Words of Wisdom

Good advice I´ve recieved from previous Peace Corps Volunteers:

1.) Wash the parts that fold.
This is of course referring to effective bathing procedures employed when one has to utilize freezing cold water to clean one´s body. There´s nothing like blasting yourself in the crotch with freezing cold water every morning to get your day started off right.

2.) Never trust a fart.
See above in my second blog post entitled ¨La Bicicleta¨ should you be confused as to why this is a particularly good bit of advice for Peace Corps Volunteers.

3.) Always keep an eye on your valuables.
Yeahhhhhh, so... this is a particularly important one of late. Perhaps you´ve noticed my scarcity of pictures in this blog post. Well, as you have probably guessed by now, I managed to get my camera stolen.

It actually happened two Saturdays ago during some particularly fun festivities at a restaurant/bar down the street from my house where one of my volunteer friends lives. A big group of Peace Corps gringos had gotten together to take advantage of the large dance floor at said bar. Over the course of the night, much merriment ensued and at some point, a small contingent of local Peruvian guys showed up. I had my camera in my back pocket most of the night but decided to put it in my sweater at my seat where a bunch of volunteers were sitting while I went to help a friend of mine who had had a little too much cerveza. I was gone for probably about 30-45 mins. and when I came back, everyone had left and my sweater with my camera had left as well. I assumed that one of my fellow compatriots might have gathered up the jackets that were at the table for safe-keeping and that surely I would see my camera again on Monday.

So, come Monday, I ask around. No one has my sweater. Tuesday, no. Wednesday, still no sweater. At this point, my optimism is fading and I let my host dad know what happened. He goes and questions the restaurant owner and informs me that the random Peruvians that showed up at the gringofest were some of the local miscreants who like to rob stupid gringos such as myself. Eventually, we get around to talking to the police to obtain a police report so I can file the incident with my insurance. That was yesterday and involved me sitting in the police station staring at a wall for three hours while all of my friends got to have fun at the 4th of July festivities planned for us. More on that later. Regardless, I got the report and am in the process of filing with my insurance who will hopefully reimburse me for the loss of the camera and I can get another one, which I will never take out in public for fear of it getting stolen.

Anyway, the whole fiasco was a good lesson early on in taking that third bit of Peace Corps Volunteer advice seriously.

On to the awesome stuff!


There were mountains and mountains of potatoes

Last Saturday, we went back into Lima for a two hour introduction to an amazing agency that works with kids who live and work on the streets. We split into small groups of 5 and went with one of the workers through the madhouse that is Lima´s La Parada. It´s essentially a humongous outdoor market underneath some newly built train tracks. I´m not sure I could ever properly describe the vibe of this place. In a strange way I kind of liked it. It´s definitely something to be experienced. All the pics included here I found online:

An example of some of the kids that live/work in the streets

Just imagine mud and cars and people and sheer choas. It was pretty difficult to think about and to see how some of the children live there in the grime and madness making centimos to shine shoes or scavenging for vegetables that have fallen off of carts to bring back to their parents to sell on the street. The worker that went with us was amazing with the kids. She was so affectionate with them and really made an effort to show them they were cared about. I was glad to have had the experience because it put a real face on some of the issues we´ve been learning about in our classes.

After that, I met up with my host family who happened to be in Lima for my Peruvian grandpa´s birthday celebration. I can´t stress enough how awesome this was. It was a little overwhelming to see the immense poverty and travesty of the children´s lives and then immediately follow it up with going to an upper middle class neighborhood to drink good wine and rum, eat amazing food and cakes and have intellectual conversation about life in Peru and Lima, but that´s the beauty of this whole experience here. My Peruvian grandpa just turned 86, but looks like he´s in his late 60s. He and I talked at length about many different topics and I´m pretty sure he wanted to adopt me because he kept hugging me. The entire family was extremely ingratiating and forgiving of my poor Castellano. We stayed until dark and then my host dad, Alfredo, drove us all home in the insane madness that is Lima´s highway system where lanes and road laws are more of a suggestion rather than something to be followed religiously.

For the 4th of July, the Peace Corps was nice enough to give us the day to play American sports and eat American food provided by the staff. Then after lunch, they gave us this amazing HUGE American flag cake that was absolutely fucking delicious. It was heavily covered in frosting on the outside and had a dulce de leche filling. Sweet jesus it was good! I ate two pieces and felt disgusted with myself. It really made me feel like home.

In other news, my Castellano is coming along a little more smoothly now, and Thursday I´ve got my second language interview to (hopefully) get moved up into a higher level class. My first interview was over the phone before I left the States and it was a nightmare because I was so nervous. My brain constricted like a sphincter and wouldn´t allow any Spanish to come out. Now, I feel more confident in my knowledge, so hopefully this one will be considerably better and come out like ¨La Bicicleta!¨ (sorry, I couldn´t resist) Wish me luck!