Day Two of House Arrest

Day two of the strike, i.e. being grounded/house arrest...

The highlight of my day was my attempt to make garlic bread, which turned out AMAZING.  I remembered to offer some to everyone, which ended up being 5 people in this case.  I’m not sure how they all felt about it, but Mishel liked it, which was an absolute miracle.  Celina wasn’t willing to try it.  Fine with me, it was delicious! I worked on various things throughout the day, and by the time I finally managed to get myself to work out, it was getting dark.  The problem, was that by the time I finished working out, it was too cold and dark to wash my hair in the sink and my hair was disgusting. I took a baby wipe bath and cut my losses with my hair. 

A couple days before, at the meeting I had with Don Juan and…Don Juan…they had invited me to a meeting/party thing that was happening today at 8:30 pm.  I had no idea what the party was for, but I decided to French braid my hair because it was disgusting.  At dinner, Celina asked me if I was still planning on going, but she said it like, “You don’t want to go to that, right?”  and then told me it was up to me…  She had definitely made her feelings known.  I sort of felt obligated to go because I had been invited by Don Juan, and I know I should work harder on spending time with my community.  Celina happened to mention that the party would include an hour long Rosario (which is apparently some kind of catholic service.  That was a hard hit against me going.  My only experience with religion in Peru, aside from crashing a wedding in the National Cathedral in Lima about 6 months ago, was on Christmas Eve when my host dad, Samuel, read from some little book with the Virgin Mary on it and I listened to an hour and a half of mumbled Spanish followed by Hail Marys.  I went back to my room to think about it, and while glancing at my calendar, I realized that the town party is coming up in 5 days and there will be plenty of community bonding time then.  I went back to the kitchen to tell Celina I wasn’t going to go.  She said, “Me neither.” 

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...

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. 

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

The 16^th 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. 

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 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th.  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. 

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 20^th 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 13^th 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 13^th 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. 

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