"Houston, we have uh-oh"

Well I have always tried to maintain a positive attitude about Peace Corps and my site (most of my bitching is done jokingly). Even the things that are really frustrating or irritating are usually amusing in retrospect. Anyway, we spent a lot of energy and time in our site trying to get anything to happen, but everything just kept falling apart. After 10 months of being exposed to the dialect we could still only understand people half of the time, and they could understand me less than that. Eva had an English class (seemingly the only thing people wanted) in the primary school, which after an entire school year was still pronouncing English words phonetically like Spanish (read “apple” as “ahplay”, or “uncle” as “oonclay”). Even though Eva assured them that she was pronouncing her English words correctly, they still didn’t listen. She also tried to have a talk with another class about having goals, “for example”, she said, “I would like to learn Spanish really well”. When called upon by Eva and the teacher, the kids (whom had never been taught the virtue of creativity) one by one said “My goal is to learn Spanish”. Had I been in the room I might have gone home and packed my bags right then, but my wife is bit more forgiving than I am.

Another problem we faced was the town rivalry, which apparently was between our family, and the mayor’s family. Families here consist of hundreds of people, so a single disagreement can lead to ramifications that span miles and generations. This one began because our host dad was the head of the committee to get potable water, and had spent considerable time and energy going around the community to get the signatures needed. The mayor figured there was no point in two people having to do the same work twice, so he stole the signatures to use in his election bid instead. (I would like to say that we were able to get potable water for a bit in our town, but then the townspeople vetoed this amenity when they realized it made their homemade beer taste funny.) We were initially supposed to live with the mayor, but since he wanted us to live in the barn next to his cow, Eva (that crazy girl) refused. Then we were supposed to live with his Aunt and Uncle, but when his Uncle died suddenly, we could no longer live there either. After this everyone was out of bright ideas, and this led to Eva wandering around a strange town trying to find a place we could live for two years. She had the good luck to find a great family that had an empty house next to them. Little did she know that they were the sworn enemies of our mayor, which meant that the mayor decided not to work with us while we were living with his blood nemesis. He hatched a plot to build a house for us that we could move into, and thereafter begin our work together. For some reason he never told us about this plan (we only heard it through health post gossip), and decided the best plan of action was to completely ignore us until our secret house was completed. Since he was the only person who invited us to the town (it’s supposed to be a community effort to get a volunteer, but in our case he was the only person who had ever heard of Peace Corps, or, you know, the United States of America), he was the only person who had an desire to work with us, which led us to be without community partners or work. A year later the house is still not built, so I am not exactly sure how long he thought we were going to be living in his town, but that’s water under the bridge now…

I would also like to bring up the binge drinking, the children being sent to school with bottles of grain alcohol to drink, the abuse in every single household, the fact that when we walked down the street people got so distracted by staring at us that they had to stop what they were doing (or ran the risk of bumping into something), and that English was referred to as “the Spanish of our land”. One of my favorite stories was when a man stopped Eva on one of her runs to ask her how she had learned English. Was it perhaps in a special school? “No” she replied “in the U.S. we learn English from the moment we are born, the same way that Peruvians learn Spanish from birth in this country”. “Ahhhhh” he said “but what would happen if a Peruvian woman moved to the United States and had a baby there, what language would the baby speak, we can never know, can we?”. She agreed that this was indeed an unsolvable conundrum, and continued on her run so as not to offend the man by peeing her pants laughing.

I don’t know what the breaking point was for us, but I think it was our In-Service Trainings, where we got to see other volunteer’s sites and counterparts. We always knew PC wasn’t going to be a cakewalk, but we realized maybe it wasn’t supposed to be quite this difficult. For months we have heard stories from our friends, who say things like “I could live here forever”, and we just could not for the life of us understand what they meant. Whatever it is, there is something about that town that just makes it really tough. Take for example, Lily, the eternally happy nurse at the health post. She arrived in May to do her required year contract at a rural health post, saying that she thought she would stay there for a long time because she liked it so much. Well it only took about 3 months before she was saying that she was out of there when her contract was up. The nurse before her also quit after only a year, and the doctors have been staying even less than that (we went through 3 in our year). Though it turned out to not be successful from a work standpoint, I am really grateful of the cultural experience that I had in our first site. One of the teachers who we were close with described the town as “50 kilometers from Chiclayo, and 50 years behind”. It was really incredible to experience a life so different than we have known, despite the difficulties, and there were moments where we felt peace and companionship, but those moments were few and far between, and it was decided by us and our bosses that the U.S. government really wasn’t paying for us to be force fed moonshine, and babysit.

Anyway, we decided it was time to cut and run. We decided this in the beginning of September, and then spent the next two months saying “screw this, I quit” everyday while we waited for a site change. So now it is now the beginning of December, and we arrived to our new site a few weeks ago, which has been like stepping out of the proverbial cave. Night and Day. Hell and Heaven. In a flash of understanding we realized what all of our friends have been saying about how great their sites are. We have conversations with people here, instead of sitting in silence at the dinner table. Kids play instead of sucking on batteries. Teachers come to work more than 3 hours a day. There is a landscape.

The physical beauty of our new site is beyond words, in my opinion. Then again, maybe my standards are just rock bottom. For the first time, we can see the mountains and wildlife and things that grow, instead of just sand. We are living in a caserio about 3km from the district capital all the way at the back of a river valley, right up against the mountains. We are still pretty much coastal in weather and culture, since we are only at about 200m above sea-level, but we get a lot of the sierra too. Cheese is brought down to the Sunday market, and people say sierra things like “ay chay chay” and coastal things like “diga”, and have the general friendliness and warmth that comes with living in a town that is at least 30°C all year round.

This valley is also one of the only rivers in the north (which is essentially a desert with a few seasonal rivers) that flows year round, so there is a lot of water (24 hours a day!). By my calculations we had about 90 (at the very most) hours of water total in 12 months in our old site. The valley is full of rice paddies and incredibly green. After spending months deciding whether I should bathe or drink water that day (knowing that I could only do one), it is pretty crazy to have a shower and use it whenever I want (though taking a cold shower at night is a little uninviting).

We have a great counterpart at the health center in town, and an awesome host family who adopted us as their own from day one. We are still in the stage of meeting everyone and getting into the rhythm of life here, but so far we are having a great time. My head is killing me because I have already learned more Spanish in a matter of weeks than I did in months before.

We decided to join Peace Corps for two main reasons. 1) To have an adventure – the type of adventure I think you can only have when you are young and resilient and things like sleeping in a room full of rats seems exciting rather than daunting. And 2) To do some good in the world to the best of our ability. When we were in our old community we lost sight of those goals, and really lost sight of who were are and what we are striving to do. After a single day in our new site all of our old exuberance and ambition came rushing back, and for the first time in a year I feel equally happy when I wake up in the morning refreshed and ready to get to it, and when I go to bed at night exhausted from a day of learning, teaching, sharing, playing, and working.

So I guess that’s about all the news right now. In a couple of days we head to Lima for our Mid-Service Medical Checks (MID SERVICE good god). A year down, and a year to go. Merry Christmas/Happy Chanukah/ Happy New Year to all! We’ll see you on the other end of 2009!

Gigglefest in Snuggletown (or...Happy Birthday Peru)

So the last two months have been highlighted by vacations. Eva and I have started Healthy Homes program with a group of about 30 women. This is mostly a health themed project, but I’m managing to sneak in some waste management, compost, and gardens. Eva is kicking butt, basically. I’m struggling to find things to do since I more or less broke up with my counterpart. He wanted me to write a new business plan for the beekeepers association, and I said I would be happy to help them write one. That did not make him particularly happy. That was followed by me asking him if he would like to work on the budget proposal for a community waste-management program. He said, “Why don’t you go ahead and do it for us”. And that didn’t really cut it for me. So that’s that. Also, he kind of looks like an ewok.

So like I said, vacation has been the highlight as of late. In June we went back to California for 2 weeks for various graduations, which drew most of the relatives to town, so we could maximize our number of relatives visited in shortest time. So we left Chiclayo the night before our flight on a 12 hour bus to Lima. Exactly 6 hours into the trip (2:30 am) I woke up to a bunch of people on the bunch saying that there was a strike and the road was blocked. I looked out the window and saw dozens of busses lined up next to each other. This was at a point so that every bus coming from at least 5 department capitals was blocked. Some cranky lady (who I’ve come to think of as “Crazy Ho That Cost Me $300”) yelled at the stewardess and driver that we needed to go back to Trujillo so she could get a flight in the morning. So, 2 hours back to Trujillo and the lady gets off the bus, but then gets back on yelling “there aren’t any taxis, I can’t get to the airport”. Big surprise, at 4am. So, Crazy Ho That Cost Me $300 demands that we go back to Chiclayo so she can get a flight. So after 12 hours on a bus, we ended up in the same damn city. Eva called our Security Coordinator to update him on the strike and our whereabouts, and he says “yeah, your bus was really supposed to wait. They are going to open the road in about an hour”. UGHGHGHGHGHG. It was 7am and we had a flight in Lima that night, so we had no option other than flying to Lima which is well out of a volunteer’s budget. And instead of spending a vacation day in Lima, eating delicious food and buying gifts for people, we spent a vacation day in our own city. GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK!
Anyway, we made it to California. Saw lots of fam, ate lots of delicious American food (which dominated my digestive system, which these days is not happy if potatoes aren’t included), went to a ball game, drank some delicious American beer, and watched some American television. I went out with my friends to a kind of divey bar with my friends one night. After one of my friends accidentally touched some drunk random’s butt, the night culminated with an argument over my friend’s rights to touch each other’s butts and hug in public. Home, sweet home.

We brought back peanut-butter for our host fam and neighbors, but they have yet to finish it. After that, we went to Pacasmayo in La Libertad to run in the first International Pacasmayo Marathon (www.maratoninternacionaldepacasmayo). We ran the half marathon. Well, Eva ran and I limped along one step behind her. I only ran about 8.5 or 9 miles before the race (and was fairly sick at the time) and then gained a bunch of weight in the States the weeks before the race. But it was my first half-marathon and I was happy to just finish. There was a bunch of volunteers and Peruanos alike running. There was even a couple from California who are running a marathon on each continent. Good fun all around.

The end of July brought Fiestas Patrias, which is a four day celebration of one day: Independence Day. Everyone travels and doesn’t work so we headed to the mountains of the Amazonas department with our friends Sam (aka Sambones, Samuel Bones), Stacey (aka Stacey McGrady, Swamp Thing), and David (aka Tennessee Dave, Nearly Nude). Lambayeque pals Sara and Carlos, and Peter and his amiga from the States were also around. We stayed in the city of Chachapoyas the whole time, but visited sites nearby. We went to the fortress ruins of Kuelap, which is on top of a ridge at 3000m. A fairly scarey 3 hour drive ended with a tour of the ruins. It was pretty spectacular to see. It seems like the polar opposite of Machu Picchu, which is packed with tourists, reconstructed, and groomed. We were there on the busiest weekend of the year, and still we only saw about 75 people. Our friends who stayed in a nearby town the night before, went at sunrise and said they were only 4 other people inside. Only one building has been reconstructed, and most of the fortress is still overgrown with typical cloudforest vegetation: trees covered in epiphytic bromeliads and mosses. Super rad.
The elevation was pretty rough for us coastal folk, and Eva was struck with a pretty bad case of Sorroche (altitude sickness). Stacey brought an intestinal infection along for the trip from Cajamarca, and I was a bit sick from lunch the day before. When I told Sam that I thought our previous lunch had made me sick, he said “good thing I threw it up yesterday”. So we went through Kuelap as probably the most miserable tour group the place has ever seen. The girls had to stop frequently to do their biz, and I was dizzy and generally just feeling awful from the altitude. We stopped probably every five minutes. Pitiful.
A day full of nausea, hiking, uncontrollable bodily functions, and long car rides, generally results in exhaustion, so the next day was recovery time. We ended up in bed watching Vin Diesel and The Rock movies and playing Set while Dave demanded that we have a Champagne Jam. This was all of us in one bed, pretty much giggling hysterically all day. This giggle-fest in Snuggle-Town provided us with many many quotable gems and Penguin-style group bonding.
Last day in town we went to Gocta Falls, touted as the 3rd tallest waterfall in the world. It was discovered only a few years ago, and propaganda was quickly created to advertise. Shortly after the flyers came off the press, another waterfall was discovered nearby and found to be even taller. But since all of the tourist posters were printed, the department of Amazonas gave a unanimous “SHHHHHHHHHHH”. So we went to Gocta, still advertised as the 3rd tallest del mundo. We got to the trailhead and visitors center, where we were told a guide is required and they cost 20soles. There were only two people there, so Sara immediately said “LA NIÑA” and the 12 year old Pippy Longstocking lookalike was our guide. I have to say it was money well spent because the first thing she said after an hour and a half of walking was “We’ve arrived. There is the waterfall. See? The waterfall. We’ve arrived.” I said, “Wheereeee? You mean that 770m cliff? Oh OOHHH. Now I see it.” And then she never talked to me again. It was a very cool hike, which took us over 2 hills of gnarly switchbacks into a canyon. It started out in the typical semi-dry highland ecosystem of the area with coffee growing wild, but changed to nearly tropical by the time we reached the deepest part of the valley. Very cool hike. It was tough and we were all drenched in sweat after 20 minutes. Pippy, however, never looked out of breath. The waterfall itself is incredible, even now in the dry season. You can see it from the road as you approach and several times throughout the hike. Yet every time that you see it, it is more impressive than the last.
After that it was time to head home. We hopped our bus out of town at night and arrived at a pleasant 4am. I didn’t sleep because we didn’t have a choice on our seats, so I was right next to the stairs. I could hear the two pilotos jamming to cumbia and huayno music all night so I was super stoked to arrive back to sea level and promptly climb in bed.

Snuggles,
Wil

P.S. This blog doesn’t seem to let me upload pictures all the time so I’m going to have to figure something else out.

May day.

It is May, which means we have been in Peru for eight months and in site for five. I am not sure if time has been going slowly or quickly, which might seem like a weird thing to say, but I’m sure that a lot of other PCVs would back me up on that statement. In a few weeks one group of volunteers heads back to the states, and another one comes in to start their training, which to me, means that I am now no longer the new kid on the block, but actually in the middle of my service.
With that in mind, here is a very non-comprehensive list of what I have done so far in Peace Corps Peru:

I have made 4th graders do aerobics to “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen and “Land Down Under” by Men at Work.
I have introduced forks, dishrags, and nalgene bottles to my host family.
I have introduced Valentines Day, Running for Exercise, and Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches to the general public.
I have taught P.E., self-esteem, breast feeding, health and hygiene, nutrition, money management, English, French, and Geography.
I have lost and gained back 15 pounds.
I have read about a million books, and watched about a million DVDs.
I have explained that the word “mister” is a word that we only use for men, and that yelling it at women is not a good way to get their attention.
I have been a “godmother” to a baptism, and a birthday party.
I have bottled organic honey.
I have attended town meetings.
I have helped slaughter several animals (and gotten laughed at every time I bring out my camera during the animal slaughtering).
I have become “La Eva”.

Ah, ya, así es la vida.


Wil has some palabras:

I came back from digging a hole behind the health post. Dusty, sweaty, thirsty. Have you ever tried to dig a hole in the desert? You throw the sand out and more just falls in. Also, it’s hot here. Have I told you that? Jeez. I think I might be bad at this whole volunteer thing. I know, people say that everyone goes about their service differently, and there are some things nobody can be bad at, but you’re looking at a guy who is bad at chewing gum. Seriously, I don’t know how else to put it. I’m bad at gum. I chew it, get bored, and it falls out of my mouth or down my throat, so that I either look like a dork that just came from a dental procedure or I get that gaspy and purplish look that comes with airway obstruction. I came home and said:
“You know what’s one thing I don’t like about being a volunteer? They make you work all day and they don’t pay you.”
Eva said, “That’s the only thing about being a volunteer.”
“I hate that hole.”
Right. So I put my head to it and came up with a solution: Have someone else do it! That’s right, that’s the volunteer way. Community involvement. Oh I forgot to mention that this is a “model hole”. You know, so that I can show other people what a hole looks like and they can make one just like mine.
But seriously, this is going to be a part of our Healthy Households project with the initial school’s Padres de Familia. The hole is a method of rural waste management that isn’t burning trash (yay!). We are going to have a work day with the parents to learn about waste management, and start compost and a garden for the school. Then we are going to have a fundraiser during the work day (mmmmpicarones) so that we can buy bricks to build an improved wood stove. Eventually we are going to start a similar project with each family from the initial school. That’s all just planning right now.
I have been busy doing other things lately, also. I have been helping to bottle honey with the beekeepers association, helping Eva out with some of her classes, and getting things organized with a forest protection committee. My counterpart agency, the beekeepers association, has been spear-heading this committee in our district, and another committee has also been formed in a district where they have some of their hives and some other volunteers have begun working with that committee. So far we are just trying to get a work-plan designed for the year. We are going to be doing stuff like educational radio campaigns, murals with the schools, reforestation, and improved stoves. We have actually had some success in getting some response from the municipality and police regarding the illegal production of charcoal using algorobbo trees. The charcoal (carbòn) is used to make the omnipresent “pollo a la brasa” in restaurants, which unfortunately for my environmental conscience, is delicious. The police came last week and slapped a S/.300 “fine” on my neighbor, who makes carbon.
Anyhow, even though I don’t really have a lot of things to show as of yet, I’m pretty stoked about the potential. That’s about it in the realm of work, but we have also been running a lot. Another volunteer has organized a marathon in his site in July, so we are going to run a half-marathon. There is also a hilarious pig that we watch everyday, that Eva has named bacon. I don’t quite know why it is so funny, but he only runs, never walks. And our thoughts were confirmed when our neighbor Rosa pointed out how funny the pig was. Also there is a new puppy on the block that I have named Bacon Jr., in honor of both the pig and the hamburger. Okay chau bye!

Harry Potter and the Shame of the Dance

It is hot. I spent most of today sitting in front of a fan and willing the water tap to start producing water. I was successful. We were so happy that Eva and I literally had a water fight in the backyard, until sense took over and we realized we hadn’t bathed for a few days, and therefore should probably be saving the water for sanitation and hygiene purposes as opposed to throwing it at each other. I woke up bright and early today to collect water, which runs for up to 30 minutes (“up to” includes 0) a day, at an unspecified time between 6 am and 9 pm. I had to be sure not to miss the water because yesterday our water supply was little more than a film at the bottom of the barrel. This is because the water hadn’t come for several days, and our host family had to use our water while we were in the capital for a regional meeting. The water hadn’t come for several days because it rained for nearly a week. You would think that rain in the desert is a great thing, but you would be wrong. The hard-packed sand practically reaches the point of liquefaction, which means that the guy who is in charge of running the potable water doesn’t leave his house to go and turn it on. Our house is made out of adobe and yeso (which is essentially what dry-wall is made out of). Adobe and yeso melt when they get wet. This is why I received a phone call from my wife last week saying that the whole living room was flooded and when she went outside to call me she sank into mud above her ankles.
Now you must wonder why Eva was toiling in the mud while I only had to hear about it over the phone. Well, I was in Lima to see a doctor and get healthy again. This is because I had “Shame of the Dance”. That’s right, I have spent nearly 70% of my time as a Volunteer in the latrine because I have shame. Shame from dancing. This diagnosis came from my host family, after one of the last times I got sick:
One day I was sick. I called the doctor and she told me to go to Chiclayo and go to the clinic, which I did. After the extremely irritable lab tech told me once again that I have an intestinal infection, the doctor had me go to a hostel for the night and start antibiotics. Two days later I was mostly better and a few pounds lighter, and it was time to go back home. Before I left Eva called me to tell me that people were painting our house. How nice. They were painting the house because there was to be a fiesta in our house. Shit. The doctor agreed that this would not be a good thing to go to, as these parties always include improperly cooked meat, and moonshine alcohol (known to cause blindness, among other hangover symptoms), and so I decided to delay my homecoming one more day. When I showed up at home the next day I am practically reduced to tears to find the party tent and speakers still outside, the cases of beer being unloaded, and more goats being killed. Shit. It turns out that this is a two day fiesta. Oh, of course. Why wouldn’t the baptism of a 4 year old girl be a two day extravaganza? At my house. If you want to get technical, the girl is my great-grand-niece-cousin or some shit, but I didn’t exactly sign up to throw a party. The next day I wake up with ringing ears from listening to the same 10 songs over and over between 8 24” speakers that are placed 15 feet apart, and facing each other. The DJ is required to play music at maximum volume, and you are required to dance exactly in between these absurdly large speakers. There was also an announcer who yelled into the mic, “ARRIBA, Wilson de California. BAILAMOS!” every time I tried to sit down.
Anyway, I wake up with ringing ears to inspect the house for the first time in daylight. Now, I have seen a dog eating a dead dog in the street. I have vomited all over my feet, and just fell asleep with my face against the side of the latrine. I have sharted. I tell you these things-- these terrible, embarrassing, and unfortunately true, things-- because I want you to fully understand what I mean, when I say that my house and patio was the foulest thing that I have experienced. Mix beer, urine, moonshine, vomit, and goat’s blood in an adobe oven for 2 days under the desert sun and you will understand what I mean. The worst part was it was inescapable. It was my house. I slept there, I bathed there, and most pertinent to the story, I ate there. Preparing food and washing dishes with all that goodness floating through the house is bound to make you sick.
So I got sick again. Eva comes into the room to tell me that the family says I’m sick because I have “Shame of the dance” and they want to do medicine on me because my host dad’s brother-in-law is a really good healer. I said no.
The first time I got sick, the family wanted to do traditional medicine on me. Eva basically acted as a doorman and guarded me. However, when she had to go to the health post to have a meeting, I immediately found myself under the healing hands of a curandero. After vomiting and having diarrhea for 24 hours, I was not particularly able to walk to lock the door. I was also completely disoriented and unable to speak since I was dehydrated, weak, and burning with a fever. The curandero got to me. He took my shirt off and rubbed an onion on my stomach. Though I don’t really remember this too well, he must have rubbed very hard because I had bruises the next day. Another volunteer tells me that she was accosted by a helpful healer, when she said that she had a headache. Basically, the healer tugged on a clump of her hair until she heard a ripping sound. The idea is that the ripping sound gets rid of the headache and the onion assault eliminates stomach pains. When they are finished you have to tell them that you feel better, because otherwise they go get another onion while you are puking into a bag.
Anyway, I wasn’t having anything to do with a healer this time, and the family assured me that the shame would pass, but I did not need to be embarrassed about dancing at the party because we gringos dance so fine. We really use our bodies. Eva asked our host sister Martha about this shame thing.
“People often have headaches and nausea after fiestas, because they have shame of the dance.”
“Don’t you think that is because they drank too much alcohol?” Eva asked.
“Possibly, but it is the custom to say that it is the shame.”
“I see.”
Martha is a trained nurse, and likely the only person who realizes this.
So I got sick again and again. I lost nearly 20 pounds in less than 2 months, and I would have always been considered flaco to begin with. The doctor had me come to Lima to see a specialist, who put me on some drugs. I had to stay in Lima while I finished the medication, which was easily the most boring thing I have done in Peru. I received a modest living stipend, per PC policy, that didn’t nearly cover my food costs. I have always been a voracious eater, as my mother-in-law can attest, who generally bought an extra pound of meat for when I would come over for dinner. Being back in Lima and not sick, I had an appetite for the first time in weeks. Why yes, I would like dessert tonight. By the way, have you ever had a McFlurry? They are scrumptious. However, in Peru they don’t have a McFlurry machine, so they just make an ice cream sundae, and then mash it up with a spoon in front of you. I think I gained about 7 or 8 pounds in three weeks. I’m not entirely sure if that’s healthy. There isn’t really much to do without spending money, and I didn’t have any of my notes to work on my community diagnostic. Packing in the haze of a raging fever is difficult, I lamented, as I washed my two pairs of underwear and two shirts for the 4th time. I brought 4 pairs of socks and my sandals.
So now I’m back home in the campo. Sick again. The story continues.

Probably the least interesting way to get injured is by pasta. I mean, “so I was washing this pot, and the next thing I knew there was a piece of burnt spaghetti stabbing me under my thumbnail. Blood EVERYWHERE”, just doesn’t make a good story. But I managed. I apparently have become very frail since coming to Peru. My head is a significantly different shape than it was a few weeks ago, which I contribute largely to the high frequency of blunt trauma that I deliver to the cranium. This in turn, I contribute to the fact that every doorway in the house(s) here are leveled to about my eyebrow and I am constantly pressured to drink fermented beverages (beer, chicha, vino miel, take your pick). The cabs in Chiclayo are tiny little hatchbacks called Ticos (the name even sounds tiny), which also contribute to the problem.
Speaking of my house, I would venture to say that I live in the biggest space setup for housing of anyone in Peace Corps. Seriously. There are 3 huge salas, which will be converted to a foyer, ballroom, and rumpus room for playing foosball, shortly. The house is so overwhelmingly big that Eva and I confined ourselves to living in the two smallest back rooms, both because we don’t have enough stuff to feasibly occupy more, and also because I am subconsciously contributing to my claustrophobia of being a very big person in a small town of tiny señoras. My host señora comes up about nip high.
Basically we are just settling in this month. Walking around, saying hello, meeting people, attending events, parties, etc. Right now our routine is wake up, eat breakfast, try to politely decline second (8am) and third (10am) breakfasts, cruise around, eat lunch and hang out with the fam, hang out some more, eat dinner, wash dishes, get invited to second dinner and tea with the fam despite the fact that we have explained that we will prepare our own breakfasts and dinners. And all of this I fit in between my busy schedule of getting sick. Eva is lucky in that she has the health post to work at. She has been going there most days for some hours, or on house visits with the medical staff.
Today we went to a Chocolatada at the escuela inicial. The padrinos (godparents, who provide all the fruitcake and presents for the kids) were a family from Lambayeque with some relatives who were German, or Norwegian, or something weird, that spoke English. It’s surprising every time I meet someone who speaks English, and I still try to speak Spanish to them.
The next two months we are planning a Club del Mundo for summer vacation at the school. We are going to have a class on a different country every week to teach about different cultures, including food, religion, art, language, etc. And at the same time we will hopefully be able to get a world map painted on the side of the school. But of course, how easy is it to get a bunch of 6 year olds to draw a detailed world map with instructions from someone who barely speaks their language? Super easy.

Wil

Back on Track.

Ok everyone. I am really sorry that it has been so long since I last posted. I promise to be better!!!
So, good news! Wil and I FINALLY found out our site placement (I think most of you know about how bad I am at waiting for things, this period of waiting almost killed me) and we spent the last week there meeting our family and getting to know our community. We have two more weeks of training and the we will be sworn in as volunteers and out on our own. We will be living in a small community a little outside of Chiclayo which is in the department of Lambayeque in Peru.
We will be living with a family of six. A Senor and Senora, their son, his wife, and their two babycakes. Leonardo is 3 months old and Wilson is 15 months. That´s right. There are TWO wilsons in the house. Here they are!


here are the babies.


Here are the babies in their ¨hammocks¨.


Here are some of our animals.






I am super afraid of this bull.

Cuyes.




The Kitchen.


So everyone was really nice and invited us over, and at one point we went to a rocking birthday party.

Here is the band.


Here is Wil dancing.


Here are the men drinking.


Wil headed to the latrine because, of course, after a week of eating and drinking campo food we got dysentary. We´re going to have to work on that.


Here is our ¨we´re really here!!!¨picture!

We are really happy about our placement, because there is a lot of good work to do here, and a lot of great people to do it with. There are some drawbacks to the site (there is only water from 7-7:30 in the morning which we have to save in buckets for the day, and it isn´t exactly the peruvian mountains that we were dreaming about), but every site has advantages and disadvantages, and all in all it seems like it is a pretty awesome community.

Wil is going to be working with beekeepers to produce and market organic honey, and I have a job in a health post, and we want to create community gardens, and latrines, and cocinas mejoradas (better cooking stoves), and work in the school, y mas y mas y mas, so wish us luck, and also once we get our new address please send us paperback books because we finished every book that we brought with us, and we are dying for some more!!

Love,

Eva

And you thought ¨leftover night¨ was bad in the U.S....

Today we did the coolest thing that we have done so far in training. We went to different health posts in small groups and we got to get up close and personal with health workers and the patients of the center. I got to see pregnant women be examined (and feel the baby kick, and hear the baby´s heart), and learn about nutrition, and vaccines, and see women get depo-provera shots (the doctor offered to let me give one, but I didn´t exactly feel qualified to do that... and so much more! It made me training seem real, and I can not wait to find out about my place of service, and what my actual project would be!!!!!!

Ok, here is the famous anticucho (cowhearts) I keep talking about. Madre Julia bought 2.5 KILOS of it this past weekend. Yeah, we´ve been eating leftovers for a while now...



Here we are working in the fields at the school of agriculture in Lima. Last Saturday was the first time that we went, but from now on we go every Saturday and work and learn about sustainable and organic agriculture.


I´m better at overseeing farm work than actually doing it...


Wil got props for having the best row.


Here´s Wil doing the laundry.

But don´t you worry that it´s all work and no play for us here in the Cuerpo de Paz. I bought a hula hoop at a street market (the best 2 soles I have ever spent), and it has provided quite a bit of entertainment in our house.

Here´s Wil.



Consuelo is pretty good. (Isn´t she pretty? She was prom queen!)


Luis couldn´t keep going long enough for a picture...


Here I am showing Peru how it´s done.


And here is Madre Julia showing the world how it´s done.


So things are good here in Peru. We have language interviews on Thursday.
I am super nervous! Wish me luck!!! The only good thing about the interviews is that Madre Julia is making me a pisco sour afterwards as a reward. I haven´t tried one yet, so I am excited for my post-interview fiesta! Maybe I´ll get a CUY after my final interview...

Love Always,
Eva