Still Standing

Apologies for the lapse in posting. I think I’ve said before that I don’t want to use this blog as a public platform for complaints, negativity and insight into my schizophrenic emotional breakdowns, so I try not to post in the middle of such breakdowns. Which is a long way of saying that it’s been an up-and-down couple months. It’s hard to explain the frustration that comes with watching good idea after good idea fall into the “Little Project That Could But Won’t Because of Lack of Follow Through” category. I gave up my life, or at the very least put it on hold, to come here for a variety of reasons, many of which were selfish. But one driving reason was a desire to do something different, something for the greater good, as cliché as that might sound. And also a belief that I was somehow qualified to do this thing, whatever it is. As one failed project rolls into another, it’s hard to keep motivation high and it becomes harder to justify my presence here. That’s not to say that I am unhappy, but I feel like I’m taking so much more than I’m giving.

That’s the abridged version of what’s been going on with me, at least internally. I’m happy to say that I’m feeling much more positive about my situation. I have a few small pilot projects in the works that seem promising, which I won’t go into detail about for fear of jinxing them. I continue to build and strengthen a few meaningful relationships with people in my town, relationships that, at the end of the day (or two years), will do more to define my time here than any project I could hope to develop.

My buddy, Violeta

Case in point: meet my friend Violeta. She’s 42, has two grown children and one grandson. She sells artisan products at the museum complex. She was one of the first people I met and has never failed to make me feel at home. Despite never having traveled much further than Chiclayo, she has a tacit understanding and empathy for what it must feel like to be so far from home. She talks to me like a real person, asking my opinions on anything from fashion to politics to marketing strategy. She is always giving me little trinkets from her stand; friendship bracelets, rings, perfume samples. She invites me to her house for lunch where she feeds me really good food and then lets me take a nap on her couch in front of the TV. In short, she is amazing – this nurturing and fun hybrid of a girlfriend/aunt/mother. I like to think I’m teaching her things or opening her eyes to a broader understanding of the world, but I’m pretty sure I’m getting the better deal out of this relationship. For someone who spends so much time alone, the power of a kind word or an unexpected hug can not be overstated.

I am also so lucky to have my host family, who puts up with my unpredictable stomach and/or appetite, who leaves me alone to read for hours in my room but somehow intuits when I need company, who invites me everywhere and who has opened my eyes to a whole new dimension of generosity. And what would this whole experience be without my hilariously witty and insightful volunteer pals? They remind me that anything can be dealt with if you just laugh at it and inspire me to “just keep swimming.”

Some of my very favorite people

AND…drum roll…I’ve made it a YEAR! Yep, June 6th marked the one-year anniversary of my arrival in Peru. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been here forever and sometimes it seems like mere weeks. It’s been a whirlwind year. I’ve lived through more once-in-a-lifetime experiences than I though was possible, some of which I’ll be glad never to repeat – namely that 18-hour canoe ride. I wish I had some clever turn of phrase to summarize this year, but so far this experience has proven impossible to summarize or neatly package. Suffice to say it’s been a year of contradictions and a year of learning. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next year brings; hopefully plenty more blog material at the very least. But for now, I’ll just say that I’m proud to have made it this far, still standing.

Happy July 4th weekend!

Mamma Mía

To those of you who follow this blog (all five of you), it will come as no surprise that Peruvians love any excuse for a party. Mother’s Day was no exception. Before I tell my tale, I would like to give a special shout out to my real mom – I wish I could have been with you on Mother’s Day. I miss you and I love you.

Mama numero uno, Liz.

Mama numero dos, Lucha.

Our celebration began on Friday with a trip to Saltur for the school’s Día de la Madre celebration. The show included a number of dances and performances, including poetry, by the students. But the big moment was when they handed out the canastas of prizes for a few lucky moms. Bryan’s mom Cinthya (my host sis) is now working in Chiclayo so she couldn’t make the party. Right before the drawing, Lucha (my host mom) had to duck out to attend an Avon conference. Papy leaned over and asked if I would escort Bryan if they called his name for anything. Not really sure what that meant, I of course said yes. Immediately after this mumbled conversation, we hear Cinthya’s name being called. Everyone around me starts shoving me and yelling for me to go up there. Turns out we won the goodie bucket and I had to go up and collect it, in front of everyone. Like several hundred people. There were a lot of confused people in attendance as Bryan and I sauntered up to collect the Mother’s Day prize. Skip to a few minutes later when there is another raffle for the moms. Lucha had handed me her ticket before she left asking me to collect the prize if she won. Well, guess what? We won. Back to the stage goes the gringa to collect her second Mother’s Day prize. Needless to say, my family got a big kick out of this. And several people asked me if I was Bryan’s mother. I’m still not sure if I should be insulted.

The stage where I received my prizes.

A portion of the entertainment.

After the show was over, and a very pleased Lucha returned to discover her loot, we headed to a restaurant (I know, crazy times) for a little snack. Papy then informed me that he had scored us invitations to the post-party luncheon for all the teachers. He’s the president of the PAFA (kind of like PTA), so he’s got friends in high places. On to our second lunch of the day! And I had been fed a sandwich at the school (only the moms got sandwiches -- I think Peru is trying to tell me something). Anyway, off we go to the private staff party. Papy was clearly disappointed by the lack of enthusiasm shown by the teachers, who were busily sucking down Pisco Sours and exchanging gifts, so he arranged for a little speech, as Papy is prone to do. His speech turned out to be an introduction of me, meaning I in turn had to make a little speech. I mumbled some variation of my usual “Hi, I’m Jessica. I live and work here. I also work for the U.S. government. Hopefully we can work together. Yes, I’m single. No, I don’t want to marry your son/cousin/nephew/brother/husband. Thank you so much for having me.” Business taken care of, we turned up the music and started dancing. I think I left the party with a few new friends, or at least I took it as a good sign when several teachers asked me when I was coming back.

Teachers fleeing after my ¨speech.¨

We had plans to leave bright and early Sunday morning for Pacherrez, where the majority of Lucha’s family lives. At dinner on Saturday night Lucha asked me what time I would be waking up the following morning. Unsure as to what was the correct response, I hesitantly said 8am. After a few whispered sentences, she and Papy decided I could come later, at 9am. Clearly this was going to be a big day.

I arrive around 10 the next morning with Pierre, Cinthya and some random dude with a car. The majority of the women were already in the back getting lunch ready. Luckily I got there just in time to participate in the killing of the three ducks. A quick snap of the neck, a precise knife strike to the jugular and the deed is done. My job consisted of de-feathering the steamed ducks. I lasted about 20 minutes before the elders decided that I was slowing them down. So I took up my usual spot, in the corner with the men, passing around a bottle. Despite my brief appearance, I’m pretty sure I made my grandmother’s month. She is incredibly old but surprisingly spritely. Every time I see her she grabs my cheeks and pets my hair and mutters incoherently about “mi gringita.” After the duck incident, she really took a shine to me and would turn and stare at me every so often and then burst out laughing about her crazy gringita. Everyone also got a big kick out of an uncle referring to Lucha as my mother-in-law. Apparently Pierre has been spreading the word around the family that we will soon be married. It’s the joke that will not die. Seriously, Peru what are you trying to say?

So basically the entire day consists of the women preparing an elaborate lunch while the men sit around getting drunk. Good to know that Mother’s Day doesn’t really change anything. Though I will say it was heartwarming to see so much of the family together. A few aunts, uncles and cousins had come up from Lima and everyone who lives in the Chiclayo area was there, probably close to 30 people in total. After stuffing ourselves silly with duck and more duck, I was finally invited to join the cool kids, i.e., all the twentysomething cousins. Usually I get stuck with the adults, which is fine, but I’d secretly been dying to be part of the hip group. Only took me nine months to get in. Who’s cooler than this girl? We hung out in the park, listening to American music, taking pictures and sending the younger kids to fetch more drinks. Out of nowhere the random dude with the car returned to drive us back to Huaca Rajada, where there was to be a baile. A baile just like any other baile – drinking circles and cumbia dancing. The band was a new group formed by some local Huaca Rajadeños, aptly called “Son del Barrio.” I think they still have a few kinks to work out since I heard them play exactly one song and the rest of the music came from a stereo. This serves as an appropriate metaphor for the town itself – we’re trying, sort of. Poco a poco...

Hanging out with the cool kids.

Amazon Adventure

Well, friends, believe me when I say jungle trekking isn't as easy as it looks. It's taken me awhile to sufficiently recover my strength, and for those pesky back spasms to go away, and even now as I sit down the write this I'm not sure I can. I've been putting off this post because there is just too much to say and no way to adequately describe what the trip was like. But due to my ongoing battle with all things electronic, I find myself stranded in Chiclayo awaiting word from my computer buddy as to whether he can resurrect the contents of my external hard drive. So I've plopped down in the restaurant of the fanciest hotel in town, ordered the cheapest thing on the menu (an S/. 11 grilled cheese) and committed myself to catching up on email, blogs and Facebook stalking.

Semana Santa is big here in Peru and accordingly Peace Corps is kind enough to grant us a few free vacation days around the Easter holiday. Free vacations days? That's all we needed to hear to pack our Chacos and raincoast and head for the jungle. I will spare you the detailed itinerary (if you really want to know everything we did, check out Steph's blog -- she's quite thorough) and jump right to the highlights, with photographic evidence of course.

We spent the first couple days of our trip en route, via a town called Tarapoto, where we took a small side trip to some pretty waterfalls. After 12 hours aboard El Romantic II, we arrived in the town of Lagunas, the jumping off point to enter the National Reserve. From Lagunas we headed off in canoes and spent the better part of three days sprawled out on said canoes admiring the jungle wildlife: monkeys, sloths, anacondas, crocs, dolphins, piranhas and lots of other birds, bugs and trees. It was pretty cool and definitely off the beaten track. The only other tourists we saw were other volunteers. We camped under the stars, protected by mosquito nets smelling of what can only be described as a cross between a moldy boy's locker room and rotten eggs; in a word, awful. We ate fish straight from the river, cooked up by our trusty guides. We went on a nighttime crocodile hunt, where we really did get to lay down in the canoes and marvel at the incredible expanse of starts. It was a great little jaunt, not very relaxing or comfortable but unique and special.

Aboard El Romantic, she's a beaut.

Aboard the canoe, where we spent many an hour.

Nothing but the best for us, four stars all the way.


I didn't think it would happen but I've found my soulmate - the sloth.

We arrived back in Lagunas prepared to board a boat headed for Iquitos, a mere 30 hours away, and interestingly enough, the largest city in the world that is inaccessible by road. Who said this blog wasn't educational? To make an incredibly long story slightly shorter, the boat to Iquitos wasn't coming that day. We waited out the night in Lagunas, which I would not wish on anyone, where we passed the time eating Dutch cheese out of a tin can and dancing with 4-foot-tall Peruvians in the town's only bar, which was really just a store that happened to have a generator and thus could stay open after the lights went out at 9pm. The next morning we found out that there would not be another boat to Iquitos for at least two more days. Our jungle guides promised to work something out for us and ended up arranging for a private boat to transport the 14 of us (my group plus two other volunteer groups). The cost was much, much higher, but they assured us it would only be an eight hour ride to Iquitos. I think the rest of the story is best explained visually.

The boat we thought we were taking. Spacious, no?


It started looking bad when this canoe pulled up and the Peruvians transferred the engine from the big boat to the canoe.



17 people, 18 hours, one canoe. There aren't enough expletives in the world.



Nightfall sets in and we're still on the canoe, faking smiles.

So, eighteen hours later we arrived in Iquitos. I'm not exaggerating when I say those were probably the worst 18 hours of my life. Especially when it started to rain and we were forced to seek shelter under a moldy tarp. Or when we were lost in the middle of the Amazon in the middle of the night and kept turning off the motor to simply float helplessly. Or the time when we asked the "captain" how much longer and he told us we were one hour away from a town from where we were eight to nine hours from Iquitos AFTER we'd already been on the canoe for five hours. All in all it was a horrible, horrible journey and I vow never to ride in a canoe again. Ever. But we did arrive in Iquitos, more or less in one piece and were able to actually relax for the first time all trip, enjoying some surprisingly tasty Texas BBQ and the indescribable pleasure of a real bed on dry land.

A word to the wise when planning your next Peruvian vacation -- the jungle is lacking certain infrastructure that makes for an easy vacation. I wouldn't recommend it if you enjoy things like schedules, reliable information and beds. But all in all, I am glad I made the trip. If nothing else it made for a good blog post, right? There are more pictures on Facebook and on Steph and Kim's blogs if you just can't get enough.