The long awaited final post (also available on the Birdge year website but I swear I wrote it with you all in mind)

Ah, the humble Pico. I've seen this versatile tool used to solve countless problems. There is no ditch that it can not dig, no ground that it can not level, and no snake that it can not kill. It is the multi-purpose wonder tool beloved by all Peruvians. And snake-fearing volunteers. When we need to dig a foundation, it is a pico that chips away the clay-ish earth. When we find rocks marring our would-be volleyball field, it is the pico that pries, breaks, or scrapes them out-- and when snakes come slithering, it is a sharp pico that they must confront. The pico: with a pointy end for picking and a flat end for everything else, it's the perfect implement of constructive destruction.

The Pico made it into the sketchbook to honor my recently-acquired pico skills. I've been practicing a lot. This is partly because I've been working intensely on park construction in Media Luna, and partly because bashing inanimate materials with a pico is an excellent way to vent frustration. Not all has gone smoothly with the park.

Our innocent-sounding little park project came into being after a community diagnostic revealed a lack of activities for woman and children. The solution seemed like straightforward: a volleyball field for the women, and a playground for the children. The people of Chicon seemed to agree. A poll ranked the park as the most popular of proposed projects, so we decided to build it. At this point, you astute readers may be puzzling over the inconsistency between towns. Did not, you may be asking, the name of the community change between paragraphs 2 and 3 from Media Luna to Chicon? Indeed it did. After various bureaucratic problems we chose to move the park to Media Luna. The list of setbacks goes on. Highlights include:

-A machine that was supposed to move and break rocks-- but instead was broken by rocks and unable to move.

-A teeter totter that both teeters and totters, but also threatens to bend under the weight of any portly children.

-An adorable but unrelenting gang of kids that fiddle with playground equipment sitting in wet concrete.

-Rojo Bermellon, a shade of paint that turns out not to be a shade so much as a suggestion, an insinuation that the color inside the can may, with luck, lie somewhere between orange and purple.

-Azul electrico, a shade of paint that, although always a nice electric blue, seems to vary in voltages between cans, creating a sort of sky colored camouflage effect on our slide.

-A very, very large rock

Nevertheless, we progress. Every morning, I stuff myself into a combi (the minivan-like means of public transportation in Peru) and ride over to Media Luna to slowly haul, paint, smash, shovel, measure, and pray the park into existence. So far, we've built a stone retaining wall, leveled a field, and ordered, painted, and installed playground equipment. But much remains. The field needs to be covered in grass, the volleyball poles need to be set in cement, and everything needs more paint. Everything always needs more paint. The to do list is surpassed only by the wish list, which includes things like benches, flower beds, and national legislation to regulate paint shades. This final week, we'll give it our proverbial all. We'll get as much done as possible--and then we won't be able to do any more. And that sentiment right there is an odd one for me.

In high school, I was never quite one of those eye-twitching, caffeine-fueled super-stressors-- but I wasn't too far off either. I had fun, I even let loose (rarely) but my primary motivation was anxiety. I sweated the small stuff and picked the nits. I found that the more I was worried about something, the harder I worked on it; stress was my motivation. Somehow, that tendency has withered in the park. It was a gradual process, revealed in the slow mellowing of my pico swing and the unfurrowing of my brow. I can't say how it happened, not exactly, but I have my suspicions. I think that the stress-as-fuel system was overwhelmed in the chaos of problems and uncertainties. I think that one can only tap a nervous foot so many times while waiting for a machine that won't show or a slide that won't get welded or a president that won't call back.

 At some point, one has no choice but to settle into the Peruvian timetable, where people are like wizards-- they are never late because they arrive precisely when they intend to. A timetable where projects get started just about when everyone is ready, and get finished just in time for lunch. I've started to settle in, and I'm getting comfortable. Now, I'm motivated to work because I enjoy chatting with Senor Francisco (our Peruvian coworker) or because I secretly hope that children will stop by again to ask about the park. I sometimes still feel tugged to action by stress or anxiety, but more often, I just enjoy watching the park slowly take form beneath our picos. I'd never been able to feel both content and productive before-- it is gloriously peaceful. Some old foundations of my personality have been picked away by the problems and confusions of the park project. They were cleared out (or at least swept aside) to make way for a new attitude, a low key, laissez-faire, do-what-you-can-and-accept-what-you-can't approach. I'm excited to take it home with me.

The humble Pico. Its function is simple. It bashes away at things with an opposing and overwhelming force—tearing them apart like an obvious metaphor in a class of high-achieving English majors. It rips down the old to make way for the new. That is constructive destruction.

Update: The author (with the help of many wonderful and attractive people) has since finished the volleyball field. The park was inaugurated with rice pudding and the laughter of small children-- as all great things are. The author has retired to his home state of Alaska, where he passes his time safely drinking tap water and introducing invasive species.

Routine

I fight through the gaps in traffic to cross the highway that runs past Urubamba. It's clinic time. Squatting on the far side of the road, the run-down Minsa clinic offers government subsidized medical attention in all flavors, from physiological counseling to childbirth: not a beautiful building, but an important one, and volunteering there has been both enjoyable and eye-opening.

I get pricked by a curious looks as I walk into a waiting room full of Peruvians. Maybe it's my lack of obvious medical needs, or my odd arrival time (around 2, when only a serious injury should pull one away from lunch). Or, it could be my white skin, bulgy backpack, and the variegated set of scrubs that I found lurking in a dark corner of the ProPeru office. I like to think that it's an arrival time thing. Feeling slightly out of place, I quickly retreat to a more comfortable local: The dentist's office.

Minsa's dental unit is a single white walled room with two big tables jammed with countless instruments of hygiene. The impressive collection of shiny dental paraphernalia sits out because there is no room for storage. It lends the room a daunting, slightly sinister atmosphere. Fortunately, any negative impression is soon swept away by the two cheery men in white coats. Javier is a pudgy middle aged man with subtle Santa-clause like tenancies. Reserved with adults, he's great with kids, and they usually leave his care smiling. Or at least not crying-- which is no small feat for a dentist. He also makes a mean latex glove balloon. Jaime is a young, passionate, fresh-out-of-school-er. Patients are always a bit surprised when they wade though the gray bureaucracy of a state medical program only to be greeted a energetic dentist with a radio blasting American pop. As usual, I'll spend most of my time today with Jaime. He's been fantastically welcoming to the strange gringo who showed up in his office. I get the impression that another pair of hands (even foreign, untrained, barely competent in Spanish hands) are always useful when there's a flood of patients.

And what do those hands do? Well, today they'll be holding the saliva vacuum. I'm sure the thing has an actual name, but my limited spanish vocabulary usually leaves me calling it “La aspiradora de saliva.” I think my Spanish buffoonery may actually ease tension in patients, and it certainly eliminates any status as intimidating foreigner. The suction device only works about 50% or the time, but I have job security through my roles as instrument rack, sink cleaner, pliers fetcher, and stitches holder (when we have to sew up gums, I help hold the thread so that Jamie can get a nice, secure knot). Dental work is unsurprisingly gruesome: today, we'll inject novacaine, pull teeth, and see a lot of blood. At first, I found it hard to watch any part of the work. I'd blindly hold the saliva vacuum and focus on not feeling nauseous. Now I've adapted; it helps to know that the patients really can't feel anything through the Novocaine. This afternoon, I'll only squirm during the actual injection of the numbing agent. The first minutes of our operations are nothing but needles, gums, and pure, tense discomfort, but things soon relax into light banter, saliva suction, and the yanking of molars. Peruvian dental work has become a normal part of my Wednesday-- just another routine. Arrive, wash up, chat, help, and wash up again. I have a good time goofing off with Jaime between patients or in slow periods, and I get to feel useful in the rushes. Above all, I get exposure to a basic, and revealing aspect of life in Peru.

In my clinic time, I've felt a gradual, growing understanding of poverty. I listen as Jaime explains the two options for filling: the free, mercury based filling or the ceramic filling, with a 3 dollar per tooth surcharge. People always opt for mercury. I listen as Jaime explains how the clinic doesn't have the technology to save a tooth-- we can pull it out, or the patient can go to a costlier, private dentist to repair it. People always opt to pull the tooth. I listen to Jaime explain the need for braces, and watch the patients cringe at the price. Minsa is a clinic for people without options. The clinic itself is stretched thin. Every day, I notice small wants, from the finicky, barely operational suction machine to the supply shortages to the lack of space that forces the exam room to double as storage. Minsa is built on good intentions and staffed with dedicated doctors-- but chronically underfunded and poorly equipped. I've asked myself why, but there is no good explanation: the government either can't or won't provide for the poor.

Together, the clinic and its patients tell a story. For me, they've shaped a new conception of poverty. Instead of a statistical description (x percent of people lack Y) or an emotional understanding (the shock of realizing that a friend lives with his entire family in one room), my time in Minsa is narrating poverty though an ugly process. Every day, for a flood of people, Minsa is the only choice. Every day, patients have no alternative but cheap mercury fillings and the removal of teeth that could be saved for a bit more cash. Watching this flow, I feel the human pain of poverty, but captured in a whole new scale. This is a pain bigger than individuals, or even villages. This is systematic, substandard health for people who have done nothing to deserve their lot in life, and I know that every day, the flow of patients continues. It's sobering and frustrating beyond belief.

The hours I spend in Minsa will stay with me for a long time, a sharp reminder of inequality-- and yet when I walk out the door, I will feel satisfied. Maybe thats because I'm reminded that the world is filled with Jaimes Javiers, wonderfully dedicated people. Or maybe it's because I feel like I've helped in some tiny way. Or maybe it's just hard to feel gloomy when watching a five year old play with a latex glove balloon. Whatever the reason, I'm always glad that I braved traffic and stares to go work with the dentists. There can be no better way to spend Wednesday afternoons. 

'Bout Time

Well then. It certainly has been a while. The past two months have seen quite a lot of relaxation and vacation so I'll have to catch you up on that. And proving that it isn't all play here in Urubamba, we've also launched a few new projects. So we'll be talking about that too.

On Work:

New projects! We spent a good chunk of our first half here working on an extensive needs diagnostic that resulted in a great big pile of data (and several dog scares-- the dogs in some of those houses are nothing more than hair and fury). That data was in turn refined into a list of feasible projects, which the communities then voted on. And finally, after endless hours of polling, questioning, listening, and smearing antibiotic cream on dog bites, we had our new projects:

PARK!! We'll be building a little playground in the village of Chicon. 

While technically not a picture of the Chicon playground, this is an adorable picture of me with Pedro, a kid from Chicon who will be using the playground.

YOUTH GROUP!! We'll be starting a youth group in each community, Chicon and Media Luna. We're thinking art projects, games, and possibly small bombs made of baking soda and vinegar-- assuming nobody responsible reads this post and intervenes.

ANIMAL CAGES!! No, not for the dogs. We're actually making cages for the cuys. The little guys usually just run around the floors of houses, and we want them to be safe and sound in comfy pens. Until they're eaten. Seriously though, the pens will make the houses more sanitary, the cuys more healthy, and the families more money. A sick cuy doesn't sell, and a cuy that runs around on the floor all day is at risk.

In my internal project (the project that is coordinated directly through ProPeru) I've moved out of filter production and into some evaluation work. I spend my filter days going to houses to check up on the filters therein. It has been an interesting experience. I've had a few low moments, mainly when we come across houses that just don't care about the filters and refuse to use them. There was a man who said he planned to start using his filter when he found a good table for it-- a bit of a flimsy excuse considering that he'd had it for a year. There was the woman who just didn't really think anyone in her family needed filtered water. There was the man who wouldn't let his wife even touch the filter out of some type of machismo pride. Those moments have been a bit hard to reconcile. After enough of them, it can be tempting to ask why we even go to the trouble. Fortunately, all doubt is washed away the second we come to a house that has a sparkling clean filter in a place of honor at the diner table, or a house where kids come up and serve themselves water as we talk to the owner. We've had tiny ladies rant giddily about how they no longer have to spend all their time boiling water, or how they no longer have to worry about what their kids are drinking. We've had people show off the salads that they've washed with disease-free water, or their clever systems for storing the filtered water so that they have something to drink out in the fields. One lady had been using her filter to remove the dirt from water-- but them would go on to boil it. When we explained that the filter removes parasites and bacteria as well as dirt, she looked as though Bob Barker himself had popped out to award her a BRAND NEW CAR. So there have been some high points too.

On Play:

Well, we visited Lake Titikaka. That was fun. More specifically, we visited the city of Puno on the shores of Lake Titikaka. In Puno we watched some traditional dances for two very fun, very cultural hours. And two more slightly-less-fun-but-equally-cultural hours. I've come to the conclusion that traditional dances viewed from hard concrete seating are like churros, chicha, or the music of Ke$ha-- best enjoyed in moderation. But all cynicism (and soreness) aside, the dances were truly spectacular both in scale and intricacy. I do wish I had the opportunity to enjoy more of them, perhaps in smaller chunks.

My favorite dance: It had some impressive flag work, and benefited from an early slot in the program

Just some mature Princeton types enjoying a dance. With hats

From Puno, we headed out onto the Lake (that would be Lake Titikaka for those of you needing another chuckle). We visited the floating islands of Uros, where villagers work tirelessly to layer reads into an incredibly elaborate tourist trap. Seriously. You are dropped off on a floating island in the middle of the Lake and are subject to intense guilt rays until you purchase artisan goods. Then, and only then, the boat comes to pick you up. It was loads of fun though, and the islanders were both fascinating and warm.

Those would be the floating islands

From there, we boated deeper in the Lake (that would be TITIKAKA for those of you who forgot) to the Island of Amantine. We spend the night there with a sweet widow. If anyone wants to spend the night on the lovely island of Amantine, let me put in a plug for Fernanda. She's sweet, her house is flowerful and bright, and she makes a mean quinoa soup. Also the Island is staggeringly beautiful.

This is the Island

And this is Fernanda (She's the one on the right)

Even growing up in Alaska, I'd be hard pressed to name many views that were better than these.

I'll leave you with a few more shots from our Puno trip:

On the Lake

From a set of ruins on the top of the Island

The checkered fields of the island

 

This is a herd of Llamas in a set of funeral ruins near Puno

And this is me trying to look contemplative. I believe that I was actually pondering lunch.