Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A day of drawing male and lady parts



I spent most of today drawing big and small diagrams of vaginas and penises. Well, I suppose I included the whole reproductive system…but drawing an external diagram of a vagina was really hard!  There is no good way to draw all that.  Now is probably about the time you’re wondering why…Wednesday is reproductive anatomy day in my Pasos Adelante class with the high school students.  I’m not going to lie, I’d been dreading that class since I realized two weeks ago that it was coming. 

Anyway, I made all the diagrams and went over the powerpoint presentation I had made for the health post workers to present my community diagnostic.  My presentation with the authorities was the next day.  I updated it a bit and spent some time grading the quizzes the kids took on self-esteem and values.  Everyone did pretty well, but it was clear that plenty of people had cheated off the review sheet I had given them.  I guess the punishment for cheating isn’t that severe here because the kids are really blatant about it.  It kind of makes me angry.  Ah well.

So I made my reproductive system diagrams and I was super super proud of them.  I can’t draw at all, and they came out actually resembling what I meant them to be though i'll admit some proportions were off....

      

Smaller version for class activity - i think this one is better than the big one

little lady parts 

It was one of those days I was really thankful for a lock on the inside of my door, so that someone wouldn't just open it and find me drawing these things...I'm not sure that would have gone over well...


Monday, May 28, 2012

We miss you


I started my day with a super wonderful skype call.  I got to talk to my brother, Jamey, his girlfriend, Lilly, my cousin Jeff, and his girlfriend, Courtney.  They all just moved in together and although I’m absolutely dying of jealousy because I think it would be so fun to live with all of them, it was so great to see their faces and hear their voices.  I got to see my brother’s dog, Murray, who’s absolutely giant these days and he’s still so young.  It kills me sometimes to be so far away, but skype really does take the edge off sometimes.  I miss everyone so much.

One of the things volunteers here talk about all the time, is how hard it is for anyone at home to really understand what this is like.  This isn’t like a group self pity session, it’s not that we’re all upset because we feel misunderstood, it’s that it can be so frustrating to realize that no one but the people you go through this with will ever really get what you’re life is like.  We all have the issue when we finally can get out of our village and get to an internet source, we want to talk to people, to hear how they are doing, hear their voices, see their faces, and so often people forget we planned a skype session or can’t talk.  What people don’t realize, is that sometimes, those skype dates are how we get through the week, they are how we stay sane when we are being driven crazy by our community partners who won’t lift one finger to help us, or host moms who need to take you on a whiney guilt trip every time you don’t eat every last bit of food they put on your plate, or when your host sister cries about everything and doesn’t have the common courtesy to say hi to you…ever, or the parasite that has been making you sick and giving you horrible stomach cramps, or just the fact that you had diarrhea into a horrible smelling hole in the ground for a week straight.  Every week is not like this, but plenty of them are, and I am always so incredibly renewed when I can hear the voice of a friend, or my mom, or my brothers just to say hi and hear that they miss me or that they love me.  Hearing someone say they are proud of me pretty instantly reduces me to tears.  Not sad tears, but really really grateful ones. 

I think the perception of people at home is that we are all on this amazing adventure.  That’s not false, but to us, this “amazing adventure” is just life now because we’re living it every day.  The idea of “amazing adventure” wore off in the first month or so of being here, and we remember occasionally, but it’s real life to us now and this real life is really hard!  It’s wonderful too, and challenging, and it is exactly where I want to be, but, what is an amazing adventure in the minds of people at home, has become a hard life for us here.  I am grateful to be here, but I am isolated. 

I think what is strange for people, is that for those who weren’t at college with me, I talk to them more now than I did then, but I was surrounded by people I loved all the time in college.  Here, I don’t get to see other volunteers all the time and I’m alone the majority of the time living a life that is somewhere between camping and what I’m used to…in Spanish.  It’s hard how disconnected I feel from my home, my family, my friends…everything familiar is now so far away.  I try to write letters all the time so that I’ll get mail back, to hear in detail about people’s lives, to feel more connected, to feel like I still have a place waiting for me back home, to feel like I haven’t been forgotten, and to have letters to put up on my wall so I can look at it when I get lonely or frustrated and remind myself how much support I have.  It’s so frustrating to write letters and not hear back.  I remember that feeling, like I had no time in the States, I understand where people are coming from but it doesn’t take that long to just sit down and write a letter, or an email.  I think people probably think we’re needy, but if you lived the life we are living here, you’d understand.  We miss you, and everything that reminds us of home, that's all. 

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

"Don't Have Sex Because It Will Make Your Parents Sad"


The 16th was a Wednesday, and was therefore a Pasos Adelante Class day.  I got up far earlier than I enjoyed waking up so that I could catch a ride down the mountain.  On Sunday I had caught a ride down with this little old couple who keep their little tan Bug parked near the two stores our town has.  They were sweet and didn’t charge me anything for the ride.  I was hoping I might catch them again.  This time, the professors were slow to get to school (my usual hope for a ride down) and the bug was already gone.  I sat on this little bench by one of the stores owned by a woman named Soroco and waited.  Eventually this really nice truck came around the corner and I flagged it down.  I got in the back seat – the truck was completely empty, and preceeded to have a really uncomfortable conversation with the guy driving the car. 

“Wow!  You have a really nice truck!”  It was true, he did have a really nice truck.  There was actually upholstery, and it wasn’t ripped or disgusting.  All the seats were still in the truck cab, and where the radio or tape player usually is was completely intact, not hanging out with exposed wires.  None of the windows were broken, and you could open all the doors from the outside and the inside.  MIRACLE.
“Where are you from?” He asked.
“I’m from the US but I work in Iraca.”
“I knew you were from here, we don’t have women as beautiful as you here.”
awkward pause
“uhh, thanks.”
“You’re so beautiful. We don’t have women like you here.”
Silence.  About this time, I got a little nervous that I was alone in this truck with this guy.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” He asked me.
“Yes.” I lied.
“I knew you’d have a boyfriend, you’re so beautiful.”
Silence
“Is he Peruvian or is he back in your country?”
I figured given that everyone in my area is somehow distantly related to everyone else…it would be easier for me to say he’s from the US.
“He’s back home.”
“Ohhhhh, well you need a Peruvian boyfriend too.”
I really don’t understand why everyone says this when they find out you have an American boyfriend…how is that ok? Cultural acceptance of infidelity is a tad worrisome.
“Um. No.”
“Yes!!!  You need a Peruvian boyfriend! One for there and one for here!”
“No. One is enough trouble. We are faithful.”
“Oh, well, that seems good, that seems good…that seems good to me.”
“mhm…”
We didn’t talk the rest of the ride down the mountain.  When he dropped me off, he didn’t ask me to pay.  I had already been wondering if I had maybe hopped in the truck of a guy on his way to work, and that was a bit more solidified when I thought about who would own a truck in conditions that nice.  I think he just gave me a ride to be nice.  Weird beginning to my day.

I spent the morning mailing out some things, sending emails, and preparing for my charla with my Pasos group later that afternoon.  I also made a copy of one of the self-esteem charlas and activities from my Pasos group for Natalia.  I had written up some review sheets and little quizzes the night before and went with Jennifer to go print them out.  While Jennifer and I were standing by the printer in the place I usually go, which also has a lot of computers that people pay a little bit to use the internet, Elly appeared out of one of the little computer carrols, grabbed Jennifer’s arm, and started dragging her toward her computer.  She doesn’t know Jennifer.  Jennifer doesn’t know her, and Elly said hello to me so I know she wasn’t confused about which one of us was me.  I also know Jennifer, and knew that being grabbed in Elly’s death grip would NOT make her happy.  I called Jennifer back over to me, and wondered about what world Elly exists in sometimes.  Just because she’s a volunteer, and she’s white, and she knows me, doesn’t mean that before you know who she is, you can grab her and drag her off somewhere.  I went to the paradero at 12 to meet up with Elly.  By this point, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it through the charla because I was absolutely exhausted from the RONDA meeting the night before and getting up early.  I held on to one of the bars in the roof of the mototaxi and rested my head on my upper arm and closed my eyes, hoping to pull as much recharge as I could from the 15 minute trip up to the colegio (high school/secondary school).  Elly started poking me.
“Are you tired?” poke “Haydee are you tired?” poke poke
SERIOUSLY?
“Yes, Elly, I am tired.  I went to the RONDA meeting last night.”
“What?”
“I went to the RONDA meeting last night and got up early, I’m tired.”
“You went to what?”
“The RONDA meeting.”
“Oh, so you’re tired.”
“Yes.”
And then she proceeded to talk to me about nothing, for the next 15 minutes up the hill, constantly finishing a sentence and saying “di?” and staring into my face for a response.  “Di” means, essentially, “right?” but they use it at the end of sentences even when they are not looking for verification, only a feedback response from me…or at least Elly does.  The problem with this, is that I can’t fully tune her out and pretend like I’m listening while she rambles…I have to put the effort in to listen for the “di”s so I can nod (which isn’t always enough) and she can continue talking.  When I don’t do this, she will grab my arm in a totally unnecessarily tight grip or nudge me with her elbow. 

Elly ended up turning to the topic of, as she said, “scaring” my friend at the computer place that morning.  I attempted to clarify, by telling her that we in America, don’t really like being grabbed by anyone, and especially people we don’t know.  The rest of the ride was her saying, “I scared your friend, hahahaha, I scared her, di Haydee?” and I just nodded like she wanted me too.  I feel bad, so often about my impatience with her, and sometimes I’m worried she has more social consciousness than I give her credit for, and that she can sense my impatience or irritation with her.  I don’t want to make her feel bad, because she is an extremely kind-hearted woman and I really appreciate all the support she’s given me with the Pasos group.  I think she is probably hands down one of the hardest working, and most willing Peruvians that I have met.  However, she is sandpaper to my patience and all her communication and social habits drive me absolutely nuts.  I wish they didn’t, I wish that didn’t repeat herself constantly and force me to respond to the same statement twelve times in 10 minutes.  I ultimately just end up screening my irritation with a thin veil and feeling horrible about it later. 

We ended up at the colegio and went into the Director’s office per usual to say hi to greet him.  This guy makes me laugh every time.  I always walk in and say pretty much the same thing:
“¿Buenas Tardes, Director, como está?” (Good afternoon, Director, how are you?)
He always stands up and offers out his hand and says:
“Hola, buenas tardes, como está? Que dice, como está, como está, que dice, que dice, como está?”
He always says all that in this rapid fire as if he’s going through a line of people and greeting them…but it’s just me.  He talks so fast, I'm pretty sure he can't hear my response.

We went in to prep for the class in the computer room, which is where we always have class.  We set up music for musical chairs (use it as a review game), wrote words on a bunch of limes with a sharpie.  The kids came in, and we played the review game.  I asked them questions about values and self-esteem and where it comes from among other things.  The kids really liked playing musical chairs.  I love how it’s one of those games that never really dies.  After that, we talked about decision making, what things inform our decisions, the importance of thinking about the pros and cons of a decision, and then we played a game with the limes.

Everyone stood in a circle, and I did a practice run, where each student had to say the name of the person and throw the lime to them and we continued until everyone in the circle had caught it and thrown it.  We started with three staggered limes, which had words written on them: studying, eating, bathing – things that are necessary in our lives.  They did a horrible job throwing it the first round so we did it again and it was much better.  After that, we added in four more staggered limes so we had seven going at the same time and they had things written on it that we elect to do in our lives: go out dancing, play sports, watch TV, hang out with friends.  It got a little chaotic but they did a good job.  Then we did it again, but I added in my GIANT bulky computer case and told them that it signified having sex.  Trying to juggle 7 limes in a circle of 13 people and a giant computer case was not easy, which was exactly the point.  When we finished, I wrapped it up by explaining that deciding to have sex makes everything else in your life that you’re trying to juggle a little more complicated, and that sometimes, important things can fall by the wayside.  I’ll be honest with you, I really didn’t like the idea behind this activity.  I appreciated the game part of it because the kids had fun with it, but I don’t like all the preaching I’m doing about abstinence. The kids are going to have sex if they are going to have sex, and the only real thing I can do to help protect them is teach them about self-esteem and decision making, while also teaching them about how to protect themselves from STIs and pregnancy.  I don’t like putting more pressure on them to say abstinent because I don’t believe it will actually help, and their culture is saturated with that sentiment as evidenced by the fact that on that pretest there was the question: “Write two consequences of having sex.” And one girl wrote, “they won’t love me.”  I’m pretty sure they were talking about their family or their community.  I don’t like forcing abstinence. 

What ultimately made it way worse, was that in the wrap up about decision making and the activity’s relationship to the choice to have sex, Elly got on her soap box and started preaching about abstinence, which initially made me uncomfortable, but when she started saying, “If you have sex you’ll make your parents really really sad.” I had to cut her off with a – “It’s not that you’ll upset your parents…what is more important is that…” I felt bad about cutting her off, and worse about pretty much telling her and everyone else that what she said wasn’t important.  However, I did not want my charla going down Catholic Guilt Lane.  Makes me so uncomfortable how much we use abstinence and how much the health post workers want to emphasize it.  We finished without getting to complete all the things on my class to do list for the day. 

Ricardo and I had a nice chat on the way down the mountain, and I headed back up to site a little bit later. 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

How long does it take, really, to talk about guinea pigs?


Tuesday I spent mostly doing Pasos class preparation; making a review sheet, writing out a quiz, creating their first homework assignment, writing up papelotes (big pieces of paper), grading their pre-tests.  Something I had been avoiding doing for days, was calling Don Juan.  I don’t know why I avoided it, but I finally sucked it up and gave him a call.  I asked if we could have a meeting, the two of us, because I wanted to talk about the latrine project going on, the Healthy Homes project that the municipality wants to do, setting up a meeting with the authorities for me to give my presentation on my community diagnostic, and so I could get a list of contact information for the authorities.  I was so nervous, I always am, so I wrote out everything I wanted to cover on a piece of paper.  I had called him earlier, and he had told me that at this RONDA meeting I should present my diagnostic.  After thinking about it for a little while, I decided that was a horrible idea.  These meetings got started at 10 and usually lasted until 2 or 3 in the morning.  I wasn’t about to give a presentation to a gigantic room full of drunk people at midnight.  I finally gave him a call and he was cool about the whole thing.  He told me to pick any night that week and he’d come over after work around 5.  We picked Thursday. I got off the phone and just started laughing.  WHY in the WORLD do I get so nervous about calling him?  It makes no sense!!  He’s super nice, always obliging…why do I avoid calling him and put it off?  It’s ridiculous!! Literally makes no sense. I laughed at my ridiculousness.

That night, I went to the RONDA meeting all bundled up in my NorthFace fleece and scarf and smartly brought my book.  Ronda meetings are supposed to start at 8, no one shows up until 9:20, and then they don’t get going until 10pm.  Celina and I showed up at 9:15ish, and I got a call from another volunteer, who’s been here a year longer, and lives near my friend Kate.  His name is Nate, and he is part of the Peer Support Network (PSN), and sweetly calls the Cajamarca 18ers every once in a while to check in on us and see how we’re doing.  The conversation sort of crumbled from a “check-in” call to a really enthusiastic insistence that I bring two adolescent boys to the Camp Valor we’re putting on at the end of the month.  Camp Valor is a four-day camp for adolescent boys from all over Cajamarca.  I am not completely clear on exactly what is going to happen at this camp because I’m not in charge of it and I’ve never been to one before, but I decided that I don’t know my Pasos boys quite well enough, and I was worried about fundraising for their transportation to get them there.  Also, as it turned out, Kate’s mom was coming to visit from the States, and she’d asked us to come visit her site when her mom comes for the morning when the elementary school puts on a big celebration in honor of her mother.  I didn’t know what to do when Nate started saying things like “Camp Valor was the giant turning point for us in our service, it’s when we felt like we were really making a difference.”  What Peace Corps Volunteer doesn’t want that feeling?  I didn’t know what to do. 

My host mom called me down to the meeting and I told Nate I had to go.  Good lord do I hate RONDA meetings.  I have such a hard time understanding anyone because they talk so fast, and by midnight, my eyes, nose, and throat were aflame from breathing in cigarette smoke for 2 ½ hours.  I didn’t want anyone to think I was asleep like some of the other people in the room, so I didn’t want to keep my eyes closed, but they were absolutely burning.  The other part that makes them hard to understand, aside from the fact that they talk so fast, is they all have giant balls of coca leaves in their cheeks to keep them awake, and so I have to try and understand Spanish at a million miles an hour, that someone is speaking out of the corner of their full mouth.  I noticed throughout the night, that when they would occasionally take out a little bottle of something and paint their lower back gums with something.  Have no idea what it was.  About an hour or two in, a bunch of the guys were so drunk that I gave up trying to understand them, because full mouth, super-speed, slurred Spanish is just hopeless.

 At about 12:15am, they started talking about the town fiesta that is coming up on June 7th, 8th, and 9th.  We literally talked about guinea pigs for two hours.  I wish I could say I was kidding, or lying for dramatic effect, but we, no joke, talked about how we were going to get enough cuyes for the fiesta for two hours.  At one point, they went around to each person in the room and asked if they could give a guinea pig.  They stopped at me and asked me.  I shrugged dramatically and said simply, “I don’t have any!” which, for whatever reason, made everyone laugh.  The guy who asked was a guy who had been privy to the joke at the last meeting about how the town could have all Celina’s guinea pigs because I didn’t like guinea pig.  He made a joke about Celina’s and I said, “yeah, you can have all of her’s.” and everyone laughed again.  The weird thing about this, is Celina always laughs heartily, and then looks worried, which always makes me nervous, but she laughs about it again later when we’re home.  The worried look isn’t for dramatic effect either; she literally looks uncomfortable.  I don’t know if I’m saying something wrong, I don’t think I am, and she thinks it’s funny…I really haven’t figured it out.  Making people laugh is always a nice feeling, because I miss making people laugh in the States, but here, in some circumstances, there is an edge to it where I feel a little like a puppet on a string, or like a dancing monkey.  Sometimes I think people laugh just because I’ve said something in Spanish.  I try not to over-think it. 

At 1:30, nose running, eyes and throat burning, me generally stinking of cigarette smoke, we were finally freed from the million hour-long guinea pig conversation.  I could have driven to Boston from my house in New Hampshire in the time it took them to have an inconclusive conversation about guinea pigs.  I could have written a college paper, watched 7 episodes of Modern Family, burned 2,000 calories, read a couple 100 pages, walked all the way down my mountain to Chota and then back in the time it took them to talk about guinea pigs.  It was one of those moments where I realized just how badly I need to get my hands on some yarn and get knitting so when I start to get irrevocably frustrated and pissed off at the sheer inefficiency of everything here, I will have a half-made scarf on which to work through the madness. 

I left that RONDA meeting the same way I always do, swearing I’ll never go to another one...and smelling like a dive bar. 

Monday, May 14, 2012

A lot of talk and not a lot'a action


Monday was a lot of talking.  I went to the health post to chat with Natalia and Violeta about some work-related things.  When I showed up, Natalia wanted to talk to me about giving charlas to adolescents a couple Saturdays a month.  She also asked me for material to use for a charla on self-esteem.  I happen to have just done an awesome charla with my Pasos Adelante group, and promised to make a copy for her.  She said she would chat with the high schoolers about potentially meeting twice a month to do a Pasos Adelante group.  It would be nice to have another group, since I have really been enjoying teaching the kids I have in Cabracancha.  I’ll update on whatever happens there.  I’m a little nervous because Natalia says they have other obligations and might have trouble coming two Saturdays a month.  If they don’t come consistently, it doesn’t really make sense to do a Pasos group, but I guess we’ll see what happens. 

I then went in to the other room to ask Violeta if I could see the list of themes she had written down when we had a meeting with the primary school teachers.  We’d made a plan for me to give a charla once a month to the primary school teachers, and during the meeting, Violeta told me not to worry about writing down the themes because she would do it.  Violeta, when I asked her what the first theme was, told me I had the list.  When I said she had it, she exclaimed, “You didn’t write it down too?” as though I were completely to blame.  I reminded her that she had assured me during the meeting that I didn’t need to worry about writing down the themes because she was doing it.  She finally admitted to having no idea where it was.  Nice.  I then took out my “informe”, which is essentially a monthly report of my activities, and handed it to her.  It’s a formality that is really common in Peru, and is also the reason why at the end of the month, for the last week or so, the health post workers refuse to do anything but fill out papers.  It’s because their informes are due.  Peace Corps encouraged us to do this so I got on it and made copies for the mayor of Chota, the President of our RONDA (Don Juan, my dude), the health post workers, and Director Nóvil of the primary school.  When I handed it to Violeta, she looked at it, saw that one of the first things listed was the Pasos Group I was doing in Cabracancha, looked up at me and said, “But this is all about stuff you’re doing in another town.”  I patiently explained to her that there was only one thing I was doing in another town on my informe.  While I said this, she tried to interrupt me a few times.  When I stopped talking, she tried to tell me that I had to write a separate informe for the health post in Cabracancha of the things I was doing there, and then write a different one for the health post in Iraca.  I was not having it.  I explained, a little more firmly, that it was simply a document with all my activities for the month listed on it, and that it served the sole purpose of informing everyone what I was up to.  She tried to argue again and I just simply said, “I’m not writing another one.”  Seriously, what’s the point?  You want me to write a completely different document because this one has one thing on it that I’m not doing in this community?  Forget it.  That’s just obnoxious. 

I then had a chat with Natalia and Violeta about doing a Health Homes project.  Violeta had begged me for it a few weeks earlier, so I let them know that I was willing to do it as long as I could start out small, with just 10 families.  We agreed that we would pick the moms on the 20th of May, which is vaccine day when all the moms go to the health post to get their kids vaccinated and receive the food supplements, which usually consists of vegetable oil and “papillas”, which is baby food.  I also had to get a Community Partner Report filled out with the two of them.  They kept insisting that I write in the report how grateful they were to have me as a resource.  They said that, but when are they actually going to use me effectively without using me, if you know what I mean?  I asked if one of them would come with me to the charla I was giving to the professors on Friday and Violeta was weird about it for a minute, and Natalia went off about how I’m a resource they should appreciate and support.  Never hurts to hear good intention.  Still kinda waiting for the action. 

The last thing I mentioned, was that Emilia, my boss, was coming on the 13th of June, the day after my birthday.  They got super excited about my birthday (which is a huge deal in Peru for whatever reason) and started talking about having a giant celebratory lunch the day Emilia came to my site to visit.  I was flattered by their enthusiasm, and thought it sounded like a good idea.  No harm in giving the impression that my town loves me when my boss comes to visit!

On my way back to my house, I ran into almost all the school teachers sitting on the benches outside one of the tiendas (little stores).  I stopped to say hi to everyone and give Director Nóvil my informe.  The Director of the Kindergarten gave me this weird sweet frozen milk thing that kind of seemed like a popsicle.  It was surprisingly delicious.  I ended up hanging out for a while.  They asked me questions about my home, how far away it was, what was the primary thing we produced.  I had a hell of a time trying to explain maple syrup to them (I couldn't really think of anything else to say).  They asked me to bring back seeds and I had to explain that was illegal, which involved me trying to explain about invasive species and the effect that can have on an ecosystem (in Spanish, it wasn’t pretty).  I mentioned to them too that my boss was coming on the 13th and that I was hoping they’d come to a meeting.  I also managed to slip in a question to the Director about the theme for the charla on Friday.  (It's nutrition.)  It was nice hanging out with all the teachers and talking like we were friends.  They are a lot nicer when I’m not asking them for anything…We chatted for probably 45 minutes, until it was time for their lunch break (when all the students go home to their houses for over an hour for lunch, then come back for class in the afternoon) to end.  I headed home. 

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Sundays packed with Drunk Uncle Waldos

After living here for 8 months, and in site for 6, I have noticed a pattern on Sundays in my town.  Usually, when I'm walking down my mountain at 8 am, I'll run into one extremely drunk person half waddling wide legged for stability and absolutely drunk as a skunk.  Happened this morning actually.  Some guy tried to say hi to me and the effort of a greeting almost knocked him over as he stumbled into me.  I've come to really not enjoy going back up my mountain on Sundays because the combis are packed with guys who have been drinking since 8 am or earlier and they reek.  Most of them have been downing fermented sugar cane which they can buy in used plastic water bottles for 1 sol, or about 38 cents.  They call this Yonkie, and Yonkie smells what I think rotting flesh would smell like, sweet at first but then underneath that initial sweetness is a smell that catches in your throat and threatens to reintroduce you to your half digested breakfast, or lunch, depending on the time of day.  The last couple times I've been stuck near younger guys, who in their drunken idiocy seem to think I can't speak Spanish.  They spend the half hour ride talking about how to have sex with me without being crushed...or how they can tell that I want them.  It drives me crazy and sometimes it gets so bad that I want to either cry or scream at them but the need to maintain a professional appearance keeps me from saying anything.  The last time they had said horrible things about me, I didn't say anything, until they started talking about how long it would be before I got out, and I responded, "I get off at the stream." They went dead silent and the guy who had been talking about how much I wanted him to his friends was like very quietly, "Oh, you live in Iraca?" He tried to make conversation with me.  I was not having it.

Anyway, I deviated.  These drunk guys are usually hooting and screaming and slurring and eye rolling.  Most of the time I'm irritated because the smell makes me nauseous and they tend to target me because I'm weird looking.  Sometimes, when I'm in a good mood, they make me laugh because they all remind me (with the exception of all the guys who sexually harass me) of Uncle Waldo from the movie Aristocats.  Especially, in the following video, from about 1:50 onwards.  Do enjoy this little depiction of my life every Sunday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1F1_w-_gtk




A Small Validation for my Work


On Wednesday, I had my third “Pasos Adelante” (or ‘Steps Forward’) class.  Every Wednesday from about 12:50 to 1:30ish, I have twelve students from the 4th grade in the secondary school (that’s about 10th grade).  The Pasos Adelante class teaches them sexual education, self esteem, decision-making, etc.  It’s supposed to prepare them to be health promoters in their school and community.  Iraca Grande, my town, doesn’t have a secondary school, so I go to Cabracancha, a neighboring town to work with the kids.  I’ve been lucky to have the support of the Cabracancha health post, and for all three sessions, I have had a nurse intern and the head of the health post to help me teach the class.  It’s been a huge help.  I’m not sure I was really up the appropriate Spanish level to be teaching high school kids, and I’ve been thankful for their Spanish-speaking abilities. It gets a little frustrating sometimes, because the head of the health post is Elly, the lady who literally cannot stop talking and repeats everything she says a billion times.  I have had to cut her off every session when she takes 20 minutes to talk about something that should have taken 5.  I feel terrible interrupting her, but we don't have enough time to talk forever.  I have already had to cut the manual's sessions in half for each week.  She's been a pretty good sport about it though.  

Here are the pictures of my kids.  If you are wondering why no one is smiling...it's because peruvians don't smile for pictures.  They smile before, frown for the picture, and smile after.  I hate that but I don't know how to fix it.  
Greysey - one of my faves
I am not sure she's learning anything
quiet and serious -  but learning 
this kid drives me nuts
Isabel - one of my faves
drives me nuts

Luis - one of my faves

never says anything
sweetie


strangely serious all the time
pretty quiet
quiet but i think is learning


           










The Pasos Adelante manual was developed by Peace Corps, and volunteers all over the country are using it to teach sexual education, which is one of our goals.  The volunteers in my department of Cajamarca are working on putting together a weekend conference.  Each volunteer will bring two of their Pasos Adelante students for the conference.  We thought it would be great for them to realize they are part of a bigger initiative, and fun for them to get to know other kids from their department.  Most of them don’t get out much and the farthest they travel is 20 minutes down the mountain to Chota.  I had a couple kids the other day ask me if they spoke Spanish in Piura, which is a department that shares a border with Cajamarca.  That’s like a kid from Connecticut asking if the kids in Massachusetts speak English. 
            I’ve taught three classes now.  The first was a general introduction to Pasos Adelante, and to me, the weird gringa.  They had plenty of time to whisper about me in front of my face, and as of last class, I think we are starting to build “confianza” or trust because they were infinitely more comfortable than they were originally, though I do sometimes wonder if I’m speaking Martian or Spanish in there with them.  The nurse intern, Ricardo, who’s become a friend, told me that I just speak Spanish a little differently.  In his words, I speak like a city girl and they are country bumpkins so there is a disconnect sometimes.  It’s frustrating to speak another language and still have it feel like another language to the kids I’m working with.  The billions of layers of language and it’s intensely interdependent relationship with culture bothers me sometimes.  It would be far easier if everyone spoke Spanish the same, but any time I need to remind myself that the same is true in English, I end up having a chat with Jennifer, who hails from Oklahoma, and talks different that we “Yankees”, as she likes to call us.  Not to mention America vs. England on the English language front.  I guess I get it…doesn’t mean I like it. 
            I taught the second class on values and where they come from.  The third class, just this past Wednesday, was about self-esteem.  At the beginning of class, I gave them a pre-test from the Pasos Manual to see where they stood in terms of prior knowledge.  It will help me gauge how much they learned.  I just finished grading the tests and I couldn’t help myself.  I have to share the answers I got from my students.  If I wondered if these classes were necessary at all, these Pre-Tests indicated a gigantic YES. 
(The responses I wrote down from them are more or less direct translations)

Question 1: Write two values that are important to you.
Most common answers: Respect, Punctuality, Responsibility, Education…and one student couldn’t think of any.  We did that session last week. 

Question 2: True or False.  The gender of a person is a concept that is learned during life.
(answer, true)   Number of students who chose true: 6 (that’s half my class)
                        Number of students who chose false: 3
                        Number of students who didn’t chose anything: 3

Question 3: Deciding to have sex during adolescence can complicate the life of an adolescent.  Write two possible negative consequences of having sex during adolescence.

Responses:
Not being a virgin at your wedding.
You can get STIs (5)
You can be infected with HIV (2)
The woman can get pregnant (3)
He/she shouldn’t have sex with his/her partner
They have to be careful
Each person has done something bad
They can’t live a normal life
Lack of money
Lack of information and the raising of a kid
People will talk
They won’t love you
Losing dignity or virginity
And two kids didn’t write anything

Question 4: True or False: Pregnancy happens when the sperm of a man unites with the egg of a woman. (Sorry, translation is a little awkward)

Responses:  Everyone got it right except for one kid, who didn’t answer.

Question 5: Write one advantage of practicing abstinence.

Responses:
Three kids wrote nothing
Being responsible
Prevent unwanted pregnancy
You’re not going to contract illnesses/sicknesses
Abstaining from not having sex
Living a happy life without complications
Prevent HIV
Prevent STI (2)
The woman won’t get pregnant (2)

Question 6: There are a lot of adolescent pregnancies.  Write one reason (social, cultural or personal) for why there are so many pregnancies.

Responses:
Adolescent’s lack of knowledge/they aren’t well informed (5)
There are some women who get pregnant and then have an abortion
Unwanted pregnancy (2)
They don’t protect themselves when they have sex
They don’t have adequate protection
Because parents don’t control their kids
The economy

Question 7: True or False.  It is possible to have an STI without having symptoms.

Responses: 11 got it right (true), but 1 didn’t write anything.

Question 8: Write two things a person should do if they think they have an STI.

Responses:
Go to the health post (6)
Get a test done (3)
Get taught by another person
Because sex many times
Look for medicine so that it doesn’t get worse
It’s that there are people who have sex and don’t wash themselves correctly
Talk with their partner
Talk with a doctor (4)
One kid wrote nothing

Question 9: Chose THREE ways to prevent HIV
a. Practice abstinence (12 kids, all of them, marked A)
b. Put on a shirt with a large spot so that the mosquitoes don’t bite you. (none of them chose B, thank god)
c. Use a condom every time you have sex. (12, all of them, marked C)
d. Use new razors, not used ones (9 marked D)
e. Don’t shake hands with people who have the flu. (3 marked E…)

Answer: A, C, D
(Ok, so this question kind of sucks…I know that the questions seem to focus on abstinence a lot but we’re in a super catholic country and teaching sex education at all is risky.  We teach about other methods of prevention, so it’s not abstinence only education.  One volunteer mentioned abortion once in her town and they pretty much drove her out.  She had to switch sites and move somewhere else in the country.  You’ve got to be careful…also the razor thing is sort of stupid…)

Question 10: True or False.  The three ways of transmission of HIV are through blood, vertical transmission (from mom to child), and sexually.

Responses:  11 were right, 1 was wrong

Question 11: Write two places where you can go to find family planning in your community.

Responses: Most said the health post, the school, or their homes, the health promoters…and one kid wrote nothing.

Question 12: Choose THREE contraceptive methods
a. Pills (9 marked A)
b. Bathe well after having sex (3 marked B)
c. Removing the penis from the vagina before the man ejaculates (Pull out method)  (5 marked C…out of 12…that’s almost half..)
d. Using condoms correctly (12 marked D)
e. The shot (6 marked E)
f. Having sex during a woman’s period (no one marked F)

Almost half my kids think you can pull out and the girl won’t get pregnant…and at least 3 people think all you need to do is bathe well afterwards…and only one of those 8 kids overlap…which means that 7 kids, at least, are seriously going to benefit from this class.  It was kind of scary to find out how much I have to teach them and how badly they need this education.  Sort of makes me think I'll teach Pasos Adelante the entire time I'm in Peru because they aren't really receiving this education elsewhere.  It does give me a bit of encouragement though that the work I'm doing is important and necessary.  I'm a little worried about some of the kids who are not learning as we go along, but maybe we can do some extra review sessions at some point to catch them back up.  I don't get why they couldn't think of any values when we had spent and hour on that the week before doing dynamic activities and stuff.  I'll learn as I move forward, I guess.  

Some more pictures of my class when we worked on Values.  In these photos they were split into three groups and given a stack of 10 values.  They had to, as a group, organize them into most important to least important to show them how each person has their own prioritized values and to figure out what was important to them. 

Luis, the kid on the far left, is the kid I call on every time I ask a question and there is silence.  I just wait a minute and then call out, "LUIS!" with a big smile.  He's a good sport. 



These are two super smiley people...but they never smile in pictures so they both look like axe murderers.  Elly on the left, Ricardo on the right.  

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

No shit?

http://www.apa.org/monitor/dec02/selfesteem.aspx

I like finding small bits of research summaries that perfectly support something I've already figured out for myself. hahaha it makes me feel smart haha

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Integrating? Maybe?

I woke up yesterday morning, stiff through my shoulders and hip/butt region.  Had a deliciously cat like stretch, enjoying the tightness in my muscles.  I used to wake up feeling that way every morning and learned to love the feeling.  I downloaded Jillian Michaels 30 day shred because after 7 months of P90X, I can't stand that guy anymore...and the workouts aren't doing it for me.  Really all I want to do is run, but I tried that once and it was a nightmare, felt like I was daring my road to break my ankle or blow my knee.  I'm pretty happy with the 30 day shred videos...although saying the name is, for whatever reason, mortifying, it is what it is.

Mid purr during my cat stretch/wrist roll/toe curl I felt a horrible pain in my lower abdomen and curled up into a ball.  I tried to decide if that could be the awful cramping I've been getting on a daily basis from whatever parasite is growing in my stomach or intestines...I checked the date on my watch.  Nope.  Without coming too far out of the fetal position, I managed to reach a banana and my jar of peanut butter which I downed and quickly followed with my favorite little pills.  I read in my bed for about 45 minutes until I thought I was safe to unfurl.  I heard some voices outside my window and glanced out to see my host mom's mom, Mishel, my host mom's dad (who i recently discovered is not Maximandro, but Anaximandro...that was embarrassing), and Griseria, the crazy lady who stayed in my house with me when I first got to site, the one who used to stand in my doorway and stare at me until I woke up to find her lurking.  Yeah, strange lady. They were all sitting together in the sun with their bright shirts, dark skirts and campo hats shucking corn.  I decided it was too beautiful a day to spend all of it inside, even if I did have a lot of work to do on my laptop.  I grabbed my journal, a towel, a pen, and went to sit outside with them (after I snapped a couple photos :) )



It was a beautiful day, the sun was fierce but there was a slight breeze rustling through the trees that brought a little respite from the heat just when I started to feel too warm.  Everything was so deliciously green in the bright sunshine and it felt nice to just sit out there with them.  With the big rolling mountains, and the valley between me and the next, sometimes I feel like my house is somehow set upon a giant green ocean, the corn stalks and trees a strange form of seaweed.  This big ocean sometimes threatens to drown me, pulling me farther and farther away from the safe shore of my home, and sometimes the floating sensation, being free in a way I've never felt, is so exactly what I need and so exactly where I need to be, that I'm embarrassed by the times I've turned over on my belly and desperately struggled against the current to get home again.  The thing about here, about Peace Corps, is those two extremes are sometimes phases through months, but sometimes switch back and forth multiple times a day.

I sat outside with them until the creases in my elbows started to sweat.  I headed back inside and made a call to Violeta.  I had visited her at the health post two days before and asked if she and the other health post workers could talk to decide on a day for my presentation of my community diagnostic.  Peace Corps asks us to give formal presentations when we finish our diagnostic to leaders in our communities.  I had called her back the next day, and of course she hadn't figured it out yet and told me to call back tomorrow.  It wasn't any more than I had expected.  So I called her back, and she said, "Tuesday at 12".  I was not expecting it to be that soon, and I had not prepared my presentation yet, it was Saturday, I was headed to Chota Sunday, and I was planting my giant vegetable garden with my host mom on Monday...but knowing that if I didn't take their first proposal they would never come up with another one, I accepted.  I immediately got a little stressed out.  I have a lot going on right now.

I spent a couple hours trying to make a little summary sheet of my diagnostic to hand out to each of them during my presentation, and another document to help us make an action plan for the rest of the year based off the results of the diagnostic (all in spanish of course).  I'll maybe summarize my diagnostic in English for all of you a little later.  I also needed to work on my "informe", which is pretty much a report I have to give to the Mayor of Chota (we are kind of like a suburb that he has jurisdiction in), the authorities in my town, the health post workers, and the director of the primary school.  It felt kind of good to be in a time crunch for the first time in a while, not going to lie.

I got called for lunch, and was served chicharón, which is pretty much just pork (mostly pork fat) fried in oil.  I have a really hard time eating this, because although it actually tastes pretty good, I am well aware of how high the fat content is...and I have seen the giant hung of bloody pig hanging outside on our clothes line for a couple days gathering flies.  I try not to notice...but it's right there.  However, I can't not eat it because it is incredibly expensive.  They only serve four pieces each meal to every person to make it last.  I know my host mom bought it to celebrate her mom's visit.

During lunch, my host mom begged me to tutor Mishel in math because she has a test coming up on Monday.  They've been asking me all week if I will eventually tutor her and I always say yes.  This time, she asked if I would do it that day, and Sunday.  I said I wasn't sure about right then because I had a lot of work, but definitely on Sunday evening.  In the past, my host sister has done her homework at the table and Celina, my host mom, tries to help, but she doesn't know how to add double numbers, like for example, 63+24 = .  The problem, is that everyone yells at Mishel when she doesn't get something right (which unfortunately happens a lot).  Really, the only educational ally that she's got is me.  It's a little nice to have everyone listen intently to what I say though, I am not really allowed to be the authority on anything in my life anymore.

The general assumptions, because I'm a gringo, are that I have a lot of money, I don't understand, I'm doing it wrong, and I'm generally completely incompetent. My host mom is always changing things that I have done on purpose, like when I bleached out my water bottles and left them with the caps off so the sun would dry out the bleach and I could use them again.  I went out about an hour later to see if they had dried, and they hadn't, because my host mom had put the caps back on them.  I undid the caps and left them, and when I came back an hour later, the caps were back on.  I'm a stupid gringa, I don't know what I'm doing, obviously.  People exclaim, in the streets, when they see me walking.  SHE CAN WALK? Yes, genius, I can walk.

Anyway, by the end of lunch, I decided I would help Mishel for half an hour now, I could find the time.  So I asked Mishel, "Mishel, do you want to study with me for a little while after lunch?  We can do it outside in the sun if you want." Mishel didn't make any eye contact with me and just stared blankly across the table at Celina.  "Mishel?" I asked her again, and she took a sip of her tea with her eyes wide and staring at her mom.  It didn't take long for all the adults at the table to start yelling at her because she hadn't responded and Celina kept telling her to tell me yes.  Mishel just ignored everyone, until she got up from the table, started crying, and stormed out of the room.  I was completely baffled.  Her mom chased after her, and when she came back, I asked her why Mishel was crying.
"She doesn't want to study." she shrugged.
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
Now I know this is going to sound nerdy, but I don't ever remember not wanting to learn as a kid...or ever (except for maybe organic chemistry).  I don't know how to motivate a kid to learn because I can't empathize at all.  I don't get it.  I get that having people yell at you every time you get something wrong can't be fun, but I've never done that to her when I teach her, so why is she sobbing about me helping her? I felt kind of crappy, honestly.  I could still hear her screaming from her bedroom.

Celina asked me then if I would help her learn how to add and I said sure.  I'm not sure we're ever going to find the time, and she asks me all the time if I'll teach her and I always say yes but we haven't practiced yet.

I finished lunch and Celina asked me to go teach Mishel.  To be honest, I didn't think it was fair to force me to teach Mishel if she was going to sob about it.  I walked to Mishel's room and she was sobbing.  I stood in the doorway and asked Mishel to tell me why she was crying.
"I'm not going to eat you, Mishel." I said to her, hoping I could get her laugh.  Celina did.  "You're not going to die, we're just going to sit outside and practice some Math."
Celina had to force her off her bed and to get her notebooks and as we walked to the front of the house to sit in the sun she just kept sobbing.  Shoot me.

By the time we got to the front of the house, I sat down in the shade and asked Mishel what was wrong.  I told her I couldn't help her if she didn't tell me why she was crying.  She kept sobbing without looking at me or saying anything.  About 5 minutes went by.
"Are you afraid of doing badly on your test?"
I noticed a slight change in her when I asked that so I repeated it, over and over.  I told her she could tell me.  She finally nodded.  I suppose I couldn't really blame her, considering Celina embarrasses her every time she comes home with a bad grade.  The other day she'd come home with an 18/20 and came running to find me to show me how she did and I gave her a high five and told her she'd done great.  Maybe I should have given her more positive reinforcement than I did, considering what usually happens to her.
"Mishel, you did great on that test the other day! You can get a score like that again but only if you study.  So let's study, ok?"I finally said to her and she nodded.

We took a seat in the sun on the grass and started practicing.  The test will be almost exactly what is written in her notebook.  She was given a number, and had to write the number that comes before it.  On the other notebook pages were numbers and she had to write the number that comes after it.  I could not believe how hard it was for her.  She almost 7 and she can't figure out what number comes before or after 4.  I had to explain to her what "before" and "after" mean and then write out the numbers to show her.  When it came to writing the numbers that come before a whole number or after a number with 9 in it, she couldn't do it.  We were stuck on "what number comes after 89?" for about 15 minutes.  I wrote out a number line for her and she couldn't do it.  After about 45 minutes of struggling with her and her making a little progress, except for with whole numbers and numbers with 9s, I could sort of understand why people yell at her.  Terrible, she doesn't deserve it, but it's SO frustrating. I tried like ten different angles and eventually she got distracted by the chickens who were walking around in the collection of random crap she has neatly organized in front of our house.  She has a lot of piles around the property of stuff she's neatly laid out a certain way...sometimes I think she might actually have OCD because she's so particular about things.  She got up and left me with her notebooks to go straighten things up.  I walked over to her and she looked like she might cry, and kept whining "my toysss".  I told her she couldn't cry about it, left her notebooks on the cement and told her that we would practice later.

A bit later I was in my room, and I smelled something that smelled like burnt rubber.  I looked out my window and could see smoke.  I went running out the front of our house only to discover there was a pile of something burning.  I had a bad feeling so I walked back into the room next to mine and noticed that my garbage bag I had put outside my room to carry down the mountain on Sunday was no longer there.  They burned my trash.  I was not happy.  The whole house STANK all day long from my trash that they burned, and all I could think about were all the chemicals in the plastic that they had just released into the air.  I made a note to talk to my host mom about that.

I did my workout, and went outside to take a sink shower (this involves washing off all parts of my body not covered in clothing and then washing my hair in the sink.  The water decided to die today, after almost 3 weeks of water.  Great. Dirty Hayden.  I went back inside and took a baby wipe bath, which made me feel better, though my hair was disgusting.

I went into the kitchen to hang out with Celina while she made humitas.  I discovered the difference between tamales and humitas are that tamales are made with dried out corn that you crush up in a little machine (reallllly exhausting process), and humitas are made with fresh corn.  I like humitas better.  My host mom had made the paste and the greasy cheese stuff to put in the middle and was just folding them up into the corn husks my host family had removed that morning so she could cook them.  We were just chatting when we heard a "news broadcast", which is a giant megaphone someone in the community has that they shout announcements into for about an hour.  I can never understand a word they say, but my host mom went out to find out what it was about.  Turns out the town had a meeting that night at 8pm about a Viviendas Saludables project (Healthy Homes).  I had been planning a similar project with the health post so I called up Violeta to find out if she knew anything about it.  She didn't so I decided to go.

I wrote out a bit of speech beforehand, because at these things, in front of the whole community, I always feel like I'm going to vomit and get so nervous that if I didn't have something to read I would probably just stare at them stupidly.  I was so confused that Don Juan, the president of the RONDA, or chair of the town council for lack of a better explanation of his job, hadn't told me about this.  I was hoping to run into him to chat about why he hadn't filled me in and then make an announcement to the community about how this type of thing was what I do.

The meeting was at 8pm and at 8:30 pm, my host mom still didn't want to leave but I asked her to because I need to make a point of being on time for things.  She seemed reluctant but I was hoping to catch Don Juan early to chat with him about some things because I hadn't seen him since our trip to Peace Corps training in Piura.

Unlike the last RONDA meeting I attended, this time I broke out the giant thick North Face fleece I bought before coming to Peru to keep me warm.  It hasn't been quite cold enough for a while, but this was definitely a good occasion for it.  We got to the school at 8:45 and there were four people there.  The door to the meeting room was still locked and I felt immediately guilty for dragging my host mom out early.  I should have known that the authorities wouldn't show up on time either.  I ended up hanging out with a bunch of women from my community, and wrapped up in blankets, one around their waste, another bundled around their shoulders, just their dark eyes peering out from between their big campo hat and knit blanket.  Around 9:50pm, Don Juan showed up and our group of women all greeted him good evening.  As he was striding past us, I think he caught the sound of my voice and whipped around to shake my hand, ask how I was, and when I'd gotten back from training.  I felt a little guilty that all of these women from the community had greeted him, but I was getting special attention.  It also felt kind of nice.  :)

He unlocked the door to the meeting room (which is in a room that is part of the primary school).  In place of setting up in there, people started pulling chairs out of the room.  Celina told me that when the meetings are big, they hold them outside.  Luckily, the school is lit with streetlights at night that shine down onto their cement version of a soccer field.  Celina got us both chairs and we sat against the wall, right next to the "Mesa" where Don Juan and Don Juan sit (I'm serious).  Don Juan Perez is the president of the RONDA in Iraca Central, and Don Juan Vasquez is the president of all three RONDAS for all three sectors (Tijeras, Sacasacas, and Iraca Central).  The school is built into a hill, and right at the end of their cement soccer field, there is a steep little slope, and then a small walkway, another set of stairs, and then the second part of the school.  The whole primary school is built like an L.  I was sitting along the long part with the Don Juans and Celina and a few other people and tons of people came and sat along the ledge on the short side of the L.  I wish I could explain it better.  Sitting there, with the street lights, I almost felt a little like an arena, or the Peruvian version of a gladiator arena.  I was waiting for two drunk guys to come to the center and start dueling.

As much as I kind of loath the night meetings because they start late and last forever, I sort of love them too.  All the men come in wool ponchos with baseball caps or campo hats.  All the women come wrapped in blankets and I feel like I've been transported into a whole different world.  I also sort of love the night because people can't immediately see how different I am, and I can pretend for just a second like maybe I fit.

I asked Don Juan, before things got started, if the health post knew about Viviendas Saludables.  He said no, that it was something the Municipality was doing.  That seemed strange to me.  I asked him if I could say something during the meeting and he said, "of course!" which was nice.
Being Ridiculous, though maybe I should give him my sunglasses

The weird thing he is holding is a gift the municipality gave him for his work in the community we were working in.
He seemed pleased.  I got a cool hat. :) The Peruvian version of a fedora 

I didn't know Don Juan very well before I left for the training with him.  I ended up taking him as a back up to the person I had originally invited.  I was so worried at the start of the trip because he was so serious and stiff and I was terrified it wouldn't go well.  However, being around the other volunteers gave me a chance to be more myself than I had allowed myself to be in site and he got to know who I really was and liked me for it.  We spent three days sweating our asses off making improved cook stoves, latrines, vegetable gardens, compost, and all sorts of other things. He loosened up a lot during the trip, and by the end of it, he was joking around with me.  We had a great trip together and I had the opportunity to tell him how sincerely dedicated I was to working in the community, and how proud he had made me and his town at our training.  I told him I couldn't imagine anyone who would be a better representation of our community and that I was so grateful he had agreed to come.  He was really gracious about it.  On the last combi ride at the end of the trip, he turned his baseball cap sideways and I copied him, we were both laughing about it when I gave him my sunglasses and we took some ridiculous pictures.  It was a lot of fun.  My biggest fear, was that we would get back to site and everything would be stiff again.  I didn't want to lose the feeling of freedom I had gained by being myself around someone from my town.  I think I've been really confined and burdened by the need to be a positive representation of my country and behave like a professional.  It also didn't help that we were told not to smile a lot because it's considered flirting.  So I spent far too much of my service being serious and stiff and not smiling.  SO not me.  I vowed to do my best to be myself when I got back to site and so far, it's been way better.

Juan receiving his certificate for attending Peace Corps
training - this is maybe the tallest Peruvian in Peru...and I'm still taller
Dinner with all the Cajamarca 18er girls and our community partners - Juan is first on the left

I could feel things were still great between me and Don Juan and that made me relax a little.  I didn't realize how worried I had been about it.  He gave a presentation to all the community members who had come.  Apparently, the mines are giving free gas stoves (do NOT picture gas stoves from the US) to communities if they would sign a sheet and pay 10 cents.  If you're thinking that's too good to be true, it's possible.  There are rumors going around that the mines are going to use the sheets that have everyone's names on them, their license numbers, and their signatures as a list of supporters for their mines.  NOT good.  I'm really hoping that there is no factual basis to that because I can't say anything more than I would be completely ashamed to be from a country where a company would exploit the poor that way (not to say I'm not ignorant of it happening elsewhere, but to be here, while it happens here...)

If you are unfamiliar with what's going on with the mines in Cajamarca, it's a big deal.  I'm not sure I'm even allowed to blog about it because I'm not supposed to talk about it with anyone here, but there is an American company from Colorado that has found gold here in Cajamarca and have been mining it for a while.  Unfortunately, now they want to drain a lake that is the water source for a LOT of communities in the region because they believe there are gold deposits under it.  The President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, during his campaign, promised that he would not allow the mining to continue, but now that he's president and sees how much money that would bring in for the country, he seems to have changed his mind and everyone is really angry about it.  We have strikes all the time that have been going on since I first got to site in December.  It's the reason we had to travel around in a bit semicircle to get to site, because there were road blocks everywhere.  So far, there have only been two times I've been affected, once was when someone threw a half chewed grape at the back of my head near the market in Chota, and the other was a couple weeks ago, when someone in the street yelled at me, "How lovely is your preservation of our lakes."  The assumption, because I'm white, is that I work with the mines.

Around 11pm, Don Juan gave me "the word" (that's what they say in Spanish, Don Juan tells people who would like to speak, "tiene la palabra", which means, "you have the word".)  I stood up and told everyone again what my name was, what I was doing there, where I lived, what I had done so far, the type of work I do, and impressed upon them the fact that I was a part of their community for two years, that I called this place home, that I cared about the people, and that I desperately wanted to help in any way that I could to improve the health of the community.  I didn't want to continue to be left out of projects, I wanted them to think of me when they planned things like this, though at that point it was pretty clear the Viviendas Saludables project was the municipality's idea.  At the end, everyone clapped for me, which doesn't usually happen, and the only man who had anything to say after my attempt at a heartfelt speech, was to ask if I could provide money from the States.  Technically speaking, I can, because I have access to outside grants, but our bosses have made it clear we want to focus on funding from within Peru because they should have the money.  However, in the moment he asked it, I couldn't understand a word he said.  Lucky for me, Don Juan, my savior, responded for me and told him that I also work with the municipality just like they do, that I am a human resource with knowledge and training, but he added that all my work in the community needs the support of the people, and that alone it will be hard for me to be successful.  I really appreciated that and his answer was perfect.

Later, while we were waiting for people to sign up for things, I told him I didn't understand a word that guy had said and that he totally saved me.  He was worried he had answered incorrectly and I assured him it had been perfect.  A couple authorities hung out with us and my host mom.  Turns out Juan is married to Celina's sister, which is perfect.  I was worried for a while that I might have problems after taking him on a trip with me with jealousy or speculation as to my motives.  I'm still going to make an effort to get to know his wife, but it was a huge relief to find out that it might all be fine.  While we all stood around together we joked around about the upcoming town festival and how they could have all Celina's guinea pigs because I didn't want to be forced to eat them.  Everyone thought that was hilarious.  I felt like part of the community though.  I felt special and respected.  It was wonderful.  For the first time ever in site, I felt like I had a friend.  You can't possibly understand how incredibly liberating and amazing that is.  Juan is like the best thing that ever happened to me hahah

On the walk back down the road around midnight, I was walking with Celina and we kept passing people.  A couple of women made surprised comments about how fast I walked because I was walking way faster than them, and it was such a lovely end to a cold but satisfying evening.  I got to Peru almost 8 months ago, and about 6 months ago everyone couldn't believe I could walk, and now they are all surprised that I walk faster than them.  heheh