Cows

Once again I bring you a story that happened while running. I suppose it may come off as though I am running or walking constantly while on my Peace Corps adventure, but I assure you that this is not the case, it is simply because a disproportionate amount of stories come out of these times. I could tell you about the endless hours I spend sitting in my room, playing ‘flick golf’ on my kindle and listening to Podcasts; shoving the thought that I should be more proactive out of my mind and focusing more on achieving the next high score while pretending I am part of the American stories that are blaring from my ipod. But then this blog would just seem like any bored anxy kid blogging from their room in the States with not much to report on. So I bring to you the occasional moments that I get out of my room, adventure around the town, stumble over some awkward Spanish phrases, and get some vitamin D into my skin. I make it a goal to get out and show my face to the world at least once a day, but sometimes if the rain is coming down, my feet are for once warmed up in my bed, or I am deeply committed to the book I am reading then this is just too big of a goal for that day! I struggle with the fact that my host parents get up at 5:00am every morning to tend to the farm, make breakfast, or busy themselves with the day’s tasks, and I stroll out at 8:00am looking like the lazy foreigner that can afford to sleep away precious daylight hours.  This seems to be a common shared experience for beginning Peace Corps volunteers, and I think this sense of uselessness can be one of the toughest battles to overcome.  I have come up with small strategies to make myself appear busy, for example I am typing this blog up on the municipality computer, which gives me the outward image of being hard at work in a much more public way than typing it up in my room would.  I think what gets to me the most is the perceived judgment or curiosity from others at the fact that my lifestyle here is so different from what they are used to. Sometimes I wish I could wake up with darker skin and hands that show years of working the land, and head off to milk the cows without being a spectacle, while other days I revel in the fact that I am something special to the kids playing in the plaza, I am a source of gossip to the knitting women outside their houses, and a curiosity to the men on the street. This sense of uselessness will ease over time as the gears to my projects start creaking forward, and I do realize that my time here will pass quicker than I can keep up with, so for now I remind myself to embrace the small achievements of each day, and allow myself a healthy dose of American podcasts, to stay connected with my roots of course!

                   Anyways I was out on my normal run the other day and had picked up two kids on the way for entertainment, motivation, and determent for the persistent men that I find sometimes on my running route.  We were having a grand old time talking about the new baby twins that one of the boy’s mother had just had the other day, and how much they cry all night, when we passed the house of one of my admirers.  He jumped up and hollered at me that he wanted to meet me down on the road to show me something. The women were laughing him on, and encouraging me to see what he had to show off.  It was because of this encouragement that I didn´t bolt out of there as fast as my legs could carry me. He was doing a sort of sign language dance to say that he was going to run straight down through his farm to meet me further down on the road.  I chuckled at his ridiculousness dance of communication and continued down the road to drop the boys off at their houses.  On my final stretch back to my house I rounded one of the corners and there was my admirer waiting for me in the road, clearly proud of himself that he had successfully made it there to greet me. As I reached to where he was he grabbed my hand to pull me over to the other side of the road jumping in excitement and aggressively pointed out something down the hillside. I looked down and saw four meek looking cows eating some grass on the hillside. He eagerly exclaimed that they were ALL his. I raised my eyebrows faking my amazement, and tried to figure out why he was showing off his cows to me. He seemed so genuinely excited, but the sight of cows seemed nothing too special.  I couldn’t understand why he had run out of his way to show me these amusing but fairly dumb animals. And then it hit me, he was showing off his wealth, and I was supposed to be impressed.  Oh wow I told him, trying to figure out how I was going to get myself out of this situation gracefully without hurting his feelings too much. I took a step back enlarging the distance between us, and just as he went into a rant about our future together, I put on my serious voice, said I was nearly married with someone in the United States, gave him a high five, and ran off down the road. He was left waving goodbye to me, and wondering why his cow trick did not work.

I don’t intend to come off as a diva in this story which I realize I pretty much do. More the point is that I am not accustomed to looking at cows as money. Here the reality is that raising cows can be hugely profitable, and the meat of one cow can feed a whole community. They are an important part of their livelihood and I should perhaps give them more respect when passing in the road instead of running to the other side praying that they don’t put down their horns and ram me.  The flip side of this is that they have a tendency to eat all the native trees when the trees are young and just planted. This makes it harder to convince people to plant native species, when cows will soon come tromping through.    

Fake it til you make it

             This week some of my projects took a step forward while others took a step back. With the encouragement of the local nurse and many women from the community I started up an exercise class. Back in the states I always romanticized about attending regular exercise classes, meeting potential new friends while getting my sweat on, and essentially becoming more fit. In reality I have sampled many different types of classes, worked out plans on a calendar, and bought up several groupons to gyms that I never seemed to be able to fulfill the 7 classes for $30. Needless to say while I have dabbled in many types of exercise, I was starting up these classes pretty blind. I figured all I needed was some good music, and the moves and stretches would just flow back to my memory. I posted signs around the community announcing that I would hold classes Tuesday and Thursday evenings in the health post. I even hand delivered small reminders to women around town and received enthusiastic responses that they would definitely be there.  My hopes were high enough to ignore the fact that I didn’t really know how to lead an exercise class.

                  Tuesday evening rolls around and at 6:00pm I head to the health post to find the two nurses sitting there finishing up paper work, and two of my potential woman talking with the nurses, their babies on their back, and sandals that seem to say they are not there to do exercises. We joke that they are actually going to do the class, but it is clearly a joke. The nurse assures me that she has told all the fat people in town to come, and that I just have to wait out the Peruvian tardiness. At 6:15 the cousin of one of the nurses shows up and I have renewed hope that there might be people for my class so I wait out the paper work of the nurses, and say goodbye to the women and their babies who have to go prepare dinner. By 6:45 it is clear that no one is going to come and I have once again been tricked by the Peruvian urge to please, but the lack of follow through when it comes to actually showing up. However the nurses and cousin seem invested so we put on the jams and I start with a basic side step jump to get the blood going. I try out some fancy turns with the shaking of the hips, we do some lunges, squats, jumping jacks but my urge is to move through the exercises fast and I find that we have hit every part of the body before one song is done. The second song consists of a lot of random jumping around with our hands in the air and laughing at the three year old daughter of one of the nurses who is imitating our every move. Ten minutes in and I have already gone through all my exercise materials so we circle back around to the side step. Outwardly I have a large laughing smile, but inwardly I am at a loss as to how those exercise instructors can take up a whole half hour let alone an hour!

                  We push forward trying to not stop moving, which results in a lot of jumping up and down, and the nurses throw out some suggestions, but my cover is blown and it becomes clear that even though I go on runs most days I have very little knowledge of how to hold an exercise class. I throw out some of my classic dance floor moves and we try out some Peruvian folk music, which proves to be too slow for our fast paced jumping. By the end of class we are all sweating and laughing and talking about what parts of our bodies we want to lose weight, it feels like I am right back in America. Overall they seem happy and promise to spread the word next class. With their enthusiasm I am convinced that even if I only had one person other than the people I organized the classes with, it was worth it.

After the class I go running home, and give my host mom and my host god sister disapproving looks trying to portray my fake frustration that they didn’t come to my classes even though all day they promised they would. My god sister holds up a small cut on her finger and proclaims that since she cut her finger while cutting tomatoes that she was unfit to exercise. We laughed together at the fact that I had very few members in my class, and my host dad proclaimed that he would never marry anyone that is skinny for this was a sign that the woman had no interest in cooking and therefore could not cook well.  The following classes I had two more participants, that I had to drag to class from their homes but afterwards they admitted they enjoyed it. I continue to remind people to come, and with the energy of the nurse’s cousin I go back every class hopefully and unashamed that my exercise classes mainly consist of us jumping around like monkeys with some wall sits, and sit-ups thrown in every so often.

                  Other project successes include getting an environmental club started with a group of elementary students, and while the first meeting reminded me at how disobedient students are here, I am excited for the potential of this group. The school is proving to be the easiest institute to work with, as the teachers are eager for me to come in and take over their classes. The municipality is rarely open, and the tree nursery is busy planting pine trees, so in the meantime I am working my way through many books, hiking around the mountains, and twiddling my thumbs waiting for Spanish vocabulary to voluntarily stick in my brain.

Bringing Home the Winnings

             Town anniversaries are a point of pride here in Perú. The neighborhood in Lima that I lived in during Peace Corps training was creatively named October 3^rd so as no one would forget about their anniversary.  There is now a history of gringos living in this neighborhood during their anniversary, as it falls during one of the annual training times, and thus an expectation that Peace Corps trainees come, dance like wild animals all night, and perhaps even sing a song for everyone’s enjoyment. Minus the singing, I don’t think we let them down this past year.  Away from the city celebrations get a little more traditional, and in some ways more elaborate. The partying can go on all week long, with the municipality pouring funds into food and drinks to keep the people happy. It is a way to show off the organizational level of the community, and the ‘open heart’ of the municipality. Levanto’s anniversary falls on May 2^nd, so we spent all of last week preparing for it. On Thursday my host dad went out with the community to kill the fattest cow that the community owned. On a side note, our most organized association in town is the community owned farm/cattle. They provide free daily rationing of fresh milk for all families with children under 6, as well as provide milk to our cheese factory, and not to forget the meat of community festivals. It is run by community members with periodic workdays where the men are expected to go out and help. While in recent years there have been complaints that people have gotten too ego-centric, and things are not as organized, from an outside perspective they still seam to do a pretty good job.

My host dad, anticipating tradition to stay alive, was ready at 6:00am to go out and kill this cow. For the next two hours he proceeded to come back in every half hour for more breakfast, each time more disgruntled at the disorganization of the community. Finally at around 8:00 he headed out to get the job done, while I went off to plant trees with other members of the community. After a long day in the field I was walking back through town to my house when I ran into my host parents outside a neighbor’s house. They hustled me inside to proudly show off the cow, which at this point was just the gutted head. One room was dedicated as the butcher room where four women stood around at table cutting up a mountain of fresh meat into small portions. There was a bloody axe left by the door, which showed the men had been in here first to make their mark dismantling the cow. In the kitchen the fire was roaring, cooking up huge cauldrons of potatoes and rice, but there was just enough room on the grill, and my timing was just right, as I witnessed them throw the whole bull’s head onto the fire to burn off the hairs, and periodically heaving it off to scrap at it with a knife. I was informed that this would be my breakfast soup the next morning, and at this I thought it was time for me to leave. My host mom followed me out to go back and make dinner for us, meaning she had been cooking nonstop from 5:00am until 8:00pm, no wonder she said her feet hurt.

Friday morning as promised the brass band struck up at the crack of dawn (5:30am) from the top of the hill right above our house. I was told that the previous volunteer had jumped out of bed in his poncho and ran up to join the band last year. It was hinted that I should probably do that as well, but as I was awoken by trumpets and booming fireworks, my bed seemed all too warm, and the woman that was going to go with me never hollered my name, so I watched from my window as the band made its way down from the hill and into the plaza. There was an impressive group marching with them as the sun began to rise and the party was already getting going. I watched from afar with the neighbors, until it was clear that I had no other choice but to go down and enjoy some brainy soup with the community. It was during breakfast that the town nurse appointed me to be the representative for the health post in the community fun run. I enthusiastically agreed, having had already talked up my running in the community and wanting an opportunity to prove myself. After breakfast we went down and put my name on the list, and then seeing there were no other athletic looking people there I went back to my house to change and get ready. I put on my best running clothes, and strutted around my house proclaiming to my family that the gringa was about to go win the race. They oohed and ahhed but mostly rolled their eyes at my excitement. I ran back down the hill to the plaza, elated with energy, picking up the nurse, my cheerleader, on the way.

We waited for another hour, while the school director called in the athletes over a loud speaker, and I showed the kids that were sitting around how to cheer for me as I came into the finish line. Finally we had satisfactory representation from the school, the municipality, the community representatives, and the community itself, and the 11 of us piled into the large van including my biggest fan the nurse. There were only three women including me, one of which proclaimed that she was only going to try, but didn’t think she could really make it, this just made my confidence grow as I was sure I had this one in the bag. Much to my opposition it was decided that the women would start closer than the men. I complained loudly proclaiming that I could run with the men, to which the men encouraged, and I am sure the other women prayed for me to stay quiet for fear they would be made to run a longer a distance. However at the 2 km mark up the hill, the van dropped off us three women, along with the nurse, one male school teacher, that decided he wanted to be a woman for the day, and another random guy that I did not know. The van then left us in the dust instructing us to wait for the second fire rocket to go off, signaling our start time.

In our waiting time it was agreed no one would go running off on their own, leaving everyone else in the dust, as this seemed unsportsmanlike. Mostly that was directed at me as they seemed to buy into my confidence that I would win, and I whole-heartedly agreed to stay with the pack. The woman that proclaimed she wasn’t going to make it went off down the road with the other random guy, to do some warm up laps, and we laughed that she was going to wear herself out. I realized this was the first official race I had been in since 5^th grade track and field, and the adrenaline was exciting. At last we heard the first rocket go off for the men, and a few minutes later our rocket blasted. The nurse waved us goodbye, as the five of us (including the random tag along guy) took off running. It soon became clear that the tag along guy is coaching the woman that proclaimed she was not going to make. He calls out for her to go slowly at the beginning, but she is very clearly leading the pack. Now I have never been coached in distance racing, but I figured it was better to let her set the pace, so I trailed just behind her, as she continued to go faster and faster. Her unsupportive off brand Chuck Taylor’s smacked the ground as she impressively kept up a solid pace, with me on her back, and the coach running on our side. We left the other two in the dust, forgetting our sportsmanly contract, and I realized she was in this to win this, and her previous statement was just to throw us off. It was amazing how quickly I slipped into my competitive mind frame, knowing the road well as it is the same road I run everyday I planned out where I was going to over take her. We came over our last hill and the last kilometer was all down hill. I let her lead through the curves, as gravity carried us full speed. Things really heated up when her coach instructed her to cut me off on the inside curve, and I found myself nearly tripping over her heals. It was in this act of aggression that my competitive edge fiercely made an appearance. That’s it lady, here I come. I proceeded to cut her off in the next curve and we were neck in neck fighting over the lead. My breathing became constricted, and I knew her body was screaming resistance just as much as mine, so it was down to a mental game. I told myself to ignore the lack of air and pressed down on the gas as I inched in front of her for the last curve and into a straightaway. I heard her coach yell for her to give it her all, that she could do it, but as we rounded the corner not only were my trained children all cheering me on but also my neighbors and family. I hear her sigh a breath of surrender as ran through the crowd of people and rose my hands above my head in victory breaking through the toilet paper finish line that was held up by the school director and town governor. 

            Completely exhausted I walked in two circles and gratefully took the free bottle of water from the municipality. I found my competitor recovering on the bench to shake her hand and then make my way to my fan group to cheer on the men. We speculate what the prize is going to be; some say I won a cow, while others say a box of beer. I suddenly become nervous about the responsibility of my winnings, I did not want to have to lead the town in a drinking circle of beer, as would probably be expected if that was the prize. Soon I start to wonder if I should have let the woman win, as she was clearly more committed than I was, but that is just not in my genetic make-up. Shortly after the men come running in followed by the van with the nurse signifying the end of the race. Over the loud speaker they announce me as the winner for the woman’s bracket and the kids push me forward to receive my award. The school director shakes my hand and gives me 30 soles of prize money, mentioning that it is for the school ‘cevicheria’ fundraiser that is happening later that afternoon. I interpret this as I should give this money to buy many plates of ceviche (a raw fish dish that is famous here) to support the school, and I feel relieved to have some direction with my prize money. I head back home to change and announce my winning to the rest of the family, who pat me on the back in praise. I invite them all to a plate of civiche and we head back down just in time to see the parade going on in the plaza. The local band is playing the national anthem as they raise up the Peruvian and Amazona flags, and the children march formally in straight lines around the plaza. It felt a little like the 4^th of July parade that we have in my hometown in Ashland, but much more formal and shorter. Afterwards we fill up our tupperwares with civiche and I donate all my winnings to the school.

We are then offered Styrofoam plates of rice, beef, beans, and salad for the community lunch, and with our hands full of food we headed back up to the house to eat.

            After lunch and a short nap I join my host mom, neighbor, and the nurse outside enjoying the sun. They are perusing magazines that sell everyday items for cheap prices, and gossiping about the town. I join them as the proud winner of the race, and we laugh as we pick out potential boyfriends for me from the magazine. Soon the conversation turns to my prize money, and the nurse proclaims that since I was running for the health post that the money should go to them. I turn red and then have to admit that I gave it all to the school. In dismay my host mom thought I only bought the three plates of civiche and then accepted my change, she did not realize I gave it all to them. Realizing my mistake I proclaim that in the States the schools have no money so they are usually a good cause to give to. To this the nurse responds that the school here has a farm and guinea pigs and thus have a lot of money, where as the health post has nothing. Realizing my mistake I bury my head in my sweatshirt and proclaim the gringa naivety. They laugh it off, while also trying to get me to go back and reclaim my money. All in all they are still proud to have a winner in the presence…I hope.