The No "No" Rule

Another volunteer passed on a little piece of wisdom from a friend of hers who is also a PCV. It’s called “The No ‘No’ Rule.” She told me about this rule after she had been out until 4 a.m. at a baptism party with her host family (Yes, a baptism party. Here baptism parties are more like wedding receptions). Basically the rule is that you never say no to an invitation. If someone invites you to eat cow hearts from the street vendor, you do it. If you get invited to go to a discoteca on a Sunday night, you do it. If your host mom asks you to help kill a chicken for tonight’s chicken noodle soup, you do it (well, taking pictures of her doing it can also count). I think this is a really useful philosophy for my next two years and two months here in Peru. If you never say no, think of all the great adventures and stories you’ll have!

On Friday, I will officially have been in Peru for a month. The last two weeks have flown by. My typical schedule consists of 4 hours of Spanish class and either 4 hours of community health training or training in things like first aid, diversity, and sexual health. I wake up around 5 a.m. to the sound of roosters and chickens (sometimes around 3 to the one rooster who’s internal clock must be off) but try to go back to sleep for another hour. If I’m feeling brave, or really dirty, I take a 5 minute cold shower. Then I get dressed and have breakfast with my host mom. She figured out that I love coffee so now I get coffee every morning. Unfortunately, instant coffee is all they really drink here. I don’t really understand this, since coffee is a major export for Peru. Where are they hiding all the good coffee? At about 7:30 I walk with the other volunteers in my neighborhood to the bottom of our long hill to wait for the bus or combi. The combi probably was made to be a 15 passenger van but I’d say they can hold about 40 people. I would put up a picture but I haven’t figured out how to hold my camera in one hand while clinging desperately for my life to the railing with my other hand. I am one of the fortunate volunteers that gets to make this trek at least twice a day- to the training center and home from the training center. We get out of training around 5 so I’ve been trying to run as much as possible with other volunteers before I go home. There’s a marathon/half marathon/10k/5k in July that a PCV started at his site and I’d really like to run in it (probably the half or the 10k). Sometimes the walk up the hill to my house at the end of the day is enough exercise.

On Saturdays, we go to an agricultural university near Lima to learn how to garden. It’s been one of my favorite activities so far. The first day we learned some basics on planting (the names of certain plants in Spanish, which ones take a long time to grow, which ones need more light, etc.). The second week we learned how to make compost. Gardening is one of the projects we can do at our sights not only to help the community increase their production of vegetables and plants, but also to have more of these nutritious foods available for ourselves. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, perhaps because it’s one of the more constructive things we’ve done. We’ve had a lot of interesting lectures, classes, and activities, but we haven’t gotten a chance to get our hands dirty. That’s all coming in the next couple weeks.

After we finish at the Agraria on Saturdays, we have the afternoon free to go explore Lima, go shopping at a big commercial plaza (where they have such great American delicacies as the Whopper, the Big Mac, and the personal pan pizza), or just return home. Last week, a couple friends and I decided to have a picnic in Miraflores, which is one of the more upscale/prettier areas of Lima. It sits high up on a cliff and you can see the Pacific Ocean. I made hummus the night before (which was a whole other adventure, involving my host mom boiling garbanzo beans for 7 hours over a wood fire and then me burning out the blender) and we all ate lunch in Parque Kennedy. Then we walked toward the water and toward a place called Parque del Amor. After exploring Miraflores for awhile, we decided to get some ice cream and head back home. Getting home from Lima is the tricky part. You have to take a couple of combis to get back and only if you are super lucky do you get a seat. I was not so lucky and stood for a little over an hour to get home.

If you’ve made it this far in this blog entry, thanks for reading! Today we have the day off from PC (minus Spanish interviews to reevaluate our class level) because it’s a holiday. I’m writing this blog on my laptop and then hopefully going to an internet place to post it. Free time and personal space are two things we don’t get a lot of so I’m thinking that today will be a good day to do some reading, write in my journal, maybe make the effort to heat up water on the stove for a loofa shower, who knows. I’ve learned quickly that your plans can change in an instant. That personal time you thought you had might be interrupted by a visit from an uncle that lives in the jungle or an unexpected trip to neighboring Chosica for a parade. Sometimes I wonder how much is lost in translation and how often things are just left unannounced. I tried to explain the phrase “like a deer in headlights” to my host mom the other day. Fortunately, I think she got it.