Order in the Disorder

I'm HOME!  That is, I am back in Monsefú.  After visiting my other home, Washington DC!  It was obviously a much anticipated visit and I can't even begin to explain how wonderful it was to see my family and friends in the flesh.  I was particularly touched by family and friends that traveled from New York, Richmond, Charlottesville, and San Francisco against all odds to make this the most amazing homecoming ever.  I was completely overwhelmed with thankfulness for the love and support that I have around me, whether we are in the same city or thousands of miles away.  This weekend was proof that no matter the distance or time, we can always pick up where we left off.  And that was a great feeling to have as I returned "home" to Peru.

Some amazing Charlottesville, New York, and San Francisco people. And John looking awkward in the back.

Nothing can keep us apart for long.

My brother who I love dearly and I can't wait to have come visit me!

So, I of course got the question "is it weird to be back??"  Yes, it was.  For the first two days, it felt like a dream- I know this place and am completely happy and comfortable in it, but this isn't my life.  I also had a couple other more specific observations:

• People in the United States obey so many rules.  People wait quietly in line and listen to directions. What?
• My friends and family have really nice watches.
• The highways around DC and Virginia are so smooth and nice and huge.  The cars seem to be floating... they drive along at a constant speed, they signal and change lanes at a constant speed, and they take smooth exits at a constant speed.
• Customer service is so weird.  I mean, I am really enjoying this conversation, but why are you being so nice to me?   I'm just here to buy something...
• Technology is amazing.  Smartboards in classrooms.  Everyone on an iPhone.  Bar codes and credit cards and electronic check out.

During my visit home, I got to visit two classes that I have been working with from a distance, one Spanish class at my high school with my old Spanish teacher, and one 6th grade class taught by my UVa friend Elizabeth.  Here I am with Elizabeth and some of the kids from her class!

Check out their Peace Corps board in the back, you are so awesome ET!

I also got to present my mom with a gift from my host mom... she did this embroidery by hand!  She may not know American/my mom's style very well, but you can't deny how sweet it is!  Oh, and don't you worry, if you want more, she says this is only the first part of the set... the tank cover and toilet paper holder and still on the way.  Lucky Mom!

So, it was amazing be home with my friends and family, craft beers, and brunch food, and thankfully I left feeling very reassured by the love and support around me, and ready to return to Peru.  And it was strange how I felt like I was returning "home."  I talked to a Peruvian friend in Lima about this, especially about the difference between the order and disorder between the US and Peru.  During my time in the States I was so struck by how orderly everything and everyone was.  The disorder in Peru is often a stressor for me, but at times it also feels liberating- when I'm flying down a highway in a van from the 1980s, with 14 other people, 3 babies, a sack of guinea pigs, and a few buckets of fish crammed in there with me, blaring cumbia music, the chaos of Peru sometimes feels just right.  As my Peruvian friend in Lima said, there is order in the disorder.

So, in honor of this lovely, disorderly country that I have come to claim as my own, here is a list I have been working on, things that I love about my life in Peru (in no particular order):

• Eating cake for breakfast is completely appropriate.
• We say “thank you” to each other and to God after each shared meal, and say excuse me before leaving a room.
• Long lunch hours that leave time for a nice nap.
• A mango always makes things better.
• During the “hora loca,” the midnight hour of every birthday or other party, everyone grabs hats, masks, whistles, confetti, and fake snow from a can, and dances around in a circle to electronic music.
• Family parties are the best parties, especially when an abuela (Grandma) is hazing me to drink more beer and an abuelo wants to dance cumbia with me.
• Everyone from 9 months old to 90 years old dances at family parties, and none the men are ashamed to show how much they love dancing.
• My morning runs take me through the dirt paths to the caseríos (rural communities), with cows and chacras (crop fields) in the landscape.
• People tell me that I am super flaquita (skinny).   They also occasionally call me caderona (big-hipped), but whatever, at least I hold my weight there instead of my stomach?
• I have beach time, mountain camping, rainforest adventures, and ancient ruin explorations all within a bus-ride distance.  I really think Peru is a contender for coolest country in the world.
• I often see the town women chatting in the plaza holding a live turkey, chicken, or duck upside down, held by the feet.
• Fried plátanos (plantains), fried eggs, and picarrones (fried dough).
• I have time, in theory, to read- even though I usually end up choosing to Facebook, gChat, or watch a TV show.
• I have an endless source of TV shows, movies, and music through the external drive system that is quite popular among Volunteers.
• Whenever I’m having a terrible day or am feeling pessimistic, someone is always there as an example of all the amazingly good people I have around me- my host family, friends in site, other Volunteers, and friends and family in the States.
• I love the way people say “Kimberly” in Spanish (KEEM-bearrr-lee), and how often I get to hear it screamed across the street or park, as someone gives me a cheerful wave.  (I go by “Kimberly” here because people know the name because of “Kimberly Clark” and a brand of paper, whereas “Kim” sounds a lot like “Quien,” which means “who,” which can get very confusing.)   
• Everyone leaves their doors open to the street, so it feels like one big family when conocidos (people I know) walk by the house or I walk by their house.
• Fresh passion fruit or papaya juice with breakfast and lunch.
• I love my friends in site, which are mostly women between 16 and 50 years old.  And I am constantly amazed by the support they give me personally and in my projects.  And I love the moments when I can feel the cultural-language barrier between us break completely.
• My fellow Volunteers are so, so inspirational.  Peace Corps Volunteers are a group of people with incredible energy, integrity, intelligence, sincerity, and heart.
• Peruvians love always being around other people, talking (even if it's about nothing), and just enjoying each other's company. 
• I am constantly challenged.  I push myself to express myself more intelligently in Spanish, to make a better "sell" for why someone should participate in my project, to get better at the culturally necessary "schmoozing" and relationship-building before asking for anything work-related, and to wake up and do it all over again.
• Lastly, I love these faces.

My host nephews, who visit from Chiclayo every Sunday, for family lunch and mangoes on the stoop.

My life is not always romantic and fun, there are absolutely times where a dark cloud is cast over this entire country and everyone who lives here... but, as another Peace Corps Volunteer put it, "when you are feeling down, just remember to go outside and let [Peru] save you."

Thank you to my family and friends, who also, in a very important way, "saved" me this past week.  You all give me the strength and support to believe I can do this for two years.  I love and thank you!

Water

I'm baaaaaack!  As always seems to be the case recently, a lot has happened since my last post.  I am happily moved in with my new host family, and most noteworthy I JUST GOT BACK FROM VISITING THE UNITED STATES.  It was a glorious, incredibly wonderful and comfortable week.  I want to get immediately to talk about my trip home and my return, but first I'd like to cover a topic I've been meaning to blog about for the last month.

I assume most of my readers are in cities or towns in the United States.  Next time it rains in whatever city you are in, take note of where all that water goes.  Notice that the streets are paved with a slight bump in the middle, so that the water flows to the sides, downhill, into a gutter, drain, or some other system.  Maybe you live in a suburban area where houses are built on hills, and storm water collects in pre-planned  retention ponds or other environmental solutions.  Also, take note of the fact that when it rains, it only rains outside your house.

Now imagine you are in a place where roads have no angle to manage the water, and there are no gutters or drains.  The water goes wherever the lowest point is.  Also imagine that your house doesn't have a cement roof, only sheets of metal and plastic, if you are lucky.  Your neighbors have no roof in some parts, and in others have only tree stalks meant to give shade.  If you're lucky, you live on a paved road, and your doorway is above a sidewalk.  If you're not lucky, a lot of rain will turn your dirt road into a mudpit that feels a lot like quicksand, and your house (made of dried mud bricks) may flood.  Also imagine that your livelihood is agriculture, and your land happens to be the closest to the riverbank.  With a sudden, unexpected rain, all of your crops are now underwater.

Yes, this is what it's like when it rains in Monsefú.  You may remember me complaining about living in the desert and how it only rains 4 days a year, but it turns out that might not be exactly true.  Truth is a very relative thing here.  Some tell me the amount of rain we've had recently qualifies this as an El Niño year, and others tell me this is completely normal.  Whatever the case is, the entire city infrastructure operates on the assumption that it is never going to rain.  When it does rain, EVERYTHING is cancelled.  As if it was a snowstorm.  And I'm not talking about, like, hurricane rain, I mean a completely normal shower at most.  Everyone in my town is terrified of rain, and so far have been given the following reasons: 1) you will fall and slip  2) you will get sick  3) you won't be able to cross any of the roads, and 4) since the streets are more deserted, the thieves are more active.

So, now that you have a basic idea of what the attitude towards rain is here, imagine you are in a 3-Day Girls Camp.  You are a 14 year-old Peruvian girl, spending your first night ever away from your family.  You are at a recreation center with 50 other Peruvian girls and 20 American volunteers, and you are sleeping in a tent outside.  It begins to rain, and rain hard- you wake up to find yourself and all of your belongings soaked, and you look up to find a gaping hole in the top of the tent where a rain cover should have been.

Yes, this was our ALMA Camp, a leadership and health-focused camp that we held February 8, 9, 10, and some of you donated to (thank you!!!).  In the middle of our first night sleeping in tents out on the lawn of a recreation center, it began to rain, and really rain this time.  Those who didn't have rain covers on their tents (almost everyone) evacuated inside, and slept on the cement floor or on a few couches.  I was lucky (and lazy) enough to be sleeping in the middle of a tent that did have a rain cover, so once we got that cover correctly attached, I was able to more-or-less sleep for a few hours.  I could go into way more detail with this ridiculous story, but basically the girls were initially scared but eventually looked back on it and a crazy, fun, bonding experience.

Me with Nataly, Fátima, and Leidy, three amazing ALMA girls

Lastly, on the topic of water, Carnavales has just ended in Peru.  Basically during the entire month of February, in most cities in Peru (and other Latin countries including Brazil), you have to be on the lookout for water balloons, water buckets, and other worse things (paint, wine, etc.) that kids (and adults) will try to attack you with.  Most people in my town are normally conscious enough to avoid calling me "gringa" (white girl) to my face, but all bets have been off this month.  Girls are the usual target in my town, and being white makes me that much more fun to attack.  Fortunately/unfortunately I have been traveling a lot recently so have only been attacked a few times- the first time my former host-brother and I were riding our newly fixed bikes when we got attacked with water balloons from behind.  I ducked and he got hit, which he found incredibly unfair, since he is neither American nor white (as if I deserve it more??).  The second time was with my youth entrepreneurship summer camp, a group of about 12 of us girls (2 volunteers and 10 girls) got ambushed by a group of chivolos ("boys," literally means little goats) with water balloons, buckets, and bottles.  A mom was helping them fill the balloons back up while my girls were screaming at the top of their lungs and hiding inside stores, when I decided to see what happens if I reversed the power on them and sprinted directly at one of the boys filling a balloon.  What ensued was one of my favorite moments so far in site, as all the girls started cheering me on, the boy's expression totally changed as he started running away, and then he eventually realized what had happened and turned back around to squirt me with what was left in the balloon.

Zach getting some revenge at ALMA

We also had some Carnavales fun at Camp ALMA, which I mostly avoided, but you can see above.  I wish I had more time to describe the awesomeness of Camp ALMA, but these blogs are getting a little unmanageable as it is!  If you want to read and see pictures from the real Carnavales in Peru, check out my friend Amanda's blog: http://amandagoespc.blogspot.com/  She along with seemingly all of Peace Corps Peru went to an area called Cajamarca while I was in the States, and there they enjoyed the biggest Carnaval celebration in the country.

That's all for now, next update coming very soon regarding my visit to the USA!