Peru´s Martha

End of the Road

2009-11-17T20:43:00.000-08:00

Well, my Peace Corps service has come to an end. It's been sad to have to say goodbye to all of the friends I made while in Arequipa, but I know that I will be back to visit some day.

Rather than head straight home, I'll be traveling around south america, getting home just in time for Christmas. It's strange to be leaving the Peace Corps and starting a new stage of my life. In the words of Bob Dylan, "The line it is drawn / The curse it is cast / The slow one now / Will later be fast / As the present now / Will later be past / The order is / Rapidly fadin' / And the first one now / Will later be last / For the times they are a'changin'."

Halloween!

2009-11-05T12:26:00.000-08:00

This year for halloween, the Peace Corps - Arequipa volunteers dressed up in the typical peruvian outfits from the department of Ayacucho, and we were a huge hit. People were asking to take photos with us all night, and Shannon and I gathered a crowd of over 100 people when we started dancing in the Plaza de Armas, and even made some tips doing it!

Marinera

2009-10-20T18:40:00.000-07:00

During the week of our town anniversary different schools and organizations perform cultural dances. This video is of two kids that have been dancing the marinera together for a few years, which at their age is pretty significant. A lot of the longer videos I have take too long to upload, but I'll keep trying. Enjoy!

Winding Down

2009-10-20T17:37:00.000-07:00

Time is moving fast. It's hard to believe that the 2 years are coming to an end, and that I'll have to re-learn how to follow american social customs and be politically correct. I doubt people will take kindly to me saying "hey fatty, how are you?", my inflection showing how happy I am to see the person, but the words seeming to contradict my good intentions. People will also probably think I'm racist when the first language that comes out of my mouth when I try to order something in a restaurant is spanish. In fact, maybe even that sentence was inappropriate to write. I'm a fast learner . . . I'll re-adapt quickly, I hope.

News: We had the yearly Pisco, Wine and Shrimp festival in my site a few weeks ago, which was a bla

st. Held down by the river, it's a full weekend of eating shrimp, dancing, and watching races, such as those riding bikes or those riding donkeys. A few days la

ter was my town anniversary, for which the hold town closes it's businesses to go march in and watch the parade during the day, and then watch/bet on cock fights and go to the concert at night. This year Armonia 10 came a played in the stadium, and it was really fun dancing until 5 am.

Work stuff: The hydraulic engineers are here full time now, having started construction of the new water tank/reservoir and installation of a water treatment system. It's too bad I won't be here when they finish to benefit from the cleaner water . . . it would have been nice to wash my face and teeth with water that doesn't smell like waste water. I've also been teaching a lot of health classes with a nurse, Maria. I much prefer to work with the 15-16 year olds rather than the middle school aged kids. Even though the older kids act like they're too cool sometimes, they get into the activities and stop worrying about what their friends will think of them, while the younger kids can't get over their self-consciousness and are horrified at the thought of being different from their classmates.

Other than that, I've just been trying to enjoy the rest of my time here and get everything that I need to done. I have quite a few reports to finish up for the Peace Corps, but I've turned in drafts and am just waiting to hear what revisions need to made. I also have to finish up grad school applications - I'd like to have them done before I start my travels to have my shoulders free of any extra weight, that is to say, apart from my overstuffed backpack. I'm really excited about my travel plans after I finish my Peace Corps service in mid-November. I'll be heading to Buenos Aires to meet up with Jill and I can't wait to see her. We're planning to spend a few days exploring the city, and then visit Iguazu Falls before her thanksgiving break is up and she has to go back to work. Fortunately for me, Ali Conte is looking for an adventure, and will meet me in Buenos Aires, then we'll go to Santiago, Chile, Easter Island, swing through bolivia, hopefully seeing the salt flats, and end up in cochabamba for Dan and Dari's wedding! The wedding is going to be so much fun, and I can't wait to see my family! I'm looking forward to finally having christmas with my parents, and then going west for new years, when all the pasadena people will be home, and i'll be able to catch up with a lot of friends I haven't seen in a long time.

New Stage

2009-08-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

The new volunteers arrived this morning to Arequipa. There is a married couple, a boy and a girl. While all their sites are far from mine, I'm excited to have them here. They all seem like really good people, and I feel like we'll get along well. It's exciting to have new friends, even if they have to be my friends just because we're all PCVs in the same department, haha.

Last week the volunteers from Arequipa were invited to meet with a Congressional delegation that was traveling through the city. There were 9 representatives, as well as wives, marines, and members of the Library of Congress. It was really interesting to sit and talk with then, exchanging ideas and perspectives, for the time we were allowed before they were whisked off to their next engagement.

Next week I have my Close of Service conference in Lima, and it'll be good to reconnect with a lot of the other volunteers that I haven't seen since 3 months into my service. Being so far south means that we are quite isolated from what's going on with volunteers in the north. Should be an interesting few days!

2009-08-05T09:08:00.001-07:00

With only a few months left of my Peace Corps service, I've started to think about all the things I'll miss about Peru. It's strange how accustomed I've become to certain aspects of the lifestyle here, the very basics being life without hot water, a washing machine, an oven, nor a refrigerator. Apart from that, I realized this weekend that all I expect from a Sunday is a day of rest and time to watch a soccer game. I stop on the streetcorner and have a 10 minute conversation about the weather, without realizing it. I'm definitely going to miss the dancing. There is no party if people aren't dancing. And every party has family and friends from age 5 to 75 who come, and all dance. The focus on the family, while overwhelming at times, has made me realize how much more I'd like to be able to spend time with my extended family. I very much value my independence, and more so now, after seeing the more conservative, close to home lifestyle of many peruvians, and I'm glad to have been able to demonstrate to them that independence can be beneficial, but I've also learned that a little more dependence on family and friends can help maintain those relationships for years to come. I know I'll be really excited to be home, but I'm also glad that I have a few more months to enjoy my time in Peru, soaking up as much cumbia music and culture as possible.

Work has been slow the past few weeks because schools let out for Fiestas Patrias, the

peruvian celebration of independence, and then

vacations were extended because of the swine

flu. Before school let out I was working with Maria, a nurse,

with a group of teenagers,

training them as peer health promotors. We have also been teachin

g classes in both high schools, a few each week, working with younger students on self-esteem and good hygienic practices, and with older students on self-esteem, changes in adolescence and sexual education. Working with the teenagers is really interesting, and they have participated a lot and given us some great feedback. The community library, in the municipa

lity, is also working well. We have gotten a few more donations of books, and many kids come after school to do their homework or assigned reading, or use the computers to research an assignment. I'm trying to train the librarian as much as I can in using the computer software to organize the books etc to make sure that the project continues to function well after I'm gone.

Back to Work!

2009-05-14T11:31:00.001-07:00

I must say I've been surprisingly productive in my time back in site after a really nice vacation. My parents came to see me for a few weeks and treat me to my new version of luxury: hot showers. It was really awesome to be able to spend time with them and travel around a bit. We started out in my town so they could say hello to my host family, then we headed off to Cusco. We spent a few days in the city, then seeing the incan ruins in the sacred valley before heading off on the Inca Trail. From were we started it was a trek of about 55 kilometers, crossing over Dead Woman's Pass at 4,215 meters. It was pretty cool to arrive at Machu Picchu by foot, even though the view through the fog from Intipunku was not ideal. After finishing seeing the cusco sights, we flew to Puerto Maldonado, in the Madre de Dios jungle, to spend my birthday just over the border in Bolivia, at the Heath River Lodge. The jungle was humid, and we were hours and hours from any form of telephone, cell phone signal, or internet access. Our cabins were even lit by candlelight, which would have been much more romantic if I hadn't been staying in a cabin by myself! In the mornings we took a boat down the river to the Macaw Clay Lick, and saw quite an array of birds come to eat the clay, which they do to balance out their diets of unripe fruit. All in all it was a fantastic vacation, and maybe it's nerdy but I really like spending time with my parents.

Since getting back, I've been super busy. There is a new nurse and a new doctor in the EsSalud health post, and they have been really excited to work with me and get started visiting schools and getting to know the community. I've been teaching classes to adolescents and young adults, and getting a close-by community ready to receive the next peace corps volunteer in december. Now I just need to find time to go for a run!

Water Project

2009-03-23T14:33:00.001-07:00

This is what the reservoir that my water comes from looks like. It's really disgusting. They put chlorine into the blue tank to 'clean' the water, but no traces of chlorine actually enter the water in the houses, so the system is not terribly effective. There are plants growing in the water inside, and it turns out that the accumulation of debris and residuals has caused an excess of free radicals to be present in the water, not to mention the over-the-limit level of fecal matter. Delicious.

One of my current projects is working with some hydraulic engineers on a profile of the current system and a proposal for a new reservoir and some sections of new piping to increase the quality and water pressure throughout the network. It's been interesting to survey the topography of the whole town and it's surrounding small communities, and I've been administering a survey to find out the opinions of the people about their water quality. So here's to making a better system and not getting cancer!

Sad Stuff

2009-02-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

Being summertime, and having the schools closed, work has been a little slow in the last few weeks. The good news is that I’ve had more time to work in the library, and will be picking up the next set of books from Promolibro at the end of the week to supplement our collection.

We had a really scary and tragic incident in my town last week. A large attraction here are the crawdads, which are served almost year round. Right now they are in their time of reproduction, or “veda” and it’s illegal to harvest them. However, people do it anyway. Two men approached 2 15-year-old boys and offered them 100 soles if they would pick a certain amount of camarones. The kids said sure, and went to the river with the men. Once there, the men pulled out huge knives and cut the boys. One got a cut from his wrist up to his elbow, but managed to escape, ran home, then jumped on the first bus to Arequipa. His friend was not so lucky. The men cut up his arm, cut off one hand and one foot, slit his throat, then removed his kidneys, small intestine, heart and eyes. They covered him with large rocks on the low bank of the river, where he was uncovered and found 7 days later by some people working in the area, and, overcome by the stench, looked for the source. The boy who escaped came back after 3 days and has been working with the police, giving as much detail as possible about the incident. It seems to be illegal organ trafficking, and further analysis is being done on the corpse in Lima to determine better the time-span of the crime. I was in the municipality yesterday when the mother came in, trying to file the papers for her murdered son. She is so overwhelmed with all the paperwork coming from the government, police, lawyers, and hospitals, and barely seems to know what to do. This was one of my students, and it’s really hard to digest what happened to him. It’s really scary that illegal organ trafficking has been brought to this small town, as well. Parents are right: Don’t talk to strangers.

Keepin on

2009-01-30T13:35:00.000-08:00

Things are going pretty well this week. It's summer vacation and there is a group of 6 kids that come to the library every morning for a few hours to read, and they come because they actually want to sit quietly and read. It's amazing. With those kids as a base of users and the occasional other person that wanders in to check it out, it's looking like a success. Promolibro has been pleased with our library management and is going to send another loan of books to augment our selection in a few weeks.

Last November I started working on an International Art Exchange with OneWorld Classrooms. I sent artwork from local high school students to the organization in mid-december, and I got news today that the organization loved the art. They are based in Massachusetts, and are putting our artwork on display in a few high schools before sending it off to the final recipient school. We were also awarded a grant of $50 for art supplies for the school, which is fantastic. While that may not be an overwhelming sum in the states, it will go far to help the students here. We'll be receiving artwork from other students in april I think, so it will be fun to set up a 'gallery show' at the school to show it off.

Another highlight is that today I met 2 hydraulic engineers who are creating a project plan for a new water system in my community. Our water is terrible, and is the cause of a lot of malnutrition because of the parasites and bacterial infections that the kids get when their water isn't treated properly. To go to the source and fix the water will help the health of this community immensely. The engineers were very interested in my job with Peace Corps and said they would love help with the organization and creation of a feasible project proposal. I'm really excited about working on this project.

A New Year

2009-01-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

They past few months have been busy, and full of travels. For Thanksgiving I went to visit some volunteers in Ancash, just above Lima. Hiking in the Cordillera Blanca was gorgeous, and it was great to celebrate the day of thanks with some good friends.

In December we had medical checks and year-in program meetings in Lima, which was fun because we got to see all the volunteers from our training group; it had been since March when we were all together last. Thankfully I'm healthy and had fun presenting about my projects, most notably the Library progress. It's summer here, and there are a lot of kids who come to the library to read everyday during their summer vacations - it's a lot of fun recommending books and encouraging them to keep it up. I'll be back in site for a solid period of time, now, and am looking forward to some interesting projects, such as a youth group of health promoters to teach about healthy sexual practices with the goal of AIDS prevention. My parents are coming to visit in April, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them and traveling around a little.

Integrating

2008-10-11T08:06:00.000-07:00

As a desperate act of integrating into our communities, Emily signed us up this week to present a dance at her town's high school anniversary celebration. We thought long an hard about what we could do to impress these peruvians - they've got more than their fair share of typical dances to choose from. Although both of us enjoy dancing to hip-hop music when we go out, we decided it may not be appropriate to present a number like that. We then thought about the Electric Slide, Cotton Eyed-Joe, and everything else down to the Macarena. In the end, we decided to present a swing number to the tune of Go Daddy-O. The only hitch is that neither of us dance swing. Even so, after a solid 3 hours of choreography and practice we entered center stage at the celebration and wowed the peruvians with our incredible dance talent.

http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pv4OJIXeDU

In other news, Peace Corps Arequipa (we function practically like a separate country down south) has started working closely with the NGO CoPlan on their current project of promoting leadership and the role of citizenship and democracy in small communities. There are a lot of different forms that CoPlan's projects can take on, which is nice to have the flexibility to mold their project to help our specific communities better. They use volunteers from various universities around Arequipa to travel to rural communities and empower other peruvian youth while providing a solid model of success for the youth, being successful and motivated peruvian students themselves. It's a very interesting partnership for Peace Corps to be working with CoPlan and it's really nice to meet some people close to our age and education level in the city as well. They came to my site to do a training with students at a technical institute as well as people from the municipality this week and we have plans to develop a larger project together early next year.

Festival Time

2008-09-25T16:42:00.000-07:00

In August I was able to go home for a few days to celebrate my brother’s wedding - what a treat. Not only to have the comforts of home, but to be surrounded by family and friends for a few days was amazing. Dan was also able to come back to Peru with me and visit for a few days, which made getting on the plane leaving America a lot easier.
I’m now safely back in my site and enjoying the events of our “Cultural Week” and town anniversary. This weekend is the Shrimp, Wine and Pisco Festival with a packed schedule of dance performances and culinary delights. This morning there was a ‘marathon’ around town. There were groups for kids, teenagers, adults, senior citizens, and representatives of institutions. I ran in the last category to represent Cuerpo de Paz . . . and I won! I guess that says something about the physical fitness level of the business people in my community. It should be a fun weekend enjoying all of my small town’s finest food, drink, and entertainment.

2008-08-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

The 'final' version of my world map in the community library. It was a process . . .

2008-07-03T10:41:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I was in Arequipa for a monthly meeting with our coordinators and the other volunteers, and we had an opportunity to go to a bullfight in Characato, just outside the city. It was of the Arequipena style, with no matador, spears, whips, blood, or dead toros. The bulls came into the ring, their owners were not allowed to touch them during the fight, and if they felt the urge to battle the other bull, they turned head to head until one of them had enough, and then he ran away. Once, a bull entered the ring, saw the other bull panting and pawing the ground and said, "Forget this", turned, and ran away without a fight. He lost.

Projects are coming along well - This week's accomplishment was to plant a 'biohuerto', or garden, in the technical institute in town. The students are mostly 18-20 and are invited to study here with free room and board, only paying a minimal fee for classes. All of these students are from the sierra, the mountains a bit farther inland from me. Some are single mothers without many other options, the others are kids who don't have the resources to be able to study in a university, and this is an amazing opportunity for them to be able to learn more skills and perhaps fulfill some of the goals they would otherwise be unable to meet. We planted cabbage, swiss chard, onion, beets, and broccoli. I hope some of the veggies actually grow . . . the kids can then use them to augment their lunches with more vegetables, or to sell and be able to buy more seeds to improve the garden. We also did a lesson on SODIS, the solar water disinfection method, and it they are going to adapt this method, for which they only need plastic bottles and the sun, to have safe drinking water for lunch, rather than boiling the 10-15 liters of water every day.

Things to look forward to:

- Rob's wedding in August. I'm really excited to see my family and the friends who are able to make it out, as well as all of the family friends at the wedding. It's gonna be great.

- Saturday is Emily's birthday, so we are going to celebrate in her community . . . I'm thinking of combining it with a 4th of July celebration and dressing up like an American flag. We'll see what I can pull off.

Library

2008-06-23T13:52:00.000-07:00

For months now I've been working to coordinate a community library project with the municipality - we've finally made some progress. We've got the space painted, a window constructed, wiring put in to have light, a door constructed, we have 2 large bookshelves, a large table for students to read or do work at, a small desk for the 'librarian', a few books from prior donations, computers on their way, and I've painted a map of the world on the wall as well.

It is still missing country and ocean names, but some local artists are going to help me to paint the peruvian flag, peace corps sign, municipality symbol and write the names on the map. At least they will be able to get the accents in the right places! Looking forward to a grand opening of the library within the next couple of weeks.

Peruvian Wedding

2008-05-20T21:09:00.000-07:00

Although my host parents have been together for about 30 years married by a civil ceremony, they finally decided to get married in the church. It was interesting watching a group wedding ceremony of about 25 couples, with the majority of family and friends waiting outside the church to get the ceremony nonsense overwith so we could start the party!

2008-05-02T20:18:00.001-07:00

Cotahuasi was incredible - even more beautiful than I had imagined, and much cooler than Colca because of the lack of tourists and development. It's a very calm and natural canyon, with a really interesting landscape and cool things to see.

For anyone with the time, I would recommend the 12 hour bus ride to Cotahuasi for a much richer experience than what can be found in a trip to Colca. Colca is also cool, but as it is the second most profound canyon, it only comes in at second best.

Work has been interesting lately, with a potential latrine project, water sanitation ideas, a series of lectures on family violence, child abuse and sexual abuse, training sessions for high school teachers in areas of sexual reproduction, diseases, and relationships, working with families to improve nutrition and hygiene in the home, the community library, an exercise group with some little old ladies . . . there are a million different opportunities for projects, so I've been trying to narrow in my focus on what is possible to complete, what would help the community most, and what I'm most interested in doing.

My parents came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was awesome to have them here, even if it was for only a week. They came to my site and were able to get to know the family I'm living with over a feast of shrimp, then see a bit of the town, the fields that my host family owns and currently has a crop of rice, but will be planting wheat and potatoes soon, and also meet some of the people I work with in town. The community members have yet to stop talking about how enormously tall my father is, and how now they understand

why I'm so tall. It was also interesting to do some of the more touristy things in Arequipa with my parents, such as take a 2-story bus around the city to see the sights, and go into the Monastery of Santa Catalina. I had been told that the monastery was really cool, and it went above and beyond my expectations. It was so interesting to learn a bit more about the history of Arequipa and about the influences of the Spanish culture on Peru, and on Arequipa in particular. It's a gorgeous monastery, and at the high point, the nuns in that convent lived better than I ever will, with servants and special china for their afternoon tea. Having my parents in town for my birthday was the best present of all. It was really fun to go to a few nicer restaurants with them - I think they were sick of typical Peruvian food by the end of one week, imagine how it'll get to you after 7 months! While in site I don't get overloaded by Peruvian food (aka rice and potatoes) because I mainly cook for myself. Even still, it's always a nice break to get a salad full of colors that you can eat without the risk of parasites and bacterial infections.

Next week I head to Lima for a workshop in Project Design Management, and I am supposed to bring with me a member of my community. I chose my host mom, Elda, to take with me because she's got a million ideas about how to make the community a better place, but has no real concept of how to go about making those ideas a reality. I also chose her because she is well known in the community, will be living here for the rest of her life, and is really great and I am excited spend a few days with her. It will also be great to see some of the other volunteers - not everyone is coming to this same workshop, but there will be enough of us for it to be really fun.

Back To Majes

2008-03-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

After a few weeks of traveling, I`m back in Majes. First I was in Chivay finishing the Quechua workshop that we were offered during february, then I went up to Trujillo for reconnect with all the other volunteers from Peru 10, my training group. It was really good to see everyone, hear about their experiences, and share information about projects that we have going on. I`ve been spending this week trying to get the library project to stay on track as well as continue with the other projects that I had going on. It was strange to be out of site for 2 weeks and then come back and try to pick back up, especially when it`s the anniversary of the district next week as well as Semana Santa. For Easter we have 4 days off, and a few of the volunteers and I are heading to Cotahuasi, the biggest canyon in the world, to explore, go hiking, and relax in the thermal baths. I`ve heard it`s beautiful, and I`m really excited about the few days of vacation with the other volunteers.

Pensamientos

2008-02-21T12:03:00.000-08:00

Part of my work here in Peru is to open people´s minds to new cultures. I feel like I´ve accomplished that goal with the 6 men with whom I was working yesterday. In starting this library project, we want to use a space in the municipality that was previously a storage room. Yesterday was designated to clean out the storage and move it to the warehouse down the road, so I showed up bright and early to help out. ¨Oh no,¨ they told me, ¨don´t worry yourself¨. But I insisted, then the 7 of us, with an occasional extra pair of hands, worked for at lest 4 hours straight, carrying boxes, old engine parts and god knows what else from the storage room to the truck, driving down the road, unloading, and coming back . . . 5 times. It was heavy stuff, but we worked through it together. Afterwards they admitted to me they had been shocked I was willing to do manual labor like that, carrying boxes and whatnot, and I didn´t even complain about how heavy it was. Shock and amazement, women sometimes are competent. It´s been really fun working on the construction of the library with all these gruff old men. They´ve started making fun of some of the guys who have slacked off the job, saying how much better this gringa is. I´m taking off for a few weeks to finish my Quechua workshop and to meet up with the other volunteers for reconnect to talk about our projects and experiences thus far, and I´m sad not to be able to keep up the pace and motivation on construction. I trust Don Pepe to be in charge in the meantime, continuing to get things set. When I get back we´ll finish painting, and be able to open up for the community.

February

2008-02-16T14:56:00.001-08:00

This past week was spent in Colca, an area in the Andes above Arequipa City. Eight of the nine volunteers all traveled to be together for part one of a Quechua workshop. Quechua is one of the primary indigenous languages of Peru, continuing part of the rich Incan history. By the end of the week we were able to go around town meeting people in Quechua and buying things in the market with our new skills. Just the simple “Allilanchu?” (How are you?) would get the senoras all excited that we knew some Quechua (at which point they would start babbling on in a language we todavia do not understand). It was a good week.

My boss, Emilia, came down for Lima to see how things have been going in Arequipa yesterday. Although all my perfectly constructed plans went to caca the afternoon before she arrived (i.e. the police chief left, the class I was supposed to teach was turned into ‘day of sports’ and the gobernadora with whom I had project plans was asked to leave office), things ended up going well. I was able to propose plans for starting a library with the mayor, and it looks that we’ll be getting that under way in the next few weeks. I also have a club for adultos mayors, a project to bring agua potable to town, and a club de adolescents. In a meeting for the latter today we had a waterballoon fight in the plaza to demonstrate how they need to put on more sunscreen after going swimming in the summer. It was pretty hilarious.

I’ve got a lot of things being brought to my plate. I’m really glad, because a lot of what is missing in the community is not the idea of the project, but the organization to get the ball rolling. Hopefully we can keep the momentum going.

A New Year

2008-01-20T05:29:00.000-08:00

The holidays passed smoothly - I celebrated Christmas and New Years with my host family in site, and it was really interesting to learn about their traditions.

Christmas: is celebrated starting the night of the 12th. We all got together, and at midnight went around hugging and kissing everyone to wish them a merry christmas, then had our christmas feast, sang 'feliz navidad' about 35 times. At 2 am we took a taxi to grandma's house down the road to sing more with her, so I didn't make it to bed until close to 4. On Christmas day the family went out to a restaurant to have Christmas Cuy and play sappo. Eating a guinea pig was an experience, and I'm glad it's over and done with.

For New Years my 24-year-old sister, Barabara, and I planned a party at our house. About 25-30 people were coming, and we got steaks of pig meat and papas to serve to all, as well as 7 cajas of chela and a few bottles of pisco to toast with pisco sours. At midnight we all went outside to watch the life-size doll be burned in the street as we were dodging the fireworks that the children were shooting at each other. We were all wearing our yellow underwear for good luck, we passed around rice and lentils to signify having food and money for the year, we ate 12 grapes and made wishes on each of them . . . then we danced till dawn. I went to sleep around 7 and when I went out at 10 am there were still people drinking and celebrating. That's endurance.

Work is going well - I started teaching English classes at the summer school last week and I'm starting my teen health club the upcoming week. I also am headed to a workshop to learn a bit of Quechua, one of the indigenous dialects, and I'm really excited about it. There will be 8 volunteers at the workshop, so it will also be cool to see the other people and hear about how their sites are.

One of the biggest bands in Peru, Kaliente, came to my site for a concert, and Emily came in to go to the concert with me. We ended up meeting the band and dancing on stage in front of my entire city . . . I still haven't stopped hearing about my impressive cumbia skills. Grupo 5 is coming in a few weeks as well. We may have to have an encore performance just to not disappoint all of our fans . . .

2007-12-22T18:20:00.000-08:00

13-12-07

2007-12-14T12:19:00.000-08:00

I’ve almost completed my first two weeks in site. I could look at it as though I’m leaps and bounds closer to that 2 year mark, or I could look at it as though there are now only 102 weeks left. This week I was relatively productive. On Sunday I was invited to an inauguration ceremony for the neighborhood watch program that was set up in many of the outlying communities. I was given one of the 7 chairs of honor on stage, alongside the mayor, governor, and other official people. They even asked me to come up to present the vests and whistles to the head of one of the community watch groups. Then a tray of shot glasses was passed around and we all toasted and took a shot of pisco at 11am. To honor the community members participating in the program, there was a ‘parade’ afterwards where the 7 official people, including me, stood on the curb and cheered for each group as they walked past us down a ½ block stretch. The presentation was set up in the plaza, and the loudspeakers were facing my house, so members of my host family kept popping their heads around the corner as they heard my name being called out.
I started writing and revising a health survey this week for use with the members of the anexos to learn more about their communities. I tried to keep it short, but it still takes about 20 min to administer. I passed it around to a bunch of nurses and doctors at the health post to correct and revise, but was a little disappointed by the lack of feedback. I know certain nurses have special side projects that correspond to certain parts of the survey, such as nutrition or sanitation of environment, but when I asked them for feedback they just said it was fine. I was hoping for a more collaborative document that more people could take ownership of. Yesterday I started giving a few interviews when the nurses and I went to visit the health post of a side community. There was one woman who impressed me immensely – I am going to find her to help me with projects in that anexo because she seemed to really have a grasp on what needs to be done.
Today I helped teach an English class at the public primary school, and the English teacher is nice – I look forward to working with her on a diagnostic exam for her students and maybe having seminars with some of the older kids where I help them practice speaking in English. The director agreed to let me paint my world map on the wall of the school, which is awesome because it’s in the Plaza de Armas, and therefore is a high exposure area. Now I just need to find some kids to help me with the drawing and painting. I also went to the catholic school today to introduce myself to the director. He has it together; the teachers seem very professional and nice, and from what he told me it seems that the majority of students head to University, with a back-up of a tech institute after high school. The only issue is that I want to work with sex-ed topics, and I can’t do that within a catholic school. Hopefully I get to know some of the high school kids well enough to have a side group out of school or am able to share information informally to not get in trouble with God’s rules for parochial schools. The director took me around and introduced me personally to almost all of the high school classes, one by one. It was great to meet the kids, but kind of embarrassing to have him give a verbose and well-put together introduction in each classroom and then have me stuttering to think of something slightly different to say each time so he wouldn’t think I was an idiot. In a few of the classrooms they asked me to greet them in English, which started as an English translation of what I had said in Spanish – a formal “thank you for having me and I’m looking forward to getting to know you better over the next few months” kind of speech. By the end of it, realizing that no one knew what I was saying other than “hello my name is Martha” I started getting a little goofy and using the time to entertain myself.
There is a big demand to learn English among quite a few of the adults here. All the doctors and nurses at the health post want classes, as do people in my host family and their friends. I’ve started to put together lesson plans and activities for English classes. With this I could either start teaching an ESL class to adults (kids are tiring) or use the exercises to supplement classroom activities when I work with the local teachers. Speaking English is a skill that I have (most of the time) that people are interested in, so I figure I should take advantage and use it to get to know people in my first few months here.
It sucks being away this close to the holiday season. I miss my family so much, and it’s hard to not be able to talk to friends either. I have a cell phone now, but the rates for calling from that are ridiculous. I’m going to get a pair of headphones to use with skype, and then hopefully I will find an internet cabina that does not have the background music from world of warcraft blasting at full volume to be able to talk to people. There are also new rules in the customs that no individual can receive any more than $1000 in declared value or 3 packages in a year, and I don’t know if that means boxes or bags as well. Padded envelopes are the most safe thing to send, it seems, and to be send through USPS because they link in with our national service, Serpost. Anyway, that is lame because I like care packages. Trashy magazines have never been so exciting. After I read them I spend my free time (of which I have a lot) doing arts and crafts – I can now made beads out of strips of magazine to create jewelry, and I’ve been weaving small baskets as well. Yes, Dad, I think I finally could tackle that underwater basket weaving. They offer the official class at UC Santa Cruz if you still want to try it out.
I miss being home, but I’m dealing fine. My host family is nice – I taught my host mom how to make peanut butter a few days ago and she is thrilled. She can’t get enough of it. Martha knew how to make peanut-butter, you ask? No, it was my first time, but I pretended like I could teach her how and it wasn’t that hard, so it worked out well. And now I have natural peanut butter to put on my bread for a snack.

My new home . . .

2007-12-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

After spending a few days shopping in Arequipa for household necessities, I arrived at the bus terminal with 8 bags stuffed into a mini taxi and a mattress perched precariously on top. No problem, we just transferred all the stuff to the back of the bus. And when I got off at my site, I found a taxi to drive the stuff to my house for me, where my new host madre made her sons shlep it up the stairs into my room.
Setting up my room has been going well - I bought a couple bookshelves to put clothes, books and food on. I was coming back from the provincial capital yesterday in a combi with a desk and bookshelf strapped to the top, then got dropped off in the plaza of my city. I could see my house from where I was standing, holding my bag of pots and pans next to my bookshelf and my table. I´ve been warned enough times not to trust people with my things, so I pulled a superwoman move and picked the bookcase up with my left hand and wrapped my right arm around the table. There were all these grimy guys just sitting around watching as I carried both pieces of furniture all the way across the plaza and to my house. At least I can say I´m making them question traditional gender roles . . .
Today I am going around town and introducing myself to some of the leaders. I went to the police station to meet the chief and I found him in a tank top and shorts scrubbing the bathroom floor. He was so embarrassed not to be in uniform. I´m glad that each time I venture out to meet someone new it seems like new events are added to my ´social´ calendar as well. And by social I really mean chances for me to appear in public with a proper introduction and meet more of the population. Today is the National Police Day, so I am invited to their celebration, and on Sunday there is an inauguration of the new program that is like a neighborhood watch. One event a day, that´s all I need. I have a new cell phone and address now, so send me an e-mail if you want to get that information from me.

2007-11-21T15:33:00.000-08:00

Rice fields and mountains of my new home

The view from my new room (and I have a small balcony overlooking this!)

And the river runs through it . . .

Site Info

2007-11-09T16:25:00.001-08:00

There was a lot of speculation and build-up in the days, and hours, leading up to the revealing of our sites. After FBT, we had to wait until Tuesday. Tuesday in the afternoon. In the afternoon after a BBQ and speeches. Then there were more speeches. Finally, a bucket of Styrofoam fish were dumped into the pool in the back of the training center and we went up in pairs to ‘fish’ them out. On each fish was the name of a city, department, and whether the site was for a health or environment volunteer. Only after the city and department had been announced would the program director announce the name of the volunteer headed to that site. Before having time to look over the information in the folder given to us with site information, we then had to take our turn at fishing out the next piece of Styrofoam for the next volunteer. We were all completely on edge.
I was right about the cluster of volunteers that I am placed near, although the location is different from my initial idea of where I would go. Is this description beginning to make you antsy to know my site the same way the information was held back from me? Here it goes . . .
Arequipa. I am moving to a medium sized city in the department of Arequipa, province of Castilla. I’ll be living in a valley with a river, and my city is known for it’s shrimping from the river. They’ve got shrimp scampi, shrimp gumbo, fried shrimp, baked shrimp . . . I’ll have electricity, water, a toilet rather than a latrine, cell service, and there is surely internet access in my city.
Arequipa itself is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Peru, and is known as the white city because most of the buildings are made of sillar, or white volcanic stone. The dynamic that exists between those Peruvians from Arequipa and those Peruvians from anywhere else in Peru. Some people have considered Arequipa to be like the Texas of Peru, where all the citizens think they are better than anyone from the rest of the country, and they would rather be their own country. They call it the “Republica Independiente de Arequipa”, and when I was given my site information I was also given a fake diplomatic passport to be able to “get into” the department. I think it’s funny that people from my department think they are better than the rest of Peru, and I’m excited to join in with the patriotic sentiment for the ‘real’ Peru. Arequipa the city is only 8 hours from Cusco . . . a perfect excuse to come visit me before heading to Machu Picchu! The two other volunteers and I are headed out this weekend for Arequipa to visit our sites and get to know the people who are already positioned in the south – there aren’t many of us! The cluster of three sites are all new sites, without previous volunteers, but it sounds like the communities have a lot of opportunities for me to get involved, including work in psychology. I’m really looking forward to taking the 14-16 hour bus ride down south to check out my site.

Preliminary site info

2007-11-02T11:52:00.002-07:00

I had a meeting with Emilia, my director, today, and found out some clues about my future site. She told me that she has a site for me and thinks it will be a great fit. I can’t help but wonder how much of that sentiment is true versus how much is merely trying to reassure me. As she described the area, I got really excited, but am still nervous about site visits in a week. She told me that I will be in a hot climate and I will be living in a valley with a big river, it will be on the coast about 70 km from the beach. I will be living in a regional capital, about 3 hours from the department capital. My city will have electricity, water, and internet, as well as cell service. The health center employs about 30 people, which is relatively large. My sociocommunitaria, or community work partner, will be a woman, Gabi, who works at a larger hospital nearby and will be overseeing the other two volunteers who will be part of my cluster. One girl who also studied psychology will be living about 20 min away, and I think it’s Emily, who was with me over FBT. Another volunteer will be within 2-3 hours, and I think that will be Greg, who will be living up the mountain above my city, which is at the bottom of the valley. It’s a new site, so all three of us are from Peru 10, a Salud group that is now of 19 (Paul left today). I will be working on psychology projects, and will be working closely with a catholic group from either Spain or Canada. The padre in charge of the group speaks 5 languages, including English. I’m excited about the variety of projects that will be available to me in the city. There is an institute for computers and English, and there seems to be a good relationship between the health post and the school. From the info I’ve gathered so far, it may be that this site is in Piura, which is a coastal department in the north. The house that I am going to be living in is on the second floor with a family billiards business on the first floor. Mi madre nueva is 45 and has a 29 year old son, but it seems her husband is a bit older. From what Emilia said, mi madre is excited to have a volunteer and is fairly active in the community. Emilia said she was worried initially because the house is a bit loud (am I living on top of a bar?), but the two volunteers who went with her to check the place out really liked the woman and said it would be a good house for a volunteer. I have my own room, not sure if there is a separate entrance for it, but at least I won’t be inside the room of mi madre. I also have my own bathroom, which is awesome. I’m excited to start with psyc work because it’s more technical and I’ll need to learn and study more than simply giving handwashing charlas for 2 years, which has seemed to be a theme throughout training. Sites are looking up, and I’ll get all the details on Tuesday.

Semana 7

2007-11-02T11:52:00.001-07:00

When we returned to the center today it was interesting to hear about the different experiences that each group had over FBT. My group seemed to have some luck in that we were able to travel to areas with more of a tourist draw as well as the sites of the volunteers. I was also glad that we had from 3-5 volunteers with us at all times, rather than just talking with or visiting one at a time. It allowed for a much more interactive experience because not only were we bouncing questions off each of them, but they asked each other about their sites and discussed the differences in their experiences.
Each group seems to have enjoyed the regions that they visited, which means that no matter where I am placed it was probably be a cool region. The places that we will be sent are the less developed areas, and thus are towns needing more help. In the past week each group visited similar levels of communities, regardless of the department they traveled to. It’s interesting to listen to the stories from each group and see how each one seems to feel their week was the most trying or their experiences were the most strange. We all ate strange things (pancreas, goat, cuy, mystery meat). We all traveled on roads with holes and without pavement. It’s almost like final exam time in school when one student tries to complain about how many exams they have, not stopping to realize that we are all in the same boat.

FBT

2007-10-29T18:10:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a week of Field Based Training, where a group of 5 aspirantes went to La Libertad to visit the sites of a few health volunteers who are working there.

We arrived in Trujillo on Monday morning and went to this crazy museum with ceramic pieces from cultures that were in Peru in 200 AD, and there was also a fetus of a girl who was born with some sort of birth defect and was therefore preserved in some manner. The ceramic pieces were really interesting because they were from a few different cultures, and yet represented the physical and mental deformities and diseases that are still around today, such as a missing cleft in the mouth, and down syndrome.

Later, we hopped on a 3 hour bus to Julcan, a city in the sierra. We worked with a volunteer there on a nutrition charla with a few of the women she works with in town. I learned how to make natural yogurt, a skill I’m excited to put into practice. We were planning to hike out that afternoon, but the rains came with force and we were stuck in Julcan for an extra night.

We got up early the next day and hiked 2 hours with our backpacks to the site of another volunteer. There is no other form of transportation by which we could get to the site, but the hike was nice, and the mountains were beautiful. When we arrived we met a group of women that the volunteer has been working with on more nutritious meals. To demonstrate, we cooked a feast together of lentil soup, wheat rice, chicken, potatoes, and a dessert that was similar to apple sauce. While we were cooking the thunderclouds started rolling in and we got an awesome show of thunder and lightning that was really close. Suddenly, the sky opened and it began to hail until everything was covered with white, as though it had snowed. We simply moved the fire from the open area underneath the overhang of a building and kept cooking. It was delicious.

Once thoroughly stuffed, we hiked back up the side of the mountain. We were introduced to a woman and helped her to construct a cocina mejorada. This is a big project taken on by a lot of volunteers. Many families in the sierra have a wood fire in their kitchen and use that to cook, but the amount of smoke in the room is really unhealthy. The cocina mejorada is built from adobe blocks that create a canal for the fire, then on top of the adobe blocks we placed iron rods to support the pots. We created a stove for two pots, so we placed the two most used pots on the iron rods, then covered all the adobe with a mixture of dirt, water, and some hay. There was a thin metal sheet that had been folded into a tube that was used as a chimney up from the fire and out a hole in the wall. Once the whole contraption was covered in mud, we removed the pots, thus leaving two perfectly fit holes, and left it to dry. Now the smoke will be blocked by the pots in the holes, and will be channeled up and out the chimney and will no longer be going directly into the lungs of this woman. The kitchen was really dark because there is no electricity in this town, but once a candle was brought it I could see that the walls and ceiling were completely black (it looked like coal had been rubbed all over the walls), which was all from the smoke from the old stove. I can only imagine what her lungs look like. Many people keep guinea pigs (cuy) in their kitchens running loose, fatten them up over the course of a year, and eat them (supposedly it’s a delicacy, but I have yet to try it). As a demonstration I would love to cut open the lungs of a cuy to show how tarred and black they are after so much time breathing the smoke in the kitchen, similar to the women who cook all day.

After finishing the cocina, we were adopted by families in the tiny town for the night. I was taken in with another female aspirante, Emily. We started following the townsmember, Victoria back to her house. She was carrying her one year old on her back, has a 3 year-old who was back at the house, and is 22-years old. As we were walking it was getting dark, and had started to rain a bit. She led us down a mudslide into a ravine, we were hopping from rock to rock across a river, then had to scramble back out of the ravine up the mudslide on the other side. Emily and I were falling and slipping all over the place, covered in mud, while Victoria was practically skipping along with her baby on her back. I think she’s practiced that before. It was interesting to have dinner with the family because Emily and I were seated at the table, and Victoria’s uncle sat with us, but due to their embarrassment and culture the two women (Victoria and her aunt) sat in the corner on sacks of rice. The candle was on the table, and it felt really awkward to be lit up and served at the center table while the other women were hidden in the corner and didn’t speak, but allowed the uncle to carry the conversation.

We left the small mountain village the same way we arrived – had our backpacks on and hiked up the hill. We traveled back to Julcan, and back to Trujillo, where we had some time to relax. We stayed in a hostal that had hot water, which was incredible.

Friday we arrived in San Jose and were treated by the local schoolkids to a show of song, dance, and poetry that they had prepared, along with a snack of papa huancaina, which is a typical dish of potato with a spicy sauce. We then led a charla with a class of kids on hygiene. Using dirt and whatever else we could find that looked dirty, we told a story about Juanito Manito (Little John Hands) and made a set of hands filthy, then demoed proper handwashing techniques. We then took the class outside and, after covertly sprinkling glitter on our hands, introduced ourselves to all the kids. After shaking our hands, their hands were covered in glitter as well, thus demonstrating how easily germs and bacteria can travel. Each student then washed their hands, and we had a couple prizes of fruit for those who could answer some review questions about the lecture.

The same day we also helped out in a computer class for kids who started not being able to use a keyboard at all, and are now working in Microsoft Word on typing skills and being able to change font, color and size. The girl that I was working with went and bought me a cookie afterwards, so I think she liked me. After dinner, we taught an English class to a few adults in the community. We went with the slang theme because it’s usually most interesting. All these community members are now walking around saluting each other with “Hey, what’s up?” rather than typical “buenas”.

On Saturday, after a lecture about the water system, the governer of San Jose decided to take us on a personal tour of the water system in the town. I have to admit that I was not excited about this tour from the start because we were already running behind on time, and therefore I wanted to move on with our day. We were led out into the middle of a field where there was a concrete structure built into the ground, and it’s where all the shit water from the town goes. The smell made me want to vomit. Meanwhile, the governor was telling us about how they just let the bad stuff settle to the bottom, siphon off the top layer and use it for the local agriculture. The fruit is literally grown with shit water. He then took us down a path along the river, which people bathe in, use for water, and all the waste from their houses goes into, and then we trekked across a few more fields before ending up at the water plant. As he was trying to show us how it worked he touched a few things, and before we knew it there was water coming out of the side of pipes and he didn’t know how to fix it. I don’t know if the town will have water for a few days.

Once we escaped from this tour, the day took a turn for the better. We went to the beach town of Pacasmayo to get some awesome ceviche for lunch. We then walked along the boardwalk before hopping our bus back to Trujillo. Since we still had a few hours before our bus back to Lima, we went out to Huanchaco, which is a beach town outside the city that is famous for it’s surfing and the use of the old fishing boats that have been used for hundreds of years in Peru. It was a beautiful evening, and we had a good time talking about our experiences over the week and talking about what we had learned. I’m really glad to have some new people that I feel comfortable asking advice from. I feel like I can contact any of the volunteers I met this week with questions about anything from which brand of rice they buy to how to go about organizing a garden project. We’ve got about 9 days until we find out our sites . . . I’m getting anxious!

2007-10-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

Today is a strange day. Peru is administering a census, and the entire country is on house arrest until 6:00 pm. Yeah, no kidding, if you are found outside your house you will get in trouble with the police. It’s crazy to have all the highways completely clear, and to see the news of downtown Lima, which is usually worse than the 101 at rush hour, and it’s completely devoid of cars. I’m considered a guest, so I get to be part of the census as well. It’s such a strange concept to me that they force all the stores to close and people to stay in their homes ALL DAY, even after their census has bee administered. Our buses leave tonight from Lima, so we have to leave as soon as the transportation ban is lifted at 6 in order to get to the bus station on time tonight. The trip should be fun.

Yesterday we had our class at the Agriculture University in Lima and we checked on the progress of the plants we had replanted, and also learned how to make compost. It was really interesting, even if we were all covered by a dusty layer or horse poop by the end, because that is what we used to layer with old vegetable waste, like the leaves after the vegetable has been harvested. Afterwards we went into Lima and had to buy sleeping bags for this week – I haven’t opened mine up yet but I hope I fit in it . . . it sucks to be so tall and try to shop here.

Work is going well – it’s tiring but each week I feel more confident about going off to my site and being able to contribute to my community. We are going on a trip this week for ‘Field Based Training’, where we are going to visit volunteers in their sites to learn about their projects. I’m especially excited to learn about a project building improved kitchen stoves. We will also give a couple talks about nutrition, computers, and English. It’s really difficult to try to plan a workshop on computers or English with no knowledge of the community skill level or resources, but we’ll have to make do. I think we’ll have time to visit some of the ruins in the area as well, so it should be a good week. (I just got distracted by Alfredo coming out of the kitchen with his hair in a Mohawk, wearing his t-shirt that says “I love Party Girls”, and he had a wooden spoon in one hand and an apron wrapped around his waist . . . guess he’s cooking me lunch)

I like a lot of the volunteers, and it’s fun to be able to go out and have a beer with them after work. There are 38 in my training group, and 20 of us are health volunteers while the other 18 are working on sustainable environmental projects. Last night we went to a reggae concert in a nearby town, which was a riot. It was these two old euro-peruvian white guys named Ponchi and Coky who covered Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff the best they could. Two songs into the concert, which was held in the small local library, the stage lights came crashing down and almost lit the building on fire, so the rest of the show was played with the house lights on. It was hilarious, and it’s events like that that give us a little bit of a break from constantly thinking about our Peace Corps projects.

2007-10-18T18:44:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the flames is Eduardo, a respected school teacher. This is what is called the ´Toro Loco´, where someone wears a hat fashioned as the head of a bull that is laced with fireworks, then dances around in a crowd of people as the fireworks go off. It´s very safe.

2007-10-18T18:41:00.000-07:00

With the fathers of two of my friends in Yanacoto. I stand out a bit, huh?

2007-10-18T18:17:00.000-07:00

Me, Libby (my ´niece´), Martin (my cousin), and Amara (another ´cousin´) in the church for the first communion of my niece, Karen

Week 5

2007-10-18T17:57:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I went with another trainee and our health facilitator on a house visit. We have been working with a satellite health center, and there was a woman who came in with he daughter last week for a basic check-up, because the daughter has been suffering from long boughts of diarrhea and seems to have continuous health problems (anemia, probably because she doesn’t keep food in her system long enough to absorb the nutrients). The three of us hiked up a mountain made of dirt and rocks to get to this house, which was the last house, practically on the summit, and don’t even begin to think that there are roads to get up there. We were climbing over rocks and hiking up this gulley that was the result of a mud/rockslide during the rainy season years ago (which we later found out is what most people use from a bathroom). As we got close, the stray dogs started getting protective – they can smell gringos from a mile away. The mom was nice, and we talked for a while, and because she doesn’t have a bathroom or latrine, she uses a public outhouse type thing a little ways away on the mountain. We made a few suggestions about how to have secure water with which she could wash her and her daughter’s hands closer to the bathroom, because kids are always sticking hands in their mouths and stuff, and also suggestions about how to ration and keep her water clean (she gets water every 4 days and keeps it in a large bucket outside). It was cool because she was really receptive to our suggestions and said we had given her new information with which to try to take better care of the health of her daughter. Who knows if it will be implemented, but it made us feel like we had actually done something.

Next week I’m going for a week to the department of La Libertad (In which is the city of Trujillo) for Field Based Training. There is a group of 5 of us going together, and the other aspirantes are going to different departments to visit with other volunteers and learn about their projects. I think we get to work on a cocina mejorada (an improved kitchen stove project that cooks faster, thus using less wood, and also has a chimney to take the smoke out of the house to improve respiratory conditions), which should be cool, and I’m not sure what else we will be doing, but I think we get to see some ruins the last day there (maybe at Chan Chan).