Welcome to Bamba

So it's almost been a week in my new site and things are going pretty well so far. Well to be honest I definitely feel a roller coaster of emotions on any given day, but for the most part, I think I'm okay. It's funny how different my life is here from my life back in Santa Eulalia. I live in a "city" here, but it's definitely a city in the campo. This weekend Jessica and I went to Chota (a city a little bigger than Bambamarca about 1.5 hours away) to meet up with our friends Heidi and Rory there to celebrate Heidi's birthday. As we were leaving the city this morning to come back to Bamba, the only transportation we could find to come back was in this jeep/truck that had about 8 people riding in the back (mind you the bed of the truck is only about 5 feet long). There were three people sitting in the back seat of the truck and Jessica and I crammed in the front with the driver. Because it's Sunday today, it's market day and everyone comes out of the woodwork to sell their goods. We saw tons of women walking around town (barefoot wearing their wool skirts and straw hats) with their pigs and cows on leashes to sell! I really wanted to take a picture, but that wasn't an option when we were packed into the truck like sardines, but it was quite an experience and all I could think was, this is so Peru. It was pretty funny. The only other option to go home is in a combi which looks like one of those old VW vans that they also cram as many people as possible into. We took a combi to get to Chota and about halfway into the trip there is a hand slapping the window from the roof! We were like, what the heck is going on? Apparently there were two people riding on the roof of the combi and we had reached their house so they slap the window so the driver knows to stop! Don't worry mom and dad, I'll never ride on the roof. Other than the crazy transportation, Chota was really fun. Rory's family invited us over for lunch for Heidi's birthday where we ate ceviche (raw fish), that's right, I ate RAW fish for lunch, but it was way better than cuy. It mostly just tasted like lemon juice - gracias a Dios! We visited with his family for a while and then went out for pizza and drinks later that night. It was definitely nice to see some friendly faces and speak lots of English! This morning we had a delicious "American" breakfast with scrambled eggs (I've only seen them one other time since I've been here), but don't worry they had ham in them because everything here has ham in it whether it is advertised that way or not - including vegetarian pizza!

Anyway, enough about Chota. You'll all be relieved to hear that I have a new family here. They are really nice and will definitely work out for now, though I'm not sure I'll stay with them for the whole two years so let me explain. The mom, Rosa, is 27 and is a nurse that works at one of the health posts outside of the city. Her husband, whose name I don't remember because I've only met him for about 10 minutes, is 25 and is a teacher close to Chota. Because they both work outside of the city, they are gone most of the week and only come home for the weekends. Rosa told me that it's rare for her to be gone all week, but that she is usually gone for part of the week because she is the only person that works at that health post. She has a 12 year old son, Ricky, that stays in Bambamarca to go to school while they are gone, and together they have a 9 month old daughter, Emily, that goes with the mom when she goes away. Ricky's cousins also live there, Junior who is 14 and Rosio who is 16. Rosio is in charge of the boys and of cooking and cleaning all the time (she also takes care of the baby when she's home) and goes to high school from 7-9:30 at night. There is also a professor and his wife and their 10 month old baby that live in the room next to mine, another professor that lives there, and apparently a sister-in-law too though I haven't met her yet.

I know it sounds very overwhelming and hectic, but the house is sort of set up like apartments so you enter everything from outside so there is actually a lot of privacy. From the door off the street, you walk down a little entryway and then it opens up to a little central patio where you enter the kitchen/living room and also the bathroom. Everyone's bedrooms are upstairs. My room is a pretty good size and comfortable. It would be great other than the fact that I'm pretty sure it was my host mom's room that she gave to me. She told my director that it was her son's room, but all of her clothes were in the dresser that she had to empty out because it's too big to fit through the door to get it out and right now I'm sleeping on her bed because she needs her husband's help to get it out. I feel really badly about that, but I had no idea. Because of this, I'm not sure I'll stay with the family for the whole 2 years. She also seemed really overwhelmed when she heard that and seemed to be much happier that it might only be three months until I find another family. It's also kind of weird that they aren't there a lot, though I feel really bad for her son that he's home alone a lot and I'm glad to have him there. He is really cute and very curiuos about the U.S. so he asks me a lot of questions (everything from the climate, how much things cost, if we have hot showers, to what wonders of the world we have)! He's a really good kid and seems to be very polite and excited to have me there. Rosa said she was happy to have me live there so I could help take care of the boys, but luckily my director told her that's not what I'm here for. The professors that live there are both really nice guys (and the one guy's wife too) and seem to really care for Ricky and give him a lot of attention when the parents are away. The other afternoon, I played chess with one of them while we talked with Ricky and the other guy's wife. They were really friendly and very willing to help me with anything I needed.

Even though it's kind of a weird situation, I have a lot of privacy and I feel much more comfortable there than in my first house. The bathroom is also much cleaner so that makes me feel a lot better. We definitely only have cold water for a shower though so I might purchase a hot water thing for the shower. I've heard it's only about $15 and it would be well worth it to everyone. One morning I tried to do a bucket bath with boiled water but it took a good 45 minutes because there is definitely a technique to it that I haven't yet mastered. The next time I didn't have time to do that so I thought I would just rough it since I was sweaty anyway from exercising. I was so cold that the water was literally taking my breath away and without knowing it, I realized I was singing "Take My Breath Away" in my head! That's definitely not going to fly with me. There are some things that I'll just have to get used to, but I don't know if I can get used to that, especially since the bathroom has this big opening to the outside so lots of cold air comes in! By the way, since you have to access the bathroom from the outside, when it's rainy season and I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I'll definitely be soaking wet by the time I get to the bathroom. Hope I don't have diarrhea a lot! Another good thing about this family is that I have already established that I'll cook breakfast and lunch for myself so the 16 year old girl doesn't have to and I'm already so much happier cooking my own food. I eat dinner with them when I'm home for it, but it only consists of warm milk or quaker with bread and avocado and/or cheese. It's not much, but I love it because I don't like going to bed on a full stomach.

Before we got to our sites everyone warned us that the first 3 months are the hardest because you're still not comfortable there and very unsure of your role in the community as a volunteer. I can definitely understand that now. In the past week I've questioned many times what I'm doing here and what exactly I'm supposed to be doing here. Also, without all of my friends from training, life here is a lot more lonely and I've been thinking about home a lot. However, as frustrating as it is sometimes, I know I'm not going to leave. I know that I'll get through it and everyday I've made little advances that make me feel good. I've made some friends at different stores, in the market, and in the internet cafe who all recognize me (not that it's that hard, I stick out like a sore thumb here) and call me by name when I see them in the streets. One store owner even let me pick out a gift from one of his display cases when he found out it was my birthday the other day. The stores here are hillarious in the range of things they sell so it was pretty interesting picking something. This was a stationary store, but they also sell canned milk, toilet paper, liquor, watches, cologne, etc. (you get the idea) and most of the stuff looks like it was from the early 90s. I didn't want to pick out anything that was too expensive so I picked this blue and pick clock that is an anchor and says "profound wishes" on it in English with lots of sparkles. I needed a clock, what can I say? It's pretty hillarious. It's also fun when you go to stores and they bust out there huge rag to dust something off before you purchase it.

If it weren't for Rita and her family I would be having a really hard time here. They are incredible and very welcoming. I've been to their house just about everyday so far and the one night I didn't go, her 7 year old daughter, Melany, kept asking where I was. I eat dinner with them a lot and just talk a lot about our lives, the Peace Corps, Peru and its people, and life in the U.S. I feel so comfortable with them and love being at their house. Rita tells me everyday how she wanted me to live with her, but my director told her I can't because she's my counterpart and I'll be spending a lot of time with her. I definitely feel more comfortable at her house than at my own, but at the same time, it's nice to have my own space and be able to go home at night and have some time to myself. I've never had so much time to myself and such an unstructured life, but I love it. It's sort of nice not having any schedule what so ever. I get up and do yoga and some other type of exercise in the mornings and then make myself breakfast and try to bathe (that's always a process). By the time I get out of the house in the morning, it's usually about 2-3 hours after I woke up, but it's great because it's okay. No one cares. Life is so much more tranquilo here and slow. I spend the days exploring the city and just trying to meet people. Some days I have more patience for it than others. One day these 3 boys (about 11-13 years old) came up to me when I was sitting in the plaza and wanted to shine my shoes, I said no, but they kept talking to me, which was fine. Then they started joking that they were going to steal my clothes, but I didn't think it was very funny. It'll be nice when people start seeing me as Kristen and not just the rich gringa living in their town. Next week I'm going to try to go to the schools and observe classes so I can get to know more people - especially the ones I'll be working with. Rita introduced me to some really cool people on Friday from PRODIA an NGO from Spain that runs many development projects in Peru. The people who work for the NGO are Peruvian and it was really fun to meet people with the same goals for their country as I have. They told me about some of their projects and they all sound really exciting and successful. They are really excited to work with me and so am I!

I have to go in a minute because I haven't been home since yesterday morning, but I wanted to say I had my first experience with washing my clothes by hand the other day. To be honest it was kind of relaxing and meditative, but boy was I exhausted afterwards! It took me 1.5 hours to wash 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, 9 pairs of underwear, and 7 pairs of socks. Hopefully I'll get better at it. I was also pretty annoyed when I hung up one of my shirts and it feel right onto the dirty cement ground! It wasn't so relaxing to wash the shirt the second time around and man did my hands hurt afterwards!

Poco a poco I'll get used to being here. It's been nice to go to Rita's and I also went to Carol's house one day (she works at the health center too). She rents a room here with her 4 year old son because her husband works in Chota. She is really nice too and it was fun hanging out with her and Anthony. We read Aladdin and The Three Little Pigs in Spanish. He's a crazy little kid, but really cute and sweet. We went to the bakery to buy empanadas for dinner and he gave us each a flower when we got back that he had picked somewhere along the way!

That about sums up my first week here. I think I'm doing well for my first week here, but definitely miss my friends and all of you at home. I've never had to make friends in another culture before (besides exchange students, but they were living in my culture) so it's kind of intimidating. I know I can do it though - I always figure it out somehow!

Thanks to all of you who called and wrote to me on my birthday! It meant so much to me. A friend called and told me I have lots of packages waiting for me in Cajamarca so I can't wait to go get them all next weekend! I miss you all so much. Keep in touch, I love to hear from you!