It's been a long time coming...

So it's been quite some time since my last blog, but my free time has been extremely limited. All of March I spent on crutches after I tore a ligament in my ankle. In April my community member Catherine returned home to the United States and since then I have been trying to adjust to life alone in Cusco. And, all of May I have been sitting at the cash register of the bakery where I work from 8 in the morning until 9 at night, which doesn't leave much time for anything else. I will be finished with this schedule the end of this week, and I could not be happier. I have learned that accounting and cashregistering are not my calling and this area of work is much better off without me. I think everyone will be happy when the normal cash register lady, Betty, comes back, because since I started, we have been short money almost every single day. An accomplishment, but not one that I am too proud of. I hope to return to a normal schedule and to be able to have time to explore what Cusco has to offer. In other news, I have finally been approved for my resident visa, and after one more trip to Bolivia, I will officially have temporary residency in Peru. The biggest benefit of this is that I can enter all the tourist sites without having to pay because technically I am Peruvian. I hope this updates everyone a little bit and I will try to ot up more posts soon. Peace!

Bribing Bolivia

So, my dear friend Maria says it is time for a new post, and she is most certaintly right, for there is much to tell about the adventure that is my life here in Peru. Catherine and I needed to renew our visas in order to stay in Peru. When we arrived in Peru, we got tourist visas that were good for 90 days. We are in the process of applying for a resident visa that is good for one year, but while were waiting for that, we needed to get another 90 days or face serious financial penalties. Since we realized this only about a week before our visas expired, we had to quickly plan a trip to Bolivia, the closest country where we could cross the border. What we really only had to do was cross the border into Bolivia, get our passport stamped, and then reurn to Peru to get a new 90 day visa. Sounds like a process that should only take about 30 minutes.....WRONG! What we thought would only be a day long trip turned out to be the worst three days of our lives. First we figured out that the shortest amount of time possible that wecould do this in was in 3 days. We left Cusco around 10 p.m. Friday night (after I realized I had forgot my passport and had to frantically take a cab back to our apartment to get it before the bus left us). After driving around Cusco for about 2 hours (for reasons we still don´t know), we were on are way to Bolivia. With only a few short stops to drop off other passengers, we arrived at the Peru-Bolivia border around 9 a.m. the next morning. There were lots of long lines and a bunch of waiting in Peru but we had no problems and soon enough we were in Bolivia waiting in line to get our visas. To make what could be a very long story short, we get into the office and see lots of sign with a list of seven requirements for American citizens to enter Bolivia, none of which we actually had brought with us. We weren´t sure what was going to happen to us, but we hoped for the best. What actually happened was the worst. We were taken into a back room where immigration officials explained to us that there really wasn´t a whole lot we could do because we had already left Peru and we couldn´t enter Bolivia without a credit card, a copy of a roundtrip ticket, a copy of our hotel reservation, $100, a copy of our yellow fever vaccination, etc. We explained that we were only coming for the day so we could get back to Peru and renew our visa, and that we weren´t touring the country, so we would never have a round trip ticket and a bunch of the other things, but didn´t seem to matter much. We were stuck, without a country to accept us. So when we asked what we could do, you can imagine what the resonse was...MONEY, they told us. How much were we willing to pay to be able to enter Bolivia for less than 24 hours. Well, we paid, and it cost us more than just money. We now have a visa to enter Bolivia that is good for 5 years, but at the cost of many of the values that we hold in high regard. I have spent a lot of time working for fairness and equality, trying to make people see that corruption and abuse of power is what is wrong with the world and is what causes the poverty and wars in so many countries and I have now become a part of that system. It was an experience I would like to forget, but it has also reminded me that there is still a lot of work to be done. We survived our trip and have sucessfully renewed our Peruvian visas, but we do have to return to Bolivia to pick up our resident visas around the end of March, that is if they don´t find out that we are actually criminals and obtained our Bolivian visas illegally. I trust this information to all of you and ask you to remember that I am actually trying to do a good thing here, so please think twice before turning me in.

Newsletter Article

Here is an article I recently wrote for the Good Shepherd Newsletter.

“Excuse me, do you know where I can buy masking tape?”
My whole volunteer experience here in Cusco, Peru can be summed up in the implications of this simple question. My time in Cusco has brought on many feelings of insecurity, unfamiliarity with my surroundings and a general feeling of being lost that can be represented by this question.

My community member Catherine and I wanted tape to hang things on the wall. Now at home, all I would have to do is go to my kitchen and get some. If it wasn’t there, I knew probably at least 10 places where I could go and buy some, very easily. Here in Cusco, however, things are a little different. We had no clue where we could go to find it. So, first we tried to call people to see if they could tell us where to buy tape, but no one answered. Then our landlady said that she would show us to a place where we could get some. However, we got there and they didn’t sell it. So we were left standing in the rain, with no idea where to go to find tape.

This is a common feeling, having no idea where to find the simplest things, no idea where to go. Not even a clue if I should turn left or right because nothing is familiar. Frozen in the street, trying to remember the reasons why I wanted to come here.

When I am fed up with not being able to find a store that sells the tape, or hangers, or a cooking pot, when I am asking myself why I am here if all I do is continue to make mistakes and not understand what is being said to me, when I feel like all I want to do is hop on the next flight home to my mom, I remember the reasons I don’t just throw in the towel and return to my easy, privileged life in United States where there is a store that sells tape on every corner.

They are Florencia, Lourdes, Wilfredo, Manuela, Urbana, Tina, Magdalena, Ana, Oswaldo, Maruja, Laura, Lucila, Sergio, Madeleyne, Yanet, Eliza, Efrain, Isabel, Fredy, and Cintia.

These are the people I am privileged to work with everyday. They have opened their lives to me. They are patient with my constant questioning, always help me to correct the mistakes I make in Spanish and have made me their friend. If all they need me to do is sit and talk with them, to joke around, to offer advice, or to just listen, ok. I can do that.

I know that Maruja always waits to the last minute to do her homework, so I know that Sunday nights, she will need help. Urbana doesn’t like cucumbers, so when Sister Janet isn’t looking, I put hers on my plate at lunch. If I’m ever bored, I know that Florencia will always have something to talk about and she’ll make me my favorite juice, a banana smoothie.

We have only known each other for about three months, but we have created strong relationships. They trust me with their pasts, their troubles, their secrets. I am honored to have been given that kind of trust and I know that I can trust them in the same way.

I still haven’t figured out where to buy tape, but I have a lot more people in my life now that I can ask, and I know that they will always point me in the right direction.

When does it get easier?

Some days, I feel like the world is just pointing its finger at me and laughing. Every time I take a step forward, something happens and I fall back three steps and have to start all over. I try and make plans with a friend and then they don't show up. I think I know what I'm doing when in reality, someone is following behind and fixing everything that I have just done. Most days I find myself searching for something that I can do that is actually useful. A lot of days I feel like I am fighting with Cusco, and usually Cusco wins. The taxi drivers try to charge us a higher fare, we get called all kinds of names in the street, and we have to accept the fact that we will never fit it, we will always stand out, no matter how much time we spend here. We go out for chicken and sit down at a table and no one bothers to tell us that we have to order at the counter first and it takes us 15 minutes to figure it out. Both Catherine and I are desperately trying to make friends, but things just never seem to go our way. If it can go wrong, it usually does, and when you think it can't get worse, it does. When I need to call someone, our cell phone doesn't work, our landlady isn't home, so we can't borrow her phone, and the public telephone up the street isn't out and I don't have any change. I lost our cell phone on New Years and the next day I was supposed to go to a concert with a friend from work. I went to the spot we agreed to meet and waited for over an hour , but he never came. The next day he explained that there weren't any buses running so he couldn't get there and that he had tried to call me but of course I didn't get his calls because I had lost the phone. I was working at the cash register and forgot to mark down that a customer had already paid. He went to leave and we made him come back because we thought he hadn't paid and he got mad and yelled at me and said that a foreigner shouldn't be doing this kind of work and he only wanted to deal with Peruvians. The tough realization is that my help is not really needed here. There are already enough people who know what they are doing that work here everyday. I help out, but things would continue on just fine, sometimes even better, without my help. There is one thing that I can offer that nobody else here can do and I started that this week. My first week of English classes went surprisingly well, but it is going to be hard work. The pronunciations of everything is really difficult, but everyone if very eager to learn. I still wonder if this is even a useful thing, but it's what they want, and it makes me feel like I am contributing a little. I love talking and hanging out with everyone, but some days that just isn't enough and I get frustrated because I feel like I should be doing something more. I have a lot of time left to figure it all out and I know that eventually, hopefully, things will get easier. For now, however, I'm still looking for ways to make up with Cusco, because we really are going to have to get along.

Ringing in the New Year

The New Year celebration here was crazy. Catherine and I made plans to go out with friends but, of course, they didn't work out so we ended up going out on our own to experience New Year's Eve in Peru. The big celebration is in the Plaza de Armas, the main square in the middle of the city. We got there around 10:30 and ran into someone we knew, so we were not alone to celebrate. Around 11 p.m. everyone starts setting off these fireworks and the plaza is filled with smoke and noise. There had to be around a thousand people there. We bought some beer and toasted the New Year on the steps of the main cathedral in the square as what seemed like millions of fireworks went off all around us at midnight. The we joined everyone in running around the square so that we would have good luck in the New Year. There were people running with there luggage because they hope to travel in the coming year and almost everyone was wearing something yellow, which apparently is good luck too. The entire day vendors were out in the street selling all kinds of yellow things, but the most popular is yellow underwear which you are supposed to wear on the outside of your clothes. It turned out to be a fun night and Catherine and I both enjoyed ourselves. I wish everyone a very blessed New Year full of Peace and Happiness!

My First Christmas in Peru

My first Christmas abroad has come and gone, and I must say it was a lot better than I had expected. I of course missed the usual traditions and spending the day with my family, but I was able to start new traditions. In traditional Peruvian fashion, nothing went exactly as to plan, but it was a wonderful day nonetheless. Christmas Eve we spent all over, going to mass at the hogar and in the central plaza. Then we went to the bakery to await midnight with all the girls. At midnight, everyone wishes everyone a Merry Christmas, fireworks are going off everywhere, and we shared a huge dinner of duck and pasta, followed by the traditional hot chocolate and panneton (a sweet bread with raisins). For Christmas day, in the morning we met with a friend who works with me at the bakery to go to mass. We were supposed to meet two of them, but only one showed up, a half hour late. Time here is so relative, you just have to accept that or it will drive you crazy. We went to mass in the national cathedral and then went back to our apartment where Catherine cooked a Christmas breakfast for the three if us. It was great food and great covnersation and we hope that we have made a friend as well. After that Catherine and I headed to the sister´s community for a lunch of duck and vegetables, which was delicious as well. Then we went back to wait for Mario, the nice boy who cleans our apartment, to come and get us so we could go to his house. He arrived an hour and a half late, so late that we figured that he just wasn´t coming. But we went and spent the evening with him and his family looking at pictures, talking politics, and drinking chicha, a fermented fruit drink. While everythign was a new tradition, I truly enjoyed celebrating the holiday with my new community here. I hope everyone passed a peaceful Christmas and I wish you all blessings in the New Year.

Things have been a little crazy here in the past couple of weeks, and I´m sorry I haven´t kept everyone updated. We have been getting ready for Christmas, decorating and celebrating. I got to elp pick out the (fake) tree for the dining room at the bakery and decorated. I was glad that I was able to help and to still be able to do the traditional Christmas things that I love. I continue to learn all the ins and outs of making breads and pastries. You will all be proud to know that I have successfully mastered the art of putting dried coconut on the edges of all the pies. There are even some things that I am allowed to do on my own, like dip the donuts and crossaints in chocolate. However, the more complicated procedures, like decorating the cakes and actually making something still require heavy supervision and several start-overs. The parties have started too. A couple of weeks ago, Catherine and I went with the whole group from the bakery to Urubamba for a day of fun and relaxation. We played soccer, volleyball, lots of fun games, and grilled trout. Also, on Saturday we had our first of three work parties where we have secret friends who we have to get gifts for. It has been interesting, to say the least, trying to figure out not only what to get, but where we can get it from. Our next one is tomorrow with the people from the Hogar and the final one is on sunday with everyone from the bakery. I have to say that secret friends is extremly intense at the bakery. This week you can leave cards and littel notes for your friend, but you can´t reveal your identity. Everyone is trying to figure out who has who and it is the topic of conversation at every lunch. Everyone has specifically stated what they want to receive from their friend, and it is a very big deal. They don´t go an hour without talking about it and trying to get out of me who I have. So far I have been able to keep it a secret, but we´ll see what happens. I have slowly been making some friends, in extremely random ways. Catherine and I have both meet people in the street, usually when they are trying to sell us something, then started up a conversation with us. We even met one guy who took us out for a night of dancing after I showed him where he could change his dollars into soles. We are currently working on making the guy who cleans our apartment our new friend, so I will keep you updated on how that goes. We have also been learning lots about the people that we work with. Everyone has story and they are slowly opening up to us and telling it to us. Most of the girls and guys have come from backgrounds of poverty. Their parents are dead, don´t want them, or can´t afford to take care of them. It is when I am listening to these stories that I see the reason why I am here. I can´t change what has happened in the past, but I can contribute to the things that will make their future better. Soon I will start giving English and computer classes. It will be interesting to see how that all works out. Thanks to everyone for their constant support. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas full of peace and love and a Happy New Year!