Tense Living Situation

Sorry I haven´t been posting very regularly. Its been really tough not having access to internet in site for keeping in contact with you guys. I´ve been enjoying having my laptop; it meant I got that Tree Survey all typed up and even wrote a formal document explaining how to conduct it, so it´s replicable. Classes have been going well, although this week was a bit tough. I´ve been really tense with my living situation, and that probably made me less than thrilled with the Professoras of the Escuela. What happened was that they suddenly this week decided they should be teaching in the afternoons as well. Without consulting me at all, again, they decided to teach Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons to reinforce the everyday of the week teaching in the mornings. My Monday class had two kids show up out of our normal 18. I had no explanation, until Wednesday, when it was threatening to repeat, and I noticed the Professoras heading to the classrooms with most of my students. I more than a little angrily asked why they were teaching in the afternoons. Then proceeded to ask why they would start teaching on the two days of the week I teach in the afternoon, when they knew exactly when I was teaching, and had been since before they started. I was a little snappy. I got most of my kids back, and they told me they´d be changing the days to teach Tuesday/Thursday when I wasn´t. It was incredibly frustrating to me though; I can´t understand how they could cold-bloodedly do that without once talking to me.

Anyways, in my Wednesday class, we made posters about Wetlands day, which is today. We put them up on the Municipality wall in the main plaza, and I saw a lot of people looking at them this morning, which was great. I really felt cool getting the kids to do that, as well as inspiring a bit of their creativity. They struggle so much with thinking on their own, since the Peruvian education system is completely built on rote memorization and copying.

I guess here is as good a place as any to do a bit of complaining. I mentioned my living situation hasn´t been the best. Well, the problem is my host mom is so...mean. Whenever I ask her a question about what something means in Spanish, I never know if her answer is honest, or if she´s making fun of me with the other workers in the restaurant. She´s always ragging on me about not eating, and yet eating too much bread. She practically daily threatens me that I should live solo. They´re not saving me food, so if I arrive late, say after teaching classes like today, they likely don´t have any food left. And yet she tells me I don´t eat...how can I if she won´t feed me. Also, she makes absolutely no effort to make me something that I actually enjoy. She knows I don´t eat mutton. I´ve figured out why all those stories of castles and knights have the peasants eating mutton and complaining of it. Seriously, incredibly unappetizing, I can´t stomach the taste. Almost every meal, there´s only rice, potatoes and a meat. She won´t incorporate vegetables into the diet, or even just prepare them for me. She doesn´t do anything to accomodate me. Also, none of my stuff is safe if not locked in my room. Just today, she used my pineapple I had bought. It´s not like she didn´t know it was mine, I´d told her when I put it in the restaurant´s fridge, separate from all of theirs. She didn´t even apologize, just told me it was at the restaurant, and the cook didn´t know. There have been other occasions of my things disappearing from the kitchen in the house, but she just waved it off saying she didn´t eat in the house, it wasn´t her. I keep trying to calmly discuss things with her, and it hasn´t made any progress yet. She just says I should live alone then. I´m honestly scared I´m going to need a new living situation at some point, probably in the near future. I really don´t want to have to move all my stuff and deal with another situation. Also...that´s assuming I could find someone suitable. It makes it really hard to stay positive when I feel so utterly unwelcome and unsettled in my home life. And the new chef at the restaurant has made that place difficult to be. They´re constantly joking about me and just plain unfriendly. Even Percy, the young helper, has become rude and abrasive when the cook is around.

Well anyways, I guess this is a normal thing when trying to fit into another families life, let alone another culture. I´m going to keep trying. Sometimes it´s gone better, and we´ve gone back to the friendly joking. But it quickly becomes distinctly unfriendly again, before I have a chance to catch my breath. But to leave this on a positive note, one that I´m going to focus on myself, I had my first Recycling Buy a few days ago. After a few expected hiccups, it went stunningly well. I bought 300 kilos of recycling, a ton more than I thought. I´d hoped for a good turn out, but this was beyond that. It amounted to S/. 140 of recycling I bought and kept from being either burned or thrown into the streets. A very encouraging bit of work for me, and a highlight to focus on. That and my Tree survey. Hope life is treating you guys well. Miss you so much, it makes it hard to get up in the mornings (or maybe its the cold...).