First, I’m sorry for all those that actually read my blog. Partly because you actually read it and partly for the 5 month lapse. I’m working on it. I’m going to try to write at least once a month. It really shouldn’t be that hard for me, and I’ve actually written at least 2 entries but then decided for one reason or another not to post them. Anyway, here I go with a really quick rundown of the last 5 months.

Right before Christmas I headed to Guayaquil, Ecuador. It was a trip full of mixed emotions (and some pretty hilarious bus stories, I’m too embarrassed to tell). I was saying goodbye to my friend, Chris who had been in Peru for about 3 months (sad) and going to pick up my family from the airport (happy). PS Chris, if you’re reading this, remind me someday to tell me the bus story I was to embarrassed to tell you when it happened! From Christmas day until the end of January my family was here. It had its ups and downs obviously but it was so great to see them. The thing is, before they came, I was used to living without them, but afterwards... Oh Lord! It was so hard to get used to not talking to them all the time. I miss them more than ever.

We made quite the circuit. They came in through Guayaquil, Ecuador.
Then we headed down to Piura for a day. Then farther down to Chiclayo to visit my site and hang out for a bit and then it was off to the South with two friends of mine. We spent New Years Eve in Arequipa City then wandered around the “state” of Arequipa, visiting volunteers and seeing the sites, for a little while.

 


After Arequipa my friends headed back up north to continue working and being good little volunteers, while we continued on to Cuzco to see the famous Machu Picchu.


Next, we were headed up north again to see the Gocta waterfall! It was incredible. Then we hit up a beach in Trujillo before coming back to Chiclayo to spend a few days close to my site before I accompanied them back to Ecuador.



It was quite an experience. Lots of traveling. Lots of site seeing. It was really great.

After my family left I took a few days to get myself back into gear. Then it was back to work. At my site we inaugurated a museum (which is pretty impressive), I’ve been working with an HIV/AIDS initiative, and helping a restaurant get their stuff together. I was pretty busy. It was great being busy, but I was having some problems with my host family, which stressed me out a ton. It took a while but I eventually met this girl, Amalia, who would become my new host sister. I moved in March. It has been awesome! It’s usually just Amalia, 23 and my host mom in the house and we get along fabulously. There are some things that still throw me off. I’ve heard some very strange explications of life but through it all, I’ve been super happy with them. They’re incredibly supportive and fun to be with. And to make it even better, we have 2 puppies! My sister and I have been raising them since they were 8 days old and still had to drink from a bottle. They’re getting so big now! I love having puppies around (even though one of them bit me today).

Aside from moving and work, there have been other trips. I went to Lima for a few days for a meeting and then for Easter vacation we went to the mountains of Ancash for a 4 day trek. We had some problems and ended up doing it in 3days. Despite the problems, it was pretty incredible. Beautiful. We hiked 60km and up to 5000meters. I saw snow! It was great!

After Ancash I headed back to my site and have been crazy busy since. It’s been nice having something to do. I’ve been training for a marathon (I ran 15.5miles today!) Actually, I’ve written countless blog entries in my head since beginning my training. The problem is I never actually get around to typing them out. Really, that may be a good thing. They usually start out positive and chipper then I see a man in the road up ahead and start getting tense and ornery. As I run close to him my thoughts turn embarrassingly violent as I plan what I will do if he touches or talks to me. As I approach I tense up. Sometimes I pass and he doesn’t say anything or actually politely acknowledges me and I calm down and continue running composing happy stories in my head. Usually, however, he says something rude and inappropriate or makes some obscene noise, which causes me to tense up even more and think of all the awful things I would say to him if I wasn’t afraid it would cause him to chase me down and kick the crap out of me. This high level of tension and anger continues for another 15 minutes or so and as long as I don’t see anyone else I’m able to calm down and resume blog writing in my head. Unfortunately, I can’t usually go that long with out seeing some random man on the road. But I try. And I try to avoid violent thoughts. I’m sure they aren’t helpful, but damn it, why do they always have something to say? So that’s my mini-rant about how I begin most of my days. Really it’s not that bad. Marathon training has kept me happy, healthy, and busy.

Aside from the marathon, I’m trying to plan out what on Earth to do with myself. My time in ends in August. And then what? I’m trying to stay one more year either in Lima or maybe another country. Who knows?

So that is the 1.5 page summary of 5 months. I’m leaving out a ton of stuff, but it would end up being pages and pages and no one wants to read that. I’ll try to throw in some pics to make this all a bit more interesting.

Vacation/ Thanksgiving

Happy Late Thanksgiving to anyone who is reading this, to those who don’t read my blog I don’t care how you Thanksgiving went! Just kidding. Peace Corps gives us three days free for traveling so a group of us decided to take advantage of the free vacation (especially since we don’t get any vacation for Christmas or New Years or weekends or really anytime off)

Unable to miss out on the chance to get some good Thanksgiving food, I woke up at 

4am on Wed so that I could get myself into town in time to take a bus to the beach where another group had organized a Thanksgiving dinner. It was okay food but really great company. I went with 2 volunteers from here, and once there, met up with a friend from Ancash, my bosses, volunteers from another group, and volunteers who work in Lima. It was a beautiful day on the beach socializing and stuffing our faces. 

From there it was a series of car rides back to the city to start the second part of our vacation.

A group of girls, my friend Chris and I headed to the “door to the jungle”, 

Chachapoyas for a few days of fun site seeing. I was in Chacha in August with people from my community so I had already seen some of the big sites (see pictures in Picasso), so the first day while the rest of the crew headed off to Kuelap, I hung out in the city and wondered around for a very long time. A very long time. It was a lot of fun actually. I went and visited some friends I met last time I was there, hiked up to the lookout point where you can see the whole city, 

had a great lunch, did some work on the internet L, and got really really lost. After organizing the next day’s adventure I headed back to the hotel and met up with everyone else. 

We ran into “the Australian” that the rest of the crew met during the day and headed off to an eventful dinner. From there most of the crew wanted to go to bed but the Australian (his name’s Al), Chris and I don’t give up so easily.

 We were off to a bar for local liquors and conversation. I’d like to point out that local liquors are basically 80% alcohol with a bit of fruit flavoring. Drinks like that inevitably lead to conversations about particle colliders, quantum physics, and laws of force, and of course, religion.

 It was good time. Once the local drinks got to be too much the boys ordered us two rounds of pink fruffy drinks at which point, the bar decided it was time to close. So we did what any good tourist (or Peruvian) would do, we headed to the Plaza to drink and continue the night. Unfortunately by this point there was no place to buy more drinks so we just sat in the park talking and laughing until I realized that I would pee my pants if we didn’t head back soon. So at about 3:30 am it was everyone off to their beds

The next morning we were up at about 6 to head out to the third highest waterfall, Gocta. It was a bit of work to assemble the troupes (the 4 other girls from PC and Chris) but we finally began the hour long drive about 6:45am. Our driver dropped us off in this teeny tiny town about a 2.5 hour walk from the waterfall. As we fell out of the car with all our bags (the plan was to camp) hordes of children came to stare at us. I always feel like an alien around children in the pueblos here.

They all look at us like we have 7 heads. So after some bumbling around, we discovered that our plan to hike in and see the top of the waterfall then hike out and take a car to the bottom was fuddled by a landslide we settled on leaving our packs in the town, hiking in and then deciding what to do. As we finished up breakfast, our Australian friend showed up with his Spanish speaking guide and tour group. We absorbed him into our more English friendly group and headed off on the 2.5 hour walk up hill to see the falls. It was incredible. The hike was incredible. Chachapoyas is famous for all the wild orchids growing all over. We were able to see a decent sampling of said orchids, along with tons of other beautiful plants and butterflies. A botanist’s heaven. The falls are beyond description. They are beautiful. Gocta defiantly ranks up there as one of the top 15 most beautiful places I’ve seen in my life (don’t ask me to list the others but I’m sure there are more). We hung out and played in the falls for a while and eventually started the much shorter and easier hike back down.

Peru is turning me into quite the fashion plate obviously

We got a bit wet hiking into toush the falls

There was a bit of shuffling to figure out how to get back to Chachapoyas. There aren’t really any cars at all in the tiny little pueblo and Al’s tour group had an emergency head injury and left him. After a bit of conversation the mayor of the region came up to get us and

 drive us down to the big (20,000 people tops) town where we could get a ride. Of course the mayor mercilessly hit on one of the girls, which made me giggle, but we were all grateful for the ride. Once in the pueblo, we scored tickets back and had some time to wander and sample some local food including beer flavored ice-cream. No lie. Beer flavored. Not even good beer, cheap Peruvian beer flavored, and then dipped in chocolate. All for 1.5 soles (or 50 cents). It was fabulous! The long ride back was filled with jamming to our Ipods, dancing to the music on the radio, getting new hairstyles and generally scaring the locals. Good fun.

Once in the pueblo it was time for showers and a good pizza dinner. Dinner was once again accompanied by local drinks and talks about religion and politics. Eventually I was left with the boys to finish off our jar of local berry flavored rubbing alcohol and we headed off to the bars to meet up with another group. As with any good night out, one of the girls filled the first half of the evening with scouting talent in the locals and were thoroughly disappointed. From there on out there was a bit of dancing met with more boredom and the decision to move our now augmented (we met up with 2 tourist from the states, another volunteer, 2 friends from Chiclayo, and some other tag alongs) to a new bar. This bar was equally unexciting, so in true fashion we made our own fun. The group began to file out little by little. I was also done with the too loud music and 14 year old boys and (thought I) tried to gather the troupes to go on a mini-hike to the lookout with an already purchased bottle of wine. In the end it was just 

Al the Australian and I off for another adventure (and without the bottle of wine). It must have been 3 or 4 or so when we left and then there was waiting for the sunrise and I finally got back to the hotel about 6:30am. Another good night.

Our next adventure was to start at 8:30 so I was up by 8ish or so to get ready and run to the other hotel to wake up our Australian friend, who, very wisely, decided to bond with his bed rather than go out hiking with us again. Smart guy. We (after losing the Ausie, and another volunteer, we were down to 3 PC girls, Chris, and I) were off 

again to Pueblo de Los Muertos (City of the Dead). Now I still don’t know exactly know what it was that we saw. I’m not sure if this was a functioning city or a tomb. Either way it was pretty cool.

I made the dumb decision to hike in a bit farther than the path. 

It was a cool walk and a fun adventure until I came to the point where I could go no further and did the inevitably stupid thing of looking around to see where I came from. It was at that point that I realized how narrow the path was and the abyss into which I would fall if I had even a slight misstep. That realization made the walk back to where I left the group a whole lot more difficult- especially when I thought they had all left and there would be no one to tell of my death.

 (I’m the little white spec)

Luckily Chris was there waiting when I finally hit somewhat sturdy ground and hiked back with me. It was one of the longest 45min walks I have ever been on. My heart was beating like crazy from the few times I slipped and realized how likely it was that I could die right there, the altitude, my 3 hours of sleep in two days, and the walk up the mountain. It was rough. But we made it. I was defiantly glad Chris had stayed to watch me die and walked back with me. There was a point when I thought about setting up camp right there in Dead People Town. Couldn’t be too bad could it?

And that was about the end of our adventures. Once we got back to town we met up with other volunteers and our Aussie friend and headed to a typical lunch. Afterwards we said good bye to our Aussie friend and those volunteer lucky enough to stay another day and headed to the bus. I don’t think I have ever slept so well on a bus before. I was out. We got back to town about 6am, set up transportation for those that had to travel, ate breakfast and all headed in our own directions. Once I arrived at my house I went straight to my bed where I stayed until 3pm. I woke up and played an absurd amount of solitaire on my computer and went back to bed again with the goal of returning to life as usual. I guess my next adventure is finding something to fill my days until my next outing. But it was one hell of a vacation. 

so there were supposed to be more pics but they didn't load. More soon!

Top 10 reasons to run along the sequia.

So for those of you not lucky enough to live in a dehydrated desert that is being planted, irrigated, and fertilized into a not very productive agricultural area, I will begin by explaining a sequia. Sequias are essentially irrigation ditches that channel water from any available source (in my case a river) and distribute it via mini canals to acres and acres of farmland. These canals are always dirty, mosquito infested and most often serve as the community dump for all sorts of garbage and human wastes. If you are lucky enough (as I am) this sequia also serves as a place to bathe and wash clothes. An the really lucky ones (like me) also get to drink water that is siphoned off from the sequia. Oh the luck I have! For hours I could discuss the intricacies of sequias, how the are the center of life in my little town, how the availability of water to drink, cook with, or bathe in, depends on a sugar cane industry’s willingness to allow us access to the sequia, or how private farm land has been vacant due to the lack of water for the past 5 years. I will save these discussions for another day because the nature of this article is actually fairly positive (or if not positive at least comically sarcastic). Below I give you the top reasons why I have decided that despite everything, the sequia marks the best running routes.

10. Crops along the sequia (when they actually grow) provide the runner with shade otherwise unattainable in the desert. Sugarcane is an especially good provider of shade.
9. The dust that you will kick up (and that will inevitably stick to you the sweatier you get) will give you the appearance of having a beautiful sunkissed glow. Hint: Don’t tell people who comment on your new tan that it is really just dirt, they are generally repulsed.
8. During mango season there is always plenty of fruit you can pick during your run and take back for breakfast.
7. The garbage mixed with mud and dead animals that is occasionally drudged out of the sequia by employees of “La Empresa” is deposited along the sequia. The imaginative runner can pretend these pile are beautiful mountains or rolling hills.
6. If willing to get a bit dirty, said “beautiful mountains” or “rolling hills” can serve as challenges to the typically flat,0 altitude running route typically enjoyed in the desert. They can also serve as project idea for bored volunteers (ie garbage clean up day or a “what are we really drinking?” lecture)
5. They provide a quite, car free running route, which is particularly pleasant when the main bridge along the panamerican highway (due to poor government planning and coordination) is flooded and must be diverted through your site across a one lane bridge, thus increasing the amount of traffic along the one road through site by about 1000 times what it was designed to handle.
4. A quick run along the sequia will give you a fairly good estimate of the availability of water for drinking of bathing for that day. If the sequia is full you know that you will be able to bathe, if it is empty, you know you can look forward to a week without bathes or drinking water.
3. Animal life. Running along the sequia gives the runner a chance to enjoy the diverse bird and animal life in Peru. Unfortunately it also exposes the runner to Peru’s ugliest most obnoxious species, rude men. The mating call of this sadly prevalent species ranges from a series of hisses and whistles to the occasional “will you marry me” “oh yeah baby” “lets exersize”
Hint: there is a great 2 step method to dealing with this obnoxious species and their ridiculous mating calls. Step 1: Envision slapping, kicking, kneeing in the groin, or spitting on the offending animal. Step 2: Glare unflinchingly, without smiling and continue on your way. In particularly persistent cases sometimes it helps to mutter insults about how poorly educated and rude said animal is.
2. When not inundated with an overabundance of above mentioned rude men species, the sequia generally provide the route with the fewest encounters with curious onlookers who always feel the need to comment on that absurdity of someone running.
1. Protein, due to the garbage and often standing water there is an abundance of bugs willing to fly into any available orifice (mouth, nose, eyes, and ears being the most common but certainly not the only ones), thereby injecting you with a quick shot of vital proteins that your rice and potato diet has not provided you with.

Playing Catchup

So I guess I’ve fallen a little bit behind on the whole blog thing huh? I’m not really entirely sure where to begin honestly. It’s a bit disappointing that all the interesting idiosyncrasies that used to make my experience in Peru so unique have just become such common occurrences that I can’t even think of anything worth reporting. There used to always be something that made me stop and wonder what exactly was going on but now I’ve just taken to chalking it all up to the “it’s Peru” excuse and don’t even notice when someone explains to me that I’m sick because I drank cold water on a hot day or that rice can’t make you fat because it’s a white grain. So I guess I’ll just give a quick synopsis of the (somewhat) recent events.

So the first thing somewhat interesting I can think that I have done recently is spend about a week in Lima. Once a year Peace Corp coordinates with the US Embassy to put together an artisan fair where volunteers working with artesania can come with one of the artisans they work with and sell their products. There is always a workshop the first day to teach some business basics and then one day of sales. Last years workshop was horrible so this year a group of us put together the workshop and met in Lima one day early to put it all together. My huge Peace Corps salary hasn’t been going as far as it used to these days so I opted to take the cheap bus in by myself…. I now remember why its cheaper. I am okay with the fact that there is less room and the seats don’t go back very far. What I can’t get used to is the smell of urine and the claustrophobia that I begin to contract. Oh and it also didn’t help that starting about 4 am the wife of the jerk behind me decided she had to go to the bathroom. Rather than tapping me on the shoulder to wake me up and ask me to put my seat up so they could pass by, the jerk decided to start kicking my seat. This continued for over 15 minutes. At first I thought he was just moving around and didn’t pay much attention, after all, it’s a cramped bus and I’m sure my nightly restlessness also bothers people. Then it continued. About 15 minutes in the wife started complaining to her husband about having to go to the bathroom so the man kicked harder. Finally I realized what was going on and put my seat up, but at no point did either of them try to do the unthinkable and ask me (I would have accepted even a rude urging). They just hoped they could continue kicking my seat until I could read their minds, and all at 4 something in the morning. Oh manners! How I miss those common courtesies that are almost a reflex reaction to me that I never encounter here. Finally I glared at the man and I believe I tried to tell him (in my 4am very tired and very irritated Spanish) that God blessed me with a mouth and I have learned to ask for what I need and hopefully he learns to do the same and stop acting like a monkey. Too bad I don’t speak better Spanish in these situations. I’m sure it came out more like “blahs blah monkey no blah yawn”. In the end I just resigned to the fact that I wasn’t going to get any sleep.

Lima was actually pretty fun. It was a bit of work because we had the fair and I was helping to present at a workshop but I got to see a lot of the other volunteers and hang out. I met a bunch of people from the new group that came and ate great food. (They have Thai food in Lima!)

Another thing that came with my visit to Lima was another mini-breakdown about what I’m going to do with my life and how. While there, a group of us stayed with a friend I met who works in the embassy. It was incredible listening to what he does, where he has been, who he’s met, what he’s seen. (and he lived in one of the most beautiful houses I have ever seen in my life). It made me think again about foreign service or other work abroad. For a while I had ruled it out because I’m getting anxious to go home and be with my family and friends but being at his house and listening to his stories has made me think again about living my life as an ex-pat, at least for a while. Ah who knows? I think I stress too much about what I’m going to do with my life.

After Lima I guess the next big event in my life was the election. Go OBAMA! Almost all of us went in to the capital to watch the election. It was amazing. I almost cried listening to the acceptance speech. I still get teary eyed thinking about it. I’m so happy Obama won. I just hope it actually means something will change. The problem with politics is that even if Obama wants to stick 100% to his morals and has only amazing plans for the country he’s not the only one making decisions and a lot of time to get what they want, politicians have to compromise on things they shouldn’t. I’m still hopeful though!

And then from there came Camp Alma. It’s a camp Peace Corps Peru (and maybe others) does for young women. Peace Corps hasn’t been really supportive of it lately. They say it costs a lot of money and isn’t sustainable. I disagree. The camp is designed to take young women leaders and develop those skills. I agree that probably many of them don’t become rich or even key leaders in their communities but this camp is the first time most of these young girls have ever stayed overnight anywhere besides the house of a family member. It is the first time they really hear about career opportunities, it’s the first time the really learn about women’s health and STIs. I believe its something that will stay with them forever. It was good to see the girls interacting with each other and making new friends. If nothing else, they learned how to do that.

So that is the brief rundown of the last however many weeks that I haven’t written. I won’t bore you all with a more drawn out version (especially since I don’t have any pictures to accompany this entry).

Have I Become a Complete Tree Hugger? aka Down with Water Wasters aka Spilt Milk?

I guess I would say I have always had hippie tree-hugger tendencies. I have actually always been kind of proud of that part of my personality. Maybe I’m not Al Goring it up preaching about an inconvenient truth, but I’ve always thought about the environment and my impact on it. It seems, however, that what was once a passing preoccupation, something always somewhere in my mind (but not usually in the forefront) has become one of the most important things in my life. And what a strange place to make that transition, here in Perú where things are supposedly more natural. I come from the world’s biggest polluter to a place where there are fewer factories and chemicals start to see the real impact of humanity on our world. I think things are just more obvious here. Most places in Perú are littered with mountains and mountains of trash. Literally. In the desert where I live you can see miles and miles of trash laying in the desert. Maybe that’s what has made me think more about it. Who knows?

So here’s the story of what brought on this particular blog entry. I recently (the beginning of August) moved into a new house. In my old house there was no running water in the house. We had a little faucet thing outside in the corral and when the water came at 8am until 10am everyday, we filled up huge garbage cans for the day. Due to our lack of readily available water we were pretty cautious about how we used it. While my old host family had other very environmentally damaging habits (like the way they, and everyone, disposed of their trash) they were pretty good with the water. When I moved to my new house I was excited about the fact that we have water in the house. In my new little town the water comes 2 times a day for about 2 hours at a time. Every morning we fill up HUGE tanks of water and a few big buckets. There is a bathroom with a shower, sink and toilet (I know that seems obvious but here you’re lucky to have all three of those things in your house), we have a kitchen sink, and there is a little place to do laundry (by hand of course). I was excited, that is, until I saw how much water the family wasted. Most of the faucets leak, A LOT. And when they aren’t leaking often the family just leaves them running. They throw out huge amounts of water because it’s a bit dirty and won’t even let me use it for the plants, insisting that the dirt will kill the plants. In general they are just very wasteful and we usually run through every drop in the huge tanks by nightfall. In this town everyone pays a fixed amount of 12 nuevo soles (about $4) per month for water. It doesn’t matter if you use one drop or try to build a lake in your house, like my family did. A bit of background so you can understand my living situation.  (I even put a diagram above)
  
The front and backdoor have different keys. I only have the keys to the back door. My door doesn’t actually have a handle or anything. On the inside I have one of those little slide locks and on the outside (into the hallway) there are two hooks where I put a padlock when I leave. Usually when I leave I lock the backdoor and then padlock my hallway door and leave through the front door. Therefore, I have to enter through the front door so that I can un-padlock my door. Understand? Yeah anyway. That’s what I did this particular day. When I got home, there was no one else there and the front door was locked. So I went around back and went into my room. However, that means I was basically trapped in there and couldn’t visit the rest of the house. I don’t normally mind and figured I’d just wait for everyone to get home then I’d go around the house and un-padlock my door. I heard a strange whiney noise but just figured it came from the neighbors. When the family got home they called me and I went around front to see what was going on. That is when I encountered the lake that was our kitchen and living room. They had forgotten to turn off the knob for the water and when it came again in the afternoon it kept running and running and running overflowing everything. There was literally about 4 inches of water covering the living room and kitchen (luckily for me all the floors are different levels and mine is about 6 inches higher so the water didn’t come into my room). It had to be more than 50 gallons of water. More. I tried to reuse the water, watering and washing all the plants. Watering the street (so the dust doesn’t come in my room). Washing things. Whatever I could do so that we weren’t just dumping tons and tons of drinkable water down the drain. The family couldn’t understand why I would do that. They were ok dumping all the water down the drain. Mind you, I live in the freaking desert. There are 1000s of people within 10km of me that don’t have water. No one can plant gardens b/c they don’t have water. People who used to live off agriculture go weeks without fresh food because there is no water for their plants. And my area is better off than many places in the world. I just finished reading about Niger where people will wait in line for days to get a bucket of mud and try to suck the water out of that, drinking the dirt and parasites and everything that comes with it because that is all they have.

Now I realize me saving a bottle of water, won’t directly help those dying in Africa or even in other parts of Perú, but it does make a difference. Anyway, maybe I’m overreacting but I almost teared up thinking of how much water was being wasted. I know that the mini-lake in my house had some comedic value but more than anything I felt sad and really angry. I tried to convince them to save it in one of the big buckets we have and I would use it for the next week for the plants, but they again said plants can’t have water that has dirt in it (from the dirty floor) and that those buckets were for drinking water (we use that water to wash clothes). I know its water, but I was a bit heartbroken. I’m trying and trying to convince the people here we need to take care of our earth by preserving water, not throwing our garbage all over, reusing and recycling everything we can. In a place where people are worried they may not have something to eat tomorrow, taking care of the environment is their last concern. To them its just extra work, however, they don’t understand that the extra work they do today could help them have more, healthier things to eat and a better life tomorrow. I try to remember we are coming from different worlds but it’s hard. It feels like an uphill battle. Hell not even uphill. It’s like I’m standing at the bottom of the hill trying to climb up while all of Perú throws buckets of perfectly usable water and trash down on me.

A while back I met a PC volunteer who just finished her service in Paraguay. She was telling me that she was teaching organic farming and then one year the rains didn’t come and all the crops died. They ate a bowl of noodles and an onion everyday for months. And that’s it. One bowl of noodles with one onion. She said that she still thinks organic farming and trash management and recycling and all that is important but during those months she would have put anything on the plants to have something besides an onion to eat. It just makes me think of how much of a gap there is between my reality in the US and the reality here. It also makes me wonder about places that are worse off. All over South America the quality of life is improving (especially on the coast of Perú where I live). In other places in the Middle East and Africa and even other parts of South and Central America it’s still much much worse. There is no water. There are no plants. People are starving and no amount of handouts can change that. Imagine having a bucket of mud/animal poop/trash and putting that up to your lips trying to suck whatever drops of water you could out of it and even then only drinking a few drops so you can give the rest to your animals. It sounds unreal, but it isn’t. It happens everyday. 

I guess I’m still trying to figure out how to balance the economic reality of Perú with my ideals and desire to protect our poor, dying world. They say “don’t cry over spilt milk”, but what about over spilt water?

Living in Fear
Ask most of the PC volunteers in Perú and they will tell you one thing that is hard to get used to here is the way everyone lives in fear. Always. Especially women. They are afraid to walk by themselves, they are afraid to cross the street by themselves, they are afraid to start something new, they are afraid to eat this or drink that, they are afraid of the air that comes in through an open car window, cold beer (or drinks in general), bugs, everything. The most common phrase I hear here is “cuidado” or BE CAREFUL! Usually being screamed at me by a spastic mother as I do something (not so risky) like try to cross the street or step over a hole. Lord only knows the fear that strikes the hearts of the people who watch me when I do something really risky like climb a hill or ride a bike or walk across a knee high river. The next most common phrase “es peligroso” (it’s dangerous). That nasty moving air, very dangerous. Drinking a cold beverage on a hot day- that’s past dangerous, that’s deadly. I’m not even kidding. People will tell you that drinking something cold (especially a beer) will KILL you. The other day my host mom chastised me because I forgot to put the cover on the drain and the dirty water might clog it and that would be very very dangerous. Why is a clogged drain very very dangerous? I’m not particularly sure but I think it had something to do with the fact that when we tried to unclog it we might get sucked down inside, or maybe a monster will grow there. Who knows? Granted I understand that this is a stereotype. Not everyone in Perú is afraid of everything. I also understand that volunteers are living in some of the poorest parts of the country and the education level is much lower. With a lower education level always comes a lack of knowledge and view of the bigger (not quite as scary) picture. I have spent a lot of time trying to analyze this fear (and more time trying not to go crazy and slap the next person who freaks out and tells me to be careful). 

This morning I was talking to my host mom and had a bit of a revelation. I live about 45 minutes out of a relatively big city in Perú. This city, I think PC has some rule about how I’m not supposed to give away the location of volunteers so we’ll call it city C (ah fear), is growing really rapidly. I have only been here a year and in this year 2 new shopping centers have been built. Two of the biggest grocery story chains have come in. We’re getting a Starbucks (ah globalization). It’s growing really fast. Which brings me back to my host mom. She was telling me that when she was younger C-city was still really tranquilo (tranquil). She said that people left their doors open. There were only a few streets. No buildings with more than 2 floors. Two small grocery stores. Nothing really. Which made me think, most of the growth in C-city has taken place in the past decade or so, and if it has changed so much in a year, imagine how huge the change must be for my host mom. She has lived all her life in tiny places that could hardly be called towns, with one or two dirt roads, where everyone (until recently) lived off their own gardens and the things they grew and produced. 

Now that C-city is growing so much, people are flooding in looking for work. Crime is increasing, no one leaves their doors unlocked, and in general it is turning into a city. Big and bustling with all the good (more jobs) and bad (more crime/pollution) that comes with it. For me, it’s a city. I have lived in cities before. I know about crime and bustling streets (although Peruvian cities tend to be more chaotic and disorganized than those in the States), therefore the change doesn’t affect me in quite the same way. However, looking at it from my host mom’s point of view, I guess I can see how it would be pretty scary. News in the States is pretty sensationalistic but here, it’s worse. All you ever hear about is this accident or that murder or some riot somewhere. While these things always existed, people are just starting to hear more about them (TV is also relatively new). I suppose to go from your tiny little world where you only know what is happening with your neighbors and family to a world that is suddenly connected with roads, cell phones, TV, internet, all that stuff can be pretty startling. 

HOWEVER (there is always a however), for me, this fear is one of the biggest reasons (or excuses) why people don’t advance. The world is always going to be a bit scary, but it doesn’t do anyone any good to dwell on it. Obviously we should be careful about some things, but do we really need to spend all day worrying about this or that or being afraid some one will murder/kidnap/rob/etc. us? Remember that old advice song or whatever that came out in the 90s by Baz something or other? “Don’t worry about the future or worry but know that worrying is as affective as trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing bubblegum.” (I love that song) There is such a tendency for people to be afraid of change. People don’t like to step out of their comfort zone. I still don’t know if it’s just because things are changing so rapidly and it startles them, or if its tied to the machismo, or maybe its something cultural, or whatever, but there is such a tradition of complacency. Complacency does not lead to a better quality of life. Complacency does not lead to advancement or even happiness. It leads to fear of anything new or different. It also leads to me banging my head against the wall trying to work with people who are so complacent and afraid of change. I guess I have one more year to try and figure it out. Any ideas?

You know you're a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru when:

- You come home and find a plastic bag of live pigeons in your kitchen

- When you come home later you find feathers from those same pigeons all over the kitchen

- And the next time you come home you’re given a piping hot bowl of pigeon soup- and you eat it.

- Dog bites are common

- It takes 17.5 forms to get anything done

- Having water in your house (let alone a bathroom) is a privilege

- You haul chicken poop around in little bags then precede to drink fermented corn with your unwashed hands, and enjoy it

- Turkey attacks are also common

- Your blonde hair suddenly makes you the most interesting person in the world

- Someone asks if you are so white because you bathe with bleach (silly people I don't bathe)

More to come.

Oh and here's some more pics of the APEC conference

The most important part of any conference is they give you something to eat

Look at me being all happy and formal, it didn't last long

Don't we look important- we're not really