my family acquired a baby pig. samia has since decided to start calling him puppy wuppy…which she got from my favorite childhood stuffed animal…it’s not traumatic or anything…
perusing peru…
…through the eyes of a peace corps volunteer.
Category Archives: happenings
getting around town.
i have been putting the bicycle peace corps sent me to good use as i have started to expand my work to the caserios as well.
this road does lead to somewhere…eventually…
just a quick 45 minute bike ride later and you arrive at one of the secondarias in the caserios.
just another bike ride out in the campo.
iñikuk.
the women’s group i work with sponsored the annual iñikuk pageant a few weeks ago. it was really quite spectacular, and the girls spent weeks preparing and learning mochika.
the prizes included a partial and full scholarship for the first place and runner-up. also these artisan made sashes and braid extensions for the ladies.
blanca and i are the obvious winners….
there was a pretty big crowd…we only started an 1 1/2 hours late to wait for people to arrive…
the ladies doing their introductions. the girls wore traditional dresses and used gords as props.
surprise! i was brought on stage to share some palabras…eeek…
the girls also had a talent section where most shared traditional dances from peru from various cultures and time periods.
there was also a clothing part of the competition. the girls were garments from different regions throughout peru.
i love this picture. it captures the girl learning she won. such cutiepatooties.
since it started late…the competition didn’t even finish until after midnight…obviously, some people are not used to staying out this late…
also. this picture is honorable mention. i feel like it captures what happens anytime i let peruvians or really anyone else use my camera. instead of having a picture taken of me i am normally getting captured trying to explain my camera…ha.
going the distance.
today i would like to note two things that made my heart melt while talking with m:
- that if m were here, he would accompany me to my twilight premiere that i am attending solo for the first time in the entire series.
- knowing the name of a bun that i am wanting to do for christmas.
now if that doesn’t make your heart melt, and make the distance disappear, then i don’t know what will. five weeks and counting…!!!
ps. for those of you who are pondering about the idea of pc and ld relationships. try it. it’s always worth a try. and with technology and the world being so small these days it’s quite feasible. if you have any questions about this, please feel free to contact me about this.
this just happened (twice).
well really the other happened earlier this week. i have been slaving away on this community diagnostic, and i feel like i have returned to finals week in college so many years ago as i try to work through this ridiculous document (which is really helpful and i am glad that the peace corps requires us to do one…so for all you future pcvs out there…i did not give it a bad rep…okay? OKAY?). ANYWAYS, twice this week i have had magical fruit surprise me at my door:
so i had literally just gotten out of the shower, but who would not be this excited about being greeted with a HUGE chunk of watermelon?!?!?!
and then…fast forward to today…as in 5 minutes ago…
MANGOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
needless to say, i needed to take a writing break to share the literal FRUITS of labor…or someone else’s labor in town…but the reward of my labor…and to think that earlier today i was thinking what a travesty that i have been so busy that i have almost gone a full week without mangoes…#tucumeproblems…
and this is just to show progress of my mango face…
(non)unsolved mystery.
lately at night i have been hearing these squeaky noises outside of my window and all throughout tucume. up until last night, i had assumed that it was either rats/mice or bats, and i was hopping for the latter. tonight i finally saw what was creating all the noise. apparently, at night, owls take tucume by storm.
let’s talk about s-e-x.
the needed materials for a great sex ed charla.
as mentioned previously, i was asked to work on some sex ed charlas for the colegio. since i lack in the needed spanish language vocabulary for this, i had doris, my socia at the health post, take care of the technical stuff and i did all the dinamicas.
our icebreaker dinamica was a hit. new favorite icebreaker FOUND.
doris taking it away! such a super star.
in regards to the dianamicas i helped with changing up the feel for the charla, so it wasn’t just her lecturing about the consequences of adolescent pregnancy. we put questions in balloons and would pass the balloons around the classroom like hot potato and when the music stopped the kids had to pop the balloon and ask the question that was inside the balloon. this worked especially well since the kids are incredibly shy…relatively speaking.
i have had a number of people mention in the interviews that i had with them that adolescent pregnancy is a problem in tucume. in my surveys, it’s become quite apparent that the kids have little to no understanding of contraceptives, but have also been (thankfully) honest in stating that if the opportunity presented itself they would engage in sexual relations with their partner. honestly, the latter-half isn’t a surprise, as it is just as common in the us. it’s the preventative part that worries me. we didn’t have much time with the kids, but it was really important to me that we talk about contraceptives and to really think about the responsibility that comes with sexual activity. after the serious part of my soap box, i did what every teenager dreams of (but actually fears), i held a condom race!
really the point behind the race is to give an opportunity to all the students to hold, handle and practice using a condom (with a banana of course). this way the idea of using a condom is not a foreign idea…plus condoms are free at the health post…FREE. anyways, it’s also great because it relieves the pressure of practicing this in a room full of people as well.
giving some tips on how to apply the condom.
all-in-all, we taught this lesson to all the 4th years in secondaria…more than 125 students in total. hopefully it will help some students in their decision making process in regards to not only their sexual health but also their future.
one of the aulas.
it came and went.
you guys. i know. i know. it’s been a while. i’m sorry. i wish i could say it was all because i was busy, which is probably about ¾ true, however it is also finding the time and patience to upload photos.
overall life is good. and busy. but good. i have been spending most of my free time working on my community diagnostic, which will ultimately be a very lengthy document about my community, which i will have written in spanish. needless to say, it takes up most of my energy and time. especially processing and analyzing all of my surveys. translation: a lot of tedious paperwork.
but here are some pictures and anecdotes about what filled my time when i wasn’t working on my diagnostic:
despedida!
i attended peru 16’s despedida (a goodbye party for peru 16…to put into context i am peru 19). it was a lot of fun. we all learned the gangnam style dance and went around chiclayo and performed the dance.
practicing for our big debut.
dancing in the parque principal in the center of town in font of a crowd of people.
we went all around town and ended up getting a huge crowd and following. after, we went to ICPNA (the english school that is partnered with the us embassy) and there was a break dancing group that performed for us. after, we all got pizza, hung out at the hostel and then went out to a club and just danced the night away and into the morning. i have never been a going out person, but i have since found it to be quite a release of mounted up energy from being in site all the time.
hanging out at the hostel.
artesanos de tucume.
my friend, cinthia, asked me to help her take pictures of her and the other artisan’s products at the museum in lambayeque. their products are quite impressive and all made by hand and out of organic material. the materials are dyed using local, natural, organic resources and the women turn the organic cotton into the thread that is used to make the products. they are an incredible group of women who take their craft very seriously and i am so excited to be working with them and to learn more about all that they hope to achieve while i am here and help them realize their potential. i also helped them set up a facebook page, check it out here!!!!! (also, don’t forget to like it!) i am also grateful for the friendship of cinthia.
just an example of their style/color palette of their products.
an example of the silver working as well. also all made by hand.
getting around town.
i finally got it. i have my own cruiser…a mountain bike that is. and to that end i am grateful. it has cut my travel time to the museum in half, and it is nice to get out and about and see more of the rural parts of tucume. i had my site visit today with my supervisors and people repeatedly made commentary about me and my bike…i guess they now know that i make good use of it…
my family got a kick out of me, my bike, my helmet and my camelback. samia seriously took an entire photo shoot of me on my bike.
speaking of samia and bicycles…in true bff form, as soon as i started speeding around town on my bike, samia decided that she wanted to start using her bike as well. i carried her bike all the way across town and to the outskirts to the grifo to use their air machine to fill her bike’s tires. then i carried it all the way home. we then spent the afternoon at the park, where i taught her to ride the bike. there is still training wheels, as i am teaching her how to pedal (she likes to pedal forward once and then pedal backwards a lot).
watch out tucume!
bike mongers.
halloweeenie.
fact, my second favorite holiday is halloween. luckily, my friend, casey, had a halloween parade and party planned with the youth leadership group in his site, patapo. i dressed as cat, and made ears out of my hair and drew a nose and whiskers on my face. little did i realize that this would ultimately result in me drawing cat nose and whiskers on 30+ teenage girls’ faces as well. needless to say, i am professional cat whisker drawer….don’t worry, i will be adding that to my resume.
all of the volunteers with the mayor of patapo.
stephen and i on the back of mototaxi. riding through town shouting happy halloween to everyone.
michelle and i at the halloween party. i was so exhausted that i am pretty sure i was passed out shortly after this photo was taken.
all of the volunteers at the party!
the day after.
the day following halloween was dio de los muertos for peru, which meant a federal holiday here. this meant that most of our families ventured to the cemeteries to pay homage to their lost loved ones. this also meant that none of us had anything really going on in our sites. so we decided to go up to changoyape and visit stephen and tina.
changoyape is right on the border of cajamarca and kind of where the sierra region begins. stephen gave us the grand tour and it was just breathtakingly beautiful there.
the volunteers visiting changoyape.
while we were getting the grand tour, i found an odd spiky looking fruit growing. so i did what any normal person would do, which was to break it open. i still couldn’t decide if it was edible or not, so i did the next most sensible thing: i walked over to the old man pulling guava from his tree and asked him if i could eat the fruit in my hands. while he was explaining that i should not eat the new found fruit, i realized that he was pulling guava for his pet monkey. let me repeat that for you: his pet MONKEY. needless to say i won the award for best find of the day.
dreams coming true!
oh you know. best friends just hanging out and being natural, you know.
before we left, the old man was super kind and took a long reed pole and pulled down some guava for us to take on the road with us.
starting to enjoy the fruits of our labor
for those of you who have never actually seen real guava. it looks like a giant pea pod, and you stick the giant seeds in your mouth, but you only eat the white part. then you spit the seeds, which are a little bigger than the size of a quarter.
tippy taps.
i am still going on caserio visits with vaso de leche, but now i am trying to work with the ladies on making tippy taps for their homes. water is not readily accessible and with tippy taps it will help them save and have accessible clean water to wash their hands. these are made by using household items that they already have lying around. a HUGE challenge with this is getting the ladies to bring their plastic bottles. but the good news is that plenty of cute kids still come!
mujeres jovenes.
i just love my mujeres jovenes. thursday nights we have our activity nights. every month has a value theme and the first week of every month we work on a personal progress experience within that value, and the other weeks we do fun activities. i only have 3 young women, but i hope that it slowly expands. right now the three that i do have are so incredible and have such amazing testimonies.
for the month of november, we are concentrating on knowledge. for last week’s activity, i brought a bag full of ingredients for a dessert. i turned it into an object lesson for the importance of directions and following those directions and seeking out knowledge and direction as well. then we made homemade whipped cream with strawberries. it was their first time to try whipped cream. it was an obvious success.
enjoying the fruits of their labor (budunching!)…
loving it!
as soon as their mom’s heard i was teaching them a dessert to make, they were quick to join as well. it’s true, food really is the way to the heart here.
honorable mentions.
not mentioned above but of note, is that i have been working on getting my world map realized for the past 6 weeks. it has been an exhausting going to the muni daily to follow-up in order to get things done. last monday ended with a frustrated erin in the park crying (a normal peace corps response…honest), and an equally frustrating one that i am currently addressing.
i have been working on the iñikuk pageant that is going on tonight. this has included multiple meetings and rehearsals for the girls.
i had my site visit today, and overall it was just fine. i just need to keep on trucking on with my diagnostic. guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
i have started to work with the museum, and i am working on an environment club for this summer.
i am busy in the colegio doing charlas. i have done a number on self-esteem, including a fun activity with balloons. apparently it was a hit with the kids, as i was asked to come back to do the sex ed charlas. (read the sex ed charla to learn more on the outcome of this).
i voted. and then watched election night with all of the volunteers. it was a lot of fun and involved a lot chips and guacamole.
i think this more or less brings us up to date. hopefully i can keep up with this. whew. glad we made it through that one.
late(leigh).
oh hey! long time no see! sorry for the hiatus, especially after such a bleak one. i suppose i should update you on the activities that i have been up to. though up until last week, my work had been slow, i was still going out daily and working on charlas and encuestas with the ladies at vaso de leche.
doing my diagnostic in cruz blanca.
more encuestas being completed!
i also went to mocupe to help another volunteer with an event she planned with her school: an english singing competition! it was great. all the kids had planned a song to sing as a group and even choreographed and coordinated matching clothes. it made for a delightful afternoon. after which, i stopped into to chiclayo for some dinner on my way back, where i learned that there is a place that serves RIBS! obviously, it didn’t beat texas, but it will hold me over when i have my real red meat cravings.
phil, hallie and i served as the judges panel. too much pressure if you ask me. who wants to crush a child’s dream?
these girls were performing “wake me up when september ends” by green day. they even had a group of fans with balloons and posters.
my weekends here somehow always end up being way busier than the weekdays, which goes to show that peace corps really is a 24/7 job. a couple of weekends ago i was invited to a friend’s grandfather’s 80th birthday out in la ramada, which is a caserio in the sierra for salas. it was my first time to the sierra since being in peru, and it was breathtakingly beautiful. peruvians are marathoners of parties. this party started at 7:30 am and was still happening when we left at 8:30 pm. needless to say, that by the end of the day of eating, hiking, dehydrating, dancing and speaking only in spanish all day…i was exhausted!
la ramada, salas.
we went on a couple of hikes through miguel’s family’s land, which led us to a couple of rivers. while hiking through the lush, dense land we happened upon a lot of beautiful flowers, fruits and more.
this is the plant that they use to create the reed islands and kayaks.
banana tree.
this is when i felt like i was on an episode of LOST.
while hiking i tried a lemon dulce from its tree. it looked just like a lemon and smelled like one too. i thought my friend was trying to prank me, but instead it was just pure deliciousness. it seriously tasted like lemonade in whole-fruit form.
a view from one of points of the river we hiked to.
an ancient moche lunar calendar we happened upon while hiking.
the birthday boy. eighty years young!
this guy was great. he would come up say every single word he knew in english to me in one breath. i then realized what i sounded like when i spoke spanish. but really, he was just a hoot.
i also helped with a nationwide fundraiser in my town, called teleton, where my town had a 2-day event in the central park. the schools all performed different traditional dances, with some kids performing some solo numbers. it was quite a treat! and quite an eight-hour work day!
a performance and our booth in front of the muni.
i also took a much needed break and met up with some friends for some karaoke. if you know me, this is the best form of self-therapy (after bowling of course) for me, and turns out the place we went to had tons of country! i am not just talking about pop-country, but i mean REAL country (george strait, waylon jennings)!!!! needless to say, my fellow texan and i performed plenty of country songs with a number of “yee-haw’s!” to boot. we were far from the karaoke bars favorite customers, but at least we felt a little piece of home here in peru.
as i had hoped/predicted the eighth week was much busier. the huelga with the schools lifted, so now the kids are in school six days a week to make up for the lost time. my socia at the health post is back from her month-long vacation and people in my town are finally starting to recognize the only gringa in town. i forgot to have my camera with me to prove my activities, but i was back with partnering with the health post on charlas. i did a fun self-esteem one with balloons. it was a hit.
i also did a mini intro-session/charla of the peace corps to some business-owner friends. i have started to do some initial stages of planning with the police. i met with an artisan and plan on working with her artisan group and help them establish an internet presence and other marketing ideas. i went to an event out in morrope the other day with another volunteer, terrace. we hitched a ride back from the caserios in an enormous dump truck. while the fellow was out of the truck trying to take care of something, we replaced his cumbia cd with a cd that terrace made of herself singing environmental verses in spanish to the tunes of hit american pop songs. all i can say, is that he will be delightfully surprised when he next turns on his stereo. i mailed my early-voting ballot in. i have been eating CHIPS AND SALSA…chips and salsa, people!!!! i attended another wedding last night and took my place as the token gringa dancing the night away with all the old men.
of course there are still plenty of challenges to come: por ejemplo, my socia at the health post is going on an indefinite huelga starting this wednesday. but i will take a week full of positives for now.
you win some. you lose some.
win: your combi driver gave you curbside service to the serpost today. saving you 2 soles (1.50 if you feel like haggling) in moto taxi fair.
lose: the same combi driver (who is missing half of his teeth) creepily harassing you, so you lie about not having a phone and just write down his number. oh, he also charges you S/. 1.50 instead of just S/. 1.
win: little kid at the park excitedly screams, “GRIIIIIINGGGGAAAAAAA.” because it’s cute win a 3-year-old does it.
lose: 2 creepy older men sitting in the same park, wave their hands in the air and are cat-calling you.
win: there are also plenty of moto taxis in your town to drive you where ever your heart desires.
lose: because you are white, they all think you want to go to the museum. seriously, one month of walking by them everyday and they are still asking, “museo! gringa, museo?” seriously, you don’t recognize me yet? there are not a lot gringas in town.
it’s good that all of these things make me laugh. both the good and the bad. because otherwise, it wouldn’t be peace corps.
perusing peru... 