One more photo from the World Map Mural

Here's another shot of me and my team :)

Finito! Mural Madness

Working with kids is still new to me. I started painting a mural of the world map with 120 kiddos ages 8-12. It was way too many. I sort of knew it was too many people from the get go, but it's what the people who organized the summer camp wanted so I tried to go along with it. I didn't know that I needed yet another lesson on going with your instincts. :) I finally finished the mural of the world map- 8 weeks later with my super dedicated team of kids who happen to live across the street from the school, a mere 4 weeks after the camp ended. We had a little party on Friday and the kids got prizes for attendance and dedication. It was great fun. I was so proud!

It was sort of like giving birth to a painted wall. This is Edith, Jhon and Wilder who finally finished the map.

And this is everyone and their mother who came when they heard there was free soda at the inauguration party.

Warning: This is a paragraph full of me whining. Today I'm totally frustrated. I have realized that the laptop that I brought doesn't burn CD's. You might be wondering why I didn't notice this before. Well I'm sort of wondering it myself, but basically because I lent the laptop to the former boyfriend as I had a desktop back in the USA. Now backing up anything like my photos, is kind of rough. I decided to try to buy an external hard drive to fix the problem. Then my ¨No Hassle¨credit card wouldn't work and I was informed after 20 minutes of an international, theoretically but not actually toll free phone call that I would have to make such a phone call every month if I want to continue to use the card in Peru. GRRR. It is so annoying when menial tasks are a pain in the neck.

Off to plan an anti-tuberculosis March for Friday and the last touches for the health classes Tuesday and Wednesday. Kids, kids everywhere.

My St. Louis Pen Pals

I've been writing to my goddaughter Libby's 4th grade class in St. Louis. I´ll have to type up their letters and post them because they are fabulous, but since it's already at my fingertips here is my response.


Dear Matt, Marcus, Libby, Jaime, Georges, Conner, Casey, Taylor, Amudha, and Nicole,

Thanks so much for your letters. They were fun to read and I enjoyed learning about all of you. Thanks for asking so many questions about Peru and Rinconada Llícuar. I love learning about new places and I hope that you do too.

I live with a very kind and welcoming family. The dad is named Martin Ruiz Saba, the mom is Dora Purizaca Tume, and Dora’s brother called Benito Purizaca Tume lives there too. Their children are Darwin Ruiz Purizaca, Pepe Ruiz Purizaca and Ingrid Ruiz Purizaca. Martin and Dora are both in their forties. Benito is 26, Darwin is 12, Pepe is 7, and Ingrid is 6. In Peru and in most countries where Spanish is spoken children get two last names, one from their mom and one from their dad. Everyone keeps these last names their whole lives.

My house is made of cement blocks and has a tin roof. I live with one of the wealthier families in town so they have a nicer house, but most of the houses are made of a reed that grows in the riverbeds. The reeds are placed side by side to make walls and then the walls are covered with mud that dries and hardens. Part of my house had a cement floor when I moved in three months ago, but most of the house had dirt floor. This week the family is pouring cement floors in two of the rooms. This will be great because it will help with the respiratory problems that sometimes come from the dusty floors.

Rinconada Llicuar is a very small town home to about 2800 people who live in about 550 houses where most people are farmers. They grow rice and Pima cotton. It’s on the edge of the desert, but they get water from a deep well to irrigate the fields. Other people are fishermen. Rinconada is about a half an hour from the Pacific Ocean where the fishermen work on big ships that catch anchovies.

The fishermen bring fresh fish everyday (not anchovies) and we almost always have fish for lunch or dinner. I love fish and my favorite Peruvian dish is called ceviche. It is made by cutting fresh fish into small pieces, and putting it into a kind of salad with onion, cilantro and a spicy pepper called ají. Then you put lime juice all over it. The acid from the lime juice makes the fish look like it was cooked, but it’s raw. Then you eat it with toasted corn kernels which are like big soft popcorn kernels that didn’t pop and fried plantains called chifles. Don’t worry if you don’t like raw fish. People also eat chicken and potatoes a lot in Peru. In Peru there are more varieties of potatoes than there are anywhere else in the world- I think it’s like 2000 different kinds. Peruvians also eat a lot of rice at lunch and dinner; they say that food is not a meal without rice.

Most Peruvians are poorer than most Americans and people have fewer things. Rinconada Llicuar has had electricity for about eight years now and most people do have electronics like televisions and radios. In my house we have electric lights, a television, a radio, a refrigerator, and a blender. Few families have refrigerators because they’re very expensive. We do not have running water all the time, only every other day for 3 hours, but most of the houses in town have a faucet that the family uses to fill big buckets and barrels with water. There are no large buildings and only a handful of two story houses in town.

Peru doesn’t have states, it has departments and Rinconada Llicuar is in the north in the department called Piura. The capital of the department is also called Piura. I travel about an hour and a half from Rinconada Llicuar to the city about once a week to buy groceries, go to the bank and the post office, and to visit with other Peace Corps volunteers.

All of northern Peru is very hot. In the summer it gets to more than 100 degrees on the hottest days, but the rest of the year the weather is sunny and warm and it doesn’t really get below 60 degrees. I like the weather very much; the sun makes me happy. Northern Peru is also very close to the equator so the sun is very strong and you can get sunburned very easily. It never snows here. People wear clothes appropriate for very hot weather, but that will protect them from the sun. Farmers wear long cotton pants, long-sleeved cotton shirts with collars, and baseball caps. They used to wear big straw hats, and some old men still do, but most of the men don’t wear straw hats anymore. Men wear flip-flops or sandals called yankees that are made of tire rubber. They’re called yankees because rubber tires in Spanish are called llantas and the words sound similarly. Women wear knee length cotton skirts and t-shirts and kids wear shorts and t-shirts unless they’re helping in the fields and then they wear pants. Everyone wears flip-flops unless they’re going to church or a party and then they put on sneakers or dressier sandals.

There are no llamas in northern Peru, but there are lots of them a little farther south and in the mountains. I have only seen llamas in a park near Lima, the capital of Peru. I do not have a llama sweater, but I hope to buy one in April when I go on a trip to Cuzco, a town in the mountains where llamas live. My favorite animal in Piura is the owl. We have big white owls that I think are beautiful. People also raise a lot of guinea pigs for food. They’re called cuy, but I haven’t tried them yet. I still think of them as pets.

I have never been to Brazil, but I have been to Paraguay and Ecuador which are also in South America. I have also never been to the rainforest, but the Amazon River starts in Peru. The Amazon River goes through the rainforest in Peru and Brazil. I am hoping to go and visit the source of the river before I leave Peru.

Peruvians love soccer and I have enjoyed learning to play since I have been here. I work with a group of women who want to learn more about healthy lifestyles and sometimes we play soccer together. I also go running in the rice fields in the mornings because it’s very beautiful watching the sun come up over the rice fields and I want to keep my heart and lungs healthy.

There are some dangers in Peru, like there are anywhere. Peru has earthquakes pretty often. They’re usually not very strong earthquakes, but you still have to be careful. We had a small one in my house last week. The walls shook for about two minutes and then it stopped. Also, when you travel you always have to be careful of robbers because dangerous people can tell that you’re not from wherever you are traveling and sometimes there are dangerous people who will try to grab your purse or wallet.

To join Peace Corps you apply, just like you’re applying to go to college or for a job. To go to Peace Corps first you have to go to college and then if you want to apply you have to write a resume, cover letter, and a few essays. You have to get letters of recommendation from your teachers and previous employers and then if Peace Corps thinks that you can do the job they call you for an interview. Then, if they like you in the interview you have medical checks and background checks, and if you pass all of the checks they will send you to another country to work for two years.

I like living in Peru very much and even though I haven’t lived here very long I have friends in Rinconada Llicuar and I’m friends with the other Peace Corps volunteers who live in towns near me. I’m not sure what I’m going to do when I get back to the US. I would like to work for an international non-profit organization or USAID, the part of the government that manages international aid.

What do you want to do when you grow up?

I hope that I answered all of your questions and I hope to hear from you again soon.


Best wishes,

Ella

starting a book group

I was reading Reading Lolita in Tehran and considering my whole emotional turmoil around expectations of women here it has been really helpful. I mean not that the expectations are the same here and in Tehran in the last few decades, but that idea of being frustrated with others presuming limitations of your abilities. In any case, it made me want to start a book group, like the one that Nafisi had in Tehran before she fled to the US... What should we read? What language should it be in? Who would be interested in such a thing?
I'm not sure if there are people in Rinconada who would be interested in a book group. So far I know of no such thing, but there are several university students in town so I feel hopeful that it might be possible, or that such a group may already exist. Hmmm.

An apparent baby storm

Happy Valentine's Day! It's raining babies. It seems like everyone I know is having a baby. My cousin had a beautiful nearly 10 lb boy this week- Feburary 9th. Look! This is Kelly, Micha and little Erik.

Then my very dearest friend from the 7th grade tells me that she's having a baby and it's due October 3. She is very excited even though she and her fiancee were quite surprised by this development. They were planning to get married at Christmas, but in the last three days they decided to move their wedding date up by about 8 months. I'll be sending them ¨What to expect when you're expecting¨as soon as I find it on Amazon. (Don´t worry I'm not ruining the suprise becasue she doesn't really do blogs.)

Meanwhile, I have discovered that I am one of the oldest childless women ever seen in the town of Rinconada Llicuar and I hear surprise about this all the time from my new friends and neighbors. I´m spending a lot of time lately explaining that Americans tend to get married when they're a bit older and I'm met with an axiom about how the value of the ¨goods¨decrease after age 25. (Raise eyebrow here.)



Since I'm only 28 years old not having kids has never, ever come up as a criticism against me. In fact, not having kids has so far been a credit to my good sense as I think it did actually help with getting the master's degree and all. But lately, since I'm spending my spare time at the Miss Rinconada Llicuar pageant where 15 year old girls from the campo model bikinis after they perform traditional Peruvian dance numbers it's all kind of messing with my head. I'm wondering what does it mean to get married and have kids in life. It that really the point of it all? And is it always all tied up with traditional ideas about beauty and women competing against one another for power?

I actually never did want to have kids. I remember my friends in high school deciding what the names of their future children would be and me saying, ¨What about pet names?¨ I think that in the last 3-5 years my complete disdain for the idea has left me. I am open to the idea in life, but not now, not yet. This is fortunate for me because if you get pregnant and decide to keep your baby as a Peace Corps volunteer you get ¨medically discharged¨so basically if you get pregnant they kick you out.

The social pressure is just really interesting because it's quite cross cultural. My friends and family of the same age in the US are having babies and really everyone in Rinconada Llicuar makes crazy comments about me not being married and "Don't you want kids? It's bad to have kids when you're too old." Then they make jokes about me taking their kids back to states with me. I never in a million years thought that I would find myself explaining that, "No I'm not going to take any children back with me- at all." It's odd. It is interesting.

I'm sooo happy for my family and friends who are making great waves in the world and will make wonderful parents and dear god people, please spread the word that babies do not a woman make.

water purification SODIS

You have to boil the water in Peru in order to kill the parasites, viruses and bacteria that call it home before you can drink it. I'm lucky that the town where I live, Rinconada Llicuar chlorinates the water at the well, but you still have to purify it before drinking because the water system is not that well maintained and we only have water for 3 hours every other day. People fill up big trash cans, buckets, pots and all kinds of stuff in their houses to keep their water and after sitting around in trash cans for a couple of days new little microbes start living there. So bottom line: you get diarrhea unless you purify the water so some people boil their water before drinking it and many others just have diarrhea all the time.

In Peace Corps training they taught us this cool way to purify water called SODIS. Basically these Swiss scientists discovered that UV-A rays from the sun, the ones that burn your skin, also kill micro-organisms that cause diarrhea. This is very cool because you do not need to burn fuel i.e. wood or gas to purify the water, a fabulous benefit because fuel is expensive for people, not to mention that the smoke is not the best for respiratory health.

Basically, you put the water in clean, unscratched plastic bottles and leave them in full sun for 6 hours. Then all the little heebi-jeebies will die and ¨Poof!¨ no diarrhea for you. I have been using SODIS on my water for about a month now and so far so good. I have no more diarrhea than I had when I was drinking bottles water that I bought from the market. I mean I still have diarrhea but, I don't think it's the water. I think it's the food. Well, actually I think it's that the vegetables, and dishes are all washed with un-purified water and sometimes I eat off wet dishes and cook with wet veggies. Not ideal, but here we are. Poco a poco.

I'm excited because at first I was skeptical that this SODIS thing would work. I really think it works! I mean they're not quacks at the NGO or anything it's a big international non-governmental organization but still, I was suspicious. Now that I've tested it on myself I think I might take the show on the road and do some classes about it in my town. Apparently, in both Honduras and Bolivia the Ministries of Health promote this method of water purification. It's great for very poor communities because they can often find plastic bottles, but they don't have a lot of money for fuel and sometimes see boiling water as an expense that they can forgo.

http://www.sodis.ch/

murals, beauty pagents, children - EEK

As I may have mentioned before I have become and elementary school teacher. It was purely an accident and I'm still surprised to find 35 kids looking at me every afternoon. Currently, I'm painting a mural of the world map with about 120 elementary school kids 9-12 years old. Happily, not all at the same time- in groups of about 30. It's crazy and hard. I'm open to all suggestions. The town government said that they would fund the project but didn't actually go and buy the stuff in time for the summer camp to start so I have had 120 kids with nothing to do for the past couple weeks. Fortunately, things are looking up. We got paint and now we have a big white wall to paint. I did have to spend a lot out of pocket which hurt. I was out there all night a couple of days ago scraping the damn thing and yesterday the 5th graders went crazy with primer. Craziness. I'll definitely let you know how this goes. All advice about dealing with kids welcome. This is not my area. Eeek!!

Also in a bizarre turn of events, I'm helping to organize the Miss Rinconada Llicuar contest... Really, there are no words.

How did this happen? What am I doing in Peru again? Words of wisdom friends?

Photos from the afore mentioned yunse:

Also- Photos from my women's group meeting. We started a recreational night on Wednesdays for women. I think it will be fun. So far so good- only minimal political strife. They asked me about yoga and we did some :)

tumbin´ the yunse

I went to a really fun fiesta last night. It's the beginning of Carnival season in Rinconada Llicuar. Apparently Carnivales last for a month and culminate in 3 days which are really, really crazy Carnival at Fat Tuesday, but that's still a ways off. Last night was the first Yunse. I remain mystified by the origin of this celebration, (wikipedia had nothing) but basically they start by cutting down a pretty big tree. Then, they put a whole lot of stuff in the branches, like plastic dishes chairs, mop buckets, and clothes. Next, they move it to another spot, stand it up, and plant it. Finally, people are invited to take turns cutting it down again and when it falls it's like a giant adult piñata. Everyone runs like crazy underneath the giant, heavy, falling trunk to get their buckets and t-shirts. It is insanity accompanied by a fireworks castle, Huyano music, and an all-night dance drenched in Crystal beer and chicha.

I discovered that there are a few catches to the Yunse, for me. First, the people who put it on are just folks from town and they spend a lot of money on the whole affair. They're called the Majordomos. The folks that the Majordomos invite to chop at the tree with an axe are supposed to contribute money and put it on the next year, but it's an honor to be invited. So even though I didn't really know this before yesterday, when they invited me to cut the tree down I suspected that this was somehow asking me for money and fortunately I called my host mom over to help me communicate with this random drunk guy who was trying to hand me the axe. She told him that I would do him the honor of taking a few stabs at the tree but in my special position as a ¨volunteer of peace¨ that I would not be paying for the following year´s Yunse. He was into it so I had to take the axe and hack at this tree in front of oh maybe, 800 people. As I was hammering away at this tree, which really they want you to do some damage because it takes along time to chop down a tree, I was thinking so I'm surrounded by a circle of drunk men dancing the marinara waving red, green and blue flags and I'm chopping down a piñata-tree and in the Spanglish that is my inner monologue of late I had this cryptic ditty about tumbin´ the Yunse going in my head. (Tumbar means to chop in Spanish.)

Tumbin the Yunse
Tumbin the Yunse
Crystal oils my axe
These go-go guys marinera their flags
Probably will want me to drink lots of chicha after this...
Tumbin the Yunse
Wait what happens if it falls this way?
A donde debo correr?
Tumbin the Yunse
Is that guy urinating over there?
Hay dios mio.
Tumbin the Yunse

I hate it when I start to giggle to myself in front of 800 people. At the end of the day, one of the main things that I'm learning in Peru is how to do bizarre stuff that kind of freaks me out gracefully and in front of hundreds of people. I suppose that this is a good skill to have; I mean seems like it could serve me well later and I mean wielding an axe is kind of cool.

Photos to come. OH and they douse you in water and talcum powder as part of the fun. It was a blast.

Me and my bike

The day after Christmas I got a bike! Well it's not really mine. Peace Corps lent it to me and now I'm getting used to looking like the friendly neighborhood Mormon. The Peace Corps rule is that you have to wear a helmet. Everyone in town thinks that this is hilarious and jokes that my bike is a motorcycle- because that's the only place where they would ever wear a helmet. Now I can travel between Rinconada and Llicuar in under 20 minutes- nice.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Christmas in Rinconada was lovely and New Year in Piura was a dance, dance revolution. (I love kinesthetic video game references.) Here are some photos, sadly I don't really have any photos of New Year's Eve because we went dancing and I didn't want to take my camera to the club, but it was great fun. And Christmas photos didn't turn out too well. I mostly asked other to take photos with me in them but my camera wasn't focusing that well. Oh well.



Christmas in Rinconada was so nice. People stay up all night. They wish one another Merry Christmas at the stroke of midnight then there are toasts, dinner, hot chocolate and panetonne which is sort of like fruitcake. Finally, everyone walks around the town visiting friends and relatives. There are kids carrying paper lanterns with candles inside AND this is odd there are two guys who dress up and tell each other jokes. They're kind of like wandering minstrel joke tellers, very, very not politically correct. One dresses up like ¨The old black guy¨and the other is ¨The transvestite¨a big crowd of people follows as they walk though the streets. They make fun of one another and of people in the crowd. I didn't hang around very long, because I really stick out and didn't want to become the butt of jokes that I don't understand!




This is the Chocoletada that took place on Dec. 22. A Chocoletada is a gathering where a group makes hot chocolate and buys panetonne (fruitcake-like bread) then they give it away. This is one that the town government put on. Sometimes these come with toy give aways ans this one had bags of groceries for moms and toys for kids. It was totally insane. I did a presentation of a story called Anita Cochinita (Piggy Little Anita) about a little girl who doesn't wash her hands and goes to the bathroom in the fields. This makes her sick, but then the doctor cures her parasites and she lives happily ever after. Fun times.





This is the mayor giving away the first bag of groceries to a greatful mom.






Then on Christmas Day there are more wandering minstrels. Only this is a band that plays marinera music. I don't actually know how to dance the marinera, but this guys really wanted me to learn.




For New Years a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers met up in Piura and we hung out for a couple of days. I considered staying in Rinconada for New Year but there is currently a bit of rivalry between differing political groups and that gets pretty ugly when all the men get really wasted on chicha and beer. So,I decided to high tail it to the city where drunken debauchery does not include fist fights. (Don't worry mom. It's fine.)

I've taken up running!?!

I have been feeling pretty sedentary lately and not liking it a bit. It's probably my personal continuous battle against diarrhea coupled with that Peace Corps fun of trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing all the time. In any case, I've taken up running and it seems to be helping on both fronts. What!?! You say in that incredulous tone I love so much. I know. I was also surprised at this development, but it's shaping up well. Fun times in Rinconada Llicuar. Reasons: 1. The loud speaker system in town wakes me up every morning at 5AM with the day´s news and events: Fresh fish for sale at Marta's house, PTA meeting at 3 at the elementary school, and telephone call for Sr. Alberto Rumiche at the public phone. It's pretty exciting and there's music. This seems like it would be quaint except it's 5 yes 5 in the morning and lasts for about an hour and a half. So at 5:30 AM a couple of weeks ago I was laying in bed thinking, ¨I should be doing something useful. I would love to be sleeping, but that is simply not possible. What shall I do?¨ 2. The day before I had 3 different meetings that no one showed up to and I was feeling generally ineffective. 3. I was also having this lack of exercise problem what with the great distance between me and the Brooklyn YMCA so I decided that as the sun was only just coming up and it was a balmy 75 degrees or so I would get some exercise. Running it is.

Since then I've done a little research on how to run, how much to run, etc... In doing so, I found The President's Challenge. Now the President is actually not my favorite guy in the whole world, but this challenge is pretty cool. It's a little exercise log and for me it's really helpful for motivation on those days when the loud speakers are going, but I just want to lay there and do nothing anyway.

http://presidentschallenge.org/

Lady Liberty in Rinconada and a few other shots

What you say? The Statue of Liberty is in New York Harbor? We have one too! I'm not sure what the story on it is, and no one else seems to know either, but I'm going to keep asking. In the square in fromt of the church in Rinconada there is a plaster 1.5 meter tall version of the Statue of Liberty on a pedestal.

My Room

Wee neighbors who come to visit every afternoon.

Sunset in Rinconada

It's Picture Day

Someday I'll get it together to get my photos to the internet cafe in a timely manner so that I don't make these long posts of only photos... Maybe? :)

Aurora and Elmer- I work with them at the health post in town where Aurora is the midwife and Elmer is a nurse.




Me having lunch with the family. The mom is Dora and the little girl is Ingrid 6 yrs, next to her brother Pepe 7 yrs, and their oldest brother Darwin 12 yrs.





Makin music in San Clemente with Dora's brother and cousin. They're doing a practice for aChristmas dance/music performance.

Salt... the fountain of life?

This is just an interesting article from the NY Times. Click on the title ¨Salt.. the fountain of life?¨ for the link. The difference between lives with and without mental disability... It's so amazing how basic nutrients have such profound effects.

airing my dirty laundry

In keeping with my current practice of airing my dirty undies on the blog, a funny thing happened to me last week. I was doing my laundry. This is an energetic process where I stand in the back yard with a couple of buckets of water and a blue plastic wash tub and make an attempt at scrubbing that no self-respecting Peruvian alma de casa would take for cleaning. There is a waste water system in town and it's new, so people are still getting used to using it. The only connection to the waste water system in our house is the toilet, so all waste water that doesn't get dumped in the yard goes down the toilet. I had successfully washed all of my clothes and was starting the rinse process, so I went to dump out the soapy dirty water down the toilet. As the water flowed out of the bucket so did a fairly new pair of white cotton panties which had been camouflaged by the grayish water. I dropped the bucket and with my other hand tried to grab the errant undies from the toilet but they slipped off the tips of my fingers and down into the nether regions of the new waste water system. Deep breath. Now I'm in Peru in the desert using very little water to try to get clean and I have my arm in the toilet about up to the elbow. I'm thinking, ¨Oh no! What if my undies stop-up the toilet? This is the only toilet for 7 household members! EEEK!¨ So I fish around in the nether regions some more since my hand is conveniently down the toilet anyway, but it was tough times because I started to retch when my thoughts started to drift to all the times that the water didn't agree with me and I was sitting on that toilet wondering how I was the only one in the house with explosive diarrhea. So I pulled my hand out of the toilet. Washed, washed some more, clipped my nails and washed again, got up some courage and did the only thing that I could think of- tell a household member that I may have stopped up their toilet but flushing my panties down a toilet where flushing means dumping a bucket of water- or 3- down the toilet until the color is clear and there are no floaters.

Even though the water did seem to be flushing when I dumped another bucket or two down the chute to test it out I could just see the toilet stopping up in a week and poor Martin sitting there trying to figure out what the hell was wrong, so to avoid this I decided I had to discuss this with someone. As I tried in my very best in very professional and respectful Spanish to explain this to the only family member at home- the dad, Martin- he turned bright red and started to giggle hysterically. I did likewise. We decided not to worry about them until the toilet actually stopped up. It has been a week and all seems fairly clear- so fingers crossed that there will be no taking off the toilet and fishing around in the pipes. Did I mention that they were new?!

Guess what I want for Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

101: bathing and shaving your legs in a paint bucket

Of the many skills that I have acquired as a Peace Corps Volunteer perhaps the most useful so far is expertise in bathing and shaving my legs in a gallon bucket that once contained green paint the color of my wall. There's this joke in the Peace Corps about how volunteers don't see a glass half empty, they see a glass half full and then they take a bath in it. I always thought it was kind of a dumb joke, but it's getting funnier.

In Rinconada Llicuar, the town where I live they turn on the water in the public water system for a couple of hours every other morning. Everyone fills up every thing in the house that will stand still. There are always at least a couple of big plastic garbage cans, 5 gallon buckets, enormous cooking pots, and in the case of my house, 1 gallon paint cans. Some older families also have ceramic pots big enough for me to crawl into. Somehow with all of the washing and cooking and bathing and cleaning that goes on the water starts to run really short by the evening of the second day. I enjoy trying to be clean, but I'm still wary of using too much water since I'm living in a house with a family of 3 kids, a mom, a dad, an uncle, and little ole me. I was standing over the paint can that the kids use to bathe and I was noticing that there wasn't really going to be enough water to fill up the larger bucket that the adults usually use. Alrighty then, I put some hot water from the kettle in the kid can and filled up the rest with cool water. In the bathroom with my tin cup, my cotton washcloth, my razor, and the gallon paint can I was giggling like crazy. The family probably thinks I'm bananas, but I didn't think that they would get it... and I thought that it was damn hilarious. When I was done: nice bald legs, un-smelly self, and not a drop of soap left on me. It's all about the tin cup and cotton washcloth.

My new travel recommendation and addendum to what we learned from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: never leave home without your tin cup and cotton towel.

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?