Trip to Huancabamba

Our trip to Huancabamba was definately full of new experiences. We´ll add the stories about our all-nighter with a curadero (shaman) soon. Just wanted to get some pics up while I had some time.

Yes, the countryside is beautiful, but painful to see at the same time. These hillsides should be covered with forest, but are 100% deforested and serve as agriculture fields. This is quite common all along the western slope of the Andes (well... in Peru - I can´t tell you about the other countries). The explanation lies in a long chain of historical events.

Laguna Shimbe. The waters are sacred and said to cure and purify. We (a group of 11 volunteers) walked about 6 miles to the lake with a shaman to perform cleansing ceremonies. First we stood in a line while they chanted for our prosperity and good luck. The shaman and his helpers sniffed tobacco-soaked perfume and also sprayed the perfume on us (they put the perfum in their mouths and sprayed it from their mouths like a mist). Then we dunked in the lake (COLD!! 10,000 feet high and windy) nude or in undies - depending on your stylie - and performed a cleansing ritual with the shaman´s helper. With a sword he blessed the front, back, and sides our our bodies and had us turn both ways underneath it. Then we did a little dance-hop to shake off bad spirits. Next, we went to the shaman who also sprayed perfume on us from his mouth and blew scented baby powder over our heads. We also inhaled perfume that he put in our hands. I can only assume that much earlier in time, they used infusions of herbs and flowers instead of perfume.
Upon hiking back to the shaman´s house from the lake, we participated in an 8-hour ceremony (10pm - 6am) with the shaman in a group of about 35 people from different parts of Peru. We will post more details and thoughts soon!!

The Peace Corps volunteers and shamans.

Non-Philisophical People Beware

It´s funny how, really, we all live in our own little interpreted world. Our truth is the interpretation of our perceptions, not the perceptions themselves. Our ego is the tool that woks the perceptions into some sort of personalized reality.
Uhhhh, yeah, here´s a practical story to illustrate what I mean: Explaining the fact that I did not take Brian´s last name is not so easy here. People do not have the framework to conceptualize and understand the that fact that I chose not to take his name. This just does not fit. So, one day I was standing outside the primary school waiting for classes to start, and I overheard one of the teachers talking to Juan (because we live with Juan, he has become – rightly so – the Village Expert on people from the U.S.) The teacher asked, ¨Okay, tell me again, what´s Angela´s last name?¨ Juan replied, ¨Myers.¨ ¨And Brian,¨ the teacher inquired. ¨O´Malley,¨ answered Juan. This simple inquiry repeated for about three rounds. Confused the teacher asks, ¨I don´t understand, they´re married. What did she do when they got married?¨ Juan, trying to explain the inconceivable discrepancy, reasoned, ¨Well, it depends on what state you get married in over there.¨ Finally satisfied, the teacher was able to construct the reality of the situation, ¨Ahhhhhh, I get it, the custom is different for each state.¨ I had to chuckle, because Brian and I have explained the difference in our last names to Juan as a choice all people can make. But, because this does not figure into their common interpretations of reality, it never became totally understandable. They both had to think of it in some other way to be able to wrap their thoughts around the difference in our last names. It makes realize how much I also bend and distort everything I perceive here in order to make sense of things. I mean, I´m not Buddah – yet. I can´t quite transcend the experience of my own ego. Thus, for me, there is no such thing as an objective Peru or Peruvian culture. The observer always changes the system. Everything you hear from me is Peru in the eyes of me. What does this mean?? Clearly, you all need to come visit us so that you can make your own interpretations!!! Now you have the perfect vacation excuse!!

Vegetarians Beware!!!

Okay, sorry for the grotesqueness (well, for me anyway) but here´s the pig our family slaughtered the other day. After months of walking by him, happily grunting in the shade, it´s quitting time for the ´ol feller. And, yes, he´s on our kitchen table. I ate breakfast next to him.


Here´s how they strip the skin off. And, no, I did not take these pictures, Brian did. He got up at 5am with the family while I literally stayed in bed covering my ears. A pig scream is a very horrendous sound. I just couldn´t make myself watch!

Mmmmm... they fill these intestines with herbs and stuff and fry them up.

Ahhh....coffee berries drying!

The last of the corn.

We had a German tourist come to Sícchez! The mayor talks all the time about how he wants Sícchez to be a tourist destination, but they are a long way from it. No public restrooms, no restaurants, no real infrastructure to help tourists find things to do, and it´s far away. But in Huanchaco, La Libertad there exists a Dutch tourist service, Otra Cosa, that places vacationers (mostly Americans and Europeans) in communities for anywhere from 2 weeks – 3 months to basically live and work with a family. It´s not really volunteering, because there is no objective to the stay nor a set project. It´s more like an opportunity to vacation in a very authentic setting. Well, they send people to Sìcchez every now and then. I think the reason people come to Sìcchez is because the Peace Corps volunteer who lived in Sìcchez before us (4 years ago) spent a lot of time in Huanchaco working with the organization (he was from the small business sector).

So one day I was making stove-top cookies with a friend when someone came to her door and said, ¨There´s a gringa outside sitting in the Plaza de Armas!¨ It goes without saying that in a tiny place like Sìcchez, this is headline news. It turns out that the Dutch organization didn´t organize very well and the girl´s host family (from a village 1.5 hours up the hill) didn´t know she was coming. So she was told her upon her arrival to Sìcchez to wait until the next day for her family to come down to get her (they have to call the family on a loud speaker, as there are no phones up there). So of course we invited her to hang out and eat dinner and breakfast with us. She´s only 21, but speaks German (of course), English, and Spanish fluently. Awesome. It was a very exciting time for Brian and I, as out-of-the-ordinary things are hard to come by here.

Yes, folks, exciting times here in Sicchez!!

Peanuts, Nuns, and Hard Dirt

We are now bidding farewell to tamales, hominy and all things corn, and the oranges are fading fast. However, the waxing of one thing invites the waning of another. Enter the season of coffee, beans, and peanuts!! We are eating lots of bean-laden soups and one can find coffee berries happily drying out in the sun in front of almost every home. Juan also makes a mean peanut ice cream popsicle. The rains, I think, have finally departed, a whole two months late. Yeah, yeah, I know, liquid gold…who in their right mind would be happy to see rains disappear?!? Me! It´s now very hot. Being at 4º S latitude and 4,200 feet above sea level, the suns´ rays penetrate directly into my skull and I love it. Seven months into site and I´m only now discovering what amazing views and beautiful sunsets we have the pleasure to enjoy from our front porch. We look down a huge north-trending valley into Ecuador with clouds sitting below us in the morning and layered-ridge-sunset light vistas in the evening. And the stars - a whole new unfamiliar southern sky to absorb!!

Our garden. Huertocito. This tiny little desire of ours to plant a few veggies to augment our meals that turned into a large demonstration garden project at the health center – the garden. We finally finished the bamboo fence right before Brian left to the States thanks to one kind soul who donated 10 bamboo trunks from his plot of land. We cut them down and carried them from his plot to the health center, in the process learning why bamboo is the next miracle fiber. It is extremely strong, flexible and heavy. With an axe, Brian split the bamboo poles don the middle, then split each half into halves again to make little sticks. I trimmed the edges of the bamboo sticks with a knife and dug a trench in the ground into which we inserted the sticks. By the end of the day our hands were covered in little cuts (just like paper cuts), as bamboo is as sharp as a steak knife. **Thank you Karen for the Burt´s hand and foot repair kit – healed right up in no time!!**
“Oh yay,” I thought after we finally finished the fence, “we´ll be eating spinach in no time!!” No so much…. Our poor little huertocito is very malnourished. It´s virgin earth, never been planted with anything and previously used as a medical trash dump (as evidenced by the needles, plastic, glass, cotton, etc. finding its way to the surface as we dig). And in these parts of Peru, virgin earth means pure, pure, hard, clay. No trace of organic matter. Straight from rock, a very pretty yellow-red and hard as a rock when dry – can´t even smash the dirt chunks against a concrete wall to break them. What a roto-tiller could do in one day has taken me 6 with a shovel, a pick axe, and a bucket for carrying water to wet the earth down a bit (otherwise the tools are denied entry by the dirt trolls). But please don´t take this for complaining, who doesn´t love a good hard-day´s work in a garden?? I especially love seeing the look of utter shock on everyone´s face when they see a *woman* wielding a tool. I like to swing it high above my head and scream, “ Woman, I - hear me roar!!!” Heeeheee, not really, but it´s a good opportunity to counteract the machismo.
However, the veggie dreams will have to wait until next year, as the agro-tech and I have concluded that a season of green mulch and nitrogen-fixing plants is necessary to condition the soil before planting the ever-so delicate veggies. Oh well, this way we can teach the mommies about preparing soil and what nitrogen-fixing is.

Contrary to every fiber in my being and soul, I have started jogging 2-3 times a week. Who´d have thunk, I had to travel to the southern hemisphere to finally find a group of runners I can hang with – 2 overweight people and a high school girl. We walk a lot between jog spurts. It´s perfect for me!! We are getting better though, and now I finally have a way to get the heart really pumpin´. Jumping jacks in my room just doesn’t cut it anymore. Oh yeah, Brian runs with the two police officers – the rest of us eat their dust.

A week or so ago, our village celebrated it´s patron saint, Paul, with a three-day festival. All villages, towns, and cities in Peru have patron saints; thus one can always find a festival here. They’re definitely a kick in the ass. There were volley ball (women) and soccer (men) tournaments, tons of food, masses at church, processions where they carried a model of the saint through town, cultural dances, cock fights (eeek!!), fireworks and an incomprehensible amount of drinking and dancing. Peruvians have a special party perseverance – they go until dawn several nights in a row. It was a hootin´ good time!
One day during the festival, I was watching a soccer game with Juan and Elvia (our host family). On that particularly beautiful day, I was wearing a long grey skirt, white top, and lacey-fancy head scarf. At one point, an extremely drunk man (one of many) stumbled towards me and started speaking in drunken tounges, nothing of which I understood. However, after a few minutes, I was able to make out the words “ my dear sister” and “Catholic”. So I proceeded to tell him that I was raised Catholic (it´s best not to get into issues of non-religiousness here) when he gently locked his arm with mine and told me how he´s loved me since forever. I look to my left and see Juan and Elvia laughing heartily. They tell the man to go back to his group and after he left they told me that the man thought I was a nun and was asking me about the strange habit that I was wearing on my head! Chuckles were shard by all, as one can see how it adds up – white foreigner (missionary), skirt, head scarf, alcohol-induced stupor…

Well, well…. all these stories and not much about the nitty-gritty work stuff. What are we doing to contribute to the development of the community?!? Mostly, it´s an ongoing battle for Brian and I to lead productive professional lives here. Professionalism just does not translate over the cultural divide. Work and life take on a different shape here, naturally. I´ve developed a solid-waste management plan with a tech at the municipality (a need he identified and chose to pursue with my support). It calls for training authorities on how to execute clean-ups, installing sanitary mini-landfills in 50 rural homes, increasing the domestic production of organic fertilizer from food waste, and replacing the defunct trash cans that exist in the district capital of 500 people where we live. But…just like in school, you can´t do peole´s work for them. The Peace Corps approach is that volunteers help facilitate leadership and proactiveness within the communities themselves. Not like an NGO that sweeps in and executes a financed project. So, we proceed at an imperceptibly slow pace from my point of view. Work days are shorter, lunches longer, people don´t show up when they´re supposed to or say they will, stuff is always postponed, and sometimes they just get drunk instead. Which relegates me to the role of cheerleader/motivator (nagger?!?) I do my best to hold people accountable for their roles, but I can only do so much. Custom is custom. And, in defense of Sícchez, they are making great headway with their organic unrefined sugar plant and their reforestation project (both supported heavily by NGO´s). I know you all must be curious about Brian´s “work”, but he´s not so interested in blogging. Suffice it to say that things are similar for him, except he´s focusing on nutrition, family gardens, and improved cooking-stoves. However, he does have it a little easier, as the people at health center are relatively organized and more proactive with projects.

Well, again, if you´ve made it to the end of a month´s worth of thoughts, congratulations and thanks! We love you all!

Sorry about not having pictures this time!