La China

With the 50^th anniversary coming up, the volunteers have been asked to speak with the different local newspapers in Tumbes to put in a little blurb or spread on what is Peace Corps. Last Sunday, one of the local newspapers wrote two full pages on us with excerpts of interviews from a few of the volunteers. However, we thought it would be good to maybe put another notice about ourselves in another newspaper and I found myself asking around if anyone knew where the “Correo” newspaper office was.

“Sure I do” answered my uncle Koke. “The Correo office? It’s right on the corner of so and so- next to “La China.”

Not being familiar with one of these streets, I asked “Well, what’s “La China”?

“Oh, you know, the little blue prostitute house on the corner.”

(Here I paused and processed what he said)

“Come again Koke?”

“You know, the little blue…”

And then he proceeded to draw me a picture.

“Here we go” he said, “here’s the market street, here’s the street you walk up, HERE is La China’s prostibulo (he made sure to pronounce it very slowly so I could understand- PROS- TIIII- BUUU-LO) and the Correo office is next door.”

I tried to keep an even face and pretend that of course, I knew where the local brothel was located. But it was hard. Weren’t those things illegal? I had heard rumors of one existing between the Miami campus and Dayton airport but those rumors probably held as much truth as the government's denial of finding alien bodies in Roswell, New Mexico. So it surprised me to know that I had been walking past a Peruvian “Prostibulo” three times a week. Eventually, unable to keep my curiosity at bay and quite amused at the map my uncle Koke had made me, I asked him,

“Koke, how do YOU know where La China’s brothel is?

“Well, you see Lindsey (long pause), this one time I was eating my lunch outside on the side of the street with my motorcycle and this lady just came up to and asked me how much I was willing to pay. I had no idea it was a whore house- I was just sitting there, eating my lunch”!

Eating lunch my butt. I could now picture the area in my head and there was nothing inviting about that street nevertheless eating one’s lunch there unless you enjoy dining near dead animals and burning garbage.

Keeping those thoughts and judging to myself, I silently nodded my head while Koke finished his map and wished me good luck on my adventure to find the newspaper office. I would like to point out that Koke also has a tattoo on his chest that says “ Te amo Tatiana.” Tatiana was his girlfriend in high school and Koke has been looking for a way to get rid of the evidence since his new girlfriend doesn’t know it exists. She’s never seen him without a wife beater on.

The next day I went out on my quest to find the Correo newspaper office but I’ll I could find was the brothel. I just saw a homeless man coming out of there with his cup and hand and once again, judged. Needless to say, Correo wasn’t where Koke said it was and I've yet to find it to this date.

Hands up

I have a huge family. I have at least 40 first cousins and 18 uncles and aunts. It has been my long standing opinion that way too much intra and interfamily dating and marriage happens because everyone is from the same two or three families. One of my cousins is Banner. Banner is Fernanda’s son and Yenner’s younger brother. Is was Banner’s father that died in December of 2009 after working as a bread maker his whole life and not receiving the medical attention he needed in his last few hours.

I really love this part of the family. There are five children and they have probably more than your average amount of disputes due to a very jealous and high strung sister, Fabiola (don’t tell her I said that). However, the family really took a hit when the father passed away completely unexpectedly right after I got here.

After that, Banner, who is 16, took a turn for the worse. He began to hang out with the not so awesome people in my town, drinking all night long, vandalizing, dropped out of school, and basically acting like a screwball which is unfortunately how a lot of the male youth act in my town.

However, Banner has had his older brother Yenner look out for him tremendously. As a way to gain incentive to work, Yenner bought Banner a brand new mototaxi under the premise the Banner would work in my town for however long it took to pay back his brother and take care of it like it was his baby. There were other stipulations to, for example that he could never take the moto into Tumbes (it’s too dangerous and Banner doesn’t have his diver’s license) and that he had to stop drinking. He loves that moto. If I can, I will take a picture of it and post it here so you can all see it. So Banner has passed the last five months working everyday to get money.

Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples in my town that have gotten involved with gangs, drugs, and have made robbing a way of living. Here in San Juan, things have stayed mostly peaceful, but those who make their living in a more illegal way either work in Tumbes city or just keep a low profile in my town as to not draw more attention than they already get from a community that LOVES to gossip.

So anyways, let’s rewind to last Monday. My annex town Tacural, was just finishing it’s anniversary celebration (which I judged the beauty pageant for) and a lot of people were just drinking in the morning. One of the “bad” apples in my town whose name is Kokon asked my cousin Banner to take him there. Let me just say that Kokon is 15 years old, is still in high school, and I’ve definitely had conversations with him before. Of course Banner had no problem taking him over there, I usually just go walk but he would be making the equivalent of a cool 20 cents from the business.

After getting to Tacural, Kokon offered my cousin a glass of beer and to sit with him and another man named Julio. Julio grew up in San Juan, married a girl here but beat her unconscious two years ago while she was pregnant so he’s been living in Tumbes ever since but still comes here to celebrate during the fiestas.

After drinking their “vaso” Julio and Kokon asked my cousin Banner if they could take them into Las Merecedes in Tumbes. Knowing how Las Merecedes is the equivalent of no man’s land and should definitely be avoided, Banner said he didn’t want to go in there.

“But come on man, you’re with us; we’ll protect you.”

And so they went.

In hindsight this was a very poor decision.

Banner was set up by both Julio and Kokon and soon enough another moto came up from beind and crashed into my cousin’s. Julio then kicked Banner off, beat him up and two men from the second moto pulled out a gun and shot at Banner’s foot. Luckily, it missed him. Banner was rightfully enraged and tried to get his moto back but after the shot rang he gave up and watched his moto disappear with the four guys.

Banner ran to the nearest police station where the police told him to go to another one. Eventually he got there, identified Julio in one of the suspect books and went with a policeman to Julio’s house. Funny enough, Julio opened the door, denied the charges, said that he and Banner had been friends with childhood and that he would never rob him. And that was it. The police said they could no longer help Banner.

Banner came home around lunchtime.

Apart from lecturing Banner on how he should have never gone into Tumbes, there was nothing we could do. His mother and older brother Yenner had left the night before for Lima and weren’t expected until later the week and his other brother Junior was out working in Tumbes and wouldn’t be home until the evening.

When Junior got home, he said that the thieves or chorros as we call them, had gotten Junior’s phone number and called with a ransom for the moto at 1000 soles. Understandably, no one has that type of money lying around so Junior tried to talk them down but they hung up.

This is when I walked outside and saw the whole family in a circle, watching and waiting for the cell phone to ring.

Eventually, Junior called an aquaintance of his that worked as a mechanic in Las Mercedes and ironically enough, this aquaintance was just getting ready to strip the moto (to sell everything individually so it couldn’t be traced). The mechanic was under pressure from the chorros and if he didn’t do as they said, reprucussions would be had.

Doesn’t this seem like something out of a movie?

Eventually the chorros called again and demanded 900 then 800 soles for the moto. This Junior agreed to pay. Us as a family would help come up with the money. Junior was told to take the money to a middle man and then the moto would be brought to him. Unfortunately though, no one could be sure we would get the moto because sometimes people just take the ransom money and then run away with the moto, leaving you sans moto and sans money.

So between a few people from the family (namely my butcher grandma) and myself, we came up with the money and gave it to Junior to take the next morning to the middle man. I routinely asked why the police couldn’t get involved and was told either a. the police refuse to get involved in things like this or b. if the chorros knew if Banner or Junior were contacting the police, they would go after them later and no doubt with guns.

In order to speed things up a bit, at the end of everything, Junior was able to pay the ransom and got the moto back (albeit without the battery or back tire).

That very day, I went with my sister and cousin to go buy carrots at the store when we came across 15 year old Kokon just walking around the plaza as if nothing had happened and had the decency to look us in the eye. Banner says he wants to buy a gun and make him pay. I probably would too if I were him, but the threat scares me nevertheless.

Party time

Happy February to all; I’m sure it’s cold as ever over there but, down here, it’s been hitting 100 degrees every day. As I write this, I’m sitting on my cement floor (the couch in my house it too hot) and I have a portable fan stuck next to my face. The only problem is, is that this hand-held fan operates on two batteries and I get the feeling that they’re starting to lose their juice. The fan is beginning to smell like burning rubber and the blades definitely aren’t spinning around as quickly as they used to.

Eff.

So as I’m sure you all have been hearing that Peace Corps is getting ready to celebrate their 50^th anniversary. Despite the fact that we definitely have not been in Peru that long, we’re still taking the opportunity to throw a bunch of parties. There will be two in Lima at the end of the month and one in each department where the volunteers are located. Personally, I think a lot of this money could be going to other things (grants mostly) but people like parties more so that’s what’s happening. However, those are only my personal opinions. The one in Tumbes is set for the 22^nd and we’re expecting around 100 people to come. I’m scheduled to speak a little bit and the idea of it is making me quite nervous.

Anyways, on the subject of parties, summer is the time to have them. I’m not sure why people plan it like that because there are infestations of biting bugs, torrential rains, and the general heat and humidity makea it hard to sit still anywhere for more than a few minutes. I told you all about the party and dances we had in San Juan back in January, but did I tell you about being chosen as a judge for a beauty pageant for my annex town a few weeks later? Talk about stress.

I woke up one morning at around 7, par usual, and was drinking my coffee and eating my bread when someone came to my door to speak with me from a party committee. Hoping to dissuade this woman from even thinking about asking me to participate in anything, I chose not to change out of my pj s nor brush my teeth before walking outside to meet her. However, my bad breath didn’t manage to scare her away.

“ Buenos Dias Inssy” (unless I’ve gone through multiple instruction, my name pronunciation remains a mystery to many).

“Buenos Dias” I say, “ What can I help you with”?

“Porfa (short for por favor, or please), be a judge for our beauty pageant tomorrow night.”

“Tomorrow night? A. Isn’t that short notice and B. I don’t like judging things, the last time I judged something it was a kite contest and I almost got mutenized for my decision.”

“ No no no, don’t worry, you’ll be great- just buy a present and be at the stage tomorrow.”

So I went, and it was interesting.

I went of course, at the hour I was told (8pm) and when I got there, I didn’t see a soul. The only thing I did see was a “stage” made out of long tables COVERED in flying, biting ants. It was disgusting. I couldn’t even see the tablecloth underneath because no joke, the place was crawling with bugs. Throughout the night I got used to crickets dive-bombing my head and beetles getting stuck in between my bra and shirt.

At 11pm everything finally got started. Being a woman of the 21^st century, I’m not sure how comfortable I feel judging other girls based on their body type and how “beautiful” they are, but they’re popular here so I took part and just felt super awkward when all the men gathered around the stage to whoop, holler and whistle when the girls walked around in their bikinis.

By the end, two out of three girls were names Miss Aniversay and Miss Tacural. I gave my present to the third one because a. she got a shitty deal, being the only won to not win something and because I voted for her for 1^st place. I hope she enjoyed the Tootsie Rolls and sparkly shirt.

This past Valentine’s day, my cousin’s orquestra, Yenner Artur, had another show in my town but this time in the evening. Despite the fact that I usually don’t like Valentine’s day, this “baile” or dance if you will, actually made this Valentine’s more or my memorable ones.

I showed up with the rest of my family relatively soon after the band started to play. As I’ve mentioned before, the 15+ people in the band all practice at my house and at least 5 sleep here when they are putting on a show. So I’ve gotten to know their faces, but I would definitely not say we have long conversations about philosophy and or the chance of an apocalypse in 2012.

So imagine my horror when I was called to go up on the stage in front on the rest of my town to receive a hairy stuffed animal on behalf of the band for Valentine’s day. I was standing quite peacefully and enjoying the music and beer when I heard the name “Inssy” come over the loudspeakers with the band all looking at me. Now I’m embarrassed to talk in front of a lot of people in English let alone Spanish, so imagine my mortification when I was asked to dance ON STAGE and in front of everyone to some serious booty-shaking music. After what seemed like 5 minutes of dancing and moving my hands in a circular motion (my dance resembled waxing a car), I was given the stuffed animal and got down as quickly as I could.

After a mere five and a half hours and after sitting on a greasy piece of chicken in a pretty blue dress, I decided to call it a night. However, passing five hours now doesn’t feel nearly as long as it used to when I first arrived to Peru and staying anywhere for more than three hours screamed torture.

Maybe it’s because my dance skills have improved.

The Family Visits (out of order but it's okay)

Now where do I start? So much has happened. I feel like that is the general idea whenever I open Microsoft Word to start a new blog. First I list the things that I’ve done since last writing (which usually gets overwhelming so I pick and choose) and then I pick something to talk about. Thinking now, I haven’t written about my paper. Nor have I written about my weeklong trip to Lima to have my “mid service” medical checkups and what not with the other volunteers form my group. Note the phrase “Mid Service.” At the time of writing this, I am over halfway done with this gig. Now that we’ve started a new year (Happy New Year by the way), November doesn’t seem so far off. In fact, it seems right around the corner (which it’s not but just to say that I’m leaving THIS year instead of two years from now is something).

Alas, I will just have to resign myself to the fact that while I do try to write a lot, I will never be able to cover everything. C’est la vie. However, I will indulge a few of you and relay the shenanigans that took place over the past two weeks when the Kane family came to Peru.

On Monday, December 20^th I found myself waiting at the international arrival gate in Lima holding a sign that looking back may have been a little large, that read (in Spanish), “Welcome white people from Maryland.” It was pretty unreal to think that here I have been in Peru for well over a year with my life separated between my work and life here and my family back home, and starting that night, my two lives were going to converge. It felt pretty good seeing my family (all wearing white sneakers mind you) come through that gate. Two minutes later I realized how different my two lives are when my family began to speak to our cab driver in English. Lucky for them, Gustavo had been studying a little English to move to the states.

So Gustavo was great, Lima was beautiful; we managed to go and see the catacombs at the church of San Francisco which were creepy and I had to outright lie in order to get my claustrophobic mother down there.

“Lindsey, I won’t be seeing any heads or anything will I?

“Nope, none at all, just bone dust basically- nothing to really write home about.”

(Two minutes later we walk by a 30 feet deep pit of human skulls).

So that was fun and interesting. I love visiting this church because it has a library centuries of years old and the same original books are still in the bookcases, not protected by glass or anything. It truly looks like a scene out of Harry Potter.

The only part that was sub par was while taking in the sights of Lima in its main plaza, mom managed to get pick-pocketed and lost her camera. She never even felt it happen. At least it was something replaceable but unfortunately, some of the pictures on the camera weren’t and that put a temporary damper on things. Until we stopped at a Pisco Sour bar and then things went back to normal.

(I am writing the next part of this blog three weeks later… sorry, I took a break).

Anwyays, so yeah, Cusco.

After spending the day in Lima, we all hopped on a plane to Cusco. It was one of those plane rides where you feel like you have taken off and touched down in two different worlds. Lima is relatively warm, on the ocean, at sea level and is SUPER crowded and polluted. In contrast, getting off the plane in Cusco was like walking out into a country from Lord of the Rings. Everything was green. And beautiful. And completely unlike the Peru I am used to.

I would say that I loved taking deep breaths of fresh air but I soon realized that being at 11,000 feet with no acclimation time was going to leave me quite breathless and dizzy. I wasn’t the only one. Before I knew it we were asking the hotel staff for oxygen tanks. There was nothing like using an oxygen tank to remind me of how nature could kick my ass whenever she wanted.

However, despite our dabble with altitude sickness, we all managed to get out and tour the city of Cusco. The majority of the Peace Corps volunteers who serve here in Peru make an effort to visit and I can see why. It’s filled with such a rich history and to this day there are still remains of Incan work in the city. For example, one of the main churches Qorikancha, was originally a massive Incan sun temple until the Spaniards came. If I remember correctly, the base of the temple was made up of giant (I mean GIANT) stones fit perfectly together that were covered with panels of gold. Upon the Spaniards arrival, these panels were ripped off and accumulated into the Spanish fortune and the temple was converted into a monastery where monks still worship and live today.

As a family, we all managed to brave the cold and the threat of rain to go on a “city tour.” This tour gave us access and a super nice guide to other Incan ruins around the city. We visited and climbed around Saqsahuayman, Pukapukara, Q’enqo and Tambomachay. These words I’m sure mean nothing to you but in a nutshell we saw ruins (still perfectly intact) of Incan aqueduct systems, alpaca sacrificing temples (yummmmmm), a cool fortress that the Incans used to defend themselves and Saqsahuayman which was incredible and while originally through tot be a fortress, it was actually (surprise!) another temple. But Saqsahuayman was unbelievable though. I mean, I’ve never seen Stonehenge before, but I can’t imagine those rocks were any harder to get together than these. I mean, these massive God-knows how heavy-rocks are stacked 20 feet high! I felt so small and insignificant standing next to them. Also I would like to note that while I was exploring and climbing up these rocks, apparently a herd of 4 alpacas seemed to have taken one too many energy pills and were running around, chasing other sightseers.

This is me standinbg in front of some rocks in Saqsahuayman.

But alas, I must pay homage to the greatest ruins of all- those of Machu Picchu. Disclaimer: Machu Picchu is not super easy to get to. It is NOT in Cusco. It is a three-hour train ride plus a 30-minute bus ride (up a mountain) away. But like others I’m sure would say, it was worth it. It was incredible. We went up on Christmas morning after listening to mom worry and periodically check weather.com for rain forecasts (did I mention we went during the rainy season?). I kept asking her why she felt the need to neurotically check the weather. Was it like we weren’t going to go if it was raining? No. We were going, rain, shine, or tsunami. So we all brought our rain gear which turns out- was not needed. The task of carrying all of our water bottles and jackets though got passed down to Jenna and we all kindly named her “Sherpa.” She didn’t complain once while being at 8,000 feet and having to lug our “ish” around. Kudos to her. The weather was perfect for the 3 ½ hours we were up there- the sun came out but the mountains still gave off that mystical, somewhat-protective fog that hung around and made everything seem that much more cooler. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, you all can check them out to get an idea of what it was like but even those still won’t do it justice. I just was in awe.

To be honest, I was also in awe of the hotels we were fortunate enough to stay in during our weeklong stay. I have been used to squatting over toilets and well, squatting over dirt but Papa and Mama Kane really pulled through. My God I love Cable and hot showers.

So we were all truly thankful of how we lucked out on the mountain. On our way out of the park, the heavens opened and it rained like the dickens (I’ve never used that expression in writing before, I hope I used it correctly). Thankfully instead of focusing on the incredible stonework of the Incas, I was focusing on eating my ice cream cone. Others were not so lucky. The family we sat next to on the train ride home got stuck up there at the peak of the rain and ran for cover underneath one of the Incan guardhouses. The son said when he arrived at the house there were around thirty people and two alpacas huddled under there for shelter. As much as I tried not to, I laughed imagining a scene like that. It probably wasn’t too amusing as it was happening though...

The last day was Mom’s birthday and that was the day we took the city tour and went out for dinner. I think she had a good time.

But, with everything, all things come to an end and soon enough we found ourselves back in Lima saying goodbye to Meghan and Jenna. It wasn’t that sad though because I had a few more days to look forward to with my Mom and Dad coming up to my site to visit Tumbes!!! I know, at this point you all are probably rubbing your eyes with exhaustion from reading so much, but I assure you all, I am almost done.

My Mom and Dad came up to Tumbes so they could see where I live and the family that I live with. Although visiting Cusco was beautiful, this part was amazing. We stayed at a place on the beach and commuted the hour into my site (which was worth it so they could go swimming in 80 degree water in December). My host family was ECSTATIC to meet them. And I don’t mean just Yeni, Milton, Pol and Prixi. I mean grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors all came over to meet them. Even some of the volunteers! My host dad even took my real dad out for a spin on his motorcycle. Talk about hilarious. We went and stuck our feet in the river, hung out at my grandma’s house (with the goat fur and testicles in a heap outside her front door- my mom LOVED that), took a walk around town, met the mayor, met some kids and my two favorite teen health promoters and just generally had an amazing time despite the language barrier. My dad played soccer with my cousins and my real mom talked to my host mom in English while my host mom responded to my real mom in Spanish. Those two minutes that I was in the bathroom must have been long ones because no one understood a thing the other one was saying.

After visiting Tumbes, we crossed the border and they caught a flight out of Guayaquil, Ecuador on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately, I was stuck there for a few days without a ride back to Peru but that was okay. I was just happy I got to see my family.

The good outweighs the bad

It’s true.

This week on Tuesday my adult health promoters and I decided to have a cevichada to make some desperately needed money. For those of you who don’t know what ceviche is a. you’re missing out and b. it’s raw fish meat that’s cut up and soaked in lime juice with tons of onions and chili peppers and salt.

Hopefully I can post a picture on this thing so you can get a better idea. Its then served with cut up sweet potatoes (camote) and toasted, salted corn-ish seeds (canchita). I mean, the thought of eating ceviche originally grossed me out but now I’m totally cool with it and enjoy eating it.

So, of course, I somehow got assigned with the job of picking up 15 pounds of raw fish form the market in Tumbes city. The only issue was that my town’s anniversary has been taking place and I was going to be at a town party/concert until two in the morning the night before. So I got up early the next day to be the “early volunteer that got the fish.”

So at 7:30 I walked into Tumbes, down to the bank and got money out for 15 pounds of fish. At 7:50 I was walking down the main street to meet my counterpart, Sofia who said she would meet me to buy the fish. As I walking, I noticed a man walking closely behind me, kind of in my blind spot. Being paranoid, I started walking more quickly and began to cross the street. What I didn’t notice was the second man running up behind me. Cue the 5th time Lindsey has been robbed. And this is not petty theft. The two men, after ripping my purse off, hopped into the mototaxi parked across the street and took off down a side road and I was left, once again, in the street without my purse. HOWEVER, after all of my time here I have learned a few things. Keep NOTHING of importance in your purse; so I had the bulk of my money in one bra cup and my cell phone in the other. The lousy part was that I forgot I had left my ipod and Maggie’s 24th birthday gift inside my purse.

Conveniently, there was a policeman nearby and I managed to explain what happened. People nearby that had watched everything unfold, wrote down the two license plate numbers of the motos, so I at least I had that going for me. But I doubt anything will come of it. The one super baller and exciting part of all of this was that a newspaper rep had been nearby and I managed to record and interview on a ghetto digital camera, take a picture and write down my information. So now I am a movie star that a. made the evening news on tv b. got mentioned on the radio and c. got on the front page of the local newspaper!!! Go Tumbes 21!!! I wish that happened every time I got robbed.

But alas, there is a good end to this story. I still managed to meet Sofia after the whole debacle and buy my 15 pounds of fish. It smelled pretty bad and I made her carry the plastic bag for fear that the stench would seep into my skin (although I have no problem handling manure sans gloves), but we made it back to San Juan all right. My health promoters and I all went straight to work cutting fish, squeezing limes and slicing potatoes and our ceviche turned out to be delicious. We also made an amazing S/. 80 (roughly 30 dollars)!!! So that was a real morale booster both for my health promoters (now we actually have money to work with) and for me.

And if that wasn’t a morale booster enough, my town’s anniversary hired my cousin Yenner, and his 15 person orchestra/band to play for 8 hours on Wednesday night to celebrate 140 years as an official town.

Now Yenner has recently been developing this band over the past few years and they have all been coming over every Thursday to my house to practice (the room next to me is the only one big enough to fit the instruments). So Wednesday was their first big gig. I was so proud of them! Anne, Alyse and Isha came from their towns to join in too. Right as they were all getting ready to start in the main park, Alyse and I come out of my room to find one of the lead singers running up the stairs in his boxer briefs. Upon seeing us, he tried (unsuccessfully) to cover himself up with basically a washcloth and kept muttering “Im sorry, I’m sorry” as we laughed like 10 year old girls.

The party/dance marathon/beer fest started at 2 in the afternoon and ended at 10 at night. After attempting to dance salsa and cumbia for so long, my legs began to waver and I thought my feet would fall off, so I naturally bought French fries drenched in sketchy Peruvian condiments and sugared pineapple juice. This along with drinking for 8 hours on end has contributed greatly to some severe diarrhea on my part (it was all totally worth it though). After saying my goodbyes I came home, ate peanut butter and honey- covered potato chips (don’t judge) and fell asleep.

So like I said, even though there were some definite horrible parts to the past two days, the good of everything outweighs the bad.

Aunt Leah and I. Yeni and Milton dancing and drinking.

How to Make the Big Bucks

So this past year, my whole job in site has pretty much been working with health promoters- both big and small. While I’ve spent a lot of time and energy forming 23 teen promoters with my PEPFAR project, I inherited a great group of adult health promoters form the previous volunteer. These guys (and gals) are great. While they have become pros at doing radio spots and more recently have been delving into the area of house visits and charlas (only after I have lit the fire under their kekes), I think the real reason they like their job is because we manage to have a lot of fun. This is the key to success. I mean let’s be honest, being a health promoter is great and all and I’m sure they get that nice, warm feeling inside from helping their community, I don’t see any health promotion project like that being sustainable without a little incentive. And it doesn’t need to be money.

Peruvians love parties. So I throw them. While I’ve heard that some people in the sierra don’t even remember the month they were born in, let alone the year, my host mom in Tumbes can rattle off any birthday of any family member up until her 3^rd cousin. So I make a point to celebrate them. I have 15 promoters and lucky for me, their birthdays are all grouped together. During the month of November, we celebrated three and managed to put together a great party and it really didn’t cost a whole lot. We just had music, chicha, beer, and a homemade cake. The best part was just not doing work together and laughing at the volunteer Lindsey try to dance.

However, when money is an issue (and it is for my town because the mayor gives me zip to work with), I raise it. Bingo nights and rifas are great, but they’re just not really my thing. I hate selling tickets to stuff. I mean, even as a Girl Scout I hated the idea of going door to door to sell cookies. I’m pretty sure I just made my mom and grandma buy enough to make my father hate Thin Mints by the end of the year. So instead, I made the people come to me.

The perfect time presented itself when I was showing the movie JUNO to my town with the help of my teen health promoters. We planned it for a Thursday night and outside in the town’s coliseo so a) people could walk by and just come in and b) because my coliseo is big and can hold a bunch of people. The way I managed to raise money was through the adult health promoters selling popcorn and chicha inside (purple corn drink with lots of sugar).

An hour before the movie was scheduled to show, I could be found with seven other health promoters going to town on making popcorn. I even got the guys to get in the kitchen and get their hands dirty with stuffing the salty-goodness into tiny little plastic bags and stirring immense amounts of sugar into the chicha pot. It’s all about beating machismo folks. Despite the fact that we burnt like half of it and I realized that oil really is vital to making popcorn, we managed to sell like 20 bags. And since the popcorn was super salty, this created the dire need for people to quench their thirst with the delicious-chicha. I should have been a business volunteer.

So, what I’m trying to say is, parties and fundraisers like this are ways that my adult health promoters and I have been able to work together and have a ton of fun, but not necessarily in the health promotion area. It’s doing FUN stuff together like this that make people remember why they’re committed to their job, even when it doesn’t involve getting a paycheck. And despite that we only made 14 soles that night (turns out most people don’t want to drink cold chicha on a cold night- because as you all know, it causes AIDS and the bubonic plague at the same time), that’s still enough to buy a few beers and bocaditos for the next birthday party.

velaciones

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.