An ode to reading till 3am, bloodshot eyes, and the “just one more chapter” theory

I admit I’m a bit of a book monster. I blame it primarily on my mother, who would read Agatha Christie murder mysteries, westerns, or pretty much any other genre of book out-loud to my brother and me until the wee hours of the morning.  Or perhaps is was my father, who was somehow able to captivate my 6 year-old attention span while reading us accounts of the Shackleton expedition to the Antarctic. Either way, the habits stuck with me, and I’ve normally got a book stuffed away in my purse.

The point is, I’ve always found that what I’m reading is a formative part of my everyday experience, so for those of you curious about what this year has been like, you should know what books I’ve been leafing through in the early hours of the morning when normal people are sleeping. Here’s my book list since arriving in Peru. I’ve starred the ones that I particularly enjoyed…

 

Fiction

Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway

*The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge – Ranier Maria Rilke

*Notes from Underground – Fyodor Dostoevsky

*Eva Luna – Isabel Allende

On the Road – Jack Kerouac

The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho

Eleven Minutes – Paulo Coelho

The Devil and Miss Prim – Paulo Coelho

*Little Bee – Chris Cleave

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie

El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Sophie’s Choice – William Styron

Iqbal – Francesco D’Adamo

Inés of My Soul – Isabel Allende

*A Fine Balance – Mistry Rohinton

Chinese Cinderella – Adeline Yen Mah

*Stories – Anton Chekhov

Empire Falls – Richard Russo

Theological/Spiritual Readings

Life of the Beloved – Henri Nouwen

*Gracias – Henri Nouwen

Jesus for the Non-Religious – John Shelby Spong

We Drink from Our Own Wells- Gustavo Gutierrez

Spiritual Direction – Henri Nouwen

Academic

Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder

Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire

Currently Reading…

La cuidad y los perros – Mario Vargas Llosa

The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics

Binding the Strong Man – Ched Myers (been struggling through this one since Sep…)

Peter Maurin: Prophet in the Twentieth Century – Marc H Ellis

Giving Carmen Sandiego a Run for Her Money, or, Where in the World is Anna Gray?

Dear Blog Readers (too formal?),

I realize I haven’t been doing the best job of keeping up with my blogs, or letting any of you know what in the world is happening with my life.  So while I prefer to write about specific issues, or events, I figure I owe you all a bit of an update.

I spent Christmas here in Huancayo. Christmas in Peru is very different – we ate turkey at midnight on the 24th, went to mass,  set off fire works, and drank champagne. Think New Years meets 4th of July meets fake Christmas tree. The next day we made hot chocolate, and stuffed ourselves full of the Peruvian version of fruitcake.

On the 26th my two-week vacation started, so I hopped on a bus, wound up, down, and around, mountains for 7-ish hours, and found myself Lima. There I  met up with Ginna, Baja, and Alta, and the next day we were on the road again, headed to Arequipa. 15 hours via bus. In Arequipa we met up with Joe, Erica, and Stacey, and spent 2 days meandering through the streets of the city- mummies, hookah, monastaries, good espresso.

We left Joe and Co. in Arequipa, with dreams of spending a day on the ocean in Paracas before heading back to Lima. Plans changed last minute, and 18 hours, canceled bus, failed attempt to refund us with a fake 200 soles bill, and bus crash (not serious, no one was hurt) later, we found ourselves in Lima again. There we met up with my mom, who had come to visit, and rang in the New Years – yellow-themed things, beer, things that made noise, people that made noise, good times were had by all.

Next, after switching Baja out for Alissa,  we headed to:

Trujillo - lots of ancient ruins, colonial buildings, gringos with stomach issues

Huanchaco- gorgeous beach, ridiculous sunburns, late night card games, hippy restaurants, sand everywhere

Huaraz- snowcapped mountains, hanging out with PeaceCorp volunteers, hiking at 15,000 feet, glaciers

The end of vacation. Everyone went back to their respective homes, I stayed in Lima and a few days later headed to Sucre, Bolivia for an Environmental Conference, where I was a part of the Peruvian delegation. Somehow it took us 32 some hours to arrive at our destination-  I’m still not sure why… Of the 70-some youth that were there, there were 4 Whitworth grads present – 2 of us on the Peru delegation, one as a part of the Bolivian delegation, and another representing the US. It was a good reminder of just how small the world is.

Once back in Peru I spent 2 days in Puno – Lake Titicaca, floating islands, alapca everything, folk dancing.

Back to Lima, stuck there for about a week due to a transportation strike, and another 7 hour bus ride back to Huancayo.

So here I am again. I’m sitting in an internet cafe, it’s raining outside, and in two days I’ll be back on the road. My brother Ben is getting married in Alaska on the 20th, so I’ll be making a quick trip back to the frozen north. Needless to say, these last few weeks my head has been filled with dreams of snowy mountains, northern lights, and old friends. It will be good to be back for a few days.

When I get back to Peru, I’ll be heading off to a beach retreat with the other volunteers, in Mancora. We’ll see who wins the sunburn competition this time. We’ll also be taking a day trip to Ecuador, in order to renew our visas.

On the 8th of March I’ll once again be headed back to Huancayo, where I will be for only 3 days before hopping on a bus to La Oroya. There I will be chaperone/translator for a group of college students who coming to learn about environmental degredation.

Then I’ll be back in Huancayo and might do a better job at making regular blog posts. In the meantime, I’ll write when I can, and hopefully get some photos up soon!

Thanksgiving in Lima

My last week was spent in Lima, where the other volunteers and I had a few days together to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. So I found myself celebrating my second Thanksgiving outside of the US, surrounded by a few members of this new, random, and wonderful community I have found here in Peru- 16  people sharing a pot-luck style meal. There were those of us from the YAV program, other co-workers, and their loved ones – a jumble of people from all around the US, and some from Peru as well. We cooked, laughed till we cried, drank wine, and shared thanksgiving traditions with one another. Then, during that period that I think hits us all on Thanksgiving – where you’ve eaten so much you have to call a truce, and wait awhile before you can even consider the prospect of dessert – we took a moment to express our thanks.  It was a beautiful moment, as we all sat in a circle using a blend of Spanish and English to share our gratitude with one another. As I took a moment to think about what I would say, I surprised myself. I realized that even though I was in a different country, that doesn’t have cranberry sauce, isn’t covered it autumn leaves,  and is just starting to sow their harvest, rather than gather it, I wasn’t homesick! It hit me, that, as cliché as it sounds,  what really matters on this day is the community you’re surrounded by. Because I felt so at home with this group of people, I didn’t feel so far from my home in the US. It served as a good reminder that, while I certainly continue to miss my family and loved ones who are so far away, I have a home here too. Of course we normally tell the people who we spend Thanksgiving with that we are thankful for them, and we mean it (unless they just took the last piece of pumpkin pie), but on this day it was wonderful to feel it so intensely.

 

So I’ve been inspired to make a list of a few of the things I’m thankful for in my life here in Peru (cheesy, I know, but bear with me). Some things are serious, some not so much, I’m grateful for them all!

1. My host family here in Huancayo.

2. The friends I have made here in Peru – they spread from Huancayo, Huancavelica, Huanuco, and throughout the districts of Lima.

3. The other YAV volunteers, Debbie (our boss), and her husband Harry .

4. The hope I see in the people of this country, despite the recent decades of violence and oppression they have experienced.

5. The natural beauty of Peru, especially of the Andes mountains, amidst which I am living.

6. The work that CEDEPAS and Red Uniendo Manos, the organizations I work with, are doing to struggle against the issue of poverty and injustice.

7. The simplicity of my life here. I started to expound on that, and then realized it’s a blog in itself.

8. Public Transportation and the loud mix of reggaton, 80′s rock music, Andean love ballads that invariably accompanies it.

9. Ice cream street vendors

There are so many little things that I love about life here – the trips to the market, the  vendors who pedal their bicycles through the streets while using a loud-speaker to advertise their wares, the epic and sudden rain storms, the beautiful corn and potato fields…I realized at #9 I would just have to end the list there.

In addition to being thankful for my Peruvian life, I remain indebted to all of you back home who have done so much to enrich my life up to this point. To those of you in the states, and around the rest of the world, who care enough about me to continue reading these blogs and sending me those little bits of communication that mean so much. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, filled with people you are truly grateful for.

 

How do you say…..

I have a confession: I’m not that great at speaking Spanish. A friend once told me that, for her, learning another language was like trying to run uphill, in three feet of snow, in the dark. I would have to agree, only would venture to add that said runner should probably be afflicted with a stomach ache, too. Although maybe I’m just biased, since some new form of bacteria  hit me yesterday. Fortunately no one I know in Huancayo speaks English, so I have no option but to continue improving. It’s a frustrating process, full of highs and lows - one day I’ll be chatting to my heart’s content, slipping in a few slang words, and hardly thinking twice about the fact that I’m speaking Spanish, and the next day find myself forgetting how to conjugate one of the most basic of verbs!

Break in blog: I have to pause to eat the  french fry, egg, and hamburger sandwich someone just handed me.

Needless to say, the process of learning another language is accompanied with some humor to alleviate the frustration. You can’t help but laugh upon realizing, hours after the fact, that when trying to say that your mother hates jasmine tea, you accidently said you hate your mother. Whoops. Why was I talking about my mother’s tea preferences? I have no idea. Luckily when you sound stupid 60% of the time you get used to laughing at yourself, and learn how to put aside your ego. Sometime after my first month of living here I realized I was so used to making language errors, sticking out, being yelled, whistled, and stared at in the streets, and being dependent on other people in the process of getting to know my new world, that it was practically impossible to be embarrassed by anything! I should admit that I had this realization after dropping a bottle of water on a guest speaker at one of CEDEPAS’ conferences…in front of about 100 people. Oh well.

The other day a new found friend asked me whether I felt uncomfortable walking around the city because of the unwanted attention. I told her that for me, uncomfortable was just the new comfortable. The truth is, in just one year of living here, I won’t manage to blend in – I look different, I sound different, and I have different cultural norms. The beauty of this, however, is that it’s okay. The common bind of humanity is far greater than our differences. In the words of Dutch priest Henri Nouwen, “it is good to be and especially to be one of many. What counts are not the special and unique accomplishments in life that make me different from others, but the basic experiences of sadness and joy, pain and healing, which make me a part of humanity.” He wrote these words while living Peru. Here in Peru, I, too, have found people with whom I can laugh, tell secrets, contemplate the state of the world and of God,  and share dreams. So what I’m really trying to say, is that I’m happy here with this new life of mine, despite the days that I speak Spanish like a 5 year-old.*

*That being said, I can’t pass up a rare opportunity to brag…the other night I was informed that I had been talking in my sleep – in Spanish!!

And so the hours pass

A lot of you have been asking what life here in Huancayo is like. Well, I’m still trying to figure that out. Here’s a litte glimpse into what my Mon-Fri. schedule looks like:

6:30-8:40 am: Breakfast and then leave for work. This varies dependent on what I’m doing for the day. If I’m going to an outlying community, I leave the house early, if I’m just going to spend a day in the office, I leave between 8:10 and 8:40 (dependent on whether I’m giving an English lesson or not). It’s about a 20 minute walk from my house to the office. My host sister, Hayde, works at CEDEPAS with me so we normally walk together. Last week I walked from the house to the office by myself for the first time, and felt way more accomplished than I probably should have. When you’re living in a new place, with new people, speaking a different language, you are very dependent on people. Thus, walking to work by myself was a pretty big deal. I’ll admit I’m still on a high from it, even though I’ve walked alone many times now. “That’s right shopkeeper, I do know that I need to make a right turn at the next corner. I’m just that cool.”

1:30-4:00: Lunch break. If it’s just a normal day in the office and I’m not out in a neighboring community, I walk home with Hayde for lunch. Lunch is the big meal of the day here, so you have to take time for it. Lunch breaks are also long so that people will have time to get things done during the day that they may not be able to do at night. While I normally just use the time to wash my laundry, read, write, or do pilates in my room, most Peruvians are very busy during this time.

4:00-7:30: Back to work.

7:30-8:30: Make our way home. This uncludes walking 10 or so minutes to the panadería to buy bread, maybe stopping by the grocery store, and maybe doing some other small housekeeping tasks. Then we catch a bus home, since it’s night and not as safe to walk.

8:30-9:30ish: Dinner. Food in Peru is a whole post in itself, but I will let it suffice that dinner is traditionally light in Peru, and that’s why it’s so late. That and the  fact that people are working so late.

9:30-bedtime (anywhere from 10:00 to 12:00, dependent on when I’m leaving the house the next day):  I usally spend this time in my room, which is seperate from the rest of the house. Given that I haven’t been accumstomed to having any notable time alone in the last 4 years, the first couple nights I thought I would go crazy within the week. I’ve settled into it, though, and am surprised by how much I normally have to do. Between journaling, pleasure reading, academic reading, doing artwork, and studying Spanish, I find myself running out of time to accomplish what I want to get done every night!

So this is what my week routine looks like right now… it’s possible that much of this will change within the next couple of weeks as my work with fair trade begins.

A Look at Lima

1/3 of the entire population of Peru lives in Lima, so if you want to try to understand Peru, you have to try to understand Lima (disclaimer: I have yet to understand either).  Lima is a bit of an anomaly.  First of all, it’s a desert right on the coast. Hence the humidity is extremely high, and the sky will often spit mist at you, but it almost never actually rains. Because there is so much pollution in Lima, it is hard to tell what is cloudy weather, and what is smog. During my time there I began to believe that the sun doesn’t actually exist, whereupon I went on a hike, got a nasty sunburn, and was promptly put back in my place. Had I been paying better attention when we visited the ancient Temple of the Sun God, I could have avoided this mistake.

There is notable economic disparity in Lima. As a result of the 20 years of internal violence the country experienced, the majority of which took place in the countryside, many people moved, and continue to move, from the countryside into Lima. Many of these people don’t bring much capital with them, and as a result they end up settling on the outskirts of the city. Thus Lima has a number of districts that have been thrown together out of necessity, with populations still struggling to gain access to basic public services such as water. Although these communities are slowly becoming more integrated into the city, many people there remain marginalized and have notably less economic opportunity. Walking through heaps of garbage and past malnourished children only to find yourself peeking into windows of stores selling $150 cowboy boots ( just a 20 minute drive away) is a stinging reminder of  our world’s need for economic justice.

I don’t want to leave you with a negative impression of Lima. I certainly don’t have one. The people of Lima were nothing but wonderful to me, and I look forward to meeting up with some of my new-found friends next time I’m in the city. The coast is beautiful, the culture is rich (there are ruins within the city that have been inhabited by 4 different ancient civilizations!), and the ceviche is tasty.  Most importantly, I met a lot of people who are working hard to make the city, the country, and the world a better place to live in, and they’re doing a good job. I feel lucky to get to work with some of them.

Bienvenidos a Peru

Disclaimer: Some things in Peru are sideways. This cannot be fixed. That or I’m just not that great with technology. Either way, some of these photos are sideways. Sorry.

Well, I’ve only been in Peru for 6 days, but it feels longer than that. My group and I stepped off the plane on Sep. 1st, and will be in Lima for about two weeks, in an attempt to orient ourselves a little before heading to our various placements. We’ve already done so much – I feel a little overwhelmed as I try to decide what to write to you all about. Rather than covering everything we’ve done every day, I think I will just tell a few stories that fit into a theme that has been emerging over these last 6 days – how good and wonderful people can be to absolute strangers. So here are a few examples of the kindness I’ve experienced this far in Peru:

LOST IN LIMA

It’s night time in Lima, a city of 9 million people, and the taxi has rolled to a stop. I look around and think – “I have no idea where we are.” I look at the taxi driver and say, “I have no idea where we are” (but in Spanish this time). He shrugs as he informs us he has brought us to the address he was told, and I shrug as I say, “well, I guess we’ll find our house ourselves.” We must have been quite a sight – three gringas wandering around the streets of Lima, asking fruit vendors and police men how to get home. The old lady selling the mysterious meat dish alongside the road didn’t seem to know either. Being well prepared, as usual, we had no specific addresses or telephone numbers (for the worriers among you, don’t worry, I have since written these things down), and I began to plan how we would spend our night – would we simply loiter in the streets, or check into a nearby hotel? As we stood there, wishing one of us had a sense of direction, an angel showed up in the form of a well dressed Peruvian man. Instead of continuing home from a day of work, he spent the next 15 minutes wandering the streets helping us find our way. Once we found our house, he simply smiled, waved, and walked on.

IT’S JUST OVER THAT HILL…NO, ACTUALLY, THE NEXT ONE.

Yesterday our group went on an 8+ mile hike – it went from one district of Lima to another, both being some of the poorest districts in Lima. The hike consisted of a series of mountains and ridge lines, and was absolutely spectacular – probably the best thing I’ve done since being in Lima. Due to a number of pauses, the tedious rate at which a group of 11 people pick their way through shale, and the number of times we had to scout out the path, the hike took 8 hours. It was supposed to take 5. Tired, a little battered, but happy, we sat down to eat dinner with the people who had hiked with us that day. As we ate and talked we found out that Juan, one of the men who had volunteered to guide us on our hike, worked as a night security guard at a church. Then we found out that Juan had worked the night before (from 9pm to 7am), and would be working about the coming night (in 3 hours). Despite this he had chosen to spent an entire day guiding a bunch of gringos along a mountain range, and had never once mentioned the sacrifice he was making.

GETTING OLDER

My birthday has served as yet another reminder of how welcoming and loving people have been. On my birthday all of my new co-workers at the “Red Uniendo Manos” office greeted me with birthday hugs, had lunch with me, and put their various to-do lists aside in order to have cake and spend time celebrating. Today we went to church with our site coordinator, Debbie, and she had apparently informed the congregation that it was my birthday. I, and another lady who had a birthday last week, had to stand in front of the congregation as they sang us happy birthday and prayed for us. Aside from being absolutely mortified by having so much attention thrown at me (not to mention that everything was in Spanish, which made it confusing as well as terrifying), it was incredibly heart-warming.

I hope these stories have served to showcase how wonderful people have been since we’ve arrived here. Despite the fact that we are still new here, and often find ourselves bumbling, lost, and confused, people have continued to love us and welcome us. Being loved when you have done nothing to deserve it is one of the best forms of human kindness and hospitality. It is also a reminder that I too want to be the type of person who freely extends warmth to others.

Thanks (for being just so wonderful)

These last few weeks have served as a reminder of what wonderful people I will be leaving behind in Alaska. At the end of July one of my roommates, Molly came up with the idea of throwing a benefit concert to help me raise funds for my trip. The event was organized primarily by her and Rebecca, another roommate, and was a huge success! The Wildflower Café here in Talkeetna hosted the event and provided beer and pizza (Jerome the owner donated all of the supplies!), which we sold at the concert to raise money. Rebecca and Dane Ueland performed, a bunch of people showed up, and it was a great success all around! The event raised almost $1200 for my trip, which is a huge help. Even more than the money, it was nice to see how many people wanted to come out and support me as I start a new phase of life. I am surrounded by a wonderful community of people here in Talkeetna, and for those of you who were involved in the event, thank you so much.

Just last week I had another fundraiser, held in Palmer and organized by a family friend, Donna Embree. She set up a house meeting for me and invited people from the church I grew up attending on Lazy Mountain. The Gates family agreed to host the event, which was incredibly generous, considering that we had never met. I haven’t lived in Palmer for 4 years and was feeling a little unsure as to how many people would show up. In the end, I was surprised and touched by the number of people who came. It was wonderful to catch up with so many old friends and familiar faces and to meet people I didn’t know who had come to hear about my trip. The meeting provided a good opportunity to reconnect with the community that I grew up in during my years in Palmer, and to be reminded (again) of how many people support me. Thanks to all of you who came to either of my events – if I didn’t have the chance to speak directly with you, please know that your presence meant so much to me!