Just Like Old Times

So while the past 2 weeks have been full of ups and downs, I’m going to be positive and focus on the ups for this blog entry (even though I’m so frustrated with a few people in my site I could scream…I’ll avoid that…). And not just any good ol ups, but ones that remind me of when I was a little kid making them even better!

I’ve finally gotten the Health Center to buy some paint to start a mural at the entrance to my town. I was a little disappointed when they told me it had to be about the new insurance plan for below the poverty line farmers (which is about 85% of my site) and not a really cool protect the environment mural I drew up…but hey, I get to paint so I’m happy. But not only did I finally get the materials I need, I now have helpers!! Some local girls have befriended me--yes I know have friends in site above the age of 5 who aren’t grownups-- and decided they wanted to help. So after helping a few of them with their math homework, which was kinda like pulling teeth since at first they just wanted me to give them the answers (a big ol no-no in my book) and then just wanted to guess (ugh), but after an hour they had started to get the hang of the Foil technique--ya’ll remember that one? We called it the Coke man and the Pepsi man or the Lobster claw too…if that helps jog any memories.

So once all 11 of the homework problems were complete we headed to their houses to ask for permission to head off with the gringa to clean around the wall the murals going on. I can only describe my interactions with one of their mothers as me being the 18 year old boy showing up at the house to take their 15 year old daughter out on a date… needless after convincing them that 1. Their child would not get into any trouble, 2. We were just going down the street, and 3. They’ll be home before dark (any of this ringing a bell from when ya’ll were kids?? Or mom, sound familiar?). We headed down the street to get to cleaning. My new friends Talia, Patty, and Jakie were super excited about helping the gringa clean…still not sure why they were so excited about cleaning…but whatever, its enthusiasm.



Once we arrived at the mural wall (which is currently painted—very badly might I add—with an old insurance plan advertisement) I divided up tasks. I let the girls get to scrubbing the paint off of the cement wall with the worlds thickest sand paper (it’s meant for sanding metal) and I put on my work gloves and got to chopping down the thorn-bushes that were overgrowing the wall. Now I can remember as a child wanting to do whatever my daddy was doing in the yard (well aside from mowing…that never looked appealing), be it weeding, mulching, spreading pine straw, or trimming bushes. It was all the better if I got to wear his old work gloves that were WAY to big for my hands, we’ll call it the “work glove effect.” Well apparently it’s the same for these girls—except I’m not their dad, I’m just the friendly neighborhood volunteer. They quickly grew very bored with sanding saying that I had the better job and they wanted to try it. So after insisting that they would work with one glove each (I only had a pair with me) and that Talia was big enough to handle the shovel, I let them at it. You would have thought they were playing instead of actually doing work. Giggling like the little girls they are (ok they’re 11 and 12, but still that’s pretty little) and squealing whenever a thorn gets the better of them. We only had one minor injury, a thorn decided to attack Patty’s toe, she went in flip flops even after I told her shoes were a better idea—“but my sandals are cute, tennis shoes are for boys”— the thorn was quickly removed with the help of my Leatherman, another thing they quickly fell in love with and decided to play with for a good 10 minutes.



But after being COVERED in paint and cement dust and our fair share for thorn scratches, I decided it was time to head back to get the girls home at the time I told their parents they’d be returning (I may be living in Peru but I’m still not a fan of the Peruvian Time…aka being 30 minutes to an hour late for anything). But my adventure was not ending with the walk home, oh no. As we are about half way back, the bus that takes people to Chiclayo was passing by. These girls squealed (rather screeched) with embarrassment—after all we were all covered in dust and dirt and apparently boys just can’t see us looking like that. The following scene is straight out of a teenybopper made for Disney film, but still funny: Jackie, the oldest of the group at 16 quite literally grabbed my arm and spun me around and then hid behind me as if that made her invisible to the bus rather than actually calling attention to herself (just imagine Elmer Fudd hiding behind a tree when Bugs Bunny looks in his direction) while Talia and Patty dove into the ditch…yes people, they dove.

Now the gringa is extremely confused at this point, because as I’m sure my mom and daddy will point out, I was extremely proud whenever I came back inside all dirty from helping my dad in the yard—it meant I had been working hard. However mad it mad my mom when dad and I would come in covered in yard clippings…to me, it was a badge of honor. But oh no, to these girls it was like pouring pig blood on them during the school dance…I know I just wasn’t a girly girl when I was little—but still, this reaction seemed a little over kill to me.

After the bus incident they giggled and were red the whole 10 minute walk back talking about how embarrassing it was that the boys saw them covered in dirt. Now I thought that that might be the last I’d see of them (since they seemed to hate people seeing them all dirty) but once we got to the first of their houses they asked “so what time are we going to clean tomorrow??” So I’ve decided while these girls act like they hate showing off their hard work (in dirt form) to the boys in town, they really think its super cool to be working with the gringa in site. That made me feel good. I’m glad I can pass on the “work glove effect” to Peruvians here in my site.



Now on a completely different, well ok not completely different note. Another childhood memory that was brought into light today (the 12th of April) was Ant Farms. Ya’ll remember those? The 2 pieces of Plexiglas held together by the green plastic with little tractors and a barn inside. You filled it with sand and then captured ants from the back yard and held them captive in their feeding them bread crumbs and cereal and giving them water with the little water dropper? Ok well I’m just going to hope I’m not the only one who thought it was cool. But I remember the coolest part was always looking at their tunnels, they’re cool and twisty, and just all around an engineering feat that they don’t collapse.

Ant Farms are cool when they’re contained in Plexiglas. When you discover one inside of the 50Kg (that’s about 110lbs) bag of sugar we keep in the front room… not so much. I went to go and grab sugar last night just like normal. Take the measuring cup out of the bag of rice, dunk it in the bag of sugar (without looking like normal) and find a MOUNTAIN of ants. Now, this was a new bag of sugar. I was used to the old one not having anything living in it and thus not needing to look inside before scooping out the 2 cups of sugar we’d be needing to sweeten tea for 20 people. But oh apparently this bag had been deemed ant-topia by the queen ant herself. So after letting a girly scream escape from my mouth (yes I’m ashamed it happened, but I wasn’t expecting to meet the entire crew of the Pixar film Antz before supper time) and dropping the measuring cup (that was more full of ants than sugar) to the floor I decided maybe I should take a second to admire their work. I turned around to flip on the light switch and grabbed the flashlight and shinned it into the 4 foot tall paper bag. Much like my ant farm…just I could only see the first few layers of tunnels that I had disturbed in grabbing sugar.

After admiring for a few seconds I decided I should let my host family know that the big ol bag of sugar had things living in it. Now I’m not sure what I was expecting their reaction to be. I mean, I know if my mom in the states had found that our sugar had equal parts ants to sugar it’d be one of 2 reactions: 1. She’s immediately throw it out into the garbage, or 2. She’s walk it down the street into the vacant lot and throw it there out of fear that the ants would reenter the house made that we’d disturbed their home and ruin everything. But my host mom just looked at me and said, “Ok, well go back and grab as much sugar as you can without ants and let’s put it in the drink.” I must have had the “you want me to do what with the huh?” face on because she repeated her request and I went back to grab more sugar…with less ants if possible. I tried to shake the bag a little—you know scare them out of their holes before I plunged my hand in—but this is a 110lbs bag of sugar, it didn’t budge. So I just did the quick dive and scoop maneuver and came out with an…I’ll say 85-15 ratio of sugar to ants and walked back into the kitchen to see what would happen next. My mom took the sugar, dumped it in the pot, and then handed my host dad a spoon and said to mix the sugar in and take the ants out when they floated to the top.

Yeah, I didn’t drink tea last night.

You Know You're A Redneck When...

So it all started day 2 here in Nanchoc, Cajamarca, which is a town fairly comparable to my Mother’s home town of Pikeville, NC. It’s a small agricultural town that’s more or less in the middle of nowhere and about an hour drive from “civilization.” Yeah, they’re about the same. If you re read that sentence you have no idea which of the 2 I’m talking about…I will say this, at least we have cell phones and internet in Pikeville.

But back to day 2, one of the Doctors at my health post made the rather large mistake of calling me a Yankee. Now to his defense, most Peruvians think that we (that’d be us gringos) are all from New York and therefore are Yankees…Needless to say after a fruitless 2 hours of explaining that I am most certainly not a Yankee, and that Yankee’s are from the north, still no breakthrough had been made. At about hour marker 3 the phrase Redneck came into light. People from the north: Yankees. People from the south: Rednecks. We didn’t get into how that’s not so true anymore due to all of the damn Yankees (which are another breed of Yankee) that move to the south—case and point: Cary, NC. But Redneck was a phrase that just didn’t translate with all of the cultural differences (no matter how literal of a phrase it might be), I tried to explain that a Redneck is much like a person from the mountains here (aka old school farmers), but that too did not translate the signification. In the end they were content with me just explain that it’s a saying for people from the south that live in the country. And that was that. Never brought up again.

Flash forward to my 5th month here in site. I’m working in my garden, and now understand the song lyric “loving me will be like working unbroken ground” because this dirt is TOUGH as all get out! But I’ve been picking and shoveling away at this 10ft by 15ft chunk of land for about a week now—tilling, putting cuy poop in the soil, all that good stuff to make my veggies grow nice and yummy and I’m basically done. But as you all know, no matter how much SPF my sunscreen has or how often I apply it, this white girl’s going to burn. It’s practically a proof in math (yeah math people I’m going there): If there is sun, then Jenny will burn. No doubt or question about it. It will happen. On day 3 of working I switched from my normal t-shirts (al la NCSU logo) to a quick dry t-shirt that had a different neck line—thus exposing my burned neck and the Doctors had a realization, “OH THAT’S WHY YOU’RE CALLED REDNECKS: one of them belted. Why by George I think they’ve got it!



So after a quick 5 minute conversation explaining that yes, most white people burn when exposed to the sun for a larger amount of time, even my mother and brother (two of the tanner people I know) have the ability to burn, they got it. Rednecks because our necks are red. Tada. So apparently sometimes all it takes to cross cultural boarders here in Peru is a little bit of sunburn. Who would have thunk it?

Belly Side Up

Being in the Peace Corps has given me a lot of…down time. It’s not a bad thing—let’s face it, life just moves way to fast in the US anyways, we could all use to slow down a little bit. But my down time has given me a chance to think about a lot of things in life. (Now to those of you who know me, which I’m betting is 99% of the people reading my rantings, you all know better than to expect something profound to follow that statement) And the one part of life that has particularly caught my attention during this rainy season is as follows:

Why is it when you find a dead cockroach they are always on their backs?


(Ok so this ones in a smear on the wall cause I smushed him)

Ok so you’re all glad to see I haven’t let any of you down, and that I’m still not a very pensive person…well I guess it depends on your definition of pensive, because I think this is a very important question that requires some thought.

But seriously, hear me out people. During the rainy season the cockroaches have headed into our house (which at times resembles the outside of the house due to a few lil holes in the roof and muddy floors) to escape the water. Now I will say my attitude towards cockroaches has changed DRASTICALY since moving into my first first-floor apartment (aka easy access for cockroaches) when I literally screamed and chucked a chaco at a cockroach that was flying in my living room (yeah who knew they could fly?). Now when I see a cockroach, especially if it’s a big one, I take a second to admire its size or the clicking noise they make when they walk on wooden doors before squishing it flat with whatever is at hand—a chaco, a rainbow, a Spanish dictionary. And they are everywhere, luckily they tend to stay in the hallways…or at least that’s where I see them the most so I’m going to pretend like they aren’t in my room… so I have a clear shot at squishing them.

But for some unknown reason a lot of them are dying—on their own. And it’s not like they’re the grandpa cockroaches that have lived out their long life snacking on dead bugs and or the candy that people have sent me and have then died of natural causes. I’ve seen a BIG ol cockroach, he was probably a granddaddy, the ones we’re seeing that are dead are tiny. Like cricket sized. And the sight of all these dead little cockroaches was enough for my host dad to ask if I’ve bought poison and that’s why they’re dying. No, I haven’t been poisoning them…but it’s a good idea…

But back to the dead ones, they are ALWAYS, without exception, on their backs. I asked my host dad why that is and I got the standard Peruvian “I don’t know gesture” (that would be to turn your head to one side, make a frownie face, and throw your hands up by your shoulders and raise your shoulders all at the same time while saying “ehh”). With my dad, who usually knows the answers to such random gringa questions a gasp, it lead me to do some thinking on my own.

Why are dead cockroaches always on their back?? Ok so I thought of the obvious connection between that and the 1920s mobster’s saying “he’s belly up” when talking about a dead guy (hey that’s pretty good considering I don’t have Google to help me think up these things in site) but still sans an explanation of WHY they do it. I will admit to turning off the light in the hallway and waiting on one to come out and croak (which is another thing I’ve thought of. Why is dying a frog noise as well?? But that’s another blog) and die on their backs. Sadly I didn’t see the death of a single cockroach, I did however kill a tarantula, and they roll up into a ball when they die— no matter how hard you hit them with your shoe!

So some hypothesis I’ve come up with (in a very unscientific manner):
1. They do a back flip in the moment of their death as a result of their muscles spazzing, and like how bread always lands butter side down, cockroaches always land leg side up.
2. They are super dramatic about their deaths (think cartoon deaths) and do the “oooh” “uuuuh” “arrrrrrgh” with accompanying hand gestures and grabbing at their chests (do they have chests?) and then do the standard twirl and flip landing with their legs up in the air and let out a “sigh” as their eyes roll into the back of their flat heads.
3. The ants are faster than me (they love to eat a dead cockroach) and always arrive before me to the scene of the death and flip the cockroach onto its back to prepare it to be carried away for consumption. Now the only flaw to this is that usually I see the dead cockroach without his ant predators.
4. It’s a trick my host dad’s playing on me with every single cockroach in the house just to see how observant the gringa is. (Ok so this is the most highly unlikely option between all of these. Not only because my dad is a neat freak and hates cockroaches, but because he can’t hardly see so find them all)
Yeah, I’ve been using my down time to its fullest extent in contemplating these occurrences. Now I know what some of you are thinking: Yes I could be using my down time to write a book (haha ok yeah we all know better), or solve some unsolvable math problem (yeah my math people know better-I like ‘em when they have an answer I can prove…and not in proof form), or perfect my Spanish (I’m gonna need more than 2 years to do that) rather than pondering the deaths of cockroaches, however comical the real answer could be. But hey, I’m a 23 year old with a 10 year olds amusement level. I still find bodily functions comical after all. Even more so since joining the Peace Corps—a Parasite is way more amusing than a fart, especially when they are put together!

A Glass Half Empty Can Occasionally be Half Full

So I love country music, most of you reading this are well aware of that fact and either love me or hate me for it. And people may say that its only music about trucks, fishing, heart break, or a dog…ok I’ll be the first to admit that that’s a good part of it, but some of its deep people!

One of my new favorite groups is Lady Antebellum, they’re a little new school for country, but have good instrumentation and the lead singer has a great voice—plus they write their own stuff, so that’s awesome. Well they have a new song called “I Was Here” and it basically embodies all the reasons I wanted to come to the Peace Corps. I wasn’t naive enough to think that I was coming to change the world, after all one person cannot change the world (no matter how highly some of ya’ll think of Obama—even he can’t do it, accept it). I didn’t come here thinking that I was going to drastically change everything for the better in my new community and everyone was going to love me and the Peace Corps. I’m a glass half empty kinda person on most days. I prefer to think of it not as seeing the world negatively, rather I’m a realist. I know my limitations and the limitations of man as a race. But with this song I get a glimpse of my glass half full side.

While I’m a realist, I have idealistic tendencies every now and again. I want to see change in the world, I want to help my community, I want them to like me and work with me to make our community better. And I think that this song just embodies how that change will be done.

You will notice me,
I’ll be leaving my mark like initials carved in an old oak tree
You wait and see
Maybe I’ll write like Twain wrote, Maybe I’ll paint like Van Gogh
Cure the common cold, I don’t know
But I’m ready to start because I know in my heart

I wanna do something that matters
Say something different
Something that sets the whole world on its ear
I wanna do something better with the time that I’ve been given
And I want to try to touch a few hearts in this life
And leave nothing less than something that says
I was here

I will prove you wrong if you think I’m all talk
You’re in for a shock because this dreams too strong
And before too long
Maybe I’ll compose symphonies; Maybe I’ll fight for world peace
Cause I know it,s my destiny to leave more than a trace of myself in this place

I wanna do something that matters
Say something different
Something that sets the whole world on its ear
I wanna do something better with the time that I’ve been given
And I want to try to touch a few hearts in this life
And leave nothing less than something that says
I was here


And I know that I will do more than just pass through this life
I’ll leave nothing less than something that says:
I Was Here

After all we were told a story of a Peace Corps Volunteer in India. After the end of his service when asked if he felt that he was productive he replied that he didn’t accomplish anything, he failed as a volunteer. Many years later, the Indian government was doing a dental health survey, and found one small pocket of their population that had wonderful dental health. When they asked the local population why they had such good teeth an old man replied:

“There was this American who lived here years ago that would brush his teeth in the public water well every day, he told us it was a good idea.”

He made a difference, he was there. Guess I’m seeing things a lil more Half Full now a days.

a few photos that are un related just to jazz this thing up

Me and Erica decided to make salsa on the floor of our hotel room



Erica digging into the salsa and chips a la super market

Actual Conversations...AKA too Good to Make Up

(With Peace Corps Medical Doctor)
Me: Hi Suni, its Jenny Schwartz.
Suni: Hi Jenny, tell me, how are you?
Me: actually right now I’m pretty sick
Suni: Tell me what is happening with you
Me: Well, my stomach really hurts, especially after I eat and it’s been going on for about 3 days.
Suni: What kind of pain are you having? Is it a cramping or a stabbing?
Me: When I’m not eating it’s a cramping, when I am eating its stabbing.
Suni: When are you having these pains while you are eating or within 30 minutes of eating?
Me: While I’m eating and it lasts for usually an hour after eating
Suni: Are you having diarrhea?
Me: no
Suni: Are you with vomiting?
Me: no, but after eating I feel like I’m going to, I just hate throwing up, so I have managed not to so far
Suni: hmm… Are you with a fever?
Me: Um I don’t think so
Suni: Do you have pain in your head?
Me: No
Suni: Hmm, this is abnormal. Ok, do you have a health post in your town?
Me: Yes
Suni: With a lab?
Me: Yeah, but the lab tech is on vacation until the day after tomorrow
Suni: …hmm, ok well if you can wait until he gets back have him do a stool sample and a blood test and get me the results.
Me: ok
Suni: Here is what I want you to do for me. Take your temperature every 4 hours and if it is high please call me back immediately. Also, please eat just bland food, potatoes, rice, and chicken soup. Where are you exactly?
Me: In the pay phone in my town
Suni: No, where is your site
Me: Oh, Nanchoc, Cajamarca, but I’m closer to Chiclayo than Cajamarca City
Suni: Oh, ok. Do you have internet in your site?
Me: Haha, no. No internet
Suni: Then I will call your cell phone in 2 days to hear your results
Me: Suni, we don’t have cell phone either
Suni: Oh, ok. Then I will call this number back in 2 days
Me: They usually don’t come by to tell me when I have a phone call, so I will just come back here and call you when the lab guy gets back and has my test results…assuming we’ll still have electricity in 2 days.
Suni: Ok… well I will be waiting to hear from you and your results.
Me: Thanks Suni
Suni: Feel better

Date of conversation: 24th of Feb.
Date of Lab guy’s return: 26th of Feb
Results of lab tests: TBA

(With Nanchoc Health Center’s Doctor—translated into English)
Dr. Freddy: what are you working on?
Me: My Diagnostic
Dr. Freddy: you’re working on your own diagnostic?
Me: Yeah I just talked to Walter in the lab about a few things to help me with my diagnostic
Dr. Freddy: why isn’t Walter doing your diagnostic?
Me: Because it’s my job to do my own diagnostic, all the Peace Corps people are doing one in their city
Dr. Freddy: wait, you all have to do your own diagnostic? Why aren’t the lab guys doing it for you?
Me: Because it’s a way for us to get to know our community
Dr. Freddy: …having a parasite is a way to get to know your community?
Me: What?
Dr. Freddy: You need to have a parasite to get to know your community better? And you all have to do the lab diagnostic yourselves? Those are weird rules
Me: umm Dr. Freddy, I was talking about my community diagnostic, remember I asked all those moms those questions…I just wanted to stuff on parasites from Walter.
Dr. Freddy: Oh, so Walter is running your parasite diagnostic, not you?
Me: yeah, I’m not a lab technician
Dr. Freddy: yeah…I’m going to go eat lunch now, my head hurts
Me: ok, I’ll be working on my diagnostic
Dr. Freddy: [rolls his eyes]

Final Lab Results: no parasite
Next Step: wait and see if it gets better on its own…my mom’s going to pass an egg over me tomorrow (don’t ask it’s a Peruvian get better thing…)

I'm A Big Girl Now!

It’s Feb 17th, and as most of you know IT’s MY BIRTHDAY!! Woo. Ok so I tried to play down how much I really love birthdays here in Peru because a Peruvian birthday party involves a lot of drinking, dancing, eating, and drinking…and usually last until 6am. So to try and avoid

1. Drinking—I don’t drink in my site, everyone here thinks I hate the taste of beer…well it’s not all a lie. I hate the taste of Peruvian beer, so that makes the white lie ok right?
2. Dancing—I don’t dance here either…well ok I really don’t dance much in the states either, so that’s not changing much. Besides Cumbia and Whiano (the popular music here) aren’t very interesting to dance too. Think about your 5th grade graduation party, where everyone danced by moving side to side and throwing in the occasional twirl or hand jive…well that’s Peruvian Cumbia dancing…yeah fun.
3. Staying awake until 6am—I’m almost always ready to fall asleep by 10pm. It’s a combination of I’m now an “old fogie” (ok so 23’s not that old…but still) and the possible parasite that I’ve got making me really tired. (the parasite may or may not be a joke…we’ll find out in a month when I get back to civilization to see a doctor that speaks English)

But to give you all a rundown of my Peruvian Birthday:

At 5:30am I woke up to the sound of our donkey hee-hawing his way into the Guinness Book of World Records for the loudest donkey. And at 5:31am my host dad fled the house running in his PJs (not only was the donkey yelling, he was making a break for it—he’s notorious for running away). So its way before dark, the sun usually rises around 6:20, and I’m in no mood to leave my bed, I have a rule where no matter how early I wake up, I stay in bed until I see a lil sun (usually 6:20)—unless of course I have to use the bathroom (I drink a ton of water here), then I’ll get up before.

But at 6:00 my host niece who’s still here (they planned to only visit for 4 days, that was 3 weeks ago…) began singing “happy birthday” in English…well ok it was “hoppi berduy a wuu” because her English isn’t that great and she’s only 5, so I’m going to go ahead and just give her credit for trying. She entered the room quite literally with a bang—my door tends to stick, so in the process of opening it she slammed to the floor, still singing might I add. What a trooper. But after a few minutes of struggling with my mosquito net she finally managed to crawl into my bed with me to “descansar por un ratato” (that’s to rest for a while.) she apparently woke up at 5 asking her mom if it was time to sing me happy birthday.

7:00 we finally decide to leave my bed (and I notice that she had her shoes on and I now need to do laundry because my sheets are COVERED in mud…) and help cook for the people who eat at my house. Because today we didn’t have the normal 14 guys working at the mine. Oh no. They had diminished to 6 yesterday, and I was super excited to only have 6 of them eating at the house—less work, less smell. But at 7:15 the boss man of the mine came saying that he found 16 new guys to work until the end of the month, and they’d all be here at 8:30 to eat. Then at 7:45 the head of the electric company that’s been trying to get us constant electricity came to say that they wanted 18 lunches…so let’s do some math people. 14-8=6, 6+16=22, 22+18=40 yeah count it, 40 people eating at my house…oh wait. 4-+Dona Julia+Don Jose+Ingrid+Isabela+Don Alfonzo+Me=46. Did I forget to mention that my host mom is also a miracle worker?

8:55 (aka 8:30 in Peruvian Time) all the 22 guys from the mine show up to eat their breakfast. They leave within 15 minutes of being served…it’s literally like watching pigs eat, food is flying, chicken bones and thrown, rice is dropped, soup is spilled…its just a mess.

9:55 all the plates and tables are now clean and Dona Julia can start preparing lunch for the army. I head to the health center to say hi to my friends. They are all waiting and have a Birthday Hug waiting in addition to a Brittney Spears CD…they think that all Americans love her…so I acted surprised and happy…it’s going to make a great spatula to take paint off a wall one day, just not a good listen. But I pass the morning with the Health Center, half talking about the united states, half way talking work (it’s my birthday so they said I can’t talk much work)

12:00 I return to help prepare for the frenzy. I put all the cups out (we only have 20, thank goodness that they were already planning to eat in shifts) and plates and put napkins with the spoons (yeah we only eat with spoons) and then at 12:30 the “wave of smell” as my host sister put it, arrived. These dudes stink! But I’m not going to focus on that because this is about my birthday
By 3 we were all done with the cleaning and I had time to make my cake!!! I fixed a Peruvian Carrot Cake, it’s Peruvian because the ingredients are different, so the taste is a lil different.

At 5 my host mom and sister began cooking supper for the miners, and a special supper for me—Aji de Gallina!!!! Aka my favorite food here in Peru, it’s shredded chicken in an pepper, bread, cheese, and milk sauce served with potatoes and rice (yeah its got a ton of carbs in it, but I LOVE IT!)

8:00 my birthday party! All of the Health Center came over to my house to eat my favorite food, with my favorite cake from the states, what a great combination. We sat and talked and joked around for a few hours. Mainly talking about funning instances when they weren’t able to understand me during my time here and the confusion that the misunderstandings caused. But all and all a good time was had, and by 11 my host family and I were washing dishes so we could head to bed.

What a great birthday. I know that my mom and dad (and probably brother) missed me on my birthday, I for sure missed them, but my Peruvian family took really good care of me and went to extra lengths to make sure that I had good food to eat.

Learning Things...Medically

So as much as I don’t like the guys that work at the mine above my town, I must thank them for today’s lesson:
How to sew stitches.

Now before Michael Hirsh (the director of Peace Corps Peru) has a conniption and kicks me out of the program. I didn’t learn on a person! Let me tell the story before I get kicked out for practicing medicine (cause I totally didn’t on a person)

Ok so the story is needed. I was discussing how smelly these men at the mine are with the pharmacy technician in my town as we were collecting materials to go to the neighboring towns as the king of smelly walks in covered in blood accompanied by our lab technician who was about 3 seconds from fainting. We won’t get into why our lab technician can’t stand the sight of blood… but yes, this guy has a 6 inch gash in his arm and in his wisdom decided to tie off his arm with his shoe lace so that he could walk the 45 minutes from the mine to the Health Center (yeah the mine didn’t want to take him in the truck because it’s a waste of gas…).

So I had 2 reactions to this sight: 1. Oh dear lord that’s a ton of blood why did we have blood sausage for lunch, and 2. Cool! So I decided to let the emotions in reaction 2 take the wheel and follow the doctors into the exam room to do my usual helpful tasks (hand them the stuff they need or hold an IV because I’m taller than they are…basically act like furniture). Due to the fact that we didn’t have electricity and I’m an amazingly prepared Peace Corps volunteer I was asked to put my headlamp on and stare at this guys gash while holding an IV above my head. Yes I hope you all have a mental picture going…because I can assure you that it was a funny sight. Oh I forgot to mention this was at 7pm, aka time that the sun goes down in Peru so that’s why the Gringa’s headlamp was needed. This guy walked in with a 6in long, penetrating stab basically from a rock that shattered as he was picking it up. After getting the rock pieces out of the flap of skin (yeah it was cool to watch, just glad it wasn’t my arm because our numbing injection wasn’t helping the guy too much at this point). But I’m watching the doctor sew this guy up and let me tell you people it’s not as easy as it looks on Grey’s Anatomy people…at least not with hard Peruvian campo skin. Well apparently had a look of awe or “algo asi” (something like that) because the doctor asked me if I wanted to try. After explaining that we weren’t allowed to practice medicine in the Peace Corps (aka do anything doctor-y) and the look of “oh god please no” fell off the injured guy’s face Dr. Alex said afterwards I’d get to practice. I had no clue on what at this point--I was just too busy staring at this gash to provide light to question.

So after a good 45 minutes of sewing (this was a killer gash) and the guy’s all clean and “juntando” (together in one piece) and we explained that “no sir you cannot go back to work right now, you have a 6 in penetrating STAB wound from your work and you’re whole hand is numb…of course you can’t go back to work today you idiot” (ok we didn’t say it exactly like that…but it had that effect) Dr. Alex said it was time to practice. Me and the pharmacy technician decided to follow suit, with equal “what’s about to happen” stares. We close up the health center (it closes at 7 anyways) and went to a neighboring house where Dr. Alex asks about the ½ kilo of chicken that he asked for that morning (yeah you have to order your chicken in advance here so they can kill it and clean it) and walked back with his chicken to the Health Center.

Now to my Grey’s Anatomy fan friends, think the Christiana trying to help Burke with his hand episode. The Doctor cut the chicken to the bone and handed me a pair of gloves and the (cleaned) rest of this guys “sewing kit” and proceeded to instruct me on how to sew a stitch. It’s a lot easier on a chicken than it appeared to be on a person—so that made things easier. I don’t think it was the worst sewing job ever done in the history of the world…but it certainly wasn’t the prettiest. But the doctor said if the chicken wasn’t already dead and dismembered in 4ths that he probably would have survived with my sewing job…so that’s cool.

And no mom and dad, this does not mean I want to be a doctor—sorry, you’ll still have to look at Mike for the money in the family to pay for the really good nursing home for you guys. I’m the do-gooder—there’s never any money in that.