Mosquito in a bucket

People often use the drop-in-a-bucket metaphor when talking about Peace Corps work. It's one of many inspirational/motivational/philosophical mantras we use to affirm that our person-to-person development work does, in the long run, make a difference. Today I found another quote to add to the list:

"If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito." - Betty Reese

173 centimeters

The Peruvian school year re-started a few weeks ago, so I've got a bunch of new classes in swing - always an exciting time. On my first day of class last week, I met Bruno, a particularly exuberant 7th grader who constantly (and vocally) participates - sometimes on topic, sometimes not. Meeting a hundred new kids in one week means that learning everybody's names just isn't going to happen, but Bruno was one of the students that stuck out. 

As I went over to put down/pick up materials from my desk during the lesson, Bruno (whose desk is, naturally, located right next to the teacher's station) took the opportunity to cheerfully remark, "Wow, you're tall! Is everybody in the United States tall? How tall are you?" I laughed and told him I couldn't say - I only knew my height in inches, which wouldn't mean much to him since Peru, like every logical country, uses the metric system. He was disappointed, but seemed content to hazard his own guess of however many centimeters, based on his standing up to estimate my height against his. When I went back to the same class a week later, Bruno met me at the door: "Do you know how tall you are now?" Clearly my metric measurement is an issue of more importance to Bruno than it is to me - I had to admit that no, I still did not know my own height, but that I would be sure to find out for next class. In case you all are wondering, I now know that 5'8'' translates to approximately 173 centimeters - bring it on, Bruno.

In other news, our family dog Vlady got a haircut this week (first time I've seen his eyes in two years). But Lourdes consequently thought he was too cold, so he got to be a "fan of La Alianza" (Javi's favorite soccer team) with a slick new dog sweater-jersey. I'll be sure to bring one back for Soph :)

Lingering meals

A couple months ago, I read an article about how a New York McDonald's had resorted to calling the police to forcibly evict restaurant patrons who the McDonald's claimed were consistently overstaying their welcome. Some things about the situation were clearly ridiculous in any cultural context, such as the McD's posted sign stating that customers have 20 minutes to finish their food - even for a meal labeled "fast food," 20 minutes is a little extreme. But other aspects of the case would give many Americans pause, and perhaps even reason to side with the McD managers: the customers "colonizing" the seats every day were "taking up tables for hours while splitting a small packet of French fries ($1.39)."

It is no coincidence that the patrons in question were a group of elderly Americans of Korean heritage, i.e., they all shared the same non-American cultural background. Only in America would a restaurant think it had the right to kick eaters out for being too slow or not ordering enough food. In Peru, restaurant mentality is very much like that of the article's elderly Koreans. Here, sharing is definitely the norm - why would friends each order their own fries when they could share? This group-ordering mentality can also be seen in the fact that Peruvian restaurants typically give you just one menu for the whole table. Along the same lines, splitting the bill is almost unheard of, especially the common American receipt-time fiasco where each person adds up the costs of the items he or she consumed and pays that exact amount. In Peru, somebody invitar's (treats) the other person, period.

As for time limits on eating, no way José! Peruvian meals/snacks/coffees/etc. last much longer than they would in the U.S., and restaurant service reflects that reality. A waiter will show up to give you a menu soon(-ish) after you sit down, but he probably won't return to the table until you signal him - they expect that you'll take your time, chatting, and eventually let them know that you're ready to order. Once it's prepared, the waiter will serve your food, but otherwise will not visit the table. The concept of dropping by to see if you need anything would be foreign here; if you need something, it is assumed you will flag someone down and ask. It is also expected and accepted that you will linger long after the meal itself is done, simply enjoying the company of your table-mates. Even at a crowded lunchtime restaurant with groups waiting for space, a Peruvian restaurant owner would never think of asking seated patrons to vacate their table - and the folks at the door are okay just waiting. The international chains (McDonald's included) have picked up on this, and consequently the seating areas at Peru's McD's, Starbucks, etc. are often double the size of those in the States - they know people here will relax and hang out long after their coffees are gone.

Having lived in the Peruvian context for so long, the story about that New York McDonald's was laughable to me, even absurd. Sitting around chatting for three hours over one shared plate of French fries? Sounds normal to me, and I hope those elderly Koreans keep showing up to remind America that time and money aren't what's most important.

Seattle in Peru

Javi and Lourdes enjoying coffee from their Seattle mugs :)

English equivocations

Every Peace Corps volunteer in Peru gets asked to teach English. My native language is a hot commodity here - a perceived ticket to the success of a good job, and a mark of prestige. Consequently, I am asked to teach English by pretty much everyone: teenagers, parents of three year-olds, shop owners, farmers, municipality workers, etc. etc. But the most common requesters are by far Cajabamba's school principals. As the language of global commerce, English is a required subject in Peru's public schools, but very few capable teachers can be found in rural areas. As an example, one student told me about the time her English teacher stood at the door to the classroom saying "Between, between," as she welcomed the arriving students. In Spanish, "entre" as a preposition means "between," but "entre" as a form of the verb "entrar" means "enter/come in." A logical mistake for someone who relies heavily on a translation dictionary for their knowledge of English, but one that a trained teacher would never make.

Thus every single principal in town wants to snag a gringa to really teach their students English - they know their current English teachers can barely speak the language, and we Americans are an obvious source of potential improvement. My answer is of course a consistent "no," with an explanation that English is not the work I came here to do, and a reminder that every single school in Cajabamba is in the same situation - I'm not looking for a dozen full-time jobs as a language teacher. The only exception would be an opportunity to teach the teachers themselves - in my opinion a much more worthwhile and sustainable use of time.

What continues to catch me off guard is when a Peruvian counterpart overhears my sitemates and I conversing amongst ourselves in English, and asks wonderingly: "Oh, you all speak English with each other?" Their expression is always one of primarily surprise - although they definitely know we are American and know English - but they're also both impressed and interested in the novelty of it. While from my perspective, it seems that it'd be quite obvious that we English-speakers would speak in our native tongue when in similar company, to people from my town this is far from obvious. We PCVs may well be the only truly bilingual people in Cajabamba, so I guess it makes sense that our linguistic skills would be a source of fascination.

Chirimoyas

Chirimoyas are a fruit native to Peru, and commonly grown in the valleys around my site. Usually they're about the size of a mango, with a green dinosaur-scales-looking exterior and soft white fruitiness inside - so soft in fact, that to open a chirimoya you just pull it apart with your hands, no knife needed! It's currently chirimoya season, so our Sunday market has been chock full of them. But Javi, not to be outdone, brought home some of his own chirimoyas from the farm… annnnd they are almost the size of my head, pretty much the biggest I've ever seen!

Conservation mural, start to finish

One of our projects with the high schoolers during summer camp was to design and create a mural about a community issue in Cajabamba. After brainstorming possible mural subjects, the kids chose conservation and protecting the environment as their theme. From there, we spent a few hours of class time free-drawing design ideas, eventually voting on which ones to include in the mural.

Two of our particularly artistic students volunteered to take the rough mock-up of the design we'd arrived at on the whiteboard and transfer it onto a single coherent sheet (which we would then grid so as to draw it onto the larger mural). When they came back to class the next week with a beautiful, fully-colored, posterboard-sized version of the design, we profesoras were (pleasantly) speechless at all the effort they'd put in:

In the meantime, Linnea, Jess and I had prepped the extremely ugly wall the school board offices had given us to paint (I'm sure their logic was "it can't get any worse!")

The next step was to draw the poster's deign onto the mural wall:

And then it was time to paint. Luckily our wall was only a couple blocks from my house, which gave us an easy solution for where to store all our paint gear. The beauty of being the teacher is that you have many adolescent minions to carry said gear for you :) The photo below shows our typical weekly parade between my garage and the mural:

Painting - how many high schoolers can you squeeze into a 2.5 meter space?

Within seven weeks, the whole thing was done! And now all of Cajabamba is reminded to take care of the environment every time they walk past the school board office, hooray!

The mural's slogan reads: "Nature is life, don't destroy it. If you conserve it, you'll conserve the future."

Carnaval parades

Some photos from the carnaval parades, both in Cajamarca and Cajabamba… first, whether you're a parade participant or spectator, you'd better expect to get wet! Water balloons, squirt guns, etc. are all still fair game.

Cajamarca niños enjoying the carnaval spirit

These parades are all about the costumes of all kinds: colorful, typical, masked, animalistic, local, foreign, etc. etc. Each neighborhood, association, team, workplace, or any other kind of group gets organized to make and present their own costumes, so there's always a lot of variety.

Cajamarca - the tall hats are one of the typical carnaval costumes

Cajamarca

Cajamarca - a colorful and coordinated take on the traditional cajamarquino dress

Cajamarca

Cajabamba - workers of the agency that maintains the roads

Certain parades during carnavales also have car-drawn floats and reinas (teenage beauty queens) - this one's from Cajabamba

And of course, no carnaval event - even a family-friendly parade - would be complete without alcohol. In the first photo below, you can see a Cajamarca dad inviting a shrek-dressed parade participant to a glass of beer along the parade route.

Cajabamba town authorities (mayor plus several administrators) waiting for the parade to get moving again - the wine bottle they were passing around somehow escaped notice in this photo

Our mayor, the leprechaun

Today was the last big carnaval parade in my town, led by the mayor himself. As his lead group paused to wait for the rest of the paraders to catch up, my host mom and I took advantage of the opportunity to take a picture with this local celebrity, who appeared to be ready for St. Patrick's Day a few weeks early!

Lourdes, Wilson the mayor, and me

Carnaval chaos, round two

Year two of carnavales in Cajamarca has come and gone, and it remains one of my favorite times from my entire Peace Corps service. Days filled with water balloons, parades, and incredibly fun city-wide paint fights, and nights of dancing huayno to snare drums, passing calientito (a hot alcoholic drink with maracuya flavor) around a circle of friends, and snacking on anticuchos (cow heart grilled on kebabs) in the midst of the celebratory crowds in the plaza - you can't get any better than carnaval weekend! If you missed last year's blog about carnavales, check it out for more details on what the holiday entails, or just check out the photos* from this year:

My fellow 19ers firing water guns off our balcony as we geared up for paint day

Only problem with shooting off the balcony is that sometimes people shoot back (this is where a water balloon hit the wall of our room)

Leland, Heidi and I leaving the hostel on paint day

In the thick of things - the city kindly sent out a water truck to provide refills to the many super soakers and buckets roaming the streets

Walking the streets (Leland, Betty, Nanda and I)

The aftermath… clockwise from top left: Lindsay, Kaeli, Leland, Jackie, Jackie's cousin, Heidi, me, Nanda, Betty

*credit for most of these photos goes to Jackie, who was brilliant enough to get a water-proof camera to bring out on paint day