The End of February

I cannot believe I survived the last ten days. I’ve traveled over half of the country in an effort to get to Lima to celebrate Peace Corps’ 50^th anniversary, bus into the northern highlands of Cajamarca to celebrate Carnaval and then wind myself down the mountains and up the coast again to get back home to Tumbes. And then brainstorm, organize, and execute a party for International Women’s Day for around 35 ladies and their children with no money to do it.

I didn’t think I could do it but I did and I had some awesome and hilarious moments along the way.

Day 1-5: Leave site for 21-hour bus ride from Tumbes to Lima. This wouldn’t be so bad except I tried to save money on my trip and take the “economical bus.” Thank God for Dramamine.

I arrived in Lima at 10:30 and had a meeting and lunch at noon with the Chief of Staff of Peace Corps (3^rd in command of the whole worldwide-program), the Director of the Inter –America- Pacific Region, my country director and 10 of the other volunteer representatives from all of the other departments that we volunteer in. I didn’t have time to get over to my hostel so I went straight to the Peace Corps office and showered there and tried to make myself look halfway decent.

After lunch, the volunteer reps and myself traveled downtown to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to listen to the U.S. Ambassador, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Peace Corps Chief of Staff Stacey Rhodes to speak on the success of Peace Corps over the last 50 years. The building where this all took place is called the Torre Tagle Palace which as built in the 1700s as one of the most elaborate homes in South America for the treasurer of the Royal Spanish fleet (got that last piece of info from Wikipedia J ). It was very nice and thank God short because as I got home around 9 pm, I immediately passed out.

The next evening’s activities were much more impressive. About 70 volunteers had been invited or picked to visit the U.S. embassy and then have a reception at the ambassador’s house on the actual Peace Corps anniversary (March 1^st ). I actually blow-dried my hair, put on makeup and wore heels for the first time in Peru. I felt pretty again!!!! I would like to give special props and thanks to my mom for sending me an array of dresses to choose from and awesome shoes, because according to Peruvian standards, I am a giant and I would not have been able to find anything here. So yeah, the volunteers were all bussed form the U.S. embassy into downtown Lima to the ambassador’s house. Including rush hour, it was around an hour-long trip. Of course, my parasite or whatever lives in my GI tract had been acting up THE ENTIRE week (no joke) and 20 minutes into the bus ride I start to get that feeling.

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that feeling.

It’s the feeling you get when you know you need to get to a bathroom STAT but you’re trapped. Unfortunately for me, I was trapped in a bus in high heels in Lima traffic. At first I just thought everything would pass, but nooooooooo. Things just got worse. I started to sweat and eventually I couldn’t bare it any longer- I had to get out. I asked our Peace Corps training “mom” Kathy who was on the bus if she could ask the driver to pull over. Two minutes later she comes back and says:

“ Okay we’re going to pull over but two of the boys have to accompany you because we’re in sort of a seedy area.”

Did I mention we were in La Victoria? The most dangerous barrio in Lima? Well, we were.

It gets better. The first place the bus could find was a tire and rim shop on the side of the road. As I’ve said before, nothing can embarrass me anymore so I hopped out of the bus with two guy friends and scooted into the tire joint in my high heels and cocktail dress.

“Tiene un baño para ella? Es una emergencia”

(And I added), “Problemas femininas” (Yeah I’m that shameless).

The man working at the store was probably too awkward to say no, so I just hurried into the bathroom and held up an old car windshield while I answered nature’s call.

Thankfully though, that was my last “episode.” We soon arrived at the ambassador’s house (gorgeous by the way) and listened to some great speeches, talked with some great Peruvians that have supported Peace Corps along the way and drank good wine. I even got to meet the former president Alejandro Toledo for a minute or two. He’s also in the running for the presidency this year. I was so star-struck while talking to him that after saying who I was, where I worked and what I did, he asked me where I was from and I replied “The United States.” DUH! He was the guy that invited Peace Corps back to Peru in 2002 and even lived with a volunteer when he was a kid- so he obviously knew that I was from the U.S. of A. So now I know I’m not so hot with speaking to famous people.

Me talking to the "big guy."

So after the party, the volunteers headed back to our hostels and then a few of us went out to celebrate afterwards- I had a blast.

I’ll finish this blog with a quick recap of what I did for the few days after being in Lima. After the 50^th, a bunch of us headed up to a department called Cajamarca which is in the northern sierra or mountains, of Peru to celebrate Carnaval. I’m hoping everyone knows what Carnaval is (think Mardi Gras but for South America and bigger), but if not, it’s basically a week long party before the start of Lent with parades, dancing, music and PAINTFIGHTS. The day of the 5^th was “paint day” and was why I went in the first place.

We all woke up super early after buying paint, ponchos, glitter, water guns, and buckets the night before and got ready. Around ten of us from training all stayed in the same hostel overlooking the plaza de armas and we filled close to 250 water balloons and enjoyed ourselves as we threw them at random people from our second-story balcony. It’s a day dedicated to getting as dirty as possible.

After throwing balloons, we finally hit the streets for some action. During the day, groups of people would form groups or “gangs” if you will and parade down the streets, throwing paint and water while singing and dancing. If you happened to run into one of these gangs, you were toast. I specifically remember someone dumping a bucket of white paint in my face so that it took a few washes to get everything off. Within minutes, everyone was soaked and covered in array of colors from the paint. You could either join with these bands of people or move on. All during this, people waged war from houses, balconies, behind fences and out in the open. The best was throwing water balloons into a second-floor window and hearing the inhabitants scream as they got soaked inside.

Eventually a group of us decided to hang around one house where the families inside were out in the street drinking and dancing. It was so much fun. Through all of the buckets of water being thrown and rain coming down (it is rainy season), everyone continued to dance. It was awesome. I only called it quits when one volunteer poured a gallon of cold water down my shirt and then the wind picked up and I decided I better go home before I froze to death. It was epic.