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.

The night time part of the promociones

At the mall in Cajamarca

You can't read it, but the sign says 'splashy willy'.

18.12.2011 (yep, that's how they write dates here)

Happy Birthday baby brother!  I can’t believe you’re 21, I hope you have a fun and safe birthday.  I know those Spartans are professional partiers-so you will be taught well.

This past week was pretty slow for the most part.  The director of the primary school and I went into Bambamarca to present an official solicitud to the municipality (or local government)-basically it is a very formal long document presenting a plan on how the schools in my community would like to have a summer school program and asking for funding from the mayor of Bamba.  Summer vacation here for the students is December through the end of February, and I am signed up to teach English classes 20 hours per week for the months of January and February (if we get the funding, which they have been getting for the past 4 years).  I was really excited to go into the municipality learn my way around and see how the system worked.  However, it turned out that the mayor kept us waiting, and when he finally did call in the director to present the solicitud I was somehow left out of it all.

I also did a search for the elusive Serpost of Bambamarca.  I had heard from plenty of people in my community and in Bambamarca itself that there is in fact a Serpost office.  Everyone seemed to know that it existed, but no one had ever used it or knew where it was.  I did a search on Wednesday and I found it, but it isn’t really a real post office.  It turned out to be this lady’s house with a ‘Serpost’ sign hung up above the door.  From what I can understand after talking with this woman is that once a month she personally drives any official municipality mail to Cajamarca city.  She cannot receive mail and she cannot take my mail for me with the mail she takes in once a month, but she insists that she is still a Serpost.  Anyhow, I was really frustrated and I will try to ride into Chota more so I can send my letters-sorry for all the super late responses.  It was an overall very Peruvian experience; super inefficient, confusing, and left me laughing to myself.

Friday was a big day in my town.  It was promociones at the primary school (or 6^th grade graduation, next year the go to the secondary school effectively 7^th-12^th grade) and the whole town celebrated.  During the day there was a ceremony which ended up starting about 2 hours late, because of all the rain.  The girls and boys that were graduating all wore salmon colored dresses and collared shirts.  The girls wore little heels and their hair was all done up with glitter and ringlets.  Finally we got to eat lunch at 3pm.  With all the rain it was difficult to coordinate a space to feed everyone; usually everyone eats outside they told me.  At lunch we all received a mountain of rice and potatoes with half a guinea pig per person.  I got the head half of the cuy and I had to trade with someone else at the table.  The guinea pigs where splayed open on the bellies with the paws out and the trouble with the head half was that it still had all it’s teeth AND remnants of whiskers!  I couldn’t do it and I had to swap.  The meat does taste really good, but the whiskers and face got me.

After the gigantic lunch we went back outside for photos and to start the drinking circles.  In Peru there is a very particular way that people drink.  The first rule is that it is not okay to drink out of the bottle; you must always use a cup to pour your beer into.  To start off the circle the first person pours themselves a cup of beer, passes the bottle to the person on their left, gives a ‘salud’ to the person on their left and drinks their cup of beer, and shakes the foam onto the ground before passing the cup left as well.  If the drinking circle is more traditional the men have to pour for the women in the circle.  Anyhow the whole drinking circle thing is a lot like taking beer shots and there is no end in sight.  Until they run out of beer you just keep going and for the promociones it seemed like an unlimited supply.  I ended up ducking out after about 2 hours of drinking circle, because I was getting worried I might barf my guinea pig and I was beyond worrying about being rude at that point.

The party didn't stop though.  It kept going all evening and through the night.  I went back later in the evening for the dancing with my host sister Diani.  When we first got there at around 9pm it was like being transported back to a middle school dance; everyone in town had shown up, there was live music, and everyone was standing alone the edges of the cement courtyard that was to be he dance floor just staring at each other, absolutely no one was making the first move to dance.  I got waved over to yet another drinking circle and after sitting for a while I talked a really drunk older man who I'm pretty sure works at the high school to dance with me.  We were the only ones who danced for about another hour or so, but I had a really fun time.  The caretaker at the primary school Whilmer; whom I privately called Hagrid, taught me how to properly dance Huayno.  I had a lot of fun. Next time there is a dance I'm planning on bringing some American music and teaching the electric slide/ the hussle (are they really different???), thriller, and I also have a copy of the cupid shuffle.

***Mail call: Thank you for all the lovely letters and packages!

Nana-I got your letter and the candy canes/necklace package

Mom, Dad, Eric, Jess-got all the packages and the letters, I am pumped to start reading Eric's book

Aunt Linda and Uncle Mike -thank you for the sweet cards

Aunt Vivian- thank you for the thoughtful note

Babu and Beepa-thank you for all the loot!

Allison K.- I got that last letter you sent, thank you. 

Okay, so I am going to try my very best to get more pictures up.  I have a lot of them and it takes forever to download, but another volunteer told me there is a trick where you reduce the size and it's easier.

video tour of my new home!!!!

Finally I got this stinking video to descargar all way!!!  It´s not even that good, but it took 2 hours to download after a bunch of times of having to bail out when I couldn´t wait for it to finish.  I plan to put up pictures later.  Here´s the link;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kyQIxKIRL0 Editar este vídeo

 

 

technical difficulties

Due to some technical difficulties I'll have to post the pictures later on in the week, but I am hopeful that I can finish this download on youtube before the last truck leaves for up the mountain.  Here's the link in case I get it to work for me:
http://youtu.be/cjDey16koXY

tricky timing

I've got pictures and a movie to post tomorrow, but I ran out to time today.  I've got to catch the last truck up to San Juan or else I'm stuck in Bamba for the night.

Chao!
kb

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.