Some More Thoughts...

Originally Written September 15, 2009

Dear Readers,

Yesterday the local pastor of the Protestant church engaged me in a conversation about religion. A note: in Spanish (and in German, but I don’t know what other languages) the word for “Protestant” is strikingly close to the English “Evangelical” even though it doesn’t exactly mean the same thing. In Peru there are Catholics and there are Protestants, translated as evangelicos. Whether Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other more specific groups are considered evangelicos or not is not clear to me, but from what I sense, they are distinct “religiones” although I am not sure if this means, in the view here, that they are different religions, or just different religious groups.

Anyways, I am really digressing. As I was saying, the local pastor engaged me in a discussion about God and the Bible as he believed it to be. He became interested in talking to me a few Sundays ago. Sitting with some men watching them swig a vile mixture of cañaso and milk while waiting around fix a broken water pipe with some fellows from my JASS, I saw a large group of people walking out of town down to the river. I asked the fellows I was sitting with what was going on and they told me and they told me a baptism in the river. I chewed that over, balancing the merits of fixing a pipe or watching a full-immersion baptism, something I’d never seen before, and decided to go to the river with the group and take pictures. On the way there the pastor spotted me, tapped me on the shoulder, gave me a limp handshake and asked me if I believed in God and what His name was, which, according to the pastor aptly named “Cristián”, is Jehovah.

Ever since then he has been braver about talking to me about religion. I have to admit, I’m not exactly sorry about it because it means something a little more philosophical to talk about than I get when I speak with most people in town. However, it’s also very conservative religious views, which I’ve heard before and personally don’t agree with. However, I let Cristián talk with me if he wants. He doesn’t do it too often, anyways.

I don’t agree with this fellow’s views for the most part, some of them for theological reasons, and some for humanistic reasons. I feel that a person’s belief system is a personal thing, and therefore I won’t go into mine here. I try not to be too specific in my discussions with the pastors, but sometimes his questions basically require answers that I can’t easily sidestep around. So far I haven’t minded it, though.

But on a broader view, not just in terms of religion, but in terms of what I believe and how I feel about various issues in the world, I find myself more confused than anything. I guess that’s part of life. That’s not to say I don’t have my own opinions, but I’ve found there are so many ways to live life that it’s probably better to keep your opinions to yourself 90% of the time. It’s not as if you are any more wrong or right than the next person. I’ve found it’s usually the case where wrong or right is not the issue so much as where a person is in their life. Or even how they are wired, so to speak. I used to think that the way a person acted had mostly to do with how they were brought up. Not to make this a blog about religion, but just as an example, some people just seem to have no desire to believe in a God of any kind. I used to not know what to make of it. Atheistic upbringing, religion is too stifling, choral music sucks, I didn’t know. I guess I still don’t actually. But then I look at myself. I was not raised by sports fanatics, but most people aren’t raised by religious fanatics. However, I was immersed in sports culture: most of my family enjoys sports; I was encouraged to play sports; my parents and most of my family is from Colorado, yet I was raised in rural Nebraska, so I got my pick of college teams. But despite all of the exposure and ample opportunities, not to mention the physical abilities (read: not talent) to play any of the sports I was around, I don’t give a flying flip about sports. In T-ball I would get bored in the outfield and sit down in the grass. It never really got any better for me. I enjoy running, and swimming as well if the water isn’t freezing, but I don’t really count those as sports. With the exception of a few fast paced games like badminton or dodge ball, I would conclude I am not wired for sports, much how some people are wired to be or not be something. I even consider myself a sports-agnostic, in that can accept that others find sports to be exciting, and believe in the possibility that they can be fun and exciting, but I have yet to see any proof that they are. If one were to look at what sports (rituals especially) and religion have in common, I think one would see they have a heck of a lot more in common than most folks realize.

What I’m trying to say today is not that based just in religion, nor in sports. What I am saying is that the more I try to live my life, the less clear it is where I am going, wires or cultural conditioning or not. Or sometimes it’s is that it is clearer, but it’s in a direction I don’t understand, which immediately muddies the waters again. I don’t really think though that life is about finding specific answers. Trying to get specific answers out of life is like reaching into a lake to hold the water in your hand. Sometimes you might catch a fish, but mostly I think it’s the process of fishing that counts. And that’s a good thing. It’s not a waste of time, it’s a time to make yourself open to new things that you wouldn’t have seen if you were so busy hooking fish into your boat.

Life is just confusing and unpredictable. But that’s what adventures are. The last two days were perfect examples of that. Nearly nothing turned out that I had planned. On Sunday I was planning on coordinating the JASSes of Rinconada and two other caserios, El Faique and Las Mishcas to all come to Rinconada so I could instruct them how to clean disinfect the reservoir in their towns, using my town as an example. We were set to meet at 10.00 AM. I thought we were just going to meet at my counterpart Pedro’s house. Instead, a group of people went up to start the cleaning, never going to Pedro’s house at all. Pedro and I waited for the other JASSes to arrive from the neighboring towns, but by the time we realized they were no-shows, it was too late, so we had to reschedule the cleaning, much to my chagrin because I wasn’t really jumping with joy to do this demonstration in the first place. However, these things seem to happen. A lot. I even described it to Patrick as “normal” and watched him laugh his ass off. It was more frustrating than discouraging. Indeed, it is rather typical that you schedule a meeting and then an important town authority that was aware of it is suddenly unavailable because he is out of town on business or at a social event, and consequently the meeting having to be rescheduled. It’s just the way the ball rolls here.

The next day I was looking forward restoring order to my bedroom while listening to podcasts and then Patrick called me up saying he needed help with is worm bin, which is fine, because as I have said before, we have to support one another. I went to his house and helped him with what I could but I had to be back at 3.00 to help with my art class with the primaria students. I was back at the appointed hour, but the principal to the school had left to go to his field. I was willing to put class off for some other day, but to both my exasperation and happiness the kids really wanted to have it on the same day – these afternoon activities have been a big hit with them – so I waited until 4.00 for the teacher to get back. Once he did, I divided the kids up in two groups to do two different puzzles my parents had sent me. None of the kids have ever done a puzzle before, to my knowledge. I was happy to see how the boys worked together with very minimal instruction from me. I was actually surprised how smoothly they worked.

I was also surprised to see in the other group the girls fight over the box to look at the picture of the Disney fairies, have a piece ripped in half, listen to the girls argue and watch them stake pieces off for themselves, somehow managing to create three different sections of the puzzle but unwilling to join them together to make the big picture. I even watched one kid (a boy who had briefly defected from the other group) accurately construct a portion of the puzzle and then destroy it so he could build it again. Not to mention the one girl who destroyed another girls section in retaliation to having her own section destroyed, she claimed. More than once I threatened to take away the puzzle if they couldn’t get along. I also threatened to throw kids out of the classroom if they mettled with the stuff in the teacher’s desk one more time, which they had never done before.

It made me not want to have kids.

Ultimately, it turned out to be a success because the kids all completed their puzzles and told me they wanted to do another one. Lucky for them I have a final, more complicated jigsaw puzzle. Lucky for me it will be the deciding factor if I seek out more puzzle activities for them. Maybe we’ll stick with drawing. Everyone loves to draw, right? (By the way, if anyone is willing to donate crayons or colored pencils or even notepads that you can easily tear the pages out of, or similar inexpensive, simple art supplies, let me know, and I promise you they will have the hell used out of them because colored pencils have been a smashing success in my class and not everyone has paper to spare).

But the fact that the youth group is going well and is actually the most fun I’m having with the town is another good example of something I didn’t expect. I’ve never been a kid-person and I initially had no plans to work with youth. But they are my most eager co-workers, so to speak. And as one of my fellow volunteers told me on the phone that evening, I very well might be the only positive male influence they have in their lives right now. And heck, it’s actually fun.

Who woulda thunk it?

Hope all is well.

Tristan

Some Observations about Customs and Critters

Originally Written September 2, 2009

Dear Readers,

I look forward to the second year of my service. This first year is not yet finished yet (that happens at the end of November) but I think that the second year will be far more productive, if that’s the right word. Things in Rinconada have already started to pick up. That’s not to say of course that there still aren’t difficulties or challenges that leave me shaken or completely baffled.

Little by little projects are going. However, in Peace Corps-speak, the idea of a “project going” is a very vague one, and one that has caused me a lot of grief. Just to succeed in arranging a meeting is a success. It’s a given that the meetings will start at least an hour late, and the lack of punctuality is usually a small joy for me because it gives me time to read while I have the feeling of “accomplishing” something, namely waiting for people to show up at seven for the meeting that scheduled for five. For me, the frustrating thing I’ve noticed is how unbelievably clunky the meetings are. Every meeting I’ve been to has at least forty-five minutes of uncoordinated discussion or people filling out papers that is begging to be streamlined. Often in crowds I succumb to doodling in my agenda or notebook. It doesn’t help that most of the gatherings are done in buildings with awful echoing acoustics and nothing can be heard anyways.

One has to take things with a grain of salt in Peace Corps life. I used to be driven insane by the things people would talk about on the road. “Are you going uphill/downhill?” “Ah yes, going up/down.” Of course I’m doing that. That’s like asking Waldo to his face if he’s wearing a striped shirt. Nowadays, however, I’ve come to be more at peace with it. You just accept it in the same way that Americans will ask you “How are you doing?” and then not even wait for a response. In other words, it’s just another form of acknowledgment.

Allow me to recount a typical story of hospitality. The simple matter of dropping a message off at a neighbor’s become quite an affair if you were not planning to spend much time with them. Every time I’ve had to pass along a notice to someone they have invited me to sit down and take a rest for a while. It’s a nice gesture and one that I’ve come to expect, although not one I’ve really come to always enjoy yet. Yesterday I was passing along notes to town authorities about a meeting I have coming up next week. I entered the front room of a house where several men were passing the time. Hanging from the rafters were fresh carved off slabs of beef and the smell of blood wafted around the room. I gave my note to the local authority who was slicing up oozing beef on the table and then told them I’d be on my way, as I had a whole stack of notes to give out. But everyone insisted that I stay for a moment and have a bowl of beef soup. I was unable to politely refuse and offering a guest food is something that has happened to me often out of generosity and respect, so there I sat. Now, I really love beef. But for a reason I can’t quite figure out, the local beef I’m not too crazy about at all. I guess it’s the taste, basically. Also, I can be very squeamish. Eating a bowl of beef soup in a room smelling of blood with red raw meet all around me and being chopped up on the table inches from my bowl made it difficult for me to enjoy my impromptu meal. So after eating mostly just the noodles and plantains in the soup I told them I was full, which they seemed to accept and that I had to continue passing out notices. I hope that wasn’t culturally insensitive of me.

Here’s a story I hope y’all like. One late night a couple of weeks ago I was stung by a scorpion while trying to smash it with my sandal. In order to keep from passing out from the sensation of having my toe chewed off with a blow torch I tried to make it back to my bed. I pushed through my bedroom door and stumbled over my chair and collapsed on my bed where waited for my vision to return while I consoled myself that I probably wouldn’t die because my host mother told me she had been stung three times in the course of her life. After blood returned to my head I got up and walked out to wake her up. I didn’t want to climb the hill to get to the door of the house, so I stood in the street and shined my flashlight into her window on the second story and called her name. She asked me what was wrong and I told her a “firetrucking” scorpion stung my “firetrucking” foot. She just replied “Ohhhh” and then giggled. A few moments later she came down to my room and poured some rubbing alcohol onto the wound and said something about a candle and my toe. A bit to my dismay I thought she wanted me to stick my toe in a candle flame, which didn’t seem very healthy, but I also wondered if the burning flame would really register much above the burning venom. Thankfully she was only suggesting I drip hot candle wax on the wound, which I did. It did sting, but as I had thought, I could barely feel it. Afterwards, I went back to stomping on the scorpion, which had been crippled and rendered nearly motionless but had stayed alive through the whole ordeal. Orfelinda finally killed it with a stick.

I’m sure her treatments did any good, but the next day my stinging had gone down to where I could walk without a limp, and by day three I couldn’t tell anything at all had ever occurred. Truth is, I don’t blame the scorpion, and actually I think they are really cool and beautiful bugs. I’ve found a few in my room and have always had to kill them, which is a real shame, I think. If I knew of a way of safely getting rid of them without getting stung, I would do that instead. I try not to kill the animals I find, even if the Peruvians in the area don’t like them. I’ve spared every tarantula and snake I’ve come across, and every time I find a snake dead on the road I feel bad for it.

Orfelinda has also acquired a new puppy, a dirty grey-brown campo dog who still piddles on floor and then sits in it. I think he’s cute in his own helpless way; he’s got floppy ears and is slightly larger than my size 11.5 shoe and he once fell off a rock and into a bowl of dirty water. He waddles crookedly along and likes to antagonize the sleeping pig who shakes water off on me after I’ve poured it on him with the watering can to cool him down in the sun.

And finally, my last observation about animals:

Chickens can fly, if only for short distances. For example, I’ve learned that a chicken can fly faster than a bucket’s worth of water I’ve flung at it. I did not know they could move that fast.

I think I’m running out of animal stories. I’m aware that this blog has not really had any linear patterns from beginning to end, but the truth is I wanted to put something light out there. Peace Corps is like life in a lot of ways: confusing as hell and full of chances for you to second guess yourself. This last month has overall been good, but has had its emotional lows too and I wanted to write something that would be cheery and convey some of the lighter or more amusing moments I’ve had here. Even the scorpion sting was funnier than hell I thought. I don’t know why I thought that. It’s a laugh I’d rather not relive, though.

Hope all is well.

Tristan