Where In The World are Brian And Angela?!?

Partaking in Patagonia

2010-01-06T04:02:00.000-08:00

So, we eventually made it to the tip of South America. After over 100 hours in busses (we´re still tallying up the total, Argentina lies ahead) our asses needed some walking. We went to the southern-most city on the continent, Punta Arenas, to see a penguin colony. From there... treks in Torres del Paine (Chile) and Glacier National Park (Argentina). It is COLD down here, and suppsedly summer. We trekked a total of 200 miles all told, and saw maybe a grand total of 12 hours of sunny skies. Mostly we shivered in freezing rain, snow, 100mph wind gusts, and cloudiness. Walking was our savior, nothing like some body heat to keep the icy grip of a Patgonian summer at bay. I have to admit, Colorado winters are more agreeable than Patagonian summers.

Despite (or maybe partly because of) the weather, our adventures were of course top-rate. Patagonia in one word can be described as BLUE. It is an exquisite glacial/alpine/forest/dry plains environment with amazing diversity within compact zones. For a relatively small area (the mountain uplifts are like islands in flat plains), there exists a multitude of microclimates and ecostysems. That was probably the coolest part, within a 4-hour walking day one can experience all four seasons and various types of ecosystems. It changes fast and abruptly.

Between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes down here lies the Southern Ice Field, the largest expanse of landice and glaciers outside of Antarctica, formed by moist Pacific air and cold temperatures. Brian was in glacial heaven. The water is still potable, you can dip your bottle right in the stream and drink up, as it comes directly from close-by glaciers (as long as you don´t think too hard about the climbers up above peeing and pooping near their snow caves on the glacier above). No, really, it´s potable. Given that our guts now have resistance to almost any foreign attack (we suffered a lot to acquire this ablility!!), we drank without a worry. Hmmmm....so far so good!

Isla Magdalena in Punta Arenas where the penguins live.

There is no zoom here, yup, you can theoretically touch them they are so close. They don´t seem peeved at all by human presence. There is a walkway where visitors are supposed to stay, so it´s not so harmfull to the little guys as far as I can tell. They just stare at you in this cute way with tilted heads and then go about their business.

The island has something like 160,000 penguins on it.

The start of the circuit trek in Torres del Paine.

Wild daisies. Karen, it made me think of YOU!

First view of the Glacier Gray at the top of a pass on the Torres del Paine circuit trek. Brrrr.

Glacier Gray in Torres del Paine. After reaching the pass, you walk alongside the glacier for hours. It´s three miles wide and spectacluar.

Glacier Gray unloading into Lago Gray.

Didn´t I say BLUE?? And windy?

The infamous Cuernos in Torres del Paine. The black is sedimentary rock that has yet to erode on top of the granite.

Cerro Torre (the pointy one), one of the hardest peaks to climb in the world. Only a handfull of people have ever made it, and only about 20 people try every year. It has as 10% death rate. Fun.

Cerro Chaltén (Fitz Roy). The bank of clouds behind it are comming from the Southern Ice Field just behind the mountain. The wind is constant here and you are lucky if you can see this peak for just a few hours a week. We got lucky.

The vast expanse of the Argentine pampa. The Chaltén (Fitz Roy) and Cerro Torre peaks rise up abruptly out of this plain.

Glacier Perrito Moreno in Argentina. It is constantly cracking and cleaving off; you can get a feel for it´s size by closing your eyes and just listening.

Brian´s preppy-trekker hybrid look. I don´t know why Gucci hsan´t found him yet!

Chile Lakes District

2009-12-14T18:32:00.001-08:00

So there´s too much to comunicate about the absolute sublimity of what we´ve seen in Patagonia. But here´s five words:

Crystalline
Mystifying
Bursting
Pungent
Benevolent

Does that make things clear? I thought so.

We spent six days trekking in the Lakes District, a glacier-carved region with snowy volcanic peaks, trees larger than life, lakes, rainforests, mud, towering granite walls, rich volcanic soil, and jade-blue water that is crystal clear at amazing depths. I now understand why the term for fresh water in Spanish translates to ¨sweet water¨. It is!! The sun rises at about 6am and it doesn´t get dark until 10pm. Yes, 10pm (sun set at 9ish).

So here´s some pics to help, but as always, they never do justice...

Volcano Osorno on All Saint´s Lake. On the way to a trek with a hot springs at one of the camps. I think it was developed especially for me, no?

Approaching the rainforest through a ranching pasture.

I´ve never seen so many waterfalls - large and small - in my life. Not even in Hawaii.

OK, this pic is blurry, but I had to show it. The hot springs were two carved out tree trunks with the water pumped in from a tube running from the source. It was so unique, and of course, AWESOME!

Sorry, technical difficulty. The trees just BEG you to hug them.

Our record stream-crossing in one hike: 5. Water is everywhere. This was a pretty mellow one.

There´s a ski resort behind that mountain.

Second trek: Cochamo Valley, dubbed the Little Yosemite of Chile. But that does not do this place justice. One of the most spectacular hikes we´ve ever been on. Trekking, fishing, climbing, kyaking - and almost unknown among tourists.

One river crossing was on a pulley system.

Beautiful u-shaped carved ¨hanging¨ galcier valley.

A natural rock slide. The video of the whole slide is below. Good times, good times.

We also had a very long conversation with a local rancher that piqued my interest, as I found threads that can be weaved throughout rancher/farmer society in all the world; and probably since the beginning of our sedentary way of life. It went something like this:

Us: So you own the land around here? (observing his ranch by a lake)

Rancher Sebastian: Yes but the Forest Service is always trying to pressure me and tell me what to do, and the government has forgotten us country men.

Us: What do you mean?

RS: My family has been here for generations, I have no income aside from what I can make the land produce. If I can´t make it produce it has no value to me, I have nothing. What do I have if I can´t make the land produce?

Us: Nothing...

RS: Exactly. Then come the capitalists, those large investors, and government, driving up the cost of the land so I can´t expand and telling me that now I´m bordering a National Forest and I can´t cut trees. So how then can I survive if I´m not allowed to clear land for my cattle and for firewood for cooking? We´re too isolated here (no roads, you can only arrive by road and then boat or horse) to get enough cattle to market to compete. And what does the government do to subsidize us ranchers? NOTHING. The government favors the international investors with the money. They squeeze us out of the market, and now I´m not allowed to cut the trees down.

Us: We saw lots of similar things happening in the mountains of Peru. The farmers cut the forest to make land for crops, but because they don´t have the knowledge base for sustainable land-use, they just have to cut more forest after their first plot stops producing. They have no native forest left, less water every uear, growing economic pressures, and are very isolated from a central government that favors large foreign investors.

RS: Forest conservation?? That´s easy, I clear the forest on all of the rich protions of land that produce good grass for my cattle, and leave the steep rocky places alone.

Us (clearly seeing the irony and not commenting): And what about the tourism brought by conservation efforts such as National Forests?

RS: I can´t make a living off of that. What can I do? Take some tourists to see a puma? Let them camp on my land? I get enough money for a few days. The tourists only come here a few months of the year. It is not a source of income for me.

Us: What do ranchers need then?

RS: Politicians who care about us and support what we need. They nitpick us about cutting trees, yet the city is a shithole. They give us nothing.

And the conversation continues...eventually ending on a ¨well you have to press on and be happy¨ note. The truth, a really friendly and smiley guy, but just fed up with the constant conflicts of interest.

The things he said are endemic problems with an agriculturist society. We need land to produce, to give us things. But in order to do that we must manipulate, control, and change what is naturally there for maximum production. Land no longer has value in itslef. Yes, there are sustainable ways to make money off of the land. But the structures needed for it to happen don´t exist in most places.

Environmentalism, capitalism, and globalization (among many other things, but sticking to the topic at hand) have all changed the world, and nobody feels it more than the impoverished and those who still depend directly on the land. Ultimately, our current system of government and economic structuring would have to be fundamentally changed for these conflicts to go away. And we don´t like change. We don´t like restrictions and pressures. People Who Have will always fight to keep it. The rancher saw the government as a puppet to the capitalists of the world and completely negligent to the needs of the small family ranchers and farmers. As for environmentalism, well, it just doesn´t make sense to him.

I understand why people protest the idea of globalization and the World Bank. I´ve seen how these processes can enslave and entrap less fortunate people – and governments – in vicious cycles that they can´t break out of. But I´ve also seen how attracting foreign investment and capital can change people´s lives for the better. Like everything, there´s a little bit of truth in all perspectives.

The rancher is doing what he knows how and sees any impediment or redirection as a personal attack on his ability to make a living. He´s not wrong and he´s not right. Will we all get it right someday??

Chile - San Pedro de Atacama

2009-12-04T14:26:00.000-08:00

Each day the equator pulls further away
In this new land the volcanoes hold sway
The driest desert in the world we roam
The landscape seems to hold whispers of home
Geology, aridity, salinity, and fire
Not far underneath churns the Earth´s raging desire
Salt flats, flamingoes, vicuñas, and geysers
Hot springs, cactus - a land without wires
The magic of the desert is palpable and real
For all souls who visit a very fine meal

I´m swimming in a salt lake on the salt flats of the desert, produced by groundwater accumulated from the Andes high above. It was impossible to sink my head or feet because of the density of the salty water. It was like having floaties on! Brian swam too...
Another salt lake. The whole area is actually a national park in Chile in part to protect the flamingoes that are here year-round.
Some awesome geysers at 13,000ft above the desert basin (8,000 ft).

Vicuñas are the wild versions of the domesticated alpaca and llama. They´re so friggen cute, but my cheap camera does not zoom well at all. Their wool is the second-finest natural fiber in the world after silk.

All of my close-ups of the flamingoes are fuzzy, my camera sucks. This will have to do :)
The Atacama desert.
Slat flats of the desert.
Kind of like Moab, no? Except for the volcanoes in the background. One is still active and you can see it releasing gas in the morning hours.

Master Of Prevention

2009-11-28T11:38:00.001-08:00

CLASSIC Brian!!!

Fin

2009-11-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

So the end is here: too soon, finally, unexpectedly, and not quick enough. Time’s humor is ironic: it escapes you and simultaneously drags you along; but in the end it weaves with space to help us be human. Two years abroad was barely enough time to get over the things I missed, situate myself, make a life, and become at one with it. Only in the last couple of months here have I begun to embody this odd sensation of bi-culturalness. I finally feel Siccheñan in some ways, just in time to experience yet another loss upon leaving something that I have become a part of. It’s an odd sort of liminal space, your identity and your heart realizing themselves in two very different realities. I can only begin to imagine what refugees, migrants, and immigrants feel; those who experience such things out of necessity and not out of choice.

And it’s time to go? Yes, it IS time to GO.

The Siccheñans are not making it easy for us though. There’s too much love for it to be easy. Just like the countless people through space and time who have left one place for another, a piece of us will always abide in and with Sicchez. Here is where I learned about the true nature of generosity. And that home is everywhere I step. And that service sometimes means just doing something to be nice, even if it’s not ¨sustainable¨, even if it doesn’t fit the parameters of ¨international development¨. When Siccheñans speak of our service, they mention the extrinsic impacts of trash management and improved cooking stoves, but they really smile and speak with heart when they talk about our friendship.
So we said goodbye the best we could, knowing it’s most likely forever and that we won’t be able to communicate with them. We threw a going away party for the town at the church on a Sunday night with coffee and cheese sandwiches. We visited families and showing a nature movie with popcorn to the elementary kids. Anything we could manage to show our gratitude. There were buckets of tears, moms bringing cookies to our house, women gifting us things they sewed, and people wanting to drink the last and final beer together.

Hardest of all were the goodbyes to our family. My body felt full of rocks that were streaming through my organs and blood. I couldn`t sleep at night. It was awful. Even more difficult was that our grandpa died on the same day we left. Words cannot describe the experience, you can only imagine. How in the world did we manage to give that last hug to a family who has looked out for our wellbeing with never a hesitation? Who took the risk of opening their humble lives to strangers? A noble family indeed, we will sorely miss them.

Emphasis fails me when I try to put into words how much Brian shaped the positive aspects of our experience here, but I owe it to him to try. Those of us who love and know him well understand the breadth of his impulse to realize any and all potentials within his grasp. Brian was the one to animate me when I wanted to sulk in my room, to bend over backwards for someone when I lost my patience, and to go above and beyond all normal expectations. He reliably kept a level head and somehow let the small things roll off of him like the trillions of raindrops that rolled off our roof. Admirably, he has an uncanny ability to always keep people laughing, and I was constant witness to the extremely high esteem that those around him harbored for him. To me, he became the embodiment of true service: Brian does all and everything he can for others just to be nice. Because it will help. Not in the name of ¨international development¨ or ¨sustainable projects¨ (too-often heard lingo in the Peace Corps), but because it`s just a nice thing to do. And he does it most of all when the rest of us would think we had done enough. What Brian knows deep down is that what people really lack is compassion and equal treatment. That they can overcome anything when they are loved and respected because that`s when they develop the self-esteem they need to overcome obstacles. Being nice to them is the best way to help them overcome the challenges that face them. And that`s what Brian did every single minute he was in Sicchez.

So thank you Sicchez, and thank you Brian. May we all try to stretch our hearts towards infinity.

Sicchez has gone international yet again!

2009-09-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

To celebrate the 50th anniversay of the Peace Corps in 2011, a returned volunteer from Jamaica, Steve Sitler, (who is a photo journalist by profession) is embarking on an adventure to capture the lives and deeds of volunteers around the world. His goal is to make a photo documentary in the form of a book with pictures from all regions of the world. Brian and I were selected to represent Peru. Here are some of his amazingly talented pictures and a link to his website. He's doing this all on donations, so if you have something to spare, check it out.

http://www.thepoint.com/campaigns/making-peace-with-the-world

Safe In The Arms Of Our Little Bus

2009-09-02T09:51:00.001-07:00

You have to give our humble Sicchez bus company some credit – they try. Yes, our knees are crammed up our noses as we bump along for eight hours with cumbia turned up to ear-shattering levels (Peruvians think we’re so lame for not loving that). And yes, they stop every three minutes to load and unload. But for goodness sakes, they get you where no one else wants to go and are the lifeline to our humble town.
In this spirit of service, one day our bus company decided to try complying with security regulations. For such a tiny company it’s easy to pass under the inspection radar, since the ride has seen only a couple of low-level security incidents: once a few punks tried to beat up and steal money from the guy who collects the money and works the door, only to have a local riding the bus pull a gun from his pants and shoot at them; and once some drugs were found stashed in someone’s suitcase on top of the bus after police were tipped off (none of which Brian and I have witnessed). But by and large, our ride is pretty tranqulio.

Somewhat of a surprise then, when upon boarding the bus in Piura for Sicchez one random day, we encounter a guy at the door with a metal detector wand. After watching him for a few minutes, it was clear he was the token security guy for the day – given a new toy and a quick ¨Check them out¨ before being posted at the bus door. Every single person that walked by him beeped like mad yet he never paused to check anything. His only preoccupation was passing the wand over everything as people got on. Wand passed over handbag…done. Wand passed over pocket of guy…done. Looking out the window a few minutes later Brian and I saw people boarding the bus while the ¨security officer¨ was finding sweet relief while using the wand as a backscratcher. It was soon time to go, and our intrepid security officer couldn’t figure how to turn the wand back on (accidentally turned off while scratching back??). No worries, the guy performing magic tricks on the bus eventually showed him how. Maybe next time he’ll get it right…or not, since we’ve never seen him since.

What's Goin On

2009-09-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve been pretty darn proud with how the community is managing its trash. Collection is regular and on time, people continue to participate, and nobody is daring use their big new plastic buckets for anything but recyclables. We even came back from a three-week vacation to find that everything was fine. Sweetness! The next step will be to take all the recyclables down to Piura to sell. I’m not really sure if they’ll make money from it because the market fluctuates so wildly (the prices paid for recyclables are intricately tied to the price of crude oil. If it’s more profitable for a manufacturer to buy the raw material, they won’t bother buying the recyclables to make their products). We also have 20 new rain-and-dog-resistant trash cans to install around town to replace the defunct old ones. Like the can-crusher, we contracted the awesome Peruvian Arnold Schwartzenagger (see below) to make them.
By the end of service (mid Nov.) there will still be a lot of loose ends to tie up: recycling committees in the schools, a landfill for the primary school, a waste diagnostic, and a community-based monitoring committee to oversee the solid-waste management activities. Since I’m not being replaced as an environmental volunteer, we’ve requested two health volunteers to replace us. Hopefully one of them will work on trash stuff as a secondary project. I’m pretty sure that there are no couples in the group that replaces us, so the next two volunteers are going to have to share the tiny and isolated town of Sicchez as if they were married. Yikes!

A week’s work of recycling – before and after.

The intrepid and very dedicated woman who separates the recyclables. All labels and caps are removed from the plastic bottles and subsequently crushed – manually. They get a higher price that way. Sorting recyclables is a very labor-intensive task, it takes her a good 6 hours once a week to get through everything. Interestingly, the more technology that a recycling system employs, the less effective the sorting is. Manual labor is by far the most accurate of sorting methodologies. This can be a good thing for any kind of community, as it creates a space for jobs.

Recycling classified and ready to be taken to the city to sell. Can you see in the bottom left hand corner of one of the pictures an aqua-blue metal thing hiding under the mattress? That’s the can crusher I had made in Piura. We have a large accumulation of cans that need to be crushed before bagging, and so I asked the welder that Brian used for his improved cooking stoves to dream us up a crusher. (Another cool side story, it’s one of a kind and made by a Peruvian Arnold Schwartzenagger who is the nicest, most on-time, polite, and honest man I have ever done business with here. And he is the only Piuran to have a dune buggy in the entire city – which he built from scratch!! He’s genius!)

Brian is doing an awesome job with his garden and stove project. By this point, he has conducted multiple house visits to every single participating mom (over 40) to check on gardens, help with stoves, and trouble-shoot. He’s easily done over a hundred visits, which is not easy breezy because all 4 villages where he works are far away and isolated. That’s why he chose them in the first place. Sounds perfect for him, right?? Nothing to do but walk all over the place. Actually, he is getting a little tired of walking for 6 hours and using a whole day just to do a relatively small amount of work, but I still think it’s good for his peace of mind. Much better than sitting on the porch all day at least! So far there are 12 stoves installed and correctly working and 30 or so functioning gardens. He’s giving a Sept. 15th deadline to all the moms who haven’t yet installed their stoves, since they’ve had them for two months. If they don’t make the date, we’ll give them to other moms who have been asking.

A very happy mommy with her new improved cooking stove. Pretty self-explanatory, the fire wood goes in one end and the smoke goes out the chimney.

Brian and I went down to a village to help some families build their new stoves. You have to make a lot of mud to serve as the glue that holds the adobes together. From there, you basically stack them and make a special bed for the grill to go on top of. There are a few technical requirements, but it’s really easy to do. We actually had a blast working with the people. They made us laugh the whole time and we ate lunch three times (of course no one would allow themselves to be embarrassed by not inviting us to lunch).

Next up is what Brian considers our most successful project as of date: a little running race for the community members organized to celebrate the town anniversary. Although a huge headache to plan (the typical stuff: herding cats that are always a day behind), it went off without a hitch!!! Hooray! AND, we had my wonderful and dear friend Helen visiting us to lend a hand. So the race was manifested with the combined efforts of the health center folks, a couple of motivated teachers, us, an NGO, and the local police. We secured donations for prizes, water, snacks, t-shirts, and logistical support; and made two categories: kids 9 – 12 and adults 13 and up. (I know what you’re thinking, but we couldn’t get enough prizes for a third category). The kids ran a mile and the adults about 4 miles. The nurses and doctors were placed along the route with water and med kits, the police officer halted traffic (one car), and the rest of us stayed at the start/finish line to cheer the runners on. The adult group ended up having three girls and 25 boys between the ages of 15 and 20. There were 13 kids, 7 girls and 6 boys – sad, sad commentary on what happens to girls after puberty, no? But that`s also another story. Anyway, to our delight, they all rocked it! These youth are used to walking and hiking everywhere all the time…of course they did great!! A proud day for us indeed.

The health center workers.

The start/finish area.

My host sister...she won the girls category!! YAY!!

The participants for the kids category. So cute!!

The winner for the boys category!

The female winner for the adults category. She beat out a bunch of the guys, in spite of the fact that everyone said that girls can't run the same distance as boys. Machismo is dead!!

We're not looking too shabby, right??

And to close, a few pics from a trip to the beach with two very charming and generous friends… love you guys!!!

Ancash is Beautiful

2009-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Well, given the fact that we are 1) not in any kind of ¨normal¨ physical condition, and 2) organized a climbing trip with no phone or internet services, our adventures in Ancash are not too suprising. First the big news: Brian summited two peaks over 19,000ft and I zero. After a debilitating muscle pull in the marathon, Brian made an admirable comeback and plowed up the mountains in classic B-man style; albeit much more winded and with a bit more lactic acid buildup. At the first base camp on summit ¨day¨ (we left at midnight) I turned around after 30 minutes of hiking with a terrible case of the flu coming on. 2 hours later a friend of ours came back with the same symptoms. Flu at 14,000ft. is not pleasant, so we went down and spent the next three days in bed while Brian continued with another friend of ours.

I didn`t suffer from any busted ego woes as I have long ago accepted the fact that I am a different person here, physically and emotionally, and don`t expect to be Ms. Climber Girl while living in a tropical cloud forest. Besides, I had a backup plan - a wonderful trip to a mountain lodge with some girlfriends while Brian and some boyfriends went on a trek together. (He was going to attempt Huascaran - highest peak in Peru - but after seeing the lacking safety practices of the guides on the frist two peaks and hearing of the death of a guide and client the day before he was scheduled to leave on the same route, we decided that dying here is NOT in our plans and a trek would be better until we can climb with those that we trust). Enjoy the pictures. The lodge is a tranquil eco-friendly place with lots of cool dayhikes and and nice people. It reminded me alot of the hangouts in the San Luis Valley, but with clothes on (heehee).

The lodge, ahhhhhhh.

Some good gals.

An abonded grain-storage hut.

Strolling about.

View from the lodge.

Glacial lake we hiked to.

Peruvian Mixer

2009-07-16T13:46:00.000-07:00

Just so you have proof that we are not exaggerating when we rail against rural cuisine, here you go. Our lunch. That same week we had rice, noodle, and potato soup; rice with potatoes; and noodles with potatoes. I think I could come up with a fun math activity for fourth graders with this… (Thanks for the tuna packs Mom, they’re saving our poor deteriorated muscles! Actually, we’re cooking our own dinners now, so our nutrition has improved and my Buddha Belly and Thunder Thighs are on the decline. But Brian’s Lanky Legs can’t seem to make a comeback. Humph.)

My favorite kinds of pictures…. It just never gets old!

The corn and orange harvest is over, but now comes the time for processing all of the food so laboriously collected. Like Jenny and Shaw observed on their trip to Sicchez, everything here is work. The life of a piece of food from seed to plate, especially for those without technology, requires heavy personal investment. A rural farmer is connected to his/her food in a way that we can’t come close to understanding in the States. Almost every crop I can think of that is to be stored (coffee, peanuts, corn, beans) must first be cleaned and dried out in the sun before being ground, toasted, and stored. In these pictures we’re taking the kernels off of semi-dried corn so that they can lay the grains in the sun to finish drying completely. For green city folk like us, our thumbs start to hurt after 20 minutes. These times with the family are really special to Brian and I. It’s kind of like the equivalent of sitting around the fire. I can understand now why seniors get so nostalgic for the days before television and computers, there is an organic quality to time with the family that tends to get lost with so many new fancy diversions. However, I do have to say that it makes me somewhat pained to see how much time, land, and labour go into growing food for animals. Animals that usually die of diseases, get eaten by wild animals, or stolen. And still, even with all the effort of raising animals, there is a severe protein deficiency in 40% of the children here. The amount of protein-rich plant crops they could grow in the same space as all of the corn or grass for grazing is astounding. But I’m just a biased vegetarian.

How women weave.

This man is making adobes for an improved cooking stove that Brian will use in his demonstrations. The mud is mixed with a particular type of grass. He made about 70 adobes in a little over 8 hours.

It’s actually a lot of fun to play with the mud, kind of brought me back to the days of being three years old and enjoying the sensation of mud running through my fingers. Brian built a cocina mejorada (improved cooking stove) for his training classes with the local mothers. The health center chose four villages to work with in which all of the moms with kids under three will receive the materials for the stove. In return the families have to make the adobes, transport the materials to their houses, and build the stoves. There are about 30 participating families, plus the local schools (the moms take turns cooking food at the schools because there is no school lunch program in Peru). These stoves are of vital importance all over the world in developing countries, as half of the world’s population cook with open fires in the kitchen (using wood, animal droppings, or crop debris). Respiratory infections are among the three most common health problems in Sicchez, along with diarrhea (parasites) and psoriasis (alcoholism). Along with a chimney to divert the smoke, improved cooking stoves also burn more efficiently, using 35% less firewood. Yay for the forest!! The moms came down from the villages for a training given by Brian and the nurse. Our next task is to visit each family to answer questions and provide support in building their new stoves.

Just in case you had doubts, dirt floors and streets do follow a strict cleaning regimen: 1) fill up holes with loose dirt and pack it down, 2) if a street, rake away weeds, 3)sweep the dirt to remove all loose debris – yes, with a broom, 4) water the dirt, but not too much. If this is not done weekly, your dirt floor with begin to get pockmarks, become uneven, and create lots of dust. This is how I spent one beautiful Friday helping a local village clean the streets for their anniversary party. Turned out pretty clean, hugh? Living on dirt doesn’t have to be dirty!

In our never-ending quest to understand the place and people of Sicchez, I went peanut-harvesting with a man from a village down the valley (2,000 ft. down). His way of life is extremely simple and he is very poor. They have some goats, pigs, chickens and cows and about 5 acres of land. No money except for what they can sell of their crops to a village up the valley. His village just got electricity last month. And he is one of the happiest people I know. Not really surprising. In the picture of his field, the peanuts are the green patch on the right. So peanut harvesting is a freakin back breaker. You pull the plants up and make big piles, but most of the peanuts get stuck in the ground so with a stick (which he carved with his machete to make a point) you have to dig them out. But usually there are two layers of peanuts underneath, and some of them are really deep. At first he had to re-dig everything I did because I kept missing them. It’s a really interesting plant. The flowers are tiny yellow things that bloom right next to the ground and the peanuts are the fruit that develop in the soil. After four hours of continual harvesting I wasn’t sure if I could stand up straight. The women bring lunch to the field so you don’t waste time walking back and forth, as most fields here are a ways from the house (that has a lot to do with historical land-us policy in Peru, a fascinating and sickening story).

Novedades (what´s new)

2009-05-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

We are currently being rewarded with a very prosperous harvest of corn, squash, beans, oranges, and peanuts to make up for the very poor mango-tropical fruit harvests of Jan and Feb. Which means lots of tamales (yummy! sorry you have to miss all the fresh tamales, Dad!), corn tea (yup - they toast and grind the kernals and make a thick kind of tea from it, it´s good), corn puree, corn soup, fresh squeezed orange juice, squash soup and beans in almost everything. The time ´o plenty is here and oh so good. I will NEVER buy ornage juice from a box ever again. For that matter, never will I have the opportunity to walk on a dirt path through nature on a daily basis as part of my job, or live in a place without a single car or traffic sign. Isolation can be spiritually prosperous if you look at it right.

So, some pics of late:

Brian and I did a veggie cooking class for the moms that want to do gardens with us. We made three types: cooked carrots with sugar and cinnamon, cooked beets with mayo and cumin, and a raw salad with a ginger-garlic-green onion-soy sauce dressing. They actually really liked them, but the little ones wouldn´t eat raw spinach (I guess you can´t blame them).

Makin´salad.

This is one week´s worth of recyclables collected from about half of the community (we started with half of the population, about 40 families, and added on the next week to include everyone).

One of the trash workers has a full day to separate and crush they recyclables so we can bag them and sell them in Piura.

A community member with her bucket for recyclable classification. She and her husband are going the extra mile - they´re actually cleaning up the trash from their field and turning it in to us!! They´re really excited to be ¨getting rid of the contamination¨ so that their plants are healthier. So proud!

One of the two trash collectors with the recyclables. She can collect everything from her assigned sector within two hours, it´s didn´t turn out to be much extra work for her - which is good because it´s been easy to get her on board with the changes. The municipality is promising to buy a tricycle with a large bin attatched to make the work easier for the collectors. We shall see...

Some families had recyclables saved up for months and months.

The participation so far is 100%, people love having their trash collected. If one of the collectors forgets to go to a house, we hear about it within hours.

That´s about all she can fit into one load.

They collect non-recyclables from the sacs on different days.

The municipal dump.

Ahhhh...Ecuador

Kids rock! Never afraid to smile!

More Confusion, Craziness, and Encouragement…Or Are We Just Experiencing Magical Realism Again?

2009-05-26T12:55:00.001-07:00

So some guys came down to Sicchez from the provincial capital of Ayabaca (like a county seat), set up an antenna, and started a radio station. Cool!!

And then the tapestry of alternate realities began… Here - I can’t fairly say if it’s Peru, rural Peru, South America, or Latino culture in general - the truth is elusive, just out of grasp and variable. In some ways thoroughly maddening when one needs a firm grasp on the situation at hand, or to follow through on a specific task (how many different damn answers are there to one simple question?!?); but this rippling and fluid version of he truth may be closer to reality than we realize. Maybe magical realism can be better described as comprehensive realism.

Anyway, the case in point: the new radio station in Sicchez. Everyone’s excited, paying a few cents to send ¨shot outs¨ to friends over the air and blasting the station over the town loudspeakers. And then slowly, ever so slowly, we begin to realize that it’s all we hear anymore. The other two radio stations (one from Lima and one from Ecuador), go away. No one watches telenovelas on the Peruvian TV network either (this is a truly horrifying thing) and we begin to wonder why. Whispers of a take-over ride the breeze: the radio signal has intercepted and canceled out all the other radio signals. They just don’t come in. Worse yet, the TV signals come in, but with the Sicchz radio station audio. Then, the inconceivable happens: the only phone in town, a community phone with satellite signal, plays the Sicchez radio station when you dial a number. Awesome! We have been usurped, overtaken. But to what degree depends on who you ask. Everyone knows the truth, but not one version has a match.

But all good phenomenon normalize, all good stars fade away, and one fine morning a week ago found our town waking up to the Lima radio station over the loudspeakers once again. Ummmm…..wait….we thought…
Gueiby (our 11 year old host sister) looks at us as if we were completely insane and shrugs, ¨No, Angela, the Sicchez radio station never interrupted anything. Nothing’s changed.¨ Well, the drama at least gave us the illusion of something strange afoot, but it looks like business as usual reigns.

And the finale:
Now….imagine…you are a poor, rural Peruvian subsistence farmer. You don’t have a concept of ¨exercise¨ because life is an exercise in itself. The rainy season recedes and every morning you see some tall skinny white guy running by, sometimes 3 or 4 times. What is he running from?!? Wait – why did he come by again?!?

That’s my hubby! Brian’s training for a Peace Corps volunteer organized marathon in July (you all KNEW he’d find some hard-ass thing to train for while here, the Peace Corps cannot stop Brian from setting fitness goals). Granted, we are well-known by now, and I’d even venture to say well-loved too, but running?!? What?!? Why?!? Now that Brian’s become a regular morning attraction, providing a few seconds of entertainment for various families who live along the road, he’s become a bit of a star. Receiving shouts of hope and encouragement from the peanut gallery: ¨GO GRINGO GO!!¨ ¨ALMOST THERE GRINGO!!¨ ¨KEEP GOING!!¨ can be heard from the doorways. Not to mention friendly offers for cane sugar moonshine shots (180 poof, no joke) from already drunk men – the Sicchez style aid-station. Even if the Siccheñans don’t know why, they wish him the very best in his race. And so do I.

p.s. The race is July 5th in Pacasmayo. Wish him happy running (a natural like him doesn´t need luck!)

Hmmmm...random

2009-05-09T15:46:00.000-07:00

HI! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!! I´M GOING CRAZY UP HERE!!!

Some mommies and babies in one of our family garden trainings.

Compost demonstration. Nice sweat marks, no?

Insanely intoxicating and utterly orgasmic smelling orchids on our porch. I´ll never forget that smell!

Relationships Take Time

2009-05-09T15:23:00.000-07:00

So we´re in the final quarter of our servie here – WIERD!! The last six months of our service are turning out to be the most productive activity-wise. Which tells us one very important thing: relationships come first. Always. Life is inevitably social, defined not by the existance of something in isolation (because it doesn´t), but by the boundless, infinate connections between it All That Is. It´s hard to make good things happen without first developing the textures and pulse of your relation to others who are involved in whatever you´re trying to do. At work, home, in the park, whatever. I knew that as a teacher, spending the first two months of school mostly on establishing a good ¨classroom environment¨, and it always paid off later on. Something not working? Try working on the relationships with those around you instead of the actual problem itslef.
So Sícchez is proving to be the same. But it sure did take a while, which I guess is normal for being foreigners and all. Over a year to earn trust. To establish patterns so that we were predictable (you wouldn´t believe how important predictability is even in adult relationships. It´s not just for kids!). And finally, they are starting to see that we are serious about what we say and that we won´t dissapoint them. As Brian would say, it took a lot of drunken-ear-numbing-four-hour-late meetings and parties to get to where we are!

Okay, so I know I´m a fluffy writer. I can´t help it, I´m a Romantic. The Synic could easily make several observations about the work we do with people in Sicchez: 1) people only motivate when they´re given something, 2) 99% say they´ll do something and don´t, 3) political and institutional dysfunction hamper possibilities, and 4) once we leave, it´ll all go back to the way it was. Unfortunately, our own host family holds this synical view. They think I´m wasting time and money developing a new trash management system. They say people are just stuck in their ways. They don´t think it will work (hey thanks for the support, family!). But they also don´t participate in the community. I never see them at meetings or helping out in communal work days. So the question remains: can we overcome these obstacles by building good relationships? It think so, with a few key people to keep the forward-moving juices flowing.

With these things in mind, I will describe some recent developments with trash collection and veggie gardens. Luckily, or not, you got me on a good week – so onward with the fluff:

My community partner and I recently received some funds from a grant we wrote together and purchased materials for a new waste-management system (in the population center only). After going house-to-house to inform community members of our work at the beginning of this year, we prepared a little hut for recyclables storage and improved the sanitary landfills that the municipality is using for trash disposal (remember the situation when we arrived - trash being dumped behind a tree and burned, and a few community trash cans that were used more frequently by hungry dogs than by people?).

The recycling storage hut.

Inside the hut.

Municipal sanitary landfill.

The materials we purchased are large plastic buckets (60 liters) and sacks for each family to separate recyclables from true trash in their home. According to a fixed schedule, the trash collectors will go around with their wheelbarrows house-to-house collecting the segragated trash, collecting from public cans, or classifying the recyclables in the hut; depending on the day. After a sufficient amount of recyclables are collected they´ll be sold in the city, the income of which will be re-invested in maintaining the system. Hoepfully having a trash system will negate the need for people to take it to the fields or streams for dumping.

A week ago, we handed out the materials to the first 40 participating families (we´re starting with a thrid of the population and adding another third every two weeks so the whole thing doesn´t overwhelm us). Handed out, NOT handout. The municipality contributed 40% of the total budget, and people who do not use their materials correctly wil have them taken away. People were really excited and personally told me how much they appreciated the information and effort to clean the town up. A lot of them just don´t know the dangers of inadequte trash disposal. Nobody had ever heard of the Three R´s. And, to put the icing on the cake, 90% of the invited families actually came to the meeting!! (This being amazing knowing that usually 10% of people ever show up to meetings – I´m not exaggerating). I was so proud!! Of course, it isn´t all fariy tale. One of the authorities showed up stumbling-slurring drunk and tried to give the introduction and objectives of the project while waving like a willow in the wind. But hey, we are in Sícchez, they like their liquor. What could I do but look at Brian and smile?!?!

Now they will separate trash at home.

Here we are at the training while an authority who showed up extremely drunk (slurring, waving) tried to introduce the project. Whachya gonna do?

The new activities are accompanied by lots of education about littering, ¨illegal¨ dumping, and other related themes at meetings, over the loudspeakers, house visits, etc. Each institution (school, municipality, asociations, clubs, etc) in Sicchez will also recieve the materials to classify trash, and hopefully we´ll get a recycling committe together with the local school kids to manage everthing in their schools. Ongoing monitoring is to be done by the local governor and an environmental regent, but I will probably do it with them for a while until it becomes a habit.

I have to say, I´ve been really proud of the Siccheñans lately. My community associate is starting to take the lead, I don´t have to remind him about things anymore and he actually programs activities like clean-up campaigns on his own now. Some of the authorities are beginning to remind people about cleanliness without my urging, and lots of people who didn´t go to the first meeting are asking me when they can start participating in trash selection too. It´s encouraging because the desire is beginning to shift from me to them. And I know it´s because of the relationships I´ve made. I believe in what they can accomplish, and now that they trust me, they are starting to believe that they can believe in themselves too.

And I guess that’s the main thing – I just want them to be able to see themselves as people who are empowered, progressing in their goals as a community, and fully capable of taking care of themselves. In a country with such high paternalism and low self-esteem, having a clean and organized community can mean a lot for their collective self image.

On Brian’s conquest against a 40% malnutrition rate among Sicceñan children, gardens are beginning to take shape. We opened the participation up to any mom with children under three years of age and pregnant women in the entire district. Participation is voluntary and the moms must complete a few required taskes before receiving seeds to start a garden: they have to participate in all the trainings, fence off an area for a garden, have a compost pile, and agree to harvest seeds to keep the garden growing each year. All of which we verify by doing house visits, which is a lot of walking all over the place – right up our alley!

*Here we must add a huge and warm thank-you to Jane of Altrusa in Texas for donating the funds for the seeds. Your organization is extremely generous and the Siccheñan children and women are very grateful!!

Hey Dad, did I kill you with all the verbose prose? Heeeheee, enjoy!

Happy Mother´s Day and Happy Farther´s day to our loving and supportive parents. And Happy Birthday Dad! We´re sad we can´t celebrate with you!!

And congrats AnnMarie, Ash, Melia, and Jim!!!!! You are going to learn so much about life and love with new little ones! We really wish we could be there to share it all!

Some Random Pics of Kitchens

2009-04-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

Okay, I´ll post some commentary within the next month, lots of stuff is happening...but for now... I thought you´d like to see some pictures of typical kitchens. They are powered by firewood. You will be able to better appreciate why Brian wants to include improved cooking stoves in with his nutrition project...

The smoke leaves through a small hole in the roof.

Ummmmm...that´s a horizontal chimney! The top is corroded away!

Our Intrepid Father-In-Law

2009-04-07T10:16:00.000-07:00

So here are some pics from our journeys with Brian Sr. around the beautiful country of Peru. For being about one foot taller on average than everyone else, Brian Sr. bravely jammed himself into tin can taxis, cramped busses and all sorts of small spaces to get a glimpse of the northern mountains near our site, beaches, Cajamarca (mountains), Lima, and Cusco/Machu Picchu. We never kept him wanting for activity! And more than anything, we infinately appreciate his support and willingness to have this experience with us. For Brian and I, seeing family was by far the most rewarding part of the trip!

A gorgeous local beach know as Colán. It´s friggin hot right now, so the beach was high priority.Only about a two mile stretch of local´s summer homes line the beach. It´s a nice tranquil place without tourist annoyances.

Also in Colán is the oldest church in all of Latin America (1500´s) made from rock taken from the nearby cliffs. True to historical tendencies, it was built right on top of the old worshipping grounds of indegenous people.

Plaza de Armas in Cajamarca. Cajamarca is also in the northern mountains, but south of where Brian and I live. This spot is where Pizarro murdered the Incan king after first offering him amnesty in trade for tons and tons of gold and silver. The king, Atahualpa, had the ransom brought in from all over the empire but was deceieved anyway.

Cajamarca from an outlook. It´s in a beautifu valley. Just over the hills is the fifth largest mine in the world (mostly gold), the company is based in Denver.

Another view of the valley.

The ¨rock forest¨. We did a two hour walk around here where we saw 3,000 year old ruins, irrigation canals, and petroglyphs. It´s at 10,500 ft, poor Brian Sr. braved the walk on his sickest day!

Islas Ballestas and Paracas

2009-03-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

So we were lucky enough to be esocrted by a wonderful friend (the nurse at the health center in Sicchez) to her home town of Pisco and also to Ica. True to form, her humble family generously accepted us into their home and treated us like long lost children. We went to the annual grape festival in Ica, and toured the protected ares of the Islas Ballestas and Paracas. Good times!

The river Pisco with farms all around.

Ahhhh, the Ica grape. They are deeeelicious! THe gal is our friend from Sicchez (well, she´s from Ica but works as a nurse in Sicchez). We´re sitting near her family´s farm outside of Pisco.

Brian with our friend from Sicchez and her parents. Although they´ve lived 20 minutes from the protected area for over 20 years, they had never seen it before. We were delighted to take them!

Can you see the drawing? Nobody knows who or when, or even what it is. Kind of like the Nazca lines, drawn in the rock at a very large scale.

The Islas Ballestas from afar. The white stuff is ¨guano¨ (bird poop) from the hundreds of year-round bird species that live there. Man has fought wars over this guano. Currently, the Peruvian government controls the extraction of this sought-after fertilizer. Every seven years they harvest it and export it, leavng local farmers to pay outrageous prices for the then re-processed product to re-enter the country as crop-ready fertilizer. Sound familiar? Petroleum, peanuts, minerals... Peru is like the bread basket of the world, exporting a large variety of raw goods for cheap, only to have to buy the processed and imported products at inflated prices.

The peninsula of Paracas is a National Reserve. There is practically no vegetation for 11 months of the year. Paracas receives 2mm of rain anually. But ironically the ocean is the equivalent of a rain forest, extremely rich in sea life (hence the islands). It´s all due to the Humbolt Current that comes up from Antarctica. Cold and rich in plankton, the entire food chain follows it here. The cold water means that practically none of it evaporates, which is why all along the western coast of South America from Ecuador to Northern Chile you find one of the driest deserts in the world.

A red sand beach produced by the red rock cliff in the background of this picture. The currents take the pebbles and deposit them here.

Sand dunes 5 min. outside of Ica. They extend for miles and miles to the sea. You can hike, sandboard, etc. It´s a beautiful desert.

Do Handouts Help?

2009-03-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

So, the rains have been steady. But, not quite as intense as last year. And yes, the people in Sicchez are very poor. And the roads have landslides. People who live in the surrounding hills (70% of the district population) are at risk of their houses (made of adobe) falling and cracking. It´s not an easy living for them at all. They work hard and don´t have much cash. Many live solely off of what they can grow and sell from their small parcels of land.

So, like every year, the mayor petitions the provincial government for aid during the rainy season. He asks for things like food, corregated tin (used for roofing) and plastic to hand out to affected families. To be fair, the free handouts aren´t for everyone. A local authority from the village has to verify that a family is endangered by the rains. But, being from the village, the authority often has a hard time saying ¨yes¨ to some and ¨no¨ to others - a lot of people make the list that truly aren´t suffering additional harship. On a set day, all the people on the list are called in from their village to recieve handouts. The whole event is seen as evidence that the authorities are ¨fighting¨ for their population. Lots of wordy speeches and formality permeates the process.

But I have always had my doubts about all things extrinsic. How do these handouts help people mitigate further catastrophe, learn better strategies, or self-advocate? When the food runs out, is their living situation any better? Are they better equipped for the next year of rain? Listening to the comments of my own grandma can shed some light on these questions: ¨We aren´t affected by the rain, but this food should be for everyone, we´re ALL poor!!¨ Is that really the idea of the handouts?!?! To encourage people to expect things to come to them because they are disadvantaged? Praternalism? Learned helplessness? And the government itself is encouraging this dependancy by this practice. In my humble view, the money invested in these handouts would be better invested in training, education, and social empowerment programs. Or free health care. On things that an average person can´t reasonably prevent/provied for oneself.

This argument can be turned inside out. People with very different views from myself use it to argue againt things like welfare. I actually believe in government investment and support of a populations´needs. I like being taxed damnit!! But what I am seeing here in my corner of the world is that the support is in a direction that is making the problem worse. People get mad when they don´t get a free bag of rice from the mayor. That bag of rice doesn´t even come close to the real problem.

A person educated in Political Science or Development or Internations Affairs can probably rip this diatribe to shreds. I don´t calim to be educated on these topics. My knowledge is from direct experience, and limited at that. A year and a half isn´t much. But the more time I spend here the more wary I become of NGO´s, ¨development aid¨, and the like. But, on the other hand, sometimes helping people to help themseves is a backwards struggle. It´s easier to just give stuff out. And you also have to consider: What if they don´t want you to help them help themselves? Empowering people is risky and can come off as an imposition of outsider ways. So none of this is straight forward. A world without suffering is not an option because we don´t learn anything as humans that way; and some people choose to suffer. It´s all about finding the wormholes and pathways that do make space for possibility.

My mayor handing out corregated tin.

The food baskets, tin roofing, and plastic for half of the district´s affected.

Some señoras after receiving their food baskets.

About half of the district´s affected are gathered here waitng for their handouts.

Our dog Nene is sooooo cute, no?!?!?!? The sun came out for a few hours and he and the chicken decided to sunbathe for a while. I miss Ginger and Maggie!!!

Lluvia (Rain)

2009-03-07T12:46:00.000-08:00

This is best with sound...

Well...a bunch of stuff, really

2009-02-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

Well, we continue to move at an astonishing break-neck pace with the activities we carry out in the community. Last week, we actually had something planned one day!!! Yup, the rain is here. It’s wet. It’s muddy. Everything’s, well, hibernating. We haven’t seen even a peep from the sun in over two weeks. But hey, you all know how industrious Brian is and how I like to shake a tail feather, so we’ve been getting creative. We go on long walks to far-out villages to visit people for lunch. We make hot cocoa and take it to neighbors. I do exercise videos (I can’t seem to get Brian into ¨Yoga-Booty-Ballet¨ yet…how odd, no?). We read and write. We study Spanish and butcher it talking to each other. We garden, or used to. Now it’s a big flooded area and the plants are swimming in their beds. Sometimes we watch Mexican soap operas after dinner, but the black and white screen flickers and buzzes. Some days we go to the municipality and look at pictures from trips on the computer with a friend at the municipality. When the electricity isn’t out (almost every day it goes for a while – yes – the rain), we take movies to friend’s houses. And when possible, we work.

I’m tentatively positive about Sícchez´s progress with trash management. And Brian’s doing an awesome job supporting the Health Center with trainings and getting an improved cooking stove and family garden project off the ground. To be honest, I’m doing the ´ol carrot-and-stick trick. I’ve got access to some funds from the Peace Corps and have developed a trash management plan with my community associate (a Tech that works at the municipality) that will take advantage of these funds. We want to buy new community trash cans that won’t rust, give sacks and family-size trash cans to each household so that they separate organics from inorganics, implement house-to-house trash collection, use the organics for compost production, and separate and sell the recyclables. But I’m refusing to give them the money until they can meet certain conditions first. Thus, the ball is in their court to get themselves organized and take the initiative to make change (with my constant loving support, of course). Namely, they have to correctly manage the system they already have in place, which consists of trash cans spread out through the town streets and collection by wheelbarrow. As of now, the trash collectors go to only about half of the existing trash cans, so that people don’t see any reason to use them. Instead, they burn their waste streams or throw it all down the hill behind their house. The municipality will have to show that it can manage consistent and adequate collection of the existing system before receiving money to implement a more complex one.
Yesterday, we had a meeting with my counterpart and the workers who collect the trash, explaining to them our future plans and the need for them to comply with their responsibilities in order to move forward with the project. I rounded up more support from the Governor, who is now going house-to-house with me each week (along with the local police officer and Justice of the Peace) so we can educate and monitor families as they implement new trash management practices in their homes. Some people are on board and rearing to go, others…not so much, they don’t really listen. The Governor will also be responsible for monitoring the system once it’s in place, with the help of a graphic organizer that I made for him (some of that teacher blood coming through). The local schools will be responsible for monthly clean-ups. The Mayor has promised to buy (in 2010) new and improved trash collectors that consist of a large crate mounted on the front of bicycles for the workers to use instead of these tiny wheelbarrows. And the Tech is going to make the compost and recyclable storage areas (which also have to be in place before receiving funds). It all sounds good on paper, but I’m not holding my breath – it’s a lot of behavior change to ask for. It might be something that the volunteer after me ends up fully implementing. I might just be laying the groundwork.

As for the two rural villages where I work, trash collection is not feasible. Thus, I’m working with 21 families on using family sanitary landfills to dispose of their trash and use their organics for compost production. This part of my service is a lot easier, because the villages are small and I don’t have to deal with institutions, just the families, a local teacher, and the local Deputy Governor. We basically go house-to-house each month to make sure that the families are disposing of their trash in the landfills and correctly maintaining their compost piles. The gratification is a lot more instant because each time I go to the villages, more families are participating. I think it’s a peer-pressure thing. The families that are now keeping things a lot cleaner pressure their neighbors to do the same, as they can see the difference between a ¨clean¨ and ¨dirty¨ home. They don’t want their neighbors trashing what they’ve worked so hard to clean. Initially, we had a contest and gifted food baskets to families who participated. Now they’re doing it without prizes. This made me extremely happy, as you all know I don’t much like extrinsic rewards. I felt so proud of them! Unfortunately - or fortunately - the Mayor saw what I was doing and offered to gift food baskets to the rest of the families that participate. So now they are expecting extrinsic rewards again, but hey, who am I to judge?!?

The municipal landfill. Yes, it seems so simple - a big hole. But, wow, it´s hard to get it right! And yes, that´s a dog that fell in there. Apparantly, his owners never feed it and it goes to the trash hole to eat, spreading it all over the place (which understandably pisses the workers off). Well, this guy fell in by accident (it´s about nine feet deep) and the workers can´t get him out because he gets really vicious. So you know what they say?? ¨Better to let him die.¨ And that was the end of discussion. So now you can hear him barking every day, stuck down there with no hope of getting out. It PAINS us to hear it, especially when it rains really hard. Poor guy!!!!!!

A family in a small village with their family-sized landfill. And they´re using it - YAY!!!!

On our long hike to Ayabaca to use internet. That´s a WORM not a snake!

Passing through the cloud forest on the way to Ayabaca.

Happy little couple ;)

One way to pass the time...paint a map on the wall of the local preschool.

It cleared up a bit one day. The picture of the little girl from the village above lives at the very bottom of this valley. A nice walk!

What most days are like. Yeah, who wants to do anything in THAT?!?!

Brian´s trying to work but I think his papers are soggy.

Aahhhhh...morning.

Heavy rain + deforestation = lots of sediment in the water. Yes, this is the water that we drink, use to wash clothes (whites come out tan), and otherwise depend on. Can you see the fear?

Refreshing! Right out ´o the tap! We´re starting to fill up large bottles to let the water sit for a couple of days so the sediment settles before consuming.

Our family Christmas dinner.

Christmas celebration at the health center.

Pre school graduation party.

Host family in Lima. DO NOT let those smiles fool you, sucka!

That´s my grandma dancing!!!!

Yup, lots of sitting on the poarch.

Orchids stolen from the cloud forest. Now they´re on our poarch. But the do smell GOOOOOOOOD.

Where Are the Mangoes?

2009-01-09T07:39:00.000-08:00

Well, if you remember from last year’s blog at about this time, we were happily sucking the mango juice off of our chins several times a day. Yes, mango season has come full circle. Along with avocadoes, chirimoya, and peanuts (peanuts have two harvests a year). Only there isn’t anything – insert sympathetic sigh here – growing on the trees!! There are no harvests, just the peanuts. Who knows why? True to par, we hear lots of reasons: global warming, too much (non-existent) ice, messed up rains. But basically everyone thinks it’s the weather. I tend to think it’s a combination of land-use practice and weather. Either way, the campesinos are hurting. With food prices rising and crops failing, the lack of basic nutrition is more and more acute. Sometimes we have a plate of rice for dinner. And a noodle-only soup the next day for dinner. If there’s no rice, we eat boiled green bananas and some potatoes. People just can’t afford to buy beans, legumes, or other ¨luxury¨ items. And almost nobody has a garden. Fortunately, some families raise animals. But in our home, for example, although we have cows that are being milked, our family sells every last bit of cheese made from the milk to make money – so they can buy rice. The one free source of protein and vitamins we have is sold off. Fortunately, Brian and I bring up food items from the city and are able to supplement what we eat to some extent.

We go back and forth a lot about how bad the situation really is. People have the money to buy alcohol and have parties, but they don’t have enough money to buy lentils?!?! They can’t afford the 30 cents it takes to buy a pack of seeds for veggies? One pack of seeds costs the same as a bottle of cañaso, the bootleg sugar cane liquor. And I am not exaggerating when I say that there are pobladores who drink one bottle daily. They effectively drink a garden’s worth of fresh produce in three days. There are lots of cheap food options. Eggs are very inexpensive. Other types of food can be bought instead of rice. But the thing is, rice is cheaper and it is used as filler. The custom is quantity over quality, every time.

I think the problem is a combination of custom, habit, inertia, and a lack of pro-active problem solving. And in a way, I can understand it. Collective history has a way of sticking around. One can find a lot of similarities among cultures that have been conquered and exploited. There is a mind set that things are always done to an individual. A justifiable sense of learned helplessness that has very profound roots. But buried under politics, bureaucracy, under history and the ebb and flow of human-ness, lies the power of the mind. There isn’t anyone here who doesn’t have the resources and power to improve their situation. They don’t have to suffer so much! They can dictate in a more proactive way the path their life takes. If only they believed in themselves. A more just and sane world would make this easier to manifest, but an unjust and crazy world does not make it impossible!

Magical Realism Continued

2009-01-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

1) At approximately 10:45am on December 22nd, I became the proud Godmother of a brand new dental chair at the Health Center. My first Godchild ever, I was so proud! It looked so cute sitting there next to all of the drills and tooth-picker things the dentists use!! After sprinkling holy water on the chair with a rose, I posed for pictures with my new Godchild.

2) The same day, around 4pm I attended the first party ever that I actually got locked into. Yes, locked in. It was the primary school´s graduation party, and the principal wanted everyone to stay and keep drinking and dancing. By this point all of the kids (who the party was supposedly for) got bored watching drunk adults slur and dance, and had left. So, to keep us party people captive the principal locked the doors. No leaving. Well, I finally managed to convince Juan (my host brother and incidentally the school handy-man) to open the door for me. Upon opening the door a crack to let me out, a flock of mothers also pining to leave were seen running up behind me to escape, like iron filaments to a magnet. Juan pushed me though and quickly slammed the door shut. Commotion could be heard on the other side of the door, as none of the other mothers managed to escape with me!

Service is Subtle

2009-01-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

On a recent trip to Lima, Brian and I paid a visit to our old host family (the ones that we stayed with during the first three months of training). They are such good people! Curious, talkative, funny, and caring. One evening while conversing with Martha, the mom of our host family, we started talking about all the Peace Corps volunteers that they have met up until now. Martha and Ivan, her husband, have hosted four rounds of volunteers. And the most surprising thing was that, after two years of getting to know us volunteers, she still doesn’t understand why we do it. Why in the world would we leave family, friends, jobs – our life – to work in a far away place for free?

Aside from cultural factors, her comment has a hidden socio-economic subtext. Martha sees us as privileged; that being volunteers and not earning money for two years is something we can do with ease in economic terms. Martha and her family live just above the poverty line. Truthfully, she’s not entirely wrong in her perception. But the idea of volunteering should go far beyond economic class. So I tried to put the ball into her court. I asked her if she could serve as a volunteer for another community if her government gave her the opportunity. And you know what she said? No. ¨How can I help others if I myself am someone who needs help??¨ She even said that she didn’t think she was capable of helping others, because she herself had nothing. But how sad to think that in order to help people, one needs ¨things¨, be it money or some other kind of extrinsic resource. In this sense, Martha feels trapped by her social economic standing, unable to help herself – let alone others.

So then what is service? Who should/can help who and why? Generally, it is the Haves who help the Have Nots. That’s what the Peace Corps is. It’s true even within my own country. Back in the States, as a teacher in a high-poverty neighborhood, all of the staff at the schools was people of higher social-economic standing than that of the neighborhood in which they worked. But, why? Why weren’t there people from the same neighborhood in positions of service? It can be said that those in difficult economic or social situations don’t have the luxury, time, and means to think about much more than survival and everyday life. However, I always tried to teach my students that being of service to others enriches us, that we all can have a positive effect on humanity. That it doesn’t matter where you’re from, how much money you have, or who you are. You can always do something good.

Never in this life will we understand what it is to be something we’re not. I will never know what it is really like to be poor, although I will have lived in a village for two years that is officially considered under ¨extreme poverty¨ by the government. But is it even really necessary that I understand? Why do we have to be the same as those we help? Do we really need to understand each others´ immediate situations in order to interact with each other in a positive way? Do the ideas of ¨service¨ and ¨economic class¨ really have to be so dependant?

A person doesn’t serve because they feel guilty. Or because they want to be someone else, or even because they (unadmittingly) have a superiority complex. A person offers their service to others in order to share, exchange, learn, and amplify reality. A person serves to make connections and develop relationships. To cultivate love among us. Those who serve do so to discover hidden potentials and share with others the journey of reaching those potentials. Aren’t we all capable of that? And maybe the discrepancy between those who offer service and those who receive it is due to the fact that the more different the two sides are, the more there is to be learned; and thus, gained from the experience. This is not a one-way world!

As a Have, let someone change you. Listen to those with no voice. Let someone plant a foreign and maybe uncomfortable idea in your head. And pursue it even when it can be painful. For what I have found, after coming all this way for what seems like such a long, long time, is that – really – it’s the people of Sícchez who are serving me. Who are making me better, pushing me, making me reconsider. Who are improving my life. That’s just it…you can’t help without being helped yourself. And that is the most beautiful thing about it.

Enough of the ¨Touristy Pics¨ Already!!! (this one´s for you, Dad)

2008-12-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

Enough of the ¨Touristy¨ Pics Already!! (these videos are for you, Dad!)

2008-12-07T12:13:00.000-08:00

Jungle Fervor

2008-11-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

In leiu of a texty entry, here's a foto journal of our trip to Pacaya-Samiria (largest reserve in the country, located in the Amazon jungle) and Iquitos (largest city in the world with no road going to it).
Need I say the trip kicked ASS?

The boat leaving Yurimaguas, on our way to the nature reserve.

Pretty cramped quaters on the boat - just like the busses. In fact, the river boats are the exact equivalent of the busses: cramped, stuffed, and filled with every immaginable thing possible.

Jungle skies NEVER dissapoint!!!!

Yup...you just chill...for hours and hours.

Never dissapoint....

Our canoes that went into the jungle reserve. Little dugouts that wobbled all over the place.

Impeccable!

See the three-toed sloth?

Our first night. The forest is currently flooded (high water time), so some endangered river dolphins were playing right under the deck!

Our second night. We took a nice dip in the river. It was HOT and humid, and the river so so cool and silky. No, our guides assured us there was no danger. The water was this wierd red color from all of the dissolved organic matter. Jungle tea as I like to say!

Some worms our guides used to catch fish. We ate fresh fish from the river every day (just a little for me but it was delicious). They fried some of the worms for us. Crazy, but they tasted just like peanuts! And were really oily. It was like a burst of oil upon biting them, no crunch at all. But I didn't go back for seconds.

Going through the flooded forest.

Our guides cleaning some fish. See the pirana??

Out of the reserve and onto the larger river boat down the Amazon to Iquitos. This tiny canoe is loading up his stuff. The ride was 24 hours from the reserve to Iquitos. Nice, slow moving made for a very lazy vibe.

One of the many river towns they stopped at to load/unload.

Gotta stay fresh!!!

The front of our boat. Yes, there were about 50 cows. Poor things didn't have any food or water for over 40 hours. There were also hundreds of chickens in the back of the boat.

Spledourous.

Is the beauty making you cry yet? If not, you have a very cold heart.

Sob!

A shanty town on the banks of a tributary in Iquitos. The houses float and rise and fall with the river.

Yes, the latrine empties into the river.

Illegal turtle and non-illegal deer at the market. The market in Iquitos was the most interesting we've ever seen. There was everything, hallucinogens, exotic animal meat, hundreds of fruits...

On our way to a butterfly farm and animal rescue place in Iquitos.

The monkey (rescued and tame) reported no lice. Yay!

Top Three Shenanigans

2008-11-19T12:49:00.001-08:00

Our Latest Top Three Things:

1. 300-pound doctor insists on borrowing Brian´s cheap-ass bike without functioning front brakes. He continually accelerates going down a big hill, all attempts at stopping in vain. Crashes, and has to be taken to Piura (5 hours by truck) to get stiches. (Side note: he is one of our favourite people here. Smiled the whole way down to Piura because he got free time off of work.)

2. One of the teachers asked us for final grades for our very informal non-consistent computer class with the elementary kids. So we made up a simple test. All of them failed. Hey - it´s not the teaching, they just don´t get much practice!! I swear!! So, we expressed our concerns to the teacher, not wanting any kids to get in trouble at home for flunking computers. We managed to change every kid´s grade to an A for good participation. How´s that for standardized assment, Colorado Department of Education!!!! In your face!

3. When someone dies in town, it´s a big deal. They officially mourn as a community for 9 days. It just so happend that at the time when 4 other volunteers came to visit us for training, a dearly loved woman from our community died (Brian and I had never met her). Well, it felt wierd anyway, running around town in a pack of oblivious gringoes while people were mourning. Even worse when, riding in a truck brimming full with us Americans, we came speeding into town almost running over the burial procession as it was headed to the cemetary. ¡Que vergüenza! How embarrassing! For some reason, our driver (Peruvian) made the procession back up so we could pass by!!! AND HONKED! Ahhhhhhh!! Being in the cab, I just burried my head in my arms. In the back of the truck, the other gringoes couldn´t do much of anything, save dissapear. Brian took is hat off. Others just shrunk in embarrassment. We´re lucky they love us here!

So...what are YOU doing??

2008-11-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it doesn´t take too long to get back into the swing of things after a vacation…naps after lunch, porch-sitting, long walks and bike rides, rice with potatoes and noodles soup, oh...and....work.

Some Peace Corps trainees came to our site as part of their training. I think they were a little overwhelmed. We´re pretty far out there and lack many travel-friendly facilities (such as mold and spider-free rooms). As heath trainees, Brian packed their three-day schedule with lots of hard labor (making a new garden at the kindergarten – DIG minions!! -, working in our garden at the health center, teaching basketball to some kids in another village, climbing up to the town´s water reservoir, giving classes at the health center and high school, etc.) They were a bit whipped. You all know, it takes a lot o juice to roll with the B-Man!! But it was nice to see some people we could relate to, Peace Corps volunteers aren´t anything if not interesting conversationalists.

The garden is all cleaned up from the plague infestation and we´re planting anew. It´s a long growing season here, which is kind of cool after being accustomed to the tight squeeze of a Colorado growing season. We have some nice alfalfa plants, but the bean seeds we planted rotted before they managed to sprout. Did I mention that the rains are approaching a bit early? We get some wetness most days of the week in the afternoon; which is actually a blessing because we don´t have to haul bucket after bucket from the faucet to water the plants.

Brian´s putting a grant proposal together for an improved cooking stove/family garden project (95% of families here cook over an open fire indoors, and have no access to fresh produce) to be carried out in our second year. ****I know, can you believe it?!?!?!?!? We´re approaching the year mark at site!!!!!! Dec. 4th!!**** An improved cooking stove is made of adobe with a metal top and a chimney so that it conserves heat, cooks faster, uses less firewood and sends the smoke out of the house. He´s doing a good job of making sure that the employees at the Health Center take initiative on most of the work. They want to start with building the stoves at the local schools, as the moms take turns cooking snacks for the kids and it´s a good way to initiate interest with a lot of people. Eventually, they´re going to focus the project on 30 families within the district with children under 3 years of age.

Well, the latest accomplishment from yours truly, Mrs. Trash? I managed to get another hole dug!! Wooohooo!!!! This one´s up in Sicchez Pampa, a village 1.5 hours walking distance away on top of a ridge. We built the ¨sanitary landfill¨ at the local school. The community did a clean-up campaign and we inagurated the first trash thrown into it. It was very sentimental for moment for all. I think the guys were loving the hole because they were nice and toasty drunk by the end of a 6-hr digging session (who can blame them, it´s not what you´d choose to do on a Saturday afternoon). I was just happy to see a dad yell at his kid for throwing a cookie wrapper on the ground while standing next to a nice, big, shiny new trash hole.

Young and old alike partake in the insanely fun task of digging a trash hole.

There were more guys here at the beginning, the cañaso (sugar cane moonshine) picked them off one by one...

In the other village of Las Vegas (1 hour bike ride down the road), 8 families managed to construct their very own landfills and clean up their property. YAY! The local principal there is a natural visionary and very active within his community. He´s my lifeline there because he always follows up on all our trash related activities. (I know, why would we ever need follow up? You´d think trash is a riveting enough topic to get people jumping out of their pants. Hugh. Go figure.) It´s funny though, and a classic example of the debilitating habit of praternalism so common here: Once people saw 8 families recieve a food basket for completing their landfills on time (we had a contest), the rest of the town – although informed along with all the others about the contest that is now OVER – decided they too want make a landfill in their homes. But only if they get a food basket for it. ¨Why would I dig a hole for nothing??,¨ said one community member. After all of the education about the environmental and helth aspects of proper trash disposal! Tisk! Now they all want me to give them food baskets for making a trash hole. This is exactly why as a teacher I never gave out prizes for good behavior! Damn, why did I forget about that!?!? Intrinsic motivation? Nawwwww..... However, the principal assures me that the next time I go there, each of the 30+ families will have a landfill at their home. Basket or no basket. I will simply tell them that they were all adequately informed of the contest, that it is now over, but that taking care of our health and that of our environment is something that we have to do continually. We´ll see how many happy faces I see on that day.

Here in my village, my counterpart and I decied to ramp up our plan. By the end of my second year, we will have municipal compost production, a municipal recycling program, and 80% of the 150 families separating their trash in their homes. My method of attack is house visits. Relentless house visits. Not just in my village, but in Sicchez Pampa and Las Vegas too. Face-to-face follow up and monitoring. What the hell else do I have to do? In my village, we made some flyers and I recruited the local teachers, police officer, and justice of the peace to go house-to-house with me. I refuse to do anything alone. I truly think the harder part will be getting the municipality to naturalize this project into an ongoing activity. My counterpart is my only connection to the municipality. As of now, I´m not getting the institutional support that will be needed to upkeep a system like this. They mayor is too concerned, albeit prudently, about the organic coffee and sugar exporting expoilts. The environmental regent, who should be the backbone of this project, only shows up in town to collect his paycheck. No exaggeration. So my counterpart and I have a lot of digging and prodding to do on the governmental level to find the support we need to gel the whole thing together. Incidentally, Peru just created a new Ministry of the Environment. Good? I don´t know, the country is notorious for it´s viscous and complex beaurocratic soup. But if what they say is true, the ministry will soon be assessing fines on municipalities who do not have a waste management plan. As you can guess, I now hope to scare my municipality into working with me more intimately.

Magical Realism

2008-11-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

It´s not a new term, in fact, it´s an entire genre of writing. But by the words you can guess what it means. The ever so perceptive people who created this way of ¨putting things¨ could not have explained Latin America, and my experience in Peru, better. Things are normal...but not really. Just a bit off...but normal. Unexplainable. A bit odd, if you look close enough; if you have a poetic eye.
Like people watering the sidewalk and dusting the plants. Or a bus driver yelling at you to hurry and get on, NOW, and starting to drive before your foot is on the step (you freaking out that you´ll miss the only bus for the day) so that he can roll 5 feet down the road and stop to eat for 20 minutes (GO! GO! GO!, vroom, screech, hisssssss.....) When asked when something is going to happen, a Peruian will always tell you right now (ahorita), or in English translation, anytime between 15 minutes and 15 hours. Peruvians live in the moment, know how to laugh, love to socialize, and are not in a hurry for anything. All this gives a somewhat unpredictable and flamboyant air to life here. Which, obviously, can cause extreme frustration for an North American who is trying to organize, plan, hold meetings, and do things now. No, I really mean now.
But then there´s the other side. Like how we are learning to calm down. How to truly be generous – with your time and your interest in others. How to not do something if we don´t want to.
So, all strengths have their weaknesses. If they tightened up a bit, they´d make a lot of progress and improvements in their lives. If we loosened up a bit, the whole process would be a lot more fun. And so, I invite all of you to come experience for yourself the very REAL magic that exists here.
(To my family: Our Cusco trip is a perfect example of Peruvian Magic Realism)

Side note to Dad: Brian and I walked a total of 8 miles round-trip to watch the Broncos vs. Patriots game at a friend´s house with DishTV. If they only knew the sacrifices of their fans, maybe they would have made it worthwhile! Damn!

Family Vacation Part 2

2008-11-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

Part 2b: Sandoval Lake, Madre de Dios
A real journey through Peru is not complete without experiencing the insane amount of diversity that the counrty encompasses. It is the third most biologically diverse country in the world, and first in variety of birds, fish, butterflies, orchids, medicinal plants; and second in primates. For an area just three times the size of California, Peru supports 84 of the 107 life zones and 28 of the 32 climates. And I never really comprehended this magnificence until travelling to the jungle. I have seen the coast, the dry forests, the mountains, and the cloud forests, but this is only two-thirds of the story. It´s hard to believe that one can travel from a scorching dry desert, through humid cool forests, to alpine tundra and glaciers, and end up in the largest jungle in the world - all within less than 2 hours in an airplane.

Getting onto the canoe to go to our jungle lodge.

Coming into Sandoval Lake. It is technically an oxbow lake, for my geography inclined readers.

For Joanie, the jungle was a welcome relief from the chilly climate of Cusco. For all of us, it was like being a kid again, seeing creatures and environments for the very first time. Kristyn´s uncanny organizing skills (we think her next career should be in a travel agency) landed us in a drift-wood constructed logde on an oxbow lake in a national reserve. We had to take a boat, walk 2 miles, and then canoe across a lake to arrive (cool, hugh?!) The conservation group that owns the logde helped the local farmers convert from making their living by exploiting and destroying the forest to eco-tourism. It is a non-profit, 60% of the proceeds going to local families and 40% going to conservation. The cool thing about the lake is that we were able to see aquatic as well as terrestial species, taking canoe rides and hiking through the forest. We saw river otters, caimans (South American crocs), macaws, tarantulas, leaf-cutter ants, sloths, turtles, tree frogs, monkeys, snakes, and incredible sunsets on the lake.

Kristyn, I LOVE you!!

An evening Pisco Sour with my pops ;)

Our guide was a very conscious and spiritually-minded woman, and helped us to appreciate the jungle through her eyes. What I liked about her most is that she wasn´t ashamed to share her strong energetic connection with the forest. So many Americans would be afraid of seeming ¨cheesy¨ or ¨granola¨ as we closed our eyes in the forest to listen and feel. But the purity of her appreciation wiped away these silly inhibitions and freed us to see things through her perspective. Maybe that´s why it was such a powerful experience for us. Either way, this will not be the last time!
Upon the somewhat sad retreat back to our homes, we stayed in Lima for two nights to slowly adjust back to civilization. It was really hard to leave my family again, especially knowing how truly blessed we are to have such a close and special relationship with each other. With a heavy heart, I made the trek back to Sicchez. But don´t worry mom, within a week things settled and went back to normal, as I´m sure is the same with you guys.

Ahhhhhh...... Just immagine the feeling......

Paying respects to the Goddess tree of the jungle.

And CHEERS!!!

Myers Family Vacation Part 1

2008-10-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Part 1a: Sícchez
So our family rocked Peru, from north to south, jungle to coast to sierra. We had an absolutely amazing time. Kudos to Kristyn for organizing such a great itenerary – it was perfectly paced. Kudos to Dad for making it all happen and making us laugh the whole time. Kudos to Mom for her iron will, good nature, willingness to patiently put up with anything, and always making things bright! I´m so proud to call all of you, mom, dad, and Kristyn, my family. The way in which you embraced the Peruvian experience shows what wonderful people you truly are!!
I was greeted at the airport with huge smiles and hugs – depsite the fact that my family hadn´t slept in over a day – and a bag of fresh homemade cookies that I proceded to finish off that same day. Thanks Aunt Joyce. Sorry Brian. We enjoyed the mellow city of Piura for a day and a half. My family saw the outdoor market (Dad liked the hanging meat section…you can only immagine the body parts, and my mom loved all the fresh fruit stands). I inducted them to the wonderful tastes of local fruit: chirimoya, pepino, granadia, etc. I think we felt a little like movie stars, because not so many tourists come up this way. Lots of looks. We even posed for a picture that some school girls wanted to take of us! They were so cute and just elated to be in a picture with some North Americans (I know, what´s so special about us?!?!) We ate some ice cream in the main plaza and also paid a visit to the post office lady. She was so excited to finally meet my mom, because she sees countless packages from her every month. She grabbed mom´s hand and said, ¨Oh how nice it is to see the woman who sends her daughter so many things!!¨ It was like they already knew each other, since I´m always telling her stories about my family. So that´s how my mom became friends with a Piuran postal worker!
The next day, off to Sicchez. At first, my family thought the bus ride was cool. You know, everything´s a novelty at first. Sitting next to farm animals, bumping along a dirt road in a crampy shitty seats, the same 6 cumbia songs blasting over and over. My family even made new friends sharing snacks with some little boys. Most of all, they loved the view: costal desert to montane forest in 8 hours.
Sicchez didn´t dissapoint. Our community welcomed my family with the spirited and unrelenting generosity and kindness that I have grown to love them for. By the end of 1.5 days, my family recieved homemade cane sugar-peanut candy from two different people, a bag of fresh harvested peanuts, four papayas, a brick of natural unrefined sugar made from the local cane, a party in their honor, an invitation to a trapiche (rustic bull-powered sugar mill), a tour of the local school and organic garden, a welcoming by the health center employees, and delicious local bean soup and fried bread from my family. Seeing Brian and my´s work, talking to people, and really getting to know our experience in Sicchez made all of us feel so much more complete. My family knows I´m in a great place and now can share in our experiences more fully than before.
Of course, our visit wasn´t complete without a party, lovingly dubbed by my father as ¨Six Isn´t Enough¨. Our loving friends prepared a vegetarian dish (especially for me) and we brought over six large beers to share. Well, of course, they weren´t going to let us be the only ones providing the beer, so the local doctor left and doubled the amount of beer we brought. Now the party was ON! Classic Peruvian style! Kristyn and Mom proved to have natural cumbia dancing capabilites, while my dad invented a new ¨chicken wing¨ style dance. Everyone loved the fact that my family danced, talked, and was really outgoing. Welp, dancing ´til 4am, and a 6am bus ride back down to Piura concluded the Sicchez leg of the trip.

Part 1b: Lima
A few days of luxury in Lima was highly called for, and even better because Brian came down with us to hang out for a few days before the Myers clan left for Cusco. Yes, Lima is an immense city (over 8 million people), and yes, it´s dirty. But it would be a shame for anyone to miss it. The center of Lima is awesome: cool architecture, a huge market, a beautiful plaza de armas, catacombs, Chinatown, a nice bohemian sector, and lots of nice people. Kirstyn won the presegious ¨tourist a la politica¨ award...she saw the Peruvian president Alan Garcia leave the palace while we were waiting for the change of the guard ceremony. Which, by the way, is an odd thing because the guards don´t actually change. (I think my mom was slightly scandalized by that). We also went to a ¨peña´, which is a dinner theater with traditional Peruvian dances. The dancers must have sensed our pseudo Peruvian-ness, because both Brian and I were pulled up on stage to dance. He did a nice wayno (traditional sierran dance) and I did some sexy Afro-Peruvian thing where some guy tried to light a cloth on fire that he pinned to my butt. This was avoided by swinging my hips every which way. Brian also brought a new meaning to an all-you-can-eat snack time buffet at our hotel. Let´s just say we took full advantage of the large array of food offerings! Holy shit...salad greens!!!!! We also had the opportunity to visit our old host family in Chosica (where we stayed during the first three months of training). This family is so inquisitive and so happy to meet new people.They were elated to meet my family and served us ¨the best chicken I´ve ever had¨ according to Joan. We had a jolly old time chatting and laughing. Eventually, the painful part of separating took place, pobrecito Brian back to Sícchez and the Myers family on to Cusco...

Part 1c (2a?!?)
Cusco pics:

In honor of the Cusco leg, I will write a poem. Although this will necessarily leave out some details, it embraces the mood. Of course, Machu Picchu was breathtaking!

Arrival...nobody at airport. Oh, who are you guys??? What? There´s a strike?? Extra night, run around, change flight, call jungle, ok. Ready. NO PROBLEM. All aboard to Aguas Caliente. You want to get off the train to hike? Sorry, your papers don´t mean anything...can´t help ya. Thank god for the other tour group, let´s sneak off the train, see you down there mom and dad!! Good hike, kicked some Euro ass, mom in the springs, muddy and cold – dad says they´re gold. Diarrehea begins mom´s next day – failed Machu Picchu attempt. The three people remaining...great tour...you´re still worried about getting back??....what do you mean you still don´t have our return train tickets?!?!....NO PROBLEM, I´ll get em for you says the guide. Cipro kickin in, Joanie makes it up, Dad takes a stumble off the trail, sisters go soakin. Guide finds us, asks for passprots, oh, and..uh.... $124 to buy your train tickets...well, you beter just go to the train station with me. Yeah..uh...the restaurant can lend some money, if you eat dinner there. Twist of fate, Kristyn finds dad- ran the money down. 2 hour wait, will we make it down, will we catch our plane to the jungle? NO PROBLEM says the guide, I´ll call the mafia here. Some negotiating, you gringoes better get out of sight, the mafia doesn´t like doing business with you around. Success!! We got the ticktes, we´ll make it to the jungle! Cheers to the guide, dinner at the mafia restaurant to repay the favor. On the train, arrival to Ollantambo. GO!! We´ve gotta make the plane! RUN to the taxi, HONK, GO, SPEED, race driver taxista, watch out for the blockade of rocks on the raod from the strike, SWIRVE, GO, HONK!!! More rocks!! GOOOOOO!!! Get the bags, what do you mean they´re not here?!? Oh, they´re over there. Where´s our money? The office is closed?? Just wait 5 minutes...money in hand, go to airport, damn, behind a parade, move it trombone! Go, detour, arrival, rest. On the plane to the jungle!
Annnnnd....done!

Holes and Cute Kids

2008-09-26T16:29:00.000-07:00

Frist of all, Brian and I must say that we have the absolute best friends a person could ever ask for!! Thank you to all of you who keep us in your hearts and take such good care of us even if we´re so far away. Really, we´re almost spoiled rotten! And thank you Ash, Ann Marie, Frank, Missy, Krista, Doug, and Shauna for going out of your way, literally, to do what friends do best!!

Well, the beans in our garden are flowering and we have some re-seeded alfalfa shoots coming up. We´re pretty happy because the nurse at the health center and a really cool dude who lives in Sícchez have kind of adopted the garden too, which is so much better than us being the only ones who care. They work in it without us even being there! YAY!! However, every garden is not without it´s plagues, and our beans have these powdery white circles on the leaves. Not being from this zone, I inquired numerous people about what the heck it is and how to fix it. So far, we have five possiblities: it´s a special dust that falls from the sky, it´s from the ¨freeze¨ (it never freezes here – ever!!), it´s ¨burnt¨ (hugh??), worm eggs, and mold. I think I´m going with the mold theory. As soon as the agricultural specialist comes to town, we´ll have a chat.
Brian´s almost ready to start giving workshops to the mommies in the garden. It´ll be about composting and preparing soil (mixing in natural fertilizer and planting legumes and nitrogen-fixing cover crops like alfalfa). They´ll each be expected to prepare a garden space at home. If said task is completed, they earn lettuce seeds. Each workshop attended will earn them more seeds, until the end when they will be ready to plant a full garden.

¨Trashy¨ would be an adecuate description of me lately. My community partner and I finally got the municipality to install a sanitary landfill for the bio-contaminated waste at the health center (now we just have to get them to use it). I also installed a pilot landfill at the local school in one of the villages. The deputy govenor and I went house-to-house passing out instructions and encouraging the families to replicate the pilot landfill in their homes instead of throwing trash in the streams and/or burning it. We have a contest going there to encourage participation. I will now be headed there each month to check on progress and help the families manage their landfills correctly. We´re doing the same basic thing in two other villages, each one at a different stage in the process depending on the personality of the community.
In the urban center, my community partner and I are trying to form an ¨environmental promotion¨ committee who will help me educate the locals about using the trash cans, separating their waste streams, and keeping the streets clean. My work here is a lot harder because I can´t seem to get full support from the municipality, so I spin my wheels a lot waiting for follow-through. But I am proud of the few people here who have worked hard to help out their community.

Welp, that´s about it. We´re basically lovin´ life a lot more these days because we´re able to ride our bikes, walk in normal shoes (not rubber boots), run, hike and just generally be outside. Someday soon I´m fixin´ to make my own yogurt (as soon as the cows at the local stable have their babies) and start sprouting...well, anything that´ll sprout. If anyone has any homemade yogurt or sprouts suggestions, pass them along! (Isn´t sprouting the perfect alternative when there are no veggies?!?!? WHY didn´t I think of that a year ago??)

Community members diggin´ their landfill behind the school. They´re basically 1mx1m holes in the ground that you fill with alternating layers of trash and dirt, top with more dirt and plant a tree on top of. Pretty simple, but NOT a simple habit to change!!

By two meters down, this poor smiling guy was throwing the dirt out of the hole over his head. My back hurt just looking at him.

Here´s the landfill for biocontaminates at the Health Center. It´s lined with plastic and the biohazards are deposited in plastic bottles before being thrown in the hole.

I recently went to see the southernmost mangroves in South America (near Piura) as a Peace Corps training event. It´s a very small protected area outside the city of Vice.

More mangroves.

Do not let Brian´s smile fool you. He had to entertain these second graders for 30 full minutes while I taught computers to the first graders. He was ready to pop each one several times in the head by the time I took the foto. What a sport!!!

Aren´t girls cute?!?!

Looking down on Sícchez from 4.000 feet up in Ayabaca.

Ahhhhhh....

Oh, and there´s been some demand for an uploaded video of our room, kitchen, and general life stuff. Soon to come....

What Way Does Your Sink Water Swirl??

2008-09-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

You know that whole northern/southern hemisphere drainage thing? The one that says water always drains clockwise/counterclockwise depending on which hemisphere you´re in? Who wants to be a science geek with me!?! At our house, there are two concrete sinks next to each other where we wash clothes in plastic tubs. One sink is for washing and the other for rinsing. Well, the water doesn’t always drain in the same direction in the sinks. If I try to dump water from the tubs at the top of the drain, giving no initial force in either direction, they drain clockwise. But, if I dump the water in from the side, giving a directional force, they drain in that direction. In other words, I can make them drain in either direction if I try. What I want to confirm is that clockwise is the ¨natural¨ direction of drainage in the southern hemisphere. In what direction does the water drain from your tubs/sinks up north? We don’t have a tub, so I can’t let water passively drain. There’s also the possibility that the drainage thing is not true. Has Myth Busters done an episode on this??

So, most importantly Brian´s cousin Patti and her friend Nina came to visit us all the way up in Sícchez. Not only that, but it was my birthday and the town´s anniversary on the same day (I knew it was my destiny to come here when I found out that I share a birthday with Sícchez and my mom shares a birthday with the town obstetrician!!). Patti and Nina: thank you from the bottom of our hearts for coming!! I can´t tell you all how nice it was to see family in the flesh and gab, gab, gab, gab, gab (even Brian gabbed!). And these two beautiful women deserve major props for enduring the anniverary celebration and epic hike up to Ayabaca (4,000 ft. elevation gain). They ate my family´s food (pig soup with hair still on the skin), dealt with a large number of perpetually drunk people, listened to muisc loud enough to bust ear drums until the wee hours of the morning, waited until 12am for the dance show to start as the town waited for the sound system to show up (side note: there already were speakers – very loud speakers – but apparently not enough...we had to wait until more speakers showed up so that they could hear our party in Ecuador), and managed to get sick and still hiked the next day with minimal food and no energy. Not quite a luxury vacation. Somehow I think Cuzco went better. But the whole time they were in good spirits and gave us lots of love and even some goodies from the States, which was much appreciated. Don’t worry mom, dad, and Kristyn, there´s no major party when you guys will be here. Nice and boring...just the way we want it!!

The Fireworks Monster behind the crowd at the anniversary celebration in the Main Plaza.

The Fireworks Monster up close! Lots of cracking and spraying of sparks when lit...a doozy of a time!

Brian tried to call OSHA, but no one answered. This set-up is for the speakers, for an area the size of a SMALL basketball court. Ear plugs are obviously of no consequence here. We could feel the vibration in our bones.

We’re nearing the end of the coffee harvest. Almost every house, rural or nearer to the town center, can be seen with coffee berries drying out in the sun. It gives off a very faint rotting smell, but in a weird way it smells good…probably just because I’m a coffee addict. Also on the agricultural front, our family’s cows just gave birth so we’ve also been drinking a ton of fresh (boiled) milk. It’s very thick and flavourful, almost like cream. Alas, the feast or famine phenomenon again: chocolate milk, milk/flour desserts, warm milk with sugar, cheese, cold milk, etc… several times a day. I like it but admittedly in small amounts, it’s kind of a lot to take for a soymilk drinker. However, I have been mixing the milk with coffee and cocoa powder – Kristyn, it makes me think of you – it’s friggin’ delicious! From here on out, the harvests are scarcer until December. I think the only thing that comes into season are the avocadoes (November), but people don’t have very many avocado trees and they keep telling us that they don’t produce like they used to (sob!!). Papaya will also come into season around October.

Fresh-picked coffee beans in a bolsico, a two-sidded bag they sling over their shoulders to carry home stuff from the fields.

Coffee berries drying outside. A common view here.

Half-dried coffee berries.

Gueiby sifting away the shells of corn kernels before grinding them and making tamales. (I know, random picture)

A random mango tree. Pretty, isn´t it?

Some little buggers. I just love ´em!!

Well, we´ve got some pretty good looking beans popping out of our garden. The alfalfa didn´t take, so we have to find something else for a winter cover crop. For now we´re going to plant more beans. It´s nice to grow things.
I finally got the municipality to start using a sanitary landfill instead of throwing the trash behind a tree and burning it when the pile gets too big. I consider this a major success. A sanitary landfill is basically a large hole, lined with compacted mud that is used to throw trash in. Every 30 cm the trash is covered with a compacted layer of mud until it is filled. Then you top it and plant a tree. Used correctly, they effectively prevent leakage and contamination. Now the challenge is to make sure they maintain the landfill correctly and put one in at the health center and primary school. The kids and I also made anti-trash-throwing signs to post around town for the anniversary, but they somehow all dissapeared. Instead, the town was covered with trash the day after the festivities ended. But, at least they have a safe place to throw it now!
I also conducted a class/meeting in one of the rural villages – 205 people, 61 families total – to help them with waste management issues (littering and improper waste disposal are common problems in many parts of Peru). The govener, principal, and community members were very excited and I will be going back there soon to help them construct a model landfill. From there, each family is responsible for building and maintaing one in their home. I will be conducting monthly visits to verify correct usage. They will also be responsible for monthly clean-up campaigns with the kids. Brian keeps reminding me to be cautiously optimistic, for we have yet to experience much follow-through or consistency with responsiblities here. But we figue perfection is overrated. I can only give what they are ready to recive, and my service is not defined by my needs, but by theirs. Go Sícchez!!
Brain says to email him for details of his whereabouts. There are occasional Brian sightings here, but not all can be verified. He´s doing a good job working with the pregnant women and mommies on nutrition-hygine-family planning themes. He´s at the Health Center a lot supporting their initiatives and programs.

So that´s August in short. We can barely wait to see the Ash and Co. gang out here in September!! More friends!!! And I´m now allowing myself to count down the days to my family´s arrival to Peru. Oh how depressing November will be after all of these lovely visits! You all need to keep on coming! We have our eye on Huascarán sometime in June 2009 (hint, hint climbing friends). A volunteer lives at the base camp and can help with logistics. I know, how´d he get so damn lucky?!?!

As always and every day, we´re thinking of you all and send our best energy to each and every one of you!!!

Some Pics

2008-08-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

YAY!!! After so much work, we finally made the garden beds!!! We planted beans and alfalfa to fix some nitrogen in the soil and have a living mulch that we can dig in before planting veggies next year.

The vista from our front porch.

Me and a very special person who came all the way down to give me a bit ´o lovin!

The Shamanic Experience in Huancabamba

2008-08-10T12:11:00.000-07:00

The following entry would be incomplete without a sincere expression of gratitude to all of the Peruvians who we’ve met on our path. And I mean all. Brian and I continue to meet such generous, kind, fun-loving and accepting people wherever we find ourselves in Peru. People here could easily look upon us with suspicion or weariness but they don’t. We have been accepted as fellow family and community members, and have been met with a loving spirit by all in our travels as well. People love to ask questions, talk, and show a genuine interest in getting to know us. We’ve been welcomed, fed, offered snacks, fruit, drinks, places to stay; and most importantly, friendship from countless people. Our trip to Huancabamba was no different.

Although it’s very easy to pass judgement on things we don’t understand, we fully recognize that by participating in the ceremonies with the shamans and other Peruvians, we were experiencing something sacred and very precious. That this community of people literally shared with us their deepest inner practices and beliefs. And they did so willingly, even praternally. The people in the ceremony saw to it that our group of volunteers had enough blankets for the cold night, that we were included in all group sessions, and the shaman continually checked on us to make sure our needs were met. They could have been the opposite. They could have questioned our motives there. But they didn’t. They embraced us, the foreigners from a distant powerful country. Not once did they ask why we were there. For this Brian and I are eternally grateful to Peru and the beautiful people who make the country what it is.

So our group of seekers comprised 13 Peace Corps volunteers. Brian and I took the 8-hr bus from Sicchez to Piura, then another 10-hr bus from Piura back up (just in a slightly more southerly direction) to Huancabamba. Although one could theoretically travel the short distance south from our site to Huancabamba (staying in the mountains), there is no road. So it’s going west to go back east. The journey is incredible. The bus climbed over a 10,000 foot pass (think very narrow road with long drop-offs) and down on into Huancabamba, a town of about 30,000 people. Being the intrepid but cautious people we are, we began by investigating possible shamans. We asked locals and also went to the police station to cross-reference names.

The next day saw us off from our hotel at 5am on a 1.5 hour journey up the mountain on a dirt road. We arrived at the shaman’s house (I assume it’s his house), rented rubber boots and wool ponchos and began the 6-mile muddy climb to Laguna Shimbe. A group of 4 Limenans (people from Lima) also joined us, riding horses to the lake while we walked. The pictures below give a general idea of the terrain. Beautiful but also very injured. The lakes are well-known for their cleansing and purifying powers, and it is said that one must not visit them without a shaman present. The shamans begin with a group ceremony, passing each person with a prayer of luck and well-being. The shaman’s helpers snort perfume soaked in tobacco out of a small horn while the shaman prays in front of each person. The snorters begin snorting by one’s feet, and end the inhalation at one’s head. They also place perfume in your hands so that you can sniff it and rub it on your head.

After the blessing, the purification begins. One must dip completely into the lake, head and all, to purify. It was windy, cloudy and chilly. Think wool hat, two sweaters, a jacket and gloves type weather. We stripped down (yes, I went neked with two others – do you expect less from me?? And yes, Brian in his undies.) And I have to say, the water felt very silky, and upon getting out I was quite warm. Warm enough to trot over to the shaman’s helper for my post-cleansing ritual in the nude. Hey, if I’m doing this I’m gonna do it to the hilt! He kindly said, “If you’d like, you can cover up a bit.” “Asi no mas, pero gracias, “ I assured him I was happy as could be. The helpers passed swords over our bodies, front, back and sides blessing each organ, bone, and vein. We then turned three times in each direction under the swords and shook off bad energy by jumping and throwing our arms in the air. I thought the whole time of just breathing letting the experience happen. I didn’t analyze much and didn’t try to feel anything.
By that time I was cold. Wrapped in a towel, I went to the other post-post-cleansing ceremony with the shaman. He sniffed more tobacco perfume and put more in my hands for me to inhale while reciting prayers. Time to dress. The good ‘ol CMCer in me brought a change of socks, shirt and undies. Warm again in seconds flat. From there we did another group ceremony similar to the first and thanked the lake for receiving us. I wish I could tell you what the prayers were. Mostly, I understood that the shamans were asking for luck with love, work, school, health and family. All other words were lost to me.

After the journey back, we ate and tried to rest for a few hours before the 8-hr night ceremony began. At 10pm about 35 people crammed into a shelter of sorts. There were taxidermied (is that a word?) animals hanging from the roof. Leopords, snakes, birds, etc. The shaman’s alter had a lot of swords, herbs, and perfume. People laid out gifts, pictures of family members, and documents on a bench for the shaman to bless. We all cuddled up on mattresses laid on the floor with our ponchos and blankets. Crowded, cuddly, curious.

The first step was for everyone to drink a bitter infusion of San Pedro. I think it’s supposed to be a hallucinogenic, but we didn’t drink much and none of us felt too different. The shaman said the tea was so that he could see our “evidence”. I have no idea if he drank more or not. Then we all stood in two lines facing each other while the shaman and his helpers passed out clam shells filled with the tobacco infused perfume. After repeating prayers, we all sniffed the tincture up our left nostril. Not pleasant. Mom, it was just like when I dank your perfume when I was a kid, but with a tobacco kick. Some people sniffed more so that they could kind of vomit. I just spit out what ran from my nose down to my throat. I wish I could explain the purpose and undoubtedly intricate stories behind each ritual, but I honestly have no idea. We were just rolling with the flow.

Upon sniffing, we all went outside (holy shit, the stars and Mars and Saturn!!) and jumped, shook, shouted and purged. You might not think, but when one is in a massive group, the energy gets contagious and you can’t help but join in the collective action.

From there we went inside back to our blankies and sat in the darkness for who knows how long. One hour? Silent, listening to the shaman grunt and whine. I can only assume he was in the process of entering a mystical state.

Back outside, we did some more purging and cleansing. Some people were making each other vomit. This time, each person participated in an individual cleansing ceremony with the sword, just like at the lake but a little more involved. This took some time, as we were over 30 people. After being cleansed, each person met individually with the shaman for 5 minutes or so. We had to snort perfume up each nostril before talking to him. The shaman really did have an incredibly benign, calm, gentle presence. He seemed strong but spoke so softly, almost with a note of music in his voice. I don’t know why, but when he called me up I all of a sudden got nervous. My heart started pounding. He gently touched my arm and I jumped. He said, “ You’re nervous,” and gently touched my shoulder. Such a nice man, I thought. He asked what I did for work, where I lived. Told me that I was going to write a great book (could it be the poems I’m trying to collect?) and that I was a good person. Upon hearing that I am married, he called Brian up too. Together he asked if we had cars (I don’t know why) and divined the colors of our cars. Maybe that’s the vision he had upon looking at us. He asked if we had kids. When we told him no, he said that god will not bless us with children. He then said that we will find very good work when we return to the states and that we have back and leg pain due to the cold “es por el frio”. He blessed us and we smelled more perfume that he put in our hands. Then we passed to the helper and he sprayed perfume on us from his mouth (legs, stomach, chest, head). From there we cuddled back into the blankets to wait.

I think we slept a bit. One by one, each person went back to the shaman while he chanted blessings and shook a rattle. The only thing he asked was my name, my father’s name and his occupation. We slept again. The next few hours were a series of getting up, going outside to dance (once with a harmonica), being sprayed with perfume or scented baby powder, and various blessings. It’s a little blurry because by this time I was delirious due to lack of sleep (I’m such a baby when I don’t get sleep!). At the end, we stood in lines facing each other one last time for a perfume and powder spray accompanied by blessings. The shaman said good morning to us. We danced outside again, and then lined up one-by-one to be blessed with perfumed water applied by a rose. We were told to make the sign of the cross (yes, there were several Catholic references during the ceremony). 6am!! Clean. Limpiocitos. Blessed. Inspired. Grateful. Confused. Smelly. Tired. Filled up. And down went the van full of volunteers, back to town.

I can offer no analysis because I’m uneducated as to the meaning of each action and ritual. I can only say what I said in the beginning. That we are extremely blessed to be able to experience the realization of a belief shared by a people. That faith is expressed in an infinite number of ways, that people touch the infinite using many tools, and that it all exists because we want it to.

Thank you Huancabamba and gracias maestro.

Trip to Huancabamba

2008-07-29T15:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

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!!!

2008-07-24T14:42:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-08T09:48:00.000-07:00

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!

For June 8th and 15th....

2008-06-04T13:16:00.001-07:00

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!

and

Happy Father´s Day to both Dads!!!!!!

¡¡¡Tamales, Tamales, Tamales!!!

2008-05-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

It´s harvest time for corn. Here´s a little tamale-making lesson you can try at home....

We peel and pop out the grains one-by-one. They think it´s hilarious that I take so long to pop out corn kernals. But I don´t tell them how many words per minute I can type...

Then they pass the grains through a molina to make a liquidy-dough. That wonderful gentleman lives with us.

Then they mix it with vegetable fat (like crisco), some cilantro, and salt. We live with this beautiful woman as well. She takes such good care of the whole family.

Fill ´em up (no strings to tie them, just folded).

Happy chamba. When the tamales are ready, they steam them for an hour or so. Then the finger lickin begins. Mmmmmmmm....

A little dance at a mother´s day celebration at the kindergarten that Elvia (part of our host family) teaches at. Elvia´s wearing my skirt, I´m so proud!!!

We´re still working on our demonstrative garden behind the health center. We´re making this bamboo fence all by ourselves!! Well, Brian definately does the hardest work. We bought some of the bamboo, but the local mommies and some other community members are donating the rest out of the kindness of the hearts so that we can finish the fence and plant sometime within the next two years. We can´t plant until the fence is up because chickens will get in and eat up all the delicious little plants. Next step is to fertilze the soil (naturally of course!!) and make the beds.

We felt so loved, the local mommies at the preschool were bored of sitting around while their kids were in class. So they asked Brian and I to do activities related to exercise and nurtition with them. This little gal is washing her hands getting ready to prepare some balanced meals at one of our classes. There are also three kindergartens within the district that have asked our help in starting school gardens! Yay!!

I can´t figure out who´s cuter, Brian or Nene the dog.

We went out to the fields to watch our family brand their cows. Definately not something I need to see ever again. They heat up the iron over fire, tie up the cows, pull them down and stick ´em. I had to try really hard to mask my sympathy for the cows.

Brian juggling a fresh-picked lime.

That´s me, Mom!!

So we are officially in the season of corn and oranges. Harvest time!! The season of mangoes, chirimoyas (an extremely delicious fruit native to the cloud forests), and other fruits is a distant memory. Here, an agricultural community isolated from markets and general commerce, we basically eat with the seasons (with the unfortunate exception of rice, which seems to make it here no matter what!!) It´s an interesting endeavor, as we begin to experience the incantations of ¨feast or famine¨. Either you are eating something so much that it comes out of your ears, of you have absolutely none of it at all. Tamales, corn-on-the-cob, corn puree, oranges, orange juice, tamales, orange juice, corn puree, oranges, corn-on-the-cob….. Don´t get me wrong, it´s deeeeelicious to eat such fresh, organic food… but without proper planning (storage of harvests and proper growing techniques to maximize harvest in a sustainable manner) and a veggie garden to boot, there can be severe nutritional issues with this type of alimentation. Brian and I cheat, as we haul up food from the city. But that´s a rarity here. And it´s definitely a far cry from the 10-serving spinach salad I used to eat every day (sob!!) A more serious consequence of eating with the seasons is malnutrition. Over 40% of the children under 5 in Sícchez suffer from malnutrition. Hence, Brian´s grand family garden project.

Not surprisingly, we´ve been busy – classic Brian and Angela style. In May, we continued giving nutrition classes to the mommies that come to the health center, teaching environmental ed the elementary and secondary schools, working with two youth groups, teaching two computation classes, working on our demonstration garden, and other odds and ends. But, a lot of it is just kind of more like preliminary work. A way to begin planting mental seeds and getting to know the community. Many of these initial activities will have to give way to our formal projects.

On the subject of formal projects, we just got back from a three-day Peace Corps workshop in Chiclayo which we attended with two people from our community: an agro-tech from the municipality and the nurse from the health center. It was pretty useful, as we now have concrete project plans that we´ll take back to the community to carry out. My counterpart and I developed a plan that focuses on solid waste management and reforestation. Specifically, we are going to train ten families and two authorities in each of the 5 chosen villages to make sanitary mini-landfills and execute local clean-up campaigns with the kids (in 2008). The families must show that they can use landfills correctly and the authorities will be obligated to organize clean-ups on a monthly basis in their respective villages. At this point, the villages don´t have anywhere to throw their trash but in the fields, and there´s a lot of it in every direction (they´re all considered ¨rural¨ which means you get there on food and there are no services). The hope is that in the long-term, local clean-ups will become a habit and that the initial 10 families will be future trainers for other families. I won´t bore you with too many more details, but our plans include monitoring, evaluation, and ways to offer incentives and hold people accountable. In 2009, our work with focus on encouraging people to separate the organics out from their trash and use the resulting compost in their fields. Probably with the same families – or at least the ones who show the most enthusiasm. And if the world continues to turn perfectly, we´ll work with the municipality to formalize a solid waste management plan. An underlying theme within all of the plans is to find leadership within the local youth to monitor and head-up the projects. With respect to reforestation, the idea is to get the local community members more involved in the municipal project that already exists. Ummmm, well, we still have to develop that part of the plan.

Brian´s project is of course family gardens and nutrition with pregnant moms and families with kids under 3 years old. His goal is to intstall 90 by the end of his service, along with accompanying nutritional classes. He´ll also monitor the growth of the babies and kiddos with the families so that they can ensure the little ones are well-fed. (Sorry his section is shorter, but well, he´s not so much into the blog entry thing!)

The numbers and goals seem might small at first glance, but it is foolhardy to think you can incite far-reaching change - especially changes of habit and lifestyle – with everyone. But I´m also one of those who believes that creating peace in even one person reverberates throughout all. And from what I can tell, we are pretty appreciated down here in Sícchez. People respect the outside perspective that we bring, and are eager to see what people from the outside have to offer them. The real challenge is inciting the Sicchenans themselves to become the agents of change within their own community. To abolish the learned helplessness and praternalism that history and human nature have spawned in my community and so many others like it. My true hope is that they will eventually seek what they need on their own, that they´ll innovate and advocate from within.

Foxes, Earth Day, and Peanuts

2008-05-04T10:13:00.000-07:00

So, we have this plastic covering on the ceiling of our room so that mud doesn´t fall down from the adobe roof. There´s lots of little animals that like to scurry around on top of the plastic. For about two days, I heard this wierd sound somewhere on the floor of our room. I found this little one. S/he apparently fell from the plastic, because it could barely move. I felt so bad for the little thing, so I moved it into the bushes outside hoping the mommy would find it. When my family found out, they killed it because apparently they like to eat little chickens. They called it a ¨zorro¨, but it is clearly not a fox. So, we have no idea what it is. R.I.P. little one!!

By far the coolest thing to happen in the month of April here in Sicchez, Peru...hearing ¨The Never Ending Story¨ playing over the radio while preparing dinner one fine evening. I know I don´t need to explain how cool that was! We get one Peruvian and one Ecuadorian radio station in Sicchez. Up here in the northern sierra of Peru, there is a very distinct local music, not what most of you would consider ¨Latin American¨ music with rich African beats and horn sections. It´s more like a cross between cumbia and wayno (a type of music very common in the northern and central Peruvian sierra, and no, not the Andean flute genre we generally associate with the Andes). Compared to Central American countries, Peruvian music and dance – especially in the sierra – lacks the soultry, fluid, hip-swiveling qualities. It´s more of an upper-body-stiff, move back and forth, stomp the feet in a complex pattern kind of thing. Locals don´t like salsa or merengue all that much. The best way to describe wayno, as heard by my foriegn ears, is like opening a child´s music box and hearing a high-pitched voice singing along with the music. Okay, maybe a more objective way for you to understand would be to search some sound bytes on the internet. Actually, I´ve gotten pretty good at dancing wayno, and am learning to appreciate the subtle fluctuations in the music.

We taught some Sicchenans how to play charades (spelling??). It was a hoot!! We stayed up until 5 am drinking and dancing, the classic northern sierra style of course!!

Earth Day
We organized an Earth Day celebration with the local kinder, primary and secondary schools. What to say.....we gained a lot of insights and revelations. To start, we held meetings with local authorities (principals, agro-tech for the municipality, govenor, mayor, head of the health center, and others who did not show up) to delegate tasks to help prepare for the event. I held environmental education classes with every grade in both schools for a month leading up to Earth Day to teach the kids about trash, contamination, the ¨network¨of nature, etc. We made signs to carry in a parade with the kiddos and secured donations from the local stores for prizes for a clean-up contest. The day started with a parade around town with all the school kids, their signs, and their modest band. We ended in the main plaza where I gave a broken-language talk on Earth Day and how the kids have the power to affect change, etc, ¿¿what did she say?? Then each grade was assigned a sector of the caserio to pick up trash on the street. Met with great enthusiasm, kids went everywhere – literally everywhere...even the town dump!!! – to collect the most trash in order to win the contest. Selected seniors from the high school (actually, they only go up to 11th grade in Peru) weighed the trash from each grade and selected the winner. We were going to plant lettuce seeds with each class after, but by then the school day was over. Lots of kids stayed around to play volleyball and soccer. I planted seeds with every class during the next couple of days.
The positive aspects of the event: the community knows about Earth Day, some kids are now really motivated to have an environmental club, the streets lookd clean (if at least for a day), the kids are more aware of the trash situation in Sicchez, and Brian and I now know all of the kiddos (who are by far the most fun to work with).

The kindergarten at our Earth Day parade!! So CUTE!

All the kiddos marching around town.

Kiddos waiting to start the cleam-up contest in the Plaza de Armas.

Dedicated youth!!

Sorry for all the pics, I just love these kiddos!

Very proud of thier creative trach-collecting techniques (these guys went to the dump to collect it), some boys pose with their plethora of solid waste.

My host sister is in the pink hat.

One great plesure of Sícchez - making home-made peanut butter from fresh-roasted peanuts grown in a local village. We toast the peanuts in a pan (collecting pools of saliva beneath my mouth as the smell inundates my senses) and put them through a molina to grind them up. Add a tiny bit of oil and salt and the joy begins.

Yes, still rainy. This mud slide occurred about 3 days ago on our way back from visiting another volunteer the next county over (about a 2 hr bus ride). Brian got out and helped them shovel the heavy liquidy mud. It took about 2 hours to make a path big enough for the bus to get by.

The manifestation of love. They have no idea we´re gonna eat ´em.

Last Part, I Swear:

We also completed –YAY!!! – our community diagnostic and presented the data and accompanying conclusions to the authorities. It was really great. We shared a lot of data about health, trash, deforestation, nutrition, living conditions, etc. For example, I did a calculation estimating how many trees Sicchenans cut down every year in the district to frame the problems they have with deforestation. Even the authorities are not accustomed to thinking in quantitative terms, and were taken aback by the numbers. They know there are problems, but don´t really apply the same analytic skills as Westerners tend to use in the problem-solving process. In the end, a lot of people were (are) motivated to work with us to help improve the community.
Some things we learned during the meeting: based upon the skills demonstrated by community members with respect to being proactive in their own development, the purpose of our work here leads to a more hidden realm. If we are to really be of service, we must help develop leadership within the youth, help the local leaders develop systems of accountability, and teach the community how to find and utilize local resources to support projects. They don´t need resources or other people to do things for them. They need to develop their own self-sufficiency. Forever the idealist, I can´t really tell you how Brian and I will actually work in this regard. It´s a lot more ephemeral and harder to define. Part of our answer lies in defining success in smaller bits. If I can create a community-based trash committee that continues to function after I´m gone, and nothing else, I´d be extremely successful. If Brian gets three families with pregnant moms to have functioning, sustainable gardens who eat their vegetables – and the babies are not malnutritioned after three years – he will have acheieved success.

Anyway, if you´re looking for funny stories, lobby Brian to add to the blog. He´s got lots of them and is a hell of a lot funnier person than I am. As you all know, I tend to think too much and as a result you get to read more boring Angela entries. If you really want a funny story, ask Brian about how two roosters outsmarted him! Classic!!

We Kind of Get It Now...??

2008-04-11T13:48:00.000-07:00

We did a play on papsmears for the mommies at the health center. We were campesinos - countryfolk - who went in to find out about papsmears because my friend was diagnosed with cervical cancer. They loved seeing us in campo clothing. On my shoulder is a bolsica, they use these bags to bring back harvest from the fields.

We have some orchids growing on a tree outside of our house. One good thing about the rainy season is that orchids bloom. I have never in my life smelled anything remotely similar. It´s like cinnamon-vanilla-spice-musk. I die of ecstacy every time I smell one. It does pain me at the same time though, because people go up into the cloud forest and pick them to plant at their houses.

Brian´s towel. After hanging to dry. That´s mold. Brian: ¨No comment¨.

So, eight – eight?!?!?!? – months in Peru and we´re starting to figure things out. There´s still lots of zone-out-I-have-no-idea-what-you´re-saying moments, but we have a good strong network of people who care about us (and vice versa), we work everyday, and people say they understand anywhere from 80 – 90% of what we´re saying to them. Cheers to that!!! Somehow, work started magically happening in the month of April. It might have something to do with the fact that the kids have come back from the city for school, and things are starting to wake up from the rainy season slumber.

What we´ve been up to...
Brian went to a birth with the obstetrician. They had to walk about an hour to get to the house, and when they did, they baby was already born. The women hold onto ropes that are hanging from the ceiling in a squat position. There are still partaderas (midwives) that attend births, but most of the time a doctor is involved too. Mommy and baby are okay!

The garden project is slow. We´ve got some good-looking compost but have yet to plant anything (partly rain, partly who knows what).

Once a month, we have a contest in the Health Center. We make murals of health information, and people have to read it and answer 4 questions. We pick one winner and go to their house and cook them a balanced meal (with local ingredients) as a prize. It´s been awesome getting to know people, especially the ones who live a good 1 -2 walk away because we wouldn´t see them much otherwise. The last house we visited was a single mom with her mom and sisters. The women loved Brian to death and had a good time making him drink really sweet shitty champagne after we ate dinner. They kept clapping and laughing and cheering every time he drank. Heeheee!!

As far as ¨work¨, we´ll be sharing our community diagnostic with all of the authorities at the end of April. It´s kind of a big deal because we´ve been working on it for 5 months and will use it to choose our main activities for the next 20 months (probably solid waste management and potable water projects). It´s a big deal for the authorities because it is a comprehensive analysis of their community. We´re pretty nervous to have to give to whole thing in Spanish.

We also have class time with all of the grades in elementary and middle/high school. We go the the elementary school once a week and the middle/high school once a week. We teach anything having to do with the themes health, environment, or computation. So far, I´ve been teaching the kids all about waste – what littering is, contamination, how to separate trash, etc.. We´re preparing for an Earth Day celebration on April 22nd. I´m helping the schools and other authorities to organize a parade, community clean-up, and a seed-sowing. The point is to get them to do the work and for us to catalyze the organization and planning aspects. It´s really the whole point of any of the work that we do here – to help motivate, organize, and find leaders within the community so that they can begin to advocate for themselves. After Earth Day, it´s Brian´s turn with the kiddos. He´s going to teach computation.

In the long run, my ultimate goal with the schools is to help the teachers learn better techniques for environmental education. I explicitly told the principals that I will not teach without a teacher present so that I can model the lessons for them. My ultimate goal is to develp an environmental education manual so that anyone can replicate the lessons. Even if only one teacher takes interest five years down the road, at least they´ll have a manual to give them ideas.

Brian´s starting to find out that there is a huge need in our community for a working potable water system. Right now, they have a very dirty reservior (small concrete tank thing) that´s supposed to be filtered treated with chlorine but never is. People are basically drinking untreated water from a stream that passes through cow pastures. And that´s only for some villages. In other villages, they just take their water from the streams. With a parasitosis rate of over 80% in the population, there is a pretty direct correlation. Like the solid-waste management issue, we´re not exactly sure what course things will take. We´re still only beginning to present these issues to the authorities. It´s not that they don´t care, but they´ve been working so hard on converting their growers to organic farming that they´ve put other things on the back burner. That´s why we can be helpful for them, because we can advocate for progress on these issues and help the community to organize and manage them.

Right now the health center is vaccinating the entire population between 2 and 19 years of age against Hep B. We´ve been going with the health workers to all of the villages (caserios) to meet people and do interviews. It´s been really great and interesting to see the differences and similarites between them. There is definatley a huge difference between the ¨rural¨ (isolated) and ¨urban¨ (next to the main road) caserios.
We are also working with two different youth groups. They are already organized and just looking for things to do. I have to say that working with the kids is by far the best part for me. They´re all so interested and eager to learn and do things. Some come by our house on weekends to get help on homework. It must have been pretty amusing to listen to Brian and I try to explain algebraic functions and graphing in Spanish.

Easter
In Sicchez, they celebrate Holy Week. Easter Sunday isn´t really too big of a deal. On Thursday, everyone cooks a ton of food and brings a plate of it to all of their neighbors. You end up with a ton of different plates of food to share with your family. It´s a really nice tradition. There´s mass on Thur, Fri, Sat, and Sun, but we only went to mass on Thursday because it´s the biggest. They have 14 stations all over the town (the stations of the cross) and everyone walks to the stations in a large group to say prayers at each one. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are days for relaxation. I read books and watched the clouds. Brian studied Spanish (always so productive, that man!)

St. Patty´s Day
We introduced St. Patrick´s Day to Sicchez in classic style. I have a feeling this holiday will catch on here since it involves lots of beer. We told them all about the traditions (and history too, Brian Sr.!) and made our family wear green all day. There is no food coloring in Peru, so Brian, being the thrifty guy he is, bought green gelatin to color the beer. We bought a caja of beer (12 32-ounce beers) and commenced the celebration after dinner. The gelaitn coagulated immediately after we added it to the beer...gross...but it was a nice touch. After the first caja was downed, Juan (our host ¨brother¨) bought another caja. After that caja was downed, Juan said we weren´t drunk enough and made two pitchers of hard liquor cocktails (made with fresh mango...mmmm). We taught them how to play quarters, it was pretty damn funny. Brian sunk his quarter the first time every time, and Elvia (our host ¨sister¨, Juan´s wife) could never make it, so she kept having to drink. They loved it! By 2 am I was daincing in bare feet with Juan in the living room and everyone was nice and drunk. The next day, everyone in town asked us why we didn´t invite them to our party. They say they want to celebrate San Patricio next year with us. One guy told Brian the next day, ¨Look Brian, I´m wearing green!!¨ Unfortunately, we had to break it to him that it only counts on the 17th.

The main (only) road...
Yeah, ugly. It still rains really hard (but not as long) every day. As I write this we are closed off from the main road due to about 8 huge mudslides blocking access. No supplies coming in or out (a.k.a. pretty skimpy food selections). Parts of the road have simply given out. They finally got a front end loader up to fix things, but in all it´ll probably be two weeks before there´s access again. To get to Piura, one has to walk four miles to where the busses still have access. Brian didn´t come this time because he had to teach some classes about dental health at the health center. Don´t worry mom and dads, we walk the road to other caserios a lot and if we see there´s any chance of danger, we don´t take the bus.

We love you all and miss you tons!!! Don´t forget to email us every once in a while and thanks for all of your glorious care packages!!!!!

Mud, Reforestation, and Carnaval

2008-03-01T14:23:00.000-08:00

Brian loves these fried.....just kidding!!!

The mud slides that block our access to the outside world (and this is a VERY tiny one). Although it is very green and pretty with all the wetness.

Our beautiful Peruvian family.

My first shot at cheese empanadas. They were too thin and the chees fell out when we fried the dough. But who doesn´t love fried dough with crispy fried cheese???

Compost lessons for the curious.

In Sicchez during the rainy season, there are two paradigms of mobility: within Sicchez and everywhere else. Although it´s next to impossible to leave town right now it´s very feasible to walk places – muddy and drenched – quite happily. So that´s what we´ve been doing a lot of.
We are doing house-to-house interviews to learn about how people live and relate to their environment (what they do with their trash, if the smoke from the firewood they cook with is able to escape the kitchen, what they eat, etc). Our goal is to get to 100 houses (47 so far). The houses are spread out in ¨caserios¨, or little clusters, anywhere from a 4 hour climb to a 10 minute walk away from the center where we live. It´s been tough to get a true sense of things because people are very shy and understandably reluctant to share such private information, especially because they know they aren´t living in the greatest of conditions. We always go to the homes with people from the health center so that it isn´t so weird, but we´re learning that observation is the best way to learn. The upside is that we are getting to know people a lot better and are starting to fit in a bit more. They´re beginning to call us by name and treat us like friends instead of visitors. I can´t express how relieving it is to finally have a sense of normalcy and feel accepted! One can only feel different for so long!!

Brian is such a charmer when he interviews people.

We also proved our Sicchenan worthiness at a ¨minga¨. A minga is kind of like a volunteer day where people gather to work on a project for the district while the district provides a lunch afterwards. This minga was a reforestation project sponsored by the municipality. Brian and I spent the day carrying saplings up and down a steep hill while the local men dug holes and planted the trees. It was pretty funny, I think we shocked the Peruvians a little bit by how hard we could work. More than one person asked me, ¨Do people in your country work like this?¨ They have this idea that N. Americans don´t do physical work.
I also learned of another minga tradition. An hour after things got rolling, the men kept shouting, ¨Water!!!¨ But I felt bad because nobody was bringing them any and the sun happened to be out that day. So I threw one of the men a water bottle that I had in my backpack and all of this friends started laughing. That´s when someone said to me, ¨Angelita, they want a different kind of water.¨ 5 hours and 100+ drunk men later, I learned that the ¨other¨ water is liquor made from sugar cane. One man was so well ¨hydrated¨ that he passed out on top of the hole he was digging.

The dedicated Sicchenens planting trees.

Nice day for a walk in the mud.

Brian´s feet.

The Carnaval celebration in Sicchez (similar vein as Marti Gras but without the debauchery). There are a bunch of presents hanging from the tree in the middle of the town square. Everyone gets together and dances, eats, drinks, and throws flour all over each other. Usually the men are in circles drinking while the women sit on the benchs and wait to be asked to dance.

Brian dancing with the Carnaval queen. I think he finally found his match, as he is quite adept at the Peruvian dancing style.

Everyone has to take a swipe at the tree. At the end of the festival, they cut it down and everyone runs to grab up the prizes hanging from its branches. Of course, when I took my swipe at the tree, I missed the mark and hit the rocks at the base of the trunk. Laughing hysterically, the women asked me if there are any axes in the U.S. Sadly, I had to admit that, yes, people use axes but I just can´t aim. Brian and I left before they cut the tree down because it was pouring a drenching cold rain. Party poopers.

Well, almost a happy ending

2008-02-21T17:04:00.000-08:00

Although I´m in an internet cafe in Ayabaca, I cannot seem to login to my email account. Hotmail is experiencing difficulties. I don´t think it´s the computers because Brian can get into his. Thus, I sadly cannot contact any of you. I´ll have to wait until we go to Piura.
Also, some wonderful soul tried to call us in Sicchez this week, but was not able to get through for the second call-back. If it is cloudy all day, the phone line usually goes out as it´s powered by a solar battery. Thus, we waited for the call-back to no avail. But thanks for trying!!!

Thanks, mudslide!!

2008-02-21T12:37:00.000-08:00

So here´s the story of the day....
It´s the rainy season as we all know. On Tuesday, Brian and I tried to take a two-hour bus ride to the nearest town to shop for veggies and use the internet. Attempt one failed ultimately because of a strike - it never showed up. No prob, we stayed home for the day and popped in a movie. Attempt two, today, started out hopeful. We made it about 40 min on the bus before a large mud slide blocked us from continuing. Turning around (PROPS to the very safe and accomplished bus driver), we head back to Sicchez only to find ourselves blocked again by a large tree that had just fallen onto the road. So, out we go and walk back to Sicchez (not far). Determined to contact our loved ones, we decide to go to a different town. We walk the 5 hour unrelenting steep trail up to Ayabaca, drizzling rain, clothes drenched (although not cold) and here we finally are, satiated and happily typing away. But, thanks to the mud slide we have decided that the exercise up to Ayabaca is great and we´re never going to take the bus for a day trip again. It´s Ayabaca from here on out. And in the dry season we can ride our bikes up! Happy endings all around!
Thanks for your comments, it´s great to know you´re all reading the blog.

In response to one of the comments...We are excited to hear that some RPCV´s are going to come up to our neck of the woods, especially a couple! We would love if you two could come visit us in Sicchez!!!!!

Pics---Wheeee!!!

2008-02-02T13:39:00.000-08:00

Our compost pile... and those stylish mud-barrier boots that I wear everyday. Brian isn´t ready to take on this fashion statement yet. Don´t worry Karen, I think this style will hit the U.S. next year.

Brian giving a training on how to properly dispose of vaccination needles (no, throwing them in a 2-ft. hole out back probably isn´t the best recourse).

Eating dinner with people from the health center.

The tree nursery in Sicchez (a reforestation project).

Can you find our town?? Carmen SanDiego isn´t there.

How we dry our socks.

Mommies and babies at one of our classes at the health center.

The nurse, Brian, and I giving a class to the mommies about balanced diets. I´m cooking, Brian´s doing the talking.

Month Number 2 and Kickin´

2008-02-02T13:36:00.000-08:00

Greetings lovely friends and family!! From the sporadic communication we’re able to have with you, it sounds like the world up in the Northern Hemisphere is chiming along. In spite of frequent bouts of homesickness, Brian and I are chiming along too. We have lots of laughs and are grateful to be sharing this experience together. Life down here generally pulses at a much slower rate (especially in the rainy season), so we have to be a lot more patient with what we consider ¨progress¨. This is both beautiful and difficult for a person from the U.S. who is used to pounding out tasks one after the other. A good analogy would be to take 2 full hours to continually eat just one apple. There is a lot to be savored, and even a kind of meditation to slowing life down so much, but it takes a lot of discipline to change in such a way. For well-adjusted and happy people, we sure are learning a lot about things we thought we had already figured out about ourselves!
Here´s the skinny on some aspects of our unfolding life in Sicchez:
Rainy Season: Yeah, wet, wet, wet. Sometimes I have to try and convince myself that I´m still on the same planet, and when I do believe that, I marvel at the diversity that our beautiful Earth supports. Technically, we are in a semi- tropical cloud forest (a sub-tropical dry forest is below us). Right now, it mostly rains in the afternoons and through the night. Most mornings are cloudy and sometimes the sun peeks through for a few hours. They say in Feb/March the rain goes pretty much all day with more force. I have to admit, clouds and rain make things very peaceful. Our laundry takes about 5 days to dry (no exaggeration), which necessitated a ¨Laundry Strategy Plan¨ in which we wash little by little every few days so that there is always something dry. Even when clothes are dry, they have this wet feeling to them. One day, after a very graceful fall in the mud, Brian hung his backpack up to dry after washing it. The next day it had algae growing on it. And paper doesn´t ¨crumble¨ when you roll it up, it ¨whispers¨. If I don´t guard the Orbitz gum my dear mother so dutifully sends me in a double-plastic-protection set-up, it gets gooey and gummy in the wrapper. And mud!! Lots and lots of mud, as the soil here is pure clay. We wear these golashes everywhere with our pants tucked into them. To my surprise and amusement, Brian is actually very fashion conscious about wearing his boots. He won´t wear them much around town because he says he looks like he´s about to go fishing. I wear mine everywhere with Siccheñan pride.
Home:
We finally laid concrete in our room (good-bye fleas!!!!!!) and, not surprisingly, are waiting for it to dry. It´s been a week. Family situation´s great – we love them lots. We are rearing to go out into the fields and help the men of the family work. Right now they´re doing a lot of planting because the seeds germinate well in the rain (banana, coffee, yucca, corn, and grass for the cows). I´ve been repeatedly told that I just CAN´T do the work because I´m a woman. And they don´t say it in a demeaning way, it´s like they´re telling me that I have brown hair. They just really don´t think I can do it. So one day we went to help them build a fence around one of their fields and I pretty much just watched. I figure that each time I go out, I´ll do a little bit more work. Hopefully, by the end of two years, they´ll be letting me dig, plant, haul, and harvest. I understand that letting a woman do these things is a huge cultural adjustment for them – something which I now understand is very, very difficult to change.
Work:
We are incredibly lucky to be living in a pueblo with visionary leadership. They want their town to become a center of organic agriculture of fruit, coffee, and sugar. The mayor is very adamant that we work with the environmental techs at the municipality on environmental consciousness and education not only for youth but for adults as well. This includes soil conservation, environmental management, biodiversity, and reforestation. Although the town is headed in the right direction, we still see a lot of harmful land use practices and contradictions. There isn´t always good communication between the leaders in the community and the general population. Hence our job! The techs are also excited for Brian and I to start on a municipal and community solid waste management program. Right now they burn or just throw their trash wherever. We´ll help them to construct mini-landfills, start composting their organic waste (80% of their trash), and hopefully set up a recycling system. When school starts again (March), we want to start clean-up campaigns and contests with the kiddos to start getting people aware of the issue.
On the health side we will mostly be working on nutrition. Chronic malnutrition is a real problem here – over half of the child population. Right now, we give monthly classes to mothers who come to the health center about balanced diets. Behind the health center we are starting a garden and have a few compost piles going. Six months from now we hope to use the garden to teach about nutrition. A little further down the road, if our garden is successful, we’re going to start a family garden project. Interested families will attend a series of classes about gardening and nutrition. At the end of the classes, we will help them to start their own with seeds donated by Cuerpo de Paz.
Other than that, we’ve started teaching two English classes – one for youth and one for adults. We’re going to start an adult computation class in Feb. to help catch them up on basic computer skills. As you’ve noticed, Sicchez is in desperate need of a major technology update. The classes are a good way to get to know people and – little do they know – a great way to subliminally, or liminally, hook them into our projects. Actually, the kiddos love the class (we have 28) and are very well behaved. It feels really good to interact with them and get some good fresh ¨teaching moments¨.
If you´ve persevered through this, thank you!! Once a month updates are hard to condense. We love you all lots!!!

Now The Pics - Captions Soon!!

2008-01-10T15:24:00.001-08:00

Sorry, they´re in reverse chronological order!! The fam at New Year´s Eve party with home-grown cocktail of sugar-cane liquor.

Coffee beans before they´re toasted (collected by our house).

Gaybe Flor (sweetest girl ever) removing the coffee beans from the dried berry shell.

Coffee beans with the dried berry shell still intact.

Coffee berries drying in front of our house. Our dog Nene (like the basketball player) chillin´.

Brian with an assortment of fruit from our field (well not a field, a mountain-side).

Our little piggy and grandpa.

Me cooking (I forget what) on our adobe wood-fueled stove in our kitchen. Our lovely grandparents who call me ¨little daughter¨.

The obstetrician at the health center giving Brian a spin for a pinata-bashing. We´re celebrating Christmas with the health folks. This gal, Patty, was our first true friend here. So kind and a great sense of humor.

Gift-giving (it was a plastic lamp with a boat as the base).

Juan, the man we live with. He takes very good care of us and also loves to laugh. All the time!

Me (still at the health center).

Brian getting a poor little Peruvian kid drunk for his first time. Bad Brian!!

The health center in Sicchez.

Our family at a nice little Christmas feast.

Juan gathering bananas from his fields.

Those banana flowers sure are sexy!!

In reverse order, here´s how they make organic sugar (the kind for small-scale home use, not export). They´re pouring out the condensed sugar cane, it hardens into a block.

Properly boiled down, they pour the sugar cane into this cooling bin (it´s made of wood).

Here´s where they grind up the raw sugar cane stalks (called a trapiche). There´s a funnel below the trapiche where the sugar juice flows. They collect it and boil it down as shown above. It´s powered by a donkey (they attach the donkey to the long handle on the right and it walks in circles).

Gaybe and her sister sitting on dried sugar cane leaves. They use these to power the fire that reduces the juice extracted from the trapiche above.

Yum....pure sugar juice.

The one and only hike we have gone on so far. It´s about 4 hours of un-relenting UP that my body is no longer used to (I barely made it). We´re in the cloud forest and that there´s Brian hiking as if he never left the world of 14ers.

Pretty, hugh??

23 Months To Go!

2008-01-10T15:14:00.000-08:00

No, we´re not really counting down the months….yet J Brian and I are doing great and are lucky to live in a very peaceful and beautiful place. We are 2 hrs from the nearest internet and 8 hrs from our p.o. box, hence our lack of communication to all of our loved ones. First off, a little about our home and family. We live in an adobe house (NOT the adobe of New Mexico) made of thick mud bricks with a corregated steel roof topped off with tiles. The floors are dirt and the kitchen ¨stove¨ is made of mud and steel parts. They use wood collected from their fields for cooking fuel. We live with two pigs, a donkey, about 15 chickens, lots of spiders, fleas, flying beetles, hummingbirds, and an assortment of beautiful moths. When I say live with, I mean that these are essentially our roommates. The divide between home and ¨outside¨ is pretty non-existent. (Hey, speaking of donkeys, does anyone know if that sound they make that sounds like they are choking/hyperventilating/crying is analogous to the bark of a dog or meow of a cat? I insist that this is their natural sound and Brian thinks they´re clearing their throat). Our room has no windows and thus it is very easy to sleep until noon thinking that it´s still midnight.
Our family is amazing. Truly. They give us so much love and take really good care of us. Sometimes they look out for us too much. Brian and I were a little sick for a few days and we weren´t allowed to wear shorts, get wet, or drink/eat anything cold. But drinking a ton of beer was okay. They are very cute. At this point, the grandma cooks all of our meals and runs the household. The wife teaches early childhood education and the husband is the caretaker of the elementary school. There are two nephews our age who grow peanuts and work lots of labor jobs around town. The little girl is very sweet and never complains when asked to help out. Brian asked her if she could live without electricity her whole life and she looked at him as if he was asking if she could count to 3. OF COURSE! Her relatives live without it just up the hill, and she knows how to use an iron powered by hot coals. She rocks!! They all like to joke around a lot (a Peruvian trait) and give us hugs. And they love to listen to music, albeit at about 100 decibles (another Peruvian trait).
Let´s see….food: Well, we´re in the city right now to buy our own gas stove so that we can supplement our diet and share more with our family. But that said, the food´s pretty good here. Lots of white rice, almost every meal and the biggest portion of every plate. But we eat lentils, beans, carrot/beet/potato salads, and a KILLER soup with wheat that Ang´s dad would LOVE. About 5 bananas a day is the norm, but they rarely eat them raw. Green ones are boiled and don´t taste like much and the others are fried – deeeelicious!! And a ton of whatever fruit is in season. Nobody uses chemicals on their fields, so we have a large supply of organic tropical fruits: bananas, avocadoes, mangoes, oranges, papayas, and a bunch I never heard of before coming here. This month is the month of mangoes, and we eat about 5 per day each straight from the fields. The fields aren´t really fields, they are mountainy hills with trees and other crops. Very green and cultivated. As I wrote in earlier blogs, the principal crops are organic coffee and unrefined sugar, but they also grow peanuts, rice at the valley floor, beans, and potatoes and wheat a little higher up.
Parties….they party – a lot. Everyone sits in chairs around the perimeter of the room while music pumps at maximum volume (no joke – it kind of hurts). Drinking always starts with a shared toast (¨brindis¨). Then one glass is passed around with the liquor; you pour your share, pass the bottle, drink your share, and pass the glass. People get up to dance but when the song is over you have to go back to your seat. There isn´t any mingling. And guys have to ask girls to dance. But I have to say, the dancing is lots of fun but not what you think ¨latin¨ dancing looks like. Peruvian cumbia is pretty low on the passion scale. Very subdued. You just kind of step back and forth – just right for Brian (and you too, Dad!!) The people who give the party have the responsibility for feeding everyone, usually not until after midnight. And they ALWAYS go until 6 am. We haven´t been able to finish one out yet.
People here are extremely generous and hospitable. We are always offered coffee and food when we visit people´s homes and every single person in town always has a big smile for us. They pride themselves on their sense of unity and friendship here. And they are very curious about the U.S. We tell them all about you guys back home!! And although a ¨we are poor¨ mentality is very pervasive in the minds of many in the countryside, they have a lot of hope for their future here in Sicchez. Our town has a strong, organized, and dedicated leadership. I am in awe of their energy and motivation to better their quality of life.
Brian and I have been keeping ourselves pretty busy. We have to do a baseline study (¨diagnostic¨) of the community in the first 6 months, which basically means collecting a lot of data and trying to differentiate our heads from our asses. In truth, it´s not easy leaving all of you guys and the successful lives we have in the U.S. Lot´s of things feel confusing, we get lonely, we miss every fiber of every one of you, we wish it´d snow (it never will), it´s hard to make friends, and learning a new language is more of a bitch than it seems. Don´t believe those who say ¨immersion¨ speeds up the process. They´re probably right but qualitatively they´re wrong! That said, we are happy deep down. The leaders in the community invite us to a ton of meetings; we´ve talked with NGO´s, the mayor, grassroots organizations, and lots of community members. They really make us feel included and they really want our help. When we´re bored we hang out at the health post or just walk around and talk to different folks. It´ll take some time to earn some ¨confianza¨ (trust) and just sitting with different people on their porch is a form of work for us. As of now, it looks like our main activities here will be centered around nutrition education (including gardens and cooking classes) and waste management. They don´t produce a lot of non-organic waste here, but what they do produce they burn. It feels great to have our own schedule and the flexibility to approach our work without bosses or ¨systems¨ (read: DPS) hanging over our heads all of the time. And we exercise every day, so don´t forget to come climbing here Daryn, Ken, and Dave!!!
Right now we´re in what they call the ¨winter¨ (rainy season). It´s only beginning, but it rains every day in the afternoon. We are told it becomes torrential in the coming months. Not a whole lot happens here during the rainy season, even the schools are on vacation. During this time, Brian and I are teaching English classes: one for adults and one for kids. Just about everyone has asked us for them. Christmas was pretty mellow, we ate a meal together, but no presents are generally given except maybe one to the kid. They like to have ¨chocolotadas¨ where they drink hot cocoa and eat fruit cake. The Christmas pictures are from the chocolatada at the health center. Such good, nice people. New Years was a classic Peruvian party at our house with extended family.
Oh yeah, a couple of questions for all of you out there: 1) The egg yolks here are all off to one side when you hard-boil them (we made deviled eggs). Are yours too, Anya? We thought maybe it´s because they´re farm-fresh?? 2) We´re in the southern hemisphere, barely, but why can we still see Orion and the big dipper (Krista)??
Well, another update in a month or so. We wish you all the best and think of you every day. Don´t forget to let us know your travel plans, I know that all of you are going to visit us….right?!?

People Pics

2007-12-02T11:40:00.000-08:00

As requested by family members, here´s some pictures of Brian and I at our swearing in ceremony. (Don´t worry mom, I did have a nice skirt on for the ceremony but changed as quickly as possible due to the 8 million bug bites I acquired on my legs during the ceremony.) Yes, we´re now official Peace Corps Volunteers. Everything was going well until our host family started crying as we left. It was really sad, as they are the reason why we stayed healthy and happy these past three months. We´ll miss their laughs and all of their genuine kind support.... The pictures are of us with either training faculty, Chosica neighbors, or other volunteers (the bottom is our host family and the guy in th red shirt is the daughter´s boyfriend).

Top Three Spanish Words

2007-12-01T13:29:00.000-08:00

My three favorite words.....they just don´t have an equivalent in English without laboriously explaining yourself!!

3) Falta
·used for just about everything, kind of means that something is lacking. For example: ¨falta mas¨ = we have more to go, or ¨falta tres¨ = there´s three left, or ¨falta Brian¨ = Brian´s not here, or ¨falta esos¨ = these aren´t right yet.....etc. Pretty useful, hugh?!?

2) Demorar
·means the amount of time something takes or lasts. For example: ¨Angela demora mucho¨ = Angela taks a lot of time, or ¨quanto demora¨ = how much time will it take? One word for an entire phrase in English - exciting!!!

1) Aprovechar - the absolute best word in Spanish!!! I just love it because it´s so forward-looking and positive.
·means to take advantage of something in a positive way (well, mostly positive). For example: ¨aprovecha el tiempo¨ = use time to your advantage, or ¨aprovecha el sol¨ = enjoy the sun while you still have it, or in my case, ¨aprovecha el Peru¨ = do everything I can to make sure I get the best out of Peru possible.

*****DISCLAIMER****** My deepest apologies to all of my fluent Spanish speaking friends who will probably say that I have no clue whatsoever about the Spanish language and that I´m completely misusing my favorite words. But, as Helen The Linguist knows, I can aprovechar my right to turn their meanings into anything I want since language is subjective anyway! :)

Enjoy!!!

Sweet, sweet classroom memories

2007-11-20T15:15:00.001-08:00

Ya know, classroom aren´t all that different around the world. Brian and I gave a class on self-esteem to some third graders in our barrio. They had never heard of it, so we first did a play about the issue and then modeled a ¨self portriat¨. In the drawing, the kids were supposed to draw a picture of themselves including all of the things that they feel they are good at/like to do. I´m not so sure I want to translate this kiddo´s drawing, but the same would always happen in my classroom in the states too. Except that we´d have to turn the drawing into the school counselor. Albeit, the sweetie was quite proud, and I´m sure that was good for his self-esteem!!

Sleep, guinea pigs, and organic coffee

2007-11-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, first the photos (left to right, top to bottom):

Brian with our host brother in Chosica, a nursery in Sicchez (Piura) where a grower association is raising trees to reforest their fields, a typical view of where we will be living (green hills all around...pretty!!), playing volleyball in the rain in the town center of Sicchez (can you find the gringa?), the road leading up to our house in Sicchez (the smoke is from the fire for breakfast - they cook with firewood), a garden at the local school, a typical view of a road in Sicchez, our new home, school kids in Chosica (Brian and I gave a lesson on self esteem), our host sister and brother in their uncanny sleeping positions.

Our site visit to Sicchez was awesome, kind of like we walked into a Peace Corps dream village. A seven hour bus ride from Piura city takes you up into the hills that get greener and greener the higher you go. Our site is at about the same altitude as Denver. Every hill in site is completely covered by agriculture, the people there take advantage of every square inch of land. It´s a bit strange to the eyes at first, we´re so used to seeing mountains with intact forest. They mostly grow sugar cane, coffee, bananas, mangoes, avocados, chirimoya (deeeelicious), papaya, and other fruits in their fields. There is an intact forest just beyond our caserio (pueblo) that one can explore...we can´t wait to check it out!! There are other caserios nearby, and Sicchez is kind of like the ¨city¨that governs the other little pueblos. The closest caserio is about a 45 minute walk away. The climate is subtropical, with a 3-4 month rainy season between January and March/April.

Brian and I were treated with such respect and kindness during our visit. About an hour after meeting our new family, we went to a meeting with all of the community leaders. They had so many kind words for us and are very motivated to better their community. We all introduced ourselves, shared some sugar cane liquor and ate dinner (chicken with some vegetables). Over the next two days we were showed around the town and learned all about how things are organized. There is a strong association of organic coffee and sugar cane growers in Sicchez. They work with an NGO to export their product; these same growers are working the the NGO to reforest their farms. Sicchez is extremely proud of their organic products and the leaders of the community have a slowly developing sense of environmental consciousness. They also have a organic milk and yogurt project that some older students of the local school are working on and an organic garden in the secondary school. It seems like the community is very united and organized, but I think our work will lie in tying the vision held by the community leaders into everyday action taken by the people themselves. Even in a town with organic coffee and a garden in the school, there is a lot to do with bettering the projects they already have, waste management, viviendas saludables (healthy rural homes), nutrition, education, and helping them to develop these goals sustainably.

Our family is very cute and kind, the grandma of age 83 has infinite energy - she cooks, cleans and generally runs the home. Our room is a bit small but big enough for a bed, dresser, and gas burner for cooking. There are no vegetables in Sicchez, and only a tiny store with basic provisions. So we´ll have to travel 7 hours to Piura once a month to stock up on Angela-approved food.

Our visit also included a meeting with the town leaders of a nearby caserio who also want us to work with them, equipped with sugar cane liquor and beer to quench our thirst. I´ve never sat and drank in a municipality before, but as I said, it´s almost impossible to explain how very hospitable and kind the people of Peru are. The night before we left, the town of Sicchez had a party for us complete with dancing, drinking, and traditional food. As usual, Brian and I had huge plates of food while the others had tiny servings. And the biggest honor of all, guinea pig (¨cuy¨ in Spanish). It was only served to us, as it is considered a delicacy. Yes, the whole animal (head, feet, toenails, rib cage, innards) served up on a plate with potatoes. I had to eat it, as to refuse that kind of generosity would not look so good. We did our best to peel away all of the skin and take out the little meat that existed. Brian is a trooper, but I don´t think he was too crazy about it. The evening ended with beautiful words about how lucky they are to have us and how excited they are to work with us. They are also very excited to meet any and all of our family and friends intrepid enough to journey there. I have to say, it is WELL worth the 7 hour bus ride from Piura to see this beautiful and friendly town!!! We reeeeealy hope you come visit us here!!

In general, Brian and I are excited to just settle in and get our lives situated. These last two weeks of training are kind of gratuitous in my opinion, but we´ll definitely have some sad feelings upon leaving our family in Lima. The first three months in Sicchez we will be doing a baseline study of the community (a diagnostic) --- yes my fellow teachers, it´s data based pedagogy all over again!!! It´s a really good thing though, because that way we will have a more complete view of our community before we make decisions about how to approach different projects. It´s a good way to integrate into the community to since we´ll be mapping, making house visits, conducting interviews, following people during their day, etc. It´s actually exactly like teaching in that you collect lots of data, make decisions, follow through with them, and analyze whether or not you were effective. Peace Corps is not turning out to be a hippie-free-for-all, it´s a pretty legitimate and serious development organization (that sentence is for you, Smith!!) There will definately not be a lack of work.

Also, if you are now tantalized to visit our fair caserio, e-mail me and I can send some dates that the town has festivals and celebrations.

Miss you all!!!

Piura!!!

2007-11-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

In three weeks Brian and I will be settling in...our new home, Sicchez, Piura. In fact, we´ll almost be Ecuadorians! About 1,500 inhabitants live in Sicchez, it´s tucked in the Andean foothills and is very green. They grow sugar cane, coffee, bananas, and do small animal husbandry for income. And very hot at 4 degrees south latitude (with a rainy season to boot). In theory, I´ll be working with the municipality on agroecology and reforestation. Brian will ensure the health of all inhabitants. Our tentative family consists of a couple living with their parents. We´ll have electricity, running water a few days a week, and a public phone. All info points to the fact that we´ll have a relatively large room with it´s own entrance with a space to cook (we´d have to buy the stove and stuff - which is generally cheap). If you´re interested in visiting us, be prepared - it´s a 7 hour bus ride from the capital city of Piura. Next week Brian and I will go to Sicchez for seven days to meet our community contacts and stay with our family.
We´re extremely excited and also incredibally overwhelmed right now. The training calendar leaves little room to feel human sometimes, the ¨you are a volunteer 24-7¨mentality. Lots, lots, lots of assignments and requirements.
Aunt Joyce, thanks a million for your letters!! Can you post a comment and tell me what days are good to call you at home during the evening?

El Bosque Seco

2007-10-31T06:26:00.000-07:00

Last week Brian and I took a trip up north to check out different sites. Since he´s health and I´m enviornment, we went to separate Departments (like states in the US). He went to Piura to visit different volunteers. I went to Lambayeque to learn all about the economy and ecology of the dry forest (bosque seco). Since I´m the one with the camera, you guys get to hear more about my trip to Lambayeque. It´s an understatement to call it dry. It´s really dry. The main tree is called the "algarroba", it´s a mesquite. I was excited to find that ficas grow under them - I´ve always wondered what the natural habitat of my houseplants are (Anya, you have my fica tree). There is no ground cover between the trees, but in areas that aren´t already disturbed/destroyed there are lots of shrubs. Like any desert, the bosque seco has lots of life if you pay close attention. It isn´t obvious at first look.

The people there live a very rural lifestyle. They mostly do animal husbandry and small scale farming for substience, but therein lies the problem. There´s no water, and like in the rainforest, people cut down the forest to make space for farmland. There´s one small area that is officially protected by the government, but every area of the bosque seco (protected or not) is subject to "invaders" who cut the trees for firewood (they ALL cook with firewood) or who want to clear a space to live. Some communities are organzied and have volunteer groups that patrol their area, but most are not. The volunteers in the bosque seco are mostly working with communities to develop economically viable means of living sustainably in the dry forest. We talked with beekeepers and visited a site that has a tree nursery. The nursery has algarrobos for reforestation, and lots of other fruit trees. The intention is to sell some trees and plant the others so that they can sell the fruit. The main goal is not to replace what they already do, but facilitate the development of a diversified income source. That way, when one thing fails, they have other options. And it´s easier on the environment.

I stayed with a different family each night in the campo (countryside). I have experienced nothing short of extremely generous hospitality with the Peruvians that I meet. The people I stayed with do not have much: no electricity, running water, etc. and are so willing to share all that they have to offer. Often times, I would be served a huge plate of food while the rest of the family shared a single bowl of rice and some chicken. I feel so grateful to all of the families that we met, as it must be hard to open your home to a bunch of strangers who come from a completely different standard of living.

We will finally discover our assignment next Tuesday and will promptly post the big news. Our Spanish is for sure improving, but it just feels like there´s such a long way to go. I did tell my first impromptu joke in Spanish and made everyone laugh. It felt like I won a contest, I was so elated to have told my first ¨second language¨ joke!

Again, here are some unorganized pictures of my trip to Lambayeque. If someone out there knows how to post pictures on blogspot in an orderly fashion with captions, PLEASE HELP!! I also realize that some of them are small and you can´t magnify them, I blame the computer I happen to be using at the moment, although I know Krista and Doug (for that matter ALL of our computer literate friends) will secretly know that I truly don´t know how to manage a machine.

p.s. The pictures of the dry forest with the big dirt hills are actually ruins of a 2,000 year old culture (pre-Incan)

Love you all!!

La Presidente and her First Man

2007-10-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures that I didn´t post last time....

Quite a surprise today: Ang was elected president of the Peru 10 (our group) Junta Directiva (association). I didn´t campaign, but maybe it was Brian´s good looks that got me in. It doesn´t really signify too much, we`re just practicing how associations work in Peru.

We´ve been going to a ton of festivals and we´re begining to learn that one can always find a festival in Peru. And they are usually week-long parties with parades, dancing, contests, ect.

Last weekend we went to a festival in our little barrio. They were celebrating one of the many saints. They had live bands playing ¨wino¨music - a really unique sound from the sierra with it´s own dance to boot. Lots of chicha (fermented drink), beer, dancing, and a completely crazy and dangerous fireworks show. Suffice it to say that we were covering our heads from the little sparks flying everywhere. And the big one didn´t happen until 4 am. Good times!!

Ang has decided to ditch the ¨conform to the food¨route after a day wretching in bed after some admittedly delicious home-made ceviche (¨raw¨ fish cooked in lime juice, onion, ginger, and garlic). It´s actually pretty easy to eat vegetarian here and her body is waging a war against meet.

We had our language proficiency tests today. We both improved and are stoked at being able to talk like 5 and a half year olds now!!

Thanks for the comments, we love you so much!!

Also, feel free to email us too. We are by no means limited to blogworld only.

Goodbye Frisbee

2007-10-05T16:51:00.000-07:00

Peru swallows frisbees like nobody´s business! The kids in our town were stoked to play with such a cool new toy... for about 5 minutes before it ended up on the roof of the tienda (store) next to our house. Now it´s back to soccer matches that are more akin to a circus of gringoes with balls rolling between their legs. At least it´s good exercise! You can just barely make out the frisbee in the picture above.
We live in a little barrio outside of Chosica (picture above). Basically, Chosica is along a busy road that follows the River Rimac up out of Lima into the mountains. It´s a complete and unabashed desert here. The foothills do not have a single plant on them, completely rock. I think the only rain on this side of the Andes comes in the form of occasional floods. Our barrio, like most of them, was formed by squatters about 40 years ago by the employees of a nearby country club. Lots of folk from Lima come up here because there´s more sun here during the winter (Lima is locked in with constant cloud cover). Our barrio has about 1,000 families. The main road is dirt, there´s a school, health post, church, and a bunch of tiendas. Every day we have about a 15 minute butt buster walk up a hill to our house. Of course, lots of dogs to guide the way.
The Peace Corps training center is a 10 minute bus ride from our home in a different neighborhood. The busses are called combis and they play really loud music. It actually reminds me a lot of India with the music blasing out of a vehicle filled to 400% capacity. Basically every day we have 4 hours of language class a day and 4 hours of technical training. It´s going well, there´s a lot to learn. The whole language thing can be pretty exhausting, as there´s really no true rest until your head hits the pillow. It´s a lot like being a child again. I feel so dependent on others for so many of my basic needs: food, where to go, how to get there, when to do things, ect. Not to mention that we basically have the vocabulary of a 5 year old with which to communicate. It´s hard to give up so much independence!
That said, our language is defiantely progressing. Our host family is so kind and takes the time to explian everything about five different ways so we know what they´re talking about. They are truly about the LOVE - so kind and truly good people. We spend so much time talking and laughing together every night. They love to joke around and will even kill the moment by explaining exactly WHY something is funny.
In the beginning our family worried a lot about what to cook since Ang is a veg, but Peruvian food is actually really basic. Quinoa, rice, rice, rice, rice, vegetables, fruit (it´s been fun trying all the different types of new fruit), potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, and rice. Breakfast is super small, some bread and juice. Usually we eat the same thing for lunch and dinner. Our host family (the wife) makes tamales to sell to the barrio every Sunday. They are KILLER!! We put up a picture of Ang tying some of them togther. They´re basically corn meal, chicken boullion, hot pepper, and spices with a piece of chicken, onion, and an olive wrapped up into a banana leaf and steamed for two hours. We eat them every Sunday for breakfast. We also put up a picture of the 1 year old with mango all over his cute little face.
Last weekend, the local school had a dance for the community. Each class dressed in traditional clothing and did a dance from different regions of the country. Two of the kids in our family, 8 and 13, danced. It was pretty awesome (pics above).
Oh yeah, we found out that we´ll be placed somewhere in the north of Peru, but we don´t know exactly where yet. We should know within three weeks.
Sorry about taking the snail mail address off. I was informed that it´s agains the rules to post specific addresses on a blog. I´ll email out to you Krista and AM. If anyone else wants to know it, let me know and I´ll email it. We also learned that it costs 3 DOLLARS to send a LETTER, so I´m not so sure that it is a viable means of communication for us.

Esperate! Falta!

2007-09-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

Translation = wait! there´s more to come!
We´ve got lots of funny stories and some great pictures...I´ll try to work on the blog this week. Right now, Brian is what they say ¨con la bicicleta¨ (I´ve gotta go help him find the bathroom again).
No, really, we´re so extremely busy that it´s hard to find time for leisure.... More to come this week...

The Dust Is Starting To Settle

2007-09-18T15:48:00.000-07:00

¿Que tal amigos? We are finally here in our humble town and officially beginning training. Let´s just say that beginning a new life somewhere foreign has been a bit different than travelling. Overwhelming may be an appropriate word.

Our trip to D.C. was awesome, Brian´s uncle Dennis showed us around town and we spent much quality time with Brian´s sister´s family: Jenny, Joe, Payton and Owen. Nephews are a blast!! I got in trouble in front of the Department of Education building for taking a picture, but I´m posting it here and thus calling the photo: ¨No teacher left behind¨

We are in a small barrio an hour outside of Lima. There are lots of hills that are completely barren, only rock, as it is a desert here and apparantly never rains. Our host family is amazing! They love to joke (most of them over our language deficient heads) and laugh all of the time. We´ve spent hours every night talking together. They have four kids, two boys and two girls, ages 1, 3, 8, and 13. Brian and I have our own room that is quite nice with a bed, dresser and desk. We do have electricity and running water, although no hot water. Quick showers!!

Since we are immersed in Spanish every day at home, plus language lessons that are all in Spanish, plus Spanish training sessions, we´re doing relatively well and improving each day. It can be quite frustrating to speak like a three year old, but I hope that within three months we´ll be ready to rock.

Sorry about the photo technical difficulties, I can´t figure out how to put them where I want with captions. Brian is in our room, and the other is of the training center where we spend our days.

We love you all!!

Alamosa Party

2007-09-05T19:00:00.001-07:00

Hey friends!! We had such a BLAST over Labor Day weekend! Thanks to everyone who made the trek down to Alamosa to hang out with us. Brian and I think we can remember about 75% of the weekend. Sand Dunes, hiking, hot springs, rattle snakes, coyotes, jack rabbits, fires, food, libations, and tons of laughs.

Love it!!! I'm going to try this picture thing out....enjoy :)

Pre Departure Info

2007-08-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

Heya! We're scheduled to depart for D.C. on Sept. 9th. We'll have a few days of shots and lectures, then we're headed for Peru on Sept. 12th. More to come...
There will be 11 weeks of training about 60 min (by bus??) outside of Lima. During this time we take language classes, do field visits, learn skills for our assignments, etc. After all of this, the PC decides where to send us permamently. As far as we know, we'll be living with a family the whole time in Peru.
We're sure going to miss everyone!!!