Yay For Coffee and Exercise

Yet another fabulous picture from my reconnect trip. As Peace Corps volunteers we have a lot of time on our hands, so we have to find new and creative ways to entertain ourselves. Here we are playing the game 3 flies up with an inflatable doll. Her name was Judy.

Meanwhile back at site, life has resumed to it's slow pace where daily events that are normally insignificant are the high lights of weeks sometimes even months. I had two of these seemingly mundane occurrences this week. The first is that I bought a french press. No more instant coffee for me! This morning was the first morning I brewed up a cup, and it was amazing. I bought the coffee from a volunteer in the north part of the country. His tiny village is in a coffee growing region and even though he is a youth development volunteers he's trying to help out the coffee growers as well and sold a few kilos of coffee to us at reconnect. So not only does drinking the coffee rouse my senses, awaken my taste buds and put a smile on my face, but it also makes me feel like I'm doing a good thing by supporting the local farmers in a fellow volunteers site. The reason it took me 3 months to buy a french press in the first place is because the only ones I'd seen were at Starbucks and were being sold for 90 soles. I found at my last trip to the super market, one for 15 soles. It was in a box and the picture on it looked like it could be pretty crappy but I was fed up with instant coffee and decided to take the chance. It's actually a pretty nice french press, no worse the ones they were charging an arm and a leg for at Starbucks. So HA! who needs you, expensive corporate conglomerate? I am a peace corps volunteer and am getting more frugal and more creative by the day.

My second exciting thing from this week is that my gym got two new bikes. At almost any other gym this may not be that big a deal. But at my gym there had previously only been 4 cardio machines, 3 of which were broken and the other was so old and beat up it was hardly worth the effort. These two new bikes are actually decent machines and I can finally supplement the exercise classes with my own cardio. So I tried out the bike for the first time last night and now I can add it to places in Peru I've been hit on. I don't really consider the gym too strange a place to get hit on, but I hate having to take the headphones out of my ears to listen to some idiot hit on me. But I'll take getting hit on every now and then if it means getting a workout like I did last night. Between the coffee and the exercise I will hopefully be more awake, more fit and happier.

Back to Reality...Or Something Like It

I knew I was officially home from my reconnect vacation when I walked in my front door sunday night to all 10 of my host family members crammed in our little living room all watching my host dad and the screaming baby. The baby was sick, again. So the family has gathered round to watch it be "cleansed". Even though my host family is poor and not well educated, I like to think that they are a bit more intellegant than the average peruvian living under similar conditions. I was amazed that my host mom new that the Alps were the mountain range that ran Germany because most Peruvians can`t find their own country on a map. True story.

But my pride for my host families mental superiority was hurt after witnessing this ritual they did with the baby. When I walked in the door, my host dad was rubbing newspaper, rather aggresively, all over the baby`s body. Naturally the baby was screaming from it`s displeasure, but my host dad continued to do this for a good 5 minuets, going over the same area multiple times and paying special attention to her head and face. After he was done, he pulled out a liter and, set the newpaper on fire and dropped it on the ground for it to burn. As ash rained down on my newly washed white sweater, the family just watched the newspaper burn while nodding in agreeance that "there was a lot of air". I could pretty much guess the belief my family had about why they had done this to the sick baby, but I still had to ask. Apparently, by rubbing the newspaper all over the body, it takes away all the "sick air" and you could tell the baby was really sick by how quickly the newspaper burned.

I could have just left it at that, but I had to pry more. I asked them if the simple task of rubbing the newspaper over the body takes away all the air, why then, was it necessary to burn the newspaper? There response: burning the newspaper is the only way to kill the bad air. Okay, why then was it necessary to burn it in the house and get everything all ashy? So the burning newspaper doesn´t blow away, apparently that`s really bad. I decided to leave it at that. There are a lot of crazy beliefs in Peru, especially about sickness. There is one famous "cure all" many peruvians believe in where you pass a guine pig over a sick person, then kill the ginue pig and cut it open and POOF. What ever ailment the person had been suffering from transfers to the ginue pig and the person is cured. Burning newspaper I can handle, but if I walk into the house and they are sacrificing animals in the living room, I`m outta there.

Sun, Friends and Turkey!

Reconnect. I don't even know where to begin. It would have been a fabulous vacation even if I hadn't been a Peace Corps volunteer who'd spent the last 6 months living out of her comfort zone in a crazy new country. But the second I stepped onto the overnight bus bound for trujio, I felt back in my element. Probably because I was with Danielle and I always feel more at home when I´m with a good friend

She had an artisan fair that she came in for last saturday, so my vacation started the moment I saw her. Our reconnect was held in the beach town Huanchaco, which is right outside one of the main cities, Trujio. Danielle and I arrived at our Hotel at 7 in the morning. When we walked into the gate and we were greated with cheers from 10 other volunteers who had arrived even earlier than we had. They were eating breakfast by the pool. I was elated from that moment, and the feeling never left. We had all of sunday free to explore the town, see the sights and prepare for our presentations. But instead we spent the day at the beach and by the pool, drinking boxed wine. It was a productive day because we were "reconnecting".

I had a big first in Huanchaco, my first ceviche. For those of you who have no idea what ceviche is, it is the most famous dish from Peru. Usually within the first conversation I have with a Peruvian, after they ask me if I'm religous and how much I weigh, they ask me if I've tried ceviche yet. It is a dish of mixed raw fish with onions and lemons juice. I was pretty scared to try it cause I've heard many horror stories about ceviches gone bad and days spooing the toilet. But I felt the time had come try this infamous delicacy. It was delicous and I didn't get sick. Success! I even ate it again afterwards. Apart from the ceviche, I really treated myself food wise. Because Huanchaco is full of restaurants run by expats, there is no shortage of American comfort food. I had the best french toast of my life and cannot wait to return to this charming beach town if only for the cuisine.

The actual event of reconnect was nice. We were able to share our experiences of our first three months at site and find new motivation to go back. The group dinamic of Peru 9 was really tested this past week. Since our swearing in, we have had three peru 9ers go back to the states. We spent an entire afternoon digesting one of the more serious cases, and for me, it was desperately needed group therapy. I had been trying to deal with the stuff that has happened alone in my room and it wasn´t doing me any good. After a lot of tears and talking through our thoughts and fears, I think all of us are processing what has happened better. We also had a group member open up to us and share something very important and I feel this revelation brought us even closer together as a group. All and all it was a very significant reunion for all of us.

But we didn´t let all this seriousness take over the vacation. We´ve all had too much serious time at site that when we weren´t in tech sessions, we were being as silly as we possibly could be. Our guys are some of the funniest people I have ever met and when they are together they are an unstopable force of nature. There was an entire night where they dicided to be pirates and not one of them broke character for a full 3 hours. We had the privaleg of hearing one of the greatest pirate, improve, monologes preformed by Vishal to a table of American ladies sitting next to us at dinner one night. I did my part of crazy debatchery by, of course, skinny dipping with the girls in the ocean late one night.

This Thanksgiving will probably remain one of the more memorable one´s of my life. It was significant mainly because I was able to spend it with the people I love the most in this country. We spent the day on the beach, drank beer and ate ceviche. We arranged for an Ex-pat with a restaurant to make our thanksgiving dinner. It had all the classic trimmings and after our meal we sat around a bon fire eating our pumpkim and peacan pies.

It was pretty sad to go home after such an amazing week. But I will be seeing everyone again soon. At least half of my group will be in Lima at one point or another in the month of December. And then a big group will be spending New Years together at a beach resort on the north coast. When I went home on saturday, I arrived so late in Lima I didn´t feel it was safe to head back to site, so I called a friend to see if I could crash at her place. Turns out, she was celebrating Thanksgiving dinner that night with a bunch of Americans and Peruvians, so I got two Turkey dinners. And we ended up going out till 4 in the morning. I felt that my vacation was complete cause Huanchaco was more of a tranquil vacation and I didn´t party very hard. I returned to site today feeling very fulfulled and conent. I´m ready to go back to work and I look forward to the upcoming holiday season here in Peru.

Every Accomplishment Counts

I'm sitting in the Peace Corps office counting down the hours till I leave for reconnect. The 4 volunteers that serve in the Arequipa, flew into Lima this morning so I've already had a chance to talk to some people from my group who I haven't seen in 3 months. I went to a conference this morning for international volunteers in the area. I had high hopes for the opportunities to meet other volunteers in Lima and learn what type of work they do. It ended up totally sucking. We did things like draw pictures about how we felt the first 24 hours we arrived in Peru. The activities were not things I wanted to be doing after having been here for 6 months already. And it wasn't very helpful to me anyways, because these were all people who lived and worked in the city of Lima and couldn't relate to my experiences at all. So I cut out early to spend the afternoon with volunteers I could really relate to, my fellow PCV's. The one good thing about the workshop was eating lunch with the group and chatting it up with volunteers from Australia, Switzerland and Italy. I didn't find the workshop helpful in anyway, but I'm happy I went cause it allowed me to see a new part of Lima and meet different people.

I have had a few mild success this past week. The first being that I was moved up from the intermediate step class at my gym to the advanced class. Now one would think, that it is the gym member who elects what level class she would like to attend. But one day I showed up for my intermediate class and they told me I wasn't allowed to be in it anymore cause I had gotten too good. This is an accomplishment that I am not terribly proud of, but it just reminded me of my personal strengths in life. While I struggled for months and months to move up from my "intermediate-high" language level in Spanish to "advanced-low", it only took a matter of weeks for me to be promoted in step class, a thing I had no experience upon arrival in Peru. Now if only sports could get me into grad school....

My second big accomplishment for the week was completing my Community Analysis report. I haven't sat in front of a computer for hours on end trying to make a deadline since college. I spent two full days at the Peace Corps office writing my report and making my power point presentation. Each afternoon I would take a break and go to Starbucks and walk around the mall. At the end of the day I felt a way I hadn't felt in long time, normal. Putting in a long day of work around familiar American commodities, English speakers and taking coffee breaks at Starbucks made me feel the way I used to back in the states. Only feeling "normal" felt weird and unnatural. Then the realization hit me that my definition of normal had changed and for the first time I recognized that I have changed. And it's not just my habits and day to day life that I have gotten used to. I do feel like a different person in many ways than I was when I left the states 6 months ago. I think and feel differently. But don't worry, even with all my newly gained maturity, I am still the same fun lovin Ali of sunny Cali.

I was nervous about turning in my report. Since I was in the office and my boss new I was going to be finished with it before the end of the day, she asked if she could send it out to all the other volunteers as an example for the people who were struggling. I didn't like this idea at all, but reluctantly agreed wanting to make my boss happy. After turning it is she called me up to her office to tell me she wasn't going to be sending it out to the group. Great, I thought. It was so bad not only is she embarrassed to send it out to the group, but I'll probably have to rewrite it. Turns out, she was really impressed with my report and didn't want to send it out because she thought it was so good it would freakout all the other volunteers and think they would have to live up to this high a standard. Obviously, this made me feel great and this is an accomplishment I am terribly proud about. The kind of accomplishment that might actually help me get into grad school. As for my Spanish level, I'm just gonna keep on trucking and eventually it will be one of my finest accomplishments.

Goodies From Home

Today is the best I have felt in a while. This whole week in general has been good. Tomorrow is the last day I will spend at site for at least 8 days, so knowing a well needed vacation is close, helps a lot. I've been pretty busy, which is a nice change. I've started a mural painting project at the orphanage and we're trying to get the first one done before I leave. I put up a picture of the orphanage, just cause I've been bad at uploading pictures. I'm gonna make an effort to post more. I also have a huge community analysis I am writing for my reconnect next week. So I am in the office in Lima today to use the computers and will spend all day Friday here getting it ready too, hopefully that will be enough time. It should be , as long as I spend my time working on the project and not blogging and writing emails to everyone.

I hadn't been in the office to check my mail in a month. I got a few letters and a package and I can't put into words the way I felt upon seeing the names of people who had sent me things: Amanda, Amber and Spencer. All people I went to high school with, well, I've really known all of them much longer than that. The package was from Amanda. I have no idea how she found the time in Med school to put together such a personal package. I opened it up and the first thing I saw was bright autumn leaves. This is something uniquely Amanda. One of her moms favorite things was the color of the trees during the fall. So this gesture is as close as sending an actual hug as Amanda could have done. As you can see by the picture, I got a bunch of other goodies too. Thank you to all my wonderful friends. I wish the post wasn't so expensive here or I would spend hours making beautiful cards to show my gratitude. I'm coming back next summer and am bringing Peruvian treasures for everyone!

Life in the Slow Lane

It seems to me, my life has gone from new and crazy to slow and boring. I don´t feel I have all that much to write about. Actually, I have a bunch of entries written but I haven´t posted them because I feel they wouldn´t be interesting to any one. Things that once would have shocked me and made me write a detailed email about the strange things I encounter, now seem redundant. It could be that I have fallen into a bit of a slump and lost my vigor to capture all the things that are happening around me. But honestly, I don´t feel that anything worthy to write home about has happened recently.

I feel I am in desperate need of a vacation from my everyday life. Luckily, in just a few days I will be leaving the dusty roads of Buena Vista for the sunny beaches in the north on my first vacation in 6 months. That is, if you don´t count Peru itself as a type of vacation, which I do in many aspects. I really can´t wait to escape the day in and day out hassles I put up with on a regular basis. I look forward to not having to feel nervous about standing in front of troubled teens trying to generate discussions in a language that is not my native tongue. I can´t wait to be among friends with whom I feel like myself and talking to them is relaxing and fun instead of hard and embarrassing.

On Friday morning I will go into the PC office and Lima and work on my community base line presentation for my 3 month reconnect. I will spend the night in Lima on Friday cause I have to be at a workshop for international volunteers in the area, early in the morning. That evening I will get on an overnight bus and wake up Sunday morning in Trujillo. From there I will travel to a hotel on the beach where my reconnect is being held. Monday-Wednesday is the reunion and then we are all staying an extra day so we can spend thanksgiving together. After that I don't know what I will do. I don´t have to be back at site till Monday. I´m either going to spend the weekend on the beach or go up into the mountains for the first time. No matter what I do, I´m going to be spending time with friends. Contrary to what I thought orginally, spending so much time on my own has gotten harder and more lonely. I thought I would get used it by 3 months, but it has only made me feel more alone. I´m anxiously counting down the days till I leave. Only 4 nights to go. And I´ll be pretty busy trying to get everything ready and cram in extra time at the Hogars to make up for the week I am going to miss. At least I know my new life in the slow lane will move pretty quickly while I am hustling to get everything done on time.

A Plague on Both Your Houses

A pox has broken out...the chicken pox that is. Here at the orphanage there are two buildings. In the upstairs of these buildings are the dormitories. The girls sleep in one and the boys sleep in the other. Last week the youngest boy came home from school with an itchy red spot. That´s him on the left. His name is Christian, he´s 5 and is normally the sweetest little boy in the Hogar. The sisters concluded it was chicken pox. Fearing a Hogar-wide break out, they immediately pulled him our of the boys dormitory and quarantined him....in the girls dormitory.

I didn´t quite see the logic behind this, but I don´t feel I´m in a position to be telling these nuns who have worked in these types of establishments for decades how I think things should be done. What really surprised me is that the next two kids to get the pox, were boys. I figured this was a simple matter of probability. There are 16 boys and only 5 girls, and half of the girls claim they have had chicken pox already. But today, one of the girls started scratching. It now appears we have 4 kids sick and quarantined.

I feel really bad for the kids. Not only does having the chicken pox suck, but they don´t get the benefits American kids get when they are sick. For me, being sick meant skipping school, watching TV, playing video games, eating ice cream and lot´s of special attention. For the kids in the orphanage, missing school is more like a punishment than a treat. It´s the only time they get to leave the Hogar and is the only time they get to spend with kids other than the ones they live with. The kids with the chicken pox have to stay in private bedrooms away from all the other kids and there is no TV or games or ice cream. They´re locked in a room all day and are itching to jump out of their skin figuratively and literally. I try to spend time with the quarantined kids every day and they are grateful for the company. Good thing I had chicken pox and shingles when I was little, so I feel doubly protected. I am worried though, that just because I can´t get it, doesn´t mean I can´t carry it. I´m not sure if it´s possible for me to carry the germs. If so, I have the potential to infect the other Hogar where I work with this annoying illness. It breaks makes me so sad cause all the kids are so miserable. I can´t wait till they all get better and Christian is as bright and smiley as ever

The Toughest Job You`ll Ever Love

The two Hogars where I spend most of my time are very different from one another. Making one more challenge I face daily, on a seemingly never ending list. The Orphanage is mostly boys all under the age of 11. There is non-stop screaming, hitting and the kids in general run wild. The home for sexually abused girls has girls of all ages from infants to young mothers. They are all quite and I feel like I`m pulling teeth to get them to participate in discussions. The orphanage has been easier from the start. All you have to do is show up, and the kids love you. When I walk in the door they all come running at me and overwhelm me hugs and kisses. When it comes time to eat lunch, all the kids beg me to sit at their table. And I`m getting to the point where the love is mutual. I adore and care so much for all the kids that when I go back to the states in two years, it will be hard not to take one with me. The problems I face mostly at the orphanage is trying to keep their attention long enough to do any kind of activity. I`ve come to except that order and discipline will never be as I was used to in the US. There have been times at the orphanage where I have wanted nothing more than to put the kids in cages.

At the home for sexually abused girls I am facing a completely different set of problems. When I am teaching a work shop, there is no screaming, hitting or chaos. They mostly sit in silence and when I ask them to do simple tasks like write down things they like to do in their free time, they say they can`t think of anything. The don`t love me just for being there like the little boys in the orphanage. I can`t win them over with my ability to walk on my hands or raise one eye brow. They have been mistreated, abandoned and don`t trust anyone. It is very frustrating to try and work with these girls, especially since I don`t have perfect language skills. But I also understand where they are coming from and know how hard life is for them. After each workshop I meet with the home`s psychologist and we talk about the girls. It breaks my heart. Today we talked about a 15 year old girl with a 18 month old daughter and how she wants me to pay her special attention cause she`s suffering from depression. Her mother has mental problems and was unable to stop her at-the-time-boyfriend from sexually abusing her daughter. Now this poor 15 year old has a baby born out of abuse, a mother who can`t take care of her and is living in a home full of girls in similar situations.

I remember this girl as being the first girl to talk to me and open up to me the first day I arrived at the Hogar. I was feeling pretty scared and lonely myself so we were able to talk about how hard it is to be separated from your family and live in a strange place. She is a very sweet girl and very smart. Right now, even though I am running workshops on self esteem, the most important thing I am doing is not the teaching lessons but gaining the trust and confidence of these girls so they will let me in their lives and allow me to help them. I`m realistic and know there isn`t a whole lot I am capable of doing for them. But I can be there for them, and at the very least, give them hope that there is a better life out there. I feel really down and out sometimes, in the whole cultural adjustment process, but then I come to this Hogar and it puts my problems in perspective and reminds me why I suffer through the tough times at site. After all, Peace Corps is the toughest job you`ll ever love, so they say.