Episodio Cuatro (June 15, 2011)

¡Buenos días del Perú!

It´s another lovely day in Cusco -- especially since my cold is finally going away! I´ve been "resfriada" (sniffly, with a cold) for about 3 days now, but my nose is finally starting to slow down. Yay!

In other (more significant) news, here are some updates on la vida cusqueña (Cusco life):

• Saturday night (after I posted the last update) we had a wonderful meeting with Adolfo, where we sort of talked over the whole game plan for starting our project´s "pilot" soon. The highlight of this meeting was that we unanimously (the three of us) decided to look for a "mujer líder indígena" (indigenous leader woman) or two from whatever community in which we decide to work to partner with us and be on our "team". This is important because everything Daniel and I have read about voluntourism and grassroots cooperation in college has talked about the importance of valuing and including local wisdom, and not just assuming that we know everything because we went to college. (On the contrary, we can´t even talk to most of the townspeople because we don´t speak Quechua!) So we´re really excited that Adolfo sees the value of pursuing this also -- and we love how he´s incredibly smart and also willing to change his ideas when he hears something he thinks is worth including. =)
• Also Saturday night, we found an internet cafe where we were able to hook up Daniel´s computer directly to the internet, which enabled us to SKYPE with some family members, yo! It was super good to check in and hear some familiar voices (and remember how to speak English, haha), though it was also funny that Daniel kept being frustrated in his update-sharing by my notes.... which had already said whatever he tried to say. =) Sorry, Daniel!
• Over the past few days, Daniel and Adolfo have been working really hard to meet people at other NGOs (Daniel) and get a hold of people in potential target communities (Adolfo) so that we can start to lay the groundwork for the actual project(s) we will do. We expect to start having lots of meetings with people, so that´s pretty exciting stuff! One awesome thing on the radar is that this Friday the director of the Peruvian chapter of UNICEF will be coming to Cusco, and we´re going to get to be present at the meeting/chat/thing and meet him!!
• But what are YOU doing, Rebekah? you might ask. Well, I spend my time doing one of several things: coming along to meetings and taking notes/helping Daniel understand Spanish, reading and planning in preparation for the start of my school year this August (!), sleeping (I have been sick, after all...), and reading and planning the beginning framework for a "volunteer curriculum" that we would use when/if we have foreign volunteers come for our project. This latter probably wouldn´t happen until at least January, at the very earliest, but since I have time now (and won´t when I´m grading final papers over Christmas break!) I´m trying to get a jump start and think about what sorts of questions we´d like volunteers to be thinking about in an "optimal" voluntourism program. Yes, we have both talked about voluntourism being hard and gross... but it´s not going away, and we think the best way to tackle the problems is to try to do it a better way, where hopefully the people will stay longer and/or come back multiple times and focus on the relationships they make rather than on "collecting" exotic people, photos, and stories to display when they get home and then forget.
• We have enjoyed our stay in our lovely hospedaje, but we are excited that tomorrow (or the day after, but probably tomorrow) we will be moving into an apartment in Adolfo´s family´s house! We are excited for several reasons, one being that it will be much easier to meet with Adolfo, and the other being that this apartment will have a little kitchen! As much as we love our two favorite restaurants we´ve been frequenting, it will be nice (and a lot cheaper) to be able to cook for ourselves most of the time.

Well, that´s about all I´ve got for now. Hope you all are well and enjoying the (wherever you are) sunshine! =)  Enjoy your "Spanish lesson", and keep in touch!

Un abrazo fuerte,

Rebequita y Danielito

VERY IMPORTANT SPANISH PHRASES

Lesson Two: Around the House

Cubra y hierva al fuego centro. (Cover and simmer.)

¿Tiene su cocina un extinguidor de fuego? (Does your kitchen have a fire extinguisher?)

No me gusta comer alimentos pesados por la mañana. (I don´t like heavy food in the morning.)

Hice los bizcochos con una mezcla preparada. (I made the biscuits from a mix.)

¿Podría traer un molino de pimienta, por favor? (Could you bring a pepper mill, please?)

Mi mesa se bambolea un poco. (My table is a bit wobbly.)

Episodio Tres (June 11, 2011)

Buenos días, amigos!

Today I am quite frustrated with this internet cafe (the space bar is very stubborn and the connection is slow), but I will persevere. =)

Let´s see, what has happened in the last few days? Well first, we are now residing in a very nice (and cheap, at less than $50/week!) hostel pending a move to Adolfo´s house, where they have an apartment for us

that just needs a little TLC. For those of you with very good memories, yes, I did say we were going to move to Adolfo´s brother´s house, but that ended up not working out. So now we´re in a lovely hostel right by the airport (the sounds of takeoff at 8:00 in the morning remind me of My Cousin Vinny) and loving our nice, hot shower. (The last place didn´t have hot water, so this is a very welcome improvement!) We will stay here in the hospedaje (hostel, in Spanish) till our week is up, and then we will get to move in with Adolfo, Cheryl, and Rafo!

Another pretty sweet thing that has happened over the last few days is that we´re beginning to meet with the members of the team Adolfo has "assembled" to help start work on our health projects. Two nights ago we got to have dinner with Ricardina (aka Rica), an obstetrician whose room we found out we were occupying! Hospitable gal that she is, we didn´t even know the apartment she found us was hers until the day we left! Anyway, we took her out to a chifa (Chinese + Peruvian = Chifa) restaurant and got to know each other a bit. Her role in things, since our main organizational goal is to reduce maternal and infant mortality and childhood malnutrition, is to come up with educational materials that we can use to help educate  pregnant mothers so that they (and thus their children about to be born) will be healthier and safer. Rica´s fantastic -- full of energy, very confident, and with a heart to do some good in the world.  Also, fun fact, she is a hardcore chess player! We mentioned our (Daniel´s) cousin Aidan, who has now won national chess things for his age group -- we thought she´d be impressed -- but silly us, she took a national title in Peru when she was growing up!! Come to find out, much of her family plays chess very competitively, and a few of her brothers and cousins even play professionally! All in all, it was a super fun dinner, and a good way to meet our first team member. =)

Then last night at a little juice cafe we met another team member, Adolfo´s tio (uncle) Wilbur. Wilbur is a Jehovah´s Witness, and has spent the last 25 years or so as a wandering missionary in one (or several, not totally clear on that) of the rural states of Perú. His particular expertise is his experience working with campesinos (rural folks, usually of indigenous descent) and his ability to speak Quechua (primarily spoken in rural/indigenous communities, often instead of Spanish). We spent a good hour last night acquainting him with the mission, values, goals, etc. of the organization (which, have I mentioned?, will be called Wiñarisum, a Quechua word meaning "let us grow!"). He seemed to be very interested, and said he would be happy to help out in his spare hours once we get going. We also talked about possible neighborhoods in which to do a "pilot" version of our idea, so we´ve got some definite concrete "next steps" to do.

Also last night, after we met Wilbur, we met up with Dra. Haydee (Mamita) and her son, Gabriel, for a drink (aka super tasty juice). We hung out until Gabriel started to fall asleep on the table, poor dear. It was good to catch up and sort of start some "repair" on this relationship. We talked about all sorts of things, including life catch up and thoughts on the recent presidential election here, and we made plans to head to Haydee´s for dinner some night. She is an excellent cook. =)So, more exciting meetings and progress! It seems like with each meeting we have, we get closer and closer to actually starting something! Will continue to keep you posted as events progress. In the meantime, I will leave you with this extremely useful and edifying list of "key phrases" that no Spanish-learner can be without, pulled from the lists on my little translator/dictionary thing. I have certainly found these phrases to be indespensible, and I hope you will study them with great urgency, due to their frequency of use in daily conversation.  

Hasta luego-- (Until later--)

Rebequita y Danielito

VERY, VERY IMPORTANT AND USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES!

LESSON ONE: AROUND THE OFFICE

Soy miembro del sindicato. (I am a member of the union.)

Usted puede comunicarse conmigo llamando a mi radiolocalizador. (You can reach me by calling my beeper.)

Bajé esto del Internet. (I downloaded this from the Internet.)

Tengo síndrome del túnel carpal. (I have carpal tunnel syndrome.)

El manual no fue útil. (The manual was not helpful.)

Episodio Dos (June 8, 2011)

Buenos días, queridos!

Ha, I almost continued writing in Spanish, but that probably wouldn´t be too helpful for most of you. =)

Anyway, things are going well here! We´re starting to get into sort of a routine of things, which is really nice. Wake up, breakfast for 3 soles next door, read and/or journal back at the room, errands, lunch on the go, meet Adolfo in the afternoon, chat for a few hours, go home and grab dinner at the pollería (chicken store/restaurant) down the way (1/8 chicken plus fried potatoes for 5 soles, or about $2!), talk and/or rest till bedtime, sleep.

Significant updates from the last few days:

1) Monday, after I wrote "Episode Uno", Daniel and I went to meet Adolfo at Belenpampa, the clinic where Daniel volunteered last time. While we were waiting for him to come out, we ran into Doctora Haydee, who was Daniel´s "mamita" (mama + ita = little mama!) at the clinic. It was a sort of bittersweet meeting, because it was wonderful to see her and catch up, but we also saw firsthand some of the hurtful things that short-term volunteer trips can do to the people left behind. Mamita talked about how she had missed Daniel a lot, and how she hadn´t heard from us (apparently our emails and messages went astray... not uncommon, unfortunately). I think the saddest part for me was after she talked about being sad, she said something like "But time eventually buries our feelings, so I´m not as sad now." To me, that was much harder to hear than just that she missed us -- she had actually had to traverse multiple stages of grief on our account. Daniel and I talked later about that whole situation, and I think it´s really reinforced our commitment to (a) do right by our friends here and put relationships first, and (b) NOT participate in forms of volunteering/volunteer tourism that put the local people in the situation of having to pour themselves out over and over to new people every two months, only to get hurt and burned by that trust when people leave the locals behind as just another part of their "experience".

2) Yesterday (Tuesday) morning, Daniel and I spent a lot of time talking and journaling and sort of figuring out where we were at with our work and our emotional states, etc. We wrote down and talked about a lot of stuff to bring to our later meeting with Adolfo. Then last night, we sat down with Adolfo in a little cafe and had a FABULOUS meeting!! We went through some "appreciative inquiry" stuff (what are strengths, what are concerns, what are proposed action steps) about our plans for Wiñarisum (the organization we hope will come about from our work with Adolfo) and about our international collaboration in general. It was super great -- Daniel went through and was able to be open about some of his/our worries and fears, like that his loyalty to Adolfo would cause him to take on roles or responsibilities that he shouldn´t, and Adolfo was incredibly supportive and "on-the-same-page" about it. He said, "You´re right, Daniel, that would be a problem. But just remember, that if you do something you shouldn´t out of loyalty to me, you´re not being loyal to Wiñarisum." It was AWESOME, and just what Daniel/we needed to hear to be reassured that we really do have a strong working partnership here, and not some weird dependency situation. We also talked a lot about the specifics of the scope and focus of our work, which was really great to start the ball rolling on planning our next steps. All in all, a pretty fantabulous meeting! =)

Other than that, we are continuing our acclimation process. In the next few days, we will probably move from our current (temporary) apartment to a room at Adolfo´s brother´s house, where we will probably remain until the end of our stay here. Today we´re working on tying up some loose ends -- like buying some toothpaste, since our travel one is toasted already -- and so it will probably be like a "catch up and plan tomorrow" sort of a day.

In other news, look for a "Spanish lessons from my translator" note in the next little while. You wouldn´t believe the hilarious specificity of some of the phrases they tell you how to say in there...

All right, well, it´s off to another crisp cusqueño day. Hope you all are well!

Un abrazo fuerte,

Danielito y Rebequita

Episodio Uno (June 6, 2011)

Buenos días del Perú!! (Good morning from Peru, for those of you who are seriously monolingual, hehe.)

As you may have noticed by my previous status update, we did, in fact, arrive safely in Cusco. We even slept pretty decently on our red-eye flight from New York to Lima, so that´s pretty good!

So far we´ve pretty much just been resting and getting settled in. I have been feeling the effects of the altitude (though thankfully not nearly as bad as last time!), so I took a lot of naps the last few days, and Daniel has very graciously been running around on various quests for some maté de coca (coca tea, which helps with altitude sickness).

Adolfo (the doctor from the clinic that Daniel´s been working with) came and got us from the airport and has been more or less taking care of us since then. He found a little one-room apartment where we´ll be staying for the time being, and it´s super cute and perfect! Also yesterday we got to meet a lot of his family -- his wife, Cheryl, is gorgeous and super nice, and their son, Rafael (aka Rafo) is 6 and adorable!! We also got to meet one of his brothers, his niece and nephew, and his mother. We all went out to lunch yesterday, and Cesar (the nephew) was HILARIOUS -- he reminds me of Russell from the movie Up, because he´s about 12, a little portly, and full of questions (and knowledge) about everything! I really want to find a way to videotape him saying "bop bop beep bohp boop", but Daniel said that was mean, so I probably won´t.

Today we are exploring our surroundings. The apartment we´re staying in is located in a part of Cusco that is a ways off the main tourist drag (Avenida del Sol), so we don´t know the area terribly well. Our quests for today are to find an internet cafe (done, obviously) and then a map. Also, we found a sweet breakfast restaurant like 2 doors down from our apartment and ate there this morning -- "desayuno" (breakfast) consisted of noodle soup, a plate of rice with meat and veggies, and a cup of tea and cost us 3 soles (just over $1 US). Win!

Well, that´s about it for now. We´re still settling in and getting our bearings, but I will certainly post more updates as they become available. =)  Hope you all are enjoying the summer sunshine back in the States.

Un abrazo fuerte! (A big hug!)

--Rebequita y Danielito