You're not going to believe this one....

Before I tell you this ridiculous story, I want to write this quote I read in a book I recently finished. The book is called The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It's about a family that moves to the U.S. from India and all of the struggles they face living as foreigners in a new country and culture. I thought this quote was very fitting to my life here (except for the pregnancy part of course...the woman in the book had a baby not long after arriving in the U.S.). Anyone who has lived abroad for a significant period of time can probably relate to this feeling.

"For being a foreigner, Ashima is beginning to realize, is sort of lifelong pregnancy - a perpetual wait, a constant burden, a continuous feeling out of sorts. It is an ongoing responsibility, a parenthesis in what had once been ordinary life, only to discover that that previous life has vanished, replaced by something more complicated and demanding. Like pregnancy, being a foreigner, Ashima believes, is something that elicits the same curiosity from strangers, the same combination of pity and respect."

Now on to the story. Last Saturday Rita invited me to a luncheon. I figured it was for the health center or something and didn't ask any more questions. She picked me up that day at 11:15 am because it started at noon and it was "lejos" (far away). I don't know what she was thinking by saying it was "lejos" since it was only about 5 minutes away, but I've gotten used to comments like that. It was at this event hall that you'd rent out for weddings and parties so I was confused what we were doing there. I finally had to ask and she told me it was a party to baptize Freddy's new combi (like a VW van). That's right, a ceremony to baptize a CAR! Are you kidding me? This country KILLS me! Freddy invited 60 people, who of course showed up about 2.5 hours late. When most of the people had finally arrived, the PRIEST began the blessing. He led prayers, gave a short sermon, and blessed the car (Freddy's little truck was there too because it never had a baptism) with later and flowers! I couldn't believe it. I have been to some weird things in Peru, but this was by far the weirdest. There was even a godmother and godfather for the ceremony, but that wasn't that surprising since you can't do anything in Peru without a madrina and padrino. At the end of the ceremony, we had a champagne toast and people started to give speeches to Freddy and Rita!

I realized in the end that the ceremony was to celebrate how far Freddy has come in his work. Not many people here have cars, and he has done so well that he has bought two vehicles over the past ten years. It's quite an accomplishment so the ceremony was really about congratulating them (and blessing the cars so that God might watch over them and keep them out of harm). Rita told me the other night that Freddy has contracted his combi with the mine so someone else drives it and he just gets the money ($60/week - which is a lot here). What he has done is really respectful, but that doesn't negate the fact that this was by far the weirdest thing I've been to in Peru. Everyone was drinking a TON, even the priest, but I chose not to drink because I had a long run the next morning and I don't think it's fun to just sit around and pass the beer around the circle. After four hours I had had enough and left. I had to lie and tell them I'd be back because otherwise they'd never let me leave, but I knew they'd be so drunk in a few hours that they'd forget. I found out the next day that everyone was trashed and Rita even threw up! All for a car baptism! Oh man.

None of my other stories are nearly as exciting, but it's hard to top that. I think I told all of you that Jessica (a great friend who lives the closest to me) was going to move. Well now it's official. Last Friday I helped her move to Chota, about 1.5 hours from Bambamarca. It was very emotional as she was really close with her host family in Apan Bajo (the small community she lived in before), but we both agree that this is a good change for her. Her old community was not organized for united so it made working extremely difficult. I have a hard time here and I even have a very supportive counterpart. Chota is bigger than Bambamarca so our boss told Jessica she'd like her to move there because she'd be a lot more successful and hopefully happier in the long run. I haven't talked to her that much since she got there, but I know that is a good sign because it means she's busy. I am really going to miss having her so close by (she's still the closest volunteer to me, just not as close), but I pick up my mail in Chota so I'll still see her every few weeks.

Speaking of work, I was starting to feel guilty that classes have started and I still haven't gone into the schools or started many projects. I'm going to be traveling a lot in the next few months so I decided that in order to feel okay about being away from my site, I need to be really productive when I'm here. My goal for the week (before I leave for vacation on Saturday) was to meet with Rita and Dr. Bianca (the new doctor in charge at the health center) about actually getting things rolling on projects because I feel like all we ever do is talk about them and then nothing happens. I set up a meeting with the two of them, but I was kind of annoyed with Rita because she was completely distracted the whole time and not really listening, but the doctor was really helpful and encouraging. They told me I have to write a couple of oficios (official documents asking permission to do things), which Rita was supposed to help me with, but hasn't until now. One of them we did in person and the others will wait until I get back from vacation.

I was getting really frustrated because I want to start things, but I can only do so much. I can't do 100% of everything because I need the cooperation of the people I'm working with to do these projects or they won't be sustainable and then what is the point. The oficios didn't get written, no girls showed up for my youth group meeting after being so enthusiastic last time about doing a radio show (they finally came 40 minutes late, but I told them it was too late to do anything because I had another meeting), and the meeting with the nurses about working in the schools got postponed until after my vacation so you can imagine that I was really frustrated. I'm learning that getting started in half the battle and that I just have to keep being persistent, but it's hard at times. Luckily though, I did have one successful interaction. I want to start a youth theater group so I asked Rita to go to the municipality with me to ask their permission to perform for the community. After a couple of attempts, we finally spoke with the person in charge of cultural events. He was so great and supportive. He thanked me for coming to Bambamarca to work with the youth and told me they'd support me 100% in the theater project. They would let us use the theater in town and they'd even film us to put on the TV and record short clips to put on the radio. The best part is that they will pay for all of it! I was so excited because I felt like I had accomplished something, not only the theater, but getting in with the municipality. If I do well in this, I'll probably have a much easier time getting their support for future projects! I talked with one of the art professors at the high school who I really like and she said she's very interested in helping me. She already has a cultural group that does dance and something else and she's been wanting to start theater with them so hopefully it will work out. Now I'm just waiting for her to call back. This part of my life is called patience.

Speaking of frustrations, my laptop is broken and it's been such a headache trying to get it fixed. I've taken it in three times to this place in Cajamarca and each time they've told me they fixed it, but of course, it's still broken. On top of that, the first time they told me it just needed a thorough cleaning to fix the problem. They did that, but somehow also managed to erase ALL of the information including lots of Giff's documents (its his laptop) from college, photos, and over 1,000 songs! I was furious and told them I didn't understand how they could have erased everything by cleaning it! They gave me some bullshit answer and told me they'd be able to recover the information, but haven't done so up to this point. They also installed a Spanish system on my computer so now everything, including the keyboard, is in Spanish so the keys don't really do what you think they're going to when you type. Needless to say, it's a huge nightmare. This last time they told me the problem is actually with the video card and they can't fix that there. So now they've erased all of my information and not fixed a thing when they could have told me from the beginning it's the video card and we could have avoided a huge headache. Oh man am I annoyed with them. My mom called Toshiba in the States and they recommended two different authorized Toshiba service centers in Lima so I have emailed them and am praying one of them can help me. Otherwise I'm without a computer, which means I can no longer watch DVDs. I know this probably seems like a ridiculous thing to be upset about, but you wouldn't believe what a nice escape it is to watch a movie in English. I need the computer for my sanity! I also use it for work related stuff and writing these wonderful blogs so it's a huge loss all around! I must admit that I'm getting really good at computer talk in Spanish. It's definitely been a challenge.

It has been raining SO MUCH here. Yesterday morning it rained so much that I came out of my room because I was afraid the roof was going to fall in or something. I have never heard it rain so hard here! As you can imagine, that is making running extremely difficult. However, I have stopped feeling guilty about that because I started reading this book a friend recommended called The Non-Runners Marathon Trainer and it talks about how you have to be careful not to overtrain. I've been running a lot and am up to about 24 miles a week so I'm not going to keep increasing the mileage because I don't want to wear myself out before the official training even starts. The training in this book is 16 weeks long and is designed for people who have never run a marathon (or ran at all) before. The only prerequiste before starting the training is that you can run 30 minutes straight so I've got that down. There is this woman quoted in the book who was 80 lbs. overweight when she started and couldn't even run to the corner of her street. Nineteen weeks later she ran and completed the marathon! If she can do it, I can! The book is really motivational and talks about how 50% of running a marathon is mental so it gives you lots of techniques and advice on what to focus on to help you get through the training and the marathon. It's designed to read week by week so I'm looking forward to reading more once the training starts.

This entry is long enough so I'll just write a few bullet points for the next few things I wanted to say:

• I've told you before how Peruvians call people names by their appearances (like gordita, negrita for a black person, indio - which means indian, etc). Well the other day someone called me "chinita" which means little chinese girl! What??
• Karina told me they were going to have a family meeting on Sunday about the house because apparently my host mom owns it, but she made the deal with her dad under the table without the knowledge of some of her siblings (I don't know when this happened). The siblings found out and were upset so they called a family meeting. It lasted 7 hours!!! (Oh and my host mom gets to keep the house). Thank god I didn't have to participate.
• I took charge of planning the leadership camp we're going to hold for adolescent boys from Cajamarca. We were going to have the camp the first weekend in May and had to postpone it by two weeks (or so I thought) to allow the fudning to come through. Well apparently the procedure for holding these camps has changed and now you have to advise Peace Corps 12 weeks in advance! I sent out an email telling the group we'd be postponing yet again until July, and then found out it might not be able to happen until August because there are Peace Corps workshops being planned for July and the new trainees will be visiting Cajamarca then sooooo at this point, it looks like we'll be lucky to have it before Christmas!
• I got this email the other day addressed to Kristen Cummings, but I had no idea what the email was talking about so I emailed the person back and said I didn't think it was meant for me. I said I'm in the Peace Corps in Peru so if it's meant for me, please clarify what they are talking about. The woman emailed me back and said it wasn't for me, that her daughter has the same name and she was guessing her new email address, but that her older daughter applied for Peace Corps and she'd like to pass my email onto her. What a small world, huh?
• Finally, I noticed that I bust out my fake laugh all the time here. You would not believe how often I just pretend to understand what people are saying and laugh when they laugh. I know it's not a good habit, but it's a lot easier than asking what they mean every time. Hahaha.

Those are all the updates for now. I know nothing tops the car baptism so maybe you didn't even make it this far. I'm leaving for vacation in Lima and then Ica on Saturday and I'll be gone for a week so I wanted to update you all before that. I can't wait to tell you all about eating delicious food in Lima and going sand-boarding in Ica! Stay tuned.....