26 Febrero 2012

this weekend some volunteers and i got together in chivay to do some planning sessions. currently we are designing a leadership camp for adolescents. it embodies all kinds of activities from self esteem to creativity to managing money to being a small business owner... with the occasional sport break. It is kind of like a summer camp or weekend convention for teens with potential.
May 2012 Retiro de Liderazgo
ALMA: Actividades para Lideres Mujeres Adolescentes
VALOR: Varones Adolescentes Liderres Organizados y Responsables

should be slamin

Mario and I met because the design phase of the VALE manual publication is taking Peace Corps HQ Lima FOREVER. SO, he offered to do it with his wildly awesome artistic skills.
I have to say, he has taken my sciencey-brained Roman Numeral outline for each class planner, and converted it into something almost fun to read and look at. WOOT!
We have set the publication date for April 2012, complete in English and Spanish with accompanying CDrom. I can't wait to show you all some pages from the manual. Stay tuned!


then it was all street food pollo broster, poker, monopolio, and food poisening (not me). good times!

headed back to site this afternoon.

22 Febrero 2012 take two

I have taken advantage of having a bit more time to myself as the school year hasn’t started yet, pretty much all projects come to a halt during the rainy season, and Gray being gone. This means more trips to Chivay to use internet, more cooking, more bathing, more reading, and more yoga.

In the mid 1980s a PCV group in Africa made a critical period time-line for Peace Corps volunteers. It is AMAZINGLY accurate still today even as the Peace Corps has changed its face very much. According to this chart…

The issues I am presently experiencing include:

-       increased/more defined work pace

-       awareness of time constraints

-       realization of own limitations

-       post PC considerations

The behavior or reactions I am portraying:

-       hyperactivity or apathy

-       procrastination

-       self-recrimination

-       resignation

-       disappointment

-       downgrade achievements

-       over-identification in behavior

the interventions I am probably applying

-       visiting new volunteers

-       physical activity: ‘get in shape’

-       focus on relationships at site

-       re-examine goals and time frame

-       apply for GRE and grad schools

-       Explore work possibilities abroad and/or in-country

Amazingly accurate. When I told Mario I was bathing more, growing my hair out from pixie to bob, and doing yoga more he just laughed at me and said, “month 18 syndrome. Everybody in our training group is there with ya.” As he handed me the chart. To which I responded, “yeah, you and my cynicism towards the world popped up out of no where, guess that’s what month 18 will do to ya.”

Not looking forward to the concluding months of 20-27 which include “bridging new and former identity” “moodiess” and “panic” among other things…

22 Febrero 2012

Having been a vegetarian through the decade that made up the formative years of my life, cooking and especially cutting meat has been a nemesis of mine. When I take a knife to raw meat of any kind it looks less like suave filets and more like a purchase from a butcher with parkinsons.

When Hirma served me stuffed chicken at her house a few weeks go I was in awe. Each carving of chicken breast was perfectly crafted into cozy little rounds. Using the aji Amarillo pepper in a way I had never seen my taste buds were delighted. I had to learn.
So when she saw that I had returned from Chivay with cauliflower this week she told me to purchase the rest of the ingredients and she would show me how it is done. “I know how you like to each vegetables, so you need to know how to make this dish. And after we make it today, you need to cook it for your girlfriends in Corporaque and Arequipa so you don’t forget how.” 

We were like a proper chef and sou chef. Her hands running around my 3 foot by two foot kitchen calling out what she needed next, and my hands following cleaning up to keep the space functional. I stood in awe as she zig-zag sliced the chicken breast into long flat strips. How have I survived this long without this knowledge?! My mind was going crazy with all the combinations of things I could stuff in a chicken, “You can shred that cheese you love and put that in too.” Lord, this woman knows me too well.

The most beautiful part of the exchange wasn’t necessarily my child-like excitement, but how as she cooked I was reinforcing healthier cooking habits to welcoming ears. “Lets use olive oil instead of vegetable.” “Yes, I have white rice, but is it alright if we use whole grain?” “Lets use the water from boiling the cauliflower to make the stuffing soupier so we don’t loose all the vitamins and flavor.” Isn’t the recipe for the healthiest friendships built out of equal knowledge exchange paired with just the right dose of enjoyment?

We ate far too much. “This is what I make to serve the family of 6 and we just ate it between the two of us.” She laughed as I collapsed on my bed rubbing my belly, “push it down! Make more room.” She chanted while mimicking my circular hand movements on her own belly.

As lunch settled in our systems we talked over tea. How these conversations always evolve to topics about being a woman astonishes me. Today, perhaps because I am reading Ami Mckays book The Birth House, the theme was motherhood. 

I can only hope that I can someday be a mother as patient and compassionate as Hirma. 

21 Febrero 2012

This is life.

As much as I bitch and moan about no water, no electricity, and living in a mud hut losing its charm… it is all worth it for days like today.

Breakfast

Yoga

Tending the cows

Fresh kill steak for lunch from the neighbor-eaten in the field with the family

Short hike to pick wildflowers alone

Editing my VALE text book/manual

Second yoga session

Meeting with summer school teachers

Smelling my potato leek soup simmer for the whole family

Tea and bread with Hirma

Getting Hirma to hire Washington (Roxana’s brother) to help paint the primary school

Knock on the door from a daughter to get help for her father’s medical issue

And now reading the book The Birth House to candle light with the dog curled by my side listening to the romantic harmonies of the milk carton kids.

I don’t feel lonely today, for the first time in a long time. I have tapped back in to the optimistic woman who joined the Peace Corps. I wish I could share how today’s simplicity and belonging has brought me joy with everyone I love and miss.

20 Febrero 2012

The 6^th, if you remember correctly, I presented, for the second time, to the council members and mayor why their kids need them to pay the salary of someone to replace me when I am gone, teaching the VALE program and managing their young library.

They said they were meeting the following day with the treasurer to see if they agree as a group to support the program and see from where they could pull the funds. I was told to come by in the afternoon.

When I returned, they told me all was well, they want to support the porgram, but the treasurer hadn’t arrived to get a check to me, but would the 20^th. That I should return that day to get the contract and check.

Today, being the 20^th,  I went to the treasurers desk and she had no idea about any VALE program, library, or check. And rudely turned back to her work trying to ignore me. Lu, quickly switched to bitch-mode.

“Who do I need to speak to to get the check today? We need it by March 1^st, before school starts.”

“You aren’t getting any money for any program I don’t know about.” (p.s. she doesn’t live here. Everyone who lives here knows VALE)

“Exactly, so who do we need to talk to right now so that you know about it? And, we are getting the money for this program, you just have push the papers, my dear.”

So, we step upstairs to the three council members on duty tonight. The whole 20 minute conversation was a fog. I was more harsh with them than I have ever been…

“I was told to be here today to get the paperwork and check, why do I feel like you didn’t even talk about this project on the 6^th when you meet? This money is not for me, this is for your kids that I am fighting for here. Where is your responsibility to them?”

“This is not the time to be talking, gentlemen, this is the time to be signing. School starts in less than a month. You have been talking since November. I have 4 months to train my replacement and stock your library with $4000 worth of books. There is no more talking to be done, all of your families have benefited from this project, you want it to continue, it is time to back it up with your signatures.”

“To be honest, sir, I don’t believe that you need to check and make sure you have the funds. You do have access to these funds. You can get it from the regional government if you haven’t gotten it already. You all need to do this and you know it.”

“I have been the person representing this project so that you don’t have many community members bothering you about it. But, if need be, I will bring in the directors of the schools, parents, and nurses, and your kids to bother you. You have access to the funds. Make this happen without upsetting the community.”

I have never put a room of “powerful” men so silent so many times in my life. The fathers who’s children are in the program were embarrassed and had their eyes constantly at the floor. As the couple others gave me the typical delay dealy delay responses, they were saying, “we have to get this paperwork through” or “we can do everything on the first, she can come” or “she has been here for two years for free you know”.

“You tell me what you need me to do to help you make this happen now. Tell me how I can help with paperwork or paper pushing in Arequipa. We need to do this together for your children, now.”

The thing that I feared most: upsetting them, making things harder for me, precisely did not happen. I have always been patient with their system no matter how beurocratic and inefficient. Today, I attacked them. As city leaders, as fathers, even as adults. I did upset them, but in lighting a small fire under their asses, one so many of their eyes showed me that they felt the deserved.

My time here seems to be shortening every day (pun intended), and… ladies and gentlemen… she has pulled out the big guns.

18 febrero 2012

my girl

i hopped on a milk truck to come to a meeting today and she ran behind for about 15 minutes crying before we stopped and let her on board. this is the puppy gray brought back from arequipa when our family's dog was poisoned. she is now a handsome young lady...

16 Febrero 2012

The garden. 

Just in case you can’t tell what is happening in this photo, yes, a wall collapsed (perhaps in the rain perhaps in an earthquake) burying half of the garden. We lost all of the onion, garlic, spinach and most of the quinoa.

But, I did harvest a good 12 radishes the size of plump beets.

I am going to attempt to unearth the onions at the least because they are heartiest. And midday Hirma will come by to help me recognize what are weeds we don’t eat here, and what are weeds we do. Apparently, last time I weeded I pulled weeds they use as spices in sauces.  I love that woman. I don’t know what I would do without her. 

13 Febrero 2012

this is what happens to the streets of arequipa during the rainy season

or, should i say, this is what happens to streets when your government laid them 30 years ago and hasn't attended to them since... and then it rains

11 Febrero 2012

peace corps arequipa regional meeting on the beach.
tim p "i think this is the most productive meeting we have ever had"
so true

john even has his thinking face on
amber, the hand over the lips is a nice touch... deep thought

8 Febrero 2012

Today was Roxana’s day- Happy Birthday, little lady! I had no idea what a great day it would be for me as well.

This is the second of our yearly trip to the city together. Last year was her first trip to a movie theatre, her first ice cream sundae, and her first first-hand clothing purchase.

This year, we did her back-to-school shopping, and ran some errands for her mom, then it started to rain on our way to the movie theatre. I had spent so much time planning today, and she so much time looking forward to it that it didn’t even occur to me, when the rain started to become a flash flood, that we should maybe postpone our plans until the clouds let up. Every road became a river and we were soaked. Drenched. I laughed harder than I have in months as we tip-toed around, lightly stepped through, and then plowed through deeper and deeper water while the cars driving buy splashed us with wave after wave of cold, wet, filth.

It never ceases to amaze me the things she attends to.

“wait, the door will just close on it’s own? I don’t have to shut it?”

“oh, I thought that was a trash can.”

“is it true they kill dogs who don’t have collars in The States? We should buy Pearl a collar.”

She is so observant and aware of everything new around her when she comes here. It was also amazing to me to see how much more comfortable she has gotten in the city over the past year. Although, walking close to fast moving cars still gets her.

Being able to spend a day treating Roxana might be as much for me as it is for her, to be completely honest. For a few hours I almost forgot about how nauseous and generally bad I feel  and just loved on this beautiful little lady.

6 Febrero 2012

This morning, at 5 am, I attempted to convince (in a 20 minute power point presentation) the municipality of madrigal to pay the salary of the future librarian and after school program teacher.

I tried to hit every chord: The future of madrigal. The re-electability of the Mayor. Even videos of the council members’ and mayor’s kids playing and learning at the library.

Ironic, this day where I am fighting for the life of a very young library, I decide to watch the documentary on Howard Zin’s The People’s History of the United States.

Once upon a time, I was riding along in the backseat of my parent’s station wagon, on a cross country road-trip. I think we were outside a petrified wood forest when we went into a small gift shop and bookstore.  I was admiring a book geared towards adolescents interested in understanding sciences:

“Really, mom? I can have it?” I knew the book was expensive.

Then my mother made one of the more grand and ridiculous promises I can ever remember her vocalizing to me:

“I will buy you any book you ever want.”

My mother is an attorney. Her words have weight. She is not someone to ever say anything she doesn’t mean or understand to be true from the bottom of her heart.

This day shocked me. I have never forgotten it, nor have I ever lacked in a novel, encyclopedia, how-to, or textbook in my life.

So, when we took a family vacation to Washington DC over my brief visit to The States over this Christmas holiday, we hit the bookstore of Busboys and Poets on 5^th and U. I was in heaven. My eyes were immediately scanning not only for books in Spanish about unions and activism in the states for the madrigal library, but for as many books as possible to stimulate me when cooped up in my mud hut again. My mother started piling books in my arms. Among them, a DVD, The People Speak. A documentary based on Zinn’s book using clips from the performances of Voices of a People’s History of the United States. Let me allow some of the performances to speak for themselves…

Sojourner Truth

Performed by Kerry Washington in an amazingly moving performance

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Huh, nobody every helps me into carriages or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place. And ain’t I a woman? Look at me, I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man coulda had me. And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as any man when I could get it. And I could bear the lash as well. And ain’t I a woman? I have born 13 children, seen most sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman? That man in the back there. He says, women can’t have as much rights as men because Christ wasn’t a woman. Well, where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ come from? He came from God and a woman. Man didn’t have nothin to do with it. If the first woman god ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, well all these women here together auta be able to turn it back and get it right side up again. And they askin to do it. And men better let um.”

Genora Johnson Dollinger

Performed bu Marisa Tomei

When you worked in the factory those days, no one cared what your name was, they were wage slaves. They used to say, “Once you’ve passed the gates of General Motors forget about the United States Constitution. Workers had no rights when they entered that plant. If the foreman didn’t like the way you parted your hair, or whatever he didn’t like about you, he could fire you. No recourse, no nothing. Combined with conditions on the outside, poor living conditions, lack of proper food, lack of proper medical attention, everything else, the auto workers came to the conclusion there was no way they could ever escape any of the injustice without joining a union. We held meetings, in garages and basements, secret meetings, so the people wouldn’t get caught, beaten up. The workers were at the point where they had just had had enough. So they sat down. When the UAW leaders in the big fisher plant one heard about the sit down in fisher two, they sat down also. That took real guts, that took political leadership. The company decided that they had to break the strike. It was very cold. They turned off the heat in the building. Then, the company police and the city police started shooting. Teargas and bullets went over our heads into the crowds that had come to watch. The police were using rifles, buckshot, firebombs, tear gas canisters. It was a shock to a lot of people.  Workers overturned police cars to make barricades. They ran to pick up the fire bombs hurled at them to throw them back at the police. The men wanted me to get out of the way. You know, the old ‘protect the women and children’ business. I told them, “Get away from me!” The lights went on in my head. I thought, ‘I have never used a loudspeaker to address a large crowd of people, but I have got to tell them there are women down here.’ I called to them, “Cowards! Cowards! Shooting into the bellies of unarmed men and firing at the mothers of children!” And then everything became quiet. I thought, ‘the women can break this up.’ So I appealed to the women in the crowd, “Break through those police lines, and come down here, and stand beside your husbands, and your brothers, and you uncles, and your sweethearts.” I could barely see one woman struggling to come forward. A cop had grabbed her by the back of her coat. She just pulled out of that coat, and she started walking down to the battle zone. As soon as that happened there were other women and men who followed. That was the end of the battle, and those spectators came into the center, and the police retreated. There was a big roar of victory.”

Pink

Wrote this song during the presidency of George Bush

“Dear Mr. President”

Dear Mr. President

Come take a walk with me

Lets pretend

We’are just two people and

You’re not better than me

I’d like to ask you some questions if

We can speak honestly

What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?

Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?

What do you feel when you look in the mirror?

Are you proud?

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye?

And tell me why

Dear Mr President

Were you a lonely boy?

Are you a lonely boy?

How can you say no child is left behind?

We’re not dumb and we’re not blind

They’re all sitting in your cells

While you pave the road to hell

What kind of father would take his own daughter’s rights away?

And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?

I can only imagine what the first lady has to say

You’ve come a long way

From whisky and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?

How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?

How do you walk with your head held high?

Can you even look me in the eye?

Let me tell you about hard work

Minimum wage with a baby on the way

Let me tell you about hard work

Rebuilding your house cause the bombs took them away

Let me tell you about hard work

Building a bed out of a card board box

Hard work, hard work, hard work

You don’t know nothing about hard work, hard work, hard work

Dear Mr. President

You’d never take a walk with me

Would you?

Emma Goldman during WWII

Performed by Sandra Oh

What is Patriotism? Is it the love of one’s birthplace? A place of childhood recollections and hopes, dreams, and aspirations?

Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is therefore the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others. Our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on Earth. And that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism. The centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world. A solidarity which fears not for an invasion, because it is bringing all the workers to a point where they will say to their masters, “Go and do your own killing we have done it long enough for you.”

Marge Piercy

“The low road”

performed by Staceyann Chin

“What can they do to you? Whatever they want. They can set you up, they can bust you, they can break your fingers, they can burn your brain with electricity, blur you with drugs till you can’t walk, can’t remember. They can take your child, wall up your lover, they can do anything and you can’t blame them from doing. Alone you can fight, you can refuse. You can take what revenge you can, but they are all over you. But, two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob, a snake dancing file can break a quodan, an army can meet an army. Two people can keep each other sane, can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex. Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge. With four, you can play bridge and start an organization. With six, you can rent a whole house, eat pie for dinner with no seconds and hold a fundraising party. A dozen can make a demonstration. A hundred fill a hall. A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter. Ten thousand, power and your own paper. A hundred thousand, your won media. Ten million, your own country. It goes on one act at a time. It starts when you care to act. It starts when you do it again after they said no. It starts when you say we and you know what you mean. And each day you mean, one more.”

These are only four that apply to the me and my now, but they are among two-hours- worth of voices performed in the documentary; And these two hours are only a small glimpse of the voices collected in Zinn’s book A People’s History of the United States.

I was crying out of pride, homesickness, sadness, embarrassment, happiness and pride again as I sat close to the speakers to hear the voices over the rain hitting my tin roof.

These words, said 100, 200 years ago, being so applicable to our issues and life today never ceases to amaze me. And how would we know them without books?

This community I work with does not know the people’s history of the world. Not in the slightest. Right now, I am reinvigorated to do everything in my power, though be it very alone, to change this. To bring them as much access to knowledge as I possibly can.

I ask you all to pray or chant tonight that in their meetings tomorrow, the municipality decides to financially feed the library and after school program for the years to come giving these children and youth a chance at the promise my mother made to me over a decade ago.

4 Febrero 2012

To be completely honest, I feel kind of weird writing about this afternoon.

You all have nieces, nephews, grandkids that you sit for from time to time.

Because I have always been a billion miles away from my family, I haven’t ever been that person you call when you need a night off from the kids.

I have not escaped that communal society here, and I couldn’t avoid kidnapping some little ones for the evening.

One of the girls that I have posted pictures of before, is my favorite. I can’t lie. She is adorable, and her voice is inaudible it is so cute and high pitched.

Her older sister is one of my most faithful students and best helpers. She always stays after to clean the library.

Milady is 5, and looks to be about three. But, mentally she is all five-years-old. Her older sister is Elizabeth, she is 10 and, like Roxana, is responsible beyond her years. The two girls are generally in dirty clothes, but with pristine hair in perfect, beautiful French braids. I ran into Elizabeth on the street yesterday and her hair was a mess. I talked to her a little about her vacation and she just seemed tired.

I didn’t think anything of it until the girls arrived at the library today, no dirtier than usual, but their hair hadn’t been braided in probably a week, and the littlest one reeked of urine. Old urine.  Something was up.

“Elizabeth, how is your mom?”

“My mom? Bad. She is not well.”

I decided to check out the living situation, and after we closed the library for the day I walked the girls home.

Sweet grandma answered the door and insisted I come in and have a seat. Grandpa was next of me trembling. Looked like Parkinson’s.

Grandma had a large rash across her face.

I asked about mom who was still in the chacra. She was having stomach pains, and had sores in her mouth. The entire adult portion of the family was obviously stressed, tired and sick.

We chatted for a while while Milady climbed all over me. They had gone to the health post but the post didn’t have the medication any of them needed. Apparently grandpa is having trouble peeing, and grandma’s knees hurt as well.

“Once, when Elizabeth had a cough, she said you were a nurse and gave her a pill that made her cough go away, is that true?”

“I am not a nurse,” I gave Elizabeth a cough drop “But I do know the body pretty well and have medications that might be able to help.”

All of these things seemed so simple to me

Grandma- antihistomine, and ibuprophen

Grandpa- uranox for UTI and I taught them some tricks for the parkinson's brain to help him walk easier

Mom- paracetemol (Tylenol) and chapstick. I really think her symptoms are stress related, so the Tylenol should help with the irritation and pain of the soars, and chapstick will placebo and keep her from licking the soares on her lips so much and dry them out. Mom probably just needs rest. She is obviously taking care of 4 people on her own and our water and electricity has been going out the past 2 months.

I emphasized that if the meds don’t help in less than a week then they need to make a trip to chivay to see a doctor there.

“Can the girls come with me tonight, give you guys a break? I will bathe and feed them, and they will be back at bedtime.”

Grandma was all for it. I insisted that the clothes they pack be clean clothes, and this was a struggle. The clothes had been washed and put on the line, but it had rained this afternoon and wet them all over again. I said we would figure it out. Then we went to the library to get them new toothbrushes.

I put on the lion king, pulled the tire tub into my room and we heated water for the two girls to bathe. After Milady was done and suited up in a clean pair of my new underwear tied at the waste, I ran to get chicken while Elizabeth bathed herself. 10 minutes later I knocked, “Are you dressed?”

“No… 5 more minutes?”

“Elizabeth, are you clean?”

“Yes.”

“Just feels good, huh?”

“Yes, profesora.”

“Ok, 5 more minutes.”

I braided both girls’ hair while the noodles my grandmother, brother and I made together over Christmas break simmered with nothing but chicken, salt, and pepper. Such deliciously magical noodles.  The girls loved it.

Just as they pulled out their new toothbrushes, their mom showed up at the door, very happy and appreciative.

I used to say that I can’t be a parent to all the kids here for parents who can not provide for them. It is too stressful to even think about sometimes. But, what I can do is fight for Elvis to get an education and change his parent’s mindset. I can give this overly worked woman one night off here and there.

I can’t be the caregiver they all need, and the workshops I do can help in the long run, but right now, it is such a pleasure to be able to kidnap children whenever I feel like it. 

“Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations” Isaiah 54.

3 Febrero 2012 take two

 I went to make an announcement over the village’s pa system that we will be opening the library for a few hours tomorrow.

When I got back, Don Juan was about to pee in the patio. About 10 steps from the toilet.

Admittedly it is raining pretty hard, and the walk to the toilet is very muddy. It is easier to literally just whip out your penis and pee out your front door. But, my goodness. No wonder I have giardia (parasite number 3? 4? I don’t know, I lost count). Why can’t he see that the answer to his inconveniences isn’t do something unhealthy. It is to take a day to build something to fix the problem with the resources you have.

He didn’t hear the door open and close, he didn’t know I was there. So, before I could accidentally see anything I said, “Hi dad” loudly in quechua.  He was startled and embarrassed he asked me to please excuse him. I giggled and smiled like I didn’t know what was about to happen (playing dumb always works) and headed straight to my room. 

3 Febrero 2012

So, I might have, maybe, a little bit, gotten into it with Elvis’ mother this morning.

To the point where the entire kitchen went quiet and Don Juan had to come out and manage the cat fight.

Now that the family has seen how much I care about Elvis, they are 100% behind me in making sure he is taken care of and gets an education.

When I left my room at my usual 8am Elvis and his mother were packing up the donkey and alpaca. I am already a little bothered because the school is doing “vacaciones ultiles” or ‘summer school’ for the kids who are behind in their work. It is yet another opportunity for Elvis to catch up a little, that his mother is taking away from him by taking back up to the ranch. But this, I don’t bring up. I know she knows summer school is happening, and I know there is no way she will leave him here in the summer.  If you had a choice to have a personal slave 3 months out of the year would you let him be free those three months?

All I want to do in this moment is make sure that elvis knows school starts the second week of March and is planning to come back down before then. He looks down and doesn’t answer. This means no, bad news. He is so quiet around his mother, and so happy when I get him alone. The difference is so dramatic that my ears were already starting to fume.

I look to his mother. She says something in half quechua half Spanish about Elvis grandmother taking him to live with her in Castilla. I have no idea what Castilla is, so it can’t be anywhere nearby. So, I just say, as long as Elvis is studying, if he is going to transfer schools he needs to inform the school here to get his papers. It is easier and better for Elvis if he continues his education here. Then the woman switches to a very fast quechua, looks me straight in the eye for the first time today (ever?) and rattles off forceful words I don’t understand. I interrupt her, looking assertively back in her eyes, “You know I don’t understand you when you speak quechua so quickly, if you would like to say something to me, say it in Spanish.” Her eyes are already back to her donkey’s pack, her handles fiddling on rope. Such a weak, sad woman.

 By this time Don Juan is outside to manage things and says, “She said, ‘how can you be reprimanding her?’.” To which I said, “I am not reprimanding you, I am warning you because I don’t want you to lose Elvis. The police and the school are watching him, and if you don’t send him to school they will take him away from you, and I know how much you love him and I don’t want that.” Don Juan repeats this in quechua to her, because she really is more comfortable speaking in quechua, then he adds on about how he has to work harder because he sends his kids to school but they are smart and strong now, good citizens. “Elvis will come down when he comes down.” She says in quechua.

As I speak, I am continually including Elvis in the conversation, making sure he hears what I am saying, explaining why, and giving him power. She is continually making decisions for him, responding for him, forbidding him from thinking for himself at all. It is easier for her if he is stupid and obedient. Remember, biologically this boy is 15 years old, mentally I would place him at about 8. “It is against the law for Elvis to not go to school. He has a right to study. Not going to school is not an option. The police will take him away if he is not studying.”

In reality, I am lying. Peruvian law gives children the right to study, but there is no law saying he has to. I do know, there is a certain little white girl and she has a friend who happens to be the director of the primary school who have already reported Elvis’ parents’ drunkenness to the authorities. If his parents aren’t sending him to school these two people will make sure he is removed from their inadequate care giving, all education aside.

Elvis is a child that loves his parents, he just wants to be with mommy and daddy. He has no idea what horrible caregivers they are. He just loves mom and dad. I know his recent feelings for his aunt Luz are making things very confusing for him right now. I only want this boy to be happy and healthy. No one wants him to grow up to be the poor, depressed, drunken adult that both of his parents are. Before my family took him in people thought he was disabled because he was so slow. When I assured them that it was only malnourishment and years of no education, teachers started treating him like a kid that was just behind a little. He has shown improvement since he has been with us. Definitely happier, definitely healthier.  A child that plays with his dog, reads, does his homework and watches movies. Not a servant that is constantly running to fetch this or that.

I am going to do everything within my power to make sure that this boy is continuing his education. This 15-year-old graduating from primary school with basic math and reading skills would be a beautiful feat.

1 Febrero 2012

I think I have explained that my method of weeding is only pulling the things that I know, with 100% certainty, are not vegetables. That generally means things that burn me, stab me, or are clovers.

These little ****ers are my favorite to hate:

 

In quechua they are called “alco quishka” directly translated would be “dog thorns” but I would more accurately translate as “spiky bitches”.

They tend to be scattered among what Gray calles, ‘spiny nettles’ (sp?). I have no idea what their American English name would be, so we will go with that henceforth. These ‘spiny nettles’ don’t hurt at all if you brush up against them with a certain grace. But, if you are going in to pull them out of the ground, they somehow know it, and with tiny little poisoned spikes burn the shit out of you for about 20 minutes.

This problem is solved with garden gloves, thanks mom, but the “spiky bitch” problem is not so simple. They go right through my rubber gloves. Once it actually drew blood and I continued destroying the damned plant while the finger of my glove filled with fluid.

As you can imagine, the weeding process is slow, to say the least. This is what I started with two days ago:

hopefully I will get the before and after pictures up in the next few days. I am darn proud of this little green patch.

1 Febrero 2012

 Elvis and his mother appeared at the house last night just as I was fixing dinner with Roxana. The water had been turned on for a few hours and I said, “would you like me to fix…”

“mashed potatoes!”

So, lamb, carrot, and pea(all harvested by Roxana, even the sheep) gravy/stew over a bowl of mashed potatoes.  Then chamomile tea to wash it down. This whole living out of the chacra thing still hasn’t lost it’s charm.

Elvis was surprisingly unexcited to see me. I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. Even when I brought out gifts from family and friends in The States he politely said thank you, but I didn’t get the excited response I expected. Quickly I realized he was exhausted. He had hiked down from the alpaca ranch that morning.

This morning I laid in bed awake for a bit waiting for the family to head for the fields. I know, its horrible. But everyone knew I still had weeding to do and won’t be going to the fields today, and I am still in the pattern of waking up everyday for the honking 3am bus. I can usually get myself back to sleep by 5, but when the family has their huititi music on at 6am it is uninvited.

I rolled out of bed at 8am to find (eureka!) water! I started filling everything in site. Buckets, pots, wash tubs, then sorted laundry into them. Then an excited smiling face rolled out of his room.

 “Luuuuuuz”

“Well, good morning elvis.”

“What can I help you with?”

There’s my boy!

His mom had gone with Roxana to pick more peas (which apparently I had narrowly avoided; The payment for picking peas is a bag of peas, forget that, I hate peas). I told him I was doing laundry and he sat by me and watched and chatted for about 5 minutes until he couldn’t contain his energy and started walking in circles around me while chatting.

“How about you hang the things on the line that I put in that tub?”

He was on it. Watching everything I did to make sure he replicated it perfectly.

I battered him with questions, “How is your grandmother? Your brother? Your dad? Your vacation? What have you been up to? Did you go to the salt mine with your dad?”

The most interesting news was that instead of going to the salt mine to buy and sell salt here, he and his dad went fishing in a lake up by the ranch and sold over 200 tiny trout.

Oops, more interesting I that Roni (Elvis’ malnourished brother) is going to live with his padrino. WOOT! I was about to bring a kid out of Peru with me, thank god someone has lifted that responsibility. Apparently some more wealthy miner met the family and has insisted roni come live and study with him… there was something about the church in Elvis story that I didn’t quite catch. Whatever gets this kid out of a rice and alpaca diet and into something stimulating I say, “woot”. Did I mention that when I last saw Roni he was 3 years old, still not walking or talking? It is safe to assume that Elvis was the same.

As we are rinsing the last load of laundry and I am day dreaming about a hot bath (Gray got me a medium sized recycled tire wash tub that I can pull into my room and use to bath), the faucet spits a few times and the water stops. I can’t even complain, all my clothes are clean except for what is on my back (admittedly it has been on my back for 4 days, but who is counting… other than me?

I sent Elvis to meet Don Juan in the fields with lunch for them both.

“You know, these aren’t so bad. I can eat them like they almost taste good.” Elvis says pointing to the broccoli I am steaming. When I told him dark vegetables would make his body stronger against sickness and help him grow (true fact) he would take the plates I gave him and inhale the ‘disgusting’ vegetables first, then eat the yummy dish of meat or whatever. He is the first Peruvian I can say that I have converted into (or have ever met that is) a healthy eater.

As he headed off with a warm plate wrapped in towels,  I lathered up with sunscreen, put on my floppy hat, and headed to the garden for the 3^rd day in a row. There aren’t as many vegetables as I would have liked. The carrot seeds must have been duds because not a one of the hundreds we planted came up, I can’t find any chard, and there is one, solitary, red lettuce plant. But, under this garden of weeds, I am finding spinach, radish, green bean, cucumber, beats and onion.

Ok, I am about to expose me breaking the law on the internet: I snuck some sweet corn seeds into the country (mainly because I want to eat sweet corn, which doesn’t exist here). Roxana and I planted it about a week ago and I have yet to see sprouts. Cross your fingers for us. These people love maize so much, I think sweet corn could change their lives.

Now, I will return to my TEFL certification downloaded course (as has been my nightly tradition). I am more than half way through a 100-hour class that will certify me to teach English anywhere in the world. It is more of a fall back in case I decide to live in Tailand for a few years (just kidding, mom…. Or am I?). 

31 Enero 2012

Woke up today to find that there still is no water.

I started hauling buckets.

Water is darn heavy.

This water will do for things like cooking and washing dishes for one day, but I still have much laundry to wash.

The novelty of sitting in a candle lit room reading a book loses its charm when you haven’t washed anything but your face and hands for a week.