Environmental Mural

Last November I asked the company that is putting in a new sewage system in out town for a donation of paints and trash cans. My plan was to paint an environmentally themed mural in town, as well as paint some medal trash cans to put around town. They graciously donated 2 metal trash cans, the paints, paint brushes, paint thinner, for the project. The local students came up with designs, and I had local officials help me select the winning design (which turned out to be a combination of two entries). Students and local nurses helped me paint for two days straight and we had a mini inauguration at the end. Here are some pictures of the event.

Going for the big approval points

These past two weeks have been incredibly slow. Partly my fault in not wanting to leave my house because the roads are a thick clay mud at the moment, due to a new sewer system that they are installing; but also partly because there is literally no one in town if I do venture out my door. So I ponder weather to go out or not, and this is what I’m making the big bucks for; sitting in my room, reading John Steinbeck, watching the Newsroom, and painting cards to be sent back home. It’s like a little America up in here. I know the theme of my boredom comes up frequently in this blog and I think its because it is one of the hardest cultural adjustments. I don’t necessarily mean an American to Peruvian cultural adjustment period; I think it is more of an American working class to a peace corps volunteer cultural adjustment.  I would argue that peace corps has its own unique culture, a way of speaking, a way to pass by hours with little to do, a way to tell stories about our experiences. Sometimes I have a hard time accepting this culture for there are aspects that I don’t like that much about it, aspects where I find myself judging other volunteers harshly for doing, and then I find myself doing the exact same thing. For example I get knots in my stomach when volunteers try to make their sites seem like the most rural, rugged, harsh environment ever, and then I go off and start this blog post with pointing out that our streets are pure mud and what a hardship this is for me. So while I continue to embrace Peruvian culture to the best of my ability, I think I struggle more with embracing the Peace Corps culture.  The struggle with being placed in new environments, knowing that we have to create our own work, but with the expectation that we will have a lot of free time on our hands. Time filled with a guilty inner argument between the culture I grew up in that expected me to always be busy with violin lessons, soccer practice, work, and studying and a culture that is telling us to get used to having nothing to do.  So I think I bring up my boredom streaks often in this blog because it is an issue filled with a lot of guilt which is never a very productive feeling, but one I constantly want to take about.  

Last week I was out tossing the Frisbee back and forth with my neighbor friend, enjoying a break in the rain. It was around 5:00pm and people were just coming back in from their farms, or hanging outside of their houses. One of my students came riding up the road on his horse with his dad in tow behind him, clearly just coming back from the farm. The student slowed down to ask me a question and he put his hand up in a greeting, which I took as a cry out for the Frisbee. I smiled and decided oh this will be a great show for the neighbors if I can pass him the Frisbee while he is on his horse. So without thinking anymore into I tossed the Frisbee to him, which glided up, took a sharp turn to the left, somehow picked up speed in the air, and went flying right for the buttocks of the horse that the student’s father was sitting upon. This startled everyone around as the Frisbee thunked bouncing off of the horse, and then onto the ground. I could see a rush of panic run over the face of the father, and I covered my mouth and smiled realizing I probably shouldn’t have done that. My host mom, who was standing right beside me had a look of horror on her face, as if she couldn’t believe any daughter of hers would have such poor manners. Embarrassed I continued smiling at the father hoping he would smile back and give some acknowledgment of forgiveness.  Finally, after what feels like 10 minutes he gave me a slight chuckle, but not enough to calm my nerves.  However I push through the awkwardness and go on to confirm the times of my classes the up coming week with the student, which was the real reason he put his hand up to greet me in the first place. I often find myself wanting to do these crazy acts that will raise attention from onlookers.  But I never think through the consequences of what happens when they go wrong. What happens when the horse gets frightened kicks up, and knocks the father off? It is a risk of gaining more impressive crazy gringa points, or losing all dignity. For some reason I always attempt for the big points.

Kicked into gear or kicked to a halt

My host mom kicked a guinea pig last night. One of the little ones escaped from the kitchen floor last night and was trying to venture out into the real world. It surely just wanted a little peek into what lay beyond the dirt floor. I’m sure the first site of the big droopy dog eyes would have scared it right back into the kitchen, but my host mom got to it first. She was coming back into the kitchen when I looked up from eating my soup to see a small fur ball fly through the air. She was scolding it for wanting more freedom than what we already give it and my mouth dropped, as I didn’t really ever believe that I would see someone kick a guinea pig in my lifetime. Our other dinner guests were also a little mortified at my host mom’s reaction, or maybe they just didn’t want to see us lose our future dinner so they jumped into guinea pig rescue action. This meant that they put a small bucket on top of the guinea pig and started banging on the bucket. My host mom felt no remorse but proclaimed that surely the guinea pig was dead. The dinner guests were otherwise convinced and passionately argued that banging on the bucket with a wooden spoon would bring the guinea pig back to life. They paused their ruckus every few minutes to tilt the bucket and peak inside, and then proclaim that the bucket banging life revival technique was working and would go back to their impromptu band. Well they did in fact bring the traumatized guinea pig back to life.  That small fur ball got its feet back under it, and perhaps now has more reason to run for freedom but is surely scared out of any of those thoughts.

            We moved the guinea pigs out of the kitchen the next day. Built them a nice cage right in front of our woodpile out back. We woke up this morning and found one of the big ones dead. I think it might have been too old to accept such a big change in its life. My host mom thinks we can still eat it for dinner, my host dad proclaims it died of an exploded stomach, I think I will stick to potatoes and rice for dinner tonight. 

            Sometimes I feel like a guinea pig; running around everywhere, putting my nose in everything, asking questions that perhaps seem apparent, just waiting for the boot to come lift me off the ground and put me in my place. But it never comes. Last year I planned a visit to the nearest University with the senior class of our high school. When I say planned I had gone to the University and set a date, but beyond that I just assumed it would work out. Two days before we are supposed to go it became more apparent that I should have done a little more than just waited for pieces to fall into place. I found myself running around town looking into the eyes of the town mayor, school director, and teachers, asking them to put aside normal conduct and allow us to use the municipality van for transportation, asking them to put in more hours the following week so that the students could make up what they would miss in classes, asking them to overlook the fact that on the last trip the van broke down but this time hopefully it wouldn’t. I was scurrying around looking for a way to get what I wanted but also waiting for someone to just slap me in the face and tell me no. But it never came. I manipulated teachers into believing that every other teacher had said yes and they were the last one to agree to make up their class time in the following week. The students were fighting for me; drumming out the beats of a cheerleading routine over my head to keep me to keep pushing. I felt guilty to be putting so many people out due to my lack of planning, but nobody had the nerve to just tell me no. They said it would be difficult, they said they didn’t want to, they shook their heads at me, but I held onto the eye contact. Somehow on Friday morning I found myself sprinting across the plaza one final time to drop off the last permission slip, and we were rolling down the hill. The tire was flat on the van, one teacher out of protest had held a permission slip hostage in a notebook and wouldn’t turn it into the director, but despite all this we were on the road.  While I never did the kick to send me flying to a halt, I suppose a true execution of a plan should come with a bit more planning.