I’ll be finding out where my permanent site will be this coming Tuesday. Meanwhile, I have three more weeks of training to go. Training has started to resemble more and more the actual work I’ll be doing at my site, which suits me just fine. Two weeks ago we visited the department (the equivalent of a state in the U.S.) of Arequipa and taught business principles for a week in Chivay, a small town in the mountains located at an altitude of 13,000 feet. It was cold at night and in the early mornings but bright, absolutely clear and warm during the days.

Arequipa is an area where descendents of the Inca predominate and much Quechua is still spoken in Arequipa. Generally people speak both languages, Spanish and Quechua, but occasionally you’ll run into older persons who speak only Quechua. The area where we were staying is called Colca Canyon and Colca is a Quechua word meaning silo or a place where grain is stored. To store grain to be used in periods of drought or times of war the Inca made use of cylindrical cavities carved into the sheer walls of cliffs. The picture above shows a wide portion of El Cañon Colca near Chivay before it begins to narrow and deepen. The canyon is debatably the deepest in the world. Scientiests are doing measurements as we speak.

The day after we finished our teaching stint we hired a combi (small bus that holds twelve people but carries twenty people) which took us to La Cruce del Cóndor (Condor Crossing) in the canyon. We saw some magnificent condors with wingspans of up to three meters floating in the updrafts from Colca Canyon aad hunting as the day warmed. The condor remains the symbol of the Inca people and on Peruvian Independence Day (July 28) in some mountain communities they still capture condors and tie them to the backs of bulls (the symbol of Spain) and parade the bulls through the streets. the condors pecking at their hides and tearing them with their claws. It’s a symbolic demonstration of the fact that although the Spanish may have conquered the Inca they have never truly dominated the Inca.

The teaching gig in Chivay was grueling. If the kids were the condors then I was the bull. But in retrospect it was a useful and even entertaining experience. Three of us taught a class of 16 kids about accounting, the principles of entreprenership, how to draw up a business plan and how to do a market feasibility study. Groups of students formed their own temporary businesses and attempted to operate the businesses for one day in Chivay. Our groups opened a ceviche stand, screened a movie and set up a Casa de Terror (House of Horror). We managed to keep all of our students for the entire week—no small accomplishment since one class went from 25 to 11 as the week wore on—and all three of our groups showed a profit or broke even.

The food was beyond great in Chivay. They eat a lot of alpaca there. The alpaca is a smaller version the llama. I generally ate in the Market and Doneria, my favorite among the vendors, cooked caldo—soup with yucca, potatoes, vegetables, cilantro and, yes, alpaca—and segundos, main dishes, of rocoto relleno, a hot pepper stuffed with raisins, onions, shredded vegetables, spices and, naturally, alpaca. Mate, a tea made from coca leaves, is the drink of choice instead of coffee. Peace Corps volunteers are not allowed to drink it because if one were to do so and if for some reason the medical staff decided to screen that person for drug use he or she would test positive for cocaine. However, the tea really isn’t that strong and just between you and me the evidence disappears from you blood and urine after 48 hours.

There were only nine of us working in Chivay so it very soon became clear who the slackers were. All of us are hoping that next week when we’re placed in our permanent sights the two designated stooges won’t be placed anywhere near us so that we won’t be obliged to work with either of them on projects. As far as I can tell no one has accused me of being the third stooge. Although I would hardly place myself in that category everyone seems to consider me to be one of the more commendable recruits. Evidently only I know my dirty little secrets.

You’ll be among the first to hear when I find out where my site will be. So watch this space. And don’t be disappointed if the place they send me is nowhere to be found in your Michelin Guide to Peru.

Greetings from Perú

Greetings from Perú. It hasn’t been easy getting situated especially as regards the internet so that’s why it’s taken so long to post this first entry. Peace Corps hasn’t made any arrangements for us to have internet access during our training so the best I’ve been able to do so far has been to go to a locutorio (a business that sells internet time and phonecalls) and shoot a few e-mails to Judith. However, wireless exists even in Yanacoto, Perú, and this morning I found that if I stand on a chair and set my laptop on top of the armario (tall cabinet for hanging garments) I can get one bar of reception at pepe2yanacoto. So thanks, Pepe.

Training has been brutal. It’s like going back to college. We have Spanish classes, business classes (I’ll be working in Small Business Development) and classes on the culture and history and geography of Perú from 8.00 to 5.00 daily. We also have presentations to deliver in schools and at businesses and to each other (for practice) every week, all In Spanish of course. So I’m keeping busy to say the least. You haven’t lived until you’ve delivered a two-hour presentation on accounting principles and market feasibility in Spanish.

One big surprise has been how well I’ve been accepted by a group of volunteers whose average age is half my own. I needn’t have worried about that. I’m living with a host family in Yanacoto, a 10-minute combi ride from the training center and my “host mom” Benedicta owns a restaurant. So I’m eating well and volunteers stop by every night to gossip and eat alitas, fried chicken wings, and papas fritas and to drink a couple of Inca Kolas. I think the economic collapse in the U.S. resulted in a better than average group of trainees. They didn’t have a lot of job opportunities in investment banking. They’re a pretty sharp bunch. It’s been fun for me. Like getting to go back to high school and this time doing everything right that you screwed up when you were an awkward, anxious, hormone-drunk adolescent.

I made it into the advanced Spanish class so I’m finding it challenging. It’s me and six mejicanos, all native speakers, and one gringo whose father is Bolivian. The only other gringa in our class dropped out after the first week and asked to be moved to intermediate. Wish me luck.

I live with a Peruvian family in the dusty, hilly town of Yanacoto about 30 minutes north of Lima, the capital. It’s generally sunny here because the entire coast of Perú is desert (the Humboldt Current flowing up from Anarctica keeps the breezes offshore and so it rarely rains. There’s not much vegetation or scenery. Even less greenery than in Arizona, though nowhere near as hot.

Living with my host family has been a great experience. My host father Doroteo is a teacher and was mayor of the town up until a few years ago. My host brother Carlos is also a teacher and my other brother Hernán drives a mototaxi, a tiny 3-wheeled vehicle about the size of a golf cart except with a fully enclosed cab. They’re capable of carrying two passengers but always carrying three. Two sobrinas (nieces) also live here while they’re going to school in nearby Chosica. Yanina is studying to be a nurse and Ana María a teacher. Other reatives sleep here from time to time as well. We’ve been as many as 10 on a few nights. It’s cozy. However, I have my own room (though I feel guilty about it on nights when there are 9 other people in the hose) and the Ronseros have made sure it’s the best room in the house.

In Yanacoto since my arrival there has been an attempted assault on the current mayor—a mob broke into his office and tried to pummel him. He’s accused of embezzling funds from the community coffers. And my sobrina Anita was robbed in Chosica—they took her money, took her schoolbooks and even took her shoes. It’s the wild west here. Lima is even worse. When I go to Lima I empty my pockets entirely except for my insulin, a syringe and a folded-up 10-soles note.

The food in Perú is carbs and more carbs. Potatoes and white rice pretty much every meal along with a small amount of meat, a soup, and ají, a terrifically potent hot sauce a bit like habanero salsa. There are some tasty garlic and peanut sauces with which to smother the rice and potatoes. We also eat cuy here. Guinea pig. The guinea pig has been raised as a food source since Inca times. It’s an important food item but also has a place in the folklore. Curanderos y brujeros will cut open a guinea pig for you and will claim to be able to read your future in the entrails. When you’re sick, someone might pásate el huevo—crack an egg into a cup and pass it over you in order to draw the ailment from your body.

I’ll be posted to my permanent site about five weeks from now—the place where I’ll serve for the next two years. It will likely be on the coast but in an area perhaps slightly less austere and barren than Yanacoto. At least that’s what my guinea-pig guts are telling me.

I’ll try to keep you better informed from now on. However, a lot of that depends on Pepe and whether or not I keep getting that one bar of signal. I’m passing the huevo over my keyboard as we speak.