just breathe. (written 12.12)

So here were are, with thirteen days left until Christmas! How exciting. I know I keep referencing how hot it is here but today it’s actually pretty nice. I’d put it at about 80 degrees and there’s actually a nice little breeze going on. So, for the moment, I am very pleased with my surroundings. I finally went to the market yesterday and bought a dresser so I can stop living out of my suitcases and it kind of made me living here more permanent. I mean, it was permanent before, but now I actually spent a few hours and energy to get a piece of furniture for my room that there is no way in hell I can return. So yeah, my room looks a little more normal now.

Yesterday was also my first yoga class! Teaching yoga, that is. In Spanish. This was a joke. There is no way I can take myself seriously as a yoga teacher. Let alone, the language barrier still continues to be a problem so I ended up miming everything and hoping my “students” had enough patience to follow suit. I had about 10-15 kids and teens come with one mom and one of the community’s health promotors who’s about 30. Even though a lot of the kiddies were giggling and interpreted the command “breathe” as “snore”, they all said they wanted to do it again next week! But what really made me happy was one girl came up after class who looked about 16 and asked if the “older kids” could have a separate class form the younger kids so could concentrate and learn more!!! I labeled this as a giant leap for the “Lindsey’s progress in Peace Corps” category and this week Im actually going to sit down and learn how to say “downward facing dog” in Spanish as opposed to just “perro a reves.”

Other than yoga class, things are still moving pretty slowly in San Juan. After getting back from my regional meeting in Piura on Tuesday afternoon, I learned that my uncle was in the hospital in Tumbes with respiratory problems. He had woken up that morning having trouble breathing and so went to the hospital in the capital city (also called Tumbes). There he found out, one of his lungs was filled with fluid and mucous which was no doubt, causing his breathing problems. However, since there lacks any sort of specialist of any type (cardiologist, pulmonologist, surgeon, etc.), the primary care doctor there couldn’t do anything. But, with his condition worsening, the staff decided that my uncle needed to go to Piura city (5 hours away) where he could be seen by a specialist and put on a ventilator (because at this point there were only nurses assisting his breathing using a manual air pump).

So at six on Tuesday evening, Alberto was taken via ambulance to Piura where he arrived around midnight. However, when he got there they discovered one lung was completely filled with fluid and the other was 66% full. So he was operating on 1/6 of his lung capacity. Sadly to say, two hours after arriving, my uncle passed away when his heart stopped after being under so much pressure to circulate blood to his oxygen-depleted body. The part that sucks about this though is that a. he felt fine the day before and b. if we had adequate health care in Tumbes, he would have been able to care sooner and probably would not have died. But c’est la vie. So later that SAME DAY we had an open casket wake for him that lasted all night and included praying the rosary. A lot. The next day was the funeral (people in Peru sure move fast) and it seemed like the whole town came. What I learned from all of this is how resilient Peruvians are. The day after the funeral, I went and visited the family (I’m friends with his daughter) and everyone there was in pretty high spirits. I think Peruvians deal with deal in an entirely different way than other people (or at least from what I’ve experienced), but that’s a different and long conversation to get into, so all I will say is, RIP Tio Alberto!

(written 14.12)

This may be switching topics, but I feel a sense of duty to keep you all clued in on my going ons. I'm not sure if I informed you all or not that my cousins that live next door have a giant cock-fighting ring. Yesterday, blood was shed at the ring. It was the annual cock-fighting tournament where about 30 roosters come in from all over Tumbes (including San Juan, TUmbes and a bunch of neighboring caserios) to compete for 1000 soles (about $300). I'm not sure if you all are familiar with cock fighting but it basically is just a fight to the death between two roosters at once. These little guys go at it too. I never knew how sharp their talons were! Anyways, I've been looking forward to this day since I arrived at site because I am woken up every morning around 3 or 4am when the rooster party starts and I feel like I am living inside a chicken coop or something. My cousins have about 20 of their own roosters and upon asking my little cousin Ronny is we were going to fight any of them in the tournament, he told me about 10 or 15 were entered. If you do the math and only ONE of them can win (if any) the decibel level of noise and relentless cook a doodle dooing will decrease by at least half after the day was over. Unfortunately, I could only stay and watch the first two matches, but I did catch myself cheering a little bit (who would have thought that just a mere few months ago I was an avid believer in animal rights and would have cried at the sight of animal blood being shed for entertainment purposes. I guess an old dog can learn new tricks. I will let you all know the final stats and winner in my next post!