Visiting Trujillo

The ruins at Chan Chan.

Details of the "mud city".

Huaca del Sol (other ruins).

Juan Pablo and me at the ruins.

Standing in front of the Huaca del Sol.....

....and the Huaca de la Luna.

The church in the Plaza de Armas.

Juan Pablo, me and Jorge in the Plaza de Armas.

It's really colorful - I loved it!

In-Service Training in Chiclayo

Jessica and me hanging out with our girls (Cinthya and Katy) at the mall before we have to board the bus.

I'm such a great role model.

So is Jessica....haha....this is her PRETENDING to be pregnant (in case you didn't read the entry).

That's right...I'm leading one of the sessions (I know I look fat, it's the scarf I swear).

Cinthya presenting our project (talent show) to the group (I'm just there for moral support).

The whole gang.

Cinthya with Kitty and Tim (the facilitator). All of the participants received a certificate at the end of the workshop.

My Surprise Birthday Party

Look at how cute they decorated.

Standing with a few of the girls and holding my lovely cake.

Hanging out in the backyard - talking and eating sugar cane.

They made this and decorated it all by themselves!

Eating cake and enjoying my surprise party.

Pictures from Med-Checks in Lima

We went shopping for wedding dresses, but they were all hidious.

Yummmm cookie dough!!

One of the first donation stations for the earthquake victims.

Lots of rice, sugar and water to send to Ica.

A group of us out to dinner with Julia's family. It's always fun to meet each other's family!

The beginning of the night....

Much later in the night....I have NO idea what this face is for. Haha.

And the end of the night....this is why I love Hana!

Peruvian Culture

When I first got here I made some notes about the culture that I wanted to share with you. I recently found the list while I was cleaning my room and wanted to post it since I never did before. I’m sure most, if not all, of the things I’ve probably mentioned in previous entries, but I still think it’s interesting to look back at my initial observations. Let me preface this by saying that many of these things will appear to be negative statements, but they are not meant to be. They are simply observations and things I have grown, for better or for worse, of this culture.

• They talk a lot about weight and appearances, but they don’t mean it to be offensive.
• Nose picking and breast feeding and not public taboos. They will pick their nose right in the middle of a conversation and they don’t just brush the surface – they really go up in there.
• Never smile in photos unless you tell them too. Instead of saying "cheese" like we do before a picture, they say "Whiskey!" - hahahaha.
• Very resourceful/resilient people – they have had to cope with a lot in their history and are very good at working with what they have.
• There are stray dogs everywhere and none of them are spayed or neutered so they are always humping each other (by the way, did you know two dogs can get stuck together while doing this? I’ve seen it numerous times, but I still don’t understand it.)
• Not only does the town have a two-week long fiesta, but so does every school. The kids miss a lot of classes practicing their marching for the parade and preparing for all of the festivities. There are sports tournaments, folkloric dance competitions, speech contests, and parades – both during the day and a night with these fancy things made out of colored transparent paper in the shape of birds, houses, people, etc. that are lit by candlelight.
• No lines anywhere. People walk into a store and expect to be waited on immediately. They interrupt whatever transaction is happening and the worst part is, the store owners will stop helping you and help them (this isn’t just because I’m a gringa, it happens to the Peruvians too). There aren’t even lines in the Municipality. I’ve seen people interrupt meetings to get their questions answered right then and there.
• Almost everyone has a cell phone – even the campesinos. They might not have food on the table, but they have cell phones and lots of people even have TVs and DVD players!
• People will answer their phones in the middle of anything (conversations, meals, meetings, classes, movies etc.) and they never put their phones on silent or vibrate.
• They are always interrupting each other when they talk and pretend to be listening a lot.
• Talk (loudly) amongst themselves during presentations and meetings without thinking anything of it.
• Already talking about when I leave and what it will be like.
• Very complimentary. They are always telling me how nice, beautiful, etc. I am.
• REALLY admire life in the United States and aspire to that. Everyone asks me how they can get a visa to go there and most people would give up everything in a heartbeat to go. [Side note: Something I’ve observed over the past year is that the lighter skinned and blonder you are, the prettier you are.]
• Skinned animals (pigs, goats, cows, guinea pig, etc.) hanging everywhere. There are tons of dead animals just hanging around at the market with flies all over it. The people who cut the meat don’t wear gloves either. [Side note: This has made me be more of a vegetarian in my site because I saw the woman I bought chicken from pick her nose and touch my money before she cut and touched my chicken with her bare hands – yuck!]
• Stuff as many people into moving vehicles as possible. They usually don’t overstuff the front because it’s “against the law” but they will have 15-20 people riding in the back of a truck – standing up no less. Go figure. However, if it is a private vehicle, they will stuff as many people as possible. I’ve been up to 10 people in the front of truck where there are only seatbelts for six.
• Everyone here uses hotmail because most of them chat on MSN Messenger. When I give them my gmail address, they tell me it doesn’t work. Since it doesn’t work on Messenger, they think my entire email account is invalid.
• Kids aren’t given the opportunity to be creative. They all copy each other’s ideas and work in art projects.
• Not sensitive to a lot of noise. It seems to me that there is only one level of volume here – MAXIMUM – and it will start as early as 6 am and go until all hours of the night.
• Take “saludar” (greeting people) and their personal appearance very seriously. Even if they don’t have a lot of money, their hair is always combed nicely (women and girls almost always have their hair braided in some fancy way) and their shoes are shined.
• They don’t dress that differently from us (this is more true on the coast where they have access to more modern clothing). In Bambamarca there is a wide range of clothes. Obviously this also has a lot to do with how much money the families have.
• People wear the same outfits for a week straight, especially kids who wear uniforms to school in the morning. [Example: Giff and I gave my host brother a soccer jersey for his birthday. He put it on the day I gave it to him and wore it everyday for two weeks. I saw him wash it two different afternoons so it would be dry by the next day when he got home from school.] By the way, many of my Peace Corps friends have adopted this habit. It makes laundry much easier, especially when you have to wash everything by hand.
• Public schools usually only go until 1 pm so they can go home and eat lunch with their families. They get a half hour recess around 10:30 am where they can buy snacks and in the elementary school, kids are provided with a big piece of bizcocho (sweet bread). [Side note: this changed with the new government. My host brother now starts school earlier and goes to school until 2 pm. Some schools go until 5 pm with a 2 hr. break for lunch.]
• One of the public schools in town has three sessions to accommodate all of the students. First and second grades (equivalent to freshmen) go in the morning until 12:45 pm and third – fifth grades (sophomores, juniors, and seniors) go in the afternoon from 1 until 6 pm. There is also a night session from 7-10 pm for kids who work during the day.
• Religion is very important to them. No one really goes to church, but it’s always one of the first questions they ask you. They really believe in fate and always say, “Dios sabe lo que hace” (God knows what he’s doing).
• Although they are an under-developed country, they do some things that we could learn from the in States. For instance they are very good at water conservation and reusing almost everything they have. We rarely have much garbage because they find a way to reuse everything (many of my Peace Corps friends have seen their things put to use after they threw them away because their families went through their garbage – haha). Almost everyone here uses florescent light bulbs because they use a lot less electricity.
• They call each other “gordita” (fatty), “indio” (Indian), “chinito” (Chinese) as terms of endearment with close friends and family.
• They say I’m “rubia” (blonde) because my hair and skin is lighter than theirs.
• They call anyone with lighter skin a “gringo” even if they are Peruvian.

Signing Off....

Because of everything that has happened in the past few months with Giff and me and this move to Japan, I have decided to leave Peace Corps early. Most of you have received this email, but for those of you who aren't on my mass emailing list, here is the email I sent home to everyone about it.

As some of you know, Giff recently came to Peru to visit me for ten days. We spent a few days in my site and then traveled to the coast to spend four days at the beach. It was wonderful to have him here and we had a great vacation together. We haven’t spent that much time alone in over a year and a half so it was long overdue. The night he arrived he proposed to me and of course I said yes immediately! My ring is gorgeous and I couldn’t be any happier.

Depending on when I last talked to you, you may or may not know that Giff graduated from pilot training at the end of June and will be spending the next few months in Oklahoma before leaving for Kadena AFB in Okinawa, Japan in late March. His assignment in Japan is for two years so it has really forced us to reevaluate things and make some big decisions about our future together.

After spending the past year and a half apart, we both agree that we do not want to be doing long distance for two more years. Giff and I are ready to move forward in our lives and move to Japan as husband and wife. Therefore, I have decided to leave Peace Corps and move home for a few months to plan our wedding and spend time with family and friends before moving abroad again.

The decision to leave Peace Corps has not been an easy one. I have dreamed of being a Peace Corps volunteer since I was in high school and did not come to Peru expecting to leave early. Giff and I knew this would be a challenge in our relationship, but I was determined to stay for my entire two years of service. However, as the saying goes, sometimes life throws us curveballs, and our lives have taken an unexpected turn. It is going to be really difficult to say goodbye to my community and the friends I’ve made among my fellow volunteers, but I know I’m doing the right thing.

My time in Peace Corps has been one of the most challenging yet enriching experiences of my life and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to live and work in Peru. I have learned a lot about myself while living here and I hope I’m leaving here a better person. I have certainly struggled with cultural differences, work challenges and frustrations with the language while living here, but more than anything I will leave this country with a deep appreciation for the kind-heartedness of the Peruvian people. Rather than being sad about leaving, I’m trying to just be grateful for the time I had here and the incredible opportunities that are waiting for me.

I plan to tell Peace Corps of my resignation early next week and if all goes well, I will be back in the States by the end of October or early November. Giff and I are really looking forward to our wedding and spending the rest of our lives together.

Thank you for all of your support.

Lots of love,
Kristen

Giff's Visit

Giff arrived the night of September 12th. I didn’t do much of anything that day because I was so excited to see him. Sometime mid-afternoon I realized I didn’t know his flight number, the airline, or where he was flying in from. Oopsie. I did know the time though so I assumed I would figure it out once I got to the airport. Luckily there was only one flight arriving at the time he was supposed to get in. His flight was delayed about 20 minutes so by the time he got through customs it was close to 11 pm before I saw him. As you can imagine, it was so good to see him. I couldn’t have been any happier in that moment.

We took a cab back to Miraflores where we were staying and went out to dinner at this good Italian restaurant I like. We each had lasagna and wine and at $30 it was our most expensive meal for the entire trip! Back at the hotel Giff was showing me all of the presents he brought for me. My mom had sent a big box of things to Giff to bring down to me so I was enjoying looking through all of that stuff. A little while later he got up to go to the bathroom and when he came out he told me he had another present for me. I thought it was going to be the jeans I asked him to buy me or a shirt from his mom or something. But he came over to me and said “I know things have been really crazy lately and this is coming a little late, but I still wanted to ask – will you marry me?” Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I was sooooooooo excited! I said of course I would and couldn’t stop smiling. It took me completely off guard; I was not expecting it at all. He told me he was going to wait to propose at the beach, but as soon as he saw me at the airport he wanted to ask me right away. He said he couldn’t wait to ask me to spend the rest of my life with him. It was adorable. I couldn’t stop smiling and staring at my beautiful ring. We have never talked about what I want for an engagement ring and he couldn’t have picked a better ring. I wouldn’t change a thing about it even if I could. I was so proud of him for doing all of the research on it and knowing what I would like. He is the best!

The next day we had sushi for lunch to celebrate our engagement and our move to Japan. We went to the Museo de la Nación in the afternoon and then boarded the bus for our 14-hour trip to Cajamarca. We took the Super VIP bus with seats that recline 180°. Giff was really impressed how nice it was and luckily was able to sleep most of the way. I was worried he would be uncomfortable because the seats are too short for him and he can’t straighten his legs when he lies down. We arrived in Cajamarca around 9:30 am, ate breakfast, ran a few errands, and got back on the bus at 11 am to go to Bambamarca. Giff slept most of the trip, but I made sure to wake him up to see Yanacocha Mine – the third largest gold mine in the world.

We were both exhausted when we finally arrived in Bambamarca since we had been traveling for close to 24 hours. Unfortunately I had some things I needed to do though and Giff was such a good sport about coming with me and meeting everyone. I had promised the girls in my youth group they could meet Giff so we hung out with them for about 30 minutes. I also had to go to the health center to talk with Rita and to the high school to make sure the teachers were still planning on having the training session with me on September 24th (the day I got back from my trip). Giff thought it was funny how many times I had to repeat myself and remind them about what we were going to do since in the States you don’t have to go back and remind the people every week that we have a meeting planned. In Peru you have to remind people everyday in the week leading up to the meeting or no one will come. After my errands were done we ate dinner at this good restaurant in town and went home to relax the rest of the night in my room.

I got up early the next morning to help with the party preparations while Giff slept in. Chabu got there early with Carol and Martin to start putting up the decorations and I ran all over town with Karina trying to find someone who had cake pans to lend us. Some of my family had met Giff the night before when we arrived, but the rest were dying to meet him. I knew Giff would understand most of what was said, but I didn’t think he’d speak to them because it’s more intimidating. However he completely surprised me. He spoke to them and was a really good sport about meeting so many people and answering all of their questions. My family couldn’t believe that he helped me bake all three of the cakes and played with the kids. They were really impressed at what a great guy he is – I’m one lucky girl!

We were able to escape for a little while in the afternoon to take a short hike so Giff could see Bambamarca. My house can be very overwhelming with so many people so it was nice to get away for a bit. When we got home Giff had his first experience with the freezing cold shower. I offered to boil him water, but he said he was fine. I felt really bad when we came back shivering – at least he was really getting an authentic experience. It was interesting to hear Giff’s perceptions of Peru since I don’t think twice about a lot of it anymore. He couldn’t believe all of the trash everywhere and though Bambamarca smelled everywhere we went – I didn’t notice it at all so I guess I’ve gotten used to those gross smells. His favorite part was how they water the ground. I still haven’t quite figured that up. They water the ground everyday, but keep in mind, the ground they are watering is either dirt or cement so it isn’t meant to help it grow. I hear the philosophy is that the water helps it be less dusty when they sweep a little later. Who knows, but I still find it hilarious.

So Rita arrived around 7:40 pm even though the party wasn’t supposed to start until 8 pm. I wasn’t even ready when she showed up because I figured no one would arrive until at least 8:30. I quickly visited with Rita and Melany and then hurried to get dressed (Karina, Miki and I had to dress up since we were the guests of honor – I also had to buy a new dress for this because the public has already seen me in my other dresses and since this was my party, it had to be something new – oh boy). It started drizzling as the guests were arriving and my family was freaking out. They were afraid everyone would leave because we didn’t have much protection from the rain (the party was outside in our patio). Karina was so stressed out about it that she almost started crying. I wasn’t too worried about the rain because I figured it would pass, but I was stressed out because after Giff and I had spent all afternoon baking the Funfetti Pillsbury cakes, they told me we weren’t going to use them. Karina told me cakes were usually more than one color and the frosting I had given them (that my mom sent with Giff) was only white and it looked bad. She had sent her friend Sara out to buy us a new cake and told me they would just keep my cake in the kitchen for us to eat later. I was so annoyed since Carol and my mom had been kind enough to send all of the ingredients and I lured my friends to the party by telling them we were going to have cake from the U.S. Luckily since it was so last minute, Sara couldn’t find a cake and we ended up just decorating it with flowers and a little doll figurine. Even after it was decorated though, we still weren’t sure we’d be able to put it out on display since it continued to drizzle.

By 9:30 pm we had around 40 guests and the rain had stopped for the most part so we decided to get the party under way. My host uncle, Anibal, gave a little welcome speech and Karina gave another speech. They asked me to give the toast and when I was finished they asked me to translate for Giff. Then they asked Giff to come up and say a few words that I could translate. I thought he would be so annoyed, but he was really good about it and they loved it. After all of the speeches were over, we started dancing and didn’t stop until 4 am!

Four of my friends from Peace Corps came to the party and we all had so much fun together. I was relieved to have them there because then I could dance and visit with other people without having to worry about Giff. We all really had a great time. I thought it was great that Giff was experiencing his first Peruvian party where we drank beer by sharing one glass and passing it among our group. Haha. He got really annoyed that by 11:30 pm we still hadn’t been served dinner, but we told him we wouldn’t eat until midnight. Don’t ask me why but at big parties they never serve the food until midnight. After the food there was more dancing and drinking until everyone sang Happy Birthday to us around 2 am. They had Giff come up and say something then too, but we’re not really sure why. Then Honsler (the doctor’s 35 year old nephew) came up and shoved our faces in the cake because apparently that is the tradition here. I had cake all over my face and it my hair, it was really funny. We didn’t cut the cake though because they never do that at parties. This is another tradition I haven’t quite figured out because they spend all of this money on the cake, but it’s mostly there for decoration. They normally don’t cut the cake until the next day. It is shared among family members and hand delivered to close friends. My friends and I were really craving it though since we never get delicious cake like that here. We decided it would be a good idea to start breaking off pieces with our hands when we thought no one was looking. Haha. It was a disaster. At 4 am when we were tired of dancing, we took the smallest of the three cakes into the kitchen and ate the entire thing! Haha. Chabu told me that the next morning when she and the doctor went to the house to take down the decorations, they asked for some cake, but my family said it was all gone. She told me she really wanted some because she tried some with her fingers the night before at the party after she saw us doing it and thought it was excellent – oopsie!

We didn’t go to bed until about 5 am and were on the bus to Cajamarca the next morning at 11 am. Of course some of my family was still up drinking when Giff and I got up at 8:30 am to use the bathroom. They made me drink some beer with them while I was waiting to go pee. Gross. Don’t judge – it’s much easier to just do it than to say no because they will harass you until you give in. Gotta love this country! Even though it was a short visit with my family, I think we all had a great time. I know my family really enjoyed meeting Giff and they thought he was so much fun at the party. He danced with Karina, Marta and my host mom so they were thrilled. They kept saying he doesn’t know how to dance “in Spanish” (because he doesn’t dance salsa or cumbia like they do here), only “in English”. I thought that was a funny way of saying it. I’m really glad we came up to my site though because it was really important to me that he see where I’ve been living for the past year and meet my family and the friends I’ve made here.

There was a power outage in Cajamarca so we couldn’t really do much. We went to Baños del Inca and took baths with thermal water. It felt wonderful after staying up all night, not to mention after the bathing experience Giff had at my house. I had wanted to take Giff to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants in Cajamarca, but just about everything was closed from the power outage so we ended up just getting Pollo a la Brasa (very traditional rotisserie chicken) with four of my friends. My friends were so excited to meet Giff since they have been hearing about him for the past year and a half. After dinner we went out for dessert and hot chocolate and then hung around until our bus left for the coast at 11 pm.

We finally arrived in Piura city at 8 am the next day. After a whirlwind beginning of the trip – two overnight bus rides, staying up all night partying and meeting tons of people – it was nice to have a day just to relax. We went out to breakfast and then to the market so Giff could see what a typical Peruvian market is like. Markets here seem so much more practical and we both wondered why we don’t have more of them in the States. You can buy pretty much everything you could dream of at the market. We had a gourmet lunch of ham and cheese sandwiches, which was quite a treat for me since we never eat anything like that, and then slept all afternoon. We got carry out at this really good restaurant in town and then headed back to the hotel to watch Monday Night Football because they Eagles were on! I was really excited to watch them, but they played horribly and lost. Lots of my friends arrived at night because they had spent the weekend at the beach. Giff got to see an old friend (it was an illegal vacation so I can’t mention names) and meet lots of other volunteers. After the game we hung out with my friends and watched a movie. It was really chill though because we were all exhausted. (I did make sure to show all of them my ring though. Giff and I agreed that I couldn’t wear it outside so the rules were I was only allowed to take it out if the doors were closed and locked. Haha.).

We finally headed to the beach the next morning and the rest of the trip was just the two of us. Giff met something like 20 volunteers in four days (not to mention all of the Peruvians I introduced him to) so I was happy we had the rest of the time to ourselves. He was such a great sport about meeting everyone and the unusual travel schedules. I really appreciated it.

Our time at the beach was perfect. Our hotel was about a mile and a half from the main strip so it was really quiet. Our room was right on the ocean and had a balcony with two chairs and a hammock. I loved going to bed and waking up every day to the sound of the ocean. The hotel had a pool and a restaurant so we spent a lot of time just hanging out there and relaxing. We also walked into town everyday for lunch and sometimes dinner. We had a nice mixture of Peruvian and American food while we were there. I was thrilled because we got to eat waffles, brownie sundaes, crepes, good pizza and wine – treats I never get here. But we also made sure to eat some seafood since we were at the beach (yes even I ate seafood). The first day we headed to a mud bath nearby that we had heard about with thermal water. It was kind of cool, but also a little weird. It was way out of town in this campesino “gated community” that we had to pay to get into. When we arrived there was one other couple there. We ended up talking to them and their taxi driver a lot. They were really nice and told us Johnny Depp had just finished filming a movie there called “Máncora” – have any of you heard anything about this? Giff and I weren’t sure if it was true. We stayed in the “bath” for a little while and I even spread mud on my arms since they say it has curative powers, but I was a little grossed out because the mud felt like it had clumps of women’s hair in it and I did not like that. It was a fun experience, but I definitely don’t ever need to go back. Like I said, our time at the beach was wonderful though. The beach was beautiful and the sunsets were gorgeous. The best part though was just being alone with Giff. We haven’t spent that much time alone in over a year and a half so I was so happy just to have that time together.

Of course I was really sad when the trip finally came to an end. We took yet another overnight bus ride from the beach to Lima and arrived the day Giff was going to fly out. His flight wasn’t until 10:50 pm so we took the opportunity to spend the day exploring Lima. We went to lunch at this cool soccer bar Giff read about in my guidebook and also went to the Plaza de Armas and did a little souvenir shopping. Of course the day came to an end faster than we would have liked and before we knew it we were headed to the airport.

As I was standing in line with Giff at the airport, I wished I was just leaving with him. My time here has been an incredible opportunity, but at that moment I realized that I’ve gotten out of it what I wanted to and now I’m ready to move on with my life. I was planning to stay until December, but after Giff left I realized that my heart really isn’t in it anymore. It’s hard to stay here knowing that I have an engagement ring and a fiancé at home waiting for me, let alone a wedding to plan and another move abroad.
I didn’t cry when I said goodbye to Giff at the airport because I knew I’d be seeing him again soon. Plus we just had a wonderful vacation together and there is way too much to be happy about so crying wasn’t necessary.

Catching Up

Well to say that this blog entry is long overdue would be the understatement of the year. I guess I’ve been really busy lately since I haven’t written in almost two months! Jessica and I were joking the other day about what it means to be “busy” here. She was saying she was “Peruvian stressed out” because she had two things to do in the next five days. This makes me laugh because unfortunately, it’s so true. I think we’re all going to have mental breakdowns when we get back to the real world and have to work 40 hours a week again and have real things to worry about.

I’ll do the best I can to recap the last two months without making it extremely long (no promises though). My last entry brought you up to med-checks in Lima so let me pick up there. After being in Peace Corps for one year, we have to go to Lima for medical check-ups and meetings with our boss. The youth development volunteers go for one week and the business group goes the next week, but Peace Corps allowed us to stay for the weekend without being charged vacation days. It was so much fun to see everyone and hang out. I haven’t seen some of my friends since Thanksgiving last year so it felt like a big family reunion to have everyone together again. It was interesting to see how some people have changed since training. Training was such an intense environment because of our busy schedule and the pressure of adjusting to a new culture and learning a new language. I didn’t realize it at the time, but after spending that week together in Lima, I noticed that everyone was so much more laid-back. We’re all becoming more and more Peruvian by the minute – not stressing out about things like we used to and never being in a rush. It was really refreshing.

Luckily our med-checks were pretty uneventful. The best part about them was all of the free time it gave us to hang out in Lima together – if you didn’t have a doctor’s appointment, you were free to do whatever you wanted. As usual when we’re in Lima, we scheduled our days around eating; trying to fit in all of the delicious food we could before it was time to head back to rice and potatoes in site.

In addition to having med-checks, our time is Lima is also an opportunity to talk about our first year in site and to share ideas, challenges, frustrations, successes, etc. with each other. All of us had to prepare a PowerPoint presentation to show the group of what we’ve been up to in the past year. Normally the presentations are only shown among volunteers, but this year they decided to have us do them for the new trainees so they could get an idea of projects to do in site. I thought it was really interesting and I was so impressed by the projects some of my friends have accomplished in site. One of the best presentations was Hana’s so for those of you who know her, you should be proud of all the things she has done in her site. She has done so much for her community and they are really going to miss her when she leaves. I felt bad for her though because she had to go last and after watching presentations for four hours, no one was really in the mood anymore. All but two of the trainees had left to eat lunch so she had a tough audience. It was a very long morning and probably really overwhelming for the trainees, but I really enjoyed it. I presented first and it didn’t go so well. I did a really bad job of managing my time and ran out of time about three quarters of the way through my presentation. I got really flustered when they told me I was out of time so rushed through the end – it was a disaster. Oh well.

As you know from a previous entry the earthquake hit Peru the week we were in Lima. We felt numerous aftershocks throughout the week so we never quite felt relaxed. On top of that, I was robbed at the ATM within the first hour of arriving in Lima (only stole my card and no money was taken) and there was a robbery at our hostel. It wasn’t a Peace Corps volunteer who got robbed, but we still didn’t feel comfortable staying there. We tried to switch to another place, but no one had space for 16 people at the last minute so we had to stay in our hostel with bunkbeds with co-ed bathrooms. Needless to say, after everything that happened that week, we were all sort of on edge and couldn’t wait to get back to site.

A few days after I got back in site I got sick. I think the lack of sleep and all of the traveling was finally catching up with me. It was good for me though because it forced me to just take it easy and hang out at home. I spent a lot of time just reading, hanging out with my host family and playing with Emily (my host sister). After I got better, I worked with Rita to write up a work-plan for the World Map Project, which I presented to the Municipality, and met with the director of the high school to organize a training session with the teachers on a Social Skills program designed for adolescents.

Karina invited me to this graduation party on a random Thursday night. We stayed there drinking and dancing until 3 am. I really didn’t want to go, but it turned out to be really fun. That weekend I went to Chota for a meeting with Jose (our regional coordinator) and all of the volunteers in the area. It was the first time all seven us have gotten together in the past year! The meeting went a little longer than I would have liked, but it was interesting to hear about everyone’s projects. My friend Annie lives in the campo and someone had given her two guinea pigs and a rabbit for her family. In Peru they carry most animals in big rice sacks so Annie just left them on the floor while we were meeting. Two hours later when the meeting was over, she picked up the bag and threw it over her back. I was standing behind her and saw something yellow flying through the air and land on my sleeve. I screamed, “Ewwww Annie, your cuyes PEED on me!” Jessica told me it must have just been my water bottle that leaked on me, but I knew it wasn’t. I said, “But it’s HOT and YELLOW.” Jessica smelled my arm and confirmed that it was indeed, pee. Yummy!

The following week was my birthday. Karina and Miki’s birthday were also that week (we are the 3rd, 4th and 5th of September), but we didn’t really do anything to celebrate because we wanted to wait until Giff came to celebrate. However, it turned out to be a great birthday! Karina practically gave me a heart attack in the morning when she screamed in the middle of aerobics. I thought something happened to her so I screamed too, but she had just remembered it was my birthday and wanted to wish me a happy day. Haha. I got lots of calls in the morning (both from Peruvians and Peace Corps friends) and a visit from Rita and Consuelo (another nurse at the health center) who came to wish me a happy birthday and give me presents.

The girls in my youth group had told me I had to be home in the afternoon because they were going to come get me and take me somewhere. I thought we were going to go eat cake somewhere, but it turned out they had planned a surprise party for me! They messed up a little bit by sending two different groups of girls to get me so when they second group got there, they got really nervous that I wasn’t home – haha so cute. One of the girl’s families owns a house on the outside of town that they don’t use so they decorated the living room with streamers and balloons and brought me to the house for the party. They had made popcorn and jello (typical staples at any Peruvian birthday party) and a cake that said my name! We hung out in the backyard talking for a while and then we went inside where they sang to me and we took lots of pictures. They said they even planned a game for us to play, but it ended up getting too late and we didn’t have time. We all walked back to town together and then parted ways. I saw the girl’s mom where they had made the cake the day before and she apologized for the cake looking a little “messy”. She said the girls had never made or decorated a cake before and she offered to help, but they said, “No mom, Kristen likes it when we’re creative and do things by ourselves.” That made my day. I was so proud of them for recognizing that and for organizing this party. They are so adorable. It all meant so much to me and I will never forget it. Chabu had invited me over for a birthday dinner so that evening I went to the doctor’s house for pizza and sangria. It was the best birthday I’ve spent away from home!

Believe it or not, even though I had just got back from Lima, I was already preparing for my next trip. Kitty planned an IST (In-Service Training) workshop for us in Chiclayo for early September. We had to bring a youth leader from our town with whom we’d design a community project. I invited a girl named, Cinthya, who is in 5th grade (the equivalent to a senior in high school). She is very involved at school and in the community and isn’t afraid to speak up and express her opinion so I was excited for her to come with me. We traveled to the workshop with Jessica and Katy, the girl she brought from Chota. The girls really seemed to enjoy the workshop and designed cool projects. Our project is a talent show for the kids at Cinthya’s high school. She said many of her peers have a lot of potential in music and dance, but if they don’t have something to work towards, they don’t practice and spend their time drinking and doing drugs instead. She thought a talent show would be a good outlet for them because they really enjoy participating in such activities.

We had a lot of fun with our girls. One night we went out to dinner and there was a live band playing. The girls put in a request for them to wish me a happy birthday and to congratulate Jessica on her pregnancy – she thought it would be fun to pretend she was pregnant. We stuffed her shirt with scarves and a shirt and it really looked like she was pregnant. We told the girls to just go along with it as a joke and they did. In the grocery store some random lady came up to Jessica to congratulate her and ask her how far along she was! It was so funny and we thought they understood it was a joke, but apparently a couple of the girls were really confused and thought Jessica really was pregnant – oopsie!

Although we had fun with the girls, they turned out to be little rebels. They are both really boy crazy and every time we turned around they were gone. They were planning to go out dancing one night, but we asked Kitty to make an announcement that they weren’t allowed to leave the hotel after 8 pm. That didn’t solve the problem during the day though. Jessica’s girl really wanted to go shopping for knee-high black socks because she likes to dress “gothic” and can’t find that stuff in Cajamarca. My girl wasn’t interested in that stuff, but was influenced by Jessica’s girl and would go off with her. One afternoon we gave them 30 minutes to go shopping before we had to leave to catch the bus. We told them they could walk around the area of the Plaza and meet us at the ice cream shop (we were stressed out from “babysitting” them all weekend). When they didn’t come on time, I called my girl and she said they had gone to the mall without our permission! We were so mad at them. The mall is about ten minutes away so they had to take a taxi to get there. I have never seen Jessica go into her “teacher mode” so when she called her girl to tell her that it was not acceptable that they had gone to the mall without permission, I couldn’t stop laughing. Jessica said to me, “Kristen can you at least pretend to be mad when the girls get here.” I told her I really was mad at them, but I had never seen that side of her and it made me laugh. Between the two of us, we called them about eight times before they finally came back 30 minutes after they were originally supposed to meet us! Luckily we still made it to the bus on time and everyone got back safely.

I ended up staying on the coast (ssshhhh) because I was headed down to pick up Giff in Lima! It didn’t make sense for me to go all the way back to Bambamarca just to turn around for Lima so I visited Chabu’s mother and sisters in Ferreñafe and then Rita’s family in Trujillo. While I was in Trujillo I also met up with a friend of mine from Cajamarca who studies at the university in Trujillo. The guy he rents a room from has his own car so they drove me all around Trujillo. We visited two different ruins – Chan Chan (the oldest “mud city” in the world) and Huaca de la Luna y Sol – and downtown so I could get an idea of what Trujillo is like. It was a great city tour and I was really grateful to them for taking the time to show me all around. That night I boarded the bus for Lima knowing that in less than 24 hours Giff would be with me!

Visitors and More Fiestas!

Before Bambamarca’s fiesta was even over, I had to leave for Cajamarca to meet up with Jocelyn and Luke (my friends from college) who were visiting! They had been in Peru for about two weeks hiking the Inka Trail, seeing Lake Titicaca and visiting Hana in Piura. Since it was such a busy time for me, they were nice enough to go out of their way to visit me for a couple of days in Cajamarca. While they were here, we walked up to a lookout point of Cajamarca, visited some old Incan funeral caves called ventanillas (little windows), ate good food, and spent a lot of time catching up with each other, reminiscing and laughing. On Saturday night we had a despedida (going away party) for the Peru 5 volunteers who have finished their two years of service and are heading home so Jocelyn and Luke came with me to the party. I think they enjoyed meeting other volunteers and I know my friends had a great time talking with them. We all feel like a big family here since we’re each others’ support systems so it’s always fun to meet someone’s friends or family from home – from our “real lives.” Haha.

I was so glad to have them here and I really appreciated them making the time to come see me, especially after some of the hassles they had to deal with. They arrived in Cajamarca at 4 am and went to the hotel where I had made them a reservation only to have the guy tell them there was no such reservation and the hotel was full. I specifically told the guy they wouldn’t be arriving until 4 or 5 am and he assured me they would have a room, but of course that doesn’t mean anything here. Luckily Jocelyn speaks Spanish and was able to find them another hotel. I still felt horrible though and moved them to a nicer hotel as soon as we met up the next day. That same hotel owner gave us more trouble the day they left when the three of us tried to go to my room so Jocelyn could lie down because she was feeling really sick. They were traveling to Lima that night so I was going to stay in that hotel with a friend. He said only paying customers were allowed in the room. I explained to him that she was really sick (literally turning green, dizzy, and about to pass out) and just needed to lie down, but he wouldn’t back down. I told him I was going to pay for the room anyway and they didn’t need a room for the night because they’d be on the bus so please just let her in my room. He told me it would be like if I bought a bus ticket and he tried to ride with me on my same bus ticket. Ummm last time I checked buying a seat on the bus is a little different than renting a hotel room. I was so mad at him. We finally called our friends who were at another hotel and they said we could use their room. That hotel let us in no problem, but they didn’t have any electricity so the three of us sat in the pitch dark talking. You gotta love this country. Luckily Jocelyn did start feeling better though. What a disaster. All in all though, I think they enjoyed themselves. It’s funny how easily you adjust to being together again, as if we had all seen each other last week. It’s hard to believe that it’s been since January 2006 that we were last together – boy time flies!

After they left, I was only back in Bambamarca for three days before I left again for Fiestas Patrias (Peru’s independence days). My friend Amanda invited me to go to her site because it was her town’s fiesta. That’s right, I’ve turned into quite the fiestona (party girl). Our friends Molly and Laura were going too so I thought it would be a lot of fun. Plus, all three of those girls are in Peru 5 so I figured it would probably be my last time to hang out with them. Amanda lives in a town called Celendin. It’s roughly four hours (in the dry season) east of Cajamarca and has about 20,000 people. She has a sitemate, Evan, who is a business volunteer in my group. Molly, Laura, and I met in Cajamarca and took the 7 am bus to Celendin. Amanda met us when we arrived and we immediately went to the fair they were having in town. It was very similar to Bambamarca’s fair, only bigger. We saw Evan there because he was selling goods with the two artisan groups he works with. One of the groups makes chocolate so I bought some to take home to my host family. I also bought some jam made out of tomatoes – don’t turn your nose up at that, it was actually really good!

We ate lunch with her host family and then went to a despedida for her at the special needs school she worked at over the past two years. Amanda is also a youth development volunteer and came to our training to talk to us about working with special needs children in Peru because there are very few resources and most children and just locked in the house all day. It’s so sad to think about their lives because in the U.S., they would have so many more opportunities. There was one boy who is deaf, but so smart and adorable. If he lived in the U.S., he could get a job and live a “normal” life, but here he’ll never go anywhere. It’s wonderful that these children are in families that love them and want to help them by sending them to this school because Amanda is sure there are many more in town that are hidden by their families. One of the girls that attends the school is about 30 years old (but looks 18) and has been raped several times! She is such a sweetheart and appears so happy. It makes me sick to think that someone would do that to her. She even has a son from one of the cases who is now eight years old and completely normal. Laura told me she was walking to the mirador with him and he asked her if she could understand the kids when they talked. She said yes and he said, “Me too because my mom is like them.” God it just breaks your heart.

Anyway, ever since hearing Amanda talk about this school, I really wanted to visit her to see what her work was like. I’m not sure how the school got started, but I think it’s wonderful they even have a school for these children. It was amazing to go there, meet the children and their parents, and see how much Amanda has affected their lives. Unfortunately, like anything, there were a lot of bad politics on the bureaucratic side of things and many of the teachers didn’t support Amanda (because she called them out when they would shut the door and knit all day while the kids did their own thing). There was one teacher though who is amazing with the kids and loves Amanda. She is the only teacher who came to the party, so Amanda was a little hurt, but it’s hard to stay upset when you see how much the kids faces light up to see her. They were all adorable and so loving. It also made me happy to see how much the parents love Amanda. They know how much she has touched all of their children’s lives and she will be greatly missed in that community.

We hung out at the school for a little while and then all walked up the hill to the mirador (look out). The kids took to Molly, Laura, and me immediately and we were all holding hands with the kids on the walk up. The mirador has a park with swings, climbing structures, teeter-totters, etc. Most of the kids had never been there before so they absolutely loved it. Some of the parents had never even been up there so it was special for everyone. It gave me such joy to watch how much the kids enjoyed themselves. At the same time though, I was so sad because I know they don’t understand that she is leaving. As Peace Corps volunteers, we travel to and from our communities a lot – for workshops, medical reasons, vacations, etc. so in the beginning it won’t be strange for them that she is gone, but when she doesn’t come back, that’s when it’ll get hard.

That night we went to dinner at a friend’s house. For a long time we just sat around watching music videos on TV. People love music videos here and they are usually really funny. My favorite ones are of a woman dressed really provocatively standing and singing in the middle of the campo or on a mountain top. Sometimes a band will be with her too, but they are so funny and people love them. They will watch them for hours. I don’t get it. The four of us just sat at this woman’s house though, watching videos, and then some old movie with Billy Blanks – haha. Afterwards we were laughing how accustom we’ve all become to being bored. In Peru you spend a lot of time just sitting around doing mindless things and while it used to drive us crazy in the beginning, it now feels natural.

We wanted to go to the plaza that night because they had a castillo they were going to light, but we stayed at the woman’s house so long that we missed most of it. We ended up meeting up with a bunch of Amanda’s friends though and hung out with them all night. I loved that she has so many friends that are our age. Karina is my only friend my age and after that my best friends in town are Chabu and Rita who are both in their forties. I love them, but sometimes I think it would be nice to have more friends around my age. We hung out in the plaza for a while and then went dancing at this bar. Molly, Laura, and I were joking how we all thought Celendin was like a big city. They have cool bars and a few clubs and it just was “happening”. One of Amanda’s friends had two cousins visiting from the States who are Peruvian, but grew up in the U.S. They are 18 year old twin girls and just recently moved to Iowa from L.A. They thought they were so cool and could not stop talking about L.A. We were laughing because they thought Celendin was so lame and we couldn’t stop talking about how great we thought it was! I think we’re more Peruvian than they are! Haha. The girls only lasted about 20 minutes at the bar before they left because they thought it was awful, but we stayed until 4 am! We loved it because there was a live band playing lots of good cover songs in English and Spanish! Amanda’s friends were also really fun and we all had a great time dancing together.

The next day we took things easy. We were going to go to a parade in town, but decided to stay home and relax after our late night. Amanda made us a delicious lunch of spicy peanut stir fry and Molly made some excellent guacamole and salsa. We spent the afternoon sleeping, reading magazines, and listening to music. We went to the same woman’s house for dinner and then to the plaza because they had six huge castillos that night. The castillos were awesome! We hung out in the plaza with Amanda’s friends for a little while, but were all tired so went home “early” around 1:30 am.

We all traveled to Cajamarca together the next morning. The girls had plans to spend one last night at Costa del Sol – the nicest hotel in town. They wanted to have one last night spoiling themselves before they left. They invited me to stay with them so I was really flattered. We all took HOT showers upon our arrival and watched some TV before going to lunch with our friend Steve who was in town from the coast. After lunch we went back to the hotel to hang out some more. The hotel has good cable, carpet, comfortable beds with clean sheets and big pillows so we wanted to milk it for all it was worth. In the afternoon we bought junk food and watched a scary movie in bed. Later that night we headed to Laguna Seca, this really fancy resort place where we go sometimes to spoil ourselves with massages. That night we invited Steve to join us for a light dinner and a swim in their pool. The pool is heated with natural hot springs water so it felt so nice against the nighttime air. We ordered milkshakes and were lucky enough to have them served to us at poolside. I felt like such a celebrity! After dinner we headed back to the hotel because we couldn’t wait to get back into those comfy beds. It felt like a big slumber party in high school and was so much fun!

When Amanda first invited me to hang out with them for the weekend I wasn’t sure if I would go because I didn’t have much money left (it was the end of the month). But I decided to go anyway and I’m so glad I did. From the first time I met those girls, I felt comfortable around them and every time I see them, it feels like we’ve known each other for years. It’s so nice to have friends like that and I was so happy to have that weekend with them since they are all done now (sob, sob).

After that great long weekend, I was ready to go back to Bambamarca. I feel like I’ve been gone so much lately and after bonding with my family so much when my parents were here and then during the fiesta, I actually missed them a lot and couldn’t wait to go back. I had about two weeks in town before it was time to leave again for our one year med-checks in Lima. I spent a lot of time talking and hanging out with Karina and Marta and playing with Emily. I love her so much and I miss babysitting a lot so it’s great to have her in the house to play with. Sometimes she is gone during the week with my host mom so we all get really excited when she comes home on the weekends because she’s so much fun and makes us all laugh.

One day I went to Hualgayoc (a town about an hour and a half away) with Karina to help her find new clients for the newspaper she just started working for. I had only ever driven through the town so it was fun to go there with her and spend the day together. The next day her friend Sara had invited us to a play (in the bull ring). Her friend is a Jehovah’s Witness (which from what I gather has different rules from the sect in the U.S.) and had been attending this three-day long conference in the bull ring. The play was the last day of the conference so we went. We even had to get dressed up for it! Of course it turned out to be a religious play and then about an hour of sermons, but that’s okay. I was laughing to myself that I was at this Jehovah’s Witness event, but I know it meant a lot to Sara that we went and it was a new experience for me. Sara said it’s an annual conference they hold for the region. There were even ministers who had come from Lima and two from the United States for it. The day we went, there were 2,011 people in attendance!

So the new group of volunteers (Peru 9) arrived in country at the beginning of June and just swore in as volunteers on Friday, August 24th. It’s hard to believe that was already us a year ago! I’m about to celebrate ONE YEAR in my site (I arrived on September 4th)! It’s really crazy how fast it goes by when you look back on it. Anyway, about two weeks before they swore in, they had Counterpart Day in their regional capitals (to explain to their counterparts what they’re doing here and how they’ll need support, etc.) and then went on to do their site visits for three days. I had heard there was a new volunteer coming to a town called Tacabamba, but it’s four hours from me so didn’t think much of it. All of a sudden one day I’m at the internet and my host brother tells me someone is here looking for me. In walks Freddy (Fredeline, but Freddy for Peruvians) and her counterpart! Surprise! I had no idea they were coming and felt bad that I hadn’t planned anything for them, but they explained they were just passing through and wanted to have lunch. It ended up being a really nice time. Freddy is really sweet and I was so happy to meet her.

The last thing that happened that week before leaving for Lima is that I had my first youth group meeting since March! It is with the same girls who I started working with in January and February, but once school started, they stopped coming. Just about all of them have come to my house at some point to ask if we can start the meetings again so now that things have calmed down, we have finally reunited! I made them invitations and hand delivered them to their houses so they knew how much I wanted them to come. I also told them they could invite a friend if they wanted. I was a little nervous that a) no one would show up, or b) it would be like starting over again. I told myself I’d be happy if just one girl came, but to my surprise, eight girls came (5 returnees and 3 new girls)! The meeting was fabulous. We were all genuinely excited to see one another and they weren’t shy at all. It felt like we picked up right were we left off so I was really happy.

I told the girls I’d like to do the World Map Project with them. It is a project that was started by a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic back in 1988 and was so successful that it has now been done in more than 40 countries around the world. It’s pretty self-explanatory – a huge world map painted on a wall in the community. It’s a great learning experience for the kids, not only to learn more about world geography, but also to learn about teamwork, organization, and leadership. It also is a huge boost to their self-esteem when they see that they’ve completed this project that will benefit the whole town! I showed them a picture of one another volunteer had done and they loved it so now they’re really excited about it. At Friday’s meeting I gave them all a blank map with about 20 things to identify. I told them it didn’t matter if they didn’t know any of the answers; it’s just a way for us to measure how much they know now because we’re going to do the same thing at the end of the project so they can see how much they learned. I tried to keep most of them pretty easy – Peru, Mexico, United States, India, China, Russia, South Africa, etc. The girls range in age from 11 to 21 and out of the nine girls who were at the meeting, I think or two or three correctly labeled Peru. Some people had the U.S. labeled as Peru, while others had Greenland labeled as Mexico, Brazil as the U.S., Mongolia as Paraguay, and the Pacific Ocean as South Africa to name a few. It was so sad. I don’t blame them at all because I’m sure they just don’t learn much about geography in school, but it made me realize even more how beneficial this project will be to them.

On that note I’m signing off. As most of you know from my entry about the earthquake, I was in Lima for about ten days, but I’ll save those stories for the next time.

Fiesta Time!

So this entry is LONG overdue considering our fiestas already finished a month ago! I had intentions of writing about it right away, but time got away from me and here we are. I will start off by saying that I was NOT looking forward to this fiesta. I had been hearing all about it since I arrived last September and I thought it would just be two weeks of drunks wandering around the streets. Boy was I proven wrong. I ended up having a BLAST! It was some of the most fun I’ve had here in Peru and made me so proud to be a bambamarquina! Here’s my best attempt at recalling all of the fun details of those crazy two weeks. Just a warning, these weeks were packed with events so it’ll be a long one. At some point during the year, every town in Peru has a week (or more) of celebrations for their fiestas patronales in honor of the town’s patron saint. In our case, the patron saint for Bambamarca is the Virgen del Carmen so the fiesta is organized around her day, July 16th, a holiday that is recognized nationwide. However, since Peruvians love an excuse to party, the fiesta kicked off on Thursday, July 5th with a big parade. I love parades in Bambamarca because school children practice their marching for weeks in advance, only to march 50 yards on the actual day. They walk from one corner of the street to the other. You’d think this wouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. People line up in rows three to four people deep just to get a view. The parade started with this year’s organizing committee (elected every year) and continued with lots of school children in traditional clothing, a few traditional dance routines, and even a couple of bands. The Virgen, carried on a pedestal by a few community members, was the last part of the parade. I thought it was over once she passed, but instead the entire crowd waited while she was walked around town for the next half hour or so because they wanted to see the Virgen return to to the Plaza and then to her place in the church. Another tradition that gets people excited for the central week of the fiesta is something called the novena, where every night for a week the Virgen is carried down different streets in town and honored with castillos (huge bamboo towers with fireworks) and a mass exodus of people. Each of the major streets in town is assigned a different night and the people on that street decorate the street and build castillos in preparation for the Virgen’s passing. Rita invited me to her house on Saturday night to watch the primera novena because hers is the first street. I had no idea what to expect so when I got there around 8 pm, I was really confused as to why they were blowing up balloons and attaching them to a huge streamer. I thought they were decorating the inside of the house, but when they were finished they put it outside and tied to the neighbor’s house across the street. Rita explained to me that it was done to honor the Virgen and the balloon in the middle was filled with confetti that they would pop right when the Virgen passed under it. Like most things here, we spent a long time sitting around and waiting for it to begin. There is a band that accompanies the Virgen for the entire night. The tradition is that the Virgen waits at the top of the street for the band to arrive and once it gets there, the novena begins. TONS of people also walk to the top of the street to accompany the Virgen on her novena. Although it was supposed to start at 9 pm, the band didn’t even pass Rita’s house (on its way to get the Virgen) until 9:30. Freddy’s family was building a HUGE castillo though so that kept us entertained. Rita told me there is always a competition between Freddy’s family and the neighbors up the street to see who has the biggest and best castillo. They were both over two stories high so I was really impressed! We watched the novena from Rita’s balcony so we had a great view. It was so fun to see this mass of people walking down the street and stopping to watch these huge firework towers go off. Once the Virgen got to Rita’s house we had to go inside and watch what we could from there because the ashes from their Castillo were flying everywhere. Of course the kids on the street think it’s a fun game to run under the castillo when it’s going off and ashes are flying everywhere. Haha. I stayed at Rita’s house watching the rest of the street until we couldn’t see anything anymore. I left around 11 pm, but it was still going strong! It was so much more fun than I thought it would be and made me excited for all of the other upcoming events. The next night my family invited me to go to the circus with them. I was really tired and didn’t feel like it, but decided I should go because it would be a nice opportunity to hang out with my family. We thought it started at 9:30, but we got there and found out it wouldn’t start until 10. There was a little carnival in town for the fiesta right next to the circus ring so we hung out there while we waited for the circus. Most of the rides and games were for little kids except for a Ferris Wheel that looked like it was from about 1982 – there was no way I was about to go on that. Instead we watched Emily (my two year old host sister) go on a few rides and she loved them so that was fun. We went into the circus (that cost 1 sol – about 30 cents) at 10 to get the “good” seats in the front row. It turns out the good seats were plastic lawn chairs, but they sure beat the old rickety bleachers. Of course the circus didn’t actually start until about 10:40 pm. It was pretty good, but my family was making fun of me for screaming so much. There were absolutely no safety nets and the “floor” was this thin carpet over the cobblestone ground so everytime someone did a stunt I would jump and let out a little yelp because I was sure I was about to see someone fall to their death. One guy was riding a bike on the tight rope – tell me that’s not scary! The circus was actually better than I expected, but it was no Ringling Brothers. My family couldn’t even fathom the idea of a 3-ring circus when I told them about it. My favorite part was definitely the clowns. They were really funny and made me laugh really hard. I was so glad I went – it was great bonding time with my family and helped take me out of my funk (since I had just returned from seeing Giff). Not too much was going on the following week besides for the novena each night. The teachers were on a national strike so kids weren’t in school, but other than that, everyone else was working. I started spending more and more time with my host family though and it was wonderful. We ate meals together, walked around town, and talked a lot so that made me really happy and SO GRATEFUL to think about how far we’ve come in the past year. One day I made Peruvian style s’mores (over the stove with choco soda crackers – chocolate covered saltines) with Carol and Martin so that was fun too. It was my mom’s birthday too so I called her on Skype and Karina and Marta sang to her. It was so cute and they were SO EXCITED to see my parents – they were screaming and kept telling my parents they loved them. Things started to pick up again on Friday, July 13th. Karina and Marta taught me how to make tamales and then we went to a dance contest of marinera (a typical dance from the coast). There were 29 couples in 5 different age groups from all over this region (including some couples from the coast). It is a beautiful dance and now I really want to learn it. It seems really complicated, but I love it. The girls wear these beautiful dresses with huge skirts that they hold and use in the dance with them. It is a very flirtatious and romantic dance. The contest lasted almost 3 hours that afternoon, but it was so much fun. The whole time I kept thinking, we don’t have anything like this in the States, this is so cool! I told Marta that we don’t have fiestas patronales and she said, “So everyday is just the same?” Haha – compared to this country and all of the rich fietas and traditions they have – yes! After the dance contest, my family and I ate our tamales, which were delicious, and then we made balloon chains because it was the novena on our street. Nobody wanted to walk down the street with the Virgen so Karina and I went by ourselves. We even got to carry the Virgen for a little while which is a really big deal. They were all so excited I did it and told me that it means I’m catholic now. Oh geez. My family all watched us from the balcony and took our picture walking with the Virgen. We didn’t finish with that until 11 pm or so. I was invited to a birthday party that night so I went for a little while, but only stayed about an hour because everyone was already drunk when I got there and I was bored. On Saturday I went to an agricultural fair with Karina and her friend Sara. It had been going on for a few days and we’d been meaning to go, but didn’t have time. There are tons of stands set up with the best agricultural products, artisan goods, cooked food (LOTS of cuy), etc. There was one stand with a model of the future of Bambamarca with a mall and movie theater! Who knows if it will really happen, or when, but I could never picture Bambamarca like that. We got there just in time to watch the finals of a huayno (traditional music/dance of the sierra) dance competition. It was fun to watch because this type of dance is so different from the marinera we had watched the day before. There were only three couples in the finals and the man in one couple was albino or something. I thought that people would tease him, but instead everyone was cheering for the “gringo” (they say that about anyone who has lighter skin or hair)! He and his partner ended up winning so they got a huge standing ovation. It made me so happy to see how supportive everyone was. The fiesta really seemed to bring out the best in everyone. We were going to stay to watch a cow-milking contest, but it started raining so we went home. In the afternoon we went to the finals for the marinera contest, which turned out to be a fiasco. It started raining there too and the ground got really slippery. One girl fell during her dance and really hurt her leg, but got back up and toughed it out enough to finish her dance. She and her partner were excellent dancers and got a perfect score. Combined with their score from the day before, the perfect score put them in first place and they won the gold medal for their age group. Well as you can imagine, some of the other moms were NOT happy about this and were yelling at the judges. Oh boy. They ended up moving the competition from the patio of the high school to the canchitas (soccer courts) because they are covered. I stayed for a little while, but started feeling really sick so decided to go home. I decided to stay in that night and rest. Thank God I did because it ended up being the last good night of sleep I had for a week! On Sunday my doctor from Peace Corps, Dr. Jorge, came to visit. He likes to visit as many of our sites as possible to see what our realities are like because he has lived in Lima his whole life. He is so much fun so I was really excited to have him in town. We walked all around Bambamarca and visited Chabu and the kids. That night was the vispera in the Plaza de Armas. The vispera is the kickoff for the central week of the fiesta. They had three HUGE castillos in the plaza that Rita said cost 5,000 soles each! Dr. Jorge loves castillos and had never seen any that big so he was really excited. One of them was in the shape of the church and had a little marinera dancer on it that spun around when it was lit. I wish I could have video taped the whole thing because it’s hard to describe what a cool experience it was. Rita called me to meet up with her family in the plaza. It was nearly impossible to find them because the plaza was PACKED with people. I have never seen so many people concentrated in one area in Bambamarca the whole time I’ve lived here. There had to be at least 5,000 people. While we waited for the castillos to start, we were drinking and dancing with Rita’s family. There were two bands (one from Chiclayo!), but they weren’t playing very good music. When they took a break though, I would dance with Freddy and huge circles of people would form around us and watch, saying, “look at the gringa dance!” Haha. Surprisingly, I wasn’t embarrassed at all, it just made me laugh – probably because they kept serving me so much beer. I kept having Dr. Jorge pour out my cup of beer on the ground when Rita’s family wasn’t looking because I had already had plenty and they insisted on serving me a full glass every time – oh man. Before the castillos started, they were also sending these huge paper balls into the sky by lighting the inside on fire. It was so dangerous and would definitely be illegal in the States. A few even landed on people’s rooftops! The castillos finally started around 11:00 pm so we watched them and headed home. Dr. Jorge didn’t know it was Bambamarca’s fiesta when he planned his trip so he really lucked out. He loved it and I was so happy to have him there. He even took videos of me dancing huayno (and attempting marinera) in the plaza! What a great night! I was up early the next day to eat breakfast with Dr. Jorge and send him on his way to Chota to visit more volunteers. Rita’s family had invited me to go on a paseo (outing) with them so they picked me up right after breakfast and we were on our way. We went to a place called Maraypampa where we visited a Vivienda Saludable (healthy household). These are households the health center has chosen to work with to set a model for the rest of the community in how they can live healthier. Most houses in the campo are just one big room where everyone sleeps and eats with lots of chickens and guinea pigs running around. The viviendas saludables are different in that everything is separated – they have their sleeping quarters in one part and the kitchen in another part (with the animals penned off). Most families in this area use leña (firewood) to cook because it is a lot cheaper, however, in many houses, the smoke does not have a way to escape so another aspect of these healthy households is that they have cocinas mejoradas (a better designed kitchen with a chimney for the smoke to escape). The family who owns the house we visited is incredible. They have taken the initiative to build an entirely new house (using their own resources) just in the past eight months, with separate bedrooms for the children, a cocina mejorada, and even a HOT shower (they designed a system to heat the water using the smoke from the kitchen). They have turned their old house into a cuy farm where they will be raising guinea pigs to sell for additional income. The house was beautiful and the family members were so kind-hearted. We returned to Bambamarca in time for lunch and then I headed home to nap a little bit. There were more castillos in the plaza that night as it was the official holiday of the Virgen del Carmen. That night there were four castillos so I went to the plaza with Karina and Sara to meet up with Freddy and Rita’s cousins to watch them. Each castillo has a name on it that lights up at the end to recognize the person that sponsored it so I kept joking that the next one would say “Miss Massachusetts” – haha yeah right, like I have that kind of money! On Tuesday morning there was a huge parade. My host mom had to march in it with all of the health center staff that work in the entire region. All of the different schools also marched in it so it was a really big deal. We went for a while, but I got so annoyed with people pushing that I went home. I started out in the front row, but by the time I left, I was about five people deep into the crowd. There were guards there to “control” the crowd, but they didn’t do much. Most of the time they would just stand there allowing people to push and shove, but once in a while, they would use all of their weight and shove against the person in the front row to push everyone back – sometimes is was these tiny little campo women and I found it completely barbaric and abusive. When they did this, nothing was accomplished though because everyone in the back would just push forward. Honestly, I’m surprised no one got trampled because it was horrible. I stayed for about 20 minutes, long enough to watch my host mom, but then I left with her when she finished because I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t see anything anyway and I was being pushed around like an animal. The parade went on for at least another hour. When everyone got home we all ate lunch together and then headed to the bull ring where I would witness my first bull fight! The bull ring is on the outskirts of town up this huge hill so everyone got a ride to the top and walked home at the end. Since I knew the bulls would be killed, I had mentally prepared myself for it so I wouldn’t freak out too much. I didn’t think I would really like it, but I wanted to go for the experience. Well surprisingly enough, I really enjoyed myself. It’s just as much a social and cultural event as anything else. It’s like going to a baseball game – there is so much to look at that you don’t actually have to watch the main event the whole time. It was fun for me to look around and see if I could pick out any familiar faces, but it was PACKED so I wasn’t too successful at that. There were two different bands that kept playing Bambamarca’s song, lots of vendors and activity, and a fight that broke out between two women so of course that got everyone’s attention. It was fun to watch how into the bull fights some people got. One of the guys (not the matador, but one of the assistants) is from Bambamarca – or married a bambamarquina – so he was very popular and amusing. There were six bulls that day and one of the matadors did the whole thing on horseback. It was so cool! I actually really enjoyed that one. At the end he walks around the ring and people throw things at him, it reminded me of ice skaters – hahahaha. Some people threw stuffed animals or roses, but others threw shirts for him to wipe his sweat on and throw it back! A little while into each fight, a picador comes out on horseback to stab the bull a few times and lower his stamina. Apparently they just started doing this about five years ago and the people do NOT like it – they boo at the guy and throw oranges and plastic bottles at him. I thought it was really funny to see how riled up they got. By the end, it seemed he wasn’t stabbing them as hard or as long. There was so much excitement that before I knew it, it was over. There are three days of bull fights and we ended up going back every day. Karina said her family hasn’t gone to all three days in a very long time and was so happy how united we all were this year. I had so much fun going with them and felt like we really bonded. By the last day, I was a little bored with it, but there was a 9 year old matador so that spiced things up. He is from Lima and this was his first bull he ever killed. He was a little spit fire. A few times the crowd would gasp because the bull had knocked him over and he got up and looked at the crowd with this look on his face that said, “WHAT?” He was so funny and entertaining, not to mention talented. He got two ears and a tail (that they cut off from the bull) for his fight – the highest honor! Chota is supposed to have the best bull fights outside of Lima and everyone from Bambamarca goes to their fights, but this year the word on the street was that our fights were way better than Chota’s! That night I attended my first quinciñera with Karina. Chabu was decorating for it and told me the girl’s mom (a single mom) spent 20,000 soles on the party! That is the equivalent to about two years’ salary so I have no idea where she got all that money. The party was on the patio at one of the high schools, but they brought in these huge tents so it looked like an elegant affair. The mom hired a really famous band called Don Guillermo’s from Cajamarca to come and play and bought 100 cases of beer! It was my first quinciñera, but I knew it was very extravagant compared to most. I had no idea what to expect from the little coming of age ceremony before the party started, but it reminded me very much of a wedding. The girl wore this really fancy pink dress and had 15 damas y caballeros (like bridesmaids and groomsmen) who were also dressed really fancy. The ceremony started with the girl handing off this doll to her little sister to symbolize her passing on her childhood. The girl also had a boy who sat up in the front with her and danced with her for her first song. At one point she gave a speech and so did her mom. She also had a bouquet which she threw to all of the damas, but I didn’t get what that symbolized – the one who catches it will be the next to turn 15? Haha just kidding. There was another dance where any guy could go up and dance with her and there was also a time for everyone to congratulate her and give her presents. The most amusing part to me was when she and some of her friends did a choreographed dance to Britney Spears’ Toxic. After all of the formalities and pictures with her in front of the huge cake, dinner was served (this was about midnight) and the dancing began. At first no one was asking Karina or me to dance so we were getting annoyed. We decided we would wait another half an hour and if we weren’t having a good time, we’d go to Rita’s house because she was having a party (and they’d already called me about 8 times to come). Once the first guy was brave enough to ask me, I didn’t stop dancing until the music stopped at 5 am. I must admit that it’s really entertaining the things guys will say to you when you’re dancing. One guy told me he’d give me free surfing lessons if I went to Chiclayo, another told me I’m the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen, blah blah blah. I’m not being conceited, but when you’re the gringa, you have celebrity status and it’s so funny the things people say to you. Karina and I both really wanted this one guy to ask us to dance because he was by far the best dancer in the place (and there were 500 people so that says a lot). We didn’t know his name so we kept calling him amarillo because he had a yellow shirt on. Every time a new song came on, Karina would say “Amarillo come ask my friend to dance!” We were laughing so hard, but of course he couldn’t hear us. The doctor and Chabu were there so we ended up hanging out and dancing with them. While we were over there amarillo came over and asked me to dance. Karina and I looked at each other and started laughing because we were so excited. Haha. I ended up dancing with him the rest of the night and had a blast. I was happy because he was such a great dancer and not gross like the other guys. Karina and I left at 5 am, but only because the music stopped – otherwise we would have gone on until the sun came up! I tried to sleep in the next morning, but my host brother woke me up at 9:30 to see if I wanted a ticket for the bull fight that day. The bull fight was fun, but what I was really looking forward to was the dance that night in the canchitas. Grupo 5 – my favorite Peruvian band – was coming and I couldn’t wait. Everyone had been asking me if I was going for weeks because they all know how much I love Grupo 5. I went with Karina and some of her friends. We left the house at 11 pm and even though we live about 100 ft. from the canchitas, we didn’t get into the dance until 12:15 am. They love to do vueltas around the block a million times to check out the crowd before getting in line. We finally bought our tickets and got in line and right when we were at the door, Karina told us to get out of line because another friend was on his way. I was SO annoyed and freezing. I just wanted to get inside to start dancing! We finally made it inside and shortly after arriving I ran into Juan Pablo (amarillo). I was so happy to see him because Karina’s friends don’t know me and were already hitting on me and being gross. I ended up dancing with Juan Pablo and his friends all night. At one point when he went to the bathroom, some lady came up to me and asked if she could videotape me because she thought I was so cute – haha. She wanted me to go up on stage, but I wasn’t ready to do that. [Sidenote: the bathrooms were SO GROSS. There is a whole in the ceiling and when I was standing in line some guy was up there watching all of the girls pee. He was gone by the time my turn came, but the toilet in the stall was so gross that we just had to pee on the floor! Eww!] The music stopped around 5 am so we had to leave. Juan Pablo and his friend were hungry so we went to eat caldo (like chicken noodle soup – that’s what they eat here after a night out – not exactly Jumbo Slice in Adams Morgan). I think it was caldo de cuy so I did not like it. I sat with them while they ate it and then we got in the car to go home. Next thing I knew it was 7:15 in the morning – we had all fallen asleep! Hahaha. I went home to get in my own bed for a few hours before my security director came. He was supposed to pick me up at 9 am to do some site development in a nearby town. I got into bed at 7:33 and he called at 7:38 to tell me he was outside of my house! Ahhhh! We got back around 11 and I tried to sleep a little bit, but my family is so loud that even with my earplugs, I didn’t get much sleep. I got up, shoveled some rice and potatoes in my mouth and was off to the last of the bull fights. By that time, I had just about had my fill of bull fights, but it was still fun to go with my family. That was the day of the little boy so it was a good ending to the three days. There was free music in the plaza that night so Karina and I met up with Juan Pablo and some friends. We hung out in the plaza talking and laughing until the middle of the night again. I think that was my “earliest” night to bed – around 4 am! The next morning I was up by 7 to catch the bus to Cajamarca to meet Luke and Jocelyn! I’ll save those stories for the next entry since this is already plenty long. As you can see (if you even made it this far) I had a blast during our fiesta! I spent so much time with my family and really bonded with them. I really felt pride for Bambamarca and enjoyed every bit of the fiestas! Whenever I come back to visit in the future, I’ll definitely be coming during fiesta!