Caught in the Culture Clash

Not that I consider myself religious, nor self-righteous, nor radical...only slightly moral.
Not that anyone reads my blog, since nothing has warranted writing an entry since May.

But now I find myself caught in a Culture Clash. I spoke up when no one else would.  And now I'm the scapegoat for actions that people won't take responsibility for.  North versus South.  Machismo versus non-machismo.  I wouldn't even consider myself a feminist, just a woman who believes everyone is entitled to the truth.

Making Connections

My first phone call of the day came a few minutes before 7am.  I didn't recognize the number, but picked up anyway, since the person on the other end was using their phone credit to call, they must want to get through.  It was the guide who accompanied my friends on the beautiful Huayhuash circuit last month.  We got cut off twice as his credit kept running out, and I couldn't get through by dialing his number.  Finally we were able to set up a meeting time for half an hour later, to talk about sending him more clients.  He has been a long-time friend of Peace Corps volunteers, since the time a PCV was living in his town several years ago.  He had lost contact with PCV's until a couple months ago, when my reforestation project was presented in his town, and he tracked me down.

After a very nice conversation in which I promised I'd send any potential clients his way, I returned to my house to make breakfast.  As an apple pancake was turning golden-brown, my phone rang again.  Another unfamiliar number.  I answered reluctantly, and was very happy I did.  It was another guide, but this one owns the only horseback riding agency in Huaraz.  I had contacted him about supporting his agency by making it more eco-friendly, and helping out with some English translations, in exchange for some horseback riding.  He was excited about my proposal, and we set up a time to meet in half a hour.  Over a bubbilicious Inca Cola, we talked for over an hour about all the possibilities we could work on together.  I was excited about learning how to horseshoe.  He was excited about my reforestation project.  We discussed implementing tree-planting in one of the communities at the destination of one of his trail rides.  The client could ride up to the top of a look-out, take a break, eat lunch, and plant a tree.  I stressed the importance of planting native tree species, as there is already enough eucalyptus, and the client should be contributing to an environmental cause in order to ffel thye are making a difference, which they certainly would be.  At 3000' meters, quenual trees would grow well, as they do in high altitudes.  Being an important native tree species, and in danger of extinction, it would be a great draw for clients looking to offset their carbon footprint, or to have a memorable experience during their visit to Peru.  They could come back and see their tree amidst the forest!

We discussed our timeline and I told him I would be leaving in December.  When I mentioned I was considering returning to Peru one day, he made me promise to keep in touch so that we could start an NGO together.  We began talking about homestays and cultural tourism, in which a client could spend a night with a family, and learn about the traditional lifestyle.  With the tourist season already upon us, we have a lot of big plans and ideas...we'll see where the road takes us!

Reaching the top during our full-day ride.

Like many Peruvian things, I am much taller.

Safety in the Mountains

Hanging out at 36 stories high
(120 meters or 393 feet)

One of the best parts about living in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru is the accessibility of the mountains.  There are over 50 peaks of 5,700 meters (18,700 ft) or higher, including more than 30 peaks over 6,000 meters (19,685 ft).  Besides mountaineering, a multitude of other activities can be enjoyed here such as rock-climbing, ice-climbing, horseback riding, hikes, multi-day trekking, camping, bridge-jumping, birding, and glacial lake jumping (only popular amongst the Peace Corps crowd).

Upon arrival, the unsavvy tourist may be deceived into thinking they can summit a 6,000 meter peak, or scale a 30 meter ice wall, and someone will pop out of nowhere to save them if something should go awry.  What most visitors don't think about is the lack of human resources, and therefore lack of rescue capabilities, available in this 340,000 hectare (1,312 square miles) Huascaran National Park.

Last year I embarked on climbing the "beginner's peak" of Nevado Pisco with a couple of friends and a couple of (maybe) guides.  After hiking to the base camp and having a quick dinner, we went to sleep only to awake at 1am to begin the ascent to the summit.  With our headlamps and gear, we made our way across the incredibly long and torturous morraine, then strapped on our crampons at the glacier's edge and tied into each other with 60 meter ropes.  A few hours later as the sun was rising, we reached the summit and were able to see the white beauty surrounding us as we stood on top of an ancient glacier.

Then we descended.  The terrain was quite different in the daylight.  Instead of seeing the 2 foot radius of light from my headlamp, I saw huge expanses of snow and ice, icicles hanging into caves, and small cracks leading into deep crevasses that made my heart race.  As the sun rose higher, shifting and cracking snow melting noises and deep guttural sounds of the glaciar revealed a hidden underground lair that I didn't wish to acquantaince.  I was well aware that the Cordillera Blanca is the tallest tropical mountain range in the world, meaning it is subject to the slightest changes in climate.  Estimates say they will all be gone in 40-50 years time.

With my feet finally planted on solid ground, I vowed to never again act like an uninformed tourist, and would at the very least learn the basics of mountaineering.  Six months later I happened upon a high mountain rescue course put on by the mountain guide association of Peru, the Casa de Guias.  Once again weighed down with heavy gear, I arrived on day one with my friend, us being 2 out of the 4 women signed up for this course of 130 mountain guides, guides-in-training, and invitees.  For the next 5 days, we were treated with the utmost respect, and our instructor had unlimited patience as we went over the knots and rescue systems over and over again in different situations.  I learned rescue systems, self-rescue, rappel systems, ice systems, snow systems, emergency cases, first aid, and we even had time for some rock-climbing and I rappeled down two pitches of 60 meters each.

On the last day we received closing words and certificates, and everyone went their separate ways for long, hot showers.  While we were enjoying a celebratory dinner and an overdue night's sleep, one of my Park colleagues who was also one of the course instructors, had to postpone his much-deserved rest for an emergency call about a group of university students who had entered the park unauthorized.  Two of the girls were separated from the group and couldn't be located in the dark.  Coming just a month after the disappearance of two lost hikers in the Colca Canyon of Arequipa, with one still missing, the backcountry was up 4-0.  Using years of guiding and rescue experience, my colleague located the two girls walking along a river bank at 1am, after hours of search-and-rescue.  One had fallen in and was suffering from hypothermia, while the other was wet and cold from the rain; both were scared and disoriented.

While I may not be going out and rescuing someone anytime soon, I can at least rescue myself, preventing a midnight search-and-rescue in my honor and leaving the mountains in their quiet slendor.

View from our campsite

Practicing knots

Park Rescue Coordinator & Man of the Hour who found the 2 missing girls,
after teaching the 5-day Mountain Rescue Course

Me with Director of Huascaran National Park and Tourism Specialist

Our patient guide Miguel

All my gear

First Aid and case studies portion of the rescue course

Me with one of the parkguards I used to work with in Cashapampa

Puya Raimondii: Largest Bromeliad in the World

My $400 Fruitcake

Panetón – The Peruvian version of the much-dreaded fruitcake.  Except that in Peru, the Panetón is THE quintessential holiday treat, gifted to every man, woman, and child and gladly accepted and devoured.  Panetóns come in a mind-boggling selection of brands, including every supermarket and drugstore which have their own store-name version.  “Yes please, I’d like my prescription Zoloft and…Why not? Throw in a Panetón.”

My particular Panetón has a story of its own.  Let me begin this bready discourse from the beginning…

Last September I decided to stay a third year as a Peace Corps Environmental volunteer in Peru.  As a perk (and surely necessary break) to staying on another year, PC pays for a flight home and allows a month leave of absence.  Many volunteers also use this time to travel around South America, as I decided to do.  I pinpointed Buenos Aires as a no-brainer since I’ve only heard amazing things about it and will not have another opportunity to go anytime soon.  So I booked a flight and drooled over my guidebook at all the amazing stuff I was going to do.  In October, I was g-chatting with one of my best PC friends and found out we were both going to be there the exact same week!  As if it couldn’t get any better, I facebooked another friend who lives in Buenos Aires, and was also put in contact with a friend of my boyfriend’s who lives down there and said he’d be happy to show me around.  For my week in Buenos Aires, I already had tour guides and a full schedule. 

As the holiday season came into full force, the Panetón sales sprang up in every corner.  For a visit to the host family I had lived with for 2 years, I selected a Panetón with a pretty red box.  Panetón packaging varies from plastic bags to foil bags, to boxes, to full-out commemorative tins.  But as I was learning from my Peruvian boyfriend, the most sought after Panetóns are those with the best tv commercials, as well as the prestigious classic brands, information only a native would know.  He tried to convince me to buy a certain brand, only S/.6 more than the one I had selected, but what did I know?  I could play the uninformed card.  And anyway, my host family would be thrilled with whatever I gave them.  They don’t have tv to see which brands have the best commercials this year.  Apparently affected by the holiday spirit, my boyfriend was converted into his childhood self as he begged me to buy him the afore-mentioned Panetón.  I looked at him and said no, he could buy it himself.  I was a week away from Argentina and couldn’t be spending on extraneous expenses. 

Later that week I began intense planning for my trip.  Buy bus ticket to Lima: check.  Reserve hostel in Buenos Aires: check.  Decide what to bring for the summer weather of Argentina and then the winter of the states: check.  Find passport: check.

Saturday: T-3 days until departure.  I am spending the day in my new apartment - cleaning, unpacking, organizing, re-organizing, and preliminary trip packing.  My boyfriend calls me from work to say he has gotten permission to leave work early that day to go to our favorite rock-climbing place, and if I can go.  I have a lot to do in the next 2.5 days, so I decline.  He comes by to say goodbye and says he’ll be back tomorrow, Sunday afternoon. 

The night passes and I wake up early Sunday morning.  I head to the market to buy a duffle bag and some ingredients for lunch.  The day passes quickly as I’m cleaning and making a to-do list for the few business hours I will have Monday morning before my bus leaves. 

My friend calls me and we make dinner plans, being her last dinner in Huaraz before she heads off to start her own third year, but working in Lima.  A few hours later, we’re at dinner when she receives a call that the next day there will be a 24-hour roadblock to protest the building of a new mine a couple hours drive outside of Huaraz, blocking passage to Lima.  I feel a slight panic, and have her promise to call me when she arrives at the bus station later to see if she’s heard any developments. 

On the way back from dinner, the roadblock is pushed to the back of my mind, since they are quite common and are poorly organized, disbanding before they really start.  We pass the grocery store and I think of my boyfriend who must have returned from rock-climbing by now.  I remember the Panetón he had wanted, and think up a surprise goodbye evening before I head off on a month of vacation.  Along with his Panetón, I buy the traditional hot chocolate ingredients that are drunk at midnight Christmas Eve.  Since we will both be with our families, we could share our own early Panetón and hot chocolate.  I call his cell phone to see where he’s at, and it goes straight to voicemail.  It’s either turned off (unlikely) or he’s still in the rock-climbing place where there is no cell phone reception (strange, since he knows I’m leaving and he has to work in the morning.)  Since I can’t get a hold of him, I return to my house and continue packing.  Half an hour later, with my stuff exploded all over the room, my friend calls from the bus station to say that the roadblock is the real deal and I should get there ASAP to catch a bus.  Now the real panic sets in, as I look at all the stuff I’m trying to cram into one duffel bag, trying to pack for summer and winter, international travel, and my once-a-year visit to my family.  I call the PC security officer to see if he’s heard how legit this protest is, and he says I might as well try to catch a night bus just in case.  With my phone gripped between my ear and shoulder, smashing everything into my duffel, I call another friend who tells me the same thing.  Five minutes later, I’m in a taxi heading towards the bus station, and can’t get through to my boyfriend.  What a crappy non-goodbye before leaving for a month!

At the counter, I flash my ticket for tomorrow, asking what are the chances of my bus being cancelled.  The completely helpful, pleasant, competent desk people, who are definitely giving me their undivided attention, tell me to wait and see tomorrow.  I rapidly explain that I have a flight to catch tomorrow night, so if my bus gets cancelled, I will miss my flight.  I see a bus pulling out, and ask if I can change my ticket to right then.  She slowly pulls up the computer information, as I watch one of the last buses pull away.  In the boarding area, I hear them call for the last bus out.  This is the super-exclusive-expensive-full 180 degrees bed bus, which is double the price that this PC volunteer usually spends.  I would have to pay the difference.  Everyone behind the counter spends a few precious minutes giving me their opinions on the strike and saying I should wait it out, even though I see a computer screen full of empty seats on the now-boarding bus.  Okay, I pull out my wallet.  I place my bank card on the counter and she tells me I can’t use it.  But I always use it here, and ask why I can’t use it.  She points to the computer screen clock, which says 11:05pm.  She says they stop using the card machine at 11:00pm.  Are you kidding?!?!?!  If you people hadn’t spent 10 minutes chatting amongst yourselves, flirting, and taking an eternity to look something up, it would be within the time.  Plus, the card machine doesn’t decide to shut itself off at 11:00pm because it’s had a long day.  There is literally no time for arguing.  Luckily I had just gone to the bank.  Unluckily, I bought a Panetón.  I need to pay S/.45 difference in price.  I have S/.30.  Exactly what I spent on the Panetón for a special surprise goodbye that was abruptly cancelled.

So readers: Did my bus leave as scheduled the next day?  Did I make my flight to Argentina?  Did my boyfriend return to enjoy his surprise Panetón?  Let’s leave it as this: I spent all day making phone calls, crying, yelling, and trying to rationalize how it came to be that I spent $400 on a fruitcake.

.

Complete 180º

In the span of less than a week, my Peace Corps life has converted itself into a completely different beast.  

Right before Halloween, I left my site of two years to move to the city of Huaraz.  I said goodbye to glacial-water showers, constant electricity outages, lack of internet and cell phone, and my window-less cave that I called my room.  Once in Huaraz, my ears no longer heard the constant jabbering of Quechua, nor the clucking chickens, cock-a-doodle-doing roosters, braying donkeys, squealing guinea pigs, barking dogs, meowing cats, and crying children.  I put on my pineapple costume and enjoyed my first weekend as a city resident with a Halloween celebration and good-bye party.  I said goodbye to my dearest friends of whom they had completed their two years and were ready to move on.  I, on the other hand, didn’t feel I had absorbed everything I could have, and decided to embark on another year with Peace Corps.  My duties as a third year volunteer seemed simple: act as the liaison between the Huascaran National Park and the other PC volunteers.  In fact, I have no official title since Huaraz already has 2 PC Leaders who deal with the administrative aspect, develop potential sites for volunteers, and work out issues between volunteers and host families or community counterparts.  With none of that to worry about, I headed to the National Park office to see how I might help.  Figuring I’d have nothing to do for the first month while I oriented myself, I strolled in and found myself to be the main event.  I was formally introduced at the Park’s monthly staff meeting, and presented with my own work space and access to all the books, materials, and human resources that the Park has to offer.

That afternoon, I sat down and pored over a 33-page scientific document that I was asked to translate from Spanish to English.  Not too bad, this would keep me busy for a few weeks.

A few hours into my tedious task, someone from the Park asked if I wanted to help put out a forest fire.  Seriously? 

Two hours later, I was up in the mountains wearing a yellow firefighter’s jumpsuit and attacking flames with leafy branches.  A farmer had been burning his field to get rid of the residual organics when it got out of hand and it spread up the mountain, destroying a 2-year forestation project that one of my fellow Park staff had worked on.

Although it was terrible that acres of Park land were going up in flames, it was incredible that I was part of the 8-person crew responsible for putting it out.

I have to constantly remind myself that I’m a Peace Corps volunteer.  I have the coolest assignment in the world.

Quiet Time

It’s a typical weekday in my host family house.  There’s only slightly more noise than usual, since the 4 year-old has the flu and hasn’t gone to kindergarten all week.  The 9 year-old is somewhere along the autism spectrum, and has gone to school less than 10 times in the 2 years I’ve lived here.  He has boundless amounts of energy, and no constructive outlet to release it.  I tried teaching him the alphabet, but he couldn’t focus long enough to learn the letter “O.”  I started with the “O” because it’s just a circle.  Once convinced he had learned his first letter, I asked him to pick out the “O” in a word.  He couldn’t.  I asked him to find the letter that was a circle.  He couldn’t, or simply didn’t care.  After several sessions with no progress, I came to the harsh realization that I have neither the tools nor experience in special education literacy strategies.  More than that, I had no patience.  Living with a host family, being a stranger in the community, spending 24/7 trying to figure out how to inspire people to work, and conducting every aspect of my life in a foreign language…well, I had no more to give to my autistic host brother.  Every person that visited my house asked how I lived there.  “They’re my family,” I thought.  According to reports of other volunteers’ families, I felt I was lucky.  My host parents are Evangelical, they don’t drink, hardly raise their voices (except when scolding the kids), and treat me better than one of their own.  After two years, I am a part of the family, but never stopped being a guest.  I always get served first, given the best chair, served the biggest chunk of meat (if there is any), and sometimes my host mom makes a special dish that she knows only I will eat because no one else is used to eating veggies.  When I’m sick, she makes special tea with fresh herbs, depending on my symptoms.  If she leaves town for the day to run errands, she cooks lunch in the morning and leaves it for me.  In the mornings as the kids start screaming at 6:00am, I hear her whispering angrily to be quiet, because Erica is sleeping. 

It’s 11:00am, and it’s the first day in two weeks that the electricity has stayed on all day (so far).  Nearing the end of my service, there is an incredible amount of documents that need to be written, in English and Spanish.  But who can concentrate enough to write an articulate document?  Since the kids and fam are here during the day, my quiet time tends to be after dinner when everyone settles down and then sleeps.  So, between 8:00pm and 11:00pm I might get a few hours of quality quiet time.  Hopefully the electricity won’t go out today.