I went into Cajamarca specifically so I could watch television (which of course is only Fox News, unless I pay for drinks at this one tourist bar that has satellite and thus CNN) and be with other Peace Corps volunteers. Election night otherwise would have been a seriously homesick moment; America comes together... minus me. Anyway, the road from LLapa to Cochan is now impassable and might remain that way until the end of the rainy season in April. I can walk it if i choose, but the cars leave at around 730 and its about a 2 and a half hour hike right now with all the mud which means I have to leave in the dark and walk around in the dark for an hour, and I wasn't up for that this time so I chartered a circuitous ride through San Miguel up through a town I've never been to called Santa Rosa. All in all it takes me about 6 and a half hours to get from my site to Cajamarca these days. Like I've said before, it wouldn't be so bad, except that (my record) there's likely to be 11 fully grown people in the 5 seater. The worst seat is the guy that has to straddle the stick shift. At least 3-4 hours of the trip is over mud/dirt road, throw in the stick shift and that makes it miserable. If it wasn't for how beautiful the trip is... I'm losing my touch with the English language, so I'm just gonna go with "beautiful". Other versions of me would be more creative with word choice. Every time I go a different route, I find another favorite road I've ever been on. These are roads that make the drive around Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton look like driving through Newark on the way to the Path. Besides, in America, the guard rail always spoils the view downwards, no need to fret about that here. Anyway, I stayed in a different hostel this time with Patty, Leanna, Ken, Jon and me sharing a 5-shooter room. This hostel was right on the Plaza, within perfect view of the riot we thought was sure to ensue following the election news.
A note on Fox News: I'm really glad no one speaks English to understand what these people are saying. Their coverage is embarrassing. CNN, when you get it, broadcasts in Spanish, but they just do a world of a better job at not embarrassing me as an American. No joke, Fox News asked one of its anchorman, "we know Barack is a big basketball fan, can you tell us if there's a basketball court on the White House grounds?" Another instance of blatant racial reporting was when they were outraged about one isolated incident of Black Panthers outside a voting booth in Philadelphia and how menacing they were. Now I'm not defending the Panthers for being there, but they didn't deserve 25 minutes of news time. Also, the insinuation that blacks, and therefore socialist democrats were election tampering, is pretty laughable. In my life I've never ever heard of long lines or intimidating police presences at suburban or rural election centers. It seems to me that the urban election centers are where its hardest to vote, where voters are more likely to give up after long lines or simply not bother due to the known hassle. That seems to be a pretty anti-democratic measure built into the system. Two black panthers outside one voting booth in Philadelphia though is clearly, to Fox News, democratic election fixing. I'm not saying they're right to be there, I'm saying Fox News is awful. Also Bill O'Reily is the most un-American figure in news. He's more un-American than that awful lady at CNN Amanananananapour, and I'm not sure she's American to begin with. I'm just saying, I know it sells, I know fear sells and the partisan's love someone to just poke sticks at people. I realize he's such a monstrosity that he's bound to get good ratings, I just wish media pundits weren't necessarily a business and looked at their job as a civic responsibility, like the old broadcasters and anchorman of the 1950s-1980s. Cable has done more to increase partisan politics than anything I can think of. We all used to come together as American's around the news, now we can all go to our own little corner of the ideological mundo and stay there, never hearing dissenting opinions if we chose not to. Getting madder and madder at the other side, not realizing we did it to ourselves by subscribing to cable and preferring one station over another. It seems to me the only logical conservative voices left are in the print media. There they have a higher standard of accountability, they have to form coherent arguments from the ground up. Karl Rove, a member of the "fair and balanced" team, doesn't hold himself to that standard. God bless those few in the print though because we need to have the arguments, I just... I just can't watch it on Fox news. Plus their anchorman are all obviously wearing makeup, WHILE reporting anti-homosexual story lines. Their main problem in my eyes is that the Republican agenda is so lost right now, that they don't know how to report on fiscally conservative policy, which is wholly logical when presented correctly, without mixing it with the Republican agenda the political campaigns feed them. They should just stop, dissolve, and try again. I just want you to know, that if I had access to MSNBC, I might be going off about them right now, although I do think the Democratic Party has a clearer grasp of its issues right now, and therefore its reporting wing is probably similarly less offensive to coherent thought.
The Peruvian people here were strongly in support of Barack Obama, although their culture is itself, as racist as any other. Spanish speakers have a habit of calling people by their physical appearance, its not necessarily racism/discrimination. A fat lady shouldn't be instantly offended if a shop keeper beckons her from her perch, "hola gordita, puedo ayudarse, que esta buscando" (hey fatty, can i help you, what are you looking for). Similarly, I am not offended when I am referred to as "jovencito" (young man), where I would instantly be in the US if the guy at Best Buy said to me "whatcha you lookin' for kid" or if I'm called "flaquito" (skinny boy). Its part of the culture here, that this is acceptable. "Cholo" pretty much means "injun" in straight translation, but I know at least 15 kids who are referred to as Cholito (little indian boy) by the adults that surround them. Fujimori, the disgraced Peruvian President of the 1990s, is "El Chino" despite being of Japanese heritage. Alejandro Toledo, the first ethnically indigenous president ever elected president of Peru (in 2001) is known as "El Cholo". Barack Obama is "El Negrito". When you put the direct article el in front of a title, it means the one and only. If you come to Peru and talk about El Negrito, I'm pretty sure you're not talking about any other black person except Barack Obama, unless differentiating between one person and another as if to say "not that one, but rather the black one". This, like I said before, is in my opinion not intended as racism. I know there are hard liners out there that would be outraged to hear this, but I believe that for an offensive crime to be committed there must be intent. Theirs is a crime in our eyes, but since their culture has never tackled this as a whole, I don't believe you can hold any one individual responsible. This is not to say that these terms can not be used offensively. They sure can. I just think that in normal usage, they are not intended as offensive. Especially considering that the average rural Peruvian here doesn't have a access to a newspaper, El Negrito its a much easier name to remember than Barack Obama, which I admit took me at least 3 months to learn how to spell correctly.
Anyway, I was told by one Peruvian before the election that "Si ustedes elegiren El Negrito, ustedes van a estar los Caballeros del Mundo" (If you elected "The Black One", you will be the gentleman of the world". I do believe strongly, that by electing Barack Obama, we have broken historic barriers and conceptions about what race means, and I believe the world was watching. I don't think we were obligated to elect him based on this imperative because our policy decisions should be more important than identity politics. But I also believe that this resounding decision by our country's voters has and did send a clear message to the rest of the world about the future of humanity. It is my hope that someday, over a thousand years of American constitutional democracy, we also find worthy of the presidency candidates whom are of other backgrounds previously thought to be disagreeable to the American voter. I believe we will. Barack Obama isn't just a Black man, he is an exceptionally educated, articulate, and accomplished black man. I hope that we continue to look at our candidates this way, and continue to put our emphasis on the latter part of that statement.
The riot never came, but we threw our own riot, as the impact of what had just happened, sunk in. Tears were shed. This was one of those, tell your grandchildren about it moments. Peace Corps Volunteers around the world had a unique perspective on it. We are sent here to represent as best we can, America's best hopes for the world and the impact that we can have as Americans. We are the one foreign policy initiative America has that is not instantly targetable as solely for America's self interest, although I believe that we strongly do represent America's self interest as well. I wouldn't be here otherwise. I've had conversations in Spanish about America's intentions in Iraq, a military action I see as being against all philosophical just war doctrine. I always defend the war, and defend our intentions, because a) they don't know I'm playing devils advocate and b) if I don't defend Americanism here no one else will. These aren't conversations with American citizens who can write their congressmen based on what I can convince them of. These are foreign nationals, who will shake their heads, and say what a shame. I'd rather get them to think about it in their heads and instead form their opinions of America based on the work I do here. I know whose team I'm on. I don't know that I've ever been more proud to be American, no devil's advocate necessary, than I was when Barack reached 270. I don't agree with much of his policy, but I think... I think we finally won the Civil War. Two days ago we took back America for real Americans, and we acknowledged that real American's come from every, every single, corner of this globe.
In other news, James and Margaret, two volunteers from Cajamarca and my group, have decided to go home. They both had really difficult sites, James was the second business volunteer to travel to his site, and the second to leave after 2 months as well. I got to say goodbye to James. and I'm genuinely sad to see him go, and I wish him all the luck in the world. Margaret was located in Cajamarca itself, and thus integrating was an insurmountable challenge. Its like someone sent you to Albany, New York and said, "Go help some children". Thats a tough pill to swallow. Good luck to you too Margaret.
You have no idea how long it takes socks to dry with humidity consistently at like 95%.
Stay Classy America, I'll Make You Proud
Mateo
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