The World Map Project

The World Map Project is a Peace Corps project done all over the world by volunteers. The idea is to work with youth and community members to paint a world map mural to teach about geography, but it's also just a great way to get to know people and have something tangible people can be proud of.

In my case, it was a horribly sticky, frustrating mess that, I'll admit, was actually a lot of fun.

Here are some photos:

We started by painting a base coat outside of our classroom in the high school.

We made a grid.
Robyn: Be sure, you go slow girls ... you don't want to make mistakes.
(5 minutes later)
Robyn: Girls ... seriously, you should take it slow.
(5 minutes later)
Robyn: Umm ... How did we manage to have 28 lines on the left side and 29 on the right?

We drew the continents. (We had to, umm, re-draw Africa three times.)

We painted the countries. (Note: Acrylic paint is sticky)

And ta-da! The world.

The Hardest Part

They say the first three months of your Peace Corps service are the hardest.

Part of it is getting acclimated. Another is being lonely. A lot of it is due to illness. And maybe even more to the language. Not to mention there's Christmas, New Year's, Valentine's. You don't know really what you will do for the next two years or even if you'll make it through. You wish you could close your eyes and wake up 24 months later with a shiny resume and laptop full of photos.

It's a period where little things that never bothered you before suddenly become daunting and impossible. Your highs are high, but your lows are low — like a severe sunburn with a cool, rich breeze or a sharp, quick slap.

Every day is a challenge to get up and leave your room. And some days you just don't.

Then, little by little, people start to know your name, and you make friends. You learn what will make you writhe in gastrointestinal agony and what you can get away with eating. Spanish falls from your mouth like an open faucet without much thought or self-criticism. Christmas, New Year's and Valentine's Day all pass. And you start to get an idea what you're doing and where you stand. Two years starts to shrink in your mind, and you think maybe you can do this after all.

And you start to laugh ... a whole lot more than you cry.

My first three months did not start well. A good friend was robbed the first day in our new capital city. Two others left shortly after because of safety issues in their sites. I got sick. Said goodbye to a guy I really loved. Got sicker. And just when I thought I was in the clear, another close volunteer — a mentor and an amazing friend — is leaving to go back to the United States. Piece by piece, my support system has been starting to chip away.

But I've visited over 100 families. Painted a world map. Survived a field trip with 30 teenagers to the beach. Attended birthdays, quinceñeras, graduations, weddings. Laid the ground work for campaigns against HIV and teen pregnancy. Made friends. Fought with my host relatives like I were part of the family. And spent several Sunday afternoons, running my fingers through white, powdery sand in front of crashing waves while I processed it all.

Peace Corps is nothing like I thought it was going to be. And I'm ok with it. It's better and worse in almost every way imaginable.

If the past three months have shown me anything, it's that, despite the lowest of lows and the roller coaster of emotion and sickness, this is where I want to be. And sickness, heartache, frustrations, loneliness ... are just small prices to pay for all the rest.

So I'll laugh ... for the next 21 months.

We Made a Music Video (for those who don´t use Facebook)

Most of what we do is Peace Corps stuff, but every once in a while, we take a break and are complete dorks. So ...

Things to know before you watch:

1. The first girl you see is Sarah Walker from Colorado. The 65-year-old woman you see is Sarita Williams from Wisconsin. The guy you see is our 3rd-year volunteer, Michael McGuire. All of us our health volunteers here in Tumbes, Peru.
2. The video is a response to a music video of "All I want for Christmas is You" done by the volunteers in the mountainous region of Ancash.
3. There are so many thefts and pickpockets in Tumbes, EVERYONE carries their wallet/money under their clothes.
4. Yes, I have a monkey.
5. Sarita had a really hard time sleeping before she moved houses ... it was a very frustrating part of her service about which we can now laugh.
6. The landscapes you see are our actual sites. The first is mine, the second is Sarah´s and the third is Sarita´s.
7. The dance sequence is actually stolen from a *cough* Disney movie and is called "Walk the llama llama."

Now, for your enjoyment:

or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCQKTQFZwsw

I´m not dead ...

... just busy. But don´t worry. More stories to come. ... and possibly video footage of me riding a donkey.

Poverty?

A few days ago, I was sitting with my host family, visiting with some extended relatives, when my host uncle proudly declared, “There’s no poverty here.”

I nearly choked on my Pepsi.

No poverty? If there was no poverty, then what was Peace Corps doing here?

The question plagued me for days. I had thought I had been living poverty. But really, was I?
We have running water and electricity. Everyone can read and write. The children don’t suffer from malnutrition, and many people have the opportunity to study beyond high school. Relatively speaking, the people of Pampas aren’t impoverished compared to their Andean counterparts in the depths of rural Peru.

But even so, many houses are built with bamboo poles and have dirt floors. The running water is from the river, which people drink without hesitation. Children who get enough meat and beans have high rates of anemia due to ubiquitous parasites. There are alarming rates of teen pregnancies, single mothers and HIV. And even those who do have the opportunity to study have difficulty finding work.

The people might not be desperate, but they are poor.

Until now, I had never realized the incredibly subjective and relative nature of poverty. By American standards, there’s no question. But families here live in unbelievable wealth compared to those of, say, Sub-Sahara Africa.

Was my host uncle right? Or are we living in simply a different kind of poverty?

I don’t know … what do you all think?

My chucake

I was standing, paintbrush lifted in front of our world map mural when it hit me like a wave pool: crippling, urgent nausea.

It was 4:30 p.m., and I had to walk the 2 kilometers to my house under the pounding heat with 10 pounds worth of paint in my backpack. People wished me a good afternoon as I stumbled past. I waved half-heartedly, often without direction, and tried not to empty my stomach on the sidewalk.

When I got to my bed, I collapsed. My tiny fan blew on my face, and I clutched my pillow in one hand and a small plastic tub in the other.

I thought it could have been the raw veggies I had for lunch or perhaps SODIS water gone wrong. My host mom, however, had no doubts. I had chucake.

Chucake, or extreme shame or embarrassment, is believed to physically manifest itself into sickness or pain. The nausea and pain I had in my stomach was caused not by a virus or bacteria, but by a meeting I had had that morning where my counterpart bailed and the youth misbehaved.

After making me some chamomile tea, she told me she was bringing her mother-in-law in to bless me, and was that all right?

I nodded, too sick to object.

Panchita, my host grandmother, is a small and happy woman, who was quick to warm to me. She eased herself onto my bed, and lifted up my shirt. She rubbed menthol over my abdomen in a circular motion, stopping every minute or so to pray. As she said her Our Fathers and Hail Marys, her lips mouthed the words silently as she repeatedly made the sign of the cross over me.

When she left, I thanked her profusely and lay back down.

A little while later, a neighbor came in with her young daughter. She did the same thing, rubbing my skin in patterned motions and praying over me quietly. She pressed her fingers deep into my stomach and nodded to my host mother.

“Oh yes, she has chucake all right,” she told her. “Her insides are jumping.”

When she had finished, she stood in my doorway discussing the situation with my host mom. As I had emptied my stomach moments before she arrived, I was actually feeling a little better, but my host mom was horrified when she found out I had thanked my host grandmother.

“No, no, no,” she scolded me. “You’re never supposed to thank those who bless you when you have chucake.”

I figured the chucake would go easy on me, seeing as I was new to this whole thing and had no idea. But my host mother was beside herself and ran to get a lemon for me to smell.

“Whom else can we bring?” she muttered to herself over and over.

There was an old man who has miracle hands, she said, very good at blessing people — but would a man give me more embarrassment.

“If he’s old, no,” I assured her. She smiled and quickly ran to go get him.

The man who arrived was about 75 years old and short with a single patch of gray in a sea of jet black hair.

He, too, lifted my shirt and rubbed my abdomen with menthol, digging his rough hands well into my insides. It hurt. I seriously thought I was going to have bruises the next day. But just as abruptly as he had started, he stopped. And without speaking, walked out of the room.

“Was it chucake?” My host mother asked.

“Oh yes,” the old man replied. “Who would possibly give the poor gringa chucake?”

When he left, she instructed my host brother to get me a glass of red soda and lemon.

“It has to be red,” she told me. “Red is the counter to chucake.”

You also aren’t allowed to take any medications, she added, as they are the enemy of chucake. My family told me stories of children who had been brought to the health center and given an injection, only to die because the real cause had been chucake.

But I don’t feel embarrassed, I had told them. They dismissed my protests with a wave of their hands.

In Peace Corps, you often have to make the choice between being open-minded and sticking to your guns. That night, after several more times of my body ridding itself of every last thing in my stomach, I took a Dramamine and went to bed.

Lolena’s Story

The first time I met Lolena, I was walking through the corral on the way to the bathroom.

“Buenas tardes!” she said with a wide grin, taking me totally by surprise.

She wore a baggy t-shirt with men’s shorts. Her hair modestly pulled back in a headband, showing her wide lopsided smile.

Here, I had been at site for over a month, and there was this woman I had never seen before in my backyard.

I smiled a slightly startled smile, wished her a good afternoon back, and shrugged it off as another one of those Peruvian surprises.

The next day, I was walking back from the town plaza when Lolena stopped me on the street.
“Can I have your earrings?” she asked me in her thick Spanish. I didn’t quite understand. She wanted me earrings? The ones I had on?

“I’m sorry?” I asked.

“Will you give me a pair of earrings?” she repeated. I noticed her eyes looked sad.

I smiled politely, still very confused and apologized. I was really fond of the earrings, I explained, and if it was all right, I’d like to keep them.

She smiled and nodded before heading on her way.

I got back to the house and relayed the episode to my host mom.

“She’s a little off,” my host mom told me. “She was beaten as a child.”

How awful! I thought. But kept on my way.

No one ever really explained to me why Lolena was here. I guessed she had been hired to help run the polleria next door. Summer is a busy time for them, and I just thought maybe she was working in exchange for room and board.

At any rate, she was always there. Washing clothes. Cooking the chicken. Eating at the breakfast table with the whole family. Helping with the cleaning. Always with a broad smile and wishing everyone a good morning, afternoon or good night.

We didn’t talk much. On several occasions, she pulled me aside and asked me for a coat, a blouse and a pair of shorts.

“The next time I go to Lima,” I told her. “Sure thing.”

It wasn’t really lying. I mean, sure, I wasn’t actually planning on buying them for her, but if I did go to Lima before the end of the year, and I remembered, I would.

After a few weeks, I had gotten used to her shuffling around, though I still knew little about her.
Then suddenly, everything was different.

Lolena was gone.

What’s going on? I asked my host mother. And she told me the story.

Lolena was born to a single mother who worked as a live-in employer (more like servant) in the house of a fairly wealthy family. She never learned to read or write, and the family beat her frequently. Not a single celebrated birthday — she doesn’t even know when hers is or her real age. It was never registered.

When her mother died, Lolena stayed with the family, serving them in her place. She was never invited to sit down at the table to eat. Fed table scraps, never meat, and still often battered. When they left to go to the market, they locked Lolena in the corral. The family treated her — my host mother told me — like an animal.

When Lolena became pregnant several years ago, the family gave the baby away.

“Where did he go?” I asked curiously, imagining another family or some sort of adoption program.

“The circus,” my host mom responded somberly. The boy, like his mom, never received any education.

During the past month, the family had left to go on vacation and had dropped Lolena off with my aunt and uncle next door.

That day her family had come to take her home. And Lolena left, tears falling, begging to stay.
I was floored.

“Is there nothing we can do?” I choked out. “Isn’t there any ay we can help?”

She just shrugged, shaking her head and lowering her eyes.

I pictured Lolena eating rice and bananas alone in a dark kitchen, a fresh bruise across her cheek. Her lopsided smile gone.

I wished I had given her my earrings.

“I just can’t believe this stuff still happens?” I said to my friend Sarita moments later. “I mean she’s treated like a piece of property. What can I possibly do?”

There was a pause on the other line.

“Robyn, you’re a journalist,” Sarah told me. “Tell her story.”

NOTE: I don’t know what telling you this story will do. The odds of someone with power and authority reading this are poor, I know. But I couldn’t meet this woman, hear her story, and not do anything. For those reading this who are spiritually minded — and even those who aren’t — please pray for Lolena.