Oh wow, it's been a month already...

Sorry to leave you all hanging for so long. It's been a busy month here in Ancash and there has been little time for blogging. We played host to 40 trainees from Lima who came to do field-based training in Ancash at the end of October, and then on top of that had to focus on getting our costumes together for a legendary halloween party. Yes, we still have some fun in the Peace Corps.

As far as my work goes, I've been working hard to get my eco-club off the ground. We meet twice a week to talk about environmental themes, do art projects, and play games. The kids love it, but the problem has been coordinating with the school about using a classroom. They can't seem to wrap their minds around the concept of every Monday and every Wednesday. We're working on it, but for now it means that class is usually outside, often in the rain, and is open to invasion by toddlers, dogs, and chickens. Minor complications in the grand scheme of things, although it does get a bit dangerous for everyone when you throw a chicken and a bull into a game of freeze tag.

The Eco-kids holding trees we planted for "el dia del arbol" on Nov. 5

The bathrooms project continues to advance. We are finished with our fundraising, so thank you all for your generous donations! We hope to purchase our materials before the holidays, and move into the construction phase at the beginning of the new year.

Mostly though I am looking forward to having a nice break for the holidays. Only two more weeks until Seany arrives, and my folks are coming a few days later. After a full year in the mountains, I can't wait to see my family and spend a few days on the beach to get rested and rejuvenated for the year ahead.

A happy Thanksgiving to everyone! This year I am grateful to James Tvrdy's grandmother for sending us stuffing mix. Wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it!

Bathrooms Update

We're rolling right along with our bathrooms project. Friday we had a session with the health post about hand-washing and household hygiene, and Saturday morning we held a town clean-up with the twenty participants of the project. Here are a few pictures to introduce you to our project!




Thank you to everyone who has already donated to our project. We are already half way to our goal!

Bathrooms!

Hi everyone! I am back in Peru after a lovely ten day vacation in Boston. It was wonderful to speak english, ride the T, eat pizza and bagels, watch the Twins make an amazing comeback (and then flop in the playoffs), and of course to catch up with so many of my friends. I only wish it could have lasted a bit longer. But here in Peru there is business to be taken care of, and I am hitting the ground running with a new project that I am VERY excited about. Please take a moment to read about our project, because we can't do it without your help.

Through conversations with my community partners, we have decided that one of the most pressing health hazards in our town is the lack of bathrooms. Surveys have shown that approximately 70% of households in town have no form of bathroom whatsoever, and that families must take care of their necessities "al aire libre," as we say here- "in the open air." This leads to contamination of public spaces, waterways, and the fields where families grow their food. Needless to say, this human waste contamination is one of the primary causes of diarrhea and intestinal infections, especially among children. Unfortunately, many families lack the financial resources to construct bathrooms in their homes.

In order to combat the health hazards associated with human waste contamination, we have decided to initiate a project to construct bathrooms and promote hygienic practices. Through our project, 20 participating families will attend workshops to learn about the health hazards associated with poor sanitation and about how they can improve hygiene within their own homes. Families will also participate in two clean-ups to help reduce existing contamination in town, and the male participants will attend technical trainings to learn how to install pipes, cement floors, and construct modules for the exteriors of their bathrooms. Each family that completes these requirements will then receive materials, including pipes, cement, wood, and aluminum siding, to complete construction of a bathroom within their own home.

We need your help to make this project possible! Through the Peace Corps Partnership Program we are hoping to raise $2,800 dollars to purchase all the necessary materials to construct 20 bathrooms. If you are interested in making a donation, please visit the link below:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=527-010

All donations go directly towards my project, and every little bit helps. A donation of just $20 provides the floor of a bathroom, so please take a moment to check it out!

1 year down, 1 year to go

Peace Corps life is like a bowl of tomato soup- a bowl of soup that you tried to cook from scratch using two separate recipes and without all the right ingredients, in the dark, over a flaming pile of firewood, and without the blender that both recipes mandated. In other words, it's not quite as smooth as you'd like it to be. But you learn to lower your standards and enjoy it anyway.

This week I decided that after nine months, it was about time I made a legitimate effort to get my ecoclub started with the school kids. I talked to the school director, who made an announcement in front of the entire school, but neglected to tell me that Wednesday, the day of the first meeting, the entire school was going to the next town over for a fiesta. So at 3PM I went out to wait in the plaza with my book, pretty certain that no one would show up, but around 3:30 a couple of kids appeared in the plaza and came to hover around my bench. Not daring to believe it, I tried to sound totally casual as I asked, "Sooo... what are you guys here for?" They looked at me as if I were a total idiot. Um, duh, that thing you told us about? So against ALL odds, the ecoclub meeting actually happened, and I held their attention for at least 20 minutes before the boys decided that the hot potato circle was really better as a wrestling ring.

Some of my girls on a visit to the nearby pre-Incan ruins

Work at the recycling center has taken a turn away from my interests. After bringing one of the workers to a workshop in Chiclayo about planting Tara trees, we were both totally stoked to plant some native species. When we got back, however, we found out that the mayor had sudden plans to plant 20,000 invasive, nutrient-sucking Eucalyptus trees. So I watched with growing despair as the little black bags full of dirt multiplied over and over to fill every empty space in the tree nursery. It's taken me 9 months to plant 200 trees because no one sees the importance of planting native species, but with one word from the mayor 20,000 seeds are planted practically overnight. It's amazing how quickly things can get done, and makes it all the more frustrating to see my own projects develop so slowly.

Even with the little stuff, you can't count on things to go the way you expect. For example, I wanted to do laundry yesterday, but it's kind of tough when there's a 200lb dead pig on top of the sink. Turns out yesterday was pig-slaughtering day. Fortunately when it comes to killing and cooking a pig, I am only slightly more useful than the 4-year-old, so I mostly got to watch and shell peas and I was TOTALLY ok with that. Anyway, that's why I'm wearing a dirty t-shirt. I swear it's not my fault.

My host dad with the pig.

In other news, the trip to Cusco with my parents was amazing. If you want all the details, don't be afraid to ask them. They seem to love talking about it. For me, the best part was when they came to visit me at my home. The host fam got a kick out of my dad's moustache, especially when it turned orange while eating guinea pig. My sisters still giggle about it. So thanks for the laughs, pops.

Gringos in the kitchen

Now I'm off to dinner with my friends to celebrate the our 1-year-in-country anniversary. One year ago today, I was having a heart attack in Washington DC wondering if I was somehow deranged for actually choosing to move to Peru. Now I know that yes, indeed, I am a little crazy. But I'm ok with that too. Hasta la proxima...

Me and host sister Mayeli

Time passes in funny splurts. One day I am complaining that the month of June seems to stretch eternally in front of me, with loads of empty days to somehow fill, and then suddenly it is the middle of July and I am over 6 weeks behind on my blog. My apologies, but I swear I don't know where all that time went.

To recap June, in many ways it was a letdown after the busy month of May. After taking a trip to the northern part of Peru for a Peace Corps workshop the first week of June, I came back to site to find that all my work opportunities had pretty much fallen flat while I was gone, through circumstances outside my control. The school was celebrating its anniversary, which meant a lot of parties and not a lot of class, and construction at the recycling center had ground to a halt in the absence of the engineer in charge. Fortunately I could look forward to another trip to Lima with the WID/GAD committee. We put together presentations for both PC staff and the trainees, and the stress of throwing together two presentations in one day was a welcome break from the slow pace of life in the mountains. I guess I am programmed to feel more useful when I am stressed and strung out on Starbucks.

My beautiful recycling center, if only it were operational

Thus far July has brought a few exciting events- my secondary school kids won first place in a district dance competition, and I taught my very first environmental class at the school and helped the kids make a compost heap. This was huge for me, since environmental education is one of my program's goals and I have been working very hard to get my foot in the door at the school.

The boys before the dance competition

Other than that, I spend a lot of time reading and eating cookies. I find that inactivity is a powerful trigger for my sweet-tooth. Intending to use them as a reward for kids who helped with a garbage clean-up (which never happened because of more school parties) I purchased an 18-pack of fiestachip cookies, 4 cookies to a pack, and over the course of about 4 days, I somehow managed to eat every last crumb. You do the math. It's ok, though, because I recently learned that I am eating for two (or perhaps two thousand). I think of it as a test of character... of all the challenges to be faced as a volunteer, I had still been living in fear of the prospect of getting a stomach worm, or worms. Well the day arrived, about two weeks ago, when I found irrefutable evidence of having at least one little friend. I'll spare you all the details, and the pictures, but I'll just say that when all was said and done, I handled it with much more composure than I had thought I would. I passed the test, and I am now pretty confident I can handle anything the Peace Corps can throw at me.

Anyway... I am now looking forward to my folks arriving in less than 2 weeks. Get ready mom and dad, you're gonna eat guinea pig!

Just in case...

If any of you incoming Peru 13-ers have found my blog in an anxious attempt to find out anything and everything possible about Peru in the next three days, here are a few tidbits to help with last minute packing:

1. You CAN buy peanut butter in Peru. It's expensive, but always worth it. You can also buy Oreos, which go great with PB and are fun to eat in bed at night. But be sure to brush your teeth afterward, or you might get a cavity (like me)

2. Other things you CAN buy here: snickers bars, ramen noodles, shampoo, facewash, macaroni and cheese (kraft, nonetheless), batteries, baby wipes, sunglasses, ritz crackers, cheap movies, listerine and colgate toothpaste

3. Some things I am REALLY glad I packed: My yoga mat (good for all sorts of exercise, and great as a rug when it's not in use), yoga pants/sweatpants (I almost never wear jeans in site), lots of tampons (they're really expensive here), comfy hiking shoes, my teddy bear

4. Don't worry too much about packing dress clothes- you'll only need them a couple of times- and think durable rather than super classy.

5. And last but not least, don't stress too much because we all end up wearing the same four t-shirts every day for two years anyway, and no one here is judging.

There Are No Llamas Here

I'm not sure that I've actually clarified that yet- in spite of my blog address, the only llama that I have met in Peru is one that hangs out in the plaza in Huaraz wearing sunglasses and a hat. And I haven't even really met that llama, since you have to pay to take a picture with him. There are LOTS of donkeys, though, and dogs, sheep, and pigs. The donkeys make horrible noises, the dogs have fleas, the sheep hang out in the middle of the road and always cause delays, and the pigs bust through the front door a dozen times a day and proceed to trash the kitchen looking for food. I guess I'm not much of an animal person here. But I have pretty much mastered the art of yelling at animals in Quechua. Mostly you just say their names. To make a donkey get out of your way, for example, you just say "ashnu," kind of like sneezing, and it will immediately start to move. Not too hard. Getting the pigs out of the house is a little more complicated- you yell "kuchi," but it is much more effective if you give them a kick in the tail at the same time. I can't wait to eat porkchops. And yes, swine flu has arrived in Peru which makes it even more fun to see their dirty little noses rummaging through the breakfast dishes.

I have had quite the series of adventures the past two months. Diana came to visit in April, bringing a precious block of cheese and a box of Lucky Charms. In exchange I offered her the unique opportunity to sit on a sheep and to swim in a glacial lake. I think I got the better deal.

Me, Diana, some huaino singer lady, and Erica at Campo Santo, the site of a 1970 landslide that buried the town of Old Yungay

A few weeks later I took my first hike up into the mountains to the spectacular Lake 69 (no joke, that's its name) with the other volunteers, and last weekend a group of us went on an overnight trail clean with the tourist association with which Erica and I work. We covered about 40km in two days, climbing from 3,000m to 4,300m altitude and then back down. To say that I was exhausted doesn't even begin to do it justice, but it was well worth the trek.

The volunteers on our way back from Lake 69

The next day, Erica and I led our first workshop on garbage management and recycling, which went surprisingly well. We were anticipating the worst- that after all the work that went into brining the garbage off of the trail, someone would end up burning it before we could get our hands on it- and I was about ready to sleep on top of the garbage bags to make sure that didn't happen. But against all odds, we were able to present our chat on the day for which it was scheduled the garbage was still there, and we got three dozen men to sort out the recycling and throw the rest into a mini landfill.

Some arrieros (donkey drivers) with their recycling

It is a small step towards our bigger goals, but if I have learned anything in the Peace Corps, it is to appreciate ever step that takes you in the right direction, no matter how small.