Una actualizacion

Just wanted to update that I am alive and well. I just got back from Lima after spending Thanksgiving there. Maybe I´ve been in Peru too long, but this second time around, I did not experience quite as much homesickness (no tears even!).

Everything with work is fine. I presented my project to a big beer company who may be able to help finance the construction costs of the ¨Comedor¨ dining room. (I know it´s like selling your soul to the devil—pleading with the local booze factory for a kid friendly soup kitchen—but I don´t know if I have any shame left in me. See next paragraph.) They will let me know their answer in a couple of months. So, in the meantime, I am a sitting duck just waiting. Grr…

As for the personal, I feel like I could really use an intervention. I think I hit rock bottom! It was over Thanksgiving weekend when I was in the mall at my capitol city. The bathroom had really nice liquid soap for once (which is really rare for Peru). The next thing I knew, I found myself taking out my little bottle of liquid soap that I carry with me and refilling it to the brim! Then, as if that wasn´t enough, I took toilet paper from one of the stalls and stuffed it into my bag. Oye. Someone needs to intervention my ass…I am a poor person´s cry for help!

Anyways, to make myself feel better (and richer), I took advantage of Cyber Monday. This must be a new thing. I would have remembered something so magical…I mean, free shipping everywhere! When I find out about stuff like this, I almost feel like God has laid a hand on me and gave me the blessing to shop so it´s like I have no choice but to obey. (Yes, I´ll lay off the Glee ¨Grilled Cheesus¨ episode.) No worries though, I didn´t ¨balla¨ it out with my American Express, only USD $26.03 was spent. But still, it was enough to make this Peace Corps volunteer feel much better!

Lo Logramos!

Here it is, everyone! What you are viewing is an important document that even spelled my name correctly (so you know it´s legit). Loosely, it translates to, ¨…to cordially make known that in Advisory Session No. 019-2010, held on the 7 of October 2010, that the project of Comedor Estudiantil, presented by Katie K. Hui, Peace Corps volunteer of the Youth Development program, was approved, approving as such the plan of administration and budget…¨

Run-on sentence aside, what it means is that my team and I did it!! Cajabamba, Peru will have its first soup kitchen for students next April when school resumes in Peru! It´s what I´ve been working on for the past year and it makes me so happy that the people in my town really came through on this project. I felt so grown-up yesterday as I got to sign the important document yesterday at the municipality in front of everyone! (I couldn´t stop smiling although I tried so hard to look serious, ie constipated.)

What´s next for us is that I´m going down to my capital city this week to meet with other potential donors. Right now, the soup kitchen only has the capacity to cater to the students at one school. However, if we were to have sufficient space for, say 100s of students, we could potentially cater to the students at other schools. I will hold my breath though. The cost of the construction will require about S/. 111,000 (USD $38,000), which is a lot for any country´s standards. But all I can do is try!

So ignore my previous post. Maybe the s--- will hit the fan tomorrow and something will go wrong (gaw, I hope not), but as of today, I am loving the Municipality of Cajabamba!

Polly quiere una galleta?

Another reason I love it here. Where else can you go but to look up while you’re washing your clothes and see a parrot staring at you? But while I have written many posts about all my good feelings for this country, I should also be fair and counterbalance it.

For one, the length of time that it takes to get things done here drive me nuts. (Also true for the US, I suppose.) The Municipality of Cajabamba has verbally promised us that it would fund all of our start-up costs for the soup kitchen project. This is really good news and would fulfill everything that I had been working towards…if only I had it in writing. The municipality promised us weeks ago that they would draft this happy document, but still, I find myself without a celebration and without a cheap bottle of Peruvian wine at my side to celebrate. :(

Sometimes, I leave meetings somewhere between disgruntled and pissed off; so much bureaucracy and time delays. The professor who has been working on me on this project (whom I´ve now made Director) used to try and un-disgruntle me by bribing me with ice-cream. (How sad is that that my inner fat kid is so apparent? Shamelessly, it worked, too.) But now, because of a much lighter coin purse and being used to me ranting and raving under my breath in every language I know how, he just laughs. On the upside, I would like to think that because of me, he´s learned quite a few ¨street words¨ in both English and Chinese!

La Corrida de los Toros

Do you remember one particularly embarrassing incident involving me, slices of cake, and the obscurity of night time? It ultimately ended with me sprawling ungracefully across the pavement…with the right side of my face eating most of the cake…at the Mayor´s birthday party with all the important governmental officials there…after I had just arrived to my town…with a bunch of drunk people making fun of me afterwards for the rest of the night. (Why do so many of my stories end up with me falling somewhere?)

Anyways, I think I finally have a story to top mine!! Yep, I do! The other day I was at a bullfight in one of the nearby town. One of the Matador was really young and he looked nervous, too. (Youth + nervousness = shit show…always.) Case in point, no sooner had the fight started did he trip over his red cloth and fell backwards. Oye. As if that wasn´t bad enough, within minutes later, he fell again, except this time he didn´t even have the cloth as an excuse--he just fell over his own feet.

And both times after he fell, the bull went after him. (I swear, the next time I fall, I am going to feel incredibly lucky that at least no big and angry bull is there to attack me.) As if that wasn´t bad enough, when he finally did get up to face the crowd, there was a big ol´ slit located…wait for it…strategically on his right butt cheek (darn frisky bull!). We saw everything!!! Every time he turned his back to one direction, that side of the crowd would laugh and when he turned another way, the other side of the crowd would laugh. (It´s like that dream you had as a kid where you were in front of a stage naked; except for this poor guy, it actually happened!) And, since he had to finish the fight, he wasn´t able to change (or hide); he just had to finish the fight…butt cheek and all. It was very hard to concentrate on the bull while all the cameras and body parts were flashing. (Did you notice the clever play-on words there? :) )

Besides that, the Peruvian fiestas ended well. I went to a lot of the other activities and took in a lot of the dances, fireworks, and singing. I know that you are going to think that this is very wrong of me, but I really enjoy watching bullfights. Yes, PETA, I know that I am a bad person for liking something that treats the poor animals with so much violence and cruelty, but I can´t help it. :) It keeps me on the edge of my seat and biting my knuckles. Besides which, this is my last fiesta in Peru. By this time next year, I will be back in the US. Sad face x 500. I spent a lot of the fiesta trying not to get weepy by thinking about it. Did I mention within the last five minutes that I am a little in love with this country right now?

PS The picture was taken after at another bullfight here in my town; we were able to buy the meat and had ourselves a nice little BBQ...Delicious!

Me cai de la gracia

Man, talk about a fall from grace. I remember once upon a time (a long time ago) when I would consider myself to be a germaphobe. (I know yáll don´t know this, I used to wipe down my toilet seat everyday in the US even though I was the only one using that bathroom!)

Tonight I´m staying in a hostel that for USD $7 a night, I´m getting a cushion instead of a pillow, questionable looking bedding (with stains...ew), a scary toilet, and dust bunnies. But, despite all that, I was pleasantly surprised when they handed me a bar of soap, toilet paper, and a towel. (I actually used the word, ¨Wow!¨ when they handed it to me.) I know...How the mighty has fallen, right?

QUE!?

What?! My beloved ¨Heroes¨ has been canceled by NBC?! Why am I always the last to know these things??? Sheesh, you leave the country for over a year and everything goes awry!!!! I am very unhappy about this! Sad face x 5.

Las Botas

All the ladies in my aerobics class have been making fun of me for wearing my rain boots. :( I got them for 15 soles (USD $5) last year, because we get crazy rain here during the rainy season. Yes, sadly, rainy season is upon Cajabamba again.

I´ve broken out the boots, because they keep my feet nice and toasted (to the point of grossly sweaty) and because the heavy rubber is enough to keep a monsoon at bay from my feet! However, they are not very stylish and the people here make fun of them, because usually only people from the campo wear them. Sad face x 5. (Even the Peruvians make fun of me for being campo!)

Anyways, I wore them today, only to find out that right before I arrived to class, a girl had slipped and fell while wearing her non-rain resistant shoes and another one broke her cell phone after it slipped out from her pocket and landed in the rain water. (Ok, the former may not have had anything to do with rainboots, but who knows, maybe if she did have my magic boots on, her cell phone wouldn´t have been so quick to abandon her!) So take that aerobic ladies who laughed at me...look who´s laughing now!! ;P

Um, anyways, I hope you all are doing well in the states.