Home-Making

At the beginning, I talked a lot about the difficulties of creating a whole new life once again, and how it's especially difficult in a dramatically foreign environment.  I think I'm starting to get there.

I'm beginning to find a rhythm to life here.  I wake up and always have at least a few tasks I can accomplish.  I have my standby hard-boiled egg, apple, and coffee breakfast, made all the better with the arrival of my french press mug in a Christmas package from my mom.

The food situation is so much better than at training.  I'm in charge of my own breakfast and usually make myself a salad in the evening, so I can say I'm too full for potato noodle soup.  It's amazing the difference produce and protein make for how I feel physically and mentally.  I had a hard time during training with all the fried stuff and rice.  I still am disheartened at lunch every once and a while, but eating starch on top of starch is deeply ingrained in the culture here.  I'm infiltrating by starting to cook for my family every once in a while.  I've mostly been making desserts, but I slip the occasional big salad in.  Look at all the beautiful produce I bought at the market today for 3 soles.  That's just a little more than a dollar.

Vegetables aren't unattainable here or prohibitively expensive.  Potatoes, white rice, and noodles definitely have more calories for the price, which is something you can't ignore in a cold and poor region.  But it seems like most people have enough to eat.  I went to the health post a while ago, and the doctor said that one of the issues they're seeing are the joint illnesses of obesity and malnutrition.  I thought that was primarily a first-world problem, but it seems like a diet based mostly on potatoes will do that to you.  Healthy cooking classes are one of my goals here.  Folks have access to so much here, but don't use it fully.

Speaking of packages earlier, yesterday I received wonderful ones from my mom and my prima, Casey.  They made my day a million times over.  It's funny how good it feels to see familiar things and get letters from people that care about me.  And I got some new clothes that meant a lot.  I didn't bring too much down with me and I wear the same things over and over.  Peruivans do the same thing, but it felt really nice to have a fancy new purple jacket and fun underwear.  And Reese's.  Here I am enjoying some of the things I received.

In the states, Cosmo is usually too trashy for me.  But I hadn't seen anything like it in so long and was fascinated.  I haven't thought about hair or makeup in months, and there were pages and pages dedicated to it.  I count it as a victory if I shower once a week.  And there were pictures of shirtless men!  I haven't seen anything besides people's faces and the occasional hand since I've been here.  I barely see my own body because I have to change quickly due to the cold.  So strange!

Anyway, I've been splitting my time between household tasks, hassling people in the community with questions and surveys, going to the municipality, and helping other volunteers with their projects.  The weeks have been slipping by.  Many former PCVs say that the days are slow but two years go by without you even noticing.  Two years still seems like forever, but I'm starting to see how that can happen.

It's funny how different regular tasks are.  It feels like I'm camping when I brush my teeth outside in a cup.  Here's where I do my laundry.  It can take several hours from start to finish and I'm not convinced my clothes are ever fully clean.  At least they have less visible dirt on them and my exercise stuff smells slightly better.  It will be some time before I take a washing machine or hot or drinkable water from a faucet for granted again.

I lucked out big time with my family.  They are so nice and attentive and fun to be with and I think they like me.  They're also starting to figure out that I'm not totally useless and getting used to my weird habits, which is gratifying.  They don't gasp anymore when I eat a raw vegetable and are used to the thundering that happens when I exercise in my room.

Exercise has been a tricky thing.  I want to get plenty because it helps my mental well-being and I'd like to get back to my pre-training shape before the beach in March.  I love to run, but it's often raining or lightning-hailing.  When the weather cooperates, there are lots of ladies out with their sheep and wow-wows (aggressive dogs) along the route I like.  None of the dogs have bitten me yet, but they do a really good job pretending they will.  I've taken to using exercise videos in my room half the time.  I can't find weights and don't want to pay for them anyway.  A big part of the Peace Corps is making it work with what you have.

I've been taking charge with some of the animal care around the house.  Peruvians in general don't seem as concerned with their pets.  They aren't overly affectionate and often provide a minimum of care.  I had started trying to talk to my family about it, but now it's action time.  I realize that my opinions on this are very estado unidense, but oh well on this one.  I think that most domesticated animals benefit from affection and enough food.  I started with the dogs by giving them lots of pats and my extra bread.  Now they follow me everywhere and are really jazzed to see me.
We have three tiny kittens (we used to have four but one died) that were looking a mess forever.  They weren't growing, were super skinny, and had gross eye infections.  I started cleaning out their eyes and bought them real cat food.  They're not any bigger now, but they're livelier and their eyeballs look better.  The boys in my family used to play really rough with them, grabbing them by their legs and throwing them around.  They didn't mean anything bad, but they got a talking to from me every time they'd be too rough.  Now they do it a lot less.  I don't want to push too many American values on them, but hopefully this will help the cats grow up healthy and not crazy.
I recently got my PC vest and it has tons of pockets.  Many of them are kitten-sized.

I've been doing some work on my room as well.  It's still a bit disorderly and I still sleep on the floor, but it's looks like a place somebody actually lives.

I could only afford one piece of furniture last month, and the dresser with the sweet tiger drawing on it beat a mattress.  I felt so much better getting my clothes organized and my sleeping pad has been serving me well.  I'm also really proud of my cinderblock and scrap wood kitchen.  It has chopping and cooking space and look at all the cubbies there are in the blocks!
Getting my pictures up made me happy, too.  There's everything from my grandparents to myself as a little bean to grad school.  I hope to add a bunch of Peruvian adventures to it before the two years are up.

All in all, life is good.  I'm still sick more than I'd like to be, but I think it will get better with time.  I can't wait for the new year when hopefully my projects will start to get off the ground.

Here are some gratuitous pictures of guinea pig and kitten lunchtime and a rainbow.  Happy New Year!

No! Sleep! Till Christmas!

Oh my goodness, I am so sleepy.  The lead up to Christmas was a marathon of activity.

Thursday was food-poisoning day.  I blame a piece of cheese I ate.  It was a day full of shakes and projectile fluids.

Friday I was fine and it was time for David's promocion, the Peruvian version of sixth grade graduation.  They rented a hall, all the kids dress up, there are lots of speeches and ceremony, then they dance all night long.
Here's a part of my family looking fabulous before heading out.

I was the madrina of diplomas, so I made some up using my mediocre design skills and gave them out to all the kids on stage.  I also had to give an impromptu speech.

I didn't expect to be called up on stage and was so flustered that I asked the teacher, "What do I do?" in English before I got it together.  I ended up giving a nice little speech about the importance of education and how I'm still a student at 24.

I previously had a nice dress on, but ended up changing before going out because it was frigid and muddy.  I'm really glad I did because I wouldn't have wanted to attract any extra attention to myself.  Everyone wanted their picture taken with me and my cheeks hurt from smiling so much.  While we were dancing, the band leader kept calling out my name whenever I'd do a spin or anything other than shuffle from side to side.

Speaking of which, after the formalities, it was dancing time.  There was a live band and they started with reggaeton and some cumbia, which is like salsa and I felt like I wasn't being horribly gringa for a while.  Then they started the huayno, the traditional style of this region, and didn't stop.  Huayno is a special kind of beast and not my favorite genre ever.  You dance by holding hands in a big circle, doing some fancy foot-tapping that I still don't have the hang of, rotating side to side, and usually not smiling.  The songs last 20 minutes and are based on flat saxophones.  Sometimes there's a female vocalist who shrieks and yells.  I can't tell any of the songs apart, either.

Here's a pretty good example of every Huayno video ever.  Sadly, they don't have saxophones, but you get the idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryWQBi8dNV0&feature=fvsr

And here is my family getting down.  There are enough of us to form our own dancing circle.  Also notice that we are dancing around a tower of cases of beer.

Drinking until you black-out is another Peruvian tradition at parties.  It's usually achieved through drinking circles.  Everyone passes around a cup and a big bottle of beer.  You pour some beer into the cup, take a swig, shake out the foam, and pass it to the next person.  This continues until you lack the coordination to keep the circle going and you take a nap in a chair.

I had a revelation as to why I've never been super drunk.  There was a man who was intoxicated enough to not be able to form sentences, but he was huaynoing like nobody's business all by himself.  I could never do that. I realized that when I drink, my motor skills go before my good sense.  I'm always still aware enough to notice this, so I get all self-conscious and stop drinking.  I don't think I could ever have a lost night dancing at a club because I wouldn't be able to dance anymore.  The drunkest I've ever been was in the middle of the night in a canoe in Montana, and I still had it together enough to realize that I was drunk and focus really hard on my paddle strokes.

I had fun at the party until about 2am and then hit the wall.  It's considered rude to turn down an offer of a drink or a dance.  Fortunately for me, the drinking circle had been going for some time, so nobody remembered that I was being rude.  The first members of my family weren't ready to leave until 3:30 or so, and we were some of the first to head out.  The rest of my family, including my 11 year old brother and my 60 year old parents, didn't return home until 6am.  I have to work on my party stamina if I'm going to be going out in Peru.  It sounds like a lot of complaining, but I had fun.  I was just tuckered out and surrounded by very  drunk people by the end.

I had a great time dancing with my little brother, David.  He's much better at huaynoing than I am.

On Christmas eve, I was one of the first ones up at 11am.  We took it easy and then went to the city of Cerro de Pasco to do some last-minute Christmas shopping for paneton and fireworks.  Have I talked about paneton yet?  If not, it's a fruit cake like thing that comes in pre-packaged bags, smells like rum, and has been on sale since Halloween.  It's a necessity for a Peruvian Christmas.  They don't do much for my American taste buds.

We were treated to lovely snowscapes on the way up to Cerro.

It's the highest city of it's size in the world at over 4330 meters.  It's also a mining town with a huge pit right in the center of it.    I was introduced to the weather phenomenon of lightning sleet there.  All the peruvians had their umbrellas up and their spokes hover right at my eye level.  I struggled to follow my tiny host mom as she darted through the congested marketplace.  I felt like a big white, wet, elephant begging to be pickpocketed.

Things were better once we got home.  We changed into warm clothes and all hung out together in one room waiting for midnight.  At 12, we put baby Jesus in the nacimiento, had paneton and hot chocolate, and set off fireworks in the back yard.  The first photo is my whole family minus my sister Elena who took the picture and my host dad who was out back. There were all these people in one room together, and I was still wearing a t-shirt, long sleeved shirt, hoodie, North Face jacket, long johns, sweat pants, wool socks, and a hat.  Christmas is cold in Junin.

Here's a closer look at paneton. 

Then fireworks!  I'm glad nobody lost a finger. 

It was a clear night and the stars were incredible.  I'm like a reverse hillbilly to my family.  I was so awed by the sky and kept telling everybody to look.  They just said, yup, that's how it is here.

And here's the nacimiento.  It plays 30 second versions of tinny Christmas carols.  It's not awful, but I'm pleased when they shut the music off at night.

Christmas day was relaxed.  It poured most of the day, so we chatted together in the kitchen.  I made a camote pie that was delicious, but turned out an unappetizing green color.  The camote we have here is yellow on the inside and purple on the outside.  I'm not sure how that made green, but that's what happens with campo cooking.  We also don't have any measuring tools so I was mostly winging it.  I'm glad it turned out as yummy as it did.

Christmas here was an interesting experience.  It was my first away from home.  I didn't have as many moments as I expected where I was really sad.  There were tough times when my mom would send me pictures of our tree or I'd hear about the Christmas lights.  I was also bummed after I talked with my whole family Christmas morning.  It was wonderful to speak with them, but it made me sad that I wasn't there.  I think it wasn't so hard in general because there aren't a lot of the cues that tell you it's Christmas.  There are some decorations, but so many of the American traditions are absent.  It's a totally different animal here.  I'm glad.  It would've been a lot harder if they had a real pine tree with a train around it and white lights everywhere.

I made a wonderful discovery a few days ago.  There was snow on the ground when I woke up.  I asked my family about it, and it turns out that we get real snow here later in the season.  I thought it was all rain.  My family says they make snowmen, which they call "osos de nieve" (snow bears), so there must be a good amount of accumulation.  They've also never heard of sledding.  We're at the edge of a valley surrounded by huge hills.  If we don't die, I think this will be the best part of American culture that I'll impart this year.

Though, to be honest, the only other American things I've taught them are swear words and fist bumps.  My whole family is proficient at the rocket ship, explosion, snail, octopus, and hand hug.

On an unrelated note, my family found a tiny lamb in the field.  They've since given it away, but for a little while there I had a lamb and a kitten in my lap.  My cup of adorable animals runneth over.

Merry belated Christmas and fist bumps to all!

A Traves y A Dentro 2

After cramming 8 volunteers and their spelunknig gear into a station wagon and traveling down the mountain, we were at the gruta, one of the biggest caves in Peru who's name I can't remember right now.  What I do remember is that it extends 2,800 meters and is only explorable for the first 300.  And that it's awesome.  We set up our tents, ate cheese and palta sandwiches, and got ready to explore.  

Look at those flowers!  We don't have flowers bigger than a 20 centimo piece in Carhuamayo.

It was dark by the time we got going, but that hardly matters after a few meters in the cave.  This post will be mostly pictures since how much does it convey if I go on about beautiful stalactites and holes to the center of the earth.  We did lots of climbing and clambering.

We emerged satisfied and dusty and stayed up way too late chatting, listening to music, and stargazing.  It turns out our collective constellation knowledge is Orion's belt and maybe Cassiopeia.  I'm going to work on that.  It started to rain and we moved our tent into the cave by the river.  It was one of the shortest and most uncomfortable nights of sleep in recent memory.  We were woken up at 6:30 by the sunshine and the jingling bell of Virginia the llama.

It was lovely to see the landscape in the light of day.  We were surrounded by hills and terraces and there was  all sorts of color and life in the cave that we couldn't appreciate at dusk.  Look at all the stuff growing on that one rock.

All of this was just 4 or so collectivos away from my house.  I'm excited to explore as much as possible.  Peru is a big wide world, but there are wonders right nearby.  

A Traves y A Dentro 1

Sometimes it's easy to become distracted by the bad things about being in Peace Corps Peru.  I'm far away from my most important people, I'm cold all the time, my clothes and body are never really clean, there are very lonely times, dogs chase me, projects are slow to start, etc. etc. forever.

Thankfully, I have many more moments where I'm in awe of where I am and how lucky I am to have this opportunity.  Peace Corps in Peru!  That's awesome!  Who gets to do that??  These times make me want to work harder and have more experiences.  I'm here anyway and there is a ceiling on acceptable moping.

This weekend was a big reminder of how wonderful this experience is.  First, it hailed like the dickens on Friday.  I was walking to work and could hear it raining behind me.  Then the storm hit with marble-sized hail.   I made it to the muni without too many brain bruises.  It kept hailing for a half hour or so and by the end, it looked like it had snowed.  It melted down after a while and looked a little like my beloved Montana.

On Saturday morning, I went to Huayre, the next town over of the giant maca, to help with a recycling buy.  It was successful and we bought a lot of stuff that would otherwise be in the dump.
Afterwards, I took the several car journey to Nicole's town of San Pedro de Cajas to help with her buy.  I got to the cruce in the highway and decided to walk the 10k to town.  One of the nice things about being a volunteer is that you can often take your time if you want to walk.  It was beautiful and my first major hike across the pampa.  Clouds kept rolling around and I got rained on a few times.  There were also tons of vicunas running around.  Do you remember in Land Before Time after everything went to hell and the long-necks were wandering looking for the Great Valley?  That's what it was like.

It was so beautiful and an incredible feeling to not see so few signs of humanity with a vista so broad.  It took me almost two hours to get there with my big pack on.  It felt good to move my body like that again and it's a small step towards training for all the epic Andes mountaineering in my near future.
The Land Before Time analogy continues when you reach San Pedro.  Walking through a lot of nothing, you crest a small hill and stumble on this deep green valley complete with trees, people, and neat ruined corrals.

I skipped the switchbacks and skidded along the hill down into the base of the valley, startling sheep on my way.  Nicole's recycling buy went well, but it's execution cost more than we made, so we have some sustainability issues to work out.  We didn't worry about it too much because it was time to go camping in one of the biggest caves in Peru.
But first, a traffic jam.

This and That

There are things I want to talk about that don’t merit their own post and don’t fit well with other themes.  So here they are in a jumble together.

In Peru, they call popcorn “palomamitas de maiz” which means, “little corn doves.”  It’s because it’s white and the kernels fly up when they pop.  Cute! 

The different levels of development here are mysterious to me.  My house has electricity, but we poop in a hole and bathe in buckets of well water heated over a stove that burns grass and cow chips.  My family has a pretty nice color TV and some of the older siblings have laptops, but the kids still run outside when they hear a plane and try to find it in the sky.

Speaking of things in the sky, OVNIs are a big thing here in Junin.  I think it stands for Objecto Volando No Identificable or something similar.  They’re the castellano equivalents of UFOs.  Everyone here I’ve asked about it is absolutely convinced they’ve seen aliens.  I can’t blame them.  Planes and satelites can look like all sorts of different things and this landscape certainly lends itself to the mystical.  And who knows, maybe the aliens don’t buy into America as the capital of the world and are trying to contact the Peruvians first.

After lunch on a rainy Sunday, a few hermanos and I watched 28 Weeks Later with me narrating the essential English parts.  It was a bad idea for me.  When I woke up at 4 having to pee, I had the zombie jitters and the sheep scared the shit out of me in the yard.  Our house is marginal for the zombie apocalypse.  We can see far around, so we could pick a bunch off as they came, but there’s nowhere to go or hide in the pampa once they inevitably get in.  It also got me reflecting that in all the movies I’ve seen, zombies seem to be an exclusively first-world problem.  So maybe I should concentrate on the aliens and leave zombies to the more developed nations. 

Feria Day

Every Friday is feria day here in Carhuamayo and it’s very exciting.  There’s lots of noise and activity in the plaza and tons of tias dressed the same way.  You could get virtually anything you would want off the street:  underwear to alpaca heads, bibles to msg. 

I bought a pressure cooker there today so I can make the lentil camote stew I’ve been dreaming about.  When I first arrived at site, I was worried about the veggie selection since we’re at an outrageous altitude.  There’s not too much around during the week, but the feria gives me everything I need so far.  I got all my veggies for the week, including some green beans and tomatoes from these lovely ladies.

There’s a great variety of new things to try.  This little girl is sitting with zapaillo, which is a giant squash.

You can get a whole new wardrobe if you want.  Though it will mostly be sweaters and wool stockings.

You can get a new pet or an animal to eat later.  Sometimes they are the same.

Medicinal plants and cure-alls are a big thing as well.  The tank at the bottom of this photo is full of toads from the lake.  At the top is a blender…  They put a live toad in the blender with algarrobina (like molasses), milk, and spices and blend it right up for you.  I’m not sure what it’s good for and I haven’t had the stomach to try it yet, but I think I have to before two years are up.  I’m happy to put it off for now.

If you’re still hungry, there’s a wide variety of fluorescent puffed snacks available by the kilo.

It’s fun to wander around and try to be a regular person around town.  Though I still get some shouts of, “gringa!” and strange looks.

This little girl is hitching a ride in her mom’s manta.  It’s a big square of cloth that ladies here tie around their shoulders to carry everything.  Babies, potatoes, and huge bunches of grass are the most popular.

And to top off the day, if you’re really lucky, there’ll be some guys singing about Jesus.

Then, you have to carry all your things home.  This is on my walk back to my house.  There´s no need for the weather channel in the pampa.

Happy feria day!