It’s three o’clock in the morning. It looks like we’re driving on water (do they make amphibious bus camas?), electrical towers seem like angry giraffes in the arid wilderness, and the only thing audible over the sound of the engine and the blood rushing in my ears is the violent snoring of the large Peruvian man behind us, oblivious to the madness that is this bus ride.
We arrived in Piura with a sigh of relief and made our way over tot he Peace Corps hostel (which is perfect, by the way). There, the first thing I noticed was the beautiful, infamous Peace Corps Piura Library. I immediately found A Million Little Pieces, which I started and finished, Three Cups of Tea, and the Motorcycle Diaries, which worked out perfectly since I had finished One Hundred Years of Solitude earlier that morning on the bus.
Later that night, at Boulevar, the burger place, hanging out with Peace Corps trainees, current volunteers, and a group of expats, I realized that I had really hit the jackpot – we were discussing languages, comparing the ones we knew (among us was Russian, Spanish, English, Japanese, German, and French, at least…) and talking about expatriate life and volunteer work in general. It was pretty amazing.
The next day (Tuesday) I met my counterparts for the first time. This was great, for the most part, except when my female counterpart looked me up and down, asked me how old I was, what my profession was, and then what that had to do with the environment with so much skepticism it was frightening. I’ll make her love me, no worries.
I ate a ton (as usual) that day… and quite frankly when you eat as much as I have been eating, you exponentially increase your chances of eating something that’s going to make you sick. So I eventually did. It may have been the questionable ceviche, the lettuce, the mayo I accidentally ate on someone else’s sandwich – hard to say… but the result was hilariously disastrous.
That night, I vomited in line at the supermarket. It hit me out of nowhere. I casually covered my mouth, set down my items, grabbed a bag and threw up into it. I then asked for a napkin, wiped up and thought it was over… but it was so very very far from over…
*Disclaimer – the next bit is graphic involving diarrhea and vomiting – sometimes simultaneously… Don’t read it if you don’t want… try not to be eating while reading this*
I couldn’t sleep that night – my stomach was killing me. The next morning, I got up and threw up 15 times. It was a lot. It was violent. I thought it must be over. I also dreaded the four hour mountainous bus ride I would have to endure in an hour. I packed up my things and got in the cab to go to the bus station. At the bus station I vomited again – at least 6 more times. I felt awful. I was sure that it was a toxin, though, since I had only been vomiting and nothing else. So I was force-fed some manzanilla (tea) by my counterpart who was pretty concerned for my well being and we got on this bus. Since I had been up all night and the act of vomiting 21 times is pretty draining, I fell asleep immediately and slept through the entire trip which is the only thing that kept me from throwing up on the bus.
The first thing I did at my new site – and I will never forget this – I got off the bus, I walked to my counterpart’s home, which he and his beautiful family generously opened to us for lunch, I set my things down and then simultaneously had diarrhea and vomited in his bathroom, in which the walls do not go up to the ceiling and next door to which is his kitchen where his poor poor wife was preparing lunch. I clearly wasn’t up to eating so I passed out until the meeting where I had to meet the mayor and present myself in front of the most influential people in my town. There is no such thing as a sick day during site visit. I got up and went to the municipality building, met the mayor, the members of JASS, some teachers, basically lots of important people and then had diarrhea again. We then headed over to the secondary school where I had to give another speech followed by more diarrhea… this went on for 5 speeches. Then I met my host family. I wasn’t able to get to bed until 9:30pm that day. We didn’t get to stay with our host families because our rooms weren’t ready yet, so I was alone in a hostel. I vomited on myself. I decided to take a shower. When I turned the water on, it came out brown, like sewage, and I thought about it for a second and decided I was cleaner covered in my own vomit that I would be after a shower in the sewage water. I baby wiped it off and crawled into bed. I am far from everything and everyone I know and love. I am too sick to figure out the internet or phone. I am so very very alone in this moment. I’m homesick and I’m sick. I think, I completely understand how this kills millions of people all the time. I crawl into bed. I pray for relief. And then I get fleas. I get bitten by fleas… repeatedly. And I cry myself to sleep. (This is the low point of my entire Peace Corps experience… it was five days ago and I am totally ok now – nothing but smiles all day. I just wanted to describe this as clearly as possible. Please do not worry about me)….
The next morning I wake up and I feel a hundred percent better. I eat a little bit of breakfast before realizing that I am so very very wrong and not at all better. I go to more meetings – give more speeches, and then in a lull in the day I call the PC doctor. He tells me I absolutely definitely one hundred percent have a bacterial infection and should as soon as possible start taking Cipro (Ciprofloxacin). In the meantime, as home remedies, I am forced to try herbal teas, and this awful combination of boiled carrot water, lots of salt, and a little sugar, with a boiled carrot floating in the cup. In Peruvian culture, it is rude to refuse food when someone offers it to you, so I was forced to try to choke this concoction down. It took me half an hour to drink a quarter of the cup. I couldn’t finish. And when I left, I threw up. Cipro is my new best friend. It is the best thing I have ever done for myself ever. Literally a life saver. Amazing. Beautiful.
By my last day at site, I was feeling normal again. I still didn’t have much of an appetite, but I was able to fully enjoy my hike with the environmental youth group.
We went up to this place where the river carved out these natural benches in the stone – it was so beautiful, and these children are amazing. They are so genuinely enthusiastic about the environment. They know the names of all of these medicinal herbs, they have a reforestation project working, they are intelligent and curious and motivated and genuinely just good kids. It was so refreshing and promising for my work for the next two years.
I’ve noticed that they plant a lot of pines, which I will try to supplement with native species. Yes, Pine is good for wood, but reforestation needs to be addressed as well. Also, they still throw a lot of trash into the water supply, so I’ll have to feel that out with my community diagnostic and find some root causes. I’m so incredibly excited to start working with these kids.
My site is so beautiful. Mountains beyond mountains. I live in the Andes mountains on the edge of the jungle. Warm during the day, not too sunny because of cloud cover, very cold at night. The people are so welcoming and helpful and open-minded and excited for us to be there. I’m happy as a clam. I absolutely love, adore, cannot get enough of, my site.
Other things that happened this past week: I saw my first funeral procession. I saw my first strike (fishermen protesting the new law capping the amount of fish they are allowed to catch…). I saw my first unannounced concrete explosion. I saw my first cow market. I ate berries in the wild. I watched a pickup truck get stuck in a river (this may end up being a common occurrence).
And lastly – and this is my favorite part… there is a gold mine higher up the mountain (very sad). Particles of gold end up floating down into the river. The water we use comes from the river. It is not well filtered. This means I will literally be bathing in gold. That is all. Bathing in freaking gold.
I’ll also be drinking it, but that’s a different story. We have a ceramic filter and we boil water, but I’m going to look into soil filters a little more since they seem to work faster.
Hearing stories of other people’s sites makes me feel especially lucky in comparison (border town with Ecuador where 14 year old vigilantes guard the streets with machine guns because the narcotrafficking makes it so dangerous; no walls or floor; no kitchen; no bathroom (use the chacra); etc, etc). I cannot wait for people to come visit so I can show you how beautiful my new home for the next two years is!!!
So so excited!,
Sasha
Leaving for Site Visit!! November 8, 2008
Well training has continued to unfold with increasing rapidity. I’m still not learning any new Spanish or technical training, but everyone is preparing hastily for site visits next week. I leave tomorrow to go back to Piura. On Monday, the regional coordinator with show all of the people who will be living in Piura around the capital city, which I’m already pretty familiar with, so I’ll be one step ahead. On tuesday, we get to meet our counterparts, which is going to be really exciting! Finally! Real Peace Corps stuff! Wednesday through Friday we will be at our sites living with our host families and getting to know them a little bit.
I try not to have expectations here, but I really hope I don’t get heatstroke or diarrhea this time around and I really hope that my counterpart actually shows up for our meeting on tuesday. Beyond that, there’s really nothing left to hope for.
My appetite has started to become an expensive habit – Yesterday, I ate scrambled eggs, fried plantains, a jelly sandwich, a banana, orange, mango, pack of crackers, my lunch (rice, potatoes, vegetables, chicken), half of ryan’s lunch (Chifa), mark’s turkey leg, an eclaire, chifles, half a bowl of guacamole and with several bags of chips, two hamburgers, a cup of coffee, three beers, and a lot of water… and never once felt full. I asked the PCMO if this was a problem – perhaps indicative of a worm feasting in my belly… and she said as long as I wasn’t crapping it out every hour it really wasn’t a problem… and I’m not.. but I’m also not gaining weight.. This is just all very odd. I’m literally always hungry. Oddly less hungry after I t
ake a vitamin, but still – always want food. I’ll keep you updated on that one.
We went back to the agricultural university today for the first time in a few weeks and it was one of the hardest days I have had to sit through in quite some time – we learned about different kinds of Chicken – genetic manipulation of lines of chickens, their illnesses, which ones are for meat, which are for eggs, which are for both, etc. etc. etc. for 4 hours. I didn’t know how little I cared about chicken cultivation until today.
Yesterday was a pretty depressing day of training as well, so I guess I’m just ready to get back to Piura. For starters, it’s rained every day for a week now (which is amazing, but makes me nervous for the next 6 months since we’re going into rainy season… we’ll see).
We started out the morning with a charla about domestic violence in Peru which ended in the conclusion that it wasn’t our place – don’t interfere, don’t put yourself at risk and all we can do is try to break the cycle of violence by working with children. Yeah, that’s nice, but seeing the statistics and the lack of resources available put a damper on the morning. Then we talked about alcoholism – as a problem in Peru in general and among Peace Corps Volunteers in Peru as well. Which isn’t that hard to imagine, actually. A current volunteer came in to talk to us… and she was emotional the second she walked through the door, and she ended up crying throughout most of the day which was difficult to watch. She came in to tell us about how awful her first site experience was and how she had to switch and how it can happen to us. And this is all useful information for us to know… but I’m not sure about the timing of the charla, really. I don’t know that the day before we all leave for site visits is really an appropriate venue for that kind of emotional outburst, but what do I know. It seemed like it blew the wind out of our sails a little. Especially since two people from the training group before ours (Peru 11) decided to go home less than two months into service recently… I did some yoga and breathed it out and then made some amazing guacamole, so I’m still doing alright – just can’t wait to get there finally!!!
So that basically sums it up. Nothing poetic or insightful – this blog seems to be about quantity more than quality lately… I’ll see what I can do about that.
I’ll be back with more in a week!
Peace
Sasha
If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite November 6, 2008
The day moon shines down and fills me with the reflection of light. Everything appears brighter yet softer, stronger yet kinder. And so passes what may very well be the best week I’ve ever had. Tueday brought news of a new America. We celebrated together – there were tears of joy. Medical marijuana and stem cell research passed in Michigan, which is a nice change after Prop 11 in the last election. Democrats won a majority of the senate. The future is starting to look brighter.
Yesterday, I gave a successful charla about SODIS to two groups of 40 adults my age or older in Spanish. It was the most promising thing I’ve done since joining the Peace Corps. They genuinely did not know what SODIS was, asked intelligent, thoughtful questions, we were able to answer them, and I didn’t feel poorly about my Spanish. It was basically amazing.
Today, everyone found out their site placements. I already knew mine, but found out who my site mate is and could not possibly be happier – I got the most genuinely kind hearted person in our training group as my site mate. His name is Ryan and he is in the water and sanitation program. He’s a civil engineer and we will be working on solid waste management and education programs together, so you’ll probably be hearing a lot more about him to come. Also, one of my other favorite people here, Matt is placed somewhere between an hour and two away, which makes him my next closest neighbor, so fortune has definitely shined down on me this week.
Training is basically over as of Field Based Training – I’m no longer learning any Spanish, really, and even when I ask specific grammatical questions, my facilitator does not answer them, and during our technical classes we more often than not have free time to do with what we please. So I read a lot or work on projects. I’m thinking about going back to the colegio where I gave my charla and teaching English for a day or two.
And now: details about my site. I will be living in the department of Piura in the district of Santo Domingo. “Santo Domingo is a district of about 8,000 people in the mountains of Piura. The district capital (where I will be living) is at 1500m and there are 41 caserios from 300-3000m above sea level. Santo Domingo is beautiful, lush, and has a temperate climate. It rains consistently about half the year. It is a primarily agricultural community [great coffee and mangos the size of my face]. The primary crops are corn, wheat, beans, and sugar cane. Santo Domingo has a rich history of development projects and is considered by many people the most advanced district in the area. Culturally, it has many attributes of Andean culture, but there has also been a lot of mixing with coastal culture over the years. The people are generally warm and trusting of PCVs.”
There are 31 volunteers in the department of Piura, so I will have plenty of other volunteers near me.
I will be living with a nuclear family – my mother, Rosario is a teacher and my father, Felizardo is a lab technician (I think). I will have two sisters and a brother, but they all study in Piura, so they will only be by sporadically to visit. The youngest of them is 17.
Lastly, and most excitingly – Recently, Peru received a PEPFAR grant for $20,000 to develop HIV/AIDS education programs in the departments of Tumbes, Piura, and La Libertad. Before I even get to my site, I will stay in Piura city for a few days to go to a meeting with the president of the department, the mayors of all of the districts in which Peace Corps volunteers work, every Peace Corps volunteer in Piura, from every program, the APCD of the health program, and people from other NGOs in the area about the problems of HIV/AIDS in our sites and education program development strategies. This will be part one of a 4 or 5 part one year long process to develop these programs at our sites. I can’t wait!
When I go to site visit next week I will buy a P.O. Box for myself so I will have a new address to send things to. However, you can continue using the address on the blog currently as long as you’d like – everything sent there over the next two years will simply be forwarded to my P.O. box free of charge by the Peace Corps.
It’s rained every day this week so far, so I’ve been pretty please about that as well.
Well that basically sums things up around here. I have had an outrageously positive frame of mind lately – as if some penetrating lucidity is permitting me to see the reality of things beyond any formalism. What will be will be. And now I know that it will be amazing.
With all of the love and peace humanly possible,
Sasha
It rained on the coast of Peru…I rejoiced November 4, 2008
Monday went by surprisingly well! It was really nice to be able to see everyone together again in the training center – turns out that a week apart is exactly what the doctor ordered. We started the day off by presenting to the other groups about our Field Based Training experiences. I ended up pretty jealous by the end of the presentations, especially when I heard about the group that got to visit the cloud forest! What the hell? I watched a dog eat a dead dolphin on the beach while overheating! aaahhh.. I’m definitely more of a mountain kind of gal as it turns out.
After presentations, we got to meet with our APCDs (bosses), and I got to talk to him a little bit more about my site. It’s basically all set – and I absolutely cannot wait for site visit to check out where I will be spending the next two years of my life!
I met a current volunteer today who took the time to take me aside and show me on the map exactly what the difference between alto-piura, sierra-piura, and other reagions is. He showed me how the watershed works and how deforestation has been affecting the riverflow down to the coast. It was amazing! And I’m definitely grateful to know what my site is since there was no way that I would have been able to utilize him as a resource if I was twiddling my thumbs waiting to find out where I am going.
After lunch we had a presentation by the Youth Development and Small Business APCDs… which was really helpful and informative and also made me question my merits as an environmental volunteer in Latin America – it all seems so arbitrary. I hardly spoke any Spanish when I got here, I have no experience with environment, but I speak fluent Russian and have 6 years of experience working with children, not to mention that I have a bachelors in Social Relations and Policy with an emphasis in sociology. It just doesn’t make much sense to me. But I’m grateful to be here and excited that I’ve had the opportunity to learn as much as I have so far.
This is going to be a pretty big week for me – Tuesday is Obama day. I’m so excited I may vomit. All of the volunteers are going to the regular pub to drink and watch the outcome together and they agreed to keep the bar open until midnight for us.
Wednesday I’m doing a presentation about water purification to two groups of 40 young adults (about my age) who take the night class at the local school.
Thursday everybody else finds out their site, which means I get to find out who my sitemate is going to be! Finally!
So yeah… big stuff.
In other news, my little sister was nice to me the day I got back, which was weird; we have a volunteer halloween costume party on Sunday which was pretty cute – someone even rented a Barney costume; my host father is out of town for the next 20 days, so it’s just us ladies, which is surprisingly tranquil; and lastly – and I almost don’t believe it myself…. IT RAINED TODAY. It was insane. There was thunder, there was lightning, people looked confused. I just stood outside in disbelief… amazed, ecstatic! Rainy season is upon us. This also means the mangos are bigger and cheaper. Score!
Thank you to everyone who sent me packages over the last few weeks! I got the socks…. amazing! Thank you! Apparently socks don’t last very long here, but I should be fine for a while with these… and they’re cute too!!! I got the lotion and the candy and the halloween card and the 110 letters from the little kids through the world wise exchange program… adorable… I also got the pants and shirt, which I will be wearing tomorrow… have I mentioned thank you? thank you! Also… if at all possible… if anyone can write me letters in Russian…. I would appreciate it. I really don’t want to lose it while I’m here and want to hear about what’s happening back in the US. So that should be all for today. I’ll check back in in a few days.
All we are saying, is give peace a chance….
Sasha
Excruciatingly Enjoyable November 3, 2008
Well it’s been quite a week. I’m going to preface this with a warning: this will be a long blog post.
The good stuff – there was a car accident, an electrical fire, a bathroom with no hole, pickpocketing at a religious procession, a mayor discussing nude beaches and peace corps volunteers working in bikinis, we made the news (5 minute spot on tv and radio), fit ten people in a taxi, rode a donkey, I got a second degree sunburn and a little heat rash, went to church on halloween and taught some kids about decomposition.
The long version:
Sunday – Amy and I shared a taxi to the bus terminal, which arrived a half hour earlier than it was supposed to, which is unheard of here in Peru. Then we commenced the 14 hour luxurious bus ride up to Piura. I slept a lot.
Monday – After arriving in Piura city early in the morning, we wandered around the city for a little bit. We found the plaza de armas and the supermarket and scoped out some places to eat lunch. We returned for lunch, recommending this little inexpensive vegetarian place that we had seen. Instead, we ended up taking a cab to eat a much more expensive lunch of ceviche a little farther away with our tech trainer and her husband. The ceviche in the north of Peru is really incomparable to the Ceviche in Lima. In the north, the fish is fresher, the lemons and limes are different, and you can definitely taste the difference. It was awesome. Until suddenly a spark and a bang and the wall behind our table caught fire. At first, everyone just sat there looking at it as if it were a natural occurrence, but after a few moments when we saw everyone else freaking out as well, we moved away from the table and watched them put out the fire with a plastic disc. It was very odd. Then they tried to charge us gringo prices for the food even though we had clearly read the menu with the correct prices and we had to argue them back down. After lunch we went to NCI (Naturaleza y Cultura Internacional), a conservation non-profit. I actually learned a lot about diagnostic work and made a really good contact since I will be living in Piura and will be able to utilize this organization if necessary at my site. Since we had a lot of free time after this, we went and bought some sangria and gato negro (in boxes) and had a little hostel party. It was lovely.
Tuesday – We woke up pretty early and had breakfast at the hostel. The hostel is run by an adorable old man who we later came to call our “abuelito” because we were one of the only groups that didn’t get to stay with a host family our entire time at field based training. His daughter worked there too, and they were both just the sweetest people I’ve met in a while, so it was a pleasure to be staying there. After our intimate little breakfast, we took a trip out to Chulucanas. It’s a little town not too far from Piura city. We arrived at the municipality building and were put into municipality owned SUVs to go to a different building for the meeting. We’re driving along, and suddenly, a mototaxi runs right into the side of the car. The driver gets out, sees that it barely made a scratch and keeps on trucking, but the whole time he keeps muttering to himself “Why didn’t he stop? I don’t understand why he wouldn’t stop?” when it’s evident that there is no such thing as a traffic light anywhere in this entire town so it’s really just appalling that this doesn’t happen all the time at every intersection. It was just an everyday occurrence though and we made it safely to the meeting with the mayor. This was an incredibly formal meeting – It was stiflingly hot the whole time, there was a plan to the meeting and it took about 4 hours to get through. We were being videotaped the entire time and when we got up to do our presentation about what the Peace Corps is, we were being tape recorded as well. As if I wasn’t already uncomfortable speaking Spanish in front of large groups of people, stick a tape recorder in my face and I get exponentially uncomfortable. We made it through alright though and then sat back down and listened to more about the municipality. They actually have a very innovative waste management program which would probably work in other locations too, but I’ll wait and see what the program is like in Santo Domingo first. It basically consisted of a regular trash pickup program, but if you happened to miss the time when the trash truck came or had more trash to get, but the truck wasn’t coming for a few days you could call up the municipality, tell them you needed trash to be picked up, and for one sole have volunteers come in a mototaxi to pick up the trash. It’s rather ingenious and seemed very successful, especially considering it was done by converting trashed combis into compactors and using volunteer labor.
At some point during this 4 hour presentation, I had to use the restroom. There was only one. I got up to use it (while being videotaped), and it turned out to be locked. So I sat back down, but some woman from the municipality ran over and unlocked it and went inside. At this point, I got a little confused, but about 10 minutes later, a man walked out with a bunch of tools and she ushered me inside. It was very tidy and there was even toilet paper! (This is something to get excited about in Peru) so I went and flushed. And when I flushed, out of a hole in the floor, waste (not mine) started to come up and spill out onto the floor. I had to jump over the puddle to get to the other side of the bathroom and for the next few hours the entire building smelled of waste. It was pretty awful.
After the meeting, the mayor took us out to lunch, where we got to sample traditional foods from the region, which were all delicious. As he noticed that we were incredibly warm, he started saying that if their city ever got a Peace Corps volunteer she would have to work in a bikini – which somehow progressed into a delightful story about his time at a nude beach and how he couldn’t stop looking at nude people, but wouldn’t get nude himself. Then he started talking about his three women, which turned out to be his wife and two daughters, but it was all very odd. He gave us some beers and then gifted us a CD of him singing. He was quite a character. Apparently, his family also sells honey, so we bought some of his organic honey, which I gave as a gift to my host family.
After lunch, we drove up the road a little to an incredibly rural school to give our presentations on various environmental topics. As soon as we got there, the teacher walked out of the classroom and left us to our own devices. The children were second and third year of secondary school, which in reality means they range from ages 11 to 17, because a lot of the children end up taking years off of school to help work on their parents’ farms. This is a pretty tough age group to teach, or even to have listen, but we made the best of it. I don’t know if anything about decomposition actually got through to them, but I definitely tried. What’s worse is that the teacher never came back.
As we were waiting for the bus back to the city, one of the other volunteers had to use the bathroom and we politely asked the woman who owned the house we were eating chifles at if we could use her bathroom. We were given permission and a short time later, the volunteer came back with a confused look on her face. Apparently, the bathroom was just a concrete room (with only three walls) and there was no hole to use. So nobody used it. But it was an interesting wake up call to see that people live like this about a half an hour outside of the fairly prosperous city of Piura. We made it back to the hotel and decided to go out for ice cream. We suddenly realized that there was going to be a huge religious procession coming through town that night, so started heading back to the hostel so that I could get my camera. On the way back to the hostel, we got stuck in the procession, since it was blocking the street we needed to use to get back. In the five minutes we were in the crowd, one of the other volunteers had his wallet stolen out of his pocket. We clearly were not going to be able to make it back to the hostel until the procession passed, so we went to a locutorio and called the security officer to cancel his cards and report to the Peace Corps how much money was missing. It kind of put a damper on the rest of the evening, but we made the most of it, by drinking again.
Wednesday – We met up with a reforestation non-profit, called AIDER (Asociacion para la Investigacion y el Desarrollo Integral). They took us to a community in the dry forest. There we met the most inspirational old man and woman. They spent their days using a slow-trickle water system, involving plastic bottles of water dug underground to water trees that they planted themselves. They said that they know that they will probably not see results in their lifetime, but that maybe in the lifetime of their children or their grandchildren, the land they work so hard on may turn into a liveable forest. The problem is that it only rains when el nino comes, so they have to pay for all of their water, which they buy off of a water truck that comes around. They were so passionate about their work, and the man said that he never finished primary school, so it was amazing to see the utilization of his water system and the trees that he had spent years working on. After spending a little over an hour in the sun listening to his presentation, we drove down to the center of the community to learn a little more about it. At this point, I realized that even with SPF 70 on, my shoulders had burned so badly that I had second degree burns, blisters and all, from just standing out in the sun for a few hours. It was pretty unbelievable. So if you’re looking for something to mail me – incredibly high powered sunscreen is good choice. I should be bathing in it. At this point a also got a heat rash and due to the dehydration – a migraine.
We did another little presentation on what the Peace Corps is and who we are to the municipality we were in and the president of the community was pleased to see us, because apparently he had heard on the radio that we had gone and visited Chulucanas the day before. At which point we also learned that we had made the news on television as well – on a regional channel, which includes the departments of Piura, Tumbes, and Lambayeque. So we’re pretty much famous. Good stuff.
The afternoon was devoted to shopping, seeing a movie, watching the world series (for the boys) and hanging out with Alyssa and talking about the Peace Corps over some rum and coke. Drinking is becoming a theme here and I am excited to be able to escape it while back with my host family in Lima.
Thursday – we went to go see the community of a different volunteer. She works in the small business program and we learned a lot from her in terms of what the first two months at site might be like. We walked over to the local school there to try our presentations in a different way. I had an amazing time with this second group of kids. They were just a grade or two younger than the first group we had taught, but the difference was notable. First of all, the teacher was present, so there wasn’t much misbehaving. Second of all, the children were engaged and much more willing to guess when they didn’t know the answer. They were much better at interacting, and I think the format in which the information was presented this time around also made it easier on the kids, so I decided that I definitely want to work with schools here as long as I get to choose the grades I can work with, because I think I would really be most effective with kids aged 8-12, so we’ll see how that works out once I get to site.
After teaching at the school for a few hours, we went back to the volunteer’s host family home for a delicious lunch and then went to an artisan street to see what kind of things local artisans were working on. The clay work, although similar looking to a lot of other things I have seen, including figurines from Africa, is different in that they use local mango skin in the burning process, so the coloring is different. I was running out of money, but I’ll probably send some of you some of the local Piurian clay work when I move there in a month – look forward to it. Oh, I also got to ride a donkey on Thursday, so that was a lot of fun.
After planned activities, we met back up with Alyssa and David and Jah and a few other current volunteers and went out for amazing burgers. This stuff was out of control – they had this thing called a Mexican burger, which was a real burger patty with lettuce, tomato, onion, doritos, and guacamole, ahi, ketchup, and mustard. They put freaking doritos INSIDE the burger. I highly recommend trying it. After that, we went out for a few beers and then to a very nice restaurant called “Cappuccino” with just Alyssa and David where I learned a lot about my site. Like, that it has AMAZING coffee, that in the rainy season they grow mangos the size of your face, that people have been practicing how to pronounce my name, and that I’m going to need some rain boots.
Friday – we woke up extra early and went to the market to compare the price of fruit in Piura to the price of fruit in Lima. This did not take long. After the market we returned to the hostel for a nap and started working on our presentation for the group for next week. As we were looking through pictures, another current volunteer, JP, came into our room and took us out to lunch to tell us a bit more about being a volunteer. I really learned the most from talking to volunteers this week. It was also really nice to meet some of the volunteers that live in my district, and to see that they are all amazing people that I can’t wait to hang out with twice a month!
Friday was halloween, so we decided to go the this theater show put on by the municipality. We walked in expecting a spooky halloween show, since the name of the group was “mas alla de la muerte”. Alas, it was a gospel singing, theater about how abortion is a sin, with a powerpoint presentation of bible scriptures. It was awful. We left early. We ran out of money at this point, so we couldn’t really afford to go out to any sort of crazy halloween parties. We went back to cappuccino for some wine, and ended up running into one of the other PC groups in Piura. It was so so nice to see the other volunteers. It’s very odd how quickly you come to miss these people that you spend 9 hours a day every day with.
Saturday – we went to the beach, Colan. It was cold. It was beautiful. Until I watched a dog eat a dead dolphin. And then a dead stingray. We took a lot of jumping pictures and ran into another American, which is always very nice. We stayed as long as we could and ate some fish at a nearby restaurant. Then it was back to the hotel to rinse off in a hot shower one last time, pack up our things and catch the bus back to Lima. On the bus, we watched “What happens in Vegas” dubbed into Russian, with Spanish subtitles. It was amazing and I’m going to make it my mission to find more movies dubbed into Russian in Peru, because, seriously – how awesome.
Well yeah – that was my field based vacation. Lots of good times, and a lot of time for personal reflection. Something about training seems to bring out the worst in people (definitely myself included) – brings forward people’s insecurities, and stepping outside of the training situation really helped me take a closer look at why I’ve been feeling things the way I have been and put things back into perspective a little bit.
So there we have it – I’m amazed if you’ve made it this far in the post – thank you loyal readers. I miss you guys a lot and constantly am thinking about how much you would love certain things if you were here to experience them with me.
Barrels of love and peace,
Sasha
