Rednecks, yankees, cholos and monos...

In the States we harp on North-South/East-West differences, and color our maps blue and red, proclaiming diversity. It’s true, you’d be hard pressed to find a good bowl of grits up north, and the famous In and Out Burger has not shown it’s face to the Atlantic Ocean, yet. However, for all the stereotypes that exist, we’ve made a tremendous effort to transform a diverse, immense landmass into a homogenous “America.” Homemakers in the Arizona desert also have their neatly groomed lawns (even if it means breaking the watering ban at 2 am to keep it!!) and supermarkets and chain allow us to eat the same foods all year round, anywhere in the country, so exotic meals like “tamboori chicken” or “mandarin duck” are just a microwave button away.
Coming from this mentality, I didn’t expect much from Peru’s famed regional divisions. Sure, the landscape might change, but a Peruvian is a Peruvian, and we are in an ever-shrinking world, where Power Rangers and Coca Cola have arrived in tiny Andean towns. How different could the coast, a 10-hour bus ride away, be?
Very. I spent the last week on the coast of La Libertad, Tumbes and Piura, in a Peace Corps training. We visited volunteers in Tumbes, a costal department on the border with Ecuador, and Piura, a hot, dry department, green right now, at the tail end of the rainy season, but famously dusty and desolate the rest of the year. Beforehand, I had heard the stereotypes: people in the highlands are shyer, more conservative, less open with strangers, whereas lowlanders are open, loud, and generally rambunctious. My bus arrived in Trujillo, a large costal city, at 7:30 am, and I had the day to wait for another bus at 11 pm. I decided to explore, and, before lunchtime, I had experienced dozens of catcalls and whistles, as well as 5 offers of conversation and friendship (from mostly men but also one woman). It was startling.
Tumbes was no less bizarre. I watched, in awe, as 15-year-old peer educators spoke confidently to their classmates about topics both embarrassing and awkward, such as condom usage and HIV/AIDS. There were no giggles. In Musho, I have a hard time getting my peer educators to describe their favorite color in front of the others, much delve into the realm of blush-provoking controversial topics.
As might be expected, the coast is also more developed in infrastructure, with larger, less pothole riddled highways, bigger cities, and more cars. Still, the most surprising difference was the attitude and personality of the people we met. I feel as though a fascinating history lies beneath this difference: the colonization, the isolation of highland populations, and the availability of resources on the coast. While I am glad for my undergraduate education experience, I feel as though I could go back to college right now just because so many new subjects have piqued my curiosity.
Yesterday morning I returned to Ancash, with relief. Despite the attractions of the coast (showers!!), I think that there is something magic about these mountains that draws me to them. It could be as simple as the egoism of wanting to live somewhere I feel needed or as complex as some sort of complex alignment of stars that sent me down the path to end up “al pie de Huascaran.” (at the foot of Huascaran). As I spent all day greeting and chatting with my friends in site, I said many times, believing it, that it was nice to visit the rest of Peru, but I have stumbled into the best place to live, poverty, mud, quechwa and all.

MIcrobios!!

Though it seems shocking to me, I am 4 months in site. In less than a week, I will present my community diagnostic to the authorities of Huambomusho, one of the two sectors of Musho I’m focusing on. This will be a shorter diagnostic than the full report I will present a few weeks later to all my fellow health newbies and my boss. I’m nervous in a lot of ways, not because I worry that I won’t have time to finish the presentation or report (Thank you, Brown community health for teaching me how to put together a paper or a powerpoint within any time constraints), but because I want the product to be worthwhile.
Peace Corps Peru works in a form that requires volunteers to spend their first months on site using different tools to “diagnose” the community. The volunteer then presents this report to the community and, together, they make a work plan. I feel like this is of utmost importance as it distinguishes us from NGOs that arrive in the community with their agenda already set and little room for community ideas and input. In health, we use a variety of tools—from very standard public health style surveys to to nonformal education tools. For me, I have learned more about the community from casual conversation than the more formal surveys that I have gone house to house taking.
Certain topics seemed taboo to me when I first came to site: birth control, for instance. However, it comes up in the most surprising ways: when people learn that my oldest sister has arrived, married, to 30 (almost!! happy birthday!!) without any children, they often will be surprised and then say, “Sabe cuidarse” (She knows how to take care of herself) or, in a meeting of authorities, talking about types of trash (inorganic v. organic) when someone made a joke about a condom. Beforehand, I had wondered if anyone had seen one, much less known how to classify it as a piece of trash.
Through different ways, then, formal to irreverent, I have learned so much about Musho and it’s problems, yet I am shaky on the work plan front. Some days I am bewildered by the lack of knowledge and health practices; other days I feel like the community has been saturated by Peace Corps and NGO interventions and needs to be pushed out of the nest. One example of this paradox is knowledge, among mothers, of bacteria. Both Peace Corps and World Vision have given workshops and classes on hygiene and explained about “microbios” (microbes), microscopic bugs that make us sick. Microbios has now entered into Musho’s vocabulary as a synonym for filthy, as in, “Don’t touch that dead rat, it’s microbios!!” It’s hard not to laugh at these moments but I try to keep my cool and wonder only to myself if the teacher of this lesson would be proud of the vocabulary extension or frustrated by the confusion of their lesson. Briefly put: there are scores of problems in Musho, as well as people to work with and projects ready to do. However, I don’t know where to start, to focus, or how to ensure my nutrition talk doesn’t just increase culinary vocabulary while leaving a quarter of children malnourished and potatoes and rice as the dietary base. Advice?

Battle of Who Could Care Less

Apathy is a plague on democracies everywhere. In the US, despite a supposed civic responsibility, many people do not vote at all, even in national elections, never mind small local elections. In other countries, voting is obligatory, though this hardly ensures that participants are well-informed about the candidates and the issues. Here in rural Peru, civic participation is something different entirely, though I don’t think they’ve perfected it either. A range of important functions are served by elected, sometimes unpaid officials: “purification” (a rather ineffective chlorination) and maintenance of the water system, collection of payment for electricity, and distribution of milk to mothers with young children through the program “Vaso de Leche,” to name a few. However, the degree to which the officials perform their functions varies wildly from person to person. In one of my casaríos the president of the committee for maintenance and purification of the water system quit to devote herself to her upcoming huayno music video, in other community the president of Vaso de Leche said she would happily be president but would refuse to sign any document, leaving the mothers without their government milk-subsidy.
This leads me to how positions are chosen: election is probably the wrong word, something akin to “getting suckered into it” would be more accurate. Watching an election of an APAFA position is hilarious—or would be, if it weren’t a bit sad. Every person nominated gives a fervent speech about why they can’t possibly serve, and every person has the same reasons: they are too busy; they need to cook; they need to work in the fields and so on. Finally some rube ends up with the responsibility, a two year position, and, depending on the person, will either suck it up and do a good job, or slack off and leave their community with unclean water, a school director that robs them blind, or no representation in the local government.
Yesterday I participated (ie: listened to 2 ½ hours of arguing in quechwa) in a meeting that the committee for the water system held in one small casarío. A representative from each household was required to come. While calling the meeting, over the community’s loudspeaker system, the committee explicitly threatened to cut off the water of any household that did not attend. Even with this looming threat, the president, vice president, and treasurer of the same committee did not show their faces.
One of our goals, as health volunteers with Peace Corps Peru, is to encourage leadership and strengthen local organizations. Faced with such deep-set apathy, I don’t know where to begin. In a way, it is no different than in the US, but the consequences here, in communities where having slightly safer drinking water depends on someone doing chlorination by hand each month, having milk to drink depends on someone following the procedure at the municipality each month, and any improvement in the community only comes after explicit and time-consuming proposals to the municipality, are far more severe. I suspect that people know this, and feel like a jerk when I point it out. The positive part of this demanding civic participation is that when faced with a slightly more responsible and energetic official, things do change. There are opportunities. Currently I am working in several communities that are blessed with one or two people like that, and we are proposing projects of latrines, water system improvement and libraries to NGOs and local government. Despite my general disenchantment with the system, I am excited about the possibilities.

Lost, at a loss for words, and losing my mind

This is not, I repeat, more to myself than anyone, an introspective blog. While undoubtedly I am changing, reflecting and growing, these events happen calmly with no need of comment or pubic airing. However, I do feel the need to admit, before the following, that I have quite a few faults. One of these faults is the tendency to make snide or sarcastic remarks, especially when I feel that a comment was unnecessary or stupid. Today, as usual, without thinking, I snipped at an eleven-year-old girl who screamed:
“Where are you coming from, gringa?”
I replied: “Gringa isn’t my name.”
Then she asked, “What’s your name?”
To this I said, “You should have asked that first,” and kept walking.

This incident stuck in my head only because of what followed: Perhaps 30 meters down the street, I saw a little boy (could have been a save the children card—7 years old, cute as a button, barefoot with dirt on his face), face down in the grass, crying. I ran to help him, assuming that he had fallen. However, when I asked him what had happened, he replied that his mom had hit him. Upon further questioning, some back stroking, and the input of a neighbor (first entirely in incomprehensible quechwa), I learned that his mom hit him this time because he wanted to go play, and only hits him when she gets annoyed or frustrated. I am only sarcastic when I get annoyed or frustrated (or when I’m with people who will appreciate it, which is pretty rare) and I had just blown off some little girl for no reason. Hitting a tiny boy is far more serious, of course, and it terrifies me to think that for the caprices of his mother, this boy is in physical danger.
How did I react? Inside, I felt sick. Outside, I commented to the neighbor, scratched his back and saw that he sat up and stopped crying, and did nothing. I didn’t storm off to yell at his mother, certainly an undereducated young woman who grew up being hit or even share the incident with my colleagues with the local NGO that specializes in child health and protection (In fact, this NGO gave a workshop to parents in the neighborhood not even two weeks ago about how to prevent child abuse and alternative discipline methods. I would be fascinated to know if this mother attended).
Instead of action, I am sharing, and reflecting and trying to figure out where the impulse to hit a child can come from. While I am far from conclusions, there is a reason I started with one of my own faults. Meanness and shortness are violence, as well. The same impatience and irritation that drive me to snippy remarks (and more often, muttered curses in English) probably cause this mother to physically abuse her son. There are different degrees, of course, but I believe that the type of violence depends on norms and environment. Perhaps I would also hit children had I been raised in a household where that was commonplace. A wise friend once proposed the idea of trying to spend a day without any type of violence; I have not yet succeeded and fear, at times, that it would not be possible. I am, of course, already trying to think of strategies, as a good public health professional, to prevent child abuse and educate the parents, but I suspect that the root of the problem is more in the everyday violence of which many of us are guilty. That, despite countless New Year’s or Solstice resolutions, I don’t know how to begin to change.

On this eighth day, of the second month, of the two-thousand and tenth year since the birth of our lord, I convene this meeting, between my esteemed person and all of you, honorable readers, in the locale of the internet, with the purpose of reflecting and reaching an opinion on the Peruvian practices of bureaucracy.
Among my many other newly needed skills, I am learning how to write something called a “libro de actos” which is an official and vital notebook which every Peruvian organization (from government to sports clubs) uses to keep minutes, records and documentation of their every move. To help one of the health promoters look for funding for her organic gardening process, I am learning how to write a libro de actos (no one will take you seriously without one). The essence I think is just to take minutes, in the most pretentious and stuffy language possible, and then to reach agreements at the end, and have all participants sign (name, John Hancock, national identity number, and, if one has any sort of clout at all, stamp. I have a stamp.). However, despite my liberal arts education, I don’t think my bs has quite reached the elegance necessary for the libro de actos, and I feel it necessary to practice.
The libro de actos is just one example of the many Peruvian societal rules that I find bewildering and hilarious. Of course, I’m sure the US has many strange rules (now slightly separated I have started noticing some, for instance, we do not usually call people fatty (gordita) or skinny (flaquita) as an affectionate nickname for fear of offense), but since everything here is new to me, I notice them all the more. Peruvians love to talk, to make speeches, and love to turn the most casual public speaking opportunity into a chance for eloquence. An example: “First, I would like to wish all of you, ladies and gentleman, the young lady from Peace Corps, a very good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak…” this would end with the speaker answering a simple question on my radio show. I cannot speak in the same tone without wanting to burst into laughter, so I usually avoid speech-giving, but don’t be surprised if I come back wordier and more formal.
Another tradition, which is not quite so foreign, is the giving and eating of meat on formal occasions. In the past few days, I have had an upclose look at the difficulty that can provide for a family that general eats meat less than once a week (not because they value vegetarianism but for availability). Last August, my host parents got married (after two children and fourteen years of living together; weddings here are more about when you have the money for a party rather than when you begin your life together), and, for the wedding, my host dad’s uncle gave 20 guinea pigs. Next Monday, there is a party at the uncles house, and my mom has to return the favor and give 20 guinea pigs. We had about 6 at the house, and, to find the rest, my host mom has spent the past couple days walking all over town asking neighbors to sell, and then carrying the little critters in her market bag back to her house. One week to go and we are still 5 short.
Last night, I was honored (and slightly repulsed) by my mom’s offer to slaughter one of these owed animals for my birthday today. When I refused, she offered Cuchimario (our pig), our chicken and, finally, our cat (the most tempting, not because of the culinary possibilities but rather because our cat is a shameless thief and has broken into several food items in my room). We settled on a more veggie-friendly lunch of lentils, but the kindness of the offer, especially after knowing a bit more about the importance of it, makes me feel more welcomed and loved than ever. After lunch Edita told me that she would have happily cooked me guinea pig if I had wanted.
As usual, I feel unable to offer any sort of analysis of what these traditions mean or come from. The meat, of course, is related to the fact that meat is special here; it isn’t a place where you can buy a hamburger for a dollar. A guinea pig is not a casual purchase but a member of the household that has been fed for months, nicknamed, checked for lice and fretted over. Shows of affection are different here and I sometimes still feel over my head when it comes to how to behave, but I could get into giving guinea pig. In fact, as a still avid vegetarian, I may offer to buy my parents one for our next fiesta.
To finish this honored meeting of interested parties, our agreements and promises.
Agreements:
1. To one day try guinea pig.
2. To learn how to bullshit like a pro (and by that I mean a for reals professional, with a fancy stamp that cost 20 soles)
3. To spend two years trying to figure things here out

Now imagine all signing a blank page, or, in the case of our illiterate quechwa grandmas and grandpas, fingerprinting in blue ink. Welcome to your first Peruvian meeting.

Pobrecitos

One of the sources of my resistance to blogging was the sort of look-at-me factor inherent in the practice. To write regularly and publicly, one needs a focus, and too often that is personal life. There is also the look-at-this-issue blogging, which I also try to avoid, preferring to stick to a straightforward report of what I learn and experience in such a foreign situation. Playing the sympathy, poor-little-children card too often distracts from content and the larger factors at play creating the poverty and littleness of the children (quite literally; if a child is malnourished before age 2, he will never reach his full genetic growth potential). However, as you might have suspected, some problems here are so salient and the only reaction is“poor little children.” Consider that an open invitation to take the following with plenty of salt.
This week I began classes of “vacaciones utiles,” useful vacations (or, essentially, summer camp), in the elementary school in one of my communities. My original idea was to have classes 2 hours a day for a group of children 9-12, focusing on health activities, as well as craft projects and reading. Last Monday I staged my matriculation and was overwhelmed by persuasive mothers, swearing that their 6 year old was quite advanced and capable of reading anything (and if he misbehaves, just hit him). I’m a sucker and ended up with a matriculation list of 40 students, from 6 to 15 years old. The first day I walked to the school with apprehension and was pleasantly surprised to have only 18 present, which seemed perfect. Less perfect was the fact that the school director, with the key to the front gate, did not arrive until 10:15 (my class was from 8-10). We had class in the street, in front of the school, with several curious onlookers.
Now, ending the week, I have a steady group of around 25 (youngest a 5 year old who just holds my hand whenever possible, oldest a 15 year old who claims to help teach but actually just chats with her friends), a key to the front gate and a slightly better idea of what I’m doing. The most effective punishment is to threaten to send children home and I am constantly asked to extend class until 1 pm, as it is during the school year. The alternatives to studying are generally working in the fields alongside parents or doing nothing. Children do play, but, when I ask children what they are doing, will do later, or did over the weekend, the inevitable answer is “nothing.” They have few toys (only what is given at the yearly Christmas hand-outs), and have mostly never been taught games or activities by their parents. Creativity, as far as I can tell, is unknown. Today in class we made illustrated books (a piece of printer paper folded twice, as if making a card), and the most common thing I heard was “I don’t know how to draw.” On the other hand, when I brought in coloring book pages, stupid drawings of teeth and toothbrushes, kids were delighted.
Anecdotes are inadequate to express the simple, stark reality: these children are in a completely different situation than any American schoolchild who I have met. There is no such thing as buying the 64 box of crayons in August, anticipating a year of scholarly achievement. The idea of reading for fun is unknown (partially because of lack of material (I have yet to see even a newspaper in site) and partially because of difficulty.) On of my sweetest students refused to read a sentence aloud yesterday because she didn’t know how; she is 10 years old. Inventing and creating seems foreign, at least to the classroom. Yesterday’s homework was to invent an ending to a story we’d read, and either draw or write it. Most of the students arrived with a drawing of a character, copied out of a book, with no description of what happened or nothing at all. While I desperately want to introduce skits, I fear the blank stares sure to come.
By listing these facts I don’t want to portray my students harshly. Probably every student in the classroom would know what to do when faced with a runaway donkey; when I saw one in the street the other day I leapt to one side and hid. Skills that are part of their daily reality—how to light fires, plant potatoes, pick chili pepper, calm bulls—are totally foreign to American students. The romantic view of this lifestyle would say: these children know what they need to know and are suited to their environment. Sadly, globalization ups the ante. More and more, young people from my site move to Lima for work. Many houses have t.v.s, all have radios, and the generation in school now will have contact with the outside world constantly. Soon, internet will arrive in the elementary school. This is a wonderful opportunity for the students, but I wonder how they will take advantage of it. This is not only a matter of lost opportunity; even if these students do not benefit from globalization, it will affect them. They will see advertisements, eat processed foods, feel the effects of gasoline price rises and climate changes. Will they have the tools to address these issues? My 20-something students are bright, kind, funny, active and mostly well-behaved. After 4 days I look forward to class tomorrow, and for the next 5 weeks. This doesn’t stop me from worrying, though, and, ineffectively, thinking “poor little children.”

Segundo de calabaza con papas sancochadas

Here’s a funny thing: I love to read food blogs. It’s a habit that started sometime around when Alex and I began exploring vegan cooking and I wanted to look for recipes. Of course, it became a growing addiction that expanded to include several meat-eating traditional blogs as well as alternative, liberal vegan/vegetarian/raw food ones. The funny thing is that this addiction continues now. When my internet signal is strong, after, of course, checking emails from friends and family, I fly to check google reader and see what new recipes have been posted. Rarely is there a recipe that is feasible in rural Peru; I have yet to read any recipe in which all the ingredients are available. I laugh aloud as I read recipes calling for tofu, nonfat plain yogurt, or even something as seemingly simple as bittersweet chocolate.
Some days, I am frustrated and silently curse the well-meaning authors of these blogs. Why wouldn’t they take the needs and desires of a poor Peace Corps volunteer in mind when writing their recipes? For example, a useful post would cover a topic such as: what to do when all your neighbors gift you giant sacks of potatoes (and you are secretly sick of the tuber, after eating it, boiled, at every meal these same kind neighbors invite you to)? I considered this topic as I dragged home my third such gift, a heavy sackload, in a week. How do you make a potato no longer a potato? Moreover, how does one person eat this many potatoes? I’m leaning towards some sort of rosti/latke type dish, to be shared with my family, of course.
Of course, secretly I admire blog authors—even in my darkest moments, when I’ve returned from a lunch of boiled potatoes and rice, and read some recipe for roasted vegetable lazagne or enchiladas and want to hit the author who innocently called for Anaheim pepper or ricotta cheese. Therefore, this week, I will thrill you all with my own food blog entry.
Early this week, a friend invited me to come cook lunch at her house today. As people here cook with wood, this meant arriving around 9 am. We washed and peeled potatoes, to be boiled whole and put water on to boil for masamorra de trigo—basically whole wheat porridge. The star dish, though, was made of a vegetable called “calabaza” which is similar to zuchinni, only a bit sweeter and juicier. It is sautéd with garlic and then, chunks of queso fresco, a local cheese that has sort of a sour taste are added. We topped off this plate with a boiled egg and lettuce salad. The cheese, egg and salad additions to the usual Peruvian standards (potato, masamorra) made it one of the most balanced meals I’ve been served. Of course, the absolute highlight was, once we had served lunch and I complemented my friend’s cooking she replied, yes, it’s tasty, but it needs a bit of MSG (a common condiment). My unhealthy, American contribution was a batch of gingersnap (ish—I had to improvise on the molasses front and because the icing was a bit melty, they became sandwiches) cookies which I explained with the somewhat true story that Americans spend the weeks around Christmas and New Years giving each other cookies.
For dinner we headed into another cross-cultural wonderland: I made a Mexican-flavored beet-bean stew, my mom made pachamanca, and I suggested the blend would be delicious (she, my sister and brother were the only ones in the family to try it, but still)
Deep insights? That I think I need to learn to love potatoes (if it can be done without a from-birth ingraining) and that sweets can win almost anyone over (my host family destroyed the gingersnap sandwiches before we even served dinner).