A doggy tale

                        The town of Levanto falls completely silent on Saturdays.  There are no mothers out washing clothes or gossiping on the corners, there are no children kicking soccer balls and screaming in the streets, and all the shops are closed shut. The families have all migrated out with dogs and horses in tow, to the farms.  They’ve packed their rice and potato lunches in Tupperware containers, and carry plastic bottles of chicha, the fermented sugar cane juice, for refreshment. The town becomes ghostly and abandoned, waiting to be brought back to life on Sunday afternoons when the people take the day off from the farms to relax and socialize.

            This Saturday I opted out of a day of collecting potatoes and instead decided to spend the day enjoying the quiet and trying to finish writing my community diagnostic. After an hour of sitting in front of my computer, coaxing it to turn on with little success, I got restless. The sun was out which is enough of a rarity that I couldn’t let it slip by in my room. Gathering up my things I decided to head out on my favorite trail and set up my hammock to read for a while. I put on my local sandals made out of old car tires that bring in many compliments and headed out. Once on the trail I quickly became lost in my thoughts as I jumped from rock to rock in order to avoid the mud. I felt alive and energetic as I half skipped half ran down the path.

            All of the sudden, jolting me from my daydreams of American food, a dog leapt up from a yard I was passing and starts barking. Now I have gained confidence with dogs around here, I can usually shush them away like the locals, but when I looked up and saw this one running toward the yard gate I found myself praying that the gate was locked shut. Much to my horror my prayers went unanswered and the black, medium sized shorthaired dog slipped out from behind the gate barking aggressively. I performed my local shushing noises and waved my hand at the dog, as if to push it away, but to no avail. Suddenly, at a blink of an eye, appeared two more medium-sized dogs, all three advancing on me, growling, bearing their teeth and barking. They forced me back onto the side of the trail up against the blackberry bushes, the bigger one in the middle slightly ahead of the others, its teeth as sharp as nails. At this I turned into a state of panic as my options ran through my head. Tactic number one: shush the dogs away and act like I am about to beat them…not working. Tactic number two: pick up a rock as they taught me in training, and throw it at the dogs…there were no rocks or sticks on the trail. Tactic number three: scream in utter terror and hope that someone hears me. Now I can count the number of times that I’ve truly screamed in a state of panic: once in second grade when my brother jumped out of a corner and thoroughly scared the bajibbers out of me, once when a homeless man in Tanzania exposed himself to me in the street during the middle of the day and the only logical reaction at the time seemed to be to scream and run, and once when I was chasing after a guy that stole my camera in Spain telling him that it was not the ‘right’ thing to do. But here I was out of options of self-defense, so I selected tactic number three, hoping that there might be some straggler still in the house to come out and help me. I looked at the sharp teeth of the dogs and just let the panic run up from within me and transform itself into a shear scream, my body shacking, and pictures of myself lying on the ground and the dog running off with my leg in its mouth flashing through my head.

To my great relief there was a grandma still in the house who came out with a look on her face that seemed to think someone was dying. She waved her hand at the dogs and as fast as they had came they were gone. I mumbled under my breath that I don’t like dogs and then composing myself, looked up at the grandma who seemed to be trying to figure out why she had heard deathly screams. I greeted her politely, told her that dogs scare me, and then awkwardly continued up the path. It took me a while to recover from the incident, I can still see the teeth of the dogs ready to tear me apart, and I can’t figure out how the grandma got them to run away so quickly. The concept of training dogs is such a process in the United States it has created a whole industry around it. Here they stick with the beating technique making dogs flinch anytime you reach a hand out to pet them. They are there to provide protection on the farms and occasionally companionship, but some can seem like wild animals in the woods. I will not let the dogs scare me away from this path as it is my favorite, but I will start carrying a stick or rock for this house!  Turns out a couple of weeks ago I was also attacked by a rooster on this path as I was trying to take its picture…but that’s for another post!

un accidente

     I am currently having some technical difficulties with my computer, it seems it doesn't like to be touched, for when ever I gently stroke its keys it gets overwhelmed and shuts down. But I did want to bring you all this one quick story.

    I was sitting in my classroom after spending the last 15 minutes ushering students out of the school convincing them that yes in fact it is time for them to go home. I sat down at a desk to finish up a project we were working on of making toilet tube rain sticks. I was gluing on the top of the tubes when I was suddenly overcome with an urgent need to pee. I ran through my options in my head: I could go in the school bathroom but the door doesn't shut so I would run the risk of the creepy janitor walking in on me. A note about the creepy janitor he is always inviting me to my house and saying I am the most beautiful gringa he has ever seen, so you can see my hesitation to the option. My other choice was to hold it and wait till I got home. So I opted to wait persistently pushed through sealing one more top for whatever reason and soon found myself in a moment of panick. I had reached a point where antimatter was screaming at me that is was about to overflow. I looked around the room and saw a plastic container I had been using for old paint water. I rushed over to grab it, pausing to let a crisis moment pass, bent over to grab it and walked over to the corner of the room. As I set down the container I looked up and realized the Windows and doors were wide open, I rain the same risk as if I were in the bathroom, and the bathroom seemed more civilized. Considering myself crazy left the pee in a container idea, and decided to head for the bathroom, but it was too late and I found myself there in the middle of the classroom peeing my pants and laughing at myself that I didn't have any bodily control. In wet pants I walked straight home not making eye contact with anyone, avoiding all greetings, straight to a new pair of pants. I like to think this only happens to me in foreign countries but I think it could have happened anywhere.

Caught in the Rain

            I have been working doing family surveys of a handful of people in both my main community of Levanto as well as the annexes of our town. We have three annexes which are small communities up to an hours walk away that all fall under the same municipality. As of last Wednesday I had visited all but one of the annexes, this one happened to be the farthest away and thus I had been saving it for a day that came with a lot of motivation. All the sudden on this particular Wednesday I was overcome by this just after lunch so I put my coat on and asked my host mom how to get there. She looked at me confused and clarified ‘you want to go to Qachuc now, in the afternoon?’ Well yeah clearly that’s why I was asking how to get there! She proceeded to reason with me by telling me I was crazy, the path was too muddy, and I would be back at dark if I left now; better to get up early, eat some breakfast, and go tomorrow with an early start.  I saw her reasoning as if I left early enough I could catch the people before they headed out to the farms anyways. So that was that, I had no choice but to put off my motivation until the next morning with the goal of leaving the house by 7:30.

            Unfortunately Thursday morning came and I didn’t drag myself out of bed until 7:45. Embarrassed I head out of my room to the bathroom with sleepy hair and tired eyes. My host dad, about to leave to work on the farm, had waited just long enough to be able to comment on my lateness exaggerating that it was 9:00am and I was just waking up! Laughing him off I get myself ready quickly and as I sit down for breakfast my mom implies that we will be going to the annex together as she proclaims ‘lets get going to Qachuc’. It is hard to drink burning hot tea quickly but I’ve gotten pretty good at the aggressively stirring technique to aerate the tea and cool it down to a drinkable temperature. The skill is somewhat useless and seems somehow very American for every time I feel like I should be in a hurry here I end up rushing to wait some more. At the time however it seemed my host mom was ready to leave and wanted to get going, it turned out she was going to harvest some carrots and beets on a farm that was in the direction of Qachuc so she would walk with me part of the. This was a slight relief because it meant I could follow her on the trails, which were much faster than walking along the main road. I finished up my tea and bread and got my boots on. I have a pair of three quarter height boots from the states that are rubber at the foot and then waterproof fabric for the ankle bit. They get a lot of attention here because they are different from the normal black rain boots that everyone wears, and they are super lightweight. These facts both make the Peruvians jealous but also weary constantly warning me that a spine is going to go through them and stab me. The biggest problem for me is that the have no tread and the mud her gets like slick clay when it’s wet. Anyways I put on my boots, knowing the trail will be muddy, and go out to see if my host mom is ready. Well predictably I end up waiting for her for 15 minutes before we are set and ready to go.

            This trip confirmed that I really should invest in the black rubber boots and leave my slightly more stylish boots for times of paved road rain walking. My mom walk-jogged ahead of me in the mucky paths as I slowly and careful picked my way trying not to fall on my bottom thus making a fool of myself. Every few minutes my host mom would look back laugh and wait for me, commenting on how I need to buy better boots. We proceeded in this manner for 20 minutes, down to a small river and up the other side of the valley. As we approached a fork in the road my host mom described to me how I would proceed up the hill to the road, then walk on the road for a while until I came to a big house with two water tanks in front of it. At this house I would take the right hand path and proceed until I reached Qachuc. She meanwhile would be taking the lower path to the farm where she would be harvesting vegetables. My lunch was prepped back at the house for when I got back home, all I had to do was turn on the gas stove. Easy enough I thought so we split ways and I headed up the path to the main road.

            Upon reaching the road there was a man sitting on the side taking a break chewing on some coca leaves; the stimulant of choice. We greeted each other and he inquired about where I was headed alone. Funny enough he happened to be headed in the same direction. Once again I found myself with company but this time since we were on the road I could keep up with his stride. We went through the classic conversation topics: where was I from, how many were there in my family, is it true they speak only English in America. We talked about if I was used to the environment in Levanto yet, how long I was going to be here and how long I had been here. We touched on my single status and weather I was going to marry a Peruvian, which led us to my age and that I was still young. We even got to the topic of rain and if there was any rain in the United States, if the United States was made up of only cities or if there were farms, and how much my family must miss me since I was so far away. For thirty minutes we kept up impressive conversation if I do say so myself. At the large house we took the path, which proved to be muddy and full of deep puddles where my companion showed me how to squeeze along the sides and jump from rock to rock in order to get through and before I knew it we were approaching the town. At an old Incan ruin site we talked about how there was no money to clean up the ruins in the area and then he split off to his farm and I headed down the hill to the town.

            It was around 10:00am by the time I reached town, much later than I had anticipated and the farmers were already out in the fields. I convinced myself that just the walk alone was worth my time and I didn’t have anything better to do but to explore the area. So I went to the only open door I could see, a small store front and figured I would get at least one survey done. The woman graciously invited me into her home and I sat down to find out she had lived in Lima for 10 years before moving back here, she has one 9 year old daughter who was eager for attention, and she herself delivers recyclables from her house to Chachapoyas to sell, the first person I had met that does this! After our interview the little girl offered to be my guide through town as we hunted for more people to survey. She took me to all her aunts’ houses, her grandma’s house, and her cousin’s house, and by the end we had visited most houses and successfully found a few people actually home to interview. We re-visited one aunt on the way back just to look at the pigs again and then the rain started to fall. Lightly but enough to makes us run back to the little girl’s house and take cover. We put on some Alvin and the Chipmonks singing to Peruvian songs and waited for the rain to pass. Alvin’s lips did not quite line up to the songs he did have some pretty sweet dance moves that we tried to mimic fairly unsuccessfully.

            Finally there was a break in the rain and I decided to make a run for it. I thanked the mother for her hospitality, and the young girl disappointed in seeing me going told me if I left now I could never come back, and with that I was off. The trail was slick and I debated taking the main road all the way back but not wanting to get stuck in the rain I went for the faster route. I munched on the apple my host mom had sent me with as I joyfully headed down the path feeling accomplished that I had gotten so many interviews out of what originally looked like an ill planned trip. Just when I was getting to full of myself and my confidence was growing the rain came again, this time not so gently. I found myself in a full-blown downpour, the cloud had taken over our mountain and essentially the air I was breathing was rain. In a flash the trail turned into a river, and I was soaked to the bone. My boots filled up with dirty water fortunately warmed by my body temperature. I gave up any attempt to walk carefully, and took on the mini lakes that filled the path cutting straight through the middle and running up the other side. Farmers who had been out in the field were crouched down under personal plastic coverings as the watched the crazy gringa running through the rain.

            Finally I reached the intersection of the path with the road at the large house and here I found a farm gate with a roof, where another fellow was waiting out the rain. He had been riding his motorcycle into town when the rain hit, and it was coming down so hard he had no choice but to pull over and take cover. I joined him standing on the gate huddled under the roof as we watched the rainfall and covered most of the above mentioned conversation topics. For 45 minutes we watched if fall, my heartbeat slowed letting the cold seep in, but I hung to the gate and waited. The fields were saturated with water and the sky gave no signs of letting up. Finally it seemed that the rain was slightly lighter and I decided that in order to prevent myself from freezing I better run along the main road back home, hoping for a car to drive by and pick me up, and realizing that the paths were muddy rivers it would be faster by road. I strapped my backpack tight to my back, stuffed my cell phone into my bra, as this seemed the driest place, and started a nice jog. The road was raised enough and had enough rocks in it that it wasn’t too slippery, but there was a raging flashflood creek on the side of the road that would every so often cross of the road washing it out completely. My heartbeat started picking up again and I once again felt high on adventure, feeling as if I could conquer the rain. Just to keep me in check I suppose the downpour started up again and I had to duck into the shelter of an abandoned house. Leaning against the outside wall under the overhang of the metal roof I watched the water pour off the hillside in waterfalls.  I was just dozing into a daydream when a young boy climbing the side fence to the house startled me awake. His family apparently was waiting out the rain on the other side of the house and in his boredom he discovered me. We exchanged a few sentences about how strong the rain was and then he slithered off back to his family’s hole.

I waited planning my break for it, and once again feeling the cold overtake me. One of my English students rode by on his horse giving me inspiration to make a run for it. One foot in front of the other, the water sloshing in my boots, my bright blue flowered rain coat standing out against the mountains, I made my way home. On the road to my house I saw two young girls that I usually give high fives to waiting expectantly with their hands outstretched. I didn’t have it in me, my hands were tingling and I could barely move them, I made a sad a attempt at an air high five as their faces fell knowing they weren’t going get the full satisfaction of a true high five.  None the less my head was focused on getting into my room, stripping off my clothes, drying myself, and putting on at least three layers of pants and shirts. I fumbled with the key as my hands had lost function, but relief came over me, as I knew I had survived the adventure. I heated up my lunch and drank four cups of apple tea, finally feeling warmed to the heart. They don’t lie when they say it is rainy season here!

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! 

Teaching

            It was highly recommended to all the volunteers in my group to set up summer school classes. The description of how to set these up was different for every volunteer depending on the site, but the general idea was to get approval from the school. I had it a bit easier since there is only one school at my site, and the director is incredibly helpful. So helpful in fact that he is setting things up for me much faster than I can understand his Spanish. I was able to present myself at a parent teacher meeting, and before I knew it I was sitting in front of the director at his desk and he’s handing me the keys to the school, and giving me a classroom for my classes. The school is typically closed during the summer as most the teacher including the director are from the main town near by and thus do not stay here while there is no school. During our key transaction the director kept asking me about where I was living, and then repeated my host mom’s name a couple of times embedded in Spanish sentences that I couldn’t quite understand. I continued to nod my head in agreement assuming what he was saying made since. He told me he would put up an announcement at the school, and I should put one up at the health post, and he promised to come visit at some point during my classes. Pretty soon I was walking out the door, my head held high, feeling full of power with the school keys jingling in my pocket.

            The proceeding weeks seemingly every parent in the street approached me and asked about my classes. They kept using a work that started with ‘m’ that I was quick to assume was another way of saying English classes, and I would tell them the date and time the classes were going to start.  One night my mom approached me after the school graduation and asked me where I was going to hold my classes, and I assured her that they would be in the school. She looked a bit relieved because apparently our neighbor, who rented from us for three months and then one day left without paying for rent I might add, was apparently saying that the classes were going to be held at our house. I said that was ridiculous and we quickly decided that the neighbor was a gossip and not good. For two weeks I assured parents of the day and time of the classes and I was starting to get nervous that I would have too many students. I made plans of how I could divide up the classes in two, and offer more sessions.  At one point I was sitting talking with a local baker and she was telling me that the previous volunteers only had eight students in their classes, she assured me that she would send her kids to my classes so I could have more students then that, and a little part of me felt like I was winning the non-existent competition. I busied myself all week making alphabet letters with accompanying pictures, and posters with class rules on them. I dug up my best leadership games and worked out a progression for the games to build on each other. In other words instead of waking up with no purpose I now had reason to busy myself in my room and it felt good! I was called to the municipality to open up the school for some inspectors, which only built on my feeling of power in the community. While at the school I was surprised to see that there was no sign on the door about my classes, so that night I made one for the school door, and could watch out my window from my house as people stopped by and read it. I was getting excited to get to know the students of Levanto

Heading home one day I passed by my friends at the health post to chat, and they asked about my classes using that ‘m’ word again. Fortunately they can read my face a lot better then the parents on the street, and thus could see the slight confusion so they spelled it out for me. It turns out the ‘m’ word really meant registration and it was assumed that I would have a central place for parent to come and sign up their kids before hand. I laughed this off and said oh no I was going to do that on the day of, to which they responded oh Maddy you are only going to have one student. We laughed about this prospect, but I was pretty confident that since I had told so many parents about my classes this could not possibly true. The Sunday night before I started my classes I had a parent come to the house wanting to sign up her children and pay, so I quickly grabbed the new notebook I had bought and made up a registration list to fill out. I was pretty happy to have someone at the house that was specifically looking for me, it gave me purpose, and I ignored the fact that she was surprised she was the first one to sign up her kids. I went to bed that night a bit restless in anticipation for my classes.

I woke up early Monday, tidied up my room, and went to the kitchen to have breakfast. While I had told my host mom that I would be going early tomorrow, my earliness and hers did not quite align, meaning she was not quite ready with my breakfast so she served me some soup from the night before, a little disappointing as I was anticipating two rolls of bread, but I slurped it down.  On my way to the school one of our neighbors came running up to me to hand me her money for the classes, I was juggling the materials unable to pull out my notebook, so I told her she needed to bring her parent to the school to register this morning. I got to the school, proudly opened up the door and walked on in. I taped up my alphabet on the wall, and posted up the rules. My biggest anxiety was how I was going to handle helping the parents register and managing the class with the students that were already there. I had nametags for them to decorate hoping this would keep the students busy. At eight I was all set and debated waiting for the parents in the classroom, which was on the second floor or down at the school entrance. The convenience of the table for registration kept me in the classroom and there I waited. At 8:10 I had my first two students, the children of the mother that came by the night before to register. They filled out their nametags asking me what color they should use, clearly needing my approval, and then we waited. I walked out of the classroom, looked around, and then walked back in wondering where all the promised children were. At 8:20 I started to get nervous that the women at the health post were right that without a registration there would be no students. Finally at 8:30 the girl that had stopped me on my way to the school came with her father thus rounding out my class to a total of three students. Together we sang the alphabet song, built a tower to hold a glass of water, and learned the numbers. The nametags felt silly and didn’t stay on, and I didn’t even mention the class rules, as with only three they were very well behaved. At the end of class I told the student that they needed to find one friend each to bring to the next class and the obediently agreed.

Feeling slightly embarrassed I headed back home to my host mom. I dramatically complained to her that there were only three students, and her first reaction was ‘oh but its only the first day’, then seeing how dramatic I was being she changed the response to be more sympathetic. I was in fact comforted that her first response was that it was only the first day and perhaps this was normal.  That night before dinner I heard my host parents talking in the kitchen, and pretty soon my host dad pops his head in my room and proclaims: ‘I heard you had 30 students in your class today!’ I looked at him confused and then realized he was joking to which I laughed and said yes, so many I couldn’t control them! This became our running joke, having to eat a second serving of dinner because I needed to have lots of energy for my 30 students. As I left for my classes the next morning one of our neighbors on the street wished me luck handling my 30 students! Somehow being in on a joke made me feel even better than if 30 students had come to my class.

After only five students come to my class for the older students I decided to take matters in to my own hands. I set out for a walk with my registration notebook in hand, and just walking down the streets children and adults appeared from out of their houses to stop me to register for my classes. I proudly handed them the notebook feeling prepared and excited to have more students. Many students said they were coming but I have now picked up that these students only tell me this to please me, it is the ones that put their name on the paper and paid that mean business. I now have around ten students in each class, which feels like what I can handle, and I’ve taken a huge step forward in understanding how the systems work here.

Bring in America

            Last Tuesday I decided I had had just about enough of this no Internet business so I decided to dip down into the main town for a day. I called up my man Orlando who drives a car back and forth in the morning, to have him pick me up at 6:15am as he only does two trips and the other one is at noon, which for my desperate need of Internet was too late for me. Therefore bright and early the horn blares outside my window, and I stumble groggily down the stairs to the car. We proceed to pick up two large bags of potatoes, one large bag of cilantro, three boxes of cheese, two cartons of beer, and six more people in a five-person car. Satisfactorily full we head down the hill gossiping about who owns the new green car in town that is also now giving rides up and down. As we arrive in town I ask Orlando if he is going to be making any trips in the afternoon, to which he gives me the same response I always get which being no his last return is at 11:00am. However at seeing my desperate look he tells me to give him my cell phone number and if by chance he makes another trip he’ll call me. I then ask him if there is any other way I could get up in the afternoon, thinking of that new fancy green car, but he tells me my only option is a farm truck. I ask him where I could find these trucks and he simply says down there, as if it was obvious. As he drives away I realize that ‘down there’ could me a million different places, but such are the direction giving skills here in Peru.

In town I put on my American façade, took out my pre-written list of things to get done, and started ticking things off, feeling so productive! I drowned myself in the Internet, bought materials for my upcoming English class, ate the delicious apple filled pancake at my favorite café, and most importantly went to the post office. At first the post woman told me that there was nothing there for me, to which I pointed at the large pile of boxes behind her and encouraged her to sift through those, and what do you know she pulls out not one but TWO boxes with my name on them. I sign about thirty different forms for this lady and skip out of there, promising myself that I had to wait until I got back home in order to open them. That afternoon I watched the rain pass from the window of our hostel friends who let me sit in their common area and eat lunch. At the first clearing I jumped up and completed the rest of my errands. I went down to a stationary store, which seemed a bit off of the beaten path, but it turned out the lady that runs it is very familiar with Peace Corps and we had a bonding moment over that. I then got up the nerve to ask her if she knew where the trucks to Levanto leave from, and to my surprise she announced that it was right here from her store. I could not believe my luck. She called up her friend to ask when he was leaving for Levanto that evening. Still with a smile on her face, as if she was still doing me a favor she says that in fact her friend only leaves from her store once a day at 4:00am in the morning. I knew it was too easy to have just stumbled into the storefront, so I tell her thank you very much and I head off to continue my search.

Next I ask the lady that I buy my two mangoes from, and she leads me down the street to two guys who say that a truck with a bunch of potatoes was leaving right now just down the hill. At the bottom of the hill there is no truck but a bustling market I never knew existed. I ask some kids at the market, and they tell me to go up a block, where there is a truck and the guys, surprised to see a gringa in this neck of the town really wanted to help, so they affirm that there is a potato truck leaving just down the road. This direction leaves me to the recycling center where some guys are sorting the recycling. I take the opportunity to ask them about what recycling they buy, and I introduce myself as a peace corps environmental volunteer, and that we will hopefully be in touch! This part of the trip makes my wild goose hunt feel somewhat productive and I start to succumb to the fact that I might have to spend the night in town, delaying my packaging opening by a day. One of the recycling guys wipes some dirt off his face, and inquires me about what I was looking for in the first place, and I explain that I am trying to get back to Levanto on a truck. After he wipes the surprised look of me on a truck off his face, he calls up his friend, who tells him where the stop for trucks that go to Levanto is; of course there is an organized stop that nobody wanted to tell me about. He gives me somewhat more specific directions including a store name, and words like corner and blocks. I give my thanks and head back up the hill to find the truck stop. Finally I arrive to the place I think he’s talking about and sure enough there is a truck being filled with potatoes. I ask the women in front who looks vaguely familiar the destination of this truck, and to my great relief she proclaims Levanto. I ask when they are leaving, and they say right now which I am sure means in about 30 minutes, giving me enough time to run up and grab my packages and other goods from the hostel where I had left them. I tell them to not leave without me and speed walk the ten blocks to the hostel.

My arms exhausted from carrying all my acquired goods in very awkward bags, I arrive back to the truck greet the driver who is standing at the back of the truck, and ask if I can get a ride. He hollers at a kid that is in the back of the truck to come and get my things, and then he gets a carton of beer that I can stand on in order to hoist my self into the truck bed. I clamber over the potatoes to the where a family of two boys and a young mom are standing huddled. There is a large canvas covering over our heads, and suddenly I have a feeling that I am escaping from somewhere, or perhaps an illegal immigrant entering America. We get a move on things and make our way up out of town. As we are leaving the city limits the kids tell me there is no more risk of the police and we can go sit up top. Unaware that that’s what we were waiting for, I climb up to sit on top of the canvas with them, where we have an incredible view as we head up into the mountains. I call my host mom and tell her I’m on my way via one of the trucks, and she laughs at me in surprise. Finally I have figured out how to get back to my site in the afternoon when no cars run, a pretty big achievement for the afternoon.

Upon getting back home I drop my stuff outside my door and excitedly bring my package into the kitchen. This is a bit of a risk to open packages in front of the host family, because I will be expected to share everything that is in them, but I am too excited, and I want to share the excitement with my host mom. I first open the package from my friend I worked with this past spring, and who did the Peace Corps in Cameroon recently, in other words a friend that knows just what a Peace Corps volunteer would want! Inside this surprisingly heavy box was full of soup mixes, mac and cheese, easy to make meals that just need water, granola bars, gum, and American magazines; a fresh breath of home! The soups excite my host mom, and we enjoy reading the packages together, and munching on sour patch kids. I fill the kitchen table with American packaging, and she figures out our whole dinner based around the new goods plus some potatoes that were already boiling away. We get started on the minestrone soup and after the three minutes of needed cooking time she asks me to come test it to see if its ready. She holds out the wooden spoon as if for me to slurp up what’s in it so I bend over ready to fulfill this task, but she slowly lowers it down more and more so that I can quite get to it, and find myself slowly taking a bow leading with my lips outstretched ready to slurp up some soup. I immediately feel like I am eight and my bother is torturing me, him thinking the game is so funny. Finally in explanation my host mom shouts out, ‘no it’s going to burn you!’ I assure her that I’ll be fine, for nothing stays hot here for very long, and I finally slurp up the soup in the spoon meanwhile both of us are laughing uncontrollably at what had just happened. My host dad was skeptical of the American speedy dinner, but no one can refuse my host mom when she tells you to eat up, and thus it was a joyous meal all prepared in under ten minutes!