An Update Before My BIG TRIP!!!

So in case you don’t know what big trip I’m talking about, it’s my PARENTS’ VISIT! They arrive in a week and I’m soooooo excited! Woo hoo! We’ve been planning this trip for so long, it’s hard to believe it’s almost here! Since we’ll be together for three weeks, I’m sure I’ll have LOTS of stories to tell afterwards so I wanted to write an update before that.

I want to say that not too much has been going on, but I won’t say it’s going to be a short entry because we all know better than that. When I say not much has been going on, it’s because I can’t remember anything, but when I look back at my calendar, I usually realize that I have lots to say – haha!

First of all, about two weeks ago, on May 8th I had a site visit with our regional coordinator, the head of the business program, and another man who came to evaluate Peace Corps Peru. He is actually the current Country Director in Jamaica (and wasn’t quite sure why they picked him to do the evaluation), but has served as a volunteer and worked in the administrative side of Peace Corps for many years (including Country Director of two or three countries in Africa). All Peace Corps countries have to be evaluated/audited once in a while to make sure everything is going well and where the program could improve. Peace Corps has now been in Peru for five years and still hadn’t had an evaluation so that’s why he came (along with another guy from the main office in Washington, DC who traveled in other departments). I was told they’d be visiting Bambamarca and would want to see my house, meet my family, see where I work, and something of what I’ve done to this point in my site. It’s a good thing I was freaking out about it and making sure everything was organized since by “site visit” they actually meant spending five minutes in my town to pick me up and use the bathroom at my house on their way through to do some site development in La Paccha! I should know by now that whenever Peace Corps tells me they’re coming to visit, they will most likely be running behind schedule and it’ll be very low key, but I still always run around like a maniac trying to make sure everything will be perfect for their arrival. Oh man.

I think I’ve mentioned before that they’re developing a community called La Paccha, about two hours away from here, for a volunteer (or perhaps a married couple since it’s so isolated) so I got to accompany them to the community and attend a meeting in the Municipality with the authorities of the community. I always really enjoy doing site development because it really motivates me when you see how excited a community gets about having a volunteer, and it’s fun to see how they develop a community to get it ready for our arrival. The only site development I had done was with my boss for youth development so I enjoyed seeing how it’s different for a business volunteer. In this community, we met with some coffee and pineapple growers. They each have small associations, but would really benefit from a business volunteer who could help them with their organization and accounting, etc. From the one group we got a sample of some coffee liquor they make (actually pretty delicious) and the other group cut open a pineapple for us – which was out of this world. We also got a bag of ground coffee and a pineapple each to take home with us. It was very generous and really showed their enthusiasm. We have a lot of hope for that community and the only reason we’re there is by accident (confusion with another community called La Paccha that sent in a solicitud for a volunteer – haha).
I really enjoyed meeting the man who came to evaluate our program as he has a lot of international experience. He has not only worked with Peace Corps, but also the Department of Agriculture (in various countries), and was a professor of International Development for some years at Monterrey Institute in CA. We had a long talk about the career possibilities in International Development so it was really interesting and beneficial to me. He said he always tells his students that in order to be competitive in this field you need three things: 1) Two years of serving in the Peace Corps, 2) A foreign language, and 3) A graduate degree with a focus (such as community health or something, not just international development). So I felt encouraged by that since in another year I’ll be able to check off two thirds of those requirements. I definitely want to go to grad school in the future, but right now I have no idea what I’d want to focus on. I guess I still have some time to think about it, and god knows I sure have A LOT of extra time on my hands here just to think. Hana and I were talking about how sometimes we find ourselves just sitting in our rooms and staring into space – for long periods of time – do you think we’re losing our minds???

I’ve wanted to buy a table in Cajamarca for a while now so I took advantage of a free ride and went back with the three guys. The next morning I was sitting at one of our favorite restaurants eating breakfast before I got on my bus, and became very upset and embarrassed by some American tourists who were at the table next to me. Now I will admit that Peru isn’t always the best at customer service – especially at the standards that we’re used to, but at the same time, I think these people could have handled the situation differently. They wanted to order one of the breakfast combos, but wanted to switch the tea for coffee. The waitress told them they could do it, but it would cost a little more as coffee is more expensive. They got really upset with her and told her how ridiculous it was to charge more. By the way it’s at the most $1 extra! They decided not to get the breakfast because they were mad at the waitress so they just ordered a café cortado (whatever that means). The whole time the guy was making it (at the bar across from their table) the people were muttering stuff under their breaths of how ridiculous this place was to try to charge them extra. I could hear the lady saying “Did they just put evaporated milk in my coffee? That is NOT how you make a café cortado. Do they expect me to drink that? I’m NOT going to drink that. And now into the microwave? There is no way I’m drinking that coffee.” So the waitress comes back to serve her the coffee and she tells her I’m not drinking that because that is not how you make it. The poor waitress said, “I’m sorry, mam. This is how we make a café cortado in our country. Why don’t you tell me how you make it in your country and we could try to do it that way.” I thought she handled that so well, but of course the tourist starts going off about how in Spain they make it with a cappuccino machine, blah blah blah, and that she just wanted an espresso. [Sidenote: I’m not quite sure why she said in Spain because there is no way they were from Spain. They spoke Spanish worse that I do and were very pale skinned and spoke English perfectly with an American accent.] Now here is where Peru gets a little funny with their customer service, the waitress said they don’t have a cappuccino machine so they couldn’t make it the other way, plus they’ve already made that coffee so they can’t make her another one. So the people just got up and left!

I was so embarrassed by these peoples’ behavior and how they handled the situation. Now we all know that in the States they’d make you a new coffee immediately, no matter who was “right” in the situation because the customer is always right. But when you’re traveling in a third world country, you have to expect that some things are going to go wrong and everything isn’t going to be up to your expectations. I know that I complain about these things too, but I live here, and usually just end up laughing about it in the end. I know I shouldn’t judge because I don’t know what was going on with them. Maybe they were having a bad day, maybe they had been robbed, who knows, but unfortunately, I think this type of behavior happens more than we’d like to admit among American tourists. I was so embarrassed because I didn’t want to be associated with them and that behavior. After that the waitress asked me about my friends and I immediately yelled, “NO NO, I don’t know them!” Clearly I was just being paranoid and not really listening because she said, “I know, I asked how are your friends.” Haha. All of the staff knows us there because we go there all the time for breakfast and more importantly, their amazing hot chocolate and Princessa cake (chocolate-peanut butter)! I was relieved to hear her say that, but I still felt really uncomfortable by their behavior.

Mother’s Day was another fiasco for me. It’s a really big holiday here in Peru – most things were closed the Friday before in preparation of course. It reminds me of a really tacky Valentine’s Day. The sell lots of chocolate roses, plastic roses, and big balloons. Anyway my host mom was making a really big deal out of how I was going to be here on Mother’s Day to celebrate with my Peruvian mom. I was planning on making them cookies, but decided to ask them if there was something they wanted instead. She said we should make a cake. I told her I could make the banana “cake” (aka banana bread which they LOVE) or an apple cake. She said, “Eww I don’t want either of those, don’t you know how to make a chocolate cake?” I told her I didn’t think I had a recipe for one, but I could look one up online. So I spent 45 minutes on Saturday afternoon looking up recipes that were easy and didn’t require any exotic ingredients (since we’d have to find them all in Bambamarca – sour cream is considered “exotic” in Peru). I finally settled on using my mom’s brownie recipe as they are very similar to chocolate cake and much easier. Plus my family complains if I use the oven too much because it uses a lot of gas. Anyway, no one said anything to me all afternoon about the cake even though we were supposed to make it then. Finally on my way out that evening I mentioned the brownie idea and my host mom turned her nose up at it. She doesn’t know what brownies even are or how delicious they are so I told her it’s just like chocolate cake, just thinner. She was with about four family members and they were all like, “Tomorrow, Kris, tomorrow” like this was such a burden on them. I wanted to say, I’m doing this for YOU so don’t feel like you’re doing me any favors by “letting” me do this.

The next day no one talked to me other than to say good morning. We were supposed to eat lunch together, but at 2:30 pm I got a phone call from the doctor inviting me to a restaurant in town because they were there celebrating Chabu’s birthday. My family was just about to sit down to eat, but since they hadn’t invited me to eat with them or said anything to me, I decided to go. I usually love my time with the doctor’s family, but they annoyed me too. When I got there, the doctor, Chabu, and Honsler (their 35-year-old nephew who always tries to flirt with me) were all drunk and immediately started talking about what a great body I have and what nice, big legs I have. Oh boy. Luckily they stopped talking about it for a little bit, but then they were talking about inviting this other girl, Silvia, and Honsler said (excuse the language), “Who do you think has a bigger ass, Kristen or Silvia?” I was so annoyed and he knew it. That is completely inappropriate – especially since his ex-girlfriend and mother of his one-year-old son was there! Gross! Then they started talking about love and telling me love isn’t worth it and they don’t know why I keep holding out for my boyfriend because sure enough he’s cheating on me by now! By now I almost expect to hear this stuff from other Peruvians, but NOT the doctor’s family. They know me really well and usually don’t say stuff like this to me. The doctor said, “That’s what they do in the U.S. – they cheat.” And I told him that no, it was here that they cheat. Then they got all excited because they thought I was saying I’m the one cheating on Giff and wanted to know who the lucky guy is! I said, “No Peruvians, not me, are the ones who cheat!” and they all stopped. Carol, their 9-year-old daughter, was the only one who stuck up for me. Luckily they left the restaurant shortly after to take the party back to their house so I used the opportunity to escape. I told them I had to call my mom for Mother’s Day and that I’d go back later. Needless to say I never went back, but when I saw Chabu the next day, she said she was mad at me. I made her cookies the next day though so I think I was forgiven.

I was back to my house by 4 pm and thought maybe my family and I would do something together for dinner. They all saw me come home and knew I was home, but when they had their little celebration around 7 pm, no one invited me or said anything to me. My room is above the kitchen so I could hear them downstairs eating, giving gifts, laughing, and talking. So even though I’ve been away from my mom on Mother’s Day many times, and even though it’s not that big of a deal, I was really homesick that day.

Well this is turning out to be quite long, as usual, and quite depressing. To continue on this trend, I got sick AGAIN last week. It was all of the same symptoms that I had the last two times I’ve been sick and I felt terrible. My dad has been really worried about me since this is now the third time in three months I’ve been sick and the doctor doesn’t seem to be concerned. My dad is worried this will have long term effects on my health – both physically and psychologically if it doesn’t get taken care of. Peace Corps has two doctors and I had only talked with one of them about this so I decided to call the other doctor. I explained my symptoms and she said it sounds like I have Giardia – a PARASITE – even though the stool sample came back negative. She said that it often goes undetected because the parasite isn’t always laying eggs, but it sounds to her like the parasite keeps laying eggs every month and each time I’m getting reinfected! GROSS! So she had me buy the medicine and I took it on Saturday afternoon. I was out of commission that whole afternoon as the medicine made me feel like crap, but hopefully that means it was killing whatever has been living inside of me for the past three (or more?) months and I won’t keep getting sick.

On a positive note, I did some more site development this past Thursday in two other communities – both about 30 minutes outside of Bambamarca. Even though I had set up these meetings about two weeks in advance, no one was ready for our arrival. By not being ready, I mean they had no idea we were coming at all….so much for trying to plan ahead! I felt really bad since our regional coordinator had come up from Cajamarca for the meetings, but he didn’t seem to be annoyed – I guess he’s used to this by now! In the first community, they were moving the health center from one location to another so it was very informal and we just met with them on the road outside of the building. They advised the mayor that we were there so he came to our “meeting” too. Despite the impromptu meeting, we were both really impressed by the community and think it has a lot of potential for a volunteer. The mayor and the health center staff are really involved in the community and very enthusiastic about this opportunity. The other community on the other hand, didn’t do as well. The people were nice, but they were incredibly shy and didn’t seem very interested. Plus there is a new doctor there who is young and from Lima. He struck both of us as very pretentious so we’re not positive yet about that community. We’ve heard that the community is really organized and would be a great place for a volunteer so we’re not giving up hope. Apparently it’s normal for the people to be shy at first because they’ve never lived with an extranjero (foreigner) in their town and don’t know how to respond, but over time, they usually warm up to the idea so we’re keeping our fingers crossed about them.

Running has been TERRIBLE lately so that’s pretty frustrating. I feel like I’m back at the beginning where I have no endurance and it’s hard to breathe. I have no motivation and then when I do go running, I don’t enjoy it. With that said, I ran six miles on Sunday without any problems and it felt great so I’m hoping this is just a phase and it’s only because I have so much on my mind. My “official” marathon training starts on Monday the 28th so I’m hoping it will go well. I don’t want to quit after I’ve come this far, but if things continue the way they’ve been going, I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it….

So that’s the news from Bambamarca. Right now I’m just trying to keep myself from going crazy. I’m SO EXCITED about my parents coming that I can’t concentrate on anything – including sleeping. Thanks to my FRIENDS DVDs, music, and magazines, I’m hanging in there.