my raging leftist side is emerging

Yesterday was an usually intellectual day. First, the guy in town whose job it is to teach people how to use the very complicated voting ballot asked me about the Electoral College, ballots in the US and whether I thought voting should be mandatory or not, like it is in Perú. Eventually, I was going off in rapid-fire Spanish. I think I kind of scared him because I was getting a little passionate about it all. Then at night, as I was waiting for my parents to call me for FIVE HOURS, my host sister´s new fianceé(there hasn´t been a wedding yet)/husband(she lives with him so people call him her husband) and I had a long conversation about fishing and the decline of fish populations, agriculture and the organizations of farmers in the area, irrigation and the institutions involved, why the US hasn´t signed Kyoto yet (I went in depth on that one while pointing out that we haven´t signed a lot of important conventions, like on human rights) and about the Peruvian presidential elections which are coming up on April 9th. Oh well to that whole mission of Peace Corps that volunteers are ambassadors of the government´s good-will. I like to keep it real. Government and the people, very different entities. I think my host family was giving each other looks like, "wow, I guess the China is passionate about politics."

But it´s all cool. Apparently, my host parents are voting for Ollanta Humala, the most leftist candidate who has a chance. Even though one daughter is voting Lourdes Flores, the moderate conservative female candidate. However, I honestly don´t have a strong opinion on the Peruvian elections because I just don´t know enough about the candidates. Ollanta Humala is coming through Piura this week and will maybe be stopping in town. I gotta go tell him: "hey, if you become prez, don´t kick out Peace Corps, aight? we cool?" Just kidding. That might give Peace Corps a heart attack. And that would be really bad of me to talk to a presidential candidate, because I do believe that it could be manipulated politically. I gotta watch my back! Right now the three candidates still seem to have an equal number of votes. Peruvian law mandates that the winner must have more than 50% of the vote, so there will most likely be a second round in which the top two candidates will fight it out.

So I didn´t mention a critical part of my work plan: to form a committee comprised of municipal authorities, schools (directors, teachers and maybe students), the governmental health centers, parent´s organizations and other social organizations (Mother´s clubs, Fishermen Associations, etc.). That will be the bulk of my work, since as you may imagine, that will take a lot of time. Basically, it´s institution-building or creating "social networks" or whatever terminology you want to use. We´ll see how it goes.

I´m starting to work on this coalition building goal by meeting the people at the Centro de Salud (Health Center) in town. Since my Becará teachers are starting on the issue of hygiene, it will be great to get the involvement of the Centro de Salud, which is in my town, as well as the health post in Becará. Possible activities related to the objectives they have been proposing include having the kids go to the Centro de Salud to research the most common ailments in the community and learning more about issues relevant to their own little world. We can also get guest speakers in classes or have people come to give a talk or training to the teachers before they start lesson planning.

In other news, it is a BITCH to get to Becará. Fishing season has started a little early. As such, the fishermen are gone. Since fishermen take up secondary jobs in public transportation during the off-season, there is a huuuuuuge lack of public transportation right now. After waiting an hour for a collective car to pick me up, my neighbor who was waiting with me got picked up by a truck delivering ice to keep octopus fresh. They offered me a ride, too, so I finally was able to get to the school. Along the way there were a TON of people on the right side of the street waiting for transportation.

It was a lot easier to get back since I finally realized that there´s a collective car stop near the school that leaves towards my town. No more waiting on the side of the street with my handkerchief over my head for shade wondering what I´m doing here in the desert for 35 minutes anymore! In the car, a mom asked me if I was teaching at the school. She told me that her daughter had come home from school and told her that, "There´s a girl who looks very ´China´ with extremely white skin who is really pretty coming to work in the school." And so they´re all wondering what I´m doing there. So I guess I´m famous in Becará, thanks to the chatterbox kids!