adventures in peru...

The Lost Backpacker

2009-12-18T12:24:00.000-08:00

Follow my friend Ken as he begins on an adventure as he backpacks around the world.

www.thelostbackpacker.com

lets try this again..... another massive update

2009-02-23T18:30:00.000-08:00

i thought i'd try to back track and catch up a bit. unfortunately the stories won't be nearly as good being told so far after the fact and some of you i'm sure already heard about a lot of this, but what the heck - at least you'll get to see some pictures. thanks for putting up with me and inconsistence and tardiness. love you and miss you all....

b

Saying goodbye to new friends

2008-10-03T19:28:00.000-07:00

A couple of fotos of the new friends my parents made on their trip to San Miguel. To this day, everyone must ask about my parents at least once a week - how are they doing? when are they coming back to visit, etc.

My friends were REALLY nice to me and my family. I can't tell you how many times over the course of the couple of days there were that they were invited to eat lunch, dinner, desert, etc. And I have to say that my parents did an excellent job of trying to be nice and try all the food and really participate in the culture of San Miguel.

Random Shots

2008-10-03T19:21:00.000-07:00

Some random shots from their trip....

Picking out artisan products, hanging out in front of the chapel, the view from behind the cementary, San Miguel from a distance, and the walk back to their luxurious hotel.

San Miguel hotel: Double bed, one rock hard pillow, half of a towell, electric hot water heater (that overheats and shuts off every 45 seconds): $7

Listening the local drunks across the street blast music all night: Priceless

The Market

2008-10-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

some photos of my parents at the sunday market. the place where i buy all my food.

My Mom's B-day Party

2008-10-03T18:55:00.000-07:00

Somehow my host family had heard that my mom had an upcoming birthday so of course they found it necessary to celebrate it while they were in Peru. After they ate the cuy, we had a full fledged Peruvian birthday complete with beer, cake, and lots of dancing. We even surprised my mom by showing her the custom of having to take a bite of your birthday cake while at the same time everyone else shoves it in your face covering you in frosting. I don't really remember how but somehow we smashed my dad with the cake too.

More fotos from the b-day

2008-10-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

By the end of the birthday party I think we were all a little bit drunk (note my dad playing the flute with my host dad) tired, and in my case - exhausted from translating all day. As usual, we had to come up with some kind of elaborate excuse to why we couldn't drink anymore and why we had to leave. Fortunately my whole host family was really drunk too so we were able to sneak out with out too many problems.

Fried Cuyes!

2008-10-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

My host family wanted to do something special for my real family so they spent all day preparing Cuy for my parents to try! Here's some fotos of my aunt and cousin killing, de-haring, and cleaning out the cuy. Then another photo of my parents enjoying their lunch!

Jangala - Las Ventanillas

2008-10-03T18:23:00.000-07:00

I took my parents on a paseo (fieldtrip) to the closest neighboring town, Jangala, to visit some Incan Ruins called Ventanillas. Basically they are large holes cut into stone walls that they used for burial sites. The holes aren't actually big enough to fit a whole body so its believed that only parts of the body were burried there. For example, if someone died that was a writer - they'd bury his hands in the ventanilla, if someone who died was a good athlete, they might bury his feet. Who knows if thats true not.

Jangala is about a 10 minute car ride away. To get there is waaaay downhill but then waaaay up hill so we took a car there and decided to walk home. On the way back I learned that my mom is deathly afraid of sheep. Wild dogs, I can understand... but sheep? Every time we walked by one (which out here is about every 2 minutes) she'd get all scared and run away real fast.

I decided to take my parents home via the shortcut - which may or may not have been such a good idea. Its about half the distance but the uphill is straight up a rocky hill. I figured if the campesinos can do it with no shoes and babys on their backs it shouldn't be a problem for my parents. Well, i was wrong. I'm sure it was a lot harder because of the altitude making it difficult to breathe but none the less - here's a great foto of the start of the climb. In the end I had to send Neisser running off to grab some bottled water for them. He did the sprint with out a problem -but then again - he's peruvian.

more fotos of my parents trip, story to come - internet has been really slow lately

2008-10-03T17:40:00.000-07:00

Mama y Papa come to visit!

2008-09-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

The first week of May my parents came to visit. I met up with them in Cajamarca and we made our way to San Miguel in the collectivos. I was really worried that my mom would get car sick on the way there so we paid to take a private car ($48 for a 5 hr taxi) so my mom could sit byherself in the front and my dad and I in the back seat. Unfortunately that made it a little less exciting for them – no women breast feeding while their babies rest on our laps, no chickens jumping out of the trunk pecking us in the back of the head, etc. etc. But, all went well because we made it safe and sound to site with out even needing Damamine.

As soon as we showed up at site, my artisans had arranged a party for my parents. They made empenadas, chocolate cake and coffee and tea. Its interesting because my artisan refuse to pay 2-3 soles to attend artisan fairs but they were more than willing to put up about 20 soles to pay for the party for my parents.

In the end it was a good deal for them though because my mom bought a whole bunch of artisan products so she could take them back for her friends and other things to decorate our house.

Camino a Cochan

2008-09-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

Another volunteer named Alex, lives about an hour away by car in a town called Cochan. Well, that would be an hour if you had your own car because yes there is a road, but there is only public transportation half of the way. Well for Alex’s birthday last year I told her I would go visit her at her site. It’s a legal trip according to Peace Corps with out having to take vacation because I can get there and back in one day. So I hopped in a collectivo and went to Llapa, the town halfway between our site and then got out and started walking. Before too long a “lechero” or milk truck passed by and offered to pick me up. I climbed up to the top of the roof of the truck and sat down with a couple of other locals. The road was really bumpy and there was nothing to hold onto but a long bamboo pole. Yeah, that worked real well, for about a whole 2 seconds. As soon as we hit a pot hole I grabbed a hold of the bamboo pole and ALMOST fell backwards and 8 feet down into the back of the truck. Trust me, it was a close one.

After a couple of minutes, we passed the street sign pointing to Cochan. Ok, so its not a street sign but actually a latrine that’s spray painted with arrows pointing in the right direction. The truck passed the latrine and continued and when we reached a small walking path they stopped and shouted up to me to tell me it was time to get off. There’s two ways to get to Cochan by foot, rthe first one is to follow the road and the second way is more direct but by no means marked. It basically involves wandering though fields down a huge valley, crossing a river and heading up another huge hill and eventually stumbling across Cochan. I took route 2.

And I’m on my way…. And as my luck would have it, within about 20 minutes it starts raining. Thankfully I had my Gore-Tex jacket with me but it didn’t help much with the my legs that were quickly drenched. Oh well, I was having fun finding my way, picking flowers, taking pictures all while trying not to slip and fall.

Just before I left, my host dad gave me a note to give to Senor Eduardo Rodrigez who apparentally lives not to far from the river I had to cross. Yes, those were my exact directions of how to find his house to deliver this letter “una casa por la careterra antes que llegas al rio” (a house along the road just before you get to the river). Well that would have been fine if I had taken route #1 by the road. The route I took led me straight to the river with out passing by any houses. Had it not been raining I might have considered walking back to find Senor Eduardo but I was wet and cold and not about to back track. Well, just as I come around a corner by the river there’s an old guy walking with a huge piece of blue plastic used as a poncho. I quickly caught up to him and to ask if he knew this Eduardo guy or where his house is. Score! Turns out he’s Eduardo’s dad so I give him the note from my host dad and ask him to give it to his son. Mission accomplished.

So say goodbye to the old man and I continue on my way. Now its uphill and the fog has come in. Visibility is cut down to about 14 feet. I have no clue where I am or where I’m going. Finally I found a creek bed to follow up the hill. Some campo lady had been walking that way so I decided to follow her but of course she’s too fast for me so I loose her after only a couple of minutes. Whatever - I decided to just keep walking. FINALLY I came across some power lines at a distance – BINGO! I knew Cochan has electricity so I followed the power lines until I came across a house. Outside the house there were 3 little kids but when I asked them if I was going in the right direction to get to Cochan, they looked at me like I was crazy (that could have had something to do with the fact I was drenched and slathered with mud).

Eventually the road flattened out which was my landmark to know I was getting close. The mud got extra thick, dark and extra extra slippery. That’s when I knew I must be real close. (Alex always talks about how slippery the mud is in Cochan – she’s fallen more than once ☺ ). Within minutes I was there. Soaked, shivering, and covered in mud… but alive and well and in Cochan.

So what did I learn from this adventure? 1. You don’t need Gore-Tex, a plastic sheet used as a cape works just find, 2. I’ve got great survival skills and I should really consider a career as in orienteering.

jesuscito rides the burrito

2008-09-21T13:17:00.001-07:00

so this was last year around easter. they call it semana santa here. down in the wee little town of san miguel, they celebrate palm sunday by having a mass in a little chapel by the cementary and then parading Jesuscito con un burrito (little Jesus on a donkey) all though town. i know the time has long passed since then but the experience was priceless so i thought i'd at least post some photos.

way back when

2008-09-21T13:09:00.001-07:00

way back in march i went as a date to another promocion. (kind of like a prom/graduation celebration). check out the bright blue dress i magically found and borrowed from a peruvian friend. believe it or not its from Express - or at least the tag says it is.

you're probably thinking "wow! that dress is really bright" but notice the other dresses and you'll realize mine really isn't that bad.

back by popular demand!

2008-09-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

here i go at the atlanta airport about to fill all of you interested people on my last 6 months or soooo..... happy reading!

damn dogs

2008-04-10T15:06:00.001-07:00

i almost got eaten by a dog while i was running today. i kicked him in his head twice before his owner came over to rescue me. didn't let it stop me though, i actually kicked hiim in stride, turned around and kept going. that thing was massive.

other than that and the fact i almost got hit by a motorcycle and almost fell trying to dodge it..... today was the best run i've had so far at site.

mountain lungs make you tough. my hemoglobin level is so high by now that when i go to t he coast (aka sea level) i don't even bother running - it would be too easy.

Mangoes

2008-04-10T14:13:00.001-07:00

Price of Mangoes in USA: Wegmans Shopper Club Special: 2 x $5 = 1 x $2.50
Price of Mangoes in my site: Market Price: 5 x S/1.00 = 5x$0.30 = 1 X $.06

MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES MANGOES

Oh my gosh, there are soooooooo many mangoes in Peru right now and they are so delicious, so ripe, and soooooooo cheap. I’ve eaten more than I can count. One day I even tried making mango jam. Didn’t turn out so well - next year I think I’ll find an actual recipe instead of just mixing with lots and lots of sugar.

I never though I could sick of the deliciousness that is mangoes but I think I finally did. Who knows, maybe it was the marmalade that makes me naseaous to smell mangos. Anyway, I think I’m going to hold off until next year.

cute campo boy

2008-04-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

this little boy was the son of one of the artisans we went to visit. i couldn't help but snap some shots.

Traditional ¨Callua¨ or belt weaving method

2008-04-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

some more photos from our trip to the campo....

this is how my artisans make our products

another shot

filling out some paper work at a meeting

gosh the rainy season sucks but the green it brings is almost makes it worth it

here´s a shot of my favorite place to run... theres the road on the right

Out in the Campo with the Artisians

2008-04-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Artisans were presented with the opportunity to work with an organization called FONCODES. They’re talking about doing a project to help them find new markets and to teach them how to use sewing machines that they have but don’t know how to use. In order to be approved for the project, we needed to get names and signatures from at least 65 artisans from the surrounding communiites. I went with my counterpart and a lady from FONCODES to two different small towns near by to present the project and to see if there was interest from the different groups.

Everyone that was interested had to sign a paper with their names, DNI (equiv of Social Security Number), their age and their birthdate. It was reallly interesting to see that a handful of them didn't know their DNI and even more didn't remember their birthday. What was even stranger, is about a 1/3 of them, when they told their ages, they didn't match up with their year of birth. I honnestly think they didn't know how old they were or maybe what year they were born. I don't think they were lying to say they were younger.

All in all, this was a great opportunity for me to get out in the cassarios to meet some of the other artisians and see their workshops. It was really in the middle of no where and there were some great views of the green mountains. Unfortunately i only got to snap fotos from the moving car so their not that great.

Laundry!

2008-04-09T18:50:00.000-07:00

Admit it, we all have clothes with pit stains. There isn’t a person on earth that A) doesn’t wear white and B) doesn’t sweat. Some of us can’t bear to part with our favorite shirts so we still wear them, all gross and nasty. Others get rid of them or bury them deep in their closets.

Believe it or not, I’ve found a solution!! To wash clothes here we use powdered detergent along with a bar or soap. Don’t be fooled, this is much more than a bar of soap, it is magical. A little water, a little soap, a scrub scrub scrub, and….. POOF! No more pit stains!

You don’t believe me do you? Well check out this photo. On the left side we have a nicely stained pit. On the right, at one point we did as well but after a little bit of elbow grease it washed right out. Need I say more? I'll be taking orders for the magic soap for those interested.

Bron at work

2008-04-09T18:47:00.001-07:00

I’m sure a bunch of you while reading my blog ask yourselves the question… does Bron ever actually work? Well here you go. For once I got fotos of myselft in action. Mid January I taught my artisan group about “5S” a work place and design technique. I taught ‘em all I knew then we spent the day Sorting, Seting in Order, Shining, Standardizing, and talking about how we were going to Sustain. It was actually pretty cool because a lot of the artisans participated and were shocked with the changes we were able to make.

We threw out millions of unnecessary papers (which later we burnt), rearranged a bunch of equipment, and now we have a clean organized workshop complete with a table and chairs where we can have future meetings.

Unfortunately we don’t have a recycling program in my town so instead they decided to burn the old paperwork we got rid of. It was late in the day and they just wanted to get finished up. In their hastiness, they didn’t stop to check to see that it was only paper they were burning. Within minutes, horrible fumes drifted their way into the workshop. There must have been some kind of plastic in there and lighting the fire with petroleum sure didn’t help the cause.

Carnival

2008-04-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

Carnival is the equivalent of Mardi Gras. A huge party that lasts for weeks, as it leads up to Ash Wednesday. Its different in Peru than other parts of the world. The way we celebrate it here is with water. In between New Years and Ash Wednesday its an “Official Undeclared Water War”. At any time of any day you have full rights to completely drench anyone you’d like with water. Women, children, the elderly, disabled and pregnant are all fair game. Its mostly done with water baloons but super soakers, buckets or hoses all work too.

This time of year Sunday becomes my favorite day of the week. Sundays everyone comes into town to go to the market. The streets fill with people and they all make great targets. As a former Gore Associate, I am a proud owner of many waterproof articles of clothing. I gown up in my jacket and boots, fill 14 waterballoons, place 7 in each jacket pocket and head to the streets.

If you were to actually pay attention, I’d look quite lumpy through my jacket. But as I casually stroll down my street no one ever seemed to take notice. At the sound of an exploding balloon and kids screaming across the street I’d secretly whip one out and pelt a innocent passerby. The people in the streets got a kick out of it – because ok, in reality it is mostly just children who partake in these festivites. One day I was like James Bond, hiding out side the door of a house, waiting for three guys to walk out. Meanwhile the people sitting across the street were giving me tips as to when they were sneaking out the other door so I could go and get them from behind.

My favorite was get the students from my old English class. They’d walk by and BAM!!! Never expecting it.

One time there was a little punk boy bothering my at the internet asking me a million questions and when I politely asked him to leave me along many times, he just kept on talking to me. Well, I sure showed him. One Sunday afternoon I was casually walking by the plaza (or so it seemed). I spotted that kid – and WHAM! Right in the back of the head. I never thought I had such good aim. Maybe my years of playing softball finally paid off.

Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of me throwing water baloons but here are a couple of great shots of some kids playing down the street.

Site Visits

2008-04-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Once a year my APCD Alfredo(Peace Corps Boss) makes a visit to my site. It’s a way to check up on things, see how I’m doing, etc. etc. Well since Tiffany and I share a site both of our APCDs planned on coming together – or so we thought. Turns out that both of them, their program assistant Mariu, Marko the ACD (Assistant Country Director) and Michael the CD(Country Director). Talk about a little pressure huh?

So they made their way here in the Peace Corps car – a new LandRover in great condition. We had lunch at Tiffany’s house, took a peak at my house and my room them went to meet the Artisians. At that point it was pretty late and we had to head out of town. It was really foggy, so bad that you couldn’t see the Church from across the plaza. By the time we actually got in the car you couldn’t see more that 8 feet in front of us. We took off and headed to Cochan to pick up Alex.
This time of year, the road between San Miguel and Cochan is often impassable. At times the mud gets so thick that the milk trucks can’t even go through. Well, we heard it wasn’t that bad this week so we decided, what the hell? Lets give it a go.

Oh boy... I think it would be in my best interest to spare some of the fine details from my blog. You never know who from PC is going to read this. But lets just say its was the most awful, dangerous ride I’ve ever been on. We got stuck, changed drivers more than once, a few people refused to stay in the car so they got out and walked in mud past your ankles, more than once we seriously almost tipped off the side of the cliff, and I swear one time we were at a 45 degree angle leaning into the side of the mountain. We had a designated person to pray, a car full of backseat drivers, and me in the way back taking fotos and enjoying every adventurous minute of it. Unfortunately the fotos are in Alfredos camera so I can’t post them. But if I ever get him to send them to me I’ll be sure to put them up.

The road to Cochan usually takes an hour. This time it took 2.5. By the time we got there everyone but me almost strangled Alex. She quickly jumped in the car and we headed on our way to Cajamarca.

Stripe aka Bala

2008-04-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

One morning mid- January I walk out of my room to find the cutest little puppy standing in my back yard staring at me. Now I’m not a dog person but this one was adorable. I wasn’t quite sure where she came from or why she was in my back yard but to be honest I wasn’t really surprised. Come on, we used to have a pet deer tied up back there.

Before long, my host mom came out to tell me she brought the puppy home with her from Trujillo (where she was on vacation). She said she got her to help “guardar la casa” (guard the house). Awww, a cute little puppy to scare away burgurlars. What a great idea.

As you can see, she’s got this white strip down her face so and she didn’t have a name so I took it upon myself to call her “Stripe”. I even made her a name tag, put it on her and took her out for a walk. I should have known better than to name her that, Peruvians can’t for the life of them say words that start with the letter “S”. When I told my host mom and dad her new name they tried to say it and it came out more like “Es- striip”.

Fast forward two weeks….. I get home from vacation and she’s got a new name – Bala. Spanish for “Bullet”. Seeing how she bounces around like crazy, I think its appropriate and much easier to say for that matter.

Bala likes to eat me. My hands, my feet, my toes, my clothes. And I wasn’t sure why, but I kept finding her in my dirty clothes bucket. I really didn’t understand what she wanted with it until Chip explained to me that puppies like to play with clothes that are really dirty and smell really bad because it reminds them of the people that wear them. Well, by the time my clothes are declared dirty enough to deserve a good hand washing, they definitely reek. And that awful smell reminds her of me? Yeah, that makes me feel real good.

my grandpa has a mullito part 3

2008-04-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

ahhh, aren´t i soooo cute. ok - so maybe its the puppy thats the cute one

the group of puppies are hiding out in a pile under the ladder. my g-pa came out to protect me from their verocious dad with his ever-ready machete.

do they cut their feathers or are they born with that kick ass hairstyle?

On the way home from Cruz Pampa I passed by the pony express heading up the hill. There were two horses walking up with crates of mangos strapped on their backs. The strangest part was there wasn’t anyone with the horses. How did they know where to go? More importantly, how did they get the mangoes on their back?

horses walkin´ solo but somehow know where to go

my grandpa has a mullito part 2

2008-04-09T18:28:00.000-07:00

sorry this was split up into 3 different entries -i've been having lots of problems loading my photos. finally i gave up and went to a different internet place and finally it worked.

While I was up in the campo of course I got put to work. Can’t just sit back and take photos all day. I was charged with the duty of choppin’ down grass to take back to the cuyes and bunny. (PS – did I tell you the cute small white bunny died?) Here’s some fotos of Bron hard at work – that is of course after I took over from my grandma and my little brother. I filled that damn sack up and took my grass back to my hungry bunny.

And I'm Back!

2008-04-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

Alright…. I know, I’m a slacker. I could come up with excuses like how all the crazy things that happen in my life here in Peru strangely seem normal and I don’t even think to share them or that its been raining here for a month now and to sit inside writing on my computer would just make me more sad and depressed and I really don’t want that……. BUT the time has come. NO MORE EXCUSES! The bolg is BACK!
So here I go typing away while I sit on my bed drinking a tea to abrigarme (warm me up) cuddling with my puppy Bala.

DISCLAIMER: i've been spending hours tying to load my photos today and its not working very well.... so when the internet wants to cooperate i'll be putting them up.

2008-04-03T15:09:00.000-07:00

My Grandpa has a mullito

2008-04-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

I’m sorry to say but unfortunately mullito is not Spanish for “Small Mullet”. No folks, it means little mule. Right around new year’s I headed up to Cruz Pampa, the campo where my g-pa’s live with Tiffany. My mom had told me that a mule had just been born and I couldn’t resist but go up to investigate.

Turns out there was more than just a mullito. There was a baby horse, baby chickens, puppies, kitties, and piglets. What a field day! I went behind the house to see the puppies and the dad dog flipped out and ferouciouslly barked at me. Luckily he was tied up but not worry because my grandpa came from out front with his machete in case things got out of hand.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t want anyone out there thinkin’ I’m some cat lady that sends out those beyond ridiculous e-mails with photos of cats reading the newspaper or dogs answering the telephone – you know what I’m talking about. But you do have to admit these photos are pretty adorable.

2007 almost over

2008-01-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

As the year comes to an end we all look to ourselves to ask what we’ve done in these last 365 days. What things we have done, but more importantly what have we accomplished or should I say ¨finished¨?

In the last 6 months alone I have finished:
1 bottle of shampoo (yes – only one in 6 months)
3 bottles of conditioner (takes more to detangle your hair when you don’t wash it often)
1 bottle of face wash
1/2 of a bar of soap (what does it say about me that my friends send me bars of soap in the mail?)
2/3 bottle of body wash (yeah you were thinking I was pretty gross with only 1/2 bar of soap in 6 mths huh?)
1 1/2 tubes of tooth paste (and that’s only because it exploded in my suitcase once)

Christmas Day

2008-01-02T18:22:00.001-08:00

I woke up in the morning still exhausted and really full form dinner the night before. I opened up the presents my parents had sent me in the mail and watched the movie “The Holiday” alone in my bed. (Great movie by the way) But before I could finish it I had a friend calling me, forcing me to get my sad butt out of bed and to go spend Christmas day with him and his family.

So I ended up spending the day like any other Peruvian holiday. We eat rice and potatoes and then sat around passing the bottle of beer. It didn’t feel anything like Christmas at all but it was really nice to spend the day with this family because they tried really hard to make me feel at home.

When I finally got home at night I curled up on the couch with my little brother and my mom and we watched “The Santa Claus” (which is waaaay better than the Arnold movie).

Noche Buena

2008-01-02T18:20:00.003-08:00

Everyone has been asking so here’s what Peruvians do to celebrate Christmas. Most people build a Nacamiento (manger scene) in their houses. They do it with this weird green paper, live plants and little figurines for the people and animals. Then they top it all off with singing Christmas lights. Some people have Christmas trees but not many, and they are all artificial. I picked one up last time I was in the city for ~$10, it was pretty crappy but I really didn’t want to spend Christmas with out a tree.

A lot of people go to mass on Christmas Eve (Noche Buena) but not everyone. I went and my one brother was singing in the choir while the other one went as a Pastorcito (a little Shepard). There was a whole bunch of little kids that participated in a procession before the mass, all the little boys were dressed in ponchos and sombreros with canes, and the little girls had their hair in braids and wore white blouses with campo skirts and little baby dolls tired around their backs (like all Peruvian moms do). Their dancing and singing was so adorable it was about the only thing that put a smile on my face all day.

On a side note a bunch of my students in my English class started bringing their kids with them to class, then one day this girl brought her daughter and her dog with her. I was a little annoyed with the dog until Tiffany mentioned that people always bring their dogs to church, why not to English class? Well a couple of days later I was in mass and noticed a dog running through the pews.

Back to Christmas Mass, I walked into the church that night and someone had brought two sheep to mass with them. One baby sheep and one mama sheep. At first I thought, maybe they were part of some kind of manger scene, nope, just someone’s pets that they didn’t want to leave at home. What I want to know is what happens when the animals go to the bathroom? I’m sure the sheep aren’t house trained.

During mass, there was this LOUD noise coming from the row behind me, I turn around and this guys is passed out and snoring SOOO loud. Someone was trying to wake him up and kept shoving him real hard but the guy just kept on snoozing. It must have gone on for at least 20 minutes.

After mass we “celebrated Christmas” at my house with my family. This meant that at midnight about 20 of us packed into our kitchen to eat turkey, apple sauce, panneton (fruit cake), and drink hot chocolate. I made sweet potatoes and crunchy coleslaw salad to go with it all since I wasn’t about to eat the turkey. I probably didn’t known who half of the people in the room were but I’m sure they’re related. Afterwards, we all went up stairs to I guess is what you would call the “family room” where my tree was and we opened presents. In Peru each person only gets one small present if even that. I gave my host parents and bothers each a brand new Nalgene bottle that I had my real parents send from back home. They always like to play with mine and still don’t believe me that they are unbreakable so I thought it would be something easy I could give them that they would like.

After we finished all of that I was soooooo exhausted, you wouldn’t even believe. After a week of being sad and stress I give myself from crying, I was so tired I couldn’t even keep my eyes open. So at 2am off I went to sleep.

Christmas Time

2008-01-02T18:20:00.001-08:00

Not going to write much her other than the fact that this week is been incredibly sad and depressing. This was my first time not with my family for the holidays and the traditions here are completely different (basically they really just don’t do much at all) so I spent a number of days this week breaking down and crying.

On Sunday I went to the market and on my walk home I burst out crying, hoping I could hide it under my sunglasses. When I finally got home I went to my room to be alone. Afterwards, I made Kraft Mac for lunch and cooked a whole batch of brownies for myself. (OK, so I shared them with a friend later, but definitely hid them from my family). That night I went to my friend’s house where we watched a really bad Christmas movie (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger) ate popcorn and drank Mojitos. Can you tell that food is where I look to for comfort??

Rice and Potatoes

2008-01-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

Alex after returning back to her site after reconnect had become completely and utterly disgusted at the though of eating any more rice and potatoes. I think her exact words were: “If I even look at rice and potatoes, it makes me want to vomit”.

Well, Alex lost her cell phone and PC was sending her new SIM card through the mail to Cajamarca. She asked if Ari and I could pick it up for her and send it with the collectivos that go to Cochan (her site) so she could get it with out having to go to the city. Of course, we said, anything to help out a friend. (ha ha ha….)

That same day Tiffany had gotten some super huge meal for lunch and of course couldn’t finish it all so left the massive pile of rice and potatoes. We had been contemplating what to get Alex for Christmas when all of a sudden it came to us. “Let’s send her a bolsita (baggie) full of the left over rice and potatoes with her SIM card!” Genius.

So we got the SIM card, put it in an envelop with the R&P and sent it on its way. We were afraid it might not get there because someone in the collectivo might smell the R&P through the bag and get excited and open it up and eat it. But fortunately it made it there and when Alex had her SIM card back and working she called us to thank us for her present. She failed to mention though if the site of it made her vomit.

My Turkey is drunk…

2008-01-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

Everybody in Peru eats Turkey on Christmas Eve. Now this ain’t like in the states where you go to Wegmans and pick up your frozen Turkey. Seeing how we don’t have refrigerators in my town, or supermarkets for that matter. The other day I was taking a collectivo (long distance taxi jammed with way too many people) into the city and I can’t even count how many cars we passed with turkeys on the roof. Imagine this, a white Toyota Camry station wagon with 8 live turkeys tied to the roof, each wrapped up in their own little bag with only their ugly little heads sticking out.

So we’ve had this turkey in our back yard gobbling for a couple of days now and I wake up Dec 24 in the morning to find him lifelessly passed out on the ground. I felt bad for the little guy and as I called him pobrecito (poor liitle guy) my aunt got all flustered and worried shouting, “oh no! esta muerto?” (oh no, is he dead?) I responded “pienso que si” (uh, duh it sure looks like it!). She quickly ran over to look and thankfully said, “ahhh, no esta muerto, el esta borracho” (he’s not dead, he’s just drunk!). And of course she said it like it was a good thing.

Apparently they feed turkeys cunazco (peruvian moonshine) to get them nice and drunk until they pass out. That way it’s easier to kill them later. I think I remember Roland telling a story once about he’s adventures killing turkeys on a farm in Israel, something about swinging them around by the neck and how inhumane it was. Maybe they should try getting them wasted first, maybe it would make it easier??

Promocion

2008-01-02T18:06:00.000-08:00

Peruvians like to party. (Had you figured that one out yet??). I think it gets taken a little too far when they have huge formal fiestas called Promociones for when you finish High School, Elementary School, and even when you finish Pre-school. Here’s a little bit about how they work.

Girls get a prom like dress, and everyone in the class has to wear the same color. They also get their hair done and wear lots of make up. They have their date (pareja), and then each kid has a madrina and a pradrino (godmother and godfather) to accompany them for the day.

I was asked to be madrina for Yanina, a girl somehow related to me, I guess I’ll call her my cousin. Yanina was finally finishing elementary school at the age of 14. I think she was held back once or twice because all the other kids in her class were only 12. My brother Jando was her date and some guy named Jose from the health post was the padrino.

The day started off with a mass. Then we continued on to the ceremony, which was as boring as you could ever imagine. Afterwards there was a lunch complete with…. You guessed it: rice and potatoes! They also served us cuy but we both know I’m not about to eat those little guys. After lunch, the parents broke out the beer. I had no desire to drink especially at 2 in the afternoon. Luckily I’ve gotten pretty good at making it look like I’m pouring it in the glass then sipping it, when really I’m dumping it all out on the floor. Meanwhile everyone around me is getting sloshed.
Before long I notice my cousin and her friends are passing their own bottle. Soon, they finish it off and my cousin comes over with another asking her dad to open another. Without hesitation its open and he hands it back to them. A few minutes later they are toasting with their teacher! Doesn’t anyone see something wrong with this picture?

By the end of the night my campo relatives are D-R-U-N-K. They’re dancing the “huyano” and there’s hardly anyone left but them. I glance over and see my little brother Jhair passing the bottle with my cousin. He’s only 8! At this point I’m done. I grab my brother and start walking home.

Half an hour later my cousin, aunt and uncle show up at the house with Yanina’s cake. Every kid gets their own personal cake during promociones. I had been waiting all day for that thing, finally I got my piece of sugary goodness. My aunt, uncle and cousin ate theirs with their hands, shoving it in their faces insisting they had to eat it all now because it would be too heavy to carry home. In reality it was because they were…. WASTED!

Support Group for People with Disabilities

2008-01-02T18:04:00.001-08:00

One of the secondary projects I’m working with is a support group for disabled people. The group is very passionate with their desire to help people but is extremely disorganized, and at times I really want nothing to do with them. For example, they have plans to build a rehabilitation center complete with medical staff, physical therapy, speech therapy and more. Sounds like a great idea but is the little town of San Miguel really an appropriate place for such a thing? Hmmm, maybe not.

Anyway, this group planned a Chocolatada (Christmas Party) for all the disabled children in the surrounding campo of San Miguel. I thought it sounded like a great idea so I told them I would be happy to help out in any way I could.

When I showed up there was a room full of stuff for us to give away to kids and their families. Someone had donated about 10 boxes of used clothing, a bunch of toys and balls, and a whole table full of candy. We got it organized and ready to give away and soon the families started showing up.

In walked extremely poor families from the campo. Most of them had old ragged clothes and only a few wore shoes. With each family was with a child with some sort of disability, anything from Down’s syndrome to being blind. Some were in wheel chairs; others that couldn’t walk were carried in on the backs of their parents. Most of the families had to walk for a couple of hours to get there. One came from so far away they had to walk for 5 hours! And after the party, they were just going to have to turn around and walk back home.

The party started off with a bunch of songs and games and then we had a talk given by the psychologist from the health post and another by one of the doctors. Afterwards we served hot chocolate, panneton (fruit cake that Peruvians love), crackers and cookies. Then we started handing out the toys and clothes. These things were so old, worn and out of style I don’t think even good will would want to take them. But the people at this party were overjoyed to receive anything they could. Who would have ever thought that just to get an old pair of jeans or a ragged sweater would light up their faces like it did?

As soon as the party was over, people started jumping up to start cleaning. I had girls running up to me asking for more brooms to help sweep. Others were putting the chairs away, and taking the decorations down. I’d never seen such a thing, people actually asking to clean up after their own party? These were some really great full people. A whole bunch of people came up to me and grabbed me then gave me a huge bear hug and saying their thank yous over and over again. Some even started to cry with their gratitude. I didn’t know what to say, I hadn’t done anything to deserve their thanks. It was definitely the most humbling experience I’ve had in my time in Peru.

Arianna comes to town

2008-01-02T17:57:00.000-08:00

Ari was told by Kitty, her APCD to come visit us in San Miguel While she was here we went for bike ride and took some killer photos.

Chocolatada

2008-01-02T17:52:00.004-08:00

I got together with a group of friends for a Chocolatada. It’s basically a mini party with hot chocolate and we did a Secret Santa. I picked my friend Patty for the gift exchange so I got her a Chalina (mini scarf) from my artisan group; I thought it was really pretty hopefully she liked it. Tiffany got a mini teapot and set of cups and saucers that was really cute. She ended up having me for the Secret Santa, and what did I get???

Two baby bunnies! Only in Peru do you get animals for Christmas presents. So I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to my bunnies but they are so soft and cute I can’t resist playing with them. I named them Flip and Flop. Neisser checked and we’re not sure but we think one’s a boy and one’s a girl. You know what that means; I’m going to have little conejitos (baby bunnies)! I took them home and put them in the cage with the cuyes because apparently they can live together.

The next morning I had to leave at 5am in the madrugada (car that leaves in the middle of the night) and since I had gotten home late from the party I didn’t have time to tell anyone about my new pets. Well the next day my aunt was feeding the cuyes when POOF! There were bunnies in the cage too! She stood there with her mouth open shocked. My little brother was totally confused as well. He was convinced that it was witchcraft that someone changed the cuyes into bunnies. I wish I had been there to see their faces.

Teo Update

2008-01-02T17:52:00.003-08:00

I ran into Teo in town today (By the way, she’s not living with us right now – instead my aunt is coming over everyday to cook and clean). She decided to name the baby something other than Bron. Ahhhh.

Oh well, I’m sure she’s better off that way.

Dance Class

2008-01-02T17:52:00.001-08:00

Believe it or not I joined a dance class. It’s a really fun group of people about my age and we are learning traditional Peruvian danzas. The second day I went we learned this step that was soooooo hard, I could barely walk by the end of the class. It went something like this… a series of 6 lunges that you do really quickly switching sides, then you stand up, walk 3 steps to the left and do 3 lunges, walk back 3 steps, do 3 more and then start it all over again. You do that about 10 times per dance. In totally I don’t even know how many we did but I do know if you even want a good inner thigh work out, this is it.

Pepito part 2

2008-01-02T17:51:00.000-08:00

Pepito has been real “mal creado” this week. So bad, he banged his head up against something so hard, he knocked out one of his antlers. The next day he attacked both my dad and my brother. My family doesn’t seem to understand that deer aren’t supposed to be pets or why they might be a little rambunctious if tied up to a metal post.

Well regardless, my dad decided that he was too dangerous so with in less than one week he decided to sell him. I gave him a pet goodbye and off he went.

Pepito

2008-01-02T17:50:00.001-08:00

My family has a new pet; his name is Pepito (little Petey). He’s a deer. He likes to eat carrots and the cuyes are afraid of him. He stays tied up in our ity bity back yard and hangs out all day. He’s got a red bandana around his neck a little horns, I think I’m going to paint his nose red and call him Rudolph.

My dad says he’s real “mal creado” (bad behaved) because he tries to attack people as they walk by. Personally I think he likes me, maybe because I’m gringa. He hasn’t been eating very much so my dad decided to take him up to Cruz Pampa where he could graze in the fields. (Hmmm, maybe like a deer should instead of tied up in my back yard?). Well, this same day, my dad decided to spend the majority of the day drinking so by the time he came home with the deer my dad was plastered and he walked Pepito straight into the kitchen to eat his dinner. I had just cooked Pizza and chocolate chip cookies for my family. My dad insisted that I had to feed Pepito my pizza. I think NOT!

La Bebita

2008-01-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

While I was in Huanchaco for reconnect, my host parents called me to say that Teo had her baby and it was a little girl!

On my way home from reconnect I was waiting for a car in Chillete. I had been sitting there for about half an hour when I finally realized I was only about 10 feet away from Teo and her newborn baby! It was a little strange because as I walked over, Teo whipped out her boob and started breast-feeding. Women do that all the time here. Meetings, busses, in the plaza, during mass… you name it, Peruvian moms are feeding their babies and they don’t by any means do it discreetly.

Regardless the baby is adorable and is so little. I don’t think I’ve ever held a baby that young before. I think she was only 3 days old. When I asked if I could hold her Teo asked back “puedes?” (can you really???) Like she was shocked I actually knew how. Its not that hard, you just put your arms out and lay the baby in them right?

Slightly nervous I asked what she decided to call the baby and she said….. Bron! Oh poor little girl. She’s in for a long ride: Brawn, Brown, Braun……

Teo

2008-01-02T17:45:00.001-08:00

Teo is the chica that lives and works in my house. She cooks and cleans and is incredibly pregnant. Today we walked up to Cruz Pampa, a 30 minute walk up a steep hill and I was sooo scared she was gonna burst and give birth with only me around to help.

Teo went to the health post two weeks ago for a check up and the doctor told her she had to go to Cajamarca that week to have a C-Section. Well, Teo’s mom said she wasn’t ready yet and couldn’t go until she was in more pain (mind you, her feet are so swollen and her tummy is so big she can barely walk). A week later, Teo was apparently in enough pain so she went to Cajamarca and they told her she wasn’t ready to give birth and to go back home. Now what? Just sit and wait?

Usually it’s just her and I home in the mornings. I’m so afraid that one day she’s going to go into labor and I’m going to be the only one around to help. You know what I’m going to do if that happens, I’ll run as fast as I can and grab the obstetrician form the health post down the hill. There’s no such thing as 911 around here.

She’s been trying to come up with some names but has no idea what to call the baby. She keeps asking me for help and asked me to write her a list of American names for her to choose from. Still clueless if it’s a boy, but if it’s a girl she says she’ll call it Nicole Bron. I love my name but people in the US get so confused with it and it’s 100 times worse here. I’m a foreigner and only here for 2 years. Can you imagine the poor little girl having to go through that her whole life??

Reconnect

2008-01-02T17:28:00.000-08:00

Last time I wrote I was in Huanchaco for Reconnect. Here’s some cool photos I took at the beach.

Where have I been the last month and a half?

2007-11-22T22:33:00.001-08:00

The second weekend of October I went to an Artisan Fair at the US Embassay in Lima with my weavers. It was a lot of fun because almost all of the small business development group was there. It was really great to see everybody and to be all together again. BUT, each one of us had our counterparts with us from our organizations and it was pretty much a week a full out babysitting them. Imagine bringing some county folk down from the mountains and into the big city! They didn't know what to do with themselves. Freddie's counterpart was afraid to cross the street in Lima and refrused to stay in the hostel alone. She insisted on coming to dinner with us and when we went to go grab a drink afterwards, she totally fell asleep at the bar. Ahhh, perfect solution.... take her home, put her to sleep and then head back out!

The fair was great from a business perspective. My group sold about 2000 soles with of products making them the organization with the highest sales. BUT the fair was half inside and half outside and of course my group got stuck outside in the freezing cold wet drizzly crappy weather of Lima. By the end of the day I was so exhauseted from standing up all day and being wet and cold I slept like a baby on my overnight bus ride home.

Back in Action....

2007-11-22T22:20:00.000-08:00

Well I never finished telling you about the rest of the fiestas so I'll sum it up real quick here. Every night for two weeks there was a live band in the plaza with drinking and dancing till all hours of the night. Being the great Peace Corps Volunteer that I am, I went the extra mile to "integrate with my community".... One night we stayed out dancing so long that we were in the plaza until the sun came up. You didn't really notice it too much until it was so bright they turned off the street lights. When the clock stuck 6am we headed to the adobe oven to get fresh bread. The bread here is so delicious when it is hot out of the oven, it has a really good whole grain honey taste that you just can't pass up. Yummmm. We left the oven and headed home, only with out a key of course. (still don't have one at this point) So I had to knock on the door and wake my family up to let me in. Needless to say they weren't very happy.

For the next month I took shit from my dad from partying soo much during the fiestas. Everyday he'd say "Mucho Baile, Mucha Cerveza" (Lots of dancing, lots of drinking).

Fiestas

2007-10-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Every town in Peru has their own festival. My town celebrates the entire month of September as the coming of their Arc Angel San Miguel. It’s the time of the year that all of the people come out to be together. Like a American holiday its full of parades and fireworks but as you should know by now, Peruvians wouldn’t stop there … there’s also a huge Ag/Art fair, marching bands, castillos (firework towers), live music until 5am, soccer games, bull fights, and tons of drinking and dancing.

I had been hearing about the “fiesta” since I got to town, but now I really know what they were all talking about. The festival takes place the last few days of the month, but in reality it’s the entire last two weeks. Actually you can’t even really say that, starting the first of the month, every night there was a special mass and about once a week a procession through the streets afterwards. Technically, the fiestas started the 17th. But, even then, there was a huge pre-party the night before.

I’m going to take the next couple of entries to talk about the different aspects of the festival. Overall it was a blast, and as my counterpart suggested, maybe some of you guys will be able to come visit to experience it next year.

The coming of the Arc Angel

2007-10-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

So it all begins with a procession through town led by children from the elementary school, a marching band, and the Priest. I’m still working on my Catholic vocab but I’m pretty confident they went through the stages of a typical mass while parading through the streets. At one point I swear I caught the tune of the “Our Father” and later the Nicene Creed. The whole time, they are carrying a figurine of the Arc Angel up on huge pedestal. When the procession got to the plaza (center of town) there were huge drawings done in the street of things significant to the fiesta. They are created by different groups of people, this one below was done by the high school students.

The procession went through the plaza and ended up at the church. For the next THREE hours, all the important organizations in the town paraded up the church with a banner and a spokesperson said their blessings for the town and the fiesta. I peaced out to go tomar (to drink) some Coca Cola with some friends. (Sounds strange, but yeah, if they aren’t sharing a bottle of beer, they’re sharing some soda).

Castillos

2007-10-09T11:34:00.000-07:00

It’s a Peruvian tradition to build gigantic towers out of bamboo, some almost 4 stories high, full of firecrackers. They are arranged in sequence in different shapes and colors all connected with one fuse. They are lit at the bottom and over the course of 5-10 minutes there is a huge firecracker/light show that is an engineering masterpiece, amazingly beautiful, and as scary as shit.

Every night of the fiesta there are at least 2 castillos. Towards the end of the fiesta there were up to six. They spend the evening constructing them, and anywhere between 11pm and 1am they get lit off. If you are lucky they are accompanied by “las vacas locas” and real fireworks. La Vaca Loca is a lifesize cow made out of paper covered in firecrackers. Someone stands under it and runs around like crazy chasing after people as the fireworks shoot off. Definitely dangerous, definitely illegal in the states, definitely my favorite part of the show.

The castillos are built with shapes that spin as they spit out fire. As soon as one part dies off, the next part is lit and shooting sparks out at the crowd. You can stand as close or as far away as you want…. but be careful because if you’re not, you’ll definitely get burned. The best part of the castillos is when they shoot these bamboo circles up the in air. They spin and spin really high, until the flame runs out and they fall fast to the ground. There’s no telling where there’re going to land. Sometimes they land on the roof of the church or another building, but one night a giant one fell to the center of the plaza, hit a lamp post and then fell on a group of people. Once again, definitely illegal.

I totally plan on constructing one of these when I go back to the states.

The Fair

2007-10-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

There’s a huge Agricultural Fair that takes place in the middle of the fiesta. My counterpart was VP of the fair committee so I got to help plan it. Really all I did was sit in meetings nodding my head because I was too bored to listen (I’m real good at zoning out and with Spanish its that much easier). But the cool part was that I met a lot of important and interesting people in my community.

Throughout the entire fair we got to wear baseball hats and incredibly nerdy vests that were John Deere green and yellow. The vest has 11 pockets and 2 pencil holders. The whole point of it was to be easily identifiable in case anyone needed any help. I think they just wanted to look cool. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of me sportin’ the outfit but here’s an idea of what they looked like.

Formalities

2007-10-09T11:32:00.000-07:00

Peruvians are pretty formal about a lot of things. It’s a little strange for such an underdeveloped country but it’s definitely a part of the culture here. I struggle a lot knowing when to use tu versus usted (the formal and informal versions of the word “you” in Spanish). Working with the fair committee I learned more about how they refer to people by their professional titles as well.

My counterpart is a teacher at the local teacher’s institute. Instead of calling her by name, most people referred to her as “Professora”. Another guy in the meeting must have his PhD in something to do with agriculture because everyone calls him “Doctor”. My favorites though, are the engineers. There are a couple of guys on the committee that are agricultural engineers and everyone refers to them very respectfully as “Ingeneros”.

I think I’m going to make a request that everyone calls me “Ingenera” from now on. When else in my life will I have the chance to be referred to by distinguished title? Might as well take advantage of it while I can. It’s like being a doctor or a lawyer in the states. I’ll never be “Dr. Bronwen”. I worked my ass off for my Industrial Engineering degree, might as well get some benefit from it. So I haven’t done a thing engineering related since the day I graduated, no one here knows that.

That’s it, no more “Senorita Bron” it’s “Ingenera”, thank you very much.

Fashion Show

2007-10-09T11:31:00.000-07:00

My counterpart had a great idea to have a fashion show during the fair. She wanted to demonstrate all the different products my group makes and different ways you can wear them. Tiffany got a group of girls she works with at the school to help as models. Together we put on a fashion show and it was hit to say the least.

We did two passes, one with formal wear and another with casual clothing. Tiffany and I were going to put together a mix cd with songs like “I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it hurts…..” but last minute we ran out of time. Instead we strutted our stuff to Peruvian tunes. The girls looked great and so did the products.

In all seriousness, it was a success. I had at least 10 people come up to me afterwards to congratulate me. And hearing feedback on the entire fair, many people said the best part overall was the fashion show. Most importantly, my artistian group had people waiting to buy scarves and ponchos after the show. I mean come on, what Peruvian can resist gringas on parade??

La Vacita

2007-10-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

On the side of being a police man, my dad raises a bunch of vacas (cows). He asked me if I would pasear (walk around) with his vacita (little cow) during the fair. Of course I accepted, but at the time I thought it was a little calf. Little did I know it was a full grown female cow.

The day of the fair comes and “Lucy” is well groomed and ready to show. They called our number and I walk here out to be judged. Now folks, if you know anything about me, you’d know I’m pretty competitive. There was no way we were going to loose this competition. I’ve got the gringa thing going for me, but to win with a bunch of farmer boys you have to take it a step further.

I walked out there like a true campesino woman, complete with a sombrero and my hair in braids. Instantly you could hear the chatter in the crowd. Who’s that? Why is she with that cow? Who does the cow belong to?? The judge was equally confused.

I showed the cow, walked it a perfect circle, showed it again and…….. won first place! Yeah, I like to kick some butt now and then. I also like to make my family proud. Here’s me, Lucy, my grandpa, dad, mom, and little brother.

Artisan Products

2007-10-09T11:29:00.000-07:00

Every group of artisans or agriculturists had there own stand to exhibit their products. There was one with yogurt and cheese, another with avocados as big as butternut squash and a bunch with potatoes. My artisan group set up a booth displaying a bunch of their products. I spent the two days walking around modeling the products trying to convince people to buy. My favorite part was when I put on the poncho and sombrero and walked through the group of campesino men. I tell you, you’ve got to take advantage of being a gringo when you can.

The second day they had a demonstration and a competition of all the artisan products. Cha Ching…. My group took both first and second place! Rock on. Here’s a quick look at some of what they can do. When I get a chance I’ll take some better photos and post them in case anyone is interested in placing an order.

Payback time….

2007-10-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

So I got my payback for workin’ it like a gringa. The day of the fashion show I was getting an unbelievable amount of attention. I’m not used to having the spotlight on me like that and honestly it’s a little annoying. After a long day of it, its really annoying. Especially when you know its only because you have blue eyes and light hair.

So at lunch time, I get invited to tomar (pass the bottle) with the alcalde (mayor), the President of the fair, and a couple of other old men. All of them had to be between 45 and 65 years old. And ALL of them were fighting over who was going to marry me. At one point the alcalde told me he wanted to take me to his tierra (where he grew up) so I could meet his family. I’m pretty certain all four of these men are already married.

At then end of the day I was walking out with a group of people and I was just at the door when someone shouted for me to come back in. Nieve little me decided to be polite so I went back in to say hello. Hello turned into passing the bottle with the fair planning committee.

Thirty minutes later I found myself the only woman amongst ~45 men. There were two bands playing traditional Peruvian music and over and over again I was asked to dance. Me and my random partners always ended up as the center of attention as the others watched me attempt salsa, huyano, and marinara. I literally probably danced with 20 different men and I probably only knew 5 of their names.

I was exhausted, out of breath, and still with the sombrero and braids by the way. At then end of every dance they insisted on taking pictures with me. I’m totally going to start charging for photos. Do you have any idea how much money I could have made? I’m a small business volunteer, that should count as work right?

There were a couple of fun dances – one with my dad, another with my 75 year old campo grandpa. I was so scared he was going to have a heart attack. At times he has trouble walking and here he is hopping and jumping to huyano music. Can you imagine if my g-pa passed out while dancing with me??

After two hours of creepy old men insisting I dance with them, I told my dad I had to leave and I booked it out of there. The next day I got more smiles from random dudes than you can even imagine. The best were with ones with only a few teeth. I can only imagine where they know me from. The fashion show, the vacita, the beer and dancing…..who knows.

Dentures….

2007-10-09T11:27:00.000-07:00

Teeth in Peru are a subject by themselves. Campesino people generally have between 3 and 10 teeth. People in town usually have more but guaranteed, one of the top front ones is plated in gold. If not completely covered, definitely outlined. Talk about Bling Bling!

Well, while at the fair I went off to use the bathroom and when I went to the sink afterwards I saw this campesino lady. She was at the sink too and before she washed her hands, she reached her fingers up to her mouth. I was so grossed out I had to watch. I couldn’t believe she was going to pick her teeth after coming from the toilet but at the same time I was mystified at what beautiful teeth she had. Oh, Oh, wait, wait, just then as she reached for her mouth she grabbed a full set of dentures, both top and bottom to rinse out at the sink.

I was dying!! All I wanted to do was take a picture. I had my camera right there with me but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sorry folks, no pictures.

Other fair activities…

2007-10-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

Some of the other activities in the fair were traditional dancing, showing of sheep, and cuyes.

Bubbles

2007-10-09T11:25:00.000-07:00

Peruvian children are fascinated with blowing bubbles. This is my counterpart’s daughter and her nephew (doesn’t he look gringo?) blowing some sweet bubbles.

Albazo

2007-10-09T11:24:00.000-07:00

I don’t know who’s crazy idea this was, but every morning at 6am one of the neighborhoods celebrates with something called an Albazo. Every morning for over two weeks, I was woken up to the beautiful sound of a marching band at 6am. One day I had the honor of being invited to participate.

A friend of mine asked me to go with him, so the alarm goes off, I sneak out of the house and I’m off to party by 6:15. The party is in the streets with about 20-30 people a marching band, and you guessed it… beer. The band plays horrible overheard Peruvian favorites while they march through the streets. About every 150 feet they stop in the street, drink some beer and march in place while they play more.

Hmmm, just a normal Saturday morning eh? I do that all the time back in the states, don’t you? I mean who can resist warm beer as the sun rises and shines right in your eyes? Oh and then dancing, with more people you don’t know, to music that hurts your ears. Don’t forget the firecrackers that they set off. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM!

Well, anyone can do anything for a little while right? Try doing that for 4.5 hours. It all finished up with a breakfast of champions. An awful soup made with a flavorless broth, bad pasta, and absolutely disgusting chunks of pork still on the bone and chunks of pig fat. I tried to be polite by eating the pasta and broth. The problem is, you don’t eat the food they get offended. You eat the food and they serve you more. Before they could serve me seconds, I took off running. Went back home and got in bed. That’s the last 6am party I go to for a while.

Cruz Pampa

2007-09-26T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Cruz Pampa, the place in the middle of knowwhere that my grandparents live. They have a little house and a lot of land. Running water but, you know what? Now that I think about it, I have no clue if they have a bathroom or not. I saw one spigot outside the house and this makeshift shower. There is a good chance they “go in the campo” if you know what I mean. No electricity in the house but they have a battery to run one fluorescent light in the kitchen. My LED flashlight on my key chain was about 10x brighter than it. They cook with wood instead of gas.

While my dad was busy tying down one of his cows to trim their horns, I sat with my mom and Teo breaking dried corn kernels off the husk. Later I ground it all up into cornmeal. Now that was a good arm work out. I might have to start grinding some cornmeal here for myself. I tried to cook with fire but it’s a lot harder than it looks.

We ended up being there so late we decided to stay for dinner. It was so dark at this point we had to light to little candles to see. I flashed my LED on my plate as I wasn’t convinced that my plate was meat free. I was good too go. Something under the table kept running around and hitting my feet. I assumed it was a dog or cat. Nope – free range cuyes in the kitchen.

In the middle of the meal my cell phone rang and it was Ken and Megan calling from PSU to say hi. It was so weird to be brought back to reality. Here I was speaking English with friends from the states like it was no other day. Only I was having my toes chomped on by guinea pigs in the middle of a candle light dinner in an old Adobe house. Welcome to the Peace Corps.

Peru 9 Song

2007-09-25T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here´s the lyrics to the song they wrote for us in Training. I forgot to post them before.

Peru 9

Musica; Gian Marco, Gloria Estefan
Letra: Yannick Romero Suarez

Tengo este sueno anhelado
Todos los dias marcados
Para acercarme a ti

Tengo 11 semanas intensas
De estudios y de emociones
Desde que te conoci

Tengo una huella perdida
Entre tu sombra y la mia
Que no me deja mentir

Soy un Voluntario dispuesto,
Tu mi deseo pendiente,
Mis ganas de producir.

Tengo una tarea constante
Y una familia esperando
Ver mi trabajo cumplir.

Tengo tu amor y tus Apus,
Y un caminito empinado.
Tengo tu norte y tu sur

Coro:
Con Peru 9 cantamos,
Voy a entregarte mis manos,
Ayudame a unir las fuerzas
Para juntos trabajar.

Con Peru 9 cantamos,
voy a entregarte mis manos.
Ayudame a unir las fuerzas
Para juntos trabajar.

In English (mas or menos)

I have this dream I have been longing for
All of the days are strong
To bring me closer to you

I have eleven intense weeks
Of studies and emotions
Since it has been clear that,

I have a lost trail
Between your shadow and mine
That you don’t let me lie

I am a volunteer that’s ready
You, my unfinished wish
My winnings of production

I have a constant assignment
And a family waiting
To see my work complete

I have your love and your mountain God
And a steep road
I have your north and your south

Chorus;
With Peru 9 we sing
I am going to dedicate my hands
Help me to unite the forces
In order for us to work together

Alcohol

2007-09-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

Alcohol

All right I’ve got a problem, and I’ll be the first one to admit it. I live in a town where drinking alcohol multiple times a day is practically unavoidable. Welcome to Peru. Trust me, I wish it wasn’t this way but there’s really nothing I can do about it.

Just say no, right?? Not that easy. When Peruvians offer you something, whether it is food or alcohol the worst thing you could possibly do is say no. Even if you say it nicely with an honest explanation of why you can’t or don’t want to you will horribly offend them. People go so far as to bring plastic baggies with them to dinner invitations because it is impossible to put the quantity of food served in one meal into your body in one sitting. Even though you finish with your plate half full, the host will insist on serving you seconds and the best option you have is to stuff the baggie and promise to take it home to eat later. (Yeah right, like you are actually going to do that).

When it comes to alcohol it’s not that easy. What are you going to do? Bring a Nalgene bottle and fill it up with beer, promising to take it home and drink by yourself later? Hmmm, I don’t think that will fly.

The alcohol works here is like this…. Beer is sold in crates called “cajas”. It’s your average milk crate but full of twelve, 650ml bottles of beer. That’s about 22 ounces or almost 2 beers. Peruvians take advantage of all types of social situations to grab a caja and share it with a group. The caja comes with two small glasses. One for drinking, and one for the spit cup. The group naturally forms into a circle with the caja and spit cup in the center. It all starts when someone cracks open the first bottle, pours themselves a glass and says “Salud” to the next in line. They drink away and pass the bottle the next person. When the glass is empty they pour the remaining foam into the spit cup and then hand it onto the next person. You’re able to serve your self as much or a little as you would like. BUT, if you’re a female, a man pours the glass for you. You can try your best to say “poquito, no mas!” (little bit, no more) but a poquito might mean a splash to you and a half glass to him. No big deal, its just a half glass right? Wrong! The bottle gets passed until empty, that’s when you move onto the next and the next and the next. Just when you think its all over and you can finally go home, someone slips out to buy another and you start over with caja #2.

It’s not just beer either. Wine is always used to toast to special events or occasions like birthdays. Even if you are passing the bottle at a cumpleanos, you’ll stop for a minute while everyone gets a shot glass sized wine cup and you’ll all have to Salud! Then there’s the hard alcohol. Everyone in my town makes this hot drink called “Calientito” (little hot thing). It’s a mixture of tropical fruit juices, sugar and some kind of strong alcohol. Naturally, people drink calientito at night in the streets when it’s cold out. It’s hot and full of alcohol so of course it’s going to warm you up. Right?? Not so much…

Today is Tuesday, to let you really grasp what its like here (and by the way, my town isn’t even considered to have drinking problems like other places in Peru) I’ll tell you a little bit about my last 2.5 days.
Sunday 10:00 AM: Participate in a parade in the Plaza with my Mom, Dad, and other people that work for the municipality. After the parade and national anthem, they had a toast with wine in the municipality building.

Sunday 3:00 PM: While walking in the street with my mom and brother, we find my dad and grandpa sitting with the Director of the high school in his new locotorio (its like a store where you can use pay phones). The three of them are sitting there drinking beer. Of course we get pulled in and are told to “sientense! sientense!” (sitdown). Within minutes I have the bottle and am allowed to pour for myself. Yes!…. Poquito! Oh no, before I can hand it on, the school director is literally yelling at me telling me I didn’t drink enough during my turn and to refill the glass and to fill it full. This continued the whole time and tried to drink only when he wasn’t paying attention. Well, six of us, 12 bottles and 3 hours later, the drunk director finally lets us leave.

Sunday 9:00 PM: Went to Sunday mass with my mom. On the way out of church, there was a group of people handing out small cups of calientito to everyone. My mom insists we need one to warm up.

Monday 4:00 PM: I’m in a meeting with a bunch of engineers, and other various people that work in the community. We’re planning a huge Agricultural and Artisan fair that starts tomorrow. In the middle of discussing the final details, a half of a caja arrives. No turning this one down either.

Monday 10:30 PM: Birthday party for the director of the health center. There were about 15 of us and we arrived with 1 caja. But before the party even started there were 4. At 12:30 we stopped drinking and dancing to have a toast with wine. Afterwards, we finished off what was left in the wine bottles by passing it around in the same fashion as the beer. Finally at 3:45 AM the party slowly came to an end and I was allowed to go home.

Tuesday 10:00 AM: Time for another Parade! This time it is to celebrate the fair that is starting tomorrow. I’m exhausted and hungover to say the least. An extremely bright sun shines as we march through the streets with a banner and marching band. At one point we stop in front of house and literally, in less than 5.2 seconds, a lady was placing a caja at our feet. Shit. My head is pounding to the tune of awful Peruvian music when a full glass gets placed in my hand. Shit. A man named “Casanova” pulls me out into the street to dance. Shit. Fast forward to the end of the parade and I rush into a store to grab a Powerade. By the time I get back there’s another caja. Shit. I can’t take this anymore. I denied every attempted pour in front of me. They looked at me as if I was the strangest person in the world for not wanting to drink beer in the middle of the street at 11 am. I told them I just couldn’t drink anymore. But really the only way I got out of it was that I promised to drink during the inauguration of the fair tomorrow. I just looked at my program for the fair. The inauguration starts at 10:30 AM.

SEND ME FREE TEXT MESSAGES!

2007-09-21T16:51:00.000-07:00

OK, so I finally figured out how to get the free text messages to work. I signed up so you guys can just use my password. Follow these instructions and it should be pretty easy. If you have any questions let me know...

1. go to: www.tm.com.pe/mensajes
2. leave the e-mail address part: BLANK
3. from the Localidad box choose: CAJAMARCA
4. in the Celular box type: 9937857
5. use the mini keypad on the screen to enter: 414428
6. click ingresar

on the next screen...
7. select localidad: cajamarca
8. celular: 9937857
9. write your message (escribe tu mensaje)
8. type the characters you see in the image (Ingrese el código que se visualiza en la imagen )
9. click enviar

Laundry Day

2007-09-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

Laundry Day

God, don’t you just hate doing laundry? When you have like five loads and it takes forever? First you have to separate your colors, put the first load in the washer, then 45 mins later move it to the dryer while you add another load to the washer, but wait there’s still a spot from something you spilled on a shirt from the first load, back to the washer with that one… And you lucky if you actually have a washer and dryer in your house, its that much more of a pain if you have to go to a laundry mat, first you have to find quarters, then drive all your dirty smelly laundry there, and be horribly bored while you sit and wait for your clothes to clean…..Well, you’ve got about 2 seconds to stop your whining before I tell you what laundry day is really like. And you better think twice about complaining about having to wash your clothes next time.

First off, Peace Corps clothes are a hell of a lot dirtier than probably anything you’ve ever worn. Here, it’s normal to wear and re-wear your clothes over and over again until there’s a smell that you can’t bear anymore. In addition, there is so much dirt in the air and on the ground, when I go to put on my pajamas at night a cloud of dust flies out from them. And socks, don’t even get me started with those. I wear the same socks and the same shoes I had in the states but somehow here it is impossible for the bottoms of my socks to resemble any form of white color at the end of the day.
So you clothes are filthy and you’re out of clean underwear, what do you do? Based on experiences of other Peru 9 volunteers you have 4 options: 1) Re-wear 2) Turn inside out and re-wear 3) go without 4) wash your damn clothes. You guys would be proud and probably surprised, I’m an option 4 kind of girl. Time to do laundry.
Step one, go to the cuy cage and fetch the really large plastic buckets sitting on top of the cage. Take them to the sink and fill with freezing cold water. Attempt to set on the ground without splashing too much water out. You don’t want to turn the dirt ground into a mud pit. Grab the mini stool that sits you about 6 inches off the ground. Take the powdered detergent and shake generously into bucket #2. Swirl water around with your hands until the detergent is mostly dissolved. Leave bucket #1 with fresh water. Go get all of your dirty stanky clothes from your room. Carry outside trying not to drop any in the dirt on your way. Place first group of clothes in clean bucket #1. Soak ‘em real good, then move to bucket #2. This part is where you get creative. I’m sure there is a real technique to it that any Peruvian could perform in a flash but I’m still novice so we will continue with my method. Swirl clothes around, give them a good shake, then (I know this part is right) take clothes and vigorously rub them against each other. For extensive dirt or stains you can use a sturdy scrub brush. Scrub, rub, swirl, shake until you get tired or bored. Smell clothes to see if the fresh sent of detergent has overcome the stench. If so - move on to the next item, if not - repeat the steps above. When all the clothes in the soapy bucket are “clean” move back to bucket 1 to wash out the soapy water. The amount of soap and dirt in your clothes, determines how often you have to change the water. Usually it’s just around the time the sun has heated the water to a nice warm useable temperature. Too bad, dump it out in the yard and fill back up in the sink.
So your clothes are clean, now what? Turn them inside out and hang them up on the clothesline to dry of course. Yes - hang your underwear, along with the rest of your clothes on the line that your entire family walks by 5-6 times a day. The same line that the entire town can see from the street below. But don’t be embarrassed, your undies are hanging up right next to your dad’s – no big deal right? No, not at all. Why inside out? Teo tells me the sun will burn them otherwise. I think she means the colors will fade if you don’t.
Finally, you’re done. It’s been about 3.5-4 hours, your hands are pruned, and your back is killing from leaning over the buckets. Yeah, that’s right… don’t ever even think about complaining of doing laundry in the states again. 

Cochan

2007-09-16T15:59:00.000-07:00

Cochan

Alex is another volunteer that lives close by in the town of Cochan. Today my mom and Roxana (Tiffany’s counterpart) had to drop off some papers at the health post there so they asked if I wanted to come along for the ride. It’s usually very hard to find transportation to Cochan so my dad made up an excuse why he had to go so we got to take the police car.
After about an hour on ridiculously bumpy roads, we finally got there. BUT, the health post was closed and there was nobody to be found. Not to worry, we stumble across two Peruvian men in the street and the one invites us over to his house for the afternoon. Turns out, that guy was the Alcalde (Mayor) of Cochan and his friend was the regional representative for the President of Peru. They were sporting some sweet sombreros and moustaches. Before I knew it I was sitting in the back of the Policia 4x4 with Alex and two plastic crates full of beer.
About 45 minutes later we arrived at the Alcalde’s house. They cracked open the bottles and started drinking. (My mom is the one on the right). Before too long a couple women came out of the house with plates of food for us. Heaps of rice and potatoes were topped off with a quarter of a cuy. Even for people who eat meat, cuy is disturbing to see on your plate. It looks like a flattened, fried rat complete with head hands and feet. In this case I was extra lucky to find pieces of hair still on the cuy. Fortunately my family is really cool about me being vegetarian so my mom instantly offered to take the cuy off my plate.
This house was literally out in the middle of nowhere. It had a pretty garden and assortment of strange birds. Ducks, turkeys, chicken with hairy feet and peacocks. I think they eat the peacocks but I´m not sure. I hope not...

Pollito

2007-09-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today I went for a run and afterwards I came back to my room to sit do some abs and stretch. Just as I sat down on my yoga mat I thought I saw a small shadow in the light coming from underneath my door. At the same time I heard a chirping at the other side. Confused at what it could be, I opened the door and standing in front of me was a pollito (baby chicken)!

As soon as the door opened he began walking in my room towards me. Step by step he circled around me, until I got him to walk back out of my room with me. I was afraid he’d get lost under my bed and I’d never find him. All day he followed me around the yard, I went to wash my dishes and he followed me to the sink. I went to walk back to my room and he followed me there too. It was so adorable, I think he was looking for his mother.
I found out later that my brother had won the baby chicken in a raffle type game in the plaza the day before. At night my brother made him a little house to sleep in so he wouldn’t get cold at night. It must have not been warm enough because the next morning, Teo found the poor little guy dead in our backyard. :(

Oh how precious life is…..

Cuyes

2007-09-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

I told you before about cuyes (guinea pigs) and how they eat them in Latin America. Well, my family has a cage full of them in our yard. I don’t know if you can actually call it a yard if you don’t have any grass but from here on out I’ll stick to that word to describe the hardened dirt ground that sits outside the back of our house.
My family isn’t huge on eating cuy but it is definitely the top choice for holidays and celebrations. We’ve got a bunch of them, the small guys are really cute. One lives outside the cage running around the yard and hiding out behind things. Not sure how he got out of the cage but he moves really fast and is impossible to catch so we just let him do his own thing. Surprisingly enough he hasn’t escaped. Hmmm, maybe one day I’ll set him free! (If you look close you can see him hidding behind the cardboard box.)

San Miguel, Cajamarca

2007-09-15T10:47:00.000-07:00

I finally made it to my new site, San Miguel! I’m located about 14 hours north of Lima in the Department (their word for state) of Cajamarca. This region is known for its green rolling mountains and production of milk products. Right now as I look out my door the hills are kind of brown, but after the rainy season (Jan-Mar) the whole place becomes a vibrant green. I can’t even imagine how beautiful this area is going to be.
We are located at 2,620 m or 8,800 ft above sea level which at first made it really hard to breath. I’ve been forcing my lungs to adjust by going on long runs up gradual hills. At first it felt like my heart was going to burst out of my chest but I think I’m pretty much acclimatized now.
My site is relative big (for the Peace Corps) and therefore I was the only non-married volunteer fortunate enough to get a site mate - her name is Tiffany. I think there are about 6,000 people that live in my town with another 5-10,000 people that live in the surrounding hills. (I’m not sure how many because everyone will gives you a different number). The “camposino” people (term for the people that live in the middle of know where) are always walking in and out of town to get the supplies they need. They are always dressed in bright colored traditional clothing, the women spinning yarn and the men walking with assortment of animals. On an normal day, it would be strange to not see cows, sheep, pigs, donkeys, horses, and chickens.
Although I didn’t really have much say, once again I was lucky and ended up with the exact type of work I was hoping for. I’ve been partnered up with an artisan association of female weavers. My group is wonderful and I couldn’t ask for more. They make a variety of products including; scarves, table cloths, table runners, places mats, napkins, pillow covers, ponchos and purses. Personally, I think the scarves are beautiful and I plan on creating a collection of my own over the next two years. I’ve already taught myself to weave and I enjoy using it as a way to intimately know the process and to help build relationships with the artisans. It was only my second day in their workshop that I heard the women exclaim “Ah, la senorita esta aprendiendo radpido!” (The senorita is learning fast!) Other than weaving, some of the things I’ll be working on are teaching about accounting, quality, design, and helping my group to find new markets. Also, hopefully I’ll be able to travel with them when they participate in fairs around the country.
One of the best parts about my experience in San Miguel so far,has been my new host family. They are amazing. I have two brothers, Alejandro -14 and Jhair – 8. My mom’s name is Flor and she works at the health post in administration but she is trained as a nurse. My dad’s name is Marcelo and he is policia, but secretly I think he is Tony Soprano’s long lost Peruvian cousin. He’s great but at times l definitely get the feeling something shady is going down. Quite possible with the police in Peru. Oh, I can’t forget about my chica, Teo. Teo is nineteen years old and seven months pregnant. She cooks and cleans during the day and attends classes to finish up her high school degree at night.
We live in a reasonably large 2 story adobe house with my room acting like a walk out basement. For as nice of a house as it is, I was surprised to find out that there is no running water in the house. This means to wash your hands, brush your teeth, clean your vegetables, or wash your clothes, you have to go outside, down a bunch of stairs to the one sink for the entire household. It’s outside the bathroom so for the majority of uses it’s really not that inconvenient. But, imagine trying to cook a meal with out having easy access to water to wash your hands, food, dishes etc. lAlso with the chica doing the cooking and cleaning for the entire family, she spends about half her day occupying the sink. Sometimes I have to wait in line just to brush my teeth!
Out bathroom is outside separate from the house but it has a flushing toilet and a shower. Rumor has it that we have hot water but I have yet to experience it. The electric showerhead has been busted since before I moved in and “supposedly” the man that is supposed to fix it is “out of town this week”. As a result, I’m still on my water conservation plan to only shower once every three or so days. When the grease in my hair combined with the stench from running becomes too strong, I give in. The problem is, the water is straight off the mountain so it is extra frigid and you get that ice cream headache feeling every time you wash your hair. It’s pretty painful and you don’t even get to enjoy ice cream while you’re at it. As for the rest of my body, I’ve been working with the “Martini Method”. It’s a Peru 9 term for washing your body in the shape of a martini glass: armpits, crotch, and feet. It’s too cold to waste time cleaning anything else.
The day I moved into my room, I decided it would be a good idea to scrub the floors and the walls because the entire place looked pretty dirty. I started washing the bottom two feet of my walls (which are black like the floor). Oh, they weren’t black for long. Whoever the hell painted them, used washable paint! Instantly wall turned white and there was a puddle of black water on the floor. Ooops. As for the rest of the walls, they are painted a very uneven shade of light blue and are covered with marks, scratches and holes. One of which actually goes through to the other side. Don’t worry, I patched that baby up like a true engineer - with some cardboard and masking tape! First thing that morning I had swept the floor but after my wall cleanings and bug removal project, I had to sweep a total of three more times that day. Somehow, every time I managed to fill an entire dustpan full of dirt. For the most part, I can I live with the dirt, it just gets a little gross when I sit on the floor to stretch and do yoga. Oh what I would wouldn’t do for a Swiffer right about now….
Today I made pasta for lunch and I had to drain the excess water into a bowl and then throw it out the second story door onto to the dirt ground. I didn’t even bother rinsing the pasta because that would have involved getting more water from outside then boiling it to make it usable. I made some sauce to go with the sticky pasta and what did I use to heat it up? The same pan I cooked the pasta in, with out even rinsing it out. Not to mention that I never washed it after cooking my veggie burgers last night. And where did I leave my leftovers when I was done with lunch? In the same pan sitting on the same stove. Waiting to be heated up for dinner. Yummm.

Swearing in... oops! i almost typed ¨sweating in¨

2007-09-05T19:14:00.000-07:00

Today was the big day, where we officially swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers! The morning was really emotional, saying our goodbyes and thank-yous to the training staff. The staff all got together and sang us a song one of the language instructors had written about being a volunteer. The words are in Spanish of course but it’s a really beautiful song so I thought I’d write the lyrics below:

We al went home for a final meal with our families and to get dressed up for the big event. When we came back a huge tent was set up and lingering outside it was suspicious looking group of security guards. The American ambassador to Peru was going to give a speech at our ceremony (the Peruvian President’s wife was invited too but couldn’t make it because she is working in Pisco on earthquake disaster relief). I didn’t know it but apparently the ambassador is important enough to require about 5 personal security guards and bullet proof pimped out suburban. The ceremony started, there were about four speeches, then Alfredo and Kitty (the directors of Small Business and Youth Development) took turns reading off our names, we all took an oath and finally…. We’re officially PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS!

The rest of the day we spent taking thousands of photos. It’s amazing how well a group of peace corps kids can clean themselves up and look really good. Who knew all it took was a shower and some nice clothes?

We said our final goodbyes to our families and loaded onto buses. We watched and waved through windows as they fought the tears rolling down their faces. They all looked so happy and so proud…..

It’s off to Lima for a group dinner and a night on the town………time to celebrate!

San Miguel, Cajamarca here I come!

Only one more day... and the family Party

2007-09-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

Time in Lima (Chaclacayo) is winding down and soon I’ll be off to San Miguel. Last Saturday we had a final day at La Agraria where we were honored with certificates, some seeds to plant at our sites and a yummy organic salad for lunch. Afterwards we headed to the Peace Corps office for our final language interviews. I thought mine went well, not great, but definitely waaaaaaay better than the one I had my first day in Peru. After the interviews, I walked over to Ace Hardware (believe it or not they have it in Lima) to buy rubber gloves and some flea spray. Gloves to wear while washing my clothes in the freezing cold water of San Miguel, and Flea Spray for my bed – apparently I’m going to need it. Oh I can’t wait to get to site!

This afternoon we received our language results and I ended up at Intermediate High. Only one level higher than where I started but I can’t say that I deserve to be Advanced. I know I improved more than just a little bit, which confirms the fact I was placed too high to start with. Not like it really matters anyway, as long as you are Inter. Med. you are allowed to go to site so I’m all set anyway. Unfortunately two people had bad interviews and have to stay behind for an additional week of language classes.

Today was the last day of actual training and they made us go through a final test. A combination of scenarios we might find ourselves in at one point or another during our two years. We had to rotate through 7 stations as we proved ourselves ready to serve. My favorite was Ivan (facilitator for small business) coming up to me pretending to be a professional photographer and asking me to model for a calendar, en mi traje de bano (bathing suit)! I had say no and with out laughing my ass off, politely ask him to leave me alone. A similar situation occurred outside where Coco (my language instructor) creepily followed me down the street making inappropriate comments and cat calls. Apparently I did the right thing by just ignoring him. Others couldn’t help but laugh at the things that were coming out the language teachers mouths and they busted up so bad that they failed and had to go back to that station 2-3 times. The only one I failed at was trying to hail a taxi because the one I got into, they had placed a person hiding in the back seat, “ready to attack me”. Apparently you’re supposed to check through the window before getting in. Oops! Other people had ask how much it was to take a combi and while asking, they got kidnapped and they combi drove away with them in it. That would have been so much more fun, and probably would have scared the shit out of me too.

This afternoon we had a party for the host families. It was our chance to say thank you for all the stuff they have done for us. Not to sound pompous but we’ve made a huge impact on them over the last 11 weeks. Imagine, a small family from the middle of nowhere Peru has a “real live person” from Los Estados Unidos living with them as part of their family for 3 months… It must have been an experience to say the least. When they arrived to the party their eyes lit up with sparks and they sprinted over to us hugging and clinching on as if never to let go. I’ve never seen a group of people so excited and sad at the same time. They were so proud to be with us, and to call us part of their family and yet they knew within a matter of hours we would be leaving them and heading off to “bigger and better things”. As my host mom said to me the other day (but in spanish of course), “its always easier to say goodbye for the person that is leaving because they have so much on their mind about where they are going and what they will be doing. Those that are staying, its harder for because all they can do is watch the other person leave.” For the first time I think I totally agree with her and as I went to nod, yes, I realized that part of what she was saying is that my family is really say to see my go, and it doesn’t appear that I even care. Wow, that isn’t really true is it? I’d have to agree it’s a combination of both. I am excited to move on, and to get to my site, but at the same time I can’t say its really that I’m reluctant to leave. I felt really bad when for the second time this week my mom’s eyes swelled up with tears. What was I supposed to say?? Oh, how I will forever miss the sound of 14 roosters waking me up at all hours of the night, and the taste of her fish saturated in cups of oil and accompanied with tasteless cucumbers and a mound of rice, day after day after day. I figured that wasn’t the best choice of words, especially for all she’s done for me to offer some comforting words. The best part about being mediocre at a language is you have an excuse to not be able to express you feelings very well. Besides, it was good I tried to show some compassion because my family was really kind and went way out of their was to bring me home pizza for dinner tonight. Awwwwww.

I just finished packing all my stuff and I’m not quite sure how but I have a lot of shit, a lot more than I came with. The other day I even gave away my tent, my prized possession that I loved so much…. I donated to Cesar and his family in Chincha, Drew’s uncle that lost his house in the earthquake. When I heard they were sleeping outside under nothing but blankets, on the same grass I had lavishly camped only a month ago, I couldn’t help but offer my tent. They need it more than I do. So with that gone, you’d think I’d have more space in my luggage but no. You can’t forget add to the mess the things I’ve acquired since I’ve arrived like my pillow, towel, yoga mat, two pairs of jeans and a nice pair of pants (did I tell you I ripped my nice pants right down the ass while jumping on my director’s trampoline the night of the quake? …..yeah. or about the other pants that I somehow managed to get brown paint smack in the center of the butt? ….. yeah). That’s not even counting the 25+ pounds of books Peace Corps has given me, where the heck do they expect me to put that?? Somehow I think I fit everything into my big back pack, my small back pack, my duffel bag, and a crappy plastic bag I bought at the market. Hmmm, I hope they don’t charge me for being over the allotted amount for luggage…

Panchamanca and Passing the Cuy

2007-09-05T18:59:00.000-07:00

Panchamanca is an very old, traditional Peruvian way of cooking. Basically it’s a whole bunch of food cooked in the ground with a bunch of hot stones. Peruvians love it, and they make it when ever there is a special occasion, or even just a big group of people, really just whenever they have an excuse to. At the training center today our excuse was to learn about Peruvian culture so in addition to preparing a Panchamanca we also learned about ancient medicinal customs that Peruvians still practice today.

To make a Panchamanca, first you dig a big hole in the ground. Probably about 2.5 ft in diameter and 2-3 ft deep. You make a fire and let it burn while you heat up a bunch of large rocks. When the fire settles to be mostly coals, you remove the rocks and start piling food on the fire. Start with greens to make a base to set the food (cilantro, mint, I don’t know what else), then you pile on a ton of chicken, potatoes, then more greens, some hot rocks, apples, pineapples, humitas (sweet tamales), a whole bunch of green beans, some eggs, and finally cover it with more greens and the rest of the hot rocks. Then, take all the dirt you dug out of the hole and bury the hole thing. Top it off with a blessing, a cross and some flowers and in about 30 minutes you have lunch! I didn’t eat any of the chicken but I heard it was delicious. When I come back to the states in two years we’ll have a big party and make a big Panchamanca for everybody!

Ancient medical traditions…. So remember how I told you about cuyes? The cute little guinea pigs they eat here? Well, in Peru when someone is sick for a long time and the doctor can’t figure out why, they perform a ritual called “passing the cuy”. Basically how it works is the sick person lies down and the, I don’t know what you’d call them, witch doctor?, takes a cuy in his hands holding it over the sick persons body, and passes it over all parts of the body. At some point during this process the cuy mysteriously dies – don’t ask me how – they claim they don’t kill it. They take the dead cuy and cut it open to see what is wrong with the cuy, kind of like an autopsy. Supposedly what ever illness they find in the cuy, was what the sick person had and in this ceremony, they magically passed it on to the cuy and now the sick person is healed. For example, they might cut the cuy open and see that the cuy’s stomach is black and shriveled up. That means the sick person had a stomach problem but now passed it onto the cuy and that illness is what “magically” made the cuy die and the person healthy. Make any sense? Believe in it? I’m not sure I do but I’ve met a bunch of Peruvians that swear by it. If you’re skeptical, you can try the same thing with a raw egg still in its shell. After you pass the egg across the body you crack it open into a glass of water and supposedly part of the egg yolk will have cooked and it will be white. Apparently the white part of the egg signifies the part of the body you have a problem with. In reality, who knows? That’s what we watched today and part of the egg did turn white, but I can’t say believe it was because the ailment of a person was transferred to the egg. Why don’t you give it a try next time you’re sick?

New Address

2007-08-31T13:42:00.000-07:00

PCV Bronwen Holloway
Cuerpo de Paz/Peru
Casilla Postal No. 100
SERPOST Cajamarca
Cajamarca, Peru
South America

MAIL!

2007-08-23T21:01:00.001-07:00

Please put a temporary hold on any mail you were so kindly thinking about sending. I´m moving tomorrow and won´t know my new address until at least Monday. Thank you!

Earthquake Update:

2007-08-17T18:12:00.001-07:00

As most of you must know by now, Wednesday night there was a huge earthquake just outside of Lima, Peru. It measured 7.9 on the Richter Scale and is the strongest the country’s had since a deadly quake happened in 1970.

I was actually in Lima when it happened. The entire small business group was on a combi (mini bus) when it happened. We had just pulled over to the side of the road to park when I felt something that seemed like a combination between a crazy driver pulling up on top of the curb and some sort of sweet hydraulic lift system from “pimp my ride”. Turns out it was an earthquake. To give you a feel for how crazy/dangerous it is to ride a combi, most of the trainees didn’t even notice it, they just thought it was part of a normal bus ride.

Well, needless to say, I’m safe and sound and I thank everyone for your thoughts and concerns. In the future, if anything else bad should happen I’ll try my best to get in touch with people as fast as possible but it could take a couple of days. The phone lines were down all night and they keep going in and out all day. Tonight we lost electricity – so there’s no telling what could happen. In a situation like this my parents can always call Peace Corps in Washington, DC to find out if I’m OK. So if you are desperate, you can always get a hold of them.

As for the damage, you guys probably know more than I do since I don’t have easy access to the news. I do know that the house I stayed at two weeks ago in Chin Cha collapsed to the ground and is now in pieces. Unbelievable. Luckily Drew’s uncle and family are all OK. There is a volunteer who lives in Pisco, where the quake was the worst and 4 more who live in Ica where it was almost as bad. Fortunately, somehow all 5 of them were either in Lima for Medical check ups or out of their sites on vacation.

Peace Corps is considering sending some volunteers out to help with the relief work. I offered to go but since I’m still a trainee and won’t be an official volunteer until next Friday, I’m not sure if I will have the chance.

The people of Peru are going to need a lot of help to get through this. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

“Don’t turn out the lights….”

2007-08-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

What a long day. After dinner I went to my room to descansar (rest – Peruvians love this word – so do I). My room is a disaster right now so I quickly moved a few things out of the way and laid on top of others. I toyed with the idea of going to the internet. I thought, “really I should go, I need to update my blog and send some important e-mails, plus I’d really like to see what the news is saying about the quake.” But I really didn’t want to go, I didn’t even want to get my computer out of my bag. But it has been so long I really needed to. But I didn’t want to… This internal battle went on for about 5 minutes until POOF! Electricity went out. Guess that answers that question huh? It was great, I sat in complete peace for almost a whole 60 seconds just enjoying the complete darkness. Then I felt guilty that my family was running around the house in the darkness. So, being the helpful little girl I am, I got up and shared my headlamp and flashlight with my family. I even got out and lit my extra special candle for them. The kids love the head lamp, I think they think I’m a little crazy with a light on my head though. That’s ok though because at times I think they’re crazy too (and they don’t have lights on their heads).

30 minutes of fun in the dark and the electricity was back.

EARTHQUAKE!!!

2007-08-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm sure you've all heard by now there was a huge earth quake in Lima, Peru last night. For those of you who were worried, I am fine and everything is OK. I'll explain the details when I get a chance soon.

Thanks for thinking of me.

Love,
b

Gone Fishing!

2007-08-03T18:06:00.000-07:00

Today was an awesome day and I’m so excited I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Today I learned my destiny. I’m going to San Miguel, Cajamarca!!!

Remember how I told you there was a pool at the training center? Well today there were 31 styrofoam fish floating in our pool. Each had one of the volunteer sites written on it and covered up with masking tape. PC made us a bunch of “fishing poles” and we had to fish for our sites. One by one we caught the fish, read off the new town and Kitty or Alfredo (the Youth Development/Small business leaders) shouted out who was going to go there. It was so exciting, luckily my fish was the second one caught so I find out right away.

Peace Corps only sends volunteers to the following departments: Tumbes, Piura, Lambayeque, La Libertad, Cajamarca, Ancash, Lima, Ica, and Ariquepa. This year, no one is going to Ica or Tumbes. The way it works is that everyone flys solo, except for the married couples. They try to put us in geographic clusters so you are always close to other volunteers (hopefully less than 4 hrs) but you are always the only one in your actual site. Except for the very few people who get site mates.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Guess who won a site mate?? Me! Yep folks, I will be traveling to and living in San Miguel with the one and only Tiffany Stokes (a.k.a. - my wife). Whoa, how’d that happen you ask? Well, apparently they developed our site for a married couple with a business and a youth volunteer. For some reason the couple had a choice and they decided to go to Ariquepa instead. San Miguel was now up for grabs and it had enough work for two volunteers so watch out here we come!

Top 10 Reasons I’m happy to have Tiffany as my site mate: (disclaimer: these reasons are subject to change at various points over the next two years and may not always be positive. the writer assumes no responsibility for anything written below)
1. She gets yummy food in packages from her family and she is good at sharing.
2. Not only does she like to run, but she is going to train for her first marathon with me! (Shhh, I’m not sure if she knows this yet).
3. Even though her real name is Estefani, she doesn’t get mad when people call her Teffi.
4. It’s always good to have a site mate to split expensive things with. For example, a new can of flea spray and a box of Ammonium AD.
5. Veghead – Peruvians don’t understand the whole vegetarian thing and at least now I’m not the only crazy one.
6. I don’t want to ride the bus all the way there by myself. Sometimes Peruvians smell really bad, I don’t want to have to sit next to that.
7. People often confuse the two of us because we dress and they think we look alike. Peruvians are going to struggle even worse. I’ve always wanted a twin so we could swap places, skip classes, etc. etc. Now when I don’t want to go to work I can send her in my place and no one will ever know. Which remind me – if you ever see a photo of me riding a motorcycle – it wasn’t me, it was Tiffany. I swear!
8. When I get lonely and sick of speaking Spanish, I can talk to her instead of myself.
9. With out her, I’m not sure if I would ever take a shower. Right now I really only do after I get some kind of comment from her like “Uhhh, when was the last time you showered? You know you went running twice this week right?”
10. I think I might get bored in the rainy season, I’m going to need someone I can watch slip and fall down the hill in the mud. I think she’d be a good person for that.

OK, more about our site. Well, currently we both have listed the same host family. Umm, does that mean we are in the same room, sharing a bed? Actually, Alfredo just told us that they were expecting the couple to go there so now they need to find us a second house because we are not allowed to live together. Today everyone received a folder with a bunch of info about their new host families (names, ages, running water, communication, etc.) Looks like I won’t have a clue until I get to my site. Oh well, what’s another couple of days right?

What I do know is this. Cajamarca is extremely beautiful, picture rolling green mountains for as far as you can see and you’ve got it. Now throw in a short Peruvian lady wearing a skirt and sombrero walking her donkey and you’re really on track. San Miguel is located at 8,800 ft above sea level and it has two seasons, one of which is the rainy season. Apparently it rains every day from January through March. But not to worry, because as crappy as that sounds, it doesn’t scare away thousands of people from spending carnival in the “Carnival Capital” of Peru. Volunteers choose to come here instead of Rio to live it up with water balloons, squirt guns, war paint and plenty of alcohol. You know you’re all invited right?

The town I’m going to supposedly has paved roads, water with in the houses, a sewage system, cell phone service, and internet (but its really slow). The only problem is that it takes ~5 hrs to get to the capital city in taxi or combi. And then it’s another 14 hr overnight bus ride to get back to Lima. (People with actually money fly and its only 1.5 hrs and about $100– apparently you go over the Andes and its an amazing view).

I’m going to be working with a group of artisans. It’s a group of about 100 women, 14 of which live in town, the rest live in the local casarillos (little towns in the middle of nowhere. I know they make woven and knit textile products but I’m not quite sure exactly what yet. They do have a little factory in the municipality building where they meet in the afternoons. What they are looking for is help to find markets to sell their products in. That should be easy. Yeah right, what the hell do I know about Peruvian artisan markets?

In total, there about 20 something volunteers that live in various places in Cajamarca. There are 8 more from Peru 9 that are going to be joining the group. Here is a group photo of all us, and our regional PC coordinator Jose.

After all the excitement we had a big lunch and celebrated for the rest of the day. Hundreds of pictures were taken including this one of Alfredo (SB leader), Andrew, Ivan (the small business trainers) and I. Andrew is one of the most interesting and accomplished people I have ever met in my life. Him and his Peruvian/American wife met years ago in passing in Peace Corps in Tunsania, Africa. He speaks English, Spanish, Arabic and who knows what else fluently. Over the last 10 years, he has done relief work all over the world after every major natural disaster. Talk about career counselor for me huh? Well, while working for the PC he was also working for the United Nations. He was recently offered and he accepted a new job in Geneva, Switzerland. From what I understand it’s an amazing opportunity and something he couldn’t pass up. We just found out Monday, so even though I am extremely sad to see him go, I guess I’m happy for him. Andrew, you’re going to hook me up with a job doing humanitarian work for the UN someday right? Don’t forget me!

Anyway, Sunday night the whole Cajamarca group leaves together to go to our site visits for the week. There we will meet our counterparts and host families and start to learn about what we will be doing for the next two years. Then we come back for two more weeks of training and then finally we swear in!

Ahhhhhh, San Miguel…. Here I come!!!!

Moustaches

2007-08-03T18:04:00.000-07:00

Every training class takes a group photo on the day of site assignments. The photo then gets framed and hung up in the training center for years to come. I’m not quite sure who’s idea it was, but all of the guys decided to grow moustaches for the picture today. It has been fun week watching people try really hard to grow some facial hair while others have a hard time containing it (some have actually been working on it for two weeks). It’s all everyone’s been talking about – how horribly ridiculous and creepy they are going to look. Every once in a while I feel like I have to jump in and defend the moustache – I have to say they aren’t always that bad .

Anyway, it ended up being hysterical. The guys showed up this morning in sports coats, nice shirts, and clean shaven faces with only the ‘staches left. Some of the weaker ones had to thicken it up with white board marker. Others like Drew, Wess, and Vishal rocked out on their own. Needless to say they were all quite sexy. How could you resist a man looking like this?

Finalamente!

2007-08-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the day we have been waiting for. Finally Peace Corps is going to answer the question I asked way back in January during my PC interview. The same question I asked again when I received my invitation to go to Peru.

Where am I going to go???

Imagine this, you are about to step away from your home, family and friends to move to another part of the globe for the next two years of your life. You prepare to leave but you don’t know where you are going. OK, so they’ve told you the country but Peru is a pretty big place. With its own boundaries you’ve got coast, desert, rainforest, rolling hills, dusty plains, the Amazon jungle, and the Andes Mountains. You’ve got small towns, big cities. People that speak Spanish, people that only speak Quechua (native Peruvian language). For transportation you might have cars or, maybe a donkey. For a bathroom you could have a toilet or in the case of some, the woods. There is a chance of communicating over the internet, or maybe just one land line for the entire community. As for a place to bathe, the local irrigation canal, a bucket bath or possibly a shower. Hmmm, think about that for a minute. Wait, no I really want you to think about it. Ok, now, are you ready to make the move?

You decide to take the big jump. You’re set to go, but wait, what do you pack? You’ve got two bags and no more than 100 lbs. Do you bring the rain coat, or the snow pants? Hmmm, maybe the bathing suit, I’d really like to learn to surf. Oh wait, not enough space. Only pack what you need. But where are you going? Good question.

Tomorrow is the big day ------ Site Assignments.

I can’t feel my legs…

2007-07-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend a bunch of were invited to go spend Fiestas Patrias (Peruvian Independence Day) with Drew’s family camping in Chin Cha. You can’t pass up an opportunity to hang out with those guys because you just never know what is going to happen, and its always an adventure…..

Seven trainees decided to get away for the weekend and its about a 3 hour drive away so Alejandro (drew’s dad) arranged for a combi to drive our whole group there. The Combi (mini-bus) showed up and we started loading in our tents, sleeping bags, day packs, then we started piling in. The vehicle is made to seat 12 Peruvians. Now remember, the average size of a full grown adult Peruvian is about 5’6’’, 140 lbs. Well, the car took over an hour to load because somehow we ended up shoving in 18 people and their luggage. 7 of those people were Americans who you can consider abnormally large on the Peruvian scale (one who’s nickname is Baby Grande). Granted, we had one kid, one baby (mind you it screamed the whole ride) and Drew’s really old Abuelita (little grandma). Needless to say, we were smashed in that thing. So squished, I lost feeling in my feet, then my right leg, and shortly after my left. When my butt fell asleep I tried to re-adjust to let blood back to my extremities but there was no where to move.

The car was so packed and heavy, the drive refused to drive at the speed limit. We went soooooo slow, a 3 hr trip turned into a 7 hr painful drive. Half way there, we got pulled over by a couple of corrupt cops. Not to worry though, Alejandro paid them off and we were on our way.

It wasn’t until we woke up the next morning that we realized that the random combi driver actually stayed and was spending the weekend with us so he could drive us back on Sunday. How strange….. yet at the same time, how Peruvian….

There are a lot of vineyards in Chi Cha so we spent the next day cooking out and drinking wine. We roasted a bunch of chicken, and cooked some fish on the fire. I toasted some bananas over the fire for dessert. In the afternoon we went wine tasting and lets just say it was a little different than I’ve done before. They line everybody up and give you a shot glass. As you walk by one of the workers, they fill up your glass, you chug it down while you keep walking to the next one, fill up, chug, walk, repeat. In about 3 minutes you’ve downed about a full glass of wine. The worst part is they don’t have any kind of order to the wine they serve you, we got super sweet ones followed by really dry ones and the abrupt change in a matter of only a few steps is literally hard to swallow.

On our way home from the vineyards, we stopped at the grocery store to pick up ingredients to make French toast for breakfast. I made a quick phone call from a pay phone to say Congratulations! to Nomi and Roland because they were getting married on Sunday. I was sad to have to miss my first Jewish wedding of the coolest couple from Delaware but it was great to talk to them. I haven’t seen any pics yet, hopefully someone will send me some soon.  My quick 5 minute phone call cost me 10 soles (I only make 8 a day) because I used my phone card with a pay phone. What a rip-off, I really hope I have a phone at my site.

Anyway, we all packed back in the combi and as we went to drive away……… the engine wouldn’t start. I’m not sure what was wrong but it wouldn’t turn over. The driver tried again and again and again and again. Finally we all insisted on getting out of the damn car and the guys started to push. They rolled the car about 20 feet backwards and then went forward and gave it a running start into the middle lane of coming traffic and…… it still didn’t start. Crap. What the hell were we going to do with our combi stuck in the middle of traffic, not able to move? Push again of course. After about another 50 feet, it finally started up. Now we had to sprint to catch up and one by one we piled into the thing. As if it wasn’t hard enough to squish into while it was still, we crammed in with our fresh bread, 3 dozen egg, and somehow made it home.

Sunday we took a walk down the street to a dry river bed where we got to see and play with cows, donkeys, chickens, goats, and sheep. Some lady came over to us and handed Drew, Tiffany, and I three baby goats that were only 2 days old. They were so young they still had part of their dried up umbilical cord dangling from their abdomens. Other than that part, they were the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. We played with them for a while and then walked over to where they make “fresh” goat cheese. By fresh I mean, recently made, not fresh and clean. I don’t much about making cheese but I can’t imagine this is very sanitary. The photos of the little sacs – they are made out of some kind of animal inside and are full of cheese (in the making). And the photo of the lady in a hat – she was handing Drew’s mom a kilo of cheese that we all ate for lunch. Interesting, I always thought cheese had to go in the refrigerator. Apparently a shelf made out of sticks, covered in a mesh cloth, and sitting out in the sun is sufficient. 

Off to the Andes: FBT part 4

2007-07-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

When our business simulation was finished, we traveled to Hauraz, the capital city of Ancash, Peru. Hauraz is an extremely beautiful tourist city in the center of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, one of the most scenic parts of Peru. The city was amazing, it will full of English speaking hippies, back packers, and restaurants full of American food! Yummmmm. We met up with a bunch of current volunteers and had a delicious breakfast – I went for the crepes with strawberries and bananas, others choose French toast or bagels and cream cheese. You can’t even imagine how good these tasted to us. If I could have my permanent site located anywhere close to here, I would be eternally happy.

The real reason for us visiting this town wasn’t for food, it was to meet up with a bunch of PCVs to visit their sites and houses and learn more about what they have been doing for the last 2 years. One of the volunteers we visited was Ryan from Peru 8.

Ryan lives in what they call “campo, campo” aka the middle of nowhere. He is really roughing it. He has “running water”which apparently in Peru translates to one small spigot on the outside of his house and that’s it. For a bathroom, he uses a latrine, and for a shower a bucket. There are only about 11 houses in his town, and it takes either a 35 min taxi ride to get there or a 2.5 bike ride up hill. The majority of the people in his town speak Quechua (the most common indigenous language in Peru) only a few people speak English.

What his site lacks in amenities, it makes up for with beauty…. and donkeys. There are a bunch of Pre-Incan ruins at his site, as well as some kick ass views. Check out some photos from his site.

Off to the Andes: FBT part 3

2007-07-20T20:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday morning Sarah, Steve, Bailey and I got up at 5:15 am to hike up the hill to see the sunrise. It was tough because we were all working on about 3 hrs of sleep but it was totally worth it. Check out the photos and I’d think you’d agree.

Off to the Andes: FBT part 2

2007-07-18T19:49:00.000-07:00

Monday morning we began our Business Simulation. The idea was to teach the students everything they needed to know about starting a business from Monday-Wednesday. At the end of the day on Wednesday they would go to the “Peace Corps Bank” and get a loan, then head off to start their own business. And at the end of the day they had to pay back their loan and talk about the successes/failures of their businesses.

My classroom ended up having about 20 students all around the ages of 18-20. The students were all really nice and friendly but unfortunately very bad behaved. Everyone was talking at the same time, people wouldn’t pay attention, and the classroom smelled bad! The class was well educated in computation, and math and the letters B.O. but somehow they missed out on the lessons about taking showers and raising your hand if you want to talk. I’m sorry, is that not culturally sensitive? I’m sorry but it’s hard to be sensitive when you have to hold your breath to sit down next to someone.

One of my group members (Greg) was responsible for preparing the presentation on quality control. For those of you who know me, know that I can't pay attention to things for the life of me. So as he was giving his little talk I was in my usual la la land and then all of a suddened i thought I caught the words "un lugar para todas las cosas, y una cosas para todos los lugares". I instantly perked up and could help but laugh my head off. Greg was teaching the class 5S in Spanish! All the IEs out there and everybody at Gore better know why this is so funny to me. I was the "5S Plant Champion" at Gore before I left, and now here I was watching my Peruvian business class learn about it as a form of quality control. Ahhhhh.... Sean Healey, if you are reading this, I hope you are proud. :) (Here's a photo of all the 5Ss, I hope you like it)

Anyway, we worked though all of our lessons and games with the students and finally it was time to start their businesses. We had them break up into about 4 groups per class and had them brainstorm ideas. At first we were really frustrated because all of the groups wanted to make food. We tried to explain that not all groups could sell food because only so many people would come to the market to buy food. Well, as we should have known, they knew the market they would be selling to better than we did.

They went off to bank and got loans from the PC and then started their businesses. Three of my groups decided to sell food and the final group decided to put on a BINGO night. The three food groups made their products and sold them through out the evening and next morning. For the most part they all ended up breaking even or making a few soles (Peruvian currency). The BINGO group on the other hand was extremely successful. They sold over 200 Bingo cards and had a huge turn out of people for their event. They ended up making about 180 soles profit and to put things in perspective, my host parents only make ~10 soles per day at their jobs. Nice work kids!

Off to the Andes: FBT part 1

2007-07-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

At the core of our training is what we affectionately call FBT or Field Based Training. We spent week 6 of training in Chiciquian, a city located up high in the Andes in the department of Ancash. We traveled to this small town of about 4,000 people situated at 12,000 ft above sea level to put on a “Business Simulation” for a group of 110 university students, all in SPANISH. Sounds cool huh?

Since the beginning of training we had been preparing materials to teach students about how to start a small business. The 16 SBD trainees split up into six groups and them divided the following topics amongst ourselves: intro to small business, leadership, market studies, accounting, marketing, publicity, quality, etc. Within our groups we were responsible for researching our subjects and then presenting our findings to the rest of the group. This way, each one of the six groups would learn about all the subjects and be prepared to teach all of them to the students at the simulation. Easy enough?? Yeah right!

Each group ended up spending hours and hours preparing their own materials then spent lots of time learning then preparing the other topics as well. We focus on NFE (Non-formal education) techniques in the PC so we had to come up with lots of games, activities, and inter-community investigation tools as part of our teaching methods. As this wasn’t hard enough, remember, it all had to be in Spanish!

Saturday night we left Lima on an overnight bus and when we woke up in the morning we had arrived in a beautiful little town located in the middle of nowhere. Finally we were in Peru.

We spent the day exploring and adjusting to the altitude. At 12,000 ft your lung capacity is… I don’t know, maybe half of what it usually is. Until acclimatized (which can take months) just a brisk walk will leave you out of breath quite possibly with a headache. Some trainees got sick and puked just from hiking an easy trail. To give you an idea of how high it physically is, I’m pretty sure the Rocky Mountains peak around 12-14 thousand feet and I know for sure that the highest point in the state of Delaware is 447.85 ft (believe it or not there is plaque to note the spot).

Check out the amazing view!

What they heck am I actually doing here?

2007-07-13T19:20:00.000-07:00

It’s probably about time I explain what I actually do here. I’m sure you’re all a little confused about that especially since I tend to only tell the stories about the exciting stuff. Not that my Peace Corps training is completely uninteresting, but I’m sure you’d all rather hear stories about scorpions and “caca de vaca” before stories about my actual “job”.

What am I really doing in Peru? I’m in the middle of an intense training program to prepare me to become a “development worker”. At the end of 11 weeks, I will swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. At that point I move off to a very rural site where I will live and work for the next two years. Over that period of time I will be trying to integrate with my community while I work on small business development, and focus on sustainability.

What exactly will I be doing? It depends. (Peace Corps’ favorite response). Honestly I don’t have a clue where in the country I’ll be going, or what kinds of groups I’ll be working with. That all depends on what site they assign me to and I won’t find that out until August 3rd.

In the meantime, I’ll explain a little bit more about training and what I’m currently working on. We have class from 8-5 Monday through Friday, and most of our Saturdays we have half days at La Agraria. A normal week consists of a variety of classes given at the training center, our homes, and various places in our communities. The topics covered include the following: Safety & Security, Medical, Peruvian Culture & History, Technical Training (Small Business), and of course Spanish. On average we have language class 4 days a week at 4 hrs/day. In addition to the time we spend at the training center we have a handful of out of class assignments. Below is a description of the most important ones…

CDA – Community Development Activity: We have to go our neighborhoods and find out all the information we can about them. The two analysis tools we use the most are FREEHOP and SWOT (FREESOP AND FODA in Spanish). The first of the two is a way to look at our communities by studying; family, religion, economy, education, health, organizations, and politics. The other looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of our communities. Completing these studies allows us to get a better understanding of the current state of our communities, and what their real needs are. From there we have the task to plan and complete an activity that will positively affect our community.

Some groups are teaching English classes, another is doing a park clean up, and a third is painting the local comedor (Peruvian soup kitchen). My group has decided to paint a world map on one of the walls at the local school. We are getting the neighborhood children to help us paint. When it is completed we will be giving talks to the students about geography.

DCC – Developing Community Contacts: This assignment is about going around our communities and meeting new people. The point is to become comfortable talking with people in our towns and to find mentors within our specialties (Small Business). We should be meeting with our contacts at least once or twice a week and we have to keep a journal about our experiences.

Journal – I’m supposed be to keeping a diary that I write in every night in Spanish. I was doing really good keeping up with this but just as I’ve been too busy to do everything else, I’ve been kind of slacking here too.

Spanish Homework – Every night we get some type of Spanish homework. It can range from grammar exercises in our work books to asking our host family random questions about Peruvian culture and having to discuss their responses the next day in class.

Presentations on Departments – Peru has departments instead of states. We each have to give a presentation on one of the departments of Peru. We are responsible for talking about the history, architecture, places of interest, customs, dress, food, music and dance. Luckily we do these in groups as well. But it is a pretty serious presentation complete with local food and us dancing dressed in local clothing.

La Agraria: Large agricultural university we attend on Saturdays to learn about organic gardens, natural compost, small animal husbandry, and honey bees.

Field Based Training: See next section for a better understanding of this one….

OK…. for those of you who read all the way down here, do you understand a little bit better about what I’m doing here? I hope so. But don’t think that’s all, in addition to everything above, I have to make sure I spend time with my host family, I’m trying to stay healthy, and I’m attempting to run 3 days a week after classes. It’s not until after all of this that I even get to think about having a social life.

So I’m busy to say the least but as much of a pain as training can be, I really think all this hard work and these activities are helping me prepare to go to site. We’ll see soon enough….

Chewy Cuyes and Honey Bees

2007-07-12T20:26:00.000-07:00

Peruvians eat guinea pigs. They are not pets, they are food. Today we learned how to raise them. Then we learned how to snap their necks and serve them up for dinner. The neck snapping part was about the time I ran out of the room and decided not to participate in the rest of the lesson.

“Supposedly” cuy (koo- ie) is extremely high in protein, and really low in fat and therefore are really “healthy”. In addition they multiply faster than bunnies, eat almost anything and their poop makes great fertilizer. You sold yet?? Hell, what could be wrong with eating such a cute cuddley creature? Ummmm…. everything.

There are definitely some huge advantages to being a vegetarian. It’s a great reason to not have to eat the little fellas. Seriously, how could you????

After learning about the cuyes, we learned all about bees and how to raise them to make honey. Selling honey is a really easy and cheap way to make money in Peru. It’s a great small business idea that many of us could end up doing in our sites. I never really cared for honey in the states, but this stuff is to die for. We ate it fresh from the hive; we scooped it straight out of the honey comb with our fingers – you don’t get much more fresh than that.

BUSY BUSY BUSY……

2007-07-12T19:19:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are actually reading this thing, I’m really sorry I haven’t been keeping it updated. The last three weeks have been extremely busy and if you choose to read on you’ll find out why….

Thanks for keeping up with me J

When you’re hiding in the bush and you feel something squish….

2007-07-08T18:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I’ve had diarrhea for 2.5 days now. I wasn’t planning on sharing such fine details in my blog but today the story got better and better and if I have to suffer so do you. Almost everyone else has had it by now, I was one of the few that lasted this long. Alright, don’t worry, I’ll make it quick.

So I wake up this morning and desperately have to go to the bathroom. Partially to brush my teeth and wash my face but I also really “had to go”. Just as I get to the bathroom my dad walks up to tell me that we have no water. No one knew why or for how long but there was absolutely no running water in the house. I thought no hot water was bad but now we didn’t have any. Luckily I had enough water in my nalgene bottle to brush my teeth. But I still “had to go”. Well, just before the water had turned off, my dad filled up the shower with a pool of water to use for bucket flushes. For those of you who haven’t had the fortune of flushing with a bucket here’s how it goes. You fill up a bucket with water and dump it into the toilet bowl. Repeat as many times as necessary. Number 1 is pretty easy, number 2 is a little tough, that inbetween stage….. it’s a little bit rough.

Ahhh, now if only I had water to wash off my hands afterwards…. J

more pics from 4th of july

2007-07-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

i think it has a limit of how many pictures i can post per entry so here are some more from the 4th of july.

Down on the farm….

2007-07-07T18:36:00.000-07:00

Another day at La Agraria… today we learned how to make homemade fertilizer aka compost. The first thing we did was chop down a bunch of plants with some shovels. Everything we chopped down we had to carry in big cotton bags over to the place we were going to start our compost. Then we had chopped it up into small pieces with our shovels and covered it with a little bit of dry “caca de vaca”. Next we covered it with straw. We repeated those steps about 3 times making a pretty big mound. In the end we covered it and put a piece of bamboo through the center to help let the combustible gases escape. Otherwise there is a risk of explosion – and that would be bad. With the help of some water in a few weeks the contents compost and we’ll have some fresh fertilizer! After class we went and ate lunch at one of the restraunts on campus. All the food they sell is home grown in their organic gardens. I had a delicious salad and veggie sandwhich….. yummm! Next we headed to the grocery store to buy some peanut butter and ingredients to make hummus. Tiffany got creamy but I went for the extra crunchy.

When we finally got back to our houses we tried to make hummus from scratch. The blender Tiffany’s family had was too weak to mix up the garbanzo beans so we had to do it by hand. It ended up being kind of chunky and really garlicy but really good. We made it to take over to another bbq at Drew’s house. When we got there we also made guacamole. Both of the guac and the hummus were huge hits – to the point where the Peruvians were liking the bowls.

Tiff and I helped the women prepare some Anticucho. I can’t believe we did it, two vegetarians stabbing cow hearts with a stick then marinating them and putting them on the grill? Gross…. but an important way to integrate with the community. Tiffany on the other hand decided to give it a try… check out the photo of her chomping down… nice work! Drew’s family is so nice, they know I don’t eat meat so they bought a bunch of fish to cook up (complete with heads and full bodies). It was a little strange to have to pick around the organs but it was much more tasty then the tuna I eat from a can every other day.

The night ended with a dance party and Jake tearing up to 80s music. Don’t ask me why but for some reason Peruvians are stuck on 80s music these days.

Today I found a Scorpion in my bed

2007-07-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

I’m totally freaking serious and its not even funny. I’ve been feeling pretty sick over the past couple of days so after I ate dinner all I wanted to do was lie down and take a nap before going out to watch a movie at a friends house. My mom washed my sheets this morning and then hung them out to dry so before I could take a nap I had to put the sheets back on my bed.

I got half of the bottom sheet on when I picked up my blanket and comforter to move them out of the way and underneath the pile was A SCORPION!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHH!

OK, so luckily it was only about the size of a half dollar – maybe a little bigger. Regardless, it was in my bed and I was freaking out. Somehow I managed to get some paper out of the trash can to squish it with. Only problem was it would squish. Finally I opened my door and yelled for my brother and mom – they were the only other ones home. They came running to my rescue and helped me smash the critter and then shake out the rest of my bedding.

It wasn’t the only one. My mom proceeds to tell me that she found one crawling all over my books a couple weeks ago when she was in cleaning my room. That’s extra creepy. Two scorpions in one month. My mom tried to assure me not to worry, she said “no one in Chacrasana has ever died from a scorpion bite”. Great…. real assuring.

Any suggestions on how to get rid of them? I don’t even know how they are getting in. Any why my bed??? Why me??? For now I have to check my entire bed – sheets, blankets, sleeping bag etc, every time I get in it. But that doesn’t make me feel any safer. Just because they aren’t in my bed when I get in it, how do I know its not going to crawl in to cuddle with me after I’m already asleep?

Somebody please help!

Feliz Dia de La Indepencia!

2007-07-04T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated the birth of our home nation with “Field Day” and a picnic full of hamburgers, guacamole, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Yummm….. peanut butter. We were divided into teams and had to pick a team color, make a poster, come up with a cheer, etc. etc. My team named themselves the “Chupa Cabras” Spanish for goat suckers. Don’t ask…. We got really into it; we even went for the full outfits… check out some of the photos.

We played the following games: wheelbarrow race, water balloon toss, dodgeball, capture the flag, pass the orange, and we had a relay race. I don’t think my team came in first in any of the events but I think we had the most fun.

Today was also Cass’s 21st birthday so we celebrated with a surprise party at her house planned by Wes (her husband). It was a lot of fun; they even had a campfire out back. I found a bowl of candies that were chocolate covered marshmallows. Count on me to be the one to decide to put them on sticks and roast them in the campfire! Yummmm, it was like a s’more without the gram cracker but much better because the chocolate actually melted.

It was a little sad to not be able to celebrate the 4th at the lake this year so I thought I’d try to call home and say hi to everyone. (The phone I have to use since I don’t have one is at Cass and Wess’s house anyway so it was easy since I was already there). Of course my family wasn’t home so I had to leave a message. My mom didn’t even answer her cell phone and I didn’t know anyone else’s off the top of my head. I decided to get them back for being out watching the fireworks by leaving them messages in Spanish. Yeah – take that! In the end I tried back one more time and they were home so I got a chance to say hi. It was practically impossible to hear though with a poor connection and a party going on in the background.

Peanut Butter

2007-07-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

I didn’t think I missed peanut butter at all. I used to eat the stuff all the time but after multiple summers of PB&J sandwiches every single day for lunch the love just faded away. All the trainees have been talking about how they are craving it and no one can find it anywhere to buy. This past weekend John went to a real grocery store in Santa Anita (an hour combi ride) and finally found it. The jar cost 14.30 soles. That’s about $5, more importantly almost two days salary in Peru. Today during class John opened it and I couldn’t resist but shove my finger in the jar with out even asking and as soon as I put it in my mouth, it was like tasting a little piece of heaven. I’m hooked again, this stuff is addicting. I’m going to have to save up to get myself a jar.

¨Thank God I´m a Country Girl.....¨

2007-06-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today we went to La Argraia, the National University for Agriculture. It’s a humongous university located just outside of Lima and we are going to be going there every Saturday from now on to learn how to grow organic gardens. We started off with some boring lecture in Spanish about farming that I definitely didn’t understand but afterwards we rolled up our sleeves and started working.

We started from scratch by each planting seeds from different types of plants. I had Albacha which is Spanish for Basil. Other people had lettuce, fennel, parsley, etc. etc. We made a mixture out of sand, mulch and soil and used it to fill about 100 holes in a plastic tray then we put 2-3 seeds in each hole. We put them in the green house and watered the plants, hopefully before long we will have some fresh herbs and veggies.

Afterwards we went to the garden and learned how to turn a plot of dry hard earth into a garden. It involved a bunch of rakes, hoes, water, blood, sweat and tears, and a heck of a lot of “caca de vaca” also known as cow shit. Yes, I spent the day breaking up large pieces of manure with my hands so that it would fertilize our plants better. When it was all ready, we planted half of the plot with spinach and the other with…..I don’t even remember at this point. I guess we will just have to wait and see when it grows.

A soldier has fallen...

2007-06-26T15:47:00.000-07:00

Today we had our first trainee drop out. Mike flies out of Lima tomorrow to go home to Texas. There’s a really weird feeling amongst the group, it’s really hard to explain. Let me give it a try…

When you have your bad days you feel lost and alone. Confused and questioning your decisions. Move to a foreign country, leave all your friends and family behind to do what? Live with a strange group of people you don’t understand let alone get along with. You tell yourself that you are here to make a difference in the world but really are you? How can one person think they can actually make a sustainable difference in the lives of these people? If it were that easy they would have done it themselves. What new skills could you bring that they don’t already have? And its not like you are ever going to be completely fluent in Spanish. There’s always going to be that communication barrier. On these bad days you’d like nothing but to talk to your best friend from home – oh but wait – you can’t because you don’t have a phone at your house. The frustration starts slowly with minor inconveniences then before you know it, it skyrockets exponentially to the point where all you want to do is throw something, yell and scream. What you really want to do though, is let go and cry.

Maybe it’s just me, but the good days are just the opposite. On the good days you can’t even imagine what it is like to have a bad day. When you know someone else that is struggling you want to be compassionate and supportive to them but at the same time you’re like what the heck could be wrong? You look out the window to see a cloudless blue sky shinning over the mountains, you just had a two hour conversation with your host family – in Spanish – and you understood just about all of it. You just got back from Lima where you enjoyed scarfing down a scrumpous pizza. And about making a difference – dude that is so easy. I’ve already help teach my family about the importance of hand washing a tooth brushing. In a matter of a couple weeks they’ve gone from knowing where the soap and water is to actually washing their hands before meals without being told to.

So what do you when someone tells you they want to go home? Sympathize and support their decision to leave? Or do you try to convince them otherwise? Maybe they are just having a bad day and feel like giving up. Or maybe this isn’t really for them. It’s hard to tell. I didn’t know Mike very well at all. We had barely even talked. From what I heard, this just wasn’t for him and he decided to go. Mike - best of luck in what ever it is you decide to do and never forget PERU 9….

In the words of Howie Day: “Even the best fall down sometimes…”

How many gringos can you fit in a taxi? Part 2

2007-06-23T15:43:00.000-07:00

Same day, same night. Now were over at Drew’s family’s house for a party with Anticuycho. Take a good look at the picture above and tell me what you think I might be graciously chompin’ on. (don’t worry I didn’t actually eat any). Any guesses? Come on….Cow heart! A Peruvian favorite…. Yummm! To be honest, it actually looked and smelled good but I was not about to try it.

Drew’s family is very nice and his dad just built that massive BBQ grill so they wanted to have everyone over to try it out. They are much more social than my family (that’s not hard though seeing how my family doesn’t leave the house). His dad and uncles all love me. I think its because I go hiking and play soccer with them. There are a lot of social “rules” for what a girl can and can’t do in Latin America. I try to abide by most of them but when it comes to being active or doing sports, especially running, I’m sorry but I’m going to break each and everyone of those rules. Although I get a lot of strange looks and whistles from people on the street I think in time I’m slowly earning respect from my family and the other Peruvians I know.

Anyway, great BBQ..... even though it was a celebration of eating cow heart. When it was time to leave, Wes’s dad (Marino) called a buddy that owns a taxi to come pick us up. Tiffany, Wes, Alex, Marino, and I all shoved ourselves into a 44 yr old VW Bug. After barely making it up the hill to drop off Alex, the car slowly rolled down the hill backward with the rest of us in it. Before we knew exactly what was going on, the car stopped in front of a store and Marino hopped out. In a flash he was back with a handful of Crystal bottles. He snapped the first one open with his teeth, poured himself a cup and passed around the bottle. At this point it was late and all was quiet in my little town but we could do nothing but laugh hysterically. Have you ever been in a car that is 44 yrs old, let alone ridden in one with 5 other people, only to coast down the hill backwards to save on gas and then watch a Peruvian man open a beer bottle with his teeth?? I have.

Wow, it was a really long, really fun day. Bye bye homesickness… hello Peru (well, at least for today. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?)

How many gringas can you fit into a taxi? Part 1

2007-06-23T15:34:00.000-07:00

Pisco Sour – definition: Peruvian unofficial “national alcoholic drink”. Pisco is liquor that is made somewhere in the country and by itself tastes disgustingly like really cheap Tequila. When added to sour mix, PCTs love it because it sounds like you are saying “Peace Corps Sour”.

Pisco, Pizza, Papas Fritas,….

Remember when you were a kid and it was pizza day for lunch in the school cafeteria. It was best thing that could have ever happened right? That was today for just about all of us. It was a day of indulgence and I enjoyed every second of it. J

This morning we all met at the training center at 7:30am. (Did I mention it was a Saturday?) From there a bunch of combis took us with our language groups to different parts of Lima. My group went to Barranco, a really old part of the city. Lima is only about 25 miles away but it takes at least an hour to get there on a combi. This was our first time to “the big city” and there was some major hand holding by the PC. My mom actually said to me yesterday “You’re language teacher says you are going to Lima tomorrow, are you scared?” I was like, “uhhh, scared of what?”

I had to explain to her that I’ve traveled all over Europe and parts of Asia all by myself. I think I could handle myself in Lima, gosh; I even speak the language here. When I went to Thailand, I arrived at the Bangkok airport with my backpack and a scrap of paper with the name of a hotel on it. All I knew was I was supposed to meet up with some friends I had met more than three years earlier…… yeah I think I can handle Lima.

So we spent the first half of the day going around town asking stupid questions to strangers like “What parts of town are dangerous? What businesses are around here? How much does it cost to take a taxi to central Lima?” Then we rushed over to the center of town for a surprise! Some surprise – it ended up being the changing of the guard at some random building – not impressive at all.

I had been in kind of a bad mood all day. I was feeling pretty homesick, and sitting on the combi for hours on end did nothing but let me think about people from home. Its weird, the more you miss something, the more you think about it and the more it comforts you. You actually convince yourself that daydreaming about it is a good thing. Then after a couple of moments you flash back to reality and realize every second you think about home, it just makes it that much harder to be away. But at the same time you can’t snap back to reality. That’s where friends come to the rescue.

Finally classes were over and we had the rest of the day to explore the city! Well, at least until dark. We had to get home before it got too late because “its not safe to be out at dark in the city”. Can you imagine what its like to have a curfew at 7:30pm? Not so much fun.

Anyway a group of us girls took off and the first thing we did was find a place to eat Pizza for lunch! It was sooooo delicious! So was the massive plate I ate of french fries doused in ketchup. It was great, there were 8 of us girls, off on our own, finally having a chance to talk and get to know each other more. With a group of 34 people split up amongst four different neighborhoods, two different technical groups, and eight different languages classes, it can be hard to really get to people personally. But by the time we all finished our 2 for the price of 1 Pisco Sours, we had all begun to share our deepest darkest secrets.

After lunch we all had chocolate cake, ice cream or coffee then headed to the super market for supplies! Me, the most un-germaphobe ever picked up anti-bacterial hand wash and a bar of soap to carry around in my purse. That tells you how absolutely disgustingly dirty it is around here. I also grabbed some tea bags for the cold sleepy mornings at the training center.

Finally it was time to leave and we had to figure out how to get back. Options: A: combi(1-2 hrs, crappy uncomfortable ride, really cheap), B: collectivo (big taxi for groups, faster than a combi, cheaper and safer than a taxi), or C: taxi(expensive but fast and not so safe). And the winner is…..

Lets just say that we quickly went from trying to distinguish between which cars were collectivos and which were taxis to deciding to bargain with a taxi driver for a really cheap price. It was unbelievably easy. The second guy we asked (in Spanish of course) let all 8 of us ride in his Toyota Camry Wagon. One up front, four in the middle and three of us in the way back. 30 minutes later we were home, safe and sound. J