What to do next...

It's starting to hit home that I'm finishing Peace Corps in 6 months and I need to decide what to do next. There's sort of a panorama of future options, but they generally all involve getting a job, having a family and being a responsible adult at some point in the foreseeable future. (So stop worrying mom.) The questions that remain are where to live and what job to do there - so not small questions. Lately, I waffle between Austin, Texas, the DC area, and the Peruvian Amazon, my new favorite place on earth. For jobs, one of the ideas that I'm toying with is opening an alternative therapy and healing center, of course this is after I go to school to get another master's in some kind of counseling profession. I feel like the fates might be aligning in that direction. (This plan of changes weekly of course, but for now this is interesting.) Then, today on CNN's list of the best places to open a business Georgetown, Texas, a small town just north of Austin where I went to college, is number 2 and Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of DC is number 5. I have sort of always known in the back of my head that I want to own my own business, or at least somehow be my own boss. It gave my dad such great opportunities to spend time with us and be able to support us well, which is part of what I aspire to.

Okay, so that is post is not just me waxing poetic about my future and boring to death everyone who doesn't live inside my head. Wanna see some composting toilets? These were from the program that CARE was executing down south in the earthquake zone. I was down there helping them with some hygiene education and training folks on how to care for their latrines. It was interesting and I really think that CARE is a great organization. Despite the usual management and logistical problems that come from trying to pull of projects in distressed areas for a reasonable cost they can really can get some stuff done.

These are the before toilets - located over the irrigation canal:


This is the inside of the composting latrine. These cement toilet and urinal things are designed to sepearate the... liquid from the solid. Wet poop doesn't compost.


Proud proprietor of a composting toilet:


They may not have bathrooms but the sand boarding is AWESOME in Huancachina:


My entire explanation of why I want to live in the Peruvian jungle: (This is no where near Ica or the earthquake zone, but it's where I went following working with CARE)

Tarapoto to Yurimaguas to Lagunas to Pacaya Samiria to Iquitos

Iquiteña, indigenous jungle cerveza, delicious... or at least the best beer in Peru


Howler Monkeys at Pilpintuwasi (The Butterfly House) in Iquitos


The view from the 3rd deck of Eduardo IV, our boat from Yurimaguas to Lagunas down Rio Huayalla


The Watermelon Slayer at Laguna Azul, near Tarapoto


Aaron and I mototaxi it around Iquitos

Back from the Jungle

I have learned that when I travel I must bring the cord to my camera to upload the blow by blow photos. The Pacaya Samiria Reserve was AMAZING. It's a protected area in the jungle, home to crocodiles, monkeys, jaguars, sloths, incredibly cool frogs, medicinal plants, piranhas, tarantulas, tapirs, and other animals that I had never heard of before. We canoed around the park for 3 days and camped out in a house on stilts in the river. I highly recommend the whole experience, it might be my favorite place in Peru. Then on the plane trip back to Lima we flew over Huascaran, the highest peak in Peru and the Paramount Pictures mountain. It was breathtaking. I happened to glance out the window and literally gasped. Photos soon. Back to work for now. Cariño.

Jungle Boogie

Yurimaguas to the head of the Amazon in Iquitos in 3 days. Pink dolphins, monkeys and sloths, oh my.

Also, I learned about Takiwasi, a very cool center in Tarapoto that couples traditional Peruvian medicine, specifically ayahuasca with modern western medicine and psychology to treat addictions and other illnesses or conditions. Ayahuasca is a mixture of plants found in the Peruvian jungle used by indigenous people to induce a trance state that is part of a healing process. (There are also a lot of curious foreigners interested in trying ayahuasca that visit Peru.)

Paracas

I've been working in southern Peru where the earthquake was and there's a nearby National Reserve called Paracas. Paracas is what I imagine the surface of Mars to look like, but on the coast of the Pacific Ocean and with a huge image of a candelabra formed into the side of a hill overlooking the sea. Archaeologists think that it’s the work of the Paracas People who lived in southern Peru before the Inca, and that it’s a compass pointing north and south for ritual purposes. But, no one really knows. The Islas Ballestas are home to sea lions and PENGUINS! Hot weather penguins! It's an endangered species called the Humboldt Penguin, very cute, an excellent endangered species poster child if you ask me. We saw a baby sea lion learning to swim. It was paddling along behind its mom and would crawl up on her back to rest every few minutes. When she would dive under he would get a little frantic, look around, and dive behind her.

Free Orange Trashcans

CARE gave out 200 kits yesterday in 3 towns where they're building latrines. Kits include a 45 gallon orange trash can, of the kind that are used all over costal Peru to save water. The kits also had plastic plates and cups, soap, a smaller bucket with a faucet for saving boiled drinking water, a small pitcher, and a big CARE sticker to put on the giant orange trashcans.

It's 6 months after the earthquake but many, many communities still do not have a safe water source. The Municipal Government sends around a truck every so often, but it doesn't some at a regular interval so people are always very worried about having enough water. They were excited to be able to save another 45 gallons. The family of 6 that I lived with in Piura goes though more than 100 gallons in 2 days between washing, bathing, drinking, cooking and cleaning, and they're very conservative about the way that they use water. Being here is really an eye opening opportunity as to how much water human beings need to live.

In the first community we gave out 100 kits and it was madness and chaos. CARE made 240 latrines in that community in 240 different households. But, they only had 100 kits and gave them out on a first come first serve basis, on a weekday morning. There were many, many people waiting in the hot sun fighting and yelling that they should get the kit over their neighbor, that family X got 2 kits, etc... It was totally heartbreaking and a rather disappointing commentary on CARE's organizational skills. Ideally someone would have gone out there the day prior to sign up 100 families based on need. It's very hard to decide when everyone is in so much need, but as CARE executed the distribution the people who could advocate for themselves best got the most support, while the people who were not as able to advocate for themselves lost out and those folks are usually the worst off. When everyone has such dire needs it’s really hard to prioritize limited resources but what’s frustrating is that the resources shouldn’t really be so limited in a huge international aid organization like CARE. Distribution in the second and third communities went better because there were enough kits for all 70 households and in the 3rd community the CARE worker there had all 30 families signed up organized. It was much simpler and CARE met the expectations of all of the program participants. This is disappointingly unusual in aid work, so it was really great to see.

Another interesting part of the equation was that the kits apparently came from individual donors in the United States. The Project Manager started the distribution by giving a little talk explaining who CARE is and where the donations came from and people overwhelmingly grateful. At the end of the day we left the third community well after dark and much more humble for people's expressions of gratitude.

Festejo Music and Resilient Southerners

Here in costal southern Peru people lost houses, schools, public potable water, waste water systems, soccer stadiums, food, medicine, work, and just about everything after the earthquake. It was terrifying for a lot of children because it happened around 6pm and many parents were on their way home from afternoon work in the fields, so lots of kids were alone when it struck. Folks here are picking things up and starting over, poco a poco. They're even starting to have fiestas again.

This area, Cañete and especially Chincha are famous for Afro-Peruvian music, created by African slaves brought to Peru about 200 years ago. Chincha held an annual festival of Musica Negroide over the weekend and we were able to go and hear a mixture of Festejo, Negroide and Zapateo. The party didn't even get started until well after midnight when the band showed up. Revelers danced Zapateo around a yunsa, a tree, its branches filled with gifts that is cut down as part of the dance. When it falls everyone runs to the tree to collect the loot. We made friends with some fellow party-goers and apparent amateur stand-up comedians who have a vineyard and make their own Pisco, a kind of brandy typical of Peru that was named for the city just south of here. Hopefully, I'll report back about the flavor of their Pisco and grape picking soon!

Letrinas Ecologicas

Composting toilets are above the ground pit latrines that convert our poop into compost to be used on plants with large root systems i.e big trees, but not small edible plants i.e. your herb garden. Peace Corps as I understand it doesn't usually encourage composting toilets becasue when done incorrectly they can be a dangerous vector for disease. On the other hand, when done well they're much better than the dry pit latrines that we usually make becasue they do not result in a huge buried well of human excrement five years down the road when the latrine fills up and as long as they stay dry they're less gross than pit latrines along the way to compost.

Here in Cañete, Peru I'm spending a couple of weeks supporting CARE in some of their work reconstructing after the earthquake. I really like CARE as an organization and think that they do great work up in Piura where I live so I was excited to come down here. They're doing a whole latrines project, mostly with pit latrines and in some areas with waste water systems, regular bathrooms in towns that were lost all their buildings and infratructure in the earthquake on August 15, 2007. I'm working in some very poor communities right on the beach without waste water systems and with very high water tables, but where it almost never rains. If you dug a pit latrine it would fill with water even though we're basically in a desert. So, CARE is building above the ground composting toilets in those beach communties.

The model that CARE is using is really interesting. It has a about a four foot tall poured cement basin separated into two sections by a cement wall barrier. This empty cement cube is capped with a cemet top with one hole in each side, looking down into the poop chambers and on top is a little closet with a door where you can do your business. The kicker with composting toilets is that you want to poop to be very, very dry so you cannot pee in them, which is lame, inconvinenet and hard to get people to really do. So, this model comes with a prefab toilet that catches the urine and sends it out a pipe into a dranige field next to the latrine and lets the poop fall into the cement poop chamber. You use one side for about 6 months or until it fills up. Then, you let it sit and compost for 6 months while you move the toilet over to the other side and commence pooping. It's a very cool model.

Cañete with CARE

I'm spending a couple of weeks down in Cañete, a province of the department of Lima that was hit by the earthquake of August 15, 2007. A couple of other volunteers and I are working with CARE Peru to make some latrines and prepare people to take care of the latrines. We're also doing some basic hygiene education in health fairs in these little tiny beach towns. Today we're going to a community called San Pedro that is home to 23 families. We're going to play games like Jabon, Jabon, Microbio (Soap, soap, germ) a variaton of Duck, Duck, Goose and Flip cup with water to teach dehydration prevention. It should be fun.

CARE is building what they call Ecological Latrines in these little towns becasue they're on the beach and have a very high water table. These are composting toilets. I'm excited to see how they work and what people think of them. So far folks seems pretty into it. The families have to dig out their own drainage fields and clean up the latrine site as ther contribution to the project in order to get the latrine. They also have to help assemble and carry the pieces over to their houses. This is no small feat as it requires hauling plywood boxes that are about 8x8x6 from the assembly site to their houses on donkey carts without scratching, smashing, or otherwise damaging them.

More on how composting toilets work soon.

Improved Gossip

I went to talk to a friend about these rapes since I am still freaked out. She a lawyer and works in the municipality to offer free legal services to women and children, working mostly on domestic violence and child support. She told me that there have been two rapes locally in the last month, but only one by a mototaxi driver. That case did happen more or less as I was told that it happened. The legal stuff went somewhat better than I previously thought, she pressed charges and he was convicted and sent to jail. He was incarcerated for just a few weeks and is now back home driving his moto. The second rape was of a woman in her home by her drunken former partner. She didn't press charges.

In other lighter news, this week I’m off to Cañete, a town in the southern coast that was devastated by the earthquake. We’re working with CARE Peru on a project to construct latrines and promote hand washing.

The other novelty of late is rain. It is rainy season. It theoretically rains from late December until early April here, but last year in “rainy season” it rained 3 times for about 10 minutes each time. This year it has rained maybe 8 or 10 times and a couple of nights it was all night long. This is causing calamity. Rio Piura, usually a sad trickle looks like the Mississippi. The bridge over Rio Piura, the bridge that I cross to get into the city is shaking laterally and is about ready to crumble and there is a crowd of people gathered at each bank to watch the show. Hopefully that will stop soon while the bridge is still standing and I can still get to the city.

And finally, it was Rinconada's 43rd Anniversary on Tuesday. The fun part of the 43rd Anniversary Celebration was after the very long ceremony in which the recently, apparently incorrectly elected Señorita Rinconada Llicuar fainted due to heat stroke everyone in town hung out in the plaza, danced cumbia and drank chicha. In an unfortunate last minute turn of events I helped to judge the beauty pageant in which Srta. Rinconada was elected. The 3rd judge on the panel didn’t show up and when Martin asked I just couldn’t say no. I of course didn’t know which girl was “supposed” to win and really, how do you judge a beauty pageant anyway? Now there’s this group of snot-nosed twenty-somethings who are not speaking to me because the judges (i.e. I) picked the wrong girl. Oh how I hate beauty pageants. They’re really not good for us ladies. I mean I can’t lie. I wish that I didn’t like watching them, but I do. It’s the clothes or something? In this pageant 45 of the 50 possible points came from 3 categories: dress, spontaneity and grace, and general beauty. The other five possible points came from verbal answers to two questions about local culture and politics… Ug.

Trying to Travel Safe

In the last month there have been two rapes on the road into my town from the city. This is alarming for obvious reasons and because everyone knows who the rapists are and they are not in jail. In Peru the perpetrator cannot be held "without evidence" and it always takes longer to get physical evidence of a rape than it takes to charge the accused, so they walk around among us theoretically awaiting trial. Also, in order to get evidence that you have been raped in Peru you have to go to a particular clinic where a doctor examines you and fills out the right forms saying that you were raped. As I'm sure you can imagine, lots of women do not put themselves though this or cannot make it to the right clinic because it can be a challenge traveling to the city and then their rapists go free. In these two cases, the rapists are mototaxi drivers who work in between Rinconada, my town and La Union, the nearest market town that you have to pass though to get to the big city of Piura. These are guys who are from small towns in the area who everyone knows and who drive everyone's mothers, wives, daughters, and friends home at night so everyone is scared.

I do travel in the evenings between Piura and Rinconada, and many women from Rinconada do the same to get to and from work or university. I get home as late as 9 or 10 PM sometimes. I was talking to a friend who is a mototaxi driver and says that I should try to get back by 7 or 8 at the latest and that I should only ride with drivers who I know well. This makes good sense, but complicates getting home quite a bit as there are many, many drivers and everyone knows everyone else, but to be honest I'm still trying to remember names and who is related to whom. He and others also suggest that I travel with someone else but, this is hard too. Fortunately, my dear friend who just made it back to Peru from medical treatment in the US brought back pepper spray and gave me one. It seems smart to have even if rather alarming all the same.

In Peace Corps Training the cheeses down in Lima were against any kind of self-defense training and said that Peace Corps Washington holds the same position. Their argument was that they are afraid that we would get in to more danger by fighting back or being excessively aggressive after a training... so misguided at best. Anyway, I will be traveling earlier and probably spending more nights in Piura City so that when I have to do something in the evening I don’t have to travel back in the dark while I thank my lucky stars for the amazing self-defense and anti-violence training that I had in Brooklyn at The Center for Anti-Violence Education.

Prayers

Keld, my youngest brother just wrote to tell me that Tim Gaines, their friend from childhood overdosed last night and passed away. He was 27.

It is difficult to remain friends with someone with a serious drug problem. They just keep letting you down and often they end up alone in their world. I know that my brother Denzil tries to hide his sensitive and loyal heart behind the tattoos and ZZ Top beard, but I think he feels the loss in a deep way. I wish I could be there. It can feel so hopeless when someone you love is hurting themselves and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Please keep Tim, his family, and my brothers in your thoughts and prayers.

Telling a Donkey About Ears

Recently, I learned that the Englih language axiom, "the pot calling the kettle black" has a rough Spanish equivalent. It's, hablando a un burro sobre las orejas or, "telling a donkey about ears."

Con cariño.

Sex in the City on the Big Screen

My time in Peace Corps continues to surprise me. I spent last night, in the rural northern Peruvian desert, watching the cancelled HBO series Sex and the City, projected onto the blank white wall of my cement bunker house with a few volunteers who live fairly nearby. I have a minor, admittedly unhealthy obsession with the show and as this is not an uncommon problem among my peers, I'm not as ashamed of it as I probably should be. The difference here is that most of those other women just Netflix the thing. Peace Corps volunteers develop complicated networks of DVD lending to accomplish this feat and go to extremes with big screen viewing at a Mexican food and Valentine’s Day party.

Fortunately, the Municipality had a free heath care campaign yesterday as part of the town's anniversary celebration and I showed some educational videos about domestic violence with Peace Corps' projector. Since it was sitting in my living room waiting at ready for a similar demonstration on Monday afternoon I thought it couldn't hurt to take advantage of the situation. I think tonight I may choose a more family friendly video and invite the neighbours over; perhaps Mulan dubbed in Spanish. Fun times at Ella's Neighbourhood Theatre.

Rinconada Does Carnival in Pyrotechnics

These fishermen get together every year and make a plywood boat that they pull around the soccer field as it shoots fireworks and throws gifts into the crowd.





These folks are SERIOUS about fireworks.

Carnival in Cajamarca Pics!

Happy Valentine's Day! ¡Feliz Dia de la Amistad!


These guys were just hanging out in the plaza having a great time.


This is my new buddy Hilmer.


Before.


After.

Feliz Dia de la Amistad!

I don't know if it's blogger or if it's the fact that my internet connection works on a geological time frame, but photos from Carnival are still coming "soon" and I'm using "soon" in the Peruvian sense of the word. They are fabulous I assure you. Think good-looking men dressed in diapers, water balloons, and me covered from head to toe in pastel paint joyfully skipping though the streets of Cajamarca grinning ear to ear.

We had the last dance for Carnival in Rinconada Llicuar on Monday night. Armonia 10 was absolutely fabulous. In the world of Northern Peruvian Cumbia they are rivals to Agua Marina who played about a week ago now. Armonia 10 won the fun factor as they played some American rock songs and I was happy to oblige my fellow Rinconadans as they LOVE to learn new dances, especially when they involve the Gringa making a fool of herself by trying to teach the neighbor's grandpa how to dance hip-hop. Gramps is great and at 80 years old is digging up sweet potatoes in his field, but I'm still tired.

I'm spending my evenings watching Sex in the City DVDs on my laptop. Thanks to my friend and fellow Austinite Kate who OWNS the box set in all its pink plush glory. We're not talkin' pirated Lima crap, oh no, we're talkin' the McCoy. It's a nostalgic experience and makes me love and hate New York even more. A shout out to Las Ladies, only one of whom still calls The Big Apple home, but that PhD thesis researched at I-kid-you-not Paddles in Manhattan is going to be a blast to read in a year or two. D, don't move, please. We need someone in Manhattan so that we can celebrate New Year's properly. Sex in the City is making me miss New York so very much. I'm rolling all the possibilities of what I can do after Peace Corps around in my head and I am faced with my usual problem: the world is big and there are so many cool places to live and jobs to do. New York, DC, Austin, the Peruvian jungle? The novel recent addition, now that I'm about to turn 30 is that I want to settle down, marry and have some kids (or maybe a kid) at some point, not soon, but sometime. I know. It's so provincial, but I would be lying if I said I didn't want it. What would it be like to be an old lady in a rocking chair on a front porch without that? Who knows. Maybe I'll find out, but I hope not.

We are still doing English Classes in Summer Day Camp. I'm basically going though this CD of kids songs that I picked up at a teacher's supply store over Christmas in the States. My kids can now do a rousing version of "Are You Sleeping Brother John?" You would be impressed at their singing diction and we're working on translating the singing to speaking.

Other than that life has been pretty much about partying lately. Carnival is my new favorite holiday. I think Velaciones is now a close second. Oh but the other exciting good news is that the mayor's girlfriend moved into his house, so there's no more talk of me marrying the mayor. This has made meeting with me mayor easier and more fun.

Happy Valentine's Day! Much love to all. Forgive my spelling, as spell check seems to be working within the geological time frame.

Beauty by Tony Hoagland

Here's a poem that a friend sent me today. It's breathtaking.

Beauty

When the medication she was taking
caused tiny vessels in her face to break,
leaving faint but permanent blue stitches in her cheeks,
my sister said she knew she would
never be beautiful again.
After all those years
of watching her reflection in the mirror,
sucking in her stomach and standing straight,
she said it was a relief,
being done with beauty,

but I could see her pause inside that moment
as the knowledge spread across her face
with a fine distress, sucking
the peach out of her lips,
making her cute nose seem, for the first time,
a little knobby.

I'm probably the only one in the whole world
who actually remembers the year in high school
she perfected the art
of being a dumb blond,

spending recess on the breezeway by the physics lab,
tossing her hair and laughing that canary trill
that was her specialty,

while some football player named Johnny
with a pained expression in his eyes
wrapped his thick finger over and over again
in the bedspring of one of those pale curls.

Or how she spent the next decade of her life
auditioning a series of tall men
looking for just one with the kind of
attention span she could count on.

Then one day her time of prettiness was done,
and all those other beautiful women
in the magazines and on the streets
just kept on being beautiful
everywhere you looked,

walking in that kind of elegant, disinterested trance
in which you sense they always have one hand
touching the secret place
that keeps their beauty safe,
inhaling and exhaling the perfume of it.

It was spring. Season when the young
buttercups and daisies climb up on the
mulched bodies of their forebears
to wave their flags in the parade.

My sister just stood still for thirty seconds,
amazed about the way that things can go,
then shrugged and tossed her shaggy head
as if she was throwing something out,

something she had carried a long ways
but had no use for anymore,
now that it had no use for her.
That, too, was beautiful.

¡Viva Carnival!

I'm back from the Cajamarca Carnival festivities. On the way home I stopped off at the Inca Baths in Cajamarca to get the paint out of my ears in the mineral hot springs. Everyone ran around like crazy all weekend throwing water balloons and paint at one another. We hit the market and got our own supplies of water balloons and paint. I learned that for Cajamarquinos there's apparently nothing funnier than gringos dressed in polleras (traditional skirts) throwing paint. I was covered head to toe in some lovely pastels, but also something that smelled like sewer water, not ideal.

I got back to Piura on Monday morning, did some Peace Corps meetings, and then headed back to Rinconada where I have been partying ever since. There has been a Yunsa (where they cut down a tree with gifts like plastic buckets adorning the branches) and a town dance every day. Each Yunsa is crazier than the last. Last night's featured a playwood boat on wheels, about the size of a station wagon, made into a frame for the fireworks display and festooned with the same kinds of gifts as the Yunsa. First, the band played marinera and there was much dancing and chicha drinking. Then, they chopped down the tree and everyone went running to win loot. And finally, the big finish was a parade with the boat, crazy costumes and marinera down to the soccer field where they set off the fireworks on the boat and the band played faster and faster and faster until the dancing was really just everyone jumping up and down and yelling. It was a blast.

The town dances are all cumbia all the time, of course. Cumbia groups are called orchestras and they're bands of around 15 men in matching outfits. There are horn, drum and guitar players who perform synchronized dancing to their synthesizer beats while they sing and play. Last night The Caribeños played, the night before it was Agua Marina, and the night before that it was The Caribeños again. The next dance is Saturday. Ash Wednesday doesn't slow Carnival party much.

Photos to come when I'm at a computer that will load them in this lifetime.

Paint Balloon Fight and Pisco Sour Day

This weekend, I'm off to Carnival aka a weekend long water balloon and paint balloon fight up in the mountains of Cajamarca. Photos to come.

Also, the Peace Corps doctor just sent around an email advising us all that Feb. 2 is Pisco Sour Day. They're delicious. Have one if you can. The doctor recommends it.