Rain Rain Rain

So it’s the rainy season. I’m sure you could guess that by my witty and complex title. Anyways I’m glad that the rainy season has actually started to produce rain because in January there was a concerning lack of rain and many people were joking about starvation, having to sell off animals and lack of papas crop. Happy cuddly jokes. The rain comes normally in the afternoon. Some days the whether even tricks you into thinking that it will be nice with sunshine and joy in the morning and then a foreboding grey mist around 1 pm. Some days it is just a torrential down pour the whole day. On those days it’s a real struggle to motivate out of your room. Especially because when someone sees you outside they remind you of the fun fact that you are in fact getting wet. I have figured out however that I am taking one long ass vacation next year in the end of February.

Let me describe late February here for you. It is like Cleveland March, pre-global warming, with about 500,000 less people. If any of you haven’t been fortunate enough to experience a Cleveland marzo imagine a gray land, filled with drizzles and clouds, which tries to be warm sometimes, but inevitably fails and pours rain. Now in Cleveland it sucks because all you want is spring and hailstorms keep knocking lacrosse goals on your head but in Cuiscancha it is just down right depressing. Some days I would only really see 1 or 2 people on the street because everyone else vacated to the coast.

So in this daunting of rainy seasons where I wander around in 5 sweaters, uggs, 2 pants, 2 socks, scarf, hat and glove. Every day I think I have never been this cold in my life. Normally I mutter this under my breath and then remember that I in fact said this exact same statement yesterday. Somehow my retroactive amnesia made me forget that I am slowly freezing to death. I am never moving to Serbia. Besides reading the Hunger Games and watching Harry Potter 78 times I have decided to start teaching English with the jovenes of my community. I have learned that teaching English, or a class of any sort can be really fun and rewarding but it can also make you want to blow your brains out.

I tired to have vacaciones clases to teach English. But my classes would range from 2-12 boys ages 4-12 and my stomach was inevitably doing a dance with the devil. As much as I would like to believe I am Mother Teresa and taught them all English and inspired their young minds there were several days I just wanted to punch them all in the face. I should not be a kindergarten teacher. Ever. Lesson learned. When I had to drag a 4 year old off the table he was crawling across to bogard all the blue colored pencils I knew it was not meant to be.

I also am never having more than 3 children because if they are all boys one may end up at the bottom of a lake one day. Usually my vacaciones clases would dissolve into paper airplanes and coloring because that was the only thing that could hold their attention for more than 15 minutes. Fun fact I now know how to make a very good paper airplane. Also I am sure the municipality expected paper airplanes to come flying out of their building when I asked to use the auditorium. My mother would be so proud of the work I have accomplished in Peru. Now a hoard of boys knows the colors and the word “airplane” in ingles.

After my somewhat epic fail of vacaciones clases I read The Hunger Games trilogy in tree days. That’s the thing about the Peace Corps you can have a day where you do 5 encuestas, plan a charla, do an English class, go for a run. And you can have days where you read the entire Hunger Games trilogy without batting an eye. There are days where you feel super productive an on top of thins and others where you wonder what on earth you are really doing here. I must admit I was having a very befuddling day and feeling like I was doing absolutely nothing and failing at my plans, I wanted to have English clases for adults but was slowly losing all my motivation. Well this day I cried in the most melodramatic fashion to a Snow Patrol song. It was to the point where I was mocking myself because I was so perfectly timed to the music I felt like I should be in a movie. And then of couse as I sat down I snapped my headphones out of my ear as per usual, and snapped myself out of it. My clumsiness never fails to amaze me. On an unrelated note I went surfing the other day and I now understand why my mother never let me surf. Sometimes I really wonder how I’m still alive.

Yesterday I went for a run with my doctor and enfermera. On the run there is a tiny waterfall in the road. Normally I just trot right through the water and keep on going. I actually never realized that I had another option. When I was with my puesto on the other hand I realized that the bridge to nowhere was actually not just a random bridge in the sky it was a bridge over the waterfall. We climbed up a not so defined path and walked over a slick wood bridge with no handrails over a gushing waterfall. I figured that this would be a bad time to tell them that I am in fact afraid of ledges, and kind of afraid of heights. And generally afraid of walking on slick wood. I just don’t have that kind of walking skill. I think something happened in my development, I learned how to crawl, then walk, but some how never managed to learn how to walk in a straight line or not stumble over my own feet. One of my friends commented that he loves my walking style because it is completely arbitrary. Try walking next to me…it can be dangerous because I generally walk in a soft zigzag rather than straight forward. And sometimes walking can lead to stitches. You just never know with me.

Another fun thing I did in the rainy season was accidently almost adopting a dog-named Charlie. The day started with major hopes of productivity. But when I tried to work but the light was gone and inevitably the day that the light is gone is the day that you have let your computer completely die the night before. And then se fue the agua tambien. And of course the day that the water goes away is the day that you don’t guard any water. Don’t get me wrong last night I thought I should defiantly guardar water in case there wasn’t any the next day. Low and behold there wasn’t. Right after I had cooked myself some applesauce for breakfast. I just wanted to make sure that the dishes were good and dirty apparently. At this point I ceased my hopes of attempting to do any work.

During lunch there was no light so my host mom accidently walked in on me in the bathroom and then during dinner I somehow managed to step into the pot of lentils from lunch. She had quite a hoot from that one. What can I say I have got skill. On my way home from lunch I saw a pile of puppies and as a gut reaction I said they are so cute I want one. The response I got was absolutely not what I expected. One of my nurses said then go and take one. I’m used to dogs being owned by people and sold, not just randomly wandering ready for the taking. I picked up a dog and played with him. Even went so far as to name him Charlie. The love affair lasted about a day; until I realized my room is about the size of a shoebox and I am not even 100% sure I am allowed to have dogs in my room. Sadly I returned him to his mother, realizing he would inevitably grow and there was a high probability he would give me flees. I love dogs, but I hate fleas more.

Also now that my English language skills are slowly slipping away into the world of Spanglish I use phrases like guard water or I’m advancing. Who guards water r advances? But honestly I can’t think of a proper English synonym. So it’s guard water. Deal with it.

Anyways my awkward Snow Patrol, lack of people induced depression resided the first week of March when people started to return. Fortunately for me the girl who I had taught Christmas songs to in December returned, with the memory of an elephant begging me to sing Christmas songs for her. That and Justin Beiber, which I vehemently denied knowing. Anyways when I was washing my clothes in the river, which may or may not be filled with cow poop, my young little friend bombarded me with song requests. There is nothing like singing Christmas songs while hand washing your towel in a river to really make you appreciate a washing machine. She then preceded to prostatlize me, call me fat (fairly typical of Peruvian society), pick up my granny panties and ogle at their enormous size, and call me ugly when I took off my glasses. I have to admit I contemplated drowning her until she gave me a baked ava (kinda like a lima bean).

Two nights before I was set to leave for a Peace Corps training in La Libertad my health post had a unsa to celebrate the opening of the new Casa Materna. A Unsa is a party that revolved around a tree, literally. During the day the celebrants find a eucalyptus tree and chop it down. Then at night fall there is a band that plays songs that go on for about 15 minutes and all sound shockingly similar while everyone dances around a tree and slowly chops it down. Hypothetically a man and woman are supposed to partner up and stay together the whole night. Unless you are crafty and manage to ditch you far too drunk, mildly creepy partner. Anyways there is dancing the whole night until the tree falls over. And there is also an excessive amount of talc and baby powder. During the festivities the men and women are fighting by throwing baby powder on each other. Needless to say by the end of the night I was covered with a nice layer od mud and baby powder.

At one point I tried to chase after one of my socios Pablo, an enfermera, at the health post. He went off sprinting in the other direction. His run looked so much like Michael Cera in Super Bad that I had to hold together my laughter. There is something about a perfectly upright run with flooding pants that just gets me. anywyas as we went off running I was of course in Uggs, not the best running in mud shoes. Actually I would highly recommend against ever trying it. I was also wearing a bandeau, which is like a strapless sports bra with -0 support. So as you can see I was not equipt to go running after a tiny little sprinting man. When I was about to enter the plaza my bandeau fell down so I had to simultaneously try to run without slipping on the mud, hold a fistful of baby powder and button my shirt so I didn’t flash my mayor. As I tried to turn a corner there was just too much going on and I almost ate shit on concrete. At that moment I realized it was probably better to hold on to the light post to prevent falling face first than continue my futile chase. I would like to say I did successfully put a fistful of baby powder on Pablo’s face, at a moment that required far less sprinting.

So this is a general summary of what my life was like in February. Now I am doing planning and trying to figure out meeting to make real moves towards projects.