Jean & Russ: Esto es Jauja

Late news--we're home

2011-12-08T18:11:00.002-07:00

Numerous people have reminded us that we've never posted anything in this blog about our return. We got home to Montana on Aug. 17, and have been happily trying to figure out what's next, ever since. Thanks to all of our "followers" on this blog for joining us during these 27 months of service, discovery, and adventure. If we head back to our metaphorical "Jauja," we'll let you know!

Fiestas Patrias in Sacsayhuaman

2011-08-05T10:56:00.006-06:00

Fiestas Patrias in Sacsayhuamán

As I’ve noted before, there are “good Perú” days, and there are “bad Perú” days. The latter tend to wear you down with the sometimes-endless small aggravations that are just a part of life, here—and then really wham you with something categorically shitty. The former, by contrast, are full of the sparkling moments that are also a part of daily life—if you’re alert to them—that are then somehow catalyzed by an unexpected event or sight, into something rare and wonderful. That was Wednesday, July 27th, in la Comunidad Sustentable Sol de Sacsayhuamán.

Really, we didn’t expect much of the morning. This little satellite community of 450 people, just across the river from Chivay, received some money to renew their small Plaza, and did a nice job of it. We’d been invited to an event the night before, some nebulous occurrence scheduled for 5 p.m., as part of the celebration of re-opening the plaza, but when we got there it was only the work crews motoring around, so we didn’t stick around. The community officials had also invited us to another event for Wednesday morning and, being suckers for any form of diversion, we’d elected to make the 10-minute walk, up and over a steep hill, to see what might be going on.

Our first clue was the huge Peruvian flag draped over the Puente Inca, the aged bridge across the Rio Colca that separates Sacsayhuamán from Chivay, and the policía putting out unnecessary traffic cones and blowing their whistles in the inscrutable, random manner we’ve grown, like most, to ignore.

Descending to the new plaza, we were pleased by the sight of so much red-and-white, the colors of the Peruvian flag. This was the day before Peruvian Independence Day, and patriotic feeling runs high. Many of the buildings had a fresh coat of pinkish paint—it either loses or gains something, when applied to adobe or stucco, it’s hard to judge which. A good deal on pink paint must have been part of the plaza renovation budget.

We had walked over with a friend, and all three of us were directed to seats in the shade of the “reviewing stand.” One by one, some heavy-hitters began to arrive—the owner/architect of a fancy nearby hotel who had, no doubt, contributed to the renovation, various other officials connected to the project, and finally the alcalde provincial himself, the equivalent of a mayor at the county level. Our own connection to the project was tangential, at best: we sometimes work with some artisans in the community, some of whom are movers and shakers, and are acquainted with the president of the community board. We go to a LOT of meetings there, and are well-recognized, but I can’t say we’d contributed in any material way to this project.

It was a beautiful morning in a pretty place, at least if your tastes run to the rustic. Ours, now, do. Flags, agricultural terraces, adobe homes, people in traditional clothes, and the mountains that are considered living guardian spirits, rising into the blue, all combined to create a very pleasing prospect, with the new plaza in the foreground. The centerpiece of the plaza was a column crowned by a statue of . . . a local woman, spinning alpaca yarn, dressed in the traditional manner of a good fourth of the crowd. You gotta love THAT!

The commandant of the local army post goose-stepped over, automatic weapon and pistol possibly cleaned but not obviously polished—saluted, and asked permission of the alcalde to start the proceedings. A gigantic Peruvian flag was unfurled, and the assembled officials—us included—were invited to carry it around the plaza. We were ready to do so, but our friend reasoned that somebody had to stay behind in the reviewing stand to applaud, so we did.
Next, a bussed-in marching band from another district marched and played the national anthem. A few people—us included—sang along, but generally speaking, Peruvians don’t really get their heart into the anthem. The flag went up, the provincial hymn was played, another flag went up, and then came the marching.

Marching is an important part of any civic ceremony. From a young age, students are taught to goose-step in a disturbingly Nazi style, to martial music either blared from loudspeakers at painfully-distorted volume, or played by sixth-graders issued trumpets and drums. Bad idea, either way. But, every school in district was there to parade by, plus a number of civic groups who, too, self-consciously and half-heartedly goose-stepped, or not, by our reviewing seats.

Late in the proceedings, the head guy of Autocolca, the quasi-governmental agency that’s charged with managing tourism in the Colca, urgently motioned me to join him. Turns out, he needed a “tourist” to march with the Autocolca brigade, which included half a dozen llamas, to simulate someone “llama trekking.” He was disappointed that I wasn’t wearing a backpack, as most tourists are, but in a pinch I’d do. Jean, too, was recruited to hold their banner as we marched. We have mixed feelings about Autocolca, but the taxpayers pay us to be good sports, so we filed down the short plaza, carrying the banner and walking amid the llamas, and were laughingly applauded for our efforts.

Then, as we were milling about the plaza waiting for the next phase, I heard my name called on the loudspeaker, and was startled to find myself in the lineup to be awarded a “corazon de pan,” a large loaf of bread baked in the shape of an oversized heart about 18” across, decorated with flowers, and tied to the chest of persons whom they wish to honor or acknowledge as special. I was very pleased, and very humbled—I really don’t feel that I’ve contributed THAT much, but it was a very nice gesture on their part.

After that, it was cups of chicha (local version of homebrewed beer), Caballo Viejo (literally “old horse,” a cheap, sweet champagne that is regularly offered as a toast), and plates of food, to inaugurate the newly-paved playground of a nearby primary school. That much alcohol on school property in the U.S. would generally get someone fired, if not jailed, but here it’s customary. It saddens us, sometimes, to see the behavior that gets modeled for these kids, but it’s a culture that we’re not going to change.

Then it was still more food, until the ceremony wound down. I was never called upon for “palabras,” (literally, “words”) where you are expected to stand up and speak extemporaneously for a few minutes to thank, honor, or toast, as the occasion demands, but I was ready.

We left in the early afternoon, the unexpected events of the day embedded as yet another pleasant memory of our “good Peru.”

The End Times Chronicle

2011-07-08T15:22:00.010-06:00

OK, so it’s been since February since we posted anything. We really have no way of gauging how fascinating we are to our friends and family, and as our life here becomes more and more routine to us, we have less and less to say about it. That said, every day here still brings some new experience, some new emotion, so we'll try to catch you up a bit.

In March, we took a break from the cold, rainy season here and went to Argentina and Uruguay. Buenos Aires had always attracted our notice, and it didn’t let us down. It’s a beautiful city, and at times felt more like Brooklyn than a South American capital. Montevideo, Uruguay, was a pleasant surprise due to the unique (and protracted) manner they have of celebrating Carnaval—we took as full advantage as we could, and really enjoyed our time there, too. We then made our way to Iguazu Falls, a stunning and overwhelming natural wonder; and Tierra del Fuego, where the landscape at 46 degrees south in March reminded us of Montana (46 degrees north) in September, with snow dusting the mountaintops. It made us a little homesick.

All our other vacations have been within Peru, and coming home from that one was hard. We spent two weeks in first-world cities and at world-class tourist destinations, and came home to rainy season in Chivay. . . a difficult adjustment. We got over it, but not without some serious moping.

And now, we’re coming to the close of our service (officially, Aug. 16), and we're more focused on wrapping things up than starting anything new. In early May we had our "Close of Service" conference, where we began the lengthy process of getting OUT of the Peace Corps. It was the last time that our entire training group would be together, and now some of them have already left Peru. It makes every day a little sad.

After the conference, we burned the last of our vacation time and went to Ancash, the Colorado of Peru, which was spectacular--the second-highest mountain range in the world, the Cordillera Blanca, was outrageous. We did a 4-day trek (burro-supported) that was stunning, crossing a 15,600' pass over which 20,000'+ peaks towered. It was great to be out afoot like that. We also made a detour and finally visited the real Jauja. They'd never heard of the legend referenced in the title of this blog. Ahhh, Peru. . .

I'm also thick with a bunch of local guides, and whenever they need a gringo for a photo op or to see if their new idea is survivable, I get the call. Lately, that meant Jean and I went rafting on a nice, peaceful stretch of river with a rather inept captain, and I did a downhill-mountain-biking-on-snow photo shoot, bombing down from 17,000 feet (after breathlessly chugging up) on a local volcano. Verdict = survivable, but exhausting.

“Casas Vivenciales”, or home stays with local families is also an idea everyone thinks may bring more visitors (and more money) to the region, and many families are trying to make their homes and daily routines into tourist attractions. We have appeared as gringos in a couple of promotional videos (along with our “children” John and Kristen—other volunteers) and a friend recently asked us to come to his parent’s house for a photo op. The routine is familiar. We show up, they dress us up in traditional garb and giggle. We tag along for whatever work is scheduled for the day, this time the barley harvest. The first order of business was stomping down the dirt where the barley would be whacked with big sticks, so the grain wouldn’t get pounded into the dirt. We all stomped around to the rhythm of the tunes from the tinny radio, laughing and making a dance of it. Next, the men take the sheaves of barley (harvested by hand with a small scythe), and whack as much of the grain off of the stalk as they can with custom made whacking sticks (there is a name for it, no doubt, in Quechua…), then they spread the stalks out and the women do a little jump-plus backward scoot step across them to coax a bit more grain from the stalk. It is more exhausting than you might imagine, jumping and scooting at 12,500 feet above sea level. We gratefully took a break for lunch, which was boiled corn, fava beans and potatoes with a spicy sauce, a bit of homemade cheese from the family cows, and then a hearty stew. After lunch we made a token show of milking the cows, then stepped aside for the professionals. We imagine we have done some hard things in our time here; but “hard” is getting up every day, doing what needs to be done in the fields, and going back to your adobe home to take care of the family, go to bed; repeat.

Here in the alturas we're now into our "winter," which means the people are wearing alpaca, and the alpacas are wearing sweaters. In truth, the days are glorious, sunny, immensely enjoyable, but the air does not hold heat well, and if you step into the shade, or when the sun begins its slide down toward the horizon, you feel the chill. So, we sit around in our parkas like everyone else, and go on about our business.

We get either the 4th of July or Fiestas Patrias (Peruvian Independence Day) as a holiday; both provide 4 “free” days in July, but we want to be in Chivay for the fiestas, so we took a 4-day Independence Day backpacking trip into the Colca canyon. It was exhausting—dropping down into the world’s deepest canyon is not to be taken lightly—but fascinating. We soaked in hot springs, hiked to waterfalls, ate strange fruits hanging off trees, and traversed some crazy-steep trails, without serious incident.

After 3 days of med checks in Lima in early June, the verdict is that we're pretty healthy, and not bringing back any known parasites. Jean tweaked her back in February, and the doctor suggested swimming as excellent therapy, so a few times a week she's up early to bike to the local hot springs 3 km away; in the "piscina del pueblo" (people's pool, as opposed to the tourist pool) it costs her about 17 cents; she's going to miss that more than just about anything, when we get back.

As far as work goes, we’re focusing now on making whatever we’ve done here sustainable. Jean’s Warming Wawas project just got funded by the municipality, so it’s on solid footing for at least two years. The municipality just adopted and expanded my project, and is seeking funding from the Peruvian government for a 5-year horizon. Sustainability: check.

Most days now are more than a little schizophrenic. We’re trying to live here as intensely as possible for our last few weeks, while also actively planning for our return to the Bitterroot. We're ready to come home to Montana, but it will truly break our hearts to leave. We don't have friends here the way we have friends in Montana, where we've lived for 30 years; and the cultural barriers to true friendship are real, though surmountable. But we do have friends, we are well-known and accepted in the community, we've left a mark on this place and it, in turn, has marked us deeply--it will be every bit as emotional to leave Chivay as it was to leave Hamilton!

As much as our Peruvian friends, we’ll miss the other Peace Corps volunteers with whom we’ve served over the last 2 years. They’ve been our closest thing to “family,” and we’ve formed what we hope will be lifetime relationships with many of them.

We'll be back in the Bitterroot on Aug. 17, with absolutely no idea what comes next. For the last 30 years we've been talking about doing this Peace Corps hitch, and that's been our horizon. Next, we've got to figure out who we are now, and what to do about it. We'll be happy to be home, but we're sure going to miss the life we've come to know, here. As hard as it was to leave Montana, coming home is going to be equally disorienting. And that’s exactly the experience we signed up for.

A GOOD day in Peru

2011-02-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

A GOOD day, en mi querido Perú

1. The 4:30 A.M. bus got to Arequipa by 8 a.m.
2. Good breakfast, VERY good coffee.
3. Picked up a package from Serpost without it being intercepted by The Denier of Customer Service, with a very funny—and highly profane--script (with a possible role for when I get home!).
4. Also picked up my Peace Corps W-2; $3,100 income in 2010, either the hardest I’ve ever worked for that little money, or the most I’ve ever been paid to have such a great time.
5. Medical appointment—OK, all things considered.
6. Video guy in the Siglo XX mercado hails me, has the classic dvd I asked about 3 months ago, and an Oscar-nominee; pirated copies, no doubt, but there’s no other choice in Peru. Total cost: $2.
7. The nice lady in the mercado made me a large jugo mixto (mostly papaya, piña, & something unidentifiable she fished from a questionable-looking jar), and yappa-ed me a second large glass. The 8-hr countdown clock has expired, with no GI consequences.
8. Found a new sandwich joint where my pollo, queso, & tocino sandwich came with mango salsa and SPROUTS! Unheard of! Total cost: $2.
9. The always-nice folks at Hospedaje Caminante Class, who let me drop my stuff off for the day, and use the bathrooms, even when I’m not staying the night.
10. The 4:30 P.M. bus got back to Chivay at 9:20 p.m., not a fast run, but at least it didn’t slide off the road and fall over a cliff in the heavy snow that was falling in the alturas, a very real possibility.
11. In rainy Chivay, I stopped at Juan’s store on the Plaza de Armas to buy a box of Corn Flakes, conducting the whole transaction (including pleasantries and comments on the weather) in Quechua, which amuses us both.
12. The one remaining cat in our home greeted me enthusiastically and affectionately, an unusual quality in a cat.
13. Late (10 p.m.) supper of Corn Flakes in our cozy and not-too-leaky nest, followed by rum and grapefruit juice w/ my enthusiastic & affectionate mate.

The usual day-to-day annoyances that Peru regularly provides were also present in their usual number, but it was somehow much easier to overlook them today.

¡Que Viva El Perú!

Pago a la Tierra

2011-01-06T11:48:00.007-07:00

Last year was tough for our host family—though tourism numbers in the Colca Valley are up (according to the local authorities) it appears that a higher percentage of the tourists are coming on one-day package tours, which leaves the local hotels, restaurants, and artisans almost completely out of the picture. The family’s restaurant, which was open—and full—nearly every day for the first 9 months we were here, is now open only when they have a group reservation, one or two days a week. Tour guides demand a “commission” for each passenger they bring, and their demands are escalating to unreasonable levels.

The family is middle-class, by Chivay standards (by U.S. standards? Our yardsticks don’t even apply). They have two sons studying at the university in Arequipa, and another who is about to start, an expensive proposition any way you look at it. There is a possibility that some of the people in town who are envious of them have cursed them.

What to do?

Obviously, it’s time to start the New Year with a “pago a la tierra,” literally a “payment to the earth.” It’s a common ritual, particularly in January, February, or August, in which sacrifices are made to Mother Earth (“Pachamama”) in order to bring forth blessings, and specific blessings may be asked. It also serves to lift any curses placed on the house or those who live there.

The house was cleaned in preparation, and a well-known “curandero” was imported from nearby Tuti. Sobriety was an issue when he arrived, so he was given a bowl of hearty soup (a common breakfast here) and put to bed for a few hours to sleep it off.

The role of curandero (shaman, more or less) is not hereditary here, as it is in some cultures. Instead, it is acquired by the dubious distinction of being struck by lightning, which enables some people to speak with the “apus,” or mountain gods, and perform the functions of the curanderos. Amanda, who herself can read the coca leaves, had him read the leaves for her this morning, and was satisfied with his interpretation of her fortune for the coming year, so he was given the stamp of approval.

All was in readiness at sundown—the door to the house was locked, and the curandero arranged a small altar, with different offerings representing different desires of the family. Their business plan for the coming year is to keep the restaurant open, but also to open a tourism agency in Arequipa to bring passengers to the restaurant on 1- or 2-day tours to the valley. For this, they’ll need money, a 30-passenger tour bus, and lots of tourists.

A couple of years ago, when they first opened their restaurant, they also had reason to believe that they had been the subject of curses placed by various neighbors, but a pago a la tierra had enabled them to prosper. It came up in conversation that it was well-known in town that at least four people (they could name them) had sold their souls to the devil. Black magic was in the air, and their financing was in jeopardy.

It was clearly time to make another pago.

The offerings consisted primarily of carefully selected, perfectly formed coca leaves, tallow from the chest of a llama, coins, dried herbs, kernels of corn, wine, incense, and an alpaca fetus. Each offering represented a specific desire—more money, lots of tourists, a bus, etc. The fetus was mostly just a particularly appeasing morsel for Pachamama. The offerings were variously placed in a seashell, or on a small square of woven alpaca fiber.

The entire family—including us—gathered ‘round, and the offerings were passed from hand to hand; you were to visualize what they represented, and with all your faith, breathe on them three times. The wine was sprinkled over them all, with an invocation to Pachamama and the local apus, Cotallaully (the mountain above Chivay) and the Puente Inca (Inca bridge), before everyone downed a slug.

(By the way, it’s always good form, when drinking, to offer the first few drops to Pachamama and the local apus).

Then, Enrique chiseled a hole in the concrete floor of the house, until he broke through to the earth below, and built a fire over it. The offerings were burnt, and the fire sprinkled with more wine.

Everyone was satisfied that it had gone quite well, and the curandero was remanded back to Tuti with a handsome payment in hand. The doors were unlocked to let the smoke out—and so our New Year commenced. We’ll let you know how our wishes are realized!

Wititi Week 2010

2010-12-10T08:34:00.006-07:00

The annual madness is in full swing. For four days, beginning the 8th of December every year, Chivay goes crazy. It may be that we’re celebrating the Feast of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception—that’s the religious occasion that overlays all of the festivities--but at times it’s a pretty thin veneer. Whatever the excuse, though, the town is alive like no other time of year.

This is the Wititi Festival—the traditional dance of the Colca, danced with fervor, amid massed brass bands, men and women wearing their colorful embroidered skirts (polleras), traditional hats, blouses, a whole vocabulary of accessories and adornments that add up to an astonishingly beautiful swirl of color and motion when they swing into action.

And the noise! Three large brass bands, of up to 100 players, parade through the Plaza de Armas, or prowl the streets at all hours between 6:30 a.m. and . . . 2:30 a.m.? Maybe later. We lose track. It’s like living in the middle of an elaborate bowl game Halftime Show, surrounded by trumpets, drums, and baritones (mini-tubas, called “bajos” here), all blowing their lips off amid an orgy of eating, drinking, and dancing.

The mercado is lined with impromptu food and drink vendors (José standing with cases of beer stacked up and a sign, “happiness in bottles”). Ranks of tall arches, made of eucalyptus poles and festooned with shiny pots, pans, trays, flashing lights, and stuffed animals (the significance of which escapes me) line the streets of the Plaza de Armas. People dance and weave in and among the arches, which are “sponsored” by individuals or families in Chivay.

Chivay is divided in three districts, Urinsaya (lower), Hanansaya (upper), and Ccapa (merchant), and each competes to outdo the other with the volume of their musicians, the gaudiness of their arches and altars, and the enthusiasm of their dancers. People host breakfasts, lunches, or dinners at their homes for dozens of attendees.

Virtually nothing gets done for the four days of the Wititiada. Some businesses may be open in the mornings, when less is happening, but by mid-afternoon, hundreds of people are dressing in their outfits and preparing to dance. As the sun goes down, the bands really crank it up, and the true craziness floods into the streets.

Generally, there’s rain. This is the beginning of the rainy season, and it is considered good fortune if it rains, at least by connoisseurs. Gotta think about the growing season, I guess, although for those of us with no beans in the ground it’s less thrilling, and really just kind of muddy and cold, but that’s the local ethic for you. Sometimes it hails, and I guess that’s good, too, although it IS harder on the beans.

The best is when you’re dancing in the middle of it all, and just let it sweep over you. The incredible volume and physical impact of the noise; the sensory overload of lights, color, and motion among the dancers; the physical closeness of the partner you’re spinning; the intensity of the dancers; it all adds up to something elemental, primal, a collective expression of something unique to this culture in the specific way that it’s expressed, but recognizable across cultural barriers as something innate.

Yes, it’s also an occasion for serious public drunkenness, yes there are a lot of mixed messages getting sent, yes the ostentatious spending on frivolous fiestas instead of addressing deeper social problems are all troublesome; feel free to extend that analogy to the American football halftime show, too. You can see a darker side to anything; sometimes you just have to acknowledge all that, and then choose to live in the beauty of the moment.

And what a beautiful moment it is!

More Mid-service Musings

2010-09-13T20:53:00.011-06:00

Mid-service med checks behind us (all good), it’s a natural time to reflect on what’s changed in the last year, and to ponder what’s yet to come. It’s a good time, also, to review the shocks and pleasures of this new life, and the adjustments we’ve made—most of which now seem oddly normal.

Random festivals, with brass bands and people dancing til all hours in, ahh, unusual costumes? Check. Normal. Really useful training opportunities that we have labored to create, but that few attend? Or to which they arrive 90 minutes late? Resigned to it. Indoor spaces more frigid than the outdoors, nearly any time of day/year? Acostumbrado, and I always carry that extra layer. Peruvian TV? Never get used to it!

The point is that we're now pretty well accustomed to this life. If someone told us that we were going to have to spend the rest of our lives in Chivay, living as we live now, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen. But—we also now have a much better idea of what we’d be missing.

At the halfway mark, thoughts about what we miss about the States have inevitably turned into thoughts of what we’ll miss about Peru when our service is done—but that’s a topic for a year from now. So far, in other words, it's been exactly the learning experience we were hoping for. We know a little more about ourselves and what's important to us (just a little more private space, please?), and a lot more about the world around us, what makes a way of life beautiful, and what detracts.

In his book, “Deep Economy,” author Bill McKibben cited a couple of studies that resonated with me. In one, a worldwide inquest found that self-described “happiness” rises in tandem with income only up to a fairly modest amount, where one’s basic needs are met, and beyond that point the data scatter. Another study has been tracking how “happy” U.S. citizens report themselves to be, beginning back in the 1940’s. That number peaked around 1957—shortly after I was born, though I’m sure that’s just a coincidence—and though household income (adjusted for inflation) has more than doubled since that time, “happiness” has been losing ground ever since.

I never thought of the way of life we had in the States as “better.” It was pretty sweet, on balance, but what we gave up to come to Peru has been offset by the knowledge and insights we have gained, and a whole new set of satisfactions (OK, and stresses) that we couldn’t have imagined before we got here. We’re still open to exploring other ways of living, other ways of balancing the joys and stresses of various styles of life, but never with the idea that one might be “best.”

This comes from someone who has always gone for the “lifestyle sampler pack”: solid, middle-class-suburban upbringing; college on the six-year-plan, working my way through, followed by six years of seasonal work featuring a steady diet of powdered milk, bulk foods, and venison when I potted something during hunting season. We lived for two years in a log cabin (or, sometimes, in a VW camper) without electricity or indoor plumbing in a Montana ghost town, working for the Dept. of the Interior; we stayed in classy hotels in Europe, visited the White House, and hobnobbed with literary celebrities in mid-town Manhattan when I was president of a trade association; and we have spent decades as Main Street retailers, deeply involved in our small community in Montana.

So what do I now see as a good “way of life?” Enough friends, with whom we can share meaningful experiences and a fair amount of silliness; good, wholesome food, with plenty of variety (and the occasional descent into decadence); a community in which we can feel rooted and where we can make a difference; meaningful work with people we like; a healthful environment offering a variety of outdoor activities year-round; and a lively and varied cultural life of which we can both partake and in which we can participate.

Some of those are admittedly harder to achieve here; we’ll never be a part of this culture, and when we participate it’s usually something of a spectacle—Whoa! The old gringos are dancing Wititi just like us!—and much of the cultural background will forever remain opaque to us. I’m accustomed to making a spectacle of myself, but sometimes it does get tedious.

It’s harder to find good friends with whom to pass the time here, and some kinds of cultural variety just don’t exist. It can all be very frustrating--and yet analyzing that frustration can also be very enlightening.

What's important to the people among whom we live? Pretty simple: family, work, community, and their cultural traditions, in more or less that order. Of course, how they deal with those issues is what differentiates this place from any other, but I'm not doing a sociological study here, just walking around with my eyes open.

On the plus side for us, we eat much, much closer to the source than we did in the U.S.; the alpaca and chicken we eat every day were recently seen on the hoof, not grown and packaged in a “production facility” thousands of miles away. Some of the fruit we eat may be from Chile, but so was the fruit we ate in the States, and we’re a LOT closer to Chile, now! The rest of the veggies and grains in our diet are usually pretty local. Points off for variety in the diet; score some extra for a more rational distribution system.

I also enjoy the feeling that my environmental “footprint” has diminished significantly—the resources we use are far fewer here than in the States, and that’s important to me. I’ll probably shower more frequently when I go back, but I’ll use less hot water, I promise!

So, back to the themes from Bill McKibben’s book: we’ll return to the States in a year, much more focused on the things that make us “happy,” much more attuned to eliminating the things normally associated with higher income but that, in the end, distract or detract from quality of life. We know we can be happy with much, much less. We can live ever more lightly and “locally.”

Years ago, when we bought our house, it was a wreck. We didn’t have enough money to do a fabulous remodel, but we spent a lot of time and muscle getting rid of what was ugly. When you remove what’s ugly, what almost inevitably emerges is the beautiful. You can do that with your life. I’m working on it.

Midway . . .

2010-07-26T21:23:00.010-06:00

We just passed the mathematical midpoint of our time in Perú—27 months total, a bit over a year to go.

Mixed feelings? You bet.

We look at the clothes we brought with us and try to guess which items will last another year, and which will become too embarrassingly frayed to wear in public before then. Virtually none will be coming back with us, beyond what we wear to the airport.

There are certainly days when I feel like “OK, I get it, I could go home now.” I realize, though, that what you learn from living in a foreign culture for a year is not the same thing you learn from living in that culture for TWO years; and then, there are the days that are just magic.

Last month we had a day where we longed to have lunch at our favorite café in Hamilton, with great food and the sense that we knew everybody in the joint. We had this discussion on our way to lunch at a place on Chivay's Plaza de Armas that serves cheap ($1.40) but tasty--and reasonably sanitary--lunches; we seated ourselves, and lo! we knew everyone who came in. It was an “aha!” moment for us—this can be home, too.

So what have I learned in one year; what’s changed? Hard to say . . . incremental change can kind of sneak past you, and is best seen in retrospect. I know that my concept of what I “need” to be “comfortable” has been scaled back, considerably. I also know that what I “need” to be “comfortable is still more than what most of the people around me have. It’s a hard lesson.

I’ve learned a very little bit about the frustrations of living one’s entire life in a developing country. I’ve learned mountains about the satisfactions of living in a place with cultural roots that run hundreds, if not thousands, of years deep.

Our Spanish is a little better than it was a year ago.

We have helped some people to see some opportunities they might not have grasped before, but we haven’t put any magic wands in their hands. Peace Corps is rife with stories of volunteers who found, 20 years later, that some seemingly insignificant act they performed during their service had a profound effect on someone’s life, but it’s a long gestation. Likewise, we probably won’t realize the full effect that living here has had on us, until we return—for now, “normal” has been reset to a value that is on an entirely different scale than a US-based “normal.”

It’s a transition time, though—the volunteers from the previous training group, with whom we’ve been sharing the Department of Arequipa for the last year, have largely packed up and gone to where they’re headed next: Lima, Stockholm, Chicago, and parts unknown, destinations as varied as their characters. Part of the next training group were in Chivay last week for their “Field-Based Training,” working in the Instituto Superior with us watching over their shoulders; some of them may soon be returning here to replace those who left. We’re reminded again of how high-quality Peace Corps Volunteers tend to be—these are people we look forward to working with. For the next year, though, we’re the “senior class” here, and it’s an odd sensation.

Our work? It continues, more or less the same. We teach English classes, we coax members of artisan groups to think creatively and “work smarter,” we work to develop a tourism model that is more just and beneficial to the local populace, we do business seminars for whomever shows up. We go to meetings and sit in very cold rooms for extended periods of time, until our blood has congealed and all brain activity has ceased, and then try to contribute, in Spanish. It’s frustrating, maddening, challenging and, very occasionally, studded with gem-like moments that are incredibly satisfying.

Personal lives? We live in a tiny room in which we regularly wish to occupy the same space at the same time. It’s been a test of our personal relationship, but when we crawl under that heavy alpaca blanket on a cold night, we’re still happy to be occupying the same space . . . We have friends—other PCV’s to be sure, but also Peruvians with whom we’ve developed relationships that go beyond just business. It’s hard to share much with them, though—the nature of their lives and culture here is not based on getting together for dinner parties, or doing theater or going camping together, and there are linguistic and cultural bridges that we’ll never be able to cross. We try, though, and so do they, and that’s what friends do, no?

In June we went to Trujillo for a training session on community banks, bringing community partners with us (on their first airplane rides, and first view of the Pacific Ocean). Then, we took advantage of being on Peru's northern coast and spent some of our accrued vacation time seeing a new part of the country. We visited the ruins of the what was the largest pre-Columbian city in the western hemisphere and the largest city constructed of adobe in the world, Chan Chan; nearby is Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol, ceremonial sites that were constructed and then, with great effort, buried under millions of adobe bricks. We visited another volunteer at her site near where the fabulously rich treasures of the Lord of Sipán were discovered. Then we took the overnight bus to Chachapoyas, the capital of the Department of Amazonas, in a mountainous zone of cloud forest with scattered ruins and La Catarata de Gocta,
the third-highest waterfall in the world. We thought we might spend 2 or 3 days there, but ended up staying 6 days, enjoying all that this part of Perú has to offer.

The star attraction is Kuélap, a mountaintop fortress built a thousand years ago. Though it was re-discovered in the 19th century, much of it has only recently been excavated, and tourism has yet to catch up with it, at least to the degree it merits. A gorgeous setting, stonework that lacks the finesse of the Incas but makes up for it in sheer volume . . . it was a great visit.

The other thing that kept us in Chachapoyas was Café Fusiones; here’s a shout-out to Marilyn, her locally-produced organic coffee, her baked goodies, and her thoughtful comments on sustainable tourism.

It’s winter, which means that most mornings are below freezing outside, and in the low 40’s in our room when we awake. The days are uniformly sunny, and warm up quickly, then turn breezy in the afternoon. Have I mentioned how beautiful this place is, in a very unique way, and how much we enjoy and admire the people we work and live with?

Not much more to say—we miss our friends and family, but we don’t dwell on it, and try to focus on “being here now.” We’ll never have this opportunity again, and we don’t want to miss out on any of it by longing to be elsewhere. (We do try to keep up on news from the States and from the Bitterroot, a much easier task in the age of the Internet, but certainly another distraction.)

So, drop us a line and tell us what’s going on—what we really want to know doesn’t come in the form of Missoulian headlines.

Serious/Fun

2010-06-14T21:26:00.013-06:00

A couple of weeks ago I made a flip remark in a Facebook posting about appeasing the Volcano Gods. Recently it came back to haunt me in an altogether serious way.

Ampato is a volcano that towers 21,000 feet above the Colca canyon. It is best known as the site where the mummy of a young Inca girl, about 13 years of age and known informally as “Juanita,” was found, sacrificed at the summit 500 years ago. Was she sacrificed to end an eruption? End a drought? Nobody knows, but her still-frozen body is on display in an Arequipa museum, along with the artifacts that were left with her.

As part of the celebration of the anniversary of the Province of Caylloma, for the last four years they have staged a mass climb of Ampato, one of the “Apus” or mountain spirits that guard the valley. I was invited to participate, but four days before the climb, we got a dump of snow up high, and my local guide friends advised me not to go—too dangerous, really difficult conditions, they said--they were planning to bail out on it. As we had friends visiting over the weekend, the decision was that much easier.

The culmination of the ascent was to be a “Pago a la Tierra,” literally a payment to the earth, usually involving coca leaves, chicha (beer) and other items—a ceremony related in spirit, however distantly, to the sacrifice of “Juanita,” More than 50 people signed up for the climb, but the summit party was only about 25 people. The “pago” was apparently accomplished, but as the party began their descent, an avalanche swept through them, and claimed the lives of two young men from Arequipa, injuring a handful of others. Fortunately, the party included members of the High Mountain Rescue team from Chivay, and three commercial climbing operators from Arequipa, including a doctor, so the survivors were evacuated safely, but it took several days more to find and recover the second body.

Shortly after, I began hearing some people here saying that, tragic as it was, we can expect a good harvest/weather/etc. now, as the Apu Ampato has claimed what it wanted.

Immediately after that, another tragedy struck, when a bus plunged off the road out of Chivay, sliding 300 meters down the mountainside before coming to rest at an irrigation ditch. Four people died, and many more were injured, but the miracle is that anybody survived. The mood here has been somewhat more somber than normal.

Resolved: no more joking about Apus or Volcano Gods.

Working my way slowly back toward the “fun” aspect of life here, I’ll pause to note our two and a half days of translating for a team of Aussie doctors and support personnel, in Chivay to spend a week doing free cataract surgeries for the locals. They were great to work with, and the patients, mostly old and poor, were grateful beyond words. You can imagine what it was like for one of the patients to see their grandchildren clearly for the first time. Nice to be a part of that project, which was put together by a group called Quechua Benefit, headquartered in Oregon and supported by alpaca breeders, both in the States and in Australia.

Then, there’s fun: a visit from our friends Kent & Diane Myers. We did what we could to show them a good time in the Colca in the relatively little time we had together—a couple of months would have been about right.

We took vacation time, with the intention of trekking down into the canyon, but bagged that idea to spend more quality time having fun above the rim. It was strange to relax and just be tourists, now that we’ve lived here long enough to be able to see ourselves as others see us. We’ve spent so much time trying to distinguish ourselves from the flood of tourists, and trying to do everything “Peace Corps style” (i.e. totally on the cheap), that I felt particularly conspicuous—but I got over it. Seeing the cave art is pretty cool.

It also felt like “cheating” to take a break from our Chivay life, and live it up a bit, but ultimately we figured that’s why Peace Corps gives us vacation days!

Now it’s back to normal—no more birthday dinners with candles and wine, no hotels with private bathrooms, etc.. But we DID have River Rising granola for breakfast, and pancakes with maple syrup for dinner. The goodies from Montana are going fast, but we savor every bite!

UPDATE: “Normal,” however, includes an epic 6-and-a-half-hour, 80-km bike ride that was part of the Provincial Anniversary celebration. We rode up and over the pass at Patapampa, 15,800’ feet in the sky, then back to the Colca valley via the “Ruta Escondida” or “hidden route,” the idea being to publicize this little-known resource. The route was mostly on dirt and gravel roads, with 4,600’ of climbing, all told. I had no supplemental oxygen to help me out, and no coca leaves—but I DID have some of Jean’s chocolate-chip cookies, and 2 bananas: practically rocket fuel. Truth be told, the winners had been relaxing in the Plaza de Armas for better than an hour when they swept up all of the not-yet-finished contestants from the course, and I put up no resistance—but it was nice to know that I can still ride.

At the ultimate source of the Amazon, just a day-trip from Chivay . . . but that's another story.

Bus Breakdowns and High Lake Towns

2010-04-16T12:56:00.008-06:00

We’ve been on the go, traveling within Peru in the last month, so thought we’d share some travel (mis)adventures, and some happy discoveries that balanced the inevitable frustrations.

First, how we cope with the frustrations (and not just related to travel . . .): we wait until something changes. We can’t change anything, people will lie about what may or may not happen, so patience and flexibility, those watchwords of Peace Corps life, are the only tools we have. That, and the attitude of G.K. Chesterton, whom I believe I’ve quoted before, to the effect “an adventure is only an inconvenience, rightly viewed.” We have plenty of “adventures.”

First, though, a travel success: the overnight bus service from Arequipa to Lima averages 16 hours, and while the bus companies have developed some reasonably comfortable reclining seats, it still comes down to a total of 20 to 24 hours of bus transit between Chivay and Lima, a trip we have to make every couple of months. The air service between Arequipa and Lima, however, is quite good, and for Peruvian residents (Green Card! Ta-Da!) very economical, nearly the same price as bus service. We’ll never be done with the bus trips, but we’ve mixed in a few air trips, and the increase in morale is directly proportional to the decrease in hideously swollen ankles.

Bus travel between Chivay and Arequipa frequently means getting up at 3:45 a.m. to catch an early bus for the 4-hour trip. Arequipa is significantly warmer than Chivay, so we like to travel light, but (ever the Boy Scout) every time we leave I ask myself if I’m prepared to stay comfortable and safe if the bus breaks down at the top of the pass. Last Friday, I decided I was, although I compromised on my footwear, sandals with wool socks instead of real shoes.

Of course, the bus broke down at the top of the pass, 15,800 feet high in the sky, dawn breaking, the temperature below freezing, fresh snow from last night’s squall frosting the nearby peaks. Of course after the two-and-a-half-hour wait, my feet got cold, but everything else was fine. Jean was less prepared, but warmed up as the sun rose higher. Remarkably, a passing bus stopped, and just happened to be carrying a spare water pump, like this was a fairly common thing to keep handy. Repairs made, we traveled on, and my feet thawed out in sunny Arequipa.

Coming back from that same trip, we chose a different bus line, but THEIR bus broke down before even getting out of Arequipa. Repairs were effected in an hour or so, but it was not a confidence-builder. On average, we face a delay of an hour or more about half the time we travel that route, but we nearly always get there.

Semana Santa (Holy Week) is a lost week in Peru, everything shuts down and people tend to travel, so Peace Corps allows us a few travel days, too. We took advantage, going to Puno on Lake Titicaca and being tourists for a few days. We traveled in a tourist bus, only marginally more comfortable than the average intercity equipment, but well-attended with a guide who stopped periodically at scenic or historic spots equipped with (primitive) toilet facilities, a nice touch on a 6-hour ride.

Aside #1: the FAA requires pilots to use oxygen if they’ll be above 12,000 feet for more than 30 minutes, and requires both pilots and passengers to have oxygen or a pressurized cabin any time above 14,000 feet. We live at 12,000 feet, and though we regularly travel over that 15,800’ pass, nobody—and especially not the driver—has oxygen. Most people just zonk out, but that’s not a great option for the drivers. We watched our driver stuff a handful of coca leaves in his mouth to deal with the altitude, the traditional local remedy.

Once in surprisingly scenic Puno, we took a boat to the Uros Islands, which truly are floating islands made of reeds--they just keep piling them on as the stuff on the bottom rots and floats away, century after century. It’s one thing to read about a floating island, another to step off the boat and have the whole island rock underfoot. Everything is made of totora reeds—the island, the homes, the cuisine. We paused a bit, then carried on to the (real) island of Amantaní, where we spent the night.

“Turismo vivencial” is the big thing here in the Colca, tourist home-stays with rural families who provide traditional meals, the family including the visitors in their daily activities, maybe even throwing in a hike to a historic site, or attending a cultural event. They’ve refined that to an art on Amantaní, and we wanted to see how they managed it. Amantaní is accessible only by boat, has no (or very limited) electricity, and the 4,000-or-so inhabitants engage in subsistence farming—and tourism. Interesting to feel like a “crop,” ripe for the harvesting. We stayed with a family, ate an astonishing variety of tubers (this is Peru, after all), a vegetarian diet that was rich and satisfying on an island where no livestock are kept for meat.

Aside #2: This is truly a nation of entrepreneurs, but we find that they tend to think more in terms of communal enterprises, consortiums or associations. Instead of having nine separate families competing for tourists in their homes, they form a consortium, and when tourists arrive, they’re farmed out to whichever family is next on the list, all sharing equally. It’s required a shift in our thinking when we deal with businesses, as we’re more accustomed to the I/me/mine style of American competition and free enterprise. We’ve come to appreciate the difference.

Every region of Peru has its distinctive style of traditional dress, at least for the women. Skirt color and cut, and headgear vary remarkably. Men, in general, have just adopted standard Western attire.

We, along with all the other tourists on the island, ascended to ruins at the top of the island, a hill called pachatata (father earth), for a spectacular sunset. I have to say, Lake Titicaca is quite beautiful, even moreso when viewed from one of the islands. It’s immense—like ten Flathead lakes, or one liquid Ravalli county, running 102 miles long by 40 miles wide—and on the day we visited, tranquil. Snowcapped mountains rise in the distance, both in Peru and in Bolivia, which shares part of the lake. (Peruvians snicker that Peru gets the Titi, Bolivia gets the caca. . . ). Then, after dinner, our hosts flung traditional (not Sears) ponchos and other fashion accessories over us, and away we went for 90 minutes of dancing and drinking, coming home to sleep under the standard four alpaca blankets.

The stars that night were the equal of any we’ve seen anywhere, ambient light being utterly absent, and at that elevation (12,500’) not a lot of atmosphere in the way, either. It was also the quietest night we’ve spent in Peru, as there are no dogs on the island, no roosters, no cars, no planes overhead, no public address loudspeakers blaring announcements at 6 a.m. It was rapturously tranquil.

Motoring back to Puno, we stopped for lunch on the island of Taquile, which features a closed society in which only the native islanders can own land, or operate a business. It’s a system with advantages and, obviously, some disadvantages, but we admire their fierce sense of self-determinism. Here, interestingly, the men knit the distinctive hats that they wear, and which tell you something about their marital status. The quality of the knitting—specifically, its ability to hold water--also signals something to the young island maidens about the supposed suitability of the knitter.

Well, that strayed significantly from my intended transportation focus, but there’s another slice of life in Peru for you—nothing ever goes quite where or how you intended, but it always ends up some place interesting. Call it an inconvenience or call it an adventure, but in the end somebody eventually shows up with a water pump, or a poncho, or maybe just some herbs and an incantation, and it’s on to the next adventure!

A Good Week

2010-03-11T09:14:00.005-07:00

Because we’ve traveled in Peru and South America before, because we’ve worked for the government before, and because we did some “due diligence,” we had a notion of what our Peace Corps/Peru experience might be like before we got here—and the many ways in which we were wrong have been fodder for our previous blog posts.

In the last two weeks, though, my PC life has matched up remarkably closely with that image I had, which is a sufficiently stunning development that I thought I’d describe it.

First of all, Jean is Lima-bound, for 3 days of training in teaching English, so she’ll just have to tell her own side of this, later. In perfect English.

We went to Arequipa on Monday of last week to pick up our mail, run some errands, and to do some shopping for things not available in Chivay. Picking up the mail meant spending two hours at Serpost for what should be a 5-minute transaction, bailing a box of goodies out of petty-bureaucrat-from-Customs hell. It got better after that—Arequipa is a fairly magical city, and the mere fact that it was warm and not raining made it a much-needed break from Chivay. The shopping consisted mostly in large necessities and small luxuries, at a mix of small storefronts and an awful, giant supermarket swamped with back-to-schoolers.

We spent the night in Arequipa, as the next morning all the regional volunteers had to receive our H1N1 vaccinations from our Peace Corps doc. Never mind that H1N1 has all but disappeared from Peru—the U.S. Government requires it, so we got expertly perforated.

We then met as a group with a regional NGO to plan a meeting in Chivay for young elected officials and community leaders, to share their experiences and explore ways to involve more youth in the political life of their communities. We then splurged a bit on lunch--$8 really is a lot for tacu-tacu, a kind of mashup of leftovers topped with a sauce of rubbery bits of creatures recently yanked from the sea—but it was good. The bus ride back to Chivay was only 3-1/2 hours, a pleasant surprise, as recently it’s been running 4 hours or more. I used the ride to finish reading “The Book Thief,” (‘bout time, huh?), Jean listening to our infallible and inexhaustible audio book of “Moby Dick,” brilliantly performed by William Hootkins.

In the Colca valley the rainy season is tapering off and everything is a vivid green, like the Bitterroot in May. We get beautiful, sunny, warm mornings, late afternoon rain showers, and occasionally splendid nights: clear, with the constellations of the southern hemisphere piercing the night sky like someone’s crazy idea of the view from God’s back porch.

By day we slaved away, going to meetings with NGO’s, working to help the locals find ways to harvest tourist dollars like they were the quinua crops maturing in their fields. We worked with artisans trying to build a center where tourists could come to try their hand at “artesanía,” spinning alpaca fibers into yarn, and knitting a shawl with it, or turning a blank piece of fabric into an embroidered landscape of birds and mammals with a few deft movements at a sewing machine. I wrote up “oficios,” densely-worded documents overflowing with flowery language, to solicit the use of a meeting room and an extension cord. We talked with nascent entrepreneurs, about how to promote their rustic lodgings to tourists who are willing to take a chance on something other than a standard hotel room in Chivay.

We also were invited to judge the artisan works at a competition held in honor of International Women’s Day. It’s very gratifying that we’re accepted and invited like that, I have to say. We had a great time talking with all the women, and a difficult time judging them. We took advantage of our time in the hall to take in the food competition, too—alpaca “ham” (VERY good), swiss cheese (salty, but a nice change from the ubiquitous “queso fresco”), and excellent cookies and cakes made from corn, quinua, kiwicha, barley, and a few other items I can’t even describe.

What set the week truly apart, for me at least, was seeing a couple of seeds I’ve planted starting to take root. I’ve been pushing a proposal for a campaign similar to “Local First” efforts, encouraging the purchase and use of local products, and especially local artisan work (versus cheaply-made, machine-produced copies from outside the valley). At the afore-mentioned competition, I started seeing labels featuring my “buy local” idea printed on them, before I’ve even officially launched the campaign! (That’s two wins right there—getting people to use labels has been an effort in itself).

At a meeting later that night for the artisan center, I got them to change the idea for their sign from something featuring the incomprehensible acronym for their association, adorned with a condor, to something more descriptive and appealing to tourists. The condor, admittedly magnificent in flight, is still just a big buzzard when it lands, and it’s overdone here. Take that, carrion-breath!

We also started teaching English classes for guides and anyone working in a tourism-related business, three times a week, for the next three months. Prep is time-consuming and demanding, and thankfully Jean has done most of that. We have a mix of people with some knowledge of English, and others with practically virgin ears. Teachers of the world, we salute you.

I spent Saturday biking to Coporaque, 8 muddy kilometers distant, for a work party thrown by a group trying to attract more tourists by developing a nice ½-day hiking circuit. We planted scores of trees, cleaned the path of rocks and debris, built trail and hacked cactus, back-breaking work in a spectacular setting. More Quechua was spoken than Spanish, leaving me gaping stupidly most of the time, but occasionally responding appropriately, astonishing everyone. Rain moved in on us as we worked our way back to town, where we ate a huge lunch, possibly the source of my digestive woes the following two days. Exhausted, I biked home in even-deeper mud, and fell over.

Jean spent that morning working in the small garden plot one of our “socios” offered her, and a friend called to invite her to take a walk that afternoon. If she’d had someone with whom to play some duets in the evening, it would have been a 5-star day for her, but alas, that’s still a piece missing from our lives—cultural opportunities OTHER than those typical of the Sierra are rare, indeed.

Aside from work, I finally started exercising once again, hiking up the mountain that fronts Chivay, with legs of lead. After biking to Coporaque and back Saturday, on Sunday Jean and I rode a nice 90-minute out-and-back on a moderately-challenging trail along the river. She’ll be a mountain biker yet.

I also completed our shower, by installing an electric shower head that currently lacks connection, but which—when and if our host wires it—will provide us with a hot shower, if it doesn’t electrocute us. At least now, for the first time since we got here, we have a COLD shower as an alternative to bucket baths. Small luxury. I live for the possibility of having a hot shower available to us whenever we want it. Things like this come to dominate your life in ways you never expected.

Our social lives? Glad you asked! Peace Corps volunteers who live in smaller towns, with less going on, spend more time watching movies than we do, so Oscar Night was Party Night! We got together with five other volunteers from this province to watch the awards, sporting our finery—t-shirts with tuxes drawn with markers, for example, but Jean rocked the red carpet in her tiara and custom-made local traditional garb. Ballots were filled out, and drinks were consumed either in celebration of correct picks, or as punishment for uninformed guesses. I withdrew myself from most of the drinking, suffering “mal de estómago” of a dangerously explosive nature.

I continued suffering on Monday, with perhaps a hint of clinical depression. February was not a stellar month, health-, work-, or climate-wise, but I had begun to feel much better until I got sick again, and it got to me, I’ll admit. Jean, understanding very well what that’s like, went to the market to buy some bananas for me, and I nearly cried. I rode it out, though, and have felt absolutely buoyant, since. One-and-a-half low days out of six months ain’t so bad.

And that, in 1,500 words or less, is a Peace Corps experience that comes close to matching my expectations, both the good and the bad. Next week, and next month, and the 17 months after that, will be utterly different, no doubt. But I expected that, too.

(Some young actresses Jean worked with in a theater class)

From Carnaval to Carnivores

2010-02-18T15:56:00.010-07:00

We figure you don’t read this for the sometimes boring, frequently frustrating, day-to-day details of Peace Corps volunteers in a developing country. Meetings that happen, meetings that don’t; and the other “inconveniences” we put up with--we recently congratulated each other for an exceptionally long period—2 months!—without either one of us suffering from serious diarrhea. Russ was almost immediately rewarded for this act of hubris with a case of giardia. That’s just daily life.

Down here, “Carnaval” is what they call the weeks before (and a few days after) Mardi Gras. In many parts of Latin America it’s a huge party, but it also has more dimensions to it than you ever imagined.

For one thing, it’s an auspicious time to make a “pago a la tierra,” literally a payment to the earth. It’s also a time for various kinds of flute competitions . . . and thus begins one of the weirder weeks we’ve spent in Perú so far, and that’s saying something!

We were invited to visit Espinar, a province in the region of Cuzco, to learn something of their touristic resources and critique their efforts to develop tourism. Item 1) Espinar isn’t really close to anywhere, and the roads aren’t paved, in spite of what we were told. Item 2) It doesn’t make the best of impressions when your van gets stuck in the mud, not quite a minute out of town on the show-me trip, and the nearest neighbor comes screaming out of her house when we start using “her” rocks to get some traction.

Nevertheless, the place has some impressive resources, and with Machu Picchu temporarily closed, they aim to attract some tourists. We were knocked out by the landscape at Tres Cañones, where three forks join to form the Rio Apurimac, (headwaters of the Amazon); or maybe we were just VERY glad to get out of the bus, finally. The Inca ruins nearby are a well-preserved religious site, where odd rock formations are said to cast shadows of puma and condor, and the view from atop the mesa on which they were built is spectacular. The whole area is very reminiscent of the Dillon/Big Hole country of Montana--but 7,000 feet higher, around 13,000 feet on average. It potentially offers a range of adventure sports, from kayaking and rafting to rock climbing/rappelling. All it lacks is tourists, infrastructure, and access.

Later that evening, as we were waiting for our meeting with the municipal officials to start, someone suggested we might like to spend a few minutes at a private “pago a la tierra,” much more intimate than the official ceremony scheduled for later. So, of course we got into the truck with complete strangers, and were whisked to we-know-not-where, strolling into a private and fairly serious ceremony where they may or may not have been expecting us. A bit scary, to tell the truth. We were welcomed and made to feel part of it all, though, as is almost always the case in Peru. There was music, men in distinctly odd costumes which were not explained to us, dancing, drinking, and . . . other stuff. We were instructed in the proper ways to make our offerings, and then, just as suddenly, we were trucked back to our meeting. It was in the nicest town hall we’ve seen, but it suddenly seemed very sterile.

The “official” Pago a la Tierra that night was still a serious affair, with a ram sacrificed in front of us (more on that sort of thing, later) and offerings made with great attention to detail and in very specific ways. We participated with as much gravity as we could muster.

The following day, after visiting more, very scenic ruins, we were taken to something like the local rodeo grounds, for the “Chaka Sabado” festival. Thousands of people lined the hillsides, like tailgaters at a NASCAR event (well no, not really), to watch a man, (the Chu’ko) dressed in an elaborate costume with miles of red yarn simulating the coat of an alpaca or llama, or maybe a pom-pom. He was playing a very large, phallic flute (Pinkuyllo), in an attempt to seduce a soltera (single woman) who was sassing him in song. The whole scene builds to a literal climax as they finally wrestle, and one of them (guess who) is thrown to the ground and . . . er, mounted.

OK, their clothes never came off, but there was no question about what was going on.
Each neighborhood has their Chu’ko and soltera, so we watched the same thing, more or less, repeat itself for a couple of hours. (Seduction? Rape? Elaborate sexual play?) Truly, it was a fascinating scene. At that point, we could not have been surprised by anything.

The whole thing felt like exactly the Peace Corps experience we signed up for—we were able to contribute a bit of our expertise to a development project, while experiencing some completely alien cultural traditions not as tourists, but as anyone else in the community experiences them—albeit, without context.

Now, back in Chivay, we had President’s Day free, so we accepted another invitation to a Pago a la Tierra, at our friend Pedro’s wife’s estancia, where they keep their llamas and alpacas in the rainy season. (Peace Corps rule #1: say “yes” to any invitation!) So off we go, high into the Andes, collecting juniper shrubs to make a smoky fire inside the stone corral to provide the right atmosphere.

The eldest son (Pedro’s brother-in-law) started taking notes so that he can conduct the ceremony when the paterfamilias is no longer able. A blanket is spread on the ground as a kind of altar. Sprigs of a particular shrub are placed on it. Everyone is given two pieces of llama tallow, on which you breathe three times, and place them on the altar—one to ask permission from the “apus,” or mountain spirits, to remain in their territory; one to ask protection from Santiago against lightning. The process is then repeated, only this time the two pieces of tallow petition protection for the llamas and the alpacas.

After this we begin downing many, many, cups of chicha (homebrew), beer, wine, and anything else they put in front of us. Seashells are dipped into the cups, a mineral is ground over them, incense is blown on three times and passed around. We’re hoping the brother-in-law is getting all of this down. Corn. There’s a couple kinds of corn, too, and dead birds, and more chicha. Things get a bit more fuzzy.

Then we go out into the mountainside to round up the animals and herd them into the corral. It was great fun to bring together this sea of alpacas and llamas, against the backdrop of the high Andes. Once they’re all together in the stone corral, the climax of this particular ceremony comes when Pedro selects an alpaca and brings it over near the altar, apologizes, and

WARNING: DON’T READ THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU’RE AT ALL SQUEAMISH!!!

throws it to the ground, where the women hold it down. Brother-in-law dons a ceremonial poncho, rolls up his sleeve, picks up a knife, sips some chicha, then slits open the animal’s abdomen. He reaches inside, high up into the chest cavity, and yanks the beating heart right out of the animal! Leaping to his feet, he quickly runs a lap around the corral and all the animals, before breathlessly placing the heart on the altar. Next, he fishes out lungs, spleen, and kidney, which are analyzed for their shape and size, which augur for the coming year. Jean and Russ watch all this as impassively as they can manage. Pedro’s 7-year-old daughter is shooting video.

After this, more beer, more chicha, more whatever; the offerings are breathed on 3X by all present, and burnt. Russ is busy helping skin out the alpaca, Jean is shooting photos of an alpaca that walked into the corral a few minutes ago, and is now dinner. It’s a good lesson, I suppose.

All of a sudden, somebody spots the last bus into Chivay coming over the pass, and a few of us gather our things and gallop down the mountain to the road to flag it down, climbing on bedecked in alpaca blood, Mardi Gras streamers, and face paint that was applied just before the sacrifice. The people on the bus don’t quite know what to make of these gringos they just picked up in the middle of nowhere, but they give us a ride to town.

Stay with us here, we’re almost done.

Mardi Gras isn’t a big day here—it’s a big SEASON: Carnaval. In Chivay, it’s celebrated by kids throwing water balloons (OK, we laid in a stock, too, to be lobbed from our convenient 3rd-floor perch) and spraying aerosol foam on everyone, and by adolescents playing drums and flutes. The flutes are metal or plastic, mostly made from plumbing supplies, some still threaded for later use. They’re not very musical, and the short phrase they play isn’t very catchy, but they do play enthusiastically.

For days. And nights. The same damn music, over and over.

Not only that, but these “bands,” representing the neighborhoods of Chivay, roam the streets, and the official flute competitions sometimes devolve into fistfights as the peripatetic pipers encounter each other in dark alleys. The Chivay Fighting Flautists! Stay in your homes, folks, the streets aren’t safe—there’s flutes out there! Fortunately, they are accompanied by young women in their beautiful traditional costumes, swinging . . . what? Whips? Slingshots? Oops, back into the house!

We constantly try to avoid being judgmental, but this last week has caused us a few raised eyebrows, and a little squirming, in spite of our cultural sensitivity training.

So, write us and tell us about YOUR Carnaval/President’s Day festivities!

Swept Away by the Floods--NOT

2010-02-11T18:04:00.003-07:00

Perhaps, if you’ve been paying very close attention to the news, you’ve heard about the flooding in the region of Cusco and Machu Picchu. I’ve kept an eye on the news in English, and have had to search hard to find any word about it--but let me tell you, it’s BIG news here!

First, for anyone concerned, even though we’re not that far from Cusco, we haven’t been getting any such epic soakings. Rain, yes, nearly every day, but very moderate, so we’re fine, so far. (We’ve got another 6 weeks of rainy season yet to go, says the vizcacha, the local equivalent of the groundhog). Keeps everything very nice and green, here in (usually) very dry Chivay.

Next, for anyone considering a visit, Machu Picchu is closed until they can fix the railroad access, but the government says it will re-open by early March. I’d bet on late March, myself. There are bargains to be had right now, and I don’t know how long they’ll last, but one is a “Cusco at half-price” promotion that a number of hotels are in on. If you’re thinking of visiting soon, they have operators standing by. . .

In January, powerful and incessant rains first caused a 500-year-old stone wall to collapse at the “fortress” of Sacsayhuamán, near Cusco. Then, the rivers began to rise, taking out bridges in the “Sacred Valley” where Machu Picchu and other significant archeological sites are located. Then the Urubamba river began eating away at the towns themselves, sending the debris rushing down the eastern slope of the Andes towards Brazil.

Machu Picchu itself is accessible only by a railroad that runs between Ollantaytambo, in the Sacred Valley of the Urubamba, and Aguas Calientes (now known as Machu Picchu Pueblo). Finally, the rains caused a series of landslides that closed the rail line, stranding thousands of tourists at Machu Picchu. Various governments sent in helicopters to take out their citizens and, finally, everyone else. I can imagine the last group to go, drinking and eating their way through the last remaining supplies in town before the chopper came . . .

So far as we’ve heard, Machu Picchu itself isn’t damaged, though it’s soggy. (I imagine it’s been soggy before). The Peruvian government is losing millions of dollars a day in tourist revenues, so they’re very motivated to get that rail line fixed, and they’re starting to think, once again, about providing some alternative access to the site as well. We were there in 1990, when Maoist guerillas were terrorizing the country, and we were well-aware of how very susceptible that one, key rail line was!

We’re headed for the Department (state) of Cusco for a technical exchange this weekend, visiting archeological sites and talking about eco-, adventure-, and cultural-tourism development, but we won’t be in Cusco itself, or anywhere near Machu Picchu. Still, we’ll be visiting some Inca (and older) sites that are almost entirely overlooked, and Cusco is desperate to broaden their tourist attractions to include things that aren’t currently underwater. “Snorkel Cusco!” . . . doesn’t cut it in the international tourist market.

Jean just got her "traje típica" back from an artesan friend today, so she can dress up in a complete and authentic outfit just like ALL the other women here! Just in time for Carnaval and more dancing . . .

That’s the major news right now. We’ll have more to report from Carnaval, which is just starting to gear up in Peru. It’s not just a 1- or 2-day party, it’s a couple of weekends of rowdy water fights, parades, and who-knows-what, but we’re here to experience it all for you!

Yellow Underwear & An Inconvenience, Rightly Viewed

2010-01-25T10:49:00.008-07:00

The holiday season has departed, swirling counter-clockwise down the toilet bowl of time, but we thought it would be instructive to discuss some of the new customs we acquired, or at least encountered, here in Chivay, followed by some of the frustrations, large and small.

Christmas was a revelation: almost nothing happened. In Chivay, there was little acknowledgement of the approaching holiday, no Christmas tree in the Plaza de Armas, no tinsel in the Mercado. You could buy figurines for your crèche in a few market stalls, and many hotels, restaurants, and no doubt homes, had such displays, with krumpled kraft paper, brown for the earth and indigo for the starry night sky, and odd assortments of animals unknown to Bethlehem, but no baby Jesus in sight.

We were in Arequipa a few days before Christmas, and there the bustle was more apparent, the shopping frenzy building, but never to the level of the States. Amid northern European and patently American images of Christmas, snow and sleighs, we were walking around in shirt sleeves among palm trees. We paused to watch families pose, in the unsmiling Peruvian way, with a distinctly Andean Papa Noel, in front of the beautifully-illuminated Cathedral. It was all somehow oddly pleasing.

Christmas Eve, we bathed a pavo (turkey) in secret Peruvian juices and spices, and took it over to the bakery, where a flotilla of turkeys floated in similar baths, awaiting their turn in one of the few ovens in town. We finally feasted with family at about 10:30 or 11 p.m., and presented our hosts with a few gifts, including a Montana Grizzlies sweatshirt for Enrique. They had nothing for each other or for the (teenage) sons, and nobody really expected anything. We finished dinner with hot chocolate and a paneton, chased by a bit of wine and champagne.

Midnight was greeted with scattered fireworks in the streets, and baby Jesus was brought out and placed in the manger. That was about it. Pretty low-key by American standards.

Christmas Day we spent in Yanque, a town of about 1,300 people 8 km. down the road, with Jenny, who has a small restaurant, and a few of the other Peace Corps volunteers from the area. Jenny baked her first turkey, and Russ introduced the concept of gravy to the Colca valley, with some success.

That was Christmas—no binge shopping, no wallowing in gifts, no big buildup to the Big Day . . . just a chance to spend a pleasant evening together with family and enjoy a nicer-than-usual meal, and then the company of a few other muy simpatico volunteers.

New Year’s Eve was a bigger deal. Chivay and Yanque both planned bashes in their Plazas de Armas, and went to the same sources to finance them, engendering some less-than-friendly competition and a few hard feelings. Very Bitterroot, very Colca. The markets were full of everything you need to celebrate New Year’s properly:

Candles—blue for peace or tranquility, yellow for abundance, red to bring passion, green for health, white for purity or clarity in your endeavors, orange for intelligence, and so forth.

Food—the table is set with the best tablecloth, plates, glasses, and cutlery possible. That may just be the same as ever, but wiped extra-clean with a paper napkin. Pork was the universal choice for dinner, with lentils, chocolate, and a paneton. Champagne (a bargain at $3 a bottle—but undrinkable. We should have opted for the $4 stuff) at midnight. You should also eat 12 grapes at midnight, one for each stroke of the clock or each month of the new year, and make a wish with each one.

Yellow underwear—best if a gift, it should be worn at midnight. Some traditions say that wearing your underwear inside-out will bring new clothes in the new year. Our Peace Corps medic advised us that wearing white underwear until it turned yellow doesn’t count.

At the Mercado in Arequipa, Jean bought a secret mix of herbs from a kiosk staffed by “brujas,” (witches, shamans, herbalists . . .) and then a batch of flowers for her baño de florecimiento, a flower bath to bring good luck, deter evil, etc. The flowers and herbs are boiled, and then you bathe in the water. As with so many things, everyone has an idea of which herbs and flowers are best, and in what proportion. If Jean encounters any bad luck the rest of the year, it will probably be a result of bathing with too much rosemary and not enough yellow carnations.

Amanda also told her fortune using coca leaves--the leaves speak if you pay a small propina (tip), breathe on them to inspire them, and respect the ritual. Short version: the road ahead looks good, with job satisfaction and improving Spanish, everything very “tranquilo” with lots of signs of “florecimiento,” or flowering. Nice. Russ prefers to be surprised by life, so he didn’t ask the leaves anything, but they threw in an advisory, gratis, that he’d probably be seeing the doctor about something, but nothing serious. Thanks, leaves.

Jean has also been busy giving language lessons, and one of her most eager students is a young woman who works at the restaurant. She took the opportunity to use cookie ingredients sent by a friend in Hamilton (thanks, Christine!) as a language class as they baked cookies together. A major success!

Since our arrival in Chivay, we’ve been looking forward to the first visitor from the U.S., our first chance to show off the place and get a reading on how it appears to an unbiased observer. To no-one’s surprise, Skip Horner got here first, but only just barely. Skip’s a guide, and he was leading a party to Machu Picchu, but as long as he was in Peru, he figured he could drop in on us.

It should be so simple.

A few days before he was due to arrive, the transportistas declared an indefinite “paro,” or work stoppage, to protest a great injustice, we were never clear on what. There would be no buses, no taxis, no colectivos, no nothing. Great. We hadn’t had a paro since last July, and the first visitor to come visit gets sent to purgatory, instead.

Skip arrived in Arequipa on Wednesday. His bags did not. Russ had planned to meet him at the airport, but couldn’t leave Chivay. We set up a ride for Skip with a tour operator (tourist vans were getting through the blockade if they left at 3 a.m.), but he elected to wait on his bags instead. They arrived Thursday, and early Friday morning he rode from Arequipa to Chivay in a truck offered by a local NGO, arriving 48 hours later than planned.

We packed all the fun we could into one afternoon, then in the evening he gave a great slide show into which we inserted some useful and inspirational material for the local guides, and interested townspeople. This is the very bright side of our lives in Chivay.

We got up early the next morning to go birding with Skip, successfully enough. Breakfast, though, was demoralizing: the restaurant staff displayed every annoying customer service issue we have ever fought to eliminate in Chivay, like they had been practicing the “bad service” part of an instructional skit, resulting in a comically-awful experience. Make no mistake, we eventually got enough to eat (though not exactly what we ordered), and even got our correct change back the same day (not always assured), but between the paro and the experience of breakfast, we were reminded that one cannot expect a seamless, stress-free tourist experience in Peru. It might happen that way, but you can’t expect it.

The other lesson, though, is that it all works out. Skip got here, after spending a couple extra days in Arequipa, certainly not the worst place in the world to get stuck, and though our visit was shorter than hoped-for, the joy of contact with a good friend from our “old lives” was undimmed, perhaps even enhanced. It’s all about flexibility, comfort with uncertainty, and that G.K. Chesterton quote that Skip introduced us to, more than a decade ago: an adventure is merely an inconvenience, rightly viewed.

Lastly, here’s an adventure, rightly viewed: we were invited to participate in the “Concurso de ciclismo de alta montaña,” part of the town of Sibayo’s annual anniversary celebration. It was a 10k bike ride that involved crossing a suspended bridge, fording a river, and dodging cows (surprisingly, not alpaca!), all at 12,600 feet. We had a great time, and everyone thought us good sports, stretching toilet paper across the street for us to break as we came in last.

We had been drafted off the street the week before to portray a couple of tourists in a "socio-drama" they were staging to try to win a grant to bury the ugly power lines in their beautiful village. They actually have a law against tin roofs, requiring instead the traditional thatch roofs and stone walls. They won their grant, we were cheered, so we had friends when we got there for the bike race.

Sometimes, too, life in Peru is very gratifying!

We Wititi

2009-12-13T15:22:00.008-07:00

Wititi is the official dance of the region of Arequipa, and the Colca Canyon is the center, the source, the font, the beating big bass drum of it. The first question everyone asks is why the men are dancing in long skirts. Long ago, so the story goes, Cabana men disguised themselves as women to sneak in and woo the beautiful but highly protected Collagua women. They danced together, in seeming innocence, but when the supposedly sequestered ladies started showing their big bellies some months later, the deceit was discovered, and the legend born, followed in short order with the birth of many a Cabana-Collagua wawa (baby, of course—the easiest word to learn in Quechua).

December ninth through the eleventh is the annual Wititi festival in Chivay, and we are eager to participate to the fullest extent possible. That requires dressing the part.

Between our friends Cusi, Cesi and Herminia we piece together the complete traje (outfit) for each of us, and as soon as we show ourselves in public, the gawking and exclamations start. Apparently the sight of two gringos in traje tipica is a rare and noteworthy event. As we continue out the door and down the street we can see the heads turning and hear the comments ripple along with us as we pass. We are greeted with big grins, thumbs up, and handshakes. This is to continue for the three days of the festival, with strangers stopping us on the street to be photographed with us. A couple of young women from Arequipa gushed over me “You look like a Barbie!” Yeah, Colca Barbie, with pollera and accessories. I felt like I was everyone’s doll, as the first day Cesi had to readjust my sash, another day Leo from the jewelry store grabbed me off the street as we were walking by and dragged me into the shop to make repairs. The fashion police were alert to infractions Russ was committing as well, but he got off with a retying of the honda (a ropelike slingshot fashioned into a belt) and a warning.

The other Peace Corps volunteers here for the fiesta had similar experiences-- it takes a village to dress a gringo. Here are the parts involved for Colca Barbie to be fully dressed: polleras –at least two (fancy long velvety skirts with many rows of embroidery and flashy trim starting at the hem and going up knee high or higher for the outside layer, with numerous other long skirts underneath possibly of lesser flash, but some trim), blouse, also with embroidery around the cuffs and neck, embroidered vest (as snug a fit as possible). Embroidered belt tied tight to give Barbie the tiniest waist possible (she’s a doll, she doesn’t need to breathe), optional jacket with more embroidery for when the temperature drops. Barbie has two hat options, but she must wear a hat. The Collagua hat is similar in shape to a straw boater, but it is white, and sports a solid glitz hatband with a starburst rosette of ribbon glitz worn on the left side. This Barbie chose the hat of the Cabanas, a more sedate felt option featuring a wide (embroidered, of course) brim worn snapped up in back, down in front.

And what of Colca Ken? Two polleras, as previously described, with the top one hiked up coquettishly in front to show a peek of the one underneath. He wears a montera on his head, which is a two story pith helmet covered with fabric and decorated with rows of fringe which has two practical functions. First, it hangs in front of his eyes, adding to his disguise, and second, it swings about merrily when he dances, adding swash to his buckle. The montera is held on with numerous straps, further covering the sneaky bastard’s face. In between the polleras and the hat the well dressed wititi man wears a long sleeved military style shirt, with two bright sashes crossed like bandoliers across his shoulders all secured by a precisely tied honda (see above). The sashes also provide a place to carry a whisky bottle. Now, finally we are dressed. On with the party.

And the music? A brass band with trumpet and “bajo” (euphonium) plays the same song in two sections, trumpet and bajo, all night long, without rest. The. Same. Song. The trumpets compel the dancing--when the trumpets take their turn, so do the dancers, swirling frenetically to make the skirts stand out and swing. Miles and miles of glitter trim on the hundreds of hats and skirts sparkles and flashes in the light from the street lamps. When the euphoniums take over the mad swirling stops and the dancers advance, flowing around the plaza or down the street. At times there are three bands blaring independently (and out of sync) and so many dancers crowded together we bang into each other during the twirling. Although it seems like the whole town is dancing, the streets are lined with observers, or maybe they are just resting a bit before they dance again.

During dinner at the neighborhood host’s home, it is decided that Russ will be the Machu Wititi on the first night. Machu means old, or grandfather, in Quechua. It also means he leads the parade from the house to the plaza, and around the plaza, with a beer bottle in one hand and his hat in the other. Cheers and applause for the greying gringo.

The party lasts three days. During the day, there are dance competitions with choreographed groups of dancers in matching polleras strutting their moves in front of the judge’s stand. One night is the band competition, with the winner being the band that plays the longest into the night before their lips flap off into the sunrise. Another night is the competition between the three neighborhoods of Chivay. I think the winner has something to do with how many dancers you bring to the event. We danced with our Ccapac neighbors, but I don’t think we won.

In short, we dress, get redressed by Peruvians, eat, eat more street food (hot chocolate, alpaca on a stick, alpaca hamburgers, arroz con leche) dance, dance, drink beer and chicha, and dance. So does practically all of the community, little boys in polleras, tiny girls in polleras. Old dancers, young dancers, all swirling for the joy of it. No one is fooled by the disguises any longer, but the locals say there is still a noticeable spike in the birth rate nine months following the wititi.

Cranberries in Peru?!

2009-12-04T07:30:00.011-07:00

I tried to write a Thanksgiving blog post, but it came out exactly like you’d expect a Peace Corps/Perú Thanksgiving blog post to come out--how it’s the simple things in life that are most meaningful, and our relationships with other people matter more than “things,” blah, blah, blah. You’ve read it before, in one form or another, every year, and it’s all still true—even moreso in Perú. I don’t mean to devalue any of it, and I can assure you that we spent a good bit of time reflecting on the unique lessons of our time in Perú, and what it all means in the context of Thanksgiving. We’re sure that you did likewise with your own situations—and we suspect that in principle, they’re not that different. So, let’s move on to the stuff that only your correspondents in Chivay can tell you!

That said, we had a great Thanksgiving day. We never tire of walking through the market here, it’s even better than going to the IGA in Hamilton, and that’s saying something. (We do miss Willie and Tom and the rest of the crew there. Tell them we said “hi”). The displays of fruits familiar and exotic, household goods, and a dizzying variety of potatoes, are presented—almost exclusively—by women, usually in traditional clothes.

We staggered home with an 8-kilo turkey, 2 kilos of potatoes, 2 kilos of camote (sweet potato), bread, fruit, and various spices, and set about making a feast. My sister, Liz, had sent some dried cranberries, so we were able to include a sumptuous sauce in the menu. Enrique fished an old gas oven out of their storage area, so we hooked it up and, after assuring ourselves that we wouldn’t detonate West Central Chivay when we lit the burners, we made an epic, yet highly aromatic, mess of the kitchen. To keep everyone happy, we also bought about 3 liters of Peruvian wine for a bit more than US $10. To cover up the taste, they just make it very, very sweet. You can imagine . . .

Net result: Enrique said it was the best meal of his life, in spite of my frantic signals not to continue in that vein while sitting next to his wife, Amanda, who has been making his meals for 21 years and is the heart and soul of their restaurant, Antares. No fuss ensued, though, and maybe she even agreed, as we gorged on apple and pecan pies a la mode. (A tip of the hat to fellow PCV Chris Heather, who pitched in to help us get it all done, thereby earning a share of the leftovers).

Chivay is thankfully devoid of Christmas cheer at this point—it’s hard to find any sign at all that the holiday is coming, aside from the ubiquitous “panetones,” sort of a cross between a loaf of white bread and a fruitcake, but the size of a small archeological site. I get the impression that everyone in Perú gives everyone else at least 14 panetones during the holidays. Arequipa, on the other hand, is a jarring experience, culturally speaking. The medium-to-large stores are full of decorations based on North American or European Christmas traditions, all tinsel and snowmen, muzack playing the same holiday tunes you hear in the US. AAauuugghhh!

Chivay IS preparing for the big festival of the year, the Fiesta de la Virgen de la Inmaculada Concepción, which is celebrated with several days of drinking and dancing the Wititi, Dec. 8-11. It’s an honest festival, with hardly any consideration at all for tourists, thrown to celebrate and preserve the local cultures. “Wititi” translates from the Quechua, more or less, as (ahem) to make love, but it’s usually billed just as “the dance of love.” It has its origins in the mix of the two aboriginal cultures in the Colca valley, the Quechua-speaking Cabanas, whose pre-Inca origins stem from the ancient Wari culture of central Peru, and the Collaguas, Aymara-speaking descendants of the Tiwanaku culture once centered near Lake Titicaca.

The Wititi celebrates the legend that men of the Cabana culture, in order to get close to the Collagua women, would dress as women, including a hat with a fringed brim to hide their faces. Thus, they could sneak into the fiestas and dance with the women. (A variant has them dressing as women to get close to the Spanish conquistadors to cut their throats, but that’s SO not romantic.) So now we have brass bands blowing their lips off for 3-4 days, and a plaza filled with men in pulleras (traditional skirts) and monteras (the hats), dancing away with similarly-dressed women. Jean has bought her pullera and is looking for the rest of the authentic outfit, and I’ve arranged to borrow my pullera and montera. There will be feasts and who knows what to accompany the doings—we’ll give you a full report.

So what have we been up to since our last post, so long ago? We’ll start with “work,” since that’s what your tax dollars are supporting us to do.

We hadn’t planned to return to U.S. soil during our 2-year hitch, but technically we did so in late November, bringing a pair of Chivay artisans to the 7^th Annual Peace Corps Artisan Fair at the U.S. Embassy in Lima. Embassies are legally considered sovereign soil of the country they represent, so there we were, among people who speak English and flush the toilet paper right down the toilet, instead of putting it in a little basket next to the john. It was a bit odd, being there, but it was a great chance to re-connect with the group of volunteers with whom we trained, all of whom also brought artisans to Lima. We had a half-day of training, a night on the town in Lima, and a day of selling on the campus of the embassy. Cameras, cell phones, USB’s, and all sharp objects other than knitting needles were collected at the security portals, but one of our PC staffers was able to shoot a few frames. Welcome to the USA . . .

To get to Lima from Chivay, we spent 20 hours on buses, each way, just to spend 36 frantic hours in Lima. Not Worth It.

Our artisans did well for themselves, with some unique products (and some just like many others), and the high point was a Wititi demonstration that we put on, in Colca costume. Cusi may, in fact, have spent more time and thought preparing for the dance than for the fair, but he has experience with both, so all went well.

Our other main job focus is tourism, so we attended a 2-day Forum on Tourism at a retreat in the valley. It was about what you’d expect at any such gathering, a lot of blah-blah, and a few kernels of really good stuff. The nut to crack is how to help the people here take advantage of the torrent of tourists, most of whom are paying guides in Arequipa to bring them here; consequently, little money stays in the valley. As always, we made some good connections, and are following up on project ideas, but it’s mostly long-term stuff at this point, so it may be a while before we see much result.

We’re also working out a proposal to do some training for the hotel and restaurant association in Chivay.

For fun? Yeah, we’ve done some of that . . . We owe a debt to the philosophy of Ace Steele, whose motto of “fun once a day, Big Fun once a week” we try to follow. We’re still happy enough with our situation that just walking across town, through the market and the Plaza de Armas, constitutes our daily fun.

We visited the 700-year-old, very spooky pre-Inca ruins of Tapay Viejo. Tapay is a community accessible only on foot, and there’s no real path to the ruins, which are fairly extensive and rarely-visited. They include a small cave full of human skulls and bones, and pottery. Definitely an Indiana Jones moment. We can’t even begin to describe the precipitous trail to get there, but we’ll be happy to show it to you if you visit. Huge fun.

We biked a nice half-day circuit from Chivay up to Canocota, on a (mostly) paved road, then made the descent home on an Inca road alongside the river. Some of that involved carrying the bikes down a stone staircase, still more-or-less intact centuries after its construction. The trail back to Chivay passes through a canyon of basaltic lava flows (OK, the whole Province is one big basaltic lava flow, reminiscent of eastern Washington), and it conveniently delivers you to the entrance to La Calera, the very nicely-developed hot springs here. This is one of the recommended tourist "circuits" that a local NGO is trying to promote.

And, at the invitation of a mixed group of guides and workers at another local NGO, we loaded our bikes on the bus, and got off at the dizzying Mirador de los Volcanes, elevation 15,800 feet. There, we mounted up, and made an indescribably thrilling descent back to Chivay, nearly 4,000 vertical feet below. (A bit intimidating, when two of them suited up in full motorcycle helmets and skateboard-style body armor.) We saw herds of domestic alpaca, llamas, and sheep, wild vicuña galloping across the slopes, odd alpine flora (it might have been sentient, hard to tell with those alpine life-forms), and outrageous mountain vistas. It had a bit of everything, some challenging single-track, some less-challenging double-tracks, some no-track-at-all, and a whizzing couple of kilometers of pavement in the middle, to connect all the rough parts. In Spanish, what we were following is called a “trocha,” and I have to wonder if that isn’t the root for “atrocious,” as some of it definitely was. Still--definitely Big Fun.

For the record, all the above also count as “work,” since part of tourism development involves acquainting ourselves with touristic resources and activities that have yet to be developed as commercial activities. These excursions definitely count, and we’re actively working with guides and others to develop them, while preserving their unique characteristics.

And our host family—we really love these guys, we have so much to share. On Dec. 2 we went to mass with them to celebrate the one-year anniversary of Amanda’s father’s death. Some of the service was sung in Quechua. Every day is a revelation of some sort.

So there it is. Some days we’re so focused on the “little stuff” that our biggest frustrations seem to be the slow speed of the internet connection in Chivay, and the excessive time we have to spend on buses; then we step back and look at the miserable condition of everyone’s teeth due to poor oral hygiene, the artisans selling beautiful works ridiculously cheap because they don’t properly value their own time spent on the work, and the unbalanced scales of “industrial tourism” vs. benefits for the community at large, and get a better grip on why we're here. We suffer from “mental whiplash” every day, as does anyone who looks at Perú with their eyes open. We’re here to be your “eyes.”

We Talk A Lot

2009-10-15T11:41:00.005-06:00

So now begins the part of our service where we have to figure out what it is we’re doing here. The easy parts are Peace Corps Goals #2 and #3, the parts about cultural exchange. That’s covered every time we talk to another Peruvian or write to you about our lives here. Goal #1--that’s the one where we actually try to help somebody with something—is becoming more important as we start to get our community figured out.

We go to lots of meetings. We talk to lots of people. We put on charlas (“chats”) for the members of the artisan association we work with, coaching them on how to prepare for the upcoming artisan fairs, and on how tourists think. We go to classes at the Instituto Superior, where they have a 4-year program oriented towards “Turismo,” and offer our gringo point-of-view. Jean helps out with the English classes at the Instituto, offering the students a chance to talk with a native English speaker.

Tourism is such an overwhelming factor in the local economy that it seems the logical place to put our knowledge and experience to use. Last year roughly 200,000 people toured the Colca Canyon, nearly all of them passing through Chivay on their way from Arequipa to Cruz del Condor, from which they can appreciate the 10,000-foot depth of the canyon and, usually, see some condors. That’s what they paid for, anyway. Then, they go back to Arequipa, ideally after pausing for the lunch buffet at our host family’s restaurant.

How do we get at least some of them to spend another day and night here in the canyon, to benefit the local economy? Well, coming from Russ it’s no big surprise that some Peruvian version of a “shop local” campaign is just the ticket. We’re trying to help inventory the local tourist resources, attractions, events, etc., and find ways to promote them, along with everything “local”—local artisans, local foods, locally-owned resources. That’s a big job, though, so mostly we spend hours, days, weeks, talking to people, having meetings, making plans. Last week we helped write and record a radio spot to help promote the idea of “turismo vivencial,” essentially home-stays with typical Peruvian families. At least our Spanish is getting polished from the practice!

Russ also helped translate an offer for a 4-day-3-night tourist experience in the Colca canyon, involving turismo vivencial, visits to archeological sites (cave paintings, pre-Inca terraces), activities like flyfishing and horseback riding, herding alpaca, and the like. It’s now posted as an auction item to promote an Ecotourism website. If you want to bid on it, here’s the URL: http://www.cmarket.com/auction/item/Item.action?browse=&id=94253387 it looks like a great trip!

Meanwhile, we get to live in the big, fat middle of a traveler’s dream: attending the fiesta celebrating the end of the planting of the corn in Cabanaconde, for example. The field is being plowed by a team of oxen (yes, oxen), and a guy walks behind sowing the corn by hand. Behind him is a team of horses dragging a plank on which someone stands, smoothing out the furrows and burying the seeds.

All of this is accompanied by much chicha, the local homebrew made of local corn, of course. Maybe some other varieties of alcohol, too—pito, rum, caballo viejo, beer. Probably all of them, in fact. A spread of hors d’oeuvres, (toasted corn, smoked local cheese, odd bits of shredded alpaca, fried bread, spread out on a dusty blanket), followed by a plate of alpaca soup. More chicha? Yes, thanks! The whole glass, without taking a breath, is the preferred method of downing it, but our hosts interceded, pleading for mercy on behalf of our fragile digestive tracts. We survived it all, and it was an immensely satisfying cultural experience.

Survived, that is, to travel up to Callalli where some of our artisans live, to present our charla.

They, in turn, dressed Jean in their traditional skirt, vest, and hat for the occasion, and presented us with a lunch of caldo de cabeza. Another alpaca bites the dust, and the soup featured the very cabeza you might surmise from the name of the dish, dismantled in its entirety. We ate that, too (more chicha? yes, thanks!) and survived it, too. We then packed 9 of us in an ancient Toyota Corona to go visit a cave featuring paintings and etchings estimated to be 6,000 years old, depicting the hunting and domestication of . . . what? The alpaca, of course! We then spent the night in a room thoughtfully supplied with two friendly young alpaca. Their water trough was frozen in the morning, typical for springtime in Callalli, elev. 12,600’ . . .

We both have mountain bikes now, and though there’s nothing wrong with the running gear, we still seem to be left breathless from exertion whenever we venture out on them. What’s with that? Russ accomplished a nice circuit of about 20 km. last weekend, visiting two nearby towns and making an inventory of visual and historical resources (meaning: gawking at the scenery, Inca terraces & ruins). From a local high point, we often survey El Mismi on the horizon, the other side of which offers the most remote source of the mighty Amazon. We tell you, the Colca Canyon is the hub of South America!

So, write us and tell us about YOUR fascinating lives! Send photos—our internet connection is slow, but we’ve got little better to do some evenings than watch the files slowly download, and we’re always pleased to see the results: the faces and places that seem to grow more distant with every bite of alpaca . . .

Condors & Yarns

2009-09-23T11:04:00.005-06:00

First of all, a shameless plug for my friend Skip Horner, travel guide extraordinaire, who is putting together a Peru trip for January 23-29 of 2010. The trip features Cusco, the Sacred Valley, and Machu Picchu, done in high style. The highlight will be a couple of nights at Machu Picchu, in the exclusive hotel at the site, a luxury few travelers experience. It’s expensive, but worth it, to be able to wake up and creep into the site before the busloads of people arrive, to watch the sun first warm the mountaintops, and then slowly illuminate one of the most impressive views on our planet. (Ollantaytambo, one of the overnight stops on the trip, was also one of our favorite “finds” when we were here 20 years ago).

There are cheaper ways to visit Peru and Machu Picchu, either with a group or independently, and of course we’ll help you with suggestions and advice if you choose to wait, but we can say from experience that any trip with Skip has serious Trip of a Lifetime potential. Check it out at his website. It would be fairly simple to add a few days to visit us, from Lima taking an overnight bus (16 hours) or flying to the lovely city of Arequipa. (For the few extra bucks, flying would be worth it!) Chivay is another 3.5 hours by bus from Arequipa.

That said, we’ve begun to see a little bit more of our neighborhood, and we’re beginning to engage with the people on a slightly deeper level. The fiesta in Canocota, about half an hour up the road, is an example—it’s a very small town, but every small town in the province throws a big bash on its anniversary. These are not tourist events—it’s just what’s going on. So when we show up, it’s impossible for us to be tourists—food is thrust at us (a large bowl of soup featuring a major appendage of a recently-deceased alpaca, and some long-deceased potatoes), beer and/or chicha are offered (disrespectful to turn down . . .), and very soon we’re drinking and dancing to the local brass band along with most of the town. Chévere.

OK, so drinking and dancing with the locals isn’t exactly deeper engagement, but at least we’re recognized now as more than tourists, especially when we’re seen hanging out with our Peruvian acquaintances on the street or in their shops.

We’ve also begun a program of spending a few hours with each member of our artisan association, visiting them in their homes, watching them work on their embroidery, weaving, painting, or knitting, then having lunch with them (more alpaca, more potatoes, maybe some sheep ribs—very hearty, if not heart-healthy). It’s costing us, because we end up buying something from nearly all of them, but it’s a great way to get an idea of what their lives are like and what we might help them accomplish.

Jean has begun knitting a hat of alpaca yarn with the help of one of “our” artisans, a nearly-impossibly cute 40-ish woman who sets up her table of wares in the Plaza de Armas most days. They sit and chat amiably, Jean learning Quechua and Melina learning how to say her prices in English. Jean is also now rocking a traditional hat from the region, which is getting her a lot of street cred in Chivay.

At the invitation of a guide who is thinking about offering it as a tour, I biked from Chivay to Cabanaconde, 58 kilometers through the heart of the Cañon del Colca. I think he wanted to see if a gringo could survive the ride. It was a long day, made longer by the fact that he had an actively malicious bicycle, the dirt roads are poorly maintained, and he wasn’t as experienced a rider as I am. It’s largely downhill, but it does involve a rather long, hard climb up to 12,500 feet, to the major tourist attraction of the valley, Cruz del Condor. “El Cruz” is an overlook where you can appreciate both the depth of the canyon—roughly 10,000 feet of relief—and the condors themselves, who hang out there in improbable numbers. When we arrived at 3 p.m., the tourist vans were long gone to lunch, and we had it to ourselves. It was quiet enough to hear the wind passing through the wings of these “majestic lords of the Andes” as they played the updrafts to eye me. After 40 km. of biking, I have to admit I probably smelled like something dead. I already felt that the stunning scenery—a combination of mountains and pre-Inca terraces—was justification enough for the ride, but the condors were certainly the icing on the cake. The cultural and historical lore that my guide stopped to impart gave him a chance to catch his breath and added to the pleasure of the trip, too. We arrived in Cabanaconde after 11 hours of biking, and he immediately set about revising his business plan.

Jean and I still don’t have a shower, so we do the “bucket bath” thing on the patio every few days, then every week or so go to La Calera, the hot springs to shower and soak. We went last Sunday, when it’s free for the locals to use the “baño del pueblo,” (not as nice as the “gringo pool,” but certainly not icky) but the ticket-taker at the kiosk didn’t want to let us in. We had to convince a higher authority that we’re really “del pueblo.” Of course once we sauntered in, heads turned, first in our direction to take in the wonder of two gringos in the “locals only” pool, then away to avoid the harsh glare of the sun reflecting off our pale skin. It all turned out fine, of course. We figure it’s best for everyone to get used to the idea of having us around . . . because we’re here for a while, yet!

Modern Conveniences

2009-09-03T10:27:00.006-06:00

First, the startling news that Cuerpo de Paz/Peru has issued us cell phones. The idea that our phones might ring and that it might be one of you, dear readers, is both very weird and very welcome. Our numbers are:

Int'l call code 011 + Country code 51 + Department code 54 + 957821550 Jean
+ 957821602 Russ
I have no idea what the rates are, and depending on how the call is placed you may need a “0” in front of the Country or Department codes, or you may not. Feel free to experiment. We have just one word of advice for those who wish to call at minimal expense, and that word is “Skype.”

We also have a new mailing address, which appears on the home page of this blog, but here it is anyway:

Russ or Jean
Cuerpo de Paz
Casillo Postal 228
Serpost Arequipa
Arequipa, Perú

Sometimes life is just very weird. There may be a YouTube video of Peace Corps/Peru 13 performing the dance from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” for instance. We threw a bash for our host families at the end of our training, and entertained them with this bit of highly-rehearsed choreography, which left them scratching their heads in wonder. To spot Russ, wait for the moment when all the zombies bend forward, and look for his bald pate. To find Jean, just focus on grace in jerky, un-dead motion.

So, now we’re at home in Chivay. Have been since Friday, when an overloaded moto—a three-wheeled motorcycle adapted as a taxi—wheeled us, two 50-pound duffels, a backpack, a roll-aboard suitcase, two daypacks, and a queen-size mattress, from the bus station to our new abode, for the Peruvian equivalent of a buck. Now, that’s a bargain!

Of course, our room wasn’t ready. I don’t mean they hadn’t put mints on our pillows, I mean it wasn’t built. Our hosts are super people, very hard-working, but this is Peru, and things just happen on their own schedule here. They are building a 9-by-12-foot brick “cell” for us atop their restaurant. Concrete floor, concrete plaster walls, tin roof and, thankfully, a toilet and a shower. The shower may or may not ever have hot water, which will dictate whether or not we ever use it. In Chivay, at 12,000-and-a-half feet, it’s just too damn cold to shower with cold water, so most of the residents do without, and once a week or so go to the hot springs 3 km. away to bathe. We’re due.

Our cell will probably be finished this week, and we’ll happily move in. Yes, it’s tiny, but we’re here to live like the Peruvians, and this will actually be a notch or two up from most Peruvians. In both host family situations we’ve now experienced, the parents sleep in the same bedroom with their kids—and we’re talking about “kids” from 14 to 22 years old, in rooms not much larger than ours. We’ll have our own toilet, indoors. We’ll have windows to let in the abundant sun, at least in this season, and a “patio” (actually the roof of the house) with outstanding views of Chivay and its spectacular environs. We’ll have a lavatory out on the patio for washing our hands, brushing our teeth, and doing our laundry. We’re ready to count ourselves lucky.

In the mean time, we flop our mattress down at night on the second floor landing, and unroll our sleeping bags, then throw three heavy alpaca wool blankets over them. We crawl into them wearing fleece pants and tops, and sleep very comfortably. Have I mentioned that it’s cold in Chivay? Nobody in this country has heat in their homes—it just isn’t done—and hot water for showers is a luxury item. In a nod to creature comforts, some people put a hot water bottle at their feet when they go to bed, something we may begin doing very soon.

Our hosts truly are wonderful people, and we are looking forward to two years of sharing a rather intimate living situation. They know or are related to everyone in town, so dropping their names is usually a good thing when we want something done. Next door is another restaurant (owned by our host’s sister) with a folkloric show every night, so from 8:30 p.m. until 10 or so, we have a highly-amplified Andean music combo pounding away. Fortunately, they’re very good, and we hope to go see the show, soon.

Random observation: You can wear your clothes without washing them much longer than you think you can. ‘Nuff said on that subject.

We live very comfortably, by Peruvian standards, on a Peace Corps allowance that is now somewhat higher than the $2.75 a day we received in training. Breakfast is a couple pieces of the tasty local bread, some fresh local cheese, and powdered instant coffee. For lunch we have a chef (!) who daily prepares a lunch buffet for 70-150 tourists, and us. For dinner last night we had a fried egg sandwich, and hot chocolate. Tonight it was rice with hot dogs cut up into it, and tea. Contrasts.

We walk around all day long amid scenery and among traditionally-dressed, handsome people who would make a National Geographic photographer drool. Scores of tourists walk around taking pictures of all this every day, but we can hardly bring ourselves to snap a pic, we’re trying so hard not to be the gringo tourists with cameras.

Last Saturday night the restaurant was rented out for a Quinceañera (15th birthday party, a big deal for girls), so to get out from underfoot we stepped outside, then followed the sound of a brass band and found a procession honoring Santa Rosa de Lima, (patron saint of the police), and followed them to the Plaza de Armas. The dozen or so strong men carrying the 12-foot-tall effigies of the saint and the virgin mother had to dip repeatedly to get them under the power lines, a scary sight, but at least they had You-Know-Who on their side—and the policía. That was further evidenced when the guy who was sending up the rockets from the plaza torched off a bomb that nearly blew his clothes off, but everyone survived, Jean’s hair didn’t catch fire, and the city gardener will fill in the crater, later.

When we’d had enough of the festivities, we ambled over to the Irish Pub, had a glass of wine with the (Peruvian) owner, and chatted up a Brit who had been out stumbling around the local Inca ruins for a few weeks. Then we returned to our humble abode, fought our way through the teenagers, and lay upstairs in our sleeping bags until the music stopped at 4:30 a.m.

Due to early linguistic difficulties, Jean is known around the house as something like Jeems, and I’m probably “Bruce” for the duration. Last night we played Bananagrams, and used words in English, Spanish, Quechua, Yiddish and, I think, Ethiopian.

Yesterday we met our Peruvian counterpart at his shop, and helped his extremely charming 9-year-old daughter sort out the right hand-painted tops for the right hand-painted sugar bowls—there were scores of them, all needing to be sorted—then we ambled out to his chakra, or small farm, where he dumped several bags of cuy droppings to fertilize the potatoes, while an eagle banked overhead. For now, this is what passes for our “work,” filed under the heading: “integrating with the community.”

Today we had a meeting with “our” artisans, most of them women in traditional dress, and some of whom needed to have the proceedings translated into Quechua because they speak little Spanish. Our three days’ worth of training in Quechua is getting quite a workout, but I have to say that people are very grateful and impressed that we make the effort.

So, that’s the way our lives go these days. It’s fascinating, challenging, aggravating, and wonderful.

And cold.

Chivay is Chevere

2009-08-15T20:27:00.009-06:00

Pronounced with the same drawn-out inflection, “chévere” is the Spanish equivalent of “s-w-e-e-e-e-e-t.” We heard a lot of that last week, particularly when we told people in Chivay that we’d be living there for two years. It’s the best way to express how we feel about it, too.

We spent our ninth week of training on a visit to our newly-assigned work site, where we’ll be spending the next two years. We left Lima on a Saturday evening, aboard an overnight bus to Arequipa, the regional capital. Overnight intercity buses in Peru are not the Greyhound nightmares of American legend, nor the colorful “bags-of-live-chickens-in-the-overhead-bins” experience of short-haul bus trips in Peru. They’re big, deluxe, double-decker buses that make few, if any, stops in between major cities. They’re very secure, reasonably comfortable, play cheesy movies enroute, and even offer “BINGO” cards to all passengers to play. The only quirk is that, for the 16-hour non-stop trip to Arequipa, the onboard bathrooms are “solo para orinar.” Plan accordingly.

Arequipa is a city anyone could love. It’s the second-largest city in Perú, but is still less than a tenth the size of massive Lima. Its citizens half-seriously think of it as a separate country, and when we arrived, our counterparts issued us our unofficial Arequipeño “passports.” “El Misti,” the 19,100’ volcano that towers over the city (and periodically attempts to destroy it) was attractively accessorized with a snowy mantle. Tourists, pigeons, and Arequipeños all packed the central plaza, admiring the sunny skies & shirt-sleeve weather. A person could become very comfortable here.

The streets are lined with great restaurants, artisan shops, bars, discos, and tour guides offering tours of the Colca Canyon region. We ambled down to the Plaza, and Jean quickly developed the dreamy, “let’s spend some time here” look that we’ve come to trust.

We lunched with some other local Peace Corps volunteers on traditional fare of the region, which includes the signature dish, “Rocoto Relleno,” a fiery red pepper stuffed with alpaca meat, cheese, peanuts, and vegetables. A beer helps control, but not extinguish, the flames.

The city sits at about 7,700 feet elevation, providing a good chance to acclimatize to the altitude. After spending a day enjoying its charms, and tuning our lungs, we boarded another bus for the 3-1/2 hour trip to Chivay. Climbing out of Arequipa, the road passes between El Misti and Chachani, another major peak, and arrives in a high plain dotted with vicuña (the llama’s wilder kid brother). The Lonely Planet guide describes the passage as “bleak,” and I won’t argue the point, but it’s also fascinating, as we climbed, and climbed, and climbed, finally topping out at a breathtaking 15,700 feet—about a thousand feet higher than any peak in the Lower 48, higher than most single-engine aircraft can fly. Many passengers were woozy or napping, but we were too excited by the scenery. From the bus windows, we gazed up at still more peaks, some reaching above 20,000 feet.

Descending from the pass, we got our first glimpse of Chivay, and our smiles just widened as the valley spread out below us. If geography has anything at all to do with it—and I think it does—we’ll be the happiest volunteers in Perú. (At 12,000 feet, we’ll also be the highest, at least until another volunteer occupies a site just up the road from us.) We were both very emotional as we kept our noses glued to the window during the descent, lapping up the terraced landscape, the wild vicuña bounding among the rocks, domestic flocks of alpaca, and the unfolding vision of the Cañon de Colca.

Chivay sits at the head of Colca Canyon, famous as the deepest canyon in the world, more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Andean Condors routinely buzz the tourists gathered at Cruz del Condor, deep in the canyon, and pre-Incan terraces are still in use to grow whatever hardy crops can survive at 12,000 feet. It’s cold once the sun sets, and nobody has a heater, so it’s considered normal to sit around eating supper in your parka and your wool knit hat. Nights, we slept in our clothes, under four layers of alpaca blankets. It was just enough.

The altitude required a small adjustment—neither of us suffered, though Jean did experience a mild headache for a while, and we both noticed that third flight of steps, when carrying a load up to our room.

That said, Chivay is the kind of place that we once might have encountered in our travels and wondered, “what would it be like to live here?” Now, we get to find out—and tell you about it.

We spent a day with the other volunteers moving to the canyon, meeting our Peruvian “counterparts,” with whom we’ll be working over the next two years. One of our counterparts is from the Municipalidad, (roughly the equivalent of the County), and the other is president of an Artisan’s association. He brought a number of weavers (wearing their traditional costumes) to the meeting, some of whom spoke primarily Quechua. We spent an interesting and demanding day, getting to know each other and figuring out what we expected of each other. It was a good test of our Spanish, and we even learned a bit of Quechua. Then we went to meet our host family, and to inspect the room they have for us in their home.

Our prospective hosts run a restaurant in Chivay. They were told well in advance when we’d be visiting, so they could have our room ready for inspection. They sheepishly escorted us up to the second floor, then up some rickety steps to the third, and opened the door to . . . the roof, piled with the remains of a cuy cage, some bricks, maybe some plumbing supplies, boxes of junk. We stood around catching our breath, admiring the view from the roof, noting the lack of door, windows, walls, and roof—in short, anything that might constitute a “room.” I have to admit, we were a bit upset, though we were careful not to say too much about it.

They assured us they’ll have it ready when we return in 2-3 weeks: brick walls, tin and/or thatch roof, and some form of plumbing. I wouldn’t place any bets on it being done when we return, but if it means we can live upstairs from some really good chow, we’ll put up with the inevitable delays that you come to expect in Perú. The room, when finished, will be smaller than a typical American bedroom, probably no more than 10 X 14 feet—not much living space for 2 adults and all their worldly possessions. It helps that we can share the restaurant’s dining room as common space in the evening, with the rest of the family. We’re supposed to live like Peruvians, and we recognize that our cramped, third-floor “penthouse” will make us privileged Peruvians indeed. . . when it gets built.

The other part of the equation is that the host family is great. Smart, interesting people, running a good business. Our host “mamá” is a warm and engaging Chivay native, who speaks Spanish and Quechua, but wants to learn English. We think we can work out a language exchange. The rest of the family—her husband and 3 sons--work in the restaurant, along with a chef and some servers. Yes, we may have our own chef. That makes up for a lot of sitting around in a parka amid a pile of bricks. If we get too cold, we can always bike to the hot springs—did I forget to mention the hot springs?—about 3 km. up the road. Because most showers have only frigid water, it’s common for people to go without showers for a week or two until they can get to one of the hot springs that dot the area, used as communal public showers.

We spent our three days in Chivay meeting people, including some weavers with whom we may be working, and getting to know the town. Among our favorite moments were the time we spent with a family of artisans in their yard, the husband at his ancient loom, the wife sitting in the shade nearby, knitting a hat, the kids spinning yarn by hand from a pile of raw alpaca wool, all sitting around talking, working, sharing—and all aware that this is a fine way of life, even if they live in a rude adobe home. We also enjoyed a view of the startling Irish Pub on the town square, with a row of traditionally-dressed women sitting on the curb out in front for contrast.

We restrained ourselves with the camera—everywhere we turned were “photo ops” that tourists were snapping: the market, crowded with women in their traditional dress, “our” artisans, all incredibly picturesque--but we didn’t want their first impressions of us to be of more gringos with cameras. We figure we’ve got two years to document our lives there, so you’ll just have to wait. We DID get the camera out when a procession appeared, with a brass band and lots of women dancing the Wititi, the traditional dance of Chivay. It’s usually presented as “la danza de Amor” en Español, but in Quechua it’s more like “la danza del sexo.” You can figure that one out . . . More on that when the big holiday fiestas begin in Chivay in December. The parade was in honor of the Virgin of Copacabana, and the celebrations went on for two days. By day 2, I was feeling bad for the brass players’ lips, but they were liberally administering liquid lubrication and anesthesia in the form of chicha and beer.

OK, we haven’t said much about our work, but that’s because we’ll spend our first 3 months in Chivay surveying the community to determine the most serious needs, in order to define and prioritize what our work will be.

We were sad when we had to leave Chivay and return for the last weeks of training, (though a night of dancing in Arequipa helped). Back into the hazy skies of Lima and Chaclacayo—but not for long! Our group will be “sworn-in” next Friday, and most will depart for their sites on Saturday, Aug. 22, but we’ll be detained for a week of “survival Quechua” lessons.

Our Colca Canyon "Family Photo"--Volunteers Kristen and John will join us in the Canyon when we move up in a couple of weeks.

Our Site for Sore Eyes

2009-07-27T17:37:00.006-06:00

Last Friday was easily the most-anticipated day in our training schedule—“site assignment” day, when we find out where in Peru, right down to the specifics of street address and plumbing conditions, we’ll be serving for the next two years. Nearly everyone had a strong general preference, such as “coast,” “mountains,” or “I’d have to think about the dirt floors,” but some were much more specific. We know the coordinators do their best to match up volunteers with the sites where they’ll be most productive, but there were no guarantees expressed or implied.

We trainees then spent the rest of the week trying to sniff out where we’re headed, based on hints, like the casual “you’re OK with altitude, right?” that Alfredo, the Business coordinator, dropped in my interview. Others got nothing but ambiguous Mona Lisa smiles. Jean and I both indicated that mountains = good, hot & sweaty = bad, and other than that we’re open to whatever. After spending a week in Cajamarca, Jean was pretty sure that it would be a sweet assignment, but nearly everyone else thought so, too, so it seemed like a longshot.

The joker in the deck was my eye surgery, and the doctor had indicated a few weeks ago that he might want to keep me on a short leash. I had a checkup last Wednesday, and I held my breath until the doc cleared me for service anywhere I want. (My eye is still not 100%, but it’s much, much better.)

The night before sites were revealed, we had a couple of small earthquakes--no idea if that was a portent, or just a geological inevitability around here, but it felt significant.

Friday morning, at the appointed hour, we gathered on the back deck of the training center, and the staff had our site assignments arrayed for us--a fleet of paper boats, afloat on the decorative pool. One by one we netted our boats out of the pool and read the furled flag that named our site, then placed push-pins with our names on them on a map of Peru so we could see where our friends will be serving.

Jean and I fished our boats out and, hearts a-flutter, read “Arequipa!” We’re headed to the town of Chivay, in the department of Arequipa, at 11,900 feet elevation in the Andes! Chivay is at the head of Colca Canyon, a gorge that is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon, and the town is large enough to rate a mention in your Lonely Planet Peru guide (please turn now in your books to pages 161-187 for full details). We’re going to be cold and breathless, but very happy.

We shoulda seen it coming: two weeks into our training here, I had a dream that we’d end up in Arequipa; and it turns out that the random Peru photo that Jean chose for her Facebook page, before we even left Montana, is from the road between Arequipa and Chivay.

(Most of our fellow trainees felt that they’d dodged a bullet when we drew Arequipa, as it’s in the south of the country, far away from most of the other sites, but we’re thrilled with the geography, history, and culture it offers--and happy with the other trainees who’ll be our nearest gringo neighbors. Nearly everyone ended up pleased with their assignments, including two serious surfers who will be on the coast working, improbably, on developing surfing schools and teaching surfer English. Like, sweet.)

Chivay offers tourism, artesans, and agricultural products (the alpaca producers alone combine all three) to test our business chops; we’ll have teaching possibilities up to the post-secondary level, and plenty of chances to work with youth as well. The natives retain a strong, traditional culture, and it appears that we’ll be spitting out questionable Quechua in addition to our sputtering Spanish (see Jean’s last post). We’ll get a 3-hour “survival Qechua” lesson before departure, and we own a Qechua phrasebuq from our last Peru adventure, back when the Incas were still speaking it. (Our host family in Chivay speaks both Qechua and Spanish, we’re relieved to hear.) The town is on the large end of the scale for Peace Corps volunteers, which is our only disappointment—we were hoping for a more typical “out-in-the-boonies” experience, but to some extent every site is a compromise, so we’re fine with it. It’s in a key area that they had been hoping to develop, so we’ll be the first PCV’s they’ve seen in Chivay, though certainly not the first gringos.

Colca Canyon is a major attraction, with pre-Inca petroglyphs, Inca terraces, and (post-Inca) condors soaring out over the canyon—and mountain biking. Hot springs dot the area, making up for any plumbing deficiencies, and great hiking. Several volcanoes in the area check in at well over 6,000 meters (20,000’ plus), some of them still “live.” Climbing: check. And speaking of “live,” musicians take note—all the travel guides we’ve seen have confirmed that Chivay is the unlikely host to one of Peru’s few Irish pubs! We’ll let you know when the sessions are scheduled, and how Jean’s wind holds up at 12,000 feet!

Arequipa city is Peru’s second-largest, and will be 3-1/2 hours away by bus, with great cultural and recreational opportunities, (OK, more bars and dancing). It has direct air service to Lima and Cuzco (or overnight bus service, the lower-cost typical Peace Corps option. We’ll fill you in on the best times to visit, but after the summer rains stop, March through May, looks like a good bet, or springtime in the Andes—August through November.

We have Monday and Tuesday off for the “fiestas patrias,” the Peruvian Independence day celebration, then next Sunday we’ll set out for a week at our new site. We’ll have more to report, then.

Jean here now. The name “Arequipa” has a couple of different translations, but my favorite legend, lifted here from the Lonely Planet guide, is that the fourth Inca, Mayta Capac, was travelling through the valley and was so taken with the place that he ordered his entourage to stop, with the words “Ari, quipay”—Yes, stay. Looks like we will, at least for a couple of years.

I’ll confess, at first I had a little bit of that Peace Corps guilt—aren’t we supposed to suffer? We’re going to be living in a town that rates a write-up in travel guides, and there’s an Irish pub?!? I’m over it now, and eager follow the motto of Kipling’s famous mongoose, Rikki Tikki Tavi: “Go and find out.”

Photos from the web of Chivay.

Give us this day...

2009-07-26T17:08:00.010-06:00

We passed the midpoint of our training on the 15^th of July. I (Jean) was in the mountains of Cajamarca, in the charming town of San Pablo, with eight other trainees, with the task of presenting business workshops to students at a technical institute. During the workshop, the students would prepare a business plan and apply for microloans, to be paid back at the end of the workshop. I was lucky to have Vann and Alana on my team. Vann is one of the best Spanish speakers in the group, and Alana is not only a very good Spanish speaker, she also has experience with teaching accounting and volunteered to teach those sections. Thank you, both. I was there mostly for comic relief. Hamilton Players, thank you.

We stayed in a church on the main plaza, girls in one big dorm room (with bunk beds), boys in another. The important questions when we travel now tend to revolve around amenities like hot water. The first morning I was in the shower with the hot water unit turned on. The water was not hot. Not even close, but the heater was trying very hard. The light in the bathroom went out, and I looked over at the switch on the wall that controls the hot water unit, and a thin wisp of smoke was rising out of it. That was the last time I attempted a hot shower, but as a team we managed to fry the unit four times during the 5 days we were there.

Almost all of the students in our classes focused on food for their business. My favorites were the tamales for breakfast. I splurged and spent about $1.35 for a dozen. One of these days we will devote an entire post to typical foods of Peru. It is a serious topic, always a good subject for conversation. The dishes prepared by the students for their microbusinesses are a good sampler of the variety on offer: roasted chicken with beet salad and the ubiquitous side of potato, fried trout (with potatoes), cake made with fresh pineapple, more cake, fried stuffed potatoes, fried dough with syrup, grilled heart (anticucho-delicious) & a gooey purple dessert made with a dark grained corn (mazamorra-not delicious). One group chose to “organize” (I could write a post on what that meant in this instance) a soccer tournament, and used their loan money to buy a goat for the winner. We fielded a team, but lost the first game with a respectable score. No, I didn't play.

The week was full of challenges and small triumphs. One bright blue morning I sauntered into a tiny restaurant/shop and asked the little girl working there for bread (“pan”). She looked at me quizzically. “Pan” I repeated. A blank look. “Pan?” said I, giving that middle vowel sound a quarter turn to the left. Such a simple word. Only three letters. She has gone from eying me as a curiosity to calculating how to make me go away, and I am ready to shuffle out the door, kicking what's left of my confidence out ahead of me, when a voice from the back of the store shouts “PAN!”. Her eyes fly open wide, her mouth a perfect O. “Pan!” she whispers. Why didn't I say so?

Another Small Milestone

2009-07-17T15:36:00.004-06:00

Not much to report, but yesterday was a small milestone for me--possibly the first day in 50-some years in which I spoke not a word of English. I won´t guarantee that every word I spoke was proper Spanish, either, but it was an honest effort. (Readers who know me well will understand that it doesn´t mean I didn´t talk at ALL.)

Jean and the other trainees are in beautiful Cajamarca for a week of ¨field-based training.¨ I am left behind so my eye surgery can continue to heal, in close proximity to the excellent medical care in Lima. (Yes, that´s the rose-colored glasses version; the other side is that it sucks to be left behind, but asi es la vida). To make the best use of my time, I have been able to work with the language tutors here every day, and yesterday I went to visit an artisan who is a member of a co-op, to talk about their successes and . . . everything else. It was great--I got to watch the weavers at work, talk to her about her business, and to the President of the co-op about how that works. Spent the rest of the day with my family, and doing a few chores around Huascaran, watched some TV, and realized when I went to bed that it had all been in Spanish. I figure this is a preview of our lives to come . . .

Jean is probably eating cuy (guinea pig) this week. (we got a 4-hour introduction to cuy production last Saturday at the Agraria in Lima, which was really about two-and-a-half hours more than we really needed, but it was fun to see the little guys in their pens). Yesterday, for lunch I had cau-cau, which is cau . . . er, cow, stomach. Last week it was anticucho, which is beef heart. We´re getting the full immersion in Peruvian cuisine. MMMmmmmm . . . what did YOU have for dinner last night?

Earth-Shaking News

2009-07-06T19:55:00.007-06:00

Well, Panama spat me out on Saturday. I was in my hotel room at 2 a.m. when I was shaken awake by a “Magic Fingers” machine run amok. I hadn´t put a quarter in so I quickly deduced that if, indeed, I was awake and not dreaming, then I was experiencing a powerful earthquake. The room creaked and groaned, like being on a boat in a windy harbor, but nothing came apart, so all was well. I heard it was a 6.4 magnitude quake, centered 40 km from Panama City, lasting 7 seconds, but it didn’t cause much damage or close the airport, which was my main concern.

Panama isn’t a place I’m anxious to see again. I was confined to a hospital for 9 days, and spent another 4 in a hotel, but didn’t get to enjoy my freedom very much. My eye was troubled by too much activity, and I REALLY didn’t enjoy trying to deal with crazy city traffic with one eye tied behind my back. It was miserably hot & humid. I did visit the Casco Viejo, the old colonial part of the city, but its charms were lost on me. The Peace Corps personnel I dealt with in Panama were uniformly nice and went to a great deal of trouble on my behalf, but I’ll be perfectly happy if I never see them again!

I got home to Peru on Independence Day, and never has that phrase meant so much to me! Jean met me at the airport in Lima, and a taxi took us to the Peace Corps 4th of July fiesta in Chaclacayo, already in progress. No fireworks, but it was GREAT to be back someplace where I could kick back and socialize with my fellow aspirantes. Jean and I left long before the party was over, (but not before I established my party animal credentials) to come home to Angelica’s cooking.

My right eyeball is still bloodshot from the surgery, and my vision is still pretty cloudy from all the gunk floating around inside my eye. I’m told it will all be reabsorbed over time, and that I should eventually regain most of my visual acuity, which wasn’t all that great to start with. I had an appointment in Lima today because one of the stitches still buried somewhere in the socket is inflamed and causing me pain. It really doesn’t bear thinking about. At some point in the reasonably near future, I should be able to resume normal activity, whatever that is.

Thanks to everyone for keeping me in your thoughts and sending some good healing energy my way.

If all checks out OK, we’ll be going to Cajamarca province next Saturday for a week of “Field-based Training.” That apparently will involve touring a dairy operation, and then working with students at a technical school, teaching business basics to see if we can put together a quick project to develop their business skills. It will be great to get out and see some more of Peru.

The people here in Chaclacayo are great, but the geography is weird. We have very high mountains rising around us, but they’re absolutely barren—we’re in a desert band that occupies thousands of miles along the coast of Peru and Chile. During our “winter” months Lima, on the coast, is almost continually socked-in by a layer of marine clouds and smog, called the “garua,” that hardly ever yield any rain, but keeps the city continually grey and a bit chilly. We’re far enough inland that the garua has dissipated some, so we get sunshine, temps in the 60’s. Nothing grows, though, unless somebody waters it, so the mountains are just jumbles of rocks. Flying into Lima on Saturday, I could see snow-capped peaks and green mountainsides, and I’m ready to go see them, with my one good eye.

By the way, one of the things that Cajamarca is famous for is its dairy operations. Angelica hails from Cajamarca, and claims that all the cows have names, and that they all come when called by their names. Does the milk swirl in the pail in a different direction, south of the equator? We’re here to find out.

Jean and I went to the market in Chaclacayo Sunday and bought herbs, spices, fruit and vegetables so that tonight we can attempt a tuna curry, served in a cantaloupe, working without a recipe or a net. I wish I could send you the experience of walking through the market on a Sunday morning. Then we walked home, passing through the “magic gate” that separates Chaclacayo proper from our neighborhood of Huascaran. It’s always amazing to pass through the gate—a portal in a thick stone wall, called the “wall of shame” when it was put up to keep green, verdant, affluent Chaclacayo from having to look at our dusty, rather-less-visually-appealing neighborhood. Most, but not all of the wall was torn down, but the “magic portal” remains. I’ll try to tuck in a photo or two for you, of the gate itself, the homes in Chaclacayo, and our street.

Last note—it’s good to slip back into the routine we’ve established here, limited as it may be. When Jean and I first arrived, none of the thousand “routine” things we do every day, automatically and without thinking about them, was familiar. From brushing your teeth (you don’t want to stick your toothbrush in the tap water and then in your mouth. No, you really don’t) to using the phone, nothing is familiar, so you spend a couple weeks feeling very clumsy and awkward all day long, while you develop your new routines. Now, I can slip back into the known territory of our lives, at least until we head for Cajamarca.

The hot water in the shower worked for a week, now it doesn´t. It´s winter. Most of us are in the same boat, so we´re showering . . . infrequently. It´s the Peace Corps experience we all signed up for .

Still not fluent in Spanish. We’ll let you know when THAT happens.

When All of a Sudden . . . KABOOM!

2009-06-29T20:24:00.003-06:00

A nod to KLS there in the title . . . we thought our Peace Corps story was writing itself just fine, developing in new and interesting ways, when, during my Spanish language session, I suddenly noticed a large number of ¨floaters¨in my field of vision in my right eye. Then, a bit later, things that looked disturbingly like blood effects in a bad movie began chasing those floaters and . . . I ended up flat on my back in Panama for a couple of weeks. The good news is that my retina wasn´t detached, just a giant tear.

Now, I understand that there´s absolutely nothing more fascinating, to those of us beyond a certain age, than recounting and comparing our medical travails. I´ll try to keep it to a minimum here, though, so that I can truly fascinate you, dear reader, some time in the future, in person. The very short version is that in a remarkably short period of time I was transported from Chaclacayo, Peru, through the offices of 3 doctors in Lima, to a hospital in Panama, where I was instructed to lie on my back until told to do otherwise . . . which happened today, 10 days later. In the mean time I have had my eye laser zapped and surgically turned inside out, or something like it. I have a floater that looks like a bad movie effect sea monster, dangling tentacles and all, bobbing in the top part of my field of vision, and an air bubble injected during surgery that provides clever kaleidoscopic effects down below. The net effect of the two is quite disturbing, but less so that Panamanian cable TV.

Lying in my Panamanian Chamber of Boredom, I´ve gone through several books, the best of which was Michael Chabon´s ¨The Yiddish Policeman´s Union,¨which is brilliant and Í´m sorry I didn´t read it two years ago. Unfortunately, I was reading an old Sara Paretsky novel, ¨BloodShot¨this morning when a blood vessel burst in my battered eye, so now I will probably enjoy an extra day or two in Panama while that resolves. It´s a setback, but not an unexpected side effect of the procedures I´ve had. I also have trouble reading for very long at a stretch, due to the stitches in some remote part of my eyeball. Therefore . . .

I´ve been practicing my Spanish with CNN en Español, watching movies, and tonight in the restaurant saw a popular telenovela called ¨Sin Senos no Hay Paraiso,¨which my idiomatic Spanish renders, literally, as ¨Without Boobs There´s No Heaven.¨ Tonight, a major plot point involved visiting a strip club, just to emphasize the point(s). Forget CNN en Español . . . I´m also flat-out astonished at the round-the-clock coverage given to Michael Jackson´s death on nearly any cable channel that can figure out how to tie in to it. I hope I never see cable TV again after this, and I´ve sworn off movies with guns and explosions for the immediate future.

I´ve given up on guessing when I´ll be allowed to travel back to Peru, having learned the hard way, and repeatedly, the truth in the Jewish proverb, ¨Man Plans, and God Laughs.¨ I´m just hoping that there will be plenty of Peruvian Pilsner on hand when I get home to Jean in Huascaran.

By the way, I´m not the first Lawrence to visit these parts--my dad was here in the 1960´s, when it seemed like a neat-o idea to blast a new Panama Canal using a series of underground nuclear blasts. He was here doing some preliminary seismic work to determine whether it would send the isthmus tumbling into the sea or not. I´m not advertising this previous paternal Panamanian connection widely to the people I meet.

So, that´s the report from Panama City. I´ll happily let you know when I resume life as a Peace Corps/Peru trainee that I was becoming accustomed to, but til then, I´m not in pain, I will be able to see when it´s done. That´s all I can ask for now, but thanks for all your kind thoughts!

Russ

A side trip to Panama

2009-06-21T11:06:00.002-06:00

First and foremost, we will sacrifice a little dramatic tension to assure all of you who know and love Russ that in spite of the distressing fact that he is now in a hospital in Panama, he is fine. I can hear Liz from half a world away..”What!?! He’s in a hospital in Panama?!?” So, for you, dear Liz, here’s the short version. He has a torn retina of idiopathic origin (meaning, perhaps, that’s just something that happens to idiots on this path?) and the plan is for him to be on strict bed rest for as long as it takes for the blood that has collected in the eye to clear so they can repair the retina with laser surgery. Could be a couple of days, could be longer. All will be well, he is not in pain, and his vision should be as it was before.

It’s been a long, crazy day and a half for me, so I will just try to answer the FAQs without getting fancy about it. Why Panama? The retina specialist who saw Russ late Friday night recommended that he be shipped out for his surgery, and Panama and Washington D.C. are where Peace Corps sends volunteers from Latin America who need special medical care. A side note on the complications of doing things here—to travel to Panama, Russ needed BOTH his passports, his Peace Corps passport and his personal passport. He left for his appointmentin Lima with neither. Ask me about that some time, after I’ve had some sleep.

What happened? On Thursday Russ noticed that the vision in his right eye was cloudy and he had an annoyingly large floater in his line of sight. There was no pain, and no traumatic event.

I’m back at my home in Huascaran, with my hermana Angelica, who knows that what is needed during times of stress is food, especially chocolate, so besos (kisses) to her, and to Kati, the director at the training center, who really did give me the shirt off her back (okay, her wool jacket), Carla at the Peace Corps office in Lima and Dr. Jorge who must have made about fifty phone calls each to coordinate everything that had to happen to get Russ to Panama to receive the care he needs.

Besos to all of you as well. I’m hoping Russ will have access to his email once in a while, as I have no other direct way to contact him. Drop him a note.

Jean

Today is the first day . . .

2009-06-10T19:42:00.006-06:00

It’s a trite expression, “today is the first day of the rest of your life,” but it’s never been more appropriate than last Saturday (June 6) when Jean and I arose from our beds in Chaclacayo, Peru, and began meeting the Peace Corps staff here. But I’m getting a bit ahead of our story . . .

So, here we are in Peru. First of all—we’re safe and secure in a community that is looking out for us. No matter what you are hearing in the news about unrest and demonstrations in Peru, it’s in a distant part of the country and our security staff is on the job. We feel perfectly safe with our host family, and have already made many friends in our neighborhood.

We got here via the usual adventures in air travel, including rain, delays, and skidding in to a landing just ahead of a thunderstorm. We spent a day getting acquainted with our compatriots-in-training in Arlington, VA (just outside of D.C.) They are, almost to a person, 20-somethings, very bright, very motivated, and very genial. It’s humbling to be in their company, and they are exactly the sort of people you want to represent the U.S. to the rest of the world. Surprisingly, our training group—known as “Peru 13,”—is largely female: 28 women and 8 men. We have a number of people with graduate degrees, including one Juris Doctor, and a small number with hands-on experience in finance and marketing. We are black, white, Native American, Latino, and Asian. Many have Spanish majors or minors, but some are essentially novices. But they’re all decades younger than US!

Our arrival in Lima was delayed, and we didn’t get to our quarters until 3 a.m. Saturday morning everyone was feeling pretty rough, but it truly felt like Jean and I were beginning an entirely new life. How many people get an opportunity like that? To be called “trainees” takes us right back to our first jobs, like being a teenager hired to flip burgers for the summer, but we’re treated with great respect and understanding. The training staff is very professional and personable, and most of the Americans among them are former Peace Corps volunteers. The Peruvians are all professionals, too.

On Saturday, we had a 30-minute, one-on-one interview with a trained language evaluator, who appraised our language skills and, like the sorting hat at Hogwart’s, placed us somewhere on the scale of language skills. The goal is for all of us to be at the mid-intermediate level by the end of training, and I’m confident we’ll exceed that goal, but that’s still a far cry from “fluent.”

On Sunday, we met our host families, an event that generated more nervousness than anything else so far. Frankly, we hit the jackpot. Our “mother,” Angelica, cooks for the Peace Corps training center here, and Lucho, her husband is a jack-of-all-trades. We have two “hermanos” of 20 and 22 years’ age, and there’s a nephew here as well. Frankly, after maintaining the pretense for a day, we’ve agreed we’re all “hermanos,” since Angelica and Lucho are our age, give or take a year or two.

It’s total immersion time. They speak no English, and their rapid-fire Spanish—while not heavily accented—is nonetheless not enunciated with perfect clarity. It’s a challenge for us, but we’re communicating well, and even joking around. I’ve made only one major embarrassing linguistic faux pas, but the language police let me off with a warning, after gales of laughter. Our home is small--we have a bedroom about the size of a New York hotel room (tight), indoor plumbing, and a shower with the potential for hot water, but it’s not functioning consistently. Our hosts couldn’t be kinder or more fun and understanding. In the house we have a small cat, on the patio two canaries, and on the roof (!) a dog and a turkey that was intended for a Mother’s day dinner, but Angelica hasn’t been able to sacrifice it yet. There’s also a small store attached to the house where they sell candy bars, sodas, bananas, and the requisite 8 varieties of potato, and where we will have a chance to put in a few hours’ work, which will be . . . interesting. The food is fine—usually just toast w/ jam for breakfast (and coffee, of course, but not great coffee); lunch is a bigger deal—some meat, always rice, maybe some lentils or potato or yucca (a starchy root, but tasty) and a small salad of tomato, onion, and avocado, and fruit. Dinner tends to be modest—maybe a sandwich, maybe some soup and some bread, or a simple meat dish—but more than adequate.

Some of our fellow PCT’s (it’s a govt. agency, so we’re all reduced to acronyms: Peace Corps Trainees, “aspirantes” in Spanish) have homes with no discernable plumbing, but one has a bedroom with en suite shower (she said it’s like a Playboy grotto, very sexy; I didn’t ask how she knew . . .) so there’s quite a range. All have electricity. We’re told that our accommodations at our work sites, where we’ll move in August, will tend to be more rustic and our communities will be small, in the 800—4,000 person range, and that we’re likely to be the first PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) they’ve ever seen.

The training center is in a large home that’s been converted to offices and classrooms. It has a large, walled-in yard, with adequate space for Frisbee and soccer during our lunch break. The pool is merely decorative. What else do you want to know? The weather is cool, with a marine haze much of the time. We’re maybe 20-30 miles inland, with significant hills rising dramatically all around us.

Our morning language classes are conducted entirely in Spanish, and our job training is currently in English, but by the end of training most of our classes will be. The most popular class yesterday was presented by our Medical Officer, Dr. Jorge, on diarrhea. The official estimate of the percentage of Peru’s PCV’s who have, umm, “soiled their pants” is 95%, but he bets it’s closer to 100%. Ohhhh boy. Neither of us has joined that group yet, and neither of us is suffering from anything that would register on the Richter scale, though there have been rumblings. From our family we’ve learned two expressions for such symptoms that we can share in mixed company (“estoy con la bicicleta” and “estoy como pato”: I have a bicycle in my stomach and, in a more vernacular mode, my gut is loose as a goose) and one expression that we definitely cannot share on a public website.

Today’s not-so-cheerful lecture was on the probability of being a victim of robbery or theft, a very uplifting follow-up to the diarrhea lecture. That, and our first official day of Spanish language classes in which Jean’s teacher shoved them on a “combi” (a kind of collective taxi) and took them to a nearby town to interview random people, left Jean in a state of sensory overload. Fortunately, our Training Coordinator recognized the look on Jean’s face, and invited us to a nearby shop for coffee and chocolate cake, just in time.

I’ll try to include some photos in this entry, but I’m never sure exactly how that’s going to come off. They should include perhaps some shots of our fellow ¨aspirantes,¨ hard at work at our training center, our host ¨hermana,¨ Jean with some neighbor kids on our patio, and the convention center¨ with wandering alpacas where we spent our first 2 nights.

So, that’s the news from the city of Chaclacayo (our neighborhood is known as Huascaran). Every day brings us a whole range of emotions, but they’re mostly positive, and our experiences have been great. We’re very happy to be where we are, doing what we’re doing, and we’re (still) looking forward to a productive and endlessly-fascinating two years!

A week of farewells

2009-06-01T22:41:00.005-06:00

It's been a tough week, full of farewells. Jean and I are grateful to have had a chance in the last couple of weeks to hear many of the nice things that people usually wait until your funeral to say about you. Still, the constant stream of well-wishers, stopping by Chapter One, calling, or emailing to say good-by has been a wonderful thing. Of course the parties have been pretty nice, too!

We've been obsessively packing, re-packing, unpacking, and panicking, but we're ready now to say "enough," and pick up our bags and go . . . which we'll be doing any minute now. It's hard, though--hard to leave our home, our cat, our friends, and our bookstore, which has brought us so many gifts over the years. It is bittersweet, all of it, but we're determined to take this giant step into the unknown, just to find out more about ourselves and the world, and perhaps to do a little bit of good! Our next post will be from our Peace Corps training site, near Lima.

For a nice summary of what we're doing and what we're leaving behind, the Ravalli Republic ran this article about us today.

So now it really is time to shut off the computer and head out the door, with 2 years' worth of worldly goods slung over our shoulders. Thanks to all of our friends here . . . we can't thank you enough, or bear to tell you how much we'll really miss you, without weeping in public--which nobody really wants to see.

We'll see you in 2011, or in Peru!

Russ & Jean

The Edges Fray, the Duffel Cannot Hold

2009-05-23T19:45:00.003-06:00

Well, what looked do-able in 5 weeks has collapsed under the weight of reality, but we're slogging onward. We will get on a plane in Missoula on June 3, and get off one in Lima, Peru, on June 5, and the things that aren't done just won't GET done!

We really thought we could wrap things up in Hamilton in 5 weeks when we committed to our Peace Corps posting in Peru, but so many things require not one, not two, but three or more additional steps that we are falling desperately behind. Then there are the little unexpected surprises that come out of nowhere, like . . . well, I don't even want to start, but suffice to say that our real estate is still standing, if a bit more fractured than we'd like. We're making our peace with it all.

Lenore the cat has figured out that something's up, but she can't quite put her paw on it.

Meanwhile, the "Rosetta Stone" Spanish language learning program to which the Peace Corps has generously provided us access has turned Jean into a Stone-head, as incapable of resisting the lure of the web-based Spanish modules as a "crackberry" addict with unread emails. I'm trying to make reasonable use of the program, while still getting my packing done, but Jean is knocking down the modules. I'll just be jealous if her Spanish ends up better than mine.

That's where we are, with 10 days to go. Our departure gets more real with every action we do for the last time, and we've already had a number of those. Our last "Bitterroot Bellies" dinner last evening at Marshall & Tonia Bloom's house--a great meal, great company. We'll miss that.

Russ

Yoiks! and away . . . to Peru!

2009-05-02T10:23:00.001-06:00

OK, gang, here's what we know: on Friday, April 24, we accepted an invitation from the U.S. Peace Corps to serve in Peru, departing from Washington, D.C. on June 4. Yikes!

We are in the process of packing away or disposing of worldly goods, getting our house and our cat (Lenore) properly house- and cat-sat, getting all our duties handed off and everyone trained & cross-trained at Chapter One Book Store, and everything else that one must do to prepare for an absence of 27 months.

We'll be in training outside of Lima for 11 weeks, at the end of which we'll be sworn in as official Peace Corps Volunteers, and receive our final work site assignment, somewhere in Peru. Our jobs will be as Small Business Experts, possibly working with artisan co-ops, farmers groups, or tourism promotion for our community--it will just depend on what we encounter when we get there. We'll be living with a host family for our entire time in Peru, living at the same level as our neighbors, absorbing their culture and daily lives. We are told that we will probably have electricity and running water, and that in any event we'll be in our departmental capital every two weeks or so, where we'll have internet and phone access. You can read about the Peace Corps' program in Peru here.

That's the basics. How do we feel about it? WHEEEEEEE!!! Though we'd have accepted an assignment elsewhere, this is really exactly what we've been talking about for thirty years when we've said to each other, "some day we're joining the Peace Corps and going to South America." And so, here we go! We're excited, but clear-eyed about all the implications.

We'll try to keep this blog updated regularly. Thanks for tuning in . . .

Russ & Jean
Peru, July 3, 1990: