Observations, Latrines, and a Welcome!

I want to officially welcome to the world Addison Bauer who was born on Feb. 16, 2006 and Anna Sampish who followed suit on Mar. 3, 2006. You each have a set of incredible parents and are loved beyond words. I can`t wait to meet you!

Looking at the pictures on my wall, I wonder what they say about me, about my life (if anything)? What does it mean that these are the pictures I`ve chosen to look at every day? Do they convey accurately who and what is important to me? Family and friends Here and There. Most of those from There are from various going-away parties and last get-togethers. Others show me attempting various activities - wakeboarding, hiking 14ers, snowboarding, scuba diving. And the remaining pictures are simply those that mean something special to - a special moment, a special person, an essense captured on film.
And what does it mean that I have separated my pictures between Home and Peru - a wall for each? Will those two places always be separated in my heart? Will they, one day, both become a part of me - equal? Or is it simply that i have never thought to change the picture`s arrangement from when I first put them up and needed the separation?
The pictures from Peru are smaller in number and only a few have any special meaning to me at this point. Looking at them now, I realize I put most of them merely to document my life. Can you tell they were taken in Peru? Only a couple, I think. But another person, someone from Home, might think differently.
I try to look at all these pictures as a stranger would, without any emotional connection or memory of when they were taken. Of course, I can`t. Each one has a story for me, often so layered and interconnected that one picture leads to another, unfolding the last 8 or so years of my life.

The heavy rains of February have faded into the heavy mists of March. These are the rains, almost definite, almost solid, that make me ache with homesickness. They put me in mind of Colorado winters, those pale grey days when the snow falls in tiny, barely definate, barely solid flakes, slanting down through the wind. The days when I would want to either curl up on the couch with my favorite person, favorite blanket and favorite movie and wait for the chili to finish cooking. Or be on top of a mountain, snowboard strapped on, a hole opening in my stomachas I slide over the edge.
When they first started, these rains, I would put my hand out, more than half expecting to see tiny white flakes melting in my palm. But no. I don`t do that any more, know the disappointment that falls with mist that isn`t quite snow. Still, every once in a while, I`ll stand outside, my face turned up and my eyes closed. I can, for a moment or two feel real snow on my face, smell the cold the snow brings with it. But soon I become aware that the sensation of moisture on my face is wrong and there is no sharp inhale of cold. The moment of nothingness between when a snowflake lands on the skin and the drip of moisture from the melted flake is missing and I smell not crisp cold but wet rocks and wet animals.

My latrine project has made a couple what I hope will be major advanced over the last few days. As luck would have it, there is a civil engineer in Lluchubamba who has agreed to help me with the funding proposal and obtaining materials. he is also in possession of all the necessary schematics. We will need to pay him, of course, but not much - he just wants to help (he has done the same for Meredith and her "cuy" project). The second possible advance is the rejection by the mayor of Cajabamba to provide roofing tiles and aluminum for the doors. While this was, at first, a set back, combined with the help from the engineer, it becomes a good thing. It will actually cut our costs by forcing us to use aluminum for the roof rather than tiles - which are expensive.

The Days Go By

Dedicated to Addison and Anna - Welcome to the world!

As I mark the days off my calendar, the changing of the months is always bittersweet - one more month has come to a close, bringing me that much closer to saying goodbye to Jocos, and a whole new blank month stretches out before me, waiting to be filled.
6 months ago, these months ticking by were are more sweet than bitter as they moved me closer and closer to my return Home, to those beloved aspects of Home that I have dreamt about so much. But now. . .well now the calendar changes are bitter ans sweet in equal measure as the reality of my leaving Jocos - probably never to return - and actually resuming a life back Home sets in.
It scares me, this going Home. Perhaps more so than coming to Peru. I much now begin to actually answer the questions of What will I do? Where will I live? How will I earn a living? Do I go back to my hometown or settle somewhere else? I have answered the easier of these questions, but the rest are harder and scarier. The unknown known is far carier than the unknown unknown.

These days, my life seems to revolve around the small things and the big things - finding a forgotten and untouched Snickers bar at the bottom of a shelf, getting a 50-latrine project underway. Of course, maybe my life always revolved around these things, but I notice them more here because they break up the monotany of my daily life so much.

The rain can´t seem to make up its mind whether it wans to go or stay. For a week or more, we see neither hide nor hair of any form of moisture, only to have the rain return one afternoon with a house flooding, road ruining, electricity blowing vengance. It teases us with misty mornings and afternoon banks of clouds rolling up the valley, only to clear off just in time for sunset.

Jocos has grabbed ahold of electricity and refuses to let go. Its amazing the speed with which TVs, DVDs, refrigerators, electric ovens and all manner of electric gadgets have populated households. Jocos has opened its arms and wallets to that so powerful electric current while I struggle to embrace it. Kids run around 1/2 dressed, families complain of not having enough money to buy a chicken for dinner, people remind me of my world of plenty and their world of too little, yet there, in the bedroom sit 5 kids, glued to a $500 TV/DVD set while in the kitchen mom purees aji peppers in a $70 blender. Part of me smiles and says "Yes! You enjoy your electricity!", while another part of me cringes to think of those TVs and ovens and DVD players in months and years to come, gathering dust and household clutter, the family having retired them to a corner because they are either too expensive to use or because the electricity is no longer flowing to Jocos.

I have finally started the project that will be my crowning Peace Corps achievement - latrines. The funding request has been started, my boss alerted and additional sources of funding identified. Dates of completion have been set for each set of construction - pits dug, adobe made, etc. Even working with Shocorco, this project is nerve racking in its size (50 latrines!) and its importance - to me and to Shocorco. I don´t want it to fail - it can´t fail. Shocorco needs latrines to take the next step (potable water) and I, in my very American way, need to complete this project to justify my time spent here - something concrete, tangible to point to and say "I did that."

I have a new neighbor - my good friend Proffesor Michaell. he has moved into the room across from mine. I´m looking forward to having him there. Michaell is just a sweatheart and many times has been my saving grace in Jocos. He and Miriam have been very dear friends - I don´t know what I would do without them. The are both so curious, caring and open-minded. We can vent our feeling and frustrations to ech other, make each other laught, share companionable silences over a banana. Work, relationships, politics, life in Jocos, dreams and goals - we talk about it all. I don´t think they can truly understand many of my frustrations with life in Peru and Jocos, but I know they try to imagine it for me. Sadly, I don´t think either friendship will continue after I leave. or perhaps not so sadly - eveny friendship has its course, its purpose. 2 years is probably the course of our friendship. As to the purpose, without Michaell and Miriam, I never would have made it in Jocos. The isolation and loneliness wold have been too much. I can only hope that I have, or am, fulfilling my purpose in their lives - whatever that may be.