LN

I miss Ellen.



(By the way, disregard the below post. It's factually wrong.)

Class War

Results are in...the secound round will be: Ollanta Humala vs. Lourdes Flores Nano!

Ollanta received around 30% and Lourdes a little less than 25%.

Alan García fans were given a big let down because when tentative results came out at 4pm, he was leading Lourdes by 0.3%. Official results came out some time between 9 and 10:30 -- I was in bed, reading.

As far as I can tell, the presidential race will become a class issue. Ollanta is seen as the candidate of the poor, the laborers struggling to survive under the oppression of the free market gone mad, American imperialism and accelerated globalization. Lourdes is seen as the cautious, pro-business, pro-investor candidate, although she tries to wear jeans and no makeup to seem more like one of the common people. I think the 24% of the population who voted for Alan García and his pro-worker APRA party are definitely voting Ollanta. Maybe some will think Ollanta is too revolutionary, or they want to vote for a woman who is free of rumors of human rights violations, which Ollanta has plaguing his campaign. However, my bet is on an Ollanta victory. Another factor is that about 13% of the population voted for the 4th and 5th parties, which include a centrist and the wife of Perú´s ex-Japanese President. So there may be some Lourdes votes there.

By region, who voted for who:
Lima region: L
Sierra: O
Northern Coast (including Piura): A
Southern Coast: O
Selva (Amazon): O

Some people believe that Lourdes would gain more votes if she weren´t single, which makes her an atypical Peruvian woman. There are rumors she might get a beau, which I think would be a disgraceful move.

There´s a month left, so the situation can be completely volatile....we´ll see.

Minus one day left

Elections are tomorrow, which means that as of yesterday, nobody is allowed to sell or consume alcohol. I was wondering whether Peruvians actually adhered to this law. I got my answer yesterday when a car whizzed by our house with drunk men yelling something incomprehensible, and when my host cousin arrived at our door happily intoxicated.

Because voting is mandatory in Perú, and because you have to vote where your state-issued identity card is registered, there are apparently a lot of people travelling these days to their hometown. In Lima, we learned that there is a big squatter population that is denied these identity cards because the government says they are living illegally. So some of the poorest people are unfortunately disenfranchised.

What will happen? Will Perú have it´s first female president? Will an ex-commandante add another country to the "New Latin American Left"? Will an ex-president regain his post after fleeing the country he left in economic ruin? The only thing you can count on is that we won´t know the results until May because there will surely be a second round where the top two candidates duke it out.

Speaking of elections, I usually get some funny questions. Do you speak English since you´re American, did you fly to Perú, did you have to study Spanish to speak it. And now that it´s election time, I´m getting a new one: are you going to vote? Where are you going to vote? I tell them, no I vote in the United States. And eventually comes the question, oh do people vote there, too? Yup. For president, not until 2008 (and to myself I think, "unfortunately").

Closely following the Peruvian presidential elections, religiously reading the free Newsweeks we get, quickly skimming through the Common Dreams news articles I receive daily and occasionally reading the NY Times online has been making me think...when I get out of Peace Corps, it will be 11 months until the 2008 presidential election. Right now, I think I will travel in South American until Christmas and then live, work and vote in a swing state (pending that the candidates and the race turn out to be important enough). Either Michigan or Florida, if I can figure out a way to make it happen, which shouldn´t be too hard. Originally I wanted to move to NYC to be with family and be in a city I love, but it´s only for a year. The hard part would be paying off my student loans while making a most likely crappy salary. Coming to the realization that I might not be making a decent salary for another year out of Peace Corps, I then made a list of all the destinations in Perú I want to hit up before leaving and the vacation days I have, so I can reasonably estimate how much I should dig into my personal savings to fund my travels. So if anyone is planning on visiting me, now is a good time to let me know where you want to go so I can write it into the 3-year plan, haha.

On a different note, I am written about in the Peace Corps - Perú volunteers magazine. My friend wrote an article on public breast-feeding and how strange it was to her at first. She told a story of how I was trying to bargain down the price of some straw mats. When the women mentioned that she had children to take care of and pointed to a baby breast-feeding behind her, I caved in to the probably too-steep price. So now everyone knows I´m a sucker. (No pun intended!!)

they never listen, do they?

Well that makes one friend-couple that didn´t listen and decided to set a wedding date for BEFORE I return to the States!!! Hmph. And I was the one who serenaded them from the East Quad courtyard on their first date with Marvin Gaye´s "Let´s Get it On" freshmen year, even though they didn´t actually hear me and Mary Fitz helping them get their funk on. Ah, getting old! But not until May 2007! Congratulations, Megan and Mike!!!

In other news, the political climate in Perú has suddenly started to resemble American elections...yes, folks, that´s right. The political commercials of candidates smiling with the Peruvian flag flapping behind them shaking campesino hands to the tune of triumphant, patriotic music has suddenly found the company of NEGATIVE ADVERTISEMENTS. Lourdes Flores has come out with a new ad, which basically has the message: "You wouldn´t want to walk backwards (dramatic image of Alan García amid protestors during his 1000% hyperinflation days) and you wouldn´t want to go downwards (dramatic image of Ollanta Humala stomping violently on somebody in his military days)...ascend with Lourdes Flores (her smiling and waving in front of the flapping Peruvian flag to the tune of triumphant, patriotic music). And I saw another negative ad for the congressional race. Would I be too paranoid and conspiracy theory-loving if I suggested that Uncle Sam is involving itself in the last week until the Peruvian election? Maybe. However, I wouldn´t be surprised. If Humala wins, this will be another strong force in the Latin American anti-US government leftist trend. Despite the close race, most people are predicting Humala to win. Including the fortune teller on the morning news, although apparently 3 other fortune tellers had predicted Lourdes Flores to win...anyway, this is a fascinating moment, at least for me.

In some personal news, I can now say I can assemble bicycles without help! I didn´t even have an already assembled bike for reference. My Peace Corps-issued Trek bike was boxed up in my room until yesterday, when I finally decided to get some courage and put it together without help, which wasn´t coming. The front wheel was a little tricky because there were tiny parts needed to assemble it that came in a separate box without instructions. And the pictures and instructions in the booklet were terrible. However, I am most proud about being able to assemble the front-wheel brake. That was really confusing and Cactus had told me that the brake was probably a part that I´d want to get help with because it was really hard. After staring at the pictures for a long time and trying to figure out what the random parts and holes and everything was for, I played around, hoping I wouldn´t break anything, and finally got it! So I went on a victory ride yesterday and today. Thanks to this desert plant that scatters nail-like thorns everywhere, I got a hole in my tire on my bike´s maiden voyage and I had to take my bike today to my new friend, José, who fixes tires for 2 nuevos soles (less than $1!!). He ironed on a patch using this big rusty machine. Is that how it´s done in the States? Well, now I know what a bike tire consists of.

Today I also had a very succesful meeting with all the school directors from the District. After introducing myself, I had them list the environmental problems they believed were the most important to confront in their school communities. Then after explaining my plan that was developed with some directors and the Municipality, we had a brainstorming session where they significantly improved the idea. So I guess that´s a green light from them on the whole "social network" idea where representatives from all the different community sectors get together to confront development issues. During the meeting, I patted myself on the back for finally being able to understand 90% of the meeting, after half a year in Perú! Of course, the part I didn´t understand was followed by the non-rhetorical question, "what do you think?" I deftly squirmed out of that situation by turning to the rest of the directors and confidently posed the question, "well, what do the rest of you think?" haha. I can add "can facilitate a meeting and pretend to understand a conversation when I really don´t" to the resumé.

sweat and tears

On Thursday I accidentally walked at least 2 miles through urban desert with the afternoon sun declaring war against my white China skin. I don´t know why I didn´t just get a mototaxi to chug me around from Becara´s Puesto de Salud (Health Post) to the primary school to the highway, which I missed because I took the wrong road, and decided instead to go to the next caserío´s school to talk to the director but they were in a meeting, so then back towards the highway to wait for a bus back to town. As I walked, fully aware of the blisters growing on my suede-clad feet and my sunglasses sliding down my sweaty nose, I decided that I was walking for four reasons: to save money, to exercise, to see the town more intimately and to let the people in the community get used to my being there. In retrospect I think I was just being stubborn with myself for no good reason. However, I did notice that the streets were pretty empty. Probably because it too frickin hot to be outside.

This morning, after I sweated out every drop of water I have in my body hand-washing my clothes, I went to the Centro de Salud (Health Center) to talk to the nurse in charge of a Health Ministry program called "Escuelas Saludables," or "Healthy Schools." She seemed receptive about doing a training workshop for teachers about the topic of hygiene, so hopefully the interaction between the Centro de Salud, Puesto de Salud - Becará and the primary school in Becará will unfold beautifully. I think my primary role in the community will be to foster communication and collaboration such as this, between different sectors in the community. So this is my first big step towards that goal. As I walked down the dirt path back home, I started to actually feel like an "agent of change," and giggled to myself because that´s a really cheezy phrase.

Yesterday I hung out in Piura with my friends, like we do on most Fridays, and saw Brokeback Mountain. At first the storyline seemed kind of forced but as it went on, it drew me in. As expected, there was some snickering from the sparse audience during the love scenes. In Perú, the LGBT presence exists in small corners of Lima and, once, the nightly news that flashed shot after shot of gay couples in Lima kissing on the street. I guess the main message of the “newspiece” was that gay couples exist in Lima. And that they kiss. My host sister was certainly shocked by it. She looked at me with a look of disgust and I was completely caught off-guard. I think I responded to her look with a look of contortion. Like there was no emotion conveyed through the look, it was just a look. Not exactly prime time to start talking about gay rights, although I would like to do so in the future. I think I will just tell stories about some of my friends who are gay in a casual way. The newspiece reminded me of the Kiss-outs (is that what it was called?) that they had on campus every year. The other PCVs in Piura and I did not expect that the movie would even show in Piura. Well, change comes slowly. At least it´s on its way!

I came home to an empty house except my slacker host bro was there, watching TV, waiting to go out to see his girl. After eating some guanabana yogurt with a banana (yum), I exercised by running around the house, one of the luxuries I have of an empty house. At 10:45, they finally came home. Apparently, it was the birthday of my host sister (the one who moved out) and she had invited the family to Piura for dinner after I left the house for Piura myself. At 10:50 my host mom called me downstairs to eat roast chicken and french fries they brought home for my dinner. I politely declined, as I had just been crawling under my mosquito net for bed when she called me. I don´t understand them sometimes, how can they expect me to eat chicken and fries after my bedtime?? Oh well. At least they understood that I didn´t want to eat at the moment.