All soul’s day, which Peruvians celebrate on November 2nd, is easily my favorite holiday here. Halloween isn’t too popular although I’ve heard that it is in Ecuador, but Peruvians tend to celebrate the two days afterwards a lot more. The first day is All Saint’s day- the day when people go to the cemetery to celebrate all of the saints and children that have passed away without sins. They call the babies “angelitos” because they died before they had time to commit sins, which I thought was interesting. People buy little “crowns” or wreaths of flowers and place them on the crosses and tombs.
Being lazy and tired from celebrating Halloween the night before, I did not care to join in the drinking and dancing that everyone else was partaking in. But starting the next morning, or All Soul’s Day- I was down. We started the morning by dropping off flowers at every dead family member’s grave between the two cemeteries in my district. This included both host grandpa’s, an uncle, some great grandparents and then distantly related people that I still to this day am not sure of who they are. After dropping the flowers off, we went home to have lunch and to chillax (abbreviation for chillout and relax). At around three, armed with candles, matches and cardboard boxes, we marched back to the cemetery to settle in for the evening.
Now first off, there are a lot of differences between a cemetery that you would find in the states and one you would find in Peru. In the states, the graves tend to be underground and covered with a nice area of grass or maybe a small tombstone. Here, unless you find buying matches a luxury, everyone has a “tomb” made for them. This is an aboveground grave, lined and topped off with cement. These cement structures can vary in decadence from just a sole cement-coffin to graves that have entire one-room houses built around them. I call those graves “shrines” and they kind of freak me out because they have iron-wrought fences around them and once I’m inside, I get claustrophobic and want out. I don’t like to be stuck under the same roof with a skeleton. Also, grass does not exist so just picture sand and dirt around the graves with little children running and climbing all over them. I felt badly for the people buried because I’m sure they don’t appreciate little children running all over their graves.
Now fortunately for my town, the cemetery just got electricity a few months ago, which allowed a mini-carnival to show up and set up shop outside the gates. I have never seen so much as a water fountain in a graveyard back home but here I had 10 different ladies trying to sell me fried chicken with French fries, two ice cream men on bicycles, three tent-restaurants offering everything from dried pig guts to birthday cake and maybe 50 kids with bags of popcorn and potato chips strung around their neck, walking through the cemetery and selling their goods like the beer men at baseball games. Talk about resting in peace. Oh yeah, there was beer for sale too.
So, Peruvians call All Soul’s Day “Velaciones” because everyone brings candles (velas in Spanish) to light at the graves all afternoon and through the evening. Some people stay all night. This in all honestly, became beautiful once the sun went down and you could see hundreds of people gathered around thousands of little candles in the graveyard. The cemetary is a ways from the actual town so other than the tent-restaurants, there isn’t any light except for the candles. I personally loved watching families and friends interact and hang out while waiting the candles to burn out and I thought to myself how nice this would be if it was customary to do this in the states. After a few hours of walking in between graves and socializing with people, I sat down with my host grandma and a few of my cousins to light candles next to her late-husband’s grave. At first I thought it was weird how everyone was just sitting on top of his cement box with his body inside, but being tired, I soon found myself actually lying down on it at one point. I used to hold my breath every time I passed a cemetery in the states- here I can actually go to sleep in them. The only thing I could not get over was how my host grandmother, who is still very much alive (as stated before, she is the town butcher), has already had her grave dug and made next to her late-husband’s. I mean, it’s topped off with a thin layer of cement that can be easily taken off but pretty much all that is lacking is my grandma actually in it. Does anyone else find this morbid? Best part is, we (including my grandma) are all SITTING and hanging out on it at one point or another. However, I’m pretty sure that isn’t customary because one of the Peruvians I was talking to that night told me they thought that was a very “triste” or sad thing to do. To make your own tomb before you, well, well you know what I mean. So that was weird.
After about six hours of this, or around 9 at night, I decided I was cold and tired and headed home with my host mom and sister. But I hear that some people stay up all night with their candles lit. I think that it could be worth it to stay here another year and do that again.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Concurso de Cometas
Translation: Kite flying contest. Like stated in my previous blog hace tiempo (a long time ago) my host aunt Maritza decided to host a kite flying competition for all the kids in my town. After a few post-ponings due to various reasons, we finally had it one Saturday afternoon. I had been planning on going just to watch the kites but my involvement grew to extraordinary proportions when I was chosen by Maritza to be the sole judge of the competition. Disclaimer: I hate public speaking and making decisions, especially when it involves deciding which child got to take home a prize with them. I would have never signed up for judging had I known I would be the only one involved.
So Maritza appointed me to be the town judge which was fine until I was handed a loudspeaker with a horn on it. Now, my Spanish proficiency has increased 1000 fold but I still get nervous when speaking to 100 people with a loudspeaker. But I wasnt really left with a choice. There were also four prizes involved to be given out depending on who I thought should win.
At the start of things, I was really impressed. People hand-made all of their kites and they came in all shapes in sizes. There were some designed to look like airplanes, someone made some geometrically-complex cube that somehow flew and there was even a little lady that brought her daughter and a kite that was just a cutout of a hand-drawn superwoman (unfortunately that one didn’t fly). I actually thought for a second it was going to be easy to judge.
Once the kites managed to get up in the air, the sky looked so pretty with tens of kites floating peacefully above our little town. And every child seemed to be having a good time.
Then the time came when Maritza nudged me to start judging. I decided that the prizes would be given according to four categories: The kite that flew the highest, the kite that went the farthest (some kites didn’t go up but away), the best decorated kite, and finally, the most unique kite. The latter two I gave away instantly, the cubed-kite won most unique, and a heaxagonal kite that had so many layers of tissue paper formed in the shape of a star that it looked like stained glass won best decorated. That was easy. The question was which kites were up the highest in the air and farthest away. Considering I had just had my sunglasses stolen, I had to look up into the sky of a town that is situated 3 degrees below the equator with no eye protection. I think I burned my corneas. And to be honest, every kite was high up so it was hard to distinguish which one was the winner. The same goes for the kites that were in the running for being the farthest away. I swear they were all flying above the next town over.
Everybody else began to notice this too because they all began to start shouting at which kite was the winner. This is when things got stressful. I’ll have you know that Peruvians are very competitive when prizes are involved and I had a few parents and children telling me which ones were the winner. And since there was no other judge, my voice was the end all be all. My word was law. Maritza had made the right decision when she appointed me and not herself and the judge.
However by the end, I made my call and handed out the prizes. I had to deal with some unhappy kite-flyers and grumpy parents afterwards but what can you do. That´s life. I was just happy that I was able to drink some Inca Cola and eat some cookies afterwards.
Tumbes... we´ve got SOL
It´s true. Both the sun and soul type. There are eight of us here- Alyse, Ian, Greg, Isha, Anne, Sarah, Robyn and myself. We are a good group. We all have strong personalities and by the grace of God, we all click (most of the time at least). The month of October made me finally realize how amazingly lucky I am to have such a good group of friends supporting me here throughout my journey (don’t worry Kris, Chris, Babs, Annie and Katie you´re all included too- you just don’t live up here).
So yeah September and October were crazy months. Most notably, I was robbed in a moderately ugly way. I have been robbed before- and I´m not talking about being pick-pocketed. But for some reason this robbery two Sundays ago left me very shaken. Maybe it was because I was robbed in plain sight of ten of my townspeople and not ONE stepped in to help me. Maybe it was because four men jumped me completely out of the blue. Maybe it’s just because I felt so alone crying on the sidewalk and asked a man with 7 cents in my hand to take me home. Either way, the day afterwards I was down in the dumps and almost wishing a giant natural diaster would wipe out Tumbes and all of the chorros with it. I was lacking a cell phone, so calling someone wasn´t really possible. However I did manage to send an email via to the closest volunteer to my site. Within HOURS I got a surprise from both Robyn and Alyse, with Robyn bringing her boyfriend Ryan along and an awesome package of sour patch kids and Alyse bringing me a bouquet of flowers. It only got better with time and while I won’t go into details, I ended up with so many check up phone calls, a loaf of banana bread, a machete, and a Tumbes departamental flag. Talk about a support network. Thanks to them, I never once thought about going home at that point and I still don’t now. (P.S. anyone reading this blog just know that I am FINE and okay and not hurt). This unfortunately happens.
So yeah that was great and after I managed to devour the pack of sour patch kids, it was the end of October and we had to think about Halloween and saying goodbye to Robyn and Sarah (they are finishing their two years of service). While I like Halloween, I hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how I would spend Sunday night. Fortunately for me, Alyse was on it. We all spent the night in a hostel that Alyse decorated with cotton spider webs, black plastic spiders and black and orange balloons ( I have no idea where she found all of this considering Peru doesn’t really celebrate Halloween). We made a bonfire, roasted stuffed green peppers, made s´mores, ate popcorn balls and worms in dirt (you know, gummy worms, pudding and Oreos) and had a genuinely great time. Well at least, I did.
Basically what I´m trying to say is that while Robyn and Sarah are leaving this week, I will be really sad to see them go. They have both been such an inspiration to me throughout my time here. I have gotten very comfortable with our group and I can only hope that the new volunteers that will be arriving here in the end of November will be just as awesome. Long live Doombes!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Let´s go fly a kite
While the sun has been in hiding this past week, kids in my town have taken to scourging the area for spare plastic bags and lightweight wood called “ caña” while contracting their dads and older brothers to sew/paste everything together to form a hexagonal-shaped kite. As I’m writing this blog, my aunt Maritza just came marching through my house announcing that there is going to be a great “kite” contest this week, complete with prizes, to see who can build the most attractive and most successful kite. I have solicited the help of my 9-year old cousin Artur to help me making mine.
So for the past few days when I have gone outside, there have been no less than two or three kites flying in the sky with one or two kids attached to a line at the other end. It’s actually very cute. On Thursday I spent the better half of an hour with the kids from my street learning how to fly a kite. I mean I guess I already knew how to but I hadn’t done it in a while and apparently according to the expertise of my cousins Artur and Michel , my technique was not up to par. It also didn’t help that I kept getting the meanings of “ tie it up” and “ let it loose” confused. When they’re high enough up in the air, they begin to look just like fish swimming in place with the tails flying behind them. It’s really quite beautiful to see a few of them up in the sky all at once. Eventually though, the kite got stuck in a tree and then the rope snapped while trying to pull it down. No matter. They were back at it today with a brand new one.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure kite season is meant to stick around for much longer. Today the sun came out with a vengeance, as if he almost wanted to warn me that the next 8 months of my life will be filled with nothing but UV rays and oily skin. I cant say I’m surprised; however I was just getting used to the coolness of the winter months here when the thermometer hits a lowly 75 degrees in the evening.
I guess I should be thankful that I’m dealing with this hot weather today and not yesterday. Yesterday I held my first big, public activity outside. Category? District Marathon. Time? 9 in the morning. Distance? 5 kilometers. Participants? Anyone between the ages of 10 and 18. Location? Very dangerous road that passes through my town but is the only thing paved so thus the only option. Number of attendees? 50. Number of people that fainted? Only one.
So to put everything in perspective, I’ve got two main projects going on here this year in addition to some smaller, secondary things I’m doing in my spare time. One of my main projects has to do with AIDS prevention in my site. Specifically, to form a group of teenage health promoters that can teach their classmates about how HIV is transmitted blah blah blah… how to prevent teenage pregnancy…why not to do drugs… how to use a condom… those sorts of things. In Tumbes, prostitution is very much legal and drug use might as well be too. So we’ve got a lot of AIDS going on; in fact, Tumbes is #1 in the country for highest number of per capita cases. Go team (note sarcasm). So while I’ve been teaching this group of about 20 kids about all of the themes listed previously, we’ve decided to do some activities that involve the town to get public knowledge out! Our first activity was this 5km marathon.
Now, I should preface everything by stating that I live in a town where many kids (maybe even most) can be labeled as un-ambitious to lazy. I was faced with a large-scale uproar when I proposed the idea of running roughly 3 miles (from one end of the district to the other) without stopping. “No one wants to go that far”, “We’re not used to exercising that much” or “ I can’t” was the gossip. In order to appease part of the public, I decided that yes, maybe 3 miles was a little too far for a 10 year old to run so I shaved off a kilometer and a half and instead made two finish lines; one for kids ages 10-12 that was 1 ½ Km shorter and then another one for the rest of the kids.
With the help of Tumbes’ ministry of health department (which donated water), my town’s health post ( which donated the use of an ambulance- complete with doctor) and the town police (to block off traffic), I felt as if I really had a lot of support from my community.
Earlier this week, I had been meeting with my little teen health promoters to record messages advertising the marathon and then playing them on our town’s loudspeaker (yes, the same one I still want to take an axe to every morning), with Rihanna or a Britney Spears song playing in the background. These teen’s had also made a ridiculous number of posters that we had taped all over the town’s traffic signs and houses along the road that had messages displaying information about teen pregnancy, different types of contraception that exist, and why HIV sucks.
So needless to say, there had been a lot of preparation that had gone into this “marathon” and I woke up yesterday feeling nervous! It wasn’t like the other types of nervous I’ve felt while being here (like talking in front of people or avoiding the dark alleys in the city), because this time I felt nervous because I felt like it was kind of the first big indicator of the influence that my teens and myself have on our community and whether people would decide to come out to participate. If no one decided to show, the whole town would know because while a lot of people didn’t want to participate, there was a large number of people that knew it was going on and I did not feel like having a bunch of hard effort go to waste with no marathon to show for it.
So imagine my surprise when I walked over to my health post yesterday morning and people were dressed and ready to go 45 minutes BEFORE the marathon was supposed to take place! NOTHING starts on time here and I am very used to waiting 2 hours for a meeting to start. I was ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic when more and more people kept coming every minute until I had at least 30 kids ready to go, with signs on their back saying things like “ Use a condom” or “AIDS kills” or “Abstinence is the answer.” It was GLORIOUS.
While I don’t think the head of my health post was very impressed with the results (because a. he was going to have to drive them to the starting point about a mile away in the town’s ambulance and b. I just don’t think he would be impressed with anything I did unless I learned how to cut atoms with scissors), it didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was that the kids came. Even the “cool” older boys that I swear to God I never thought would do anything if it didn’t involve girls or being lazy.
With the help of my teen health promoters, everything started off great and I watched as 50 kids from all around the district hit the ground running for the finish line. Two other Peace Corps volunteers form the area (Sarah and Ian) came over to help and we all took a car so we could drive by the kids and cheer them on and take pictures. I have not felt as happy when I saw the kids giving me double fist-pumps in the air as they ran farther than many of them had ever run before. I took a total of 87 pictured in 60 minutes.
Five kilometers down the road Sarah, Ian and I waited for the older kids to come across the finish line. The first kid Josue, came in at around 18 minutes. Bit by bit, more started to trickle in (some in sandals which is insane) and despite getting an unknown phone call telling me someone had fainted, everything seemed to be going well. But things only got better. After the first 10 or so big kids had come in, I started to see some of the younger kids come in through the 5Km finish line. These kids didn’t even need to be running this far! They could have stopped a kilometer and a half back!! They told me they came this far because they just wanted to. To see if they could do it. I was amazed. Even my younger host sister Prixi who is 14 and fat and eats terribly and whined after walking for a half hour the day before did it! You could tell she was so proud of herself, and I was too.
After passing out bananas and water, we waited around for the kids to get hauled back to town. I went home, sunburnt and sore-throated and immediately went into Tumbes city for some ice cream. And despite the fact that every kid I’ve seen so far today has told me they have blisters or that their legs are sore, I know they are proud of themselves and I am proud of them too.
So for the past few days when I have gone outside, there have been no less than two or three kites flying in the sky with one or two kids attached to a line at the other end. It’s actually very cute. On Thursday I spent the better half of an hour with the kids from my street learning how to fly a kite. I mean I guess I already knew how to but I hadn’t done it in a while and apparently according to the expertise of my cousins Artur and Michel , my technique was not up to par. It also didn’t help that I kept getting the meanings of “ tie it up” and “ let it loose” confused. When they’re high enough up in the air, they begin to look just like fish swimming in place with the tails flying behind them. It’s really quite beautiful to see a few of them up in the sky all at once. Eventually though, the kite got stuck in a tree and then the rope snapped while trying to pull it down. No matter. They were back at it today with a brand new one.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure kite season is meant to stick around for much longer. Today the sun came out with a vengeance, as if he almost wanted to warn me that the next 8 months of my life will be filled with nothing but UV rays and oily skin. I cant say I’m surprised; however I was just getting used to the coolness of the winter months here when the thermometer hits a lowly 75 degrees in the evening.
I guess I should be thankful that I’m dealing with this hot weather today and not yesterday. Yesterday I held my first big, public activity outside. Category? District Marathon. Time? 9 in the morning. Distance? 5 kilometers. Participants? Anyone between the ages of 10 and 18. Location? Very dangerous road that passes through my town but is the only thing paved so thus the only option. Number of attendees? 50. Number of people that fainted? Only one.
So to put everything in perspective, I’ve got two main projects going on here this year in addition to some smaller, secondary things I’m doing in my spare time. One of my main projects has to do with AIDS prevention in my site. Specifically, to form a group of teenage health promoters that can teach their classmates about how HIV is transmitted blah blah blah… how to prevent teenage pregnancy…why not to do drugs… how to use a condom… those sorts of things. In Tumbes, prostitution is very much legal and drug use might as well be too. So we’ve got a lot of AIDS going on; in fact, Tumbes is #1 in the country for highest number of per capita cases. Go team (note sarcasm). So while I’ve been teaching this group of about 20 kids about all of the themes listed previously, we’ve decided to do some activities that involve the town to get public knowledge out! Our first activity was this 5km marathon.
Now, I should preface everything by stating that I live in a town where many kids (maybe even most) can be labeled as un-ambitious to lazy. I was faced with a large-scale uproar when I proposed the idea of running roughly 3 miles (from one end of the district to the other) without stopping. “No one wants to go that far”, “We’re not used to exercising that much” or “ I can’t” was the gossip. In order to appease part of the public, I decided that yes, maybe 3 miles was a little too far for a 10 year old to run so I shaved off a kilometer and a half and instead made two finish lines; one for kids ages 10-12 that was 1 ½ Km shorter and then another one for the rest of the kids.
With the help of Tumbes’ ministry of health department (which donated water), my town’s health post ( which donated the use of an ambulance- complete with doctor) and the town police (to block off traffic), I felt as if I really had a lot of support from my community.
Earlier this week, I had been meeting with my little teen health promoters to record messages advertising the marathon and then playing them on our town’s loudspeaker (yes, the same one I still want to take an axe to every morning), with Rihanna or a Britney Spears song playing in the background. These teen’s had also made a ridiculous number of posters that we had taped all over the town’s traffic signs and houses along the road that had messages displaying information about teen pregnancy, different types of contraception that exist, and why HIV sucks.
So needless to say, there had been a lot of preparation that had gone into this “marathon” and I woke up yesterday feeling nervous! It wasn’t like the other types of nervous I’ve felt while being here (like talking in front of people or avoiding the dark alleys in the city), because this time I felt nervous because I felt like it was kind of the first big indicator of the influence that my teens and myself have on our community and whether people would decide to come out to participate. If no one decided to show, the whole town would know because while a lot of people didn’t want to participate, there was a large number of people that knew it was going on and I did not feel like having a bunch of hard effort go to waste with no marathon to show for it.
So imagine my surprise when I walked over to my health post yesterday morning and people were dressed and ready to go 45 minutes BEFORE the marathon was supposed to take place! NOTHING starts on time here and I am very used to waiting 2 hours for a meeting to start. I was ecstatic. I was even more ecstatic when more and more people kept coming every minute until I had at least 30 kids ready to go, with signs on their back saying things like “ Use a condom” or “AIDS kills” or “Abstinence is the answer.” It was GLORIOUS.
While I don’t think the head of my health post was very impressed with the results (because a. he was going to have to drive them to the starting point about a mile away in the town’s ambulance and b. I just don’t think he would be impressed with anything I did unless I learned how to cut atoms with scissors), it didn’t matter to me. All that mattered was that the kids came. Even the “cool” older boys that I swear to God I never thought would do anything if it didn’t involve girls or being lazy.
With the help of my teen health promoters, everything started off great and I watched as 50 kids from all around the district hit the ground running for the finish line. Two other Peace Corps volunteers form the area (Sarah and Ian) came over to help and we all took a car so we could drive by the kids and cheer them on and take pictures. I have not felt as happy when I saw the kids giving me double fist-pumps in the air as they ran farther than many of them had ever run before. I took a total of 87 pictured in 60 minutes.
Five kilometers down the road Sarah, Ian and I waited for the older kids to come across the finish line. The first kid Josue, came in at around 18 minutes. Bit by bit, more started to trickle in (some in sandals which is insane) and despite getting an unknown phone call telling me someone had fainted, everything seemed to be going well. But things only got better. After the first 10 or so big kids had come in, I started to see some of the younger kids come in through the 5Km finish line. These kids didn’t even need to be running this far! They could have stopped a kilometer and a half back!! They told me they came this far because they just wanted to. To see if they could do it. I was amazed. Even my younger host sister Prixi who is 14 and fat and eats terribly and whined after walking for a half hour the day before did it! You could tell she was so proud of herself, and I was too.
After passing out bananas and water, we waited around for the kids to get hauled back to town. I went home, sunburnt and sore-throated and immediately went into Tumbes city for some ice cream. And despite the fact that every kid I’ve seen so far today has told me they have blisters or that their legs are sore, I know they are proud of themselves and I am proud of them too.
Friday, October 1, 2010
375 days and counting
This past month has made me feel bombarded with drama (and no, not the theatrical kind, despite my recent addiction to Glee). While on a normal day, my town gossip could rival that of any middle school, the month of September has been especially exciting and given people even more to talk about.
I would say the majority of gossip and town-talked about issues are centered around the upcoming elections we have this October 3rd. All of the town and regional mayoral seats are up for grabs and I have never seen so many ridiculous people run for office. In my district (my town plus four others) for instance, we have a total of 8 candidates running for office. I would say maybe ONE seems decent enough to not secretly stash most of the town’s budget away into his own pocket. That’s not a joke either.
However, there´s one guy that really gets my blood running. His name is Pepe. So Pepe is this severely- obese man that doesn’t actually live in my town (which I´m pretty sure is against the mayor-rules) but for some reason, is still running for office and has an annoyingly-large amount of support. So last night was his big ¨last night before the elections¨ meeting in our town square. For some reason or another, this meeting which was organized for him to “ explain his budget proposals” had fireworks and the town drug-addict dance on a stage, in a thong, with “ Pepe” written over her two butt cheeks. Oh, I almost forgot, her daughter (which she should have never been allowed to have), danced on stage in underwear too, albeit not in a thong. It was a night like this that made me question why men who advocate for this type of show during their “budget meeting” are allowed to even hold any type of power. But of course, the people loved it (or so I’m told). I was appauled.
So anyways, every morning I wake up at 6:30 to the rap and song mixes the political parties have made supporting their candidate on the loud speaker. I guess it’s my version of an alarm. And every night, a candidate holds a meeting in one of the towns to discuss their plans or budgets. Now, everyone in my town is divided amongst who they have decided to support. This of course causes problems. Now maybe things get “nasty” in the states in anticipation for the November elections but I have NEVER heard of people throwing bags of URINE at their fellow townspeople. Yes you heard me, bags of urine. Complaints have been filed because during one meeting, eggs, rocks and urine were thrown at those sitting in the town square by others who obviously weren’t happy with their candidate selection. However despite complaints, it still keeps on happening and I can only tell you how happy I will be with October 4th rolls around and all of this will be over. Needless to say, I will not be spending election day in my site.
On a much happier note, my community health promoters and I threw a joint- August and September birthday party last week. I volunteered to bake a cake with my jank-ass oven that a) plugs into the wall and b) once caught on fire. So I baked a mean chocolate cake (recipe to be divulged at a later time) and brought it to the party. The party was being held at one of the promoter’s houses and I’m not sure why we picked his house because his wife is evangelical and that means 1. No drinking 2. No dancing and 3. No music and prior to going, we all decided that as a group we would all chip in for beer. So anyways I walk over to my promoter’s house with my cake in hand and upon getting there, I realize that my town’s without electricity and in a half hour we will all be sitting in a circle, in the dark and without music.
In order to avoid this calamity, I ran home to get my portable and battery-powered ipod speakers. Since mine was the only form of musical entertainment available, I had a room of 20 Peruvians listen to whatever came up on “shuffle.” This included Bruce Springsteen and Arctic Monkeys- definitely not what they’re used to. However, after an awkward five minutes passed, my health promoter Peter whipped out his air guitar and started playing along. Then we all started dancing. It was a real cultural-exchange.
So other than birthday parties and elections, my family has been dealing with some guinea pig baby issues. Four months ago, my brother bought two guinea pigs (or cuyes as we call them) to raise and mate and eat basically. He made them a little corral for them to live in outside and there was a brown male and a white female. The female is no doubt, the largest and fattest guinea pig I have ever seen in my life. She looks like she could eat a cat. Anyways, so we (my family and I) all assumed she was pregnant and we were super excited to start our own cuy-breeding business. However, as two months went by and no babies appeared, it was decided that she was just fat and not pregnant (the guinea pig pregnancy period is 60 days).
Because not a lot happens in my town, my family (extended family that is) and I have all been discussing the fertility of our female cuy and putting bets on whether she would ever get pregnant or not. Seriously, I would talk about this during breakfast, lunch and dinner- “ What’s wrong with the cuy”? “ Pol (my brother), don’t scare her, you’ll make her spontaneously abort”, “Maybe she’s just a lesbian.” This conversation lasted the better of four months.
So we’ve had this annoying, fat and non-pregnant guinea pig since June and we’ve had nothing to show for it. However to my surprise, yesterday (September 27th) my brother found me and told me we had two new additions to our family!!!! At first I thought we got more chickens or something like that but then I realized the female guinea pig finally got knocked up and gave birth!!! The babies were actually really cute- except for the fact that they come out at like 4 inches long and with tons of hair. It would be like if I gave birth to a baby that was 3 feet tall and already had hair down to her shoulders. So that was a little creepy.
So anyways, my family is really happy we have two new additions to the family and I’m glad we can all finally lay our heads down at night and stop obsessing over a damn guinea pig.
Going in a completely different direction, I would like to thank you all for officially being blog-followers for over a year now! I’ve hit the one year mark on September 11th and it feels really good to have a year behind my back. I didn’t do anything special that day except grab a chicken sandwich to go and a slice of apple pie (which gave me a severe case of diarrhea the whole next day- a cool 19 bathroom trips that morning alone) but the day did not go unmarked as I reflected how much I’ve grown over the past year! It’s been a good run, but I’m not done yet!!! Thanks so much for all of your support guys, it has gotten me through.
Friday, September 10, 2010
I am no longer LOST
For those who I had the privilege of living with my senior year of college (the lovely Julie, Maggie, Colleen, Herzog, Ali and Tina, and even Pfeff and Latta though technically I wasn’t paying Shady Nook´s rent and instead just slept on their couches), you all know too well the spell we fell under the second semester of senior year. It came in the form of J.J. Abram´s magical TV creation- LOST. I remember days when I gladly skipped evolution and microbiology classes to stay in bed with the snow falling outside, tucked in with my portable heater on full blast and my coral accent wall reminding me of warmer days, watching as the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 fought for their lives on a mysterious island for HOURS. Seriously I would watch this show for hours. I had missed out on the previous four seasons and had no problem spending my days catching up on what I had missed. I remember one day when I managed to watch 8 HOURS OF TV IN ONE DAY. I guess we could all call that my ¨low point¨ in life. However I would probably do it again if given the chance.
So imagine my dismay, anxiety and frustration when I got my invitation to come to Peru and my service would happen to fall during when the last and final season of LOST would appear on ABC. I wouldn’t be able to watch and find out why the group of survivors had crashed on the island, if they were all going to get off, what the smoke monster really was and how the series would end. The months earlier this year passed, as I pined for cable television or some way to keep up with what was going on and as the last episode aired on MAY 24??? I was going crazy with not knowing how it all ended.
You all are probably considering me crazy and obsessive but try watching seasons 1-5 and NOT craving to know how it all ends.
So, imagine my excitement, joy and bubbly feeling I got in my stomach when I went to Lima two weeks ago and bought the pirated $5 version of the WHOLE LAST SEASON. That´s right- 18, 40 minute episodes for 5 dollars. Since then I think my family had considered me a downright narcoleptic because I would march up to my room around 7: 30 for ¨bed.¨ From there I would turn on my computer and immerse myself in what I had a year and a half before- the epic story of LOST.
So at the point of me writing this, I have finished the last and final season. It took me about a week and I finished on Sunday night, crying harder than I cried while watching Field of Dreams or Finding Neverland. And I can say with satisfaction, I am happy with the ending. I had read that a lot of people weren´t, but for me, the ending was enough and I turned off the computer contently.
Now I think I´m ready to watch it all over again.
So imagine my dismay, anxiety and frustration when I got my invitation to come to Peru and my service would happen to fall during when the last and final season of LOST would appear on ABC. I wouldn’t be able to watch and find out why the group of survivors had crashed on the island, if they were all going to get off, what the smoke monster really was and how the series would end. The months earlier this year passed, as I pined for cable television or some way to keep up with what was going on and as the last episode aired on MAY 24??? I was going crazy with not knowing how it all ended.
You all are probably considering me crazy and obsessive but try watching seasons 1-5 and NOT craving to know how it all ends.
So, imagine my excitement, joy and bubbly feeling I got in my stomach when I went to Lima two weeks ago and bought the pirated $5 version of the WHOLE LAST SEASON. That´s right- 18, 40 minute episodes for 5 dollars. Since then I think my family had considered me a downright narcoleptic because I would march up to my room around 7: 30 for ¨bed.¨ From there I would turn on my computer and immerse myself in what I had a year and a half before- the epic story of LOST.
So at the point of me writing this, I have finished the last and final season. It took me about a week and I finished on Sunday night, crying harder than I cried while watching Field of Dreams or Finding Neverland. And I can say with satisfaction, I am happy with the ending. I had read that a lot of people weren´t, but for me, the ending was enough and I turned off the computer contently.
Now I think I´m ready to watch it all over again.
Bat rats
Today during breakfast, my cousin was sweeping the ¨sala¨ or ¨family/living/hang out room.¨ She had stayed the night to do some homework at our house and before she left, she started to sweep the sala. Now this ¨sala¨of ours gets swept by my host brother, sister or mom everyday since so much dust comes in. They move the three chairs and sweep underneath and then proceed onto the kitchen.
So there I was, eating my three pieces of buttered- bread and coffee for breakfast when my host cousin said nonchalantly ¨Yeni (my host mom), come here and look.¨ The tone that she uttered this phrase made me think she had found something as interesting as a dirty-sock underneath one of the chairs but no. It was a rat. A giant, hairy, dead rat. It was lying on it’s side, paws stretched out, mouth open. Obviously dead. Now I should count my blessings and thank someone that the rat was dead instead of alive but I´m not sure if that’s the case. I kind of wish it had been alive so it could have scurried away during the night without me having to see it as I was applying butter to my bread.
The only person that even picked their heads up from the table to see the creepy crawler was my mom who actually CHUCKLED as she went and got something to pick the rat up with and toss him outside. No one else even thought this remotely revolting. Minus me. As quickly as I could and before I could process the vision in my head, I downed my coffee in one gulp and shoved the remaining piece of bread into my mouth and headed to my room to privately gag.
Apparently my town has had a rat problem, I have just not been made aware of it. Sure I knew there was one here and there like the one I saw the week before scurry along the street in Tumbes and run UP SOMEONE’S LEG, but other than that, I had no idea MY house could have been serving as one of their havens. So, in response to that problem, my host dad called up his friend who came in and gassed the house, which was the reason we found our little dead friend in the sala.
Almost all of the other volunteers have seen rats in their house; my friend Ian watched one die before his very own eyes as his family chased it around his room with sticks to beat it with. My friend Alyse is a little different though. While she has had the most rat-sightings in her house (averaging maybe one a night), she has no problem with this. “ As long as they don’t eat my food or crawl into my bed, I’m okay.” This may be due to the fact that Alyse is from Oregon and grew up with two rats as pets throughout her life. The most favored one was “Bat- rat”, a furry friend that her family kept as a pet that would wander around the house freely. Alyse speaks with such regale when reminiscing about Bat-rat ,” He used to be the cutest thing- he loved sleeping in the fresh laundry while it was still warm from getting out of the dryer. “ I guess this is when you use the term- “ different strokes for different folks.” Turns out Bat-rat’s hobby turned out to be his demise when he accidentally snuggled into the wrong pile of laundry and ended up in the washer- but I won’t go into that story nor the lingering effects it had/has on Alyse’s life.
All I’ll say is, maybe if I had Bat-rat as a pet when I was a child, maybe I would have felt a stab of pain as the rat in my house was carried away. But since I was given a puppy instead, I was glad to see that rat go.
So there I was, eating my three pieces of buttered- bread and coffee for breakfast when my host cousin said nonchalantly ¨Yeni (my host mom), come here and look.¨ The tone that she uttered this phrase made me think she had found something as interesting as a dirty-sock underneath one of the chairs but no. It was a rat. A giant, hairy, dead rat. It was lying on it’s side, paws stretched out, mouth open. Obviously dead. Now I should count my blessings and thank someone that the rat was dead instead of alive but I´m not sure if that’s the case. I kind of wish it had been alive so it could have scurried away during the night without me having to see it as I was applying butter to my bread.
The only person that even picked their heads up from the table to see the creepy crawler was my mom who actually CHUCKLED as she went and got something to pick the rat up with and toss him outside. No one else even thought this remotely revolting. Minus me. As quickly as I could and before I could process the vision in my head, I downed my coffee in one gulp and shoved the remaining piece of bread into my mouth and headed to my room to privately gag.
Apparently my town has had a rat problem, I have just not been made aware of it. Sure I knew there was one here and there like the one I saw the week before scurry along the street in Tumbes and run UP SOMEONE’S LEG, but other than that, I had no idea MY house could have been serving as one of their havens. So, in response to that problem, my host dad called up his friend who came in and gassed the house, which was the reason we found our little dead friend in the sala.
Almost all of the other volunteers have seen rats in their house; my friend Ian watched one die before his very own eyes as his family chased it around his room with sticks to beat it with. My friend Alyse is a little different though. While she has had the most rat-sightings in her house (averaging maybe one a night), she has no problem with this. “ As long as they don’t eat my food or crawl into my bed, I’m okay.” This may be due to the fact that Alyse is from Oregon and grew up with two rats as pets throughout her life. The most favored one was “Bat- rat”, a furry friend that her family kept as a pet that would wander around the house freely. Alyse speaks with such regale when reminiscing about Bat-rat ,” He used to be the cutest thing- he loved sleeping in the fresh laundry while it was still warm from getting out of the dryer. “ I guess this is when you use the term- “ different strokes for different folks.” Turns out Bat-rat’s hobby turned out to be his demise when he accidentally snuggled into the wrong pile of laundry and ended up in the washer- but I won’t go into that story nor the lingering effects it had/has on Alyse’s life.
All I’ll say is, maybe if I had Bat-rat as a pet when I was a child, maybe I would have felt a stab of pain as the rat in my house was carried away. But since I was given a puppy instead, I was glad to see that rat go.
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