yes, i'm still here.

January 20, 2011 – 10 am

Well, it’s been quite some time since I’ve had the ganas to update this. But, I will take advantage of this foggy morning to attempt to fill all of you, my faithful readers, in on the past few months.

I went home for the holidays. I assume that I spoke to or saw the majority of the people reading this so I will just saw a few words about the trip. I was home for about ten days for Christmas. It was great. I got to spend a lot of time with the family and eat amazing food and raid my parents freshly stocked beer/wine/booze collection. Hot showers became a daily part of my life again…I didn’t mind in the least. I saw snow and made fires for the sake of making fires and not simply for boiling potatoes. I drove a car and wore clean clothes. Cereal and pancakes were the norm for breakfast, not soup. Sandwiches replaced boiled potatoes for lunch. I will never underestimate the simplicity of a sandwich again. They are fantastic. I got to see a lot of my friends from both the Toledo area and elsewhere. We had some good times catching up to say the least. They were nice enough to fill me in on all the joys of American culture I had missed in the last year. So yeah, home was great. It was home and I was glad to see not too much had changed besides a new couch and an interesting type of malt liquor. Thanks to all who made the trip worthwhile. After all, it’s the people who I miss, not the trivial amenities like hot showers and good drink.

So that was my trip to the states. Before I left I spent a few days in Lima for our mid-service medical exams and a few technical training days. I won’t bore you with the details. The short of it is that I am healthy enough to continue my service and received some riveting new technical knowledge while spending 4 days with all of my fellow volunteers and friends in the capital city.

Now I’m back in Peru and my site. I came back to a new year, a new season (the rainy one), and a new routine. The school year here in Peru ends in mid December and the students have vacation until March. The normal “vacation” however just consists of working more hours in the fields with your parents. I was extremely lucky to be able to run around the neighborhood barefoot having water fights and eating ice cream during my summer vacations as a kid. So the routine has changed a bit with no school in session for me or for my host brother and sister. I spend my days going with them to the fields and helping to harvest, plough, plant and all the fun steps in between. We just harvested a small field of native potatoes yesterday and the day before. Now I know I have a cynical attitude towards potatoes in most of my blog entries and emails/calls back home but this time was different. First of all Peru has over 3000 types of potatoes. Yep, lets repeat that for emphasis: 3000 types of potatoes. I can think of maybe 5 back home and that’s if I include Lay’s potato chips. We spent the day high in the Andes pulling out 4 different types of native papa. The first few kilos we harvested went right into the pot on the small wood fire my mom and sister started in the same field. If that’s not fresh I don’t know what is. For lunch we had our papa with a spicy salad made from green onions, lemon, and rocoto the hot pepper of Peru. The papas were all sorts of colors ranging from a deep purple to yellow to red to white. Each one had a distinct taste and texture to accompany its color. We finished by loading up the burros with the full sacks of potatoes and hiking back down to the house. The afternoon rains rolled in and I spent the rest of the day sipping on coffee and reading (I’m attempting War and Peace with the rainy season down time I now enjoy…). That is a glimpse at the new schedule for the vacation months.

I am still in the midst of my healthy homes project so some parts of the day are spent coordinating with the health post or going on house visits. Once a week or so we have a charla, or session, on the various topics of the project like nutrition and organic fertilizers. The stovetop element of the project, which is the pinnacle, should be finished by the beginning of March. So when I’m not enjoying the papa harvesting and grazing the cows I am working on that project. The group seems to be enjoying the topics and my oddly eccentric way of demonstrating why nutrition is important and how to compost. Seem to would be the important phrase in that thought. I’m glad it is working out and the grant money just came back from D.C., so thanks to all of you for paying your taxes!

We (Alex and myself) just visited an informal recycling “center” (really just a plot of land with mounds of crushed plastic bottles) an hour or so away that is willing to buy our recycling and will even come up the mountain and get it. Hopefully we will be able to organize our communities and the schools when they come back in session to start a recycling project that will keep things clean and generate a small income for the participants. Thoughts for the future…

Other than that, things have been going well. I am still truly enjoying this awesome experience and can’t believe that I only have 10 months left. So, after completing well over half of my service, I have come to learn and love the culture of Peru, specifically the indigenous highlands I have made my home for the last 17 months. This life seems so normal for me now, despite the lack of showers, food diversity, constant connection to the internet (iPhones haven’t caught on quite yet) and putting English on the back burner. I couldn’t imagine it any other way. Thanks to all those who continue to keep in touch, it’s always nice to receive an email/message/letter/other form of communication from all of you back home. I will try to keep the blog frequently updated during my last year of service…just don’t hold your breath in between posts - unless you’re really good at holding your breath. I’ll end my rambling here for today. Hope all is well with each and every one of you back home.

Candy is still encouraged….

Cheers,
Peter