So I'm spending the weekend in Huancayo, our regional capital. Most Peace Corps volunteers have either 3-year Volunteers or people hired as Regional Coordinators to stay in the capital and organize meetings and support the nearby Volunteers. Unfortunately, my region (Junin, Pasco, and Yauyos) doesn't have any sort of support like this. We don't have any office or Peace Corps building we can stay in except that in Lima. Anyways, we organize our own meetings and meet up about every month or so. This is our second meeting, and I arrived late Thursday night. Being somewhere somewhat warm, with wifi access, and a shower is incredible.
Today, I received my laptop. I coordinated with one of the Volunteers who went home for Christmas to bring back a laptop for me. I've been waiting and so excited for this. I'll finally be able to watch some movies, or TV shows at night when it's too cold to do anything else. I can write up documents for work, and finally put my photos all in one place to view. Seriously, receiving this laptop has been the bright spot keeping me moving for the last few days. I was sick since Sunday with the flu so staying positive and active hasn't been possible. With this, I feel like a new person. It also helps that I had a wonderfully hot shower too. And right before that I went to PlazaVea, the large Walmart-esque grocery store where you can find things all in one place and things you can't find anywhere else. Like Peanut butter. Although, I made my own peanut butter a couple weeks ago, which I'm very proud of. I spent a solid two hours going through the aisles finding all the potential things I can buy in the future. They have maple syrup and a barbeque sauce. I didn't buy them, but I was very happy to see that I could. I did buy some spices finally, and baking pans. I also got cream cheese which I'll have to devour soon. I was very very frustrated to find that they don't have cheddar cheese. They have Gouda, but no cheddar. I cannot understand or accept this. I have to eat cheddar cheese soon. Hopefully I can find it in Lima. Cross your fingers.
My future plans for work include doing a Tree Survey. I've become excited about creating a formal scientific-ish vegetation survey where I can document the condition of all the trees in Vicco. I'll make a labelled map too. Then I hope to repeat process every few months or so. And maybe the next Volunteer can keep it going. Other than that, I'm teaching my 3 hours every Monday/Wednesday, and starting this Tuesday/Thursday I'll be doing two hours more working with the other Professores who started Vacaciones utiles suddenly this last week after not coordinating or helping me whatsoever. But...no complaining, I'm happy. I had soft-serve icecream, and am going to have pizza for dinner.
This weekend is going to have to keep my spirits up through the rest of rainy season I think. So going to head out now to make that happen. Let the downloads keep going while we're out.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Vacaciones Utiles
So this last week earns the title of being the hardest of my time in Vicco so far. Monday was it´s own sort of stress. I went early to the Escuela because I knew getting a room was going to be dodgy. I caught the portera (door/groundskeeper) there and she clearly didn´t want to help me. She kept refusing to open classrooms for me, and wouldn´t tell me her cell number for the future if I needed to contact her. After an hour of her trying to not give me a room, we finally settled on the Salon de Actas room which is like the assembly room. We moved 4 desks, which would seat about 12 kids, into the big area, and then I went to get a copy made of the room´s key. After a lot of time trying to get that done, I needed to leave to get lunch before class. I was gone exactly 20 minutes. In that time, the Portera locked the door and left. I had no way of contacting her. She knew exactly when I was going to teach, and purposely locked me out. It was incredibly frustrating. We managed to go in the back door, and I taught my little group of 11 kids. I had one cutey, 6 years old, so I just had her draw most of the time. The other kids are around 8 or 9 years old, with two being 11 and 12. Those two boys know a lot more English, and its fun giving them more advanced tidbits.
The real stress came Tuesday. I went to the high school again early. The director was actually there with a couple other people, but they all left around 1:30pm. I waited 2 hours after my class should have started and not a single kid showed. It was very, very disheartening. I don´t understand it either. I advertised it as much as the elementary school. I´m not sure what I´m going to do about it. I had such great plans for them to help me with my Community Diagnostic that I need to write.
Another big stressor this week is that I couldn´t get any meetings with the people I was trying to. I couldn´t talk to my SERNANP guy or the mayor. I feel so stranded here. I´m supposed to have a Peruvian counterpart in Vicco that helps me and does some of the work too. I have nobody. I´m trying to do everything by myself, and it just isn´t enough. I can´t organize meetings by myself. And I need to, I need to meet with the organizations in Vicco. It´s been hard to deal with, but I am perservering. I know I just need more time. I´m not a failure, even if I´m not the best right now. I am doing some things; I just want to be able to do everything I have plans for right now.
Had to make this blog really quick (as in 4 minutes) because I need to log off now. Spent a long time chatting with my mom which helped boost my spirits and set me back thinking of what I CAN do instead of CANT. I´m also looking forward to our regional meeting that´s next week, down in Huancayo. I´ll receive my Xmas present laptop brought back from a Volunteer who spent Christmas in the States. Things will be a ton easier when I can type of documents on my own laptop. So thinking positive.
Love you all.
The real stress came Tuesday. I went to the high school again early. The director was actually there with a couple other people, but they all left around 1:30pm. I waited 2 hours after my class should have started and not a single kid showed. It was very, very disheartening. I don´t understand it either. I advertised it as much as the elementary school. I´m not sure what I´m going to do about it. I had such great plans for them to help me with my Community Diagnostic that I need to write.
Another big stressor this week is that I couldn´t get any meetings with the people I was trying to. I couldn´t talk to my SERNANP guy or the mayor. I feel so stranded here. I´m supposed to have a Peruvian counterpart in Vicco that helps me and does some of the work too. I have nobody. I´m trying to do everything by myself, and it just isn´t enough. I can´t organize meetings by myself. And I need to, I need to meet with the organizations in Vicco. It´s been hard to deal with, but I am perservering. I know I just need more time. I´m not a failure, even if I´m not the best right now. I am doing some things; I just want to be able to do everything I have plans for right now.
Had to make this blog really quick (as in 4 minutes) because I need to log off now. Spent a long time chatting with my mom which helped boost my spirits and set me back thinking of what I CAN do instead of CANT. I´m also looking forward to our regional meeting that´s next week, down in Huancayo. I´ll receive my Xmas present laptop brought back from a Volunteer who spent Christmas in the States. Things will be a ton easier when I can type of documents on my own laptop. So thinking positive.
Love you all.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Holidays in Peru
So, these last few weeks have been really hectic. I´m sorry I haven´t been able to post sooner. But there have been too many parties and celebrations. Let me share their Christmas and New Year traditions.
First, Christmas day isn´t half as important as Christmas eve, or Buena Noche. I spent the day in Cerro hectically shopping for presents for the children in Wilda`s family. It was pretty fun, although very crowded. Everyone took the opportunity to travel to Cerro to buy their Panetton. This is a tall, round fruit bread. They cook it with some liquor, so that it has that aftertaste, and also has very modified fruits. They`re as artificial as you can imagine, bright red and green with raisens too. You can imagine most Volunteers hate the stuff, but Peruvians gleefully eat it for a week straight after Christmas Eve. Also, a special bar of chocolate is melted with canned milk (that´s the only type of milk they know here), and this Chocolate with Panetton is the utmost classic tradition for them. We spent Christmas eve evening enjoying the new toys which weren´t ever formally presented to the kids in any special way. We played Monopoly, one of the gifts, until midnight. At midnight, we all got up, lit those flare fireworks and stood outside. We all had to kiss each other´s cheeks and fervently wish each other Feliz Navidad. Then, and only then, we had our Christmas dinner. It was a roast turkey, with apple sauce and white rice. The turkey was actually incredible; I had seconds which for me and meat in Perù is a very rare occasion. The first in fact.
Christmas day was only special because it happens to be my host grandma´s birthday. So the family from Lima stuck around, and we slaughtered two of her sheep to make Pachamanca. We spent the afternoon prepping this, eating Panetton and drinking Chocolate. The 26th, a day late, we had our massive amount of snow. My host brother and I had a mini-snowball fight before the family made a snowman together. We also made a mini-snowdog.
On New Years Eve, there was massive amounts of preparation in Vicco. Tarps and stands were erected along both the Plazas and bands started playing around mid-day marching through the streets. The night time festivities included two massive structures made of bamboo and fire-worked up the wazoo. All day they had been lighting off the fireworks that are attached to bamboo poles and shoot up to explode sounding like a gun shot. But these were more like colorful flares, and spinning contraptions on a bamboo frame. The first one started being lit around 9pm, and people crowded around it to watch. At one point, part of the contraption was meant to fly into the air spinning with fireworks, but it shot off into the crowd instead. A circle (small one) was maintained around the thing by the men garbed in formal dancing gear. They`re ¨Negritos¨, part of the 5 day celebration that is still occuring right now. The bands played non-stop and people danced with these guys who jingle with the bells on their pants and one in their hand. After the structure was done, 30 minutes of fireworks were shot up into the air. These exploded so closely that the falling pretty bits often landed on people or on houses. Thankfully, everyone`s roof here is made of metal sheeting. The second contraption, belonging to the second group of Negritos who compete with the first, started around 11pm and was pretty awesome. They had a top part that light up like a flower, and then with its top spinning and exploding with fireworks, more fireworks lifted it up into the air like a mini-spacecraft. This thing floated along drifting over some houses as it shot off yet more fireworks into the air. It eventually fell into a side street, where I presume nobody was hurt. Hopefully.
I bought a wine bottle of this stuff called calentito, which is basically just warm little thing. Its a prepared drink with warm water, sugar and honey. I got my bottle with Rum, and it only cost, for the whole bottle, 7 soles. Which is approximately the equivalent of 2 dollars and change. I shared it with a tia and my host mom and we managed to finish it before midnight, when we all had to hug and kiss on the cheek, this time wishing each other a feliz año nuevo. My host mom swore up and down that the former Volunteer never drank, and then proceeded to tell me yesterday that she loved wine. I don`t always understand Peruvians, but its definitely not always because the language barrier.
All day of the 1st and 2nd there was dancing and bands playing. Yesterday, the 2nd, was the formal Presentation, where there were tons of organized dances with an announcer. I got to sit up with the Alcaldesa, mayor, on the important people pavillion. It was a bit crowded with important people, and the tarp wasn`t waterproof when it started raining, but it was still really cool. The dances were very intricate, if not perfectly performed. It went on for hours. The end part consisted of the two groups of Negritos each getting 45 minutes of dancing while their bands played. There are about 60 or so guys in each group. It was pretty impressive and very long. I got bored; I will admit. But it was cool. There was also massive amounts of beer being passed around the Pavillion stage. I would guess approximately 50 beers over the couple hours. I still don`t appreciate beer so didn`t partake. But after leaving the Plaza, the evidence of heavy beer imbibing was everywhere. Everyone wanted to kiss the Gringita, and invite her to their beer circle. Beer circles are interesting, and I don`t think I`ve explained yet. They consist of men standing in a circle and passing one beer around. The cup follows. The person with the plastic cup fills it, and passes the beer bottle to the person on the side, sometimes to the left sometimes to the right. When he finishes drinking, he dumps the foam on the ground, often on someone´s shoes (mine in the case of the presentation stage), and passes the cup to the person with the bottle. They keep going and going, buying or receiving more and more beer. They become remarkably friendly and want to hug you a lot. It took me a significant amount of dodging and Holas, no gracias to escape the Plaza after all the formal dancing. Then commenced everyone dancing for the rest of the night. Supposedly all of this commemorates baby jesus, who is their patron. I`m not sure why the fiesta is of the Negritos. But the costumes are intricate and bejeweled spectacularly. They also have dunce/clowns/jestors who run around the whole day doing ´funny´ things. They mock everyone and pose and just act stupid. Sadly, part of this included one of them swinging a live mouse around on a string. The whole day, he`d wipe him out and play with him, the others often clustering around to scare the mouse into running, using their stuffed specimens of lynxes, skunks and other animals. They also enjoyed making a sport out of tormenting me by trying to hug and kiss me, or always posing in my pictures, I guess being the only Gringita made me a prime target that stuck out. Today continued the party and dancing, with more promised tomorrow.
I tried to talk to the Alcaldesa today about my Compra de Reciclaje paperwork I submitted but she was too busy with all this partying. She promised to talk to me if I came back Thursday. So basically, I haven`t been able to get work done for the majority of the last two weeks. Paperwork here or there, and I finalized my surveys I want to give. But life is mostly at a standstill right now. Crossing my fingers kids come to my summer school Monday.
First, Christmas day isn´t half as important as Christmas eve, or Buena Noche. I spent the day in Cerro hectically shopping for presents for the children in Wilda`s family. It was pretty fun, although very crowded. Everyone took the opportunity to travel to Cerro to buy their Panetton. This is a tall, round fruit bread. They cook it with some liquor, so that it has that aftertaste, and also has very modified fruits. They`re as artificial as you can imagine, bright red and green with raisens too. You can imagine most Volunteers hate the stuff, but Peruvians gleefully eat it for a week straight after Christmas Eve. Also, a special bar of chocolate is melted with canned milk (that´s the only type of milk they know here), and this Chocolate with Panetton is the utmost classic tradition for them. We spent Christmas eve evening enjoying the new toys which weren´t ever formally presented to the kids in any special way. We played Monopoly, one of the gifts, until midnight. At midnight, we all got up, lit those flare fireworks and stood outside. We all had to kiss each other´s cheeks and fervently wish each other Feliz Navidad. Then, and only then, we had our Christmas dinner. It was a roast turkey, with apple sauce and white rice. The turkey was actually incredible; I had seconds which for me and meat in Perù is a very rare occasion. The first in fact.
Christmas day was only special because it happens to be my host grandma´s birthday. So the family from Lima stuck around, and we slaughtered two of her sheep to make Pachamanca. We spent the afternoon prepping this, eating Panetton and drinking Chocolate. The 26th, a day late, we had our massive amount of snow. My host brother and I had a mini-snowball fight before the family made a snowman together. We also made a mini-snowdog.
On New Years Eve, there was massive amounts of preparation in Vicco. Tarps and stands were erected along both the Plazas and bands started playing around mid-day marching through the streets. The night time festivities included two massive structures made of bamboo and fire-worked up the wazoo. All day they had been lighting off the fireworks that are attached to bamboo poles and shoot up to explode sounding like a gun shot. But these were more like colorful flares, and spinning contraptions on a bamboo frame. The first one started being lit around 9pm, and people crowded around it to watch. At one point, part of the contraption was meant to fly into the air spinning with fireworks, but it shot off into the crowd instead. A circle (small one) was maintained around the thing by the men garbed in formal dancing gear. They`re ¨Negritos¨, part of the 5 day celebration that is still occuring right now. The bands played non-stop and people danced with these guys who jingle with the bells on their pants and one in their hand. After the structure was done, 30 minutes of fireworks were shot up into the air. These exploded so closely that the falling pretty bits often landed on people or on houses. Thankfully, everyone`s roof here is made of metal sheeting. The second contraption, belonging to the second group of Negritos who compete with the first, started around 11pm and was pretty awesome. They had a top part that light up like a flower, and then with its top spinning and exploding with fireworks, more fireworks lifted it up into the air like a mini-spacecraft. This thing floated along drifting over some houses as it shot off yet more fireworks into the air. It eventually fell into a side street, where I presume nobody was hurt. Hopefully.
I bought a wine bottle of this stuff called calentito, which is basically just warm little thing. Its a prepared drink with warm water, sugar and honey. I got my bottle with Rum, and it only cost, for the whole bottle, 7 soles. Which is approximately the equivalent of 2 dollars and change. I shared it with a tia and my host mom and we managed to finish it before midnight, when we all had to hug and kiss on the cheek, this time wishing each other a feliz año nuevo. My host mom swore up and down that the former Volunteer never drank, and then proceeded to tell me yesterday that she loved wine. I don`t always understand Peruvians, but its definitely not always because the language barrier.
All day of the 1st and 2nd there was dancing and bands playing. Yesterday, the 2nd, was the formal Presentation, where there were tons of organized dances with an announcer. I got to sit up with the Alcaldesa, mayor, on the important people pavillion. It was a bit crowded with important people, and the tarp wasn`t waterproof when it started raining, but it was still really cool. The dances were very intricate, if not perfectly performed. It went on for hours. The end part consisted of the two groups of Negritos each getting 45 minutes of dancing while their bands played. There are about 60 or so guys in each group. It was pretty impressive and very long. I got bored; I will admit. But it was cool. There was also massive amounts of beer being passed around the Pavillion stage. I would guess approximately 50 beers over the couple hours. I still don`t appreciate beer so didn`t partake. But after leaving the Plaza, the evidence of heavy beer imbibing was everywhere. Everyone wanted to kiss the Gringita, and invite her to their beer circle. Beer circles are interesting, and I don`t think I`ve explained yet. They consist of men standing in a circle and passing one beer around. The cup follows. The person with the plastic cup fills it, and passes the beer bottle to the person on the side, sometimes to the left sometimes to the right. When he finishes drinking, he dumps the foam on the ground, often on someone´s shoes (mine in the case of the presentation stage), and passes the cup to the person with the bottle. They keep going and going, buying or receiving more and more beer. They become remarkably friendly and want to hug you a lot. It took me a significant amount of dodging and Holas, no gracias to escape the Plaza after all the formal dancing. Then commenced everyone dancing for the rest of the night. Supposedly all of this commemorates baby jesus, who is their patron. I`m not sure why the fiesta is of the Negritos. But the costumes are intricate and bejeweled spectacularly. They also have dunce/clowns/jestors who run around the whole day doing ´funny´ things. They mock everyone and pose and just act stupid. Sadly, part of this included one of them swinging a live mouse around on a string. The whole day, he`d wipe him out and play with him, the others often clustering around to scare the mouse into running, using their stuffed specimens of lynxes, skunks and other animals. They also enjoyed making a sport out of tormenting me by trying to hug and kiss me, or always posing in my pictures, I guess being the only Gringita made me a prime target that stuck out. Today continued the party and dancing, with more promised tomorrow.
I tried to talk to the Alcaldesa today about my Compra de Reciclaje paperwork I submitted but she was too busy with all this partying. She promised to talk to me if I came back Thursday. So basically, I haven`t been able to get work done for the majority of the last two weeks. Paperwork here or there, and I finalized my surveys I want to give. But life is mostly at a standstill right now. Crossing my fingers kids come to my summer school Monday.
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