A Quick Peak at the Day-to-Day

6.30.11

I am off this afternoon to our very first ever parents meeting in the library. Hooray. Progress. Or at least some remote kind of movement in some sort of direction. I hope I have sufficiently bribed my kids into making their moms come- if 15 or more moms show up, I’m opening the library an extra 3 hours for them on Friday. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: bribery works. I hope it comes through for me today.

The real purpose of this blog entry, however, is to share with you all a quick peak at the day-to-day drama, or complete lack thereof, that is my life here in Bolivar. For your reading pleasure, a short theatrical work sure to keep you on the edge of your seats:

The curtain opens to me chatting with a local woman outside of the municipality. A group of doctors and nurses has just arrived from Cajamarca to do a health campaign in Bolivar.

Liz: Hi, good afternoon.

Lady: Good afternoon, miss. Where are you coming from?

Liz: The elementary school.

Lady: Very good.

Liz: And how are you?

Lady: Here I am. Regular.

Liz: Very good. Very good.

Lady: Doctors have come from Cajamarca today.

Liz: Yes, I heard. What are they going to do here?

Lady: A campaign.

Liz: What kind of campaign?

Lady: A campaign, they’re going to do. What will it be?

Liz: Very good.

Lady: The sun burns, no?

Liz: It burns. But at night it’s cold now.

Lady: At night, it’s cold.

Liz: Yes.

Lady: They have come from Cajamarca, the doctors.

Liz: Yes. From Cajamarca.

Lady: Have you eaten lunch?

Liz: Yes.

Lady: Do you know how to cook?

Liz: Yes, I know how to cook.

Lady: But you didn’t know how before?

Liz: Yes, I knew.

Lady: You already knew.

Liz: I already knew.

Lady: Doctors and nurses have arrived. They’re going to clean teeth.

Liz: Oh very good. In the health post?

Lady: Who knows? In the health post, maybe. From Cajamarca, they’ve come.

Liz: Right….

And scene.

I’m not sure there’s even a good way to follow-up that masterpiece. And I surely can’t tell you how many times I have had an almost identical conversation during my almost full year here in Bolivar. All I can say is that while Bolivarianos aren’t the best conversationalists, at some point you do get used to it. Maybe not completely. But you get used to it. To the repetition, to the complete obviousness of almost every statement, to the frequent mention that I am an incompetent gringa which, in the eyes of many, I most definitely am.

But, asi es. That’s how it is. And somehow I continue plugging along into my 11^th month in site with more than a year in Peru under my belt. Happy, healthy, and always just on the verge of being productive.

Lots of love to you all!

Liz

My One Year Update

6.17.11

One year in Peru. Who could believe it. On June 10^th, last year, my family dropped me off at the Hilton, we had a good cry, and before we knew it, I was off. Flying to Peru with fifty-something strangers trying to finish one more Spanish lesson on Rosetta Stone before arriving. We arrived in Lima around midnight in a sleepy, excited haze wondering where we were going and when we’d be able to make a quick phone call home.

A whole year has passed and I’m happy to say I feel good here in Peru. My Spanish is better, though maybe a bit ghetto now thanks to my many campo friends. My host family is wonderful and welcoming as are so many friends I’ve met here and my site has, in many ways, become my home.

Life is good overall and work?...well I certainly have a lot of it at least. While I was home I promised I’d keep you all updated on my progress, as slow as it may be at times, so here goes- your very first Progress Note from Peace Corps Peru.

I’ll start with the ever-beloved library, La Biblioteca, Amigos del Libro. Since I arrived back in August, we have had many successes in the library beginning with our summer camp program and continuing today with “Ninos Creativos,” an afterschool program for elementary school students.

So far we have just under 40 kids registered for “Ninos Creativos” and have between 25 to 30 kids coming regularly to participate Mondays through Thursdays. When you keep in mind that there are just under 70 students in Bolivar’s entire elementary school, the numbers we are seeing are great. Some days nearly half of the elementary school is in the library reading, putting together puzzles, and drawing which is pretty incredible.

In the evenings, between 5-7pm, we’ve also begun opening up the library exclusively to high school students giving them their own time to do homework, play on the computers, or do arts and crafts. So far we have formed a small following of 5-10 first and second year high school students who come to play pick-up-stix, mancala, and Donkey Kong on the computer. I must admit that more than anything else, though, they come to make bracelets. The tiny colored beads I bought in Chiclayo were a HUGE hit and not terribly expensive. Advice for anyone trying to win over any group of teens: LOTS of beads, and LOTS of string. You’ll have them eating out of the palm of your hand.

While local kids and teens are pretty pumped about the library overall, local adults have been much harder to win over. Members of the actual library committee, for example, just haven’t shown the passion and interest that I had hoped they would. For that reason, committee meetings are infrequent and unproductive, fundraising activities are nonexistent, and adult volunteer support for me after school is rare. This has been a disappointment and real challenge for me but I am always hearing new suggestions and trying new things so I must hope that in the next year I will find the adult interest that I am looking for. That is the hope at least because in order to make the library a sustainable institution in the community, we definitely need adult help.

I am hoping that that adult support may come from local parents, rather than actual committee members. Slowly but surely, I have noticed that the energy and enthousiasm Bolivar’s children have for the library is reaching their parents. It’s as if it is starting to click that the services being provided in the library are really valuable. People are noticing that between 2-5pm there are no kids in the streets because they are in the library. They’re starting to get, I think, that doing art projects or doing group work, even just playing with friends with supervision, is a good thing. My new goal is to meet with the parents of the 25-30 devoted library-goers to ask THEM, “How do we keep this going?!?!?!” And, even more so, “How can you help?”

In the meantime, we will continue to fill the library with educational toys, art materials, and children’s books to keep our kids interested and eager to participate. Many many thanks to everyone who has made this possible! Your support is truly invaluable. I only hope that we can successfully continue fundraising right here in Bolivar, further involving the community in the advancement of the library.

While things move along in the library, my hardworking “tejedoras” continuing knitting and crocheting really beautiful pieces, eagerly asking for more materials and more work. During my time at home we sold about $1,100 in knit goods to friends and family like you. All of that money went either directly back to the women I work with or went toward buying more yarn for future projects.

My host family, Rosa and her two daughters, Pati and Cynthia, together made over 1,000 soles, or just under $300, a huge amount of money for them that has made it possible for them to remodel part of their home, putting in a staircase (instead of the ladder I fell down in December) and cementing what was a dirt floor downstairs. A thousand thank yous to everyone who bought one of their products. Once the heat cools down, I would love to see some pictures of you all in your ponchos and scarves. You can email those pictures to me at zavassallo@yahoo.

We continue searching for stores in Peru and back home where we can sell our products on a more regular basis. If you have any suggestions or contacts of possible venders for our goods, PLEASE contact me. We have 11 tejedoras eagerly knitting away here in Bolivar and there are many more women who have asked me for work. Making this a sustainble project before I leave next July could really change their lives. If you can help, please let me know J

In the meantime, we continue to take orders by email and are getting ready to participate in the Peace Corps Artisan Fair in November in the United States Embassy in Lima. Now we have Brian Lieberman working away too. We have officially purchased www.bolivarknits.com and soon we should have a website up and running, a development we are very excited about!

Well, I think that’s about it for now. This weekend marks the anniversary of Bolivar’s high school and I am off to enjoy the many festivities. They kicked things off this morning with a huge dance party of costumed high schoolers covered in paint singing and cheering in the park. Who knows what else is in store for the weekend…seems like that could be its own blog entry. Until then, thanks again for reading and for supporting the projects I’m working on here in Peru. I really couldn’t do any of it without you!

Besitos!

Liz

Heading Down the Hill

5.35.11

It’s a Wednesday evening and my head is spinning with the million TO DOs I have been scratching down all week. TO DO in the library, TO DO for my English classes, TO DO for my own sanity. And now that the sun has long set, the library is closed for the weekend, and tonight’s meeting was cancelled, it is what TO DO before I head down to Chiclayo tomorrow.

It’s a 4am bus tomorrow morning, which always gives me mixed emotions. For one thing, it just sucks to wake up at 3:15. And I find that the many things I hope to accomplish once I arrive in Chiclayo often keep me up worrying the night before an early trip down. On top of that there is the inevitable hungoverish feeling of getting to Chiclayo at 7am, already having been awake or in a hazy, uncomfortable sleep for the past 4 hours. There is forever the question of the hostel: will my room be ready right away so I can sleep until 9? Or will I have to huddle on the couch on the 2^nd floor common room and snooze there? Ah, the trials and tribulations of traveling before the sun comes up.

I have to tell you the truth, though, that I’ve never really had a problem waking up for the 4am bus. The excitement I usually feel about getting to Chiclayo to skype or shop or just eat a pizza usually gets me out bed and the need to get a good seat on the bus (second row back, beside the window) always gets me out the door. And once my painfully American backpack is tied up on the roof and I’m comfortably (sometimes) scrunched into my window seat, it’s smooth sailing from there.

Of course when I say “smooth” I mean that metaphorically. There is little I would describe as “smooth” about this trip. But it is surely one of the many wonders of living in Bolivar: a warm bus driving slowly through the early morning picking up familiar faces all the way down and piling them in almost without limit. About a month ago, I found myself halfway to Chiclayo with a policeman on my lap (there is only a minor Vassallo exageration in that statement) driving in a bus made to seat 17 but filled to the brim with 26 people inside and 4 more riding on the roof.

The radio, if you’re lucky, is usually bumping the usual Peruvian cumbia music, a happy go lucky kind of beat that I have come to love, but usually the sleepy passengers stay quiet for much of the trip. Except, of course, for the occasional “borracho” (drunk) who has been up drinking “canaso,” a bootleg sugar cane liquor, since the day before.

And there is a point when you eventually say, “alright get this large policeman off of me” or “please, let this drunk dude get off in the next town,” but, for at least the first 30 minutes, it is an adventure, as almost all things are here in Bolivar. It is part of a completely unique and always interesting experience that I feel so lucky to be having here in Peru.

Of course, I do still miss home. Like crazy, actually. It’s already been a month since I was there eating Ledo’s pizza on the couch with Laur, sitting on the steps of the Met with Megs and bombing through the 2-story Forever 21 at Montgomery Mall with Mols. Ah, that was the life. But I brought back to Peru so many wonderful memories with everyone, so many conversations and so much laughter. I feel lucky and blessed to have shared my trip home with all of you and appreciate so much your love and support.

I truly wish I could share every moment here with you all- from the crazy bus rides to the busy days in the library to the quiet Sundays when I do nothing but knit. But instead, just know that I am thinking of you always. Through every moment of it. And that in some way, you are all a part of this experience too.

So much love to everyone back home!

Liz

Falling in Love

3.25.11

It’s a rainy Friday afternoon in Bolivar, which means the streets are rivers of mud, the teachers are on their way to Chiclayo, and many families have left town to head to their homes in the caserios. I’ve been sitting at my desk for about an hour now, writing in my journal and settting some work goals for the next three weeks and I don’t think a single soul has walked past my window. Maybe one: an older women on her way back from the fields with mud up to her ankles and a big plastic bag over her head serving as a raincoat.

This past week I officially “cumplir”ed 7 months here in Bolivar and just about 10 months here in Peru. While it’s a far cry from my 27-month commitment, it’s the longest I’ve ever been out of the country. The longest I’ve ever been away from my house, my twin bed, and the fruit roll-ups I know are in the cupboard under the microwave.

It’s amazing to think I’ve lived here 7 months. I look around my bedroom here in Bolivar, full of photos and books and binders of my work, and am amazed at how much my own it is now. Thinking back to the first night I ever slept here, I remember there was just a matress filled with straw, two wool blankets, and an exceptionally disgusting-smelling pillow that I must attributte to my former sitemate Dave though he refused to admit it was his. Now, my room is home.

I’ve never thought of myself as a hardcore South America buff. Not like so many of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers here in Peru who majored in Latin American studies and adamantly told me that if they hadn’t been placed down here, they would have just stayed at home. I, on the other hand, have always kind of thought I left part of myself in Africa. Always assumed I’d return and in way less time than it’s taken me so far considering it’s been about 7 years since I finished my study abroad in South Africa. Still, I’ve always thought that was really where my heart is. Knew I’d have an amazing experience here in Peru but, deep down, figured it’d be difficult for South America to win over my heart.

Well, somewhere in between many itchy battles with big bugs, one hundred and one meals of rice and potatoes, and those town dances that keep everyone up dancing until four in the morning, I think it just may have happened. I may love Peru and I certainly love Bolivar.

My sitemate Dave left sometime in February and, at first, I was nervous about being alone here in site. Nervous I’d have no one to speak English with or to spend an evening watching episodes of Glee over a box of shitty red wine. In just about a month, though, I’ve realized that his departure has made me challenge myself again in the way I did when I first got here- making myself get out of the house, chatting in the park, and visiting friends in the evenings. And the more I visit, the more I chat, the more I just watch and listen, the more I understand how many people here have become very important to me. How many people I truly think I will know for the rest of my life.

I wrote to a friend recently and told her, I just can’t imagine leaving Bolivar and never seeing these people again. I can’t imagine leaving and never coming back and it’s true. For all of Bolivar’s many quirks and irritations, for its weaknesses and many faults, it is a place that I am coming to love. I think it did take Dave leaving for me to take the time on my own to realize that. It was a sort of epiphany, a realization that came to me all at once, one that I’m proud to be so aware of only 7 months into my service. It is official: I am happy here.