One thing that I can completely confirm is that beign a Peace Crops Voluunteer is an emotional rollercoaster. The thousands of volunteers before me where not lying on that point. And there can be moments where you feel on top of the world, then completely useless, then blisfully happy for absolutely no reason. One of my prime examples of this is one night I was jsut having a bad night. I had tired to do a lesson plan at the primaria and had failed miserable. The teacher asked me to rpepare a lesson for theater. I made a little play about Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer. since I am currently falta my dictionary I left the word Rudolf and Reindeer in English, thinking it would be fine. That notion turned out to be entirely false. I was told it was not in Spanish so we couldn´t do it. Instead I had to revery to Head Shoulders, knees and toes. Feeling hungry and frusterated all i wanted to do was attempt to use the community phone in my house to call my mother. When I asked my sister for help she pulled the Ï´m changing excuse.¨
I know this excuse, I in face have used it about a million times when I want to avoid someone for a solid 15 minutes. When my sister gave it to me i coudl clearly see though her frosted glass door into the fact that she was talkign to her friend and not changing. A that moment I realized how annoying having a younger sister can be at times. Eventually she emerged to help but it turned out that my plan to call my mother was completely foiled because the community phone only took calling cards...that my tienda sold...and was out of....This realization on ly further exacerbated my feeling of gloom but at that moment i looked up in a hufflepuff. For some unknown reason the stars made everything better. A) they were beautiful and B) they reminded me of how extactic I had been when I discovered I had infact stored all my music from my old computer on my hard drive. I had Mariah Carey´s Christmas album and Nas. Clearly things were looking up
My first few weeks in site have been a lot of adjustment. And lets get serious it will be for a while. In the face fo this adjustment, everyone´s favorite question is are you accostomed yet? IO usually say ¨Si¨o ¨poco a poco.¨Then they move on to the weather adn ask if I am accostomed to the cold. To this question I whip out that I am froma much codler place. It always shocks people athat a place exists that is codler than Huancavelica. It´s called Cleveland, Ohio. What I fail to mention in this banter is that I used to have indoor heating and I escaped to California for the last 4 years becuase I loose feeling my feet in anything below 60*.
After being guided around like a blind dog my first two days in site I decided ot be proactivethe next day. I went to the primaria to ask if I could work with the kids during vacation (December-March). The director said that I could if I planned somethign for the 5 children left during the rainy season. (everyone escapes the rain and goes to the coast, lucky me I get to stay!!). When i got back to my puesto I found out that I was not being proactive enough. My socio promptly marched me back for another meeting to plan classes while there was still school left. In 1 hour I went from having to amke a 12 week lesson plan to having 15 hours of calss a week for 4 classes ages 3-13. My invisible teachign experience and moderate language skills did not prepare me for that. I felt like I was doing Teach For America with more ages, less training and in a different language. Bold Move.
Thankfully except for my Rudolf snafoo the lessons have gone over pretty well. I have taught roughly every child ages 6-13 in Cusicancha ¨Head, Shou0lders Knees and Toes.¨ At mometns I severly regret this decision. On a multiple occasions I ahve been asked to sing the sone in the middle of the street...once while walking int eh rain. As least i can remeber all the words. UNlike the time I was asked to sing Christmas songs and ended up jsut repeating the first verse of Jingle Bells 5 times because I didnt remember any of the words.
For the most part I enjoy having the opportunity to teach children. I ahve to admid 5th and 6th graders are not my favorite but there has only been one day that I wanted to jab my eyes out and kill someone. The first Firday I was teaching I had the 5th and 6th graders in the morning and the 1st and second graders in the afternoon. Everything was going swimmingly. I taught Head Shoulder, Knees and Toes and then we went on to sports. Sports quickly devolved into swimming in the river. When I woke up that morning I had not planned on trecking down to the rive, so of course I wore my Sperry´s. I have decided tha tSperry´s are devil shoes in Huancavelica. definatly meant for boats and not mountians. Since I was traveling to the river with 11 year olds they decided to take a path that only limber little 11 year olds can manage, not fully grown, clumsy me. At points I was literally sitting on the ledge, scooting off and trying to find a place to put my tow. I wanted to hide my clumsiness for as long as possible. This lasted for aabout 10 minutes. There was one drop that looked like a hop skip and a jump. the 11 year old went gracefully and fast, so clearly I could to. But then i fell flat on my ass on a sharp rock. This caused quite a commotion amoungst my students. All of the young girls rushed to my aid. I lied and said it didnt hurt at all...all the while thinking how little they knew of my spastic nature.
for the resot of the trip down to the river I had a circle fo 11 year olds around me to ensure my safety. Often there were 2 girls holding on to my hands for support. Although this gesture was sweet, in reality sometimes it was less than helpful. I didnt have my hands free to grab the rocks for balance and at one point I almost sent a girl plummeting into the river when I slipped. After that she moved to the back to be a guard...probably scared for her own life. When we finally arrive to the river bank the girls insisted that I take photos, so I obliged. At one point one of the girls asked if she could borrow my camera. For about 2 seconds I let her, until I realized that I was letting a tween girl walk of with my camera next to a river. Definiton of disaster. As I tried to slide down a rock to touch the water I suddently felt like I was goign to die. Literally. Probably the yogurt I ahd with unboiled milk straight from the cow. AnwyasyI told the girls i was feeling sick so clearly they asked me if I was pregnant. If i had had water in my mouth at that monent i probably would have spit in their face. As time went on it felt more like I would need a crain to lift me back to the school so I decided that river time was over. Also, I had another charla at noon and no watch and had not perfected my sun time telling skills.
on the way back to the school i resisted the urge to crawl, believing that woudl be unprofessionaly. Luckily moving 15 5th and 6th graders is like moving a heard of ADHD flies so I could walk ahead and sit while they caught up. I don´t know if any of you have had to rock climb in Sperry´s while simultanously feeling like you would vomit on someone´s head, but it is less than pleasant. At one point while i was hugging a rock wall i thought to myself "I should join a rock gym when I get back. If i can do this a rock wall will be a piece of cake." WHen we finally got back i found out that my sun time telling skills were completely off and there was still an hour left of class. I had to deal with tween children for another whole hour. So I did exactly what they tell every teacher not to do. I gave them an art project, sat down, put my head on the desk and jsut stared at them while contemplatning my own death. I didn´t have the energy to pretend. Plus all the kids already knew I was sick from a non-pregnancy related illness so why hide it? Even though I epically failed as a teacher in the last hour of school I still managed to get smiles from the kdis and move on to the next charla...Where we did another art activity so I could sit there and critique instead of moving. I felt like vomiting on a first grader woudl be tactless.
Getting used to the Peruvian school sustem and controlling a classroom has been a challange but nothte bitggest obstacle I ahve faced. I Would sat that the food has been my daily befuddlement. As I ahve mentioned before my mother said that I shoudl but my own stove to cook for myself. In my first two weeks in site I did not really have the option to buy one because the ones avaliabe in my site are twice as expensive and half as effective. I had to wait two weeks until I went to Ica City. The moment I was sitting in my health post contemplating how good the rock pile of dirt looked I knew that I had hit a new low. My average breakfast was a power bar and peanut butter, lunch happened anywhere between 12 and 3 in a multitude of locations. I never knew if I was going to eat with the women of my health post, my sister, my mom when she was in town or another woman in the community. Dinner happened most of the time, Unless my mom decided to not have dinner that night. Or jsut pan and cafe. SUUUPPPEERR filling. As a result I became accostomed to a certian level of starvation. The first day I had 3 square meals I thought I woudl explore from fullness.
Im my starvation mode it only rarely occured to me that I could solve my hunger problem by buying food and eating it. Probably becuase I was delusional from hunger and had no cutlurey. In the rare meoment that it occured to me to prepare my own food I would make something edible in my tuberware and eat it with my swiss army knife. I have to say eating oatmeal and tuna off a sharp swiss army knife is probably the safest thign I ahve ever done. At one moment I was watching a televison show called "It´s Always Sunny in Philladelphia" while eating tuna during a rain storm. During this particular episode a character named Charlie, who may or may not be mentalkly handicapt or just far gone from huffing too much glue, was eating cat food in order to fall asleep. At the same moment I was eating suspicious looking tuna that looked like brown cat food becuase I bought the cheap brand, off of a knife while bundeled in a sleeping bag. I felt like I was probably the classiest thing that ever existed at that moment.
This week I now am a proud owner of a stove, cutlery and bulk food so the hunger is less dire. Not that my stove has gass but it´s there. Progress. Almost every day I have managed to have oatmeal except when we are falta the aqua or the luz. Then I´m just fucked. I have managed to go through 3 lbs of Peanutbutter in three months. Good Lord. And now that we are approaching Christmasn I have to eat Paneton every day. What is paneton you ask... mass produced fruit cake with jelly beans and rasins basically. Less than stellar. Sadly now due to the massive quantity I have ingested and the fact sometimes it is my only meal and always my only desert I have grown to like it. I am the girl that once ate chocolate lava cake for breakfast lunch and dinner.
Even in my state of minor starvation I have managed to explore a bit of my site and visit my site mates. Each of my mates live about an hour and a half hike away. The hiking is beautiful, but I have to admit the hike to the site higher than me felt like I had smoked about 75 cigarettes and eaten a bad crab. At one point I wanted a breather so naturally I got on my knees and folded over, only to find out that I was awkwardly close to poop...on both sides...one was human. The only word I would use to define my first three weeks in site would be classy. Clearly. Only a refined gentile woman would perch down next to poop and have no compelling urfe to move for two minutes.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
The First Days
I was sitting here trying to write about my first three weeks. I realized that it was just far too much to write about so I decided to start at the beginning. After my swearing in a bunch of us spent the night in a hostel in Lima to celebrate our last night as a group; sadly the Huancavelica 4 were the first people to leave. At first our bosses were trying to get us to leave at 6 in the morning. After some negotiation and down right refusing we got our departure time pushed back to 11 in the morning. A much more tolerable time. Thankfully our regional coordinator met us in Ica, our regional capital to take us shopping and drive us up the mountain the next day. When I say that we went shopping I mean we all bought about 2 shopping carts worth of supplies, pillows, one mattress and general things to go into our rooms. It was absurd trying to fit everything in the car. We were in a Rav 4 and there was no room to breathe. With a mattress on top, 6 large suitcases and about 45 small bags we headed up to the mountain. Sadly my kindle died in the process, but we will get to that later.
Anyways I am eternally greatful that our first venture up the mountain was with our regional coordinator for a multitude of reasons. For starters Ica is one of the more sketchy cities in Peru. When you are walking down the street police will redirect you to a different block, tell you to put away your cell phone or ask why you are going to the market. So had we arrived to Ica sans our regional coordinator I would have not had a clue where to begin my shopping and probably would have been robbed on the cab ride home. and then getting from Ica City to Cusicancha is a rather precarious process. You have to go on a bus to a place called San Celmente, basically get off on the side of the highway, get into a collective up to Huayatara (the closest city to Cusicancha) and hope that when you arrive before 2 that the combi up the hill didn’t decide to leave early when it was full. The long and short of this point is all of us would probably have become stranded, lost, robbed and left on the side of the highway somewhere between Ica and Huancavelica.
Our first stop up was dropping of Christine, one of my fellow Huancavelicans, because she lives on a different road than the rest of the volunteers. Upon dropping off Christine we made a magical discovery that there was a road between Christine’s site and mine. Upon traveling on this road I realized that there was a verrry loose interpretation of the word “road” when describing what was in between my site and Christine. The road was more precarious than any other rad that I had been on to date, but don’t worry I now have been on worse. It really seemed more like a path that a series of 4 wheel vehicles had carved out. There were several times that we had to stop to remove the rocks that were strewn in the middle of the road. I thought it would be a perfect time to sleep because now there was less stuff and I could actually move my right arm, this notion lasted for about 10 seconds. The potholes and divots in the road made it down right impossible to do anything besides clothes your eyes and focus on not vomiting. But eventually we made it to Cusicancha and I am happy to report it was all in one piece.
I had no idea what to expect when I got back. I was arriving a day earlier than I told everyone. I didn’t know if I should expect a welcome ceremony of some kind or I would just be sitting staring off in space letting reality sinking in. I didn’t have a welcome ceremony of any sort but I am happy to report I did not sit by my lonesome staring off into space. My mother met me with a smile, and then said are you building your won kitchen? Straight to the point on that one. I was taken aback a little but she had mentioned it in the past so I couldn’t really be all that startled. When I went to open my room the obstitrice, Daysey, and enfermera, Felly, from my health post swooped in and basically took control of my life. I had been thinking of how to arrange my room but apparently my thoughts were all wrong. For one I thought that I would have to build my own table for the kitchen I had to put in my room. That notion turned out to be entirely false. There was a random table sitting outside my room and Daysey promptly proceeded to wipe in off and drag it into my room. Then Daysey and Felly stood there for a while discussion how my room would be arranged. I attempted to put in my two sense every now and then but rally all I ended up doing was moving my suitcases from one en of the room to another and being told to pick up furniture and rearrange it.
Although it was a little overwhelming to have two 30 year old women deciding my life for me I have to say it was quite helpful to not have to make any decisions upon my arrival and have y room arranged before I even sat down. After rearranging my room entirely and having a brief moment to sit on my bed I was beckoned up to Dayseys room for dinner. A nutritious well rounded dinner of popcorn. Accompanied with a movie…of Daysey’s wedding. Absolutely not what I expected to do on my first night in site.
The next day I woke up without a clue what to do so I headed over to the health post because I didn’t have any other ideas of what to do to fill my time. On my way over to the health post my path was diverted. Daysey and Felly asked me if I was walking down the mountain to where there was cell phone service. I in fact was not at all. I had only been in site for one day, cell phone service was the last thing I was thinking about. I didn’t even have my cell phone on me. But then I was told “ven” so I realized that I had little to no choice in the matter, I was going to go make a call. I had to run up to my room and locate my phone, which I might add was an epically difficult task. I am a champion at loosing phones. I probably loose my phone once if not 50 times a day in the states and I always call my phone in order to find it. Inevitably it’s on top of the refrigerator, in the couch or in some random corner under a pile of stuff.
Now here in Cusicancha I do not have the option of calling my phone when I loose it, I just have to find it. and often I haven’t even touched my phone for several days so my memory of where it could be is basically non-existent. Luckily, I was successful in finding it this time and bajared the mountain to make a call.Calling is a rather precarious feat because you have to walk down the mountain about 30 minutes sit on a rock with service and twist your body to maintain service. At one point my neck hurt so I thought I am just going to sit up for a moment. I moved my neck…and lost service…and had to return to my contorted position. That quickly diminished my desire to maintain long phone conversations or call a multitude of people.
When we went back up the mountain it was close to lunchtime. I was sitting there perplexed in the health post wondering where on earth I would eat lunch since my mom was out of town and my sister was in school. When I was lost in thought Daysey tapped me on the arm and said we are going to eat lunch in my room, go buy a pop. For the umpteenth time I was being told what to do and just following directions blindly, but I was happy to be fed. Monday’s lunch was also accompanied with a movie, but this time it was TheMummy. A movie that I haven’t even thought of in about 8 years. I have to say that watching the movie with Felly was one of the more fantastic experiences of my life because everytime something dramatic would happen, which is about every 5 minutes, felly should shout out “Daysey, Daysey, MIRA!” Even if Daysey was clearly watching there was an arm grab, a comment on how scary it was and a shout. I also had to translate English into Spanish because at random moments the movie had Arabic lines and the subtitiles were in English. I didn’t even realize that the Arabic wasn’t Spanish until Daysey asked me to translate. That was when I realized no one in the room could understand the language being spoken, not just me. and that is probably the first and only time I will confuse Arabic and Spanish.
Anyways I am eternally greatful that our first venture up the mountain was with our regional coordinator for a multitude of reasons. For starters Ica is one of the more sketchy cities in Peru. When you are walking down the street police will redirect you to a different block, tell you to put away your cell phone or ask why you are going to the market. So had we arrived to Ica sans our regional coordinator I would have not had a clue where to begin my shopping and probably would have been robbed on the cab ride home. and then getting from Ica City to Cusicancha is a rather precarious process. You have to go on a bus to a place called San Celmente, basically get off on the side of the highway, get into a collective up to Huayatara (the closest city to Cusicancha) and hope that when you arrive before 2 that the combi up the hill didn’t decide to leave early when it was full. The long and short of this point is all of us would probably have become stranded, lost, robbed and left on the side of the highway somewhere between Ica and Huancavelica.
Our first stop up was dropping of Christine, one of my fellow Huancavelicans, because she lives on a different road than the rest of the volunteers. Upon dropping off Christine we made a magical discovery that there was a road between Christine’s site and mine. Upon traveling on this road I realized that there was a verrry loose interpretation of the word “road” when describing what was in between my site and Christine. The road was more precarious than any other rad that I had been on to date, but don’t worry I now have been on worse. It really seemed more like a path that a series of 4 wheel vehicles had carved out. There were several times that we had to stop to remove the rocks that were strewn in the middle of the road. I thought it would be a perfect time to sleep because now there was less stuff and I could actually move my right arm, this notion lasted for about 10 seconds. The potholes and divots in the road made it down right impossible to do anything besides clothes your eyes and focus on not vomiting. But eventually we made it to Cusicancha and I am happy to report it was all in one piece.
I had no idea what to expect when I got back. I was arriving a day earlier than I told everyone. I didn’t know if I should expect a welcome ceremony of some kind or I would just be sitting staring off in space letting reality sinking in. I didn’t have a welcome ceremony of any sort but I am happy to report I did not sit by my lonesome staring off into space. My mother met me with a smile, and then said are you building your won kitchen? Straight to the point on that one. I was taken aback a little but she had mentioned it in the past so I couldn’t really be all that startled. When I went to open my room the obstitrice, Daysey, and enfermera, Felly, from my health post swooped in and basically took control of my life. I had been thinking of how to arrange my room but apparently my thoughts were all wrong. For one I thought that I would have to build my own table for the kitchen I had to put in my room. That notion turned out to be entirely false. There was a random table sitting outside my room and Daysey promptly proceeded to wipe in off and drag it into my room. Then Daysey and Felly stood there for a while discussion how my room would be arranged. I attempted to put in my two sense every now and then but rally all I ended up doing was moving my suitcases from one en of the room to another and being told to pick up furniture and rearrange it.
Although it was a little overwhelming to have two 30 year old women deciding my life for me I have to say it was quite helpful to not have to make any decisions upon my arrival and have y room arranged before I even sat down. After rearranging my room entirely and having a brief moment to sit on my bed I was beckoned up to Dayseys room for dinner. A nutritious well rounded dinner of popcorn. Accompanied with a movie…of Daysey’s wedding. Absolutely not what I expected to do on my first night in site.
The next day I woke up without a clue what to do so I headed over to the health post because I didn’t have any other ideas of what to do to fill my time. On my way over to the health post my path was diverted. Daysey and Felly asked me if I was walking down the mountain to where there was cell phone service. I in fact was not at all. I had only been in site for one day, cell phone service was the last thing I was thinking about. I didn’t even have my cell phone on me. But then I was told “ven” so I realized that I had little to no choice in the matter, I was going to go make a call. I had to run up to my room and locate my phone, which I might add was an epically difficult task. I am a champion at loosing phones. I probably loose my phone once if not 50 times a day in the states and I always call my phone in order to find it. Inevitably it’s on top of the refrigerator, in the couch or in some random corner under a pile of stuff.
Now here in Cusicancha I do not have the option of calling my phone when I loose it, I just have to find it. and often I haven’t even touched my phone for several days so my memory of where it could be is basically non-existent. Luckily, I was successful in finding it this time and bajared the mountain to make a call.Calling is a rather precarious feat because you have to walk down the mountain about 30 minutes sit on a rock with service and twist your body to maintain service. At one point my neck hurt so I thought I am just going to sit up for a moment. I moved my neck…and lost service…and had to return to my contorted position. That quickly diminished my desire to maintain long phone conversations or call a multitude of people.
When we went back up the mountain it was close to lunchtime. I was sitting there perplexed in the health post wondering where on earth I would eat lunch since my mom was out of town and my sister was in school. When I was lost in thought Daysey tapped me on the arm and said we are going to eat lunch in my room, go buy a pop. For the umpteenth time I was being told what to do and just following directions blindly, but I was happy to be fed. Monday’s lunch was also accompanied with a movie, but this time it was TheMummy. A movie that I haven’t even thought of in about 8 years. I have to say that watching the movie with Felly was one of the more fantastic experiences of my life because everytime something dramatic would happen, which is about every 5 minutes, felly should shout out “Daysey, Daysey, MIRA!” Even if Daysey was clearly watching there was an arm grab, a comment on how scary it was and a shout. I also had to translate English into Spanish because at random moments the movie had Arabic lines and the subtitiles were in English. I didn’t even realize that the Arabic wasn’t Spanish until Daysey asked me to translate. That was when I realized no one in the room could understand the language being spoken, not just me. and that is probably the first and only time I will confuse Arabic and Spanish.
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