Peace Corps: Peru

My Photo
Name:
Location: Lalaquiz, Piura, Peru

Friday, July 28, 2006

Week 5

It’s been almost two weeks since my last entry, so I’m going to try to give a quick recap.
I survived my first major fiesta. I can’t say it was the time of my life… in fact it was fairly awkward, but definitely a worthwhile experience. Without going into a lot of detail, the annual fiestas are coordinated by a different person/family each year. They take care of all of the planning and also cook a number of meals for the entire neighborhood. I had already eaten around 7:00pm so I wasn’t really hungry, but I went with my host family to eat again. We each had an enormous bowl of some type of soup. I hesitate to ask what kind of meet is in it after I watched my host father eat the ear of a sheep a couple weeks ago. The actual fiesta didn’t really begin until 10 or 11pm. I spent most of the time standing with my host mother watching the band play. At about 1:45am I pulled onto the dance floor by some 60+ year old drunken woman. Fortunately the dancing was quite easy…so I didn’t stick out too badly(besides being the only giant white guy at the fiesta)

Probably the most exciting part of the fiesta was the pyrotechnics. First there we ‘toro locos’. They were bamboo framed bulls.. kind of like Chinese dragons…but strapped with homemade fireworks…. One lucky person put it on and chased after the crowd, spraying it with hot showers of sparks. Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous. Not something you’d find in the States! Also there were “castillos” which were tall (probably 20ft or so) bamboo structures which also had a bunch of spinning pyrotechnics. They were pretty interesting, and very loud. The fiesta went on all night, though I turned in around 2:30am. After a brief break in the morning, it resumed and carried on until the wee hours of the morning(Monday). These people love the party life.

Other than the party, the past couple weeks have not been extremely exciting. I have advanced to the level of Spanish needed to enter my site, however I’ve got a long way to go. I’ve got the basics down, but I haven’t quite memorized the 30,000 words in the dictionary. On Tuesday I returned to one of the local schools with fellow trainees to give a talk on planning for the future. I was really dreading having to present in Spanish, but it went rather well. Afterwards we spend a good 15 minutes signing autographs… We also gave another presentation on Thursday on business ethics. This one was a bit more difficult since it was much more involved and complicated.

This past Sunday I went with my family and an American friend to El Castillo de Chancay. It is a castle made in the 1800s (rather late for castle building huh?) It is about 1 ½ hr drive north of Lima. It was nice to get away for the day, and the castle was rather interesting. Probably the most memorable part of the day was the ride home. We decided to take the scenic route which follows the ocean. It was really pretty with cliffs dropping to the water. About 45 minutes into the drive we were pulled over by the police. Apparently small passenger cars are not permitted on the road…so the officer was going to give my host father a big fine….until we paid him off with a 15 soles bribe. I really didn’t have much to do with it… but I did help pay!

I am quite excited now, because we have a three day weekend!! Tomorrow is Peru’s day of independence. It also happens to be the inauguration of the new president, Alan García. It’s a pretty interesting scenario as he was presidend in the 80s and really ran the country into the ground. There was ridiculous hyperinflation… something like 1,000,000%. Apparently a lot of people are afraid of what might happen, although he is setting out to mend his reputation. So anyway, this is the first time that we have had two or more consecutive days of rest since we arrived 5 weeks ago. We are also very excited for next week because we will receive our site assignments. The following week we will be leaving for field based training and site visitation. Boy, time is flying by!!!

Also, there is a slight change in my mailing address:
PCT Ryan Nelson
Embajada Americana/Cuerpo de Paz
Calle Vía Láctea 132, Surco
Lima-Peru
South America

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Week 3

This week really flew by. I’ve been here for nearly a month now… sheesh! After recuperating from a short spell of GI (an extremely common theme for all of us trainees) I spent the past few days in classes and on field trips…literally! On Tuesday the business volunteers shadowed some of the local farmers. I’ve included the entry from my personal journal for the day (below) since it was a pretty fun experience. Thursday we traveled to a near by elementary school to connect with the kids and learn about their schooling and life in general. I sat in on a culinary class. The school offers 4 paths including food, crafts of some sort, computer tech, and one other that I can’t remember. I had a great time chatting with the students. I was really proud of myself because I was able to carry on a fairly normal conversation with them.

Today I traveled to Lima with my Spanish class. Lima is about an hour away by bus. There we explored Miraflores, a very touristy district, ate lunch in Chinatown and ended the day in the center of town. Tonight I am attending my first major fiesta. It is the celebration of Virgin de Carmen I went to mass earlier this evening. It was a pretty unique experience…a bit different than I am used to! The party is about 100 yards from my house, so I don’t have much choice but to go. My family is really into dancing….so this could be interesting! But life here is really all about integration, so I’m pretty much open for any sort of cross cultural experience.

One more note: if there is anything that you’d like to know about Peru, or what I’m doing etc, please e-mail (RyanENelson@gmail.com) me or comment on the blog. I’ll be sure to add any info that is of interest.

Regarding the host families here (to answer your question, Devon), they are compensated 20 soles per day. This comes out to about $6 a day. It’s a lot of money for the families. My family actually rents the house I am living in just so they can house volunteers. To give you a few example of the cost of food and such here, I went vegetable shopping with my host mother a week about and we bought a huge bag of veggies..over 15 kilos.. for just under $4. Not too bad. You can also travel to Lima from here for under $2. You can eat at a nice restaurant for $7, or more local restaurants for $3. Some things are pretty expensive, however, such as electronics. An average desktop computer cost around $700, but is not nearly the quality that you find in the US. Most purchases are paid in weekly installments. There is a pretty high interest rate, so the item purchased ends up costing a lot of money.


Today we met at the center at 6:30am. It was much more difficult to wake up at that time [than our normal starting time of 8am], as it is much colder. We drove past Santa Eulalia to a small community farther north. My fellow trainee, Joy and I spent the morning with a man by the name of Ricardo. Our first task was to carry fire wood from his house to his field. Or course I tried to carry as much as I could, so that we would have to take fewer trips. It was pretty heavy. Little did I know we would have to walk half a mile down the road to his field. My arms were just about to fall off by the time we finally arrived.(we had to make 3 more trips, but were able to use a wheelbarrow.) After we had carried all of the wood up a steep hill of gravel and up two flights of stairs, we took a tour of his ‘fields’. It was more like an orchard. He had a lot of trees…avocado, mango, banana, cherimoya just to name a few he also had other crops like maize, lemons etc. He picked us each a few avocados and mangos for the road. After the tour, we sat down and enjoyed some Inca Cola and galletas (cookies). It was a much needed break. Next, we had to spit the wood…the Peruvian way. He had three metal stakes and a large hammer. He hammered one stake in, and then the next just a bit further down the log…it took over 20 minutes to finally split the log…talk about laborious!! It was really interesting, though to realize the difference in our thinking. If I had attempted his method, I’d have quit probably 5 minutes in and looked for a better way to do it. He, however, would have spent hours on it, if that was what it would take. The whole time I was thinking about more efficient ways to take care of the task. I caught myself in my first cultural ‘clash’. I think it is going to be very interesting working with the people here. I feel as though we will both learn a lot from each other. But anyway, after the first log was spit, I took an axe, which he chose not to use for whatever reason, and started splitting other pieces while he still wailed away with the stakes. I cut 4 or 5 pieces by the time he cut one…I beat the native… yay me.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Life in Vista Alegre, Peru

I’ve now been in Peru for over two weeks. Though it seems that time is passing quickly, there are times that it feels like I’ve been here for months. I’m going to try to briefly outline what my daily life is like here in Vista Alegre, Peru.

I am enjoying living with my host family. My host father, Jesús, owns a business that produces potting soil. My host mother, Domi works around the house but also keeps busy traveling to Lima to visit family and friends. I have a 21 yr old host brother as well as a 25 yr old host sister who is not exactly part of the family, but she’s here most of the day cooking and helping out my host mother. They are extremely kind and patient and take excellent care of me. Everyday I enjoy very starchy, yet fairly tasty diet of rice, potatoes and chicken. I’ve also had the opportunity to try cow heart and sheep head soup. It’s definitely a different style of living. The community is very close. It seems as though everyone is related. Each day I meet 3 or 4 new family members.

Our daily schedules are pretty packed with classes and activities. We have a lot to learn in only ten weeks. Of course, we’re expected to be fairly fluent by the time we depart for our sites, but we also have to be pretty well versed in our technical skills. I have anywhere from 4 to 7 hours of Spanish each day. There are three other trainees in my class who are of the same proficiency. I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll be ready to be out on my own. I am seeing progress, however, so that’s reassuring. I am finding it much easier to understand what I hear than to actually speak the language. I don’t think I’ve done some much studying in my entire college career!!

Our technical training is also very intense. I have three separate projects which I must complete in the next 7 weeks. Two involve working with local businesses and for the other I must create a garden in my back yard. I have already learned a lot about development strategies and well as ways to integrate into the community. I have had to interview various members of the community to not only practice Spanish, but also to learn more about the Peruvian culture and way of thinking. This past Saturday I spent the morning in Lima with the rest of the small business trainees. We visited a market and then went to an artisan fair. We also managed to fit in lunch at Pizza Hut. Though we’ve only been here a short while, it is nice to have a little taste of home (and a break from the rice and potatoes!!).

All of the current volunteers with whom I have talked have all said that life after training is much more relaxing. The rigidity can sometimes be a pain, but it’s necessary in order to prepare for the next two years. I’m going to try to keep this updated every week or so. At this the training I will also be receiving a cell phone which will be nice for communicating.
(also, i´m working on uploading pics... hopefully by the beginning of next week i'll have them up)