Thursday, April 26, 2012

This week half of Peru 18 health volunteers attended In-service Training (IST) in Piura.  Piura is a departamento northwest of my department (Cajamarca) and although we are next door neighbors it took about 17 hours to travel to our destination.  During this particular training event each volunteer brought a socio comunitario with them; someone in their community who they plan on working with on projects.  The trip itself is a little stressful, but throw in the responsibility of making small talk with someone from your town and the awkwardness of them not wanting to eat breakfast for example because the prices seem very expensive compared to prices in the campo was hectic. 

Before we left I was really worried about so much time with my socio for the 3 days of training.  I brought a Rogerio; a man who is involved in Juntos in my town, with me to Piura.  I didn't know him very well before the training.  We sat together on the overnight bus and in the morning I found him sitting in a different seat.  He told me I was snoring to loud for him to sleep-that was a little embarrassing.  Then at breakfast the whole group of us 5 volunteers and 5 Peruvians got to know each other better.  We talked about food; which is a pretty easy topic generally speaking when I can't think of what to talk about with Peruvians food is my go to, and I told everyone about how my family in northern Michigan hunts and eats lots of different animals.  In Peru we eat guinea pig so I didn't think turtle soup would cause such a commotion, but Peruvians and Americans alike were disgusted and/or intrigued. 

Anyhow, now I feel like I can joke around with Rogerio or ask him for help with a project.  We bonded over 3 days of rural technologies trainings in the heat.  They split us up into small groups and in the groups we rotated each day on a different topic; gardens and small animal husbandry, latrines, and improved cook stoves. 
One of my favorite things we did was on the gardens/small animal husbandry day, we learned how to deparasite turkeys and chickens.  We had spent the morning making beds for a garden and two different types of compost in the yard of a local family and in the afternoon the instructors showed us a cheap anti-parasitic medicine for dunking the birds.  I'm not sure if turkeys lack the muscle lining in their esophagus or if it is just a nervous/stress response, but when I picked up a turkey it just began vomiting everywhere.  It was really gross and funny to see the turkey's continuous stream and the poor guy only had water and corn kernels in his stomach.  Then I had to dunk the poor guy into a basin of water, he was very unhappy by the end of his bath.

On the cook stove day was spent the morning talking about theories, but in the afternoon we built an entire stove.  We went to a family's home and they had prepared adobe bricks and mud.  I was surprised how fast the construction process was-it only took us about 3 hours to build a bricked wood burning stove.  The improved cook stoves are made out of adobe bricks, mud, and rocks.  The stove top is metal and there is a metal chimney too to funnel the smoke outside.  There is a big push in the Peruvian Ministry of Health for the construction of these stoves, because it reduces respiratory problems for women by making conditions less smokey and it burns more efficiently with less firewood.  

The whole event went really well.  In the evenings we would come back exhausted sweaty and sunburned.  The place where we stayed had a pool and a lot of the volunteers played in the water in the evenings for the 3 nights we were there.  On the last night Peace Corps presented each of the socios a diploma or certificate saying that they were trained in rural technologies and we took lots of pictures.  

The trainings were good, but more importantly the socios seemed to feel more confident in their abilities to lead projects back in the communities. A lot of the people who attended had never traveled outside of their departments before and I could see a really big change in my socio in the course of only 3 days.  By the last day he was raising his hand all the time contributing his thoughts and ideas.  He was generally more outgoing.  I am really happy I had the opportunity to spend some time this way with someone from my town.  It is difficult sometime for people in my town to really get to know me, because we don't have much in common and they don't really know why I'm here in Peru.  Rogerio got to really see what Peace Corps is about and meet a ton of other American volunteers.  I think it helped him understand me-errr my job a little better.  Also it made it more clear that any project I might do is NOT my project, it is in fact the community's project and I am merely a facilitator.  That is a really big deal that someone in my town knows that is how it all works.

The second half of the week we are in the city doing a training/workshop on how to plan and execute projects in our communities.  The socios went home, but we'll be here until Saturday.  This half of the training is more like theoretical behavior change, goal setting, project writing, and grant writing topics.  

I am looking forward to getting back to Cajamarca and getting out of this heat!  It is brutal here.  On the bright side this training is helping me to get my project plans organized and it feels a lot easier to work out ideas with a group of other volunteers than by myself in my town.  When I get back to Cajamarca I'll be able to get started on a planning a big scale health project and although I am nervous I also feel relieved to just get going with it all.

I have a lot of mail to send out-sorry I'm running behind.  I'm blowing through my paychecks pretty fast so I might email in response to some.  Also pictures below!

Chau for now,
kb

happy volunteers waiting for our combe (van) to take us out to do our construction projects



Katie H. brought her host mom as her socio comunitario

the town where we did the training is called La Union


the landscape is super different from Cajamarca

the municipality or city hall of the town where we worked had portraits hung up all over, we thought this one was funny-Peruvian Jeff Goldbloom


group shot with the cocina we built on the left




Rogerio receiving his certificate


Allison and Ellie talking with the kids at the home were we built the latrine

the baby's name is Lazarus, like from the Bible his older sister told us

the lone male volunteer Matt with baby Lazarus, there are several other guys in  Peru 18 but they have split us into two groups and they'll receive this training in May.


goofing off on the bus


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Ready for May...

Last week I got back from a Semana Santa (Easter) vacation at the beach.  Volunteers had 4 days off, because Semana Santa is a federal holiday in Peru.  In order to get to the beach myself and 4 other volunteers from my area spent 3 hours in a combe to get to Cajamarca, from Cajamarca a 10 hour overnight bus to Chiclayo, from Chiclayo a 3 hour bus to Piura, and from Piura a 2 1/2ish hour van to Mancora.  Whew, it was a long trip.  Mancora is a very touristy beach town in far northern Peru.  It's pretty close to the border with Ecuador.

The hostel we stayed at was filled with thin, tanned, rich European 20-somethings year olds.  Most of whom came for the great surfing.  It was fun listening to all the accents.  The food is really good in Mancora, because it is so touristy.  We ate steak, swordfish, Thai food, salad,  diet coke, and most importantly BURRITOS!!!!  It was awesome.

After two days in Mancora we were all beached out and we went back into Piura city.  The heat on the coast was incredible.  The only time there was a bit of a break was at night, but even then it was hot enough to make it difficult to fall asleep.  Visiting the coast definitely made me appreciate living in the mountains yet again.  We may not have toilets or high speed internet, but the weather is so beautiful and so are the views.  On the coast it's nothing, but sand and scraggly trees (at least where we were-I don't want to bash the entire coastline of Peru, who knows what the rest of it is like).  In the big city we got to go to the movies....twice!  We saw The Hunger Games and This Means War.  I'm sure the predictable Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy would have been annoying if I was living in the states, but due to the extreme lack of American culture  in my diet I thought it was hilarious.  And we didn't even have to watch those movies dubbed, instead they had spanish subtitles.

We made the 20 hour trip back to Cajamarca Monday through Tuesday.  I made it back to my site Tuesday mid-morning, because the overnight buses pull in at around 5 am.  On Tuesday afternoon I gave my first official charla or talk to a group of moms and the topic was early childhood stimulation.  I thought the charla went okay.  That is until the nurse from the health post apologized to all the women for how bad my spanish is, telling them that I was still learning and they needed to give me more time.  I was pretty upset.  I guess I deserved it for not practicing more or looking over my materials while I was on vacation.  So if I had any doubts before about whether my spanish was improving, it is very clear now that I need to get to work in my grammar books.

The rest of the week was pretty slow.  There was another strike in my department against the mines that are contaminating the water.  During the strikes they close down health posts, schools, and sometimes even block the roads.  On the day of the strike I hung out around my house.  In the afternoon a group of people slaughtered a cow in the Plaza de Armas.  I watched the process with a group of kids and dogs that had gathered around the men and women.  It was quite gory.  I have pictures to post below-but if you do not like blood please skip my pictures this post.  

The cow was slaughtered for another town party.  This time in honor of a new transportation business that will begin serving my town; bringing people to and from Bambamarca (the bigger town down the mountain, that has a market and for me internet!).  Everyone is very excited for these new cars, because it will mean more mobility for the people and possibly lower prices.  

On Thursday a group of probably 30 women cooked the beef, rice, and potatoes in large cast iron pots in the street over little fires.  There was enough food for lunch and dinner for anyone that showed up in the plaza to claim their plate.  At night there was dancing again, but I skipped it this time.  Since the last party everyone in my town (people I know and strangers on the street) have been commenting about how I danced last time.  I also heard some men making fun of Grisero (the man I danced with before) for dancing with the gringa.  I was a little miffed at the whole group of them for teasing me when they were too embarrassed to even dance themselves.  It really bothers me that they like to pressure me to dance only to laugh at me.  Sometimes it's no big deal being the silly gringa and getting a laugh out of everyone, but playing that part tires me out other times.

Friday was my english teaching day and I was teaching the kids colors.  When I could tell I had lost their attention I called them all outside to try to play color-tag.  However, either due to my bad spanish or possibly kids don't play the same kinds of games in Peru, they could not understand how to play.  I tried acting it out and some kids picked it up, but the majority of the class just stood there and didn't run or ran away from the school instead of the other side of the playing field.  I finally gave up and asked them to draw me pictures and label the colors they used.  

In the afternoon on Friday was my first youth group meeting and it didn't have a very good turn out.  I suppose it was my fault for not advertising more at the high school.  I put up a poster with information for the time and place.  Also I went to the two 4th grade (equivalent to high school sophomores, around 15 or 16 years old) classrooms and invited those students.  Only 5 kids showed up, and they were all the kids that had participated in the previous volunteer's youth group.  I was disappointed in not getting any new interest, but the kids that did show up seemed really enthusiastic and genuinely interested in being health promoters.

This weekend I came into Chota with the other Peru 18ers and other health volunteers.  I went to the post office and I had soo much mail.  Thank you everyone for the letters and packages (Aunt Jenny, Sesame x 2, Mom, Ainsley, Babu and Beepa, Cherny, Annie, and Mrs. Moran).  The jealousy among the other volunteers at how much mail I receive is now a running joke. 

I have some interesting photos below.

Chau for now,
kb


Brunch at a cafe on the beach


My first solo charla.  Afterward the nurse apologized profusely for how bad my spanish was-sad day...

some of the rowdy noisy kids that disrupted my charla-they're pretty cute huh?

It's not a party until ya slaughter a cow in the plaza de armas!

this teenage boy joined in with the adults hacking the cow into manageable pieces with axes.


Can you see my favorite dog Messi across the way sitting on top of the crumbling wall of the church?

Eduar and I climbed around what's left of the catholic church in my town.  They are in the process of tearing it down right now to rebuild a new one out of 'materiales nobles' ie. cement or brick instead of adobe.

Here is a shot of what was the inside of the church, now filled with blocks of adobe bricks.  


Apparently the adobe is formed into bricks before it is covered over with more mud/straw mixture.


Here is what the front of the church looks like.

Handwashing charla at the primary school



two kids from each class were picked to be vigilantes-err at least I think that's what it translates to in english.  Either way this is my team of health promoters!