Street sellers

Every morning around 10:30am, my street is greeted by the nasal yell of the milk lady: "¡la leeeecheeee!" Literally, "the miiiiilk!" This little old lady prefers announcing her arrival via shouting instead of the traditional knock on the door. She walks to wherever her clients are, yells that she's there, and then sits down on the curb to wait for someone to open the door. I don't blame her - carrying two buckets full of milk up and down Cajabamba's hills every day would be tiring work, so I probably wouldn't bother knocking on doors either.

While the milk lady's particular voice and tone of shouting are indeed unique, yelling one's wares through the streets of Cajabamba is much more common than I'd prefer. Push-carts, bicycle-carts, and moto-carts selling fruit, eggs, metalware, batteries, sheets, and more frequently roll around town in the hopes of attracting clients with convenience. Many of them have even invested in a tinny megaphone that renders their shouting three times as loud. Usually I just tune these mobile sellers out, but once in a while I hear the holy grail of cart vendors: the strawberry man. Rapid-firing the word "fresa" (strawberry) into his megaphone over and over again, this one is hard to miss - luckily, since his fresas are ten times as good as any others that sometimes show up in our regular Sunday market. When I hear him shouting, I grab my wallet and rush out the door. The trouble with the megaphone system is that sometimes I hear the fresa man, but when I exit my house he's nowhere in sight - you've usually got to put in a little work for the reward of delicious berries. But after speed-walking down three blocks (in order to not look ridiculous by full-out running after fruit) as the strawberry cart rolls ahead of you, you get the satisfaction of having reached your goal, and the berries taste that much better.

Welcome chickens

These are Cajamarca's four new 22ers, and those are their welcome chickens. Beginning with the last group of volunteers, the Cajamarca PCVs started a tradition of welcoming our newbies with their own personal live poultry. The chickens are presented in a ceremony in the middle of the plaza - which of course attracts many curious Peruvian spectators - and are accompanied by speeches full of pearls of wisdom like "this chicken represents your life in Peace Corps: you'll be handed something you have absolutely no idea what to do with, and you'll just have to figure it out."

To complement the chickens, we also give each volunteer a goodie-bag filled with things we know they'll need in site (laundry detergent, a tupperware, toilet paper, etc.), and we make sure most of us are in the city for some bienvenida social activities on the new group's first weekend.

Eventually these little things add up to a close-knit Cajamarca family. What's weird is that we 19ers are now the "seniors" of that family. At any given time there are four full groups of volunteers in Peru - e.g., right now there's Peru 19, Peru 20, 21, and 22. The metaphor naturally emerges: seniors, juniors, sophmores, freshmen. It's strange to think that we're now the old and wise ones, and even stranger to realize that means we'll be ending our service in just about eight months. Time flies!

Gone camping

This year's Camp ALMA - the annual leadership camp for high school girls that we hold in Cajamarca - was a big struggle, but thankfully also a big success. The struggles came in the form of the logistical headache that is coordinating with Peruvian community partners. This was the first year that our region put on the entire camp without any external funding - this meant a ton more involvement from local counterparts, and consequently a lot more stress for we PCV planners. But, it's also a step towards making our camps more sustainable, which is a positive thing. Although the camp didn't run as smoothly as in past years, it was great to see the enthusiasm and support we received from our socios, and it still turned out to be a weekend full of fun and growth for our campers. So, here's some photos to show you some of what we were up to last weekend:

Jess, Linnea and I brought five girls from the schools we work at in Cajabamba

Upon arriving at camp, we split the girls into teams, so that they get to meet and work with girls from other communities. I was in charge of the green team, and my girls named our team "Green Girrls" (the second "r" was originally a spelling error, but I told them girls with two "r"s had extra attitude so they kept it).

First step to a successful camp: lots of icebreaker games

One of the camp's many workshops - this one was to learn about scholarship opportunities for college, and others included sexual health, leadership, gender equality, planning for the future, self esteem, etc.

Each team did a group project over the course of the weekend, choosing a problem they saw in their communities and planning a volunteer project they could carry out to address that problem - this is my team presenting their project on domestic violence.

But of course, camp is also a time for fun: field games

Dancing, led by Jackie as always

And a bonfire complete with s'mores

Finally, a pic of the whole camp: 39 girls, 17 PCVs, and some Peruvian counterparts

Some snapshots

I don't have much to say this week, despite - or maybe due to - being super busy with work. So I thought I'd just post some snapshots instead. This is the sports complex where Linnea and I usually go on Saturday mornings. For a while there was a consistent group of adults playing basketball, but the October fiesta and rains seem to have derailed that. So now we show up, knock the soccer ball around a bit, and hope that some elementary-aged children invite us to play with them - worst comes to worst, we just run around the field for a while. Regardless, it's a beautiful setting:

A couple weeks ago, on a day that was so sunny it belonged in summer, we went hiking up into the nearby mountains, and the views weren't too shabby there either:

We even went down to the river, which was much prettier and less muddy than the river of rain that now runs down my street every day

Seeing savings work

Yesterday one of my community banks had its liquidation meeting. It's considered good practice to liquidate each community bank at least once a year, for several reasons: a) members can access the savings they've accumulated; b) new members can join, or anyone who no longer wants to participate can opt out; and c) to avoid accumulating too much money in the bank's cashbox. Many banks will liquidate, and on that same day will start their next year of savings. In the case of this bank, which I started with women leaders from each of Cajabamba's outlying rural communities, we hope to start new banks in each of those communities in January.

Yesterday's liquidation was a proud moment for each of the ladies involved, and also a proud and inspirational moment for me. Almost all the women in this particular bank come from rural areas and make their living by farming. Consequently, saving even 10 soles (about $3.50) per month was a big accomplishment for them, and most had never made a habit of saving in the past. Seven months after we started the community bank, my señoras were wide-eyed to be handed 70 soles, and realize that they themselves had accumulated that money simply by saving. They proudly signed their names as we went down the list of members and emptied the cashbox, and many talked eagerly about the idea of starting a bank in their home communities. We all - me included - left the meeting with satisfied smiles on our faces.

Avocados yes, guacamole no

Peru is the land of plentiful paltas (avocados). They are delicious, cheap, and pretty much always available. Plus Peru is home to more than the U.S. standard Hass kind of avocado - we've got black ones and green ones, skin varieties from a thick nobby protective barrier to a paper-thin layer you can peel off, and each type has its unique taste.

Part of the batch of paltas Javi brought back from the farm last week

Despite the fact that, in high season, you can buy a handful of avocados for 35 U.S. cents, most Peruvians have no idea what guacamole is. If they have ever encountered or eaten it, it's only been once or twice at a Mexican restaurant. Peruvians usually eat paltas in one of the following ways: straight out of the shell with some salt, on bread (also with salt, and sometimes with cheese), or as part of a "triple" sandwich with tomato and egg. Guacamole's utter lack of presence in this palta-rich country is just yet another of those perplexing paradoxes that is Peru.

Javi the deer charmer

Recent photo of my host dad's encounter with a deer in the yard at my host uncle's farm

Celebrating music and bread

Although there were no costumes to be seen in Cajabamba on Halloween, the town was still busy celebrating. October 31 is the nationwide "Day of Peruvian Music," and I had the privilege of attending Linnea's three year-old host sisters' school dance recital in honor of this illustrious holiday. We had front row seats to a series of toddlers dancing, singing, or trying to remember what they were supposed to be doing on stage, and it was the most ridiculously cute celebration of Peruvian music I've ever seen.

November 1 is also an official Peruvian holiday: All Saints Day. Besides honoring the dead and visiting the graves of deceased family members, a big All Saints Day tradition here is baking bread, particularly in the shape of people or animals. Consequently, my town's municipality decided to host a bread-baking festival on the eve of All Saints Day, so that everyone could come together and enjoy pan de todos los santos ("All Saints Bread").

The huge wood-burning clay oven they made to decorate the festival

Lots of different types of breads

Some examples of the traditional bread-shaping