A Day in the Life

I often get asked “what’s your typical day like?” While I will stay away from the cliché of “well, there is no typical day”, my days tend to vary widely and even after a year, each day brings its surprises, both good and bad. But this past Tuesday, September 28th, encompassed a lot of the elements that encompass my everyday life here, both on a work and social basis, and it’s relatively fresh in my memory, so I’ll run through it.

6:40 am: My alarm goes off. Today is the rare day when I actually sleep until my alarm, as we have had no early morning, loud guests (my host grandma is half deaf, an early riser, and constant visitor—this is not good for my beauty sleep) and my parents left early to go work in the field, so there is no whyno (Peruvian folk music of questionable quality) blasting. I rolled out of bed, went through the morning routine—there wasn’t supposed to be any water, but there was, which was a pleasant surprise—and ate my breakfast of a cheese sandwich, a bowl of potato, noodle soup and a cup of very hot, very sugary, very diluted tea. From there I got dressed (it’s easy here, I only change my clothes once or twice a week), chugged a cup of instant coffee in my room and since I had an extra ten minutes, I decided to trim my mustache. This took longer than I expected and cutting it a bit close (timing wise) I walked up to the school. State of mind: maybe a bit tired, but a promising day.

8:00 am: Arrived at the school. Today is a very exciting day. Pete and I arranged for SERNANP, the national park administration, to come up to Pete’s site (Huashcao) and give an informative puppet show and class to all of our primary school students. Our schools agreed and I was really excited for the kids to learn something about this unique and beautiful area they live in and I was excited that I had arranged it. With about 40 kids, including the 1 and a half year old son of a professor and 1 preschooler and 4 teachers, we set off for the 30 minute walk uphill to Pete’s site. State of mind: hopeful and psyched.

9:00 am: Arrive, unscathed if a bit sweaty (OK dripping sweat) at the Huaschcao municipality. The park staff, with the assistance of Pete and my Peace Corps friend Sophie, is busy setting up their stage. Renee, the park’s director of education tells me that we will be participating in some sort of costume pageant/dance before the puppet show and that I will be playing the part of the “evil gringo” who litters and illegally hunts in the park. I was still recovering from the walk up and he’s awesome but also old and a little bit perpetually confused, so I only caught about 40% of what he said, but that was enough. State of mind: hot, slightly confused, still positive.

9:45 am: We finally are ready to go. I introduce Rene to the crowd, in Spanish, and having made no major grammatical mistakes nor forgotten any words, I am feeling good. He says a few words and the music starts. It turns out that my “costume” consists of a redhead mask with boils all over its face. I come out and the pre-schooler and baby both start to cry, the older kids know it’s me and my big dramatic scene is “shooting” the 6th grade professor who is dressed up as a deer. The dancing went on too long but overall, it was fine. Sate of mind: so far so good.

10:15 am: Time for the puppet show. But, somewhere between the end of the dancing and the beginning of the puppeteer, the power has gone out. This is very, very bad. Why? Because it is not a spoken puppet show, but a puppet show dictated by an audio track. Crap. Pete runs off to look for 3 C batteries. Rene tries to stall and tries to give the kids a bit of a class about the park, but attention quickly flees and kids (mostly from Pete’s town start to wander off and/or play marbles, while the teachers sit and stare and do nothing. This is going downhill fast. Rene salvages the scene by at least introducing the puppets, which the kids really liked, and promising to come back when there is power.

10:45 am: Students and teachers depart. One 4 letter word to sum up the morning: F…ail.

11:00 am: Pete returns, out of breath with batteries after running 20 minutes uphill to his house and back. We help clean up all the costumes and set and SERNANP departs. State of mind: somewhere between angry, frustrated and wanting to scream.

12:30 pm: Pete and I, two twenty somethings, frustrated, annoyed by circumstances out of our control and straddling the lines of American and Peruvian culture, decide to do what anyone in our situation would do—we go to the nearest tienda (small store—and this one was really small. It sells crackers, cookies, soda, beer and not much else), buy some beers and drink Peruvian style while venting and laughing about our jobs and our lives in English (note: Drinking Peruvian style entails, filling a glass, drinking it and then passing it to the next/other person. It’s fun). Another note, for the sake of my parents, Pete’s mom, and the handful of other adults who may read this: understand that this is not a cause for concern, it was just our first English conversation, and drink, in about 10 days. Think of it like having a beer at a business lunch, we’re just in a different line of business. State of mind: improving.

1:15 pm: Power returns. Pass the beer.

2:00 pm: The clock strikes 2. I told my family I would be home by 11:30. Whoops, I depart to trek back down to Yanamito. State of mind: daytime beers are always a questionable decision, but definitely improved.

2:30 pm: Arrive home to a big plate of potatoes, rice and ¼ of a roasted guinea pig and a big bowl of wheat and potato soup to celebrate my host brother’s birthday. The perfect lunch. State of mind: stuffing my face and full, aka very content.

3:00 pm: A district mayoral candidate is having his close-of-campaign rally on our soccer field. The entire town is there, and so wanting the face time but not wanting to violate the Peace Corps “no political involvement” rule, I go outside, say hi to a bunch of people and do what I would do at any political event, namely lie down a bit away from the crowd in the sun and close my eyes. State of mind: drowsy…

3:20 pm: I wake up to a 1st grader, a pre-schooler and his 2 year old brother jumping on my chest and laughing. I played with the kids for a bit and then sat down and talked to some teenagers about the usual (weather, how do you vote in the US, this is how you say “good people” in Quechua). State of mind: groggy, but amicably social.

4:00 pm: The rally has finished up, some people have cleared out and I get invited to play some volleyball. I dominate three games (being the tallest person in town definitely has its advantages) and I sit back to watch the upcoming soccer game. State of mind: huh, somehow today wound up being a good day.

5:15 pm: See the garbage pail near the soccer field. It is full, and whoever cleaned up the rally decided that it would be a good idea to just dump used Styrofoam plates next to the trash. Somebody says to me “Alex, looks like you have some work to do.” I almost lost it, and kind of snapped back that it was the candidates work and that my job is not to clean up after everybody. Moved to a spot where I could no longer see the garbage pail. Sate of mind: Pissed off, frustration take two.

6:15 pm: Now cold, unhappily make my way back home, only to see that in the interim someone has in fact collected the plates that overflowed from the garbage can and put them in a big sack. Lift my head and walk home with a skip in my step. State of mind: OK, so things turned out OK. Faith in mankind resurrected.

6:25 pm: 2 weeks ago, the garbage truck accidently took down someone’s power line, leaving them powerless. Of course this was not my fault, nor should it have been my responsibility to fix, but due to political apathy, it fell to me to coordinate with the provincial municipality to come up and fix. Today was the day they were supposed to come, which I remembered and went to check if everything was fixed. On my way, I encountered three 2nd graders elbow deep in another garbage pail collecting soda bottle caps having spilled out another 40 Styrofoam plates. If I didn’t hate Styrofoam as a semi-hippy on a liberal college campus, boy do I ever hate it now. I take a deep breath and ask them what they are doing. They show me their bottle caps. I tell them to wait there, I am going to get a bag and they are going to clean up the mess the made. As I turn back towards home to go get a back, one kid says “let’s make a break for it.” My response:
“I know your names, I know where you live, I know your parents and I know your teacher. You can either wait 5 minutes and do this with my help, or you can be dragged back here tomorrow morning by your ears”, and I turn to go. State of mind: REALLY? I think my head might explode.

6:30 pm: Returning to the scene of the crime, I ready myself for the possibility that these kids might have succumbed to poor judgment and ran off. Thankfully, they all stayed and we cleaned up the mess in about 5 minutes, with very little complaining. Plus, the electricity got fixed and the family thanked me. State of mind: Well that could have been worse. I need to go home and not leave the house again until tomorrow.

6:40 pm: Dinner in front of Madagascar 2. Leftover rice and potatoes, more wheat and potato soup, bread and another cup of dentist-offendingly-sweet tea. State of mind: numbed by television.

8:05 pm: Power goes out.

8:10 pm: Power comes back.

8:12 pm: Power goes out. State of mind: for the umpteenth time today, “really?”

8:15 pm: My mom declares, “Well with no power, we may as well go to bed.” I am not yet sleepy, so I pull out my secret weapon—a fully charged laptop and season 2 of Weeds on DVD. Two episodes and I am ready for bed. State of mind: again, numbed by TV, sleepy.

9:20 pm: Time for bed. Go to bed content, pretty happy and trying not to think what tomorrow may bring (which, P.S., included: a 5:30 wakeup from my mom telling me that they were going to plant potatoes, which I already knew; a pretty good English class; a close but heartbreaking volleyball loss with the teachers—I blame everyone on my team but me; dogs having gotten into the garbage bags and strewing plates everywhere—I looked the other way; two hours later, to my amazement, seeing that plates have been cleaned up; carrying a half full bag of synthetic fertilizer back from the field to prove that I am not useless; a woman from a neighboring town telling me that there are lots of pretty, single girls in her town and that I need to come visit; and of course, 2 more power outages).