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

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.

Ghosts, Ankles and Celine Dion

Here is an image for all of you. This is the story of how I sprained my ankle. It was not just a simple I fell and it got strained. Oh nonono that would be too simple for me. I went up to a meeting for the latrines project that I am doing in one of my annexes. Its about 12 km away and 800 meters higher than me. The hike is hard but beautiful. Although there is a point towards the end where you rise 300 meters in about 2kms and think you are going roughly into the sky and kind of want to kill yourself. I once made the mistake of sitting down during this moment and realized I was shockingly close to being on a slide made of loose rocks that could plummet me to my death.

Well that’s a bit mellow dramatic but either way it’s steep as hell. Steeper than anything a clumsy girl from Ohio should be climbing. Somehow on the walk down when I follow the trails I always manage to get myself lost and end up in the most difficult trails in existence. One time I ended up cornering myself with the water reservoir and had to precisely navigate around that and a muddy tumble down to the river hoping I didn’t fall into a reservoir that looked like it was cleaned the year I was born. Another time I was so distracted by Enrique Iglesias on my iPod, yes ill admit it, I ended up on the trail my nurse specifically banned me from ever using. The trail is only for the expertos because it is all slate rock at about a 60* angle. I then spent the next hour of my life slowly scooting down rocks on my ass hoping that my arm strength would overpower my lower half and slippery pants. It’s always fun trying to navigate through rocks and cactus. I highly recommend this to all of you.

Anyways the time I sprained my ankle I was going down with one of my nurses and there had been a car in my annex (Tambo) when we started walking out. I wanted to stay on the road in case the car left we could hitch a ride. Also I had clearly proven my expertise with the trails home. There was many a moment that we could have cut over to the trails but my nurse was pretty convinced I would fall down the trail and kill myself. Little did she know I could do that on the road too. We casually meandered and she serenaded me with Spanish songs. Every so often she would convince me to sing but unfortunately the only songs I could think of were “Call Your Girlfriend” and “We Are Young” and I couldn’t remember all the lyrics. I spent the most of the time making up lyrics. I’m pretty sure “Call Your Girlfriend” at one time turned into “We Found Love” with a dash of Ellie Goulding.

As dusk approached it began to get colder and there was still no sign of the car, which was the whole reason we had taken the longer route. We decided to put a little pep in our steps and as it got darker it became more and more apparent that my socio was in fact scared of the dark.

Fortunately we had forgotten our flashlights and had the lights of cheap cellphones to guide our paths. The darkness fell and my socio began to call roughly everyone in her phonebook from fear and talk to me about how to ghosts would pop out and scare us half to death. In a measure to try to keep her composed and to distract myself from the fact I now felt like I was walking with a 7 year old I started to sing such classics as “Colors of the Wind” and “My Heart Will Go On” Beautifully of course. Somewhere in between trotting down the mountain, talking about ghosts and destroying verses of classic songs I did a full on somersault. Now if you asked me how it happened I would have no response. All I know was I magically ended up on the road with a sprained ankle and my cellphone about 15 meters away.

After a brief examination of my ankle and helping me get up and recuperate my things my nurse decided my ankle was in fact hurt but all we could do was continue walking. I happened to land where there was no cellphone service for 2 km and no civilization besides a drunk for 3 kilometers. Had to soldier on. At this point my socia was basically shaking out of fear waiting for a ghost to pop out of nowhere. She is also about 5 feet tall 100lbs soaking wet so she told me I’m too small to really support you. Valid statement I’ll give her that. Not the most helpful at the moment however.

Let me tell you walking with a sprained ankle on a rocky dirt road with someone who is about to pee their pants in fear and is spending their time searching for cellphone service to call anyone is probably one of the highlights of my life. What made it even better was that to dissuade her fear my socia kept asking me to sing “My Heart Will Go On.” So I spent the next kilometer and a half limping while singing Celine Dion and attempting to see the road with a cellphone light. It was one of the moments I wish that the Peace Corps equipped volunteers with a hidden camera in their glasses, because really it should have been recorded.

Thankfully the car that had been selling fruits and vegetables in Tambo finally started to approach us. Of course until it was basically on top of us my socia was convinced it was something besides a car. I’m pretty convinced she thought it was 2 lanterns carried by the disembodied heads of murders. The owners of the car were shocked that we were not already back, the singing along the road and minor tumble had added a bit to our trip. Of course once we were safely inside the car my socia began to make fun of me for not being scared of the dark. Don’t get me wrong it is kind of freaky to be walking outside in complete darkness surrounded by mountains but I have found that not thinking that ghosts will come and attack your soul generally helps the situation.

I of course was proved dreadfully wrong. As we passed a large pile of dirt where there had been a landslide a few years ago the owners of the car told my socia a ghost story. Apparently about 3 years ago a regiadora (councilman) had been walking past the pile of dirt at night when a white shining woman approached him. The ghost came painfully close to his face and followed him for a bit as he ran off and he didn’t talk for the next 3 days. To that my socia replied “see I’m right, if we had gotten to this point we would have seen the ghost and lost our voices.” By this point I merely accepted defeat and that there are in fact ghosts in the sierras but really more than anything I was just glad to be in a car. When there is no light here people’s imaginations go wild. Or who know maybe there are incestuous deformed monsters and white ghastly women that walk around in the dark. All I know is I’m always bringing a flashlight.

Vertical Limit

Long long ago…well really soalmente about 8 months ago but it may as well be a lifetime…I wrote about my field-based training. A little tidbit in that blog entry was about how I am basically scared shitless of ledges. It is not necessarily heights just ledges. I personally think that my logic for this fear is perfectly solid. I am one of the clumsiest people probably in America and if I get within 5 feet of a ledge I naturally jump to the conclusion that I will trip and fall of that ledge to my impending death, or at least paralysis. There are incidents in my daily life, like walking into a pothole in the sidewalk and face planting, that serve to justify my fear of ledges. I should have gotten stitches once from walking. Therefore as you can see I should probably live in a bubble to protect others and myself from harm. On this charming note I am going to tell you a story of my vacation in Huaraz, Ancash, Peru.

Ancash has some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in Peru. It is also famous for its glacier lakes that change colors with the sun and are vibrant blues and greens. Many Peace Corps volunteers hike to the lakes and it’s a right of passage to jump into the glacier lakes naked, for only about 7 seconds before hypothermia sets in. For the 4th of July vacation my friends Monica, Ty and I decided to go to Ancash to hike such things in and around the capital city of Juarez. Unfortunately Ty got sick the day we were planning on hiking so that left me and Monica, 2 of the most directionally challenged people in America to hike up a mountain. On the combi ride up we ended up meeting another American, a kid named Nick who had just finished his junior year abroad in Chile and was now in Peru to do crazy things like ice climb to the top of mountains.

The three of us began the hike up; it was a steep but pleasant hike. Thoroughly unprepared Monica had no idea how long the hike was actually supposed to be but luckily we were with someone who actually had things like a map, or a general idea of how long it would take to subir. All seemed good on the western front until we reached a point where the path simply seemed to disappear. It went up to some trees and then there were just boulders. Not flat boulders that you could easily climb over but round circles that looked like if they were wet you would just die without question. Nick casually mentioned that he heard there would be some bouldering in the hike. I on the other hand was totally unprepared for the fact we were bouldering up a mountain holding on to metal ropes. Had we been closer to the bottom I would have called it a day and said I will look at pictures online. Unfortunately we were about 2 km’s away from the lake and had already hiked about an hour and a half to get to this point.

There was no turning back.

Monica went first. She grabbed onto the metal ropes, basically did a whale belly flop and hoisted herself up the boulder with mostly arm strength. Upon seeing this ungraceful belly flop I immediately knew I was going to die, no question about it. I grabbed on to the metal rope and for about 10 minutes stood there with my arm wrapped in a loop attempting to get my foot off the ground. Monica, although having been my friend for nearly a year, was fully unprepared for my reaction to ledges. She had never seen this side of me. At first she did not know if I was joking or not and upon realizing it was not a joke she had no fucking clue what to do. Its perfectly understandable, since I am so awesome in all other aspects of my life its hard to believe I’m scared of something. Well let me tell you I have a perfectly logical fear of tripping to my death.

Had it not been for Nick, an experienced hiker who claims he has seen crazier (although I seriously doubt that), I probably would have stayed holding that rope with one leg up until the forest service helicoptered me out. Finally I made my way up the boulder but instead of doing a belly flop and quickly pulling myself up to the next level of boulders with my arms, I naturally found a way to hide in a little hole created by two boulders. The most awkward situation to try to escape from. I found a way to make my life even harder than it already was. Naturally. In an effort to find new footing I became probably the classiest version of myself, a hot mess envisioning my own impending doom.

Somehow Nick managed to talk me out of the hole I had put myself into. Monica on the other hand was so taken off guard that all she could do was take pictures and laugh. I do not blame her for this in the slightest, I was fucking ridiculous. There is actually a picture of Nick somehow magically standing behind me on the boulder while I remain crouched waiting to die. To Monica’s credit she did try to talk me down a bit to help me out. One of her calming phrases was “don’t worry its all in your head” to that I instantly responded “I am the clumsiest person in the world it is in my body too.” Pretty fool proof logic. All she could say in response was “true, but you are only clumsy when you are not paying attention now you are probably the least clumsy you have ever been.” Heartwarming sentiment but I still was struggling to put the images of me eating shit oh so many times out of my head.

Long story short I eventually made it up the boulder, although I spent the rest of the subir up the boulders muttering things like “they should have warned me to wear a fucking helmet under my breath.” Finally we made it to the glacier lake and although it was freezing I was revved up on adrenaline from actually making it up the mountain. I decided to follow suit with many of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and jump into the lake naked. I believe that normally Volunteers do this when they are mostly alone at the lake to minimize the amount of witnesses. That my friends would be far too elegant for me. I decided to hop on in although there was a German couple, about 4 other climbers, my new friend Nick, and apparently an old man at the top of the mountain…but we will get to him later. Later that night at dinner we ran into Nick and upon running into him that he had not only seen me have a panic attack over ledges, he had also seen me naked. He probably…well no defiantly…thinks that I am bat shit crazy.

The way back down was less eventful that the way back up, partially because I asked Monica if we could find another path and avoid the boulder madness. I could just envision myself sitting there until I withered away from hunger. Like 127 Hours, except I wouldn’t have my arm jammed in a rock, I would just voluntarily be sitting there for the rest of my life. The one interesting part of the way down was being guided by an old man we had been on the combi with on the way up, getting lost, abandoned and thoroughly unprepared for a 5 hour hike down.

The man we ended up walking down with was an older gentleman from Germany and to put it lightly he would not shut the fuck up. The whole way down he told us about things we absolutely had to do in Bolivia and Argentina, but it wasn’t simple things like the salt flats or a restaurant. It was the most complex hikes and directions I may have ever heard. To give you a taste “get on a combi at blahblah (I remember no names) go for about 2 hours then get off before the stop, then get in a mototaxi and go half way around the circle, then you will be in front of blahblahs house where you will find a barely used path that you should take up the mountains until it forks and go left. Then you will se the most beautiful mountain in the world. We repeatedly tried to tell him that we had 18 more months of service and would clearly remember none of this but that did not stop him from talking. I’m pretty sure that he has walked the entirety of Argentina and Bolivia at this point.

When Monica and I tried to make our escape for the forest service to catch up with the friends we had lost, get directions down and generally stop hearing stories about random mountains in Bolivia neither of us will probably ever see our old German friend simply refused to let us go. Well that is a little harsh I shouldn’t say refused to let us go, he basically just told us that we would be the biggest idiots I the world if we did not follow his directions. He waived his map and superior hiking skills in our face and basically badgered us into going with him. When Monica had to inform him that he was in fact looking at the wrong lake I should have known something was array. I’m just adding this to the running list I have of things I have done that my mother specifically warned me not to do.

The one problem with following this man was that he was walking about 85 times faster than us and had a tendency of just leaving us in the dust with the hopes that we would instinctually follow the trail. Let me tell you Monica and I have nothing instinctual about directions. We both can get lost walking about 3 blocks and should never be trusted to our own devices. When we reached a field we thought we heard a car coming so naturally we waited to see if we could hitch a ride back down. Sadly we could not and now we were just faced with a giant field and barely a path. Not the best combination.

We began our decent with vague directions from hikers coming up from a nearby lodge and a vey distant view of the road. Although neither of us were entirely sure if it was the correct road or which direction we should head on sed road. At points we were literally just trekking through someone’s chacra while veering to the left in hopes we would eventually meet some form of civilization. Just when we were about to be concerned we saw a man sitting on a wall the seemingly perfect man to ask if we were heading on the right track. Lucky us it was our new friend the old ever so pleasant German man.

We merry three set off yet again into the unknown eventually hitting an upscale lodge that lays at the edge of Huascaran National Park and the lake. Monica and I thought it would be a good idea to go in to get directions, see if they knew anything about cars, or por lo menos get some water. Our new friend did not agree. Again he tried to badger us into going along with him, but this time Monica and I were thirsty and on the brink of hanger so he did not win. Fortunately we got water and directions with a grossly underestimated time of travel. When we emerged from the lodge 15 minutes later our new friend had disappeared. I cant say that I was sad necessarily, more annoyed that he made us stay with him the whole way just to ditch us when we had an idea. Rude sir.

Anyways we seguired on el camino to god knows where. I had some faith that we would eventually end up somewhere although I did not trust the time estimate of 30 minutes I had been given and I seriously contemplated that we would walk all the way to Huaraz. While walking on the path it arbitrarily decided to turn into a river. In America that would be a clear sign you were going the wrong direction- in Peru not so much. At the points it turned to rivers we asked for directions just to see if we were headed the right direction, perpetually getting a 30 minute time estimate. Now unless these people can fly it is not 30 minutes it is about 2 hours. Also fun fact about half of the directions we god were in Quetcha, the Peruvian native language. Cleared things right up.

At one point we were walking through a field that looked like Children of the Corn, soon we passed to a chacra that looked like the setting of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets The Hills Have Eyes. Right around this point the dusk and hunger set in and Monica who lives in a city began to get nervous. Having already had a mental break down that day and being slightly more accustomed to walking through random fields I decided to be the voice of reason. My voice of reason said “let’s go ask people for directions.” Meaning lets climb through someone’s backyard/chacra at a 75* angle to ask whether or not we are headed the right direction.

I felt like I should have shouted the gringos are coming, the gringos are coming based on the looks we were getting from the Peruvians. Upon reflection I would have stared at people like they were crazy if suddenly 2 dirty girls came crawling through my backyard to ask if they were about to reach a place 10 minutes away. Anyways we finally seemed like we were reaching civilization, we even spotted a well-dressed girl clearly on her way to Huaraz. Of course when Monica went down to ask her how much longer I got caught in a thorny tree and couldn’t escape for about 2 minutes.

Eventually we caught up with her and then did the awkward hang back where you are clearly following someone. Pure stealth. All in all the lesson that I have learned from this hike is that I should never be anywhere near a ledge and I should always travel with a guide. Also I am probably the best hiking partner ever. Just saying.

Ransa

I have come to a point in my Peace Corps service where everything is starting to feel normal, mundane even. Project seems to get going along, slowly but steadily. I have learned to think in a matter of weeks and months rather than the American mentality of minutes and hours. As I go along my merry way designing projects, making plans, going down to the coast every now and again in order to reconnect with the outside world. Everything seems so normal at times that I even forget to write about anything because I feel as if I am so engrained into my life here that there is no longer a concept of America. That is until I go to wash my clothing one-day and there is a cow ear piercing celebration. These are the moments that I remember that I am in fact not in America.

Now I don’t know how many of you have ever been fortunate enough to attend a cow ear piercing celebration, but it is the weirdest shit I have ever seen in my life. Also it would not rank up there with PETA’s top 10 activities to do with animals. To give you a lovely picture of the celebration there are women dressed in colorful clothing paying the drums and singing in Quetcha. The family that owns the cows dancing around with white flags that have the family’s initials written on them in what appears to be blood. The air is filled with the aromatic scent of burning bosta (dried cow shit) and a thick layer of smoke hangs in the air.

All of the cows are herded into a coral where over a series of hours and an ever-excessive amount of beer they have their ears pierced, ribbon put through it, their horn sawed down and finally are branded. It may or may not be one of the most disturbing yet entertaining things I have ever seen, and I have seen a little kid get diarrhea on my doorstep.

To start of the ceremony there were two baby vacas placed together on their sides in a marriage of sorts. They were adored with necklaces and baby powder. The family sang and danced around them while the young cows tired fruitlessly to escape. To finish off the ceremony they had a cloth with oranges, caramelos and bebidas placed on top of them for one final carnation. Finally the food was thrown into the crowd, I don’t know about you I don’t think I would want to eat food thrown into an animal coral. Oddly my ideas that eating food dropped in dried cow shit could make you sick did not effect many of the kids, I actually saw a young kid pick up an animal cracker off of the floor of the coral. I can only imagine that stomach infection.

As if cows’ getting married was not weird enough, cows being individually for all intents and purposes hunted down by progressively drunker men followed it. Now this part was clearly the most entertaining part because quite often the men were unsuccessful in catching the cow the first time. The attempts to catch a cow consisted of one man running after the cow and grabbing on to its hide and then running and leaping to catch up with it. He would run for as long as he could with the cow, hopefully eventually being assisted by other men to trap and stop the cow. One cow was particularly crafty and managed to ram my auxiliar (Assistant principle) into a pole in order to stave off ear piercing for at least 20 more minutes. As the afternoon wore on and the men became increasingly intoxicated the gathering of the cows became more absurd. At one point my nurse got very concerned that there would be a large number of stitches in her near future.

After a cow was captured the next step was to calm it down enough to stick scissors or a knife into its ears and then place ribbon through its ears and tie it the ribbon. After the first cow had its ears pierced family that owned the cows placed the blood of the cows on their cheeks like war paint. Yes cows blood as war paint. Not your typical Thursday afternoon.

After the cows had their ears pierced my host father proceeded to run over with a saw, which I’m pretty sure I have seen him use to cut both lamb and metal, healthy combination, to saw off the top 2 inches of the cows horns. A myth exists that if you don’t cut off the horns the cow wont grow. Naturally. Anyways this was a particularly gross part of the ceremony because they didn’t always get the horn sawed off the first time, especially towards the end of the ceremony. There was one poor unfortunate cow I was pretty convinced was going to die of blood loss because the horn cutting was so unsuccessful.

I know you are all wondering what they did with the tips of the horns, don’t worry they kept them, “Para la Mesa,” a duh. For those of you that don’t speak Spanish that means for the table. I’m not so sure if that mean there is a special cow horn table or if it is used like a thanksgiving cornucopia as a dining table centerpiece. Either way I don’t think I want to know.

To cap off the whole glorious ceremony the cow was branded. The men would stand around the recently pierced and cut cow shouting “FUEGO! FUEGO!” until a man on the other side of the coral ran over with the branding tool. His run was more of a drunken leap than a run and I became thoroughly convinced that he was going to accidently brand one of the young kids he was running past. But that is probably my own neurosis. Finally in true Peruvian fashion there was a parade at the end to herd the cows off to the chacra. During the parade the family was throwing caramelos into the crowd running after the newly debilitated cows. I have to say it was particularly funny to see 50-year-old mothers and grandmothers running alongside young children in the hopes of picking up free candies.

Its times like these that I remember I am in a totally different world. The everyday here can seem so mundane that I have lost my concept of what is normal and what is odd. I have become used to small talk and now say “aca pues” when someone asks me what’s up. That roughly translates to “well, here” something I would have never even thought to say stateside. Even though things can seem routine and ordinary here there is always something, something from left field, completely unimaginable, that manages to shake me back into the reality that I am an outsider looking in and have no fucking clue what is going on.

Unidentical Twins

Normally when you think of identical twins you think of two parallel lives. Two people that have a connection that the rest of us simply cannot understand. Two people who have the same DNA, the same potential and generally a similar outcome. I always thought of twins as people who had a strange telepathic connection and were mirror images of each other. Since twins are generally raised in the same house I feel like it’s rare to see twins that look like night and day or are on different learning levels.

Recently however I learned that this perception I had is entirely false. Identical twins can look as different as fraternal twins when you toss in some chronic malnutricion. I had heard about the malnourished twins from one of my annexes in Tamno but silly me I thought that both of the children were malnourished not just one. I thought that they were suffering from the same fate but I could not have been more wrong.

I went up to Tambo seeing the two twins side by side for the first time. They appeared so different I did not in fact realize that they were twins until my health post told me. They are identical females a year old, Luz Maria and Luz Esperanza. Luz Maria, is reisgo bajo de talla, a little short for her age, but relatively on track for a community where nearly every child is suffering from some sort of malnutricion. She walks around with pudgy baby limbs and giant chipmunk cheeks. She has the curious look of a one year old trying to explore the world. She will stare you in the face while eating her apple, make eye contact with you and wonder off to find something else more intriguing.

There is a distant dullness present in her eyes. A sort of deep dullness that is barely recognizable. A faint hint that she is not to her full potential but none the less when she looks at your face you get the feeling that she knows what she is looking at. Even though there is the distant dullness present in so many of the children here Luz Mariacan walk and crawl and hold her head up straight. I wouldn’t be surprised if she started to say a few words, or sounds that may appear to be words in the near future.

Her sister, her identical twin sister, Luz Esperansa, who until the moment I saw her I assumed looked exactly the same as her sister is chronically malnourished. She is without a doubt the skinniest baby I personally have ever seen. When I was touching her hands I felt like I was touching the hand of a preme rather than a one-year-old baby. Also unlike most one year olds she did not really react to my fingers. It was if she was touching it but not trying to grasp it. Instead of trying to make a decision of what to do with the finger placed in her hand she simply let her hand slide away, almost as if my finger had never come into contact with her skin.

The look in her eyes is so vacant and distant it is as if there isn’t even a human being behind it. She stared off listlessly into space clearly not having any idea what she is staring at. Her face is so disproportionally small to her eyes that it looks as if her eyes may pop out of her head at any given moment. Unlike her sister who has chipmunk cheeks compliment her giant eyes, Luz Esperanza’s face is sunken under her eyes and her cheeks lay flat against the bone. The limbs of her body look as if they could break at any moment because there is not a protective layer of fat and muscle to surround the bone that lies underneath.

Apart from the vast physical discrepancies that are undoubtedly visible, there are other more startling and more dramatic differences between the two. There is a schism the size of the Grand Canyon present in their developmental skills. Luz Esperanza cannot dream of holding an apple yet, I doubt she could even hold a feather at this point. In fact she has barely even mastered the art of holding her head up straight, crawling or controlling any muscle motion. Her head is perpetually bobbing to the side as if it is too big for her tiny neck. Her head will stably sit up for about 30 seconds before her entire body flops, wiggles and her head looks as if it may break her neck. In fact, I never saw Esperanza even sit up on her own. When she was in the seated position either her mother or her sister perpetually supported her and her body movement is so floppy and jerky that she didn’t appear that she had any control over what she was actually doing. It was as if her persistent and dangerous sounding cough could cripple her body and force her crumble and fall to the floor because there was no brain to muscle connection.

Throughout training I heard about the difference in development between nourished children and malnourished children. My health post has discussed it incessantly during meetings of Programa JUNTOS in an effort to mejorar the situacion de salud in Cusicancha. It has always been a fact of life here; I have seen the dull distant look of mildly malnourished children in many of the children here. I have gone to the coast and thought that children were a solid 2 years older because they were so much larger than children in my site but there was something about seeing twins in such shockingly different states of mutricion and development that shocked me.

It left me to wonder how such a thing could happen, how to one-year-old twins end up in such a position of disarray? It is not as if one is a boy and one a girl, which I could understand because of the machismo culture. These are two girls, not even old enough to talk or make decisions. Is it that the mother simply chose one child over the other? Picked a favorite and decided to feed it better. Could it possibly be that she already has 8 other children and simply could not manage 2 more at the same time so one’s life fell to the wayside? Could it be as simple as one child was more demanding that the other so she won the perpetual food war over meager resources. What is it that leads to one twin having a future and other appearing that it may not make it though this exceptionally cold winter?

This made me wonder about the future of the children. What their life will be like as they grow older and recognize their vast developmental and physical differences. Already one child is walking before the other, soon she will be talking, running, giggling and making friends before the other. It made me think that they will be more like sisters than twins. The telepathic connection and secret languages I always envisioned twins having may never come to fruition. How can you have a secret language if one starts to talk nearly a year or more after the other? Will one child have to constantly look after her smaller; less emotionally, socially, and mentally developed sister? On a serious note will both of the twins survive to their 5th birthday?

It was starting to see the comparison of nourished to malnourished child side by side. Generally it is a far off concept, one kid is one the coast and one in the sierras so the comparison is too far apart to have a clear picture or the children are already at different ages so it is hard to say what is age and what is nutricion. But with twins the difference was undeniable. There was a clear picture in front of my face of what malnourishment does to a child. How malnutricion is devastating to a child’s future and the first three years of like can do irrecoverable damage. It leads me to wonder if this was a moment of Sophie’s choice where the mother only had enough for one or one twin genuinely trumped the other. Nutricion has shown itself to be the clear dividing factor between two people that had the same exact potential tearing apart two lives that had the potential to be bound together for all eternity.

Voley

Let me tell you a story about volleyball. It is a sport that is wildly popular in Peru, every kid starts to play when they are little and it is one of the two sports (soccer and volleyball) that dominate Peruvian recreation. I on the other hand am horrible at volleyball. I rank somewhere between a Peruvian 9 and 12 year old. It’s to the point where I am beginning to think that my community does not believe that I in fact played a sport in college. Every that I actually manage to hit the ball, even if it is entirely the wrong direction I get applauded from the director of my primary, my health post and whoever is actually playing at the moment. Kind of sad when you get applauded for sending volleyball straight towards the river, guess I never honed my volleyball skills in 7th grade gym class. Also probably doesn’t help that I am usually wearing about 8 layers when I am playing. Limited arm mobility.

Generally in any given game I either don’t play or get badgered into playing for a brief moment. I say a brief moment because inevitably there is a kid named Diego patiently waiting for me to fall, get hit in the head with the ball, totally not realize the ball is coming my direction or fly the ball into space, to take my place on the…almost said field...defiantly not a field…I know the word in Spanish…losa…but I now realize that I have no idea what a volley ball playing area is actually called. That is just how experienced I am. Court maybe. That is my one and only guess.

There was one time that I actually managed to play for more than 7 seconds and I got a point for my team, rather than the other team, which is my usual forte. My theory is that everyone was so distracted by the fact I briefly seemed to know how to play that everyone else seemed to forget to play at the moment. I got basically a standing ovation at the end of it. I feel like a little kid whose mom is proud that they touched the soccer ball once during the game.

Anyways I am now determined to look up the rules of volleyball and some information on the sport, considering I don’t even know where to start when I get on the losa, and have my sister teach me how to volley. I am also buying a lacrosse stick from a fellow volunteer because I feel that it is time to prove a. that lacrosse actually exists and b. I do know what I am doing in some sports, just not ones where balls are raining down on your head.