June 26th, 2006- Settling in some

Here I sit at my laptop in my very own bedroom in Santa Eulalia, a small city 45 minutes away from Lima. We arrived here yesterday morning, had a few hours of safety training, and then met our families, who we will stay with for the next 10 weeks (not three months like I thought before). Santa Eulalia is gorgeous, and is situated in a valley surrounded by the foothills of the Andes. Don’t let the term “foothills” fool you though- these things are massive. Sprinkled all up and down the mountains and through the valley are small shacks and cement houses. It really does remind me of a third world Greece, minus the water. It is around 70 degrees during the day, and 40 at night. Even though it is generally cool, there is this permanent haze that covers Santa Eulalia. It makes the mountains look fake, and more like something projected on a movie screen. We were told that the haze is not from smog, but instead from dust that gets trapped in the valley.

Our training center has major personality. It is a simple cement building with many levels and hallways, an empty inground pool, a basketball/tennis/volleyball court, and balconies that overlook the entire city. Not many of the rooms are enclosed, so our sessions are very airy and sun-filled. For meeting our families, we gathered in the basketball court, which has a balcony overlooking it. The staff stood on the balcony staring at us and waiting for our families to come in, and I honesty felt like I was a puppy waiting to be adopted, or a middle-schooler waiting to be chosen for a kickball team. It was a rocky few minutes, but it was actually really well organized on the part of the Peace Corps staff members. Our families found us right away, and mine was one of the first to come, and therefore I was not the “last one to be chosen for the kickball team,” which never stops feeling good. I was greeted by Yolanda and Valentin, my host parents. They took me home (a 15 minute walk down the mountain from the training center) and introduced me to the entire family, which had way too many people in it for me to remember names right away. Yolanda and Valentin have 7 children and 3 grandchildren. Out of those family members, 4 children and two grandchildren live in the house with the three of us. I have one host brother, Moises (16 years), three host sisters, Virginia (28 years), Patricia (20 years), Marisol (18 years), and two host nephews, Imanol (1yr), who is the son of Virginia, and Valentino (11 months), who is the son of Patricia. My house is down a dirt hill, and is the biggest on the block, which is reminiscent of a cul-de-sac in the U.S. It is square with a flat roof, and is made out of smooth grayish cement with a few textured accents near the front door. The inside is minimally decorated and has mostly cement and linoleum floors. My family has lived here for 12 years, but the house does not look lived in to that extent. I am suspecting that it may be because my family has been robbed twice recently, perhaps because they have the most fancy-looking house on the block. We have a T.V. and a computer, but most exciting is our top floor, which is a huge balcony with different levels from which to view the city. This is also where the laundry hangs to dry. We don’t have a washer, but our host moms are responsible for washing our clothes. It’s a shame, because I took a detailed lesson on clothes-washing from my grandmother before moving down here.

My host dad is especially engaging, and seems to know more about the Peace Corps than I do. He has a fantastic memory, and during our conversations, he always relates things back to what I previously told him. My host mom is a woman of few words, and so far there have already been more comfortable silences than conversations between the two of us. My host sisters are quiet and hard to get a sense from, but I have a feeling that the way to their hearts are through the two babies. I have been crawling around on the floor chasing those little rugrats quite a bit. Hopefully soon I will connect with my host sisters. My host brother, on the other hand, has taken a liking to me (I think, at least). We spent a lot of time yesterday comparing our cultures and embarrassing each other by trying our hardest to speak the other one’s language. We have both proven ourselves as language-manglers. He, like his father, seems to be gentle and polite. We shared a few laughs last night when we accompanied my hostmom to a fruit market in Chosica, a nearby city. She literally bought about 45 lbs of fruit, and we were standing behind her wondering, “How will we ever carry this all home?” When she finally finished her fruit bargaining, my host brother and I leaned down to help her, and she said, “No, I still have 10lbs of potatoes to buy. Just leave that stuff here until I am done.” WHAT THE…?

My host mom has already presented herself as a good cook. It seems we are going to be eating a lot of chicken, rice, and potatoes here, but she seasons them well so I don’t think I will mind the monotony. Ask me how I feel about those ingredients in a month, though- I really shouldn’t speak so soon. She asked me what I like to eat, but I figured I would just go with the flow in order to enjoy the local flavor instead of specifying anything. I spent an hour trying to explain the differences between North American food and Peruvian food, particularly breakfast foods, but we weren’t really connecting linguistically. With just about every household object, I tried to explain oatmeal, my favorite breakfast food, and she insisted that oatmeal did not exist, in any form, in Peru. Guess what showed up in my bowl this morning, though? That’s right, a big scoop of oatmeal, which they call Quacker, like a duck, even though we all know its Quaker, like an earth quake. Great, I thought, I need this nourishment after the exhausting conversation I had last night with her. Apparently oatmeal is alive and well in Peru. I wonder how many other familiar things exist here for me to seek comfort in? The bad news is that I have a feeling that weight gain will be unavoidable here. We seem to be consuming only starches and whole milk. And then, all we do is sit in training for 8 hours a day.

In addition to my anticipated weight gain, I have to say that I feel really hideous here in Peru, because I packed according to my expectations, which were unfounded. I didn’t bring my hairdryer and straightener (not that I am ¨that kind of girl¨, because you know I am not) so my hair is resembling something big and knotty, like an ostrich nest, if ostriches even make them. And, I didn’t bring ANY jewelry or nice clothing because I thought I might be living in a remote bat cave somewhere for the next two years. That might end up being the case, but for now, when all of Santa Eulalia seems to be fashionable and well-groomed, I look like a personified trainwreck. I need to think of a creative resolution fast, whether it be making myself some jewelry out of toilet paper, or sleeping with my hair squished between two books to straighten it.


Things that have surprised and enlightened me so far:
1. My host brother insisting that I could probably dance like Shakira. In your dreams, buddy. She’s from your continent, not mine.
2. Here, dogs are not kept as housepets. Families name them, but they are purely functional and are supposed to viciously guard the house. Mine just sleeps all day long on our doorstep, or that of our neighbor’s. What a slacker. Many dogs in the town bite, so we were told to always carry rocks with us to throw at the flesh-eating ones.
3. Gender roles are not as firm as they were made out to be during our first couple days of training. I caught my host brother ironing this morning! And women in this town seem to be quite athletically involved in the community with soccer and volleyball.
4. Here there are 10 classes of potatoes, encompassing over 100 different types. I even recently read that over 4,000 types are grown in Peru. Crazy, eh? My host family didn’t believe me when I told them we only use 3 or 4 types in the states. My favorite so far is small and yellow, with beautiful purple speckles on it.
5. The majority of our bathrooms have no toilet seats, shower curtains, or warm
water. Showers are a frigid hell (and it’s winter here right now), and toilets will be unbearable when we start getting GI (an advanced form of diarrhea), which is common here from the contaminated water. We can’t consume the water here, or anything that has touched water, like raw vegetables. We have to boil the water before drinking it, at least until our bodies get acclimated to this change.
6. Peruvians are very neat in appearance. We were told that even homeless people, who may have only one outfit, always look cleanshaven, spotless, and unwrinkled. This unfortunately means no pajamas or flipflops for me. It is a sign of respect for others to always have your shoes shined. This is difficult in a town chock full of dust.
7. In Peru, bee sting therapy is common to relieve pain in patients (OUCH!). Is this an acupuncture alternative?
8. People do not use ice in their beverages here. Today my host family bought some Inka Cola for us to share, and I downed my glass because I was mad thirsty. It had been refrigerated at the store, and so my host dad said to me, ¨Drinks that are cold like that will burn a hole in your throat. You should wait until it´s warm to drink.¨ I am happy that what he was saying is not true, for I would have a very leaky throat.