Hola todos! It has been a crazy and eventful week here in Peru. It started off last Saturday night with a wild party in my neighborhood celebrating the saint of this region. The festivities started around 10:30 pm and consisted of local food, beer, and dancing. I even got to participate in the traditional passing of the vaso, which is where everyone passes around a glass and fills it with beer for themselves. You hardly ever see anyone drinking out of the bottle here because it is a communal activity right down to the shared germs. I was honored that my host dad included me in the activity. The party didn't really get started until about 12 when they started lighting the toros locos which, are towers covered in fireworks that spray sparks in every direction. This got to be a bit nerve wracking when I was standing within 15 feet of one and the sparks headed in my direction. There is not the same healthy respect for fireworks here as there is in the United States. After dancing (rather comically) until 2:30 my younger siblings and I headed home while my host parents continued to party until 5 am! It was quite an experience.
After the fiesta the night before, I assumed that the community had gotten their fill of fireworks but I grossly underestimated Yanacoto's appreciation for explosions. The next day I attended the 32nd anniversary of the local grade school. Prior to the fireworks display, each class performed a traditional Peruvian dance. Interspersed among the traditional dances were routines choreographed by the student's themselves including a Michael Jackson tribute, a breakdance routine, and a routine set to a techno version of the Titanic theme song. The last two dances included some amateur stunt work resulting in two unconscious students. I was pretty unnerved watching one student after the other dragged off the dance floor while the others continued dancing. As if this wasn't enough excitement, the graduating class then proceeded to light the toro loco and frolic in the sparks. My gringo friends and I were unsure what to do with ourselves but we were the only ones who seemed very concerned. Attending community events like this one has been my best strategy in getting accustomed to the culture and enjoying myself.
On Monday and Wednesday after training, I had the opportunity to volunteer at the community library with some other trainees. The director of the library is an amazing woman who invites local children, many of whom have alcoholic or drug addicted parents, to spend time after school socializing, doing homework, and just relaxing. Her goal is to take their minds off of their difficult circumstances for a few hours and hopefully build some self-esteem. The children range in age from 6-16 and were incredibly excited to see us. This week our activities included lots of introduction games but my favorite activity was drawing with them. We asked them to draw their favorite thing about Peru and then we drew our favorite things about the United States. From their reactions to the questions, it seemed as if they had never been asked this type of question before. Many of the kids ended up drawing the Andes Mountains ,which, as an environmental education volunteer, was a very satisfying result.
Thursday of this week was a holiday and my host mother's birthday. We had a half-day of training so I returned home to celebrate with my family. We ate a very special, traditional dish called Pachamanca which consists of pork, chicken, multiple kinds of potatoes, and beans all placed in a pit of hot rocks, covered in more hot rocks and leaves, and then buried in dirt to cook under ground for 45 minutes. The result is an incredibly flavorful mix of traditional Peruvian meats and vegetables. During the process of cooking and eating the Pachamanca, I sat around with my family and passed the vaso of cerveza, all around a great way to spend a Thursday afternoon.
On Saturday, after our visit to the Agrarian University I headed into Lima to meet up with my host sister and get my camera fixed. The good news is that it now works but the bad news is that I spent 2 weeks allowance to get it fixed. I just hope that it lasts me my entire time here. Although I am a bit frustrated by having to spend so much, I got to spend an excellent day walking around Lima with someone that lives there and now I will be able to document my adventures.
So far I have spent all of my Sundays with my family going to the market, cooking lunch, and relaxing. This week, I decided to go on a short hike about an hour away from the town I live in with my friend Raija. The plan was to get there early, hike up to the ruins and the waterfall, and get home for lunch. The hike was beautiful. It wound up through an arid hillside along a stream passing by a rather disappointing and fake looking ruin and then ending at a picturesque waterfall. We soaked our feet in the water and chatted for a while and then were about to head out when we met a group of friends who had come in from Lima the night before and set up camp. They invited us to join them for snacks and beer at the base of the waterfall and we couldn’t refuse the offer. After an excellent conversation about what we are doing here and environmental issues in Peru, we thanked them for their hospitality and once again attempted to head down the hill and back to Yanacoto. This time, we were intercepted by a man, his daughter, and his 6 year-old grandson who all spoke English and were familiar with the Peace Corps. We ended up hiking out with them and, as it turns out, they had traveled extensively both within Peru and around the world. They invited us back for lunch at the family compound they are building where we met the rest of the family and hung out for hours. This family had such an interesting background completely distinct from what we have seen thus far. The matriarch of the family had even spent time at Middlebury and in Raija's home state of Indiana. They were equally interested in us and we even managed to teach them to make their own compost!
Overall, my day spent chatting with Peruvians that we met on the hiking trail is one of my favorites so far. The hospitality and approachability these people demonstrated gave me a much needed confidence boost in my ability to strike up conversations with strangers in Spanish and develop friendships and confianza (Spanish word meaning trust, the key to the Peace Corps community integration strategy. I hope to have many more experiences like this and I'm sure I will because the Peruvian people are so gracious and approachable.
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