Rain Rain Rain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Carnivales

So carnivales is a celebration in February that celebrates…well I’m not quite so sure. Maybe it’s the celebration before Lent, maybe its something else, maybe I’ll just never know. Anyways so carnivales in Huancavelica is a celebration. Of course. It is a time of pride and dance competitions. So anyways the first I heard about carnivales was January 26^th, when I got a call from my site mate Allie. We had been planning on going down to Ica the first weekend in February but she called to inform me that there was a carnivales celebration and we should probably go down the weekend of the 28^th instead. I was quite skeptical so when she came down I made her get off what turned out to be the only combi of the day and inevitably made us walk most of the way down to the nearest city, Huayatara, but that’s a whole other story. Needless to say I now believe when people tell stories about walking uphill both ways. Because I have now officially done it. In sperry’s. Logically. Anyways Allie had heard all about carnivales where I had still heard nil as of the 2^nd of February. I was becoming more skeptical. The 3^rd of February there was suddenly a community meeting held to discuss carnivales.

In my ever so humble opinion the 3^rd of February is a little bit late to have a meeting about a dance competition on the 5^th of February. Really taking it down to the wire. The first meeting that we had was to decide whether or not we were even going to participate. Since we are the district capital it was a matter of pride to participate. People kept talking about how bad it would look if we didn’t participate. Anyway there was a general consensus we should participate, even though some of the speed bumps like participants and music had not been addressed. Throughout the entire discussion when someone would point out a flaw in our plan to participate, or mention things like who was going to sing, someone would chime in Allie is going to be the chanto therefore Katie has to be it and we have to win. I was sitting there playing with my phone only moderately paying attention, not quite sure why I had become an argument point. Inevitably whenever I was completely not paying attention was when someone would point in my direction. I decided it was best to put the phone away and at least I could pretend I knew what was going on. When it was my turn to vote I just said “si” and hoped for the best.

The next day we were supposed to have a meeting to practice the dance at 4pm. At around 4 I headed out to see if anyone was in the community building, but it was raining, hard. There was no one in the community building. And anyone who saw me from their house simply shouted “it’s raining! You are going to get wet!” Thank you captain obvious. That is why rain coats were invented. After taking a lap and checking twice I decided to take refuge in my host mom’s house because in reality I was getting wet and now I was getting wet for no reason whatsoever. At 5 my mom sent me back down to check. Still no one. At around 6 the rain stopped so we checked again at 6:30. Nada. We decided to eat dinner and check after dinner. When we headed back down around 7:30 there was just a huddle of people. No one was dancing or really making plans, there were just people there.

Whenever it seemed like people were going to give up on the whole concept of dancing in carnivales my mom would whip out a drum and start banging on it to raise spirits. For the next two hours we sat there not making any movement forward or backwards. There were only women which was a problem because the choreography calls for men and women, but people were not ready to give up. At 10 I threw in the towel and went to bed. I was sad that we wouldn’t be dancing but I didn’t was to sit around for about 6 more hours to see what was going to happen.

Low and behold the next morning when I woke up we were dancing. I went to eat breakfast and was asked if I was going over to the local after breakfast to dance. Maybe something had come together in the 8 hours I was asleep. Turns out things did not actually come together when I was in bed; somehow people just got some fire under their belly the day of. Naturally. Maybe it was the carnivales music that started to play at 5 am. In case anyone was thinking of sleeping in. people were running around in a flurry starting to get dressed and ready. Originally I was put in a blue skirt and a white blouse to be a dancer. That was until my mother came over and pulled the skirt down past my natural waist…

I have an oddly high natural waist it can be confusing. Anyways as she pulled it down she deduced that I was too fat for the skirt and it just wouldn’t do. Also on a side bar there is no such thing as political correctness in Peru. If you are fat you are called fat, if you look Chinese you are called china, if you have acne they ask you why. Anyways I had to change outfits at that moment. I went from being a dancer to a chanto, which is kind of like a clown that dances on the outside. I was given a long red skirt, a brown hat, told to wear my hair down, and was in rain boots. Keep in mind my hair was kind of tangled and I was also in my transition glasses, it was a cloudy day and so they were an awkward shade of grey. I have actually never looked spiffier in my entire life.

At promptly 8am we began our first dance rehearsal for a competition at 9. At first my host mom told me to dance around the middle. Just hop and skip. Then there was a general consensus that I should actually dance around the outside. Right before we went to present ourselves to the mayor some members of the dance group decided that I should put a balloon in my ass. After getting a balloon stuffed in my pants I was then treated to the best motivational speech ever. “Even if we loose it doesn’t matter because we still have to participate.” I felt very very motivated. In case I didn’t already look cool enough. After dancing in front of the mayor and my entire community and several of my annexos my host mom decided that the ass balloon was in fact ugly and it should be moved to my belly. Because that is so much better. Anyways we presented ourselves in the parade and then we ran back to the community building to a brief practice before the actual dance. Thankfully my host mom also decided that the belly balloon was ugly and it got popped.

After what I can only say was the briefest dance rehearsal in the history of dance competitions we headed up to the basketball court where the competition would be held. On the way up I was handed a 1.5L bottle of coke alcohol, just to add to my décor. The dance competition is broken into two parts, one 10-minute presentation and one 30-minute presentation. Luckily we were the last to go so we had time to get our shit together. During the other 10-minute presentation a wool square cloth was put on my shoulder to create a satchel. And a baby was added to it. And the embarrassment grows. During my main competitor Allie’s dance performance she was invitiring all the judges to liquor. Basically she was just running around serving everyone drinks. I on the other hand was explicitly told not to do such a thing. Apparently you loose a point by doing such a thing.

Several people sternly told me at that I should not do what Allie was doing. I should dance around the outside and generally nothing more. The 10-minute presentation went along swimmingly. I was dancing around on the outside, holding on to my bottle of alcohol hoping that my baby didn’t fall out of my back. I felt kind of pathetic when my arm started to hurt from holding a 1.5L bottle.

After the 10-minute performance we were sitting on the side waiting to do our 30-minute performance. Somewhere in between the first and second performance one of the dancers came up to me and told me that I was going to urinate. I was standing right next to blaring speakers so I was not sure that I heard the man correctly. Urinate really? How was that going to go down? I needed more information. I walked around to several more people in an attempt to get a full story. I had put my bottle down because of my aching arm and as I was running around trying to find out more information on the urinating information everyone seemed more focused on the fact I put the bottle down than the fake urinating I was supposed to do. I walked around to several people and I figured out that I was supposed to put a chamber pot underneath my dress and pull up my skirt a little and pretend to urinate. I felt that I was getting a handle on things so I walked away in order to pick up my bottle everyone had been making a hullabaloo about.

Just when I felt that I understood what was going on I was hit with another curve ball. My host mother came running up to me and told me that plans had changed. I was not going to urinate. I was in fact going to give fake birth. And then cry over my fake dead baby. Loudly and dramatically. And just for added measure when I found out this little fun fact about the birth it started to rain. Just for dramatic measure. Luckily I had a white tank to under my white t-shirt or else it really would have been a show. Anyways I then had a smaller baby stuffed into my belly tied to a string that was going to come out of my skirt at an unspecified time. Of course as we went to dance it started to rain even harder. Exactly what would happen in my life. Everyone just reiterated that I should be very loud and dramatic when I gave birth. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to tip over before I gave birth and super melodramatic when I was crying over my dead baby. And naturally to make me pregnant another balloon was stuffed into my stomach and I was told to dance slowly as if I was pregnant.

And so we started to dance. I was waddling along except this time I had two babies to focus on not letting fall out. I thought it would be bad form for my baby to fall out of my stomach before I was supposed to give birth but maybe that’s just me. about half way through the dance I was pulled over by the other chanto dancer who had the chamber pot. I thought I was being pulled over to give birth. No such luck. There was a pair struggle scene. Basically where the boys whisk off the girls. Entirely unprepared for this moment I toppled over when he went in for the sideways hug. And hten we were fighting on the ground in what I can only imagine was a fake sex scene. I had so many props attached to my body at the moment I became seriously concerned one of them would be wasked away in the rain. And that my white shirts would be ruined in the mud I was currently sloshing around in.

About 2 minutes after being knocked over onto the concrete I was beckoned over again to give birth. I was moderately tipped over and then told that I should have the baby come out of my skirt. Suuupppppeeerr classy. I was shouting labor pains. And by that I mean making a semi loud noise and trying to control my laughter. Almost immediately after my baby was born it was whisked away from me. I was not sure whether or not it was dead at this point or not so I didn’t start to cry yet. I was kind of just standing in the middle not sure what to do. Looking entirely clueless but what else is new. I danced around a little bit. My baby had been put in a box so I was not sure if it was dead or not. I kept an eye on what they were doing with the baby. Then they pulled me over for the “funeral.” I stood there with my dead baby in a box and cried loudly in front of my mayor, my health post, my host family and basically anyone I had ever met in Cuisucancha. I basically just fake cried for about 2 seconds and then burst out into uncontrollable laughter. I had no idea how long I was supposed to dance or how much longer the dance was going to go on.

Luckily the dance ended pretty quickly after the funeral and the dead baby but of course I was thrown another curveball. The short little man who was the other chanto and had served as my birth attendant came up to me and whisked me away on his back. All of the other girls that had been whisked away were in an even height proportion but I was about 5 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier than him. He could only get me about 4 yards before he had to put me down. It was a shining moment in my life. at this point I realized that I should just give up on the concept of shame because it would be a useless emotion to hold on to during these two years.

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.