Workin' It

Things have been picking up work-wise here in Carhuamayo.  Vacaciones Utiles (summer school) started a few weeks ago and I’ve been teaching English and environmental science to all the kids from pre-school through high school.  It has been much more challenging than I ever expected.  I thought I was a teaching dynamo after the outdoor school in Idaho.  What could be tougher than taking kids over mountains and through the snow?  But this is a whole different animal.   The kids aren’t invested because it’s summer school and there are up to 40 in a classroom.  I’ve tried all my tricks and strategies.  They don’t care if I’m angry with them and don’t keep it together if I try to take them outside.  The boys start punching each other and the girls flock together and don't participate.  I'm completely pooped by the end of the day.  I've had a good bit of staring-at-the-wall time after class to recuperate.  

I think I mostly need to adjust my expectations and not let them get to me.  There have been rewarding moments when they remember the vocab or the lesson seems to click.  I’m still going into every class with optimism.  At the very least I’ll make it through and learn for the real school year.  And the little ones are adorable.  Here are some shots from a body parts lesson in English class.

I’m also teaching a healthy cooking class.  Nutrition is a big issue here because of poverty, tradition, and a potato-based diet.  There is even the double blow of simultaneous obesity and malnutrition.  I’m working through the health post and a program for new moms.  For the first class, we had 19 attend and made guacamole.  I think they liked it.  I asked them what they want to have next and they said spinach salad!  Incredible!  Here we are cooking together and at the end.  Can you spot the boob? 

This week is Dia de los Humedades (Wetlands Day), which we should rightly celebrate because we’re at the edge of the second largest lake in Peru and an important conservation area.  I have a bunch of activities planned and am roping the vacaciones utiles kids into it.  Authorities have been going back and forth on promises and plans.  I hope it goes well. 

I took the first steps in learning how to knit the other day.  I’m working on a raggedy looking scarf.  I think it’ll get better as I go.  My host mom was really sweet and patient with me and I think she’s looking forward to us having knitting times together.  It’s been really satisfying.  A good portion of my time is spent waiting for people or waiting for cars to take me places to wait for people.  I’ve been taking my knitting all around and it makes me feel productive while I’m standing around.  Here’s me waiting to start a recycling buy in the next town over.  It turns out it was three days before.  

It feels good to be working on what I was sent here to do, even if the shenanigan level is high.

Bellybutton

The other day, I noticed that my belly button was dirty.  I’m not sure that my belly button ever was really dirty before.  Maybe after backpacking or something.  The real mystery is how it got that way.  My belly button sees the light for about 15 seconds a day. 

In unrelated news, here’s my family having a Sunday dinner of pachamanca complete with cuyes and a kitten under the table. 

Remember When?

Remember when I was a devout vegetarian?  For a long time? 

Now here I am staring at the business end of the cranium of a sheep killed a few hours earlier and to be eaten as rico, rico pachamanca a few hours later.  For the record, my family put me up to this. 

Not much posting recently because business is booming and the internet is down at the muni.  I hope to have some good stuff for you before too long.  Cuidate! 

Sweet Merciful Crap

that's cute!

Baby cuys born last night.  Look how giant it's head is for it's body!

Weekend Successes

It was a good Saturday.  It was sunny in the morning, which is an incredible thing during the rainy season.  It felt just like spring back home in Pennsylvania.  It was chilly and my hands got cold if I took them out of my pockets, but the sun was warm on my back.  It was the kind of day you´d expect to see daffodils.  

My family made a salad with lunch.  It was just like one I made for them a few weeks ago.  It means not only that they liked it, but that I’m starting to rub off on them in some ways.   

They’re rubbing off on me, too.  They’re so jolly and loving with each other, it’s impossible not to be lifted up when I’m around them.  They spend a lot of time just entertaining each other.  During lunch, David and I made fart sounds on our arms.  I haven´t done that in years and years.  They tell lots of jokes and riddles and I try to translate any english ones I can.  We dance around and make fun of each other and hassle the guinea pigs.  I´m really lucky. 

 

I made them a big bowl of guacamole and they loved it.  They’d never heard of guacamole before.  It’s crazy because all the ingredients are available here in abundance, aside from the spices.  But the avocados are so good that it’s still ok without seasoning.  Though, I’d still do some morally questionable things for a spice rack. 

Por fin, our ram has been pretty aggressive lately.  His favorite is to sneak up behind and head butt you in the back of the legs.  Today I decided that I’d had enough and refused be intimidated by something so fluffy.

I did my best impression of something scary, which is just me flapping my arms around and yelling, “Rar rar rar!”  But it seems like it worked.  Now the pacho just glares at me from the other side of the yard. Good day.

Let´s Make It Official

Guess who has an office? 

It’s not much yet, but I’m going to jazz it up with some posters and plants and things.  The muni is also going to give me a bookshelf and a bigger desk.  I’m kinda off in a corner and got used to everybody in the officina de obras where I was before.  Hopefully folks will visit me and maybe even people in the general public will drop by.  The upside is that I’m getting a lot of work done and today, I listened to Daft Punk and Lupe Fiasco rather than huayno from someone else’s computer.  Awesome.   

It’s so funny that my first job where I have my own office is in the Peace Corps.  It’s still rustic living, but not the mud hut that I envisioned when I was applying.  

I start teaching summer school on Monday.  I’m excited to get started on the work I’m supposed to be doing.  I’m also making good connections and the health post is supporting my healthy cooking classes.  Check out my calendar.

Things are getting going. 

Pie, Pye, Pi?

I wanted to share my camote pie recipe with the wider world.  It should be almost as delicious with sweet potatoes and there's still plenty of winter left in the U.S. to enjoy it in.  It may be a year-round dish here.  And it's pretty inexpensive to cook for big groups here in Peru.

Pie de Camote

Crust:
1/2 c. all purpose flour
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 c veg. oil
2 tbsp milk

-place all ingredients in a pie pan
-stir with a fork
-pat mixture into bottom and sides of pan
-poke holes in crust

Filling:
2 c cooked and mashed camote/sweet potato
2 tbsp butter, softened
2 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 c sugar
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c milk or buttermilk
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla extract
spices to taste (I a use a couple of tsp of cinnamon because that's all I can find here.  I bet nutmeg and especially ginger would be wonderful)

-preheat oven to 350
-mix mashed camote, butter, eggs
-mix sugar, flour, salt, and spices in a separate bowl.  add to camote mix and stir well
-mix milk and baking soda.  add to camote mix and stir well
-mix in vanilla extract
-put in pie crust
-bake 40 min or until set in center

This recipe was good campo style and I'm sure it'll be even better if you have real measuring tools and an oven.

In further food adventures, look at all these jungle fruits!

For every other one, I had to ask, "Que es esto?"  The ladies running the tiendas were very patient and would usually offer a slice of whatever I was asking about.  This is a great business tactic to use on me because they're all so delicious.  I ended up with an anona, one of the spiky yellow ones in the back center.  They're like cream inside with big black seeds.  I also got a zapito, which looks like a giant acorn, but didn't get to try it because my family ate it.  I hear it's good though.

One of the highlights of my Sunday was this 4 sol lunch of ceviche.  Ceviche is fish that is "cooked" with lime juice.  The acid performs the same action on the protein as heat.  It's served with camote, seaweed, cancha, maracuya juice, and "leche de tigre" which is all the salty fishy juice that comes from making the fish.  It was so delicious and it's always a success when a 4 sol meal doesn't make you sick.

Fear

The dog bite last week has messed with my brains somewhat.  I bounced right back after it happened and went about my business.  But I didn't sleep well that night.  I went out the next day and had all sorts of anxiety walking around.

It's a doggie gauntlet to get anywhere around Carhuamayo.  There are a bunch that will approach and bark, but haven't done anything more aggressive.  Before, I ignored them or picked up a rock, which usually was enough to shoo them away.  Now the hair on the back of my next raises and my throat closes up.  My flight or fight response has been on a hair-trigger lately.  There are a few dogs that run right up to me and bark.  I was used to them previously but now the adrenaline fires through my body and makes me keyed up, then jiggly and weak immediately afterward.

I'm surprised that my mind has reacted in this way.  It's only been a week and my reactions are already getting less intense, so I hope it's something I can get over before too long.  Being nervous around dogs would mean living in a pretty constant state of fear here and that's not acceptable.  I haven't let my nerves keep me from going out and doing my job.  I hope that if I keep it up, my emotions will calm down.

Feelings are funny things.

Milestones

Yesterday, a dog bit me on the back of the leg.  I was walking to the health post to propose my cooking classes, looking extra non-threatening in my PC vest and floppy sun hat with a flower on it, and these two big dogs ran up behind me and one took a shot at my leg.  It's not bad.  It was through my pants and there wasn't a lot of blood, just a big dog mouth-shaped bruise with darker spots where the canines hit.  I washed it well and am vaccinated against rabies, so no need for worries stateside.  I'm not going to stop my being nice to dogs campaign, but I'll be more cautious.  Fuck that guy.

I seem to be ticking through the traditional Peace Corps mishaps at a good pace.  I've already had a major intestinal parasite and been bitten by a dog.  I have yet to be robbed or poop my pants.  We'll see how it unfolds.

Reflecting on yesterday reinforced how little I can predict my life.  When I was beginning senior year in college, I would have looked at you sideways if you said I'd be in rural Idaho in a year.  When I was little, I wanted to live in Montana.  I couldn't tell you why.  My latest romantic relationships happened almost the moment that I stopped looking.  I'd thought about the Peace Corps on and off throughout my life, but when I got to grad school, I was sure I didn't want to do it.  Lord knows what'll happen to me, where I'll go, and who I'll meet in these next two years.  What will I want to be when I go back to Montana?  It's exciting not to know and I'm interested to find out.

The last few posts have been more serious, so to mitigate, here's a picture of David holding a potato that looks like a poop.  Hooray for cultivar biodiversity!  I'm thinking more and more of doing my master's project on family farming, resilience, and the pressures of migration and industrial agriculture.  We'll see.  This potato variety was especially delicious, despite what it looks like.

I Love You, I Love You Not

I had two deeply creepy events happen the other day.

First, I was walking down the hill by my house to head into the town center.  It's all rutted and full of dips from the rainwater flowing down and animal paths.  The dips fill with water during the rainy season and it's super muddy.  There was sun in morning and it made the puddles of water opaque with reflections of the sky.  They only became transparent when I was right on top of them.  I was wandering along looking at the lovely patches of sky sitting on the ground and bam! dog carcass.  It took my brain a bit to process what I was seeing.  It was a white and fuzzy dog and I thought it was a lamb at first.  It looked like it had fallen asleep underwater.  My conclusions are that somebody drowned it or it died and they dumped the body.  I noticed earlier that there were lots of bones and dog skulls around my house.  I asked my family about it and they said that people from town take their dead dogs out to the campo so street dogs will eat the bodies.  It has a brutal logic to it.

Then, as I was walking back home later in the day, I passed a drinking circle of tipsy men.  Public drunkenness is not nearly as much as a taboo or viewed as unsavory as it is in the states.  Especially on a Sunday and a holiday.  I said buenas tardes to the men and one stumbled over to saludar me.  I thought he was going for the standard cheek peck but he ended up kissing my neck.  I don't know if it was intentional or the beer altered his aim, but I was so incredibly creeped out.  My revulsion went down my spine and I said chau and power-walked away.  That's a sensitive spot that previously had only been kissed by fellows I liked and generally not by surprise.  Ugh and yuck.

I have a funny relationship with this place and it's still in development.  Earlier that day, I was on top of the world.  I had a sunny morning and ran/hiked/walked up a mountain much further than I had ever been able to go before.  I was up so high and saw clouds on the other end of the valley.  I raced the rain home and made it by only a few minutes.  I felt so awesome.

Of course, I got over the creepy stuff quickly, but it's interesting how much of my experience is a pendulum swing.  In the very beginning, Diego said that the Peace Corps is full of "high highs and low lows." I've found that true so far.  I've had a bunch of wonderful times coupled with times of intense illness or sadness.  I think I'll find a center with time.

I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around this place.  How can a place be so beautiful, warm, and dynamic and at the same time troubled, harsh, and dirty?

It's like a relationship with a person.  When we first are getting to know people, if we like them, we focus on their good qualities and tend not to look at their bad ones.  The same with people we decide we don't like.  We only want to see what we don't like and try to downplay any redeeming aspects of their personalities because it makes disliking them more complicated.

But with all of my good friends and romances, I've loved the whole person.  I've found that really loving someone is loving them with and not despite their faults.  It's disappointing to see the bad stuff at first, but you get over it and it becomes an important part of the person you love.  I have to get there with Carhuamayo.  I've been impressed by it's good qualities and shocked by it's bad.  They are still separate in my mind.  I think that with time, I'll be able to integrate the two and love Carhuamayo for everything that it is.  After all, the ugly parts are why I'm here and I need to look at them and be intimately familiar with the problems if I'm going to make positive changes in my work.

Realizing this is the first step, I think.  Action and involvement will make me feel better and help me understand my new world better.  Today, I'm going to propose my healthy cooking classes to the mayor and the health post.  Arriba y adelante!