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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.