a day in the cotton desert

As far as I can tell everyone in Rinconada Llicuar is a cotton or rice farmer. I haven't met any family that doesn't work a field somewhere. A few heads of household are teachers, taxi drivers, and radio program announcers, but each is also a farmer. They grow a few fruits and vegetables for their own consumption, but for income they grow Pima cotton. There are rice farmers too and they have a nearby reservoir that gets water from an underground aquifer. They use that to flood some of the fields and grow rice. The fields are gorgeous, amazing- tall coconut palms swaying in the wind, green mango trees with branches bowing under the weight of the fruit and farmers riding their horse pulled carts everywhere.

Yesterday a lady invited me into her house to drink chicha. It's a fermented beverage made of corn. Think pulque if you're familiar with northern Mexico. It's made by chewing up the washed ground corn and spitting out the mixture in a pot, you add water, boil it twice and let it ferment. It's not my favorite beverage I have to admit, but it's pretty important here. The people working in the fields drink it to help make it though the day. So I'm making it though the day. I'm also trying to avoid chicha de jarra, but there's also chicha morada which is a sweet purple drink kind of like kool-aid. That's good stuff.

Me and the Star Spangled Banner in Rinconada Llicuar

I went to visit my site last week. It will be in bajo Piua and the welcome was very intense. People were amazing. There are so many details that I could share, but basically the first morning I got up and led a parade of small children carrying musical instruments and a paper American flag that they had made. Then at the municipal building all of the local officials gave speeches, the Chief of Police, the Justice of Peace, the Mayor; it was crazy. I also had to make a speech introducing myself and thanking them for inviting me. It was incredibly humbling. I hvae no idea how I'm going to live up to all of this. It seems like a lot of expectations.

They raised the Peruvian flag and sang the Peruvian national anthem and then someone had SEWN an American flag and they wanted me to sing the Star Spangled banner. I SANG the Star Spangled Banner out loud to 150 people!!! Yes here I am, in Peru, doing things I don't usually do. I don't even really know all the words, but fortunately they don't either and there wasn't a microphone. Then, since the entire elementary school was there, the kids dressed up in traditional dress and did dances typical of different regions of Peru. They also had a Huayno band playing. Huayno is a traditional Peruvian musicand bands have names like Sagrado Corazon de Jesus, but they play a dance music that includes a big drum, trumpet, guitar, and other instruments that we have seen before in the US. I can't even describe what it sounds like. I haven't heard anything like it before.

These little girls were in a performance of the same dances a few nights later in the nearby larger town of Sechura. They did a great job. They're only first graders, but they preform in front of big crowds of strangers.


27 people, yes 27 including: 15 4th graders, 6 first graders, 1 infant, other adults and me piled into a four door flatbed pickup truck to drive the half hour to Sechura. It was the most people I've ever seen crammed into one truck. Fun times in Piura. More soon.

Rinconada Llicuar

I got my site today!!! It's in the Departamento of Piura (the red part on the map and in Peru the states are called Departamentos). Oddly, this is definitely not the site that my Program Director told me I would be in a couple of weeks ago, but it's very nearby. I will be working with the Ministry of Health near the Pan American Highway in a town called Rinconada Llicuar. I'm not sure if that's someone's name or what, but I'll keep you posted. It's 3500 people or about 850 families. I'll have electricity, water every other day from 8AM to 1PM, and a public phone in town. There is internet in the City Hall and in a nearby town. AND there is cell phone service so I think that I'll be getting a cell phone. I think that I will have a bathroom in my house which is really, really exciting. The highway near Rinconada is asphalt and it's only about 40 minutes from the capital of the Department, also called Piura. I can send an receive mail there so I'll have yet another address soon. I'll pass it along as soon as I have it.

According to the Peruvian census about 40% of the people have not completed primary school. Folks mostly cook on firewood, and only about 40% have a bathroom or a latrine. The other 60% just go to the bathroom in the fields. Average income is S/. 227 soles (Peruvian currency) or about $ 71 dollars (US) a month. So for a lot of folks it's a pretty tough life.

On Sunday I go up to Piura to visit my new site. I'm so nervous. In the packet with my assignment is a little schedule of what I'll be doing for the visit. They have a lot of stuff planned including a ceremony where they sing the Peruvian National Anthem and then the US National Anthem! There's a Traditional Foods event with the Comedor Popular, kind of like a soup kitchen, but people pay a very small amount for their meal and almost all of even the very smallest towns have them.

Wish me luck!!

Tomorrow: site assignments

Tomorrow the Peace Corps, dedicated to we-will-tell-you-when-you-need-to-know approach to information, will tell us our site assignments. We had some feel-good interviews a couple of weeks ago where we were supposed to talk about the kind of site where we could work best. In the interview where I was theoretically saying where I was interested in living my Program Director told me that she had my site picked out and that I would be working with an NGO, near other volunteers, and in a place with cell phone service. This is a very big hint because many of the volunteers partner with the ministry of health and live in more remote areas. In some ways this is a big relief. After struggling with depressing for a number of years I really don't want to fall back into that hole so the proximity to people whose culture I share and cell phone service are really very exciting. None the less it did make the purpose of the interview somewhat moot.

I did not take this photo, I just got it off the web, but this is baja Piura, the part of the state of Piura nearest to the coast and where I think that my site will be. (I'll keep you posted.) Last week we went to visit for Field Based Training and met a few volunteers. They have sand floors in their houses and get water twice a week. There are also chickens running around everywhere. Many of you know how much I love live chickens- that is to say, not at all. Those are some dirty, dirty animals. I lived with a family in Ecuador who raised chickens over a summer when I was in high school. It ruined me and if I ever find a chicken in my bed again trust me you'll hear about it :) Anyway I'm excited about being near the coast. There's a famous beach near there called Mancora. I'm looking forward to that!

We had a Halloween party the night before last. I have some great pictures. I was a Super Gringa. It involved a cape and mask. I'll post more pictures later, as soon as I can. Lately, my other pastimes include talking about poop in all it's bizarre forms ad nausea, carefully considering the symptoms of Giardia and comparing them to my own poo, and trying to avoid becoming too enmeshed the soap opera that my host family in Sta. Eulalia insists on acting out. Think Sex, Lies and Videotape quality drama. It's intense.

So it's Week 7 and it's harder than the previous ones have been, but I'm hanging in with good humor and good friends. I'm thinking of changing my name to Elena. Any suggestions about Spanish names that are somewhat similar to Ella and not a pronoun?