Abejas, Fuegos, y Fotos

My dearest friends and family,

A side note first--some of your emails weren´t working before (because I entered them incorrectly) and some I just added. For those of you who are interested, I´ll be posting the old emails and the new ones on my blog: http://saminperu.blogspot.com/

I always worry that I won´t have enough to write to you, and then the strangest and most interesting things happen. Such is the life of a Peace Corps trainee! This week was especially lovely, since we had a ¨feriado¨(holiday) on Wednesday. The night before, we celebrated the birthday of another PCV with the community. His host family decorated a ¨house in progress¨ just down the hill. We decided to have a ¨graffiti party¨ so that we would all have a souvenir from training, so everyone bought white T-Shirts and Sharpies. By the end of the night, we had all learned quite a few new phrases in both English and Spanish...very educational. :-) The Peruvians made fun of us bcause we only lasted until 1 or 2 in the morning, and their parties NEVER end before dawn. However, they aren´t in PC training!

Wednesday, I slept the latest I ever have here, until 8AM! I had my mid-point Spanish interview, and am happy to report that I moved up two levels to intermediate-advanced. I am now where I need to be to begin service, and will be spending the rest of language training fine-tuning my accuracy and pronunciation. It´s so exciting to be able to have real conversations with my host family, or even to understand the small talk on the street. Learning a new language is so empowering, and even though it is also one of the most frustrating things I´ve ever done, it is also one of the most fun. For those of you unfamiliar with PC training, we have four hours of language and culture nearly every day. The afternoon is spent getting vacinated, working in our technical groups, and listening to medical sessions on safety and health. Not all of our time is spent at the training center--some of our language sessions take place in our communities, and we are frequently asked to conduct interviews with the locals. For health, we have begun to work at the health posts, learning about government efforts and how to work with limited resources. I´ll wirte more about the health posts next week.

It´s been especially fascinating to learn about health in Peru. (For those of you who disagree, you can skip to the next paragraph.) For example, it´s a common joke here for Peruvians to ask Americans, ¨What do they feed you over there to make you so tall?¨ While I´m considered short-average in the states at 5ft 4in, I´m actually quite tall here. This has been great for concerts and large crowds, however, as the health volunteers have come to understand, very little if any of the height difference can be contributed to genetics. In some departments (states) malnutrition is responsible for the stunting of over 60% of the population. One village reported stunting in every 8 out of 10 children. The malnutrition is not due ot a lack of food, but rather a lack of nutrient rich food. Rice and potatoes are served LITERALLY at every meal. They are served to curb appetite rather than for nutritional value. Peru exports nearly all of its quality produce, leaving very little for the people. Peru may be famous for its fruit and potatoes, but the fruit we eat from Peru is not what the people are eating here. This is definitely an area I hope to address in my permanent site.

Continuing on (how could I have been worried about not having enough to write?!) this weekend was full of uniquely Peruvian experiences. Saturday, we traveled once again to La Agraria, where we learned how to salvage seeds from vegetables, farm cuy, and create bee colonies. (Yes, ¨cuy¨ are guinea pigs, and they are commonly eaten here. They are even included in the fod pyramid. I have so far evaded having to try one.) For the bee session, we were up close and personal with the bee colony. They gave us the special netted hats, and then proceeded to open the colmena (structure/hive) of 8,000 bees. We tasted honey straight from the comb and learned how lucrative and beneficial the bee farming industry can be. It was both fascinating and delicious!

Afterwards, a small group of us went to a deli for lunch, where I had my first turkey sandwich in a month. It was so good I don´t think I can even describe it in words. After our first meal in a while without rice or potatoes and a brief 2 mile walk, we arrived at El Museo de la Nación. While their exhibit was limited due to construction, it was also free! The art was incredible, some of it dating as far back as 1170 B.C. The gallery upstairs featured a photo timeline of the terrorist era in Peru. Keep in mind, this was barely 20 years ago. The images continu to haunt me, the atrocity is hard to describe but the photos truly say it all. Women and children in small rural communities were brutally masacred by terorists and police forces alike, all the while having no idea why the fighting was taking place. I encourage anyone unfamiliar with the reign of the Shining Path in Peru to read up on the matter, it explains so much about the political and economical problems here today.

One last story for you in this email, and then I´ll save the rest for next time. This Saturday was the anniversary of the large city, of which my community is a subdivision. There was a huge fiesta/concert to commemorate the 114th birthday of Chosica, so naturally all of us decided to go. It was a little strange being the only Americans in a crowd of 5,000 Peruvians, but the music was fantastic. One of the groups was definitely the Peruvian incarnation of the backstreet boys, complete with matching outfits and choreography. We ended up leaving around 1AM, again, very early by Peruvian standards.

As we were climbing up the hill, we noticed a small fire burning. This isn´t particularly unusual, since a lot of people burn their trash, but it was 1 in the morning, the brush was very dry, and it was in an odd location. We decided to throw a little dirt on it, just to be safe. For good measure, one of the other volunteers decided to, shall we say, relieve himself on the fire as well. However, for whatever reason, the flame got bigger. At this point, I decided we needed help, so I ran to the nearest house. When no one answered, I grabbed a few buckets from the courtyard and we began filling them from a nearby stream. Some of the moto taxi drivers noticed our efforts and joined in. At last, the fire was out and we were able to go home. PC volunteers, saving the world one small fire at a time!

Finally, I am happy to report that at last, I was able to upload a few pictures! It was a very involved process to find a flash drive, a computer with a USB port, and a locutorio with internet fast enough to upload them, but at last I can share a bit of my life here with you in a visual sense. I have more, but kep in mind that it took 2 hours just to upload these :-S

To view the photos, visit: http://s431.photobucket.com/albums/qq34/sjkerr08/

I don´t think you have to subscribe to photobucket, but let me know if you have any problems.

Again, thanks so much for the love and support. I miss you all terribly, but I´m having the time of my life here and can´t wait to share more with you. Feel free to email any time!

Love Always,
-Sam

To Lima and Back

Dear family and friends,

First of all, I just want to thank you all for all of your lovely letters, packages, emails, and kinds words. It´s been so much fun to hear from everyone and I´m so grateful for your continued support! I was thinking the other day, about the differences between Peru and the States. Strangely enough, my first thought was that there weren´t many differences. However, when I gave the matter a little more thought, it became apparent that nearly everything is different here, but that I´m just becoming accustomed to it all. For example, the other day one of the other volunteers was talking about playing with his dog on the roof. When he wrote home about it, his family was alarmed that the dog was kept on the roof! However, the roofs here are very much like a room of the house. Our roof in particular is very nice, with a great view of the city and a little garden on the side. This is just one of the many subtleties I´m learning to appreciate.

While I´m constantly finding new things to enjoy about my host village, I´m also excited to report that I finally had the opportunity to explore Lima! Two weekends ago, our language groups were assigned to research safety and the prices of transportation in Lima by interviewing store owners and officials. We also had to find our own way home, which was a little scary for me in particular, since I don´t have any experience with taxis or public transportation. However, we also had time to explore. First, we visited La Plaza de Armas, which is the plaza that appears in tourist ads and postcards. The architecture was incredible, and there were people gathering there from all over the world. We made it just in time to watch the military parade and marching band, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After, we had our first opportunity to eat out at a Pervian Restaurant. Unfortunately, this is where I had my first encounter with an attempted robbery. While we were standing in line at a semi-outdoor restaurant, a man came up to me, grabbed me by the waist, and tried to kiss me, while going for the change in my pocket. However, having recently been trained in safety techniques and holding my backpack firmly, I yelled "No me molesta!" (which translates to ¨don´t bother me, or leave me alone,") and pushed him away. Luckily, the group rallied around me and he left, no harm done. I was excited to put the safety training to test, and the rest of the day was wonderful.


This past weekend, I had the pleasure of experiencing two really fascinating cultural events. After class Saturday morning, I went with two other volunteers to Baranco, which is a subdivision of Lima. We toured the art museum there, which was full of Spanish colonial art from the 1700s. The museum itself was an old colonial mansion, which was incredibly beautiful. Most of the art centered on Catholocism, and everything was so intricately detailed. I could have studied each painting or sculpture for thirty minutes and still have missed things. Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed.

After the museum, we went to our first fiesta in a neighboring community, which had invited all of the Peace Corps to celebrate the anniversary of their neighborhood. The fiesta took place in a huge soccor field, with a big stage in the middle. There were two huge groups of dancers, and I wish I had the words to describe the intensity of the dances. The first group wore canary yellow outfits, adorned in gold ropes, magenta scarves, and hundreds of buttons. The women wore top hats as tall as themselves, with hundreds of feathers in a myriad of colors. The music was a combination of traditional Andean music and modern. The dance was more like a story, depicting an intense history riddled with conflict and achievement. Unfortunately, it was too dark to take a decent picture, so do your best to imagine! Afterwards, the Peace Corps was formally welcomed into the community, and they had a big dance. Sadly, my dancing is about as good as my Spanish right now. :-)

In other news, I thought some of you might be interested in a few observations about daily life. I´ve made a brief list of the things I´ve found unique to Peru so far:

1. The Noises
The gallos (roosters) cannot tell time here. They start singing at 1AM, 3AM, and from 4AM onward. After three weeks, I´m finally adjusting to it. Also, all cars, combis, and taxis honk at every interesection to warn pedestrians, since there are no crosswalks, few traffic lights, and no observable speed limits. As a pedestrian, I have come to appreciate this. Our village, Yanacoto, has a megaphone that the alcaldes (mayors) use to make announcements. However, as we have learned, they are also used for political arguments, which are not always very friendly. These begin at 7AM. Finally, I´ve learned that in a house with concrete floors, every sound is amplified. Peru is not for light sleepers!


2.) El Mercado (The Market)
The market is one of my favorite experiences! There are so many colors and new flavors. Also, every single price is negotiable! Too bad it doesn´t work that way in the U.S, I´m starting to get pretty good at bargaining. The only downside is that there are no sanitary regulations. Thus, all food is "buy at your own risk."

3.) Rules for Women
Going into my PC experience, I knew that I would experience less freedoms than I enjoyed in the U.S. However, there are lots of things I never thought about that have come up during training. For example, we have to be careful how much time we spend with male volunteers or co-workers. In the U.S. it´s very common for women to have male friends, but no so much in Peru. Rumors start incredibly easily, and volunteers have even been removed from their sites because of them. Also, cat-calling, whistling, and marriage proposals are completely acceptable. However, it´s particularly frustrating that police officers do this as well. Here in Peru, the bomberos (firefighters) are much more trusted, since they are a voluntary organization.

4.) The Bathroom and Such
In Peru, you cannot throw toilet paper in the toilet, and if you do by accident, it is not fun trying to figure out how to fix the mistake. Also, my family believes that if you get your hair wet when you are sick, it will make you sicker. (With the water as cold as it is, I´m starting to think so too!) You also have to wear sandals, since there are microbes on the tile.

5.) The Food
Yes, it is very true that rice and potatoes are served with every meal, except for breakfast. Also, I´ve found that a lot of Peruvians believe that Americans eat WAY more than we actually do, so most plates include at least three servings. It is so delicious that I wish I COULD eat three servings, but I´m currently in the process of learning how to convince my family that I don´t need quite so much.


Okay, my internet time is up! I know I said I would send pictures this week, but I forgot to bring my cord, so I will have to post them at a later date. Again, thanks to everyone for all of your support, I love you and miss you! Feel free to write if you have any questions, I´ll do my best to respond within two weeks.

Love always,
-Sam

Prelude

Hola todos!

At last, a brief moment to sit down and write to you. It is the Peace Corps philosophy that trainees be busy every second of the day, and while I like to stay busy, it is nice to have a moment to communicate with everyone back home! Right now, I am staying in a place called Yanacoto, about ten minutes by combi to the training center in Chaclacayo. The combi is truly an experience unique to Peru. It is like a 15 passenger van, but with a minimum of thirty people crammed inside. It races down the street at speeds around 75 to 90 miles per hour, and if you aren´t very quick, its easy to miss your stop. (This has already happened several times, haha). However, its cheap and gets you where you need to go, and I´ve come to enjoy it.

During my stay in Yanacoto, Im living with a host family, who I already love and never want to leave. I have a mom, dad, brother, and sister. My brother is 17 and goes to school to study computing, and my sister is 23 and works in a laboratory. She also knows a little English, and has been enormously helpfuly in helping me with my fairly large gaps in Spanish. Unfortunately, she and her mom were in a terrible car accident about 13 years ago, and my host mom suffered spinal damage. As a result, she is forced to lay in bed most of the time, and has lost mobility in her legs and hands. However, it has been amazing to see the strength and love of my family, how they have survived their difficult times together. There is a tangible love in their home, and I feel so lucky that they have welcomed me so genuinely into their lives.

My house is a bright turquoise building at the top of a very steep hill. (Great exercise after eating so many carbs here!) As required by the Peace Corps, I have my own room, though I only use it to sleep. We have running water and electricity, in fact my family actually has a TV and DVD player! However, we use these things sparingly, and the water is VERY cold. Its a great way to get past the morning groggyness! Every morning I wake up to a montage of sounds, including roosters, packs of dogs, and car horns. Alarms are hardly necessary. Though I have never considered myself a morning person, Ive really come to enjoy them. We have a great view from the top of the hill of the surrounding area, and everything looks beautiful in the light pink mist of the early hours.


So, for the next 10 weeks, I´ll be training to become a volunteer in community health promotion! A lot of the information is very repetitive, since I have already received much of the same training from the College of Public Heatlh, but I´ve really enjoyed the language classes and culture sessions. Also, despite having electricity and running water, there is a great deal of poverty here, we definitely have our work cut out for us. Today, we had to go to a large town called Choisica in a small group, and complete a ´mission.´ Our mission was to interview a street vendor and to find and interview a health promoter. Fortunately, my Spanish has already improved somewhat, and we were able to communicate well enough to complete the mission. Its a little exhausting to constantly think in a new language, but amazing at the same time. My family gets so excited when they can understand what I say and I in turn understand them! It´s such an incredible experience to be thrown into an environment where nothing is familiar, safe, or comfortable, but quickly, this place is feeling more like home. While I miss many people and aspects of life in the US, I feel so lucky to be having the experience of living in and becoming part of a new culture. I think Peruvians must be among the most friendly people in the world because everyone I meet welcomes me profusely with hugs and kisses and offers to help with my Spanish. Also, they ALWAYS give you twice as much food as you can eat, and while it´s all incredibly good, there is no way to eat it all. I´m still learning how to refuse politely!

Anyway, Im running out of time, since Im writing this from a little internet cafe near the training center and I dont have many soles. (Soles are the currency of Peru.) Please feel free to ask any questions or send emails, Ill try to check my email about every 10 days or so. I wont have a phone until the end of training and phone cards are a little expensive, so email will be the best way to get ahold of me if you need to. I love you and miss you all, thanks so much for all of the love and support! Cant wait to hear from you.


Love always,
Sam

P.S Sorry for the bad grammar and spelling, Im using a Spanish keyboard and I haven´t quite figured out all of the keys!