30 Octubre 2010

I have travelled into the city to attend some meetings and research like a mad woman.

I thought I would give you guys a little look at what I am working on. This is an outline of the curriculum I am developing:

I. World

A. World Map- paint mural

1. The earth, gravity, the equator, the planets

2. Geography

3. Recycling and putting trash in the trash can

4. History of the world

5. Study of different cultures and arts

6. Study of languages<-this feeds nicely into the next section

II. Community

A. Library- helps assemble library

1. Literacy

2. Interest in reading

3. Computer literacy

4. Researching

5. Presentation and study of country/community's history and culture

6. What is democracy?

7. What is a good leader?

8. Organization

9. Teams and teamwork

10. Business management

11. The role of the female

12. Family violence

13. Alcoholism

III. Self

A. Health

1. Our body parts and how they work

2. What is healthy poop?

3. Nutrition

4. Hygiene

5. Sanitation

6. Safe sexual practices and STDs <- not to be presented to 6-12 age group

8. Family planning

B. Individuals/personalities <-influenced by the Boys and Girls club of America themes of Sense of Belonging, Sense of Usefulness, sense of Influence, and Sense of Competence. Journal making project

1. Individuality and creativity <-allow time for no planned activities where the students can plan or play what they want.

2. Preferences

3. Leadership repeated <-have the student be a leader and teach something

4. Self-esteem <-convince the student that they are important

I will be meeting every night of the week with a different age group.

This surriculum balances The Youth Development Division of PEace Corp's goals as well as local needs and requests from parents and teachers. It is called "VALE" which stands for "Volar a las Estrellas" -the kid's idea. "Volar a las Estrellas" means "fly to the stars", and "vale" means " to be full of worth".

As you can see the first section is world knowledge. Each lower-case letter represents a week of lessons. It is full of games and art projects that teach the topics listed. Each section is paired with sme sort of "big project. The first section's big project will be painting a mural throughout a two month period. the mural is a world map and will me located in the entrance to the elementary school. the second section focusses on the community and it is when we will be putting together the library. There are spaces designated for a library in both the elementary school and high school but there are few books and all the books are outdated. There also isn't a single book that exists just for the joy of reading. Getting ahold of fun books to get kids hooked on reading as well as kid friendly encyclopedias will be my main focusses. The third section focusses on the body and local needs. ut "big" project will be making journals from recycled materils and then building the habit of writing in them daily.

So that is the main focus of my work and my passion.

The teachers have requested I give a series of talks that I am also researching and developing. With the help of Harlem Children's Zone and KIPP methods I will be giving a talk on motivating and teaching students discipline. Other talk topics include how to work with battered children, how to use recycled resources in the classroom, how to incorporate ultimedia in the classroom, and nutrtion and cooking.

Lots-o-work for me, but I love it!

Also, I will begin to collect funds for the VALE program shortly so keep an eye open for that e-mail from me and how to donate. I will be looking for support to purchase paint supplies for the mural, shelving for the library, books, and all the paper and art supplies for the after-school daily activities.

27 Octubre 2010

I was very nervous waking up this morning because three of my “bosses” from Peace Corps were coming to visit. They just want to see that I am alive and working and make sure the city is happy with me. I have to say the visit was encouraging, and Marium had some good ideas on how I can build a shower in our bathroom using local materials.

They brought with them all my forwarded mail from Lima. It was unbelievable. I was showered in letter after letter from family and friends. You people, are completely remarkable, loving, creative, and everything else I can’t put into words. Everything you wrote gives me endless amounts of power. Your letters are kind of like energy drinks. Like those stupid red bull commercials, “it gives you wings!”. You crazy folk said such marvelous and inspiring statements you have me thinking I could sprout a couple new appendages right now and fly all over this beautiful canyon.

Even your little stories of what you have been up to in the past couple months soothe me. Just because you thought to write down this experience and send it to me makes me feel a part of it, and I can’t thank you enough for that. Lord knows I think of you everyday.

Your letters are papering my adobe walls and it feels great!

Thank you, to all my family and friends for just being you!

Also… yup, here comes the plug… Special Thank You to Rise Up Coffee for sending me my morning kick!

26 Octubre 2010 take two

Welp, it is just about time to start.

I mean seriously.

I have lived in Madrigal for almost three months now. It is time to write my community diagnostic and begin my work. I have spent months now getting to know the town and planning (pretty darn well I think) what I am going to do, and now we have reached the point where I have to actually start doing.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, scares the crap out of me.

What if everything I do is a flop?

What if kids don’t sign up for my programs?

What if the teachers don’t like my talks?

What if my programs don’t work and I end up not teaching the kids anything?

What if the kids just don’t like me?

This doubt choked me up today. It was almost as if all of the pain and disappointment of the year to come was compressed into my little Adams apple ready to burst. Expectation is just waiting to blow up in my face. There is so much potential, can I fulfill it?

26 Octubre 2010

So today my host sister and I are sitting in the “kitchen” making the afternoon soup and she is drilling me on my favorite animals and what animals live in The States. She asks if I have ever seen a shark.

“Yeah, quite a few.”

“Weren’t you scared!?”

A little confused I said, “No. Well, if there were sharks around when I was in an ocean I didn’t see them, thankfully, the sharks I have seen have been in Aquariums.”

“What is an Aquarium?”

Yup.

She says she knows what a Zoo is. I explained an Aquarium and her eyes grew wide. The idea of a fish tank bigger than her house is a hard concept for her to grasp.

“The poor fish.” She says. Then a quick and sharp thought goes through my head: not a single animal I have seen here is caged. Yeah, they tie up the cows at night to keep them from eating themselves to death, but that is for their own good. The cats come and go as they please, the dogs roam free, even the chickens, roosters and guinea pigs have their way around the house. But, the thing is, each animal knows where they live. Not a single animal leaves a small designated area they know to be where they belong, and if they venture out of that area with the smallest sound they flee in fear right back to their home. The idea of caging an animal is sad to Roxana. Just think of how sad the way we treat our pets would make her feel. Imagine taking her to a Zoo or Aquarium.

So, I proposed to her some thoughts to chew on: “What if a population is dieing?” She said we should take one male and female, no more, to a Zoo. Good answer, I thought.

“Aren’t they more safe caged and given medicines when they are sick?”

“Why would you want to live healthy and sad?”

Another good answer, I thought.

“If we don’t have Zoos, how will we learn about animals?”

“What do you mean?”

“How will we observe animals and learn about them if we can’t keep them in one place and study them?”

“Why wouldn’t you just study them in their natural habitat?”

“Good point. But then how will people that aren’t scientists learn about them? I can’t afford to fly to India, but I would love to see and learn about tigers.”

“Why would you need to learn about tigers if they don’t live near you?”

What a concept. That said, she loves learning about animals. We had a whole conversation about dolphin brains together, but she doesn’t think it is necessary to take that animal from its natural habitat. The harm it does to the animal isn’t worth the value of her seeing it. If she really has a passion for dolphins, she will go to where they are. Did you know there are pink dolphins in the Amazons of Northern Peru? Me neither.

25 Octubre 2010

I have continued my shadowing daily. I go to the elementary and middle/high school every day to shadow teachers through a schedule we have made together. This has been a fabulous method for me to see where it is in the classroom that these kids aren’t getting the equivalent to a Western education. What I have learned has been monumentous.

I expected to walk into a classroom and be ready to reprimand teachers left and right. To have handfuls of corrections for the way they talk to the kids, the methods in which they teach, etc. But that didn’t happen at all. These teachers might have students that graduate lacking fundamental knowledge, but they really truly are great teachers. Now, that sounds super inconsistent, but it is true. These teachers speak with so much patience and present the information the kids need to know. They really love their kids and work hard to teach them. In my mind, that is a fabulous teacher. Where they lack is in the resources. They don’t have access to the latest journal that will tell them the best teaching method for this or that. And, their teachers didn’t have access to these things. The teachers today are teaching the same way they were taught; The community’s ancient methods of communication smashed together with catholic school discipline has lead them to this awkward in-between that confuses the teachers as much as it confuses the kids.

Today, I was sitting in the 8-year-olds’ class jotting down notes and ideas that I can present to all the teachers in a series of talks I will give next month.

Here are a couple of the biggest challenges I saw:

Students standing up whenever they pleased to cross the room.

Students talking amongst themselves.

The room being disorganized, toys and broken books lay all around the edges of the room.

Now, I want to say, “Tell the kids they have to remain in their seats.” But the thing is, this is a communal society. Each child doesn’t have the resources to complete their assignments without the help of their neighbor or the kid across the room. Sharing is nothing that needs to be taught here, it is daily practice. For example, Mayeli only has three colored pencils and she is supposed to color a scene from the story they read today. So, she crosses the room to borrow green from Wily. Wily hands over the green colored pencil, no questions asked. But, Wily wants a ruler to draw his horizon line and needs to cross the room to ask Marcos if he has one while Mayeli goes to Stefany’s desk to borrow her sharpener. If the teacher didn’t let the kids walk around the room the kids would just sit there staring at her or start hitting each other for entertainment or something.

This sharing mentality is what leads to the need for the kids to communicate amongst each other.

Yes, the room is disorganized and doesn’t set a good example at all for the little ones, but, what are you supposed to do when there is no money for shelving or new books and toys? You just let them pile up on the floors. How do you keep the room clean when the building the state built isn’t sealed and sand and dirt blows in all hours of the day?

Then, I am there leaning over a crying 8-year-old and the strong waft of unclean reaches my nostrils the same time her frustrated words reach my ears.

Coming to these realizations today tortured me. How can I help here? Where do I start? With the kids? The teachers? Their parents? The Municipality? The school principals? The State government? The Country’s Government? Seriously. Where?

And the most confusing and frustrating part of it all is do I want to do this? Do I want to tell them they can’t share, they have to remain in their seats and figure it out. Do I tell the teacher she has to buy supplies for the kids when she has so little money herself. Do I insist she clean the room and get it organized no matter the cost? I can apply for a grant to get these things, but that isn’t in the least bit sustainable. And, above all, if I tell them not to share, to make it work on their own, what will that do to this culture in the enxt generation? How can I work hard for two years knowing the possibility of killing this unique and ancient culture? Is it really best for them to force them into a more independent and secluded Western nature?

This is the main question activists are faced with all over the world. They have to decide between advancement and old ways. What I have read and heard from philosophers and more experienced activists is that it is best to let the community decide. This sits well with me and gives me optimism. They asked Peace Corps to come here for a reason. In reality, I can’t tell them what to do or mandate they do anything. I can only offer information. I can let the people decide what they want. I can’t come in and say, “you should or shouldn’t do this or that”. What will impact the community in a successful way is if I first ask them what they want and then do everything in my power to show them what they need to make those things happen themselves.

23 Octubre 2010

Completely content I rise this morning to the sound of water running for the cows and the chirp of some tiny yellow bids I have discovered to have a haven nearby.

I pull myself out from under the hand woven wool blanket my host mother insisted I put on top of my sleeping bag. The blanket reaks from years of use without a single washing, but the simple beauty of its craft earned its place in my bedroom. I washed the paste from the pots and pans that was mashed potatoes and gravy last night. They giggled when my response to what I was making for dinner was, “papas chancadas” or ‘smooshed potates’ but they raved and so did I. There wasn’t nearly enough to go around. The local fresh milk gave the mashed potatoes a rich, thick, sweet flavor I had never tasted before.

Today is Saturday and we will go to the fields. They told me to bring my knitting, so the work most not be too strenuous. Yesterday afternoon my host mother, sister, and I sat on three rocks in our house and felt the sun set as we knit. The method they use is completely different than what I learned from friends in college, so my fingers were clumsy and young, but the technique has a simplicity and functionality that just makes sense. As the cold overtook what was a warm day our fingers tired but our conversations didn’t. By the end, none of us were still working, just sitting and laughing with one another discussing the day and how it passed.

drum roll please...

the before and after-shots of the room

18 Octubre 2010

One of the benefits of living in a house that is 85% roofless is every evening’s sunset is soaked up by every pore in my body.

Every night I watch the sunset between the jagged walls of the canyon, and some lucky nights, I even get to see its pinks and oranges bounce off the clouds coming over the opposite end of the gorge.

Every night I stare upwards trying to find the best shot from the house to watch every moment of beauty. Like a kid looking awe fully at a giant I walk backwards all around the corral my heels tripping over eucalyptus firewood and donkey droppings.

Every night our atmosphere gives me a taste of ultimate beauty, and every night I search to soak up more and more of it. I wonder if, after two years, it will get old.

17 Octubre 2010 take three

Today, I spent, quite literally, the entire day in bed reading.

We were supposed to go to the fields and work in the chacras but when my host father came home from feeding the bulls at 7am completely drunk (no, I don’t know how he does it), I realized that wasn’t going to happen. And when his 70 year old sister came over shortly after to castigate him for his drunkiness I shut my door and decided it was best not to come out until the coast was clear. Turns out, the coast wasn’t clear for about 12 hours.

I would think that this would bother me. Like when I was staying in the municipality hostal: I felt like I was locked in a little cave, shut off from the world. Trapped. But today, miraculously, I didn’t feel that at all. I have built myself a tiny life-sustaining vessel that can take me anywhere. My room made me feel anything but locked today. I finished a book where David Sedaris comically describes his journey in Japan, and began a Dave Egger’s description of an attempt to empty his weighted pockets in Senegal. I could have done the four hours worth of laundry piled up by my door or more fully developed Week 4 of my curriculum, but instead I read.

It is funny how I am constantly talking to kids about reading for fun and how important it is, and yet I never do it. I remember deciding right around middle school that it was time to stop reading those silly mystery novels and use my time more wisely. If I was going to take the time to read, I might as well make it useful. I shifted to old classics or pop psych but then during free time in college found myself reading books titled “Poverty and Child Brain Development” or the Cognitive Psychology Journal. Yup, a journal. While it is all well and good, fascinating and inspirational, where did the joy of reading vanish to? Where was the pick up a book instead of a DVD? Since graduating from college I have allowed myself, for the first time in about a decade, to read anything. And right now, I am high off of it. Knocking silly books out left and right and letting the pile of 30cent pirated DVDs sit on their shelf next to Simone de Beuvoir and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

The next step: get a lock for the inside of my door. I have a huge padlock for when I leave, but have no way to secure the door from the inside. So my little Lu-made boat can take me anywhere, and I really can’t be bothered, we are going to need a hook-n-eye.

17 Octubre 2010 take two

It is funny how when you travel you find yourself lieing more than you would if you were in your own country. I don’t mean like huge lies to people that matter, but like little exaggerations to taxi drivers or random people at a bar.

I think it started when I visited Cindy in New York before either of our careers took hold and she successfully and non-chelant explained to a taxi driver how she was a famous model and I was a famous ballerina visiting from Europe or some far away, exotic sounding location.

Through traveling, you quickly come to discover pretty much everyone does this. Not always with motivations of grandeur, but more often just to make conversation more simple. For example: With the education system in Peru being so different from that of Western Education I have found myself saying, “ I am a psychologist” In stead of, “ I went to a university for four years studying psychology, and while that is the same amount of time Peruvians go to school to get a license to practice psychological counseling, in the united states I would have to go to school longer and study more to get a graduate degree in order to practice. So, I know a lot about psychology and the brain, as much as any psychologist you have ever met, but I can’t actually call myself a psychologist yet.” One might say leaving the truth out gives the conversation more of a ‘flow’.

Is gets slightly more interesting when you decide to entertain yourself and say something completely overboard like, “No, I won’t pay that much for a taxi ride to the hot springs, I live here and I know it only costs 70 centimos”. To which the taxi driver responds, “You are Peruvian?” to which I respond, “Yes, now give me the correct change.” He looks at his hand uninquisitively and counts out my change.

17 Octubre 2010

Some recent questions and a few answers:

What do you do when you have no flour and you want to make alfredo sauce?

Crumble up some crackers.

What do you do when you can’t really understand a neighbor’s request for help with her donkeys?

Let her four-year-old show you how to do it.

What do you do when the kids you are supposed to be working with silently look at you like an alien with a no-so-good disguise?

Has Lu gotten brave enough to say no thank you to fermented corn blah (chicha)?

Nope.

Do you put your bull snot and saliva covered pants in the hamper?

Should you be grossed out with yourself when you realize this is the most flavorful soup you have been served in ages and you find out the floating chewy chunks are pig loins?

How should you react when the chubby cheeked 3-year-old starts calling you llama?

Start calling him piggy.

15 Octubre 2010

I am sitting on my bed gulping down my morning oatmeal and watching the hundred flies that have made an entire galaxy out of my bedroom ceiling with the solitary hanging lightbulb as their Sun and god. I like to pretend they are a bee’s hive so it doesn’t feel so disgusting.
I put on my favorite radio podcast to listen to a story about memories. It seems so obvious that it is silly to even say it, but the thought keeps going through my head. Things in the United States didn’t stop when I left. They will keep going. People will change. Their lives will change. And when I come back, it isn’t going to be anything like I left it.
It would seem that this would be blindingly obvious and not a big deal but somehow, it strikes a chord in my chest that doesn’t have such a beautiful sound, but carries an alluring, inquisitive resonance. The kids love to come in here and look at my pictures. So I am forced about once a day to see the montage of people I love and explain in one sentence who they are, and where we are in that photo. These kids are far more entertained by the fact that peoples’ eyes turn red in pictures than the fact that that is a photo of the last hug I had with my best friend before I moved here.
Because I have no way to get in touch with the people I love, I cling to these memories of who they were and who we were together. Why? Because when a skinny little white girl is thrown into a third world South American community her life is going to be pretty isolated. So, I think about times when I didn’t feel so alone or alien. And, I know that these memories are only that, memories, and all I can do is look forward to what the future has to perform for me. I can only hope that when I do return to my homeland that the few restaurants I loved still make my favorite dishes, that there are still some single folks out there, and a couple people at least pretend to be interested in what I spent the last two years of my life devoted to.

14 Octubre 2010

I practically skipped away from the High School today. It is funny what a pair of high heels can do, I mean really. Everyday I live like I am camping, taking a flashlight to the latrine, washing dishes from boiled water, bathing on special occasions, you know. I was always amazed when I found out which of my students lived in the temporary refugee housing in Lima because somehow they always cleaned up to look the same as the kids in more economically average families. I was that kid today, slipping out of an adobe hut. After my pitiful baby wipe and sponge bath in my bedroom I styled my hair, put on make up and high heels, and headed to the high school for a meeting with all their professors.

It has become a pattern for the high schoolers to come to my room when they get back from their field work evening duties. This means every night around 6 or 7pm I have a bedroom full of curious kids that want homework help. At first it was just girls, but then when the boys started to come and sit on the only piece of furniture I have (my bed) with me for a couple hours each every evening things started to feel inappropriate. Because I have no other space to work in, this is our only option. It isn’t like this family I live with has a kitchen table we could meet at, we eat sitting on bricks or plywood slabs. Lord knows I can’t turn these kids away when they are being so active and attentive about learning. So we sit Indian style as they follow my finger and slowly read out loud. , “I need a space” rings over and over in my ears. These kids are so hungry and they have no resources to learn. I need a room where I can put books and give them access to computers. I need a table and chairs. I need a real space to do real work with them.

I calm my distracted head with the promise that it will come. “Be patient, all you have is time.”, and I head to the school to meet with all the High School teachers to discuss just that.

It is amazing how welcoming most of the professors are to me. If someone from a foreign country came to my classroom in the US and said, “I know you have been teaching for as long as I have been alive, but I am going to teach you how to do it better.” I would probably sock um in the face and spit on them as they fell to the ground. But these hospitable people welcome me. Somehow, I have chosen all of my words very carefully in this second language of mine and most of them don’t see me as intimidating or arrogant and have welcomed me into their classrooms. Or at the least, they listen when I talk because they see me as an interesting form of entertainment.

Today was my day to propose some of the ideas I have for the schools and for them to present to me their thoughts and interests. The principal, Gregorio, was incredibly professional and helpful in making sure that everyone was understood and felt comfortable. I think he has a sense of pride for bringing me (Peace Corps) here to his town and wanted to show me off a bit, but at the same time he didn’t want his teachers to feel intimidated and he balanced the entire meeting incredibly well. Amazingly, the teachers had read the curriculum outline I had proposed to them, and they had ideas for additions and questions about the themes like “healthy poop” and “safe sex”. I talked to them about wanting to encourage non-formal education in the classrooms and they looked at me blankly. I explained that means using games to teach and they laughed. It wasn’t until I went into the science behind it that their eyes grew wide and I finally got them on board. They all made up a schedule for me to come observe their classes in the week to come, and carried an energy of excitement. Knowing full well that I am coming to their rooms to see where the teaching methods lack, they are generally excited to have me there and show me what they do. I was almost shaking when I walked into the meeting knowing this was my first impression for everything, and practically floated out of the school due to their high energy and motivation. There were a couple teachers that didn’t seem to bite on the line I flung out in front of them, but they all at least continue to be curious and have welcomed me to come visit their classrooms.

I felt like myself today. Working with people. Talking about the brain, learning, and teaching. While I ADORE the earth and working with my hands, I am convinced that this work with people and language is why I exist. This balance between living with what the planet as to offer (instead of against it: Western style) and being a working professional is the bread and butter of what makes me happy. These canvas high heels fit me well today and took me where I needed to go.

13 Octubre 2010

As I drove away from the city last night all I could do was stare at the mountain we had scaled the days prior. My lungs aching from physical exhaustion yet continuing to rise and fall to send oxygen to my toughened heart only sent a message of calm. The strongest muscle in my body was not softened by the beauty of the climb, but fortified. Made stronger and more passionate. Feeling our planet is as much a part of why I am here as is teaching and learning culture. I continue to flip through the photos of the ascent as if I am trying to convince myself it really happened. I stare at my tired smile at the summit. Not forced, but labored from the climb, true happiness. Even though my body was crying for air and rest everything overflowed with respect and joy for the world we live on.

I played a podcast on my ipod of Being (previously titled Speaking of Faith) from NPR with an interview of Joanna Macy. This woman is an eighty-year-old everything I could dream of being. Multi-lingual, worked for the CIA in Europe during the Cold War then moved to India with her husband (the head of the Peace Corps there) and worked with Tibetan refugees, became an environmental activist, and then became a Buddhist scholar.

She discussed her wild love for the world and living in the moment. When talking about her life when she was my age and I couldn’t identify with her more. Translated to English:

I live my life in widening circles

That reach out across the world

I may not complete this last one

But I give myself to it

I have been circling around god

That primordial tower

I have been circling for thousands of years

And still I don’t know

Am I a falcon

a storm

or a great song?

some quotes from her interview,

“my world itself is sacred”

“rather, not to be afraid [of grief]. Because that grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, you shut down … … our world stems not from callous and difference or ignorance so much as much it stems from fear of pain.”

“[Our use of the world] relates to everything… …That became perhaps the most pivotal point of the landscape of my life. That dance with despair. To see how we are called to not run from the discomfort, and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear, and that if we can be fearless to be with our pain it turns, it doesn’t stay static. It only doesn’t change if we refuse to look at it. But, when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns, it turns to reveal its other face. And the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world. Our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life.”

“Say you are taking care of your mother and she is dieing of cancer, and you say you can’t go in her house or her room because you don’t want to look at her. But if you love her you want to be with her. If we love our Earth you are able to see the scum of oil spreading across the golf, we are able to see what it is doing to the wetlands and marshes… … when you love something you don’t say, too bad my kid has leukemia, I won’t go near her. It is just the opposite.”

Rilka on darkness as a part of life. The last sonnet to Orpheus

“Quiet friend who has come so far

Feel how your breathing makes more space around you

Let this darkness be a bell tower, and you the bell

and as you ring what batters you becomes your strength

Move back and forth into the change

What is it like this intensity of pain?

If the drink is bitter turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,

the meaning discovered there

And if the world shall cease to hear you, say to the silent Earth, I flow

And to the rushing waters speak, I am.”

As she read this sonnet I felt as if Rilka was talking to me directly through her. I often don’t present in my blog the biggest challenges here in my service as something painful. I take the challenge in my step and feed off of it. I rejoice in the ability to nurse on them. While I express my experiences with humor and delight, it doesn’t mean the vitamin doesn’t taste bitter in the moment. Volunteers couldn’t do what we do if we feared the pain, complained, and locked it away somewhere else. Instead, we are here, with the challenge and we chew on all the sustenance it has to give.

Rilka to God: “Just give me a little more time. I just need a little more time because I am going to love the things as no one has thought to love them. Until they are real and worthy of you.”

Joanna Macy, “I am not insisting that we be brimming with hope. It is OK not to be optimistic. Buddhist teachings say that the feeling that you have to maintain hope can wear you out. So, just be present, The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present.”

“is not impermanence the very fragrance of our days”

11 Octubre 2010

I did something amazing that I can´t blog about. Call, write, or e-mail me if you want to hear about the beauty that I discovered this past weekend.

7 Octubre 2010

I am adjusting to my life here in Madrigal with flying colors. I returned from the city of arequipa with a bed frame and a table for my stove so the room is now livable. I took fruit crates and made a bookshelf where pretty much anything I need sits. The room feels like mine. Having built everything from the roof to the window it couldn´t be more me and peru smashed together. Yup, it´s an adobe hut, but it is my adobe hut! One wall is covered with maps and thanks to you all the other is papered with notes and pictures from The States. It is so cozy I have invited the other volunteers to a house warming party, my host parents can´t wait to get the Americans tipsy on pisco and chicha.

Now that I have a stove I feel like I have been eating like a queen. I have never had time to cook like this before. If I want to, I can literally spend all day over the stove preparing a soup. Getting to know and use local ingredients has become quite a challenge when balancing nutrients, but quinua trumps everything. The stuff tastes great and has so many preparations! Sweet oatmeal or savory soup or even spicy rice, it´s good stuff. My sister has made a habit of coming to my room around sundown when we used to do homework together to inquire about what I am cooking. She almost always gets in on the weird gringa food, even if she has to pick all the green stuff out. She is learning food by food the vitamins in each ingredient and how to make complete proteins. Tonight I told her I wanted to use her kitchen to change things up and she lit a candle for us to see by as we built the wood and cow poop fire. We made spinach, chicken, and rice soup with a little bit of fresh cream. This dish, unlike others I have prepared with lots-o-veggies, the family loved.

Meetings with what peac corps calls ´socios´or local coutnerparts is picking up. I discovered that they have a small computer lab without internet, and a space for a library near by. I am meeting with the teachers next week to discuss teaching non-formal education methods, and will begin my curriculum very soon, just a few more tweaks.

I

3 Octubre 2010

Having worked about 10 hours a day from Thursday through Sunday I am about half way through the first of three sections to my curriculum.

Multiple people have told me I have bit off more than I can chew, but with all my heart I truly believe I can do this. I have decide (with healthy influence from my mother) to break the three sections apart. Write one, teach it, write 2, teach it, write 3, teach it. The whole thing won't be done to begin, but it is a bit more reasonable.

So far we have just gotten through the sun, planets, earth, countries, and world history. Within the next two days I need to complete days on differing cultures, then arts, then languages.

paso a paso

2 Octubre 2010

I travelled to the City of Arequipa at 3am Thursday morning and have been working and attending meetings ever since. I am stuffing my body with yummy food, sending out mountains of e-mails, researching like a crazy person as I write a 6 month curriculum, and loving it. Getting lost in my research and my head while developing fun and informational activities makes me feel like an car rollin down the open road. The mechanisms in my brain are cranking and moving ever forward on to road that goes on forever. I conquer one mile (or kilometer in this case) at a time.

29 Septiembre 2010

Today was the first day since I moved here that I set an alarm. I got up at 3:30 and layered myself as much as I could. I don't actually know how cold it gets at night because I don't have a thermometer (and it isn't like there is local news) but if it doesn't get below freezing you could have fooled my toes. My host father and I set out with the donkeys and huge piles of corn husks for the bulls breakfast. It was slightly anticlimactic as we were deep in the canyon by the time the sun came up and any reds or golds that might had been there were hidden behind the mountains, but I know my host father appreciated the company. He is kind of like Tiffyn in the sense that he really is a strong, hardworking guy and at the same time he has one of the biggest, most loving hearts I have ever met. He misses his wife who always accompanied him, and he appreciates having me around.

Around 8am we came back from the fields to sip some tea, chomp some bread, and head back out to the neighbor's field who helped us yesterday. First more offerings and drinks that I can't stand, and then back to weeding, raking, and then... they asked me to lead the bulls. Quite the appropriate way to end the 5 day planting weekend. Me leading the bull that when I first moved to Madrigal was being trained and made my life flash before my eyes. In a fit of anger he had run right for me and the baby Diego and sent my first dose of culture shock down my spine. But today, I rubbed my knuckles between his and his partner's eyes to help them relax then grabbed the lead stick and wove them back and forth across the chacra. I had to leave the fields after a half day of work (yup 8 hours, left at lunch) and successfully avoided another round of chicha.

The joys of perception have been treating me well. Lately, when I am really craving something that tastes good I chew on something of a similar texture and try to taste what isn't there. Like the other day I convinced my brain for just a second that the alpaca inards and rice were steak and mashed potatoes. For a milisecond I actually tasted A-1 and butter. It makes eating what I don't enjoy a game I do. Today, pachamama-mother earth, threw me a bone... or rather FRUIT! To my delight, the local bodega got mangos in. Instead of soggy black potatoes and rice in the chacra, I lunched on 25cent mangos and vanilla yogurt. I ate 4 whole juicy, ripe, sweet, tangy mangos. No creativity needed, every second was heavenly.

28 Septiembre 2010

Wednesday was a long day of work in the chacra. There were lots of community members there to help, and for the first time since I have been in Madrigal I felt the force of unwelcome. I have been showered with Madrigalenians passion about what I have to offer, but that day some women made it very clear the only thing I am to their cliq is an outsider, a clown that is parading around their city. It is true, I am knew to this culture and don't know very little about their life. So I kept my mouth shut as they mocked my white skin and weird shoes (work boots instead of sanals made from tire). The weeds were better company and I focusses on my day-long date with them instead.

People around the canyon call Madrigal "the broken bell town". One large bell in the center of each town is used to call attention when announcements need to be made, like a wedding or a death. I didn't understand the analogy, and a Peruvian friend from Chivay explained that it is due to the Madrigalenian gossip. They announce everything and are all up in everybody's business all the time. I will need to learn to keep my curtain pulled and my door locked. Show them only what they want to see. As they say, "pueblo pequeno, infierno grande"- 'small town, big hell.' I am just a fish swimming around in their bowl for all to watch.

I came home feeling like the day had actually beat the crap out of my physically and emotionally, but my host father's smil and thanks could cure any wounded soul. He invited me to join him to feed the cows at 4am. Excited about the idea of watching the sunrise over the canyon I agreed and fell asleep when my head hit the pillow.