I'm sitting in Starbucks in Lima, trying to gear myself up to write Part 2 of my work updates and decided I had one frustrated statement, one strange observation, and one slightly embarrassing confession. We'll start with the bad, end with the easily mocked.
One Frustrated Statement:
I am sitting in Starbucks, and across the table from me are a group of teenage girls decked out in fancy headbands and bangles and necklaces, drinking S/.13 frappacinos and frequently taking breaks from the group homework they have to check their blackberries and fancy iphones. I keep thinking about where I was yesterday, in my town where not everyone has a dirt hole to go to the bathroom in. Where the moms cook with firewood. Where many of the kids don't wear shoes to school and have one pair of clothes. Where they drink crude water and are constantly sick with diarrhea and parasites. Where they spend their time outside of school helping their parents with the manual labor to get form day to day and taking care of their siblings. Where most of them have big black cavities in their teeth because they are rotting out and are on a steady countdown to the year when their first adult tooth needs to be covered over in shining metal, but only when they can afford it. These girls have beautiful white teeth, one even has braces, painted fingernails, fancy shoes, matching clean clothes, and get to spend their time hanging out in Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon. I don't blame them, they are lucky to have been born with the privilege they were born with. I'm not an idiot, I know this all applies to me as well, but that doesn't make me less angry. What would a child from my town do with a life like the one I was given? A life of privilege like these girls have? It makes me sad. I know there are similar situations in the States, I'm not naive, but I actually move back and forth between two different worlds in the same country on a regular basis. Lima is like this other universe, another prosperous neighboring country to the profound poverty that exists all throughout the rest of the country. It's SO centralized, all the power, all the wealth, all the resources. Of course, capital cities all have their tiny wealthy population, but compared to Lima, to Miraflores (district in Lima), it can hardly be compared.
I was in Lima a week ago and I walked into a department store. I walked by the electronics section. There was a giant HD flat screen TV and looking at the clarity and magnitude of it, I literally got dizzy. It was too much, too clear, after staring at the teeny tiny fuzzy black and white box we have in the kitchen in my house in Iraca. That was before I slipped and fell on my ass because I forgot how to walk on a slippery mall floor.
It just makes me sad. I guess that's it. That some of us can live like we do, and others have to live as they do, struggling and working so hard to improve their lives. It may seem obvious, but it's weird to feel like I'm on the other side. I live with a Peruvian family, I have more liquid resources than they do but not too much more, I live in that town, I work with those people, I feel part of that poverty. What makes me different is that I know it isn't permanent. It also makes me a little ashamed. I'm here, I'm living it, but I'm relieved by the knowledge that it isn't forever. I'm going to leave, and leave them here. I dunno. I can't really explain it.
One Strange Observation:
A few months ago, we were supposed to bring members of our community to a big training. We were passing through a city to get to our final destination and we stopped to get lunch. We ended up near a mall and decided to bring all these campo men and women, who had rarely in their lives left our sites, to ride an escalator. A few of them were terrified and ended up staggering their way onto the escalator and then looking around in wonder as they steadily rose to the second floor. It was really endearing to watch.
A week ago, when I was in Lima, I was at a mall looking for an iStore because my charger crapped out, and there were about 15 esclators that no one was stumbling up or down. I sort of realized that the ability to comfortably ride an escalator and/or the knowledge of what an escalator is is an indication of wealth or close proximity to wealth. You don't have escalators in poor areas, and you don't use them a lot here unless you are in a shopping mall. You don't go to a shopping mall unless you have money to spend...or you're like me and you just want to look at things that belong in a world you haven't been in for over a year. As for people in the campo, most of them don't get to the capital cities because they can't afford it, have too many responsibilities in their home, or just have no reason to go because they don't know anyone. Or if they do go, they are certainly not going to go to the mall, where there is nothing they can afford.
Here, it seems, escalator familiarity is a sign of wealth.
One Slightly Embarrassing Confession:
What do I do if I happen to be in a big city and I'm feeling sort of crappy? I go to Pay Less Shoes and I try on everything they have in my size, especially the heels, and I wander around the store in them. Yep. I know. Pathetic. However, there are three miracles involved in this one process.
Miracle #1: I used to shop at payless shoes all the time in the States and it is a wonderful comfort to go back into a store I know from home and try on shoes. The only thing that wrecks the momentary escape is that the price stickers are in soles (that's peruvian money...not the bottom of the shoe).
Miracle #2: Pay Less actually has sizes that fit me unlike everything else clothing related in this country. Clothes, for whatever reason, cost so much money here (or maybe it just feels like it), and I can't afford to buy anything anywhere with the money I get for my living allowance from Peace Corps. Also, even if I did, it is impossible anywhere but Pay Less to find pants, shoes, shirts, sweaters, whatever, that fit me. I love that I can walk in there and find my size without a problem. Woot.
Miracle #3: When do I EVER get to wear heels? I don't. ever. When do I get to feel pretty? Hardly ever. It's nice, for 10 seconds to feel a little flirty because most of my time is spent in sneakers and athletic pants or jeans and a tshirt. It is also just nice to put on something completely unnecessary, something extra. It grosses me out a little bit how much excess I had in my life before I joined Peace Corps...and how gluttonous so many of us are without realizing it, but I still can't lie. Pay Less is my guilty pleasure.
General Conclusion:
I realize that frustrated statement and slightly embarrassing confession are at strange odds with each other and the conclusion ultimately means I'm an ass, but I'm still working out the glitches of being who I am now and who I was, and this is just a good example of how those two worlds tend to smash into each other, mostly causing guilt and a little bit of shame.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Long Awaited Update - WORK Part 1
I should probably start by saying sorry for how long it has been since I updated. So much has happened that I can't even begin to cover but I am really grateful to everyone who has cared enough to keep checking for updates. Sometimes just seeing page views on my blog is a comfort, as strange as that sounds...
I figured this update will be an update on work related things for the most part and hopefully it will jump-start me back into regular blog updates. We'll focus this update on just what I've done as far as trainings in Lima are concerned.
The last time I updated, I was on my way to Lima to meet up with other members of the Peace Corps committee that I'm on, previously known as WID/GAD, or Women in Development/Gender Analysis and Development. It's a worldwide committee, so every Peace Corps country has the same group. Unfortunately, Peace Corps Washington, aka The Mother Ship, decided to rename us Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. That now makes us, the ever lovely and professional-sounding, GEWE, or "Gooey". Awesome. When I was here last, we gave a training to the entire Peace Corps staff on how to better support LGBT volunteers. We've had some situations that were not particularly well-informed, if you know what I mean, and as a committee we felt like working on those issues within Peace Corps would be a good first step to helping LGBT volunteers feel better supported and more comfortable in already strenuous circumstances.
The staff training went pretty well, and I got to meet the new Peru volunteers who came in June when I went to give a diversity training. Why is the blond, green-eyed, white girl on diversity panel? For one thing, it was because I was already in Lima, but I did come up with a good reason. I came here a significantly larger woman, and I'm super tall, and in the rural places we end up in, that attracts a lot of harassment and attention. For those of you who have read my blog, you know what I mean by that. So, I thought warning other larger volunteers what they would be in for was a pretty decent reason to be there. The LGBT volunteers had their representative, the African American volunteers had theirs, someone they could call when they were being harassed and needed to talk, why shouldn't heavier volunteers have their own? I'd be more than happy to get a phone call from some volunteer sitting in a cornfield sobbing because they've just been treated horrifically because of their weight. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had someone to call when I was sitting in my corn field because all I could think was "I want to go hoooommeeee." Another reason I rationalized was that I am a woman in a machismo culture and I'm going to be treated differently accordingly. The last reason I had was that I am white, and for the first time in my life, I'm a minority. That's a pretty significant deal.
Giving the diversity panel was a lot of fun, and I gave another training with my committee to the new volunteers on what is the GEWE committee and what do we do. We also talked about gender politics in rural Peru and the kinds of things they could expect. It was fun meeting them, and I must have done a decent job on the diversity panel because I was asked back to give a diversity training in October to the new group of volunteers that showed up on the 14th of September. I really like being able to spend time with the new volunteers, to answer their questions and try and make them feel more comfortable.
Literally a week ago, I was in Lima for a medical visit that resulted in nothing worrisome but the doctors wanted to be sure. I came down here (which involves a 25 minute mototaxi ride down my mountain, a 4 hour combi ride from Chota to Cajamarca, a three hour wait, and then a 16 hour bus ride from Cajamarca to Lima overnight). The day after I got to Lima, the new health volunteers showed up from the United States. The way the rotation works is that every September, the new round of health volunteers, environmental volunteers, and water & sanitation volunteers show up to start training, and every June, the business and youth development volunteers come to start their two months of training. Each new group has a number. I am a Peru 18 volunteer, the youth development and business volunteers that showed up in June were Peru 19 volunteers, and Peru 20, showed up a week ago.
I got super lucky, and was asked to go help out on their first day. I drove with the health team staff to the retreat center that I had gone to the first night I showed up, and got to meet all the new volunteers. It was crazy to be in the same room, the one I had stood in 1 year before, and be a resource and source of support for the new volunteers. I had been in their place exactly a year before. It was a strange feeling to see how much has changed, and it made me feel old. I'm sort of blown away by how much can change in just a year. In a way, it still feels like yesterday that I said goodbye to my dog for the last time and hugged my mom in the airport, and at the same time, I feel so so different from that girl who said goodbye to her family and her life in the States to start this crazy adventure. But really, what perfect closure to my first year completed in Peace Corps!
The next day I was invited back to chat with the group of 57 new volunteers to talk about what it was like to live with host families, what to keep in mind, what to avoid talking about, some of the crazy things they could expect. They were all a bit nervous, understandably so. They had just come to the training center for the first time from the retreat center, and their new host families were going to pick them up in a few hours. They had a lot of good questions and concerns, and I tried to keep them laughing to eliminate some of the stress. After our session with them (I was with one other volunteer from Peru 18 and one from Peru 17), their host families came to pick them up. While I hung out, I saw my host mom and sister (Mama Rosa and Angela) from my time in training show up. I hid behind a tree until after they had met their new volunteer, a super sweet girl, and then jumped out and surprised them. They were so so excited to see me, which made me feel awesome. I gave them a hug, and my host mom said, "I was just telling Angela how the new girl looks like you." Their new volunteer does not look like me, she's absolutely beautiful with strawberry blond/red hair and adorable freckles.
"But look at her hair!" I said.
"It's something about the face." She said.
"They think we look alike." I told the new volunteer. She giggled. "They think white people look the same." I laughed.
"Oh." And she giggled nervously again.
I have often been asked if I am the sister of a past volunteer from our area, and the reason is usually that we both have small noses. I guess small noses are about as unusual as blond hair around where I live, or white skin, so anyone who shares one of those characteristics, or two, I guess, is my twin.
I helped the new volunteer walk her stuff outside to where my host dad, Cesear, was waiting with the car. He is truly the most adorable little man. He saw me through the car windshield, a HUGE smile broke across his face, and put his hands together and started bowing back and forth. I get confused about why he does that...I feel like if you put him in some robes he could be a monk somewhere. He got out of the car and gave me a big hug. They kept asking if I was coming to stay that night but I needed to head back. I felt really guilty about spoiling that moment for the new volunteer, but I hoped if nothing else, she got a chance to see that although it's awkward at first, it gets way better with time. She seems like such a doll, I feel like they'll all love each other by the end.
I was helping another volunteer with her stuff and helping her talk to her host mom. At a break in our conversation, she said with awe, "You're practically fluent..." I couldn't help laughing, because I'm no where near fluent, but I remember getting in that car and having a hard time saying anything. I remember listening to Mama Rosa say to Cesear, "Oh, she can't speak Spanish..." It was a strange moment to think about how far I'd come from the day my first host family came to pick me up.
"I promise that you'll be where I am, if not far far better, in a year. I promise!"
She looked dubious.
So all of that happened. It was weird and wonderful and a bit mind boggling. I get to see them two more times, once for the diversity session again, and once for the GEWE training where we introduce them to our committee and to gender politics stuff like the training we did with Peru 19. I'm excited to see them again :) Five of them will eventually, in the end of November after they swear in, come up to Cajamarca and join the five Peru 18er Cajamarca ladies (including myself)!! I'm excited and I think they are such a lovely group, we are going to be lucky with whoever comes!
So what am I doing in Lima right now? In the same meeting in February when we decided as a committee to put a focus on better supporting LGBT volunteers within Peace Corps, we came up with the idea of doing a Safe Zone training with the Peace Corps staff. Safe Zone, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a program often used in US Universities to train staff members to be LGBT allies. This provides volunteers with a safe space to go among Peace Corps staff when they need to talk about something or need advice. Being a Peace Corps volunteer is not an easy life in itself, but there is an added complication for LGBT volunteers, especially those put in rural areas, where they are told to recloset themselves for their own safety. I can't imagine what that process is like in itself, but imagine trying to develop relationships with people in a foreign country, and even with your closest Peruvian friends and family, you are forced to lie about a significant part of who you are? I have a hard time sometimes with the aspects of my life I find hard to share just because they are so different and therefore difficult for members of my community to understand. I find it frustrating to feel that kind of wall between me and those I am closest to, and I don't have to hide a piece of my identity. Not all volunteers have the same experience because it is so dependent on who you are with and who you are, but for those who do struggle, they should have a safe place to go an talk about it. We felt like training the staff who elected to be allies would be important, because acceptance and understanding of LGBT people has not advanced in Peru as it has in the United States (I'm also not suggesting that things are perfect in the US, only that they are farther along.)
Richard and I have been really excited about this from the beginning and so the two of us have been working on the training for a while. We got really lucky, and Wendy, our Director of Programming and Training (aka #2 in all of Peace Corps Peru), got really excited about the training and has been so incredibly supportive. We have gotten a lot of staff involved and we are going to give the training on Monday. She told me when I met with her a week ago that she was hoping that the Peace Corps staff would understand that this training was not just applicable to a Peace Corps/American thing, but in general to their lives outside of Peace Corps. One thing most people don't realize is that almost all the Peace Corps Peru staff is Peruvian, with the exception of our Country Director, Wendy, and the 3rd year volunteers who work in positions called "PCVC" or Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator. They develop materials to aide volunteers in the field, edit grant proposals, design project frameworks, work part time in an NGO in Lima or for a governmental organization like the Ministry of Health, and serve in general as work and life support for volunteers.
Safe Zone training is coming up on Monday, I'm doing prep work and trying to catch back up on my real life. But as for trainings in Lima, that's the full update of what I've been up to. More to come!....
I figured this update will be an update on work related things for the most part and hopefully it will jump-start me back into regular blog updates. We'll focus this update on just what I've done as far as trainings in Lima are concerned.
The last time I updated, I was on my way to Lima to meet up with other members of the Peace Corps committee that I'm on, previously known as WID/GAD, or Women in Development/Gender Analysis and Development. It's a worldwide committee, so every Peace Corps country has the same group. Unfortunately, Peace Corps Washington, aka The Mother Ship, decided to rename us Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. That now makes us, the ever lovely and professional-sounding, GEWE, or "Gooey". Awesome. When I was here last, we gave a training to the entire Peace Corps staff on how to better support LGBT volunteers. We've had some situations that were not particularly well-informed, if you know what I mean, and as a committee we felt like working on those issues within Peace Corps would be a good first step to helping LGBT volunteers feel better supported and more comfortable in already strenuous circumstances.
The staff training went pretty well, and I got to meet the new Peru volunteers who came in June when I went to give a diversity training. Why is the blond, green-eyed, white girl on diversity panel? For one thing, it was because I was already in Lima, but I did come up with a good reason. I came here a significantly larger woman, and I'm super tall, and in the rural places we end up in, that attracts a lot of harassment and attention. For those of you who have read my blog, you know what I mean by that. So, I thought warning other larger volunteers what they would be in for was a pretty decent reason to be there. The LGBT volunteers had their representative, the African American volunteers had theirs, someone they could call when they were being harassed and needed to talk, why shouldn't heavier volunteers have their own? I'd be more than happy to get a phone call from some volunteer sitting in a cornfield sobbing because they've just been treated horrifically because of their weight. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had someone to call when I was sitting in my corn field because all I could think was "I want to go hoooommeeee." Another reason I rationalized was that I am a woman in a machismo culture and I'm going to be treated differently accordingly. The last reason I had was that I am white, and for the first time in my life, I'm a minority. That's a pretty significant deal.
Giving the diversity panel was a lot of fun, and I gave another training with my committee to the new volunteers on what is the GEWE committee and what do we do. We also talked about gender politics in rural Peru and the kinds of things they could expect. It was fun meeting them, and I must have done a decent job on the diversity panel because I was asked back to give a diversity training in October to the new group of volunteers that showed up on the 14th of September. I really like being able to spend time with the new volunteers, to answer their questions and try and make them feel more comfortable.
Literally a week ago, I was in Lima for a medical visit that resulted in nothing worrisome but the doctors wanted to be sure. I came down here (which involves a 25 minute mototaxi ride down my mountain, a 4 hour combi ride from Chota to Cajamarca, a three hour wait, and then a 16 hour bus ride from Cajamarca to Lima overnight). The day after I got to Lima, the new health volunteers showed up from the United States. The way the rotation works is that every September, the new round of health volunteers, environmental volunteers, and water & sanitation volunteers show up to start training, and every June, the business and youth development volunteers come to start their two months of training. Each new group has a number. I am a Peru 18 volunteer, the youth development and business volunteers that showed up in June were Peru 19 volunteers, and Peru 20, showed up a week ago.
I got super lucky, and was asked to go help out on their first day. I drove with the health team staff to the retreat center that I had gone to the first night I showed up, and got to meet all the new volunteers. It was crazy to be in the same room, the one I had stood in 1 year before, and be a resource and source of support for the new volunteers. I had been in their place exactly a year before. It was a strange feeling to see how much has changed, and it made me feel old. I'm sort of blown away by how much can change in just a year. In a way, it still feels like yesterday that I said goodbye to my dog for the last time and hugged my mom in the airport, and at the same time, I feel so so different from that girl who said goodbye to her family and her life in the States to start this crazy adventure. But really, what perfect closure to my first year completed in Peace Corps!
The next day I was invited back to chat with the group of 57 new volunteers to talk about what it was like to live with host families, what to keep in mind, what to avoid talking about, some of the crazy things they could expect. They were all a bit nervous, understandably so. They had just come to the training center for the first time from the retreat center, and their new host families were going to pick them up in a few hours. They had a lot of good questions and concerns, and I tried to keep them laughing to eliminate some of the stress. After our session with them (I was with one other volunteer from Peru 18 and one from Peru 17), their host families came to pick them up. While I hung out, I saw my host mom and sister (Mama Rosa and Angela) from my time in training show up. I hid behind a tree until after they had met their new volunteer, a super sweet girl, and then jumped out and surprised them. They were so so excited to see me, which made me feel awesome. I gave them a hug, and my host mom said, "I was just telling Angela how the new girl looks like you." Their new volunteer does not look like me, she's absolutely beautiful with strawberry blond/red hair and adorable freckles.
"But look at her hair!" I said.
"It's something about the face." She said.
"They think we look alike." I told the new volunteer. She giggled. "They think white people look the same." I laughed.
"Oh." And she giggled nervously again.
I have often been asked if I am the sister of a past volunteer from our area, and the reason is usually that we both have small noses. I guess small noses are about as unusual as blond hair around where I live, or white skin, so anyone who shares one of those characteristics, or two, I guess, is my twin.
I helped the new volunteer walk her stuff outside to where my host dad, Cesear, was waiting with the car. He is truly the most adorable little man. He saw me through the car windshield, a HUGE smile broke across his face, and put his hands together and started bowing back and forth. I get confused about why he does that...I feel like if you put him in some robes he could be a monk somewhere. He got out of the car and gave me a big hug. They kept asking if I was coming to stay that night but I needed to head back. I felt really guilty about spoiling that moment for the new volunteer, but I hoped if nothing else, she got a chance to see that although it's awkward at first, it gets way better with time. She seems like such a doll, I feel like they'll all love each other by the end.
I was helping another volunteer with her stuff and helping her talk to her host mom. At a break in our conversation, she said with awe, "You're practically fluent..." I couldn't help laughing, because I'm no where near fluent, but I remember getting in that car and having a hard time saying anything. I remember listening to Mama Rosa say to Cesear, "Oh, she can't speak Spanish..." It was a strange moment to think about how far I'd come from the day my first host family came to pick me up.
"I promise that you'll be where I am, if not far far better, in a year. I promise!"
She looked dubious.
So all of that happened. It was weird and wonderful and a bit mind boggling. I get to see them two more times, once for the diversity session again, and once for the GEWE training where we introduce them to our committee and to gender politics stuff like the training we did with Peru 19. I'm excited to see them again :) Five of them will eventually, in the end of November after they swear in, come up to Cajamarca and join the five Peru 18er Cajamarca ladies (including myself)!! I'm excited and I think they are such a lovely group, we are going to be lucky with whoever comes!
So what am I doing in Lima right now? In the same meeting in February when we decided as a committee to put a focus on better supporting LGBT volunteers within Peace Corps, we came up with the idea of doing a Safe Zone training with the Peace Corps staff. Safe Zone, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a program often used in US Universities to train staff members to be LGBT allies. This provides volunteers with a safe space to go among Peace Corps staff when they need to talk about something or need advice. Being a Peace Corps volunteer is not an easy life in itself, but there is an added complication for LGBT volunteers, especially those put in rural areas, where they are told to recloset themselves for their own safety. I can't imagine what that process is like in itself, but imagine trying to develop relationships with people in a foreign country, and even with your closest Peruvian friends and family, you are forced to lie about a significant part of who you are? I have a hard time sometimes with the aspects of my life I find hard to share just because they are so different and therefore difficult for members of my community to understand. I find it frustrating to feel that kind of wall between me and those I am closest to, and I don't have to hide a piece of my identity. Not all volunteers have the same experience because it is so dependent on who you are with and who you are, but for those who do struggle, they should have a safe place to go an talk about it. We felt like training the staff who elected to be allies would be important, because acceptance and understanding of LGBT people has not advanced in Peru as it has in the United States (I'm also not suggesting that things are perfect in the US, only that they are farther along.)
Richard and I have been really excited about this from the beginning and so the two of us have been working on the training for a while. We got really lucky, and Wendy, our Director of Programming and Training (aka #2 in all of Peace Corps Peru), got really excited about the training and has been so incredibly supportive. We have gotten a lot of staff involved and we are going to give the training on Monday. She told me when I met with her a week ago that she was hoping that the Peace Corps staff would understand that this training was not just applicable to a Peace Corps/American thing, but in general to their lives outside of Peace Corps. One thing most people don't realize is that almost all the Peace Corps Peru staff is Peruvian, with the exception of our Country Director, Wendy, and the 3rd year volunteers who work in positions called "PCVC" or Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator. They develop materials to aide volunteers in the field, edit grant proposals, design project frameworks, work part time in an NGO in Lima or for a governmental organization like the Ministry of Health, and serve in general as work and life support for volunteers.
Safe Zone training is coming up on Monday, I'm doing prep work and trying to catch back up on my real life. But as for trainings in Lima, that's the full update of what I've been up to. More to come!....
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Outsiders
I usually find when I am automatically obsessed with a song, it is usually because it is an awesome song. Sometimes, however, I find myself obsessed with a song because I immediately connect with the lyrics. Latest obsession, "The outsiders" by Needtobreathe. I think living in Peruvian country gives me a little more tolerance for American country (i'm talking about country, like fields and twang country).
Lyrics:
Lyrics:
Shortfalls and little sins
Close calls where no one wins
stand tall we're running thin
I'm wearing thin
Oh, why are we keeping score
Cause if you're not laughing
who is laughing now
I've been wondering
if we stop sinking
could we stand our ground
and through everything we've learned
we've finally come to terms
we are the outsiders
oh, we are the outsiders
I'm not leaving without a fight
I got my holster around my side
just cause I'm wrong it don't make you right
no, you ain't right
Oh, why are we keeping score
Cause if you're not laughing
who is laughing now
i've been wondering if we stop sinking
could we stand our ground
and through everything we've learned
we've finally come to terms
we are the outsiders
Oh, we are the outsiders
On the outside
you're free to roam
on the outside
we found a home
on the outside
there's more to see
on the outside
we choose to be
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