Agricultural Engineers along with local farmers at the Vivero (specific crop small farm) that we are starting in Matibamba for coffee and making some reforestation of cyprus and pine trees.
King Kongs last moments before the cyanide that took him out of his 'misery'
Cute new puppies!!! I WANT one.
Yum Yum, looks like we were hungry. All thats left of our huge chanchito by noon on a saturday.(this head later sat on a table right outside my door for 2 days giving me the utter creeps)
Getting ready for Carnaval!
A woman making a blanket on the walk up to Huaychoc.
Sometimes I feel like E.T. Home sweet home.
Cooking Chicken in Chota...I successfully gutted the thing.
So since it's been so long and we all know I'm prone to ramble I thought I'd restrict myself to some bullet points about this month :)
One evening in Chota, Annie and I decided we would make dinner and simultaneously decided that a stir fry of nothing but vegetables would be all we need. We chopped up onion, tomato, cilantro, carrots and stir fried them up with some soya sauce. Then ate them with saltines. I think my body might have gone into shock from the nutrients...what, your not feeding me rice today?!
Got to see two more births at the health center...one for a fifteen year old girl having her first child and the other for a mother of 4 already. After the older woman gave birth her family wiped the babies body for what they called its 'fat...' and rubbed the white substance all over the womans face. I got two explanations...luck and to get rid of stress lines brought on by birth.
Had several competitions with my host brother (he's six) on who could eat their lentils fastest....I lost.
Attended a ceremony celebrating the opening of a small irrigation system for several chackras (farms) in Paccha's lower zone. Was handed a bat type object, someone pointed to what looked like a bottle in a bag....after a few seconds I realized I was in charge of breaking the bottle to celebrate while simultaneously dodging the makeshift fireworks being set off literally half a foot away! It was a really nice ceremony though...we walked through the farms to see how the system worked, then went to the school where a teacher in town told a poem he had written about the life of a campesino (and I understood some of it..), then one of the girls in town who attends my English class sang a song in thanks, and there was lots of dancing....including me dancing with the alcalde (mayor) who is really funny to dance with, though not nearly as funny when he's perpetually late or doesn't show up at all.
Praying for Cipro to kick in as I fought off the last bit of god knows what during my visit to Annie's site in San Juan....she has not one, but twooo, latrines. It may look easy but its not.
The carretera out to Paccha has been blocked by milk trucks getting stuck in the overrun river a lot, there's also been mudslides in the carretera, but this is all 'normal' for rainy season so when I've been hearing about those I just lay low, stay at site, and hope they get it cleared out..which they've been doing pretty quickly it seems. Cabin fever hasn't gotten the worst of me yet anyway.
In terms of 'la chamba' or 'work' I'm currently focusing on going to communities with an agricultural engineer to 1)learn more about biohuertos and what can grow in Paccha and 2) get to know more communities. It's been great so far, and we are going back up to Unigan this coming wednesday. I'm thinking I'll try talk to the authorities up there to see if theres a time I can come back to do a nutrition session with the mothers up there. In terms of the health post, lots of my so called co workers are MIA and definitely don't have health promotion on their minds but do like to chat about me behind my back to my host mom, so putting aside the high level of frustration I had earlier this week ( I really miss Dr Stalin!), I'm going to try and be more proactive with them...I'm just going to TELL them what I'm doing for health promotion and focus on teaching the health promotors, parteras (local midwifes with basically no training, but who are used way more often than the health post) who seem to have more interest, more time, and more relevancy to the women I have the goal of working with.
Finished my English class for the 7-12 year olds...lots of lessons learned. For example, don't try to teach kids another language if they are just starting to read. But overall, it went well, the 12 years olds came a way remembering a lot and it was fun for me and now a lot of the kids know me at site. I'm going to try work with the secondary school to supplement there English classes with a youth group some evenings a week where we review what they've been learning in their school classes. My application to attend an English teaching training in Lima for me and one of the teachers from the high school went through so I'm really hoping that pans out and it would be in the middle of March for a few days. I won't lie, I'm excited for the training, but the idea of going to Lima even if just for a few days is a bit enticing as well.
Justin, the previous volunteer, set up a small library in Paccha through a program in Peru that partners with Peace Corps called PROMOLIBRO and I'm currently re-doing the paperwork to try and get our books all renewed so we can keep the library and get some additional books and resources. It's going to involve some tracking people down and paperwork so wish me luck. I also think that I'll have my youth group/language group meet in the library to start using it more...I just don't think that the idea of the library has really sunck in with people in Paccha yet. I saw this article though and this this guy is fabulous!!!Read it :)
http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/02/25/cnnheroes.soriano/index.html
New engineers in town working on rural electrification requested to meet with me. Had a good chat about how I don't have mobility and they invited me to use theirs when they go to the various communities.
*this next part is a bit of a vent, sorry*
The head engineer is one of those would be hard to read if we were talking English but we aren't so its way harder kind of people. Is he really a total jerk? Are his jokes just really terrible? Am I just not capable of appreciating sarcasm in Spanish...the answers all seem to point to yes. He's only been around a week and will be around a lot longer so I need to find a way to stay sane around him...example: he had my family wake me up at 630 AM the other day because the night before I had casually mentioned that I look for a car to leave Paccha "AROUND" 6 am. When I emerged fully perturbed from my bedroom he had the audacity to tell me I'm acting like I'm on the Peruvian hour. After the week I had with the health center I had to swallow all the snappiness I probably wouldn't have been even able to communicate and calmly explain that I was leaving Paccha on my own time, hadn't slept well, and had decided to leave later. AND that if he had set up an exact time with me I would have been punctual. Pssht. Then he asked to borrow my camera???!?!?!?!?
Carnaval! Was amazing, tons of fun...lots of getting completely mauled with gutter water and other disgusting and unidentifiable substances. We strode through the streets, water guns, baloons, and ugly clothing ready to go following some Peruvians playing the drums. Lots of large groups emerged following different drummers and when you would clash in the streets the exchange of dirty water and liquids began...as Annie put it "its like a cross between gangs of new york and west side story' and Barbara chimed in with 'this is how governments get overthrown.' Haha, it was a good time. On a side note, we got a good dose of coke zero and sadly I'm not sure I like it anymore, but that will change upon reentry to the states I'm sure! I also got to see Avatar since we hit up our black market DVD buddy Juan. Stocked up on some DVDS, ate Chifa (peruvian chinese food), danced, and had an all around good weekend. I also roomied with a girl who brought several different colored bras with her AND perfume and thought to myself that there IS someone in Peace Corps who is more of a priss than I am! muhahaha!
Me with Barbs and Annie...
Destroyal! With the Cajamarca crew and our new addition, Nate. The only one, according to our volunteer leader who has a site prettier than mine :P
