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

16 Mayo 2012

There was a woman, a guru, who opened an ashram; A place to meditate, a place to find peace.

One day, her friends living there came to her and reported that community members had been saying negative things about the ashram she had founded.  The guru said, “for each positive report I hear about this ashram I will tie a knot on the right side of my scarf. For each negative report, I will tie a knot on the left side of my scarf.”

A few weeks went by with the guru collecting knots.

Her friends came to her one day, and saw that her scarf was full of knots. She removed the scarf from her neck and showed it to them.

“you see, the scarf weighs the same on both sides.” And she hung the scarf around her neck again.

What is not optional is bitterness. I can’t fight that I feel a bitter taste in my mouth and don’t know how to turn it into something sweet anymore.

What is optional, is anger. Anger comes from loss of control, from disempowerment. Both a mentality I define.

Usually, when I feel anger, I chant/pray to channel it. I let it enter me, I feel it, I mean really feel it, and once it has had its way with me and I can recognize where it came from and why it is there, it leaves me on its own. Once the passage is over (whether it be 2 minutes or 2 hours) I am back to myself.  But, lately, the anger just keeps coming and coming. I can’t chant enough to get it to work its way through me, and I have to return to the world half-way through a baptism.

Once upon a time, I used anger as fuel. Now there is so much, it is clogging the engine. Perhaps the engine needs an upgrade, a creative change that converts this energy more efficiently. Perhaps I need to find an alternate source of energy, one very different from juvenile anger.

That seems like a lot of work to do on the self. Not only am I looking for an alternative renewable energy source, but I need to find a way to metabolize the energy thrown at me in a new way.

Perhaps, this is what I came here for; To learn how to carry the knotted scarf.

15 Mayo 2012

So,
I go to the mayor’s office to deliver an official letter requesting his presence for when my bosses come next week. The man has showed me up and lied to me so many times at this point nothing goes undocumented (funny part, documenting everything was his secretary’s idea).

As the secretary is helping some girls use her computer to do some homework assignment, I am patiently waiting and admiring the secretary’s patience with the demanding teenage girls (perhaps I am one of those girls to her too). 

As the secretary is printing out my stupid official letter, the mayor walks in behind me. I didn’t even know he was in town. The last time we spoke was the meeting where his council members talked me in lying circle after lying circle. Neither of us knew how one-another would act today. He knows he lied, and he knows I know he lied. He isn’t a stupid man by any means, just a victim of poverty as much as the kids I work with.

“Hola, Señorita Luz”

I nervously perform an about face, and there we are, nose to nose. He has the most nervous, almost apologetic face I have ever seen on a Peruvian man. He diverts his eyes, straight down, immediately.

“hello, Señor Mayor. Just now I was printing out a letter to request your presence for a meeting when my bosses come down from Lima next week. Do you think you can be here the 24^th?” I smile, a real one. As much a begging smile as a I-have-no-strength-to- give-you-anything-more-than-this smile.

As he turns to his calendar he says, barely joking, “They are going to rip me apart, aren’t they?”

“No, sir, me. They are coming to review my work here. What I have been doing for the past 2 years.” Awkward shared laugh.

He points to the calendar. “Where are we, here we go…”

He points to a date over a week ago.

I point to today’s date. “Ah,” he says “next Thursday then”

“yes sir, you can really be there?”

“I can.”

“wonderful… how is Richard? We miss him at the library. Did he enroll in classes in Arequipa City?”

Then he gives me this kind of smile that I am all too familiar with. When I can’t give someone news they don’t want to hear, I get uncomfortable and smile. When my dog ate my roommate’s flying squirrel years ago, I smiled through lunch as I told him what happened.  I can’t explain it, but I know that smile.

“no…” he smiles.

I give him my confused face.

“he is still in bed. Getting better.”

I have no freaking idea what this means, but experience tells me requesting a medical explanation will get me nowhere.

Not knowing what else to do, the mayor smiles. I hate the sympathy that wells up in me for him at this moment. I want to shove it away, but I let it settle in my chest. What does this father want to hear right now?

“I will send him all the good energy I can, we all hope he gets better soon” and I put my hands in a prayer position.

He scurries away without saying goodbye, still carrying that weird, cold smile.

What do you do with a father struggling with serious personal issues that has absolutely no accessible tools for managing them? What do you do with that man when he is responsible for a town? When he can’t manage his responsibilities, but he can’t step down because he needs the paycheck to pay the medical bills for the accident he caused that killed his mother and critically injured his wife and child? What do you do with that man?

14 Mayo 2012 take two

Last night I walked around town with Elvis and Robert collecting signatures for the library petition. I am thinking how good it is for them to see how to make change happen, and to put the two together with one goal. Elvis, un-popular, bigger but slower than everyone else in his class, insecure- with Robert, also a flunky, but not because he is slow, because his family is also alpaqueros and had him moving schools and pulled out of classes the first 10 years of his life, a great artist, popular, funny, athletic, confident. The funny part is they are both amazing artists, and attentive, caring alpaca herding boys. They really only differ in confidence.

I am doing a very bad job of hiding the fact that I am trying to push them to be friends and encouraging Elvis to speak up. But, they are doing it. Working, laughing together, showing me house to house.

These are the interactions that matter. These moments are why I am here. You may not be able to measure it, and you may never see a tangible effect, but these two boys would never otherwise interact, let alone be important staples in a social cause together.

I was able to walk around town last night when parents were coming back from the fields for one reason, and one reason only: Lucia was wo-maning the library.

This morning when I was ripping myself from my sleeping bag, “Luz, te buscan!”

I waddled to the aluminum door and screamed for joy. Lucia, the young woman who has a degree in education and art that started taking flute lessons so she could be the VALE teacher next year when she graduates, is standing there. We embrace. She and I talk about once a month about the development of the project and the advancement of her studies (she is going to university in Arequia). We monitor and motivate one another with a regular coffee and/or crepe. This is the first time we have seen each other since the drama with the Municipality last month.

I serve her her pulled coffee, black (sans 3 spoonfuls of sugar- a peruvian rarity), and she listens to me rant.

“But, Lu, why don’t you take the program and library to a community that isn’t so resistant? Why don’t you take it to the French NGO’s Cultural Center in Corporaque or the American NGO’s Orphanage in Yanque and start working on it’s implementation there?”

She is right, I can feel how right she is, along with everyone else who has wanted to see me stop torturing myself.

“Because those kids have help.” Is the only excuse I can give her.

Then, she answers her own question, “You are going to do everything you can until the last moment so that you know you did everything you possibly could for these kids.”

“I have to do it like that.”

“I want you to know, that after I graduate in December, I am devoted to the VALE program, whether it be here or wherever. I am in. I want it to live.”

We have to secure a salary for this young woman.

14 Mayo 2012

Burried a mother today.

She drank herself to death in the Mother’s Day celebration.

Her children that I know are what the community would call “ya, adultos”, late teens and early twenties. They will continue tomorrow, like yesterday: feed the chickens, feed the pigs, irrigate the field, cook, eat, sleep. 

13 Mayo 2012

I never knew it was possible to feel two conflicting emotions so strongly at the same time.

I can’t stay here, but I can’t leave either. This is why…

mercedes (meche) myself and hirma at the "peruanas poderosas" conference

"women farmers club" mother's day tournament soccer team in jerseys purchased by monica kline, our american woman farmer friend

12 Mayo 2012 take two

Last night I attended a meeting to plan a traveling book/game/puppet library.

I met Katarin, a woman who has worked with the french NGO Villages des Andes for about a decade, a couple weeks ago as she brought some donors through the canyon. Steven told me she had this idea for a mobile library and thought I might be interested in helping.
The gypsy in me is all over it.

Last night we all got together to brainstorm and see how feasible this idea could be. Could we develop a mobile after-school program using the concept of old carnival or gypsy caravans?

borrowing this image from google

I say yes. The thought is that two people would travel around the canyon in 2 month cycles, spending two days in each village. One French volunteer (that would change each cycle) would be responsible for working with the kids and the books/puppets/games, the other person a Peruvian responsible for the horses, food, and maintenance of the caravan. Upon arriving,  one wall of the caravan would unfold into a puppet theatre, and the steps would be connected so the kids could enter to read and play games inside the carriage itself. 

It is such an exciting idea, it makes me want to stay here to be the guinea pig teacher for the first round. We are working with my friend Wilbur on the horse details, and because of this I have been using horses as my main mode of transportation... loving it.

12 Mayo 2012

This morning I travelled to a neighboring town to give a nutrition talk to the soup kitchen of Sister Antonia.

Sister Antonia is known throughout the canyon because she was a New York Maryknoll nun that moved to the canyon in 1971 and stayed here until her death in 2010. For 60 years she had a significant influence on feeding and educating the youth and elderly of the pueblo de Yanque.
Every morning she, and two other sisters fed about 500 people breakfast. So, when she passed, my friend, and director of Quechua Benefit, Mike Safely promised to make sure her soup kitchen continued.
You might remember when I wrote about translating last year for the meeting that facilitated this transition from the church funding the project to the NGO funding it (tiff was here then, and made me take a bath before going to the meeting).

I was translating for Mike again on a visit to the kitchen, and we had the realization that they are serving a very traditional peruvian diet to about 70 families every day. Aka, high in carbohydrates and other sugars, low in protein and vitamins. The funny part is they have awesome green houses, and are almost completely self sufficient. The only things they purchase are sugar, rice, soy powder, and carrots. So, Tim and I paired up to try and figure out how they can use what they have more efficiently (planting wise) and feed the families more nutritiously.
While one of the nuns is  a bit older, she was was resistant to changing what they do, but polite. The younger nuns and the gentleman who helps manage the fields were extremely receptive, especially when we talked about them possibly making money off of planting things like beets and quinoa. The young Sister Victoria really perked up when I mentioned pickling vegetables. Apparently Sister Antonia did that too, and I think she felt a connection to her as we discussed the recipe for pickled cucumbers and beets.

It was a very good day.
Tim and I were only facilitators. We told no one what to do, only presented what foods are more nutritious, and had the marker and paper ready as the locals themselves developed their plan of action, then hung the plan in their kitchen next to their "my plate" breakdown.

10 Mayo 2012

Agua Salá - Bomba Estereo

Liliana Saumet, Bomba Estereo Vocalist

Song: Agua Salá
Artista: Bomba Estereo
Albúm: Estalla

(Lyrics)
Dejame llora, dejame llora
que ya estoy cansaa de baila y baila

Dije que estaba perdida
dije que estaba en mi cama
teniendo una larga noche
entrando a la madrugada

Me cogi los brazos y empece a sudar
y repeti mil veces hay que soledad

no puedo pensar, no puedo llorar
no puedo, no puedo ni canta y baila
apenas el sueño puedo conciliar
y entre mas me duermo, mas voy a soñar

Soñe que estaba dormida
y que tu me despertabas
en plena luz de la noche
entrando a la madrugada
y me converti, en aguasala
y ahora soy del mar una ola mojaa

Dejame llora, dejame llora
que ya estoy cansaa de baila y baila

y corrio y corrio, un rio de sudor
y siguio y siguio y se fue y volo
y se fue pa´ el mar y se enamoro del aguasala
y alli se quedo mi sal y tu sal en el mar quedo
abrazo y suspiro, tambor y folclor, calor o movimiento
de cumbia y amor
abrazo perdido que un dia me dejo
que un dia me dejo

Agarrame la cadera no me dejes respirar
escucha los movimientos, de una mujer de verdad
aprietame lentamente, que no sintamos mas naa
que la manta que nos tapa,
que es lo que sentimos ya

Dejame llora, dejame llora
que ya estoy cansaa de baila y baila

8 Mayo 2012

Very long day of very important work.
Yet another day of very important work tomorrow.

Unfortunately, due to legal confidentiality I cannot post the nature of the work, but I am proud of how hard and important today was and I don't want to forget that feeling.

Keep your fingers crossed for me that all these meetings aren't as torturous as they could be for everyone involved.

3 Mayo 2012

In Lima at my training group's Close of Service Conference.

big deal?!

something special about the peace corps experience is that you "learn to be alone but not lonely... to sit with yourself." -Peace Corps Peru Country Director Sanjay Mathur

some thoughts scrolling through my head today...

'am i harsh on peace corps as an organization because i love it so much? in the history of me, i am harsh on that which i love, because i love them. similarly i am harsh on myself.'

'how can anyone expect me to be able to make this decision about what happens with the Madrigal library? It has such a profound effect on the community, no wonder i feel stress spilling out my ears.'

'i made a mistake. when i told the municipality that they needed to hire a professional to teach the program, that was a mistake. they do need a professional to teach the program. and they do have to pay a high salary to get a professional. but, that is a HUGE step for such a small community so afraid of change. We need to hire a local. for less. that will do the best they can. that person can teach the program, or not. the most important thing is that the community is paying the person (it is their program, not an NGO's), the money is staying within the community, and that person can open the doors to the library. at the very least, the children, youth, mothers, etc will have ACCESS TO INFORMATION. books. encyclopedias. art supplies. even if there is no one teaching incredible activities, at the least, they have access to the information and the tools if they possess the creativity. baby steps. and this is the first one."

moments after this thought passed through my head, myrium came by to tell me the same, exact thing and hand over THE MADRIGAL BUDGET! She got her hands on it, and the Madrigal Municiple Library is included in the budget.  Documented.

"it is in the hands of the community now. You will give them all the contracts and paperwork, and they have to fight for it now. I know how hard that is, but it has to come from them."

--------------------------------------------------

One of the members of our panel of speakers today was G. Michael Junge of USAID. He is the Regional Contracting Officer, meaning he signs all the contracts for the money that US sends to development projects here. An incredibly impressive man: worked on refugee camp in Afghanistan and has served in peace corps mali, togo, eritrea, chad, and bujumbura. I was full of questions for him:

i am not going to put this in quotes, the conversation went something like this...

--I have been here for 2 years and I am tired. I know I want to keep doing development work, but I am very effected by what I see. It eats at me. My question for you is how do you keep going back year after year? After seeing so much pain and suffering, what are the methods you use or have seen to cope and keep giving?

You have to separate your professional life from your personal one. You make spaces and times that are specific to work, and when you leave them, no work allowed. Make sure you have hobbies, things you can focus on when you are not working, that are just for you. You leave at 5pm, you don't stay late, that is you time.

So, you have seen NGO workers, for example, stay late every day, and burn out quickly?

Yes. In only a couple years. But, I leave at 5pm every day, and I can do this work for 30 years.--

It is something to ponder. I have always had this superwoman complex. I can do anything I really want to. I want to be able to work past 5 every day, and do it for 30 years. 

Later, i asked our trainer Kathleen Hickey a similar question (Kathleen has designed the Peace Corps Peru training program for years). 

--you are always so optimistic. you have years and years of not only working in a country that is so challenging, but you have done it while working under the bureaucratic bull shit of the us government. how do you keep doing it year after year and not feel overwhelmingly frustrated?

"better to light a candle than curse the darkness."

"artesana", she says--

'artesana' means female artist

but broken apart: 

'arte' means art

'sana' means healthy