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.

YouTube

Some fellow volunteers from Piura sent in the following to the YouTube Debates to be aired on CNN. Unfortunaltely a PCV´s budget is such that digital video cams are low budget so forgive the low quality but maybe we will get on TV anyway :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHglYdiYelE

Yellow Ella

There has been a national strike in Peruvian schools for about a month now and it's the middle of the school year here. (They begin on the first of March go until mid-December.) English language papers report the strike has only lasted a day or two and I have to say that that's just plain wrong. Most schools near where I live have been closed for nearly 6 weeks now. The teachers in my town, Rinconada Llicuar are not, for the most part, in strong support of the strike and have only closed the schools for about 3 days of the last month. I have been teaching 5th and 6th grade health classes weekly with only 2 cancellations due to the strike.

Yesterday, I was finishing my 6th grade health class when the union showed up at the door yelling, armed with rocks and yellow paint. Luckily, some parents noticed a group gathering and came to warn the principal of their nearest school. That principal called the other two schools farther down the road so they could lock the doors and warn the kids. The principal of the school where I was teaching came in to tell me that we should continue class as usual but the strikers would probably throw rocks and break windows and we should watch out for breaking glass. The kids were terrified. In my class one or two cried (but were really trying to look tough and hide it), some were just too upset to pay attention, and the others were peeking out the windows trying to get look at the strikers. Strikers were yelling at the teachers that they were yellow and that they should be supporting the strike. Rocks were thrown in Rinconada, but not in Llicuar, where I was teaching. Finally, after about 15 minutes that seemed like an eternity, the principal sent all the kids home (about an hour early) and let the strikers in to talk with all of the teachers. A general announcement went out on the town's loud speaker system (used to announce everything from phone calls at the public phone to who is selling fish to who owes money for their water bill) and many of the parents came. Fortunately no one was injured and in retrospect it wasn't a terribly dangerous situation but at the time it was terrifying.

Schools are closed today and tomorrow. We had a parent's meeting today at the school in Rinconada and the parents say they just want the school to be open so that the kids can study. The principal and teachers agreed that on Monday things will go back to normal. Even if the strike continues they will have classes with the teachers who do not want to support the strike. In the case of the school in Rinconada only one teacher will strike.

So what's the deal with the strike? I haven't found a decent online political analysis so I'll just give you what I know of the basics. Peru has historically allowed uneducated, unprepared people to get a teaching degree in a few months. These programs no longer exist but, there are a lot of unprepared teachers who have taught for 15 to 20 years in public schools because of this employment program. These folks had the opportunity to continue their studies in the public universities to get a bachelor's degree, many did while others did not. The current president wants to improve the educational system by instituting a testing program and firing teachers who do not pass after three attempts. Teachers do not want to be fired and thus are striking. They say that testing is fine, but if they don't pass they should be trained, not fired.

And they seem fond of rocks and yellow paint. I certainly went home a bit yellow that day, even though no one threw paint at me.

popular politics

New York Times Quote of the day:

"I voted for Bush twice. I backed this war from the beginning, but I don’t think I can look my kids in the eyes anymore, if my husband comes home in a wooden box, and tell them he died for a good reason."BETH PYRITZ, whose husband, an Army specialist, is on his third tour in Iraq.


Peace Corps Volunteers got together a few weeks ago to make this video for the YouTube Debates. Little confession: I had to ask "What's YouTube?" when they told me about this and I was swiftly informed that, "It's only the most popular website ever. Duh." Blush.

A fellow Peace Corps Volunteer offered the following as an idea for a question.
"In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush said that America needs citizens to extend the compassion of our country to every part of the world, and that his administration would renew the promise of the Peace Corps by doubling its volunteers (7,000 current to over 15,000) by 2007. It is now 2007........"

Current number of Volunteers and Trainees: 7,749
Current number of countries served: 67 posts serving 73 countries

The question that they ended up sending is more broad about how the new administration will address humanitarian aid. This certainly seems like a case of cutting international aid money to finance the war. And the war is unpopular even with the Republican base.

Smells like change to me.

Painting

Doin' a lot of painting of the house in the last few weeks and I have happily found generous help. There is a newly formed youth athletic league and the boys are so excited about soccer practice they they get to the field, right next door to my house, about an hour early for practice... or perhaps better said, the coach comes an hour late. In any case, they were sitting around waiting for the coach to show up and noticing that painting looked like fun, begged me to help. I got 12 very enthusiastic little helpers, ages 6 to 14. Happily, I had some brushes left over from when we painted the World Map Mural at the high school. At first, it didn't seem like a fabulous idea to let 12 kids loose in my house with paint brushes, but then I figured... What the hell. It's water base.

Before.

During.

After.

And Tania was kind enough to help

too! Maybe now she'll help me scrub the floor :)

Everyday God

The teachers' and Ministry of Health's strikes continue so I still have a lot of time on my hands to do fun things like paint my house baby blue and chase the pigs back into their corrals. And in a synchronicity of free time and needed time of type that doesn't happen often enough, the Urban Justice Center, a non-profit where I used to work will soon be publishing a report on the Food Stamp Program and New York City's large immigrant population. We did a lot of research on this issue back when I was a Research Associate there and in the last couple of days I have been helping a bit with the very exciting development of a final product, a report. Happily, I have the free time to read while the folks with whom I usually work lobby for better pay and less monitoring. I have also been devouring some of the spiritual and self-helpy books that my dear friend Dave has been feeding me with a very long spoon from the Big City.

The Violence of Love, a compilation of homilies by Oscar Romero, former Archbishop of San Salvador sat up and bit be back yesterday. These sermons were broadcast by radio in El Salvador in the 1970's. The everyday-ness of the November 20, 1977 entry was just what I needed yesterday. I hope that you like it. This is just the last half of the poem because the first part is too preachy for my taste. On the other hand, I always appreciate a reminder of the sacred everyday and a reassurance about the interconnectedness of spirits.

….
How many cabdrivers, I know, listen to this message
there in their cabs;
you are a priest at the wheel, my friend,
if you work with honesty,
consecrating that taxi of yours to God,
bearing a message of peace and love
to the passengers who ride in your cab.

So cheers to your taxi and keep and eye out for the new report!

Festejo

My little friend all dressed up to do a traditional dance called Festejo for her school program as part of the elementary school´s anniversary celebration.

Drowning my Sorrows in Cajamarca

Me in Cajamarca



Ug some days it's so lonely in Peru and it really shouldn't be. People have been amazingly generous here and truly kind but I still feel so disconnected. Why? I guess it's still the cultural difference. I'll never be a cotton farming, chicha lovin' chola and I'll always be the gordita gringa to folks in my town. Most days that's fine but it has been harder lately. I really want to connect with people on a level that I haven't really achieved yet. Poco a poco, I hope.

I have also decided that I miss my ex-boyfriend in New York and want to talk about rekindling that relationship. There's nothing like sitting around in the campo where people put the ultimate value in their families and their religion to help you remember what's important in life. Sadly the idea was not as warmly reciprocated as I hoped. Perhaps the prospect of a potential, future, possibility of a maybe relationship with someone who ran off to Peru to join the Peace Corps is less attractive than I estimated :) He didn't say, "No." He said, "I need time to think about it." But since 1. I live in Peru and he lives in NY and that won't be changing for a long time, and 2. I haven't seen him in nearly a year. I'm not really sure how more distance could possibly change his mind.

So in a futile attempt to deal with rejection return to my "happy place" I'm going to offer you some really gorgeous photos of Cajamarca. Cajamarca is a department (Peruvian equivalent of state) south and east of Piura, in the mountains. It is so green and gorgeous. I was there last month for a conference with Elmer, my Peruvian counterpart who is a Technician at the Health Post in my town. He is still on strike lately but is generally great to work with and really committed to improving the public health in Rinconada Llicuar. Also, in attendance were other Peace Corps volunteers adn their counterparts, all of us learning to plan and execute our grand schemes. These photos are courtesy of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Aaron since I forgot my camera on this particular adventure.

I Am the Light of the World

We went to visit a 7th Day Adventist dairy product commune called Granja Porcone. It is an amazing place. The evangelical church that I'm usually so down on the the US has really done amazing development work in Peru. Every house in this community has a latrine and they look used and cared for. The chickens are in coops. The pigs have corrals. And, the community makes very high quality products that they sell in Cajamarca City. They also do beautiful weaving and carpentry that they export. This is my friend Cynthia and me in front of their hydro-electric generator. It has the quote from the gospel of Mark "I am the light of the world," painted on the side.

Fellow Peace Corps folks and counterparts on a hill overlooking Cajamarca

We went on a little hike outside of the city and at the end of the trail this man's family has their house. They sell stuff to the tourists who hike out there. He is weaving in the traditional way to sell in Cajamarca City and to sell to the tourists on the trail.

Okay, so this one is not in Cajamarca. It's at the hostel where we always stay in Piura but we're just so darn cute. These are my girls from Piura and Tumbes. From the top left, Lizzy, me, Kate and Tania.

Unfortuante policy choices, cuy and why I have too much time on my hands

More news today. I promise to put my own photos up soon.

It will probably not surprise you that women tend to start having children at a younger age here in Peru. It stands to reason that young people are having sex at a young age. Often (or at least sometimes) young women partner with much older men. This leads some young women to avoid the free national prenatal care for fear that their partners will be charged with statutory rape. Peru's response to this problem today is to lower the age of consent to 14. This article says that the vote in congress was overwhelming. It's at best disturbing that the answer to this problem is protecting the predator and not offering more education or life options to youth, especially girls.

Guinea Pig cuisine or cuy is popular here in the mountain areas. I tried it myself when I was in Cuzco and again in Cajamarca. I'm glad that I tried it twice because I thought that it was pretty gross the first time around. The cuy in Cajamarca was much cheaper and far superior. In fact it was free. I was at a conference and one of the attendees had some. His wife had packed him a lunch of two fried guinea pigs (whole) and a bunch of fried corn kernels called canchas in a plastic bag. He shared it with us and it was delicious. In Cuzco I went to a fancy tourist restaurant to have it. It was just the leg and hind quarter portion and it was baked but still managed to be greasy. Yuck. My advice, fried whole cuy is the way to go, especially with the canchas.

Finally, the reason that I have a lot of time on my hands is that everyone with whom I usually work seems to be on strike. The health workers want more pay and the nontenured ones want tenure. The teachers are also on strike. School is closed today and tomorrow for the strike. The teachers want more pay. Then Thursday and Friday are the Saint's Days for St. Peter and St. Paul, patrons of fishermen. Usually, this would be a holiday but I think that they're having school late in the afternoon (after the normal school day hours) to make up for the missed classes. Honestly, the details are still a bit unclear to me.

Special thanks to Ed for keeping me up to date on the Peruvian news circuit.

News in Peru and Vision Health International

Cameron Diaz didn't know about Shining Path... An interesting debacle.

5 foot tall penguins once roamed the Peruvian cost. Whoever wrote this article doesn't seem to know that there still are species of hot weather loving penguins that live in southern Peru, in Ica, where the Nazca Lines are. I don't think that they're very big. I gotta get down there. It's supposed to be beautiful. The penguins live on a few islands off the coast that Peace Corps volunteers call the Poor Man's Galapagos. I think they're really called Islas Ballestas.

In my own life I was helping out a bit yesterday at a free health campaign in Piura at the Ministry of Health Hospital. A group of eye doctors was down from the US to do operations on children with crossed eyes and adults with cataracts. It's called Vision Health International. These campaigns are always so crazy, mobs of people each with a heart wrenching story and each patient with at least one family member lobbying really hard to make sure that their loved one gets to see the doctor and gets care. I have never seem so many cross eyed kids, and blind elderly people in one place before. The folks were amazing. They had a system. Everyone got to see the doctor and I think everyone made it on the surgery schedule- with respectful, kind, and language appropriate communication to boot. And they're working with the Ministry of Health which many NGO's don't do because the bureaucracy makes it difficult but, it's the best way to reach the people who need the help the most. They're the ones who can't afford anything besides the Peruvian national free public health care system which only offers limited benefits. If you're interested in giving someone money or helping out as an eye doctor (John and Larry) these are good folks.

I actually went with Dora, the mom from my former host family. She really cannot see that it's her brother coming in the door of her house and I went to try to get her some glasses. Come to find out that the plan in the campaign is just surgery. Fortunately, a couple of the doctors took pity on us and promised us a pair. I'll post a picture of her in her new glasses when she gets them. Assuming she'll let me take a picture! She says that glasses are for old ladies.

Chiclayo

Yesterday, I hopped on a bus and rode down to a city 3 hours south of Piura called Chiclayo. I came to say goodbye to a friend who decided to pack it in and go back to the states. I'm really going to miss her. It's hard when people leave here. It's scary to see Lauren head home because I hope that I can make it. I hope that I can really do this like I want to.

I'm certainly have a hard time sometimes, struggling with the depression that seems to ebb and flow though my life and just feeling isolated. On the other hand, the hand that holds me here, I I'm learning so much about relationships, myself, and last but not least about global economics and the mechanics of poverty.

I'm heading back to Rinconada Llicuar today. We're having the first meeting of the new health committee tomorrow morning and the goal is to get everyone on board for the solid waste project. The mayor seems committed with a budget but the catch is- it's one thing to say it and another to do it.

Wish Rinconada Llicuar recycling and a sanitary landfill, and wish Lauren safe home.