Happy Holidays from Peru!

12.7.10

So I, first of all, must admit that I have dropped the ball. That’s right, my blog has been seriously neglected lately so I’d like to publicly commit to keeping you people posted on my almost every move here in Peru. There’s stuff going on, I swear. And while individual days may not always be thrilling, the experience as a whole is always interesting.

Here I am back in Bolivar listening to the Frank Sinatra Christmas album and wondering if my termite swarm will come out again tonight. Not your usual holiday season, that is for sure but I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the one, the only, Vassallo family for our very first Christmas abroad. That’s right, in a mere 16 days, I will be meeting my parents and sisters in Lima where after immediately enjoying a pizza hut pizza, we will enjoy each other’s company poolside at the Marriot before heading to Bolivar to see my site, visit my little home away from home, and meet the family of five that has taken me under their wing here in Peru. It should be a blast though I’m sure my mom and Megs are already a nervous wreck. (If you have the time, please call either to remind them not too worry so much! Thanks.)

It’ll be an unconventional Christmas but at least we’ll be together. I must admit that while I had a great time enjoying Thanksgiving with a ton of volunteers at the beach, I was definitely wishing I was enjoying mounds of mashed potatoes next to my fatass cousin Dana (I can call her that because she’s not actually fat) preparing for the Top Chef marathon on Bravo. Our own meal, however, thanks to one Kourtney Angle, was delicious.

There were mashed potatoes and salad and sweet potatoes and, only in Peru, pollo a la brasa. While, to my mom’s disbelief, there are turkeys in this country, we, instead, enjoyed rotisserie chicken as our poultry of choice and I must say it was delicious. Apricots bars made by my favorite conoisseur of sweets, kate diaz, made the evening. The next day, I enjoyed spending black Friday on the beach instead of at Montgomery Mall. And while my sunburn set in I chatted away with the fam back in Meg and Laur’s apartment while they enjoyed some old fashioned NYC pizza.

When we recovered from our food hangovers and frantically tried to finish our community diagnostics, we Youth Development volunteers headed out to the absolutely stunning, beatufiul beyond beautiful Ancash. There we met up for our Early In-Service Training, a rite of passage in the life of a PCV and a celebration of three months in site.

We spent a week in Ancash listening to each other’s every success and failure, brainstorming new projects and solutions, and planning for the future of our service and of our communities. It was a wonderful mix of “Oh shit, she’s done way more than I have!” and “Yes, I really do feel at home in site.” It’s so hard not to compare one site to the next, one project to the next or even one volunteer to the next. But if anything Early Ist reminded me just how different we each are. All of our sites, counterparts, and projects are going to be vastly different and so all we can do is be there for each other. I think I had forgotten about the many good friends I have all over Peru. A group movie night snuggled up on a couch in my Halloween pajama pants was a good reminder of that.

And with almost two wonderful weeks of Thanksgiving madness and IST fun behind me, I am back in Bolivar wondering about my next step. Like I wrote in an email earlier today, I am torn about that step. With Christmas quickly approaching, one part of me wants to listen to Christmas carols all day long while I wrap up the various trinkets I’ve collected for my family in the past six months. Another part of me, however, knows that I have tons of work to do. In just another three months we’ll be back together for our PDM training and I want to be ready for it.

So hopefully this month I can do a little of everything: keep writing blog posts, keep channeling the Christmas spirit, and keep moving with my work in Bolivar. In the meantime, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are enjoying the crazy wonderfulness that is Christmas at home. Love you all! And Megs, Laur, Mom, and Dad—see you in 10 days! J

XOXO, Gossip Girl

Written on 10.20.10

So I think I just sprung into the 21^st Century- sitting in my room at a plastic table and stool stolen from the library, I realized that my ipod can play videos—not just any videos, but my much adored repeats of, you guessed it, Gossip Girl.

How did I not know that?, you may be wondering. (Well, Mom and Dad, you’re not wondering but everyone else is). Because I’m an asshole and somehow always manage to not know things like that, like how to take a video with my camera or how to post pics to facebook and then tag them.

Regardless, I could hardly contain myself while I strained to watch small but perfectly vivid images of Blake and Leighton traipsing around Manhattan in rompers I would no longer (for the time being) be caught dead in. Yes, it seems the mountains of starch and deep fried eggs have finally caught up with me. But I gotta tell ya, watching S and B bomb around town on that tiny little ipod screen made me a little nostalgic, yes, but mostly comforted that I’m not so far away after all.

So maybe I dodge donkeys and cow manure in the streets while Megs and Laur dodge high profile business men. Maybe I read Mario Vargas Llosa in a hammock made of fishing net while dad reads the same in the backyard between sips of a martini and puffs of a cigar. Either way, no matter how you do it, we’re all just getting through the day the best we can. Trying our best to, as Dad would put it, read more books, drink more wine, and keep in touch.

It’s really funny what little things help ease my various bouts of terrible homesickness, deep frustration, and desperate boredom. A reassuring email from my friend and yours, Kerri Magee, telling me it will get better. A hidden stash of twizzlers from Megs and Laur that has somehow lasted almost a month. An overpriced foursome of snackpacks I found hidden away next to the imported pretzels in Plaza Veia. Somehow these very silly things take me home again and sometimes, even better, remind me how very much I wanted to be here all along. Much more than I ever wanted to catch the most recent season of my favorite 10pm tele-dramas.

Anyway, just a little food for thought for my many (do I have 4 yet?) blog followers. Cuz ya never know what lessons you might learn from a shiny silver ipod.

XOXO,

Gossip Girl

Mistake Making

10.28.10

Wow. It’s amazing to me that it’s been an entire month since I last posted a blog entry. I’m sorry to have left you all on such a sour note--that English class nonsense was quite the debaucle. But you’ll be happy to know that things have been moving along nicely since then. No run-ins with the aforementioned creepy English teacher and many more successes than frustrations.

I just celebrated my two-month anniversary here in Bolivar and am happy to have almost five months under my belt here in Peru. Yes, I’m still counting the weeks and months but every day the urge to cross out another day on my calendar fades just a little bit. And if an entire month without a blog entry means anything, it’s that I’ve been busy. Which is true.

The month of October has been filled with art classes with the second grade, typing classes with the second grade teacher, Monopoly with my host sister, and lots of knitting…and then re-knitting with my host mom, Rosa. Also this month I attended one college fair, one dental hygiene fair, two quincinera celebrations, and, somewhere in there, one round of karaoke in Chiclayo.

Things here are good. A little slow at times but definitely steady as I head into my official site visit next week from Youth Development’s Program Specialist and Volunteer Coordinator. I’m looking forward to their visit, eager to share my ideas and, excited for the beginning of a new month and the many possibilities it will bring because basically, while things here are good, I’m realizing that I need a jumpstart.

Peace Corps gives us three months to really get to know our community, to meet our host families, improve our Spanish, and write our Community Diagnostics. Somewhere along the way we are also supposed to have begun some “early win” projects, simple projects that volunteers have used again and again to quickly get involved in the community. I think I’ve done my share of early wins, tutoring in the preschool, teaching in the elementary school, typing away in the library, but I think I know deep down that I could be doing more. I know too that I’ll be happier here when I’m doing more.

It’s harder than I thought it would be to stay motivated. Especially because being motivated doesn’t just mean making sure you are waking up every morning, taking those cold showers, still speaking Spanish, and eating rice for the 12^th meal in a row. I think it’s supposed to mean that you are making sure you’re putting yourself out there again and again, risking something new every single day. And while I can acknowledge that it’s a risk just being here, I think I know deep down that I’m not putting myself out there the way I should be.

The other night Jorge Luis, a neighbor and a member of the Library Committee here, asked if I ever thought I’d end up somewhere like this. And I remembered that actually when I came to visit Bolivar during our week of Field Based Training, I got off the bus and said, “This is it. This is what I want in a site.” I saw so much potential for work, for projects, for continuing something really great that the past volunteers had gotten started. Yes, I did think, even hoped, that I’d end up somewhere like this.

I know a lot more now—more about Bolivar, more about just how hard these two years might be and why. But I still think that this is the site for me. I still think I have great ideas that have the potential to be realized here with the help of great people. I only have to get started.

I think so far my fears of falling short of my goals have kept me from really taking chances. I’m endlessly planning and brainstorming, always looking ahead to a better time to start a youth group or a toothbrushing project, in hopes of somehow creating a perfect two years here in Bolivar. And that idea of perfection is something I just need to let go of. Instead, these two years will be a series of trials and errors that need to begin now.

Being a volunteer here in Bolivar will be about taking risks. It will be all about making mistakes and realizing that with each mistake I am becoming a better volunteer. I will start where the doors are already open, where the obstacles seem small, the goals achievable. And I’ll remind myself that maybe, while I’m learning from my many mistakes in doing the do-able, doors will open to achieving what now seems impossible. I’ll start today.

Is there a young soldier at the window?

9.27.10

What is the best part of an almost completely non-English speaker teaching English to the entire high school population of Bolivar? So far, I think it must be the completely ridiculous examples that said teacher writes up on the board without at all thinking them ridiculous.

“Is there a young soldier at the window? Yes, there is. He is Carlos Sanchez.”

Yes, at long last I have finally visited the high school in Bolivar. Adamantly reminding people that I am a elementary/preschool teacher and like the little kids, I have somehow, for the past month, evaded Professor Amadeo’s pleas for help. That is, until just a few days ago.

I went with my guard up, wary that he might end up leaving me to teach his class for him. I hadn’t been given the best impression of the guy so was a little nervous to be working with him not to mention with the oh so intimidating high schoolers of Bolivar. I was very excited to find however that, first of all, the class was full of first year students still bright eyed and bushy tailed, so excited to have a gringa in their class, and very curious to hear about my two sisters who are even taller than I am! I found, second of all, that I could easily help with pronunciation without running the class itself.

Professor Amadeo put his ridiculous examples up on the board and then sat, listened, and even repeated along with the class as I went over pronunciation. It actually worked beautifully and, as I came back down from the high school my mind was already swimming with a new schedule I could arrange to make all the English classes, new ideas for increasing class participation and creativity, and new resources I could find in Chiclayo to keep the whole high school learning lots more English! I was so pleasantly surprised by the entire experience that I was actually feeling pretty eager to hike back up the hill tomorrow morning to help teach basketball.

I was also feeling really excited to begin tutoring Yampier, a five year old student who I noticed immediately upon visiting the preschool. A tiny version of a person, he sat at a table by himself and smoke in a mumbled Spanish I could barely understand. But I couldn’t help but realize that he was just a little dirtier than the other kids. He caused just a little more trouble. And he understood just a little less when it came to his classwork.

So what’s one mini-project I figured I could start right away and, possibly, give the other teachers a few pointers in the process? Tutor the class troublemaker.

I was eager to get started. It felt rather wonderful to have my box of Crayola washable markers (thank you, Mom! Who knew that Crayolas would be the best birthday present a 27 year old could ask for?!) and index cards out, preparing a lesson for Yampier. 1 sun. 2 flowers. 3 clouds…ah, to be cutting and pasting away at the miniature tables and chairs of KinderCare again. I guess this is the next best thing…coloring in five apples, figuring out how to say “we don’t hit our teachers” in Spanish, and allowing myself a little evening movie time. Things were really feeling good.

And things that first day with Yampier went very well. The next day, even better. A few temper tantrums made him storm out of the room but I rocked a couple Germaine Lawrence de-escalation techniques and he was back in the classroom with me coloring away in a matter of minutes each time.

My endeavors in the high school, however? Well, that’s a slightly different story. Last night I was sitting in my room reading when there was a knock at my door. I knew a whole class of high schoolers was getting ready for oral presentations in English and I was prepared to answer some pronunciation questions. I was even excited to go and watch the presentations this morning. But at my door I found the first year students I was visited earlier in the week and they were giggling away.

“We have to tell you something but we don’t want you to get mad,” they said, too embarrassed to even show their faces. “Okkayyyy,” I said. And waited quietly feigning patience while they passed on their message. “Professor Amadeo wants you to come back every week to help because he likes you.”

I shouldn’t really have been surprised. I found there to be something very creepy about him from the get-go but I was trying not to be judgmental, trying to get a good youth development project off the ground, and trying to be nice. And no, “he likes you” doesn’t sound like that big of a deal but it really upset me. Because, as they pounded into our heads during training, in Peru men and women aren’t really friends. If men and women spend time together they are or will one day be a couple. And I couldn’t want anything less while I’m here in Bolivar.

I told the giggling girls to tell the professor that if I was going to work in the high school, we could only be friends. Actually, that’s how they interpreted it but I really wanted to say something more forceful. Something more like, in a school setting talk like that was inappropriate and involving the students in the whole situation was completely unprofessional. I wanted to be mad but instead I was sad.

I came back into my room, sat on my bed, and cried. Mostly because I didn’t feel like I could go back now. At least not until I got some advice from some more experienced volunteers. I cried too because up until that point I had considered being the first female volunteer in Bolivar as a great strength. I’ve been welcomed by the women, the female students, old ladies, everyone. But here was why it’s a weakness. I’m sure Dave and Mike never had to wonder why a teacher asked for their help. Terrible to think Professor Amadeo asked for mine not because I’m a teacher, not even because I’m a native English speaker, but because I’m a single female.

It was just a terrible and embarrassing feeling to think that this is what he’s talking about with his 13 and 14-year-old students if not also his 16 and 17-year-old ones. A frustrating feeling to think that now I should avoid instead of enjoy the opportunity to help in the high school English classes. A defeating sort of feeling that being a girl makes such a difference. I haven’t entirely given up on working in the high school. I’m gonna wait it out and get a second opinion at least. But for now I’ll have to be content sticking with the little kids and their female teachers.

The Amazing Liz

9. 24. 10

Just yesterday I celebrated my one month anniversary in Bolivar. In honor of that very important day, I thought I would share with you all the novelty, before it wears off completely, of being the first female gringa volunteer in this little town.

Like I’ve said before, Bolivar has had three Peace Corps volunteers before me, all male. And I got the sense from the very start that most people were comfortable with the idea of an outsider. Everyone has something to say about at least one if not all three of the past volunteers and I truly have yet to hear a bad thing about any of them.

I also could see right away the excitement people, especially the women of the community, felt about a girl joining the ranks. - We know what gringos (those are the boys) can do but what about a gringa (that would be me, the girl)?!? – And at least for now, it seems I haven’t disappointed. I am, as the title reads, the Amazing Liz.

What does that mean exactly? It means that most everything I do, and don’t do for that matter, seems to shock and impress. The things I do differently from Bolivarianos cause lots of talk: Liz only drinks tea! And doesn’t drink it with sugar! Liz goes running! Liz is a teacher and speaks English! Liz doesn’t like when there are pig’s teeth in her soup! It’s interesting that the things I do the same as them cause just as much ruckus: Liz knows how to cook! Liz washes her own clothes! Liz is learning how to knit! Liz isn’t scared of getting lost in Chiclayo!

For a while there, I could do no wrong. Any answer to their million questions was the right answer…except when I had no idea what they were asking (an inherent challenge of the language barrier). Which brings me to my favorite questions I’ve been asked about the United States:

- Is there such a thing as cheating boyfriends in the United States?

- Are there black people in the United States?

- There are no poor people there, right?

- Do they all wear long skirts?...(No, I wear long skirts.)

- No one drinks soda?...(No, I don’t drink soda.)

- And my personal favorite and by far the most commonly asked question about the United States: Do people only eat canned food there?

The canned food thing I don’t get. Who told the entire country of Peru that we only eat out of cans? What do we eat out of cans besides tuna and smashed up tomatoes when mom’s making sauce?

Anyway, now that a month has passed here most of these questions are becoming less and less frequent. Now what do they ask me? “Ya estas acostumbrada? O todavia?”…Are you already accustomed to things here? Or not yet? It’s such a funny question. I’m trying, I’m working on it. But no, todavia. It’s hard getting used to being so far from home. It’s hard looking at pig ears hanging in my kitchen every morning. It’s hard to understand my host dad.

But overall, yes, the Amazing Liz is acostumbrandoing herself into the daily routine herc in Bolivar. I’m keeping busy visiting the schools, memorizing the names of a million little kids, eating lots of rice and fried eggs, watching volleyball with my host family, and now knitting a purple poncho. And slowly I’m turning from the Amazing Liz to just plain old Liz, which is surprisingly a very nice feeling.

Maria and La Reina

9. 22.10

I’ve been slacking on my blog updates, keeping notes of things I want to share but never actually writing the posts. It’s happened for a couple of reasons one being that I hate to sit in my room typing away when I should be out meeting people. Another being that some things are just hard to write about.

While I have my computer out and no real plans for the morning, I wanted to mention a home visit I made here not long after I arrived- one of those things that I think will be hard to write about it. I think the visit itself scared me or just bothered me so much at the time that I wasn’t sure I even wanted to share it. Now that three or four weeks have passed however, I still find myself lying in bed thinking about it so I figured I’d give it a shot.

It was a cool afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It had just finished raining, as it does often here in the afternoon, and I was out trekking in the mud with the town’s nurse, Maritza, one of a handful of good friends I’ve made in Bolivar so far. We were off to inquire about baking bread up the hill with one of the two families in Bolivar with a bread oven.

The woman with the oven, Erlinda, I think her name is, was easy to find. We yelled up to her house from the street and she seemed happy to invite me to bake bread with her the following day. She actually ended up flaking on me but that’s not what this story is about. At the time, I was excited about my bread-baking prospects, content to have plans to put in my date book, happy to be walking around town with a local instead of doing it alone. We were on our way back down when a woman named Maria, who had helped us find Erlinda in the first place, invited us in.

Maria is a round lady. Not pleasantly plump. Heavy. And well, kinda dirty. The kind of dirty that makes you uncomfortable when you’re not “accostumbrada” (accustomed) to it. She invited us in in a forceful, ‘you actually don’t have a choice,” kind of way. I let Martiza lead the way, happy to let her do most of the talking.

We walked first into a dark room lit only by the sun coming in through the front door. There on the floor lay a large mattress where an old lady slept soundly wrapped in wool blankets. On deeper into the home, we were invited to sit at a wooden table where the afternoon’s dirty dishes were piled high, small piles of rice and bones surrounded by buzzing flies. Across the dirt floor walked not only a kitten but also chickens, chicks, and ducks.

Water dripped from a faucet into a large cement sink which held more plates and bowls. On the ground around it were small plastic bags filled with trash, a bucket filled with orange peels, cracked egg shells, uneaten hunks of bread. When a kitten climbed up onto the table Maria whacked it to the floor with a force that surprised me. There was something about this whole visit that I found immediately unsettling.

Maria brought out tin mugs full of some desert that I hoped wouldn’t upset my stomach. I ate it slowly, in small bites. When Maria brought out a bowl of meat, I didn’t refuse but decided not to eat it if possible. I tried to be animated, chatting along with Maritza as she inquired about family, work, the upcoming fiestas in town. I followed along the best I could until Maria’s daughter who they call “La Reina” (the Queen) caught my attention.

In quiet mumbles she was asking for something of her mother. “You’re hungry? Want more food?” her mother said loudly in her direction. Maria scooped a bowl of rice piled high with chunks of fried pig. Chicharon. The girl said barely a word. She sat crouched on the bench next to her mother and shoved a brown piece of fatty pig into her mouth. She chewed loudly, smacking her lips, starely aimlessly in front of her.

La Reina is five years old. I’m used to a little younger but I know little kids. Little kids are curious. To me they’re enchanting, they catch your eye and get you smiling about everything and nothing. They ask silly questions and notice every detail. This little girl was so different from the many little kids I’d known. She did none of those things I’m so used to seeing in a five year old.

Instead, she gnawed at her pig and began to moan, quietly at first and then more loudly. So loudly that I wondered why no one else was reacting. Her mother didn’t seem to notice. Maria talked on and on, offering us food and suggesting that I teach a summer preschool program. But I could barely follow the Spanish I find difficult to understand anyway. I was lost in the sound of that moaning. Lost in the almost dead stare la Reina held while she chewed. The cat jumped on the table before her and, without a word, the girl swatted it forcefully, nearly threw it, to the floor just as her mother had done minutes before.

Eventually Maritza and I persuasively said we couldn’t eat another bite. Maria wrapped up our pig, urging us to come visit again soon. We assured her we would, left quickly and hurried down the hill back to the health post. I was glad it was over. And I haven’t been back. But I’ve seen Maria in town, seen her daughter in the preschool. And I can’t see her, la Reina, without thinking of that day, that moaning sound, the cat being tossed to the floor. I don’t like seeing either of them maybe because I know they’ll invite me in again.

There was something about that afternoon, that woman and the way she tended to her daughter like you might tend to a pet. Something animal in the way her daughter herself acted. The way she ate quickly, crouched up on that bench. The way she never spoke. The way she moaned, groaned, licked her lips and fingers. It was unsettling. At the time, I took deep breaths so the tears I could feel behind my eyes didn’t give away my obvious discomfort.

Now looking back on it I wonder where exactly youth development should begin. They say with the young people, with the adolescents, which makes sense to an extent. But what if you begin with the mothers? What if you could change the way parents talk to their children, discipline them, think about them? That child could feel the effects of those changes right into adolescence and long after. Even pass those changes onto their children. Like I’ve said before, I’m still a ways away from starting my own projects here but I can already tell how my day to day experiences are changing my plans, making them better and more realistic. It helps put my two years into perspective. With so much work to do, maybe it isn’t such a long time after all.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs

9.19.10

Tomorrow I will officially have been a Peace Corps volunteer for one month. Pretty amazing. Overall, time has flown -I can’t believe I’ve been in Peru 31/2 months- though a few minor blips have made it difficult. The most major of those blips: my flea/bedbug scare last week.

Not sure if you can really call it a scare. They were definitely here…in my rug, in my bed and, I’m pretty sure, in a couple pairs of my pants. Which led me to bump up my Chiclayo visit and head down on Friday morning where I happily let my mom fill me in on the bedbug epidemic in the US and let her create a comprehensive plan of attack which, if you don’t know Mary Ellen well, is her forte.

I immediately felt better after talking to her though a few tears were shed about how gross the whole thing was and how difficult it was to face alone. You see, once I noticed the jumping fleas in my rug and, upon waking up the next morning, saw the multitude of tiny bites all over my body (Lord, is this gross) I decided to solve the problem myself.

First I cleared out my sheets, bedspread, rug, and many clothes from my room and threw them in a bucket of hot (thank you Dave for sharing your electric teapot) soapy water, scrubbed my floor and bedframe with bleachy and then headed back out to scrub by hand the buggiest items from my bedroom.

After a long day of clean sweeping, I headed upstairs for dinner with the fam. I was in a completely sour, disgruntled mood, tired from a whole day of cleaning and sure that the bugs were still hiding somewhere in my room. I quietly ate my bread and drank my tea. When my host-mom poured a hot bowl of pig head soup for my host-dad I tried not to notice. But when they scooped up half a pig jaw, molars still intact, offered it to me, and then laughed their heads off, I just couldn’t take it.

That might have been funny another day. Today it is more so. But that night it was just one more thing I couldn’t quite handle. So I came back down to a room smelling of bleach and layed down on the plastic of my completely stripped bed and thought, “Get me outta here.”

I went over to visit the nurse and she mace me feel much better. She too had had fleas in her bed when she first moved to Bolivar but she figured them out as, she assured me, I would too.

Together we decided I should head down to buy what I heard as “ReyMax” but ended up being “Raid.” Hehe. She even helped me reserve a spot on the bus…by walking down to the police station to find the big guy who drives the bus on Friday mornings.

Anyway, it was a good trip to Chiclayo though I felt the strain of having spent so much money my first trip down. (Yikes! $10 a day doesn’t get ya too far in the big city!) But now I am happily back in Bolivar feeling good, running everyday, and knitting a purple poncho. I’m feeling busy and, so far, bug free! I’ve flea sprayed everything, wrapped my mattress and pillow in plastic and tied up dirty clothes in plastic bags. So hopefully, thanks to the magical workings of my mom, my room should be relatively flea free for a while…I’ll keep ya posted.