Sheep head soup and feet potatoes

To be sure, those are the two cutest things you'll ever see.

Now for my blog post:

So I've officially finished a whole week and a few days of work in Puno. As those of you with Facebook know, I've been working a lot--generally 13/14 hour days--because I've been visiting around four communal bank meetings daily, many of which are in the campo (outlying rural areas). We've had tremendous success with the surveys so far; we were expecting to collect maybe 15 surveys a day, but have been getting 20-25. [The survey, by the way, serves to verify client interest in student loans and learn about what kind of terms they would need.]

Even more importantly, the response from many of the clients [socias] of Manuela Ramos has been indescribably exciting (!!!!!!!) :) :) :) Their enthusiasm for these student loans makes it all worth while.

...Well, their enthusiasm and the completely nuts things that I get to experience on a daily basis.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy the chronicles of my first full week in Puno--

To begin, reactions from the clients at the communal bank meetings generally go one of four ways:

1. Applause.
I like to pretend they are applauding how well I'm speaking in Spanish.

2. Confusion
Lots of ladies in the campo primarily speak Aymara and Spanish is their second language. (The people who ruled South America before the Inca spoke Aymara--pretty cool.) Spanish is language #1.75 for me. (I wouldn't quite call it my second language just yet.) Student loans, a brand new concept for the people of Puno, are are really difficult for many people to understand. (Imagine you'd only recently gained access to credit, and now all of a sudden someone is asking you if your kid wants credit, too. You'd be all, Huh??!) Lastly, my appearance [enormous and blond] initiates skepticism in many. (Who is this viking lady trying to sell me something??)

Here's a math problem to help illustrate the trickiness involved in a meeting in the campo:
(español de audrey?) x (español de socias??) x (student loans??!!) x (giant pale lady with yellow hair is speaking the spanish??!!?!) = WHAT?!??!?! No, I don't want to participate. Go away.

A conversation I had with one sweet lady in the campo who has been borrowing from Manuela Ramos for years:
lady: Is Manuela Ramos Peruvian?
me: Of course!
lady: And are you Peruvian?
me: No, I'm from the United States.
lady: Then how do you work for Manuela Ramos???!?!?!

Another conversation between three sweet ladies and myself from the campo yesterday:
lady 1, to me: You must be from Lima; your hair does not look like you're from here.
lady 2: She's not from Lima; I think she's from the United States.
lady 3: Or Spain, maybe.

Reaction #3. Jaws dropping (My personal favorite.)
One woman was so excited that she may be able to take out a loan for her husband to finish college that her draw dropped. It was all sorts of Oprah's Favorite Things and made my heart soar!

Also in the jaws dropping category is the reaction I like to call Move! That! Bus! [Like eXtreme Makeover: Home Edition.] The Move! That! Bus! is really the Take! That! Survey! The other night, for example, we got a Move! That! Bus! after introducing the survey when the ladies at the meeting were like, ''I'm over this meeting, let's get to the survey. Hurry up and pay your money, I want me some student loans!'' Needless to say, every one that took the survey responded that, Yes, they want student loans.

4. Marriage proposals and/or creepy/flattering comments about how gorgeous I am (Both obviously unrelated to student loans, but appreciated none-the-less.)
The other night the ladies at one meeting were arguing over who called dibs on me first--to become their daughter-in-law. Two days ago some sweet ladies in the campo said I was as pretty as a doll and they wished they could keep me on their table for display. Creepy and a boost to the 'ole self-esteem!

And that concludes the four reactions to the introduction of student loans to the ladies of Manuela Ramos. Here are a few more stories from the week:

On Monday Manuela Ramos, Puno had its annual all-staff regional gathering. We did team building and discussed gender and watched presentations. It was very RA-training. We also payed volleyball, and though I'm a good 8 inches taller than everyone else, I was kicked off the team because I'm afraid of the ball. Hey, I warned them I'm not good at sports. Oh! And we played 'Sapo', which like bean bag/washers but on a table and with a frog. For someone with deplorable hand-eye coordination, I didn't do so awful.

Me owning at Sapo

The key is follow-through.

And in case that first angle wasn't clear enough, here's a full-frontal of the follow-through.

Everyone celebrating my awesomeness and athleticism

In case you're wondering, 1150 is an awesome score. (As for the name, I'm just glad they didn't spell it Odri.)

On Friday Sandra had told me to dress a certain way for Monday, but I didn't understand the word she used at the time, and had forgotten that valuable lesson learnt in Lima, that people won't be mean when I don't understand. Instead, I tried to remember the word to look it up when I got home...but I forgot the word before I made it home. I had a hunch Sandra had said to dress casual, so I did what I do best and went against my instincts. I showed up business casual in some slacks and boots and everyone else in my office showed up wearing matching track suits. With the director in a track suit and cap, and all of the other ladies under 5' tall, we looked like an Olympic gymnastics team. With me as the giant German bodyguard. (The aviators helped.)

On Wednesday Manuela Ramos held Field Day #1 for socias in Chicuito. Think 5th grade field day, but with 300 of Aymaran ladies in enormous, beautiful skirts and bowler hats. Like this:

The only acceptable time an adult may ever wear rick rack

The morning of field day, I had to be at the office at 6 a.m. to hop on a combi [15 passenger van] to Chicuito with all the ladies from my office. Again we looked like the Peruvian olympic gymnastics team. On the way, I saw the sunrise over Lake Titicaca [which, sadly, by the way isn't as funny as it used to be :( ]. The sunrise was breathtaking and we were listening to what had to be The Best of the 80s. It was awesome and girls just wanna have fun.

When we arrived at the park/concrete fields where we were holding the event, I wasn't feeling so hot. I almost barfed in the combi. Ironically, I just told my mom a few days ago how remarkable it is that I can get carsick going down a driveway in the States but I never get carsick in foreign countries! Heeerrreeee, Jinxie!

Shortly after our arrival, we walked/took some motorcycle carts to the market to get some breakfast. Two of my coworkers and I sat down to order, and they ordered 'tongue soup'. They asked if I wanted tongue soup, too.

"Um, what other options are available?"

"Well, there's head soup."

"Oh, okay, um. . . Are those the only two options?"

They tell me something else I don't recognize. I ask for clarification, and I hear 'sheep'. That's good enough for me, so I order sheep soup.

I've been seeing a lot of grazing sheep lately in the pastures we walk through to get to our meetings, so when I got my bowl of sheep soup, so all I could see was a baby lamb floating in my bowl, hooves up, X's for eyes, tongue hanging out. I ate it anyways. I was really hungry.

A guy two chairs down from me ordered the head soup. A few minutes into his meal, I looked over and this time literally saw a jaw bone sticking out of the bowl, teeth 'n' all. I laughed aloud at the absurdity.

And then, maybe just as gross for some of you, the lady who had served our soup by hand blew her nose and continued chopping chives.

When we left the market, all the people outside were pointing and laughing at me. This happens from time to time in the campo, and honestly it was old the moment it started. I love making people laugh, but generally only when it's intentional or because I've tripped. When just my presence alone is cause for riotous laughter, I'm over it.

I saw through the doors of the market that there are fruit stands. All I eat in Puno, pretty much, are potatoes. Every day. So when I saw the fruit, I said to my coworkers how badly I wanted some. They were so sweet and insisted that I go buy some right that instant! I got some delicious, delicious grapes. With seeds. (That means they're like really real, right?)

When we got back to the park, I was enlisted to do every job that requires height, as I'm the resident Yao Ming. That meant: Tie up the soccer nets, hang the Manuela Ramos sign, etc. When I ran over to help some of my coworkers, my other coworkers started laughing. I learned later that they thought I look like the Hulk with I run, but only because both of us have big feet. Okay. As long as it's not due to our facial structure.

Then, about 9 a.m., I had to use the bathroom. I knew there was no way I could hold it for 10 hours. As you've probably gathered from my previous post, I have a hard time with yucky facilities. It's just not one of my strong suits. I try. I really do. It's just really hard for me. I won't turn this experience into its own post [though it definitely could be] mostly for the sake of grossness. Let's just say this: Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire? You know that part in the beginning when he falls through the bottom of the ramshackle port-o-can? Yeah. That's what this was like. The bathrooms at this park made the bathroom on the bus look like the Taj Mahal. Even my Peruvian friends were like, "Dude, that bathroom is feo."

The problem was that someone had forgotten to install the toilets, but lots of people had had to use the facilities, so all sorts of human waste all over the floor. Oh, and broken glass, too. I had to psych myself up into peeing on the bathroom floor by walking in and out of the door five or six times. Finally I just jumped in. (Thank God, not literally.) The rest of the day, any time I thought of that bathroom, I actually shivered. Also, I stopped drinking water as soon as I finished with the facilities. This time, I meant it. I was prepared to die of dehydration before I used that bathroom again. Literally. That's not a joke. I didn't drink water until I got home around 8 p.m. Ughhhhhh. Blech. a;slf9834r342 Ewww.w.

Okay, done. Moving on. Lunchtime!

I was wandering around the field day all day, soliciting surveys from ladies waiting to play their next match. Most of the responses fell into category Two (2) above, which you'll remember was, Confusion and subsequent rejection. I'm not good with rejection, so after each few rounds of No, go away, yellow-hair lady, I would wander around and take pictures of my shadow or watch the games for a bit. Around lunchtime I was loitering near the fútbol concrete when a little girl ran over and asked if I would come join her group of socias. There were like 30 socias, and I was hoping they wanted to be surveyed, so I was like, "Heck yeah, little girl!" Except that I was really actually just my awkward self and said to the little girl, "Did y'all invite me over because you could tell I looked lost?" She said yes.

As soon as I sat down, surveys in hand, one lady grabbed my left hand and put a handful of potatoes and chuño [feet potatoes; see below] in my hand. I saw that there was a blanket in the middle of the ladies, colorful like all of the blankets they use carry things like their babies or potatoes on their backs. On this blanket was a HEAP of potatoes, chuño, fried sardines, and bread. The sweet ladies had invited me over to share their lunch with me :) Sooooo nice. So, so nice. I'm still floored. It was so incredibly sweet of them to invite the crazy yellow hair lady with no friends to eat with them and share their food.

I sat there in the blazing sun [you'd be surprised how much 12,000 ft feels like it may as well be the surface of the sun itself], in my jeans this time [I'd learned after Monday's track suit experience], munching on potatoes and feet potatoes out of my hand with 30 or so generous, Aymaran-speaking, bowler-hat-wearing, nursing, toothless, beautiful, humbling Peruvian women. (In case you didn't catch those: Most people here are a) missing at least a few teeth b) have their teeth detailed in silver and/or c) are nursing. I've seen a lot of nursing this week. Oh! And ladies in the campo keep their wallets in their bras, well, not their bras because they don't wear bras, but you get the gist; so to fetch their money at the meetings they have to dig around a bit. But hey, I'm not judgin'. Remember, I kept my keys in there on my bus ride. The ladies of the campo and I have quite a bit in common, really.)

After I was about finished with my first handful of potatoes, I was offered another handful of potatoes and what are pretty much fried sardines. To not be rude, I eat one, and I think to myself, "I am eating a fish." And by that I meant that that little fish made my mouth feel like I'd taken a gulp of lake water out of a bait bucket. I tried to hide the other two fish in the grass so they wouldn't know I didn't eat them, but the grass was pretty sparse, so I ended up trying to secretly dig a hole in the ground with my free hand while I held potatoes in the other. It kind of worked, and I felt really guilty, but I just couldn't eat the other two. And of course honesty was out of the question.

The rest of the afternoon was less eventful, except for the SEAGULLS!!!! Yeah, dude, there are Andean seagulls that are just slightly bigger versions of Texas coast gulls. Makes me feel right at home. Kind of like the Chili's in Lima.

Also, one group of socias gave me reaction #4: Proposal. Unfortunately, their sons weren't there for me to make an informed choice, so I declined.

After field day was over, we walked a mile or so over some sewage, past a few farm animals, and up some hills to the market to catch a bus back to Puno. As we walk, I'm thinking to myself how much fun it is to not know what to expect day to day, even though sometimes that means you have use a Slumdog Millionaire bathroom. Then, like a chariot of gold, I see a luxury tour bus at the top of the hill. My coworkers who had walked ahead shouted back to us, "Run!!!" Was this our bus??! Yup, it was!!!

So, to conclude, sometimes you use Slumdog Millionaire bathrooms, and other times you get to take a charter bus home for just 60 cents after a long day of work.

And very lastly, some pictures, because I'm not good at weaving together everything I want to tell y'all:

Chuño aka Feet Potatoes in the making. Chuño is a staple here in Puno, and here's how it's made:

1. Spread out your potatoes on the ground.

2. Cover your potatoes with water.

3. Let your potatoes freeze two nights in a row.

4. Stomp on your potatoes.

5. Let your potatoes dry in the sun for a day.

6. Eat your potatoes.

There's another variety of chuño, which is white chuño. For white chuño, after stomping on them, you put them in a sack in the river for a couple of weeks. Then you eat them.

I'm going to try to make chuño this winter, but instead of stomping on them, I'm going to use wax paper and a rolling pin or something. Get excited, family!

Hazardous materials (?) truck on which we hitched a ride back to civilization after our meeting in the most remote location I've probably ever been. [Slash most awesome place I've ever been. I could see the snow-capped mountains of Bolivia, right next to cumulus clouds floating low in the sky.]

Lunchtime: Is all this for me??! Yes.

Chicharron de pig and chuño and giant white corn.

Local lady toting plants by our makeshift boli [volleyball] field

Doin' some farmin' and animal husbandry by the Lake Titicaca.

Unattended, alarmingly young children playing in the sinks in front of the human waste vestibule at the field day.

On our way to a meeting in El Collao, Sandra and I found the most precious donkey tied up in a field. I wanna go back and find him, but I have no idea where we were. I generally just follow along for the ride.

First sight of Precious Donkey. We are really early to the meeting so Sandra tells me, "Wait here. I'm gonna see if we can pet him."

Turns out, we can. And, Precious Donkey loooooves attention. We have a mini photo shoot, and when we leave to go to our meeting, Precious Donkey tries to follow. I shed a tear I'm so sad he can't come with us to the meeting/home with me to the United States. After the meeting, though we have to be at another meeting an hour away in about twenty minutes, I stop to say bye to Precious Donkey. He tries to follow us to the autopista when we leave, and again I shed a single tear. Goodbye, Precious Donkey. May you live long and get a haircut so that you can see!

Parting photo, to always remember him by.

Meeting to which we were on our way when we met Precious Donkey. The loan officer was late (because she had fallen asleep on the bus by accident and missed her stop by about twenty minutes) so the ladies started the meeting themselves, which was pretty cool. It's nice to see them take ownership of their affairs. This particular group responded to the surveys with reaction #2: Confusion. [It was here where I was asked how I could be working for Manuela Ramos, though I'm from the US.]

Also, after this meeting, I saw a sheep peeing. It was really weird.

Riding in the back of hazardous materials truck, having a grand time!

Fields on the side of Lake Titicaca. (It's really fun to watch people farm on our bus rides home.)

Front of a house of one of the ladies who hosts MR meetings

Another house. (Notice how tiny the door is. At this house, I had to use an outhouse about three feet tall. Did I pretty much have to crawl in? Yes. Did it have a door? No. Later that day did I narrowly miss seeing a man poop in his yard? Yes.)

Oooh, pretty! I think this is wheat or something. I don't really know because all my food comes already packaged for me.

That's all, and thanks for reading!