Stuck in San Marcos

So, Tsutsuy and I are going to try and escape the Callejón de Conchucos on Monday. This doesn’t mean that I want to run away from my site. It just means that basically I’ve been trapped in this valley because the roads have been so bad. Now we actually need to get back to Huaraz because Tsutsuy has a package that is going to be sent away on the 27th. It appears that when you certify a package, it waits for you for thirty days and then goes back to Lima. Not to where it was sent from, but rather it disappears and is never heard from again. This is bad. So, we must trek to Huaraz.
I’ve been working at the Health Center this week, except, of course, the days when Marleny doesn’t show up. On those days I just come to the Health Center several times until I get tired walking across town.
Jane and I are also kind of organizing an English class. I do not want to do an English class because I’d like to have more free time to learn Quechua and do everything I can to start the public health programs through the health center because this gets me closer to community health committees and possible health projects, etc. Also, the students in this particular class aren’t the most in need but, on the other hand, they are, in fact, people that probably do need some English in order to do their jobs more efficiently or better. And, they do their homework. This is a key behavior that usually doesn’t happen. So, Jane and I formulated a plan to use their resources and good behavior :) to figure out an actual teaching strategy so that if we end up teaching English classes again in a small community setting (almost a guaranteed for me) there might actually be a chance that we are teaching English. This might start next Tuesday.
So, that’s the news from San Marcos. Also, I am pretty far removed from news and basically everything else out here but I did manage to make my picks for the NCAA tournament and I got seven teams right out of the elite eight! Woohoo! :)

Title

Today was a pretty cool day, it could have easily been my first day here but apparently it needed three months in the making. Today I went to the health center and worked. Oh yes, this is a new thing. “What?” you might ask, “Isn’t that what you are supposed to be doing, working at the health center?” Well, actually, I’m supposed to be coordinating at the health center, educating the community and what not. What I did today was none of that. What I did today was help Marleny organize papers. This is something we were told not to do in training but when your director comes to visit your site and tells your counterpart to let the volunteer help out with paperwork, this is what you get.
This is what happens when your counterpart is way too busy to acknowledge your existence most of the time and so the director attempts to point out that someone that is too busy to think could actually benefit from free labor instead of be overwhelmed by another person in the room. So, you see, this is a good idea on the director’s part as long as eventually, I’m not still doing paperwork. Now we shall get to why today was a cool day.
First of all, in this land of intangibles, that is the Peace Corps (ex. “I shared a story with an 11 year-old girl today that might someday effect her life path because of our 2 minute cultural exchange, or, perhaps, she might forget it…”) it was nice to look back upon my morning and actually have something concrete accomplished. Not to mention, I too have lots of things I need to file and organize that will take me forever (though not for the ministry of health) and it’s nice to know that I’m helping someone (especially someone who is quite overwhelmed). Next, I learned a lot of last names in this region. This may seem stupid until you realize that everyone here tells you their full name (four names) rapid fire and expects you to understand and know how to spell them. In my defense, Rodriguez and Vargas I have down but when you start mixing Quechua names, it gets really complicated for, well, anyone who doesn’t speak Quechua. So, it was nice to see some of them spelled out (for example, Caqui could be spelled Kaki, Kaqui, Gaki, Gaqui, Caki, Qaki, even Qaqui according to various rules of Spanish and Quechua. But, it’s not. It’s spelled Caqui.) Also, I hung out with the obstetrician, who came in and hung out and talked about the weather, etc. This is one of the major reasons I want to just BE in the health center. Because I can chat with people when they are bored. This is when most things get done. Perhaps in the states too, I forget, but definitely in Peru. Let’s see, next would be I got to play with Marleny’s official rubber stamps. Sssh. Don’t tell. Also, when I was waiting for Marleny to unoccupy herself, I studied Quechua for about forty minutes. Yes, I could do this in my room but I think I can safely say that for most students, your own room is a horrible place to study. Someone else’s office, however, is proving to be a very good location. :)
Then, on the way home, I got to call my grandma, which is always the highlight of any day. :) And the owner of the store invited me to a lunch on Saturday (in Carhuayoc, which takes an hour to walk to…) and I got free ice cream (score!). Then I went home and ate lunch and some Chifles that I bought, which are a wonderful food, fried banana chips which almost make up for the fact that no one knows what tortillas are here and hence no tortilla chips. Sigh.

Good news and bad news

Well, I’m back in San Marcos. I was really excited to get back after so long. I went to Huanchaco (a small BEACH town close to Trujillo) where I got to hang out with everyone from my training class (Peru 8). But, I have to say, it’s been a pain getting back here… I took an overnight bus that started at 11pm and arrived in Huaraz at 6:15am. So, needless to say, I was a little tired. I tried to sleep but I was on the second floor of the bus and there were lots of twists, turns, and bumps on the steep mountain road. I left my stuff in a hotel that I stay at a lot. In fact, the owner let me crash in a room for three hours free of charge! Yay! So, I went out at 9am to try and buy a bus ticket for 2pm to get back to San Marcos (a three hour bus ride… on a good day). Well, all the tickets were sold out. I was so upset! Emilia, my director, is coming on Tuesday and I needed to get everything set up for the meeting as soon as possible! I asked for help finding another bus company at a restaurant where I’m friends with the family that runs it and they didn’t have any ideas except ask the bus agency who else goes to San Marcos. So, I went back and asked and there was one other company. I went over there and they were sold out too. I walked back to the first company, and found a lady that sold me her ticket because she wanted to leave the next day. Yay! Lucky!
I left on the 2pm bus and as luck would have it, Jane, another Peace Corps volunteer, was on my same bus! So it was really nice to have someone to talk to on the bus ride. However, the bus ride was horrendous. It appears that the rainy season has officially hit Conchucos. We stopped about five times for no apparent reason, once to clear the mud off the road, and once to move two giant rocks that had fallen. All in all, we pulled up to my house at 8:45pm. That´s right, fifteen minutes shy of a seven hour bus ride. I reiterate, this is a three hour trip. The first of many, according to Jane. Woohoo.
Ok, so the next day…
I get a phone call from Peace Corps headquarters. Well, now there is no pass from Huaraz to here because fourteen straight hours of rain has caused two mudslides on the main highway so it’s a good thing I got on that bus. But now my director can’t come because of the roads so she told me that she is coming the next day. Let´s recap, I’ve invited the mayor, the governor, the director of the orphanage, the director of the high school, the president of the PTA, the director of the hospital, and the IDESI representative to a meeting on Tuesday. The process of inviting took about a week and a half. Oh, and in addition to fixing all my stuff, could I please go tell Tsutsuy that she’s not coming? We can’t get connection to her community phone. So, instead of starting to run all over town to talk to everyone I need to talk to, I have to hike an hour (two hours, with return trip) to tell Tsutsuy that she’s screwed too. Jeez. Tsutsuy also had an authority meeting planned. She was appropriately frustrated. I got back to San Marcos at three. With two hours until five when all working people, well, stop working. I waited at the mayor’s office until 4:30pm and still couldn’t get the date fixed on the invitation because there were so many people waiting to get in. So, I changed my plan.
My new plan is to have the meeting anyway and during the meeting any interested party can plan an appointment with Emilia for the following day and Emilia and I will go to them. So, I go to tell my counterpart about this. I casually ask if she can make it, and proceeded to get reamed because I knew that this was her lunch hour (which is why I planned the meeting then, so Emilia and she could meet afterwards…) and so obviously she can’t come. Ok, fine. Not a big deal. I also casually ask if I could use the projector (which is not called projector… after five minutes of hand movements I find it is indeed called a multi-media…duh). Oh no you can’t, you need to fill out a paper for that thing about two weeks in advance. You never told me you wanted a multi-media. And there is no one to supervise you (because she’s going to be at lunch…remember?)
I`m so frustrated right now. I think the meeting is going to be just fine and will be highly informative for anyone who happens to show up but I’m getting really frustrated with my, well, counterpart. The only one who doesn’t seem to understand that two major mudslides are, in fact, not my fault.

Um, hello sir, could I paint this wall?

Well, mission: paint a map of Peru in a week is going strong. I started this grand plan on Monday and might even be finished labeling by tomorrow afternoon (depending on how fast paint dries…) Funny, how many things in our lives depend on how fast paint dries?
Anyway, I’ve had quite a few helpers on my quest as soon as I started painting countries. Amazing how few Peruvians are willing to help draw boarders. (None).
One cool thing about this project is that all the San Marcos artists are coming out of the woodworks. I met the guy whose mural is actually right next to my map (that’s intimidating) and at least two other people that have offered to help and are actually painters, as in, “one moment please, I’m going to run home and get my paintbrushes.”
I’ve also been teaching my last week of English class, which finally ended today. During this wonderful week by myself (all co-professors having vanished in a puff of Andean smoke) we went over vocabulary words. Really important ones like barf, dude, and uvula. And then the last day of class we listened to American music (thank you, Maureen!) and ate peanut butter sandwiches (thank you, Cassie!) and played games. Actually, we played one game that they really like even though we’ve played it three times before. It entails a poster describing various actions (run, walk, skip, clap, wave, dance, turn, etc.) and each person gets to shout a command and then everyone has to do it. (Run around the soccer field, skip, clap, etc.) Who knew, it was a big hit. I should have stopped trying to come up with other games…
Oh, and on Monday I successfully completed my first money request! I got the municipality of San Marcos to donate funds to a leadership camp that some of the Peace Corps volunteers are planning! Woohoo! Now, I just have to get Mr. Mayor to remember he said that when it comes to collection time. :)
This Sunday I’m going to Trujillo to meet for reconnect. Woohoo! I finally finished the presentation that I have to make and now I just have to get there. Oh, and invite all the leaders of my community to a meeting that we are going to have immediately after I get back with my boss. Urgh…