Tremble and Quake

As I said I would discuss the earthquake that I mentioned in a previous blog post. As a precursor you should know that Ica is on a fault line. Since I am assuming most of you are a little rough on your Peruvian geography Ica is right next to Huancavelica. It takes me about 6 hours to get from my site to Ica City in 3 different modes of motor transportation. Anyways January 29^th my fellow Huancavelica health volunteers and I were in Ica City to do things like check our mail, use the Internet, grocery shop and interact with civilization. The day of the 29^th I fell ill. And by fell ill I mean I died a little. At one point I actually shouted I’m dying and Ty, the boy who lives about an hour from me in site, became so concerned that people would think that he was raping me that he went to buy me a Gatorade. Because what do you really do in that situation besides buy Gatorade and run for your life.

As a result of my illness I managed not to do 90% of the errands I needed to do. I instead remained bedridden watching reruns of Grey’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives and Big Bang Theory. For some reason these were the only programs shown in English in the hostel. Around 12 am we were all still up. Allie was skyping with a friend. I was contemplating my impending death while screwing around on ESPN.com and Ty was on the roof. Suddenly the earth started to shake, as it so often does in a 6.3 earthquake. It took us about 15 seconds to figure out what was going on. Suddenly allie shouted “holy shit it’s an earthquake.” That poor poor friend she was skyping because then se fue the Internet and any further explanation of what was happening. We realized that we needed to get out of the hotel as fast as possible. Naturally I grabbed my computer and my Cipro, stomach medicine. No room key, no cell phone, no shoes, nothing actually useful. I also learned why there are fire codes because as we were running out the door Allie and I both almost ate shit and broke our noses. Our fan was plugged in and the cord was pleasantly taught across the doorway at just about knee height. Safety first kids, safety first.

As we were running outside there were parts of the hallway where rubble was falling. My glasses managed to protect me from getting any in my eyes; Allie was not so lucky. Since I didn’t get any rubble in my eyes and could see perfectly I was lucky enough to see a fat naked man pop his head out of his room. He has clearly been in the middle of something far more interesting than watching Grey’s Anatomy because he was standing there ass naked with a far skinnier what I can only assume was mistress standing behind him in a sheet. I assume it was a mistress because why would you take your wife to the same hotel Peace Corps volunteers stay at? We saw them later outside, fully clothed thankfully, but the woman was wearing leopard print skimpy pajamas and wedges. Clearly a last minute outfit. But I am not really one to judge because I didn’t even manage the shoes part of the equation.

After we got out of the hotel and found all members of our party we decided to walk a block to the plaza. We wanted to be far away from buildings if there was an aftershock. So I walked in no shoes and my computer in my dress. Oh also I should mention since I got sick I did not manage to change my dress from the night before. I was rocking a 48-hour party dress. Puuurrrrreeee class. Luckily there was no aftershock so after about 30 minutes we returned to the hotel and after about an hour more in the lobby we returned to our rooms to sleep. The trip up the next day was interesting because he car had to constantly dodge large boulders and rocks that had tumbled into the middle of the road. All I could think was wow glad I wasn’t on the road defiantly would have been squished.

I’m Generally Always Slipping Down a Mountain

So I realize that I haven’t written in a while. Maybe its because things are starting to feel routine in some way here. Maybe its because I might have a parasite and have been on my death bead roughly every ten days. Six in one half dozen in the other really. To give you a general picture of what I have been doing I generally wake up around 6 am and eat breakfast. Then depending on the day I wander around to do encuestas with the families in Cuiscancha, or get ready to go to the health post around 8. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have vacaciones utiles classes where I do English and art activities with the kids of Cusi. The group generally ranges from 8-12 students ages 4-11, 90% boys, but we will get to that later. Some days I do the paralous task of washing my clothes by hand with water as cold as a glacier. It sucks to wash clothes by hand. Especially towels and alpaca blankets; they are a bitch to wash with a machine. Let alone by hand in a sink with a bucket. And once in the river. At least it was sunny.

Anyways I have decided to give you all a brief family tree here because one of my friends mentioned that he was confused by the cast of characters and who belonged to Cusicancha and who belonged to the Peace Corps. For starters there are the two volunteers closest to my Ty Manning who lives in Huayacundo Arma and Ali Lawrence who lives in Quiswarapampa. Secondly my health post who are my main counterparts. There is the enfermera Feli, obstirice Deysi, enfermera Paolo, enfermero Pablo, enfermera Kerly, and doctora Paola. Finally there is there is my host mother Senroa Susana and the woman who’s house I finally work with Senora Onaranta and her children Laura, Christian and Gimella. Hopefully this gives a slightly clearer picture of who is who and who belongs where. Also this has nothing to do with the family tree I am just noting that there are more 100+ people per capita here than I have ever encountered in my life. I have decided there is something in the mixture between MSG, which is used like salt here, and organic potatoes that keeps you alive until you are 105.

So a description of my encuestas. They are surveys where I ask questions about the home, aqua and sanimiento, enfermedades, and nutricion. They are meant to give me a better picture of the type of projects I could do in Cusicancha. The encuestas have proven an intereting challenge because I have to do the majority of them before 9 in the morning or after 4 in the afternoon. Most people here are farmers so they go to the chacra in the morning and don’t return until later in the afternoon. At first I was doing encuestas with my health post with the people who live on the level part of town. But that quickly ended and I now have to climb up a mountain to find people. It is always a little embarrassing when I am trying to walk with an 80 year old woman as she casually strolls between rocks and climbs while I stumble and nearly eat shit every 10 seconds. During one of my encuestas I had to follow a woman to the chacra, which entailed some light mountain climbing and I ate it. Hard. To which she replied “Catherine you fell!” I clearly knew that. I was sitting on my ass in mud. Another one went swimmingly until I walked out the door and smacked my head on the doorframe. Peruvian doors were not meant for American girls.

On one failed venture to hunt a lady down I went with a Pablo from my heath post about a km up the road. He went on motorcycle and since I am not allowed to do that I went by foot. I was really hopinghte womanwas home because I had to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately we met a dead end so I had to have another plan of action. Naturally I climbed up a mountain to hide behind a cactus. Lord knows how I got up there. I think my need to pee over rode my rationality and reason because when I looked for the route down there wasn’t one. I was just standing behind a cactus with a path leading further up a mountain. I followed it for a little until it veered off to the top of the mountain. Not the direction I wanted to go. Unfortunately now I had stranded myself further up a mountain with even less of a way down. I walked back a little but was still stuck at the cactus. I realized that the only way down was to scale the mountain. Naturally. So I threw my back pack down the 15 feet or so not wanting any extra weight or objects and headed down. The first few steps had rocks. After that not so much. I was standing on rocks that were crumbling hoding on to weeds and I realized my best bet was to just jump down and home I didn’t die. I didn’t. Clearly since I’m writing this. I did however manage to get myself covered in dust. All in a days work.

The climb to the houses in Cusicancha is nothing compared to my walk up to one of my annexos Tambo to do encuestas. I told my host mother that I was going up to Tambo but I failed to mention that I was going to spend the night. Since I didn’t return until about 3 in the morning she was concerned that the river washed me away. I would say that that was overly concerned motherly talk if the river at one point hadn’t almost washed me away on my hike up. On my walk up to Tambo I stopped in Quiswarapampa because it started ot rain and iw as deciding whether or not I really wanted to venture the remaning hour and a half up the road. After lunch the rain broke and I decided I should head on up because back tracking home seemed like a bit of a waste. For some unknown reason a blonde dreaded dog followed me along, and continued to follow me throughout my whole hike and time in Tambo.

Now to give you a picture of the hike you walk straight into the clouds and up a mountain. There is path or a road with a plethora of switchbacks, which add about 45 minute to the trip. At one point I thought I had found the path. It was beautiful, near the river there was green chacras on either side, mountians and a greyish sky. It’s the rainy season you can’t ask for blue skies. Hell you can’t even ask for dry clothes. But then the path veered off in a direction iw asnt really sure I was supposed to go so I decided to take what I thought was another path that lead back to the road. As I climbed up the muddy path it quickly became steeper and steeperuntil it was at what seemed like an 85 degree angle. Not an angle you generally want to be climbing in without ropes. At least not an angle I should be climbing at. At least this time I wasn’t in Sperries or Uggs. The higher I got the more I realized what I was on was no in fact a path it was mud nothing had been growing with a dash of rocks thrown in.

Now I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced mud during rain but it is pretty god damn slippery. Especially for some one like me who can fall down from standing still. It has happened, sadly I am not making that up, but to be fair there was snow on the ground where I was standing still. I was getting closer to the top so I though potentially I could just keep climbing until my right foot slipped and I grabbed on to a flower for safety. Because flowers have been known for their strength and resistance. I tried to find footing for my left foot and only managed to make it up a few more inches, see a bright white light and find another flower. It was becoming increasingly clear to me that I was standing on the type of ground that leads to landslides. And there was a rushing river below me, and only a stray dog to witness my impending death. I had to walk back to solid ground. Unfortunately walking back to solid ground meant slipping down and to the right for about 20 feet, digging my hands into the dirt, and hoping to god I didn’t fall down more and get swept away in a river. When I finally made it to solid ground I decided that I should give up on the path adventure and deal with the millions of switchbacks in order to survive. Of course as I made this decision it started to rain harder and I put a plastic bag on my head for protection. To accompany the plastic tablecloth my host mother had given me to protect my backpack. I looked super nifty.

While in Tambo I accomplished 8 encuestas, one man turned me down. Later that night he drank a dash of rat poison, don’t worry he is still alive thanks to my health post. But now one of the reasons being tossed around for his attempted suicide is my encuestas. I may be the Pishtaca, a mythical person that comes to steal children. So I maaayyy not be doing any more encuestas there.

But away from my adventures in hiking and on to other news. Another fun part of the encuestas is that I am often invitired to food, especially since I generally do my encuestas around the breakfast hour. Normally it is something simple like soup or aguita or papas con queso. One time it was anything but. I was first invitired to pachamanga de cuy. Which is guinea pig with sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and cheese. I assumed that this was it. Nope. She then informed me that I had not eaten breakfast yet. I was in fact on breakfast number 3 at that time. So then I was served soup, which was my breakfast. I thought I was then in the clear. But then I as served masamora, which is a flour and sugar concoction that is desert material. On the way down the mountain I kinda felt like I was going to explode. I had to take a nap because I was too full to function.

The encuestas have really shone light into the lives and tales of Cusicancha. Some of my encuestas have been super positive, where I leave feeling like the people really want to work with me. 2 have involved tears. One after asking my first question “what health problems have you had this year?” Unbeknownst to me this lead to a discussion about how her mother had died and depression and self-esteem is a problem in Cusicancha. The second involved an old single tia discussing with me how she missed her children and her one son here is a drunk who beats his wife. Another started with me introducing myself to a family, later finding out that they were not the family that lived in the house I was at, only the 80 year old and her mother did. As I was sitting there eating breakfast I could hear an argument brewing outside between the husband and wife I earlier thought lived in the house. Then I realized I was sitting in a room all by myself with a crying 103 year old woman. I was confused as fuck. So I walked outside and I was told I should come to the plaza and watch. I realized I was being told to watch a domestic dispute, taking place in the plaza. At one point the woman was shaking in fear saying htat she didn’t want to go back up to her house with her husband. I didn’t know if I should look up, down, right or left. So I just sat there with 3 older members in the community listening to the commentary about the fight occurring below.

The presence of domestic violence is something that I knew I might encounter but I did not realize how much I would notice it. It is not that every man beats his wife in Cusicancha, there are actually only a handful that I know of in Cusicancha proper. There is a larger presence in some of my annexes. It is just this is the first time in my life where I have been in a position to ask about the presence of domestic violence in the home and gotten responses that range from a young girl saying that her mom agrees with men beating women, a man saying he only occasionally hits his wife and a woman saying that she views sex as an obligation. It is hard at times to not feel like is nothing that I can really do but my current plan is to work with the young girls. Particularly with the young girls in the houses I have identified as at risk because realistically there probably isn’t much I can do about the mothers and fathers. All I can really hope to do is reach the girls in order to provide a different view of relationships and gender equality.

That feels like a very somber note to end on so I will leave you with this. My next blog entry will describe carnival. Where I had to walk around in front of my whole town in a long red skirt, rain boots, a hat, my super nifty transition lenses a weird shade of half brown, and a balloon under my skirt to accentuate my ass. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The Rules of Watermelon Engagement

Now as a girl I have been able to get a few free things in my life. It’s one of the perks. I have been taught what it means when a man buys you a drink, when he buys you dinner, when he asks you to go home and when he buys you a diamond ring. I can interpret the meaning of all these tand have moves to combat them. But what about a watermelon? I have the least clue what a man buying you a watermelon means or how to combat it. Here in Peru I have had to combat my fair share of come-ons. It comes with the terrirory of sticking out like a sore thumb. One of the best to date have been “I may be short but I’m ready princess,” but I have yet to deduce the significance of the watermelon. This may be because I am entirely clueless, a man could probably be on one knee with a Tiffany’s box and I would be staring at the shiny object behind him. I back up this assentation with the fact that I have accidently ended up on two dates in my life, not realizing until half way though that it was in fact a date.

Anyways I was wondered over to the watermelon truck that showed up in my town to get a slice of watermelon. Apparently the slice I ordered was so insignificant that when I tried to pay I was told I could have it for free. I was quite excited to have a free thing. Because who doesn’t love free things. Why earlier that day when I was doing my encuestas in the town in was given a bag of dried salted beef fat you fry like bacon. What I had always dreamt of getting. And then an engineer walked past and decided to buy a watermelon. My general cluelessness complied with the language barrier made it take even longer to catch on to the fact that the watermelon he was buying was in fact for me. In fact he blatantly had to say that the watermelon was mine. I was under the impression that he was buying a watermelon for himself to share and was going to give me a piece, not the whole thing. So clearly in my awkward confusion I did exactly what you are not supposed to do, smiled and laughed awkwardly utterly confused by the situation.

No one has taught me what a watermelon means. And clearly since no one has told me I haven’t the slightest idea. Anyways I now have a full watermelon for free to compliment my free dried beef fat. It has been a day of presents. I generously gave my beef fat away to the women in my puesto since my cocina doesn’t quite function at the moment. And as for the watermelon my plan is to bring it to dinner and share it with the engineer and his friends hopefully that will defuse any hidden meaning within the watermelon but who really knows. Undoubtedly not me.

The one thing that I know for sure that I will not do is show them my photo album. I was sharing it with my health post yesterday when one of their husbands commented that girl has nice boobs. I looked down and he was pointing at a picture of me. I gulped and blushed and got the most awkward a human being could become. When looking at the next photo he realized that the girl he was talking about was in fact me. I look slightly different with my hair down, make-up and a dress. In some worlds I am may actually be considered attractive, when I am not in 45 layers, shirts up to my neck, thick scarves and strapped into sports bra. I had no comment at that moment. Luckily he quickly became distracted by a photo that I had of a friend and I from prom senior year.

He then became convinced that that was my novio. I epically failed at explaining the concept of just friends. Something seemed to not be translating. It wasn’t until the enfermera Felly said that when we went down the mountain to call I only called my mom did he believe that my friend was not my novio. Felly undeniable quelled the idea that I had any sort of love life, because if I had I would have called him. Which is also probably false because that shit would have cost about 40 soles, roughly 20% of my monthly income. I’m glad that showing my photos brought to light my boobs and my lack of love life. Two things you always want brought up during lunch with co-workers.

And a Happy New Years

Let me start by saying that this New Years Eve was probably the most tranqulio New Years Eve that I have had since I was in 6^th grade. Also it took me a mere three days before I almost caught myself on fire and burned down my house with a flaming ball of fire from a fatly gas stove. But what else is new.

For New Years Eve I went over to my fellow volunteer Ty’s house for a “fiesta.” Which was really just a dinner with the family and Titanic. Early in the day I was putsing around, chatting with my health post and generally doddling. I was planning on walking down to Ty’s site around 2, but suddenly at about noon my obstritic shouted “Your friend is on the combi! Your friend from Huayacundo (Ty).” Severly confused as to why Ty was on a combi I went to inspect. And was told to run. So I had to slop through mudd to reach the combi, then I was hastily told I should board. Suddenly I was headed up to Ciswarapama with no real idea of why or what I was going to do there. Ty said that his parents told him that he was coming up to Ciswar in order to help sell. He seemed about as confused as I did about the reason we were on this combi headed into a cloud forest.

When we finally arrived to Ciswar, which also happens to be our compatriot Allie’s site we quickly realized that there was no real reason for us to be up there. Ty had somewhat of a reason his family was there. I on the other hand was just there to be arm candy and entertainment. We then went on a mission to find Allie, who was in her assemblea general, the major town meeting, and we were told she wasn’t going to get out until 4, roughly 4 hours from the time we went hunting for her. We were not off to a promising start. Accepting defeat for the time being we decided to eat lunch from a street cart. I must admit I was a bit scared because this was the first non-ramen meal I had had in a week. Fun fact I accidently made myself sick for a week by washing a tomato in crude water and then proceeding to eat it. Epic fail. After eating Ty and I paseared, chatted. Ciswar is about 50 families so you see all the sites pretty quickly, especially when it is your 6^th time being to the town.

Fortunately Allie was able to sneak out of the town meeting around 2 rather than at 4. Just when the weather turned from sunny to misty with a chance of abysmal. Like always I had been freezing my ass off so I was in far too many layers, which served me well as the weather went south. Ty on the other hand was in a t-shirt and hoodie. Clearly prepared for the beach. When it came to the point that I couldn’t feel my feet and I’m assuming Ty couldn’t feel his entire body we decided to go over to Allie’s for some coffee. Anything to warm us up because standing outside in the mist and mud was quickly loosing its charm. When we entered Allie’s kitchen we met her new best friend, a baby lamb. I clearly wanted to steal it. figuring this would probably not go over so well I decide to cuddle it instead. Letting it come into my oversized wool sweater. It became a meshed up heap of lambs wool. Also four-day-old lambs are about the most darling things in the world. I kept asking if there are dwarf lambs, or if I could genetically modify a lamb to make it stay tiny and cuddly forever. They have been able to clone sheep, shouldn’t they have the technology to keep it baby sized?

Our brief respite with the lamb and mochas (Allie had hot coca mix. It was magical) we all headed back to the plaza, not wanting Ty’s family to find a combi and leave without us. Not saying that they would leave without us but there is no saying what happens when a combi comes. Its every man, woman, child and baby sheep for itself. Fun fact on an entirely unrelated note, if any of you watch South Park and have seen the Pandemic episode about the Peruvian pan flute, they are oh so real. One day on the combi in Lima a man asked me my name etc. then got bored and whipped out his pan flute. Which he played for the rest of the trip. Probably to protect from the giant gerbils. But back to my story in our effort to not be left by the combi Ty, his family and I ended up standing outside for about and hour and a half waiting for the combi. It always seems to go that way. Get there on time and wait forever. Get there early almost get left. Get there late well then you are just fucked. Allie decided to stay in her site for the night with the women of her puesto rather than coming down with us for the evening. Finally at 5:30 a combi showed up to take us down. Actually two showed up. Of course.

Since I had not planned on going to Ciswarapama in the morning I had left my overnight bag in my room. So when we passed through Cusicancha I had to dash into my room to grab my bag. Keep in mind it had been heavily raining for the past two days so the roads were pure mud. The entire time I was running down the hill to my house Ty was patiently sitting in the combi waiting for me to fall on my ass. In truth I was jumping and leaping and praying to god I didn’t eat shit. I happened to be wearing my only pair of clean jeans. Thank god nothing happened. Ty had also not been planning on going up to Ciswarapampa and the perpetual land of no service so early so he left Christine hanging. He had not confirmed when she should walk over from Quito Arma. When we finally turned the corner of service he was able to call her and tell her to come over. Sadly about 10 minutes after that it started to pour down rain. And as it always goes, once she arrived it stopped raining almost entirely. Just enough to make her look like a wet dog and for Ty and me to think she was dead on the hike over.

New Years Eve in Huayacundo was quiet, expect for the exorbitant amount of firecrackers and bottle rockets that went off. Coupled with the blaring Cumbia music coming from the municipality speakers until 2 in the morning. At Ty’s we had dinner at around 9, I cant remember the name of the dish we had but it tasted a lot like stir fried noodles, so lets just say it was that. The rest of the night was spent lounging around on the living room sofas, watching Titanic and chatting with Ty’s younger and older brother. I know the wildest New Year’s Eve imaginable. It did include a cuddly kitten though, I feel like we should get some points for that one. Anyways around midnight we all realized we wanted a glass of champagne. It isn’t the New Year without champagne, or at least sparkling cider, but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t exist here. Since Ty lives in a tienda we figured that the easiest thing to do was to just ask his mom if we could buy a bottle. This turned out to be false. She initially turned us down and told us she didn’t want us to have it a bad night, we should drink it in the morning. Obviously. But with the help of his older brother and some explaining that it is customary in America to have a glass of champagne at midnight to celebrate the New Year we eventually won our argument. That was the moment I really felt like I had reverted to 14. I felt like I was begging my parents to have a glass of alcohol and trying to rationally explain the merits behind why they should give it to me.

Asking for a bottle of champagne turned out to be more of a hullabaloo than any of us had bargained for. Not only did it take us about 20 minutes to get it, Ty’s mom then decided to not go to be and stay up with us. I felt a tad guilty for pulling a woman out of bed. We then had to explain when you drink the champagne and basically make up a custom behind champagne. In Spanish. We all felt kinda like assholes but there was no turning back. Around 12:15 we all turned in for the night. On the way up to Ty’s room we saw burning piles. Several of them. It is customary in Peru to burn a doll, basically an effigy, made of random scraps on New Year’s Eve. From Ty’s window we could see about 8 piles of burning dolls, which really looked more like burning piles of trash but since I didn’t make them I cannot say what was in it. Then Ty, Christine and I had a good old-fashioned sleep over. 6^th grade.

The next morning we awoke to have patasca, the same lamb soup that I had on Christmas morning, paneton and chocolatada. Patasca is customary for all special days, birthdays, holidays, etc. I felt like I was in a Christmas repeat when I was eating. Expect there was one major difference. Ty’s mom had planned on getting some fresh lamb from Ciswarapampa, but the man who was supposed to bring it didn’t come because of the lluvia. My stomach was just recovering to solid food when I found something looking precariously close to a maggot in my soup. Part of me wanted to die, or vomit, but that would be rude, so I ate as much as I could. His mom spent time making it and to be fair she did warn us that the meet wasn’t the freshest. But the paneton was delicious, as always.

When I returned home it was a rather slow day. Everyone was taking it easy, much like New Years Day in the states, with less football. The only really noteworthy moment was when my sister asked me what I do when I do exercise in my room. I tried to explain and failed so instead in invited her to workout with me. Not wanting to expose her to the overly enthuastic host of P90X, I decided to show her some of the exercises instead. We were also accompanied by her 2-year-old sister, Gimena, who pet my legs the entire time. Every time I would drop into a lunge she would begin to pet my bare legs. It’s probably because she has never been exposed to someone in shorts. When she was not petting me she was having a private dance party to Rihanna’s “We Found Love.” Ah the days when you could have a private dance party and no one would look at you funny. Not that I don’t still do it. I did today in fact. And quite honestly people look at me the same way they look at Gimena, with a mix of confusion and entertainment. While muffling laughing in my face. But who doesn’t love their own solo dance party….in public.

¡A Peruvian Christmas!

For the first time in my life I was away from home for the holidays. It was quite a different experience than any other Christmas I have had in the past. One of the major differences was that this Christmas was filled with an exorbitant amount of paneton and cocolatada, when it normally is filled with peppermint stick ice cream and hot fudge. Also I wasn’t with my family, but really it’s the peppermint stick ice cream that got me. fortunately for me this year in my community there was an abnormal amount of chocolatadas because there was ones sponsored by the health post, the construction workers and also Topy Top, the Peruvian version of Macy’s. The creator of Tipy top happens to be from Cusicancha, also the municipality, the gardin, the primaria, the segundaria and a social welfare program called vaso de leche. I managed to stumble upon 5 separate chocolatadas and panetons. Literally every day between thanksgiving and Christmas I had paneton, and the one day I almost didn’t I was tempted to buy myself some but then my brother gave me some as a gift. Phew, almost had to have a day without mass produced fruitcake.

The most interesting panetons were the one’s that were sponsored by Topy Top. These paneton’s were for the families who are beneficiaries of a program called JUNTOS, which is for Peruvians with children living in extreme poverty. Topy Top donated a toy for every child that was under 5 and clothing for the rest of the children. My health post was in charge of running the chocolatadas and so we split it up into two events. The first one was a small event with the mothers of one of the annexos called Pampapquio, which is one of our farthest and most isolated annexos. A very large percentage of the community benefits from JUNTOS so I was able to meet a fair amount of the mothers. Including one mother who had her first child at 11. We were casually chatting with the mother because she had been in the cocina cooking lunch and the chocolatada with the health post. By cocina I mean I an adobe house with a wood burning basically camp stove. At 3,800 meters. And people were burning Styrofoam and plastic. I could feel the lung cancer forming in my lungs. Even when I went outside to breathe it wasn’t much better because the air was so thin that I could barely catch my breath. My crowning jewel of that day is that I didn’t pass out. Although I may now have black spots on my lungs.

Anyways the mother, I would have pegged her for 50. The only reason I asked her age is because she had a child and I was like you are way too old to have a one year old. She was 27. Harsh reality check. I reapplied sunscreen. And then looked into her child’s eye and saw something that I never had before. Normally when I look into a kids eyes I think “wow you are so lucky, nothing has gotten in your way. You are so pure and haven’t been corrupted by the world.” when I looked into this young child’s eye I realized for the first time that this isn’t necessarily true for every child. This kids had already ingested the same smoke that almost made me pass out and his lungs were still forming. Also the malnutricion was evident on his mothers face. Nutiricion is such an important part of a child’s early years and if his mother was malnourished, I could only imagine his diet. That was the first time I looked at a kid and thought you may have been stunted before you even knew where your own nose was.

The next chocolatada was during a JUNTOS meeting, which is a monthly meeting when all of the mothers have to come with their kids for medical controls and get signatures from the health post. This was a mad house because there were about 100 families, hot coca, paneton and free gifts. My health post was so crowded that I could barely move. Also it is customary for women in Peru to use clothes called mancas (that may be a lie on the name) that are large squares of sturdy cloth. Women carry these on their backs and hold everything from potatoes, to plastic bags to babies. So you can imagine trying to walk through a crowded health post where almost every woman has one of these on their backs, but everyone has a baby on their back. I would be squeezing past and randomly a hand would stick out. Or inevitably I would be super careful only to feel the cloth and realize the woman had herbs on her back and then ram into some baby accidently. I am very sorry for any brain damage I ma have caused.

As Christmas approached people continually asked me what I was going to do. Most people expected me to bajar to go somewhere else for the holidays or go back to the US. Hell about half my village bajared themselves for Christmas. I would tell them I was staying and some would be excited, some would just straight up tell me it was going to be sad and I was going to cry. One of the other volunteers, Allie, invited me up to her village for a party on Christmas Eve. It is customary to celebrate Christmas Eve and then not really do much of anything on Christmas day. I decided to go up because my Christmas prospects in Cusi were looking pretty bleak.

On the 22^nd of December my health post had a Christmas party to celebrate before everyone went to see their families and the three lone rangers were left in Cusicancha. It was a nice dinner and then a secret Santa, where the puesto surprised me with a present from everyone. It was the only real present I got in site which made it probably the best present I have ever gotten in my life. We then had chocolatada and paneton, standard. And I had to give words. Bullshitting in Spanish is not as easy as one would believe. After we had a small party with a bottle of wine. Then mystically a man from the health center showed up with a bottle of whiskey. It was one of the more exciting moments of my week because whiskey here is about 45 million times out of my budget. The entire time my doctor was very concerned because every so often I would knock over our very tiny 20 ml glasses. She probably thought I was hammered. Fortunately I think my dropping a milk can into the chocolatada and falling flat on my ass the day before was beginning to cue her into the fact it may just be me. Regardless of alcohol.

Anyways around 1 am the workers in my puesto said that we were going to see the negritas dance. This really threw me off. Negritas translates to little black girls. I could not figure out why for the life of me there were little black girls dancing here at 1 in the morning. Or why we were going to watch them. Turns out negritas is a kind of fast paced foot dance. Not at all what I was expecting.

Until Christmas morning when I was heading out to the health post and I ran into my sister. She told me that she was going to be alone on Christmas and she wanted me to stay in Cusi to have dinner and paneton with her so she wasn’t alone. All of a sudden I was in between a rock and a hard place. I was not about to leave my sister alone but I had no way to contact Allie so I had to haul ass up a mountain to tell her the news. When I finally arrived to Allie’s I was epically out of breath and trying to figure out what to do. About 45 minutes later we decided to go to the plaza just to get out of the house…and we ran into my mother. The mystery woman who had disappeared magically reappeared.

I then asked her what she was going to do….go sell food at the party in the cemetery, naturally. I asked if Laura was going to be alone. The answer was quite circular and really concluded no one knew what Laura was going to so I was more confused than I started. Eventually Allie convinced me to stay in her site, but I had to go down in order to get my overnight bag and tell my sister. That moment really made me appreciate cell phones. Never in the states would I walk an hour down a mountain I had already powerwalked up to tell them there was a change in plans. When we returned to my site we broke the news to my sister, she was less than concerned and decided to go to the cemetery. I felt super loved.

Noche Buena (Christmas Eve) at Allie’s was an odd evening. Since I had gotten up so early we decided to watch Love Actually and have hot coca. As hard as her sister tried to get us to change our plans neither of us were budging an inch on that one. After that it was about 7 pm, so we thought we would be eating dinner, nope we were told we wouldn’t be eating until 12. Starving we scowered out food. Not an easy task since many people had gone to the cemetery and most of the stores were closed for Noche Buena. Luckily we were able to find some bread. And then about 30 minutes later we were called down to dinner……After dinner we were told that there was going to be paneton and chocolatada at 12. The party had somehow died, even though we had decorated it and there was just a small drinking circle. Allie and I decided to watch The Holiday, the only other holiday movie I had and wait until midnight. We sporadically joined the drinking circle and at 12 we rallied everyone to eat paneton and chocolatada. And then we went to bed. I know super eventful. You are glad I gave you a play by play.

Christmas day we woke up to have patasca, a lamb and corn soup. It is customary for every special day. Not really the Christmas flavors I desired but it was delicious. After doddling and waiting around for about 2 more hours, finishing The Holiday, and generally staring off into space Allie’s family and I headed off to the cemetery party. I can wholeheartedly say that I am 98% sure that is the one and only Christmas day I will spend in a cemetery. When we got there it was evident that many of the people were on hour 14 or so of drinking so there was some interesting avoidance of overly drunk men. And some terrifying moments, such as when a man lit a bottle rocket from a bottle in his hand with a cigarette while wobbling. I was pretty sure I was going to see my first brain explosion that day.

When it came to lunchtime Allie and I got served two lunches. I was still in the middle of eating one pile of noodles when I was handed a different style of noodles. I figured even if I wasn’t eating what I wanted it was Christmas so I was allowed to over indulge. This opened a very dangerous door because then the rest of the day we kept buying food to fill the honey baked ham and peppermint void. Including weird fruit loop looking things. Those were less than satisfying. Other than filling my face with any food with in reaching distance Allie and I sat and watched the dance competitions and drinking circles. Whenever someone was dancing and someone like it the audience would throw beer, soles, or food at their feet. Of course I managed to trip the nice gentleman that was handing out hard candies to the audience. I liked seeing the dance traditions. Not that I would necessarily spend another Christmas warding off the cold and watching dances that start to blur together in similarity again but I’m glad I went. When the negrita is done well it is actually a lot of complex footsteps and really, fast, low squats. Way beyond my dance skills.

After seeing what the tradition was like in all of our sites the Huancavelica 4 and a few other volunteers from my region decided to go to Ica to celebrate in a more American fashion. We had a drawn Christmas tree and home made mistle toe. Christmas music and secret Santa. I was greeted with 15 packages. My parents went a little crazy. Before Christmas I sent my parents a present of my own. A little slide show and video I made…of me lip sinking to my favorite Christmas song Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas.” My family thoroughly enjoyed it. my mother even suggested that I put it on YouTube so that I can talk about it in my blog. No not happening. What she doesn’t realize is that I want to be employable when I come back and I feel like a video of me lip sinking in bright red lipstick, an oversized make-up brush and a cardboard Santa will not really make me a more competitive applicant upon my return. If you know my family you can see the video but my last shred of shyness will prevent me from releasing such a thing to the world. I used paper reindeer horns and square snowflakes. Enough said.

The Social Scene.

I know you have all been wondering what the social scene is like in Cusicancha. Well let me tell you this it’s small. And chisme (gossip) is excessively real. At the promocion (graduation) at my school I danced. Then the next Allie, a volunteer who lives a village away from me, got a play by play and had to sit through who I danced with and a 15 minute discussion of which of us danced better. The conclusion was we danced equally as well.

I have attended three large social events here, and I’m sure that everyone within a 10-mile radius knows what happened. The first party I attended was an anniversary celebration in a village near me called Mutanga. I went up to the night celebration by a random fluke actually. I was sitting in the health post when suddenly a man came in beckoning the doctors to come up to attend to a man with a fever that wouldn’t break, Naturally I accompanied them up. After about 2 hours of sitting in a room with the health professionals, a sick man and his family we had dinner. During dinner I ate about 18 portions because at this point I was still on the brink of starvation. Now the women of my health post think that I can eat like a champion.

After dinner my health post told me I should go over to see the party rather than attending a sick man. I decided this was an excellent idea because I was really doing nothing besides being in the way in his room. I casually meandered over to the party by myself, which was probably not the wisest idea so I decided to just sit on the sidelines and watch rather than dance. As I was walking away from the dance stage to look for my puesto or potentially my host sister I ran into the director of my primaria, and all the single male teachers in my primaria and segundaria. This was my first party and all the male teachers and just me as the sole woman had the word CHISME written alllllll over it. My friend Jade’s voice just kept ringing in my ears shouting “this is how chisme starts.” I figured I should play it safe rather than sorry.

For about the next 20 minutes the director of my primaria tried to convince me to dance. At first I said I don’t know how, he replied its easy left foot right foot. Foiled. Then I said I needed to watch to learn what to do. A dance passed (a Peruvian dance is about 10 minutes long) I watched. It ended. He said let’s dance. Foiled again. Then I said ok I’ll dance but are we dancing with that big group right there. He said “No, Aqui juntos” pointing to an empty spot on the dance floor. Now its not that I have anything against dancing, I actually quite like partaking in this activity. It’s that I did not want to dance all night with my single male director in front of all of his male collogues. That’s chisme in the states. Let alone in a land where if I sneeze everyone knows if I used a tissue.

The next day I found myself wandering back to Mutanga in the morning, partially because there was no school that day and EVERYBODY in Cusicancha headed up to the fiesta. Of course in the morning I had no idea that there was no school so I stayed in Cusicancha under the false notation that I had a charla at the school. Of course in the morning when I talked to my sister about my charla at the primaria she casually forgot to mention that there was no school in the entirety of Cusicancha not just the colegio. So I stayed. My family left, completely without my knowledge. Approximately 30 minutes later I had to pay for a ride up to Mutanga. When I arrived I was able to find my family pretty quickly. My host mother was posted up in her father’s house selling cookies, chocolates and pop. My brother and sister where sitting upstairs in the house eating breakfast. I wandered into the store and said hello to my host mother. And was greeted with beer and grain alcohol. At 9 in the morning. Exactly what a girl needs first thing in the morning. And when I say greated I mean that a glass of liquor was shoved in my face. My mom mouthed from across the room “it’s alcohol,” I could figure out that much. What I could not figure out was how to get out of drinking it. I decided asking for the bathroom might be a good idea.

The age old trick of a girl using the bathroom ass a way to escape a precarious social situation works like a charm in America, not so much in Peru. The first time I asked for the bathroom my host grandfather told me to go to the chacra. I was a little taken off guard that the bushes were legitimately presented to me as an option. Thankfully then another man excitedly announced that he had a latrine at his house. I took this opportunity to escape the grain alcohol and beer. Unfortunately, on my way to and from the latrine I was bombarded with beer. And far too drunk man began to discuss our friendship and asking me to take a picture with him. After about a 5-minute struggle I managed to make a break for it and return to my host grandparent’s house. Since I had already been up to the upstairs once I thought that I could return upstairs to find some asylum from the bombardment of alcohol and proposals first thing in the morning. While in the middle of a conversation with my host brother and older stern looking man appeared in the doorway. He glared at me like I killed his first-born child, and I had no idea who he was. Suddenly I became petrified that the boy I was talking to was not in fact my host brother, I had only met him that day, and the house I was in was just some random man’s house who may or may not own a gun.

This old man who by the second I was becoming more and more terrified of asked who I was. I replied I’m Catherine, la voluntaria, I live with Laura (my host sister) and Senora Oneranta. None of my replies seemed to be working. His brow only furrowed further. He asked why I entered his house if I didn’t know him. To this I had absolutely no response. What was I going to say- to avoid drinking more alcohol at 9:30, to sit here and escape drunk men. I felt like none of these were a valid response. Finally my host brother stepped in saying that I was his friend and it was ok that I was up there. This turned out to be the key to the man’s heart. He suddenly unfurrowed his brow and walked downstairs. I wont go so far as to say he warmed to me. I will say that he no longer looked like he was going to kill me. this morning was turning out to be far more eventful than I planned. I actually went so far as to send a text message saying “save me, I have been forced to drunk, proposed to and thought I would be killed by an angry grandpa. I need another white person here to ease the pressure.” I probably sent sed text message because I was a minor bit buzzed bright and early in the morning. Also I had cell service for he first time in a week and a half.

Thankfully about 2 hours later Ty and Christine, two of my fellow volunteers, showed up to ease my pain. Sadly they did not show up before I was pet and proposed to and my host brother had to ask him to give me respect. After my startling morning the party became far less eventful. The kids of the colegio and the primaria participated in a parade, that included high kicks and high arms. A very traditional type of parade that reminded me of a military parade you saw on the history channel. This was followed by a series of soccer games, some free lunch and of course the lluvia.

Fortunately my interesting experience at the party in Mutanga did not dissuade me from attending other social events. About a week later I attended the promocion in one of my annexos, Tambo. I was invited to the promocion when I was catching the 3:30am combi up from Huayatara (the closest city) to Cusicancha. Somehow I found the motivation to head up to Tambo at 11am after getting about 3 hours of sleep the night before. I hitched a ride with the alcalde (mayor) because I had not been to Tambo since my site visit and I wanted to head up, even if I couldn’t stay for the entire promocion at night. When I made it up to Tambo I was greeted with a hug and a very warm welcome. I then helped the teachers decorate for the promocion. Some how during my decorating time I was left. Then next time I looked out the door the alcalde’s car was gone. And the fog had arrived. I was stuck. With no way home until 5 in the morning. Naturally.

The profesoras seemed quite unconcerned that I had little to no way to get home. They said that I should spend the night. As I sat there departing my options, walking home in the increasing darkness and foreboding sky, or staying until 5 in the morning I realized that even if I did make a break for it I would probably be offending something in the process. So I decided to stay. Unfortunately I was not fed until 6 pm. And between the house of 6 and 11 I was fed 4 dinners. That equals out to about 7 hours of painful hunger and 7 hours of painful fullness. Besides my eratic eating schedule I helped to prepared for the party, organizing food and pinning sparkly decorations to the walls. While helping one of the profesoras with the food, she randomly threw into the conversation that she heard I had a drink in Mutanga. I wanted to correct her by saying I did not have a drink, I had one forced in my face, but I felt that this would be a fruitless fight. In reality somehow the fact that I had had a sip of alcohol had speead down one road and up another in a matter of a week. And for some reason it was noteworthy enough to mention to me.

The promocion was an event unlike one I had seen before. All of the 6^th graders were gathered to celebrate their graduation, wearing dresses that looked circa 1980. Each of the graduates had an escort and a cake put on display on its own tiny pedestal. After their graduation as announced they danced to the song “do do do do do dadadada” on repeat for about 30 minutes as a shot of wine was sent around to celebrate. After the public dance, something that if I had to do at the ripe ate of 12 I would have probably never shown my face anywhere again, there was a dinner and hours of dancing.

One of the profesoras danced so hard that she literally broke her shoe. Around 3 in the morning my Spanish skills and ability to stay awake were rapidly dwindling and the men were rapidly becoming more drunk. I was one of he only women in the room so naturally was pulled to dance with two different men all night. At one point they were literally arguing over who was going to dance with me in front of my face. I on the other hand was trying to avoid dancing with either of them and trying to find my escape route to the nearest bedroom. Unfortunately that bedroom was in the profesoras house and she insisted that I stayed out until 4 am. By this point I had surrendered any ability to speak Spanish and was sleeping sitting up.

When I returned home the next morning I swiftly went to bed for the next 4 hours to catch up on some much needed sleep. When I emerged from my rock hard bed I went downstairs to greet my host mother. She interrogated me about my previous evening. At first she asked me simply where were you all night, and I explained that I was at the promocion in Tambo and got stuck for the evening. After I announced where I was she replied I heard you were dancing all night and had some beer. Clearly the woman knew where I was if she heard that I was drinking and dancing. I really don’t know why she even bothered asking where I was. She then got to her true question that was where I spent the evening. I think to her disappointment I said that I stayed at profesora Susana’s house. Quietly behind her my host mother’s friend murmered “how quickly news traveled.” I was quickly learning that news sometimes traveled faster than I did.

The third major social event that I attended was the promocion in Cusicancha. Thank heavens this promocion was only about a 2-minute walk from my house so I did not get stuck until 5 am with 1 hour of sleep. The promocion for Cusicancha was the promocion for the segundaria. The only real way to describe it was a mix between senior prom, graduation, and a community dinner. Just like the kids in Tambo the graduates of Tambo arrived in suits and prom dresses. This time the dresses were all white and purple to match the school colors. My sister was asked to be a last minute escort so she was not prepared dress wise. She had to be the only girl standing up on the stage in fleece pink pants and a purple sweater. The mild embarrassment in her outfit was visible in her face.

After the graduation announcement and celebratory dance with the godmothers and godfathers the festivities and public dancing began. Suddenly cajas of cervesa appeared and large groups of people stepped on to the dance floor. The students of colegio were drinking side by side with the rest of the community and their professors. If only the drinking of prom had been public instead of cooped up in a room, maybe I would have had a few less problems with the end of the evening... or maybe I could have eaten more food and drank less. But that’s water under the bridge. It was so strange to see high school graduates drinking with their professors but I reckon that’s what happens where the drinking age is anything less than 21.

The dancing at this event was much more successful, partly because I was not the only woman I the room, partly because I was able to leave by 2:30, before things got too drunk. Dancing was also a little more difficult because I was so bundled up that I could barely move. That day the only clean and dry bottoms that I had were spandex and a skirt. My skirt caused quite the hullabaloo. That combined with me wearing my hair down for the first time since arriving to site caused roughly every person to comment on how dressed up I was. They also asked if I was freezing. I was in fact cold but I was also wearing 3 pairs of spandex, 2 pairs of socks, uggs, one tank top, one long sleeve, one sweater, two jackets, gloves and earmuffs. I felt like the kid in a Christmas story that couldn’t put his arms down. In all these clothes I could barely move my limbs, let alone dance. My director finally got me to dance with him and during my first dance he said just move smoothly. I wanted to say mister I cant move my pinky let alone move smoothly, but instead I decided to just try my hardest to move smoothly with all my clunky clothing.

For the most part my dancing was simple, except for one man who wanted me to dance a full wino dance. Wino is quite a complicated dance with many footsteps that are not the easiest with Uggs. After a few failed attempts at trying to follow his steps he simply started pointing at which direction I should be moving. After the dance was finished I received my first applaud for dancing. 2 of my socios from my health post, 3 of my teachers, the director of my colegio and primaria were all sitting watching the entertaining show that was KCM dancing steps she doesn’t know in far too much clothing. Then the next day Allie, the volunteer a village away, received a play by play of my dance moves the evening before. She was even shown a photo where my Ugg boot was in the corner of the photo. According to allie the construction workers were quite excited that the ricidulous Uggs manages to make it into one of the photos. Also on a side note, the Uggs are not mine. A volunteer who is now in Tumbes brought them with her. Since she is currently serving in the hottest department in Peru lent them to me for the next two years.

The long and short of what I have learned from my ventures out in Cusicancha is that whatever I do within the Huancavelica region will be reported to someone, probably within the next 8 hours.