inbuschinperu

Holy Moses, it's the selva!

2011-12-09T07:31:00.000-06:00

The humidity hits you like a load of bricks the second you step onto the tarmac. That giddy “not in Kansas anymore” feeling has been doing flips in your stomach for a while now, as you gaze out the plane window at the endless milk-chocolate river snaking through vegetation so bright and green and thick it looks like a Hollywood set, interrupted only by the silent, winged silhouette passing over it all. The scale of things is dizzying, and when you later look at a map and realize just how minute Peru’s claim to the Amazon basin really is, it blows your mind. Of course uncontacted tribes and cures for diseases and mutant snakes are found out there under the endless canopy – how could they not be?

But the humidity brings it all home. You’ve landed in an entirely different place.

Iquitos lies in the heart of the Peruvian jungle, some 600 miles up and over the Andes from Lima, and is reportedly the largest city in the world not reachable by road. Which is just about the most enticing city slogan I’ve ever heard, and I’m ashamed it took me three years to finally make it here. But make it I had, and it would turn out to be the trip of a lifetime. (See pics by clicking on the link at right – “selva selva selva.”)

Fellow third-year volunteers Eric and Mark and I grabbed our bags and squeezed into an open-air mototaxi to a backpacker’s hostel, then headed out into the afternoon heat to get to know the city. The humidity was incredible. Actually, none of us was sure whether it was really all that exceptional, or if it was just that we were so used to the dry heat of the coast (of Piura, Trujillo, and Ica, respectively). Either way, it felt surprisingly refreshing, and somehow it reminded us all equally of home (San Diego, Hawaii, and Ohio, respectively). It felt like the beach – or Lake Erie in August – should be right around the corner. But instead it was the river.

Walking around Iquitos you feel as if you’ve just stepped back in time about 50 years. It is quintessentially jungle. Starting with the airport’s abandoned jetliners and helicopters scattered about and overtaken by vines and mosses, it’s like you just stepped into LOST. It’s a city that has knows better than to fight the effects of year-round precipitation; everywhere you look paint peels from towering colonial balconies and towers, many strangled by various forms of jungle creep. Public transportation, namely the colorful wood-paneled buses, is completely open to the air. People are everywhere, tourists and locals alike, but what most struck all of us was the porch culture. Virtually every home had its door propped open and a family member or two lounging outside, simply taking in the afternoon and hoping for a breeze. Things here moved at a categorically slow pace, and it felt right. Exotic, often stunning charapas (selva women) strolled in the plazas. We grabbed some street food – rice juanes and green banana-based tacacho with fried pork cecina – on the boardwalk overlooking the World’s Largest River, and called it a day.

Early the next morning, our group having grown to eight volunteers, we set off in station wagons for the two-hour drive to the village of Nauta. Two-story palm trees, fields of yucca, and thatched-roof huts whizzed by, the thick air dripping off everything. In Nauta, a little port town on a large tributary, we cruised through the market for some fruit. The street food was hard to resist: more juanes and some kind of blood sausage that particularly interested Eric. (At this point a small debate arose among the three of us – if two are called juanes, then what do you call a single one…un juane? Un juanes? Un juan? Interestingly, none of the vendors seemed able to clear this up for us.) After meeting our guide Wilson, we slid down the steep mud bank to the long canoe-shaped peque peque boat with outboard motor that would take us to our home for the next few days. This turned out to be another couple hours away: downriver to the Amazon, then cruising with the current a ways until heading up a creek where the water changed abruptly from mocha to almost black, swirling in liquid pinwheels.

The bungalows were perfect (rustic but bug-proof), the food was great, and the whole trip was exceptionally organized. Over the next three days we would cruise the nearby rivers and lakes watching for birds, sloths, and howler monkeys; observe Wilson’s many failed attempts and then ultimate success at snatching a baby alligator out of a mosquito-infested swamp well after dark by the light of headlamps; fish for piranhas with flimsy cane poles and chunks of raw fish – and then eat them; watch pink river dolphins and try unsuccessful to catch up with them (the current was deceptively strong and exhausting to swim against); and hike through the jungle, learning about everything from how to use crushed termites as bug repellent, to the history of rubber extraction in this part of the Amazon, to natural remedies for Malaria (and Cancer, supposedly), to which vines hold water and are safe to drink from – the Uña de Gato is OK, the rest are poisonous. I was attacked by red fire ants, whose bite was so deeply painful I could only laugh in agony. All in all, it was phenomenal – a little plug here for Jungle Wolf Expeditions: highly recommended, and cheap! Wilson’s knowledge was endless – midway through an explanation of the life cycle of leafcutter ants, he peered up through the canopy and said “11:30?” Right on the money.

We also took a trip to Wilson’s home village, one tributary upriver. We had little interaction with the locals, except for the woman at the local bar serving room-temperature and slightly-sweet local Amazonia beer, but were all impressed by the homes: wood-paneled with shaggy roofs, each one set on eight-foot stilts. The dwellings sat well-above the river, but Wilson explained that starting in January the water levels would rise almost overnight as rainwater flooded in. The dusty soccer pitch where kids played would be fishing grounds just a few months later. This was obviously not the first time Wilson had brought clients to his village, and women in cheap flip-flops and track shorts sat in the shade, local handicrafts spread out all around. Observing some beautiful macaw and monkey designs on a hollowed-out gourd in various shades of deep amber and brown, I asked what was used as pigment. I had expected to hear about some ancient nut or root extract. Instead, the reply was “betun.” “Betun??” I repeated, incredulous, “as in shoe polish??” “Sí!” replied the woman, her broad smile as toothless as it was sincere. “How many will you take?” As tempted as I was to walk away from the jungle with this specimen of cultural syncretism, I realized that the fragile piece would never survive my backpack. Later I thought about the Vargas Llosa character Mascarita who becomes obsessed with the defense of the remote tribes of the selva peruana against an encroaching Western society. But Mascarita is conflicted and radical, and these women seemed delighted to be able to sell things to us gringos. Certainly it generated some income next to their subsistence yucca-farming and fishing. Still, I wished I hadn’t even asked.

Speaking of fishing, probably what I enjoyed most was just being near a river again after so many months in parched Ica. I had brought along my fly fishing gear, which hasn’t gotten nearly the use I was hoping for in my years in Peru, and spent every free minute casting off the dock or paddling out to different spots in one of the camp’s carved-out canoes. It took me a couple days to get things figured out, and after trying all the weird, colorful stuff in my flybox, I finally had success with what is probably the most common mayfly pattern in American fishing. Nothing big, but the variety was interesting – a handful of piranhas, a few others I didn’t recognize, and one with a maroon tail and big scales that they told me was called the San Pedro (after St. Peter, the fisherman). The locals don’t eat it; whether out of reverence or lack of taste was not made clear.

We arrived back in Iquitos with an afternoon to kill. Eric, Mark, and I hit the market for a three sol (one dollar) bowl of carachama “armored” catfish soup and stocked up on supplies for our next adventure: Huck Finn-ing the Amazon.

The evening brought a meeting at a local restaurant catering to the already-sunburned and air-conditioning starved foreign contingent. The place was buzzing with pasty Americans and Euros, and wiry, brown locals alike (of course, most of the buzzing was coming from the far more numerous former group, epitomized by a half-drunk man in his fifties wearing an Ivy League hat and bestowing upon us novices unsolicited advice that always seemed to start with, “Now lemme tell ya somethin’ about this river, mmm-k…”). We found the last unoccupied table upstairs, and ordered cold beers. It was soon discovered that squeezed in to our left was the winning team from nine of the last eleven races – four stoic charapas with short, compact bodies and distinctly indigenous features. Team captain Cesar was missing an eye, only adding to their mystique.

Soon Gringo Linda, the race organizer, began to speak. And things quickly spiraled out of control. Frazzled and shouting over the constant din, she and a local organizer pointed out hazy details of the course map projected on a wall. But it all happened too fast, and anyway it was revealed that the uncharacteristically wet spring this year had raised water levels to the point that the course would look nothing like what we saw on the wall. The gist of it was “Just follow the locals!” Otherwise she hardly acknowledged the roughly one-quarter of those present who didn’t speak English, and when she did venture into Spanish her thick Mississippi accent made us all cringe. Exclamations like “You on ya own, sistah!” would have been amusing had they not been hurled in response to legitimate concerns like “What do we do about bathrooms at the campsites?” (Incidentally, “You on ya own!” became the much-overused mantra on our raft over the next several days – in addition, of course, to the Randy Savage classic “Oooohhhh Yeahhh!!”) We were instructed to sign safety waivers, and I had to explain to the understandably concerned Peruvians next to us what all these English words meant and why their signatures and ID numbers were required. Although disturbed by the oversight, I was happy to gain some favor with the folks who were obviously going to be much more help on the river than the hoarse gringa standing on the table up front. We all left half-disconcerted and half-little-kid-on-Christmas-morning-eager about what the next four days would bring.

Day One: Build a Raft

All 150 or so participants in the 2011 Great River Amazon Raft Race met up early in one of the city’s many plazas, and soon several school busses were packed, roofs towering with a precarious arrangement of duffel bags, paddles, plastic chairs, and miscellaneous supplies. The caravan set out for Nauta, retracing our route from days before. I sat down next to two Americans – career Marines, as it turned out. They had participated the year before, and related horror stories of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and race disqualifications. We popped a flat about halfway there, but no one was fazed, especially when a conveniently located tacacho stand was discovered. In Nauta we were received by what appeared to be the whole town; high schoolers performed a traditional dance, a band played, and local leaders gave speeches celebrating our visit and upcoming journey down the river that defines their entire existence, that is at once their livelihood, their means of transportation, and their sewerage system. To us it was simply an adventure of epic proportions. (This welcome birthed Overplayed Phrase of the Week #2: “Holy Moses!” – in a thick northern Euro accent – which, according to the Danish race sponsor, would be the only way to describe our feelings upon arriving some 180 Km. downriver four days later.) We scattered to pick up last minute supplies (nylon webbing, 3” nails, and kilos of bananas and oranges, in my team’s case), and boarded assorted boats waiting to ferry us across the river to our first site.

Balsa logs were everywhere, half-length telephone poles scattered like hundreds of toothpicks. There was supposed to be some kind of method to the ensuing madness. Not surprisingly that went right out the window. We all dove in, seeking the best eight logs we could find for our respective crafts – what wasn’t so clear was what separated the good logs from bad. We had heard, and intuition told us, that the straighter and lighter the logs, the better. My team worked with Eric and Mark’s team to round up sixteen decent-looking logs to split between us, and we got to work. The idea is to sort of sharpen the ends for streamlining purposes, and then lash your logs side-by-side into something seaworthy. Some teams opted for a catamaran design, with two four-log platforms joined by cross beams and open in the middle, but we followed the example of the nearby local teams and went with the simpler eight-across model. We had a couple machetes on hand, but it did not take long to realize that the far easier and more effective option would be to pay one of the ubiquitous chainsaw-toting locals to do it for us. We also enlisted a friendly kid to help lash our logs into something that looked vaguely paddle-able. All day there had been much collaborating among teams and observing of other rafts, and by evening it was clear that Eric’s and mine were two of the smallest and sparsest of the gringo crafts – everyone else had used bigger logs, and many had erected canopy structures for shade. Most had comfortable-looking padded seats of some kind; ours had plastic kiddie chairs with the legs sawed off. Undeterred, we christened ours the Slim Jim, inspired both by its form and the fact that we would be racing in memory of pro wrestler and longtime face of the Slim Jim brand, Macho Man Randy Savage, RIP 2011 (see “Oooohhhh Yeahhh!!” above).

A small storm had rolled in around 4PM, and the rain would continue on and off all night. Lunch hadn’t shown up until dinnertime, and then dinner not really at all, which didn’t bode well for the “included” meals during three days on a wide-open river. We were crammed twelve-deep into a leaky and stuffy disaster relief tent meant for ten, and the bugs were relentless. Somehow, I slept like a rock.

Day Two: Gentlemen, Start your Engines!

People were moving quickly in the morning, and early. Some of the local teams, it appeared, had actually worked through the night. The Slim Jim, of course, lay just as we had left it. There was an ant-like procession taking place, back and forth from the fields behind the camp area to do one’s “business.” I joined it, and crossed paths with the owner of the terreno; we chatted, and then there was an uncomfortable pause as we both looked out at the gringos squatting all over his rice paddies and bean fields, overt contamination in which I was complicit. (I later wrote a letter and had my Peace Corps friends sign it, and have been invited to the race committee’s office in Lima to talk further about improving the sanitation situation for next year.)

A meager breakfast of cheese sandwiches and watery oatmeal was distributed, and then we launched. Immediately, my heart sank. The Slim Jim, it appeared, did not float. We didn’t sink either, but just kind-of hovered a few inches below the surface. But we were obviously one of the few; just about everyone else sat comfortable above water, dry and ready to go. The immediate diagnosis was that we had chosen logs that were simply too small to support our weight. Of course the Peruvians could get away with this – they were half our size. (It was some consolation that Eric’s crew was in the same boat, no pun intended.) We lost a few unattached items like the makeshift fishing pole we had rigged up, and there was some nervous argument among our crew (made up of myself and three first-year volunteers from the north, one of whom, Dan, is my site replacement in Chalaco. All good dudes.) I sincerely believed our adventure was ending before it had even begun. But the initial terror subsided as we remained semi-bouyant, and suddenly a bullhorn sounded and we were off: a colorful flotilla of home country flags and plastic tarps punctuating the muted browns and greys of the morning river.

The locals and a handful of more experienced crews took off ahead, establishing a wide gap in the field. We started towards the back, butts underwater and still shaky on our precarious craft, but pretty soon we got into the swing of things and began passing teams one by one. Our perspective from days before on the plane had been reversed – the impenetrable jungle now rose up on either side of a river that was no longer a delicate thread curling through the green, but a slow-moving and immense living body. No longer passive, distant observers, now we were part of it all. The current proved quite difficult to follow, and probably the best advice we received all week came from (go figure) the local teams: follow the crap. By this they didn’t mean literal crap, but rather the refuse – both natural and man-made – that floated where the current was strongest. To us the phenomenon of floating alongside apparently stationary logs, only to look up at the shore whizzing by, was exhilarating. Mark Twain might have smiled and shaken his head at us in sympathy – what a bunch of rookies. We had been told that it would be tempting to continually seek the faster current near the shore as the Amazon meandered to and fro, and indeed it was hard to keep a straight course and resist crossing the river at every turn. Teams took different approaches, and within a few hours rafts were spread out all over the place, some taking what quickly turned out to be the wrong course. This proved to be an accidental advantage to starting behind the pack, and Team Macho Man was able to avoid many of the same mistakes.

That first morning had been mercifully overcast, and by noon half the sky was a deep, heavy gray. To see the rain coming across the river in sheets was unforgettable; when it hit us it was absolutely glorious. There was no lightning or even whitecaps to cause alarm, just a steady, calming rain on the biggest river we’d ever seen. Nearby rafts disappeared into the mist, and some had the misfortune of finding themselves trapped in a powerful eddy on the far side of a big bend. Of course the rain soaked us, but we were soaked already. We laughed, and there was probably an elated whoop or two. Half an hour later we emerged from the storm, came around a bend, and saw rafts lining the shore and a large tent overlooking the river. There was an overwhelming sense of relief: we had survived Day One, and it was only 2PM. We hoisted the Slim Jim ashore, collected our saturated belongings, and humped it uphill to bask in the afternoon sun.

We were put up in a small, quaint jungle village, with the same stilted houses we had seen days before. Most of us rafters spread out on the floor of the local school, with others in the same tents as on Night One. The locals were friendly if a little stunned, and women sold much-sought fried chicken, delicious boiled peanuts, and beer. Around dusk the promised dinner was announced; when I finally got to the front of the line to pick up styrofoam plates of pasta and chicken for my team, the chicken had temporarily run out. I convinced the ladies to give us double pasta and call it even – we were much more interested in quantity than quality. Later that evening Peru played Paraguay in its first 2014 World Cup qualifier; a couple dozen or so volunteers and other rafters joined a large group of locals crammed into the only place in town with cable, a private home whose stuffy, sweltering front room was also a bar. Here were three degrees of peruanos: the real ones, the tourists who were only temporary Peruvians, and us volunteers who tend to think of ourselves as somewhere in-between. But true to the unifying power of The World’s Game, all cheered like mad for the home team. Peru played the best soccer I’d seen in my three years here, and emerged victorious over a perennial South American powerhouse. The end of a great day.

Day Three: The Long Haul

Our third day began like the previous: early and with a lot of commotion. But then things hit a wall, as the local participants had called a meeting with the race organizers to complain about an apparently unannounced change in prize money distribution. None of us extranjeros was entirely sure what the issue was, but it had something to do with entry fees being raised this year, while not correlating correctly with the prize money distributed across the different race categories: Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed. You have to realize that while we were all there to have a good time and some Amazonian adventure, these people are in it to win it. Every day on the river is a day lost in the fields, which translates directly to money forfeited. In any case, there were serious accusations of huge chunks of missing cash, and things got heated. I believe at least one local team pulled out at that point. Linda, for her part, was completely absent. In fact just before the meeting I sighted her sitting down by the rafts shaking her head in silent dejection, sipping on a poorly-concealed beer. At 9AM.

Finally rafts were launched, hours after the planned-on early start to what was supposed to be the longest day. The start was staggered this time, with the slowest finishers from Day One leaving first, followed by a middle group, and finally the fastest teams. Apparently, we had finished just in time to qualify for the “fast” category, and since we were the least organized of our group, ended up being the last raft off the shore. The rest of our group was out of sight before we knew it, but again the upside was that we had a whole river of slower rafts to follow, and pass. By mid-morning we were cruising well, having worked out the kinks of the previous day and bringing only the essentials (water, sunscreen, snacks), no longer so worried about the Slim Jim succumbing to the chocolatey depths. Pink river dolphins breached from time to time, and exotic birds chirped in the trees, keeping us entertained. So did what would become an endless series of “Dude, if you could pick 10…” (insert category, everything from “rivers” to “songs by The Band” to “women”). We waved in reply to locals on the banks at each settlement we passed, who yelled and whistled generally unintelligible messages of encouragement. The sun was strong, and breaks were frequent. Sunscreen was applied and re-applied. Water was chugged. Spare t-shirts and bandanas were dunked, draped around heads. We rowed and rowed and rowed. We stopped to stretch, and swim. The day dragged on, the heat intensifying by the hour.

An organizer boat came by once or twice, leaving some snacks once but no real lunch. At 2PM they told us we still had “Oh, a couple hours” to go. The sun was high now, and just frying everything it touched. Soon after, we emerged around a wide bend into what can only be described as a lake: the river had grown to probably a mile or more wide, and the only signs of life were tiny specks in the distance downriver, too far to tell which way they had gone. We opted for the left-hand bank, and pushed on. At some point I had told the guys about the “Power 20’s” we would take when I rowed in college, meaning twenty hard, well-coordinated strokes to keep the crew focused. Early on one of us would spontaneously lead one every hour or so, but by now we had all succumbed to what my old coach would have called “lillydipping.” We were exhausted, maybe a little delirious, and pretty much sick of each-other. Finally, as the sun sank behind the western bank, we sighted the supply boat, a big three-deck river cruiser, moored ahead. As the day before, a sense of relief flooded over us all. But a massive storm was brewing, and lighting was crashing as we pulled in. We were shocked to hear that we were boat number sixteen to arrive. This meant that there were some twenty or more rafts still on the water – many of them miles behind. Guardacostas rescue motorboats were being organized, but it struck us all that this effort was happening far too late. We would later hear stories of rafts stranded in the dark on sandbars, flashing their cameras to signal the rescuers. Fortunately, all made it in, albeit it soaked, exhausted, and more than a little shaken up.

We camped out at the local school, again. Here at least there were bathrooms, but no showers. I took advantage of the rain to rinse off in the runoff from the school’s gutter. Finally on night three we received what I would call the first real meal on the part of the organizing committee, and afterwards some of us took a stroll around town, barrigas llenas y corazones contentos (bellies full and hearts happy). One beer each was enough to knock us all out.

Day Four: The Final Poosh

Stiff backs, raw hands, and some incredible sunburns greeted us on the morning of our last day, but adrenaline was pumping for the final push into Iquitos. The day started heavy and gray, although the locals assured us it wouldn’t rain (they would prove correct). The teams rescued the night before had been disqualified, so the field was reduced roughly by half, and we were now part of the slower group. We departed in high spirits, alongside rafts of fellow volunteers. This time we were one of the lead rafts, but fortunately didn’t take any wrong turns. About an hour in, the leading local teams passed us, and it was a sight to behold: simple crafts manned by sinewy crews working together in short, rapid, perfect strokes like well-oiled jungle machines. Only a minute or two separated the two leading teams, and we realized that for all our effort, we were basically on a pleasure cruise compared to what these guys were doing. As I mentioned, two very different ways of seeing the race: good, clean jungle fun, or food on the table. The lead women’s raft passed a couple hours later, as did Eric’s team (slyly named “Three Coxswain Julie” – sound it out), who would end up finishing first among the foreign teams.

By 2PM we could see the sun glinting off the sheet metal roofs of the Iquitos port area. All week there had been buzz about the notoriously difficult final half kilometer, because the city lies on the outside of a bend so wide it actually creates a back-current that must be fought. Like most teams, we approached from the opposite bank, and had meant to cross as early as possible. As it turned out, we could have crossed earlier and avoided about 45 minutes of excruciating work to get into the Iquitos marina. There were ten-minute spans where we would be paddling like maniacs just to stay in place. Our “Power 20” mentality bounced back with a vengeance, and we killed ourselves. But the occasional glance behind reminded us that we were in a fairly enviable position; many rafts had missed the turn completely and were swept far downriver, and a few ended up having to be rescued. Finally we made it into the calmer bay, and an overwhelming stench welcomed us; we were paddling through Iquitos’ sewerage.

Ten minutes later we cruised into the dock area to the cheers of rafters and lots of locals. High-fives and bear hugs ensued. We had survived The World’s Longest Raft Race. It was time for a beer.

peace corps as cultural exchange: a rebuttal

2011-11-15T12:48:00.000-06:00

Recently a friend of mine, fellow third-year volunteer Jonathan Welle, wrote an essay titled “Peace Corps is Cultural Exchange, not Development” (read it here). While I agree that there are areas where Peace Corps as an institution could improve, I’d like to explain why I strongly disagree with his proposal. For the purposes of this essay, international development is defined as any activity that explicitly raises the standard of living or quality of life of the world’s poor.

First, though, I’d like to underline that any discussion of Peace Corps by people who have lived it is inherently subjective – my opinions are based on my own experiences as a Water and Sanitation volunteer in two regions of Peru from 2008-2011. This may seem obvious, but it’s important to remember that my experience is progressively narrowed by each of those factors. I also came in with good language skills, and was sent to a site with great local support and plenty of work to do – three more significant variables. Here I will do my best to look at the bigger picture, but the truth is it is virtually impossible to categorize the “Peace Corps experience.” The way the institution is set up allows its volunteers a freedom unparalleled amongst development organizations (a group to which, as you might guess, I do ascribe it), and this means that each one gains a unique perspective on Peace Corps, international development, and even America’s role in the world. And not only is this by design, but in fact successful Peace Corps projects happen precisely due to – not in spite of – the adaptability of the program.

Jonathan and I diverge right off the bat, in regards to our views on the training volunteers receive upon arrival in-country. In my experience, new volunteers receive excellent technical, cultural, and language training which thoroughly prepares them for their work – and lives – in site. Our technical training draws on materials and experiences from both our own volunteers and other organizations on the cutting edge of development work; in addition to more traditional strategies, innovative approaches like behavior change studies and incentives-based programs are gaining support within Peace Corps. And in my years here I’ve seen marked improvement in terms of quality opportunities for field-based, hands-on trainings and interactions with current volunteers in the field.

So the argument that pre-service training is somehow inadequate comes to me as a surprise. At least for WatSan projects, three months is more than enough time to learn the basics of the water systems, latrines, solid waste management procedures, and the structure of the institutions we are to work with for two years. This stuff is not rocket science. You may be thinking that that’s all well and good, but grassroots development is about much more than understanding cement-to-sand ratios (or how to write a business plan, or plan a sexual health program, or teach an English class, and so on). But nothing I have seen tells me that a graduate degree in international development would dramatically improve a volunteer’s success.

(One area where Jonathan and I do agree is in regards to language training. This is arguably the most critical factor in a volunteer’s success, and incoming volunteers need to be screened and placed according to language skills. You hear stories of Spanish speakers being sent to the Pacific islands, while Peru receives volunteers every year who have to start from scratch. This is pointless and counterproductive. How seriously would you take someone who showed up in town and started talking to you about washing your hands, but could never remember if the word was “soap” or “soup”? Of course this is not the volunteers’ fault, but it’s a huge detriment to their productivity. I agree that it is difficult to produce quantifiable development results in cases where volunteers struggle to communicate. In posts where more arcane languages are spoken, Peace Corps could pay for pre-deployment language courses. This would not be cheap, but there are many ways we could cut costs on the ground to compensate. Why program directors have to stay in luxury hotels during site visits, for example, is beyond me.)

Secondly, the concern that volunteers are underequipped in site is exaggerated. The notion that luxuries like a personal vehicle or specialized computer software or 24 hour internet or a flush toilet somehow determine the success of a development worker is untrue. Furthermore, easy-to-access discretionary funding breeds dependency in local communities and inefficiency, opportunism and even corruption in development organizations; Peace Corps is smart to be more stringent. Of course this limits our scope, but valuing scale over impact is exactly what many development organizations do wrong.

What the development “industry” lacks is sustainability, and Peace Corps explicitly fills the void by providing a sustained community presence and an intimate understanding of local conditions and needs. Jonathan argues that you can’t change the world in 500 days, and he’s right. He’s also right to point out that the work of a volunteer (and anyone working in this field) requires a healthy dose of humility. But (in Peru at least) the plan is never to send a single volunteer to a site for two years and then pack up and move on. The individual’s time will come to an end, yes. But successful volunteers in supportive communities are replaced. And replaced again. And again. New volunteers conduct follow-up activities and monitor previous projects, thus helping to ensure long term sustainability. It is this very presence and continuity that distinguishes Peace Corps and allows its volunteers to be successful development workers.

Finally, the harshest of Jonathan’s critiques (and he is certainly not the first to voice it) is the claim that volunteers’ ability to do real development work is compromised by Peace Corps’ secondary goals of cultural exchange. I agree that our goals are oddly phrased – Goal One refers to meeting a host country’s need for “trained men and women,” while Goals Two and Three describe the creation of a mutual cultural understanding. As noted, it is often unclear to both those within and outside the organization whether these are ranked according to importance, whether they are all to be allocated equal time and effort, or whether each one is there for the taking or not-taking in an a-la-carte type of arrangement. But to simply throw out anything approaching development in our goals is the wrong idea.

Rather, Peace Corps should clarify its mission by prioritizing sustainable, results-based social and economic development (and by not shying away from the D word), while retaining the secondary goal of cultural exchange. In practice, things largely already function this way; each program has a detailed project plan providing yearly statistical benchmarks for progress on specific objectives and indicators. Measuring program aggregates and not per-volunteer productivity makes sense – it reflects the fact that needs vary drastically from one community to the next, and allows volunteers to address those needs appropriately. Further, there is nothing in our project plans regarding cultural exchange, nor should there be. Those things are largely collateral; they happen through your work, whether you like it or not.

Importantly, existing programs are far from guaranteed – WatSan/Peru will be assessed at its five-year mark in 2013, and future plans will be made according to demonstrated achievements. Peace Corps funding is slashed left and right these days, and low-performing programs (or even entire posts) can be cut. While there is an argument that an independently-supported Peace Corps could be more efficient, it’s not as if Congress blindly throws money at us every year, the way that donors might to an NGO that boasts thousands of latrines constructed but with little or no follow-up. In fact, Peace Corps is anything but immune to the increasing public scrutiny of US government programs.

We do development work. Not all of our projects are successful. Neither are those of anyone else operating in this space. Peace Corps, as any other development organization, benefits greatly from frequent and frank evaluation, and subsequent adaptation to new conditions and changing times. But the idea that serious community development and cultural exchange are mutually exclusive goals is wrong; on the contrary, the cultural element is a huge part of what makes us good at what we do. Peace Corps may very well need some institutional tweaking, as suggested. But it should be with an eye toward establishing its place as a leader in sustainable international development, not by throwing in the towel.

make dat money

2011-09-09T17:26:00.002-05:00

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a conversation I had with a 12-year-old boy about a year ago. It was early afternoon and drizzling, and I was setting up for a family educational session on eco-bathroom usage and maintenance as part of my project in the mountain village of Naranjo. As usual, a handful of barefoot local kids were scampering in and out of the meeting house, alternately kicking a tattered soccer ball and marveling at my laptop and projector. By this point they were no longer completely terrified of me, and I was making small talk with one of them. I asked him what he liked to study, and advised him to work hard in school. His earnest response: “Yeah, so I can grow up and make lots of money someday!”

I had to laugh. But the more I thought about it, I realized that to dismiss this as a “kids say the darndest things” kind of comment would be remiss – rather, it was indicative of an increasingly recognized facet of development work: financial incentives. This seems obvious; increasing per-capita income constitutes the very essence of development, right? Well, sort of. The truth is it’s something that for most of the 70-odd year history of modern development work, has been completely absent from most charitable and aid-related forays into the global South. This kid had touched on the heart of a debate that has been raging for decades among economists and sociologists and other “-ists” in the universities and think tanks of North America and Europe – Which is the correct way to go about this whole thing, by targeting social indicators or by promoting economic growth?

It’s a chicken-or-the-egg type question, and it says a lot about the way one sees the world. On the conservative – or right – side, generally, economic growth has been the name of the game. The theory, espoused perhaps most famously by the former World Bank economist William Easterly (The White Man’s Burden), is that open markets and free trade pave the way toward economic prosperity, which then trickles down to social effects like improved healthcare and nutrition, access to safe water, better educational opportunities, and even more transparent and effective governance. On the other, more liberal side, the approach has been to target these indicators through direct interventions, and wait for the economy to catch up as each generation becomes smarter and healthier. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs has been the face of this camp since the publishing of The End of Poverty in 2005. Obviously this is a very watered-down version – nothing in life, and certainly not how to solve the world’s biggest problem, is this simple. But the line in the sand has been drawn for years, with the pro-growth crowd berating the “handout” approach employed by the left, and the NGO/government-aid camp bemoaning the millions or billions left behind by the global marketplace with no way to get a foot on the first rung of Sachs’ proverbial economic ladder.

I think both approaches are valuable and necessary depending on the context. I also don’t think they are at all mutually exclusive (Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus’ success with social businesses, which seek both economic and social returns, is a great example). On the one hand, Peace Corps identifies more strongly with the “aid” side of things, and I think most of us are doing really important work that otherwise would not get done. I also believe, as I’ve mentioned here before, that Peace Corps is an industry leader in sustainability. At the same time, like many of my peers I’ve gained a far more nuanced understanding of development work during my years here than I ever could have by reading 100 of the books I mention above. And like many, I now maintain a healthy skepticism of do-gooder initiatives in the developing world that lack rigorous planning and long-term sustainability.

International NGOs and official government aid programs frequently do incredible things that continually lift millions out of poverty. However, we also can’t ignore the fact that something like half of all water handpumps installed by aid groups in the last 20 years in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed, that literally millions upon millions of latrines sit unused or have become really nice houses for chickens, or that mass condom distribution hasn’t stopped the spread of HIV. Indeed, if I’ve learned one thing in my three years here, it’s this: what we in the developed world assume to be universal values and priorities are very often not so, once we step outside of our own little bubble.

In other words, health as an incentive is not always enough. This is why we see filthy shantytowns of plywood and sheet metal and plastic tarps, where every second house has a satellite dish balanced precariously on the roof despite the fact that kids are defecating in the street below it. I can talk about the health benefits of chlorine-treated water or a proper diet until I’m blue in the face, but unless people buy into it, I will have wasted my breath. I think it’s not a coincidence that the same places where health-focused interventions fail in Peru are also the places where grandmothers and seventh graders alike talk about the existential perils of consuming cold beverages, or about the snake-venom-neutralizing powers of eating human feces (yes, you read that right). We’re not talking about the remote jungle where entire tribes don’t believe in the existence of germs, but these certainly are places where the science we take for granted is not the automatic explanation for things. And so the question becomes, How do we get people to buy into this stuff?

I would wager that incentives – financial or otherwise, and be they carrots or sticks – aren’t a bad strategy. In my time here I’ve observed all kinds of incentive-driven self-starters who are addressing social issues not because they’re necessarily humanitarians, but because it pays. A few examples:

Everywhere I’ve been in Peru solid waste management is lacking if not glaringly absent. Trash is burned, mostly, with huge health implications for anyone around. Unfortunately entire poor families often can be found picking through piles of garbage to scavenge what they can. Of course this is a dangerous and humiliating way to go through life. But you have to marvel at their resourcefulness. Every day I see little ladies carrying huge sacks of plastic bottles and aluminum cans that they sell to middle men, who ship them off to recycling plants in major cities. I know their compensation is pitifully low. But there’s no question that they’re making more than the other little lady who begs on the street corner all day. And in fact, as municipalities finally get around to dealing with the trash problem, often these informal recyclers are hired as paid municipal workers to continue doing what they do – all because they themselves identified an economic opportunity and took some initiative.

A similar, if less dramatic example involves the families that sell cow manure to their neighbors in the outlying neighborhoods of the city of Ica. Up in the mountains, cow manure was all over the place, but its use in agriculture was limited. Here on the coast, probably because of the elevated cost of living, poorer families can’t always afford synthetic fertilizers, and so the cow manure becomes a scarce – and therefore valuable – resource. One can imagine demand for organic food spiking in Peru within the next decade as the growing middle class “matures,” and all the sudden these small farmers – both those who sell the manure and who utilize it to enrich their soils – will be ahead of the game.

A third instance has to do with the men and women who benefit indirectly from humanitarian projects – the guys who make the chimneys for our improved cook stoves, or who mold the special toilet seats for eco-bathrooms, or especially the locals who get paid to help build these things, and who then have a unique skill they can employ in future profitable ventures. None of these people are a charity; rather they getting the best of both worlds, doing well (ok, doing well enough) by doing good.

The economists at MIT’s Jameel Poverty Action Lab study this stuff for a living. They apply rigorous scientific analyses to humanitarian interventions to find out what’s working, what isn’t, and most important, why not. And among their findings they confirm what Easterly calls the most basic principle of economics: People respond to incentives. I recently read about a J-PAL study in a rural district of India, for example, where they awarded prizes to families who got their children vaccinated (for free) against deadly but preventable diseases. Sure enough, significantly more of these families followed through, as compared to the control group of families that received only free shots. Of course, this raises the ethical question of whether anyone has the moral right to tell anyone else what to do, and much less whether an outsider ought to be awarding prizes for what s/he calls correct behavior. But as the article points out, we all do this, and we do it all the time. We give kids stars for not crapping on the floor, or for brushing their teeth, and they learn to do these things on their own – even if they’re oblivious to the health benefits. On the flipside, so many of us smoke, or drink, or engage in risky sexual behavior despite our total awareness of the health risks involved. So why shouldn’t we expect poor people to seek rewards, and to be susceptible to choosing pleasure above health benefits? We’re all human, after all.

I am not saying we should just pay poor people to make healthy choices like some kind of patronizing Pavlovian experiment. But as a volunteer I’ve found even myself unconsciously opting toward incentivizing approaches, because I’ve found that it’s a great way to get the ball rolling. In Chalaco we awarded water-specific tool kits to the best performing village committees in the district as part of a year-long water management campaign, and in general it worked; those that won have continued to prioritize safe water in their communities, with no expectation of further prizes. I awarded cheap prizes to kids who collected the most cans or bottles or old batteries as part of a school recycling campaign – and some of them brought in more than they could carry. I have to believe that they will grow up thinking twice about pitching a bottle out the window. And going back to my college years, my friends and I who started a local chapter of the Student Global AIDS Campaign used strategies like apple juice chugging contests to get people to come by our table and donate or write a letter to their congressperson. The point, obviously, was not to promote apple juice – it was to get someone to stop and talk to us who otherwise would have walked right by (these ideas were at least partially inspired by initiatives like the ProductRED campaign). We realized that the do-gooders were money in the bank; we wanted to spread things to a much wider population. In the same way, the people in a village who quickly pick up on the benefits of proper handwashing are not the ones we’re worried about – they’re already with us. It’s the other 75% who continue to spread e.coli every time they shake a hand that we want to bring into the circle. Incentives can help do that.

In terms of negative incentives, development workers all over have found that shame is an incredibly poignant cultural element. I’ve read case studies showing that families opted to build and use their latrines or flush toilets not because they really cared about the health benefits, but rather because the most respected figures in their villages had done so, and to not follow suit had become quite shameful. It was all about status.

To sum up with a nice little cliché, I think it all comes back to whether you give a man a fish or teach him to fish for himself. The more I see, and the more I think about and read about this stuff, I can’t help but come to the conclusion not just that it’s better to teach him, but also that if he needs a little push unrelated to fishing to help make it part of his life in order to reap the benefits for his family for years to come, so be it.

The left may call it condescending and the right may call him lazy, but if one of the two approaches were truly a stand-alone panacea, wouldn’t we have agreed on it by now?

hoops

2011-07-01T18:58:00.006-05:00

I do not reside in a basketball powerhouse. In fact, outside of a handful of female superstars (namely in volleyball, surfing, and boxing), Peru is pretty awful at sports. Even the national soccer squad regularly finishes among the worst in Latin America, and we’re talking about a county where every boy, from the shoeless slum-dweller to the diplomat’s son, grows up playing the game. So needless to say, I didn’t expect to find much basketball when I moved down from the mountains to Ica several months ago, much less any decent players. But as it turns out, there is a group of guys that plays several times a week here, and shockingly, the level of play is not far off from what you’d find in your average pickup game in most of America.

Basketball in Peru can be pretty hilarious. And intense. And maddeningly frustrating. My father, who has played on public courts from the Bronx to Chicago to Sao Paulo, recently commented that “Basketball can be, and is, a window into life all over the world.” And I think he’s right; I’d bet most foreigners in Peru would have no objections about changing the first word of this paragraph to “Life.”

Here in Ica it’s a broad mix of ages and styles. There are the guys in their teens and early 20s who have grown up watching Kobe and Lebron, and try to model their moves on theirs – most notably, that jump stop-plus-two-steps-when-driving-the-lane garbage that the NBA says is OK, but which is just a blatant travel on a playground. (I can’t believe no one here ever calls that, especially the way fouls work in these parts – more on that in a minute). At the other end of the creative and athletic spectrum reside the guys in their 60s with their knees and ankles all wrapped up, and who, like old-timers anywhere, can hobble around for 10 minutes and then with no warning hoist an ugly but successful 15-footer. And then there are the chubby middle-aged guys who show up on Saturdays to sweat out the night before and make room for more beer that afternoon.

This smorgasbord underlines the most revealing culture-via-hoops axiom I’ve observed: the way these guys (some decades apart) interact with each-other, you’d think they all went to high school together. Both on and off the court, everyone is on the same playing field. In the States a lone 15 year old kid would rarely be found playing in a real game with guys twice or four times his age, some of them literally twice his size. (Unless he was some kind of athletic freak or blessed with prodigious natural talent, neither of which applies to the kids I’m referencing.) But on the courts here, it’s completely normal and accepted. The adolescents are extended no special treatment, either physically or verbally. Censorship is nonexistent; grown men hurtle stupefying combinations of words at skinny kids, and vice-versa. And then everyone laughs about it, no matter who wins. You might wonder what sort of youth culture this is fostering in Peru, but honestly, it just works. In a communal society where you live at home until marriage – and often stay there afterwards with your spouse and have babies – children are exposed to adult things very early. They grow up a little faster, maybe, but they also learn how to handle themselves, both on and off the court.

That said, I do have my qualms. In Peru you don’t actually have to make contact to have a foul called on you. In the States we talk about “touch” fouls; here, you literally just have to drive the lane with a defender anywhere in a 5-foot radius and you can get away with calling a foul. And they do. And it annoys the bejesus out of me. I don’t have any cultural revelation to draw in this case; I think it’s just the way ball is played here for whatever reason. I haven’t succumbed to it yet, although in the interest of winning games I probably should (if you can’t beat ‘em I guess you just gotta join ‘em.) But God, is it frustrating to have every single possession interrupted – sometimes several times in a row – by make-believe fouls.

Right up there with fouls on the list of things I can’t stand about basketball in Peru is the constant bickering. Sometimes the imaginary fouls are contested by the alleged offender, which can spark a minutes-long argument escalating from two guys yelling at each-other to nine (I abstain), and which then fizzles into one side’s grudging, expletive-heavy surrender. The other issue that causes frequent small riots is the score. Believe it or not, as much as everyone argues about things, no one ever seems able to keep track of who’s winning. Initially I tried, calling out the count after every bucket, and so on. But I’ve realized that my opinion is basically ignored when things get heated, so I’ve pretty much given up. The irony is that it works out pretty well from my perspective, because often the score will actually be something like 9-6, going to eleven, and you have to start over and say it’s 4-4 because no one really remembers (either that or an extended argument is resolved by calling it even.) I’m just there to play ball, and the longer the games the better time I have, even if it takes sitting through some childish bickering every so often.

This apparent unconcern for basic math does translate to a social phenomenon in my mind: the near absence of accounting by shopkeepers. I have a theory that a great many Peruvian shopkeepers are not motivated by profits, but rather open bodegas because it’s a way of keeping up with the Joneses, or just because they’re bored and want something to do. Either of these would explain A) why there are 5 stores selling the exact same stuff on every street, and B) (more to the point) their almost total disregard for expenses, revenues, or other such principles that volunteers from the Peace Corps small business development program frequently cite. To me this lack of both creativity and interest in economics is fundamentally linked to the extremely low quality of public education here (again, even in the context of Latin America, Peru is one of the worst), and also that the way things are taught in schools very rarely encourages any kind of critical thinking. The teacher writes on the board, the students copy it, and then are tested on the material. Discussion, debate, and even question-asking are not engendered as in most of the developed world, but rather flatly discouraged. This, combined with the laid-back nature of Peruvian society as a whole, creates an environment where filling out a balance sheet is not always the top priority. These may be issues for another day, but suffice it to say I’m not all that surprised that numbers don’t matter much on the basketball court, either.

Cynicism aside, though, it has been completely awesome to get to play ball here. You almost forget about the pure, raw joy of athletic competition when your workouts consist of solo running and pushups for three years straight, but fortunately I’ve seen the light. I also have a bunch of new friends close to my age, which is something else you tend to lack in the Peace Corps. They’re a good group of dudes; funny as hell, and you’ve gotta respect guys who get up at 6 or 7 every morning for work, but never think twice about playing past midnight if there’s a good game. The only tough part is that they are the one subset of Peruvian society I’ve come across who I consistently have trouble understanding. Their collective repertoire of slang is seemingly bottomless, they speak superfast, and they don’t use anything close to correct grammar. Someone starts telling a story, and before I know it they’re all laughing and I’m totally lost. It would be like coming to America as a Spanish speaker and trying to communicate with guys on the courts in Baltimore. (Minus the guns and drugs, but you get the idea.) But it’s definitely cool to be part of a group and feel included, even as an outsider. And if nothing else, I’m learning some new vocabulary.

Peace Corps today

2011-06-19T16:22:00.000-05:00

Below is a response I wrote several months ago to an article by Peter Hessler in The New Yorker (abstract at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/20/101220fa_fact_hessler). I would assume many of you have read it, but for the others, it traced the story of a former volunteer in Nepal who during his service raised a staggering amount of funding (particularly in the context of Peace Corps, which deliberately works with miniscule budgets by international development standards) to help bring a water system to the people of his village. He is now a major (although unofficial) advocate for Peace Corps on Capitol Hill, employing sometimes extreme techniques to get the ears of congressmen and women and convince them that good Peace Corps volunteers do is worth far more than the less-than $400 million a year currently budgeted. (One of my favorite lines from the article pointed out that US military bands are currently better-funded than PC – I mean, nothing against bands, but let’s be serious.)

So, I’m a big fan of what this guy - Rajeev Goyal - is doing because I’ve come to believe pretty strongly in what PC does, and I was delighted to read Hessler’s piece. But as noted below, I had an issue with the way PC was represented, and would like to hear what others think. In the end, they didn’t publish my letter, but in its place accepted a response by a former PC Country Director, whose words were also critical but dealt with a different issue: the difficulty of creating truly sustainable development projects when so much foreign capital is involved – a view I share and would say most PC folks I know do as well, and one that Rajeev himself ascribes to, as cited in a recent article the by Hessler about the Greg Mortenson scandal: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/04/greg-mortenson-peter-hessler.html.

In any case, I was a little bummed that my response didn’t make the magazine, but that far more experienced ex-Country Director would have had much more reason for indignation had my piece been published in place of his, so no harm done.

I will throw out the disclaimer that my opinion is based on my own, perhaps uncharacteristically productive experience as a Water & Sanitation volunteer in Perú, and I certainly acknowledge that every volunteer (both my colleagues here and elsewhere) has a different experience based on factors both internal to him or her and many that are external and completely out of his/her control. Nevertheless, I hate to see this organization that I’ve come to really believe in portrayed as something less than what it has been for me and for the local people I’ve worked with. In a world full of well-meaning NGOs and government programs that carelessly – however inadvertently – foster dependency on the part of already-marginalized populations, the way PC volunteers work within their communities to help empower locals to solve what they themselves identify as their most pressing health-related and economic needs is a model approach. I am not saying it’s always successful, far from it. But it’s the right idea. And I think that needs to be better communicated to people who still think of PC volunteers as whimsical, idealistic kids hanging around in hammocks for a couple years and patting themselves on the back for all the good they’re doing.

Anyway, here is what I wrote, and I’d be interested in hearing anyone’s thoughts on it.

I write to applaud Peter Hessler‘s article “Village Voice” (December). As a current Peace Corps Volunteer, it is at once gratifying to see the organization get some press and fascinating to learn about what goes on behind closed doors (or in coffee shops) regarding our funding. Hats off to Rajeev for his noble efforts. However, I have to wonder why every time I read such an article, I find Peace Corps presented as something much less than the leading development agency that it is today. This is not to criticize Rajeev´s work in Namje, quite the opposite; he addressed the most urgent need there and greatly helped many, many families. But he was sent to his site to teach English, and had to teach himself along the way how to build a water system from scratch. In contrast to the early freewheeling days of the 60s and 70s, nowadays Peace Corps is a leading development agency that provides world-class technical training and resources to its volunteers in the field. Rather than being sent off to reinvent the wheel, my experience has been that our programs lay out clear, realistic goals, and volunteers are motivated and well-equipped to meet those goals with appropriate local resources. With “soft” power as vital to US foreign policy as it is today, it would be nice to see Peace Corps represented as the professional organization that it is.

pues, es diferente pe

2011-03-07T08:14:00.002-06:00

Hello again sportsfans, long time no blog. I’d like to offer a better excuse, but the truth is I’ve honestly just been completely, frantically busy for the past month or two. Since Christmas, I have: said goodbyes way too quickly in Chalaco; packed up and moved south to Pisco; worked there for a month and started to plan a solid waste management project with the municipality in my district; visited almost all 26 of the volunteers we have in the region, from Cañete to Nazca – a 300km stretch along the Panamerican highway; decided that Pisco wasn’t where I needed to be in order to be an effective and efficient Volunteer Leader; thusly moved to Ica, the regional capital an hour down the road; bought a bike and learned to navigate a new city full of crazy mototaxi drivers; found an interesting organization to work with twice a week; schmoozed with lots of important Peace Corps and host country officials at the US Ambassador’s house in Lima; appeared on local news channels three times in a week, promoting the PC worldwide 50th anniversary; and found, settled into, and furnished a small apartment from the ground on up. Most of that time I have been sweating profusely. I have gone through at least one bottle of sunscreen already. I have eaten grapes for the first time in over two years. I bought a fan, and it changed my life. I broke out my mosquito net for the first time ever, also a game-changer. I have re-learned how to squeeze myself into combis. I have eaten well over a hundred sandwiches made with avocado, cheese, and/or tuna. I bought a grill made out of an old computer, and grilled sausages bought at a supermarket that is half-Target, half-upscale suburban grocery megaplex. In fact, I live in the suburbs, with towering sand dunes on all sides. The place I’ve landed is about as different from where I spent the last two years as I could possibly imagine being in the same country. It’s hot. It’s a city. There are black people. People speak differently. People eat different things. The bread is different. The water is different. People grow different things. Things are called by different names. I do different things. It’s exciting, a little nerve-racking, and more than anything, just different. Get ready for a long one.

Where to begin…well, first I landed in Pisco, a few hours down the coast from Lima. It’s a port town, a dirty and fairly dangerous town, and was also the epicenter of the 2007 earthquake (which, apart from the destruction, didn’t help the already chaotic streets). Almost four years later, the earthquake still pervades everyday life. Everything big that has happened or is happening or is going to happen in Pisco is relative to the terremoto. It’s like time started over when the quake happened. Like Jesus. In Pisco you still see the destruction everywhere you look, but I will say that the town has come a long way since I saw it in 2008. Anyway, I lived in a district outside the city called Tupac Amaru (badass name, eh?). The town was a nice enough place, and captured perfectly what I consider the most significant difference in Peace Corps life from the sierra to here on the coast: by and large, life here is much more comfortable. I don’t mean to say one is better or more authentic than the other. Really, I don’t. But volunteers on the coast just have so much more at their disposal than those up in the mountains who come down to civilization once a month. Internet, restaurants, and more than anything, other volunteers. But what’s interesting is that the people living in these communities generally suffer from the same illnesses and lack the same basic services as those in tiny mountain villages, hours from the nearest highway. More than a few volunteers actually live right on the Panamerican highway. So while I had to deal with inconveniences like mudslides and the cow getting loose, they deal with dust devils and all night traffic and sketchy highway people outside their door.

Pisco is where I thought I was going to be for my third year of service, but soon realized that in order to effectively support our volunteers in the field, I needed to be in Ica. There were definite work possibilities in TA (in my new role I’m supposed to spend some 40% of my time with a partner organization, apart from my responsibilities to the volunteers in the region), and fortunately a fellow volunteer who needed a new site was able to come in and take over. The biggest wat-san need there was definitely a solid waste management plan – what really struck me (and this is also characteristic of most of the places I’ve seen down here) was that the potable water and basic sanitation coverage is excellent (somewhere around 90% of the population has access to both in the town in question), while the waste management is absolutely appalling by comparison (they drive around in a dump truck collecting trash, and then dump it all behind the big sand dune where it is then picked through by poor families – kids and all – and intermittently burned). Coming from the mountains with abundant spring water all around, I had sort-of assumed that the water situation here would be pretty dire (Ica is, after all, one of the driest places on earth in terms of annual precipitation). But overall I’ve encountered excellent water services, including chlorine treatment, which has been a real surprise. Of course, this belies the giant elephant in the room, which is that the Ica aquifer, as a direct result of the booming agro-export business here, is being depleted at a rate rivaling the world’s fastest. There are fundos, giant export farms, that they say use as much water in a day as the city of Ica. Some estimates say that within ten years life here will be drastically different because there simply will be no more groundwater (read more at
http://www.progressio.org.uk/sites/default/files/Drop-by-drop_Progressio_Sept-2010.pdf). So, if you live in the northern latitudes and enjoy asparagus and artichokes in February, maybe think twice next time at the supermarket.

Speaking of the agro business, you should see what they are able to coax out of the ground here in the middle of the desert: pretty much everything. Seriously, almost every kind of fruit I can think of is produced here (including some new ones), along with corn and other staple crops. One of the crazier ones is cochinilla, which is a tiny purple-ish bug that is harvested and crushed to make a dye. The thing is, it only lives on tuna cactus plants. So you have these massive fields of shrub-like cactus plants with giant ping-pong paddle arms that are only grown so that the little bugs can have somewhere to live, and then be removed from. But farmers who do well with it just haul in the dough on the stuff. And cactus is obviously easier to grow in the desert than, say, artichokes. There are towns for which garbanzo beans are so important that they are included in their district coat of arms and slogans. Fruit fly eradication seems to be the biggest social message around, along with HIV prevention (more to come on that), although I still don’t quite understand what fruit flies really do that is so bad. It’s big grape country, and I’ve been gaining a taste for pisco – I know of few liquors that are so smooth when they’re good, and burn so hard when they’re bad. But good pisco is really, really good. And like good tequila, that stuff is not for mixing into a yellowish sugary drink, it is for sipping. That said, nothing against Pisco Sours. They’re delicious, as are Chilcanos – pisco, Ginger Ale, and lime. But they tend to go down like lemonade…and then you can’t remember the rest of the night.

Lots of other new things. Let’s talk about mototaxis. People on the coast don’t walk anywhere, they pay a sol or two and take a little dirtbike-powered tricycle. Very weird to get used to when in Chalaco, I and everyone else would walk several hours a day to get from point A to point B in the green hills. Sometimes I’ll tell someone I’m walking to such-and-such a place, and they give me a look like I’m abso-friggin-lutely out of my gourd, like I just said I’m actually a woman, or something. The place might be literally 10 minutes away. Another quirk: watering the dirt. People in the States water their lawns. People in Ica water their dirt. Seriously, it’s like they’re watering plants or something in front of their houses, but there are never any plants. Just dirt. I guess it’s supposed to keep the dust down, but what it really does is waste a shit-ton of water. It’s one of those things whose absurdity is only compounded by the fact that virtually everyone does it, and therefore would be pretty much impossible to ever stop. Then again, there are smart people who argue that watering your lawn is just as ridiculous and unsustainable. And they are not incorrect. But think how you would respond to a massive “Don’t Take Care of Your Lawn” campaign.

People here generally speak faster and mumble more than up north. That makes for even more difficult community integration for a lot of volunteers. As expected, there is a whole slew of jerga or slang that varies from region to region, and I’m picking up a bit of southern-talk. A buddy of mine would no longer be my cumpa, but my causa or brother. And the token add-on that makes everything more complicated is not the di or diga of the north, but pues. Formally, pues means “well,” as in, “Well, let’s go to the park,” but here it is added on to just about every other word, and often shortened to just pe. "Vamos, pe!" for example. The music is pretty much the same all up and down the coast, cheesy wannabe latin hip-hop reggaeton and only slightly more tolerable cumbia dominating the airwaves. What is totally new to me is the Afro-Peruvian culture, which is not widespread but pretty much limited to a few pockets, like Chincha to the north. The music and dancing really stands out from everything else here; I hope to have more to report on this, because it’s a hell of a lot more interesting than anything else I’ve seen in a while.

As for food, the traditional dish here is carapulcra con sopa seca, a potato-based, spicy, smoky-flavored chicken stew served alongside noodles in a green basil and cilantro sauce. It’s good when done well, but nothing to write home about. As in anywhere, there are some more eccentric dishes, like patita con maní, patita being cow hoof boiled to the point of creating a gelatinous substance that you can cut into pieces, but then turns to sticky goo in your mouth. Maní is peanut, which I’m generally a big fan of, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re eating cow hoof jelly. Then again, mondonguito AKA cau-cau I do like, which is cow intestine chopped up over rice with peas and carrots. I would say I’m one of the few volunteers I know who genuinely likes it, although it has to be cooked just right so that it’s not too chewy. I do miss heavy, starchy sierra food like fried dough tortillas with fresh cheese, and also the ceviche and other amazing seafood on the north coast. But Ica city does have a pollería on practically every corner, where you can get a giant plate of ¼ baked chicken, fries and a salad for about 2 bucks. So things could be worse.

Socio-economically it’s a dynamic and perplexing place. The department of Ica is something like second in the country behind Lima in HIV incidence, and it could really explode in the coming years if the spread isn’t slowed. I couldn’t tell you what the rates are at the moment or how the prevention campaign is going on a macro scale, but virtually all volunteers down here work on HIV projects at some point in their two years, most through US government PEPFAR small grants. I heard an interesting perspective the other day from a local who seems to know his stuff: part of the reason the rates are so high here is that the explosion of mining in the mountains inland from Ica has created all this extra cash that people never had before. Perú is improving drastically in terms of women’s rights and gender roles and expectations, but it remains a machista culture, which includes high rates of infidelity. So if all the sudden you can pay for sex with someone who probably won’t run into your wife at the store, you just might do exactly that. And with the prostitution comes HIV. How much of it is due to this is certainly debatable, but it’s a compelling argument that underlines the nuances and complexities of life here. In that sense, I find myself commiserating with the sierra folk who immigrate to the coast (of whom there are a lot in Ica) and find themselves totally confused and overwhelmed by life here. I’ve found that I trust people way too much, which is logical in a little sierra town, but the city is a different animal. I keep buying fresh cheese and forgetting that I can’t just leave it out and have it not go bad like you can in the colder mountain climate. I was sick for a week because of that.

Back to the mining issue, the extractive industry is the main reason Peru boasts one of the highest growth rates in the region, and in few places is the contrast between the haves and have-nots starker than Asia, the all-consuming beachside behemoth conglomeration of summer homes, resorts, and shopping malls some 80km south of Lima. It’s like the Hamptons of Lima, completely over the top. So people are generally surprised to hear that we have three volunteers working right in the district of Asia. But all you have to do is cross the highway and walk for a few minutes and you’re in a very different world, where needs like basic sanitation remain unmet. It’s really amazing to not just talk vaguely about the “two Perus,” but actually find yourself in a place where the people who need the most can be found within spitting distance of the most profligate flaunters of new wealth in the whole country. Where shiny new imported SUVs spray dust on donkey carts and plywood houses. The gap is so shockingly extreme that you really need to be there to get a sense of it. Asia will continue to perplex and mesmerize me.

As for the mining itself, ironically it is a much presence here than it was up north, where I was frequently mistaken – and chided – for being a maldito minero. I’m working a couple days a week with GIZ, the German government Technical Cooperation group (part of what is like Germany’s USAID), helping construct eco-bathrooms like the ones I built in Chalaco in a town where GIZ is building seismic-resistant housing. The town is in the foothills leading up to the sierra central departments of Huancavelica and Ayacucho, where the country’s big mining operations are located. Every day giant trucks come through the town on the way to or from the mines, carrying copper or gold or zinc, or dozens of workers in hardhats. Having been fairly isolated for two years, it’s exciting for me suddenly to have landed in the place where all the action is in terms of Peru’s economic growth – the agro-export business, the mining, the consumer spending – and to be starting to understand the ways it all affects the locals here: the miners leaving their families to head up into the foreboding mountains, the farm laborers with old t-shirts wrapped around their heads and necks spraying insecticide all day in fields along the Panamerican, the indigenous beggers dressed for the mountains and looking so out of place at the beach, the ubiquitous shoeless kids waving Chiclets at restaurant-goers. Where I lived before, everyone was poor, but it wasn’t this urban brand of poverty where people are reduced to total wretchedness. It is so much more heartbreaking to see, and so much more overwhelming to try to do something about.

But then you have the issue of giving too much. There’s a word in Peruvian Spanish that I don’t think exists in English, asistencialismo. It means, roughly, “the gimme-gimme syndrome.” This happens when you take a poor place, throw a natural disaster or major civil unrest into the equation, and watch as the aid groups trickle in, set up shop, and generally end up giving people a whole bunch of stuff without asking much, if anything, of them. When this happens over years and decades (as it has in many communities around here, in response to landslides and crop under-productivity caused by El Niño, and then the 2007 earthquake), the people come to expect this kind of no-strings-attached support, and anything less becomes unacceptable. This inter-NGO competition and gift-giving is a major challenge for lots of the volunteers in the whole region here, and is something I never even had to consider up in Chalaco. Day-to-day life may be more comfortable as a volunteer on the coast, but in terms of work I had it pretty good up in the hills.

This is getting more than a little wordy, so I’ll cut it off here. Overall, I’m having a blast in my new role and new spot, especially getting out and visiting volunteers in the field and helping get projects started up and sustained. It’s a really solid group here, working on everything from improved cook stoves to water system expansions to solar energy pilot projects, and every day brings something new for me. The experience with GIZ has been great so far, and interesting to get more of the NGO-style approach to development, having only known the Peace Corps grassroots perspective until now. Plus I get to roll around in their air-conditioned Land Cruisers. Ica is haaaaahhhtt but it’s a cool town with the beach a couple hours away, and a good amount of tourists come through on their way to see the Nazca lines or to the nearby Huacachina oasis town. I live essentially in my own place, I cook for myself, I have a wireless connection, and I come and go as I please. I eat yogurt for breakfast. It’s pretty cushy Peace Corps living (Peace Corps Light, as some have called it), and it’s hard not to feel almost guilty about it sometimes. But it’s giving me the opportunity to do something different and support our work in a new – and important, I hope – way.

Lots going on in the next month, so stay tuned. Thanks for reading and I hope everyone is well Stateside and elsewhere. Buy local asparagus!

PS – link to the right to facebook pics from my new digs – “the dirty south”

closure

2011-01-27T10:47:00.009-06:00

I've been in my new site in Pisco, 4 hours south of Lima in the Sechura desert, for about a month. Needless to say, a total change: in climate, people, food, work responsibilities, and the list goes on. More to come on that soon. First I wanted to put up my last thoughts on my time in Chalaco. Many volunteers can't help but fall in love with their sites, the good and the bad, and realize it only after they leave. I am one of them. Fortunately I'm still in-country and plan to go back this year after the rainy season. Below are my last thoughts for a while on that wonderful place, as I transition into my new life here.

I´m gonna miss the sky in May. In other places you look up at the clouds; here, you are literally inside them. There are afternoons when the fog is so thick you can´t see 15 feet ahead of you. And then in an instant it clears and the landscape reemerges, the mist following the contours of the hills, rising and plunging and swirling so fast it doesn’t look real. In May, when the rains are finally letting up and the nights turn clear and chilly, there are some spectacular sunsets. And in Chalaco you don´t look out at the sunset like in other places – you´re actually part of it. I´m gonna miss walking home in the evening with the sunset all around like a bright, shifting blanket – pinks and oranges and colors that there aren´t any words for. When you look out to the west and see the setting sun reflected in the clouds, and then turn around and see the same colors there behind you, and to your left and right and in every direction patches of sun swirled with fog and baby blue, and the whole thing shifting and changing every second. You want to take a million pictures, but you know you could never do it justice.

I´m gonna miss laying on my back in front of our house with my two little brothers after dinner, watching the night sky overhead and counting shooting stars. One night towards the end of May, without any warning and after months of rain, the stars just come exploding out of the sky, and you can´t believe they could ever have brighter anywhere, ever before. I´m gonna miss telling them the stories of the constellations, of how Orion went hunting with his dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor, and he got bit by a scorpion, which is why Scorpio appears in the east just as Orion disappears in the west. Or how you can use the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper to find your way home if you get lost. And trying to explain that every one of the millions of stars is like the sun, with planets around it, and how it takes years for their light to reach us, and how the universe is so incredibly huge that we can´t even begin to comprehend it.

I´m gonna miss Beto, my host-father´s brother who lives next door and is easily my best friend here, though I don´t know if he realizes it. I´m gonna miss running in the clear, crisp mornings with him. The man runs like an antelope, and I just try to keep up. I´ve been running a few times a week since I got here almost two years ago, down the road a ways and then back. And Beto comes along once in a while when he doesn´t have to be out in the fields early, and just kicks my ass like he´s been training for it his whole life. I´m gonna miss watching “The High Chaparral” with him weekday nights at 7 while we eat dinner, and talking about the wild west, neither of us hiding the fact that we sincerely want to be cowboys when we grow up (he’s gotta be approaching 40 by now). I´m gonna miss the way he can appear to take nothing in life seriously, but underneath it all still be such a dead-serious person when you get right down to it: family and friends and that’s it. I´m gonna miss talking to him about nothing, and everything.

I´m gonna miss teaching guitar to my oldest host brother Nestor, playing the same four chords from “Wonderwall” by Oasis on repeat for what seems like hours on two slightly out-of-tune guitars, but not complaining because I remember how goddamn cool it is when you first start playing songs that you´ve heard on the radio and MTV. I´m gonna miss helping him with his English homework, knowing full well that he´ll trade it with his friends for other homework he can copy from them, and not objecting because I know that they´re doing way more than most of their peers, and at least they´re learning to figure out solutions to the nonsense life throws at them. Like English homework without being taught any real English.

I´m gonna miss lying to my host-parents about my brother Adrian´s whereabouts, and his aspirations to be a master chef, despite only knowing how to make banana smoothies and chocolate cake, and not seeing any reason to learn anything more. And betting with him on any sporting event that happens to be on TV, constantly owing each other soles – debts which inevitably become erased when you go double-or-nothing (“doble o nada!”) enough times in a row, and which we both know wouldn´t be paid anyway.

I´m gonna miss the little kids in town who shout “Mateo!” every time I walk past. Sometimes they´ll yell “Cuando?,” referring to when I´m going to teach them English again, but it´s been so long that they don´t even know what they´re asking about anymore. I´m gonna miss the little old lady – barefoot, hunched, smiling – who says “Tarde de Dios!” rather than “Buenas Tardes” like everyone else. I´m gonna miss the sweet “vainilla” bread that my friends the Burres make in their bakery, which they sell in bags of 10 for a sol (I´ve calculated I will have eaten over 3,000 of them by the time I leave.) I´m gonna miss the fruits and vegetables that come and go with the seasons: mangos, avocados, sweet corn, and more, all of which are around for only a month or two at a time. Eating that way makes you feel very connected to the land. I´m gonna miss drinking calentado, hot cañazo moonshine mixed with lemon and sugar and cinnamon, on cold nights with the guys sitting out in the street, talking about the weather or their kids or asking me for the millionth time what we drink in the States and how it compares. I´m gonna miss the feeling of calm I get when I´ve been at site for a month or more, and really settle into the pace of life here, where you aren´t rushed or anxious about not getting something done today, because if the rest of the town is just fine putting it off til tomorrow, why shouldn´t you be?

And God, I am going to miss Naranjo. That little mountain village has been my adoptive home during the last several months, and I probably spent as many nights there camped out in the Health Post as I did in my bed back in Chalaco. The people took me in, accepted me, took care of me, laughed with me, confided in me, offered me so much kindness that was exhausting at times. I’m gonna miss being invited to eat at every single house I visit, even if it’s 15 or more in a day. Pan-toasted wheat tortillas so thick they’re more like bagels than bread, tamales made with corn growing not ten yards from where you sit, and fresh cheese and over-sweetened coffee with almost every meal. I’m gonna miss the feeling that as I hike out here, it’s like I’m taking a step back in time about a hundred years, right onto the scene of a García Marquez novel, where the line between the real and the made-up really does blur. The wood smoke rising from tin-metal roofs of snug adobe homes, the tinny huayno songs playing all day on ubiquitous radios, the smiling, toothless, gray-haired old ladies who talk about the Bible as if it happened yesterday, and the constant backdrop of crying babies, screaming kids, crowing roosters, barking dogs, and rambunctious pigs that all blends together and then gives way to a million crickets after the sun sets. The evenings, too, I will miss. It’s one thing to be in a village all day working and then return home at night, but when you end the day there you really get a sense of the calm that pervades village life. It is a deep, therapeutic calm. In a lot of ways, it’s easy to see how people can regularly live to be 100 in Naranjo. As for me, if I’m lucky enough to be around that long, I know I won’t be working the fields and chopping firewood and dancing all night right up until the day I pass on. Those abilities can’t be absorbed in a year, they are developed over a lifetime in the campo. Which all told, would not be a bad way to spend one.

close o' service

2010-12-15T06:53:00.002-06:00

This is the extended version of my Close of Service profile interview for the Peace Corps-Perú magazine. Since I'm wrapping things up in site and getting ready for the next phase, I thought it was an appropriate time to do some serious reflection...

Did you “aprovechar that s***”?
No, but I did charps* it. I charpsed it real good.

*(Lebo-flaav Moore, circa 2009, Piura)

Combi story:
I thought I´d seen it all until my counterpart and I found ourselves on the dark road outside Naomi´s site, waiting for a ride to Trujillo. Finally a little combi picked us up, and it became quickly apparent that everyone inside was absolutely hammered (except the driver, which was good). So that was interesting enough, but then we ended up behind a humungous truck whose driver was hammered. This thing was swerving all over the place on what was already a pretty nerve-racking mountain road with several thousand feet of cliff on one side. The drunk guys inside were getting increasingly aggravated by our slowed pace, and at one point the cobrador in the passenger seat pulled himself out the window and started throwing rocks at the truck ahead. I remember looking over at my counterpart, who is a very tough dude, and he just had his head in his hands. That was when I really started to worry.

Favorite peruano en tu sitio:
My host-uncle Beto. Just an awesome, hilarious guy, who generally heckled me about everything. I´m gonna miss watching The High Chaparral (dubbed in Spanish) with him most weeknights, and then both of us leaving in disgust as the rest of the family gathered to watch Al Fondo Hay Sitio.

A time you stared Death in the face in Peru:
I very nearly fell off the mountain while taking a roadside “pit-stop” one day. I already had my pants around my ankles when the brush beneath me just gave way, and I tumbled backwards, thinking about how bad I would look a few thousand feet below, sprawled out half-naked, and probably having involuntarily soiled myself by then, too. Fortunately it didn’t come to that.

Longest you've gone without bathing?
Not that long actually, I took showers almost every day. Granted, it was in board shorts at a very public water spout, the source of which remained unknown to me for the full two years. Ignorance is… personal hygiene.

Any bad habits that you’ve acquired?
Frequently experimenting with my facial hair, and wearing wife beaters. Which turns out to be a pretty killer combo. Also, instead of greeting people, I now whistle, and if it´s a buddy of mine, I´ll do the palms-up, shoulder-shrug accusatory “What the hell?” move rather than just waving like a normal person.

Favorite/least favorite Peruvian dish?
Least favorite - Masamora de harina. Flour, sugar, milk, and more sugar in a pot…for dinner. Anything you can drink I don´t consider a meal.

What's the longest amount of time you spent in site?
Early-on I would spend a month or more at site. That was partially due to being terrified of the bus ride for several months a year. But after about the 3 or 4 week mark, I would always find myself much more at ease and generally happier. I think it takes more than a couple weeks to really get into the rhythm of the campo, and it´s a cool thing when you start to feel it.

What’s so special about Peru 12?
WAT/SAN. Got it dunn.

Most random/useful item received in a care package:
A collapsible camping bowl that my mom sent me. Everyone in Piura and Tumbes claims to be sick of me talking about how awesome it is. But they´re just jealous. Peru has convinced me that you can literally eat anything with a bowl and spoon.

What is one thing that you will never acostumbrar to?
People shouting into cell phones. Also the shameless, whiney “Seeeeññño porrrfaaa…” crap that even some grown men are not above.

Have you been robbed? What did they take?
Yes. All my shiny objects, packed neatly together: computer, camera, ipod, passport, sunglasses, etc. Just disappeared from under my feet at the bus station, on the day we left for site, after having been violently ill all day. But as Mark Timme, in his infinite wisdom, pointed out only seconds later, you had to give that sneaky little punk some credit for messing with someone as big as me.

Favorite Spanish/Quechua saying:
“Retroceder nunca, rendirse jamás.” Thinking of having that tattooed across my back, in giant script letters.

Biggest language blunder:
It wasn´t me, but the best one, period, had to be when my family came to visit and my brother tried to say he was hungry, but instead said “Tengo hombre.” He lived on in infamy in my town for that one.

Biggest lie that you’ve told/someone has told you:
Patrick and Tristan still not admitting it.

Thoughts on cumbia/huayno:
I can tolerate either in small amounts. But very often in Piura they get together and spawn a God-awful hybrid called sanjuaneros. Some of these songs must be what they play in Hell.

What have you done in Peru for the first time in your life?
Surfed, climbed a volcano, gotten so sunburned it bubbled, and met Geoff Lord.

Biggest success:
Building fifty-two composting latrines on the side of a 45-degree tropical ski hill two hours out into the campo.

Training recuerdos:
Ryan S. and I taking turns puking and diarreah-ing for 12 solid hours in a tiny room in Pisco. At one point I just started deliriously laughing, listening to the sounds coming from a few feet away in the bathroom.

How do you plan to respond to the question, “What was Peace Corps like?”
Ever seen Deliverance?

What kept you going when times were tough?
The epic trifecta of guitar, pushups, and chewing tobacco.

Any advice to other Volunteers?
Do everything – everything – with your right hand. Except eating, do that with your left. That way, when you´re 2 hours out into the campo and get offered a heaping plate of food and no utensil, you know where most of the germs aren´t.

What was the best compliment you received during your time here?
“You look like a 1970s fighter pilot with that mustache.”

What other Volunteer or staff member has inspired you the most? Why?
Luis Ly for ushering in the era of Sharepoint. Little known fact: “Sharepoint” is actually Spanish for The Future.

What is the strangest thing you’ve found yourself eating?
Fried pork liver over corn, with the rest of the pig splayed out right in front of me – blood, teeth, eyes, the whole bit.

What Peruvian article of clothing or accessory are you planning to rock when you return stateside?
Alpaca sweater hoodie from Cuzco.

Arroz y papas. Thoughts?
I’ll take tortillas over either one, any day.

Most useful/useless item brought to Peru?
Useful: duct tape, buck knife, and the beer bottle opener on my finger that is also a ring
Useless: tie

What’s your guilty pleasure?
On two separate occasions, bottles of chocolate syrup ended up in my room, and I would find myself eating a lot of chocolate-covered bread, crackers, etc. And then sometimes I would just take hits of it straight-up.

Good toilet paper substitute:
Corn cobs. Never done it, but everyone in the campo claims it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

Why do you love your site?
Crisp weather, chaveta stabbing daggers, sierra food, ponchos and awesome hats, and yes, cañazo.

Craziest health problem:
I had this marble-sized thing growing behind my ear for a few weeks, and the day before I was going to see Dr. Jorge about it, it erupted. Ryan S. was there. I was afraid hundreds of spiders were gonna come spilling out or something, but it was nothing that interesting.

Funniest English/Spanish misspelling you’ve seen in Peru:
It´s not a misspelling, but my favorite example of a Peruvian obviously not having a clue what he´s wearing was a pretty serious campesino in a pink t-shirt printed with script letters saying: “He fishes. Therefore, I shop.”

Funniest English mispronunciation you’ve heard in Peru:
Whatever the drunk kept repeating to my sister when my family came to visit. He claimed it was English.

Are you leaving any pets behind or taking any with you?
I had the world´s greatest campo mutt named Puma. He was such a great dog. Then he disappeared one day, I think poisoned by someone. I didn´t look into it too deep, for fear of actually finding out who did it and having to do something drastic to that person.

What's the most useful thing you learned in training?
Everything WatSan. There are not many jobs where you can go through a few months of training and then have people call you “Engineer” and you not necessarily feel the need to correct them. Hats off to Lane and Jorge.

Lluvia story:
Sometimes it rains here for six months straight. Is that a story?

Favorite part of Peruvian culture:
The boundless, automatic generosity, even when people have so little to give.

What English phrases will people in your community remember?
I inadvertently taught some teenagers the word for “female dog” one day, and it became an immediate hit. I think if I come back in 20 years, I think I´ll still hear guys yelling “Cállate bitch!!”

How frequently did you communicate with family/friends back home:
At first, not often enough. Peace Corps taught me that after college, you actually have to make an effort to stay in touch with people. Go figure.

A time you almost resorted to physical violence:
See dog story.

What are you most proud of?
One of my proudest moments had to be when my brother and I joined a team at the last minute for the inter-district soccer tournament during my town fiesta. In what could have been straight out of a Disney movie, our team of local B-level players, random guys from out of town, and a couple lanky gringos tore through the tournament, beating three teams including the Chalaco selección on our way to hoisting the trophy.

Any disgusting hygiene habits that you wish to share?
The same basin that was used for washing clothes also served as a receptacle for any and all bodily fluids at different, desperate moments. Bleach is a wonderful thing.

What’s your favorite place in all of Peru?
There are a couple little beaches in Piura and Tumbes that have been the sites of some very good times.

Your culinary masterpieces that your community loves:
Pizza, banana bread, and a mountain version of pasta carbonara.

Chapas (nicknames) in site:
Gringo, blanco, alto, colorado, gordo, chato, Agustín/Michael (previous volunteers), Mateo Palomares, and Mateo Pumacahua

What’s the most terrifying creature that you’ve found in your room?
Nothing too crazy, I think I´m just above the altitude line where most of those things like to hang out. But I did spend an absurd amount of time swatting the small flying things that converged on the bare light bulb in my room almost every night.

Favorite feriado in Peru?
Carnavales in Cajamarca is completely ridiculous.

Best chisme you heard from a Peruvian about another Volunteer?
There was a rumor among some of the more remote villages where I worked that I was cooperating with the Vaso de Leche nutrition program in a scheme to fatten up the kids and then steal them to work in my mine (conveniently located somewhere up in the hills, exactly where was never made clear to me). This was about me, but it was so weird that it sounded like they were talking about someone else.

A time when you wished you’d said no, but didn’t:
Agreeing to paint a world map with about five months to go in-site, and already freaking out about building a ton of dry bathrooms in the campo.

Where’s the first place you go in your capital city?
The Panadería “Cotos” right around the corner from the hostel. Other volunteers claim it “makes them sick” and “sells moldy empanadas” and other nonsense, but I´d say at least two thirds of my Piura meals come from there. Love that place.

What scares you the most about returning to the States?
I can´t remember if we shake hands to conclude a conversation or not. And no one else here seems to remember either.

Best read during service:
Lituma en los Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa. A great and frightening tale with some real weird stuff going on, from Sendero Luminoso to Peruvian mountain-myths to traveling gypsy-folk, all set in a lonely Andean mining camp with a very creepy cast of characters.

Most amusing misconception you have heard about the U.S.?
No holidays. And everyone has a car. And these are things I have been told about my country, not asked.

Strategies for keeping warm/cool:
Keeping warm (in Chalaco): Move around a lot, but not so much that you sweat, cause then you just get colder. Or have to shower. Which makes you colder.
Keeping cool (in Piura): Wear board shorts and a basketball jersey at all times.

What do people in your site consider your strangest behavior?
Drinking plain water. People can´t get over that.

First meal you will have when you get back to the States:
Honey-Nut Cheerios with very cold milk. And a Budweiser.

Memorable first-impressions of other Peru 12ers?
I remember when we had been in-country for about a week, and one day all the Bolivia volunteers showed up like refugees in Lima, having just been yanked out of their sites and most of them on their way home. And after talking to them for a while, Mark Gerghaty goes, “I mean, I´m excited about this whole Peace Corps thing…but how nice would it be to be, like, done with it already?”

A time when your patience was put to the test:
May-September, 2010.

Anything you’d like to confess?
I once sort-of broke into a campesino´s house to look for a toilet seat mold that I had left there. I had friends visiting, and they were way up the hill, already mixing the concrete to make the toilet, and this was the only one left in town. After a few minutes of internal debate, I decided to just go for it, and spent about five minutes frantically searching through pretty much everything they owned (which wasn’t a whole lot). In the end, I remained undiscovered, and then actually tracked the guy down via three degrees of cell phone separation, only to be told that, yeah it’s fine if I go in, and that the thing was right in a place I had gone over about four times already. I’m still not sure how I would have explained myself had they come home while I was inside.

What's next?
Heading to a mysterious land called Pisco, where they have sand and ocean and drink a liquor that comes in a sealed bottle with a label and everything.

feeling real poetic

2010-12-03T15:05:00.002-06:00

There are evenings in Naranjo when the sunset is unspeakably spectacular. On such evenings, there are about fifteen minutes when the whole panorama is indescribably beautiful, where words really can do it no justice and even the most earnest attempt is doomed to futility. But one can’t help but try.

Looking out from the porch of the health post as the day ends in Naranjo, one feels as if perched precipitously on the inside wall of a great, cracked clay pot, the edges of which are jagged but whose rounded bottom is solid, smooth. Slowly, the silent, unwavering mountains which form the edges begin to take on new forms, no longer making a flat profile against the blue sky of day, but now betraying an infinite series of contours and folds and shadows brought out by the receding, slanted light. Those ridges which reach not up but out are bathed in the dying light and the sunburnt fields take on a rosy hue; the valleys and chutes seem to fade even deeper into the heart of the hills and are shrouded in a deep blue that is almost purple. Only the upper half of the mountains take on this quality though, with the lower parts shielded by the far edge of the pot. The dividing line coincides almost perfectly with a layer of fog mixed with wood smoke rising from so many tiny houses whose very presence could otherwise be easily overlooked. The only light emits from the far, Western edge of the picture, where the bottom of the deepest rupture in the bowl is filled by an ever-so minute, inverted triangle of brilliant, neon orange that despite its minuteness next to the immense canopy of the sky, is so incredibly concentrated that it commands an epic, calming power over everything in its reach. The clouds immediately above and to either side of the sliver of light reflect that energy, but the atmospheric prism in-between changes its color from orange to a vivid pink, showing the subtleties of the clouds and echoing the effect playing out on the sides of the great bowl. Forms appear within the clouds, like the skeletons of giant celestial fish rising to unseen insects, as their earthly counterparts invariably do at the same time of day. In that in-between place, the orange mixes and swirls with pale yellows and the powder blue of the fading day, creating new colors for which there are simply no words. What about the sky gives it the right – some ancient poetic license – to violate all the rules of the palette, to blend colors like orange and yellow and blue to create something so purely beautiful, when on a canvas the result would be a nothing more than a muted gray-brown? As the triangle of fluorescent orange descends toward the bottom of the bowl’s narrowing fissure, its color only intensifies. But in the moment that it is finally swallowed up, the edges of the clay pot regain control, instantly losing all of their depth and relief, and becoming stoic silhouettes against the daytime’s pale gray evening cousin. Asserting their regained, primordial dominance over the landscape, and despite their complete stillness, the hills seem to rise up even higher in that moment, and in anyone lucky enough to be watching there grows a feeling of absolute and utter insignificance. And although now gone from sight, the triangle of orange is indomitable in the face of the towering peaks, as it continues its campaign to influence the goings-on inside the great clay pot. The little orange dots that now appear scattered in no particular order at various points around the pot’s sides are its final attempt. Although somewhere in the back of his mind the observer knows these orange dots to be evidence of human activity – something he has completely forgotten for the moment – he can just as easily believe that these are tiny little pin-prick holes in the pot where the light perpetually shines through from some place below.

Only when the dome overhead at last loses its final traces of daylight and the brilliant white stars emerge in a million little piercing specks does the observer notice the new dots that have appeared on the far side of the bowl, reflecting the stars above. But these he knows to be the halogen street lamps of a town, and he is brought back to what he knows as reality.

uh, democracy?

2010-11-19T09:16:00.002-06:00

A few weeks ago on October 3, after what was in some cases a full year of campaigning, aspiring Peruvian politicians at the local and regional levels finally faced popular elections, and now it would seem the world can go back to relative normal again. What I’ve observed, especially as the races intensified over the last several months, has allowed me to reflect on the gaping differences between the electoral system and politics in general in Peru and in the States – the major ones of which I´ve got pretty well ironed out by now, having been asked at least a few times a week for several months now what our elections are like back home and what I think of Peruvian politics.

What I think of Peruvian politics is that it is shockingly corrupt and completely inundated with self-serving scumbags. But I´ll return to all that. As a student of politics, what I´ve found to be the most profound difference in terms of the actual substance of American and Peruvian politics is the issues themselves, or what is generally referred to around here as a candidate´s propuestas – his “proposals” to the people. Especially in isolated districts like mine, but also in the bigger municipalities and even the coastal cities, it´s all about obras, or projects – projects built with cement and brick and manual labor and that you can see with your own two eyes: water systems, sanitation projects, irrigation, roads, soccer stadiums, town plazas, and the like. Contrast that with the luxury we have as citizens of the developed world to vote on things like stem cell research and the death penalty and gay rights. The basic services that determine the outcome of Peruvian elections are already ours to take for granted (and I guess if these things weren´t needed here, I wouldn´t have much of a job to do). But even so, the complete domination of obras over other moral or social issues has been surprising to me. It seems that for now, the Peruvian population, like that of so many other developing countries, is content with the right to have its votes counted regardless of skin color or gender; other moral issues can wait until the everyday basics are covered. It makes total sense; in the general hierarchy of needs there has to be a progression from the utilitarian to the more abstract. But I wonder what elections in 50 years will look like, because as the Peruvian middle class continues to expand and demands more transparency and attention to moral issues, the logical shift away from obras will mean a complete uprooting of the entrenched political system. Which, currently, is entirely based on (often false) promises, institutionalized corruption, and vote-buying campaign tactics.

What this focus on obras means in practice is a political environment where a whole lot of nice-sounding promises can be made by just about anyone who can get the people to listen to him (and it´s a hell of a lot easier to promise a new town plaza than to promise equal rights for gay couples). You also don´t have to be the best-educated guy on the block to do so. And in contrast with the majority of moral and social issues, it´s also completely uncontroversial to propose obras, which is why in my district for example, each of the six candidates for mayor put forth basically the same propuestas (“NO to the miners! YES to agriculture! Down with corruption! More obras! Let’s have a beer! Vote for me!”) And so, although everyone talks about the proposals as being the end-all, be-all of the whole process, the reality is that people vote for their friends, or people they think they might like to be friends with – or vote against people they dislike or are convinced to dislike. Unfortunately when you have very little in the way of economic resources and I am a candidate backed by a national party, it becomes very easy for me to make you my friend by throwing a good party with lots of free food and booze, or maybe bringing some building materials out to your town. In this way, straight-up shameless vote-buying is the name of the game. Increasingly, some politicians strive to rise above this level, but by and large most still buy right into it and thus, perpetuate it.

As I have repeated in so many conversations with poor rural farmers in the last few months, I see this as both the fault of the politicians and the voters themselves, who are locked in a vicious cycle of simple supply and demand. The politicians know they can buy votes, and so do. And the people, who have nothing, take all they can get and ask for more. The stories of countries that have developed out of poverty point to an educated populace as the key factor in breaking this cycle, and as I tell people, in my mind the only hope lies with education. Once people have enough foresight (and financial security) to see through the immediate rewards of a case of beer or a few bags of cement or even the promise of a local work project, they can start demanding real progress and stop sustaining the ridiculous system.

All cynicism aside, the specifics of the actual process here are pretty interesting. First of all, starting about eighteen months before an election, houses around town start to change colors. Candidates literally paint their slogans on the walls of houses (sometimes even without the approval of the homeowner). It only intensifies as the election approaches, so that by August of an election year just about every house in town is inundated with propaganda slogans and symbols of various parties (and to think we complain about those front-yard signs in the States…at least all you have to do is pull them out!) These signs and images bring up another noteworthy aspect of the process: the actual voting itself. Much as I assume things were in the US before the Era of the Hanging Chads, here the voting is all done by hand – and instead of marking a candidate´s name, what appears on the voting card is a series of drawings, each one associated with a certain party. It just recently dawned on me that his is probably because of the still relatively high level of illiteracy out in the campo towns. This year we had a heart, a tree, an outstretched hand, a smiley face, a rooster, and a star. So at least the pictures on the houses create an interesting mix, if not one that is actually nice to look at.

Voting is obligatory for all Peruvians 18 and up, which means they either return to their home of record and vote, or face a substantial fine (I’ve heard everything from 80 soles to more than double that). Whatever it is, it´s enough to make you want to vote even if you don’t have a clue who’s running or why (which, particularly in rural districts like mine, plays right into the “Let-me-bring-you-a-shovel-Mr. Poor Farmer” strategy employed by so many candidates). I can´t decide which I think is worse: a voluntary system like ours in the US where only a fraction of the populace actually votes – or one where everyone votes, whether they want to or not.

In the days leading up to the latest election, Chalaco began receiving truckloads of Peruvian Army troops to monitor the proceedings. (Let me remind you that Chalaco is a tiny mountain town of roughly 1,500 people, with another 8,000 spread out in the hills). This caught me off guard, but I soon realized that an election can be pretty intense when all the eligible voters in the district meet up in town for one single day of voting and all that goes with it. The voting itself is pretty quick, but then there is the day-long wait to hear the results (which, of course, is conducive to heavy drinking…which generally doesn’t mean good things in a politically-charged environment). Fortunately there were no incidents this time, but up the road in Pacaipampa I heard a few people were killed last time around. Yikes.

The social unrest and often-violent instability that goes along with elections and politics in general in Peru – and much of Latin America (see: Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa’s recent kidnapping by his own police) – is not only damaging to the psyche of the local population, but has to hurt developing countries’ chances in the global marketplace, too. If I’m a businessperson in San Francisco thinking about expanding into a Latin American emerging market like Peru, and then all the sudden there are elections and half the country is rioting at the results and their neighbor to the north is in a state of emergency as the national police and army battle it out in the streets…why the hell would I ever want to set up shop there? I wouldn’t. I would take my business to Southeast Asia or China or India, where people may still be poor but at least my factory probably won’t get burned down or appropriated by a wackjob leftist revolutionary government.

I’ll end on a lighter note. As cynical as I’ve become about all this, I have to admit that it’s had its perks. Namely, the fact that it being an election year means politicians are much more willing to dish out funding for projects as long as they get their name stamped on it. Hence, the chunk of cash that the sub-regional government in Chulucanas dropped in my lap for my composting latrine project. They ended up paying for about 20 of the units, which was a game-changer for me. Not that the process was uncomplicated, because it wasn’t. But even the possibility of that kind of support probably would not have been there last year, or next year for that matter.

So maybe the campesinos actually have it all figured out, and we’re the idiots. They get all kinds of cool stuff from a whole bunch of different people, vote for any one of them, and then maybe get even more from someone else campaigning in a city six hours away who they’ve never even heard of. And democracy marches on!

annual not-very-deep blog entry

2010-11-11T10:54:00.003-06:00

Recent happenings:

Been spending 3-4 nights at a time out in Naranjo, the village where I’m doing my composting “eco” bathroom project. We broke ground in September, and the local workers picked it up quickly. We’re nearing the finish line of 50 units (give or take), and I’ve been running around building the special toilet seats as the maestros finish each one. It’s been a crazy couple months, and I’m admittedly running myself ragged. But we’re so close. Shooting for early-December inaugural shits.

Got back into The Wire after a several-month hiatus, mostly due to the fact that in Naranjo I stay in the health post alone every night. Watched most of Season Four in two nights. God, what a show.

Went to Lima for a week of training at the Peace Corps office with several other soon-to-be Third Year Volunteers. Met the regional coordinator who works in Ica, where I’ll be next year, and she seems very sharp and super excited about working together, as both of our positions are brand-new there. I think we can do a lot of good things down there. Excited about the change – change of people, responsibilities, culture, and proximity to other volunteers. Not that stoked about moving out of the green mountains and into the sweltering coastal desert in an earthquake zone.

Also did my end of service medical check while in Lima. Went to the dentist. Pooped in a cup. Waiting to find out if I picked up any parasites this year. Under/over is three.

A group of ten new Water & Sanitation volunteers from Peru 16 came up from Lima for Field-Based Training. We built some baños, checked up on some latrines built a few years back by another volunteer, and they learned that we eat all carbs in the mountains.

Had another visit, by my friend Meg and her roommate from Jackson, WY. Anne came, too. That was great.

Took away the hat I gave to my four-year old brother when I caught him pissing on the front porch and then refused to apologize or acknowledge me. Then caught him trying to break into my room to steal it back. Little punk.

My fifteen-year old brother got kicked out of school for bringing a condom to class and then blowing it up like a balloon and bouncing it all over the room. Thought he would get the belt from dad for sure, but somehow convinced him that he was innocent. Smart little punk.

After months of internal debate, I stopped fighting it. The ‘stache is back, and with a vengeance.

Discovered Jerry Jeff Walker. Not sure how he evaded me all these years, but I’ve got me a new favorite artist.

Took the crew of high-schoolers who I’ve taught to play basketball from scratch over to Santo Domingo for the second annual Alto Piura Challenge. Smoked ‘em. Twice. Eat it, Ryan.

Finished two of the three books I was reading, and added another. Finished: The Call of the Wild and White Fang, and The Bottom Billion, by economist Paul Collier about the poverty traps that the poorest countries are stuck in. Started: The Right Stuff by Tom Wolffe. So there’s a lot of weird stuff going on in my head right now, especially when you throw The Wire in there, too. What would London (and by extension, Darwin and Marx) have to say about the fact that one-sixth of the world’s population seems doomed by their natural environment and other conditions? I’m not sure we even want to know. How would hot shot rocket pilots of the 60s see their role in the process of evolution and natural selection? (Judging by their supreme level of awesome cockiness, I’d bet most would esteem themselves wielders of some innate, untouchable quality separating them from the rest of mankind). What about the constant threat of violent death for the characters in The Wire? Are drug wars about survival of the fittest, or just luck? Or both, which would make it only that much more Darwinian? Next on the table: A Confederacy of Dunces, A People’s History of the United States, and Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes by this guy who discovered an Amazonian tribe that uses a language with no distinction between past and present and future, and lived with them for seven years or something. It’s only gonna get weirder upstairs, folks.

Remembered that my unfinished world map hasn’t been touched since about August.

Was served French fries three times in one week out in Naranjo. I’m talking real, thick steak fries. Potatoes nonetheless, but in no way resembling the boiled variety.

The gypsies came to town again (see blog entry from this time last year). I didn’t mind them as much this time. Got a legit Barcelona jersey out of the deal, even.

My two site replacements got here for a visit. Both are awesome people, and ready to work. But it’s very odd, unsettling really, to be realizing that I’m leaving soon and will actually be replaced.

Other signs that my time here is waning:

- My host dad broke down and sobbed about it. Granted, he’d been drinking for several hours, but unexpected nonetheless.

- My abuelita gave me a hand-woven shoulder bag that she had had made for me. Seriously an awesome gift.

- Had two pairs of work pants wear out in the same week. Gotta be a sign of some kind.

- People are talking about the epic goodbye party that is in the works.

- I’ve found myself giving away my stuff, bit by bit. There’s only one guy in all of Chalaco whose feet and bodily dimensions are anywhere near mine – my leaving is gonna be like Christmas for him.

- Spent over 100 soles (one-ninth of my monthly stipend) on pictures I had printed up to give away to people in the next few weeks.

- Instead of having to repeat hundreds of times where I'm from, now it's having to repeat where I'm going and why I can't stay and find me a chica to settle down with.

chalaco's place in the world?

2010-10-25T17:30:00.000-05:00

Outside of the occasional drunken knife fight, I live in a very peaceful place. The local farmers spend most days in their fields of corn, wheat, beans, peas, potatoes, and other crops, and tending to their animals – cattle, donkeys, pigs, chickens, and sheep. The people in town keep shops, make bread or own run restaurants, work at the municipality or the bank, or just hang around looking for odd jobs, some harder than others. In a place like this it´s easy to take the general calm for granted, as I´ve mostly done for the last 18 months. But the longer you live in a place like this as an outsider, the more you wonder if things were always this way. And there are signs and stories all around that tell a deeper story, connecting Chalaco to the shared history of the nation.

Peace Corps pulled out of Peru during the last quarter of the 20th century due to political and economic turmoil, and many volunteers today live in places that were extremely hostile from the 70s on up through the mid-90s. Chalaco is not one of those places. This doesn´t mean that the people here were unaffected by the instability; skyrocketing inflation, price controls, and a general lack of government support to rural areas made life here tough for many years. But this far north and as isolated as we are, the area was out of the reach of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso rebels in the 80s and 90s, when they were blowing up busses in the central and southern regions of the country (including Lima), threatening to tear Peru apart at the seams.

This is not to say that Chalaco hasn´t had its hand in the history of Peru, however. Formally established in 1825, the area that Chalaco now occupies was first home to pre-Incan and then Incan tribes, long before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. Relics have been recovered from the hills to prove it, and looking out over the landscape, it´s not hard to imagine the original indigenous inhabitants farming the same land as the Spanish descendents do today. In the War of the Pacific of the late 19th century, the Chileans reportedly made it all the way up the coast and were actually turned back on the road to Chalaco. According to local legend, peasant farmers with the advantages of guerilla tactics and higher ground actually beat back the well-armed Chilean troops, using only slingshots and other simple weapons. I have even had pointed out to me, several times, the creek where the infamous battle took place. Of course, people here (like people anywhere) tend to embellish these kinds of stories, but I have to believe there´s at least some truth to it. (This would explain why so many people here hate Chileans, but don´t seem to mind Ecuadorians, who are also a bitter historical enemy and are just a short hop over the mountains away.)

Though Sendero never actually made it here itself, there are an awful lot of people in Chalaco who have had very real, intimate experiences with the violence and drugs it spawned. One of my best friends and work partners came to Chalaco with his family at the age of nine, his father having packed up and left their life behind in the jungle lowlands when the rebels began indoctrinating the schoolchildren there. My friend recalls playing terruco (“terrorist”) as a little kid with his brothers, shooting imaginary government helicopters and policemen with sticks. In the same vein there are a handful of guys in town, many of whom I consider some of my closest friends, who have worked in the selva (the jungle on the East side of the Andes) in the coca fields and even in the processing plants where coca is mixed with kerosene and other toxic chemicals to create pasta básica, the base ingredient for cocaine. I couldn´t believe how casually he said it when a friend of mine first told me; it was like he was just describing another job in a long list of them that he had held for a while. Which, to him, is exactly what it was. And then one day the DEA planes came through, and he didn´t have that job any more.

On the flipside, Peru´s until-recently enforced law of mandatory military service means that the majority of the 30-and-over men I know have served at one point or another – most of the younger ones in the conflict against Sendero, which in recent years has ditched its revolutionary ideology in favor of highly-profitable drug trafficking. They speak proudly about the years they spent in the central highlands and lowland rainforests, literally hunting their fellow countrymen. One older man I know has told me on a few occasions, helped by some local sugarcane liquor, about his years as a mercenario. I´m not sure what it means exactly to be a Peruvian mercenary, but it sounds like pretty serious stuff. Others have served in various posts around the country, some even being offered the chance to go to Iraq and fight alongside American troops. I had met a few guys from different parts of the country who had almost accepted this opportunity, declining for various reasons, and only recently met my first Peruvian Iraq vet, in Chalaco of all places.

It was a very surreal encounter. I was out in Naranjo, the rural village where I´m implementing my eco-bathroom project this year, about an hour or two´s hike from town. I was sitting on a bench in the late afternoon, talking to an old lady after having helped her son plant their vegetable garden, when a young guy about my age came walking up the path. He looked completely out of place (which is saying a lot, coming from me), sporting a dark blue jumpsuit with a US Air Force patch, clean, new-looking white sneakers, gelled hair, and iPod headphones. The dude looked almost too weird to be real, all the way out here. In any case, he sat down and we got to talking, and when I told him where I was from, he said, “Oh, so you must know this,” indicating the stripes on his windbreaker. Thinking he meant the Nike symbol or maybe even the special fabric, I muttered something vaguely affirmative, but he wasn´t convinced.

“No, I mean the Air Force.”
“Oh. Uh, well, yeah sure. Why?”

I couldn´t believe it when he told me he had just come back from a tour in Iraq, serving as part of a Peruvian company of soldiers charged with guarding the US Embassy. The contrast between this child of Naranjo and the village he had left behind couldn´t have been any clearer. Here he was telling me about everything he had seen and all the people he had met in a war zone on the other side of the world, and not twenty minutes before someone from the same town had actually asked me whether Colombia or the US was closer to Peru.

mama huevos

2010-08-30T19:37:00.001-05:00

The last couple months of my life have been…interesting, and I use that word in two very different sentiments. First and foremost, I mean it in the most sarcastic way possible, in the way that it is used euphemistically for “frustrating,” “defeating,” “frantic,” and sometimes flat-out depressing. This bathroom project has been a case study in all the little nuances that make working in a developing country such an adventure. In the States, once funding was secured, you could presumably go ahead with a project as long as other factors were in place, such as materials transport, labor, and the like. The difference is that most of those factors you would have control over, assuming like I said, there was sufficient funding. Here, everything – everything – depends on factors usually outside of my control, which is problematic.
It starts with the weather; although the rainy season ended in May, the damage it did to the dirt mountain roads still dictates what I can (and more often, cannot) do in terms of materials transport up to the site. Furthermore, this summer we´ve gotten a few random heavy rains, which has only worsened the state of the road and also ruined many batches of adobe bricks that the families are preparing for the walls of their individual units. Related to the weather is the yearly crop cycle, which means that even if I get all the materials to site this month, we probably can´t start building until September when the wheat harvest ends and the local men have a few months to work before planting corn in December. Then you have the local authorities, who I am finding to be increasingly corrupt, inefficient, incapable, lazy, and altogether much more interested in their campaign – this being an election year – than following through on agreements we signed in February. Related to the people themselves is their apparently WWII-era machinery, which is in a constant state of disrepair, from the bulldozer used to clean up the road, to the dump truck used for bringing brick and cement up the mountain, to even the pickup trucks and dirt bikes used for getting around. Finally, materials prices and US-Peru exchange rates change every week, and even the logistics of withdrawing from a US account and depositing in my local account for accessibility purposes has taken up days of time, with me frantically running around Piura between various ATMs, the bank, and the materials distributor, and learning a lot of things the hard way.

I don´t mean to whine, nor were any of these factors completely unanticipated. But they´re worth mentioning.

The other meaning of “interesting,” though, is much more…well, interesting. In this sense I mean it literally, synonymous with “intriguing,” “fascinating,” and the like. The reason is the new cast of characters who have come into my life since beginning the project, from truck drivers to salesmen to local health workers. Overall I´ve found these people to be much more helpful and willing to work than most of the people I´ve worked with in the past year and a half, which I attribute 100% to the fact that they´re getting paid to do their jobs, rather than just taking time out of their days to work with me. Below are some of the highlights.

Lucho is one of the largest and jolliest people in Chalaco, and as of last year, also happens to drive the largest truck in town, a giant 15-ton Mitsubishi that looks like a huge refrigerator laid on its side. After months of waiting and pleading for the municipality to clean up the road straight to Naranjo from Piura, I saw him unloading a truck-full of bricks one day in Chalaco, and realized that if I could get the municipality to outsource the job to him, we could bring everything up to Chalaco and then figure out the rest. I couldn´t believe I hadn´t thought of this earlier, but with so many things to think about, I just hadn´t. It also had not been suggested to me by anybody who lives here and knows about these matters, which would have been nice. In any case, we worked it out with the municipality – which proved shockingly cooperative in this particular moment – and got things moving. I have since made three trips down the mountain with Lucho to a spot called Buenos Aires, where the best bricks around are made. In what is almost a full twelve hours of travel, we drive down, purchase and load the 3,500 bricks that his truck can hold, then drive back up and unload them, either into temporary “storage” in an open pile right in the plaza, or directly onto a smaller truck that can handle the trip to Naranjo. Lucho is one the kindest, funniest people I know, constantly cackling “tee-hee-hee” giggles even when no one else really understands why, his Santa Claus belly shaking and undulating with his laughs and the bumps in the road. He´s got a great sense of humor, sarcastic, which is rare here. One of his favorite things to say to me is, “Mateo, estamos en Perú!” Which is a good-natured excuse for anything and everything that impedes our progress, from popped tires in the middle of nowhere, to day-long waits for people to show up, to his CD player being jacked out of his locked truck during less than two minutes of distraction. Like all truck drivers, Lucho comes with his ayudante or helper, a local teen who has the worst breath in the world, but otherwise makes a good companion.

Emilio drives the smaller truck that does the Chalaco-Naranjo leg, and thus represents the second piece of the journey. He´s shorter and smaller in stature, but also has a nice gut, and is a big fan of the Peruvian pull-your-shirt-up-over-your-gut-and-rub-it-thoughtfully-move. He´s soft-spoken but also sarcastic, and I am infinitely grateful to both he and Lucho for their surprising work ethic and punctuality. Technically Emilio lives in Piura, where I found out he drives a cab, but he makes better money driving his truck up in the mountains, mostly working as hired transport for the Chalaco municipality. I´m pretty sure he doesn´t actually have a house in Chalaco, because most early mornings when we plan to load bricks, I find him sleeping in the cab of his truck. Speaking of which, I should probably clarify my punctuality comment; Lucho is very punctual, which is exceedingly rare in a country where 6AM can mean anywhere from 8AM onwards, and maybe not at all. Emilio is generally pretty good about it too, but I did get pretty fed up with him one day when I was up before dawn waiting for him and finally found him around 9AM, at which point he explained that he had been up all night, sick with a stomach bug. By this point not a stranger to such excuses, I assumed right away that he had just been boozing all night and was too hung-over to work. But later on I saw him coming out of a thicket toward his truck, buttoning up his pants and wincing in pain, which confirmed that he was actually probably telling the truth. (This also confirmed my theory that he lacks a home base in Chalaco). Emilio, like Lucho, has his hired helpers, made up of a three-man crew of Chalaco kids in their mid-teens. Two of them are scrawny brothers a year or two apart who are supposed to be enrolled in my night-time English class, but only came once that I can recall, and the other is a younger guy they call “Motor” for reasons still unknown to me. Like most kids here, they started out pretty shy around me, but after having worked together on-and-off for a few weeks, they´re warming up. All three are decent workers, and a pretty funny crew, constantly on each-others´ cases. Somehow, Motor ends up being the authority on everything, despite his size and age disadvantage, which probably has to do with his impressive command of swear words and the audacity to act like he knows what he´s talking about all the time, even when he obviously doesn´t. No one else does either, and he´s louder, so he wins. Emilio calls these kids “máma huevos,” not a particularly endearing name, but pretty creative as far as derogatory nicknames go, in that it combines parts of both the male and female anatomy. But he uses it in a tough-love kind of way, always laughing along with his little minions. In an amazing display of agility, Emilio has perfected the art of swinging around on the bars that span his truckbed while everyone else works, kicking them playfully in the butt and grabbing them with his legs like a pudgy Jackie Chan. I´m not sure where the energy for these random outbursts comes from, but as long as they´re happy and working, I´m not asking any questions. One time in the late afternoon the kids yelled down to us from the back of the truck, asking what time it was, and instead of responding, he just smirked – “What, like they have plans or something?” We both laughed. Like I said, sarcasm is a rare trait among Peruvians, and one that I much appreciate.

Mere is the head nurse technician at the Health Ministry post in Naranjo, and has proved an enthusiastic ally. He´s been there to help from the first days in January when I was meeting with community members about the idea of the project, and I think he will be an important part of the long-term monitoring and maintenance of the bathrooms after I´m gone. He´s a skinny little guy of few words, and in the face actually looks a lot like my dad, which is odd. Mere (short for Heremenegildo or something) always seems preoccupied with something more important than what´s going on, and he holds on way too long when he shakes your hand, but otherwise is a very solid guy, very responsible. He sports a University of Michigan sweatshirt, which I never let him hear the end of. His response: “Michi-gan, Michi-gon, Michi-whatever as long as it keeps me warm!” Fair enough.

Manrique is an absolute piece of work. He´s the guy I´ve been buying brick from down in Buenos Aires, and one of the most outrageous and lewdest people I´ve run into in all my adventures here. The first time we met, Lucho and I had to drive around asking for his house and then wait an hour or so for him to show up. He walked in, hair slicked back, slightly-tinted glasses, white undershirt tucked into black slacks, and sporting a thin little white-haired tickler under his lower lip that I mistook for a dab of spit for a good hour or so. If there was ever a prototype of the sleazy Latin businessman, this was it. He immediately began referring to me as “Gringo,” a name which always makes me bristle a little, but which is usually dropped once people learn that I have a real name. Not the case here. Once we arrived at the brick “yard” (just a hole in the sand with bricks piled up all around and a few stray donkeys), it didn´t take long for him to start with the sex jokes, the punch lines of which he always seems to divulge a few seconds too early, thus ruining what would otherwise be marginally funny, if not completely obscene jokes. The subjects range from Peruvian men and women, to Gringos (height and associated “size” being his favorite topic), to the ubiquitous burras (female donkeys, he proudly explained to me, are “A Peruvian boy´s first love!”) True story. He´s turned out to be just the sort of businessman I took him for, one day chiding the corrupt nature of his country, and the next trying to swindle ten soles from me, and then laughing it off when I called him out. He´s the kind of guy you might actually enjoy having (one) beer with, and then would make sure to check all your pockets…twice. He´s full of the typical rural Peruvian wisdom, and has been so kind as to advise me on a great number of matters during the time we´ve spent together waiting while his workers load bricks; my favorite was his assertion that my yanqui sandals made from old tires would give me liver problems, justifying it because “tires last forever!” Right. He´s also frequently reminding Lucho of his size, which isn´t as weird here as it would be in the States, since we´re talking about a country where nicknames basically are the Spanish equivalent of taking a person´s most obvious feature and adding “-y” (fatty, blacky, Chinese-looking guy, blondie, etc.) But Manrique is much more in-your-face about it than most, and Lucho has enough class to be above that kind of stuff, so it creates sort-of an uncomfortable situation, and I feel bad for my pal Lucho. At one point, driving away from the pit, Lucho muttered: “That bastard probably never even graduated from grade school.” Which may well be true. In the end Manrique is harmless, and all the brick has been of solid quality at bought a fair price. But I don´t exactly find myself regretting the fact that he´s several hours down the mountain from me. I can reach him when I need to, and that´s plenty close for me.

The people at Fifth-Third Bank have been very helpful on the few occasions that we´ve spoken, as I´ve tried to navigate the process of transferring project funds out of my US account and into my Peruvian account at Banco de la Nación. This has presented a number of interesting details, among them the withdrawal limits at foreign ATMs. To my great surprise, I was able to call the help line (on Skype) at 8AM on a Saturday and an hour later they had lifted my limit for the weekend to accommodate my needs. At one point the lady was having trouble understanding why I couldn´t just use my card to buy the building materials, and I gave her an abridged version of the description above to convince her that I wasn´t in Kansas anymore. I guess it worked. My experience on the Peruvian end hasn´t been quite as smooth; I´ve encountered hours-long lines at the bank only to be told I´m in the wrong one, received various and conflicting responses from one teller to the next about the feasibility and costs of international funds transfers, random closing times, unexpected currency conversion fees, and more. In order to buy my first batch of construction materials, I found out that, although the hardware distributor takes credit cards, there´s a 5% service charge, and my remaining options were to pay in cash or actually go to the bank and just transfer money straight into their account from mine. Which seemed ridiculous to me, but it worked, and I was spared having to travel around Piura in a moto-taxi with several thousand soles in my pocket. Little victories.

In the end, things are moving along, albeit slowly. We´ve got almost all the brick out to the site, and have made countless trips up from the river where each family has set aside their sand requirement of 30 buckets (no sand in Naranjo, go figure). I´m currently waiting on the Piura regional government to come through on their contribution of the bulk of the cement, ribar, and sheet metal needed, and once that´s bought and transported, we can break ground. As odd as it sounds, I think the actual building of these things might turn out to be the easiest and quickest part of the whole project.

Donate!

2010-07-30T15:24:00.001-05:00

Donate to my composting latrines project! Tax-deductible and 100% of donations go straight to the project! https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=527-020&

the traveling inbusches

2010-07-30T15:19:00.002-05:00

My family´s visit was an adventure in every sense of the word. It started with them arriving in Piura at 5AM on a flight from Lima, after four airports and three flights in 12 hours. We rested up that morning, watched the US somehow not beat Slovenia, and then checked out some spots around Piura. It happened to be the town fiesta in the artisan capital of the north, Catacaos, which was an unexpected surprise. The erotic pottery there was a bit of a shock – even for me, fried fish turned out to be much-preferred over its uncooked relative ceviche, and I think they were a little taken back by the near-constant ogling by everyone who wasn´t tall and white and wearing sunglasses, but for the most part things went smoothly. We turned in early that night, after a few pisco sours and some really damn good local dishes, like seco de chavelo and lomo saltado.

Day two was a little more interesting. We had arranged to rent a car to drive up to Chalaco and then all the way back down the coast to Trujillo, rather than take buses. The thinking was this would allow us to do things on our own time and not be restricted by bus schedules and whatnot. And I guess we´re just a family that likes to drive. Which is all well and good, but I managed to throw in a nice little curveball by reserving a Rav4 rather than a “real” SUV. You may wonder why I would want to squeeze five very tall people into a weenie little car like this and then drive up an unpaved mountain. And you could be forgiven for wondering. But in my defense, the new Rav4´s are actually huge on the inside, and we did all fit quite comfortably. Check. Plus I had seen at least a few station wagons in Chalaco lately, so I figured if they could make it, a Rav would make it no prob. Double check. PLUS renting the Rav was about half the price of a Land Cruiser. Three points for Mateo. But know what Rav4´s don´t have? A high clearance. And I quickly realized that while the bus trip can be nerve-racking, when you´re a whole foot closer to the ground you feel everything twice as hard. Once the pavement ended outside Morropón, things got bumpy. Actually, bumpy doesn´t even begin to describe it; we banged the living shit out of this car. It took just as long as the bus trip, and I was sure we must have left a few important pieces buried in the mud along the way (oh yeah, it had also rained in the two days since I´d come down to Piura, which only added insult to injury). But the important thing is that we made it, with what appeared to be only some minor cosmetic damage, like the piece of the protective guard underneath that was now hanging like a loose tooth from the engine block, and the fact that one of the doors wouldn´t open due to the side-runner having been bent up about 45 degrees when it slammed into a rock. Nothing some wire and creative use of a tire iron couldn´t fix.

Upon arrival in Chalaco, we made the rounds through town, stumbling our way through several English-Portuguese-Spanish conversations (a product of the years we spent in Brazil), and then had lunch and headed down to the soccer field to watch the yearly “clasico” of Chalaco, between the two longtime rival clubs in town. (We had planned it so that our visit would correspond with two of the biggest days of the town party, which in reality lasts for two straight weeks. This meant that there was a lot of soccer, music, boozing, and general noise and debauchery the whole time.) At some point we ran into a group of people I didn´t recognize, led by a middle-aged white guy wearing a Celtics hat.

“Americans?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah…” I stammered back, shocked practically speechless.

I had never seen any other gringos in Chalaco besides other volunteers when I knew they were coming, and for these two groups to be here on the same day was almost more than I could handle. Turns out this guy had married a Peruvian woman whose father was originally from Chalaco, and they had come back for the fiesta. Even cooler though, was that the father had raised his family in Cabo Blanco, on the north coast, ever since moving there sixty years ago or something. This also happens to be the spot that Ernest Hemingway, Ted Williams, and other mid-century American luminaries and adventure-seekers set up the Cabo Blanco Fishing Club, where they escaped to chase some of the world´s biggest Marlins and, in their downtime, drink massive amounts of booze.

“Hem-eeng-weii! Ted Weel-yums! My friends! I was bar man! Pisco sours! Dey love dem!”

So we met Hemingway´s bartender. Pretty neat.

That afternoon we took it easy, and my brother and sister came along while I practiced some songs on guitar with two friends – we had talked about playing that night at the serenata (something like a yearly talent show), but I hadn´t realized it was actually going to happen. After an hour or two we had three songs ready to go, with my brother Will accompanying us on the cajón (the classic Peruvian drum, just a wooden box with a hole in it) for one of them. The Jim Beam my family had brought (three bottles, in fact) turned out to be pretty popular with them, as well as with most of my other friends in town. After the jam sesh, we headed down to my buddy Edwin´s place where he had promised to make us tortillas con queso (fried dough patties with fresh cheese), which was very popular across the board – especially the cheese, which seemed more like goat cheese than the cow-derived variety to my family. Next we headed up to the big covered volleyball/soccer court behind the police station, which also doubles as a kind-of assembly center, and passed around alternating bottles of Beam and the local calentado (sugarcane moonshine mixed with hot, sweet lemon juice) until the musical numbers started. We played our songs, which went pretty well. I took advantage of the mic for a cheesy shout-out to the family, which people loved. We watched several other songs and dances, realized it was all pretty much the same, and then called it a night.

Day three brought both of my families together, and we had a breakfast of sango con queso (boiled wheat with cheese) and coffee at my host family´s house. I think the fact that this is hands-down my favorite breakfast was a little shocking to the other members of the family. Despite the language barrier, everyone seemed to immediately hit it off, and we hung out for a while afterwards, watching the world cup and exchanging some gifts my family had brought from the States. Then we walked a few minutes down to a little soccer field in Huacapampa, where I have a lot of friends and I thought I was going to be playing. That turned out not to be the case, as it is about 50 percent of the time I get invited to do anything, but it was a nice walk, and my mom got to hear her first-ever donkey “bleating” (is that what it´s called?). There was, however, still a chance that I might play in the inter-district tournament that day, so we hiked back up past home and down to the stadium in Chalaco to see about that.

This turned out be more successful – my buddy Pacho had mentioned to me the night before at Edwin´s house that he needed some players for the following day, since his dad (Pacho Sr.) was the head of the local Asociación de Pequeños Ganaderos or “small cattle farmers association,” and they had wanted to enter a team. The fact that I am not a small cattle farmer turned out to be irrelevant, and both my brother and I ended up playing with a group of guys from Chalaco, many of whom I didn´t know because they were now studying in Piura and Lima and had come back just for the party. We ended up playing all afternoon, winning three games in an unlikely Cinderella story. Will played goalie, as I´m pretty sure no one has ever played goalie in Chalaco, ever. He went down hard once when he laid out to just get a fingertip on a corner kick – I was already processing the many difficulties of him separating a shoulder or breaking an arm in Chalaco when he motioned that he had only knocked the wind out of himself. Bullet dodged. The second game was almost completely invisible from the stands, due to the smoke-thick fog that had swept in late in the afternoon. I was playing defense, and actually couldn´t see it when we scored, only knowing by the shouts from the other end of the field. That game ended up going into penalty kicks after a 3-3 tie in regulation; Will was a beast and stopped about three shots, and I scored our final goal to win it for all the small cattle farmers out there. Then we had to wait through two more games before taking on the “real” Chalaco team, comprised of all the best players from the two teams in town, as well as the secondary school.

By this point we were pretty tired and, as Will put, “Dude, it´s 5PM and all I´ve eaten today is grain and cheese.” But we won 2-1 in a very competitive game, and hoisted the trophy as darkness fell on the stadium (which turned out to be the biggest trophy I had ever held, hands down). It was like out of a Disney movie or something. Two cajas (crates of beer) appeared out of nowhere, which we were happy to help take care of. I realized that my parents probably hadn´t expected to spend the whole day doing what they spend a lot of whole days doing – watching soccer, my sister usually – but they seemed to have enjoyed the whole scene, despite the fog, surprisingly cold weather, and drunks hitting on my sister. That night we bought my host family all dinner at the local favorite restaurant, and there was a party in the plaza which we hung out at for a bit. Little did my family know that the party would go on literally all night, and that their rooms conveniently located just off the plaza would give them such a good venue from which to appreciate it. All night long.

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast and got an early start back down the mountain. Things went well for about two and a half minutes, when we blew a tire on a sharp rock. At this point we were still in sight of Chalaco, which meant we had a very, very long way to go before a real city with tires for sale. The good news was that the spare was inflated; unfortunately it was so worn you could actually see the threads in some spots. In any case, we changed it and continued on our way – very, very carefully. Another popped tire here and we would be in some serious shit (this would pretty much become the theme of the rest of the trip). Somehow the trip down seemed a little less like riding a wild stallion than the way up (or maybe we were just used to it), but some four hours later we did make it all the way down to Morropón, thankfully. While the family grabbed lunch, I went tire-searching, and found nothing. Another neat feature of the 2008 Rav4 is that it has a very unique tire size, which apparently can only be found in the biggest of Peruvian cities, Morropón not being among them. So I called up the rental guy in Piura (about an hour and a half away) to see what he thought. He called around, and called back only to tell me that that particular tire is, in fact, so rare that it can´t even be found in Piura! I spent a few minutes alternately kicking myself for renting this wannabe SUV in the first place, and wondering why in the hell this guy was renting people a car whose tire couldn´t be located within a hundred miles. But mostly kicking myself. Anyway, Chiclayo was now our best bet, several hours down the coast. The good thing was that we had planned to head that direction anyway, passing through Chiclayo on our way to spend a night and day at the beach in Huanchaco. On the negative side, we now had a decision to make, which essentially amounted to the lesser of two evils: take the safer route back through Piura and head down the Panamerican highway to Chiclayo, a route which wouldn´t bring us a new spare, but at least would have more options in case of a breakdown…OR send it straight from Morropón down to Chiclayo through a town called Olmos, a route that I had never taken, but which was supposedly an hour or two quicker because it cut off the whole Piura leg. I couldn´t tell you why, but I decided that the latter sounded like the better choice, and so we set off into uncharted territory.

When I say uncharted, I mean it. The three or so hours between Morropón and Chiclayo turned out to be some of the most inhospitable, desolate land any of us had ever seen. It was starkly beautiful in many places, driving on the open road with no one else in sight, surrounded by desert with the green mountains we had just come out of rising off to the East. But I just couldn´t stop thinking about the grim consequences of a flat tire out here. Every little shanty town we passed through was another option for a night´s stay, somewhere we might be able to find some water and food. Suffice it to say these were three pretty tense hours for me, and I´m not someone who finds himself feeling tense very often.

To my great relief, we reached Chiclayo late in the afternoon and managed to locate a tire place. The word “Bridgestone” has never looked so beautiful. We got the crappy spare moved back to the back where it belonged, and (for a mere $240!) had a new one put on the front passenger side. For that price I asked the lady to at least throw in a quick car wash, which she did after a little pleading/shameless flirting on my part. This was much-needed, since I had told the rental guy that we would be taking the car “around Bajo Piura nomás,” knowing that if I told him where we were actually going he wouldn´t have rented me a Schwinn ten-speed, much less his shiny new Rav4. The car was completely caked in mud, which would have been a little suspicious, and might have aroused enough alarm to make him check under the car. Which would not have been good.

So things were looking up, and pretty soon we were on our way again, headed south toward Trujillo as the sun set over the Pacific Ocean off to our right. Tempers were flaring a little, but all told, we were still doing pretty OK. A few hours later we saw the white-green lights of the Pacasmayo cement factory approaching to the East, flickering like some weird city of Oz off in the distance, and we decided to call it a night here, since I knew the town and a spot we could stay. We were a couple hours from our goal still, but we were pretty beat and not in the mood to navigate any more in the dark than we had to. By this point, every one of the five of us had a fairly strong opinion about everything going on, and even deciding to stay was a bit complicated. But in the end we stayed, got a good night´s sleep – helped by a couple nerve-calming beers out of the mini fridge – and woke up the next day to a beautiful morning at the beach.

We set off for Trujillo mid-morning, making good time and in much better spirits. At this point I just wanted to get the hell to Huanchaco (the beach town outside of Trujillo) and turn this car in without any further complications. Which we very nearly did. Unfortunately, approaching Trujillo we missed the completely unmarked turn out to Huanchaco (go figure), and wound up right in the heart of one of the biggest and most congested of Peruvian cities. After asking directions, we found ourselves at a stoplight, wanting to turn right and seeing no oncoming traffic. The ensuring conversation, one that I would quickly find myself deeply regretting, went something like this:

Ted: “Hey, you can turn right on red in Peru, right?”
Me (never having actually driven in Peru, but having observed that literally no one obeys traffic laws anyway): “Uh, yeah probably. Sure.”

About thirty seconds later we heard the little weenie siren from a police motorcycle, and my heart just sank. We were so, so close. Anyway, we go through the whole “license and registration” bit (with me translating from the passenger seat), and it turns out that in fact, you can´t do that in Peru, and this particular cop might have been the first one in the history of Peru that actually felt like enforcing it. Wonderful. After sulking for a few minutes, I decide I should try to do something about this situation. I cruise back to the moto and start talking to the guy, really milking the whole “I´m a volunteer working here, my family are tourists here visiting…we´re idiots…really sorry” angle. I mean, really laying it on thick. In his defense, he could have been a much bigger dick about the whole thing. As he showed me in his little reference book (which, granted, he could have had made for about a dollar at any copy place), the fine for our egregious offense came out to 432 soles, or about $150. Which sucked, but what I was much more worried about was the process that we were going to have to go through to get this taken care of, especially since we were planning on leaving that night to Lima and just wanted to hit the beach for a couple hours first. So after twenty minutes or so of pleading, the guy took pity. Well, kind of. It went about like this:

Me: “Listen, what can we do to just get this taken care of as quickly as possible?”
Cop: “Well what I can do is knock it down to the lowest general traffic violation, which would be a fine of 132 soles.”
Me: “Thanks, that helps a lot. But that means we still have to go down to the station or whatever, right? And we´re kinda pressed for time here...”
Cop: “Well…I guess if you don´t have time, you could just give me the cash and I´ll take care of it for you.”

I got the impression this wasn´t the first time he had done this (especially when he requested that I put the cash in the envelope with the registration, rather than just hand it to him in broad daylight.) As for me, I realized that straight-up bribing a cop actually felt a whole lot better than I would have thought, and we were on our way again, the traveling Inbusches. To my great relief, the rental guy had sent his friend to pick up the car, and I think he was so impressed with the new tire that he neglected to do most of the final inspection. I practically threw the keys at him and he had to yell back at me to come back and sign the return agreement. Good riddance. But a good story, too. We got some great seafood, Will and Gena learned to surf, and we set off to Lima on a plush overnight bus, where at least if anything happened it wasn´t our fault anymore.

(My dad would later send me a link to a travel site where the first words of the “Driving in Perú” page read something like “Driving in Perú should be considered an extreme sport and is not recommended under any circumstances,” and went on to mention lots of interesting statistics, like the fact that there are roughly six times as many accidents here as in the rest of Latin America, which is also 30 times the rate in the developed world. Ha.)

From here things went pretty-much according to plan. We hopped a flight to Cuzco, stayed a night at a great spot right off the plaza, ate quinoa prepared as many ways as we could find, bought some alpaca sweaters, and drank several gallons of coca tea (which really does help with the altitude, especially when you go from sea level to 11,000 feet in the course of an hour). The next day we hopped on the bus, then the train, out to Aguas Calientes, the town below Machu Picchu, which isn´t nearly as much of a dump as I had heard. I actually kind of liked it, as much as anyone can really appreciate a town offering literally nothing but hotels, restaurants, and overpriced souvenirs. The following morning my Dad, Gena, and I got up at 4AM to stand in line for the bus up to the sanctuary itself, where we were among the first 200 allowed to hike up Huayna Picchu, the peak jutting up behind the ruins. Incredible views, and some very steep, slippery, handrail-lacking stone paths with just inches separating us from thousands of feet of air. Overall Machu Picchu was absolutely incredible, especially in the early morning before the thousands of tourists arrived (of which, obviously, I am a part…but like most Peace Corps volunteers I tend to use that word with a certain level of disdain). By mid-afternoon it had been a long day, and we grabbed a drink and watched some World Cup action at the ridiculous Machu Picchu Sanctuary Lodge (only $900 a night!) where I took the liberty of stealing a nice stack of coasters. Then it was back to town, and a long, cramped trip back to Cuzco for our final night in-country. The last day we were just boarding the plane back to Lima as the US went into overtime with Ghana, only finding out how it ended upon arrival.

So despite the US losing, having to buy a new tire, paying off a cop, and numerous other mis-adventures (or maybe because of them), it turned out to be one hell of a trip, and I´d do it again in a heartbeat. Minus the Rav, maybe.

Donate!

2010-06-18T16:16:00.000-05:00

Dude, how does thou feel?

2010-05-13T16:45:00.001-05:00

“It is supremely pleasant to direct myself to the office of your dignified position to greet you in a very special way, and at the same time bring to your attention the following issues…” This is how you start a letter asking any sort of authority for just about anything where I live. It´s one of the many examples that came to mind when I read a recent Economist article (“recent” meaning from December 2009) on the global de-formalization of public discourse as the internet, music and other media spread Western informality around the world. What´s interesting is that there are many examples to both support the idea and refute it here in Chalaco, and the difference seems to lie along generational lines. Which would make sense, seeing as young people tend to have the most access to – and interest in – international media, while older generations, like their counterparts around the world, remain more conservative and uninterested in exploring those outlets. But there are also many instances here where young people follow very formal cultural norms, and where older folks adopt newer terms and practices. And I´ve found that “politeness” is a very relative term.

Here are a few examples of ways that the old formality is still very much in use here. Formality in writing – you also have to provide two signed copies of any document, and have both stamped by the recipient – is echoed in public addresses and meetings, where everyone who speaks will go around the whole room greeting everyone present, if not by name at least in title (“Mr. Mayor, Mr. Lieutenant Mayor, Esteemed Authorities, Principal of the San Fernando Secondary School, Professors, Distinguished Guests, Esteemed Public in General…”) Depending on the person, he or she might then give a short – or unnecessarily long – speech, wishing everyone a very good afternoon and thanking all those present (maybe God, too) for the opportunity, for their participation, or whatever the case may be. Whether or not the same words have been repeated by several previous speakers is completely irrelevant. I´ve gained a lot of patience in my time here.

Maybe the most obvious example of formality in speech is the use of the “Usted” form when addressing others. As the article points out, “Usted” in Spanish is basically equivalent to using the long-outdated “thou” and “yee” rather than “you” in English, when addressing those outside one´s immediate circle. And although the article cites the end of the authoritarian Franco regime as all-but ending the use of the form in Spain (and similar effects in other European countries after mid-century), Peru’s transition to democracy after the Velasco military regime of the 1970s seems to have had little effect on the use of “Usted,” at least in our rural mountain community. According to the theory, old timers would be expected to still use it, which they do – and not only with strangers but also with people they grew up with and see every day. (The abuelita (grandmother) of our family here even addresses her adult children and three-year-old grandchildren as “Usted.”) But at the same time, most of my best friends in town, who are in their 30s and 40s, use it almost as regularly amongst themselves. The comparison to continental Europe may be a stretch, since in the time it takes you to travel the roughly 100Km. from Piura to Chalaco (up to a full day), you could visit several European cities (in other words, we´re a little isolated here.) Also, given that the way of life today in the villages where I work is a lot like stepping back a hundred years in time, you can see how these customs might be slow to transform. The arrival of the internet and international cable would be expected to change all that, and it is true that among younger generations you hear a lot less “Usted” than you probably would have 20 years ago.

So that´s all well and good, but the term “compa” throws a curveball into the mix. It´s short for “compadre,” the title you would use to address the godfather of your children. But over the years, it has been broadened to signify any close friend. Then at some point it was chopped in half and its use widened even more; in Chalaco it´s now used as the equivalent of “buddy” or “pal” in English. I´m pretty sure it´s a term distinct to our valley in Alto Piura, because I´ve rarely heard it anywhere else. (The next valley over uses “Paisano” – “fellow countryman” – in roughly the same function.) The interesting part is who uses “compa” – everyone. Given the older generation´s failure to phase out “Usted” in favor of “Tú,” you´d think “compa” would be equally unappealing to them. But it isn´t, at all. In fact, it´s not uncommon for two men to use the “Usted” form and call each other “compa” at the same time. This really threw me off for a while – to me, it´s sort of like saying, “Dude, how does thou feel this morning?”
I was drinking a few beers with some friends one night – as usual they were all sauced before I was really even buzzed (in a year and a half I still haven´t figured out how they can be such lightweights) – and one of them kept calling me “Usted.” I was trying to explain to him how weird it seemed to me that we could sit around drinking together (out of the same cup), talking about women and sex and who knows what else, and still not be able to tutear, or use the “Tú” form the way I figure real friends would. He didn´t seem to have a clue what I was getting at, so I gave up. Whether it was the booze interfering or some deeper cultural barrier I guess I´ll never know.

The Economist also mentions the use of last names as an antiquated formality in English, but here the custom remains strong. When two adult males meet for the first time, they introduce themselves by their last names only. This took me about a month to figure out right when I got to site, which made for some interesting exchanges. And then once I did figure it out, it didn´t actually help that much, since there are a total of about four last names in the entire district of 10,000 people. As for myself, I just go with Mateo, and sometimes when traveling I´ll even use my host family´s last name of Córdova if I don´t feel like spelling out Inbusch three (or ten) times.

A final observation is that in Chalaco, excessive formality in writing and greeting are not necessarily reflective of overall “politeness,” as the article suggests. You can easily be greeted by an adult with the “Usted” form, or even better, as “my esteemed Sir Córdova,” and then turn around a minute later to see him pissing in the street or picking his ears with a pen or hacking a loogie on the floor in someone´s kitchen. The obscene amount of public drunkenness from otherwise generally-respected community members is another example. What would be pretty clear violations of common courtesy in North America and Europe, here are are just another part of life, and in no way take away from the importance of correctly addressing a fellow citizen.

So at the risk of sounding totally clichéd, I guess the lesson is that even in a relatively Westernized culture like we have here, you´d go nuts if you tried to project your own cultural norms (even those that seem the most universal) onto a different people with a different history and different way of seeing things. As far as the use of “Usted” and other formalities, it would be interesting to come back in 20 years and see if those things have changed. The more I think about it, I hope things don´t change around here. And as long as people carry machetes instead of iPhones, I don´t think the old ways will be going anywhere soon.

rice poo, potato poo

2010-04-12T21:32:00.001-05:00

This year I´m throwing all my weight behind a big latrine project. Sanitary latrines are a critical piece in solving a lot of health problems in rural, underdeveloped communities like the villages around Chalaco. Obviously, they take care of the human waste issue, but maybe not so obvious are the related benefits, like reducing childhood malnutrition and animal disease. Regarding the former issue, the official statistic in Chalaco´s 50 villages is a jarring 41%, which is over twice the national average. While some of this is due to a poor diet consisting mostly of potatoes, rice, and fresh cheese, in large part it can be attributed to open-air defecation and poor hygiene habits, which combine to create an environment friendly to bacteria like E. Coli and parasites like Giardia and pinworms, which are transported via dirt, food, and untreated water. It goes without saying that when the worm in your belly is eating half your food, your growth will slow and you won´t have the energy needed to study or work. As far as animal disease, one example is the Cysticercosis which free-roaming pigs can pick up from ingesting raw human waste. The eggs of this parasite embed themselves in the pigs´ flesh, which is then consumed by humans, allowing the cysts to hatch into tapeworms, which can then make it all the way to the brain and cause adult-onset epilepsy. Fun stuff, eh? So by building latrines, the idea is that we´re targeting a whole bunch of health issues and also creating a certain level of hygiene-consciousness in the population. The project also includes certain “healthy households” commitments on the part of each participating family, including a small vegetable garden, a micro-landfill for inorganic trash, a pen for pigs and chickens, and attendance at training sessions throughout the year. They´re also contributing all the local materials, 500 adobes for the structure, and several days of labor each.

In this case the term “latrine” isn´t exactly accurate. The standard “pit” latrine, long promoted by Peace Corps, the UN and WHO, and many an NGO, consists of a two-meter-deep hole in the ground covered with a concrete slab with a hole in the middle for squatting, a hut made of local materials, and a ventilation tube to release the gases produced. There are many variations on the design, but the basic scheme is that little by little the hole fills up with waste, until it is filled in at the top and the whole unit moved to a new spot. While this design does address the human waste issue, there are many drawbacks. First of all, it stinks. Due to the mixing of liquid and solid waste in the pit, the decomposition process is anaerobic, which produces the awful smells generally associated with latrines. And while the smell is unpleasant to humans, it has the opposite effect on flies (another vector for food contamination). It´s also a less-than-sustainable solution, because the whole unit must be moved every few years (theoretically the hut and concrete slab can be dismantled and moved, but this requires manpower and the delicacy to not break them in the process). Third, and maybe most important where I live, when it rains for four months a year, anything below the surface tends to fill up with water, latrine pits included. For these reasons and a few more explained below, my work counterparts and I, along with the sixty participating families in the village of Naranjo, decided to go with a much more interesting design: the eco bathroom.

Essentially, the eco bathroom turns your poop into rich, usable compost for your veggies. Sound weird to you? Try explaining it to a roomful of mostly elementary-educated subsistence farmers, many of whom still don´t have electricity or running water. The design, which originated in Botswana and has spread all over the world, consists of two above-ground brick chambers covered with a concrete slab, and a specialized toilet seat which separates the solid waste from the liquid. Ironically, this bathroom will be the sturdiest structure most families have, their homes being made of mud bricks. So, if we ever get an earthquake or tornado here, if nothing else the families will have a nice place to duck for cover. In any case, once one chamber is full of a mixture of solid human waste, ash, and other organic material like cow and horse dung (about a year for an average family), it is sealed and the family switches to the other side. After the second year, chamber 2 is sealed, the now fully-decomposed compost is removed from chamber 1, and the process begins once again. The urine is piped to a 5-gallon container, where it can be mixed with water, soap, tobacco, ají peppers, and other ingredients to make a variety of plant fertilizers and insecticides.

The benefits of the eco bathroom are multiple. In the first place, these bathrooms use no water, leaving more for consumption and domestic use. You really need to live in a place where people – sometimes literally – go to war over water, to understand how crucial this is. Eco bathrooms don´t fill up with rainwater, and they emit no foul odors thanks to the dry (aerobic) decomposition process. Finally, rather than simply filling up after a few years as pit latrines do, eco bathrooms operate in a yearly cycle of filling and emptying, with a lifespan of up to 50 years with proper maintenance. They also produce organic byproducts in the dry compost and liquid products, both of which are highly useful in agricultural communities. Thus they offer a sustainable, hygienic, and cost-effective (about $200 apiece) solution to the problem of improper human waste disposal.

That is not to say the design is without its drawbacks. Or better put, drawback (singular), because the only real foreseeable difficulty is the extra training needed to operate one correctly (otherwise you run the risk of ending up with sixty nice-looking boxes full of crap). . We can´t start building until after the rains (probably July at the earliest), so for now every couple weeks we have a community meeting and training session about a different aspect of the project (construction, maintenance, hygiene, etc.). The other day we played “pin the poop on the eco-toilet.” That was a good time – there´s nothing like getting a roomful of hard campo dudes to giggle like schoolgirls at their friends blindfolded, dizzy from being spun around, stumbling to pin a picture of poop on the wall. I´m almost grateful for the rainy season, because it gives us a ton of time to make sure everyone is on the same page and that each family complies with its commitments to the project. Right now I´m spending a couple days a week in Naranjo (about an hour and a half´s hike from Chalaco), walking around and visiting with each family, answering any questions and doubts they might have, and mapping out possible locations near their houses for the bathrooms. Once you get past the turning-your-poo-into-dirt confusion, you find yourself faced with a whole new batch of unexpected technical questions, some of which become instant classics. One man was particularly worried about the separation of solid waste from liquid. The conversation went something like this:

Mateo: “So do you have any questions about how the bathroom works?”
Señor Jorge: “Well uh, actually, yeah…some of us were talking…and uh, well, about this whole separation idea…”
M: “Yes…”
SJ: “Well uh, so…so I´m a man, right? And so peeing is easy, you know, standing up and stuff...”
M: “Uh-huh…”
SJ: “Right, so…but what about when you´re going, you know, number two, and then you gotta pee…at the same time? What then??”

The Spanish version is even better, because the way it is said around here translates as: “when both desires touch me at once.” This was my fault; I hadn´t yet brought out a model of the “special” toilet seat to show them, and obviously my explanation of how it worked had been less than adequate. Another funny observation was in regards to the time in months it takes to fill up one of the brick chambers with waste. When asked, I responded, in total seriousness, “Well that depends on how many people are using it. And how much they eat.” The room exploded in laughter, and it´s since become something of a running joke (“Hey Mateo, how much space does rice-poop take up compared to potato-poop, HAHAHAHA,” and the like). One thing I´ve learned, to my great delight, is that bodily functions are hilarious, regardless of culture, age, or other superficial differences we might have.

I´ve also run into some interesting issues reflective of everyday life in the campo, which may seem insignificant, but are actually the kind of things that can make or break a project. Example: an added benefit of the eco bathroom is that you can throw your used toilet paper in the hole as well, because it, too, will decompose. Here in Perú you always deposit your used TP in a separate trash can, because the piping can´t handle the added bulk. This applies not only to flush toilets, but also to pit latrines, so as to delay the hole´s inevitable filling-up. Unfortunately it can create an anti-hygienic situation, because people will simply throw out the used TP along with their other trash, generally right behind the house (which might also be where they plant their vegetables and/or where their pigs eat whatever they come across). So the eco bathroom takes care of this problem, but the question that came up was, “What if we don´t use TP?” I know what you´re thinking, and that´s not it. It´s not that they don´t wipe, but rather that when your land produces just enough to feed your family, investing in TP isn´t exactly your top priority. So many families use their kids´ old notebooks from school (rip out a page, crinkle it up…). Magazines, newspapers, and anything else with pages also work, as do tree leaves. This was one of those “Oh God” moments where I thought the whole thing might go up in flames because of a stupid oversight on my part. But after some thought, we decided that this wasn´t a problem; paper would decompose no matter what, it just make take longer with glossy magazine pages. My initial reaction may seem overblown, but it was precisely this kind of tiny oversight that caused the extensive “improved wood stove” project a few years ago in Chalaco´s villages to be a massive failure. Just this kind of little nuances were ignored, the things didn´t work, and people have not only gone back to cooking over an open fire, but are generally opposed to any attempt to change their cooking habits, having been completely disillusioned with the idea.

All this and we haven´t even started the fun part – building the things – which I am really psyched about. After a year-plus working in purely “capacity-building” projects, I can´t wait to actually build something that will be here for years after I leave. Without a doubt there will be lots more stories to tell once we break ground. Not to mention a healthy amount of drinking, too, if my experiences here are any indication.

an evening in the life

2010-02-09T13:57:00.002-06:00

The sheet-metal door slammed open against the unfinished mud-brick wall with a bang, and in burst a cloud of evening mountain fog that could have been made by a horror movie smoke machine. My pal Manuel poked his head in, grinning in a floppy hat and wielding a large stick for no apparent reason. He was very drunk, which was funny because I had been working with him all day, and had decided that he was one of the hardest-working, most responsible guys I´d met in a long time. But a quick glance – and whiff – told me he had been drinking fermented sugarcane cañazo since we parted ways several hours before, and as a result he could barely put an intelligible sentence together. The two of us had been part of a 30-plus man work team, digging a several miles-long trench in which to lay piping for his town´s new water system. We had worked hard with shovels and machetes in steep, overgrown terrain from the crack of dawn until 4PM or so, and my hands felt like I had been rubbing them with chunks of fiberglass all day. I had also managed to give myself one of the worst farmer´s tans (read: burns) of my life, by somehow forgetting that, even though it´s the “rainy season” and may be cloudy at dawn in Chalaco, when you start at 7,000 feet and hike up a few thousand more it can be a different story.

I was now one of several guys sitting around in the front room of my friend Robert´s home, drinking a cañazo and soda concoction that didn´t burn the way the stuff does when you drink it straight, but has the same effect when consumed for a few hours. I was distinctly unopposed to drinking a lot of it tonight. I have a theory about sunburns that says although you can´t go back in time and put on sunscreen like you should have, you can certainly mitigate the effects by: A) taking a cold shower, B) liberally applying aloe vera (or the last of your cheap hotel moisturizer, whichever the case may be), C) popping a few Advil, and D) getting drunk enough to forget about it. Since we had stopped digging, I had taken care of steps A through C, and was looking forward to completing the equation to ease the burning on my face, neck, and arms. Working alongside Robert all day, him tearing up the ground ahead and me on clean-up duty behind with a small shovel, we had talked about everything from the weather, to why the hell I was working in a foreign country without getting paid for it, to American women and our respective positions on sleeping around. I found out he´s only 25, and we were actually the same age for a few days in January (surprising not because he looks older, but rather because he´s got a wife and a few kids). He had also repeatedly mentioned that we all needed to get together tonight and re-create the time we sat around and drank and played guitars a few months ago. Say no more. The group included myself, my host father Nestor, his brother and one of my best friends, Beto; Robert; Manuel; a kid named Dennis who I knew from teaching night-classes at the same school in town; an old man in a beat-up poncho; this guy Pascual who has nothing but a stub for a right hand; and two guys who didn´t do much besides drink. They both had very impressive mustaches, though.

I had walked up to Robert´s place with Beto after night settled and Nestor still hadn´t made it home. Their mother – who lives in the adjoining home with the grandfather and Beto´s wife and kids – was worried, but I was pretty sure I knew where he was. In his normal, socially-unpredictable manner, Beto made it to Robert´s house without any weirdness, then was very hesitant about coming in, despite the fact that the people inside were all men he had known since he was about four. He´s the kind of guy who gives me constant hell about anything he can think of, including above all, girls, but when one happened to be visiting and stayed at our house, he went running – literally – right at the moment he knew he was going to be introduced. Fortunately his friends convinced him to come in, and we greeted everyone with the custom handshakes around the small circle of chairs. I took off my jacket and unzipped my guitar case; Dennis and Nestor were already passing another guitar back and forth, and a bottle was being passed around, the cap used as a shot glass. My guitar was quickly snatched up (very politely, though) by a happy, half-drunk Nestor, who tuned it down half a step and played it with a plastic comb. Then the two launched into their repertoire of classic Peruvian highland tunes. Think of it as a bunch of buddies sitting around drinking and playing their versions of sing-alongs like “Free Fallin” and “Summer of ´69.” One-hand Pascual was wasted, and ironically it turned out that he loved to aggressively shake hands with people after making drunken, nonsensical comments. I wasn´t really sure how to handle that until I took a clue from Beto and just grabbed hold of the thumb like it was a gear shift and shook until it got awkward.

Every four or five songs, Nestor would cordially hand my guitar back to me, and they would all start shouting for me to play something “een eeng-lish!” Which I did, and as usual, all wanted to know what I was singing about. After playing “Rivers of Bablyon” to a chorus of enthusiastic, off-beat clapping, in an effort to help them relate I mentioned that the song contained few lines from a biblical psalm. “So it´s a religious song, then!” I pictured Sublime doing their version of it after shooting up backstage and wondered how carefully I had chosen my words, but answered yes, anyway. By now Manuel had passed out and was peacefully snoring with his head on his chest. Beto was trying to convince me that the buffalo on my hat had parasites. The old guy, who I would´ve placed in his early seventies maybe, turned out to be 98. He kept requesting marineras, a typical dance from farther down the coast. When they would finally pick one out, he would launch into an off-key ballad, clapping his hands and stomping his feet and sometimes getting up to dance a bit, to everyone´s amusement. Then he would sit back down and give Beto some shit about not filling his cup enough. Ninety-eight! At one point, he moved his chair over next to Dennis and started describing a song he remembered from before any of our times. A few minutes later they were belting it out together, and I had to wonder how many places were left in the world where a 98-year-old and a 17-year-old would ever do something like this, outside of a nursing home where the kid goes to do his required high school service hours.

After a couple hours things quieted down a bit. Robert was running out of booze, and the crowd had thinned to Nestor, Beto, Dennis, Robert, and me. Robert went into the kitchen and brought out a plate of gray-colored, salty tuna mush with a few individual packs of Saltine-style crackers. As we all dug in, it occurred to me that in another life this might be caviar with some uber-expensive organic crackers in a high-rise somewhere. And I immediately found myself deeply, deeply pitying people who had never sat around drinking moonshine and eating cat food and playing out-of-tune guitars under a bare light bulb in an adobe house surrounded by wonderful, hilarious people. With the food gone, the guitars came out for one last round, and with no drunks to accompany them, Nestor and the kid sounded better than ever. With Nestor on rhythm and Dennis´s quick fingers working the fretboard like few seventeen-year-olds can (or anyone for that matter), they went through a beautiful series of Peruvian Huaynos, Sanjuaneros, and Waltz, and my favorite, the Ecuadorean Pasillos. I realized that almost all the songs they played were based on the same three chords. They sang about women, drinking, and life. One song was a single line, over and over: “Unsalted beans for my husband, coffee and milk for my lover.” Pretty soon the music gave way to dirty jokes, and then jokes about the corruption, crime, and general lack of decency in Peruvian culture. I botched my way through one I´d heard about a Japanese guy, a Dutch guy, and a Peruvian together on an airplane.

Around midnight I suggested that it was getting a little late (my sunburn having bounced back with a vengeance after the booze ran out), and Beto, Nestor and myself packed up and headed out. As we all relieved ourselves outside, I looked up. The Big Dipper was back after an extended Southern winter absence; it looked foreign and strange, and not because it was upside-down. That familiar icon of my childhood – which, at this point in my life, basically means, well, my whole life – looked so distant, like it was out of some weird dream where it used to be right-side up. And that wasn´t as unsettling as I might have thought.

ode to a mustache

2010-01-29T10:06:00.000-06:00

25/01/2010

My facial hair situation in the year-plus I´ve been here has been a little out of control. I seem to have developed some kind of complex where I feel the need to experiment with aggressive, frequently-changing styles rather than just being happy with shaving once every few days like have since I was about seventeen. I attribute that to two conveniently overlapping phenomena: the early-twenties, post-puberty state where as a guy you realize that you actually can grow something that looks like facial hair, and the fact fact that I live in a town in the middle of nowhere, allowing me to grow anything I want on my face and not really care what I look like or what people think. (Translation: there are virtually no women in my town who I´m even remotely interested in.) This lethal combination resulted in an initial full-beard look, which then gave way to a goatee/buzz-cut combo, and then finally a big, red (yeah, my facial hair is kind of red, which was unexpected), bushy mustache. Throughout these phases of follicular – and yes, spiritual – growth, I´ve been told I looked like the Unabomber, a pedophile, a gay porn star, a ´70s fighter pilot, and Larry Bird. I figured Larry Bird flying an F-15 sounded pretty damn cool, so it was easy to ignore the other ones.

While each phase had its moments, it was definitely the mustache that I sported with the most pride, and therefore rocked the longest (a full six months). It´s unfortunate that my Christmas trip home had to come along during this phase, because if not for that, the ´stash would most definitely still be with us today. I really hadn´t planned on shaving it, and in fact showed it off proudly for the first few days home. But after a few nights out with my buddies, I realized that “Uhh, cool….mustache…?” wasn´t really the response I was looking for when conversing with the first American women I had seen in over a year. I was having enough trouble putting together full English sentences as it was. I´d like to think I´m above what other people think of me, but I guess deep down I´m just not as secure as I would like to think. At least when it comes to mustaches.

Once back in Peru I was lamenting the loss of the ´stash (and this insecurity that I had apparently developed all the sudden) to my buddy Eric, and he offered some good perspective on the topic. It went something like this: “Dude, you can´t expect to confidently rock a ´stash like that if you´re anywhere under forty. Mustache confidence comes with old man strength, and even though we´re considered grown men by now, we definitely don´t have that.” Well put. In any case, I guess I should get around to the point of my writing this, which is to highlight some of the pros and cons of growing an aggressive mustache as a young man, for anyone out there losing sleep over the decision. So here we go:

PROS
- Flavor saver. Scrambled eggs look particularly cool.
- Instant conversation starter, no matter where you go.
- Gives you something to stroke when deep in thought about, say, which donut to go with.
- Makes you look older and therefore gains you more respect (this actually is true, but probably only if you live where I do).
- If you let it grow out for a week or so, it actually gets to the point where you can sort of comb it with your lower lip/tongue, and then trim it with your front teeth. Which gives you something to do when really bored (this level of boredom probably also only applies to my current situation).
- Your buddies will tell you it´s awesome, even if it looks like a chipmunk glued to your upper lip.
- There are few things in this life that make you feel as distinguished as combing and trimming your mustache. After doing so, I would often get the urge to put on my cufflinks, pack a pipe, and go down to the stables to see my polo horses.
- Tom Selleck has one.
- Chicks dig it. Some chicks, that is.

CONS
- Most chicks hate it (see “Uhh…” comment, above).
- Your mother will be one of them. She will hate it. Period.
- Having to check for cling-ons after blowing your nose.
- Mike Ditka has one.

I realize that the pros far outnumber the cons in this analysis. But the final result depends on much more than just numbers. As an individual you have to weight each one according to your own scale of importance. For me, the cons caught me with my defenses down, jaded by the bright lights and blondes of America. But who knows, maybe a couple months here will bring me back to my senses. Sorry, Mom.

an update

2009-12-23T09:09:00.000-06:00

23/12/2009

Neat things that have happened lately:

Went to Arequipa, climbed a volcano, conquered the world´s deepest canyon on foot, saw an Incan mummy, ate some turkey. A solid week all-around.

Hung out in Lima. Had some meetings, got my teeth cleaned. Ate sushi. Watched football. Surfed.

Made nice with the jerks up the hill who play the music at 4AM by helping clean their water system and extracting a 2 meter-long mass of roots that was blocking the pipes.

Suited up in the first-ever Chalaco-Santo Domingo basketball challenge. Good luck next time, chumps.

Held meetings in two villages about upcoming composting-latrine projects. Weird enough to think about composting your crap no matter who you are, much less when you´ve been squatting over a hole in the ground your whole life.

It started raining. Rubber boots are in. As are played-out comments about the weather.

Was forced into giving my English students a “real” test. Results were devastating, and pretty much meaningless.

Was the “godfather” of the English students´ graduating class party. We went to mass, then we got down.

Tried several times to do a radio show on HIV/AIDS, a good three weeks after World AIDS Day. Didn´t work out, postponed til January. Which in Peru, would still be on time.

My 8-month-old dog knocked up a she-dog. I didn´t even know he had all the pieces in place. Good on ya, bud.

Helped out with a Christmas party, or chocolatada, for about 75 kids. I don´t know why fruitcake gets such a bad rap, cause I love that stuff.

Went to my buddy Hagan´s site, packed to the gills with his Christmas wish-list of: a hand-woven poncho, two bottles of specialty Chalaco sugar cane liquor, and two handmade stabbing knives called chavetas. Saw the Ecuadorean border. Neat.

Watched Frost/Nixon. Great movie.

Got a real nice wife-beater sunburn. Goes well with the mustache.

Decorated our Christmas tree with the family. Actually, it´s more like a branch they stuck in an old paint can.

Was informed of the most recent Mateo rumor in the villages: that I sometimes work with the government welfare program JUNTOS to try and fatten the kids up so I can steal them to work in the mines that I allegedly own.

Countdown to ´mer-kuh: 2 days.

call me Scrooge...

2009-11-18T15:01:00.000-06:00

13/11/2009

I have a problem with the neighbors. At some point in the last several months, the family living up the hill from us started blasting the radio around 4:30AM, a few mornings a week. I mean, blasting it. Something I don´t think I´ll ever get used to is the the totally whack prioritization of needs around here; how a family that lacks a flushing toilet and cooks over an open fire can possibly afford anything that loud is beyond me. But they´ve managed it.

And it´s not just the volume, it´s the music itself, too. (Yeah, I realize I sound like the grumpy old man next door that you hate when you´re sixteen, but whatever). I can deal with a little huayno or sanjuaneros from time to time, or even multiple times a day, provided it´s sometime after the sun rises. But at the crack of dawn, there´s nothing I want to hear less than a couple screechy, apparently tone-deaf women trying to harmonize to the same melody that is the baseline for 9 out of every 10 songs around here. This is music that I sincerely wonder how any human being can possibly find enjoyable when played on a regular basis. And if the volume and lack of variety aren´t enough, just to add insult to injury, they actually turn it off at about 6AM! Right when a normal person might be starting to think about waking up at some point in the next two hours!

So after a few weeks of internal debate about the pros and cons of the gringo starting a potential family feud, I decided I´d had enough. I had also mentioned the issue to my host family on various occasions, and they all agreed that the music was a giant pain in the ass. But in typical campo fashion, no one seemed to take the next logical step and think “Hey, instead of just whining, maybe we can do something about this problem!” (Don´t get me wrong, I love my family here, but this whole episode is like a giant metaphor for the frustrations of life as a Peace Corps volunteer.) So, one pre-dawn morning, I rolled out of bed in a wife-beater and some too-small soccer shorts, slipped on my tire sandals in the dark, and stepped out into unchartered territory. I brought my dog just in case.

I first went around to the front door, only to find – after several minutes of knocking – that there were actually two families living in what appeared to be one single adobe home: the culprits could be found around back. Thankfully no dogs or machete-wielding campesinos were there to greet me, and after several more minutes of knocking and shouting over the noise, the music emanating from the second story window suddenly came to a halt. “Señor,” I yelled in Spanish, “The music…uh, could you turn it down a little??” A muffled reply came back, sounding vaguely affirmative, and was followed by the re-emergence of the music, though notably softer this time. “Alright, progress,” I thought to myself.

Ten minutes later, I was back in bed and just about to fall back to sleep, when – you guessed it – the volume was cranked back up to its regular loudspeaker volume. I punched the wall, swore, and jumped out of bed. Enough was enough. This time when I hiked up there was a light on in a room off to the side of the back door. I knocked, and a short, round elderly woman peered out, looking bewildered: “Sí?” I voiced my complaint as nicely as I possibly could, given the circumstances. What followed was a typical series of excuses (once again, the Peace Corps metaphor); “It´s my son, he´s drunk” was the kicker. “I see,” I responded. “So he´s drunk three or four mornings a week, but only between the hours of 4:30 and 6:00? Sure is punctual for a drunk!” I realized I should probably remove myself before I said something I would regret later on when the sun came up, so I accepted her half-hearted promise to talk to the guy. I didn´t fall back asleep this time.

I heard the music a few times over the next week or so, and it was hard to tell whether it was actually softer or if I was just getting used to it. One morning the other day it sounded particularly loud at a particularly early juncture in the morning, so I went back for round three. By now the old lady had to know who it was knocking. I sat down on the bench outside the door, rubbed my eyes, and tried to reason with her. This time she told me they had peones (hired workers) waiting, and that was why they had to be up so early. I told her that was all well and good, but that I didn´t happen to have any peones and I´d really love to still be sleeping. She wasn´t sure how to respond to that, so I half-shouted over the music, “I take it your son is awake, then? Think I could talk to him?” “Oh, no,” she replied, “He´s still asleep.” About this time I realized we were operating on two completely different wavelengths, but I kept pushing anyway out of spite. About ten minutes later I gave up for good, having tried to explain to her that they had every right to play music, but when it bothered others then it was impinging on the rights of others to sleep (to which she first tried to convince me that 4:30 was a reasonable time to get up, and then that even if the music wakes you up, you can still lay in bed and recordar.) I wasn´t too sure what “remembering” had to do with any of this, but I decided to once again remove myself before things got ugly. I stormed back down the hill and did pushups till breakfast time.

I´d like to be able to say this story has some deeper meaning other than the fact that some people simply can´t be reasoned with. But I can´t think of any. I´m thinking about blowing a few months-worth of living allowance and investing in some giant speakers myself…I wonder if they like Rage Against the Machine.

the "gypsies" come to town

2009-11-06T11:39:00.002-06:00

5/11/2009

The other day, without any warning, the gypsies arrived. No sound of tambourines from miles away, no provisional musket shots, no smoke signal or even a cloud of dust. We just woke up one day and here they were. Or actually, I guess everyone else in Chalaco knew they were coming, they just forgot to tell me. Apparently this happens up here every year at the end of October, in preparation for the Día de Todos Santos celebration during the first couple days of November. This Peruvian equivalent of Mexico´s Día de los Muertos and our Halloween is celebrated country-wide, but judging by the staggering number of strangers who have set up shop in Chalaco in the last couple days, I have to imagine it´s a bigger deal in here than in other places. What follows is a description of my love-hate (or rather, hate-tolerate) relationship with the gypsies.

Why I hate the gypsies

Maybe “gypsies” isn´t really the right word – let´s just call them vendors. My understanding of a true gypsy is roughly based on the character of Alcibiades in One Hundred Years of Solitude: about 200 years old, shrouded in mystery, and perpetually in the shadows, with a black witch´s hat and flowing, tattered cape. He speaks in codes and metaphors, and knows about a thousand different languages. He´s lived the life of a pirate, a circus performer, and everything in-between. He´s got an obscure pet that is always at his side or perched on his shoulder. He has long, yellow fingernails and rarely eats. He is constantly scheming new earth-shattering inventions including, for example, time machines, cure-all potions, ice and the like.

The people who have invaded the streets of Chalaco are nothing like this. They´re just coastal Peruvians who have shown up in their trucks full of the same old crap. Each one has his or her specialty, none of which seem particularly interesting to me. The main categories, just like in the market in Piura, are: shoe guys, clothing guys, pots-and-pans guys, plastic specialists, ´80s music video junkies, and food vendors. Lately I´ve been really wanting a coffee strainer so I can drink real coffee and ditch the instant Nescafé after a full year, but I think the pot-vendors had about every shiny metal thing in the universe besides what I wanted. And it´s a little depressing when you walk by a group of grown men totally fixated on a Cindy Lauper video. Honestly, I wonder how it can possibly be profitable to lug all this crap up here in their huge trucks, set it all up under tarps and tents, hang around for a couple days, and then pack up and head to the next victim-town. Which brings me to my next complaint: I was once able to walk peacefully through the streets of Chalaco, not a care in the world other than dodging donkey manure and the occasional dog. No longer. The town´s main street is now jam-packed with wanna-be gypsies in a labyrinth of steel poles, tarps, and trip wires. It´s a ridiculous little tent city, built for people about half my height. For the time being, clothesline strangulation and ankle-high booby traps have replaced my former, comparatively bucolic concerns.

Another reason I hate the gypsies is their bathing habits, which happen to conflict directly with my own. Several months ago I discovered the old fountain which forms a natural outdoor shower about a hundred meters up the road from my house, and I´ve been showering there almost every day since. Other people use it too, but as far as I can tell I´m the only daily customer. One time a kid asked me where the water came from, and I decided I´d rather not know. And sometimes this guy they call the matachanchos (“pig-killer”) goes up there and cleans pig guts in the morning, leaving a festering stench all day. But other than that I really have no complaints, and in my mind it definitely beats bucket-bathing at home, even if I have to do it in a bathing suit and in plain sight of anyone walking by. Anyway, I guess all the gypsies know all about this spot, too. So now, rather than casually strolling up to my fountain and showering undisturbed, if I don´t time it right, I have to actually wait in line. What the hell is that all about?! Plus, they leave all their stupid little sample Pantene Pro-V shampoo packets and plastic soap wrappers laying around when they´re done. Yesterday I even found a used disposable razor up there. What kind of gypsy shaves, anyway?? Fake ones, that´s who.

Finally, and maybe most of all, I hate the way they make me feel self-conscious in my own town. I´ve been here almost a year now – I thought I had left the “gringo” comments, shameless gawking, and constant giggling behind several months ago. With the good people of Chalaco, in fact, I did. But when a huge group of new Peruvians shows up, it´s like you just got there all over again. Not a feeling I´m really digging.

Why I love the gypsies

I gotta be honest, there´s really nothing that I love about the “gypsies.” I pretty much hate them. But they do have a few redeeming qualities which make them occasionally tolerable. For example, I ate about a pound of these absolutely delicious, sweet…uh, things, the other day. They were basically hunks of caramelized sugar with a nugget of papaya-fig preserve on the inside. They probably gave me diabetes and cavities at the same time, which was a nice little two-for-one deal, I figured. What else…oh, yeah, I spent three soles (about a dollar) on a killer denim baseball cap advertising the words “USA NBA,” which also has a built-in change pocket with zipper, right on the front! Totally rad. But yeah, other than that, I guess I pretty much hate the “gypsies.” Grow a beard or something. Fakers.

social lubrication

2009-10-28T11:33:00.000-06:00

27/10/2009

I was thoughtfully fingering the outline of the miniature logo on the clear, well-weighted glass bottle, the liquor beginning to lap pleasantly at my brain, when I realized that it was a familiar shape I was tracing. At the same moment, from across the room my buddy Brian laughed aloud: “Dude, it´s an old Johnnie Walker bottle.” With a combined three years experience in the northern sierra, there´s no reason that this should have surprised us, but I had to laugh along with him. Here we were, passing around a bottle of specialty, home-distilled Peruvian mountain liquor, all conversing in the same hillbilly mountain Spanish, miles away – both in physical distance and in our minds – from all things American…and in barges Johnnie, shaking up the whole scene, conjuring a memory and an unwelcome dose of relativity that had been completely absent a few seconds ago. That bastard. But like I said, by this time I was feeling pretty thoughtful…

Brian is a community health volunteer nearing the 2-year finish line; he and his town´s JASS, or local drinking water committee, had come up to Chalaco from several hours away in another mountain valley to see what they could learn from the work my “counterpart” Miguel and I had been doing in the towns and villages of Chalaco for the last several months. It had been a successful couple days, despite us all having arrived exhausted. They had had to set out from their town of Jililí in the pre-dawn darkness because of a problem with the road, only to turn around in Piura six hours later and come back up a near-parallel route, arriving in time for a late dinner in Chalaco. For my part, I had spent two of the last three nights on overnight busses going to and from Lima for a day and a half of workshops with the new Wat/San volunteers. The fact that we all arrived as planned was noteworthy in and of itself. The following day had been spent out in the field inspecting rural water systems and discussing the finer points of chlorine treatment, water use and misuse, and the various frustrations offered by the often thankless job of water work. After the meeting I had organized that afternoon with some local authorities, my friend and the head of the local health commission invited us all down to his house for some after-dinner tragos. The term refers to any drink harder than beer, which up here means it´s generally synonymous with sugarcane cañazo, straight up so you can really appreciate the kerosene-esque aroma, or heated up in a pot and mixed with any number of flavors, from lime juice to Coca-Cola to milk. So it would be a nice surprise when this night offered a new, much more interesting variation.

Once inside Jesús´s house and seated in the typical drinking circle, our host brought out a bottle of what looked like Mint Listerene, and wound up tasting not all that unlike it. I tend to be a little wary of consuming anything that brightly-colored, especially alcohol, but after a few half-shots I realized it wasn´t bad at all, and an hour later we started in on an anis-flavored version of the same liquor. By the time bottle number three (orange-flavored, with a color that looked like highlighter juice) was procured, our curiosity about the drinks had been satisfied: turns out Jesús´s brother and neighbor Eduard (also a former Chalaco mayor, as I found out) had started experimenting with distilled cañazo a few years back, and had recently acquired the health certification he needed to sell to the general public. All his 40-50 proof liquors are made with extra-distilled sugarcane liquor and then naturally flavored with the mint leaves, anis plants, and oranges he buys by the 50-kilo sack-full. The color was pretty unnatural-looking, but in defense of the entrepreneur, shiny objects do tend to attract attention.

I guess I´m not the first to sit back and watch “social lubrication” in action, but it was really funny to sit there as the hours – and bottles – passed, and watch the mood escalate from reserved at first, then to polite, to jovial, to boisterous, to straight-up LOUD at its peak, and then slide back down the other, quieter side; thoughtful, then sentimental, and finally downright sloppy by the time 2AM rolled around and our guests´ bus was waiting for them. Throughout the day the atmosphere had been friendly but professional, but by the night´s end all formalities (and Peruvians can be very formal people, especially around strangers) had gone out the window.

We had passed the peak of dirty jokes and embarrassing stories (also discussing everything from the Iraq war to the idiots who had tried to rob a store a few days before in Chalaco), and were starting to fade into the phase of contented contemplation, when the master himself came in from next door with a few unmarked, half-empty bottles of colorless liquor in hand. After a shower of praise from all sides, Eduard, short, about sixty with a graying comb-over, and quick with a wrinkle-inducing smile, sat down and invited us to taste some of his current “experiments.” These, as it turned out, would include some of the most delicious liquors I´d ever tasted. I knew it was good stuff right off the bat when Brian, seated across the circle from me, took a sip, sucked his teeth, frowned, inhaled, forcefully exhaled, coughed, smiled, and said aloud in English, “Wow. That´s some good sh--!” The bottles contained, in the order that we tasted them (and then emptied them), an orange brandy, a lucuma wine, and a lucuma brandy. (Lucuma is unlike any other fruit I´ve ever seen – it´s about the size of a grapefruit, grows in trees like an apple, and has a texture somewhere in-between banana and chalk. I won´t even try to describe the taste…but it´s real tasty). These were obviously Eduard´s most prized creations: pungent in smell, clear in color, and packing a real burn. But each one had a distinct flavor and smoothness about it – even if he hadn´t detailed all his efforts, it was obvious that Eduard had spent the better part of several years perfecting his products. The lucuma brandy (around 80 proof he thinks, about as strong as an American bourbon) was the crowd favorite.

In addition to the discovery of these amazing mystery liquors, I had another first that night: seeing Miguel drunk. He´s a pretty stocky guy, and I was surprised that the liquor seemed to affect him much more than the rest of us. It was the first time in almost a year of daily interactions that I´ve seen him talk about the difficulties – and consequences – of his relentless work ethic. This is something I´d wondered about since the beginning; how the district health inspector, water and sanitation expert, and ambulance driver (among various other hats he wears) can possibly be on the clock (at least) six days a week and still manage to maintain any kind of personal life, especially with two teenage girls at home, not to mention his lovely wife Amanda. At one point, when the hard stuff ran dry and with less than an hour to kill, at his insistence he and I went out to buy some beers to share with our guests. I offered to buy, and was surprised when he let me. In between repeated knocks on the door of a darkened home/bodega where we thought we might find what we wanted, he confessed to me that today had been his oldest daughter´s seventeenth birthday – and that he had had to miss the humble celebration (he couldn´t afford much) to be out in the field with us. So minutes later, with one arm draped around someone he had met for the first time just that morning, his slurred description of himself as an unappreciated “firefighter” could have come off as conceited and obnoxious. But to me, truer words were never spoken. I felt relieved, somehow.

Brian and his JASS ended up just making the bus, having first made plans for a return trip in December by a team from Chalaco to check out their water system and help implement the changes we had talked about. Who knows, maybe they´ve got some surprises up their sleeve, too.

kids, worms, and pills

2009-09-29T10:40:00.001-05:00

28/09/09

A month or so ago I had a pretty cool opportunity that I´ve been meaning to write about, but just haven´t had the time – I´ve been on the road a lot lately, most recently for a week in Lima helping compile all the Wat/San volunteer “Tri-Annual Reports” (really not that fun), and also meeting with the new volunteers from Perú 14, who just arrived a couple weeks ago in Lima for their three months of training. This is right where my group was – a year ago. Hard to believe. There are something like 58 of them, the biggest group to come to Perú yet, and they include the first group of Wat/San volunteers after mine, which is very exciting for those of us who have made it this far (WatSan1 is down to 11 from our original 15). I´ll be heading back to Lima again in late October to take them through some of the water-specific work I´ve been involved in at site, which should be fun for me, and hopefully useful for them.

But now I´ve got some time, so I wanted to write about something else: the medical campaign I got to help out with last month down in Chulucanas, the artisan capital of the North, which lies about an hour outside of Piura city. In a random series of international connections, my fellow Alto Piura Wat/San-er Patrick and I were asked by an Catholic Sister from Australia to come down to her now-home of Chulucanas to help out as translators for American doctors and residents from Johns Hopkins, who would be here for a weeklong free pediatric health campaign for select Chulucanas families. It was organized by the Chulucanas Diocese; basically each parish in the district received a certain number of fichas, or tickets, to be distributed to the neediest of its families, who then came to the “Pastoral Center” in the city (seemingly by the boatload!) on their designated day, to be seen by the docs. It was an interesting experience, for a lot of reasons.

First and foremost, it was nothing less than eye-opening to see all these patients and learn about the health problems of the children of Chulucanas which, I think it can be safely assumed, probably affect poor families all over Perú and the rest of the developing world. During the course of each day we probably saw between 15 and 30 families, whose kids were suffering everything from the common cold to epilepsy to weird skin rashes to heart murmurs to club feet, among many others.

The cold was the most common of all: after a couple hours on that first day, the doctor I was working with and I would have to try hard not to roll our eyes when a mother came in and said her child had a headache, runny nose, and dry cough. I´d say about half of the patients we saw all week had nothing more than the common cold, and were generally baffled when we had nothing to give them but the vitamins that the campaign was donating to every kid who came through. (You can´t blame them for being paranoid though, especially with the recent hysteria over H1N1). Anyway, after a few attempts I realized that it really wasn´t worth trying to explain that in the medical culture of the United States, we don´t prescribe antibiotics or shots for viral infections (unlike here, where a doctor´s first reaction to pretty much anything is often some form of injection). So we just told them that it was very unlikely to be the swine flu, and to drink lots of fluids until it ran its course. The vitamins often saved the day, actually – at least we were able to give them something to take home. And often we´d wind up giving them two or three extra packets, for the kid´s brothers or sisters or cousins or grandma or…you get the idea.

A close second to the common cold was dehydration. To the countless children who came in complaining of headaches, lack of appetite, and fatigue, the first question I repeated time and time again was, “So, how much water are we drinking every day?” After a couple of these, I could predict, almost word-for-word, that Mom would interject with something reassuring like, “Oh, lots of water, he drinks lots of water.” Same with the next response, which I would hear upon pressing a little further:

“OK, so when you say a lot…how many cups, more or less?”
“Oh, at least two, maybe three.”

It would have been amusing, had it not been so sad that these mothers (many as young as my little sister, a high-school junior) simply had no idea how much water their kids needed (up to 10 glasses a day, particularly in a desert climate like that of Chulucanas). Unfortunately, a lot of times, for cultural reasons more than anything, water isn´t even an option; in the desert towns around Piura kids often grow up drinking nothing but chicha, a mildly alcoholic drink made from fermented corn. This all being a great learning opportunity for the young doctors, occasionally another doctor would poke his or her head in and tell the one I was assigned to that there was a special case he should come see. Toward the end of the third day I accompanied them to see a severely dehydrated 2-month old. I´ve never seen such a frail-looking human being – she was so tiny, and you could pull her skin away from her bones like it was silly putty (an obvious indicator for dehydration, I learned). On one hand, it was reassuring to see these critical cases receiving the care they so urgently needed. But at the same time you couldn´t help but wonder how many millions more there were out there who weren´t getting the basic nutrition and treatment that all kids need, even when they grow up in the industrialized world under the best of conditions.

Common to almost all the patients, regardless of their other symptoms, was anemia. I´d say about 3 out of every 4 kids we saw were anemic, meaning (as I learned) that their hemoglobin count was low because of a lack of iron in their blood. In the worst cases the kids had eerily bright white eyeballs and pale-looking skin, which are two signs of severe anemia. Apparently, a hemoglobin count below 11.5 is considered anemic – mine is something like 14.2. Some of these kids´ blood tests showed numbers as low as 8. It´s caused by lack of iron in the diet, which comes from protein-rich foods such as beef, fish, beans, and nuts. Which makes total sense, given the predominant role of 1) potatoes, and 2) rice in the Peruvian diet. We handed out iron pills like they were candy, and advised the mothers to try to include more protein-rich foods in their children´s diets: a recommendation that sadly, doctor, translator, and patient alike were painfully aware would be essentially impossible to fulfill, given the economic situation that most of the families were coming from.

Anemia is also exacerbated by intestinal parasites, which suck nutrients from the lining of the intestines, therefore preventing their absorption into the body. Poor Peruvians are essentially an endemic population for pinworms and other bichos, and indeed many mothers reported the telltale symptom of small, rice-size worms in their children´s stools. Fortunately such worms are easily wiped-out with a single, 400mg. dose of Albendazole, but as with the diet issue, it wasn´t the immediate cure but rather the long-term environmental conditions that were worrisome. I realized that to truly eradicate these problems, what they needed was a Peace Corps volunteer in the community for a couple years, teaching proper hygiene techniques and helping implement basic sanitation infrastructure. A free pill or two wasn´t gonna do it.

To that end, it was really interesting, if a little depressing, to think about the philosophical differences between the theory of sustainable development and that of medical practice. As development workers (and the Peace Corps stresses this even more than other NGOs and aid agencies), we´re trained to investigate the root causes of these problems, and then to look first within the community to see what internal resources we can use to solve them. This model emphasizes sustainability in development. Within the Peace Corps, asking for outside funding for a project, for example, is promoted only as a last resort. This is because it can encourage what in Perú we call asistencialismo, or the “gift-expecting” syndrome, where poor populations become conditioned to expect free gifts from NGOs, in the form of say, sanitary latrines or other quality-of-life-improving installations. As a result, the recipients tend to value them less and take care of them less than they would, had they had an integral role in the funding, planning and execution of the project. We see failed projects like this all the time, like the cocinas mejoradas (“improved kitchens”) project in Chalaco, built by a Spanish NGO a few years back.

Contrast that with the stereotypical (and this is, in fact, a very generalized example) medical approach of slapping a band-aid on the problem and sending the patient on his way to make room for the next one; in a sense, it´s about as opposite as two strategies could be. I absolutely don´t mean to criticize or belittle the work that doctors do in developing countries, particularly when they travel thousands of miles and give up their time to put on free clinics. And it´s certainly not to say that Peace Corps or other volunteers always succeed in the process I described above. The point is just that for me, the experience highlighted what often manifest themselves as two very different approaches to the same issue, that is, improving the lives of the world´s poorest people.

One the bright side, throughout the week I learned a ton about health-related topics that I´ve always wondered about, but never urgently enough to say, Wikipedia them. Among them: pregnancy, babies, breast-feeding, ear infections, general nutrition, worms, how the heart works, and what exactly doctors look for when they shine that light back and forth in your eyes (it´s more complicated that you might think). I also picked up some particularly jarring news for a WatSan volunteer who preaches chlorine water treatment as gospel – turns out chlorine kills viruses and most bacteria, but many parasites can survive it. Somehow I had missed that piece (or more likely, it was never mentioned) during our training; I just thought chlorine was the magical all-germ killer. So that kinda flipped my whole WatSan world upside-down for a couple days, not to mention made me question the efficacy of the ceramic filter I´ve been using to “treat” my drinking water and that of my host family (I mean, those things can´t possibly block every single parasite that comes along, right?) I´ve since looked into it, and although that does seem to be the consensus, it appears that there isn´t any real, feasible alternative at the moment. Global health experts continue to recommend chlorine treatment for all drinking water, plus boiling it before consumption, particularly in at-risk areas with poor sanitation and hygiene (ie, most of Perú and the developing world).

So, always nice to clear up a question that, however briefly, poses an existential threat to your day job. But even though we have treated water in Chalaco, I´ve started myself on a tri-annual Albendazole self-medication regimen, just to periodically clear out anything that slips through the cracks. Last week my dog and I each took 400mg. (he´s had pinworms pretty much since birth). Nothing weird came out of me…yet. Wish I could say the same for him.

update

2009-09-08T18:40:00.002-05:00

Hey everybody, just checking in to say "what up." Been a year in Peru now, crazy to think. Time´s flying, just like in college and all other good things in life, I suppose. I´ve recently re-organized my pictures and posted some new ones, so check out the links at the right. Also, just bought plane tickets home for about 2 weeks over Christmas and New Years, so hopefully I´ll run into some of you. I know that seems a long ways off, but for me it´s right around the corner. Best, Matt.

ditch your culture, the pig flu´s a´comin!!

2009-08-23T15:34:00.003-05:00

22/08/09

The recent hysteria over the “Swine Flu” – or more correctly, “H1N1” (is it true that it wasn´t even caused by pigs in the first place?) – has led me to some pretty interesting cultural observations. The first thing that you need to understand is that (I hate to generalize but...) Peruvians tend to be a dramatic and exagerrating people, regarding everything from the weather to their children to…well, you name it. So you can imagine the national reaction when all the sudden this crazy, previously unheard of, killer virus hit Peruvian society. Almost overnight surgical masks became a fashion item, and la gripe was all anyone wanted to talk about. In August school was cancelled for two weeks by the government, and even health workers were prohibited from leaving their posts for fear of contracting H1N1 and bringing it back to their communities. Ridiculous rumors started circulating, like that all the pigs in Peru (and there are a lot of them) ought to be burned, that you shouldn´t eat pork under any circumstance, and that if you got the gripe, you were pretty much guaranteed a slow, painful death. It also created (yet another) excuse for not getting things done, replacing the crisis economica at the top of that list. I know that sounds sarcastic – and it is, a little – but people were, and are, seriously terrified by this thing.

It´s been interesting to watch the government´s response, which has been, predictably, dramatic and I would say exaggerated. From the billboards, public health advisories, and prevention campaigns, you´d never know the gripe pales in comparison to the common influenza, which kill ways more people every year. What´s more, to me it seems totally ludicrous that, in a country where solving it´s childhood malnutrition, maternal death rate, potable water, hunger, and straight-up poverty issues should be at the top of the governent´s priorities, they pull out all the stops for this international senstation that really isn´t that big a deal, statistically-speaking. Sure, they have to take all the necessary precautions, but maybe if they focused on getting people to wash their hands regularly, for instance, a flu wouldn´t be such a huge threat.

I was recently invited to an information session in Chalaco on the H1N1, put on by two nurses from the Piura office of the national Ministry of Health. The talk included all the basics on the flu, including its causes, symptoms, prevention and treatment. What was really interesting for me was the prevention section, during which I had something of a revelation about fighting disease in the developing world. You hear all the time, for example, about African communities being literally destroyed by HIV/AIDS, where the disease is almost impossible to control because of cultural practices or beliefs, like the idea that sleeping with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS. To most in the developed world, this sounds ridiculous, the the point of being completely unconscionable. And I count myself among them. But listening to this talk made me realize just how tough the fight can be. For instance, among the prevention techniques recommended by the nurses were the following: don´t greet with a kiss, hug, or even a handshake; don’t share glasses; and most of all, don´t self-medicate if you show symptoms. Now, all three of those would be pretty easy to do in the States or Western Europe, but in this part of the world, each one presents some very problematic cultural issues.

For example, in the States we could probably get by with a simple “Hello,” forgoing the customary human contact in the face of a recognized health threat. In fact, these days I´m sure a lot of people are doing just that, and I doubt it´s causing any real problems. I probably shake hands about 50 times a day where I live. You pass someone on the road, you shake their hand and make smalltalk for a minute or two, whether you know them or not. To do otherwise would be downright rude, end of story. And the way gossip spreads around here, the whole town would know that you´re a dick before you even got home. Asking people around here not to shake hands is like asking them to just please, try not to breathe for a few months.

Same goes for the glass-sharing. In the States this wouldn´t even be an issue, but here, sharing glasses is an elemental part of the culture. City life is one thing, but when drinking up here, to have your own glass or bottle is unheard of. Whether it´s beer, cañazo, or some other local spirit, you drink it in a group, pouring for yourself and then passing the bottle before you drink from the glass, and then passing that along to the next person as well. Like the hand-shaking and small-talking, it´s a show of solidarity and community. The tradition is so strong that it sometimes applies to non-acoholic beverages as well. One time I was offered peach-flavored liquid yogurt in a drinking circle (which I politely declined, but that´s beside the point.) The only time I don´t pass the vaso when drinking is when I´m exclusively with other volunteers, or sometimes in a large city where the tradition isn´t as ingrained. In Chalaco, not passing the vaso would mean not drinking, which is unthinkable just about anywhere. Alright, maybe not, like…Iran, but you get the pic.

And thirdly, the self-medication issue. Chalaco may not be as traditional as some other places volunteers live, way up in the heights of the Andes with llamas and those Peruvian winter hats and guinea pig farms and all. Actually, the people who live in the town itself pride themselves on being almost “coastal” (synonymous with “refined”) in their daily lives. But a five minute´s walk from my house will take you to families who still view modern medicine with suspicion, and turn to natural remedies (derived from herbs or other naturally-occurring plants) for all but the most serious illnesses. Plus, you generally have to pay by the visit, and subsistence farming isn´t real conducive to buying Tums. Not self-medicate?? A year ago, my gut reaction, too, would have been, “Why the hell would you self-medicate??” But the point is, you really have to live in a culture to understand the way its people think, and expecting them to chage because of some sensationalized but completely-irrelevant (thus far at least, knock on wood) sickness is pretty unrealistic. The H1N1 poses a health threat to the Peruvian population, sure. But the recommendations for preventing it, if followed, would pose an existential threat to the very culture of the place I live.

Which is why I´d bet the farm that people simply won´t follow them. And it helps explain why epidemiolody in the developing world is infinitely more complex than most Westerners probably realize.

Caja-mazing

2009-08-16T12:26:00.003-05:00

1/8/2009

“Dale! Vamos!” Another sack of rice was heaved up and we were on our way in the darkness. When I said in a previous post that my trips up and down the mountain to Chalaco were “an adventure every time,” I didn´t quite realize what some fellow Alto Piura volunteers have to do just to get to and from their sites. My trip can be nerve-racking, but at least I have a reliable bus service. Patrick and Tristan, who live farther down the mountain but more off the beaten path, have to do a little more work. So next time you wanna feel really alive, I suggest the following: come to Peru, then come to the top of our mountain in Piura, then hop in a ten-ton truck at 2AM, put on your favorite live Phish album on your iPod, lay back on a 50-kilo sack of rice, and just cruise. The funky 25-minute guitar solos combined with the ditches and boulders in the unpaved road will keep your head bouncing like a bobble-head doll for the next 4 hours, and laying there, tuned out in your own private hippie dance and looking up at the southern sky as you descend through the layers of fog (and despite the lack of sleep and penetrating wind), it just might make you so goddam happy you can´t help but laugh to yourself.

Thus began my Fiestas Patrias vacation, which turned out to be a pretty great week. From Piura I headed down the coast to Chiclayo, then hopped an overnight bus up to Cajamarca, the cultural capital of the northern sierra. Now having gone three nights basically without sleep (the second one being a big night out in Piura with some volunteers and local friends), I was glad to have made it to my first destination and get a good meal (the best 4 soles – or $1.33 – I´ve ever spent: fried mountain trout, white rice, and garlic mashed potatoes), and a good night´s sleep afterward.

Earlier that day I had met up with my travel partners, a few other volunteers from different parts of the country, and we had planned out the next several days, which would include some sightseeing around Cajamarca and then a trip a couple hours further inland to Celendín, a sweet little mountain town that, in some ways, reminded me of a much smaller Jackson, WY. In fact, the whole time we were in Cajamarca I couldn´t help but think how much the landscape reminded me of late summer in the western US, with its rugged mountains, pine forests, shaggy plains, and dry, hot days and nights that make you glad you brought your sleeping bag. All it´s missing is the bison and grizzlies. It was stunningly beautiful, really very similar to where I live in Alto Piura, just not as tropical-feeling, and more rugged overall. And whereas the hills up here are almost completely divided into parcels for agriculture, most of Cajamarca´s land is dedicated to cattle herding to support its famous diary industry.

The city itself is a very cool spot, much livelier and much more touristy than Piura. What struck me most was the juxtaposition of contemporary Peruvian “city” culture with the more traditional elements from the surrounding countryside. Where I live there are very well-marked distinctions between the traditional Andean culture, and the fast-paced costa, where the city of Piura lies. When you travel down to the city, you leave behind the traditional foods, dress, and music. In Cajamarca, by virtue of its being a relatively large city nestled in the mountains at almost 9,000 feet, you see the two interacting daily; tiny little women with long braids, straw hats, ponchos, and their unmistakable brightly-colored dresses and sweaters hike into town to stock up on supplies and sell their wares – or beg – on street corners to the Louis Vouitton-toting tourists, both Peruvian and international alike. And during the day, the latter group takes sightseeing trips out to the countryside, passing by the same little women on the side of the road as they speed along to take pictures of the things that the locals consider just part of their backyard. I wouldn´t say it was good or bad, just different that what I´ve grown used to. Seeing the two cultures side-by-side did make me wonder, though, about the fate of the more traditional way of life in Peru; with recent economic growth the country´s urbanization rate has spiked, and within a couple generations the Andean campo culture might be largely lost.

Our first day we hitched a ride out to a spot called Cumbemayo, a series of rolling, golden plains punctuated by these crazy, bulbous rock corridors that look like something out of Stonehenge. Nestled way back in there are a series of canals built (they think) by the Caxamarca culture at least 2,000 years ago. Pretty cool to think that they build these perfect angles in the rock with nothing but…well, other rocks I guess. Too bad the Incas had to conquer them and everyone else in Peru during their short reign during the 16th century. From there we hiked back down to the city, arriving just as the sun set. The skies and and faded colors in the late-afternoon light, again, made me nostalgic for Fall in the States. Nothing a few drinks couldn´t cure, though (although even that took a while to accomplish, and when we finally found a place that we were sure would have some whiskey - the "Cowboay Bar" - it turned out all they had in that category were empty Johnnie Walker bottles for decoration. Who the hell ever heard of a cowboy bar without whiskey? We got up and left in disgust). Day two I set out with my two buddies to check out some other spots around Cajamarca. Some hurried guidebook research and cheap tourist maps told us we might be able to find some cool hiking in the surrounding countryside, but unfortunately we sort-of just ended up walking around the dumpy outskirts of Cajamarca all day. The two sights we hit were pretty disappointing; the Ventanillas de Otuzco are some cool tombs carved into the side of a cliff, but largely unremarkable except for their small size (how´d they get all those bodies in there??), and the Baños del Inca was a far cry from the rustic thermal baths we thought we were going to (actually just a hot swimming pool and some private bathtubs – we didn´t even go in). The highlight was definitely the cheese we had bought before setting out. Guidebooks will tell you things like “Cheese lovers beware, Cajamarca´s dairy rivals that of France,” and I wouldn´t say it´s an exaggeration (although I guess I´ve never really been to France). But I mean, you name a flavor, they´ve probably got it: we bought little chunks of almond, basil and oregano, and a couple other flavors, all of which were fantastic. We also bought a giant wheel of quesillo – unsalted homemade cheese – out in the campo, which I wasn´t a huge fan of. It was like the fresh cheese in Chalaco, just without any taste and chewier.

From Cajamarca we hopped in a station wagon heading out to Celendín, a Peace Corps site that´s a little different than most (a college town of some 30,000). We timed it so that our two nights there would correspond with both the Fiestas Patrias national holiday as well as the city´s Aniversario. Needless to say, there was plenty of fiesta to go around. The first night my buddy Andy and I played a few games of pool with some younger locals in a two-table pool hall we found. It´s a different game in the southern hemisphere, and the pockets are just big enough for a ball to slide into; without a doubt a tougher game than our traditional “eight-ball.” Somehow we won the first game, but after the second had dragged on for the better part of an hour, and we realized that we had scratched so many times that winning would have been all but impossible, we threw in the towel. No one likes to forfeit, especially to teenagers, but they were drinking too, so at least it didn´t feel like losing to kids. Plus we felt pretty good about the first game, so we paid our tab and went looking for more adventure.

Our second night in Celendín there was a huge party in the plaza, with some of the most elaborate fireworks displays I´ve ever seen. It´s pretty common during these types of town parties to have a castillo, or giant wooden structures that shoot fireworks in all directions; in Celendín they had about six of them, all at least three stories tall. A cumbia band was playing to a couple thousand packed into the plaza, most passing around beers or the hot, sweet cañaso drink “calentado” in re-used half-liter soda bottles bought from vendors scattered throughout. Every few minutes one of the castillos would start – literally – spitting fireballs down onto the crowd, which no one seemed to mind. Two of my friends got firework-ash in their eyes. It was the coolest and scariest pyrotechnics experience of my life. It felt like we were in a war zone: a loud, bright, happy, dancing, booze-filled war zone. At one point a tree caught fire right in the middle of the plaza. Someone made a half-hearted attempt to put it out with a garden hose, but quickly thought better. So it just went up in flames, to everyone´s delight. Later that night I danced with a girl who first guessed that I was Spanish, and then Italian. I took off my hat and asked her how many blond Italians she knew. I forget what her response was.

Needless to say, after a couple late nights we were all pretty spent, and the busses back to Cajamarca, then down to Chiclayo and on up the coast to Piura, offered some much-needed – if sporadic – rest. I headed back up “the mountain,” but stopped a couple hours short of Chalaco to stay with my buddy Mark´s host family for a couple nights, because I had JASS work in the towns around his (see previous entry). It was a little weird to be there when Mark wasn´t (his parents had come to visit and they had all taken off down South to see Cuzco and Machu Picchu), but he´s got a great family who I´ve gotten to know pretty well by now. His señora´s greasy cooking, now infamous among the nearby volunteers, and the laid-back town were a pretty good cure for my hangover after a week of partying (although the rats running around in the roof at night were a little disconcerting, especially since there´s about a one-meter-by-one-meter hole right above Mark´s bed). But as Dorothy once said, there´s no place like home, and it was great to finally be back in Chalaco a couple days later.

not exactly fiji water

2009-08-08T10:05:00.002-05:00

20/7/2009

Lately I´ve been hearing from a lot of people who seem to have no idea what I´m really doing, work-wise, here in the mountains of northern Peru. I think that probably has something to do with my near-total lack of explaining to people back home what it is exactly that I´m doing day-in and day-out, work-wise, here in the mountains of northern Peru. So I figured it was time for an explanation.

I´m assuming most people reading this know by now that I´m part of the Water/Sanitation program, one of the five operating in Peace Corps Peru at the moment (the others being Community Health, Environment, Youth Development, and Small Business). It fascinates me to learn about what other sector volunteers are doing. The other day I was down in Piura, sitting around in the hostel with a Small Business volunteer who lives in the desert region, an hour or so outside the city. I asked her what she was working on on her laptop, and she told me she was on her way to give a charla (educational session) on color combinations for a co-op of artisanal basket weavers a couple towns over. I had to laugh; it´s amazing how much gets lumped together under the “development” umbrella. Here I am working on drinking water, while others are nutritionists, artists, educators, maternal care specialists, speech therapists, and the list goes on. Neat, eh?

So when I say I work with drinking water, what exactly does that mean? Well, upon arrival here in Chalaco, I set out into the little outlying communities (caseríos) to conduct a diagnostic study, comprised chiefly of a series of door-to-door surveys with questions on all things Wat/San: water quality and usage, sanitation installations, incidence of diarrhea, parasites, and other water-borne diseases, and more. It was a great way to get to know the lay of the land, and I learned two things real quick: one, the drinking water situation was pretty abysmal, and two, most communities still lacked modern sanitation services – that is, they did their “business” out in the same campo where they planted their corn, wheat, beans, and potatoes. Pretty unappetizing, but that´s the way it is around here, and has been for as long as people can remember.

So I got together with my work partners, the head of environmental health in my district and the president of the health commission (both awesome guys, exceptionally dedicated by any standards, much less rural Peruvian ones), and we decided we´d first try to tackle the former issue, and see what else we could find out about the second one along the way. And rather than focus on just a few communities, at my urging we decided to grab the proverbial bull by the horns and take on the whole district at once, which means roughly 50 towns anywhere from a 5-minute to 4-hour hike away, and a total population of around 10,000. In other words, a tall order. But true to my American capitalist mentality (and completely shameless endorsement of carrot-and-stick strategy), I suggested we create a competition among all the communities, and try to stimulate them that way. Basically the idea was that we would provide some incentive for the individual communities to improve their drinking water services, letting the “invisible hand” do its time-tested work. We drew up a plan, and the “Campaña JASS 2009” was born.

I´ve written about the JASS a couple times already, but just in case, it stands for Junta Administradora de Servicios de Saneamiento. The JASS is the committee that each little town is supposed to re-elect every two years to manage the town´s drinking water, sanitation services, and solid waste. So the good thing is that we usually have somewhere to start (the bad being that “JASS” is sometimes no more than some meaningless acronym that people vaguely remember having heard sometime, a long time ago). The campaign, therefore is focusing only on the drinking water aspect, where there is more than enough work (I´m learning a lot about the extreme importance of taking small steps, rather than dumping 5,000 different issues on a community at once, even if all 5,000 are great ideas). With respect to water, there are essentially three areas of responsibility from the JASS´s standpoint: administration, maintenance, and operation.

Administration refers to the overall organization of the committee and the usuarios, or individual water-drinkers. It´s everything from having a complete committee (president, secretary, treasurer, etc.), to the rate of delinquency in payment of monthly dues (usually one sol, or about 33 cents a month), to the overall service coverage in the community (that is, how many people are completely without a home water connection). All of this is dealt with at a community-wide JASS meeting, often the trickiest part for me, because it´s much more about small-town politics than anything else, and that´s not something I´m gonna change in two years (see previous entry on JASS meetings for more).

Maintenance is what it sounds like: repairing broken pipes and leaky faucets, patching up broken or crumbling cement parts of the system, and the like. This is generally the easiest part of the process, because if a JASS is doing anything, chances are it´s the basic plumbing stuff. Which is a good thing, because coming into this I was pretty clueless about such topics (I´ve learned a lot, though, like how to melt a 1” PCV pipe with a candle in order to stretch it and create a union with another 1” PVC pipe, and also the fact that a 1” PVC pipe in Perú is what we in the States would call a 1 ½“ PVC pipe. Yeah, go figure. I´ve also gained a passion for well-made float valves, which really are a beautiful thing…but that´s neither here nor there).

But the third area of responsibility is where I´m focusing most of my attention. Operation of a rural water system around here basically means two things: daily water treatment and semi-annual system disinfection. The latter is often already being practiced (albeit very rarely properly, according to international health standards), and as for the former, let´s just say I´ve got my work cut out for me. The active ingredient in both is chlorine, the chemical of choice for swimming pools and drinking water alike (I often end a day of work reeking of chlorine, which makes me think of the pool in the summertime, which in turn makes me think of any number of things, including but not limited to: America (goes without saying), bikinis, that new-tennis-ball smell, freshly-cut grass, chicken fingers with honey mustard, zinc oxide, cheap beer that comes in 30-packs, those glow stick things that sink and then stand up straight at the bottom of the pool…and much more. It´s unfortunate, I´d almost say cruel, that I wound up working with chlorine).

Anyway, there are certain proportions and processes that need to be used to comply with potable water standards, and that´s really what I´m spending most of my time and effort on. The disinfections are what they sound like; you get together with the JASS and head up to the captación or water-capture point at the underground spring, and clean out the whole system from top to bottom with a chlorine solution and scrub brushes (during which you might encounter any of the following, both living and floating belly-up: frogs, fish, crabs, snakes, lizards, spiders, or babies). Just kidding about the babies, that was just to make sure you´re paying attention (but see the photo album at right for the full visual). In any case, at the reservorio (water tank with a capacity of anywhere from 4,000 to 30,000 liters) you also mix up another solution of even higher concentration – we call it the leche, for obvious reasons – and dump that into the tank as it´s filling up. You let that sit for 2 hours and then open the pipes to the community to fully disinfect the system. Disinfections usually take a full morning, and are really a lot of fun – you get your hands dirty and there´s generally a lot of standing-around time with the local guys, who always have a lot to say, even if it´s not about anything of earth-shattering importance. Plus you usually get invited to lunch (or at least a few beers) at someone´s house afterwards. Daily chlorination is the essential piece, though, because you can clean the system all you want, but if you aren´t actually treating the water, you can´t expect the parasites to roll over and die on their own. The design we´re pushing here in Chalaco is a simple 20 liter bucket that you poke a hole in the bottom of, to which you then connect a thin little hose with a drip regulator (these my work partner Miguel hooks up for free at his office at the health center, using old IV tubes – ingenious). You mix up a chlorine solution in the bucket, adjust the regulator according to reservoir volume and how many times it empties in a day, and you´ve got yourself some damn good water.

A lot of times we´ll go into a community and the people will say something like “Yeah, we just did a disinfection and chlorination two weeks ago!” To which we respond, ”That´s fantastic!” because really, it is, “But let´s talk a little bit about what those two words actually mean…” And then when you explain that the water actually needs to have a little bit of chlorine in it to kill the parasites (which contribute in a major way to the reported 48% childhood malnutrition rate in the district), you can get any number of responses, ranging from “Well around here the water comes from the earth and it´s totally clean,” to “Why would I put bleach in my water? I use that for clothes,” to my personal favorite, “My grandfather drank water straight from the river his whole life, and he´s 95. F***ing miner.” But fortunately the JASS members are generally some of the more forward-thinking members of the community, and we´re starting to make a lot of progress with the chlorination.

We started the campaign with a series of training workshops in each of the three “zones” that we´d divided the district into. They were very thorough, but also very long, and the retention rate of information (which, the way the health inspector from Piura explained it, was often way above most of the invitees´ heads) was probably slim to none. Which is why we made it a three-stage process that, rather than just ending with a single workshop and a free lunch, would then continue with a six-month period of monitoring and support out in the communities. We´re now a few months into that stage (described above), and in December we´re going to hold another series of meetings in each of the three zones (stage three) at which we´ll recognize the “Most Improved JASS” and award its members with a Little League-style gold trophy of a guy holding a bucket of water…they don´t know that yet, but hey, as long as they get the job done, right? Just kidding, we still aren´t sure what the prizes are going to be, but it could be a nice tool kit, a year´s worth of chlorine, or maybe even an outdated computer that I´ve heard aren´t too tough to get through a Peace Corps program. Whatever it is, the idea is that it´ll not only reward the winning JASS in each zone, but also motivate the other communities to get their collective acts together (ie, the proverbial “carrot”).

And if that fails, I guess we´ll have to resort to good old-fashioned communism.

6 months deep

2009-06-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

9/6/2009

The other day I hit the six-month mark at site, and it struck me as a milestone that called for some reflection. Now, I don´t really like reflecting on myself, and it´s not something I´ve ever done a whole lot of, but there are a couple things I´ve been noticing lately that sort-of capture where I´m at these days, mentally-speaking. So here goes.

I´ve noticed myself referring to Chalaco as “home” in emails, conversations with other volunteers, and more. I guess that´s a pretty big step anytime you´re in a new place, but as a Peace Corps volunteer it feels like a definite sign that I´m achieving the “community integration” we´re always talking about. Which is fantastic, but I don´t want to overemphasize my role in it; I credit it largely to the fact that I´m the sixth volunteer in Chalaco, and all things considered it´s been incredibly easy to adjust to life here. Whatever the reason, I´ve definitely hit the point where, as I told my Dad on the phone the other day, this is “just…life” now.

Part of that is having some real friends; through my various projects, playing guitar, cooking, playing soccer (as well shared misery in the Peruvian national team), not refusing cane liquor with apparent strangers on the corner at 10AM, and just generally hanging around, I´ve made what I would call some pretty good friends. Most 20-somethings in these parts, though, leave to study or work, or if they´ve stuck around they´re out in the fields working all day. Thus the friends I refer to are all several years (if not a decade or two) older than me, with an average of 3 or 4 kids. I was shocked to find that out…a couple of them I just assumed were bachelors in their late 20s, waiting around Chalaco for their big break. Not the case, as it turns out.

Although I see community integration as largely a good thing, there are definite drawbacks, too. My first few months here flew by in a frenzy of picture-taking, over-the-top cordiality with everyone I came across, and this little voice in the back of my head constantly telling me not to take a single moment for granted. I was also in sort-of turbo fitness mode, with a daily exercise routine before breakfast and a bedtime of 10PM at the latest. Most of all, I found myself feeling higher highs and lower lows than ever in my life; when the tiniest little thing went my way I felt great, and thirty seconds later I could be stuck in the classic Peace Corps existential funk, wondering what the hell was I was doing here. Don´t get me wrong, I don´t mean in a mentally-unstable or even remotely worrisome kind of way; those feelings only lasted a few seconds and then I´d be back to normal. But I definitely noticed it. I think it was a combination of a total lack of expectations, direction, and supervision for the first time in my life, and too much time to think about it. In any case, time flew, and I generally felt pretty damn good about the job I was doing.

A lot of that has changed; you come to realize that A) the landscape and the animals and the food and the people, while beautiful, are gonna look exactly the same tomorrow, so taking (another) picture of them today really isn´t all that necessary, B) at some point you become a community member with a name and not a tourist (or worse, a miner) known to all as “Gringo,” and with that promotion you can thankfully lose the cultural-relativity-and-community-acceptance-above-all attitude and start to think about your own needs a little more and actually form natural opinions again about the things and people around you, and C) you don´t really need to wake up an hour early every morning to run or do pushups to stay in shape…in fact, watching your third Sopranos episode of the night, and sleeping another hour the next morning and then drinking a whole bunch of coffee is often the better option. Additionally, I´m no longer shocked by the creencias (country myths) like the notion that cold drinks cause illnesses or that leftovers go bad faster when covered and refrigerated than when left out in the open; or by the everyday customs like pulling on a kid´s ears when he´s choking, or breast-feeding “babies” who can ask for it in complete sentences, or the automatic impulse to piss right out the front door when the bathroom is neither occupied nor any more difficult to access. In fact, I too have adopted the latter habit (sorry, Mom.) I´m no longer uneasy when I think back on the day and realize that I´ve eaten only bread and roots (albeit roughly half my weight of each), and I´ve come to accept that just about everything is, in fact, going to start at least an hour late. And I no longer wonder how an entire 10,000-resident district can be made up of only a handful of family names: Cordova, García, Calle, Peña, and one or two others. That doesn´t mean I understand it…I just don´t wonder about it anymore.

More poignant than any cultural revelation I´ve had, though, is the mere fact that I´ve been in Peru long enough to have a baby (not me personally…but you get the pic), and in my site half a year – a quarter of my two years of service. That´s just unbelievable to me. One thing that hasn´t changed as I´ve adjusted to life here is the passage of time; it´s still flying, even though I feel like I´ve evened-out a bit, from a mental health perspective. And with the weather finally improving in the mountains, a dog to keep me company, and my 2009 Water Campaign and other projects underway (topic for another blog entry), it´s only going to pick up from here.

Although it´s true that by now I´m starting to feel like a true Chalaqueño, I know that at the end of the day a towering gringo is never going to totally integrate anywhere in the developing world. I´d like to think that someday I could pass Joe Campesino out on the trail and not have him turn around and stare after me. But as far as I can tell that day hasn´t come yet, and I´m not sure it ever will. And honestly, the more I think about it, maybe that´s not such a bad thing after all.

the ride

2009-06-06T18:07:00.002-05:00

21/5/2009

I live at about 2,200 meters (a little over 7,000 feet, I think), basically at the top of the mountain that several other Alto Piura volunteers´ sites lead to. Needless to say, I take a lot of pride in my position atop the rest, and never lose an opportunity to remind the others that I literally look down on all of them. Or could if I were so inclined. But living in Chalaco also means I´m about as far away from my regional capital as it gets for volunteers in Peru. Now that the rains have slowed down a bit, the trip up has been cut to five - seven hours, down from the eight-plus it took a month or two ago, but it´s still a pretty long haul. And the trip is never without a couple unexpected twists and turns (both literal and non); it truly is an adventure every time.

It´s pretty standard for Peace Corps volunteers in Peru to head to their capital city once every two weeks or so, to stock up on whatever they need, enjoy relatively dependable internet/phone service, and just relax and speak some English for a change. (See the entry on Piura for more on that. But I do need to specifically mention one more very important element of the Piura experience, and that is the Mercado, or sprawling outdoor market that seems big enough for its own zip code. If you´ve ever seen any movie set in Latin America, you´ve probably got some sort of picture of that I´m talking about. I went there the other day with a shopping list that included the following: cowboy hat, yonqui sandals made from old tires (in a freakish size 43, no less), “wife-beater” undershirts, Season Three of The Sopranos, new guitar strings, seeds for the garden, and all the necessary vaccinations for my new puppy in Chalaco. That all took me about an hour, plus I got all three Godfather movies on the same disc, a couple pomegranates, and I swung by to thank the woman who sold me my bed and mattress a couple months ago. I spent the equivalent of maybe 50 dollars, tops. The place is unbelievable.)

In any case, in order to take advantage of all that your gleaming capital city has to offer, you have to get there first, and then get home afterwards. I´m gonna take you through the return trip, which for some reason always seems slightly more eventful than the trip down (which is pretty much the same really, it just takes a couple hours less and I´m generally asleep for it anyway, being as it is that the bus for Piura leaves Chalaco at 2AM).

The trip up the mountain starts at our go-to hostel in Piura, the Costa Bella, where you pay your bill for the last couple nights and step out the front door to hail a cab or mototaxi to take you to the bus terminal on the other side of the river. You can usually haggle them down to about two soles for the five-minute trip, but if you´ve got a ton of luggage with you (or, say, a bike or bed or other large piece of furniture, which you very well might), it can make even this part a little complicated. Personally I´m a fan of the mototaxis…I mean what´s not to love about a converted dirtbike with a little plastic-covered wagon attached to it in back? Plus the breeze helps in the stifling heat that Piura is never lacking, no matter the season. Piura´s the kind of town where you always feel like the beach is right around the corner. But it isn´t. It´s just really, really hot.

So you get to the Terminal “Castilla” and hop on the Turpa, bound for Chalaco. By now I know all the operators and their sidekicks, and the girl at the desk hooks me up with Seat 3, which is right at the front and pretty much the only spot that allows me to stretch at least one leg out at a time. I´ve been stuck in a regular seat farther back, and it just sucks. These buses are made to just about the exact specifications of the average Peruvian adult – which would be nice, if I were the size of the average Peruvian adult. The bus leaves at 7AM and 2PM every day, but you usually sit in the lot for at least another 20 minutes. This is prime time for the vendors. The variety of goods sold here doesn´t quite compare to the Mercado, but it´s definitely impressive just how much one guy can carry draped over his shoulder. They charge onto the bus, one after another, advertising everything from fruits and cakes (or keké, as it´s shouted out), to bootlegged Van Damme DVDs, to batteries, to soy milk in reused water bottles, to wallets, to hair combs, and so on. Then there are the straight-up beggars, each of whom is pretty well-known to anyone who´s been on the bus once or twice. They come on, address their trapped congregation with all the over-the-top blessings and well-wishings that precede pretty much any public address in Peru, tell the story of their life (at least two of them are blind), and then cruise the aisle, hand outstretched. This is about when it begins to feel like someone just turned the heat on inside the bus, with the lack of ventilation and high concentration of people squeezing by (the aisle is also fitted perfectly for one person, about 5´5” and chubby, to walk down…not three of them at once). The bus usually pulls away with a couple of them still aboard, trying to make that last sale, but they always seem to find their way off before we get too far (which makes me wonder about the “blind” ones.) Eventually you pull out of the terminal, the breeze picks up, the radio starts playing some tinny huayno or sanjuanito tune, and you´re headed east out of the city.

It takes all of about seven minutes to get out of Piura, at which point you pass into a long stretch of flat, arid “dry-forest” or bosque seco, which is basically sand dunes and sparse, low shrubbery. It always makes me feel like I´m in Africa. Now, I´ve never been to Africa, and it´s a giant continent, so to say that it “feels like Africa” is blatantly ignorant on two counts. But that´s what I think, every time, without fail. (And, I mean, I´m sure there are places in Africa that do look like this.) Anyway, after an hour or so, the desert suddenly collides with lush farmland, with banana trees, sugar cane, and flooded rice paddies lining the winding two-lane highway. At this point the vendors are still ubiquitous – a couple jump on every time you stop, now selling fruit mostly: sweet lemons that you eat like an orange; ciruelas or tart, little, red citrus fruits that are unlike anything in the States, mangos, and more. These guys, I like. Don´t know why, they just always seem to be having a grand old time, sitting by the road all day, drinking chicha corn beer with their buddies and waiting for the bus to come by. They´re masters of the Peruvian art of pulling your sweat-drenched shirt up over your gut and proudly showing the world your belly-button. I´ve always been a little skeptical of how much that can possibly cool someone off. But I´ve never really tried it, so who knows. And it does look pretty rad, you gotta give ´em that. A lot of times they´ll flag the bus down, hop on as it´s still moving, and ride for a couple kilometers, where they´ll get off and (presumably) wait for the next bus coming the other direction. What a way to spend your day (or life). There´s gotta be a metaphor in there somewhere.

About an hour and a half into the trip, the bus stops in Morropon, the capital of the Province, which I´ve come to think of as sort-of like St. Louis back when the West was still wild. Except that it´s super hot, and poor, and in Peru, but you get the idea…a kind-of last stop before you head out into the unknown. Here you stop for a few minutes to drop off and pick up passengers, and make whatever last minute purchases or bathroom visits you may need. Almost immediately after passing through Morropon, the pavement abruptly gives way t o a dirt – or mud, depending on the month – road, and you start heading up. The first major landmark after Morropon is the unnamed bridge you cross, with the Rio Piura flowing along a few stories below. The crossing is notable not only because the wooden bridge is rickety in appearance and barely wide enough for the bus, but even more so because of the other, brand-new and far sturdier-looking bridge directly upriver of it. I guess there was some problem with the design and they´re waiting to finish it…but there´s something very ironic about crossing a questionable old bridge while looking at its replacement out the window. I´m undecided on which of the two I would actually trust more.

From here on you basically hug the side of the mountain as you rise from sea level to over 2,000 meters in a matter of hours; to get to Chalaco you pass the towns of Paltashaco, Pambarumbe, Santiago, San Miguel, Ñoma, and Cabuyal, not to mention countless goats, cows, donkeys, and old barefoot women carrying oversize bundles of firewood on their backs, who always remind me of the woman on that one Led Zeppelin album cover. I´m not gonna lie, when the rains were really bad, I didn´t make this trip any more than I absolutely had to. The time factor combined with the constant threat of landslides made for a situation where, in my mind, the juice just wasn´t worth the squeeze, as it were. Now that the road is drying out, it´s a little quicker and slightly less nerve-racking, except that now instead of mud, the road is all potholes, some of which could swallow a Volkswagon. To call the ride “bumpy” would be a gross understatement; it´s like a slow, sketchy roller coaster with no guardrails or seatbelts. That lasts all day. Pieces of luggage are frequently falling out of the overhead compartments and decking unsuspecting passengers. Fortunately I´ve never had a problem with car sickness, but there are always at least a couple babies who are yakking the whole way up or down the mountain. The seats of the Turpa have marinated over the years in a truly unique blend of puke, feet, and body odor –not a smell I´ll soon forget.

Like I said, there are always a few highlights to break up the monotony. Flat tires and stopping for a busted corona (still not sure what that is, exactly) are standard. Sometimes everyone has to get out and walk a couple hundred meters ahead of the bus to avoid a particularly ugly spot, or help throw rocks on a spot in the road where the road has ceased to be. I still have yet to witness up close a large animal getting roasted by the Turpa´s fenderless front end, but I´m sure it´s only a matter of time. A couple months ago on the trip down, we were literally in the middle of a stampede for a good five minutes, coasting downhill amidst some of the largest livestock I´d ever seen. I really regret not taking a video of it, ´cause it was some serious adrenaline-pumping action.

Having left Piura at 2PM, by the time you near Chalaco it´s usually well past dinnertime. Sometime after Santiago you´ve entered the giant cloud that still envelops the higher altitudes almost every afternoon – that is, if it isn´t raining. If you´re lucky you might emerge just about the time you get to Chalaco, and as the sky clears the stars can be spectacular: the inverted Big Dipper indicating north, Orion laying flat on the western horizon, and the iconic Southern Cross shining brilliantly off to the south, with the Milky Way or Via Lactea slashing across the sky like a giant highway for the shooting stars, now falling every few seconds. It´s been a long day, but all´s well that ends well. And that´s is a pretty good ending, in my book.

pics

2009-05-18T19:39:00.002-05:00

Hi all, I've rearranged and added some new pics, so check out the links at right. More to come soon, thanks for all the positive feedback.

Matt

JASS meeting

2009-05-04T13:07:00.003-05:00

22/4/2009

“Gentlemen, let’s keep something in mind: we’re all farmers, and we’re all poor. But we’re talking about one sol, here. We spend more than that on a couple cigarettes.” I snap out of my daze; this is the first reasonable thing I´ve heard in what seems like hours. In fact, it´s been only 45 minutes or so, but the rapidly darkening room makes it seem much later than the 7:30 my watch shows. This is my third or fourth JASS meeting (I’ve lost count) in the town of Huacapampa, just outside of Chalaco. You could say the novelty has worn off.

JASS (pronounced “hohss”) has become one of the more often-used proper nouns in my vocabulary. An acronym for Junta Administradora de Servicios de Saneamiento, the term refers to the committee each caserio has – or is supposed to have – in place to manage the town’s drinking water, sanitation services, and solid waste. At best, the JASSes in my district do a meager job at the first of their three areas of responsibility. The other two are rarely, if ever, brought up at meetings; in fact, it’s pretty clear that in practice a JASS works with water and nada más. A JASS is made up of all the usuarios (individual water-drinkers) in a town (AKA the Asamblea General), and a board of directors (the Consejo Directivo), made up of a president, a treasurer, a secretary, a fiscal or general order-keeper/bouncer, and one or two other members from the community called vocales. In their defense, no one is paid for their services (except, sometimes the system operator), and none of them have any training in community organizing, engineering, or accounting. The Consejo members are simple farmers just like the rest of the community, exceptional only in that they’ve agreed to take on the responsibility (sometimes enthusiastically, but more often quite grudgingly) of a two-year stint on the water board. Just like everyone else, they work hard all day in the fields planting corn and wheat and beans, and have family and other obligations to attend to. Taking that into account, it’s sort of amazing that JASSes even exist, given their total dependence on voluntary service and community coordination and cooperation. Not that they always (or, even usually) function very effectively.

My first couple JASS meetings were fascinating: I was finally there, watching grassroots democracy play out in front of me, participating in a community meeting of the kind I had only heard about during training in Lima. At that time, “the JASS” had seemed to me more of an abstract, idealistic concept than a real thing that existed in the campo, but all the sudden here it was. It was at once inspiring and intimidating to look around at a roomful of hardened campesinos sitting together, discussing/debating/fighting over something they all agreed to be the most basic of all needs. Inspiring because their very presence meant I had an already-arranged forum through which to address and work with them, and intimidating because it hit me like a slap to the face how very little I knew about either caserio politics or the specifics of rural water systems. I´m learning, though, poco a poco.

Every once in a while, someone will ask my opinion or advice on something, which can be pretty nerve-racking when it has to do with, for example, the appropriate course of action (ie, punishment) for someone who hasn´t shown up for a meeting in two years. I generally defer those questions to the town leaders, explaining that I know a bit about water systems, but am not here to settle disputes that have probably existed for years before I arrived on the scene. The other day I heard about a dispute out in one of the caseríos where the local ronda campesina or publically-elected order-keepers/justice-enforcers actually lashed (like, with a cane) the president of the JASS for “negligence.” Not the kinda stuff I want to be getting myself in the middle of. Sometimes I wonder how old these guys think I am. It´s gotta be at least thirty or so. I can only assume that if they knew I was young enough to be their third or fourth son, they wouldn´t even give me the time of day, much less ask my advice on anything of import. Anyhow, at the moment, said community members are shouting over each-other (mercifully, leaving me out of it) about a dispute regarding monthly payments for water service, or cuotas.

I’ve found the JASS in Huacapampa to be one of the more reliable ones I’ve come across; at least they have people in the proper positions and actually schedule meetings once in a while, which are attended by a little over half the community’s heads of household – exceptional attendance in this neck of the woods. The topic of tonight’s meeting was to be the election of the new Consejo; they’re legally supposed to serve for no more than two years at a time, but this crew has had their respective positions for over three, and have been growing increasingly antsy every time I’ve visited. They’re ready to move on, and I can’t say I blame them. Take tonight, for example. All we ended up talking (read: bickering) about was the several community members who refuse to pay their monthly cuotas for various reasons, including “not getting as much water as I used to,” “I already pay for my one house, why should I have to pay for my ex-wife’s?” and “well, my neighbor isn’t paying either.” Some of these people haven’t paid their dues since Michael Jordan tried baseball, and the really sad part is that they refuse to understand (except for some, like my new best friend in the room, whose inspiring quote woke me out of my stupor) that it’s a vicious cycle: if they don’t pay, there’s no money in the JASS fund, and if the JASS doesn’t have any money, they can’t chlorinate the water or fix the pipes to bring water to the houses that don’t get enough.

Switching gears, and I know I said I was over my fascination with JASS meetings, but from a cultural-sociological perspective they´re really a pretty interesting experience. It’s a lot like church in my mind; the general environment and the building itself and the people around you are often just as – if not far more – interesting than what’s being said by the guy up front. Looking around the room in Huacapampa, I realize what a funny picture it really is: a small, unlit classroom in the town’s primary school, filled with hard campo men just back from the fields, sitting around the periphery of the room mostly looking very serious, and maintaining their unflappable pride despite being squeezed into the tiniest chairs I’ve ever seen outside of a dollhouse. And as funny as they appear, I myself have to look just absolutely ridiculous sitting on these things meant for toddlers.

The guys sitting around the room (and yes, they’re almost exclusively males) have names like Octavio, Maximo, Cesar, Segundo, Dayner, Elvis, Wilmer, Milton, and Jimmy – the juxtaposition of Roman-emperor namesakes, ‘50s-era American names, and the more traditional Latin ones strikes me as odd, and pretty entertaining. The average usuario is wearing his damp, cotton or sheep’s-wool poncho, khaki pants spattered with mud and rolled up over calf-high rubber boots, and yonqui sandals made from old tires, or often plain old bare feet, their muddy toes swollen and gnarled from years of shoelessness, and in pretty serious need of a nail clipping. Variations on the standard wardrobe include Memers Only-style jackets or the kind of windbreakers you´d wear to an ‘80s party, Brazilian or European club soccer jerseys, camouflage t-shirts printed with things like “CIA,” or “DEA,” or a giant pot leaf (ironic, eh?), or sometimes phrases in English that make absolutely no sense, and jeans with faux-Japanese-style fire-breathing dragons and other comically aggressive images embroidered on the thigh or back pocket.

But the hats take the cake. Now, there are some badass cowboy hats in these parts. High quality they are not, but they’re the kind of hats that have a story to tell: worn, dirty, probably terrible-smelling…my kind of headwear. A handful of guys will be wearing those. But the more popular choice is baseball caps, often advertizing any American professional sports team you can think of, from the Yankees to the 49ers to the Chicago Bulls. (I´ve noticed an unexplainably high concentration of Charlotte Hornets gear around here, which I´m currently looking into.) Other hats are brand-name only: FUBU (I have a feeling the message behind the label is lost on these guys), No Fear, and surfing companies like Ripcurl and Quiksilver (or knockoffs like “Qwiksolver”) are pretty common. So are Ché hats. The highlight, though, are what I like to call “Git ‘er dunn hats,” with so much brazen American patriotism they would make Bill O’Reilly blush. You name it, they got it: bald eagles, American flags, fire/lightning detailing, and always a giant “USA,” just in case there was any confusion. Unbelievable, awesome hats. And just about the last thing I ever expected to find here. As Peace Corps volunteers we’re constantly talking about “integrating” into our communities; who would have thought that everything I ever needed to fit in in Chalaco was probably waiting for me right there at the first truck stop westbound out of Columbus on I-70? But there you go.

With night falling and a steady drizzle picking up, everything seems more dramatic. The faces of the Consejo members are illuminated by a flickering gas lamp on the table in front of them, the lone light source in the room save the occasional flicker of a match as a Hamilton-brand cigarette is lit up. At least half of those present is smoking, either with his own cigarro, or more likely sharing one with those immediately flanking him, and the soft red glow of cigarettes is weirdly comforting to me, though I´ve never been a smoker myself. Every once in a while a moth the size of a small bird hits a window from the outside; when one finds its way inside I seem to be the only one who takes notice. Occasionally, silence breaks the din, and you can hear someone cough and hack, and then his spit smacking the floor in some dark corner of the room. A baby is crying, underfed dogs are wandering in and out, and people are getting restless. We’ve now been here for a few hours, and nothing much seems to have been accomplished. A drunk stumbles in and demands to be heard out, a request which is actually honored for 30 seconds or so before he´s drowned out. I think this is partially due to the entertainment factor recognized by all, and also because he isn’t actually a drunk, but rather a pretty well-respected community member who just happens to be shitfaced this afternoon. Someone reminds us all that we still haven´t gotten around to the topic at hand…

But after yet another half-hour or so, it is decided that not enough of the usuarios are present to actually proceed with the elections. The exiting committee is thrilled. The meeting is rescheduled for the end of the month, and I walk back to Chalaco alone in the thick, dark fog. Forgot my flashlight.

a real casual "business" trip

2009-03-21T15:50:00.004-06:00

Hi all- I’ve spent the last couple weeks out of site, travelling up and down the north coast of Peru for a few meetings and some vacation time on the beach. I’ve added a couple new photo albums, so check those out. Below are a couple recent entries from the road. Hope everyone’s doin’ well.
-Matt

7/3/2009

It’s 10:30PM and I just settled into the back of a buscama or overnight sleeper bus, on my way from Trujillo down the coast to Lima for the Peace Corps Volunteer Action Committee (VAC) meeting on Monday. I said goodbye to my good friend Kara in the terminal, who’s on her way up to Ecuador to travel for a while. For the past few days I’d been staying in the apartment she shared with about ten others, all volunteers teaching English for various lengths of time in Trujillo. They were a cool bunch – lots of Brits – and I had a blast hanging out with them in their city for a couple days.

The bus is ridiculously comfortable (one of many perks of travelling on the Peace Corps’ dime), but all day I’ve been dealing with the less-comfortable combination of explosive diarreah and by-far the worst sunburn of my life to date. The stomach issues happen only when I come down to the cities from Chalaco and eat things like peanut butter, pizza, cheeseburgers, and ice cream for days on end. I guess after several months of an almost exclusively grains-and-starches diet, your stomach loses tolerance for things you once took for granted. Bummer. But it doesn’t stop me from eating all that stuff anyway. As for the sunburn, that happened yesterday at the beach in Huanchaco (only twenty minutes or so from the center of Trujillo.) Gorgeous beach and really cool, laid-back surfing town – in fact my new favorite place in Peru. Not as cool? I found out (too late) that Peru apparently sits directly below the world’s largest ozone hole outside of Antarctica. I went for a half hour run down the beach at about 11AM, and the rest is history. Usually when I get burnt I’m pissed as hell at myself, knowing I could have taken very simple steps to prevent my own pain. In this case I don’t feel all that responsible; I was out there for thirty friggin’ minutes. So the fact that someone else is responsible takes a little bit of the edge off, but there’s a certain amount of physical pain associated with a full-upper-body scorch that no amount of positive thinking is going to help. So I’m trying not to move too much in my large, reclining leather seat.

Trujillo’s a fantastic town. Like most Peruvian coastal cities, it was founded by the Spanish in the 16th century and retains much of its colonial architecture and overall feel. Piura’s similar, but you have to really seek out the old, colonial homes and buildings. In Trujillo they line the streets. There seem to be about 4 restaurants and cafes and bars per capita, and I’d imagine it’s a pretty fun spot for Kara and her friends to hang out. I just happened to be visiting during the city’s annual anniversary celebration, and my first night in town there was a huge concert in the Plaza de Armas. The square was almost totally full – had to have been around 5,000 people. After a few hours at the bar, we headed over around midnight and caught the end of the second of three bands – a cumbia group, with the familiar line-up of guitars, drums, and trumpets backing up five singers harmonizing and coordinating their simple dance moves in a line across the stage. The final band was a mariachi group, who wasn’t nearly as entertaining, but it’s always cool for me to see a whole bunch of guitaristas playing together.

The next day Kara and I took off to see some ruins, for which this area is famous. We paid twenty soles for a full-day tour of sites called Huaca de la luna, Templo del Arcoiris, and the ancient city of Chan-Chan. The first was spectacular: a pyramid-shaped temple of five stories decorated inside and out with ancient paintings and carvings, each adobe story built on top of the last by the Moche people, who lived here throughout most of the first millennium AD. The Moche god is depicted frequently in repeating, high relief designs, with various expressions meaning different things. This was one of the most interesting parts of the ruins: the Moche, apparently, were one of the few ancient peoples ever to differentiate so specifically among facial expressions in the carvings they left. We also learned about the evidence pointing toward the human sacrifices which probably took place at this religious temple, the victims being losers of Gladiator-style battles and serving as offerings to the god during times of extreme drought or rain (a phenomenon known today as “El Niño,” or for those of you who don’t speak Spanish, “The Niño.”) Also wrapping around the adobe walls are the repeating images of snakes, fish, spiders, lizards, and other sacred animals. The sheer scale of the ruins, and the vividness of the amazingly well-preserved painted wall carvings, really blows you away. Huaca de la luna (meaning the Temple of the Moon, an arbitrary name bestowed by archaeologists because the still don’t know the original, Moche title) was easily the highlight of the sites we saw that day.

After lunch we headed with our tour group out to the Rainbow Temple, built somewhat later by the next major civilization to settle here, the Chimú. We found out that actually, the Chimú were just the next several generations of Moche, but after a drought-induced relocation they reorganized and became known by a new name. The Chimú would be conquered by the Inca a few hundred years later, but they left some amazing creations behind. The temple was less impressive than what we had seen in the morning, but very cool nonetheless. Lots of fertility symbols, which is always interesting stuff. The day ended with a tour of Chan-Chan, apparently the largest mud-brick (alias “adobe”) city in the Western Hemisphere. This place is just amazing. Though it follows the same designs of repeating fish, birds, and other symbols, and adds a few new ones like the rhombus of the fishing net which is found in all parts of the ruins, it doesn’t have the intricate painted carvings of the Moche Moon Temple. But what it comparatively lacks in decoration, Chan-Chan makes up for in sheer size and as a feat of ancient engineering. I couldn’t tell you how many square acres or miles it covers, but 30,000 people lived here at one point, and the place is like a giant labyrinth whose once-fifteen-meter-high trapezoidal walls have been eroded to about ten today (still very, very tall.) The city is made up over a dozen different Chimú palaces, each like its own little city. At the center of the palace we explored was a massive courtyard, and farther back lay a freshwater reservoir for the palace’s inhabitants. Despite the fact that the city lies only a few km. from the ocean (the sound of the waves ripping through the city in the high afternoon winds creates a very cool effect), its people extracted groundwater within their city walls in order to make themselves as fully self-sufficient as possible, in case of an attack (which eventually did come, when the Incas swept north in the 15th century AD.) The day ended with a stop out at Huanchaco, which I would get to know better the next day, and we went home to teach the Brits how to play beer pong.

Like I said, Huanchaco is my new favorite place I’ve been. It’s just a really nice, seemingly endless beach with nice waves and tons of cool bars, restaurants, and hostels overlooking the surf. Surfers share the water with fishermen, who still shove off in their traditional reed boats or caballitos and spend their down-time on the beach repairing their nets in the shade. Lots of gringos, too, which was both weird and cool. After my fateful jog, I ate a lunch of peanut butter and blueberry jelly (another decision I’m still regretting), and that afternoon one of Kara’s buddies taught me how to surf. I’ve always wanted to surf but never had the chance – Huanchaco is apparently a great place to learn because of its small but pretty dependable breaks. I’m not gonna lie, I thought it would be easier, having snowboarded all my life. But I got up a couple times, if only for a few seconds, and we quit as the sun was going down. Kara and I got some damn good ceviche and called it a day. Today we went back to the beach, but my burn-stomachache combo kept me mostly on the beach and in the shade. I’ll give surfing another shot in a month or so when a bunch of us head down to Piura’s world-famous beach. Mancora, during the national holiday of Semana Santa. After the beach we went to go see Watchmen, which is a pretty absurd movie – containing one of the most unexpected, graphic sex scenes that I’ve ever witnessed in a mainstream film (plus it takes place in a hovering craft.) So that’s always a nice surprise. But a pretty weird movie overall, and way too long. Anyway after that I packed up my stuff, left a thank-you note and an offering of half a jar of crunchy peanut butter for Kara’s housemates, and that brings us up to now.

The attendant just brought me a dinner of a ham sandwich with mustard, a shredded chicken sandwich, a cookie, and a cup of neon yellow Inca Cola. I’m starving after a day of Saltines, so I’m gonna give some real food a shot. This would be a terrible place to have to “go,” but as a wise man named John P. Lundquist used to say, sometimes in life, you just gotta say “F--- it.” There’s an REM show playing on the in-cabin TV. They came to Lima a few months ago, but this looks like it might be on the mall in DC. The lead singer – you know that bald guy? – is taking himself way too seriously. I mean, OK band and all, but he’s doing way too much snarling for a song like “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?” Plus, he’s either wearing some kind of fluorescent facepaint, or the TV color is off, either of which makes his expression appear even dumber. All the lyrics are subtitled – in English. Which is odd.

17/3/2009

Ten days later, I’m sitting in a hostel room in Pacasmayo, another beach town about an hour north of Trujillo, playing around on the amazingly fast wireless internet and watching Big Daddy dubbed in Spanish. For the last couple days I’ve been doing all of the following: surfing, running, drinking cold beers, eating Chinese food and fresh fish and ice cream, and generally hanging out with all my buddies who I haven’t seen since we left Lima over three months ago. My standard attire has been board shorts, sandals, a throwback Trailblazers jersey, hot pink 80’s sunglasses, and the Euro-trash mullet I’ve been sporting since the Inaugural Peace Corps Mullet Competition we had two nights ago. For obvious reasons, the phrase of the week has become “Dude, Peace Corps is so hard!”

Believe it or not, we’re here for “work” reasons. The three days we’re spending here (or four...I and a few others showed up a day early to take advantage of the world-class surf) are for what’s called “Reconnect” – an opportunity for all the volunteers of the same training group to get back together after the first three months at site and reflect on everything they’ve seen and experienced, and to think about what the next couple years might hold. It’s been fun – and weird – to see so many familiar faces after so long. There were a few faces missing from the group, though; since parting ways in December our group has lost three members. One went home after a month or two, having realized that this life just wasn’t for him. Every group loses a few volunteers, so statistically speaking, with a training group of almost fifty, it was bound to happen. The circumstances of the other two cases are a little more complicated: Sarah (AKA “Sarita”), a rock star of an older woman who I know has seen this whole experience through an entirely different lens than the 20-somethings like me, had to leave for medical reasons a few weeks ago. She’s already missed by a lot of us, but it was the right decision for her. But I’m gonna miss Jason the most – just a really, really great dude from Alabama and NYC, hilarious and very talented, and got along with everyone. Unfortunately he has some family things going on at home in the States, and he really had no choice but to leave. I got to spend most of the last week with him, as he was in Lima filling out paperwork and such, and we had a blast. Actually, he gets credit for the new Peru 12 mantra I mentioned above. To Jason: best of luck man, we all miss your goofy ass.

The waves here are awesome; I’m still a beginner surfer, but I’m loving it. Even if you don’t catch a wave all day, it’s so cool just floating out there, a couple hundred yards offshore, looking around at waves stretching forever in either direction, and back at the largely empty and just-as-endless beach. This place, according to a couple surfers we met at the hostel, is largely unknown to foreigners (except, of course, for surfers.) Very rarely does it show up in a guide book or tourist brochure, and the general consensus among the few who know the place is that that’s a good thing. Pacasmayo’s a lot like Huanchaco down in Trujillo, except even more laid-back. Replacing Huanchaco’s vegetarian restaurants and zen-inspired hostels are a few authentic ceviche kitchens, more fishermen mending their nets on the beach, artisans selling their little miniature surfboards and necklaces, and a beautiful boardwalk lined with brightly-painted, yet crumbling oceanfront buildings from a time before.

There’s a marathon here in July, started by a Peace Corps volunteer last year, and I just officially signed up the other day. (Side note: I couldn’t believe this place was actually a Peace Corps site...if I lived there I’m not sure I would ever get anything done other than surfing and chilling real hard on the beach.) Anyway, I know very little about distance running, but I’ve been running on my own ever since the end of my formal athletic career a few years back, so I’m not too concerned about my work ethic or motivation. What I am worried about is all the damn mud up in Chalaco right now, and whether the road’s ever going to dry out. Right now I’m running laps around the soccer field a few times a week, but in terms of excitement that’s roughly equivalent to banging your head against a wall, and I’m not sure how much longer I can keep it up. Plus, my knee is starting to bother me, which is a problem ‘cause it’s the same one I had arthroscopic surgery on a couple years ago. We’ll see what happens. In any case, the marathon course runs along the beach, over asphalt, dirt, and compacted sand. I’ve been out running a couple times here in the last few days, and it’s a totally surreal landscape – once you get out of town, it’s just barren, sandy terrain as far as you can see, with the ocean beside you stretching away toward the horizon. The wind and the waves, and your steps and your own breathing are the only sounds you hear. It’s like running on Mars.

I got here a couple days ago after a full work week in Lima. The VAC meeting was an interesting experience, and I’m glad I got to be part of it. I’d been describing it to non-volunteers as a sort-of Peace Corps student council, and that’s exactly what it was: a forum for volunteers to get together with the PC Peru staff and talk about issues we’re having and brainstorm ways to solve them. Everything from cell phones to host family issues to vacation policy came up in the four-hour meeting, and as secretary I got to spend the entire next day typing up the minutes. I think I can go ahead and scratch secretarial work off my list. While in Lima I helped out with various Wat/San programming tasks, notably getting our page on the new online Peace Corps Peru database up and running. I also got to stay at my friend Lane’s house, who is just a fantastic guy. An environmental consultant from Arizona, he was our “tech-trainer” for Wat/San during our initial months in Lima, and he and his wife live just down the road from the Peace Corps office in a nice townhouse. It was great to have a real home to stay in after so many nights at hostels, and I will definitely be looking Lane up again next time I come to town. I gained a new appreciation for certain parts of Lima, too. It’s often dismissed by volunteers and experienced travellers alike as just a big, sprawling, dirty city with little to offer other than some museums, churches, and other landmarks. But a few things surprised me: there’s a great malecon or boardwalk stretching for several miles along the cliffs leading down to the beach in a part of town called Miraflores (easily the city’s nicest, cleanest neighborhood.) While running out there one morning, I was surprised to see a handful of surfers bobbing in the early-morning waves just offshore, and the amazing number of attractive women running alongside me kept my mind occupied...maybe I’ve been in the campo too long. We also had some of the best food I’d eaten in a long time – one place was a tiny, unpretentious, and cheap Indian restaurant that took us half an hour to find in the cab, but was totally worth the effort.

While in Lima, I went back to visit my host family from Chacrasana for a night. On the drive from Lima, sweating in the back of a combi, I was struck more than ever by the extreme barrenness of the terrain on the outskirts of Lima. It’s totally unlike anything I’ve seen before – just desolate mounds of beige-colored sand interrupted by little one-road towns winding their way up the valleys. Upon my arrival, needless to say, the whole family was pretty excited to see me, and it was great catching up and sharing some pictures from my new life. I was pleased to learn that all are doing well (though the señora Nilza is having some back problems), that the girls are excited to be starting a new school year, and Rocio is keeping busy with a new job at a military uniform store in Callao, Lima’s port and the Navy headquarters. Raquel is still making burgers out in front of the house, though she gets less business these days without the gringos around, and the second story of the house is advancing slowly as her husband Reni invests a little more each month in the project. It looks like they’re going to receive a third volunteer from the next training group, which is great both for whoever winds up there and for the family itself. All told, though, the visit really made me appreciate my current set-up more than anything. With my family up in Chalaco I just have more space; I rarely feel pressured or awkward around them, because there’s just so much action all the time that even if they wanted to hover over me the way that the Chacrasana family often did, it would be impossible. Don’t get me wrong, the family in Chacrasana is awesome, and they all have nothing but the best intentions. I can’t imagine a better way to get settled into a new culture and language. My issue is purely a cultural incompatibility; what I call overbearing-ness, they call normal life at home. Regardless of culture though, through interactions with Peruvians and fellow volunteers alike, I’m finding more and more that I really just like having my own space and the freedom to do my own thing. And that people dwelling over me, or constantly consulting me, or scrutinizing my every little move is suffocating and makes me feel very claustrophobic. This shouldn’t be earth-shattering news to anyone who knows me, but my experience here has affirmed it more than ever before. Obviously I’m constantly in the public eye in Chalaco, but for some reason up there it’s different. I love my family from Chacrasana, and I plan on staying in touch with them forever. But seeing them confirmed my notion that I won the lottery with my family and the community in Chalaco.

I’ve now been out of site for about two weeks, and it feels weird. On one hand I feel guilty for leaving Chalaco for so long. But on the other hand, I know that I really didn’t have any other choice, with VAC and Reconnect and no realistic chance to return in-between. I guess I didn’t need to spend those four days in Trujillo, but I’m glad I did. What does make me feel a little bad is the knowledge that I’m going to be spending much of the next month on the road, as well. From here I’ll head back up the coast to Piura, spend a night or two there, and then it’s back to Chalaco. But nine or ten days later I’ll turn around and head right back down to Lima, where our Wat/San program has a three-day workshop called PDM (Project Design Management...I think) where we learn about the opportunities available to us as funding sources, and how we can go about accessing those funds for community projects. My friend and work partner Miguel is coming, along with his boss Jesús, who heads up the Health Commission in the district. Obviously a worthwhile and necessary trip, but I hope people up in town don’t start wondering where the hell I’ve gone. Especially because about ten days after PDM I’ll be heading down the mountain yet again for four days at Piura’s most famous beach and surfing destination, Mancora. April 9th and 10th are national holidays, and for us volunteers they’re considered “free” vacation days; that is, we don’t have to use up any of the days we accrue during the year. So you gotta aprovechar (“take advantage,” a very useful phrase here)...it would be stupid not to. I just called a hostel yesterday and they’re all full, but the owner knows Peace Corps and will let us camp there for cheap. Should be a great base to explore Mancora’s world-renowned beaches and waves during the day, and hit up its equally-legendary parties at night. Finally, directly following Semana Santa we have a three-day workshop on HIV/AIDS; PEPFAR (The US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) has given three departments in northern Peru about $20,000 for education and prevention programs (apparently we live in a region that is considered at a high risk level for an epidemic, given the culture of machismo, the large number of families that are separated for long periods of time for work reasons, and the lack of education and contraceptive use.) That should be cool, but I’m really wondering how much time I’m going to be able to devote to AIDS work, with everything I’ve already got in the works. But free money is too good to pass up, so I’ll be out of site on and off again until mid-April.

In the meantime, once I get back I’m eager to continue with my water system inspections and latrine planning in the caserios, adult English classes in Chalaco, and some other side projects I’m thinking about, like a trout farm, possible environmental programming with the schools, and the vegetable garden and worm composting pilot project I’m starting at home with the family. It’s still raining like a bastard, but hopefully we’re over the hump and things will start to clear up in a month or two. If not I might be reading a lot of books and watching a lot of Sopranos second season episodes. I guess I got on the bandwagon about five years late, but that’s a pretty damn good show, in my opinion.

swimming pools and sugarcane

2009-02-10T14:31:00.002-06:00

8/2/2009

Today was a good day. It started out like any other Sunday, waking up early to a drizzling rain outside and getting my things together to head out to Naranjo to teach my weekly English class. My alarm went off at six but I hit snooze until six-thirty. I had thought about getting up and doing some push-ups and sit-ups, one way I try to maintain my sanity though some semblance of a regular schedule, but this morning I just wasn’t feeling it. It probably had to do with the fact that we played fulbito for four hours last night after dinner. I was surprised to hear noises coming from inside the house; the rest of the family usually isn’t up until about eight, it being summer vacation. But I quickly remembered that Nestor and Adrian, my two oldest brothers, had planned to come with me today, and immediately felt uplifted about the impending hike through the wetness. Finding Claudia in the kitchen frying up some caballa (mackerel, I think...we get fish, relatively fresh actually, up here about once a week), I filled up my electric water boiler at the kitchen sink and retired to my room to make some coffee. After a month or so of the same, luke-warm, almost-tasteless-except-for-the-sugar café, I realized that I can just as easily buy my own instant Nescafé and make my own cup in the morning. It’s still not real coffee, but it’s changed my mornings dramatically for the better.

After a breakfast of fish, sweet potatoes, and fresh cheese, the three of us set off. We cruised through town, heading down the Calle Comercio, or Chalaco’s version of Main Street. I really like leaving town early to head out to the campo; the streets are mostly empty except for some store-owners opening up and sweeping off their sidewalks, and a few kids selling bread out of oversized woven straw baskets, honking bicycle horns to rouse the Chalaqueños from their beds. There’s usually at least a sliver of clear sky above, and the town just feels very peaceful. Looking out over the tin roofs, the hills stretch out as far as you can see, divided neatly into square-shaped parcels of corn, sugarcane, and vegetables; it looks like someone just threw a giant, green patchwork quilt over the whole landscape. Completing the pastoral scene, donkeys tethered to telephone poles watch lazily as you pass by, and roosters can be heard crowing from everywhere (although those things happen all day anyway, regardless of the sun’s position.)

We stopped at the closed door of Don Santos’ bodega where in a couple hours there would be a table set up outside with various chocolate bars and different kinds of candy; tangerines, apples, and a few other assorted fruits; and the other basics of everyday life, such as bobby pins, the familiar blue and yellow D-cell batteries used in the radios everyone carries; a few horse-hair brooms and some plastic buckets used for carrying fresh milk and cheese from the fields. Nestor knocked and shouted for Willy, the brothers’ uncle (though having graduated just from the secundaria this year, he’s only a couple years older than his nephews) who was also coming along. He emerged with a serious case of bed-head, a bag of apples in one hand, courtesy of his mother (my aunt?) Doña Esther, and his plastic boots in the other. Quarter ‘til eight: half an hour later than I would have liked, but no worries. Chances are the rest of Peru was running late, too.

We had some good conversations as we trudged along through the mud. I told them about everything from the dangers of hiking in moose-territory in Wyoming, to what I studied in college, to what exactly snow feels like (try to do that without saying “snow” – it’s tough.) I’m gonna have to download a picture of a moose because they were a little lost on that one, but in return I learned that Willy is heading down to Piura at the end of the month to enroll in the National University there, where he’ll study ingineria de mineria, or mineral-extraction engineering. With a laugh I told him they’re gonna kick him out of Chalaco for good, but was surprised to hear him say that, No, it’s not like that, he wants to find ways to do it safely, without harming the land or the water or the people. He’s got his work cut out for him, but it was great to hear that the kid’s got some perspective on those things. He started to tell me about some new technology he had heard of, but then got distracted by a crab scurrying across the path. I also found out that Nestor wants to be a doctor and Adrian wants to be a chef – crazy how you forget to talk about stuff like that when you’re just sitting around at home. I guess there really are benefits to taking the time to walk places once in a while (or, like, all the time.)

We got to Naranjo after a surprisingly dry couple hours to find a group of kids waiting (or two groups, rather, separated by gender.) This was a good sign; I missed last week because I had to meet with a local JASS (community water-management committee) near Chalaco to help fix a pressure-break valve, or rather, learn how to do it by watching them and pretending that I do this kind of stuff all the time, being the water “expert” that I am. I had relayed the message that I wouldn’t be making it out to Naranjo, but wasn’t sure if the health-post workers had actually followed through. Turns out they had, and about half my normal class showed up even after my two-week hiatus. Better than no-one, which I had half-expected. The class went well – we played “Mateo says” with parts of the body and the face (the kids in Chalaco love it, so I figured we’d try it out in Naranjo), and then a game my friend Frieda – a fellow Wat/San volunteer who’s also teaching English at her site – told me about in an email, which involves the kids standing in a line facing me, and taking a step forward each time I call out a color they’re wearing (winner gets a caramelito.) Around eleven I gathered they’d had enough of me, and I let them go running back to their houses.

My brothers and Willy immediately observed that the kids had had a lot of verguenza (embarrassment, or shyness.) It was true, it had been a pretty one-sided hour and a half of class, with me really having to revv them up to get them to repeat the parts of the body after I drew them on the chalkboard. My kids in Naranjo are far more timid this way than the ones in Chalaco. In fact, it’s like night and day. I think this has to do with both the fact that kids from farther out in the campo are simply raised to be less independent and outgoing, and also that I teach the kids in Chalaco three times a week to their one (assuming I even make it out there, that is.)

After class we headed up to check-in with the health post, but my buddy Mere (short for something ridiculous like Heremenejildo which I’ve never even attempted), the head técnico, wasn’t around so we headed out. The four of us had decided that we were going to take the long way home, passing by the hydro-electric planta on the way. We all felt like doing some exploring, and I also wanted to check out the plant; I had passed by once or twice but never really poked around. Plus my buddy Hector works there and I thought he was usually down there on Sundays. We half-hiked, half-bushwhacked our way down the side of the valley to the river, crossed the bridge “El Nogal,” and followed the concrete diversion canal on the other side down to the plant. Adrian and Willy wanted to stay up above the plant and go for a swim in the collecting pool there, where the water passes before heading down in huge, above-ground tubes. But Nestor and I, in an act of older-brother-solidarity, decided it would be better to go down and ask permission. Plus I wanted to see if Hector was around.

Turns out he was, and she showed us around the inside of the place. I’d never seen the inside of a hydro-plant, but I always imagined them being much bigger operations than this. The equipment was impressive, for sure; I told Hector the bright blue pipes and generators reminded me of scene from a bad science fiction movie. The huge instrument panel looked like one of those WWII-era computers that takes up half the room. But the place itself was little more than a long shack with sheet-metal roofing and a couple little side-rooms for the operators to sleep and eat. Amazing that the place provides energy for the whole district of Chalaco, and in fact is now connected to the national energy grid because it was pumping out more than Chalaco itself could use. Hector told us he was actually on his way out after a 3-day shift (he’s one of only two operators), and would meet us at the top of the hill after he grabbed a bite of whatever he was cooking. He gave us the green light to go for a swim in the “pool,” and we headed up.

Swimming was awesome. I’m not sure if it was because I hadn’t swam in a couple months, or because I hadn’t showered for several days, even after playing hours of soccer...probably a combination. But it felt amazing. The meter-by-about-15-meter tank wasn’t deep enough for me not to touch the bottom, and the river water was far from clear, but it was good enough. I don’t know, but there’s something uniquely liberating about swimming that just makes you really, really happy sometimes – like a little kid. And it’s a universally human thing, regardless of culture, age, or other superficial differences. The (surprising) fact that it still wasn’t raining made the whole scene even better. I found out that Adrian can’t swim, but was glad to see that he wasn’t afraid of the water, and stripped down with the rest of us and hopped in (though he didn’t do any real “swimming.”) After 20 minutes or so we were all pretty cold – but happy – and we got out to eat our apples and head home. Hector met up with us and we continued on our way.

Hector’s the man. I can see why Casey got along with him so well during her years here. He’s probably around forty or so, and has been working at the plant for a number of years. I’m pretty sure he’s got a wife and kids in Chalaco, but I can’t remember for sure. In any case, during a walk back from San Lorenzo a couple weeks ago, he told me that he’s got a couple kids in different parts of the country; he’s “slowly learning how to have kids” he told me with an easy laugh. Like I said, the man. He’s one of the few people I feel really comfortable around in Chalaco, probably because he’s got a sense of sarcasm, which most Peruvians I’ve met tend to lack. Just a laid-back, cool dude. He also speaks some basic English, and has a genuine interest in learning more, which makes it fun to talk with him.

As the younger guys lagged behind to “borrow” some sugarcane from a field we passed, we continued ahead talking, greeting the occasional passer-by. The campesinos you pass on the way into or out of Chalaco generally fit the same mold: almost always draped in a sheep’s wool poncho, heading up with their cows or other livestock, or home with burros loaded down with supplies for the week: cooking oil, rice, potatoes, eggs, tools, rope, plastic sheeting, and the like. The men generally have a burning cigarette hanging out the side of their mouth, and the older women are often spinning an endless ball of yarn onto a stick to prepare it for the loom. Most wear the same style of sandals – made of old tires – and whose popularity is rivalled only by the traditional wide-brimmed straw hats of the northern sierra. Virtually all greet you as you pass, and about half the time you’ll stop to shake hands and make some quick small talk about the mud or the rain, or where they’re heading or coming from, and so on. So, punctuated by a “buenas tardes” and a nod here and there, Hector and I talked about my work and how I was settling-in. I confessed that I’m starting to feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of potential work there is here: from water systems and latrines in the seemingly endless series of caserios, to the water and trash situations in Chalaco, to the various side projects I’m entertaining, including English and computer classes, a radio show, developing a website for Chalaco, home gardens and worm-composting, a world map project, small-scale trout-farming, and various others – not to mention my most urgent task of organizing all my survey data into a presentable document to present to Peace Corps folks and as well as local agencies and authorities. Now, this is obviously much better than not having any work opportunities or people to work with, but when everyone – yourself included – acknowledges that you’ve got more than your share of work cut out for you, and that you would have to be an idiot not to be massively successful in two years of work, it can’t help but feel a little daunting.

But, echoing my own thoughts, he advised me to keep it simple and stick to the most realistic projects, and those through which I can have the biggest impact on improving peoples’ lives. We started talking about the latrines, and I explained to him that my biggest hurdle at this point is figuring out whether the local government is going to provide them for certain towns or not. They’re already putting in latrines in a few of the caserios, and the last thing I want to do is duplicate already-existing projects or do something my way when there’s already a plan to do it the mayor’s way. This sounds simple enough to solve: just go talk to the mayor, right? It actually isn’t: there’s a lot of politics involved, not to mention weird budgeting schedules and procedures that I’m trying to learn. Did I mention politics? More than a few times I’ve had the situation explained to me in stark, black-and-white, “they voted for him” – or – “they didn’t” terms.

I’m very friendly with the alcalde – he’s actually been coming to my adult English classes, which is somewhat shocking. But it’s the kind of thing you have to approach delicately. For example, they’re putting in latrines in a town that often doesn’t have enough water for its people to drink. Seems like a good idea, right? Well, except that the design isn’t just a standard pit latrine, but rather a flushing toilet that connects to the same water system, and will consume up to six liters each of water with every flush. Not to mention, all the modules also have sinks with running faucets, and some even have showers. There being no water to begin with, this design would seem a poor choice. But there’s nothing I can do about it now, except work with the JASS to try to figure out just how they’re gonna find more water. It also sets a precedent for the whole area; who wants a pit latrine when the neighbors have a flushing toilet and shower? Whether they function properly is largely irrelevant.

But all that talk, while frustrating in a sense, didn’t bring me down at all. It had started to drizzle, but nothing major, and I was gnawing on all the raw sugarcane I could want – really refreshing stuff, though I think another reason everyone around here has a gold tooth, or five. The light rain was kinda nice, actually – there’s a sort-of explosion of great smell from the eucalyptus trees right when the rain starts. We parted ways in Chalaco and my brothers and I headed home, where we found a late lunch of chicken, beet and carrot salad (a standard), and rice awaiting us. Adrian was excited to find that we had arrived just as Manchester United squared off against West Ham in a British Premier League match on DirecTV, and as I slathered some Piura-bought BBQ sauce on my chicken, I realized that (much like swimming) there’s something about coming in wet, hungry, and tired to a good meal and a game on TV that transcends cultural, economic, and age gaps. Whatever that thing is (in that case I think it’s just being a dude), it made for a good end to an even better day.

The fam

2009-01-31T10:13:00.003-06:00

17/1/2009

Lemme tell you a little bit about my host family. First, the house. We live in a six-bedroom adobe house on the main road into Chalaco, a few hundred yards before you really enter town. When I say “six-bedroom,” that’s bound to evoke some inaccurate images; it’s five little bedrooms (two on the first floor and three upstairs) and a separate side-room where I live, a small living room and smaller kitchen, and one bathroom attached to the back “porch,” a covered concrete slab that’s new since I arrived, and must be a huge improvement over stepping out into pure mud all the time during the rains. In a stunning display of cultural collision, on about my fifth day here we actually dug up about half our little front yard to get rocks and sand for the concrete mix for the project. I tried to explain to my brothers that not only would this be unthinkable where I come from, but that in other parts of the world people actually spend an exorbitant amount of time and money to maintain their lawns, and that I even used to provide that service for my neighbors when I was their age. Olga was gone at the time, and in my American perspective, my first thought was that there would surely be some major fireworks in store for when Mom returned to find a hole where the grass used to be. But it was never even brought up, and I came to realize that the entire concept of “lawn” is just completely non-existent here.

Adobe houses aren’t anything particularly special: mud bricks covered with plaster to resemble concrete, and then painted (and then often painted over again with some political propaganda message.) Virtually all roofs are made of calamina or corrugated sheet metal, an all-purpose material around here (like duct tape, but tougher to carry around with you.) It’s widely used, for example, rolled into tubes for chimneys in the improved stove kitchens that many NGOs and PC volunteers alike are big on in these parts. Interior ceilings are made of uncovered guayaquil wood (sort-of like bamboo) supported by larger logs running perpendicular, which are the real frame of the house. I have a theory that mosquitoes (zancudos in Spanish, not to be confused with mosquitos, which refers to any small flying insect...false cognates are a bitch) breed in the guayaqiul ceilings; especially now with the constant dampness, they come out and congregate in small armies around my one, naked light bulb every night when I’m in my room. As a result, I spend a probably unreasonable amount of time killing them by the dozens in my room at night before my usual 9-10PM bedtime – as well as other, much larger winged insects that sound like, and sometimes also resemble, small Apache helicopters. I know it’s completely futile, but I can’t just sit there and watch them. I wake up between 6 and 7AM usually, either on purpose to run or work out before breakfast, or because there’s cumbia music blasting from somewhere up the hill by then if not earlier (I’m still convinced there are only about five songs in Peru right now, which play through on every radio station, over and over, all day, everyday), or because the combination of pigs, chickens, dogs, and toddlers running around - and shrieking - outside my room isn’t any more conducive to sleep than living in, say, a steel mill.

One thing about adobe: it’s tough to really ever get the floor clean, because the walls virtually come apart in little pieces if you get the broom too close. But the house has concrete and tile floors, and it’s more than comfortable. DirecTV helps. I’ve seen more Jackie Chan and Van Damme movies in the last couple months than you can shake a stick at – or parts of them at least, until I can’t take it anymore and retire to my room. My room’s separated from the rest of the house, the only entrance being the door which opens out to the front patio. It’s plenty big, and by now I’ve got everything I need as far as furniture and the like. The dampness means that nothing ever really dries, so the smell of my room has gone from moldy and dusty at first, to slightly improved by the eucalyptus branches and orange peels I had in here for a while (til the bugs took them over), to now back to dank and moldy. Yesterday I found some interesting stuff growing on a shirt I hadn’t worn in a while. I think that’s really the key: something looks moldy or stinks, just wear it for a couple days. I had thought about painting the walls at first, but now they’re pretty much covered with posters, maps, and other items I’ve been collecting, so the dirty, off-white paint job isn’t so visible any more. Still thinking about painting a massive American flag on the wall opposite my bed, behind where I hang all my damp clothing. Gotta clear that with the señora, though. Same with getting a dog, which I’m seriously considering. I mean, there are enough of them around here.

We cook with gas, which is more than a lot of familias can say around here (ie, the above reference to improved kitchens or cocinas mejoradas), and water flows in the sink for most of the day, even if it’s a trickle during the mid-day hours. Showers are cold and lack pressure; I’ve gotten used to the cold, and have actually started taking a lot of showers in the chorro or constantly-flowing outdoor spigot about a hundred yards up the road. Walking through the mud both ways sucks, but there’s way more water pressure, and the view is pretty sweet. Plus I can’t bang my face on the roughly 5’5’’ high showerhead, which I did on about day two in the shower at home. Probably a little weird for the locals to see a big, pasty-white kid showering outdoors in his floral-print board shorts as they head out to work in the fields in the morning, but with two years to spend here, I’m sure they’ll get used to it. (Note: now that the rains have started, water is much more readily-available at all hours, not only in Chalaco but also in the caserios I’ve been getting to know – which is good on one hand, because towards the end of the dry season there often isn’t enough water to go around and people go days without it sometimes. On the other hand, more water running up in the hills means more opportunities for contamination and therefore an elevated risk for parasitos and other water-borne illnesses. This is the kind of dilemma I’m going to be working on.)

Anyway our house is painted a two-tone light blue and red on the outside, and the interior walls are various shades of yellow, lime green, and blue. The area out behind the house is home to the lavanderia where we hand-wash all our clothes; I actually kind of like it – a couple times a week you just tune out and wash clothes all morning. Though the rain makes it, like everything else, not that much fun. The other day my two youngest brothers and I built a sort of path out of large, flat rocks from the porch to the water spigot to avoid the mud. They got bored after about 20 minutes, but a couple hours later we (read: I) had a pretty decent path going. We’ll see how it survives the winter. The area beyond is a sweet garden waiting to happen. Lots of volunteers build gardens, and I see no reason not to follow suit, both to introduce some green stuff into the life of my family as well as for my own dietary benefits. Right now it’s all weeds and trash, but I’m already pushing the idea on Olga as a project after the rains. She digs it. No pun intended. Hah, get it?? ...I might be going slightly insane.

Moving on, meet the kids. A total of five live here: four brothers, ages three, seven, fourteen, and fifteen, and Claudia, a fifteen-year-old girl who lives with us and helps out around the house.

Diego, the youngest, is hysterical. I could literally sit around and just watch this kid all day. He speaks in this sort-of stuttering jibberish that I almost always have a hard time understanding, but as with little kids speaking any language, you just kinda smile and say “Yep” and he’s happy. Actually, I don’t say “Yep,” but rather Dí. Dí is an expression used in northern Peru which is more-or-less equivalent to a Canadian’s usage of “Eh?” It can be tacked on to the end of pretty much any question to which the answer is an assumed “Yes,” and with Diego I use it, semi-mockingly (but he doesn’t know the difference), as that affirmative response as well. But this kid uses it about 500% more than anyone else I’ve met. I pointed out to him that his name actually starts with his favorite expression, something which had obviously never occurred to him. He now has a new song consisting entirely of “Di’s” and “Diego’s,” for which I feel more than partly responsible, and often regret. Diego at mealtime is a sight to behold. I would describe him as basically filthy all the time, but in the way that it’s more or less condoned because he’s a cute little kid, and probably also because it’s just not worth the effort to try to make him clean. I’d say at least two-thirds of whatever he tries to eat winds up on his face, in his lap, on the floor, or anywhere else besides his mouth. This is partly because he’s way too small to reach the table and therefore shovels and pours more than he raises his food or drink to his mouth. Speaking of which, his other favorite phrase is “Y mi café?” which basically translates as “Where’s my coffee, damnit??” Probably about 75% of his mealtime adventures are initiated with this demand of Claudia or his mother, and once delivered, the festivities can begin.

Tangent: coffee. The term “café” in our house – and I assume most others around here – is used rather widely, encompassing just about anything liquid and warm. You never, ever drink cold beverages with a meal. Even cerveza in social situations is generally room-temperature (though not always, thankfully). I think this has something to do with the belief that cold drinks and warm food together cause illness. (Another instance where it’s best to just nod and pretend to understand, or even agree.) It could also be the general lack of refrigeration. In any case it’s something I’m already used to from my three months in Chacrasana, and meals now feel slightly incomplete without a warm drink. The term “café” can refer to any of the following: a variety of teas, either in bag form or derived directly from herbs like Lanche (like lemongrass), Hierba Buena (peppermint, I think), or others; hot chocolate; any of several barley-based protein and vitamin-enriched powders, mixed with hot water or evaporated milk (Nestle makes one called Milo, and there’s another one called Ecco); or actual Nescafe instant coffee (which is sort-of like real coffee...though so watered-down it’s often hard to tell from the Milo). The one, single constant is sugar. I’ve never seen people put away sugar the way my family does. My oldest brother Nestor will dump three or four heaping spoonfuls in a normal cup of café. It blows my mind. The younger kids complain when their drinks are too simple, and their requests are almost always automatically granted. It was obviously weird for my family when I confessed that I actually like my drinks simple, but they’ve since gotten used to it, and my host mother Olga even proudly says they’re all starting to use less sugar with me around. Great, but it’s gonna take more than two years to whittle the sugar levels down to anything close to healthy. But I digress...

Diego also has a ridiculous habit of grinning and raising his eyebrows repeatedly as he talks, like how cartoon characters do, which in conjunction with the “Dí’s” completes the full package. Except that he also cries all the time, and often for no apparent reason. But it’s rarely the kind of shrieking that was standard with the little girls in the Chacrasana house, so I can’t complain. I still do wonder, though, whether Peruvian kids cry more than normal or if I just haven’t spent enough time around toddlers. ‘Cause they seem to cry an awful lot down here. Anyway, Diego-in-motion is pretty damn funny, too, especially when he’s wearing his several-sizes-too-big poncho (though I’m sure it’s the smallest size that’s even worth the time and effort to make.) He swings his little arms in a sort-of robotic way...he reminds me of a little piglet when he runs and skips around – or right through – the puddles in the muddy streets. If you don’t know what piglets look like when they run, just come on down to Chalaco and I’ll point out a few (dozen) of them to you. Speaking of them, I just learned that piglets are actually hard-wired to roll over and lay there, semi-tranced, when you rub their bellies. That’s been fun.

Cesar is the next one in the lineup, and the kid’s almost always got a smile on his face. He calls me tio or “uncle,” does push-ups and sit-ups with me, and when I’m in my room he’s very often loitering around outside with Diego and several other kids and small animals, or inside, studying the Peru map on my wall and pointing out different places, or asking about others he can’t find. He’s a really bright kid, not only with geography but also English. In Peru, Inglés officially becomes part of the curriculum during the five years of high school or secundaria, but a lot of younger kids pick up the basics from their older siblings, parents, or TV. Cesar’s also got a couple books (“Clifford the Big Red Dog,” for example) – simple stories with both English and Spanish translations, and for a seven year old, he reads really, really well in English. He’s been gone for a couple weeks (along with most of the family), visiting Olga’s mother in Huancabamba, but when they get back I’m gonna make sure he starts coming to my English classes. (Note: since first writing this, the family has returned, and thus the noise level has skyrocketed back to normal. Cesar came to his first English class today, where we played “Mateo Says” for a good 45 minutes; he lost early-on every time, but later confessed that he hadn’t really understood the game.) Anyway there’s a custom in Peru, and particularly in rural areas, where you thank everyone at the table after eating, not just the cook. I still don’t really understand this, but I obviously partake. Cesar, though, is by far the most avid dinner-table-thanker, and will practically yell at you until acknowledged, just to thank you for the food you had no part in providing him. He’ll also point out completely obvious things at random moments and ask for approval from anyone around, I think just to flex his superiority to his younger brother, who often gets most of the attention. He’s also got a habit of swinging his arm at the shoulder, in rapid, vertical circles while making helicopter noises. Not surprisingly this is often after a couple turbo-charged cups of café. The kid cracks me up. One of his front teeth, I suspect also due to sugar, has a permanent brown buildup of something on it, which is a little worrisome, but I think the family just figures it’s a baby tooth and will fall out soon enough anyway. Fair enough.

Adrian and Nestor, the second-to and oldest of the four, respectively, actually remind me a lot of my brother Will and I; not only in the ways they relate to - and differ from -each other, but also in actually comparing the two of them to Will and I ourselves. To the latter point, they’re both tall (relatively speaking, that is), wiry, athletic kids who are into most of the same things, and will drop anything to go play soccer, even if it’s just with each other. They’re overly polite, in particular toward their mother, and take really good care of their younger siblings. A lot of times both parents are out of the house and either or both of them essentially take on the role of parent-figure to Cesar and Diego, whether resolving disputes, feeding them, or tucking them in at night. Pretty tight-knit group of kids in that regard.

As far as their personalities, Nestor, like me in a lot of ways I think, is the prototypical first-born: bright kid, diligent both academically – finished first in his class this last year at the Chalaco secundaria – and in other respects (gets up early and runs with me some mornings), and has a great sense of humor, but definitely a more even-keeled, reserved-type of kid. A little more uptight and occasionally more irritable than his younger brother, for sure. He’s also got a killer sweet tooth, as evidenced by his coffee-sweetening habits. The other day I caught him chugging the maple syrup I had brought up from Piura for the Banana French Toast I made on Christmas morning (which kicked ass by the way. I’ve also introduced the family to Tabasco sauce, which they immediately took to, and Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce, which I introduced as “what America tastes like.” I’ve now seen it added to everything from boiled potatoes to fried eggs to plain bread, to actually mixed into an ensalada of beets, carrots, and mayo.) Anyway yeah, syrup straight from the bottle, unbelievable; more or less repulsive to most people, but you gotta give him credit for just going for it.

Adrian, like Will, is a goofier dude, also on his game in the classroom, but more creative and easygoing. He has a habit of exclaiming “Oh yes!” at random times in a voice a couple octaves below his own, and he’s a big Manchester United fan. He’s also constantly compared to his older brother, especially because they’re so close in age, which can’t be easy on him (in fact I know it’s not easy on him), but he seems to handle it pretty well. In something of a reversal of my own family dynamic, Adrian actually takes on much more responsibility for his younger siblings. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “Type-A” and “Type-B,” mostly because I’m not really sure what that means exactly, but I think some people might describe Nestor and Adrian, respectively, along those lines.

But overall they’ve got much more in common than they have differences. Both are still shy and awkward around girls, which was funny to watch one night after I’d been in town only a couple weeks. Every once in a while, there’s a “Bingo” held at the same covered, lighted sports platform (the coliseo as it’s called) behind the Police station, where we play fulbito some nights. “Bingos” are basically mixers for high-school aged kids, and include all the same elements of dances in the States: girls all dolled up and ready to dance, guys mostly sitting around looking cool (though a lot more are willing to dance here than ever were with my buddies), and cliques of kids including the proverbial kids “from across the tracks” (the agricultores’ kids from rural homes outside Chalaco, distinguished by their jean jackets and the cases of beer they brandish at the ripe old age of fifteen.) It turned out to be a pretty long night for me, because I just sat and watched for several hours, not sure if I was supposed to stick around til the end and make sure my brothers came home (Olga had hinted at that, but it was still too early to tell if she was serious. I’ve since decided she wasn’t.) But I was kept relatively entertained watching Adrian and Nestor mill around near the dancing and then report back to me periodically about the girls they were going after. Nestor apparently had a girl locked down, which Adrian gave him endless amounts of shit about. For his part, I don’t think Adrian ever actually succeeded in dancing with the object of his desire, but not to worry, he’s got it “all worked out.”

Claudia rounds out the lineup. She’s from Pacaipampa, a couple hours up the road, and I’m not clear on her family situation (why she’s here and not there, whether Olga pays her to work here or if it’s a payment-in-kind type-deal, how long she’s been here, etc.), but she’s friendly enough, if not overly timid especially around new people. She’s opening up, though, and we’ve had a couple good conversations about food and other safe, everyday topics (though always initiated by me.) She’s a decent cook; you can only make so much with rice, potatoes, bread, eggs, chicken, cheese, tuna, and a few odd veggies, but she makes it work. Not that the food isn’t sometimes a little suspect: occasionally we have fish, and the other night it was so salty it made the left side of my mouth numb. Can salt do that? Anyway she makes a pretty good tortilla (a plate-sized, super-dense flat bread that is either baked or fried, and constitutes a large percentage of the campo diet – not bad with some jelly and cheese or an avocado, but pretty bland on its own...for obvious reasons.) I can’t complain about the food, though – I haven’t gotten really sick yet, which, at the end of the day, is the ultimate indicator.

Claudia was one of the handful of students in Olga’s afterhours English classes which I took over until they ended with the end of the school year, along with a few of her friends who are similarly employed by other families. Not sure if she came because Olga’s the teacher or because she really wants to learn English, but I’d say I’m leaning toward the former. Either way some ingles can’t hurt. I keep forgetting she’s only fifteen. Not because she acts older really, but more because I’m used to fifteen-year-olds being pimply freshmen in high school, not the cook, house-cleaner, clothes-washer, and general keeper of the home. But there you go.

Nestor’s (Sr., that is) other two kids from the unknown woman were around for a couple weeks while the rest of the family was away visiting Olga’s mother in Huancbamba, and they were both friendly and easy enough to get along with. They’re both older, Nestor (the first of his two sons thus-named) is about 21 I think, and Angelica’s a few years older than me. They both live a couple hours down the coast in Chiclayo – he’s in law school and she’s an elementary school teacher. It was interesting to learn some more about the Peruvian educational system from a teacher’s perspective, and Nestor and I had a couple good conversations about things like the death penalty and habeas corpus and other legal issues. I never really got over his constant nose-picking or his cackling to his friends on the phone outside my room at night; he sort of reminded me of that secretary-guy, or whatever he is, in The Big Lebowski, who’s always talking really loud and kicking his feet and giggling in some foreign language to an unknown person on the other end of the line (know who I´m talkin´ about?) Which is obnoxious. But a nice-enough kid. On my birthday they threw me a little party at home which involved a lot of calentado (the same thing we drank on New Years) and them teaching me some sweet huayno dance moves. That was cool.

In any case, things got real quiet around here during the two or three days between the older kids’ departure and the return of the others. It was weird, but definitely nice. First time I’ve had control of the DirecTV since I’ve been here – I alternated between CNN International, Australian Open coverage, and Superbowl predictions in Spanish on ESPN Deportes. I also ate a lot of Ramen noodles and Mac and Cheese, which I’ve gotten pretty creative with: fry up some tomatoes, onions, and garlic, and throw in some oregano and you’ve got yourself a damn good meal. My hatred for the cat (and cats in general) was solidified, as it whined the whole time I was home, and contributed nothing even remotely useful or entertaining. The little pig grew on me, though (we had two but the one strangled itself the other day with the rope it was tethered to, so the other now gets to run loose, which means he (or she?) hangs out a lot in front of my door where it’s dry. It craps all over the place, but it’s a pretty cute little thing. Really good at the roll-over trick.) Anyway, things kicked right back into normal – if hectic – mode with the family’s return the other day. It’s good to have them back.

I’ll write about the rest of the family some other time, this is dragging on. Plus I gotta go wash my clothes before it starts raining again.

Piura

2009-01-24T15:40:00.002-06:00

New pics are up, click the "Chalaco" link at right...

22/1/2009

Piura’s a cool spot. The regional capital that all of us in the departments of Piura and Tumbes (around 40 volunteers) report to for monthly meetings, it’s also where we pick up our mail, eat cheeseburgers, pizza, and other key items absent from our regular diets (like vegetables), and trade stories both for their entertainment value and also to learn from each-others’ experiences at site, both the good and the bad. Piura is generally dismissed by guidebooks as offering little in the way of history, culture, vistas, or entertainment, but its combination of big-city amenities and laid-back, lazy atmosphere provides a pretty ideal place for us as volunteers to unwind and stock up.

As far as climate goes, there’s a drastic, dramatic change from Chalaco to Piura. It’s a weird feeling, sort of surreal, to go down there after a month at site – where I pretty much live in a cloud if not a constant, steady rain – and wake up after a late-night bus ride to the sun beating down on you, already sweating in the sweltering heat. Technically it’s “summer” in all parts of the southern hemisphere right now, even though up in the sierra we call the rainy season el invierno, or the "winter." But there’s no mistaking what season it is down in Piura. A comparatively quiet town of about 500,000 situated smack in the middle of the country’s northern desert region, Piura’s about an hour inland from the Pacific Ocean. And it’s very, very hot.

Aside from the food options in Piura and the wireless internet, hot water, cable TV, and other benefits of our go-to hostel (not to mention what has to be the most extensive volunteer-created library the world has ever seen), one of the coolest things about going down to Piura is the people we hang out with. We’ve got a solid crew of volunteers up here in Piura/Tumbes, and there are a lot of real chill people both from my group (Peru 12) as well as earlier groups (Peru 9, 10, and 11) in the region. We’re from all over the country – most in our early-to-late twenties but with a few exceptions, with all kinds of different life stories, college majors, interests, projects areas, and more. But we also hang out with non-Peace Corps folks, who make up the really interesting crowd.

Last night, for example, a bunch of us were sitting around at our regular outdoor bar/restaurant called “La Habana” – situated right in the middle of an awesome little burger joint (they make one with guacamole and Doritos right in the sandwich called “La Mexicana” that will knock your socks off...seriously, don’t wear socks), a restaurant with pretty decent pizza by Peruvian pizza standards (which aren’t high), and a really good Peruvian-version Chinese place (called “Chifa”). Anyway we were all sitting around having some beers, and at one point I looked around the table and realized just how eclectic a crowd it really was. Four of us were volunteers from different parts of the States, working in different program areas (from water systems to coffee-growers unions to HIV/AIDS to youth development) and in different parts of the department of Piura. To my right was a Peruvian dude from Lima who was studying in Piura for the time being, but was soon headed to Germany to meet up with his long-time girlfriend who he had met a couple years ago when she was volunteering in Cuzco, down in the southern sierra of the country – Inca country. He was particularly interested in baseball and (American) football, and especially how they differed from cricket and rugby, respectively. Couldn’t shed a whole lot of light on the comparisons, but I was doing my best. To my left was a Dutch biologist (and the only person taller than me who I’ve met here) who had grown up in Luxembourg, continued his education back in Holland, and is now in Piura for six months doing field work for his masters thesis, on the effects of local bird guano accumulation on the growth rates of two different coastal tree species. The guy speaks near-perfect English, as well as Spanish and French, and has an incredibly wide body of knowledge of all sorts of other, non-tree stuff. Really interesting dude to talk to. Continuing on around the table: next to him were three girls a couple years younger than me: one from Switzerland who is here for a year volunteering with a health program for mothers and children, the second from Belgium working with the same program, and the third from Norway who’s here, like the Dutch guy, doing masters work, in her case a human geography study of the benefits of labor association membership on the productivity of mango farmers on the country’s north coast. She also speaks fluent Spanish and English, and probably several European languages, too, if she’s anything like the others at the table. Pretty awesome. Others at the table included a Peruvian guy about my age who had spent several years studying in London and therefore speaks perfect English, but with a thick, thick British accent, and another Peruvian, a geologist who works for a mining company operating in the upland regions of Piura and other nearby regions, specifically in gold-extraction for eventual exportation (I immediately thought of all the “No to mining, Yes to agriculture” slogans painted all over Chalaco’s homes and walls.) This must have been the miner I was confused with by a disgruntled campesino last week outside of Chalaco.

Conversations around the table ranged from sports, to language, to “How you hit on chicks in your culture,” to Obama and the fate of the US, to the word for “Cheers” in different languages, and beyond. The crazy thing is you totally take it for granted that all these people from all over the world just happen to be here sitting around together, drinking the same lukewarm Peruvian beers and shooting the breeze in several different languages. Maybe it’s being a foreigner myself that made it all seem oddly normal. But there’s no doubt it’s the kind of thing you look back on a few years later and think, “Damn, that was very, very cool.” For whatever reason, that notion struck me as the place was closing down around midnight, and I’m glad it did.

Master of the Ingles

2009-01-19T19:53:00.000-06:00

18/1/2009

For the last several years of my life, Sundays have meant a combination of the following: hangovers, western omelettes, coffee, Vitamin Water, trap shooting, Packers games, and repeat viewings of “The OC” or “Titanic” or “Love Actually” or whatever other questionable DVDs we found laying around our apartment at school. Oh, and vaguely contemplating the 10-12 page paper due at 9AM on Tuesday. Sundays nowadays? English. I mean, we’re talkin’ all the English you can handle, baby.

Take today, for example. I woke up to a steady downpour, and the sinking feeling that goes along with knowing you have to walk out into it (and then walk through it for a couple hours each way). Surrendering to Madre Nature, I packed up my regular day-outing stuff – change of top layers, a banana and tangerine and some bread, water bottle, toilet paper (an absolute necessity), my Buck knife (yeah, a little aggressive, as some have noted, but she cuts a mango or avocado like nobody’s business), hand sanitizer, camera, a few other items – threw on my rain jacket and a plastic poncho over top of everything, and set out for the “caserio” of Naranjo, where I had a date with about 10 eight-to-eighteen year-olds in a couple hours.

My English classes have been awesome so far. I was pretty anxious about the idea at first: whether anyone would show up, whether language/age barriers would be a problem, whether I could manage a class without any training or materials whatsoever, you name it. But to my surprise and relief, Day One a few weeks ago was actually a ton of fun, and my subsequent classes have been rolling along smoothly. The kids are awesome and hilarious; definitely a handful, but really great kids overall. I can’t go anywhere in Chalaco without at least a few of them shouting “MATEE-OOO!!!” and asking when the next class is for the fourth time today, or telling me some long-winded story in a single breath about their pig that ran away, or just running up and punching me in the leg and then running along to their next adventure. It’s summer vacation down here (weird, right?) and the vast majority of kids stick around during the three-month break, either to help out in the fields, or to just hang out and watch cartoons and play around in the mud.

In that respect it’s been interesting to observe the differences between the kids in Chalaco and those from Naranjo, farther out into the “campo.” On the surface they’re more-or-less identical, but the biggest difference surfaced when we talked about the schedule for our classes. In Naranjo Sunday is the only day that works for virtually all the kids, boys as well as girls, because they’re busy working with their parents (boys in the fields and girls around the home) from Monday through Saturday. In that regard, it’s pretty damn cool that they’re so excited to come learn English on their one day off (this also helps motivate me to walk a couple hours in the rain to teach them when I could easily roll over and go back to sleep). In contrast, the kids in Chalaco are free all the time, and have a hard time understanding that I actually have other work to do. In any event, there’s virtually no summer programming in either town, through the schools or otherwise. Which is disappointing, but also means that I have nothing to compete with. So I’m teaching two classes a week to kids in Chalaco and one a week in Naranjo (today I taught one in each town, and then, just to really hammer the English theme home, headed over to Miguel’s house to translate a guitar-tuner manual for him). I’m thinking about adding another session per week in Chalaco due to overwhelming demand from my new army of “chibolos,” and I’ve got a bunch of adults who have been hounding me to start a class for them, so starting next Monday we’ll see if they put their money where their mouths are.

The hike to Naranjo is beautiful. Or has been up til now. Now it’s just a mess of ankle-deep mud and one-time seasonal creeks which have now swelled to fast, brown rivers and present some interesting crossings. But as I have for the last few weeks, I got to the “secondaria” (high school) on time, opened up the classroom and swept out some of the water which had flooded about half of it, changed my soaked top layers, and waited for the “alumnos.” Some of them were already hanging around, but no amount of coaxing can get them to come inside until there are at least five or six present, and even then it takes a particularly bold one to lead the movement inside. Not sure if this is because I’m a ridiculously tall gringo or if Peruvian youngsters timid by nature; we’ll see as time goes on. In any case they eventually came in and sat down and class got into swing.

Lacking any experience or training teaching or even really working at all with kids in a classroom, I’m making this up as I go. I had a manual with tips for teaching English, but that got swiped along with most of my valuables in Lima. Bummer. So thus far we’ve stuck to the basics: ABC’s, numbers through 20, colors, parts of the body, and greetings. I’ve never given much thought to what English must be like to a non-speaker, but I’m realizing that we speak a pretty weird language compared to others. Take a look at the word “eight” and try to tell me what the hell’s going on there. Thus, pronunciation has proven to be the most difficult part. In that numerical example, for instance, I have to write out “eight” and then, underneath, “ét” in parenthesis so the kids can try to make some sense of how to pronounce it. Similarly, our sounds for “th,” “z,” “v,” “g,” “j,” and a few others are not only unfamiliar to Spanish-speaking kids, but they’re sounds that actually don’t exist in their repertoire (try saying “arroyo” and roll the “r” the way Spanish-speakers do – tough, right?) So that’s taken some getting used to. I’m also finding myself coming up against the traditional Peruvian teaching methods to which these kids have become accustomed. I don’t know much about primary education, but I know that kids in the States are pushed from an early age to think for themselves and flex their creativity. Here it’s all dictate-and-copy. I know these kids must be shier than usual around me, but I’m convinced that for many of them, it’s also the first time they’re ever been asked to practice a phrase with their neighbour or even to speak up and ask questions if they don’t understand something. Thus, if you go by number of questions asked (or not asked), I would say every single student has completely understood every single thing I’ve told them. I’m the world’s best teacher.

Some interesting surprises: body parts – “head and shoulders” is pretty much synonymous with shampoo, so they’ve picked up on those two pretty quickly. Unfortunately, for the same reason the song “Head, shoulders, knees and toes” has been more difficult than I thought, because they always want to put the “and” between the first two words. Also, the fact that the version they know goes “Head, shoulders, legs, and feet” has been tough to get around. Secondly, most kids – including my three year old brother at home – know the numbers in English up to ten, after which point they hit a brick wall. We’re working on it. Third, (I guess not surprising, but...) kids love to run around. I’ve adapted “Duck, duck, goose” to whatever it is we’re learning (“Hello-my-name-is-Mateo,” with the kid’s name being the equivalent of “goose,” for example), which has been cool, but it’s all they wanna do now. It’s also getting increasingly dangerous as their comfort levels increase, along with the rising water levels in the classrooms from week to week. They’re also really into hangman, which I’ve found is a pretty good way to practice not only new vocab but also the ABC’s and body parts. That’s about as far as we’ve gotten, and I’m running out of ideas. I’m heading down to Piura tonight for a couple days – first time in a month, can’t believe it’s been that long – and hopefully can get some ideas from other volunteers. If not we’re just gonna keep playing “Duck, duck, goose” til someone tells me to stop. For the adults I think I’m probably gonna need something a little more substantial, though.

Two days in the life

2009-01-13T16:14:00.002-06:00

What´s up everyone- I´m back. No pics yet ´cause facebook doesn´t load on the computers at my site (beggars can´t be choosers), but I should be updating the blog pretty regularly from here on out. Below is the first of many, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy...

10/1/2009

The last two days have been a range of extremes, in several senses of the word. To start off with, I woke up yesterday extremely early (3:30 AM) to wait for my work counterpart Miguel to come by my house with the Health Center truck. He showed up an hour or so later (that’s the thing about la hora peruana, especially in the campo – I like to be on time on the off-chance that someone else is too, but it’s generally a relative concept, and flexible) and we took off downhill in the pre-dawn dark. Along for the ride was Maximo, a técnico from the federal Ministry of Health (called “MINSA,” one of about a thousand acronyms I’m learning) in Piura, who was in Chalaco for a couple days to lead training workshops for the water authorities in the small campo towns or caserios. Note: when I say authorities, I mean the farmers in each town – or sometimes their wives – who volunteer for positions on the village water committee (abbreviated JASS in rural Perú) where they serve in one of five elected positions, or if they know a bit about water (theoretically, that is), as the actual system operator. Anyway, the first workshop, held the day before in Chalaco for the upper part of the district, had been a pretty big success. Of the thirty-five or so JASS invited, about fourteen sent representation, which meant a meeting of about fifty (less than 50% attendance, but a very solid number for any meeting regarding anything around here). I have no doubt that every person in the room was well-aware that a (free) hot lunch was on the menu for later in the day. The meeting lasted a few hours, and as the fleeting morning sun gave way to a rapidly descending fog and then steady rain, Maximo went through a couple very informative powerpoints about water system maintenance, water treatment, and other related themes. How much of it registered (and of that information, how much of it will be put to use) will remain to be seen as I continue to make my rounds of the caserio to meet with the JASS and fill out my door-to-door surveys.

In any case, we were off to Silahuá to conduct the same workshop for the lower part of the district. It’s usually about a two hour drive from Chalaco, but the preferred shortcut was flooded out after torrential rains the previous afternoon (pretty extreme), so we would have to drive the three hours or so down to Morropon and then head another two or three up to Silahuá. It was actually a pretty cool opportunity to pick the brains of two guys who know way more about what I’m trying to do than I do. Not so cool: the fact that I was in the backseat of the cab for the five-hour journey: a tight squeeze for me in any pickup truck, much less this particular one. At least we got to stop in Morropon along the way to stretch and get some food – cow intestines for breakfast: extreme. (They’re actually not that bad…look kinda like rubbery calamari and don’t really taste like anything in particular). Continuing on, we started the climb up to Silahuá. This part of the district is a couple thousand feet lower in elevation than my site, and it’s considerably warmer and looks and feels much more tropical. It struck me as a weird landscape, though. Whereas my area is characterized by misty hills divided into individual land parcels for sugarcane, corn, grains, and vegetables, down near Morropon, rice is the name of the game. The road is lined with banana trees and you feel like there should be a beach just beyond them, but it’s just rice paddies stretching as far as you can see. Weird, I thought, for Peru at least. As you begin to climb back up out of the flatlands, the landscape remains lush at some points, with massive, lime green-barked trees which I hadn’t seen at my higher elevation. But every so-often there’s a long patch of burned-out, depleted-looking land of short, straggly brown shrubs. Combined with the swirling fog it felt like we were entering some kind of weird, dark fairy tale. Anyway, by the time we got to Silahuá we had picked up a couple guys who Miguel knew, as well as several JASS members from assorted towns who were on their way up in the mud. This meant a packed truck bed on a very windy, narrow mountain dirt road which was a soupy mess in the mud, which in turn meant a lot of patinando (“skating/slipping”) for the truck and a lot of breath-holding on my part. The descent after the workshop would prove even more extreme in that regard. But we made it and the workshop proceeded smoothly.

Extreme high point of yesterday: my buddy Patrick, another WatSan volunteer, is living in Silahuá and had a long-awaited late Christmas present in store for me, in the form of a laptop. If you happen to see Casey Emmett wandering the streets of some Western town looking for work anytime soon, give him a big high five for me…maybe even give him ten: the Obama team liked him so much they let him keep his campaign laptop after The Man won big in November, and after hearing of my recent unfortunate loss of all things electronic, Case has temporarily donated it to the cause. (It has since gone on a ridiculous series of domestic and international voyages, changing hands four times over the course of two weeks, and finally arriving in mine yesterday). I had also ordered a new camera, which accompanied the computer all the way from Maine. What this means for y’all: blog entries and pics. What it means for me: about an 800% spike in my entertainment options, in particular after dinner when it’s raining outside and the family is watching Animal Planet (again), cartoons, or one of many telenovelas or Latin soap operas. Don’t get me wrong, I like all three in their time and place, but up to a certain point. Sometimes you just wanna watch or listen to something ‘merican.

After the workshop, around 2PM, we set off in the rain, packed to the gills and sliding all over the place. At one point everyone had to unload and go try to help a big truck that was stuck trying to get around a steep, uphill hairpin turn. Miguel thought it was funny to continue on for a good three or four minutes after he got past, which left most of us running after the truck, ankle deep in mud, trying to grab hold and jump into the bed. By the time we got to Morropon we had ditched all of our extra passengers, and Miguel and I bid goodbye to Maximo, who hopped a bus back to Piura. I bought a couple mangos and we took off for the last leg. It started raining shortly after leaving town, as we talked about everything from the American higher educational system to “wars your country has been in,” and by the time the blacktop changed abruptly to mud and we began the ascent, darkness was falling. Then things got a little interesting. We’d been having some car issues all day; on the descent we had to stop a couple times and dry out the connections on the distribuidor (don’t know enough about cars to translate that, but it has something to do with the electrical connection between the engine block and the rest of the car). The gas pump had also been acting up. All of this re-emerged with a vengeance starting at about 6PM in the rain. Balancing over three-foot deep puddles with my flashlight in my mouth, wrapping electrical wires with a plastic bag under the hood and blowing excess gas out of the gas pump with Miguel shouting directions over the rain from inside the cab, I have to say I learned a lot about the inner workings of 12-year old Nissan pickups. Pretty extreme.

Well we got the clunker running after several failed attempts and continued on our way, but just when you could almost smell Chalaco, she died for the last time. This time it didn’t take an expert to see the problem – we were out of gas. By now the passenger bus we had passed a good two hours ago had caught up, and all the passengers got out to help us push the pickup to the side of the road so the bus could pass. Not easy in Vietnam-style mud. We sent word with the bus to tell someone at the Health Center to drive the “ambulance” (another old midsize pickup with a covered box-thing sitting atop the bed) down with some gas. Which left Miguel and I in the rain, in the dark, and suddenly in complete silence, except for the crickets. We walked back to the nearest little town and Miguel bought a couple cigarettes. I ate the banana and the two pieces of bread I’d been hoarding all day. It had now been about an eighteen-hour day, and we were cold, wet, and tired. I was getting a little irritated. But largely thanks to Miguel’s unflappable happy demeanor, it was all good. Another half hour and Jesús arrived with the fuel, and we were good to go. I arrived home around ten, and ate what was left of a dinner of potatoes, cheese, and arroz con leche – a thick pudding-type dish that is exactly what it sounds like: rice and milk – and crashed hard. A long day, with some ups and downs, but all’s well that ends well. Plus I had my computer.

Today proved to hold some extremes, as well, though less to do with weather and Nissans. I slept in past my usual 6:30 wakeup, and around 10AM headed out on a by now well-know path to the caserio of El Palmo, about an hour’s hike. I’m trying to survey at least 25% of the populations of these towns, and as most have between forty and fifty households, if I can talk to twelve or fifteen people I’m satisfied, and move on to the next one on the list. This was my second of probably three or four visits to El Palmo. The day was surprisingly clear, which is exceptional for this time of year, and I made it there without one single spectacular wipeout (also exceptional; even with my killer rubber boots which are standard around here in the “winter,” the super-high levels of clay in the mud turn usually simple paths into virtual slip ‘n slides. And the real rains haven’t even started yet, apparently).

Up to this point, my encuestas have been going surprisingly – I’d even say extremely – well. Basically I go door-to-door (which often involves some serious exploring if not bush-whacking) and sit down with whichever adults are around – generally women since it’s corn-planting season and the men are mostly out in the fields working – to ask them a series of questions about the accessibility and quality of their drinking water, their human waste disposal, their trash situation, frequency of illness in the house (particularly parasites and chronic diarrhea), and a few other general health questions. It’s funny how some questions really hold people up (“How many people live here” is often not nearly as straightforward a question as it seems), and others that would seem uncomfortable (“Where do you and your children, uh, relieve yourselves?”) are breezed right through (“In the campo, wherever we want. Next?”). Depending on the person, the surveys can take anywhere from about ten minutes when they don’t invite you past the bamboo fence gate and speak mostly in monosyllables, to over half an hour when they are obviously thrilled and intrigued by this giant white kid with his boots and NGO-style work vest and folder full of papers. I haven’t been invited to more than a couple meals thus far, but when that happens you accept no matter how full you think you are. In any case, thus far I’ve covered three of the ten or twelve closest caserios to Chalaco, and the families have been overwhelmingly friendly and helpful.

Today was a little different. I struck out early on at a couple houses where neither parent was home, and had to hike for a while through some fields and then down a path I hadn’t yet explored until I found the next house. So this older woman comes around from the back of the adobe house after a few loud whistles and “Alo’s” on my part, and I go into my normal “Hi my name’s Mateo, I’m a volunteer with the Cuerpo de Paz living in Chalaco and making my rounds in the caserios to talk to families about their water situation so I can figure out where I might be able to start some projects, etc. etc.” She’s a little wary, and I think slightly deaf, but things aren’t all that out of the ordinary. She’s one of those who doesn’t invite you to sit down or even to enter the general area of the house, so we’re standing there talking across the low fence about her outdoor tap when the señor of the house walks up from the field below. At first he seems interested in who I am and what I’m doing, but then it becomes abruptly clear that I’m unwanted. His diatribe went something like this: “Water?? You wanna know about water?? There it is (points to the tap) – it’s right there! What the hell else do you want?? That’s all we have!! No one gives us anything, we get nothing!! Nothing! And what the (expletive) are you? A miner?? You (expletive) miners are always coming around here and doing nothing but (expletive)-ing us and our land!! You just (expletive) everything!!” Whoa. I tried, in vain, to explain to this old man that I wasn’t, in fact, a miner here to (expletive) the land or him, but that I was an unpaid volunteer living here to provide support, etc., but he wasn’t having it. I left quickly in a flurry of “thank-you’s” and “won’t bother you again’s,” but it took a lot for me not to stick around and figure out just what the hell was going through this old dude’s head. Definitely the right decision, though, both for my own safety and for the sake of my future projects in El Palmo.

A little shaken up and honestly, pissed off, I moved on down the road telling myself I knew this kind of stuff was going to happen, and that I had something like that coming after so many positive responses thus far. All this was going through my head as I approached another house to try again. All the sudden, like a bat out of hell this nasty-looking dog comes tearing around the corner at me, barking and not doing a whole lot of tail-wagging. Now there’s no shortage of dogs around here, and most of them bark. A lot. Running in the morning can be pretty intense that way. Some have come close to biting me, but one little nick in the mouth with your shoe and they back right off. But it’s pretty easy to tell the ones that mean business, and in this case my fight or flight kicked in and the latter won out. I was gone. So two houses down and no dice. It was still early, no worries. Next house. Several men are hanging around, obviously taking a break from working in the field. They invite me in underneath the covered front of the house (most adobe houses in the area have this kind of front-meeting place. Very rarely are you invited inside the actual house, but rather they invite you “in,” head inside for a second, and re-emerge with a woven blanket that they put down for you on the long bench against the front wall of the house. I’d say this happens at 95% of the houses I’ve visited). This case was no different, but I quickly learned that none of these guys – or the señora who emerged from inside after I sat down – actually lived here, but it was a house they shared when they were working together in their fields. One lived somewhere else in El Palmo, and I had started asking him some of the questions, when one of the older men (presumably this guy’s father or uncle or something) interjected and told me that they lived independiente and didn’t get any support from the government, nor did they really want or need any. I pressed him a little and told him that I totally understood, but that I worked with a different organization and my concern was with overall community health and – in a line that was used unsuccessfully a few too many times today – I was here as a volunteer to support with community projects. He looked at me and said simply, “Listen kid, we’re evangelicos. We live alone. We don’t need your help.” Though not entirely clear on what being a non-Catholic Christian had to do with not wanting latrines or potable water, I told them I didn’t want to bother them, and if they didn’t want to speak with me that was fine, but that I wasn’t trying to impose anything on them, yada yada. Then followed a pretty awkward silence which I tried to fill with some of the same – now tired – lines about who I was and why I was here, but nothing. Finally I kind of muttered, “Entonces...me voy?” (basically, “So, should I get lost…or…?”). A few mumbles, a nod and awkward smile or two. So I thanked them and moved along, a little bewildered and contemplating how one would say “when it rains it pours” in Spanish.

Soon, though, my luck swung back to the opposite extreme. I had three or four really successful interviews in a row with super-friendly mothers. A couple of them even shocked me with the response, that “Yes, of course we boil our water before we drink it. To kill the parasites!” Music to my ears, and an answer I hadn’t heard more than once in all my previous visits. The general consensus (as I more or less already knew) was that they really want 1) electricity, and 2) latrines. I told them that electricity might be a little big for me to take on, but I would be working with the municipalidad (local government) and other groups, and they might be able to help farther along the line…but that latrines were right up my alley and I would see what I could do once I finished my diagnostic work. At my last stop (I was out of encuestas, which wasn’t an accident, as I wanted to head home before the afternoon rain started), the señora knew who I was before I even introduced myself, explaining that she was a friend of Beto and Ophelia’s (my host-father Nestor’s brother, and sister-in-law, who live in the house adjoining ours in Chalaco – Beto’s the man. More about him later.) “In fact,” she continued, “Doña Mari (Nestor and Beto’s mother, who lives with Beto) is right down there at the river with the girls!” I had left home with Mari, her granddaughter Yilda, and Angelica, who is Nestor’s daughter from another woman (preceding my host mother Olga). A little unclear on that whole situation, but I’m sure I’ll find out if I stick around long enough. His son Nestor, from the same woman, is also visiting during the vacaciones (kinda funny that Nestor has named one son from each woman after himself…guess there’s no question about who the father is). Anyway, turns out the three of them had a destination (the Rio Claro) much closer to mine than I had realized. After finishing the survey (the family had its own well-maintained compost system, another first), I took off down the trail to the river and soon met up with the family. They had come to move Beto’s cattle (around here they keep the cows, and sometimes horses, tethered to stakes, which they move around every few days as the animals eat themselves out of pasto or grass), and also to milk them and make fresh cheese. Though they had already milked, I helped mudar (move) the cows, and then watched the process for making the cheese which I eat almost every day as my one single calcium source. Pretty simple, they just mix the milk with an unknown substance (though I think it’s somehow derived from pig fat and lime juice) which separates the milk into a watery liquid and a more solid, curdled-looking substance. They pack the solid stuff like you might pack a snowball, squeezing as much liquid as possible out of it, and then let it sit for a while. And boom, cheese. We ate some of it, along with camote (sweet potato, which I’m starting to much prefer to the standard, non-sweet variety) and bread which they had brought along. The whole scene, with the cows grazing, the stream bubbling along, and the fog starting to descend, had a kind of surreal, peaceful, almost poetic feel to it. Really, pretty cool. And a nice end to what started as a pretty shitty morning.

We arrived home an hour or so later in the rain, and – another high point – I heard that my desk was done. My buddy Walter the carpenter – who, like most people, is also a relative (a brother-in-law I think…in fact as of New Year’s Eve I’m the godfather of the new house he’s building for his sister-in-law and family…that’s another story) – has been building me a custom desk and chair for my room since about the first week I got to site. He’s a great guy, and hilarious; the fact that the finish date was extended several times over the course of two or three weeks really has nothing to do with him or any lack of professionalism, it’s just part of the drill around here. Anyway I headed up to his workshop off the plaza in the middle of town, and he brought out the desk and chair. I kid you not, this furniture is friggin’ beautiful. I had no idea it would come out as nicely as it did. Easily the nicest piece of furniture I’ve seen in Chalaco, and he did it for 140 soles, or about 45 bucks. I mean, I’ve spent more than that on a big night at the bar. Carrying them home in the rain, I was surprised at how heavy each piece was, and he told me they’re made from a wood they bring in from the selva – or jungle – of Jaen, on the other side of the Andes ridge, because it’s cheaper and stronger than what’s around here. Not sure where that puts me in relation to deforestation of the Amazon, but Walter’s word is good enough for me. Long story short, I’ve got a beautiful new – extra tall – desk and chair in my room (with a shiny new laptop sitting on top). Ironic that the first time I’ve ever really fit comfortably under a desk comes in a country where I’m a good head taller than almost everyone.

And so end two days in the life of Mateo, Rural Development Worker. Tomorrow, rinse and repeat.

Chalaco

2008-12-21T07:48:00.004-06:00

19/12/2008

I made it to Chalaco. In fact, I got here about three weeks ago and have been quickly settling into my new life in the sierra of Piura. No updates in a while because I got my laptop, camera, and most of my other shiny objects stolen on the way up here from Lima about a month ago (all conveniently packed together, along with my passport, in a single backpack...total rookie move on my part). Fortunately most of it was insured, so I may even come out on top. We'll see.

So that sucked, but it hasn't affected me as much as I would have thought. That probably has a lot to do with my having a pretty ideal set-up here: family's great, the place is beautiful, and there's definitely no shortage of work opportunities. By Peace Corps standards, I'm living it up. I've been hiking out in the campo several times a week to Chalaco's outlying caserios or small rural communities, where I've begun talking with teachers, health workers, and other community leaders about the issues they're facing and how my water/sanitation program might be able to help. The other day my buddy Gerson (a dental student who’s interning in Chalaco for a few months) and I went for what turned out to be a full-day hike to the tallest peak around, at about 3,300 meters. It was unreal – we left at dawn and after several hours of bushwacking and asking for directions/suggestions from every campesino we came across, we got to the cima, sandwiched between the fog far below us and the clouds just above. The twelve-hour day was pretty aggressive, but definitely worth it, or vale la pena as they say around here. I've done some inspections on the latrines built by Casey, the volunteer before me, and I've all-but taken over the English night-classes taught by my host mother (who, despite being a very well-educated and hard-working woman, but doesn't really speak English). I've had various meetings with community leaders in Chalaco itself, and after Christmas I'm planning to start English classes of my own (summer vacation is just starting here, weird).

Speaking of Christmas, it feels nothing like Christmas here. Actually that's not entirely true, but the replacement of snow and Christmas cookies with impenetrable fog and panneton (like fruitcake, except that I actually really like it) creates a very surreal feeling. The Polar Express dubbed in Spanish and Christmas carols with the same tune but totally different lyrics add to the weirdness for me. But at the end of the day families come together and celebrate together, and fundamentally it's not all that different from the holiday I’m used to at home. It’s a busy time of year with graduations and clausuras (end-of-the-year school parties), and New Years sounds like it’s going to be a community-wide rager, so looking forward to that.

Otherwise, I've been playing a lot of guitar, reading, running, and hanging out with the health center workers in Chalaco. Also, slowly piecing together my room (which now consists of a bed, a hammock, a little table, and a rope-nail-hanger system I rigged up for my clothes). I also snagged a sweet, gigantic map of the whole district from the municipal center in town, and am on the hunt for other items to “decorate” with. I was thinking about trying to paint my walls, which are pretty nasty, but the adobe/cement/plaster/old paint combo can be a little tricky to work with, so now I’m thinking I’ll just try to cover up as much as possible. One of the carpenters in town is making me a desk and chair (specially customized for the tallest-ever Chalaco resident), and next time I head down to Piura I’m going to bring back some kind of a shelving system, a whiteboard, and whatever else I can get them to strap to the top of the bus.

Cultural differences aside, it’s also weird to be living with a family again after four-plus years of relative independence. But I totally lucked out with my family (or, rather, with Casey picking them for me), because they’re super laid-back and I already feel pretty comfortable talking with them about pretty much anything (including, for example, when I’m just not really feeling the pig-skin-with-little-black-hairs-sticking-out-of-it soup my mom makes for lunch). It’s been really easy to laugh that kind of stuff off, which is way more than I can say for a lot of other volunteers (some of whom can’t even really communicate with their families yet because they speak only Quechua, for example).

So, with three weeks down, and about a hundred more to go, life’s pretty damn good. More to come.

Guinea pig sustainability

2008-11-26T16:19:00.002-06:00

25/11/2008

This week we wrap up our three months of technical, language, and cultural instruction at the training center. We’re being bombarded with last-minute logistical details and STD warnings and other good stuff. At home at the dinner table with our host families, moms and sisters are starting to cry. Today my mom taught me how to wash my own clothes so I can fend for myself out in the campo. It’s incredible how much we’ve connected emotionally with these families in just three months. Makes you wonder how it’s going to feel to leave after two years with our new families. On Thursday we’re going to have a Peruvian-style Thanksgiving at the center, followed by a farewell party we’re hosting for our families. Then Friday we’ll be officially sworn-in and head to Lima for the night before going our separate ways on Saturday and Sunday. The mood is, in a word, restless.

Training’s been alright, but most of us are more than ready to get out and do the real thing. On one hand it’s been an absolutely essential three months; I’ve progressed substantially in Spanish, I feel reasonably comfortable in the culture here, and I know infinitely more about water and sanitation in rural settings that I did coming in (which was basically nothing). On the other hand, it’s often felt really, really frustrating and claustrophobic – more like studying abroad with a bunch of people you don’t really know (or as I sometimes think about it, like high school without your friends and minus most of the fun stuff) than doing what you think you came here to do (that is, getting your hands dirty and helping people). But now that’s all coming to an end, and within a week we’re going to be out on our own. It’s an odd feeling to be ending the first chapter, saying goodbye to our families and friends here, and at the same time preparing ourselves (mentally, physically, spiritually...if that’s your thing) for a new life with a new family in a totally new place. I’m psyched.

One of the more interesting and practical things about training has been our weekly visits on Saturday mornings to Lima’s big agrarian university, called La Molina. This last Saturday we had our last outing to the university, and received certificates for our participation in their “biohuertos” (sustainable vegetable gardens) program. Over the course of a couple months we’ve learned about organic compost, natural pesticide technologies, Peru´s unmatched biodiversity and what’s threatening it, the separation, drying, and planting of seeds, and the ins and outs of raising chickens, turkeys, and cuyes or guinea pigs.

That last one necessitates some elaboration. Guinea pigs in Peru are not pets. They are livestock. Peruvians – especially in the culture of the sierra regions – eat them, sell them, barter with them, skin them and sell their hides, use them as garbage disposals, and scoop up their crap to make things grow. In my mind they’re the Peruvian equivalent of the buffalo to the American plains Indians (except that, as my dad noted, they take up a little less room and the fences can be a little shorter). This was all made crystal clear to us the Saturday several weeks ago when we took a trip with the university folks out to a small organic farm run by an older couple in wide-brim straw hats. The husband, Ulises, was a total character. Incredibly intelligent guy, the kind of person who can crack lewd jokes and in the same breath get right down to business and – unintentionally I think – make you feel totally inadequate just by the sheer ease and simplicity with which he creates massive success around him. He was the kind of older Hispanic intellectual whose less-than-perfect English, thick accent, and tendency to end sentences with “no?” somehow make them seem even wiser. “Things only get done by doing, no?” was only one of the memorable one-liners from the morning. Turns out he studied at Cornell and Wisconsin-Madison, taught in Peru for a number of years, and then retired and casually redefined what it means to live off the land.

He was part-professor, part-scientist, part-farmer, and part-philosopher. When it comes to agricultural experimentation (and, I got the impression, most things in life), he believed, “only God and lazy people don’t make mistakes.” The dozen acres or so where he, his wife, and a few workers occupy themselves was filled with every kind of crop that grows in Peru, all irrigated by a simple system of gravity-powered ditches and pieces of garden hose used as siphons. But the best part was by far the cuyes. Ulises and his wife take these things to a new level. They raise them fed completely off the natural scraps of the agricultural products they produce on their farm. They use them as a food source themselves, and sell them as well, taking advantage of their incredibly high protein-to-fat ratio. I gather they also sell some of their hides to make wallets and other small items. The coolest part, though, is what they do with their manure, the guano.

The first part of the equation is the solid compost. As Ulises explained, with a bunch of “sheet” (cuy dookie) and a bunch of “garbage” (organic waste), he can make a “delicious” plant food. This partially explains the exceptionally healthy look of his crops. But that’s only half the story: he also has a bio-digester. What the hell is a bio-digester, you ask? Picture a giant, steaming, underground vat full of liquid guinea pig shit...that powers an entire farm. Once a week or so, they feed the bio-digester by opening a chute and dumping in several shovels-full of cuy droppings. Then they close it off and let the anaerobic bacteria do their magic. The methane produced through this fermentation process is captured by a chimney-like structure, and is then circulated to the various farmhouses on the property, where it serves as not only cooking gas, but also provides the energy for their heating system and their electricity. It’s a whole farm run on the stuff that pet stores throw away by the ton every week in the developed world. And as an added bonus, the actual liquid in the digester gets harvested once a year, and is used as a super-concentrated organic growth hormone. The solid compost pumps the crops full of nutrients, and the juice (Ulises calls it “Caca-Cola” because they keep it in old two-liter bottles) injects them with a natural growth spurt. Then the veggies are harvested and the unwanted parts go back to the little furballs in their pens (oh, and the cuyes don’t require any water either – they get all the hydration they need straight from the plants). Meanwhile, Mrs. Ulises is in the kitchen frying up some eggs from her hens, over a totally organic – and free – flame.

So simple it’s stupid. Ulises agreed: “Why isn’t everyone doing this?” he wondered. He preached a vaguely revolutionary creed: “We must elevate ourselves from poverty with simple methods.” It was hard to disagree with. The homemade lucuma ice cream they sold out of their side-door was the proverbial icing on the cake. I think it’s safe to say they’ve got it pretty well figured out.

Meeting Ulises was awesome; it highlighted not only the resources available here, but also the unbelievable wastefulness of our globalized society. On top of everything, it was really cool to know that things like this are going on in Peru.