Getting comfortable

I've reached a point in my service where the Peace Corps has decided that I am ready to apply for funding and execute some "real" projects. In June I attended a training to apply for USAID funding that will be available in October and I am putting together a project that will involve door to door training in recycling and establishing a monthly recycling collection. My host father is an agricultural engineer who is close with many of the local farmers and he has agreed to help me do compost workshops. This is all very exciting but it is also overwhelming as I have struggled to get enough people actually committed to executing the projects. The biggest challenge I have encountered has been translating excitement about projects into actual work. I am definitely getting some life skills and lessons in being persistent from this experience.

Since I have been here for 11 months, I have not been finding as much inspiration for my blogs as I used to. Sure, I have real projects going on and actual funding coming in, however that stuff is not as fun to write about as cultural mishaps, parasites, and culinary adventures. Yesterday I looked in my refrigerator and I realized that these moments haven't gotten any more rare, I have just gotten used to some of the stranger things that I come across on a daily basis. I went to get my water bottle and noticed the full pig legs with hooves that would later be boiled for lunch alongside the bowl of blood and chicken hearts. Even though I live in a house that has electricity (and recently got internet), I am still in rural Peru and life is different in many comical ways. I don't notice these details as much any more but every so often I get caught off guard, which, depending on my mood, makes me laugh or head straight to my room to watch tv alone on my laptop.

Transportation tends to be one of the main sources of frustration/comic relief for me (again depending on my mood). My usual means of travel is by combi, a 15 passenger van with 20+ people stuffed in. Quite often, people bring their livestock to market on these same vans, which makes the hour ride to my capitol city even more fun. The other day I was on a particularly full combi when a duck escaped from a bag under my seat and went hopping around the bus. I was the only one who had a strong reaction to this. Everyone else seemed pretty okay with the situation. If you wonder how one transports livestock larger than a duck on a van full of people, the answer is, you can put anything up to a medium sized pig on the roof. Today My neighbors were prepping for a wedding which entailed 5 men lowering two substantially meaty live pigs down from the roof of a van. This process is not only awkward and goofy looking but it is incredibly loud. I was standing outside my house discussing plans to go to Machu Picchu next month when the high-pitched screaming started. I made a point to avoid my back yard for the rest of the afternoon because I knew the slaughter would be even louder. I often find myself saying "oh Peru…"

Another time when I find myself abruptly remembering that I am in Peru is at parties. Some aspects of the parties are amazing. I get to dance with everyone since I am generally a guest of honor and, my favorite part, I get to eat my favorite dish, goat with squash. I always look forward to these parties as a reminder of what I love most about Peruvian culture, the emphasis on sharing and having as good a time as possible. These parties, although fun, are usually a pretty good test for the skills I learned in fifth grade for resisting peer pressure. I am ok with a few sips of beer with lunch to avoid offending my hosts but when the moonshine comes out I am forced to draw a line. When I have to put up a legitimate fight to not take shots of homemade liquor at 2 in the afternoon, I realize that I am no longer in my comfort zone. I have learned to play it off as a cultural difference explaining that I am not accustomed to such aggressive boozing and I enjoy the dancing that ensues.

I have begun to accept many aspects of the culture, which I never expected to be comfortable with but I still retain many of my foreign judgements and values. I am at a point in my service where I am generally pretty comfortable but Peru never fails to throw me major wake up calls when I am least expecting it. Soon, I will be headed off to Cuzco and Machu Picchu where I will probably feel more out of place amongst tourists than I do among Peruvians.