31 Mayo 2012

My host father was drunk in the fields today, so milking, making cheese and wuacta-ing were particularly annoying and I had to stay later than expected.

I run back to the house, fix lunch for everyone, and by the time I am finishing cleaning up there are little ones at my door, “Srta. Luz, hay VALE?”

“Of course I will open the library, let me go get the key and we will go right now!”

“Yaaaaaay!”

Then Belen says something like, “But you don’t need a key, you just hit it really hard,” she motions with the shoulder, “and ploock!”

I find this kind of strange. I mean, the wall the municipality constructed to protect the books made me nervous at first, but we have never had a break in. Today, I was no more worried than any other.

Here I am, talking to a short mob of about 12 kids about lowering their voices and washing their hands while I unlock the door, I push it open, and half the wall collapses. Into the library, thank god, and not onto my kids.

Immediately I scan the books and appliances with my eyes. Everything is there.

Fury. My heart goes wild. What do I do? This is so dangerous.

“Belen, who did this?”

Silence

“It is ok, sweetheart, I just need to know who did this. Can you tell me?”

Then 11 other voices chime in, “The hostel manager.”

They tell me about how they were playing outside last night after I left, and he told them to leave, came in the hostel, and when he left the wall was bad.

Honestly, this sounds about right, a 13-year-old brain temper tantrum because I didn’t kiss his feet last night. He acted out of anger, then when the wall actually started to collapse he got scared and bulted.

I tell the kids to wash their hands outside while I get my head together. I call Hirma and Meche. No answer.

Do I close the library for the day? Do I report the vandalism to the local police? Do I insist we move the library somewhere more secure? Will the municipality ever fix this? How do I keep the books safe until they do? Why is this such a constant fight?

I struggle to keep the kids outside while I lift the wall and prop the door up with some of the broken wood. I let them in and build an imaginary wall with a bench and tell the kids they cannot enter it. I put one of my 10-year-olds in charge and duck out to Hirma’s quick once the kids are engrossed in their art projects. No answer. Sh**.

I don’t know why, but in that moment, in the middle of the street, I could have had a breakdown. I could have collapsed under the weight of the last straw being piled on my back. Honestly, I thought I would have.

 After pacing back to the library, back to Hirmas, back to the library about 5 times, it just left me. I breathed in some calm that had left me about a year ago, and went to my house and got the hammer and nails.

While the kids’ numbers tripled in the library, I hammered.

“Srta. Luz, can we help?”

“You sure can, I need all your strength to hold this in place while I hammer.”

Huge smiles, they jumped on it. They even wanted to do more once we were done. They paced the wall, looking for ways to make it stronger.

“How about we put a nail here so that part doesn’t bend.”

“Here is a hammer and a nail, my fine sir, have at it.” which was followed by a lesson in my novice knowledge of carpentry.

All I could think was, ‘…carrying the knots. You are learning to carry the knots.’

Today, in the library, outside of the usual book reading and artistic masterpieces there were two lovely marionettes built, and a diagram of the denominations of biology drawn. One little one skipped away with glee pulling the threads of her ballerina and watching the appendages twitch, and a shy adolescent learned how to look up a question, summarize, and create a diagram out of a paragraph.

I did my best to keep the kids out of the halls, but I did not have them clean the bathroom today, as planned. I placed the soap I brought to clean the bathroom next to the hammer and nails. They can start that next week, they rebuilt their wall today.

30 Mayo 2012

There is a Peruvian children’s tale.

A man and his son decide to go to town to sell their donkey.

They clean the donkey up so he is attractive for sale.

To not get the donkey dirty or tired the two are walking by the donkey’s side into town and they pass a farmer, he laughs at them for walking when they have a perfectly capable donkey to ride.

So, the man tells his son to hop on.

A few kilometers later they pass an elderly woman pasturing her sheep.

She scolds the boy for riding the donkey and making his older father walk.

So, the son hops off, and invites the father to ride.

The father rides for a while with the son walking along side.

They pass a young man irrigating his field. He scolds the father for having his boy walk, the boy will be tired and unable to work the fields tomorrow for walking so far today.

So the father invites the son onto the donkey with him.

It is too much weight for the donkey…

Sometimes the story ends with the donkey falling off a bridge due to the weight and being carried away by the river.

Sometimes, the donkey falls from the weight and gets too dirty to sell once they reach town.

The library and after school program space is in the back of the municipal hostel. When we first moved in there was never anyone in the hostel. So, we weren’t bothering anyone when we played games, and the mayor allowed us to use the hostel bathrooms, that was part of the charm of the space he gave us. Now, there are more guests in the hostel (teachers and project engineers rent a room for months at a time). And, the bathroom is pretty much never attended. It always smells like urine, has a disgusting overflowing trash bin, and is caked with dirt. However, it is better than what the kids have at home, and I always have toilet paper for them to use. Sometimes, I think some of the kids only come to the library to use the bathroom on a daily, which is fine with me.

Admittedly, they like to play in the halls. We have a rule that they can’t go upstairs to the bathroom without permission, and there is no playing in the halls, ever. However, with 30-40 kids in the library every day I can’t exactly be monitoring the halls outside the library. Usually, I can hear them, and I stand at the library door and give a polite holler, “There better not be any VALE kids playing upstairs ‘cause that is not allowed.” And they slink back down timidly.

Today, the kid who “manages” the hostel came in to the library, “You have to control the kids better, I had to clean up feces from the bathroom floor yesterday.”

“Wow, I am sorry, how do you know it was a VALE kid? It is a public space?”

“Because they are the only ones who go up there.” Not true.

“Honestly, I am dong everything I can. I put a sign up, I tell the kids to stay down here, what else can I do? I can’t leave all these kids in here by themselves.”

I was honestly asking for a recommendation. What else can I do?

Can you imagine, a parent sends their kid to the library. The kid vandalizes the library bathroom, and the neighbors say it is the librarian’s fault? Weird right?

He took my asking as a me saying, ‘no’, and stormed out.

It was then I came up with the idea that the kids clean the bathroom everyday like they clean the library, but he was long gone before that popped into my head to confirm with him.

So, this guy, wants me to be more strict with the kids.

One girl was being particularly rambunctious today. When the kids aren’t doing art, or reading nicely I send them home. I have probably had to send less than 5 kids home the entire year the library has been open. The library is a privilege, I can’t help kids learn if it is a mad playhouse.

Well, little Fatima came back.

I sent her home.

She came back.

I sent her home.

She came back.

I sent her home.

It was ridiculous. Meanwhile, each time she came back she is being loud and obnoxious. I try every method I know from sweet but firm to strict with deep voice. Finally, she comes back with her mother. You have got to be kidding me.

“You see, I have to go to the parent meeting,” the mother says, “and her sister is here doing her homework, and we can’t leave her home alone or she will cry.”

My mind:

1)    I am not a babysitter.

2)    What would you do if the library wasn’t here? I haven’t seen you at any of the sustainability meetings.

3)    How will she learn if she gets to stay here? She is safe in the house. Perhaps she needs to be home alone and cry. Or maybe you need to set it up for someone to watch her.

My words:

“What would you like me to do? I can’t have her here running around yelling and playing with dogs. People are trying to do homework.”

Her mother, “I will talk to her, but I need her to stay here.”

I can see the girl is a little startled with the situation, “Fatima, if you promise to sit quietly you can stay, but you have to be quiet or you will have to leave no matter your mom being home or not.”

She nods and repeats to me what she is going to do.

This woman, wants me to be more lenient with the kids.

PCVs literally exist to provide the community with what they want/need and cannot provide for themselves. How can one do that when the community doesn’t agree within themselves? Where does that leave the PCV?

A drowning donkey?

    

29 Mayo 2012

Blanket weaving has been put on hold because it is barley harvest.

Last year, my host father was fulfilling the job of the father and eldest son; He was bringing in the bushels that were cut this weekend, and whacking the heads off with a large, heavy eucalyptus trunk.

Then my host mother and I were breaking the heads apart with smaller, but thick branches of eucalyptus, and brushing the shells away with the perfect tool, a thorn bush branch, before winnowing.

This year, it was just the tree of us again, so my host mom asked a neighbor to come and help in exchange for a bushel of barley. I was proud to become “la hija macha” the daughter doing the eldest son’s work. Exhausting.

My host father carried over a bushel that weighed more than he does. Threw it in front of me. I kneel on it to press it more flat to the ground. Stand. Lift the trunk, throw it down to slap off the barley heads –wuacta, is the verb in quechua-. Rotate the bushel and hit –wuacta- repeatedly until all the heads are broken off. Carry the bushel to the women to do the detail work and catch what I miss and sort. I then whack the heads apart that survived, and receive my next bushel.

*please note the relationship that the sound of a verb has with the verb itself in quechua. what we would call onoponopeia, they just call a verb. whack-wuacta*

Because my throat is still a bit sore, and my cough haggard, my host mother insisted I wear a scarf all day and brought me boiled water with herbs to drink instead of chicha. “demasiado calor” my host father said whipping his sweaty brow, I pointed to my sweaty scarf and rolled my eyes. “like I said, so cold out today!” he joked, and we all laughed. While it gets down to below freezing at night, because of the altitude, it is toasty in the middle of the day, mid 70sF.

While my energy is low because my body is still fighting, my spirits are high. I have let go of the fight, passed it into able hands, and am living limpid.

My evenings at the library are more rewarding than ever because I can observe. The kids just come. The little ones know where their favorite art supply resides. The big ones know how to look up their homework questions in the books now.  I exist to smile, open the door and fix the stapler.

25 Mayo 2012

We aren't running the after school program right now. I am just opening the doors to the library in the evenings and allowing kids to use the last of the art supplies and books to do their homework.

The recommendations my superiors made about the program were:
1- Do not bring in more books until the people show more effort. perhaps you can organize a book exchange, but don't house more books here until you know the people will protect them.

2- Get anyone to man/woman the library. Even if it is a non-professional, it is a starting point. things can change later if it goes well.

3- Get your hands out of the dough. Flour the committee of women's hands so they are ready, and pass the bowl. Have faith in what you have done, allow them to take the lead.


So, now that I am not teaching on a daily, just keeping order in the library and helping kids find answers to their questions, I feel like I have one real task: to say, "good job".

Everyday the kids come and make art and do their homework completely on their own. Every time they finish something, whether it be a crayon flower, or the definition of "invertebrate" they always want someone to see it and say, "good job".

It is the same with the women. Complimenting them on our work together over the past two years, "you have done such an amazing job" and encouraging their strength and power like crazy so they keep going after I am gone is my occupation right now. It is so important, and so good for them, and so good for me. It is the perfect way to wrap up my service.

26 Mayo 2012

Have you ever sat with sickness?
not gone to the doctor?

For the first time in my life, I experienced an illness, beginning to end, and allowed my body to fight it off itself without modern medication (mainly because i didn't have access to it).

day one.
tired. very tired. unexplainably tired. sore throat. still working

day two
tired. fever. sweats. sore throat. not able to work.

day three.
tired. fever. inflamed, sore throat. can't swallow with out serious focus and intention. headache. forced myself to work

day four.
tired. fever breaks. swollen, sore throat. clogged sinuses. headache. able to work

day five.
less tired. no fever. red, swollen throat, horrible cough. sinus headache.

day six.
functioning normally. sore throat. still hard to swallow. nasty, phlegmy cough

day seven.
the throat is less sore. still coughing up phlegm and battling less-intense headaches.

Every morning before heading to the loom mamai juana was keeping tabs of my cough. From her kitchen she would auditorily monitor any throat sounds coming from my bedroom and counsel me on herbs and treatment. The most important being that I couldn't come out to the fields with her to weave unless I was sufficiently bundled and my throat scarved (even though it gets as hot as 75degrees midday).

I didn't even know my body could fight off such an illness with just water, herbs, vitamins, and rest. I am proud of and impressed by her for the first time in a long time. More than ever, I am convinced that rest and time are the most healing properties on the planet.

24 Mayo 2012

Peace Corps Youth Development Director, Activities Coordinator, and Volunteer Leader came to Madrigal to meet with the mayor. He confirmed he would be present


he wasn't


they left



I can not make the program sustainable.
So

Me and the committee of women are training mothers and women on the importance of the qualities the program and library provide, and how to be activists.

22 Mayo 2012

the loom

my future blanket