Monthly Archives: September 2012

13/09/2012
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food

achey-breaky-anticuchos.

anticuchos waiting to be grilled.

fact. i love anticuchos (beef heart). a lot. however, every single time i eat them, i never fail to get incredibly sick. you would think this would stop me, but somehow i always forget about the whole getting sick part when i eat them.

the ladies group i help out with in town, asked me to help them with their fundraiser where they were selling anticuchos to raise money to buy christmas gifts for underprivileged youth in town. of course, i agreed. and of course, while selling them, i ate them. it was another busy night in my town as a cumbia band, agua marina, was their performing to close out the weekend of festivities in town.

first customers!

these were by far the best anticuchos i have had. anticuchos are a common street food. think nyc and their hot dog stands, and that is peru with their anticuchos. even though i ate my fair share, i still sold plenty, and hopefully some cute kids will have at least a tiny christmas.

so busy!

13/09/2012
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fiesta

procession.

my town has been all about the parties lately. the day after the football party, the main church in my town celebrated the anniversary (or half-anniversary) of their virgin saint. at least that is what i think it was. the night before and saturday night, there was a procession where the virgin saint was carried throughout the town.

the procession even continued onto the panamerican, which really held up tons of traffic, as it is the only main highway this far north. and the street was blocked for at least 45 minutes. needless to say i am sure all the vehicles were thrilled.

the beginning of endless traffic.

the procession was lead by a number of traditional dancing kids. through their song and dance they were telling a story where good conquers evil…i am sure david gave me a more detailed explanation, but that was all that i understood. typical.

one of the kiddos dancing.

and of course, it would not be a peruvian celebration without fireworks! check this guy out!

david told me that they have another celebration for this saint in february, but it’s much bigger, with more people and way more fireworks. honestly, i don’t even know if that is possible.

13/09/2012
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fiesta

a peruvian futbol party.

my facebook feed has been cluttered with football updates and countless football parties. well, in case you were wondering if peruvians get into futbol season. the answer to that is an empahtic, “YES!”

my new friend, tino, is the president of the local futbol club team, and invited me to celebrate it’s 43rd anniversary. of course, given that it was a peruvian celebration, you better believe it was over-the-top and no detail was left unnoticed.

typical peruvian party setup. chairs in a circle around the room, with cloth décor.

when my host brother, david, and i arrived there was only loud music, conversation and some eating happening. tino excitedly greeted me, and introduced me to some of his friends. i then spotted a man i knew from the municipality, who at this point was slightly (at-least) inebriated, and he invited me to dance. there was no one else dancing, but to not be a party-pooper i obliged. and it was quite a funny site, as the rest of the room laughed that the gringa dancing with the already intoxicated man, or they were just laughing because a gringa was dancing. this could very well be the case.

after sitting in a circle for a while, we headed outside where there was a live band who covered all the hits. tino was kind enough to dance with me a number of times, especially to “lejos de ti,” my and everyone else’s favorite song. all the chairs were still in a circle, but more people were dancing during all the songs. at this point, another heavily inebriated man asked me to dance, and throughout the entire song repeatedly asked my name and my age. half-way through, i stopped listening to what he was asking and just repeated my name and my age over-and-over again.

the stage and banner.

peruvians know how to party and this one went until 5am. seriously. top this futbol party america.

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09/09/2012
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happenings, trial and error

poco a poco.

you know, little by little the community is recognizing that i am here to stay and more readily approaching me. though, every time i walk through the park, all the mototaxis still ask me if i need a ride to the museum. but now as i spend more time in the park, many more people and kids are approaching me and asking me questions. as i do this, i am making more and more important connections in the community.

however, today, as i was walking down the street an old man excitedly shouted at me, “GRIIIIIIIIINGAAAAA!!!!” needless to say, i could have done without the additional attention, but it was cute…only because he was old.

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09/09/2012
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túcume, vaso de leche

vaso de leche.

thursday, while walking around and exploring new parts of the community i haven’t wandered through yet, i walked by the “desarollo humano” (“human development”) building. i then resolved to return tomorrow, when it was open to learn about it. when i arrived this morning, the women were surprised to see me. and as it turns out, the office building is for tucume’s headquarters for vaso de leche.

vaso de leche is a program that works at providing families in poverty, nutritious food for the kids as well as provide a few other services. this one in particular provides a free daycare service for mom’s who need to work. the head office coordinates with the 55 vaso de leche posts in tucume, with each post serving more than 100 children (all under the age of 9). as i was learning more about it, i learned that most mothers are “young mothers,” still in their adolescence, and as their family grows, they continue in the program. on average, the mothers are 18-20 years old, with many more that are 16, and some mothers as young as 14.

this connection, was a great insight into opportunity in my community, as well as a way to see how i can help the organization possibly expand or provide additional services for it’s young mothers (i.e. nutritional or work-skill developing classes).

the kids w/ their snacks.

the head of the organization in my community, karla, was anxious to start introducing me to a post. she has offered to take me to all of the caserios to see the posts out there as well. once i have bike, it will be much easier to visit the caserios as well. today, we went to a local one in tucume, where they provided a free afternoon snack (a porridge-type drink and a roll w/ butter) to kids. all-in-all about 15 kids showed up.

these two kids were too cute. the one of the right was wearing mismatching shoes (both being meant for the right foot), and the two had not had a bath in at least a week…but still cute nonetheless.

 

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09/09/2012
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community diagnostic

diagnostica.

students working on their surveys.

this week, i was able to start working on my diagnostic with the students. the school is letting me into all of their 28 turorias to do my diagnostic. i prepared a VERY thorough survey for the students to get a better understanding of them, as well as have some fairly-concrete statistics to present to my community. if time permits during the class, i also have them perform a FODA (SWOT) analysis of their community and school, a seasonal calendar or a community map.

there is a total of 6 colegios in my community, with only one public one. i have decided to focus my diagnostic on the one public school, as it includes kids from all over the district, and there are about 120 kids in each grade level, which can provide pretty solid numbers.

i hope to do similar sessions with different demographics in my community: the municipality, important community leaders i have met and their associates, vaso de leche and the health post.

here’s to hoping the pace keeps up!

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09/09/2012
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home, trial and error, Uncategorized

renovations.

i wish i had better before pictures, but alas, i do have during the process pictures. the bottom-half of my cement walls were chipping away. literally, chipping away. i am not sure why, i am just assuming age, possible mold or rot. anyways, my host mom had the neighbor across the street come over and get it fixed. it was quite fascinating, honestly.

he chipped the wall in for about ¾”.

the remnants of my wall.

he then went away filling it all in. this is my room covered with cement.

we moved most of my furniture out of my room, except for my bed, which was also covered in cement dust and there are few spackles here and there on my bed. my mom is great and i came home from work and she had already cleaned my sheets for me and hung them to dry.

the final product. i didn’t know about the changes and had just finished painting my room, which i will now to redo the bottom-half next week. but i guess this is a sneak peek of the colors.

 

 

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08/09/2012
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adventure, el señor de sipan, lambayeque, mummies, pyramids, zaña

el señor de sipan.

my friend/socio doris, invited me to her house on sunday. i made the voyage to chiclayo and then her family and i piled into their van and drove out to sipan for the day. now, mind you, that was my first time in a privately owned vehicle in more than 3 months. it was quite a different feeling to not be sharing my transport with 20 other people.

in sipan, we visited the ancient burial grounds of moche leaders. sipan is famous for it’s untouched tombs and mummies. it was awesome. and really, it was such a great day to spend with my socio and her family.

the museum.

 

everyone looking at the mummy of el señor de sipan.

doris (third from the left) and her family.

 

on our way to see the burial grounds.

the excavation site.

inside the excavation.

a tomb.

pottery in abundance was found in the tombs.

the view from sipan.

while traveling back, we drove through a lot of smaller sites in between. doris’ brother-in-law made an even extra point to drive through zaña for me. there they have a number of historic spanish colonial church ruins as well. the amazing part, is that they were normally on people’s land, and so now they just have crops planted around the ruins.

the citizens of the town built their own footbridge to cross the river, since this was not going to be provided by the government.

the entrance to the footbridge.

we then had a VERY late lunch at probably one of the nicest places i have been to since being in peru. it almost reminded me a bit of a country club. the seating was outside, there was a fancy/modern interior, a very appealing pool, and even a cute wombat!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the scenery.

TOO MUCH CUTENESS.

 

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08/09/2012
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church, happiness, karaoke, musica

karaoke.

that’s it. i am fully and unequivocally convinced that karaoke builds culturally bridges that would not be there otherwise. for my branch’s friday night activity last week, we did karaoke. given that i am sole non-peruvian in my branch, and gringa to top that, they downloaded Justin beiber’s “baby, baby” for me to sing.

though, i have heard this song plenty of times in the past, it was the first time i ever sang it aloud, let along by myself at karaoke. the good news is that peruvians love the beib’s, so everyone sang along to the chorus with me…including the branch president. and even through i was far from getting the other parts of the song right, i figured, “who cares? i am the only one who knows what i am saying and that i am getting it all wrong anyways…”

this evening also included my favorite moment thus far in peru. my branch building is in a town called, mochumi, about 5.5k from my town to be exact. it ended at 10, which was a little too late for me to be taking the combi by myself and walking alone on the streets. a member offered to give me a ride home on his mototaxi. as we drove back with the stars clearly lit above us and the blue moon, and i was accompanied by the branch president, three new lady friends, and their kids. the owner of the moto and his wife riding next to him in the front. there was an overwhelming feeling of joy. of untainted, euphoric happiness. it left me in tears.

08/09/2012
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chiclayo, lambayeque, musica

grupo 5.

talk about boy band mania. these guys are a household name in lambayeque. they were filming a music video, and as a part of it, they were giving a free live show. myself and a group of other volunteers attended, since it was the same day as the federal holiday. it was great to meet new volunteers, as well as reconnect with my fellow 19’ers.

anyways, the music was terrific, and the men in the group were…well…ridiculous. there was so many swooshing hips and gyrating bodies, it was a little too much. however, there was one guy in the group that looked like the peruvian usher.

seriously. you can’t deny it.

the other thing i didn’t get was that the group is called “grupo 5,” but there are 7 guys in the group. anyways, just a mere observation, that will never be explained.

steven, kyle and ali enjoying some grupo 5.

 

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