Quick Catch Up….

So I have been behind on blogs because there has been a lot going on. Things are going pretty great here, but I think I’m starting to emerge out of the ‘honeymoon’ phase, as PC calls it. This is basically the time where the changes are fresh a new and therefore exciting for the sake of being different. I think the next phase is where things start to get a little complicated, so I hope I’m ready.

Now Christmas is over, and I’m getting ready for New Years. I’m trying to decide if I want to stay in site or head out to Piura. I would like to not necessarily be here in site because there are a lot of drunks around anyway, and I think New Years will have even more borrachos around… yay. Although it can be a little funny at times to see drunk men passed out in the middle of the street, it shouldn’t be something common, right? Maybe this is just my conservative US mentality that thinks this is sad and maybe this is one example of how my perspective on things will change. But I need to ask: do I want to change? I’ll leave that as is for now because that’s something very long and complicated (and boring).

But to catch up on what I’ve been doing, here’s a few things with pictures to show you some of what my site looks like. The first couple weeks I was mainly just getting to know people, set up my room, and organize some ideas. I got to meet a couple of the engineers working on the new water treatment plant that is almost done being built. Currently, there is pretty much no treatment of the town’s water of which the source is a nearby river that is already highly contaminated. I’ve heard different accounts of if there is even chlorination that is being carried out (but I think not). The water from the tap in Santo Domingo is visibly dirty and does not have odor but definitely has particles. I have also recently found out from a water test in October that there is a fecal coliform count of 102 fcu /100ml....cfu = colony forming units (Although coliforms are not hazardous to people’s health, this measure is used as an indicator for other types of contaminants in the water. I don’t know for sure the acceptable level in the US, but I believe this level should be somewhere below 1. I’ll get back to you on that (Kelly?). It seems that most people boil their water and/or use other in-house treatment methods like ceramic filters. I will look more into this when I conduct my surveys next month. Getting back to the engineers, they have been great in explaining things to me slowly so that I understand in Spanish and clearly. They have been great friends as well. Good contacts to have in Peru. At times, they have probably thought that I am an idiot, but have been nice to me anyways. I’m impressed at the workmanship on the system considering the absence of machinery.

Also, I got to sit in on some ‘educative sessions’ (formerly known as Charlas) that Sasha gave in Environmental Health and I also gave a couple little educative sessions to a 6th grade class and a kindergarten class. Pretty much all I did in the kindergarten class was talk about how cool water is and that I thought it looked better without trash in it. I’m not sure if this is effective to talk to kids of this age about the importance of water, but I sure had fun drawing pictures of rivers and rain and coloring with them. Just kidding, I think that above getting to know these cute kids, they got something out of it.

Fun and exciting news: I finally got to eat cuy! The counterpart of Sasha, my site mate, invited us to eat cuy (guinea pig) with her family. Sasha actually had the honor of killing a couple of the cuyes. She’s pretty tough. It was good the way it was made for us; similar to chicken. Supposedly it contains a lot protein and very little cholesterol. I didn’t really like the head of the cuy (see pics). It has a different flavor.

Well thanks for those of you who read my blog. I hope you are enjoying it. If you want to hear about something specific, feel free to email me or comment. I’m actually getting on answering your suggestions Sonya. See next blog. Life has changed so much for me, and I am now realizing that I am taking for granted those changes from my ‘normal’ life I the states. I don’t realize what is strange anymore; as I told my mother ‘Not much here surprises me anymore.’ Oh yeah… that reminds me of a quick story. Because of the new water system, many of the streets are being dug up to put and remove pipeline. For this reason, there are huge holes in the street and the other day I saw a donkey fall into one loaded with wood. It was crazy and I wanted to take a picture, but I felt it was a little inappropriate for some reason at the time. Poor donkey. This was right before I saw two bulls fighting on the street. Random yeah? Hasta luego!

Navidad Abroadidad

First starting of with a celebration of Hanakah in Piura city for Sasha and Peter, a series of more unusual feelings began. This is something that I am now much accustomed to in the Peace Corps: mixes of feelings. A group of us, Peru 12 volunteers in Piura, arranged to meet up in Piura city last weekend to take care of some more errands, purchasing of household items, and to just hang out a bit after our first couple weeks. It really can be energizing to get out of the campo for a bit to regain perspective and take a break, or in many cases like mine, a shower. All involved included Jessica, Lindsey, Eric, Matteo, Mark, Sasha, me, and a special guest from Tumbes, Sarah Walker, who had a medical checkup on her leg which she hurt from getting robbed a few weeks ago (see her blog for more details). It didn’t really feel like Christmas for a while because the weather is so hot here. But then I went into a shopping center and heard the Christmas music (in English) and saw the big Christmas tree and decorations in the plaza downtown. It made me a little sad to realize that it actually was Christmas and that my family back home was doing all the things that I was used to doing for Christmas that I was going to miss out on.

On my return, I was greeted by a beautiful dead mouse/rat on my floor in front of the doorway. Kinda gross. What’s the difference between a mouse and a rat, anyone know? I think it was a mouse. I feel much better now about my living situation because now I have a ropero (closet-thing), a gas stove, more tinas (plastic bins to store water and wash things), a bucket to try to make a soil filter, and more blankets. I still have to figure out a better way to wash myself and my clothes, but I have more utilities now. I feel a little spoiled because my apartment is pretty big, but I am very happy to have a lot of room!

I had a great time on Christmas Eve spending it with Sasha’s host family. The other host brother and sister, Paul and Cyntia, who are studying in Piura City, came home on the same bus as us to spend Christmas with the family. I went to the late mass at the church where the kids put on a little play of the posadas which is apparently a tradition for that mass here. After I got back from mass, we ate a good meal of chicken, salad, rice, and of course paneton and chocolatada. This family is very dynamic and has a lot of personality. At midnight, everyone shared hugs and wished each other ‘Feliz Navidad’ which was really nice to see along with the absence of presents. We had a good time eating, listening to music, and talking. After eating, Paul, Caty, Sasha, and I went on a hike in the dark up to the road out of town to see the stars. It was super tranquil and I had to remind myself that I wasn’t back in NM due to the clear sky and the scenery of the mountains in the dark.

Overall I had a great Christmas in spite of not being able to be with my family. I thought it could be hard, but it really helped just being around a family and feeling somewhat a part of that family. It was interesting being away from home, but in all, it was not super-different than what I am used to. I think a lot of it has to do with similarities throughout latin culture. I hope you all had a great Christmas and were someone where you felt at home.

Bull Fights and More

Today I saw a bullfight. No, not a normal bullfight with matadors and a stadium and such, but two bulls actually fighting. The downfall was that it was not spontaneous; it is an arranged event here where I live where people put their bulls up against others’ bulls in a huge soccer field and everyone surrounds the bulls until they fight (which apparently is inevitable with time). There is definitely a certain appeal to it, but my better nature wins out and I feel overall that it is an event that is a little cruel since it has nothing to do with the will of the animal and is simply for the pleasure of watching and betting. Although, I feel that it is not the worst thing since neither of the bulls ever seems to get hurt. I was glad that I went overall to get a firsthand glimpse at this cultural event and decide for myself what I thought of it. It was interesting because the scenery was gorgeous. A huge soccer field surrounded by steep, green mountains covered by clouds and hills filled with campo Peruvians and their gigantic hats watching from each opportune vista. These bulls were huge, which is surprising considering the lack of food that the Peruvians who raise them endure.

After getting over a brief sickness, things seem to be looking okay. I think I finally made it through a rough spell of a stomach bacterial infection that lasted about 4 days. Unfortunately, this was coupled with a really difficult night of the flu which amplified the discomfort (engineering word usage for you, Scott and Kelly). Getting sick REALLY SUCKS when you live alone –hope you don’t read this mom-, but Sasha and her family were close by and Sasha checked on me that night to make sure I wasn’t dead. Jay Kay. I’m fine, it was just a hard night. I am really happy that I didn’t quite resort to taking CIPRO.

On a lighter note, my house is pretty awesome. I have a two-room place with more space that I need for the little that I have. The first room from the street I am using for storage and my future kitchen where I will put my gas stove when I buy it. The second room is a little smaller and long which I use as my bedroom where my bed is and my clothes. I have a sweet door near my bed that opens up to a scenic view of a creek and the mountains in back. I am stoked because I love to have space and spread out.
I have a unique case as a volunteer in Peru where I am actually kinda renting from a family rather than having a host family. The Peace Corps in Peru uses host families in almost all cases for many reasons. First of all, it provides safety to be located within a family structure as the family provides protection for the volunteer. Also it helps the volunteer integrate into the culture through becoming part of a Peruvian family and also creates more opportunity to meet others through the family. Therefore, there are definite ups and downs to having my own place, but realizing the downsides helps me to understand the initiatives that I must take to achieve the same benefits. For example, I am currently eating with the host family of Sasha, and am therefore a pseudo-host member of their family as well where I can integrate with them, speak Spanish with them, but go home when I need some freedom. I feel like I get the best of both worlds, but I try not to make things too easy for myself. So like I was saying… my house is super nice and spacious and has an awesome view… but my bathroom and shower situation is not ideal. It is by no meals terrible, but more difficult than I would like. There is a shower and toilet facility behind my house near the river that I can see out my back door near my bed. The toilet now has a door, which is awesome, but the water in the shower doesn’t work and needs a curtain to the outside (actually has a curtain with a big hole). The hard part of the situation is that I have a door in back, but it is located on the 2nd floor and lacks a staircase. So the door is more like a window. To use the bathroom, I go out my front door, walk down the street a bit, unlock another door to an alleyway, walk down the alleyway and through a borage of rosters, hens, etc., and a garden to use the bathroom which until yesterday, I didn’t know how to flush (I know… I know). The flushing is another story, but the jest of it is that it lacked a handle to flush, but the top was open, therefore I knew I just open up the chamber to allow for flow. The problem was that there was no device that I could see outside of the water in the tank to make the chamber open, and with no light and knowledge of super-dirty water in the tank, I thought ‘No way do they stick their hands in the water every time to flush’… but yeah… I found out that is what needs to happen. Luckily the landlord caught the idea of my problem and attached a string to the chamber opening in the water, so now we don’t have to stick our hands in the water. Sorry for the long description, but it could have been worse by incorporating the logistics of when there was not water for a couple days. Oh yeah… and also my sickness and semi-frequent visits to the bathroom with no knowledge of how to flush the toilet is another story not appropriate for blogs.
Another story includes my first ‘bath’ since I got here to Santo Domingo. Considering the aforementioned shower situation, I decided it would be most easy and overall less cold and awkward to try and use wash clothes with water in plastic buckets to bath myself inside my house. I don’t think this was necessarily a bad idea, but it definitely lacked thought. It was a bit of a mess, and took around 1 hour to prepare, wash, and clean up, but I learned a lot from it and laughed a little about how weird it was. I realize that since I will most likely go into the city every 2 or 3 weekends or so, I will bath every 5 – 7 days (on average), and will only have to bath like ~3 times a month, which I think I can do as long as I don’t get too dirty. We’ll see how this works out.
Well these are my recent thoughts. My overall humor lately since coming out of my sickness is pretty good and optimistic. I met a lot of people today and am feeling more and more integrated. I know there are rough days ahead and days where I don’t feel like being social but should be anyways. Right now I am very satisfied with the situation and am amazed at the beauty of the land that I get to call home for the next two years. Don’t be surprised if my next blog sounds totally opposite.

Estoy aqui, y casi listo

We arrived this morning to our departmental capital and will be headed to our sites this week. Here are some more pictures in review of training. There are some good stories of the end-of-training partying which may or may not encompass falling down stairs at a bar in Lima and getting two black eyes, peeing on someone's clothes, and so forth (not by me....). Leaving Lima, I was actually a bit sad as I realized I began to like Lima, maybe because I finally got to spend time in Miraflores (and failed to take pictures-for once). My feelings about going to site: nervous due to my poor Spanish skills, worried about acceptance, and questioning my overall readiness, but nevertheless, I'm headed out. It was hard saying goodbye to my fellow volunteer peeps, but my weird mood lately kept me from getting very emotional. I remember a lot of good times in training like the soccer tournament in 3 de Octubre, the anniversaries of the communities of 3 de Oct. and Yanacoto with the Toro Locos, the crazy presentations at the training center, the awesome, crazy combi rides, of course the awesome parties, and much, much more.

Background

I decided I needed one more blog for background, but after this will be some more specific and therefore better stories. So, this is some background of my life here in training and the next one will be a review of some of the good times in training. After getting here from staging in DC, my first impressions were of Lima as we flew in. Oh, and apparently I lost the visa slip that we each received upon leaving the airport, so that may be a problem later on, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there, right?... sure. Okay. I hope I’m not offending anyone, but Lima is not the prettiest of cities. Most of this statement is attributed to seemingly ever-present cloudy/smoggy feeling. I hold this same feeling as of today as we have been there several times for many of the weekends that we (trainees) attend sessions at the University of Agradia in Molina to learn about agricultural aspects of Peru. It has really been great going there many of the weekends. Many of the times we end up going to the mall-Jockey Plaza, where we take a step back into ‘America’ and take on the role of being ‘Pitucos’, or as people describe it, the snobby upper-class. This group is only really present in major cities and is not really representative of much of Peru. There are some really beautiful and historical places in Lima such as Mira Flores, the Plaza de Armas, and Miraflores, but unfortunately again, only a certain cross-section of the people that live in Lima go there.

My family: I think I was really lucky to get the family that I got here. In spite of being from NM, I have a pretty low-level ability to speak and communicate in general in Spanish. This made for a pretty interesting first day with my host family, as they probably thought I was a huge idiot. My mother, Felicia (Julia) is very patient and caring and is always worried about me. My father, Caesar, is great all-around and has a great sense of humor, which I sadly feel is generally wasted on me due to my lack of understanding at times. We still have a great time sometimes at the dinner table. He works as a moso (waiter) at a military country nearby. I have two older brothers, Allen (27) and Jimmy (22). Allen works in construction in Lima. He gets up and leaves the house around 4am and returns around 8pm, when he stays here. His girlfriend, who seems very cool and down to earth is pregnant, so he has a lot of weight on his shoulders and there’s a lot going on there that is not really within my realm of knowledge. Jimmy seems like a really kind person but also seems to be a bit of a loner. He stays up late working at the panaderia that my family uses at the municipality with the help of a non-governmental organization (NGO). I think he gets home around 2 and sleeps until 10 or so and hangs out around the house. He is waiting for his certificate from his technical school in which studied to be an electrician. When he receives the certificate, he wants to get a job in Lima. Madelyn, my younger sister (13) goes to school during the day and is super shy. Either she doesn’t like me at all, or she’s just super shy or uncomfortable around me because she does not talk to me at all unless she has to.

Training center: We have a crazy-nice training center where we have classes on language and culture, technical sessions for each technical group, security charlas, health charlas, and other random things which we attend from 8-5 five times a week. Our instructors are really cool. They all apparently have master’s degrees of some kind. It really builds a sense of community after 3 months. We have of lot of presentations and activities that we do that usually end up getting a little crazy.

Transportation: So I remember the first say that our parents had to take us to school and show us where to get off and came to pick us up later that day to show us how to get back home. Super-funny right? We all felt like 5 year-olds in kindergarten again, but I’m not arguing that I didn’t want it because I remember being pretty intimidated. Plus, the transportation here, a small-sized bus called a ‘combi’ or more properly termed ‘coaster’ can be a daily adventure. 20% of the time the cobrador tries to make you pay more than you should (70 centimos when it should only be 50… or at times more when you are obviously white and not from there). In addition to the frequent arguments, at times you get on to the ~20 seat death machine to a packed house of +45 people with your leg hanging out the door because the door can’t close with so many people. American perceptions of personal space are definitely not respected in this occasion and needs some time for getting adjusted to circumstances like this. A worse situation is when you get stuck towards the back and have to politely slide through the 20 standing people with your backpack in order to get off at your stop-all to the yelling of the cobrador. If you fail to do this, you may have a walk a good distance in sometimes dangerous situations. The speed on these things can be pretty awesome though! Don’t worry Ma’, I’m fine.
The other Volunteers: I feel like we have a really cool group of people. The vast majority of the group is really outgoing and fun. Because there is so much over-the-top-ness, I have come to appreciate the more tranquilo people many times. As far as the people I hang out with, I will mention them by name so they will read my blog. Let’s see… Mark T. is from Texas and he’s the ‘Cholo’ of the group (Mexican slag, not Peruvian). He’s half Mexican-American like me, so together I guess we make a full Mexican-American? He was walking around for a while with a modified stick for his dog friends in our neighborhood. I like hanging out with him. Also, there’s ‘Chino-Mark’, Mark V. from California, went to school in Hawaii, and is full Filipino. I actually don’t like that guy… J/K Mark, J/K. I really appreciate his chillness, how he lowers the seriousness of things that should not be serious to be funny, and definitely the randomness that he brings to the group. Other people in my community that I hang out with are Lindsey, super-fun energetic girl from Kentucky, Jared, an all-around good guy from Minnesota, Flecther (Fletch-City, aka Fletch, aka Fletch Cuidad, aka mucho mas…) who is from Colorado and is a really nice friendly happy-go-lucky person, James T. who is very experienced in the art of partying and his companion Erica W. (Corona) who is also very skilled in this department. Also, Erika L. the bebe of the group with super-blue eyes and is always happy and eager for life, Richard (Ricardo), who would be perfect for SNL as he reminds me of Chris Farley… funny guy, Karen, from Michigan who I appreciate very much for the simple reason that we just click, Jessica, the first person I met from the group in DC, very intelligent and a good friend. And I will be mentioning more of these cool peeps in a future blog.

What I’m Doing

So I have one more week left of training and have a lot that I could address in light of the fact that this is my first real post and that a lot has gone down over this time. First, I will provide a little background. I arrived in Peru for Peace Corps on September 12, 2008 with a group of 47 people from across the US. We all have undergone 10 weeks of training so far in language and culture and technical training in addition to other things like safety and security. One week more, and we will be heading out to each of our respective sites throughout the different regions of Peru. Within our group, we are broken down into disciplines of Medioambiente (environmental health), Salud (Health), and the group to which I belong (which is the first of its kind in PC Peru since the program restarted in 2002), Agua y Saneamiento (Water and Sanitation, aka WatSan). We have also picked up a former Bolivian volunteer who was recently evacuated along with the entire group of Bolivian volunteers a couple months ago.

So, as any other blog goes, here are my thoughts and the situations that I experience throughout my service here in PC.

Coming into PC, my motivations were clear. I believe firmly in the goodness of all people and their ability to manifest goodness in daily life. Stemming from this, I realized a sense of responsibility based on, what I consider, an amazingly privileged life. I have never understood the seemingly unfairness of life. What have I done to deserve such a privileged life? What have I done to deserve a life where I could be born on one side of a border to an amazing, loving, and stable family where simply by birth I am open to a wealth of opportunity, while another person endures a life that is very opposite? The answer is nothing… I am simply lucky from my perspective. I obviously do not understand the way of the world and how the greater control works, but I feel a responsibility to do at least something within my ability to share my capacities which have been based on my fortune. I would love to have a positive influence on those who will never know opportunity, who view survival as their first goal. I apologize for the seriousness of this first blog, but this is obviously something that I am passionate about. My feelings with regard to this and then coupled with an opportunity to see new places in the world and actually live with a community that lives a very different way of life made my decision to join PC very easy. Basically it came down to service, adventure, and learning. I cannot think of a better way to spend two years of my life. This is exactly what I want.

.... again applogies for the serious blog, the next one will have some more fun info!

Getting Ready

I finally got my blog up just as I'm getting ready for the site visit. Info and pics coming soon!