Adaptation

It’s hard to believe I’ve been in Peru for a month. One month…that’s five weeks into my pre-service training. Officially, I’m now at the halfway point. Only five more weeks to go until I go to my final site, where I’ll be stationed for the next two years. Looking back on these past five weeks, it’s amazing how surreal it all seems. On the one hand, I can’t believe how fast it’s going. It seems like it was only yesterday that I got of the plane in Lima and moved into my new home here in Chaclacayo. On the other hand, each day has felt like a month unto itself. I’ve been kept so incredibly busy that it feels as if a day lasts far longer than 24 hours. I’ve learned much more than one should in just five short weeks.

As we, the volunteers, reflected on our one-month milestone, we did an analysis of our strengths and weaknesses. Of course everyone was different, but surprisingly we found that we all had several strengths in common. However, by far the most widely shared attribute amongst the volunteers was adaptability. As I look back on my own five-week experience in Peru, I’d have to say that my time here has been marked by continuous adaptation. I’m constantly learning how to adjust not only my routines, but also my outlooks in order to fit into my own personal niche within Peru’s culture. Sometimes this is remarkably easy; on other occasions, it’s completely exhausting.

I should mention that, at times, there has been no need to adapt at all. I’ve been able to loudly display my American cultural identity and continue with the habits I strongly enjoyed while in the US. As many of you may know, I’m an avid baker. There is nothing that gives me greater joy than to bake some sort of treat and then share it with others. Before arriving in Peru, I had resigned myself to the fact that I would likely be going on a two-year baking hiatus and wouldn’t even see a cupcake tin in a very, very long time. I’ve since learned that that’s not the case at all. To my great surprise, I discovered that there are ovens in both my homestay family’s kitchen and within the training center. As a result, I got to surprise my host sister with a big tray of fresh brownies on her birthday and treat the volunteers that live in my neighborhood to spiced apple cake on our one-month anniversary. Besides baking, there is one other area in which I’ve been able to strongly display my American culture – the presidential debates. The training center has been buzzing as we all crowd around our public mailbox, as excited as kids at Christmas, waiting to receive and open our absentee ballots. One of the volunteers went so far as to arrange a live viewing of the first presidential debate at a local karaoke bar. Let me tell you, I have never felt as American as I did in that bar. We filled the place to the brim and sat on whatever we could find, nibbled salchichas, the equivalent of Peruvian French fries, tossed back watered-down beer, and cheered and booed as Romney and Obama hashed it out on the bar’s TV. Not only have moments like these kept me sane, but they have also been a wonderful way to share myself with my new Peruvian friends. After all, one of the purposes of the Peace Corps is to build friendships and show others what American culture is truly like.

Although I’ve been able to showcase my own cultural background, most of my time has been dedicated to learning how to adapt. Peru has it’s own quirks and rhythms that are starkly different to anything I’ve yet encountered. In order to truly connect with those around me, I have to learn to embrace them. While there are many examples I could give you, I’m just going to highlight the top three:

1. Food and meal times - Food is extremely important to Peruvian culture. Peruvians have great pride in their myriad of dishes, so much so that to refuse food or to openly display dislike for a particular meal is considered insulting. While it’s never been difficult for me to embrace different cuisines, it has been very challenging to adjust to the Peruvian eating schedule. Breakfasts are typically very early and are small meals, normally nothing more than bread with avocado and cheese or a cup of milk with an egg. Lunch is by far the largest meal and is normally served in two courses. However, it’s typically eaten around 2:00. Dinner is also small and is served around 7:30-8:00. For those of you who know me, I usually have large breakfasts and have small meals every four or so hours. That doesn’t fly here. I’ve had to learn how to manage snacking in order to survive the 6-8 hour gaps between meals and not overeat when it’s finally time for lunch or dinner.
2. Modes of communication – In the US when I needed to send a quick note to a friend or ask a simple question, I always used texts or Facebook to get in touch. Very rarely did I  pick up the phone and actually call someone or go out of my way to find them and talk with them directly. With limited access to internet and restricted phone minutes, that style of communicating is no longer a viable option. Instead, I have to make full-one phone calls for every little thing, even if it’s just to ask someone when a homework assignment is due. Also, rather than hassle with crappy mobile service, it is often just easier to walk 10-15 minutes to that person’s house and invite myself in to chat. Stranger still, long-distance communication is not done through emails, but actual full-blown letters. That’s right. SNAIL MAIL. I know this new insight of mine may seem juvenile and silly to many of you. However, since coming to Peru I’ve realized just how much of a crutch technology has played on my life. I’ve come to rely on my computer and my cell phone rather than actually making the effort to truly converse with others. As a result, I’m finding that many of the “conversations” I had with people in the US were merely tangential and were not relationship building at all. Here in Peru, I’ve been almost bombarded by deep conversation. The quality of my interactions with others has skyrocketed since my arrival here and I’m finding that building trust and friendship is far easier than I imagined it would be.
3. Tremors – No, not that crappy sci-fi movie about burrowing, man-eating space worms. I mean earthquakes. Peru is situated right over a fault line, so tremors are quite common here. Tremors are typically gentle and only get as high as a 4.0 on the Richter scale. Earthquakes are normally defined when the tremors reach a score of 6.0-7.0 or higher and are quite rare. Despite this fact, when you walk around town or even within our own training center you’ll normally see several plaques stationed around that deem the area to be a seismic safe zone. So far I’ve only felt one tremor and believe me, it was kind of freaky. After Pamela’s birthday party I went to bed rather late. As I was lying in bed trying to will myself to fall asleep, I suddenly heard this deep, profound rumbling. As the sound started to build, all of the dogs started to go crazy. Now, there are a TON of dogs in my neighborhood. My analogy is that pigeons are to New York City as dogs are to my neighborhood in Peru. So when I say that all of the dogs started to bark like mad, you’ll understand why I started to get concerned. That’s when I started to feel my bed jiggle. It wasn’t rough, just a mild shaking like someone had turned on one of those massage chairs. I climbed out of bed and stood awkwardly in my doorway trying to decide what I should do. My first tremor! Was I supposed to stash myself under the table? Flee the house? Duck and hide in a corner? Just then my mom popped her head out of her room and groggily told me, “Lyndsey don’t worry. This is nothing. Go back to bed.” And that was that.

Other times, adaptation has not been the best option. That is to say, there are certain aspects of Peruvian life and culture that are particularly difficult for me personally. If I try to adapt to them, I will either experience a decrease in health or in personal happiness. On the other hand, if I ignore them or try to impose my own culture, I could risk offending someone. In these cases, it is best to search for a loophole or some way to sneak around the cultural norms. As an example, I’ll once again turn to food.

As I stated before, rejecting food here in Peru is equivalent to rejecting a person or their culture. So, any issue you may have with the Peruvian diet must be handled with extreme care and sensitivity. This has proven to be quite a challenge to all of the volunteers. Before I came to Peru, I was vegetarian. Even when I started introducing animal products back into my diet to prepare for my Peace Corps service, my meals mostly consisted of fruits and veggies. Peruvian diet, although rich in flavors and spices, is a very meat and carb-heavy. Every meal has at least two or three starches and sometimes consists entirely of rice and potatoes. You are very lucky when you’re given a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. Raw veggies are very, very rarely consumed here and, when vegetables are served, they’re often put in a creamy sauce or mixed in with more rice or potatoes. I want to make it clear that I love my host mom’s cooking. Everything tastes delicious, but when I’d open my lunch box to see that over half of it was full of rice I’d want to cry. When a nutritionist came and spoke to our volunteer group, she said that due to the typical Peruvian diet, female volunteers on average gain about 15 lbs during their first months of service. We were stunned. After an awkward silence, immediately all of the women in our group voiced a universal “OH HELL NO” and decided to act. We immediately came up with plans to work with our host families and gently but firmly coax them to include more vegetables in our diet. As for me, I tried a wide variety of strategies:

Tactic 1 – reduce the rice: “Oh my gosh mom my food was delicious today! You’re such a good cook! But because of all that rice, I couldn’t finish all of it and I wanted to sooooooo badly. Is there any way next time I could have half as much rice? I want to eat more of what you cook and I hate wasting all that food.”

Tactic 2 – increase the veggies: “I love Peruvian food! All of my friends back home are super excited that I’m learning how to cook Peruvian dishes. They can’t wait to try it too. The thing is, lots of them are vegetarian and don’t eat chicken either (Note to readers: Here vegetarian means that you don’t eat meat. Meat, according to Peruvians, just means read meat. So, according to them chicken is still fair game. If you are a strict vegetarian, be prepared to explain over and over again that you also DO NOT eat chicken). Could you please include more vegetable-based dishes in my lunch and dinner so I can have an idea what to make them when I get back to the States?”

Tactic 3 – over emphasize: “Today’s food was great! The chicken was delicious but OH MY GOSH THAT BROCCOLI! That BROCCOLI was the best thing I’ve ever had. It is my FAVORITE VEGETABLE OF ALL TIME. I love BROCCOLI! Do you eat BROCCOLI often here? We should eat more BROCCOLI! BROCCOLI BROCCOLI BROCCOLI!!!!”

Tactic 4 – portion size control part 1 (Note to readers: Normally the mother of the family serves everyone’s plate when meals are held at home. Dishes are not put in bowls on the table and there is no “self-service” like in the US. She takes the plates to the kitchen and brings them back full of food.):  “Oh mom let me do that. You always work so hard and have cooked such a delicious meal. I insist that you rest and let me serve everyone today. Please sit at the table and I’ll bring everything out.”

Tactic 5 – portion size control part 2: “Look what I bought at the market today! This tiny plate is EXACTLY like the one I used every night at home. I know it’s smaller than the others but it reminds me so much of home. Can I please use this when we dinner? I promise if I’m still hungry I’ll go back for seconds.”

Overall, these tactics have more or less worked. I’ve gotten a lot more fruits and veggies in my meals, but I’m still getting far more carbohydrates than I would like. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty details, but lets just say I’m eating prunes like it’s my job and so far I haven’t seen any results. So, time for more strategies.

In order to decrease the burden of grocery shopping on my family, I’ve bought my own stockpile of fruits and veggies that I keep in the fridge at the training center. That way if I get hungry during class, I can grab a handful of celery and not feel bloated and guilty. Also, before I leave the house each morning I secretly stash my rice in a ziplock back to give to Boñita. Boñita is the poor, homeless black dog that lives on my street. I have no idea what her real name is, but I’ve named her Boñita, which means “beautiful” in Spanish. She is super sweet and gentle, but she’s emaciated. I can count every bone on her body and my heart breaks every times I see her. I figure she needs the carbs much more than I do, so every morning I sneak over to her and let her have my rice and any extra carbs I may have. Lastly, I’ve been keeping very rigorous exercise schedules. In the mornings I do weight training with my exercise bands and in the evenings I do some cardio. On Mondays Pablo, one of the Spanish teachers at the training center, leads an hour-long Zumba session after class. Tuesdays through Thursdays are our Insanity workouts. Yes that’s right. Insanity. Have you seen those ridiculous infomercials on TV? The ones where obscenely fit people jump around and sweat like crazy while screaming dim-witted things like, “This workout is INSAAAAAAAANE!!!!!”?  Yea I thought they were stupid too (if you really want to see the entire corny infomercial click here). Well, after our nutritionist gave us a wake-up-call, suddenly the Insanity workouts looked much more appealing. Luckily for us, one of the volunteers had the entire program on her laptop. Now three days a week I do anywhere between 35-50 minutes of the most intense cardio I’ve ever done in my life. Fridays I either do another Zumba class or I wake up early to do a cardio workout on the neighborhood staircases. Then to top it all off, to get home I walk 20-30 minutes up a long, steep hill to get to my house. If that doesn’t keep those 15 lbs at bay I don’t know what will.

                       

So as you can see, I’ve had a life of adaptation. As a result, I’ve learned so much, not only about Peru but also about myself as well. I’ve learned that I can push myself farther than I thought I could and that there are sides of me that I didn’t know even existed. I’ve learned how to love Peru and it’s people and how to make a new life for myself here. I’ve learned when to sacrifice and when not to let go. I’m just one month in, but already it’s felt like a year. So cheers, everyone, to a wonderful first month. Here’s to hoping that the next five weeks will be equally as adventurous and that I’ll continue to adapt and thrive.