Dance Till You Fall

I am going to tell you the story about the Town Fiesta in Jangas. Like any good story, it begins with me helping haul two 10 meter wooden poles. I had volunteered to help my host-brothers prepare for the fiesta. Naturally any good fiesta needs two gigantic poles. My job was to first carry the poles and then to hold the ropes attached to the pole while we positioned the two poles in the Plaza after digging two massive holes to place the poles. After a while my tiredness of a Saturday morning wore off and I asked what the hell the poles were for. I was told they were for fire-works. While I tried to apply my foreigner mind to why the hell we needed gigantic poles to launch fire-works, I came up with some explanation about fire-works being shot off straight that suited me well enough so I stopped wondering and went to play soccer after the morning's “chamba” (work).

The following day (Sunday) we had a meeting with the regular group and a few people I hadn't met. Mostly my host brothers, cousins, and their friends who are all a lot of fun. The conversation focused on food, when we were going to buy the food, when we were going to peal/kill the food and when we were going to serve and eat the food. I was in. The plan was to make bread at 6 a.m Wednesday—this didn't happen-I'm getting used to this (fortunately for I would be needing my sleep for later in the week). Throughout the week the group worked and planned—it was also the anniversario of the colegio this past week and I got to see a lot of my students play sports, make “atorches” (big objects that are lit up at night with transparent paper—my favorite was the bear and the dragon—sometimes you get the Bear).

Thursday was the big day of work for the fiesta. After a day at the colegio of an un-durably long ceremony (I at least got to give a few of the sports prizes) I went to help peal potatoes, peal more potatoes, and then helped the Priest haul more pieces of firewood than potatoes I had pealed. We then went to our respective houses to prepare for the Fiesta...

Here I've learned that regardless of the expectations you set for an event, the event itself will be nowhere near what you are expecting. This can happen in a Math Class, a soccer game, a dinner (for example I recently ate Guinea-pig—surprised me in that it mostly tastes like chicken—only slightly odd when you grab it's paw like a chicken wing...hehe). I don't know what I was expecting for this party, but my expectations were smashed.

I am going to start by saying that if you have never been to the Jangas town Fiesta, you have not been to a Fiesta. I always loved Middlebury parties—but I never attended anything at LoFo (Lower Forest for non-Middlebury readers) that had 2 competing 20+ member brass bands, an “orquesta” with various singers on a stage, several Catholic Masses, a procession with the Virgin of Las Mercedes (yes she actually did inspire Mercedes-Benz—I learned this at one of the masses), a two course lunch prepared, fireworks and bulls.

At 11 p.m on Thursday the band with singers started to play, and people started to dance. After shaking off my shyness I started to dance. Forgive me for my cultural insensitivity, but I still can't tell the difference between huayno and cumbia, but I'm working on it. Mostly I just smile and bend my knees and try to duck low enough when I get twisted—I think I'm actually getting the hang of it.

The main event came at 1 a.m. Finally I learned what the damn poles were for. Throughout the night, what appeared to be a scaffolding like structure kept getting built higher and higher. At one, they lit it from the bottom up. The thing was like a Rule-Goldberg (did I get this name right?) machine. One level would light another and would spin, and then shoot off sparks, and light another. It was probably the coolest display of fireworks I've ever seen (until the next night's—all in all there were 4 Castillos! Over three nights, not to mention more Roman Candles lit by cigarettes than I've seen in my life).

For the next two nights the fiesta continued, and went onto include a corrida de toros (one of the toros may or may not have escaped—I didn't attend perhaps fortunately) and lots more. I guess the lesson of this story is, the next time a group of guys ask you to haul two pieces of wood to your town plaza, go for it—you never know, it just might far exceed your expectations. Dance till you fall.

A Meeting as I Understood It

When you wake up in Jangas—you really have no idea what you're going to do that day. Wednesdays are health post days—days I accompany a member of the health post to a “caserio” or smaller outlying town outside of Jangas.

I was ready to wake up for my 8:30 appointment w/ the health post. My host mom confirmed through the window that don Zeñon my socio-comunitario had come to say that we had a meeting at 8:30—in my unconscious state of sleeping I somewhere found the Spanish (thank god she doesn't just speak Quechua) to say that I knew and would be there. After my breakfast of REAL oatmeal and bananas (here they like to drink things instead of eat them—drinkable Quaker oatmeal? Drinkable yogurt? What the fuck?)--I headed down for the health post (2 minutes from my house--as is mostly everything).

In one of the communications wires got crossed, and we started at 9:30 instead—specific timing here is not a big deal. The way I figure it is in the States we work events around time, and here they work time around events—just a different way of looking at things—which as culturally sensitive as I try to be, still can get annoying at times, but often ends in me laughing at myself and the situation (in training I was told once by my host family that we were going to visit their family a couple towns over at 8:00 for breakfast—I rose early on Sunday for the occasion, was ready to go, and if I recall we left at about noon and ended up having lunch instead. On a second occasion we decided to have a party based around the final world cup game—by the time we got back from buying supplies for the party, the game was in its 70th minute)--once again, time based around events.

Back to today—I arrived at the healthpost at 9:30, when quickly my friend Raúl who's a nurse there invited me to a “reunión” at 4:40 later that day in Jahua (we ended up leaving at 5:10, haha), and don Zeñon my “sociocomunitario” counterpart and I headed out to Lluncu a closeby smaller town. In Peace Corps you don't have to know what you're doing before you sign up for it—a meeting w/ Raúl on an unknown subject? Hell yeah I'll be there. Head out into Lluncu w/ don Zeñon? What time?

The health post has a program where they are working to better people's houses with cleaner methods of cooking and better organization. Today we were going to help people put together what I understood as storage containers for plates and utensils—sometimes things don't have to make sense—it's something to do. We went to three different houses—at one the woman was working on another project—next week she said, at the other, the woman didn't have the adobe (good insulating bricks made of mud and straw) sufficient for the project, and at the third house the woman wasn't there. As we walked and talked on the way down, don Zeñon put it simply: “no hemos hecho nada” we haven't done anything—but that's how it goes sometimes. On the way down don Zeñon talked to me about some of the problems here in Jangas—a lot have to do with “ancianos” (old people) health problems. There is also problems of illiteracy w/ the older generation and children denutrition (though this has improved) and kids getting parasites from bad water (and bad water practices). Finally he mentioned pregnancies—how many women in the campo still don't want to come to hospitals or follow modern medicine practices throughout their pregnancies. This comes up later.

After coming down I ate lunch w/ my host mom (potatoes, cabbage, flour soup, and avacado sandwiches), and washed clothes for 2 hours—I still suck at this, my friend Beth that lives nearby says she does it when her host mom is away so that her host mom doesn't end up taking over after she's done it incorrectly. I mostly get poked fun at, but as we speak (I type) my socks and shirts are drying—probably not as white as they could have been, and my sweatshirt probably is a little soapier than it should be due to my laziness, but what're ya gonna do. Me washing clothes by hands alone is enough to prove Adam Smith's theory about specialization of labor—too dorky?

I then ate my “lonché” snack w/ my host brother—white bread from Panaderia Omar, tea, and drinkable yogurt (fuck).

Finally I headed down to the health post for the meeting w/ Raúl. The meeting was going to take place in the “centro poblado” of Jahua. I really had no idea what the meeting was about. We headed up in a taxi w/ the health post's doctor Cynthia. First we broke a 100 soles bill at the gas station to pay—change can be a real bitch here—the guy broke it w/ a 50 and 10 5 sol coins—change purses are a necessity here.

We finally arrived and met up w/ a few people near the puesto de salud they have in Jahua. Raúl talked to them for a couple of minutes in a mix of Spanish and Quechua—I picked up a bit of it, but the gist was that the mayor wasn't around and we should post-pone the meeting. We decided to move it to Saturday at 5. Then we headed out of Jahua, and that was almost that.

I asked what the meeting was about on the way down and Raúl told me it was about an issue they've been having w/ “gestantes” pregnant woman—that don't follow up w/ their medications—recently there was one woman that took only 2 days of a 5 day prescription for an infection she had—which can lead to serious issues. They had had other problems with gestantes recently too, and they had decided it was time to have a meeting w/ authorities to put some weight behind their medical orders.

On the way down we ran into the mayor walking up, which changed our plans. We reversed and headed back to hold the meeting—better to get it over with when we actually had the politician during election season than to try to post-pone it.

Before continuing I must add an important phrase about the upcoming bit: “As I understood it” part of this title, is an important phrase when you're living in a totally different culture, where not only do they not speak your native language, but they only speak the foreign language you know half the time—the other half is Quechua.

We headed to the municipality and jammed a bunch of chairs into the mayor's office. At the meeting there was a gestante with her (I believe) husband a few of her kids. Raúl opened the meeting up (standing when he spoke) with the issue at hand. Dr. Cynthia then talked about how the medical post physicians and nurses are held responsible if something preventable were to happen to the pregnant woman—that in other cases, for similar issues, doctors and nurses can be fired from health posts for the patient's negligence. To protect the women's well being, and to avoid this scenario, it was necessary to come to an agreement about the pregnant woman's health issue—that she must take responsibility for taking the necessary medicines and for coming to the necessary checkups (which many women have not been completing). In cases where someone is acting in negligence to another's health the health post as a state-run organization can make a “denuncia” and bring in serious authorities.

With all this being said, and the mayor and health promoters of the town making the case for the necessity of modern medicine practices (mostly done in Quechua to the pregnant woman)--we came to an agreement about the situation—that the mayor and other authorities would talk to the other pregnant women, and that it was necessary for the pregnant women to take responsibility, and that they had been properly warned by the members of the health post. Raúl said he would return to finish this woman's medicine to fend off the infection over the next few days.

As is custom, this agreement was written up, everyone (except the husband) that was at the meeting including myself signed the document, and we photocopied it.

Mid-way through the meeting, someone asked what the hell I was doing (they asked in Quechua so I assume this is what they asked) and Raúl explained that I was with Cuerpo de Paz and spoke Spanish, was learning Quechua and was in Jangas to support education and health programs. What followed were lots of words and phrases in Quechua and lots of laughs (I really have to start learning Quechua—I notice it's usually the language the jokes are made in—maybe this is cause the jokes are usually made about me, but hey—comic relief certainly didn't hurt at a meeting like this one).

We headed back in taxi, stopped for sheep in the middle of the road on the way down, and that was that. I came home, ate spaghetti, popcorn and potatoes (my diet has drastically changed since Middlebury's cafeteria), and now it's about time for the “The Pacific” w/ my host-cousin Chara—thank god for subtitles.

Matthew, my REAL brother (I get a little sick of host this and host that every once and a while)--told me before I came that I'd come back wanting to be a doctor—this is still not the case (2 years of Post-bac and 4 years of med-school? yuck), but I'm definitely becoming more and more interested in health promotion.

Much Love from Ancash.

Johncito (what most people call me here—little John, despite me being the tallest person I've seen in the past month :).

PS: Aunt Doreen—all the foodie references are for you! Come visit and I'll take you to really good Ceviche and then when we get to Ancash LOTS of potatoes.

PhotoCredit—This is a Brown Swooooosh cow here in Jangas, Ancash—he says hello to his friends in Shelburne, Vermont.

Just one of those Moments

Sometimes an experience comes and goes that you just have to share in a blog entry. Today, such an experience happened.

In the first three months of service at site, we are responsible for writing a “Community Diagnostic.” The idea, as I may have described earlier, is that we get to know our communities before we start setting up programs, so our programs are more targeted to specific community needs—a worthy ideal. , As part of the way to get to know the community, I have decided to volunteer at the colegio in a few English and Math classes—to better get to know the students, the teachers, and through them, the community at large.

The day was going normal, right up to a certain point. I had worked on conjugations of “to be” and how to form questions, and translating verbs for the majority of the morning. Then came the “tutoria” session—more or less a mandated time for alternative subjects that a teacher gets to choose—as you can imagine, topics here can and do vary. Señora Elba, the English teacher who I work with had something special planned for today. A Ministry of the Peruvian government has an “Agua Para Todos” (Water for Everyone) Initiative, which partially involves educating school-aged children on hygiene. This policy trickled down (haha) to the level of tutoria--and this is where I get involved.

Before I knew it I was helping evaluate the class of fourteen year olds. This was no ordinary high school test. Instead of bubble sheets, my job was to inspect my high school's classes´ nails, yes you read that right—nails. After I self-consciously checked my own nails to make sure I wasn't being hypocrytical in this examination, I started to check my students nails to see if they were “limpio” and “corto” (clean and short). I had three options—no, “en proceso,” and task completed! Needless to say, I couldn't help but laugh at myself as I inspected thirty or so pairs of high-school aged nails. There are three follow up examinations—so if we all pull together, hopefully we can get a few more “logrados” by then.

After this, I asked (via honor system) if they were all washing their hands before eating, and after going to the bathroom. Mostly everyone affirmed they were, but in the end, I reminded everyone that it doesn't matter what the response was—it matters what they're really doing.

As someone whose stomach has gotten to know a significant number of Peruvian parasites on a personal level (not due to inadequate handwashing--remember the tippy tappy) and spent his fair share on Peruvian toilets in three different provinces—anyway you can protect yourself is seriously important. In the future, I hope to work on projects that involve such basic health issues that can significantly improve people's lives inside and in the adjacent and more rural communities surrounding Jangas.

After I finished evaluating finger nails and hygiene practices, I walked home (2 minutes) and ate w/ my older host brother Aurelio who's 29. After a small nap and reading (Peace Corps goals 4 and 5), I talked to my REAL family which was great and then played Volley Ball for 2 hours which was a lot of fun. My height significantly helps me here—I am yet to see a taller person in the town, and until I can figure out the style of soccer here, I'm gonna stick to volí.

Tonight I prepared a bit of bi-nomial long-division for a Math class I'm helping with tomorrow. I'm pretty sure most of the kids will have no idea about the subject—there are significant differences in skill levels which makes classes very difficult as most lack basic math skills. I hope to focus some on math skills during my time here, so it's good to see what people can do in school.

As I sit here writing this, I have just kicked out the third of three cats in my room—I thought there was only one, apparently there were three (or four for all I know). Besides 6 cats we have 2 dogs, a couple rabbits, and a herd of guinea pig—the rabbits and guinea pigs aren't permanent pets, let's just put it that way.

From Ancash, with Love.

John William