Karaoke Kravin'

Monday was a national holiday so there was no work or classes. There wasn’t a fiesta in my town because the mayor/event planner (I wasn’t entirely clear on the translation of this person’s actual role) had a death in the family so had left town. My family and I spent the day watching Michael Jackson videos. Peruvians LOVE the 80’s, so MJ’s death was especially tragic down here. We watched an entire concert, live from Bucharest circa 1990. Trying to explain where Bucharest is was tricky. Most of the people I’ve met here, even the well-educated ones, have a very limited knowledge of world geography. I really want to get a map/globe to share with people (hint, hint to any ambitious care-package senders). Saying “you know, near England, in Europe” doesn’t mean much to people who rarely leave their department.

Anyway, I digress. So, we had a three-day weekend. Like I really have a strenuous schedule from which I need a break. Nevertheless, I was excited to take advantage of the extra free time and check out the nightlife. I’d planned to get home early on Friday night to please my over-protective family…well, a few beers and several rounds of “never have I ever” later, I decided I was having way too much fun to go home. I did call my host dad, so I wasn’t in too much trouble when I rolled in at 11.30. I was with a group of about 7 or 8 other trainees on the combi back to Yanacoto when someone had the brilliant idea of getting off the combi and trying to find a discoteca. We get off the combi and are waiting to cross the street when this crazy lady comes out of nowhere and starts yelling at us. She picks up a pile of dirt and throws it at two girls. We couldn’t understand and word she was saying, but it was quite clear she did not like us. We start walking on the other side of the road and she is chasing us down hurling rocks and bricks at us. She could have been an extra in “A League of Their Own.” She had an arm, and aim. A brick hit one of the guys on the leg, leaving a huge bruise. It was pretty scary, and really bizarre. And of course the discoteca wasn’t even open. I did not tell my host dad this story. Hence I was still allowed to go out Sunday night.

I made plans to meet some girlfriends in Chosica (the biggest town nearby) for a real night out. No curfew. Karaoke bars on the agenda. Big time.

Kim and I left our town to meet up with our friends, but after waiting for nearly half an hour, we went to the karaoke bar that my host sister told me about (and where I was supposed to meet another neighbor). That karaoke bar was closed for a private party, but we didn’t realize that until after we’d busted through the door into the middle of a circle of staring Peruvians and their babies. It was 9pm…at a bar…with a baby shower. This country cracks me up. So Kim and I left and walked back through the park looking for other gringos. No luck, so we headed to a different karaoke bar, just the two of us. It was awesome. And hilarious. Some highlights:

• You sit at tables at karaoke bars here, there’s no stage. The waitresses bring around the mics when it’s your turn and you just sit at your table and sing.
  
• A man who had been sipping wine at a table by himself gave a stirring rendition of “Candle in the Wind” as a video of German countryside played in the background. I get a sadistic kick out of hearing non-English speakers trying to speak English. It makes me feel better about my Spanish. This is especially funny when listening to a Peruvian sing “goodbye England’s rose.”
  
• Kim and I’s rockin’ version of “I Will Survive” was a crowd favorite. Forgiving crowd + being the only gringas in a bar = instant fame and adoration.
  
• The mic getting taken from me during what I thought was a pretty decent version of a popular cumbia (kind of like salsa) song. Apparently my angelic voice loses some of its appeal in Spanish.
• Our new friend who knew only three English phrases (“Welcome to Peru,” “You’re beautiful,” and “I love you.”), which he repeated endlessly over the course of several hours. He then walked us to a taxi, holding our hands, paid for our taxi ride and expressed an eternal and undying love for Kim. His girlfriend didn’t seem to mind at all.

Sadly I did not have my camera to capture these magical moments. Oh, did I mention the karaoke bar is situated directly between an ice cream shop and a Chinese restaurant? It’s my new favorite place. And all the fun described above cost less than S./20 (less than $7) for about 5-6 hours of beer-soaked enjoyement.

**The above was written yesterday (June 29). Update: due to the transportation strikes around the country, we didn't have class today either, further extending my weekend. I spent the day with some other trainees, baking bread and drinking beer. Because what else would you do in Peru on the day of a transportation strike? I think families around the world can agree that four straight days of togetherness can wear on even the most die-hard cultural integrators. Though four days with my REAL family would be heaven right now. Miss you all!!

Weekly Wisdom #1

In conjunction with one of Peace Corps’ three goals, I’ve decided to share some cultural tidbits to my loyal readers back in the US of A. Instead of nonsensical ramblings about random events in my daily life, I present to you the first installment of Weekly Wisdoms.
A few things I’ve learned recently:
· In Piura, a department in northern Peru, men have sex with donkeys for fun. This is culturally acceptable.
· According to my language teacher, who dabbles in palm reading, I will meet the love of my life within the next year. I asked her if he was Peruvian. She’s not sure. I’m thinking no.
· El dia del padre = lots of drunk dads. We opened a bottle of brandy at 10.30am on Sunday. Grandpa got a little loose. My neighbor’s fiesta went until 3am.
· It is not uncommon for volunteers to find bats in their rooms. Some bats bite. Some bats have rabies. If I get bitten by a rabid bat, it’s over.
· I have pushed myself to the brink of my bravado with regard to food. I pulled a feather out of my mouth after taking a bite of soup the other day. I pulled another feather out of my mouth two bites later. The bowl next to me had chicken feet floating in it. I did not enjoy this meal.
· 99% of volunteers will crap their pants at some point during their service. This does not disturb nearly as much as it should.
· It is perfectly acceptable to wash your hair in an outdoor sink. Check.
· All “public” transport is privatized, meaning the combis (like tricked-out minivans) work off commission. A twelve-seat van can hold at least 30 passengers. Speed is more important than safety. One a particularly crowded ride, I was the lucky recipient of a full body spoon. Ass to crotch. It gets hot.
· Mexican food in Lima is very expensive. Also does not sit well on a two-hour combi ride back to my town. (I am not part of the 99%. Yet.)
· How to kill a guinea pig without losing any of the meat. Granted this all theoretical and I've yet to practice, but I'm ready. Bring it on cuys.
· A spoonful of peanut butter in the privacy of my own room always makes me feel better.
· 1,000 new Spanish words, phrases, slang…my head hurts.
· On a more serious note, Peruvians are kind and generous and extremely welcoming. My family is so good to me and they generally care about me. The people in my town have welcomed us all with smiles and laughter. Most are open and more than happy to talk about their lives, their jobs, their country. I’ve learned more than I can begin to innumerate and it’s been less than three weeks. I can’t even imagine what I will know or feel in a month, six months, a year. It’s overwhelming, frustrating, exciting, hard, invigorating and hilarious all at once.

Here's a link to some photos on Picasa from the first few weeks. I'm still trying to figure out how to load images in bulk onto my blog, but the Internet is slooooooow and I have many important things to do. Like eat rice. And watch cartoons in Spanish. Anyway, enjoye!
http://picasaweb.google.com/jessjoye25/Peru?authkey=Gv1sRgCOrI2Jrp5e2AoAE#

xoxo
J.

Grinnin´Gringa

And so it continues. I’ve survived my first week and am plodding steadily along. The days are starting to move a bit quicker as routine slowly settles in and some (SOME) of the awkwardness dissipates. There are still plenty of times that all I can do is laugh and shrug my shoulders because I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Case in point: my family and I went to grandma’s house last Sunday. I was under the impression that we were just going over for lunch and to chat for a couple hours so I could meet some of the extended family. Which I did. We ate, we talked and then we stayed. And stayed. And stayed. We were there for over six hours. Grandma was snoring on the couch. We watched Rambo in Spanish. We watched some futbal. We watched an episode of Lost. Grandma has cable magico (lots of channels, some with English programming with subtitles! Oh, the luxury.). My family watches a LOT of TV. Well, more like illegal bootlegs of movies since my house does not have cable. I’ve averaged a movie a day since arriving. Some are better than others. We watched Creoposculo (Twilight) a few days ago. Ratatouille was a good one, but someone in the front of the theater kept walking in front of the camera so that was kind of distracting.

Anyway, Sunday was a nice day, but it’s hard to tell if that’s what everyone wanted to do or if they were trying to accommodate the mute gringa in the corner. But everyone is so incredibly nice and welcoming. They all kept telling me I was so pretty and tall and skinny and looked way younger than 27. I will go back every Sunday to have people tell me those things. Funnily enough, my dad told me last night that we are going back on Sunday for dia del padre. After we go to the cemetery for a few hours in the morning. What a life.

We get these random assignments from PC aimed to teach us ways to integrate into communities and get to know the local business owners, municipal workers, etc. For our business class we’ve been given a long term assignment to spend at least an hour a week with someone from our community talking about their business, their challenges, hopes, etc. So I asked mi papi if he knew of anyone I could talk to -- he told me his brother-in-law works for a plataria (I don’t know the exact English word, someone who works with silver. Yes, it’s true; I can’t speak Spanish OR English.) but he makes his own jewelry on the side. Perfect, I thought, this will be easy and convenient since we’re related. By the way, I´m related to approximately half of my town and many people in neighboring towns. I´m kind of a big deal. So uncle Juan lives at grandma’s house, which is a three-story compound with separate “apartments” on each floor. I’m not sure what my host dad told Juan or what my host dad misunderstood from my explanation, but I ended up in Juan’s workshop for about an hour as he painstakingly took me through the process of how he sizes rings, where he finds his materials, how hot he has to get the metal in order to bend it. I had terrible flashbacks to the jewelry making class I nearly failed in Italy. Solder is not my friend. So instead of a nice casual chat about his clients and how he operates his business, I got a crash course in silversmithing (is that a word?). Interesting, but hardly useful for my business journal. I think Juan felt sorry for me because he did give me a pair of handmade, beautiful earrings. People are so generous. Back to the drawing board for my community partner. I might have to go at this one alone. Vidal just isn’t getting the picture.

Showers are still cold. Still doing a lot of squatting, but I’ve gotten a lot better. Hardly a drop of water on the bathroom floor now. We’ve started a little running club after classes at the training center. My friend Kim is leading a yoga class this afternoon. Staying after to get some exercise has been crucial in breaking up the days and getting to unwind before heading home. It’s also a good way to break it to dad that I will not be coming home at 5.30 every day. I got in trouble last Friday for not getting home until 7pm. But we’ve talked a little and now that I’m more familiar with the area, I can go out with friends. So he says. I´ve yet to test him on that one. Who knew I´d move all the way to Peru and have to abide by another respect hour (don´t worry Dad, I´m following). All the trainees are going to Lima on Saturday, which I’m really excited about. Big city lights! I’m sure we have some sort of activity, but hopefully there will be some free time. I’m dying to eat in a restaurant and actually order what I want to eat. Ah food, how you make me laugh.

One of my family’s favorite games to play every day is “what will the gringa eat?” About 90 percent of our conversations revolve around food. Some of the food is good. Some is bad. Mostly it’s just a lot. A lot of rice. A lot of potatoes. Usually both in the same meal. After a couple of days I had to have a little talk with my family about portion size. They can put away some serious rice. I cannot. But I have tried everything they’ve put in front of me and they like to brag to their friends and family that their gringo eats everything. Not a lot of everything, but she tries. I play little mind games with my food…if I eat four more bites of rice in the next two minutes, then I can mix in some mystery meat, take four more bites and hey, I’m a fourth of the way done. As I’ve gotten more comfortable with my family and with my Spanish, I’ve been able to express sheer delight at some foods (tomatoes, avocados) in the hope that they will take this as a sign that they should serve more of that. And I’ve already told them that I do NOT like bologna or hot dogs, which had started showing up in the fried rice. The aji (hot sauce) here is amazing, so now that they know I like picante, it’s on the table for every meal. A few dollops of aji makes the rice much more palatable. The food is actually not bad, but it´s always a crapshoot on how the day will go (we eat the same thing for lunch and dinner). And I’m very proud of myself for being a trooper. Not that I really have a choice, but I like to applaud myself for the things that I do have control over since much of my day is spent nodding in acquiescence to who knows what. Pretty sure I’ve already committed myself to spending Christmas here. Oh, and my friend Paul just bought some pregnant guinea pigs. I’m going to claim one of the babies as my own, raise it and kill it for an end-of-training fiesta. That’s right. I’m super hard core.

A few photos from my first couple weeks. Stay tuned. XOXO

Family Fun

Hello, faithful readers. So sorry to keep my loyal following waiting...though I guess it´s only been about a week since my last and final goodbye. Time moves differently down here, at least from my perspective. I arrived in Lima Saturday at 3am (a looooong four hours spent on the tarmac in Miami waiting out a lightening storm), so it´s really only been about 6 days in Peru, but packing so much into those six days has left us all feeling like we´ve been here for weeks. The days are long and packed with new information and new people. It´s exhausting. I go to bed at 9pm, but I´m up around 6.30. I have my very own rooster alarm clock. At 4.30am. On the dot. Every day.

There are 36 trainees (we won´t be volunteers until mid August) in my group about evenly split between youth development and small business development (mine) programs. We´re all living with host families in small communities surrounding the training center. We´re about an hour from Lima. Our host families came to pick us up on Sunday afternoon from the training center. Lunch was a pretty quiet affair as we were all pretty nervous about what was sure to be an awkward afternoon with our new families. I was the first one to get picked up and as soon as I stood up my host dad was like "que altisima" (ie, she´s freakishly tall). Everyone laughed and it helped break the ice a little bit.

My family is awesome. They are so sweet, so accomodating and so patient with my language skills. The first day they showed me an empty picture frame that they´re saving for a picture of me. Adorable. Most of the families in this area have hosted volunteers before so they´re all very used to the quirks of Americans. Peace Corps also does a great job of providing them with some basic rules and guidelines, ie, we have to slowly get used to the food, we like to drink a lot of water, we need our own room, etc. etc. My family has probably told me 20 times that I am not allowed to have vegetables until week 3 (because they´re washed with tap water). They take their job of keeping me safe and healthy very seriously. The first day I was here, my dad took me on a walk around the community to show me around. I´d been drinking out of my water bottle, but left it in inside to go on our walk. Vidal (my dad´s name) ran back inside and grabbed it for me saying, I know you always like water, please take this with you. We were gone for five minutes. Apparently our (ie, gringo) repuation as tall water guzzlers precedes me. Compared to Peruvians, it´s true. They never drink water. Or anything. Only hot tea or hot chocoalte with meals.

My family consists of Vidal, who works with the municipality building some sort of wall, I think to protect the water reservoir? He´s also on a water sanitation committee, which is pretty cool. Vanessa is 24 and works as an emergency nurse in Lima. And Mayra, at 16, is the youngest. She just finished colegio and now stays home to do the cleaning and cooking. The mom, Lili, is in Argentina right now (I think for work, but it´s not really clear and they don´t really talk about it) so I won´t get to meet her, but we did talk on the phone the first day. Mayra is super cute. We´ve talked a lot about American movies and music. She gave me a frienship bracelet last night which I was pretty stoked about. They´re very popular here.

My family has a DVD player (but no hot water, go figure), so I´ve been watching a LOT of bootleg DVDs dubbed in Spanish. It´s actually a pretty good way to learn some new vocab and practice Spanish, especially if I´m familiar with the English version. Last night we watched ¨El noche en el museo." My Spanish is holding up OK. I definitely need a lot of practice, but I can already feel it improving on a daily basis. The basic knowledge is there, it´s just a matter of practicing and remembering and getting more comfortable. Poco a poco.

I leave you with a laugh for the day, because I know this is getting long. A note on showering: as I said, there´s no hot water. At all. It´s ice cold. The shower is a tub with a showerhead attached to an extremely short coil. I can´t stand up, the nozzle woulnd´t even reach my sholders. So I have to squat in this ¨tub¨and hold the nozzle above me. Meaning I can´t ease into the cold water, no, just have to squat with ice cold water running down me trying not to scream too loudly. The water pressure is basically nothing, so the process of getting shampoo out takes a good minute or two. I got water everywhere the first time, but I only have a really small camping towel right now and didn´t want to use it to wipe the floor. But I didn´t want to use all their toilet paper, so I´m sqatting again (I´m going to have some serious quads here soon) trying to sponge up some water with one square of toilet paper, then I realize that my shoes are leaving muddy marks all over the floor whenever I move, so I have to start backing out the door (I´m dressed) praying that no one will see me as I erase my muddy marks with a sopping wet square of toilet paper. I´m learning though, the second one was much cleaner. Poco a poco.

So much more to tell, but I won´t ramble further. Suffice to say, I am having a great time. Every day is new and exciting and an adventure. Definitely a lot of laughter. And a lot of learning.

I miss you all.

Packing Precision

Welcome to the final countdown. After talking about this for what feels like years, it's suddenly time to go. And I don't know how I feel about it. My emotions vacillate wildly from one extreme to another. Whether I'm crying at a bar (or wedding), sitting alone in my room crippled by anxiety while staring blankly at a mound of clothes and two empty bags, or dancing wildly around the room in sheer excitement...it's safe to say that I'm in a glass cage of emotion. I'm Ron Burgondy?

So in lieu of waxing philosophical, I've decided to dedicate this post to something hopefully more useful to future PC volunteers or anyone else interested in what goes into packing for two years.

Image one: the things I think I want to take to Peru.











Image two: the empty bags I'm taking to Peru.









The challenge: get everything from image 1 into image 2 (plus a few odds and ends not pictured). Further complicating the matter is the fact that I have no idea where in the country I will actually be living. Peru's climate varies widely from region to region -- the Andean highlands are quite cold and wet while the coastal desert is well, dry and hot. I'm hoping for a coastal placement, but there are no guarantees so I need to be prepared for two distinct climates. I've opted for the basics, tank tops, t-shirts, lightweight sweaters, that I can layer depending on temperature. But you'll notice from the first picture that I've also opted to forgo color for the next two years. I guess I'm going for the mix 'n match fashion statement. Also add to the mix all the toiletries, shoes, books, electronics I want to take with me, and well, you can see my predicament. Lots of stuff, limited space.

But as I've gone through my stuff and eliminated the excess and condensed it all to the smallest possible surface area (ziploc bags are a lifesaver!), I've actually started to enjoy it. There's something to be said for living off only what you need and/or can carry. Oddly enough in all my preparation and thinking about Peace Corps, the idea of living a simpler life never really came to mind. Sure I've been thinking about living a different kind of life, exploring a new culture and language, seeing things from a new perspective, but I hadn't focused on the beauty of letting go of material possessions. At the end of the day, my experience is not going to be defined by whether I bring two pairs of jeans or three. The things I'm bringing are just that, things. What matters more is the attitude I carry with me -- an open mind, a sense of humor and lots of patience (well, I'm working on that last one).

So without further adieu, I present to you the final product. I did it! So that's that, now all that's left is getting there. See you on the flip side!