Its really just a piece of cake...or banana bread

So my weeks have been passing fairly smoothly. I’m looking at one month in site already, and I have had several opportunities to feel integrated and even slightly purposeful in my community. I’ve also found some time to see some of the other sites around my area, and in fact just returned from Brad’s site called Vitis which is about 15Km’s away. Of course to get there it’s a 6K (3.6 mile) hike to the main road, where I catch (hopefully if one hasn’t missed it) the only passing vehicle to Vitis. And luckily this time I did get to the road in time to hop on the bus otherwise it’s another 9Km hike straight uphill to Brad! Brad’s site is literally situated on a mountain outcrop, and is aptly named “El Cuidad de los Vientos,” or like our own Chicago, “The City of The Winds.” Once I got to Vitis I met up with Brad and we ate some of the local delicacy, fried trout; a fish that isn’t native to Peru, but has become a symbol of pride for many rural communities because they have started their own successful fish farms. Afterwards we met one of the environmental and tourism promoters in his site and we headed up the mountain to post a “Do Not Throw Trash” sign near the trails to some of the local archeological sites, and then headed back down just before the rain started….
.....Now let me pause a moment and let me inform you that putting up a small 3’x 2’ sign with such a simple and common message as “Do Not Throw Trash” is a monumental success for sites like Brad’s and mine. I can imagine its surprising when you think a simple sign like this can be made and hung in one afternoon by visiting Lowe’s back in the states, but when you’re faced with the challenge of living in communities where you may not even know you have an environmental and tourism committee until after 6 months in site and the supplies alone take another 2 weeks to procure, you can begin to imagine how volunteers take their successes, no matter how small, as giant steps forward….
So after the hike and sign hanging we bought some bananas, slightly browning, for what Brad and I considered the next great achievement of the day; making banana bread in his newly purchased oven! We followed the recipe as best we could, mixing the batter in chipped bowls and dented pots, and using guess-tamation to preheat the small gas oven that was lacking temperature gauges. We substituted some ingredients with others, and added our own flavors like roasted peanuts and honey that was made at Brad’s site. We popped our makeshift stew-pot/pie-pan into the over, and waited patiently listening to Christmas music on Brad’s computer, passing the time like usual during the rainy season with conversation and tea drinking. After an hour had passed with frequent checking, our masterpiece was complete and a total success! Two inspiring volunteers, lacking all proper materials were able to improve the quality of our community’s environment by promoting proper trash management, and even more so, we were able to amazingly produce outstanding banana bread at over 13,000ft in elevation with a small gas powered oven in the middle of Brad’s room! Now if that’s not ingenuity and embodiment of the Peace Corp experience, I don’t know what is!

All Systems Are Go

I probably struck pay dirt with my site, I honestly couldn’t have been luckier. First of all, I live with a host family where my mom is part of the Recursos Naturales Comite and my dad is president of the PTA. I met an environmental/English teacher that is super excited to get me in the schools to teach enviro-education and a full immersion English class to the chicos. The governor of my town is super motivated to start a trash clean-up program with my help. My mayor is super motivated in general which is hard to come by in such a small town. There are two, yes two, agricultural/forestation promotion organizations near my site that make regular visits to my town. And, I have two community partners that seem much obliged to work with a gringo on just about any project! So to say I’m grateful is an understatement. During training we heard horror stories of people having tons of problems in every area I just mentioned, and in some cases not making these breakthroughs until half-way through their service! I won’t be shy in saying a lot of the early breakthroughs I’m making are partly my on doing by just getting my face out in the community; but honestly the majority of a volunteer’s success is totally dependent on the communities attitude, and even more just purely circumstantial. So once again, to say I’m grateful is an understatement. I still have those times when absolutely nothing happens, when the rain is pouring and all you can do is wait. But when part of my “integration,” (which I might add is supposed to be the hardest part of the two years,) is going fishing all day with my host brother in some of the most scenic places I’ve experienced thus far, I consider myself pretty lucky.

Also, my family is really starting to warm up to me. It’s a small step forward when they invite me to watch the one channel television with them, but its such a big success in my mind considering they’ve never experienced a volunteer (even more so, a gringo) living with them. You learn to count your blessings no matter how small when you’re this far from anything you once knew as comfortable. I think what I’ve truly learned to appreciate is how much warmer a room can be with other people eating and laughing can be when there is a freezing rain outside. The idea that you depend on other people for your comforts is really new to me, as strange as it sounds. My time in the Army showed me I can survive and endure strange situations, but now that I’m in the Peace Corps I’m finally learning to enjoy those situations as well.

Its been 2 weeks already

So its been two weeks already and since my town has electricity today I´m going to bang out a blog on the Municipalidad´s ¨full speedy¨ internet...
I´ve pretty much spent the last 2 weeks realizing that things just seem to fall into place in this backwoods, rural town of Yauyos. It must be that ¨country living¨ type of mindset you hear so much about on the country station but never have the slightest idea what thier singing about. I can literally leave my house with one goal in mind, randomly run into someone I wanted to find the day before, end up making an appointment for tommorrow, and then realize that I still haven´t met my goal but I understand that if I go to the appointment tommorrow (which will probably fall through) I can achieve it then! If you can understand that, then you´re ready for the Peace Corps. Honestly my best advice for future volunteers or anyone wondering how to cope with a similar situation, is just stay out of your room and roam around the streets or just make spanish small talk (no matter how horrible your spanish is.) Each day i´m talking to new people, or even visiting the same small shops and having the same small conversations, but from what we were told in training, its the best way to intergrate yourself.
So far by just randomly walking around or asking the silly question of ¨Do you have plans today?¨ I´ve helped with some potatoes, milked some cows, dug an irrigation ditch, was taken on a tour of the nearby ruins, and even participated in a monthly meeting of all the park guards here in the Yauyos Reserve. I couldn´t have done these things if I was only watching the 3rd season of ¨The Office¨ in my room, cursing the afternoon rains. Sure it was a shock to arrive here, and i´m still learning to cope with it all (especially the cold...especially the cold and how Miraflores has yet to upgrade to insulation or indoor heating,) and yes, I do spend time in my room. But overall, as my ¨go, go, go¨ American mindset slowly settles into the rhythm of life thats seems so much more fitting for a rural life-style, I am learning to appreciate being in the moment, and realizing that this experience is going to go by just as fast even if I´m taking it slow....
So practical advice in sum: If you can´t sit still for longer than one hour while you watch your host family prepare a scarf for weaving while its raining cats and dogs outside, once again re-wetting your clothes on the line that you washed 3 days ago, and being out spoken by your 3 year old host sister (atleast for my level of spanish), then I you might want to re-consider joining!