AnCash B'Gosh

A chacra in Rancas

Thanks Pat for the title of this blog entry. I feel like it suits the craziness of my life right now and the ridiculousness of some of the past weeks’ events. Currently, I’m in Huaraz for a regional meeting with the Ancash volunteers. I’m doing very well- I’ve already taken two hot showers, put some quality food in my stomach, and spent several hours on the internet. It’s good to be back in the company of the other volunteers, especially since our cell phone network stopped working this week and I didn’t talk to virtually anyone from Saturday until Thursday. It was really hard not being able to call people to tell them all the strange, terrible, wonderful things that happened during the week, or to ask for advice on what to do in certain situations, but I’m proud to say I made it through the two weeks without any tears whatsoever.

Where to begin! I guess I’ll start with a quick anecdote about my arrival at my new home. To get to San Marcos from Huaraz, you have to take a coach bus (which is more like a Chinatown bus- those of you who have ridden them from Boston to New York or New York to D.C. know what I’m talking about). My house, literally the door to my room, is on the main road that the bus takes, so I asked the driver to let me off to see if my family was home before I unloaded all my luggage and new mattress. I didn’t want to be waiting outside with all my stuff if my new family wouldn’t be coming home from the chacra for a few hours. As I got off the bus, I noticed the door to my room was open and there was a big pick up truck outside my door. When I looked into my room, there were four men sitting around a table drinking beer. The bed that had been there during site visit was gone and there was nothing else in the room. I was in so much shock that all I managed to say was “Hola” and ran back to the bus to get one of the other volunteers to help me. He came over to my room and said something to the men about Cuerpo de Paz, but there didn’t seem to be any sign of my host family, and the bus was beeping at us, so we had to get back on and go the rest of the way to San Marcos. I ended up spending the night at the health post on my mattress with Claudia, Tyler, and Mike, because I didn’t know what to do, and Claudia and Tyler didn’t have any transportation up to their sites anyways. I went back to my house the next day and the men were gone- all that remained was the table and empty box of beer bottles. Turns out the mayor of one of the nearby towns was having a “meeting” in my room. I have no idea how this came about- of all the rooms in all the houses in all the communities that the mayor is in charge of, he picked my room to have his “meeting.” Go figure.

the aftermath

In other news, I am still without a latrine. The man in charge of water and sanitation at the health post, who I wanted to talk to about constructing a latrine, has been on vacation for the last two weeks. As a result, I have bought myself a bucket for my room for emergencies, and the chacra behind my house is dotted with a few mounds of toilet paper, which I’m sure is not environmentally friendly. No one in my community seems to have latrines. Everyone just seems to go in the open air. I try to hold out and use the bathroom at the health post or somewhere else in San Marcos. At least I know I have a project idea!

Speaking of construction, my room is undergoing some changes, which leads me to a second anecdote that’s a little bit longer. I talked to my host family about fixing the walls and the roof in my room and explained that I would pay for the changes instead of paying for the first couple months rent. They agreed to the deal, but actually figuring out what needed to be done to the walls was a huge challenge. I thought that I could just buy some bags of yeso (white plaster) to put on the walls, maybe around 8 bags or so for my whole room. But when I asked my host mom how we’d fill in some of the window-sized holes in the wall, she said that we’d have to put some obra negra (adobe mud stuff) on the walls first then yeso. So I said sure, let’s do that. Then she asked the neighborhood wall builder guy to come over to check out my room and he said it would take a month for the obra negra to dry and to just use 40 bags of yeso in layers instead. This sounded a little dubious to me so later on I had a conversation with my host mom and dad and tried to explain that I wanted the obra negra stuff. I wasn’t really sure what was decided after the conversation because they spoke to each other in Quechua for the most part.

The next morning, there were 20 bags of yeso outside of my door. I assumed they had decided on yeso without me, so I went on about my daily business in San Marcos. When I got home in the afternoon with a new bed frame I had asked a town carpenter to make me, my host dad and the wall builder guy were covered head to toe in obra negra, and the obra negra mud was all over the room. Most of my things had been taken out of my room or were on top of my bed covered by a plastic tarp. I wasn’t really sure what to do at this point since I clearly was not going to be able to sleep or cook dinner in my room that night. In panic mode, I called two American girls I had met the week before who are working as Baptist missionaries in a nearby town. I asked them if I could crash on their sofa or floor or whatever they had and thankfully they said yes. It ended up being a great decision.

Courtney and Lyndsey are 23 and 25 and have been living in a hostal in Chavin for the last year. Staying at their place was like a little oasis. I showed up wearing the same clothes I’d been wearing for 2 days, my new sombrero, and the backpack I carry around with my notebooks, toilet paper, and pocket knife (the essentials). I hadn’t showered in about a week either to make things better. They took me in, gave me PJs and a coach to sleep on, fed me pizza and pancakes (they have an oven, a refrigerator, and a microwave), let me take a hot shower and watch My Best Friend’s Wedding, and sent me home with a brand new jar of Peter Pan peanut butter. And they gave me a ride home in their truck. They are so nice, and more than having any of those amenities, I really appreciated their company. Sadly, they’ll both be away for Christmas so I won’t see them again until January. But they’ll be here for another year and I’ll have some people nearby to get together with.

As of Thursday, my walls were still drying but it looks like we’ll be putting yeso on this week. I bought some light blue paint this weekend to put on later. It’s going to take a long time to be comfortable in my room, but I’m looking at it as a blank canvas and another side project to keep me occupied. It would be boring if my room was already perfect when I moved in! I’m trying to tape my own version of extreme home makeover with my digital camera.

I’ve met a lot of interesting people already, mostly just by walking around town. Since my work hasn’t really started I just spend most of the day in San Marcos talking to people. I’ve found that you can never find people when you’re actually looking for them. For example, I’m supposed to drop off Peace Corps letters to different leaders around town but they never seem to be in their offices or always seem to be “on vacation.” I just have to be in the right place at the right time to meet the people I’m looking for. Last Sunday I was in the market and ended up talking to a guy who was the mayor of Chavin. He invited me to go see the ruins the next day. I ended up getting a private tour of the ruins and treated to lunch. We also talked about potential projects I can work on in the communities. The previous volunteer Amanda had done some gardening projects. I really like the town of Chavin a lot- it’s bigger than San Marcos (big enough to be in the Peru Lonely Plant Guide) and since I’ve walked around San Marcos probably a thousand times, it will be fun to explore somewhere new.

some of the ruins in Chavin

My counterpart at the health post doesn’t help me out too much, so it’s good that I’ve been going out on my own, meeting people, and forming relationships. Everyone I’ve met has been friendly and easy to talk to. I frequent many of the same tiendas and restaurants so people are starting to realize that I’m not just a tourist or a lost gringa. A PC volunteer introduced me to a family that owns a restaurant in town and I love going there for lunch because they chat with me and I don’t have to eat alone (and sometimes they give me special food that’s not on the “menu” that day, like fried trout. A “menu” is kind of like a combo meal- you usually get soup, a plate of rice, potatoes or veggies, and meat, a juice or chicha morada, and maybe jello. And it all cost 5 soles=$1.60). I can’t really go home for lunch because it’s a half hour walk back or I have to pay for a taxi, so I spend the whole day in San Marcos for the most part. That will change when I start working in the communities. I make breakfast and dinner on my little gas stove in my room and try to converse a little bit with my host family and maybe learn a new Quechua word or two. I usually am in bed by 8 after I watch a couple episodes of Arrested Development. I didn’t have electricity for the first couple days at sight so I walked around my little room with my head lamp on. Hopefully I’ll have electricity on a fairly regular basis so I can charge my computer and cell phone batteries and read at night.

I’m really excited to get going on my projects. Right now it seems like I’m just trying to fill my days with things to do. If I have one meeting or one event to do a day, I feel like I’ve accomplished something. This past Wednesday, I went out to visit a community called Rancas where Amanda did her cocinas mejoradas project. I just decided to walk out there and see if I could find some of the women in her project. I ended up finding the woman she appointed president of the project and I spent the afternoon talking with her and cooking with her over her new adobe cocina. She was so humble and yet so motivated. She talked to me about all the things she’d love to see her community have- vegetable gardens, better teachers, etc. That afternoon was probably the highlight of my first two weeks at sight. It gave me such a renewed enthusiasm and a verification that this will all be worth it.

one of the women in Amanda's cocinas project

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do for the first three months while I’m working on my community diagnostic- the evaluation Peace Corps has us do on the community we want to work in. The school children are about to go on summer vacation but they still have activities and classes at the schools. I’m thinking about doing some kind of art classes. I also really want to get involved in the artisan’s and women’s groups in San Marcos. I don’t think I want to teach English. I think learning Spanish and Quechua might take up all my patience. I would maybe like to organize kids to go on hikes as well- my area is absolutely gorgeous and I’d love to see more of it. I really am in love with my sight and glad that I got assigned to Ancash.

I’m pretty optimistic and positive about everything so far, except about spending Christmas at my site. Whenever I ask how people in my Conchucos valley celebrate, they say with “chocolatada,” which is the tradition of eating a type of fruit cake called Paneton and drinking hot chocolate. But that’s about it. Someone told me that for the people in the campo, Christmas is really just another day. I bought some hot chocolate and Paneton for my family anyways. There are a few decorations up around San Marcos but not around my community. I heard that there might be some kind of dance performance in town and that the children are doing a Nativity play. Worst come to worst, a volunteer gave me Love Actually so I can watch that to get in the Christmas spirit. I’ll be back into Huaraz for New Year’s/my birthday so don’t worry too much about me! And, with luck, I will have cell service and electricity so you can all call me on Christmas J I love you all! Again, thanks for sending me letters and care packages, they mean the world to me. Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año!