Calca

Calca is a small town, and word spreads pretty quickly. The other volunteers and I decided to move out of our luxury house and into a townhouse on the Plaza de Armas this week. The whole clinic knew what we were up to, and asked us questions all week about our living situation, prying their ways into retrieving more information from us. Of course we wouldn´t budge. But the town knows the gringos, even if we don´t know any of the people who know us. The town is thick with chisme (gossip), and as I enjoy a bit of anonymity, the thought of loose talk gets a little uncomfortable.


On another note, adjusting to Peruvian culture seems to get tougher as time passes. It could be because I´ve pretty much stepped out of the tourist mode and into a somewhat-of-a-resident mode. For example, I´m starting to realize the differences in the roles of men and women. And frankly, it has become annoying. Many women are openly rude to others, maybe becuase of some sort of ingrained competition for men, maybe because of jealousy. I guess it´s probably the same in the states, but it´s worse here. The men, however, aren´t involved in any of this, because often, they are off drunk in the streets. Alcoholism is rampant, even thought it´s not necessarily cheap to drink here.


Families stick together in Perú, too. Our friend here in Calca, with whom we´re developing a project to bring clean water to some rural communities, has a 6 month old boy with a gringa that he met down here. Although he´s a Peruano, he´s about as gringo as a Peruano can be. He is one of the nicest guys we´ve met down here, and is dedicated to helping the Quechua people in the villages improve their health. However, despite his knack for responsibilty and parenthood, when our friends Amelia and Katy babysat his kid, the family went to the house, accused the gringas of dropping the baby, and called our friend to tell him that the gringas were mistreating the baby. Of course, our friend trusts us enough to know the truth. Ahh, the drama.


Other news, our friend Jimmy, the resident optometrist at the clinic, recently went to Michigan for his first trip to the states. He got to travel around visiting optometry clinics and the people who came here to work on the campaign last month. The newspaper in Jackson, Michigan wrote an article about him and the clinic, which you can find HERE.

Also, the clinic posted some pics from the optometry campaign last month, including one of yours truly. Check ´em out HERE.

Chau!