Farm fresh

This past weekend I had the chance to visit my host uncle's farm, Santa Luisa. "Farm," however, is a totally inappropriate word - something like "enormous and beautiful land holding," or the Spanish "hacienda" is much more accurate. Hernán (my uncle) owns 1,000 hectares of land (almost 2,500 acres) - that is enough to include an entire mountain, valley, lake, part of a river, and an area of rock that apparently holds some gold mine potential. It is HUGE, and it is gorgeous. Santa Luisa sits a two-and-a-half hour drive away from Cajabamba, although it's still in the same province. The dirt road that leads there takes you up over the tallest mountain in the area, called Pumacama (bed of the puma), then winds along the sides of stark peaks to drop down into a verdant green valley.

Our first stop was to visit the old Sitacocha hacienda house, which dates from the year 1600. Santa Luisa was once part of an even larger land holding, and this house would've been its central point of operations.

Then it was on to Santa Luisa. The farm produces pretty much everything from avocados to alfalfa, but the main economic engine are the bulls and cows raised there. Smaller livestock also abounded: cuys, ducks, chickens, turkeys, dogs, donkeys, horses, quails, etc. Jessica was particularly fond of capturing the chicks and ducklings, much to the annoyance of the yard's mother birds.

During the days, we occupied ourselves with hikes around different areas of the hacienda. For one excursion, we brought Javi's horse, Rosicler, and took turns riding around the open range - Jess was especially excited, since it was her first time on a horse. We got lucky with two days of no rain, making for beautiful views on all sides.

Aside from getting to enjoy and explore the farm's natural beauty, the other extremely cool part of the weekend was that literally every single thing we consumed, with the sole exception of the rice, was produced right on the farm - it is a completely self-sustaining enterprise. At breakfast we drank fresh cow's milk, ate bread made in the big clay oven from the farm's own wheat flour, and noshed on eggs courtesy of the chickens. One day's lunch/dinner was stewed venison - my host dad and uncle like to hunt the deer that roam the property. The other day's was delicious duck meat (I tried not to think about the ducklings during that meal) and fresh peas. And those peas were nothing short of incredible - I'm pretty sure this was the first time in my life I'd had shelled peas that were not previously frozen or canned, and let me tell you, the freshness factor has revolutionized my previous conception of peas - so good!

We also had the chance to watch Edwin at work, since he'd come out to help Hernán put name-tag earrings on each of the cows. For a big cattle ranch, having the cows clearly identified saves a lot of confusion about which is which, who's pregnant, which cow is related to which others, etc. So Jess and I got to be in charge of the recording notebook as Edwin yelled out cow types and ages, and we also got to pick some of the names :)

Teaching teamwork

A few months ago, a woman from the municipality's human resources department randomly approached me and asked if I'd be willing to do a workshop on teamwork for municipality employees. I said I'd be happy to, and went on my merry way. I wrote down a few notes of ideas for activities, but didn't think too much about it afterward. I tend to say yes to pretty much everything I get asked to do here, but then only about 50% of those things ever seem to happen - follow-through is not typically a Peruvian forte. 

So, imagine my surprise when, while I was down on the coast for Peace Corps training last week, I get a call from the HR lady: "Señorita Meghan, let's do the teamwork taller! When should it be - tomorrow?" I tried not to panic, and got her to hold her horses until three days after I got back from training. She informed me that all the employees of the municipality (90+ people) would be invited, but to expect between 50 and 70 to attend. We agreed that she'd get me a microphone and some markers and posterboards, and that was that. 

I was excited for the opportunity to do a session with the municipality workers, and pleased that I'm now known enough in the community for them to think to ask me to lead it, but I was a little nervous to do a training with so many people. Usually the groups I work with are of the 8-20 person variety, so even 50 people was going to be a big jump. To help with this anxiety, I planned a session that was heavy on the participatory dinámicas (activities), and light on the Meghan talking time. Despite this, in the couple days leading up to the workshop, I had vivid dreams every night about how it would turn out - it was definitely on my mind. A big reason for this was the uncertainty. Although the HR lady said there'd be 60ish people there, I knew it could easily be only 20, and the various scenarios kept running through my head. 

The workshop was scheduled for 6pm (right after the workday ends) on Thursday night. So at 5:30, I picked up my materials and headed to the auditorium room to start setting up. I set out enough posters and pens for about 25 people, then decided to wait and see how many actually came. At about five before 6:00, people started flooding in! I kept re-counting, and putting up more materials, and re-counting again. The final tally? 90 people. 

The room was full! People sat down as they came in, but those organized rows didn't last for long

Thankfully I had asked for that microphone, because once the dinámicas got started it was pure chaos. I was clambering over chairs, yelling out directions, and trying to keep tabs on all the different teams around the room. We played with balloons, made (and generally failed to disentangle) human knots, and crossed the "river of fire."

One of the teams laughing as they struggled to disentangle their human knot

After each activity I talked a bit, and explained how the dinámicas related to the main principles of teamwork. At the end, each team brainstormed and shared ideas about the benefits of working in a team. Judging by everyone's participation and the smiles I saw around the room as people had fun doing silly activities with their colleagues, I think the workshop was a success. I survived my first big-group situation, and actually had fun while doing so. And as an added bonus, now pretty much every single municipality employee, from the street-cleaners to the public safety guys to the secretaries, knows who I am - more saludos in the plaza for me!

Globe-trotting

School vacation time in Cajabamba means vacaciones útiles (summer school) time for Jessica and I. Together we've got quite the program of free classes going: five for high schoolers, and three for elementary school students. But since each class only meets once a week, it's still a manageable project. 

Probably my favorite class is the mapa mundial (world map) we're doing with the elementary kids. Since small children don't exactly fall into the realm of economic development, the mapa class is one of the few times I get to work with this age group, and it's a fun change of pace. Little kids get excited about anything and everything, even the most basic activities like standing in a circle and throwing a paper ball around to learn everyone's names. Although they can sometimes be a bit of a handful, their energy is contagious, and their antics always make me laugh.

The centerpiece of the project is painting a big mural of the world map. Painting is super fun, but Jess and I definitely underestimated the amount of prep work involved before the wall was ready for the kids. I think we have spent about ten hours out at our wall this week, sometimes in rain and sometimes in skin-burning sun, with rulers and tape measures in hand, drawing the grid of 6x6-centimeter squares all across our 6x12-foot wall. Now that we've finally finished, the students will use the grid to accurately draw a world map on the wall, based on a scaled-down version that we have printed out for them.

Step 1: Jess painting the blue background and border

Step 2: measuring, measuring, measuring, and drawing gridlines

However, world map class is not just about painting. Each week, we also "visit" a different continent, with the goal of teaching the kids about geography and cultures around the world. Being able to split the 30 energetic students into two smaller groups each week (half painting while the other half learn, then switching the groups halfway through the class) makes for a much more manageable scene. As part of the cultural half of the class, each student has a home-made "passport," and every week they get to add another country. For example, this week, while Jessica supervised the painting, I showed the kids pictures/music/videos about Argentina. We talked about tango, Patagonia, and gauchos, and they were all wide-eyed at my video of the thundering Iguazu falls. Afterward, they each drew the map of Argentina in their passports and wrote a fact they'd learned about the country that day.

Three niños, passports in hand, ready to present what they learned about Argentina

Diligently drawing the map of Argentina in their passports

Next week, Jessica will be heading to "visit" North America with the kids, while I try and make sure that 15 small pairs of hands don't color too far outside the lines of our map. Then, by the end of February, we will (hopefully) have a beautiful world map completed on the wall of the school!

The Cajamarca war zone

Today, I was hit in the face with a water balloon by a Peruvian child - the time of carnavales in Cajamarca is officially in full swing. Although the main week of carnaval isn't until the beginning of February, basically anything after New Years is fair game for the shenanigans to begin. To make the situation worse, this time of carnaval coincides exactly with when kids are on vacation from school - a.k.a. there are hordes of children running wild around the city with nothing else to do but "jugar carnavales" at the expense of innocent passersby.

As exemplified by my experience today, it is now totally socially acceptable for Peruvian youth to throw water balloons or aim squirt guns at any target they choose - all the better if that person is unawares, dressed for work, unarmed for retaliation, and/or holding ruinable electronic equipment. Walking down the city streets has become a dangerous business: you hug the buildings' walls, eyes constantly scanning the rooftops and balconies for the niños who might be lurking there waiting to pounce. It's like being in a war zone: only the tough survive, so I have to act accordingly. Today I threatened two suspicious looking eight year-olds (water balloons in hand) with physical violence if they got me wet. When some little boys asked me the time, I refused to tell them (despite the watch sitting visibly on my wrist), because I feared that the second I took my eyes off them they'd whip out some squirt guns and I'd be done for. On the curb about to cross the street, I turned and hid behind a tree when I saw a pickup truck full of squirt gun wielders round the corner.

It's chaos out here! Hopefully I make it to February, because the culminating Saturday of carnaval is paint day, where the craziness level (and the fun level) amps up to where the squirt guns and balloons get filled with paint, instead of water. Awesome.

Coastal concerns

This is how the world works in Peru: when you are in the sierra, where it is cold, the hot water will inevitably not be working. When you are on the coast, sweating in the full-on summer heat, your hostel shower is certain to produce only boiling hot water. I'm not sure which of these cases is worse... but maybe I'll spend some time pondering the question over the 39+ hours I'll be spending on a bus in the course of the next six days.

This blog is coming to you via the wi-fi of the Chiclayo Starbucks, where some 12 of us 19er community economic development volunteers are camped out, since we have an hour to kill before our overnight bus to Lima. Our group is reunited this week for In-Service Training (IST), our first Peace Corps training event since August. The past few days were spent here in Chiclayo, accompanied by 12 of our community socios, learning the technicalities of running community banks. Now we're off to Lima for the standard safety, medical, etc. sessions and a brief reunion with our original host families. All the week's fun will culminate on Friday when we each present our community diagnostic reports to Peace Corps staff - 30 pages of Cajabamba info is now typed up and ready to go, and I'm happy to say I will never have to deal with this project again.

Blog-post frequency has been suffering recently - so much travel! But I'm okay with that; adventures abroad are a big perk of Peace Corps life, so why not enjoy it?

Red yellow green

My week in Argentina was a definite cultural shift from life in Peru. Although this may not hold true for Argentina's outlying regions, Buenos Aires is a place where things work. Taxis have meters. Restaurants and bus companies have functioning websites. Lots of people (not just gringas) go running and exercise in the clean public parks. People wear stylish clothes that match and fit them well. 

Coming from rural Peru, all this was quite the change, and for a few days it all felt totally backward. The people I interacted most with each day spoke English, and expected me to respond in English - I had to catch myself and swallow the Spanish that comes more automatically now. I didn't have to haggle with cab drivers over fares - the meter decided for me. I took consistently hot showers that each had more water pressure than a month's worth of Cajabamba showers combined. I ate meat that didn't need to be grilled to well-done status to avoid bacteria, and drank actual wine - Peruvians think overly-sweetened dessert wine is normal, "good" wine. And in a city of light-skinned porteños of European descent, I was hardly ever stared at - I blended in, even when I went running. I'm not complaining about any of this - if anything I probably enjoyed myself a little too much - but the cultural shift was an interesting experience.

Buenos Aires traffic lights not only turn from green to yellow to red, but also the reverse - when it's almost time to go, the light will turn from red to yellow to green. And while I found this electric quirk to be amusing, it also seemed like a good metaphor for how I felt shifting back into a developed-country lifestyle: things just felt a little weird. 

But at the end of the week, Peru welcomed me back with open arms, and promptly reminded me that I was back in a place where things don't exactly work. Upon landing at the Lima airport, I waited expectantly at baggage claim to grab my backpack, take it through customs, and then re-check it to Cajamarca. Twenty minutes later, I was still waiting, and I was the only passenger left in the terminal. The LAN lady informed me that "de repente" they had lost my bag, and that no, they did not have any computerized information as to even the Argentina-versus-Peru status of the luggage. She proceeded to have me fill out the three different forms necessary to initiate a search for said bag. Half an hour later, as I'm finishing up my paperwork, her colleague comes over and says, "oh, maybe your bag is in Lima, but got sorted into the wrong pile. We will eventually look, and we'll let you know if we find it." In a pretty blue mood, I proceeded to thank the LAN employees for their rather unhelpful help, and headed upstairs and out of customs to console myself with a Starbucks latte and wireless internet. Not more than 30 minutes later, my cell phone rings. "Señorita Meghan, we have found your bag. Can you come downstairs and get it now?" Typical Peru. But it's still good to be "home."

Mi Buenos Aires Querido

After a wonderful time at Iguazu, Ali, her family, and I arrived in Buenos Aires just in time for New Years. Since every restaurant in the city was either closed or totally booked, we cooked a delicious dinner at our rented apartment, toasted with champagne, and then headed out to celebrate. Ali, Steve and I met up with a few other friends who happened to be in BA, and rang in 2013 together with drinks and dancing.

Sarah, me, and Ali at the random street party we encountered on our way to the club

After the excitement of New Years, we enjoyed a laid-back week exploring Buenos Aires. The week was definitely full of amazing food. After seven months in Peru with zero steak and scarce bottles of good wine, I may have enjoyed the Argentine staples of delicious grilled beef and Malbec a little too much, but I'm not complaining! And with our almost-daily breakfasts of medialunas (mini-croissants) and afternoon snacks of dulce-de-leche ice cream, I was a very happy camper.

Starting the day right with fresh-baked medialunas

Too much dulce de leche? Imposible.

Ali and I getting a kick out of the 800+ varietal wine menu, so big it only fit on an iPad

Having been to Buenos Aires before, we were able to have a more relaxed-paced week, and pick and choose what places we wanted to visit. I got to check off a couple sites that I missed during my first trip, such as the colorful waterside neighborhood of La Boca, where the houses are made out of recycled boat material and painted in cheerful bright colors.

Ali and I are big fans of bikerides, so we made sure to spend an afternoon on a bike tour around the whole south side of the city. Buenos Aires' flat geography makes it a great city to ride in, aside from the slightly crazy traffic :)

Another day, Ali, Terri and I decided to escape the city and spend the afternoon at an estancia (ranch) about two hours out in the countryside. We had lunch on the lawn of the old estate, rode through the property's sweeping fields on horseback, and saw traditional Argentine gauchos perform typical guitar music and do tricks with their horses.

Our horses seemed to be quite fond of each other :)

You can't visit Buenos Aires without seeing some tango, so on our last night we had dinner at a tango club, and witnessed some beautiful dancing.

Luckily, leaving Argentina didn't really mean saying goodbye to Ali, because she's coming to Peru in less than two weeks! So our South American adventure will continue with some fun in Lima and a trip to see the Nazca lines.

Iguazú

Amazing, incredible, paradise - that pretty much sums up my visit to Iguazu falls. Iguazu has been on my travel to-do list for a while now, so I was excited to finally get the chance to go as part of my trip to Argentina over New Years. Nestled in the middle of the rainforest on the border between Argentina and Brazil, Iguazu was a garden of Eden-esque wonder of waterfall after waterfall after waterfall, enveloped by the verdant green of the jungle.

The single biggest fall at Iguazu is called the garganta del diablo (devil's throat), a thunderingly loud, U-shaped cascade of churning water. To reach the garganta, you traverse a long catwalk that seems to cross eight different rivers (but really it's all one big one), and as you approach you can see the mist rising from the falls.

At the end, you reach a balcony that sits literally on the edge of the garganta, allowing for awesome views straight down into the falls. Being so close, you get pretty much soaked just from the mist blowing off the falls, but it's a welcome respite from the jungle heat.

Aside from the trail out to the garganta, the Iguazu park has a number of other paths cut through the jungle to allow visitors to see the many waterfalls from all angles. On the trails we encountered lots of rainforest friends, including lizards, toucans, wild birds, catfish, turtles, monkeys, bright-colored butterflies, and the overly curious coatíes, raccoon-like creatures who won't hesitate to come up and steal your lunch.

The system of trails is awesome, putting you first right above all the waterfalls, then further away for sweeping views, then right underneath the rushing water. Iguazu is definitely one of the coolest and most uniquely beautiful places I've ever been, and I 100% recommend the trip to anyone who has the chance to visit!