Zach in Peru

New Blog!

2011-09-21T06:13:00.000-07:00

So, I've been a terrible blog caretaker, but on the plus side I do have a new adventure, and a new blog, to check out. The title says it all:

http://zachinkorea.wordpress.com/

Blog

2010-11-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

If there are any more readers out there, I apologize. I am still devoting a (very cursory) effort to figuring out where this blog will go since I've come home, kind of invalidating the title. There is still blogging to be done concerning readjusting to the United States and how culture shock has affected me, but I think I need to be further along in the process to do this. Bear with me please. Meanwhile, I'm putting a lot of my writing efforts into a new project- movieboozer.com, coming January 1st. Check it out for some irreverent movie reviews if you're into that, and if not I'll get around to the writing about the 'coming back' process sooner rather than later.

Zach

Jungle and Such

2010-04-25T12:37:00.000-07:00

Well, time has been flying and i only have three months left. Suddenly my focus is on wrapping everything up instead of constantly starting new projects. My work has boioled down to three primary projects, although I´m still helping out in the schools and health post and doing ancillary activities with the rest of the volunteers in the canyon such as a travelling business workshop and a handwashing play.
The two big projects are the library and an agriculture project with the high school. I´m starting to wonder if the library will every come to pass. I have a government organization ready to donate the books, but I¨m having trouble getting my municipality to meet their requirements, the principal hangup being a special shelf they don´t feel like building. I¨m on the verge of an ultimatum... build the shelf now or I¨ll stop bringing up the library and let hte next person worry about it.
The other project is going much better. The high school has received a grant to set up a plant nursery for tara, a small tree that fights erosion and has medicinal benefits. I¨m trying to get a good start on the project before I leave, and hope to see everything up and running by June. I¨ve always had good relations with my high school, and have high hopes of this being the one tangible benefit I leave behind.
Other than work, I have not much to report besides my last big vacation, which was last month. This one was to the jungle in the north of Peru, and was quite a mixed bag. To start off with, we had planned three nights in bus, over 45 hours, to get to where our boat was leaving. Hoever, the last 15 hour leg turned into a 28 hour ordeal due to landslides, including waiting in the rain for an hour around midnight for our bus to do... nothing. This was only a foretaste of what was to come.
After that, our first destination, Tarapoto, seemed like a paradise. It was hot and sweltering, but we fought the heat by goign to a nearby waterfall and jumping through it to the pool below. Outside of that we lazed about, cut me a mullet- which was spectacularly ugly, and ate jungle cuisine, which involved a lot of plantains and bananas fried in different ways and a type of jerked beef that was a chore to chew, but delicious.
After two nights in Tarapoto we had a day-long boatride up an Amazon tributary to the town of Lagunas, where we would head into the jungle. It was strange how quickly the boatride turned mundane, and I mostly hung out in my hammock and watched the river rush by. After a night in Lagunas we climbed into canoes and headed into the jungle with our guides.
The jungle wasn´t as thick as I had expected, but there was plenty of wildlife to be seen. Over the next three days we saw tons of monkeys, parrots, and macaws, as well as a sloth and her baby, a tortoise, a large lizard kind of like a monitor, river dolphins, a baby crocodile, a river otter (I think- our guides said sea lion, but I found that hard to believe), a baby anaconda, and the nastiest tarantula I had ever seen. We also caught plenty of river fish, which we sampled, and even some pirana, although we didn´t get the chance to eat those. My highlight of the trip was swimming with the piranas, which would snap at the fish guts thrown in the water, but which usually left larger creatures alone. Something took an exploratory nibble of my nipple when I was in there, but didn´t draw blood, so I came out with all limbs intact.
Problems resurfaced when we got back to town. The boat to Iquitos that was supposed to leave that night couldn´t because of high river levels, but we were assured that it would the next day. Of course, the next morning we were told that it wouldn´t be, so we made an interesting decision instead of waiting the river out, which could have taken a week for all we knew. The group, which had swelled to fourteen, rented out a boat to take us upriver on a trip that was supposed to last eight hours.
When we got to port, we saw a fairly dilapidated, although spacious enough boat. The girls asked if it had a bathroom, and a small enclosed area hanging over the stern was pointed out. It appeared that you grabbed the sides of the enclosure and hung out over the river to do your business. This was a topic of much discussion until a canoe pulled up next to the boat and our transporters proceeded to remove the outboard motor form the much bigger boat to the canoe. It turned out we would be going up a pretty sizeable river in a dugout canoe barely big enough to hold us and our backpacks, and sorry girls- no bathroom.
I sat up front to avoid huddling in the middle with the majority and having to cross my too long for that legs for eight hours. This was shown to be a questionable decision pretty quickly when water began to come over the sides into my lap, although not to the same degree as my poor compañera up front. As long as the wind didn´t change and we arrived soon after dark like planned, I¨d be fine.
Unfortunately, as night fell it became obvious that we wouldn´t be arriving in eight hours. And then it began to rain. We had come prepared with a dirty tarp that barely stretched to we denizens of the front, and which would become my only projection against the cold as the night wore on. Travelling at night turned out to be even shadier than originally thought, due to the floating logs we continually ran into. I was pretty convinced that we´d have to swim for it, fight off crocodiles, and start our own Lord of the Flies-like community on the shore, but our canoe proved up to continually running into a few pesky logs.
After it became apparent that our boathandlers had gotten themselves lost in the dark, I resolved to get as much sleep as I could. This proved to be difficult bent over double with both hands clutching the tarp to pull it taught over my head and keep as much wind and spray off me as possible. However, somehow I was able to nod off for a bit.
It turned out that the wind changed in the morning, and I was cheerily woken up by a splash of water ovre the side, which was to continue relentlessly until we thankfully got into port. Eight hours had turned into eighteen, and even the two hour busride into Iquitos with a little girl Exorcist-vomiting periodically a few seats behind me felt like heaven. In the big city of Iquitos I got my mullet cut off, ate at an inexplicably located Texas BBQ joint, and slept in a bed. The next day I was never so happy to be heading back to site.

What´s New...

2010-02-26T14:04:00.000-08:00

Hello again all,

Well, it’s rainy season again finally. Technically it started in December, but due to El Niño this year we’ve been pretty dry- up until now, that is. In the last couple of weeks all of that rain we should have been getting has finally shown, up, making things interesting, to say the least.
When I was returning to site from my Cahamarca trip, which I’ll talk about below, an unfortunate mudslide occurred about ten minutes from my friend Ryan’s site and twenty-five minutes from mine. That is dry driving conditions, however. What it translated to in reality was a thirty minute slog in mud and rain at 10:30 p.m., an extremely cold night wrapped in one blanket on my friend’s floor, and an hour hike through mud the next morning to get home, all with more books than I should have liberated from the Cahamarca Peace Corps book exchange. Ah, Peru…
So, for that Cahamarca trip. Those of you who have seen the Facebook pictures have some idea of how crazy it was, but I’ll recap anyway. Cahamarca has the biggest Carnaval party this side of Rio, and I took full advantage. The biggest day involved roving groups of scantily dressed folk marching to drums and soaking everyone they find with super-soakers and handfuls of paint. At the end of it all I looked like an extremely sunburned Jackson Pollock, but it was a handful of the craziest hours I’ve ever spent and well worth the 30 hour bus ride.
After Cahamarca I popped down to Chiclayo for a day to see one of the most significant archaeological discoveries ever- the Sipan tombs. Several generations of northern Peruvian lords’ tombs were unearthed and continue to be unearthed revealing some of the most stunning concentrations of riches ever discovered. The most famous Lord of Sipan was almost completely covered in gold, silver, and intricately detailed conch shell accoutrements, and he was only one of several dignitaries discovered. I also popped over to see the Peruvian valley of the pyramids at Tucume, which was the product of the most prolific pyramid building culture in the world, and that includes the Mayans and the Egyptians. Not a lot of money has been thrown at excavation yet so the sites are not nearly as impressive as the aforementioned locales, but even the hint of what they have there is worth the visit.
Well, I’ve got to get back to trudging through the mud and making a final stab at getting a few projects off the ground, but I’ll try and write a little more regularly from here on out… for someone who may aspire to be a writer someday, I realize this is a pretty poor effort. Until next time…

Pictures!

2010-02-01T16:16:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Here are the pictures from my trip to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile-

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

Update

2010-01-30T06:52:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

It has been quite a bit of time since I´ve written here. To be honest, not a whole lot has been happening with me since my return. It is the rainy season again in the valley so much of my town has gone seeking sunnier and drier climes. At the moment I am revamping my English curriculum and writing a play for kids about simple hygiene that we will present in our respective towns. Outside of that I am waiting for the money to come in for a plant nursery for the high school and looking forward to going to the biggest party in the country- Carnaval in Cajamarca City in the North. I´ll write on that later this month as well as finally post my pictures from my big trip to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile later this weekend.

Trip Wrap-Up

2009-12-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Well, I´m back safe and sound in the Colca Canyon and just got done partying down for Chivay´s town fiesta. I may write on that a bit later, but there isn´t anything particularly different from last year´s post on the same party. What I haven´t written about up to now, though, is the end of my trip in Chile.
I was on a bus for nearly two days before I got to Santiago de Chile, so I probably would have loved anywhere, but I seriously appreciated that city. It doesn´t have a whole lot going for it as far as vistas or beautiful architecture goes, but it is a really chill city with, thanks to Pablo Neruda, a poetic soul. They do have a cable car to the top of a hill with a nice view of the city that was worth checking out, but the highlight had to have been Neruda´s house, La Chascana. Neruda was a bit of an architect in addition to a poet, and built or redesigned each of his three houses. He also was an avid collector of a lot of randomness, which gives his houses a kind of House on the Rock feel, the most interesting collection of which was the various awards he won over his lifetime, including an Order of Lenin and the ultimate accomplishment of the Nobel Prize. Oh, and another thing for Chile... fantastic empanadas (though not sure if they beat Argentina´s or not, but certainly Peru´s) and a novel approach to hotdogs that covers them in more sauce than hotdog, the most recognizable of which is avocado.
After Santiago I wandered over to the Chilean coast to Valparaiso, which is the polar opposite to Santiago as far as views go. The city is built on a series of hills descending to a wide bay of the Pacific, and, although quite steep, the climbs are worth it to see the city and the vast blue ocean spread out before you. Neruda also had a house here, which is probably more interesting than La Chascana. He used a ship motif for the building, reflecting his obsession with all things maritime. Climbing up the five stories is like ascending through the decks of the ship, with a spectacular view of the city on the captain´s quarters-like fourth floor and a small masthead lookout-type room that he used to write on the fifth and final floor. Outside of Neruda´s house I just spent my time wandering through the city appreciating the hundreds of views popping out around every turn.
My last stop in Chile was Arica, where I spent a few hours before crossing back into Peru and heading for home. Arica was actually a Peruvian city up until the Peru-Bolivia vs. Chile war (War of the Pacific) that ended up shortening Peru´s coastline and completely eliminating Bolivia´s to the gain of Chile. It still has a Peruvian colonial feel a bit like Arequipa, with similar gorgeous weather. The other attraction would be the iron church prefabricated in France by Gustav Eiffel and assembled in the plaza. It is a very unique little church that doesn´t have a likeness to anything I´ve seen in Europe or South America, with internal arches and naves reminding me of a decorative iron garden chair.
Well, that´s it for traveling for awhile. The next couple of months will be spent with various town parties and an effort to finally finish up the town library I´ve been working on. Oh, and the rain is a-comin´...

Patagonia and Southwards

2009-12-01T11:47:00.000-08:00

Well, time to put down some words on all of this southern Argentina I´ve been seeing lately. Outside of being on the bus a ton, I have gotten to see the Perito Moreno glacier in El Calafate and world´s end, Ushuaia, the world´s southernmost city.
I´d never seen a glacier before, so Perito Moreno was going to be pretty special however it went. Still, I was as or more blown away by the surrounding scenery than the glacier itself. I saw some pretty awesome glacial lake and valley action when I went to Ancash awhile back, but this was Ancash twice over. The mountains were not as large, but everything was covered in snow and the glacial lakes were massive and completely ringed by the forested peaks. There were several, and they all had that powdery turquoise color to them common to most glacial lakes.
The glacier itself was a crazy shade of blue, almost like something out of a kool-aid packet, and massive. I was intrigued by how jagged it was... I was expecting something more flat and ice-cube like I guess. The real reason glaciers are so cool, though, is the periodic shearing off of large chunks of it, which fall into the water with enormous splashes. I didn´t see anything incredibly dramatic, but I did see some car-sized pieces break off with the sound of a cannon firing and plunge into the lake below.
Afterwards I headed towards Ushuaia, where I´m at now. This is a port town on the tip of Tierra del Fuego and as I mentioned before, about as far south as you can get conventionally without going all the way to Antartica (someday...) The setting is pretty spectacular, with the town surrounded on three sides by snow-capped mountains and the Beagle Channel and its port providing the fourth. When I got it it was honest-to-god snowing, the first time I´ve seen that in just about two years, and it was beautiful. I´m those at home won´t be all that impressed, but I was smiling like a six year old and thoroughly enjoying it. Today I did a nice hike along the coast to a beach and ate some spam sandwiches while staring across the channel at an archipelago of islands... the last land left before hitting the seventh continent. Tomorrow I´m heading off for what will be a pretty crazy stretch in bus before seeing Santiago and Valparaiso, Chile and heading on back to the canyon just in time for the big parties... should be great...

Iguazu

2009-11-25T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I´m off on bus for the next fifty-odd hours, all the way to the end of the inhabited world, so I wanted to throw down some thoughts on Iguazu falls.
Iguazu falls are close to 100 feet taller and four times higher than Niagara falls, its closest comparison. Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly said upon first seeing them, ¨Poor Niagara Falls...¨ Still, none of this really makes sense until you first approach the Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s Throat) outlook. You first notice the brown water accelerate and rush towards a common point, and then you turn a corner and see the full spectacle, tons and tons of water plunging headlong off of cliffs hundreds of feet high in a giant horseshoe formation. It´s hard to put together that much movement in your head and the effect is kind of mesmerizing, particularly as you just watch the water cascading and sending up clouds of mist from far below. I´ve certainly never seen something like it...
After Garganta del Diablo you can take several smaller trails to see the dozens of other waterfalls that make up the entire Iguazu Falls. Some of these vistas are as or more spectacular than the Garganta, simply because mist isn´t obscuring the bottom. All around you is a panoply of jungle life and you need to take care not to step on a lizard or bump into a coati (one of these- link to follow). And yes, Dan, I do want one... not sure whether it or Mitzi would win a snaggle-tooth competition. There also are hundreds of different types of butterflies, covering the entire color spectrum, including some sweet little numbers with markings that look like the number 88 on their wings. All-in-all, it was a sick afternoon and if I don´t come down with yellow fever, one of the absolute highlights of the last couple of years...

Rio

2009-11-24T11:20:00.000-08:00

Well, I´m in Argentina now, just having crossed the border this afternoon. Rio was excellent, one of three cities I would most like to live in at some point along with Barcelona and Miami. Unfortunately, two of them suffer from oppressive heat, so it looks like Barcelona will always stay ahead.
I will have to get back to Rio at some point, though, if only to relax on its beaches and get some photos. My camera batteries (freshly changed) crapped out at the top of Sugar Loaf, the iconic ridge with the James Bond cable cars. The only known use for Panasonic batteries is putting them in a sock and beating a Panasonic executive about the face with it. I´ll just have to get some generic online ones and throw them up to let y´all know what the view was like... because it was spectacular. The green mountains pretty much just tumble into the ocean, with a few peaks masquerading as islands further out. Rio is built up and around these hundreds of peaks, which is why the favelas (super-ghettos) are in such close proximity to the nicer areas. Favelas are built up the mountain sides and the businesses and nicer residences are built in the flat parts surrounding them, ironically giving the poor the better view, perhaps the only place in the world that can say that.
Where the mountains meet the ocean there is invariably a beach, including the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches along with dozens of others. Across the harbor Niteroi could be clearly seen, and most famous of all the giant Chris statue on Corvocado peak stretches its arms over the entire city. It was quite a view and bears much more exploring, which I¨ll hopefully have time for in the future...

Brasil!

2009-11-22T15:19:00.001-08:00

Well, time for some quick travel blogging. I will get pics up there later, but for now just some description on what I am up to at the moment. I flew into Sâo Paulo early this morning and explored it for awhile before deciding on heading to Rio a night early.
Sao Paulo is a massive city of around 18 million inhabitants, and it looks it. There is not a whole lot there for the tourist, but it does offer a look at the staggering disparity between the rich and poor in Brazil. There are homeless people in literally every doorway and arch in the center of town, in numbers that I had never seen the like of. I thought that Lima was fairly impoverished, but it holds no candles to the staggering amount of homelessness in just the small part I saw of Sao Paulo. I also had a fun episode with a dude high on something who came up to me and tried to see how close to my face he could swing without actually hitting me. After three haymakers he discovered that he was not going to get any reaction out of me except for a blank stare and wandered off in search of god knows what...
After my charming first encounter with Sao Paulo, I decided not to waste any more time there and took a day bus to Rio de Janeiro, arriving in the evening. I went down to the famous Copacabana beach and watched the sun sink beneath the waves. Since I am not capable of doing everything right at once, I of course forgot to change out my camera batteries and will not be having pictures of that, although I will do more beach wandering and get up to the famous Sugar Loaf mountain tomorrow before heading to Iguazu falls. I will put up more Rio commentary the next time I post, but suffice it to say that it is a beautiful city and one that I should have probably planned more time with. I will not miss the staggering heat, though, so I probably planned just right...

Solutions

2009-10-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Wow, that last post has been hanging up there for awhile. I promised a more optimistic blog this time out, and here it is. Things really haven’t changed in site, but I’ve got a couple of interesting new projects to hope after and something may even come of one of them. First off, we have a new environmental plan in place that may get some of the projects I had proposed off to a start. I also finally tracked down some seeds courtesy of another volunteer in the canyon to start a garden with the health post for the old folks club. Lastly, Salvador and I, another canyon volunteer, may get to do a business video project that would entail some traveling and fancy camerawork.
So, on to the broader strokes. For one, I don’t want the last post to be interpreted that what the Peace Corps does is ineffectual or unnecessary. There are at least six NGOs working in the Canyon from three different countries and I am convinced that Peace Corps has a better development philosophy than any of them. The core of the difference is that PC volunteers actually live in the towns where they try to make a difference. Most NGOs come to town, give a talk about a subject, and head on out. Some turn this talk into a series and even start organizations that are supposed to do a particular task, such as make artisan goods or promote tourism. The problem is that there is little to no follow-up and not living in the town means that the NGOs have a tough time diagnosing what the problem is if something goes wrong. By living for two years in the same town PC has a lot better chance at producing truly sustainable projects.
The second problem with most NGOs is the way they hand out money and resources. The simple action of giving to people isn’t bad in itself, but do it enough and you produce a culture of expectation. One of the first questions I got when I got to site was what I was going to give people. My answer of two years of my time didn’t seem to impress them much. I recently had a conversation with a teacher at my high school where I mentioned the saying where you can either give a man a fish to sustain him for a day or teach him to fish to sustain him for a lifetime. The teacher said that most Peruvians would just take the fish, and I think that would be true of people most anywhere, especially if they’re used to being given handouts. Sounds almost Republican, I know, except that I’m not sure they’re particularly interested in the teaching to fish part either.
So, I have no idea how to solve the world’s problems, but I think that we could do a lot worse than the PC approach. I’m certain that the common philosophy of just giving handouts isn’t working and won’t work. Ways need to be found to change people’s basic outlook. The most probable methods to find success would be to change basic circumstances through universal access to education and improving basic living standards with basic infrastructure projects (3 “basics” in one sentence… and I want to write for a living…). If we stopped giving billions to third world despots or wasting them through projects that treat the symptoms instead of the disease, we might even be able to do it.

Ancash pics and new design

2009-09-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

You may have noticed the new design, which was a long time coming. I finally figured out how to spice things up with pictures and such (it really wasn´t that hard). Also, after the dour tone of the last post I will be rolling out a solutions themed essay whenever I get around to writing it. Enjoy the pictures, and here´s a link to the newest from my vacation to Ancash-

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

Rant

2009-08-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

I’m going to rant about work here, just this once. For a young idealist, development work seems just about perfect. You’re helping change the world a little at the time, travel, and experience new cultures. In reality, the travel and culture are certainties, but the changing the world is anything but.
Let me demonstrate with a small, seemingly inconsequential episode. A Peruvian NGO approached me earlier this week about helping set up a workshop they had planned. They had all the details of the workshop planned out on their end, but needed me to recruit interested young people to take part and make sure they got to the regional capital for the event. Just about every expense was covered and the information looked good with potential to spark some change on important issues. They just forgot one little detail, and one little detail is all that it takes to tank a development project.
That small detail was the lack of funds to cover transportation to the regional capital. We’re only talking 8 soles roundtrip, or a little less than 3 bucks. The young folks that were interested in the workshop weren’t interested enough to pay to go, and the NGO was too dumb or stubborn to provide the funds themselves. I wasn’t too surprised, so I asked the municipality for the funds, which was truly small change for them. Unfortunately, they had to sign it off with the mayor, and since he’s never in town… I had to go to the municipality every night of the week to get the runaround I knew was coming, and, of course, nobody went to the workshop.
It really was no big deal, but it demonstrates the fundamental problems with each of the major players of the development game: the NGOs, the local government, and the people themselves. NGOs just offer workshop after workshop, with little to no follow-up. They never get to know the people enough to cover the small details that sink projects, and their hand-out attitude often spoils the people for anybody that is really interested in affecting change.
The local government, like all politicians, has its sights set on first staying in power and only secondly accomplishing things. That’s the bane of democracy; elected officials always have to look over their backs and that can get in the way of performance. This automatically puts the focus on the short-term win over any long-term project which limits the effect you can have.
Finally, you have the people. Since the default setting for people anywhere is complacency, getting them moving towards anything is a Herculean task. Not that there aren’t motivated individuals in town, there just aren’t enough, and eventually they fall under the influence of the others or cut loose from a sinking ship and seek their own fortunes in bigger ponds. You can’t give them an excuse to not try (like not paying for their ride into town) or they just won’t.
So, I’ll probably walk out of here after two years without having anything concrete to point to as an accomplishment, or even a tiny footstep towards that “changing the world”. And that’s development work… beating your head against the wall and hoping that there’s not just more brick on the other side. I have some time yet, but I can tell you now that I won’t regret my time here. The last two goals of Peace Corps, learning something from other cultures and teaching them that Americans don’t eat babies, will be accomplished, and I will have gained great relationships and stories from these two years. I will certainly continue to make project plans with the few folks that are interested in change, and maybe that mythical successful project will come down the pipe, but I’m not holding my breath.

Ancash and comings and goings

2009-08-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

Back from vacation finally. Not me that is, but the schools. Vacation was extended another week on account of the pig flu making its way around and it’s just this week that I’ve had anything to do. The environment project was on the skids until the students got back (some were I the capital doing odd jobs), and it’s almost like starting from square one again, but we’ll get it going again.
As for my vacation, Ancash was beautiful. While the elevation isn’t as intense as where I live in Arequipa, there are many, many more snow-capped mountains. I finally felt like I was in the Andes there. I spent two nights in the city of Huaraz, which wasn’t terribly impressive, and two nights camping by a beautiful glacier lake up in the Huascaran National Park, named after the tallest tropical mountain in the world, which is also pretty impressive. Well, I don’t feel like waxing poetic at the moment, but trust me, Ancash is well worth the visit and pictures will be a-comin’.
The last item of interest these last few weeks is the come and go of volunteers in Arequipa. Training class #9 is on their way out, and #13 is coming in. We will be getting four new volunteers who we’ve already met and seem pretty cool. We’re also getting a transfer from my training class, Sal, who was one of my best buds in training. It’s sad to be losing some good friends who I’ve spent the last year with, but it looks like we’ll have a pretty good group as well for the next year and should both have plenty of fun and get some quality work done.

Work and stuff

2009-07-22T05:47:00.000-07:00

Well, this last week or so has been especially fruitful from a work standpoint. I’ve been talking for awhile with several groups about possible environment projects, but this last week everything has started to fall together.
The first project that showed promise was a grant the high school wanted me to help with to make a plant nursery for trees to combat erosion and a grass crop called tara that has commercial value for a number of reasons. After that, I finally got a youth group interested in doing a recycling business going. One kid, Ivan, has a lot of ideas and determination and will be going somewhere in life. After that, I finally got started with a nurse interested in doing environmental projects from the Health Post. With the Environment Committee of the municipality getting interested we now have the opportunity to do something really special.
As of now the idea is to educate the populace on environmental themes. Then, if we can get an ordinance requiring the separation of organic and non-organic materials passed, the kids’ recycling business will receive the non-organic materials and the organic will go to a related composting project. The kids will receive the proceeds of recycling in the town minus a choclatada (holiday party with hot chocolate and sweetbreads) for the populace and the cut that the “recycling association” needs to sell the non-organic materials to the nearest big town and after that the capital. It should be a good youth, business, and environment project all rolled into one.
Of course, the likelihood of us coming out of this with nothing is pretty high considering all of the other projects I’ve tried and seen wither. There should be a stat for projects attempted in the tri-annual reports we do. This is simply the most promising project I’ve seen to date and with the most interested and dedicated people to see it through.
So, besides trying to marshal the forces I’ve been working with the nurse and some of the youth in sorting through the local throw-away spot. You can’t really call it a landfill because it’s pretty much just a cliff that people throw their trash off of. We’ve got a pretty good quantity of metal, plastic, and paper to sell already, which will be a nice start to the project as a whole. I also worked with some folks making the famous Incan-style andenes, or farming terraces. It’s some hard menial labor that I’m not getting enough of these days.
Another interesting factoid from this week is that I weighed myself at the health post and came out at 82 kilos, which is about 185 pounds. Considering I came to Peru at around 230, that’s pretty crazy. I’m not sure if I believe it, but I’ll get the official stats at our one-year medical checkups in September.
The only other news to report is that I’m looking forward to going to do some nice hiking in the mountains in Ancash, one of the more spectacular hiking destinations in the world. I’ll be there in about a week and can’t wait.

Volcano climbing

2009-07-06T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I have really falling down on my blog duties lately. Been awhile. There´s not really a whole lot to report in the world of work and play. I´m starting the steps necessary to build a library in town, but that will take awhile. Still teaching an unhealthy amount of English, and looking forward to my next vacation possibility at the end of this month. I´m thinking of going to Ancash, one of the great hiking destinations in the world, but after my recent climbing experience, mayhap I should have second thoughts (I don´t).
I recently attempted the climb Misti, the iconic volcano that overlooks my capital city of Arequipa. It is 5800 meters tall, making it taller than any mountain in the contiguous United States and taller than the tallest mountains in Antartica, Europe, or Australia, and darn close to Africa´s tallest as well. It´s a two day hike, starting at around 10 a.m. the first day. You hike to base camp, which takes until around 4 p.m., set up camp, and settle in for a cold, cold night. At midnight everyone gets up and sets out for the summit, to get there in time for the sunrise at 6 a.m.
Unfortunately, that was not to be for me. An hour into the hike I vomited, and afterwards I was so fatigued putting one foot in front of the other was a huge chore. I gave it a shot anyways and hiked on for another two hours, but when I started feeling nauseous enough to puke again it was obvious that I was suffering from altitude sickness and there was no more point in going on. I went back with one of our guides, who had seen suspicious lights around our campsite. The way back down was for a change kind of fun. Misti has vast slopes of black volcanic sand stretching from the summit almost all the way down, and you can slide down on your feet in a kind of snowboarding sort of way and get some pretty good speed going. Doing this in the dark with only your headlamp is a bit of a rush.
When I got back to the camp I settled in until the sunrise, which was still not bad from my vantage point at around 4000 meters. One beautiful facet of it all that I forgot to mention is the city itself. It´s set out like a giant glittering Maltese cross in the night and this view just about made the other depredations worth it. In the end, I got to 5300 meters, as high as I´ve been and still quite a bit higher than any mountain in the U.S. outside of Alaska. With some training I think I´ll try and tackle Misti´s taller partner, Chachani, which is apparently the easiest mountain over 6000 meters to climb in the world. Still, this body was not made for mountain climbing, but I won´t let that stop me just yet.

Pictures!

2009-05-25T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Nothing much to report here except that I finally got the chance to upload all the pictures from the last few posts- including those of Holy Week in Ayacucho, my vacation to Macchu Picchu and Lake Titicaca, and my brief foray as a bullfighter. All of those can be found here-

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

Enjoy!

Bullfighting

2009-05-17T11:56:00.000-07:00

Well, I did something a little dumb but exhilarating this week. I bullfought, toreador style, in the next town over.
We´ve been celebrating the festival of San Isidro this weekend, which seems to revolve round bulls more than anything. The people of the town brought their yuntas, or plowing pair of bulls, to the church to get them blessed on Friday, followed by the usual marching around with a band and dancing that all festivals here seem to feature. On Saturday, the next town over, Lari, had a bullfight. I had heard that they would let whoever felt like it enter, and had been mulling it over, because as experiences go it would be one of the more unique I´d likely have to boast of in my lifetime.
It turned out that indeed amateurs were allowed in the ring. I decided to check out the first bull and see how that went. One guy got knocked out and as I was taking a picture of that the bull turned and threw another one about five feet up and out. These two were drunk, as were the majority of the amateur talent out there. After that a real toreador showed up, in costume and all, and I figured that that was the end of amateur night, but as it turned out a few folks jumped in anyways. In one of the less thought out decisions I´ve made I hopped right in as well.
At first I just intended on using my coat as a kind of makeshift cape, but the mayordomo, or the guy financing the festival, took off a decorative cape he was wearing and let me use it. The first bull I tried was a pretty mad one (or maybe it was a cow- as it turns out they get just as pissed off when goaded and their horns are just as sharp, so there were a few mixed in with the bulls) I soft-stepped up to it and got it to paw the earth at me, but I was a bit surprised (I have no idea why) when it actually charged. I was able to misdirect it with the cape and hightail it to one of the board set up for toreadors to duck behind when a bull is right on their tail. The next few I was more daring on and I even faced off a group of three who in the end didn´t do a whole lot. All-in-all I fought four bulls (not including that lame group of three) with increasing confidence and walked out of the ring without a scratch and a lot of enthused drunk folks (who had a habit of falling of the wall surrounding the ring and having to be helped up in the middle of fights) yelling for the gringo toreador.
So, I´ll get those pictures up this next Friday when I´m in the capital and the internet can handle it. Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries half way through so I only have pictures of the first couple of bulls and the group of three, but you´ll get the idea. And mayhap I´ll try it again at my town´s bullfight in July...

Trips and such

2009-05-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it’s certainly been awhile since I’ve written, which seems to be becoming a habit lately. I’ve been on the road lately, going to the sierra cities of Ayacucho, Cusco, and Puno over the last month.
First off I went to Ayacucho for Semana Santa, or holy week. Ayacucho boasts the second biggest celebration of this week in the world, after Sevilla, Spain. The big highlight of the week is the large number of parades and processions carrying saints and icons during all hours of the day and night. However, my favorite part was the jalatoro, or, literally, bull-pull. I originally understood this to be a legit running of the bulls like in Pamplona, Spain, but I should have paid attention to the name. Instead of running free and wrecking havoc along the way, the bulls were pulled one at a time by horses and riders and frankly looked more scared than the crowds running with them. I went ahead and ran alongside a couple of them, but actually got closer to a goring working in the chacras several months back, which in retrospect should half been enough bull-related danger for a lifetime.
Also during this week I got to wander up to the battlefield of Ayacucho where the final Spanish army of any size in South America was defeated by an army made up of nationals of several South American countries, sealing the independence of virtually the entire continent. Oh, and the day before we went to a state fair-type event and ate tons of samples of fresh cheeses and exotic fruits from Ayacucho’s more tropical lowland regions. There was also a competition for caballos de paso- trained horses that walk in a very distinct and uncomfortable looking manner.
After a week back in site taking care of business and preparing the test that the majority of my students are failing this week (really need to work with them on study habits, or simply just paying attention in class- feel like I’m back in the good ‘ol hometown school system) I was off to Cusco and Puno. These two cities are the most touristed in Peru, due to the nearby attractions of Macchu Picchu and Lake Titicaca.
I only stayed in the city of Cusco for one day, and found it much too touristy. For one thing, all prices were extremely inflated and when you are a volunteer you need things as cheap as you can get them. I was lucky enough to get Peruvian prices for many of the attractions due to my residence card, but even then they were priced to the point that it’s literally impossible for the majority of Peruvians to visit these important pieces of their patrimony. I’m trying to increase tourism in my site, but like the highly controversial mines, one has to serious think about the costs before counting the benefits. On the plus side, the ruins around Cusco, particularly the huge fortress of Sacsayhuaman, are spectacular. The ability of the Incas to fit together huge stones so precisely is stunning, especially compared to the nearby Spanish stonework, which is good enough to have lasted for hundreds of years but is obviously not even in the same class of craftsmanship.
After Cusco I headed down into the Sacred Valley of the Incas, stopping first at the ruins of Pisac and Ollantaytambo. Pisac is a bit overrated, but the views of the river valley are quite nice. Ollantaytambo is very impressive, but also claimed my Ipod, likely by a little crapper that worked at the place I had watch my baggage. I hope he goes hiking with it, trips and breaks his leg, and the battery runs out two minutes into the four hour ordeal, which is likely because he was too dumb to also steal the charging cord. It was on its last legs anyway, and if one of my trips goes completely right (got really sunburned in Ayacucho) it means that I’m due a bus or plane crash at the end of it. Still, the ruins are worth the look.
And then there was Macchu Picchu. I’m not sure I can write anything that hasn’t already been said and said again, but there is a reason why it is a consensus wonder of the world. Almost as impressive is the drive up, through tropical mountains shrouded in mist. I hadn’t realized how tropical the area was. Everything is a lush green that I have yet to run into (although I intend on getting to the Amazon at some point here). I’ve got some pictures forthcoming that hopefully do it a bit of justice, but I’m not sure that is possible. I also made sure to get there early enough to be one of the four hundred allowed to climb Wayna Picchu, the spear-like mountain you see in most pictures of the area. It was a really, really difficult climb, but worth it. From there you could see the condor shape of the ruins as described, as well as a great view of the area as a whole.
After Macchu Picchu my friend and I made a quick run to Puno. The town itself is nothing to write home about, so we stayed the night on one of the islands dotting Lake Titicaca. Before doing that we visited one of the isles de totorra, or reed islands. These islands are made completely of reeds by their inhabitants, who also make houses, mattresses, and even boats out of them (which I got to ride as well). The pulpy center of the reed is also eaten, which tasted a bit like sugar cane meets fresh coconut to me. After a brief visit we went to the island of Amantani, where we stayed with a local family. It was possibly the quietest night of my life, and I live in a secuestered town in Colca Canyon and have slept in Amish homes. We ate and read by candlelight there being no electricity and just enjoyed the calm and clear night sky.
The next day we stopped by the neighboring island of Taquile on our way back. This island was also beautiful, and had developed a cooperative to share the tourist profits coming in. Still, the prices were only what Americans or Europeans would find acceptable, and not being paid like them I decided to subsist on crackers until I could get back to 2.50 (about 90 cent) menus on the mainland. The customs of the island are very unique, with the dress being the most noticeable. Everything is woven and embroidered, and the number and type of women’s skirts and the positioning of the men’s hats communicated all the social information you would want to know.
Well, I had better sign off. Tests are to be given in the morning and as I wrap up a giant brown recluse-lookin spider is crawling around behind my computer. I hesitate to kill him because he might eat the fleas that the stupid chickens bring in my room, but he’s big enough that I think I’ll grab him and take him outside where he can wander around without making me paranoid. So, off to that…

It´s been awhile...

2009-03-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I just realized it´s been roughly a month since my last post. That´s pretty lazy of me, I guess, and I´ll try and make it a little more frequent. The good news is I should have some interesting things to report. I´m heading up to Ayacucho for the world´s craziest Semana Santa (holy week) celebrations and should have some pretty cool cultural stuff to report from that. I also plan on getting to Cuzco and Macchu Picchu this month if I´m approved to do it, and that should be highly describable as well.
As for what I¨ve been up to the last month- work. That is a very, very good thing, because it means that people are waking up again in my town and starting to do some things I can help with. I¨m still teaching English in all the schools and working with some community groups with their computer skills. However, bigger fish to fry are starting to hit the pan, like an environmental committee within the municipality that is warming up to a landfill project and the high school starting to make a reforestation project to combat erosion. The health post is starting a garden project with the old folks and some high school students are looking into working with them to make a recycling small business. Also, some people interested in tourism development are starting to pop up again and I¨ll be working with them to make project plans and see if we can get some of them moving. All-in-all it´s an exciting time to be around because things are actually getting done...
Other things of interest I guess would be that even as high as we are we´re not safe from mosquitos. My system doesn´t take to them all that well, so I get some pretty impressive swelling once in awhile. Benadril is my third most prevalent food group at them moment. I also got a q-tip end stuck in my ear recently, due to some shoddy local q-tips. It wasn´t that big of a deal but I had to jaunt down to the capital to get it out so I was half-deaf for a week. I definitely appreciate people with reduced hearing and their plight a lot more now. Felt like I was living in a swimming pool. So, that´s the update. Take care all and watch some baseball for me.

Photos!

2009-03-06T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Here´s the photos I got from the disastrous Argentina trip as well as some I took at a ceremony held at our Incan fortress in the valley, giving a pretty good idea of what it looks like where I´m living now. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.es/zijerem/ArgentinaAndColcaInSpring#

I¨m back! and such

2009-03-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Well, it´s been awhile since the last, fairly depressing post, but it´s all good. The vacation was a complete disaster but it won´t stop me from seeing what I want to of this continent- it just means that I¨ll have to put off the northern portion until my trip home.
The last few weeks have been pretty stale. I planned this trip in the first place to cover the dead period of the rainy season, when everyone is either away or partying (which I´ve done enough of the last few months) but most certainly not working. Since I had to be back I´ve pretty much just sat around and watched movies on the laptop and planned for when stuff started happening again, which should be this week. The last party of the season is raging around me right now and today is the last day. Also, school starts again tomorrow. I´ve heard that most people aren´t back for the first week, so I´ll pretty much just be setting my schedule and trying to re-open dormant projects.
I did take part in the last party, carnivales, over the last week since I was in town anyway for my final week of Quechua classes. I´m still processing all the info I got this week, but I think I can get along in the language o.k. and with studying can even get fairly proficient at it.
As for carnivales, the holiday has been more or less going on all month as a lead-up to Lent. Mardi Gras is the peak of the holiday in Brazil and New Orleans, but we wrap up a little earlier here. It´s characterized by people chasing around with water balloons, squirt guns, and spray foam going after the opposite sex. Bands also roam in the early hours picking up the solteras, or single girls, from their houses and dancing into the morning. Another custom is that all single males have flutes and try to ¨rob¨ solteras with them, playing to them I guess to win them over. I missed out on that part. For the most part it all devolves into drinking and dancing like most parties here.
Oh, a final interesting touch is that they ¨plant¨ trees in the town square. These are laden with presents and balloons and danced around. Periodically someone takes a chop at it with an axe until finally it falls, provoking a frenzied rush to grab the stuff that was in the branches. The catch for the chopper is that if you are the successful one you have to pay for the tree in the next year´s festival, so everyone takes little chops and it usually takes all night.
Well, that´s all for now. I should have some work stuff to report next time as well as a different topic than town parties to expound upon...

Yep

2009-02-08T13:10:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that was 1 p.m. in the last post. Gettin sloppy...

Anyway, there comes a time when one has to look at the signs and follow the message they are coming together to create, which in my case was ¨go home or die¨. Home of course, being Madrigal, Peru for the moment.
I lost my debit cards- both of them- thanks to a handy little carrying case that was supposed to help one keep from losing one of them. I´ve been all over to no avail, and being that I deliberately kept it in the opposite pocket than my money to keep from accidently slipping out when I went for it and because it was a heavy enough little contraption that I should of felt it fall out and because I hadn´t used the cards for two days I´m pretty much flabbergasted by how it got lost, and how all this stuff has been happening to me in the first place. Let´s recap.

1. Get stopped at the Chilean border because passport I´m carrying makes me look like an illegal immigrant into Peru- have to go back and retrieve the right one.

2. Buy a plane ticket to Buenos Aires that thanks to taxes (30 $ airport tax?)is more expensive that it should have been and find out that Peru doesn´t have automatic debit. Need to run from bus to bank to deposit cash into the airline account, after the deadline, but still get the ticket.

3. Said airline loses my luggage (it ended up not getting on the plane at all in Lima). I find this out during my stopover in Santiago, neatly killing the thrill of being in Chile for a brief moment.

4. Day one is sitting in limbo for said luggage, but still seeing all the Buenos sites I was interested in. Oh, and getting from the airport to downtown is hell, because it´ll either cost money or earn you a nose in the air for trying to buy something to get coins. You see, for some reason this country has a coin shortage, but most everything public is run on coins. Only in South America... Oh, and I get woken up in the middle of the night by an angry never-heard-that-accent-before dude who claims I´m in his bed. Turns out the hostel overbooked our room, and dude´s idea of saving a place was pulling back the covers and leaving a piece of scrap-paper on the bed. Apparently that is the way they do things in Unidentifiable Accentlandia.

5. Day two- email says the luggage is coming in the morning! Unchecked joy becomes listlessness and then outright anger because luggage does not come in the morning and said airline apparently doesn´t answer phone calls or emails until halfway through their regularly scheduled hours. Finally give up and go see a movie, and when I get back there´s the luggage!

6. Hey, we´re off to destinations different! Goin´ to Iguazu and finally gettin´ this trip started! Bought a ticket and just have to wait, which is cool. Rifle through my pockets and what´s this? No debit card? Well, fuck me. A frantic retracing of steps brings me not a thing, as one might expect and I go to get my ticket refunded (losing 30% in the process- but what´s money to a guy who just lost all access to it?). I then go to the international portion of the terminal and find that the only bus going to Peru leaves in three days... and passes through Bolivia. And yes, I would need a visa. When throwing my bag against a wall and then punching it until blood comes yields neither visa or VISA, I look around to find children staring at me with their jaws dropped. Nice. I decide then and there to stop giving a shit. Life is too long and horrid to try and while away the time like this.

Well, I ended up finding out that a company that inexplicably wasn´t located in the international portion of the terminal has tickets to Peru tomorrow. And since I was carrying around some Hamiltons to pay for Chilean entry fees down the road, I luckily had just enough to get the ticket. So I´m going home before I get a limb taken from me, because that is the loud and clear message I´m getting... go home or die. Should be there in three days and can´t wait.

´Nother Update

2009-02-08T05:15:00.001-08:00

Well, my baggage ¨showing up¨ ended up being a backhanded blessing. I got the email and was extremely happy up until about 1 a.m., when ¨morning¨ was officially over. During the next several hours I tried calling LAN and emailing a few times to see what the hell was going on, but apparently ¨we´re open from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m.¨ comes with the caveat of ¨but we won´t be answering our phones or email or doing any work at all really until 7 p.m.¨ Also, their definition of in the morning apparently stretches to 9 p.m., one of the more liberal definitions out there.
So, after being pissed off most of the day I finally decided to go do something because the time had passed where I could get my luggage and hop on a bus to Iguazu. I ended up wondering up Avenidas Lavalle and Corrientes, kind of their nighttime shopping and eating district in El Centro. I ate a traditional Argentine parillada, which is a ton of meat on a plate- chicken milanesa, a meh cut of steak, ribs, a pork sausage, and , my first shot at this, a blood sausage. I had heard some pretty disgusting things about blood sausage, but after trying it I kinda liked it. It tastes like Thanksgiving stuffing a bit, probably because it has the same throw-away parts of the animal that stuffing does. After that I did the traveling sin of going to a movie to cheer me up. There are tons of theaters along this strip, all unfortunately showing the same mainstream stuff, so I caught Jim Carrey´s Yes Man and was presently surprised. Didn´t expect much but there was some pretty good writing in there and Carrey does his thing. Zooey Deschanel´s presence certainly helped things out as well.
Now I´m about to head off to the bus station to discover what other misfortunes can befall me. If all goes well today, which would a record streak at this juncture, I´ll be off on the first bus to Iguazu and have all day to explore it tomorrow.

Quick Update

2009-02-07T04:55:00.000-08:00

Well this morning has been a mixed bag already. Last night I got woke up by a dude claiming I was sleeping in his bed. Apparently the hostel overbooked our dorm and his idea of reserving a place was pulling back the covers and leaving a piece of scrap paper on the bed. Not exactly the international way to communicate that, but we got it sorted out and I still got some much-needed bed rest.
I also didn´t get to go to Uruguay as planned. Having done the ferry thing across the Aegean, I expected that a river crossing would have stuff available day-of, but I underestimated the huge number of people that do this crossing every day. It was sold out, of course, but when I got to the internet I discovered that my luggage was found and should have gotten in last night. I´m waiting at the hostel right now for it to show up as they said they would be sending it this morning and then I´m heading straight to Iguazu. It sucks to have lost Uruguay but I gain a day this way and avoid a hostel expense, so provided my luggage actually does show up (with my current luck a less-than-certain proposition) I will have made out alright in the end. Oh, and rereading my last post I realize it is less than coherent in places (was pretty all-around pissed off at that point) and that I put thousands of years down where hundreds is much, much more correct...

Buenos Aires

2009-02-06T15:02:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Well things have certainly been going poorly the first few days of the trip. First off I went to the Chilean border and was stopped for having the wrong passport. I brought my original American one, not thinking that it would make me an illegal immigrant as it doesn´t have any record of me entering Peru- the Peace Corps one does. I´m lucky they let me go back for it, but I still lost a day of the trip. I then decided to buy a flight to Buenos Aires and try the trip from the opposite angle, but Peru apparently doesn´t have automatic debit so I was running until the last minute to get the ticket paid and ended up having to deposit the cash into the company´s bank account at the last minute before I would have lost the ticket.
Even then I wasn´t sure I had it until I got to Lima the next morning to fly out of there and checked my email for the confirmation. A lone speck of good luck so far was getting to spend a few hours with my host family in Lima, share a good meal and get caught up before heading off to the airport. My flight was on time and everything, but, of course, they lost my luggage. I´m beating myself up over this because I may have been able to carry it on, being a backpack and all, albeit a large one. Still don´t know how that one will turn out, but as it stands I only lost clothes, that stupid original passport, and my keys. If I don´t get the pack back I´ll need to reapply for that passport again and it´ll cost me more money I don´t have, and because of the keys I´ll have to find somebody with boltcutters in the valley to get me into my room and who knows how long that´ll take. Those are the prinipal headaches, and the need to buy a more shirts and socks for the trip and carry them in the small carry-on bag I had as well as the toiletries...
To top it all off I´m doing some final trip-planning and finding out that all those blogs are liars or idiots. Timetables they describe don´t appear to be possible and I¨ll need to cut out some stuff in Patagonia if not nearly the whole bit. I don´t even care anymore. All of this has sucked the joy right out of traveling, and this is on top of some drama before I left that I don´t even feel like remembering. I´m not all that happy with just the whole concept of life right now, and even though the one thing I´ve learned about myself by now is that I can take punches like a champ, I´ll be hard-pressed not to put a pen in the eye of the next bearer of bad news.
So, as for Buenos Aires. It does have a European flair to it with its avenues reminding me a lot of Paris. It still has its South American style, though, which doesn´t translate well really. There is inelegant, but efficient use of space everywhere, making the avenues uglier than they should be. It also is pretty dirty and traffic is a killer, giving the impression of a much more cramped city than it actually is. It has a lot of cultural opportunities from all over the world- a real melting pot- but not a whole lot of history to boast of in the form of places to see. Churches are churches after awhile, and there aren´t many buildings or sites with specific character here. One that was pretty cool was its cemetary of El Recolete. This is where the rich and famous have been buried for thousands of years and all of the mausoleums and monuments give a New Orleans vibe.
I haven´t tried the food yet, and may wait til later in the trip for the famous parillada, or smorgasbord of grilled meats. The people in general are more European-featured than in Peru, with some pretty American looking girls surprising with the Argentine-accented Spanish, which is very different from pretty much everywhere else and hard to understand at first. Well, I´ll throw down other stuff as it occurs to me. I´m off to Uruguay for a brief trip tomorrow and after that Iguazu Falls. After that, unfortunately, is the Heart of Darkness. Hopefully I won´t get stuck down there because I have few vacation days to spare as is...

Quechua Week

2009-02-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Been awhile. There hasn´t been much to report in site- just counting down the days until vacation. Nobody did show up to the English classes, which is pretty consistent for rainy season. Pretty much everything but the occasional party is suspended. But I did have an interesting week this past one with quechua classes.
Quechua is the indigenous language here, as well as the language of the Incan empire. Although it´s more like quechpañol now, with all of the spanish influence. It´s a different languge, with Germanic grammar- all the suffixes as well as sentence order, etc, and several sounds we don´t have in English, some of them arabic sounding or like an african language with bit-off consonants producing clicking noises.
We had class twice a day for about 5 hours total. Our teacher, Dario, came to Chivay to teach and brought his guitar, which was cool. It was kind of like primary school in some ways- learn by singing, but it did the trick. I need to sit down and study some to firm it all up in my head, but I think I can get along a bit now. We´ll have another week of classes to polish up our knowledge the last week of February, or right when I return from my big trip.
As for the big trip I´m leaving the 5th, so not too much more time to waste and the Superbowl tonight, if we find a place it´s on, will help with that. I unfortunately missed a town party due to class, but caught the end of it yesterday. I was just stopping in to grab something I forgot, but still ran the drink gauntlet to get to my house. Transportation was out of commision due to excess partying as well so I ended up going back on the back of a beer truck, which was cold but an interesting experience.
Outside of that, nothing else to report. Keep tuned for travel blogs, as I may do it during or a big one after...

More parties!

2009-01-11T08:46:00.001-08:00

Well, the parties don´t cease in the canyon this time of year, so my only interesting news centers on the party in the next town over that I am still recovering from. On a less interesting note, I was deserving of some relaxation after cranking out close to 100 pages of English curriculum for the next year over 3 days. I still have to polish it a bit but it looks like something worth the effort. Ít´ll get its real trial by fire in March when the new school year starts.
As for the party, it began with an all-day soccer tournament that my town participated in and lost, although they did get past the first round. After that we milled around the square for a few hours and socialized before the Castillo, or fireworks tower, got lit off. I´ve never seen the like before, probably because it´s a ridiculous safety hazard, but it´s pretty awesome. They build a tower out of bamboo with four ropes leading off in the cardinal directions, all surfaces completely covered in various types of fireworks. They light them in sequence and the effect is pretty spectacular, especially since there is no minimum distance to respect, meaning you crowd in and get showered by sparks while admiring the display. My bud Ryan (it was his town)has some pictures I´ll steal and post before too long.
After that we got an extra, even more dangerous, fireworks treat. That is the Toro Loco, which is an apparatus resembling a bull that a guy carries over his head like a Chinese New Year dragon and runs after people as it shoots fireworks in all directions. I got a pretty direct hit last night but I guess it´s not as bad as it seems because I escaped without a burn of any sort. After that it was live music and dancing in the town meeting hall until the wee hours of the morning, which is why I´m a bit out of sorts now- I´m getting used to rising and setting with the sun more or less so my college weekend norm 2-3 hours of sleep is pure torture now. Still, I´ll survive to work on that curriculum some more and perhaps do some summer vacation teaching as well- provided anyone shows up of course.

New Year´s

2009-01-04T07:42:00.000-08:00

Hey all,

Well, the holidays are finally over- at least the world-wide ones. We still have a slate of holidays down here in the Colca Canyon- the wititiadas. I’ve described the wititi dance when talking about the town festival in Chivay. That town festival was a kick-off for the wititiadas that travel around the canyon, town-by-town. They are little carbon copies of the festivals, with dancing that lasts two days and plenty of good food and company. Madrigal’s is one of the last- January 27th, and until then I’ll keep working on my curriculum and giving some summer school English lessons if I can drum up the interest.
New Year’s also just went down, obviously. Not a whole lot happened in site, but in the city apparently some interesting customs take place in the cities. It is apparently good luck to wear yellow, the most popular choice being underwear, which is why you see so much of it on the streets being sold right around this time. At midnight you eat 12 grapes quickly- also for good luck, especially if you can do it in a minute. If you want to travel in the new year, you run around the block with your luggage at midnight, and to cleanse all the bad of the previous year an effigy is burned. Other than these customs, the normal western-style New Year’s party reigns supreme.
Well, this next month will be full of the aforementioned wititi parties, summer school, and English curriculum as well as preparations for my 15 day trip down south to Chile and Argentina, which will be from February 5th to the 20th. In there somewhere I’ll try to catch the Superbowl somewhere and watch as many Oscar-nominated films from this year as I can grab. Oh, and I’ll have a week of Quechua classes to try and get as fluent as my compatriot Chris and his Quechua pocketbook he carries around…

Christmas

2008-12-28T09:58:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-21T08:59:00.000-08:00

And here are the pictures as promised...

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

Update

2008-12-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-13T13:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-29T18:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-18T09:39:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-09T15:28:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-01T15:01:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-17T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-03T14:55:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-27T08:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-21T07:57:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-01T18:01:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-08-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-08-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-10T14:47:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-08-01T16:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-28T16:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-24T20:00:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-22T18:09:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-21T16:30:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-19T18:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-07-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-30T10:32:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-27T17:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-12T19:42:00.001-07:00

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

2008-06-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-05T22:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-03T09:49:00.001-07:00

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!