Thanksgiving

Thanks for a great Thanksgiving guys! It's just what I needed... falta the asthma part...

this is a painting for sutton and his hilariously frustrating experiences....

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The tile to this peice was me pounding on the keyboard in frustration, anger, and all those other emotions somebody might feel living in a foreign land…

Imagine this if you will.

It is Friday, November 10, and it’s morning. Life starts about 5:45 every morning. I am normally woken up by the child that lives behind my room on the same property that I am calling home. From what I can figure this young child is going through the whole potty training business. And that is what the yelling and screaming is all about. It’s the equivalent to “Help me! I need wiping!”

At that point I get up and out of my lumpy bed and pick my sheets and blankets up off the floor, then make my way upstairs with my four months worth of uncut hair. I must some sort of African heritage because it is starting to look a lot like an afro, and join my host parents with breakfast, which is the same thing we had for dinner, pan, which is a bread roll and butter or pan with avocado and salt. How I miss bacon. And who can forget hash browns with some Crystal Hot Sauce? Oh Crystal Hot Sauce, how I miss thee…

Anyway, the morning’s conversation started with them explaining to me that they are going to be gone because they are going Lima to vote. Apparently, it is mandatory that everybody must vote in there registered place of residence or there is a huge fine if one does not vote. They ask me to join them to their house in Lima so that I am not in Huanta by myself while they are away in Lima . I don’t think this will be a problem because I haven’t done a damn thing in last two and a half months that I have been in Huanta anyway, and it is a good excuse to get out of Huanta for a bit, and any excuse to get away from Huanta is a good one, but I have to check with Ruth, the main lady in charge of me that lives in Lima. I will send her an email this morning when I go to the radio station to report for another day of nothingness.

Starting, about three weeks ago I was getting real desperate for something to do here in Huanta because I was really sick and needed to take my mind off the fact that I was sick, in Peru for a year, even worse in Huanta, a place that is completely off the map of anything except for the bus that travels through once a day depositing and picking up passengers as it makes its way on cliff side roads to other cities and towns among the Andes. I found myself in search of anything to do, anything to occupy my mind. So I gathered the five other people that ‘work’ at the station with me that come and go throughout the day, I had them all huddled around my laptop trying to explain that I was bored and needed something to do with the help of a internet based translation program. They all looked at me and said, Sorry, there really is nothing for us to do, let alone somebody who barely speaks Spanish, let alone that crazy more dominate language of these parts Quetwa.” So there I was, I came up short, but at lest I tried. Felling all my resources were exhausted I sent an email off to Ruth explaining that I was not feeling well and need something to do, I am going insane. Remember this was two and a half, three weeks ago.

On Wednesday of this week I got an email from Ruth saying that she had sent an email off to my boss here at the radio station explaining that I need something to do and she would like to have schedule of what my day’s layout is like, but never received a respond, so she was going to send another request that afternoon. This was Wednesday of last week.

Thursday, the second day of November, was my first day of actual work. As it turns out, I am to move about a thousand bricks from around the property of the radio station, up two flights of stairs to the rooftop. Ok, well I will do it, because I will do about anything, and it was better then sitting around doing nothing. So I spent about four hours making laps carrying five to six bricks at a time to the rooftop. I probably would have kept doing throughout the day, but it seemed as if everybody else just sat there and watched me sweating and carrying bricks up these stairs. Wait. They are just standing there with their arms crossed watching me carry these bricks. I watched them watch me for a couple dozen laps until I missed a step on the steps ascending to the roof top, as I and five or six bricks came crashing back down to earth. At that point I want home for lunch and did not return.

Friday, I was back to spending my day doing nothing. But I was asked to come in on Saturday, at a bright and early nine o clock.

Saturday, I waited around until nine thirty until my boss got there to unlock the door. I was handed an issue of the local newspaper and a bottle of some neon pink, toxic smelling cleaner of some sort. Clean the windows, all of them. Of course, I did. I found myself pondering the thought; why do I have good work ethics? Why am I here on a Saturday to clean windows? Did I come to Peru to wash windows, carry bricks, and be a waste of air and space?

Fast-forward to Wednesday of this last week.

I got a schedule of my daily duties. It goes down something like this. Six days a week I am cleaning and tiding up the radio station. Six days a week I am teaching English to school age kids. Oh I am so elated with joy, yippee! And I mean that sarcastically. And what is this? Thursday morning I am a free laborer. Great, just shoot me now. So much for working with radio, huh…

Here it was Thursday of this week, my day as a free laborer. I get to the radio station and was handed an empty five gallon bucket, a shovel and a broom and was told that my job for the day was to shovel all the sand on the rooftop and make on big pile out of it. Ok, I did that for a while, until I got a couple of blisters on my hands and then went home. I have had enough. I did not come to Peru to become a free laborer. If I wanted to do such work, I would have donated my time in Mississippi roofing houses and such of that nature.

Back to Friday the tenth were my story began. According to my daily schedule this is my day to report to some farm for daily duties there. But that didn’t happen. Nobody was at the radio station until well into the mid-morning. And not knowing where this farm was, I did not able to report there. In the afternoon I am suppose to return to the radio station to begin my English classes. Ok, well I have never taught English. As a matter of a fact, I don’t think I have ever even passed an English class in school. So with no books, no resources, no pens, no paper I am to teach a bunch of kids English. Teach children that I don’t even speak their language. Great. I really was not looking forward to this. I keep asking myself, at what point did I stop being able to make decisions for myself, especially the ones that decided what I was going to do with myself, and what I wanted to do.

I want on with my day. I sent that email off to Ruth to ask her if I could go with my host parents to Lima . I got a respond shortly there after saying it was ok, and went home for lunch. I told my host parents that I can join them with their trip to Lima . They were grateful to hear this. I spent my four hour lunch break doing what I normally do. Nothing. Sleeping. I eventually returned the Radio Amauta. I don’t know if I was late or if I was early, I have totally lost track of time. I no longer even carry a cell phone with me. I go a week with out even knowing what day it is. Everything has evolved into last nothingness.

When I came back to the station nobody was there, naturally. Do people exist here? No. Only me.
Sorry, you are looking for whom?
Sorry, I don’t know where they are.
When are they going to be back?
Sorry, I don’t know.
What do I here?
I ask myself that everyday.
Come back in two, maybe three hours.
Actually, make that four, maybe somebody will be here by then.

Thus, eventually my boss did come back. He came to me and said, “Well you are teaching English today, the kids will be here at four. Oh, and the whole going to Lima thing, your not going, I need you here to work.”
“Doing what?” I asked.
“Teach English,” he replied.

Right that whole teaching English to school kids.

“Right, how do you want me to do that again?”
“I don’t know, just talk to them.” he suggested.

So I did. I looked at him and started carrying on a conversation with myself directed at him about how frustrated I am, how I am going insane, I don’t want to teach English to school kids. I don’t know why he thinks I would like to teach school kids. How cleaning and doing crapy labor work to go home and do nothing but sit in church for the last five hours of my day, everyday, except for Sunday, when I have to look forward to go twice that day, is wearing me thin. But of course he didn’t understand me. I was talking in English, just as he suggested.

I waited around for these kids to come for their English class. They never came. I’m not sure if it was the heavy downpour of rain coming down that turned the streets into rivers and the sidewalks into streams, or they just didn’t want to go to another class after a week of school. But I was grateful for them not coming.

I went home to explain to my host parents that I no longer could go with them to Lima . They had a hard time understanding why this was. How can you be able to go earlier in the day and four hours later not be? I tried to explain that my boss wants me to stay here in Huanta because he needs me here.
“Por que,” they ask me.
I tried to explain that he wants me here to work.
“To work? You don’t do anything there anyway.”

Then I explained that he has a vision of me teaching all the town’s kids English. As a matter of a fact they were broadcasting over the airwaves as we were speaking that I was offering free English classes to anybody and everybody, even though I was never asked about it myself.

Great!

Soon there was a guy knocking at our front gate because he teaches English here in Huanta and that was his only source of income and that I cant do it for free.

Nice. Now I am in the middle of argument, and I don’t even want to teach English, especially not to school age children. He eventually left and I was standing there with my host parents, just as confused with the situation as I was. They looked at me and said, “You want to leave don’t you? Do you want to come with us to Lima ? Well we are to go talk to Peilagio(my boss)”
“You can’t,” I replied “There is no point. He says that I am needed here so Ruth is going to stand behind that. And even if he changes his mind and I do go with you Ruth will be mad at me because I am not here.”

This is yet another thing that is hard for them to comprehend. How is if I get the ok from my boss, that Ruth will be mad at me because of this.

Honestly, myself. I have enough of all of it. Waking up in the morning going to a radio station were there is nobody there sixty percent of the day, explaining that I have no idea were they are and when to expect them to return, if ever. At a station that the only non-prerecorded program is totally in Quetcwa, I don’t even understand it, let alone the music. If that is considered music I would rather be deft. How am I supposed to help with that? Spending eighty present of my day not knowing what the hell is going on.

But one thing has come out of this. My host parents, there was a time when they damned me to hell. Now I think we might be ok, even if I have been damned.

Question from Koki

At lunch today Koki asked me who was the happiest with their work. I didn't know the answer to that, so... how's your placement going? Are you figureing stuff out, or are you still confused? As we approach the end of our dos o tres meses adjustment period, are you happy with what your doing here?

For me, I think I am happy with parts of mine. Some stuff is good, some stuff is frustraighting.

Confussion

I just read that Bush suspended Habeus Corpus. I hate everything.

A small victory.

Well last night before I was headed off for another night in at church I herd the sounds of guitar cords being strummed. Normally I don’t pay any attention to it and just keep on doing what I am doing. But this time it was a bit different. Instead of a hymn song I herd the rhythm of a song that I recognized.

I put down my book and walked upstairs towards the sounds of this oh so sweet song. I walk in the kitchen and he was playing Santana. So I am humming the beat of the song, and he surprised to know I knew the song.

There we were walking down the street and he went down a list of musicians that enjoys listing to. From Pink Floyd, The rolling Stones, Neil Young, CCR, Buffalo Springfield, to the Bee Gees. But the two that I thought were funny for him to mention were Guns ‘n Roses and Cat Stevens.

But we made a deal. He can listen to all the music he wants, if he teaches me how to play the songs on the guitar.

Next I am going to push for less time in a church pew.

Humility

My time in Peru has taught me much about humility, but yesterday I think I finally hit my peak and now just don’t care when I am perceived as a complete idiot. Wednesday, in the afternoon I was told that we were going to have a human rights workshop for about 40 youth in and around Huancavelica.
Sounds great.
Then I was told to research human rights online.
Ok. Where do I find this information?
Google (as if there were any other place).
Ok, which human rights and from where, Peru, international…?
Just do a summary of human rights.
Ok…. Thinking that there are quite a few.
So I went down stairs to the office with internet access and started researching human rights. If you type in ‘human rights’ and ‘Peru’ in the search bar of Google you will receive hundreds of thousands of pages dealing with the terrorism years between 1980 and 2000. That’s when it first hit me that a gringo from the US should not be researching this topic for them. So I stuck to the good ol’ UN’s website where they lay out 30 fundamental human rights. I returned up stairs an told my co-workers that I had some pretty good information concerning human rights. Then I asked what they wanted me to do with it. Apparently that was a dumb question.
You’re going to present it tomorrow for the youth.
Haha, I don’t think I can do that.
Why not?
Because I have a hard enough time talking to you guys in Spanish, how am I supposed to do a presentation in from of 40 youth over the topic of human rights?
(Laughing) Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.
Shit!

Now keep in mind that the night before the same co-workers and I had a language class. I taught a little English, and they tried to help me with Spanish. Seeing that they were not going to be much help on the grammar of Spanish (How many of us know the grammar of English?) I decided to ask them for some verbs that I should learn.
They thought for a minuet…. ‘’Comer’’ – to eat
Then some one else chimed in with ‘’Hablar’’ – to speak
My head hit the table.
Now how is it that the same people who thought I didn’t know the words in Spanish for ‘’to eat’’ and ‘’to speak’’ are asking me to do a 20 min presentation on international human rights?

After fighting them, I realized that I was going to do the presentation the next day whether I wanted to or not. So I created a presentation which I could pretty much just read of the slides, say thanks and sit down. Of course I had to practice this many times because there are big words in the realm of human rights.
The next morning they asked me how the presentation was.
Short.
Well make sure you just don’t read the slides, you need to expand.
I have done many presentations before and I agree completely but, you really don’t understand, I don’t have the language in Spanish to expand on Human rights.
(laughing, again) You’ll be fine.
Damn it!

So I sat down and expanded a bit on my notes, hating everything.
The workshop was supposed to start at 8:30am. So in typical Peruvian fashion everyone started showing up at 10:30am. I was told to go ahead and give my presentation while we waited on the rest of the youth and presenters to show up.
Sweet, there were only 6 youth in the room. I got up gave my presentation, we talked for a minuet, I said thanks and sat down feeling pretty good.
Finally about 40 youth showed up and the rest of the presenters. A woman stood up and gave a very detailed description of her organization in Huancavelica that works for legal representation of human rights. I was feeling pretty good that I had gone before her, when they announced that the next presentation would be me.
Son of a Bitch!

Reluctantly I got up and started my presentation. Now imagine trying to tell 40 youth, who have worked to earn money for their family since they were probably 8 years old, that the UN says they have a right to a paid vacation. This concept made many laugh out loud. After a few questions during my presentation I suggested that we wait till I finished to discuss the rights. At the end I repeated that they should not think of these rights as laws, (because many are not in Peru, or the US) but rather a guideline for which they should be working towards.
Questions? (as my heart leaped to my throat)

Of course there were questions, and in Peru when some one has a question it can sometimes be longer than the presentation.
First question: You’re up here talking about UN human rights, but didn’t your country invade Iraq, against the will of the UN? (It was a solid 3 min question, but I think that was the gist of it)
$%@&!
That’s a great question, for which I have no answer. I stumbled to tried and explain the faults of my country, but I realized by some confused faces that I should try again. I then tried to explain that we are all in the struggle for human right together.
Question two was prefaced by ‘’you don’t speak much Spanish do you?’’
Thanks for pointing that out.
After a few more questions I sat down, relieved it was over and hating every, single one of my co-workers.
I’m afraid after a year I’m going to be like the 40 year old dad who embarrasses his kids by wearing the really goofy hat and shorts because it makes him comfortable and he really just doesn’t care anymore.
- Dave

Work...

So today, I learned that I was expected to edit six hours of footage down to an 8-minute video... and it's all in Spanish! Woo! (For those who are interested, it's a meeting they had at Paz for/about indigenous peoples...)

Returning from Huancayo

Why is it when you are trying to find a beer in a city it can not be found?

I don’t get it. I’m in a country that calls the Quarter Ponders “Royals” and apparently know less about Mexicans then we do because their “Mexicana” burger is a burger with nacho cheese Doritos on it.
You can buy beer from a Bembo’s, which is the Peruvian equivalent of McDonalds, though they are here too.
You can buy beer at KFC, and Pizza Hut, and if you really want to go big you can get wine there too. They have liquor mixed in with their ice cream, you can also get a shot on the side or many, if you so desire. Grandpa has his morning oatmeal with a glass of pineapple juice and rum.,,

But there are three of us mindlessly wondering the streets of Huancayo in search of a nice frothy beer, and non to be found. Why is that?
Well it might have been just as well because I was stepping on another seven hour bus ride to Huanta. Yes the same unpaved road. Oh the joy of this bus trip.

What a delightful bus ride it was too. I took the 8:30pm bus to Huanta because I wanted to get there as late in the morning as possible. But about three hours into the rid my bus pass the 8:00pm bus.
There I was in the middle of a bus race, on the edge of a cliff with the other bus honking it’s horn and flashing it’s lights for the next four hours.
I was sitting there trying to drown out the sound of the high revving motor of the bus I was in listening to Neil Young’s Harvest album as I looked out the window and saw a valley and river about a thousand feet below and had those thoughts once again.
“I’m going to plummet to my death tonight on some remote cliff in Peru”

I pulled into Huanta at 4:30 in the morning as I was listening to Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusher Man.” It was one of those stops were the bus stops for two minutes and if you are not off in that time you are riding another hour to the next town.
The bus was already in motion as I stepped off of it.

Walking through Huanta at four thirty in the morning is very interesting. As I walk through the town with a duffle bag full of a weeks worth of smelly clothes, that I was so looking forward of wash them by had that afternoon. And my backpack, containing my lap top.
Good morning six foot gravel pile blocking the road. Good morning prison. Good morning prison guard in the tower above me with his gun following my every move. Good morning, two guys in a pick up and the four others in the back that is now coming to a stop in front of me.
I throw on that sense that I so well developed during my stay in Lima. It’s kind of like the Spider Sense of Spiderman but instead of receiving bad vibes, it sends them. I began sending out vibes like, but not limited too; I’m going to gouge your eyes out, and break all your limbs in one swift move. Or the look of; don’t fuck with me look, that I think I might have perfected during my stay here in Peru. Because those guys decided that they would be better off driving away then messing with this very agitated Green-go.

Once I got to my room I hit my bed with a thud.

Warning...

So apparently if anything goes wrong while Hunter and Ruth are in Brasil, I am your contact. So, I'm asking you all for a favor: please do not get anything stolen, bitten by a dog or llama or fierce jungle bat, catch TB or thing of that sort, fall off of anything high or rapidly moving, or hit by a car. But, if you do, please let me know as soon as possible. I miss you guys already and am looking forward to Thanksgiving!

Just So You Know...

I learned a few days ago that, in Peru, teachers "take" exams and students "give" them--the reverse of what we say. This is what my host sister tells me. It hurt my head.

¡Bienvenidos!

Welcome to the official blog of the 2006-2007 Peru Young Adult Volunteers! Surely, many adventures will unfold among the archives of this blog, and we're happy to have you along for the ride.