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.