Tanto TV

Here in Peru, people watch a LOT of tv. Not only do they watch a lot of tv, but it is totally socially acceptable to do so, despite the fact that few of the shows have much redeeming value. The excessive tv-watching issue is further exacerbated by each show's standard airing of new episodes every weekday for 1.5-2 hours per episode. In my house, one of five programs can almost always be found playing in the living room at all times:

1. Combate: A ridiculous game show where the red team competes against the green team in short survivor-esque games. None of the participants looks very Peruvian (all are white, most are blonde), and inter-contestant drama abounds. For example, one member of the green team broke up with his girlfriend (and teammate) on live television - so classy. My host family are strong supporters of los rojos, and will watch the entire 2 hours of this program every day to see what happens.

2. Yo Soy: Think American Idol, but instead of showing off their own talents, the contestants are showing off how well they can imitate the artist of their choice. I've seen imitations ranging from Kurt Cobain to Rihanna to Latino singers old and new. Almost all the volunteers' host families watch Yo Soy, so some of the particularly good (or bad) impressions are often the topic of lunchtime conversation at the training center.

3. Fútbol: Gooooooooooooool! It's been a busy few weeks of soccer: the European Championship, the usual schedule of intra-Peruvian matches, and one big World Cup qualifying match between Peru and Uruguay.

4. Telenovelas: Drama drama drama. Long meaningful stares, heavy silences, loud shouting, and absurd characters - the telenovelas do not disappoint.

5. Local news: Just like local news in the states, local news here revolves around the negative. Even if it's a little sensational at times, at least I learn a bit about what's going on around Peru.

Curiosidades

A collection of little curiosities that remind me on a day-to-day basis that I am living in Peru...

Inca Kola - you can't get much more Peruvian than a multinational corporation (Coca-Cola) using indigenous cultural heritage to market soft drinks. I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I'm told that this sugary yellow beverage tastes exactly like bubble gum.

Street dogs wearing sweaters - fondly referred to by PCVs as "slumdog millionaires."

An excellent find from this morning's visit to the National Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology: a Peruvian version of "The Last Supper" painting, in which Jesus is eating cuy for dinner.

Soccer "fields" that bear no resemblance to actual fields, largely due to the utter lack of grass.

And lastly, although there's no picture to accompany this one, today during our run my friend Heidi and I were doing some laps around a nearby park, and at a certain corner two adorable little girls ran after us giggling madly for about 30 feet, then got tired and waited for us to come around again. We tried to encourage them and told them how rápidas they were, but our chatting only brought on more fits of giggles, so we just enjoyed their amusement and went about our run.

Lima

After living the small-town life for our first two weeks, yesterday Peru 19 was finally allowed to venture out into the big city. With a population of almost 9 million people, Lima is a sprawling metropolis that even longtime natives can't ever fully explore, but we made a solid effort with our one-day excursion. We started the morning in Lima's historic centro, where the streets had a quiet, colonial-style feel to them.

The centro's main attraction is the Plaza de Armas. All the buildings around this plaza were yellow - later in the day I saw another plaza with a white theme, and then another all in blue. I have a running hypothesis that Lima's plazas are a full rainbow waiting to be discovered, but this will have to be confirmed during future visits.

Also around the plaza was the city's famous catedral:

And the palacio del gobierno, where the President lives and works:

The plaza is also home to some very understanding policemen, who didn't mind breaking ranks to take some pictures with us turistas :)

Bolstered by a morning snack of café and cheese sandwiches, we made our way across the city by a combination of foot and bus. Along the way we encountered a life-size cuy, who is apparently the chosen symbol of one of Peru's major political parties. I guess that's not too much stranger than having a donkey or an elephant?

Our afternoon destination was Miraflores, a very upscale part of Lima right along the coast. First stop: a delicious lunch, which was amazing not only for what it did not include (our usual daily fare of rice and potatoes), but for what it did: fresh fruit juice and authentic Peruvian ceviche!

The ceviche was definitely tasty, but unfortunately about an hour after lunch my stomach decided that this particular dish did not meet my body's biological standards and rejected my brain's lunchtime choices. I think this is a good time to note that Jorge, PC Peru's awesome head doctor, has informed us that approximately 70% of volunteers "Peru" their pants at some point during their service. NO, this has not happened to me yet - thankfully - but my incredulity at that statistic is definitely beginning to wane haha.

Gastronomic issues aside, Miraflores was beautiful, and Lima's usual cloud cover wore off just in time for us to enjoy a lovely afternoon of sun and ocean breezes as we walked around the parks and shops.

It felt good to have a day off, a change of scenery, and time to explore and relax with friends. Lima made an excellent first impression, and I'm sure this is only the first of many visits to come.

Aja Ají

Not even two weeks into my Peace Corps training, things are about to get real: in order to really learn good business practices, the CED (community economic development program) volunteers have split into three groups and we will each be opening our own Peruvian business. My group's venture, "Aja Ají," is selling home-made Peruvian ají (a one-word term encompassing all manner of spicy salsas/condiments Peruvians put on their food) to other PCVs during lunch at the training center.

Yesterday was our first day of sales, and opening week has been a hit! Though we did have some stiff competition from the other two groups: "Cookie Corps" selling home-made alfajores from a nearby bakery, and "Jugo de Paz" offering fresh fruit juices.

The best part of this project by far was learning to make the ajís from Nydelis' host mom, Ema. She grows our secret ingredient, pipi de mono, in her garden - but beware, adding even one of these little guys to your sauce means a serious spicy kick!

The first ají we made was garlic-based - luckily Ema had a stash of garlic big enough to last for years (that blue tub is big enough for me to sit in).

 

After sautéing the garlic, onions, peppers, and tomatoes in the pan, we blended everything together to create our first jar of delicious ají!

Familiar faces

Here are the 44 people I see everyday, fellow Peru 19-ers. We unfortunately have already lost two girls from our original 46 - Peace Corps is not for everyone! But as you can see, the rest of us are still having fun :)

And here's our language class group, along with facilitadora Isabel, on the terrace at the training center:

And, last but not least, this is Lulu, expertly balancing her favorite plastic donut on her head. While she of course cannot replace Soph-soph, as the official training center pet Lulu does help us all get our cute-dog fix every day.

Lunch

Yep, that's right. In honor of father's day, my host mom prepared the very special rodent-centered lunch of cuy, a.k.a. guinea pig. This is one of those cultural things that is super normal in Peru but nonexistent in the states - I have to say though, the little guy was actually pretty tasty!

A day in the life

6:30 - Wake up, put on my flip-flops (going barefoot in the house is weird here), brush my teeth and get ready for the day.
6:50 - Eat breakfast and chat with my host mom. Breakfast is probably my favorite meal here so far, because it tends to involve fresh fruit juice, bread and cheese/jam/palta (avocado), and some variety of milk or oatmeal - all things that I love.
7:20 - Meet my neighbor volunteers, Nydelis and Jesse, to walk down the hill to the carretera.
7:28 - Start attempting to catch a combi, the mini-buses that we take to get around here. Catching a combi at this hour is a serious challenge, and not for the faint of heart, as all the city's schoolchildren are heading to school, making every combi stuffed to the gills. Few even bother to stop for us, and those that do usually result in a conversation along these lines:
Cobrador: Sube sube sube sube!
Me: (skeptical) But there are three of us... there is no space.
Him: Sí sí hay espacio (shouts at people to move towards the back; no-one moves because they are already packed like sardines) - you are all skinny, it's fine.
Me: Ok...(starting to push my way into the wall of people at the door)
At least two out of the three of us gringos end up half outside of the combi, until a couple of stops pass and some of the kids pile out.
7:45ish - Arrive at training center, stash our lunch-boxes (lovingly packed by all the host moms) in the kitchen, share funny host fam moments from the night before.
8:00 - Clase de español
12:00 - Eat lunch, then play some soccer/frisbee in the yard or go for a walk.
1:00 - An afternoon of training sessions around one or more of the following themes: Peace Corps policies, Medical/Health, Safety, or technical training in community economic development.
5:00 - Finish training for the day. Go for a run, go for some café or drinks, or just head home. Usually spend some time chatting/watching bad Peruvian television with the host fam or doing some homework before dinner.
8:00ish - Dinner with the host fam.
9:30ish - Feel ridiculously tired and head toward bed.

It's a busy life for sure, but the other volunteers and my host family make for lots of fun moments too. And we're already done with week 1 of training - crazy!

(Don't) call me maybe

One of the most noticeable adjustments for me during our initial days in Peru has been getting used to being without a cell phone. The number of times I’ve instinctively started to reach for my phone in the past three days has made me very aware of how ingrained constant connectivity is in my daily life. When something reminds me of someone, when something amazing happens and I want to share it, when I realize the French Open finals are today and want to text my mom to ask who won – I am used to being able to instantly gratify these thoughts with a quick text or call. And it’s not just the result of being away from home and missing everyone I usually talk to - even during this first day flying solo with our host families, I’ve wanted to share things with other volunteers and have found my hand starting to rummage through my bag before I stop and realize I have no way of reaching them.

Don’t worry, I won’t be swearing off telecomms for the next two years or anything drastic, but I am going to try and be conscious of how my life is different during the next 5-ish weeks (until we get our cell phones). Also, side note while we're on the topic of connectivity - I've updated my snail-mail address on the "Contact" page; turns out the first one wasn't right, woops!

The first few days

The past few days have flown by - somehow it already feels like I left Seattle two weeks ago, rather than only four days. Our days have been jam-packed, culminating in meeting and moving in with our host families earlier this afternoon, so I thought I'd just share a few snapshots of what life has looked like the past few days...

Nearing the end of our 22-hour travel day on Friday, Peace Corps staff scored all 46 of us access to the diplomáticos line at immigration, so Peru 19 proceeded to enter the country in style.

Bolstered by four hours of sleep and an energy-assuring cold shower, we enjoyed our first Peruvian breakfast (tea, bread, jam, cheese) at the retreat center on Saturday morning.

After a day filled with sessions on survival Spanish, advice on host families, meeting the PC Peru staff, basic safety, and training overviews, we had some time to enjoy the beautiful weather - it's pretty much like a sunny Seattle summer here right now, which is lucky since I'm missing the one at home. As you can see in the photo below, the retreat center was a valley paradise surrounded by the foothills of the Andes.

I got dust all over my "business casual" clothes after an hour-long juggling circle attempt to reach 50... when our record maxed out at 29 we decided it was a parallel for life as a PCV: starting out believing you can change the world, then adjusting to the slightly-more-feasible reality of just doing what you can. After dinner we laughed our way through about ten different group games, the majority of which involved strange sounds and/or movements. It's amazing how fast our group of strangers has already come together to feel like great friends, and I know that will only grow stronger.

Saturday night represented a small miracle, as it not only included lots of fun with new friends, but then a HOT shower and 8 whole hours of sleep! Life was good, and it only got better with today's big event of meeting our host families for the next ten weeks. Here's me and my new host mom, Gudelia.

And here's my new room!

And, last but not least, the view out my window. My house is located in the community of Huascata, about a ten-minute combi (shared van/bus/taxi) ride from the PC training center, still within the municipalidad of Chaclacayo (a suburb of Lima). We are nestled right in the hills, with the big carretera central (highway) just a short walk down the hill. Huascata is nicely small and walkable (total population is about 800), and I live just around the corner from two other volunteers.

Now it's off to eat dinner!

We made it!

For those of you (Mom) worried about my arriving safely, you can sleep soundly tonight - I am safe and sound in Peru and had a great first day of training. More to come soon!

Feeling the love

The 46 members of Peru 19 (so called because we are the 19th group of volunteers to arrive in Peru) just finished our staging event at the ever-so-classy Holiday Inn Georgetown, and it has been a whirlwind couple of days to say the least. There's not much to say about staging... pretty much your standard intro/orientation day, with the plus of meeting a lot of really awesome fellow PCVs (Peace Corps volunteers), who I feel lucky to get to spend the next two years with.

But as I do the final bag pack in preparation for boarding the plane to Peru tomorrow morning, I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the immense outpouring of love and support I've received over the past week. Phone calls, hugs, well-wishes - I will be carrying all these things with me on this adventure, and I can't thank everyone enough for sending so much love my way.

That's it for now - next post will be from Peru!