things I appreciate about the States

Annonymity
Christmas Lights and the ability to plug them in
Sanitation Standards
building codes (wow THAT feels weird to say)
cutting boards
eletricity
running water
varied music tastes
People not asking how much everything I have costs (they do this peruvians, too, not just gringos)
proper sidewalks
proper city buses
driving
being able to fix cell phones quickly, instead of traveling for 2 hours to do it
kids not wanting to touch your white face all the time
personal space
thumbtacks
lockable doors
proper dicipline for children
recycling bins
open mindedness
communication
vegetables
peanut butter
proper cuts of meat
house marinated skirt steak
grated cheese
OVENS
cookies

my new alarm clock

¨Bahhhhhhhhhhh¨

¨Hee HAW! Hee HAW!¨

¨Cockadoodledooooooooooooooooooooo!¨



Such is the morning here in Coral de Arena. Noisy and already getting warm at about 6am. Thankfully, I finally mejorar-ed (made better) my sleeping situation (it used to be just sleeping on a straw mattress) so it´s not QUITE a rude an awakening. Peruvians here do all their work realllly early because it gets about 100 degrees during the afternoon, so I tend to feel REALLY lazy as they are sweeping the front yard (just a bare dirt area....it makes me cringe everyday), the house, mopping, going out to collect firewood, (the kitchen gets OVER 100 degrees when they are cooking...I don´t know how they do it) already cooking, taking the animals out to pasture, and trying to keep the almost-3-year-old out of trouble. It´s a hard act to follow, and so far I´ve been following it up with a lot of reading in room. Where it´s only 90 degrees. So far I´ve plowed through 4 books in 4 weeks, and been to 3 different continents. Maybe I should get some real work done. But who wants to do that when you can read about African safaris, Indian spiritualism and Haitian unrest? I sure don´t. (If any of the Cuerpo de Paz higher ups, or people in general are reading this: I really AM working on working).



In general, though, living life here is a lot different in every single way. Just about every day I´m asked if I´m married, how old I am, and where I´m from. Sometimes the marriage question is followed by, ¨come dance with me!¨(if I´m at one of the plethora of Peruana parties), ¨do you have a boyfriend in the States?¨ ¨what! why not! you´re 23!¨ and the most recent one is "can you accept marriage proposals while you´re here?" If you´re wondering, Mom, my answer to the last one was a firm "No, but at least you were polite enough to ask." One guy has gone so far as to bring me mangos and coconuts. Too bad the mangos were green and moldy. It´s rather comical. My mayor says that it´s just the Peruvian way of joking and accepting me, and they are just joking. I find it many things, but "just joking!" isn´t one of them.



I have come to appreciate many strange things about the states in the last 3 months. Carpet and floor rugs are one of them. less rice and more vegetables is another. they eat no less than 3 pounds of rice a day, per person. i may have said this already. but I´m reminding everyone (all 2 of you that read this). cleanliness is another. water pressure. tv shows with at least half-substantial content. annonymity. open mindedness. no machismo. being able to communucate.
being able to talk with those of the male species without others thinking that I am dating them. and without the males thinking that i want to date them. oh man. there´s a lot more things. but so far, so good. recycling. that´s actually been the hardest one. I´m here to implement recycling programs, but it´s hard to live without it as well. call me a dirty hippy (you´d be right, it´s hard to shower with only a few liters of water) but it´s true.

well, i´m off to the land of the sand. until next time!

Que Paso con mi English??

Apparently, the mark of a gringo who´s been in Peru too long, is that they just can´t decide what language they want to speak. Lamentablemente, I think that´s happening to me. I´ve acustombrar-ed here, (readjust? what does THAT mean?) and am slowly getting the hang of the language. Very very slowly. I have no idea what I will sound like when I regressar (regress? I think I mean ´return´) to the Good Ole Estados.

There´s more than just verbal language to get used to here, it´s kind of like learning to break a secret code. You have to wait a certain amount of time before deciding that the person you´re talking to just didn´t understand you, there´s a little song and dance when entering a room (tehre´s actually not, you just have to greet absolutely everyone in the room with a cheek kiss or a handshake), among various other things.

I´ve only been here in site about 3 weeks, but so far, I think i´m adjusting really well. except to the time management thing. i think i acabarred my cabina tiempo. :(

Summer tiiiiiimes, and the livin´s easyyyyyy

Summer in the district of Olmos (which really never ends, as it´s in the desert) is proving to be pretty amazing. Apparently, the summer not only brings hot hot heat, but torrential rainstorms, as well. Good ole tropics. We have yet to see the rain (which some volunteers have told me is not actually that bad) but it´s been HOT ever since I got to site almost 2 weeks ago. It reminds me of the two weeks I spent in Bahía de Los Angeles, on a field study-we take 2-4 hour naps in the middle of the day. Or at least sit inside and read or talk or just melt a little for that time. For some reason, though, they enjoy serving soup for lunch, right in the middle of the hotness. I don´t understand, but they don´t seem to mind it, so I´ll just get used to it.

To describe my town a little: It´s a casarillo (a small town) in the district (county) of Olmos. The main part of the town has about 1500 people, and there are 7 anexos (think, umm.......just a really small town), each with anywhere from 50-300 people. There are no paved roads, though the roads near the river Cascajal (the river coming off the highway, on the way to my town) are mostly graveled. My host family grows mangos, papayas, lentils, tamarindos (kind of like big beans covered in Fruit Roll Up), and sweet potato, and has 2 donkeys, 15ish sheep, 10ish goats, 10ish Criloe chickens, 6 ducks, a few pigs, a several guniea pigs. They ae busy bees (I think they have some bee boxes too, but I haven´t found them yet). They wake up at dawn, more or less, to start their days work. There are two daughters that live in the house, Janet and Maria Angelica, though they go by Pocha and Keke (pronouced Cake-a, it always makes me want dessert). They keep the house together, though Pocha works at the municipality 5 hours a day. Keke keeps her nearly three year old son, Fabricio, in line, while doing laundry, and general house stuff. I mostly just feel useless. I have a community diagnostic that I have to do in my first 3 months, and I try to look busy doing that. Fabricio has adopted me, and I spend a lot of time keeping him out of trouble, too.

Mostly, I sit back in the hammock and think about what great luck these people have to live here, and they don´t even realise it. The skyscapes are gorgeous, and remind me of what I think that Africa would look like, if I ever were to see it. The mountains are inviting, though they can´t understand why I would think about spending energy to go there (we´re very close to some small peaks, and I plan to explore them quite soon), and while it´s super hot, at least it´s not super cold and snowing. I used to think that super hot was worse, but I think that I can stand it now. The one problems is the water, of course, as there is a river quite close and it floods. But, there are people (supossedly) working on that.

The last almost 3 months here have left me missing things in the good ole USofA-
Carpet. Floors are either dirt or cement in these parts.
Plentiful vegetables
Cereal (we eat a combo of rice, potatoes, fried meat, fried potatos and fried eggs. oi).
english.
rock climbing.
constant interent.
constant electricity.
constant water (I´ve learned to take a bath from 1.5 gallons of water every other day. sometimes even every day).
mexican food.
toilet seats. (my training house had a toilet but no seat. this house actually has a seat, but it´s a latrine and I regularly see cockroaches in it. I don´t sit.)

it´s time to head to a meeting with the municipality and the local schools, so I gotta run! I explain more about it later.

Training and such....it´s been about 6 weeks now, and there are exactly 4 more weeks till we head off to the perils and excitement of our sites in rural (mas o menos) Peru for the next two years. We´ll be going to sites of between 50 and 500 families. Yes. Families. These towns (at this size, they are called casarillos) are measured families, they are so small. Anywhere between 100 and 2000ish people. Sometimes volunteers are placed in larger cities, around 15 or 20k, but the director of the Environement program said we´d probably be in smaller communities and living in caves. The lucky ones will get windows in their caves, though. Maybe even a toilet, but don´t push your luck. We heard about one volunteers who´s first project was to build a toilet for her family. I wonder what she didn´t like about pooping in a hole in the ground...oh, true, it´s completely unsanitary.

We´ve been having a ton of charlas (talks/lectures) about various things, my favorite combination being diarrhea and dental care. It was quite relatable, actually, especially in the developing world. Living outside of a first world country is a bit shocking, but also really refreshing in a lot of ways. Shocking, because anyone can build a house absolutely anywhere they feel like. We visited a pueblo the other built right on top of a shallow water table, or maybe it was just a shallow underground river, which happens to be under a layer of sand. For those who aren´t scientifically minded, that means that the pueblo is putting pressure in the water, and it´s seeping up to the surface and making little pools. The pueblo is mad because they don´t want this pool and wants the municipality to do something about it. But the only thing that can really be done is that the pueblo is moved and destroyed. So they have been putting down more sand layers and planting small gardens instead. It´s not quite as effective as you might think, because they also have no garbagte system, and the site has become a bit of a trash dump. It´s going to take a long time.

The concept of these pueblos is pretty interesting, too. Like I said, anyone can build anywhere, and as long as they aren´t kicked off their sites in a matter of somewhere between 3 and 5 years (the number gets lost in the Spanish, usually) they can claim squatters rights and become an official entity. They are first called casarillios (there are a bunch of casarillos in a given district), then barrios, then pueblos jovenes, then pueblos, then ciudades, as they grow. That was a very simplified version, yes, but that´s the general idea. Speaking of growing cities, Lima doubled it´s population in about 20 years, during the Sendero Luminoso revolution. From 4.something million to 8.2 million. Take a minute to let that sink in. New York city is about 3 million. And it has the resources to plan a more or less organized city. Lima is huge, and doesn´t have a train system. It´s public tranportation is actually quite efficient, with a giant series of minibuses called combis. They go all over the city, and it´s really an experience that you have to have for yourself to really understand. For example. the ones we take from our communities to the training center everyday go from a town called Chosice to somewhere in Lima. They leave Chosice about every 30 seconds in the morning and it´s a highspeed race to Lima, the winner being the one to pick up the most passangers the fastest. They have about 18 or 20 seats, but atmost of the time, there are about 30 people. They make up the majority of traffic on the roads, which is unfortuante because they are all competing for the right hand lane, trying to make a stop every 20 to 100 feet, usually sounding the familiar ¨I´m coming, you´d better get out of my way¨honk. They stop for all of 0.15 seconds to let 3 people off and 2 people on, yelling ´getongetongetongeton¨or ¨gettoffgetoffgetoff¨and then put the pedal to the medal for the next 3.4 seconds till the next stop. Or if it´s traveling during the high traffic times in the middle of the city (I live outside of the city, where they can still get up to 40mph) the money-taker will get out and announce where they are going, trying to remind people that of COURSE they want to go to Chosica, what are they doing wandering around Lima waiting for a bus to Tacna or somewhere else? All those years of bus surfing in high only barely prepared me for this......experience. What can you expect, you can go all the way across Lima for about a US dollar. It can take around 3 hours, but you can do it. What the PC could really do for Lima is send in some civil engineers to put in stop lights or an underground system. Perhaps an elevated system would be better. Or at least sidewalks in most places. But that adds to the character or this place, and it´s pretty amazing, and I´m stoked to be part of something really awesome, like the Peace Corps.

Sube, Sube! Baja, Baja!

I am sick. I have contracted a sickness to which the only treatment is to just let it runs it´s course. Treating the symptoms includes things like: excessive use of my passport. jumping around the time zones. breathing recycled air in giant tubes at 3000 feet. 34 minute layovers in a mile long terminal. joining the peace corps and moving to the developing world. So far, I´m doing pretty well on the last one.

We´re about halfway through training at this point, and everyone is EXTREMELY anxious to get to their sites. We´re training in a smallish town outside of Lima, which is on the central coast of Peru. I just can´t seem to get myself away from the Pacific! I am in no way, however, complaining about this. I will complain that it is a 2.5 hours combi ride to the ocean, however. and it´s polluted. More about combis and pollution in a paragraph or two.

Actually, more in a day or two. Peruvians have an abundance of internet cafes, and i can never seem to be productive with my time in them. :)