Reverting to my N'Sync Days

Now that the holidays are over it is time for me to squeeze in as much work until the next holiday season begins. Towards the end of January we have our mid year San Pablo festival. Apparently, this is a watered down version of the San Pablo celebration, which occurs in late June. As I found out over Christmas, even when you plan meetings during times of celebration they will not actually happen. I have learned to embrace the reverence for celebration, as I am sure this will make my next two years much less frustrating.
In my efforts to get going again with my projects, I have had many meetings at the health post to plan my upcoming hand washing campaign. I will be working with the OBGYN and health promoters to go door to door in the poorest section of town to teach the residents how to make "tippy-taps" (essentially a 2 liter bottle turned upside down and filled with water to act as a tap) so that they can wash their hands even during the hours when there is no water. We will also be showing them how to avoid creating mosquito breeding grounds in their house in an effort to eradicate Dengue Fever. I think the door to door approach will be more effective than other possible approaches because we will be able to address specific issues and answer individual questions. I will be involving various community leaders in this effort to make it more community based and to lessen the workload.
Another project I have on line is to establish a system to educate people who sell and serve food in the market about sanitary food handling techniques. We will also be trying to get the local police to monitor the sanitary conditions at the market because, quite frankly, I cannot even bring myself to enter the meat section of the market as it is now. There is already a law in place requiring monitoring of food safety but it has been left by the wayside. I hope that some education and pressure on the municipality will help Pacora improve the sanitary conditions at the market.
The main thing that is keeping me busy these days are my summer school English classes. I teach elementary school students five days a week for 2 hours a day. My classes tend to consist of a lot of repetition, the necessary evil when teaching a language. I am hoping to use these classes to build more confidence and develop a better relationship with the students, teachers, and principals so that I can do more environmental education in the upcoming school year.
With all this work, I have also made time for fun. Last night the neighboring town was having their "Three Kings Festival" so I went to check it out. The main square was surrounded by food vendors and carnival games and packed with people. It was quite a scene but nothing compared to the dance that started later that night. The band playing at the dance was Hermanos Yaipen, pretty much the Peruvian N'Sync. Since my arrival in Peru I have heard about four different songs on repeat in every house and building in every part of the country. Two of these songs are by the Hermanos Yaipen and the other two are by a group called Grupo Cinco. Hermanos Yaipen is a spinoff of Grupo Cinco, which was originally formed in the 1970's by the real Yaipen brothers. Since then, the Yaipen brothers have recruited young guys who have blond highlights and wear disgusting amounts of hair gel to do the actual performing while they rake in serious amounts of money. Not only is the music all over the radio but the Hermanos Yaipen are in every commercial on tv. The most popular tv show at the moment is a history of Grupo Cinco which follows the efforts of the original Yaipen brothers to establish the band. Their popularity is overwhelming so, as you may have guessed, I was thrilled to see them live. I went with my friend Marta, the president of the women's organization here in Pacora, and we pushed our way right up to the stage where we could (and did) literally touch the band members. I kept the touching to a cordial handshake while other crazed drunk women went all out trying to grope the overly groomed band members. I got caught up in the spirit and started talking to my friend about which one of them was the cutest but after I left the charged concert hall, I realized that none of them are really my type since they all probably spend infinitely more time preening than I do. I am not really interested in high maintenance but it was fun to feel like a preteen at a Jonas Brothers concert.
The best part of this concert was the dancing. We danced from 10:30 pm to 3am and the concert was still going strong when we left. I have really come to appreciate that everyone dances well. Men and women of all ages know how to dance Cumbia (the genre of the Hermanos Yaipen), Salsa, Merengue, Marinera, and Huaynos. Whenever they ask me how we dance in the US they get a kick out of my spastic arm waving and wiggling around. I try to explain that we pretty much move around however we want and don't have named steps but it works better just to show them my version. I think the freestyle US dancing may just have to come out at the upcoming San Pablo mid-year festival and then Carnival after that. I will consider this a "secondary project" to achieve the cultural interchange goal of the Peace Corps. Who knows, by Carnival I may even feel bold enough to bust out my MC Hammer dance.