Caranaval

Hey all,

Wow, two posts in one month. I really must be getting better at this...or just making more frequent trips to my capital city. Who can say, really? But I actually have an event to write about for you this time and it is called Carnaval!

For 3.5 days, my site was flooded with visitors in town to celebrate the beginning of Lent (or the end of the rainy season, depending on your religion). You may have heard of this party in relation to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil or Badajoz, Spain or even it's much littler sister, Mardi Gras in New Orleans. And here in my site, we celebrate in a similar fashion. Which is a perfect place to start: the fashion of the first day. On this day, those interested take a walk about 1 km out of town to congregate and put on their costumes. Then we all come dancing in to the plaza to ring in the celebration. Once in the plaza, the esteemed judges decide who has the best costumes and awards the prizes accordingly. I, of course wanting the full experience, dressed up. Here's me with some other costumed party-ers.

Unfortunately, all of us in this photo lost the costume contest to a man wearing a complete alpaca skin plus an extra head (i.e. a two-headed alpaca aka caricaria) and a cross-dresser known as la Tigresa (the tigress). In any culture, there is just no competing with cross dressing. I'll have to remember that for next year. And the first half day ends with some regular dancing and some moderate beer drinking.

Then it's on to the next three days. Since they are all pretty much identical, let's just walk through the general schedule of one of these days. Each day has a pair of "padrinos;" literally this means godparents but in this sense, it is simply the people in charge of the party. In the morning, they, their family members and anyone interested in helping chop down a tree from nearby and re-erect it in the plaza. The tree is brought paraded in while the band (trumpets, trombone, drummers, saxophones and clarinet) plays. So you're thinking, maybe this tree things is like Christmas. And maybe it is; except for the tree is a whole lot bigger than a 10 ft pine and instead of ornaments and garlands, it is decorated with streamers and balloons. Also, hidden in the trees branches are plastic buckets, scrub brushes, shoes, blankets, and other assorted useful household items. It looks like this.

Once the tree is up. The whole party (literally, the band and about 400 people) make their way to the padrinos' house to be served their free four-course lunch. The first course is the "entrada" which tends to be a small bowl of spaghetti or one of my favorite dishes, papa a la huancaina (potato in huancaina sauce). After that comes the soup, caldillo. This is a dish typical to Laraos characterized by its lack of ingredients. It is a chunk of alpaca meat in its own broth with a hint of oregano and green onion. Then comes the "segundo" (entree) which is again, a hunk of alpaca meat, rice, potatoes, carrots and peas. After is the dessert, mazamora de calabaza (pumpkin... mazamora). I really don't know how to describe mazamora. It is a pudding-type thing. Anyways it's delicious and you get up from the table completely stuffed.

You waddle out of the house and then the real fun begins. By now it's around 3:30 or 4:00. The band has already eaten and they are beginning to play again. So naturally people are beginning to dance. This traditional dance is easy: you grab a party and thing shuffle-jog around in a circle until the music stops playing. Occasionally you throw in a spin. Simple as that. What makes it difficult is that as you are enjoying your little work-out, other dancers and revelers are armed with bottles of baby powder, silly string, water balloons and other weapons of MESS construction. And this goes on until you and everyone else look like this:

But the party is not over yet. Around 5:00, the party makes a parading dance jog-shuffle down to the plaza where the tree is waiting for it. Now the circle of dancers gets larger and it becomes a circle around the tree full of goodies. The band plays for 5-7 minutes of dancing and then takes a break. During the break, people join the traditional Peruvian drinking circles and continue to make messes of each other. When they band strikes up again, the dancing continues but now that we are in the plaza, there is a twist. In order to get at the goodies in the tree (and to decide the padrinos for next year), it must come down. How do we accomplish this? The same way we got the tree to come down in the first place: we chop it down.

As we jog-dance in a circle around the tree, the padrinos select pairs to literally take a whack at chopping down the tree. The feat takes hours. The music goes on. The beer keeps flowing. Until finally when the tree is ready to fall, the axe is in the hands of some very drunk people. But, since they have been celebrating this festival for years, everyone knows how to not end up with a severed hand. The tree falls and like kids to a burst pinata, everyone rushes to the tree to see what they can claim from its branches.

And when the tree falls, the party is over for the night. Until the next day...or the next year.

The thing about this party is that it brings in a lot of non-larahuinos to the city to celebrate. So I ended up getting a lot more attention than I normally do while in site and doing a lot of Peace Corps and United States representation. I also ended up conversing with a lot of substance-induced talkative people and getting some good theories, stories and ideas. Some of what I learned from carnaval include:

1. A "lluvia hembra" (female rain) is one that takes forever to finish.

2. All germans are racist.

3. If you get hit by a water balloon and don't change right away, you will get sick.

4. Boots and ponchos are acceptable fashion in carnaval.

5. Scented baby powder is more pleasant.

6. A falling tree is actually quite easy to avoid.

And my all-time favorite.

4. The urine of a virgin will bring down a fever.

Blessings.

The Transportation Situation

Hey folks, as you can guess by the title, in this blog I want to talk about transportation. To and from site, it is always an adventure. Because you see, since I live 9 km off the main highway, the cars that come and go are few in Laraos. And since it's the rainy season, sometimes you get some unexpected hindrances on your journey.

For instance, when I took my summer school class on a field trip to the lake, we had to wait about a half hour while the workers we encountered finished removing and replacing a bridge that had washed out. Yes, that is something. But what I find to be even more something is that they did that work very quickly. Here they are working.

And here are the kids playing and passing the time by our car we took.

Also, how many people do you think rode in that car up to the lake? Now remove yourself from the American transport safety standards and remember that in Peru, there is always room for one more. Now that the mindset has changed, would you believe that 5 children and 8 adults fit in to this car? Well they did, so believe it. And we had a great time.

But what I really want to talk to you about is the transportation experience which brought me and my two site mates to the big city yesterday. The plan was to haul some recycling in to the city to sell, taking advantage of the fact that my municipality's truck was going empty in to the city. I would ride in the cab with the two drivers (they have to switch because it's a long trip) and then my friends volunteered to ride in the back of the truck with the recycling. There would be plenty of room for all. We could even steel ourselves for the fact that the truck was leaving at 2:00 in the morning. No problem. We could sleep on the way.

Now here's where some lack of communication and lack of foresight complicate this plan. We load my recycling in to the car and then they load another 40 boxes of empty beer bottles. Not only does this add volume to the load in the back of the truck taking space away my friends' recycling, it also adds weight, which as we all know will end up sucking more gas. Remember this because it will come back. Not only are we carrying more things than I was aware, but then 2 more people and a dog climb in to the back. So I fret about how we will all fit. But the 2 people and dog end up getting off, my friends and their recycling get loaded on and we are on our way. Problems solved, right?

Wrong. Remember that bit about the heavier load than we were expecting. Well, just as we came over the last mountain, we ran. out. of. gas. Luckily it was on the downhill side of the mountain because we could take advantage of that and coasted for about a half an hour down to the nearest town. But since we had left at 0 Dark-thirty there was no one awake/open to tend to our needs. I burst out laughing when the three petrol trucks ironically zoomed past us. How was this one solved? We flagged down another truck and siphoned gas out of their tank and in to ours using a bucket and a hose. And we were on our way to roll in to town about 8:00 and sell our recycling.

Lest you think that I am complaining about the trip, let me tell you about the good things. 1) I successfully got the support of the municipality in selling recycling from our pueblo for profit. 2) The adventure and the story make it totally worth the uncomfortable and sometimes frustrating trips. And 3) Although leaving at 2:00 in the morning can be a little difficult on the body and the sleep cycle, you are rewarded with a clear sky and more brilliantly bright stars and shooting stars than you can count.

Blessings.

Smile for the Camera

Hey all,

Due to the lack of photos in recent posts, this one will be less words and more pictures. I know your eyes have been starving for some visual images. So here we go.

This one is good and embarrassing. Check out facebook for the video of me dancing in this get-up.

Here I am posing with the Peace Corps big wigs. Our country director, the U.S. ambassador to Peru and the boss of the environmental program, on swear-in day.

Here's some of the family and my site mate on New Year's Eve.

Me and the other crazy gringa in Laraos, Marjan, jumping into Lake Cochapampa on New Year's Day.

This is just one of the pretty views very near my house.

This is my summer school class on the first day.

And this is us playing with water!

This are our petreglyphs.

And here we are giving a very important presentation to the mayors in our area. Don't we look official in our vests?

And these are my kittens. They keep me company on the rainy afternoons.

Blessings.

Welcome to the Family

Hey friends. It's been a while since a post and I apologize for that. To remedy the situation, here's a new post! I promise, photos will be coming soon. So anyway, I want to talk about family. Specifically about how when you move into a small town in Peru, you inherit a whole bunch of family. Let me explain what I mean.

What I've found is that rural communities in Peru are not so different from rural communities in the States. Town meetings are announced on a loudspeaker and around mid-afternoon, the shepherds come in from the fields with their lambs to keep at home where it is safer. Everybody knows everybody and everybody greets each other in passing on the streets. It's not an impersonal greeting, instead it is always "Tio (or Tia), buenas tardes." And this is what I mean by inheriting the family. I now have a town FULL of aunts and uncles. To some of the older ladies, they'll even call out, "Mamita, como estas?" And my new extended Peruvian family is definitely looking out for me. Now I find that when I am walking around the streets I greet the ladies with a "Tia, buenos dias."

Since starting my summer school/camp, I've also inherited a few kids - let's call them cousins since their moms are my aunts. And they are a bundle of enthusiastic energy, ready to learn and play whatever I throw their way. The classes I'm giving are now 3 days a week from 9:30 to about 12:30 and to give it a name, it's Environmental English. Because I want to talk about nature but to get people to show up, I offer to teach some English too. If they words happen to be nature-oriented, well, that's just how it goes. We've talked about water and played water games, and we talked about garbage and did a town cleanup. They were so excited about the clean up that they asked to do one every week. And that is why the class is now 3 days a week. The third is purely activity and it's clean up the town and set aside the recycling day. We also did a day of art projects with recyclables and a day where we talked about the seasons and natural disasters. That ended up being really fun because we did a natural disaster obstacle course on the playground. In the next few weeks we'll be playing in the garden, talking about animals and taking a few hikes. So those are my cousins.

And now for my kids. Don't freak out. They aren't human but they are definitely babies. In a moment of pity and as a sucker for cats, I've adopted two kittens. They are from the town over and the owner of their mom was going to kill them if they didn't have a home (that's their form of controlling the pet population) and so I offered mine. So now Cora (short for Corazon) and Messi (short for Mezcla and as an homage to the soccer great) are slowly (really, very slowly) learning how to use the litter box and currently sleeping on my lap. They are good company for me and a good topic of discussion with the rest of my family in town.

So now you know a little bit more about the family I've been plopped into and understand a little bit about who I'm encountering in my day to day. I hope soon to get some pictures up for you to see. I hope everyone in the snowy snowy north is staying sheltered and warm. Blessings.

Welcome to the Med Kit

Well folks, after nearly 4 months in Peru, I have finally had to open my Peace Corps issued med kit for a purpose other than to see what is inside of it. In fact, in the last 2 weeks, I´ve gone to it a total of three times. Don´t worry. I am perfectly fine. I just thought I would take this opportunity to share with you this bit of my tool kit.

So. First opening:
New years was a whole lot of fun. I stayed up until late with my family, my Peace Corps neighbor and the Dutch biologist and her family. We had an international event with Dutch ollenballen (this is basically fried dough with raisins and powdered sugar), American (but really Irish) potato-leek soup (thanks mom for e-mailing the recipe), Peruvian wine (which is way to sweet), escabeche de pollo (way too spicy) and of course panetón and chocolate. At midnight, we participated in all the customs: we ate 12 grapes for 12 wishes, we stuffed lentils into all of our pockets to have money in the next year and my host sister and I ran a lap around the house so that we would travel in this year. And then exhausted, we went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up with the stomachache of a champ. Apparently, such a mix of traditional foods means that I eat far more than my stomach can handle. I´m going to go ahead and say it was worth it though. I mean, it was all delicious. Nevermind the fact that I only ate soda crackers and drank tea for the three days after that. Totally worth it. And now you´re probably thinking: ok, what pills in her med kit did she take out to help her hurting tummy? Answer: none. Oh sure we have plenty for all sorts of stomach ailment, even up to Cipro for the occasional bacterial infection. But no, the reason I went to my med kit during my stomach problems was this: January 1st, we created our own custom and jumped in to Lake Cochapampa which is just on the east side of town. Actually, nothing happened here either. We were pretty cold in the water, but the intense near-equatorial sun warmed us up right as soon as we got out. And I felt so good and refreshed...aside from the stomachache.

The real reason for the med kit that day is this: the new mayor was swearing in and I had to be there but my shoes were giving me blisters so I put band-aids on my heels so I could attend the ceremony. After all of that craziness, it was just blisters.

OK so second opening: A friend of mine was complaining of a headache but since it was Sunday, none of the stores were open to sell a painkiller. So, having the loaded arsenal that I do, I gave him one of our non-aspirin painkillers and told him to drink a lot of water. Water is my go-to remedy. You saw that with the stomach issue. So anyway....

Third opening: This one is for real. As you probably know, I am a fan of the exercise and have been continuing this hobby here in site though there seem to be more challenges to doing it here than at home. For one thing, it´s a little chillier in the morninga. For another, there´s a whole lot less oxygen at 3550 meters above sea level. And then there´s the stares I get for exercising...in shorts! Outside. But now that they´re used to me going running and now that I have a couple of ladies who occasionally go with me, I´ve conquered that one. But here´s the other kicker: I live in the mountains. This means that very rarely is the path flat and rarer still is it paved. Gravel running is another complete challenge and can lead to....going to the med kit!

Because you see, I was running up to the first bridge and back a couple of days ago (about 6 km they tell me) and I tripped on an especially protrusive rock and fell. Hard. And on the wet gravel, falling hard means that there will be blood (movie reference intentional). Both palms and both knees were pretty scraped up and dirty. Still being more than a km from home, I picked myself up and kept going. I figured that the faster I ran home, the sooner I could clean up. I met a few of the farmers on their way to the fields on my way back and hoped they hadn´t seen my epic fall. I washed off in the sink and quickly rinsed (cold shower, yum) and then headed for the med kit. Band-aids wouldn´t work this time given the location of the injury so I hurried past the camo condoms and the bug repellant to the nice bottle of disinfectant and gauze and went to town. Cool thing about this disinfectant: it doesn´t burn. Hooray!

So I´m on the mend from that but the only thing that is suffering is my volleyball game. With bruised and scraped hands, there´s not a whole lot of spiking the ball that can happen.

What does this mean? It means I am being a lot more proactive in my work. I´ve been meeting people in their homes and conducting polls to see their living situations and their opinions. And it´s been really helpful, informative and only slightly heartbreaking. The holidays are over and it´s time to get to work. I´m feeling good about it. Without the parties of the holidays, I don´t think I would have the relationships I do now to begin to get down to business. After my meeting with the mayor today, we´ve decided that my summer school classes begin next week. Time to jump in.

Blessings.

Happy Holidays

Hi all! I know it´s New Year´s Eve (or as the Dutch say, Old Year´s Evening) but I wanted to share with you my thoughts about the Christmas season here in Peru. I don´t know what it was, but something possessed me the day of Christmas to write in my journal the following. I hope you enjoy.

Twas the day of Christmas and all through the town,
All the creatures were stirring, everyone is around.
No stockings are hung, no chimneys are found
And there´s snow in the mountains but not on the ground.
The ladies in their mantas and I in my coat,
From a short winter´s nap, I have just awoke.
Yes, a nap I´ve taken, it seems for the first time this year
Because Christmas is celebrated at all hours here.

It begins Christmas Eve, with the Nochebuena meal.
Dinner´s at midnight and then, it gets real.
Chicken, potato puree and rice, a toast with champagne
Then out come the cuyes and you remember this dinner´s not tame.
Then we took our hot chocolate and our panetón
I offered my cookies to share something from home.
We wished each other ¨Merry Christmas¨with hugs for all
But before we could sleep our came beer, cold and tall.
At 1 or 1:30 I climbed into my bed
But the sleep was short-lived, hardly a dream in my head.

For at 5:00 Christmas morning I awoke with a start
To the sound of firecrackers, oh dear, attack of the heart.
I quickly got dressed and ran to the square
And found the church open, people singing and dancing there.
Each lady carried with her her own Christmas tree
From a branch covered with tissue paper, flowers unlike any you´d see.
They were singing and dancing around in a ring
And entered the church in pairs to worship the newborn King.

To combat the cold, they served drinks nice and hot.
This was the first Christmas I broke fast...with a shot.
Chamis, they call it, a calientito hot toddy
One quick swig and it will warm up the body.
Then a hot punch was served in a cup made of tin,
It was a very different sunrise service to participate in.
Then back to my house to turn on the gas stove,
For a breakfast of pancakes for my family, I strove.

Later, Saint Nick had come to visit via an NGO,
And I watched as the kids lined up to receive their ¨regalo¨
The dancing continued down in the square,
Then up the hill moved the party, it only seemed fair.
In a house made of stone, lunch was provided for all
They started drinking in the morning, everyone was having a ball.
Then we sat in the sun, my face burning perchance,
And then surprisinly one of the ladies invited me to dance.

I carried the asusena, the name for the tree
Knowing full well that all eyes were on me.
I danced and I danced as best as I could
But when the song was over, a little girl asked ¨Why did you dance no good?¨
Then we left the scene, a nap on my mind
And before I could sleep came the words for this rhyme.

What a day, what a day, what a day don´t you know.
All types of weather - sun, rain, hail - but no snow.
The party will continue through tomorrow day
And I hoope I can keep my heavy eyelids at bay.
Here I write Christmas day without electical light,
Still, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.


And a happy New Year! Blessings.

Where to Begin?

This is a question that seems to be popping up a lot. Where to begin? Where do I begin getting to know the area? Where do I begin getting to know the people? Where do begin to get to work? Where do I begin to start making my mark? And where do I begin to tell you about my first three weeks in my site?

So let´s begin by going through the other questions and how I have started to tackle them.

How have I begun getting to know the area? - In short. Walking. First up and down and up and down and around and around the hill that is our town. The school is at the top of the hill but I live at the bottom, by the plaza, municipality and just inside the gate. That´s right, gated community but don´t be fooled, the gates are in place 1. to keep the cows, sheep and goats out of the fields and 2. to charge the mining trucks as they use our road to get to and from the mine. There are about 4 main ¨streets¨ I would say though a car can only drive on 2 of them. Houses are of adobe, cement, wood or brick and are roofed by cement, tin or grass. Aside from wandering the town, I´ve taken to the hills to wander. There are a whole lot of paths and I can go up, down or across the two mountains between which our pueblo lies.

How have I begun getting to know the people? - Well, the walks through the town have definitely been helping. Sometimes I just go out for a walk with the only purpose of finding someone new to talk to. It works so far and actually, that´s how I met the woman who is now helping me knit my sweater. I also listen, attentively to the loudspeakers just down the street to try and catch the community events. So far this has led me to attend a few committee meetings, 2 town parties, 1 election and one wool dyeing workshop. Also because of this, I participated in the townwide trout harvest from the lake where I helped gut, clean, tag and package 5.2 tons of rainbow trout. And in these events I of course have met and chatted with more than a few people. Another thing I do is occasionally eat at the super cheap restaurant. For 4 soles I can get soup and entree and a hot beverage. If you´re unfamiliar with the conversion, 4 soles is about 1.30 dollars. The cook there, Silvia, is looking to be a good friend and later today I plan to make Christmas decorations with her.

Where have I begun to get to work? - Tough question. Technically, the walking, talking and hanging out is considered my work. Still, I can direct the conversations to ask about trash, trees and awareness. I´ve found out a good deal from the people including what they identify as problems and where they would like to see their town go. Garbage in the streets is an agreed-upon issue. I also rode with the garbage truck yesterday to see how their system works. The real getting to work will probably have to wait until the new mayor and new community board take office but until then, I am working with the kids over their ¨summer break.¨ In fact, tomorrow I will have my first meeting with the eco-club that the former volunteer began. I am excited to see what they can show me of what they´ve been up to and to hear what they would like to know.

Where to begin making my mark? - Way too early to tell but this is a question that I will continue to have in the back of my mind. Maybe so far, I have made my mark and will continue to do so as an example of an American to Peruvians and by the fact that now a small group of kids knows how to throw a Frisbee.

Blessings.