Sounds in Site

I put together a little video blog about the sounds that infiltrate my daily life in Monsefú.  Hope you enjoy!  I'm traveling 6 hours north tomorrow to Máncora, the most touristy beach in Perú, where I will be spending New Years with other volunteer friends.  Happy New Year everybody, can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for us!

Counting My Blessings

First, I would like to start off this blog with a clip from one of my favorite movies of all time, White Christmas.  When I was a little girl, I fell in love with this movie during the Christmas season and ended up watching it year round.  Looking back, I think this movie is where my love for dance started.  This here is my favorite non-dance scene.

(to those viewing this blog post as an email, click on the grey "Perusing PCV" text at the top to view this on the web with the videos).

Like the song says, I am counting my blessings this year.  I had some strong bouts of homesickness, similar to my birthday and Thanksgiving, but overall Christmas has been great here, even with the lack of snow and Christmas sweaters.  But hey, it legitimately RAINED last night, it's a Christmas miracle!  My brother ran out of the house to twirl around in it.  I guess this is like a coastal Peruvian White Christmas?

So, some things about Christmas are the same here, and some are really different.  Christmas trees are common and Santa comes here too, still as a big fat white guy with blue eyes and a huge red coat, even though it's summer and he's called Papa Noel.  But he's not as omnipresent here as he is in the States, it's a lot more about baby Jesus.  And presents aren't as big of a deal as they are in the States.  Kids still get presents, but only one or a few depending on the family (if they can afford any).  Most adults don't exchange presents, although my host family got me an adorable huge teddy bear.  I laughed pretty hard, but thought it was kind of perfect at the same time.  It gets pretty lonely up on the second floor sometimes!

Christmas is celebrated at midnight, centered around two things: 1) the nativity scene and 2) dinner.  Every family, office, etc. has a nativity scene, with the classic Mary and Joseph, 3 wise men, etc. but some also add random animal figurines... chickens, cows, etc.  Earlier this month I was distracted in the local charity's office when I noticed a T-Rex in their nativity scene.  I laughed pretty hard and pointed it out, thinking that someone had put it there as a joke, but the guy I was with didn't get what was funny.  Oh dear.

The nativity scene in the Principal Park of Monsefú... no dinosaurs in this one.

Anyway, my host family's nativity scene was a lot more like that one I grew up with, just a small set of figurines on a table.  But there is one thing that is different here, that the baby Jesus isn't put into the scene until midnight on Christmas Eve.  So my host family joined hands, said Our Father and Hail Mary prayers, and my host mom gave me the honor of placing the baby Jesus into the scene.  Then we passed over to the dinner table and had a beautiful, delicious dinner of turkey, peas, and empanadas.  Everyone was in really great spirits and it is definitely a memory with my host family that I will cherish.

So that's essentially all of the family Christmas activities, along with house visits from other family members and lots of phone calls.  But I still haven't described one of the main parts of Christmas in Peru... CHOCOLATADAS.

The word means "chocolate party" because all the kids who attend receive hot chocolate along with panetón (sweet bread with raisins and fake fruit in it) and probably some garbanzo beans and an empanada.  The hot chocolate part doesn't make a lot of sense because it's summer here, but the tradition must have started a long time ago to imitate some American or European tradition.  There's also usually a lot of dancing and payasos (clowns) to get the kids tired before they give out the food. So the chocolatada involves not only food, but also each kid getting a toy (a little truck or gun for boys, and dolls for girls).  Now, this part is pretty complicated.  A lot of the kids and parents who attend are not shy about trying to hide the toys they have already received in order to get more for themselves or relatives.  For example, if there is a line, the kid or mother will get back in line (or completely ignore the line) and pretend they didn't get anything yet.  Various systems have been created to prevent this, for example only giving presents to kids who have tickets and then ripping up the tickets after the present has been given, but people are really, really, insistent.  I don't know what else I can say about this topic, except that for a poor family here, toys are a big deal and there is a different cultural attitude towards hand-outs, where a lot of people feel very entitled to them, or they feel that they have to fight to get their fair share.  Coming from a different world, it is hard for me to deal with this part of the chocolatadas, when mothers are begging or screaming at me and others to give them more presents.  Of course, for every mother or child that acts shamelessly, there are other mothers and children who quietly wait their turn and tell me honestly if they've already received a present.

To date, I have participated in seven chocolatadas of all shapes and sizes (have an 8th scheduled for the 28th), three of which were more like sit-down dinners for adults (senior citizens, artisans, and ex-combatants in the Battle of 1941 with Ecuador).  The ones for kids ranged from about 40 kids to ... 3,000.  The huge one was organized by the Municipality, and they actually had a pretty interesting system to avoid the double-gifting.

All of the presents and holiday baskets in the Municipality

Panetones take over the Mayor's office

As you'll be able to see in the video below, thousands of people lined up during the chocolatada dancing activities to get a good spot.  After the dancing ended, the doors to the central market were opened just enough to let people in one by one, and with the help of the police, we were able to usher people into various lines around the counters of the market.  It got a little more disorderly once the market started filling up, but the idea was that everyone would be brought into the market, all the doors would be closed,  the toy-and-panetón giving would begin at various stations, and those who had received would be ushered directly out a different door.  One way in, one way out, so that people couldn't get back in line... kind of an enormous fire hazard, considering that the market has been declared structurally unsound, but hey.  It generally worked pretty well, although there were still plenty of people begging and screaming at the doors.  When it was finally over (3 hours later), we realized that the staff and volunteers were stuck inside, because all the doors were occupied with people screaming at the mayor to open the doors and give them presents.  We took to hiding in the back office and once it calmed down enough outside, a staff member slipped out to bring some soda and a few panetones to us.  It turned into a really great memory for me, sitting on a counter, laughing and talking with the mayor and some of the people who have become my friends here.

Some of the staff and volunteers after finishing the enormous chocolatada; Edgard, Jesus, and Bridgette in the middle

Subtracting the stress and chaos that comes with the chocolatadas, I've had a lot of fun helping out at these events.  I generally took the role of body guard to those handing out the presents, since I'm taller and foreign, I guess people listen to me!  Each event was a way for me to share some Christmas time with the people that are important to me here... the artisans, the Municipality staff, the teenage Señorita and Cholo Fexticum, the leader of an outlying town, and the women's committee.  Another favorite memory of this Christmas season was after a dinner in the Municipality, when all the guests left the cumbia music was turned up and the mayor, regidores (like a Board of Directors), and women's committee shared a dance together- it happened to be to my favorite cumbia song, so everyone had a great laugh when I started belting out the words.

Having a great time with the mayor, regidores, and women's comittee

I dearly, dearly miss a lot of things at home during this holiday.  It has been even harder than my birthday or Thanksgiving.  But I am counting my blessings, todas mis bendiciones.  I have the best job in the world, and feel very privileged to be granted such an opportunity to travel, learn, and share.  I have a very colorful host family that teaches me new things every day, and I have grown much closer to my host mom during this Christmas.  I have internet access and am able to stay in touch with family and friends at home.  I have friends in Monsefú who really look out for me and I am finally feeling at home here.  And I am happy, healthy, and safe.  And I feel that I am growing into a much stronger person.

My biggest blessing of all is you, my family and friends.  I want to sincerely thank you for your support in whatever way it has been, through email, gChat, Skype, Facebook, blog comments, care packages, or prayers.  To my parents, godparents, aunts, uncle, and other family and friends, I hope you know that it makes so much of a difference to know that my loved ones are thinking about me at home.  I am very blessed to have such wonderful family and friends.  MERRY CHRISTMAS and bring it on, 2012!!

Dust, Appearances, and Womanhood

As another volunteer said in her blog, it is becoming harder and harder to know what to write about, because many aspects of my life feel so normal and uninteresting, or I forget what might be interesting to someone in the United States.  So here are three topics have almost nothing to do with each other, except that they are all topics very basic to my life here:

This is how much dust I picked up in my somewhat-weekly
room sweep.

Dust.  

My life here is a dusty one.  I live in eternal, rainless summer (except for the rare el Niño years).  My trip to Chachapoyas was the first time I had seen and heard real rain in 5 months.  So in Monsefú, between the desert-like climate, the proximity to the ocean, and the constant piles of construction materials in the streets (rocks, cement mix, sand), there are a lot of particles whipping around in the air, finding its way into everything.  My eyes, my nose, my mouth, my electronics, my food, etc.  My family sweeps the inside of the house twice a day, attempting to battle Mother Nature who wants to place a brown film over every surface.  When I am outside of the house, I have learned to walk with my eyes almost always half-squinted, less a wind picks up and smacks me in the face with 100-year old dust from the deconstructed adobe house I am passing.  My sensitive, eczema-ravaged skin is not happy with me; I've developed some itchy, dry patches and every few weeks, my eyelids rebel against the abuse and swell up.  The floor of my room is uneven, unfinished cement so I seem to generate more dust that I am get rid of when I attempt to clean.  In order to clean a dusty area, you first have to splash water all over the place to keep from creating unbreathable clouds when you sweep.  Many people also try to help the situation by throwing their dirty water outside on the street or other dusty areas.  Opinions are divided on whether this actually improves the situation or not, since we are then always subject to walk through dirty puddles.

Appearances.

People observe and comment on many aspects of each other's appearances.  And the comments are very far from what the US considers politically correct.  There's a totally different treatment of the topic of weight here, so people are completely honest with each other when it appears that someone has lost or gained weight.  I actually appreciate this part of the culture, because considering the amount of rice I am eating on a daily basis, I want to know if my host family thinks I've gained significant weight.  But some of the comments are just jaw-dropping.  For example, one of my favorite people in Monsefú is a 25-year old woman named Evelyn, who has a beautiful singing voice and is very involved in the Catholic Church.  She also happens to be very significantly overweight.  A few months back, I went to a sit-down party for the priest's birthday.  At the end, everyone grabbed the balloons off the wall to pop with their hands, in a symphony of loud cracks (Peruvians love explosions and loud noises, a topic for another day).  When all the balloons were gone, another church-helper yelled, "Wait, there's one more balloon to pop!! and ran over to grab Evelyn around the waist.  I couldn't really read Evelyn's expression to see if she enjoyed the joke or not, but everyone else found this hilarious, including Padre Alfonso.  

Here are Chino and Nacho, two popular Venezuelan
Reggaeton singers.  Chino is on the right.

Race is also treated very differently here.  Someone whose eyes are slightly slanted is nicknamed "Chino," even if he is clearly Peruvian with no resemblance to an Asian.  My host dad, who you may remember from the video is fairly dark-skinned, considers himself black and any time that someone makes a comment about something being dark or black, he says "Sin insultas!" to jokingly imply that we are insulting him.  In both childhood and adulthood his nickname has been Negro.  He and my host brother also make some pretty shocking commentary while watching black soccer players, saying things like "Ohmigod, where did he go?? He's so dark that I can only see his eyes and teeth, haha!"

I've had a few conversations with Peruvians about how these topics are treated differently in the United States, especially about the Chino thing... I say "you know, not all Asian people are Chinese, so shouldn't we say Asiático?" and the response I have gotten multiple times is "Oh, no, I don't call him Chino because he looks Chinese, but because his eyes are Chino" (while pulling on the corners of their eyes!!)  I then of course cringe and say that gesture is considered really offensive in the United States, which just gets a response of laughter, "Really?! Well it's not here!"

Members of one of the artisan associations in town

Womanhood.

In most families and place in the provinces of Peru, gender roles are very clearly defined.  This of course means that women generally do all of the cooking and cleaning in the house.  As a result, I can't plan any meeting with artisans until 4pm or after, because all of the artisans that have families are too busy preparing and cleaning up lunch before that.  It also means that many artisan groups depend on having soltera (single) women members, who can go to fairs and other events that involve traveling.  Some husbands blatantly won't let their wives travel for fairs, or married women will say that they just "can't" leave the house, because what would their family do for lunch?

Being a young gringa woman here definitely attracts plenty of unwanted attention, and I am not just talking about piropos (cat-calls).  The harassment here is a whole other level than I have experienced in Spain or elsewhere- it involves a lot of whistling but also HISSING, LIP-SMACKING, and disgusting sexual faces and comments.  It's all completely cowardly, because they do it once your back is turned or right in the moment you are passing them, so that it's too late to react.  I try my best to preempt the harassment, by making direct eye contact without a hint of a smile and giving a very stern "Buenos días." That usually works, at least in my site.

A mototaxi stop is right in front of my house, so everytime I cross the street I have to pass a group of 4-6 young guys, who used to make lots of comments at me.  I knew this was not something I could accept for two years, so one day I had had enough, and I turned back around and asked them each what their names were.  They all hid their faces and only told me their nicknames, and I told them that I'm living here and I find it really disrespectful when they make noises at me like that.  We had a brief conversation about how they didn't mean to be disrespectful and just wanted to tell me how beautiful I am.  Right.  But it's been a bit better since then.  They still giggle when I pass, but they don't say anything to make me mad.

The worst of the sexual faces, sounds, and comments seem to happen in Chiclayo.  I can usually tolerate it or at least choke down my desire chase them down and punch them in the face, but every once in a while I lose it, like this weekend.  First it was the old man (around 70), smacking his mouth at me and making comments as I passed him on the street.  It really made my skin crawl, so I was already bottling that up when I crossed through a park with 3 other girl volunteers, and a 16ish year old boy on a bench starting commenting on how delicious we were.  I whipped around to face him and he just about jumped out of his pants.  He bolted off the bench and started walking away before realized how cowardly that looked, so he turned back around and scratched his head, looking quite unsure of himself.  I ask him how old he was (no answer), and told him that was really rude, and he mumbled an apology.  I felt great, until we passed back through the park, and from the other end of the park, he and two friends were whistling at us and screaming "HELLO! HELLO!"  You just can't win.  Sometimes (most times) confronting it makes it worse.

I've become much more acutely aware of my female-ness here in Peru, because of the ways I  and other women are treated.  I've been indirectly told that I muddled in men's affairs.  I've also been told that women are more domestically abusive than men.  Dealing with these kind of things as a Peruvian woman  (not to mention the actual physical and verbal domestic abuse that is rampant) explains why a lot of independent women are so fierce about their feminism here... the younger generations of girls are growing up in (hopefully) a world that gives them more power to express their opinions and decide their own futures, but it's still a very unequal situation they live in.  For my experience here, the positive outcome is that I am learning to embrace or understand the girl-power sort of stuff that I avoided in the United States.


I meant to write about a fourth topic in this post, religion, but I think this has turned out to be long enough already, so I'll save that for later.  I hope my readers don't find this blog too depressing or negative, while these aren't super fun parts of my daily life, these things don't get me down that much because I've grown accustomed to them.  I also think Peru is also making my sense of humor much more dark and sarcastic... I'll try to be a little more cheery in my Christmas post!  Miss you, family and friends.

Community Integration, Stage 1: Complete.

I'm starting to think that Peace Corps service is just one big series of "Moments of Truth."  We used the phrase "moment of truth" in Pre-Service Training during our Field-Based week, it's the way I felt in my first meeting with the artisans, and it's how I felt last Tuesday, when I presented my Community Diagnostic.

Every Peace Corps Volunteer is required to complete said Diagnostic, which is basically a way of organizing everything you have learned about your community in your first 3 months, based on surveys, interviews, and other activities with as many different groups as you can get to know.  I am super sick of describing it so I'll leave it at that.  The last two weeks I've been promoting this meeting on the radio and handing out (on foot, with a little bit of help) 70 official invitations to the artisan associations, directors of the high schools and Instituto, and other authorities and friends.  The people I expected to show up did, and the others did not; overall, I had about 40 people there, including the mayor and 2 other Peace Corps Volunteers.

The basic idea of the presentation is to give the community an opportunity to reflect on their current issues and how they can be solved.  I presented some of my ideas, most of which have been brought up by monsefuanos before (which is a good thing!).  What I mean is that there was already a lot of community support for these ideas, and they just haven't been achieved (for a number of political or whatever other kind of reasons).  My basic recommendations and things I will be working towards are:

• Formation of an Artisan Council (called a COLOFAR, could receive funding from the Municipality) to represent and organize programming for all associated and independent artisans
• Formation of a Tourism Committee, that represents the artisans, restaurants, recreation centers, and people involved in FEXTICUM (our big cultural festival every July)
• Computer classes for artisans, assisting them in internet promotion & researching new designs
• Productive activities with young people: summer camps, career and university panels, making sure all the hours of the school day are used to the fullest
• The Municipality needs to take big steps to promote tourism/culture/artisanry in Monsefú before it's too late (before all the artisans disappear and other sites gain notoriety)... I said that my dream would be to see this building below, the old Municipality building, turned into a "living culture" museum and open artisan workshop, where the artisans can work, sell, and give trainings.

The old Municipality building is the one with balconies, just to the left of the "Mercado Central Monsefú"

When I said this, the artisans bust into applause, which was a really cool moment for me (As you might have guessed, they have wanted this for a long time).  At the end of the presentation, the mayor gave a few words, and she went into more details about her plans for the museum/"living culture" workshop.  She basically said she is ready to support this project too and that a sufficient budget is already set aside, but the issue is the contract with the restaurant that rents out the bottom (You can see the open door in the picture).  She said we will work on putting together a list of signatures of everyone who supports this project, so that we might be able to convince the renter to break the contract sooner.  Anyway, overall this was very encouraging.  Rita (our mayor) stayed after to talk with one of the most educated and smart people in Monsefú, a young professor friend of mine, more about the museum, and hopefully his awesome ideas and my willingness to help will combine to make this idea a reality!

At the beginning when I was explaining Peace Corps, I used the quote from President Kennedy's Inauguration, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."  I brought it full circle at the end of the meeting, and asked everyone to write down one goal for this year, one thing they can do for the benefit of Monsefú.  They wrote these goals on papers in the shapes of flowers, because Monsefú is known as the "Eternal City of Flowers"... and everyone always jokes "and where are the flowers?" because our town is pretty desert-ish like the rest of the coast.  Well... here are the flowers!  Some of the people were more into it than others, but hey, it looks pretty.

The weeks leading up to this presentation were exhausting, but they were also some of the best yet that I've had in site.  Things felt markedly different as I was preparing for this presentation- mostly notably, people were stepping up (in small ways) to help me... I don't want to sound too negative here but basically it is often like pulling teeth to get anything out of my Municipality, as people would rather pelotearme (punt me around like a soccer ball) than actually do work.  But it seems that my time spent in the Tourism and Public Relations office has finally paid off, as they actively helped set up my presentation (computer, projector, speakers) without me asking.  

I finally felt like I had people watching out for me this week.  Especially two people, Saida and Jackie.  Saida is the Tourism person in the Municipality who has verrry slowly warmed up to me, but it finally feels like we are friends.  A while back when we were handing out invitations together she slipped her arm in mine to walk linked together (seemingly all Peruvian girl/women friends do this), and this past week we sat in her office and has a really good chat about motherhood... which I know so much about, right?  Anyway, it was great.  

And Jackie, oh Jackie.  This woman fell from heaven about a month ago.  She has an artisan craft store that was seemingly never open because she was traveling, so we only met recently, and ohhh what I have been missing.  She is almost single-handedly setting up a Christmas Dinner that all associated and independent artisans are invited to, which I think is the most amazing thing we could do to bring unity to the different groups.  She is super Christian so has a very powerful way of talking about unity, sharing, love, etc. and over the last few weeks of planning has become a great friend to me.  She invited me to go to her Protestant church last Sunday and then to eat lunch with her sister's family, which was really special.  More to come about the church stuff in a later post.  And she went out of her way to help me solve my chair-quantity-crisis the day and hours before my presentation.

Anyway, a number of conversations and events this past week made me feel like I've finally gained a significant level of trust and understanding with some people.  I didn't really realize before what I was missing, but now that I have it, it feels so much better.  I could definitely use a lot more help and support, but for now- Community Integration, Stage 1: Complete.

Education in Peru

Today, I read an article in Peru's El Comercio newspaper that named the Top 10 Challenges to Sustainable in Development, as identified by a government-sponsored conference.  The list made some good points, mostly focused on business and trade.  But to me, there was a HUGE piece missing from the picture- education.

I've always known how important education is, but my life in Peru is teaching me this lesson in a whole new way.  The challenges of education here are so sad that it makes me want to work in the area of Peru's education policy after Peace Corps.  I'll attempt to paint a picture of the education system and opportunities here in Peru, from what I know or have observed.  As a disclaimer, I am not an expert in the educational system here so I hope I don't misrepresent any facts, and I don't intend to make any blanket statements about all schools in Peru- there are definitely schools that meet and surpass expectations, but unfortunately there are many schools that do not.

Grade school is divided into primaria (6 grades) and secundaria (5 grades).  In my town like many others, a student can either attended in the morning (8am-1pm) or the afternoon (1:30-6:30pm) so they are supposedly in school for 5 hours a day.  By the time a student finishes secundaria, they might be anywhere between 15 and 18 years old.  Just like in the States, families can choose from schools that are nacional (public) or particular (private).  In many of the public schools, especially in rural areas, the demonstrated learning is tragically low.  Part of the problem is that teachers aren't paid enough, but I also don't think there are enough checks on teacher performance.  It's not uncommon for a teacher to simply not show up to class, and forget it when the school anniversary is going on- a public school in my town just had its 50th anniversary, and the way this educational institution celebrated was by replacing classes with cleaning competitions, soccer and volleyball tournaments, and simply canceling classes.  It seems like every time I go into a school, the students are on some sort of "break."  When teachers do teach, it is very based on rote memorization- the teacher writes something on the board, the students write it down, memorize it, and spit it back up on a test.  From what I have seen (and heard), there are hardly ever opportunities for critical thinking.  When I try to have students figure something out for themselves (what should you type into Google to find what you are looking for?) the teachers jump in and give them the answers.  Students are accustomed to copy-pasting entire research projects from the internet or books- and this habit continues all the way through university.  While I was visiting one of the best universities in Chiclayo, my professor friend explained that the flyer I was just handed was offering the services of a thesis "tutor," someone who will write your entire thesis for you.

Peruvian students aren't lazy, they just aren't taught how to learn or think creatively.  So they lean on the crutches of the internet and memorization to scrape by.  One thing I have been really impressed by is Peruvian students' public speaking ability- most presentations are purely memorized, but I've had a few opportunities to see students speak off-the-cuff in the Municipality, and they were incredibly articulate.  

The Peruvian youth seems to really want to be educated- a large proportion of the kids in Monsefú have parents who didn't graduate from secundaria (and sometimes primaria), and check out the results of this survey question I asked as part of my community diagnostic:

The survey was applied to 124 secondary students in my town, 81 of which attend public school and most of which were in their "senior" year.  The question asks "What level of education do you think you are going to complete?"

Almost all of the surveyed students said that they think they are going to an institute (like a 2-year technical college), university, or master's program.  And the free-response section regarding the motivations for their choice really pulls at your heart strings... all of these answers are from public school students:

(University): "Because I have the ability to make something of my life." (Female, 17 yrs.)

(Institute): "Because I want to study so that my parents feel proud of me and also because with a career I would be able to survive" (Male, 18 yrs.)

(Master's): "To be someone useful to society" (Male, 16 yrs.)

(University): "It's the thing I want most in life, and anything can be achieved with effort" (Female, 17 yrs.)

The other big theme in the answers was "because my parents can afford it."  And many of the kids who chose "institute" as their anticipated level of education said they would want to go to college if their parents could afford it (which they can't).  I hope that all of these kids reach their dreams of college and master's degrees, but sadly many of them will not.  In order to apply to universities in Peru, students have to take a standardized test, which almost all high schools leave them unprepared for.  So in order to study for the test, students have to pay to study in an academia for about 1-3 years.  This test is pretty much the only standard for acceptance into universities- the students with the highest scores get admitted.  Families with money again have the choice of nacional or particular, but the situation with the universities is different than the high schools- the public universities have a better reputation for preparing students for careers; although there are definitely some good private universities, there are also a lot of private universities that are just concerned with profit and not with education.  However, getting into a public university is close to impossible- for many programs of study, there are only 10-30 openings for thousands of applicants.  So between the difficulty of the entrance exam and the sparse openings, students trying to go to university might be delayed years and years before getting in to an acceptable program.  With this situation, it's easy to see why so many private universities are popping up, but there are still very few higher education opportunities for those who can't afford the private schools.  Oh, and then one more thing- if you do get into a national university, it might take you twice as long to graduate compared to a private university, because the poorly paid professors are so often on strike that full semesters of classes are lost.

So, that's what its like to be a young person who wants to pursue higher education in Peru.   Slowly, literacy rates and education are improving, but it needs to happen much faster.  I think the state needs to invest HEAVILY in education at all levels: measuring schools and teachers better, fixing either the standardized test or the high school curriculums to reduce the need for academias, providing better training for professors and incentives for high-performance, investing in the infrastructure and resources of the schools, and giving public universities the resources to accept more students.  

I can't believe that education wasn't considered one of the keys to sustainable growth by the government conference group.  The need for drastic measures is plainly apparent here in Monsefu, and I hope it is in Lima too.  Only by investing in education will Peru make successful business owners, policy-makers, scientists, and others that empower "sustainable development." 

Thanksgiving- Jumping in Waterfalls and Stuff

As of November 19th, I have officially been a Peace Corps Volunteer for 3 months, which also means that my travel restrictions are lifted- perfect timing for Thanksgiving, since it is one of very few times during the year that we are granted 3 travel days in a row.  The rest of the year, we have to use vacation days even over the weeked- Peace Corps is a 24/7 job!  And it definitely feels like it sometimes, so I was very excited for this trip with some other Small Business and Youth 17 Volunteers.

We went to Chachapoyas, the capital of the region (state) of Amazonas.  Contrary to what the name suggests, Chachapoyas is considered the "eyebrow" of the jungle because it very much strandles the divide between sierra and selva.  It is mountainous and the town has a highland feel to it, but day trips can bring you into dense and humid somewhat-jungly areas.

We arrived at 6:30am on Thursday morning and at 8:30am started on our way to Kuelap, which involved a 3 hour bus ride and short hike.  Keulap is an ancient fortress-city from the Chachapoya people, which is an Inca word that means "Warriors of the Clouds."  This fortress was built pre-Inca domination, and was eventually taken over and abandoned by the Incas.  It was massive, containing a multi-tiered city inside, complete with water management, burial grounds, and defense mechanisms.  Our guide was great, and at one point removed an extra rock from a wall to reveal a mass grave, piles and piles of human bones!  Creepy and cool, that we could interact so directly with these ruins, without the barriers, plastic coverings, etc. that you find in other sites.

Click here to see my pictures from Chachapoyas (Kuelap and Gocta)

Friday we ventured off on a shorter bus trip, this time only 1 hour, to the small town of María to begin our hike to Gocta, the third highest waterfall in the world.  It was only discovered (by outsiders) in 2005, because the area is so off-the-beaten-track.  I didn't fully consider what we were getting ourselves into, so 2 hours into our intense hike I was beginning to regret my Chacho sandals choice over hiking boots, but luckily they held up.  The waterfall is actually made up of two separate falls, which you can see here in the photo, so we went to two "look-out points." (or whatever that phrase is in English? I'm losing it.)  This picture is from the second mirador, and as you can see, I am wet.  Why?  Because we got to JUMP IN THE WATERFALL at the first mirador.  Yeah, take that Niagara Falls.  Where you can see the break in the waterfall in the picture, we climbed across the slippery rocks to the other edge of the lagoonish thing where the waterfall fell, settled, and trickled down a small river to the second fall.  The water was REALLY dark and REALLY cold, and it was definitely a Top 10 Moment of my life.  For those of you that have been close to a big waterfall before, remember the raw power and energy you can feel around it... the mist everywhere, the roaring water... jumping into that was incredible.  Many of us (obviously including me) were screaming "I'm ALIVE!! I'M SO ALIVE!!"

So, if you can believe it, amidst all this amazingness, I had the most intense bout of homesickness yet during my almost 6 months away from the USA.  It definitely had a lot to do with Thanksgiving, especially since I made the stupid decision to leave my computer at site (I needed to ensure I wouldn't try to work on my diagnostic), and all my friends spent Thursday evening Skyping with family members gathered around computers and dining tables.  I got to talk to both my parents on Friday, but the homesickness wouldn't go away.  Then there was the UVA-VTech game on Saturday, always a fun rival game (although UVA usually leaves pretty depressed), and this was a first-time in history event, that if UVA won this game we would be playing in the ACC Championship for the first time ever.  Seemingly all my friends in DC and NYC traveled down for the game or were watching it together, and the thought of how much fun I could be having there (ridiculous, considering my surroundings) plus a bout of Facebook-stalking everybody's recent Charlottesville visits made the distance feel quite far.  I spent a good hour or two searching for the slight possibility of finding DirecTV somewhere in the city, and after being directed to 4 different bars, arrived at one that said he has the package at home.  He said he "might" bring the pack in, which in Peruvian means "no."  Turned out I didn't miss much of a game, UVA losing 38-0, so maybe it was a good thing I missed it.

I'm back at site now, attempting to hole myself up in my room and get my diagnostic done (big research/informative document about my site, to present to the community and to Peace Corps).  I am going to present it on December 13th, before Christmas activities get too intense, so that I can have it off my mind for the rest of the holidays.  While the alone time in my room is nice (wearing SHORTS! don't get to do that in public in my site!), it does make me feel pretty lethargic and guilty for neglecting some to-do's in town with other people, and I think I'm just getting more anxious about everything.  Tomorrow and this weekend I'll hopefully get some other things done off my to-do list, including making plans for summer classes.

On separate note, Peru is going through some pretty intense mining strikes currently, which affected the travel of two of my compañeros with us in Chachapoyas- one left a day early only to have his bus unloaded in a random small town tense with protest, but he is now safely back at site.  The other friend's site is very close to the center of the strikes (strikes meaning boulders block all roads and some people getting violent in the streets), so he traveled to Chiclayo instead of Cajamarca, and is now stuck on the coast for the time being.  You can read about the strikes here.  They are a big deal in a number of ways, politically (testing who Humala really is), environmentally (destruction of water resources), economically (Cajamarca is losing approximately $1 million a day in tourism due to the strikes, and mining is the biggest part of the Peruvian economy), and socially (is the relationship between poor serranos and the mining companies finally reaching a point where something might change?).

Crazy Week, Normal Day

This has been a super interesting, weird, and overall BUSY week.  The first big factor was that I MOVED ROOMS!! I finally, finally, truly have my own room, on the unfinished second floor of my family's house.  My mom helped me contract a carpenter who made me a great desk/library, and my family is loaning me a bed and sofa.  I also bought a small stove to keep just outside my room, so I can have some independence in my eating and not always have to endure hunger pains until everyone is ready for almuerzo or lonche.  I feel like I have suddenly regained my adulthood.  Video/picture tour coming soon.

The second big factor was my SITE VISIT.  Yesterday, Alfredo (the Director of Peru's Small Business program) and a third-year Volunteer Katie came to visit in the first of two official visits I will have in my two years of service.  As another volunteer put it, the visits are basically just to make sure you doing okay, meaning you aren't suicidal and are doing something productive.  They want to meet your family and counterparts, so our schedule was to have breakfast with my family, visit a school that teaches work skills to kids and adults, meet with the mayor and other PC Volunteer in my district, meet with an organization that I want to work with on community banks, and finally meet the artisans as they prepared for a big event happening at noon.  The big event was a National Tourism Congress coming through Monsefú for an hour, as part of a 3-day Conference on tourism in our region.  I was really excited to have Alfredo and Katie visit on this day, because I felt like I had really directly contributed to making this event turn out well (and I rarely feel that way at this stage in my service).  First, I secured the mayor's permission for the associations that don't have stands in the Artisan Park to set up tables, which was really important because the Park has become overrun with commercial stuff and its hard to find the true artisanry.  I also held the reins on designing a tri-fold brochure of tourist info on Monsefú, which was LONG overdue- the tourism office has literally zero physical or digital resources on tourism info (except some copy-and-pasted junk on their website), and university students from Chiclayo come every week looking for info in their research.  So that was a huge win in my book, especially since the tri-folds promote some websites that give good information too. (www.gastronomiacallanca.com about the restaurant corridor and www.visitamonsefu.blogspot.com which is a blog I am developing to put all the info about Monsefú in one place).

The almost-final version of the tri-fold that I developed in collaboration with the graphic designer (from another town) and the rest of the tourism office.  

So yesterday was a lot of fun, introducing Alfredo and Katie to everyone in town and having a great lunch with them and Charles, the Volunteer who lives on the other side of my district, near the restaurant corridor.

Today was back to regular Peace Corps life, with the high's and low's that all Peace Corps Volunteers describe.  To give you an idea of what I mean, here's a brief summary of my day, which was pretty ordinary (but busy), with my emotions marked in bold:

7 AM: Wake up, go to brush my teeth in the shared family bathroom.  My host mom runs into the bathroom in a rush to work, and says that I should move all my things into the half-bathroom outside.  I try to explain why I would like to keep a few things in the full bathroom, and she snaps, "Ay, Kim, you're supposed to accustom to our style of life, and you just do whatever you want, don't you?"  (Nice way to start the day, eh?) Unlike my first two months, this doesn't set me in tears, I just say "if it really matters to you that much then I'll move everything."  I fume internally upstairs, debating whether to say something about it to my dad (who I am much closer with), and decide against it (He won't understand and will probably support or add to her criticisms).  (LOW)  My dad serves me breakfasts and makes a comment about how Rosa (my host mom) lets the stress at work really get to her, and that before he retired he never let other people get to him like that.  Don't know if it's directly meant to address her treatment of me, but I feel better.  (MEDIUM-LOW)

8 AM: Visit the high school Diego Ferré for my regular program with the English classes.  The teacher and I bring them to the computer lab to write emails to a high school Spanish class in the United States (taught by my old Spanish teacher!)  We have the usual problems of failing machines and not all the students finish, but some of them are clearly really into it.  They describe themselves in Spanish and then write questions to the students in English.  After class, I ask the teacher how she feels about how the exchange program is going- is it taking too much time from her regular classes?  She affirms that it's not "wasting" time at all, it's so valuable for the students to hear a native speaker and the exchange program is really opening up their world view.  (MEDIUM-HIGH)

9:15 AM:  I stop into the Municipality to make some coordinations, then head over to a locutorio (phone-both cafe) to make some calls.  I know the morning and afternoon staff well, but the girl manning the desk is someone I haven't seen before.  When I finish my calls, she doesn't give me correct change.  I argue with her that my screen clearly said 40 cents (not 60 cents) and ask her to check on her machine, she says it's already been erased.  I tell her there must be some kind of history she can check, she says no it's been erased.  I walk out without saying goodbye to anyone, annoyed at the fact that the over-charging for the gringa never seems to end. (MEDIUM-LOW)

10 AM:  While I am walking through the Central Park of Monsefú, a young woman comes running up to inform me that my skirt is tucked into my underwear in the back!!  Ohhh yeah- I can't put this on the high-low scale, its just very funny.  Now everyone has seen the gringa's underwear, great.  I get a comment about it from a man on a motorcycle.

Head over to the other high school, San Carlos, with permission from the Director to apply my youth entrepreneurship surveys.  The secretary seems to have forgotten the multiple explanations I have given of Peace Corps and my work in Monsefú.  She makes some weird comment asking me if I am speaking English to her (what? no... I'm speaking in Spanish).  I sit down and try to re-adjust my attitude towards her.  By appearance I guess that she is fairly poor and uneducated, so maybe she was trying to express her surprise that I was speaking Spanish.  She asks me again where I am from and why I am visiting Peru (for the millionth time, I am from the United States and I am living and working here in Monsefú).  She then says "oh, so you must be carrying a lot of dollars?"  My eyes flash and I curtly tell her no, I am a volunteer, I don't have a salary, I don't have any dollars.  This conversation is over, and so is my gift of the benefit of the doubt.  I quietly fume, telling myself that it shouldn't be okay in any culture to talk to someone that way. I'm SO sick of being looked at as a walking dollar-sign.  (LOW)

The Director finally attends to me after 30 minutes, and expresses surprise that the secretary didn't tell him I was waiting.  He escorts me to the upper-school rooms and finds a room for me.  He personally introduces me to the class (although he can't really remember my name or program, which always happens in these introductions), I explain a little bit more, and we go to work.  He and the teacher leave the classroom so when I finish with the surveys, I take advantage of the personal time with the students to ask if they have any questions for me, about my work or the United States.  This quickly devolves into side conversations that are clearly about me but I can't hear or understand, but there's a lot of giggling and laughing.  Oh well, at least they are interested.  (MEDIUM).

11:00 AM:  On my way out, I get a call from Charles, who says that he had dinner with the mayor last night and he explained my idea of a artisan workshop/museum in the old Municipality building.  She said she wants to put a museum in there too, but only after the sewage pipes in that area are replaced.  Tentatively very good news!  I arrive at the "technical" high school and watch the students present various projects in science and physical fitness.  Really entertaining, and I got to meet one of the Canadian nuns that used to work in Monsefú and is visiting.  I also get to see the new computer lab that I've been dying to tour, and it is just as good as I had heard- brand new flat screen Samsung screens and good CPUs, donated by a Korean group.  I end up becoming the "godmother" of a flat-screen TV that has been donated- yes, in Peru not only people but also any kind of technology or machine also has godparents.  Luckily, being the godmother of the TV didn't mean more than pulling the ribbon off of it, because sometimes it involves financial obligations.  I get invited to eat lunch with the teachers and the Canadian nun, which is very enjoyable, and allows me some more time to ask some questions hinting at my hope to use the computer lab during the summer to teach computing classes to the artisans.  No direct conversation about it (gotta build this relationship more) but looks promising.  (MEDIUM-HIGH)

2 PM - 3 PM: Nap-time and second lunch with the family.

4 PM: Meet up with the Beneficencia Pública (a local charity) who invited me this morning to accompany them to a caserío (outlying community) to hand-out gifts of sugar and charcoal to the really really poor families.  I've been wanting to spend more time meeting people in the caseríos, so I'm happy to accompany them even if I don't particularly want to put my face on gifts like that.  The Director gives me some time to introduce myself and talk about my work, so I talk about community banks and the room is pretty attentive and seems interested.  After the handouts, we stay for a lunch (yes, my third of the day) in the house of the gobernador (a weird non-paying national political appointment), a young guy who is one of my favorite people in Monsefú- he is so humble and so hard-working.  Lunch is fun, joking around with Beneficencia staff and the local police officers, although I have a few moments of wondering if they still don't get that I'm not going to donate lots of money to their projects (we discuss the idea of savings and they somewhat-jokingly ask me if I'm going to use my savings to donate lunches).  The day before, Alfredo spent lots of time clarifying my role with the Beneficencia, and I think that I really trust them, but I still need to keep an eye out for uncomfortable situations with them.  (HIGH AND LOW??)

6 PM: Get an awesome email from Katie, congratulating me on how well I'm doing in Monsefú (based on the site visit).  She particularly points out how the size of Monsefú could be overwhelming for a volunteer, that I seem really comfortable and confident, and that she is proud of the way that I look past my family's toughness to see their good hearts.  Everything she said I really needed to hear.  (HIGH)

8 PM: Church choir practice- I'm exhausted, but I got pulled into this activity by my other favorite person in Monsefú, Evelyn- she's my age, with a fantastic sense of humor and a beautiful voice. And the singing is therapeutic, brings me back to the music of my church in Charlottesville.  (MEDIUM-HIGH).

So you can see that nothing extreme happened during my day, but little things set me off- things that I deal with constantly, that I just can't stand sometimes- having a misunderstanding with my family, being taken advantage of being I'm foreign, and being looked at like a walking dollar-sign are the ones I encountered today, and they are some of the most common issues.  Just like anywhere in the world, there are people that treat me well and people that treat me badly.  The hard part is figuring out people's motivations for how they treat me- if they think they are going to get some financial benefit from befriending me or if they are sincerely interested in supporting my work.  It's hard and tiring for me to constantly be distrusting and evaluating people's motivations, but in the end it's necessary for my work.

Oh, and just in case you missed this early, I WALKED THROUGH THE CENTER OF TOWN WITH MY SKIRT TUCKED INTO MY UNDERWEAR.  Guess it wasn't such a normal day after all!

Meet the Family

I'd like to properly introduce you all to some of the most important people in my life here in Peru, my host family:

A picture we took for my "real" Dad's birthday

Rosa (mother, on the right):  Rosa is about 57 I think, and works in the Regional Ministry of Education.  I'm not sure exactly what she does, but it involves a lot of management and supervision, and from the sounds of it the political appointees below her are pretty incompetent and get paid more than her.  She leaves the house at about 7am Mon-Fri and comes home on average around 8pm (sometimes 6pm, sometimes 10 or 11pm).  New legislation may take away many of her benefits, so she's been on strike with her co-workers every other day (so that they don't lose their jobs) for the last 2-3 weeks.  When she finally comes home at night, she always has stories from the office/streets to tell, as she bleaches and scrubs every corner of the kitchen.  Most of Saturday she spends in front of the computer doing even more work for her job, after she runs around the house re-cleaning everything that's been cleaned by her husband, commenting that only women know how properly keep a house.  She is brutal about cleaning, especially the appliances, everything must shine perfectly without streaks.  Basically, she's a very Type A, independent person and a very hard-working mom.  Back in the day, she didn't want to get married, but she did later in life (she had kids very late, over 40 years old).  Part of the reason she didn't want to get married was because she didn't want to leave her work, so she certainly found the right modern-thinking man (as I'll explain).  After her son, she wanted to have more kids, but wasn't able to. She has a lot of brothers and sisters, and her family has many generations in Monsefú (the mayor is her cousin).  A lot of her brothers and sisters now live in Lima.  She is very passionate about the importance of education, and has been involved in the opening of numerous elementary schools in Monsefú.

Agustín (Aguxo) (son, on the left): My host brother is almost the exact same age as me, 23 (in August).  He attended the regional Air Force Academy for high school, and now studies in USAT which is one of the best universities in the regional capital Chiclayo.  He has finished his studies for a Systems Engineering degree, but in Peru you have to write a thesis and pay a lot of money in order to get your title, so he is still untitled.  Meanwhile, he has started a second course of study and a small business.  He is taking Business Administration classes and is running a small distribution of computer parts throughout Peru, by buying them online and handling the shipping.  He once told me that he doesn't really feel like he's found his purpose in life, but he seems to be very dedicated to his computer parts business, and his business is doing well.  He spends most of the day sleeping in until noon, reading international (mostly tech-relevant) news online, watching funny videos, and researching computer parts until he goes to class and the library (and probably some diversions) until somewhere between 10pm and 2am.  He is a great friend, a very very patient and kind person, and very curious about the United States.  In Peru, sons and daughters live in their parents house until they are married so it's not unusual at all that he lives at home.  The second floor of the house that is in-construction will probably eventually be used for his family.

Agustín (father, in the middle left): Oh, Agustín, where to begin.  This man, about 67 years old, is one of a kind.  He has a fantastic smile and laugh, as you'll see below.  He also has quite the booming voice when he is frustrated with how forgetful or illogical I am being, or if I am doing something he finds rude.  For example, I am always forgetting to "sit correctly" on the couch, since it is much more comfortable for me to sit Indian-style or with one foot under my leg, but this is very dirty and rude to him.  He is also very insistent on the rules of eating, which first and foremost means no eating alone- he always waits to eat breakfast and lunch until me and/or Aguxo are ready to eat.  The reverse side of this is that he often calls me out for eating snacks in my room or for making an egg for myself when I'm in a hurry.  Below, you'll see a little bit more of our relationship about food!  Here's what I've gathered from his life story so far:  He was one of 24 children, only about half of which lived past infancy, in the district of Olmos a few hours north from Chiclayo.  After finishing elementary school, there was no high school in his town (only in Chiclayo, and his family couldn't afford the commute costs).  So, he joined some sort of "project" group of students that went into the rainforest to study a water management system.  He was gone for about 4 years, so his family assumed he was dead, until he was able to send a letter to the Olmos post office telling his family not to worry.  By the time he got back, Olmos had built a high school and he was part of the first graduating class.  He then went to university, but I'm not sure where.  He became a professor of the Arts at USAT- the Arts being traditional dances, music, painting, and folklore (something like that).  He's retired now, and since his wife works all day, he does almost all of the market trips, cooking, and cleaning (which involves sweeping the whole house twice a day, because of the amount of dust that comes in).  He also makes banderolas which are beautiful embroidered banners that schools and other institutions use in parades.  He is quite a curious person, undeniably conservative in his manners of the house, but also very independent-thinking on a lot of topics, including religion and gender roles.  He is very well-known and respected in Monsefú.

And here is a wonderful video that does a good job of capturing my favorite kind of moment with Agustín father and Agustín son... After lunch, Agustín father went into his routine of making fun of my eating habits, and I happened to have a camera.  As I said, he is accustomed to food always being eaten together and at the kitchen table, so he find my snacking habits throughout the day to be very weird.  He calls me a cuy (guinea pig) because of the way I'm always nibbling on something!  Oh, I love this man dearly.


If you are viewing this blogpost from email, you may have to click on the blue link at the top of the email to see the video on the actual website.

Provincianos Visit the Big City

Got back yesterday from a 4-day trip in Lima.  It was weird being back there after spending the last two months purely in the "provinces," what Peruvians call everything outside of Lima.  I was not a fan of the dreary, congested, chaotic and dangerous city during training, but I'm starting to gain some new appreciation for Lima.  The weather has turned so that some sun is breaking through the clouds and smog, and I got to see the city in a different way than I did during training.

I stayed in the center of Miraflores the first night, at a hostel directly next to Starbucks (yeah, that wasn't a coincidence) so spent the whole day in the coffee shop attempting to pound out my Community Diagnostic.  It was shocking how much English was going around, and good English at that since the English I hear spoken at site usually doesn't go far past "goo-more-neen" (translation: good morning).  That combined with the American indie music and plentitude of well-dressed young people and professionals working on their laptops, I was almost convinced that I was in DC. 

That same day I stumbled across a store called La Quinta that pulled me in with its enormous bins of stylish clothes for S/.15-20 (approximately $5-7).  Turned out these were the rejects from factories of namebrands like Banana Republic and Theory, so I left happily with a few badly needed new additions to my wardrobe, especially two cotton knee-length skirts... Summer is starting in Monsefú and it's not really appropriate for women to wear shorts outside of the house.

The second day I got to see a lot of people who put a smile on my face.  First were the training centers, where I got to see my language teacher Jeni who gave me lots of squeals and hugs, and my friend Sam who is a member of the newest class of volunteers- he'll be stationed about 6 hours north of me, so we should get to see each other occasionally during service.  After those visits, I got to see my training host family and catch up with them, with my host-niece Angeline on my lap.  That 4 year-old has completely stolen my heart.  After returning to Lima, I headed to another nice area called San Isidro to stay with my old boss and team from DC, because by some amazing coincidence they were visiting Lima for a work trip the same time I was going to be there.  So I caught up with them over a late dinner, and was gifted 3 bags of candy corn from my co-worker Evan who stayed back at the office- thank you Evan!!

The two final days were spent at the US Embassy for the main purpose of my trip, Peace Corps' Artisan Fair.  HOLY. GUACAMOLE.  The embassy was absolutely ridiculous.  As you drive down an avenue with low, residential houses, suddenly this appears:

I'm not sure the picture really captures how enormous and fortress-like the complex is, especially since there are a few other separate buildings behind the main one.  Now I understand why limeños joke that if a big earthquake hit Lima, everything would fall except for the US embassy.  I guess the high security is necessary since an attack is/was very possible... as recently as 2002, a car bomb killed nine people in the outdoor shopping plaza across from the embassy- this happened right before President Bush was going to visit.  Anyway, I realized right before entering that I had only brought a paper copy of my passport, since everywhere else in Peru doesn't demand anything more official- our coordinator looked at me like I was an idiot, but luckily she was able to get my entrance approved.  At the first security check we had to leave all of our electronics (no phones, cameras, laptops, USBs, anything).  At the second security check they found a safety pin in my purse and a needle in Paulina's (for her embroidery), both of which had to be chucked.  All of the artisan products had to be sent ahead the day before the fair, to be checked for bombs and such.  Yeesh, we're back in the States now, Toto!

Once we made it through the labyrinth of fortress walls to the conference room, the first day of workshops and the second day of fair were pretty fun.  It was interesting to meet all the people that my friends are working with in their communities- Paulina stuck out pretty prominently, as she wore a business jacket and wanted to stand to answer almost every question... she's not exactly a shy serrana (mountain woman).  We had a good time at the fair, although she only made a moderate profit.  We talked about more ideas to improve her display: a babydoll model for the baby clothes, pictures of products that aren't present, a visitor's log, etc.  We're also going to work on developing new products, because there are some things that just aren't moving (a fuzzy, strangely-shaped bright orange scarf, for example).  I'm sad I don't have any pictures to show you all of our stand or the others, since we couldn't bring cameras into the embassy, but some of the other stands (especially those that have worked with a Volunteer for a year or more) were really impressive in their presentation and products.

Of course the best part was seeing all my training friends, and we got to enjoy some dinner and drinks together after the workshops on Thursday night.  Although everyone is going through high's and low's, no one seems to have changed at all, they are still the highly entertaining and eclectic group of Peru 17ers that I have come to love.  And I can't wait to spend Thanksgiving with this crazy family!

It's Wrong, It's All Wrong!

Without a doubt one of the biggest challenges for independent-minded Peace Corps Volunteers is living under someone else’s roof, let alone the cultural differences and different daily routines that exist under that roof.  My family is good to me but they are starting to lose their patience with how “illogical” I am, and by my standards Peruvians are pretty harsh in their criticisms of friends and family.  My host dad is also convinced that I only don’t understand his Spanish when it is convenient for me (not true!).

As an example of what I mean, here is a list of things I did wrong while trying to make no-bake sweets for my family tonight:

• Picked the wrong pot; the pot I picked is not for sweets.
• Used the wrong bowl for my ingredients, even worse since I’ve already been told about the bowls that should be used for those things.
• Should never have used a drinking glass to measure ingredients, since that is only for drinks.
• Was told to explain everything that I was going to do and need, so that my host mom could tell me exactly what to use since I “don’t know how to use a kitchen.”  Declined to tell her I would need a plate to cool them on, which was a problem because…
• I used the wrong plates to cool the sweets.  Should have asked for the sweets dish.
• Didn’t let the pot soak long enough, therefore scratched the pot while cleaning it, and my host mom has had these pots since she was single.
• Not sure exactly what I did wrong in washing the plates, but they needed to be washed again.
• Even though the utensils needed to be dried with a towel, the plates should not be dried, they need to air dry for a while.

At least I used the correct towel to dry the plates, since I’ve been told “how many times” which one is the dish towel (on the right of the oven) and which is the hand towel (on the left of the oven).

For those of you that know me well, you know I am not particularly passive when it comes to being told that I am doing something wrong… and those of you that know me really well know that I never do anything wrong.  Haha. Anyway, you can imagine how difficult it has been for me to bite my tongue in these daily situations, swallow my arguments, and smile and nod.  The reality is that this family accepted a foreign stranger into their house for two years, they cook for me every day, and I really should learn not to scratch the pots that are important to my host mom.  It’s difficult when I feel like every day I am doing something that frustrates or offends my host family, and I’ve tried to talk to both my host mom and my host dad about that- that the constant criticism makes me feel like they are unhappy with me being in the house.  In the end, their manner of telling me when I’m doing wrong (i.e. harsh) is the way everyone talks to each other here, and that’s not going to change- I’m just trying to take things less personally, let my pride go, and “do it their way” next time.  At the same time, I can’t spend two years feeling like people are walking all over me, so I’m getting a little better at finding some boundaries where I can calmly explaining why a particular criticism is not fair.

The no-bake sweets were delicious, by the way.

Generational Differences

I apologize in advance, this is a long and history-filled post!

Peru is a very interesting and exciting country in which to serve in the Peace Corps, because of how many rapid changes have occurred over the last few generations.  Although there still exist many sad realities of poverty in my town and elsewhere, in some ways it seems that the march of development on the northern coast of Peru is unstoppable.  The obstacles are quite obvious- corruption, poor education, and expectations of outside help are probably the three biggest to me.  But it is obvious that the young people in Monsefú today are growing up in a completely different world than their grandparents and parents did.

To give you an idea of how much Peru has gone through in the past few decades on the national scale, here's a brief timeline:

1968-1980: MILITARY RULE.  Aggressive agrarian reform seeks to redistribute an essentially feudal landownership system to a more inclusive system.  Capital-poor and mostly uneducated farmers were not equipped to meet previous production and distribution capacity.  SHORTAGES, RATIONING, SOCIAL UNREST, AND INFLATION.  El Niño in 1972 worsens the agricultural and fishing crisis.  

1980s: RETURN OF DEMOCRACY. Peru returns to civilian rule with re-election of Fernando Belaunde as president.  More El Niño in 1982-1983, which means more agricultural destruction, shortages and inflation, worsened by the mismanagement of bloated state-owned companies.  Desperation spurs the social and political conditions for the birth of SENDERO LUMINOSO (Shining Path) and Tupac Amaru, two terrorist groups that dominate poor Andean regions and eventually reach Lima.  Blackouts, public executions, etc.  The election of Alan García in 1985 marks the first democratic transition in 40 years, but the economic and security crises continue to worsen.  Hyper inflation reaches over 2 million %.  Emergency zones are established to fight the terrorists, and thousands of peasants are killed by both terrorists and military forces.

Shining Path activity decreased
significantly after the capture of
Abimael Guzman.

1990s:  Newly-elected President Albert Fujimori implements drastic economic policies to tackle inflation (which dropped from 7,650% in 1990 to 139% in 1991).  The program restores macroeconomic stability but not without significant social agony as the cost of living rises rapidly.  Privatization, replacement of the currency, and restored confidence from international loan institutions leads to high and stable economic growth, reaching 13% in 1994.  In 1992, Fujimori dissolves the Congress, saying they didn't allow him to effectively combat the economic crisis or terrorism- this act is highly supported by the citizenry.  Military responses to terrorism intensify.  Abimael Guzman, leader of Shining Path, is captured and sentenced to life in prison.  In 2000, Fujimori seeks an unconstitutional 3rd term and soon after his tainted victory, a bribery scandal breaks the news, leading to a flood of new information on an elaborate web of corruption.  Fujimori resigns and flees the country, new elections are held.

Alejandro Toledo was the first President
of native Indian origin.  He also grew up
with a Peace Corps Volunteer in his house
who helped him enter college in the
United States.

2000-2011: Under President Toledo (2001-2006), stable economic growth continues.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission finds that 69,280 people died or disappeared between 1980 and 2000 as a result of the armed conflict.  Former President Fujimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison for corruption and human rights abuses.  Poverty reduction programs are implemented throughout the country with mixed results.  Alan García is re-elected in 2006, continuing poverty reduction (although uneven) and market liberation- Free Trade Agreement with the United States goes into effect in 2009, and deals with a number of other important countries (China, European Union, etc) were signed.  Dissatisfaction with social progress leads to the election of leftist Ollanta Humala in 2011, who so far has maintained market-oriented policies.  Eleven of Peru's 24 departments still have poverty levels above 40%.

If I haven't lost your interest yet, here are some things to keep in mind about the recent history of Monsefú:

• Before 1961, there was no high school in Monsefú, or pretty much anywhere in the region of Lambayeque except for the capital city Chiclayo.  My host father was a member of the first class of high school graduates in his town of Olmos- he waited four years after graduating primary school for the high school to open.  Also remember he was also one of his mother's 24 children (many of which didn't live long).  There are now two public high schools in Monsefú with about 1000 registered students each (although not all of those students attend), and a number of small private high schools.  The city of Chiclayo's first university was founded in 1970, and a number of private universities now exist too.  The difference in educational opportunities is obvious, although I don't want to give an overly rosy image.  High school attendance rates are not good and the quality of teaching/curriculum hardly ever leaves a student prepared to apply for university, so additional years of private study is necessary.  And if they do apply, they are often competing with thousands of other students for under 100 spots.
• My host brother estimates that the internet arrived in Chiclayo somewhere around 2000-2002, and in Monsefú somewhere around 2005.  Until very recently, access to it was very limited and expensive, but internet cabinas are now found all over the center of Monsefú.  Not many students know how to use the computer for more than Facebook or games, but the access to information is at least there potentially (And I plan to give computer classes to various age groups).

Okay, now on to some observations about the generations in Monsefú/Peru.

A while ago, a Lima-educated professor friend commented to me that some people in Monsefú (and other towns) treat the mayor as if we still live in a feudal system.  I saw this first-hand today, in a short parade the mayor sponsored for the adultos mayores, senior citizens as part of the town anniversary celebrations.  This generation of mostly very poor and uneducated grandparents (who lived through a nearly-feudal agrarian system and military rule) were hailing the mayor (Viva la Alcaldesa! Viva la Alcaldesa!) with enthusiastic thank-you's and unending applause as she handed out free shirts, bottles of water, and crackers.  I'm not saying it wasn't a nice event, but the blind obedience and God Bless the Alcaldesa's for the gracious gifts wasn't right to me.  As I discussed with the professor friend, they don't understand that the mayor's money is their money, and the mayor is supposed to be a public servant working for the benefit of the town.  Instead, I saw them treating her like a feudal lord.

In training, we also talked about how the feudal system and later economic crises have led to an expectation of "gifts" and hand-outs from the government, which was clearly evident in this adultos mayores event.  And as a foreigner I am basically a walking dollar sign to most people in my town, so after the mayor briefly introduced me to the crowd, one abuela pulled me down to her level to beg to me, that she doesn't have children to support her and she's all alone, please help her (she's the one farthest to the right in the front row, in the picture above).  I told her I'm a volunteer, I don't have a salary or funds, I'm sorry.  I can't really tell what her reaction was, either disappointment, indifference, or anger, but she let go of me and didn't make any more eye contact.

Contrast this with last Wednesday, the central day of Monsefú's anniversary.  While all of the town's authorities were in the Municipality listening to the mayor's speech and award recognitions, we started to hear chants outside.  When I exited the building, I saw a large group of protesters, almost purely young and middle-aged men, blocked off by police with riot shields.  While I was there they seemed civil but clearly angry with the mayor (she's got a lot of enemies).  I later learned that it was a demonstration by the mototaxistas, and supposedly rocks and bricks were thrown which led to the Vice-President of the group being arrested.  I don't know how to directly relate this to recent history in Peru, but it was clear that this younger and possibly more high-school educated group had very different expectations of the mayor.  I'm also willing to bet the access to TV has a lot to due with the younger generations' attitudes, as national and international news gives lot of information on investigations, corruption scandals, demonstrations, strikes, etc.  I should also mention that mototaxistas are not exactly the most passive group of characters, so they don't represent the majority of the younger generations.  Lastly, the comparison between old women and younger men definitely is a huge factor- my town is no exception to the machista culture of Peru.  Anyway, take the comparison for what it's worth.

Last night I talked with a woman from another town about how Monsefú seems to be stagnating as other nearby towns progress.  There are a variety of obstacles to Monsefú's development, but advancement seems inevitable in the end.  The people here are hard-working and are gaining more access to education and information.  It's encouraging to think that I will see positive changes here over the next two years, although most advancement will probably only occur in access to basic services.  But it's definitely an exciting time to be in Peru, because you never know what might come next to a small town.