2.2.11
Amazingly enough I am well into the month of February busy with the “vacaciones utiles” or summer school/camp project I started last month in the library and looking ever forward to my visit home for Easter. Yes, it’s official. Almost immediately after our Project Design Training finishes up on April 14th, I’ll be hopping on a plane and heading, oh you said it!, home.
Still a ways away, my future trip is keeping me motivated to get as much done in the coming months as possible so I can head out feeling most deserving of an Easter vacation abroad. In the meantime, I have new goals set for February, a library full of 30 kids excited about summer school, and a trip to Lima for the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary Celebration in Lima on the horizon. But before I get to any of that, a quick look back at the month of January.
After saying a sad farewell to my parents and sisters, I entered the New Year with volunteer friends at Huanchaco, a beach right outside of Trujillo. The place was great. We stayed in a cozy hostel that was packed with travelers, volunteers, almost all foreigners and slept in tents in a yard outback. It was a night full of flip cup and card games followed by (obviously because this is Peru) fireworks on the beach.
I had a really good time and wasn’t missing my family quite as horribly as I’d expected but still something didn’t feel right. As soon as I got to Huanchaco even I felt that old anxiety- Heath knows what I’m talking about. That feeling tha tthere’s somewhere else I should be, doing something else entirely, something more. And there was of course.
I said goodbye to my friends and headed to Chiclayo where, after a day of crazy errand running, I hopped on the next bus (okay the only bus) back up to Bolivar with a huge “to do” list building and building in my mind. My community diagnostic presentation was under two weeks away thanks largely to Miryam, the Youth Development Program Specialist, who, due to a mysterious love of our library in Bolivar, had planned a huge staff trip to join me for the event.
So while most of my friends shrugged off their presentations and saved their reports on their laptops, never to be seen again, I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of almost every single one of my bosses. On their way were Marco, our Assistant Country Director, Lucia, our new Program Director of Youth Development, Miryam, our Program Specialist, Sandra, my Regional Coordinator, and Mike, my PCV Leader and former Bolivar volunteer. It would be quite a crew. I only hoped that I’d have at least as many community members present as I would Peace Corps staff. Either way there would be, at the very least, 6 people present (if I included myself) to witness me trip through my Spanish in an attempt to encourage the Bolivar community to participate in my future projects.
For two weeks I typed and typed, checked my grammar and filled in the many black I’d left over my first four months in site. As I finished up my paper, my presentation began falling into place. I would scribble my introduction or conclusion or a quick dinamica idea onto pink post-its when the worlds came to me while I read in my hammock. Once I was off to bed it was much worse. I barely slept those two weeks, all the time thinking of a new poster I should whip together or the plan for the library meeting that would follow the presentation.
Lucha, my favorite and the only, secretary in the municipality, helped me with the paperwork. Solications for the location in the municipal building and an invitation to the community, both written in a Spanish s formal it was almost nonsensical. Depite my nerves, I got the signature and seal of support from our toothless alcalde (mayor) and headed out into the community.
I began with the basic community leaders: regidores of the municipality, Lucha, health post staff, library committee members, and the ladies of PRONAMA, an adult literacy project. Still not sure if I even wanted anyone ot show up for this thing, I was tentative at first. But as my presentation came together and the staff visit was confirmed, I pushed myself, making generic invitations and going door to door.
I realized during this process how much being a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivar (and maybe anywhere) is like running for mayor, asking for votes day in and day out. They see you coming and know you want something, know they’re nervous about what you’re going to ask of them. But all you want is their “support,” whatever that means, so you smile a big ccheesy smile and “descansar” with them in their living room, try to play down how long the event will be and ask please, please, please that they show up.
I never want to run for mayor- what a terrible existence- but I see that for 2 years that’s exactly what I’m going to do have to do, over and over again. Sell myself, my ideas and plans, form a solid fan-club that’ll work with me and, if all goes as planned, learn that they can work on their own too.
Anyways, it was a stressful two weeks that began 2011 and while I plugged away with my presentation, I tried hard to stick to my many many many New Year’s Resolutions- read more books, do more yoga, read the economist, keep in touch with friends, journal, blog, etc. etc. The list went on and on but I tried and kept working and on Thursday January 13th, after a quick run-through of my presentation, and a lot of running around town in my black business casual dress (more for publicity than anything else) I was ready.
My visitors arrived in a dirzzle and I was terrified. With only about an hour until go-time we headed to the library to all get on the same page and came back to my house for a relatively awkward lunch. Somehow 2 o’clock just wouldn’t arrive and when, around quarter of, we finally headed over to the municipality it was locked of course…staff comes back at 2 en punto…or a little after. So we strolled around town puzzling over the zoo Universidad Alas Peruanas put in and discussing the ups and downs of a community diagnostic- surveys, focus groups, and all.
Finally at about 2:15 we returned to an open municipal building and got ready to wait. La hora Peruana is no myth, it is the law of the land engrained in daily life throughout Peru and possibly even more in Bolivar where progress, activity, just life in general, is slow, slow, slow. So Michael, the volunteer who actually built the library I work in today, helped ease my nerves as we patiently waited for newcomers until it was finally time.
They tell me the presentation went well though I saw, unmistakeably, more than one person sleep through parts. But we had almost 40 people present, almost a full house, and the posters and snacks were a hit.
When almost half of the listeners joined us in the library I was nervous, had a warped vision of what would happen from there. I gave my 10 or so minute schpeel and handed things over to Julio, our committee president, to do the rest. He essentially thanked the Peace Corps and unbeknownst to me, handed the meeting back over to me.
What happened from there is hard to explain though Miryam may have put it best when she said it was the weirdest meeting she’d ever been too…and she’s Peruvian.
There was a black and forth of thank yous and reasons why the library is such a good thing for the community followed, in the end, by the call for a new committee. They hemmed and hawed, few people (including myself) willing to speak up or take charge. Finally, as if she was sent from the heavens (turns out Miryam made her do it), Lucia stepped up, the sea parted, and progress was being made.
We voted to choose a new committee right then and there and then slowly selected five memebers who each accepted the position. 3 womend, 2 men including the second in command to our mayor. It was a good group, I thought. We voted on their respective positions, took a group pic, and signed the libro de actas. I left really excited and very very relieved.
My various bossess assured me I had done a great job and I sent them back down the hill feeling fantastic- so proud of myself for all my hard work, really optimistic for our new committee, and just completely content to have gotten through that landmark step in the two years of a volunteer.
From there I could only go on to bigger and better things and that night, I did. A bottle of wine and a move and a few extra hours to sleep in the next morning is how I celebrated. And when the afternoon rolled around, I hurried to the internet café and excitedly told my family how well it had gone and emailed thank youts to everyone who had helped out.
Overall, the presentation and all the hullaballoo that came with it, was a good thing and the perfect way to jumpstart the year and my service showing the community here thatn I am a professional with a plan who NEEDS their help. Tonight is our first committee meeting- I do hope I get that help I need. Only time will tell.
