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.