This weekend I went into the city and spent Saturday and Sunday in Chivay with my enamorado. I like that word, enamorado. It literally means the guy I am enamored or enfatuated with. It has a much more appropriate ring than “boyfriend” for some reason.
He took a bus in from Arequipa, where he lives, to see me. We spent a majority of the day at the hot springs. This is usually a place where locals come to bathe by morning and tourists come to relax by evening. Well, I have to say, with my darlin there, no one gets to relax. He is a huge ham and everyone smiles when he is present. Everything from sharing his drink with anyone within reach (a common part of historical Peruvian culture that is dieing due to western influence), to teaching kids how to swim with me, to offering his enamorada to pachamama (Mother Earth) and throwing her into the 90degree pool… very loudly.
Walking through the market with him was quite a trip. By now, the local growers and sellers have come to know me and often slip a free banana in my bag here and there, but with him there it was like they wanted to offer their entire tienda to him. He is so charismatic every woman falls in love with him in seconds. I think I got double my week’s spinach for the price of one, and another woman pulled out the fresh broccoli for me from a wooden carton hidden under other fruit. It was also good for me to be seen with him around town so that any men that might have bothered me in the past know he exists and I shouldn’t have to deal with them in the future.
Sunday we played soccer with Chivay locals that I have come to know. The past couple Sundays I have come into Chivay to do my market shopping, play soccer, and bathe. Women don’t really play, so I play with the teens and men my age. I have to say, I have a blast every time, and usually other locals stop to watch us play. I am not a very good soccer player, but I love every minute. The constant running at this high altitude, if nothing else, will strengthen my heart and thicken my blood like chocolate.
Monday I had my quechua classes in Chivay. Our teacher is fabulous. He is a tour guide that is a native quechua speaker and he is extremely animated. He is teaching the class in a well-organized fashion and when he starts telling stories we are all sucked right in. In learning quechua we are not only learning a language, but a culture and a history. It is a little odd that the other volunteers and I are learning our third language from our second, but somehow, it works.
Monday evening my enamorado returned to Arequipa City and I went to the AICED library to do some research on Madrigal. AICED is a non-profit formed by the Spanish government that set up shop here in the Canyon to do vocational trainings and repair the Spanish churches that were destroyed in an earthquake about 10 years ago. Their goals and Peace Corps’ differ in many aspects, but we both have resources to offer each other and get along very well. Over all, we both want to help. They are the group that actually put us up in Chivay when I was translating for the health survey for Health Bridges International and Quechua Benefit. Their library consists of about 4 shelves of books, but it is the best in the canyon and only contains information about the canyon. I am researching for a Community Diagnostic that all volunteers must write for the Peace Corps. This weekend I will travel to Ancash for Early In Service Training and will be required to turn in this 10-50 page diagnostic and do an 8 minute presentation on my town. This diagnostic will contain some history of Madrigal, information about the lifestyle, what people want, and what I am going to offer them. Then, I will return to Madrigal and present my findings to the professors and municipality members here. I have handed out and received about 200 surveys at this point and both Peace Corps and Madrigal want to know what I found out. One set of surveys was done via convenience sampling on health access, the second to each kid in the local school on education, and the third to the parents of the students on lifestyle.
Once I have written up the CD (Community Diagnostic) I will try to post it here. However, it will be written in Spanish… sorry. Perhaps when I am not feeling so busy with work I will translate the whole darn thing.
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