missing my music

I am pathetic. I haven´t been able to save up enough money from my monthly allowances to buy a stereo. I´d buy new batteries for my discman, but then I´d get the headphones all sweaty, it´s THAT hot now in Piura. I just want a basic little stereo that plays CDs and maybe even the 2 tapes I brought (Johnny Cash and Social Distortion). There´s a little over a week left to January, so the next time I´m in Piura, I´m going to buy it since I have about 350 soles left, and the cheapest stereo I´ve found is 169 soles. I am on the Amazon website playing the little preview clips of The Slackers songs. I wish they would come play in Perú rather than Brazil. Now I wish I brought all of my CDs with me - it would have been worth the weight.

I think part of the reason why I´m dying to listen to my own music is that I have been going to parties all weekend and into this week as well for birthdays and weddings and such. Which means I have been listening to the same 30 songs over and over again, some of which I like, some which I find very annoying. My favorite is called "A Sabor a Miel," if you´re interested. I don´t know the band name, but the lyrics go más o menos like this: "A sabor a chocolate que me gusta, a sabor a caramelo que yo busco..."

Going to a lot of parties means I have been drinking a lot of sugary chicha morada, Pilsen beer and people´s backwash (remember how I explained that we "pass the glass" so you pour yourself a little bit into a glass, chuck the last drop onto the floor then pass it on to the next person). Remarkably, I am not sick. All of these parties are with the same people from the extended host family...which is cool because I am finally figuring out how each person is related and which kid belongs to which couple and feel more comfortable with the cultural procedures. Also, I walked into my host aunt´s house yesterday and discovered that there is a picture of me dancing with her husband from Christmas posted on their cabinet. Mind you, this couple is probably into their 60s. I don´t get the shady vibe from him, although it was weird to see that picture of me on their cabinet.

In terms of work, I have been organizing and planning the Municipality´s World Wetland Day celebration, which is Feb. 2nd. The program we came up with is to start with a slideshow showing wetlands throughout the world, which I´m creating right now using PowerPoint. Then we´re going to the Mangroves, of course. My counterpart expects that 100-150 kids will come. God, help me. So then I decided that due to the quantity of little brats we´ll have to control, we will corral them all into a little section of the beach where they will draw the mangroves and play with kites that they bring from home. The kites were my counterpart´s idea...they did a kite-flying competition last year, so they of course have to do it again this year, although I convinced him that there´s no reason to make it into a competition. At first I was like, where is the educational value in that?? But now that I am in a less stubborn and crabby mood, I think it´ll be cute. You gotta work within the culture, within the system sometimes. The random people like a school teacher and the community psychologist suckered in to help us by my counterpart, who never fails to prioritize political sucking-up over pragmatism, will supervise them and facilitate those activities. In the meantime, we´re going to take kids 10 at a time on a guided educational visit. I´m working with a bird biologist who has been studying my mangroves for the past 7 years. This guy also happens to have the same name as the famous Mexican-American grape boycott organizer! Obviously, he´s really cool. Since he´s working with us, I thought it´d be nice if he were able to catch some of the birds to do a show-and-tell with the kids. That kind of activity is common in the U.S., but they don´t do it much here in Perú, even though they have such a rich biodiversity to boast about. INRENA (the gov agency of natural resources) is also going to loan us a few pairs of binoculars. Of course, we´ll explain why the mangroves are important and all of that good environmentalist stuff. Even though at first, I felt overwhelmed by starting such a big project the day after the Festival was over, I am really excited now. Plus, I have been able to pull myself together to once again, feel calm and collected about dealing with my counterpart. I recognize that I am lucky that he is always so eager to do activities, even though we don´t always agree on how to do it. And when we are in a meeting together, and they come around with a tray of cookies, he takes a handful like he´s never eaten cookies before, which gives me the freedom to do the same... :o)