”If you’re going to San Francisco…”

The exchange rate in San Francisco, Peru is very good. In fact, it’s great! People are constantly sharing food, things, family members, you name it. And when it comes to currency, it’s even better!

All in all, our lives in rural Peru have been more than good to us. Now lets not sugar coat things–it’s been the most challenging four months to date, but I learned a lot about myself (everyone says this kinda stuff but it’s true), Peruvian culture and rural culture since living in this little pueblo. I learned how to weave on a backstrap loom, kill a pig, speak some Spanish, improvise like a champ, make gourmet meals out of randomness…

Saying good-bye to Carmen, Leo, Johnnie and Brayan was the hardest part of my last week. We’re actually, thankfully, meeting up with them again in Piura for Christmas with Curtis’ parents. Saying my farewells to my mud hut, all the animals and the beautiful community was suprisingly hard. I only really know how to say good-bye with one word (adios), but along with lots of hugs it sufficed.

The crazy thing, as I try to actualize this whole experience, is when I’m in other cities in the world, doing other random things with myself, Carmen and her family will be in the same place, rural Peru, taking a moment out of their day to kill palomitas (pigeons) with rocks ‘for their rich meat’ or to take Tico the donkey to the platano (plantain) fields.

This trip has emphasized, more than ever, that time is nothing but a concept we play into as organized societies looking to place people and events. But if you remove yourself from ”real time” for a minute or for months and join a place that has different rules, you’ll slow down and think a lot more than usual (maybe too much even) and start paying more attention to the people and environment around you (it’s a good thing but kinda scary sometimes).

Maybe in that slow time you’ll even reflect and remember all the people that have touched you (both literally and figuratively). Like that very soft and round woman you chatted it up with on the bus and then slept on like a baby for a few hours, or the cute girl that showed you how to get back home by referencing pigs, or the good family man who can grow a great garden, or the woman who treated you like her family for no other reason than she believed in you and ‘had a good feeling about you’.

Daisy Petunia Piglet

I will miss parts of San Francisco very much (others–no way!). But all in all, I’m ready to move forward and on to the next thing. Buenos Aires, Argentina here we come!!! Curtis and I aren’t exactly sure what we’re going to do there, but that’s the fun of it. Gaurunteed we’ll laugh a lot. We head out of Peru mid-January, so you should come visit! We’d love to have you (who ever you are).

And in the mean time, during those little quiet moments you get to yourself, slow down and reflect and remember all those that have touched you in life (this time not literally) and send them some love (I know it’s kinda corny but seriously, there’s some great people out there!). xoxox

Malu

Diana

San Francisco´s 10 Most Schocking Moments!

In keeping with the quick and friendly nature of the blog world, I’ve decided that there is no better way to relay a few of our experiences to date than with a top 10 list of our most memorable shocking moments. Of course, as you all know, we have been spending a lot of time working hard with our youth class and exchanging culturally within our community. But what fun would it be to always ramble on about our ¨genuine¨ times, when Carly and I really know that folks are more interested in the details of how we have tortured ourselves over the last few months. Instead of going on about accomplishments and perspectives, I thought we could all recap the last few months with a few good laughs…Enjoy.

1. Opening our bedroom door the first day to find a still-twitching-cow being bled-out and butchered on our front steps
2. Our surprise when we discovered that our in-country liaison had, while we were present (yet then unable to understand the Spanish), gone ahead and promised every member of our community that in no time we would be purchasing them all brand new fully functional toilets
3. The joy of discovering that our bedroom came fully furnished with two beds, a table and scorpions
4. The realization that when a group of Peruvians invite you for a drink, they assume you will be sharing their same cup and are insistent that you stay for longer than just one
5. Our surprise when we learned that the little chicks running around our yard enjoy eating fresh garden seedlings almost as much as we enjoy sweating for the weeks necessary to plant them
6. Experiencing ¨hands-on,¨ that when you offer to help the family prepare for the weekend fiesta, this means pinning down a 500lb. squealing pig at 5:30am while your toothless friend drives a butcher’s knife into its throat
7. The great debate as to whether the welts which persisted for weeks all over Carly’s body were the result of bed bugs or chicken pox
8. Learning that the young boy with Tourette´s Syndrome in our town had, after hearing my name, without control begun to make ¨Currrr-tis¨ his new most overly used word
9. Finding out that our one refuge for privacy, our mud-hut bedroom, ceased to be so exclusive after a family of bats took it upon themselves to begin sharing the space
10. Getting introduced to the roaming (several thousand strong and slightly plague-like) army of ants whose daily voyage often puts them on a course to “pass through” whomever’s home is in their way
    

    Roasting the Family Pig

Making Something Out of Nothing

What are my options? I sit and stare…

-some shallots

-1 egg

-a couple carrots

-flour (with worms in it)

-garlic

-potatoes

-oil

-and herbs (we don´t actually know which herbs they are but we think the South American tree seed achiote, cumin and possibly orégano. We could always use the packages of monosodium glutamate or MSG that we can easily find in every Bodega here to savor the flavor, if we need a little something extra in our lives…)

Everything edible here is white or beige, or a color in between the two. A typical plate here consists of white rice, fried plantains or yuca and if you live in a family that owns cows, cheese. Now don´t get me wrong, these are all very tasty things, but they are colorless options that offer zero nutrition (minus maybe the animal protein and calcium from the cheese, although the cheese here does also include what Peruvians call Aceite de Chanco, which means Oil of Pig a.k.a. lard straight from the bucket used when slaughtering the pig). It´s all delicious, but solely comprised of fat and carbohydrates. If you´re lucky, you find a colorful vegetable available now and then. So the fact that I have a couple carrots, is a real luxury. Who knew the color orange or any other color for that fact would effect me so much? Yes, I went to art school, but this is a whole different kind of composition.  

Our bellies are always full, but they lack proper nutrition. There is no fiber in SF. Barely any calcium. No vitamins. And rarely is there animal protein. Again, my carrot is the healthiest thing you can get your hands on. It gets me thinking…do I want to be a Nutritionist? I´m becoming obsessed with food and diet and the intricacies that make up each daily digestible composition. Once I stop complaining, I find exciting challenges out of preparing meals here–a fun exercise in critical thinking and problem solving. For the first few weeks in SF I said, “I’m not inspired to be creative. I’m not making any art.” But then I flipped that coin I spoke of earlier and found the other, more shiny side, to be full of answers.  

Cooking is my creative outlet. Creating something out of nothing is my art. So I´ve been recording what I´ve been making for my records and/or maybe even to share. Possibly in the future I´ll make a little book/helpful pamphlet for those who can´t cook, even when they have something to work with (like Valerie, the other volunteer in SF says about herself). It can be a little reference guide for the volunteer living in the mountains like me, working with rice and yuca, nada mas. Or for those life-long campers/yer not sure if they´re homeless people or just incessant couch surfing-bohemian types and/or the new college student looking to survive for the first time without mommy´s meals.  

Thanks to my mama and her mama for teaching me great tips and tricks for the cocina. Without their guidance or herb and spice tests on the kitchen counter as a kid, I wouldn´t be so lucky.  

So, I learned how to make home-made flour tortillas from my host mother Carmen one day and revived the recipe to exclude Aceite de Chanco add olive oil instead. I steamed and then sautéed my beloved carrots and some potatoes with shallots, garlic and cumin, which I served on top of the tortillas at room temperature so it made a kind of ensalada thing. Paired with the crispy crunchy dough disks (more like tostadas), it became an India-inspired meal, served in rural Peru and devoured in minutes. It´s not my mom´s cooking, but it was good and I had fun.  

All the food offered and prepared in SF is delicious, it just lacks variety and health. I don´t want to sound ungrateful. The meals we´ve shared here with people have been incredible, mostly because they offered us a place in their home and an opportunity to exchange with them. I´m thrilled to be living and sharing with such a kind community that would never let anyone starve or find themselves without a place to sleep or a family to care for them.  

We hope that our work to bring SF a community vegetable garden becomes a sustainable project that can help the people in our pueblo more easily access nutritional and varietal foods.

So keep your eyes peeled, you might find a little kitchen reference book available someday or you might be having a conversation with a new Nutritionist. Or maybe you´ll just be reminiscing with me about some of the cool things I learned while living in a rural community village in Peru.

Coming Down the Mountain

Back in the big city. What a treat to come back and find so many comments by friends and family. We love that everyone has been able to stay in touch with us while we are here.

What an incredible past month. I remember years ago when Ana (our Argentinian foreign exchange student) lived with us, she had a hard time adjusting to her new life in Vermont. At the time I recall my dad telling me how he´d heard it takes around two months for the average human body and mind to adjust to an environment and begin to accept it as their new home. Indeed after a couple months Ana settled in, learned a little English and seemed to enjoy herself far more. I´d say though the mind might only need a two month timeline, the body which sleeps on a straw mattress in a bed 10¨ too short might sometimes need a couple more weeks to figure things out.

Really I shouldn´t complain. But for few aches and pains the past month has been great. Every day we feel closer to our host family and community. This settling in period has allowed us to not only build relationships but also better understand the surprisingly complicated Peruvian lifestyle. As we´ve readily learned, we are not only facing cultural and language barriers but those presented as a result of living in a rural community as well. Spending a little extra time up there forcing ourselves to get adjusted turned out to be the right decision. My Spanish has improved, Carly has found her new passion in weaving, we´ve made a ton of progress on our garden and the youth classes have really had time to progress.

We were able to finish the formal segment of our classes this past week. Because Valerie had arrived so much earlier than us, she was able to get more of a jump start on the classes than we´d predicted. All 14 of our Youth Health Promoters took their final exams this past Friday. This means that the first stage of the MEJOR project has come to an end. When we return we will start new series of classes with the kids, teaching skills related to leadership and project planning. The hope is to then prepare a MEJOR community project which we will implement with the help of the students. Ideas for projects have spanned from building toilets to formalizing a trash and sanitation program. Our idea is to get the kids thinking about making improvements and implementing projects within their own community. Besides the project classes we will also begin a series of adult classes. This will give us a chance to pass on to the parents some of the same health and well being information we´ve taught to their kids.

Thanks for all the love. Carly and I will be in the city for the next week, so check out our new photos and shoot us an email.

A lesson learned…everyday

I thought you learned the bulk of really tough life lessons when you are a pimple-faced and defiant 13 or 14 year old.  Maybe at 18 years or so you have some more big lessons waiting for you like the ones where you learn your parents really do know what’s going on. Your early twenties definitely offer up some valuable lessons about drinking, school, work (or the lack there of). And your early twenties are usually about when you learn the big hard lesson of how to deal with a broken heart or for the really unlucky, how to deal with death. And then here you are, all of twenty-four, living in rural Peru thinking you’re special and you’re back to learning a lesson every day—minus the pimples (add some bed bug bites instead).

 I don’t know what I thought it would be like. That’s a lie—I glamorized the whole thing. Bungalows, hammocks, fluency in Spanish, romantic sunsets…we live in a mud house with no electricity and more cockroaches than you’ve ever seen in one place at a time. We cook by fire, shower outside in see through bamboo and plastic tarp and are stared at 24/7 for being the minority.

 The first two weeks were exhausting. I’m writing this entry from the big city of Piura, Peru about six hours away from little San Francisco, where we’re living. I’m procrastinating at the moment in an attempt to squeeze in just a few more minutes with modern technology. We head out of town and back to SF tomorrow morning around 6 am concluding our time with modernity for about a month or so.

 I am actually excited to return to our little Peruvian village tucked away in the mountains. But before we head back, I’m ready to face some certain truths about myself and the space around me…I don’t really like the custom of being polite and always having to eat what’s served to you—cow brain is too chewy and slippery to fake it! I do like taking showers outside in the sun with huge green mountains watching you. Mosquito nets are amazing. Rural living can be exciting. Access to doctors and dentists, whether you pay a butt-load or not, is absolutely wonderful and something to cherish. Everyone deserves a toilet. And little things like puppies are the best, but their fleas are the worst.

 I’m ready to suck it up and embrace all. We live with the kindest family who shares so much with us. Carmen giggles all the time and is always offering us food, Leo is always interested even if he can’t understand you, Bryan helps us out with our muddled Spanish, the chicks are always chiming little chicky songs and the sun is always shinning. There are two sides to every coin. I guess this coin is just a little rougher than the ones I’ve flipped before.

Forget off…we lost the grid!

Let´s just take a minute to describe the process one must undergo in order to get to or from Piura to San Francisco Peru. You wake up at 5am and hope that you purchased and packed everything the night before. A quick taxi ride brings you to the gas station at the edge of town. Eventually a not-o-so-large pickup truck lumbers into the parking lot somewhere around 6am. The mad dash ensues. In the United States a pickup like this wouldn´t be fit to deliver newspapers, but in Peru…hahah. Cases of beer, bags of rice, propane tanks, chickens and pigs along with your luggage all go on the bottom level. ¨You might ask but than good sir where am I to sit?¨ Well with those other 25 people on the 2×4´s we´ve got hovering above the side rails of the truck bed of course. This is funny at first, but 4 hours into the journey when the pig bellow you has only begun to chew on your shoe, your friend has dropped her wallet into the live basket of chickens and you realize there are still 2 hours to go, it stops being funny. Than your butt goes numb from bouncing up and down on a wooden plank.

Despite its lively method of public transportation, San Francisco is absolutely charming. In the 3 weeks we traveled through Peru before arriving here, Carly and I never saw such a beautiful or iconic place. Tucked into the hillside, in between two dramatic ridge lines SF is the romantic Peruvian village we had hoped for. The houses of mud/adobe with their tin roofs line the several main streets of town. Four little tiny stores supply the families of SF with corn, flower, eggs soap, all the essentials plus the occasional warm yet festive cerveza. Everyone farms or owns a store, nada mas. There is nothing else to do. The men tend to the pastures or fields while the woman make cheese and weave. Boy have we been lucky in landing in the right place for fresh foods straight from gods green pastures. Bananas, oranges, coffee, cocoa, eggs and cheese….what more could we want?

Though the beauty is striking, the best part of SF is its residents. Carly and I are so lucky to be living with Carmen, Leoncio and their energized 5 year old grandson Brian. Nice dosen´t begin to describe them, they are wonderful. As an example of their consideration, Leo is in the midst of constructing another room onto their home so that we may have somewhere to call a kitchen for to continue making miracles out of next to nothing. Though others constantly greet us with free fruits or neighborly gifts, Carmen and Leo are the kindest.

During the first week we were in SF, Leo´s father and two sisters happened to be staying with us. It was the first time Leo´s father had visited in over 5 years. In honor of this visit, Leo decided that nothing short of a fiesta would suffice. This meant that the first morning we were in SF, we awoke to find a new creature tied up to a tree no more than 5 feet from our front door. Assuming that the cow was a prize which Leo wished to show off to his father, we walked through our bamboo fence into the backyard to brush our teeth and freshen up. Upon returning to the front of the house, we discovered that our new cow friend had had his throat slit and was now being bled out into a the same bucket which I had just moments before considered using to wash my face. For 24 hrs. they hacked up the cow and slung portions of meat over every clothesline and fence in the yard. Several days later Leo purchased as many crates of beer as he could afford, Carmen served up huge platters of beef and a young man with a generator was hired to play the years most popular rural Peruvian hit soundtrack over and over again. We passed beers and danced for no less than 5 hrs. Of course the sporadic nature of mine, Carly´s and Valerie´s ¨gringo dance¨ was a subject of great popularity.

Tomorrow we head back into the hills to resume the great progress we have already made. We´ve completed 2 weeks of classes with our incredible group of teenage Youth Health Advocates, begun the first steps towards our large scale community project and made the first steps on our beautiful community as well as personal gardens. We hope everyone is enjoying the updates and look forward to hearing from friends and family when we get back to town in a few more weeks.

Into the Wild

Piura at last. Well it took us 2plus weeks, but we´ve finally landed in our home base from the hills. Over the course of the next 6 months, Piura will be our only monthly touch of society. I gotta say it ain´t that bad either. Hot water, some good restaurants and a movie theater, what more does one need when they come down from the mountains for a few days?

The greatest thing of all is that in less than 1/2hrs time after arriving in Piura, Carly and I bumped into our co-volunteer and best friend for the next 6 months Valerie. How great!! Val has already been living in our community for the last 2 months and seems to be alive and well, which bodes well for us. Accept for occasional bouts of boredom, it seems as though she´s been loving her life in San Francisco, Peru. What´s better yet is that she has already taught half of the classes we´ll be working on and is psyched about how things have been going. Seems like all the kids are kind and happy and that at most what they could use is a little extra encouragement to participate. I´m sure with great ideas like Carly´s ¨make your own kite project¨ we´ll have no problem inspiring a little outgoingness.

Some great news is that we´ve found out that we have a family to live with. Apparently we´ll be staying with Carmen, her daughter and two grandchildren, a 5 year old boy and 6 year old girl. We are so thrilled since it was up in the air for a little bit as to where we´d be staying. We spent all day today shopping for gifts for them and our class at Piura´s incredible open air market. I proudly have enough soccer balls and Lego’s to keep us all busy for at least the next month.

Tomorrow we´re up at 5am in order to catch a ride in the back of a pickup truck out of Piura and 5hrs into the mountains. We´re pretty nervous to find out just how remote a place San Francisco really is. We will be gone for at least the next 3 weeks, so know that any posting of comments or responses won´t be possible for a little bit. Remember to look for some great shots and updates from our new community in a couple weeks. We love you all and wish everyone safety and happiness. Wish us luck!!!

La Corrida de Toros

The highlight of our days spent in Cajamarca was the bull fight at Matara. Several times a day special cars with loudspeakers strapped to their roofs circle the streets of major Peruvian cities. They announce what is important enough to shout at high decibels but not necessarily worth advertising in print. This is how we learned about the series of bull fights taking place in Matara over the course of the weekend. The next day we tried to no avail to find a bus to this remote town located an hour outside of Cajamarca, only to end up hiring a taxi. Matara is best described as an extremely remote place next to Cajamarca which is a slightly less yet still remote place. If it weren´t for the bull ring I don´t think the town would have existed. We showed up 2hrs early, just as the matron of our hostal had suggested, to find nothing but a table full of police officers eating BBQ´d coy at the local comedor. We passed the time as any self respecting tourist might…drinking the least expensive beer to be found.

 

About an hour before the fight was set to start we began to notice a large crowd gathering by the ring. Upon moseying over to the stadium we were noticed by no less than every single person who stood waiting for the doors to open. We are white and I am tall, in even the city this usually calls for a few stares, but in rural Matara all the Campesinos in their cowboy hats and shawls thought we were the most hilarious sight they´d ever seen. Fortunately, a few families took a half humored interest in us and helped to guide us through the process of purchasing tickets and getting into the ring. In an act of true sincerity one woman of no less than 85 took us into her care and demanded that we sit with her and her family, in what she assured us were the most spectacular seats in the house.

 

2hrs went by and true to form the stadium swelled with what must have been 2,000 anxious Peruvians. The mixture of people was outstanding. Wealthy, poor, urban, rural, those who traveled from hours away and those who´d only just crossed the field from their homes. Perhaps the largest groups in the crowd were made up of the families who´d raised the very bulls which would that day be slaughtered in the ring. Families of 30+ gathered in the stands, elated to see bulls they´d nurtured for the past 6 years fight to the death. Pomp and circumstance dosen´t begin to describe the atmosphere. Tight fitting decadent outfits hugged the Matadors and their assistants, three young girls in hip-huging jeans and cowboy hats blew kisses to the crowd, and men all ages clinked tall bottles of beer together and cheered. 

 

When the match began the grandmother we sat with leaped out of her seat and shouted ole´ as the charging bull ran through the red cloak of the Matador. It was brutal. From where we sat in the front row, the dark red stream of blood that ran from the bulls backbone after 20 minutes of fighting was obvious. We cheered without really knowing why. To us each step and jab the Matador took looked the same, but to the the crowd who´d grown up holding its breath waiting for such events, the feats which unfolded in front of use were outstanding. Of course, of the three fighters we witnessed, the local Peruvian won the greatest amount of applause. He was I felt the most talented and skillful of the group, but my opinion could have been swayed by the constant supply of cake, bananas and ice cream which our host grandmother fed us. The day peaked when one of the Banderilleros (matador´s assistant) reached into the stands and handed us one of the prized Banderillas (one of many spear-like objects used throughout the course of the fight), than extending his bloody hand he shook my own. What a thrill.

 

The last match ended before it began. The 6th and final bull of the afternoon took 10 minutes to be coerced out of the gate and into the ring. It didn´t take long for the crowd to see what had caused all the resistance, as the bull looked less than half the size of the others we´d already seen fight. People drew white handkerchiefs and Kleenex, waving them in the air as they plead for the life of the tiny bull. Eventually the bulls owner saw the crowd had turned on him and raised his green scarf, signaling that his bull would be spared and allowed to grow strong before it would again enter the ring. By the time it was over the sun had set, 8 hrs. in Matara had gone by quickly. We hugged the grandmother and her generous family, thanking them repeatedly for having labored in their explanations of the days events. With all the goodbyes said, we turned our backs and took off to find an overcrowded van to take us the 1hr back down the hill to Cajamarca.

Sand and Mountains

So Peru is rugged. No one really prepared us for this. Of course, as of now we´ve only seen a fraction of what the country has to offer, but from what we´ve seen so far this place has some pretty tough landscape. The Andes Moutains split everything in half. All that we´ve seen is what lies to the west. The entire coastline is sand–I mean desert, real sand. I´ve been to the beach, but it´s wild how barren most of the coastline is around here. From the coast you can jump 20,000 ft. to the top of the highest mountains in the Americas in just a few hundred miles (that´s 2xMt.Hood if it were sitting on top of Astoria OR).

 

About a week ago Carly and I had the pleasure of traveling up the hills to the gorgeous city of Cajamarca. Cajamarca has to be less than 200 miles from the coast, however it took us most of 5 hours to crawl all the way up to 9,000 ft. The drive was gorgeous in every way imaginable (check out flickr photos). There were tall cactus plants, incredible multi tier rice patty farms, mountain sides with layers of different grey and red clay and of course roadside drop offs of hundreds of feet every time the road switched back on itself. Just around the same time that our drivers switched off with one another (to allow the guy who´d been at it for 6hrs. to catch a rest under the bus where the luggage was stored), we looked back at the hills we´d just climbed and caught a red and yellow sun on its way down to the Pacific Ocean.

Cajamarca we love you!

Hola amigos! We are so happy to be here in Cajamarca, Peru! We arrived last night after a 9 hour bus ride through the Andes. It was incredible!!! Cajamarca is located directly in the Andes´ mountainous playground at 8900 ft. Whoa! It will take us a few days to acclimate.

In the mean time, we are just chillin´ here soaking up the rays. The further North we head, the more sun we encounter. We´re thrilled to know that our little community of SF, where we will be working, is much further North so we´ll be snuggled up warm in the mountains.

We are meeting our director Rolando in Piura on the 21st, so in a few days we´ll take another long and bumpy bus ride North and start our journey as Youth Health Advocates. Wish us luck! I think the truth is that Curtis and I will be the students. We´re taking our backpacks, open minds and hearts, so all should be well.

Check out some more pics that we´ve recently uploaded. There´s some new shots of Cajamarca in all its glory and the beautiful mountains that surround this small colonial town. We´ll make sure to add at least one more update and a few more pics before heading into ¨the bush¨ around the 21st . Until then, hasta luego! Viva Peru! xoxox