Tacabambina Baby: Tragically I didn't get to eat Priscilla the pig

Last weekend I visited my San Juan host family for the first time since I moved sites. I was really nervous and excited to see them. I missed them a lot my first couple weeks in Tacabamba and I continue to call my host mom Dalila every week to check in. However, I was nervous that things would be weird or that they would ask me about building an improved cook stove. Previously it something we were discussing, but it was always a topic that felt uncomfortable for me. I knew that the family probably had enough money to buy the materials and build there own improved cook stove, but they wanted me to do it for them. It always left me torn between wanting to do something nice for this family that I love, but also feeling a bit used.

Lucky for me the stove building conversation never came up. I was only in San Juan for a quick visit. Apparently too quick for us to eat Priscilla. Now that was disappointing. I went out behind the house gave Priscilla a good belly rub and said my good byes, and we ate rabbit for dinner instead. When I asked Dalila she said she though I would be staying through Sunday and they were planning to kill Priscilla on Saturday. Boooo!

I got to hang out with Witman and Eduar. We played frisbee and read Harry Potter. It was really nice. When neighbors passed the house or saw me walking around they asked me where I had been. I felt sort of frustrated that my host family hadn't told people that I had left. Unfortunately I was unable to make a public announcement or really say good bye in my town since the move was rushed. It was sort of like Diamond and I were evacuated. Diamond wasn't even allowed to pack her own things for the move, her host family packed all of her things and sent them down from her town by ambulance. The week that we left people in Diamond's previous site were attacking unknown cars with rocks and so our regional coordinator was afraid to drive up to her site in the Peace Corps car.

So that was also disappointing to find out that nobody in San Juan knew why I left or where I had gone. People just kept asking me when the next volunteer was coming and I had to tell them that Peace Corps had shut down their whole district for volunteers. There will be no more volunteers in the Bambamarca area for until Washington decides it is safe again. I found out that all the kids in the district will have to repeat a year of school, because they have missed so much during these protests and strikes. It's really sad. Especially when I think of the 6^th graders I taught English classes with, they were all going to have their promociones this December or graduation. It is a really big celebration. Kids get special presents and new clothes. There is a huge party and at night the whole community is invited for drinking and dancing all night long.

So the visit was nice. It felt good to see my family and I fit right back into my spot. I just felt a little sad for leaving them all over again. I hope that Witman and Eduar can make it to University some day and I worry about how will I keep in contact with them all. I almost forgot that I very briefly saw my enamorado or boyfriend while I was in San Juan. Good old Delphin; 105 and still walking the streets (err- it should be street, there's really just the one), and I gave him a good hand shake. I know his daughter better and her I gave her a greeting cheek kiss with a hug, but him I've have only met once for an interview about the history of San Juan. Anyhow, my host family thought it was hilarious that I went up and greeted him. I only wish I had thought to ask for a picture with him-it would have been super awkward to ask him, but I bet he would have gone along with it and I'd have the evidence.

I came back to Tacabamba and Diamond and I had a big meeting at the municipality on Monday morning. It turned out not to be such a big deal as we thought it would be. We had to wait for an hour and a half to be seen. When we were brought in it was in front of one regidor instead of all of the regidores and the mayor was also not present. We talked to the regidor Lisandro about our project plan and budget. He told us he could have an answer about the funding by mid-October. So it leaves us still waiting to get started, but things move slowly here and I try to keep telling myself that we now have a foot in the door.

This week the teachers went on strike. It is a nation wide strike, because the Peruvian government has passed some kind of law that the teachers need to take an exam every year. This new round of teacher strikes has brought up a lot of interesting conversations with neighbors around Tacabamba. Teachers only work about 25 hours a week here in Peru. Most public schools have classes from 8am to 1:30pm everyday. There is vacation from mid-December through March 1^st as well as 2 weeks off in August. What my neighbors tell me is that a lot of the teachers in the public schools lack any type of higher level education. In Peru to qualify to be a high school teacher, you only have to have graduated high school. Now the rules are changing and the government wants to move towards hiring teachers with bachelors or masters degrees. The trouble is what will they do with all the teachers that are working right now? It seems unfair to me to toss them out of their jobs, but also not really so fair to the students to have a teacher that doesn't have higher than a high school education.

So with the latrines project on hold and no sex-ed classes happening with the teacher strike it's been slow around here. Also next week is the town party in Tacabamba and everyone is just getting ready this week. Everyone is making last minute improvements on their homes so that they look nice for the fiesta. Also from what I hear lots of families will be opening up their homes to rent rooms to accommodate the huge influx of people that will visit for the fiesta. I haven't heard anything from my host family about people staying at the house with us, but there are 2 extra rooms that could potentially be filled for the fiesta next week.

This week I finished up with my secondary applications to 3 schools in Chicago; Loyola, Rush, and University of Illinois, and the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. With all this free time I have been obsessing and worrying about getting in somewhere. I'm pretty sure I won't hear back for months so I am trying to stop thinking about it in every free moment. It is just so exciting to fantasize about coming back to the states, going to school, having an apartment, and feeling like I have control of my life.

Here in Peru most of the time I feel powerless. It feels like I can't do anything right and I don't understand how things work. I still don't feel like I can express myself when I want to have a meaningful conversation with someone. It's like in the US when someone doesn't speak English very well and you know they aren't stupid, but it is so difficult to look beyond their bad language skills to give them a chance to show you who they are. I totally understand people's reactions to me here in Peru and I just wish I could take back all the times I thought a certain way about people I met in the states that weren't totally fluent. I guess this means I should crack open my grammar text books once in while here, huh?

Also this week Diamond and I made pickles. It turns out pickles are surprisingly easy to make! In 2 weeks we'll be feasting on pickles, yeah!

Thanks for reading and chau for now,

here's a list of some foods I miss:

cold drinks and drinks with ice

cereal and cold milk

bread; sliced bread, whole wheat bread, rye, sourdough, toasted bread

cheese (that isn't wet farmer's cheese, I'm talking stinky cheese that tastes so good and gives you terrible breath)

baby carrots and peppers

hummus

salsa

pickles*but in 2 weeks I'm gonna eat some

Mexican food, Thai food, Indian food, Middle Eastern food-any kind of spicy foods

BBQ anything, hot dogs taste weird here-I just want to go to a baseball game sometimes

greek yogurt

good beer

mom's lasagna, chili, black bean soup, that pasta salad with the artichoke hearts, homemade jam

brewed coffee- not that instant nescafe, yuck!

root beer

and mostly I miss cold drinks or milk with cereal

foods that I know I'll miss from Peru:

choco sodas

humas

aji

all the delicious new kinds of fruit that I've never seen before in the states; grenadillas, guanabana, surco, lucuma, maracuya, that weird cactus fuzzy fruit,

beet salad

chicarrones

cerviche if it's done right

maybe cuy...but chicken is probably better