Tacabambina Baby: oh, yeah I figured out the photo problem...

Blog post 12.19.2011

This weekend I traveled to Cajamarca (the city, it’s kind of confusing sometimes; I live in the departmento called Cajamarca and it is also the name of the capital city) to pick up box of books that Peace Corps shipped for me and during the 3 hour combe ride back to Bambamarca I was squashed in the front with the driver. The stick shift was practically in my butt the entire ride, but more importantly while making small talk I found out that the strikes are supposed to start up again tomorrow. According to this driver the protestors are planning on blocking all roads from Cajamarca, Bambamarca, and Chota from December 20^th until past New Years. This weekend when I went into Bamba the military police stopped the truck I was in, made all of us get out and show identification. I was lucky I had my passport with me. President Humalla declared a state of emergency in Cajamarca a couple weeks ago and that is the reason the roads have been open. During an official state of emergency the military police occupy the area and are able to arrest people pretty much without cause. The protestors had to take a break so that they wouldn’t loose all their man power from arrests. Tomorrow the state of emergency is over, and that is why the strikes are starting up again.

At this point this is hearsay, but I just thought I would get myself down to Bamba today to post this and let people know that if I am uncommunicative it is because I may not be able to leave my site. When they block the roads I may be a little board and anxious to get back to email/skype, but I will be totally safe. My family; like the majority of the families in my community, raises animals and crops so we won’t run out of food. In fact it would probably be more scary to be down the mountain in Bambamarca, because the people flood the streets and protest. Since I’m a gringa sometimes people think that I work for the mines and those mineros are really not so popular around these parts.

So please don’t worry. I hope that I’ll be able to call and email soon. Plus, I now have a big box full of books to occupy myself with. Before I could avoid doing my Peace Corps reading, but now I won’t have any excuses.

A charla (or talk) about domestic violence given by a woman from the Ministry of Health.

Diamond and I waited in Chota for an extra couple days before we could go to our sites.

Campo sweatpants and tire shoes are very trendy here. The sweat pants are the least flattering I have ever seen, but they are pretty darn warm.

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Learning how to make tamales.

Grinding the corn is hard work.

The red plastic container is full of the corn we just ground up and the white stuff is homemade cheese.

This is my host mom's cheese.

this lady is weaving

I thought these guys were so cute.

The next couple of pictures are of my community.

My new home.

My family sells bread and buys milk from the community to make cheese.

Don't forget it's BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper) in Peru.

the kitchen

goofing off at the mall in Cajamarca.

lots of milk for making the cheese

the director the primary school and my regional coordinator working on the sound for the domestic violence charla.

This is how the promociones looked at 12pm when they were supposed to start.

About an hour later...

The graduates

My brother Wittman and I. He is in high school, but attended the promociones as a dance partner to one of the girls that graduated. He told me he did for the all the cuy (or guinea pig).

This guy and the girl above asked to have their pictures taken with me....on my camera. I didn't really understand, but I just went with it and I don't even know these kids yet.

Wittman and his pareja (partner) before being presented to everyone.

The staff of the health post attended the promociones.

Cuy for lunch.

My uncle getting ready to go out to the Ronda. Since there are no police the community has a group called the Ronda. Men take turns doing a sort of community watch. It's all very organized. The machete seemed like a bit much, but the Ronda is in charge of dispensing social justice.