Poco a Poco

Hey Everyone!
Sorry I’ve been so bad about posting blogs, finding the time to sit down and type up one has been harder than I thought. Here’s a lil rundown of my day to day life: Usually I wake up around 6:30 (6:15 if it’s a shower day) get dressed, eat breakfast, and am out the door and meeting the other guys in the neighborhood by 7:20 to walk to school, or to get to someone’s house if language classes are in the neighborhoods that day. Classes start at 8 and the first session goes until 12. Then its LUNCH time--a wonderful time of day where all of us 20-somethings (and a few 30 and 60-somethings) regress back to our elementary school days and play “who has the best lunch” or “who the hell wants to trade??” Its actually really amusing to watch us eat. Peruvians eat a MUCH larger portion of food than Americans, and most of it is filled up with potatoes and rice, with a meat of some sort, and a sauce with some veggies. Therefore I get a kick out of watching us rationalize eating as much as we did in our little Tupperware containers. “I ate all my meat and potatoes and half of my rice…if I give the rest of the rice to the compost or the cat then it won’t go to waste…and my mom will never know I didn’t finish.” Yeah ya’ll might laugh, but that is a daily occurrence at the training center.

After lunch we have our technical training classes (health, wat san, and medio amb) or lectures as a whole group depending on the day. And we wrap up classes by 5, then its either hike it on back to 3 de Octubre, or stick around the center for some PC activities. Some people have started a running group, a yoga group, music group, salsa dancing, then there are the pc t-shirt committee, and other fun things that go on till 6. Either way after that long day I get back to my house around 6 or 7 depending on what happens after class and fill my family in on my day and watch the news until…the soaps come on!!! I made myself a promise…I’m not exactly sure when, but long ago I said I’d never get into watching soaps…well good luck trying to keep that going in a Peruvian household with a tv! From 8-10 its soap time! Victoria is the favorite in my house—If I could tell you what it was about I would, but from all I have gathered there’s one woman named Victoria with way too much drama and men in her life. But after some tv/parents time with some homework squeezed in there, I usually pass out in my bed by 9:30 or 10:30 depending on the day and start the whole process over again.
So tonight being another normal night, I’m sitting on my bed in my room listening to Victoria (my room is technically walled in, but there are 2 windows without the glass part that have curtains over them, so sound travels well—but the good part is my room has the best air circulation in the house!) and typing up this blog at 8:57pm. I only tell you the time because I know that I won’t be able to post this blog for at least another day and I don’t want to confuse people with times. I just had an awesome dinner of arroz (rice), with papas (potatoes), cebollas (onions), zanahorias (carrots), and a fried egg—sunny side up style. Big surprise on the rice and potatoes I know—but somehow in Peru we manage to eat the same 10 foods, but every time it tastes different. I swear sometimes at lunch we all can do nothing but laugh when someone asks us what we got for lunch, because 8 times out of 10 we don’t know the name of the dish. So it’s, “Hey today I got rice and potatoes with some chicken” followed by someone else saying, “dude me to! Wait…mine’s yellow, yours is brown…is yours spicy?”, “Naw its chifa [chineese type food here in Peru].” Congratulations you have now felt what it is like to sit at the PC lunch table, just multiply that conversation by 10.

Oh and today I received my first letters/care packages from home, so to all you other slackers step up your game! My mom was kind enough to send me a beany baby (yeah remember those things!) for my 2 year old niece. Tonight we taught her how to say Bones in both English and Spanish (hueso in Spanish) and I translated the poem that comes with them and apologized for it not rhyming. She LOVES this thing, it has not left her side for the past 2 hours and I think I hear her throwing a fit now because she needs a bath and Bones can’t go with her. I tell you what it’s the small things here that just make me so happy. My mom also sent me some news paper clippings—a few with my RHS girls Field Hockey pictures!!!! Sorry about the East Chapel Hill game girls, but congrats on the Jordan victory!!! You’ll be happy to know your photos have now been shown to dern near my whole neighborhood. My mom was so proud to show off “her gringa’s field hockey team” to the neighbors tonight, so Carmen, Merissa, and Abby ya’ll are now famous in 3 de Octubre!

Another thing, sorry but I have a lot to catch ya’ll up on, I had my first Charla on Monday. A charla is basically a lecture, they can be given in a formal way (ie a standard lecture, the teacher talks, and prays that the students absorb all the information), or in an informal way (through games, facilitations, skits, puppet shows, the list goes on). And special thanks to my favorite Outdoor Leadership Instructors Tommy, T-Dash, and Ted for helping me be the most bad ass facilitator I can be! This charla would have been SO scary had ya’ll not made me (for a grade of course) practice so many lesson plans and lectures. Our lecture was on the importance of cleaning your teeth. Sam, James, and I drew up some teeth and had a happy side and a sad side. We asked the kids T/F questions about brushing their teeth and if they thought the answer was true they’d show the happy side, and if it was false the sad. Then after we passed out drawings on dulces (sweets) with tape on the back and had then put them on 4 of their classmates who were “teeth” for the activity. We then “brushed” the teeth and “flossed” (with a piece of climbing rope!! Yeah buddy!) to remove the sweets from the teeth. All and all I think the charla went really well. We gave the lecture twice in 2 classrooms in a primeria (elementary school) to the 3 and 4th levels (around 8-10 year olds). The kids knew most of the things we taught about brushing their teeth, because they have had local government officials and doctors talk to them. But the problem with most places in Peru is not the lack of information; it’s the lack of follow through and the lack of available resources. As one kid in one of the classes pointed out, “it’s hard to brush your teeth when you don’t have the money to buy a toothbrush or toothpaste.”

But then again, that’s why I’m here--to help provide not just information, but resources to a rural community in Peru. As with everything else in my new PC life “poco a poco” is the way to think about everything (that is “little by little”). Sharing information, cultures, technology, education, resources, etc. takes time, it all happens poco a poco.