I Believe I Can Fly?

The last couple nights, I have had dreams of flying mixed with a general college theme.  I'm somewhere I need to escape from, and I'm being chased by someone or need to get back to my home/school quickly because I'm running out of time.  It's winter, and I have to fly home over mountains and forest and all that.  I have some sort of metal contraption that looks a lot like the weird winged thing that the guy from Fly Away Home uses to fly around his house that first scene.  When I'm high up in the air it's exhilarating and exciting and so much fun.  The view is beautiful and I never want to come down, but every time I fly, even if it seems to be perfect for a long time, I crash at least once.  Part of me kind of expects it and knows it is coming.  The crash is always scary and I'm always worried whatever is chasing me is going to catch up with me if I don't get back up into the air quickly.  Still, at the same time, it's always exciting and I always manage to get back up into the air, enjoying myself again.  The dreams are a lot of fun, despite the anxious moments when I spiral down to the ground.  The thing is, I've never dreamt about flying.  I don't usually analyze dreams, but this seemed somewhat significant.  So what did I do?  I went online when I got into town and looked up the significance of flying dreams.

Result? Ridiculously accurate.

This is what the website had to say:
"If you are flying with ease and are enjoying the scene and landscape below, then it suggests that you are on top of a situation.  You have risen above something.  It may also mean that you have gained a new and different perspective on things.  Flying dreams and ability to control your flight is representative of your own personal sense of power. "

"Having difficulties staying in flight indicates a lack of power in controlling your own circumstances.  You may be struggling to stay aloft or stay on a set course.  Difficulty flying may also be an indication of a lack of confidence or some hesitation on your part.  You need to believe in yourself and not be afraid."

"If you are feeling fear when you are flying or that you are flying too high, then it suggests that you are afraid of challenges and of success. Perhaps you are not ready to take the next step."

My interpretation of the interpretation:

I walk the middle line in my dreams between flying with ease and difficulty staying in flight.  I think it is definitely safe to say that I'm gaining a new and different perspective on things, and I don't necessarily feel like I am completely on top of my situation here in Perú, but I do feel like I'm doing alright with it, and I have found myself relatively content.  There's a lot of work to be done and a lot of daily challenges, but I am feeling good about it (hence the flying part I think), and it's all so knew and exciting and hard, that I'm definitely proud of myself for still being here.

At the same time, I always crash at least once, and saying that I lack confidence or have hesitation is probably an understatement on a daily basis here.  Lacking the ability to communicate effectively and also being teased, stared at, and laughed at because I'm super weird by Peruvian standards does lower one's confidence a bit.  It's hard to be sure of myself all the time because I don't know what anyone's expectations are, or if I'm doing something offensive or inappropriate or super weird.  I try not to care, but at a subconscious level, I'm human, and my natural instinct is to try to fit in somehow.

Finally, whenever I was flying in my dream, I was never afraid of flying to high, the higher I went, the more fun I had.  Considering that I'm still here in Perú, and that I decided to come in the first place, I clearly am not presently afraid of challenges or success, which is made easy by the fact that failure is expected by everyone.  It's part of Peace Corps.

I found this whole dream interpretation really interesting.  Just thought I'd share :)

Dumping Rain and Portion Success!

I found out, by an absolute miracle, that I can check my email on my Kindle if I sit on the wooden bench outside the front of my house.   I remembered Dahlia saying it was possible, but I just couldn't believe it actually worked!  Very exciting development.  It takes about 15 hours to load anything but it doesn't matter.  It was thrilling.

It has taken to absolutely POURING.  We're talking like, sky cracks in half and water pounds down by the gallons, the kind that makes you wonder if drowning is possible on dry land.  I tried taking photos of it on my camera, but they didn't really encompass the true experience.  Here are some photos anyway:

 Exciting Development: 

Every meal, my host mom literally serves me about 12 boiled potatoes and maybe 3 cups of rice, sometimes that's it, sometimes there are some peas mixed in there (which I pick out and make sure I eat every one).  Sometimes she gives me this and a giant bowl of soup filled with potatoes.  She thinks I hate her food because I never finish all of it.  I don't hate her food...it just gets monotonous, it's way too much, and she has definitely turned eating into an "eat to live" not "live to eat" kind of situation.  I also, clearly, don't want diabetes, and sometimes I feel like that is what I've been served, a big bowl of diabetes.  I felt bad because I did think I was hurting her feelings but I didn't know what to do.  I'm not going to eat that whole bowl because I'm afraid to hurt her feelings, mostly because I physically can't, but also because if you eat it once, they assume you can eat it again.  Everything surrounding food has to be carefully premeditated.  It's a job to eat in Perú.   

Finally, one night, she asked me why I didn't like her food when I didn't eat all the 5 lbs worth of carbohydrates she put in front of me.  Don't get me wrong, I eat a normal portion size, I just don't eat all of it.  Well. I told her again that it wasn't that I didn't like her food, I just couldn't eat that much, there wasn't enough room in my stomach.  Then, something I'd been thinking about saying for a few days, I finally decided it was the right moment.  I told her that healthy adults in the United States eat the same portion size that she serves her six year old daughter, Mishel, and that I can eat that much.  I told her it was because many Americans did less manual labor than they do in Iraca, and that of course they needed more energy here for that reason, which is why they eat so much more.  I told her I didn't want to gain weight (which since then she has continually made fun of me for), and that I would eat all my food if she gave me the same amount she gives my 6 year old host sister.  I'm not being skimpy either, Mishel literally eats a decent sized adult portion of food, and I'm incredibly content now because Celina has taken to serving me on the smaller plates, with less food.  It's fantastic. WIN! 

War

I walked into Mishel's room the other day to say hi, and I saw, stuck on the wall, the piece of hot pink duct tape I had given her when I saw her running around with pieces of electrical tape.  She had it stuck to her wall, surrounded by the little pieces of electrical tape and for some strange reason, it made me incredibly happy.  She's so shy around me all the time, with the exception of the two nights my host family got her drunk, and it was touching to see that she had coveted a little piece of duct tape.

Later that day, a woman with a surprisingly high pitched voice came to visit Celina, and she brought her son.  Mishel shyly asked if I wanted to play "Casino" with them, which is sort of a weird version of go fish but slightly more complicated.  I told them they would have to teach me, which involved them playing a round while I watched...which didn't really help.  Celina came in to play the second round and won it.  Then they asked me to teach them a game, which freaked me out a bit because giving instructions could be pretty difficult.  I decided to pick the easiest game to explain that I could think of - good ol' War, or "Guerra" in this case.  My host mom said, "no, a game with cards." I assured her that "Guerra" was a card game.  What did she think I was going to teach them?

They really liked the game.  It was simple, easy to explain, and takes up an unpredictable amount of time.  I ended up head to head with the boy and the game went on so long that I gave my cards to Mishel and let her continue playing for me.  I think I won the boy over at that point, and he came back a couple days later and played War with Mishel again.  I don't know why but I was pretty pleased.

Answering the "How Are You" Question

When people ask me how I am, I usually say fine. It's noncommittal, and answers the question without having to really go into it, which for the most part is what people expect in answer to the "how are you" question.  At the same time, it's a perfectly accurate answer, which is probably why it is so generic, because "fine" implies that we're good, most of the time, but it also accounts for the difficulties.  Mostly, I find myself hesitant to say that I am happy.  The reality of it is that I am challenged all the time in some way or another, I'm dirtier that I wish I was 100% of the time, I do miss the glories of a flush toilet and food that doesn't make me gag, I hate that I almost never have water and that the electricity craps out on me pretty frequently, I'm not a huge fan of the fact that we have a torrential downpour every day and my life is mostly mud, I don't like feeling like I live in a garbage heap or stepping in animal shit all the time, it's not my favorite thing to have absolutely no privacy, it's frustrating when no one understands a word I'm saying or I can't articulate what it is that I want to say, and it's obnoxious to have to wonder all the time if whatever it is I'm eating right now to be polite is going to make me sick for the next week.  However, despite all of this, overall, I think I'm actually happy, or at least more or less content.  I'm not a fool, I definitely expect to have brutally hard times, and I have already in different ways, but I'm doing pretty well.  I can't tell you why I'm so hesitant to say it, maybe I'm afraid of jinxing it, or maybe saying I'm happy doesn't seem to adequately encompass all the challenging or irritating parts of every day.  Maybe it's just weird to be happy, but also terrified and intimidated and uncomfortable at the same time.  I'm terrified of being alone in a room with 30 kids who don't speak my native tongue, and I have to teach them!  Being alone with 30 elementary school kids would scare me enough in the States, but now I have to teach them, and do it in Spanish.  It seems ludicrous. I'm stared at all the time and people make horrible comments about my body and my weight and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable.  And yet, mystifyingly enough, I'm not completely miserable.  In fact, I'm not really miserable at all.  I'm so NOT miserable, that fine no longer seems an adequate response to the "how are you" question.  I guess I'm hesitant to say I'm happy because I don't really see how it's possible given the circumstances and my every day reality, and yet, I guess it is.

A very Cuy Encounter

I was invited to the school for party to celebrate all the other students who were moving up a grade in their class.  Celina had asked me to come at the same time that she showed me Mishel's report card.  It was sweet how proud she was of the good grades that Mishel had received, and just as sweet that she came to my room to share them with me.  I went to the celebration a touch late, and looked for Celina but couldn't find her and instead looked lost standing in the middle of the primary school, every eye on me, making my skin itch and inspiring a rather strong urge to give up and leave.  I was saved by the appearance of one of my community partners, who emerged from a little shack near where they were cooking pounds of rice and potatoes, and he waved me over.  He ushered me into the little cottage and offered me a seat at the picnic table they had in the corner where most of the school staff was seated.  After greeting everyone and sitting down, I was quickly served a GIANT bowl full of rice, potatoes, and a fried cuy (guinea pig) spread-eagled across the pile of carbohydrates, complete with eyes and teeth.  They also poured me a drink in a previously used cup that smelled and tasted like a cross between a jolly rancher and cough syrup - could have been worse.  I took a couple of sips and tried really hard not to look at my bowl of food, but realized that this was not one of those moments I couldn't escape from.  I was going to have to try cuy.

I'll be real, I had no idea where to start, and didn't really relish the thought of ripping an animal in half, fried or not fried.  I was however, surrounded by people tearing the little animals to bits and sucking on their bones.  I kept trying to push the image of the guinea pigs I'd had as pets when I was a kid out of my head.  I thought I might be safe with a little bit of skin, so I tried to pull off a piece...but I couldn't.  It was fried hard as a rock.  I tried biting on it, which involved picking up the whole fried cuy and trying to take a chomp at it's side.  The skin was literally so hard I was not entirely sure it wasn't bone.  I finally got a tiny piece of meat, and closing my eyes and imagining chicken, I put it in my mouth.  It was so greasy and tasted so strange I felt my gag reflex tighten and my mind was screaming, "YOU'RE EATING CHUCKIE!!!"

That was the end of my attempt to eat cuy.  I did the Peruvian stand-by and asked them if I could have a bag to bring my food home.  I said I had just eaten lunch.  They fetched me a plastic bag and held it while I shoveled all the food off my plate and into the bag.  I turned back to my drink, only to find a giant moth floating dead in it.  I tried really hard not to laugh.

Later that afternoon, my host mom came into my room and sat on my bed.  She told me she really felt like I was becoming accustomed and that if I needed anything I should just ask.  It was nice to hear that she thought I was adjusting well.  Positive feedback in the integrating department is always appreciated because I really have no idea what they think about me.  She also told me that if I didn't like something, I should tell her.  I decided right then to just be up front about the fact that I can't eat cuy.  They think it's funny that I used to have them as pets, and she laughed at me a bit but accepted it.

That night, when everyone else had cuy, I got chicken.  It was fantastic.  I tried to eat as much of the chicken off the bone as I could, but regardless, I will never be able to clean a bone like a Peruvian.  It was not so much fun being surrounded by my family eating cuy - the sound of them sucking on bones, or chewing bones, or watching them open their mouths and let chunks of chewed meat just fall to the kitchen floor was less than appetizing.  I'm not sure I'll ever get used to just brushing food onto the floor, or spitting out food onto the floor, it's a bit shocking every time, but it is also, I will admit, incredibly convenient.

Tragic Reality

I was sitting in the health post, writing a letter to a friend, when a little man walked through the door in a traditional campo hat; worn brown poncho; rolled up jeans, baggy on this thin frame; thick framed glasses perched on the sun-browned crest of his nose, and bare feet, splattered with dried mud halfway up his calf. Age lines cut across his forehead, etched deep with worry as he explained to Natalia why he was there.  His daughter was suffering from fainting spells they couldn't rouse her from.  Natalia told him it was epilepsy.  The little man demanded pills or syrup or something , becoming more panicked by the moment, his arms flapping and flailing under the poncho, like a little pterodactyl trying to take flight.  Natalia tried to  tell him that they didn't have medicine for that, and if they did, he would need a DNI (Peruvian equivalent of a driver's license) to receive the medicine for free through the health insurance.  He became more upset because DNIs are too expensive. They are about 30 S/., or $10 USD.  It was sad to watch., but I had no idea how sad it really was.

Apparently, this man's daughter, the one suffering from epilepsy, is also intellectually and developmentally disabled.  I'm not sure the extent of it or the cause, I decided not to ask after my health worker described her appearance as the spanish word for "mongoloid".  I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised since political correctness doesn't seem to have hit most parts of Perú, and she didn't mean it in a cruel way, but I was still pretty shocked...

  What she did tell me about the daughter, was that she had been raped at some point, and no one knew by whom, and had given birth to a daughter.  At first they thought the baby might be healthy, but apparently she has even more problems than her mother.  The family struggles to take care of them and can't provide the support they need, but the family is  hoping that they will both magically get better.

 It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear.

The Glory of a Greeting

After my various interactions with the kids at the Primary school to advertise my upcoming English Class (beginning on Monday, January 9th), the kids have begun to learn my name.  There is no greater joy in my day than when I walk by a kid in the street and they greet me.

"Buenos Días, Señorita Hayden."
"Hola Profesora!"

It's getting more and more common, and each time it brings a huge smile to my face.  Little things, I actually say to myself in my head, to force the full acknowledgment of the great moment, "that completely made my day."  I only hope that after their curiosity is satisfied, I will have replaced it with a kind of affection...though given my blatant whiteness, there is a chance that curiosity will never be satisfied.  We'll have to see.

My Peruvian Christmas

Our Creche and Christmas Trees: Elizabeth Taylor and Droopy

            The two days without electricity came to an abrupt end with a repetitious angry interpretation of the Alvin and the Chipmunk’s Christmas special out of a little green box attached to the lights that changed color to the melody.  The lights flashed over the moss and grass and little figurines that adorned the creche, or “Nacimiento del niño”.  To the right and left of the creche stood their versions of Christmas trees.  One was a bristly, easily disassembled  plastic tree, wrapped Elizabeth Taylor style in a tinsel boa, and missing one of it's four "feet", so it leaned against the bench to stay upright.  On the right hand side was the other tree, which appeared to actually be a branch. It was comical in all it’s gangliness, a wirey trunk with droopy long branches, like an underconfident teenager next to the bedazzled prom queen.  Reminded me a lot of the Christmas tree in the original cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I kept thinking of the tacky creche they set up at the Lyme Country Store every year that’s made of plastic and all the people glow – it could be worse.  Peruvians definitely needed to work on the Christmas tree thing, but they had the creche down. 

             If you’re thinking I had too much time to analyze this, let me paint the scene for you.  The creche was set up in the only common space in my house, which is the bigger room my bedroom was sectioned off from.  It has cement floors, adobe walls, one table, a bunch of benches, and two doors, which I use to get outside.  The only thing separating my room from this one is the thin piece of wood my host dad put up and made into a wall.  On this special evening, my host mom, Celina, had brought in a piece of foam, which I expect was from an old bed, and put it on the cement floor.  My host dad’s sister and her daughter and two sons and two old people who might have been my host mom’s aunt and uncle came over to spend Christmas Eve with us.

 The old woman had been over the night before for what was a very strange makeshift service, which was mostly Hail Mary’s and a lot of my host dad, Samuel, mumbling words he read out of some religious book.  I, unfortunately, was present for this and felt like I was witnessing some sort of cult behavior.  I think I had that feeling only because they were mumbling in a language I don’t know very well.  Only other notable thing from that evening was when the old woman took off her campo hat and she literally had a skunk stripe.  She’d dyed her hair dark black, but she had about two inches down the middle of her part that was mostly white and a little grey.  I had to bite my lip and look away, imagining what my Mom would have said if she’d seen this lady. 

Anyway, there I sat on the edge of the foam, my butt soaking up the cold from the cement beneath, shaking a little in my fleece, staring at the creche for something to do.  I tried participating in the conversation, but no one would talk slow enough for me to understand.  The only thing I did take part in was the drinking circle that had started.  They had a bottle of champagne, which, to be fair, tasted more like horribly over-fermented apple juice.  They also had a little shot glass type thing.  Common practice is to fill your cup, pass the bottle on, toss it back in one swoop, snap your wrist once to try and get out any of your backwash, and pass the cup to the next person.  My host family thought it was funny to include the three kids under 10 in this ritual, including my 6 year old sister, Mishel.  They actually pressured kids to drink.

After a couple rounds of this, the Alvin and the Chipmunks started to sound like that horrible ringing you get in your ears after spending the night dancing near loud speakers.  It was also only 9 o’clock, and I knew we would be waiting until midnight for anything to happen.  I couldn’t help thinking about home and what they had been doing during the day.  I had tried to forget Christmas was coming the whole week, which wasn’t that difficult considering the entire lack of usual indicators that Christmas is coming, but I couldn’t really avoid it anymore.  I didn’t think I could make it three hours just sitting there in silence thinking about my family, and the rain had made the cold a wet, bone deep cold, so I got up and went into my room and shut the door.  I got in my bed, closed my eyes, and fell asleep.  At eleven, as I had suspected, my host mom barged into my room and told me to get up.  What I hadn’t expected was she had the bottle of “champagne” in her hand, along with the cup.  She poured me a glass, spilling some on my bed, and said, “drink”, or “toma”. I tossed it back with a bit of a grimace and she poured me another one. “Toma.” I drank it.  “To help you wake up.” She said, and then told me to come.  I got out of bed, and took my place on the foam again.  No one was really talking, Peruvians are oddly comfortable with complete silence, and “parties” can sometimes take the form of sitting together in a room in silence.

  There we were, angry Alvin the only source of noise.  I checked my watch every fifteen minutes or so until I fell half asleep sitting up.  I woke up again around 11:45 and just waited it out.  Once midnight came, no one said anything.  I was going to say something but I didn’t know if there was a ritual or tradition I would ruin so I waited.  About ten minutes later Celina came in and said, “It’s midnight.  Merry Christmas,” and the Christmas hugging began.  Everyone hugged everyone, then the old woman took the disproportionately sized Jesus out of the creche and went to each person, who touched or kissed the weird little Jesus doll, then crossed themselves. 

Given that this lady had stared at me every time they crossed themselves or said Hail Mary during their strange service the other day, I thought it would be uncomfortable for me to not cross myself, but it was one of those moments where you try to decide if it is worth just giving in and doing it or if it really is a kind of compromise of yourself and your beliefs.  I decided it wasn’t something I would normally do, but I didn’t want to feel uncomfortable, so I just walked out of the room, through the door that leads outside.  (This may sound awkward, but my host mom had just gone in that direction and I don’t think anyone really noticed I left.)

  I spent the rest of the evening serving the traditional Christmas Eve/midnight Christmas “feast”, which consisted of chicken, a huge piece of panetón (which is a bread with nasty gummy things in it), and some random biscuit-y things that taste like meat because they’ve been baked in animal fat.  We all sat in a circle on the benches, foam, or cement, and I tried not to think about Christmas Eve dinner at home in New Hampshire as I picked at my cold chicken with my fingers.  I couldn’t bring myself to eat any of it, but I sipped at the delicious milk/chocolate/herb concoction that Celina had made.  It was fresh, hot milk with a melted chocolate bar that has herbs in it, made especially for occasions like this and one of the more delicious things I’ve had in Perú.  I prayed that the milk had been sufficiently boiled and that I wouldn’t spend all of Christmas vomiting.  My host mom kept badgering me to eat, but I wasn’t interested.  I helped clear the dishes, and my host dad kept asking me if I was ok. I just said I was tired, and as others got up to leave, I escaped to my room.  I decided to watch Love Actually before I went to bed, regardless of how tired I was, because I had to do something that felt Christmas-y.  I also ate the peppermint bark my mom had sent me in a package to taste something that reminded me of home. 

In the morning, I woke up and took the stocking my mom had sent me off the wall.  I sat in my bed by myself and opened each present slowly, imagining exactly what my Mom would say about it if I were home, but trying not to picture them all at home in that instant.  It was bittersweet, opening a stocking alone.  It was sad to be alone and in Perú so far from my family, and the image of them all at home together by the woodstove kept popping up in my thoughts, but I was still so touched that Mom had thought of everything, had sent me a stocking so I would have one to open on Christmas morning. 

Once my stocking was all opened, I got up and packed up my stuff to head down into Chota.  I couldn’t fight the feeling of just really needing to get out of my house, off my mountain, and around other Americans.  Once all my stuff was packed, I realized I couldn’t call the nice mototaxi driver, Elvis, because I didn’t have money charged up on my phone.  I walked into the kitchen, where I found my whole family awake and eating, and asked my host mom if she could call Elvis for me because I didn’t have “recarga” on my phone.  She said sure, but told me to eat first.  I felt a slight tug of desperation and wanted to beg that she call now because I’d have to wait an hour regardless and I needed to get the hell out of there.  However, I didn’t know how to ask politely, so I sat down on the bench and tried to think of a nice way to ask.  She set in front of me the bowl from the night before, complete with cold chicken, panetón and nasty biscuits.  The image and feel and sounds of Christmas morning breakfast at home popped into my head, my grandfather in his red plaid robe and Christmas hat; my mom in her periwinkle purple one, her contented little Christmas smile that pulls lightly at the corner of her mouth, and the unbrushed cowlick at the back of her head that leaves a little bump of hair poking up, the mirror image of my grandmother’s bed head; warm, freshly baked scones, fresh fruit, orange juice, and coffee in Yaya’s old China cups with the blue rim; Mom’s favorite and only classical Christmas CD that skips more often than not and leaves someone running into the summer kitchen to change the song…

My eyes started to water and I shoved the images out of my head.  As I opened my mouth to make a desperate plea for the phone call, Samuel got up with the cell phone and walked out of the kitchen.  He came back a minute later and said that Elvis didn’t pick up his phone.  Unexpectedly, the tears came flooding down my cheeks in an instant, but I brushed them away and tried to put a firm cap back on the water works.  I focused intently on my cold chicken.  After two or three more calls, Elvis finally picked up and said he would come to get us. 

We waited almost two hours for him to come, I sat watching the ducks clean themselves and the pig try to eat chicken poop out of the range of his rope, before we started walking down the road and found him parked by the school.  I rode down the hill with my host grandfather, Maximandro, and Celina.  We’d been in the mototaxi for maybe five minutes before we came across three people walking down the road who wanted a ride into town.  Six people in a mototaxi = not good.  Three of the six people in the mototaxi up all night dancing and drinking = REALLY not good.  Two of the three people who joined us were guys so drunk their eyes wouldn’t focus, and one super chatty, very shrill, and blatantly yelling little woman.  To situate yourselves correctly in this scenario, if you have never been in a mototaxi, picture a carriage, how people sit on either side facing each other but imagine that carriage is much smaller, not sufficiently covered to keep out the pouring rain, and actually pulled by a motorcycle.  Well, the guy sitting across from me, or in front of me depending on your perspective, reeked, and was so hung over he kept his head down and spent most of the ride with it bent out the door, afraid he would vomit.  The bad news is that if he vomited, I would get it all over me even if he did get it out of the door, because I was down wind of him and there isn’t actually a door.  So I spent most of the ride clutching my backpack in my lap with one hand steadying myself, swearing over and over again in my head that if he puked on me I was actually going to kill him.  Not a Christmasy thought, but getting puked on is not a Christmasy activity.

Just chilling on my stool, talking to my family :)

GREAT NEWS – we made it to the bottom without a crisis.  I got to a place with internet and was able to skype my family.  I called the house first, and just hearing their voices over the phone I burst into tears but tried to hide it so they wouldn’t know I was crying.  By the time we skyped and had video, I’d pulled myself together and put on a brave face.  They had me on a laptop, sitting on a stool, and I got to watch people open presents and I opened presents myself in front of the screen.  I felt as much a part of that Christmas as I could as far as I was from home, and it made it so much easier.  One of the volunteers told me that skyping makes everything so much worse for people here but after that skype on Christmas day, I highly disagree.  I was having the worst Christmas ever, and it almost felt normal for a couple hours there, just because I could skype with them and feel like I was sitting in the room. 

That night we made guacamole and cheesy garlic bread, drank rum and cokes, enjoyed a pretty sunset, and watched Pride and Prejudice. 

Christmas Day Sunset over Chota

It was anything from a normal Christmas:

I didn’t attend the Lyme Christmas Pageant, nor was I in it.  I wasn’t in a house covered in Christmas decorations from years past.  I didn’t smell balsam anywhere and Mom didn’t ask me to look at her new wreath.  I didn’t see little while lights anywhere and it wasn’t cold enough for snow.  The ground wasn’t frozen and I didn’t get to hang up any of the ornaments on the cloth advent calendar tree we always have hanging on the door to the basement.  I didn’t stomp around in the snow looking for a Christmas tree with Mom.  We didn’t cut down a Christmas tree or make the perilous journey home with it terribly tied to the top of the car, my hands desperately clinging to it in the icy cold through the sunroof and my window.  There was no James Bond marathon on the Spike channel.  I didn’t get to finally see family I had missed all year.  I didn’t get to pick Jamey up from the Dartmouth Coach at the Hanover Inn.  I didn’t get conned into a hike up Academy Hill with Mom to look at the stars on a frigid evening.  Mom and I didn’t have a hell of a time actually getting the tree to stand up straight in the stand because the stand is always broken. I didn’t get to unpack our ornament boxes and coo over ornaments I have had for years while sipping on egg nog and listening to Mom ask Jamey repeatedly to slow down going through the ornament box.  Jamey didn’t get all excited about putting up his little fuzzy skier guy ornament that he loves so much.  I didn’t help mom make rum bulls or roll out Christmas sugar cookies.  Jamey and I didn’t playfully bicker while we frosted and decorated the Christmas cookies.  I didn’t get nagged to go get wood for the wonderful fire in our woodstove.  I didn’t get to hang up my dark velvet angel stocking or help mom rearrange the furniture to best accommodate everyone on Christmas.  I didn’t have to run to change to the next track on mom’s skipping Messiah CD.  I didn’t get to set out the little snow man calligraphy place settings that I made five years or so ago.  I didn’t spend a while in my room trying to pick the perfect Christmas Eve outfit to look pretty for my family. I didn’t get to spend Christmas Eve with my family, crammed around our dining room table in our cozy little dining room, some beautiful centerpiece in the middle of the table that my Mom just whipped together.  I didn’t get to help mom polish the silver, or set the table, or make the food.  I didn’t get to eat my brother’s famous Mashed Potatoes.  I wasn’t there to watch some cousin get pressured by my Mom into making a toast, or have Bahbah ask what kind of meat I wanted, light or dark? Or do I want a leg?  We didn’t go in a circle and say what we were thankful for or talk about our year.  I didn’t get to walk over to the little Baptist church on Christmas Eve to listen to a slightly pathetic service or sing really off-key hymns to a dreadfully electric sounding organ.  I didn’t get my little candle lit while we sang silent night in the dark, with my little flame glowing as warm as I felt standing between my brother and my Mom.  I didn’t get to try and make my flame last all the way back to the house in the cold winter wind, or see my snug, happy little house smiling out at me from under the blanket of snow or the star shining out of our cupula.  I didn’t hear the crunch of snow under my feet or see my breath in gleam of the candle flame.  I didn’t get to clear the table or wash dishes, surrounded by the chatter of my aunt, my Mom, my grandmother.  I didn’t unwrap a book on Christmas Eve, or watch my Mom excitedly explain a book she picked to Jamey, who was never a big reader growing up.  I didn’t go to bed that night with a slightly giddy feeling in my stomach, one I’ve had since I was a girl, at the idea of waking up in the morning and running down the stairs.  I didn’t wake up the next morning to the crushing weight of a cousin or brother jumping on my bed despite the fact that the night before they insisted that they would not get up until an hour or so later than it was.  I didn’t run into Mom’s room and jump on her.  I didn’t wait at the top of the stairs for Mom to get breakfast in the oven and the lights of the tree turned on, or the fire started.  I didn’t run down the stairs in my pajamas, racing my brothers to the best couch, only to be distracted by the magical, warm, and timeless feeling in our living room, tree glowing happily in the corner and fire glowing merrily in the woodstove.  I didn’t have the beautifully laid out breakfast with the little glass cups mom found at a flea market years ago and uses for orange juice.  I didn’t eat warm and freshly baked scones, or cut up fruit, or drink coffee.  I didn’t snuggle up in a blanket and tease Jamey about potential stockpiling.  I didn’t hide little presents in my sweatshirt or my cubby in the mudroom. I didn’t get to hand people gifts that I had bought or made for them.  I didn’t get to wrap my arms around the people that I love in our warm, loving little room, all of us situated around the tree.  I didn’t watch Mom make her list of presents and who they were from so we could all write complete thank you notes later.  I didn’t feel like I was drowning a little in a sea of wrapping paper.  I didn’t get to snuggle with my dog, bright red ribbon tied around her collar and completely confused about what was going on.  I didn’t get to be with the people that I loved, or have my traditional Christmas. 

But we did our best, and I got as close as I could to the heart of the holiday – my family.

See! I even made it into the Cousin's Christmas Photo - sitting on Chris's lap :)

What happens when pigs fly

My house is literally crawling in animals.  Recently, one of our hens had chicks and they are adorable.

This first photo is a classic picture of what all our animals do - try and enter the kitchen.  Most of them are successful.

I just think they're really cute - so I took another picture of them.  If you are wondering why I am taking photos of chickens and not of my family, Peruvians really don't like having their picture taken it seems.  My host mom thought I was taking pictures of her and not the chickens, and it was a really awkward moment.  I'll work on it...

If it puts anything in perspective, I really cling to anything that makes me smile, and watching these little guys run around after their mom cracks me up.  We have a kind of moat dug around our house to help with the large amounts of rain we get, and the mom jumped across it the other day, and about three chicks tried to make the jump and got stuck in the moat.  It was funny to watch.

We also have four ducks - used to have six but we sold two.  I sit outside on a bench sometimes in the morning and watch them wander around, among other things.  I've decided that they closely resemble characters from Pride and Prejudice.  There is one male duck, who looks like a demon, and hisses at this other female duck, following her around everywhere.  I named him Mr. Wickham.  The duck he follows everywhere I named Lizzie.  Then Lydia wanders around fretting all the time, and tries to make herself known to Mr. Wickham, and he pays her no attention.  The last one is a brown duck, pretty chill, just kind of sits around.  I named her Jane.  I know, life in the campo is making me crazy.

not all the ducks - one is hidden behind the wood, and one is a hen.

Wickham is front and center.  Picture was taken on a wet and rainy

Christmas morning.

This pig make a really ridiculous amount of squealing noises on a regular basis.  I try to ignore it.  We have 5 pigs.  Well, now we have four actually.  The other day my host mom came into my room and told me her pig had died.   I asked if she needed help with anything, she just asked me to come look, which was weird.  Apparently the pig had tried to fly off the back ledge where it lives, behind the cuy (guinea pig) house.  It broke its neck and was just lying on the ground, slightly grey.  I couldn't see its face, just its little tail and slumped body.  It was a bit sad.  Anyway, Christmas morning, this pig was straining against its leash thing to try to eat some freshly plopped chicken poop.  

That's the animal update - more coming soon.  :)

Surprise Visit and a Purple Promoción

Last Thursday, I was sitting at my site trying to transcribe my interview with the health post, when Jennifer, another volunteer from Peru 18 who lives nearby, called me up.  She said she was going to take a trip to Ellie's site to let her know our plan to travel to Cajamarca City on Saturday.  Ellie had cell phone service originally, but a storm knocked her tower down and there was no way to communicate with her, other than a community phone that we for whatever reason couldn't get through on.  So, not wanting her to have no idea we were all going to Cajamarca City, we decided to get on a cramped little combi and drive an hour and fifteen minutes into the mountains to find her town and tell her ourselves.

It was kind of exciting, to be driving out to her site to surprise her.  I thought that would be a surprise that I would LOVE if it happened to me.  The drive was beautiful too, the view of the mountains was amazing, and aside from the fact that the road was CRAP, I was really excited that I didn't get car sick even though I hadn't taken dramamine.  I don't know what it is about this country, but it's really hard for me to drive anywhere an not get carsick.

We got to Ellie's town, which was way bigger than we thought.  Jennifer and I both live in tiny towns, mine is the smallest with just 93 families.  Ellie has stores and buildings, a plaza and a municipality.  I was really surprised by how big it was and tried not to be a bit jealous.  We went to the health post and see if she was hanging out there.  Turns out she wasn't, but they gave us directions to her house and we went walking down towards the river.  There was a park and lots of green.  I tried not to look - "site envy", which is a common ailment of Peace Corps volunteers, was not something I needed.  Walking down the street around where Ellie should be, we saw a house that looked a bit nicer than the rest and assumed that she lived there.  We just stood on the street, shouting her name at the house.  She eventually peaked out a window and came running downstairs.  It was a fun little adventure.  Unfortunately, Ellie's family was having a wedding during the coming weekend and she wasn't going to be able to make it.

Jennifer and I left a couple hours later feeling a twinge jealous.  Everyone in her community had been so friendly and welcoming.  She seemed to have made a bunch of good connections with people and Jennifer and I, who have had some trouble getting to know people because there is no where to go to really meet people, had a hard time not feeling jealous when we left.  But I suppose every site has its positives and negatives.

Friday morning came, and I spent the morning at the health post and then went to the Promoción.  This was basically the graduation for the 6th grade students from our town's primary school, who were moving on to secondary school in Chota.  I showed up a bit early with the health workers and it was mostly just the teachers and Director Chavez there, but the whole room was decorated beautifully, if not a touch tacky, in purple streamers and balloons.  Everyone was drinking beer in a drinking circle and they made me part of it.  I'm not sure how long the teachers had been drinking, but I think it was enough time, given the super awkward moment that arose.

The health workers were talking to one of the louder and slightly more obnoxious teachers and telling her that I had been teaching them English.  The first word I had taught them was "Boss", because they constantly call each other "Jefa" but they say it in a way that sort of undulates in a way that makes it sound like they are whining.  It drives me absolutely bonkers for a really strange reason, but "boss" does not lend itself to flowing speech.  They had taken to calling each other "Boss" all the time and then giggling.  It cracked me up.  Anyway, so this teacher now knew that I was teaching people English words and she asked me how to say "Huevos" in English.  It's eggs, but I also knew that the slang term for "balls" is "huevos", and I had the sneaking suspicion that was what she was after - something about the slight quiver of the corner of her mouth when she asked me.  So, I said, "huevos is eggs in English, but if you are looking for the slang term, it's balls."  Everyone was pretty shocked that I knew the jerga for balls in Spanish, but the look on the teacher's face made it pretty evident that was exactly what she had been after, her glee punctuated by a very shrill cackle.  Listening to them try to say "balls" made me laugh really hard, it sounded more like "buollz" and they were all giggling and cackling.   I turned a little red, but before I could gather myself, the teacher had gotten up, walked across the room to Director Chavez and said something that involved "buollz", cackled, and came back to sit down.  I still have no idea what she said but I must have turned purple I was so embarrassed.  I could feel my face swell with blood and I couldn't help laughing at the same time.  I sat there, shaking, but with my face covered by my hands, when the Director walked up to me and asked me what "buollz" meant.  I wanted to answer the poor guy, though he didn't seem all that bothered by it, but I couldn't pull myself together.  He waited, then eventually walked away.  I felt terrible, but also thought it was hilarious.  It felt like middle school, when you learn a word no one else does and then get to use it as a source of power until everyone makes the mistake of asking their parents what it means.

About two hours later, the Promoción finally got going.  All the boys were wearing nice shoes, black slacks, and light lavender purple collared shirts.  All the girls were in these big gauzy lavender dresses with little heels on.  All the clothes were the exact same color, and the girls looked like dolls, or little girls playing dress up, each dress looked like a Halloween costume for Cinderella, but in the wrong color.  Each girl had her hair pulled up in some different way with a couple of pieces of hair curled by their face.  Each up-do looked like it was made of stone.  I'm pretty sure hot wax must have been used to pull their hair up, and all I could think of was that painful scene from Memoirs of a Geisha, when they yank hot wax through her hair to put it up.  All in all, there were about 10 kids or so, and they all looked like they were going to a strictly uniform prom.  They all came in and sat down in the white plastic chairs, only to be told about ten minutes later they all had to go back out and process in with their families.

Each name was called and they walked in with their parents.  It was sort of entertaining to see these kids all dolled up and their parents in rainboots and mud splattered pants.  Each kid processed in, hugged their teacher, and then walked behind the table with the cakes (that's a common Peruvian thing at parties, to have a table covered in cakes that are just for taking pictures with).  I was faintly amused that Peruvians don't smile in pictures, ever.  This exciting occasion, graduation, and everyone looked like they were getting a mug shot taken.  I know it is what they do in formal occasions, but it still was so weird to watch.  They sang a religious song, Señor de los Milagros, and people kept looking at me.  I felt awkward for not knowing the words until I realized that none of the kids did either.  They were all lined up in two lines in the middle of the room the whole time.  A big speech was made, in which, as is common practice, all important people are acknowledged at the beginning.  Right after acknowledging the workers from the health post, I was acknowledged, but the woman who was in charge of the Promoción, who had invited me to the Promoción, had no idea what my name was, so I was acknowledged as the Señorita from the United States.  I tried not to laugh, and I think resisted admirably, but it was funny.

Home Improvement

Things on the home front have been pretty good.  I have a hard time eating the food because it is covered in cilantro and I hate cilantro, there is also something unappealing about rice and potatoes for the millionth time.

My pee bucket is still one of my favorite things on the planet since it saves me a trip to the latrine.  The latrine is never just simply a latrine.  Aside from the general horrific stink, my lack of ability to aim into a keyhole shape, the fact that the door doesn't close all the way and faces the road, the necessity to remember that there is not toilet paper in the latrine so I have to bring some every time I go, the high population of flies, and the ridiculously tall grass that grows out of the latrine and makes me feel like bugs are crawling all over me every time I use the facilities, the latrine always seems to have its challenges.   It rains all the time here, so a trip to the latrine requires rainboots and a rain jacket most of the time.  The latrine is down a mini slope and I have fallen on my butt more than once on my way to the latrine.  At night, walking back from the latrine with my headlamp, sometimes the dogs can't tell who I am and they attack me - not to mention that they look SCARY in the dark with their gleaming eyes.  My family has taken to tying their giant sow a couple feet from the latrine, and she rushes me every time I walk down the hill, I have to walk through the tall grass around the other side to escape her, and I dread the day that she figures out how I get by her.  Needless to say - not a huge fan of the latrine but I use it when I need it and pray not to be sick because I don't want to have to use it more than necessary.  Also moderately sketched out by the fact that I have never seen anyone in my host family or otherwise use our latrine....

We lose water every day for long periods of time.  We have one water pipe that comes down the mountain from a reservoir that breaks everyday.  It doesn't make a lot of sense, but we never know when we're going to have water and when we won't.  It makes plans for bathing hard, because the only way to tolerate the brain-freezingly cold water is to work out before I shower, but I never know if I will actually have water and I don't like working out and then being sweaty and nasty after.  I have been known to bucket bathe in a sink, for sheer lack of other options and a desperation to no longer be greasy and dirty. I did step into the "shower" the other day and stepped right in a pile of shit.  I don't know what of our billion animals left that there, but there is something not so clean feeling about bathing within the stench of poop.  Beggars can't be choosers though, at least I got a shower, however cold.

We also lose power on a regular basis, with no promise of when that might return either.  I kind of like it, for one day, every once in a while, because we get to sit at dinner drinking warm "cafecito" by candlelight, which is enchanting in its own way, for short periods of time.  Three days in a row gets to be a little much, especially because my computer loses charge and I can't work on my interviews or design my survey.

My bed - still a straw mattress and still
too short for me - but with a wall of MAGICAL LOVE :) 

My new coat rack and food/stuff shelf

I've made some good improvements to my room - I bought a shelf type thing made out of gimp (that's a pretty standard shelving material here).  I have a coat rack, my host dad finally fixed my outlet, and my only light that wouldn't turn on all the time.  I have also started putting up all the letters I have received and they are now up on my wall, all the envelopes lining the top of my wall.  I have been printing some pictures also to put on my wall.  If anyone wants to write me or send me photos, they will be sure to go straight up on my wall!  On a trip to Cajamarca, which I will write about in the next post, I bought a down comforter, which has changed my life.  I don't need to sleep in a billion layers in my sleeping bag anymore, I can sleep in a tshirt under my down comforter.  I'm going to buy this awesome pastel coral fleece material from a store in Chota and have a seamstress make a comforter cover for my bed.  I bought pretty sheets also, I'm now - still - just waiting for my host dad to extend my bed so I can put the comforter on it that I bought (and had to put on top of a mototaxi to get to my house).  Still need them to make my window also, but it's little by little.  :)

My little cement hole

I'm perpetually dehydrated because when I boil my water and put it in my jar/jug thing, there is always a bunch of white solid stuff floating in it that tastes funny.  It grosses me out, and I also don't want to have to pee all the time, soooo I don't drink a whole lot of water.  Trying to work on that.

Work in Progress

One day I felt like I was ready to get to work.  The first week or so was mostly dedicated, as it is supposed to be, to not throwing all my stuff in a bag and getting the hell out of there.  Once I felt like I had sufficiently suppressed the desire to run, it was time to settle down to progress - making it worth it.  In true Duffus woman fashion, I started making lists and plans and due dates to get myself going.  The next day, I went to the school to ask the Director if I could interview him about the school and also get a key to one of the classroom to teach during Vaccaciones Utiles, or summer vacation.  Violeta, a technical nurse from the health post and one of my community partners came with me.  She very sweetly asked Director Chavez to spread the word that I was to be called Señorita or Hayden, so as not to lack respect.  I was offered a frozen yogurty milk thing that the Director of the Kindergarten was selling to kids and managed to pass that off to Violeta when no one was watching.  It didn't appear delicious enough to be worth a day or two of vomiting and excessively frequent and unpleasant trips to the latrine.

End result of my meeting with Director Chavez was that I should come back the next day for the interview, and to talk with the kids about Vaccaciones at Forma - which is when they all line up outside by class and do weird military standing at attention and at ease stuff (it's a little terrifying to watch, always makes me think of WWII movies for some reason).  I spent much of the afternoon at the health post, teaching small words in english to Violeta and Silvia.  It's kind of satisfying to watch them struggle with English, not in a mean way, just that after being laughed at and looked at like I'm an idiot it felt nice for two seconds to feel like I possessed any kind of knowledge, or was good at anything, even if it was just speaking my native language.  It felt good to teach a little bit too, and I felt like maybe my health workers would gain a little insight into how hard it is to speak another language.  I have a hard time trying to explain to people why Barbara can speak spanish better than I can.  She grew up speaking Spanish, her parents are from Ecuador and Columbia, but to Peruvians, she's still American, so they can't figure out what is wrong with me and why I can't speak fluently.  That can be a touch frustrating.

The next day, I went to the school for the forma and chatted a bit with the kids.  I'm starting my class on the second Monday on January and I'm totally freaked out.  I'm going to be in charge of an entire class of kids, Spanish-speaking kids, and I'm going to somehow have to teach them English.  For whatever reason, everyone in Peru wants to learn English.  I had a random shopkeeper ask me if I would teach his kids English while I purchased some thumbtacks from him.  I am hoping to include some health promotion activities with the kids, like maybe building tippytaps (handwashing type things made out of recycled plastic bottles) and other games and arts and crafts.  I just want the kids to get to know me and get comfortable with me.  I'm nervous, have less confidence than I wish I did, but hope that it will all turn out well in the end.  I haven't decided how often I'm going to teach, it's going to depend on how many people show up the first day.  All the kids raised their hands when Director Chavez asked how many of them were going to show up.  I'm going to post some signs around town and hopefully people will show up!

My interview with the Director went well, though it was a bit awkward to have people running in and out of the room and interrupting.  I also had two teachers standing behind me, reading my word document with my questions written on it.  They were discussing my typing and the format of my interview (I had questions written out in English and Spanish, just in case there was an issue and I had to rephrase, I didn't want to be caught unprepared).  School ended the next day, so I was glad that I got the interview in - they wouldn't be back in time for me to interview before my Community Diagnostic was due.  I was proud of myself for thinking to record the interview on my computer so that I could listen to it over again and ensure I got all the information I could from it.

I also had an initial interview with the health workers at the health post to help me start thinking about potential projects in the community.  I thought it was a good idea to design my community survey with a couple projects in mind so I could ask any necessary questions.  Things I'm thinking about are some kind of waste disposal system, because at the moment, everyone throws their trash on their farm land, or burns it.  I've been carrying my trash down the hill into Chota because I refuse to throw it in our yard - I can't stand watching the ducks and chickens eat trash, and I don't like the feeling of living in a landfill.  My house is surrounded by stray trash that occasionally gets raked up and thrown over by the farmland, but it gets to me sometimes.  I'm thinking about creating a public library, building latrines for families who either don't have one or have latrines that are falling apart, training health promoters (though I've heard there is no one willing because people refuse to come to meetings to train the health promoters), nutrition charlas (chats), creation of biohuertos (gardens to plant vegetables and fruits to supplement diet of rice and potatoes), creation of a women's group to give them a voice and maybe teach them how to read, and a project on early childhood stimulation for kids under 5 in my town.

Starting in January, I'm going to start doing surveys with people in my town.  My health workers have offered to help me out.  I'm not sure what form that will take, whether or not they will help me do the encuestas (surveys) or if they might come with me.  We'll have to see, but I'm currently working on writing my survey so that I can begin in January.  It's quite the little time sink.

I let little things, one thing, that happens in a day make my whole day a success.  I was walking down the road the other day and these two little boys were in a bush and they called out to me.
"What's your name?" A little squeaky boy's voice called, straightening up as his smaller friend peaked over the bush.
"My name is Hayden.  What are your names?"
"I'm Julio and this is Daniel!" He giggled.
He was so cute and it was so sweet and genuine, as I turned to walk back to my house, I thought to myself - "That totally made my day."

Walking down a street and a couple little kids called out my name - totally made my day.

A little boy called me "Profesora" the other day, totally made my day.

A woman stopped walking in the street to come greet me and ask about how I was adjusting to living in town.  Instead of saying "how fat you are", she said, "how nice you are," and asked me to visit her at her house.  Totally made my day.

Little by little. :)

When old demons cross continents to haunt me again

I've been a busy, and at the same time, not so busy girl since I last posted.  It's the day after Christmas and I'm currently hanging out with some friends watching Mona Lisa's Smile.  I'm going to do a quick summary catch up of the time I've missed, and am going to do my best from here on out to be me more thorough with my blog posting.  Sorry!  It's all about developing a routine, so I'll work harder at that for now.

Last time I updated, I had just learned how to make Tamales, and had painted my room, Griseria was really creeping me out but I was trying to laugh it off, and I was being overzealously harassed about my weight by curious and not so PC Peruvians.  I have forgotten to mention that while Kate and Diamond were over and we were hanging out in the kitchen with Griseria, she decided to start killing all the flies, which meant smacking them with the same rag we use to wash and dry dishes, wipe the table, and other random things.  She would then pick up the fly with her fingers, hold it out to us with a proud grunt, then throw it in the fire.  It was a bit disturbing.  I eventually started to lose it.  I had enough of her coming into my room and staring at me in the morning, so one night I had the brilliant idea to lock both the doors that lead to the room which eventually leads to my room.  I had also bought fruit and yogurt to eat in the morning so I didn't have to eat rice and potatoes, and so that Griseria would have no reason to wake me up.  I told her that evening that I didn't need to be woken up in the morning because I had my own breakfast and was going to feed myself.

 The next morning I woke up the rattling of the door, which persisted a strangely long time, only to recommence with the other door.  Griseria went back and forth, rattling the doors maybe four times each before she walked away.  Then came back about ten minutes later and did it all over again.  It wasn't like she was knocking to get me, she was just rattling the doors to try and open them.  I started laughing in my bed and the sheer determination, but it eventually started to annoy me so badly that I got up and pretended like I just happened to wake up.  I was VERY excited when my host mom, Celina, finally came home.  She has a much better concept of privacy, and is considerably easier to communicate with.  She also is a touch more sanitary with things in the kitchen and doesn't stand in doorways and stare at me.

That day, the day after we had painted my room, I went into town again to get a couple more things for my room.  While walking around town, I walked by a guy who sneezed and I, politely, said, "salud", or bless you.  About four hours later, this same guy came up to me and tried to talk me into buying little pills I should put in cold water and drink to help me lose weight.  It was really important, he said, because if I didn't lose weight, all the fat in my heart was going to kill me.  I walked away and was, needless to say, really frustrated.  I had been in site less than a week and felt totally accosted about my weight.  I tried my best to shrug it off but was already thinking thoughts like, "I hate this town."

Later that afternoon, when I was getting in a mototaxi to go up the hill back to my town, some woman was trying to get in and sit down.  We already had four people in the mototaxi, and four is usually really pushing it.  The woman actually said, "I can't fit because that girl is so fat." I pretended not to hear.

The whole ride up the mountain was miserable because there were three people squeezed on my side and I could feel my left hip bruising against the metal bar.  The moto was also so weighted down that every time we hit one of the huge rocks embedded in the road or a pothole, I thought my spine was going to snap because there was no give, no spring, to the moto.  About halfway up, we got a flat tire.  And of course, this flat tire was on my side of the mototaxi.  Everyone started insisting that it was my fault that the mototaxi broke down because I'm so fat.  Then they started joking about how I needed to lose weight or I was going to break every mototaxi that goes up our hill and then our town would be stranded up there.  When another moto came to take us the rest of the way up the hill, they had a 20 minute argument about whether or not they would actually let me in the next mototaxi because I might break that one too.  They kept talking about it and I finally had to say, "Maybe it is not my weight, maybe it's the fact that we've put five people in a mototaxi and this road is covered in large rocks and potholes."  No one had much to say after that.  I felt like crying the rest of the way up the hill.  Everyone I was introduced to had to comment on my weight when I met them, and thus far, every time I'd gone into Chota it was all anyone could talk about.  I spent the rest of the ride up the hill feeling miserable and wondering how I would be able to build relationships with anyone in my community if every person I met offended me in the first three minutes of conversation.  I had already heard from plenty of people that Barbara, the volunteer I was replacing, was too serious.  I was beginning to realize why she was serious, she probably felt like she had to defend herself against all the comments.  Anyone would put up a wall.  But I knew that I couldn't be happy if I had to spend two years feeling defensive.  I was prepared for weight comments, but it'd gotten to be to much and I didn't know what to do with myself, or how to fix it.  Right before getting to my house, when we stopped to let out two other people, they addressed me simply as "Gringa".  ENOUGH LABLES!

Katie H. and me at Swearing in in November 

I managed to hold it together until after I got out of the mototaxi, paid the driver, and walked halfway up the hill to my house.  I popped down on a rock, picked up my cell phone, and called Katie H., the friend I had talked to while being stared at by Griseria a couple days beforehand.  She's a friend of mine from training who had already done Peace Corps in Zambia, is the most positive and at peace person I think I've ever met.  She's around the same age as my brother, Ned, and she is my Peace Corps big sister.  I called her, she luckily picked up, and I burst into tears.  It was the first time I had cried at site.  However, Katie calmed me down.  She was super supportive and sweet, and encouraged me to call Sarah, a third year volunteer and Peace Corps Peru's volunteer HIV/AIDS coordinator.  She and I had a great conversation during training about the difficulties of dealing with the Peruvian tendency to comment openly about other people's weight.  She was also really sympathetic and helpful, and encouraged me to occasionally let people have it, but to find someone I trusted to explain that commenting on my weight was really offensive.

Sarah and Me at Swearing in in November - sadly she has now left
Peace Corps, finished with her service, to travel around South
America a bit and then head home. 

Ultimately, I felt really stupid.  I don't remember the last time I actually cried because someone had commented on my weight.  I've for the most part accepted where I'm at and have been trying to move forward with the goal of being as strong and healthy as possible.  I'm easily able to joke about it, partially as a defense mechanism, and I'm more used to jokes about my weight coming from my own mouth and making other people uncomfortable, not the other way around.  I felt really stupid for being sensitive about it, and really frustrated that I couldn't just ignore it, but at the end I decided that the amount of attention and comments I'd received about my weight would give any fit, confident woman an eating disorder, and that I was handling it alright.

I ended up going to my health post a few days later and talking with the two workers there, Silvia and Violeta, and explaining to them that comments about my weight were really offensive in my country.  It took a really long time to explain to them, but they eventually got it and said they would spread the word that people shouldn't talk to me about that.  I felt stupid again, I didn't want people to feel like they had to be on guard around me, especially when I hadn't met them yet or gotten to know them.  In the end, I knew I wasn't going to be able to be myself, to be friendly and happy and outgoing, if I all I ever heard from people was about how fat I was.  I figured active and maybe a little awkward was better than hurt, alienated and furious.
          

Day 3 - Paint!

PAINT DAY! 

I'm so excited! Can't you tell?

 I hung out a bit until Diamond and Kate finally showed up.  We got painting almost immediately.  I had thought the yellow paint that I bought, called “Maíz”, was too dark and that I would mix the yellow and white paint.  I decided that could be disastrous, and that we could just try to paint it a bit normally and then see how we liked it.  We blasted some music from my laptop off my “Strut it out” playlist and had a great time chatting and painting and singing along. 

Before Picture

Diamond and Kate mid-paint

I got really lucky, because the paint was a great color, almost exactly the same color as my room at home, and one coat seemed to cover all the stains, the green paint showing through, and the ugly eggshell color.  It was so happy!  We painted the whole room in about an hour and a half.  

Painted walls - happy and bright!  Now about that trim...

Now that the room was painted, we took a break to wash the brushes and rest our arms.  Washing the brushes turned out to be a little bit harder than we had planned because I lose water at my house every day.  We usually don't have water from 9am to 4 pm, and I had to try and wash the brushes with some saved water in a bucket, which was really unsuccessful.  I did my best and then we started in on the trim.  Painting the trim of my room might have been the hardest paint job I've ever had, because it is filled with holes and is lumpy and bumpy and not a clear line across the wall.  It was hard to decide where to paint sometimes.  Miraculously, one coat of the white paint actually covered all the dark red.  I touched up everything later with a tiny brush and cap full of paint to make it perfect after Diamond and Kate went home.

Diamond and Me right after we finished painting my room! 

Ultimate Before and After Picture!

After that, we were called in for lunch, and we all ate together.  Halfway through lunch, Griseria asked us if we wanted to learn how to make Tamales.  Kate decided that we did, and the long and difficult process commenced. I really do have a whole new appreciation for tamales.   

First, we had to take big kernels of a certain type of corn and grind them to bits with the grinder my family has permanently hooked up to the end of the table.  Do not be fooled, this is HARD work.  Each of us would crap out after about ten rotations of this corn grinder.  At one point the top popped off and corn went flying everywhere, and other time it broke and wouldn't grind anything.  During this process we were all pretty sure that Griseria only asked us if we wanted to learn so that we would do the grinding for her because she made herself pretty scarce once she told us what to do.  So we grinded corn into floury stuff for about 40 minutes. 

Corn grinder = hard work. 

So we turned corn into this stuff.

      After we ground all that stuff up, Griseria took a huge hunk of the cheese she and Celina had made together and and broke it up into small chunks with her hands, adding a little bit of orange liquid (maybe hot saucy type stuff?).  We then got a bunch of corn husks and ripped off pieces of it, wiping out the dead bugs and spider webs, to then load up the floury stuff we had made and added water to.  It became an assembly line.  Get a husk, clean it out, fill it with the tamale dough stuff in a kind of rectangular pancake type shape, then add the orange-y cheese filling, then slam it together and fold it up.  

Griseria breaking up the cheese

Assembly Line putting together the tamales

      All in all, I was terrible at folding up the tamales and making them neat.  By the time that we had finished making all of them and it was time to cook them, Kate and Diamond had to leave.  We told Griseria that they needed to leave, and she pretty much told them that they couldn't.  I knew we needed to leave earlier so they could catch a mototaxi, which are really hard to come by, but Griseria insisted that there would be one and made them stay.  So we waited, about half an hour until the tamales were done steaming, and she packed up eight tamales for each of them.  I realized, about that time, that I was going to be eating tamales for every meal for a while.  

      We walked down to the little central hub to wait for a mototaxi, but none showed up.  They eventually decided they would just start walking.  They walked all the way to Chota because there was no mototaxi.  Not sure it was worth 8 tamales to them, but it was what it was.  

Day 2 - Home Improvements

I felt a little suffocated, like I was wrapped in a burrito.  Where was I? There was a loud knock on the door to the room outside my room.

“Señorita!” Celina called.  Oh, right.  I’m at site.

“Si?” I groaned, shifting and feeling the aching imprint my straw mattress had left on my body.

“Tome desayuno.” She called.  Breakfast time.

“Ya, voy a venir.” I called back, groggily making myself vertical.  I felt squeezed too tight by the layers of twisted clothing I had piled on myself the night before, but I’d survived my first night and felt a little proud of myself.  I got up, took off my Northface and threw on my baby blue crocs, and walked outside to breakfast. 

Breakfast was two hard-boiled eggs and what they call “cafecito”, or “little coffee” for lack of a better translation.  Adding “cito” on the end of things is pretty common here.  Don’t be fooled by the fact that it is called coffee.  What it really is, is a murky brown liquid that is so heavily sweetened by Celina that it actually almost tastes like not fully refined sugar they put on sugar on snow at sugaring houses in New England.  I’m a little weirded out by it, and a little concerned about the sugar intake, but it reminds me a bit of home and that makes me happy.  I ate breakfast and then got my things together to head down into Chota. 

Celina decided to come with me to help me find a mototaxi, and we walked to the “central hub” if you will, which consists of a tiny store, the primary school, a church, and the health post all within about 100 ft of each other.  Other than this little area, the whole town consists of just houses on the side of the mountain.  We walked down there, by tons of people just sitting around.  (I always feel naked when I walk through groups of people, because they stare so intently at me!)  We had zero luck, so we walked a little further down towards the health post.  I thought it would be appropriate for me to duck in and say hello to the workers there, since one of them was my community partner.  They were super friendly and happy to see me.  One of them started chiding me for not wearing a hat – I was going to damage my face because I have the “skin of an angel”.  I blushed a little at that, and knew she was right about the hat.  Celina ended up leaving and I was told to sit and wait on a bench outside the post with some random woman I didn’t know who had a big bucket of milk with her that she needed to bring down into town.  I sat for a while, and the woman wandered inside, until I heard the roar of a motorcycle engine and hoped it was a mototaxi.  I shouted a quick goodbye and went running out to the street. 

A mototaxi - weird sort of motorcycle-gocart hybrid. 

It was a mototaxi, and it already had two people in it but there was room for me.  I jumped in and found myself with an older woman and who I thought must have been her 30 year-old daughter.  We rode in silence for a while until we stopped outside a house and just waited.  Without the roar of the engine I asked if they lived in Iraca, and we started up a conversation about Barbara, the previous volunteer, and my plans, who I was living with and if I had “acostumbrarme” or become accustomed to living in Iraca.  I mentioned that I’d only arrived the day before, which didn’t seem to strike them as a great answer.  Just as I started to wonder how much longer we were going to be sitting there, a woman came running out of the house with sopping wet hair and a brush and jumped into the mototaxi.  As we started moving, she started combing her hair, droplets of water flinging into my face.  I scooted a bit away from her to avoid being hit by her hair as she chatted away with the two other women in the mototaxi. 

            “Que comes?” What do you eat? The lady with the wet hair asked me out of the blue.

            “Pardon?” I responded.

            “What do you eat to get so fat?” She asked me.  I tried to control my facial expression and brushed it off with a forced laugh.

            “American food.”

            “Is everyone in your country as fat as you?” She asked me. I ground my teeth together.

            “No, only some of us.”

            This then segwayed into a conversation that lasted most of the ride down the hill (approximately 20 minutes) about whether I was fatter than Barbara, the volunteer I replaced.

            When we finally got into Chota, I was relieved to get out of the mototaxi and away from that conversation and decided to just shrug it off.  As I was walking through the central Plaza de Armas on my way to Anita’s for breakfast with Kate and Diamond, I found my path blocked by a group of kids preparing for a parade.  There was no way around them, so I decided to walk through them.  Just as I was about to escape the cluster of munchkins, some little boy a foot away from me pointed up into my face and screamed, “Look at the Giant Fat Gringa!” and I felt a hundred little eyes turn into my direction.  Rather than stay and gawk at whatever giant monstrosity or Godzilla type creature they had apparently discovered somewhere in the Plaza, I kept walking.  My morning was not off to a great start.

            I had a lovely breakfast with Kate and Diamond at Anita’s, our favorite restaurant, and then we made a plan for what to buy.  Our first stop was going to be Serpost, because I really wanted to check the mail.  When we got to Serpost, the woman said there was nothing there and I felt a bit disappointed because Mom had told me to expect packages.  We headed towards the market to buy some of the other things on my list.  About a block away from Serpost, and about 10 minutes later, the Serpost lady came running down the street and grabbed the hand of Diamond.  Apparently I had a package!! 

There were two pleasing things about that moment.  First, I had a package, obviously.  Second, our plan of sucking up to the Serpost ladies was apparently hugely effective!  Rumor has it, if the Serpost ladies don’t like you, you will never, ever, receive any of your packages because all of them will get stuck in customs in Chiclayo.  That means that you have to write a letter to customs in Spanish, without any errors, and then pay to get it notarized.  You have something like 15 days to get this done and if it is not done right, or on time, you have to pay to take a 10 hour overnight bus to Chiclayo to get your package, and probably pay to get it out of customs.  Knowing this, yesterday we all went out and bought Panetón, a nasty bread thing with chewy stuff in it that they eat for breakfast.  We brought it to the post office ladies and introduced ourselves.  That was apparently a smart move because now we had Serpost ladies running down the street to give us packages!

My package was a giant and very exciting padded envelope, which I decided not to open until I got home.  After that, we wandered around Chota, I measured the length of a normal mattress so I’d have a reference for my bed to tell my host dad.  I bought a blue pee bucket with a lid and a handle, another salmon pink one to use for my garbage, yellow paint, white paint, paint brushes, acrylic paints, little paint brushes, an electric hot water heater, a tea mug, a water jug with a spout to put my clean water, and a flour sac to use for rags in my room.

It was a long day, but Diamond and Kate agreed to come up to Iraca the next day to help me paint my room.  I walked down to the paredero, or mototaxi stop, where I could catch a ride back up the hill.  I got someone to take me up and headed home with all my new things to make my room a little more cozy. 
One of the first things I did when I got home was to open my package from my Mom.  The second I had ripped off that one strip and glanced what was inside I burst into tears.  They were so sudden but they weren't sad, more bittersweet.  My mom had sent me a fully packed stocking for Xmas.  I have been so bummed that I won't be home for Xmas, and most of the time I just don't think about it, but this made me feel like my Christmas will be less sad, that I'm still thought about.  She just made me feel so freaking loved.  All the little presents in the stocking were wrapped in the same green and red tissue paper that she always wraps them in, and I couldn't help crying because I wasn't going to be home and because I was so touched by the thought and love she'd sent in that package. I'm such a lucky girl :)

Sweetest Care Package from my Mama :)

That night, instead of moving further into my room, I moved all my stuff out.  The walls were covered in grime and spider webs, so I got my trusty broom and had at the walls, literally sweeping every surface of my room: ceilings, floors, trim, shelf, walls.  In true lonely volunteer fashion, I took funny pictures of it - my attack on all the icky things in my room - spiders, spiderwebs, years of general filth, etc. 

                      

           I'm ready! ...but a little freaked out...i don't know what I'm going to find...at least I look ready...

OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!??

Ok, Hayden, don't be a pansy, you can do this. Just one quick swipe with the broom...

Get out of my room, giant spider, or I'll kill you.  But mostly I don't want to touch you because then you're going to move really quickly in an unexpected direction and scare the crap out of me...

I'm serious! I'll kill ya! 

Cue Battle Cry

I had on a pair of spandex shorts and a tshirt, and I think I seriously scandalized Griseria when she came into my room to tell me it was time for dinner.  I put on a little bit more clothing, pants to be exact, before I went in for dinner.  Her daughter was there, who I found friendly, and they served me up about six cups of rice with a fried egg.  I ate as much as I could not to be rude, and right when I could eat no more, she put another fried egg on my plate and two pieces of bread.  That just wasn’t going to happen.  I told her I was full, she told me to eat, I said I was full, she offered me more cafecito, I told her I was full, she left me alone.

After dinner, I ripped up the flour bag into rags, filled my still un-used pee bucket with water, and started scrubbing down my room.  Turns out the ugly color on the wall was water-soluble.  This would have been ok except that the color that was under it before the ugly egg-shell color was dark ugly green.  I also discovered how terrible the paint job was – big dried drips on the wall and unidentified stains on the wall.  The water in my bucket was brown and full of floaties before I’d finished with one of the small walls.

 In the midst of the madness, my phone rang and it was my friend, Katie. I was so excited to talk to her, and didn’t realize how much I had already come to miss her in the short time that we had been apart.  We were having a great time chatting when Griseria came into the room and stood in the doorway.  I asked Katie to hold on a minute and looked at Griseria expecting her to say something.  She didn’t say anything.  I waited a little longer.  Nothing. 

“Do you need something?” I asked her politely.

“You’re doing your work?” She asked nodding towards the table. 

“At the moment, I’m on the phone with my friend who lives in Ancash.” I replied.  Wasn’t it obvious I was on the phone?  She had a cell phone…it’s not like it was a foreign object.  She just nodded once and smiled, still watching me…so I went back to talking with Katie and tried not to laugh or run away as Griseria just stood in the doorway, a strange smile on her face, watching me talk to Katie for about 25 minutes until she finally left.  SO. WEIRD.

I went to bed that night, pleased with the progress I made on my room, happy to know it was spider and dirt free, and moderately sketched out by the large hole I’d found in the corner of my room that had been stuffed with a dried piece of corn.  Rats? No, not even going to think about it.