In the meantime, read this....

New post on its way shortly. In the mean time, I highly suggest you read this account from a volunteer who recently contracted HIV during her service. Really powerful reading. Read all of it. Seriously.

The ups and downs of Peace Corps

(+51): Bad news: the hardware store hasn’t delivered any of the materials and looks like we’ll be at least one more day behind.  Good news: lomo saltado for lunch.

One of the many lessons I’ve learned about any Peace Corps experience, a universal fact, if you will, is that you will experience highs and lows.  The highs will be high, and the lows will be low.  And, they might be with you for hours or days and can easily change even hour to hour. 

That was today.  I woke up early (5:45am) to wait for a bus into recover my cell phone from a doctor who was handing it off before he went further up the road in the bus.  You see, my phone fell out of my pocket on Saturday and thankfully he picked it up and instead of simply turning it off and selling the phone, he held on to it and agreed to return it.  Didn’t even take a bill I tried to sneak into his hand.  So good start to the day. Next was frantically calling families to tell them that the truck was coming up today to drop off building materials for the bathrooms.  Then I call the Muni to see what time we’re going, and I’m told it ain’t happening today (see above text).

The dry bathroom project has been sucking the fun out of me for the last few months.  Various bureaucratic roadblocks have held up the works, and now we’re dealing with hardware store problems.  That problem is the hardware store gladly accepted the Municipality’s money and then informed us it’ll be a few days to deliver all the materials (it was a bulk order).  But it still hasn’t come.  What kind of hardware store doesn’t have bricks or can’t get 100 bags of cement in a week?

So that left me pretty furious at Peru.  I went on up to visit the health post to get a change of scenery, and talked with the Doctor about this and that,  and calmed down a bit, then went over to my community partner’s house to pass on the bad news.  She invited me in, and we talked while she was cooking.  And without even asking or saying anything, she set down a huge plate of noodles and a juice and I dug in.  After a while, we were talking about other things, joking about this and that, and then after awhile I left her house.  I stormed up to her house pretty frustrated and angry, but even without resolution to my frustration, I left a lot calmer and happier.  That’s how it is.

Some days, you’ll hate Peace Corps and the host country.  You get tired of the jokes that aren’t funny, a culture that isn’t yours, little kids staring at you. And other days, you’re making the stupid jokes, felling like a rock star walking down the street with everyone calling your name.  There’s days you think about packing your bags and leaving, and other days where you think you could definitely stay here awhile. 

imadouche

I was a douche to a Peruvian the other day.  Not that I’m not a douche on other days (gringo, Peruvian or other), but this time it was under no fault of the Peruvian.  You see Hugo was at the health post the same time I was. It was late on a Friday afternoon:  I was at the health post for the health promoter meeting, and he was there for reasons unknown to me.  I had never seen him before and didn’t know who he was or why he was at the post.  And Hugo didn’t do a single thing wrong.  In fact, he was nice to me.  He asked me where I was from, what I was doing at the health post and  if I liked Peru and the food, etc.  And that’s why I was a douche….

     
But let me explain myself….

Your Best Resource

About this time two years ago, I (yes, I, faithful readers) was scouring the interwebs for blogs from current volunteers about what it was like living in Peru, living in rural areas, and what volunteers DID.   In the process, I remember stumbling over one blog that gave me a little fright.  It was a WATSAN volunteer’s blog, and he wrote about doing survey work to improve a waterlines (or something along the theme) in the community. Survey work? Sounds like engineering!  Fuck.  I look on the dude’s profile, and he’s a Master’s International Student in Engineering and has a giant beard. I qualified for WATSAN with skills as a carpenter in a college theatre and mediocre Spanish grades. I am neither an engineer nor a facial hair grower.  How am I going to survive in Peru (a fear reverberated by most other volunteers, especially sans beard)?

(First off) Well, two years later I gotta say – it didn’t matter that I wasn’t an engineer. My job (and most Peace Corps jobs) didn’t require being engineer but rather just being a leader.  Being a leader in the community and knowing how to talk to people.  So when I didn’t know something and I hit a wall.  I did have some good resources.

I’ll let you in on a little hint: your best resource is….

So What’s Been Going on with the Bathroom Project

When people would ask me in January about my project, I would go on and on about the wonders of dry bathrooms and how they're a great solution to rural sanitation projects (which they are), and about how we had the support of the local government and it was going to be great! My old high school raised about $3000 to contribute to the project, families were all progressing on their hygiene practices, it was great! I was on the fast track and looking  to complete the construction of 22 bathroom units by late June, and possibly run another bathroom campaign. 

That was then.

Now when my host family asks me 'Que tal el proyecto?', I tell them I really don't want to talk about it.   What's happened?

And so it goes

 

March 31st, 2011 is the last day for one of our health post doctors.  He hasn’t been paid by MINSA (the National Institute of Health here in Peru) for over five months, so he’s leaving.  He doesn’t want to, but after five months of not getting paid, I’d be pretty pissed too.

Our town health post had two doctors which allowed coverage for attention between 9-4pm Mon-Sat plus allow to attend trainings, meetings, etc.  With Dr. Rony gone, things will start to slow down even more around here as Dr. Victor also has administrative duties + can only see x amount of patients per day, and can only work so many hours a week.  And while the fully (health) insured citizens of our town won’t be affected –they have their own clinic in town – the poor who are covered by the gov’t insurance only will have to wait longer to see a doctor.

And so it goes.