July 11, 2008- On the Way Out

June 23rd marked exactly two years in country, and my group is currently closing its service and preparing for its departure from Peru. Some Volunteers from my group are receiving replacement Volunteers to continue the projects they started at site, and these replacements are currently training in Lima. It is hard to believe that they are at the beginning of their Peace Corps journeys, and we are at the end of ours. It seems surreal, to say the least. To be honest, there was very little severance between thinking my service would never end and its actual conclusion. I really expected everything to unfold in a more gradual manner, with me conscious of each passing moment (especially considering the lack of diversion and distraction here). Frankly, I am really taken aback that two years passed me by with such rapidity. It seems like just yesterday that I came, but at the same time, I almost forgot that I would one day leave.

We started with 37 Volunteers and are ending with 32, which is not too shabby of a record. I think all of us are currently pondering how Peru has changed us, and how we have affected our little niches in Peru. From day one of training, we were taught that if we impacted just one person in two years at site, that this would be a true accomplishment. In the beginning, I naively viewed this as an underachiever’s opinion, but now I believe it to be accurately aligned with my experience. It is hard to believe that with all the work and effort I put in, probably only a few people from my community were truly touched. It took me a long time to be okay with that.

In terms of the effect that Peru has had on me, I believe this will take awhile to fully surface. I see small changes in my attributional style and general mentality, but nothing too notable. Today as I was on a combi back to my site, a few traditionally-dressed campo women were staring at me with wide grins spread across their faces. I thought, ¨There must be some food on my face,¨ and tried to see my reflection in the window to rectify the problem. Two years ago, I would have thought, ¨How much longer are these people going to find entertainment in how white I am, or what I am wearing, or how much water I have consumed in the short period that I have been in their presence?¨ Now, for some reason, when I consider how I appear to the outside world, I always think that I look just like the women from my site. This could be no further from the truth, considering I have in no way changed my appearance since arriving (aside from gaining 20 pounds of pure rice and potato weight), and also taking into account that they are some of the most indigenous human beings I have ever met. Delusions such as my thinking that we bear any likeness in appearance might signify that I have been here a little too long.

I suppose I have adequately expressed my confusion at where all the time went, so I will move on. Things have been a little uncomfortable with my host family. I am the third Volunteer to live in their house, and I think they are over having house guests. At first, gringas were such a novelty to them, but now they seem genuinely bored. I guess it has finally occurred to them that people are people, no matter their origin. I wish they could have waited a bit longer to have this epiphany because it has made for some tension in the house. I think they feel really conflicted about how to treat me, and I have been receiving some seriously mixed messages from them. When I am here, they often forget to feed me, and when my starved self surfaces, they look pissed as if my existence presents a huge burden to them. Keep in mind that I pay rent, and usually eat a mere tea plate full of food per day. If I were not here, that food would still exist, and would be fed to our chickens. If I pose an imposition to them, I can´t figure out why or how. I get excited to tell them if I have a trip to the capital city planned, because I think it will relieve them of an inconvenience, but then they complain about me being gone. Should I stay or should I go? Make up your mind, people. And if I am doing something to so horrifically bother you, just tell me. I am a flexible person. I can change.

As I have expressed in just about every other blog entry, communication style has been a big source of frustration for me here. I was relieved when my host aunt confided in me, without me prompting the discussion, that my host parents were not normal communicators and that I should not consider passive aggression a cultural characteristic of Peru, but a personal one. This made me smile for a while, until I realized that this knowledge was in no way alleviating how uncomfortable they sometimes make me feel. I think I finally figured it out tonight though, after only two full years in site. Whenever my host dad is irked with me, I have noticed a pattern in his behavior. He tells me, ¨Tienes que ir a la iglesia conmigo esta noche.¨ This does not translate to, ¨Hey Lindsay, there is going to be a cool presentation in church tonight. You can accompany me if you want.¨ It actually translates to, ¨You are a sinner and there is no way out of coming to church with me tonight.¨ So tonight, as with many other Friday nights, I sat in church for hours on end. However, I didn´t realize until tonight that this was a necessary step in restoring the equilibrium of my household ambiance. I will never know what I do that pisses them off so consistently, but tonight I can rest assured that it only takes five hours in a very painful church ceremony to right my wrongs. I feel cleansed, and yes, that last admission is dripping in sarcasm.

Since our church services usually consist of singing the same song over and over again for three to five hours, and I memorized that melodic gem after my first time hearing it, I usually come up with other activities that I can subtly perform from my pew to keep myself from going crazy. Some nights, I count all of the right angles in the church (there are thousands!), and other nights (but only when I am feeling especially imaginative), I try my hardest to envision the traditionally-attired women in flared or skinny jeans and a fitted top, with make-up, straightened or curled hair, and stiletto heels. It is like a mental game of paper dolls, but with three-dimensional characters. It might seem shallow and materialistic, but think about it. These women, for some reason, exert no form of individuality. Each and every one of them, each and every day, wears a layered knee-length skirt, sandals made from recycled tires, a white button-down shirt, and a cardigan sweater. It is hard to believe that I have never seen a woman at my site wearing pants, and that because their clothes are so bulky, I have no real concept of how their bodies are shaped. They all wear their hair in a long single braid down their backs, and as I was in church today staring at the back of their heads and preparing myself for another rousing round of mental dress-up, I realized that I could not tell which one was my host mom. It started freaking me out, like I had stumbled upon the Peruvian-version of Stepford Wives, or whatever that creepy story/movie is called. I love that Peruvian culture is so intact here, but I wish it didn´t come at the expense of women enjoying no form of individual expression. Kids and men seem to be able to wear whatever they want, and act like idiots if they so desire, but as soon as girls hit a certain age, they quite suddenly settle down and transform into cookie-cutter campo women. In my classes, it is nearly impossible to get the girls to contribute their ideas, and the teachers don´t scold this lack of active participation, as though it is proper and expected for girls to keep their mouths shut. I would almost pay money to see a girl walk into class one day with a lip ring or Mohawk. I don´t know why we criticize kids in the states for strange behavioral outbursts. At least they have unique personalities. At least they feel comfortable straying from the norm. My hope for Peru is that it can maintain its rich cultural components while liberating its women and rewarding creativity and individuality in its children.

Following this thought, I recently administered a vocational exam to my two oldest groups of students. They had to answer 60 questions about their likes and dislikes, and their tabulated responses led to a list of professions they might enjoy or be good at. I was watching them so I know they weren´t copying from one another, but somehow, most of them arrived at the same list of professions, when there were nine different lists in all. What is it about my community that is creating such robotic personalities? It is really disappointing to see a group of children who aren´t being introduced to their full potentials. It is even more disappointing that I hit such resistance from teachers and community members when I try to introduce anything special to the school system. I need more than just two years. I need a lifetime!

April 2, 2008- The day I made my host mom cry over milk (that wasn´t spilt)

We were forewarned that Peruvians eat very light breakfasts and dinners, and that lunch is the heartier meal here. I haven´t really warmed up to this custom, and I find myself regularly famished both before and after lunch. I miss big breakfasts terribly, and whip up pancakes often to address my longing. It is rude to cook anything here and not offer it to your host family, but seeing them slyly feed all of my creations (from French toast to tacos) to our mangy dogs has made me a bit less generous with the culinary luxuries I allow myself. The straw that broke the camel´s back was seeing them dump my deliciously fluffy banana pancakes (that they claimed they LOVED, and always beg me to cook again) with expensive imported maple syrup in front of our collection of spoiled chickens. I swear, these animals eat better than I do. Anyway, let´s get back to the point.

For as long as I can remember, I have come downstairs for breakfast and my host mom has placed a thermos of hot water in front of me as if she spent hours laboring over the stove to prepare it for me. Enjoy your breakfast gringa, she says, and by breakfast, she means wood-flavored water. Two times a week, there is bread to accompany my water, but other days, a lone cup of water greets me with no promise of anything tastier. I have been having my parents mail me instant oatmeal packets, so you shouldn´t feel too sorry for me, but for the last year and a half, I have been simply puzzled as to how these people work so productively on their farms with water as their only morning sustenance. A few weeks ago though, I learned their dirty secret. I inadvertently broke my morning routine, and ended up downstairs fifteen minutes before my usual feeding time. I opened our dining room door, and was greeted by the ashamed faces of all of my family members around the table, enjoying what can only be labeled as a smorgasbord of food. Soup, fresh bread, potatoes, fish, rice, hot chocolate, and fresh cow´s milk. Wait a minute, now…I thought Peruvians had ¨light breakfasts¨ consisting of nothing more than hot water. On this fated morning, they reluctantly invited me to sit down, and passed some bread to me. I was not upset at them for not sharing the potatoes and rice, since I get my fair share of those two things in this country. But my body is so protein deprived, that I think I hallucinated the fish calling my name. I just wanted some fish, or some milk, and after chewing my stale piece of bread, I went up to my room to sulk. How could they lie to me all this time about what breakfast is all about, and then when I catch them, not offer me anything even though I saw an abundance of food on the table behind us? I had a lot of trouble letting this go, since my life is essentially driven by food, but I had to be careful about how I handled this situation because Peruvians are not the most direct or communicative people in the world. My host dad thinks he is a saint for being so non-confrontational. He says that whenever he is angry, he lets God deal with his problem. He doesn´t seem to realize that while he is waiting for God to get down and dirty with his issues, that he (my host dad) is incredibly passive aggressive, and can be really hateful with his remarks. So whenever I have an issue with my host family, I have to be sure to pick my battles, because sometimes confrontations just cause them to gossip and make the situation more awkward than I could have ever imagined. For some reason (reason being I am obsessed with food), I could not let this go. I marched downstairs and told my host mom that I am still hungry after just a cup of water, and asked her if she could at least please save me a cup of milk every morning. I told her that if it was a money issue (which is impossible considering a cup of milk cost 7 cents and she just inherited a huge heap of money from her dad that would even equate to a lot in the States), that I could pay her more money. She cried, sat down with me and told me how embarrassed she was, promised to serve me milk every day, and then proceeded to offer me hot water the next morning. I just can´t win. I have even gone as far as to buy us milk (even though we get milk daily from our 8 cows), and she still doesn´t serve it to me.

This is probably one of the most challenging things about being in the Peace Corps. You live with the same family for two years, so you assume that you will grow close, like a true family. In many senses, that is true. However, many cultural differences make it impossible to get past a certain point. I grew up in a place where communication is valued and rewarded. They grew up in a place where it is better to gossip about your problems or ignore them than confront the source of your issue. This has created a rather large rift between us, because it is a cultural component that I cannot seem to accept from them. Many times, they agree to things they are not comfortable with, and even feign enthusiasm. Then they grow resentful of what they agreed to, and blame you since you asked them to do whatever it is they are doing. It is really maddening. It leaves you constantly wondering what the heck you could have done to rub them the wrong way. They think that they are doing you a huge favor by not burdening you with their concern, but they are unintentionally making things tense by holding in something that bothers them so.

Here is an example. I am doing a project with another Volunteer, who lives about an hour from me. We are often spending time at each others sites, getting to know each others host families while planning our course. We figured it would be a good idea to plan a special lunch where our families could get to know one another. We decided to buy a live turkey that my host mom offered (offered, not agreed) to kill and cook. My mom mailed me Stove Top stuffing from the States, so we figured we would make a Thanksgiving-type feast. I was responsible for picking out the turkey, and since I didn´t have much faith in myself in this area, I brought my host sister with me who claimed to be experienced in the realm of livestock. We picked out the biggest turkey we could find, and I brought him home for my host mom to cook for the lunch, which was scheduled for the next day. She laughed in my face when she saw the turkey. She said it was too small to kill and that it had the ¨meat of a chicken¨, whatever that means. Instead of offering me a solution, she just continued chuckling. I found myself silently cursing my host sister for pretending to be so knowledgeable. Finally, I interrupted my host mom´s constant criticisms to ask her what she suggested I do. Well, she said, you have to raise it for at least a month before I can kill it. When I told her that I had never raised a turkey before, and that I would need her advice, she was really vague as to what I needed to do. I blindly went to the city to get my new pet turkey some food, made the mistake of getting attached to him and naming him ¨Leap Year¨, and for a month, fed him as much as he would eat, trying to fatten him up. My host mom, the guru of animal-raising, offered me no help at all. She changed her attitude towards me, which I could not understand considering I was doing all I could with the turkey. I bought everything, was always home for his feeding times, and made sure he was interacting well with her other animals (as opposed to her turkey, who tried to take my life with his killer beak and claw combination at least four times). Leap Year was a good pet, really timid and agreeable, never attacking or stealing food from the chickens who so readily stole his food. Each day I woke up to my host mom being a little more cold towards me than the day before, but when I would ask her what was wrong, she would dismiss my questions. Until one day I woke up to her laughing with her friends, all of them announcing at the same time to me that my turkey was sick, and would surely die by the end of the day. What kind of sickness? What could I do to save him? Why were they laughing about it? All of my questions went unanswered. I managed to keep him alive for a week more, and I thought he was getting better. I made the decision to move him to my friend´s house (try transporting a live turkey sometime. Great fun) because I thought it might alleviate the tension in my household, the tension that no one would explain to me. Leap Year died a few days later, and provided that my host mom didn´t poison him to get rid of him, I seek solace in knowing that I was able to give him a pretty good life while he was with me. Strangely enough, all the weirdness in my house has disappeared. I refuse to tell them the turkey died. They might throw a party.

I also refuse to consider my communication skills a weakness, and hate that they do not reciprocate my openness in confronting issues. I can´t believe it took moving to Peru for me to realize how much I value directness and honesty. I think there should be Communication Volunteers in the Peace Corps. After the experiences I have had in my town, I would certainly sign up to serve in that sector.

February 14th, 2008- Carnival and the misery that followed

They say that the South American experience is not complete without staying on for Carnival, and after my second year of doing exactly that, I have to agree with them (whoever these experts actually are). While I didn´t think it was possible, this year´s festivities beat last year´s by a landslide, probably because nearly my whole group was able to make it, and maybe because we know we only have so much time left in Peru together and people are getting sentimental about their departures. Despite the reason, it was a blast and I feel proud to be a habitant of the region that calls Carnival its own. This year, I was a lot more aware of all of the preparation and tradition involved in the celebration. It is a more festive holiday than Christmas is here. For the two months that the party spans, special music that is specific to our region plays on the radio telling stories about the different municipalities of Cajamarca. Everyone is busy collecting apparatuses to hurl water, buying paint to rub all over their bodies, and making floats to be in one of the parades that officially closes the Carnival season. In a country that doesn´t oftentimes exhibit unity, this is a nice custom to witness. While Peruvians are generally friendly and accommodating of foreigners like us, Carnival is unique in the sense that for one day we are not treated like outsiders. Peruvians invite us to march with them and stand by their sides as they attack other Peruvians. At night, they invite us to dance and be part of their drum circles, not exoticizing us or asking us to teach them English as they usually do. It is nice not to receive unwanted attention for a change, even if the change only lasts for 24 hours.

With all of that said, it must also be stated that Carnival does not lack in drunken debauchery. On February 2, true participants awake early and start drinking whatever liquor is available. Peruvians have a habit of homemaking their liquor, a strong concoction that inebriates them about 2 minutes after it passes their lips. They join their friends to march through the streets in gangs, carting water guns, balloons, buckets of water, paint, shoe polish, and of course, their homemade liquor. They either attack you with water or paint, or offer you some liquor if your appearance pleases them. It is offensive to decline whatever they offer you, even if its taste is unbearable. Because of how generous Peruvians are, everyone ends up what can only be identified as under the influence by about noon, and most are asleep by 2pm, only to leave their houses again at around 8pm to sing and dance and drink some more on the plaza. During the day, the whole world seems to disappear and your only goal becomes finding a target for your paint and water. When I say ¨the whole world,¨ I mean things like cars, as a Volunteer was hit by one this year because he cared only about destroying his adversary. It is really wild to see a whole city soaking wet and covered in paint, with everyone engaging in the same game. No one and nothing is off limits, and most buildings have to be repainted after the festival ends. What an experience!

The least pleasurable part of Carnival is removing the paint from your body, especially since many people buy the wrong type of paint for the occasion, opting for a more permanent variety. The hotel that everyone was staying at ran out of hot water early on, so many of us were forced to go to Los Baños del Inca, a thermal water spa right down the road. This spa isn´t anything fancy, except for it never runs out of hot water (a coveted commodity around here). You can choose to use the bathhouse or shower wing, and you pay a couple of Soles to use the facility for however long you want. It was packed when we got there, which clued us into the fact that we were not the only ones who ran out of hot water. After waiting in a long line to pay, we were told that we were too painted and dirty to enter. How, exactly, can you be too dirty for a shower? Isn´t being dirty the point of showering? My friends and I stood on the curb feeling quite dejected, trying to think of an alternative plan. We tried to rub the paint off of our bodies and pull the paint helmet off of our heads, but it was painful and useless. Luckily, a little girl took pity on us and led us to a carwash in the parking lot that allowed dirty gringos to enter and wash themselves. The only downside was that the water was scalding hot, so we were not able to tolerate it for long enough to clean ourselves entirely. When we got back in line to buy tickets to take a shower, thinking that we were clean enough to at least enter, the guard rejected us again and told us that we had to go out back to where there was a thermal bath to give ourselves another preliminary scrub down. I wish that I had brought my camera. When we reached the bath, we found multiple Peace Corps Volunteers, kneeling over the ledge and submerging their heads in water that had algae and some other unidentified things floating in it. Quite a hilarious sight it was to see a line of so many butts in the air and heads under water. After about two hours of waiting and scrubbing, we were finally allowed in the showers. Needless to say, it was the most satisfying shower I have ever taken.

When Carnival had ended, I still had something to look forward to, or so I thought. Last year, my host sister´s grandfather passed away in February, and since then, she has been talking about the one year death mass and party that would occur this February. Since my town is predominantly Seventh Day Adventist, I have never had the privilege of attending a party within my town´s borders. I was really excited to be part of this death celebration that I have heard so much about. I can´t emphasize enough that I had no idea what I was getting into. At 7:30am, we all headed to Cajamarca city to attend the mass, which only lasted for 45 minutes, so I figured the lunch and party would be equally as speedy. We were all loaded into buses outside of the church, and taken to a small community that is about an hour up the dirt road from my house. It was at about this time that I learned that the party was to last for three days and that no one was allowed to leave during that time. It was also about this time that I wanted to start crying, as I came entirely unprepared. I was wearing a skirt and it was freezing outside (where the party was), I had no jacket, and I really didn´t want to sleep on a flea-infested sheep skin that was pointed at when I asked my aunt where we would sleep. The next twelve hours was spent planning an escape.

I thought that the food that would be served to us would offer a brief respite to my panic, because my host family assured me that the best part of the party would be the meals, which the family would have spent days preparing. Considering I rarely get any protein where I live, when I was asked if I wanted meat in my soup, I enthusiastically responded. I didn´t realize that meat meant sheep and pig intestine, and that just the smell would make me gag. I am not picky when it comes to food, but when I looked down at the plate that was placed in front of me, my hopes of anything good happening at this party faded. I really tried to have a positive attitude, and treat this as a necessary cultural experience. I promised myself that I would not escape unless a Peruvian suggested it, because then I wouldn´t feel so guilty. At about 2pm, my aunt said words that I almost didn´t recognize as ¨Let´s go now,¨ because they came so unexpectedly. I wholeheartedly agreed with her, but somehow, we were still at the party five hours later. Peruvians habitually proclaim things that seem exciting and urgent, and then they never execute their stated plans. Somehow, I haven’t caught onto this, and I am still filled with glee everytime they promise me that we will leave an uncomfortable situation ahorita (right now), or in a ratito (small second). Unfortunately, they do not differentiate between a second and two hours, and this has gotten so annoying to me that it makes me want to cry out of frustration even to think about it. When I realized that we weren´t leaving anytime soon, I sat down next to my aunt on a bench, and we managed to pass out for an hour, at least passing a little bit of time. When we awoke, the music was blaring, and something was about to start. We gathered our benches in a circle, and a traditional death dance started. The whole family of the person who died has worn black for the last year, and has not partaken in any drinking or parties, so this is quite a big deal for them. They, unlike me, are actually excited to party for three days straight with nothing outside of sheep intestines and skin to look forward to. If I had to pick a part of the party that I actually enjoyed, it would be the traditional dance. Each member of the family was assigned a Godfather and Godmother, who had to dance with them, pin money on them, and wrap a red scarf around their bodies to symbolize the end of the mourning period. It was really beautiful the first time, but waiting for every member of the family (30 members large) to do this dance proved quite tiring. After it was over, we all joined in the dancing. The same song was played over and over again at a level that was about 15 notches above too loud. We danced and drank homemade liquor that made me ill in 5 minutes flat. For a while, everyone (including the 12 year olds) was too scared to dance with me, many of them seeing a white person for the first time. I think my host sister had to pay her little brother to ask me to dance, which I was happy for because it gave me something to do aside from feeling sorry for myself. After two dances, my head was pounding and I felt like I was going to vomit. But as is customary, I couldn´t decline the liquor every time they passed it to me. Before I knew it, the sun was going down and I was losing my chance to slip out and walk home safely. I turned to my aunt and told her I was sick and needed to leave. I suppose that leaving was so much of an impossibility that she chose to ignore me, instead throwing me on the dance floor to dance to more Huayno. This is not an easy dance to perform when you feel that you might be dying. It is quite acrobatic, and was making me feel worlds worse. I have no recollection of what happened between 8pm and midnight, but I felt safe losing track of this time since I was with my family. Safe is completely different than happy, though, and at around midnight, I heard a mother of a baby say that she had to leave because the baby was sick. I don´t even know if I asked her for a ride, but I do know that five minutes later, I was sitting in her car. What should have taken us 15 minutes to drive took us an hour because we kept getting stuck in the mud. I could have cried tears of happiness when I finally reached my bedroom. The next day I could not move any part of my body without feeling the worst I have ever felt. My host dad (who did not attend the party because of his religion) decided that while I was on my deathbed he should give me a lesson on all worldly sins, the first being drunkenness. I assured him that not only would I vomit on him if he didn´t leave, but also, that I was not drunk, I was just sick from the gross liquor that Peruvians insist on whipping up for every party. When I was finally able to leave my bed, I was ridiculed for only lasting 17 hours of the 72 hour affair. Somehow I don´t feel bad at all about that, and I vow to never attend a one year mass and fiesta again. I commend Peruvians on their longevity, but sometimes they go a little overboard. Why can´t they last so long when I am teaching them something important? If only partying and generating nauseating beverages was their only job, they would be an utter success!

January 8, 2008- I couldn´t make this up if I tried

It is summer time in Peru, which is not nearly as exciting in my region as it would be in the States. Summer in Cajamarca brings rainy season, and right now we are averaging 8 hours of robust rainfall per day. My daily attire has developed into black thermal stretch pants tucked into bulky rain boots, and multiple sweaters layered under a loose black raincoat. Summertime and the living´s….not easy as much as it is ridiculous! The other day a Peruvian asked me if someone I knew had died, since I was wearing so much black. I´m sorry, I didn´t realize that style mattered in rural Peru when every time I leave the house I am forced to wade through countless inches of mud, animal feces, and rainwater. Next time I will consider my color choices, I suppose. The only pleasant thing that comes with summer here is the end of classes. We ended classes on December 17th and they not scheduled to start again until March 3. This gives me approximately three months to strategize ways to more effectively domesticate naughty Peruvian mutants that so shamelessly populate my classes.

I really wish I was exaggerating their cruel nature, but unfortunately, I have a friend working on a project with me at my site who can attest to how horrifically the kids here behave. You would never suspect that my small and quaint community serves as a breeding ground for such ghastly creatures. They are so badly behaved that they overshadow any academically-dedicated students that may or may not exist in my classes. I offer you the below anecdote to not only illustrate my above point, but also to show how the professionals hired to teach these kids are just perpetuating how shockingly they conduct themselves.

For the last ¾ of the academic year, I have been doing a vocational orientation course with the two oldest classes in the colegio (secondary school). My main goal for this ongoing capacitation was to introduce more career and educational options to students who were previously very closed-minded about what they could do after high school. After interacting with the kids during the preliminary stages of the program, it was clear that we (my friend and I) had to start at a very rudimentary level with these kids since they apparently were having trouble grasping concepts as simple as respect and responsibility. We hoped to end the year with a panel of professional speakers, but considering these kids could not stop whistling at us or throwing things across the classroom for a mere five minutes, there was no way we could even think about bringing anyone else into this chaos. We started at the most basic level we could think of, and noticed that the class was much more controlled when the professors accompanied us. We preferred their presence anyway because in order for this course to be sustainable, the teachers have to be learning from us as well. However, after the first two classes, the professors vanished into thin air, even though they were being paid to be with us for that hour. We had a meeting with them and insisted that they be there at least for our last class, the culmination of all of our work. For this class, we finally felt confident enough to bring in a speaker from the closest city. Both the director of the school and the professors agreed to be there for the event. Getting a guest speaker is no easy task in Peru. Very few people have private cars, and the transportation we use is very unreliable. In addition to that, people do not get paid by their employers for being school guests, so not many people feel motivated to do so since the majority of them cannot afford to. To ensure that our guest would show up, we agreed to pay him for two full work days.
We decided to invite a mechanic to talk with the kids. More of our students are males, and most of them are interested in being mechanics and civil engineers. Both the kids and the professors seemed really excited about the activity, but somehow, their enthusiasm turned sour on the day of the actual event. The director told us that he could no longer accompany us because he had a really important meeting to attend, the professor showed up fifteen minutes late only to proceed to the director´s office to suck on a mango, and the kids refused to ask the questions they had prepared, instead opting to mock the mechanic and throw things across the room. I was mortified, to say the least, but luckily the mechanic was light-hearted about the whole catastrophe. He was around our age and was actually really gracious towards us even after this all went down. He thanked us for sacrificing the comfort of our lifestyles in the States to work with youth who were clearly ungrateful towards us. He was able to add a cultural context to the behavior of the kids, which actually made me more motivated to continue working with them. He made me want to resist taking things so personally.

We thought we were free from disappointment after the presentation ended, but as we walked up the hill to my house, we came across the director playing soccer, the activity he claimed earlier was a ¨very important meeting.¨ I really don´t think I have ever been so furious. After hiding behind a wall for a few minutes and trying to decide whether a confrontation was worth it or not, Reannon and I marched over to bitch him out (excuse my French). Before he thought we saw him, the director tried to hide (clearly COMPLETELY aware that he had done something wrong), but fortunately for us, there are few hiding places on a soccer field. I told him that he should be ashamed for not taking part in activities that we had worked so hard to plan for his students. He stuttered, and said very little that made sense, but we did get a promise from him that he would partner with us more willingly during the next school year. It was never my intention to bully people into working with me, but it really does seem to be my last resort.

I am still pretty aggravated about how the school year ended (the above incident occurred on our last day), but the beginning of Carnival has come at just the right time to alleviate my stress. Usually, I am not a fan of how long it lasts (2 months), because it means I am not safe from paint or water balloons being thrown at me for what seems like an eternity. Try carrying important paperwork in a war zone! This year, I have changed my attitude though. Before anyone could hit me with a balloon, I decided to perform Carnival´s opening ceremonies with two friends. These ceremonies consisted of renting a room with a balcony for a full afternoon, filling countless water balloons, hitting people who thought that Carnival hadn´t started yet, and suppressing giggles as we ducked behind the wall when they tried to figure out what in God´s name had just come flying at them with such force. My friend Evan spent the holidays in the States, and because he is a very forward-thinking guy, he brought back the mother of all water balloon slingshots. This thing shoots balloons up to 75 miles per hour, and we managed to hurl balloons up to two full blocks. Unfortunately, we can´t hit people with it because it is rumored to cause facial fractures, but somehow (maybe as a result of mild alcohol consumption), hitting buildings and roofs was beyond entertaining. Last year, I made elderly people my target because they are slow-moving and easy to hit (don´t worry, I was gentle and my attacks resembled wet kisses more than water balloon smackdowns), but this year, my aim has improved and I plan to hit any teenager who looks like one of my students. Beware if you fall into their age bracket. My facial recognition is fairly poor when I am on a balcony looking down on the world below, so I can´t be blamed for hitting the innocent. And to be honest, hitting any teenager has proved just as satisfying as bombarding my actual students. I would say that it is all done in good Carnival fun, but the thing is….

Ahhh…the ways we choose to relieve stress in our lives! Water balloon fights are my new favorite release! I can´t even imagine how fulfilling February 2nd (the official date of Carnival) will be.

So the end of this holiday season was much less depressing than last year´s, possibly because I am coming home in 7 months. I also decided to take a trip to Lima after Christmas to further cushion my post-holiday transition. I haven´t gotten the chance to know Lima very well, so my boyfriend and I made every effort to conquer the city. We (he) mastered the bus system, and we were able to navigate our way to the presidential palace, the art museum, the main plazas, and many phenomenal restaurants. My favorite memory of the trip is unknowingly walking into one of Lima´s nicest restaurants with him wearing an uber-casual ¨Booty Hunter¨ t-shirt adorned with a giant colorful pirate. Once we realized how utterly ridiculous we (again, he) looked, we were already too far into the restaurant so we awkwardly sat down and ended up enjoying some of the best Italian food we have ever had. Even though we were still dressed like Peace Corps Volunteers, it was nice to eat more luxuriously for a night. I really miss excellent food. Inspired by the Italian restaurant, I cooked up my version of a nice Italian meal for a couple of friends to bring in the New Year with, and we ended up welcoming 2008 with a nice conversation, something else I find myself really missing here. Not too shabby of a holiday, especially for one spent in a foreign land, away from family and friends.

December 17, 2007- Random observations

Regretfully, I have gotten too lazy to continue a written journal. From now on, this blog will serve as the only proof that I was ever here in Peru, so I suppose I should start being more detailed about things that make this country so unique to me. In contemplating its distinctiveness, I have recently concluded that Peru can, in a sense, be categorized as a stiflingly ordinary locale. While I agree that it is the most quintessentially Latin country in South America, and that its culture is nothing short of extremely rich and vivid, I feel that there are very few things that Peru can call its own (if skeptics of the above idea include something other than Machu Picchu in their arguments, I might be willing to reconsider my opinion). For instance, Peruvians are proud of having invented the Pisco sour, the national cocktail down here. However, I have talked to countless Chileans who claim that their country not only has better Pisco, but that Chile is the actual responsible party for the invention of the Pisco sour. How we will ever resolve this pressing concern, I know not. Or take Lake Titicaca, one of the most breathtaking sights in Peru. Part of it belongs to Bolivia! There is no escaping the fact that Peru is being overshadowed by the rest of the world! This is why I am just going to take note of the things that strike me as unique, because Peru might not stand out as extraordinary to the most seasoned traveler, but it´s still got my full attention.

I recently read my first Vargas Llosa book. He happens to be one thing that Peru can call its own, and I was impressed by my first read. It was a murder mystery written in the 80´s, and while it could have been more suspenseful, what it lacked in suspense it made up for in how well it captured coastal culture. Rather than continue this book report I have started, I really just wanted to comment on one thing. I was surprised and amused to find how often ¨your mama¨ jokes were used throughout the book. Because my host family is not composed of comedians, I have never been witness to such jokes in Peru. Who knew that your mama jokes were universal? When tension arises between countries, I propose the involved parties table the disagreement for a second and attempt to wow each other with their different spins on the traditional your mama comic template. It could really alleviate conflict I think. After all, isn´t it small similarities like this that bring people together?

Moving onto something I don´t understand. Peru loves its soccer, as do most Latin American countries. I cannot escape seeing at least one amateur game per day, but unfortunately its ubiquitousness has not aided in my learning how to play. This is why I am trying to introduce badminton to my community, but that is a different story all together. What I cannot understand about soccer here (aside from why it is still more popular than badminton) is the attire that everyone chooses to wear on their feet while playing. They wear thin and low-cut canvas booties (similar to Keds) with small plastic tips. The shoe, in all of its glory, has less support and comfort than a stiletto high heel. It really is perplexing. And this is just one of the many HIGHLY important things I spend my afternoons pondering.

You would think that being in a third world country and seeing just how bad living conditions and quality of life can be would put things into perspective for me. Maybe ground me and help me better prioritize my ambitions and concerns. I think that was true to a certain extent up until last week, that is, when I was diagnosed with my first cavity in my 25 years of not just existing, but gorging myself with sweets. Instead of understanding how my dietary choices were catching up to me or even blaming the fraudulent Chinese toothpaste that I have been using for the last three months, I told my dentist that she best look again because I am impervious to mouth rot of the sort. She chuckled (I KNOW! Entirely inappropriate and insensitive, right? Perhaps I didn´t make it clear that with just a few words she had ruined my life) and told me that she was positive that I had a cavity, but not to worry, that it was just a small one and could be taken care of in a jiffy. I don´t really know why she thought that stating the size of the cavity would make me feel better. With the bad news that she was bearing, she might as well have told me that there was a Grand Canyon sized crater building its nest in one of my molars. Small or large, a putrefying chasm exists in my mouth, which was previously uncharted territory to anything having to do with decay. As if I am not borderline neurotic about enough, I am now entirely convinced that anything containing the slightest trace of sugar is out to get me. Christmas should be a blast this year! Don´t even get me started on the headpiece that that very same dentist prescribed for me. Some people bloom into less awkward people as they get older. And then there is me. Right after I slip into my nightguard headpiece each evening, I have nothing but a recurrent nightmare about possessing dentures at the ripe old age of 25 to look forward to. This whole dental debacle has really put a damper on my Christmas plan, which was going to Lima and spending all of my Peace Corps savings on peppermint hot chocolates at Starbucks. I could have probably afforded three, but there goes that plan. Here´s to all of you having a less inhibited and happy Christmas! Don´t forget to brush!

Oh…before I go, did I mention that I taught 15 comprehensive dental health classes in the last month? The irony KILLS ME!

November 18, 2007: Facing the facts

Well, after a certain occurrence the other day, it is pretty clear that my only Peruvian friend has a crush on me. While I am as flattered as any gal might be in my shoes, I worry that Freddy being sweet on me might hamper our ever-growing bond. Here I naively thought that all of our shared good times were founded upon a strong base of platonic friendship. I feel betrayed and am desperately searching for a ginger way to let my friend know that the feelings he has for me are not mutual. Unless I want to destroy the beautiful connection we have created over the last year and a half, I must handle this matter very delicately. Freddy is not like most guys. He is sensitive and kind, and I don’t want him to shed tears over the affair, which he is known to do every now and then. Before I get carried away with this common tale of unrequited love, perhaps I should tell you a bit about Freddy. He´s seven. Amongst his myriad interests are not doing his homework, getting as dirty as possible in our front lawn on a daily basis, and drinking orange soda. He is missing his two front teeth, which has made conversing very difficult lately. Somehow, despite our broken conversations, Freddy has managed to fall head over heels for none other than me. How will things between us ever be the same?

Perhaps you are curious about how I came to realize his love for me. It all started with a simple sharing of an avocado, his favorite food. When I first moved in, all avocadoes were reserved for Freddy, the growing boy of our household. A couple of weeks ago though, while we were watching our favorite cartoon together (Backyardigans), Freddy plopped down next to me on my host mom´s bed, cracked open a ripe delicious-looking avocado, and handed me the bigger half (the one without the pit, what a gentleman!). I´ll admit that I wouldn´t have looked much into this incident without those that followed. Two nights later, I asked Freddy if he wanted me to make him another cheese sandwich during supper time. Normally, I would have received an eager yes, but on that fated night, Freddy seemed embarrassed by my gesture and proceeded to show me that he was actually quite skilled at putting bread and cheese together. Maybe you see his sudden change in behavior as a simple act of defiance, but I see it as Freddy trying to convince me that while we are 18 years apart, we are capable of very similar things. But what I am about to share with you next, my friends, is the kicker. A couple of days ago I went to the market to buy some rice for my family. As I was walking over the bridge to our house with the rice in tote, there was a moment when I could see my family farming in our garden, but they couldn´t see me. A moment later, they could see me, but thought that I couldn´t see them. The campo is so mysterious and chock full of blind spots! During that second moment, Freddy, who was previously kicking around a soccer ball, stole a gargantuan gardening tool from his mom, and started eagerly chipping away at the earth. When I came around the corner and everyone was finally in full view of one another, Freddy acted superficially surprised to see me, and in an exasperated tone (while wiping his brow of fake sweat), said, ¨Oh hey Lindsay, we´ve just been working in the garden for hours. I guess since you´re here now, I should stop. Maybe we could do my homework now.¨ His mom shot a very confused look in his direction, but being a good mom, I guess she didn´t want to embarrass him in front of his first love. Freddy put the garden tool that was twice his size back in the hands of his mom, and we went inside to do some short division problems. All in all, a very romantic evening spent in Huambocancha Alta.

Before I convince you all that I am a pedophile, I suppose I will change topics. I am sad to announce that I have lost my cool gringa status within my community. I enjoyed a year and a half of celebrity rank, but now, I am nothing but a has-been. Outside of Freddy, I no longer faze any of my community members, and it seems like the school kids are downright unenthused in my presence. Last week, my friend and I announced to our two classes that we would not be meeting the next week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. We actually witnessed kids giving the thumbs-up sign to one another, something that I immediately found myself wishing was not universal. I don´t need to be popular, but I certainly don´t want to be loathed. This may seem trivial to people with real jobs and real stress, but my friend and I felt utterly rejected and used. There is really nothing worse than planning cool activities for kids who don´t respect you and think your activities are a waste. In our dejection, we found ourselves coming up with some not-so-healthy coping mechanisms (drinking heavily and self-medicating), so hopefully our impending Thanksgiving vacation alone will rejuvenate us. We don´t want to have to turn elsewhere (to booze) for help.

In a couple of days a group of 15 of us are headed up north to the most popular surf spot in Peru (Mancora) to celebrate Thanksgiving. A traditional Thanksgiving is not an easy feat here considering that half of the ingredients had to be mailed from the States. Basically the only two things that can be found here are potatoes and turkey. Summer is just beginning in Peru, so it should prove to be a good time. Maybe after 18 months here and multiple trips to the beach, I will actually brave the robust waves of Peru´s Pacific. Probably not, though. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

October 20, 2007- A very unsystematically-written update...a stream of consciousness, so to speak

Well, it´s mischief night, and instead of egging and toilet papering houses as is customary (as if I have actually ever done anything of the sort), here I sit at 7pm in my bed, with my host family already sleeping in the room beneath me. Another early night in the campo. Tonight, the closest I get to throwing eggs is smelling like a rotten one. I think it has been three weeks since I last showered, as we have had to ration our water lately since it has only been flowing freely (which means slowly trickling out of the faucet) for about thirty minutes a day. What is grosser than how infrequently we get to shower here is how accustomed we have become to smelling and being greasy. Little things, like flossing, have become so satisfying since they help us become as close to clean as we can here. Daily wet wipe wipe-downs and baby powder baths just don´t seem to be cutting it anymore. I can´t identify why my filth is all of the sudden bothering me, after a year and a half of being here. While it is alarmingly repulsive to think that in the 420 or so days that I have been living in my site, I have probably only showered 20 times, it is something that I had come to accept as part of the PC experience. Perhaps it is newly irking me because my work has picked up, and it is difficult to convince myself that I am a professional when I regularly have 2 weeks of dirt encrusted on my skin. Given the limited amount of amenities people have here to make themselves feel clean, self-satisfied, and worthy of attention, I wonder how anyone can question why Peru is not advancing at a more rapid rate?

Not that I do it very often, but feeling sorry for myself marks the start of a very destructive and depressing cycle. When my attention is drawn to what my life is lacking here, I am able to make myself feel better with the reminder that this is temporary for me, and that my life has many relief options. I could leave right now if I wanted to. If ever uber-frustrated by my luxury-lacking lifestyle in Peru, I even have the funds to go to a nice hotel to take a 2 hour long (and even HOT!) shower and sleep in a bed that is not rock hard. My frustrations are resolvable, which always comforts me, even if the above thoughts don´t spawn action on my part. My host family will never have the means to comfort themselves with the options or solutions that someone like me can so easily access. The life they have is that which they will always have, and while one can make the argument that they can never miss what they have never had, no one can convince me that they don´t feel a pang of envy when they pass a nicely-dressed or sweet-smelling person in the city, or when I let them use my computer or camera for the night. While I worked hard for the things that I have, I feel as though I have never struggled or sacrificed in the ways that they have had to in order to get the few things within their possession. They have shown me that no one is more deserving of something than someone else, because while we will always judge people who are different than us, we never know the private struggles they have endured. I don´t really know where I am going with these thoughts, but as I was watching my host dad and mom hoeing potatoes out of our garden today for 8 hours in the killer Peruvian sun, I wanted to somehow reward them with a warm bath, or massage, or at least a comfortable couch or bed to relax on. They will never have any of these things because the work they do is not income-producing, but this certainly doesn’t negate that they are the hardest workers I know. It seems unfair at times.

Following the above line of thought got me thinking about where motivation comes from, and I mean this on a deeper level than intrinsic versus extrinsic places. Before living in Peru, I never thought that sources of motivation could be so multifaceted and varied. In the states, I considered myself a very extrinsically motivated person. I always needed something to look forward to, something that would intellectually stimulate me and drive my desire to know more about the world. I placed myself on a rather rigid schedule, needing at least two things per week to look forward to, whether they were museum visits, art galleries, book readings, live music, etc. This schedule worked well for me, and I never really had too much trouble pulling myself out of bed in the morning. Obviously, in the countryside of the Andes, none of my above motivators exist. This wasn´t a problem in the beginning, because the novelty of the culture kept me intrigued and stimulated, but now that the novelty has worn of, I oftentimes struggle in completing, or rather beginning my tasks. I feel suffocated by the realization that I rarely learn anything new, or rarely meet someone or something that inspires/enlightens me. It makes me feel empty and makes me miss college A LOT! Again, my anxiety is lessened by knowing that I belong to a society that values the same things that I feel I am missing in Peru. As excessive as I believe the U.S. can be, I appreciate how well-rounded it is in most cases and places.

Anyway, back to the point. My source of motivation seems very shallow when compared to that of my host family and community members. They pull themselves out of bed at 5am every morning only to farm in the unremitting sun all day long. The women spend the entire day hunched over a wood stove cooking whatever meal comes next, and when finished this, preparing whatever is needed for tomorrow´s meals. Like mine, their motivators are extrinsic, but what a difference exists between our two motivations! I work for money to fund whatever it takes to quell my curiosities about the world, and find it very hard to work if these curiosities are not being replenished. My host family, very plainly and simply put, works to eat. They don´t read, nor do they know what it feels like to be knowledge-driven. They know what they know, which is sufficient for the tasks that they need to complete on a daily basis. Curiosity is looked down upon in my community because it takes you away from your family and your responsibilities. The differences between me and my community are so deeply embedded and layered that I can´t really rationally become angry with someone when he/she treats me like an outsider. The most interesting part of this whole PC adjustment process is that I always end the day thinking that the Peruvians I live with have more to teach me than I have to teach them. In the states, I spend most of my time exploring the many shiny distractions around me, while my host family here spends most of their time working together and getting to know one another better. I think it is clear which action is more virtuous. If only I could rid myself of my continuous desire to be on the move, I could relax and focus on what really matters. Only one question remains: If I am so excellent at doing this in Peru, will I be able to take this mentality with me to the States, or will the many tempting diversions overpower my desire to change my life´s focus? Am I only able to be the person I´d like to be when there is no persuasive force tempting me otherwise?

Speaking of how subtly smart Peruvians in our communities are, a volunteer who is ending his service soon wrote an essay about just this, but with as different focus than mine. He is an environment volunteer who lived on the coast of Peru, who set out to teach his community about recycling, water conservation, and other such environmentally related topics. In observing his community for two years, he left his service thinking that his community members didn’t really need him to teach them these things, but instead, that they left him with a much better understanding of the topics. I do not have the essay in front of me, but he brought up the question of what could he teach his community about conserving water when they bathed, cooked, and boiled drinking water each day with just a small bucket of water available to them? In managing their land and resources, I sometimes think that Peruvians are masterminds.

Enough rambling for now. Before I forget, I have something laughable to relay. As I mentioned in a previous entry, my closest friend recently left the Peace Corps to get married and move to Japan. To wish her off well, two friends and I decided to plan her a surprise party in the swankiest hotel of our regional capital. We thought that we were doing everything right. We asked our boss´s permission, we told the hotel of our plans, we even scrounged up the money to pay for the hotel room ahead of time. Kristen was as surprised as could be, seeing that Peace Corps Volunteers never stay at this hotel, obviously opting for more budget friendly locales. I went a little crazy with the purple silly string as we opened the door to surprise her, but we immediately found two staff members and promised that we would clean up the mess we made without their assistance. They smiled and wished us well, as if there were no problem whatsoever. Three hours after we checked in, and to be precise, five minutes after we joined together to sing The Little Mermaid´s ¨Kiss the Girl¨ (I mean it, the party was THAT G-rated), the manager angrily knocked on our door and kicked us out of the hotel, claiming that the mess we made was unacceptable. No warning, no request to keep our singing down, no nothing. In no time at all, we (with the help of some tape on our hands) cleaned up all of the silly string and confetti, leaving no trace of our party behind. We thought that this would be good enough for him, but he seemed bent on having us spend the night somewhere else, even though we had already spent an exorbitant amount of money on that room. He even threatened to notify our embassy, which left us all very confused. With the balloons wrapped around our wrists, and our party favors in tote, we were displaced from the nicest hotel we know of. It is pretty clear that we will never be welcomed back, not even to use the bar or bathroom, two things that every Peace Corps Volunteer in our region cherishes. It was a sad night in Cajamarca, that´s for sure. I´m still mourning the loss, both of Kristen and of the hotel.

Another interesting thing that happened recently was taking part in the national census. Since probably three quarters of Peru´s population does not have a mailing address, we were not allowed out of our houses from 8 to 6 one day in order to be counted. If you were caught out of your residence, you were arrested. People were hired to walk all up and down the mountains to count how many people were residing in each household, which could not have been a simple job, especially during rainy season. I went to the grocery store the day before the census to stock up on snacks (which I cannot live without, even if only for only 10 hours) and you would have thought the world was coming to an end. People were pushing and shoving, there were no more water bottles left, and the lines were horrendously long. This census could not have been that accurate, since I was counted twice (even though I argued against it) and since there are people who live so far away from a main road that I can´t imagine anyone in their right minds trucking all the way out there to count just a few more people of Peru. It was actually really difficult to stay indoors for so long!

One last thing. Last week at 10pm I was awoken by a pleasant symphony of the strangest whistles I have ever heard. They were tropical-bird like, and since I live in the mountains, they were incredibly out of place. I listened for a while, and they kept getting louder and louder, so I decided to put on my slippers and take a walk downstairs to see what was going on. Here I think that something is so beautiful, when in actuality, it is a warning whistle alarming everyone in the community that there has been a robbery up the hill from us. We don´t have police, we don´t have alarm systems, we don´t even have locks on our doors (some of us don´t even have doors), but thankfully we have our mouths with which to whistle. Since this incident, my family has been nervous about being robbed, which occurs both during the day and at night in our community. Is whistling really going to protect us? Typically, there is always one person in our house at a time to guard it, but the other day I came home mid-day to find myself alone, and I was really frightened. We have two doors leading into our house, both of which can be jumped over, and one of which is actually just a plank of wood that can easily be tossed aside. Our house is a major target because I live here, and so does a mine worker who makes more money than anyone in our community. It is crazy that I can´t feel safe in my house during the day or at night. That one day I found myself alone, I couldn’t even go to my room because if someone enters the house, I can´t hear it from upstairs. I took a chair outside and sat in front of the door for 3 hours until my family came home. What robbers typically do during the day is knock on your door to see if anyone answers. If someone does answer, they run away. If not, they come in and rob you. My biggest fear is being upstairs where I won´t hear a knock, and having someone come to my bedroom door because they think the house is empty. We have very little protection, which probably comforts the thieves who live in our community. You´d think that robbers wouldn´t exist in such a small, quaint, community, but I guess they are everywhere. What a shame!