Photos

I decided to finally get some photos up. I haven't quite figured out how to place them neatly, with a nice description under each, so bare with me on this first photo post. My descriptions will start on this first moon post on the top left and work down, like reading a book, top to bottom, left to right.

1) Countryside of Toma de León around sundown. I'll probably be working in this town, though it's more a 7 km country road dotted with houses than a traditional town.

2) Tub I hand wash my clothes in. On this particular day, the family lent it to me after slaughtering two ducks. As you can see from the blood sprayed all over the tub, it was somehow involved in the slaughter process.

3) Random spotted pig. Pigs are called chanchos, cerdos, or puercos down here. I prefer chancho.

4) My oldest and youngest host brothers, Jeisson (Jason) and Jeremy, respectively. The middle brother, José, is often called Chino because he has slanty eyes. He's not in the picture for lack of room on the motorcycle. I've seen motorcycles in my town with four grown men riding together. No joke. He's not in the photo because he was running around causing problems (as most 8 year old boys do) when the picture was taken.

5 & 6) Chancho (see #3) is what they call this boy. I met him and his friend Oso (bear), this past week in a small town called Zárate. He really wanted to ride my bike.

7) My host family from training at my training graduation ceremony. My sister, Madeleyne, and her parents, César and Felicia. The cultural norm is to look pissed off in all photos. I think they nailed it in this one.

8 & 9) Seagulls, dock, and beached boat on the beach near Paracas. I was doing a beach cleanup and snapped these photos along the way. Paracas is a touristy beach town, complete with a Marriott and Hilton, not far from where I live. Pisco, located just 10 minutes up the coast from Paracas, is its ugly, red-headed stepchild and where I go for things I can't find/buy in Independencia, like peanut butter, ATMs, and the post office.

10) Me, Peruvian kid, and condom on my shirt at an AIDs education talk for middle school kids.

Dr. Spaceman and the Land of Feces

I feel like I'm in a groove here in Independencia. I've started teaching English to a few different classes, totaling something like 60+ students in all. I like some of the classes/students far better than others. But I'm teaching in small doses - two hours a day, three days a week - so even the craziest kids have been manageable. Plus, the limited teaching schedule has allowed me to continue with my water and sanitation work, which still has me surveying and conducting interviews.

My most recent interview, with Dr. Anchante, the head doctor at the district's main health post, was ultimately somewhat disheartening. It got off to a great start, with him handing over comprehensive health statistics from the district for 2010 (i.e. how many people visited the health post, what were the most illnesses, etc.). Who knew they would be so well organized? After seeing how inefficiently organizations and institutions run in this country, whether they be disorganized, uneducated, corrupt, or simply ineffective, all of a sudden, it seemed like I had found a solid, well-run group I could team up with. My local health post really had their shit together.

And then we started talking. Dr. Anchante's expert opinion on the cause of the common cold fell perfectly in line with that of my uneducated host father (from training): a cold is caused by drinking too many cold beverages. Brilliant. I found the Dr. Spaceman of Perú and he happens to be in charge of my district's health care. (apparently Spaceman gets his purple pills from Perú)

Other quick news:

Kelly is visiting! She bought her tickets last night and will officially be my first visitor, coming down in less than a month to visit for about a week. After over four months without seeing each other, we're both really looking forward to it. Also, I realize I haven't been great about taking and/or posting photos. I'm sure that will all change with her visit.

I've got a beard. I was looking to grow a mustache to start off the New Year. My thinking was twofold. One, mustaches are hilarious. I've done things for less of a reason than comedy. Why not? Secondly, I gain the respect of everyone around me. Think about all the famous faces who have commanded respect over the years. Burt Reynolds. Tom Selleck. William Taft. Well, I failed to consider that a mustache might also make me look like a pedophile, something that is neither hilarious (right?) nor respectable. Instead, I decided to grow a beard, which I've been sporting for the last couple weeks. I'll post a picture soon.

Sewage is everywhere! Just kidding. But not totally. I visited my town's oxidation lagoon in the last week. Oxidation lagoons are a common way to treat waste water in the developing world. The basic idea is that, by exposing waste water to open air and the sun's UV rays for a defined period of time, the lagoon (read: pond) effectively removes contaminants from the sewage before sending the treated water off to a local river. Or at least that's the idea. Some local folks cut (read: stole) large chunks of the plastic lining that acts as an impermeable membrane between the untreated waste water in the lagoon and the under and around the lagoon. With this lining missing, sewage is seeping directly into the soil. Shit.

Link Worth Reading

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor

By TINA ROSENBERG

The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world.

Today, however, Brazil’s level of economic inequality is dropping at a faster rate than that of almost any other country. Between 2003 and 2009, the income of poor Brazilians has grown seven times as much as the income of rich Brazilians. Poverty has fallen during that time from 22 percent of the population to 7 percent.

Contrast this with the United States, where from 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent of earners. (see this great series in Slate by Timothy Noah on American inequality) Productivity among low and middle-income American workers increased, but their incomes did not. If current trends continue, the United States may soon be more unequal than Brazil.

Several factors contribute to Brazil’s astounding feat. But a major part of Brazil’s achievement is due to a single social program that is now transforming how countries all over the world help their poor.

...click here to keep reading