Three Shorts from the Campo

                                                                      ~Trashy Business~

            I am rounding my three-month corner marker of being in-site. This is a significant marker in Peace Corps terms for it means that I should be integrated into my site, can speak the language with some proficiency, am prepared to start my projects, and I can take vacations.  In other words these past three months I have had an excuse to not work, because Peace Corps deemed this time as acclimation to the new environment, but now that my three months are up I no longer have this crutch to tell people the reasons behind my waking up late in the mornings, and hanging out all day. Last week I did come along a half days worth of work that would make my whole week feel like an accomplishment. I attended a meeting at the municipality with the town mayor and the three other regional representatives. My reasoning for being there was to have them fill out a quick analysis of the town, which I can use in the write up of my community diagnostic. They took my being there as an opportunity to volunteer me to help out with some sort of trash activity they had to do that week. The Spanish flew across the table faster then I could pick it up so it was unclear what exactly I was being volunteered for. What I did know was that it would involve boots as they asked for my boot size. So I agreed to meet them the next day at 8:30am to go do something with the trash. I will mention here that one of my program goals is to help start up recycling programs and problem solve alternative means to dispose of trash besides burning it which is often the preferred choice. So I was more than happy to go along on this trash mission, as it seemed to be just the type of work that I am supposed to do.

            Thursday morning came and I announced to my host family that I was off to help the municipality with the trash, hoping for some kind of shocked reaction, but I got nothing more than a nod of approval. Arriving five minutes late I was predictably the first on the scene and thus settled myself onto the wall of the municipality; one leg crossed over the other, my arms in my pockets in what I thought was a cool and collected waiting pose. Thirty minutes later the secretary arrives with the keys into the storage room and promises of boots and masks for me to wear. Sure enough in a box she pulls out boots just my size, gloves, and a mask for the ‘trash dust’. Just as I am proving that all fit well the town mayor pulls up in his pickup truck to receive his gear. By 10:00am we seem to all be accounted for and suited up so we pile into the truck and head out, at this point I am still not sure where we are going or what we’ll be doing.

            We drive up to a site I had walked by several times and had wondered what it was intended for. Turns out the city a couple months back had built a mini land fill, with a roof, and aeration system. However in the last two months of trash dumping the trash collector guy had dumped the trash outside of the hole. Thus upon driving up to the site we were faced with a large pile of old decomposing, fly infested trash. We got out of the car and relaxed for a while looking out at the farm filled vista. Here I was with the mayor and regional directors, positions in the States that seem strictly political and only get their hands dirty for the picture, and we were about to dive into the trash pile that most of the community didn’t know existed. After our twenty-minute relaxing session we gloved ourselves and started separating trash, pulling out plastic bottles and tin cans to be recycled. I fought back the apparently cultural urge to scream and moan as the flies swarmed, the smell filled my nostrils, and I pulled apart plastic bags of dripping old molding trash to recover bottles once full of Amazonas soda, coca cola, yogurt, and whatever else the kids are drinking these days. We were knee deep in trash dumping it into the deep hole and nobody complained once, I thought everyone complained about touching other people’s trash, but I guess some just get over it and go about their job.

            Two hours later we had filled eight large bags of recyclables and moved the pile from outside the hole into in it. The man in the hole responsible for evening out the mound struggled to find a way out, but with some good cheering by the gringa (me) he found his way out and we loaded up the car. It was very promising to be with the municipality taking care of trash, and seeing a commitment to recycle items. It was also very informative to go through everyone’s trash and see what is being thrown away. At the very least I have good reasoning to the municipality to build a recycling program that gets the people to separate trash and organics in their homes, with the motivation of not wanting to go back to the molding trash piles in the future. On our way back we stopped by the local soccer/volleyball court where the community comes out to pass time on Sundays. We spent another two hours picking up trash and cleaning up the field area. By the end of it I was exhausted and ready to wash my hands, but definitely felt like I was actually doing work for my program goals for the first time so far.

            On my way home I practiced my Spanish in my head of how I would recount the details of my day to my family over lunch. I hoped to get some good laughs and shocked reactions from this story as what normal person goes to sort through trash. I crafted my words, got the tenses right, and felt ready to be the entertainment of lunch. I waited for soup to be served and for my host mom to sit down before I dove in. I hit every line as I had practiced in my head and I was getting no reaction. My host dad grunted, our visiting nephews kept interrupting with stories from their day on the farm, and my host mom shrugged as if this was normal. I figured that they weren’t understanding me, so I told it again hoping this time I would get a little more than a grunt for my half days work in the trash, but no apparently this is not news worthy, and the only thing that got a bit of chuckle was the fact that I wore boots and gloves.  Giving up I jumped into the nephew’s conversation about the differences between male a female bodies, to which I commented oh yeah women have larger hips so they can pass the baby threw, and this fact of nature got them all laughing.

                                                                  ~Boys will be Boys

            After my classes one day I was hanging out at a neighbor’s house making some arroz con leche and watching bad quality telanovelas. We needed some cinnamon so one of the young girls of the house and I walked to the small corner shop to buy some. On the way back we ran into one of my students, now this student was intelligent but he was also the student that punched another student in the eye during my class one day; giving him a bloody nose, all because the student was annoying him. So he has a bit of anger management issues, but of course to my face or one-on-one he is very kind. He greeted me formally and politely which I appreciated and as we entered the house he continued down the street. Just as we turned around to close the door we look up and there he is mooning us in the middle of the street. Not sure he anticipated us turning around another time or not, but we looked at each other in shock and then shuffled into the house bursting out laughing loudly like middle school aged girls. Boys will be boys no matter where you are in the world!

                                                               ~Brand New Bike~

            I got a bike delivered to me from the Peace Corps, one of the great benefits of being a volunteer. It came in on the bus from Lima wrapped in layer upon layer of plastic wrap. My host grandma was there for the unveiling, where my excitement of having a bike turned to venting out some hidden anger within as I tore at the plastic wrap. This change in temper seems to be a frequent occurrence with this bike. Later that afternoon I decided I would take it out for my first joy ride. My host mom and my barely able to hear host grandma were there to send me off. I checked my tires and decided the front tire needed just a touch bit more of air, mostly because I wanted to try out the fancy small pump that they sent with the bike. I ran into my room to grab it skipping with excitement leaving smiles on my onlooker’s faces. Grabbing the pump I worked hastily in anticipation, shouting out one word remarks about how beautiful and nice my bike is. Inserting the pump into the tire I start to pump rapidly but what greets my ears is the sound of air whooshing out of the tire. Oh my host mom says, that is not the right sound. I proceed to pump harder thinking I can overpower the seeping air, while my host mom shakes her head and laughs. What proceeds is an hour of putting the pumping into the tire, pumping it up aggressively, feeling the tire and seeing it is completely flat, all the while my partially deaf grandma holds the tire steady while shaking her head and saying what hard work this is. To check to see if air is coming out of the pump I put the nozzle on my host mom’s cheek and say ‘see airs coming out, why is it not going into the tire?’

            I flipped the bike over to try and get a better angle, as well as relieve my host grandma of her tire holding job, mostly so that she would stop looking over my shoulder as I crumbled into a fit of failure. I took the tire off the frame completely to see if this might help. I dismantled the pump, hit it against the ground, and put it back together. Over and over again I put the pump into the tire, pumped rapidly, counting my pumps to 50, and yet no air would enter the tire. My host mom got bored of the process and went into her room, my host grandma shook her head and repeated what hard work this was turning out to be, and I proceeded to feel ashamed at my inability to work a bike pump. Eventually having enough I proclaimed that the pump was broken and my host mom came up with a list of other people that had pumps, all of whom were currently out in the farms. I sulked into my room wanting to cry-laugh the situation off feeling like a four year old about to throw a tantrum in a 26-year-old body.

            A couple hours later after going for a walk around town I returned to my house empty of people, with the bike sitting there still staring at me. I took a deep breath and calmly picked up the pump. I looked the pump in its one eye-hole, stared it down, took the hose out of the plastic covering, and discovered that by doing this I could still pump and the air didn’t seep out of the plastic top casing. I slowly inserted the pump into the tire and what do you know that tire inflated in less than 50 pump strokes. In disbelief that I had solved the problem in about 5 minutes I started dancing around our outside staging area. I mounted that bike I rode it right up the hill with children running after me, but with this success nothing could slow me down. I suppose there is a lesson in this story of patience, staying calm, and walking away from things to come back to them later but mostly I clearly do not perform well under the pressure of my host grandma’s eyes.

  

A Bread Incident

Paper Mache Masks

             Proclaiming disgust for the only kind of cheese we have here in the region, one of my fellow Amazonas volunteers decided the only solution to this problem was to have a queso fresco cook off. Who could prove that something good could be made with this bland wet cheese? So for our next regional meeting we planned to come with our best attempt to hide this cheese into some sort of delicious meal. I got my host family involved to brainstorm ideas of what to cook, but then I realized to win this competition I would have to create something a bit more American. My obsession lately has been baking cakes, cookies, and bread in my electric bubble oven that I inherited from a previous volunteer.  I decided I would create some sort of caramelized onion brochette with some cheese on top. I planned on making the bread rolls the afternoon before heading down to the capital city. That morning I had my English class with older students who at the end didn’t want to leave to go back home, which I found very flattering and took as a direct compliment where in reality they probably just wanted to hang out with each other more. Anyways to get them to leave I told them they could come back this afternoon if they wanted and help me make bread. On my way home I stopped by the local small shop and bought the ingredients. On a side note we are making paper mache masks in my classes which is taking a lot more flour than I anticipated, so I am now infamous at the shop as the white girl that buys a poop ton of flour. When I entered the shop that day I didn’t even have to say anything to the shop owner she just when straight to shoveling more flour into a bag for my bread.

            After lunch I was drifting into the sweet dreams of my rice coma when outside my window I hear one of my students yelling my name. Poking my head out my window it is clear that this student is ready to get his bread baking on, so I tell him I’m coming and regretfully roll out of bed. I gather up my oven, ingredients, and cooking utensils and head over to the neighbor’s house where there is a better table to work at. The other students weren’t there yet so we head to their houses to gather them up.  We find them diligently cleaning the mud off their boots to make them look like new again. Soon enough I have six students excited to have a new adventure for the afternoon. We head back up to the neighbors house and set to work. Hander, the smallest but most vocal of the students steps up to the plate as leader. He looks at the recipe, that is in English, and jumps into a monologue of commands and proclamations of what he thinks the recipe says and who should do what. The others roll their eyes and grab the Kindle from him that has the recipe on it, quickly figuring out how to turn the pages and scroll through all the pictures of bread that are in the ebook. I take the spoon and control out of Hander’s hand and set my minions to work. Flour is flying everywhere as the students chant, ‘mix mix mix’ while each takes a turn incorporating the ingredients. Mix is perhaps the only word I have taught my English class so far, but they are learning how to play Frisbee quite nicely. We set the dough into the oven with hot water to allow it to rise and busy ourselves by playing music and looking at pictures on the Kindle.

            Forty minutes later I open up the oven to see the progress on our rising dough, and it’s a bit bleak. The dough seems about the same size as when we left it, but the students are antsy to mold it. Accepting that I am not a baker, and these conditions are no bakery I take the dough out and divide it up amongst everyone. At first I come down hard wanting all my rolls to look alike, determined to win the cheese cook off competition, but seeing the joy these students find in molding the dough, and begging to make it look like other pictures in the book I let them go wild. There is a bread here called letter bread because it has an ‘A’ on the top of each roll although the A really looks like a fight breast cancer ribbon, anyways the students quickly come up with idea of molding their dough into letter bread except with the first letter of their name on the top of each one. They make rolls for their friends, for me, for their family, and everyone they can think of, carefully rolling out each letter and placing it on top of a dough bun. They are proud of their rolls and eager to put them into the oven, so I decide to skip the second rising period and we pop the buns into the oven.

Hander making Cinnamon Rolls

            This time while waiting we start up a game of soccer keep away outside on the street. One of the kids has a small brown ball, which quickly picks up the dirt from the street and spreads it all over my pants and sandal bearing feet. The shouts of joy from the game brings the neighborhood out to watch and I am loving the confidence that comes with finally playing a sport I am actually somewhat good at, as opposed to my pathetic volleyball skills. We take a break to check on the bread, which has nicely browned in the oven so we take out the first batch and put in the second. I look at the carefully molded bread rolls and realize that I can’t pack them up to take to my cheese competition, not when each roll is unique to the person that made it, so we divvy up the rolls according to who made them. Mayra my one strong female leader of the class hands me a roll she has made with an ‘M’ on the top and we decide we better sample the bread to see if its any good. Munching on bread we head back out to continue our game. I am at the top of the hill trying to get the ball passed Hander who is in the middle, I fake left go right, wishing I had the agility of my high school years, and then I wind up to chip the ball over Hander’s head down to where the others are waiting. Unfortunately as my foot is coming down for the swing the contact with what I thought was the ball was hard and unforgiving. The brown rock that I have mistaken for a ball drills into my big tow, my sandal goes flying, and the actual ball goes nowhere. The pain rushes through my toe, and I begin a delicate chicken dance hopping up and down, singing eowww eowww, hoping that this word translates into all languages as a yelp for pain. I try to take deep breaths not wanting to show the weakness of tears to my students who have gathered around and all looked confused as to what they should do to help this hopping yelping gringa. Finally they guide me to the steps and I sit down rocking back and forth laughing at the situation, as it seems better to laugh then to cry.

            Next comes the onset of Spanish suggestions of what I should do to best care for the toe. Out comes a container of freezing water with the remaining salt from my cooking mixed in, and I find my foot being guided into the water. There are suggestions of going to the health posts, claims that I should cut the whole toe nail off, attempts to clean off the dirt, and imitations of my chicken dance of pain. It is a chaotic scene, that just makes me laugh/cry more and I surrender any hope of explaining what I think should be done with my toe, and allow the neighbors to come up with a solution. Finally my host mom is drawn out of our house from all the commotion and she helps gather up my oven and cooking supplies and guides me back to the house. They decide we should trim the nail so that when I am asleep it doesn’t catch on the blanket and fall off. I agree to this, but moan in pain and laughter as my host mom trims my toenail; probably being a bit over dramatic, but it seems more comedic that way. They trim up the toenail, as my host dad shows off his toe that was trampled on by a cow, way more legit reason to have a purple toe than my wimpy story of mistaking a rock for a ball. Every other sentence they say is either how dumb it was that I was playing soccer in sandals or about how my toenail is going to fall off. They then bring out the purple stuff, which I demand to read before they apply it, I see the word anti-biotic and decide it can’t be that bad, and soon my already purple toe is covered in more purple anti-biotic dye. Satisfied with her nursing job, and proclaiming that she has done everything that the health post would have done, my host mom heads back to the kitchen to prepare dinner. I sit there still in pain for a while soaking up all the attention I can get from visiting neighbors until I get cold and hop back into my room.

Kid carries bike up hill

            The next morning I wake up with one toe that is much larger than the other and can only put back on the flip flops to head into town for our monthly regional meeting. I pack up my things; breadless with a painful toe, feeling very unprepared for this meeting. In the street the neighbor is still showing passersbys the rock that I kicked showing how far it traveled down the street from my pure force. At the regional meeting other volunteers laugh as they see my violet toe proclaiming that the purple anti-biotic is what they usually use for cows and horses, but occasionally they also put it on their face for herpes, so it seems to be a universal cure. My dreams of winning the cheese cook off crumble as I end up making salsa and guacamole to complement some tacos. However I still enjoy the delicious food, and I’m even more satisfied knowing that six other kids in my site also got to enjoy some bread!