My first real blog entry since moving to site, here goes. The day we swore in was wonderful; they invited any former expat former Peace Corps Volunteers in town to the ceremony and it was presided over by embassy officials. It felt good to finally not be a trainee, and be an official volunteer. I firmly believe that training is much more for the benefit of the United States government than for the trainees. It could be relabeled, "follow our rules so you don't create an international incident for Peace Corps and the United States government training" or something to that effect. It’s a job, and surely the Man trains you at any job. This is a rather unique job however, commonly filled by young people in a foreign country who are off by themselves in rural villages speaking a different language. Therefore, I suppose I see the necessity of training. I do, however, have two specific gripes that are predicated on my intolerance of wasted time and my natural inclination not to want to sit in class for 10 hours a day the summer after graduating college when I had already made a conscious decision not to attend class for the next two years. Here are the two things about training that bother me. The first is that it prevents you from truly learning the language, at least in Peru. This is because you are constantly with Americans speaking English. No matter how much class you sit through, if at the end of the day you simply start speaking English, the class's desired impact will be blunted. The second is that the technical training, i.e. the business aspect of my training, was juvenile. I realize that in Peace Corps, the concepts I will be involved in are less involved than marginal rate of technical advantage and aggregate demand, really anything at all that is geared towards the macro world. This is not a master’s degree in business or economics. However, marginal rates of return, break-even costs, basic accounting, and micro-concepts in general are extremely important. I'm not saying they should teach us the terms, I'm saying they should teach us how to run a lemonade stand (and this wouldn't be for my benefit so much as the other volunteers). Often times I felt that the sessions taught me nothing more than the general definition of a concept, such as: what is marketing, what is accounting, what is the tourism industry in Peru, what is this or that. So, great, now I know what Peace Corps training staff feels that those concepts are. However, I repeatedly felt that I had already known (plusco-perfect tense) what these concepts defined as. To me, training should have spent time on how to actually do accounting, fundraising, formalization, and marketing whilst in the Peruvian environment. This would have been more helpful than the broad brush that was often taken. In general, the training staff would tell you a concept that you could work on with your primary project, and then say "alright young talented americans listen up, we have for you more resources on this subject at the Peace Corps library in Surco (which is outside of Lima)". I don't want to begin to tell you how much of giant aggravation it would be for me to travel to Lima just to find a resource in the resource library. In general, this is all well and good, anyone who knows me would know that it wouldn't be me who would want the training anyway; I’m just saying if they're going to have training... just don't have tech training. It's too general to be of use and a waste of government resources. Make training shorter and tell me all about keeping healthy, speaking Spanish, the vacation policies, the stuff that they actually have you in training to tell you... so that you don't "cause an international incident for Peace Corps and the United States government"... and cut out the front about it being about our learning how to conduct business in Peru. Training wasn't for this purpose and gosh darn-it; I don't like façades and or lost time, especially on the good taxpayers of the United States government. I guess in summation of this topic, if there were a bridge to nowhere, I'd be firmly against it. One last point is that in no way was this our tech trainers, Ivan's or Dennis's faults. Both are fantastic people, good teachers, and had our best interest and that of the American and Peruvian people at heart. They were working with less time than was possible to go into depth, and I highly doubt they strayed from what was traditionally taught at the training sessions of past. Technical training was a great place to make friends among the other business volunteers, network for the future, and generally ponder the task at hand; I just think the concepts they taught us could have been handed out in a guide, and the time salvaged for other uses. I also, discreetly, took issue with the statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the kitchen at the training center and the nativity scene in the Coral (which was a location in the training center). Kathleen, the training director, asked each of us what we thought of training in private sessions, and I just couldn't help myself on that issue, something about my upbringing I suppose.
Continuing away from training, the night that we swore in we spent at a hostel in Miraflores, which is sort of a combination of the Upper East Side and Palm Beach. I say this because it is probably the only place to live if you are an extremely wealthy and cosmopolitan Peruvian, and in addition to residences it has luxury shopping and a beach. I say we spent the night there, but in reality we didn't sleep as we all went to one of the only exclusive clubs in Lima, with a fantastic view over looking the Pacific. We all spent more money than we should have, and generally threw down. Our names were on the list; so we got in for free, shout outs to Kenneth, who made that happen. My night was cut short however as Sal decided to black out on the couch, and Jason and I had to carry him home. We got to 64 bottles of beer on the wall. By the time I got back to the club, the bouncers weren't letting anyone else in, so my night was sabotaged. The next morning, those of us who had earlier nights woke up and ran errands because that night, we were all on overnight buses to different parts of the country. This is just as good a time as any to introduce what I know about the Cajamarca crew from group 11, both business and youth. Since we are at war with radical Islamic extremists and I have seen a sum total of none of them here, I cannot for security reasons tell you where they are stationed.
Me: I'm 22, I’m a treat, and I speak English at an advanced superior level and Spanish at intermediate mid (although I'm probably intermediate high now)
Kenneth: Ken just turned 22 and is the son of the former director of the international NGO, CARE. As such, he has lived in the United States for about the sum total of a year, and instead was brought up in Finland, Egypt, Ecuador, some place in Asia, and Uganda. His parents currently reside in DC. He is a dual citizen with Finland, and went to college in Finland, during which time he served in the Finish Army Reserves. He speaks 3 Languages at an advanced high level, English, Finish, and Spanish, and speaks French at intermediate high. He is quite an athlete and spent time playing professionally in the Finish National Futbal League as well as for the Finnish national team. I know all this because he's extremely outgoing, confident, and generally a world of fun to be around. He's extremely good-natured, and I've never seen him angry. Before coming to Peace Corps, he spent time off from college (which he graduated at 20 thanks to the European education system); he spent time working for the micro-financing organization, FINCA. He's taken ladies, sorry. Since he speaks Spanish fluently, I'm sure his town will put him to a variety of uses, although he is a small business volunteer.
James: James is I believe 23, and quite a guitarist. He's got a great sense of humor, makes lots of funny faces and hails from Illinois. He speaks Spanish slightly better than I do, and generally likes to pass the time in as low key a way as possible. Like Ken, I've never seen him angry or impatient. He is currently working in pottery as a Small Business Volunteer, and I just had a wonderful Saturday night with him in Cajamarca sitting around a fire listening to him play Huayno, which is the native music here.
Patty: Patty comes from Massachusetts, a place I know intimately, and went to Providence College. Recently, she told me that her only goal in life is to "experience" and travel. I told her mine was to be a good father and she said "I know, you're Jewish and want little Jewish Babies." That's just her sense of humor though, she also "has lots of Jewish friends". She's very introverted and shy. I don't know what Spanish level she's at because she speaks it about as often as she speaks English. She's working in youth, and has a dry sense of humor, but you'd have to know her to know what she thinks is funny. I don't exactly know what youth does, not to knock it cause I know they do as much as they can just like we do, I'm just saying I don't know what she's doing exactly but if I find out, Ill tell you.
Sal: Sal's got it rough. He has no electricity, no internet, no shower, no toilet, is 8 hours away from Cajamarca, and rat's scurry on the ceiling above his bed. He’s 27, I think, and speaks Spanish better than I do (but not that well for someone named Salvador Garcia). He is lovable, awkwardly lovable. He's a character, I can't quite describe him, but he's fun to be around and generally can be counted on to lift your spirits if you’re bitter about something. He, like I, lived in Yanacoto, and while there, he blew us away by leading a community trash clean up, that yielded 60 participants and definitely helped beautify the area. He is a small business. I've roomed with him several times over the last such and such months and if you ever get a chance, ask him about his tragic comedy "the first love-note I ever wrote".
Jon: The other Jew, Jon is a youth volunteer and a photography enthusiast. He went to Colorado College, is 24, and hails from DC. He once told me a fantastic story about throwing horse remains over the Jurassic Park like fence at the wolf reserve he used to work at in Colorado. His family has one son in the Peace Corps, and his brother is in the Navy after going to the Naval Academy, I figure that has got to make for an interesting dinner table. Jon has an extremely quick wit, typical of his kind, and is known to enjoy a drink or two with his buddies after a long day at the office.
Margaret: The daughter of Tony Kubek, Margaret is quite a lucky youth volunteer because she's stationed in Cajamarca City itself, where she works with teenage mothers and abuse cases. Before coming to Peace Corps she worked for years as a social worker in Harlem. She's highly educated, reserves judgment, and has more years on us with the wisdom to match. After Peace Corps she dreams of getting a PHD in social work, which she will no doubt achieve if she wants. As far as I know she is unmarried and has no children. It takes a very special person to join the Peace Corps as the break between one career and another, and I hold her in high esteem.
Kelly: A Kayaking buff, Kelly is a small business volunteer from Ohio. She speaks Spanish fairly well, and is one year out of her college degree from U. South Carolina. To be honest, we don't know each other that well, but I do know that she loves the Latin American culture, Spanish pickup lines, and dancing salsa with Jon Paul. I'm pretty sure that she like Patty is one of those life journey vision quests that Peace Corps can be if you want it to, but we haven't talked about it.
Leanna: Leanna is easily one of my favorites. She lives with Indians, native South Americans?. I saw her 4 foot 6 inch host mom at the bank with her, and man oh man... indigenous to the extreme. Leanna comes from Nevada and works in youth. She's fun to be around and is a Peace Corps socialite, although if she thinks you've slighted her in some way she'll tell you. She lived in Yanacoto with me, and she claims she can tell what I'm thinking from my facial expressions although I do not believe her.
Micah and Alisha: One of the two married couples that are both stationed in Cajamarca, I must say, I love this pair. Micah and Alisha live in Missouri, but I'm fairly sure that she comes from Wisconsin originally. He was a professional Spanish translator and as such speaks Spanish at an Advanced Superior level, the only one in group 11. They both live in a medium sized city as youth developers and as such, I probably won't see them that often as they probably won't come to Cajamarca for anything that isn't mandatory. These are the nicest people in Group 11, so it makes sense that they’re a married pair.
Milene and Nathan: Another married couple, Milene and Nathan met in high school but got married while attending Georgetown at the age of 20. Now 24, Nathan works in small business, and Milene in youth development. Nathan is extremely organized and was a pleasure to work with during FBT as he was in my group of 3. The pair lives in city that is halfway between sierra and coast, on a lake where they have river prawns, and he works with that association as well as with artisans that make cloth books. They are both good people, and Nathan, if he thinks he is right, will fight for that point, a quality I admire in people. Milene, as she is youth, I do not know as well, but has been more than pleasant in every interaction we've had.
Now you've met the group! Continuing on to my site, 3100 meters in the air. I’m going to digress for a second here, so I can explain how the breakdown of locations works here using analogies. Peru in general would be like the United States as it is a sovereign country. Lima would be like Washington, D.C. as it is the capital city as well as its own unique province, to be explained in the next sentence. Provinces are kind of like states. Each province has a provincial capital, like a state capital. My province is Cajamarca and my provincial capital is Cajamarca City. In each province, there are also county-like entities called departments , and each of them has a departmental capital, a Morristown. My department, my Morris County, is San Miguel and its departmental capital is San Miguel. San Miguel the pueblo is a 2-hour walk from me, and has a population of 5000. Many volunteers are stationed in departmental capitals and in fact, San Miguel has one, from Peru 9. Next there are districts, which are like towns, which also have district capitals. I am in the district capital of LLapa, population 800, however, the entire district has a population of about 2800 living in houses next to fields or in caserillos, small groups of independents consisting of no more than 100. If you are a volunteer and within a short walking district there is a municipality, or a school system, then you are at the very least in the district capital. If you have nothing at all, you are only in the district. Continuing off of my digression, each district capital has a week long fiesta at some point during the year, celebrating the founding of the town, the patron saint of the town, or some other reason they deem appropriate to stop what their doing, hire a bunch of bands and fireworks technicians, and generally open up their district capital to the Peruvian public for a party. The day I came to LLapa was the first day of said fiesta. In my house, my host family's extended family came from Lima, and there were no less than 14 people living here for that period of time. Thankfully, I still had my room to myself. Generally the party went like this, during the day there was drinking and family lunches, as well as a fair going on where vendors brought the Dover flea market to town. During the day, the marching bands would walk up and down the streets, for long hours, only stopping for lunch. One day there was a huge town parade, where each aspect of the community marched by at some point, students, teachers, policemen, and the municipality administrators, literally everyone. Some time before World War 2, German officers came here and taught Peruvians how to march. This style did not go out of vogue following World War 2. It's lovely. Another day, they constructed a float for a statue of Jesus and paraded him up and down the streets no less than a dozen times, stopping every hundred feet to heap His float with flowers or some other tribute, while the marching band played slow mournful music. Two other days, there were bullfights. Bullfighting is a heinous and horrible sport, where the only goal is to torture and kill a 500-kilogram animal as if succeeding at this task is somehow surprising. Perhaps they have not yet gotten the message that humans are a superior species and that we are to be stewards of the environment, rather than blood thirsty Romans at the coliseum. I kept all of this to myself, and watched in horror, as magnificent animal after magnificent animal was over the course of the hours, systematically exhausted, bloodied, and finally, if it was lucky, put out of its misery in one final blow. When the matador missed the first or second times, I could only imagine the pain the animal must have been suffering. I’m not a vegetarian, and I fully believe in the domestication of animals for the purposes of food, but the spectacle and enjoyment of animal suffering bothered me. Following the bullfight or whatever other festivity the day provided, would be a brief interlude. At 10-o-clock at night the Plaza de Armas, the central square of any architecturally Spanish town, would begin to fill with drunks, as the three marching bands, would one by one play songs the people would dance to. On 3 of the nights, LLapa hired professional and semi-famous cumbia, the pop of Peru, bands to come play until 4 or 5 in the morning. By now, I know just about every song the Peruvians are listening to, and let me tell you it’s a different musical world.
By the time it was over, I was more than ready for it to leave. It was impossible to begin working in this environment, and in general, as the only gringo in town, the people didn't quite realize that I wasn't just visiting for the fiestas. When everyone left, and I was still around, I started to receive looks of "doesn't he know the party's over what's he still doing here?" Nevertheless, I used this time, to furnish my room, get to know my host family, and read. The following week, which started last Monday, the work began. I have the privilege of a primary project of working with a group of 60 female artisans that knit all day at home, at least when they aren't washing clothes, preparing food for their machismo husbands, or for some of them, working in the fields. Needless to say I don't know anything about knitting, so the first week was a process of observation as the president of the association, my community partner, prepared to leave for an artisan fair this last weekend in Cajamarca, which I attended with them. For 4 days of work, the ladies yielded about 200 dollars. Over this last weekend, I had begun to notice what it is we need to work on as their organization, which is not yet formalized, a fact I will no doubt come back to countless times over the next year, is a mess to say the least. The women work extremely hard, and I am repeatedly asked to help them find a market for their product, as this is what they envision me doing for them. It is clear that they need much more than simply matching them to a middleman to sell their products for them. The women's accounting system is as such, each artisan has a code, and sets the minimum price for her product which is then put on a piece of masking tape. When a customer comes to the booth, the women ask him or her to pay 10 soles more than the amount that the customer can plainly see on the item. The customer then asks for 10 soles less than the price that they see on the tape. The women at the fair, who represent more than solely themselves, don't have the power to lower this price however, as each artisan has already set her own minimum price, yet being reserved, quiet, and lacking sales expertise, the saleswomen at the fair fails to mention this and simply says no. The customer, who may have actually wanted this item, then leaves frustrated and the artisans share the feeling. If a sale is made, they may or may not record it in a notebook that they may or may not have remembered to bring, but only the artisan whose product was sold and for what price. What that product was, the beginnings of a statistical system, is entirely forgone. Furthermore, the minimum price that the women set for their products is neither logically correlated to hours spent making the product, as they have no idea in reality this number, nor is it related to the quality of the materials it is made with. Rather a good solid guess is made. As mentioned before, the women have no idea what sells and what doesn't, and are just as likely to make tomorrow a product that didn't sell today as a product that did. They have no catalogue, no process for taking orders, and no consistency to the type of products they make. They make what they feel like making, in whatever colors they want, and each piece is individual. They don't produce within a niche industry, say organic materials, and have little conception of who their product is supposed to be bought by. If you are an exporter, or have an indigenous crafts store in Lima catering to tourists and selling Peruvian products, are you going to order from the formalized (meaning group that has a tax code) group that can guarantee you the same product shipment after shipment, or the one that only makes one offs, irrespective of your markets desires? As a group they lack the foresight to engage in market research going on, and it’s a systematic problem. It's not as if once there was a president of the organization that had been collecting statistics for the last 10 years to see which of the products they make actually sell and then one day they voted to abandon this process because it was deemed too hard. Ideas of this kind would be completely revolutionary. So there's a lot to be done, and its not going to be easy, but I like a good challenge. Brand image could be better, but I'd rather be a CEO that reforms than the one that just goes with status quo and coasts, the bonuses are bigger.
My host family. My host brother Antonio is 17 and about to start college at the University in Cajamarca. He has a girlfriend at the University of Trujillo who is from LLapa and whom he has hidden from his family for the last 2 years because either the families don't get along or it would be against his mother's wishes, can't quite tell. He left after the fiestas to visit her in Trujillo, but told his mom he was going to Lima, which cracks me up, I remember when I was 17 pulling similar stunts. I never got away with anything though, as my mom likes to censor email, mail, phone calls, etc. He's a good kid and he's beat me in billiards no less than 8 times already, thinks my accent is the funniest thing in the world, and likes to say "one moment please" with his horrible accent regardless of the circumstances. My host sister, Maria, is 13, studies at the secondaria and I couldn't tell you what her voice sounds like. Its not that she's shy, I think she must be forbidden from talking with me. My host mom, Patty, is 44, and the Peruvian public schools religion teacher, which I just find so ironic. After teaching religion all day, she likes nothing more than to come home and down a beer or two before preparing dinner. She's nice, it's just hard to compare her to my host mom in Yanacoto, who treated me like a son and gave me a kiss every day after class. The sierra is not the coast, and training is not Peace Corps. My host father is in his early 50s and the math teacher at the secondaria. He's also amicable enough, I think I just need a few months to get in with them. I'm the first gringo to ever live here and there isn't an English speaker closer than an hour and a half walk away. Luckily I have cell phone service and the internet, so I really have nothing at all to complain about, other than what I suspect lives in my bed. Many people eat what's called pension at my house. Pension is when a person doesn't cook their own, say lunch or dinner, and comes over to your house instead because your mom cooks for 10 people more than necessary. Its not the same as a restaurant, its a communal eating arrangement. Some people are on a pay-per-meal meal policy and others come at the same times every week. This means that generally the food is good for Peru, although its mess hall status. I haven't had a meal yet, that hasn't featured a sliced up potato in some form and a heaping pile of rice. Other than that, a piece of chicken (if I said my prayers that morning), some overcooked pig, or a fried egg. Fruits and vegetables can't make it here with any sort of regularity or quality remaining. Pretty much it’s a carbohydrate diet supplemented with some amount of inferior meat or protein. My problem with this isn't that I miss the salads and fruits, although I do like salad. I'm the sort of person that, not to say that I'm a picky eater because that's not what I mean and I'm not, but I will often at home choose to not eat when I can't find something I'd really like to eat, unless I'm starving. That's fine with me, because I'm not a huge food person. I eat when I'm hungry, and I stop when I'm not. That policy is not an option here. I eat what is given to me, whether I'm hungry or not and whether I like the option provided or not. Food isn't something that would make or break my experience anyway, I'll stop talking about it... but I do miss root beer, real steak, and salad. Even when I have had salad in Peru, the process of sterilizing it has made it be not enjoyable in the process. I miss water as well. The water here a) needs to be boiled and b) doesn't taste great after being boiled. Turning on your tap and drinking the water is not ever something I will take for granted again, and people with Brita filters I now deem as simply ungrateful, or perhaps over-reactionary germaphobes. The refrigerator, I've learned, is better left unopened, not because its horribly rancid in there, so much as you simply don't want to know what goes into your food, and knowing would make you less anxious to wake up in the morning.
I bought a Yamaha PSR 213 keyboard, for 560 soles. They gave me a moving in allowance of 600 and I figured, what's the difference, few things will keep me sane like a keyboard when I have no one to talk to. It has a bunch of beats to play along with, and an automatic accompanist meaning if I play a chord below, it will accompany me with some jazziness in that chord while I can do what I want up in the treble. For 200 more soles I could have gotten touch sensitivity, meaning the volume of a note I play will change depending how hard I hit it, and a pedal, but hey you got to skimp somewhere. I would bet anything your tired of reading this, and trust me I'm tired of writing so I guess, Ill update again in a week. I'm sorry I haven't been blogging, I am. There's more to say, I just, I’m bored at this minute... call me, email me, facebook message me, mail me...
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