After two robberies in two days and a confrontation that led me to find a new host family last weekend, I was having a bit of a rough time with my Peace Corps experience. The best way to get through tough times here has been giving myself little things to look forward to. Right now, I am looking forward to the women's empowerment conference that I have been helping to organize at the embassy. After this, I will be traveling to Arequipa or "The White City." An Andean city that is famous for architecture, food, and gorgeous surroundings. During this vacation, I will also travel to the Colca Canyon, home to the Andean Condors and Lake Titicaca. I can't wait for these events.
It is not only large-scale travel that keeps me motivated in tough times. There are certain personal and professional activities that I look forward to. Personally, I look forward to reading and watching almost disgusting amounts of movies and tv on my laptop. Right now I am watching all the Star Wars movies including the prequels. I have also become addicted to Lost, the Sopranos, House, Modern Family, Glee, Gossip Girl, and Friends. It is really funny watching friends because in some alternate reality that could be my life, hanging out with a group in a coffee shop all the time and having the comical adventures that twenty somethings have. Thanks to my cousin I have an entire external hard drive full of of movies and tv, which will definitely last me until the end of my service here. The first thing I thought when I got my stuff robbed last weekend was how happy I was not to lose my laptop. I don't know what I would do without my programs.
This weekend I got to attend a Peruvian wedding. It was a bittersweet event in that it was my friend's 17 year-old host sister's wedding resulting from her unplanned pregnancy. This young woman will not be finishing high school and will not have much say in how the rest of her life plays out due to cultural expectations and machismo. Seeing this firsthand inspired me to keep working with young women particularly on sexual and reproductive health and general self-esteem and empowerment to pursue personal goals. There was a mood of sadness during the entire ceremony and I couldn't help but note the contrast between this wedding and my idealistic and perhaps naïve view of how weddings should be. Despite all this, after the ceremony ended the fun began. There were six of us volunteers at this fiesta and we were in high demand as dancing partners. I went to bed around 4 am but the party was far from over, in fact, when I left the house at 9 am the next day, the party was still far from over.
After I went to bed crazy things started to happen that I did not learn about until the next morning. For no apparent reason, the huge group of dancers turned into a brawling mob. The other volunteers came into the bedroom where I was sleeping and watched through the window. Everyone present got involved. The groom was throwing punches and the bride was trying to break things up while still wearing her gown. There was even a woman with a child in one arm throwing punches with the other man. After putting the child down, she picked up a beer bottle and proceeded to chase him around the soccer field in front of the house. It was quite a way to finish an already emotional day.
After a wild wedding, I am ready to get back to work so in the upcoming weeks I will be building a model improved cook-stove. This model will hopefully inspire more people to do the same in order to use less firewood and not inhale so much smoke. It is unbelievable to me that so many people here still cook on open fires in their kitchens. Along with this, I look forward to giving my HIV/AIDS prevention workshops and classes and watching my gardens grow. This week I will be selling a bunch of recycling which always feels good because I get to turn over cash to the schools that they can spend to improve their school. I am lucky to have so many people to work with so that I can stay active and motivated.
The Peace Corps is a roller coaster both professionally and emotionally and the key is to ensure that there will be plenty of ups to balance out the downs. I got hit with a few unexpected free falls on this roller coaster last weekend and now I am on a slow climb back up by using the combination of personal and professional successes and, of course, THE FORCE.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 18, 2010
The last couple of weeks have been filled with my first Peruvian election experience, a trip to Lima to help train new volunteers, and a few personal challenges. The mix of professional success personal obstacles has been typical of the Peace Corps experience. While I work to change host families due to "irreconcilable differences," I am focusing on the professional triumphs that I have had lately. Along with advancing in my HIV/AIDS work, I have gotten closer to getting environmental murals in one of the schools, I have started recycling in another school, and I am getting closer to actually constructing a model improved kitchen in one of my counterpart's houses. I know there will be obstacles but for now I am happy with what I have accomplished recently.
I am in the process of submitting a grant for starting a recycling collection project and soon I will have funding to make real progress on that but right now I am looking for ways to spend money for my school recycling project. As a PCV who supposedly has no money, it is nice to find that I stress over how to spend all the money I currently have and will be receiving in the near future. In the next year I will have money coming from the participatory budget and the Peace Corps Small Projects Assistance program, which I am thrilled about but now comes the hard part, finding a group of people who will voluntarily help me execute these projects. One big challenge is that when people see that you have funded projects, they expect that there is funding to pay those who work on the projects. I have a core group willing to work with me but, just as it is anywhere, it is difficult to get people to give up their leisure time to sort recycling and go to educational presentations about the environment.
One upside of my recent experience is that the regional elections went smoothly and we have a new very motivated mayor who actually gave me shout outs in his campaign speeches. I am hoping that he will consider trash management more carefully than the previous mayor has. It is also encouraging that his family and friends are some of my best friends in town so I am optimistic about the open lines of communication that I will have with the local government. Peruvian politics is fascinating because, like Latin America in general, they have experienced a lot of corruption, upheaval, and even a couple of coups. Their political reality is so different than what I am willing to accept as a functional democracy that it is hard to grasp how people can be complacent with some of the things that occur here. For example, there are tons of examples from this most recent election of candidates literally paying people to come in from different municipalities and giving them an id document with a new address so that they can vote for the candidate. Every time I talk politics here, I realize how lucky I am to live in such a stable country where, even if I don't agree with the leadership, I do not live in fear of collapse and/or government overthrow. The Peace Corps has made me realize what a bubble the United States is and I feel lucky to have been born there.
Probably the most exciting project that I have been working on is not in my site but on a national level. I am part of the Women in Development/Gender and Development Committee, a PC worldwide initiative meaning that it operates in many countries where PC has a presence. I recently became what we refer to as the "point of contact" or head of the committee. Our big project this year has been putting together a calendar featuring twelve women nominated by PCV's from all the departments where PC works. In order to unveil the calendar and celebrate the women who were selected, we will be holding a conference and empowerment workshop in November. So far, we have a family law organization who will be giving a workshop about women's rights, a celebratory luncheon, and an address by the US ambassador who happens to be a woman. The conference is being held at the embassy, which will make it all the more special. Some of the women have selected and invited to the conference have never left the villages where they live and one even speaks Quechua (an indigenous language from the Andes) and not Spanish. I am thrilled to be a part of such a huge project. Our dream is to make this calendar and celebratory empowerment conference an annual event and in order for it to be sustainable, we will be selling future calendars to fund what we cannot get donated and put the rest of the money in a scholarship fund for young women. I will be notifying all of you as soon as we have calendars for sale. THEY ARE REALLY COOL AND IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE SO GET EXCITED! That is my plug, I hope everyone is interested.
In less happy news, I experienced my first robbery since being here in Peru. I have let my guard down quite a bit after living here for a year and I felt the consequences yesterday when my purse was snatched from my shoulder in broad daylight with tons of people watching. I was walking from the hostel we stay at to Starbucks after a regional meeting, a walk that I have done 1,000 times, and I felt a tug at my purse. I thought I had caught it on something. When I turned around to look, there was a man behind me yanking on it and I resisted. He tripped me and dragged me on the ground while over a hundred people watched. I finally let go of the bag and am in the process of getting my passport and other important items replaced. I guess life isn't all sunshine and rainbows in developing countries…
I am in the process of submitting a grant for starting a recycling collection project and soon I will have funding to make real progress on that but right now I am looking for ways to spend money for my school recycling project. As a PCV who supposedly has no money, it is nice to find that I stress over how to spend all the money I currently have and will be receiving in the near future. In the next year I will have money coming from the participatory budget and the Peace Corps Small Projects Assistance program, which I am thrilled about but now comes the hard part, finding a group of people who will voluntarily help me execute these projects. One big challenge is that when people see that you have funded projects, they expect that there is funding to pay those who work on the projects. I have a core group willing to work with me but, just as it is anywhere, it is difficult to get people to give up their leisure time to sort recycling and go to educational presentations about the environment.
One upside of my recent experience is that the regional elections went smoothly and we have a new very motivated mayor who actually gave me shout outs in his campaign speeches. I am hoping that he will consider trash management more carefully than the previous mayor has. It is also encouraging that his family and friends are some of my best friends in town so I am optimistic about the open lines of communication that I will have with the local government. Peruvian politics is fascinating because, like Latin America in general, they have experienced a lot of corruption, upheaval, and even a couple of coups. Their political reality is so different than what I am willing to accept as a functional democracy that it is hard to grasp how people can be complacent with some of the things that occur here. For example, there are tons of examples from this most recent election of candidates literally paying people to come in from different municipalities and giving them an id document with a new address so that they can vote for the candidate. Every time I talk politics here, I realize how lucky I am to live in such a stable country where, even if I don't agree with the leadership, I do not live in fear of collapse and/or government overthrow. The Peace Corps has made me realize what a bubble the United States is and I feel lucky to have been born there.
Probably the most exciting project that I have been working on is not in my site but on a national level. I am part of the Women in Development/Gender and Development Committee, a PC worldwide initiative meaning that it operates in many countries where PC has a presence. I recently became what we refer to as the "point of contact" or head of the committee. Our big project this year has been putting together a calendar featuring twelve women nominated by PCV's from all the departments where PC works. In order to unveil the calendar and celebrate the women who were selected, we will be holding a conference and empowerment workshop in November. So far, we have a family law organization who will be giving a workshop about women's rights, a celebratory luncheon, and an address by the US ambassador who happens to be a woman. The conference is being held at the embassy, which will make it all the more special. Some of the women have selected and invited to the conference have never left the villages where they live and one even speaks Quechua (an indigenous language from the Andes) and not Spanish. I am thrilled to be a part of such a huge project. Our dream is to make this calendar and celebratory empowerment conference an annual event and in order for it to be sustainable, we will be selling future calendars to fund what we cannot get donated and put the rest of the money in a scholarship fund for young women. I will be notifying all of you as soon as we have calendars for sale. THEY ARE REALLY COOL AND IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE SO GET EXCITED! That is my plug, I hope everyone is interested.
In less happy news, I experienced my first robbery since being here in Peru. I have let my guard down quite a bit after living here for a year and I felt the consequences yesterday when my purse was snatched from my shoulder in broad daylight with tons of people watching. I was walking from the hostel we stay at to Starbucks after a regional meeting, a walk that I have done 1,000 times, and I felt a tug at my purse. I thought I had caught it on something. When I turned around to look, there was a man behind me yanking on it and I resisted. He tripped me and dragged me on the ground while over a hundred people watched. I finally let go of the bag and am in the process of getting my passport and other important items replaced. I guess life isn't all sunshine and rainbows in developing countries…
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