Huellas

The last two weeks have been super busy! When I first moved out here, I was desperate to find anything to fill up my days, whether it was hiking two hours up to Tyler’s site or even just searching for the best menú in San Marcos (Peruvian lunch time version of a dollar menu). I’m actually taking today completely off from everything so I can clean my room, wash my dishes, do a crossword puzzle or two, and spend some time in the chacra with my host family. It’s been a really great last two weeks and I have one more to go before I head into Huaraz for a second week of Quechua classes. I’m going to have lots of emails to catch up on and hopefully lots of packages and mail to pick up!

To start, yesterday was my last day of summer school. We had a big end of summer school celebration called a clausura. The kids did a bunch of performances for the parents and municipality, and originally, I was supposed to sing Cielito Lindo and another song called San Marcos Tierra Milenaria with a chorus of kids, but I managed to get my way out of it and just play the drums (I had to channel my sixth grade xylophone skills for that one).

Playing the drum

The teachers did convince me to put on a traditional Ancash costume for my musical debut though. All of the performances were great and I was really impressed, especially with the students who learned the Marinera, one of my favorite Peruvian traditional dances. But my favorite part of the whole day was presenting my fifth and sixth grade students’ big project- the Mapa Mundial. It turned out PERFECT! I mean, there were some small countries and islands missing and splotches of paint in the oceans, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The students did all the work; I just supervised and labeled the countries. The teachers all complimented on it, the mayor came over and congratulated me, and I even got interviewed by the local TV station! It was a huge learning experience for me and gave me a whole new appreciation for teachers. Trying to keep the kids under control and yelling at them in Spanish was a challenge to say the least (I think I said ¡No toque! Don’t Touch! and ¡Espera! Wait! a million times). On top of everything, it’s Carnaval right now and the kids have been trying to hit me and my map with water balloons. Fortunately, I’ve escaped unscathed so far.

A few of the students with the Mapa Mundial

In addition to the map, Prof. Manuel and I laid out a bunch of the students’ works they had done over the last two months- collages, wreaths, etc.

Some of the students' masterpieces

The biggest compliment I got all day was other teachers asking if they could take samples of the projects to do with their students during the regular school year. That definitely made me feel good, especially since I didn’t get the best vibe from some of the teachers during summer school. I’m not sure if they were scared of me or felt threatened by me or what, but in the end I think they got used to having me there. After all the kids left, the teachers celebrated in the typical Conchucos valley way- by eating cuy. On Monday, the director of the school informed me that all the teachers had to bring a cuy for the celebration. So I planned on buying one from my host family. When the other teachers found out I was getting one from my family in Huarimayo (most of the teachers live in San Marcos or some bigger city, not a caserio), they all started asking me to buy one for them too. By the end of the day on Tuesday, I had to find 12 cuyes in Huarimayo and have them ready for the clausura the next day. My reluctant neighbor sold me the cuyes, but then I had to ask my host mom to kill them, skin them, and clean out their insides. I’m not really sure what I was going to do if I couldn’t find 12 cuyes since the party was the next day and no one has cell phones. It would have been an absolute disaster! But it all worked out in the end and we ate picante de cuy, drank gaseosa and cerveza, and listened to huayno. Tyler came all the way from Chucos and filmed everything for me! It’s always good to have gringo support at events like these. Check out his video blog soon for a video of the event!

Picante de cuy

It’s also good to have other volunteers around on holidays, like Valentine’s day. For Valentine’s Day, I walked four hours to Claudia’s site. I passed by Chucos and picked up Tyler on the way. We cooked lunch together (well, I made a sort of tuna stir-fry and Claudia made rice and beans with her secret Puerto Rican spices and Tyler cheered us on) and we watched 27 Dresses. We of course had some chocolate Sublime bars. I spent the night at Claudia’s and we watched Revolutionary Road, which probably wasn’t the best love story to watch on Valentine’s Day (it was no Kate and Leo Titanic repeat). The next day, the three of us went down to San Marcos for lunch and pasear. I definitely missed my novio on Valentine’s Day though.

As far as health work goes, my interviews for my community diagnostic are coming along. I’ve done a bunch but still have a lot more to do (we have to do 100!). The next couple weeks will be dedicated to finish up my encuestas and analyzing the data. I’ve been going house to house visiting the moms in Huarimayo and it was really intimidating at first. I’ve been going by myself because my counterpart in the health center is too busy and the NGO that works in my neighborhood is on vacation until March. I only have until our 3 month Reconnect on March 16 to get it all done! It will keep me busy though that’s for sure! Until next time.