This is Halloween

Happy Halloween everyone!

This is my first Halloween ever out of the country, without costumes and candy, trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples or pumpkin carving. Still, Halloween does exist in Peru. There is an interesting dichotomy that happens here at the end of October. The youth, tend to celebrate "Halloween." Little kids do sometimes dress up in costume and collect candy. Instead of "trick or treat" they just say "Halloween!" but you get the idea. Our idea of Halloween is pretty integrated into their Halloween culture that we get images like this in the more upscale places.

But on the other side of Peruvian culture is the Dia de Todos Santos (All Saint's Day). This celebration is more akin to Mexico's Day of the Dead in that families buy special breads and candies and set the table for the souls of their loved ones to join them for dinner. Some families go to the cemeteries to have a party. It is not solemn or scary but a true celebration of the lives and the spirits of the living and the dead. It is a happy rememberance. As we were coming home from the training center last night we passed a couple of cemeteries where there was a lot of celebration happening. Outside the entrance to the cemetery was a flower vendor stall (expected) and a beer vendor stall (not quite expected). And that is the idea: we celebrate our loved ones, living and dead.

As for my celebration for this time of year this year, I will maintain my Halloween traditions with my fellow American trainees and I will experience Peru's traditions tomorrow with my family. We will have our own party (costumes optional) with candy, food and drink and I'll bring my standard Halloween movies: Hocus Pocus and Rocky Horror. Tomorrow I hope to go with my madre to the cemetery to experience how my familia celebrates this time of year.

In other news...

If this blog is the only way you are keeping up with me, then you have not yet heard. Tuesday, was "Site Assignment Day" and as you can imagine, we found out where we have been assigned. They put all the assignments on little slips of paper and put one slip of paper into a balloon, tied to a string in a tree. Like this.

One person began by popping a balloon, reading the name of the person and their site on the slip inside and then that person would pop the next balloon until everyone had heard where they were going. As the person who popped the last balloon, I had a long wait to find out that I will be going to....

Laraos, Yauyos, Lima, Peru.

This means - Country: Peru, Department: Lima, District: Yauyos, City: Laraos.

This is within a naturally protected area and everyone says it is beautiful. My town will have about 300 or less people and I will be working with the national park service (SERNANP - SERvicio Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas). I get to visit this place in a week and a half and I cannot wait. Then, in one month, I will be packing my bags to move there. I have a lot more research and learning to do before I get there.

But for the rest of this weekend, I will be doing the Halloween/Todos Santos celebrations. Let me know how you spend your Halloween.

Blessings.

Dia de Votacion

Well folks, I have just finished filling arrows on my absentee ballot, thus ensuring that my voice is heard in this year's Illinois election. Now it's just a matter of mailing it in but I think I will wait for the day we travel to the American embassy and see if I can mail it for free from there. But this seems like a perfect opportunity to discuss elections.

Peru had their elections for mayor two weeks ago (Sunday, October 3) and it was pretty cool. When we arrived in country, the political advertisements were everywhere. The most common of said advertisements were wall art like this.

Each candidate has a name (obviously), a party and a symbol. Anyone of these could be referenced in an advertisement. One candidate for instance could advertise simply: "Vote for wheat," - wheat being their symbol. The downside to this could be that a voter does not remember the name of the person for whom they are voting.

Like I said, the vote two weeks ago was for mayor. Each city votes for their mayor but there are also regional mayors. My family then voted for the mayor of Chosica (the nearest large town) and for the mayor of the department of Lima. The voting age here is 18, just like us but one large difference between our political system and Peru's is that here, voting is mandatory for all citizens between 18 and 80. If someone fails to vote, they may be fined. So, one day (Oct. 3) between 8 and 4, everyone has to go to their assigned voting spot, wait in a very very long line and cast their vote for the candidate/symbol/party of their choice.

That voting is mandatory is one difference but there are more similarities. As with any elections, scandal is very present. For instance, there are rumors that the current and re-elected mayor of Chosica is homosexual and/or has AIDS. As far as I have heard, the only reason people believe this is because he is a single man. This has in no way damaged his political career, however, because he has held this office for such a length of time that even Rita Mullins (Palatine people explain this please) would be impressed.

In the race for mayor of Lima, the scandal has a lot more to do with personality and fact than with rumor. The leading candidates were two women and each one had her own schtick. One of the ladies would sing at any of the rallies, the other would always be dancing. However, the dancing candidate in a personal phone call, told her confidant that winning the mayor of Lima didn't matter to her because it wasn't president, the post she really wanted. That conversation was illegally recorded but published anyway and so the favor swayed from the one candidate to the other.

I wish I could tell you who came out on top in their race but they are in fact, still counting votes. The mayor of Choica was decided the night of elections, but the race for mayor of Lima was/is so close that the quick vote was not enough to decide a winner. They are STILL counting the votes! I guess that's what happens when voting is mandatory. That - and you get people voting who don't know what's going on. Well, we get that in the U.S. too but I guess it's less frequent because people who don't know what's going on can just abstain from voting.

As I wrote above, it is mandatory for all Peruvians between 18 and 80 to vote. The elderly I suppose catch a break just in case they become incapable of leaving their homes to vote. Still, the oldest participant in Peru's elections two weeks ago was a one hundred and some years old woman who showed up to her polling place in a wheelchair! That's just impressive in any country.

I wish I had some profound thoughts to wrap up this political blog but alas. My profound thoughts are spent on other cross-cultural comparisons (tune in next time). I just thought it would be interesting for you all to know as you think about casting your votes for your state's future, how this country goes about their democratic process.

Blessings.

Un Techado

It seems like I'm on a Thursday kick with the blogs. Anyway, this blog isn't meant to be about my routine here in Peru - that was last blog (check it out!).

THIS blog is about a Techado. What is a Techado, you might ask. Literally, it means "roofed or, in our case, the even of putting a roof." This is the final step in the construction of a house when you think of it and so the addition and completion of a roof is in fact, a big deal. I had the luck to attend a Techado party my first weekend here.

As I think I mentioned, my host padre is a construction worker/foreman/expert. My first Saturday in country, my madre invited me to visit him where he was working. Excited to have as many experiences as possible, I of course agreed. Little did I know the to-do that this excursion would be.

The location of this even was about 2 hours away on a crowded and small combi (the public transportation system) and then a mototaxi ride up the mountain to where the house was under construction. We arrived just as they were finishing the final smoothing of the cement. I joined the ladies up the hill to watch the proceedings.

While we waited for the construction to finish, I joined a game of street volleyball. Who knew that this favorite sport of mine is so loved by Peruvians? I wouldn't even have included it in the options. They are small people. The net stretched across the street so that every time a car or mototaxi came by, we had to lift the net to let them through. And it turns out that being a 5'8" gringa in a Peruvian volleyball game has its advantages. Let's just say that I made more spikes that night than in my high school sporting career. But it didn't matter; my team still lost and I lost 50 centimos (don't worry, that translates to about 15 cents).

The game finished, we headed back to wash our hands and get ready for the festivities. The ladies had been cooking all afternoon, the men were finished with the roof and washing up and the band was tuning up. The band consisted of 4 saxophones, a violinist, a drummer and a harp-bass type thing that I can't identify. Maybe you can?

So. Here's what happened. My madre and padre were actually the padrinos (literally = godparents but when referring to a party, it's more like sponsors) so they brought a bottle of champagne and some flowers and tied them over the door of the house. My madre gave a speech while I stood next to her (quite an honor), she named the house and christened the house by breaking the bottle of champagne. She then threw candies and fruits into all of the people in attendance like a 4th of July parade. All the kids (and adults too) were saying "Vecina aqui, por favor" to try and get a little bit more candy love.

Then, the food was served. Chicken and potatoes and - as the padrinos - my padres were served first. This means I was also served first and it was delicious. After dinner, the band struck up and there was dancing! The style of music is Huayno (wai-no) or Santiago and the manner of dancing is a lot of feet shuffling in a circle. It is a dance that comes from the Sierra of the Andes and a lot of people told me that is was a dance for keeping warm. It worked. And I was not allowed to sit down.

One of my favorite things of the night was that I was dancing and a woman was trying to get a man to dance and she exclaimed to him: "Of course you can dance. Look! Even the gringa is dancing! Come on!"

Also this night was my first experience with the Peruvian drinking custom. There is one bottle, one cup and one circle. A person pours himself a little bit in the cup and passes the bottle to the next person. This person waits, holding the bottle, while the first person finishes the glass but for a little bit, tosses that bit onto the ground to "clean" it and passes the cup. And around the circle it goes. Not the most sanitary of drinking customs but definitely one of the more social ones.

The dancing went on for a while and the drinking continued and the music played. They had terrific timing for their breaks for just as we tired, the band would cut out and play softer music. Then, the drummer would count off and it would pick up again. Around 10pm, we decided to make our trek back to Yanacoto. I fell asleep in the colectivo once or twice and collapsed into bed that night, exhausted and contented with my first Peruvian culture party experience.

Blessings.

La Rutina

Great news! I saw a puppy today!

So, I promised to write about training this blog and I will make sure to do that, but I got some more questions about my housing so I felt like I should give you some more info on that. Anyway, I'll walk you through my house now. This is the outside of my house.

There's some great cacti on the outside and that window to the left and on the first floor is my room. It's the only room on that floor and then we immediately head up some stairs to the second floor which looks like this.

It's very empty because it's under construction. Then you go up one more level and you are on the beautiful beautiful roof patio that leads to the living area of my family. The garden/porch and view from the top looks like this:

So you now you know where I live. Through training exercises, I’ve come to know a little bit more about my town. For instance, there are 5 zones of the town and I live in the 2^nd zone. The first and second zones have water and waste systems but the ones above do not. We get water 2 days a week for 20 minutes. During this 20 minutes, we fill our cisterns full to be used until we get water again. There hasn’t been a problem with having enough water yet but I know a few of my companyeros’s families have forgotten to refill a couple of times and have run out of water. So I have a shower, yes. The temperature of this water depends entirely on the time of day and whether there are clouds or not. If it’s a sunny midday, my shower could be pleasantly room temperature but more often, it’s evening or early morning as the neblina is settling on our mountains.

I know that the rundown of the house will not be complete until you get pictures of the other inhabitants but I haven’t gotten those yet so it will just have to wait.

On to training. Training happens at a center in Santa Eulalia which is a 30 minute ride on the ‘combi’ public transportation system. One ride there costs 1 Nuevo Sol (~30 cents). Though the mountains around the center are dry and dusty, inside it is somewhat of an oasis. There are all sorts of flora and one important bit of fauna.

That is Panchito. He’s the pet alpaca of the center and we all love him. So much so that I think he will be nominated for general assembly president next week. Our training sessions go like this: Language/Culture training in the morning (8-12), lunch (12 -1) and then tech training (1-5). There are also occasional Health and Safety talks as well as some vaccinations. (I’m 2 rounds into being immune to rabies!) It’s a pretty long day when you think about it and I get home about 5:45.

Much of language training is general conversation about cultural affairs with bits of grammar thrown in. We take field trips into the town and conduct interviews with random strangers, first practicing introducing ourselves and then asking what they think about such and such event.

Tech training is pretty fantastic. I liked it a lot last week as we immediately dove into necessary skills for an environmental education volunteer. We first learned about basic composting and then built three piles at the center. The next day, we learned the basics of beginning a tree nursery and then built one in a shady corner of the center. We have a few experiments going to find the most effective way to sprout our native species seeds as well. This week has been a little slower with actual lectures on things but there is something that keeps things interesting.

That something – no, it’s not Panchito – is the manner in which information is presented to us. We are in an age of the powerpoint in the United States and there is no denying it. But in Peru, projectors are not abundant and electricity isn’t a guarantee. The manner in which information is given us is in itself a training mechanism. We are seeing alternative and interactive ways to present information. Our trainers are huge fans of sequentially taping things to the wall as they speak. They also like to keep us moving, playing games, participating, and chatting as a whole, in small groups or in partners. Such activities take time and are in no way efficient in that sense. However, the benefits gained by ensuring participation through game-playing etc., far outweigh any time loss – especially for a person who has all sorts of time and is freely giving it.

That is one thing I’m learning and becoming comfortable with. Yes, we are being trained in technical skills so we can be an expert to communities to request us, but the most important thing we are giving is a full-time dedication of our hours to the development of sustainably meeting the needs of our communities.

I’ll leave you with this: I went for a hike today with two other trainees. This is where we ended up.

Blessings.