Días normales.

My family and I - my brothers are absolute GIANTS in this country.

Breakfasting with my little bro.

Went to throw something away but it looks like some cuyes get the trashcan this day.

Cuyes and clothesline steak.  I took this photo from the breakfast table.

My mom was making eels or something and I was making a pancake with chin chins.

My anticucho lady in my plaza.  Best anticucho ever.

Movie night with the kiddies.

Some Science Club kids at movie night.

Getting ready for movies at the Muni.

Kids crying.  Science Club learned a valuable lesson:  Do not show pregnant woman slasher porn at childrens movie night.

My little entreprenuer girls working on their epic business plan.

Mom, bro, and buddies in from Lima.

My bro always gets me out with him when he comes to town.

They installed a fire hydrant in my town - which is just weird as there are no firefighters or a fire truck.  It is right near the colegio and it didn't take long for them to figure out how to open it up.  Whee.

This guy spent 40 minutes trying to close it but mostly just getting really wet.  It was hilarious.

It was the biggest excitement in my town i na very long time.

He eventually got it closed to a lot of cheering.  I walked by half an hour later and it was open again.

My Science Club is actually a Science, Technology, and Environment Club and they made this for their school.

Fiestas Patrias celebrations in my plaza.

Early morning running buddy.

More running friends.

Jesus Zack.

Just Zacking around.  I am making a Zackumentary.

Annie.  In sleeping bag.

I found him like this.

Inexplicable couch spinning hilarity.

Relax-y Chota.

Found him here again three hours later.

Two weeks after we despedida-ed Christi, we despedida-ed Lisa.  We actually went out for this one!  To the one bar in Chota.

We got all pretty before we went out.  Paid off too - the guys at the next table bought us peanuts!

Delicious peanuts.

Special.

And the inevitable 2am caldo.  This is something I will really miss about this country.  From 2am til dawn, soup stands pop up everywhere to fend off hangovers.  And its so delicious.

Pretty Chota.  I don't know how I will survive without Lisa.

The end.

Hace tiempo.

I suppose it's been quite a while since I last blogged.  My two or three readers are surely quite depressed by now.  I don't feel like I have tons to say - but here we go!

Work is work: classes continuing and going well with the daily Vacational Orientation and Youth Entreprenuership; library project as always is at a crawl, as the space the Muni gave me sucks and I am convincing them to give me a better one; science club is rad and the kids have raised a ton of money with their donuts and have planned a movie night; won the grant for the science club so we are a definite go with the telescopes and everything else; community banks are plugging along - still just the one that is fully functioning without my support and four others still in their launching phases.

So, done with all that boring work crap.  Just kidding, I really love my work and am happy it is going well, I am just feeling slightly frustrated at the moment as I am writing this blog while waiting for a meeting that was supposed to start over an hour ago.  Thinking it's not happening...  Some days I feel more accustomed to and comfortable with Peru and it's sucky work habits and sometimes I feel like the opposite, like it's all building up and I will soon burn it all down.

I went on a vacation.  It was beyond spectacular.  For the Fourth of July all volunteers get 4 free vacation days.  Five of my friends and I decided to hit Chachapoyas.  It's the capital of Amazonas and high altitude jungle - cloud forest, really.  Pretty chilly but just gorgeous and surrounded with amazing ruins and caves and waterfalls and such.  The nearby Kuelap ruins are known as the Machu Picchu of the North, or the Poor Man's Machu Picchu.  Also, it's really close to where I live and therefore made for a real cheap vacation - I didn't have to bust into my savings at all, just had to not save this month instead.

We got out there and it turns out that many other small groups of volunteers had come up with the same vacation plan.  No one had a complete head count, but there seemed to be between 30 and 40 volunteers running around this tiny mountain town all weekend.  Ok, screw typing more.  Here are some pictures:

Me and Huey - Bus ride to Gocta waterfall.  Day 1.

That morning, looking to go out to Gocta, we ran into a total of 21 volunteers with the same plan.  It proved to be cheapest to all rent a bus together and we were then officially a bunch of tourists - so here is our cheesy tourist photo.

 An hour or so into the hike, there was a mid-jungle random ass beer stand.  Perfect.

Me and the waterfall.  Quite a ways inthe hike.  Third highest waterfall in the world.  I can't even begin to describe how tall that friggin' thing was up close.

Everyone was very cold, very tired, and very wet for the ride back to town.

The next day, another large group of us went to see the Kuelap ruins.  Pretty huge city, 1200 years old.  Pretty awesome.

Kuelap fortress.

Climbing through the ruins.

Ancient human bones and a reconstructed house.  There were ruins of about 500 houses.

Random llamas in the ruins.

This is where they prayed to their gods to take away the smallpox that the Spaniards brought.  According to our guide, "Unfortunately, their gods did not exist.  So they all died."

I spent hours, over days, on building this pyramid.  Be impressed.

It was only a four day vacation.  I left site Thursday and was back Tuesday, so really just a long weekend.  Fortunately, when I got back, the circus had come to Santa Cruz.  My mom and brother had already been numerous times while I was gone but I convinced my mom to go with me anyways.  It was ridiculous.  A ghetto tiny tent set up in a dirt pile.  Bleachers that EVERYONE was concerned were going to collapse.  They were essentially tied together 1x6's.  It started an hour and twenty minutes after the time advertised.  

The juggler juggled a little better than me.  The trapeze artists did some seriously unimpressive spinning around while their ropes were being held up by three clowns leaning their body weight into it to raise and lower the girl.  At intermission the clowns were making cotton candy, the ticket takers we popping popcorn, and the trapeze artist/juggler/dog tamer was sitting in the corner drinking.  The people from my town were SUPER enthralled with the whole thing.  It was all very... charming, as well as your standard level of Peru-dangerous.  I realized after that I didn't take pictures - but I did video tape so many chucnks of it.  Next time I find good bandwidth I will upload a video or two.  For now, here's a picture of the entrance.  Great name:

Here's a random bonus picture of me and my Entrepenuership girls:

I guess that's it.  I am still plugging away at many of the same things, as I mentioned above.  Strangely, I am finishing up this blog now as my classes were cancelled this afternoon.  It's pouring out.  It did yesterday afternoon too.  Now, I know when I arrived to site in late August, rainy season was already in full effect and went until May.  Things started lightening up in early May and it stopped raining completely by the beginning of June. So I haven't seen any at all and now two days in a row.  Is it really going to start again already?

I hope so.  I'm gonna go buy some cocoa makings right now though.

You people at home need to settle down for the next 15 months.

Today marks one year since I left home.  I thought about writing something about the things I've done and the strange ways I have changed.  But, then I realized that you assholes at home have been completely out of control and it's time to tell you to cool your jets for the next year.  I am missing too much.

A huge congratulations to all of my friends who have had babies in the last year!

  Adilyn Jane

June 24, 2010

 Ruby

August 6, 2010

Veyla

August 23rd, 2010

 Maximillian

November 18, 2010

 Azreal

December 24, 2010

 Osha Wiley

Hmm. Early 2011.

June

April 3, 2011

And to my friends who have passed away in the last year, my thoughts are at home with your families and I miss you all a lot.

Zachary Season 1980-2010

Deagan Season 2005-2011

I cannot find a picture of Isaiah, but

I miss you pal.

1980-2010

Rod Dexter 1969-2011

Now there is only 15 more months til I get home.  Could you all hold your horses and not do any more big things until I can come too?

Thanks.

Courtney

Día de Madre

Because I never post photos.

My mom and I, for Mother's Day, went out visiting family.  Visiting family is always quite the trek.  We took a combi for about forty minutes, to Mitapampa.  Then we start walking.  There are few paths and we trek for hours.  We hauled along with us a couple of big cakes, a pot full of chicken and yucca, a bag with about 50 little breads, and a three liter of warm jello water.  We stopped to give food to everyone we saw on the way, but the main goal was to get some cake out to the very elderly women in our family who live ever so far out.

My mom and a nice little old lady (Angelica from Huascaran's mother!)  We had some chicken and yucca and cake together under a tree.

This is my great aunt.  She is 98 years old and lives a good two hour hike from the nearest road.

My uncle doing some plowing.

My grandma's house.  It's about 150 years old.

We did some quinoa harvesting.

Yes, my mom made lots of jokes about the quinoa being phallic.

My uncle and aunt and cousin had us in for lunch.

The ladies and I - our Mother's Day photo shoot.  I am a giant.

My mom got pretty style-y about five hours into our hike.

Finally back to the road.

 Forty minutes later we miraculously find a mototaxi.  He was off to pick up some other people but my mom says she'll give him fifty centimos more to take us instead.  Nice one, Mom.

The rain here stopped just over a week ago and dry season hit with a vengeance.  We had been out on this hike a few times before, but on Mother's Day is was GRUELING.  It was super hot out, we hiked for a good six hours, and the BUGS.  There are never bugs in my site, it's too cold, so I am not in the habit of wearing bug spray.

I now have about 80 bug bites from mid-calf down.  Every centimeter.  Ugh.  I am glad dry season is only a few months here - you can bet that I will be thoroughly coated in bug spray between now and September.

Events of late:

• One of my banks ws planning a fundraiser the other day and they decided that they would have a raffle.  They decided they should raffle off their gringa.  They thought it was brilliant and were crushed when I had to shoot them down on pimping me out.  We switched to having a picaronada and I was the only one there who could rattle off the picaron recipe.  Weird.
• At bank meetings, I am still shocked every time just to see them all arriving at the correct time.  Banks are amazing.
• Easter weekend: Friday a guy climbed the hill in my town dragging a cross with some other guys pretending to whip him.  At the top they strung him up.  Saturday everyone wore all black and people were crying in the streets, mourning the death of Christ.  Sunday - party, of course.
• I made ravioli from scratch the other day, blowing my mom's mind.  It was a big hit, but of course my mom insisted we fry it all instead of boil it.  It was of course delicious, if extraordinarily unhealthy.

That's all for now - I have more but I am late for lunch!  Ciao!

Fideo con Albahaca, Ajo, y Queso

Thunder hits pretty reliably right as we sit down to lunch. I can tell time by weather pretty well here these days. If it's sunny, the sun has risen within the last couple of hours. If it's cool and cloudy and drizzling, the sun is about to set. If the streets are flooded and there is an absolute torrential, blinding, mind-bending downpour it's about 3:30 and I am canceling my classes, again. The night are clear and cold.

My classes are so smooth now that I find I need more projects again for the first time in a few months. Every afternoon, I teach class from 3:30 to 6, but all the class plans are well-developed, all the worksheets are made and printed and filed and easy to find, and I am comfortable enough that I can just walk in, put on the powerpoint, joke around, take questions, and get through the day. Over 60 kids have cycled through my courses now, even with the constant cancellations (two weeks for Easter, really?)

So, I decided it's time to really start fighting for that library project and it's time to hit the streets finding more groups to form into community banks. The library project has been oh-so sluggish. I have everything prepared. People at the Muni are calling it my “awesome project.” I have resources listed and grant applications ready to go, I am just having trouble with my committee. Finally got it all together just the other day – have names of the enthusiastically interested and a good solid workplan that people are getting on board with. Thing is, I don't want to align myself with the wrong crew again, so I may need to back off a little. Finally getting used to the scandalous nature of this country. I spent most of my time before working with the Gerente, or City Manager, who absconded with a bunch of bags of cement a few weeks back. Had to then work my way into new contacts, avoiding my previous affiliation with the now-detested figure of the cement-thief. And now the head of the library committee is the wife of the mayor. Once burned and I am holding back on further meetings while I wait to find out if they are actually going to impeach him...

My most-successful-bank has it's three-month meeting tomorrow. All is going so smoothly. Tomorrow I will tell them they are all grown up and graduated from needing me at all. This means it's time to really move on and bring in the half-formed nonsense banks scattered around and to follow up with the inquiries I have received from other potential start-ups. The bank project is so simple and effective. Everyone loves Micro-Finance. I am setting a public goal right now of having, within 3 more moths, 3 more functional banks with a total of at least 60 members. I think it's possible. Just gotta step up my game.

I spent all last week in Lima. Seem to have busted something in my back. Which is strange because it just hurts in my leg. I guess I have a pinched nerve. They put me on a TON of drugs for awhile – like muscle relaxers and pain killers three times a day. I am off those now and the pain is reduced substantially, but still there. So we are gonna do a little physical therapy. With how much the drugs helped, I think the physical therapy should do the trick. So, that'll mean quite a few trips to either Chiclayo or hopefully Chota. I don't like leaving site that much, but if I can just get this fixed, I will be pretty happy. I think it probably came from falling in holes. There are holes in the sidewalks everywhere in Peru – and I mean holes a few feet deep and just big enough for your foot to pass through. I fall in them a lot; I think spend too much time looking up. I am fortunate to have not broken a leg yet, and I plan to stop falling in holes now.

I have funny conversations a lot here. People are always asking me, about everything, “Do they have this in the US?” Yes, we have tomatoes. Yes, we have rice. No, we don't have lucuma. There is always complete surprise at the Yes answers and a knowing smugness at the No answers. My favorite though was the other day when someone asked me if I had any pizza while I was in Lima. I said, of course and they followed with the standard, “Is there pizza in the US?” I was a little surprised at this one and was like “Yes, of course, we eat a lot of pizza!” The woman was really shocked. “You have pizza there?!? Well, it's so much better in Peru, right?” I gave my standard lie and told her it was and she walked away happy. The pizza here is a pathetic excuse for pizza. Extraordinarily pathetic and doesn't quench even a tad of your craving for pizza.

Another fun part of conversation is just what is appropriate to say. When you need your waiter or waitress you just yell - “Joven!” if they're young, “Chino!” if they're Asian, or “Gorda!” or “Flaca!” pretty much the rest of the time, though the differentiation between fat and skinny is not always obvious and I get called both daily. I avoid the racial terms – I don't care if it's considered simply another identifying feature here, I'm not participating. Another one - if I pull out my laptop in public, I have to expect at least 10 people just to walk up to me and ask me how much it cost. Or anything else I own. How much did that cost? Can I have it? Can you get more from the US to sell here? WHY DIDN'T YOU BRING A BUNCH OF STUFF WITH YOU TO SELL? People are really upset about that sometimes. It's very strange.

Besides the obvious ones, food and family, the thing I realized quite awhile ago that I miss most is anonymity. I mean, I can't wander around Eugene all day without running into people I know. I don't mean that kind of anonymity; I don't mean being a stranger. I mean the more basic anonymity – that the people who don't know me, also don't notice me. That strangers have no interest in me and that people can't just find me anywhere in town just by asking where the white girl is to anyone on the street. I want people to stop asking me questions some days.

Then again, I am sure that when I get home, I will miss some of that.

Quiero Descansar

I am so tired. Really tired, right now. But it's time to get this done. Also, they are setting up a Yunza outside, so I know sleep is about to be taken off the table (Will the Yunzas never end? Are there such a thing as better earplugs?) A whole lot has been going on, as well.

Life is so good. I know I am parroting myself here, but what a cool job. It's time for the 13ers to decide whether or not they are staying a third year and it's funny to watch. There is a vast range of reactions. I know a large handful that are just saying, “I am going home immediately on the first day allowed.” There are a chunk almost as large saying, “Well, this is home. Why would I want to go to the States and get a way less cool job?” And then there are the variety pack, those signing on for just a few more months, and those who really haven't decided. I even had a conversation with a Volunteer I know currently in the middle of his fourth year. I asked, “Well, aren't you cut off soon? No one is allowed to sign up for a fifth year...” (Yes, Peace Corps has term limits, for staff too.) He replied, “But I can extend my fourth year.” Whatever kind of awesome bureaucratic loophole that is. If I had to pick right now, I wouldn't go anywhere. This is the life. But don't freak out yet, Mom, I swore I would come home after just two and I will.

TEACHING IS HARD. I have always had a lot of respect for teachers, but never like this. I don't know what I am doing! Teaching is crazy. Teaching in the wrong language is crazier. Doing it full time... I just got home from a Clausura – where I graduated 26 of my 11 year olds, with certificates, soda pop, and saltines. They completed their 2 week course on Planning Your Future (how strange is that?) The course was twice a week for two weeks. Two of the other days a week, I have my older kids, 15 and 16, for Youth Entrepreneurship. These classes are all two hours in the afternoon. Planning a two hour class takes a LONG time. Planning it well, takes practice. Turns out half the time that I can't get nearly the amount done that I thought and the other half that we are going to end up outside playing icebreakers and team building games because I didn't plan enough. Turns out I SUCK at discipline. Who wants to be that guy? I don't even want to talk about my morning classes teaching English to 7 year olds...

Really, though, we are all having fun and the learning curve is steep. I start this week with the next group of over two dozen 11 year olds. Each two week period I will move on to the next, until the kids in town have ideas beyond “tienda-owner” or “mototaxi-driver.” The older kids course is a 6 week session that I am currently planning on just doing twice in a row. These kids volunteer for this, while the younger ones are required to attend my short course. After my two six-week courses, I get to form a team of my best students to create a business plan for a national youth business plan competition. I plan on us winning. The kids can win the funding to actually start their business plan. Since I have seemingly been assigned to be the Human-Form Economic Stimulus Package for this community, I think I am gonna try and own this project. Win. Banks are still going well. Need to update my numbers on that tomorrow...

I have been out of town for a week again. Yet another Peace Corps training in Lima. I feel like they drag us out for these things sooo often. No more until I go in for the business plan competition in August however. So I get to hunker down for awhile. And tomorrow, I have more things to do than humanly possible – between the library project, the 2 business courses, the community banks, and the English courses, I am a nutcase. The funny thing is, it's not even that many hours, especially considering some jobs I have happily worked in the past. I don't know why it feels busier. Probably a mix of language barrier issues (which I am convinced never go away,) cultural frustration issues (as I am also convinced the norms of Peru were designed to make me crazy,) and the fact that everything is such a rollercoaster ride. In fact, speaking of rollercoasters, my mother has been back and cooking me her absolutely wonderful but almost pure starch food for just a month now and I am seeing that I already noticeably need to get back to my workout routine. Suck.

The big awesomeness: the library project. All I can say so far is that I have seen extreme enthusiasm and a mention of possible available community funds. I am having a big meeting about it tomorrow or the next day, so I will update very soon! I have looked deeply into grant resources, pitched the idea around town, and recruited some enthusiastic and brilliant young team members. Here we go, Children's Library-Tutoring-Center-Science-Museum! This is going to be awesome. I could obviously use help with a name.

Any suggestions?

¡Lo Máximo!

I am not even sure where to start with blogging right now, but it seems I had best do it today, before even more accumulates in the fields of the strange and the awesome.

I spent the last two and a half months without my family. At first, this was great, but the charm eventually wore off – my Spanish wasn't improving and my nights and weekends were excruciatingly boring. They finally got back this last weekend and life became almost immediately amazing again. I had only spent a few weeks with them before they left and they are even more fantastic than I remember. My 13 year old brother and are having a brilliant time playing Uno and wandering the town together and me and my mom cook epically. She is talking about the three of us taking a trip to Macchu Picchu together late in the summer.

Also, I promised her I would announce to every older single male I know in the States that she is single and an amazing cook if, ya know, you need a wife. So – done there.

It's been Carnaval season. Yunzas. There is a party called a Yunza almost every night in my town, since the beginning of February. Since Carnaval peaked last weekend and Lent began, I thought the Yunzas would stop but, no, I went two of the three that were going last night. Apparently they will continue through March as well. A Yunza – It's kind of like a maypole, a Christmas tree, and a piñata combined. Every street has a Yunza and many have more than one throughout Yunza-time. What they do is they cut down a really tall tree – a deciduous tree without leaves, where the branches start very high up. The pick axe a hole in the middle of the street and set the tree up in it. Before the launch it up there, they fill the branches with presents. Weird things – blankets and t-shirts. Packages of cookies and bottles of beer. Then they drink and dance around the tree all night long, until nine or ten the next morning. They drink HARD and they dance HARD. In the morning, the drunken survivors take turns chopping at the tree with a machete til they chop it down. When it falls, everyone dives into the branches snatching at the gifts. The trick here is, whoever actually knocks the thing down, has to fund next year's Yunza. This is almost half my monthly stipend – WAY out of my budget. These are spendy parties. And man do they love to hand me that machete and, after a full night of drinking and dancing, man do I want to chop that thing down. I have shown incredible restraint.

I couldn't make this shit up. But to get to the even crazier part...

I spent the height of Carnaval in Cajamarca City. Caja City is considered the capital of Carnaval in Perú. Volunteers came in from all over the country for the weekend. I am a local department volunteer so I fortunately didn't even have to take vacation – just a weekend in my capital! But in the language here, you don't GO to Carnaval – you PLAY Carnaval. ¿Vas a jugar carnavales? I had no idea what to expect, I just knew that it involved paint fights and that I needed to bring clothes or a costume that I didn't mind destroying. It was a hundred times more wild than I expected. The paint fight part of it was HUGE. Small armies were roaming the streets with buckets, water balloons, and knock off supersoakers full of paint in wildly various colors. Armies were organized by barrio. Except us. We were the straight up Gringo Army and everyone sure did love to soak us with paint. These armies eventually congregated into a march at least a few miles long – thousands upon thousands. Everyone was drinking, banging on their buckets, and SINGING at the top of their lungs. I think the Carnaval song will be stuck in the back of my skull for a long, long time. It was mostly just, ¡JUGAMOS CARNAVALES! ¡LOS LOCOS CARNAVALES!

At night the plaza filled up with these thousands upon thousands. Again, all standing in groups of 10-20 and still singing at the tops of their lungs and drinking. But they all have drums and trumpets and everything else in the plaza at night. It's a noise like I'd never heard. Fantastic. It was impossible to get back to the hotel before dawn each night and bars and clubs were a hundred percent unnecessary. During the days, there were parades with the most beautiful and fantastical costumes I have EVER seen. Crazy stuff. I have no words.

None of the above words even some close to justifying the things I have seen and participated in over the last couple of months. Also, I absolutely love my life. Cool job, I've got.

A few random things:

- The other day I was eating lunch and randomly heard a twenty minute radio news story about myself.

- The 13ers Close-of-Service is coming in a few months and I am already sad. There is no way the 17ers will replace them effectively.

- This means that I am getting a chunk into my service. Time goes so fast I don't even know how I feel about where I am at right now. Things are going great – I will leave it at that.

- I went to an English Teaching course in Lima with a friend from site who is an English Profesor at the Institute here, so him and I will be working on some projects to teach teachers some new skills

- I went to an awesome Superbowl party last month in Chiclayo. Go Packers.

- I have one fully functioning Community Bank with 20 members and another two that are still in the initial stages. About 70 adult members. It's a pretty great project. The one group calls me “La Gringa Mágica and insist that I can do things like heal a broken bone by putting my hands on it. I tell them that yeah, I can, but not today.

- I am picking up some Peruvian sign language. There are 4 or 5 deaf people that live on my block and a couple are good friends of the family. Super different than ASL. Involves full body hilarity and running around the room. No alphabet – but you can write things out on your forearm. It will be a one hundred percent useless skill in about 18 months.

- Tomorrow my courses start at the Colegio. Vocational Orientation for all the first year students, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 4-6pm and Youth Entrepenuership for the fourth and fifth year students, Mondays and Wednesdays, 4-6pm. This'll keep me a bit busy. I am keeping on with my one English class with my seven year olds on Thursday mornings.

- I have moved into the initial stages of a library project, which will also be part children's science museum and writing tutoring center. And we are going to build that damn telescope to keep there. This may be overly ambitious and I am going to recruit help from Eugene when I am ready.

- I had a million other things but I don't remember them now.

I stole pictures from others as I never take any.

A Yunza photo, for reference, stolen from Ashley:

One parade pic, also yoinked from Ash:

The rest are Carnaval paint fight photos stolen from Mario.  We marched for HOURS.  Only he and Biz had waterproof cameras:

Christie got really sunburnt.

There's me!

Never ending.

John, Mario and Tim.  I love this guys.  All the way from Arequipa.

Well, that is all for now.  Chau.