So I had a pretty interesting Sunday. I got up early to be ready for my flag raising ceremony in the main plaza. I had written a little speech of what I would say, so after making sure that was in my pocket and I had my first daily layer of sunscreen on, I headed to the plaza. I there proceeded to wait on Peruvian time. Eventually, the governor, his tenant governor, the Municipality secretary, and two workers from the Municipality all congregated, and we carried the Peruvian flag out and around the Main Plaza's park area. I got to tie it up and raise it to their flag raising song, and then proceeded to stand there solemnly while they sang their national anthem. I've been in that position before, and I'm honestly still not sure how to act. It's uncomfortable. Do I put my hand over my heart like them? Do I look at the flag like I would if it were mine? Do I attempt to sing their anthem with them? It's interesting. I ended up putting my hand on my heart and staring forcefully at the ground, humming along. Interestingly, they don't look at the flag during the anthem, so I'm not sure staring at the ground is really much of a statement. Anyways, I said my little words about the flag being a symbol of the country and a promise to the future. I said we promised to leave a beautiful country to our children and that's why I was dedicating this flag raising to Migratory Birds day and Environment Day (June 5th), that we needed to remember and honor these important days. I think I would have felt prouder of my little speech if more than 5 other people had heard it.
During that, I received a surprising text from my Peruvian friend, Omar (the one who brought me Hersey bars and Pringles) about him having borrowed a car and wanting to take me to Huanuco. Understandably, I was a little uncomfortable with the idea. But he invited my host brother and his sister was going to, so I said I'd ask Jon if he wanted to go. Jon did...but Wilda was in a bad mood so he backed out. Wilda was understandably very unhappy because my chef friend who had disappeared for awhile and then showed back up, had taken off in the middle of the night or early morning without a word. She was stuck cooking and short-handed. So anyways, Omar showed up with his sister in a nice Yaris (they're pretty popular here for some reason) and we set off. The road to Huanuco is past Cerro de Pasco to the north. Its another department, ie state, but the capital city is also named Huanuco and was where we were headed. We arrived around 1pm or so, and headed to get some food. We were supposed to meet up with Omar's sister's friend at a pro soccer game, but first we had to eat. So we ate at this place called Senor Limon. Apparently its pretty well-known to Peruvians, and I now know why. It has EXCELLENT food. The best ceviche I've had in Peru, the best calamari, the best fried fish sticks. I put money in for my part of our shared lunch, and we headed off to the soccer game. We were super late, so got in free, and watched the last 10 minutes. Peruvians are a little crazy about live soccer. As the game finished, police in full riot gear came out and formed a barricade so the referees could leave without being mobbed in thrown things. We filled out with the mob, and meet up with her friend. From there, we headed out of the city to Churubumbo (I think that's how it was spelled). There was supposed to be a resort/retreat type place we could hang out for awhile. But they said it was closed, so instead we went to the museum there. That was pretty awesome. They have pre-Incan mummies. You enter this small doorway that's supposed to be a replica of the civilization's homes and descend a rickety staircase into the semi-darkness. There, you see glass cases of dead people in fetal position screaming silently at you. It was a tad unnerving. Apparently, because the culture believe in an after-life, they put all their dead they mummified (important people only of course) into fetal positions. Basically, so that the dead were prepared to be born into the next life, like from the womb. Pretty cool huh? As I was moving through the museum, I saw some adult mummies, some children mummies, some stone mortal and pestles they used for medicine and then......A glass case with the placard "Piedras en la forma de huevos". Ie...stones in the shape of eggs. Yep, I am serious. There were 6 oblong rocks sitting in a glass case in a museum with Pre-Incan mummies. Not only that, but there were rocks in the form of hearts right beneath them. I took a video, just in case someone didn't believe me. I also have photos of the 400 year old bible they have. You know...400 year bibles definitely should be preserved alongside those rocks in the form of eggs. Omar's sister found a egg-shaped rock the museum must have misplaced right outside in the dirt as we left.
Anyways, after that we headed back to Huanuco. On the way, we picked up and old Tio on his way into the city. He had pure cane-liquor with him that he was going to sell. He let us take a shot of it from the bottle. Incredibly potent let me tell you. I only had a sip and I definitely felt the heat spread as if I'd taken two shots of tequila. That was pretty much the end of the day; we headed back to Vicco after dropping off the Tio and the friend. It was a long dark ride, but Omar and I passed the time chatting. I still have my mind blown that I CAN chat with him, that we have conversations that vary and are interesting.
During the week, I taught classes of English in the High school. They were good, and I felt like a real teacher since I was teachin the same kids I'd taught the week before in actual class periods. Yesterday, I hitched a ride with the Municipality in their truck to Cerro de Pasco. There Omar helped me get prices for my solar project budget that I'm working on. We also encountered an elementary school's anniversary celebration. It was an incredibly large procession through the streets. They had kids dressed as animals, doctors, witches, their traditional "negritos" garb, and even robots. I managed to spot Bender amongst the robots, and Omar took a photo for me. He was so kind as to post the photo on Facebook so you can see what a great job the kid, or his parents, did.
As for today, I had my 5th recycling buy. I bought 280 kilos more of recycling. I got extra bags from the Municipality beforehand and filled them up. I officially have nowhere to put more recycling. If I can't get this stuff sold this month, I think I'm going to put off buying more. That'd be sad, but may be necessary anyways. June is going to be a month of parties in Vicco; I'm not sure who is going to come sell me recycling. We have Rally Vicco, the highest race in the world? or maybe just in South America I don't know. After that, we celebrate the town anniversary for a week and a half I believe. So anyway, June should be fun.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
6 months in Vicco
I cannot believe its been six months that I've been working in my site. I don't know where the time has gone, and yet, 6 months means that I have 3 more of what I've already done. Anyways, this blog I was hoping to address some of the comments or suggestions from people who are reading my blog.
My mom told me that someone (sorry I don't remember who she said, a bunco friend I believe) wanted to hear how the Municipality functioned. To start off, my Municipality is the district capital government, which means they're in charge of Vicco, but also Shelby and Cochamarca. Those are two of our little pueblos outside of Vicco in our area. There is an office of obras, which means works. They are in charge of coordinating the projects of the Muni. Recently I sat in a meeting with the mayor and her regidores (people in charge of certain areas of work) where they had an intense session about the boss of the office of works lacking documents. A guy who was monitoring his work said that there were numerous documents where the numbers didn't match up and it had been months since he'd asked for certain documents. My point is that there is a lot of corruption in the government. Also, there is an office where two women work coordinating documents, I think. In their office, I can sometimes ask to use the internet which is nice. Next door to them is Juan Matias, who I am in the process of moving into his home with his family. I've used his computer pretty frequently too. He is in charge of the Centro Comercial building (ie the building that my current host mom rents from the Muni to have her restaurant on the first floor). In the main office is the secretary who guards the door of the mayor. He receives documents from people who are asking something of the Muni, and fills out birth certificates. Basically any official document will go through him. Also, there is the accountant, who handles paying people and such. There are a couple other people who I'm not quite sure what their job description is but they're around. Oh, and the regidores and mayor. They seem to only really handle important events and attend meetings. A typical day for me when I go to the Municipality will be to enter, greeting everyone I see with a kiss on the cheek. Generally, I need to talk with one of the people who lets me use the computer so I'll search them out. Or I'm presenting a document or asking about one so I go see the secretary. Don't bother asking him about who will be attending a meeting, or who will be giving me access to their projector. He has more than once told me that's not his responsibility. It's very frustrating in that regard. To get anything done in this bureaucracy you need to have a document, an official solicitud that you present to the secretary so he can stamp it and give you your copy. Then you wait till the next monday when the regidores and the mayor have their "Consejos" meeting where they talk about the documents and approve them or not. I try to make sure to attend that meeting with them if I have a document presented. Its usually incredibly boring, but they're funny people, and so it's pretty informal. If you think about it, its a little strange that I'm allowed to just sit in on their internal meetings to approve projects or not. But that's the privilege of being an extranjera.
I think another comment my mom received about my blog was that it needed more positive things. As she said to me, it's rather hard, since I already try to put a positive spin on things as it is. If what's there isn't positive enough, I'm not sure how I can change it without lying. However, in the last week or so, things have been pretty positive so I'll try to highlight some of those moments. I've made a friend who has a store in Cerro de Pasco. I think I wrote about him previously in that he ordered cork boards for me from Lima when I was looking for one for my room. Whenever we hang out, we have real conversations. By which I mean, we talk about things like evolution, and if robots will ever take over the world. It's so nice to talk to someone more than just saying yes its cold, yes I'm accustomed to life here, and yes I'm single. I'm pretty sure he's interested in more than just friendship, although so far things have been plutonic. He brought pringles, and Hershey bars for me one day from Cerro from a shop he knows of that has a lot of imported goods. It's a little unfortunate that eventually I'll probably have to stop talking with him because he's a guy. In Peru, women and men aren't friends. I know that's sort of a human thing, but it's more drastic here, ie impossible.
Another big positive for me is I started teaching again. The catalyst for that isn't a positive thing-the english teacher in the high school is recovering from a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. So while she's away, I'm covering her classes. It felt great to be back in the class teaching something easy, like English. She is also the teacher of Family values, which I have no idea how they teach, so instead I started teaching Hapkido. That was incredible. The first class I taught was 4th grade of high school (14-15 year olds, they have 5 grades but no middle school). They were just mature enough to be intelligent and attentive, but still young enough that they weren't being insolent and rude. My attempt to teach one of the sections of 5th grade English, ie the seniors, didn't go so well. I ended up walking out of their class and teaching some other kids who were on break. Anyway, the Hapkido was really fun. They were impressed and eager for more. I taught some basic joint locks, rolling, and a couple set ups for throws. It felt incredible; I have no idea why I didn't force the issue to start when the school year started in March.
I've been really busy lately which has been nice. I have meetings to attend, and classes to teach. I've been working hard on coordinating with the Recycling guy to come buy my recycling. I've been writing a Solar energy project for a grant proposal, in Spanish. Who ever thought I'd end up writing a 12 page formal grant proposal in Spanish. I've been trying to coordinate moving homes, and attending Anniversary parties and Brigada swearing-ins. Tomorrow I get to raise the Peruvian flag in the Plaza de Armas. I'm supposed to say something for that, in front of whichever authorities show up, so tonight I need to write what I should say.
That is a bit of what I've been up to. Hopefully that's positive enough. I'll write another blog soon; there is a lot I didn't mention here. I'll try to make that one a little more organized.
My mom told me that someone (sorry I don't remember who she said, a bunco friend I believe) wanted to hear how the Municipality functioned. To start off, my Municipality is the district capital government, which means they're in charge of Vicco, but also Shelby and Cochamarca. Those are two of our little pueblos outside of Vicco in our area. There is an office of obras, which means works. They are in charge of coordinating the projects of the Muni. Recently I sat in a meeting with the mayor and her regidores (people in charge of certain areas of work) where they had an intense session about the boss of the office of works lacking documents. A guy who was monitoring his work said that there were numerous documents where the numbers didn't match up and it had been months since he'd asked for certain documents. My point is that there is a lot of corruption in the government. Also, there is an office where two women work coordinating documents, I think. In their office, I can sometimes ask to use the internet which is nice. Next door to them is Juan Matias, who I am in the process of moving into his home with his family. I've used his computer pretty frequently too. He is in charge of the Centro Comercial building (ie the building that my current host mom rents from the Muni to have her restaurant on the first floor). In the main office is the secretary who guards the door of the mayor. He receives documents from people who are asking something of the Muni, and fills out birth certificates. Basically any official document will go through him. Also, there is the accountant, who handles paying people and such. There are a couple other people who I'm not quite sure what their job description is but they're around. Oh, and the regidores and mayor. They seem to only really handle important events and attend meetings. A typical day for me when I go to the Municipality will be to enter, greeting everyone I see with a kiss on the cheek. Generally, I need to talk with one of the people who lets me use the computer so I'll search them out. Or I'm presenting a document or asking about one so I go see the secretary. Don't bother asking him about who will be attending a meeting, or who will be giving me access to their projector. He has more than once told me that's not his responsibility. It's very frustrating in that regard. To get anything done in this bureaucracy you need to have a document, an official solicitud that you present to the secretary so he can stamp it and give you your copy. Then you wait till the next monday when the regidores and the mayor have their "Consejos" meeting where they talk about the documents and approve them or not. I try to make sure to attend that meeting with them if I have a document presented. Its usually incredibly boring, but they're funny people, and so it's pretty informal. If you think about it, its a little strange that I'm allowed to just sit in on their internal meetings to approve projects or not. But that's the privilege of being an extranjera.
I think another comment my mom received about my blog was that it needed more positive things. As she said to me, it's rather hard, since I already try to put a positive spin on things as it is. If what's there isn't positive enough, I'm not sure how I can change it without lying. However, in the last week or so, things have been pretty positive so I'll try to highlight some of those moments. I've made a friend who has a store in Cerro de Pasco. I think I wrote about him previously in that he ordered cork boards for me from Lima when I was looking for one for my room. Whenever we hang out, we have real conversations. By which I mean, we talk about things like evolution, and if robots will ever take over the world. It's so nice to talk to someone more than just saying yes its cold, yes I'm accustomed to life here, and yes I'm single. I'm pretty sure he's interested in more than just friendship, although so far things have been plutonic. He brought pringles, and Hershey bars for me one day from Cerro from a shop he knows of that has a lot of imported goods. It's a little unfortunate that eventually I'll probably have to stop talking with him because he's a guy. In Peru, women and men aren't friends. I know that's sort of a human thing, but it's more drastic here, ie impossible.
Another big positive for me is I started teaching again. The catalyst for that isn't a positive thing-the english teacher in the high school is recovering from a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor. So while she's away, I'm covering her classes. It felt great to be back in the class teaching something easy, like English. She is also the teacher of Family values, which I have no idea how they teach, so instead I started teaching Hapkido. That was incredible. The first class I taught was 4th grade of high school (14-15 year olds, they have 5 grades but no middle school). They were just mature enough to be intelligent and attentive, but still young enough that they weren't being insolent and rude. My attempt to teach one of the sections of 5th grade English, ie the seniors, didn't go so well. I ended up walking out of their class and teaching some other kids who were on break. Anyway, the Hapkido was really fun. They were impressed and eager for more. I taught some basic joint locks, rolling, and a couple set ups for throws. It felt incredible; I have no idea why I didn't force the issue to start when the school year started in March.
I've been really busy lately which has been nice. I have meetings to attend, and classes to teach. I've been working hard on coordinating with the Recycling guy to come buy my recycling. I've been writing a Solar energy project for a grant proposal, in Spanish. Who ever thought I'd end up writing a 12 page formal grant proposal in Spanish. I've been trying to coordinate moving homes, and attending Anniversary parties and Brigada swearing-ins. Tomorrow I get to raise the Peruvian flag in the Plaza de Armas. I'm supposed to say something for that, in front of whichever authorities show up, so tonight I need to write what I should say.
That is a bit of what I've been up to. Hopefully that's positive enough. I'll write another blog soon; there is a lot I didn't mention here. I'll try to make that one a little more organized.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
ECPA conference in Ancash
I guess its past time that I updated this blog. Things have been a little hectic since last posting. I celebrated Cruzes de Mayo, the Crosses of May, in my site. That was a lot of drinking and dancing; I've posted pictures. Things between our chef and my host mom sort of blew up in that time period, and unfortunately he left us. That's incredibly sad for me, because he was an awesome guy, one of two people I considered friends in Vicco. Even during that, I was helping my host-mom's restaurant, serving food like crazy when my own situation took a dive for the worse too. My host-grandma borrowed my keys to get into the house with my host-sister while I was busy helping the chef get food to the impatient mine workers. She came back about 20 minutes later, and gave my keys back. I continued working, and because I was so busy, asked my host-sister to put some utensils on a plate for one of the tables. I wasn't asking her to go put them on the table, just put the utensils on a plate I provided her. She ignored me, and begged for my keys so she could go back to the house. 5 minutes later, I realized I still needed utensils and asked again. She put the plate down and walked away, so I sought her out after serving some soup and asked about it. She shrugged insolently and turned away, and then she had the gall to ask me for my keys to go back to the house again. I told her no. That would be when my host-grandma flipped out and, long story short, asked me to leave her house. I think the worst part of that was, she is so small, and she refused to look me in the eye, so I felt like this giant staring down at her while she tried to evict me.
Anyways, fast-forwarding a bit, I located a suitable new home family. I asked around in the Municipality with more urgency than before, and visited the families of two Muni. workers. The first one, who is a woman working at the Muni, I would have loved to live with her. Unfortunately, she has so many siblings, her mom didn't have an empty room to rent me. The second guy turned out to be perfect. His home is very very close to the main plaza; he has a large empty room and an actual toilet. He even has a sink, and a washing machine that I think is hooked into the water supply. I might be able to wash clothes without either hauling tons of buckets or hand-scrubbing for hours! It's a miracle. I need to talk to his wife, just to be sure things are good with her, but I don't foresee any problems. Well, other than having to haul all my stuff (including my mini-kitchen) to the new place. I was worried about losing my one other friend in Vicco, since that is my current host-brother, but I don't see that being a problem either. We talked and he completely sympathizes, even to the point of telling me he can't wait till he himself can leave the home situation. In these last weeks, I have definitely come to regard Jon as the younger brother I never had.
On another note, work has been keeping me busy lately, and will keep me busy for the next month and a half. I realized that I'm now a member of 3 different important committees. I'm part of the high school's environmental committee, and I formed an Environmental Committee for all of Vicco, with representatives of all the important groups of Vicco. Also, I'm the Peace Corps representative for the Committee for the development of the National Reserve Junin (our lake/national park). Aside from that, I meet and helped a couple of guys who are planning a tourism project for Vicco, so I have some meetings coming up for that. Also, I am starting on May 24th a mini-Environmental Movie Night. That day is our day to celebrate Migratory Birds Day, so I thought it would make a great night to start movies, and show "Rio".
On top of that, I need and want to start planning a Renewable Energy project. I am currently returning from a 3 day conference in the gorgeous Huaraz, Ancash about Climate Change and Renewable Energy Education. ECPA is the Peace Corps group that hosted the event. I'm very excited to do a solar project and start some education using models and demonstrations. I guess once I have that planned out; I'll explain it more fully. I'll just say that I hope to start a solar bake sale as part of it.
Anyways, hope you are all well. I'm keeping busy, and that is the name of happiness in PC Peru.
Anyways, fast-forwarding a bit, I located a suitable new home family. I asked around in the Municipality with more urgency than before, and visited the families of two Muni. workers. The first one, who is a woman working at the Muni, I would have loved to live with her. Unfortunately, she has so many siblings, her mom didn't have an empty room to rent me. The second guy turned out to be perfect. His home is very very close to the main plaza; he has a large empty room and an actual toilet. He even has a sink, and a washing machine that I think is hooked into the water supply. I might be able to wash clothes without either hauling tons of buckets or hand-scrubbing for hours! It's a miracle. I need to talk to his wife, just to be sure things are good with her, but I don't foresee any problems. Well, other than having to haul all my stuff (including my mini-kitchen) to the new place. I was worried about losing my one other friend in Vicco, since that is my current host-brother, but I don't see that being a problem either. We talked and he completely sympathizes, even to the point of telling me he can't wait till he himself can leave the home situation. In these last weeks, I have definitely come to regard Jon as the younger brother I never had.
On another note, work has been keeping me busy lately, and will keep me busy for the next month and a half. I realized that I'm now a member of 3 different important committees. I'm part of the high school's environmental committee, and I formed an Environmental Committee for all of Vicco, with representatives of all the important groups of Vicco. Also, I'm the Peace Corps representative for the Committee for the development of the National Reserve Junin (our lake/national park). Aside from that, I meet and helped a couple of guys who are planning a tourism project for Vicco, so I have some meetings coming up for that. Also, I am starting on May 24th a mini-Environmental Movie Night. That day is our day to celebrate Migratory Birds Day, so I thought it would make a great night to start movies, and show "Rio".
On top of that, I need and want to start planning a Renewable Energy project. I am currently returning from a 3 day conference in the gorgeous Huaraz, Ancash about Climate Change and Renewable Energy Education. ECPA is the Peace Corps group that hosted the event. I'm very excited to do a solar project and start some education using models and demonstrations. I guess once I have that planned out; I'll explain it more fully. I'll just say that I hope to start a solar bake sale as part of it.
Anyways, hope you are all well. I'm keeping busy, and that is the name of happiness in PC Peru.
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