Hodgepodge of Stuff

I lost the entire month of November. Seriously, no idea where the darn thing went to. I was consumed with the diagnostic in addition to having a bad couple of weeks. Within two weeks, I had less than S/. 20 (about $7 American) because Peace Corps switched payment methods, my favorite pair of Nike sandals broke, we didn’t have water, we didn’t have electricity (only for two days), we had to have a “special” meeting with a boss out of Lima, and I got head lice. I probably mentally blocked the month of November cuz it sucked so bad. Anyway, I started this particular blog entry in the beginning of October. It is of course way outdated at this point, so I put little updates in sporadically.

Highlights of my time here at site so far:

I have made friends with one the family dogs, Lassie. She is a teeny little thing, and I usually don’t warm-up to the little ones, but she is not an ankle-biter or a yapper. I truly don’t understand why people have dogs in

You gotta love that face

this country. It’s not that they mistreat them; it’s just that they are just…there. They don’t really interact with them. I pet and play with Lassie, so after about three days, she started following me everywhere I go. I have to shut the door behind me when I leave to go to work. She hangs out at my feet for probably three hours a day, just lying there on my feet. When I come home in the afternoon, she runs to greet me and I can’t walk anywhere until I pet her for at least 30 seconds. It is so friggin cute! Well, she got pregnant. That’s another thing. They don’t spade or neuter here, so there are millions of strays everywhere. She had her little puppies last week. She is a super protective mom. She growled and snarled at anybody that came near them for the first two days, but Tito

made a make-shift lean-to in the corner of the room out back behind all the other animal cages that only Lassie can get to with ease, so she is much calmer nowadays, but I haven’t seen the pups in four days now, and it’s killing me! She has three solid black ones and one black and white one. I was worried that we would probably put them out to the pasture somewhere, but we are going to keep one and the others are already spoken for by other kin. I am relieved and glad that she is back to her old self except super attentive to her pups. I must admit that I will be a little glad when the other pups get bigger and leave. I miss my foot-warmer! UPDATE: The pups are gone. It was super fun having them here while it lasted. They came out of the lean-to hidy-hole exactly one month to the day after they were born. Here’s a little video of them playing with Aunt Phoebe (the other family dog). P.S. Here’s a pic to warm your hearts – Lassie warming my feet as I write this, just like old times.

I had the opportunity to treat my 19-year-old sister, Yessica, and her best friend/cousin, Shirley (pronounced “Cheer-lee”) to their FIRST cinema experience. I have days where I am fascinated by how similar our peoples are, and then someone goes and drops a bombshell on me, like, “Hi! I’m 19-years-old, and I’ve never been to a movie theater.” I blew a wad of money that I shouldn’t have, but I had to do this. I had no choice. I knew that they both liked movies, and even better, my sister shares my adulation for the horror genre! We had a respectable horror film (Ha! I know what you’re thinkin - those words don’t go together.) picked out from the Website, but I looked at the wrong date online, so when we got to the theater, we had to change last minute to a less respectable slasher film. We got a huge bucket of popcorn and three medium sodas and got the perfect seats. Shirley had her face buried in my armpit for last 45 minutes of the movie, but the whole experience was enjoyed by all. UPDATE: I bought the respectable horror film that we intended to see (The Conjurer), so we got to see it anyway. It is available on the DVD in Spanish and English, but it is really good practice for me to watch (listen) to movies in Spanish with the English subtitles, so my sister and I have started having little movie nights together. Besides the language practice, it’s an awesome bonding experience!

So I don’t know my host dad very well because he has only been in the house for two days at the same time as me, but he came home for about two full weeks. We had a hard time understanding each other, and this makes me sad because he is a real jokester, or so I ascertain from all the laughter of the other folks. I, however, cannot understand him because he talks superfast for my broken Spanish abilities, and he can’t understand my broken Spanish. Anyway, my Aunt Rosa had a birthday party. Parties here are a little different than parties at home, but the concept is the same. (In short, the beginning is the soooo different. There are chairs lined up along all the walls of the party room and the music is BLARING, so basically everyone just sits, not talking, listening to the BLARING music, getting a headache, until some brave soul starts the dancing.) After the dancing had commenced (and believe me, practically everyone dances cuz it is so simple), not a soul asked me to dance. I am accustomed to being stared at any time I leave the house, and often being treated like royalty due to the color of my skin, of course, so I was a little taken back when I watched about 10 songs go by without being asked to dance. I finally asked my host mom to dance. Afterwards, I didn’t sit down again. My host dad was the next person to ask me to dance and he commenced to telling me how absolutely proud he was of me and that I will have no problems fitting in with everybody. I nearly cried.

The little things that make me smile:

• Walking out of my door and having a minimum of four kiddos attached to me…every time
• Watching my 5-year-old sister watching herself posing 20 different ways in my full-length mirror
• Helping my 19-year-old sister with her English homework
• Hearing 40 Peruvian kids screaming their colors in English
• When my parents are sitting next to each other smiling and they have matching front silver teeth

  

  They dont have their mouths open in this pic, but,
  trust me, you would giggle.

• Teaching my sisters and little cousins how to play Memory, Crazy 8’s, and Go Fish
• Learning at least one new Spanish word every day
• Reading the twisted, weird English phrases on the t-shirts of Peruvians, knowing that they have no idea what they are wearing (ex. 3-year-old boy in a “F#$% the Rainbow” t-shirt, 67-year-old woman in a “Sexy B!*&# t-shirt at a funeral, and see picture)
• The way my principal laughs hysterically every time I call myself “la gringa local” (the local white chick)

  

  I don't need to say any more about this t-shirt...

• The way my socia Miryam covers her mouth every time I make her laugh
• The way that ALL Peruvian teenage girls cover their mouths when they laugh
• The way that practically ALL Peruvian teenagers make a sideways peace sign in EVERY photo, but no one knows what it means or why they do it
• All the exotic fruits – granadillas, maricuyas, 17 different types of banana
• Asking the principal of the elementary school for “a piece of cup” when I wanted “a piece of chalk”

Some Things I Took for Granted in the States:

Look at 'em! All four of them! Bahaha!

• Reliable electricity and water

            Since I have been here we have lost power probably a dozen times. This is usually no more than a couple of hours, but one time it was for two days. Although I had plans to lock myself in my room and finish my diagnostic, I was kind of relieved because my family and I sat around the kitchen table telling ghost stories by candlelight. When the electricity came back on at dusk the next day, I must say that I was a little disappointed.

• The deliciousness and availability of cold water

            I can’t drink the water from the tap here, so someone in the family has to boil all the water I drink. Not only is this a hassle, but I rarely get cold water. Ice is extremely rare, and although my family is lucky enough to own a refrigerator, there are no cold beverages in it unless I buy them (and I’m poor, so that happens about once a month). Peruvians just don’t drink a lot. And if they do drink something, it isn’t cold unless it is midday because everyone knows that if you drink something cold at night (except for beer), you are undoubtedly going to get sick. I don’t understand how they don’t wither away into dust. It is so hot here, and I am constantly sweating without air conditioning, so I am also constantly rehydrating. I use soooo much more toilet paper than anyone else in my family.

• Air Conditioning

            See above.

• Critical thinking skills

            This is not at all part of the school’s curriculum here. I never realized how much it IS a part of the curriculum in the states. It’s not like we have a “Critical Thinking” class, but it is so embedded in our culture, that it is taught in all our classes and in our homes. I wrote half of a page on this subject, but after reviewing it I sounded pompous and accusatory, so I’m just gonna leave this topic as it is. I hope that I can teach some of these skills to the kids in my community in the future.

• Quality merchandise

            Things are cheap here, but much of the factory-made, imported merchandise is junk. Clothes are sizes other than indicated on the tag and with 10 hand-washings fade horribly or are basically just ripped to shreds or stretched out beyond recognition. The bottom sheet on my bed comes off EVERY night. My family goes through about one set of headphones for the computers every two weeks, etc., etc.

• Butchers

            I praise thee, oh great butchers of the United States of America! They know how to cut a good piece of meat. Here, you go to the butcher in the open market or a small bodega, ask for a certain weight or certain price, and the butcher or storekeeper just starts hacking away at a hunk of dead animal flesh until they get the right amount. There is no skill or strategy or method involved, so you get what you get whether it be some bones held together by tendons or a fully solid piece of meat. It’s completely the luck of the draw, and this obviously, but unbelievably, affects the taste, texture, and quality of the meat. In other words, I MISS RIBEYES!!!

• Washing machines and dish washers

            Hand washing takes such a toll on the clothes and the fingers.

• Fast Internet
• Variety

            Everyone strives to be the same here. I’m all about equality, but every Peruvian classroom looks exactly the same. Every Peruvian dish looks and tastes exactly the same. Everyone wears the same clothes. Every party is the same. There are only about 12 pop songs that play over and over again on the radio. The ONLY sports are soccer and volleyball. And, of course, to see a black person or another white person (that is not PC) is a novelty.

There are dozens of others, I’m sure, but the main one for me is HOT WATER SHOWERS!!!!!!!