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.