A Glimpse into Reality

So there has been so much that has happened in my life that I am going to write two entries because otherwise it would too much to handle. If you don’t end up reading this one because you only read the one above it I will no be offended. Neither will this entry. So last week we had field based training in Ancash. It was at about 2,000 meters up so to start off the week we had to take altitude medicine. For most of the volunteers the altitude medicine did nothing. No such luck for me. I felt like a spinning space cowboy in outer space. When I described this symptom to the Peace Corps Medical Officers this they got really confused. I’m pretty sure they thought I was on acid. But when I convinced them I wasn’t they said I should lay off the medication. Permanently. So after a case of the spins and my brain being temporarily removed from my body I slept it off on a 12-hour bus ride.

Field Based training was the first time we really got a chance to be in the campo and get a glimpse into what our lives would be like for the next two years. I have to admit one of the more startling moments, besides sucking some serious wind from the altitude while walking uphill, was running into two volunteers and having a serious cultural moment. One of the volunteers said that she had a song stuck in her head and we naturally started to sing “Last Friday Night.” The volunteer stared at us like we were a dead dog. She had never heard of “Last Friday Night”…or California Dreams… maybe not even Katy Perry. Bold move. This proved to be more traumatic than the three hour lecture that started off FBT. Ya know those good old fashioned lecture with no breaks and a dash of fainting. Who doesn’t love those. Thankfully we ended the day ended early when everyone could see we were on the fast track to death. But now away form the trauma and on to the good.

The first activity we did during FBT was house visits. And I would like to say that the health promoters showed up on time to take us on the visits but that would be a bold faced lie. We had to hunt one down. I’m pretty sure she tried to run away from us. And by pretty sure I mean we saw her run away from us and the current volunteer had to do some serious investigation. But it was 4 vs. 1 so we won. So off we went, three trainees, one coordinator and one less than thrilled heath promoters. The house visits themselves were actually significantly more successful than many of my peers. Some people only got to walk up the mountain, back down again and scower around some bushes. Our bandit group got to see 3 houses of health promoters around town.we even got an apple from an organic garden. Which my friend Monica actually contemplated eating, Until we thoroughly convinced her that eating an apple straight out of an organic garden in Peru would be asking for giardia. Or death.

After hunting some people down and investigating their homes, which were in a different level of repair but for the most part pretty classy establishments we move on to contructing cocinas mejorarada and latrinas. For those of you who don’t speak Spanglish that better cooking stoves and latrines, which is part of the healthy lives initiative. This process of constructing in Peru really shed some light on what my life will be like these next two years. It was a cold hard slap in the face with some concrete and a dash of poop. Because it wouldn’t be the Peace Corps without poop. When we went to build the latrina we showed up to build a woman a free latrine. She didn’t have to attend any educational lectures or change any part of her house. She just had to be. Also I should tell you that we were building a latrine for the same health promoter that made a dash for the hills that morning in an effort to avoid us. Anyways, the family had not build the hole necessary for a latrine…and they weren’t home… critical piece of the puzzle. We had to break in to their house to get the supplies to build their latrine. And then when the family finally showed up the mother seemed less than ecstatic about the fact that we were building a latrine for her. The volunteer we were working with, Kaitlyn, said that she was going to steal the latrine if the family didn’t build the hole within the next two days. I wish the best of luck for her if she attempts to move a solid slab of concrete up a mountain. Besides the lack of Peruvian personnel the building was relatively successful and I felt like a real Peace Corps actually building something. And naturally I was somehow dirtier than anyone else working.

Building the cocinas also proved to be an interesting challenge. The family was supposed to build the base of the cocina before we showed up. When we arrived to the house the husband had built the base to a different stove. But kaitlyn was not there to tell us this. We started on the construction anyways, none the wiser. When Kaitlyn came to check on our progress she realized that we were working on a model that a past volunteer had built in her village. The man whose house we were at asked us some questions about the design. All we were left with was you are building a different design so hmmmmmm…..We were at a standstill about what to do so naturally we just kept chugging along. The whole time we were constructing our language facilitators kept trying to encourage the man- who was little but not my little man- to teach us what he was doing. He said was “aqui”- here, and the “what it’s called.” It was very productive. I feel much more informed. I did however get to throw mud and put some bricks down. And manage to get dirtier than the rest. But then we ran into a problem. It was the cocina design that the husband started to build required a lot more material what what we had. There was not enough “special red mud,” iron rods or bricks. Since there is not much we could do about the lack of iron rods or bricks Kaitlyn sent us to work making more “special red mud.” This mud consists of something red, which I did not get the name of, dried donkey poop, straw, water and sand. I told you there is always poop. So we sat there mixing this great concoction of random stuff and poop, making jokes all the while. The first volunteer in Health to poop her pants and socks was in our group. We were relentless. And I got the mud on my neck. How that happened is anyone’s guess. By the end of the day I also managed to have blue paint on my shirt from our youth activities. I’m the definition of a hot mess.

So the whole training went along swimmingly. I feel like I actually know more and could do some semblance of building, or at least facilitate- which is really my goal. And then Sunday came. Sunday was a day that will be remembered by Peace Corps Health 18 for the rest of our lives. We were told that it would be an epic day and for some reason our pants but not our shoes or shirts would get muddy. There would be tears and epicness. What really went down was hugging. The science of hugging. The hippie Peruvian version of a cultish commune hugging. With blindfold. On top of a mountain. So to get to sed hippie commune of doom we had to go up 1,000 meters on a road that left us about an inch from death and had some curves that a bus should never even think of taking. Ever. The view was breath taking. The people did too many drugs in their youth.

The people were two couples, one young and gringo and the other older and Peruvian. And one young girl, who I would love to have a conversation with in 20 years. The hippies were talking about hugging. Allllooottt. We had to do an exercise where we hugged for 10 seconds, looked into each others eyes for 20 seconds and repeated with increasing intervals of time until we reached a 70 second hug. Also we weren’t allowed to laugh. And something about Sigmound Freud. That the fluent speaker didn’t understand. After sed hugging exercise we had to walk down a hill blindfolded. I would say everyone was concerned for my safety. Ill have you know I made it down in one piece. I did try to hug a thorn bush for a while but other than that I was good. I didn’t try to climb back up the mountain like one of my peers. We also got to do the follow the leader exercise where one person leads blindfolded people around. It’s a good exercise. We did it 7 times. And ended in a group hug. Naturally. And then we got to eat with our hands. Blindfolded. Alone. To celebrate the ritual. And paid 8 soles. For the nutrients. That did not include vegetable. That happened. Luckily Juarez- the capital city- compensated for it. There was banana bread, pizza, wine and fresh brewed coffee. Everything you would need.