We’ll Call it “Inca Trail” Prep

I think I haven’t done a very good job of describing the range of geographical differences that are my site. Nanchoc (as in the capitol of the district of Nanchoc) is located in the Cuenca Valley of Cajamarca. We’re a transition zone between the sierra (the real mountains) and the costa (the beach) so we’ve got a little bit of everything to offer for everyone…did that just go a little too “Visit NC” advertisement on ya’ll? For the majority of my time here I’ve been in Nanchoc or visiting the more “costa” of our caserios due to the heavy rain fall that we got this year. There’s just more mud the higher up a mountain you go.

So when Carlos asked me earlier this week if I wanted to go with the Health Center to do the census in Palto I was super excited. Palto is one of our “sierra” caserios that I had yet to visit because it’s…well way up there in the mud. Since we had gone a good 2 weeks without any rain fall, and close to a month since the last heavy rain fall we figured it was about time to go house to house to get everyone’s information for the new Health Insurance Plan for Underprivileged Farmers. So I was told at 6am on Wednesday (the 22nd of April) we’d be heading to Palto Alto (that means High Palto) first and then working our way back down the mountain house to house. Sweet!

Since the Peace Corps Volunteer has the super awesome hiking pack I offered to carry some medicine and other supplies. Cati (my community partner/best friend at site/health center nurse) loaded down my pack with a good 16Kg of meds (that’s 35.2 lbs). There were about liquid medications for the kiddies who are sick and can’t swallow pills, then a variety of creams, pills, and injections for whatever other ailments we would encounter along the way. And since I’m a good Outdoor Leadership student (oh Terry, Tommy, and Ted, I know ya’ll are proud) I had my usual “weird gringo” supplies such as a pocket knife, head lamp, rain cover for the pack, sunscreen, snacks, and a ton of water. All of which I was told by the 2 male Health Center staff that went with us were “unnecessary.” Here’s the point in the story where I should explain that Peruvians, in particular males, think that drinking water while exercising will slow you down and actually cause physical pain…yes even the doctors share this thought…

Wednesday the 22nd, 6:00am: Cati, Carlos, Dr. Alex, and the gringa are all ready and in the Health Post making sure that we have enough of everything that we need. I ask one more time if they want to bring water, I even offered to carry it in addition to the 2 L I had already. Cati took me up on the offer and put a 0.5 L bottle of water in my pack and carried another 0.5 L bottle for herself. (The girls just have the right idea here)

6:10am: We start heading up the mountain. I’m not sure exactly how much my pack weighed. But its 35 lbs +2.5 L of water (I’m not going to count how much the bread I was carrying weighed…because I ate it in the first 30 minutes). We started off at a nice pace, it wasn’t too steep at this point, we’re were still laughing and joking around—mainly about how if the Lab guy Walter was with us he’d already have turned back and been waiting in the Health Center for us to return.

7:30am: Let the real mountains begin. We passed through Palto Bajo (Low Palto) and waved at a few people that we knew and told them we’d be back. A woman I’ve had the chance to talk with a lot at the Health Center laughed when I said we were heading up the hill, “Good Luck my gringita!” she yelled as we kept walking. At this point the trail changed from a nice incline to “oh dear lord.” Now having gone backpacking many-a-times I can say that the general consensus is: walk a nice semi slow pace up hill, and recover on the flat or downhill portions. Apparently that’s just crazy talk here in Peru. The guys (because they are guys) decided to kick it up a notch, they started what was basically a slow jog up the mountain…and because I have my mother’s competitive streak…I followed suit. (Oh Cati kept up as well)

8:30am: I think the doctor and lab tech—who are both carry a few extra pounds in body fat—finally decided it was time for a MUCH needed break. We stopped at a creek crossing and ate some more bread that Carlos has tucked in his jacket and Cati and I drank water. I offered to the guys, they refused. Carlos then pointed up, at what I would say was a roughly 67° angle and said, and I do quote, “we’re heading to that building you can see there.” On a side note, there was a cool boulder at our snack break site that I want to return to…it might be a good bouldering boulder.

9:00am: I’m now officially dying at this point-- we’ve continued the jog of the mountain for some unknown reason. The guys said it’s my own fault because I drank the water, I said to hush it’s because I’m the only one with any weight on their backs. They laughed and told me what I think translates into “man up.” We stopped shortly at the Primary school to let the teacher know that we’d be passing back by the school before it lets out at 1 to give anti-parasite meds to the children.

9:10am: We hear screams, not the “OH MY GOD I CUT MY FINGER OFF!!” scream, more of the “AHHH mom he’s pulling my hair!” scream. 2.5 seconds later we are greeted by a group of 10 children running full steam down this trail. A good 5 seconds later they come to a screeching halt. Not because they see that there are people walking up the trail, but because they see that they’re the doctors walking up the trail. Another note I forgot to mention, the only time the Health Center in recent memory had walked up the hill to Palto was for vaccination campaigns…and kids hate needles. Now cue the “OH MY GOD I CUT MY FIGNER OFF!!” screams, the kids veer off the trail into a smaller, less used trail, screaming “they’re going to stick us! They’re going to stick us! Run faster!” They reappear below us where the 2 trails meet and did the universal stick their tongues out and put their hands by their ears and go “neener neener” sign. We laugh, Carlos yells, “hey we’ll be back down the mountain soon with those shots.” And we keep on walking.

10:30am: We made it! We were officially at the highest point of Palto Alto. Now I know this just because my host dad said that his aunt lives at the furthest house up the hill and I was greeted by a “Julia get over here, that gringa that you’re nephew was talking about is here!” So after a few moments of staring me up and down and a few “she’s not blonde like that other gringo” remarks we took their birthdates, Identification numbers, and asked what level of education they had, and then followed the trail loop back down the mountain passing house per house asking for the same information for every member of Palto.

11:30am: The rain starts?? Now I had mentioned before that the rainy season had left us…well apparently I lied. The rain began to fall at a somewhat steady pace, thankfully not pouring, for the rest of the day.

12:05pm: We finally had doubled back to the primary school and arrived to the deer in the headlights stares of about 20 kids praying like hell that we weren’t carrying vaccines in my bag. Then the doctor made a really bad joke about having a shot for everyone, and left me and the nurse attempting to reassure them that the doctor’s really bad at jokes and that they have nothing to worry about. The doctor then began to ask each kid if they were feeling sick or had any pain so that we could give them medicine.

Now here I will point out that I think we medicate WAY too much at our Health Center. Whenever anyone has a slight pain or cold they come running to the Health Center for a shot or pills…its way overkill and is probably doing more harm than good…but it makes people feel like the Health Center is doing its job. I mean we all feel like the doctor’s a waste of time when we go in for an appointment and he says, “Oh it’s just a cold, go home and get some sleep. Drink plenty of fluids.” The visit just doesn’t seem worth our time unless we leave with a diagnosis or medicine (other than sleep or fluids). But then again, I don’t usually go to the doctor unless I’m on the verge of dying, in way too much pain, or my mom and dad have convinced me that I’m sick enough to warrant a doctor’s visit…guess that’s what sets me apart from my towns people here. Here it’s the slightest sniffle and it’s off to the Health Post for you!

But back to the story, we gave out anti-parasite meds to every student (a MUCH needed treatment for these kids) and then cold meds, rash ointments, lice shampoo, and a few other pills to the kids who said they were feeling sick. We also gave out iron supplements to a few girls who’s eyes were a pale yellow—probably resulting from a lack of meat (and thus iron) in their diet. We didn’t have enough iron supplements to go around (we gave the ones we had to the girls first but ran out for the boys) so luckily Carlos and I are returning later in the week to treat the water and will bring more supplements to the boys.

1:30pm: We finished up with the school and headed further down the mountain to visit more houses. So this trail we’re walking on. It’s not really a trail. A trail would imply that it’s…somewhat plane, that is it’s relatively even aside from the random rock or tree stump…oh no, this is not a trail. So what happens here in rural Peru during the rainy season is that people still need to do their everyday work—even when the trail is not a trail and it is mud. That involves moving their cows from one pasture to another so they can eat…in the mud. Which leaves these HUGE hoof-mark-pot-holes all over the trail--The result you might ask? Well it’s something like a Swiss cheese effect. So as we’re walking/falling down this steep trail of Swiss cheese the added difficulty is trying not to sprain an ankle or knee (yeah it was fun for my bad knee…).

2:35pm: GRINGA DOWN!!! So like I said, Swiss Cheese trails are hard to walk on, made even further complicated by the surprise rain storm turning the firm Swiss cheese of a trail into melting Swiss cheese of a trail. Well I was trying my damndest to not fall…I said trying, I didn’t say succeeding. Ok so to my credit I didn’t fall. I slipped. The melting Swiss cheese swallowed my boot whole into a crevasse of mud. Now my first reaction was to laugh…I mean what else can you do when you’ve been swallowed whole up to your knee (on just one side of your body) by the mud and are currently doing an awkward split in the middle of a trail in the rain? Yeah, you just laugh, and then you make sure nothing’s broken. Thankfully nothing was broken or twisted. The guys helped me out of the hole and we kept on trekking.

4:00pm: We’re all really hungry. Not sure if you’ve noted…but nowhere in here has it mentioned eating lunch…that’d be because we didn’t. Now when I asked Carlos before we left if I’d need to pack a lunch he said no. I brought plenty of bread to last the day…if it had been just me eating it…but I’m nice and I shared it all with them for “breakfast.” So we’re all STARVING after a long day of hiking and not eating. By this time we have also run out of water. I had chlorine pills to treat water if we wanted to pick some more up, but we decided we were an hour from town, we could make it (it takes 30 minutes for the pills to work…so that’s half way home).

5:10pm: We make it back to town, stop in the store on the corner and beg for ice cold water. Rosa thankfully has a 2.5L Bottle cold and ready to serve! We put it on the Health Center’s tab, finish it in about 3 minutes and all head to our houses to shower and eat and sleep.

6:00pm: I’ve showered; I’ve eaten…well sort of. When I arrived at my house there was just rice left over from lunch, and I wanted more than rice! So I climbed the tree to the roof to grab an avocado that I had seen that morning and ate that with my lunch/supper.

6:10pm: The girls I’ve been tutoring with their math and painting with and teaching to play soccer show up at my house. “JENNY!!! Let’s go play soccer, come on!” I tried to explain nicely that I’d just hiked WAY to much today and was really tired and just wanted to sleep…that for some reason was just too hard to comprehend for these girls. I was saved by the bell…or rather by the donkey when Don Jose arrived from the farm and said that I needed to help him cook diner. The girls left, I didn’t’ have to help cook diner, I just slept in a chair until diner time then ate.

8:00pm: My tail was in bed asleep.

It was a long day, but it was a lot of fun! I’ll call it Inca Trail prep work.

Wait…I’m Not a Water-Sanitation Volunteer?!?

The past few weeks have been full of work--which is awesome after a very, very, very slow rainy season that was lacking in anything and everything work related. I’ve been helping a neighbor with a training packet for the new Preschool teacher’s (called the PRO NEI schools here) and giving them some…gulp…English training books. Basically I’ve been making a list of English words that are preschool level (apple, orange, dog, cat…) with their translations and a phonetic way of saying them (which is accomplished by me saying the word and getting a friend to write it how she thinks it sounds). Then I’ve been translating (note a theme here?) a arts and crafts book for the teachers as well. So that’s been taking up a lot of my morning and night time, passing a few hours a day in front of my computer making everything look pretty.

Then of course I’ve been doing things outside, because we all know how much I hate to pass a whole day in front of a computer (duh that’s why I’m in the Peace Corps). I’m still working on my garden, trying to find someone to help me fence it in. I’d do it myself, but it involves wielding a machete and I’m rather fond of my fingers and toes, so I figure I’ll leave the cutting of the bamboo to a professional…or at least to someone with experience. I’m also still working on sanding off the paint on the mural. That project is moving way slower than I thought it was going to—caused mainly by the black paint being made of some super strong chemical that has caused it to fuse with the cement and thus not want to come off. Come to think of it it’s probably the lead in the paint that causes that reaction…yay cancer here I come!

I’ve also been helping Carlos, our Lab Technician and local water sanitation manager go to each water collection/treatment center in a few of the caserios. Now I’m not a Wat-San (that’s Peace Corps short hand for water and sanitation) volunteer, but as most of you have figured out reading these blogs, our roles as volunteers seem to overlap quite often. Thus I find myself working on many of the same projects as other group’s volunteers (latrines, water systems, gardens, trash programs) because they all involve protecting people’s health. But I’ve gotten the crash course in wat-san over the past week. It’s been great fun, and quite the eye opening experience. It really is amazing what you can do with a few miles of PVC piping and some cement.