And Now for Something Completely Different

Knee Surgery, Marijuana Pills and Peru

2011-12-10T12:39:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't written in a while. I apologize. It's been a very odd past couple of months where I thought life was going in one direction but ended up pulling me in another completely unexpected one.

As I write this, I'm in Lima - but let's go back to late September with about three months left in service. My projects were finally advancing nicely and things were going very well in Rio Grande. On the side I'd been working with my boss on staying a 3^rd year with the PC in Lima working for the Peruvian equivalent of the EPA and OSHA - the thought being I could make contacts in the Peruvian government and industry and later strike out on my own as an Environmental Health and Safety Consultant here. It wasn't a done deal but we were getting close so it seemed that I had a pretty good plan going. I came up to Lima for Peru 14's Close of Service (COS) conference where we covered the ins and outs of readjusting back to life in the US. During the conference, I ironed out some details and committed to stay a third year. Plans be damned and life took over from there.

A couple of days prior to the COS conference, I played league softball for my team in Lima. On an embarrassingly shitty Baltimore chop grounder to third I was legging it out to first when I felt a pop in my right knee. It hurt like shit so I went to the doctor to get an MRI after our COS conference. Turns out I tore the meniscus in that knee.

Several weeks prior to all this, my mom had had an operation (sorry - I'm getting kind of Quentin Tarantino with the timeline here but bear with me). Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as expected and Mom remained in the hospital for quite some time. She called me exasperated to let me know that she needed yet another operation. I knew from the tone of her voice that I needed to come home to be there for her, for my brother, and for my Aunt Lale, who has been a saint through all this. The Country Director here graciously allowed me to go home during this trying time. So I went to Texas presumably for 3 weeks.

I flew home and my mom had the operation. Things went as well as could reasonably be expected and we all were cautiously optimistic. Recovery was very slow initially but thanks to the healing power of marijuana pills (prescribed by the doctor) she started making progress. I'm happy to report that, although she has good days and bad days, she's back at the house and taking care of herself. Quick aside - I cooked her a fried egg and toast for breakfast the day after she came back home. The following morning I offered to fry her up another egg but she politely declined and said that she would do it. I thought - this woman is truly remarkable and wants to get back to taking care of herself and not feel like she's being a burden. Turns out I can't fry an egg for shit and it was too greasy so she basically fired me as the cook and took matters into her own hands.

Meanwhile, while my mom was still recovering in the hospital, I decided to get my knee looked at by a 3^rd party. The Peruvian doctors recommended I have the torn meniscus surgically repaired. The PC doctors in DC recommended the conservative route of physical therapy. The orthopedic doctor in Texas said that physical therapy likely wouldn't accomplish a whole hell of a lot so he recommended I get it scoped and I'd be as good as new in a couple of weeks. The PC agreed so I went ahead with the surgery. The procedure was uneventful and I still hoped to be back in Peru in two weeks. Three weeks tops. Then the shit hit the fan. I received an email from my Country Director and a few of the PC doctors in Peru thanking me for my service and that I would be missed. I was doped up on Vicodan, confused and wondered what the f%ck was going on - Turns out it is PC policy to medically separate Volunteers who have surgery in the last 3 months of service. Unfortunately, no one had communicated that policy to me beforehand. My PC service ended. Abruptly. Without warning. I was devastated, furious, depressed and determined to appeal my medical separation.

The following day my former boss from HUB International, Todd Macumber, called me up to say that a position as a Risk Consultant had opened up in Texas just that week. I was still in a Vicodan haze and out of sorts and told him I'd think about it. A week later, Todd arranged a meeting between me, the President of HUB in the Dallas office and the Chief Sales Officer in the Forth Worth office so we could feel each other out. The meeting went fantastic! They were happy with my skill set and that I knew how HUB worked. I was impressed that they understood what I did and how it could benefit their clients and HUB. HUB made me an offer, I jumped at it and that's that. I officially started last week but hit the ground running in January.

So now I'm back in Peru for three weeks. I couldn't just let the last two years of my life come to an end without closure. I'm in Lima visiting friends and saying goodbye to the wonderful PC Peru staff and Volunteers, some of whom are staying and others going back to the great unknown. Tomorrow I travel back to Rio Grande to say my goodbyes to the community that took me in as one of their own the last two years. If I'm lucky, I'll get to go to the jungle or eat ceviche on a nice beach for a few days.

So, even though my best laid plans went astray, the story has happy ending. I get to go back to Texas to be with family. I've got a very nice job lined up despite the shitty US economy. I'm not pissed or resentful towards the PC even though a few folks in DC need to get their shit together. And I'm getting to say goodbye to the very special people in my life the last two years here in Peru.

And don’t worry, I've got a few more hilarious, entertaining and informative blog postings left in me so stay tuned the next couple of weeks.

Festival del Camarón 2011

2011-09-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

Me, Temito, & the girl Temito was dancing with watching Candela. Note the lead singers face in the background!

VW Bug Races. The pick up truck in the background nearly got nailed as one of the cars was fishtailing across the finish.

Ceviche de Camaron

I know what you’re thinking. All this guy does is go to festivals - doesn’t he every work?? Let me assure you that drinking beer and eating big-ass crawfish ceviche IS work! Perhaps the toughest job I’ve ever loved. I’ll tell you about some of the projects I’m working on later. Now, let’s talk about camarones, or crawfish.

My town of Big River is famous for its camarones. Right now we are at the height of camarón season so let’s have a big party to celebrate. Last night there was a concert in the sports complex (a patch of walled in concrete where folks play fulbito and volleyball). A cumbia group called Candela played. The band is headed by the lesser known brother of Los Hermanos Yaipen, a famous Peruvian cumbia brother band (seems like there are a ton of brother acts here). I met up with some buddies and we hung out, drank this lousy beer called Franca and enjoyed the show. Usually these bands have a couple of scantily clad girls dancing but, alas, this one did not.

Today was the main day. People started milling round the plaza at noonish where they held a camarón-themed food contest. There was papa relleno de camarón (baked mashed potato filled with camarón), a camarón salad with a delicious camarón cream sauce, garbanzos and camarones, fried camarón, escabeche de camarón (camarones with cooked onions in a yellow sauce), ceviche de camarón, etc. The biggest disappointment of the day (weekend) was I wasn’t invited to be a judge where you get to eat everything. Turned out to be OK though, because I would have had to have worn a suit and tie and it’s already hot out. I did get to taste the various dishes though so don’t feel bad for me.

While the judges were tallying the votes (my host mom won by the way with the a camarón salad – she won a coffee maker but doesn’t drink coffee), there were death-defying dune buggy races. The race started in the Plaza de Armas, crossed the Panamerican Highway, down a dirt road out into the country, and back again roaring through the middle of the plaza. I guess I can’t really say death-defying at this point because one of the dune buggies flipped, wound up in an irrigation ditch and one of the participants had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Frankly I’m surprised there weren’t more people hurt. They didn’t do any kind of crowd control so a kid escaping the grasp of his mother could have darted out into the street and got tagged, or a buggy could have been nailed by a trailer barreling down the highway.

After the dune buggy races they had VW Bug races. Herbie the Lovebug didn’t make it but these cars were pretty souped up and had their sponsors painted on the side of them in latex house paint or printed on a sheet of paper taped in their window. The bug sponsored by Generade, a cheap knock off of Gatorade, won. I suppose if Tiger Woods is hurting for sponsors these days he could give Generade a call.

After came the eating. They had ceviche de camarón, causa de camarón (kind of a mashed potato sandwich filled with camarón that you eat with a fork), camarón soup, and fried camarón. I had the ceviche and I swear to you that one of the camarones was the size of a small lobster (which I guess it kind of what is - the point is it was the biggest camaron I've ever seen). People were of course throwing back beer and pisco but I was walking wounded from the night before so I didn’t partake.

Next festival you ask? Well, the Garbanzo Festival is next weekend in Santa Cruz and another nearby town’s festival is the week after so my dance cards pretty full. Thanks for asking though.

I Hate Dogs

2011-08-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

Rex trying to escape via the roof using the ladder. This is as far as he can get though. Of course he can't climb back down so I have to pull his dumb-ass off of there (after leaving him up there about 30 minutes though).

Rex's archenemy (or best friend - I can't tell)

Good times gone bad. Two dogs stuck together after coitus. They were stuck, yelping for about 5 minutes.

I used to be a dog person. Foochie, Sparky, Top, Buddy – all faithful and loving companions. Now that I’ve lived in Peru nearly two years, I hate dogs. Some folks are responsible pet owners and take good care of their dogs – they feed them and keep them in their house or backyard (or roof as a cheap but effective alarm system). Everyone else is a shitty pet owner who lets their dog run around in the streets where they’re either fighting or f*cking.

Rex, my host family’s dog, is a beautiful black lab. Most times he's a huge pain in the ass but he's been kind of entertaining the past couple of weeks. My host family has a gamecock that they let run around in the backyard. The cock thinks it’s a dog or the dog thinks it’s a cock - either way, they fight all the time. The cock will attack Rex and relentlessly peck the shit out of the poor dog, even though the dog starts it most of the time. The cock will chase Rex around the backyard until Rex gets tired at which point he’ll turn around and grab the cock’s entire head in its mouth and gnaw on it a while. When Rex lets him go, the tenacious cock will go right back to chasing and pecking.

I’ve been bitten twice by dogs here. The first time Rex escaped from the back yard and followed me to buy bread in the morning. When we got to the bakery the owner’s dog Bobby, a small older gray dog that would be kind of cute if it wasn’t such a shithead, started fighting with Rex. I got caught in the middle and got bit on the ankle. It wasn’t a bad bite but it was enough to bleed all over my sock for a while. I got home, cleaned the wound and called the Peace Corps doctor. She told me to go find the vaccination records which of course the owners didn’t have. Even though rabies isn’t a big problem in Peru, I still had to go to Lima to get rabies vaccinations (not the painful ones in the stomach thank God). Last week, I was walking to buy bread and saw Bobby in the plaza. I gave Bobby a wide berth and kept walking on my merry way. The little f*cker circled back around behind me and bit the shit out of my ankle again.

When I go running in the evenings, dogs will chase me down the street until I bend down to pick up a handful of rocks to throw at them. It’s times like that I wish I was Nolan Ryan so I could bean the little shitheads with a rock at 100 mph (or put them in a head lock and pound the shit of them like they were Robin Ventura).

Velada Artistica (The Talent Show)

2011-07-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

My friend and socio Munañte picking up a donated cake to be raffled.

Horsing around with some kids before the event.

Send in the clowns

Jess and Nikki singing.

We held a talent show here in Big River to raise funds for a single mom who has cancer. Around 150 people showed up to watch several singing and dancing acts put on by the various schools and institutions of Rio Grande. The community really came together and donated their time, effort and money to help out one of their own. Some of the highlights included a clown and his son doing acrobatics, dancing and telling jokes (Peruvian clowns still creep me out a little but the crowd really liked it). Teachers from the inicial (kindergarten) danced a hilarious routine. The kids from primaria (elementary school) and secundaria (high school) danced traditional numbers. A little girl from an elementary school in a different town danced to a popular cumbia song called La Loba (The She Wolf). Another little girl from Rio Grande wasn’t going to let the out-of-towner get all the attention so she jumped into the middle of her act and the little girls had a dance-off. The girl from Palpa got served.

A few Peace Corps Volunteers that live in the area also performed. Caitlin from Nasca did a juggling/pantomime act. Nikki and Jess from Palpa played guitar and sang. But Vivaan from El Ingenio stole the show. The clown tried to pull me out to dance in front of everyone but since I have two left feet and a tin ear I told the clown to pick on Vivaan instead. Vivaan got up reluctantly, looked a little pissed, and walked slowly up to the clown. The music started, the clown started dancing, and Vivaan stood there a second with his hands in his pockets. All of a sudden he busted into his famous, high energy Vivaan dance moves. Everyone was clapping and cheering and laughing their asses off. He also made a substantial donation to the cause.

The lowlights of the event were me singing Hotel California and the clown making me dance in front of everyone anyway.

America!! F*ck Yeah!! (Part II)

2011-07-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Giving a Peace Corps presentation at HUB International, my former employer.

The next morning after bombing the Oral Assessments, I woke up early and was over the little pity party I’d thrown for myself the night before without so much as pity party hangover (there was no drinking at this party by the way).

Thursday – I went in to visit my old boss and old work companions at HUB International and to give a presentation on my life and times as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru (Peace Corps Goal 3). About 20-30 people came by and the presentation went great. People asked a ton of great questions and one of my former co-workers said that she learned a lot making it all worthwhile. After, the Risk Consulting boys and I went out for a late lunch and beers and others came by after work to chill out a bit. It was really great to see everyone at my old place of employment and they told me they’d welcome me back at HUB when I was finished with the Peace Corps. Later, I went to hang out with my old basketball team, Scoregasm (formerly known as "I'd Hit That"), at Durkin’s after they had just won the league championship. It was a complete surprise to most of the guys and they welcomed me with open, albeit sweaty, arms.

The HUB International crew - Tom Heebner, Rene Rosa, and Maranda Haluska.

League Champion Scoregasm - Ivan, Storm, Tom, Gary, Sherwin

Friday – Cubs game! My buddy Nick Albu wrangled up some excellent free tickets to the Cubs vs. Yankees game so me, Chris, Nick, and one of Nick’s clients went to the game. I bought my scorecard and pencil from John who’s been selling them at Wrigley Field since the place was built in 1914. We had a few beers, saw the Cubs beat the Yankees and got to hang out with Chris’ carpenter buddies in carpenter shop in the bowels of Wrigley, a place most fans don’t get to go. Afterwards we went to my old watering hole Monsignor Murphys to have a couple of pints. The whole gang was there and up to the same old shenanigans. Apparently, though, hardly anyone ever hangs out there anymore.

At the Cubs game with Nick and the Mity One

Saturday – Cubs game & Monsignor Murphys Part II. Basically a replay from the day before except the Cubs lost and I did get to see a bunch of folks I didn't see the night before.

At Monsignor Murphys with Joan and Sexy Johnny.

Sunday – Father’s Day. Started off by playing some softball with the old co-rec softball team. After, I went out to the mean streets of Arlington Heights to hang out at Nick’s beautiful house in the burbs. Who knew my friends were such prolific breeders?! There I saw my extended surrogate family - Chris and his fam, Chris and Nick’s parents, cousins, all the kids, the Paulsons, and Greg Carlson’s family with the twins and their two week old baby girl. It was a great time! Nick’s wife Sandra brought a ton of beef tenderloin from Morton’s Steak House, Nick grilled them masterfully and everyone brought sides and deserts. Absolutely delicious. It was a great time and great to see everyone. Chris and Krissa dropped me off at the El Station and that’s when it hit me that I was going back to Peru and won’t see everyone for a bit. It’s wrong for a man to cry in the arms of another man unless one of them is dying in a foxhole but I almost did cry hugging it out with the Mity Albu (I didn’t though so LAY OFF!)

Sunday softball team

Men and meat!

The Carlson clan.

Monday – One last lunch with the HUB Risk Consulting boys, off to the airport, and 1^st Class all the way back to the 3rd World. Having some flight attendant past her prime handing you a hot towlette and repeatedly refilling your wine glass helped ease back into Peru.

Although I was bummed about bombing the shit out of the Oral Assessment, it was great to see my second home and all my friends.

Chicago I love you. I miss you.

America!! F*ck Yeah!! (Part I)

2011-07-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

Air Force One in Miami International Airport. I hope Obama raised a hell of alot of money because he created one huge pain in my ass.

View from my suite in downtown Chicago.

Every time I go to Chicago, I’m more and more convinced that it’s the greatest city in the universe! I travelled to Chicago to take the Oral Assessment, one of the final hurdles to being accepted as a Foreign Service Officer by the State Department. I planned the trip back in February so I’d have a little taste of summer time in Chicago.

Monday – I flew out of Lima at 7:30 in the morning en route to Miami. I was a little nervous about the flight because a regular seat on an airplane is like being crammed into a Peruvian tico taxi for me – especially when the ahole in front of you wants to recline his seat all the way. I got to the airport early though and flirted a bit with the girl at the ticket counter and she booked me exit rows all the way to Chicago! Now as a kid I spent many, many hours at Miami International Airport going back and forth from Venezuela to Texas. Most of those hours were spent making my mom’s life a living hell and checking payphones for change with my kid brother. I did look around for some payphones to check them for old time sake but couldn’t find any anywhere - so I called my mom to give her shit instead.

President Obama and his entourage were in Miami for a fund raiser and all flights in and out were delayed until Obama left the airport. It was very cool to see Air Force One but not cool that it delayed my flight for over two hours causing me to miss my connection in Atlanta. I wound up getting put on a different airline to Midway instead of O’Hare and of course my bags were nowhere to be found when I landed. Highlight – my good buddy Chris Albu made the perfect pick up at the airport at midnight complete with a couple of welcome cans of Old Style and we hit the White Palace for a late dinner. People speak English in America which is cool.

Tuesday – I spent most of the day trying to track down my luggage and a suit for my Oral Assessments the next day (just in case my shit didn’t show up). I called a buddy of mine Seth who is about my height and build and he lent me a very nice stockbrokery-type suit and tie. His fiancée Rosa, a sister of a good buddy of mine who lives here in Peru (an it’s small world story), was kind enough to help me pick out and try on various suits. We found one that fit perfectly except the pants were just a wee bit short. I also ran into Chris’ wife Krissa at a TJ Max downtown while I was buying socks and underwear. I should have spent the day preparing for my Oral Assessments but I couldn’t very well go in looking and smelling like I’d been wearing the same Peace Corps clothes for the last two weeks (which I had).

Wednesday – The big day - Oral Assessment for the State Department. The moment I’d been preparing for. The Oral Assessment is more than just an interview – it is an all day event. The first challenge was a group exercise where six other candidates were in a room, we each had to read a big packet of information and give a six minute presentation to the group defending our particular scenario. Bombed it because I didn’t read the directions carefully enough and I’d prepared with different types of scenarios. Challenge 2 – the structured interview. I sat with two interviewers who read from a script, wrote the whole time, didn’t make any eye contact and barely acknowledged what I was saying. Did OK there. Challenge 3 – The case management exercise. Again, they give you a big packet of information and you have to read it and write a 2 page memo. I could have said what I needed to say in one so I had to throw extra, unneeded, wordy, superfluous bullshit in there (it is the US government after all). And the results… Bombed the shit out of everything. I walked out of the building after receiving results I didn’t want to hear and it was pouring outside. At least four of the six candidates with me failed too.

I was quite upset that I’d prepared and travelled all this way to fail. That evening I should have gone to hang out with Albu and his family but I was feeling pretty devastated and antisocial so I wandered the streets of Wrigleyville aimlessly trying to get my mind around everything.

Decision 2011 – Part III

2011-06-05T19:32:00.000-07:00

Well here we are decision time down here in Peru. Quick review. There were 10 candidates for the president of Peru, we had the first round of elections back in April, no one got 50% of the votes so the top two vote getters advanced to the segunda vuelta (the Finals) – Keiko Fujimori and Ollanta Humala. Keiko is the daughter of a corrupt dictator in jail for human rights violations and Ollanta is a former military man with ties to Venezuelan despot Hugo Chavez. So it’s down to choosing between cancer and AIDS according to Nobel Prize winning Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa. So what’s been going on between the first round of elections in April and now?

Keiko’s pulled in some, in my opinion, pretty good supporters. There’s Hernando De Soto (the economist not the conquistador) author of The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World and The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, and Pedro Pablo Kuzcinski, former Minister of Economy, among them. Ollanta also pulled in some pretty impressive, if not surprising, backers – author Mario Vargas Llosa and Alejandro Toledo, past president and presidential candidate who lost out in the first round.

So as in elections everywhere, the last eight weeks have been filled with mudslinging, debates, campaigns and accusations in the press. The press is scared shitless of Ollanta so he’s been getting the lion’s share of bad press. There have been accusations that he murdered women and children when he was in the military. There have also been reports that he’s received upwards of $12 million from Hugo Chavez.

My town seems split. Many seem to be supporting Keiko because they’re scared Ollanta will f*ck everything up. Ollanta has his loyal, and vocal, supporters.

And the winner is….

AIDS!!

Vive el Santo!!

2011-05-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

Mila (daughter of Maria), Maria (pension owner), Senaida (host mom)

Salud!

Salud (w/ empty bottle)

I wanted my birthday to slip by under the radar this year because 44 sounds old even though I feel like I’m 27 (except after playing basketball for 2 or three hours). So I didn’t tell the Volunteers in my area or anyone else in my community. I just wanted to do my work, go home, and go to bed early and let it pass unnoticed.

But someone in my community had written it down somewhere and remembered. In the morning, I got a call from my host mother and the woman who runs the pension where I eat lunch and they sang me the Spanglish version of Happy Birthday. I was pretty surprised and a little moved (almost single tear) that they remembered. They told me they were going to throw me a little get together in the evening. I didn’t want them to go through the bother but it would have been rude to decline.

I worked all day doing recycle charlas (talks) in the high school, went to Palpa to run some errands and came back to the house. My host mother cooked me a nice supper. Couldn’t tell you what it was exactly - chicken in an improvised sauce with rice. It was delicious. Maria from the pension and her daughter came by as did Jess and Nikki, a couple of nearby Volunteers. Thank goodness Temito came by so I had some male company and wasn’t completely outnumbered by women.

After eating, we listened to some Salsa music, bullshat, drank some beer and homemade wine, and listened to Jess and Nikki play the guitar. When we were winding down the festivities, the mayor sent over a half a case of beer.

It was a really nice, low-key evening on my birthday here in Rio Grande and my host family and friends made it special. Facebook nation also remembered and I got ton of warm wishes.

Other male friends in my community heard that it was my birthday and told me I wasn’t getting off the hook that easy and that there was beer drinkin’ to be done this weekend. Maybe I’ll celebrate a little more during Opening Day of the cockfighting season this Saturday!!

Mercy Missions

2011-05-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Not as bloody and gorey as I had imagined.
Pre- and post-op team.

Patients lined up in the hall waiting their turn.

Peruvian surgeons removing a tumor.

Earlier this month a group of 13 doctors and nurses from the Detroit area came to do a surgery campaign in the town of Palpa about 10 minutes from where I live. The campaign was organized by the local Rotary Club and several Peace Corps Volunteers translated for the doctors and nurses.

The last time I was in an emergency room (when I wasn’t the patient that is) was when I was a freshman in college. I took a buddy of mine who’d slept with his hard contacts in to the university’s quack shack. His eyes were swollen shut and he was in a lot of pain. He laid down on the examining table and the doctor opened up his eyes to put in some drops. He cried out in pain and a lot of tears poured down his face. I felt light headed, my knees buckled and I would have passed out had I not found a nearby chair and a promising career in medicine ended before it began.

So I was a little apprehensive about going into an operating room to translate for patients who were having surgery but were awake and able to talk. I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle actual blood and guts. But it wasn’t that bad and I didn’t even come close to fainting. A helpful pointer from one of the nurse antesthetists was that blood was just red water.

The campaign was very well organized by the local Rotarians and all the patients showed up on time and waited their turn patiently (even though cutting in line is a bit of an art form down here). I did have a couple of people pull me aside and ask me what kind of strings I could pull to squeeze a family member in but I had no pull.

One lady showed up who didn’t have an appointment and happened to catch the lead surgeon on a break. She asked him to take a look at a lump on her foot that hurt when she wore sandals. The doctor said he could remove it. Then she got greedy and asked about a tiny lump on her thigh. The surgeon poked around and asked if it hurt. She said no so the doc said to not worry about it. Later that afternoon she changed her story and told the same doctor that the lump on her thigh hurt but the doc called bullshit on her and told her he would only operate on the foot.

The next day she came back apparently having told the organizers that the docs were going to remove both lumps and sat there kind of smug. When they called her name she got up with a big smile on her face and went in. Her face quickly changed when she realized that a couple of Peruvian doctors were going to do the surgery instead of the Americans. Her face went from “Hell yeah! I’m going to see U2 live in concert” to “godammit this is a shitty U2 cover band”. She only had the lump on her foot removed by the way.

Weird shit I saw. A tumor the size of an orange on the back of someone’s neck, a hernia that was so bad the guy look like he had elephantitis of the balls, an infant with an extra thumb (teach him to pitch don’t have it removed) and a man with a hair lip that had never been repaired.

Thanks to Mercy Missions for coming down to Palpa and for all the good work. Enjoyed getting to know you all and look forward to seeing you again if you come down in October.

The Corner Store

2011-04-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

The general store on the corner.
Inside the store.

Don Manuel - one of my favorite people in Rio Grande (when he´s not selling me cheese that tastes like acetone or filled with worms)

Most days around midmorning when it’s already hotter´n hell out, I run down to the little general store at the entrance of Rio Grande to drink an ice cold Inca Cola and shoot the shit with Don Manuel (Chino), the owner. Don Manuel worked his whole life as a miner, saved his money, and when it came time to retire he came to Rio Grande with his wife to buy a little store and enjoy their retirement. He’s a widower now and has been in the Big River for quite some time.

He’ll tell me stories of his time working as a miner (which are not as harrowing as I would have expected them to be) and tell me how it was back in the day under this dictator or that dictator, what it was like during the Shining Path days, about when times were good, why Peruvians are jodido (screwed), etc.... You know, shit that old retired men talk about over coffee at McDonalds at 6:30 in the morning. Other mornings he’ll complain mildly about how it sucks to get old and how his dick doesn’t work and will look at me with a mischievous grin as if to say - this is your future son.

This morning as I was drinking my Inca Cola and Don Manuel was shuffling around doing stuff. I noticed he had a bunch of signs hanging on the walls like some back woods Texas dive bar. Here are some of Don Manuel’s words of wisdom:

¿Porque prefiero una chela que a una mujer?
1. Porque no habla.
2. Porque no asa.
3. Porque es rubia de verdad.
4. Porque está dispuesta a saciarme.
5. Porque es económica.
6. Porque es rica a toda hora.
7. Porque no tiene papa.
8. Porque mientras mas fría es mejor.
9. Porque la puedo compartir.
10. Porque es fácil de conseguir.
11. Porque puedo estar con varias al mismo tiempo.

Why do I prefer a beer to a woman?
1. Because it doesn´t speak.
2. Because it doesn´t give me shit.
3. Because it´s a true blonde.
4. Because it´s available satisfy me.
5. Because it´s economical.
6. Because it´s delicious anytime.
7. Because it doesn´t have a dad (there was no accent so it could have also read Doesn’t have a potato or Doesn´t have a vagina – we´ll stick with dad).

8. Because the colder the better.
9. Because I can share it.
10. Because it´s easy to find.
11. Because I can be with many at the same time.

Decisión 2011 – Part II

2011-04-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

Keiko & Ollanta

Well here we are a couple of days after the Peruvian presidential/congressional elections. And the winner is… well there’s not one yet but the field of 10 has been narrowed down to two – Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori. Here was the breakdown after the Sunday’s 1st round of voting with 90% of the votes counted - Ollanta “The good soldier” Humala- 31.7%; Keiko “I’m not a dictator like my daddy” Fujimori – 23.3%; Pedro Pablo “El Gringo” Kuczynski – 18.8$; Alejandro “El Cholo” Toledo – 15.4 % and Luis “El Mudo” Castañeda - 10%. The remaining five also rans totaled up to about 1%. And the APRA candidate… Zero point zero. Mr. APRA – fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life. The 0% is due to a colossal APRA failure for not fielding a candidate despite a fairly successful run under the current Aprista president.

Brief recap of the two remaining candidates – Humala is the nationalist candidate who is promising a redistribution of wealth and has ties to Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia. Fujimori is the daughter of a former corrupt dictator of Peru who is promising… well, I’m not sure what she’s promising other than not being a corrupt dictator like her dad.

Six months ago Nobel Laureate (and failed presidential candidate) Mario Vargas Llosa boldly predicted that if it came down to the run-off between Humala and Fujimori it would be like choosing between cancer and AIDS. Since, he supported Toledo and asked PPK and Castaneda to back out of the race less than a week before the elections. Now gets to make that choice. Some respect his right to state his opinion. Others believe he should shut his mouth stick to writing books about military cadets and circle jerks.

Now it’s time for my APOLITICAL bold prediction. Keiko takes it on June 5. Keiko might give PPK a call and offer him a high level position in her government in turn for his endorsement (how about a PPKeiko mascot – a little furry chinita?). Not that PPK supporters care about any of that political maneuvering - they´re young, savvy, and educated and will be physically, mentally and spiritually unable to vote for Ollanta. So all PPK votes go to Keiko. Where do the Toledo, Castaneda supporters go? Who knows so we’ll split them evenly between Keiko and Ollanta. And how about we give the 1% that the other also-rans garnered to Ollanta. The blank votes should be factored in somehow but I have no idea how so we’ll just throw them out (I never said I was a political analyst and I’m horrible at math).

So that leaves us with Keiko winning the election with 54% of the votes and Ollanta in second with 46%. Factor in the Win Williams margin of error and God’s sense of humor and the Peruvian presidency is pretty much free game. My opinions as to who I would like to see win are as worthless as balls on a priest so I’ve omitted them from this post.

The folks in my town of Big River are speaking of picking the lesser of the two evils. Why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah – that was my choice in every US presidential election since at least 1988.

Decision 2011

2011-04-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

Mock presidential debate during language instruction in training.

I played the roll of Jaime Bayly, a local author, TV personality and presidential candidate.

Disclaimer - The Peace Corps is an apolitical organization and I as a Volunteer am not allowed to participate in any political activities or support any kind of political party (nor do I want to for that matter). I’m writing this entry as a general information item that you might be interested in. I have my preferences but since I can’t vote down here, my preferences are as worthless as tits on a bull and can only make my life more difficult. So I´ll keep them to myself.

The Peruvian presidential, congressional and Andean Parlaiment elections are coming this Sunday. There are ten candidates in the running but only five that really have a shot at the actual presidency. Here’s the way it works (as I understand it). Voting is mandatory. If you don’t vote, you have to pay a fine. If a candidate wins over 50% of the votes this Sunday, they will become the next Peruvian president serving a five year term. If no candidate wins 50% of the vote, the top two candidates earning the most votes advance to a run-off election sometime in May.

Here’s a brief recap of the top five candidates in the polls as of this Sunday (3-31-11).

Ollanta Humala (27.2%) – He’s a former soldier, a nationalistic candidate, and has been associated with President Morales in Bolivia and President Chavez in Venezuela who recently called him a good soldier, whatever that means. Mr. Humala lagged in the polls up until a couple of weeks ago when he surged ahead. When he passed everyone else in the polls, the local economy got jumpy, stockmarket dipped (or plunged depending on which newspaper you picked up) and the US dollar strengthened against the Nuevo Sol. All the other candidates have been piling on since (which is what they do to whomever is ahead in the polls).

Keiko Fujimori (20.5%) – A congresswoman and the daughter of the ex-president/dictator of Peru Alberto Fujimori who´s sitting in jail for crimes committed during that whole Shining Path thing in the 80´s and 90´s. She attended college in the United States and the folks here have been wondering out loud who paid for her education. She recently got married and had a kid. Of course the million dollar question is will she pardon her father and let him out of jail if she gets elected.

Alejandro Toledo (18.5%) – El Cholo. Was the president of Peru prior to the current president and has a Peace Corps connection. When the Peace Corps was in Peru during the 60’s, a Volunteer lived in Toledo’s house up in the Sierra. The Volunteer later reportedly help get him into an Ivy League school. Toledo brought the Peace Corps back to Peru in 2002 after they were kicked out by some dictator (Velasco?) in the 1970’s. He did come by the Peace Corps 50th Anniversary celebration at the US Ambassadors House. I didn’t have a chance to meet him nor even see him. Reason being, apparently he’s really chato (short).

Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (18.1$)– El Gringo. PPK (pronounced pe pe ka). Here’s what I’ve heard but have done zero fact checking. However, since I’ve posted this on the internet it automatically makes it true and correct. His parents left Poland during World War II to escape that whole Nazi thing and he was born here. He’s tall and white like a gringo and speaks slow and methodically with just a teeny bit of an accent like a gringo. He’s married to a gringa and up until last week, he had citizenship in the United States just like a gringo. He’s the favorite here in the town where I live and has made a big push the last couple of months. His mascot is the large furry edible rodent…PPCuy. If it walks like a gringo and talks like a gringo…

Luis Castaneda (12.8%) – Mr. Castaneda is the former mayor of Lima and apparently all the Limeños think he did great work there. They call him El Mudo because he’s run a pretty quiet campaign but he’s piping up a bit now, maybe too late. I watched him on one of those midday talk shows (the ones with the hot scantily clad latina girls) and late evening variety shows (the ones with the hot scantily clad latina girls) and he seems to be a pretty likeable guy with a good sense of humor.

Alright - I will throw in my two cents after all. If I were Peruvian I would vote for Jaime Bayly!! Unfortunately my favorite presidential candidate, Peruvian author and TV talk show host is no longer in the running. What’s he up to these days? He got canned from the TV station here in Peru over a contract dispute, broke up with his Argentinian (?) boyfriend, knocked up a 20-something year old “bad-girl” author, and moved to Miami.

Airplane! (One of my favorite movies of all time RIP Leslie Nielsen)

2011-03-08T11:24:00.001-08:00

I´m not a crook!

Mom, Sam and I on the way to Arequipa.

Flights are good if you’re going to have to spend over 15 hours in an overnight bus and are not that much more expensive. The planes seem fairly new and hopefully well maintained. I haven't done the overflight to see the Nazca lines yet. "But why not?!" you ask. ¨You´re so close to them!?¨" Well, in the last year and a three months since I've been in Ica, two tourist planes filled with tourist checking out the lines have crashed. Chisme (rumor) has it that one of the flights crashed because the pilot had a heart attack but I also heard that they forgot to fill it up with fuel. Most recently, seven supposed tourists hopped on a brand new plane to see the lines and hijacked the plane. The pilot was released about a week later. The plane was never found. It's almost certainly taking off and landing on a clandestine landing strip in the jungle somewhere shuttling blow for American stockbrokers to powder their noses with.

You on the bus or off the bus?

2011-03-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

Street vendors selling chicha (sweet purple corn drink), sebada (wheat drink) and sandwiches to the passengers on the Soyuz at the station in Palpa

Fancy bus for overnight long distance trips

Inside of fancy bus

For longer distances, I take a bus. Again, buses range from super nice to super shitty. When I travel from Rio Grande to my capital city of Ica, I’ve got three bus lines to choose from, which ever passes by first. Soyuz is on the nicer side but not super nice (think Greyhound) and Cueva (Cave) is on the shittier side. I’ll let your mind wander on the shitty one – yep you got it (no chickens though – well only one that I’ve seen so far but it was just a chick). I usually take Soyuz between Lima and Ica and generally they’re OK. They have an Ejecutivo (executive) section which means you get a maroon head rest cover and about 4 extra inches of legroom - Well worth the extra 3 soles for a taller bald guy. The busses play movies, generally pirated DVDs of movies that are currently out in the theaters or really bad, loud 80’s action movies starring Steven Segal (for the record, all bad 80´s action movies should be available in pirated form only). You still have to watch your shit on the busses or it will get ripped off.

There are super nice busses that are a little out of my PC living allowance range, although I recently found out that they have super saver discounts if you book in advance that are the same price as taking the Soyuz. They’re safe(r), have more leg room, the seats recline almost all the way, they’re climate controlled, and play current pirated romantic comedies. You get dinner or lunch served up by a semi-hot terramoza (bus waitress) or a semi-handsome gay guy.

The super nice busses have bathrooms for urinating only – but try telling that to the tourist who’s suffering from a case of Tupac Amaru’s revenge.

Collectivos

2011-03-08T11:15:00.001-08:00

Me and a collectivo driver in Palpa waiting for the car to fill up with passengers back to Rio Grande
How many PC Volunteers can you fit in a collectivo (7 in this case but you could add one more up front)

Collectivos are communal cabs for lack of a better word. They drive set routes at set points of departure and arrival and at set rates. You just go to the collectivo stand, hop in, wait for the taxi to fill up and you’re off. Collectivos are my main mode of transportation between my site and Palpa. All the collectivo drivers know me and holler at me when they’re driving by me walking around in the street “Beto – Vamos!”. When I’m waiting for the collectivo to fill up in Palpa to come back to Rio Grande, I bullsh*t with the drivers. They’re all pretty cool and friendly. “Habla Beto, quien sospechas?” (Tell me Beto – who do you suspect? I still haven’t figured out what the right response is so I just say “Tu huevon! You - *sshole!”). They’re always asking me if I’ve been to the “nightclubs” yet. Note to self – Nightclub means brothel. Discoteca means dance club.

The larger collectivos are station wagons, not the large 70’s family truckster variety but smaller ones. There are also tiny Tico taxis which are about the size of a Ford Festiva, maybe a little smaller. Usually four people pile into the collectivo before it will leave. Sometimes there are two passengers up front and three in the back. One time I was in a Tico going back to Rio Grande with nine people.

Taxi

2011-03-08T11:06:00.001-08:00

Tico taxi

Tico taxi with station wagon behind.

Taxis are the most expensive way to get around town and you can also wind up looking down the barrel of a loaded gun pointed at you by some dipshit trying to rob you. When picking a cab, you have to be careful you get someone that looks reputable, has a permanent taxi sign on the roof and the car number painted on the side. If you have the luxury of planning ahead, you can call for a taxi which is pretty safe. Once you hail a cab, you have to know more or less what it costs to get where you’re going. The taxis don’t have meters so the taxi drivers quote you a price which you then haggle down a couple of Soles. The fares will increase if it’s rush hour or late at night.

Funny anecdote (because it has a more or less happy ending) – a couple of friends of mine were coming back from a discoteca after a night out and needed some late night munchies. The boy was passed out in the back and the girl told the taxi driver to take care of him while she ran in to pick up some burritos (yes, there is a late night burrito stand in Lima but they’re not good-ole-fashion burritos made by real Mexicans). When the girl came back out, the cab was gone along with the friend. The taxi driver woke the boy and dropped him off somewhere safe. As the taxi sped off, the boy realized his I-phone had been stolen. They may have got his wallet too but I can’t remember. Of course we had to give the guy a ration of shit and laughed at him for being a dumbass but it could have easily had a not so happy ending.

Not-so-funny anecdote - A friend was coming back from a concert with some Peruvian friends and did all the right things you’re supposed to do while hailing a cab. She, unfortunately, wound up getting robbed at gunpoint and got dropped off in a shitty part of town sans wallet and cell phone. Fortunately she had a little cash stashed away and she and her friends somehow made it back home safely.

The cabs here may not have the leg room or climate control of a good old American cab. But at least they don´t smell like curry and body odor.

2011-03-08T10:53:00.000-08:00

Mototaxis lined up in front of the mall in Ica
Jason Lopez and I in the back of a mototaxi. We´ve both probably lost about 100 lbs. between the two of us since this was taken so we could probably fit another Volunteer in the back now.
I´ll post a blog about the giant arachnids in Peru at a later date

Mototaxis (or tuk tuks in Thailand) are pretty fun to roll around in for short distances if you’re not on a major a thoroughfare, otherwise it’s pretty terrifying. A mototaxi is a three-wheeled 2-stroke motorcycle with a cab on it. The driver sits up in the front of the cab and in the back there is room for two passengers (unless you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer and you cram 3 in the back and one on the jump seat in front next to the driver all to save a couple of centimos).

The fare is generally less than 2 soles and I`ll take them to avoid walking around in the baking Ica sun or if I’m in a hurry to be on time for a meeting that’s going to start 30 minutes late. Mototaxi drivers sometimes have a reputation of being on the shady side and have been known to drive by and snatch purses off pedestrians on the sidewalk. The other problems with mototaxis are they exponentially add to the decibel level on the street with their high pitch scream and blow blue exhaust everywhere they go. That’s why you don’t see mototaxis in nicer neighborhoods of Lima like Miraflores or San Isidro.

Travelling in a Fried-out Combi

2011-03-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

Combi the mean streets of Ica (one of the loudest intersections in Ica)

Micro in Ica

Micro in Lima

I always wondered what they were talking about in that ‘80s-ass Men at Work song. Now I know. A combi or micro is a mini-bus that can be as small as one of those tiny 80’s Toyota moon vans or larger bus that holds about 20 or 30 people. Knowing which bus to get on is a trick initially. The busses are painted different colors depending on the route. The origin and destination points are on a placard on the front of the bus and the streets along their route are painted on the side. The best way to figure out the route is go with someone who knows. If not, you have to ask someone and pray that you understood what the hell they said and that they actually knew what they were talking about. Ultimately it comes down to trial and error.

At the paraderos (bus stops), a number of micros will pull up at the same time with the cobradores (fare collectors) hanging out the side door with one arm yelling out “Sube! Sube! Sube!” (Get on!) and yelling the streets on their route. Meanwhile, you’re trying to listen for your street and reading the street names on the sides of several moving busses to try to pick the one that’s going your direction. It’s really very confusing if you’re unsure of which one you need to take.

You can also flag down a combi on the side of the street and they’ll pick you up pretty much anywhere, though the cops are kind of cracking down on that practice. The combi slows down, the cobrador slides opens the side door, you hop in, hold on for dear life as he zooms off, and try to cram yourself into one of the small seats (well, small to me anyway). If there are no seats you gotta stand hunched over and keep an eye out that people don’t try to pick pocket your sh*t. I won’t ride a combi during rush hour traffic because they’re generally pretty packed – and I mean packed to the point that the cobrador is hanging out the side of the bus with both hands holding on for dear life and trying to keep everyone in the bus. Rule of the game for combi drivers – pass the combi in front of him so he can collect more fares. They are, after all, privately owned and trying to make a buck.

The fares are very reasonable and generally run about 1 or 2 soles (<75 cents>Fare charts are generally posted inside the bus but I’ve yet to decipher one. If you don’t know what the fare is, ask the guy next to you because the cobrador might try to aprovechar (take advantage) of your ignorance and gringoness.

Some of the newer micros are really nice, large and comfortable. Others are literally “fried out”, have been around for 30+ years, and still have “Kilroy was here” written in Korean. Sometimes they smell like sex that’s been left out in the sun too long.

Public transportation is public transportation anywhere you go. If you don’t know the system and the area, you’re going to feel lost and it will always be packed during rush hour. After learning my way around Lima and figuring out how the system works, I can get to pretty much wherever I need get without getting too lost, at a good price and, outside of rush hour, relatively comfortable. It’s actually pretty surprising how efficient the system is. It almost beats waiting forever in the dead of winter in a foot of snow for the 154 to take me to downtown Chicago and piling into a bus that has the heaters blowing 90 degrees or turned completely off with a ton of other people.

Planes Trains and Automobiles

2011-03-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

The mean city streets of Ica.

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I’m forbidden to drive cars or motorcycles. For good reason - I wouldn’t survive 10 minutes behind the wheel in Lima or Ica without having a wreck. They drive by a whole different set of rules down here. And by rules I mean there aren’t any - well, there are but I don’t know what they are and when I think I’ve got it figured out, it turns out that I don’t. So how do I get around without driving? Well, I walk a lot and take a whole array of public transport (I say public but it’s nearly all privately owned) which include taxis, collectivos (shared taxis), mototaxis, combis/micros (mini-busses), busses, etc.

According to Hernando Soto in El Otro Sendero (The Other Path), his book discussing Peruvian informal economies, nearly all of the means of transportation started out extra-legally. In other words, they didn’t register their businesses, pay taxes, get licenses to operate, etc. They simply identified a need, staked out routes, payed off cops, and began running their routes all outside of the formal economic system. Soto’s book was written during the 1980’s and things appear to be more formal in the economic sense - vehicles have their insurance stickers, fares and routes are posted, etc. But you get out on the open road… Look Out! It’s every man for himself.

The object seems to go fast, pass the car in front of you, and go even faster. When you’re at a red light, get right up on the bumper of the car in front of you so some jagbag doesn’t cut in front of you but then of course you’re stuck there when the car in front of you breaks down or doesn’t go when the light turns green. Another rule of the road – honk the living sh*t out of your horn even though you’re stuck in traffic and not going anywhere soon. The noise in busy streets in larger cities is maddening. Quick aside – when I arrived in Miami a few weeks ago I had a couple of hours to kill until my flight to Dallas so I went outside to sit in the warm sun for a while. When I got outside there were a ton of cars and busses dropping off, picking up. No noise whatsoever. No horns. No high pitched scream of mototaxis. Just silence. I felt like something was seriously wrong and felt disoriented, like something wasn’t right with the universe.

The age, comfort of the vehicles range from something built in the 70’s that’s being held together with Bondo, firing on two of its eight cylinders, and billowing blue exhaust out the tail pipe to vehicles that are brand new, very clean, and comfortable.

If you’re a pedestrian, you have to walk con ojos en el trasero (eyes out your rear end). You basically have no rights. You’d better look left, right, left, right, and left again before crossing the street because drivers don’t give a F*****CK about you and won’t slow down to let you cross unless they’re about to hit you in which case it’s probably too late. It’s even worse than St. Louis.
As crazy and arbitrary as the public transportation system seems as soon as you first get here, once you figure it out it does make sense and you can get around pretty efficiently and economically. The next couple of posts, I’ll describe the various forms of transportation I use to get from Point A to Point B while hopefully not ending up at Point C which is not somewhere you want to be day or night.

Peace Corps 50th Anniversary

2011-03-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

US Ambassador, Peru´s Minister of Foreign Relations, and Peace Corps Chief of Staff addressing the group at the Ministry of Foreign Relations

Ministry of Foreign Relations

Environment APCD, PC Chief of Staff, PC Regional Director for Latin America, me and the Country Director in front of the US Ambassador´s Residence (they didn´t let us take pictures inside)

Fifty years ago this past Tuesday, March 1, President John F. Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating the Peace Corps whose mission was to promote peace, strengthen the bonds between nations, and provide technical assistance to developing nations. During the past 50 years, over 200,000 volunteers have served in over 70 nations world-wide. The Peace Corps came to Peru in the early 1960s and stayed until the early 1970’s when they were unceremoniously booted out by the Velasco dictatorship. The Peace Corps was invited back to Peru in 2002 during Alejandro Toledo’s presidency and has been here ever since. There are now over 200 volunteers serving in Peru along the coast and in the sierra working in the areas of water and sanitation, small business, environment, youth development, and health.

We celebrated Peace Corps’ anniversary here in Peru by throwing a number of receptions in the capital cities of our regions. The main celebration was held in Lima and I was fortunate enough to attend. On Monday, a group of current and former Volunteers, Peace Corps staff, US Embassy staff, Peruvian diplomats and the press attended a reception hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Relations in their offices in the center of Lima. I say offices but the building they occupy is a beautiful two story palace built during the colonial area. Prior to the reception, the Minister of Foreign Relations, US Ambassador and Peace Corps Chief of Staff visiting from Washington gave speeches. The reception was held on the balcony of the second floor overlooking the courtyard where we drank pisco sours, wine and ate tasty finger foods.

The following day, a larger group of Volunteers, who clean up very nicely by the way, went to the US Embassy to hear a state of the Peace Corps discourse given by the Peace Corps Chief of Staff and the Peace Corps Latin America/Pacific Regional Director. We then went to a reception thrown by the US Ambassador to Peru, Rose Likins, at her residence. The Ambassador’s residence is a stunning two story mansion occupying an entire city block. The residence was built in the 1940’s specifically as the US Ambassador’s residence and was crawling with security that night.

We entered the residence, met the Ambassador in the reception line and entered into the main hall. The first thing you see as you enter is a painting of George Washington which, as cheesy as this sounds, made me feel proud to be an American. To the right of the main entryway is a living room with some large comfy couches and a grand piano. Adjacent is a beautiful library with wood paneled walls and leather high back chairs. Out back is a large garden with a small swimming pool. We weren’t able to go upstairs and see the living quarters but I’m sure they were impressive as well.

The Ambassador and Peace Corps Chief of Staff said some nice words and we toasted the 50 years of Peace Corps. Among the invited were former and current Volunteers, staff, Peruvian counterparts, NGOs and Embassy staff. Alejandro Toledo, the ex-president and current presidential candidate also made an appearance.

There were plenty of pisco sours and wine to go around and the Volunteers behaved themselves pretty well in the face of free booze. To the left of the entryway was a beautiful dining room with perhaps the largest dining room table I’ve ever seen laid out with a terrific spread of food which was, of course, attacked (civilly mind you) by the Volunteers.

It was a truly wonderful event and further strengthened my resolve to serve my country as a diplomat (I’ve already passed the Foreign Service Exam and the next challenge is the interview/Oral Assessment in June so send some good thoughts my direction)

I do actually do some work down here

2011-02-01T16:09:00.000-08:00

Winner of the bulletin board contest

Obstetriz, student health promoters and me

Pasacalle through my town (I live a block from here)

Looking back on some of my entries, it looks like I'm just down here in Peru "hueveando" (f*#&ing off) and having a good time. But I am actually doing some work as well. Right before the Christmas/New Years holidays, I worked on an HIV/AIDS awareness campaign affectionately known as PEPFAR. PEPFAR is a fund created during the not-so-smart Bush administration to promote HIV/AIDS awareness and improve AIDS treatment world wide. The thought being that a serious problem in other parts of the world would in turn become a serious problem for the US, even though it already is. Per PEPFAR, HIV/AIDS prevention should focus on abstinence first, then marriage/faithfulness, and then condoms. When I informed my local counterparts that we really had to stress abstinence and marriage as part of this program, they laughed at me. Abstinence? Marriage and/or faithfulness? You ain't from around here are ya gringo? Tell ya what, we'll bring up the abstinence and the marriage/faithfulness things but we'll be realistic and really focus on the use of condoms.

My community counterparts on this project were the obstetrician in my health post and the nurse health promoter. The target audience of the awareness campaign was high school students. We started out by giving all the students in the school a pre-test asking them about AIDS/HIV, how you can get infected, who can get it, etc. We then selected and trained a group of student health promoters and trained them on all that is HIV/AIDS. Later we gave charlas (talks) to all the students and teachers. We did activities where the students had fun, participated, gave their views, identified risky behaviors, and had hands-on practice (tee hee hee – actually the kids were pretty grown up about the whole thing and only snickered a little when we put rubbers on fake dicks.)

After our educational sessions, we had a bulletin board contest. One minor problem - none of the classrooms had bulletin boards. I used some of the grant money to buy materials to build bulletin boards for each class and the students assembled them in shop class. I went to a lumber yard with the shop teacher to buy the materials. There on the shop floor loaded with tripping hazards, they cut the wood to our specifications with open, unguarded table saws with no kill switches getting their fingers within millimeters of the spinning blades. It was a Certified Safety Professional's (CSP®) nightmare. When it came time to pay, it was about twice as much as I had budgeted. But all's well that ends well and the students did a nice job of building solid bulletin boards. Local leaders judged the bulletin board contest and the students were pretty creative and colorful, if not a bit graphic.

On World AIDS Day we did a pasacalle (parade/march) through the streets of Rio Grande. The students made signs, the health promoters wore tee shirts they designed, a little band played, and we walked through the streets making buya (noise). I'm not sure how much awareness we raised and it was hot as shit but maybe someone paid attention. At the end, we had soda crackers and chicha morada (a sweet purple corn drink – sounds kind of gross but it's not too bad once you get used to it).

At the end of the campaign, we gave a post-test to see what they learned. The results weren't as good as I'd hoped for but scores did improve by around 20%. The 1st and 2nd years students improved considerably. The average for the 5th year students (seniors), however, dropped. I chalk it up to senioritis since we gave the quiz the last week of school and they had probably checked out already.

Other projects on the horizon, pending funding, include changing out water supply tubes to increase the volume of potable water coming into my town, building cocinas mejoradas (improved wood burning stoves), recycling and viviendas saludables (healthy household) campaigns.

Vacaciones con la Familia – Part III

2011-01-27T19:19:00.000-08:00

The fam in front of Monasterio de San Francisco
At dinner on Christmas eve.

Erotic exhibit at Larco Museum. Recievee doesn't look all that pleased - a little startled in fact

The honeymooners

Lima – Were it not for there fact that the sun literally only shines for 4 or 5 months out of the year, I could live in Lima. Like all big cities, it has some pretty sketchy, crime infested areas but it also has some great areas and nice middle class neighborhoods with their own special feel. But, aaahh, back to civilization and sea level. It was refreshing to land at Jorge Chavez airport and breathe that sweet, sweet, desert-damp, sea-level air and not walk 10 meters without having to stop and breathe. We went to the hotel and chilled for the night. The next day, we went to the Peruvian equivalent of Whole Foods called Vivanda. It might have been the highlight of Mom and Sam's trip – they raved about it. Our hotel was in an area called Miraflores. Miraflores is a wonderful place of Lima but it's certainly not representative of Peru. Miraflores is where the rich, the pitucos, the "Haves" of Peru live.

In Lima we did the touristy double-decker bus ride. As we approached the enter of Lima, an historic but kind of shady area with a lot of crime, the view from the second story of the touristy bus was much better than the street level where all the shenanigans go on. During the tour we popped into the San Francisco Monestary, a church that had catacombs stuffed with thousands of bones. Later we hit Larco Mar, a shopping mall built on the side of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean complete with a Tony Roma's, Chili's and TGI Fridays. We also visited a nice museum that had a whole exhibition hall dedicated to pre-columbian porn ceramics that turned me and my brother into giggling adolescents.

Christmas in Peru is celebrated at the stroke of midnight. Families gather on Christmas Eve, have dinner, eat paneton (sort of like fruitcake), drink hot chocolate, open presents and drink. We celebrated Christmas by eating at the only restaurant that was open - Chili's. Ordinarily you wouldn't catch me dead eating at a Chili's in the US unless I was in some bullshit suburb with no other choices, but it's amazing how delicious a chicken fried chicken with mashed potatoes and white cream gravy is after a year living here.

It was great to see the family again and spend some time together during the holidays.

Vacaciones con la Familia – Part II

2011-01-27T19:02:00.000-08:00

Mom and I on the floating islands of Uros
The fam on the island of Taquile, Lake Titicaca in the background

Some temple (?) carved out of rock. The tour guide gave us some explanation about it but it sounded like some shit he just made up.

Puno – From Arequipa we took a five hour bus ride to the city of Puno. Puno is on the high plains in the south Peru on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world - high meaning around 3,800 meters or 12,500 feet above sea level. Now 12,500 feet didn't sound all that high but it is. After all, there's a group of folks called 14ers who climb peaks of 14K or higher for fun and that's only 1,500 feet higher than where we were, if my math adds up. Anyway, the altitude got to all of us and the Peruvian food got the best of my Mom and bro (happens to all the gringos) so we were winded whilst sprinting to the bathroom.

Lake Titicaca has a series of man-made floating islands called the Uros Islands. The floating islands are made of reed roots and reeds lashed together. Around six to ten families live on each floating island in tiny little houses also made of reeds. According to the guide, they eke out their living by fishing, gathering eggs, hunting, bartering and tourism. It was pretty cool hopping off the boat onto a floating, living island but to be quite honest, it was pretty touristy and I doubt that any of the folks actually lived on them. I've heard here and there that the people living on these islands are from the sierra and moved there to make a living off tourism and to avoid paying taxes. Either way, it's a tough way to earn a living. Looking beyond that, it was pretty cool to see a manmade floating island that was built the same way they did back in the olden days. Come to think of it, I don't recall the guide explaining why anyone would originally live that way in the first place – probably to get the hell away from some conquering assholes.

From the floating islands, we went to an actual island called Taquile. On the boat trip out there, I sat at the aft of the boat enjoying the sun and thinking that this looks a bit like the Greek Isles except I'm freezing and can't breathe. When we arrived at Taquile the guide pointed up and said we're going up there. So up we hiked because that was where lunch was (20 steps, stop, try to breathe, 20 steps, stop, try to breathe). Painful but worth the view. It was a nice walk on the way down with some impressive vistas.

I've been in Peru for over a year now and have seen poverty but not the Christian Children's Fund, Sally Struthers, fly in eyeball kind of poverty. Here in Puno, however, there was abject poverty. Everywhere we went, there were moms with their kids in their papooses on their backs waiting in a big-ass line for a little bit of Christmas paneton (fruit cake?), hot chocolate and maybe a gift for their baby. It wasn’t the kind of mom hacking of the kid's hand to make them more beggable kind of poverty like in Haiti but still heart wrenching to see especially during the Christmas season.

Vacaciones con la Familia Part I

2011-01-27T18:43:00.000-08:00

Mom, Sam and I in Arequipa - Volcano Misti in the background
The fam in front of a church outside of Arequipa

What remains of the cuy I had for dinner

I spent Christmas this year with Mom and by brother here in Peru. They came down for a visit to celebrate both Christmas and my Mom's birthday (I was going to say my Mom's 70th birthday but she'd get pissed off at me so I'll just say we celebrated her birthday. For the record, I hope I look as good and get around as good as my mom when I'm 70 – if I even make it that far).

Everyone in my town of Rio Grande was asking if the fam was going to make it down to The Big RG but it's hot as hell there right now and I wanted to check out a different corner of this beautiful country. Originally, we had planned on visiting Huaraz, a mountain town with spectacular views of the Cordillera Blanca - high, snow-capped peaks which are being melted away by global warming at an alarming rate (insert your bullshit political view here). Unfortunately there were protests and civil unrest about mining operations a few weeks before. The riots had calmed down a bit but threatened to start back up again. As interesting as that sounded to me, the last place I needed to take my family on vacation was to see a bunch of pissed off, rock-hurling youths from a bus that was caught in the middle of the commotion. So, we went for Plan B (you always have to have a Plan B in Peru – or anywhere for that matter). Plan B wasn't so bad. First to Arequipa and then to Puno/Lake Titicaca then back to Lima to celebrate Christmas.

Arequipa – For some strange reason Mom and Sam weren't down for a 15 hour bus ride from Lima to Arequipa (even though it's a nice bus) so we flew. Flights are not that much more than the bus so it made sense on such a short time frame. Arequipa is a great city. Old colonial buildings build out of white volcanic rock called sillar, lots of history, and nice vistas of dormant and active volcanoes. There, we took a pretty touristy double-decker bus ride to check out the city and its surroundings. There, I rocked the shit out of some rocoto relleno (stuffed Peruvian chili peppers) and ate my first cuy chactado (fried guinea pig). Imagine eating your little childhood friend Sparkles, skinned, battered, fried and served in its entirety (head, eyeballs, teeth, claws and all) with a side of mixed vegetables. Tasted a little like rattlesnake, which tastes like gamey chicken, with just as many bones. Apparently cuyes are very high in protein, low in cholesterol (until deep fried) and reproduce like their rabbit cousins.

School Daze

2010-12-13T08:43:00.000-08:00

Entrance to the school

Kids during ag class (it's very hot by the way)

Kids in science class

I've been doing a fair amount of work in the escuela secundaria (middle/high school) in my town. The school is called Institución Educativa José Abelardo Quiñones named after a Peruvian fighter pilot who, after he was shot down by an Ecuadorian artillery unit during the Ecuadorian-Peruvian War of 1941, kamakazeed his plane into the battery that shot him down. Peru actually won that war so he's kind of a national hero and is on the 10 Sol bill.

The school has a couple of smallish two-story brick and concrete buildings with classrooms, an administrative office and a computer lab and another one-story building with classrooms and shop classes. There is a little concrete futbol/basketball court in the middle of the buildings. I was pretty excited when I saw the basketball court and was ready to play ball but the backboards are all jacked up. Too many kids dunkin'? Mmm… Probably not. (Confusing but amusing fact - the Spanish word Aula = Classroom. The word Jaula = Cage)

Kids here go to secundaria between the ages of around 11 or 12 until they're 16 or 17. There are around 130 students in 5 grades. Class size ranges between 10 – 30 students. Staff includes one director (principal), an assistant, a janitor, seven teachers, an adult hall monitor (who is also the referee for the local cock fights), a part time PE teacher and an English teacher who barely speaks a lick of English. As in the US, teachers here are overworked, underpaid and underappreciated.

The school year runs from April until December. They're off during the summer months of January through March because it's just too damn hot. Classes start at 8am and go until 1:30 with a recess/snack break at around 11:00. They study the typical HS courses like math and science and also take practical, more hands-on courses like agriculture, metal shop, and wood shop. A couple times a week the kids have physical education where they do exercises, run track, play futbol, volleyball, and basketball (even though the backboards are unusable). There is a school band but there are no organized sports teams. I haven't seen any dopey, cocky meatheads wearing their letter jackets terrorizing the guy carrying the clarinet case.

Graduation is just a couple of weeks away. Some of the 5th year kids are going to attend the Instituto (junior college) in town studying either tourism, mechanics, computers, nursing, or agriculture. Some of the brighter students will spend about a year studying for a university entrance exam and hopefully get accepted. Many have few options and will leave town to look for work in the fields or doing construction. Imagine leaving home at 16 years old to brave this sometimes very cruel world.

So far working with these kids has been the highlight of my Peace Corps experience. They're bright, respectful, and appreciative and really a lot of fun to be around unlike their spoiled counterparts in a little place called America.

Fiesta del Fiesta del Camarón (Crawfish Festival)

2010-11-21T07:33:00.000-08:00

Hunting camarones with the Germans

Waiting for the food to come out with Nano and his mom

Queen of the Camarón, contestants and judges

OK. I think you're starting to see a trend. Peruvians love their fiestas. There are fiestas for virgins, saints, town anniversaries, local food, etc. A couple of weeks ago Huaraco, a little town in my district, hosted the Fiesta del Camarón (Crawfish Festival). Crawfish Festival??!! Visions of backyard crawfish boils in Houston danced in my head. You can bet your sweet poto (ass) I wasn't going to miss this one.

So off I went to Huaraco with 2 German archaeologists, a German museum intern and Conejo, the mayoral candidate in my district who came in 5th. On the way up the quebrada to Huaraco, we stopped and looked at some petroglyphs from the Paracas Culture, an ancient civilization that pre-dated the Nazcas. There, foxes, families, and chiefs wearing ceremonial head dresses were etched in stone, no doubt by some bored, punk-ass, Paracas culture teenager wearing black eye-liner. Although the archaeologists couldn't verify this, I'm sure the etchings read "I hate you Dad!"

We arrived at Huaraco around 10:30 in the morning. The night before the town the crowned the new Miss Camarón and there was a band and dancing and drinking on the little concrete losa where they play futbol. When we arrived half the town was still sleeping or were awake but pretty bleary eyed. The other half was preparing platos tipicos (typical dishes) de camarón. A couple of older men were sitting near the losa unable to make it home, or locked out of their homes, from the night's festivities. They smelled pretty ripe.

We went down to the river to catch us some camarones. You catch a camarón by wading in the slower moving parts of the river, sticking your hands under rocks and grabbing the little suckers. If one of the camarones goes darting out and you're not a seasoned Peruvian veteran, you stumble and slosh around awkwardly trying to catch it and pretty much look like clod. After catching maybe a kilo and a half of camarones, we sat by the river and admired our haul as the veterans agilely waded by with mesh bags full of the little critters.

We left the river and headed back to town where I ran into a couple of friends from town. We drank beer and bullshitted and laughed while waiting for the food to come out. Periodically, a lady would bring out a big tray of food and set it on a table to sell. When the chicharrón de camarón (fried crawfish) came out, everyone bum-rushed the table and started hollering and arguing about who had paid and who was next. I was secretely half hoping to witness a fight over crawfish.

Just as we were about to leave, the townsfolk asked me if I wanted to be a judge in a food contest. If there's one skill I've honed as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru, it's judging food competitions and beauty pageants. Here was a chance to try all the dishes without having to pay so I eagerly accepted. Some of the dishes included - chaufa de camarón (crawfish fried rice), estofado de camarón (crawfish stew), causa de camarón (mashed potatoes layered with a mayonnaise-based crawfish salad), and chicharrón de camarón (fried crawfish). My favorite was the causa but the big winner by a landslide was the chicharrón.

Although the Fiesta del Camarón was a big hit, it really didn't stack up to a crawfish boil on a lazy Sunday afternoon at the West Alabama Ice House in Houston with newspaper-lined picnic benches, spicy crawfish, corn and potatoes, and a nice cold can of beer.

Idea for secondary project - crawfish boils. Any of you coon-asses out there have a good recipe?

Velada Artistica (The Talent Show)

2010-10-27T21:00:00.000-07:00

Folks watching the velada artistica in the plaza.
It's not a velada without a provocative dance by a bunch of hot girls.

Maestros de ceremonia

Last month, my socio comunitario (community counterpart) approached me about doing a velada artistica. It was not exactly in my job description being a Water and Sanitation Volunteer and all, but since I didn’t have shit going on as far as projects go, I figured what the hell. The purpose of the velada artistica was to give the folks in my sleepy little town something to do on an otherwise uneventful Friday night. I spent two weeks trying to convince the local institutions - schools, the instituto, the health post, etc. to put together acts and then hoping they showed up on the day of the event.

The velada was scheduled to start at 4 pm sharp in the town plaza which meant the sound system showed up at 4 and took over an hour to get set up. Once the sound system was set up, we made announcements over the PA to come on down to the plaza for the grand show. The timid townsfolk filtered in little by little and by the time we actually got started, around 6:30, there were around 50 folks gathered.

My socio and I emceed the event, my socio being a professional emcee and I, well, I was just the 2 meter gringo freak show, an attaction in and of itself. A couple of acts into the show, my socio had to run off to the instituto to go take a test, leaving me to fly solo. I was a nervous wreck which didn’t help my Spanish, but I calmed down and apparently did OK. Days after the event I was told I had “la voz que embaraza” (the voice that impregnates). So if for some reason there are a bunch of tallish gringo children running around Rio Grande when I leave, I can assure you it was the voice.

As the night went on people kept showing up and by the end of the night there were by my estimate around 200 people. Not bad for a town with only 1200 or so people. The show included kids doing traditional dances. The health post put on a sketch about child abuse (the obstetriz did a great job as the abusive mother… maybe a little too good…). The high school kids did a lip-sync number about a man cheating on his girl (a common theme for the music down here for some reason – oh wait…).

I even sang!! My site mate Jess played her guitar and we sang Rocky Top and Hotel California. The last time I sang in public was at karaoke night at Friar Tucks in Chicago after a number of pints of liquid courage in front of a small crowd that was half in the bag. This time, no liquid courage and well over 100 sober Peruvians. Since the songs were in English and the folks had no idea what we were singing we were in the clear but, all modesty aside, we rocked the f*ckin’ joint.

The next day, the town was abuzz. They hadn’t seen an event like that in a while and everyone seemed to have enjoyed it. I didn’t get any latrines built or improve any water systems but maybe fulfilled one of Peace Corps’ goals of letting the rest of the world that not all Americans are a bunch of war-mongering, self-serving, ignorant douche bags.

Jimmy Carter Would’ve Been Proud

2010-10-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Jose "Conejo" and another candidate for mayor.

Chucho excited about rockin' the vote!

Accion Popular meeting. The mayor of Rio Grande is waving

(Disclaimer for any PC honchos who may be reading this - I was just passing through the plaza when I snapped this picture so don't kick me out)

Last Sunday was Election Day for all the alcaldes (mayors) and presidentes regionales (state governors) in Peru. I’ve been looking forward to the elections because I’m somewhat interested in politicians, the lies they tell and the way people buy their bullsh*t hook, line and sinker. Also, it’s been a while since I’ve been in South America during an election where you never really know what’s going to happen.

In my town, the current acalde was running against six other candidates. We’re used to the two big parties (two horns on the same devil). Here there are a ton of political parties: Acción Popular, PRI, Somos Peru, APRA, etc. Some wield more power than others but where I live out in the provincia (the sticks) most people seem to vote for the candidate and not dopey party ideology.

Voting in Peru is compulsory- if you don’t vote, you get fined somewhere in the range of 120-180 soles (roughly $40-60), four or five days pay for a farmer in la provincia. The campaigns started to heat up about a month before the elections. Candidates here used their own money to paint the side of houses with propaganda, make banners, and hire cars with loudspeakers mounted on the roof to drive around town blaring commercials. There were radio spots but no negative ads telling us this guy hates freedom or if you vote for her the terrorists win or any of that kind of nonsense. The negative campaign was chisme (gossip) in the street though I didn’t hear any of it.

A week before the election, each candidate held a meeting (meeting) in the town plaza. A meeting is basically a mini political rally with noise makers, whistles, confetti, and chants where the candidates lay out their proposals. According to several of the townsfolk, a lot of candidates promise big things during these meetings but forget all about them after the election. Someone asked me - it’s not like that in the US is it? Well… Uhm... Yes… As a matter of fact it’s exactly like that in the US and probably the rest of the world.

On the Friday before the election, la ley seca (dry law) went into effect where no beer, wine or liquor was sold in the country. I’m not sure why they have the dry law but I’m sure there’s a very interesting story behind it.

Election day – police and military personnel armed with machine guns were stationed in and around the Instituto where everyone in the district, some coming from as far as 50 kilometers, came to vote. Folks vote by marking an X on the ballot next to their candidate. The ballots had pictures of the candidates and the parties’ symbols for those who can’t read. Once they turn in the ballot, they have to dip the tip of their middle finger into a jar of indelible ink to prove they’ve voted (and spend the next two days trying to wash it off). If you’re 18 and it’s your first time voting, the election workers play a little joke on you and “accidentally baptize” your entire finger.

After the polls closed at 4pm, the votes were counted. The town plaza was packed with people waiting for the results. Hours passed and some people were drinking like they haven’t had a drink in two days. Slowly the numbers started to come out. One small group from a party that was apparently not winning started yelling things and throwing rocks at the metal door of the instituto, probably not a good idea when there are 5 armed cops and couple of soldiers with machine guns. Otherwise, it was a party atmosphere in the plaza filled with anticipation.

Hours turned into several hours and most of folks had to catch a ride back home and left. The results were finally announced at about 9:30pm. The current Alcalde was re-elected and was paraded around the plaza hoisted on the shoulders of his supporters. As a Volunteer, I’m not allowed to be involved in politics because it could seriously affect my work here. Having said that, I’m glad our Alcalde got re-elected because otherwise I would have had to find someone else to work with and that would have been a real pain in the ass.

As I write this four days after the election, Lima still doesn’t know who their next mayor will be and they’re still counting votes for many of the presidentes regionales. A buddy of mine complained that it took too long for the results to come in and asked me if it took this long in the US. My first thought was - of course not, we know who won pretty much that night or the next morning. Then I remembered the debacle of the 2000 presidential election with Bush and Gore and hanging chads and some idiot named Katherine Harris. But I didn't want to get into all that so I lied and said we know the next day.

Apparently I'm not 27 Anymore or Maybe Sammy Sosa wasn't that Big of a P*ssy After All

2010-09-27T20:22:00.000-07:00

I kind of knew this day would come though I’ve been trying to put it off as long as possible. Being 2 meters tall (nearly 6’7”), tall people older than me told me I’d have back problems because of my height. My old boss back in the day, a tall man, had back surgery and was laid up for over a month (it apparently didn’t bother him too much because he managed to buyout a company as he convalesced). I told him I felt his pain. He replied that I hadn’t felt his pain… yet... but that I would. I kind of scoffed a bit on the inside. At the time, I was in my early 30’s, in reasonably good shape and prided myself on my back health because I was a yoga junkie. Fast forward a decade or so – I’m still reasonably fit, don’t feel my age, still exercise and do yoga on a regular basis, though not as much as I would like. But the years, a shitty mattress and cramming my 2 meter frame into tiny Peruvian means of transportation finally caught up with me and I got a herniated disc.

As a safety professional I’ve taught dozens of classes on preventing back injuries and proper lifting techniques to cops, firefighters, and everyday working men and women. I always led off the training talking about Sammy Sosa and the sneeze that injured his back and put him out of commission for a couple of months back in 2004 (he eventually came back, couldn’t hit a ball, got busted for using a corked back and got run out of town without his boom box - Michael Barrett smashed it by the way). This always started off training with a good laugh. A couple of weeks ago I wasn’t laughing. Everyone asked me what I did to it. I would have liked to have said lifting a 50 pound bag of cement or laying bricks or digging a pit latrine but, no, nothing that exciting (beer pong maybe?)

A herniated disc is when the soft cushy disk between your vertebrae bulges out of where it’s supposed to be. When it does this, the disc can push against a nerve that will make other things hurt – in my case, my back, right ass cheek, and right foot. The pain was excruciating. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being going into shock, I would put it at an 8. I couldn’t bend over to tie my shoes, couldn’t sit, and couldn’t lie down for too long. It f*ckin’ sucked. So, two weeks later I’m taking pain killers (not the Rush Limbaugh variety) and muscle relaxers and am feeling much, much better.

So that’s the last “old man” complaining entry. Do look forward, however, to future parasite, explosive diarrea and/or other odd Peruvian ailment posts.

Murder in a Small Town

2010-09-11T11:21:00.001-07:00

My town is a quiet, sleepy town. A kind of Peruvian Mayberry. Nothing exciting happens here. Really... Nothing... Occasionally there’s a town celebration or a futbol game but otherwise, it’s as tranquilo (laid back) as it gets. There’s virtually no crime. Sometimes the town drunk gets out of hand and hollers at people in the street and throws rocks at things but the folks put up with him and talk him down. Sometimes there are petty thefts committed by outsiders but otherwise it’s a quiet, safe little burg.

A couple of weeks ago, tragedy rocked my little town and made the headlines nationwide. A man in a jealous rage slashed his wife to death with a knife and then turned the knife on himself. He lived but is still in the hospital. According to the newspapers, it was a crime of passion committed when the wife failed to come home when expected.

I was out of town for training but heard of the tragedy through my community partner. I was deeply affected and stunned that such a thing could happen in such a laid back place. I’ve met the man and he seemed about as tranquilo as they come. He was a cab driver and occasionally shuttled me back and forth between Palpa. We had the usual conversations – he’d ask what part of the US I’m from, is it hot there, what kind of crops do they grow there, what kind of music do I like, how do I like Peruvian food, etc. He was always very kind and courteous which made this all the more surprising. I don’t think I ever met the woman. I’m told she was from the selva (jungle).

Of course the man has family in town. His father is also a cab drier. His mom sells bread in front of the store by the plaza. His sister works in the health post. Surprisingly, the townsfolk were sympathetic to the man. They said of the deceased, while being respectful and disrespectful at the same time, that she was sacando la vuelta (cheating) on him. They said she pushed the limit too far, he snapped, and that it was understandable without coming right out and saying she had it coming.

When I got back to site the week after the incident I asked people if anything had happened while I was gone. The response - "No. Todo tranquilo. Nothing ever happens here." Such is life in Mayberry.

Here’s an article from the paper http://www.correoperu.pe/correo/nota.php?txtEdi_id=27&txtSecci_parent=0&txtSecci_id=71&txtNota_id=421249

Santa Rosa de Lima

2010-09-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

Monday was a national holiday in Perú honoring Santa Rosa de Lima. Santa Rosa lived in Lima in the late 1500s and was apparently a very beautiful woman. She performed many miracles including healing the blind, curing her mother’s favorite rooster, making a pact with the mosquitoes in her garden so they wouldn’t bother her while she was praying, and somehow conjuring up a storm to keep a Dutch pirate ship from invading Lima - all saint-worthy endeavors as far as I’m concerned.

In Lima, the faithful celebrate by going to the Santuario de Santa Rosa de Lima, a church built where the saint was born and later died. They go to attend mass and to ask Santa Rosa to heal illnesses by writing their requests in a letter and dropping it in a well on the church grounds. When I arrived at the church at about 8am, the line to get to the well was already about 5 blocks long and took about an hour. When I left an hour and a half later, the line was about 15 blocks long and growing.

I waited in line which was incredibly orderly. There are only two things here in Peru that really bug the living shit out of me. One, as you already know, is la hora Peruana but I’m acostumbraring (getting used to) to things starting late. The other is people blatantly cutting in line for which I haven’t found a good coping mechanism (a stern glowering doesn't work for shit). Anyway, the line wound through the streets of the central district (where I wouldn’t want to be after dark) into the front gates with a Statue of the Sta. Rosa busting a sweet dance move and into the basilica's garden where the well was. There in the well I dropped a little note wishing my mom a speedy recovery and walked around a bit. There was Sta. Rosa’s bedroom where she slept on hard wooden planks and used three rocks for pillows.

After, I walked up the street and up the bridge to look at the Rio Rimac, the source of Lima’s drinking water. The Rimac starts several hundred kilometers up the mountains to the east as a pristine river with clean water. Along the way, mining companies dump their heavy metals, factories dump their hazardous wastes, and houses dump human piss and shit into it. By the time it reaches the bridge I was standing on, it’s basically an open sewer on its way to the sea a few miles to my west.

Fiesta del Chicharron (Fried Pork Festival)

2010-08-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

Artist from Ica and his most famous drawing.
Hot cumbia dancers (I tried up upload video but didn't work)

Last weekend was the Fiesta del Chicharron in a town called El Ingenio somewhere between where I live and Nazca. A whole festival dedicated to big hunks of delicious fried pork! How great is that?! I was invited by a friend of mine who happened to be the mayor of El Ingenio’s son. He invited me a couple of months ago and I’ve been looking forward to it ever since. I took the bus up to Ingenio, hopped off and caught a collectivo up to the little, out of the way town with no cell phone service. The streets were all torn up because they were being redone. This is going on in a lot of little towns in Peru because all the mayors are up for re-election in a couple of months and they do all their projects just before the elections so people think they actually did something during their tenure.

I met my friend at a lady’s house for lunch. The lady was kind of gringa looking and, according to my friend, her family owned nearly all the land in El Ingenio until the Velasco agrarian reform in the 1960’s when the government took it all. She was also married to a former mayor of Lima. Now the lady, a widow, is kind of a patron of the local art scene and has artists over to her house to paint, drink wine, and hang out. I sat around with a bunch of young artists, ate lunch and listened to them jabber on about esoteric, pedantic bullshit that artists typically talk about when they get together. After lunch, we went up to the fiesta at the stadium.

The Fiesta del Chicharron lived up to it’s name and the expectation. Dozens of vendors had their pots full of huge chunks of fried pork, Homer Simpson’s wet dream. The food was delicious!! I hung out with a buddy who teaches traditional Peruvian dance to kids and a guy who runs a local pottery workshop. They were selling pottery from the workshop painted in the style of the ancient Nazcas. Pretty sweet stuff at a decent price. Chances are that’s what you’re getting for Christmas. Someone broke out the Pisco, a liquor made out of grapes, and we started passing it around and telling dick jokes. Maybe it was the Pisco talkin’ but the jokes were pretty damn funny.

The band kicked in and immediately the people of Ingenio, unlike the timid folks in my town, jumped right in and started dancing and laughing it up. They were super friendly. After a little bit, there were probably about 15 of us in our drinking circle hanging out, giving each other shit and dancing to cumbia cover tunes. The band, Los Hermanos Something-or-Other put on a great show and had a couple of hot dancer girls on stage to boot. I tried to leave several times during the evening to catch the last bus out at 10 but the folks would have none of it. I wound up staying at the fiesta until 1 or 2 in the morning and spent the night on a very thin mattress on the floor of the mayor’s house.

Apparently they have some sort of fiesta in El Ingenio every month, fried pork served at all of them. Can’t wait for the next one!!

El Brujo de Llipata

2010-08-01T00:37:00.000-07:00

The last time I had my fortune told was at a county fair in Nashville. I can’t remember what the cards said but I’d had a dream recently that I wanted interpreted. The dream was that I was an old time homesteader clearing his land. I was pulling out a stump with my mule and, after a monumental struggle, it came out. When the stump finally popped out all these ticks came out of the earth and climbed all over me. His interpretation: The clearing out of the fields is a good sign. You’re making your way to a better future. And the baby chicks are a very good sign, a sign of prosperity. Awkward pause… Um, I said ticks, not chicks. Another awkward pause… Oh. Well, that changes things quite a bit. Watch your back for people that are trying to take advantage of you. Truer words have never been spoken.

Last week my site mate, another volunteer, and I decided to get our fortunes told by a local fortune teller in the nearby town of Llipata. My site mate has been working on a canal project that involves trekking through some pretty treacherous mountains and the locals she’s working with are nervous that the mountains are going to get pissed and kill them. So they’ve been consulting with the second best man in the area who can make appeasements to the mountains. The first best man lives up the quebrada (valley) from me. I'm not sure why they don’t go to him but maybe the second best gives better rates. The pay-off to keep the mountains happy is something like a bag of coca leaves, a box of cigarettes, wine and piglet’s blood. I think the mountains wanted the sacrifice of a young virgin girl but apparently that’s a delito (crime) around here even if it is for a good cause. I’m not sure exactly sure how the brujo (male witch – warlock?) bargained with the mountains to settle for pig’s blood but, hey, I’m not a mountain god expert so what the f*ck do I know. I do know that it brought down the price substantially.

Anyway, we were bored one day and went to get our fortunes told. We went to a little town outside of Llipata for the visit. Of course we called his cell phone ahead of time to make an appointment. The taxi dropped us off and we walked down a dirt road through the chakra (farms) to another little town whose name I can’t remember. The old man lived in a little one bedroom adobe house with a bed, a table and three chairs. He had little scarred-up dog that looked like he’d recently got his ass kicked. This was in the afternoon and the brujo looked pretty sober (which I took to be a good sign but I’m not sure what BAC you have to have to accurately read the cards).

One of the volunteers that’s helping out on the canal project went first. It didn’t go too well for her. After he dealt out the cards, he drew his index finger across his neck. Never a good sign in any language. He basically said you’re shit out of luck in health, love, career, and money. Then it was my turn. The old man shuffled the deck and asked me to cut the deck with my left hand. He then paused looked at the deck as if to call up some sort of spirit to help him read them and then dealt out the cards in rows of ten. I then picked out which card I wanted to be. It was a card with a man that was either spinning a basketball on his middle finger or giving the world the bird. The old man picked the cards up, dealt them out again to see what my fortune was. As he was dealing out the cards, there was a kind of awed hush. Card, card, card. There’s your card right? Si… Card, card, card...

Once all the cards were laid out, he looked at them. This is your card right? Si. Well, here close to your card is money, work, and what looks to be drinks. And love I asked? Oh, that’s way over here with guys on horses in between. Looks like you’re going to have to travel far for love. But the work, money and beers are always going to be close to me? And what about my health? That’s not so good he said. Tienes que cuidarte (you have to take care of yourself). All three of us had different readings but all three of us had to travel for love and got the bad health sign.

I chose not to tell him about the recurring dream I had as a kid where German Shepherds were attacking me. Best let sleeping dogs lie.

Peace Corps - The Prequel

2010-07-30T22:18:00.000-07:00

About this time last year I received my invitation to serve in the Peace Corps. Since I’ve had a few inquiries about how one joins the Peace Corps and what the application involves, here ya go. The Peace Corps is a US Governmental volunteer organization dedicated to supporting the development of countries that ask for its support. The Peace Corps has three goals 1) provide technical assistance to areas where this assistance is requested; 2) promote a better understanding of who Americans are so we don’t seem like the assholes we appear to be, and 3) educating Americans so they have a better understanding of the folks where volunteers serve since we as Americans are basically geographically retarded. You won’t find that exact phraseology on the PC website.

The service commitment is twenty seven months. The first ten weeks is training after which you’re sworn in as a Volunteer and sent off to the middle of nowhere where you serve the next two years. A lot of people asked me why the two years? As I’m learning now, the 1st year is a lot of training, getting to know your community and, most importantly, letting the community gain confidence in someone that speaks their language for shit. It’s not until later in the first year or into the second year when your projects get off the ground, depending on the program and country.

Volunteers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, beliefs, and religious affiliations (though those may change during the course of service. Well, color not so much). All have to be citizens of the US. Most of the volunteers are younger folks out of college. There are a few retirees and there are folks like me that are mid-career. I was the oldest in my training class but am happy to report that the next training group has at least two people older than me.

The application process is fairly grueling and can last sometimes up to a year or more. First you submit an extensive application with letters of recommendation and a few essays. If your application looks good, then you are contacted by a recruiter for an interview. Again, the interview is fairly extensive. You get asked where in the world do you want to go (I said anywhere), what kind of work do you want to do (water & sanitation, environment, health, youth development, education, small business development, education, etc.), what’s your motivation to join the PC, etc.

If your recruiter thinks you’re PC material, they nominate you for a type of job and a region of the world. My nomination was for environmental/natural resources in Latin America. After the nomination, you’re run through a battery of tests. You have to submit your fingerprints for a background check and go through dental and physical exams. Apparently the PC doesn’t want criminals with irritable bowels and bad teeth so how I got in is beyond me. I guess since you're going to be out in the boonies you have to be somewhat healthy.

Once you clear all that, and that piece does take a while, (my dentist said I grind my teeth so that set my application process back about three weeks - I wore my recommended mouth guard twice by the way) you get a notification that you’ve cleared all your checks and that another recruiter should be calling you. If you’re in a relationship, they want you to fill out a romantic involvement worksheet to make sure you’re not going to get in country and get all weepy and sentimental and I miss you and all that and wind up quitting. That’s where the waiting game begins. It could be in one month or it could be six, you don’t know and you can’t really call anyone to follow up. They do advise you to not to make any life changing decisions like telling your boss to go f*ck him or herself, selling your house and all your possessions, and waiting by the phone for that call. It might not come for a while and if it does it might not be the news you want to hear.

When the call does finally come, you have another phone interview with the placement office. Now I hate phone interviews because I get kind of tongue-tied for some reason. But I gotta say I nailed this one in large part because I’d been going through the application process for some eight or nine months at this stage, was committed to it, eager to serve, and had done a ton of research. At the end of the phone interview, the placement officer said she believed I would make a great volunteer and that she was submitting an invitation to serve in the PC. Great! Where? Oh, I can’t tell you that but check your mail in the next two weeks or so. Mother F#cker!

The torment! Now I had to wait for the United States Postal Service to deliver my formal written invitation (It’s no secret that I’d had an ongoing bloody battle with the USPS in Chicago for years where I wound up on the losing side of said battle so it killed me that now I had to wait for something in the mail that those USPS f?ckers may or may not choose to deliver. There are horror stories of letter carriers in Chicago just throwing sacks of mail in dumpsters because they were too lazy to do their job. After countless meetings with those assholes in my local post office there I don’t doubt it one bit. But I digress…)

I did get my invitation in the mail. Peru. Water & Sanitation. Couldn’t have gotten a better placement as far as I was concerned. Get to brush up on my Spanish and apply my career track sort of. Now what? I’ve been through this 9 month application process, I’ve been invited. Do I really want to do this? I visited the PC blog website while sitting in my cubicle at a job which I loved and payed me well and read a couple postings from volunteers in Peru. I decided right then that I would be stupid if I didn’t do this. I ran across the street to the student lounge of the DePaul building and called to accept my invitation.

So here I am in Peru eight months in country. For about as long as the whole application process took. Was it worth it? Answer…Yes.

If you’re interested in the Peace Corps check it out their website http://www.peacecorps.gov/. If you’re still interested go ahead and apply, it could take about 12 months. They give you plenty of opportunities to f*ck up or back out. Who knows? Maybe you too can have the opportunity to serve your country, learn a new language, see some great places, help out some folks in developing countries, and have diarrea for the next two years.

Boredom

2010-07-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Well, all of a sudden, I’m bored. I knew this time would come. It happens to all Peace Corps Volunteers at some stage during their service. I’m glad it didn’t happen to me until my 8th month of service. So far I’ve been balls-to-the-wall busy with my community diagnostic, helping out other volunteers on their latrine projects, training, etc. But now I’m bored. The week before last was fiestas patronales, a three day festival commemorating the patron saints of my town. The World Cup was also going on so I was able to keep myself entertained but not get any real work done. Last week was vacation over the 4th of July weekend which was fun. This week, however, nothing. I’ve got little stuff going on but these things only take up 2 or 3 hours a day and then I ain’t got shit to do.

I suppose I should be used to this kind of ebb and flow in my life. As an Environmental, Health & Safety Consultant, it always seemed to be feast or famine. I always had more work than I could handle one minute and then there was nothing the next. One thing I learned is that when you’re the busiest and you don’t think you can handle any more work, that’s the time to keep pounding the pavement looking for more.

I do have stuff coming up to look forward to. Friday I'm a judge in another beauty pagaent (Peace Corps is so hard). I have an HIV/AIDS training session to start HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in my town. The week after is Peruvian Independence Day which I understand is a lot of fun. Then we’re putting on a camp for teenage boys focusing on the theme of leadership. I’ve got more in-service training after that. It’s up to me to fill in the gaps between these activities and I have been working with the mayor and the health post on putting together some projects.

But for right now, I’m bored and “pateando latas” (kicking cans). More like “pateando cilindros (kicking drums).

A Gringo of 2 Meters Can't Hide

2010-07-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Playing Volleyball

One of the nice things about living in a big American city is you can slip into the street and walk around in relative anonymity. That is not the case here in my little town of 1200 people where everyone knows everyone. Since I’m a gringo de dos metros, I get a lot more attention than the average Jose. Most of the time it’s pretty cool. When I walk through the streets, everyone greets me “Hola Beto!!”. Kids run up and say hey and ask me how you say this or that in English. Adults stop me to chit chat about nothing in particular. How about this heat? Cold isn’t it? Que tal las nenas? (How are the girls?) is always a good one. Sometimes I frighten people with my height. The other day I walked into the health post. As I entered, a little girl was running around, playing and ran up next to me unaware that I was there. She looked up, let out a terrifying, blood curdling scream and ran away screaming into her mother’s arms. Another little girl mentioned to me casually as I was walking through the street, “Mi mamá dice que me vas a comer” (My mom says you’re going to eat me).

The Peace Corps is 24/7 in that you’re pretty much under the microscope every time you leave the house, even when you’re in the house. Little towns can be gossipy so everything you do, whether good or bad is fodder for the gossip circles. My town had a volleyball tournament a while back. I wasn’t playing for any team but after the official matches were over, a buddy of mine and I and few of the local gays played a pick-up game. There were probably about 50 townsfolk that came out to watch the tournament and many of them stayed around to watch the gringo and the gays play. Now I haven’t played volleyball in years so I had my buddy set me a few practice spikes. My timing wasn’t, well, good - at all. The first set, I jumped up for the spike, completely whiffed and wound up tangled up in the net. Everyone in the place burst out laughing at me. I rarely get embarrassed because I’m pretty good at laughing at myself but I was downright ashamed and wanted to crawl under a rock. Second time exact same thing, whiff, tangle, finger pointing, roaring laughter. There were whispers among the spectators. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but I’m pretty sure it was something like - This 2-meter gringo is f*ckin’ AWFUL at voley. I finally started to find my timing and was able to at least make contact.

When we started playing the game I got into a bit of a groove and felt a bit more confident. My first real good solid spike the crowd was like “Damn!!!” And started clapping and cheering. I had several other good spikes to more cheers and applause. The following week, the tourney continued and I went to watch. One team was getting blown out so they were looking to put someone else in. There was a buzz in the crowd and people kept looking at me. Come to find the next day from my host mom that word was out on the street that I could play and everyone wanted to see me play again. But I was clueless at the time and didn’t play.

“Life in the fish bowl” is kind of a pain in the ass is when you don’t want to talk to anyone, you just want to go where you’re going and be left alone. For example, when I’m trying to catch a bus to go out of town for vacation or whatever I don’t want to explain where I’m going or what I’m doing. For as much as I like traveling, I don’t like the actual getting there part. I’m not built for this country and don’t fit into the local means of transportation - busses, cars, mototaxis, etc. The thought of getting on hot-ass, cramped bus where I have to pay a lot of attention to my surroundings so my shit doesn’t get robbed puts me in a bad mood and I don’t want to talk to anyone. But you put on a grin say hey to everyone and go with it.

Now I kind of know how feels to be Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. OK, maybe more like Carrot-Top.

Peace Corps - The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love

2010-06-21T19:46:00.001-07:00

Beauty pagaent contestants. The one in the middle won.
Judges hard at work tallying their results.

Fan club for the Computer/IT group

My recruiter did not tell me there’d be days like this. I’ve been working with an English teacher and the health promoter in my town, both of whom are professors at the Instituto. Last week after I finished my English class, the professor invited me to come watch the beauty pageant. Since that normally is my night to teach and I didn’t have anything else to do, I gladly accepted. Looking at pretty girls seemed like a damn good alternative to sitting around the house bored watching shitty telenovelas (soap operas) with the host mom. Besides, this would be an excellent opportunity to promote America and world peace, or something like that.

When I arrived at the Instituto, I bullshitted with some of the professors and ate some picarrones, fried dough beignet-like things with syrup (delicious). The health promoter told me to come with her and lead me to the judges table. The Justice of the Peace who was going to be the fourth judge wasn’t able to make it so they wanted me to be the replacement judge. I’d judged a beauty pageant for incoming freshman last month and it was not a horrible experience so why not.

The pageant started promptly at the Hora Peruana (was supposed to start at 5:30 but started at 7:00). There were five contestants, one from each career track offered at the Instituto – Tourism, Computers/IT, Agriculture, Automotive, and Nursing. The contestants started out in casual wear which consisted of white blouses, black mini-skirts and high heels. They introduced themselves and did a choreographed dance to a Madonna song which, quite frankly, needed a little work. After the dance, the girls left the stage and changed into their evening gowns. I was waiting for the bathing suit segment of the pageant but, sadly, there wasn’t one.

During the intermissions, there were various musical and dancing acts. A fellow by the name of JC did a kind of rap/break dancing routine, a girl with dyed blond hair sang a couple of songs, and a few skimpily dressed girls danced to a pretty erotic song with alot of thrusting and chest heaving right in front of the judges table. At the end of the dance, they were hot sweaty, breathing hard and their hair was a bit disheveled. It would have been pretty hot except they were about 16 years old. I was a little uncomfortable.

After the intermission, the contestants came out dressed “a la tela” (to the nines) in their evening dresses. They selected an envelope and had to answer a question that was related to their career track. They all did very well except for the girl representing Agriculture. As she was answering her question, some asshole photographer that was up front taking pictures answered a phone call and was blabbing loudly as she was trying to answer. It was very distracting and threw her off completely. She couldn’t get back on track and quit saying that’s all I’ve got.

My task as a judge was to assign points based on presentation, beauty, culture, and fan support. The fans were a little bit insane with costumes, confetti, cans with rocks in them, an old bicycle pump with a horn taped to it, drums, cowbells, brass instruments, and piercing screams.

The points were tallied and verified by all the judges. The scorecards were signed and delivered to the Emcee.

And winner of the Reinado del Instituto Tecnológico Palpa/Rio Grande…

The girl from Computers/IT! Peruvian nerds are hotter than ours.

La Invación – The Invasion (Part II)

2010-06-16T10:07:00.000-07:00

La Invación

Communal kitchen in the center

Family signing property title paperwork

I went to the municipality today to talk with the mayor and bullshit with my socio over there. The place was packed with the folks from a town called Santa Rosa up the quebrada (valley) a bit. I asked my socio what was going on and he told me all the townsfolk were there to apply for title to their property. Now these folks have been living in their houses in Santa Rosa for years. I don’t know how they acquired the property and built their houses but they were just now getting around to formalizing with the central government and lay title to their piece of Peru. The initiative was spear-headed by the Mayor of Rio Grande because he sees the value in it. That and he's also up for re-election.

Since the mayor was busy I decided to walk up to the invasion. I haven’t been up there in a while because every time I went up there the folks were always asking me for bags of rice (100 soles), cooking oil (8 soles), money, etc. I hated feeling like a dick by telling them “soy un voluntario no un millonario”. Besides, the last time I visited I donated a bottle of cooking oil they kind of looked at me like “What? That’s all?” and then told me to go back and buy them gaseosas (sodas). At that point I said f*ck this I ain’t coming back.

My host family has since retired from the invasion. They couldn’t spend 24/7 there because they had to work, go to college, and the gringo living in their house wouldn’t sleep out there. The folks in the invasion were giving them a ton of grief because they weren’t putting in their fair share by helping build roads, cooking meals, cleaning, keeping watch, etc. so they were sort of forced out.

But I was curious today so I went back. The folks had laid out plots of land, built one room houses out of cane supports with thatch walls and ceilings and tin doors. They had built a little road with a row of houses on each side. They had a communal kitchen near the center of the town. There is still no electricity. People bring in water in 35 gallon drums with wheelbarrows to the communal area. One pregnant lady was toting a five gallon gas can of water to her house. I’m not sure where they shit but I didn’t see any latrines. I stopped to talk with some of the ladies cooking lunch to see how it was going. They said the supposed owners still hadn’t shown up to discuss the options. Seeing that the folks from Santa Rosa are just now formalizing their properties, getting a proper title could take years.

I was reading the Mystery of Capital – Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else by Hernando Soto when the invasion happened back in May. Soto did a lot of research in Peru and in other 3rd world nations about why capitalism hasn’t fully taken hold in these countries. The book is about 10 years old so some of the information pertaining to Peru is outdated but one of his theories about why capitalism fails is because of “dead capital”. People in these nations are extremely entrepreneurial, WAY more so than in the US. They have their businesses, have property, have housing but it’s extralegal - it works outside the legal framework of the country. It’s not that they don’t want to be titled property owners or have legitimate businesses. In most cases they do. It’s just that the process can be a bureaucratic nightmare that can take years and a ton of money so they have to live outside the bell jar. Because their property is not formalized they can’t leverage it to invest it and make it work for them hence the term “dead capital”.

In the US, if you want to build a house, you leverage what you have with your good credit (now anyways thanks to all those shady real estate brokers), buy property, lay claim to the title, and build. It’s not so with this invasion. Soto gave a good analogy - it’s like getting dressed by putting on your shoes and socks first then the rest of your clothes. The folks are squatting on some land, building on it little by little as resources trickle in, at some stage making an occupancy or purchase arrangement with the legitimate property owner or government, continue building, and finally lay claim to the title. From there I suppose they could leverage it for future investments.

By the way, they didn’t ask me for shit today but I’ll try and work with them on building some communal latrines.

My Site's Better than Yours

2010-06-06T21:42:00.000-07:00

I’m pretty sure I have the most beautiful post in the department of Ica. I’ve been to a number of other Volunteers’ sites in Ica. I’m not going to say they’re ugly but they’re not beautiful like mine. My site kind of reminds me of west Texas near the El Paso area. You get to my site crossing though the Pampa de Santa Cruz, a flat sandy desert. As you wind down the side of the mountain into my valley, you pass La Cara del Inca, a natural rock outcrop that looks like an Incan head looking off into the distance at Pichango, the tallest mountain in the Department of Ica. Below, a wide green river valley with a few palm trees.

Across the other side of the valley are smaller grayish-brown flat-topped hills that look like a bunch of elephants lying down side by side. The river is clean and always has water in it. When it rains in the sierra in February through March, the river rises and people go hang out, grill, swim and sometimes drink beer. My town is a sleepy burg of about 1200 people. There’s a pool hall/sports bar that never has beer but puts on all the big soccer games. I’ve been in there a time or two to shoot the shit and talk futbol. There I’ve had in-depth conversations with Don Julio and some of the older men in my town about politics, the weather, kids these days (with their hair and their shoes) - the same things that the retirees that hang out at McDonalds in the morning talk about.

The town plaza just got rebuilt and looks almost exactly like it did before. At night, people sit on the newly installed benches and shoot the shit. Children play soccer in the cobblestone street in front of the church. A couple of ladies sell hamburgers and salchipapas (french fries with sliced hot dog) from a little cart in front of the pension where I eat lunch. My district heads up the valley all the way towards the sierras of Ayacucho, the neighboring department. They grow corn, cotton, ciruelas (a prune-like fruit), mangos and pepinos (cucumbers). They also raise cattle, pigs and goats in this valley.

The valley was once home to the ancient Paracas, Nazca and Incan civilizations. Walking about 30 minutes from my house, there is a largish geoglyph of El Tumi, a sacrificial dagger, on the side of a hill. El Tumi was presumably built by the Paracas civilization. On the hills above me are giant Nazca triangles about the size of football fields.

During my afternoon runs, I run up a rocky valley up into the hills separating my town from Palpa. There you see powerful geologic forces in action. Once horizontal layers of rock jut upwards more than 45 degrees. I try to hit that area around sunset to watch the sun get gobbled up by the shark-toothed sierra to the west.

At night the sky is so big here. With no moon you can see hundreds of stars. There’s the Cruz del Sur, four stars in the shape of a cross that if you draw lines from top to bottom and side to side form a perfect cross.

The best thing about my site apart from its beauty is the people. But we’ll talk about that in another posting.

Saturday Night Cockfights

2010-06-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

So what’s a boy to do in the big city of Rio Grande on a Saturday night. Hmm. I’ll head down to the local “sports bar” and have a few beers and shoot the shit with Don Julio and watch a little futbol. What’s that Don Julio? You don’t have beer right now? You haven’t had beer in two weeks. What gives? I could go to the other bar in town but that’s where all the gays and other so-called degenerates hang out. That’s out. Love the gays but don’t need the chisme (gossip) at this particular juncture. I could hang out in the Plaza but they’re redoing it and there are no benches yet. So it’s off to the cockfights in Palpa.

A few Saturdays ago was the grand opening of the new cock fighting coliseum. I went with my site mate and another volunteer who was down visiting. It was 15 Soles ($5) to get in but included a sweet lunch of chancho and pallares (pork and these white lima bean kind of things). After the inauguration ceremonies, complete with skimpily dressed girls, a padre in his brown robe sprinkling holy water throughout the coliseum and the breaking of the champagne bottle we entered the coliseum. Not exactly the coliseum in Rome but still pretty sweet. To the right, the cages where the cocks are kept. In the center, the cock fighting arena, beyond that a stage for a band, and to the left the bar. After a delicious lunch we found our seats in the back of the arena, listened to a band playing popular Peruvian cumbia cover tunes and waited for the fights.

This was the beginning of the season where sure handed cock handlers pit their largest, strongest cocks pecker to pecker. There were 16 matches that evening. Each handler brings about 5 birds with him and uses a different bird each match. It's single elimination (so to speak) and the owner that wins all of his matches wins a bottle of pisco and advances to the final event at the end of the season in August. The winner at the end of this Palpa Super Bowl of Cockfighting wins 50,000 Soles (about $16,666).

I made some side bets with Jess. The bets started out at 20 centimos (about 6 cents) for the first eight fights and bumped it up to a whopping 1 sol (33 cents) the next seven. We bet about 3 soles (1 American Dollar) on the championship fight of the night. I got my ass handed to me.

After a few beers the conversation devolved between the Volunteers because word cock just kept getting funnier. Look at the size of that cock! What a beautiful cock! He’s quite the handsome cocksman. Look at the way he’s handling that cock. He needs to blow on that cock before putting dropping it in the dirt. I hate betting with you –your eye for the cock is just too good. Stroke that cock, I’ve got money riding on it!

And please save your cruelty to animals comments. It's the culture here and otherwise I'd be bored out of my skull on the weekends. Also, I really don't give a sh*t.

Baseball

2010-05-29T08:34:00.000-07:00

I’m reading “Is This a Great Game or What” by Tim Kurkjian which inspired this post about my obsession with baseball.

My inauspicious baseball career ended when I was about 13 years old and I saw my 1st curveball. I was facing Brian McFadden, a tall, good-humored red head with a hell of a heater and a nasty curve. I remember standing at the plate all skinny, gangly and awkward waiting for the pitch. Brian threw out of the wind up and the ball headed right for the ear hole in my batting helmet. I dove to the ground and was laying facedown in the dirt when the ball broke about 3 feet and the umpire called me out on strikes. I walked back to the dugout, face red from the hot Texas sun and prepubescent embarrassment. That was it for my playing days. I couldn’t hit a fastball (much less a curve), had a rag arm, and was a mess in the field at all positions - 3rd, catcher, 2nd. I wasn’t that bad at 1st but that’s reserved for the sluggers so that was out. I guess you could say I was a 0 tool player.

I grew up a fan of the game in the baseball crazy nation of Venezuela idolizing Pete Rose. My favorite team was the Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds of the 70’s. Davey Concepción, a Venezuelan, was the shortstop at that time, Johnny Bench caught and Joe Morgan wasn’t a douche bag. After moving to Houston in the 80’s, I tried to be a fan of the Astros. The ‘Stros had a good season in 1980 but otherwise they were pretty awful all my years in Houston. Going to see baseball games at the Astrodome, as impressive as the place was in its day with its monochromatic jumbotron with the snoring bull, and the PA announcer “Now batting… Jooooseeee Cruuuuuuzzz!!” was like watching ants run around in a dark cave. I lost my love for the game. I was done with baseball for the next fifteen years or so.

Fast forward to 1998. I was selling advertising in St. Joseph, Michigan when a friend and co-worker called me to see if I wanted to go to Chicago for the weekend. After a big night in the big city, we drove up to Wrigley, bought bleacher seats, sat out in the warm spring sun and watched Sammy Sosa belt a home run to right field and a Cubs victory. My passion for baseball was revived and I decided then and there in those bleachers that I was going to move to Chicago and become a Cubs fan. Less than six months later, I was moving into my studio apartment in Lincoln Park eager to start my new life and new addiction, one that would bring me untold joy and heartbreak.

There’s nothing quite like being at the ballpark on a nice sunny afternoon, scorecard and pencil in hand recording the 6-4-3 double plays and the WTP (went to piss) and WFB (went for beer). With the help of my buddy Doug Bacile, we put together the immaculate scorecard while keeping tabs of the Dodgers and the Mets at the old Shea. There’s nothing quite like having a few beers with dear friends, watching a pitcher hurl a rock-hard ball 98 miles an hour, and the unmistakable sound of a solidly hit liner that you know, even without looking, is headed right for the bleachers.

But hey this blog is about Peru and my adventures here. Peace Corps Goal 2 is to help promote a better understanding of Peruvian people on behalf of the American people. So to that goal, when I was on vacation in Lima I played softball at the Roosevelt School, a very high-end school that the children of expats and upper-crust Peruvians attend. I played on the Hilte team managed by an expat Texas boy and Roosevelt School alum, Tommy Akers. Peru is not a baseball nation. It’s all soccer (and the women play lights-out volleyball). I went in with the preconceived notion that the Peruvians weren’t going to be very good at softball but was pleasantly surprised at their skill level. They could knock the cover off the ball and had impressive defensive fielding abilities. Granted, most of the folks on the field had played in the USA, Columbia, Japan, or Venezuela but many played baseball right here in Peru.

Can’t wait to play again and screw the Cardinals – Assh*les.

Chicago - Part II

2010-05-15T10:13:00.001-07:00

My kind of town
At home making biscuits and gravy.

At the Friendly Confines with my brother Sam

I’m having a little touch of homesickness at the moment. A buddy of mine Blake posted up on Facebook that he just made an open faced omelet. I started dreaming of all the delicious breakfast foods I miss like a feta and spinach omelets with buttered English muffins, eggs benedict, my homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. Then I started dreaming of the breakfast buffet at Stanley’s on Armitage and Lincoln in Chicago, a delicious southern-style spread complete with chicken and waffles. So I decided to take a virtual walk through the city streets of Chicago using the street view function on Google maps. There’s Stanley’s! Damn that place is good!

Here’s my old neighborhood and I’m walking down Broadway on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. There’s the Melrose – open 24 hours for your late night snacking needs and its delicious Gypsies. There’s the Lakeview Athletic Club. I’d be sweating my ass off in a spinning or body pump class at this exact moment on a Saturday. Across the street, Specialty Video with its great selection of all kinds of videos. I’m told the gay porn section is the best in town but I wouldn’t know anything about that. The Chicken Hut – quarter chicken with potato salad and a Sierra Mist please. There’s Brendan’s Pub, one of my favorite watering holes owned by a Bostonian. Down further, Intelligentsia coffee house where I spent many hours studying for my CSP and CHMM exams amongst hipsters, artists, and yuppies. There’s the West Coast Video that closed down some time ago because it had a shitty selection and smelled like cheese. They were building out a Greek steakhouse when I left. It sounded delicious, wonder how it is. There’s where the Dominick’s used to be until it burned to the ground one Sunday afternoon. I watched it burn from the deck of Monsignor Murphy’s across the street.

And here’s Murphy’s – my favorite watering hole. It sounds bad but most of my social life revolved around that place from the first time I went in there and Kenny served me up a Murphy’s Irish Stout until I left. There I met Susan. There I randomly ran into my good friend Chris Albu after having lost contact with him. There I met Albu’s friends Greg and Kenny who are now my dear friends. There I met Sexy Johnny, Adam, Ali and the rest of the crew. There I revived my career as a softball pitcher. There I had my going away party before coming to Peru. All my friends from my different walks of life were there to see me off - my basketball team, my co-workers, my friends from the neighborhood, my friends I made through Albu. Great, sometimes fuzzy, memories there at Murphy’s.

Let’s go check out the lake on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. Here’s Lincoln Park and the driving range that I hooked, sliced, topped and otherwise badly hit golf balls. There’s the field where our softball team would have “spring training” with its mud holes and lesbian rugby players tackling each other nearby. Here’s Belmont Harbor where old fat rich guys hang out on their fly-ass boats with hot gold diggers in teeny bikinis. Here’s the lakefront trail where I’d run or ride my bike in the evenings and on weekends.

Gotta go to Wrigleyville. I’m walking down Clark and here’s Sluggers where we’d go have “batting practice” before Cubs games with a couple of Old Styles served up by the other Sexy Johnny or but’erface. Now I’m standing in front of 1060 West Addison, home of my beloved Cubs, the Friendly Confines. Today there’s a 1:20 game against the lowly Pirates whom they can’t seem to beat this year. It’s 11 am but the streets are teaming with Cubs fans and Cubs drunks. You can feel the energy in the air even though the game doesn’t start for a couple of hours yet. I walk up under the marquis and look for “The Brick”, Albu’s tribute to his wedding day on 7/7/07. Chicago’s song “Saturday in the Park” going through my head.

I don’t know where I’ll be when this whole Peace Corps thing is over but know this Chicago, no matter where I end up you will always have a special place in my heart. I love you and I miss you dearly.

La Invación – The Invasion (Part I)

2010-05-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

On the morning of Cinco de Mayo, my generally excitable host mother was exceptionally excitable after she got back from the store. ¡Hay una invación! ¡Hay una invación! (There’s an invasion! There’s an invasion!) she kept saying as she grabbed her shit and ran out the door. I had no idea what she was talking about and followed her as far as the front door. I didn’t see any Red Dawn-type paratroopers so I stayed behind and watched her run/shuffle down the dirt road. She came back about an hour later, still excited, and tried to explain to me that a group of townsfolk had invaded a tract of unused land and that she’d grabbed three plots of land, one for her son, one for her father and one for her sister. I didn’t fully understand what she was saying in her excitement and still didn’t understand the explanation once she’d calmed down a bit. No entiendo (I don’t understand). So she told me to go check it out for myself – it was just up the road.

After breakfast, I walked down the road and turned up the street that leads out of town. I’d only walked about 5 minutes when I came across three make-shift huts built out of sticks and blue plastic sheeting (the kind I think the UN or the Red Cross give out after earthquakes but don’t quote me on that). I crested the hill and there were at least 50 of the little tepees made out of the same plastic sheeting, all with the Peruvian flag proudly flying. It sort of looked like a cheap refugee camp except people were smiling. I kept walking and, per usual, folks were hollering my name - Beto! I saw someone I knew and went to get the story from someone who was a little calmer than my host mother.

They explained to me that this tract of land had gone unused for at least 20 years so at midnight a group of folks just decided to up and take it. Each person claimed a little plot about 5 paces by 20 paces (theirs, not mine), built their little lean-tos and spent the night there. I walked to the next group and got the same story. How did they expect to get away with this? I asked in a more diplomatic way. Well, if the owner had the title and wanted to sell the land, they could negotiate and buy it from him/her. If the owner didn’t have the right documentation of ownership, they would go down to the municipality, get some kind of paperwork and apply for the title from the central government. And if the owner had proper title but didn’t want to sell? Well that scenario had people a little nervous.

Over night, they’d formed a Junta Directiva (committee) complete with a President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Fiscal (oversight person). They’d also contracted a lawyer to do battle over the legal issues. They told me to go ahead and grab a little patch of Peru and wait with them. As tempting as it was to finally be a property owner, I figured the Peace Corps would probably frown on that (even though I don’t think it 's expressly forbidden in my Peace Corps Peru Volunteer Handbook). Besides, they were standing there with machetes and sticks waiting for the cops and the owners to show up so I respectfully declined.

It’s not over yet. My host mom has slept the last three nights out at her little plot of invaded land. The cops showed up for a little but left. The owners have yet to show up. Word on the street is the supposed owners of the property are related to the Mayor who is up for re-election this year so this might be a ploy to garner votes since his approval rating (as measured by the Gossip Polls not the Gallup Polls) appears to be waning.

Stay tuned for Part II to La Invación

The Day I Wished I had my Camera

2010-05-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Usually I have my camera on me at all times because there’s no telling when some kind of crazy shit is going to go down or when I’m going to run into something I’ve never seen before, which is pretty much all the time. When I was in Lima about a month ago for a meeting, I went cruising around with a few friends and for whatever reason I left my camera back at the hostel. On a lark, we decided to go to the Parque de Aguas, a park that has all kinds of water fountains. According to the brochure, it’s in the Guinness Book of World Records for the park that has the most fountains in the world. I’m not going to say that they were the most impressive fountains I’ve ever seen. Fontana di Trevi in Rome, Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, the fountains at the Bellagio in Vegas - all more spectacular, it’s just this park had a ton of them in the same place. It might have been pretty romantic had I not been with a bunch of dudes. Anyway, missed photo op # 1.

When we were at the park, a Peace Corps buddy of mine called and said he had an extra ticket to an art opening. I was kind of done with the water park and the museum was right across the street so I agreed to meet him there. Turns out, this was the event to be at. All the upper crust of Lima society was there. When we first arrived, there was a ton of security, men in suits with ear pieces in their ears and talking into their sleeves, just like in the movies. Sure enough, we got in and the President of Peru, Alan Garcia was there. I got to within maybe 20 feet of him and tried to snap a pic with a borrowed camera. Missed photo op #2. The closest I’ve ever been to a president was George Bush, the elder one not the retard. I saw him at a grocery store in Houston buying dog food and Blue Bell ice cream just after he lost the election to Bill Clinton. His hair was greasy and disheveled, he was sun burnt and his shoes looked god-awful. But I digress. President Garcia was there for the inauguration as was Kate Moss. I didn’t see her but was told by some of the Peruvians that did see her that she looked like she’d been rode hard and put up wet (though they didn’t use that exact colloquialism).

The event was the grand-reopening of the Museo de Arte de Lima or Mali. The Mali had been closed the past couple of years for remodeling, a project that apparently had gone well over-schedule. As I said, anyone who was anyone in Lima was there and it was open bar. Men dressed in suits with silver trays walked through the crowd carrying bottles of fine whiskey. The bars served Pisco sours, top shelf mixed drinks and beer. All the beautiful people of Lima were dressed to the nines (except for us Peace Corps Volunteers and some low, so-called artists). We didn’t actually see any of the art except for a large what I would call a diorama, for lack of a better word, of famous buildings in Lima. The artist handed out cans of spray paint and markers and encouraged the patrons to paint whatever they wanted to on the buildings. President Garcia spray painted a heart on the Presidential Palace (from my angle it looked like a big ass). Everyone else hopped in and did their thing. The ventilation wasn’t exactly good in this room and the vapors were pretty strong. Kids these days with their huffing and their shoes. Missed photo op 3.

All and all, a great evening but no f*cking pictures.

Builders Beyond Borders

2010-04-30T05:14:00.000-07:00

Beto with the Maestros in San Antonio

B-3 Kids with the family in Bernales

B-3 in Bernales

One of the Peace Corps Peru’s Water & Sanitation Program goals is to help families have access to more sanitary conditions. Most of the smaller towns in my district don’t have waste water systems. Many of the families in those towns have basic, rudimentary latrines which the families may or may not use. A lot of times the families hacen sus necesidades en el campo abierto (do their thing in the field). This is not to say you’re walking through town dodging a minefield of human excrement but it’s clearly not a very sanitary practice and can result in all kinds of illnesses and diarrea particulary in children.

During the past three months, I’ve been helping out a couple of other Volunteers with latrine projects. We were working with a Connecticut-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) called Builders Beyond Borders (B-3). High school kids raise money to go on a week-long volunteer trip to countries in Latin America. The funds raised pay for their trip and for the materials and tools needed for the projects. The Peace Corps and B3 have been working together for a few years and the relationship makes a lot of sense - PC Volunteers know the needs of the communities, what the potential projects are, can facilitate the in-country organization, and will be around after the kids have gone back home to help the project be more sustainable. B-3 provides the funds, labor, energy and motivation.

I’ve been working on the latrine projects in the towns of San Antonio (sans Tony Parker, Tim Duncan and Mexicans) and Bernales building latrines. The first group was a little rough in that we as PC Volunteers were kind of unclear of our roles and B-3’s goals. There were also a few B-3 adult leaders that were kind of difficult to work with and some PC Volunteers that were kind of smug and full of themselves. The next two groups were fantastic! The kids interacted well with the Peruvian families despite their limited Spanish skills, worked their asses off and were fun to be around.

The latrines were built out of brick with tin or thatch/cement roofs and wooden doors. All had real toilets that would eventually be hooked into a sewer system. Some had a place for a shower and a sink. The families were excited to have the bathrooms installed and helped out with the construction. They also got a kick out of having about 40 gringos in their town at the same time and will likely talk about all the gringo kids for the rest of their lives. The kids from the US, who happened to be from one of the richest counties in the country, got to experience a different culture and see a manner of living completely different from their own.

Thanks to B-3 for all the good hard work!

Vacation in Arequipa

2010-04-16T20:33:00.001-07:00

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted last. Reason being I’ve been real busy which is a good thing. A bored volunteer is a miserable volunteer and a miserable volunteer quits before his/her service is done or does crazy shit like trying to organize local militias. “The horror… The horror…” So what have I been up to? I’ve been working on a bathroom/latrine project with high schoolers from the US. I've been at an English teaching workshop put on by the US Embassy. I’ve been to Lima a couple of times for some meetings, been writing my community diagnostic, and been on vacation. So let’s talk about vacation.

Susan came down for about a nine day visit. We spent a couple of days in Lima with some other friends of mine who happened to be in town at the same time for a wedding (always good getting a Big Red sighting in). We went to a cathedral near the center of town that had catacombs which were pretty cool. Susan got a necklace ripped off her neck by some thief as we were walking to Chinatown (bienvenido a El Peru).

Before Susan got here I hadn’t done any planning because I didn’t know if Machu Picchu, which is something everyone should see in their lifetime, was going to be open after some major flooding earlier in the year. I kind of wanted to take Susan to my site but that likely would have been too much for her since no one there speaks English and she doesn’t speak Spanish (plus there ain’t a whole hell of a lot to do there). So we decided to go down to the south of Peru to a place called Arequipa. She did see my site for all of a minute and a half during our 15 hour bus ride.

Arequipa is called the White City (the other White City) because many of the old Spanish colonial buildings in the center of town were constructed out of white blocks of volcanic rock. The center of town is beautiful and several large volcanoes, some active and steaming, loom in the distance. We visited an old monastery where nuns from well to do families were cloistered and lived a pretty posh, partying lifestyle until some agua fiestas (party pooper/killjoy) of a bureaucrat opened the place up for tourism and the nuns had to actually live like, well, nuns.

We were there during Semana Santa (the holy week leading up to Easter). There were many processions of people carrying litters with Jesus, Mary, and other saints followed by marching bands that sounded like they were playing the Texas Tech fight song (Go! Fight! Win! …And praise sweet baby Jesus!). There were no bunnies or dying of eggs that week for some odd reason. We sat there in a bar watching the processions pass in the street outside as the jukebox inside was playing “Sexy Bitch”. Kind of surreal.

On the third day, we rose from the dead and took a two day, one night tour to Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world. We saw llamas (pronounced “yamas” despite what my friend Ally from Chicago says), Alpacas (a related pack animal that’s tasty in steak form too), and Vicunas (small llama-like animals known for their fine, expensive wool).

We had an Italian lady on our bus who was either kind of crazy, a lot inconsiderate or a bit of both. A little ½ gringa ½ Peruvian girl on the tour said she looked like Willy Wonka, not the Gene Wilder variety but the creepy Johnny Depp type. At the first stop on the tour, we got out to look at some scenic something or another. When we got back on the bus, this crazy lady was sitting in my seat. She muttered something in half Italian, half Spanish and half English. Not knowing what the f&ck she was saying, I thought she might not be feeling well from the altitude so I let her sit there (leaving Susan without a translator). As the bus started off to our next destination, I realized that the crazy lady had thrown my hoodie on the floor behind her when she took my seat. I got f*cking pissed and stewed the whole way to our next stop. We all got off to look at whatever but I made sure I was the first one on the bus, reclaimed my seat, politely moved all her shit out into the middle of the aisle and dug in waiting for a confrontation. She looked at me kind of funny but knew I wasn’t moving so she sat on the front step of the bus. Turns out she didn’t have altitude sickness. She just said, in her words, “I’d prefer to sit here” - a kind of reverse Bartleby the Scrivener kind of thing. Long story short, she did this throughout the trip - bumping people out of their seats, pissing them off, and saying “I’d prefer to sit here”. A very nice Spanish man gave her a piece of his mind but it didn’t get all dark European history on her like I’d hoped he would.

Anyway, the canyon was cool. We sat in thermal baths, caught up with some Peace Corps Volunteers, saw some big-ass condors with about a 3 meter (9 foot) wingspan, and missed out on a violent miner's strike. When we got back to Lima, we went to my favorite local sports bar and watched Michigan State get bounced out of the NCAA tournament by Butler – an unfortunate ending to an otherwise great vacation.

Posts

2010-04-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

To quote Sammy Sosa, phonetically speaking, "Ay apalayayze too mai fangs". I've not posted anything in quite some time now. Reason being I've been really busy. Which is a good thing. Most new volunteers in their posts complain of boredom. I've been everything but bored. Which, again, is a good thing.

Some posts in the near future - updates on some projects I've been working on, my vacation in Arequipa, and my brush with the President of Peru, Alan Garcia. Stay tuned. And again Ay apalayayaze.

The Cubs

2010-03-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

“Chicago Baseball is on the air! From Wrigley Field in Chicago, it’s the Chicago Cubs versus the Saint Louis Cardinals” – Pat Hughes, Play by Play Announcer Extraordinaire. With spring training games starting and 30 days left to Opening Day, one of the things I’ll miss most the next two years is watching my beloved Cubs at the beautiful Friendly Confines, listening to them on WGN AM-720, and reading Gordon Whittenmeyer’s columns in the Chicago Sun-Times. I’ll miss freezing my ass off in the stands on Opening Day, sitting in the bleachers in the sun on warm summer weekdays, singing during the 7th inning stretch, having a few beers and dogs with good friends, jawing with Sox and Cardinals fans, and watching my beloved Cubs blow yet another golden opportunity to go to the World Series. If they somehow do manage to make it to the World Series this year, I'll see everyone in Chicago in October for one hell of a party!

But it’s not all bad. I do have internet in my house, found a website that streams live games for free and should have time to watch a game or two. I also got my host brother to start wearing a Cubs hat. Up until Monday, he was wearing a cheap Sox hat but I told him that was pretty low and kind of ghetto so I had my dear friend Chris Albu bring him one. He was very excited and sports it proudly now. At least he wasn’t wearing Cardinals gear – after all, he’s not moron.

Nazca Lines Part III

2010-02-24T20:13:00.000-08:00

I just heard about a documentary on the Nazca lines on National Geographic Channel. It's called Nasca Lines: Buried Secrets. I haven't seen it and don't have cable but the trailer looks pretty sweet (very dramatic music) Check it out the show and let me know what you think so I can go out and try to find a pirated copy of it in the market.

Here's a link to the trailer and more info about the show: http://www.edgewest.com/?p=102

Here's when it's running.
2/25, 7 PM EST
2/25, 10 PM EST
2/28, 12 PM EST
3/4, 3 PM EST

If they show a hil top with three big triangles, I live in the small town that's right next to them.

I’m not an English Teacher but I Play One in Peru

2010-02-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

My primary job function here en el Perú is to provide technical support in the matters of water and sanitation but that’s only one of the goals of Peace Corps. The other two goals are to provide Americans with a better understanding of the people of Peru (which is what I hope to accomplish with this blog) and to provide Peruvians with a better understanding of Americans (which is what I hope to accomplish by being here in their country). Having said that, I can only write a dopey blog for so long and the technical aspects of this job are going to take a little bit to get going.

So I’m left with Goal 3 and, well, a lot of time on my hands. In the mean time I’m teaching English which is a pretty huge skill to have if you’re Peruvian. All the foreigners that come to Perú as tourists or to do business, whether they’re from Europe, Asia or wherever, communicate with the locals in English. I suppose English now is kind of like Latin was back in the day before it became completely irrelevant to everyone except pedantic academics and doctors.

Anyway I’ve started teaching English Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the evenings. The class was organized by a guy from the Instituto (a community college essentially) for the kids studying tourism. The class started out with 3 students. I had no idea where they were proficiency-wise so the first class we walked around describing things in English to see where they were at (I know, a dangling preposition but I’m not an English teacher so LAY OFF). They spoke a little but not very well at all.

The second class doubled in size and the third doubled from there. The class last night had about 20 people in it, two of the original tourism students and the rest high school and elementary school kids. I didn’t expect to have a class ranging from a 4 year old who could barely speak Spanish to a 27 year old who can kind of get by with his English. I’d planned a fun class with a body parts game and a family relationships game using The Simpsons but my plans went right down the shitter when 16 kids hadn’t had any English at all. I winged it and came up with another lesson plan on the fly. I don’t feel like it went very well but under the circumstances... I am planning on taking a course on how to teach English that’s being put on by the US Embassy next month so hopefully that will give me a little more direction.

There were also a four junior high age boys sitting in the back of the class f*cking off the whole time. Remind me again why I’m not a parent or a teacher?

Random Encounters with Ancient Cultures

2010-02-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

You can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting some sort of ruin, geoglyph, petroglyph or other mark left behind by some ancient culture that was doing its thing well before Columbus and his asshole buddies barged into the New World uninvited. Last Saturday I worked at a faena, a community cleanup/improvement event, in a town in my district. After the work was done, I was sitting around eating chicharron de chancho (mmmm…. fried pork…) at the Governor’s house when he told me there were ruins up the way from his house. Even though the sun was blazing and it was hotter’n shit out, I wanted to go take a look and the Governor’s son was kind enough to take me. Up the dirt road toward the sierra and around the bend were the ruins of rock walls of an ancient pueblo perched on the side of the hill.

Earlier in the week, I went for a run up the sierra separating Rio Grande and Palpa and along the flat pampa toward Pinchango, the tallest mountain in my department (state). As I was running along the pampa, I noticed that there were ruins of rock walls of what looked to be houses. Outside some of the houses were flat rocks that I assume the ancient folk used as surface to crush corn and whatever else with round river rocks. My reason for thinking this is my host mother has one of these out back of the house where she periodically crushes up various ingredients to make a tasty cheese sauce and potato dish called Papas a la Huancaina.

Last week my site mate and I went over to visit a little pueblo in her district and walked up the sierra to the pampa. Again, Nazca lines all over the place. You couldn’t tell what they were but it was still pretty cool walking with the neighborhood kids, eating mangoes and enjoying the cool evening breeze on geoglyphs created just after the fall of the Roman Empire.

Yesterday, a 3rd year volunteer and I went walking down the ways a bit from my town and found a geoglyph called El Tumi on the side of a hill. El Tumi was a pre-Columbian ceremonial knife that some folks say were used to cut the necks of prisoners.

Nazca, which is about 45 minutes south of me, gets all the tourists (and their dollars) but there’s some pretty cool shit right here in my 'hood.

Albert Baldwin Williams IV, AKA Win, AKA Beto

2010-02-09T18:35:00.000-08:00

Here in Peru, everyone has a chapa (nickname). I’m not exactly sure when you pick up your nickname but it’s generally based on your appearance. If you’re chubby, you’re going to be called Gordo or Gorda the rest of your life. It doesn’t seem to affect Fatty’s self esteem, it’s just his/her name. If you’re skinny, flaco. If you’re short, chato. If you have kind of slanty eyes, Chino. If your face looks like a sock, Cara de Media. It doesn’t always go on appearances. One of the guys I work with is called Chacalon after a famous Peruvian crooner from back in the day (talent skips a generation here too because Chacalon Jr., son of the singer, just got arrested with guns and drugs). If they’re fond of you, they’ll add –ito to the end. Gordito, Flacito, Betito.

I guess nicknames are special to me in that no one ever, ever calls me by my real name Albert except when followed by the phrase “… step out of the vehicle please”. Here, rather than going by the name Win, which is hard for them to pronounce and I don’t want to explain my name to everyone I meet, I go by Beto. Why Beto? When I was born, my folks were trying to come up with a nickname for me since Albert III and Albert Jr. were still around. My grandmother, a Mexican woman of German descent, wanted to call me Beto, short for Alberto. My mother the gringa would have nothing to do with having her first born run around with a Mexican name so I got the nickname Win, short for Baldwin. I’m not sure why it took my mom well over 30 years to tell me this but since then, all my closest friends who speak Spanish all call me Beto. And here in el Peru, everyone hollers out “Beto!” when I’m walking through the town. Well Mom, you may have won the war, but your dear mother in law is winning this battle for now.

A couple of theories regarding chapas floated around by some of the volunteers here 1) You’ve lived in the same town with the same people all your life and you can’t remember their real name and are too embarrassed to ask what it is after all these years so you call ‘em Fatty. 2) In a town with 59 different Juans, you have to differentiate somehow between them. 3) Personally, I think they use nicknames just because they’re a lot more fun than the boring-ass name your parents saddled you with - Albert Baldwin Williams IV, for instance.

Mosquitoes

2010-02-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

Is there really anything more satisfying than killing a mosquito? As a kid in Venezuela I remember the joy of finally being tall enough to be able to jump up and touch the ceiling. The ceiling is where the mosquitoes hung out so it was too much to ask a kid not to take a flying leap and squish the little bastards good. Unfortunately the ceiling was white, the bugs were black, and their blood (formerly ours) was red so it made for some interesting interior decorating. - Cela, love the paint job in your kitchen. Thanks, I was watching the Venezuelan HGTV channel but all they showed was bullfighting in black and white so this is what you get. The kids helped. Thank god we rent the joint.

But back to Peru - Those little pricks have been flying around my room all night waiting for their chance to stick their creepy little beaks in me for a Big Gulp of O Pos. All night I hear the humming, a high pitch buzz. How many are there? Squadrons being launched from some floating fortress in the desert. Tora! Tora! Tora! Land of the rising sun bandanas and kamikaze missions. I’m hot and tired and starting to doze off. They know this and begin their attacks. A little prick here around the ankle, here’s a spot right on the thumb. Looks like a dangerous place to grab a drink but what the f#ck they’re going to feast on the very thing that separates this guy from the rest of the animal kingdom. Here’s another spot right on his side. And so it goes most of the evening, until it’s cool enough to take cover under the covers.

Well, you little kamikaze pricks, it’s my turn. You’ve feasted all night but why do you have to leave so soon? You’re trying to fly out, full, toward the cold, gray light of dawn back to your coffins or wherever you spend your vampiric nights. But you can’t leave - the screens on my windows won’t let you. Well my dear dive-bombing d#ckheads, it’s my turn now. This is so easy, so fun, and so rewarding. Select victim, place finger on it’s back and apply just a little pressure. There are so many but I don’t have anything planned for a while…

I wish my finger made an irritating buzzing sound to let them know what’s in store for them.

La Hora Peruana

2010-01-29T08:56:00.000-08:00

One of the biggests frustrations here in Peru is La Hora Peruana (Peruvian Time). If you set an appointment, charla, meeting, etc. for a certain time, it will almost certainly start late, if it starts at all. I get it - it’s a lot more relaxed, tranquilo way of life and they’re not slaves to the clock like we are. But damn can it be frustrating! Things to do while waiting for your meeting – play Tetris on your cell phone (high score – >73,000), read a book, bullshit with other people waiting for their meeting to start, talk to someone about how hot it is, go back home & check emails & come back (sometimes 2 or 3 times), avoid looking at the woman breast feeding right in front of you, wonder what’s for lunch, look at the clouds (when available) and decide what kind of animal they look like, meditate, stare at the mountain across the valley, plan a vacation, call fellow Peace Corps Volunteers (they're probably waiting on something too), work on your dopey blog that no one reads anyway, say “f*ck it” and start on time.

One of my first assignments in Spanish class during training was to go out and interview people about what the Hora Peruana meant to them. Nearly all said it meant waiting and starting about 30 minutes to an hour after the scheduled time. One electrician I interviewed in the street replied very adamantly that the Hora Peruana means things start “en punto” (on the dot, right on time). Of course he had been ringing the doorbell of a house for about 15 minutes waiting for someone to show up for their appointment.

Maybe Peruvians would make good Cable Guys?

Peruvian Dog

2010-01-29T08:10:00.000-08:00

The Peruvian Dog is a hairless dog that kind of looks like a bald chihuahua or Ren ("Stimpy yoo eediot") except a little bigger. The owner of a hostel I stay at in Lima brings her Peruvian Dog Gordito by the hostel whenever she comes by. It has dark skin with freckles and a patch of wiry, strawberry blonde hair on his head. The Peruvian Dog has been revered for a while as evidenced by Pre-Incan ceramics. The hostel owner is very fond of her precious dog and goes on about how pretty her dog is. It was a very friendly dog, but pretty???

When you pet the dog it feels like you’re rubbing an old man with dry skin and a sunburn.

Rio Grande nearly claims another mojado

2010-01-28T18:07:00.000-08:00

Today felt like a full-on Peace Corps day. I went up the valley to do some enquestas (surveys) and check out the water systems of some of the smaller pueblos. We got about halfway up the valley when we came across the first Rio Grande Crossing. It’s raining up in the sierra now so the water was too high to cross in the Datsun station wagon we were riding in. Fortunately, a front-end loader was crossing the river and going up the way a bit so the driver, a Spaniard, a representative from the municipality and I hopped into the bucket and they took us up the rest of the way.

At the second river crossing we came across a truck that was stuck in the middle of the river. Three days ago, the truck was loaded down with a large Ingersoll Rand air compressor and a bunch of bed frames and mattresses headed for a mine upstream. Today, mattresses and frames littered the roadside and the truck sat in the river waiting for the Caterpillar (the Pride of Peoria) to pull it out before both the truck and the air compressor were lost.

The operator of the front end loader started moving rocks around and tried to lift the truck out with a chain attached to one of the teeth on the bucket. Of course that didn’t work. We watched for a while to see how this “mission imposible” was going to turn out but had work to do. I saw the truck the next day being hauled off in a flat-bed 18 wheeler. No compressor or beds (presumably the miners are sleeping on the ground and pounding at rocks with hammers and spikes).

After doing our work, we caught a ride back in a buster-ass Nissan Sentra with a borrowed battery and borrowed life to the manual cable car crossing. The representative from the municipality took notes of all the things the cable car needed – a couple of new pulleys, grease for maintenance, a rope.

A floor I added as I stepped into the rusted out bucket.

Peruvian Food

2010-01-15T07:17:00.000-08:00

Chicken noodle soup for the soul?
Pachamanca a la tierra - Under this blessed mound, meat, potatoes and spices are being cooked over hot rocks. Real pit barbeque!

Pachamanca - Soup's on!

I remember applying to the Peace Corps and thinking what would the food be like in one of these strange, exotic places. Would I be eating monkey brain on the half shell, ox dick soup, fried fish sphincter? Would I share a moment of laughter and humility with my host family after biting into a sheep’s eyeball squirting the juice all over myself? Fortunately and unfortunately, no. I haven’t eaten anything that exotic. I did have a bite of cuy (guinea pig) at a food tasting and did have soup with an entire chicken foot and hearts, liver, and gizzards in a pension with thatch walls and roof. But other than that nothing too exotic.

When I got my assignment for Peru, I looked on Wikipedia to see what kind of food they eat here. First on the list – sweet potatoes. I thought to myself “F#ck! The one food on the planet I detest, they have 32,000 varieties of.” Thankfully I’ve only had to choke down sweet potatoes a handful of times since I’ve been here and I’m getting used to them poco a poco.

The typical daily Peruvian diet is pretty basic – rice, potatoes, and chicken. Fortunately it’s served up in a variety of ways so it doesn’t seem like you’re eating the same thing every day.

Breakfast – A typical breakfast for me these days includes some small rolls baked fresh daily at the local bakery with some avena - a runny, sweet oatmeal. I have had full-on fried pork chops with rice and sweet potatoes, rice with diced onion and tuna fish, spaghetti with a red sauce, fruit salad, and bread with olives (watch those pits) for breakfast. It’s no sausage and egg McMuffin, coffee and hash browns but it gets me through to lunch and is probably better for me.

Lunch is the main meal of the day here in Peru. I eat at a pension for lunch. A pension is a restaurant where the locals eat on a daily basis, the owner of the pension keeps track of the meals you eat and you pay at the end of the month. Lunch starts off with a bowl of hot soup, generally some variety of chicken noodle soup with a squeeze of lime and a little spoonful of spicy aji sauce to give it a kick. The soups are pretty tasty but when it’s 100 degrees out, beads of sweat start to develop on my forehead (which of course extends all the way to the back of my skull). Segundo (2nd course) - chicken, rice, and potatoes in its various forms.

Occasionally beef is substituted for the chicken.

On these days I get excited for the beef but am reminded straight away that the beef here is, well… it sucks to be perfectly frank. I’ve taken up eating fried beef liver from time to time not because I particularly like liver but it’s a change of pace and has something by body seems to be craving (likely iron).

Dinner- Variation on lunch except without the soup

Some of my favorite Peruvian dishes: Pachamanca - various kinds of meats, potatoes and spices cooked over hot rocks all buried in the ground for several hours. This is a meal that takes many hours to prepare so it’s for special events and is similar to our Thanksgiving feast. I’ve had it a couple of times (once for Thanksgiving) and both times it has been absolutely phenomenal! Sopa seca con carapulcra – spaghetti tossed in a kind of pesto sauce with a side of a dried potato in a tangy reddish sauce. Cebiche – raw fish, onion and aji “cooked” with freshly squeezed lime juice. The juice at the bottom of the glass when you’re done is called Leche de Tigre which is supposed to be good for hang-overs and your sex drive (there’s a number of ways I could go with this but since my conservative Texas family’s reading…). Anticuchos - Grilled slices of beef heart on a skewer with a side of aji sauce.

Overall the food here tastes pretty good and there’s not a whole lot of picking at it with a fork wondering what the f*ck it is and where you’re going to spit it out when the family’s not looking. If the food here would have been inedible, I would have employed the method used by my cousin Jay when he was a kid in the Phillipines – store the food up in one or both cheeks during dinner, spit the wad out in a paper napkin, and toss the paper napkin on roof after dinner. Thankfully I don’t have to do that since the clothes lines and the cats are on the roof.

Peace Corps Weight Loss Program

2010-01-12T06:33:00.000-08:00

I’ve been getting a lot of comments lately on how I look like I’ve lost a lot of weight. I have lost a lot of weight but I was kind of fattening up before I left eating pizza, burritos, McDonalds and whatever else I didn’t think I would be able to get here. That and I drank a lot of beer with the folks I wasn’t going to see for a while. I was probably 235 - 240 when I left but that was kind of an inflated figure (so to speak). My normal weight before was about 220-225.

Since I’ve been in Peru, I’ve lost about 50 pounds (I'm at 190 now), much of it muscle weight. This is in spite of eating a ton of carbohydrates – rice and potatoes nearly every meal. The reason I think I’ve lost so much weight is because I haven’t been working out on a consistent basis, I don’t eat near the amount of protein I did in the US and the overall stress of adjusting to new food and a new life style has done a number on my appetite. Since I’ve been at site, I haven’t been eating as well as I should just because I don’t feel like eating a big meal when it’s hot (and it’s always hot) or my stomach has been jacked up.

But don’t worry Mom. I’ve adjusted to the food and way of life, I’m adjusting to the heat, I’ve been working out again and my digestive system is back to normal. My appetite is back in full force so I expect I’ll be putting some weight back on. Also, the mall in my capital city just opened up a Pizza Hut, KFC and what appears to be a Mexican restaurant with enchiladas so I hope to bulk up a bit.

I’d buy that weight gainer shit that I used in high school but it didn’t work then and I doubt it’ll work now.

Nazca Lines - Part II

2010-01-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

When I first got to site, I took a walk along the top of the cerro that separates Palpa and Rio Grande with my site mate Jess and Muñante, a guy from the municipality. As we were walking on the top of the cerro, it was apparent that we were walking along Nazca lines. Turns out they were giant triangles with parallel lines. There is also a design of a whale up there but you can´t see them in this picture. My town is in the upper right hand corner. A caserillo in Jess’ district is on the left.

Christmas Day

2010-01-04T13:21:00.001-08:00

My host family here spends Christmas mourning the death of a son they lost several years ago by spending the day in bed and not doing much. Being in a somewhat delicate emotional state, I couldn’t spend my Christmas that way so I headed to Lima for the night. A good friend of mine from Chicago, Chris Albu, gave me a sweet gift – a free night at a nice hotel. I spent the day hanging with a friend, sleeping in a comfortable bed, taking multiple hot showers, and watching the occasional paraglider slip pass my window that overlooked the Pacific Ocean.

Although I wasn’t in Texas enjoying a white Christmas (the first since the 1920’s) with my family, it will certainly be one of my more memorable Christmases, albeit not very Peace Corps.

Thanks Chris – you’re the best!

Merry Christmas from Peru

2009-12-23T08:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the municipality delivered gifts, chocolate and cakes to all the kids in the district of Rio Grande. I went along for the ride to meet the folks in my district and to see what Christmas is all about in the remote areas of Peru. After some hemming and hawing and waiting we left at the Hora Peruana (more than an hour late). The mayor, a couple of the town regidores (representatives), a clown, a couple of kids and I hopped into a dump truck with boxes of toys for boys and girls and headed off to Pampa Blanca about 42 kilometers away, the furthest little pueblo in my district. The road started off OK and was paved but after we made the first river crossing about halfway to Pampa Blanca it was just a dusty, gravelly dirt road. A short 25 miles took over 2 hours and I´m probably 2 inches shorter than I was before we started off. When we got close to Pampa Blanca, the driver hopped out, donned a Santa Suit and hopped into the bed of the truck with the clown and the two kids.

I’d been out to Pampa Blanca the night before for a primary school graduation. The remote town makes its living off dirt farming, cattle and mining. Apparently back in the day, they would pull out kilos of gold at a time out of the hills surrounding the town. Now they scrap together a little golddust at a time by grinding rock with a giant stone, adding mercury to the sludge and drying it. I’m not sure where they dump the sludge and waste excess water but I’m pretty sure it just goes right into the river.

Anyway, when we pulled up, all the kids playing futbol on the dirt pitch above came running down the rocky hillside after the truck. The clown put on a little show, gave out presents with Papa Noel (Santa), and we drank hot chocolate. The children were so precious and so grateful. It really melted my heart and stirred up some paternal instinct that I’ve managed to bury for all these years (Don’t get all worked up mom, I’m over it today).

I little different than the crass commercialism and excess I´m used to.

Gap Analysis

2009-12-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

How´d you like to shit in this?

OK. Training is over. I’m a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now what? I’m here at my site and it’s time to begin work. I’m in the Water and Sanitation (WatSan!) group. Our main program goals here in Peru are to 1 – help improve access to and quality of water in my district; 2 – help improve hygiene practices; and 3 – help organize and train local organizations to improve water and sanitation services. Some of my principal activities will include training people in charge of their water and sanitation services, working with families to improve sanitation (building latrines, waste water systems) and working with various community organizations to develop sustainable waste management, water and sanitation systems.

Since I don’t know shit about my district I’ll be working on a three month Community Diagnostic which I’m going to call a "Gap Analysis". A former boss of mine "rebranded" the term Gap Analysis so I feel like I have to re-rebrand it here. The first step in any consulting process is to figure out what’s working and what’s not (assuming you don´t have agree on a fee but my shit´s free). That’s done by interviewing basically everyone who’ll talk to you –leaders of the community, members of local organizations, families, etc. From there you can identify the needs of the community and, with their input, develop solutions and strategies. Consulting 101.

I’ve already recruited about a dozen nursing students (not as hot as it sounds) to help me out with the surveys and the interviews. Last week we went to a small annex about an hour and a half up the valley from my town. The students did the interviews while I met with the Presidente del Comite de Agua Potable and checked out their water system. We found that the town did have access to potable water via communal spigots but there was no maintenance to the system and worms were coming out of the taps. Most families had rudimentary latrines but preferred to do their business al campo (in the woods were there trees). There is no solid waste collection or recycling and people burn their trash.

Some possible projects - building proper latrines, training the water committee on proper maintenance and disinfection of their system and organizing a recycling/waste collection process.

Feriado

2009-12-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

Integrating is hard.

Tuesday was a national holiday celebrating some battle or patron saint or something. I never got a good bead on what we were celebrating but a day off is a day off and I wasn’t bombarded with mattress sale commercials. Government entities, schools, universities and some businesses had the day off and there were military parades in Lima showing off the fleet of new Chinese tanks the Peruvian Army just bought (get your shit together Northrup-Grumman). It was also a day of first communion for the children in my area. I’d been invited to go to the farthest annex in my district to celebrate the occasion but didn’t end up going. Just as well – my back was sore from lying in bed all day Sunday sick and being crammed in a little car with four other people bouncing up and down on dirt roads for two hours would have been la muerte. My site mate was going to a 1st communion celebration in my neck of the woods so I tagged along.

We went to a house in one of the annexes in my district. The house was kind of rustic with plastered adobe walls, a dirt floor and a thatch roof but after a couple of hours sitting around a Peruvian drinking circle and shooting the shit it felt like home. We had a nice “catered” lunch delivered in to us in a large pot with a wheelbarrow. My stomach was still a little dicey and I was reluctant to eat anything from a wheel barrow but damn was it good. The menu included arroz verde con pollo (chicken and green rice) and Papas a la Huancaina (sliced potatoes covered in a yellow, spicy cream sauce).

After drinking a few more beers, we all packed up and headed down to the river for a dip. There was a nice deep pool with shade and a sandy river bottom so we hung out in there, continued drinking beer and had little contests to see who could hold their breath underwater the longest. The kids ran around and caught minnows.

While I was sitting there in the river, I wondered what I would have been doing at 2:30 in Chicago on a Tuesday afternoon. Probably sitting at my desk, worrying about hitting my sales goal, fretting about Christmas shopping, and freezing my ass off heading to the El to go home later. Despite the jacked up back, the touch and go intestinal situation, and uncertainty of what exactly I’ll be doing here the next two years, I was happy life brought me to this place, hanging out in the Rio Grande with my site mate, Loco, Conejo, Negro, Pablo and Beatriz and all the kids.

Matrimonio Massivo

2009-12-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was invited to join the mayor, his wife and my host mother to four weddings (no funeral) in one of the annexes in our district. The wedding ceremony was more of a legal proceeding under a thatch roof with a dog lying on the ground rather than some extravaganza at a church with white gowns, ushers, and bride’s maids in bad dresses that can’t be worn more than once (despite what the bride says).

My host mom is the civil register in our district. She registers births, weddings, deaths, etc. During the wedding, the civil register reads from something that looks like a bible but is in fact a book of regulations, the brides and grooms agree to follow the law and then paperwork is signed. Each couple needs two witnesses that have to have an official Peruvian identification card. Things were going well until the last groom couldn’t find a witness who had the right form of ID. Someone said get the gringo to do it. I had my passport so I acted as his witness and signed the poor kid’s life away.

The mayor said some words and my host mom announced you may now kiss your brides. Turns out that no one except for one couple wanted to kiss, at least not publicly. It didn’t help that my host mom goaded them on, made them go one by one, and told them that everyone was watching. It was a momento incomodo (awkward moment).

Afterwards we ate lunch and I got sicker’n shit the next day.

It’s Official – I Hate Huayno Music

2009-12-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

Time – 6:15am Saturday morning when my fastidious house mom from the sierra cranked the shit up at full volume. I don’t think I’m being culturally insensitive, Huayno´s just not my thing. I also hate most rap and nearly all new Nashville country music. I don’t have anything against dazzling urbanites or rednecks, their music’s just not for me that’s all.

Huayno music is the traditional music from the sierra. Nearly every song sounds the same with an odd two-two (?) syncopated beat. Some of the folksier stuff actually sounds pretty good with a guitar, one of those big, bad-ass bass guitars that mariachi’s play and a small stringed instrument that sounds like a cross between a ukulele and mandolin. Most of the songs are sung in Quechua, the indigenous language of the sierra.

It’s the Huayno with the accordion and the high-pitched nasally woman lead singer that makes me want to stick a pen in my ear drums if the volume doesn’t burst them first.

Peace Corps’ Hard

2009-12-05T07:49:00.000-08:00

Today, after I met with the mayor of my town and did a walkthrough of my community as part of my community diagnostic, I went to a local high school along with my site mate and her host mother. We were Jurados de un Concurso Interno de Platos Tipicos (Judges in a Traditional Peruvian Food Competition). Finally, all those countless, seemingly wasted hours watching the Food Network paid off. We, the judges, tasted 14 dishes typical to various areas of Peru, the coast, the sierra and the selva. The plates were prepared by the students who gave us an explanation of how the food was cooked and what region it was from. The plates included Aji de Gallina (a spicy chicken dish), cabrito (goat), a couple of types of cuy (guinea pig), chuletas de cerdo (pork chops) and Jalea de Mariscos (seafood medley).

The plates were judged on five criteria: utilization of local foods, creativity, nutritional value, hygiene, and presentation. All of the plates were delicious and many of the students worked hard on plating and presentation which would have made Emeril proud. Some of the plates were served with wine and Pisco, a local liquor made out of grapes. I thought is was a bit odd being served a hard liquor by a 15 year old high school student at twelve in the afternoon but I’m just a dopey, culturally unaware American so what do I know. The winner…. Jalea de Mariscos (seafood featuring the locally renowned crawfish), some kind of chicken dish placed, and Cuy en Salsa de Mani showed.

Afterwards, I was walking down the street looking for a place to get a key made and a group of school girls from the losing classes passed by and started wearing me out about the judges’ selections. Seems they didn’t feel that the mariscos plate was a typical or traditional Peruvian dish. I had to remind them that in our district, camarones are king. One of the girls who was in the winning class agreed whole-heartedly and taunted her friends with what I took to be the Peruvian equivalent of “You got served bitch!” The others stood their ground and kept arguing but I was done and told them to take it up with the gringa that lives down the street.

Passing the buck…Works here too.

Nazca Lines

2009-11-26T09:48:00.000-08:00

My town is located in a river valley that is flanked by a pretty high cerro on one side and a smaller less imposing cerro on the other. Being somewhat adventurous and fairly lazy, I asked one of the guys from the municipality if he wanted to take a hike up to the top of the smaller, closer cerro to see what’s up there and get a nice panoramic view of the area. He was more than willing and eager to be my guide even though he’s lived here a third of his life and never climbed up there himself. My site mate was also down for a little hike so the three of us waited until it wasn’t hot as hell, found a little trail and started up the hill.

From the top of the hill, there were gorgeous views of both our towns and the green river valleys below. The top of the hill was very flat with light beige dirt littered with dark colored rocks. As we walked along the top of the hill, it became evident that there were walking among ancient Nazca lines. There were small, straight paths bisecting large cleared out areas that, to me, looked like makeshift runways. The Nazca lines were large figures drawn in the dirt by a pre-Incan civilization called the Nazcas to either pay homage to their gods or communicate with extraterrestrials (I’m a big fan of the latter theory). They created these designs in the light colored dirt by picking out the dark colored rocks and tossing them off to the side. The only way to appreciate these geoglyphs is by viewing them from a high vantage point like an airplane, a technology that, to the best of my knowledge, wasn’t available to them at the time.

There are signs on the side of the highway that point to a Nazca sun dial so we walked towards where we thought it was and found a great view of the geoglyph. It’s a formation about the size of half a football field that to me looked kind of like an owl with parallel lines for the body, two trapezoidal eyes and an off-center beak. We found out later that the design was more likely some sort of woven tapestry with a couple of needles. It’s one of the few geoglyphs in the area that can be viewed without renting a plane.

The next day my site mate and I went to the museum in her town and saw all the geoglyphs on a 3-D depiction of the area. Turns out that on the top of our hill there is a pretty intricate design of a whale and the landing strip we saw is part of a series of massive triangles that extend all along the cerro.

Also on the side of the hill, was a large modern geoglyph that read “85 APRA” which was election propaganda in 1985 for the current president’s disastrous first term when the economy went to total shit. Theory #3 - maybe the Nazca’s were just running for office instead of signaling their gods. Since they all disappeared, it looks like they had bigger problems than quadruple digit hyperinflation.

Swearing In

2009-11-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

Well, training is finally over and it’s off to our sites for good. Fifty-eight of us were in our class, one couldn’t get on the plane to DC and three others dropped out along the way. Some of us are heading up north to Tumbes, on the border with Ecuador, as far south as Arequipa, and into the sierra, some to altitudes of over 4000 meters.

The swearing-in ceremony had the pomp and circumstance of any other type of graduation with a red, white, and blue tent-like thing that screamed America (f*ck yeah!), national anthems and speeches. I represented our class and had to give a little speech in Spanish that probably sounded a lot like a nervous gringo with a bad accent and nothing worthwhile to say but I think it went OK and got nice compliments afterward.

A friend of mine, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, sent me a text when I was still at staging in Washington DC that said, “When you get to DC, take second and look at your group. This group of strangers will wind up being your best friends for the rest of your life”. As I spoke to the group, I saw the future leaders of the US - congressmen, diplomats, entrepreneurs, contractors, professors, parents, authors, reporters and I was proud to be a part of it. Ten weeks of training doesn’t make a “best friend” but toiling together for a couple of years in the deserts, mountains, coasts, sharing the bullshit experiences as well as the victories, and maybe a chelita or two along the way, will.

I look forward to the next two years and am curious to see how we’ll all come out on the other end.

Cock Fights

2009-11-18T18:23:00.000-08:00

If you’re an animal rights activist, member of PETA, a bleeding heart liberal, vegetarian, vegan or otherwise just a pussy, don’t bother reading this. It’ll likely just piss you off.

Saturday night was meant to kick back in the pool hall of my quiet town with a fellow volunteer that’s up the road a piece. Instead, I got a message to see if I wanted to go to the cockfights in her city instead. Despite my misgivings, I couldn’t say no because cockfighting is a big part of the culture in my area, sounded wildly entertaining and a great opportunity to integrate into my community which has a cock-fighting coliseum between the school and the church.

Now the word cockfight conjures up all kinds of images - some dark, smoky back-alley hall filled with sweaty, dangerous looking Mexicans. Turns out there were no Mexicans or any other shifty-eyed lowlifes at this cockfight. It was very much a family event - little kids, teens, adults, dates all out on a Saturday night. The cockfighting coliseum had a center circular ring about ten meters in diameter surrounded by chicken wire and lit up overhead by a matrix of fluorescent lights. The fans sat on concrete bleachers. By the entrance, the cock paddocks, for lack of a better word, and a place to buy sandwiches and chelitas (cold-ones). The bathrooms had Wrigley-style troughs but made of concrete. The fans were just as drunk but less annoying and there were no dopey Cardinals fans.

The way a cockfight works, the juez (judge) rings a bell and the PA announcer calls the contenders to the ring. The cocks literally strut their stuff to give the folks in the stands a chance to figure out who they want to bet on and then the soltadores (handlers) take the cocks to their sides. A corredor walks around the center of the ring pointing into the stands and calling out for bets. Bet on Izquierda or Derecha (Left or Right). Of course you can always make side bets with the folks you’re sitting next to. I broke from my betting no more than one American dollar rule and made side bets of 10 soles with the drunk sitting in front of me and actually walked away with a little bank. Quite frankly it was a lot more exciting than passing the cup at Wrigley.

The amarradores (tiers) then choose a razor sharp blade out of their case and tie it to the rooster’s leg. The juez walks to the center of the ring, draws a couple of lines in the dirt, and puts up a small, plastic, hand held barrier. The soltadores put their cocks down on each side of the barrier, the juez removes the separator and everyone clears out quickly. Then nothing. Two cocks standing around in the center of the ring. Some clucking, a crow here and there, maybe pecking at the dirt, but otherwise nothing. Complete silence in the stands. Then the cocks see each other and it’s on. They crouch down, ruffle their neck and tail feathers, spring about a meter in the air and go at it. Wings, talons, knives, beaks, all flailing until one is lying on the ground with its beak in the dirt. And in the end it’s just feathers and blood. The soltadores pick up their cocks, one dead or dying, the other alive or dying. The corredor walks the perimeter settling up his bets and picking up feathers.

The seventh-inning stretch was a stand-up comedian who started off by picking on people in the audience ala Ron Rickels and went into some other material that I didn’t understand. Thank God he didn’t spot the two gringos sitting near the top.

I have to admit it was a little rough watching the first couple of fights and the one where the white cock got his ass kicked and they dragged him off all dead and bloody. But it was a hell of a lot more entertaining (and cheaper) than going to the movie theater to watch some dopey movie where America (fuck yeah!) saves the day or someone falls in love with Hugh Grant again.

What do they do with the losers? Fried chicken, of course.

My Site

2009-11-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

On Thursday we all went our separate ways and headed off to our sites. My site is in the Province of Palpa in the Department of Ica. The trip south, we passed through chakras, (farms) and through the desert dunes with the sierra in the distance to the east. From the desert, we descended into a dry, colorful and rugged mountainous area that looks similar to the badlands of South Dakota. Under the watchful eye of the Cara del Inca (Face of the Inca), we wound our way down to the fertile river valley below where I’ll be living the next two years.

They say my town has about 3000 people in it but that might be the whole district that extends way up into the sierra to the next department. The town has dirt roads, a center square surrounded by the municipal building, the church and a couple of other institutions. I met the mayor of the town who greeted me with open arms and assured me that the town was bien tranquilo and that I shouldn’t have any problems there. It will be a little bit of an adjustment going from the 3rd largest city in the US with 4 million people to a tiny pueblo, but an adjustment I fully expected. They have a saying here in Peru, “Pueblo Chico. Infierno Grande” (Small town. Big Hell).

The first day I walked the town with El Alcalde (the Mayor) who introduced me to many of the leaders of the community. That night, I met a fellow trainee in the big city nearby (8,000 people) for a live interview at the local TV/radio station. My site mate did great and I did fine except I was chewing gum which made me look like a Bankok hooker with a funny lookin’ tic and a bad gringo accent.

My house has running water 24/7, a functional flush toilet and shower, and my room is fairly good size and secure. The only thing is it’s loud in the house by 5:30 am. Out back, just outside my window, there are two gamecocks and a couple of chickens. The cocks get to crowing at about 5am so the lady of the house gets up to feed them. The dog also goes out and starts yapping at the birds and the lady starts yelling at the dog. The house echoes with bulla (noise). Glad I’m a morning person.

Saturday, I took a road trip out to some of the outlying communities of my district. Five men were crammed into a little taxi (larger than a Minicooper, but not much). We bottomed out crossing a dry, rocky riverbed and sprung a leak of something. It was a hell of a walk away from anywhere but our able driver popped open the trunk, pulled out a pair of pliers and some bailing wire, backed the car up on a rock and climbed under to fix whatever was leaking. I’m not sure how you fix a leak with wire but he campo-ed (jury rigged) the shit out of it and we were on our way.

The Presidential Debate

2009-11-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

As part of our Spanish class, we held a presidential debate where each of us drew a candidate, did research on that candidate and presented our candidate’s views in front of some of the other classes and instructors. The presidential elections here are in 2011 and if they’re anything like the Venezuelan elections I witnessed, they should be pretty entertaining. Someone told me that the presidential ads here feature scantily clad women prancing around touting their candidate. They thought it was boorish, sexist and demeaning. I thought this was infinitely better than our dumb-ass US candidates running negative ad campaigns, slinging mud and using smear tactics.

Anyway, I drew a candidate by the name of Jaime Bayly. He’s a TV personality and has a Steven Colbert-type show called El Francotirador (The Sharpshooter). Mr. Bayly is a little bit Howard Stern (but not as vulgar), a little bit Bill O’Reilly (but likeable), and a little bit Lyndon LaRouche (without the felony charges). He has a mop of black hair, wears fashionable glasses, and his trademark attire is a black suit, white shirt and blue tie. He’s also gay (he claims to be bisexual but left his wife and kids and now lives in Miami with Luis, his Argentinean writer/lover. You make the call.)

I did my research on the internet but really didn’t have a whole lot of substance. Instead I went for the style points and wore a blue blazer with a white dress shirt and a black wig I rented from a place in Chosica. One of my more salient points (quotes from Bayly), how I would like to see Fidel Castro and Jugo Chavez die (on the toilet pushing out a turd and on a Venezuelan television program vomiting all over himself with oil-colored vomit, respectively). The moderator put an end to that saying I was disrespectful and should stay on topic even though the topic was human rights and my point was that those who violate human rights should die in a less-than-honorable manner. So I had to go with other talking points such as if men could get pregnant, abortion would be legal world-wide and I would build schools and fund teachers’ salaries by dissolving the army (even though Chile is being a pain in Peru’s ass). I also wanted to ask one of the conservative female candidates if she was still a virgin but didn’t find out that Mr. Bayly actually did this on his TV show until after the debate.

Some of the other Peruvian presidential candidates include Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the recently incarcerated ex-president of Peru, the mayor of Lima (who’s apparently done a lot of good things for the city), and ex-president Toledo who had public opinion polls lower than Bush’s when he left office but did bring the Peace Corps back to Peru.

I didn’t win the debate but did get nice compliments on the wig. If you have
Direct TV, check out El Francotirador on Mega TV Sunday nights. According to some folks, his show is doing for Mega TV what the Simpsons and Married with Children did for another snot-nosed, upstart television station in the US.

Site Assignments

2009-11-07T08:17:00.000-08:00

After 8 long/short weeks of interviews, speculation and chisme (gossip), we finally got our site assignments of where we’ll be serving for the next two years. The site assignments were based on our requests and where our Water and Sanitation Director felt we would serve best.

We all got together in the main PC office in Surco, a pretty swank neighborhood of Lima that has the prestigious University of Lima, the US Embassy and a full-on mall. We got our site assignment by throwing a spear (no one could find darts) at balloons that had our site assignments in them. Once the trainee popped a balloon, they read off the name and the assignment.

My site assignment….. The Province of Palpa in the Department of Ica. Ica is a coastal department (state) south of Lima that, from what I’ve seen so far, is mostly desert but does have farming communities near the rivers. I’m less than an hour from the Nazca Lines and should have relatively easy access to all parts of the country. It’s far enough from Lima so that I’m not tempted to go into the city every weekend, but close enough that I can go if something fun’s going on there. There will be a number of volunteers within an hour of my site and there is one volunteer about five minutes from me by car which is nice.

The whole time I´ve been here I kind of thought I’d be going to a little department called Tumbes, a rough and tumble department on the coast near the border of Ecuador. When I drew Ica, I was a little surprised and maybe a little disappointed. Now that I’ve looked at a map and have seen how easy it is should be to get to some pretty kick-ass places like Arequipa and Cuzco.

I’m very excited and ready to get to work. We go to Ica this week to do some training and spend some time at our individual sites.

Bernales

2009-11-07T08:02:00.000-08:00

We went to do some field training in a little town called Bernales in the Department of Ica which is about four hours south of Lima. I would have called it a small town since it didn’t have a Dairy Queen or a stop light but there were a couple of stores, a couple of pensiones (restaurants) and a place where you could buy beer, sit outside on plastic stools and shoot the shit. Bernales is in the desert and is flanked by irrigated farms on two sides and big-ass sand dunes on the other. Arid mountains are in the distance and the coast is not too far away.

Bernales was hit hard by an earthquake in 2007 and the town is still in the process of rebuilding. Walking around, there were a bunch of folks that still lived in thatch huts while they were rebuilding their houses out of brick and concrete. The Red Cross/Red Crescent is helping out the rebuilding effort by building one-room houses out of thatch covered with plaster, kind of the Peruvian equivalent of the Katrina houses in New Orleans.
Our job while we were there was to build dry bathrooms, pit latrines and flush bathrooms. Pit latrine, no problem. Dig a hole, cut off the ends of a couple of 55-gallon drums, put them in the hole and put a slab over it. The others took a lot more work. For our flush latrine, the family dug a hole two meters deep (about as tall as me) and we lined it with brick so the walls didn’t collapse, put in the piping and poured a slab of reinforced concrete where the shitter goes. Since everything I’ve ever built in my life has wound up in a landfill well before its expected lifespan, I was a little nervous. There were a couple of false starts and it was kind of a one step forward, two steps back approach but we got ‘er done.

The food at the pension in Bernales was awesome! Looking at the place I thought to myself that there’s no fucking way I’m eating there; dirt floors, tarp for a roof and thatch walls. The dishes, however, were spotless and the food was terrific. Lunch and dinner included soup and a main course for 5 soles (<$2). We had fried chicken nuggets, some kind of beef in gravy, fish, and a popular regional dish called sopa seca (spaghetti tossed with something that looked like pesto) and carapulcra (some kind of diced potato side with a spicy sauce). Carapulcra means clean face but every time I’ve had it I’ve managed to spill it all over the place and make an awful mess. Kind of like calling a Sloppy Joe a Spotless Hank. I’m not sure if the name is supposed to be ironical or if I’m just a slob.

Passando el Huevo (Passing the Egg)

2009-11-07T07:51:00.000-08:00

We learned a little folklore and how to Passar el Huevo. When someone’s suffered a bit of a scare or gotten the mal de ojo (evil eye), the older Peruvians from the sierra remove the effects of the scare or mal de ojo by passing the egg. In case you want to practice this at home, assemble the following materials: one raw egg (preferably laid by a black chicken), a clear glass half filled with water, and a pair of scissors. Have the person lie down and grab the raw egg, say a Hail Mary and make a little cross on the forehead with the egg. Then, rub the egg all over the patient’s body. When you’re done rubbing their body down with the egg, crack it open and dump the egg white and yolk into the glass of water. If the egg white rises, the person has had a bit of a scare. If there are pinholes in the yolk, someone’s given the patient the mal de ojo. To dispel the fright or the mal de ojo, cut the egg yolk in quarters with a pair of scissors and flush it down the toilet and… ¡Tada! No more scare or mal de ojo. You’re cured mate.

Ayas

2009-11-03T16:37:00.001-08:00

Last week our technical training group went up into the sierra to look at the design, set-up and maintenance of a gravity fed water system. We took the PC combi and four-wheel drives up to a little town called Ayas and got off. Most of the group walked up to the top of the water system but since I was with bicicleta (aka – the trots, the runs, green apple skitters), I took advantage of four wheels and an engine and rode up the hill most of the way. From there, we walked up the mountain to the spring head and looked at where the water was captured and fed through the system to a reservoir. We did a maintenance checklist on the way.

The Corner

2009-11-03T16:31:00.001-08:00

On Sunday I took a break from the Peace Corps thing and headed into Lima to meet up with some friends from home. I was still a little groggy from a night out in Chaclacayo and still hadn’t finished preparation for my mock presidential debate the next day but I had to get out of the house and refocus a bit. Some friends of mine from Chicago were in Lima on vacation and were going out for dinner so I went down. We crossed wires and didn’t have any direct communication but somehow ended up at the same sports bar albeit via different routes (them - cancelled flights and airport fiascos, me - an hour and a half combi ride through some pretty shady areas of Lima).

When I got to The Corner, a fellow was standing outside and asked me if I knew Hund, one of the friends I was hoping to meet up with that night. I had no idea they were headed there and was a bit stunned at winding up at the same sports bar in a city of over 9 million people. (It helped that this joint is pretty well known and that I’m 6’6” and was wearing a Cubs hat.) The Corner is like any typical sports bar in Kansas, Texas or Illinois. TVs everywhere, NFL package, baseball playoffs, yard beers, buffalo chicken wings and folks wearing their team gear and cheering for their teams/fantasy picks. Except it’s in Peru. The place is frequented by tourists, diplomats, expats, Peruvians, and now this Peace Corps trainee.

Although I’ve only been here a couple of months, it was nice to see some familiar faces from home, hang out and watch some football (Dallas won, Chicago got their asses handed to them), gaze into Troy Aikman’s steely blue eyes, drink beer with a fellow in an Emmit Smith jersey, and meet some Americans working here in Peru. Got a feeling I’ll be there again.

Spanish Poems

2009-11-03T16:28:00.001-08:00

During our Spanish class today we had to write some poetry. I shared this one:

Los pollitos dicen
Pillo, Pillo, Pillo
Quando tienen hambre
Quando tienen frío…

Los Pollitos Dicen is a nursery school song I learned in Venezuela. I read it like Jesse Jackson read The Cat in the Hat on SNL back in the early 90’s (which is the last time I remember laughing during an SNL skit). I’m not sure if no one knew it was a nursery school song or if they knew and just didn’t think it was very funny. Doesn’t matter I guess (I thought it was pretty funny though).

I did write this poem:

Los Cachorros, 2003
Todo quieto
Sin ruido
Sin emoción
Sin esperanza
Sin confianza
Sin alegría
Solo lagrimas
Solo tristesa
Hemos perdido
Esperamos el año que viene

Translation:

The Cubs, 2003
All is quiet
No noise
No emotion
No hope
No confidence
No happiness
Just tears
Just sadness
We lost
Wait until next year

I think my class thought I was a little disturbed because they didn’t know I was talking about Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS, Cubs vs. Marlins. Then again, maybe they knew I was talking about Game 7 of the 2003 NLCS and thought I was very disturbed. Doesn’t matter I guess (I thought it was pretty funny though).

Retroalimentación (Feedback)

2009-10-22T15:20:00.000-07:00

I’ve gotten some good feedback on the blog thus far. What do you think? What suggestions do you have? What topics would you like for me to cover?

Cerro El Pino

2009-10-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

We took our first overnight visit to the campo this week. It was nice to get out of the training center and see some of the countryside for a change. On the way to the bus station, we stopped by an area called Cerro El Pino, a district of about 20,000 inhabitants in the hills of Lima. Cerro El Pino, in the past, was known for its crime and its horrible garbage problem. The problem - there was zero garbage collection. None. Now imagine living with 20,000 of your neighbors where the means of garbage disposal was taking your bag of trash and throwing it in the street.

At some stage, the good folks at Cerro El Pino got fed up with living in a landfill and did something about the problem. With the help of a non-governmental do-gooder organization, the community undertook a project to clean up the town. The district had to get vehicles to collect and transport the garbage, hire some help, and educate the residents on separating out the recyclables, putting their garbage in bags, and putting it out for the garbage man at the appropriate time. Sounds easy enough but when you’ve lived your entire life just throwing your waste out on the streets, that’s a pretty major life adjustment.

The newly recruited garbage collectors had experience. Their experience was wandering the streets of Cerro El Pino when it was still a shit hole, picking through people’s garbage for glass, tin and plastic, and whatever else they could sell, and taking it to a recycling center for the cash. The committee recruited these folks, trained them, gave them uniforms, personal protective equipment, an actual paying job and, most important, a sense of self worth. They’ve even been featured on popular television news shows around here.

The committee encountered a lot of resistance as they had to change people’s behavior and also had to start charging a small fee to make this a sustainable project. They’re still fighting that battle but it’s being won poco a poco. Walking through the streets of Cerro El Pino (escorted by a squad of armed Peruvian National Police) there was some garbage lying around here and there but for the most part the streets were clean, swept, and well maintained.

As for the crime, I did see a guy with a White Sox hat so it appears there’s still work to be done on that front.

Routines (Or the Three S’s – Part I)

2009-10-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

Warning –The Three S’s refer to Shit, Shower and Shave. If you don’t want to read about any of these things, STOP HERE. I don’t get to the Shit portion until the very end so feel free to read until the last couple of paragraphs or so.

In the US you (and by you I mean you, me, Nobel Laureate President Obama, everyone) have set routines that you don’t really think about, you just do them. Take the Three S’s for instance; you wake up, walk bleary-eyed and barefooted to this gleaming white thing in the bathroom, take a piss, take a shit, push a silver lever and, presto, the shit and piss go away. Where? Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry about it. It’s taken care of. Two seconds later you wash your hands with warm running water coming out of this other gleaming white thing next to the first gleaming white thing.

Routine 1 disrupted - Here it’s a little different. You sit on a toilet (not so gleaming) without a seat and fire off your deuce. The toilet paper goes in the waste basket next to the toilet. Never throw your toilet paper in the shitter because it will clog up. To flush, grab a bucket, dip some water out of the 55 gallon drum in the bathroom, walk over to the toilet and pour it in. Repeat as necessary. If it clogs up for whatever reason, there’s a plunger under the stairs across the courtyard. Go get it, walk back, plunge and pour. In the US, I would shit at will; home, library, restaurants, parties, baht mitzvahs, Conference Room D in the office, everywhere. Here, you choose your time and location very carefully. Now that I’ve been here a month, S #1 has become nearly routine, thankfully. I apologize to my readers. I meant to put this at the end. Oh well, the worst is over so you may as well go on.

Shower – In the US you run water and adjust the temperature so that it’s just right, turn on the shower, step in and wash yourself with warm soapy water. (I’m a top to bottom guy myself) Been a long day? Stay in there a little longer and let the nice warm water melt away some of the stress. Relationship problems? Wash that man right out of your hair. When you’re done, dry off, kick on the exhaust fan, put on some deodorant, get dressed and you’re on your merry way.

Routine 2 disrupted – Here the water here only comes for one hour in the morning every other day so you have to make sure that you have enough water to last the entire shower. Hot water? Not a feature at my house. The mission is simple, get in, get clean, get out, don’t waste water. Since the water is cold, I’ve adopted the poco a poco (little by little) method. With a washrag, wet myself part by part, turn off water, lather up and hit the important parts first and if I’m not freezing my ass off yet hit the rest. By then I’m somewhat used to the cold water so it’s OK to turn on the shower and rinse off. Done. Towel off. I didn’t have the presence of mind to bring a towel with me so I bought a towel here for 6 soles ($2). It dries like a towel that cost me two dollars so I mostly air dry. (I just washed my towel today and, unlike the American flag, these colors do run.) I’ve been showering about every 3rd day or so depending on how long I can stand myself. Key to not smelling like complete ass? Generous applications of talcum powder.

Shave - In the US I’d run some warm water, lather up with Neutrogena Skin Clearing Shave Cream and shave my face and head with a Mach III Turbo with the help of the mirror that’s right in front of me. Rinse. Towel dry. Apply a dab of Nivea for Men Revitalizing Lotion with Q-10 to face, head and neck for a nice soothing finish.

Routine 3 disrupted – Here the sink in the bathroom sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t, so I wind up using the shower to shave most times. I stick my head under the shower, wash my face with regular soap and shave by feel since the mirror’s about six feet away. No strong jet of water to rinse off the razor so it kind of gunks up. I've tried to tap it out on the shower wall but then I just get small pieces of concrete stuck in the blades. I thought I’d been doing a pretty good job of shaving until one of my fellow trainees pointed out that there was a fairly good size patch on the back of my head that I’d missed for quite some time.

I gotta say, as much of a pain in the ass it is to take care of the 3 S’s since I’ve been here, there’s an odd sense of accomplishment when you fire off a successful, uneventful deuce or take a refreshing shower. Now that I’ve been here for a month, the 3 S’s are becoming routine again.

I also want to make it absolutely clear that I am very thankful to even have a shitter, shower and sink in my bathroom. When I get to my site I’ll likely not have any of these luxuries. That’s when I’ll have to develop a brand new set of routines which will be covered in Routines – Part Deaux (Or the Three S’s – The Revenge of Sith).

Condom Races

2009-10-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

After our chat on the different types of maladies Peace Corps Volunteers in Peru suffer (diarrhea, worms, insect bites, giardia, crazy egg laying fleas, etc.) we were off to the races. Condom races. The last few medical education sessions have been on STDs in the Peace Corps so, of course, no sex talk is complete without the condom demonstration and practicum (so to speak).

It seems a bit unseemly for a grown man my age to participate in a condom race with a bunch of folks nearly half my age. But that’s training so I had to go with it. A volunteer gave us the proper condom use chat and the demonstration. Instead of the requisite banana she used a dildo.

We split up into our three groups, Health, Environment, and Water & Sanitation for our practicum which was a relay race. Run down to the chair, pick up the big, thick, red, veiny, uncircumcised dildo complete with balls, open up the package with the condom (lubricated for our pleasure) and slap it on. Then take it off, and run back and tag the next in line with lubed hand.

My group, Wat/San, kicked the other teams asses pretty handily although looking back maybe we shouldn’t have celebrated so vigorously. After all, this group is about 75% male and probably shouldn’t be too proud of being better at slapping a rubber on a cock that’s pointed towards us.

Pollada

2009-10-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday our Water and Sanitation group went to the Catholic University in Lima to look at some different development-type stuff like water pumps, renewable sources of energy, improved kitchens, etc. Some of the folks went down to the coast to get some seafood but I had to get back to the house for a Pollada. A Pollada is a fund raiser, a big chicken blowout. The event was thrown to raise money for a group of graduating nursing students to go on their graduation trip up to the sierra. In attendance, about 22 nursing students, 50 chickens and 10 cajas of beer. Cost 7 soles (<$3) + beer for 4 soles (<$2) each. The chicken was some of the best tasting chicken I’ve ever had (never mind that there wasn’t a ton of meat on them).

The party started off kind of slow with the men sitting around in one room eating chicken and drinking beer and the women in the kitchen cooking the chicken and doing whatever else it is that women do when they get together. They started cooking the chicken on the grill but ran out of charcoal so they improvised with a makeshift wood-burning stove made out of bricks set on the concrete floor of the courtyard just outside the door to the bathroom. I’m not sure where they got the wood but it looked like someone chopped up their bed frame and brought it by for the occasion.

I hung out with the men in living room but they started to get pretty drunk and they were yelling at the women to put on shitty American 80s music (esta música es “Sooper”) instead the festive salsa music that was on (which the guys considered to be “basura”) We drank al estilo Peruano which means someone opens a beer, they pour themselves a glass, hand the bottle to the person next to them, drink the beer out of the glass, shake the foam and backwash out of it, and hand the glass to person holding the beer bottle. That guy gives the glass another shake (optional), pours himself a beer, hands off the bottle, drinks the beer out of the glass, and so on around the circle. The glass doesn’t get washed. Ever. Sometimes it gets broken when they drop it on the living room floor while shaking the shit out of it, but it’s bad form to go to the sink and rinse it out. After it gets passed around the circle a few times, the glass is pretty sticky and, well, pretty damn gross.

Turns out the women weren’t just sitting around cooking and gossiping, they were passing around the bottle too. I stepped over the cooking operation to hit the head and afterward passed the bottle around with them for a bit. Turns out I broke beer drinking with women protocol by not holding onto the beer bottle and serving them (but how was this gringo to know?). The Pollada really sounded like the beginning of a really good/bad porno: 22 two nursing students, ten cases of beer and 50 chickens. But in reality it wasn’t as hot as I had imagined. The Pollada turned into a dance party but I was getting kind of tipsy and didn’t want to embarrass myself with bad gringo dancing so I went to bed. The Pollada ended about 2am?

I’m not sure how much money they raised but most of the chicken hearts and livers wound up in the soup I had for lunch and dinner the next day.

Field Trip

2009-10-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

We went on a field trip with our Spanish class to the National Museum of Culture in Lima to learn a little about the history and culture of Peru. We went down there in the training center’s combi which stalled out at one of the craziest intersections I’ve seen in a while. It kind of reminded me of an intersection in Manhattan during rush hour traffic except this one had mototaxis (three-wheeled motorized rickshaw-type taxis), older vintage Japanese cars, semi trucks, combies, etc.) There was a hell of a lot of honking, fist waving and pleasantries exchanged like in NYC. Fortunately, our able combi driver Ali was able to get her revved up and out of the intersection before any serious damage was done.

We learned a bit about the ancient cultures like the Incas, Nazcas and saw their artifacts. Of course there were a bunch of colonial-era type paintings of the Virgin Mary. In these paintings, the Virgin was always wearing a robe that was narrow up close to her head and tapered out in a kind of triangle shape at the bottom. A halo emanated from behind her head so it kind of looked like the sun behind a mountain. When the Spaniards arrived, they forced their religion on the people of Peru (as colonists are prone to do). Folks aren’t quick to give up their religious beliefs just because some asshole is holding a sword to their head. The local artists did paint the Virgin, but the robe represented the spirit of the mountain and the halo represented the sun which they also worshipped. At the time, the artists may have been giving the Spaniards a good old fashion “fuck you and your religion” but since then, the two religions have blended together and you see elements of both the original natural beliefs and Catholicism.

Up on the second floor there was an XIX century oil painting of two carriage drivers in a collision and whippin’ the shit out of each other over a fare while dust is flying, dogs are barking and people are hollerin’ in the streets. Not a whole lot’s changed in the past couple hundred years.

The Nazca warriors used to put mummified sculls one their belts. Early psycological warfare.

Peruvian Fireworks

2009-10-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Now I’m not exactly sure if the Yanacoto party was a virgin party but by the time we got there at 11:30pm, it was rocking along pretty good. It was outdoors in a little plaza like area with a dirt floor. There was a traditional band from the sierra playing their saxes and singing. Folks were dancing like they do in the sierra which looks kind of similar to native American dance, shuffling their feet and waving their arms a bit. There were other bands but I was too concerned with the beer and fireworks to notice. The beer was kind of expensive, 5 soles (<$2 for about a liter of beer).

We showed up just in time for the big moment. There were a couple of fairly good sized bulls made out of bamboo and colored paper and a castle structure made of bamboo and colorful pinwheels. These were the fireworks. A man put one of the bull frames over his head and torso, lit the fuse and started dancing around the center of the dance floor. First, fire started blowing out of its horns and then the whole thing just started shooting colored sparks all over everywhere, including the spectators who had gathered around. He did this with a couple of the bulls and then went out to the bamboo structure in the middle of the street which stood about 3 stories tall. He lit the fuse which slowly crept up the structure and set off showers of sparks, launching screaming, burning bamboo projectiles high into the air, and lighting up fiery pinwheels. Then the fire would creep up to the next level and set off the next barrage. Of course there is always the grand finale where everything went up in flames and things were launched, screaming, spinning and burning.

No one got hurt or didn’t say anything if they did. Apparently Peruvians aren’t quite as litigious as gringos.

3 de Octubre

2009-10-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

Part of the family. My old man is to my right. I call the dog Ole One Eye.

Saturday night, the 3rd of October, I went to a neighborhood called 3 de Octubre to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the town on the 3rd of October around 36 years ago. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a party celebrating a virgin in this town and it was a blast except that I didn’t get to stay for the whole thing. I went home at 10pm but the party raged on until the cold gray light of dawn. This time I was in it to win it (or at least stay longer than 10). Turns out virgin parties are ten times more exciting than anniversary parties. The virgin party had a full stage, sound system, fireworks, beer stands, traditional dances, and a virgin on a throne. The anniversary party had a clown, about 6 impersonations of Michael Jackson (but only 2 Michael Jackson songs), and only a few cajas of beer.

My old man was one of the founders of 3 de Octubre and he still has several children that live there. We went to the neighborhood at around 4pm and visited with a couple of his daughters and one of his sons. We sat around and had some Inca Cola and a little cake and shot the shit for a while. My old man left early and I stayed around for what I expected to be a kick-ass party. Around 6pm, a clown showed up to entertain the younger kids. Now ordinarily clowns kind of creep me out but this clown wasn’t the John Wayne Gacey type I’m used to. Just different. He wore a wig that made him look like a Japanese pop star, a plastic red nose, oversize Chuck Taylor high-tops (my size) and a black velvet jacket with the Playboy bunny logo in sequins on the back.

He did clown-type stuff with the kids like games, prizes, balloons, juggling two silk scarves, that kind of thing. It may have been the worst clown act I’ve seen but then again I can’t really recall seeing a good clown act. The kids were totally down with the clown and having a great time and that’s all that matters. I got his business card afterward. On the front, his name, a couple of pictures, and the contact info for the local clown union in Chosica. His specialties were listed on the back and included birthdays, kids parties, special events, 50th anniversaries, and bachelorette parties. I guess he also has a cop outfit and a g-string and likely does something different with the scarves.

After the clown, it was the kids turn to entertain. There were little dance group that danced to pop Latino music and of course the Michael Jackson impersonations. There was a lot of build-up for the Michael Jackson acts but they did not live up to the hype. The highlight, however, was a kid about 3 years old who was dressed up in a little black suit, white shirt, black shoes with white socks, and a black fedora. He held his hat with one hand, stood on his toes and grabbed his junk with the other hand the whole time. That is until some little girl came up to him and started bugging him so he latched onto her hair and wouldn’t let go until the mothers intervened, pried his fingers off, and sent both kids off crying.

There was a dance troupe of kids dressed in yellow and orange sateen costumes with devil masks who danced around while two other little devils ran around scaring the shit out of the audience while they were distracted looking at the others. It seemed pretty traditional and was terrific. By this time a lot of trainees had showed up and were sitting up on the hill. About six of them did a couple of songs by CCR, we listened to a band with a pan flute do “Let it Be” and we bolted for another party in Yanacoto.

Mr. Ambassador

2009-10-04T16:09:00.000-07:00

Today the US Ambassador to Peru dropped by our training center to have lunch and say a few words to our training class. I was lucky enough to sit at the lunch table with him. We talked for a bit about how he came to be the Ambassador. He’s a lifer in the State Department and didn’t have to shell out the six figures to some bullshit political party to get the position. He earned it. Turns out he also grew up in Caracas and then moved to Houston. He spoke highly of Caracas and especially of Houston (which no ever does except for the folks who know Houston intimately).

After, he gave a little chat to our group. He was very well spoken and had a ton of good things to say about the Peace Corps and its mission around the world and in Peru. It was pretty close to being a life changing event for me except that I’ve had enough of those the past couple of months to tide me over for a bit. The ambassador spoke of his work at a country desk in Africa helping people get US visas, brokering peace agreements between Somalia and Eritrea, and aiding refugees displaced by natural and manmade atrocities.

I’m not sure what my future holds on a daily basis, two months from now or two years from now. I did receive a letter from the Chairman and CEO of my old company, the 10th largest insurance brokerage firm in the world, saying he appreciated my good work and that the door is always open for me to come back. I’m very grateful for his kind words and generous offer. It’s nice to have a safety net like that. Although I’ve enjoyed my career as an Environmental, Health and Safety Consultant and feel like my work has had purpose and meaning, the type of work the Ambassador spoke of just sounded bigger.

But that’s a couple of years down the road. Now I need to find some anti-itch cream for these fucking mosquito bites (Note to self: neither the government-issued insect repellant nor the anti-itch cream work worth a damn).

Laundry

2009-10-04T16:07:00.000-07:00

I hand washed my clothes for the first time in recent memory. I’m sure I hand washed at some stage during my military service but don’t remember. Fairly unremarkable process although my back was hurting a bit after only doing about 12 pairs of underwear and socks all humped over the sink and all. Fill bucket with water, add some clothes, add some detergent, and scrub away. I did take some quality control sniffs to make sure I was doing the job right. Dump water into toilet (to flush down any renegade floaters) and fill bucket with fresh water. Rinse out clothes. Repeat with a second rinse. Always two rinses according to the old man. Wring out excess water. Waste water can also be used to clean off the dirt and dust off your shoes.

Take up to roof and hang out clothes to dry on clothes line. Turn clothes inside out so the sun doesn’t bleach them out too bad. Also a reason to turn clothes inside out is so that the Valentines Day boxers with the lipstick prints or half naked Homer Simpson in repose is not hangin’ out there for the whole family and neighbors to giggle at. I’ll remember that next time. It’s pretty dry here so the clothes dry out in one afternoon. Fold.

Worm Bins

2009-10-04T16:06:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we built worm composting bins to help with disposal of organic materials. I haven’t really seen it too bad here but in some areas people just throw all their shit in a kind of make shift dump or burn the stuff out back. Worm composting is not some hippie bullshit but a practical way to dispose of organic materials and convert them into a usable product like liquid fertilizer and nutrient rich soils. According to some statistics, over 50 percent of landfill space is organic materials.

The way the worm bin works is you throw in a little soil or manure and then just add organic waste, like egg shells, peels, leaves, things like that. Throw in a couple of worms and they eat through all that shit crapping out nice fertile soil which you shake out and use in your garden. Another benefit is worm piss (the other black gold) which is rich in nutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorous. Not only that but you’re saving valuable landfill space and keeping the backyard free of debris that attracts pests. OK maybe it is a little hippie bullshit sounding.

We learned how to mix concrete (2 parts sand, 1 part rocks and 1 part Portland cement) and started mixing the cement in the wheelbarrow when Fidel, the guard for the training center showed the dopey gringos how to do it more efficiently. He made our life a lot easier. He also showed me how to lay brick and by the end of the day I was OK at it and he seemed pretty proud of me. That’s probably how the two years in the field is going to go; The supposed trained technical representative from the US being educated by the locals who’ve done this for a while.

2009-10-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

The other morning I took a walk up in the cerro (the hills) with the old man to check it all out. We have a mini project to do for our Spanish class and I wanted to walk around to get a better feel what’s going on in the community. We walked up paved roads which turned to dirt roads which turned into rocky dirt paths winding through the neighborhood. The folks that live on the hill are essentially squatters on publicly owned land. They go up the cerro, find a little plot of land, go to the local municipality and put a little something down to stake their claim on the land. Then they build a little starter hut out of clapboard, aluminum, or whatever they can afford and go from there, building out and improving as they have the money. The area seemed like it was pretty clean and the folks seemed to take care of their neighborhood. They get their water through garden hoses tapped into the local water supply. It’s supposed to be temporary but I imagine they’ve been waiting for something more permanent for a while. They don’t have sanitation so each house has a little latrine about 100 feet from the house.

In Venezuela, I’d seen these little barrios on the side of the hills from the car on the way to our private American school or to the country club but never walked through them. Feel like I won the lottery considering where I was born, my family, the opportunities I’ve had, and never having had to worry about basic human needs: a roof overhead, food, clean water. These folks are survivors in the every sense of the word, make the most out of what they have and are happy. What in the hell do I, or any of us for that matter, have to bitch about?

Food

2009-10-04T15:59:00.001-07:00

The family’s diet since I’ve been in Peru has been pretty much the same the past three weeks. Breakfast is served around 7am and is pretty light, generally a couple of slices of rolls with butter and/or jelly, occasionally with palta (avocado). Sometimes we’ll have avena Quaker which is a kind of runny oatmeal made with milk, oats and sugar. To drink, decaffeinated coffee (ouch) with unprocessed brown cane sugar and milk from a can. The family eats the same but they’re always on the run so they sometimes miss out on breakfast or just have avena or a slice of bread.

Lunch is the big meal of the day and is generally served around 1pm (as I write this it’s 1:30 and my ass is starving). They love their potatoes and rice and generally have both at the same time. One cup of rice, half a potato sliced up and either boiled or fried, and chicken either boiled and seasoned with salt or cooked in a tomato based stew. They stretch their chicken here and everyone gets a little piece. If you’re lucky you get a whole drumstick (happened to me once). Sometimes the old man buys pollo ala Milanesa which is chicken breast filleted thin with flour and seasoning and pan-fried in vegetable oil. Occasionally we’ll eat our chicken with spaghetti (which the old man actually throws against the wall to see if it’s done). Sometimes instead of chicken, the old man will fry up an egg and eat it with rice. I did have liver the other day for lunch. Wouldn’t have been my first choice but I’m craving protein right now so I gobbled it up.

Dinner is pretty much lunch reheated in smaller portions. Occasionally the old man will serve me a salad with broccoli, palta, carrot, and an egg but the family doesn’t seem to eat salads very often. Last Sunday, my host sister sliced up a cucumber and marinated it in lime juice which was absolutely delicious and refreshing.

They don’t really do desert here but every now and again the kids will run across the street to the store and buy a popsicle.

The family is kind of like a typical American family in that everyone’s busy and eats at different times. Breakfast is generally between 7 and 8. Lunch for the family is after the kids get out of school at 1. Dinner just depends on who’s around and when but generally is around 7 or 8. Sunday lunch seems to be a big time for the family to all sit down and have lunch together, if they’re around. We also have a gaseosa (soda pop) or freshly blended fruit juice that day.

The food is for the most part bought at nearby markets from local and regional producers. There are a couple of bakeries in town that sell freshly made bread. Fruits and vegetables are sold at a farmers market open on Saturday and Sunday. The chicken is bought from a local butcher. Occasionally, the old man will go to the Metra supermarket to buy things in bulk i.e. canned milk, a loaf of sliced bread, etc.

Since my host sister works and also attends the Instituto, the old man takes care of all the cooking except maybe a Sunday lunch when his daughter will cook.

Despite eating so much starch, I’ve still managed to lose weight (I think that’s because I was rockin’ Chicago pizza, burritos, McDonalds and beer pretty hard before I left).

Water Usage

2009-10-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

This was an assignment so it might be kind of boring.

I live about an hour and a half outside of Lima. Our community gets water every other day from 5:30 to 630 in the morning. The water comes from a well in the center of town which is pumped up the hill into a couple of water tanks and is then gravity fed to the neighborhood. The water at the house is stored in a 1,000 liter tank and a 500 liter tank on the roof of the house. The old man also gets up early to fill up a 35 gallon drum in the bathroom and a 55 gallon drum by the sinks in the courtyard.

The family is pretty frugal with the water. The toilet has been disabled so you can’t flush it the regular way. Instead you dip some water out of the drum in the restroom with a small bucket and pour it into the toilet and hope your junk goes away. Repeat as necessary (2-3 gallons for a good one?). I’m not sure how often my family takes shower because they seem to do it when I’m not around but it seems like once a week at least. (no hot water). Water from the 55 gallon drum in the court yard is scooped out with a small bucket and used to wash dishes, hands, hand washing small amounts of laundry, watering the plants in the front and everything else. Grey water from laundry is used to clean shoes and flush the toilet.

By far the biggest consumer of water is the washing machine which, according to the old man, can blow through the 1000 liter tank on the roof with 3 loads of wash. It seems like kind of a lot but the pay off is doing wash for the old man, daughter, and two kids and one dopey gringo in one day rather than hand washing everything over the course of the week. For the daughter who works during the day and goes to the Instituto at night, this is pretty key.