So What Do You Think?

Alright,

So most of my blogging is narrative. My life is like this, etc. This is all well and good but I would like to occasionally write with more substance. Like the kind of stuff you, my readers, can learn about the Peru from.

Some of my ideas for these type blogs are: (lots of lists lately)

• Peruvian Food. I would take photos of different foods I eat (when my camera starts working), write about how they are made and how I like them. Maybe not even just typical dishes but local products like Sublime, the best Peruvian candy bar that I’ve found.
• Andean Culture. As I’m learning about the culture here I would like to blog about it. What makes it different? What do they believe?
• Peruvian History: What are the historical forces that define Peru?
• Outside Intervention: What are the affects of international NGO’s on poverty and social issues in Peru?

And I’ll freely admit I don’t have the wherewithal to tackle all of these yet. But I intend to learn and I intend to write about them.

So, here is my question for you:

What are the questions that you have about Peru? Is there anything you want to learn that I can write about? What interests you that I can give a Peruvian perspective of? Or do you just want more pictures?

You can either comment or send me an e-mail, but I want to share some of the power over the content of this blog. Giving me questions will make this blog more interesting for all of us and I think a lot could be learned. I like that. So thank you!

Chau!

Brian

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So Life Can Be Challenging

Duh.

But here are my challenges right now, some related to the Peace Corps, some mildly related, some not at all.

For fun I’ll make a list (in no particular order).

1. I have a parasite. And while truthfully this is not all that bad (well I won’t bother you with details), I’ve been stuck in my capital city for five – going on six – days longer than I want to be. What are the implications? Tagging this onto Reconnect I’ve been gone from my community for what will be two weeks.  After this long I feel estranged from my community. It is really frustrating. I am really at a point where I want to start a project, I want to have some kind of success so I can validate my presence to myself and to my town, and instead I’m stuck in Huaraz with a bug eating my insides while I wait for my medication to arrive. Furthermore, we have official vacation time beginning in less than two weeks, and so even when I do get back I’ll just be leaving again. It was to the point where I was tempted to skip out on the trip just so I wouldn’t have to leave. I was talked down from that but I still find the whole situation very troubling. I worry that my community will think that I don’t care or that I am not happy there. This may not be true but it still bothers me.
2. This is almost the same issue but with a different twist. It is a challenge balancing my personal life with what I want to do in the community. For example, being stuck in Huaraz I have spent a fair deal of time trying to catch up a little on what is going on in the world and generally enjoy myself (no clubs but a few movies). I did do some ‘useful’ work, such as writing and printing surveys, but not as much as maybe I should have.  Yet on the other hand, I really want to try and understand what is going on in the world right now. It is a fascinating and scary time we are in, and it drives me crazy not ‘getting it’. But when I’m trying to figure stuff out, like have a basic grasp on the economic issues shaking the world, I am ignoring the needs of my community. Where should I put my focus? It would be great to spend all my time thinking about my community but I don’t want to get back to the U.S., apply for jobs and graduate schools, and have a weak and limited understanding of the events that shaped the world I’m coming back to. Ahh!
3. I went swimming in the ocean with my cell phone in my board shorts. This is stupid and my fault, but it still isn’t fun not being able to easily communicate with people.
4. …

OK, so I suppose it’s not so bad. I’ve mostly been worried this week about my influence in my community and about the impact I can have there. But really I have a of good going too. So to balance, here are things I am happy about or that I am looking forward to.

I am happy about…

1. The other Peace Corps volunteers here in Peru, as well as the Peru PC administration. The people I have met here are an amazing, talented, and adventurous group of people. I enjoy them so much on all different levels whether it is something simple like relaxing on the beach, something creative like making movies, something crazy like swimming in freezing glacial lagoons, or something intellectual like discussing development theories. You are all there every time and you make it an awesome experience. I love it : )
2. My host-family. We don’t always understand each other but they are patient with me and try to keep me updated on what is going on in the community. They are supportive and want me to succeed, and that is awesome.
3. Living in Ancash. It is so beautiful here. It is so beautiful here. Enough said.
4. You. My family, my friends. I have received great feedback about this blog and I appreciate that so much.  Thank you for caring about me and the experience I am having here. Wow. It is humbling.

And now, things I am looking forward to…

1. Success in my site. Despite the challenges, I actually do have a lot of hopes and expectations for what I can do in my site. I really do think that I can organize the community to take care of the trash program, and I think we might even get some native trees planted too. Add in some classes and maybe a library project, and I will be very proud of myself and my community.
2. Even more friends. I already said I’m happy about my friends here. I want to add that I am really looking forward to developing these relationships over these two years.
3. Growing as a person. I strive to be a relentless self-improver and I see these two years as a huge opportunity for my personal growth. I can’t wait to see who I will become.
4. Really understanding a different culture. When I leave I will understand a completely different culture. I will see what makes us different and what we share.  How cool.
5. Seeing my life begin to be laid out. I’ll have to make some big decisions in the next two years, especially concerning graduate school and the preliminary steps of a career. This is big. It’ll be interesting seeing my desires and ambitions narrow into a (more or less) set path.
6. The Jungle. This is just to brag really, but in July I’ll be lazily floating down the Amazon River with a delicious beer in my hand, enjoying the wildlife. That’s just too cool.

Alright, so that’s all. This blog has taught me that things aren’t as hard as I’ve been making them out to be the past few days, and that I have so much great stuff going for me here. I like the way this turned out.

Love you all,

Brian

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Photos from Lake Llanganuco!

Just a real quick update: I uploaded some photos from our trip to the beautiful Lake Llanganuco in Ancash. We took a trip there with Sophie’s mom who was a great sport and photographed us for our naked lake jump competition (two year long contest to see which Ancash volunteer can jump naked into the most lakes/lagoons here). We had a great time and really enjoyed Llanganuco which is beautiful and sits at 3,900 meters.

I also added a couple photos of our new baby lamb at site, in these photos he’s about a week old, and of the few photos of the beach I managed to take before my camera started fighting with me again (I think I may have a few more to upload later but I need to head back to site now).

Chau,

Brian

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Coming Together

So this past week us volunteers went to a little beach town called Pacasmayo in the department of La Libertad for a Peace Corps program called Reconnect.  It was both joyous and trying, but first, Reconnect for the uninitiated.

Reconnect is basically an opportunity for volunteers of a given group, in my case Peru 12, to come back together after three months in site and to share stories, experienes, successes, and failures, while having personal access to the administration of Peace Corps.

In all of these areas Reconnect was a success. Seeing the other volunteers that I went through training with was simply awesome. We were right on the beach and spent a lot of time just hanging around talking, drinking beers in the sun, throwing frisbees, and swimming in the ocean. That’s a little bit of heaven for me so I was very happy, especially after having spent three months in the mountains, rain, and cold.

Our sessions also went well. We split up into our programs (environment, water and sanitation, and health) and every volunteer was responsible for presenting about his or her site. Seeing the differences and similarities between everyone’s sites made me appreciate more the challenges and opportunities that exist where I am, and I am also convinced, now, that us Ancash volunteers have the most rural sites in Peru 12 and I’m beginning to see how drastically different my service will be because of that, not least of all because of the prevelence of Quechua in my community.

I also realized the challenge that I’ve been facing from simply being out of site as much as I have. Because of our Quechua classes, we spent two full weeks out of our sites. Add reconnect and that is another week, and between visits here and there during the rest of my time (Christmas and New Year’s for example), I’ve probably spent at least a month out of site. And sure, I appreciate the freedom and the escape (its a challenge living out there!), but my service so far has been without continuity with my community and this, I fear, could pose problems. I am also worried in some ways that the situation will continue. In April we have official vacation for ‘semana santa’ (holy week) and so I’ll be out of site yet another week. I already feel bad about it but staying in site when we had vacation and when everyone in my community would just be drunk also seems like a bad decision. After that, the Ancash volunteers want to do a health theatre program in May which would mean being out of site for another week, and in July we have official vacation again and I plan on going to the jungle. So looking ahead I’m afraid these problems will continue and it is a challenge and difficulty I will have to face. We’ll see… and I’m rambling.

So, all and all Reconnect was a success. Seeing all the other volunteers was refreshing and it was nice to see how close we all are and how ‘un cliquey’ our group is. Everyone was always hanging out with different people every day and I feel that everyone in the group is accepted and no one is really left out. Even the administration and some of the third-year volunteers we were with (who were awesome and hung out with us the entire time) noticed this and commented on it. Also, us Ancash volunteers got a lot of comments from everyone else about how close we were to each other. We really are a family up here and I’m proud to be a part of it.

It was difficult to say goodbye though, after a few awesome days that went by way too quickly we had to part ways and many of us will not see each other again until Med Checks in November.

And finally, I am still having camera difficulties so I apologize for the lack of photos. I’ve had the camera fixed twice now (didn’t pay the second time) and the same problem keeps recurring so it is hard to say what’s going on.

Much love,

Brian

post scriptum – More applause to Tyler’s creativity. Enjoy!

Quechua Week

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Skype and Pidgin!

Hey!

I have recently started my first and long overdue Skype Account so if any of you have Skype and would like to talk my SN is ‘phelpsbg’. Also, I started a Pidgin Instant Messaging account which will allow me to instant message with a lot of different IM clients.

So… if you use MSN my account is phelps.bg@hotmail.com; if you use Gmail my account is Phelpsbg@gmail.com; and if you use any other program and want to chat just let me know what program and I’ll add an account.

Best,

Brian

p.s. Tomorrow is Daylight Savings! But… in Peru we don’t celebrate this fabulous holiday so all you East Coast folks who were right in sync with me in terms of time are now an hour ahead (and everyone else too obviously from where ever you were). Not a big difference but I thought it would be good to know in case of any planned telephone chats. See ya!

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Is It Worth It?

So what does it mean to be a Peace Corps Volunteer?

Or more simply, what on earth are we doing here and is it worth it?

Us volunteers, and myself definitely included, spend more time than we should thinking about these questions.  Why? In my mind it is because these questions rise naturally out of the difficult clash between our idealism and the realities of life. We arrive with big ideas and big plans for all the change we are going to make, and even though most of us knew coming in that these dreams were just that, we hold onto them. Then, life sets in. Many of the development problems we face are much much bigger than we are, and even though we knew this would happen it comes as a shock. We have to deal with it, and so myself and many other volunteers I’ve spoken with ask this big four word question: ‘is it worth it?’

Is it?

I am in Peru because of the goodwill, or at least the money, of the American people; and I am here chasing an abstract ideal of service and trying to discover through action what it means to live one’s life. I am here because I believe I am blessed and my ideals will not permit me to pass through life without trying to pass this blessing on to others. I am here because I want to grow as a person. I am here because I want to, in some small way, positively influence the course of mankind, or at least a few lives. I am here because I believe that we as human beings have the power to collectively create the kind of world we want to live in. I am here to give of myself because I don’t know if anything else is worth doing.

But will I really make a difference here? Is it even important to make a difference so long as I try?

At this point in service, as I am ending my diagnostic and preparing to begin projects, these are the questions that keep me up at night. Sometimes, I imagine turning my community into the community of my most wildly successful Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) dreams. In this community we have built landfills and throw away our trash. We recycle our recyclables and compost our organics. We plant native trees that build the soil and benefit the local environment, and we have parents teaching their children how to eat healthy and always wash hands and brush their teeth. The children who have attended my classes have higher self-esteem and hopefully some skills like typing and interviewing that help them find reasonably paying jobs outside of their communities so that they can follow their aspirations. Some kids would read more because of a book club I started. A few will have conversational English. And in my wildest wildest dreams one or two of my students have found their way to college.

And then I think of the problems that would still remain even in this best of all worlds. The schools would still not prepare students properly to think on their own and aspirations would still be rare and difficult to maintain. Unless I had miraculously managed to curb the alcoholism in site, many children would still grow up malnourished because their father spent money on beer that could have been used to buy fruits, vegetables and occasionally meat.  Opportunity and life choices would still be far-away concepts.  Forms of income outside of farming would remain scarce. Life would still be difficult and as a result the people would remain fatalistic in their philosophy. The main patterns and structures that created the poverty in the first place would continue.
So is it worth it? Is it worth the dirt floors, the days without showers, the loneliness birthed out of cultural and linguistic differences, the strange diseases, and the difficulties of being so far from loved ones for such a long time?

I believe the answer is yes.

For starters, looking at this best of future, even with the problems that could continue, life seems so much better. But what I neglected to say, that I believe is tantamount to the value of my service, is that I believe I can empower some of the people, especially the young people, in my community. I believe that as I involve the community to make gains in trash management, the people here will see first-hand that they can solve problems on their own. They will see that they have control over their lives and they are responsible, at least to some degree, for shaping the reality that they experience. I like to think that when I leave there will be a few people in my wake who understand that the future is theirs to create. That they don’t need to wait for the government or some NGO to come put band-aids on their problems, but that they can solve problems on their own.

But here I go again spouting my hopes and idealism. Yet this is why I am here. I believe in people. I believe that everyone has inherent potential and I believe that much of this potential is not used and therefore wasted. This is a shame. It is a loss to society and a great loss to that individual who never had a realistic opportunity to explore his or her potential. I’m here because I believe that my being here will inspire and motivate some kid to take control of his or her life. And I want to make sure that that desire and motivation is not burned out by a lack of opportunity.

I want to help some person take control. I want to help one community learn to solve its own problems without expecting handouts. I want my presence to show people that they are worthwhile. And even if all I do is convince one child to be more than what he believed was possible; even if all I do is learn Quechua and show a community that its culture and traditions are valuable; even if I just leave friends and memories, it will all be worth it. Or so I hope ; )

Best,

Brian

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