Easing my way back into the world

In a few months time I will be returning to the American way of life, and so today I decided to do a test run.  I had a meeting that was set for 8:00 a.m., so I figured if I was getting up that early, I might as well make a day of it.  Throughout the day, I worked, cooked, cleaned, did laundry, showered, worked on my computer, and talked on the phone.  Sounds very American, I know, but while the verbs are the same, the actual actions were very different. 

First, work.  For my 8:00 meeting, I managed to stop hitting the snooze button by 7:45, threw on some clothes and put my hair in a ponytail, ignored the makeup but remembered to brush my teeth, and arrived at 8:30.  Now, I realize that showing up thirty minutes late for a meeting would not exactly earn me a promotion in any US corporation, but here it meant that I was about an hour early.  Realizing my mistake, I headed back home, made breakfast burritos with homemade tortillas, worked on my “to do” list for the day, then headed back at about 9:30 for the meeting.  I had another meeting that was supposed to start at 10 (aka 11), but the school was having its Mother’s Day celebration today, so we rescheduled for next week.  Of course, this was decided by the fact that no one showed up, which meant that I got to go and talk to the different associations later on during the day to pick another time. 

However, in true American fashion, I was not idle while I waited (fruitlessly) for people to show up.  I cleaned.  I threw my sheets in soapy water to begin returning them to their original color, then cleaned my room while they soaked.  During the cleaning process I found a scorpion in my bed, which is always comforting.  I also found a ton of spiders, but those I left alone.  Now, I realize that leaving spiders and their webs where you find them is decidedly un-American, but most of those webs were stuffed with mosquitoes, proof that they were paying enough rent to continue living in my room.  Like they say, my enemy’s enemy is my friend.  An hour later, my room was much cleaner (with all of those spider webs I can’t honestly call it clean) and my sheets were drying on the line, but I was incredibly dirty and sweaty.

I distinctly remember maintaining a consistently higher standard of bodily cleanliness in the US, so I headed for the shower.  But despite the use of soap and running water, the showering experience here is completely different than that of the US.  For instance, when you enter the shower you spend the first ten minutes hunting mosquitoes.  The green fungus growing on the walls hides them really well, so they can only be spotted when they are flying.  As a result, you spend those ten minutes kicking and slapping the walls, with some mid-air clapping going on as well.  It’s like a very weird form of the hokey-pokey, only without any singing and with the risk of large welts and loss of blood if you don’t do it right.  And when you do finally start the water, you still spend the entire time randomly slapping yourself every time you think you feel a mosquito.  Even so, after all that, you leave with at least three large mosquito bites, generally in either the middle of your back or other, more inappropriate, areas.  And what do you do the moment you get clean?  Put on bug repellant, got inside my mosquito net, and inventoried the new purses that we just got in (pictures will be coming soon).

In the evening I called my parents, using a calling card and having to hang up and call back due to bad connections.  Now it is 11:00 at night and I am typing away on my computer, partly because I felt like writing, and partly because the light from the screen attracts all the mosquitoes that have managed to get inside the mosquito net, and if I don’t get them while I type, I’ll make sure I get them before falling asleep.  Yeah, not so sure that people in the US are in the habit of smashing mosquitoes on their laptops or using them as mosquito bait.  But I what can I say?  I’m easing back into the American world a little bit at a time.  Poco a poco.

 

No Peeps in Peru

WARNING: This email may contain material that is too shocking for children under certain ages.  Parental supervision is recommended.  That’s right folks, this email has a “must be this tall to ride” sign. 

You see, we’ve just recently finished up with the Easter holiday, which I celebrated by freezing at 15,500 feet in the Peruvian Andes and therefore successfully avoided what could have been a terrible cultural shock – there is no Easter bunny in Peru.  Not a single sign of him anywhere.  I’ll wait a moment for the significance of this to sink in… No Easter bunny means no egg hunts, which means parents have no method of bribing their children to wear all the cute Easter clothes.  It also means that all of us adults have no excuse for buying  completely unnecessary amounts of candy, which we will inevitably end up eating ourselves, thus ensuring that dentist practices will remain open for at least another year. 

After a little contemplation, I’ve come up with a few different reasons for the lack of dyed eggs in Peru.  The first of which is DISTANCE.  Unlike Santa Claus and his speedy reindeer, the Easter bunny has nothing but his own for paws for transportation, making any story about him traveling the world in one day very improbable.  Anyone who has ever seen a rabbit hop along would never buy a story involving a rabbit traveling the world in one day, no matter how young they are.  As it is, there must be an underground network of bunnies working together to accomplish such a feat, and that is where you run into another snag in Peru – the only rabbits around are those that are being raised by families for food.  You’re not going to find a lot of wild rabbits running around the countryside. 

Another problem doesn’t involve rabbits, but the chickens here and their egg-laying habits.  The eggs here are not clean and white like the ones in the US that are practically begging to be painted bright colors.  The eggs here are various shades of tan, which isn’t exactly the ideal color to start off the dying process.  They are also a lot smaller, which would make them a little more difficult to find during an egg hunt and trust me, a bunch of lost eggs hanging out in the desert sun would not make for a pleasant living environment.  Maybe they did try the whole Easter egg hunt here, and after a few such catastrophes decided that it wasn’t worth it. 

And lastly, I blame the candy companies for the lack of Easter bunny enthusiasm.  If you think about it, Americans celebrate three holidays every year that encourage us to overindulge our sugar cravings – Easter, Halloween, and Christmas.  Seeing as how it is the candy companies that rake in the majority of the profits during these times, I’m guessing that the marketing they do during those holidays is tremendous.  Peruvian candy companies, on the other hand, haven’t quite caught on to the whole “marketing” idea.  Maybe it is the difference in disposable income, but very rarely have I seen adults here buying candy.  So rarely, in fact, that I can’t actually remember it ever happening and I am just assuming that it has to happen somewhere.  But basically, this is not a candy-consuming society, and therefore holiday traditions in which candy plays a vital role have not developed.  I don’t blame the people for this, because everyone loves candy, right?  So it must be the fault of the candy producers, who are failing to convince their audience that they not only like candy, but cannot imagine going without it.  Then, and only then, will the Easter bunny make his way down to the Southern Americans.

 

What I learned in the mountains

Over the Easter weekend, I joined a few volunteers on a three day hike through some beautiful mountains in Peru.  Along the way, I realized that a lot of the advice you get for hiking also applies to life.  Feel free to add some more if you want.

Watch your step

When you’re walking along a trail, it is very easy to get distracted.  There is plenty to look at around you, people to talk to, etc, and little by little you become less concerned with what you are doing.  You pay less and less attention to the steps you are taking until you stumble, stub your toe, slip on a rock, or step in a puddle.  My favorite part about that is it takes us by surprise every time, as if we have no idea how that happened.  We forget that each step does matter and if we don’t pay attention to what we are doing, there will inevitably be consequences.  On the hike, I would often try to take in the scenery around me, watching the trail out of the corner of my eye.  Problem is, I wear glasses and things are a bit blurry that way.  It turns out that donkey poo, if you blur the edges and aren’t really paying attention, looks a lot like a rock.  The other problem was that the trail had a lot of standing water and I was basically hopping from one rocky patch to the next, and so when I did mistake a pile of manure for a rock, I really mistook it for a rock.

Look ahead

And while being aware of what steps you are taking is important, it is equally important to make sure that you are heading in the right direction.  More times than I could count, I would be focusing on what I was doing only to realize that I could go no further.  On this hike, the problem was generally that the trail had turned into a small river and we would have to backtrack and find a way around.  No big deal, but it takes a lot less time and energy to look ahead from time to time to see if the path you are taking will get you where you need to go. 

Go at your own pace

This is one of the first things our guide told us, and also tends to be one of the hardest things to accept on the trail.  We tend to rate ourselves based on what those around us are doing, and on a hike, this means that we are somehow losing if we aren’t walking as fast as everyone else.  No one wants to be the last one into camp.  But if you focus on keeping up with everyone around you, you completely miss the point.  The point of a race is to be the first one to the end.  The point of a hike is to enjoy the walk, look around, take pictures, and in general, make memories.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t work for things.  Climbing a mountain is obviously going to be at least a little difficult no matter what.  But you don’t have to kill yourself to get it done. 

Don’t be afraid to lead

On a hike, there is always one person in front with everyone else following behind.  Quite honestly, I had never been comfortable being the person in front.  I preferred being the second or third person.  I just didn’t like the idea of people watching me, stepping where I stepped.  I always worried that I wasn’t going fast enough or I was going too fast.  I would get all embarrassed when someone would take a different way than the one I went on and it turned out to be better.    But apparently I have gotten over that.  Everyone, at one point or another, will be the one in front.  And you know what?  You’ll probably do just fine.

Make your own trail

There are times when the official path, the path that everyone agrees is the correct path, is still not the best path for you to take at the time.  This was especially true on this hike because the rainy season was just ending, and about 3 months of rain had turned much of our trail into a river.  But what a trail is nothing more than the route that other people have taken to get to a certain destination.  It is not the only route that must be taken to get there.  True, if that many people have gone that way then it probably works.  Just because the majority of people go that way, it does not mean that you must as well. 

It’s more fun with friends

Hiking, as well as life in general, is more fun when it is shared with people you care about.  And I am not talking solely about experiencing beauty together or sharing good times and laughter.  Some of my best memories of the hike are about overcoming obstacles and getting through rough moments.  You learn a lot about your friends in times like that, and when you come out on the other side you are usually closer for it. 

Be in the present

Have you ever noticed that we rarely focus on what is happening right now?  We are usually planning some future event or going over something that happened in the past or, as happens most often in my case, coming up with hypothetical situations that will most likely never come to pass.  I noticed this happening a lot when I was on the hike.  There I was, surrounded by beauty that will not remain much longer (the glaciers we saw up there are disappearing fast), and I noticed that my thoughts were everywhere but on what was happening right then.  I find my inability to focus on what is right in front of me both sad and frustrating.  Sad because I feel like I miss a lot of opportunities that way, and frustrating because I am having a hard time changing.  I really want to learn how to be content with now instead of constantly coming up with what I could have done differently yesterday or trying to change what will happen tomorrow.  I want today to be enough.

It’s all in your head

But the key lesson I learned on this trip is that what you are dealing with is not as important as the way you are dealing with it.  The first two days of our hike it was raining.  We were cold, wet, and tired.  One thing after another seemed to go wrong.  And yet, there was a minimal amount of complaining.  It turns out that you can be physically miserable and still have a blast.  We laughed, we joked, and we really appreciated the simple things, like the wonderfully warm soup.  It could have been a miserable situation if we had let it be.  We could have focused on the hardships and gotten frustrated and upset, but we chose not to.  It was just one more instance where I realized that it is your attitude, more than any other factor, that defines a situation.  There is a quote that says “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right” and I completely agree.  We build things up in our mind to be impossible, and therefore they are.  We decide that we are miserable, and therefore we are.  “I think, therefore I am.”  I realize that is not what he meant when he said that, but I still feel that it applies.  It really is only as difficult as you make it.  

 

Just me

Peace Corps, like most things in life, comes with a few preconceptions that aren’t entirely correct.  For example, there is the illusion of saintliness that is applied to the volunteers.  This is not really surprising, since when I signed up I was spouting all kinds of angelic motivations for my stay in South America.  For a few moments before I actually arrived in the country, I had convinced myself that I was selfless, compassionate, generous, and all of those other traits that everyone throws high up on a pedestal and then rarely uses.  But as I sat on the bus as it left the Lima airport and stared at the scene that whizzed by outside my window, I became aware that I wasn’t really any of those things.  I remember how dark it was.  How all the barred windows and walls topped with shards of glass hinted at the undercurrent of crime in that seemingly peaceful community.    There were crowds of people surrounding fires burning inside of large metal barrels, and I remember thinking that I had only seen that in movies, never in real life.  It was a sinking feeling; a realization that I had definitely bitten off more than I could chew.  I began to understand that I had never actually seen, much less lived in, poverty.  I had no experience, no preparation for this.  I had no idea what I was doing.

Hence, the three months of training.  They put you in a secure community and introduce you to a nice family that is just as curious about you as you are about them.  You start to learn the language, but more importantly, you learn that there are more important things than flawless grammar when it comes to communicating.  You learn a little humility as you stumble through sentences that should be so simple.  You discover the value of a smile and a willing attitude, which I relied heavily on for the first 6 months of my service.  When you can’t communicate well, people tend to assume you are slow, but if you smile they at least understand you are trying. 

The halo that you used to see above your head slowly fades away, and you begin to realize that you don’t have to be a saint to help.  It’s okay that you need time for yourself, that every now and then you say no to projects.  You figure out that there is no need to feel guilty about taking a vacation, and that it is okay that you are looking forward to being back in the US.  I think that my time here as made a lot of my faults more apparent to me, but at the same time, I have stopped condemning myself for them.  I recognize that I have a lot to work on, but for once I don’t feel discouraged about it.  I guess in the end what I’ve realized that I will never be a saint, but that doesn’t make me a hopeless case either.  It’s just me.

 

Shantytown

We are being invaded.  Interspersed throughout the little country towns are open spaces that go unused except as a place to dump your garbage.  It is very common to see dogs or vultures sifting through the mess, and when driving by it is best to hold your breath because some of the trash will inevitably be on fire and the smoke smells horrendous.  About a week ago, there were suddenly large groups of people in these dumps, raking up the trash and tidying up in general.  At first I thought it was just a project put on by the local government to clean up the area, but the next day the people were still there.  Poles and sticks had been stuck in the ground throughout the area and tarps had been attached to some of them.  The next day the sticks and tarps were a little more organized and began to resemble small shacks, like the kind kids would build in the backyard with whatever they could find in the garage.  The fires from all the trash were still burning, and I honestly don’t know how anyone could stand to be around that smell for more than 5 seconds.  But those people weren’t leaving.  Today there are woven mats serving as roofs on many of the shacks, with people laying on tarps or sitting in chairs.  It’s like a group of people decided it would be nice to have a massive camping trip in the garbage dump, but what is really going on is not nearly so frivolous.  All of those people are squatters. 

Land rights in Peru are a tricky thing.  Most of the land that is being taken over probably belongs to someone, you see, but they may or may not be paid for the land that is being taken over. What happens is that a large group of people will decide to move all at once and take over a plot of land that hasn’t been used for awhile.  They don’t ask permission, they just all show up one day and start building their homes.  I find this to be a very indicative of cultural behavior here.  It is a very passive aggressive way of handling the situation.  There are times when the owner tries to reassert his claim on the land, usually by requesting that the squatters leave and at times, if that doesn’t work, bulldozing whatever has been built.  It seems like an odd way for a town to be established, or at least a very unorganized method.  It is also a good example of the group mentality that exists here.  If it was only one family, it would not work.  The one squatter would quickly pack up and go home at the first sign of trouble.  But as a group they are incredibly hard to deter from their goal.  And I hate to say it, but I can’t help but think that they are just perpetuating the amount of crime that happens here.  They are technically stealing land, but people act like it is a normal thing.  Just like when someone steals your cell phone, people shake their heads but in general consider it a normal part of life.  They are not outraged like we are in the US. 

It is also a good example of how informal the economy is here.  There are no zoning laws to deal with, no sanitation laws to live up to, no leases to sign or legal documents to mess with.  No government agencies are asked to interfere and no court dates are assigned to settle the matter. It is just the squatters and the landowners on a face off.    The place I stayed during training was settled in the same way, and there are still conflicts about who owns what.  By this point they have a house, electricity, running water, paved streets, even a park, but it still is not clear who actually owns the property this is all on.  So it is interesting to see how the process begins, although I am a bit concerned about what will happen next.  I mean, some of the squatters have taken over the neighboring town’s soccer field and I don’t think the people there will take kindly to the loss of their favorite Sunday activity. 

I am also concerned about what this will do to the local job market.    People already complain about the shortage of work, and I can’t see how increasing the demand for jobs will help anything.  I would think that it would boost the local economy by providing more customers at the stores, more passengers for the taxis, more restaurant goers, etc, but that would mean assuming that the people moving in have money for those kinds of things and most of the time the people in these circumstances don’t have those kinds of resources.  If they did, they would move into an already built building in town.  They are not moving here because they have a job, they are moving here looking for work.  No one would live under a tarp, breathing in possibly noxious fumes from burning garbage, if they had another option.  Guess we’ll see how it goes.

 

One of those Age Old Questions

Love or Logic.  That seems to be the question of the day.  Each has its own pros and cons, and the world could not exactly run solely on one or the other.  After all, love did not show you how to file your taxes nor remind you to stop at that last red light.  But then again, was logic the driving factor when you bought a sweater for your dog or when your lover called you out of the blue?  And yet, the question remains.  When it comes time to make a decision, is it your mind or your heart that you rely on for the answer?

A lot of people like to proclaim that they turn to logic, and in many cases, they probably do. When you chose to move away from your extended family in order to pursue your career, you were acting logically.  When you joined a gym to better your health despite the short-term pain it would cause, there was most likely some logic involved in the decision.  But I would also like to suggest that many times we apply logic after the decision has already been made in order to mask the fact that our actions are emotionally based.  Joining the gym will improve your health, yes, but your original motivation for signing up was because you wanted to meet new people or you think that maybe your spouse will be more attracted to you if you are in shape or you need a challenge.  Going to the gym may be the logical solution to each of these issues, but that doesn’t make the desire to join a gym logical.  What it does is make logic the solution to emotion.

But what do you do when your logic contradicts your emotions?  I’ve found that this is not as divided along the gender line as you would think.  Although girls are more likely to let their emotions dictate their actions, the majority of people will tell you “it depends”.  Do you get back together with the person who cheated on you, when logic tells you that they shouldn’t be trusted?  It depends.    It’s funny to me how so many people claim to be logical, yet when you ask about a specific circumstance, the answer is always “it depends”.  When did emotions get such a bad rep?  What is it about emotions that are so shameful that while you can admit to having them, you can’t actually base your decisions on them? 

My problem with emotions is that they can be fleeting and have the potential to make you look stupid.  There is nothing predictable about emotions; nothing stable.  Depending on his mood, your boss could be delighted with your performance today and despise it tomorrow.  The quality of your work has not changed; only his mood has.  Emotions also aren’t sensitive to cultural norms.  Anyone who has ever felt the need to cry at work or throw a tantrum in the middle of a checkout lane knows what I mean.  We are told to express our emotions but aren’t often encouraged to act on them.  For years I thought I had found a loophole to the whole emotion problem.  I knew emotions weren’t completely avoidable, so I would allow myself to have them but limited how deep they could go.  I would have friends that I cared for, but would only get attached to a point.  There would be people that I trusted, but not with everything.  Logically, it doesn’t make sense to trust everyone, and so instead of taking the risk of picking the wrong person to trust, I trusted everyone as little as possible.  Because that’s what emotions are: risky.  Opening yourself to emotions also means making yourself vulnerable.  You never hear of someone’s logic getting hurt, only their feelings.   

This brings me back to the love/logic conflict.  How do you know when it is worth the risk to let your emotions overrule what is logical?  I know I write a lot of emails and not all of them are worth replying to, but I would really like to hear people’s thoughts on this.  All I ask is that you try to avoid telling me “it depends.”

 

Silence

Silence.  There are so many connotations of the word, but have you noticed that they all seem to convey a sense of fragility?  Silence does not simply end; it is shattered or broken.  It doesn’t just occur, it is held or maintained.  Silence is something precious, golden, valuable.  It can be humble and comforting, like the quiet of a night at home.  It can also be grand and intimidating, like entering an ancient and prestigious library or museum.  But silence is complicated, tricky.  It can be companionable, communicating a sense of understanding that is deeper than words.  But it can also be terrifying, seeming to highlight your fears and questions, bringing them to light simply by erasing the noises that once obscured them.    

It is something that is both sought after and resolutely avoided.  People travel the world in search of it, wandering to the far reaches of the earth just to hide from the noise of life.  They pay thousands of dollars to get away from the life that they have put themselves in debt to create.  But are we running from the noise that surrounds us or aching for the stillness inside that we know once existed but somehow has been lost?  When watching the sun set in the mountains, is it the quiet that surrounds you that is so calming, or is it your own stillness that soothes your soul? 

A few people spend their life pursuing silence and the peace that they hope will come with it.  Others content themselves with brief exposures to it, like a swimmer coming up for a gasping breath before plunging back underwater to continue his struggle against the current.  But most of us spend our time desperately avoiding it, drowning it before it can have a chance to point out what we don’t want to know about ourselves.  We do our best to ignore it, to push it away, because what we keep stored away in the silence are the tears we won’t let ourselves cry, the questions that have no answers, the problems with the solutions that we can’t bring ourselves to accept.  To let silence have a place in our lives would also mean opening our minds and souls to everything we have tried to bury. 

There are an infinite number of things you can do in this life, but a very limited number of them are truly worth doing.  Those that are worth it require so much more than most people are willing to give.  Time, discipline, effort, sacrifice, pain, honesty.  Being able to spend time in silence is one of those things.  And I don’t mean ten minutes of quiet reading, or not having the music on while you clean the house or drive to work.  I mean devoting all of your focus to being silent for a substantial amount of time and facing what that produces.  For me, one of the most impressive things that can be accomplished is for a person to spend time alone with the silence of his soul… and come out smiling.

 

Making friends

 

Everyone, meet Murphy.  This persistent little critter has been popping up all over my room.  One day he’ll be sitting next to my flip-flops, another day I’ll find him hanging out on my bureau, and then today he was waiting by the door to welcome me home.  At first, I found his antics a bit creepy.  His long, slightly curled antennas triggered long forgotten images of outdated handlebar mustaches, and the shape of his back and its coloring haunted me with their similarity to many a horrid tie that I was forced to witness while working in the business world.  But that was before I opened my mind, nay, my world, to what was really going on. 

You see, too often we judge our interactions with others by basing them entirely on what we have dealt with before, as opposed to viewing each moment as something new and unique.  That car honking at you on the freeway could be just another road-raging jerk, or maybe he is only in a hurry because his wife is having their first child in the hospital and he doesn’t want to miss it (can you really blame him?).  That guy staring at you could be another malcreado who deserves to be slapped, or maybe the cherry snowcone you recently enjoyed got on your face and it looks like you need medical attention. 

You just never know.  In the case of Murphy, I had to stop a second and really look at was going on in the situation.  The facts were as follows:  1) He always appeared in a different location, 2) he wasn’t always in an obvious place, but nor was he completely hidden, 3) he never made any noises to draw attention to himself, and 4) The pattern and colors of his appearance never changed.  It should be obvious by now to everyone what was happening.  He was trying to engage me in a live version of Where’s Waldo!  Now, every time I walk into my room I keep an eye out for my playful friend.  It is just so thoughtful of him to play a game in order to keep my mind off of all this heat.  That’s a true friend, right there. 

Alright, maybe that isn’t exactly what is going on, but I find I’m calmer when I look at it this way instead of thinking of it as a large, slightly creepy insect running wild within my room.  Sometimes, it’s all about perspective.  And if that doesn’t work, shoot for outright denial.  

 

A day at home

We’ve reached that time of year when the only sane thing to do during the afternoon hours is soak a towel, drape it over your body, and sit in front of the fan. Of course, the towel is dry after roughly fifteen minutes, but that is fifteen minutes that you are not sweating. The charla (kind of like a workshop) I had scheduled for today got canceled, leaving me with a whole day with nothing planned. That fit in perfectly with my desire to sit in front of the fan, and to keep myself occupied while staying cool, I decided to have a movie marathon and watch the Bourne Identity trilogy.

I just watched the first one, and the movie brings back so many memories. I can remember watching it in the theater in Stillwater, and then getting the movie for Christmas and being equally excited to watch it again. I watched it countless times in my apartment on Duck St, sitting on that ancient couch that had been handed down to me after my parents got new furniture, eating mac’n’cheese like every other college student in the US, and feeling slightly guilty about the amount of homework I was putting off. Then there were the times I would come home from work in Oklahoma City and pop in the movie while cooking dinner.

You see, I am not a chick flick kind of girl. I’d much rather go see a comedy or an action movie, something that will make me laugh or fill me with energy. That is why, if you take a look at my movie collection, you will find Braveheart, Gladiator, Dumb & Dumber, Bourne Identity, Zoolander, and a smattering of standup comedian acts. I want to watch a movie that will get the blood pumping, motivate me to tackle some problem I’ve been putting off, inspire me to do something with my life. Ironically, all of those things seem to require car chases and explosions.

Chick flicks, on the other hand, are rated on their ability to reduce their female audience to tears. For a chick flick to be a hit, there should be multiple moments where all you can hear is blubbering from the audience. There are other signs that you are about to watch a chick flick. You’ll see girls passing out Kleenex during the previews, somewhere in the opening credits it will say “Based on a Nicholas Sparks novel”, or there is a surprising lack of male audience members and those that are there already look bored.

The movie marathon experience lacks something when done in a Peruvian desert, though. A lot of the fun of watching a movie is the atmosphere. When I am at home, movie marathons involve drawing all the curtains, turning off the lights, ordering pizza and/or making popcorn, making sure there is an adequate supply of beverages, and stocking the couch and the surrounding area with so many pillows that you forget you have a floor. Then, once you are surrounded by enough food and drinks to ensure you won’t have to leave your new den of cushiony goodness for at least a week, you press play. Not really how it goes here. However, you take what you can get and quite honestly, I didn’t even expect to be able to watch movies during my Peace Corps experience, so can I really complain? Nope. And so, I am going to soak my towel again and start the second movie.

Cheers.

 

Busy Busy Busy

For those dedicated few who keep up with the blog and actually read the emails, you may have noticed a decided lack of information on the projects that I am doing here.  There are reasons for this, the largest one being that I am probably incredibly frustrated with whichever project I am working on and therefore don’t want to TALK ABOUT IT… ahem… deep breath… However, I thought that I should give an overview of some of the activities that have kept me busy lately.  Here we go…

Last week we completed a 6-week computer class that Liz (a volunteer that lives close to me) and I gave to 24 interested artisans.  During the class we covered the basics, and by basics I mean the stuff that most of us do without thinking:  how to double click, the difference between right click and left click, how to open programs such as Microsoft Word, typing, etc.  We held the classes in a town about 5 minutes away (remember, no computers in my town), and had participants from four different towns.  When we started, double clicking was a big issue, and well, after 6 weeks I’m afraid it still was a bit of a problem.  Nonetheless, by the final exam the majority of the class (those still attending) was able to find a picture of a product on the internet, clear the background of the photo with Paint, create a table in Microsoft Word, insert the photo, and type in the measurements and important info.  Therefore, in the future when they took pictures of their products, they could create a catalog (albeit a simple one) using Microsoft Word.  It’s not much, but it’s a start.  In April we’ll start an intermediate course (opening an email account, how to attach files, write professional letters, and of course, more typing practice) for those who passed the final exam, and we’ll also be doing another basic class. 

Right now I’m in the middle of a business plan course, which is a course put on by a government agency and is designed to take the artisans through the steps necessary to export.  I won’t say much about this course, other than it takes up a ridiculous amount of time and I always leave wanting to run head first into the nearest pole.  Basically, there are some good intentions there, but the professors are inefficient and the material is unrealistic (anyone know how to find the economic demographics of Spain’s population?).  In other words, it’s frustrating.  Luckily, there are only a few more weeks left.

At the end of January, I went to Chiclayo (a department capital about 3 hours away) to lead a workshop on color combinations with another volunteer’s group.  It was basically just a 3 hour long class where we discussed different methods of combining colors and did a few activities with what we had learned.  I’ll be going back at the end of this month to take the theories that they learned and have them apply them to their products.  In the meantime, next week I’ll be doing the same thing with my two groups, only I’ll be doing all of it in a three-day course.  I enjoy this type of teaching, possibly because I get to play around with colors and designs, two things I really enjoy.

Word has leaked out that I like those types of projects and I have been filling in my schedule with design projects.  So far, I have designed logos for tshirts for a youth volunteer, as well as shirts for another artisan group.  I’m currently working on a design for a new small business logo and the logo for the boys’ camp that is coming up in June.  And as always, I am searching the internet for new product ideas for my own groups. 

This weekend, I’ll be helping out another volunteer with her Jovenes Emprendedores (Young Entrepreneurs) group by teaching Finance and Accounting.  My only other youth project I have going on right now is the World Map we are painting at the high school.  However, school just started up again this week, and I am hoping to get a couple projects going over the next few months. 

And… yeah, that’s about it for this month.  Lots of varied work.  Some successes, plenty of frustrations.