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.