A Taste of Nebraska

A dream complete:  make granola in Peru

....Now we just need to buy some milk!

Taking a step away from the custom of rice (twice) every day here on the coast, we've been making pizza, parseley potatoes, pot pie, and now finally granola!  We (well, maybe more honestly, I ) hope to make some more non-Peruvian dishes in the coming days as well.  It is a great improvement to my week to have three days without rice.  Igor gives pizza three thumbs up, as well as granola; however, he isn't sold on potatoes as a substitution for rice yet.  

Not again!

     Sunday, October 5^th is Election Day in Peru.  Here voting is not a right and a privilege, but rather an obligation.  Failure to vote or help with the elections, if selected to be a “member of the table” (selections at random from the population, like jury duty), result in heavy fines, as does failure to display the national flag (in good condition) on 28^th-29^th July for the Independence Day Celebrations. 

(One of our neighbor's worn Peruvian flag left over from the 28th of July)

     

     The campaigns have been well underway for quite some time and are finally finishing up today.  Candidates (and their political parties) are not allowed to carry out their campaigns in the final week leading up to elections, so they do their best to go out with a bang and show everyone that they’ve got a lot of support to try to encourage others to also vote for them.

     Over the past month, there have been numerous moments in which we have had to wait in traffic as campaign floats go by and think to ourselves, “Not again!”  We’ve also listened to many vehicles blaring music or propaganda over loud speakers or a megaphone and had those same thoughts.  This morning, just before heading out to buy our weekly assortment of groceries at the market, we were greeted by literally hundreds of vehicles (small mototaxis, large buses, Combis, and cars) all full of passengers waving orange balloons, displaying orange banners and a photo of the candidate they support, and blaring propaganda clogging the streets around our house as they went by in a fifteen minute long procession!  We set out on foot towards Mercado Z and encountered another large parade with the waving candidate towards the front, a band, and many cars, but this time displaying the color green.  We’ve continued to hear propaganda throughout the day, but many tonight when we go to bed, our wish, “Not again!” will be answered. 

Random glances at our lives here:

We have three plants in our bedroom that have all bloomed in the last month J

(Spider Plant, Violet, Geranium)

Additionally we have numerous cacti growing outside on the stairs to our roof.

We love fruit.  Here are two of our three fruit dishes for the week.

(They include 3 different types of bananas, tuna, peaches, 3 types of apples, 

oranges, mandarins, granadillas, passion fruit, papaya and pineapple.

 The view from our roof:

 (Note: Each home has its own water tank on top.)

 The broken bottles our neighbor has cemented onto the top of his wall to deter intruders.

There's a great contrast of modernized buildings and delapidated ones.   

Here's a view of the famous Pan-American Highway.  We cross it daily.

(There's a red mototaxi in the background heading north).

I’m constantly encountering signs or labels that baffle me.  My favorite from the week:

On this bottle of Dukto (a product used to help clear obstructed drains/pipes), the warning says: “Avoid direct contact with skin, eyes, bodily fluids and clothes.  In the event that direct contact occurs, drink an abundance of milk to induce vomiting.  Then seek medical attention.”

But that’s not my real name

     At the sound of “Miss” (sounding more like meese) or “Teacher”, I turn, glancing in the direction I believe the voice came from.  It may be in the language center, on one of the city’s main streets or in a more residential neighborhood, but more than likely someone is trying to get my attention.  Between last year and this year, I’ve had contact with over 1000 students from the Chiclayo area as well as numerous teachers and parents of students.  I don’t remember many of their names, but I often recognize their faces.  Just the other day, walking to catch a Combi home, I turned and my eyes met those of a curly skinny, haired, teenage girl.  She excitedly began to babble about her experiences at the university, La Pedro (where I worked last year as part of my Fulbright ETA Fellowship), about how she’s now in her 3^rd semester of English language studies and how she hasn’t seen me there for some times.  Well, she’s correct; I haven’t been there since the end of December.  She asked me if I remembered her, and I was forced to confess that I’d forgotten her name.  She smiled and went on gabbing, and I considered that she likely didn’t know my name either.  After all, “Teacher” isn’t my real name. 

     Having a name like Aprill is great sometimes.  It’s normal in English with a slightly unique spelling.  It’s easily translated when I travel, but then that can also cause challenges.  Most of the people I meet, can’t seem to say “Aprill” but rather “Apo” or something along that strain.  So, it’s usually easier to introduce myself to new people as “Abril” (a name that while not common in Spanish, does exist).  There’s no problem until I write my name on something, and I suddenly hear someone exclaim, “But you’ve deceived me!  You told me your name was “Abril” but it’s “Ah-prij.”  Then I have some explaining to do. 

     When it comes to filling out official paperwork like documents for my foreigner’s card, changing documents with which my bank accounts are registered and the like, I don’t have two last names like Peruvians do.  I fill out the forms, leaving the part reading “maternal last name” blank and hand them over.  From the other side of the desk or counter, I receive a quizzical look and then hear, “And your other last name.”  I then launch into the all too familiar explanation that since my nationality is U.S. American, I do not have two last names, which then usually creates some sort of complication.  Some have wanted to add “Hoffman” to my documents, but then that’s not my real name.  If I do decide to apply for Peruvian citizenship in 2 years, then I may have to add that and have a new name, but for now, my entire name consists of 16 letters: six, four, six.  A nice length.  I like it that way.  I may answer to many different names, but only one is the true version.  

A place I pass by every day

     Bodega is the name for a small shop here.  They are tucked into homes like spider webs hiding in nooks and crannies.  To an outsider, there don’t seem to be any businesses around, just houses made of brick, cement or adobe often times with metal bars over the doors and windows.  To someone from the barrio though, bodegas are easy to spot.  It’s a great place to pick up something you forgot to buy in the market and a great way to help out neighbors and give the local economy a boost.  Often times, people turn the front part of their home into a shop and sell to anyone who taps on the window or door or calls out “Seño” (leaving off the final part of Señor or Señora for whoever might be selling). 

     There’s a bodega that I pass by every day that fascinates me.  Unlike nearly all the rest, it isn’t a small converted room at the front of a home, it is a large portion of the home, but the space is used in an absurd manner.  A large wooden door opens up to light the dim cement room, which has a ceiling reaching two stories.  Crates of old beer bottles sit off to one side, while a long row of shelves with matches, eggs, oil, sugar, toilet paper, rice, pens and other odds and ends spans the length of the 5 meter by 20+ meter room.  Towards the back of the room are some stairs that lead up to a loft, upon which all can see Don Prado and his wife’s bed and other personal items stacked along the wall.  I rarely shop there because I feel uncomfortable entering and calling out to the hard-of-hearing Don Prado and fearing that he will crawl out of his bed after a siesta and be startled by my presence.

     The strangest thing isn’t that they’re so poor that they have to live inside their shop, but that they rent many (perhaps 50) tiny, dilapidating rooms from other parts of their house to other people and families living in poverty and all (including he and his wife) share the bathroom or two that exist there but don’t even have a toilet, but rather a hole in the floor leading to the sewage pipes!  It’s a mystery why they choose to live in such poor conditions when they could easily sleep in a different room or hang a curtain between their room and the bodega.  Some things simply cannot be understood.  

September's Anecdotes

There’s no such thing as “prepared”

   At the beginning of the month, I obtained my foreigner’s ID card, making it possible for me to be legally employed!  Nearly immediately, I received an email detailing a time to teach a mock English (as a foreign language) lesson at Señor de Sipán University.  It was a Tuesday morning.  Wednesday night, I received a text message that I would be teaching two classes the following day: the first to begin at 7:30 am.  Not that we’re ever completely prepared for what life throws at us, but sometimes we’re more prepared than others.  I accepted the job, thought about a few activities (still not knowing what level my students’ English was at nor how many of them there would be), and went to bed.  The next day, I taught students with an extremely low level of English and later got the books.  Of a class of 29, only 6 were there the first day. 

A sound I’d never heard before

One night, I was up later than I wanted to be, preparing classes, helping Igor find his misplaced surgical uniform, finishing cooking our lunch for the following day,  and other such minor but time consuming mundane tasks.  I went to bed around midnight and heard singing outside, the faint sound of a choir.  I soon learned from Igor, a light sleeper, that it is a religious sect whose house of worship is located several blocks away that sings from midnight until 5 am every Saturday and Sunday night.  I’d never noticed, but he assured me, he had (many times).

Then the lights went out

I live in a desert.  It never rains.  Well, never say never.  Ok, so, almost never.  One day last week, we decided to wash the bedspread that had collected the city’s dust for a few months.  Since we didn’t get it done until late afternoon, we decided to hang it on our makeshift clothesline on the roof to dry overnight.  Of course, that night it rained.  It rained so hard that the streets flooded with more than six inches of water in them.  It rained in through the windows, washing some of the icky, smelly fish oil putty we’d put on them to keep the glass from falling out, onto the floor.  It rained in through tiny fissures in cement roof and came pouring through our ceiling where the light fixtures are attached.  It rained and rained.  In the morning there was no electricity.  It didn’t return in the afternoon or evening.  It didn’t come back the following morning either.  After numerous phone calls to an electrical company, after having a neighbor (who’s an electrician) dangerously (and irresponsibly) lay a ladder from the top of our roof across the chasm of nothingness to the lightpole and letting the other end rest on the cables as he inched out to see what was wrong, the company sent a few workers to repair the cable that had been destroyed by too much water.  Finally, we were able to use our computers again to study and prepare work for the university.  Let there be light!

Follow the Rules and We’ll Get along Fine

That’s what I said before the exam, but true to the corrupt, chaotic, relaxed ways of this land, we were soon to have an issue arise.  Cheating is a given and I was already prepared to let little things slide.  It not, I wouldn’t have a job.  Most students, if only to save face or feel less guilty, will hide their cheat sheet or make their eyes return to their own exam when the teacher is near.  For this particular exam, I had two students who seemed to lack a few neurons.  Despite a few very clear verbal warnings (in Spanish, mind you) and my presence they not only used a cheat sheet, looked at others’ tests, but also conversed in low tones about the possible answers.  Not wanting to raise the issue during the exam and distract others, I asked Carlos and Karin to stay after class.  I told them what I’d witnessed and asked their input about what would be a just punishment.  After a few moments of silence, I got the typical, “But other people were copying too!” argument.  That was irrelevant to me.  Without any apology or promise to not do it again, I heard their excuses they left.  “I didn’t know the answers, so I just had to check with someone else,”  and probably one of the most absurd excuses I’ve heard, “It’s not fair Miss.  I’m pregnant, so I had to cheat.”  Some things never cease to amaze me!

Everyone was staring at me

With a three-piece navy blue suit, a pastel pink blouse, black heels, a leather bag, papers in my hand and sunglasses atop my head, I dashed out the door to teach.  First I had class with some young children (ages 4-7) and then class at the university.  I waited impatiently for the menagerie of traffic to pass so I could cross the Pan-American Highway to take public transportation to work.  I hailed a Combi, and wriggled my way through the people and took a seat towards the front, facing all the other passengers, while packed like sardines in a crushed tin box.  Everyone stared.  Perhaps it was because I wriggled my way into a seat at the front rather than thrusting my way past other passengers to the already crowded backseat, to which the cobrador (money collector) had directed me with the infamous phrase Al fondo hay sitio (there’s room in the back).  Or perhaps they stared at me because of the large bag I had full of toys and games for children and books for the university and the roll of papers in my hand and wondered what I was doing there or what was in the bag.  But more than likely, everyone was staring at me for the same reason as every other day: There’s a “blonde” girl in public transportation rather than a taxi.  She pays in coins like everyone else rather than in large bills.  Like many of us, she’s dressed in a suit and headed to work.  Is she really Peruvian?