12.6.11

On November 25^th I officially swore in as a volunteer and my first week as a volunteer I spent hanging out at hostels.  Since Thanksgiving there have been strikes going on in the department of Cajamarca, especially in the capital city and around my site in a city called Bambamarca.  The people as well as the regional and local government are protesting a new mining project.  My understanding is that this new mining project is proposed to blow up part of a mountain and drain a glacial lake near Bambamarca.  However, this particular glacial lake is the sole water source for the whole district-including my new community.  As a Peace Corps volunteer I am not allowed to have any sort of political affiliation, but this new mine would make life here much more uncomfortable.  I’m not quite sure how the people would get along without this water source. 

Anyhow, the protesters like to blockade roads so Peace Corps diverted us to the department west of Cajamarca called Lambayque.  The group of us Cajamarca voluntarias stayed in Chiclayo; which is a fairly big city.  It has a starbucks and a movie theater-so by volunteer standards it’s the big time.  We hung around catching up on all the internet we had missed out on during training, going out to eat, buying electronics that we won’t be able to find in Cajamarca, and we even went to see a movie.  It was really nice, but we were all feeling progressively more antsy about getting started as volunteers.  Wednesday night the road between Chiclayo and Chota opened up and we were able to take a 10 hour overnight bus.  Although Chota is not technically the capital of Cajamarca it is my regional capital, because a cluster of volunteers are much closer.  Cajamarca city is about 4 hours away and Chota is 1 hour away.

Once we got to Chota 3 of the 5 of us were able to get to their sites, but Diamond and I have sites closer to Bambamarca where the protesting is really active.  So Diamond and I hung out in Chota for a couple days.  The first thing we did in Chota was introduce ourselves to the ladies at the Serpost, because they are in charge of all our mail.  The 5 of us brought them a paneton (a special sweet bread that Peruvians love to eat around Christmas time-or anytime) and made sure to learn their names.

Diamond and I also got to go up to Hayden’s new site which was really fun.  We helped paint her new room and learned how to make tamales from her neighbor lady.  Then on Sunday morning we got a call from the Cajamarca regional director; there was passage to Bamba and we needed to get going before the roads closed again.  It was all really stressful for me, because at that point I did not know my new family at all and I was nervous about the logistics once I got to Bamba.  All of us had been traveling with all of our bags-everything we had packed for 2 years.  Also I had a lot of cash on me, because there are a lot of banks-so I take money out when I get the chance.  It all worked out though.  My host dad Joel found me at the place were the combes drop off in Bamba.  He called me and watched to see if I would pick up my cell phone from across the street. 

Right away he took me to a store to buy a bed.  The other Peace Corps volunteers had been telling all of us newbees that a mattress and bed frame would be so expensive.  They were so wrong.  I was able to buy a mattress, frame, pillow, and sheets all for 300 soles- which would be roughly $120.  So my advice is to take a Peruvian with you, they are the very best hagglers.

Then I finally met my new host family.  The host family that I had previously visited never built a toilet or a latrine, and Peace Corps had to switch me.  However, my new family is really awesome.  They were the host family for the first volunteer in San Juan and I think that helps a lot, because they know what Cuerpo de Paz is all about and they are really outgoing compared to the first family. 

In my new family I have a mom; Dalila, dad; Joel, 2 sisters (20 and 18); Idelsa and Diany, and a hermanito; Witman (14, with the cute crackly changing voice and everything).  Everyone in the family is super friendly and outgoing, whereas before the other family was really shy and nervous around me.  There are various extended family members that live a few doors down.  Dalila is the primary cheese-maker in town.  Women come to the house everyday to sell their buckets of milk to her and she makes cheese in a special room in the house.  Then in the afternoons the women return to get the left over whey and they feed it to their pigs.  Yesterday I found out the Dalila’s parents; just across the street and a few doors down, are the primary bread makers in town.  Every night they bake all different kinds of bread to sell the next day.  In Peru bread is never served in a loaf, only in rolls or sweet bread stuff like empanadas.  I think it has to do with the fact that only a few people have ovens and they are giant clay ovens.  Anyhow, I am living with a good family-all the fresh cheese and bread I want. 

My family has electricity, running water (only from one sink), my mom cooks on a wood burning stove, and we all use a latrine behind the house in the field.  The latrine is just a little hut with a hole in the floor, no seat.  In Cajamarca you always have to remember to bring your toilet paper with you, because nobody leaves any in the bathroom.

My sisters are at home right now, because of the strikes that are going on throughout Cajamarca.  Usually they live away from home at their universities, but right now they’re stranded here.  They might just stay here through Christmas.  The rumor going around is that the strike is going to be on hold for around a month so that everyone can have Christmas and New Years, then after that they are going to start back up again.  So during the year it is just going to be Dalila, Witman, and I, because Joel travels a lot for work.  I had previously thought I would want to cook for myself in my room, but now I feel like I would rather spend the time with the family.  Also my host dad is planting a new vegetable garden for me, because he says ‘Americans love their vegetables,’ and he doesn’t want me to worry about asking for something other than potatoes and rice.

My first week here in San Juan is off to a great start.  Yesterday I washed all my clothes, retrieved my things that I left at my old host family’s house-it was super uncomfortable to go over there to get my things to move to the new house, and attended a Juntos meeting.  Juntos is a government funded program for families that live below the poverty line and have kids under a certain age.  Mothers have to attend bi-monthly meetings about health topics and they receive a monthly stipend that is supposed to be for food.  The Juntos group in San Juan is over 150 moms.  When the Juntos president saw me walk in he immediately ushered me up on this little stage to introduce myself, it always feels like I forgot how to speak Spanish when I get up in front of a crowd.  It was good just to go and show my face, even though I don’t really remember names and I didn’t understand what was going on for the majority of the 2 hour meeting.  The next meeting is in February and I bet I’ll understand a whole lot more at that one.

Today I went over the mayor’s house to learn how to milk a cow.  The mayor’s family was the host family for the previous volunteer and his wife has been extremely kind towards me.  So I asked her to teach me how to milk a cow.  It was way harder than I thought it would be!  Also it was pretty fun.  After all the excitement of milking cows I walked over to the primary school and met with the director.  He is super enthusiastic about working with me, which makes me feel really good.  He insisted that we go together to talk with the director of the high school; who was altogether very unenthused to work with me.  That’s okay though, because Victor (the primary school director) and I already have started a preliminary plan of projects for me.  And I am definitely going to teach English during the summer school classes in January and February.

Sorry for the super long blog update, I couldn’t help myself.  I’m sure later once I’ve been here for a while I won’t have so much to write.