So It Goes

So, Thanksgiving has come and gone, Christmas is on the way and my 31^st birthday is frolicking merrily on the horizon. And here I am, about a month later writing another blog post. In the words of the late, great Kurt Vonnegut: “So it goes.”

So, speaking of Thanksgiving, we had a pretty sweet one, us volunteers, considering we were all away from home. Thanks to the extensive planning efforts of Ms. Sue Song, Youth Development presidente extraordinaire, myself and a bunch of youthie (and several small business) volunteers made plans to pass the three Thanksgiving vacation days so kindly provided to us by Peace Corps in the department of La Libertad, two departments south of Piura. All the youth volunteers were heading to Olmos, just outside of Chiclayo in Lambayeque, the department between Piura and La Libertad, immediately after the Thanksgiving holiday for what’s called Early In-Service Training (EIST), so we figured why not converge somewhere in the middle for some merriment before a week of training.

We spent the first night, Thanksgiving day, in Trujillo, Peru’s second largest city. After a delicious breakfast with real coffee (!!!) and a brief walking tour of the city, we passed the remainder of the day up on the roof of the hostel hanging out with volunteers from other groups that happened to be in town for their own Thanksgiving plans.

The next day we went to Huanchaco, one of the more well-known beach spots in Peru. It’s basically a chilled out surfer/gringo-friendly community about 30 minutes west of Trujillo on the coast. Definitely a fan. We stayed at an awesome hostel on the beach with a freaking vegetarian restaurant right next to it. I couldn’t believe it. A couple of highlights from the menu: burritos with curry-infused tortillas, falafel (!!!) and apple pie with ice cream. Super delicious.

After a couple of days on the beach and lounging around the hostel, we made plans for a giant Thanksgiving feast to go down the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Plans were made with the hostel so that we could use their kitchen for the two hours between their lunch and dinner hours, so we had to plan accordingly to be in and out with all of our stuff baked, cooked and cleaned. Dibs had already been called on the mashed potatoes (as my family can attest, around holiday season I’m a pretty lethal mashed-potatoer), so I offered to make my patented (as in I stole it from a recipe I found on about.com) vegan green bean casserole.*

*Tip: When lacking the delicious crispy French friend onion thingies for the topping, a good substitute is a large bag of the delicious mini papas fritas they’re so fond of dumping on their burgers here. Not quite the same, but pretty damn good, nonetheless.

All those involved with the actual cooking crammed into the industrial-size kitchen at the hostel and we commenced with gettin’ down. It was a beautiful effort really. We had volunteers in the bathroom of one of the rooms washing all of the fruit and vegetables in the shower, other volunteers in the other kitchen peeling the shitloads of potatoes, other volunteers making last-minute runs for supplies and of course, my group, cookin’ up some sweet lovin’ in the kitchen. After the two hours were up, we somehow managed to finish almost everything and have the kitchen relatively cleaned up.

The menu went as follows (I’m sure I’m leaving something out):

-a bunch of Pollo a la Brasa (basically rotisserie chicken substituted for the turkey because turkeys cost a shitload apparently)

-a mountain of bread

-assorted roasted vegetables

-a massive 5-6 cheese (I don’t remember how many different types of cheese were thrown in there. I just know it was delicious) mac’n’cheese

-sweet potato casserole thingie (also delicious)

-vegan green bean casserole

-fresh salad (very much a rarity in whatever part of Peru you live in)

-absolutely drop dead amazing stuffing (love, love, LOVE stuffing!)

-THREE different types of mashed potatoes!!! (all of which showed up anything I’ve been able to churn out in the past)

-delicious fruit punch mix

-copious bottles of sweet Peruvian wine

For dessert:

-make-me-weak-in-the-knees apple crisp

-chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies (which due to a lack of prep time, ended up looking more like one giant glob of gooey chocolate goodness and were no less delicious as a result)

-fresh fruit salad

-4 different flavors of ice cream

Needless to say, I was cursing my gag reflex by the end of the night for not allowing me to eat more of that delicious goodness.

After dinner, I walked around with some friends looking for a dance club only to stumble across a secret jam session going on inside of a house that doubles as a pizzeria during the day. We sat on mats on the floor, kind of like in a Persian restaurant, and listened to some locals getting down to some traditional Peruvian songs complete with guitar, massive reed flutes and a huge cajon (pronounced ka-HONE), one of my favorite instruments in Peru. It’s essentially a rectangular-shaped wooden box that you sit on to play and that has a hole cut out of the back with metal strings strapped to the front panel on the inside to provide a snare drum sound, but can also produce a deeper, bassy sound depending on where you strike the box with your hand.

After the T-giving festivities, we all headed out from Trujillo to Olmos, about 5 hours north in the department of Lambayeque, to start our EIST.

EIST was interesting. It was fantastic getting to see everyone who didn’t make it to the Thanksgiving festivities and being back in a training atmosphere definitely had a positive effect on my motivation for when I returned to site.




Us learning (that's me in the Perú 17 shirt)

  

AIDS Day tent in Plaza de Armas, Olmos



My favorite parts were, without a doubt, getting to sing a super catchy song my buddy Zack wrote and performing socio dramas to educate about the ABCs of prevention (A=abstinencia, B=brindar fidelidad, basically “be faithful” and C=condon) for the youth in Olmos and the following day in Zaña, Zack’s site, for World AIDS day. As always seems to be the case with these socio dramas (at least, when I’m not playing a baby), I played the sleezy boyfriend who wants to get his fuck on. Oh, yeah. And I almost got to wear a condom suit, but we opted instead to let Zack wear it and be the singing condom.



Me "pretending" to be a guy who wants to get his fuck on (with my friend Brielle)



Dr. House says so (this show's actually pretty popular here)







Our AIDS Day Mascot



Informational Tent in Plaza de Armas, Olmos



Some alumnas sporting educational banners in Olmos

 



Yup. That's me.



Me taking a walk with Zack in some ruins from the 1400s in Zaña



Here's a pic of me breakin' it down on a super
old suspension bridge in Zaña.




Speaking of AIDS-related issues, I was asked to be the HIV/AIDS commitee representative for my department, which means I get to promote HIV/AIDS prevention events in the volunteers in Piura, visit volunteers currently doing projects regarding HIV education, help volunteers apply for grants and twice a year I go to Lima with the comittee to plan for the year. I'm still figuring out my role, but am super excited about what this will entail for my work here.

Returning to site after almost two weeks away proved to be much more difficult than I had expected. This was exacerbated by the fact that I not only had no work lined up, but no one wanted to do anything, supplying me with the same excuse every time: “Es mejor que esperar hasta el Año Nuevo. Todos están bien ocupado con la Navidad,” “It’s better to wait until the New Year. Everyone’s busy with Christmas.” Mind you, this is the response I received when I returned Dec. 2^nd, roughly three weeks before Christmas.

Needless to say, my goal-oriented gringo ways could not immediately accept this fact and I went about several days in a row trying to shake down my socios for work and getting more exasperated in the process. Eventually, I had to succumb to the spirit of the season and acknowledge that maybe it was time to take a different approach.

During the summer here (Janurary and February), the kids all get out of school for two months and some attend what is called Vacaciones Útiles, meaning "useful vacations." Try as I might to figure out exactly what this would mean in my site (even asking the guy supposedly in charge ended up being more confusing than if I hadn't), it's supposed to be a time where kids who haven't been able to pass their classes or need some extra help can recieve it and all the other kids can just fuck around for two months.

Seeing as how I was not willing to sit on my ass and do nothing for two months while all the youth in my site had all this free time, I came up with what I have deemed Gringos Útiles, essentially "useful gringos." With this program I hope to employ the help of other volunteers close to my site to have joint events in between our sites with the youth while simultaneously offering the youth a place to come and hang out that's safe, fun and, hopefully, educational and giving them a chance to utilize our vast wealth of gringo knowledge. I'm currently planning each week's events and trying to figure out the budget right now, but with some help from my socios I'm pretty sure I can get this project going.

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm getting eaten alive by the massive swarm of mosquitoes that have invaded my site in the last week. Little bastards are everywhere. Looks like bug repellant is getting added to my daily routine after bathing and slathering myself in sunscreen.

Love to everyone! And since I will likely not get around to writing another post until after New Year's, Happy Christmas, Happy My Birthday (December 29th, in case you were wondering) and Happy and Safe New Year!!!