My Peru: Travel, Service, Reflection

June Peru Crew Information

2008-05-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hi, guys! Feel free to post any updates about your trip here. Just click on Comments below and proceed as directed. And remember ... this is a public blog, so you may not want to tell all.... What happens in Peru stays in Peru ... :-)

Seriously, feel free to post here so other groups and loved ones can hear how things are going. Good luck and happy trails!

Packing Day Today: But I'm Not Going to be on that Airplane

2008-05-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Today the folks going on the next service trip to Peru are packing their gear at the University. I'm on my way over there in a minute to say hello and lend a hand. It's a strange thing to me that they are going...already! How could the months have gone by so fast?!

Recently, I was emptying my cell phone of old pixs, when I came across this picture I took on the flight to Peru in January:

I wish the new crew all good luck! May they never face too slippery roads or have to subsist on electrolytes and white rice. May they find only kind faces and face only achievable goals. I wish them all health, safety, and an adventure of a lifetime!

Counting Our Blessings

2008-04-18T08:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I came upon a very fresh accident with a school bus and a munched car. EMTs were on the scene attending to the injured (or worse). I hurriedly told my son, who was in the back seat, to cover his eyes. An awful sight, not for a ten-year-old.

I pass through this intersection at least four times a day.

It wasn’t me and my son in that munched car.

I had the stomach flu this week. I rarely ever succumb to such bouts, so it is always a shock to me when I ACTUALLY throw up. (Now you know why I haven’t posted all week.)

But a person I know at church has stomach cancer and is only one step ahead of her disease, taking each new, experimental drug as it becomes available. She’s a trail-blazer and a real trooper.

Me? I just threw up a couple of times and then recovered a couple of days later.

Our yard is a mess and desperately needs some professional lawncare. Spring is FINALLY here and the poor quality of our lawn is startlingly obvious as everyone else’s lawn is already getting pretty green, but ours remains patchy and gray or tan in many spots. But we can’t afford to pay for services right now.

The village of Laguna in the Culebras Valley of Peru, though, has worse troubles. The river flooded the whole town, wiping out not only all of the work that we did there in January (biodigestor, solar irrigation system) but also their very homes. These people get by on less than a dollar or two a day. They live in huts made of woven bamboo mats lashed to poles. They have next to nothing and now they have even less.

So our lawns sucks. Big whoop.

I’m counting my blessings today and they are abundant.

Herding Turkeys, Poultry Speedbump, and Foul Traffic

2008-03-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

After dropping off my son and his classmate at school today, I suddenly came upon a traffic jam on a back road. Morning traffic in New England is notoriously bad, but this particular spot puzzled me. It was well before the IRS complex and nowhere near Raytheon. What was the hold-up?

Earlier, when I was driving north on Interstate 495, I saw the poor suckers creeping along in the southbound lanes for miles. I just caught the tail end of a traffic report on the new radio station I listen to when the news on NPR is unsuitable for ten year olds in the backseat — accident at the intersection of 495 and the 3, cars backed up for several miles. I breezed by, heading the other direction but noted how long the slow down continued. On the way back from school, I thought, I definitely will not take the freeway.

So…there I was a half hour later, driving on a back road through the gray and brown landscape (most of our snow melted this weekend when torrential rains from the south stomped into New England). Then we came to a dead stop.

On my side of the two-lane road, there were only maybe a dozen cars stopped ahead, and I could see flashing lights in front of that. Oh, my, another accident, I thought. The folks in the other lane were not moving at all, but my predecessors kept slipping forward and escaping from the jam, so I rolled forward every few minutes. Finally, with only six cars before me, I saw the nature of the hold up. A turkey.

Not just any turkey, mind you, but the biggest turkey I have ever, ever, ever seen in my life. This gal was as big as a Saint Bernard!! Well, maybe not that big, but it really was huge. And the animal control guy was walking along patiently behind the thing with a loose, three-feet diameter net, trying to get close enough to toss it on the bird and thus remove it from rush hour traffic.

The turkey wove in and out of the immobile cars. The uniformed officer tailed him on foot, zig-zagging in a steady and persistent fashion. Since the turkey was moving in our direction, folks in our line were one by one being released from captivity. The poor commuters in the other lane were moving forward at a turkey’s pace … which is not all that fast.

In a split second I had a decision to make. As soon as I saw what was happening, it occurred to me that someone should help the animal control guy to herd the turkey into a tight spot so she could be captured. I thought to myself, I am your gal, mister! And I began to pull over.

Then it hit me. This guy doesn’t want some lay person interfering and maybe getting run over by errant cars or worse, freaking out the turkey. My offer of help would not be appreciated … or accepted. So I straightened the car out and watched the show instead. It was quite a sight to observe this magnificent creature and her ability to stop us all in our tracks.

Two random facts spring to mind now that I am here writing about this insignificant little event. First, I am reminded of how Grandma, when she lived in Opheim, Montana, used to herd the family’s turkeys. She would sit outdoors with them and play a concertina (kinda like a little accordion) to pass the time. She said they had no grain to feed them, so the poultry ate the locusts who had devoured the remnants of their withered crops.

Second, I recall a speed-bump in a little village in Peru. We wondered why there was such a thing on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. For the chickens, said a villager. Ah. So they don’t get run over when crossing the road. In America we just send out an animal control officer in a big van with a net to stop morning traffic. While Benjamin Franklin did not succeed in his campaign to name the turkey our national bird, one would almost think it were so by all the hulabaloo!

As for the turkey, I left her in the dust. It seemed to me that the animal control officer had met his match, but then again, as I was driving away, I heard another siren behind me in the distance. Perhaps another officer was on his way to assist in the rescue operation.

Too bad Grandma wasn’t there. She’d have done the job in a jiffy.

Hog in the Fog: A Huacuy Story of a Peruvan Pig

2008-02-05T08:33:00.000-08:00

I was sorting through pixs from my trip to Peru today and came across this picture of a little pig:

We were in Huacuy Central that day, installing a vaccine fridge and replacing a broken radio in the medical clinic. It was very foggy up there at 7,000 feet, and I was a bit bummed that I had absolutely no view — as usual — of the mountains. (Serves me right for going during the rainy season, I guess!)

Anyway, I was taking a look around the village after the first hour had passed. Let’s face it, there wasn’t much I could do to help with this technical stuff — wiring a circuit breaker isn’t exactly my forte. So I decided to try and see what I could observe in the village. I was too timid about going far from the posta, though if this had been later in the trip, I would most certainly have been walking farther afield. In any case, I ventured out and took a few photos, but mostly there wasn’t much to see with the thick mist.

Then I heard a strange noise out there in the mist. You know how sound does weird things in the fog…? Well, I hear a low sort of grunting-whining sound coming from the village. What the heck is that?!

I stood still and waited. Then, right before the creature appeared, it dawned on me. Pig. That’s what makes that sound. And there he came, waddling along, heading straight for the ambulance truck that we had ridden up to Huacuy from neighboring Quillo. Upon arrival, he set to work rubbing every part of his itchy, black body on different parts of the truck. Satisfied, at last, he walked over to the posta.

Will he enter the clinic…? I held my breath. I’d seen dozens of dogs, cats, and even chickens go inside medical clinics in Peru. But this little guy had other plans and continued walking along the perimeter. I heard him out there in the fog and eventually followed the sound. There he was eating grass over by the septic “system.” YUMMO.

Today's Students and Some Reflections on Service Learning

2008-02-02T08:29:00.000-08:00

My colleague pointed out the video below to our English department in advance of our annual retreat (devoted to discussing our dept’s recent accreditation review and our future goals). Then today another colleague, “Gandalf” from the Peru Project, in fact, just forwarded it to me as well. So I figured it was time to share it with y’all. After you watch, I have posted some thoughts below about the message of this video and the goals and benefits of service-learning (the kind of teaching and learning that went on in our trip to Peru).

A Vision of Students

One of the things that struck me so powerfully about this video is how the students seem to be begging for relevance in their education, and I think service-learning fills this need in meaningful ways for most students.

What is service-learning?

Basically, s-l occurs when the skills/knowledge that students learn in class are put to use to serve the greater good of the community (however that is defined). In our case, engineering students design engineering projects (solar powered drip irrigation systems for an arid and cold climate, cheap biodigestors to produce methane cooking gas from animal and plant waste, etc.) and then they actually SERVE the Peruvian communities with which we partner by installing these actual systems. Learn through serving. Serve through learning.

Anyway, it seems to me that part of what this video above is telling us is that students need to feel their schoolwork matters, that what they are supposed to learn is important. (Can we blame them for that?) Service-learning has a way of helping students achieve just that feeling of satisfaction (whether they are installing water systems in Peru or writing grants for a local non-profit as a student intern). I have utilized s-l in my English class for over a decade and feel convinced that s-l (though taxing for teachers who must put in a lot of extra work to make sure the s-l experience goes well) is still one of the best ways for students to achieve deep understanding.

Odds and Ends: Various Interesting Queries leading to My Site

2008-01-31T08:27:00.000-08:00

From time to time, I see interesting search terms that people used to find my site, and I try to provide the needed information, however belatedly, for which those folks were searching. Here are a couple of random queries of note:

(1) “Village Empowerment Project” donation

Ah! Is this a query about HOW to donate? If so, please go to the website of the Village Empowerment Project and contact John Duffy, the Director of the program. He will let you know how to make a tax deductible donation to the Peru project. (And a worthy cause it is!) The project is run primarily through the generous donations of individuals. Talk about a big bang for the buck — about $200 buys a transceiver radio which can save dozens of lives in these rural outposts and about $300 buys a vaccine fridge that can protect hundreds of children from deadly diseases. Now that’s a bargain!

(2) Time of the day Peruvians eat breakfast

As in my post of two days ago, the answer is “depende.” Those who work in the fields or mines, eat breakfast according to the needs of their work schedule — early, undoubtedly. My impression is that they have a light breakfast of coffee and a roll before heading to work as early as 6 a.m. Then they take a longer break for lunch and enjoy a big meal (starting anywhere from noon to 3 or so and lasting at least an hour usually). We ate breakfast anywhere from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. and when we ate in restaurants, there were others around at that time, though never huge crowds. But maybe there are never huge crowds in restaurants in that part of Peru anyway…? I imagine most of the working poor, though, eat early.

"what to get Peruvian women as a gift": Which Peru?

2008-01-29T08:24:00.000-08:00

I just noticed that someone came to my site having searched: “what to get peruvian women as a gift.” A mere commodities search or something more philosophical? My first response is clean water, health care for their children, enough food to feed the family. But then it hit me: WHICH Peru did that person mean?

Since I’ve been back from my service trip to Peru, a great many people have mentioned that they or someone else has been to Peru, too. My repsonse is always, “Which Peru?” They look puzzled at first but soon are nodding along with me as I explain that I am asking about where they went because of the huge socio-economic range of that developing country’s inhabitants.

“Ah, yes, of course,” they say. “My Peru was lush and green, with interesting archaelogical sites. My Peru had some fabulous deals on pima cotton tee shirts and silverware. My Peru had some wonderful restaurants — did you try the ceviche?!”

Of course, that IS most definitely Peru. I can see it, having stolen a glimpse of that place for an hour and a half on the last night, when we snuck away from the airport to the Mira Flores neighborhood. We went shopping there, and I found some great deals. I bought a little silver ring that I wear every day to remind me of the trip. I bought each of my family members an alapacha hat. I found a llama stuffed animal for my son and a doll with a baby on her back. R., one of the Peruvian grad students, was our fabulous guide to Mira Flores. After shopping, we had just enough time left to take the “dulce tour de Lima,” i.e., we walked from sweets cart to sweets cart, sampling Peruvian treats. We strolled around the lovely Kennedy (as in JFK) Park and licked our fingers dripping with syrup and honey, listened to the band and watched the couples dancing, observed the ladies taking their cocky little Schnauzers for walks and the lovers smootching in the darker spots between the glowing street lamps.

That is Peru. Yes. But…

So is the Peru of Quian where R. also took us on an hour and a half tour in the twilight (I mentioned this earlier in the Jan. 18th post). In Mira Flores our goal was to shop for gifts to bring home. In Quian our goal was to convince the community, one family at a time, to each donate a big wooden post and some labor to build a fence around the biodigestor we built (but did not finish) in their village a couple of years ago. The children have been playing on the structure, and it is quite dangerous for them to do so. A fence is needed both to keep the children off the contraption and to hold up a roof from which we would be able to hang the methane bag (biodigestors convert animal and plant waste into methane gas for cooking and effluent for fertilizer).

Anyway, that night R. and a villager, Paco, led us from house to house. As we stumbled through the darness with one headlanp between us, dogs, so complacent during the day, barked and growled furiously at us in the night. People emerged slowly out of their houses, so slowly. Most shook hands with us, weakly as they do by custom in Peru. Their touch is so light as to hardly resemble a hand shake. The more common greeting is a hug and a kiss on one cheek. One woman we met that night in Quian was so sweet. She shook our hands weakly when introduced and then hesitated, finally going in for the hug and kiss. You could see her almost thinking, “Oh, what the heck. They may be gringos but I know the proper way to greet someone!”

That, too, is Peru. My Peru. Dusty roads and dirt floored houses. Little water and even less sanitation. Kind friends and generous hospitality. Great need and great hope.

Before we went on the trip, a group of us used to meet every week on campus for a Spanish immersion lunch. After a short time, we noticed that the grad student, M., always seemed to answer our questions with the word “depende.” It depends. Eventually, it became a big joke that M. was Señor Depende. When we arrived in Peru and throughout our trip, we often discussed how we could now understand a bit more about why M. always responded that way. OUR Peru seemed, by American standards, to be in a contant state of uncertainlty. Will we have transportation once we get there? Will transport, once secured, actually arrive at the time we arranged? Will the truck break down? Will that clinic where everything is supposed to be fine actually have some major problem with their system that we will need to fix on the fly? Will anyone want these student projects installed in their backyard — biodigestors and rocket stoves? Will the systems work if they ARE installed? Will villagers even use them if the systems DO function correctly? Who will maintain systems when we are gone? How can we keep kids from using our systems as playgrounds? Do we need to build them some playgrounds?!! It seemed like everything was up in the air: transportation, lodging, food and water — not to mention logistics about the engineering projects that we were in Peru to install.

Then one day when we were discussing how we thought of Peru as “depende,” R. took issue. He was reminding us that we were seeing only a small portion of Peru, and our experience was heavily influenced by the socio-economics of the places and people we visited and our mission to work directly with the poor. Of course, this made perfect sense, but it is only as I sit down to write this post that I see that R. was actually confirming our perception of Peru as land of depende. He was saying that everything depends on which Peru you visit!

So, what ought one to give Peruivan women as a gift? Clean water. A gold necklace. A composting toilet. Tickets to the opera. Job training. A shopping spree in Paris.

Depende.

Final Word (Probably) on the Odd Congruities between The Hobbit and My Trip to Peru

2008-01-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

My husband and I were reading The Hobbit to our son, as some of you may recall seeing in earlier posts where I pointed out several ways in which the book seemed relevant to me (as I prepared for my service trip to Peru). Well, we almost finished reading before I left — got through the climax at least — but still had Bilbo’s return home to read. As expected, said husband and son finished the book without me. Boo hoo! So when I returned, I read the final pages alone.

Bilbo, after being knocked out during the final battle and thus unable to help his friends, returns to consciousness when the battle is over. “He was now weary of his adventure. He was aching in his bones for the homeward journey. That, however, was a little delayed….” Ah, yes. After being out of commission for a while in Peru, having succumbed to all manner of intestinal bugs, I, too, was ready to go home (and felt as if I had been of little use to my friends on the last part of the trip, especially). As you may imagine, going home (when one begins that process in rural Peru) is a long, drawn out process which necessarily includes things like completing inventory of equipment left behind at home base, bringing the group together to reflect and feast at the beach, taking all manner of public transport to get to an international airport, flying several hours, passing customs in the US, transferring to another plane, and getting home from Logan International.

A weariness set in for both Bilbo and me. By the time Bilbo returned to Elrond’s house, he “had fallen quiet and drowsy” and slept exceedingly long. The elves, in fact, remark, “Tomorrow, perhaps, you will be cured of weariness.” This week since I came back, I have gone to bed uncharacteristically early, sometimes on the heels of my ten-year-old son at 8:30 p.m. I have also eaten with voraciousness, clearly making up for the lost calories of my starvation diet in Peru (not that the food didn’t look delicious — I just couldn’t eat anything). Yes, I am now fully rid of my intestinal bugs, thank goodness, and my appetite has returned with all manner of cravings. For someone who has been doing Weight Watchers since October, I am, understandably, cautious about wild abandonment when it comes to food. But honestly, I have decided that for this week alone, I just wouldn’t worry about what I ate. I felt that somehow I needed to feed my body and soul, and I wasn’t counting points along the way!

In the end, Bilbo returns to his home in disarray. This is where our paths diverge. I came home to the three things I asked my husband for in a desperate email from Casma one day: (1) clean bathrooms, (2) a clean, pettable dog, and (3) a few food items that I knew I could eat to get me back on track (Activia yogurt, instant chicken noodle soup, pasta, applesauce). My child did not fall apart upon my return, as he has sometimes done in the past (though we found out Friday that he had NOT done the work for his book report due that day … or a whole host of other in-class work in January!) Anyway, I am deeply grateful to my husband for holding down the fort while I was in Peru. He did a great job of juggling a huge number of tasks.

Back to Bilbo…. The book does say that Bilbo became a bit “queer” after he returned home — that “he took to writing poetry and visiting the elves,” in fact. And, of course, he began writing his memoirs, “There and Back Again.” AH! Yes, I can clearly see the impulse to write and process the trip as well as the love of poetry that emerges from a personal encounter with danger and deprivation. The yearning to listen to the elves’ beautiful music and enjoy their feasting and merriment makes perfect sense.

In Montessori education they discuss the Fundamental Needs of Human Beings. Yes, food and water, shelter and clothing, etc. But also religion, friendship, and art are fundamental. Without these latter things, we cease to be fully human. I have not fully fathomed my reaction to this trip to Peru yet. As someone suggested to me the other day, I am still “filing” things away in my brain. I do recognize in me a much stronger attraction to art in all shapes since I went away. I might even call this attraction a clear and pressing need. While I was in Peru, too, I found myself searching for the beauty and found much of it in that place, most often in the faces of the people, but elsewhere, too.

I leave you today with some of those beautiful faces…

A Few Peru Pixs

2008-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

I only have a few minutes to post today but wanted to share some photos from my trip to Peru. Is a picture worth a thousand words…really!? Not sure about that old adage, but in any case, these’ll have to do for now! (These pixs are set up for on-line viewing and won’t come out well if you print them. I’d be happy to provide higher resolution pixs for project participants. Just email me!) Meanwhile, for the rest of y’all, here are some moments, randomly selected for viewing (click on thumbnail for larger photo to appear)…

Cuy (guinea pig) for dinner:

El Agustino neighborhood in Lima:

Village of Huacuy Central:

Pan American Highway:

Grocery store and cafe above Yanacaca:

Village life…neighbors chatting:

More later on photos. I hope to get back into routine blogging soon. At last I am feeling more myself — only took a week See you soon!

Home Again, Home Again

2008-01-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

Top ten things I most love about being home after my 17 day trip to rural Peru…

(1) running water, i.e., plumbing
(2) a flushable toilet with toilet seat actually attached and that I can SIT ON!
(3) hot water from the tap that I can use to wash my hands without needing hand sanitizer afterwards
(4) hot shower with water that can accidentally slip into my mouth without me worrying about dying a painful death
(5) a clean and pettable doggie — no fleas or mange
(6) electric lights whenever I want to see something — no fumblling for my headlamp necessary!
(7) a fridge filled with food that makes my body healthy
( a car that I can get in and drive where I need to go when I need to go
(9) roads that are paved and have working traffic lights and other cars that mostly obey traffic rules
(10) a TERRIFIC HUSBAND AND SON waiting for me at the airport!!

Glad I went, but it’s great to be home, too! More later when I get settled back in.

Wrapping Up the Road Trip: Adios, Peru

2008-01-18T08:15:00.000-08:00

Well, it´s been a pretty long two weeks, but as always happens, the end sneaks up on ya and it´s hard to believe it is almost over! Tomorrow we leave Huarmey for Lima on the 11 a.m. bus. We get to the airport early, rent lockers for our bags, and then take off on a whirlwind shopping hour in a great marketplace in the Mira Flores neighborhood of Lima. Back to the airport to check in and fly out at nearly midnight. Red-eye flight puts us into Newark, NJ in the morning, where we go through customs and get on our flights home to Boston (and Chicago, for our student from another univ.) Unless customs takes too long and then we miss our connection…. In which place, I guess we´ll be calling our rides.

Right now we are all trying to do inventory here in Huarmey to make sure we know what equipment we have in stock for the next group coming in June. I have been going around town with M., buying bus tickets, arranging rides from the hotel to the bus station, etc. Tonight we go to the beach for a short little R & R time together at the end of our time together. Therefore, this shall be my last post from Peru! (Though you can bet I´ll be writing more after I get back since I´ve been keeping notes on things to write about later.)

Our last jaunt up into the mountains was very interesting and quite a bit different from other valleys and mountain areas group 1 has visited so far. The Culebras Valley, where we went the last two days, is agricultural (asparagus, avocado, mango) and very poor. I got to see where group 2 and 3 had been staying in Laguna, and it was pretty basic. No toilets, only an outhouse, limited water, very hot, rocky and dusty. Looked pretty uncomfortable, but the folks who had been there for a week were in good spirits.

We mixed up the groups a little for this last part of the trip. I left M and JK and joined the other Peruvian Grad student, R, and one of his undergrads, K. A different undergrad, S., and the history prof. joined JK and M. They went up to Raypa to move the radio from the old to the new posta there. We stayed in Quian at the posta there. Interesting dining place there … a private person´s kitchen hut with kitchen on one side and dining room on the other. They serve food to the miners (for gold) in the area and to gringos passing through! The food is pretty good. David, the Quian Posta staffer used to own a restaurant and loves to cook. The kitchen is pretty filthy, though. And then there´s the constant squealing of the cuy (i.e., guinea pigs) who scamper around in the kitchen. There are maybe forty that live there. Oh, and the chickens that sometimes jump on the table. And let´s not forget the flea-bitten dogs that sleep and/or beg under the table. I think that´s it, but maybe I´ve forgotten another critter that I can edit in later

The night we stayed in Quian, R and KO and I went door to door to get the community excited about building a fence around the biodigestor. R was a good ambassador for the project. In our company was the mover and shaker of the village, Paco (aka Paquito). I kept thinking that this is like a barn-raising. Every family contributes some labor and/or materials. Only we were doing a fence-raising! the fence was necessary, by the way, because the kids have been playing on the biodigestor (which was not yet operational at that time). The structure is very large and made of metal and cement (whereas the biodigestor made by the undergads in Laguna is smaller and cheaper to construct, made of flexible plastic in an adobe-lined trench, etc.) Anyway, it seems like the kids are always using our projects as jungle-gyms. I can´t blame them, but yikes! In the case of Quian, it was clear that we needed to keep the kids out now because it will be operational and will thus be producing methane gase!

So, after our door-to-door beggin, the next morning, by golly, those folks came to the site and poles appeared and we constructed a beautiful chain-link fence around the biodigestor. Then they started on building the roof and were continuing to finish the project when KO and I left that afternoon. R. stayed on to see it to completion. Good guy. We call R the ¨Energizer Bunny¨ because he is always going, going. Thank goodness we have folks like that on the trip.

We completed a number of projects along the road back to Huarmey, arrived right before 9 p.m. last night at Hotel Paraiso again. I´m tuckered out but feel good. Think I´ll wrap up the wrap up with a couple of random thoughts and observations….

This morning at breakfast JK and I were at the Jugeria (juice bar) and all of a sudden we hear the theme song from Bonanza coming from the stall behind us, where they had a television on. I went over and watched for a minute. It was the episode when the bad guys break some poor guy´s guitar. Hos and bros. make the bad guys pay money to buy a new guitar. ¨¿Es todo?¨says Hos. ¨Si, Hos,¨ says the sullen bad guy who had just flung some money into Hos´s hat. Somehow that show worked just fine for me in Spanish.

While waiting for JK and M to finish the very last install in the very last village (Quiapampa), history prof, KO, and S started a pick up game of volleyball with some local kids. It was sheer delight to watch. Those little Peruvian girls are REALLY good players! It´s so terrific that my son´s school was able to donate balls to so many villages. They really appreciated the gift, I know.

A couple of days ago, we stopped in the posta at a little town on the way into the Culebra valley, Molino. After checking to make sure all is well, we intereviewed Anna, the worker there, about how the radios have helped save lives. She gave us a lot of terrific stories, all on tape, thank goodness! Then I gave her my volleyball kit and my little speech that I always say. Muchas gracias. De Nada. Then right before I left, she tugged on my hand and put a bracelet on my wrist, a gift of thanks. Makes me choke up just thinking of it.

I am so grateful to have been able to come on this trip. What a privilege to be here and to be made so welcome. And now, adios, Peru. Whether it be hasta luego (see you later) or hasta nunca (see you never more), I hold in my heart all you gave me.

¡Gracias!

Group Member Status, as far as I know

2008-01-16T08:13:00.000-08:00

Just a quick note. We leave for Raypa (mountains) againa tomorrow, but hope to be back in a couple of days. For anyone reading this blog hoping to hear news of participants, here´s what I know now after group 3 unexpectedly arrived in Huarmey tonight…

history prof is doing well, getting good footage

all undergraduate women doing super, elated because they did install the biodigestor

JK now on the mend — hooray

All is well

Gotta go. Internet place closing!

Mountains on Speed Dial: Casma to Pariacoto to Huarmey

2008-01-15T08:03:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe yesterday morning I was in Casma, and here I am in Huarmey 24 hours later in the cleanest and fastest internet cafe in the country, I dare say. I´ve just had my morning tea (manzanilla, AKA chamomille) at the local juice bar (where I thoroughly enjoyed watching M eat five pan con pollos and a slice of cake), and I had a warm shower this morning. OH MY GOODNESS! It´s like some kind of miracle, warm water!

In this part of Peru — if they bother at all — they offer electric showers. Did I post about this earlier? I´ve forgotten. Anyway, I had thought forget it; no way I´m gonna try that. Electricity and water do not mix — any child knows that. Turns out it is perfectly safe, this electric shower. You turn on the water with one hand and then the electric switch (which looks like an old-fashioned circuit breaker lever) with your dry hand. The water warms up (IF it works, and usually it doesn´t) right away. Not hot but actually just the perfect temp. You just have to be sure not to touch any part of the shower while you are in the stall all wet. That is easy enough to avoid, though I am kinda on the tall side. When I was done washing my hair (for the first time getting it really clean since we´ve been here), I stepped out the shower with the water still running, dried off one hand completely and used it to turn off the electricty switch and then turned off the water. I was elated.

And this surprises me. But it is true. Give me a bottle of strawberry flavored electrolytes, a prescription of cipro, and a warm shower, and I´m on top of the world. Man, I could even go back up into the mountains again tomorrow :-) Seriously, I do feel so much better, as if I have passed through a dark hallway into a lovely porch with comfy chairs and a grand vista. Only five more days and we´ll be on the plane home, too. No problema.

Ah, but I´m getting ahead of myself…. No doubt you want to know about Mountains on Speed Dial. Behold, 24 hrs.

8:30 a.m. Leandro, ambulance driver for Pariacoto comes to collect us from the Hostel Selena. This ambulance was a little smaller than Tonio´s in Quillo, but it had good tires and seemed sturdy. I was glad to hear that the road to Pariacoto is PAVED. Wow. What a concept. Leandro helped us load up. Then we drove over to Casma hospital, where the strike is still on and getting more intense. Leandro said he would not park anywhere near the emergency entrance, i.e. would not cross the picket line. Of course, no problem. JK was checking email and said she would join us later, so M and I went into the hospital to check on the radio and consult briefly with a doctor about my recent decision to start on cipro (which he confirmed and said, yeh, duh, what took you so long! or something like that….)

Anyway, there was a guy just being brought into the emergency room with a huge gash in his leg. Awful. Later a tiny baby and screaming mother were brought in. Very distressing. Then when we got to the radio area, at a nurse´s station, we found that for the fourth time on this trip the nurses had changed the radio frequency to chat with their friends privately and had not bothered to change the radio back. As always, Casma hospital was unreachable by the mountain villages. I can´t express how angry this makes me. Having just been to the mountains and helped install our radios and seeing the way the people live there and the contrast with the cities, it infuriates me that these Casma nurses don´t give a second thought to cutting off this lifeline. At least the villagers can talk to one another and through a relay system get a message to someone who has a cell phone who can call the hospital by phone. AAARRRGHHH!!!

We left the hospital and M went to the pharmacy for me and got me some electrolyte fluids. JK arrived. We all piled into the ambulance truck and headed out of town, first stopping to buy gas for Leandro. This is standard procedure for us here. ¨SÍ, you can use our posta truck if you buy us gas.¨ Reminds me of college.

Just before reaching the city limits of Casma, it began to rain. Remember that city´s nickname? Land of eternal sun! Yes, it rained while we were there. Weird. The road to Pariacoto is paved, as I mentioned. I´ve certainly been on worse roads back home in New England, but through one patch the road was pretty rough. M, who was sitting with me up front, explained that we were driving through a mining district and their trucks had been damaging the road, less than three years old. M didn´t know how to translate the name of the mineral they mine, not a common word.

On the way to Pariacoto, which we were told was a thirty minutes drive (double all times you are given in Peru, though), we stopped at two other postas. First, Cachipampa, where we were surprised to discover that they were bulding a brand new posta medica right behind the old one. Construction was well under way and workmen were busy on that Monday morning with their wheelbarrows and bricks. We were supposed to install a radio there, but that plan had to be reconsidered. If the posta is moving to a new building, then installing a radio now means a lot of work doubled because the radio would have to be moved on the next trip. Reinstalling can take almost as time as installation! I watched the way that M and JK handled the situation with much interest.

Here is an ethical dilema, no? Install the radio now would cause us twice as much work, forcing us to omit one more project next time, or wait to install until next time and this posta would have to wait six months. That was when M jumped in and started asking all of the right questions. The posta had a government issued shortwave radio. M asked, ¨Who can you talk to on that radio?¨ Yuatan. (Which is a bigger posta that has one of our radios.) ¨What do you do if there is an emergency?¨ Call Yuatan and they use a public phone to call Casma or use our public phone in Cachipampa to call Yuatan if the radio doesn´t work.

M and JK made the tough call to postpone installation of the radio there. I wholeheartedly agree. The clincher for me was that the staff member was not expecting us and thus had no expectation of receiving a radio. She seemed fine with our decision to postpone. M and JK felt bad, I could see, and part of it for them is the fact that ¨Gandalf¨ isn´t here. I suspect they are used to him making such sticky decisions. But as a teacher myself, I see tremendous value in M, especially, having to make the call. I gave the lady at the posta a volleyball, a soccerball, a pump (for the village school) and some health posters with a smile. At least they got something from the gringos.

After leaving Cachipampa, we drove a short way to Yuatan, an unscheduled stop (but I suggested that maybe we should just check in with them real quick). Their radio worked fine (always good to ask just in case), but while there, we made contact with a couple of other postas higher up that we figured we wouldn´t end up visiting due to the rain and bad roads. One of the places, Cochabamba (say it out loud — it trips off the tongue beautifully) said she had a problem with her ambulance radio and would meet us in Pariacoto to have us fix it. Cool. What a concept — they come to us!

The other posta we reached by Yuatan´s radio was Colcabamba (not a typo — they are really similar names but far apart). They had a problem with their radio, but the road up there is not good. What to do, what to do? The technician there described the problem, and it turned out to be the ¨automatic power off¨ switch getting tripped. Ah, something we can fix long distance! JK and M had to look through all their records and figure out which model that posta had and what the manual said to do to stop the problem, etc. But after 45 minutes or so, we left there having fixed one problem, made an appiontment for fixing another, and having dispensed more balls for niños. Bueno!

Once in Pariacoto, we settled in to work on all we could without actually going anywhere. The drive through the mountains to Pariacoto was so refreshing for me. I got to sit on the window side of the front seat. The air was clear and cool, moist and fresh. Ah. Pariacoto posta was pretty nice. They even had tile on their floor, instead of bare cement. It´s a pretty big place. Fairly tidy. The bathroom was sorta clean, too, which one REALLY comes to appreciate after visiting rural Peru. I have to admit, I sorta lost track of what happened during the several hours we were there. I do know we went to a restaurant after a while for lunch. M and JK ate fried trout, which looked good. I had a half cup of white rice and my electrolyte punch. Yum, Pedialyte!

In terms of work accomplished, we helped the doctor who came down from Cochabamba, as appointed. She said there were over 700 people in her town alone, but her posta serves many more in surrounding pueblitos. Another young woman doctor working in poverty-stricken villages. It´s been a surprise to see so much energy and care being given to the poor (though it is never enough, it is so much more than I had imagined I´d find). Anyway, I liked this woman — she had a kind face and was patient with my poor Spanish. I gave her the standard balls for the kids and showed her some of the photos I brought of my son´s school and my son and dog, etc. ( I pretty much always bring these out when I give away the balls, so they know who donated them and to jumpstart conversation.) She was so pleased and gracious about the gift.

I know we left two batteries for villages in the higher elevations, stuff to be collected by those folks later when the roads are passable. One of the two is going to Chipre, I think(way the heck up there), and another to Colcabamba?? Anyway, one place thought the problem they had was simply the battery, so, hey, why not empower them to fix the problem themselves?! We also left some village (Chipre?) a new cable and plug thingey (English prof. talk) to replace a faulty fridge plug. This one was really tricky, and I could see that JK and M were so uncomfortable with not being able to do this maintanence work ourselves. But there was absolutely no way we were going to be able to reach that locale until maybe six months from now. Again with my professor hat on, I felt that here was an interesting issue. For any project to be sustainable, the people in these communities need to be trained to work on at least some maintenance projects themselves. If they must rely completely on us for everything, then the project has no chance of being sustainable.

This fridge is a good test case. I mean these engineers were so careful! They figured out every step so plainly and so precisiely and wrote everything down (in Spaniah, of course). Then they trained Leandro, our Pariacoto ambulance driver, who will bring the stuff up to the village when roads are clear. JK even gave the guy her personal voltmeter, so he can check the positive and negative wires of the fridge, which when they open up the plug (or something like that) won´t be red and black but both black wires and impossible to tell which is which (I gather that matters a lot). Short of doing the repair job ourselves, I think this is pretty good. Hopefully, it will turn out okay in the end.

I actually spent much of the day observing the posta perro (my nickname for the unofficial clinic dog) who was the friendliest little guy I´ve met in Peru. Most dogs roam the streets looking single-mindedly hungry here. This guy, I could see, just wanted to be my pal (okay, anyone would do, but I was there). But I dared not pet him, having already observed how often he scratched himself because of all of his fleas. So I talked to him, and he watched me with a happy face, though with low expectations, not daring to approach and be rebuffed. I did see Leandro pet him. Ah, the sheer joy! That dog loves people.

The other thing I spent a lot of time observing was the television that was blaring in the hallway of the posta. Weird. But, yes, t.v. in Pariacoto. Peruvian soap operas. Every restaurant we went to in Casma had a t.v. blaring, so it wasn´t the first time I´d seen the shows, but it was the first time I really paid attention. All I could say to the lady who watched with me was, ¨Muchos amor y muchos muertos.¨ Love and death. I saw a bride get left at the altar as her fiance went off with a temptress, a woman´s lover get killed in a car crash and her evil husband rub it it (ha, you got what you deserved you adultress), and a woman wearing jeans and black leather jacket get killed in a shootout with police (and a blonde woman saying, ha, ha, ha, you got what you deserved to the corpse later in the morgue). The ¨soup¨ is pretty much the same wherever you go, though the spices vary from country to country. I´ve seen such shows before!

When we had finished all of our engineering work at the posta, we walked across the square, which is all dug up for new construction ( part of a plot by local officials to skim some public funds, we were told), to the lovely Franciscan church to visit the father there. What an oasis that parish is, simply luxurious. Exceptionally clean and tidy, simple yet comfortable. Such a nice half hour we spent chatting in English with the Polish priest. They run an extensive after school program there for 70 kids, the express purpose of which is to try to help the children get up to grade level so they will have a ghost of a chance to go on to the university. Most of the villagers are farmers and just do not value education, so the folks in the parish house have their work cut out for them. I liked this priest so much. What a life of devotion to the service of others. Inspiring.

After we left and were back at the posta waiting for our driver to return, we heard the church calling the people to evening mass with the tolling of a bell and then blaring music over their loudspeaker. This music was actually very beautiful and relaxing, contemporary Christian ballads in Spanish, basically. I don´t speak Spanish but understood something like the words, ¨Put your trust and hope in me.¨ The bells made me think of my home church. I look forward to returning to my own parish and sharing my experience with those folks.

While waiting for Leandro to return, we finished some last-minute paperwork. I don´t recall mentioning this before … but every time we install or replace equipment, even when we leave donated volleyballs, we write up an official letter clarifying who the stuff is for and from, etc. I am always the signatory for our side, and thus I always get to meet whomever is in charge of the posta. Anyone could sign for us, but it´s a kindness that the engineers leave this little job to me, helping me to feel useful!

At last we were to leave Pariacoto. Ah…but not without three more stops. First to buy gasoline from a little shack. Where did the gas come from? I think they carried it out to the sidewalk in a big bucket and poured it into our gas tank via a funnel. Yes, this method spilled gas and it smelled nasty. Ugh. Gas is the equivalent of $15.50 per gallon in Peru. Yup. You heard me. Second we stopped at Leandro´s house to pick up his wife, who rode in the back with JK. Leandro wanted some company on his drive home from Huarmey after leaving us there. Good thinking. Third, we stopped at the posta again to get a little stool for his wife to sit on because there was so much equipment in the back that there was no place for her to sit. Kindness. JK later told me that this woman is only one year older than her and that she spends the morning — after doing all the breakfast stuff - working in the fields alongside her father-in-law, who is 92 and who still farms. Then she goes home and cooks a huge midday meal and does housework. Sometimes she gets a nap. Sometimes she goes back to the farm and cares for the animals and avocados. Leandro and his wife have six children, all grown.

On the way to Huarmey, on the Pan American highway, Leandro pulled over after the car began to swerve. What next, I wondered? Then, of course, we are broken down, no? Turns out that he merely wanted to check the tires. He never drives on that road and wasn´t used to the mutilple dips on one side of the pavement (a phenomenon that made him think there might be something wrong with his tires). He was only being conscientious. We were fine and back on the road in a moment. I have so come to appreciate the fine art of driving!

We arrived in Huarmey just after 10 p.m. and had the misfortune to be greeted at the parish house (where we needed to leave our equipment) by perhaps the only person in Huarmey who had NEVER heard of ¨Gandalf¨ and our project and who wouldn´t let us in. ¨I´m sure you understand, we just couldn´t let you in!¨ No Padre Ruly to be found, though we later reached him via a passerby who had a cell phone, and Fr. Ruly said he´d come soon. We unloaded the ambulance and said goodbye to Leandro and his wife. Then we waited. Eventually some guy opened the gate.

Then we went on to paradise. Err. Hotel Paraiso, that is. Once there, again no answer at the door, but we eventually got our rooms and were making plans about today in the front hall when we heard a squeal from one of the rooms: ¨JK!!! JK!!¨ Ah, it was C, the grad student in our project who comes from Nicaragua. What a happy reunion! And now we could get all the news of what the other participants are doing. All is well, I can assure you. Most everyone is now in Laguna, a small village where they groups are doing multiple projects. There are no latrines in Laguna but there´s a large community center where they are all able to sleep. The other professor has been filming a lot and getting help from our student from Chicago, I hear. The undergrads are trying to install their biodigestor, having actually found a place for it. C´s project is underway, a drip irrigation for an indiviual farmer ( a prototype project somewhat different from what we regularly do in the project because they must pay us back to cover costs).

We made plans for JK to go with C on the 7:30 a.m. bus to Quian tomorrow (and get off in Laguna). Jk´s husband is done sriving (who can blame him that on these roads!) and we can take the truck. JK was to go up and then bring said truck back to Huarmey to get us and our equipment, as the public bus is rough going and best to avoid if possible.

Alas, this morning we discovered that JK had not gone becasue JK had been sick all night. Oh, my sympathies, JK! She says she will be fine by tomorrow. And since this is her 11th trip, she ought to know. But it´s still a bummer being sick in Peru. Meanwhile, I am ¨documenting,¨ as the engineers call my blogging, and M is at Huarmey hospital trying to track down a guy for whom we made a prosthetic leg and do a bunch of other errands. We are going to stop by a pharmacy and pick up JK some electrolyte punch on our way back to the hotel soon.

About blogging … Who would have thought (1) that I would have so many opportunities to post while here, and (2) that writing this blog would give me a sense of having an important job in a situation in which I mostly feel jobless? I sometimes joke with posta personnel when chatting with them, pointing at JK and saying, ¨Ella trabaja. Yo escribo.¨ She works. I just write. Then I laugh. But really, I have come to see writing and reading as something so much more important to me than I ever realized before this trip. You´d think an English professor would see the value of reading and writing so clearly. But it´s a challenge when one is surrounded by engineers (who are installing life-saving equipment) to see any value in what I do. Not to mention, years of being in the profession (plus even the process of professionalization during grad school itself) have made it harder to see why I got into this field in the first place. But I feel as if I am so much more grounded and real when I write. And I feel as if I am so much wiser and open-minded when I read.

Who knows how much my efforts have really helped the project? This is an open question. But the project has given me back a renewed passion for what I DO, a front and center view of why words matter, why through the ages we have told our stories.

More Random Thoughts After a Lazy Afternoon in Peru

2008-01-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

Almost immediately upon publishing my last post, I felt the unfairness of leaving it there without a follow up on a more positive note. Here is my coda, written tonight after an afternoon spent reading in my hotel room here in Casma. When I am sick, I like to read. So it was VERY helpful to me today to be able to spend some time reading a good novel all alone in my own world. I didn´t even have any guilt about this break, as M. and JK. also chose to take the afternoon off! We are all feeling done in by the heat, and there is no work we can do on a Sunday here. No transportation to take us up to any villages until tomorrow. So here are five more words for you, with shorter explanations only becasue we are going to dinner soon….

Chivalry. Hospitality. Ingenuity. Friendliness. Hope.

Chivalry. I have been quite astounded at the chivalry of our Peruvian grad students, M and R. They drop everything if they see you need help and do all they can to make us gringos comfortable. M ran (literally) back to a restaurant where we had lunch today to look for JK´s hat, which ended up being in her daypack after all. R always carries my stuff, even when I can handle it. These guys are true gentlemen. They look after us so well!

Hospitality. In Huacuy, in the middle of nowhere at 7,000 ft., Fonso asked me if we wanted lunch. We were trying to do a quick install there of a vaccine fridge (with solar panels) but such things are never quick. He mentioned arroz, so I figured it´d be a little rice and that´s it. Instead, an hour later Fonso came back and told us the meal was ready. He had prepared not only rice but an onion salad common in Peru and a main dish made with ¨Anchovies¨which are really large sardines stewed in a sauce of tomatoes and spices. He showed us the can of anchovies, and it was a food subsidy can, not for resale. In other words the equivalent of our government-dispensed cheese. He was sharing with us his government issue food.

Ingenuity. Every time I turn around, I hear a story about some Peruvians who figure their way out of a jam using ingenious methods. They know, so often, better than we how to do something. We give them carefully drawn plans for a pump house and they make it in a way that it will ACTUALLY work! They know how to do much with little. Reminds me of what Grandma told me of her family on the homestead.

Friendliness. The internet cafe guy, Roberto, I think is his name, came running down the street the day we arrived back in Casma and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. He is the one I wrote about earlier who was speaking to me and whom I did not understand. We had such a nice chat that first day after I was done blogging and was waiting for mi amigos, that I became HIS amiga. Every time I come here, the women at the kiosks on the sidewalk yell to Roberto that his Amiga is here!

Hope. Yes, hope springs eternal in Peru. Hope that living conditions will get better. Hope that the gringos will be able to do the impossible and possilbe alike. (No pressure there.) Hope that if they keep working, they can make a life for themselves filled with health and love and all good things.

Amazing how spending the afternoon reading helped me change my attitude so completely…. I was reading (and finished) Thornton Wilder´s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which takes place in Peru. And I will say right now that it is an excellent book, well deserving of its Pulitzer Prize. It´s short, so I was able to finish the whole thing. And it deals with themes I care about: love and grief, big questions like why certain things happen to certain people. Reading it today gave me the larger perspective I needed.

My compadres are ready to go eat now, so I will just leave you with one quote from the end of the book: ¨But soon we shall die and all memory of those five will have left the earth, and we ourselves shall be loved for a while and forgotten. But the love will have been enough; all those impulses of love return to the love that made them. Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.¨

Random Impressions of Peru Written to Pass the Time ...

2008-01-13T07:57:00.000-08:00

Noise. Dirt. Stares. Giggles. Dry.

Before I left the states, I interviewed the students going on the trip and asked them what five words come to mind when they think of our trip. They said things like fun, different, exciting. My words, recorded above, were chosen, I recognize, AFTER being here over a week. And I am sitting in an Internet cafe, one of the noisiest places in the country, I think, and I am not feeling well — which is clearly affecting me. :-) I´ll try coming up with five more words once I am safe and sound at home, but for now, let me try to explain.

Noise. In the cities, at least, there is never a quiet time of day or night. Outside my hotel room is the rooftop laundry ¨room¨and food pantry. The laundry is washed in a little electric washing machine (the size of a mini-fridge) and then hung out to dry on multiple clotheslines. The Señorita did our laundry yesterday, and it´s GREAT to have clean clothes! The food pantry consists of two animal pens, one with ducks and ducklings and another with guinea pigs. Yup. Dinner! The animals are fed in the morning about 6:30. At 6:15 they scream for their food. Did I mention my window is RIGHT by their pens? Even with ear plugs, a necessary item when coming on this trip, I can hear their hungry cries. The guines pigs sound as if they are in pain, but I am just not used to their high-pitched squeals.

On the city streets, there is constant traffic. The most plentiful vehicle is a three wheel motorcycle type thing that I described earlier. We used these when we arrived at Huarmey bus station. There is a constant bustle and to-and-fro-ing in the cities. Granted, the mountain villages are much quieter. Especially when there is no electricity, they call it an early night. But in the cities, noise, noise, noise. Oh, and add to the traffic the yells of passersby, the music blaring, the televisions blaring, and it can feel pretty overwhelming.

Dirt. I want to say first off that I am not a fastidious person about cleanliness. I know some people that have to have two or three showers a day and keep everything in their houses spotless. I am not like that. Here in Peru, city and countryside alike, everything is dirty. Even the medical clinics are really dirty: floors, walls, surfaces, bathrooms. My sense is that water is precious and not used for cleaning. Cleaning chemicals are expensive and thus not used either. Who can blame them? And this doesn´t really bother me, but it is something I notice. Such a different world in this regard.

Stares. I am almost constantly being stared at. Openly and without any attempt to hide it. Big eyes, gaping mouths at times, other times just a blank stare. This was especially marked in the mountains, but I get it everywhere. It reminds me of when I traveled in Greece when I was studying abroad in college. Being a blonde woman, I was considered fair game by the Greek men, who used to grab me in the streets and touch my hair. In Peru, I have never had anyone grab me, but the stares evoke the same feeling. It feels weird to be an object of scrutiny. On the other hand, I am definitley someone who sticks out. Come to think of it, I do not think I´ve seen a single blond person since I´ve been in Peru, even in Lima. Hey, that´s pretty weird, I guess. But we are not really in the tourist places, so this is not surprising.

Giggles. In the mountains, we are figures who evoke giggles from the Quechua women. They laugh at us openly, loudly, and long. No doubt, they think we look pretty funny. And frankly, I think they look pretty funny, too! They wear flourescent colors, shiny fabric, and multiple layers. SO BRIGHT. Looks strange to me. So, of course, we must look doubly strange to them, not only becasue we are not dressed like them but because they do not have the advantage of having seen pictures of gringos before (though I have seen pictures of Quechua women wearing such clothes).

Dry. Much of the area we are traveling in is very dry, and it feels like all the moisture in us is being sucked right out into the air of Casma. I am pounding almost three litres of water every day to keep from getting dehydrated, yet I still always feel dry-mouthed. We are in a desert, of course. And that is what it feels like in such climates. I remember traveling last summer in the American Southwest and experiencing the same sort of feeling. Only there, we had an airconditioned car and restaurants and hotel. We are SO SPOILED in America!

I realize this is rather a negative post. Sorry about that. Yet this is my real experience of Peru at present. Feeling this way does not negate the fact that I have laughed every day, long and hard, and enjoyed many encounters with warm and welcoming Peruvians. Feeling this way does not negate the fact that I have done some good here, a small amount of good compared to my engineering friends, but still, I have helped in my way. And feeling this way does not make me wish I hadn´t come. Despite being sick, tired, and uncomfortable, I am glad I came. A once in a lifetime opportunity to catch a glimpse of another world.

City of Eternal Sun: Casma Post-Mountain Excursion

2008-01-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

It has been raining in the mountains. It started the day we arrived in Peru, sadly. That means the mountain region, above about 7,000 feet in elevation, is relatively unaccessible for the rest of the trip, unless we decide to rent donkeys to take us and our equipment up the dirt roads in the drizzle for several hours to try to do some installations of equipment up there. Since another group will return to Peru in June when the rains will have stopped, we decided to concentrate more on lower elevations. Thus I find myself back in Casma once more.

Anyway, I´m getting ahead of myself…. We left the city of Casma, nicknamed city of eternal sun because it rains here less than one inch per year, on Monday for the mountains, as I said in my last post. The Casma hospital truck, driven by Lolo, took seven of us (group 1 and 2) up a rugged dirt road to our new homebase, Quillo. The truck seats maybe five but certainly not seven. Ah, my poor back, with the window handle digging into it all the way up the bumpy road. Ah, but we ALL suffered during that hot, uncomfortable ride. It´s par for the course! Along the way, we stopped at three villages to see what help they might need later and to make a tentative appointment. In Huanchuy, one of those towns, I made friends with a little girl who was thrilled to have her photo taken on my digital camera. She would burst into gleeful giggles whenever I showed her the photo I just took. Must have seemed like magic to her. When I get home, I´ll be uploading some photos to show you. I discovered that taking photos of niños is a great way into conversation with moms! They like to see the photos of their kids, and then I pull out my printed photo of my son to show them ¨mi hijo¨and we have a nice chat. That´s usually when I also pull out the soccerballs and volleyballs for the town´s school children. They are always so happy :-) Anyway, we were glad the trip to Quillo was broken up by a few stops — yikes, what a drive!

We were told by one of the personnel at the medical posta in Quillo that that is the poorest city in Peru. Of course, there are pueblitos (small villages that are poorer, but as far as cities go, Quillo is pretty poverty-stricken). At Quillo, we slept in a storage room at the posta, and it was great to be able to stay in one place for a few nights. I used my mosquito net for the first time, though we only saw one mosquito! I liked sleeping in my little net tent, though. Very comfortable with a Permarest inflatable mattress and sleeping bag inside the net, even though I was sleeping on the cement floor. Chilly up there at almost 4,000 feet. I was glad I had packed some warm clothes.

In Quillo, we made friends with several people, including our driver for the next few days, Antonio (goes by Tonio); the director, Elizabeth; a dentist named Monica (whose grandfather was Italian); Max, a dispatcher; and Lily, a nutritionist. Our first night we fixed a problem with Quillo´s radio, so that was a good start. They are on the electric grid there, but they also have blackouts sometimes and there was one when we were there. The solar system is a good back-up for them, especially because Quillo serves many surrounding communities and is a big posta. Our first night we met two Quechua women from mountain villages who had come down to Quillo. One of the women had brought her son, who had cut off his toe in a machete accident. And the other had brought in her husband, not sure for what. Quillo is a very important posta for thousands of people.

The next day, Tonio drove us down to Yanacaca, where we had several projects to complete: checking on the water tower we had built there a year ago but that was not entirely structurally sound, testing water as a part of M.´s project, and measuring for a possible bridge where the road crosses a river (swollen with raging water once the rains start and thus not passable via car) — the undergrad´s project. We also discovered once we were there that the water pump was not working for the tower, and the faucet had been taken. The water tower was basically being used as a jungle-gym by the kids, and the water, when there was any flowing directly out of the pipe, was a fun thing for kids to play with. Hmmm. Service learning gone awry…? We hope to go back to Yanacaca at the end of the trip with JK´s husband to see if we can fix the pump problem, since JK and M. could not figure out what was wrong. Maybe we can get to the bottom of why the system is not being used….

The undergrads, meanwhile, took a ton of measurements for a possible bridge at the bend in the road. I got to help measure altitude at three points (distance from the water to the road, straight up!) It felt good to have an idea of how to do it and have that idea accepted. Who woulda thunk an English prof could figure out such a thing?! Clearly the people of Yanacaca could use a bridge for trucks to reach their village. Right now all they have is a footbridge consisting of a log that is far too skinny in the middle, and a handrail that juts far too far away from the log in the middle as well to b of much use. Most of us were very uncomfortable going over the log bridge, but we did it anyway. I was proud of us all!

We had lunch up at the top of the road in a little town that has a restaurant. Jorge, Yanacaca´s mayor (sorta) escorted us — it was his family´s cafe. After lunch, R. did a pesticide use survey with Jorge, so that was helpful, too. A graduate student in the US wants to try to see if he can help Peruvian farmers to use fewer pesticides. While in Yanacaca we were told that the government is going to build a footbridge over the river and they had already collected soil samples and done an analysis. We were promised a copy, but never got it. The undegrads decided to trust that they would get that info. Now I don´t know what they will do, as we left without taking our own samples. Interesting.

Since we finished all of the tasks that we COULD do in Yanancaca, the undergrads and R. (group 2) decided to leave the next day (Wed.) to try to get to another valley where they might be installing a biodigster project. They caught a ride from a station wagon in the central square of Quillo, and headed for Casma and Huarmey. Two days later when we were working at another posta, we actually heard R. on the police station´s radio in Huarmey (we had discovered that it had a problem, but were unable to fix it earlier). So anyway, we know they arrived safely in Huarmey.

The night we got back from Yanacaca, by the way, I did an interview with Elizabeth, the Obstetrician at the posta in Quillan, asking her how the radios have helped them. I am clearly not a great film-maker, but I am trying my best to get some usable stuff on tape. Anyway, I waited two hours for the 10-min. interview, and that´s when I got to know Lily. She was reading a book in the waiting room! So I asked R. to ask her what she was reading. It was so nice to find someone who appreciates literature like that. We had such a lovely converation. I told her about my grandma´s book, and she said I must translate it into Spanish so she can read it. It was so nice to see someone here so interested in MY work. I do feel a like a fish out of water, and this conversation reminded me of why I love what I do!

The day that group 2 left, we went to Huacuy (¨central,¨ as opposed to ¨alto,¨ which is at 9,000 ft.) Huacuy is pronounced wah-koo-ee. Tonio, Quillo´s posta ambulance driver, took us in his ambulance, which is a 4 x 4 with a large back for equipment. Good transport. The road to Huanchuy was the worst we´ve been on and it was pretty misty in the mountains, but we were in good hands with Tonio at the wheel. At the posta, we met Alfonso (goes by Fonso), the Obstetrician at Huacuy. He was VERY friendly and kept talking to me despite my obvious lack of understanding. But he took me on a tour of the residence next door and the entire clinic. I was surprised to see such a nice posta so high up, but later I found out this is not common. Huacuy does function as a central place for several villages. We installed a solar system and radio. I got to help strip wires. Very cool! When we left, Fonso insisted on my giving him my email address. He said we must be penpals. I laughed because I kept saying I can´t speak Spanish. He said, No importanto! That ought to be interesting.

The next day, we left Quillo with Tonio, who brought us down to Casma, via three villages where we stopped to fix or install systems: Huanchuy needed help with their microphone on their radio, El Olivar needed a radio and antennae installed(they have electricity), and Buena Vista´s radio wasn´t working right but turned out to be an easy fix. El Olivar was a pretty cool installation becasue we raised a 17 meter bamboo pole with the antennae on it. I did get that on tape. I hung around a lot and played with the kids, who were so totally psyched about the balls. One girl, about eleven years old had the hugest smile on her face and was playing with the volleyball. So sweet!

At last we arrived back in Casma last night (Friday) and were thrilled to enjoy a cold shower and bed. Yeehaw! It´s all about perspective. :-) We had Chinese food last night — pretty good! Today I took a rest day here at the hotel while JK and M did a couple of quick installs in nearby towns. Where are we off to next? Huarmey, I think…. We are hoping to rejoin some of our friends in another valley and help them with their projects to free up JK´s husband to come back to Yanacaca with us at the end of the trip and figure out that pump problem. Ah, but if there´s anything I´ve learned it is that nothing is set in stone here. Whatever plans you make are always tentative. Once one accepts this, it´s no big deal.

As for me, I feel a good deal better for today´s respite. It´s been a challenging trip in many ways, but I have not regretted coming for one minute, even when times have been pretty tough. As Sarah Orne Jewett once wrote: ¨You are growing when you feel most hindered.¨

Packing Again: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

2008-01-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday (Mon.) we spent the whole day repacking our bags and getting ready to split into four groups. I am told that this is the most stressful day of the trip usually. Certainly it was stressful, though I am impressed with how well the group is working together. No biting off of heads, no fisticuffs (sp?), no name calling :-) Really, it is such a nice group of people — a pleasure to be with everyone.

What makes the repacking so difficult is that the group splits into four small crews, each of which must be self-sufficient. If a group gets to a village and does not have everything they need to do their project installation, then it may not be able to be done with the materials at hand. There are no Home Depots in a village with 20 houses! Also, each group must bring enough water and toilet paper and snacks for when there is no food available. Organized chaos. Yet somehow in the end, each group had a pile of equipment bags in a separate room on the second story of the parish building. I heard they usually pack in the courtyard downstairs, but since the last time we were here in June, the Parish has made a little garden area there, so we moved upstairs. I thought using several different rooms upstairs worked beautifully, actually. Much easier to organize and stay out of each other´s way. I was not able to do much to help (because I know nothing about this equipment), but I took a lot of photographs and signed some official papers and all that.

Huarmey is a nice little city. I felt that it was cleaner than much of what I saw in Lima (I mena in the nieghborhood of our hotel, not El Agustino, which of course was very run down). But in Huarmey there seemed to be less garbage on the street and sidewalks, a lot less graffiti, too. The buildings are very basic, but it felt to me that people do take some pride in their neighborhoods. Then again, I have only seen a small part of Huarmey and Lima. I ought not to generalize.

At one point in the evening, someone came upstairs to tell us that there was a woman in the parish office who wanted to talk to us. Turns out she had made contact with the group on the last trip (?) and wanted to check in with us and continue to build some sort of relationship with the project. She has organized a group to serve children (0 - 18 yrs) who have disabilities (MS, Downs, etc.) We asked her what kind of stuff she might need but didn´t promise her anything. She said she would give a list to the Parish secretary. I gathered that mainly they would like things for entertainment and recreation: coloring books, balls, things like that. She was very quiet but so lovely and calm. I enjoyed meeting her.

After finishing up all of the packing, the whole group went to supper together at a restaurant that I think was called Jessica´s. I ordered a tortilla, which is actually a flat omelette served half way on top of a mound of white rice. (It looked like a volcano with a lava flow to me, but someone else said mud slide — yikes!) Deliciosa! I´ve been craving eggs, so this was perfecto por mi. We sat around for a long while, enjoying each other´s company and laughing a lot. So nice after a stressful day to unwind with friends and let off steam through laughter.

I don´t remember how it came up, but after a while I found myself telling a few of the students about the summer that I was a door-to-door salesperson. I think we were talking about cold showers (which we took when we were selling — just like here in Huarmey). It was great to remember that crazy summer. In many ways this trip feels similar — so much was up in the air back then. We drove into the town of Florence, Alabama, and started knocking on doors to ask if someone would let us live with them for the summer. And someone actually said YES, if you can believe that. That work was difficult, and I was often tired and sweaty. Money was tight and I often was confused about where I was. So I feel right at home in Peru!

Right now I am in an internet place in Casma. The worker just came over and asked me something in Spanish. I asked him to write it in Spanish, but unfortunately I still didn´t know what he wanted. He just went to try to find someone who speaks English. Wish I had studied harder to refresh my memory of Spanish before coming …

Ah, he came back. He was warning me about a half hour having passed and I will be charged for a full hour if I didn´t stop. I laughed and said, ¨Bueno! No Problema! Yo quiero mas tiempo.¨

Okay, so anyway, we had a lovely dinner together last night and then we went back to the hotel to sleep. My group (1) had to be ready at 7 a.m. to go to Casma hospital to try to beg for transportation for group 1 and 2. Group 3 and 4 have the Huarmey hospital truck until they split (when another project participant arrives on the 10th of Jan.) Then group 3 or maybe it´s group 4 will get Padre Ruly´s truck for a week. Anyway, we went to Casma to try to take care of this transportation issue.

The three of us in group 1 walked to the Huarmey bus stop: the Peruvian grad student (M), the woman who has been on the trip eleven times before (JK), and little ole me. And then M found us a car going to Casma. I thought maybe he was kidding when he pointed at a compact car with two adults and a child already inside, but the driver said he could take three more, and M said let´s go! JK sat on the hump up front next to M. I sat in the back with the Peruvians. I actually wanted to have a chance to speak with the woman and her child, hoping for a little interaction…

¨¿Quantos años, su hijo?¨

Tres.

¨Mi hijo tiene diez años.¨

Ah, grande!

WOW. I just had a conversation with a Peruvian. Wooohoo! Of course, my Spanish was terrible, but we understood one another. I waited another twenty minutes. Her son seemed bothered by the wind coming from M.´s open window, so I asked if she wanted me to have M close it. SI!! I didn´t really ask in Spanish, but we communicated fine.

As we sped along the Pan American highway (and I do mean SPED), we passed through a landscape very much like what one would find in parts of Arizona. The mountains are light brown in color and rockier than the highway to the south (which was more sandy). Every once in a while we would cross an area where there were some scrub bushes, but mostly it looked completely barren and lifeless. Ah, but I know better than to think that this perception is accurate. Once along the way, I saw a hawk soaring high in the air, no doubt, he knows there´s food down there somewhere, and I trust his opinion. :-) Another time I saw a stray dog standing on a hill overlooking the freeway. Not sure what he was doing there or if he could find anything to eat. I didn´t see any houses in that bleak landscape.

Just a note about the dogs…. They really rule the streets! Everywhere you look there are dogs. I even saw a Husky this morning. Imagine that — a sled dog in Peru! On our way back from lunch yesterday, a dog was sprawled out in the middle of the road. ¨I own this street!¨he seemed to be saying. In front of the restaurant where we ate lunch three dogs went crazy when the gringos came forward in a big group. Oh, and that reminds me that we had the most fabulous lunch at that fish restaurant. I ordered ¨steamed fish¨ but it was really more like fish poached in a flavorful sauce, very garlicky with some light tomato sauce. Others had ceviche and the rest fried fish. Wonderful! I am definitely eating well here. Of course, we walk all of the time and I am always standing, so I work up an appetite. Meal times are never predictable, but always we eat well (so far).

Back to the cab ride to Casma…so after I asked M to roll up his window a little, the señora said gracias and we smiled at each other. Then she nursed her son for a while. I got up the gumption to talk to her again after another twenty minutes. M., JK, and I had been talking a little throughout the trip, and there were lots of place names floating around the car, so I figured she might be curious about what we were doing.

¨Vamos a la pueblitos.¨

Ah, bonita!

¨Bonita? Bueno!¨

That went well… try another sentence… I thought. ¨Vamos a los postas medicos por …¨ Then I couldn´t hink of the Spanish word for help, so I relied on my French… ¨por aider los…¨ oh my goodness, what is the word for people?! ¨Ah, por aider los pueblos con agua, radios, etcetera.¨

Ah, bueno, the nice lady said and smiled. And with that we had arrived at our drop-off place near the hospital. I felt so proud of myself for making the effort to speak despite how poor my Spanish is. It was a nice conversation, and I am gaining a little confidence with my Spanish. As M. says, you don´t have to speak correctly all of the time to communicate!

One more thing about the cab, the car looked pretty dinged up, but so did the other cabs. Ours had a cracked windshield. At a point on the windshield right near the rear view mirror, where the impact of some object had started all the cracks that crept across the glass, the cabbie had placed a sticker of Mickey Mouse in a santa suit. Now usually in that spot or near it, drivers hang pictures of saints to help them keep safe on the road and all that, but this guy had Mickey Mouse. Ah, but he was dressed as SANTA claus, right? So maybe that counts.

Casma looks somewhat different than Huarmey. It is a little bigger and the area is a little greener, more of an urban feel, I think, though it shares much in common with Huarmey. For instance the hospital in Casma is EXACTLY the same as the one in Huarmey. I guess that makes it easier to find your way around!

Once at the hostipal in Casma, we met with the new director. M was happy to see that it was someone he knew — a man who had helped M to make a cast of a leg once (for assistive technology?) Anyway, M negotiated and we got a ride for both group 1 and 2 from Huarmey to Casma and then on up into the mountains to Quillo (only 1,800 ft. or so) – seven project people and the hospital´s driver in a truck which in the US would maybe seat five. Gonna be a tight squeeze, but we are thrilled to have use of the truck for any part of our journey. By the way, group 2 includes the other Peruvian grad student, R., and three undergraduate women.

The hospital director said that there is a truck in Quillo and group 1 could use it to go higher up in the mountains (to install radios) while group 2 stays in Quillo and the neighboring town of Yanacaca (where they will be surveying the land a bit for a possible bridge project). Group 2, once done in Yanacaca, will head down to Casma by public transport, and then they will join group 3 in a different valley to work on their biodigester project. Originally, we had hoped to keep group 1 and 2 together for a longer time, but looks like only one night. Ah, well, R is an excellent group leader and will help the undergrads, I´m sure, quite ably!

M suggested that I stay behind this morning in Casma while he and JK went back to Huarmey in the hospital truck to pick up group 2. I jumped at the chance to stay behind and get a little blogging done and call home while they drive back and forth. They promised to come back for me :-) In fact, when they get back to Casma, we will eat lunch and then head for the hills!

Group 1 plans (tentatively — always, tentatively) to spend the night in Quillo with group 2 and then to drive up tomorrow to several higher villages: Huallmi, Pampacancho, Huacho, Punap — or at least maybe some of these. We also need to try to install a vaccine fridge in another town on the way down. JK says that the highest elevation we are going to will be 13,000 feet. Whew! I hope we can get up there slowly, but we may need to go up to the top and then work our way down. A very confusing process, so mostly I smile and nod.

In any case, we won´t be back to Casma probably for a few days, so don´t be surprised if there´s no more news about us for a while. I feel confident in JK and M and trust them completely. They have good judgment and know what they are doing. The only thing they have said is that our group has the most work of any of the four and will need to travel the most yet we have only three people. It´s nice of them to count me in as an able body, even though I AM only an English Professora. I hope I will get the hang of what I need to do quickly, as they will obviously actually NEED my help. I will be assembling antenae for the radios, I think. These will be installed on rooftops. And I will be in charge of getting donation agreements signed and also of distributing volleyballs and soccer balls to the villages.

Well, this is a long post. I´m terribly sorry if this stuff is boring to my regular readers. I gave this blog address to all my family and friends and some of the students and other participants´significant others are coming here for news, too. I guess it´s a good place to record what happened on the trip, as well. And I hope ¨Gandalf¨has had a chance to look into this crystal ball and see how his crew is doing. When last I saw everyone, we were all fine. Folks are taking good care of themselves and each other. We are eager to get our work done and optimistic about accomplishing many things (maybe not everything we set out to do, but much will get done, in any case).

I miss my family, but I am doing really well. I feel comfortable and safe. I am excited to see the mountains! Let´s hope we are able to get to where we´d like to go and make some difference in the lives of these good people. I will write next chance I get — maybe not for four or five days, maybe three? Who knows? Life´s an adventure.

¡Hasta luego!

Pan American Highway: Lima to Huarmey

2008-01-07T07:42:00.000-08:00

We left Lima on the four o´clock bus to Huarmey, traveling on the Pan American highway for most of the trip. That road follows the length of South America and goes up into the United States as well. I remember hearing about it when I was a kid, but I don´t know where in the U.S. the Pan American Highway goes. I´ll have to learn more about that later.

Anyway, it took over an hour just to get out of Lima. I´m going to call that bus ride one of the three most ëxciting¨rides of my life…. It is very dry on the coast; in fact, it´s a desert with sand dunes. One stretch of the highway cuts right through these huge dunes. I have no idea how they build and maintain such a road. Why doesn´t it slide down the mountain?? The driver was going so fast and passing ¨slow¨trucks on this relatively narrow road. Hay carumba! But we made it to our destination alright in the end. The view of the Pacific Ocean was stunning – as long as you didn´t look down to see the sharply angled slope of sand upon which the road was resting … oh, and no guard rails, of course.

Every so often the bus pulled into a little town or city and stopped to take on or let off passengers. Vendors buzzed around the outside of the bus whenever it stopped, selling cold drinks, food, and other items. It was a little hard to watch the children trying to make money in this way, but I understand that this is reality for them. But the kids here get to me — I keep thinking of my own child and wondering how different life would be for us if we were poor. How very lucky we are!

We arrived in Huarmey (which is sort of our project´s homebase) around 10 p.m. and piled our bags on the sidewalk at the bus depot. Two children were watching us, and they asked me what were doing. At first I answered that I didn´t speak Spanish, but then I tried anyway. I told them we were going to the mountain villages. They looked very surprised to see us and all of our gear.

Huarmey is a smallish place. No big taxis or vans to help us carry our bags. We took about nine tiny taxis instead. These taxis are three wheeled and look sort of like a giant tricycle with a back seat enclosed in a pliable plastic box. We had a LOT of gear to bring to the Parish house before we could do anything else. After we left our equipment with Father Ruly of the parish, then we carried our personal bags to the hotel Paraiso.

Our hotel here is smaller than the one in Lima, a little less comfortable and clean but still not bad, I think. We had a short group meeting after we all got our rooms, and then a group of folks went out to try to find some supper. (That was about 10:30 p.m.) Some of us, however, were too wiped out and stayed behind to go to sleep. I was one of those who stayed behind. I decided to forego using the elctric heater for the shower water. Yes, you read that right! You turn on the water first and then with your dry hand you flip on the electricity. I thought, ¨Hey, I don´t really need hot water to get clean…¨ So I enjoyed a bracing cold shower before bed. Refreshing.

This morning we ate desayuno (breakfast) at the jugueria (juice bar) in the marketplace. I ordered jugo de piña, mango, y platano (pineapple, mango, and banana juice) and pan con pollo (a white roll with shredded boiled chicken meat). All deliciosa! The señora told us to come back tomoprrow. Nice.

After breakfast I tagged along with M. (the Peruvian grad student) and we went to the hospital to see about whether they can help us with transportation into the mountains. The hostipal is on strike, but they are still going to be able to help. Whew! I also met a man, Antonio, who runs a technology center for kids from the mountains. I had brought a digital camera to donate to his center. The camera was a gift from my son´s school. I have to say, Antonio was SO HAPPY!! He saw iummediately all the uses for this gift and was very appreciative. The kids are on summer break right now, but before they return in March, he will take some photos and send them to my son´s school.

I´ve got to sign off now. I do not know where we will be in the next few days since transportation is still not all set. We have about half of what we need (in trucks) and are still working to get the rest. Maybe we will take local buses to some places… Meanwhile, the crew is working hard to repàck our equipment for each team to make sure they have what they need.

So, for now, adios!

A Peruvian Wedding: Day Two

2008-01-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

The lights dimmed and then went out in the large church. Perhaps the priest told us what was about to happen, but since I don´t speak Spanish much, I certainly had no idea what was going on. But there the bride and groom were, slowly walking towards the back of the church. Was the service over?

No, they were strolling towards a little chapel at the rear, where a candle was lit on a small altar. They kneeled at the altar and then together lit a candle and began the journey back to the front of the church tentatively holding the candle and trying to keep the flame alive. Their faces glowed in an orange light and all was dark, except when people´s flash cameras lit up the room. So many photos being taken — it was like a lightning storm, only no thunder, only clicks.

As they walked, we listened to a little ensemble comprised of two violins, a flute, a keyboard, and female vocalist. Lovely music. Not traditional Andean flute music but sometimes hints of that. I loved listening to it and looking around at the mosaics and decorations — lots of gold in this church, which was a Chinese Catholic church (so there were also some decorations that looked Asian — very interesting combination).

The bride´s dress included a very long train, and as with all brides, she had trouble navigating the aisles with all that fabric. The groom, like all grooms before him, had no idea how to be of use in the train department. :-) One of our undergrad students remarked that the bride needed a good bridesmaid! You see, there were no bridesmaids or groomsmen, only a ¨patrone,¨the sort of sponsor of the marriage, in this case the brother of the bride and former roomate of the groom (he had introduced the couple).

Despite all of the challenges of walking with the yards of fabric while both people carried a lit candle, trying desperately not to let the flame puff out, they made it to the altar. The lights came back on and there were more ceremonial standing ups followed by sitting downs. Mass was celebrated. Paperwork was signed (our two de facto group leaders on the trip had been asked by the groom to be his witnesses!)

Eventually the service was over, but the undergrads felt disappointed because there was no ¨You may kiss the bride¨ part. We decided that just as we were not really in Peru until the immigration official stamped our passport, the bride and groom were not really married until they kissed!

We had our wish at the reception (which was held in a home converted into a party rental hall). The tables were outside under a big tent and everything looked very formal and beautiful. The bride´s wedding decoration color was a bright orange with green accents. We waited over an hour for the bride and groom to arrive, but meanwhile the wait staff served drinks and appetizers. Everything was delicious, and we all enjoyed chatting. I was fortunate to be at a table with the de factor leaders of the group and they knew some of the Peruvian guests, who came over. After introducing me to them, I was able to enjoy some great conversations with these folks. Their English was good and my Spanish not so good, but we communicated fine.

Once the happy couple arrived, they were introduced and we clapped, they had their first dance together and we watched, they danced with all the special people in their lives (mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters). Then there was a toast. Actually, that was funny — it took a while to give the bride and groom their champagne because the server slipped TWICE in the same place and spilled their special champagne glasses all over the dance floor in one spot. He kept stepping in the same spot when he came back with more champagne to try again! The third time he made it — simply flying right over the spot with great speed. (I had thought the third time he´d step very gingerly there or avoid the spot, but instead he almost ran over it!)

We danced and laughed. I enjoyed getting out on the dance floor and moving around! Then we were served supper. At midnight. (And, yes, it felt VERY late to be eating.) There was no cake cutting ceremony as you find in the states, but instead they gave us a slice of a spiced cake with some candied fruit inside a little box. I recognized this tradition from Europe where unmarried women are supposed to put the box of cake under their pillow in order to dream of the man they will marry. (My roomate tried it but didn´t remember any of her dreams.) I already found my partner in life, so I saved my cake for a next day treat.

At last it was time to depart. The cabs arrived at 2:30 a.m. to take our group back to the Hostel Gemina. It took us a while to say all our goodbyes, but eventually we found ourselves back in front of our hotel, where a large group of youth, both genders, looked ready to break out into a fight. The cab drivers made us wait to get out until that crowd moved down the street a bit. But the security guard was waiting for us at our iron gated entrance to the hotel. My head hit the pillow finally at 3:30 a.m.

I leave you today with a wish for happy King´s Day. Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, or the twelfth day of Christmas. I have seen absolutely no sign of any celebration here. Perhaps I am just in the wrong neighborhood…. In any case, I admire the three wise men for their traveling stamina and their willingness to go to a far land to witness miraculous events.

Safe and Sound ... The First Day in Peru

2008-01-05T07:36:00.000-08:00

I am sitting in a booth at an Internet Cafe in Lima. Oh, my goodness — yes, I am in PERU. For REAL!!

Our flights from Boston to Newark, NJ, and from Newark to Lima were pretty uneventful — which is a very good thing when you are traveling. Folks who have gone before said that check-in at the airport in Boston has never gone smoother. All bags were within the weight allowance, so no repacking was required. We arrived at our gate early enough to be able to eat breakfast, go over some paperwork business as a group, and play some Sudoku. Most of us slept on the flight to Newark, having arrived at 5.30 a.m. at Boston.

In Newark we were met by another student joining our trip (he is from a college in Chicago), making us a group of nine for the next flight. Our layover in Newark was LONG, but better that by far than cutting it too close and missing a flight. We took the time to get to know our new arrival, walked the long passageways to get the blood moving a bit, ate when hungry (there´s a variety of food stuff available in the food court), and read. Oh, and more Sudoku.

The flight to Lima was about eight hours long. We all napped at least some of the time, ate some more, read, etc. I was nervous on the flight because at the airport in Boston I had found out that I would be the one to go through customs first, with a bag full of radios to be installed in medical postas. I was concerned because in the past sometimes customs officials have not let us bring in radios. This time we had official documents from the Peruvian consulate certifying that these are donations and are acceptable, but one never knows what will happen. I worried all day that I might mishandle any questioning and let down the group.

When I wasn´t worrying, I was chatting with one of our students who sat next to me on the long flight. She and I discussed the book that I mentioned in a previous post on this blog … the one about the poor helping the poor in El Agustino. I enjoyed hearing the student´s perspective and goofing off to pass the time, as well.

When I awoke from a nice nap, it was dark outside and I stared out the window — nothing could be seen below. No lights. Then I looked up and saw stars. STARS! It had never even occured to me that on this trip I will be able to see the stars of the southern hemisphere. One of our oldtimers in the group remarked that where my particular group is going, we will be way high up in the mountains, and I will see gazillions of stars. Now that will be awesome!

Our plane touched down, and the passengers broke into spontaneous applause. Then my heart flew into my mouth as I once more was reminded of the coming ordeal….

We went through immigration control first and got our passports stamped. We all agreed that we were not REALLY in Peru until we got that stamp. ¨Welcome to Peru!¨we greeted each other as each participant joined the group waiting just past the immigration kiosks.

Next we collected our checked luggage. No bags were lost, thank goodness, and we each took a luggage cart and put only our own bags on it. I stood at the front of our group and waited in line to go through customs. The way they do things there, each person goes through a little gate and presses a buttom, which is connected to a light panel. The light that comes on when you press the button is either red or green, and which color it turns is totally random. Most of the time it is green. And if it is green, you go right through. If it is red, they pull you aside and look through your bags and ask a lot of questions. I had a fleeting thought of what might happen if they opened the bag on top of the cart — not only did it have my backpack stuffed inside but also a prosthetic leg we are bringing to an amputee. I wondered what the customs official would think of that!

As I approached the gate, our group all stared hard at the light, until it turned … green. I kept my face a blank and walked calmly through the customs area and waited just outside the great big customs room. When I turned, I found one of our students following me, then another and another. Every single person in our party got a green light.

As is the case with so many things in life, there was not really anything to worry about. For all of my anxiety, in the end, I faced only green lights and smooth sailing. Our reward was to emerge from the airport to see one of our Peruvian grad students, R., and a transport guy with a sign for our group both waiting behind a roped-off area. We were hugged by the first and whisked away to our hotel by the second.

First impressions of Lima once we emerged from the airport. … Weather like San Diego sorta. Mild and slightly moist air — comfortable. Smoggy like L.A., (Southern California). I noticed palm trees right away because my son just adores palm trees, so immediately I thought of him. Lots of graffiti everywhere. Then I saw a Kentucky Fried Chicken sign. Later a sign for Chili´s and another for TGIFridays. Disappointing, but I had known that parts of Lima show all of the signs of an increasingly globalized world. I also saw a few big casinos all lit up like Vegas and bilboards advertizing that Bee Movie thing that came out in the USA recently and a few other things like that which I recognized.

The drive to the Hostel Gemina took about 40 minutes, and we were greeted by the hotel clerk, who was expecting us. After sorting out who was rooming with whom, signing in, finding our personal bags among the group bags, etc., we made our way up to our rooms and found, I thought, quite a comfortable accommodation. Clean, at least, and that is appreciated! I don´t know about the others, but my roomate and I got to sleep about 2.15 a.m.

This morning we met for breakfast at 8 a.m. and the other Peruvian grad student, M., plus R. (whome we had seen the night before) and 4 other Peruvians associated with the Project all met us at the hotel. Breakfast consisted of two white bread rolls, one soft and one hard. There was butter and jam on the table and fresh squeezed pineapple juice, plus coffee or tea. Oddly satisfying meal.

A man came to the hotel and changed our money for us, and we broke into groups. I was thrilled to discover that R. had, indeed, been able to arrange for us to go to El Agustino to meet one of the women who work with the poor there. It was a dream of mine to take my student to El Agustino so we could see first hand a little of what we have been reading about. It had looked, two days ago, when I last heard from R., that it might not happen, but he had been able to track down someone after all and had made an appointment for us.

Five of us wanted to go, so we squeezed into a cab for the ride of our lives. I admit that more than once I slammed my eyes shut, though clearly the cab driver knew what he was doing driving through those potholed, crazy crowded streets. They all seem to use their horns as communication devices pretty effectively. I thought Boston traffic was bad — that ain´t nuttin´to Lima!

As we drove to El Agustino, we first took a freeway, the only freeway in this city of 8 million. Then we got off the expressway and emerged into what was a rather desperate looking place. Dirt and graffiti I had already seen all over Lima, but the quality of the buildings and the look of the place was markedly different. Stolen auto parts were piled at the side of the road in a makeshift store. A pile of garbage was being sorted by two old women, looking through the rubbish looking for anything salvageable. Stray dogs roamed the streets, lean and always running and sniffing. The smell of Diesel exhaust flooded in through the cab driver´s open window. El Agustino´s main geographical feature is a tall mountain-hill that rises sharply out of the ground. Perched precariously all over the slopes are makeshift dwellings. We didn´t get too near that but the area could be seen from most vantage points.

We arrived at the offices of SEA (see earlier post on poor helping poor on this blog) and asked our cab to wait for us. Once inside, we had entered an oasis. In fact, I´d say once we turned onto the street where the SEA is located, there was a totally different feeling to the place. A planter along the center of the road was filled with flowering bushes and trees, buldings were painted in bright colors. All was well-kept.

We waited a few minutes for the woman who was to meet us, getting a good look at the place. The Peruvian President was on television making a speech on the occasion of the opening ceremonies in some rural area where the government had just brought electricity.

Carmen arrived and was so hospitable and welcoming. She took us to a conference room and gave us orange soda. We talked for an hour (not the planned half hour), and I learned of many projects that the SEA does. I have so many ideas of how I´d like to help. Carmen suggested that we correspond and maybe they might propose a project that I might be able to help get funds for through my church or through the Gender Studies program at my university. She only made this suggestion when I asked about how I might donate, by the way!

I found it fascinating to hear of their work on urban environmental issues, economic microenterprises, job training for youth, women´s services, and local development programs for comunities. We will have to talk with ¨Gandalf¨when we return about potential collaborations in future with engineering classes through other service-learning activities going on at our university, though we did not, of course, mention anything to Carmen about collaboration. And our own project is really more focused on rural not urban collaborations. In any case, this was just a meet each other and say hello and share a little about what we each are doing kind of meeting.

At last we broke away… so difficult to leave! Carmen wanted to take us to one of their communal kitchens but we had no time left. Hugs all around and email adresses exchanged, and we were back in our cab, flying through the streets to our hotel.

Once we got back to the vicinity of the hotel, we asked the cabby to drop us at a restaurant, where we subsequently enjoyed a perfect feast of vegetable-beef soup, chicken with pineapples, rice and potato, and the Peruvian national drink, chi-cha (made with purple corn, sugar, lime, all boiled and spiced with cloves and cinnamon). Each of these little feasts cost only 5 nuevos soles, or about $1.40. Oh, and the cab ride cost 40 soles, or $15, for a few hours service.

And now I must leave you. I apologize for the long post, but already I see that one has to take the opportunities for communication when one has a chance!

For the children of my son´s school, I wanted to say thanks again for the donation. R. bought 40 volleyballs here in LIma and says to tell you THANKS! They are sitting in the lobby in a big bag — beautiful, brightly colored balls! The village children will be so happy to receive these gifts.

For my extended family and friends and the family and friends of project participants, thanks for checking in on our journey. Please leave a comment, if you like, so we know you´ve had a chance to get the latest update!

For my son and husband, thanks again for supporting me so I could go on this trip. I am so happy now that I am here. All worries have slipped away, and I am perfectly safe and content. I miss you already, but the time will go by quickly, I´m sure!

The rest of the plan…

Tonight we attend the wedding of a former project participànt. Wedding at 8 p.m., reception starts at 10 p.m. or so, and our scheduled transport back to the hotel is for 2.30 a.m.! Who needs sleep, right¿ (I can´t find the right-side-up question mark on this foreign keyboard!)

I will try to blog tomorrow before we leave Lima, but I do not know what is planned for the morning (before we head to the bus station to ride north to Huarmey). I suspect that I may not get a chance to post for a while, but I am hoping at least on Monday in Huarmey there´ll be an opportunity.

Meanwhile, I must go take a nap before the long evening begins. Adios mi amigos…until next time!

Headed to Peru in Five Hours...Please Stay Tuned!

2008-01-04T11:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, I should be sleeping, but I’m writing instead. Just a quick post to say I’m headed down to Peru tomorrow. I am told that we will have access to internet maybe three or four times in the coming seventeen days, so I hope to post a few times before I return on Jan. 20.

Meanwhile, my family and I have almost finished reading The Hobbit, and I had to laugh (with the relevance once more of this good book) when we got to this part near the end:

“It was a terrible battle. The most dreadful of all Bilbo’s experiences, and the one which at the time he hated the most — which is to say it was the one he was most proud of, and most fond of recalling long afterwards, although he was quite unimportant in it.”

And isn’t that the truth? The times that are most challenging to us and most scary are the times we end up looking back on with pride in our accomplishment. When I think of the some of the most difficult times I’ve faced in my life — selling books door-to-door one summer in college, studying abroad in England, going for my PhD, giving birth to and raising a child, moving 3,000 miles away to New England where we knew nobody to start a job as a professor, and traveling 10,000 miles by car across America with my son this past summer — yes, it is these times, and more like them, that I look on with the highest sense of accomplishment.

And like Bilbo, I’m sure that the part I will play in this “battle” is pretty minimal. I will be there to keep an eye on the engineers, and I’m sure I’ll wish I had “Gandalf” around to conjure a spell from time to time. But other than observing, recording, and asking a lot of questions, I suspect I’ll give relatively little and gain much from what is to come.

I wish all of the Project participants in our “expedition” a great service-learning experience full of challenges overcome and expectations exceeded, with a heaping spoonful of good cheer and companionship and a deep sense of fulfillment for a job well done. May we all feel proud of ourselves when we come home again at the journey’s end.

And along the way, my friends, please stop by from time to time and see what news I am able to send your way!

The Poor Helping the Poor: Women "crazy for God" in a Lima Barrio and Other Good Books I've Been Reading

2007-12-30T11:06:00.000-08:00

This semester I’ve been working with a student who is going on our service-learning trip to Peru in January. She needed an additional General Education class in liberal arts to graduate in the spring, so I agreed to do an Introduction to Gender Studies directed study with her on women in Peru (spread out over the school year). I figured this helped the student but would also give me a formalized opportunity to learn more about the country to which I am traveling soon. And, wow, has it been interesting!

We spent most of the semester reading and discussing seven short stories written by Peruvian women. These are collected in the book, Fire from the Andes: Short Fiction by Women from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, edited and translated by Susan E. Benner and Kathy S. Leonard. The stories were very interesting and sometimes difficult, inlcuding a magical realism piece with supernatural green slime and multiplying twins, a story about a man’s shadow who severs herself from him, and a story told from the perspective of a young female terrorist. It was particularly interting discussing these stories with the Engineering student with whom I was working, as this stuff is pretty foreign to her typical studies.

Oh, and also, we began by reading two travel literature stories about American women who had gone to Peru. These are in the collection called The Best Women’s Travel Writing 2007: True Stories from Around the World, edited by Lucy McCauley. We read Barbara Kingsolver’s essay about going to Peru with a Heifer International group and observing the effects of that organization’s work, and we read Jennifer Sieg’s “The Cuy of cooking” about being served roasted guinea pig while in the Andes. (How many Weight Watchers points is cuy, anyway…?!)

Now we are reading The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru by Tom Powers, S.J. This book describes and analyzes the work being done by women in one of the poorest neighborhoods (barrios) of Lima, one of the largest cities in the world (over 8 miliion). A full 49% of Lima’s residents live below the poverty level. The neighborhood discussed is nicknamed El Agustino (and is ranked as the second poorest barrio in Lima), and the women who are “doing theology,” a theology of action, there are a part of an organization founded by the poor and for the poor: Servicios Educativos El Agustino (SEA). Actually they work in multiple smaller organizations under the umbrella of the SEA, from Cup of Milk (an infant nutrition program), to Communal kitchens and bakeries, to education coops, to facilitating organizations for micro-enterprises, etc.

Now, as luck would have it, it just so happens that one of our graduate students in solar engineering (who is going on our trip and who is from Peru) spent his childhood growing up in El Agustino. We discovered this one day while chatting. What an amazing coincidence! That student’s story is inspirational — a gripping tale of how hard work and perseverance brought a family from the depths of poverty to a decent standard of living, and how a yound man is determined to give back to his country through becoming educated.

I have asked this grad student to see if he can arrange for my undergraduate student and me to go to the SEA in El Agustino the day after we arrive in Peru. He seemed excited to make this side trip with us. The project goals, however, must come first, and if we are needed for other purposes, then we won’t be able to spare the time. If we are able to squeeze it in, that visit will take place THIS Saturday (Jan. 5)! I will try to get to an internet cafe on late Sat. if I can and let you know if we got to visit El Agustino.

I admire these women so much. As I read about their work and their dedication to helping their neighbors on a very practical level as an expression of their faith — indeed, as a call from God — I am amazed at their courage and strength. One woman, Sr. Serrano, said:

“I quit my job and I got involved — and I have never regretted it. Eventually I was elected … President of the Federation of Communal Dining Rooms of Lima and Callao …. This was just when the violence [terrorists caused major disruption in the country in the 80s and 90s] was escalating in Peru and I received several death threats from the terrorists. I guess that any sane person would have quit and gone into hiding. So I guess I am saying I am loca — crazy for God, if you will. Really deep down I was scared and I was conscious of the danger. But when I would go out, I would commend myself to God and I felt that God was carrying me.”

Of course, this can’t help but make us think of the recent assassination of Benezir Bhutto, who also expressed a similar sentiment to her friends. The price some are willing to pay, the risk they will take to help their country! I just can’t see myself being able to stand against such threats so bravely, however much I might wish to be that selfless and strong.

I’ll leave you with another quotation which epitomizes the work these women do in El Agustino. The daughter of Sr. Serrano says:

“My mother (Benedicta) has a little plaque that says, ‘Poverty is no disgrace. It is inconvenient.’ She does not mean to lessen the dehumanizing influence of poverty. But she will not admit that it is a disgrace, because we are poor. I remember her telling us, when food was not available, that Jesus invites each one of us to give up what we have in this world and to help those who are poor. Look, we are poor helping those who are more poor. If everyone did this, no one would go hungry or homeless or die unnecessarily because of the lack of a common medicine.”

If everyone did this….

Gandalf Won't Be Joining Us at the Lonely Mountain: Peru Trip Update

2007-12-21T11:04:00.000-08:00

Remember in The Hobbit how Gandalf travels with Bilbo and the Dwarves for a good long while and then he takes off, to their dismay, leaving them to face the mountain and the dragon alone…? Bilbo can’t fathom how they will manage without their wise mentor and the mastermind behind their operation. Well, my family recently read this part of the book (we are reading the novel aloud to my son), and it struck me how, once more, I identify strongly with this hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.

I haven’t posted on my Peru news for a while because I wanted to make sure “Gandalf” was going to be okay first. You see, the leader of our group — our wise magician and grand puller-of-strings — unexpectedly had to have open heart surgery for a triple by-pass and isn’t going on the trip with us! Guess who is now the “senior faculty member” traveling with the group?

Irony of ironies, isn’t it? Here I was planning a trip where I would be an observer, asking questions and helping students to reflect on the meaning of this service-learning experience. I envisioned me sitting off to the side, writing in my notebook, and talking with students at mealtimes, asking brilliant questions that would lead them to life-changing ah-ha moments. Or at least that was my hope. Always, though, in my imaginings, the Project Director was there. He IS the Project.

Now he’s not going to be there. As awful as this is, I have managed over the last two and a half weeks to look on the bright side…

First, thank goodness he’s going to be okay. The surgery went well, and he is recovering, albeit slowly. He had NO indicators of heart disease. Everyone, in fact, is shocked that he had to have such a surgery because he is so generally healthy and spry. But his good health should aid in his recovery. Just goes to show that medicine is not an exact science, as I said in my earlier post. A person who is slim and exercises and eats right, has normal blood pressure and cholestorol, no diabetes and no family history of heart problems can end up in the hospital for heart surgery. Go figure.

Second, THANK GOODNESS the doctors caught this problem before we went. I can imagine too well what might have happened if he had had a heart attack in a village at 12,000 ft. elevation, seven hours from the nearest hospital. Really brings home how important the emergency radios we are installing are for the good folks who live in these villages.

Third, thank goodness that half the folks going on the trip this time have been before, most multiple times. One private citizen has gone ten times previously, in fact! She will be the de facto leader once we get through customs. I will be the official (i.e., legal) group representative and help coordinate mundane things before we leave like collecting/dispensing money and handouts, improving communications, reminding people about various to do items, but it’s not like I’ll need to coordinate the Project activities once we are down there. I’ll help as needed, but I won’t be responsible for such things. Obviously, it would be idiotic for me to be in charge since I am an English professor and NOT an engineer, not to mention the fact that I’ve also never been to Peru!

Fourth, what a great opportunity for some of the graduate students going on the trip to develop their leadership skills. We will be relying on them for their engineering expertise, so it’s not as if I have to supervise solar engineering projects, either. These students will HAVE to step it up and make decisions that would generally fall to the Director. As far as learning goes in this service-learning trip, I expect a lot of it to be taking place!

Fifth, thank goodness I’ve stopped freaking out about the trip (mostly). I am too busy and too many people are relying on me to be a leader in my domain. I usually am able to rise to such occasions when it comes down to it, but I wasn’t sure, frankly, how I’d handle this trip. It’s a pretty big deal for me, facing my fears and all that. But my attitude shifted as soon as I heard that my colleague was going in for surgery. Puts things in perspective.

Well, so I’m going to Peru. And while my name IS on the official documents now as the person who is responsible for the group and if anything comes up in customs about the equipment we are bringing down to donate to the medical clinis and schools, it’s my name they will see on our papers — somehow I’m okay with that. To be honest, I felt earlier a bit like useless baggage, much like Bilbo felt before he found the ring of power. I was (sort of) up for the adventure and all and agreed to help as much as I could, but I didn’t expect much at all from myself. Now I feel more like I’m earning my keep. I have a role. Plus, I am one of many, all pulling together to make the trip a success.

Am I still scared? You bet! But I’ve got a job to do, and I’d best get to it and do it, as my Grandpa used to say.

The Power of Story Proven Once More

2007-12-05T11:02:00.000-08:00

A colleague with documentary filmmaking experience has joined our group (that is going to Peru in January), so we are filming some pre-trip interviews and footage. Amazing! These students are incredibly inspiring in their dedication to service. Anyone who thinks that young people these days are selfish and materialistic should meet this crew!

While they come from different places (a poor Peruvian neighborhood in Lima, an upper-middle-class neighborhood in Lima, cute suburban towns outside Boston, etc.) and they are headed on different paths (back to Peru, into a convent, on to grad school, etc.), there is one clear message that comes through in each interview:

We must all strive to help others, and the best way to do so is to learn as much as possible so that we can be of the best use possible to those in need.

A teacher’s dream, these students! To be motivated to learn not because of grades but because they know they need to improve their skills if they are truly to be of use…? Yes, that’s the kind of student that makes teaching more than just a job.

Are they the exception, you ask? Maybe. But in our group, they are the rule. And honestly, these students are enough for me right now. They have restored my zeal for teaching. They have encouraged me to dare to hope that all is not lost in our collective future. They have inspired me with their personal stories, their aspirations, their committment, their humility, their energy their love for others, and their positive outlook.

And interviewing them has changed me. While I’d be lying if I said I felt no fear about this trip, clearly, I’ve experienced some sort of sea change in my attitude. I suppose it is the power of story. What I mean is that when we listen to each other’s stories, we move outside ourselves and our petty and selfish concerns, and we learn to see the world through another’s eyes. Looking at the trip through the eyes of these students, I feel excited, actually giddy at times, thinking of all the promise the trip holds. And I feel privileged to be a part of it. Really, it sounds so cliché, but I feel incredibly honored. I mean, who in their lifetime gets such an opportunity to do something this wonderful?

I Am Anna Leonowens, too

2007-12-04T07:27:00.000-08:00

The other day I was imagining what it might be like in the Andean villages I will be visiting in January, thinking about the times when the children will get brave and approach us. I am told they will come forward eventually, though the women will hang back. How could I pique their interest in us outsiders? How could I win their hearts, at least as much as possible in a short visit?

I started thinking of the universal appeal of music and wondered if my singing a tune or two might bring them forward. I was driving the forty-minute commute to pick my son up from school (yes, that’s an outlandish trek, I know.) Anyway, I began to sing some songs that I know by heart, thinking about which might be suitable. Hmmm, that one might do. No not that one. How does that other one go?

And then I began to sing a song I learned twenty-six years ago, the summer before my senior year in high school when I was Mrs. Anna in a community production of The King and I. You might know the song, but just in case you don’t here are some of the words:

Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid.

While shivering in my shoes
I strike a careless pose
And whistle a happy tune
And no one ever knows
I’m afraid.

The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell
For when I fool the people
I fear I fool myself as well!

I whistle a happy tune
And ev’ry single time
The happiness in the tune
Convinces me that I’m not afraid.

Make believe you’re brave
And the trick will take you far.
You may be as brave
As you make believe you are

You may be as brave
As you make believe you are

And then it was like someone bonked me on the head. I’M ANNA! I’m going to Peru and, let’s face it, Peru might as well be nineteenth-century Siam as far as I’m concerned … it’s so different from my world. I’m going there to try to do some good (not to Westernize the “uncivilized,” like Anna, but education is a part of both our missions and you get what I mean, right?) And here’s the funny thing: Anna’s advice still rings true.

Pretend that you’re brave and pretty soon you’ll convince yourself that you ARE brave.

Weird. I’ve been feeling since then … er … brave.

Seriously. I’m not kidding.

So … I’m going to Peru in January.

Cool!

P.S. If you want to find out more about the real Anna Leonowens, try this site for her fascinating story: http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/blleonowens.htm

P.P.S. When I was right at the start of my first PhD qualifying exam, the bell tower on campus began playing this song. I laughed out loud and then went on to pass four four-hour exams with flying colors. Is this some kind of theme song for my life?! What a coincidence….

I Am Bilbo ... Surprisingly

2007-11-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

My husband and I just started reading The Hobbit to our ten-year old son. We’d been thinking of doing this for a while, and the timing was finally right. I was very surprised to discover how much the first chapter spoke to my current situation so pointedly. In other words, I felt as if I were Bilbo Baggins about to set off on an adventure when all I really want is to stay home in my comfy hole, eating lefse and reading good books. Ah, but Bilbo’s “Tookish side” is awakened by the tales of the dwarves who invade his cozy space, and before he knows what he’s done, he has boldly proclaimed that he will join the brave band in their daring adventure. And here I am getting ready to go off to lord-knows-where in rural Peru, scared witless like poor Bilbo.

Read on and see what I mean:

Bilbo’s home is charaterzed primarily by its “comfort” and the proposed journey is dangerous.

“…people considered [the Bagginses] very respectable, … because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected…. This is the story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained — well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.”

When Gandalf explains that he has come to Bilbo’s house because of an “adventure,” Bilbo replies, “Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today! Good morning! But please come to tea — any time you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good bye!” Then he kicks himself for inviting Gandalf to come back the next day. He suspects that he should have cut things off right away, irrevocably. But his politeness leads him down a path from which he finds it harder and harder to extricate himself!

When the dwarves begin to arrive the next day, Bilbo must play host, bustling around getting them tea and cakes and beer and wine and eggs and cold chicken and pickles, etc. After tea, he weakly asks, “I suppose you will all stay to supper?” His politeness again.

The dwarves help him clean up but are very rough with his dishes. They tease him with a song: “Chip the glasses and crack the plates! / … / That’s what Bilbo baggins hates.” But they do no harm. Bilbo is anxious nonetheless about these superficial things. Then he learns the story of the devastation of the dwarves’ community by the dragon Smaug and the group’s quest to take back what is rightfully theirs. A noble quest, beside which his fears about broken kitchenware are shameful, or at least childish.

When Bilbo hears Thorin’s declaration, “a journey from which some of us, or perhaps all…may never return,” the hobbit “began to feel a shriek coming up inside, and very soon it burst out like the whistle of an engine coming out of a tunnel.” The group is startled by his outburst and finds him “kneeling on the hearthrug, shaking like a jelly that was melting.” Gandalf explains away the reaction as an anomaly, and Bilbo is declared by Gandalf to be a useful personna. He offers a skill none of the others has.

Bilbo’s pride makes him try to live up to Gandalf’s recommendation. “He suddenly felt he would go without bed and breakfast to be thought fierce. … ‘Tell me what you want done, [he says] and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert.’”

By chapter two is off on the adventure of his life.

So, yeh, I’m going to Peru. The Project Director had faith in my ability to contribute to the work of the group. What business does an English professor — who loves her comfortable home and is a big scaredy-cat quivering on the floor — what business, I ask, do I have in going galivanting off to what might as well be another world with a bunch of ENGINEERS?! They are like an alien race to us humanities folks. Ah, but that unquestioning confidence placed in me…. I am determined to prove that I can be useful.

I must have read The Hobbit ten times in my youth. As my husband began reading it aloud the other night, the words were so familiar and comforting. This story lives deep inside of me. I had forgotten it was there, though. I’m so happy that I have rediscovered it just when I need to be reminded that no matter how afraid we are, we can face our dragons and win. Even the most unlikely of us, lowly English Professors, can be, dare I say … heroes.

I’ll settle for coming back in one piece.

What will I “gain”…? We will all have to wait until I get back on January 20 to find out.

"Not an Exact Science": A Story of Facing Fear (Part two, the exciting conclusion)

2007-11-22T07:23:00.000-08:00

(Continued from last time…)

“Okay. I’ll just get the Yellow Fever shot as a precaution.” I attempt to smile, but it looks like a grimace. I hover on the edge of crying but swallow it down. Don’t be such a wimp.

”Right, well, then you’ll need to get the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella shot at the same time. That one’s a live vaccine as well,” said the travel clinic doctor. I look at her with moist eyes. “It’s better to get live vaccines together, actually, because your body thinks it’s under a major attack and works harder to make strong antibodies.”

“Fine.” I look at my coat hanging on the door.

“So today we’ll do the Influenza – since you haven’t had your flu shot yet this season – and the Yellow Fever, MMR, and the first of your Hepatitis A and B Twinrix series. Then you’ll come back in four weeks and get the Tetanus booster, Typhoid vaccine, and the second Twinrix. In six months, you’ll get the last Twinrix injection.”

Oh, and then there’s the pills. For malaria, I am offered three choices: a once a week pill (potential side effect, major intestinal distress), a once a day pill that’s cheap but may cause “unusual dreams,” nightmares, and hallucinations (“these pills are good for college students,” she says, and I presume she means because they are cheap rather than because of the hallucinations), and an expensive once a day pill that has relatively few side effects. Bingo.

“In terms of altitude sickness, well, I have to inform you that in severe cases, there can be swelling of the brain and unconsciousness, leading to death. The only remedy is to get down off the mountain. And then there’s the kind, which is basically fluid gathering in the lungs [slowly drowning, in other words]. Again, the remedy is to decrease your altitude. Then there’s the kind of altitude sickness that involves a nasty headache and nausea and extreme tiredness. That type you can treat with medicine, but the pills are a diuretic. You’ll have to be careful to drink plenty of water.” Then she stopped and looked me in the eye. “Oh, and I need you to promise to take one of those before you leave the country to see how you react.”

“Fine.” One way or another my life is over. Time to just accept it.

“I’ll also call in a prescription for Cipro. Oh, and now for the bad news [she actually said it that way]. I hate to say this but the possibility of food-borne illness is high, so no salads while you’re there. Fruit with heavy rinds, peeled, is fine, though.”

I laugh. Oh, that’s the bad news, huh?

She continues, “If you still have intestinal issues when you return from your trip, give us a call, and we can see what kind of parasite or bacteria you picked up and treat it.”

She leaves and the nurse enters. Then it hits me. I have a one in 250,000 chance of getting seriously ill if I let them inject that Yellow Fever vaccine into me, and I don’t even know if I need it. OH MY GOD, what am I doing?? I spill the beans to the nice nurse. “I’m not sure about having the Yellow Fever shot. I just don’t know!”

The doctor pokes her head into the room and suggests, “Can you call someone?” Yeh, like a shrink! But what she means is for me to find out about whether we will be going anywhere below 8,200 feet on the wrong side of that line on the map.

I almost literally jump out of my seat. “YES! I can call someone.” They leave me. I try to breathe deeply and only manage a stuttering of air puffs. Any second now I am going to lose it….

I start thumbing through my daytimer and soon realize that I do not have the Project Director’s phone number. I call my husband at work and on his cell five times. No answer. I flip through the daytimer some more and find my English Department colleague’s home number. Julie can get me that Director’s number, I think. I also know she might be my lifeline. Five minutes later, I have the phone number that I need and a helpful factoid: One out of 250,000 women die in childbirth each year. Somehow this comforts me. I had a baby and didn’t die; ergo, I will not have complications due to the Yellow Fever vaccine either.

The Project Director isn’t in when I call. But it’s okay. I have decided to get the Yellow Fever vaccine. Enter nice went-to-Cambodia nurse with three syringes. I tell her that I am going to follow the original plan after all and get the troublesome Yellow Fever shot over with. She throws away the Tetanus booster, which I will now take in four weeks, and leaves me alone again to go get the Yellow Fever and MMR vaccines ready. As she leaves, she hands me the laminated warning sheets about the vaccines I am about to have injected into my quivering body. I decide I’ll only look at the Influenza one and the Hep A and Hep B.

My husband calls me back, and I tell him what’s happening in a confusing, shorthand jumble. “Ask me a question I can answer,” he pleads.

I tell him it doesn’t matter anymore, that I made up my mind and will take the vaccine, and if I die, well, I die. There’s a one in 250,000 chance I will have a big problem on my hands if I get the vaccine, but life’s a calculated risk…

“Oh! You said 250,000? I thought you said 250! Honey, one in 250,000 is nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I am number-challenged, and he knows it. The doctor pokes her head in at that moment, and I say goodbye to the hubster.

Doc accepts my decision to go with the original plan and manages not to look perturbed at her problem patient. I apologize for the fifth time, and as she walks away, she says, “No problem. I just want you to be comfortable with your decision.”

This strikes me as funny, and I grin. But she has left already. I know that this trip is, in large part, about getting un-comfortable.

The nurse returns with a revised form, and I initial after every shot. The sheet says I “refused” the tetanus shot, so there’s evidence forever in the halls of medicine of my cowardice. (Since I changed my mind and said I WOULD take the Yellow Fever injection, then she had to say I refused the Tetanus, which will be given next time. If you are confused, just imagine how I felt at the time!)

She rubbed my arms vigorously with alcohol. Then she stuck me four times, one live and one dead vaccine in each arm. Rather than fleeing the room at this next point, however, she sat down and talked with me about her service trip. I’m sure she noticed my face and the welling tears. (NO, not from the stinging of the shots. I’m not that much of a baby. It’s imaginary tragedies that worry me, not actual events, which I seem to be able to take in stride just fine. And that’s the crux of my problem, isn’t it? My strength and my weakness is my imagination.) She said that I’d need to wait for a half hour just to make sure there was no initial adverse reaction. Nice lady. She kept me company for fifteen minutes, reminding me in such a natural way of why I was going through all of this.

That’s when it struck me, in fact — the irony of my freaking out about getting vaccinated when our group was traveling to these remote villages to install solar panels to power vaccine refrigerators so people with no access to such luxuries could live a safer life.

I left the doctor’s office after my allotted time. I was fine, of course. I made appointments for four weeks and for six months at the desk with the lady with the lovely hair. She smiled and wished me a good evening. I continued to backtrack, going downstairs to the pre-registration check-in area, where I was shown into a cubicle within five minutes, and a cheerful, positively bouncy, young woman handed me a “release to be treated” form to sign. I laughed to sign such a document after having just submitted to four injections upstairs. Then I saw it. A quotation that I think may end up being my whole trip’s epigraph … you know, the quote that appears in italics at the beginning of a book or story?

“I understand that the practice of medicine is not an exact science, and that most procedures and treatments are associated with benefits and risks.”

Yup. That about sums it up, doesn’t it? I need to quit looking for guarantees. Life is not an exact science. There are benefits and risks associated with most of the things we do that are worth doing. The trick is to “just keep your eyes on the people.” I signed the form.

"Not an exact science": A Story of Facing Fear (part one)

2007-11-21T10:45:00.000-08:00

I should have accounted for the snow, but the first flurries of the season fell yesterday afternoon as I drove to the travel clinic at Lahey. I was getting my shots for my Peru trip and had worked myself into a state of near panic.

No, I’m not afraid of needles. It’s just that lately I seem to be terrified of everything having to do with this trip to South America. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not generally like this. Honestly!

Anyway, I sat in a waiting room about 35 min. to pre-register and still had not been called forward when I returned to the front desk concerned about missing my appointment. After three calls to the travel clinic, the clerk told me to head upstairs since the clinic was running “on-time” and they wanted me now.

Once I arrived on the seventh floor of Lahey West, I found another line in a waiting room in front of a large free-standing desk area. I must be in the wrong place. On the wall to my right, from beyond which I saw medical professionals and patients disappear and appear, a sign said “Neurology and ALS Center.” On the left side, just: “Neurology.”

I edged towards the desk, skirting the other line-waiters, hoping they would’nt think I was cutting, and then I saw the printout taped to the check-in desk: “Neurology, Ophthalmology, Pain Center, Travel Clinic, ….” Ah, this is the right place after all. The line moved fairly quickly. The gal behind the desk asked for my insurance card and my $20 co-pay. While standing there, it occurred to me that my trip to Peru will probably be a lot of hurry-up-and-wait kinds of moments like this. Here I am getting all worked up about the dangers of the trip, and most likely it will often be fairly uneventful, maybe sometimes even outright boring.

Then I remembered what a man from my church told me Sunday. He’s traveled extensively in the developing world, and his best advice was “just look at the people.” Evidently no matter what I encounter, if I can stay focused on the human beings in front of me, I will be fine. So I thought I’d practice a bit.

“I really like your hair,” I suddenly said to the check-in lady in front of me. It was the same style that I had wanted the last time my hairdresser cut my hair, but she had cut mine too short instead. But this woman’s hair was really lovely.

Her face just lit up. “Oh! Thank you so much! You know, my husband’s a hairdresser!”

She outlined the benefits and drawbacks of having a hairdresser husband while she processed my paperwork. Then she pointed me to the hallway on the left and said the doctor’s office was right around the corner. “Have a great trip,” she chirped.

The woman behind the next counter was on the phone. Above her on the wall, the sign read: “Center for Infectious Diseases and Prevention.” She seemed to be on hold and looked right at me, so I mouthed the name of the doctor I was to see, and the phone-lady nodded and pointed to a chair in the hallway. On the wall in front of me, a poster boldly proclaimed, “YOUR HEALTH is in your hands.”

Yeh, tell me about it.

Why on earth am I traveling to the middle of nowhere, a place where “Infectious Diseases” — and for that matter violence and natural disasters, too — are a matter of course? I am going there to try to help make a difference, to help save lives, to gain a new perspective on my life, I remind myself.

A nurse emerged from behind the counter and smiled, showing me into a tiny examination room. “So you’re going to Peru, huh. Business or pleasure?”

I had been stumped by that question on the form the clinic sent me, too. I mean, it’s not my “business” to install solar panels and emergency radios. I’m no engineer. I’m no documentary filmmaker or journalist, either. I am going on the trip with people from my place of employment, though, so it’s kind of like a business trip…. “Pleasure?” Well, not exactly that either, is it? Maybe the trip will be enjoyable. Maybe. But I’m not really counting on a lot of pleasure, per se. Interesting? Sure. Enlightening? No doubt. Pleasure? Hmmm. The image arises of hordes of mosquitoes, fleas, and rats moving toward me in little phalanxes…. “Service,” I answer finally.

We chat while she takes my blood pressure and temperature. Turns out she, herself, recently went on a service trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. I have friends from those countries, and it’s clear to me that those places are more dangerous than Peru. I’m impressed by my nurse. She doesn’t look very adventurous, yet she went on a service trip to Southeast Asia.

Enter, the doctor.

I knew going into this appointment that it would probably be filled with all kinds of scary information told to me because of liability issues, etc. I told myself not to get all hyper when I heard these disclaimers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to stick to that resolution.

At my age, I am told, one in 250,000 people will have a serious reaction to the Yellow Fever vaccine I am thinking of getting. “What do you mean by ‘serious’?”

“Major kidney and liver damage. It’s a live vaccine, you know. But people die from Yellow Fever, so if you are going to be exposed, you need the shot.”

Then she kept asking me about whether I would be traveling below 8,200 ft on this one part of the mountain. How the heck would I know?! All I have to offer is a list of villages that we will be visiting. She tells me, “I’ve never heard of those villages and can’t find any information about them.”

Of course, you can’t. They are in the middle of friggin’ nowhere! …

(Part two will be posted tomorrow! Please check back to read the rest…)

"...there will be rats, too": Another Peru Trip Update

2007-11-16T10:37:00.000-08:00

“I recommend you get some mosquito netting,” says a veteran Peru-goer in our group. Eleven of us were sitting around the table in Engineering 407, pizza boxes lining the center of the table, calling to me to abandon Weight Watchers in favor of a slice… ah, but I digress.

“Yeh, mosquito nets are good,” pipes up another. “And, well, they can be helpful in other ways … because, … well, … there will be rats, too. The nets seem to help keep them at bay somewhat.”

I was glad that I took a pass on the pizza, as my stomach did a flip at the mention of rats crawling all over us at night. Then it got worse.

“Remember, PPPPPPP, and how he got eaten alive by fleas? Those fleas just seemed to LOVE him! None of us got bitten. Just him. There were less than a hundred-fifty bites, though. Ha, Ha.”

“Yeh, WWWWW also got bit all over her legs. They both had to get injections at the Posta, they were so swollen up with the bites. But what do you expect, walking through the plantation wearing shorts?”

The veteran speaker turned to me and looked me in the eye. “Wear only long sleeves and long pants. And a big hat.”

Next agenda item, the issue of money and how the project funds will be distributed among all of us so as to prevent us from being totally cleaned out if the project director is robbed.

“Has anyone BEEN robbed?” I squeak.

“Well, nooooo…. I mean … not while on project business. My wife and I were robbed once in Lima, but we were being touristas at the time.” The conversation continued, but I couldn’t help wondering what he meant by “robbed.” It could just mean stuff was stolen from their hotel room or something. Stupid me, I had to ask…

“By ‘robbed’ do you mean merely money was taken or you were ‘mugged’?”

“Pushed to the ground with a knife held to my stomach, patted down. They took all our money … oh, and my watch, which was only worth five dollars! But they didn’t take our passports.”

Conversation continues nonchalantly and discussion turns to our traveling in the rainy season. Turns out for this part of the Andes, “rainy season” means drizzle season. Sounds like San Francisco to me. Heck, I used to live in the City. No problem. Foggy drizzle doesn’t bug me. Then someone mentions how IF it really rains, we will be worrying more about surviving than keeping our gear dry. Thus commenced the story of how Yungay was completely wiped out in 1970 by flooding that swept through their valley, burying 18,000 people alive. I look on the list of where the small groups are going. Yungay (?) is listed on my group’s itinerary. We aren’t sure yet whether we will make a stop there.

But the good news is, I am told, such flooding hardly ever happens, and if there were a danger of a disaster, we’d know about it because there’d be an uncharacteristic amount of rain. “Yeh, and the locals always tell us whether to go up the mountain or not,” piped in the veteran Peru-goer’s wife (who herself has been to Peru even more than her spouse). “I remember so-and-so walked out of her house and looked up at the mountain and said, ‘yes, you can go to XXX today. It’s okay. But leave soon.’ She could tell just by looking at the sky that it was safe.”

I didn’t ask why those 18,000 people didn’t look at the sky.

Anyway, I’m still going to Peru.

The good news is that mosquito/rat netting is readily available. DEET bug spray and long-sleeved shirts and pants and readily available. Malaria and altitude sickness pills are readily available, as are Hepatitus B and Yellow Fever vaccines, a tetanus booster, Cipro, Immodium, and sunscreen. Water purification systems are also readily available, and I can eat nothing but cooked foods and Cliff bars for 16 days.

And here’s the kicker…I will have one heck of a good story to tell afterwards.

My Grandma’s memoir would not be such a fantastic story if it didn’t have so much adversity in it. The overcoming of obstacles is what makes both an intereating and enjoyable story and a well-lived life. I signed up to go on this trip to make a difference by donating my time and talent to help others. And I signed up also because I wanted to make sure that I did not settle too comfortably into the life that years of hard work have created for me and my family.

For so long the goal was to earn a degree — first a BA, then MA, then Ph.D. — and then the goal was to find a job practicing my profession (no easy task in a field with a glut of over-qualified candidates and only a fifth of the needed jobs). Once I found that job in academe, the goal was to earn tenure. After six years of proving myself, I did that. Two years later, I am now looking at my life and wondering what next? Yes, to do my job and do it well. That’s very important — make no mistake. But where is my career headed other than teaching (which I love but which is only one part of a teacher-scholar’s life)? What new challenge lies ahead? Is exploring my creative non-fiction writing going to be a new focal point for me? Will my experiences this year deepen my love of literature and the analysis of literature?

And what will I learn from Peru?

How to avoid having rats crawl on me? How not to mind that rats are crawling on me? How to write about rats crawling on me? How to offer a fresh interpretation of great works of literature about rats crawling on other people? We shall see.

Bring it on. Rats and all, I’m going to Peru.

"Our group will be going to the most remote villages": Peru Update

2007-11-11T10:34:00.000-08:00

The plane tickets have been purchased. It’s a done deal. What, am I crazy? I’ve been having mega-second thoughts this week. But it’s over. Finito. I have to go now.

So, what’s the big deal, you ask?

Itinerary: Day one we attend a wedding of a former participant in the project. That’ll be interesting, I’m sure. The next day we head north and buy equipment in Huarmey. Then all four mini-groups split up. I am in group one, with the project director, a woman who has been on these trips before, and a history prof who has joined the project and who will be helping to create a documentary film about our trip. Our director, John, has scheduled two weeks filled with long trips up into the Andes mountains (most villages at about 12,000 feet), some of which have never been visited by North Americans. Cool, right?

Yes, but…

I’m a big ole fat chicken, it seems. No electricity (except for places where we worked with them previously to install solor panels — but that electricity is precious and only used for things like vaccine fridges and such). No running water, and certainly no clean water (except for places where we have helped install water systems). No way to get help in a hurry if there is a problem (except for in villages where the project has been able to help with installing emergency radios).

I can do without internet and t.v. Who cares, really, about that? But traveling during Peru’s rainy season into extremely high altitudes to work with villagers whose Quechuan language none of us in the group speaks, to places where there is no water, electricity, or emergency facilities beyond rudimentary medical posts? We will sleep where we can, sometimes inside a home (dirt floors, of course) and sometimes, perhaps, outside. We will eat what we can get through the hospitality of Peruvian partners (goodbye Weight Watchers, hello cuy??!) We will face disappointing setbacks that mean we must leave a village (that it took us hours to get to) without achieving our objective.

And yet…

Won’t it be wonderful? I mean, part of why I decided to participate is that I have always been someone to avoid risk-taking, always very cautious. I am trying to push myself out of what’s comfortable and into new spaces. The more I learn of my immigrant ancestors, the more I feel terribly spoiled and sheltered, completely unprepared to imagine in my writing what life was like for those folks crossing the sea and moving to a new land where they did not speak the language and where they would have to live by their wits and their sweat and their insistence on not failing. I can’t spend this sabbatical year homesteading a farm, and I already speak English. But I CAN go on this service trip to Peru and hopefully not only help out the project but also gain a clearer vision of what my ancestors might have felt like when they immigrated to America.

Odds are, I won’t get arrested for some crime I didn’t commit. Odds are, there won’t be some massive, bloddy uprising that we get caught in the middle of. Odds are, I won’t become violently ill and die because there’s no hospital nearby, thus leaving my son motherless.

More likely…Peru will be amazingly beautiful, the people will be welcoming and warm, I will be healthy and helpful, and I’ll decide to return to Peru in the future to continue our good work.

Right?

In any case, the tickets are bought. They are non-refundable. I am going to Peru, for real.

Peruvian Music and the Trip Ahead

2007-10-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

So that YouTube stuff is pretty cool… Yeh, I’m behind the curve — I never said I was a technogeek, just a lowly English professor. I’ve known about YouTube for a while, but finally had occasion to visit the site because, of all things, my son’s Spanish teacher gave the kids an assignment to go on-line and watch some videos with Peruvian music and dance. They are taking a fieldtrip this Friday to see some Peruivian and Flamenco music and dance in Cambridge, Mass. Their maestra wants them to get the most out of the experience, so the children need to prepare. Fun homework!

I was struck, in listening to the Andean music with my son, at how prominent the flute is. I wonder if there is a practical reason for this…like, for example, flutes can be hand-made and are very portable. I’ll have to look into this more. In any case, my son loved the music and got a real kick out of the colorful clothing of the Peruvians in the videos. He was even more intrigued by the pictures of Lake Titicaca (which he just likes saying the name of!) and the Nazca lines (loved the monkey the best of all).

I understand from the leader of the group I am joining for the January trek to Peru, that I will be in the team that is going to the most remote Andean villages with the most interesting clothing and traditional culture, etc. In fact, some of these villages have never been visited by a North American. Of course, the Amerindians in these remote villages are also known to be extremely shy, so I expect I will not be meeting many of these villagers up close and personal. I was told that in the past when the teams have come into towns like this, the women take to the hills. And I was told that it will make no difference that I am a woman. I am American first and foremost. They will not approach me. The children, however…. They cannot hold back their curiosity more than a few minutes.

YouTube has a lot of great videos of Peruvian music. Here’s one I enjoyed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoaO42Kbaj4

I don’t yet know how to get the video to actually appear on the site, but the link appears to work.

Adios!

Reflections on Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird

2007-10-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

“There’s nothing Western folks admire so much as pluck in a woman….”

I’ve been meaning to read this slim volume of Isabella Bird’s letters home ever since I was working on my dissertation. Bird was a Brit who traveled to the American west in 1873 and was the first woman to scale Long’s Peak (14,700 ft.) in the Colorado Rockies. I wanted to read this book not so much because I plan to scale the Andes when I head on down to Peru this January but because I am interested in women travelers and their writing. I was sorta thinkin’ I might join the ranks of these travel writers and well, ur, write something about my own travels. Seems sorta presumptuous of me, but it’s something I’m actually considering….

First off, I have to say that I read the book practically in one sitting, didn’t want to put it down. It was delightfully descriptive (in the way that nineteenth-century travel writing usually is) and full of drama and humor. I knew Bird’s story, so I was not surprised at her successfully making the climb, but what did surprise me was some of her reflections on the experience and on her time in the West.

She opens with a visit to Lake Tahoe, via the town of Truckee. Having spent a lot of time at Tahoe as a kid, I found her portrait very accurate. Her retelling of the Donner Party tale, however, was so filled with lies as to be unrecognizable. No doubt these are the lies she had been told, but what she heard was a fireside horror story unfounded in truth. Anyway, I was hooked right away with her first line: “I have found a dream of beauty at which one might look all one’s life and sigh.” If you’ve never been to Tahoe, you may think this an exaggeration. I know better.

She comes to Colorado rather too late in the season to do much mountain climbing (at least according to locals), not that her goal in coming was to scale a mountain. No. In fact, her goal was to get to Estes Park, a difficult enough jaunt. When there she meets a notorious desperado named “Mountain Jim” whom she calls Mr. Nugent. During a bit of mild weather in early October, Jim offers to take her, and two college students staying at her lodgings, up to the top of Long’s Peak. She had been advised, “Treat Jim as a gentleman and you’ll find him one.” Good advice, which she followed and which proved true.

It is Jim who coaxes Bird to the peak when she tries repeatedly to give up along the way. Arriving at the “Notch” — a gate of rock through which climbers go before scaling the peak itself — she marvels at the view and then reflects: “Never-to-be-forgotten glories they were, burnt in upon my memory by six succeeding hours of terror. You know I have no head and no ankles, and never ought to dream of moutaineering; and had I known that the ascent was a real mountaineering feat I should not have felt the slightest ambition to perform it.” This struck me as somehow more than merely a comment on her adventure. How many of us may feel the same way about childbirth or grad school or…well, you fill in the blank…? Sometimes it is best not to know the trials we will face.

My favorite bit comes when she finally crawls her way to the summit: “Uplifted above love and hate and storms of passion, calm amidst the eternal silences, fanned by zephyrs and bathed in living blue, peace rested for that one bright day on the Peak.”

Peace be with you all.

I'm Going to Peru: What on Earth Am I Thinking?

2007-10-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

Yeh, so I’m going to Peru. And I am not going there to visit ancient Incan sites and pick up some cheap alpacha hats. I am joining a group of engineering students and their professor (and a few other volunteers), and we will be traveling up into several remote Andean villages to work in partnership with the people there to install solar panels (to power vaccine fridges, emergency radios, etc.), install water systems (so villages can have potable water for the first time ever), and to bring assistive tech devices for disabled individuals. Etcetera. The list of proposed activities boggles the mind. How could so much be accomplished in only two weeks?

Well, I am told that once we are there, we will have to be flexible and will find that some projects will get stalled and others will arise that are unplanned. The Village Empowerment Project has been working in partnership with villagers in Peru for over ten years, making two trips a year. Students work on projects stateside to help fill identified needs in Peru. Then, some of those students actually travel to Peru to install their systems and learn how to adapt and modify on location if their designs do not work. Flexibility is key.

And what is an English Professor like myself doing on such a trip? Yeh, I’ve been wondering that, too! I was asked by the engineering professor to join them in January in order to help participants (mostly the engineering students) to reflect more broadly and deeply on the significance and implications of their service-learning experience. We English types are pretty good at that sort of thing. Also, I am going to help document the experience by recording various interviews and sounds along the way, in hopes of creating a series of radio essays.

I have also just been asked to work with one of the students more closely. She needs one more General Education course to graduate in the spring and has no room in her schedule to take another course in spring term. She would have to miss the Peru trip and stay home and take a January Gen Ed course if I didn’t agree to take her on as a student. I don’t mind, though, as I am doing some reading anyway about Peruvian women, and so it’s no big amount of trouble to supervise the student as well and get her some credit for a Gender Studies course.

I’ve begun my search for texts in earnest and I can’t wait to begin reading. Just a few of the titles that appeal to me: The Call of God: Women Doing Theology in Peru by Tom Powers, Sellers and Servants: Working Women in Lima, Peru by Ximena Bunster and Elsa M. Chaney, Fire from the Andes: Short Fiction by Women from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru edited by Susan Benner and Kathy Leonard, and The Gift of Life: Female Spirituality and Healing in Northern Peru by Bonnie Glaser-Coffin. I’m sure I’ll be sharing more on those later once I begin reading.

So, what on earth am I thinking…? Well, I am scared, excited, hopeful, worried, and contemplative. I keep thinking that in some yet unforseen way this Peru trip will enhance what I am doing with Grandma’s book. I really don’t have a clue why I think that. I mean, these are pretty distinctly different activities…but I still feel so completely sure that some connection will arise, that some change in me will occur, that something deeply significant is about to happen to me and I need to let it occur. Maybe this is part of grieving — gaining a radically new perspective? Maybe I’ll be gaining insight into what it’s like to live on the edge economically, as Grandma’s family had to do during the Great Depression? Maybe what I read in preparation for the journey will teach me something important about my own writing? I’ve tried to figure out why I feel so compelled to do this and why I feel so sure it relates to Grandma’s memoir (the project I am supposed to be working on right now). I still haven’t got a clue. But I’m going to Peru in January. And that’s that.