A Lot of Drama

This morning Karina asked if I was busy because she didn't to talk to me. Unfortunately I couldn't talk because I had to wait at the doctor's house for this woman to arrive who washes my clothes (I waited 3 hours for her), but of course I got myself all worked up in the mean time about what she wanted to talk to me about. I was really nervous I was in trouble or offended them in some way without knowing it. We finally got a chance to talk later this afternoon and thankfully it had nothing to do with me, but what she told me was shocking.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that we have this girl, Tally, that lives with us and does all of the cooking and cleaning. She is my host mom's neice, but I never hear about her mom and they frequently refer to her as "la chica" (the girl) or "la empleada" so I guessed they didn't have that great of a relationship. She is VERY shy so I haven't talked to her too much, but recently she's been opening up a little more with me. Anyway, I could tell that there has been more tension between her and the other members of the family recently, but had no idea why. Well it turns out, she is the reason why Karina wanted to talk to me. To make a long story short, she has a boyfriend and often doesn't come home at night (she's only 16) so the family has been worried about her because she's so young and also because she hasn't been doing her work (they pay her to do the housework). Apparently whenever they ask her to do something, she does it really quickly without caring about how well it gets done or she just doesn't do it at all. She has been giving them a lot of attitude lately and they're all getting really frustrated with her. On top of that, someone has knocked on the door the past two nights saying that Tally was down the street getting really drunk and doing drugs with her boyfriend! My host mom isn't home right now because she's working so Karina is in charge of everyone (and she's only 24!....so much responsibility). Karina was really worried, but didn't want to go down there to find her because it's so dangerous. I was shocked! Apparently her boyfriend is a drug addict. I only just recently found out she even had a boyfriend so this was all a really big surprise to me.

Karina said she came home at 7 am this morning (she usually gets up at 6 or 6:30 to start cooking breakfast and cleaning) and Karina was really upset with her because she hadn't slept all night (since she was so worried about Tally). She noticed Tally's eyes were all yellow and asked if she was just getting home and Tally said (with lots of attitude) well can't you see that for yourself? Of course Karina was really upset. Later she was looking for her and Tally wasn't answering (because she comes home and sleeps after being out all night). Karina opened the door to her room and say all of her stuff in suitcases. A little while later Tally told her she quits and will be back on Sunday to pick up all of her stuff with her mom (I've never heard her speak of her mom before). Tally said her husband (I don't get this part, apparently that's what she calls her boyfriend) doesn't want her to work here anymore. Karina told her that he obviously doesn't really love her if he's making her leave her family, but she doesn't care. So now she's gone. Karina told me this happened last year too and they took her back, but if she comes looking for a job again, they're not going to give it to her.

Like I said, it's a lot of drama. I feel so bad because she's so young and obviously is crying out for help. I wish I could help her, but now she's gone. I had no idea things were this bad. The only good thing that came out of this was that Karina wanted to talk to me because she was really upset about the whole thing and wanted to confide in me. I was happy because it makes me feel like we really are getting closer. She's been really sick in the past few days and I'm sure it's from all of the stress she's been dealing with. I'm really sad for Tally and hope things turn around for her, but think things will be better in the family now. There was a lot of tension and hopefully things will be calmer now.

In other news, I was in Cajamarca last weekend because I had to go to the dentist. One of my teeth has been hurting me since training, but I finally just got an appointment to get it checked out. Of course I was paranoid that it was a cavity (after reading one girl got 12 in her 2 years of service!) so I brushed it extra long and hard all the time. I must admit I was a little nervous to go to the dentist here after knowing what our health center looks like here, but it was SO NICE. I felt like I was in the States when I walked in (other than the fact that everyone was speaking in Spanish). Anyway, turns out that the reason my tooth was hurting is because I've been brushing it too hard! Haha. The gum is receeding and exposing the root which is very sensitive and painful. Luckily the only thing that she has to do to fix it is 3 flouride applications to help rebuild the root. It is quick and painless. I also had to buy a special ultra suave (soft) toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash that Peace Corps does not reimburse me for! I spent 51 soles on it so I was kind of annoyed. They buy my chapstick, but won't buy me a toothbrush - what is that? It's okay though, at least it isn't anything more serious.

While we were in Cajamarca, we had two ridiculous customer service experiences - surprise, surprise. First of all, at lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Jessica and I ordered these sandwiches that had fresh cheese on them and the cheese had gone bad. Of course we weren't about to eat them because I don't want to get giardia so we sent them back. In the States, that would have been the end of it, but of course it wasn't here. First of all the waiter came and told us that the cheese was actually good and we were wrong so didn't we still want the sandwiches? Ummmm, no! Then the manager came and told us AGAIN that the cheese wasn't actually bad! I guess we had bad taste buds that day, but we still ordered something else. It was pretty shocking because after working in a restaurant, I know you would NEVER do that whether or not the cheese was bad. Then a few days later, we had another experience. Heidi and I were waiting for José to bring me my cell phone (we waited 2.5 hours and when he finally arrived he told me he forgot my phone!). Anyway, we wanted a little snack while we were waiting so we ordered a small cheese pizza. The lady told us they don't have plain cheese, they only have pepperoni, ham, or hawaiian! Hahaha. I guess they don't understand the concept of NO TOPPINGS.

Moving on to my next favorite topic - being called gordita. Yesterday I was at Chabu's house and washing the dishes after we ate dinner. At this time of year there are tons of promociones (school graduations) and Chabu is hired to do the decorating for a lot of them. As I was washing the dishes, two teachers came to talk to Chabu about decorating for them. I knew one of the teachers, but not the other. Chabu jokingly said, do you guys like the new help I've hired? I guess one of the teachers didn't realize it was a joke and whispered to Chabu, where did you find her? Hahahahahahaha. Chabu was laughing so hard and said she doesn't really work here, she is from the U.S. and studied International Relations. She is working here with an organization from the U.S. and was just helping out! Hahahaha. It was so funny. We all laughed and then we started talking a little more. I swear that within 5 minutes of meeting me, this same teacher asked Chabu and the other teacher (Meche who always gives me free bread and cookies from her store) if I was skinnier when I arrived! Are you serious? First of all, it really annoys me when people talk about me as if I'm not in the room, and second of all, you've known me for 5 minutes! Chabu didn't answer, but Meche said yeah I was skinnier and now I look so good that my boyfriend is going to pass out when he sees my body! Oh my lord. Later Carol (the doctor's daughter) said, "Kris they said you've gotten fatter since you got here, but I don't think you have. I think you look great!" I love that girl!

In my efforts to get closer with my host family, I said I wanted to make a cake for my host sister who turned one last Friday. I was in Cajamarca for her birthday, but they told me they weren't going to do anything for it since it's expensive and she wouldn't remember. I just planned on making banana bread - simple, but shows that I care. Micky, Jhunior, and Tally helped me make it on Tuesday afternoon, but we didn't end up eating it because no one was around when it was finally ready. It sat for about an hour before we baked it because we couldn't figure out how to turn on the new oven. Turns out the gas wasn't on! Hahaha. They get really confused here when we call it banana bread so instead I call it a torta de plátanos. Well since I called it a torta, I guess they felt the need to decorate it - with frosting - to make it a big deal for Emily's birthday. The whole time I was thinking, banana bread with frosting? Gross! I didn't want to interfere though so I let them do whatever they wanted. They made one of their neighbors go all over town searching for cake decorating material and then spent 2.5 hours decorating it! The "frosting" they made was luckily just whipped cream so it didn't taste as bad as I expected, but they went to town with it coloring it purple and pink to make the cake look pretty. We were supposed to eat it at 1 pm, but we didn't sit down to have it until 4:30. Before we ate it we took tons of pictures of Emily with her cake, of all of us with her, of her blowing out the candle and then holding the knife to cut it. Jessica was at my house for the day and she and I were laughing so hard at this huge ordeal for banana bread! It made me happy though because I think it meant a lot to my family since they hadn't done anything for her birthday. Yesterday was Carol's 9th birthday and she wanted to make a torta de plátano too, but instead we just made S'mores which were an equally big hit!

Speaking of knifes, the other day I was trying to take a nap and it sounded like Micky was playing with one of the professors that lives at our house. They were yelling and making SO MUCH NOISE! I wasn't feeling well and was getting really annoyed with them because I couldn't sleep. I decided to go downstairs to get some water and saw that they were "pretending" to sword fight, but Micky was using a pair of scissors and the professor a pocket knife! I was shocked because the professor should know how dangerous that is and not allow it. Plus he is a professor of religion! Of all people! He is really weird though and never looks you in the eye when you're talking. Whenever I try to talk to him, he looks at the floor or all around the room. What a weirdo! The best part was when I was about to go back upstairs and Micky ran in front of me because he was chasing the professor who had just run up the stairs. Since he knew he wouldn't be able to catch him, he just threw the scissors instead!

If you're wondering why I haven't written about doing any work lately it's because I haven't been doing any, but believe it or not, this is not out of choice. I was traveling all of November and then did the stuff about AIDS when I got back, but that was the last thing I did. I haven't been visiting the schools because they are all in final exams right now (even the elementary schools) and some have even finished school. Since my 3 months of observing my community are up, I'm really eager to get working. I've really been feeling useless lately like I have no purpose here and I think what I'm missing is working with the kids. After all, that is why I cam and I think it'll be really fun once I start doing some stuff with them. I will meet a lot more families and be busier. As fun as it sounds sitting around reading, doing yoga, visiting people, and going to the internet all day, it gets really boring. With that in mind, I've been trying to form a youth group for the past 2 months to meet over the school vacation months (Jan. and Feb.). In a town of 16,000 people, you'd think that wouldn't be such a challenging task, but it has proven to be very difficult.

I originally made application forms to get kids that are interested, responsable, and leaders in their classes. The health center wants me to do a youth health promoters program with my youth group so I wanted kids that wanted to be there and would be good at teaching their families and peers about what we talk about. We dropped off these forms at the schools and asked the directors and teachers to help us pick some students. Well everytime we have gone back since then, either the directors aren't there or they haven't done anything. Now we've found out that the reason they haven't picked anyone is that the majority of the kids we are looking for travel during the vacation months. Their parents enroll them in what is called academia and they have classes all summer in mostly extracurricular courses (arts, sports, etc.) that they don't get during the school year. Because of this, we decided to postpone the health promoters program to March when the new school year starts and work with whatever kids are available in January and February. Still I've had no luck. We've been to the schools and even got so desparate the other day that we just started asking any kids we passed on the streets what they are doing, but 99% of them said they are traveling. We know of about 3 kids that aren't and have asked them to particpate, but we'll see since this I haven't yet talked to any of them. I wanted to make the invitations to participate (because Rita said they are way more likely to participate if I do so) and have a preliminary meeting with them and their parents before I leave, but I don't even have one name right now so who knows if that will happen.

Of course this is all very frustrating, but what worries me the most is that my APCD is coming to visit me in mid-January and wants to see me in action with the kids. I emailed her and said I want her to see me in action too, but I don't know if that's a reality right now for me. I'll keep pushing forward, but it sure takes a lot of energy and motivation. I hope she understands if I don't have anyone!

Well my friends, I guess I better wrap this up as it's gotten really long as usual. Just in case you're wondering, I'll be on a plane 1 week from right now! Woo hoo!