Monday, October 29, 2012

The 50th Anniversary

This year was the 50th anniversary of my town and in light of that fact there was a weeklong party. Well not really in light of that fact, because every year there is a weeklong party to celebrate, this year they just did it for the 50th time. A town anniversary is the American equivalent to a cities centennial celebration, but unlike America, Peru celebrates it every year. Obviously. Really America you should upgrade your block party. The anniversary is a time when all the people who live in the annexes or have left Cusicancha for the coast to come back and remember la tierra de sus padres.

To give you a chronogram of events the first day, the day before the actual towns anniversary is the dia centera. This day starts with a 10k that many people participate in but few actually finish. There is a bus that travels behind everyone and picks up the lagers, slow runners and those who generally want to quit before you have to climb up about 300 meters of switchbacks.

I decided to do sed 10k, but I’ll admit in the morning I thought I was running an 8k. a lot of times during the town anniversary marathons the women run 8 k and the men run 10k. Just to make things difficult we actually ran a 10k. Awesome. Don’t get me wrong I had no intentions that I would win the marathon against 18year olds that were used to walking 12k up and down from the annexes on a semi-daily basis. I decided that I wanted to finish for the sheer sake of saying that I did. I ran successfully for about 6 km and then the pure subida started. When the bus passed me, everyone was shocked that I did not want to get on. Around kilometer 8 I began to seriously regret the decision not to but there was nothing I could do at that point.

Eventually I made it into Cusicancha and pretty much wanted to kill myself at this point.

Since it is Peru I was obviously handed a bubblegum soda and stuck in a 30-minute conversation explaining who I was and then told to eat a bowl of Patasca- soup with corn and lamb. Exactly what I wanted at that moment. Although I will admit the Patasca was better than I thought it would be for the moment. when I finally made my escape I went home to contemplate my impending death and bucket bathe. I think I came in either 3rd or 4th by the sheer fact that I was one of only 3 or 4 girls to finish the race. I did tell my community I would come in dead last. At least I didn’t lie.

The rest of that day there were events like a food fair with the mothers of JUNTOS preparing typical dished from the region, football games, and the christening of the new bull-fighting ring. Oh yeah I forgot to tell you my municipality dropped S/.3,000 on a new bull-fighting ring for the anniversary. Because that’s a logical thing to spend your money on. Somehow at the opening ceremonies my site mate, Alli, and I became madrinas (godmothers) of the bull-fighting ring. I don’t know how being a broke volunteer qualifies you to be a godmother of anything but I did have the giant white stranger thing going for me I guess.

As part of being a madrina of the ring we had to participate in the christening. The only christening I had any familiarity with was with boats where you crack a bottle of champagne on it before you set sail. Here there were bottles of champagne but the cracking part was not as easy. Instead of just cracking it on the side of the ring, three bottles were hung over the bill entrance and we had to throw rocks at the bottles until they broke. Now I don’t know if any of you have seen me throw but I am the reason there is a stereotype that girls cant throw.

After the bottles were successfully broken, not by me, I found myself in a conversation with a man who looked far fashionable to be from my site. There is one little fun fact I forgot to tell you. Randomly the man who own Full-Color textiles, a textile company that works globally with companies like Victoria Secret, Ambercrombie, Life is Good and Gap, and who also run Topy-Top (the Peruvian cross between Gap and Forever 21) was born in one of my annexes. He is quite a philanthropic man, especially when it comes to parties, and who remembers where he was born, comes with a POSSY of family and friends. That first day of the fiesta my site suddenly was filled with a heard of loaded Limenios. Quite a contrast and change of dynamic. Instead of trying to stealthy avoid drinking too much quemadito- home brewed liquor; I was stealthy trying to figure out how to avoid drinking too much top shelf whiskey and pisco. According to stories I may have turned down giving my phone number to one of the wealthiest men in Peru. If only he hadn’t come up to my boobs maybe we would have had a future together.

There was suddenly what seemed like a million people in my site and a giant concert. I must admit I did not make it as long as I would have liked into the night due to my legs being moderately in a state of struggle and having to avoid large groups of drunk, single men. At one point a tiny little chauffer asked his boss for permission to dance with me. I suddenly felt like I was dealing with the mob and I had some how been claimed without my knowledge. It was odd to say the least. I’m not all that said that I didn’t make it forever into the night because around 5 am a kid got smashed in the face with a bottle.

The second day of the fiesta generally centralized around the parade through the plaza and events with the schools. Since the schools were still in strike during the anniversary the desfile was much smaller than normal. Also since it was the 50th anniversary there was much more talking about he past, present and future before the parade actually began. We had time to go get lunch in between the parade participants were told to line up and when we started. And this was not a long parade; it was one block, through the plaza. Anyways Peru was playing Uruguay this pay so needless to say the communities attention as less than focused on the parade.

The second night was really nothing to write home about. I’m pretty sure that everyone had gone out an hour longer than they should have the night before and the majority of the Limenios returned to the coast.

The third and final day of the fiesta my town indulged in some good old-fashioned bull fighting. Every other corrida de los torros I had seen at a town anniversary to this point had basically been bulls on a soccer field and drunk men waving their jackets at them hoping not to get stomped in the face. Sadly they were not always so lucky. Since we now had a new, classy, christened ring we brought in actual bullfighters from Lima for a real bull-fighting show. As I was walking into the ring one of the bullfighters (matadors) shouted something at me, but I didn’t really think anything of it. I have become accustomed to a certain amount of catcalls.

This particular matador decided that he was going to lay his moves on me during the bullfight in front of my entire town. At the beginning of the fight he handed me his phone to guard. I was seriously wondering why I matador even had his phone with him at such a time and why he would trust some random person with it. Especially considering it was a smart phone and the longer you know me the less you will trust me to be within 50 feet of your smart phone. Either way I took it because I didn’t really know what else to do at that moment.

Further into the fight the matador handed me his hat, which I understood about as much as him giving me his phone. Under the provocation of my site mate I put it on for a photo. Really how many times would I be handed a matadors hat in the middle of a bullfight. While this made for a great picture, it also solidified in my health posts mind that the matador was in love with me and I with him. You know I love my men, short and in tight, sequenced, blue and gold suits.

To continue laying down his game the matador decided that I should take photos for him. Initially he asked me if I had a camera, which I did but had run out of batteries, then he resorted I should use his phone. He was clearly trying to force us to meet up after the fight to give him the photos. Not likely. Anyways since his phone was a smart phone he had to give me the password. It was some made up Spanish word that I could not understand so my social had to help me. She had never had a touch phone and I hadn’t seen one in so long my fingers might as well have been sausage so needless to say it took a while to figure it out. Now I could crack the code to an awkwardly talking phone with a background of the matador leaning up against a shiny red Suzuki. Every girls dream.

At one point in the fight the matador got rammed in the ass by a bull and flung against the wall. He will now forever have that moment on video, which will inevitably be the highlight of his life. After taking a moment to recuperate he came over to where I was sitting. By this point my health post was practically planning our wedding and every time he came over I felt like I was in 7th grade. I simply thought he was coming over to get his phone and hat, which would be the logical thing but things are never that simple. I did manage to hand his things back to him but I also agreed to something. APPARENTLY he asked me if I was a nurse, to which I replied yes. He followed up by asking if he came to the health post later would I cure his ass, which I also replied yes. This was one of those moments where I was only half listening, not really understanding what he was saying and simply saying si to say something. My health post ran with this like they had just struck gold.

The rest of the night I was called the matadora. I also realized that I had been sititng on the opposite end of stadium seating and my entire town had seen the matador hit on me and were all convinced I was in love with him. Not the case, but there was little room for argument.

In the night we had a “Unsa,” which is a party where you basically dance around a tree and chop it until the tree falls down. Whoever chops down the tree is in charge of supplying the tree for the next year. During the unsa we danced a chopped and I finally figured out that I had

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Traveling in the Third World

Traveling here is not necessarily the easiest thing that I have ever done in my entire life. But I feel like that is to be expected since I am in the Peace Corps and all, but I just feel like it is time to paint a picture of my traveling patterns. The reason I feel it is necessary now is because when my mother came to visit we went to my site and she asked me if I thought we were going to the end of the world. She was pretty sure we were traveling to another country by the time we reached my site. I on the other hand am so used to it that I barely think about the fact that it is 6 hours from my site to my regional capital. That would be like if you lived in Los Angeles and had to drive up to San Francisco every time you wanted to check your mail or go out dancing. Don’t worry there is a grocery store only 4 hours away from me. Easy peezy.

To get from my regional capital to my site I have to leave Ica either real early in the morning (around 7 am) or in the afternoon to catch a bus to a place called San Clemente in Pisco to get a collectivo (car or mini-van filled with people) to make my way up to my provincial capital Huayatara. The collectivos are generally reliable except for the random times where there isn’t a car to be found. Then you get to sit there in a sketchy part of Pisco and hope you don’t get robbed until a car shows up. Once I was lucky enough to wait around for an hour and a half for a car. Once a car came it did a little fake out where the driver said “I’ll take you up,” we loaded the car, then he changed his mind, we got out only to get in the exact same car 30 minutes later.

As we were tranquilly headed up, about half way there, we popped a tire. When you pop a tire in Peru unless you have a spare or are fortunate enough to pop it near a well equip car shop you generally do some bojankedy thing to the tire to make it last just long enough to get somewhere else. This lovely turn of events meant that we had to head an hour in the opposite direction, back to San Clemente to hop in another car to make it up to Huayatara. What should have been a 2 hour trip turned into a 6 hour trip. Always my favorite kind of trip.

Once you successfully make it up to Huayatara depending on the hour you have to wait for one of the two combis (really odd cross between a bus and a mini-van that fit about 15 people comfortably, 25 when there is lots of commotion) up to my site at either 2pm or 4am. Now I know what your thinking, why don’t you just make your plans so you always get up to Huayatara for the 2pm combi and avoid the 4am like the plague. If only it were that simple. The 2pm combi is a very loose 2pm. Really they can leave anywhere between 12 and 4 pm. And somehow every time I try to plan my life to come up on the 2pm I get there around 12:30-1 and those are the days they left exceptionally early. I have effectively given up on trying to get that combi when I return from my regional capital or vacations.

I generally leave Ica at a respectable hour, make my way up to Huayatara, spend the night and wake up around 3:30 to get to my site. Lovely. The best was when I was super brilliant and couldn’t figure out how to open the outside door of the hostel and hopped the fence instead of waking up the owner. Naturally I landed into a trench gutter in the street and almost fell flat on my ass in front of two of my co-workers and one of their moms. They simply couldn’t understand why I didn’t wake up the owner. It was hard to explain that I lost my keys an excessive amount in college and became accustomed to hopping the fence to get into my apartment complex. Old habits die hard. Anyways as you can tell its pretty fucking magical to get up at 3:30 to go up a mountain. Best part of my day.

The one problem with this whole travel adventure is I am generally leaving on a Sunday and hung over. Since there are barely any bathrooms along my trek I prolong my hangovers by not drinking enough water. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this because in the words of my mother I will be unemployable but lets think about this am I really employable in America right now anyways? The tangible skills I have learned from the Peace Corps are how to draw a puzzle of a kid shitting on the street, a grasp on Spanish, 7 words in Quetcha and how to construct a cocina out of mud, concrete and iron. Candidate of the year. Clearly. Anyways, since I am generally making this voyage back up the mountain in a state of less than optimal I want to kill myself 90% of the time. A hangover with a parasite, dehydration and altitude change is actually the worst thing ever. I would not recommend it to any of you. You may end up throwing up on the side of the road like a classy champion.

One time I was tired and returning from Lima and made what I would call the best decision of my life. Sometimes instead of catching a collectivo up to Huayatara you can take a bus headed for the department (state) next door Ayacucho and hop off in Huayatara. Smarty-pants KCM got to San Clemente around 6pm with two very dead phones and a very tired brain. The buses were before the cars and they accosted me. Since it was hypothetically cheaper and I just wanted to sit down I hopped onto the bus with the intention of getting off at Huayatara. I decided not to sleep for this portion of the viaje because I just had a sneaking suspicion that if I did they would forget about me and I would end up in Ayacucho, a city I don’t know in another department, at 3 am with a site visit from my boss the next day.

I dozed for a second or two but managed to stay awake watching “The Avengers.” I noticed we were approaching Huayatara and not slowing down. Suddenly I realized we were passing it and I hopped up to try to get the attention of the driver. I wanted to get off the fucking bus. Obviously the driver was on the level below us and the ringer to get his attention was broken. So my attempts to get his attention were fruitless. At this point I began to get a little worried, what the fuck was I supposed to do if I ended up in Ayacucho in the middle of the night except probably die. And both of my phones were dead so I couldn’t even tell anyone to attend my funeral.

Sensing my panic a nice man tried to help me out because he realized I had no idea what I was doing. And I began to say I have to get off this bus I can’t go to Ayacucho at 3am. Since the button was getting us nowhere and we were getting progressively further and further away from Huayatara I resorted to banging on the bus floor above the drivers head. I’m pretty sure I woke up the entire bus. I probably should feel bad but I was in a state of panic at this point so really it is what it is.

Finally we got the bus to stop a solid 30 minutes up the road from Huayatara. At this point I got off the bus and screamed in very flustered Spanish to the drivers about the fact they forgot to drop me off and what was I supposed to do now. They had little answers for me and they couldn’t very well just leave me on the side of the road without any streetlights at 9:30 pm. Then I would actually have become bus road kill.

The drivers told me to get into the front with them and they would try to flag down one of the other 2 buses from their line headed back towards Huayatara. Now I don’t know if you have ever tried to catch a bus with another bus on a highway without streetlights but it is not the easiest. The one time we actually did manage to get the other buses attention they were a solid km away from us and there was no way to actually communicate to the stopped bus. The plan was foiled and I was getting closer and closer to Ayacucho, further away from by bed and more convinced I would arrive to my site the same time as my boss with my room in a state of complete disarray.

Finally we got to a place called Rumichaca, a small town that looks like an old ghost town that is the stopping point between the end of the department of Huancavelica and the entrance to the department of Ayacucho. At this point the bus decided to leave me at the police station to wait to see if I could find the other bus from their company headed down towards Huayatara. As I got off the bus and got in the back to get my things (oh yes because I really intelligently left ALL my shit unattended on the top of the bus, should have been completely robbed) a very drunk man got off to go pee. He was naturally quite concerned about my well-being and the fact I was not getting back on the bus. Clearly the police thought he was my boyfriend and kept asking me if I wanted to talk to him. I did not. Ever.

By this time it was around midnight and I was at about 4100 meters with only two light sweaters meant for low 60s. But at least I was no longer headed towards Ayacucho. Instead I was just freezing my ass off. So there I sat in the police station waiting for the other bus to pass for about 2 hours watching Seinfeld on cable, drinking water and contemplating my impending hypothermia. After a while we realized it had probably already passed and we should just get me in another vehicle headed the right direction. Of course the first car to pass was an 18-wheeler. In the states I would never think of getting into an 18-wheeler in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. But this is Peru. Sadly his passenger side door wouldn’t open so I had to wait for the next car to pass, a bus.

As I hopped onto the bus the police man gave me some parting words “don’t fall asleep this time.” I didn’t fucking fall asleep he first time. But that is neither here nor there. Eventually I made it back to Huayatara around 3:30. I stayed awake almost the entire trip back because I was thoroughly convinced he would forget about me and I would end up in Lima, even though I was sitting right next to him.

Anyways to wrap up this epic saga I slept in a combi for a solid hour and then went up the mountain. I was so sound asleep on the way up that I nearly missed my stop and ended up in the next town over. Luckily my governor noticed I should not in fact keep going up the mountain. I took a brief nap and my boss showed up in the afternoon to a seemingly productive volunteer who lived in clean room. Little did she know I spent the next 3 days in bed with something very similar to strep throat. All in all I learned my lesson, when it comes to transportation in Peru, never experiment, you will get burned.