Christmas in Peru

Well, I’ll remember a Christmas Eve and Christmas Day like no other I’ve ever had! Christmas season started about a week ago when all the children in the area were given toys by the municipality, plastic cars, Barbie type dolls and other plastic toys. Then the major oil company that wants to drill offshore did a toy give away. And throughout the week, there were chocolatatas. At a chocolatata, sometimes small gifts are exchanged but always there’s hot chocolate and panetone.
Christmas Eve day, two of the men in my family were painting the outside of the house with music at high volume. Their choice of music was a station that played old rock songs and since it was impossible to do anything with the music volume so high, I sat outside watching and translating lyrics into Spanish as best I could. You can picture me under a big tree scrambling to keep up with “Hey Jude” and other Beetles songs! My host mother is Jehovah’s Witness so holiday celebrations are not part of her belief system but she does some of the tradition for the family. She sent a family member to get rotisserie chicken for dinner around 10:30 at night which we ate with hot chocolate and panetone. After dinner she and I went walking to find a tienda with red soda to mix with sangria at midnight. This was really an opportunity to see the town late night on Christmas Eve. The streets were packed with kids setting off firecrackers, games set up in the town center and many groups of teens drinking beer. We shared toasts of sangria at midnight and went to bed but the night was punctuated by the incredibly loud sound system of the family across the street drinking hard until after 7AM. Breakfast was more panetone and then I took off to spend Christmas Day with my other Peru family, Peace Corps volunteers. I was breathing a sigh of relief especially since Christmas dinner was going to be pork and I’m determined not to eat pork while in Peru no matter how many assurances I get that this piggie was raised clean and free of cystocytosis.
Sarah, Robyn and I went to Zorritos, about 15 minutes south, checked into a hostel and ate a divine lunch of cerbiche and chicharones (fried mixed seafood). We called Frieda in the province of Ica and sang “Silent Night” on the speaker phone! Then we were joined by another Tumbes volunteer, Michelle who stayed the night as well. We swam in the ocean, called our friends around Peru (we have free calling to anyone in Peace Corps Peru) and compared notes on our experience here. We stayed in a room with a shower, flush toilet and soft, clean bed with the only sound in the night, the surf. I was in heaven my first night from my site for a night in a month. We all had some weepy moments along the way missing our families and our traditions but the ocean and companionship wiped away the blues.

The Grandmother with Itchy Feet

Once upon a time, there was a grandmother who had very itchy feet. She had a lovely home in Wisconsin with good friends and a garden. She had children she loved and the most wonderful grandchildren in the world. But sometimes, her feet got itchy and the only way she could stop them from itching was to travel.
Now this grandmother knew that when she traveled, she wouldn’t see her children and grandchildren for a long, long time. She knew she would be lonely for those little grandchildren so she tried and tried to stay home. But her feet wouldn’t stop itching unless she got on an airplane and went to someplace far, far away. So one day when the leaves were turning gold and the nights were growing cool, she got on an airplane and went to live in Peru which was indeed a long, long way away.
When she got to Peru, she lived in a big Peruvian family with lots of children. Now these children weren’t the same as her grandchildren, but they welcomed her into their home and gave lots of hugs. The children in Peru almost always live in a big family with aunts, uncles and cousins all around. They live in houses close to each other with the doors open all day so they can run in and out visiting.
In the grandmother’s house lived a little girl named Zulay with her brother Germain. Zulay was a beautiful, sweet 8 year old girl with very thick black hair. She loved the beach so every day, Zulay asked the grandmother with itchy feet to go to the beach to play in the sand and water. And in the houses nearby lived Vanya, Brandon and Sophia, little cousins who like to play. The children in Peru don’t have more than one or two toys so they make up games to play with each other with sticks and rocks. They run, chase and play ball for hours every evening. And always they plan soccer or volleyball.
At Christmas time, the grandmother with itchy feet really felt lonely for her grandchildren but she couldn’t come home because she had traveled so very far away. She wanted to snuggle and read stories so instead she wrote stories about her adventure. She wrote about the warm water of the ocean where she went swimming with her friends. She wrote about watching the fishing boats slowly move along the shore every day. She told her grandchildren about watching the fishermen bring in the fish. One day she saw them bring in a very shiny fish called a mirror fish. Grandmother looked very close and yes, she could see her face reflected on the side of the fish.
Grandmother wrote about the birds that fly all around the fishing boats. They are called scissor birds because they have tails that open and close like a pair of scissors. The scissor birds are watch for fish close to the top of the waves and near the boats. They know how to catch fish quickly and gobble them down as they fly. Sometimes they steal fish from other birds like the big brown pelicans who fill their big bills with fish.
The grandmother with itchy feet knew that one day her feet would stop itching and she would come home. Then she would be able to play with her grandchildren again. And if her feet became itchy after that, she would think of places the grandchildren could go with her so they could have adventures together!






1

Late afternoon in Tumbes

It’s late afternoon here and a cool breeze from the ocean finally cools off this tropical heat. Midday, I can barely move and drip with sweat as the fierce sun heats up this part of the world. The usual gossip is under the big tree in the yard, my host father is planted in front of the TV and the rest of the family are at their daily game of volleyball, played with intensity and for money.
I really have no idea how to work here but keep stirring the pot to see what happens. I’ve been asked to go to meetings that don’t happen and had unplanned meetings that were really productive. Yesterday I got so tired of kids staring at me that I yelled at them. I was on the front porch, devouring Utne Reader that Helen sent (arrived in 1 week!) and looked up to see a gaggle of little girls staring at me. Now this happens all the time but today I lost it and told them to quit. This caused them to hide around the porch and make weird kid noises until they got bored and left. I realize that we gringos stand out like a beacon light and that of course the kids are curious but yesterday, my patience lapsed and I didn’t want to hide in my room.
My host family has swelled to 11 people with the arrival of the proverbial prodigal son and his pregnant girlfriend so the house is always full of noise and activity. After several days of no water, the water turned on and I had the pleasure of a sponge bath. I’ve learned that it’s always this way at this time of the year when the major portion of available water is diverted to flood the rice fields as they are planted. This will lead to more mosquitoes and an increase in dengue fever.
And just when I was whining to other volunteers on my cell phone (calls are free to other volunteers through a network), I returned home to an incredible lunch made by my host sister. She made a chupe de mariscos (delicious soup with shrimp and poached egg) and a kind of spicy creamed shrimp on rice. All this served with fresh pineapple juice. How much whining could anyone do after this? So I did the only sensible thing and took a nap.
I taught my first yoga class today experimenting with the midwife that I work with at the clinic. Not that I’m a yoga teacher, I just did what Iris has taught me (without being able to say much in Spanish!). But it’s a start and I’ve committed to teach a weekly class in yoga and nutrition for pregnant women in January. Not that I ever know what I’m doing but stumbling along one day at a time.

Disappointment

Well, today we learned that 2 of the volunteers from my group who were assigned to Tumbes are being pulled and sent to another as yet unknown area for their service. They were placed in towns on the Ecuadoran border and it quickly became apparent that this was quite unsafe for any Peace Corps volunteers but especially young women. The So the Peace Corps send their security officer who recommended they be moved. As much as it is a relief to know they will not be in such an unsafe location, the 3 of us in my group who are left in Tumbes are sad to see them go and feel our support system shrinking.

So we went to lunch together, went to the beach, swam in the waves (I'm learning to dive under them as they break) and said a sad goodbye to Georgi and Freida.

Rats.

Sarita

Hinchada

Hinchada is the word for swollen, swollen anything but for me it's my feet and legs which are always a little swollen here in the heat. And do I get questions, advice and comments about this! As I was waiting for yet another meeting that didn't happen at the clinic the other day, an older woman sat next to me with questions about why my legs were swollen, questions about my health, blood pressure, etc. This has become pretty routine in my day.

And then there's the advice... I've been told many times to soak my feet in a bucket of salt water (to which I reply that I do this by walking on the shore in the water of the ocean), to put hot sand on my legs, put my legs up (which I do most days in a hammock after lunch). But today topped them all. My friend Sarah came for the afternoon from her neighboring town and we spent the afternoon walking on the beach, playing in the waves and talking. Afterward, I walked her to the highway to catch a car to her town. On my way back to my house, a woman in a tienda called out to me asking who I was, where I was from, what I was doing, etc.etc. Then she noticed my hinchada and was off on a roll. Before I could get away, I was sitting in her kitchen with my legs in a basin being bathed with canyasa (I don't have any idea how it's really spelled). But canyasa is Peruvian moonshine. One swallow and I'd probably fall over. But for a leg bath, not bad. I walked home with cool legs and realized I smelled like a town drunk.

There is no day without a surprise.

Sarita

Never knowing what to expect!

I never know what to expect in any area of my life here except perhaps for the unexpected! The arrangement with my host family is that I eat meals with them so I eat what’s put before me. And fortunately most of the time I like the food here especially since there are fishermen in the family. One day this week, my host brother brought me fresh cerviche with something he called pupa and described as a large squid with tentacles full of teeth that can pulverize your arm. Today, there is no water except for a bucket from a neighbor’s house. You never know when the water tap on the front porch will start to trickle and the family mobilizes to full the water tanks before it turns off.
The same is true of working here. Today I went to the clinic to work with the obstetriz (equivalent to a nurse midwife in the US). She asked me to do nutritional counseling with prenatal patients which I did for about an hour when no more patients were coming to the door of the room I was using. I went out to find the obstetra had left for the capitol city in the ambulance with a patient. I had a meeting scheduled with someone else in ½ hour so I stayed around but the meeting never happened. I’m never sure whether I misunderstood or plans changed.
Then this afternoon I went back just as the health post doctor was doing routine checks on the older adults. He asked me to do nutrition counseling with them so impromptu, I met with about 20 older adults and inquired about their nutrition, encouraged them to increase fruits, vegetables, milk and decrease salt and sugar. This was a great learning opportunity for me as I bumbled through with my weak Spanish bolstered by their graciousness. As is often the case, they were teaching me about life here which is indeed quite difficult. Most of the people I talked to didn’t have money for canned milk, fruit or yogurt. And the idea of vegetables includes yucca, potatoes, sweet potatoes and more potatoes with occasional carrots, beets or peas. And of course there was the 84 year old man who talked so fast I understood only a few words but did understand that he wanted to dance with me and would like to have a woman to hold. All I could do was laugh and make a quick decision that any kind of talk about nutrition with this guy was really out of the question!
Sometimes I just don’t have any frame of reference for the lack of resources. The health post doesn’t have any more water than the rest of the town which means there are no hand washing facilities in exam rooms or staff bathrooms. The dentist has a water barrel and pitcher for hand washing. People do the best they can with what they have so I look for the strengths. The staff is caring and proud of their work which includes a lot of education around prevention. Several days a week, I’ll be working house to house with a health promoter. The health promoters here are often nurses who live in the community and know every family. The privacy mandated by HIPPA is a long, long way from Peru! Every house has a metal plate with the number (not the address but the house number). The health post has records of who needs vaccines, who keeps water tanks covered to prevent breeding of the mosquitoes carrying dengue, etc. I was encouraged to take photos of families after I interview them and jumped through my hesitation to find that most people wanted their picture taken. Next week, I start doing formal interviews and keeping data with the goal of interviewing 100 families by the end of February. Most of my questions involve nutrition, water sources and whether the house has a latrine, toilet, or the family uses the open fields.
So I start most days with some kind of plan and a LOT of flexibility for the unexpected!

Learning day by day

I constantly feel like I'm learning something new here and a lot of what I learn is about my assumptions. When the outside water tap turned on yesterday, I hurried with my host mom to fill containers. Then I asked why we didn't fill 3 barrels at a time, if there was enough water to do so. And learned that yes there is but the family can't afford a 3rd barrel, she has wanted a small covered barrel in the kitchen for water for a long time. But money is scarce. And before you think I should go out and buy another barrel, I'm learning to be cautious about my relationship with people and money.

Today I stumbled through the process of going house to house with a health promoter learning how to ask questions. Often I asked a question and was met with a blank look only to have the health promoter ask the same question in the same words and be understood. Then I realized I needed paper clips and went to a tienda but didn't know what the damn things are called here. After a pantomime, a man in the tienda said, "Cliks, ella necesita cliks" and I have paper clips.

I'm getting started with projects here, including the house to house questions and work with another NGO on a garbage project. There is garbage everywhere without barrels, without systems of clean up. In the town is a dry river bed where people throw their trash. It all goes out to the ocean in the rainy season. And in the river bed are enormous pigs rooting and running with their baby pigs. I'll throw my shoulder to the wheel of this garbage and recycling project in a heartbeat.

And after a hot, hot day, a fine breeze of the ocean. My host brother who is a fisherman made me cerviche with something in it from a giant squid like creature that weighs about 70 kilograms and can pulverize your arm like a blender. That's as much as I understood but the cerviche was delicious.

Good grief, I have no clue what I'm doing, I just stumble day to day learning as fast as I can.

Cheers
Sarita

Living by the beach

Well, I’ve got to say that this site is an incredible and I feel quite lucky in many ways. After a week, I’m beginning to adjust to my new home, the huge extended family and the scarcity of water. For every inconvenience, there are 10 things that are great. One of these is the beach, a long stretch of beach with fine sand, fishing boats offshore and lots birds. I hear the ocean all the time from the kitchen and bathroom of the house which have open barred windows. When I wake in the night, I hear the ocean.
Lest you think this is paradise, this is also a dirty beach where the single guys hand out to drink in the evening so after about 6PM, it’s off limits for this gringa. Saturday, I went to the beach with a youth group for a clean-up project and learned in the process that there are no garbage barrels, there isn’t much idea of the beach as a resource and the dry river bed leading to the ocean is where lots of people dump their garbage.
That said, the Pacific Ocean is magnificent and once beach area central to La Cruz was cleaned up by these kids, the boys headed out to swim and everyone joined in a game of beach soccer. I watched the guys as they dove under the incoming waves and decided to try it the next day. So today, Robyn came from her site which is about 20 minutes away and we spend the morning at the beach with about 6 of the children from my extended family. It’s going to take me a while to learn to swim in this water but I really had a blast. And I almost lost my water shorts in the process. Lesson learned, tie the waist tight and don’t let the little kids grab you by the shorts!
After a few hours, we returned to the house for lunch of chicken, rice and a potato salad with a pimento sauce and fresh papaya juice prepared by my host mom. Then Robyn headed home and I fell asleep in the hammock with kids playing, TV on and conversations all around me!
Tomorrow, I will be meeting a woman from an NGO called Cuidades Saludables that has interest in starting a garbage collection and recycling project in La Cruz. I’m looking forward to meeting with this group and will give all the support I can if they decide to bring a project to La Cruz.
I’ve been very fortunate to meet good people in my first week including the young man who is the youth group leader, completely on his own without resources. My job at the beach cleaning was to take photos and like teenagers everywhere, they preened and posed like crazy. Now their leader has the photos on his flashdrive. I have to laugh when I see pictures of me in the middle of this group, talk about being different! The kids were fascinated that I’m always white (blancita) and really thought it funny when I told them that in the sun I change from white to red. However, that’s not going to happen because I am very faithful with sun screen.

Little things mean a lot

Well, day by day I'm learning how to live here. Yesterday I was flat out with dysentery and a cold but was visited by the sweet health center doctor who gave me pills. I have no idea what they were but they helped and today I started antibiotics.

I also made my first solo trip to the capitol city 15 minutes away which felt like a good learning and independence. Going into the capitol entails standing by the side of the road until one of the many old almost wrecked cars with cracked windshield and dragging muffler stops. These are actually a public transport system and registered with someone official somewhere. So for about 70 cents in US money, I get a ride to the capitol.

After my illness, my host family now understands that the gringa has to have boiled water and I have my own pitcher in the kitchen. I also set up a handwashing station in the kitchen with a tub of water that has a spigot.

In the capitol, I bought an electricity stabilizer which keeps from frying my computer as the current surges and wanes regularly here. And thank you Todd for all the great computer help before I left the states. Everything works well and Skype is awesome.

Then at the end of the day, I walked on the beach with my host mom, sat and talked about many things. I told her about my mother's ashes being scattered in the same ocean and she told me she had loved futball (soccer) so much that when she dies she wants her ashes scattered in the stadium.

Bit by bit I'm learning how to live here. I had soft boiled eggs for dinner with the divine cracked pepper that Norma sent.

And any inconvenience is overridden by the warm hospitality of the people here. They have such high hopes for what I'll do for their community, I hope to meet a small portion of their expectations.

Cheers
Sarita

Water

I'm asked dozens of questions every day, most of them over and over again. Where am I from? Why am I here? How much did my camera cost? Where is my husband? What is my religion? How old am I? What are my health problems? Where are my children? Do I believe in God and Jesus? How much money did I make in the US? So I answer most of the questions except those about money which is too sensitive.

I often have been asked what I miss most which is my family and friends. Then I'm asked what food I miss and that is cheese since it's rare and almost nonexistant here in Tumbes where refrigeration is also rare.

However, I know have an answer to the question what do I miss most (except my loved ones). I MISS WATER!!!! Water is so scarce. My family gets 2 barrels a week for 7 people and last week there wasn't any water available. I bathed today with about 1 quart of water. I have almost a panicked sense of scarcity about water.

My host mom asked about water in the US and was totally blown away by learning that we can turn on a tap and have drinkable water. Here the water that does come from any source, tap, barrel or truck is not drinkable although many people do drink it and live with chronic diarrhea. Even the staff at the clinic are surprised to learn that we get as much water as we need from a tap and it's healthy to drink. The clinic doesn't have handwashing facilities that I've seen yet. The toilet in my house flushes when someone takes a bucket bath and uses the waste water to put down the toilet.

Did I say that I miss water?? And that today, I have my first attack of stomach cramps and diarrhea? So I've rested much, purchased a dresser for my clothes and now am going to relish the books Norma sent me 7 days ago which arrived fast and in good condition!

Cheers
Sara

Swearing in and leaving Lima

Well, I am now officially a Peace Corps volunteer after the swearing in ceremony last Friday. We gathered under a red, white and blue canopy, sang the Peruvian and US national anthems, heard words from the embassy rep, the Peace Corps director for Peru, one of the host mothers, and a representative from our group. Then we all took the oath to represent the US well and partied with our host families. After very tearful goodbyes to families and staff, we were trucked to a hostel in Lima for the night.

This is such an unpredictable experience! The hostel was a pretty dingy place with a couple of bathrooms down the hall and rooms full of bunkbeds. I was so tired that I wanted a less chaotic room so I shared the night with one other volunteer, Douglas who had a fever and was vomiting. In fact, he threw up right before the ceremony, went on to give a terrific speech and then threw up the rest of the evening! And shared a room with one very tired woman.

Saturday, we spent saying goodbyes to each other as many of us will not have much contact from now on except by cell phone which we can use free to call each other. When my host mom looked at our group photo with my white hair in the midst of this big group, she said, "you have 45 new kids" and I answered, "no, I have 2 kids in the US and 45 new friends here" which is quite true. So at 4PM, the 5 of us headed for Tumbes got on a bus for a 20 hour bus ride. Yep, you got that right, 4PM until noon the following day. We were greeted in Tumbes by two other volunteers who took us to a hostel for a shower, out for cerviche, and a bit of rest. Then the other Sarah in our group was robbed of her money and ID as she was walking down the street, also getting one leg banged up as she fell in this incident. We did our best to patch her up and then I took off for my new home.

My new family is huge. 7 people in the house but extended family on all sides with lots of kids and adults in and out all day. I have a room on the side of the living room with 3/4 wall so there are no noise filters. There is no running water, in fact water is in short supply so I will have bucket baths for 2 years. And all this is offset by the incredible support and warmth of this big family.

Today, my first day, I started by going along in an ambulance to the nearest hospital with a woman in preterm labor. Then met more community people, detailed out more of my work plan and participated in a world AIDS day march complete with stilt walkers and all the kids from a big primary school. At the end of the march the staff from the health center did rapid HIV tests in front of a big crowd, including giving results. One of the prometoras (educators) from the health clinic was corralling people to give a short talk on HIV. I have a great picture of her giving a talk to a young man on a motorcycle surrounded by grade school kids.

So at the end of the day, I went to the beach with a few of the children in my big family to run and play in the waves. Then supper of tea, bread and banana. Now, I am about to collapse after I clean off my sandy feet and put in earplugs.

I am not bored...

Cheers
Sara