Friday, July 31, 2009

ha

So, I've been telling people I went to a place in Peru that isn't even on the map. But I recently discovered I've been using an "alternate" spelling. The correct spelling is Urquillos, if you really must know. I guess that's neither here nor there at this point though, because I still can't find it on the map...

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

a few things i miss about the house

your mom
your dad
tops off
chicken kiev
pancake tuesdays (and Richard yelling "girls! pancakes, girls! get up!")
next level shit
shit your pants material
fighting over the last wonton
afternoon popcorn snacks
morning debates
family breakfast
group toothbrushing time
the thunder bucket (and the fight over cleaning said thunder bucket)
drinking games that involve moonshine and guinea pig bones shaped like foxes
being made fun of for calling my "torch" a "flashlight"
Spike (and the pigs)
and...the Captain and my fellow volunteers, of course. i can't think of anyone else i'd rather have spent two weeks digging a hole with.

Monday, July 20, 2009

only in peru would you...

pack a swimsuit and mittens for the same outing

watch a drunk man, who has visibly shat his pants, dance in a field at 10 am

get to look at the Andes on your way to work each morning

be called a gringa and not be offended

drink moonshine on the job because it would be rude not to

cram 12 people into a car meant for 6...for an hour-long journey

eat as soon as your food arrives even if no one else at the table has food yet

drink chicha, preferably out of a makeshift cup that you have fashioned by sawing the end off a soda bottle you found in the bushes

enjoy a delicious pisco sour

wear a wool hat to do back-breaking work under the blazing sun

haggle with an old woman, in Spanish, in the middle of the night to try and get the key to your hotel room

enjoy happy hour from 10-11 pm (and quadruple fist the drinks)

have your afternoon's work interrupted because the cows have come home, literally, except the cows are bulls and they want you out of their yard

be awakened at 5:55 am each day by donkeys

have your bunkmate fall on you at 4 am because the bed slats aren't nailed in

go paragliding over the Sacred Valley

take twenty minutes to type a three-sentence email because you can't figure out the darn keyboard

get really, really excited over successfully obtaining directions to the local Farmacia and being able to ask for Kleenex, chapstick, and antihistamines at said pharmacy

gaze at the Milky Way each night while you brush your teeth outside at the community sink

have sheep bleat at you while answering nature's call

be astounded (and touched) when the rowdy 12-year old boy in the class you're teaching asks to learn the Hail Mary in English

enjoy a solid three hours of sleep in the Lima airport thanks to the blanket and eyeshade you snagged from Delta

watch a man carry nine mattresses at one time, which his buddies have strapped to his back

marvel over the sheer amount of stray dogs

ask to use someone's restroom only to be invited to pee in the corner of their yard while two cats, an inquisitive chicken, and a barking dog watch

attempt unsuccessfully to herd a pile of unruly donkeys, pigs and sheep home then watch as a 13-year old girl does it effortlessly with a very small stick

go to bed at 9:30 pm because hey man, the sun goes down at 5:15

break your stepbrother's unbreakable water bottle

have a yankee doodle band start up outside your window at 7:15 am

teach a bunch of 13 year olds a song that includes the lyrics "i like to eat, eat, eat sheep and guinea pig"

gain weight because you get fabulous food like curry, stir fry, fajitas, and pancakes cooked for you daily

order a family sized pizza for two girls to share while the waitress snickers at you

spend two hours in a sheer panic because you accidentally snorted water up your nose at the swimming pool

drink Coco tea to kill the blinding altitude headache

have a duck and guinea pig killed in your honor, while you're eating breakfast next to the slaughter scene

dance a very long seven minute dance at your welcome ceremony while 30 other people stare at you

be considered a "translator" even though you only understand every third word that is coming out of your boss' mouth

think you finally have the hang of the language, only to realize your boss has switched from speaking Spanish to Quechua

try to cure a hangover with ceviche

enjoy a toasty, Fanny, and Horniman's Anis for breakfast

Man. I miss Peru.

nobody said it was easy -

- but no one ever said it would be so hard to come home. It is really hard to wake up and go to work each morning knowing my team is still working in Peru. The thrill of taking a shower and flushing a toilet are gone already. And I literally walked into my apartment after being gone for 17 days and had only two thoughts:

Whose stuff is all this?
God, it is WHITE in here

It didn't even look like my apartment. I left here on July 2 feeling pretty happy about things, and now I'm prowling restlessly trying to figure out what to do with myself. This certainly isn't the longest I have ever been away from home, but this is the hardest it's ever been to come back. Life in Peru was very simple - no phone, no email, no TV, fresh food for every meal (and we got three squares a day, which I ate at a TABLE with other people). My life here involves a cell phone, a Blackberry, a phone at work, two email accounts, not much TV though really, and lots of cereal and quesadillas eaten over my kitchen sink at odd hours of the day. Oh, and lunch at my desk. Living. The. Dream. :-P

I suppose this too shall pass but in the meantime, I'm struggling...

Saturday, July 18, 2009

the long road home

I woke up a little out of sorts this morning and was only slightly cheered by my toasted sandwich at Loki for breakfast. All the other volunteers except for Maren, Gillie, and me had plans today - Vienna, Claire, and Brendan were going mountain biking and Ralph and Parker were going to San Pedro - so we said goodbye to everyone at 9 am. :-(

After showering and packing, Maren and I went to the ATM (for like, the 100th time) then up to Richard's house. We really wanted to try ceviche (raw fish) and since Richard knows all the best restaurants, we wanted to go with him. He wasn't home yet from picking up the new volunteers (our replacements, sniffle), so we hung out on his front porch and met his roommates. Turned out that the roommates were hungry as well and they ended up coming to lunch with us. Spike, Richard's/our dog, really wanted to come too and actually chased the cab for several blocks. It was like something out of a Benji movie, kind of cute but I was worried he was going to get hit by a car.

For lunch, Maren and I shared ceviche and a big plate of fried stuff, as well as a pitcher of Chicha Morada (purple chicha) and Coke. About this time I was wishing I hadn't drank so much last night and ended up having an unpleasant discussion with Mother Nature in the ladies' room. Nice work, Ives.

I was feeling pretty green but we wanted to go to the wine store, so I persevered, keeping my eye out for a bathroom and/or garbage can in case of emergency. As we were walking through one of the markets, I noticed a sign advertising a local marathon! Naturally I had to stop and ask how much it was. The cost to run a Peruvian marathon? One nuevo sol, basically 25-30 cents in USD. Good grief. It costs $100 USD to run a marathon here...

We finally made it to the wine store where we bought Richard a gift for being such a good Captain. Then we had to say goodbye to him, Yrene, and Elizabeth who had also come to lunch with us and were headed to the grocery store. I somehow managed to keep it together, but it was really hard. We were far enough away from Gringo Alley (the neighborhood we stayed in Cusco) that we needed to get a cab back, so we decided to split one with Richard's roommates. However, they needed lightbulbs so we wandered here, there, and everywhere looking for a Ferrateria. You can't just buy whatever wherever here, you know? After a bit of walking, the guys gave up and we ended up just getting a cab home sans lightbulbs.


Viva el Peru


Random sighting on our walk


Maren and me, blending into the wall in my red Peru jacket. Yes, I know it is extremely unhip to wear vacation souvenirs when you are still ON VACATION; however, all of my other clothes were at la Lavanderia.

Back in Gringo Alley, we said goodbye to the roommates (I have totally forgotten their names) and went off to search for last minute gifts before meeting Gillie at Pampawasi for a final farewell. We picked up our laundry, got our bags out of storage, bid Gillie adieu, then haggled with a cab driver over a price to the airport. I will miss bargaining with everyone, I think.

The security line was stupid long...thank goodness we got there two hours ahead. Also, there were no signs telling you where to go or what to do, which is a problem if you don't know that you have to pay a departure tax. Somehow we figured it out and managed to get on our plane to Lima where we then had a six-hour layover. We were planning to check in and go crash on a bench, but no dice. The Delta counter wasn't going to be open for another two hours, so we dragged our backpacks up to the food court along with the other 250 passengers awaiting the 12:20 am flight to ATL. Our dinner options were:

Dunkin Donuts
McDonald's
Papa John's
Some random chicken place

We could have been anywhere really. The least-disgusting option seemed to be McDonald's, which killed about 15 minutes. We took turns wandering around an overpriced souvenir shop then went to wait in line for the Delta counter, hoping at some point that our ears would pop. Seriously. Everyone on the flight from Cusco was deaf in one or both ears from the change in cabin pressure, altitude, etc.

Miraculously, everything went off without a hitch and our plane left on time. I spent the flight face down in my tray table thanks to Dramamine and arrived in ATL feeling remarkably refreshed. Since it was only 8 am in Atlanta, customs was a breeze and Maren and I remarked how stupidly easy it is to go through passport control here. There are videos with step-by-step instructions, it would be impossible to get in the wrong line even if you are a monkey. In Lima, it was like a cattle call and anyone's best guess where you needed to go exactly. Much more interesting, in my opinion.

Four hours later, we were on the plane to CVG listening to two West Siders discuss which high school they had gone to (both people were in their 30's or 40's). I love Cincinnati but geez. I was kind of wishing my hearing hadn't come back so quickly. My mom came to pick us up at the airport and didn't recognize me at first. I think what she said was, "you're not pale anymore!". Ha! Even Jen gets tan if she works outside for two weeks. ;-)

Friday, July 17, 2009

it's the end of the world as we know it


Vienna, Maren, Claire and Gillie humor me and pose for a pre-work picture


Little Bo Peep keeps losing her sheep


The "boys' side" of the project


The "girls' side"


The progress we've made in a week


Remember what this used to look like?!??


My own private island, aka where I went for Nature Breaks during work hours


The crew!

I woke up full of energy this morning, still riding on a protein-high from yesterday's lunch I guess. It was hard knowing today was our last day on the job...forever...but swinging a pick axe helped work out some of the frustration. Plus, it's awesome to look at the site and see how much progress we have made to date and to think about what the final result will be. I wish I could get to see it or at the very least, make a handprint in the concrete these guys will be pouring next week. :-(


The last supper


Richard demonstrates his musical talents


El jefe (Gilberto) and me


Richard, Yrene, Me, Elizabeth (front)

For our last meal as a group (Ralph and Parker are fasting tonight), Yrene made us pesto pasta, which was so delicious that I had three helpings. Hey now, I've been digging trenches for two weeks. Don't judge my eating habits.

We packed up our bags for the last time after lunch and piled into two taxis bound for Cusco. The whole group was supposed to be staying at Loki this weekend but they were overbooked so Loki sent us back to...Pampawasi. Honestly, I can't believe they even let us back in the place after last weekend's festivities but whatever. Everyone really just wanted to shower and use the toilet. However, this wasn't in the cards. Last weekend we could barely get hot water in the showers - you'll have that sometimes, as my brother would say. This weekend there wasn't even any water coming out of the faucet. Poor Maren didn't even get to break out the shampoo before the stupid thing went out, so I trucked down to the front desk and tried to sort things out in Spanish. The hotel owners called the repair people then shrugged and said it would be a while. Super. Maren went back in the bathroom to try and wash her hair in the sink and I decided to go and check email at the lobby computer.

As I was sitting there, the female hotel owner told me I could shower in their private bathroom downstairs if I wanted. Score! After the hot shower, Maren, Claire and I went souvenir shopping and played a fun game of haggling and bargaining with the local vendors. We loaded up with all kinds of goodies then went to meet Gillie, Vienna, Brendan and Richard for pizza. Not just any pizza though. These were the fanciest pizzas ever and came with toppings like lamb, duck prosciutto, prawns, etc. Magical.


Clean girls - Maren, Gillie, Vienna, me, and Claire at the Plaza de Armas fountain


Maren, who has borrowed Captain Richard's (Richard reminds us of Captain Jack Sparrow) hat, and Gillie look at pictures


Good times at dinner

We had ordered Pisco Sours as a pre-dinner cocktail then shared wine with the meal. I was feeling more buzzed than usual and then I saw the bill...the waitress had given us all doubles. Ha ha nice. If I had any sense at all, I would have gone home at this point and called it a night. Yeah. We all know how this story will end.

The group of us went to Norton's, which is the pub we went to on our first night together two weeks ago. We hung out for several rounds of cocktails, then Brendan and I decided it would be nice to shoot some 1800, which in all honesty, did end up being quite nice. Very smooth. But again, if I had any sense at all I would have gone home at this point. We had met an American guy from Colorado though, who knew of a fun bar just down the street! Naturally we all thought this was a great idea.


Brendan and Richard bond

A few drinks later and I was just plain silly. Somehow we all managed to make it back to the hotel in one piece - I vaguely remember walking to Loki first but the bar was closed. Brilliant, especially with a long flight back to the States tomorrow. :-P

Thursday, July 16, 2009

ducks, ditches, and dancing

Today was bittersweet. Our last full day in the village that has come to feel like home, our last day of teaching school and hanging out with the kids. :-(

The morning began with quite a loud racket in the street at 7 am. We peered out the front gate expecting to find a 30-piece high-school marching band but it turned out to be 3-4 dudes with random instruments out for a morning walk. Of course.

Breakfast was equally interesting. Since today is Maren's and my last day here, Richard bought a duck in town and the host family donated two guinea pigs for today's lunch. The guinea pigs were toast by the time I crawled out of bed, but Yrene killed the duck during breakfast. I really didn't want to watch but it was like a trainwreck. You couldn't not look. My legs were shaky for an hour afterwards, which maybe explains why I had trouble getting going at the job site today.


Sleepy crew

About halfway through the morning, a lady stopped by with some homemade jam for us to try. We found a nice stick to use as a spoon and we all sampled the sugary deliciousness. Gilberto also brought us a bottle of chicha, which really does help when you're working in the hot sun.


Brendan fixes a broken shovel, Ralph tries the jam


Gillie pours chicha for the group

We worked a little longer than usual today and were very ready for lunch, probably because we knew it was going to be fantastic. :-) Yrene had fixed the following for us to eat:

Duck (had duck at our opening meal, quite excellent)
Guinea Pig (my first time, a little greasy but very tasty even though it still had a paw attached)
Stuffed Peppers
Fried vegetable? patty things

So good. What I really wanted after lunch was a nap, but Maren and I were teaching at 2:30 and still needed to plan our lesson. We decided to go for simple repetition today, since many of the kids seemed to speak English but weren't comprehending. For instance, they could do numbers up to 50 but couldn't tell you what 13 was. They were just memorizing and repeating. We also decided that having them draw pictures might help with retention as well, so the lesson plan then became having them draw one red apple, two brown pineapples, three green limes, etc. This way we could kill three birds with one stone: numbers, colors, and fruits.

It took a while for the class to trickle in but we ended up with about 10 kids including a few boys. They loved drawing the fruits with colored pencils, and afterwards we brought out a blow-up globe and I tested them on finding countries, oceans, etc. They really knew their geography! We still had a bit of time left, so Maren drew pictures on the board of things around town: house, tree, bike, articles of clothing, etc. Then I wrote the words in Spanish/English for the class to repeat. Once they seemed to have it down, I erased the words completely and had them repeat back again, without help. Yes, I am a mean teacher. The kids did great! After the lesson ended, they went up to the board by themselves and wrote the words out in English to show Maren and me. I was really proud of them. They are so eager to learn.


Our awesome students

Our lesson ended at 4 pm, which is when Brendan and Claire's class of teenagers was scheduled to begin. The class for very young children didn't start until 5, but many had arrived early with their older siblings, so the community center was quickly turning into chaos. Instead of letting the kids disrupt the next class, Maren and I took everyone - our class and the little ones - outside to learn a game. We taught the kids...duck, duck goose!

I had a rough time explaining the game since I don't even know the Spanish word for goose, but the kids caught right on and had a blast. Actually, so did I. It was so much fun chasing each other around, and the local adults were watching and having a good time as well.


Duck, duck, goose!

Maren and I stayed to help Parker and Gillie teach the 5 pm class. Their lesson plan involved parts of the body, so we taught the kids to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes". I like teaching the kids songs. This is perhaps the one audience that doesn't care that I can't carry a tune in a bucket. :-)

Dinner was on the table when we got home and right after we ate, music started across the courtyard. Carmen, our housemate, turned 13 today and brought over some of her birthday cake to share with us. Awww. Once dinner was over, we decided adult beverages might be in order so Parker and I walked to the store and came back to find a dance party party at the house. I got to dance with the birthday girl! I have noticed (and should have already known this) - people are the same no matter where you go. Thirteen-year old Peruvian girls like to dance and be silly and sing bad pop music, same as American girls. It was really cool to be part of the celebration.


"Senor Brendan" entertains the giggling girls


The whole house gets into the groove

Eventually we let the girls go back to their own party and the volunteer crew hung out around the kitchen table talking and sharing beer. We ended up hanging quite late as Richard brought out his iPod speakers and kept finding "favorite" songs to share with us. He has great taste in music, if not somewhat eclectic. :-)

around town...orquillos


Mud bricks drying in the sun








Enjoying the morning commute


Chicha, sold here





Wednesday, July 15, 2009

progress + field trip


before we started digging this morning


after


lovin' life in the hole


put your back into it...


more of our housemates, doing chores


friends of Richard who came by to sell us handmade hats, mittens and other goodies

So, we have decided that Wednesday is officially swimming and shower day. No classes this afternoon, so once we wrapped at the site, had some lunch, and bought a few souvenirs, we were off on a field trip to Pisac where we were told they had a giant swimming pool and hot showers!

The local strike was over, which meant we could catch a transport out of Orquillos then get a bus down at the main road. The transport had an insane amount of people on it and the bus wasn't much better.


As Maren would say, this ain't no school bus


an Olympic-sized pool, just for us!

Upon arrival in Pisac, we discovered that the swimming pool had closed 45 minutes earlier. However, Richard is quite the charmer and convinced the guards to let us swim, so we had the place to ourselves. The water was not much warmer than the Urubamba pool last week, but it was way cleaner AND it had diving platforms. We were of course inspired to race, only to find that racing 50 meters at 9,000 feet is kind of strenuous. We moved into the kiddie pool in hopes that it would be warmer...nope. I gave up and took the longest, hottest shower in the history of bathing. Afterwards we wandered around the hotel surrounding the pool, which was like a creepy magical village in the middle of Peru. Seemed a little out of place honestly.

Swimming made us very hungry and what we really wanted was Pizzawasi. Urubamba was too far away though, so we hunted unsuccessfully around Pisac for ANY pizza before giving up. It was hard to find a restaurant period because a horse show was going on and there were people EVERYWHERE. For some reason, there were two chickens tied way up high on a wire suspended between two phone poles. Not a big fan of this.

We ended up at a random restaurant where we all ordered beer and fried chicken. Everyone was beat, so we grabbed one small cab for the twelve of us back to Orquillos. I had to sit on Ralph's lap in the front seat. I'm pretty sure he can no longer have children. Sorry, dude!


How many volunteers can you cram into one car? Bren, Gillie, and Maren grimace from the backseat

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

long. day.


Gilberto and Brendan saw through some rebar


Songbirds, Jen and Claire


Richard's giant jar of mayonnaise, which we have been putting on everything from Ritz crackers to eggs

Today was fairly productive. We did our usually morning shift, broke for lunch, then went BACK to the site for another round of digging before our 5 pm class.

However, the director threw another wrench into English classes today and announced that we can no longer use the school for lessons. They are just too worried about swine flu here and don't want to be held responsible for someone catching it on school grounds. This is kind of understandable but also presented a problem because it left us with nowhere to teach...except for the community center. The community center is one big open room and very echo-y. Not so good when you have four classes running at once, ranging in ages from 5-17. Oy.

The lesson plan for today was to review what we had learned last time and start building upon that. But when we got to the center, we had a whole new group of students and had to try and start from square one. Maren and I took our group outside to play ball and another round of "my name is" with an added "how are you". We managed to keep the kids busy for a while, but it was freezing out, so we had to go back into the center with the other three groups. Massive amounts of noise, you could barely hear yourself think. Luckily the 1.5 hour lesson was almost up, so we spent some time quickly reviewing days of the week, months, numbers, basically any lists I could think of. :-)

When class wrapped, all of the volunteers were quite ready for a drink, so we stopped at the store for beer on the way home. We drank before, during, and after the meal, and when we ran out of beer we broke into the wine Claire had bought over the weekend. The stress of the day behind us, we called it a pretty early night but not before Claire and I treated everyone in our room to a special song, "I Touch Myself" by the Divinyls. However, we changed the words to "I Scratch Myself" in honor of one of the boys who announced he woke in the night scratching himself recently. He meant he was scratching his bug bites but we made it into a dirty joke. Super mature, we are.


The fruits of our labor

Monday, July 13, 2009

our only offer


Good morning, Ralph


The new site, marked out with plaster


Richard and Gilberto pour chicha in preparation for the offering


Richard offers chicha then moonshine to the ground before we can begin digging. All of us had to pour a little.


And...digging commences again

After a busy morning of prepping and digging at the new site, the eight dwarves headed home for lunch and then...lesson planning! Today was our first official day of teaching school. The schools here actually closed early for vacations because of the swine flu; however, the director said we could still use the classrooms to teach. We spent the afternoon pouring over posters, books, and colored pencils trying to figure out what would be the best way to start teaching English. Our classes would likely be the the only English lessons some of these people would ever get, so we were excited and a little stressed.

We arrived at the school at 5 pm and Maren, Parker and I ended up with a class of 11-15 year olds - mostly girls. The lesson began with us tossing a tennis ball to each other followed by "My name is". Once introduced, we sat in a circle and talked about what foods we like to eat. Everyone kept saying "pollo" chicken, and I had to keep saying "que mas? que comes con el pollo?" (what else? what do you eat with the chicken). We would up with a wild list ranging from rice to pumpkin.



The students loved copying from the white board, so while they copied, the "teachers" drew out things one might find in the kitchen or dining room - plates, forks, table, family, etc. - and then we reviewed these with the students. We were scratching our heads a bit at this point and discovered that the kids really, really wanted to sing. Luckily Parker knew a song about food, which we improvised to fit the foods we'd listed out earlier. The song went like this:

I like to eat, eat, eat chicken and beef
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and cheese
I like to eat, eat, eat rice and pumpkin
I like to eat, eat, eat turkey and duck
I like to eat, eat, eat pork and sausage
I like to eat, eat, eat sheep and guinea pig

The kids loved it. Richard was sitting in on our lesson and sang along, although he later told us he was trying not to howl with laughter. All in all the first day of classes went very well and since most of the kids lived near our house, they walked the long walk home with us and I got a free Spanish lesson. :0