Kelly's Visit

Kelly came to visit just over a month ago. The week-long visit was great. We enjoyed good food in Lima, where we spent two nights, one on each end of the visit. The rest of the time was spent between my site and Paracas and Huachachina, two tourist sites not far from where I live. Paracas is a beautiful national reserve located on the Pacific about 45 minutes from my house, with open desert coast looking out to the Islas Ballestas, a set of biologically diverse islands known as the 'poor man's Galapagos Islands'. The two pictures below are from the reserve, though unfortunately, we weren't able to make it to the islands that day. Huacachina is a commercialized oasis nestled among huge sand dunes just outside the city of Ica. It's fun but fake. No Peruvians live there. Only hostels, restaurants, and small stores dot the horse-shoe-shaped road that hugs the oasis. The Peruvian government thought it was so cool they put a picture of it on the back of their 50 Nuevo Soles bill. I didn't get any pictures. I'm working on that.



To those of you who sent gifts with Kelly, thank you very much. Everything was wonderful and very much appreciated. I hope you let me make it up to you when you visit ;) Despite getting sick for a day and nearly getting robbed (Kelly was deft enough to stop the thief before he ran off with her passport and money...I was oblivious to almost the entire encounter until afterward), she's hoping to come back in just a short while to celebrate my birthday. I'm already getting excited for it.


Check next post for updates on my facial hair (it's changed again) and my recent trip to northern Peru for a week of training.

Celebrity Playlist Podcast (CPP)

I'm a huge fan of this podcast, which hosts a different celebrity (musician, actor, etc.) who shares about 15 of their favorite songs and the significance of each. After mentioning this to Steph, she suggested that us PCVs do the same. After all, we are all sort of local celebrities in our respective towns. I wholeheartedly agreed and kicked off the first CPP. Here it is:

1. You Really Got a Hold on Me – The Beatles

I grew up listening to the Beatles so I had to include one of their songs, though this one technically isn’t truly theirs. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles wrote it, but it’s one of my favorites of the Beatles’ lesser-known songs.

2. No Diggity – Blackstreet

I was 11 and had just gotten my first CD player. My birthday was approaching so my mom went to Wal-Mart and asked someone in the electronics section for the most popular CD. I was soon listening to No Diggity on repeat and I’ve been listening to it ever since.

3. Furr – Blitzen Trapper

One of my favorite songs ever. Discovered it and Blitzen Trapper in the last couple years and got to see them in concert while I was living in DC. One of their band members has a red ‘fro with a rat-tail. It was awesome. The concert was good, too. Check ‘em out.

4. The Wind – Cat Stevens

Best song by a terrorist, under 2 minutes, ever.

5. Long As I Can See the Light – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Awesome song by an awesome group, once known as the Golliwogs. John Fogerty is a beast and one of my favorite vocalists of all time.

6. No One Takes Your Freedom (mashup) – DJ Earworm

Too many mashups try to do too much, jumping from one artist to the next every 5 seconds. Can’t ever get into a good groove. This one keeps it simple and mixes Scissor Sisters, Aretha Franklin, George Michael, and the Beatles really well. Plus, what’s more American than singing about Freedom?

7. The Load Out – Jackson Browne

Really beautiful song tells the story of a musician’s life on the road. Not easy and often lonely, but Browne shows how much the music carries him through when Richard Pryor can’t.

8. Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love) – Jay-Z

My favorite Jay-Z song. He gets angry in this one, hating on his haters. My favorite line: “Respect the game/that should be it/what you eat don’t make me shit.” Boom.

9. Animal (Crookers Remix) – Miike Snow

I’m continuing the theme of transforming into animals (Furr) with this one. The original version of this song is good, but this remix is the real deal. Also, making animal sounds is encouraged while listening to this song.

10. That’s How Strong My Love Is – Otis Redding

Otis is one of my favorite singers ever, largely because he sang with so much pure emotion (read: soul). Also, unlike a lot of talented singers, he could also write his ass off, coming up with such songs as Respect (of Aretha Franklin fame), Hard to Handle (Black Crowes), and of course (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay. He died when he was 26. Fuck. The song I chose here isn’t my favorite of his, but again, a solid, lesser-known one.

11. The Next Movement – The Roots

From the album Things Fall Apart, this is maybe my favorite song by one of the best (live) hip-hop groups ever. With drummer ?uestlove and sousaphone-player Tuba Gooding, Jr. among their band-members, they have awesome music and awesome names. I saw them live in the summer of 2008 – best concert I’ve been to.

12. Firecracker – Ryan Adams

Ryan Adams writes too many songs to keep up with. But this one has always been a favorite of mine.

13. Jesus Gave Me Water – Sam Cooke & the Soul Stirrers

My ultimate goal as a PCV: grow out the hair/beard, build a flawless water system, and have my caserío blast this song out of their USB-speakers every time I pass by. Sam Cooke is a beast. Check out Live at the Copacabana when you get a chance.

14. Surf Wax America – Weezer

I love the ocean and I’ve always been a big Weezer fan. I went through a big faze during freshman year of college when I listed to their album Pinkerton on repeat. The small college I went to never had the money to attract big-name musicians to our campus, but they got a Weezer cover band my senior year. I was in the front, screaming the words to every song. Don’t underestimate the power of a good cover band.

15. Brooklyn – Youngblood Brass Band

Just when you think this instrumental song is winding down, it keeps rocking your socks off. It never gets skipped when it pops up on shuffle, which can’t be said for every 7-minute song.

....captions

Major delays on those captions I promised, but here they are (from top to bottom):

1) Peace Corps is celebrating it's 50th Anniversary this year, since it was founded in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy. The PCVs from my region (Ica) got together in the region capital (of the same name) to celebrate, share all things American with the Peruvian passers-by, and in my case, also play with Peruvian children in the park next to our PC booth. This picture highlights the group show-off, Carlos, doing a headstand while his girlfriend and a resting grandma look on. In the distance to the right, you can see the PC booths.

2) I worked the "Health" booth, where the focus was on HIV/AIDS prevention. Nothing says safety like a walking condom.

3) Carlos jamming air guitar to Bruce Springsteen on American football. And I didn't even teach him. I was so proud. So were the girlfriend and the grandma.

4) This was my first 'town meeting,' in a small village of 35 houses called Mencia. It was more of an ice breaker than a town meeting. Traditional gender roles are prevalent in the agricultural region I live in, where during the day women stay at home and men work the fields. The desert sun is hot so workers are usually home from the fields by 4, if not earlier. I planned accordingly, scheduling the meeting for 5:30. Out of 25 or so present, two were men (not including myself). One of those two was the man in this photo, Denato, who is the town president.

5) I invited this man to join, but he insisted on observing from the other side of the road. Typical scenario: a man hear's about an upcoming meeting about XYZ. He wants to attend. The topic sounds interesting. Plus, some gringo is supposed to be there and it'd be fun to stare at him for an hour. But there's a catch. His wife will be leading the meeting and the audience will be all her girlfriends. Meanwhile, his buddies will all be drinking beers at the local convenience store while they watch whatever soccer game happens to be on TV at the time. It doesn't matter who's playing. Beer and boredom will make it interesting. Solution: he watches the meeting from the side of the road, close enough to hear the meeting, but far enough away to pretend that he doesn't care.

6) I rode around in the garbage truck one day to see what was what. I already knew the dump was more like a dump-and-burn, but I wasn't sure what else I might be missing so I tagged along for the ride. I didn't learn much and there wasn't much to report. Until tonight. First day of March Madness (like a holiday!) and I'm watching Jimmer Fredette and BYU take on woeful Wofford in my host family's store when the man from photo #6 stumbles in, completely wasted and ready to buy a drink (if you think understanding Spanish is tough, just try wasted Spanish). When he sees me, he remembers me from the garbage truck run I made with the pick-up crew, and pulls up a chair next to me. I'm already kind of pissed because ESPN is showing BYU-Wofford instead of my UConn Huskies (which spanked Kelly's Bucknell Bisons, btw), and now I've got a slurring, stinky-breath drunk mumbling sweet nothings into my ear. After asking him to repeat himself maybe 4 or 5 times I finally gather what this man is saying. He's not asking me for money, like a lot of the drunks. He's begging me to ask his boss to get gloves and protective masks for him and his co-workers, who are exposed to garbage and toxic fumes every day of the week but Sunday.

6) An huge, run-down hacienda overgrown with flowers. The oldest buildings, hacienda or not, were made of adobe and their walls are now filled with beehives. Might go towards explaining the thriving flowers.

7) A missionary walking away from one of the town's I've visited, Zárate, after an unsuccessful religious recruitment trip. The man, to me, looked as out-of-place as I feel a lot of the time. What with his nice slacks, button-down shirt, tie, suspenders, short-brim hat, and to top it all of, an umbrella. An umbrella in the desert? He was sweating buckets but it wasn't using it for shade. I don't know what he was using it for. He might be Peruvian, but it was obvious he wasn't from the desert. I felt for him, though. I witnessed him getting shut down just as I was going door-to-door with surveys in the brutal summer heat.

8) One of the garbage pick-up guys, with gloves, but no mask. Notice the Oxfam remains. There was a huge earthquake in 2007. They came, they saw, they left (some garbage bins).

9) My buddy Chancho looking cool in my shades. He owns the place.