You know you're in Peace Corps when...

... you get invited to watch a cow give birth. Last week, my veterinarian friend Edwin called with a very special invitation: "Meghan, there is a cow that is going to give birth soon, and you are invited to come watch. Charge your camera and keep your phone on, because I'm going to call you when it's happening." Watching a cow be born wasn't exactly on my bucket list, but I figured, when else in my life am I going to have a chance to see this? It could be a little gory, but would definitely be pretty cool. So I told Edwin I'd be ready.

Thus, on Wednesday night when I got word that the vaca was going to give birth in the next half-hour, sitemate Jessica and I hustled out to the campo to witness the big event. Unfortunately the half-hour estimate turned into two hours, then eight hours. That's when Jess and I called it a night, figuring we'd wait for another cow birthing that wasn't at 4:00 in the morning. But, fate intervened, and when I headed back out to CEFOP the next morning for my usual Thursday class, it turned out the vaca still hadn't given birth. To boot, veterinarians Edwin and Elí had decided that the time had come to perform a c-section on the mama cow. Thus not only did I get to watch a cow be born, but I had a front-row seat to an open-air medical operation - only in Peru :) It turned out to be a fascinating morning, ending with the triumphant entrance into the world of a new calf. Here's some photos from throughout the event:

Shaving the incision area

IV fluids - Martha the cow is not quite pleased

Anesthesia shots

Some intrigued local spectators

The two amigos, ready in their scrubs

First incision

Pulling the uterus out

The calf is born!

An adorable baby boy

The upside of rainy season

Sometimes rainy season has its perks, like when perfect double rainbows appear over Cajabamba:

Chan Chan

On our way back from the beach, we decided to make a pit-stop to see the pre-Columbian ruins of Chan Chan, which are located right along the highway between regional capital Trujillo and the beach at Huanchaco. We weren't really sure what we'd find, and when the bus dropped us off on the side of the highway in the middle of the desert we knew we were in for an adventure. Luckily the access road was clearly marked, so we set off on a 20ish minute trek beneath the blazing sun.

Arriving at the main ruins site, we were impressed to find a very extensive and well-preserved city of clay, including plazas, buildings, fortifying walls, carvings, tombs, maze-like walkways, and even a central oasis. Chan Chan used to be the capital of the Chimu people, who were later conquered by the Incas, and it seemed like this society had spared no expense on the city's construction (cerca 1300AD).

From snooping on a passing tour group, we later learned that Chan Chan was once the largest adobe city in the world - quite an accomplishment for a city built on sand!

A Thanksgiving miracle

Thanksgiving at the beach was awesome: good friends, delicious food, nonstop sunshine, and relaxing vacation time. Our turkey day feast was nothing short of a miracle. Steve, Chris, Jackie and I prepared the following scrumptious dishes: turkey, sautéed veggies, gravy, macaroni and cheese, mashed garlic/cheese potatoes, sweet potatoes with brown sugar, green beans, salad, bread rolls with butter, no-bake cookies, and of course some vino.

And we did all this with NO oven, only TWO working gas burners (see photo below), and for the cost of less than $14 per person. Like I said: a Thanksgiving miracle.

Friday morning we made sure to take advantage of an often under-appreciated Thanksgiving tradition: the morning-after leftovers brunch. Fellow 19er Tyler arrived in Huanchaco in time to help us cook up all the remainders, and we had scrambled eggs, mashed potato pancakes, and sweet potato hashbrowns - yum!

When we weren't busy consuming our copious amounts of Thanksgiving food, we relaxed on Huanchaco's sunny beach, made friends with the hostel's two oversize pet tortoises, who we named Crush and Louisa, and watched the sunset from the hammocks on the deck.

Once the turkey leftovers ran out, it was time to venture out for the Peruvian coastal staple: fresh-as-can-be ceviche on the beach-e.

At night we amused ourselves with music, cards, catch phrase, and Huanchaco's nightlife. We were a bit of a spectacle the night we brought catch phrase out to a bar with us, but everyone stares at the Americans whether or not we're shouting over a competitive beeping hot-potato-esque game, so we figured why not? :)

Giving thanks

Even when you live in a country that doesn't celebrate the holiday, Thanksgiving is a time to reflect and take a moment to appreciate the things you're thankful for in life. I am lucky enough to have many such things, so I wanted to share some of what I'll be giving thanks for this year:

• The chance to live a dream I've had since middle school: Peace Corps. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and remember to appreciate every moment of this amazing adventure.
• My fellow 19er and Cajamarca volunteers. I couldn't ask for a better group to laugh and commiserate with as we make our way through the Peace Corps roller coaster. 
• The support and love of friends and family at home. Staying connected with everyone helps me feel less far away and keeps me going.
• That miracle of modern technology: the internet. Peace Corps in 1961 would have been a different ballgame.
• Two years to explore the beautiful cultural and environmental diversity of Peru... for free. Machu Picchu is just the tip of the iceberg; I will not be running out of vacation destinations anytime soon.
• A soon-to-be reunion with my best friend after 10 months apart, for New Years in Buenos Aires no less.
• The warm welcome I've received from my host family and the people in Cajabamba, and the opportunity to work directly with the community to try and make a difference while I'm here.
• How incredibly cheap fruit and fruit juice is in Peru - the U.S. can't even come close.

I'm not saying that spending Thanksgiving in Peru is totally ideal. There are things I'm really missing right now, like pumpkin muffins, ski season, keeping the crisp fall air at bay in my purple pea coat, and turkey dinner with family and friends at home. But skipping out on all this for one year won't kill me, and when I look at the big picture, I'm thankful to be right where I am.

Soul camp

This weekend was Cajamarca's region-wide Camp ALMA. Alma means "soul"* in Spanish, but we use it as an acronym that stands for Leadership Activities for Adolescent Women. Basically, every non-newbie volunteer in the whole department brings two or three girls from their sites, and we run a three-day camp around themes of leadership, self-esteem, health, volunteerism, teamwork, and obviously fun.

Soul-lifting parts: Being inspired by energy of all the smart and strong girls who came to camp. Playing overly competitive games of spoons, giggling, and having a three-night slumber party with the Cajamarca volunteer family. Teaching slightly incredulous Peruvian teenagers silly American dances like Cotton Eye Joe, the Electric Slide, Single Ladies, Cupid Shuffle, Thriller, and of course Gangnam Style. Sharing with the girls that golden U.S. tradition of roasting marshmallows around a bonfire and eating s'mores. Trying to come up with campfire songs in Spanish, not being able to think of any, and making do with an off-key version of "Lejos de Ti."

Soul-draining parts: Finishing the weekend so tired that all I want to do is sleep for two days. Oh wait - my program director (a.k.a. my boss) is coming to visit my site and observe my work tomorrow. Less than excellent timing, but hopefully it will still be a good visit.

*Side note: I just had to google "soul" to confirm how to spell it - it looked weird. English brain capabilities are deteriorating by the day.

A water-filled hike

This weekend my friend Rosemary and I went on a hike to Ponte lake and waterfalls. The lake is down in the valley an hour-plus walk from Cajabamba, just below the cliffs atop which the town sits.

At parts of our walk we had some bovine companions:

And then at the lake we met some cute burros:

Once we'd seen our fill of the lake, we hiked another 45 minutes upriver to find the waterfalls. With the river as our trail (a trail largely consisting of rock-hopping back and forth across the water), we headed up between the cliffs into a ravine with rock walls towering on either side.

Finally we rounded a bend and saw the falls:

There was only one small problem: bugs. Tiny flies hovered around the waterfall's pools, and it turns out they were intensely hungry. I now have exactly 20 red bites covering the small amount of leg that was exposed below my capri pants, and they itch to a degree very disproportionate to the minute size of the culprits. But, we were the only ones in sight the whole way up the river, so we had the beauty of the falls all to ourselves - definitely worth the trip, even with the bites.

Woolen wonders

Knitting, crocheting, embroidering, and other manualidades are staple skills for the women of Cajabamba. Campo ladies truly make their woolen wear from scratch: they shear their sheep, spin the wool, dye the yarn, and weave it into whatever clothing item they choose. Women spinning or knitting as they walk the long dirt roads to and from their houses or as they sit in meetings are part of the daily Cajabamba scene, such as this woman with her raw wool and spinner:

Being surrounded by so much needlework, I couldn't help but jump on the bandwagon. So, this week I bought a crochet needle and some beautiful purple yarn, and sat down with my host mom to learn to crochet. After a couple sloooow and uneven practice rows, I got the hang of it, and was ready to start my first project. Hopefully in a few weeks my current five rows of crocheting will have grown into a full-length cozy scarf for the winter - we'll see!

Being a pest

In the all-about-efficiency United States, if someone tells you about a meeting or invites you to an event, it is the invitee's responsibility to mark the date in their calendars and remember to actually show up. In Peru, the opposite is true: it is understood that it is the inviter's responsibility to remind each invitee multiple times about the meeting to ensure they don't forget to attend.

To go from the former to the latter is quite a cultural shift that requires some significant mental reconfiguration. I initially felt very uncomfortable calling my socios multiple times about the same meeting - even though Peace Corps trainers and older volunteers had told me that's what I needed to do, knowing this in theory is different from it feeling normal in practice. I felt like a bothersome pest, and feared I would make people dislike me for bugging them so much. If someone in the States called me twice in one week to remind me of a meeting that Saturday, I would probably ask them if they thought I was a small child to need such micro-management. Here, if I don't call my socios at least twice the week before, I will have no one show up to my meeting.

What's interesting is that my squeamishness about over-reminding people has now vanished; my multiple follow-up calls feel like the norm. Almost three months into my time at site, this particular cultural transition is now complete. Today it occurred to me: when (many months down the road) I return to the U.S., it will probably feel weird to me to not call to remind people. A nagging feeling that no one will show up unless I call them again will likely persist in the pit of my stomach for a couple months, and I'll have to reverse-shift my cultural mental mode to adapt yet again. It's a strange thought, but I guess I've got a solid amount of time to chew on it before I'll have to deal with it :)

Election day

Today is a big day in America - so big that even Peruvians know about it. Aside from the center-stage Obama-Romney contest, there are some exciting things on the ballot in Washington, so on both counts I'll be spending this evening continually re-refreshing my internet browser as I await the results. As politics is not the topic of this blog, I'm not going to talk about my preferred presidential candidate. But, I'll give you a hint - I agree with Peru (and the rest of the world). 

Being abroad during an election has made me realize the true extent of our influence on the rest of the world. Rural Peruvians know that today is U.S. election day - can any of you college-educated folks name the date of Peru's next election? I'm guessing not. As a top dog in the international power arena, our internal democratic choices affect not only our country, but our relationship with every other nation, and they know it. So they pay attention, and "we the people" are judged by our choice of leadership - all the more reason to choose wisely.

Aside from making us think about decisions regarding our country's future, this election day made me look back and remember this time four years ago. On that crisp November morning, roommate Sarah and I got up at the crack of dawn to go stand on a street corner in Virginia, wave some Obama signs, and remind people to get out and vote. Late that night, when the polls had closed, we watched Obama's Chicago victory speech and then ran (literally) down to the White House to partake in the city's general revelry. The "GObama" spirit and the hope for change made DC an exciting place to be that winter, from election day to the inauguration, and I feel lucky to have experienced it. But it's crazy that four years have already passed, and to compare where I am now to where I was then. 

Into the great unknown

Sometimes Peace Corps is about having adventures, pushing boundaries, exploring new frontiers - even if the unknown territory is just a mysterious hole in the hostel roof. The brave volunteer leaves no stone unturned, as exemplified by my co-Cajamarcan Nick:

Other times, your explorations take you a little further, like my hike to another town four hours away with my host sister and two friends. We left bright and early to make sure we beat the afternoon rains, and were treated to beautiful views of the ever-greener valleys:

"Halloweenas buenas"

A number of folks back home have asked me, "do they celebrate Halloween where you are?" The short answer is no - the only trace of Halloween I saw in Cajabamba yesterday was a cleverly headlined "halloweenas buenas" card from my parents, complete with a masked Soph-Soph that is currently decorating my desk:

I'm told that in our regional capital, and in the more modern coastal region of Peru, some people do dress up and the bigger stores put out decorations. But Cajabamba had not a single trick-or-treater to be seen.

As a trade-off for the lack of Halloween festivities, however, November 1st is a national holiday: All Saints Day/Day of the Dead. So, instead of working today, I went on a hike with some friends and participated in a common Peruvian Day of the Dead tradition: baking bread. A few days ago Javi came back from the farm with a sack full of freshly harvested wheat, and informed me that I was finally going to get to see our big wood-burning oven in action. Step one was to wash the wheat, then lay it out in the sun to dry for a couple days:

Once it had dried, Javi took the wheat to a mill to be ground into flour. Then, it was baking day. Around noon we lit a fire in the oven, then let the flames burn through the afternoon until the oven was hot enough to bake:

Using his flour, Javi made a big mass of dough and kneaded it for 10 minutes:

Then, while the dough was left to rise, he prepped the ten bread pans with a bit of oil and flour, to keep the bread from sticking:

Next he used a rolling pin to flatten out each pan's worth of dough, and then roll the dough into loaf-shaped logs that he put into the pans:

Once in the pans, the loafs are left to rise again, until they almost double in size:

Meanwhile, Javi swept the remaining logs out of the oven, leaving only coals and making space for all the loaf pans:

Thirty minutes after we put them in the oven, out popped ten farm-fresh, home-baked, delicious loaves of hot bread - feliz día de los muertos!