Mis aventuras (and misadventures) en Peru: A couple wild days of integration...

So it's been kinda a crazy couple of days of "integrating" with my community. During my last 3 days I have held kids down while they had teeth pulled, won money off of kids during a soccer game (unintentionally), and ate guinea pig for 3 of my last 5 meals. Keep reading to find out more...

Alright, so during our first few weeks in site us new volunteers should be working to make connections with community leaders and try to find your place in the community. Eventually we will be working on our community diagnostics, which involve 100+ interviews with rural families to diagnose both the needs of the community and with which communities we would likely have the most success with (some communities are more motivated than others. But because of the christmas season, everything has been pushed back a bit. It's tough to get big stuff going like trips to communities (some are several hours away), so it's better to wait until January. This doesn't mean that we're not busy though.

On Wednesday I worked with the health center and went with a group of nurses and a doctor to the same community we had done the vaccination campaign in. We were going to set up a make-shift health post in the school for a couple hours so that the people that couldn't make the trip to town (about two hours by foot) could still get access to a doctor. We were taking vitals on kids, checking height and weight. The doctor was checking out kids with respiratory problems, ear infections, normal kid stuff, and we had a small pharmacy set up to hand out what the doctor prescribed. An obstetrician was answering questions about girlie stuff as well as giving anti-contraceptive shots. But by far, the most popular person was the dentist, who was there to take a look at teeth and pull out the trouble ones. They used lidocaine as an analgesic but these kids were getting teeth pulled out in their school desks, to their credit the majority of these kids were amazingly tough. The girls even more so than the fellas, I know if it were me I'd be crying like a baby, numbing shot or not. After a couple hours of that we headed home, but it was good to see they have programs like that to help the people of the communities that can't make the trip into town, but with more than 60 similar communities in the area, it's pretty tough to maintain all of them. The following day I went with my host dad to the school he works at. It's the equivalent of an elementary and they are winding down the school year here (remember the seasons are backwards here), so he just had to administer a final or two and then play soccer. The kind of stuff that a gringo could easily tag along with. After being told to be ready for a car to the school at 6:50 in the morning, my host dad comes strolling into the kitchen around 7:20 and sits down for breakfast....excuse the tangent but down here they work on the hora peruana (peruvian time), which means if someone says a certain time...say 6:50 am...and you show up then, you will be the only person there for at least 25 minutes. It's something I'm still adjusting to here in site. The only things that run on time are scheduled buses, and soccer games....but we were able to catch another car that took us about half way. Then we walked about a mile up hill to get to the school. There was a religion test and a music test. The religion test was 5 questions and didn't take too long, afterwards the kids had to come to the front of the room and sing a song by themselves. After hearing 30 or so kids sing I felt like I was obligated to try to do something of my own, the only song I could really remember the words to without the music was Pat Green's "Carry On" a Texas country song. I didn't know at the time, but after singing once, I was obligating myself to sing to these kids for the rest of the day, after a couple more renditions I faked a coughing spell to get out of singing more. Luckily the soccer game served as a distraction as well. Around here each player chips in a lil' bit of money, an impuesta, and the winning team takes all, at least that's how it is when the big kids play. These kids are about 5th graders, and they're peruvian which makes them even smaller. My host dad sets the teams and we're both on the same team versus a team comprised completely of kids, then he asks for the impuesta, I thought it was a lil' strange but I didn't say anything. We play a long game and end up winning, I think out of our 5 goals, 1 was scored by my host dad and 3 others were assists from one of us, just to show that the teams weren't evenly matched. After the game wraps up we start our hour and a half walk back because rain clouds were threatening, I didn't receive my share of the winnings and was happy because I thought it was just between the kids. After the long hike downhill on bad knees we arrive in site and stop at a store to grab a soda, it was here that my host dad remembered to give me my winnings, 50 centivos (about 16 cents, worth a bit more to poor peruvian kids). So....UNINTENTIONALLY.....I guess I might have gambled with kids, I'll make it up to them by throwing the game next time, won't be too hard to fake that I'm playing soccer poorly.

Yesterday morning my host parents woke me up at 6 to help with preparations for my host sisters graduation from pre-school. Around here they celebrate everything, and this is just another excuse to have a party. A party that requires a full day of preparations. My host grandmother had been cooking cakes all week, 12 in total and I spent the first couple hours yesterday sweeping an auditorium and putting decorations on walls (because I'm tall they loved having me around, opened up all kinds of new decoration schemes for them). The actual ceremony began at 2:00 pm with a service in the church and then we headed to the auditorium. There were 20 graduates, and each had a partner (boy/girl couples). At the auditorium there were a couple hours of speeches, certificates and gifts were given out before dinner (40 kids and families sitting down to eat guinea pigs, complete with head and all), dancing, and beverages, sodas and beer for the kids and adults respectively. Around midnight I had to head to bed, but the party was still going until around two o'clock in the morning. My host sister beat me, even my host brother of one and a half years, but he just fell asleep during the party so I'm not sure if that really counts. For some reason, Peruvians don't even have the need to sleep. I woke up tired this morning, and found waiting for me a plate of reheated leftovers for breakfast.

During the upcoming week I have to make a trip to the department capital to collect a box of books I've got waiting for me and run a couple errands that I can't do out here in the small towns. It's unfortunate that it's a trip of 10 hours one way and costs about 28 soles (about $9, but we receive about 35 soles daily). Also get to pick up a bike in the capital city, it will be very nice to have that to get around, as long as it doesn't rain too much on these dirt roads and trails. That's it for now, hope everything is going well with people back in the states and wherever you may find yourself. I can't believe that Christmas is less than two weeks off, doesn't feel like the holidays here quite yet but I hope everyone is having a very happy holiday season so far.

A couple pictures, but I apologize, they are in no order what so ever.