Rainy Season... The Second Time Around

Ancash reunited!

Supposedly this rainy season is supposed to be significantly worse than last year’s due to the return of El Nino. Up to this point in mid-February, El Nino has been just a baby (bad pun intended). I remember last year getting stuck at landslides for 5, 6, 7 hours, waiting for some heavy machinery to make its way out to the middle of nowhere to clean the road to Huaraz. So far, the worst landslide actually happened in San Marcos. Last week, Mike, Claudia, Callie, Tyler and I got stuck in a taxi for 2 hours about 100 meters from the exit of San Marcos. We watched, stupefied, as a few of my fellow San Marquinos attempted their version of a landslide clean up. Instead of simply clearing the rocks and boulders that were already in the road, ten men or so went up to the top of the landslide and kicked more rocks down. For 2 hours. The reason? So that more rocks wouldn’t fall down later.

Ordinarily, most people would get pretty irritated at this situation. What do Peace Corps volunteers do? Run to the nearest tienda for some beverages, crank up the tunes in the taxi driver’s car and have some Huayno sing-a-longs, and film the crazy, inpatient people running across the landslide dodging flying boulders. At this point in my service, things like landslides or permanent flea bites that line my waste don’t seem to faze me. I don’t particularly enjoy sitting at landslides for half a day, but now I just make sure to pack extra snacks for the trip and make sure the batteries on my camera are charged for fantastic filming opportunities.

I failed to emphasize that TYLER BROWN was here in San Marcos. He made his triumphant return to Peru at the beginning of February, right on time to partake in the Carnaval festivities. But before traveling to Cajamarca, Tyler came to visit his Ancashino family for a week. It felt like he never left- we went to our favorite restaurants, had a ridiculous High School Prom theme party, and did a lake jump out here in Conchucos. He even made the trek to my site to help me move (I now live in San Marcos, a topic I’ll get to in just a bit). Despite being thousands of miles away now, Tyler is still one of my absolute best friends and his visit has been one of the highlights of my year.

The aftermath of the paint war

Last year, we were still newbies and weren’t allowed to travel to Cajamarca for Carnaval. This year, I used up a good chunk of my remaining vacation days to go see what these festivities were all about. Cajamarca is known for its Carnaval celebration, which starts the Saturday before Ash Wednesday with a massive, city-wide water and paint fight. A group of maybe 40 Peace Corps volunteers traveled to Cajamarca for Carnaval, so we had a solid gang of gringos participating in the fight. We had water balloons, squirt guns, buckets, and paint for our ammo, and went after anyone who looked like a good target. The Cajarmarquinos get really into the festival- they march around the city with drums and horns, singing different songs specific to Carnaval, and they dance in the streets until the sun comes up the next day. I participated in the fight until my lips turned blue from the cold and was forced to retire to my hostel. Fortunately, the paint used in the fight is water-soluble (at least most of it) so one shower took care of most of the damage. I have never participated in a water/paint fight so large, and never imagined that one existed. It was definitely an unforgettable experience.

The next day, Sunday, was calmer, but the water balloon fighting continued even during the parade. Gringos make good targets so you have to have a good sense of humor to participate in Carnaval. Rules do exist- like don’t hit pregnant ladies with water balloons- but aren’t necessarily followed, so you have to be prepared to get wet. The announcer kept telling people to stop throwing balloons during the parade but no one listened. The parade itself was interesting- all the different neighborhoods marched in their costumes, which ranged from lions, to jesters with fireworks on their hats. In order to escape some of the water-throwing, I went to the Banos del Inca with Claudia and my friend Sarah. These thermal baths were supposedly used by the Inca Athualpa. Some of the baths have temperatures of over 72 degrees Celsius. Apparently, people bring eggs and drop them in the baths to see if they’ll cook. We didn’t end up going in any of the public pools or showers, but it was worth seeing. We also did some other touristy things while in Cajamarca city. We went to the Ventanillas de Otuzco, which are window-shaped tombs that the ancient Cajamarquinos used to encapsulate people’s bones; we visited the Cuarto del Rescate where the Incan Athualpa was held for ransom and later killed; and we climbed to the mirador Santa Apolonia. We tried to go the big parade on Monday, but we got soaked with water on the way there and then couldn’t see over the bleachers that they had set up or the herds of people along the route. We flew back to Lima on Monday, exhausted, full of cheese and yogurt (Cajamarca is known for their milk products and unfortunately Ancash is not), and completely content.

At the Ventanillas de Otuzco

All in all, it was an amazing trip. It wouldn’t have been nearly as fun if I didn’t have such a great group of people to spend it with. I had had a rough couple of weeks leading up to Tyler’s visit, so it was nice to go on such a crazy adventure with such good company. Since Christmas, I have been trying to get some projects off the ground. Unfortunately, my summer school “Learning Health through Art” classes got canceled because “there isn’t enough money in the budget.” Ojo: I live in one of the richest areas of Peru, due to the mining company Antamina, and yet there is still a 42.5% poverty rate. To tell me there is no money for a couple of teachers to offer classes to kids who are behind in their work is a complete lie. I wasn’t even going to get paid, so it wasn’t like I was going to be a cost. I got a little frustrated with my municipality, since I planned on spending January and February teaching in the elementary school. Maybe they should spend less money on things like two brand new trucks for the municipality and invest in things like the two dilapidated school buildings. Just my opinion.

On top of my classes getting canceled, I lost or had stolen two cell phones, my wallet, my radio (which I lent to my neighbor who claims it was stolen), and my head lamp (which I lent to my host family who also claims it was stolen). It’s strange because I didn’t lose a single personal item in my first year in Peru. They say bad things come in threes but I surpassed three. However, none of these things were that detrimental to my daily life- you get over material things pretty fast.

My new room

On the bright side, I’m getting a fresh start in a new house! I finally made the leap and moved to San Marcos. I’ve been thinking about it basically since I moved into a bathroom/latrine-less house last December of 2008. I absolutely loved my host family, and it was painful to tell them I was moving out, but I needed the change. I moved for a lot of reasons, primarily security. The door to my bedroom was right on the main road, the only road, that goes through my valley. Everyone knew where I lived, and someone attempted to break into my room last October. Second, I started to realize how lonely it was to not be able to converse with anyone past 5 pm. There isn’t reliable transportation from San Marcos to Huarimayo at night and I accidentally got rides home from drunk drivers on two separate occasions. So now by living in San Marcos, I am much more secure and much less lonely. I live with the family of one of the nurses from my health post and I have the ability to work with people in my town all day long, even 8 at night. I still feel like Huarimyo is my home town and I moved to the big city, so I plan to keep on working there. I know I’m going to miss my little host siblings, but I will definitely go back to visit often.

Now on to work stuff! Our girls leadership camp, Camp ALMA, is off and running. I’m helping to coordinate it with Sophie, but it’s going to be the work of all of the Ancash volunteers that make it successful. There is so much talent among our 17 Ancash volunteers that I know our Camp ALMA is going to be amazing. We’re going to have a ropes course, a career fair, recycled art projects, self-defense classes, and so much more. I am so excited to be working on this project! We will need help with funding, so when our Peace Corps Partnership grant gets posted on the website, I’ll let you all know.

I’m also working with a friend of mine on a communal library for Chavin. We’re trying to get the municipality of Chavin to give us a locale so that the government program PROMOLIBRO will send us books. All the municipality has to do is provide us with a small space, a couple of chairs and desks and shelves, and a person to be in charge of the library, and the Peruvian government will send us books. Working on this project is reminding me how slow things move here and how much paperwork is involved. The municipality is working with us, thankfully, to make this library happen, but it’s moving at a snail’s pace. Every week, some type of paper work gets submitted for approval, then we wait two more weeks. We make a meeting, and the person doesn’t show up. Asi es. So as much as I want to get this library off the ground, it really comes down to the community and their enthusiasm behind the project. Most people tell me, “But why do you want to make a library? We don’t have the custom of reading.” (a rough translation). And then I tell them how wonderful books are and how just because it isn’t the custom now, doesn’t mean it can’t become a custom. I really hope that this library becomes a reality, because reading really isn’t part of the culture here. Maybe if books were actually available, the community would take advantage of them.

I was hoping to do two more cocinas mejoradas projects in my last year, but things really don’t move fast enough to make this happen. Instead, I’m going to do one project in two or three communities with the NGO ADRA. I’m going to use my funding to help them cover the population that they can’t cover with their funding. Right now, we’re identifying the families. I’m going to present to them the prerequisites for the project, and if they agree with them, they can sign up to participate. Then comes the SPA grant writing and the charlas and the building of the improved stoves. This time around, I feel like I really know what I’m doing. The first project worked out great in the end, but there are definitely things I will do better.

My other activities continue as normal. I’ll be at site for awhile since I have no more vacation days to take. I might even get stuck here if El Nino decides to make some landslides on the road to Huaraz. Time is absolutely flying by and it scares me to think I only have 9 months left. I’m trying to aprovechar every moment because I know that before I know it, it’s going to be all over. Time to get off my computer and get on out to the real world. Hasta la proxima.