Email Update from the First 4 Months

Below is a copy of the email update we sent out to all our friends and family describing our experiences during our first 4 months in Peru. If somehow we didn't send this email to you and you'd like to be on our list, just let us know!

Dear Family and Friends,

Warm greetings to all of you from both of us here in Peru! As most of you know, Milene and I have been in Peru for 4 months now as Peace Corps volunteers. At times it seems like 4 days and at times it feels like 4 years. Either way, it's about time we sent out our first email update to all of you.

Before we go on, because this email will be rather long, we want to give you a few important contact details:

Check our BLOG for updates, photos, info, etc at: www.nateandmilene.blogspot.com.

Check our WEB ALBUM for photos and captions: http://picasaweb.google.com/nathanhaft

You can call us at: 011-51-76-976401187 (this is what you would dial from the U.S.)

You can send us letters or packages at:

Nathan and Milene Haft

Voluntarios de Cuerpo de Paz

Casilla Postal No. 779

SERPOST La Libertad

Trujillo – Peru, S.A.

***Packages must be sent through United States Postal Service, be under 7 pounds, sent in a padded envelope, and have a declared value of under $100.

We'd love to hear from all of you, whether it be through phone, email, internet blog, or letters!

Also, before I forget if there is anyone who I forgot to include on this email list and you think would like to receive our periodic updates, please let me know. On the other hand, if you would like to be removed from our update list, just let me know and we will take you off--we understand and we promise it won't hurt our feelings!

Back to our email update – We arrived in Lima, Peru on June 6^th, 2008 along with 36 other volunteers who, together with the two of us, constitute Peru 11. We are the eleventh group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Peru since Peace Corps re-entered the country in 2002 after 27 years of absence (volunteers were in Peru from 1962 -1975 but the program was suspended due to political instability). As we drove from the airport to our training camp at midnight on our first night in Peru we were surprised by what we experienced—run-down slums on the side of the highway, piles of burning trash on the road, the noxious fumes of vehicle pollution, nearby buses trotting along with far too many passengers than safety would allow. We asked ourselves, "Was this the Peru of which we heard so many fascinating tales prior to leaving the U.S.?"

Yes, this is the same Peru. Like every other developing country in the world, Peru suffers from poverty, poor education, a lack of infrastructure, and pollution, among other ills. Although we were a bit shocked when we first experienced the ugly side of Lima, we have come to know a far more beautiful side of Peru as well. Since that first drive through the city, we have seen some of the most magnificent sites, met some of the most caring people, eaten some of the most exotic food, and had some of the most exciting adventures of our lives. In Ancash, a province known for being home to the second highest mountain in South America, Milene had the opportunity to swim in a gorgeous (but freezing!) glacial lake and hiked along trails overlooked by snow-peaked mountains jutting high into the clouds. In Cajamarca, where the last Incan king Atahualpa was captured and killed by the invading conquistadores, we wound through skinny dirt roads along steep mountain cliffs and passed picturesque rolling green pastures. In Trujillo on the coast, we walked through the pre-Incan ruins of Chan Chan where 1500-year old dirt temples still stand. Near the Plaza de Armas in Lima we tried our first plate of ceviche, or raw fish with lime juice, and had our first taste of cuy, or fried guinea pig. Peru is indeed very exciting, with both its good and bad, and while it does not quite feel like home yet, we are very much enjoying ourselves here.

We spent our first three months in Lima undergoing training along with the other volunteers to prepare for our two-year service in site. During those three months we attended classes daily from 8am-5pm in subjects such as language, safety, culture, development, history and technical training in our respective program areas (Milene with youth development and Nathan with small business development). Most of the classes were given in Spanish to help us adapt quickly. During this time we lived with a host family in a town which was about 10 minutes walking distance from the training center. When my dad saw pictures of the town he said it reminded him of Palestine (he's been there a few times): lots of dirt, no pavement, brick or adobe houses, and plenty of barking dogs. As our host mom, Angelica, always told us, "La casa es chica pero el corazón es grande," meaning "Our house is small but our heart is big." That was certainly the case. Although we slept in a room about a fifth of the size of our room in the U.S., and although showers were luke warm at best and freezing at worst, we were given a constant supply of love and nurture from our host family. Relatively speaking, the fact that our town had running water (installed only a year ago), electricity and warm-ish water was a blessing. But the greater blessing was having such a wonderful family to look after us. Angelica (mother) prepared delicious food every day and was a happy chatter-box at every meal; Lucho (father) worked as a bus driver away from home during the week to support his family but still found time to teach us how to make Pachamanca (see blog for a fun video of us cooking potatoes and chicken in the ground); Cristian (older brother) loved to hang out with us and share with us his knowledge of American pop culture and English slang; and Irwin (younger brother), while usually reserved, always invited us to see him play in his club soccer games. Now that we have moved out to a different province, our host family calls us occasionally to check up and we have promised to visit them for Christmas this year.

On August 22, we graduated from training and officially swore in as Peace Corps volunteers with the Charge d'Affaires of the American embassy and other important dignitaries present at the ceremony. We then took a 17-hour bus ride to the department of Cajamarca to permanently move in to our site. [side note: the buses in Peru put Greyhound to shame and include TVs, seats that recline into beds, and full meal service.] Our small town of about 3,500 people is located in the foothills of the Andes mountains in the department (equivalent to a state in the U.S.) of Cajamarca .

To put it briefly, we couldn't be happier with our site assignment and the people we live with here in our town. We feel very comfortable here and I think we were almost meant to be in this town. I've never been too sure about my opinion on destiny but the night before our sight assignments were given to us by Peace Corps administration, I had a bizarrely accurate dream/premonition of my future site. I woke up that morning and explained my entire dream to Milene—that we were going to live in a small town built on a giant blue lake and surrounded by mountains. Although the town was constructed on pillars above the lake, our house was to be on the shore of the lake, according to my dream. In the dream we were on a porch as water lapped up to within a few feet of us. When I explained the dream to my bosses that day, they were extremely shocked to hear such an accurate description of our site without them having told us our assignment yet. Sure enough, when we arrived at site, our town sat exactly on the edge of an enormous blue lake, surrounded by mountains. Our house was one of two homes in town that was located directly on the lake shore. During the rainy season, water comes up to the walls of the home, and although we don't have a porch, we do have a balcony. Oddly enough, as I had dreamed that the town was actually built on the lake, I later found out that the town had previously been located where the lake is now, but was relocated further up the mountain when the government installed a hydro-electric dam and flooded the entire valley, giving rise to a lake exactly where the town used to be.

Beyond supernatural signs, Milene and I are enjoying daily reality here. It is very ´tranquilo´ as they say here, and the constant temperate weather encourages a very laid-back lifestyle. The serenity of the mountains, lake and the breeze trickles down to daily life. Siesta from about 1-4 in the afternoon is a regular occurrence, and many people often spend their afternoons sitting outside their homes and on street corners just chatting with their neighbors. Milene and I have gladly embraced the culture, and we spend many afternoons and evenings reading or sitting out on our balcony relaxing in front of the beautiful view our house has. We often see large birds gliding above us on the balcony, and swooping low within about 20 feet of us. We're starting to pick up yoga as well and I have noticed a significant improvement in my usual back discomfort as a result.

Our host family consists of an elderly mother (74 yrs old!) and several grown children who actually live in a bigger city about an hour from our town. Their family business is in agriculture, and so our backyard is filled with several acres of rice paddies, as well as a small grove of mango, avocado, banana and mandarin trees. We also have a small grape vineyard which is not producing very well and we have taken an interest in solving the grape problem in order to make some of our very own home-made wine. In fact, we have plans to team up with another volunteer in Cajamarca and start our own wine business in Peru when we finish up Peace Corps (half joke, half serious).

On the work side of things, Milene is off to a good start as a Youth Development Volunteer. She is starting to meet people at the schools and health post and form plans for workshops and youth programs. She is doing a lot of studying of materials which Peace Corps gave her for ideas on creative programs. She recently began a joint program with the health post to go into schools and teach children about healthy living, including talks on hand-washing, brushing teeth, self-esteem, gender equality, etc. However, she is trying to play mostly a supporting role in these first few months so as to understand the town's situation better before trying to propose programs of her own. Our town is a bit more developed than many other volunteer sites in terms of youth programs. They already have in place many of the programs that Peace Corps youth development volunteers would otherwise initiate. However, some of the feedback she has received so far from the town is that there is a need for character or value education, and also guidance for career development.

For me, in the Small Business Development program, I am spending my time getting to know my organizations and the town. I work principally with three groups: a women's weaving association, a shrimp farming business, and a tourism development committee. It's a big deal to ´ganar confianza´ which literally means 'win the confidence' of people in our town because Peace Corps' development strategy is to become friends and integrate into the town before trying to help fix problems they may have. Peruvian culture is such that we can not simply come in to a town and start teaching them things because a) we don´t know enough about their situation to give accurate advice and b) they won't listen to us without us first becoming friends. So I spend most afternoons either at the weaving workshop, out in the shrimp farms, or in meetings with the tourism committee, trying to get to know their associations and the people better. Recently, I began business English classes for the weaving association to prepare for an upcoming artisan fair in Lima, and am working with them to find export markets for their products. With the shrimp farmers, we are working on a business plan to construct a new shrimp larva laboratory which will dramatically cut down on production costs for the group and hopefully allow for rapid expansion.

Milene and I visit many local stores and try to engage with as many people as possible in town in order to understand their opinions, lifestyles and needs. We will be focusing on this for three months at the end of which we will submit an exhaustive community diagnostic report with recommendations for future development work. Peru is in a very important stage of development in which its macroeconomy is growing rapidly due to success in heavy industrial sectors, but where small rural towns have yet to feel the benefits of this growth. On the contrary, they have become strapped with rising food and commodity prices and yet lack new opportunities for their personal economic growth. In addition, it is important that the country's new found money is administered efficiently and fairly in all areas such as health, infrastructure, and education. As Peace Corps Peru volunteers we are trying to help those most in need to connect with the benefits and opportunities provided by Peru's macro-growth.

Well this email has run on to short story length and it is about time to conclude. Plus, the donkeys' hee-hawing outside is reminding me how late it is. For all of you who have made it to the end of this long email, thanks for taking the time hear about our happenings. Thank you all so much for your support, love and friendship, which helps us tremendously being down here on our own.Any time we receive emails or letters it always brightens our day and helps us to feel connected to all our loved ones back in the States. If you feel especially inspired, we are always delighted to receive care packages (for ideas on what to send, check out our blog's wish list).

We hope all is well with you and your families. Until the next time we get internet access, take care.

With Love from Peru,

Nathan and Milene

Supernatural Dreams

This post is adapted from the briefer explanation I gave about my dream in the update email to friends and family, posted above.

Assigning sites to volunteers is an interesting process. To provide a little background on the site assignment process, volunteers don’t actually choose which town they want to live in for two years in Peru. We have to be flexible to be placed in any town in Peru, be it small or large, rural or urban, Spanish-speaking or Quechua-speaking, coast or mountains. For nearly two and a half months during training, we have no idea where we will be placed for permanent site assignments. We may express our preferences or needs in certain regards, but there are no guarantees. We are pretty much in the dark until the last 2 weeks of training, at which point all assignments are finally decided and we are told our sites. The day of site assignments is very exciting as tension builds up over the previous weeks. There is an elaborate ceremony led by our bosses to reveal each site assignment to every volunteer. As site assignments are read on that day, the news is met with loud cheers and applause from all the volunteers and staff of PC Peru. Soon after assignments, each volunteer packs up for a week and visits his or her site to get a taste of what their life will be like for the next two years.

Now, I’m not too sure about my opinion on destiny, but both Milene and I feel that somehow our site assignment was meant to be. The night before our sight assignments were given to us by Peace Corps administration, I had a bizarrely accurate dream of my future site. It is safe to say that this was the craziest form of premonition I have ever experienced. Tension had been building up for weeks before site assignments as volunteers discussed with ever growing anxiety their thoughts and ‘what-ifs’concerning their future sites. I myself was really hoping for some place in the mountains but suspected that somehow I might be placed on the coast. Milene and I discussed with evermore frequency our ideas on where we might end up. Finally the day had come to find out where we would be placed, where we would spend the next two years of our lives.

That night before, I dreamed about our future site. I woke up that morning and explained my entire night’s dream to Milene. In the dream, there was a small town built on top of a lake and supported by giant concrete pillars rising out of the water. The lake and town were surrounded by mountains. Although the town was constructed on pillars above the lake, our house was on the shore of the lake, according to my dream. We were on a porch as water lapped up to within feet of us. Everything was beautiful about the site. The only downside in the dream was that the lake was actually quite dirty. When I explained all this to Milene, she chuckled and said, “Yeah that would be nice, but I don’t think we should get our hopes up.” After all, we both knew that sites with lakes and mountains were nearly unheard of and we had been given the impression by our bosses that we would actually be going to a coastal town.

Later that morning at the Training Center, the volunteers split in to groups to meet with Peace Corps staff and discuss their anxieties/questions concerning the upcoming site assignments to take place later that day. Towards the end of our meeting, I raised my hand and as a half-joke asked the staffer if it was at all possible that I could get placed in a beautiful town near a lake and surrounded by mountains. I explained my dream to her and the entire group. My friends’ reactions were similar to Milene’s: they smiled and gently laughed, thinking “yeah right.” They all knew what I knew, which was that our bosses had a coastal site in mind for Milene and I. The options for married couples were very few, and the other married couple had been told that they were going to a mountain site, leaving the other couple site, a costal site, to us. But the mood quickly changed when we all realized that our staffer wasn’t of the same opinion as everyone else; on the contrary, she was bright red with shock, and her facial expression exlaimed, “How did you know that?!” Extremely intrigued, we all probed her and asked her if what I had said was actually true about my site. She laughed in disbelief but wouldn’t say anything, keeping us all guessing. My friends said to me, “When you find out your site today, I want to know if any of that dream is actually true. It would be so weird if it was. I mean, a lake? Come on.”

A few hours later, it was time to get our site assignments. One by one, names were read off and correlating sites were pronounced. As each person was eliminated along with their site, the remaining volunteers quickly recalculated their chances of ending up in a certain province or a certain climate zone. For us, every time a coastal site came up, we were sure our name was going to be read.

A site name was read, the department was Cajamarca. Milene and I barely paid attention because we knew Cajamarca was a mountain department, not a coastal department. Suddenly, our name was read and we jumped to our feet in elation. We were getting a mountain site after all! But the biggest surprise came when we were handed a folder with all the information and pictures of our town. I opened the folder, pulled out the photos and saw our town—on the edge of a lake and surrounded by mountains.

Sure enough, when we arrived at site for site visit, our town sat exactly on the edge of an enormous lake, surrounded by Nevada-like mountains. Our house was one of two homes in the town that was located directly on the lake shore, just as in the dream. During the rainy season, water comes up to the walls of our home, and although we don’t have a porch, we do have a balcony. Oddly enough, as I had dreamed that the town was actually built on the lake, I later found out that the town had previously been located where the lake currently is. The town was only recently relocated further up the mountain when the government installed a hydro-electric dam and flooded the entire valley, giving rise to a new lake exactly where the town used to be. As for the lake which I dreamed was dirty, it was the only part of the dream that seemed flat wrong. The lake was blue and people told me that swimming and water sports were not uncommon there. In any case, I was happy to be wrong about that point and happy that the lake looked so beautiful. It took about a month of being in site until I finally learned that the lake has a problem: all of the town’s sewage is drained directly into it. Now, the lake is miles and miles long, so for now there’s enough water volume for this not to be a serious problem, but it will become serious in the future and this at least explains why I dreamt of a dirty lake.

Upon returning from site visit, no one could believe the photos I showed them—exactly what I had predicted it would be like according to my dream. I still cannot believe the uncanny accuracy of that dream, nor can Milene for that matter. In fact, many of you are probably thinking that I am somehow exaggerating this post to make a better story, but I have about 20 real-live witnesses who will tell you that they heard me explain this exact dream to them hours before I ever found out my site. Whatever the explanation for that dream, I’m just happy that we ended up here, in a place that feels meant to be, a place that feels like home.

Weekend Fun

Last Saturday night, we got our first taste of what “going out on the weekend” is like in our town. Early in the day we met up for lunch with a few teenage girls who have befriended Milene since we’ve arrived here. At lunch they asked us if we wanted to hang out together at night and have some fun. We said yes and agreed to meet at the Plaza around 10. Now, although Milene and I are usually in the habit of going to sleep around 10 or 11 in this quiet town, we thought we’d venture out past our bed time to see what the weekend bustle might be like. Sure enough, as we walked from our house down by the laguna banks up the hill to the central Plaza, we saw a more-than-usual number of people out and about. Things were looking up. It was exciting to see this unusual amount activity in a town with no movie theaters, no bowling alleys, no bars, no late-night stores, and no 24-hour Walmart. Milene and I wondered what our friends had in mind for the get-together.

As we neared the Plaza we saw our friends waiting on one of the benches. They waved eagerly and stood up to greet us. We gave our greetings with a traditional Peruvian kiss on the cheek and sat down on the bench to talk. They asked us many questions and we talked about a variety of things until it came to the point that we thought we might ask our friends if there was something fun they wanted to do together. After all it was a weekend night, and it seemed like there might be a town party somewhere or maybe a soccer game. In any case, we were in the habit of following along and just observing what life was like for people in the town. So it seemed like a great idea when our friends suggested we stroll around the Plaza for a little bit.

Well, as it turns out, strolling around the Plaza is actually the main attraction for weekend fun—for everyone. After making numerous circuitous trips around the Plaza ourselves, we decided to sit down again on one of the benches, all the meanwhile just talking with our friends about this and that. As we continued chatting and sitting, we observed the same groups of friends and couples passing us by on the same well-known ‘Plaza circuit’ as many as 10 or 15 times. People just seemed to be enjoying themselves, doing nothing more than talking and strolling along the same path surrounding the Plaza over and over. We even saw a few of the town cars making the same stroll, but adding a little spice to the evening mix by playing music as they slowly (and I mean very slowly) cruised around the Plaza. Just as we sat on the bench, the cars too interspersed their circuit trips with the occasional stop-and-chill on the side of the road.

As this went on for several hours, Milene and I realized that there really was nothing more to it. This is what people do for fun on the weekends here. They just stroll and talk. Young and old alike do it and everyone doesn’t seem notice that the iPods, the movies, the bars, the video games, every piece of high-tech entertainment, it’s all missing. It’s just not part of their culture of having fun at night and it is so very novel to us. Milene and I laughed in pleasant surprise the whole way home that night, both realizing how tame our ‘going out’ had been. And yet it was nice. It was very nice. When was the last time we spent a few hours on a weekend evening just talking with friends and relaxing? No TV, no cell phones, no technology; just talking and walking? Neither of us could remember. But we both agreed that it is something we’d like to get used to doing here. Just talking and walking. Talking and walking.

Plazas de Armas

Plaza, meaning "plaza" in English (jk), and armas, meaning "weapons", are two words you will always need to know in any town or city you visit in Peru. That’s because every single village, town, and city in Peru has a Plaza de Armas of its own. It took me awhile to realize that, but once I did, I started to wonder why. I asked around and the best explanation I got was this: In the good old days in Peru, people always had to be ready for war, or at least armed conflict, with enemy nations or perhaps rival towns. When crises emerged, all the townspeople knew to gather in the central plaza, with weapons in hand. Time was of the essence in many cases, and given that communication technology had yet to make its debut, the most efficient way to mobilize people was to make their meeting point a well-known large location in the center of town. Now, I’m not sure how accurate that explanation is, but I do know that it’s what common Peruvian opinion is on the matter. And that’s good enough for me.

As rustic as this type of organization may seem, it still works well to this day. People may not gather with their weapons at the Plaza anymore, but it certainly is a great point of geographical reference for anybody—tourist and resident alike—when traversing the city. Everything can be described in relation to its relative location with the Plaza. Anytime you need to find an important building or agency, chances are its on or near the Plaza. If you ever get lost, just ask people where the Plaza is and you’ll always find your way to where you need to go.

Here’s some of the Plazas de Armas Milene and I have been to while in Peru:

Lima:

Our Town:

Carhuaz, Ancash:

Cajamarca City:

RSS Feeds

Hey Guys,

Anyone who is interested can sign up for RSS feeds which will automatically send you an email every time we put up a post on this blog. It is the orange icon on the right bottom panel of our blog. We’ll probably put up a few posts each month since our internet access is very limited here. But his would allow you to know every time we post something instead of having to frequently check the site and realizing how slow we are at updating!

--Nate and Milene

Pachamanca -- Peruvian BBQ

Pachamanca is a traditional Peruvian dish cooked by putting food in a big hole in the ground and covering it with hot stones. It is usually made during holidays or birthdays and we had the opportunity to have Pachamanca with our host family in Lima. Despite its rustic nature, it's actually quite delicious! Take a look at a video we put together on Pachamanca: