¿Qué paso?

Yeah, I know it’s been a while since I have written.  But it’s taken me a while to sort out what is really happening. It has been a tough couple of months for me and I have been trying to figure it all out.

To make this long essay easier on the read, I am going to divide it into sections:
A.    Why times have been tough
B.    Problems and solutions
C.    Things I am doing to stay sane
D.    Help me cook

A.    First of all, my host mom and Sarita left in mid April for Lima because my host mom (Rita) was really sick.  She has a lump on a breast and had terrible stomach problems.  I didn’t know it at the time, but she was going to be in Lima for six weeks. She returned June 1.  It was horrible without her.  I mean, first of all, I didn’t really know what was wrong with her due to poor methods of communication (it is expensive to talk on phones of different networks here), language barriers (medical stuff is a vocabulary set I don’t have much of…) and I was not sure if she was telling me everything to not worry me.  During that time, I was not sure if she had breast cancer, stomach cancer or what. She was in the hospital for two weeks on an IV.  I was not sure if she would ever be able to return to Ancash.  So first, I was worried about her health and had little information to go on.  Second, I missed her and Sarita.  Lunchtime didn’t happen for six weeks. I ate quietly in my room.  Third, Rita is my greatest ally for my work in Peace Corps. Her absence left me high and dry with the community. I have tried and tried and got fuck all done without her.  That will be a new paragraph.  Fourth, I greatly dislike my host dad. He is a general jerk.  I can’t look him in the eye because I have no respect for him and I fear him a little.  I want nothing to do with him.  During this time, he couldn’t feed his 13 year old son with regularity.  I fed Santiago more often than I didn’t because his dad wasn’t around (he’s a drinker and they get wasted  when they drink here).  Santi is a really great kid and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with him (like watching a movie every night—I like my alone time…), but it was really goddamn stressful for me. I had to buy twice as much food and climb the mountain with it. I had to cook enough for two every meal because I never knew when his dad would be around to feed him.  I had to think about what I would do if my host mom couldn’t come back from Lima. What would I do? With whom would I live? Would I have to move communities? It was horrible.

But, good news. They returned and she does not have breast cancer. She does, however, have a fuck ton of stomach issues including pancreatic disease.  The 4’9’’ woman lost 5 kilos (12ish pounds?)  which shows.  So now I can have a social lunch again, talk to adults, hang out with Sarita and have some evenings to myself.  And she can help with my work again. It’s really great having them back.

Also, things Stateside have been on my mind.  My mom had to cancel her trip to see me in July because the tickets are really expensive and layovers are terrible.  That sucks.  I have been gone for 9 months and that is definitely the longest I’ve ever not seen my family.  Thank god for Skype.  My dad’s was in the hospital with pneumonia, an infection and a stroke.  I was really worried about him and there is nothing I can do from here. Not even call. I hate that.  But he´s made an almost full recovery now! And my brother and Aubrey were in Scotland for my cousin’s wedding and my dad had to cancel his trip because of his illness.   And, sadly, my cat at home died. I knew she would while I was here but it still sucks.  She hadn’t eaten for a week or so and died in Scott’s arms.   Things like these are weird to deal with here.  In a way, they don’t seem real, like everything’s just part of my imaginary American life.  And in another way, it is all realer than ever because I just sit here and think and think and think.  Sometimes there is too much space out here. Too much time. 

B.     There are a lot of things that frustrate me about the culture here.  But in efforts not to go more nuts than I already am, I am trying to invent ways to deal with things. I will describe them below and ask for help on a few.

Problem: It feels like I’m always waiting for something. The culture here in the mountains is SLOW. And I mean that in the way that people show up for meetings hours late if at all. I’m a punctual individual and get really, really frustrated with this part of the culture. For example, right now, I have been waiting for two hours for a meeting to happen.  It was supposed to happen at noon, so I was going to prepare the presentation in the morning. And then at 9am, Rita told me it was supposed to happen at 10. So then I had to rush to finish my presentation and go to the health clinic.  No one was there. At about 10.30, two out of the 4 were there. An hour later, another one shows up.  And since then, we’ve been waiting for one woman to come. So now it’s 11.45 and I’m thirsty.  And I have no idea when or if this meeting is going to happen.  No one knows anything. I swear I spend 75% of my time waiting.  I have been learning patience with this sort of thing, but it feels like I’m wasting time just sitting. 

Solution:  Gotta bring something to do.  In fact, I am waiting right now. I talk on the phone, write, listen to tunes, read.  At least that way it feels like I am doing something.

Problem:  Every market day in Pomabamba, I get called `gringa` like a million times.  It is a racial slur in places (but here it’s more of a compliment) and besides that, it is just goddamn annoying to hear every week while I am trying to shop.  For the last few months, I have had to call a friend every Sunday so I don’t explode all over some Quechua lady.  People here think it is ok to just holler at me on the street.  “Gringa, loan me your skirt!”  ¨Gringa, where is your bata (other kind of dress here)?” Or just simply ¨Gringa!”  That is the equivalent of calling out at someone you don’t know on the street at home ¨Hey Indian person!” and that is all.  I know they don’t really mean anything bad by it but jesus, it is annoying. 

Solution:  Santi and I are now making bets on Sundays as to how many times I hear ¨gringa”.  Last Sunday, in 90 minutes, I heard it 48 times.  He didn’t count 3 because someone said ¨gringo” instead of ¨gringa”.  I will make an Excel chart and share it at the end of two years to see the trend in name-calling.

Problem: I am depressed every time I leave a class in the primary school.  The kids here are sooooo undereducated I feel like crying.  I mean, the American school systems have their issues, but relatively, we have our shit together.  I taught a self-esteem class last week with second graders (like 7-8 years old) and some didn’t know colors.  And they don’t learn to read here till third grade.  And so many of the kids just look vacant and empty.   They are expressionless and lacking any confidence at all.  And it had nothing to do with their genes; they’re not stupid. They’re just malnourished, under-stimulated and under-educated all of which slow brain development. 

Solution: This is one reason why I am here.  I will work with mothers to help better nourish and stimulate their kids. I can’t to a damn thing about the educational system.  I can’t think of a way to not get depressed after teaching kids. Any ideas?

Problem:  Participation and motivation to come to my classes is really pathetic. I’ll have a really great thing going and no one will come. I’ll have my classroom all set up and sit playing ZooZooClub (poor man’s Bejeweled) on my cell phone for 40 minutes waiting for anyone to show up.  I’m really good at the game, but shit. I would rather be teaching sex ed.

Solution:  Uhhhhhh….ideas anyone? I’m out.  It is also depressing.

C.     So the above are some issues over which I do not have control.  However, there are things I have done to keep myself somewhat sane.

First, I bought a kitten. Her name is Archimedes and she’s really adorable and annoying.  I forgot that kittens, although delectably cute are fucking irritating. I have been used as a scratching post for three weeks now and look like I ran naked through a field of rose bushes.  She likes to scale my pajama pants. They’re thin.  She’s really scaling my legs. And I can’t get her to shit in a litter box. In her defense, it is not litter. It is chicken food. I can’t find litter in Pomabamba. So underneath my bed is like a garden of cat shit. It’s really gross.  Help me think of solutions, please.  I mean it’s concrete and I even accidentally shit on my floor once, but I need her litter trained to get home with me someday.  But all this being said, I’m glad to have her around.  At least something loves me here and it feels less like I’m sleeping alone every night. Also, my friend Berney bought her sister.  It was an impulse purchase for her and three weeks later she realized she doesn’t like pets. So I’m going to adopt her kitten too. So soon, I’ll have two kitten sisters.  I think it’ll make Archi less annoying because she’ll have something else to play with.  I’m renaming the other kitten Persephone.  And I didn’t buy her because Star died. That was a coincidence. But it does help.

Second, I bought a violin. Woah, it is hard to play. But I’ve gotten better at the guitar than I ever have because I have more time to play then ever. And I’ve wanted to learn the violin forever and if I’m ever going to learn, it is gonna be now.  Luckily for me, the violin is vital in the type of music they play here, Huayno.  Huayno is the most horrible genre of music I’ve ever heard. Someday I’ll get an example to post so ya`ll can suffer with me.  But I can probably get someone here to give me lessons. I`m gonna come back Stateside playing that thing.

Third, I´m getting a new tattoo. It´s hard to describe, so I won´t.  But it´ll be good and it goes with my whole theme but with a Peru twist. I will post pictures someday. 

And I would like to thank you 2010 tax money. And for the violin and cat, too.  It is improving my life a lot and I certainly do not make enough in Peace Corps to buy these things on my allowance (which I didn’t expect). 

D.     Help me cook.

As my foodie friends know, I wish I were a foodie but I am not.  So I need your help.  I am going to list the ingredients I have available to me and my resources for cooking.

Ingredients:

Fresh stuff
Always: Potatoes, carrots, red onions, green onions, tomatoes, key limes, spinach, cucumbers, apples, apricots, white peaches, mandarins, the best bread in the world, cheese that does not melt, eggs, yellow squash, bananas, ginger

Sometimes:  Yucca, lettuce, radishes, mangos, pineapple, green beans, pears

Stuff to buy in bulk:
Oatmeal, rice, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, salt

Resources
I use a gas stove with two burners. I have no oven, no refrigerator and nothing like a blender.

I make vegetable soup almost every night.  Help me get more creative please!

What the hell am I doing?

I'm about to get back to the campo after being out with training, Quechua classes, vacation and a meeting.  All in all, it's been great, but I'm ready to go back home to the tranquilo mountains. Every time I leave site I get sick, so I'm also excited to finish my round of Cipro so I can stop shitting my brains out.

The beach was sweet. We had three days of training in Huanchaco, La Libertad, but we didn't have a minute to go the beach. So I had to go back on vacation. The Pacific is beautiful there and the waves were a tick violent due to the tsunami. However, I'm a little tan for the first time in many years and I think I burned off most of my fly bite scabs/scars. What a fresh start.  We met some interesting characters and had a lot of frozen slushy beach-type drinks. For some reason a Pina Colada only makes sense on a beach vacation.

But after three days in the sand, I was very, very ready to hit the altitude again. Wash the remaining volume of sand from between my toes and get the stench of sunscreen off for good. Back to where it's harder to breathe. And now I'm in Huaraz and was reassured from talking with other volunteers in other departments how awesome Ancash is.

So what the hell am I doing at site?  Here are a list of (potential and possible) projects:
   Make a library for kids
   Work with women on topics of domestic abuse and self defense
    Make youth groups with the other volunteers and other kids
    Paint murals in my town on health themes
    Do house visits with mothers to teach them how to play with their kids for mental development
    Make radio spots on health themes
    Teach moms about improved nutrition for their kids
    Train people of the town to be health promotors
    Make a vegetable garden in the backyard of the health clinic
    Dental hygiene

So that's what I'm up to probably for the next year or so. It can take a while to get things going here, but these are going to be my priorities.  If anyone has any materials from work, etc. on these themes, let me know.
  

Sarita

I taught her how to do Bekah's saddest face in the world.

Mas Fotos

Me and my siblings in my room. We drew robots and flies on the wall. Cool.

Me and my kids from summer school and the beginnings of our world map in the community.

A picture of a meeting with kids and moms. We were singing a song with the kids in a circle.

Dar a Luz on the Mountain

On my second day at site, I was gathering alfalpha with my host mom when she got a call there had been an accident on the mountain. So we hiked to the puna where there was a mess of women wrapped in black mantas weeping hysterically. On the other side of the mountain, I peered into the ravine and saw a twisted body.  One of the women in a caserio’s husband fell of the mountain to his death. Not surprisingly, he was drunk at eight in the morning.  The widow is in her mid-thirties with four children and one on the way. Her source of chacra work had just died and I’m pretty sure they didn’t have a life insurance policy to help her raise the kids. I still don’t really understand how families in this type of situation survive.  I wondered how that type of stress would affect her pregnancy.
    A couple of weeks ago, I was hiking to a caserio with my host mom, a socia of mine, and the male tecnico at the health post.  I was going to do house visits and we were going to check on the full-term widow. We reached the puna and the spot where her husband died and met a woman on the mountain path.  Totally in Quechua, I found out through my translator mom that the pregnant woman was dying. I really, really didn’t want to see her and maybe her baby die as well. I thought about her other kids.  The tecnico started running.  I walked briskly for my clumsy American-sized feet were sure to slip on the narrow, rocky campo pass. We reached the woman about three minutes after the tecnico. She was lying in the pass with a new baby still attached at the umbilical cord.  She had delivered moments before I got there. The mother looked in bad shape but then again, she hadn’t had as much as an ibuprofen.  Her breathing was slow and there was enough blood that I was pretty sure she was never going to meet her new infant.  The tecnico tied a piece of string from a campo hat around the umbilical cord.  Then he went in there with his hands and removed the placenta.  He also put in an IV into her arm. Since I was the highest point at the time at a whopping 5’5’’, I was in charge of holding the IV bag.  
    The baby seemed ok. He didn’t cry much and was a bit blue, but I have no point of reference with which to compare and infant’s newborn state.   He was being held by one of the mother’s friends.  We buried the placenta under a rock and covered the blood with mud.  And then they had to get to the health post, an hour walk away. The tecnico put the mother on his back in a manta and we started hiking. I walked alongside the pair holding the IV bag.  The back of the tecnico’s pants were covered in blood as we inched along the path.  As we reached the part where her husband died, I knew what everyone was thinking about.
    I really don’t know how he did it because the descent is difficult with the rocks, but the tecnico safely brought the mother to the health post at my site. I was holding her baby as the doctor was checking the mother out. I welcomed it to Earth because no one had spoken to the baby since it’s arrival into the world. I asked if she wanted to see him and offered to hold him near her head. She seemed indifferent, but I did it anyway. I asked her if he had a name yet.  He didn’t. She didn’t want to hold him or anything and after a minute told me to put him over there on the table. After she was settled in and doing fine, she finally got to hold him.  She didn’t talk to him at all and just fed him.
     I guess it’s not too strange to not name a child here until days or weeks after birth.  For most Americans, the baby in utero has a name and has is typically talked to by the parents.  However, maybe it’s a coping mechanism here with higher infant mortality rates. Maybe not perceiving the fetus and newborn as a new member of the family until it seems healthy makes death easier.  Regardless of the differences in cultures around how a baby is treated during pregnancy and birth, it has been shown that early childhood stimulation helps make smarter, healthier babies and eventually healthier, smarter adults.  I’m not here to change Peruvian culture, but this experience taught me there is much work to be done educating mothers about how to stimulate their babies in utero and after birth.  I’m sure any mother in the world would want simple tips on how to make their babies healthier and smarter.  I look forward to starting this type of project.
    Update: I visited the mother and baby a week after the birthday. Both look great and healthy.  I have been present at two really huge events in this family’s life but can barely communicate with them (she speaks mostly Quechua).  I hope I get to know her and her family better over my two years.

Pictures.

 This is my mom and sister. My mom's about 4 foot something and she's in our kitchen. You can imagine what kind of Snow White I feel like in there. Sarita, my sister, looks amazingly clean here. Usually she's the dirtiest kid you've even seen. She's cool.

 Here's my house! See the little balcony on the right? That comes off my room. See my ladder? That's what I fell off of.

 

See the little tiny blue thing in the distance? That's my latrine! This is taken from the treehouse ladder. Nice view, eh?

El Diablo Está En Los Detalles

    So I’ve been here long enough now that (I think) most of the shocking new stuff is probably waning. Not to say something can’t surprise me, but after seven or eight weeks in the campo now, life feels fairly normal. A few observations and events stick out.

    I’m starting to get a little disturbed by how much killing, skinning, gutting, cleaning and eating animals doesn’t bother me. In fact, I get excited when I hear we’re going to slaughter another mammal. I’m learning a lot about anatomy, too. The other day, I help clean the intestines of a goat. I watched the process via the insides of the creature of turning grass into shit.  It’s cool. Intestines are really fun to clean out because they’re really stretchy, strong tubes. You stretch them out, put it under the faucet and watch the pressure clean out the food/poop. I’ll stick my hand in the grossest anything you put in front of me.  It’s really sweet to see how little time it takes for lungs to harden after exposure to the elements. They use every part of the goat. We skinned him, stretched the pelt on the side of the house. We ate goat head, feet and intestine soup. I’m really into intestines and liver but the head was a bit chewy for me. Couldn’t do it. Blood is my favorite part of the animal besides the meat, though. It’s so flavorful and I can almost feel my iron levels increasing with every bite. I’m gonna have to find a blood hook up in the States upon return.  
So I climb a ladder to get to my room. It’s pretty much straight up, about six rungs, homemade.  Typically, I ascend and descend carrying a bunch of stuff. The other day, my foot slipped and I fell straight off, backwards, onto my back and head. My mom ran over to me (she’s super sensitive) and almost started crying.  I was fine, just banged up. No blood. But I had to pretend like I was better than I was because she was so worried. I had to get up, wipe the mud from my ass and tell her I’m fine. But I have a pretty deep, beautiful bruise the covers most of my lower leg on the left side. I felt like I had been in a car accident. But, living upstairs is definitely better than living downstairs in the campo. I don’t have to deal with chicken rifling through my stuff in the mornings.
However, I have started naming the mice that live in my room. I have white plastic that covers my ceiling beams to protect me from the rain. In the places between the beams, the plastic droops down a little. When my mice play on those parts, they make a hell of a lot of noise. And now they’ve figured out how to come down and play on my floor. I can tell because of the noises during the night. They’re noises of mice playing in my trash can, near my laundry bag, my shoes.  I started naming them after famous mice/rats. I have Gus Gus, Splinter and Jerry.  My third year volunteer told me that if I’m naming my mice already, I’m going to be ok.  I was also told I had one of the toughest sites in Peru. Honestly, it’s not bad.  I mean it’s a far cry from having servants (at least one volunteer has them) or cable, but I didn’t join Peace Corps to have a more comfortable life than before.  I’m thinking about getting a little cat again for a completely practical reason this time. 
So what the hell I am doing?  Well, the kids are on summer break from school. I have two days a week of English class and two days a week of geography class.  The ages range from 6 to about 15, which I tough. We play games with vocab and sing songs.  My group is really too big to be very effective, but the point is more to get to know the community, let them get to know me and start gaining trust.  I really hate unstructured noise.  I can handle and hour or two at a time, but after that, I’m wiped. I like some kids, but in much smaller groups and with more similar ages. After the summer break is over, I’m not having open enrollment youth groups. It exhausts me.  And it’s hard to discipline in a language I’m still learning. And kids here are not made to mind. I have to tell my six year old sister to say please and thank you. And I do. I don’t care if my mom or dad think it’s rude that I do that.
Speaking of my little sister, she’s a trip. Generally I like her a lot, but she whines and is an attention hog. It’s hard to get mad at her for that because most girls in the campo has such low self esteem that they won’t speak. So it’s good that she’s loud and extroverted, but I can’t stand the whining. She does whatever the hell she wants and no one (expect me now) even attempts to discipline her. Thank the baby jesus I have a door now and she can’t come in and mess with my computer anymore. ‘Unstructured six year old dirty jam hands’ isn’t covered under my insurance. She’d have to steal it before I could get it replaced. Anyway, for the first month or so I was here, she started calling me The Queen. She was a princess (did I ever like princesses? Jesus, I hope not) and mom was the cook (self-proclaimed). I hated it. It felt like white worship and I’m really not into divine rule by heredity in general. I wanted her to stop so at first, I told her the Queen orders her to stop calling me the Queen. Didn’t work. Then I had an idea. I started dropping hints that witches were way cooler than princesses. All princesses can do is wear pretty dresses and wait for some good-looking man or beast to save the day and make her a complete person. Not good messages for little girls. Also, I’m starting to wonder how much of liking that shit is in our DNA. She has no exposure to TV, the toy aisle at Target or media in ANY way. And she still likes princesses and pink and purple. And my brother still makes guns out of sticks. How hard can you fight that as I parent? Anyway… So, I started casting spells on her that she liked. It started working and now we’re all witches. It’s cool.
I feel like I look like someone else. I’m wearing the same three outfits made of knit leggings, skirts and Old Navy sweaters. I can’t stick out any more than being of gargantuan size, blonde and have blue eyes. I have to wear my glasses which I hate. I don’t wear any makeup. My legs are still covered and swollen with bug bites (and bruises).  My hair looks pretty shitty and I shower once a week.  However, there are thermal baths in the town down the mountain.  They’re disgusting, but if you close your eyes and let the water take you somewhere else, it’s amazing. It costs 1 sole to 20 minutes. I know the water isn’t coming out of the center of the earth for me, but it sure feels like it.  But, I still brush my teeth at least twice a day and floss. Sometimes when my mom gets really close to talk to me and I can smell her breath, it actually, literally, not joking, smells like shit. Not just like rank breath, like shit. It almost takes my breath away. Constant reminder to keep up my personal hygiene as much as I can here.  However, two words: prison tats.
And I’ve been obsessed with American campo music lately. Lucinda Williams has been in my playlist everyday since I moved here. And Johhny Cash. And Bruce Springsteen. And Gillian Welsh. And John Mellencamp.  And Hank Williams. And Nick Cave. He makes less sense except maybe that Johnny Cash loved him.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with that, but I’m letting it ride.
I’m giving a public thank you to my former co-workers/current friends. They sent me a package with a book about mullets and a newspaper clipping of 50 reasons to love Minneapolis. You guys fucking rock. It really means a lot to me. It’s spendy to send stuff back, but rest assured I will.  And thanks to all of you who sent cards, too. It’s awesome getting shit in the mail here. I know my address looks fake without numbers and all, but it works. The town where I have my PO Box is that small.  And thank you so much for the phone calls. I always prefer those to emails (also cuz internet is like 1998 slow here).  I love hearing your voices. And sometimes, because the phones are kinda fucked, you have to keep calling back. And it the thing doesn’t beep, the voicemail doesn’t work.  Love it.