....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.