July 14, 2007- Catching up

With how unpredictable life has been around here, I have barely had a chance to relay what has been going on in my life. I refer particularly to the category of diversion and travel, assuming that such entries are more entertaining to read than descriptions of what I do at my site, like massaging cow udders for milk (as opposed to for fun). At the end of June, I was able to take a few days off to attend the fiestas in Chota, a region in Cajamarca that is six hours away from my site. Chota is known for its bullring, which is the second largest in the country after Lima´s. Here, a three day bullfight takes place, and a week of heavy and severely drunken partying ensues. Chota, incidentally, is not at all fun to travel to, especially if you have consumed anything alcoholic in the 24 hours before your trip. A few of my friends and myself piled onto the budget bus to Chota, a ride that was conducted on a narrow unpaved road hanging over an intimidating cliff. It goes without saying that it was a bumpy ride, the bumps becoming even more defined by one of my friends pointing out that she might hurl after each glitch we encountered. While I am incredibly fond of everyone who accompanied me on the trip, it quickly became apparent that we were not accustomed to being together for extended periods of time. One friend thought it would be cool to buy a ¨party shirt¨ (neon orange and already sweaty reversible Nike muscle shirt from the 70´s) off the back of a Peruvian for 5 Soles ($1.50) and wear it for five days straight, which obviously elicits a wretched stench. The stench would have been ignorable if 5 of us weren’t sharing a hotel room to save money. Another friend (when I say ¨another¨, I actually mean the same friend with the party shirt) has become fond of cañazo, a homemade Peruvian liquor that is even more wretched that a human body that has worn the same party shirt for five days. It is generally served in a used soda bottle that is pulled out of the garbage right in front of you. Side effects of cañazo seem to be picking ridiculous fights, wanting to sleep on a filthy floor fully-dressed even after a sleeping bag and bed are offered to you, succeeding in keeping those around you wide awake ALL NIGHT LONG by talking/yelling in your sleep, randomly mentioning genitalia and other such obscenities in Spanish in front of classy Peruvian adults during mealtimes, and missing every bus/commitment you have scheduled. Keep in mind that I have shared only one person´s quirks, and there were many of us. It made for a very interesting few days, to say the least.

I wasn’t expecting much from the bullfight because I didn’t know that bullfighting was even popular in Peru. I attended a fight in Spain as a youngster, but left early because everyone with me was grossed out. Of course I pretended to be grossed out and angered by the brutality because I didn’t want to be considered barbaric by my friends, but in retrospect, I am pissed that I missed out on something so cultural. While I thought Peru´s fighting would be disappointing in comparison to Spain´s, I was very pleasantly surprised. All three of the bullfighters were actually from Spain, and seemed very practiced in their technique (which is wearing pink tights with pride and flamboyantly projecting themselves about the ring). Peruvians are actually serious about their bullfighting, and it might be the only event they show up on time for. My friends and I, who are now accustomed to the ¨hora peruana¨ (showing up an hour or two late to all events), strolled over to the bullring an hour after our tickets said the fighting would start, only to find ourselves locked out. With some loud banging and maneuvering, we were finally able to enter (much to the chagrin of the Peruvians who we blocked for a second to get to our seats. One of my friends was actually aggressively pinched on his leg while passing a pissed elderly woman! Old ladies can be so sassy, can they not?). One thing that the Spaniards are more organized with is the waving of the handkerchiefs. It was kind of haphazard with the Peruvians, all of them waving different colored chiefs at different times. I just realized that handkerchiefs abbreviated definitely is not ¨chiefs.¨ Whatever, you know what I mean. Hankies. Anyway, 6 bulls were killed, and in the last 10 minutes of the festivities it finally occurred to us that when a fight was well-fought, people would wave their hankies to signify that the bullfighter should receive an ¨oreja¨, or the bull´s ear. As if enough blood had not been shed during the murder of the bull. I don´t know if this happens in Spain, but I learned that here, if a bull is especially rambunctious and tough, he can be ¨saved¨ by the audience for breeding. This didn’t happen to any of the bulls we witnessed, but gosh was bull number 2 a treat to watch. The first thing he did was run out and collide with the wall, splintering his horns. I took this as a sign that he was a strong bull that didn’t respect boundaries, but I guess the rest of the audience interpreted it as him being a bit dense with poor depth perception. He was a fighter, that’s for sure, and he even forced the matador to jump over the wall to escape his wrath. I know it is a cruel act, but I really enjoyed myself at the bullfight, so don’t judge me. I feel like my enjoyment can be justified by highlighting that I rooted for the bulls the whole time. In leaving the bull ring, we saw all of the bulls that were killed just minutes before, skinned and hanging for sale. I was told that this meat is cheap, but gross, because bulls raised to fight are not tasty or tender to eat. Seeing their meat for sale made my stomach turn a little. I think it was enough to watch them lose the fight inside. I didn’t really need to see them hanging outside like that.

All this talk about fighting has made me sleepy. Before I go, I want to share something that continues to make me chuckle. Some things here are just so mismatched and nonsensical that it is humorous. Tonight at dinner, my host dad was listening to a program on his portable radio that he brings everywhere with him. He turns it up really loud when he feels overpowered by women at the dinner table, especially when all we are doing is gossiping about townspeople, a beloved Peruvian pastime. Tonight´s program was about prostate problems, genital discomfort, and sexual dysfunction. My family is really old fashioned, so I figured that they might deem this program inappropriate for my 7 year old host nephew (or me, who was losing my appetite quickly with what the radio show was addressing). But like the loyal listeners we are, we all tuned in to various callers around Peru talking about the troubles they were experiencing ¨down there.¨ Even more hysterical than my family unabashedly listening to this was the song that the radio station chose to play throughout this whole program. While one caller was talking about the extreme pain he felt while urinating, ¨I´ve had the time of my life,¨ (yes, the Dirty Dancing theme song) was playing rather loudly in the background. Do you consider pain while urinating an enjoyable life experience? Oh, Peru, you kill me sometimes!

July 11, 2007- What now?

We are currently on day 3 of national school strikes, day 7 of no water, and day 3 of no way to get into the city for water or food. Things are looking pretty grim and I find myself getting sad and frustrated, my feelings probably being amplified by my extreme dehydration. Even if I were stupid enough to drink water from the river that passes by our house, I couldn’t because it has dried up since the end of rainy season. I am praying that the transportation strike ends tomorrow so I can treat myself to a tub of drinking water and maybe some food that resembles something other than stale rice. My family is having an interesting response to our current hardship, one that might entertain me if I weren’t so freaking thirsty. They stare at me and make comments like, ¨The gringa is looking gaunt and worried too, like us. What are we going to do?¨ As if I, as what they still consider a privileged white, am impervious to thirst, suffering, whatever. I recently read a Newsweek article about what a delicacy clean drinking water is in most developing countries, and I felt fortunate to be in a country where water isn´t too hard to come by. Now that I am getting a taste of the desperation that comes with waking up to the thought of ¨Where will we find water today?¨, I feel sick knowing that some peoples lives are made of the endless search for water. Maybe I am not cut out to be a development worker if I feel so paralyzed and sentimental about what people in disadvantaged situations have to face. How personal of a struggle this can be sometimes, even while those around you are going through the same experience.

From what I can gather, the school strike is taking place in response to a new law Alan Garcia is proposing to impose an evaluation system on the educational realm. I imagine his goal is to produce more qualified teachers and provide the students with a means of giving feedback about the quality of their classes and teachers. This is scaring many teachers since education is undervalued here, and many of them (I write from personal experience, and from experiences relayed to me by fellow volunteers) are less than serious about their jobs. Maybe some of you have read the recent Economist article about how poor education is in Peru. None of what I write here is meant to deny the fact that many talented and devoted teachers exist in Peru. Sometimes they just seem like the minority. In my last site, the teacher I was working with consistently showed up an hour late with alcohol so blatantly on his breath that his 10 year old students not-so-subtly called him Sr. Borracho (Mr. Drunk). At my current site, the students are barely in class. When I go to scheduled meetings with the director, I find him playing volleyball with his staff, the students nowhere to be found. When I ask him where the kids are, he looks at me impatiently for interrupting his game, and tells me that all 100 of them were tired, so he let them out two hours early (the school day is only 5 hours long). The teachers are refusing to come to school because they are against being evaluated and forced to be held accountable for what they are supposed to know as educational authorities. Obviously, as a bit of an outsider, it is possible that I do not have the whole story, but this is what I was able to pick up from newspapers and my townspeople. The strike has no end in sight, which is seriously hindering my work here with the youth. All of my scheduled activities in the schools have been indefinitely postponed, and I can´t make it into the city for my other job at the youth hogar.

I have no clue what is going on with transportation to and from my site, but I hear there might be a nation-wide business strike, or ¨paro¨ which is more like an organized halt in service that generally is short-lived. As soon as this blog entry gets posted, that means I was able to make it into the city, which is a very good sign. For the time being, the Peace Corps is advising us against travel as there are potentially dangerous protests all throughout the country. Since I can´t get out of my site to begin with, I guess the above advisory doesn’t really apply to me. Hopefully my next entry will be written with all things resolved.