Becoming Flaquita

I am so relieved the Mangrove Festival is almost done. This week has been highly stressful, although with really good moments in between. In addition, I am still getting over my cold and now I have the nasty-D. Yep, the all-too common ailment in Perú, the one where you´re running to the bathroom all the time. My host mom is really worried because I haven´t been eating too much. She says I´m going to become "flaquita," or a little thin girl. Fortunately, I was able to convince Reina that what I didn´t need to take was a laxative. Despite my hodgepodge of ailments, I have been staying in Piura every other night with the 9 volunteers who came to help me with the Festival, which means I have been getting very minimal sleep. It´s not every day I get to see these people. I slept all day today, and it was great despite that I have a million mosquito and flea bites that made me itchy and uncomfortable, and the worsening dry heat.

However, let´s talk about the good moments. The highlight was Wednesday. We did a puppet show in the morning called "Las Aventuras de la Flamenquita". It was about a newly-hatched flamingo trying to find its mother. As a heron, crab and fish join her in her search, she learns about mangroves and their importance. Then, a hunter comes looking to kill a flamingo (based on the fact that there are actually hunters from outside the community who come to kill flamingoes in our mangroves for sport). An actual mangrove character appears telling the little flamingo to hide in its roots, saving it. The crab was me, but I was actually a person rather than a puppet. It worked well because I was closer to the audience so I could prompt them when we asked how they could help protect the mangroves. I also had an easier time memorizing lines since I wrote the script. We also had a few strokes of brilliance in terms of backdrops and stage directions. Using a long table turned over on its side, we draped it in shiny green cloth, then used brown cloth twisted up in the middle that looked like a tree. Cactus, the girl playing the mangrove, then stuck only her head out on top during her part. She had a fake tree top stuck in her ponytail. It was hilarious (to us more so than to the kids). Then the hunter appears looking for a flamingo to hang on his wall, who is also a real person who entered from the back of the auditorium for dramatic effect. Eventually, he "fights" with the mangrove. However, the fight was the hunter punching the mangrove's head but the mangrove ducked or moved to the side. It was slapstick hilarious. It finally made the kids laugh. That was so satisfying. The hunter gets frustrated, the mangrove throws water on him, and he falls down and runs away.

Then we took the kids on a trip to the actual mangroves. A lot of parents also wanted to go with their kids, of course, so our bus ended up not being big enough. I spent about 40 minutes getting the bus over there, waiting for another truck which unhelpfully appeared completely packed with kids hanging off the trunk, and buying soda and crackers with the slow-paced municipality employees. First, we took the kids to a lookout where you can see a panoramic view of the mangroves. They were really fascinated by the amount of birds you could see up there. It was nice because most of the kids have been to the area, but never went to the lookout nor to look at wildlife, but instead just went to the beach area to bathe. As the volunteers led their groups in a game of "I spy" and told them about the rules (no throwing trash on the ground, no entering the water, no touching dead pelicans, stay with the group), I handed out cookies and soda, and coordinated the logistics. Then we went to a triangular-strech of beach with mangroves on the left where a flock of herons were resting. On the right was the ocean. First, the volunteers were supposed to do a "check for learning" by asking the kids questions they should´ve learned the answers to during the play. What are mangroves? Why are they important? What are some of the threats to mangroves? Volunteers who thought their group was especially well-behaved could then take their group to the actual mangroves to identify them. Then, the groups competed against each other in relay races on the flat sand. We did a crab walk, fox run (walk on hands and feet), and flamingo hop (one leg up). They loved it. After drinking more soda, we packed the kids up again and got them back to town. There, an art teacher coordinated a very detailed, formal drawing contest. The drawing contest idea was mine. Originally, I just wanted the kids to draw mangroves to reflect on what they saw. Simple stuff. Crayons and notebook paper. However, she took it to the next level, insisting that we have a variety of mediums like pencils, paint and crayons, and annoyed the hell out of me demanding more cups for paint, and complaining about how there weren´t enough supplies. I´m like, lady, what am I supposed to do about it now??? Feeling extremely exhausted, hungry and sick, I had enough of her demands (she had been pissing me off for the last two weeks, especially on my sickest days) and snuck away. Regardless, it was a great day.

Yesterday we did our third play. As I was trying to buy time because one of our actresses was late, I asked who had been to the previous two plays. A bunch of hands went up. I asked what they learned from each play and reviewed the lessons. For the most part, they were able to answer the questions perfectly, so that was a relief. We made the kids run around again, which they love and so do the moms. All in all, it turned out really well, despite a huge lack of preparedness on the volunteers´ part.

I definitely feel like I know the community better now, and they know us. The kids are more comfortable approaching me and like to ask how to say their names in English or other words. Now that the Festival is almost over, I don´t know what I´ll be doing with myself! I plan on resting for a week to get my health back. There is a possibility I might take advantage of the Asian Diversity group in PC Perú that offers free vacation days to go to Lima to celebrate Chinese New Year with the other PC Asians in Chinatown to eat dim sum. Mmmmmmmmmmmm, writing "dim sum" makes me want to go even more. However, I feel like I have been to Piura so often, I feel guilty about leaving my sight again so soon. We´ll see.

Speaking of dim sum, I´m hungry. Hopefully I´ll be able to eat more than jelly sandwhichs, which was my dinner last night.