We are Family!! I got all my sisters and me...

Family is a fairly flexible term. It can mean the nuclear unit that you are related to, can extend to cousins, aunts, uncles—and outward, for genealogists. To others, family means the people that you choose to spend your life and time with. In theater, work units are often described like a family. In Ancash, the Peace Corps volunteers refer to “our Ancash family,” only partly a joke, because the support system is as powerful as a blood tie. Over the past few years, I´ve had host families in Santiago, Quito, Lima and Musho. Naturally, my Musho family is the closest connection, but in each case I found support, caring and something special in the connection over the months I lived there.

After living here, in Musho, my definition of family has changed. I´ve mentioned before the custom here: that parents, children, grandchildren often continue living in the same house for years after the children grow up and, often, marry. The idea of living alone, or moving far from parents and siblings, is strange and marveled at. This I learned, laughed at, and then accepted (and now sort of like—next year I will definitely be in my parent´s house) long ago. Lately, though, I´ve been more and more intrigued by extended family connections. The term “tia” (aunt) or “tio” (uncle) can be used for any person of the right age. I often use them when somebody´s real name escapes me; it´s quite convenient. However, it can mask true family connections. A couple weeks ago, I learned that about 75% of Apa Grande, the community in which I am working on an improved stoves project, is related. Fairly closely. It´s a small community of about 30-40 households, and it makes sense. Sort of—10 out of the 17 families in my stoves project are aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters or first degree cousins of one another. I wouldn´t be surprised if the other 7 are second or third cousins. The amazing thing here is that, aside from addressing one another as tio and tia, they are as gossipy and backstabbing as the cast of characters from Mean Girls.

This shock started me thinking: if family can act like this, does it even matter? If a tia can spend a good 20 minutes trash-talking her niece, daughter-in-law or cousin, what do family ties even mean? It took a visit from one of my oldest and best friends, Roseanna, to set me straight. We had a great, eventful trip to the jungle and also spent a couple of hangout days in Lima. It was fantastic; despite awkward sleeping arrangements, a canoe voyage similar to Monster´s Plantation and lots of weird food, I felt relaxed and happy the entire time. The day after Roseanna left, my mom spent an hour on Skype talking me through an awful case of Lima-glumness and Roseanna-withdrawal.

Suddenly, I knew what family is. Partially, and importantly, it is, as my sister Sally defines it, the people who love you when you are unlovable (depressed, belligerent, frustrated, withdrawn, etc.) and partially, it is the people who love you enough to allow you to be yourself, to relax. Family is what you make it; an aunt who you trash talk and wouldn´t invite to even one boiled potato is nothing, yet a foreigner who you invite into your home, teach about strange food and customs and consult on important decisions (like whether to sign up for cable—weird, right?) becomes something. Perhaps I am not actually the gringa daughter that we joke about, or the sister of the soul that my friend Lidia called me during a toast the other night, but I´m something. Similarly, I know that I have so much family at home, not only the ones who are actually related to me, but all the wonderful people who have supported me throughout my life and, from afar, for these years. That´s what will bring me back to the States—but the same sort of connections are what tie me to Musho.

Ay, dios-- I enter a world of passion and intrigue!

While I may not have broadcast the fact, last August, I picked up a dangerous (yet common) Peace Corps addiction: television. I kept it in check: one hour every evening. It was a wonderful escape, though. I would watch Glee, Mad Men, True Blood, How I Met Your Mother… Each evening´s episode would be like a little trip back to the United States (in it´s own fairly inaccurate way. I am aware that my life never involved vampires, 1950´s male dominated advertising firms or constant bursts into songs). However, this year I cut back. I prefer to read, after all and reserve tv for sick days or when I just need distraction. Don´t believe that this is some huge burst in work or intellectual development: each evening I spend in my house and my reading is often as simple as Harry Potter.

A few weeks ago, though, with a craft project in front of me, I sat down with my host sister to watch what turned out to be the pilot episode of Ana Cristina, a limeña novela. Do I have to explain what happened next? Every night, I sit down with my host siblings at 7 pm with some sort of sewing or craft project, and we watch, gasping, yelling and advising the characters as the situation demands. The setting and plot of the show is lightyears away from our Musho day-to-day: an “amor impossible” between a poor, campo girl and a rich Limeño man, a tale of business backstabbing and revenge. I can´t help but wondering if I give advice to my host sister through this bonding time—in real life, people don´t talk that way; if a man ever treats you that way you should not take him back, but I mostly keep my comments to exclamations on the characters poor decisions: Ana Cristina, why would you take Gonzalo back? Maju, why are you kissing Lucho? Etc.

It´s all very silly but I feel like it has helped bond with my host sister as much as anything during the past year. She asks me for help with her homework more often, to check her email on my computer, and just general questions. Our programmed hour of tv is our time to catch up daily, and I now know what happens in her classes every day, and she knows how my projects are going. So I am grateful for telenovelas—also it´s an amazing show if anyone gets it on their TV.
The beautiful pictures are: My host mom with 7-month old Mirella, Mary also with Mirella, and a rainbow across our valley.

There are thou happy

“What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.”

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, scene iii, Friar Laurence

This quote is the inspiration for a game I play with myself in site. Sometimes life in Musho is not to my liking. Sometimes events, set-backs, even people frustrate me to the extent of throwing myself on my bed, looking longingly at pictures of what I call my former life (college, home, nice looking clothing and clean people). This is ridiculous and no way to behave. This quote, therefore, delights me, and inspires me to my game.

An Example:

Say, I´ve been invited to a lunch, potatoes, with potato soup, and flour gruel for dessert. I stumble out of the house, muttering some excuse for not having seconds, and clutching my overfull stomach. Obviously I am ready for self-pity. So I play the game:

“Look, there is Huascaran, there are thou happy.”

“You finished 2 plates of potatoes and delighted that mom, there are thou happy.”

“You can walk through the fields and woods until your belly is no longer distended, there are thou happy.”

“You have people here who care about you (even if the only way they show it is in quantity of potatoes served), there are thou happy.”

The game works for everything. It helps if you imagine the “there are thou happy” coming from a sort of monkish figure. I find it indispensable for life here in Musho. I am happy—very happy with my pack of blessings light upon my back—yet sometimes need to remind myself. Thank you, fate, for bringing me here. Here am I happy.

"Mom, I want you to have 11 boys-- for a soccer team-- and 1 girl-- to do the cooking"

Yesterday afternoon, I left my house to visit my recently installed improved stoves. I think I´ve mentioned before, but I repeat, house visits are one of my favorite parts of my job. They are effective; to tell a young mother that she needs to keep animals out of her kitchen is one thing in the sterile health post, it is completely different to show her the dirt her dog, cat and guinea pig bring into the kitchen. Also, nowhere do I feel better about my work than in a house that has made serious changes. Some families have gone from blackened, smoky kitchens and open-air bathrooms to whitewashed kitchens with improved stoves, sinks and beautiful latrines in the backyard. I love it, and tell the families. There I am sometimes a motivator—“Don Justo, when are you going to finish that stove?” sometimes a friend, “Zenaida, your sink looks great but it would be even nicer if you used the rest of your cement to build a little table next to it,” sometimes an educator, “This, Doña Rafaela, is how you should use and clean your chimney so that it doesn´t smoke,” and sometimes a bit of an authority, “Señor Juan, if you don´t finish your sink by next Tuesday, we are going to take your materials.” I am not always comfortable in my different roles, but have learned to transition nicely. What keeps the task interesting and fun is that, while these are my professional roles, sometimes people thrust others upon me: listener, gossiper, best friend.

Returning from the visits yesterday, a woman not in my stoves projects, but with whom I´ve worked with in sinks and latrines, called me to her doorstep. She asked about a meeting, which was clearly a weak excuse for a long a chat about her son (“too lazy!! He won´t do anything in school. He just wants to be a farmer like his parents!!”), which somehow transitioned into a discussion of the differences between American and Peruvian parenting and, then, surprisingly, birth control. I should say this is a loaded topic in the sierra. First, due to the closed nature of sierra culture, there is shame about mentioning sex or birth control. Family planning programs are a recent phenomenon, at least in Musho, maybe a generation old, and many women still do not trust the various methods available free through the health post. According to local myths and beliefs, the injection can cause cancer, women to gain 20 or 30 kilos, and the pill causes splitting headaches, and, in many cases, madness that overtakes women and causes them to want to kill their husbands. As I spoke with my acquaintance, a woman of 35 and health promoter, she cited examples of these symptoms among friends and acquaintances, and was clearly curious as to my response. Among men there are other beliefs: that women who want to take birth control want to sleep around is the most common. She told me of a woman with 11 children whose husband told her to look for another husband if she wanted to take birth control.

Two aspects of this discussion struck me as particularly unique: 1. That the woman I spoke with is a health promoter, elected as a leader in her community and trained by the health post in different topics. Despite this, she at best was doubtful about the health post´s assertions that birth control is harmless and, at worst, completely against the idea. 2. That she told me. Often women will mention to me doubts about birth control, but I never expected such a candid conversation, in the streets of all places. Her doubts and anecdotes worry me, but the fact that she told me I could only attribute to the magic of house visits. For months, I have visited people in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, asking about latrines, bathroom-going habits, hand washing, and life. Now, for better or worse, people feel comfortable airing their doubts about anything—from sinks to birth control. It´s an achievement of sorts, no matter how strange and sometimes uncomfortable.

And, to finish the story, how did we end our 45-minute discussion? She asked me if it were true that now they “castrate” men so they won´t have any more babies. At first I was baffled then completely amused when I realized she meant vasectomy but was confused by the terminology and procedure. I managed to explain to her the surgery without laughing but was undone when she got excited and claimed that she was telling her husband that very evening to go and get “castrated.” Citing the arriving rain, I left, only starting to laugh hysterically when I was out of site.

Also, after yesterday´s interest-piquing discussion, a 10 year boy said my title quote to his mother.

Recent Adventures

OK, instead of boring you with thousands (ok, more like 100s maybe), I will hit you up with their more elegant equivalent:
a beautiful sunset from my house
Me as the "godmother" for my friend Lidia´s recently constructed bathroom
Mary posing with her birthday cake
One of my lazier English students, in the midst of class.

Our carrot harvest; two men are washing the carrots by dancing on sacks of them in the creek and Yomer, Lidia´s son, is sampling the product

It´s a month later, the kings have already begun their circular route home and the panetones are on sale in the stores. However, finally I am up to speed on technology and can offer you this heartfelt, albeit very corny, Christmas video of celebration in Musho. Merry Christmas.

Getting Bacon in Rural Peru

Vegetarianism is a strange thing. To be honest, when I decided, at 17, to become a vegetarian, I had no real good reason. Because of a best friend, Maya, I had experimented with periods of no-meat (month long resolutions or challenges often broken when faced with a restricting menu or delicious looking meal), but the final decision, spring of 2004, was a spontaneous decision, while out for a run one afternoon. I informed my mom upon my arrival home, when she told me that she had already cooked dinner, spaghetti with meat sauce, and that I could start my new lifestyle the next day.
In the years since, I have gathered different good reasons for vegetarianism: personal health, negative environmental impact of meat production, a preference for veggies built up, but none truly explain my non-meat preference. They are arguments, not lifestyles. Living in a highland region with a culture of sustainable low cholesterol meat production, I could argue almost more eloquently for meat-eating. So I´ll own up to my real reason for vegetarianism, which has much more to do with sentiments than intellectual reasoning. Let me explain with a story.
A few months ago, I made bread with my friend Lidia. An essential ingredient in Musho Day of the Dead bread is lard, from a pig. Lard is such a bizarre substance; I wondered how one would go about collecting it, whether all fat would look like it (thinking about the fat stealing in Fight Club), and if it just gathered in pockets in the pig, ready to spurt out like blood. Seeing my confusion, Lidia invited me to help her out in the future when she killed her pig. For that uncertain date, I was happy to accept. Last week, she informed me that this Monday she would be killing her pig, and that I should come and bring my camera and knife.
Here they are, catching the blood in a bucket. And here I am, several feet away, watching.

Pig-killing is not pretty. It´s nothing like the sleek kills of people or animals on tv or even the slightly shocking slitting of guinea pig or chicken throats that come before any fiesta. It is violent and disgusting. Pigs scream in an eerily human voice, despite the fact that we wrapped it´s snout three times with rope, and fight for minutes and minutes, not like the clean throat slitting in spy movies where people gurgle once and die. I watched two pigs die this morning, held down and roped by five people, with a huge knife (thankfully not mine) and a bucket to catch the blood.
Then we shaved the pigs, using sharp knives and lots of boiling water, a laborious 2 hour process that made me feel a bit green and long for the sterile strangeness of a supermarket. When we finishing, the courtyard was filled with bloody mud and black hairs. Only after about 6 hours of being present, carrying water, getting herbs ready for the sausage and generally sending thanks to every divinity ever for my US upbringing, I escaped, explaining that I was nauseated and could not possibly join the family for lunch.
Here we are, skinning the pig.
So I´m a vegetarian, and, I suppose, a bit of a hypocrite. For the next year, I will encourage every Mushino to feed their kids meat whenever possible, but I have no intention of ever participating in a butchering again. When I return to the US, I think that my experience will have broadened my mind in a lot of ways, and I am very thankful for that. However, I don´t think I will even be able to look at pork chops without imagining that violence. It´s wussy. It´s squeamish. It´s illogical. However, as a first world citizen, I can and will embrace that squeamishness for the rest of my life.