Home

I sent Elka the dog to the states 2 weeks ahead of me so I didn't have to take her and move all my worldly possessions at the same time.  My lovely mom took great care of her.  We took this video when I first surprised Elka in the back yard.  She didn't recognize me for a second.  

It's good to be in America home.   

Chau chau

After some last weeks of scrambling to get cocinas mejoradas done (didn't fully succeed), saying goodbye to folks, and taking my replacement around town, it was time to leave.

On the last day, we went around to some of my favorite schools.  

Quilcacancha was first, and they did an adorable little presentation.

Then, all the kids lined up for hugs.  It was great. 

Hannah and I ambled over to San Francisco where there was a play about plants, a poetry reading, and a song.

 This little girl recited a poem that was a few minutes long.  Impressive.

They're singing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" in Spanish.  I'm vaguely suspicious that they prepared it for another occasion.  

A teacher got up and sang a traditional Quechua song, so naturally, huayno had to be danced.

This time, instead of an orderly hug line, I was mobbed and knocked to the ground.

And it was actually pretty wonderful.

The hug line reformed, and Hannah, my replacement, got some squeezes as well.

I went home to pack up two years of a Peruvian life, play one last game of family poker, and get ready for the bus to Lima in the morning.

Everybody who was at the house came to walk Hannah and I to the bus station.  (Jenny took the picture)

There were lots of hugs and tears and I said goodbye to my wonderful second family.  I was impossibly lucky to have them and my service would'nt have happened without their kindness and hot tea to come home to every day.  

I got on the bus and had a fun few days with my Peace Corps family.  That's my third in this post, if you're counting.  We had ice cream for breakfast, haircuts, and lots of time hanging out, drinking beer, and chatting about life and how much we love each other.  We even got to see Jane Freaking Goodall speak!  

"About to see Jane Goodall" faces

Now I'm done.  I did it.  I'm in my America home.  The Peace Corps had me challenged, sad, lonely, vomiting, and occasionally murderous.  It was also full of gratefullness that I've never before experienced, friendship, and deep appreciation and joy for the smallest successes.  I've been a few places, and in every one, I've encountered an enormous amount of love that crosses backgrounds, ethnicity, and language.  I'm so lucky.

Ducky

I had some extra money in a SPA grant, and asked the directora at escuela Quilcacancha if she had any more projects she wanted to do.  She immediately said that the school has been wanting to raise ducks for the longest time to improve the quality of the kids' school lunches, but they haven't had the money for the setup.  I was thrilled by the idea: not only do I love me some ducks, but the SPA grant is designed around climate change, and local, climatically appropriate food fits in with resilience and adaptation for the community.

First, I bought them the materials they'd need to build the ducks' corral.  I can't believe it all fit on a moto.

I sent the supplies to the school, and was busy with other projects, so I couldn't help them build.  The amazing thing was they had everything set up on the day they said they would!  Incredible!

I went to the Friday market and picked up a box of 12 ducks, 10 females and 2 males, and brought them to the school.

I wanted a nice photo of me, the ducks, and the kids, but naturally this is what happened the second I opened the box.  I'm saying, "no no, don't grab their necks!" 

Realizing my mistake, I let them go in their corral.

Which is actually a sweet setup.  When they get bigger, they'll be able to wander the ample grounds that even have a stream!

Everybody was excited.

We went about cutting ichu grass for their bed, and some pre-schoolers were sent into the duck house to plug up any holes where cold drafts could get in.  

Then it was time for a drink/bath!  Hopefully, having these ducks will improve the diets of the students and teach them how to care for animals. 

They will also be super cute!

Just Eat It

I've had some interesting food experiences lately.

1. Fish eyeballs are surprisingly tasty.  I found one floating in my soup and popped it in my mouth rather than passing it off to a host brother.  Pleasantly chewy.

2. A friend shared a pile of trashy magazines and one of the ads was for sex cereal, a breakfast cereal that supposedly ramps up your sex drive.  First, it seems inconvenient to be horny all day.  Secondly and most importantly, the main ingredient in the cereal is maca, apparently an aphrodisiac.  Just what I need all the campo ladies to be feeding me on the daily, thanks.  

3. I was bored one day and inventorying my things in preparation for my not-too-distant departure.  I have a box on top of my dresser where all things not immediately useful go.  Way back in the beginning, my college friends sent me a package that included silly condoms as a joke (though none of us could know how much of a joke).  I was rifling through them, wondering if they were still ok to save for the next volunteer or give away, when I came across a strawberry flavored one.  I'd never used a flavored condom before, and honestly it doesn't seem like something I'd want to be putting in my body.  But in my bored, 3pm with nothing to do state, I decided I had to see what it tasted like.  I opened the package and gave it a tiny lick.  It has a very artificial sweet, slighty berry-like flavor.  Probably better than plain latex, but I can't recommend them as a gum or snacking substitute.  

Never Too Late for a First

I though I'd experienced all the possible Peace Corps mishaps after being in Peru for over two years, but I was gravely mistaken.  The idea reeks of hubris anyway.  Today, for the first time ever, I vomited blood.

I'm in Huancayo, our regional capital, after a meeting in the selva.  I came by to pick up some food and water attchments for Elka's crate.  I was walking about, started to feel strange, and went to the hostal to take a break.  Before I knew it, my breakfast was trying to escape from my body with great force, and by any outlet possible.  A popular phrase among volunteers is , "peeing out my butt."  It's graphic, but damn accurate for the situation.  I also vomited every 10 minutes for many hours, apparently bursting blood vessels in my stomach from the strain, hence the blood.  

I feel slightly better now.  If I sit completely still and take tiny sips of ginger ale, the nausea isn't overwhelming.  You probably would've been better off not reading about this (sorry bout that), but it can be comforting to share traumatic experiences.  

I'm just hoping that was the last new gastrointestinal experience I have in my remaining few weeks here. 

World Map

The World Map is a hallowed Peace Corps tradition.  Volunteers all over the planet are painting maps in their communities.  It seemed like an awesome, fun project that would spread the PC message, so I decided to do one during my second year of vacaciones utiles, or summer school.  It turned out that was ambitious.

I started with three high school classes.  We began with some basic geography and ecology lessons so they'd have a better understanding of what they were working on.  Initially, I had wanted to project an image of the map onto the wall to trace, but our equipment wasn't powerful enough.  We went to the tried and true, but much slower grid method.

Thankfully, I still had my highschoolers to set it up.  

Sadly, vacaciones utiles ended at that point, which makes it right on schedule for a PC project, so I needed to do the rest with the sixth graders that went to the school.  We started over with some more geography classes to learn the cardinal directions, how to read a map, and all that good stuff.  Then it was time to draw the map on the grid following print-outs.  Most of Peruvian primary education is based on rote memorization and copying, so I thought they'd be awesome at copying from the paper to the wall.  It turned out to be much more of a challenge than I thought.  After a few more white hairs, I was able to help my students figure out what they were up to.

Then it was time to paint!  

Aside from some difficulty staying inside the lines, this part was fun.  

After the main countries were painted, we needed to fill in all the tiny islands and territories, which quickly became the bane of my existence.  With the difficulty of correctly placing all the -nesias, the rainy season getting drunk and sticking around way after the party was over, and fiesta upon fiesta, we somehow made it to late September with work still to be done.  I needed to call in the heavy artillery.

My friends Laura and Nicole came to visit and I put them to work labeling the last countries.

The next week, a few kids and I cleaned up some borders and repainted the ocean, and we were done!

It's missing islands and some of the smaller European countries, but it's way better than no map at all and another good learning opportunity.  I had to let go of a lot of expectations, and as Voltaire would say, not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  

Such Great Heights

It’s been confirmed in an official-like manner that I’m the highest PCV in the whole world.  One of our doctors here took it upon himself to ask the doctors in Nepal if they had anyone over 4,000 meters.  The Nepalese doctors responded with something like, “No, that’s crazy!” so at 4,125 meters (13,500 ft.), I officially hold the title.  Pretty cool.

I was a little embarrassed when Dr. Jorge sent out a note with the news all of Peace Corps Peru, but, I’m used to infamy and being made a spectacle by Peruvians by now, so I’ll go with it. 

It's not so bad living at the top of the world, once you get used to it.

A Garden Party

Every night, I heat up some oil in a pan, add onion and garlic, then whatever other vegetables I bought at the market that week.  Spinach, bell pepper, tomatoes, broccoli, sometimes that one that looks like a cactus.  Once that’s going, I add the protein.  Usually an egg (from our duck if I’m lucky), or some chicken or alpaca if I was feeling fancy.  Then the seasoning.  Some salt, oregano, or maybe some of my closely guarded curry powder.  And that’s it.  I eat it out of the pan (because who am I putting on airs for?) with my only fork.  This is what it usually looks like. 

It’s a functional meal.  It tastes good enough and is the most meaningful amount of vegetables I encounter every day.  That particular duck egg was awesome.  But until last week, I had forgotten how wonderful it can be to cook when you invest time, money, and have more people to feed than your own self.  Let me back up. 

We have a successful little veggie garden at a primary school called Quilcacancha.  I recently wrote a post about our lettuce harvest.  That was a precursor to our big harvest party, which we had in the middle of September.  I wanted to celebrate that we were actually able to grow vegetables at 13,500 feet.  The plan was to make a bunch of food with the vegetables and invite the parents over to share the meal and learn about the garden.

After it took my students over an hour to put a salad together, I abandoned any ideas of us cooking together and made most of the food at home ahead of time.  When I got to the school the day of the party, we harvested a bunch of spinach and made a lovely salad with strawberries and cheese. 

When everything was set up, we played a little frisbee while we waited for parents to show up.

We had 9 moms come to the party.  I was happy since it’s a school of only 35 kids and it’s rare to have anybody show up for anything, whether or not there’ll be free food.  I had some time to sit and chat with them about recipes, why it’s good to cook with veggies, and growing them ourselves. 

I was happy with how all the food turned out.  We had garlic beets

Coleslaw

Our spinach salad.

Quinoa with veggies

And ginger carrot soup, which was my personal favorite. 

Everything was made from ingredients grown in our garden our bought in town, and the kids ate a surprising amount of food for being children who rarely encounter veggies.  The moms were more into it and were excited to try similar things at home. 

At the end of the meal, the principal of the school stood up and gave a nice talk about nutrition and the role of parents in feeding their children well.  She also said some really nice things about me and my work at the school.  A lot of times, I feel like people have no idea what I’m doing here or that I’m putting upon them to work with me.  It was wonderful to be thanked and appreciated for a little while. 

All in all, it was a big success.  Everyone ate and had a good time, which is all I could ask for.  The next time I go to the school, I’m going to send all the kids home with starts to plant at their houses and a list of recipes for all the dishes we ate.  Hooray for vegetables!