Back Keeping Austin Weird

Happy Holidays! It has been a whirlwind being back in the US. I got here on the 20th and I thought it would be a shock to be back but nope, reentry is no biggie. Sometimes in Peru I miss home so much that I forget all of this: my family the support and the um... dynamics, my amazing friends and their eccentricities, ginormous grocery stores with strawberries and tomatoes in the middle of winter, Target, bagels, my goddaughter and bathtubs with scented bubble bath are all here and really always will be. Right now I'm where I need to be znd it's beautiful, especially when it's hard and I'm looking forward to the next year of playing with the kiddos and talking about trash with the mayor.

Las Ladies, my New York girls who are now scattered to Los Angles, Toronto and Harlem get here tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to seeing them and showing them my town. I just realized that the friendly neighborhood homeless transvestite in Austin, Leslie is listed in Wikipedia. I hope that he's not actually still homeless as so many people know him and try to support him. Some friends of my parents actually hired him to jump out of a birthday cake a la Marylin Monroe for JFK a few years back. It's these things that pinch me with a nostalgic twinge as I consider moving back here when I finish Peace Corps. There are pros like my family, delightful and quirky fun, and an enticing music scene but also cons, like so much laid back-ness my anxiety around not being chill enough keeps me drinking copious amounts of caffeine and listening to Asleep at the Wheel all hopped up is just incongruent. I'm not actually built to be this laid back. I'm told that I'm way too much of an overachiever for this town. Overachiever is incredibly un-hip here. In fact I think that you get kicked out of the east Austin bar scene for admitting to having taken the Foreign Service Exam while refusing to wear vintage. Fortunately, I do like vintage so I pass. Sneaky, eh? There's also DC to consider.

Here's one classic Austin oddity with excellent breakfast tacos:


Other recent events in my life include the Lima Mid-service Medical Checks Extravaganza, meeting my goddaughter, family style holiday fun in St. Louis, and spending Christmas in Austin with the family.

A Return to the Land of Eternal Sunshine

After spending the most time that I have spent in a large urban area after leaving New York I'm finally back in the campo. I was in Lima for almost 2 weeks for Mid-service Meetings and Medical Checks! Now I'm in Rinconada Llícuar for just a few days before I head off to Austin for Christmas. In Lima I became a frenetic ditz and frequent Starbucks consumer. I couldn't think straight with all that big city commotion. I was pretty quick back in the Big Apple but, I think that I have been campo-afied over the last year. I can only hope that I will eventually bounce back enought to at least be able to make it in the suburbs. Highlights include a PowerPoint presentation of my work this year, no cavities, and no word on my parasite count yet. I'm deciding to assume that no news is good news. I also spent many an evening catching up until the wee hours of the morning with folks from my training class, listening to live jazz, and learning Lima's public transportation system which is quite the adventure.

I'm not gonna lie. I feel like a slacker heading off to the US in the middle of Peace Corps. I did not plan to return to the States until the end of Peace Corps. It is definitely not hardcore and I sometimes enjoy a fantasy that I am quite hardcore. After all, I do own fleece, Chacos, and a pocket knife now. But, good things happen and so it goes in the USA I'm spending quality time with my grandfather, attending goddaughter's baptism, hanging out with my brothers, spending New Year's with my girls from graduate school aka Las Ladies, stocking up on essentials like cotton undies, and doing some preparation for hiking the Inca Trail with Pragati in May. Wahoo!

In the interim I'm hoping to get my Christmas gifts all sorted out and figure out how to transport an impressive quantity of ceramics from Rinconada to Piura to Guayaquil to Miami to Dallas to Austin. Did I mention it's going to take me 3 days to get there?

Also, my cat is limping all over the place for an unknown reason and my host family has taken to calling him cojido which basically means the gimp... I’m hoping to get a different kitty-sitter for this trip.

Lima Blowing my Mind

I've been in Lima since Monday and it's totally blowing my mind. I'm sitting in a McDonald's eating a S/. 2.50 cheeseburger and posting on my blog. I haven't seen a donkey cart in nearly a week and I have showered every day for 4 days in a row! I haven't smelled this good in months. I also stay up way past my 9pm bedtime to drink wine, eat at Italian restaurants, and go out on the town to listen to live Latin jazz.

I'm staying at this hostel that's like being in a fraternity house. I was talking to a friend on the phone from the rooftop terrace and a group of not-all-that-sober guys were hanging out when one of them put on a gnome hat, took off his shirt and started jumping up and down like a monkey. I think it might be a bad sign that the funny smelling, straggly haired Spanish guy on the top bunk has become really, really hot. We're not in the campo anymore Toto.

Today I'm going to a training with an international non-profit organization called CARE so that I can go down to Ica in a couple of months and help with the earthquake relief effort. I'm excited about being able to help and learning what it is to do emergency relief work, but I'm having a hard time really being here mentally. I'm going back to the US for Christmas and New Year's and I'm so anxious and excited to go I cannot concentrate on work at all. I'm going to visit my grandparents, be the godmother for my dearest friend's baby at her baptism, and party it up on New Year's Eve with my girls from New York. Blowing my mind.

Mid-service

I just arrived in Lima early this morning on everyone's favorite mode of transportation: the overnight Ittsa bus/cama from Piura to Lima. The 15 hour bus ride has gotten normal for me, but if a year and a half ago you told me that I would take a $33 bus ride for 15 hours instead of taking a $100 plane flight for 1 hour, that is back when I was living in New York City and earning a salary, I'm pretty sure that I would have informed you of your insanity and offered to take you to see my therapist. Money has started to mean something different than it did before when I made 15 times what I make now but still school loans are still looming. I think it's a good thing as I have never been one to be overly concerned with finances. It's definitely driving the point home.

I have been here for more than a year now so I'm in Lima to have medical checkups, to go to some meetings to present what I've been doing, and to help with starting this new program called a Peer Support Network. I have also been charged with bringing new clothes back home to the host family, colors sizes and styles all specified in great detail. And you know, none of this seems all that odd or novel anymore.

What else has gotten normal now that I have been here a year?
-Having water every other day for 2 hours, when the well pump is not broken
-Sharing my patio with Chau and Fa, my disco chickens who have go-go boot shaped feathers adorning their feet
-Town wide loud speakers that start at 5:15 AM with a Christian Evangelical talk show followed by a run down of who is selling what that day and a review of the front page news
-Having a house with cement floors and a hammock and wee neighbors who visit to sing a song called "I'm a happy tree" to the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot"
-Having my friends from home write and call with major life events like writing their first book, losing the dream job, getting the dream job, breaking up, getting married, having babies, going blonde, turning 30, getting a new therapist, finishing graduate school, getting yet another new boyfriend or girlfriend
-Eating delicious fresh fish soup everyday for dinner
-Speaking at all public civic events and being referred to as an "autoridad" like the mayor and city council members
-Being Professora Elita or La Gordita Gringa
-Running through the rice fields and watching the sunrise
-Eating tamarind Popsicles out of little bags on the front porch of Dora's house
-Having tons of incredibly cheap and delicious fresh fruit available basically when ever I want it
-Just waking up and being in Peru

But novel stuff is still a daily thing:
I took my host family to the movies on Saturday. They had never been before and they absolutely loved it, especially the kids (Darwin 13, Pepe 8 and Ingrid 7). We rode the escalator at the shopping center and they were totally terrified but, then after the movie asked to ride it again. We saw a Disney movie that in Spanish is called Dog Fireman, but I have a feeling that is not an exact translation of the English title. Dora loved the fact that it had a moral at the end, stuff about good parenting and taking care of your family. Hopefully we will go again, next time on Discount Tuesday.

Giving thanks in the cloud forest

I'm just down to sea level from about 9,000 feet after spending Thanksgiving in Bosque de Cuyes in Ayabaca, Piura, a cloud forest and national protected area in northern Peru with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers Angela, Patrick and Aaron. I baked a mango and apple pie on a charcoal fire for the feast and hiked for hours everyday. It was gorgeous. I also learned that could totally bake a mango pie. I thought mango would be too soupy by itself, but it was not at all. And my mom's pie crust recipe cooks up great on charcoal in a Dutch oven.

We took a hike on Thanksgiving morning out to a quiet spot in the cloud forest and just sat for a bit and meditated. I listened to the quiet and the birds and felt like I was swimming in the green and the fog. Everything grows on top of everything else, trees, moss, orchids, vines, insects, mold, mushrooms, ferns, and epiphytes (a new life form to me). The clouds are like animals. They come and go through the mountains as they please. I stood on a peak, watched them move in and out, and they all made me feel breathtakingly small. It was very easy to remember how much I have to be thankful for there.

The last day I went out with a group of bird biologists and my friend Aaron's youth group and they taught me the names of the birds that I had been seeing in the forest. There were hummingbirds called Quinde Jaspeado and a kind of turkey that lives in that little patch of forest called Pava de Monte. The kids LOVED tramping around in the forest and telling me about all of the different species.

My favorite bald woman

This adorable child is Devlyn. It's beautiful and kind of mind boggling that life goes on without you while you're off drinking coconut milk and zooming around South America in mototaxis.

Can't wait to meet her.

Unfortunately Managed Economies or Why I Can't Get a Ride

The motorcycle taxi is a beautiful Peruvian phenomenon. Here in Bajo Piura, the coastal northern lowlands of Peru, the mototaxi is the transportation option. It goes everywhere. It carries everything. It carries everyone. I have seen an entire women's volleyball team board a mototaxi, a space that your average North American might assume fits two people comfortably. I have seen a mototaxi with its passenger-seat removed carrying TWO full-grown hog-tied horses. I have seen a woman in late labor lumber into a mototaxi and speed off like lightning into the rice fields and down the bumpy dirt path from Rinconada to the nearest hospital. I love mototaxis. I’m bringing one back to the US and driving it around Brooklyn.

The only place the mototaxi seems absent in my Peruvian life is on the paved highway between Rinconada and Llícuar on Wednesday mornings at around 8:20 when I need to go teach elementary health classes there. Mototaxis speed up and down this highway all the time, but for some reason on Wednesday mornings it's like trying to get a cab in Red Hook, Brooklyn at 3AM on a weeknight. Admittedly, it's only a long half an hour walk from my front door to the front door of the elementary school in Llícuar but, on Wednesday mornings in that wormhole of transportation, I'm usually running late and lugging posters, markers, graded papers, 5 kilos of dry beans, 300 balloons, 50 empty plastic bottles, and any number of oddities that are really my means of communicating with my students. Most Wednesday mornings I find myself wandering the main street in Rinconada begging all of the drivers to take me to Llícuar while sweating on and squishing and wrinkling absolutely everything that I'm carrying. I tell drivers, “I will pay. I will pay extra! Please! Don’t make the gringa cry. ” Not exactly in those words.

Sadly, no one goes to Llícuar from Rinconada on Wednesday mornings, therefore none of the 10 mototaxis waiting for a fare can take me. I curse as fiercely as possible with my New York City mind during every refusal while with my Peruvian mind and physical body I smile and say, “Ahh yea, por supuesto.” Of course you cannot take me to Llícuar because you need to sit here and read the paper and wait another hour to make S/4.00. New York City says, “I'm paying. I just want to go 5 minutes down the road. What the hell? I’m teaching your f@#%ing kids!” The worst thing that you can do in Peru is appear ungrateful or proud and I feel both with some frequency, especially during these interactions. New York City me says, “S*#t!”

I mentioned the situation to a driver friend and he kindly, if a little exasperatedly, explained that the morning cluster of mototaxis is actually a line they see but that I do not. The line is managed by the Association of Mototaxi Drivers and the guys suffer major social isolation and are penalized by a fine if they hop the line or take me to Llícuar and try to keep their place in line. The morning "rush," if you can call it that, moves in the opposite direction to the nearby market town of La Union and in the 20 minute trip there a driver can earn S/4.50 (S/1.50 a head with three passengers). Llícuar on the other hand, is only a 5 minute mototaxi ride in the opposite direction. It should cost S/0.50 but, the driver loses his place in line if he leaves to take me to Llícuar and only earns .50 while maybe, possibly, on a long shot, losing S/4.00. On the other hand, if there are about 7 mototaxis waiting around at the stop to make the trip for S/1.50 a head with three passengers each that would mean that for the last guy in line to get make the trip 21 passengers need to appear at the stop and frankly my dear that's just not going to happen in Rinconada at the height of any kind of Wednesday morning "rush."

I’ll even pay S/1! Sometimes that gets the juices going and I get a ride, but only about 40% of the time, the times when the guys on the board of the Mototaxi Association are not around. Basically, I need to find a man willing to gamble if I want to get a ride to Llícuar.

It occurred to me that this is a quintessential example of the problem with managing economies. The Association makes it their job to manage the equity of the distribution of work so that people don’t go snatching all the fares, running over small children and lose chickens in the process… like in New York City. The kink in the plan is that it’s hard to predict where people are going to want to go and when they're going to want to go there. Or more generally, it's hard to know what people are going to want to buy or sell and who they’re going to want to sell it to. So, if you make a bunch of rules about who can sell what, when, and to whom, it can seem like it makes stuff fairer and generally better for everyone. It certainly can ease social strife from disgruntled mototaxi drivers and their wives who had their jobs and S/4.50 swiped by quick whippersnapper drivers. But, and it’s a really big but, everybody can end up losing perfectly good money if the rules go against the interests of the consumer. In other words, if I can't get a freaking ride they must lose money. I mean rules can be good. For example, “Do not buy mercenary services” is an excellent rule in my book but, I’m talking about a ride to Llícuar and that in my humble opinion, is perfectly good money.

Everyone told me that Peace Corps would turn me into a Republican. I was really hoping that they were wrong. Democrats have much better hair and generally much hipper outfits.

Vanity note: Please overlook the fact that I'm about 25 pounds above my normal weight in the photo. This is a photo from when I first arrived in Rinconada and well, leaving for Peace Corps was very hard.

Velaciones

Velaciones, is All Saint's Day, the day after Halloween. It's cause for celebration in many Latin American nations, maybe all of them, and Peru is no exception. In Mexico it's called Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead but here it's called velaciones, which means something like "candle-ings." It's my new favorite Peruvian tradition. I went with my friend Dora and her family to the cemetery in Sechura where her loved ones are buried. Everyone was there, literally the entire town went to Sechura. Rinconada must have been a ghost town save for the few dad's who stayed behind to guard the livestock from rustlers. When we arrived at the cement burial vault that houses the various niches where families bury their loved ones I thought for the 100th time how much the structure looks like a giant honeycomb, each cement niche houses a casket. We built a tent of bed sheets, rice sacks, and algaroba wood sticks around it and ourselves to protect us from the cold wind off the Pacific. The cemetery was transformed into a field of glowing tents. Inside each tent entire families gathered on woven reed mats called petates with blankets, coffee, and sandwiches. Everyone from 2 week old infants to 85 year old grandmothers huddled around the burials, put half a dozen or so candles in each niche, and designated the kids' to change them before they burned out to keep constant light for those who had passed on. Then the stories stared. I head about Crazy Tío Santos who apparently had the best racy jokes ever and while everyone was rolling on the ground remembering I had to laugh trying to imagine what that joke about the donkey cart could possibly mean and why it was funny. They talked about their grandmother and explained all of the ingredients in her best dishes to me. It seems like it would be morbid to camp in a cemetery and talk about dead folks all night but it was a fabulous party. Vendors came a set up outside the cemetery and all the young people were wandering between the booths. There was even a dance in the high school across the street. We just hung out and had a blast. I wish that we did Velaciones in the US. I think that I'm going to try to start the tradition when I go back. I bet my grandma would be into it and in my family everyone follows her orders.



During the daytime celebration of Velaciones children take little plastic bags from house to house and get angleitos or sweets from families that have lost a child in childbirth, infancy, or early childhood. Most families here have suffered that loss so the kids come back with quite a stash of sweets and take them to the cemetery with them at night.


My dad sent me these funny blinking jack-o-lantern earrings for Halloween and they were a big hit with the kids.

Resource List

2 Screwdrivers
5 Volunteer trainees
350 Elementary school students
2 National anthems
1 Play about self-esteem
1 New set of sheets
5 Besos de moza


I'd like to share my resource list for last week and I have to tell you that I am totally exhausted. I had a blast with the new volunteers who came to visit as part of their training. When they arrived to Piura we took them directly to Cappucino's, our favorite restaurant which serves screwdrivers with fresh squeezed orange juice. In the morning, I asked them to put on a play about self-esteem for all 350 of my students. They went to both of the schools where I work and did it up. All the kids were into meeting the gringos and asked them all kinds of questions about themselves and life in the US. They even asked us to sing the national anthem. We did a fairly painful but, very well received rendition. Then, all of the students sang the Peruvian national anthem to us. The language facilitator responded with a traditional ballad from Lima and finally my dear friend, the first grade teacher sang a traditional song from Northern Peru about Algarroba, a tree related to Mesquite that is native to this area. It was the most beautiful impromptu karaoke cultural exchange I've ever witnessed.

This week, in processing and reviewing the play in health class the kids were able to tell me the message loud and clear. Apparently, it worked great and Peace Corps certainly has some interesting lessons up its sleeve. Kids still are not my thing despite all the time I spend with them here. I like what I'm doing for now, but I'll be glad to not be a health teacher anymore when I go back to the US. I'm trying to figure out how to make a second master's degree in something that will let me be a therapist/counselor worthwhile financially. I'm glad that I went to grad school, but it was not that great for my pocketbook. Of course, neither is Peace Corps...

With the Language Facilitator here I was reminded of how bad by grammar still is and I'm inspired to try to make it better. It's really a question of me being lazy. I need to pay attention to the way I speak. I became fluent in an Ecuadorian trial by fire when I was 15. I landed in rural Ecuador all alone and needed to get by so I just started talking and trying to understand and be understood. When I went back to school I failed the only class that I have ever failed, high school Spanish. Thinking about all of that made me nervous and I was forced to indulge in my new favorite food Besos de Moza… one a day to be precise. In English this means a kiss from a pretty girl. Cute, no? It’s a cookie with a large dollop of marshmallow cream on top that is completely covered in chocolate. Like a cool s´more without a campfire. Totally amazing.

And, I almost forgot to mention that in all of this busyness my new kitten got really mad at me for not being at home and my helpful neighbor closing my back door so he couldn't get it his litter box. His revenge was to pee on my bed. In all honesty I haven't had a pet since I was 18 so I had forgotten the love that is cleaning up after animals. Here's what I learned: follow with hand washing and one more Beso de Moza.

Lately

Here is the reason that my greatest personal casualty in Peace Corps will be my dental health.




Meet my one-eyed-people-eater who Tessa and I christened Scooby-doo Newton John. In truth my wee neighbor Pedro came up with Scooby-doo, but Tessa and I added Newton John.



Mototaxi bliss

Eternity

My dear friend Dave the Jazz Musician cum Poet just sent me this poem that he penned and I think it's amazing. He is also available for music events in the general New York City area. I'm sure he'll give you a good deal.

Eternity

Not a line,
but a point.

My nephew, Chase,
runs from the back of the house
to the front,
and then back again.

I try to catch him on one of his passes –
whatcha doin',
I ask.
Just runnin',
he says,

and on he goes.

Authority, Autonomy and Creativity

I was talking to my mom on the phone about my recent shenanigan with my Country Director here in Peace Corps Peru and I was complaining that I felt like the authoritarian leadership style is ineffective and creates an environment that makes me want to run and hide under a rock, or maybe just away for a stealth beach vacation. She said she thought it was just the easiest option and does get results in the short term. She doesn't think it's a good way to keep good employees long term but, if you're working with a 2 year contract no one is going to worry about keeping you. I wonder if that's true. I mean if you hire a small group of people who you're in very close contact with it seems like it's easier to keep tabs on everyone's motivation and outcomes and go for long term growth in terms of human resources. But, if you have lots of volunteers most of whom haven't had jobs before scattered throughout the Peruvian highlands is authoritarian the only way to go? There are a lot of people, especially us overachiever Peace Corps types who really don't think that we're living without working as hard as we can. Even so, there certainly are times when I could try harder, do better or just try different options and I need some leadership to get me there. But is a methodology that mandates rather than lets you figure it out plausible inside this big and unwieldy bureaucracy? I have to think so.

I'm reading a book called The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. It's a great book and it's also sort of what I like to call a social science no brainer. It's a detailed but succinct description of how large companies are losing opportunities when they do not think of the global poor, the infamous masses who make less than $2 a day. It also criticizes lenders who haven't thought to market loan products to entrepreneurs with low incomes. So, for example here in Peru Pantene sells shampoo in little ketchup packets that cost 2 or 3 soles instead of big bottles that would cost 18 or 20 soles. One of it's basic assumptions that I completely agree with is that globalization is not something that you can really be against as it is a global economic reality. For me, it's sort of like being against grocery stores. You could try to buy direct from farmers and ranchers but it wouldn't really be feasible for large numbers of people because grocery stores are just the way of our economy. Anyway, why am I rambling and what does this have to do with leadership? I'm thinking about creativity and autonomy. The people "at the bottom of the pyramid" find the most innovative and appropriate technologies for their lives. If they are too constrained by having no capital or the power to use the resources that they do have they cannot contribute to the global economy and if multi-national companies don't take advantage of their insights they will lose money and probably not know it because they missed the concept that a market is there at all. I think it's that way for human resources too. If inside a company the human resources are so constrained by their rules and bosses that they're not allowed to create, doesn't the organization lose money? Or in the case of NGOs and government aid organizations, don't they miss out on development opportunities? How do you manage that with accountability in an environment where there are no profit margins to be the end all be all of measuring success?

Eating with People

I liked this article from the NY Times. I was thinking that my life in general feels healthier here and I think that living with people who are intimates, sort of like family, rather than just roommates is a big part of the reason. I mean it's weird to say because I do not exercise as much as I did in the US and I certainly do not eat the variety of fruits and vegetables that I used to because they're just not available but, I still feel healthier. It's also weird because some might characterize my living situation as me living alone. I have several rooms to myself with a separate door to the street- some might call that my own place, but the backyard is one with that of the family that owns my house. I hang out a lot with the family that shares my house/compound area and I eat with another family that treats me like I'm part of the extended clan. Peace Corps Peru policy is that all volunteers live with a family for their entire service, so the family that I'm currently "living with" has their own door to their own structure and is connected to my house by the yard. I do hang out with them almost every day. Usually, we just drink tea and watch TV in the evening and I go to their family events like Sunday family gatherings, the prayer services that are held for the anniversaries of deaths, and birthday parties. I feel like this situation is helping with my nutritional health. I am also taking a daily multi-vitamin, so don't worry :)

My Non-existent Dating Life as a Campo Gringa

I recently learned a new word: brichero. A brichero is apparently a Peruvian man who seduces gringas in order to get money or a visa (see The Spanish Word of the Day). As you may know, I have to learn everything the hard way. I generally try to accept and embrace the humiliation and aggravation this causes me but, every once in a while it's still stunning. Here's my latest lesson reaffirming for the millionth time that first instincts are really the way to go. We had a mini-crisis in Rinconada Llicuar recently because the antenna that gets the Internet signal was damaged by a dust devil and the family that runs the Internet had to save up to get it fixed. No Internet, Eeek! As a result, I was going into La Union, a larger town up the road pretty frequently. This is no big deal because it's very close by, it just costs me more because I have to get there and back in a mototaxi. But they have these amazing candy/cookie things there called Besos de Moza so that makes the trip worthwhile. To add to the adventure, the competitive judo fighter who runs the Internet cafe loves to chase the ladies and has for the past several months been trying to get me to go out with him. He has probably asked me out 27 times and I have always said no and kind of regretted not inventing a happy marriage with a Peruvian when I first met him. That's what I usually tell taxi drivers because they always ask and really it's amazing how much nicer they are when they think that I'm married to a paisano. It has been a lonely few weeks in Rinconada Llicuar and in a moment of weakness, tempted by the idea of movie popcorn I said, "Sure, I want to go to the movies. Call me." I think that he may have gotten some less than bright ideas in his state of ecstatic delight because the next thing he said to me was, "So my friend tells me that if you marry a North American you can get papers to go to the US. So for example, if I married you we could go to the US." Blink, blink. Did that really just happen? I gaped and then I explained that yes it's true that spouses of citizens can work in the US and eventually get citizenship but, some unlawful members of our society charge for that service and by the way isn't it a horrible idea to either break the law or yuck, to get married? Classic, I'm thinking myself out of my good instincts once again.

Castillos and Mr. Burns

I missed my first party in Peru last night. Parties here seem like they start anytime someone is moved and then end three days later with the sunrise. When I heard we were having a party for a saint called Sr. Cautivo de Ayabaca and then my friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Alyssa was in the big city taking care of some errands I invited her to visit Rinconada and celebrate. People in town love meeting gringos and I love for my American friends to know about my daily life so, with common interests life is easy. Alyssa and I made a delicious spaghetti dinner, played with my new kitten Spot (whose name may change soon), and heard the party start thinking that it would dawdle on for 3 more days. When we went out to wonder at the revelry the square was totally empty and they had already set off all of the fireworks. Fiestas here are designated as such by castillos, several story-tall bamboo geometric structures with fireworks tied to the corners. Castillos are among my favorite things in Peru. They involve moving parts and bamboo bell shapes that spin off into the crowd shooting fire. Sometimes they are formed into costumes that a guy gets inside of and then dances a dance called the Vaca Loca (Crazy Cow). Alyssa and I polished off our bottle of red wine and headed out to the town square to find empty silence. Everyone in town was huddled around a television set at the store. Peru was playing Paraguay and the score was 1 to 1. Not being very well informed about soccer I had no idea this was happening, or even what tournament it was.

In other news, I have been spending my Internet hours in a debate with my authoritarian and patronizing country director. When I started Peace Corps we were given five vacation days around Thanksgiving and he decided to cut this down to three. He pulled a fast one, put his decision in the minutes of this meeting and then sent around a new copy of our handbook, a 100 page document that of course no one read. After a few weeks he said, "Nany-nany-boo-boo you should have spent your time lawyering the documents that I sent around. Te-he I took two vacation days from you." He didn't break any rules or laws to do this so there's really no hook for recourse but still, no one even made him feel appropriate shame for being lame because they're scared of this guy who looks like Mr. Burns. I felt that I needed to take that on as authoritarianism is one of my angry buttons. The outcome of our hopefully professional conversation is that I am officially not his favorite person and he actively threatened me. Now I need to send him an email that ends with him being okay with writing me a solid letter of recommendation within a year. Hopefully it will be a magical email. Wish me luck. I am charming after all.

Then, I went to this amazing workshop about child development and education methodology this week. The town government paid for it and had the schools cancel two days of class to invite all the teachers. I'm not sure it was worth the kids missing school but, it was really interesting for me to get to brainstorm about learning toys and games that focus on the different sensory groups and different developmental stages.

I also was invited to give a lesson at a newly formed after-school center to elementary-age kids signing a song about trees to the tune of I'm a Little Tea-pot. I wish that I could claim the creative mind for this song, but my friend and fellow volunteer with a gift for early childhood education, Tessa wrote it.

It goes something like this:

Yo soy un árbol muy feliz
Desde mis hojas hasta mi raíz
Llega el sol y la lluvia y
Crezco, crezco, crezco, crezco así


She might kill me because I'm not exactly sure those are the words that she wrote, but something like that.

Back to El Solazo Norteño

Here's me on a recent field trip with the police station youth group! (Random and unrelated to text.)

I'm happy to be back in sunny Piura. I didn't realize how much Lima's gray skies were weighing on my spirit. In Lima's backpacker hostels travelers from the northern hemisphere exploring Peru enlightened me. Listening to their impressions after my first impressions have long worn off reminded me of my own North American lens that I carry with me always. It's easy to forget it's there. But somehow when watching a trivia drinking game with Australians and Brits playing against my fellow countrymen my culture and homeland come rushing back. I love the US and my home, but it's easy to be insulated there. It's a big country, basically linguistically homogeneous, and yet quite proud of its diversity... which compared to a place like Peru with multiple language families, ecosystems, and conquerors is pretty tame.

It also occurred to me that sharing the workshop that my friend Libby and I did at training for the new volunteers this week might offer some insight into the life of a Peace Corps Volunteer. The class was about working with "community partners." When you get assigned to a community in Peace Corps you are also assigned a person and a local agency,your community partner. This can be a complicated relationship because you are not employed by or really beholden to this partner agency, nor are they to you. Libby's husband Ben labeled this the paradox of the professional volunteer. So for our workshop we wrote skits to try to get the new volunteers to problem solve around building these professional relationships.

Community Partner Episode #1: “Sabotaged by mediocrity"
After six months in site, you have a forged an outstanding partnership with the local office of an international NGO. This relationship has allowed you to funnel the NGO’s money and resources into an improved wood-burning stove project. Planning has gone well and the budget is fixed for the installation of thirty stoves in your community over a three month time period. The first few workshops go superbly and you are impressed with the preparation and professionalism of your NGO partners. As you enter the second month of the project and families are beginning to build their stoves, the project gets more intense and time consuming. A series of disappointing events transpire. The faithful NGO engineer arrives late to several meetings and the families complain about his punctuality (especially because timeliness has been a central theme of the project). He apologizes at the next meeting stating that projects elsewhere have also picked up pace and his office responsibilities have increased. A week later, he interrupts the training with the bad news that the budget has been cut and there are less materials available and, therefore, fewer families will receive support. The families are understandably upset and the next few meetings are dominated by logistical discussions about who should get the support. Because you live in the community much of the complaints fall on your shoulders. How do you feel? What should be your course of action?

Community Partner Episode #2: When did I become a rock star?
After having been at site 2 or 3 months you realize that a group of community members worked together to get you there. News to you. This group includes key community contacts: your socio comunitario (community partner) and other health post personnel, the school principal, mayor and city council member in charge of health. They are thrilled to have a gringa around and invite you to speak at EVERY possible public event from izamientos (weekly flag raising ceremonies) to kid’s parties to PTA meetings to begging you to sing the Star Spangled Banner at a ceremony with 500 people held to welcome you. How do you channel all of this excitement into action?

Community Partner Episode #6: Missing out?
You have a great, friendly relationship with your socio comunitario (community partner), the technician at the health post. He is professional, energetic, always follows through, and creates activities that are concrete and feasible. Because he is good at his job and a workaholic he is very, very busy and sometimes does not come to your community for several weeks at a time. You have a lot to do and like to work independently but realize that sometimes you miss out on health post events because no one told you about them. How do you feel? What should you do?

Gato Limeño

I have been in Lima for the past few days working on the newsletter that Peace Corps sends to all health volunteers in Peru. I also got to go and help with a workshop for the newbies at the new training center! We did skits about relationships with community partners and professionalism. Now that I have been here for a while training seems like a very long time ago. It was great to be around all the aspirantes (in Spanish you trainees are called aspire-ers). They're all so excited to be here and begin this new phase of their lives. It was really refreshing and inspiring to be around.

In other news, I have been looking to get a cat and the lady across the street from me in Rinconada gave me a kitten last week! After about 4 hours of non stop crying at my house and a flea bath that it really hated I named it Perico, a nickname for someone who talks too much. Then, I went out and when I came back the kitten was gone! While I was looking for it in the middle of the night there was a pretty strong earthquake and I decided that maybe fate was sending me a no cat message. The next day I went to see if that kitten had gone back to mom and it sure had. I asked if I could leave it there until I come back from Lima. We shall see if it actually ends up coming to my house. I'm thinking it has sent a clear message, no. Please note Perico's very angry facial expression.

Oddly, when I got to Lima a friend of some fellow volunteers who lives here had just picked up a stray that looks exactly like Perico. She wants to take care of it but can't have a cat where she lives. So, she is going to send it Piura with me! And when I say send it to Piura I mean that she is going to put it on an airplane to fly to Piura on Monday. She's worried about traumatizing it on the bus... where I'll be on my way back to Piura.

The Economist Explains Peruvian Mines Madness

There has been a lot of unrest around mining in Piura recently. Campesinos in the mountains are very against a new mine that a Chinese company wants to open. Most of the mining companies here are foreign owned and supported by Lima, regulated by a Ministry of Mining instead of an environmental protection agency. It's a contentious situation because of the history of exploitation in the mountains. Communities do not buy the copper and they do not get any jobs. They're just left with the dirty water and leveled mountains. The communities near the proposed mine decided to hold an election to vote to try to block the mine. The day of the election the mines held soccer games and gave away free bags of rice and sugar to keep people from going to the polls. People still voted in droves and "no" won by something like 97%. Peace Corps called down the volunteers who live in the surrounding area for fear of violence. My friend Aaron who lives in a nearby community tells me that in the end things were safe and calm but, people are worried and really working to prevent the mine from opening.

Community Map and the Plight of the Technologically Challenged

I found a satellite image of Rinconada Llicuar to share! I can actually see my house on the map, but as it seems perhaps a bad idea to put a map to my house out in ether-land I'll withhold the little blue balloon :)

Also I just realized that I've had my blog set to block comments and that probably is related to me not getting any comments for about a month now! Technologically challenged. I guess living in the campo will do that to you.


View Larger Map

Peace Corps... and the Miss Llicuar Pagent?

It has been an eventful few days. I have been mourning Kali, my friend who passed away because I think of her even more at this time of year. The anniversary of her death coincided with interesting women-focused events here in Rinconada Llicuar. One was a Youth Conference held by the local government to celebrate the first day of spring. The lawyer who works at Town Hall offering free legal services to women and children gave talks about legal rights in abusive relationships and the services she offers. I talked about trash because I am the Trash Cheerleader but, I also did a self-esteem charla that worked well! I think that I really got across the connection between self-esteem and healthy relationships. It was a beautiful privilege to be able to remember Kali while doing that workshop.

Finally, at the elementary school in Llicuar they are celebrating their 46th anniversary. This is a very big deal. All schools here celebrate their anniversaries every year. In Llicuar they pick 2 queens to preside over the festivities. One from 1st - 3rd grades and another from 4th - 6th grades. I hate beauty pageants. They happen all the time here and I hate it. Then the principal asked me to judge this pageant. I stuttered in response but, I had to say yes. I did complain to Gloria, the 5th grade teacher that pageants are culturally very difficult for me because I think that they send the wrong messages to girls. They reward beauty rather than intelligence, values or abilities. Then, I showed up the day of the pageant, Gloria was the president of the planning committee and there were 3 judging categories: self-confidence, whether or not they answered the questions that we asked correctly, and diction! There were no 7 year-olds with makeup and no polyester dresses in the heat. The 1st grader wore pigtails a Cinderella t-shirt and pink jeans and all the other girls dressed very similarly. Here's me with two of the contestants! Perhaps not ideal, but still the best "beauty pageant" I've ever been to because it had nothing to do with beauty!

Breathing though Anniversaries

Rene, one of my dearest friends who I met on the first day of 7th grade, and her husband Jared had a daughter today, their first. Child rearing here and now! I wish them all the blessings possible to support them with love in this parenting adventure. It started a little early! But really, due dates? Who needs them? Devlyn Michelle waits for no one.

I can't help but be reminded that the breath of life waits for none of us. This amazing joy, my niece(!) erupts into the world just as the 4th anniversary of another dear friend's death approaches, or maybe bears down on me would be better said. Kali's husband murdered her in their home, their sleeping baby boy in the next room 4 years ago tomorrow. When I found out I had just returned to my apartment after hearing the Dalai Lama speak. I had the surprising privilege of testifying at his murder trial 14 months later. I say privilege because the experience helped me make sense of the loss and finally I felt like there was a small something that I could do for her mom. I saw Kali's husband and Philip's father jailed for life that day. In Texas that means that he will be eligible for parole after 35 years. He will be 60 years old. A few months later I saw Philip adopted by his maternal grandparents, creating a loving, safe space for him in his jarring and confusing reality. He started first grade this month and when I look at him I see his mom in his lazy left eye. So as he looks out at each gorgeous Texas sunrise, his navy blue backpack and Scooby-doo lunch box overwhelming his small body on his way to his hippie school in the hills west of Austin, I wish him the breath of vivid life and the feeling of the wind on his cheeks. Finally, on her birthday, her first day in this world, I wish Devlyn and her parents all of the hope and love they will need to weather the storms and to live joyfully, breathing new life.

Happy Anniversary to ME

Saturday was my 1 year anniversary in PERU!

I should probably write something sappy and sentimental about my expectations 1 year ago, anecdotes about how it has been better than ever imagined and not at all what I expected, my self-effacing and humorous insights about my own misconceptions, how I have changed for the better, and how much I love small town life in Bajo Piura. I could write all of those stories as they would be absolutely true but, I haven't been feeling particularly sentimental lately. I'm borderline overwhelmed and generally bubbly. Life is good, as the T-shirt slogan goes.

I was at an Ecological Park over the weekend celebrating my anniversary on an overnight trip with 44 kids in the police youth program called Colibri or hummingbird. My kids were thrilled with the news that bunk beds exist in the world and not one kid would sleep in a top bunk alone for fear of falling out. I'm not exactly sure how having 2 people in the twin bed helped. I slept in the boys dorm (on a bottom bunk), theoretically to keep things under control. They climbed all over the beds until around midnight and then woke up at 5:30 to fold their sheets. I would have been annoyed at the negative impact on my beauty sleep except it was so damn cute. I mean they literally got out of bed at 5:30 AM and started to fold sheets in teams of two small boys with very large sheets without any adult yelling at them to do their chores.

So drink a toast to 1 year! I prefer cosmopolitans and I haven't had one in a while.

Factiod

Last night I was reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is an amazing book if you haven't read it. It set me to thinking about the particular economic realities of Rinconada Llicuar and sent me on a search of my calculator.

There are about 500 households in Rinconada Llicuar. At least 64% of them do not have bathrooms inside their houses or latrines (pit toilets without running water), so about 320 households. It costs about 500 soles to build a bathroom that includes a flush toilet (with a bucket), walls, a cement floor and connection to the waste water system. The current exchange rate is 3.15 soles to the dollar... My college loans are significantly greater than the cost of putting basic bathrooms in all of the houses that need them in Rinconada Llicuar.

It's not everyday you get a Times editorial....

This is intense. I'm so excited about the press around the most recent Urban Justice Center report on Food Stamps. UJC is a non-profit advocacy organization where I used to work. Last year we released a study about the difficulty folks encounter when they apply for Food Stamps. This year they wrote a follow up about trying to stay on Food Stamps. And soon they will release a third report about immigrants and Food Stamps. I'm so glad they're getting so much good press. Food Stamps are such an important help for people who are just scraping by.

Article from Sept 6 detailing the report's findings.
Process for Keeping Food Stamps is Criticized, Ray Rivera

Today's letter responding to findings by David Hansell, a guy who basically runs New York State's Food Stamps Program! I love it when policy makers pay attention!!!! :)
Food Stamp Program, David A. Hansell

Today's Editorial
Why the Hungry Refuse Help, Editorial

And I would just like to add that David Hansell mentions that the Governor of New York is working on changing the rules so that working families can apply for Food Stamps over the phone. (Currently, they have to take off work to apply, a policy of questionable forethought.) This was a recommendation of the report we released last year! It's so cool when they listen.

Children, lots of children

I never thought of myself as a "kids person" and since I've joined Peace Corps I would say that about 70% of my work is with kids. This has been totally amazing for me. I mean I suppose it could have gone very, very badly for me as well as for the wee ones, but happily I think that we're all having fun and learning something. Among the things I am hopefully learning is: yell less. Opportunity knocks.

In the last week I went on a field trip to an archaeological site called Chosis and an ecological park in Sechura with 150 kids:

I helped 2 elementary schools organize Clean Community Marches to educate the town:

We did a Trash Pick-up at one of the elementary schools. (We will do another on Thursday!):

We also put on a movie series at the high school that included "March of the Penguins" and "An Inconvenient Truth". Finally, we finished the study on the per-capita production of trash of various types in Rinconada Llicuar by weight and volume, but the kids didn't participate in that. Whew. Nap time?

Madeline L'Engle Died

Title Link.

I just found out that one of my favorite authors, Madeline L'Engle died last Thursday. The New York Times published an obituary.

My Food Stamps Study Made the NY Times!

(It's linked to the title.)

I think of it as MY Food Stamps study, but I am not actually an author. I was co-author on the prequel and I just did a lot of the research for this one. It basically finds that people who are eligible for Food Stamps, which means that they have incredibly low, if any income, have a hard time keeping their Food Stamps because they have to get "re-certified". And the paper process for that is a little like trying to get a tourist visa to the US if you're Peruvian :)

Things are going great and fast lately. I went to an archaeological site and ecological/zoo park with the elementary school on Friday. It was a blast and totally exhausting. Great photos of all 150 of us to come :)

My Life as a Trash Cheerleader

They started the TRASH STUDY on Tuesday! Today was Day 3. This is very exciting. I have been harping on this since May when we went to Santo Domingo and it's actually happening. Solid Waste Management also has a budget for the coming year- by popular vote I might add. This is great! So today I hung out with Diana, a biologist working on the study, and Freddy and Guillermo who are helping collect trash from a sample of 36 houses. We separate it into categories (organics, plastic, glass, paper, toilet paper, and just plain trash) and weigh it all out behind town hall every day for 8 days. Fun times for the Trash Cheerleader.

More on the Privatization conversation... I got another article today from the Libertarian Godfather. It's again from the Wall Street Journal so I'm linking to a text document. CLICK ON TITLE FOR LINK. It's an interesting compromise for my biggest, BIGGEST problem with privatization which is the question of health care. I do want to say that I find the personal responsibility rhetoric i.e. fat people are just lazy and stupid, people with cirrhosis deserve it and should not get a "free ride" for their bad lazy lameness, totally offensive and misguided and this article definitely takes that tack. On the other hand it explains a health care system 1. where everyone gets health insurance 2. with options of different companies 3. where people who have a hard time getting health insurance are entitled to coverage and the kicker 4. where the state offers real assistance to those who cannot afford health care.

And some unrealted words of wisdom that I liked even though I've never actually read his books- what with the whole they being scary thing.

Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. - Stephen King

Play: It’s All about the Fellow Travelers

This is an article that I sent into the Peace Corps newsletter for health volunteers. Apologies to any readers who may see this in both places!

They just stopped. Are they just busy? Did I do something? Why is my women’s group suddenly not showing up for meetings? I miss my ex-boyfriend in the States. I mean I know I broke up with him when I left but, still. We’re supposed to be friends. He should call more. There are chickens in my kitchen! Awwww man, not my granola!

These are not the really good days. The really good days are delightful paving stones marking my way through service. There was the time Professora Dalinda took up the Salud Ambiental banner because her pigs love fruit peels and got the elementary school to separate organics from inorganics, in spite of the pessimistic principal whose nickname is Mr. Speed bump. Or the time I sat open-mouthed realizing that the diagnostic did get it right when the community voted to prioritize the Solid Waste Management Project in the participatory budget. I was greeted with another happy turn when the previously non-existent DEMUNA office got a rock star lawyer about my age who loves to hang out and talk about politics.

Still, some days I wrestle with the lingering quandary, “How do I get though this day and where did all these chickens come from?” The days I just cannot sit down to dinner with my host family and review my latest humiliating snafu for the 5th time, or no one comes to my meeting, or someone kindly observes, “Wow you really are gorda. Aren’t you?” Those are the days that I play. Play keeps me pointed in the right direction. It keeps me from falling into some imagined reality where I’m the star of the show like a Doña Quixote stabbing at windmills and taking myself way too seriously. I get out scissors, paper, markers, or maybe some Playdough exported from the US by a kind friend who knows my peculiar habit. Free stuff is even better; milk can labels, plastic straws that come with yogurt containers, random dry and not too disgusting trash, or old receipts on colored paper are always good options. I make whatever: collages, small sculptures, stationery, wall hangings, book covers, little books, or recently posters with inspirational quotes. I scribble words on paper, stick the note to something, and never let myself wonder if it counts as a poem. My creations are never pretty and I really don’t care. When my wee neighbors come to visit and ask about the odd collection of objects on my shelf. I say ahh yea (a ubiquitous expression here in Bajo Piura), “Want to glue scraps of paper?” They’re always into it.

My nearest volunteer buddy suggested that we get together to write affirmations for ourselves when we were feeling down a while back. We decided to call the other volunteers in the neighborhood, invite them over to my house, and play. It became Bajo Piura Art Therapy Day. We sat at my kitchen table and wrote self styled words that inspired us in pretty script. I suppose that was kind of therapy-y. Mine said, “It’s all about the fellow travelers” and was decorated with a cartoon I clipped from a back issue of The New Yorker.

It’s currently stuck to the wall next to my front door as a note-to-self that understanding is my destination and my road is listening well. All I have to do is carry on past the chickens to the good days that mark my path so that when no one shows up for the meeting and the municipality still hasn’t started the trash diagnostic I’m chill and sociable and generally enjoy the journey. To make this happen I must play for a bit and then go visit friends in town. We eat popsicles and talk. It would be great if that engineer would show up so that the mayor would let us weigh the trash but, I’ll work on that some more tomorrow. Today, it’s all about play.

To Do and Virgin de Soccorro

I just made it though a few weeks there where I had way too much time on my hands. I'm not sure why or what happened, but things have picked up and my life is much better for it. It's fabulous! On the other hand, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. When I'm overwhelmed I make lists...

1.Solid Waste Management Project with the local government: Trying to be a nudge and get a study of trash production per capita started and finished... in theory by the end of September. Make friends with the engineer working on the project by giving a talk in the provincial capital about environmental health and trash to a group he works with because he asked... even though it's on the same day as one of the community trash pick-ups.

2.Weekly health classes with 4th and 5th grades in two different elementary schools: Complete nutrition unit and get started on the self-esteem and sexual health unit. Keep trying to get the teachers to actually stay in the classroom during the class.

3. Colibri (Hummingbird), a youth development program with the local police station: Develop a series of environmental health and trash workshops and help them chaperone an overnight trip to Piura with 50, yes 50 kids in mid-September to see the museum, cultural center, and library.

4. Diadesol, a Pan Caribbean and Latin America day sponsored by organizations like the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization that celebrates cleanliness in public spaces and citizenship in the 3rd week of September, a great way to celebrate the Solid Waste Management Project: 2 marches- one with each elementary school with slogans about not throwing trash and supporting a sanitary landfill, 2 community trash pick-up days- one with each elementary school conveniently planned right before Llicuar's patron saint's festival, play a couple of movies with follow-up discussions at the high school (We're thinking March of the Penguins and An Inconvenient Truth)

5. CARE: Maybe, just maybe, plan self-esteem and sexual health workshop series with CARE for young leaders in my town, which a guy from CARE will watch and then replicate in a nearby community. (How cool would that be if it actually works?)

6. DEMUNA: Finish a series of talks with the DEMUNA office, an office in town hall that helps women and children in situations of domestic violence take care of legal issues, like child support. I only have 1 of these talks left.

7. Weekly loud speaker (emissora) program: Martin and I went to a workshop in Piura recently about using radio in community development. There really aren't any community, grassroots radio stations in Rinconada Llicuar like there are in the mountain communities so I was thinking of starting a weekly loud speaker program. (Yes the same loud speakers that wake me up at 5:30AM.) I need to make a few recordings to show to the emissora operators. I've started but I'm frustrated with the sustainability factor of me making recordings and playing them like a program. I gotta figure out something better.

I think that's it.... but I feel like I forgot something. Some of this will surely be cancelled at the last minute or fall through, which I usually hate but at the moment it's a relief to keep in mind!

Fun holidays are happening too. There are 6 or 7 different saint's day festivals in a row in Rinconada Llicuar between late July and October. This is a video from the Fiesta for la Virgin del Socorro, patron of Rinconada. Men get dressed up in costumes and do traditional humorous dances in the streets and preceding the fairly solemn procession. I'm not really sure why the two go together, but who cares? The dances, processions, masses, and passing around 1/4 glasses of Cristal beer make for pretty funny parties.





Word on the street is that it's Labor Day weekend in the US! Have a nice long weekend everyone!

My Peace Corps Adventure Birthday Approaches

On September 15, 2006 I first set foot in the Lima airport. It was stressful, insane and in a city of 8 million people, basically nothing at all like my life in Rinconada Llicuar which by all accounts can be best described as tranquilisimo.

Now I'm kind of pondering what it is that I have been doing for the past year and I'd say it's about 60% getting people to like me, maybe 20% trying to take care of myself (bathe, wash clothes, eat, etc...) and 20% something that looks a little like community organizing. I've never had a job quite like that before. Coming out of doing research at Riker's Island, the NYC jail it's probably a good thing that I pay a bit more attention to how I appear outside the shell I developed there. I mean working at a jail is really not conducive to developing a charming image and lets be honest, neither is living in New York.

I was sworn-in as a Volunteer on I think Nov 24... It was the day before Thanksgiving. So it isn't my Peace Corps Volunteer Birthday quite yet. I still feel the need to celebrate. I want to celebrate the generosity of people in my town, a softer and gentler me, and the odd work of trying to be charming so that people listen when I say it's important to wash your hands and so that they accept me in their piece of the world.

I (HEART) MIST!

I was waffling between New York and Washington DC as potential places to live when I go back to the US. This week I realized that I must add Seattle to the list. I haven't ever actually been to Seattle, but I love mist. I (HEART) MIST.

It never rains in Rinconada except when it does. El Niño is pretty much the only experience people have with rain, lightning or thunder. It also brings flooding, loss of life, loss of homes and loss of crops. People are terrified when it rains. They hate it, curse cold weather and are convinced that all kinds of physical maladies from arthritis to infertility result from temperatures below 75F. Frankly in Rinconada I believe it. There isn't any lightning in Rinconada except for during an El Niño. Pepe, my very adventurous little 8 year old buddy has never seen a bolt of lightning and never wants to. He is convinced that the local legend about the dog who was fried by a lightning bolt will happen to him on first sight.

Frankly I would be scared too. People grow cotton and rice in irrigated fields. The do not have a lot of control over how much water they get in the irrigation system so if there's too much water the crops will drown and if the temperature is too low the rice never goes to seed i.e. it never actually makes the rice. And normal lovely spring day temperatures here are in the high 80´s so 60F is basically freezing. People just aren't used to cold or wet weather and the whole thing is pretty scary.

But in Texas and New York, my homes there are thunderstorms and lightning and mist and the smell of rain. Which I do realize is ozone but, I think it smells amazing. One of my favorite things to do is sit outside when it rains and watch the lightning.

But it never rains, even in "rainy season" it only sprinkles for a few minutes once or twice sometime between December and March. Except this week. The earthquake has apparently stirred the sea currents and is making the climate much colder that it usually is. By much colder I mean a low of 60F. This is truly the coldest weather that I have ever experienced here. And there's a windchill. Result: There has been MIST twice this week! One day there was so much that water was running off the corrugated tin roves and falling in a rhythmic pat-pat onto the sandy streets. It took me at least 15 minutes to identify the sound.

Precipitation in the Peruvian desert is apparently always the result of a painful and emergent natural disaster (torrential rains, floods and earthquakes) but I gotta say, it really reminds me of home and hopefully of a place I've never been.

Privatization. I find myself a fan.

Click Title for an Interesting Article.

My family is good friends with a guy who runs a foundation, the foundation of a prominent natural foods store. He was in the Peace Corps with my parents in the 1970's and he is sort of like my godfather, or maybe he would be if he were Christian but that's beside the point. He is interested in development, is a Libertarian, is really, really into free market-ness, and loves to have heated discussions about it at Mexican restaurants with margaritas. You know the type ;) (Maybe you've met me? Except for that Libertarian business-eww.) He sent me this article that I appreciated. Maybe you will too. I don't subscribe to the Wall Street Journal so I can't post a link to Wall Street's site, but here's the text in Word.

I think it is poignant because it paints such an accurate picture of what I have seen here in Peru with regard to the economics of daily life. In Rinconada they used to pay 8 soles a week for electricity. Then electricity was privatized, they put in electric meters and the cost went way down. I pay between 5 and 6 soles a month for electricity (less than $2) to a private company. In the nearby provincial capital they privatized the water and the same thing happened: major cost reduction. So, folks in Rinconada are trying to privatize their water too and are in the process of putting in meters.

The thing about Internet in this article is also true where I live. Folks have Internet cafes but houses do not have bathrooms. They just go out to the corral where they keep the animals. That is a little more complicated in Rinconada than the article makes it sound because there is a waste water system, but people do not seem to be interested in connecting their houses to it. I don't completely understand, but I think it's something like, "We haven't ever had a toilet before. Why would we want to spend 500 soles to put in a bathroom now?" 500 soles is a lot of money here. I'm not always super excited about stuff I read from Cato but this is pretty interesting. What do you think?

One of the jokes about Peace Corps volunteers that runs around the Lima office is how volunteers enter all bleeding hearted and perfectly nice liberals and leave as Republicans. I frankly doubt it, but hey who knows?

Smugmug and More on the Earthquake

So I'm just posting a photo to see if I like smugmug. It's me at Larco Mar this shopping center in the Miraflores neighborhood of Lima built right on the shore. This beautiful sunset is from nearly a year ago!

My one year anniversary in Peru will be September 15! I need to come up with a good way to celebrate.

The news on the earthquake isn't getting better any time soon. So many people had their homes destroyed. There's no water, no electricity and no food. An old woman in my town has all of her kinds living in Ica and hasn't been able to speak with any of them yet. She is terrified. Churches and social groups are collecting money and supplies, but the effort is going to take a long time. Even just among the Peace Corps volunteers of course everyone wants to do something, because they're Peace Corps volunteers and that's kind of the mindset. But at this point there's nothing besides sending money and supplies. The volunteers who live in that department (Peruvian equivalent of a state) haven't been permitted to go back yet. We're still having aftershocks and there has been looting. There was even an article in the tabloidy newspaper, El Popular about a church group that is offering transportation to folks who live all up and down the coast but have family in Ica so that they can go to Ica and help, a kind gesture of questionable forethought.

Aftershocks

There were smaller aftershocks today. As before, I am fortunate to be far from the epicenter and I didn't feel them at all. Everyone is stunned by the earthquake and worried about their family members in Lima. Since about a third of the population of Peru lives in Lima it seems like every household has at least one family member there. The epicenter and most of the damage are farther south in the department of Ica, a coastal desert area not nearly as populated as the capital. As I understand it they suffered the most damage a loss of life. This is the department where the city of Pisco is located as well as the Nazca Lines, those huge piles of earth created by pre-Incan peoples in the shapes of a humming bird, a monkey and other figures. There are 5 volunteers living in the department and I understand that all of them were away at a training in Lima at the time of the earthquake and they're waiting to return until Peace Corps feels assured of their safety.

If you follow that red line, which is the Pan American Highway, I live 15 hours north of Lima. So it is quite a distance. So much that I can't get both Piura and Ica on the same map :)

For some reason I'm having trouble accessing Internet news sites. Only the New York Times seems to work. Our Internet connection has been really awful since the earthquake. I'm not sure if it's just the traffic or what. So if anything exciting happens that isn't in the Times let me know.

I'm also exploring smugmug.com. It's sort of like snapfish.com but you have to pay. The quality of the photos is supposed to be much better. I do think that snapfish is pretty sorry as far as quality goes, but I'm not sure if smugmug is worth the $40 a year. I definitely want to back up my pictures to an online site and be able to print them easily. Any thoughts on this? Experience?

Little shaky

We had an earthquake today. I didn't feel it at all, but I'm in the city at a conference and phones started ringing right and left. We didn't even feel it. My friend who lives north of me, even farther from the epicenter did feel it so maybe we were just in a sturdy building. In any case, our communications systems are suffering. Other than that I'm fine.

There's a Tsunami Warning issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. I had never heard of them before, but I've also never needed too. Then I read that it may have been revoked, but I'm having a hard time finding good information. Anyway, I'm going to do a little research before heading back to my coconut palm tree and rice paddy desert oasis.

This earthquakes thing is a little alarming but really interesting. I was in one for the first time in Sta. Eulalia. The wall just starting shaking and it took me a while to figure out why. By the time I realized what was happening it was over.

Today I was in Piura at this Peruvian Army conference center. Martin, the dad from the family that I used to live with came with me. We had a conference about using radio for development work. We made little programs about development issues relevant to the communities where we live. He has worked with a non-profit radio station in Piura for a number of years. He is a community based reporter and had the opportunity to go to trainings about journalism and reporting over the years so he was interested and excited to come. Most small towns in Peru have community radio stations that are important resources, especially in the mountains. Where I live on the coast people can get national radio stations so in Rinconada we don't have a community station. But I think that there's one in the next town over so Martin and I are going to see about trying to do a little show there.

Snail with a Limp

Not much happening in the campo... still. My dad used to say, ¨We're off like a heard of turtles.¨ whenever he and my mom got all four of us, a friend or two, and maybe the dog loaded into the brown Chevy Suburban. I have a feeling that I'm just beginning the understand the meaning of this phrase. But I haven't seen any turtles in Rinconada. There are snails however. I think a snail with a limp is the metaphor I want to adopt for now.

This weekend should be fun. It is the holiday for the patron saint of Rinconada Llicuar, la Virgin de Soccorro. Folks are cleaning up the park: sanding, painting, sweeping and trimming. I helped sand the rod iron fences today.

I also went into my shared office at Town Hall for my newly implemented Office Hours. I share with a very cool lawyer. She works in the DEMUNA office. DEMUNA is in charge of domestic legal issues, like child support payments and family violence as a local public service. She recently started to work at Town Hall 2 days a week to be a resource for these issues. She's cool and we have great conversations about legal differences between the US and Peru re. issues like rape, child support, divorce, abortion and the death penalty. Making friends, pretty exciting.

Plodding through trash... with cheerful enthusiasm?

Campo life seems to be moving at the pace of a snail with a limp. This week and last week comprise the semester break in the public schools so I haven´t been teaching. I was really hoping to get the initial research for the trash project started, but I haven´t been able to inspire much movement on the part of the local government. I go to Town Hall about every other day and try to get people motivated, but the Mayor has been on vacation so very little progress is happening. The research will include weighing, measuring and typing (organic, inorganic recyclable, inorganic non-recyclable) 8 days worth of garbage from about 50 houses in order to determine what treatment facilities we need. I could just do this myself as one of the Associate Peace Corps Directors suggested, but the Mayor and City Council Member in charge of health issues really want to get a sanitation engineer to do it. This is fabulous because it demonstrates that they´re committed to a quality, long-term project, a truly sustainable program so I'm just trying to keep pushing and reminding people that trash can make them sick and harm the crops. Yippee waste management! I was talking to Kate, a fellow volunteer who also has a trash project in the coastal desert and she made the excellent point that you just have to wake up every morning and try to move the project forward and after 2 years you get as far as you get. I think that's good advice so I'm going to try to do this with as enthusiastic and cheerful an attitude as I can muster... Some days that's harder than it probably should be.

The Mayor did find an engineer who seems great. He works with the provincial government on creating a sanitary landfill for the province and trash collection in the provincial capital of Sechura so that's AMAZING, but no one is exactly running to fulfill his work plan. In fact, the last time I was able to talk to the Mayor he couldn't find the work plan under the pile of stuff on his desk. In all fairness he did just move into a new office, but still. Then, on the up side 1. a work plan exists, 2. we have designated a safe place to put the treatment facility, and 3. this is a kicker- the town voted to prioritize the trash project in next year's city budget. Money is good.

In other news, my recent drama with my former boyfriend seems to be ending. It hurts and takes my mind away from this moment and this place, but I'm sure it's for the best for both of us. Thankfully I am blessed with amazing and supportive friends who are okay with all the ways that I'm a neurotic crazy person and are helping me call my head back to the here and now.

Breathtaking

5,300 meters was breathtaking. The Andes in Ancash line up in two parallel ranges, the white and the black, the former is snow capped the latter is not. A collage of some landscape shots: tropical glaciers, wet weather cactus, so much fresh air but you can´t breathe in the black and white mountains, communities of one family... me on a horse. What can you say except that it´s a land of contrasts?

Some fellow Peace Corps folks and I spent a couple of days at a hiking lodge above the capital city of Huaraz. I highly recommend The Way Inn Lodge if you're ever in Ancash and wanting to hike and rock climb only to go home to a warm bed with a down comforter and a homemade sweat lodge. I had to take a break about every 10 steps walking around in the mountains, but it was worth it and I was fortunate to have patient hiking companions. Then Tessa and I went to see a glacier called Pastoruri. It's melting into rivers of frigid water that stream off the mountain and down the 5,300 meters to the Pacific. It was heartbreaking to realize how much the tropical glacier shrunk in the last 40 years, leaving a wake of more than 100 yards of black rock.

Calling Me on the Public Telephone

I was catching up with my Dad on the phone today, trying to help him get set up with Skype so that we can talk more often and cheaper and realized that I may not have explained the public telephone in Rinconada with all the detail and context that it deserves.

Development has happened very quickly here in the lowlands of Piura. Electricity came to Rinconada Llicuar about 8 years ago. Since then townspeople have gained running water in almost every house (albeit for 2 hours every other day), a waste water system (i.e. flush toilets) in about 40% of houses, and occasional trash collection when the folks down at city hall remember. A few months ago there was even a cable television company going from house to house selling cable magico with more than 100 channels. In terms of communication there is a brand new Internet cafe in town and many families have a cell phone. These function during weekdays and when it's not very windy.

Yet the more things change the more they stay the same. The public telephone in town (1) is a satellite phone because most of rural Peru doesn't have land lines. It's almost like a regular phone but there is a delay of several seconds between you speaking words and your conversation partner hearing them. It's usually much cheaper to talk from the public phone than from my cell so if I'm calling internationally I usually make the extra effort. For some, like my grandfather who can´t really hear on the phone anyway, the delay is an insurmountable hurdle to conversation so I call him on my cell. Fortunately, he's home on weekdays. Others, like my brothers are willing to make the sacrifice in conversation tempo.

Before towns down here got electricity they ran some electric devices from car batteries. So for 50 years or so Piuranos have made good use of loud speaker systems or emissoras. Every town has them. This is a loud speaker attached to a tall bamboo pole that is connected to somebody´s house and someone, usually the housewife is in charge the microphone. These are very important ladies. They are in charge of making announcements like who is selling what, who hasn´t paid their PTA dues to the elementary school, and calling lost kids home for dinner. There are about 5 emissoras within earshot of my house and they have a schedule which they sometimes follow, that starts at 5AM. In the mornings they give a news and events report including what groups have meetings that day, deaths, prayer services and soccer scores. Emissoras are also used at all times that the emissora operators are awake to announce phone calls to the public telephone.

This leads me to my meandering point: directions for calling me on the public telephone.
If you're not in Peru call: 051-73-830426. Then speak to Senora Marta, a sister-in-law of the lady I used to live with, and tell her you want to speak with the Senorita Ella or La Gringa. She will ask you to hang up and call back in 10 minutes. Then she will send whatever kid happens to be walking by (because at this moment she is 8 months pregnant) over to Senora Freddis, Queen of the Emissora Operators with a message that I should come to the telephone. Senora Freddis will call me on the emissora and I will trot on over to Marta´s to receive a the call. After the conversation I will be called on to report back to Marta and Freddis on who it was I was talking to, the state of their health, and if this is perchance someone I will someday marry.