The relaxed Latin lifestyle

You've heard about the relaxed Latin lifestyle, right? No one stressed out, everything is always late, and people have lots of fun...well, in my Latin life my cell phone starts ringing at 7 am (probably it would start ringing earlier if I turned it on any earlier) with people stressing me out asking me to organize things, to find people, to buy stuff, to plan events, to solve problems, to coordinate groups, etc, etc, etc. I work on average 12 to 14 hours a day, theoretically 6 days a week. Today, Friday, is my day off. Let me tell you about it.

Last night I had to move all my stuff out of my hostel room and pack it into suitcases because they needed the room for tourists, so I slept in one of the staff's beds. So this morning I woke up at 6:30 am, having slept in my clothes and having gone to bed around midnight (having beed drinking beer with friends on the roof, with the most amazing view of the stars and the mountains). While I was brushing my teeth I got 2 missed calls (time 6:50 am). I am out of credit in my phone, which allowed me to not return the calls. I went to the plaza to meet the taxi driver in front of the restaurant and they informed me I needed to go to the internet cafe to print out the vegetarian menu for tonight. I ran to the internet, realised I've lost my USB, rewrote the menu, printed it, dropped it off at the cafe and got in the tazi to Sacaca, a community in the highlands about 1h30 from Ollanta. We got to Sacaca and picked up 3 children: Adriana, a girl who has been walking on crutches for 5 month because Pachamama (the mother Earth) dragged her down in anger--probaby her family didn't sacrifice enough to the Earth, Jose, a 6 year old boy with a congenital disease and also a problem with his palate and mouth so he doesnt speak, and Gerardo, a 16 year old who looks 10 with a horrible skin condition. We drove another hour and a half t the doctor in Cusco, taking also another woman, Jose Antonio's mother, who wanted to visit her child who is staying in a clinic for children with brain damage in Cusco. The doctor was really nice, but Sonia had told me he'd see the kids for free and instead he charged a lot of money for the visits and exams (we got discounts but it didnt really help). The kids all have serious problems, some treatable, some not, all way more expensive than their families can afford.

Then we went to the clinic where Jose Antonio is staying and if I thought nothing in Peru shocked me I have changed my mind. The clinic is wonderful, the children are very wel taken care of and it's virtually free...but the amount of suffering is more than I could handle. It must be really incredibly hard to work as a doctor, nurse, medical technician or any other job that is in so much constant contact with so much suffering.

I've since been running around Cusco doing errands and I decided I deserved a nice lunch at one of the very few good restaurants in town so I sat and breathed for half an hour and ate fish.

Now I need to go pick up the blood tests, ask the doctor if he can not charge us for at least one of the children, go back to Ollanta and probably work in the cafe tonight. I think if more staff were hired in the cafe I wouldn't tire myself to death, I wouldn't constantly get guilt trips about not being able to be in multiple places at once, and I'd actually be able to work on the projects....

Love.

Natural Dye Workshop

I haven't been writing much because I have been busy working and loving this place...
Last Saturday I went to Patacancha, a community relatively close to Ollanta, to a natural dye workshop. Weaving has traditionally been a big part of the Andean culture, but lately it had been lost because it takes a very long time and it is very costly. In the last few years, especially thanks to tourism, many communities are reviving the traditiona methods of dying sheep and alpaca wool boiling it in pots with local plants and rocks, and weaving by hand...and the results are gorgeous! It was really great to see how it's done and at the end of the day I smelled like a chain smoker because I'd been standing so close to the pots, trying to keep warm!
Here are some pictures:

ollanta and patacancha

Teaching English

I've been thinking about volunteer English teachers, is it realy a good idea to have people teach English to children who speak bad Quechua and worse Spanish, who can barely read and write at the end of elementary school, and who are not likely to learn English anyway, less to use it. isn't it better to have volunteers do art, theatre, music, environmental education, sport, or anything but English with them? Or is this condescending?

Damn questions that come with everything you do and everything you don't do, everything you consider doing or might do in development work. It's all a huge grey area!

I came to the conclusion that we'll do everything but English, in English. So if hte kids learn a few sentences as a side effect while doing art projects that's great, but it's not a good idea to have English classes... let me know what you think.

The gossip of the town (there's a lot of gossip, being such a small town)... but I will wait for that, for now. Juicy gossip is: Maricarmen closed her project because she realized volunteers are a lot of work and not a lot of money! Surprise! The coordinator she hired after me quit after 2 weeks, saying people in the area know him and he doesn't want to be associated with "mala gente" (bad people)...of course the version of the facts I got from her was slightly--totally--different!

And I love working with Laura and Danielle, I love their enthusiasm...the enthusiasm of Americans, which Italians are too often too cool for. If you come to volunteer with a community I'd hope you'd be excited about it!

Pictures, finally

canchacancha etc