In which I have a half-hour one-sided conversation entirely about the weather

The rainy season, which has been going on since I arrived in Santo Domingo five months ago, is at last letting up. This is good in a lot of ways; first and foremost, it makes hiking and exploring the campo a pleasant and less rushed undertaking. Second, I have been told again and again that this is a totally different town when the rain lets up. There are more parties, as people are generally in better spirits. Third, transportation out is more dependable, quick, frequent, and inexpensive when it’s not raining. I have to admit, though, that I will miss the rain. For one, it was the one stable thing about my first months here. No matter what kind of work I was doing, who I was working with, how my living situation was, what I was eating, or how I felt, there was always rain starting at about 2 pm, going till about 5 pm, and then starting up again around 7 pm, ending at some point during the night, and then I would wake up to a sunny, warm 7 am. This has been the pattern, with little variation, since December. Sometimes the rain would just last all afternoon, without relent. Those were my favorite afternoons.

I’ve been told that I got lucky, that this was a particularly easy winter, that sometimes, it rains all day and all night the entire season. I haven’t really looked into the veracity of this statement, nor have I figured out the El Niño mechanics in this part of Peru. I was pretty sure this was an El Niño year, which would have meant heavier rains and possible evacuation, but that was not the case. People in town have told me that “el fenómeno” only happened in the jungle and central sierra this year, not in this part of the Andes. I realized quickly that when you discuss El Niño here, you have to say “el fenómeno,” or else it sounds like you’re saying something like, “Was the boy in the jungle this year?”

The great thing about those rainy afternoons in particular was I felt like I had nature’s permission to sit in my room and do whatever I felt like from 2 pm on. If I ever started to feel guilty about this, I would just take on a more Peruvian way of considering it. “Well, I can’t go out. I’ll catch the frío.” Which was silly of me, because the “cold” weather that everyone complains about here, I put in quotation marks, as I lived in Michigan my entire life.
One of my favorite conversations here is the “How cold is Michigan?” one. My general way to describe it is, “The winters last from November to April and it’s rarely above 0 degrees. There is ice everywhere.” (A lot of campo people use “ice” to mean “snow,” as both are rare. It’s like the first chapter of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Usually the distinction is “ice that falls.” I roll with it.) One time a man from the campo looked awed, as they often do, and said, “Wow, you must live at about 4,000 meters for it to be that cold.” I was really confused for a minute, and then I realized I hadn’t explained that I didn’t live in the mountains, that it was along the latitude, not temperature, gradient that Michigan gets its frío.

Onto other topics that are not universally signs of bad conversation. I think one of the things that people appreciate about the “simpler life” that Peace Corps provides is the possibility to really develop a hobby or two that might otherwise remain latent, and reading has been mine. It’s nice not to consider myself among the majority of Americans who say like they would read for pleasure, if only they had the time and/or energy. I made a list of everything I’ve read since I got to Peru today, and realized that if I’ve read an average of very nearly 2 books for every month I’ve been here. (It wouldn’t be “very nearly,” but rather “exactly,” if I counted the Mary Higgins Clark book I read when I was sick and there are nothing else around. I refuse to do so.) They are as follows:

- Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking
- Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
- Tim O’Brien, Going After Cacciato
- Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony (The irony of counting this but not Mary Higgins Clark has not escaped me.)
- Koren Zailckas, Smashed
- E.M. Forster, Howards End
- Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
- Yann Martel, The Life of Pi
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird
- Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains
- Levitt and Dubner, Freakonomics
- Mario Vargas Llosa, Death in the Andes

It’s a good list. I find it rare to read that many consecutive books and not think, “Well that one wasn’t worth the effort,” but that’s how this list is. To be fair, I felt that way through 85% of A Farewell to Arms, but I came around at the end. (Not “in the end” but “at the end.” I just liked the tragic ending, and not really the rest of the book.) If I had to pick three that I thought everyone should read, I guess it would be The Undertaking, Kavalier & Clay, and Jailbird. And if you’re not feeling Vonnegut at this point in your life, then replace Jailbird with One Hundred Years of Solitude, which you should have read already anyway.

Books started but not completed as of yet:
- William Gibson, Neuromancer. As Dan put it, “You’re either in a cyberpunk phase or you’re not.” Or, as Brett put it in the letter which accompanied the book, “Though reading about megalopolises and the future in the campo might be jarring.” Either way, it seemed like it would be something I would enjoy in a different state of mind. (I really, really appreciate that spell check thinks nothing of “megalopolises.”)
- Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel. I started this, and then I lost it in a cab 60 pages later. I got through the part about Peru, though, so I feel moderately satisfied. I probably won’t bother to revisit it.
- Edward Rutherford, London. I started it with Andrew in the hospital (if that sounds pathetic, consider the fact that I had an IV in one hand and wasn’t much for holding a 1,000-page paperback), and then the day I got out of the hospital, I got four books in the mail (Howards End, Ragtime, Smashed, and Artemis Fowl). I started on the four books, as I wanted to be able to thank the people who sent them. I’ll be revisiting this after I finish Ragtime.

Books on my list to purchase and then read:
- A biography of Ché Guevara. I could use some context for all the bereted tattoos and variable fluorescent memorabilia in this country.
- A history of the Sendero Luminoso guerilla movement.
- A heavily footnoted study Bible. Hey, I’ve got the time.

My last point about books is just that I really like reading books that people have sent, especially if they’re on their favorites list. It’s a good way of trans-equatorial bonding. And if the idea of getting other people to catch on to your favorite books is appealing, the Volunteer book-passing tradition is strong here in PC-Peru. Email me if you want to take part in this apparent pledge drive.

Highlights of this week:
- Giving an ad-libbed speech about the importance of nutrition and eating local foods in front of 200 people, including the PTA-type organism and NGO leaders from Lima.
- Realizing the ladies in my town will defend my and/or Andrew’s honor, possibly not to the death, but certainly to the point of awkward, abrupt conversation endings. As it happened, a guy who was talking to Sra. Charo and me asked, in a loaded fashion if you ask me, if I was “single or married.” I couldn’t get a word out past “single but” before Charo shouted, “Single with a fiancée! AND YOU’RE MARRIED.” (It’s a rough translation, but I think Sra. Charo thinks I am engaged, and situations like this constantly prove to me there is no need to correct her.)
- Working on my initial baseline report really hard, as I should have been doing for awhile. I have nothing witty to say about that.
- How many of the initial 25 kids I did the river cleanup with attended my second and third English class? Yeah, 5. And one of them was Sra. Charo’s daughter, who I know was parentally forced to go. The good news about this is I can officially say that English classes aren’t successful in Santo Domingo and are not a good use of my time, and I’m off the hook for the rest of my service. And if I ever get sucked into doing them again, I’ll know that “The Hokey-Pokey” is a tad too complicated for most kids to catch on to, and maybe “Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes” is the way to go. “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” worked like a charm, though.