Christmas

Hello all,

Well, this week was a fairly eventful one for down here. Christmas was a mixed bag. On Christmas Eve I ran into an American tourist I met in the regional capital of Chivay. He had walked all the way to my town, an hour´s ride by combi and a 3 day trip taking it easy. We hung out most of the night and then went to my municipality at midnight to share in hot chocolate and paneton, a type of fruitcake before heading off to bed (as that is significantly past what I´m used to staying up to down here... I´m turning into an old man).
That is pretty much all that happens down in the valley on Christmas. The next day the municipality hands out toys to the kids in town and paneton to the families to enjoy. Then the families go back to doing what they usually do, which means going out to work in the fields like it was any other day.
The next morning I gave my family their presents (a small radio they can carry to the fields so that husband and wife will both have one and markers for the little girl) and walked to the nearby town of Lari to watch my buddy place a soccer game. I actually did get a present from the municipality, which was a little unexpected because adults don´t generally receive anything. It was my own entire Paneton, which I shared with my friends a couple of days later.
To celebrate Christmas using some English, me and some buddies from the area took a day trip over to a town called Tapay in the canyon. It is very unique for a couple of reasons. First off there is no road there. You need to hike down a mountain to get there, which takes 2 and half hours down and 4 to go back up if you´re in miserable shape as I still am, regardless of all the weight dropping. The second reason that it is unique is its temperate climate. It is nestled in the canyon next to the river and has an almost tropical climate. It has lush vegetation and fruit such as peaches and pears are grown there, a rarity in the valley. It was a nice trip, although I wish I had spent some more time there, if only to rest, as I was pretty much broken at the end of the day.
Well, that is about it. I hear that not much besides drinking is accomplished on New Year´s Eve, which would be consistent with most places worldwide. I will probably try to use this opportunity (because nothing will be accomplished that day) to bounce down to the capital and take care of some errands during the day, like finally getting my bank changed over to one that is at all useful to me, before doing a little cookout in the evening to celebrate (it is summer and all down here)...

Pictures

And here are the pictures as promised...

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/Peru4#

Update

This week was a busy one work-wise. I have just put the finishing touches on a gargantuan forty-page report about every aspect of my town I could think of, which means it probably could have been even longer. It also was the official last week of school, although I had quit working there a week earlier due to finals. I went to the clausuras, or closing ceremonies, that the primary and secondary school put on which were generally longer than they needed to be meaning I got to bed at the horrifying hour of 10:30 p.m. two nights in a row. Still, I sat on stage among the teachers making me feel at least marginally important and got to see some interesting skits and performances by the students, particularly those of the primary school. There was a manger scene complete with live sheep that got a little out of control and some pretty inappropriate sketch comedy to provide some laughs for all concerned and the hot chocolate on the second night was appreciated.
I have also just put the finishing touches on my vacation request for February. It has shrunk from an extremely ambitious four-country month-long deal to a simple drop down through Chile to the tip of the permanently populated world and back up to Buenos Aires before heading on back. The shrinkage is due to the entry policies of my own dear country which are so stringent that countries down here have decided to follow suit, making the devil-may-care world traveler a thing of the past down here- at least for those of us without the monetary resources our lawmakers do. I’ll get where I want to go eventually, but I’ll have to waste some precious vacation time in Lima waiting on visas and shelling out the little I’ve got on intrinsically worthless passport-sized sheets of paper.
On the bright side, Christmas is around the corner and I’ll be able to talk on the traditions down here. Also, for New Years I hope to spend a little time with the volunteers in the area and celebrate it proper. Other than that, it will be a pretty dull winter as a good portion of the population will be heading to other areas to find seasonal work and the rain that is turning my courtyard into a swimming pool at the moment will be an ever-present friend. It’s not all bad as I’ll have plenty of time to work on a better English curriculum for the upcoming school year and I found a classic film shop with movies for a buck a pop that I would have trouble tracking down in the U.S. even. And, of course, with time flying this quickly down here Spring Training is right around the corner…

Pics

Hey,

Don´t have the pictues yet I promised, but you can see some and read more on the festival at my fellow volunteer´s blog- ryanspcextravaganza.blogspot.com. I¨ll get those up when I can.

Fiesta de Chivay

Well, it´s been awhile since I wrote and I´ll try and get back to my once-a-week pace now that things are settling down. Between Reconnect, regional meetings, and Chivay´s town festival I haven´t had time to do much of anything the last several weeks.
Chivay is the biggest town in Colca and where I go, as I´ve mentioned before, to get a bath and communicate with the outside world. This last week they had their fiesta patronal, or town founding celebration, which is always huge. I was there most of the week because pretty much everyone in the valley comes to town (as well as relatives from all over) to celebrate and I wanted to take part in a priceless cultural experience.
The festival started off slow and built up to a wititi competition on the final day, which I unfortunately wasn´t able to attend. Wititi is the traditional dance of the area. Males dress up in skirts and wear hats that resemble lampshades to obscure their faces. This was because in the past males would do this to trick the fathers of eligible females that they were dancing with other girls instead of potential suitors. The females wear the same skirts, with matching vest and a flat-brimmed hat. I´ll have pictures up tomorrow most likely, and the link will be right here. The dance itself is a kind of subdued jog-in-place with a series of different types of spins when the music picks up tempo. The music is played by a marching band and sounds like Sousa was played by a southern black, Drumline-like university at double-time. I really like it and even did some dancing with some pretty attractive women myself, although without the traditional dress which I´ll look into for next year.
The town does a mini-makeover for the fiesta as well, with tall poles being planted all over the square to make a kind of concourse. The poles have a piece of cloth decorated with all kinds of gaudy items stretched between them and at the end of each row is a giant display with light-up items and polished silver all over them. The first day people carried statues of saints and virgins around the square and attended a mass and after that it was party time.
The next few days bands could be heard walking around the city going to parties in the four different areas. We went to a few, enjoying the free food and drink as well as the companionship. The set-up and socializing reminded me a lot of Amish socials I´ve been to, minus the drinking of course. Everybody sits around talking and eating/drinking for most of the day and then heads to the square to dance and enjoy more of the same. The dance groups grow larger and larger as the day progresses until there are three bands and dance lines going at once in the middle of the square with people all around them watching and doing more eating and drinking. This will go on well into the night, with the square being chock-full up up until midnight.
After all this excitement, and our regional meetings in the capital this weekend, I´m pretty tired out. It was a great experience and I´m looking forward to next year´s festival already - where I´ll give the skirt deal a shot. Should be fun.

Vacation

Hey all,

The title of this post is vacation, but that´s not strictly true as the first half of the week we had meetings in Pacasmayo, a coastal town in the north about 26 hours from my capital city by bus. I actually didn´t really go to many of them, because I got sun-burned badly the day we got in, got ill from bad seafood I ate soon thereafter, and already had a pretty bad cough and congestion problem. I then slept funny from the sunburn and couldn´t move my neck for three days. So, all in all it was a pretty bad few days, although I did get to hang out some with some folks I hadn´t seen in three months.
On Wednesday we had a Thanksgiving dinner together with most of the traditional dishes. That was really nice, as I think a lot of people were missing that Thanksgiving meal and fellowship. We all then scattered, the majority going to Trujillo, a famous beach to the south to soak up some sun and just relax together. That was a bit better of a time, although I still wasn´t feeling perfect. Now, on the way back to my site, I finally feel pretty good. Go figure.
It was great getting to see the other volunteers that are so far to the north and get a change of pace from our cold, very campo (backwoods- country) sites. Still, I´ll looking forward to getting back and finishing up the school year as well as starting some new projects for the winter. The rain is fast a-coming, and that will really change up how I work, probably for the slower. Still, I will do my best to fill my time and keep checking in with everyone.

Catch-up

Hey,

Missed this weekend´s installment. This week will be a quick one, as we are soon off to the sunny beaches of the North for our Reconnect meetings, which will catch us up on everything our training classmates have been up to over the last three months. We will be four down from when we started training, which is a bummer, but it´ll be nice to see everyone that is still kicking in site.
The school year is also wrapping up, with yesterday being my last day in the primary school. It was nice to get a little love from the students on my last day and I´m already looking forward to next year when I´ll have completed my new English curriculum. Still, it´s nice to have a break to work on other projects. I have two more classes with the high school and 3-4 more for inicial, and then it´s summer vacation! The only problem is that is when the rains will come, so I´ll be pretty much cooped up with my work for a few months.
Well, I´ll be sure to update with how the meetings went when I return and get back to talking about random subjects...

History

Hello all,

This week I didn’t accomplish a whole lot. School wasn’t in session on Monday and the Spanish agency AS had to postpone for Tuesday, making my Thursday meeting moot. So I did a lot of sitting around when I wasn’t in school the rest of the week, either in my house or waiting for the various members of the local government to coordinate a few things. Next week will have to be extra busy because I have a lot to prepare for my residential tourism organization.

I realized this week that I have not yet talked about the history of Peru. I’m no expert, but I can fill in a few details that should give some background on the country and where it is today. It once boasted one of the largest empires in the Americas, the Incan, which was particularly impressive because they governed an empire of thousands of square miles despite never having developed writing. Their heritage and language, Quechua, is still evident today, along with famous ruins like Machu Picchu.

What brought about their downfall, as with most of the indigenous empires of the Americas, was the arrival of the Spanish. Francisco Pizarro was in charge of the expedition and taking advantage of warring factions quickly captured the Incan emperor, Atahualpa. He demanded a room full of gold and silver as ransom, and after receiving what he asked for he killed the emperor anyway. Soon after this he made Lima his capital, which a change from the Incan capital of Cuzco, and it became one of the richest and most influential capitals in the world due to the natural resources of the country.

Peru gained its independence from Spain in 1824, although it was announced in 1821, due to Argentine General San Martin, part of an independence movement sweeping the continent. In the late 1800s Peru fought and lost a bitter war with Chile, which still colors their relations today. That is about all I know of Peruvian history until the 1980s.

The 80s were a difficult time for Peru, due to several blunders by young President Alan Garcia, including trying to change the currency. Alan Garcia was actually reelected for a second term and is President now once again. These years are vividly remembered by the population today, and I’ve heard stories of kids not going to school to wait in bread and milk lines for their families. These times spawned several domestic terrorism movements that locked down the country and are also often recounted by people around here, although this area wasn’t touched too much. Refugees from the most affected areas are one of the reasons for Lima’s rapid population growth, to a bustling city of 8 million now.

After Garcia came Japanese-Peruvian economist Alberto Fujimori. He defeated inflation that was well over 100% and all but destroyed the several terrorist movements in the country, making him one of the most popular presidents in Peruvian history to some areas of the country. The bad of his presidency was the methods he used to crack down on terrorism, many of which were down right illegal and contra human rights. This is why he is now on trial for human rights abuses. There aren’t many world figures that have been such a mixed blessing, and he still has his fair share of supporters and detractors.

Things have taken a turn for the better after Fujimori, even though his successors Toledo and Garcia are two of the most unpopular presidents in their history. Peru has an excellent rate of economic growth now and things are looking up, although there is still much work to be done, especially in rural areas outside of the capital.

Chivay

Hello all,

This week was pretty much the same old same old as far as work goes. I tried to meet with my artesans but they were no-shows, so I had to content myself with the schools and teaching computers to the Water Commission (Comision de Regantes)- which is the most important group in town because they regulate water usage for irrigation purposes in the fields. I´m in the capital city of Arequipa right now for my monthy meetings and we´re going to grill out American style tonight, which should be a good time. Tuesday I´m going to try to get somewhere to watch or track the election results, but other than that this should be a standard month until Reconnect, where all of my class will be getting together to find out what exactly we´ve been doing so far... definitely looking forward to that.
This week I think I’ll talk about Chivay, the closest city of any size, although it is probably better classified as a town. It is pretty much the only place to get most of the amenities of modern civilization such as internet, consumer products and food, or contact with the governmental resources that are necessary to get big projects off the ground here.
Chivay has maybe 20,000 people, a pretty sizeable town square with a beautiful white adobe church, and a bustling tourist trade as it sits at the end of the highway from Arequipa and at the mouth of Colca Canyon. It is pretty much the portal for the canyon and has all the connecting transportation for the region as well as plenty of hotels and adventure sports agencies.
I try to get in once a week to meet up with the other volunteers in the canyon, buy a few things I need, and check my email and the news. I also get my weekly shower in at La Calera, the regional hot springs. My town does not have a showerhead in it to the best of my knowledge, so I’m pretty much dependent on the hot springs or ice cold bucket baths to stay clean. La Calera is a complex of 5 or 6 pools, indoor and outdoor, and compartmented into the more expensive tourist baths and those for locals. I’ve been able to convince the staff by my frequent presence that I indeed live in the canyon so I can use the local baths. The water is quit hot and the showers, though public, do the trick.

Colca Canyon

Hello all,

This week I finally got to talk with my artesan group´s president and made some headway with resuscitating the residential tourism group. These are both excellent signs because they mean I am finally working on what I was brought over here to do, small business. I´m continuing my English classes of course, although I cut back my adult classes to just the teachers because they were the only ones who really showed an interest. I´m not sure if this is genuine disinterest or just the chacra keeping people from wanting to come or hearing about the class, but I won´t bother with the regular population classes again until I´ve made some headway with the tourism, when they´ll really want to be able to say some basic things in English.
Otherwise, things are going pretty well in town. I´ve settled into a routine for classes and meetings, which can get kind of boring but seems to be on the way to yielding results. I still have the mountains to look at every time I walk out the door, which helps recharge me when I´m not feeling particularly like going to a meeting. These mountains and the wide-open sky above them have a different look and color every day, and some sunsets are simply indescribably beautiful. So I´ll certainly survive the monotony of work since my environment offers me anything but that.
This week I figured I’d touch on the region I’m in right now, the Colca Canyon. There is a bit of a debate on whether this is the deepest canyon in the world, but all agree that if not Colca it is the Cotahuasi Canyon, also in Peru. A group of Polish explorers just mounted an expedition into some unexplored reaches of Colca with the intent of establishing it once again as the deepest in the world, but I have yet to here about the outcome.
The canyon itself isn’t like the classical example of the Grand Canyon with its sheer walls diving down from a fairly flat surface. Colca is nestled in the Andes Mounains, so the canyon sides slope down from huge mountain peaks and make more of a V than a straight plunge. There are several towns nestled on the lip of the canyon, underneath or on the side of mountain peaks, and the upper reaches are thinly populated with llama and alpaca farmers that rarely come down into the valley.
My last post described the tourist attractions of my town, which pretty much encompasses the tourist attractions of our side of the canyon excluding the whitewashed old churches that each town boasts. On the other side of the canyon is Cabadaconde and its Cruz del Condor, which attracts the vast majority of tourists in the canyon. Cruz del Condor is an outlook that overlooks the canyon, although not the most impressive portion by any means. The real attraction is the fact that condors fly across the canyon there frequently and can pass quite close to the outlook point. Other attractions are the numerous hot springs and the adventure sports possibilities such as rock climbing and mountain biking. Lastly, if you climb up behind the ridge directly behind my side of the canyon (or take a round-about route by car) you can reach the origin of the mighty Amazon River, something I’ve yet to do but would like to get around to before too long.

Town

Hello all,

This week I finally got to do some talking with town authorities on the subject of small business in Madrigal, which is my trained and educated specialty, instead of youth development which is where most of my work has been directed so far. I will still work in this field as no work with adults begins before seven o’clock here due to the farm-centered lifestyles of the people. The organization that is showing the most promise is Turismo Viviencial, which centers on a type of live-in tourism that pretty much just attracts Europeans at the moment. This form of tourism involves people coming to live in a home in another country for a period of time, from a week to a couple of months, to get an idea of the habits and customs of a people and their surroundings. Since we are in one of the most beautiful spots in the world this is a big opportunity for the town. Still, there is a lot of footwork and restructuring to do before we can get a move on things.

On other news this week, I’ve been a bit under the weather but still doing everything I need to. The amusing part of all of this is when anyone hears me cough they have another natural remedy they would like me to try to cure it. I had to have received more than ten amateur prescriptions this week. I also pinned down a learning aid my high school English students enjoy- using activities centered on song lyrics. It’s good for listening comprehension and vocabulary building, and I had a completely quiet classroom for the first time since I began!

It just occurred to me that I haven’t really got around to describing the town. It is seated in a depression surrounded by mountains, the most impressive of which is an extremely jagged peak that is right next to where the canyon really plunges down. You can’t really see the canyon from the town because you need to descend a series of step-like slopes full of farm fields to get to it, a difficult descent. The jagged peak bears an Incan fortress, Chimpa, overlooking the deepest part of the canyon. Also on that side are ancient rock tombs including a mummy, cave paintings, a ghost town, a rock forest, and a forest of puyas, plants that flower once a century, Closer to the town is an abandoned mine and then kilometers of farm fields.

The town itself is built around a central plaza that has a small park with a fountain, a few statues, and bushes cut in the shapes of animals and objects. For the most part small stores and governmental buildings populate the square and residential houses radiate outwards. Towards the edge of town are a large public meeting hall and the schools. The schools are single-story complexes of buildings built around a cement common area. Most houses are built of painted adobe with tin roofing, including mine, although there are still some of the traditional stone, straw-roofed houses around.

As far as amenities go, we have streetlights and for some, including my family, thankfully, running water. The roads are still primarily dirt, although we are building a stone and asphalt one entering town. The stores don’t have a huge selection, but you can find most of your amenities and fill in the gaps by going into the closest big town, Chivay. Madrigal has all of the hallmarks of a small town, but it has everything I need and I have certainly never lived in a place so naturally beautiful.

Food

Hey all,

This week has been more of the same, although I did walk to the town across the canyon to visit another volunteer Saturday, which pretty much left me burnt out. It took four hours of descending into the canyon through all kinds of terrain and then climbing back up and out to the highway. This is particularly difficult at altitude, and as skinny as I’m getting I’m still in terrible shape. Should probably start up that running pretty soon… Getting back was as difficult, but only an hour as I hopped a ride from my fellow volunteer’s town back home. As far as work goes, I got to talk to a local governmental agency called Sierra del Sur about a variety of projects, including a women’s savings club that will be meeting next week. I’ll also be meeting with a residential tourism group that needs revitalizing and the mayor to talk over some possibilities, including starting a town library. Still no dice on the radio show though, although I’m working on getting the radio key.

This week’s topic is food, then. For the most part, it’s pretty tasty, although after they butchered a sheep we ate random guts for a week straight. Not my favorite week. They have a different approach to meals in the canyon. Breakfast and lunch are the biggest meals of the day and more or less the same. Dinner might be a smaller plate of food or just tea or coffee and bread. I don’t get a whole lot of meat, although when I do it is usually sheep jerky or on good days chicken. We also get alpaca, a llama-like animal, every once and awhile. Yesterday in my friend’s town we even had donkey, which was tough but not too bad.

Generally, though, we eat rice with some sort of side that usually involves potatoes, including a type of sun-dried potato, called chuño, that tastes awful in most settings and the very strong regional red onion. One of my favorite meals is spaghetti with a sauce made primarily from shaved carrots. Soup is another constant, and is usually quite good and sporting potatoes and chives. My mother also makes a simple cheese that is quite good and often makes tostado, which is just corn fried until it is nice and crunchy. To drink we get fresh milk, tea brewed from local herbs, coffee, or chicha, which is kind of like a sour beer brewed from corn that usually isn’t alcoholic. Overall I can’t complain, and going into the capital once a month gives me the opportunity to get hamburger now and again so I can’t really ask for more.

Transportation

Blog 2

This week has been a crazy one. Monday I taught in the Primary School, where we had a parade celebrating the gift of a couple new computers and some desks and chairs. The students marched in classes, the style being the goosestep we last saw in Hitler’s Germany and still used by many South American countries. There is little consciousness concerning World War II, South America being just about the only area largely unaffected by the war, particularly its Pacific coast. So, this is most likely a vestige of the time when German military advisers were the primary resource of military knowledge in the continent, although Argentina was the country with the strongest ties, even being the center of a conspiracy theory involving an escaped, living Hitler. Also, an interesting note on the high school- the students are made to pay for the paper their tests are printed on, which strikes me as a similar practice to making the executed’s family pay for the bullet. When I told my class not to worry about it they insisted, which I guess puts money back in my pocket…
Anyway, after Primary, I was to do the first installment of my radio show and computer class, but I got a series of no-shows for those. I did have success Wednesday with my teachers’ English class as well as teaching at the high school and pre-school Wednesday-Thursday. I also started up a basketball club to give me a sport I have a chance of competing in (instead of soccer). In my free time I put the finishing touches on my first book of poetry, as requested by a few fellow volunteers, and wandered over to the health post to see what I could help out with. Thus ended a pretty busy week. If you want a Word copy of the book, shoot me an email, which if you don’t have it is: henryjfromage@hotmail.com.
Topically, I thought I’d tackle transportation this time. The primary form of transportation is on foot because all of the others are so infrequent. I walk most places, which usually isn’t too bad, although it is an hour-plus hike to the next town which gets long. Also, walking to the chacras, or fields, can take up to two hours. Another option is by horse, which I haven’t taken advantage of yet.
Speaking of engine-run transportation, the primary is the combi, which is a slightly larger passenger van that goes back and forth to the nearest big city, Chivay, three times a day and is packed beyond belief, and then goes and picks up more people in each successive town. For anyone significantly over five foot, it is pretty rough, but when you have no other options… Also you have the big Greyhound-type bus that leaves for the capital city of Arequipa every morning at 3 a.m. This is fairly comfortable, although to take it at night back to Madrigal might mean you’re standing for a significant portion of the trip. There are taxis as well, but the cost is prohibitive to return from Chivay. Also, the municipality has a huge, construction-type truck, called a bolquete, that they use to ferry materials and people around the town’s jurisdiction and occasionally elsewhere. If you can catch it when it’s leaving there’s generally space in the cab or up top. Lastly, in Chivay are the mototaxis, like we had in Lima, that are basically low-powered motorcycles with passenger cabs attached to the back. There isn’t a whole lot of point taking them as Chivay is pretty walkable. That’s more or less the slate of transportation available, little of it comfortable but with the distances in question, all of it essential.

Lastly, here’s another batch of long-promised photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/Peru3#

Education System

Hey all,

Well, I’ve finally gotten a chance to sit down and write topically. I think I’ll tackle what I’ve seen of the school system in this post. I’m working in all levels now, as I’ve mentioned. First off is Inicial, which schools the four and five year olds. They are about as well behaved as young kids everywhere, which is to say not very, and this holds true for all the grades. I had heard that kids were more disciplined here, and they do have a military-like formation at the beginning of the day, complete with many of the movements I myself learned in R.O.T.C. However, that isn’t exactly true, and it’s one of my bigger pains in the rear trying to hold their attention, which makes me truly sorry for the other teachers who don’t have the advantage of being a novelty. Still, there are students that really want to learn, mostly the girls, that make it still worthwhile.
Back to the level-by-level comparison. Anyway, Inicial is the kindergarten/first grade of sorts and I’m still trying to figure out how best to teach them. Using songs, pictures, and employing hands-on activities are the traditional methods and I’m still trying to find the right mix of these. The school resembles what a kindergarten room would in the U.S., although in a building by itself. The next level is Primaria, which has kids from 6-12 years old. Each level has its own room and the military discipline starts here. The school is public but still has strong Catholic influences and some religious education mixed in. Here the teachers are a fun-loving bunch, which means there is always plenty to eat at breaks and unfortunately, some sporadic drinking during the school day, something that apparently isn’t rare here. I wouldn’t say that I have seen any of them drunk, but still it isn’t a very good practice.
The Colegio is the final level, and the last for most Peruvians. It goes from 13-18 years of age. Here the school is even larger, with the biggest contingent of computers, which I’ll probably be teaching with before to long. Here is where I’ll hold my adult English and Computer classes when I start them up next week. Each level in the Colegio has its own room, with the teachers of each subject moving in and out with the hours, the reverse of back home. The same basic subjects are taught here, although I think they stop Math at a level below the U.S. and have religion classes like the Primaria.
Overall my impression of the level of education here is that it is a fairly professional one, with very dedicated teachers, although there are still strides to be made. The resources provided to the Colegio in particular are also quite good, with most of the books being new and each classroom having a whiteboard. The students seem to be more or less the same worldwide, no matter the different disciplinary practices and backgrounds. Teaching is definitely still a wok in progress for me, but each day I spend in the classroom the more I learn how to make my classes more useful and interesting. Hopefully I can strike the right chord with each level and get as many learning as possible…

Work and such

Hello all,

Here´s my first promised update, although I have to pound this out at the internet café instead of on my computer (just worked through some virus issues) so it won´t be as detailed as I hope to get in the future.
What I´ve been up to lately is revisiting the capital to fix the new computer and talk to a university about giving citizenship chats to my high school, a whole lot of teaching (including in their version of kindergarten now... I´ll have to brush up my nursery song knowledge), and the new addition of a radio show. The town offered me an hour every day on their FM radio station which I´ll use to introduce some international news to the town, talk about community and health issues, and three days a week play some world music (I´ve certainly got enough to fill an hour a day for several years...). I´m going to start getting pretty busy here before too long, but that is exactly what I wanted and is refreshing. I´ve been reading two books a week lately, so as much as I like it hopefully that´ll slacken as I´ve got more and more meaningful tasks to fulfill.
Well, this was criminally short, but I´ve got quite a bit to do. Keep posted for the meatier stuff coming up...

Update

Hello all,

Well, I finally oot a funcioning computer so I should be able to type up blog posts now and put them up when I get access to the internet. That once a week I promised awhile ago is now viable, then.
On the news front, I now have a family to stay with, which is awesome. My mom and dad are both 40 and their primary sustenance is their chacras, or fields. They grow corn, potatoes, alfalfa, lima beans, and quinua, which is a cous-cous like grain with a lot of protein. I helped plow a chacra last Tuesday and I was probably as tired as I´ve ever been afterward. I walked the bulls from 9am to about 5pm with only a small break to eat in between. Still, it was very interesting and even strangely fun, although I´m sure the more of it I do the less fun it´ll be with time (and probably the easier).
I also have an eight year old little sister that has become my shadow and two younger brothers that are studying in the capital. I am getting used to some pretty rustic living conditions, from the outhouse without light or toilet seat (but it flushes!) and washing my own clothes by hand to the four days of various sheep innards to eat as we just butchered a sheep. It is interesting how quickly one gets used to all this as I can´t say any of it bothers me all that much, although if we keep eating like this I will be skinny indeed upon my return (already down 15-20...).
As for work, I am teaching English in the Primary and Secondary schools and will be putting together adult english and computer classes before too long. I have yet to get seriously involved on the business side, but I am having meetings all this week with different organizations that may hopefully be able to get me started there. I also have a heft community diagnostic to take care of, so I am fairly busy right now.
Well, that´s the news I have for now. I´ll get more descriptive in the future now that I can devote some time to it...

First Impressions

Hello all,

Well, the first several days are over and I´ve survived all-right. I still don´t have a host family, but I´ll be looking for one in earnest in the coming week or two. I know that there´ll be something somewhere, and for the time being I´m staying in the municipal hotel, which needs some touching up but is otherwise pretty comfortable, if cold. It does feature potentially the best toilet in town (still no seat, though), which is all mine, so I can´t complain too much.
The town fiestas just got over, which is why I haven´t gotten much done, and they were pretty nice. I described a bit what was to be expected, and it all was pretty exciting. When I have more time in the future I´ll make sure to write a bit on the fiesta culture here, as well as a lot of other descriptive topics, but for now I´ll just keep you updated on what´s happening on my end. Unfortunately my computer was the next electronic device of mine to bite the dust, but thankfully the information on it was all intact and recoverable. There´s an outside shot it can be fixed, but I´m not holding my breath. I´ll know more tomorrow when I´m next in cell phone coverage. At worst, there is another volunteer nearby who has two laptops and may be open to selling me one at a reasonable price. I do have internet in my town, which saves me a lengthy walk, but it isn´t always available so I need to prioritize my time on it.
As for the town, everyone seems pretty nice, if a little withdrawn at first. After a little partying with the mayor and city council among other community dignitaries, I feel as if I´m a little more accepted than my first couple of days. I´ve yet to do anything of any significance with them, but there will be plenty of time in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I´ve already contacted the local schools (they have a primary and secondary/high school here) and set aside a few days to work with each. It appears as if I´ll be thrown into an English classroom right away in the secondary school as they´re looking for another professor. I´ve made it clear that I have no idea how to teach English from the ground up, but would be glad to be a resource and a temporary fill-in. Well, that´s about all the news I can remember,

Zach

I´m here!

Hello all,

Well, I´m now in my site in the Colca Canyon. I still don´t have a family, which isn´t good, but I´ll survive until I can find one. I´m hoping it gets taken care of within the next three weeks, and am confident it should be. For the next three days we have Fiestas Patrias here so I won´t work much. There will be bullfighting, traditional dances, a beauty pageant (unfortunately none of the contestants live here- young women appear to ditch at first opportunity... small town living), and plenty of music and food. I also found out that there is internet only an hour walk away, and possibly in my town. But I still don´t have cell signal. You can´t have everything I guess...

Adios, Yanacoto!

Hey all,

I haven´t written in awhile because things have been very, very busy since my last post. I have been getting ready for heading off to site, saying goodbye to my new family and friends, and packing in a lot of those lasts... fiestas, visit to the quality pizza joint in the nearest big city, hitting up Jockey Plaza, which is pretty much a glorified American mall. From here on out it will be pretty ¨rustic¨as they say in the Peace Corps, and I´m looking forward to getting the chance to see what I´m really made of.
Training is pretty much finished at this point, which is both good and bad. The bad is I won´t be seeing most of these folks for quite some time, although we´ll keep in touch I´m sure. The good is the actually training part is over, which was getting kind of tiresome. If you have a hankering to revisit high school, then training is for you. If not, you´re counting the days until site. That being said, the information was pretty good and it´s obvious that our trainers worked as hard as possible to get us ready for a pretty uncertain situation. I certainly couldn´t think of a way to do it better.
As far as last impressions culturally of this area, it is surprising how much this feels like home after only 3 months. It´s really like I´m leaving all over again. There are certain cultural differences that jump right out at you, such as a lot less concern for personal space, although my family has been good about that. Still, I can´t say that there´s anything here that really bothered me all that much, and even the town-wide loudspeaker announcements each morning at 6 a.m. got to feeling like normal. There are also some great cultural practices here that I wouldn´t mind importing back to the states, such as greating literally everyone you pass on the street and saying thank you to the cook after you finish every meal. I also have gotten used to the greeting kiss, although that still wouldn´t fly in the midwest I´m sure.
All in all, I´ve had a great three months here but am excited (and not a little intimidated) to move on to the real work. The next three months will be tough as I integrate into the community and start planning what exactly I´ll be doing in the next few years. We have a pretty intense community diagnostic we´ll be doing for much of that time and outside of that I´ll have to make sure to prioritize my time so as not to burn out right off the bat (during my visit I was approached by a load of town organizations about helping out, so I´ll ideally have plenty to do).
Well, to sum up, I´ll be making weekly posts from here on out as I can only get internet once a week. Mail will be even worse if I have to get a box in the capital- once a month. The good news is I´ll have a cell soon enough that everyone can call. It will be free for me, but I would caution those who want to talk to check it out with your provider first. This international stuff can get tricky, although most phone cards should work at the worst. Adios,

Zach

Arequipa

I just got back from my site where I’ll be living for the next years, and I couldn’t be more pleased. The town is called Madrigal, in the department (state) of Arequipa, described by some as the Texas of Peru because of its distinct, prideful culture. The city is beautiful, nestled in the Colca Canyon valley, which is the deepest canyon in the world, as mentioned earlier. I’m actually only a couple hour walk from the deepest part of it.
The town itself is small, only about 400 families, and very agrarian. Nearly everyone has a farm, or chacra, and is there all day. So, I’ll only have a small window between 6pm and bedtime to get most of my work done, although I can plan and do research during the day while most of the population is gone. I can also work in the schools and go to the farm and help out. I should have plenty to do overall, especially since there is great tourism potential there. There is an Incan fortress overlooking the deepest part of the canyon, ancient cliff-face tombs- one of which has a mummy, a rock forest, hot springs, cave paintings, and even a rope bridge and an abandoned mine (cool to explore if not exactly tourist-centric).
The people are also amazing. Everybody greets one another when passing in the street, everyone seems to know everyone else, and there seems to be a genuineness there that you don’t see that often. I think I’m pretty much a new toy for the kids, as I got a little buddy right away, Maria, complete with a lamb that follows her around. She wanted to do everything with me, as did a young boy named Emerson who showed me around a lot of the spots to see. My primary duties are with adult organizations, but I believe that I’ll end up doing a lot with the kids of the town as well, as they’ve not got a whole lot to do with their free time.
The scenery is spectacular. You can see where the canyon plunges down from the town square (which has a beautiful stone church that may have been built 400 plus years ago). Mountains are all around, and after a rainfall their peaks are covered with snow. An hour’s hike away is the river at the bottom of the canyon, which isn’t very deep but fast in a whitewater sort of way. Within the town, the houses are mostly of stone or adobe, and walking down one of the dirt streets with stone buildings and animals all around makes you feel like you stepped back into the middle ages. Apparently the scenery gets even better after the rainy season, when everything turns green and the sun is out much of the time.
On the downside, I will probably not see a toilet seat again for the next couple of years. Also, it is bitterly cold at night without any heating per se, so I’ll have to get creative with covers, long underwear, etc. People also only bathe once a week, which is another throwback element of the town. I will probably kick it up a notch and go into the nearest “big” city, Chivay, once a week to shower/bathe at the hot springs in town. Either way, I’m going to have to get used to being dirty much of the time. Still, I entered the Peace Corps expecting “rustic” conditions and this is pretty much what I asked for. I’ve become too soft over the last year or so and a little hard work and grit will be good for me.
Overall, I think I will have a great time over the next couple of years and furthermore I think there is room for me to really help in some aspects. That’s the important thing, anyways. Well, I have to two weeks left in Lima before I head to site for good. When that happens, I’ll be updating once a week. I also will have a cell phone again, which you can call after our cell phone tower gets built in town (about a month or two in). This is it!

Here are the long promised pictures, covering my trip up north to Cahamarca, my small vacation to the holy mountain of Marcahausi, some more pictures of my house here in Yanacoto, and my site to be, Madrigal:

http://picasaweb.google.com/zijerem/Peru2

Oh, and I started picking up poetry lately. For some reason it’s just flowing right now, which is strange because I’m not used to doing much with the creative arts. Here’s one I wrote recently that came out in about ten minutes:

It courses
Down the mountain
Rushes over and
Around
Rocks, moss-laden
Branches, obstacles
Of many kinds
For it is its
Nature
It cannot burst
Asunder the
Iron bounds of
Gravity or
Retract its wet
Wanderings
However much it
Might wish
So it plunges
Ahead
Leaping and bounding
Over and
Around
Until it meets its
Match
An obstacle insurmountable
A wall, whether of
Rock or
Concrete
A halting force
Doest it then flow
Around, or
Stop, and
Puddle?
Or does it rage
Against this
Impediment,
Struggle, scratch,
Chip away
Until it can
Once again skip
Over and
Around?

Arequipa!

Hello all,

I´ve got some good news today. We were assigned our sites and I will be heading south to Madrigal, Arequipa. It is a small town high up (10,500 feet) and perched on the edge (or somewhat within- don´t know yet) of Colca Canyon, the deepest canyon in the world. Apparently this town is more or less straight out of The Bridge of San Luis Rey. I will be working on tourism initiatives to capture some of the dollars that flow through the valley regularly because of its adventure sports/sightseeing reputation. I will also work with an artesan group that makes different types of clothes (the clothes the women wear have been described to me as the most beautiful traditional garb in the world) and an association of milk producers. My host family has a farm, so I´ll likely help out with that, which is exciting because they practice the terrace-style farming that one usually thinks of when/if they ever get around to thinking of farming in Peru.
I am going next week to check it out for a week and meet some folks before returning for the last two weeks of training. There is no internet and only rumors of cell coverage, so missives will be no more than once a week when I arrive permanently. I´m just flush with information, but I¨ll do more describing when I´ve experienced it for awhile. I´m definitely pleased, as this is what I´ve been asking for all along. Should be amazing...

Markahuasi

Hello all,

This keyboard is pretty awful, so I´ll keep it pretty short. This weekend I got three days off instead of the usual one because July 28th is Peru´s Independence Day. I didn´t really get to see much of the celebration that accompanies it, although nearly everybody flies the flag and/or wears a special ribbon in the flag´s colors. Also, coming back today we saw tons of people at the prevalent local clubs, which are kind of like a hybrid summer camp and country club. They were cooking out, swimming, and playing outdoor games which reminds me of how most of us spend July 4th. Also, many go camping, which is what I did.
Where I went was the sacred mountain of Markahuasi. It is 12,000 feet tall, which was a pretty crazy ascent, especially with the thinner air. It took us (my host brother Juan Carlos, my pretty much host cousin and fellow volunteer Patti, and I) 4 hours to do it, although to be fair Patti probably could have done it a lot quicker. Juan Carlos and I have pretty similar physiques and are almost the same height, which provokes a lot of family resemblance jokes, although he is quite a bit older- 35. After we arrived we rested for a few minutes and then climbed some rock formations to view the sunset, which was pretty awesome. We bedded down about 9 to get an early start.
Markahausi is a table-top mountain with rock formations all around and some chulpas, or pre-Incan burial chambers. There is also a pretty spectacular lagoon and rocks shaped like all kinds of things. We saw all of this this morning, bright and early. Juan Carlos and I slept out in the open, which was freezing but worth it because of the stars. I woke up a half hour before everyone else, at 4 a.m. and just stared at the stars until they started moving. This hemisphere has a whole different set of stars than up north, and it was beautiful. After that we broke camp and saw the sights before descending, a lot quicker. I´ll have some pics up soon enough, as well as those from my trip up north to Cahamarca. Well, I had better run because I´m being called...

More Updates

Hello all,

Just wanted to touch on my birthday yesterday. It went off in the typical Peruvian fashion, BYOB with a lot of music and everybody getting fed around 9pm. We were out pretty late, which is why I´m heading to bed pretty quick here, but I definitely had a lot of fun and couldn´t ask for a better group of aspirantes (fellow trainees) to have celebrated it with.
This part is for my Dad, and other baseball fans. Sorry we got cut off on the phone, it isn´t 100% reliable here, but usually pretty good (ditto for whoever else called me last night and got cut off before I got there- technical problems...). So Joe Blanton got moved to the Phillies for righthander Josh Outman, 2B Adrian Cardenas, and OF Matt Spencer. Cardenas is the real name here, and should get to battle with Patterson next year for that 2B job. Some folks have called him Utley lite, but I think that´s pushing it a little. I see somebody more like Robinson Cano without as much of the average. Still, not too shabby. Arizona got Tony Clark back for a fairly nondescript pitcher and Jon Rauch for 2B speedster Emilio Bonifacio- think Luis Castillo- who´s apparently a pretty sure thing. Lastly, the Astros got Randy Wolf for P Chad Reineke, who´s a so-so kind of prospect. Not sure why they did that, as their chances of even getting a wild card are pretty slim. When you´re battling the Cardinals and two teams who just added the likes of Rich Harden and C.C. Sabathia, you really need to do better than a barely average free agent to be...

Update

First off, thanks Grandma Mary for the letter. That´s two days in a row with mail, which is pretty cool. I need to figure out the post office system before too long so I can write back.
Secondly, I just got back from the doctor and apparently nothing is too seriously wrong. My leg actually hurts more today due to the fact that I got woken up early this morning by a charley horse (the same leg of course). However, the doctor told me that the swelling should be gone in a week and I can play soccer in two. Better yet, there is no ligament damage at all, so there should be no future repercussions. After the fall I took I was sure that I had torn something completely in two, but apparently I´ll survive to fight another day...

Trujillo

Well, I have some good and bad news. First off, thanks Grandma for the card, I did get it- my first piece of mail! I was pretty excited. My birthday is coming up and my host family (and a goodly portion of the community) is abuzz about what to do for it. I´ll probably have my trainee friends and some folks from the community come over, do a bit of dancing and imbibing, and eat some cake and good home-cooked food. At least, that´s how it´s gone with other trainees that have had birthdays so far. I´m not used to a lot of fuss over birthdays, so this is all kind of amusing, but it´s also kind of nice to be the center of attention once in awhile. I guess I had better get used to it because apparently at site I will always be under the microscope.
As for the bad news, I tore up my knee pretty bad at the beach on Saturday. "Tore up" might be a little intense, but it´s definitely swollen to twice its size and is difficult to get around on. I´m going to a specialist in Lima tomorrow and may get an MRI to make absolute sure what´s up. I´m rooting against anything being torn as that could potentially keep me out of the game for awhile, and the last thing I want at this point is to be medevac´d to Panama or the U.S. I´ll try and post something small tomorrow when I find out what the deal is exactly. I also got my camera messed up at the beach because I made the mistake of trusting females to make sure my stuff didn´t get lapped by the waves while I was in the water. Every single item of their´s made it out o.k., but somehow every single item of mine, while right next to theirs, on the same towel, got left behind (yes I´m a little bitter, but I don´t hate all womankind because of this- o.k., maybe a bit). The moral of the story is I´ll get over it soon enough, and I may be able to get a camera shop to clean out the sand that is impeding the lense from opening. So all may be well fairly quickly, although it may take a little more time for the knee.
As for Trujillo, the city after which I titled my post, it was awesome. It is a bit touristy because of the beautiful beach of Huanchaco and the extensive pre-Incan ruins of Chan Chan that are near, but it is nice nonetheless. I got to see the ruins and do the beach on successive days, as well as got to a place that brewed its own beer, making it automatically the best in Peru I´ve yet partaken of (in careful moderation, of course). Outside of the last hour at the beach, I enjoyed it a lot, and pictures of the entire trip are forthcoming. Well, the family´s calling me to eat, so I had better run. Adios,

Zach

Cahamarca

Hello all,

I have been in Cahamarca for the last several days. Cahamarca is a northern department (equivalent of a state) with beautiful green mountains and lots of dairy products. The city that I am currently in is named Contumaza, and is beautiful. There will be a business volunteer spot opening up here, and I would not mind at all ending up in this town for my two years. I have been expressing a strong interest in agriculture though, which is pretty atypical of my fellow volunteers. I may end up down south then, but either way I feel that I have a pretty good chance of being in the mountains instead of the coast, which would make me very happy.
Anyway, we have been teaching a business workshop to community college students here and today I have free time because the students are out in the town selling a wide variety of mostly food products. This is because the workshop was built around them starting a small business at the end of the week, obtaining a small loan, paying it back the next day and reaping the profits. So far every group (my class has four, and the other two have a combined 8 I believe) seems to be doing very well. They do not need to pay their loan back until 3pm, but already many of the groups have sold out of their stock or met their breakeven points (the point after which whatever you get is pure profit).
As for the town, it has 9,000 inhabitants but feels like barely a thousand, a beautiful plaza with a huge conifer in the middle of it, a mirador (lookout point) complete with a live captured puma, and beautiful winding streets overlooked by balconies and older folks in ponchos and oversized local hats waving as you pass. The day before coming here I was in the capital of Cahamarca City for a little more than an hour which was beautiful. I ate lunch at a local restaurant and had fried cuy (guinea pig). The way they usually do it is skin it and throw it in the fryer, head, feet, and all. That was a bit unappetizing right off the bat, and you had to basically tear what little meat there was off the bone. It had a vaguely seafood taste, and I was not terribly excited about it all told. If I do end up in as rural a community as I am hoping for, I will probably be eating a lot of it though, so I had better get used to it. I will survive I am sure. On the brighter side, the ice cream I had afterwards was some of the freshest and tastiest I have ever had.
Well, I had better sign off. Tomorrow I am going to Trujillo, one of the most beautiful and historic cities in Peru. Given time and some sun I will probably see some of the most extensive pre-Incan ruins in the country and hit up the beach. I will let you all know how that went later…

Photos!

I don´t have a lot of time to write because I´m busy preparing for a field visit to the mountains of Cahamarca (18 hours north) next week. The good news is I now have my photos up! Follow the link below, click on the image (entitled Peru 1) and enjoy...

http://picasaweb.google.es/zijerem

Transportation

Hello,

I thought I´d talk this time about our transportation situation here in Peru. I´ve probably covered some of this in previous posts, but I don´t think adequately. Peace Corps aren´t allowed to drive for liability reasons, and I wouldn´t want to here anyway because the roads are simply insane. All kinds of vehicles share them and lane stripes are only a suggestion as lanes will fluctuate between the posted 2 and as much 6 depending on how many cars want to sneak into one gap.
Public transportation used to be full-sized city busses like in the U.S., but during a harsh depression they were changed to the present system to bring more jobs. Now the combis (actually called custers, but everyone calls them combis) rule, which are basically extra-large vans decked out with bars to hold onto... basically a subway car on wheels. And they get every bit as packed as subway cars, with people literally hanging out the doors at times. So, every morning I get to pretty much meet intimately total strangers as we´re pressed together by the crush or people trying to get out. It definitely can be frustrating and awkward, particularly because the cobrador, or door-opener/money-collector, often tries to cheat you. I´m getting used to it, though, and for small trips it isn´t at all bad. Longer trips, like an hour or more, really get to be a descent into Hades, though.
For those longer trips it is advisable to take a proper combi, which is a small van which they also pack people into, but you are more or less guaranteed a seat (or a bench). This costs more, about 5 soles, which works out to less than 2 bucks. When you consider we only get 8 soles a day on top of food/housing, this adds up though.
You can also take taxis, but there is no meter so you need to know about how much it should cost and bargain it down to that amount. Otherwise, particularly if you´re a gringo, they´ll happily fleece you. So far these are the only forms of transportation I´ve taken outside of center-owned vehicles, but I´ll let you all know of others as I encounter them...

Weekend

I don´t have anything educational to talk about right now, but I thought I´d let you all know what a typical weekend for me is, and how mine went.
Typically we have planned activities in the morning on Saturdays, and then have the rest of the day free to spend in Lima or return home. The next few Saturdays we´ll be in the agriculture university in Lima, learning about various topics such as animal husbandry and grain farming. This week we planted some vegetables out in the fields, tried various interesting fruits that are unheard of in the U.S., and took a tour of the greenhouses. The planting especially was interesting, and I wouldn´t mind doing some work with farmers, etc. at site. After that we kind of Americaned it up by going to the upscale Jockey Plaza center. We ate at Chiles and watched Get Smart in English just as a break from all of the cultural bombardment we´ve been having. It was fun, although next weekend I´d like to do some of the tourist stuff that Lima has to offer (visit the Cathedral, etc.)
Saturday night there was a festival that kept on going until early Sunday morning. I only was there for a small part and got to see the marching band wander through the streets, but not the other customs that I hear are pretty interesting. There is a festival at the end of July that I´ll be sure not to miss that is similar. What I did do was go to a cousin of my family´s party, did a little casual drinking, and got gifted a wooden spoon and a Chihuahua puppy to be named later. More on that later if anyone´s interested. Sunday I went with some compañeros to some 2 thousand year old pictographs sketched up in the mountains behind my community. They´re not well known, but older than the Nazca lines (and smaller). As always, pictures to come later. Sunday night I went to Chosica and hung out with my brother, his girlfriend, and her kids, which was nice. There was dancing in the square corresponding to different regions of Peru, which was interesting, and a giant illuminated white stone Christ statue that was the main draw of the town. Overall a pretty satisfying weekend, although I could have used a little more rest...

Geography

I thought I´d talk a little about geography today. Peru is one of the most diverse countries geographically in the world, with 50+ distinct microclimates and three basic zones. These are La Costa, or the coast, which is generally flatter with warm, humid weather, La Sierra, or the mountains/highlands, which has colder but wetter (three months of rain) weather, and La Selva, or the rainforest, which is what one would assume it would be like. There are also deserts, wetlands, plateaus, etc that fall into one of those three zones.
The Andes mountains cut through the country and are actually fairly close to the coast. This means that even the coast is a bit hilly, and I live on top of a giant, steep hill, which is fun walking up in the afternoon. Around me are dry mountains, not unlike Northern Mexico, where there is almost no vegetation and aren´t high enough for snow. It also is often foggy here, and a bit chilly at times as it is winter right now. Lima is in a bit of a depression, like Los Angeles, and the weather is usually pretty bad there, humid, cold and misty with a dash of pollution thrown in.
On the other side of the Andes is the rainforest, which covers a suprisingly large part of the country. There are no volunteers there for various reasons, and I´ll be placed either on the cost or in the mountains, which are generally more behind development-wise but whose beauty draws my interest more. I´ve lived in cities obviously, and am ready for something completely different (although ideally still with electricity- we´ll see). Anyway, the origin of the Amazon river is in Peru, which I hope to visit, as well as other natural attractions like Lake Titicaca, which I believe is the lake with the most elevation in the world, although I may be making that up. True or not, I´ve heard it is pretty impressive.
That´s about what I´ve learned. On the personal side, we´ve been doing a lot more hands on stuff in training lately, from giving charlas, or small lectures/chats over marketing basic business at a local instituto, or community college and visiting a coastal town that featured a beach complete with trash and a massive sea lion carcass (yes, I´ve got pictures). I know it´s winter, but trolling for dead animals might be worth the effort. As everywhere, city budgets are always a concern, though...

Architecture

After talking to my Pa among other folks I´ve decided to talk periodically about how various everyday things happen here. Stuff is already starting to look familiar to me, but this blog would be a whole lot more interesting to everybody else if I described the world I now live in more. Any opinions I may offer are pretty much half-formed and subject to change as I´ve only been here a couple of weeks, but I¨ll throw them down here anyway. It´ll be interesting to see later what stuff has changed and what has simply been reinforced. I got a question about architecture earlier, so I´ll tackle that now.
In Lima first off, there aren´t really any skyscrapers or modern buildings of note that I´ve seen so far. Everything seems to be held to ten stories or less, and old buildings are renovated and reused again and again instead of being torn down and rebuilt. This is good for the large amount of pre-U.S. architecture that is still around, but less so for the more slummy areas that may only be 40 or 50 years old. Lima also has a pretty interesting habit it seems of painting random blocks in a single pastel color. So, around the Plaza de Armas, which is the historical hub of the city, most of the buildings are yellow with black trim, and in the area where I bought my guitar most buildings are pastel blue with white trim. That is certainly a nice touch. There is also a large cerro, or small dirt/rock mountain, with a cross on top of it overlooking the city. I´ve heard the view is impressive and I´ll have to check it out some weekend coming up. Anyway, this hill has house built stacked upon house, each painted in a different pastel color. This is a really cool effect that´ll jump out at you as you´re walking down various streets in the city center.
As for the Plaza de Armas, the architecture is mostly 500+ years old. The Catedral is really impressive on the outside, designed by the conquistador and city founder Pizarro himself. The presidencial palace, which resembles a palace in every way, was built where Pizarro was murdered, which was probably a fitting end. The President apparently comes out a la the Pope every Tuesday (believe that´s the right day) he´s in town and waves to the many people in the Plaza de Armas. I¨ll talk politics and history some other time, preferably when I´ve learned more.
In my town, Yanacoto, there is a jumble of architecture. The house I´m in is really nice, with two levels, tile floors, and all the amenities of home except for hot water and toilets that can handle toilet paper (we use a wastebasket instead). You get used to that pretty quickly, although the frigid shower on a cold morning is still kind of rough. Many of the other homes are in various states of construction. This is because the people of this community seem to be very optimistic. Every house that doesn´t have a second level has rebar and bricks on top awaiting the money necessary to make a second level and beautify the facade. My friend Salvador lives in a house that certainly is more modern and prissied up than my own in the U.S. So, while there is much poverty in my town even, people are spending smart and putting together a pretty nice existence for themselves. As you climb the mountain from my house, the houses get smaller and poorer until you have shacks put together from whatever material was handy at the time. Often these are the same people that are working on a house below as they get the money until they have enough completed to move in. It´s very interesting comparing my living situation to that of other volunteers living in my town, most of whom aren´t nearly as spoiled as me. That´ll all change at site though, and I had probably better enjoy my plumbing while I have it...

Lima

First off, it doesn´t hurt to throw the following down:

Disclaimer
This blog represents a personal Peace Corps narrative. The opinions expressed here are my responsibility and are not intended to reflect the official views or policies of the US Peace Corps.

This was stolen verbatim from one of my compañeros blogs, and it´s good to throw out there because we´ve been warned about what we post on our blogs. I don´t forsee putting up something that will reflect badly on the Peace Corps, but just in case...

Anway, I just got back from my second visit to Lima. We are technically not in Lima, but in one of the outlying towns. It takes about an hour and a half by very bumpy and stop and go bus to get to the city center. Traffic is insane here, with two lane roads being converted to three/three and a half lane ones with regularity. We actually are prohibited from driving during our term, but I wouldn´t if they let me. Anyway, the transportation situation isn´t ideal and can be intensely frustrating (like when I had to stand for more than an hour of the trip back from last week, exchanging what was pretty much tender embraces with the random other people packed like sardines with me). That was really the only bad experience, and if you get a seat you´ll find that the breakneck driving doesn´t bother you that much.

As for Lima, we had a few activities involving talking to people about the neighborhood, safety, etc, and then we were on our own. We started in Miraflores, where we were able to hunt down a Starbucks and later a Burger King. This is kind of sad to say, but both were really nice after just two weeks of new thing after new thing. Not that I have any complaints about the Peruvian food; as posted before it´s excellent. Miraflores is the definite nicest part of town, and besides the spectacular ocean view is a bit on the boring side sightseeing-wise. About the ocean, as I was looking at it it ocurred to me that I had never seen the Pacific Ocean before. The experience got all the cooler after that.

After our activities we went to the center of Lima, which was my second visit. We saw Catedral and the presidencial palace again and then broke up a bit. I went with two others, which was ideal because traveling in groups of more than three is more of a bother than it´s worth. One can get things done more efficiently and better enjoy the experience when there aren´t so many people yapping in your ear or pointing in opposite directions. Anyway, we went to the Iglesia San Francisco, a Franciscan church with a mudejar, or southern spanish, design. To see the architecture of Andalucia again did my heart good, and there was plenty of interesting art, including a painting of the last supper where the main dish was cuy (guinea pig). Underneath the church are extensive catacombs, which we also toured, and they didn´t cop out by removing the bones like in Rome. Very macabre, but interesting.

After that we went on a shopping jaunt to get some things that my compañeros, Jason and Camila, needed and then some stuff that piqued my interest. I may have mentioned this before, but central Lima is set up like a giant mall, with entire streets dedicated to products like eyeglasses and school supplies. On a street there will be dozens of stores selling pretty much the same thing pretty cheaply and tons of people everywhere. In a previous trip I picked up a cheap guitar which I´m going to try to learn in my prodigious free time at site (since we have to create our structure at site we will suddenly have more time than we know what to do with). There are several excellent players in our group from which to get some tips over the next three months. Today I grabbed another outlet converter, a fedora since I lost my baseball cap on the way down somehow (kinda lame but practical considering the sun and I think it looks good), and a Barce (Barcelona soccer club) jersey on the extreme cheap. Not a bad day altogether and I´ll have to come back to check out the rest of the tourist sights before too long.

Speaking of soccer, I have really taken to it all over again. I just thoroughly enjoyed my first 0-0 game, which I never thought would happen. The aesthetics of the game are really interesting and there is always something going on, although on the bad side they do do a lot of play-acting injuries like in basketball. World Cup qualifying is going on right now and all the national teams in South America are playing eachother. Peru´s is particularly poor, but the games are interesting nonetheless.

Well, that was quite a bit. I´ll have to make a point to be pretty regular now, because when I get to site I will probably only be able to post once a week...

Stuff

Hey all,

Nothing much to report. I was done with a pretty wicked set of stomach problems over the last 24 hours, but I´m feeling a lot better n0w. Other than that, not a whole lot has been happening. A lot of us are having issues as were accustomating to the food and conditions, but nobody seems too bad off. Below is my mailing address for those who wanted to know, and I´ll report back when I´ve got something more interesting to report...

PCT Zach Jeremiah
Cuerpo de Paz
Calle Via Lactea 132
Urb. Los Granados
Santiage de Surco
Lima 33, Peru

PS- I hope to have internet in my room before too long and when I do I´ll have the time to post some pictures of where I´m at, Lima, and the like, so keep checkin´

More Stuff

I just got some comments about the food, so I´ll tackle that today. Oh, and Gale: I am indeed lucky to have a family with an internet cafe, very much so.
Peru is popularly recognized to have some of the most diverse and delicious cuisine in the world. The diversity is such that you don´t find many foreign restaurants outside of Lima because there are so many dishes and cuisines here that they just aren´t that popular. Some of the most popular are pachamanca and ceviche. Pachamanca, which I´ve tried, is a prepared by heating stones and placing ingredients like potatoes, yams, and chicken with spices wrapped in leaves on them, and then burying the whole mess. After several hours the wrapped food is dug up and served. I definitely liked it and would go for it again. I haven´t tried ceviche but want to. This is prepared by immersing raw fish in lemon juice, which then cooks it because of the citric acid. There are many types, but I have been warned against getting it just anywhere because of the stomach issues that are likely to ensue. I have been eating dishes mainly consisting of rice, potatoes, chicken, beans, carrots, and the like. They are all spiced or prepared differently, and I haven´t run across anything I don´t like.
As far as ingredients go, the Peruvians use some interesting things. They eat a lot of cuy, or guinea pig, which I also haven´t had but am willing to give a shot. They also have many more types of potatoes than you would find in the U.S., which keeps things fresh. There is also a lot of fruit that I´ve never seen before and can never remember the name of. Most of that is pretty good, although I´m not the biggest fan of papaya (which I´d heard of but not eaten much). Breakfast usually involves rolls and something to put therein, the most interesting of which so far has been avocado. Good but not really breakfast fare. I´m also dying for a cup of coffee that is brewed instead of instant, so I hope to get a fairly rural assignment to make that a reality (and for a lot of other reasons).

Stuff

I just got some posts asking what I´m doing exactly and I realized that I probably didn´t do a good enough job explaining what all what I´m doing entails. I´m going to be a business volunteer here in Peru for the next 2 years and 2 and a half or so months. Actually, I´m not sworn in yet and have to go through training, but I don´t feel as if that´ll be too much of a problem. For some who are starting from scratch with their Spanish, it may be though. Anyway, I will be working in a community with a counterpart agency (local government, an artisan collective, farmer´s association or the like). The counterpart agency will already have a project in mind that will be my primary one, but I can do as many secondary ones like teaching English or starting a youth sports league as I like. I won´t know this information until I get sworn in after training, more or less. As a big picture, the Peace Corps is trying to aid in the sustainable development of small and microbusiness in Peru. This has many benefits for the community and individuals, and is a catalyst for more living and social improvements. There are several other categories of volunteers here as well, from health and environment to youth development.
As for what I´m doing right now, things are hectic. I actually get to sleep in until 8 tomorrow, which is a blessing. We´re at the training center nearly all day doing either business or Spanish activities, and afterwards I usually get in protracted (but very interesting) conversations with my host family and sometimes go out with other volunteers living in my area to explore the town or just hang out. I think I´m going to be popular because of the shear quantity of movies I brought along, and we may be doing some movie nights in the future.
My town is at the top of a huge hill and reminds me a lot of the little I´ve seen of Northern Mexico. That being said, most of the houses are pretty nice in the inside and I am more blessed than most with my full bathroom, nice bed, and electricity. The food is both different and excellent, and my host family is very nice. They own an internet cafe which is pretty convenient and I believe that I´ll even have internet in my room pretty soon. My brothers are in their thirties and very talkative, which is good. One works for a beer company in Peru and travels a lot and the other is a graphic design student by day and a roadie by night. I definitely have no complaints and will be posting pictures of the surroundings when I get internet on my computer, which will be in a week or so if I understand correctly.

Yanacoto!

Well, the last 24 hours were pretty interesting. I went out after my post last night and did more dancing than I should of. My fellow volunteers are a pretty fun lot and I got roped into doing some very bad salsa or something along those lines because I can´t say no to a pretty face. So, I didn´t get the sleep my body is craving last night either, but I will at some point, probably next weekend.
Today we walked to the Peace Corps training center in Chaclacayo, which, along with the title of the post (which I´ll get to later) is a suburb of sorts of Lima. We did a couple more talking sessions, including a very informative one by current volunteers, and then we broke for lunch to learn a bit about our host families before we met them. Mine, the Sebastianos, is very nice and accomodating, and I think that I struck the mother lode once again with host families as my room is very nice and sizable and it looks like I will be getting internet as well, which can´t be too common. This is because they own an internet cafe and my room is just a couple of doors down from it. I´ll be doing dinner here before too long, which will most likely be delicious, and then I´ll settle down for some much needed rest (and unpacking).

Peru!

I need to cool it on the exclamation marks, I guess, but this week has kind of been one. I am finally in Peru, and was pretty bummed last night mostly because I was working on very little sleep and everything on the way to getting in my bed was running late. However, we all survived and today has been a lot nicer.
The portion I saw of Lima driving through last night was pretty impoverished and reminded me a lot of the old ghetto scene at home. I am looking forward to seeing more of the city, as it has some pretty interesting architecture and sights in the city center. I am actually outside Lima about 30 minutes in a town called Chaclayo, at a kind of Girls and Boys club resort (reminds me more of summer camp than a spa... so not too swanky). The weather is actually pretty warm, although I understand it´s quite cold in the city.
All day we´ve been doing information sessions and interviews to determine what spanish classes and host families we´ll be with over the next 11 weeks. I should meet my host family and move in with them tomorrow, so I´ll have more on that later... For the rest of today I´m going to try and get some rest to recover from the long trip down. Oh, and on a last interesting note, the time zone is Central right now, as they don´t have daylight savings time here. Other times of the year it´s Eastern.

Goodbye USA!

Hey all,

Tomorrow is my last day in the USA. I will be flying out at 5pm and should be in Lima 5 and a half hours later. Craziness...
Today I had some very long and informative training sessions that would have been aided by coffee on my part. I also got to eat at a hole in the wall Cuban restaurant for lunch whre everyone only spoke Spanish and had a cuban sandwich for dinner, so I feel that my Miami cuisine requirements are fulfilled. At night I went to Miami's South Beach (technically the hotel is in Coral Gables). It has a pretty retro 550's night club kind of feel and is pretty cool. I think I was more impressed by the look of Miami's downtown, although I didn't get to walk around there. Me and a couple new friends of mine went out on the beach, wet our toes, and lit up genuine Cuban-rolled cigars. That was a pretty neat experience and was a nice nightcap.
Well, I'll be off to training outside Lima before too long and should probably get some sleep. Everyone keep in touch and I'll try to stay regular with these posts.

Miami!

I'm now in Miami, which is sweet. I've been meeting the 30-odd members of my group/class over the last few hours and there are some pretty cool people. It feels a lot like the first day of college, where everyone was awkwardly meeting everyone else and it inevitably boiled down to board games in somebody's room. In fact, that's where I'm headed now, but I fully intend on taking a walk down to South Beach and seeing the ocean Miami-style at some point, which means I'm not likely to get a whole lot of sleep. That's o.k., though- when am I next going to end up in Miami?

Welcome!

Hey all,

Welcome to my blog about my upcoming journey to Peru and places beyond. Check in whenever you're wondering what I'm up to- I'll try to post what's going on in my part of the world every week or so. I'll also throw up some pictures and whatever else occurs to me. I'm not sure how the comments section will work for this, but if you want to get in touch with me otherwise I'll still be alive on Facebook and via email at zijerem@gmail.com. Thanks for all of your support and I hope you all keep in touch!