July 25th, 2006- An answer to your requests

It seems that some people in my life are bothered by my lack of detail on this here blog when I describe my days here. This entry is designated to addressing that concern. Let’s start at the top. Typically, I wake up on weekdays at around 6am and wrestle with the gas stove for a while, which I use to boil water to take a bucket bath with. This usually takes FOREVER since my hair is long like Rupunzel’s (sp?). At 7:15, I sit down to breakfast with my host mom and sometimes my sister. My 16 year old brother is slightly antisocial, to the point of his mom ridiculing him constantly for being so timid. He never really comes out of his room when I am around, and when he does, our interactions are awkward enough to make us both want to crawl into a hole and die. After breakfast (which is usually something deliciously soupy like oatmeal or a cream of wheat look-alike, accompanied by a spinach omelet or fried sweet potatoes), I meet the volunteers who live in my neighborhood (there are 8 of us) and we walk down the mountain together to the center, where training begins at 8am. Here, the 36 of us split up into our 8 Spanish classes, and we have approximately 4 hours of class per day, which sometimes takes place in the center, and sometimes in one of our houses (in order to better integrate us into the community). These classes usually involve some sort of highly interactive experience such as taking a combi (crowded bus) to a nearby town to interview store/restaurant owners, or in my case, to chow down on any snack within sight. When we are not in Spanish class, we are having presentations at the center, given by a staff member, or a current volunteer. Some topics have been non-formal education/hidden curriculum, how to handle discrimination as a volunteer, and common illnesses and treatments within our region. Our staff is HUGE on having us play really entertaining team building games within each training session, which works nicely for me, a person with a 35 minute maximum attention span. Such short attention spans wouldn’t normally fly in 4 hour presentations, but I think the way they pattern training is really keeping my antsyness under wraps.

At 12pm on weekdays, our parents walk to the training center with our lunches, and we sit around for an hour comparing meals and chit-chatting (in English, of course). Typically I am the envy of our lunch dates because I have the only family (probably in all of Peru) who does not agree with serving rice and potatoes, because somehow they figured out that neither of these things contains nutritional value. I am extremely grateful for this realization of theirs, and everyone else in my group is jealous. Usually, my mom packs me homemade juice of pineapple, orange, or guava, along with some sort of stir-fry, soup, or salad mixed with meat. After lunch, sometimes my so-called volleyball team has practice on the volleyball court in our center. Not only are Peruvian women volleyball pros, but they also get all dolled up for the tournaments- clad in make-up and cute work-out gear. This puts our team at an extreme disadvantage, because not only can we not play volleyball, but we don’t have the capacity here with our limited resources to get all pizzazzed out with make-up and other such accessories. The Peruvians keep challenging us to a tournament, and I keep having an awful mental image of getting spiked in the face by some South American Barbie. Thankfully, my team was stood up this past weekend at a tournament, which hopefully means we will never be challenged again. I can’t really get the hang of this volleyball thing. My hands don’t seem to want to work together, so instead, I just swat at the ball with one flaccid hand, hoping that this will magically propel the ball over the net (I am sure that those of you who know me well can completely imagine the stupidity of my appearance on the court). About 25% of the time, this works during practice, but I am pretty sure during a tournament, I might not have such luck.

After school, I sometimes take the combi into Chosica, the closest town to us. I like this town, even though it has a bad reputation safety-wise. Chosica is where all the restaurants are, which are mostly chicken places, Chinese eateries, and pizzerias. The town is centered around a park with permanent amusement park rides for children, and at night time, it resembles a carnival with a bunch of food booths lining the sidewalks. A river runs next to the town, and underneath the main bridge is a cool fruit, veggie, cheese, and meat market that I frequent for treats. Across the river against a wall are these beautiful mosaics that the local universities and colegios designed. I try to pass them every time I am in Chosica, because they might be some of the nicest murals I have ever seen. In addition to the mosaics, there is a giant white Jesus statue looking over the town from the mountain, and when it’s lit up at night, it is really quite majestic.

While our families are being paid by the Peace Corps to feed us, I typically try to cook one meal a week for them, because they appreciate the cultural exchange. So far, I have cooked banana bread, tres-leches cake, pizza, chicken parmesian/cordon bleu, French toast, various stir-fries and omelettes. Tomorrow, we are having a taco party. It has been difficult to find ingredients here, so improvising has been a blast. As was expected, I am spending my entire living stipend on food, but I am okay with that. At night time, we eat dinner around 7pm, and then, I usually do some h.w., or hang out with the people in my neighborhood. It’s a pretty humbling experience to sit on the top of our mountain at night, looking down at the lit city below, so I do that with a friend quite a bit. Sometimes we watch d.v.d’s as well, because some people were a little smarter than me and packed entertainment options for themselves. On weekends, we usually have training on Saturdays, and then spend the rest of the weekend at bbq’s or parties with our families and friends, and sometimes we sing karaoke at a local bar or dance at the discotecas. This upcoming weekend is a big deal and holiday in Peru because their new president is starting his term. Many of us are going to the mountains with our families, where I am told we will get very sick and our cheeks will burn for some reason from the altitude. I have not heard anything good about this trip, but it has to be fun if we are making the 6 hour trek (starting at 3am), right? I hope I don’t fall ill during the holiday, because this weekend is the first time I will meet my host dad, because he has been away at the mines for my entire stay here. I don’t want to be lurching over a cliff during our first encounter, you know?