Sunday, November 25, 2012

Camp ALMA and Thanksgiving


**Disclaimer; there is a lot of vomiting in this blog post**
Last weekend was the girls leadership conference put on by the volunteers in Cajamarca. The conference is called Alma; which means 'soul' in Spanish, but it is also an acronym for Activdades de Liderazgo para Mujeres Adolescentes (leadership activities for adolescent women). Camp Alma was a great success. Each volunteer brought 2 girls from their community to attend and all together there were around 30 girls at the camp. 
For my sitemate Diamond and I the trip from our site Tacabamba to the regional capital Cajamarca city is about 7 hours. We have to hop bus to bus; well it's actually public transport vans called combes, between all the bigger cities along the way. The ride between Bambamarca and Cajamarca is the worst stretch because of the elevation changes and all the curves in the road that the drivers take at full speed. We filled a whole van of just Peace Corps volunteers and their girls. That last leg of the drive the girls all started to get sick; one by one barf bags were passed around and the girls would quietly cough. I am always so impressed by how quietly Peruvians vomit on car rides. I know that it sounds weird, but they are so quiet you wouldn't even know they have been sick until they throw their barf bags out the moving car window. Since we volunteers make the trip fairly regularly none of us get too car sick.
We finally arrived at the camp at around 8pm and we were all exhausted. It was exciting to see all the other volunteers that live in southern Cajamarca that we don't get to see that often. Also we had pizza for dinner which was pretty great. Usually pizza that I have had in Peru has sauce that tastes like sweet ketchup or it doesn't have sauce all-which really makes or breaks the pizza in my opinion. Pizza is one of those elusive foods that I often try to make for my host family, but it is never as good as I remember it being in the States.
I'm not sure what brought it on, but I got really sick the first night of camp. I think it is probably parasites acting up, but I'll find out for sure in 2 weeks when I got to Lima for mid-service medical checks. The next day; the first real day of camp, I was miserable. As a group leader I was supposed to accompany the girls in all their activities of the day, but I ended up taking lots of naps and making frequent visits to the bathroom. I felt really nauseous all day, my stomach just hurt with what I like to call 'bubble gut', and I had a fever. I had sulfur burps which is the main reason why I thought it was parasites; gross carbonated smelly burps is a symptom of giardia.
Despite the nausea I would have stretches of time when I could be distracted enough to do fun stuff. The first day the girls had lectures on alcoholism, sexism, self esteem, and did a lot of team building games. We taught the girls how to dance gangnam style or 'the horsey dance' as the kids in my site often call it. I missed a lot of the first day, because I kept slipping off to my room to sleep. On day two I felt a lot better. We did field games with the girls and I was in charge of the human knot game. There was a career panel in the afternoon. Women with various professions came in to talk to the girls about their experiences. The girls in my group asked questions such as; 'did you parents support you in your studies,' 'is there sexism in your work place,' and 'do you enjoy your job?'
In the evening the girls prepared for a mock project plan that they prepared for imaginary communities. For example; my girls were supposed to think of a project to improve the self esteem of the high school students in their pretend community. They designed a pretend project with classes taught at the high school about various topics including; bullying, peer pressure, and self esteem. They prepared for a mock debate that they participated in on the last day of camp. And we had the girls practice how to put on condoms. The majority of the girls knew how to check the condoms and put them on, because they had been in the sexual education classes that volunteers often put on in high schools. There was also a bonfire that last night. We taught the girls how to make smores
On the last day of camp the girls wrapped up all the group project work they had been doing; putting on presentations about their imaginary community projects and the mock debate in teams. We left Cajamarca at around 1:30pm and made it back to our site by around 8 pm. It was a long long day. The girls all received special certificates and t-shirts. They had to do a lot of speaking in front of groups, working with other girls they had never met from the other volunteer's communities, and problem solving in the imaginary project plans.
This week Diamond, Ellie, and I went into Chota to make Thanksgiving dinner with Barbara another volunteer who lives in Chota. We made so much food; baked maccaroni, a baked chicken, sweet potato casserole, carrots and broccoli, and apple crisp. It was really nice to spend Thanksgiving all together. Being so far from the States at times like Thanksgiving is sometimes really emotional. It sort of caught me off guard, but the friday after Thanksgiving I went to visit my previous host family and all the sudden it hit me. I just sort of had a little melt down. I had traveled pretty far out of my way to go see my old family and when I arrived it seemed like my host mom was surprised to see me. I had called them earlier in the week to confirm, plus earlier that day and still she acted surprised. No one was home except my host mom, my brother Witman was playing with his friends. The room that used to me mine she told me was off limits, because they were renting it out to someone else. Instead she had me put my things into the room where they used to keep all the guinea pigs they raise to eat.
My old host family's business is buying milk from the neighbors and making cheese to sell in Bambamarca. I spent the afternoon sitting around by myself while my host mom Dalila was running around receiving the milk and making cheese. Neighbor women would walk in with their milk to drop off and see me asking 'where have you been?' I had to leave in such a rush in July, because it was technically an emergency evacuation/site change and apparently no one from my host family had bothered to explain where I had gone or why I had left. Over and over I explained why I left, where I was living now, and I tried to emphasize how it wasn't my decision to leave, because sometimes it felt like these neighbors where angry with me.
Anyhow, it surprised me how upset all this made me. It got better when we ate dinner together; Dalila, Witman, and I. Also I did not end up having to sleep by myself in the guinea pig room. Instead Dalila made up a bed from me upstairs in the family living space, where I had never previously been invited. Witman said something to me that made me feel so happy; he told me that he was reading Harry Potter and asked if I could find him a copy of the second book since he like reading so much. That was what I really wanted for him-to become a reader.
The next morning Witman had to go to school; kids in my department have Saturday classes to make up for all the school lost from the protests. I got to see my little cousin Eduar though, because his teacher apparently didn't go on strike with the others back in September. He showed me his new puppy and we talked about what he wants to be when he grows up. When it was time for me to leave he told me he didn't want me to go and I nearly cried. I really miss them both Witman and Eduar. They were my best friends for the first 8 months of service.
Visiting my old site is really difficult and it's hard to explain why. I miss the way that family made me feel about myself. I felt like I was apart of them and their lives. There were also not such good feelings. They would often ask to borrow money from me and I constantly felt like I needed to be on the look out for being taken advantage of. I think the good feelings outweigh the bad ones though and I feel like I still want to find a way to balance them into my life here in Peru.
So this Thanksgiving I had a lot to be thankful for, but mostly I just feel excited to be coming home to visit in December. I can't wait to see all my family and friends. I can't thank you all enough for the motivation and courage you have given me. I couldn't do this without you guys, so thanks.
Thanks for reading and see you soon!

kb

my team of girls doing the spagetti challenge; they recieved spagetti noodles, string, a little masking tape, and a marshmellow the goal is to make the highest structure possible.

Hayden and I at the field games

human knot game


bonefire with smores!

my team presenting their project plan

hanging out while the girls ran around doing field games

I love how they put the earrings on the llamas

one of my girls Lesly (on the left) won a game where everyone puts a loop of masking tape on their nose and touch noses.  Whoever gets the most tape on their nose wins.

teaching gangnam stlye again

Diamond and I with all our girls from Tacabamba

the whole group

all the volunteers
 

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Welcome Peru 20


This week was the regional FBT or field based training for Peru 20. The new health volunteers came up on Wednesday. It felt like we had been waiting so long for the newbies. I was so excited our bosses in Lima decided that Diamond and I would be allowed to host the 20ers, because at first they told us they weren't sure about it since we have only been in our new site for a few months.
The first big training activity we had planned was at Jennifer's site. We were going to take the 20ers on house visits for Jennifer's improved cook stove project moms. Since Diamond, Ellie, and I were all going to get paired up with a new volunteer we went out to Jennifer's early to find the houses so that we would know them the next day with the 20ers. The dogs are really bad at Jennifer's site. Jennifer's host family dog followed us around while we visited the homes that we would need to lead the new volunteers to for practicing house visits. Her poor dog was attacked by a couple of much bigger dogs and Jennifer had to carry him for a while after since he was too scared to keep walking.
One of our goals as health volunteers is to work with moms on 'healthy homes' projects. Healthy homes is a pretty broad goal, but it almost always involves house visits. Especially where I live in the sierras hygiene is often lacking in rural homes. It's often really basic stuff to Americans, but if you think about how it was drilled into us as kids and if you imagine if it never had been it makes more sense. Also there is a lot of extreme poverty and understandably brushing teeth or buying a new bar of soap is not the top priority when kids are malnourished. Another important part of the situation is that women here are overloaded with all the information from the Ministry of Health about how they should be; you should be washing your hands, brushing your teeth, washing your vegetables before you cook, you shouldn't let your cuys (guinea pigs) run around loose on the floor in your kitchen, and the list goes on. These women have it all memorized; when you ask them the questions they know the answers. However, they are not necessarily practicing the hygiene rules that they can regurgitate on command. That is where Peace Corps volunteers come in, part of our goal is to visit homes to observe, motivate, and pressure moms into actually making healthy changes in their homes. That is why house visits are so important.
After a long day of walking around in the campo in rubber boots (so uncomfortable and also so much foot sweat, yuck) we caught a van out to Tacabamba. On Friday Ellie had the trainees in her site; they taught a sex education class in the high school and learned about library projects. Saturday morning Diamond and I had a community health promoter training session to give, but since the trainees were visiting they planned it all. They were so creative and they made the class so interactive for the community health promoters.
In the afternoon on Saturday we hiked out to the community where Laura did her latrines project so the trainees could see how a completed project looks. We stayed out in Solugan to attend a community meeting with Laura; it was the final meeting of her project. Like all meetings it ran long and by the end it was dark. Laura and Diamond's host family had called moto-taxis for us to get back to Tacabamba, because the hour long hike back would be difficult in the dark. Then it started to rain. There were 9 of us with the trainees, Laura, Diamond, Ellie, Anghie (Laura and Diamond's little host sister), and I. However, only 2 moto-taxis made it out to Solugan. So the first wave of 6 left for Tacabamba and Laura, Ellie, and I waited. While we waited we were invited hard boiled eggs, hot chocolate, and tamales.
In the end another moto did not come for us, so we just started walking. Very quickly we were completely soaked, but it seemed really funny at the time. We caught a ride from a truck that went by when we were about 15 minutes out of Tacabamba; I am still surprised he allowed us in his car since we were soaking. It was about 10:30 pm when we got back to Tacabamba. Ellie and I sloshed over to my host family's home knocking and shouting for someone to let us in (I did not have a key to the house yet, but I made one the very next day). No one would let us in and I had accidentally left my cell phone in my room; it was the only place where I had my host parent's phone numbers. So we had no choice but to go to Laura and Diamond's host family and ask if we could stay the night. Laura and Diamond gave us dry clothes and we staying in an extra room. It was pretty memorable drinking tea dressed in Laura and Diamond's clothes and laughing about how ridiculous the whole thing had been. 
On Sunday, the last day of field based training, we took the trainees to the health center to paint a mural with our youth health promoter group. Diamond and I had asked the teens to draw us a sketch of the mural so that we could scan it and use the projector to project it on the wall, but they all flaked out. Lindsay; one of the trainees, luckily offered to make a sketch for us to use. So we projected Lindsay's drawing up on the wall and let the kids go for it with pencils and later paint. We still have a lot of work to do on the mural, but it was a good start. 
Finally on Sunday afternoon we had the newbies go with us to Laura's world map class. We watched some movie clips about Peru with the kids, played some games, and talked over the kids in English about how the planning and execution of the project went. It was a nice relaxing time with a group of great kids. We of course all danced Gangnam style or 'horsey dance' as well as the 'funky chicken' dance with the kids. When it was time for the trainees to leave town we were in the middle of heavy rains. We waited for a bit, but it didn't let up at all. By the time we made it to where the vans pick up and drop off everyone was soaked. I felt terrible Diamond and I got them all cold and wet before they had to travel.
My favorite part of us walking in the rain to see them off was how all the people would shout at us 'you're going to get wet.' The Peruvians all seemed to stop whatever they were doing to just wait inside for the rain to stop. They shouted at us from under the protection of the overhang of their tin roofs. While they shouted at us I just kept smiling to myself, because we were already completely soaked in a way that I would have thought was apparent. Yet, they kept advising us to get out of the rain since we would get wet. It's cultural moments like that that really make me laugh, because as an American I am always in a hurry to get somewhere and I refuse to change my plans just because of a little rain. Here in Peru people have a different perspective and I admire their more laid back views about time, schedules, appointments.
Anyhow, all in all I think FBT went really well. I am so excited to have the new volunteers up here in northern Cajamarca with us. They are wonderful people. I have some pictures below.
Thanks for reading and chau for now,

kb
 
talking about high blood pressure

Peru 20ers doing a session on heart health
 


community health promoters doing a skit about house visits

group shot

you can't really see it, but this guy as a U of M hat.  For some reason they are really popular down here-I see them all the time.

At Laura's final meeting with her community Solugan

she made a delicious chocolate cake; here she is secretly frosting the cake under the table

tracing the sketch for the mural with the artist Lindsay Ballo

a long line of students waiting to give Laura a kiss
 
 

Sunday, November 4, 2012

2nd and 3rd goal work



I didn't get a whole lot of good work done this week, but Laura, Diamond, Ellie, and I did film a music video. I know, I know, being a Peace Corps volunteer is so much work, right? Well, we decided that filming this music video was really all about Peace Corps third goal-which is to promote cross cultural understanding amongst Americans. Our music video is 'Cajamarca Girls' sung to the sound of Katy Perry's 'California Gurls', but with some different lyrics about our region of Peru.
Our music video is in the style of the Huayno music videos we have here in Cajamarca. Huayno is a genre of music that is typical of the sierras. I find the music to be annoying at times, but also I catch myself humming and singing along in the combes (big vans that serve as the only form of public transportation here in Cajamarca). Along with the music Huayno also has a typical dance. It is basically a 2 step and depending on the dancer's enthusiasm may or may not involve spinning, hands, or switching places with your dance partner. Huayno is danced at all the parties here, and it can be danced in pairs facing each other. 
I enjoy Huayno dancing because it is so simple, but since it is so simple it gets kind of boring after a while. If your partner is an enthusiastic dancer it can be more of an aerobic experience involving a lot of jumping and spinning. Normally it is repetitive and both parties awkwardly avoid eye contact throughout the entire song.
Our music video is in the style of Huayno music videos because they are really low budget and have a charmingly formulaic quality. There is a lot of dancing in a line doing the huayno two step, very bad transitions and effects, and weird nature shots randomly sprinkled in between. Here is a link to a Hermanas Ayay music video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of61wje1RQY   , they are a super popular huayno group from Bambamarca.
Last week Laura and I bought our traditional outfits so that we could wear them in our music video. So we set out to make the video in our campo outfits with our 12 year old cameraman Leo; Diamond and Laura's neighbor kid who amazingly followed us around for about 3 hours. We picked several locations around town to film, but wherever we went we attracted a lot of attention. I wish we could have filmed the people just stopping what they were doing to stare at us, but Leo kept the camera on us. So we still have some editing work to do, but by next Wednesday we should have the video all ready to put up on youtube. The master plan is to put it up on youtube and we can all become mildly famous. We will then send our video into Ellen Degeneres and she'll obviously love us and fly us out to be on her show. Cross your fingers it all works out....we have so much free time on our hands to scheme and daydream.
It was really fun hanging out while we did the music video. The four of us speak in a lot of spanglish, because weirdly I often catch myself forgetting words in English. The worst part is that for all the bad English my Spanish is not really improving either. I have plateaued and I am too lazy to be serious about studying. Some of my favorite things said where; toe thumbs for big toes, unbathens for people that don't shower, cookie snacks/chip snacks for cookies or chips, and I can't think of any other good ones right now.
Laura made homemade bagels and Ellie brought cream cheese from the grocery store 6 hours away in Cajamarca. We sat around eating bagels, reading about the elections and hurricane Sandy the day after the music video. Laura is leaving really soon for end of service; she has been here exactly one year longer than I have, and it was nice to have some quality bonding time together. We are all going to miss her so much, but we are also excited for her since she is staring her new life back in the U.S.

Today we had a Halloween party at the elementary school.  The second goal of Peace Corps is promote cross cultural understanding in our host countries, basically to teach Peruvians about American culture.  There wasn't a huge turnout, but I think it was better that way. As it was the kids were a little wild and I don't know if there would have been enough candy to go around. Diamond, Laura, and I were probably the most dressed up out of all the kids. We did Halloween relay races; walk like a zombie, hop like a frog, fly on a broom, etc, danced, and played a game Laura invented similar to pin-the-tale-on-the-donkey but instead pin the ingredients in the witch's cauldron.
Thanks for reading and Chau for now,

kb
 
**my pictures are not loading.  I'll be sure to post them next time I have better internet.  Also I should be able to post a youtube link to our amazing huayno music video...