Crazy days

As I am writing, I see the reflections of little faces curiously peeking at my computer screen, trying to learn what sort of crazy magic the ¨China¨ does online...

So the past few days have been crazy ups and downs. I stayed with a current youth development volunteer near Huaráz along with two other fellow trainees. We had a very relaxing time taking pictures in her idyllic little Sierra town where you could see the snow-capped Huascarán mountain looming large, even though it was very far away. When we asked the wrinkled old women if we could take their photo and the wrinkled old men the name of the river, they answered, ¨No sé.¨ ¨I don´t know.¨ As in, ¨I don´t know Spanish, I speak Quechua, but I´ll smile and look cute anyway.¨ Despite the beauty of where this volunteer lived, I did not envy her. She seemed to have more down time than work time. I would personally feel unfulfilled if my only responsibilities were to teach computer classes. In the next two years, I hope to see concrete, physical changes as a result of my labor along with the gradual knowledge and mindset changes, which are inevitable.

Next, our entire environment training class went to Huascarán, which is actually one of our new sites. The girl who will be working with Parque Nacional de Huascarán received the warmest, most exciting welcome possible. The staff constantly acknowledged her, thanked her, and reminded us that the National Park itself was initiated with the help of two Peace Corps volunteers in 1975. Not only is her site historic for Peace Corps, it´s the third highest peak in South America, drawing 400 tourists every day. It´s breathtaking. Again, I´m very thrilled for her because this is her dream site, but it´s definitely not where I want to be.

The day after Huascarán, I decided to become really ill. I barfed a little in the morning and thought I was getting better. Ooh, was I wrong. As I sat in a municipal office listening to the beginning of what I´m sure was a great presentation about one town´s trash disposal system, I ran out the door and violently vomited all over the municipal office´s nice clean floor. Good thing it was Sunday, so there weren´t any staff around, just the Peace Corps Regional Coordinator trying to drag my dying body into the bathroom. Everyone in the talk heard me, however, which included the Mayor himself. Ugh. Well I called it quits for the day and slept for a long time in a nice little hostel. After my third time barfing, we finally got a hold of the doctor (cell phone problems!) who informed me that if I barfed one more time, I´d have to go to a clinic for an IV before I were too weak to even walk into the clinic. If so, I definitely couldn´t go to Piura for my site visit. So the loveable but oh-too-talkative-when-I´m-sick Regional Coordinator ran out (literally, she ran, she ran all day getting me medicine, water and jell-o) to get me more medicine. At that point, I started to use mind-over-matter techniques where I envisioned my intestines absorbing water in a very happy way. I slept sitting up because Doc said all the water and jell-o I was eating would just come back up. Finally, I peed, a sign that my body absorbed water!! I didn´t have to get hooked up to an IV!! I have never had to receive emergency medical care after my birth, and I swore it wouldn´t be that day. Then I found out that I´d be under observation until 6PM, when they would decide whether or not I was healthy enough to travel for 17 hours on winding mountain roads (3 transfers!!!). At 6:10, I arrived in the staff vehicle to Huaráz to meet the other trainees, and asked if I had enough time to go buy dinner. That question made everyone cheer, which meant I was going to Piura that night! I bought pancakes even though my Program Director said ¨no grease, no eggs, no milk, no butter, no fruit, no meat, pasta with maybe a little tomato sauce but nothing else, nothing raw. Right, nothing with flavor.¨

So 17 hours later, I was vomit-less but with a weird acidic feeling in my empty stomach. ¡Piura! Por fin. Finally. My counterpart from the municipality met me in a hostel where I had taken a hot shower and more antacid pills. Still, I wasn´t feeling too hot as we drove through the barren desert with stout algarrobo (locust??) trees dispersed here and there, along with miles of wind-blown trash. He left me at my homestay´s house to settle in. I tried conversing with my new family, but the burning feeling in my belly made me completely unenergetic. It hurt to say long sentences or to laugh. I gave up, and slept until they called me for dinner. I ate maybe less than one-sixth of what they gave me. Too bad, because what I ate of the fried plaintain, tamale, saucy rice and fried chicken tasted pretty good.

Anyway, yesterday I felt better and today I feel a million times better. Enough with the health talk.

So what am I going to do?? Ah, wow. In summary, my counterpart wants me to:
- help them delineate the border of the mangrove sanctuary that is under their authority
- organize a forum where we will invite the congressperson who wrote a bill in favor of exploring biotechnology in Perú
- during the forum, be one of five people who respond to the congressperson´s hour-long speech
- research biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms
- supervise along with him a competition of reporters who will write articles about the importance of mangroves
- supervise along with him a competition of artesans
- facilitate a course about international environmental goods and services derived from natural areas
- hold a workshop for teachers about the importance of mangroves
- give more educational workshops in March about something

Most of that stuff is supposed to occur Jan 9-15, when this little city will host its annual Mangrove Festival. So this is just the beginning.

During training, we were told that we should spend the first 3 months getting to know the community but not to do too much. I´m obviously an exception because Mr. Counterpart wants me to do stuff during training, even. I certainly like him and think we´ll get along just fine -- his enthusiasm is great and he´s super dedicated to his job. However, I told him that I can´t speak at this forum because it would be meddling into politics (afterwards, they will send the summary of the forum to everyone in Congress). As for the other stuff, it´s not what I would love to do, but it´ll be an interesting educational experience. And anyhow, this is only until January 15th. All this academic-sounding stuff made me a little intimidated yesterday, but I figure I can read up about everything really quickly and learn all the necessary vocabulary and then be fine. Forget about training, where we learned to do puppet shows for kids and make eye-catching posters. I´ll do that after January 15th, I guess! I certainly have my own ideas as to what I want to do...but I´ll be patient.

As for my host family, they live in a really nice house. I mean, it´s recently renovated and has nice tile. And has water 24 hrs-day thanks to a water tank on their roof. And warm water every 6 hours of the day. The family consists of 3 daughters and a son from the ages of 18-26. They are all very reserved but I think that with time, they´ll open up. Not the living experience I had been expecting...not the activities I had been expecting to do...but that´s Peace Corps for ya.

To end on a really great note, I visited the mangroves today. They are gorgeous! After driving through the barren desert, the unimpressive dry forest, and more sand, I suddenly saw big pink flamingoes flying, huge flocks of herons, gulls and terns grazing the sky and lots more sea birds. I´ll describe this more when I post pictures...but it was beautiful with lots of photo ops. It´s a strange feeling to be stepping on desert dunes with the wind blowing piles of sand in your face and at the same time gazing at the lapping ocean...

Whew, I think that will keep y´all occupied enough. Now go back to work, you procrastinator!