Soy Una Disastre!

Chabu (the doctor's wife and my new host mom in a few weeks) always teases me that I'm a disaster because some days I'm really clumsy or just do ridiculous things. Last week I was helping her clean the kitchen after they painted and broke one of their glasses. I also made a mess in the kitchen one morning when I was trying to help prepare breakfast. Apparently the base of the blender wasn't screwed on tightly and the smoothie I made went all over the counter, the wall, and the floor - oops! After those incidents, I told her about the first time I cooked for my host family in Santa Eulalia (the dinner I made with ricoto pepper that we couldn't even eat) and also about breaking the family heirloom. We laughed about it a lot and so she teases me about being a disaster.

Well the other day I topped it all when I fell down the stairs (only two) at Rita's house and BROKE MY CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhh. It was Mélany's birthday and I was helping to clean up before all of their family came over. I was carrying the empty cake box into the kitchen from the living room. In order to do so, you have to go down two stairs that I've walked up and down a thousand times. Of course this time, when I had my camera around my wrist (like an IDIOT), I somehow slid down both stairs on my back and involuntarily tried to brace my fall with my hands therefore slamming my camera, lens first, into the ground. Nothing happened to me, but the lens of my camera is now jammed into the camera and the camera no longer works! I was so mad at myself for breaking it because I love my camera and use it all the time here. I called my mom right away to see if she knew how to fix it since she has the same one, but mostly because I wanted to tell her what happened. She was saying how this is really out of character for me, but this is the second camera I've broken (I dropped the other one on the ground in LA). I was so disappointed in myself and so frustrated that I started CRYING! Of course Giff made fun of me for this since it's "only" a camera, but I really like it and was so mad at myself. My mom said thank God nothing happened to me, but I told her I would have rather something happened to me instead of my camera! You can imagine how she reacted to that one. Ahhhhhh. Rita came in the room and saw me crying while I was talking to my mom. She was so cute afterwards telling me that she loves my camera and she'll never love any other camera I have as much as that one. Haha. I tried to explain to her that my mom has the same one at home that she doesn't use and I can get it at Christmas, but she still said she wouldn't like it as much. Chabu told me there are lots of places in Chiclayo that can fix digital cameras so we'll see, but I don't have much hope. Argh! As they say here, ¡Que cholera!

Besides for that, things are going really well here. I've started using the webcam when I talk to my parents and Giff and it makes our conversations so much better! Who knew it would be so fun to see each other. I know that sounds silly, but I really didn't think using the camera would be that big of a deal (besides the fact that I thought we couldn't use it since they don't have a camera, but then found out that they can still see me even if I can't see them). I thought they might enjoy it so I tried it out. Forget them enjoying it, I was so entertained by watching myself (because it shows me what they see) that I had to minimize the screen when we talked! Haha. I know that sounds really vain, but it was just so exciting that I started showing them everything I had with me (including my house key, the tiny key to my room that would never keep a robber out, my cell phone, my earrings, etc.). Haha - I know I'm a dork. Technology is pretty amazing and I'm so lucky to be able to talk to them so frequently. My parents just got a webcam too so I got to see them for the first time the other night. My mom was fooling around with it the whole time and I told her she couldn't pretend to be listening to me anymore because now I can see that she's not really listening to me! Hahahaha. It was really funny and so much fun (in case you didn't get that part). So any of you who want to see me, or even just talk to me for free, DOWNLOAD SKYPE! It's the greatest invention ever and I only have to pay $0.30/hour to talk to you!

For those of you who have been really worried about me after reading the posting when I was really upset, I want to thank you for your concern and reassure you that I'm feeling so much happier now. I really didn't mean to worry all of you, but this blog is just as much a memory for me as a way for all of you to keep up on my life so I wanted to write about how I was feeling. I'm sure you could all tell that I was really upset, but I knew there would be days like that in Peace Corps and I knew I was up for that challenge. I got through it and and doing so much better now. Over the last few weeks (as I was getting out of my slump), I realized how important it is to get out of my site once and a while and rejuvenate myself. I'm not here to be a hero or prove anything to anyone so staying in my site for "x" amount of weeks straight doesn't help me or anyone else because then I just get frustrated and upset. I've realized that my mental health and well-being is the most important thing in my life right now and taking care of myself is my number one priority. If that means that I have to go into Cajamarca for the weekend or go visit another volunteer at their site, I should do it because I always come back feeling refreshed, excited to see Rita and the doctor's family, and ready to take things on again.

Going to Cajamarca this past weekend really helped me come to this conclusion. I had a great time in the city, eating delicious food, hanging out with other volunteers, going to the movies, and even watching part of the 1st game of the World Series! We went into town for the Peru 4 despedida (going away party) because they're done with their two years. It was really fun because there were tons of volunteers there from all over Cajamarca and I got to meet a lot of new people. All of the volunteers I talked to encouraged me to take breaks from my site and come to the city to hang out with other volunteers. A lot of them said meeting other volunteers is one of their favorite things about Peace Corps and it's a great way to get new ideas and support when you need it. I met some people that I really like and look forward to becoming better friends with. After having my emotional breakdown in site, it was also nice to meet the volunteers who are about to leave who said they blinked their eyes and their two years were over. Not that I'm wishing my time here away, but it's nice to know that it doesn't drag on forever and that eventually I will really settle in and have so many projects and friendships that the time will fly by. After the despedida we went to this really nice hotel and watched Game 1 of the World Series at their bar. It was so fun to be with a bunch of Americans watching baseball. I know it sounds so un-Peace Corps, but sometimes you really need something like that. It's really nice to be surrounded by people who know exactly what you're going through. After the game we went out to a club (my first in Cajamarca). It was actually really nice, with a dance floor on the first floor, and tables, darts, and pool tables on the second floor. We danced for a long time and had a great time! A couple of my friends didn't like it because they didn't like being with so many "gringos", but that was exactly why I liked it - I don't like when all the Peruvian guys come up and dance with me - gross!

Randomly, I also found out that one of the girls from Peru 4 went to AU! She graduated in December '03 (but walked in '04). She lived in Leonard most of the time, but we know some of the same people, including one girl who went to Mt. Greylock High School! What a small world. She told me that for its size, AU is about number 13 in the world for having graduates as Peace Corps Volunteers!

While I was in Cajamarca, Heidi and I discoverd the best hot chocolate. It's at this restaurant we like to go to for breakfast and desserts (the only decent desserts I've had in Peru). It's so delicious that we often had it twice in one day to stock up! The people who work there probably think that we're crazy, but we had fun. We went there for breakfast every morning, including the morning we left because we took Joseph out for his birthday. He turned 56 (our oldest volunteer) so we wanted to treat him to breakfast! He is a great guy and we all had a lot of fun with him. We also went there one night after a delicious Italian dinner at Vaca Loca (Crazy Cow) for hot chocolate and pie - yum! At dinner we got to meet 5 health volunteers from Peru 8 who were on their Field Based Training. They all seemed really nice and it was nice to be able to give them some advice since we remember all of the anxiety we were feeling before knowing our sites (just a few months ago). I got to meet Hillary who is currently living with my host family in Santa Eulalia. She is really nice, but told me I left her in a bad position because she doesn't know how to cook anything so Fernando wants nothing to do with her. Haha. I felt bad, but told her not to worry, I'm sure they love her anyway and will be talking about her for years to come with all of the other volunteers. I must admit, I was happy to hear they talk about me a lot since all I ever heard about was Isabel (aka Elizabeth) and hoped they would have such fond memories of me too.

I haven't officially moved to the doctor's house yet, but I pretty much live there. I now eat 3 meals a day there and even shower there because they supposedly have "hot" water, but it's only been what I consider hot, once for about 15 seconds. Oh well, at least it's not freezing cold and it's nice to have a shower rather than a bucket bath. Today the shower was particularly cold though and I was thinking that a bucket bath really doesn't seem so bad in comparison because at least it's warm water. I really am having a great time with them though. We laugh a lot together, talk about everything under the sun, I help the kids study for their tests (and it turns out I learn a lot in the meantime), and even paint my room together! I've been working hard to get my room ready. Last Friday Carol and I spent 2.5 hours cleaning the bathroom. It was probably one of the grossest jobs I've ever done and Carol was such a help. I didn't even ask her to help and she worked so hard! I was so grateful that I bought her a bunch of stickers. (She is so cute and loves to do everything with me. The other day she wanted to come with me to wash my underwear, but luckily her mom made her stay home for that one). Anyway, the bathroom was FULL of rat, dog, cat, and who knows what other animal poop and more little creepy crawly insects than I ever knew existed. GROSS! It was also full of boxes that had all gotten wet, so every one that I picked up broke and all the papers fell out. We finally got all the papers out and then found the floor of the shower black from all of the poop. It was so gross, but now it looks great. Carol kept telling me not to worry because we'd make it be a bathroom fit for a princess! She's so cute.

Carol and Chabu also helped me paint my room yesterday. I really like the color of my room now, but my new room is smaller so I didn't want to paint the whole thing that color because it would be too dark. We went to tons of different stores looking for paint - what an adventure that was. In the States, we can usually choose among 200 colors or so. Here they have about 20 and then once you ask for one, they inevitably say, "oh sorry, we don't have that color". Most places only have 3 colors - white, celeste (which is a bright baby blue) or this bright lime greenish color. The last color I wanted for my room was celeste because everything is painted that color and it's the color of all health centers so I wanted a break. We finally found a place that had a lighter blue (my 3rd choice), but I was happy with it. When we got it home and put some on the wall, it was just about the same color as the darker one I already had. Chabu had a few buckets of left over blue paint that she let me try out. To be honest, I wasn't really crazy about all of them, but they were really trying to help me and we just wanted to get it painted. If it were up to me, I would have waited and bought another color, but I know that's easier said than done and they really wanted to get the room painted. So guess what color we painted the other 3 walls? Yup, you guessed it, celeste - the one color I did NOT want. I decided that I'm in Peru and doing lots of stuff I thought I'd never do (like take cold showers) so why not paint my room celeste? Plus they were just trying to help so I thought I should have an open mind about it and appreciate their help. Of course we didn't have enough paint and it was pitch black when we were finishing (so I was painting with only the light of my headlamp) so the room definitely leaves something to be desired. I saw it in the daylight today and it's really not that bad. I love the darker blue and might paint another wall that color. We're going to wait until I get back from my trip to figure out what to do with the other walls that have tons of patches where the paint didn't cover very well (thanks to the great lighting by the headlamp) and another huge patch where we ran out of paint so it's still cream colored. Oh boy, this should be interesting!

After the painting fiasco, we made hot dog pizza again and I carved a pumpkin! It was the first "pumpkin" (pretty small and green) I've ever carved by myself. Of course the TV people saw me walking home with it and insisted on interviewing me about what I was going to use it for. It turns out I really don't know that much about why we celebrate Halloween, but I just made something up (I've gotten really good at that). I said we dress up in costumes and put jack-o-lanters on our porch to scare away the ghosts of the dead and to tell them to leave us alone. I looked it up later on the internet and I'm actually not that far off so I was pretty impressed with myself. I invited Rita and Melany over for the pumpkin carving also. Even though Rita told me she couldn't even imagine what I was going to do with the pumpkin (after I tried explaining it), she was trying to tell me I wasn't doing it right. I just had to laugh and tell her that I knew how to do it. Somehow she was really surprised to hear I'd done it before even though I told her we carve a pumpkin every year! Hahaha. They were all really impressed, and to be honest, so was I! I really didn't think it'd come out so well. We turned off the lights and it looked so pretty with the candle inside. The pumpkin was green, but orange on the inside so it glowed a lot with the candle. They have this 15 year old girl who cleans the house and she was there too. She's really shy and never talks, but I told her to come look at it and her eyes lit up! She couldn't believe how beautiful it was and said she's never seen anything like it. I was so excited because I felt like it was such a perfect cultural exchange. (We even had orange soda with dinner to celebrate Halloween and each had one little chocolate)!

I know this is so long already and of course I have so many more things to say, but I'll leave you with this one funny story. I think I've mentioned before how kids here are rarely given the opportunity in school to be creative and use their imagination so when I go to their classes to do my little personal flag activity with them, they are all really confused. I give them 6 questions and tell them they have to respond to the questions with drawings, symbols, or designs to represent their answer. The usually need an example so the first question is "what do you like most about your family?" I used to say, if your answer is that you have a lot of love, then you can draw a heart. Inevitably, every single one of the kids drew a heart. Then I decided I needed to give a less common example. I said, if your answer is that you have a pet cat, then draw a cat. I figured this was a good example since most families don't have pets, but of course every kid drew a cat (even though I said this isn't the "right" answer, it's just an example). I started asking the kids if they even had a pet cat and most of them said no! So then I decided I needed to have an example other than the 6 questions I presented. In the last class I went to, I said, if one of the questions was "what is your favorite holiday?" and your answer was Christmas, then you could draw a Christmas tree to represent your answer. I told them this is what I wanted them to do with the 6 questions I gave them. Well one of the questions was, "name three things you like to do in your free time" and guess what every single kid said? They drew a Christmas tree and said they like to celebrate Christmas in their free time!!! I looked at the board and the tree I had drawn happend to be next to this question. I GIVE UP!!!!!!!!!