A Beautiful Moment

Today was my host mom's birthday. Señora Maximiliana is the hardest working woman I have ever seen. She wakes up with our new rooster.

Ok a short side note. My host family acquired chickens over the holidays. Let's just say I want to have a word with whoever gifted these fuckers. A couple pirated DVDs wouldn't suffice? A pannetone? Nope, apparently chickens were what we needed. Eggs are cheap and plentiful in town, and I don't even think my host family wanted chickens. But here we are w/ one male one female. Well the macho is hitting puberty—and just like all guys go through—his voice is cracking. Unfortunately, my room is right off the “coup”--patio, and Mr. Awkward Change Phase starts singing at 5:50, goes for a few notes, gives up, tries again in a few minutes. I've started to accustom to the “song” so that I can incorporate it into my dreams. Somehow, I had a dream where I blamed it on dad—go for it and analyze it if you want.

Anyway—enough about chickens. The point is my host mom gets up early. So today was her birthday. I had my newly formed youth group over for the afternoon—soon to be trained as Youth Health Promoters!--The name of the group is JUMP (Jovenes Unidos Motivados para el Progreso). The JUMPers were over to learn how to cook applesauce (they wanna keep learning to cook, and I'm running out of recipes...so far, french toast, pancakes, and applesauce...help?).

I told all the kids that it was my host mom's birthday. I figured I'd have to prod them to wish her a happy birthday—they are after all teenagers. Then as I went into the kitchen, I noticed them each, one by one, wishing my host mom a feliz cumpleaños and giving her a traditional cheek kiss. Sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy what life can mean.

After the group made our applesauce, I headed to Huaraz for my own birthday traditions. My real mom had sent some gifts down about a week earlier, and the Peruvian mail system got them to me right on time :). Listo. As anyone who really knows me well, they know I like to shove 3 day's activities into one. So naturally I was running late, finally headed to the cake shop at about 8:00 p.m.--got the cake, then took my combí ride back to Jangas. I think it'll be a competition with myself to see how much shit I can take on one combí trip during my two years—after you see 15 guinea pigs in a bag on top of a combí, you really start respecting people's packing abilities...

So naturally I got back at 8:30, and my host parents were just heading to bed... oops. I talked to my host brother Eladio to double check this fact—he said, yeah, it'll just have to be a surprise. I said, yup, but he was gonna wake them... So there we sat at 8:45, eating our cake, and having our soy milk too. Thanks real mom for sending down the beautiful scarf, Señora Maxi loved it :). It was definitely a memorable night, and a night where I reminded myself of how much I really enjoy living with my host family, despite it sometime being challenging.

So here I sit at 9:41 p.m., about 7 hours away from the rooster's call (maybe for my host brother's birthday I'll suggest a chicken dinner). After you wake up, you never know where, what and with whom you'll your day will bring you.

Photo Credit: Some Vacaciones Utiles with 4 year olds.

Sunday Sports

My day woke up at 7:30 a.m. It's Sunday, I'm in the Peace Corps. This isn't a usual occurence. I knew it was time to wake up but it's Sunday so I snoozed three to four times. That's when the knock came. It was well deserved, I'll admit. It was Marco, my host brother--<> I responded that, yeah, I'd be up in a bit, but I was only going to the game to watch, as they sure as hell didn't want me to actually play for the soccer team. They've seen me play soccer, and I've seen them play soccer—there's a talent gap the size of the department of Ancash.

Marco assured me that they lacked players. Well, I hadn't played organized soccer for nine years, but for sure I'm better than an empty position.

With this news, I pushed out of bed, turned on Arcade Fire to psyche me up and went in for breakfast in my scrubs—Matthew, this was the best gift ever. My host family was already eating breakfast (or for all I know lunch, they get up really early some days), my host-mom invited me to some Quinua which I accepted. I usually cook for myself (stomach reasons), but Quinua is delicious and good for you.

We headed over for the first game of the day—the 8 Oclock Game. Now remember, it's rainy season here in Ancash. The “field” would best be described as a gigantic mud bath with a few patches of overgrown grass here and there. Not thinking I would be on an official soccer team during my Peace Corps service, I left my cleats in Vermont. Having a size 12 shoe, I can not buy cleats in my entire department (I'm told they sell my size in Lima...). So there I was with my New Balance shoes (thanks Dad), ready to hit the field. I declined being put in goal (this is a good way to be culturally embarrased as I've learned before), and they put me at mid-field.

In the first five minutes I remembered that soccer is hard and requires a LOT of running. I held my own, took a forty yard header in style, ran up and down the field, tried to kick the ball really hard, fell down, pushed some smaller players around, beat my high school student for a ball, etc. By then it was 8:30, and the late-comers arrived, and I was pulled from the game, a decision I was ok with—the game ended as any riveting soccer match does 0-0. Team Cocha, our neighborhood should have beat the other neighborhood, but we couldn't put any goals in unfortunately. The league is inter-barrio where neighborhood teams play other neighborhood teams. Next week we're playing Cocha South, which is apparently like the Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry of inter-barrio play.

After the tie, we headed to the volley-ball court to watch the blue/red team (I forget their name) upset Puncu in 3 sets. After the game I headed home (a 2 minute walk, like everything here) cause it was time for my Sunday Run. Running in rural, traditional Perú is always fun. You basically just decide that you're doing it, and even if your showing more leg than usually gets showed in a week here, you're gonna enjoy yourself. Today I ran to the Virgen of Anta, a decent outing, passing sheep, pigs, angry dogs, sleeping dogs, and plenty of workers and people enjoying their Sunday. The whole way I have a view of Huascaran, the tallest mountain of Perú—not a bad deal...

After the run it was time to prepare my fruit for the week, a new tradition I'm trying to start—here for fruit peals to go down my stomach successfully, they need to be submerged in a diluted bleach solution—it's a decently long process, but then you eat an apple at the end and it's cool.

In the afternoon, as if I hadn't enough sports, we decided to pull out the old Pig Skin (thanks Mom and Dad). I taught Marco and Eladio (my other host brother) how to throw it, then we headed down to the soccer field—which by the afternoon (we got lucky w/ no rain today) had dried and looked somewhat like a soccer field. Finally I got to show off my sport skills, and I wasn't the gringo falling down on the soccer field, I was the gringo throwing the football thirty yards (just like Aaron Rodgers—shout out Packers!). Some students came by and we taught them, and by the end they were throwing it pretty well. I think we're a couple years off from creating an inter-barrio US football league.

And that's basically a Sunday in Peace Corps, I came home had a dinner w/ my host family, talked with my host mom for a bit and here I am, ready for bed—if I'm getting up before eight, I'm definitely going to bed around eight. In my last blog I talked about my specific job—in Peace Corps (for those who didn't grow up w/ a PC dad and then brother)--there are three goals—1 is the work you do in the community, the other two are sharing United States Culture, and learning Peruvian Culture to bring back to share in the US. Today was a goal 2+3 day. Tomorrow, I'm back teaching computer skills to 5-8 year olds.

Happy Valentine's Day—and Feliz Día de la Amistad (here's it's Friendship Day). So to all my friends back home—have a great one.

Your Friend in Ancash,

John William

Useful Vacations: 200 Soles, 300+ Students

Just back from Jeshú my barber—as I wrote Katherine, I'm now ready for my transfer from the Peace to Marine Corps.

I realized y'all haven't had an update in some time, and I know that makes Jean mad, so here goes nothing.

What have I been up to in Ancash in 2011? Useful Vacations. As Youth Development Volunteers, one of our jobs is to organize “Vacaciones Útiles.” For many people in very small communities this involves teaching English or Computers to 20-40 students by themselves. In Jangas, it's a little bigger, but its budget is about the same as these other, smaller Vacaciones Utiles: 0.

To start planning Vacaciones, in early January, we met with the new Alcalde (mayor) and his Regidores (city councilmen?) to plan out these here Vacaciones. In the past the town has usually focused their Vacaiones on sports and maybe a little theatre. After doing surveys, I found the kids really wanted to study—math, computers, and even English.

After pitching our academic plan for the Vacaciones to the Alcalde, everyone loved it. The only problem was the old Alcalde left town (he didn't actually live in Jangas) leaving the budget with 200 Soles (3 Soles/$1).

But remember, like I've always said, when life gives you 200 Soles, make Vacaciones Utiles. My host-cousing Cabo and I sat down to start planning things. Basing our estimates on pure guesses, and previous participation, we figured two sections of primary and two sections of secondary would be sufficient, and we'd probably need 3-4 classrooms at the colegio. This was dubbed fortunate cause the principal only wanted to give us 2 classrooms and the computer classroom.

So we opened “Matricula,” advertising with the local media—radio, t.v, posters, word of mouth, intimidation of my favorite students jk, etc. We opened registration up on Monday and had maybe 20 or so registrees—Not bad. Then Tuesday came, another 30 or 40 more, and then I started to do math and got worried. By the end, including our pre-school (meets Tues and Thurs) we had well over 300 students signed up for our Vacaciones Utiles.

Instead of two sections of primary, we opened up six sections, and instead of 2 classes and the computer lab, we now have 8 classes and the computer lab (woops). Now we just had to find teachers—as Cabo is the most laid back human being on the planet, he told me not to worry, and I did my best not to.

In the end, as somehow he always does, Cabo found the teachers. Our teachers range from myself to two German volunteers, to 1 ex-alcalde, to several professional teachers, and workers from the Municipality. Outside the workers from the Municipality, everyone is a volunteer. It is truly an impressive effort from the community.

In the first few weeks, scheduling and teachers having scheduling conflicts lead to some confusion—when you go in in the morning you literally could end up teaching English to 16 year olds or health practices to 7 year olds, no importa. But learning by doing is always the best way to learn, so we didn't fret too much.

Classes for the students range from: Mathematical Reasonal, Verbal Reasoning, English, Computer skills, Art, Physical Education, and on Fridays we have Health lectures from the Puesto de Salud.

We're halfway through Vacaciones and I'm really proud of the work we're doing. In fact, our main problem so far has been the fact that Februrary is Carnival month, and thus most of the kids bring water balloons to school with them—an unanticipated occurence. We're going to plan a more organized water balloon day, where Prof. John plans to take his revenge out on those that have not listened about our water balloon policy during Vacaiones.

Excitingly enough, Vacaciones isn't the only project that is getting going. Recently we started Movie Night on Friday Nights so teenagers have something to do, we're getting a teenage volunteer group going, and we're hoping to start Youth Health Promoters in March or April.

Anyway, I know this blog entry lacked in the humor department—don't worry, I plan to start trying some of the Quechua I learned in my recent classes—and this is bound to land me in some funny situations.

Furthermore, I figured it's getting into tax season, so you mine as well know what a sliver of your tax dollars are currently doing in Jangas, Perú. (We're also celebrating Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary at the Ambassador's house in Lima in March—so thanks for that too :).

Much Love de Ancash,

John William

PS: The author would like to remind readers that calling him at 948-767-830 is very possible and cheap through Google Talk.

Picture Credit: The 99% Completed World Map.