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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paz,

Sasha

How to court a gringa January 17, 2009

I’m leaving for Piura at 5am in a camionetta with some people from the municipality. It’s free and it’s safer than taking one of the huge unstable busses at 3am, so I just hope that the road isn’t blocked off somewhere further down the mountain so that I can make it into town. I will be there until wednesday -  eating burgers, ice cream, picking up and sending mail, shopping – the usual. I also have a regional meeting on monday and we will be celebrating Obama’s inauguration in full force on tuesday.
I know it’s been a little bit since I’ve posted last – it’s just that I am usually too tired to write by the time I get home and finish doing yoga and the internet here is less than reliable with the rains… so let’s see what I can’t fit in here:
I’ve learned a bit about rain recently. For example, if it’s gonna rain, you want it to rain hard so that it washes all the mud away, whereas if it rains lightly, it’ll just be really muddy and impossible to walk/drive. Also, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting the times of day in which it is going to rain and planning on leaving places at appropriate times. Here’s a fun fact – everyone here is fascinated with my 89cent WalMart plastic emergency poncho – they are even planning on using it as a model to make their own. So that would make a good care package insert – as many WalMart ponchos as you want to include… people here would love them.
Orange season is coming up. This is exciting because in addition to going out to the campo to pick oranges I will be able to buy 100 oranges for 5 soles, which is like a $1.50. 100 freaking oranges. It’s absurd.
I milked a cow this week. I’m really really bad at it. There’s nothing like old ladies laughing at you as they watch you struggle to milk a cow in the rain. It’s pretty demoralizing. I’m getting better though. I also learned how to wrangle a cow. This is even harder than milking one. They are stubborn and don’t like to be wrangled. I almost had to chase one into the river. Jeez.
I climbed a tree to collect a backpack full of pomarosa fruit. I also ate guava fresh off the tree and checked out the spaces at the schools where I can use their nurseries to augment their reforestation programs with native species. My seed collection is coming along rather nicely, I just have to organize a planting session with some kids from each of the schools. I think I’m going to wait until I have more seeds to do that though.
It’s been raining a lot and for some reason that makes me feel crafty… I’ve been making seed holder boxes out of old cardboard, which I’m pretty proud of, and when one of my socks ripped this week, I turned it into a glove. Also pretty proud of that.
Going out to the caserios is proving rather difficult for various reasons. To start, it’s corn planting season, so people aren’t easy to get into meetings. I suggested to Jorge, my counterpart, that it may be better to wait until they have meetings and just petition for some time in their meetings for our presentations, so that is going to be our approach from now on. This way, I’m not going to waste as much of my time waiting on people. That being said, I can only go to San Miguel, San Fransisco, and Ñoma during the rainy season because the other 2 caserios are across 5 rivers and it’s too dangerous to travel that far right now.
A previous volunteer had started a program for public trash cans, which was never completed… something about the contractor for the trash cans taking the money and never making the cans? I’m not sure. At any rate, the cans ordered were iron and expensive. Why you would use iron in a place where it rains half the year, I don’t understand. So we’re ordering new ones… durable plastic reinforced with pyrex. The metal ones will be placed inside of the schools, where they won’t rust and there will be 15 plastic ones for public places like the plaza de armas, entrances to the rivers, by the municipality building, etc. I still have to come up with a good “throw your trash in the bins” slogan and design the paint job on the cans.. people here are surprisingly conscious of aesthetics. More than I am, sometimes. It’s rather odd.
I also sat in on a meeting with the trashmen, which was informative. They had to sit around and ask for things like… tetanus shots and new uniforms, new wheelbarrows, etc. I brought up the fact that they should really be compacting the landfill before they throw dirt on it every day and that’ll save space and make it harder for dogs to make off with trash and carry it close to where people live. They didn’t look too happy, but we’ll see if that becomes a part of their program or not.
I’m also making some new posters about medical, organic and inorganic waste to reinforce what people should already know. Just jazzing up the information a little.
The ghosts don’t frequent my room as much now that its rainy season… but then again maybe I’m just sleeping harder. Who knows.. I still want sage.
Oh… so here’s the good stuff. How to court a gringa. Peruvian men (in general, in my experience, but obviously not all of them) are really forward bordering on creepy when it comes to flirting with women. Other than the incessant whistling which has just become background noise at this point, they will bring you things…. like bagfulls of bananas as a little gift…. really early in the morning. (kinda cute, but… come on).
Or they will sit there and awkwardly stare at you telling you over and over again that you look like a porcelain doll… with your white skin, rosy cheeks, light eyes, curly hair… blah blah.. (I’m not a freaking doll). Then they will ask you to bear their children so that you can better their bloodline. When you look at them like they are crazy, they will tell you to say hello to your parents for them because your parents are their future parents. That’s just full on creepy.
And then there’s the more appropriate “oooh, I play guitar, I’m really cute, I have a really deep voice and like reggae”…. This is ALWAYS the correct approach. Unless you’re 17 and the son of one of my coworkers. Seriously?
That’s all the tips I have for today.
I’m exhausted. Walking in the mud is an artform I have not yet perfected and spending the morning chasing after cows, climbing trees, carrying bags full of fruit, buckets full of milk, cleaning 3 pig sties, sorting through grains of rice and cooking means…. man… I’m ready for a saturday midday nap.
Hope all is well back home,
Infinite love, Miss you all tons,
Sasha

only unfulfilled love can be romantic January 10, 2009

It has been kind of a weird week. I’m not even sure I can properly elaborate upon it. In no particular order:

• My new idea of a perfect afternoon: after a filling lunch, go out to the campo in the pouring Andean rain to take care of the pigs. This requires knee high rubber boots and a lot of balance. Navigating mini mudslides, you use a stick of bamboo taller than a house to knock pomarosa fruit off of the tree. Then eat it and collect the seeds. Later, while chewing freshly cut sugarcane, navigate your way down a steep muddy mountain to take care of a sick cow. Give it in intramuscular injection, some antibiotics, and pick fresh lemons off of a tree to squeeze all over the cow. Then walk home with enough time left over to do a lot of yoga before dinner. Awesome.

• I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of our neighbors slaughtering a pig. twice. It sounded like a human being tortured and left me with an uneasy feeling for the rest of the day. Unsettled might be a better word for it. It’s hard to fall back asleep after such a thing.

• My host mom spilled juice on my only clean sweatshirt. Not a big deal, but we haven’t had water in three days, so I can’t do anything about it but wear the dirty one until we get water back – again, not a big deal, but… balls.

• went around with the garbage men on their routes to talk individually to the houses that do not separate their organic and inorganic waste. Was met with only mild hostility.

• I had a meeting with all of the authorities of the health system (CLAS) on wednesday. I brought my counterpart at the municipality and a garbageman with me to address the issue of medical waste disposal. It started with me asking them to please not put bloody cottonballs in with the rest of the trash and ended with the municipality offering to pay for a tri-colored bin system (red, yellow, and green) for the different grades of medical waste. Whether or not this will actually happen, or how much time it takes is yet uncertain. However, it’s a step in the right direction and as of now the health post is to separate out medical waste regardless.

• Went to check on medical went situation with the garbage men two days later to find bloody cottonballs on the top of the garbage bin. Went around and talked to everyone in the health post about it and things escalated until the garbagemen said they would refuse to collect garbage with biomedical waste in it. Don’t know if that’s the solution or not, but the nurses will probably pay attention to the issue now.

• I read “the pilot’s wife” – it’s a huge downer and I do not recommend reading it during rainy season – which it now is. Too muddy to walk in normal shoes – the knee high rain boots have come out. It rains. All the time. All day. and all night. And even when it’s not raining, it looks like it’s about to, so it’s just gray. Thank goodness for the gorgeous green mountains you can see through the clouds, because on flatland this would be horrid. Everything is already starting to look greener and lusher – more like a rainforest. It’s too humid to use matches indoors.

• I attended a meeting about the vacaciones utiles to help make the schedule. I made it clear that I was not going to be teaching my own class and that there always has to be a teacher in the room with me and I would just be stopping by to work on the world map and to teach environmental activities during their unstructured hours. I’m very pleased with the arrangement, because I have a pretty full schedule for the next few weeks. I’m going around to 6 caserios (definitely have been spelling that wrong this whole time) – and giving presentations on microlandfills to the authorities of the caserio to discuss whether a project would be viable there, if there’s interest/commitment, etc.

• Am starting to learn how to cook at Teo’s house. Wine included.

• Haven’t had running water for 4 days straight. Usually, we get it for a few hours at night so that we can refill buckets, since people don’t really have the capacity to store large amounts of water here. But not this time. No water. At all. People have had to start walking to neighboring caserios (which are on a different water network) and asking people if they can fill up their buckets of water and carrying them back to cook with, to have for handwashing, etc.

• The municipality didn’t pay for the internet in time, so it was cut off for a while.

• I got to use my new “Alexandra Viches, voluntaria de Cuerpo de Paz” stamp on an official document! Like, 10 times!

• I found out my perfect yoga music is oddly enough Outkast. Don’t knock it till you try it.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’ll put more effort into the next post.
I miss you all tremendously, lots of love,
Sasha

Experience is the name people give to their mistakes January 5, 2009

I finally have internet access again! I hope everyone had a lovely new year.
I ended up going to Mancora (this gorgeous beach in Piura) for my New Year celebration. I went with several other volunteers from previous groups, so it was a good opportunity to get to know new people, too. Mancora is beautiful. Hippie paradise. Artisan market, reggae music (techno and cumbia too), no inhibitions, all night parties. Amazing. The first night there was great. We stayed out till late dancing and drinking and having a great time. Then we woke up in the morning and went to the beach.
This was my big mistake. I put on some SPF80 and thought – hey – that should be sufficient for 2 or 3 hours. And then I fell asleep on the beach. And when I woke up two hours later… it was too late. I now have a full-body second degree sunburn – blisters and all. I’ve been pretty much out of commission for nearly a week now. It hurts to sit, because my ass is burnt, it hurts to walk because the backs of my knees are burnt, I couldn’t sleep for the first two nights and now I’m on a strict regimen of aloe and painkillers. It’s good stuff. On the upside, I’ve started to peel, which completely freaks out Peruvians who don’t have this problem. Downside: people are starting to assume it’s leprosy, which makes it a little less funny. Also, every time I step out of the house, I get lectured about the dangers of the sun – thank you – I am aware. And no thank you, I will not be rubbing tomatoes all over my body to make it better.
Ok. So that happened. Evolutionarily speaking, I really don’t know how I’ve made it this far in life. In the past month alone, I’ve had a touch of dysentery, fleas, trash burning bronchitis, and now a full body second degree sunburn. I fail at survival.
Back to Mancora – hamburgers the size of my face and beach rave parties = awesome. So yeah here we are… December 31 – all hanging out together and my dumb ass is in so much pain. I make it until 12:30 and have to call it a night because dancing hurts and sitting hurts. The next morning at 7am, one of the other volunteers comes barging into our room asking if we’ve seen her wallet. Balls. This means that she was definitely robbed. We all tell her no and go on sleeping. Next thing we know, there’s this story: So two volunteers (one male, one female) we hanging out on the beach with some Peruvians until about 6am. When they went to get up at 6am, her purse (with two digital cameras, cell phones, wallets, etc) was gone. They searched in the sand and couldn’t find it. They proceeded to call the phones in the bag. Eventually, somehow, one of the phones accidentally picked up. They heard music in the background. They walked up and down the beach trying to match up the music they were hearing with the music coming from the restaurants. They finally found the right place and asked the owner to turn off the music. Then they kept calling the cell phones to hear them ring. They followed the noise and found their cell phones, in her purse, at the bottom one of the Peruvian women’s purses. She was “astonished” to see that it was there. The female volunteer asked for it back and went to go fill out a denuncia at the police station. The male volunteer went and found the nearest police officer and pointed the women out to the cop. The Peruvian woman freaks out, punches him in the face and starts resisting arrest. The police officer has to discharge his weapon in the air to calm everyone down. It takes something like 5 cops to subdue this woman. They throw her in the back of a pickup truck and drive her and her friend to the police station. In the police station, they find the female volunteer filling out a denuncia. The cops drag the women into an adjacent room and proceed to beat them mercilessly with the door open. In the end, the digital cameras (with all of our New Years pictures) were sold for $40 American dollars and the cash was taken, but the rest was recovered. We decided that with our sunburns (I wasn’t the only one) and the high probability that these womens’ families were going to come looking for us, it was time for us to get the hell out of Mancora. So we went back to Piura for a day and I was back at my site by the 2nd.
Never a dull moment.
Today, I went to go see if the things I had ordered from the weavers was ready, but it don’t be ready for about another week because all of the women had to go work in the chacras to plant their corn. Perfectly logical.
Then, I set up a concrete plan for the vacaciones utiles. These “summer school” classes start on January 20th and I will be teaching both primary and secondary school students about environmental topics during their “technology and sciences” hours at least three times a week and starting the world map project with them as well. I’m going to try to go for 2 hours of world map time per day, but don’t know if this is going to be feasible, and I might end up having to use time after school to work on it, but it’s going to be “their” project and we only have a month and a half to finish it, so it’s going to have to be pretty intensive work.
I also set up concrete times to go to the campo over the next few weeks. I will be giving presentations to all of the authority figures in each caserillo to see if they are interested in micro landfill projects.
Tomorrow is the meeting of the medical administrators, so I have to start working hard on a proper medical waste disposal presentation right now.
Work hard, play hard, as they say.
Much love, Paz
Sasha

P.S. New books completed: “Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim” and “Paperback Raita”