mi vida con el yeso

my life with a cast. it's been 20 days since the accident and i'm still not used to it. the first days were horrible. i woke up in the hospital one night to find left arm tryng to push right arm off my ribs. of course it didn't work b/c it was in a sling. now i've learned to sleep through the night with it.

i've also started to take up some light exercise as a mean to loosen up the hip. nothing major. i'm an old woman now so just a little something to ease up the pain.

the peruvians react to my cast by gawking at me even more and those who do approach me shake my cast as if for good luck or something. it doesn't hurt, but it's just odd.

i start physical therapy right after my cast gets taken off in june. i tried to look up over the internet what type of rehab i would be faced with but instead came across all these stories of people who've died from falling through roofs. that really shook me up, b/c as much as i hate life in a cast, i know that i'm really, really lucky. (seriously, did all this really happen to me? everytime i tell the story, it still makes me want to laugh over its absurdity or weep with relief.)

on a side note, i formed my soup kitchen committee today w/ my community partners. first meeting, this saturday and i have so much to do to prepare for it!

Me vuelvo!

i'm back in my site now and successfully mastered 2 Peruvian bus rides totaling 20 hours with my broken arm. success!

because i finished my grant application for the soup kitchen while i was on bed rest in lima, i was able to present it to my community partners right after i got back. we're going to meet next week to finalize it and then submit it. i don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but everything seems to be going well with the project.

the next step after submitting the grant application is to put a committee together. i have a good idea who i want on my committee and while i was in lima, my community partner made contact w/ some key leaders, including the governor of the town. if we can get him on board on the project, then we have a good chance of gaining the municipality's support (and possibly getting them to write the project into their budget). so we hope to have our committee together and meet with the municipality sometime next month, because may is when budgeting starts. it's nerve wrecking b/c so much rides on the municipality meeting, but i feel as though we've gathered enough data and information to make a strong case.

i've also resumed my work at the local all girls school. don't laugh but i feel like i'm a pretty good role model there. in the end, i hope that my work eventually will help lessen the high teen pregnancy rate. i've also resumed my work with kids in the campo (rural areas) and picked up some work at the local trade school. i know it's odd, but i really do try to get across that a person with limited means can still achieve sucess.

so my passion right now lies in the soup kitchen project (as always) and creating programs at the schools so that the youths have a better chance of succeeding in life.

anyways, as for me, i am slowly adjusting to a one-armed life. but i will admit that i've been thinking a lot about what happened. weirdly, i'm more scared now than i was before. it wasn't a fall that could kill me, but more likely it was a fall that could have paralyzed me or cause head trauma. i've thought about this everyday since the accident. i know that i'll get past these thoughts, but eventually, it'll just take time.

i really thank you for everybody's support and good wishes. i'm really going to try hard to be more careful from now on.

Primero de Junio!

i had my dr.'s appt yesterday. it seems like every time i go, i learn something new. they found another fracture in my wrist so now i'm up to 3! they replaced my cast and now my thumb is bandaged up, too, because the broken wrist bone is the one for my thumb.

but the best news is that i get to have my cast taken off june 1! oh, happy day!! i've also been given the ok to go back to my site so i'll be leaving tomorrow.

from now on i am going to be much more careful. this is really hard for me since i trip and fall a lot. yesterday, i was walking and saying hi to our peace corps country director in passing. he was giving a very official woman from wash dc a tour of the office when i suddenly tripped over the sidewalk right in front of them and almost went flying. fortunately, i caught myself in time, but you should have seen the shocked expressions on their faces.

Una realizacion

just wanted to give you all an update that after being in the hostel for three days, peace corps decided that i should live with a family. it made more sense b/c i was supposed to be on bedrest, yet i had to go out to find lunch/dinner. fortunately, my friend angelica had offered me her place earlier so i have been staying at her place for the last few days.

since then, my leg has gotten a lot better and i'm able to walk with hardly a limp. yesterday, i even took in an opera ballet at the national museum and the other night, i went out for sushi. it's like America all over again! the hardest part is probably riding on the bus. it is really hard to be disabled here. people do not like to give up their seats and the bus starts moving even as you're still trying to get on.

but, otherwise, i'm doing well. today i have my dr's appt to remove all 18 of my stitches. if everything looks well enough for the bus ride home, i might go back to my site tomorrow. it will be nice to get back to some normalcy and start work again. i am now on page 19 in writing my grant proposal. it is slow-going but it will be done one day.

i also posted some pics of what my fracture looked like and how my arm is now. the hospital wouldn't release my x-ray photos, but these pics are pretty good representations.

el correo electronico a becky

here's what i wrote to my bff just now who was good enough to be concerned about me:

"i really am in good spirits simply simply b/c i survived. for a split second immediately after the fall, i actually thought i had died. i couldn't see anything but i knew something really bad had happened. after everything did come into focus, i realized that there was a glass table a few feet from where i had landed and in another corner, crates of empty beer bottles. if i had landed in either of those places, i probably wouldn't be as lucky. or if i hadn't tried to run across the roof as it was collapsing, i probably would have landed on my tail bone.

so with all these "what-ifs," i am in good spirits b/c i'm not paralyzed or anything worst. today is a really good day esp b/c after finding out that my hip wasn't broken, the drs prescribed me some anti-inflamatory meds. i took some last night and it's like a miracle drug. i woke up painfree and i'm able to walk!

i felt so good that i'm now sitting in the pc office working. i'm applying for a another grant to start the student soup kitchen. the previos grant i applied for didn't pan out b/c it was through an organization that aided small businesses. and although i tried to argue that a soup kitchen constitutes as a business where goods and services were exchanged, it was a no-go. so now i feel really motivated to do some good work in the remaining time that i have here.

i have always felt incredibly lucky to be serving in the pc, but now, even more so. i am doing something that i have always wanted to do since i was in high school! and i have no doubt that when i get back to site that people will help me out."

The worst thing right now is probably the itching. but unfortunately i can't jab something in my cast to scratch it b/c of the stitches. grr...

here´s what i just wrote to my sisters:

¨no broken hip...just inflamed. happy day! and lightheadedness is just from meds. arm cast will be on for another two MONTHS!! grrr...but had two metal rods put in, 12 screws total to join them to the bones and 18 stitches. i count myself incredibly lucky and blessed. i can´t wait to go back up to site in maybe a week to do some good work. pls con´t to not tell father.¨

still on bedrest...until forever but otherwise, doing well. thank you for all the good wishes. i feel so popular. if you see susan lawton, kathleen, jorge, or suni, give them props; they really came through for me and i am now a pc training story for future grps!!!

una semana santa inolvidable

here´s what i wrote to my sisters last thursday re: an incident that happened the day b/f:

¨i am typing w/ 1 hand so this will be short. i'm ok, but i'm in the hospital and i'll write more another time. anyways, we are here in lima for training and i was visiting my 1st host family after our mtg got done. dogs in poor communities are a lot worst at night and about five dogss started charging at me, growling and ready to attack while i was walking up the hill in the community. i had already thrown all three of my rocks so i started to back away`and onto the roof of a house. (there was nowhere else to go.) poor communities are generally built on hills with whatever material they can find and the roof of the house was made of cheap metal and on level with the ground that i was standing on. when i backed onto the roof, it collapsed and i ended up free-falling (really more like belly flopping) into a cement courtyard behind someone's house. my right forearm was in the shape of a 'v' and my wrist just hung.

afterwards, there was a lot of drama/chaos. the family whose house i landed in came running out after i started screaming for help in spanish. eventually made it to a public hospital on the back of a truck that the firemen used. but later, peace corps sent me to a much better hospital which is where i'm at now.¨

since then, i have had surgery on my arm b/c my right forearm is fractured in 2 places and the bone popped out of my skin in 1 of them. it was my first surgery ever...and in peru no less. tomorrow i will get my right leg checked out since i still have trouble walking but i really hope it´s nothing.

no worries, it's not as bad as it sounds. i'm fine and in good spirits overall and i'll probably stay in lima for a few days to re-coop. vacay! peace corps has taken good care of me. my phone is still broken (told you i had bad juju) and i only borrowed this computer. but, overall, i feel lucky to be a-ok. don't tell our father; he'll only worry so i'll tell him later.

hope you guys are doing well!

Semana Santa

It´s Easter Vacation, i.e., Semana Santa here in Peru. That means we get a four day vacation. So in celebration I have traveled to Arequipa, south of Peru, to celebrate. It is gorgeous here...so different from the northern sierra life. We took a 36 hour bus ride to get here and, so far, it has been well worth it. When I get the chance next week, I´ll write more and post some pictures. In the meantime, I am safe and very well in Arequipa, Peru.