Humble Beginnings: September 1, 2009

Since the last entry, the frustrating circumstances of my life are taking baby steps in the right direction.

~I am finally over the flu/sinus infection, head-cold, and raging headaches.

~The table arrived one morning while I was eating breakfast and had completely given up on ever receiving it.  It did not fit through the door as anticipated, but my host parents swapped it out for their smaller kitchen table.  With my books and paperwork organized for the first time in 10 months, I feel like a normal person again.

~One of the men who couldn’t come with me to the PC conference bumped into me and asked me to come to a 6am meeting.  Okay.  I am here for the community even though you are not here for me or my organization.  Even though my program is Environmental Education and you are asking me to attend a meeting about building a health post.  Yes, I’ll be there.  At 6:05am, I was the ONLY one there.  Surprise, Surprise.  I sit and wait in the cold and without breakfast, but am in much better spirits since ditching the flu.  By 7am, there is a small crowd of 15 people.  I end up writing up the official minutes for the meeting, and I feel important and wanted in my community (two things I have felt have been missing for quite some time—see previous blog entry.)  People were thanking me for being there, and as I walked home, I realized just how many people know my name and wanted to know where I was going so early in the morning, and what I was doing later, and will I be at the afternoon’s soccer game?  Which leads to…

~I played soccer for the first time today in over 10 years.  High altitude soccer.  Even though I trained for the marathon at altitude, it’s nothing compared to sprinting after a ball for 2 hours.  We played men versus women.  Luckily we had one guy on our team and he was really good, yelling instructions at the girls and giving tons of positive reinforcement.  We won 6-2, even though the men were much more skilled and one of the women scored a goal on ourselves.  (No, it wasn’t me, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been.)  The women are real cute, playing in their traditional skirts.  The woman with the baby on her back wasn’t there today, but in previous games, she’d run around with her baby bouncing around in the blanket tied to her back.  It’s amazing how much weight one can carry with a blanket tied around your back.  Speaking of which…

~I carried huge bags of compost on my back, from my site-mate’s tree nursery, to my  I had to do it in four trips.  Each one must have been 50 pounds.  I am beginning my mission of re-introducing native tree species to the Andes mountains.  I spent hours over the course of several days filling little baggies with the soil mixture I prepared with the compost I hauled.  Next, I will soak the seeds to get them germinating, and hopefully get them growing and in the ground by December.  Although I started the task solo, a little helper came to investigate what I was doing and ended up helping me to not only fill the baggies, but sift the dirt to remove the rocks.  When we had finished with our pile of dirt, she ran to the pile to sift more.  I kept trying to explain that we were done, but she wanted to keep going.  Background information on this little girl:  I think she’s my host mom’s little sister.  She doesn’t go to school, and therefore never really learned Spanish.  I once asked her why she didn’t go to school, and her cousin told me she has “brain problems,” so she stays home and takes care of the animals, whatever that means.  When I arrived in Cashapampa in December, she was my least favorite person.  Now I’m starting to think she has a developmental disability.  Although I have extensive experience in this field, there was something about her lack of respect for people’s space that really got to me.  For instance, one day I was outside reading a book.  She thought it funny to throw dirt at me.  I told her that if she continued, I would go inside.  Then she splashed water on me.  I went inside and thought she was a lost cause, since I couldn’t even communicate with her.  Now, 10 months later, she screams my name and giggles and runs around in excitement when she sees me.  And today, she was the first person to help me in stage one of reforesting the community. She was rattling away in Quechua and smiling at me, asking if she could take pictures of our progress. community tree nursery.

~And there you have it.  In one day—I participated in a community meeting, worked in the tree nursery, received surprise help from an unlikely source, played soccer on the winning team, ate three square meals, prepared a lesson for my first class to be held next week, and played with my bunnies.

Oh yeah, my host parents bought me pet bunnies for my birthday. 
They thought I needed something to take care of, since I don't have children.