cuentitos

March 8th is “dia de la mujer”, or international woman’s day. While I didn’t do anything special this year (last year was marked by a woman’s soccer game that I played with my community team), I still had it in mind. That day, my new “host niece” was born. My host sister had her first daughter, a little girl. My family was excited, but mostly relieved that the baby was born healthy and my host sister was ok. My host Mom had spent almost a month with her in the city of Chiclayo awaiting the due date and helping out. That meant my 15 year old host sister, Ericka, was left to watch over the house. I actually had a fun month having just her and me as the only two women in the house (my youngest host sister also went to the city with her Mom). We controlled the music in the house, watched American TV (Glee!) in English (which she enjoyed despite not being able to understand anything), and just hanging out more together. Sometimes, hanging out with teenagers, I forget that I, myself, am now an adult and am soon turning the even more adult age of 24.

On another note, I have decided to dedicate this blog entry to funny/interesting things that occur here in my daily life. I think a fun little list would be the best way to get this message across:

1) Now, when I see ducks or chickens I size them up for their fatness and think about how tasty they would be. I often fantasize about killing certain chickens that annoy me by sneaking into the kitchen and trying to steal food off of temporarily abandoned plates. They are a source of constant annoying, noise and food stealing… and I sincerely want to learn how to kill, pluck and prepare a chicken so that I can bring that skill back to the U.S. and have my own chickens. I feel as though this is a long way from when I left for Peru as a vegetarian of six years.

2) Keeping in mind that electricity is still new to my little Peruvian community, TV and movies (in color) are slowly being discovered. The whole culture of Disney, comedies, and horror movies has yet to be discovered here. The most popular movies here are Asian fighting movies. I cannot stress the obsession with ninjas and constantly fighting and killing. Surprisingly, these are actually NOT my favorite kinds of movies, and also not originally English films (as many of my Peruvian friends believe). So, I have taken it upon myself to personally introduce my friends and family to the wonderful world of Disney and popular movies like ‘Black Swan’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ It has been a rocky road because any movies without constant action or songs and dancing are considered boring and often I am demanded to turn it off or fast forward through the “talking parts” (and yes, I put the movies in Spanish). It is a common practice when watching the popular Asian fighting films to completely ignore the plot by fast forwarding through all the dialogue and only watching the action scenes. However, I have won over the host family with Disney films like ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Mulan.’ The other night I had all of my host sibling piled on my bed while I set up a home theater of sorts with my computer and portable speakers and we watched ‘The Lion King’ together as a family, including my host parents and siblings ranging from six years old to 20. It was a good time, and even some aunts and uncles came in to watch for a while.

3) Privacy: There is none. At any moment in the day I will probably be asked what I am doing, where I am going, or what I am going to do. While this could be viewed as annoying (and honestly, often is), I have finally come to understand it as common practice among all of my community members, not just directed at me. It is a conversation starter, and a way to seem interested in someone. I originally viewed it as an invasion (I don’t want to tell everyone exactly where I’m going and why all the time), but now I have started to understand that people here don’t have the same ideas about privacy and there are different ways to have it. First of all, being alone is very rare here. Kids share bedrooms with a few or all of their siblings their entire lives until they move out (often to start their own families). Those who move away from my town often leave with someone or move in with family in other towns or in the city. So, wanting to do things alone is considered strange. Where am I going with this? I have long since discovered the benefits of always having company, usually keeping my door open and allowing my siblings to feel welcome to come in and hang out while I do whatever I want to do (read, type this email, watch Glee…. Or prepare work materials of course). However, we all want to be alone sometimes and through observation I have figured out that people who want privacy or just don’t want to tell you all of their plans use evasive language like: A: “What are you doing.” B: “Nothing.” A. “Where are you going.” B. “Over there.” There is just not arguing with the logic of “por alla” or “por aqui” which means “for there” or “for here.” There are incredibly common responses for where are you going and what are you doing. Evasive and vague language is key if you want to keep anything to yourself. Also, as a side note, often flat out ignorance is used if you want to keep something to yourself. I find this response more than frustrating, but it is certainly effective. In a culture that is not at all abrasive or confrontational, I can see how ignoring someone is preferred over getting in their face.

4) Carbo-loading. Yup, I eat LOTS of carbs. That is probably the reason for the initial weight gain, followed by my inspiration to train for a marathon to stay healthy. In a world without refrigerators or a nearby local market, my only real option is to eat every meal with my family. Some volunteers have the joy of preparing a lot of all of their own food. I often fantasize about this possibility, but to keep myself sane I think of the down sides. Peruvian families often feel like it is a personal affront on their cooking or their ability to take care of you if they cant feed you or if you turn down their food. Therefore, if I cooked for myself (and I did try a brief fling with making oatmeal for breakfast), it would most likely only cause confusion and unneeded stress between me and my host family. So, I stick to eating my white rice with spaghetti on top. Oh yes, that is a typical plate. Sometimes there is chicken on top of all of that or an avocado to eat with it. But the super carb-loading is no exaggeration. I like to think about atkins dieters coming to my community and seeing the panic in their eyes and the confusion in Peruvians eyes when they cant find a single carb-free plate! Lucky for me, I love the food but just try to keep it in moderation. Without getting into my own personal eating habits, I thought it would be interesting to list a few delicacies that my host mother and sister (excellent cooks if you are asking me!) like to prepare:
a. Arroz con pollo – a classic lunch of dinner of white rice with a small piece of chicken on top. Often this is accompanied by what only can be described a ‘tinee-tiny’ onion or onion and tomato salad.
b. Sopa con arroz – this is a typical lunch, hot soup (in 100 degree, full sunshine afternoons) and a plate of white rice on the side. There soups always consist of noodles (sometimes only noodles), and occasionally special things like carrots (just a tiny bit) and potatoes. They taste amazing but you health nuts have probably noted the lack of vegetable portions…
c. Chifles y huevo frito – this is my favorite dinner that consists of fried bananas and a fried egg. Everything fried but ooooh so tasty… and hey, there is no white rice in this one right? Wouldn’t want to overdo it.
d. Arroz con pescado y yuka o camote – this is my absolute favorite breakfast. It consists of white rice with some boiled either yukas (a kind of potato) or sweet potatoes on the side and stir fried fresh fish with onions and tomatoes on top. It is incredibly delicious and probably the most nutritious meal I get. On Sunday’s they almost always serve this and ditch the rice!

So there are four classic meals, just to give you all examples. Canned tuna and beans were not mentioned but are also staples, served at least every other day. More rarely we get things like a little bit of pork or beef meat, ray meat. My overall favorite things to be prepared are beans, any kind. Lentils, white beans, brown beans, whatever, they always prepare them perfectly and they complement rice really well. In fact, I think rice and beans were meant to be served together! Just to wrap up all the food talk, I know that this part might come off very sarcastic but the truth is I do honestly love the food I am served. It might lack in some important vitamins and minerals that come from vegetables and leafy greens, but it tastes really amazing every time and does the trick (if the trick is making you full and giving you energy to perform physical labor all day)!

5) This will be the closing tale and it is more of a fun story. The other day I went to visit a friend of mine in my community. She is a 26 year old, married pre-school teacher who goes to the city every Saturday (a 3 hour journey, one way) to study in the university to get her degree in teaching and move up to be an elementary school teacher. In other words, she is super cool. She invited me over to cook with her, but it mostly turned out to be her cooking and explaining relatively simple cooking techniques to me. People in my town do not actually believe I know how to cook even the simplest things and are afraid to let me be in charge of things. So, she cooked me delicious meal of spaghetti with tuna on rice with a side of ceviche (raw fish “cooked” in lime juice... a Peruvian classic) and we downed it with an ice cold pepsi (her family has a refrigerator). The fun part was afterwords, when she decided to put on dance instruction videos and we burned off our super carbo meal with dance moves and jumping around her room like crazy people. It’s moments like those that I remember we are all people who like to have fun, even with out different languages, foods, customs and manners. We all like to get down and boogie!

So I think those are my most current updates and stories although I could continue on tangents about awkward river bathing experiences, my dog’s belief that he is bigger and stronger then 300 pound pigs and things my cat is a stuffed animal, or the fact that apparently small children “beat me” in mango eating skills. But, I’ll save those for the next entry.

Until then, keep drinking fresh coffee, eating bagels and cheeses, and overdo it on those vegetables for me! Love you all, thanks for reading!