Town Anniversary

I got my first taste of a party huallanquino style when the town anniversary rolled around in November (yes, I know this blog post is way over due, please stop judging me). It was a few days long and involved a variety of performances. Here is a sampling:

The most important by far, though, was the Danza de Los Negritos.

My brother Mauricio (in the middle) getting psyched for his big performance.

In this video you can see the primary school students (including Mauricio). You can also see me host-mom, Liz, one row in front of me proudly watching her son.

In this video are the secondary students from my school. This group of my students also included my other brother, Antony. They got to wear a different costume than the younger kids as you might have noticed.

“So, what is this 'Danza de Los Negritos' thing?” you ask. Sorry, I don't know. Right now I'm learning what its like to be the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf, but honestly I'm not being sarcastic (this time). I know its my job to know this kind of stuff, but I don't. Here's as much as I can tell you: Huallanca used to be part of Huánuco, the neighboring department (Peru's version of a state). About 20 years ago, though, they switched to become part of Ancash because there are more mines in this department and consequently more mining money that gets divided up. Mining companies in Peru are legally required to invest some of their profits in projects that benefit the community, an example being that all the chairs and desks in the night school where I work have “Antamina”, the name of the largest mine in Ancash, stamped on them since they were donated by said mine. Anyway, getting extra desks for their schools didn't mean that they were just going to ditch their culture and La Danza de Los Negritos is part of the culture of Huánuco that survived the switch to Ancash. I believe someone told me that it's history has something to do with the end of slavery in Peru (La Danza de Los Negritos would roughly be translated as “The Dance of the Blacks”). So while it might look like its horribly racist (and for all I know it could be), I'm guessing it has more to do with celebrating the end of slavery than perpetuating stereotypes. A different history of race leads to different understandings of it and different standards for what is acceptable, I assume. I'll have to withhold judgment until I know better whats going on (not that my judgment on this means diddly-squat), but I'll update you guys when I find out the whole (hi)story behind the dance.

Climbing the hill in our backyard

So a few weeks ago Kendra, my host brothers (Antony and Mauricio) and I climbed the hill in our back yard. That's pretty much the entire story; we didn't run into any ghosts; nobody fell off; Bob Vila didn't show filming an episode of This Old House; so I'll just post some pictures and be done with it.

Mauricio, Antony, and I. Huallanca in the background.

My home: Huallanca

Heading back down the hill.

Mauricio being a ham as usual.

I'll (hopefully) be posting again before long. So have a Merry Christmas and I should be back on here in a few days!

Guess who I dressed up as for Halloween

Nevado Chaupijanca

A few weeks ago I got my first real taste of the Andes. Some parents organized a caminata (trek) for one of the classes at my school out to a nevado (snow-capped mountain) about an hour from Huallanca called Nevado Chaupijanca. It was 5 hours to climb the mountain and about 3 more to come back down. Needless to say, for a rookie trekker like myself, it was a bit of a workout. Plus I had to get up at 6 am to catch the bus up there (which is disgustingly early by my standards). And finally I'd had diarrhea for the previous few days. So I had mixed emotions going into the trek.

We started off from the little lake above and weaved our way over and around countless hills...

 And countless other hills...

And all the way up this valley...

The problem with going “over” hills is that after you climb one side you have to go down the other...

We went all the way down to where you can see trees in that picture.

But eventually the end was in site...

Unfortunately we were still hours away, haha. But I still needed to take pictures of me with snow in the background, since I haven't had enough opportunities in my life to get pictures with snow.

We found some cool lakes up towards the top of the mountain as well.

And in the end I had a phenomenal time. It was fun. I got a chance to hang out with the students that I work with, getting to know them a lot better (dare I use the word “friends”?). Once we had climbed to the higher elevation it snowed a little bit. And even better I didn't poop my pants the entire time. I'd have to say after a couple more months in Huallanca, that was still my best day since moving here. The organizers treating us to dinner afterward topped off the day nicely. Especially since any good day for me, as you all probably know, must involve eating ;-)

FAQs 2

Why do you have a blog post called “FAQs 2”?

Because I already had one called “FAQs” so I wanted to differentiate between the two.

Well I kind of assumed that. Let me rephrase my question: Why do you think you need a second blog post with FAQs?

Because there're that many frequently asked questions, duh? Ok, I'll stop being a jerk (for now).

My first blog post was FAQs, because I had just arrived in Peru and a lot of people had similar questions about what life was like down here. I'm doing another one because I've now moved from Lima (where my training was) to Huallanca (where I'll be working for the next two years). A lot in my life has changed because of this. So, ask away!

So what's this new town, Hu-...Hu-...Hual-...Gahhh! I can't even pronounce that!

Well I can't really blame you for having a difficult time pronouncing it. Its a Quechua word with Spanish spelling. Anyway, Huallanca (why-YAHNK-uh) is a town of about 4000 in the middle of the mountains of Peru with an elevation of about 2 miles. There are two colegios (High Schools) where Kendra and I will be doing a lot of work. But we'll also be working with just about anyone who wants to help the youth in Huallanca.

Mauricio and Daniela with Huallanca in the background.

Who's Kenrda? Your sister? Your wife? Your...

Hahaha, no, no, no! But its funny you ask that, because everyone in Huallanca asks the exact same things. Kendra is another Peace Corps - Youth Development volunteer from my training group who will be living and working in Huallanca for the next two years. I usually tell them that she's my daughter.

Kenrda and I on swear-in day.

So are you finally working now?

Well my first three months at site (in Huallanca) I am doing a “community diagnostic”, research on the resources, capacities, needs, problems, etc. in the community. After I'm done with this, the community and I will be able to identify projects that are needed, useful, practical, and doable for the community. But I already have two successful projects under my belt since I got here! (1) I downloaded anti-virus on a few computers at the Health Center. (2) I helped pick dead leaves off of plants in the garden at the Alternative High School in preparation for festivities for “The Week of the Adult Student”.

The staff of the CEBA (Alternative High School) and I on Literacy Day.

When I was listening to Peruvian radio the other day I heard someone talking about the Peace Corps. Was that you?

Well, it might have been! Kendra and I had a radio interview on one of the two local Huallanca radio stations. I know at least two households listened to it, because when I got home my host family was all excited about having heard me on the radio and the next day in the plaza a lady approached us with a youth development idea because she'd heard us on the radio. One of the advantages of being the only two gringos (Spanish word for foreigner or white person) in town is that even if someone has only heard you on the radio they'll still recognize you when they see you for the first time!

Radio celebrities

So you live with a host family in Huallanca?

Yes, I live with a local family. I think I've mentioned them some in other blog posts, but I'll go over it again real quick. My host-mom, Lizzy, is huallanquina (means she from Huallanca), but my host-dad, Marco, is originally from Tujillo (a coastal city). Lizzy is a primary school teacher and Marco is a policeman. I also have three host-siblings. Antony, 13, Mauricio, 8, and Daniela, 2. Our tia (aunt) also lives with us.

My host dad, sister, and I. I'll add more pics of family in the future.

What's the climate like?

The weather is an interesting combination of being near the equator and being at an altitude of about 2 miles. There's 12 hours of daylight because we're near the equator, but the weather is far from tropical. The sun is pretty hot and burns really fast (especially a gringo like me, haha), but in the shade it's actually pretty cold (I haven't actually checked temperatures but in the shade I'm guessing it can get down into the 40's). I'm getting used to the air being thinner at the higher altitude, but trying to keep up with my little brothers playing soccer is still difficult. There's also a rainy season which starts in full force decemberish, but its already starting to rain more now (almost every day). There's also been hail a few times since I got here (which incidentally is extremely loud on a tin roof).

Why don't you have any FAQs about food in this post?

I plan on having a blog post exclusively about food in the future. (Notice what I did there? Increased the anticipation about future blog posts. Increasing the likelihood that people will keep watching it. Yeah, I know...pretty slick.)

Back from Huaraz

I just spent a week in the departmental capital, Huaraz. While the week there was fun, coming back from Huaraz was the real adventure. Our bus left at 1 pm, but Kendra (my site mate) and I both tried to fit too much into the morning. After doing some shopping and getting packed, I ate a hurried lunch (which I didn't have time to finish...so I was obviously already in a bad mood). I got back to the hostel just in time to pick up my stuff and run to the bus station so that I could get there late. But I also realized that I needed to use the bathroom, since I didn't want to poop my pants in the middle of a 3 ½ hour bus ride. And after that I decided to read War and Peace and The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Unfortunately Kendra had also done (too much) shopping in Huaraz so we needed to rent a mule caravan to carry the stuff to the bus station. But since we had no idea where, or if, we could rent those in Huaraz we decided to take a taxi. After lugging bags down a couple streets we did find a taxi which had to drive around town about three times to get us to the bus station since there is road construction everywhere in Huaraz right now.

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with my blog post today, but I felt like I shouldn't post something without pictures. Don't want to bore ya'll ;-) Btw, this is my host brother Mauricio, 7, and sister Daniela, 2.

Anyway, back to the story. When we finally arrived at the bus station in the taxi, we saw a bus leaving. We of course took the precaution of crossing our fingers, hoping it wasn't ours. Apparently we hadn't crossed our fingers hard enough though, because it was our bus. After unloading all of our stuff, paying the cab, and telling the people at the bus station our dilemma (there wasn't another bus for 5 hours) they told us we should just grab another cab and chase down the bus. Before we had time to say, “Seriously?” they were already out front looking to flag down a cab for us. They found one, explained to the cab driver where the bus was going and we climbed in and started our car chase (got to admit, kinda felt like I was in a movie if it wasn't for the fact that the chase involved a station wagon taxi pursuing an extremely slow dinosaur-esque bus to a soundtrack of uninspiring Quechua music in the taxi). When we caught up to it after about 5 minutes (yeah, those buses never make good time) the taxi passed the bus and pulled over along side the road so we could flag it down. They stopped to pick us up and even let us put our bags down underneath with the checked luggage. After the amazing service I received from the employees of the Paraiso bus company I was convinced that I would only use that bus line to go to Huallanca. Granted its the only bus line so I already knew that, but nonetheless I was still convinced ;-)

Peru defeats USA 11-5

 Well I knew this was going to happen eventually.

But there was no way to prepare myself psychologically to get beat at soccer by a 7-year-old.

Maybe at the end of two years, I'll have improved enough to keep up with the 7-year-olds in Huallanca. I think that's a reasonable and acheivable goal to set for myself. Then again the images burned into my memory of Mauricio (my host brother) schooling me over and over again might just convince me to go into an early retirement from the sport. (Yes, this is me retrieving the ball after being scored on by Mauricio)

Although we were using a random little plastic ball here, we do have an actual soccer to use (and since then I have used it in games with Mauricio and my other host brother, Antony, 13 years old). If I decide to continue beating my head against the wall, trying to learn to play soccer, and other extremely painful hobbies I do have a nice cultural exchange plan set up. I gave Antony an (American) football for his birthday last week. So now I can teach him American football and he can teach me soccer. We've already played some backyard football with him and some other teenagers who helped my tia (aunt) move. Therefore I already consider myself a successful Peace Corps Volunteer; Goal 2 of the Peace Corps: Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.