Feeling Productive

Feeling Productive

Yes, finally I am starting to feel productive. All those who have had the chance to talk to me during the last 6 months know as a fact that I have had some hard times struggling with feeling productive. At last during the last month or so I am feeling like what I do might actually matter.

The first couple months in site I was doing a community diagnostic, and I didn´t feel impelled to start any projects. I was basically getting to know my community and gaining their trust.

Early April I started working with the local high school empowering them on topics like self esteem, communication, values, making decisions, sexuality and fatherhood among others. Then I started feeling like I was starting work. Since I created a Youth Group, English Club, English Classes, Dance Classes, and have recently started giving health classes at elementary schools around the whole districts. In the next couple weeks I will start a community garden at a nearby town. That is basically what I have done so far.

I am keeping myself pretty busy. I schedule about a class or two a day which helps me feel occupied. I love opening my planner and seeing how much I have accomplished and how many other things I have planned. I don´t feel like the most productive up to my potential but I am trying to get there.

I absolutely love what I do. When I’m in front of a classroom full of kids, with all of their attention focused on me and what I have to teach them just blows my mind. I have so much potential influence on how these kids think that never ceases to amaze me. Many times, especially with teenagers, I am done with a class and feel like I got nothing accomplished. I feel frustrated and confused but know that at least one kid got something from it.

I specially love my work with the Youth Group. I have between 8 and 10 teenagers who always come to our weekly meetings. They are the most mixed group in the school. I have the cool kids, the bullies, and a couple nerds. Isn´t it amazing that such a distinct crowd want to participate in it? It´s awesome to have the cool kids because I feel they can have the most significant multiplying effect, the bully will perhaps calm down a bit, and the nerds feel like they can trust me. The kids are so into the youth group that they talk to me about it everyday, and we meet more often than just once a week. We are friends; however, I always keep in mind that I am their role model 24-7. Two weeks ago we went out to the field at night to watch the starts. How fun was that! I explained a couple things I know about starts and had them amazed at the universe´s grandiosity. This Thursday we are meeting at night to do a fire, eat smores (which I will teach them how to make) and tell stories. On Friday morning we will continue to paint the World Map Mural we just started at the library. I am really excited about this project. It will take us a couple weeks to finish but will have us occupied on something.

I have also started giving dance classes. The high school is celebrating their anniversary at the end of June and the firth graders (equivalent to our High School Seniors) want to put together a dance. So, I am teaching them some salsa moves. They are in desperate need of guys but it’s working out fine.

As you can see I have somehow changed the focus of my Peace Corps Service. My theoretical focus group is mothers with children under 3 years old. But over 4 organizations in my district work with that group. However, kids and teenagers are being ignored despite them being our future and them being the most likely group to change behavior. So, I have decided to work closer with the schools than with the mothers, and hope for a trickle down effect. I am not exactly sure what that will do for my Project Plan but I think that is what I should be doing.

I want to work other projects but all at its right time. I want to work with family gardens (I started a pilot garden in a nearby community), animal husbandry, trash and house hygiene. But I can’t start anything yet. I need more time to get my feet off the ground, and I have to start asking for funding. Without money nothing happens. So, if you are interested in donating some Washingtons please get in contact with me. My community will greatly appreciate it.

Life is good and work is getting better. I would rather not complain about anything because I could start believing things are horribly hard which they are not. At least the past couple weeks have been great. Please keep sending positive energy my way.

A Day in My life as a PC Volunteer

I realize few people understand what it is like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) living in my town. It is very difficult to explain in a simple email or even over the phone. Every PCV’s experience is different, and mine I’m sure is not the norm. Days in my site “Huantar” pass very quickly. Most of the time I am very happy about that. I usually wake up early and go to bed early. Here I will write what yesterday was like for me.

I got awoken by a ruckus upstairs in my house around 6:30am. My host mom wakes up early to start preparing breakfast for the family. At the same time my host dad wakes up, eats and goes to work. For the past year or so my district (my town is the ‘capital’ of a larger area of other small villages) has enjoyed relative prosperity. The mines nearby donate a lot of money to the districts nearby to supposedly develop the area. Many jobs have been created, and people are earning good money. My host dad works building the primary school. I usually stay in bed until 7:30am or so. I could potentially wake up at whatever time I want because I don’t have a time when I start working. I usually wake up early though because I feel a little guilty that everyone is up and about since dawn. After getting out of bed I prepared myself breakfast which usually consists of milk with a little oatmeal, a piece of bread, and some fruit.

Around 8:15am I got a call from my health post. My community partner needed help with some reports he had to take down to the health clinic in the nearby city of San Marcos. So, I helped him doing some very repetitive work until 11:00am. I then ran home to get the supplies I needed to give two educational sessions I had yesterday at the school. I got to the school just in time to start. The sessions were on self-esteem and we did a really cool reinforcement activity where everyone had to write positive qualities you have on a piece of paper with your name on it. In between the sessions I had 45min to eat, so I ran to a family restaurant where I met my friend. I ate super quickly and went back to the school.

I went home around 2:00pm to hand wash some clothes. Most of my PCV friends hate washing their own clothes and take them all to the capital to wash when they come in every two weeks. I don’t mind washing my clothes at all. First, it gives me something to do in my otherwise fairly free schedule. Second, I save a lot of money. To wash two weeks worth of clothes by hand costs me about s/.2 (.66 American cents), and to take them to the capital 6 hours away to wash costs me about s/20 ($7). I would rather hand wash, and not have to worry about taking my clothes all the way to the capital.

I finished washing my clothes around 3:00pm and had nothing else to do. I grabbed a book, a notebook and went up a little hill by the cell phone antennas and read and wrote for about two hours. Made a couple phone calls from up there, and I then went to my plaza and talked to some of my high school friends. A little after 5:30pm I went to see my friend John who I spend a lot of time with after he is done with work. I went to a store where I bought bread and milk, and had coffee with John. We talked for a while, I accompanied him to dinner. Around 7:30pm I returned home. Had some tea, washed my face, brushed and flossed my teeth, listened to some music and went to bed.

I already have my basic routine. It’s pretty simple, and I’m finally getting used to it. It is not that I am not enjoying my experience but I must recognize this is the most challenging and difficult test I have had to face in my life. I usually feel lonely, many times bored, missing my family, wanting to shower, questioning what I’m doing here, wanting to be somewhere else, or simply wondering why the hell I’m crying. I always have an event, or a meeting with my friends programmed every two weeks so I have something to look forward to. I like being in my town, yet sometimes I like leaving it for a day or two. I don’t think that makes me any less of a PCV. I am entitled to feel normal, to be happy, to have fun, to dance, to shower, to eat meat, etc.

I am happy I really am. Nobody said this was going to be easy. I am learning by the minute; not only Quechua, the indigenous language but also about myself, my likes, my dislikes, and the actual essence that makes me human. I’m proud of myself although sometimes I wonder if what I do here actually helps anyone. I’m staying strong, trying to be positive and recognizing life’s little wonders that make everything worth it.

Poverty or Oppression?

Are all oppressed people poor? Or are all poor people oppressed? I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately and must say that my perceptions of poverty have dramatically changed in the past couple of months. Here I try to explain how my former imaginative concept of the poor was dismantled.
Firstly, I would like to apologize to all my friends who are academics who might be reading this blog. You must understand that it has been a year since I last wrote an academic paper and finished my Honors Thesis. My writing skills have become a little rusty, and my arguments might not follow a coherent logic. With that said, I would appreciate any comments or counter arguments to be expressed to my person in the form of letter, email or blog comment.
I am currently reading Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s work “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”(1971). Although I admit to not having finished reading it yet it has forced me to star looking at my town with critical eyes. I am a failed anthropologist. After graduation and joining the Peace Corps I became somewhat disillusioned with the discipline. I still call myself an anthropologist but refuse to be one. I loved anthropology so much that I began hating it. Anthropologists observe, not participate. Anthropologists write books, they don’t teach people to read them. I didn’t want to be one of them. I don’t want to sit in an office for the rest of my life and talk about the structure and system in place that oppressed the people that I studied, and know that the people I lived amongst remain the same. I don’t want to be the one who studies why they changed, but be their weapon of change. I say I am a failed anthropologist because in my disillusionment with my discipline I decided not to critically analyze my coworkers, friends and family in my town. I thought that studying, thinking and writing about them was like violating the trust they had put on me.
I am tired of not feeling like a highly rational human being. Today I am making an exception. Paulo Freire, up to where I have read so far, talks about the poor who are oppressed and about how education is the only way for them to escape it. I then think about my town. Most of them if not all, are poor by our standards: they are not educated, don’t earn much money and have a very traditional way to look at the world. These people have never traveled and have little knowledge of the world outside their town. They are poor, not oppressed. Freire talks about the poor and oppressed, never about only the condition of the poor. I agree with him in most of his arguments but wish he would have expanded his argument to the poor who are not oppressed. In my town I see a great difference between those who have and those who have not studied. I can usually have good conversations with educated people about my travels, my studies, music, politics, the world… With uneducated people our topic of conversation is always the weather, and lately I ask them whether or not they have harvested their potatoes. I have started working at the high school teaching the kids and I have felt how refreshing it is to work with them. They are so interested in learning and are very curious about life.
People in my town are poor but not oppressed. They don’t have much money, eat whatever they can afford, and live in adobe houses they build themselves. But they are not oppressed. They are free, perhaps more than I ever will be. At least in my Andean town education is accessible to all, all the way through high school. The school is well staffed and has good facilities. If people wanted they could get an education in my town and then attend university in the department capital if they really wanted and worked hard to get it. Accessibility to education frees these people. The more they know about the world the more they want to continue learning.
If we were to talk about oppression we must directly link it with poverty. If education frees people from oppression, and poverty prevents people from receiving higher education, then these people are only partially oppressed.
Many of these people live like they do because they want to and are happy just the way they are. This is the reality these people know, and anything else scares them. They all want to live better and live comfortably, but perhaps their idea of the optimum comfort level is not congruent with ours. For instance, we might dream to have a house with marble floors. These people dream to have concrete on theirs. We enjoy once in a while indulging with lobster; they do with trout once a week if they can afford it. My host family for instance lived in Lima for a while but decided to return to the “sierra” (mountains) and would rather work in the fields than stay in the capital away from their families in a land where another language (Spanish) is spoken, not their native Quechua.
I met a young man in his twenties a couple months ago on my walk to a nearby community. He really opened my eyes to something I never ever thought.
“My name is Juan. I was born in Chucos, I live in Chucos and will die in Chucos.” That is some food for thought. You can arrive at your own conclusions.

Friendship in Unexpected Places

We find friendship in unexpected places. I found friendship in unexpected places. I found friendship in Perú. I had this dream that I would arrive in my Peace Corps site and start working right away in things that would ‘change the world’. Have I changed it yet? I doubt it. What I do know though, is that I have changed myself, at least so far. And hopefully along the way I changed a person or two. As a Community Health Promoter I do not feel like I have done much to change my community. As of right now I have not had the chance to do anything meaningful, at least that is how I perceive what I have done here so far.

I have made friends though. Many who I just play volleyball with, and a couple who perhaps I have had the chance to illuminate, if I may use that word, in matters of the world. Here are some of their stories…
One of the first friends I made in site was a fourteen year old kid named Gonzalo.

I think we clicked because I accepted him for who he was. He was a tall, extremely lanky, expressive and at the same time delicate boy. He came from Lima with his sister to visit his dad who is a native from my town. I have two strong memories of the boy. The first of other kids laughing at him for not being able to hit a volleyball. The second of spending time with him and his sister at his dad’s restaurant watching Bollywood movies and trying to imitate Indian dance moves. I remember saying goodbye to him in the plaza, and him telling me that he wanted to travel the world like me. I gave him my cell number when he left assuming I would never hear from him again. How wrong was I! We exchanged a couple text messages before his departure to Argentina with his mom. After a month or so of not seeing each other he made sure to call and say goodbye the day before he left for Buenos Aires. I hope to email him once in a while. I know he will be happy that he made a friend from a country he didn’t even know existed.

The second person I made friends with was Yuli. She works at her dad’s restaurant and their store. I have found myself spending a lot of time with her in the past two months because she is always around. She is studying tourism in Huaraz, our department capital. I can have really smart conversations with her about anything, she is very smart. She is the only person in my town who knows some English, so I try to help her in the conversational level. Right now she is not studying because her oldest sister is no longer around, so she has to help all the time. I tell her constantly to keep studying, and remind her of the importance of finishing her degree. I know she will finish, at least if I stay around and keep reminding her.

The third position goes to my new friend Doña Eulogia. I haven’t talked to her much but I consider her my friend. I remember my second day in site. There was a party in town and she dragged me to the dance floor. It was hilarious and so much fun. A couple weeks after that I interviewed her in her house. So far, she has the most humble house I have had the chance to visit, yet she is the most energetic person in my whole town. Yesterday I was walking to my house when I encountered her. Interesting interaction that was. She was very happy to see me. Then she asked me if I had some rice I could give her, and then invited me to her house for food. I came to her house an hour later with a pound and a half of rice. And left an hour later with a belly full of delicious potatoes and cabbage and having read a full chapter of some religious book she made me read. I listened to her talk about her family, her experiences, and her hopes for the future. She gave up the chance to move to the States with a family from the US embassy because she was afraid to miss her family. Right there we clicked again. I completely understood. With tears in my eyes I told her that I missed my family. “Your mom must really miss you” she said to me. Silence. No words could come out of my mouth. “I know” I thought to myself as I hoped she could not see the tears streaming down my face in her dark ash stained kitchen.

Lastly I have made friends with Cynthia and John, two siblings from Lima who spend their vacations in my town with their family. I leave them for last because perhaps they are the ones I have touched the most. I have had the chance to spend time with them during the last two months, and have had a ton of fun. Cynthia is going back to Lima because college starts up again this week. I never imagined how much I meant to them until yesterday when she gave me a card she made from scratch. It was beautifully decorated and said beautiful things inside. She made me realize that sometimes just offering people your friendship is enough to change who they are. In the letter she says how much these past two months have meant to her, and expressed how much admiration she had for me. It is difficult to find people in the “sierra” or mountains who truly understand what Peace Corps is, but she gets it. Sometimes when I’m frustrated she calms me down by telling me that it is normal to feel frustrated as a Peace Corps volunteer. I will truly miss her here in Huantar, and I look forward to the moment we meet again. I will think of her everyday when I look at my wall and see her card taped to it.

This experience has been extremely hard. It was hard from the beginning and continues to be difficult. I don’t think it will cease being so. Hopefully these friends that I found along the way, and those I am bound to bump into in the future will walk with me hand in hand along the arduous yet rewarding path to December 2010.

Another note from Peru

At the moment I am sitting in the plaza of my town. I am writing this blog entry as I listen to huaino music and watch how people buy “salchipapas” from our only kiosk in town. The lady who owns the kiosk is real cool. She is the only person I have met in Peru who has my name, well it’s her middle name but that’s close enough. Her name is Domitila Claudia, and every time I pass through she smiles showing her silver teeth and says “good morning Miss Claudia”. She wears a really cool mountain hat htat compliments her round face. Her husband serves as bodyguard almost. Just acouple minutes ago he shooed a dog away with a slingshot. He probably is responsible for having injured the dog sitting on my feet right now which is missing an eye.

This letter was interrupted for a couple minutes because Maruja, a 38 yr old lady who looks sixty came over to talk to me. She is part of the Virgen de Guadalupe groupe who I have joined for their weekly prayer group several times. The group is interesting because their two main tasks are grinding in the Molino, and praying once a week, fascinating combination of work and religious life. I will join them again next week.

Warning: This blog flows like train of thought, so forgive me if it seems choppy.

I am also about thirty feet from my favorite “tienda” or store. I go there to chat and buy my food daily. The couple has four children; a 22 yr old Edith who is a sweetie and I love talking to, Miguel and Yuli who are 20 and study in Huaraz, the capital of Ancash, and Celia who is 6 yrs old. Last week I took something to the siblings in Huaraz and had some delicious mango smoothies with Miguel.

I have two favorite place sin my town. One is the town plaza because everything happens around it: the Municipality, pensiones, the church, school, and tiendas are around them. I enjoy watching people walk around, sit in benches, play volleyball and interact with each other. My second favorite places is the top of my mountain by th cell antenna. It has a gorgeous view down to the carretera or road overlooking snow topped mountains and the river. Sometimes I go up there and spend hours talking on the phone and writing poetry or plays.

I just spent 10 minutes talking to an Italian missionary who lives in my town. His name is Rafael, just like my dad and my brother. He is my age and is real nice. He runs a copper and metal workshop in the parish where kids come learn a trade. I’ve been over to the church a couple times to have tea or coffe with him. He has such an Italian accent it’s funny. Who knows, maybe by the end of my service I’ll be fluent in Spanish, English, Italian and Quechua. That would cool.

The situation in my family is much better now. I think my mom and dad really like me. I keep making food they like which is awesome. I am going to tell them not to cook tomorrow night. I want to make tuna stuffed caigua (a vegetable) with tuna and vegetables. Things are so good that my mom asked me to scratch her back yesterday. The cutest thing is that my little brother and sister call me auntie and keep hugging me. It’s truly adorable.

I will stop writing now. I should probably go interview and survey some people. Until next time!