Semana Santa = ice cream eating contest

Semana Santa is one of the 3 times a year that all PC volunteers get a couple days of vacation in which they don't have to use their accrued vacation time. My Semana Santa was a bit unusual in that I probably spent more time on buses than in one actual site. I started off Semana Santa by heading to Mancora, a famous beach in northern Peru, 12 hours from Cajamarca. Unfortunately my time in Mancora was limited to less than 24 hours because I found out on the day I initially wanted to leave, there were no buses due to the holiday. It was still nice to spend some time on the beach, and I will definitely have to make my way back up there at some point. Mancora is awesome though because they have brownies, waffles, and soft serve ice cream, my 3 main reasons for wanting to go to Mancora. I achieved all my goals, including eating 10 brownie sundaes. You know you are a peace corps volunteer when the highlight of your vacation is the food. I also got attacked by mosquitos and slept for about 5 hours because our room was crawling with bugs and it was so hot. Living up in the mountains where it's always cold at night, and the only bugs I have to deal with in my room are spiders, has definitely spoiled me. I was also able to catch up on my celebrity gossip while lounging on the beach downing ice cream sundaes. I learned that Heath Ledger died when I came across a magazine with his face on it memorializing him. It was a little weird to find out news like that more than 2 months later. I may be up to date on all the newest TV shows and movies, but this still proves that news travels slowly to Peru, particularly if it happens during my period of isolation in my site.

The beach in Mancora. Have I mentioned that I love the beach?

More of Mancora, I need to go back there...

So after my quick detour to Mancora, I found myself boarding a bus headed 15 hours south to Lima to meet up with Melissa Tansey, a friend from college and my first friend from home to come to Peru. I hadn't been back to Lima since swearing-in so it was nice to see a different side of Lima, one with sun. Everything was pretty much closed because of the holiday so I ended up eating a lot of McDonalds and soft serve ice cream cones. I then met up with Melissa at the airport and headed down to Asia, a beach one hour south of Lima. She was in Peru with a huge group of 30 of her business school classmates, just coming off of hiking the Inca Trail. I met up for the tail end of it and tagged along to their rented beach house in Asia. In Asia I ate more fast food and soft serve ice cream, this time having to settle for Bembos, the Peruvian version of McDonalds which is not as good. The beach was awesome and I succeeded in baking in the sun. At night we went out to some outdoor mall in the middle of nowhere that has all these clubs that start pumping at 2am. It was a little bit of a culture shock for me, having spent so much time in Cajamarca, where none of this exists. This mall could have easily been any outdoor mall in California, and nothing about it resembled the Peru that I have come to know. We didn't stay out that late because I have grown old and accustomed to going to bed when it gets dark out. The next day we headed back to Lima and Melissa turned into the Easter bunny giving me a suitcase full of food, and clothing (american apparel of course) and electronics that i had shipped to her. We wandered around and took some new pictures with my awesome new camera (Christmas gift courtesy of mom and dad) and then it was time to say goodbye as I boarded yet another 15 hour bus to head back to rainy Cajamarca.

Melissa and I in the beach house in Asia, a beach 1 hour south of Lima.

The Easter Bunny and all her goodies. One week later and all the food is gone.

Testing out my new camera in Miraflores, Lima.

Parque de Amor in Miraflores

More of lovers park in Miraflores

i'm only happy when it rains

The rains have started up again this week and as a result I've spent most of the day holed up in my room cleaning, watching tv, organizing my music, and mastering spider solitaire. All in all, it's been quite a productive day. In my defense, all the kids are in school, it's pouring out so no one is outside, and furthermore it's too cold to sit outside. Anyway, as I run out of ways to keep me entertained, I decided to jot down a few more things that have happened to me this year that I find slightly amusing.

• A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a rag to clean my shoes because I couldn't find the brush. My host mom told me to grab the rag near the faucet outside and use that instead. I should mention that rags here are usually clothes, cut up or whole. Well I grabbed the first piece of cloth that I saw hanging on the faucet and started scrubbing away. She quickly noticed, burst out laughing and told me to stop. Apparently I grabbed the wrong cloth and was using her underwear to clean my shoes.

• I've mentioned many times that I hardly shower in site due to the ice cold water, and plain filthiness of the shower. Well one day I was taking an ice cold shower and I heard footsteps approaching. The walls don't go all the way up so I wasn't too worried because I figured that everyone could hear that the shower was on. Unfortunately my host grandfather must be half deaf because he opened the door and walked in on me while I was showering. There is no shower curtain and my towel was out of reach, so I quickly tried to cover myself while he stood awkwardly at the door and processed what happened.

• Although we have a shower here, I seem to be the only one that uses it. Most people in my house prefer to shower outside from the spigot. However, my host mom will often bathe in the kitchen using water heated up from the stove. As a result, I've walked in on her bathing sans top one too many times. It doesn't seem to faze her, but then again this a culture where it is ok for women to breast feed baring all.

• Sometimes, it's better not to see what you are actually eating. The other day I was making pizza outside and found worms in the flour, and mold on the butter I was using. I still used the flour and butter of course, I just took out the worm and picked off the mold. I'm a little scared to find out what I normally eat and don't notice because I normally eat in the dark.

• Even though Cochán received electricity just 6 years ago, and 10 years ago it took an entire day of traveling to reach Cajamarca, pop culture still made it's way over here. While many kids have names that are new and difficult to pronounce, this one kid in my computer class had a name that made me chuckle. His name is Rollin Stone, as in the Rolling Stones. I knew his name before but since most people don't know where his name comes from they pronounce it, Royinstoni, or Rolly for short. It wasn't until I saw it written down did I realize where it came from. I had another kid in my class named Winner, or Winnie for short. However, I have no idea if his parents or him know the meaning of that word in English.

nose picking and other random observations

So while my last entry was dedicated to the boring details of the actual work i've been dong, this one will be focused on random thoughts and observations with no theme in particular. Things that used to be shocking have quickly become normal so I figured I'd better jot them down before I forget!

Dressing 4 year olds: School has started including the preschool in which my host sister Jhoana attends. I was informed that because my host sister Leyly is now at the university in Trujillo I need to dress Jhoana in the mornings. My family is extremely busy and in the morning they are collecting bread, working the store, and milking the cows. I've only been dressing Jhoana for a few days now but it is a pain in the ass! I didn't realize how much time it takes to get her all dolled up. This pretty much takes an hour every day, from 7-8am. She has all of these fancy little outfits for school that make her look like a doll. I don't even know how to put them together sometimes. I don't really understand the point because as soon as she gets to school she must roll around in the mud or something because she always comes home caked in mud. Anyway, dressing her usually involves tights, boots, dresses, etc plus doing her hair. It is like playing with a doll that is constantly moving.

Arriba/Abajo: If you ask anyone passing by where they are going, they will almost definitely either say arriba (up) or abajo (down). When I first got to site it used to bother me because no one would actually ever say where they were going. However, I've grown to use and love this habit and it makes things so much easier when responding. Living in a town that consists of one street on a hill, up and down are pretty much the only directions you can go. in addition to arriba and abajo, acacito or alla are also frequently used when referring to where people live. No one ever mentions what caserio they live in, they just say "over there."

Saludaring EVERYONE: While there are definitely some aspects of my site that frustrate me, I truly love my site and can't imagine living anywhere else. One of the things that I love about living in such a small and isolated site is that everyone knows everyone. When I walk up and down my street I have to greet everyone I pass, and if I stop to talk to them I have to greet them with a handshake or kiss on the cheek and do the same when I leave, regardless of how long we have talked. When I went to San Miguel the other day it was so weird to have people walk by me and not say anything. Even though I don't know half the people I pass by in Cochán, I still have to greet them because chances are they know who I am.

Hygiene: You would think that I would be ashamed of how downhill my hygiene habits have gone, but instead I am posting them for the whole world to read. I could probably write a whole blog on my disgusting habits, but I'll just skim over a few for now. So as you may know, I've gotten into the habit of showering rather infrequently. I can count the number of showers taken in my site on less than 2 hands. One week has become the norm and my current record is 11 days. However, my host family recently fixed the electric shower and I decided to try it out for the first time this week. All I can say is that it was amazing. While the water was only lukewarm, it felt boiling in comparison to the ice water that I usually shower in. It was so great that I might start showering once a week, any more than that would be pushing it though because I have grown lazy and accustomed to not showering. I also have started wearing clothes for several days in a row, including sleeping in them. This is also a common practice here due to what a pain it is to wash your clothes by hand. I only wash my clothes about once a month, so you can imagine how filthy they might get. But really what's the point in wearing clean clothes when you haven't showered? While I've adapted to the showering habits of the people in my site, I still haven't fully adapted to the nose picking habits. It is completely acceptable to pick your nose in public here and people will pick their nose for several minutes while talking to you.

Joven, Negro, Gordo, Chino, Viejo, Gringo etc. Sorry for all the spanish words, it's just too much effort to translate. Plus you have to use so many more words in English to express the same thing! Anyway, all of the above are common nicknames given to people. The nicknames are just so general and it still baffles me how people know who you are talking about. I could be walking down the street and someone will ask me where Gordo went. First of all, can you imagine calling someone fatty in English? Second of all, which fatty? I could probably name at least 5 people who might go by this nickname. These nicknames aren't just restricted to people you know. For example in a restaurant, you might get the waiter's attention by yelling out "Joven" (young one) or "flaco" etc, depending upon their physical appearance.

Alcohol: This alone is worth a whole blog entry. I'll leave it to another time....

Me and Jhoana wearing the crocs my parents sent her. Unfortunately the dog chewed them but she still wears them. She is surprisingly heavy.

These are the kids I hang out with on a regular basis. Here they are walking back from the cemetery goofing around.

Here is another view of Cochán. This is when I walked up a hill with the girls to try to find cell service. Unfortunately it didn't work but it did kill a few hours.

Guisela and Kelly. They told me to chew on these plants because they taste good. I finally tried it, it was just acidic.

School begins (sort of)

School began last week and I talked to the director regarding the computer classes over vacation. He told me that he heard that the kids learned a lot, and was so shocked at what a success it was. Initially he was very against the classes and told me that no one would come during vacations. Even with an extremely rainy vacations, the turnout was pretty surprising. I was able to hand out the certificates to the kids who had a high attendance during an assembly in the colegio. I felt bad because there were a few kids who just missed the attendance cut off and didn't receive a certificate. However they should have told me why they were missing classes and it wouldn't be fair to the kids that had perfect or near perfect attendance. The kids really appreciated the certificates. Certificates are a big deal in Peru. After the assembly the director invited me into his office with a few teachers and the president of the parent association to drink some cola. At first I almost said no but it was a good thing I didn't because as it turns out they bought the gaseosa to toast me! He already asked me if I could teach the classes again next year. I think I am on his good side and hopefully I will someday be able to get permission to teach a course in the evening to the adults in the area. Poco a poco though. I finally did fix the sound on the computers in the school, and I also helped him with his english homework.

The kids lined up in formation at the end of the day. They normally wear uniforms but because of all the rain they don't have to wear them until April.

Presenting the computer certificates.

As for future work. I haven't been doing much this past week because classes are just now starting. The first week the kids go to school but they don't really have classes. Every time I walked inside the colegio there were several classes of kids just sitting outside passing time. I am assisting one of the teachers in teaching computer classes to the 5th grade of the colegio. This is the oldest grade and next year some of these kids will be studying at the university or working in the city. I think it is extremely important that they learn the basic computer programs such as word, excel, and powerpoint in order to prepare them for the university. However it is hard to really accomplish much because the kids only have computer class once a week for 1.5 hours. There are 5 computers for 27 kids but they are supposedly going to receive 5-8 more computers this year so if that happens, that will help a lot. I went to class the first day and there were 4 kids in my computer classes over vacation in the 5th grade. These kids were so much better at using the computer and were showing off their skills to everyone else. It was very rewarding to watch :)

Now it may seem like all my work is just teaching computers but I definitely have a few other ideas. The garden project is underway and we will be holding a meeting this month to discuss the actual work this will entail. Eventually I plan on giving nutritional charlas to the mothers alongside the healthpost and cooking some nutritious meals with the newly grown vegetables. I am also planning on working in some of the caserios. I would like to start working with the teachers to plan more dynamic ways to teach the kids about dental hygiene, hygiene in general, nutrition, and other healthy habits.

In addition, some of the volunteers in Cajamarca have been planning a VALOR camp to take place in April. This is a leadership camp is for teenage boys, ages 15-18, and it will take place for 3 days. Each volunteer participating is going to bring 2 boys from their respective sites to participate in the camp. There will be various activities and speakers on different topics such as machismo, leadership, values, sexuality etc. In order to pick the two boys I had to go to the director of the school and ask for permission because they will be missing one day of school. I even wrote up an official oficio with my counterpart to present this to him. Of course he had to be difficult and told me that before I could even choose the boys, I needed to get an official document from the director of the UGEL (something to do with education) in San Miguel. Luckily it hadn't rained in over a week and one of the teachers was driving to San Miguel the next day. Unfortunately this teacher is known for overcharging so I had to pay almost what I pay to go to Cajamarca. I was only in San Miguel for a few hours because he insisted on returning at 1pm, even though everyone wanted to stay longer, especially after paying such a high price to get there. Luckily, through Bron's connections I was able to get the document I needed as well as eat something that wasn't chocolate or peanut butter. It was the first time I had been to San Miguel in over 5 months, but now that the rains have died down (for now) I might be able to go there once in a while instead of Cajamarca.

So that afternoon I presented the document to the director and made plans to return the next morning to present the VALOR camp to the 4th and 5th grade boys. I went with my counterpart to the two classes and handed out this questionnaire regarding ideas of leadership. After all the boys filled it out we returned in the afternoon to judge the questionnaires along with a representative from the municipalidad and the director. We cut the names off all of them so we wouldn't know who was who, and read through all 29 responses in order to decide what ones were the best. By the end of the day we had the top 5 responses and announced the winners in the classrooms. We met with the parents the next day to explain the camp and get their permission. Only the top 2 boys can go to the camp but we picked 5 in case someone can't attend. Unfortunately I didn't know that boys that won, but hopefully I will get to know them and everything will go smoothly.

INCOMUNICADO!

As I've mentioned many times, I don't have internet at my site and I have to go 3 hours to Cajamarca to access internet. While not having internet at my site has been a huge pain, I have been lucky enough to have fairly reliant cell phone service. This means that I can easily call people, including my parents in the states and they can check my email for me if there is something important that I need to know about. However, last Thursday night the cell service at my site went out. this has happened before but it usually only lasts a day because they are fixing something. In fact, I didn't even notice that we didn't have cell service until Friday morning when someone came to find me to tell me that I had a call from Lima on the one community phone. I had never used the community phone before so I was a little nervous as to why someone would be calling. It ended up just being our PC doctor calling to check up on me to find out how the roads were due to all the rain I've been getting. Anyway, this lack of cell service was a little inconvenient because it was unexpected. Now that computer classes had ended I finally had time to call people and was expecting to make a bunch of phone calls. I think if I was used to not having cell service it would have been slightly better because I would have been prepared for it. Cell phone service wasn't restored the next day so then I started asking around trying to figure out what happened. People don't really know what happened but the general consensus was that some kind of motor broke and they say it will be 2 weeks to a month before they fix it. As soon as I heard that I hightailed it out to Cajamarca the next day to get a lot of the stuff done that I wasn't able to get done last time I was in the city. I'm heading back to site today and last I checked, cell service still isn't restored. Hopefully the month was an exaggeration and I won't have to live without any communication to the outside world for too much longer.

Earlier I mentioned that the PC doctor called me to check on the road conditions to my site. This is due to the fact that we have had a particularly heavy rainy season this year. It rains and downpours all afternoon and through the night pretty much every day. I went 2 weeks without seeing the sun and I've started to take a liking to all the fog that gets trapped in my site. The one good thing is that the road from my site to Cajamarca is relatively decent. While it is a dirt road, it was recently reinforced with rocks so you still have some traction in most places. I already live at 3000 meters and the highest peaks around me are only 4000 meters. As a result there is a low risk of mudslides because the road is relatively flat and goes up a mountain, not a long the side of a mountain. So getting to and from Cajamarca is relatively normal. It's still difficult due to the uncertainty and unreliability of the car schedule, but as for the rain, this hasn't been an issue. Other volunteers though have had a ton of trouble due to the rains. Last week there were 2 mudslides in one week that blocked access to the coast from Cajamarca. This is a heavily traveled road and as a result restuarants in Cajamarca were out of food, and packages couldn't get through due to the lack of access to the coast. If the mudslides weren't enough, right after they cleaned those up there was a transportation strike with all buses that were going to and from the coast. Some of my friends were at a conference in Chiclayo on the coast and ended up stranded there for almost a week. My friend Bron who lives nearby in San Miguel has to cross a river in order to get to Cajamarca. During the dry season it is just a tiny stream that crosses the road, but now that it is rainy seaon the river is several feet deep and regular cars and buses can't pass it. Last time she came into Cajamarca it took her over 8 hours to get here, when the trip normally takes 4-5. She had to wait on one side of the river for a truck to come by so she could hope on top of it and cross the river. I haven't had any exciting experiences like this so I have resorted to living vicariously through the experience of others and sharing them with all of you.

Here is a recent picture of the view from my town. This was the first day I saw the blue sky in over 2 weeks. If you look in the distance you can see that the clouds are starting to roll in. They rolled on in by midday, got trapped and it rained all night.

I often drag my host sister along if I don't want to walk by myself. Then her mom usually gets mad because she is still "cochina" (dirty like a pig) and is wandering the street of Cochán in an unpresentable state. Nevermind the fact that she is usually playing outside of our house looking like this, where more than half the town goes every day. I guess a couple hundred yards makes a big difference.

The downside of dragging along a 4 year old companion is that if you want a photo of yourself, they usually turn out like this.

The end of computer classes

Well after teaching for 32 different days for over 300 hours, computer classes finally ended on Thursday, or so I thought. I went to the colegio on Friday to fix some of the computers because there is no one to maintain them, and 3 kids showed up. I let them in for a bit to play on the computers but then I made them leave because it wouldn't be fair to everyone else. The 2 weeks of computer classes were punctuated by a slight dip in attendance. Many kids had to study because they had to take an exam the last week before school started because they failed a course during the school year. I was shocked at how many kids failed class and had to take these exams. It is pretty common here, at least in Cochán, and if you fail more than 2 classes and don't pass the exam you have to repeat a grade. Again something that is fairly common. So instead of studying all year, many kids fail a class and then have to cram for an exam before the next school year in order to pass. I don't really understand the school system here so I won't go off on a rant, at least for right now.

One thing that I enjoyed doing with the kids in computer classes was playing pictionary with paint. The kids really enjoyed it and it helped improve their computer skills and familiarity with using a mouse. It was really interesting to see what words they knew and what kind of exotic animals they had heard of. Playing with Encarta had really helped expand their knowledge. In addition, it helped improve my vocabulary and I had to start looking up more words to write down. Unfortunately one parent in the community saw me playing pictionary on the computer with the kids and proceeded to tell my host family that the kids aren't learning anything and that all they do is play. The concept of educational games doesn't really exist in Peru so many people assume that you can't have fun and learn something at the same time. While I can try to explain to people that kids learn more when they are enjoying themselves, it would be impossible to change everyone's view. There will always be the ignorant ones that like to gossip.

So now that my computer classes are done, what will I do with all my free time? That is an excellent question. I have a few ideas, some which involve watching tv while others are a little more productive such as starting a community garden or walking for several hours a day to work in the caserios. Ultimately I really don't know yet so you will have to keep reading to find out. I know, such suspense!

Below are just a select few of the 1000 photos that the kids took of themselves using Photo Booth on my mac. At first they were too shy to use the program but pretty soon their vainness got the best of them and I ended up with 1000 new pictures on my computer. So not only do the kids in my site know how to use a computer now, they also know how to use a Mac and a touchpad!