30 Enero 2011

Today I head back to the canyon with a handful of dentists and hygienists for the free dental campaign (provided by Health Bridges Interntional, Quechua Benefit and Pace Corps).

I am nervous and excited.

Wish us luck and a successful campaign!!

27 Enero 2011

So the thought has crossed through my head, a few times, as to what it would be like to be in the United States right now. Mainly, because people ask me and I have to place myself in that imaginitive state to answer. But, usually, I don¨t gaze whistfully at the stars and daydream about being home. Usually, I love my job and I love where I live.
Today, not-so-much.
Nothing huge happened today. I came into the city a couple days ago for the presentation with the USA college students volunteering in Arequipa, and a couple meetings to coordinate the dentists arrival next week (there was some drama and a site change) and the nutrition lectures next month. Should be a prosperous trip and it has been.

But, loving folk have sent me letters and packages and the charades at the post office were played out yet again. But, this time I got there early, only had to wait in line for 2 hours instead of the usual 4, and the woman working remembered me and pushed me through quickly without giving me grief about my international paperwork. All seemed to be flowing smoothly until I arrived at the bank to pay the taxes on my grandmothers christmas present to me (a kick-butt indestructible camera). The poor attendent couldnt get his computer to recognize my credit card, and when he asked for help from his co-worker she looked at my face and the smile faded from hers. Having no interest in actually helping gringa she said I needed a pin to be able to use that card. She being utterly incorrect, I explained to the woman (working at the bank) the difference between a credit card and a debit card. She says I need a pin. Mind you, while she is talking to me she is mumblig under her breath so it is impossible to hear her and not looking at me as her hands fiddle with other paper work (typical Peruvian avoidence behavior).

At this point I pull out my card where I recieve my monthly pay and say, "look, I am a client of this bank, I live here in Arequipa, I am not a tourist. Now that you know that, will you be more willing to help me?" She looks at me a little defeated but with a half smile and says, " yes ma"am, pardon me let me go ahead and run that as a credit card for you. I should have known by your pierfect Spanish accent that you weren2 a tourist. In fact why don"t I just excuse you the taxes because you are here serving my country and you should be able to take pictures of the kids you are working with here. In fact, I will just go ahead and carry that box for you to a taxi and pay your taxi home, you shouldn"t have had to deal with any of this."

... yeah so that didn"t happen.

I didn"t have the guts to be rude to her. Instead she continued to refuse to look at me in the face or help me insisting I needed a pin for my creadit card. So, I went to another bank.
After waiting for another hour the kind assistant at my new favorite bank in the whole entire world patiently explained the the taxes have to be paid in cash and I would have to use the ATM. So, I ran over to the ATM and pulled from Daddy"s emergency account for me (oh, my lord, I am such an American brat). Back at the post office my darling postal worker friend, Gloria, did a little dance for me that I finally had the box of christmas presents from my grandmother in my very own hands. P.S. Gloria sends my family salutations, and I will tell her you all send the same.

Feeling enfuriated by this disfunctional system I was greeted by a street protest/riot that felt the same way! I got swept up in their crowd as I munched on my grandmother"s deliscious cookies in a completely different world than my neighboring whistle-blowing stick-carrying buddy. They try to look strong, but it is truly sad how weak the people are against their own government.
When I met up with Cesar he explained to me that in order to open a credit card in Peru it has to be connected with a bank account. I explained that is not the definition of credit, and he shrugged and said that was why the woman thought I could just put in my pin and the card would access my account instead of the credit line. What made me sad was that she works in a bank, that regularly has to work with tourists, and she couldnt explain to me in her own language why we were having a problem. The complete lack of training and education all over the country is tearing me apart bit by bit. Usually this enforces my desire to teach like a mad woman, but today was about the second time in my Peace Corps experience I just wanted to curl up in a little hole, plug my ears, and cry for the people here and my impotence to help them. I took myself to one of my favorite coffee shops, sipped my coffee, closed my eyes, and imagined myself in one of my favorite coffee shops in Austin with my enamorado by my side.

25 Enero 2011

Last night I presented facts about Peace Corps and people of the canyon to a handful of pre-med students from St. Olaf college. Half the population very interested, and half sleeping it was interesting to be in a room full of Americans for the first time in half a year. After living here you begin to forget what you thought before you came. What you knew, what you didn't know. It was hard for me to prepare the presentation because I couldn't guess what they did and didn't know or what they wanted to know.

So, I skimmed the surface and hope that I touched on topics that interested them.

Perhaps we even got a few Peace Corps recruits...

22 Enero 2011 take two

Thank you Jim Nutter

my handy cousin recommended I catch rain water myself instead of using the faucet that spits out dirt ridden brown colored water. BRILLIANT!

time to get creative...

22 Enero 2011

Yesterday was a mad dash to every pueblo that the dentist campaign will be visiting. We were hanging up posters and talking to as many people as we could to "Pasa la voz" or spread the word.

Here is the silly part (this demonstrates just how incredibly unmindful I can be sometimes), I pretty much forgot to eat. I specifically packed granola bars my mom sent me and gobbled them up when I got on the bus at 6 the morning, but as we travelled to the towns, there literally wasn't anywhere I wanted to eat, and I didn't want to spend the time to eat.

I am pretty sure I have been this much of a picky brat my whole life; if there isn't anything yummy around, I would rather not eat.

This is not a good moto to have when all you are surrounded by is alpaca jerkey, rice, lima-esque beans, potatoes, and minimal canned goods (and everything is covered in flies until you swat them off and stick it in your mouth).

My turned up nose keeps me bringing in food from arequipa and cooking all the time. But, on the road yesterday, cooking was no option, and there is no McDonald's drive through. Around 4pm I grabbed a small package of crackers and set off to the last town and convinced myself I would eat when I returned to Chivay to catch my evening bus to Arequipa.

I hopped out of the taxi that I had rented for the day and had rented in the past (the driver is the cousin of a friend). I had fronted the money for the taxis until the NGO arrived from the States and could pay me back. Unfortunately, that left my small stipend severely diminished for the month and after I payed the taxi driver the usual s/.160 he says, "It is a little bit more because we had to go down the canyon this time to cross to Madrigal." Dammit! There goes my dinner money. I knew once I arrived in Arequipa I could meet with the NGO and be reimbursed the s/.350 they owed me total for transportation, that or Cesar would feed me (haha, poor little old me... I do this to myself). So, I used one of my last few sole to buy a bottle of water, chugged half of it, then forgot it in the bus terminal.

How Kafkian of me. I just continued to dig my own hole deeper and deeper.

At 10pm Cesar met me at the bus station and I was a feeble little toothpick attempting to lug a week's worth of clothes in a dirty backpack. Needless to say, he held me like the stupid child I was and I was fed immediately.

How appropriate that I am reading "The financial Lives of Poets" by Jess Walter.

But... The day was very successful. Everything (well almost everything) is ready for the dentists arrival. The spaces are donated for them to work, the rooms for them to sleep, the permissions at local, departmental, and national levels are aligned, and marketing is complete. It feels darn good, let me tell ya.

Special Thank You to PCV America Campos for helping me hang posters and returning to the sites again this weekend to hang more.

20 Enero 2011

Viewing the canyon from below the stalks of beans gives the entire gorge a distinct façade. Now that the rain has treated the crops well the cliffs are just resplendently green, and to view this green from between the leaves of the beans I pick gives me a sense of amalgamation with the earth beneath me. It makes me feel so small with my limited view, and yet a part of it.

Ok, enough of the dramatic, pretty verbiage…

I went to pick avas (kind of like big lima beans, a staple of the diet here) with my host sister this morning. It was the field of a neighbor and she brought her kids. Somehow I managed to convince the little ones that finding the fattest ava pods was a really fun game and they made my day a lot easier. It isn’t like the little beans perk up when to come to pick them and say, “Here I am!”. No, everything is green, the stalk, the leaves, the pods. And the beans manage to parallel themselves to the stalk just below it’s leaves making it anything but easy to find them. But, it felt good, none-the-less, to crouch down with the greenery and play hide and go seek with the kids and nasty chalky beans I avoid eating at all costs.

19 Enero 2011

I decided not to go to the fields today because I wanted to organize the curriculum a bit and see what I can do without internet access. Turns out a bunch. When I do have the internet at my finger tips I tend to throw information together so I can get as much as possible down in the limited time that I have. So, when I come back on a day like today and have a look at it it is a hodge-podge of all the information I need but in no cohesive order. Today, I organize. I want this thing to be done!

Then, I realize I have come to Day 21 of the program. That is 5 months in to what was intended to be a 6 month program. I was thinking that I was just about finishing up, but I have only hit 14 of the 30 intended topics. Dropping topics isn’t an option, they are all topics requested by the community or lack in their publicly provided textbooks. Cutting days shorter to fit two topics in one day could be an option, but I feel like that would make everything feel rushed and I worry the kids wouldn’t retain anything.

So, what is the next option? Extend it to a 10 month program? Yeah, that could be. That will keep me or any other volunteers that use this syllabus very busy, but that might be a good thing. That means I would need to start the program immediately so that it can be repeated with another instructor before I bounce. That also wouldn’t give me any vacation days except for weekends which worries me because it takes a good day to get anywhere from here. Another option is to extend the sessions to two hours instead of one, but that depends on the kids attention spans and interest. Another option is to combine more ages together. Right now I have them broken by grade with two grades coming per evening which will give me about 20 kids a day (I am guessing on attendance rates). If I combine 3 grades per day that would give me Fridays off. This could be an option as well so I have a day to prepare for the coming week.

I think the solution is to just get it started and see what happens, how things fall together, what can be removed and what needs to be altered.

Honestly, my biggest concerns are the big art projects that require drying overnight before the kids can continue. That could delay everything.

Standing back and looking at the program as a whole with each day’s syllabus designed I don’t feel exasperated or tired or like it hasn’t turned out like I expected. I feel proud of it, and can’t wait to get started! I know a lot will change, and a lot depends on the kids, but I have built a great base to get myself (and maybe other volunteers) started. Every time I work on the program I feel refreshed and energized. I love this project and have thrown my whole self into it.

This evening I gave myself a spongebath (rare, I know) and headed to the municipality to schedule a meeting with the new mayor. All cleaned up and dressed in descent clothes for the first time in a few days I headed to the secretary’s desk. As all of the “administration” has turned over with the elections these are all new people to me, and not the people who invited me to live in Madrigal as a Peace Corps rep. So, there was potential there for things to go very, very badly. I was nervous to say the least. But, in common Madrigalenian fashion the secretary welcomed me with open arms with a smile on her face and we scheduled my presentation/meeting with the mayor and all his new councilfolk in three weeks.

On the way back there were actually nurses stationed in the health post and I was able to introduce myself (to this third set of nurses since I have been here, it is a huge pain in my side that it changes every 2-3months) and get them on board for the dentists that are coming in two weeks.

What a surprisingly successful day. Content, I will sleep early and well tonight.