I'm Alive!!

Well after my second round of diarrhea since arriving in Peru, I'm happy to report that I'm healthy again and feeling great.

You'd think that I'd be able to get my act together to write on my blog more often since I have internet in my town and I come here just about everyday. I always joke with the guys who own this place that I should have an account here because I'm here so often. But I spend most of my time checking emails and talking to Giff or my parents on Skype so after that, I never feel like writing on my blog. I promise that I really am going to try to be better at it - it'll be easier for me to remember what has happened and easier for you to read.

So besides for being sick, I've been remarkably busy. Right now the thing that is taking up most of my time is visiting the schools. After meeting with some of the teachers last Monday, I told them I'd like to start visiting their classes to start getting to know some of the students. I told them I'm not ready to start doing my charlas yet, I just want to go and introduce myself and observe their classes. They seemed really excited about it and jumped on the opportunity. All of a sudden my calendar was packed and things were starting to pick up. Well when I went to my first session of tutoría (this is the class I'll be observing, it's sort of like an extra cirriculum class) and the professor never showed up, I quickly understood why they were all so excited to sign me up to come observe their class. Even though I told them I wanted them to stay in the classroom the whole time because I would not be coming to teach, they all heard what they wanted to and many think it means they have a free hour. The first time I couldn't believe it, but went into the class anyway and ended up staying there alone with the kids for 45 minutes. I wasn't prepared to do anything with them so it was pretty hillarious. I introduced myself, spoke in English (because it's very exciting for them), tried to draw a map of the U.S. to show where I used to live, where mom and dad live, where I went to college, etc. My map was pretty funny, but it got the idea across. Somehow they also convinced me to sing the national anthem which was hillarious because 1. I'm tone deaf and 2. I don't know all of the words if I'm not singing it with other people so I definitely made things up, repeated a bunch of lines and then sang, "and the home of the brave." Hahahaha. They definitely laughed during it, but gave me a huge round of applause at the end and shouted, "BRAVO"!

That first class was last Tuesday and since then, I've been to seven other classes and in three of them the professor never showed up again. You can imagine that I no longer think this is funny and I've stopped going to the classes if the professor isn't there because I need to set an example that if they're not there, neither am I. It's really frustrating and very uncomfortable to be alone with the kids a lot of times. They ask me questions about my boyfriend and can be very inappropriate. Not all classes are so bad, but yesterday I had one that was so bad that I was ready to walk out in the middle of the class. The professor was even in the room yesterday and I had told him before hand (at least 3 times) that I wasn't going to be doing anything other than introducing myself and then observing. He sat in the back of the class and didn't do anything the entire time. He might as well not have been there because he didn't even keep the kids under control. Although many people here tell me I speak Spanish very well, I still have an accent and I always will because I'm not a native speaker. Almost the whole class yesterday there were various kids laughing at me every time I spoke and then when I turned around to write something on the board, they would laugh and some of the boys would whistle or make other comments. It was completely humiliating and I couldn't believe the professor wasn't saying anything. As much as I wanted to walk out, I thought that would be really unprofessional so I stayed. That definitely was the icing on the cake for me though and I've now decided that I'm only going to start working in a few classes where the professor has showed a lot of interest and actually stayed and helped me. This school has over 1600 kids so it's impossible to think I'm going to get to know all of them anyway. We have another meeting with the professors next week and I'm going to tell them that I've selected a few classes that I want to start with and then we'll go from there. The classes happen to be older kids so it works out well because many professors have suggested that these kids really need a lot of work. There isn't much time left in the school year anyway so I think they'll understand that for right now I want to start with a small number of classes. I hope this strategy will work out better because this past week and a half has been very frustrating for me.

In other news, I just found out that all of Peru 7 is having a little reunion, called Reconnect, in early November to touch base about how things have been going in the first two months in site. I'm really excited to see everyone! The weekend before that we have our leadership camp for girls in Cajamarca so with all of the traveling, I'll be out of my site for about 10 days. Then just two weeks after that we have about 5 days off for Thanksgiving so we're all meeting up at the beach for that. Then it's less than a month until I go home and get to FINALLY see Giff, and my parents of course too! Wow I'm sooooo excited and definitely think about it everyday. Thinking about that helps me get through days like yesterday.

I have also been fortunate enough to become really close to the doctor and his family since I got sick. They live right across the street from me and insisted on cooking me some soup for lunch when I was sick. I ended up staying there for 3.5 hours talking to the doctor's wife, Chabu (her name is really Isabel, but Chabu is a common nickname for Isabel here - don't ask why). Rita has been out of town since last Thursday so since then, I've been to the doctor's house everyday. They are from the coast so his wife doesn't have too many friends here and loves to talk to me. She had someone from Switzerland live with her family for two years when she was younger and always had other foreigners in and out of her house as a kid so she has a lot of experience with people from other cultures and is very understanding of what I'm going through and knows how lonely it can be to be new somewhere so she always invites me over to talk and spend time with them.

I went to their house on Friday and Saturday night because the obstratrice (sp?) that works at the health center moved on Sunday to Trujillo (a city on the coast). I really liked her and am sorry to see her leave. She was here alone too - all of her family lives in Cajamarca (she's only 26) so Dr. Martín and his family really took her in. She used to spend a lot of time there and they're all really sad to see her leave. On Friday night they invited me over for pizza ( cooked in the microwave with hot dogs, ham, pineapple, peppers, onions - interesting, but good) and sangria - a special dinner they were having for her. It was nice to talk to hang out with them outside of the health center because we could all be more relaxed (of course the Sangria helped with this too). They told me to come back and hang out the next night too so I went over around 8 pm. They asked where I'd been all day because apparently they had been drinking since 1 pm. Haha. We had a really fun time talking and watching Dr. Martín and his wife dancing! However, some parts of the night were also very sad as they started thinking about Aracely leaving. Everyone started crying, including me because leaving a really familiar place to go somewhere new all by yourself is still very fresh in my mind. They were saying though that God is taking one rose away from them, but gave them another one from Massachusetts and they're really looking forward to getting to know me better. Then the doctor told me that he wants nothing more for me than to feel completely comfortable here. He wants me to think of them as my family and feel free to come and go as I please. They told me they want to take me to the coast with them to meet the rest of their family because I'm part of their family now and they want to do everything they can for me. It was really sweet and great to hear because my family has never said anything like that to me and lately things have been kind of weird with my host mom to the point that she makes me feel very uncomfortable sometimes. Next to the doctor's house, they have another room with a private bath that they want me to live in. They said I'd be able to have a lot of privacy (my own entrance, but still inside the locked gate to their property), but be able to come into the house any time to eat, visit with them, watch TV or DVDs, take a HOT shower, or whatever I wanted! It definitely seems like an ideal situation because his family includes me a lot and I feel really comfortable with them. His wife is a great cook and really wants to teach me recipes and learn some from me. She also does tons of arts and crafts and sewing projects and would love to teach me that too! I really hope it would work out because I think it would be a better situation than I'm in now. I would wait until after these first three months because that's how long I told my family I'd be living there, but then I'll probably move if that is still an option. We have to talk about it more, but his wife mentioned it again last night and showed me the room as I was leaving. It has a new tile floor and is freshly painted, but they haven't finished redoing the bathroom yet.

I must sound like a crazy lady changing families all the time, especially since I had recently come to the conclusion that I thought I'd be happy staying with my current family for two years. But things have started to change with my host mom and I think I'd like to live in a family where I feel really included. I like having my privacy in my house now, but I'd have that in the doctor's house too. I don't like that my family doesn't really include me in much because I spend a lot of time in my room. I just finished decorating my room so I really feel like it's my own space now and feel really comfortable in there. Sometimes I think it's bad that I was an only child because I'm really good at entertaining myself. I could stay in my room for a week and never run out of things to do. Since my family doesn't invite me to join them in watching TV and such, it's really easy to spend a lot of time alone and that's not my purpose here. Plus if I moved into the doctor's house, I would just live across the street so I'd be able to maintain a relationship with my family. I really like my host mom's sister and sister-in-law and would hope to stay friends with them. Sometimes I think we spend more time with people if we don't live together and I think that would be the case with my current family. Right now we spend most of the time doing our own thing, but if I didn't live there and came over to visit, we'd be forced to spend time together and hang out.

The issue with my host mom is that sometimes I feel like she doesn't like me or tries to point out my flaws. The other day she asked me out of the blue what pants size I wear. I told her I don't know what it is here so I told her what it is at home. She was trying to guess what size I would be here and kept insisting that I'm bigger than her. Her sister-in-law kept saying that I'm definintely smaller than her (which I am), but my host mom kept saying, yeah right look at how big her hips are - she's definitely bigger than me. Her sister-in-law wanted to get out a measuring tape to prove to my host mom that she was wrong, but couldn't find one. It was definitely really uncomfortable and I couldn't understand why she kept making such a big deal out of it and talking about my big hips right there in front of me. Later that day she asked me how I curl my hair and I told her it was natural. She kept telling me no it's not because she's seen that it's straight. I told her that's only when I brush it, but she still didn't believe me. Again, very uncomfortable. Another time she introduced me to her friend and told her friend that when I come back at Christmas I'll bring clothes for them from the States! I told her I wasn't sure and she kept telling me that yes I could and told her friend that I'll bring stuff back for them so she needs to tell me what she wants! I couldn't believe it and felt really uncomfortable again. I've since heard from some other people who work with her that she's very confrontational and has no fear speaking her mind, whether you want to hear it or not. It's too bad because I really like her sister and sister-in-law, but it's uncomfortable to live in an environment like that.

What else has been going on in my life? I found out the other day that one of my good friends in our program has decided to go back home to the States. After being in site for a month he realized that this really isn't for him and so he's heading back home. I'm really sad to see him go as he had so much positive energy and was a really great guy. I saw a lot of potential in him, but we all have to evaluate things for ourselves and I just wish him the best of luck. It's definitely a big transition here and it's not right for everyone. I'll be sad not to see him at our reunion for Thanksgiving, but he promised that he'd be down to visit over the next two years.

As I was writing on my blog earlier today, the doctor called and invited me over to lunch at his house. The food was absolutely delicious - the best I've had since my abuelita's yummy cooking - and the company was great as always. He asked me to explain what exactly I'm doing here because to him it seems like a huge sacrifice and a big punishment to leave a developed country and give up your whole life to live in an under-developed country for two years. He said if someone asked him to give up his life and go live in the Congo, he'd say no way! I explained to him why I'm here and what I'm hoping to learn and get out of it and he understood a lot better. Then he told me how he can understand my situation because he used to live in a much more modern city on the coast where he had everything he wanted and delicious food. And then he came to the Sierra to do his practicum (or whatever that's called for a doctor) and he was miserable. He said there was no electricity, it was freezing, and he hated the food. He said it was culture shock for him too - even in his own country. So now he jokes with me that he did Peace Corps Peru too! Haha.

It's interesting to think about the huge economic inequality there is here in Peru. I always talk about it being so inefficient and poor here in so many ways, but yesterday I was eating lunch with my host family and they started talking about people in the jungle and how much worse they have it. They kept saying "pobrecitos" and talking about how they couldn't imagine living like they do. It was really interesting for me because it really put things in perspective. I complain about the freezing cold showers here and all the flies in our kitchen, but I'm sure I am so lucky to be living where I am compared to other parts of this country - even compared to Jessica who is just 30 minutes away with electricity. As the doctor was saying to me today, as bad as we think we may have it, there is always somewhere that is worse. It's really sad to thikn about the economic reality here in Peru. For example, Cajamarca has the biggest gold mine in Latin America and the 3rd largest in the world, but at the same time, it's the poorest department in Peru because all of it's resources get exported. Peru is actually a really rich country, but you'd never know it because the government has sold all of its resources to foreign companies so Peru never gets the benefits of its own resources.

I've been busy in my site, but I'm starting to get ready for another break. It's nice to be able to see Jessica once and a while and speak English with her. It's nice to be able to have sleep overs and eat mac & cheese (something I haven't done since I was about 12 years old) and make pancakes the next morning! Life here can be very exhausting because we're on display 24 hours a day, whether we know it or not, and people are always expecting great things out of us. People here think I'm a psycologist and call me "Doctora/Profesora/Enfermera" Kris. I was buying index cards yesterday and I ended up talking to the store owner for 30 minutes about her son who is depressed and what they should do for him. Oh boy. What am I supposed to say? I'm just a "Relacionista Internacional" as Rita calls me - not a pyscologist! I told myself I'm not going to Cajamarca for two more weeks though so I'm going to stick it out. After that I have a lot going on between the camp we're organizing, reunions with Peru 7 for Counterpart Day, Reconnect (to talk about our first 2 months in site), and Thanksgiving so I think I need to stick it out in my site. Weekends are definitely challenging because I don't have as much going on and there are always tons of drunks right near my house all day on Saturday. I live right near the canchitas (soccer fields) where there are games all day on Saturday. People play, observe, and drink all day so it's hard to avoid drunks when I leave the house - even if it's only 10 am. They yell "gringa, gringa, mi amor, ven acá (gringa, my love, come here)" and make really inappropriate sounds and calls to me. Yuck! I don't like leaving my house on Saturdays, but I also don't like staying in my room all day. Luckily the doctor just lives across the street so I can escape to his house. Hopefully after a while I won't be so exciting to them, but for right now, it's really disgusting and uncomfortable to walk by them (not to mention they can all see where I live). It's the worst when the policemen whistle and call out to me - gross!

Luckily I've found this awesome lookout point of Bambamarca where I like to go and just take everything in and write in my journal. It's about a 45 minute walk up the mountain, but it's really beautiful and peaceful up there. Sometimes it feels nice to escape, even if it's just for an hour or two.

One funny little story and then I promise I'm done. I bought some boots while I was in Cajamarca because I didn't bring any nice looking shoes and people in my site definitely dress professionally for work. I decided to spend a little extra money (twice as much as they are in my site) to get some good quality boots. Well of course the broke the FIRST time I wore them! I was so mad and told Rita how I was going to bring them right back to the store and exchange them. She started laughing at me and said they wouldn't do anything for me. I told her I had my receipt, but she said that didn't matter. She took me to some guy's house who fixes shoes and said that was the best I was going to get. Well she has been out of town and I wanted my boots back so this weekend I set out searching for the house. We drove to the guy's house so I didn't know where he lived exactly other than there was a really tall sidewalk outside of his house and it was up the hill from the market. After knocking on one door and being wrong, I was pretty sure I had the right house. I knocked a few times and no one answered. I noticed there was this older woman sticking her head around the corner staring at me. When I knocked the third time she said, "that's my house, can I help you?" Hahaha. It was so funny that she had been staring at me the whole time wondering what I was doing. She had come out the side entrance to her house and was just watching me the whole time. She must have realized I was determined though so finally said something to me. Of course it wasn't the right house, but she did point me in the right direction and I finally found the right house. Third time is a charm I guess! Haha.

I hope you're all doing well. I miss you all and would love to get some emails if you have a chance!