Late Nights, Early Mornings

Strangely enough, I have already completed 6 weeks of training, and I am down to only one month before moving into my site! Over the past few weeks, we have been intensively learning language, technical and cultural skills to prepare to live and work in an isolated Peruvian community. A huge facet of training is to learn about Peruvian culture through our communities and host families by spending time with them and joining in their activities. After 6 weeks, my Spanish has improved to be comfortably conversational, I can build an organic community garden, tree nursery for reforestation, and micro relleno for trash management, teach environmental science programs to Peruvian school children, and recycle with the best of them. On a later occasion I will elaborate on these technical skills, but after completing a strange and enjoyable week with my Peruvian neighbors, I feel my other triumphs must be elaborated upon, specifically and most importantly my ability to eat anything presented to me and my uncanny ability to dance huayno.

Earlier this week, my neighbor Krista and I were sitting in the park on the swings, contemplating heading home and calling it a night, until her host mother came running by the park and stopped to chat with us. She explained that she was going to a friend’s house in los Condores, a large neighborhood of mansions in the hills above my community, and she invited us to come along with her. Since it was already 11:00pm, and we have training at 7:00am, we were apprehensive to go along, but her host mother reassured us that we would only stay for an hour, so we agreed to go along. Originally, I had thought that los Condores was only a small neighborhood of ritzy homes, but it turned out that it was actually a fortress of huge mansions with roads lined with 15 foot stone walls. A friend of Susanna (Krista’s Mom) lives as a guarderia and a chef for one of the homes, and he had invited Susanna and her sisters over for dinner and drinks. After being sat down at the heads of the table, Krista’s host mother and aunts began pouring us drinks and loading up plates of food. We were served some meat shish kabob things, which we were told was anticucho, which is cow’s heart. Because I revoked vegetarianism to come here, I apprehensively ate every skewer that was set in front of me, and actually enjoyed the grilled, seasoned cow’s heart that I had been presented. After eating 3 full skewers of what I thought was beef, I asked again what it was that we had eaten, and was told that it was actually paloma. In English, paloma is pigeon. Pigeon. Entonces, pigeon tastes like a mixture between lamb and duck, and it is delicious. It is so good in fact, that now when I walk down the street and see a group of pigeons, I get the strange urge to chase them and present them to my host family as the evening meal. After a good ol’ meal of pigeon and papas, the boyfriend of Krista’s aunt taught us how to mix Inca Kola (a pineapple bubble gum tasting soda) with Cusqueña malta (a leaving something to be desired ‘dark’ beer), jokes en español that required a lot a charades to translate, and feisty responses to unwanted advances. Before the night ended, I was offered a shot of liquor, and was presented with a bottle of grain alcohol with 6 snakes coiled up and preserved in the bottle. Just before pouring me a shot of scaly liquor sauce, they decided that it was probably a bad idea, because they didn’t know if the snakes were venomous or not. I must not lie, I was completely relieved that they had revoked their offer, although I still do not know what snakes soaked in Peruvian moonshine tastes like, and there is the curiosity now that I know it exists. After 4 hours of socializing and realizing that it was 3:00 am, we were taken back down to Tres de Octubre, where I snuck into my house to avoid waking up my family members.

Last night, after a long day of learning in La Agraria en Molina (an agricultural university in Lima), visiting the National Museum of Peru and 2 hours of combi rides back to Tres de Octubre, I attended a Peruvian wedding in Huachipa. Let me first mention something about combis. Combis are essentially micro buses whose purpose is public transportation, but you can also think of them as narrow aluminum tunnels with seating for multiple people. Combis can accommodate around 15 people comfortably, but they generally transport somewhere near 25 passengers. The lucky ones that are forced to stand are met by 5’ 5’’ ceilings, which here in Peru are fine because most people here are within that height range. This is comfortable for me, well not comfortable, but much more desirable than the crooked neck/ hunched over position that most of my male volunteer friends are forced to occupy on their combi rides. Anywho, after a long day, I was walking up the hill to my community when a taxi full of Krista’s host family pulled over and explained that we needed to get into the taxi because they had been waiting for us and had a surprise. They drove us up to Krista’s house where they invited us to a wedding of Elvis’s friends (Elvis is the boyfriend of Krista’s host aunt), but we had to leave in a half an hour. On another side track this Elvis was named after “Blue Suede Shoes” Elvis, but there is also a child here named Sting, after the Police Sting.

I have not yet been to a formal American wedding, but I can only guess that if three strange and obvious foreigners walked into a wedding people would not be very warm to the idea, but here in Peru, this was not the case. At first, I felt slightly uncomfortable because I didn’t even know the names of the bride or groom, let alone any of their family members or guests. Once we were in the dance hall and the cumbia and huayno began to play, every discomfort melted away like a glacier in Greenland. I cannot confidently say that I have any sort of flow when dancing to cumbia, however I am slightly more comfortable with salsa, and I am a ballerina when it comes to huayno. Huayno is a type of music that is typical in the Sierra, in the farming mountain towns of Peru. In order to dance huayno, you pretty much skip in place, sway your arms a little, sometimes spin around, and stomp if you’re really feeling it. Generally, my natural disposition for standing in one place for a long period of time results in me moving around and swaying, so dancing to huayno is an opportunity to accentuate and elaborate on the fantastic dance moves I have accumulated in my lifetime. As myself and my 2 other volunteer friends danced around a room of celebrating Peruvians, we were taken under the wings of two old men, who were determined to teach us how to dance huayno properly. In a circle holding hands, we learned how to dance huayno, from two very happy and impressed with themselves old men. In the middle of the night, the bride and groom were sat in front of the dance hall at a large banquet table to begin a procession of the gifts. Apparently in tradition of the sierra, families of the bride and groom buy the newlyweds a ton of furniture and home goods, and parade them in a procession while dancing down an aisle. The entire family participates in the procession, and I saw dancing people carry a refrigerator, oven/stove, table, dresser, curio cabinet, vanity set, and tons of huge boxes with silverware and pots and pans down an aisle to pile them all up in the front of the dance hall. To my surprise, the furnishings of an entire house can comfortably fit in the same room as the extended family of an entire bridal party. After the gifts danced themselves into the room, the food then followed. In the same fashion as the furniture, the entire family carried trays of meat and fully intact dead animals as well as large baskets and altar shaped displays of fruits and vegetables to the bride and groom. I hope that when Monica gets married I will be privileged enough to parade down the aisle with a goat, sheep, pig and multiple turkeys to present to her and Rob after they take their vows. After the offerings of food and gifts, more music and dancing commenced, and we maintained a steady dancing circle the entire evening. At one point in the night, the mother of the groom went on stage to sing a song, and before she started her song she thanked myself and my friends Lindsey and Krista personally, from the stage, for coming to their wedding. Somehow we transformed ourselves from wedding crashers to welcomed guests (I think it was the excellent huayno skills). The evening could not be complete with more huayno circles with the family, and getting lots of big hugs and kisses on the cheek from the older family members who were dancing. Once we realized that it was 4:00am, we decided that it was time to go home, even though the entire family was still present and there showed absolutely no sign of the festivities slowing down at any point. As we tried to leave, I was grabbed and pulled into a dancing circle by a group of about 15 older women, who grabbed my hand and strongly encouraged me to dance with them before leaving. One of the oldest women of the group handed me her beer, and then her own glass. I poured myself a small bit of beer to be respectful to their offer, but another older woman to my other side was displeased with this and corrected me by filling my glass. After dancing with the women and being pushed into the center of the circle to dance with one of them men, we found our way to the door, and made our way to our car to leave for the evening.

I apologize for writing a ton this time around, but it’s the only way to be able to appropriately express my experience this week with details. I also don’t just go to fiestas and weddings, but I always feel inspired to write after them. The majority of my time, if not almost every minute I am awake, consists of work, training and university classes. I have learned a ton, but there is so much more to come. It really amazes me how open and accepting Peruvians have been so far. It is not difficult for me to feel in place here, and I have felt welcome everywhere I have been. Although everything is going to change drastically in a month when I move to my site, I am hopeful and excited to move into my community.

The General Rundown

So I am certain that I have not made it very clear what I am doing here, so I would like to explain what it is exactly that I am doing. So basically, I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, and I have been assigned to protected areas and community based environmental management. Over the course of the next two years, I will be working and living near or in a national park with a small community. Some of the issues that I will be working on include solid waste management, reforestation and environmental education. My boss and director Diego, has outlined these three aspects as the major goals to which we work towards. By the end of two years, I am expected to complete the following: 1 large community landfill, plant at least 1000 trees, and teach at least 3 times a month. These are the minimum bottom line goals that I should expect to reach, but this is the absolute minimum. We are also expected to work on a whole host of secondary projects as well, which can range from community health programs to water purification techniques. In order to work effectively, we are assigned to work with specific community partners, whihc in my case will be either SERNANP or the national park service. Working with these structured entities helps provide support and direction to our programs, and gives us the opportunity to work with them on various programs as well. Although we have been given basic guidelines for specifics to accomplish, we will not completely know what other primary programs we can work on until we are living and integrating into our host community. One of the main guidelines of the Peace Corps is that we work as facilitators within the community, and establish programs in response to their concerns and needs. As a result, we must complete community diagnostic surveys in order to identify the needs, concerns and requests of the community. Other than those basics, I have been told by my program director that I will definitely be going to a national park due to my experiences. I am so excited to move to my site, but for now I am training in Chaclacayo until November 27th. After that, I move into my site and to live and work for the next two years. Excitement ensues.

Happy Birthday Tres de Octubre!

I take my time at posting information, but it seems that my general trend will be updating shortly after a festival has taken place, which is bi-weekly. This weekend was the birthday of my community, Tres de Octubre!!! I have been waiting for this day since I first arrived, and was extremely satisfied and delighted with the outcome. Tres de Octubre, as it is so aptly named, was founded 37 years ago by some of the same people who still live here today. Exactly 37 years ago yesterday, Tres de Octubre was a shanty town full of workers and caretakers of the wealthy mansions that surround my community. Without structured homes, water or electricity, the inhabitants lived here for an extensive period of time, and worked in the homes behind our community, called Los Condores. After long overdue time, my community claimed squatter´s rights, and laid claim to the land that they had lived on for years. After claiming their community, construction began, and Tres de Octubre is the wonderful tight knit community that I am blessed to live in today. On Friday night, the 2nd of October, there was a small parade of all the community children in a procession that translates to Passing of the Torch. During this procession, all of the youngest children, generally under the age of six, were all dressed up in animal costumes and given paper lanterns to parade through and around the community. I became aware of this wonderful procession from hearing horns blaring outside of my house at 8:30, and more than readily ran outside to watch an elephant,
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zebra, bear, lizard with a bow tie, lion, tiger and other tail toting animal children carry around candle filled boats, angels, lizards, ocean monsters, butterflies and stars through the streets of Tres de Octubre. The parade finished up in the Conchita (the basketball court?), where we all relaxed, listened to the community president speak, and then enjoyed hot chocolate and cardamom bread. Last night the fiesta of Tres de Octubre kicked off, which was a series of dances and performances by the local children of the community.
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Many of the dances I was pretty familiar with, because I have been hanging out with the local kids at the local communal, where they practice their dance routines. Performances ranged from the general booty shaking dance routines to traditional Peruvian dances. Apparently Michael Jackson is extremely famous in Peru, because there were about 4 performances by some of the local boys to their favorite Michael Jackson songs. One of my favourite little people here is Mario, a 10 year old demon that loves to attack me everyday. Mario is my friend Krista´s (another volunteer) little brother.

Anywho, Mario danced a solo performance to Beat It, and rocked the Conchita. Because a few volunteers live here in Tres de Octubre, we are expected to put on a performance. Because the 7 of us in this community have little talent, we enlisted the help of a few other volunteers to help us perform any random act we could think of for the fiesta. 6 of us were courageous enough to perform two Creedence Clearwater songs with two guitars and a ukelele. I was a singer and dancer........it went well. We were laughed at thoroughly, but I am pretty sure that my community likes me so far. Happy Birthday Tres de Octubre!