Facts, Quips, Thoughts, and Confessions

It’s been quite a while since I posted last.  Quite a while. Although I would be apologetic about this I feel that most of you folk who read my blog either A) talk to my mom, who, via my weekly e-mails or inhibition (but more likely my weekly e-mails) passes along the up-to-date info or B) don’t actually have too keen an interest in keeping up with the drear of rural Peru, and thus I’ll save my apologies for a more important lack of harbingers that are sure to come in the future.

Because it has been almost an entire month since my last post I feel that it’s imperative that I relay the highlights here which should also give you a pretty good visual of the day to day life that I’ve been leading. Let me preface this by saying that none of my comments are too exotic or ridiculous. Despite the fact that I have no exact daily schedule and am still trying to make “friends” there has been no problem that is so out of hand that the beautiful mind of yours truly, graced and learned by the the knowledge of my Heller parents has not yet been able to deal with. Tears have come very rarely—t hank the lords above—and optimism still shines through the haziness of the horizon.

With that being said, here are a few of the facts, quips, thoughts, and confessions I’ve crossed paths with since January began:

1. Peruvians don’t pee. This is above and beyond my comprehension, but I have a theory that just as some people outgrow their lactose tolerance, Peruvians outgrow their need to urinate after about the age of 6. Now I don’t want to seem like the Potty Patrol but with 12 people and one bathroom, trust me, I know when people are “going”. And I know that I have seen the five-year-old pee twice, three-year-old once, and the others never. I suspect this has to do with the fact that they also consume about .01 cups of water/day COMBINED… but I could be wrong. On the other hand I am looked at like the polar bear in the Minnesota Zoo; with pity and sadness because they know that while I survive, using the latrine every couple of hours, I feel completely out of my habitat and all they can do is look on.

2. I have developed a fear (not quite a phobia) which I don’t exactly know how to define. It’s basically a “What-if-when-I-grow-up-and-become-a-mom-my-kids-are-those-weirdos-who-don’t-know-anything-about-the-real-world-because-their-mom-made-everything-by-hand” kind of fear. Let me explain. I am on limited resources. Although my district/municipality officially “invited” me to work here they have absolutely no money and no resources that they can give me. That means that my skills of being creative and making something out of nothing come in handy here! I’ve made hanging baskets out of mosquito nets (hopefully I don’t need those in the future), shelving out of fruit crates, games and educational tools galore with recycled tins, paints, and papers that I have. It also means that I am becoming completely reliant on having nothing at all to the extent that I am now fearful that my kids will be playing “Chutes and Ladders” handmade on the back of a used sweater with rocks as playing pieces, or that their playing cards will be scraps of beer bottle labels on which numbers are drawn. I might go as far as to make them wear shoes made of old juice cartons just because I can despite my having a future job as the ambassador of Panama or something like that. As I said, it’s just a fear, nothing more.

3. Successful interior decoration only comes once you let go of preconceived notions which define “comfortable”. Of course, I already stated that I rue the idea of functional fixedness… if a bucket wants to be a hat, so be it! If I can fancy a tree nursery of old boxes and sticks, I will! But making your room a cozy place requires that you release a bit more of your inhibition. After a couple of months in site I am proud to say that I feel very at home in my new living space, having a fully functional (yet not with complete accommodations) kitchen, sitting area, and bed. Might I utilize this space to show off a couple of photos…?

Notice the lovely amount of storage space, beautiful (plastic) backsplash that I just recently added, and the two buckets, one a modern cistern and the other specialized to collect pig-slop. Can you believe that one of them is the paint bucket of the very marigold paint I chose to adorn these walls?! It’s a great room with lots of light, and despite the fact that I have to duck because the ceiling is exactly my height, I love it. Special thanks to my friends and family who have sent me cards along the way so far. Just FYI all of them have been hung up right next to my bed so I can get them warm-fuzzies as I drift off and right as I rise and shine.

4. Hyperawareness is a thing here. I feel that for me it is rooted in the fact that I might get osteoporosis and a hunch-back prematurely while living here. I am hyperaware of the curve of my spine. I am also hyperaware of my cognitive abilities. You know how when you’re in 5^th grade or so all the kids are like “If you hit yourself in the head you lose blah-blah-blee-blah amount of brain cells,”…? You know? Well being over 5’3” here is an insane asylum and scrunch-back-mcgee waiting to happen. I happen to be 5’7” (almost, to be honest, in case my sister is reading this). I would say that doors average a height of about five foot. That is not to mention walking through stairwells, passages, and tents in the market. On average I hit my head about 10 times per week. And that includes me scrunching my back or trying to squat-walk (which looks very awkward if you haven’t tried). To add to this, there are hardly ever chairs instead of stools to sit on, and when there are they’re those little mini chairs with the six inch legs that are abound in preschools and kindergarten classes. Hopefully the problem of me becoming a Notre Dame bell ringer is not too far-fetched for you now.

Just for fun here is me sitting on one of the tiny chairs. It is my first-grade summer school class painting rocks and enjoying the beauty that the school grounds can provide.

5. Today I realized that even those host families who usually seem timid and quiet can by sympathetic and even humorous in the event that the white girl living with them breaks the sink faucet. At 7:30 AM sharp (as I have found is the most opportune time to wash my dishes despite the freezing cold) I descended the steps, tub of pots and plates in hand, and said leftover morning hellos just like any other day. Unlike other days, I had classes to teach at 8 and had already changed into what I presume is appropriate foreigner garb for the elementary students. I stepped up to the sink, turned on the faucet, and before I knew it was drenched in water from neckline to waist and screaming for Jesus to come save me. He appeared next to me within seconds and attempted fix the situation. Jesus is also the name of my host grandpa who knows all about the rigging and plumbing in this home. Maybe if the real Jesus had come he could have fixed the faucet, but my host gramps and I tried for a few minutes to get the hardware working without success. Instead we caught the water that we could in buckets for the next three hours until the trickle came to a slow stop, and throughout the day my family teased me for “finally having tried to bathe, without success”. The truth is that no, I don’t bathe here because it’s too cold until 2 PM and after that we don’t have running water. But they were kind and I appreciated their joking, and the next day before I went to wash my dishes the faucet had broken again on my host sister who was having a fit that I never would have dreamed of performing.

6. A final list for things that I appreciate and think daily to end this list:

1. I have a GREAT class of summer-schoolers who like to paint, talk about why nature is important, make cheese, and giggle with me.
2. I am almost on par with Peruvians so far as potato-to-other-factors-of-diet goes. For me this is about 1.5-2 per day. They hold about a 3. I think that the world record potato eater would probably have about 4. I don’t even know, though
3. Listening to the radio here is something I’ve come to enjoy. If you thought that the radio in the US was repetitive…forget it. Huayno is where it’s at.
4. I lost my cell phone at the mark of the New Year and have only missed it once so far. I think that if anything that’s a testament to my being able to live solitarily here.
5. Pigs will come, and pigs will go, but the really fat pigs that you walk past daily who grunt in their sleep are forever.

Hopefully I don’t wait this long to post again, and those updates must suffice until next time.

As an extra make-it-up-to-ya’ll here are some other pics from the last few weeks that I found worthy…