If you're bored, then you must be boring too

Well. I’m realizing reading this blog over that it does little to explain what I actually do with my life on a day-to-day basis, and I now have time to delve into this, because my computer is working! With the help of an external keyboard, but still. The point is I can now lie in my hammock, muse about my existence, listen to Phish, count how many Peace Corps stereotypes I am following at the exact same time, AND write blog entries.

The past two days at site (I got back from Piura Monday) have been uncharacteristically busy. Monday night was spent setting things up in my room (lightbulb, hammock, and clothesline, and bookcase). I’ve been doing a lot more independent living in my room than I was my first month here. The primary reason for this is that Flor is finishing her studies in Piura and Humberto is generally pretty busy, so there is no one to eat or hang out with at my house. I’d started eating my own breakfasts (the first day I ate cornflakes with milk in Peru was a great, great day), but it has now expanded to cooking my own dinners as well. This is just fine. It’s a little lonelier, but it’s nice to be in control of my own schedule as well as my own diet. Several times, Flor and Humberto didn’t eat dinner until 9:30, and that drove me nuts. Breakfast is usually cereal or oatmeal, purchased in Piura, and a mango, purchased down the street.

Before I continue with mundane details of my diet, I think I need to take a moment to try to convey the wonder that is the Santo Domingo mangos. They are by far my favorite thing about this town. This will probably change, either when I have more friends or when it’s not mango season anymore, but as of now...there are no words. Sometimes I try to make eating a mango, which is essentially a personal pleasure, into a social activity by eating them with a Swiss Army knife on the stoop. This is particularly fun when it’s raining, so...every afternoon. People walk by, I say hola, they smile at my obvious mango-induced grin, they either say hola or a very heartfelt “Provecho!”

Okay. Dinner is pasta and some sort of vegetable. I don’t have a fridge, so I tried to buy enough vegetables in Piura to last me just the week. Next week, I’m left to the challenges of the Santo Domingo vegetable market, which exists, but is unpredictable. So we’ll see how it goes. It’s weird how being here and living on the Peruvian diet, which is generally pretty vegetable-deprived (in addition, all raw vegetables are, by some sort of rule no one consulted me about, doused in lemon. It seems like a better idea than it is), makes me cherish vegetables I really couldn’t have cared less about in the States. Living alone has brought about the unfortunate habit of talking to myself, and I think last night I delivered an entire love monologue to my broccoli.

Lunch is my only social meal. I eat it at the house of Senora Teo, Lilian’s old house mom. She cooks for people in town who lack the resources, time, or ganas to cook for themselves, especially all the doctors and nurses who work at the health center. The food is pretty good, there’s a decent variety and even vegetables sometimes. We watch telenovelas and make her day if we clean our plates, her week if we ask for seconds on rice.

Back to the time by myself thing. I spend a lot of time by myself right now, and I love it more than I foresaw myself loving it. I partake of the obvious, reading (I average 3 books a week, therefore, seeking new reading material has become its own activity) and writing (I think I wrote Andrew 25 pages in the two weeks before I went to Piura). I also tend to find ways to make daily activities last a really long time. Granted, some activities just do take a long time at this house. The only running water is in the backyard, which is a solid 40-second walk from my room. But some activities, like putting on pants, should really take no longer in Peru than they do anywhere else, but somehow I manage to make them take ten minutes if I want it to. The iPod and the rain help with this.

Peace Corps has had the strange effect on me of making me really look forward to daily, life-managing tasks. Basically, it’s not a great feeling when you wake up and realize you have absolutely nothing to do that day, or that you have one thing, and it’s a great Peace Corps thing to be doing, but it’s only going to take like 45 seconds. For example, holding a meeting with our kids with whom we’re doing the World Map. It sounds like a great day’s activity, “On Thursday we had a meeting about the World Map,” but really, that meeting was one sentence: “We’re painting a World Map on Mondays and Tuesdays and 10 a.m., see you then.” But if you wake up and there’s something obvious to do, like something to clean , well then, you’ve won the game. There isn’t running water past 7 pm, so there are always dinner dishes to do in the morning. For some reason, it’s incredibly satisfying to wake up and think, “Dishes! I have to do something! My presence is required here!” I have to clean and organize my room this afternoon to account for my new kitchen table and bookcase. I can’t wait! I cannot imagine what would happen if someone had told 8-year-old me that 21-year-old me’s favorite activities would include eating broccoli and cleaning my room.

Anyway, yesterday Rachel and I plastered the wall we’re going to use for our World Map. This started off sort of shaky, but it looks great now, especially given that it covers some old election propaganda. Covering election propaganda is an immensely satisfying activity, as it is EVERYWHERE and pretty feo if you ask me. My new window busts through some propaganda as well, maybe I will continue and paint the outside of my room as well. But anyway, neither Rachel nor I had worked with plaster before, and we didn’t realize you can only mix a couple handfuls of it at a time to get it on the wall before it dries. A couple guys came over and offered us advice in this regard (we were, after all, white, female, young, and attempting to do construction in a public arena), but the advice was like, “You have to get the plaster on the wall before it dries!” “The dry plaster is useless!” Uh, thanks. So finally, I said to the guy who was most lingering, “Are you going to help or are you going to criticize?” He liked that. He repeated this comment to passersby approximately 7 times throughout the following 4 hours in which he lent us his support. We would have figured it out, but it was nice to have his help. The only really hard part was when some guy came up after I had been mixing plaster for like 3 hours and just started doing it for me. This did not sit well with me. I took a walk around the block, and when I returned, I explained that I had mixed probably 40 bowls of plaster that morning, and I certainly could have handled it, and if he was going to take over he needed to ask my permission. Like often happens when women show any assertiveness, he laughed at me, but whatever. I am here to act in ways appropriate to Peruvian culture, but I am not here to let machismo define what I can and cannot do. We are, after all, here to set an example. I mixed my own plaster in peace for the rest of the afternoon. My hands are dry but my soul is happy.

Today I held a meeting with everyone involved on the trash project. This was actually a bold move, as the project is switching hands from Juan, my counterpart, to the department of sanitation in the municipality, a decision that has caused no small amount of disagreement. I made them do a FODA (SWOT in English: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of the project. I should have known this would not go well after I had brightly explained that we were there to analyze the project that is now in a state of transition and figure out our goals, explained the four categories, and asked for strengths of the project, to which Juan raised his hand and asked, “Yeah, what’s the point of this?” Just when you think someone’s on your side. At some point, Juan and Jorge, the guy in charge of the department, started interrupting and yelling at each other about some land rights issues, and I just sort of let them go at it, as part of the point of the meeting was just to get them all in the same room, regardless of the results, something that wouldn’t happen otherwise.

If Ryan reads this, I do not want him to have a heart attack, so I will say that at least the trash is still being collected 4 days a week and the river looks...not worse. I will keep on capacitating.