Wednesday, December 30, 2009

happy new year!

So I have been at site for a little more than a month, which is kind of hard to believe. Time has been moving kind of strangely—the weeks seem to shoot by, but sometimes the hours just seem to drag on forever. Part of the problem is that I just don’t have all that much to do right now. The first months are supposed to be spent doing a diagnostic, learning about the community, meeting people, but no big projects. As a result, especially cuz people know that I am here as a development volunteer and expect me to be getting things done, without having concrete work it’s really easy to feel as if I’m not doing anything, especially because the people here do a lot of hard physical work. So yea, things are a bit slow. But in two weeks I am going to start teaching summer school to the primary school kids, twice a week English class and twice a week environment classes and I’m pretty excited about that.
And overall things are generally good. All the kids know my name. A lot of the adults do too, or else they just call me “gringo,” which pretty much signifies any foreigner, or “papi gringo” which I think is a bit more affectionate. And I have a hard time remembering anybody’s name, so I don’t really mind at all. The food is fine to good—my diet continues to be based around rice and potatoes, with sides of bread and corn thrown in as well (and other things, but the emphasis is definitely on carbs). One evening last week for dinner, my bowl was filled with one part rice, one part potatoes and one part spaghetti. That was a fun one. But I can’t complain, I’m generally eating well.
There have been some interesting cultural experiences as well. About two weeks ago I got sick for the first time. Nothing serious, just a loss of appetite and some general stomach pain. From what I learned in my medical sessions, I can expect much worse. But anyway after two days, my host family was concerned. In my town we don’t have a health post or a doctor, but we do have an old lady who takes your pulse and diagnoses the cause of your ailment. So after we convinced her to take a break from doing laundry, we went inside her house, she took my pulse and told me I had a very bad stomach infection and proscribed a specific type of antibiotic. I’m not sure what or if I’m going to tell my hosts next time I am not well…
This past Monday was the graduation ceremony for the primary school, which is the only school we have in town (the kids go to the next town over for high school). There were 11 kids who graduated, which involved them getting dressed up (boys in ties, girls in matching prom dresses), a ceremony and a big meal and dancing with most of the community. I think one of the funniest things I have seen so far here is a bunch of 13 year olds in fancy clothes trying to eat a heaping bowl of potatoes and cuy, with a spoon and without a table. After the meal the adults broke out some cases of beer, which is an experience in it of itself here. When Peruvians drink beer, they open one bottle at a time, someone fills up a glass, drinks it and passes it to the next person and so on. I’m not going to get into any moral territory of alcohol, but this custom does have a nice communal ring, when you see people my age sharing with people who are the age of their parents and grandparents and everyone is having a good time together…
The other big event of the past couple weeks was of course Christmas. Now just about everyone here is Catholic, but it seems to be a much more relaxed, laid back sort of Catholic than what we are used to in the States (I am of course no expert on Christian sects). So they definitely celebrate Christmas, but it felt a lot different here than it does at home. First of all, it’s summer here, not winter. Also, they don’t have the money to celebrate in the same way we do, with lots of decorations and gifts. So we woke up Christmas morning and had hot chocolate and paneton (kind of bready fruitcake…I’m a bit ashamed to admit I really liked it…) but then everyone went out to the fields to tend the crops and animals. I guess I’m really used to everyone being distinctly really happy at Christmas time, and even though my family doesn’t celebrate, we are usually together and we usually spend the day relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. It was strange to have it be just another day.
So yea, that’s life in Yanamito more or less, or at least the interesting parts that came to me off the top of my head. And as one last possible point of interest, I haven’t showered for a little over two weeks, but it’s cool here, so I think I can get away with it…I hope the holidays went well for everyone and I wish you all a happy and healthy 2010.

The above represents solely my opinions, not that of the Peace Corps nor the US government.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

thanksgiving

alright, so here's a quick story while I have internet for a few more hours...
this weekend was thanksgiving, as everyone knows. except in Peru, where no one has heard of it, and they understand the concept of a family get together, but the idea of pilgrims and indians and parades and parties...yea that hasn't reached down here yet
so yesterday, most of the volunteers in my region got together in the capitol city to do thanksgiving, cuz as much as we love experiencing new cultures, thanksgiving is pretty awesome, and I think a lot of people were looking for a taste of home. The volunteers who have been here longer (3 months to a year) had family send up fixings, and a 20 pound frozen turkey was procured, and we wound up sitting down to turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, cranberries, green bean casserole and apple and pumpkin pies. it would have passed for a solid American thanksgiving dinner. BUT, when I sat down next to my friend Pete, and we got past the thanksgiving "what you're thankful for" toast, the first conversation we had afterwards started with "so yesterday, when my host mom was cleaning the pig she had slaughtered that morning in my kitchen..."

so yea that's Peru. Site is good--beautiful, hard and awkward. but i met with the school director and some other people in the town and hopefully soon I'll have some real progress to report.


hope all is well wherever you are and happy thanksgiving

--alex

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Welcome to Ancash

Look at me I’m a Peace Corps volunteer!! My swearing in ceremony was yesterday, and after ten weeks of training and consistent confusion I’m officially ready to start my two years of service. Training was actually a pretty good time…I had a really great host family in Lima who always made me feel comfortable and it’s nice to know I have people who I can go and visit who will give me a warm welcome whenever I want to visit. Sitting with them at dinner last night I realized how far I’ve come since getting to Peru—during my first meal with them I couldn’t really say anything beyond “my name is Alex, I’m 22 and from New York.” But last night I could converse clearly, crack jokes...I’ve definitely made a lot of progress here.

And I guess that’s part of the reason why things don’t seem so exciting around here. A lot of the things that were overwhelming and exciting at first are a lot more commonplace to me now. I can take public transportation without a hitch, order in restaurants, talk to people on the street and I can do it all in at least passable Spanish. It feels pretty good.

This isn’t to say that there weren’t some bumps and funny experiences along the way. A couple weeks ago we taught English classes in a Peruvian primary school, where we walked in to twenty kids waving hand made American flags at us, which they then asked us to sign. And it’s been a consistent challenge trying to explain the differences between American and Peruvian culture and society. And I’m 99% sure that Peruvians with size 13 feet don’t exist, so getting shoes may be a bit of a challenge over the next two years…

So now I am sitting in a nice hostel in the Hauraz, the capital of the department of Ancash. Tomorrow I am going to Yanamito, the small village in Ancash where I will be doing my service. I am right in the foothills of the Andes, and when I walk out of my house and turn my head to the right, the first thing I see is the tallest mountain in Peru. I am going to be living with a young farming couple and their two young daughters in an adobe house. They cook with firewood, they have running water, but no shower and I'm gonna be using nothing but latrines for the foreseeable future. They grow potatoes, corn, cabbage, carrots, beans, peas, cows, sheep…it’s right down my alley. Oh they also have like 50 guinea pigs. Which live right above my room. And if you're not sure why they keep guinea pigs, I'll leave you to do your internet research for a nice surprise. My town has about 150 families in it and I’m going to be spending the next three months doing a “community diagnostic” which will involve talking to as many people as possible in order to determine what the focus of my main projects should be. So I’m excited. Nervous too, but excited. So that’s pretty much it, tomorrow is gonna be a big day but I think I’m ready. Hope this finds you all well and I’d love to hear from you…

--Alex

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government

Sunday, October 25, 2009

hi everyone. hope everything in the US is good. Things in Peru have been going pretty well. Training is flying by--only 3 weeks left. We have started to get a lot more hands on experience, doing site visits and practicing various skill sets. over the past few weeks we (the 19 environment volunteers) have done hands on garbage management, planted 100 trees, visited a national park and a protected wetlands and learned a lot related to all of those topics. On these field trips I also got to see an eagle and I swam in the Pacific for the first time in a couple years, so that was awesome.

the other thing that´s starting to be emphasized is giving educational sessions. Last week i gave a 20 minute session about trees, in spanish, to a bunch of 8-12 years olds in an after school program. it went ok, but it´s hard to teach and it´s especially hard to teach in a language that isn´t english. This week we are going to Ancash, a province in the Andes, for a few days and we are going to be teaching a few more times, so hopefully the practice will do me good. it´s also supposed to be really beautiful and about 4000 meters high, so I´m really excited for that

Other notable things that happened: I turned 23 last week, which was fun. my host family threw me a party on the roof of their house and a bunch of volunteers came over. it was fun and it was nice that they were willing to do something special for me. a few of my friends also surprised me with some homemade pizza and a cake, both of which were delicious, so I was well taken care of on my birthday

and the last cool thing of late was that I ran a half marathon today in lima. I don´t think it was notably different than a half marathon in America, but for reasons that are still unclear to me, i got interviewed by a Peruvian TV network at the finish line and my host family said they saw me on TV. I´m pretty sure I embarrassed myself cuz i was too tired to think or speak in any language but oh well.

so yea, that´s it. hope this finds you all well

--alex

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government




yea so that´s it. life is good. miss you all and I hope

Thursday, October 8, 2009

1 month

hard to believe it´s been that long eh? one down, 26 to go...
na, things here are actually going really well. for example, i know how to take the bus back and forth from the training center, i know what foods i do and don´t like, i learned how to build a tree nursery and i mostly know how much money to pay for things and what the denominations look like
and beyond that, spanish is coming along pretty well too. I can have basic to slightly more than basic conversations , I am starting to get to know somepeople around my community and i´m getting along really well with my host family, who have continued to make me feel really welcome here
I have also started to get around Lima alittle bit. last week I went with some other volunteers to check out the catacombs at the big fransiscan monestary here. it was a museum, but there were lots of skulls so I didn´t get bored. Today was a pretty cool day too--we only had a half day of training cuz it´s a national holiday (peru beat chile in a battle that I don´t completely understand because everything was explained to me in Spanish). So after a big lunch of ceviche (raw fish kind f cooked in lime juice--very good) I went with my host brother and father and 2 friends to Lima. We went to a big market that had just about everything you could imagine. I was aqble to buy a full season of simpsons dvds for about US $2, so you can imagine how happy I am. After that we walked out of the market and we bought 3 bags of fresh hard boiled quial eggs to splitas a snack. they were delicous and it was one of those moments where I was just stuck thinking--wow, being in peru is fun and slightly overwhelming and just different.

so yea, that´s life. thanks to everyone who e-mailed after my last post, and I do appreciate it even if I didn´t write back. oh and I don´t know if this will work, but this is a link to some pictures...http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1536836015/a=10989002_10989002/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/ . and as always, I hope you are all well and Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government

--alex

Thursday, October 1, 2009

I´m in peru

hi everybody. It´s been about three weeks since I left the bronx, and I figured it was about time to update everyone on my life a little bit since I left. I am currently a trainee in the Peace Corps´ community based environmental management program in Peru. We have 10 weeks of training about 1.5 hours outside of lima, and then I will be shipped off to a location that is as of now still a mystery to me for the next two years.
my days are pretty straightforward--4 hours of spnish training in the AM, technical, health and safety training in the afternoons, with visits to the local ag college on the weekends to learn some farming/gardening. The ag school is a cool place, reminds me a bit of Cornell but in Spanish
Peru definitely isn´t the US. THe smell of burning garbage is always kind of lingering, there is a rooster who lives about 50 feet away from my room who I would LOVE to throw a rock at, the market is way more colorful and lively than any farmer´s market I have been to in the US. But i do have a hot shower and water and electricity and while life here may be simpler, I´m not roughing it too bad, at least not yet.
I´m living with a super nice family in a small town called treis de octubre (3rd of October, the day they became incorperated. ¡look i learned some Spanish!). my hosts are a couple probably a few years younger than my parents with a son who is 23 and studies a lot of math that I don´t understand at a university in Lima. They have been very welcoming and very patient as I stumble along in Spanish. The town in tranquil and in a pretty little valley near a very polluted river and a bunch of small hills. I have been getting to run, which is always nice, and They have been feeding me very well--mountains of potatoes and rice.
and yea, that´s the basics. nothing too crazy or overwhelming so far, or if there has been my brain is handling it extremely well. there are 57 kids in my training class, which is big enough so that it´s a challenge to get to know everybody, but there are cool people around and I´m sure they will only get cooler as I get to know them better.

That´s the basics, sorry if it´s not too scinitiallating, but I wanted to get something out and I need to go eat dinner in 5 minutes. hope all is well whereever you are and i check e-mail on occasion, so feel free to write, although I may be late or never in getting back to you (sorry)

--Alex

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government