gender – Journeys

Highlights from my First Year

On 23 July, I completed my one-year anniversary as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in Peru! One year ago, I swore-in as a PCV with these words:

“I, Angeline Cione, promise to serve alongside the people of Peru. I promise to share my culture with an open heart and open mind. I promise to foster an understanding of the people of Peru, with creativity, cultural sensitivity, and respect. I will face the challenges of service with patience, humility and determination. I will embrace the mission of world peace and friendship for as long as I serve and beyond. In the proud tradition of Peace Corps’ legacy, and in the spirit of the Peace Corps family past, present, and future – I am a Peace Corps Volunteer.”

I can’t believe a whole year has passed… and I can’t believe it’s only been one year. I feel so at home here that I often forget I am living in a different culture, a different country, from what I have known my whole life.

To celebrate my first year, I share with you with a few highlights and things I love from my first year (in no particular order):

1. The amazing landscapes of Peru

Where I live, we are surrounded by beautiful green forested mountains on all sides, and it is breath-taking! I don’t think I can explain how wonderful it is to have these amazing landscapes surround me on my walks to work every morning, walks home in the evening, and any time during the day that I step outside. And any time I travel to another place in Peru, I find equally amazing (though very different) beautiful landscapes. I am so lucky to live in this beautiful country!

2. Amazing outdoor adventures with friendsObviously, when you are surrounded by amazing landscapes, it’s pretty easy to go on a hike or bike ride in nature…just walk outside and go! Luckily, I have made some great friends who also love to walk or go on bike rides. Any stress that accumulates during a week is alleviated with great conversations and amazing outings with friends.Some of my most exhilarating days here have been adventures through the high jungle, to rivers and waterfalls, usually by bicycle, with great friends.

3. Wonderful friends and familySpeaking of amazing friends…I am really lucky to have an amazing host family and wonderful friends here! Also, in general, people have been incredibly friendly, (and also super patient with the fact that I talk like a child and sometimes have to ask them to repeat themselves a few times). Living in a new place, where I only understood about 40% of what was said, I was so lucky to find such great friends and to have such a loving family – that treated me like family…and this has helped immensely with improving my language, and made me feel at home.I would not be nearly as happy if I hadn’t found such great family and friends with whom I can share great conversations every day – from current events, to cultural differences, to philosophy, personal relationship dramas and just sharing daily happenings. It means the world to have good people here in my daily life, great friends with whom I hope to be close to for the rest of my life.

4. Dinner table conversations

Speaking of good conversations, I never would have expected that eating together with the family would be a highlight of my life, but turns out it is. Not that every dinner table conversation is awesome…sometimes we’re all tired and it’s more awkward silence than anything…but usually with some patience, it slowly turns into some stories from the day, which can then turn into a conversation about anything from hilarious stories from the past, deep philosophical conversations, or subtle and hilarious jokes from my host dad, whose dead-pan humor always catches you by surprise and leaves you rolling on the floor laughing.

5. Speaking like an adult (in Castellano)

One of the most frustrating things has been not being able to express myself. Even when I can express an idea in general, not being able to express it well, with good word choice is frustrating and embarrassing. On the flip side, every time I do have intelligent conversation in Spanish and realize I can express myself in Spanish and understand what other people are saying, it is so exciting! I mean, you have no idea how exciting. That feeling of being able to have good conversations, give trainings where people understand me, and feel like I am coming close to speaking like an adult is so rewarding. Learning a language as an adult is a much longer and tougher road than I anticipated, but as with most things, the more work you put into it, the more rewarding are the results when they come!

6. Listening to the rain on the roof at night – and the weather in general

I have always said I love weather. I love snow. I love a sunny day. I love rain. I love a cool, overcast day. As long as it’s not the same thing all the time, I love it. Oxapampa weather is the epitome of that. Usually it’s cool or cold in the night, and hot during the day, but sometimes overcast or sometimes rainy. Sometimes it rains all day. Sometimes it rains all week. But the best is when it’s sunny during the day and right when you’re going to sleep it rains…falling asleep to the sound of the rain on the roof is one of the sweetest sensations ever!

Speaking of sleep…

7. After-lunch naps

Now I don’t get an after-lunch nap every day, but they are not uncommon either. And let me tell you, the after-lunch nap is heaven. You know how terrible the 3pm drowsiness food-coma is when you are at work? Well the after-lunch nap is the obvious but little-used antidote that is even more amazing than the food-coma is terrible. A lot of the jobs here have a 1.5-hour lunch break, and since the town is small, people usually go home to eat lunch, and then take a quick nap after. I just don’t have the words to describe how wonderful it is to recline in bed after lunch and do nothing but let my body digest the food. And as a bonus, the afternoon work is usually so much more productive since I completely avoid the 3pm drowsiness. (The US should definitely consider bringing back the after-lunch nap.)

Speaking of food…

8. Delicious, homemade meals…that I don’t cook

My host mom cooks for the whole family and she is an excellent cook! It is so awesome to come home to a cooked meal! When I have time and she wants help, I make a salad to go with the meal, but usually, it is her kitchen and I don’t get in the way. If you know me, you know I don’t really like to cook, (I only do it so I can eat healthy and eat what I want), so this situation is pretty great for me. The drawback is that I eat way more carbs (rice, bread and potatoes), oil, salt, and meat, and way fewer vegetables than I would if I were cooking for myself. (And my body is not always too happy about that…after one year it is still kind of adjusting). However, sharing conversations about food and what I like to eat has led to slight changes in our meals – meals with more veggies for example, which I think is good for everyone because now my family eats a little healthier.

9. My Peace Corps Family, and my bestie

Our group, Peace Corps Peru 27, is a group of 40-ish amazing people ranging in age from 20 to over 50. We have survived El Niño, with many being evacuated to the US for over a month. We have survived the news of the 2016 election results together (through whatsapp), as well as the difficulty – and importance – of representing our beloved country in these difficult times. I am so lucky to have such an inspiring and fun group of people to share this journey with! And some of my best moments and moments of personal growth have been with, and because of, my bestie from the group, Karlia, who has been my partner in crime, and has been there through the tough times and the best times…whether all the way at the other end of the country in Piura, or now just an hour away in Villa Rica.

Which brings up another highlight:

10. New provincial site mates

Not pictured: Mary. Sorry, Mary…we need a group photo!

The silver lining from El Niño was that I got three new site mates! The majority of my first year here, I was the only volunteer in the entire department (state) of Pasco. Then El Niño came, and (long story short), three of my favorite people changed sites and moved to my province. Now Karlia is just one district south, Kevin is just one district north, and Mary is my site mate, working in the Community Economic Development (CED) program, (while I work in the WASH program).

11. Wins at work

Left: Newly elected member of the water committee

Wins are hard to come by, progress is slow, but the important thing is to appreciate every small win. A huge first win for me was both in technical work and in gender equality. After my first meeting with a water committee, I talked to them about their need for more personnel and that they weren’t meeting the legal requirement to have two women on the committee. The very next general meeting they had, they elected two women to the committee, and one of those women was crucial in helping them organize their finances.

And finally…

12. Every day is new and interesting

Event I learned about the same day as the event, and where I met the NGO I now work closely with.

Even after a year, every day has some surprise, often completely altering my plans for the day, or just blowing my mind. For example, one day I was working in the office of a local NGO I work with, and they told me that the founder was there. Naturally, I decided to go introduce myself as the first PCV in Oxapampa. He laughed, and informed me that he had been a PCV in Oxapampa in 1969. My bad. He had stayed around, living in Oxapampa for decades, and about 16 years ago founded this NGO! Something ridiculously surprising like this still happens every single day, and I love it! I can’t wait to see what this next year has in store!

The Struggle

I love this job. I love the work. I love the people. I love where I live. I am super happy. That does not mean that every day is rosy. (Though most days are pretty awesome.) I still have a bad day every now and then, and I still have my struggles. One of the most frequent causes of a bad day for me boils down to machismo culture. What do I mean by that? Well it expresses itself in various ways, (and actually is not as bad here as in some places), but here is a recent example:

I have been working with my counterpart at the municipality for almost a year now. By now he knows that I am a professional engineer, have worked in government and program management, and have worked on rural water projects for 10 years in my work with Engineers Without Borders. I also am about 10 years older than him.

We have overcome some tough times in our relationship (in the beginning he treated me like an intern that didn’t know much), and we have finally arrived at a point in our relationship where he respects my input and knowledge and recognizes that I am pretty smart and able in my work.

Or so I thought.

Then, one day a volunteer from another site comes to visit, and I introduce him to my counterpart. Five minutes after meeting this other volunteer – a tall, bearded, white man – my counterpart asks him to help train water system operators. This is something my counterpart has never asked me to help with. This is something that is absolutely in my position description and something I have experience in and am very capable of. But I am a woman. And clearly a tall, bearded man would do a better job than I would.

Now I did not jump to the conclusion that this was the result of sexism. When my counterpart did things like this in the past, I figured it could be a variety of possible reasons:

When I first came, my language level was pretty low, so he probably thought I wasn’t very smart or capable because I sounded like a child when I spoke and couldn’t express myself well.
He didn’t know me, I hadn’t had the chance to do good work to prove myself, and he didn’t know my work experience.
Machismo culture. In his subconscious (and maybe even consciously), to him men are more capable of knowing how water systems work. Especially, tall, bearded, white men.

Well, in this situation with tall, bearded white man, Option 1 and Option 2 had been eliminated because (1) tall, bearded white man (who is my friend and a great guy, by the way) has a similar language level as me, and (2) I had presented my work to my counterpart and all of my colleagues in November, and I had made sure to highlight all my past work experience, and I also had the opportunity to present the work I had completed in my first 4 months here, which clearly demonstrated my capability (and my counterpart’s attitude did change towards me after that presentation).

So, this situation clearly tells me that Option 3, machismo culture, is at work here. Given various other comments I’ve heard by him and others (women can study environmental engineering but they can’t practice environmental engineering because the field work is too tough), along with attitudes and behaviors I’ve observed here, (for example there are no female water system operators (though I will note that there are female construction workers)), I don’t have much doubt that this was a classic case of machismo culture.

Why is it such a struggle? I am used to working in an environment where I am respected for what I can and what I contribute do because I do it well, and people recognize that and treat me accordingly. I am not used to having to really over-sell myself just to be heard, I am not used to having to really force it in people’s faces that I have experience and knowledge and capability for them to realize it. It really sucks away at my energy to have to do this.

In various instances, men interrupt me and don’t let me finish what I’m saying because they are sure their perspective is more important than mine. In various instances, they ignore my advice as if I wasn’t an expert in areas where I have more expertise and experience than them. It is a strong contrast to my previous job where we mostly worked as equals, and when I had more experience and expertise, people heeded my advice, (just as I heeded the advice of others when they had more insights than I did in a subject.)

I’m not going to lie – it is frustrating. It is draining. At times it is infuriating.

It means I have to work harder, it means the whole team has to work harder – because I have to work harder to explain myself and to have patience. And when the team doesn’t listen to good advice, they make stupid mistakes and have to go back and correct them later, or sometimes they are mistakes that cost relationships that have to be rebuilt, and sometimes they are mistakes that can take years to recover from. So this sexism doesn’t only hurt me, it hurts them, it hurts the team, it hurts the work, the whole development of the society.

There is a lot of talk about privilege going around these days. These are really great conversations that are important to have. This is my story about recognizing privilege – a privilege that I had in my previous job, that I do not have here…a privilege that was taken away when sexism exists. It is subtle. It can easily go unnoticed, or rather, unrecognized for what it is. I was lucky to work on a team where sexism didn’t exist (thank you colleagues!), but I know that there are still work environments in the US and all over the world where it does exist – and in much worse forms that I am experiencing here. I hope that when you do have the privilege to be treated with respect for the experience and knowledge that you have, that you will recognize this privilege and make sure that those around you are also given that privilege, despite their gender, race, origin, physical beauty, language ability, sense of fashion, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

If you need an idea of how to do it, lucky for me, tall, bearded man is my friend and an ally who knows how to handle these types of situations. Being an engineer who enjoys that type of work he could have said, “Yeah I’d love to!”, but instead he responded to my counterpart’s question saying that I was here to do just those types of trainings, and that I was capable to do them well.

Hopeful About the Future

I wanted to follow up on my post about Vacaciones Útiles, or summer classes, because my first class was yesterday, and it really made my day! I walked into the class in the afternoon with a fuzzy brain because I’m fighting a cold, and I reminded myself to maintain my confidence, connect with the students, talk to them like adults…and to forget the drowsiness and insecurities that were trying to dominate. So, I started out by introducing myself, telling them a little about where I grew up, my work in the US and what I am doing here, and I asked them all to tell me a little about themselves – as a homework assignment…(Since there were 16 of them, and I only had 40 minutes, I didn’t have time to hear from everyone unfortunately).

Class

There were mostly girls – 11 girls and 6 boys, which was interesting, being that it was a class for video production and editing, and statistics say that there are fewer women in tech fields than men, so it was interesting to see solid interest by the girls!

I launched into our first lesson, which (as I’m sure you remember from the previous blog :)) was about values. (Again, I have to really give all the credit here to Peace Corps Peru, because I hardly had to do any preparation; PC Peru gave us great materials for these lessons!) We did a dinamica (interactive activity), in which I read a statement and the students decided if they agreed, disagreed, or were unsure. To indicate their stance on the issue, they walked to a corner of the room that represented their response – signs in each corner indicated that they agreed, disagreed, or were unsure. Once they had all chosen their stance (their corner), I asked one or two students from each stance to explain why they chose what they chose.

IMG_20170113_162140 These jovenes, (young adults) were great! They had really thoughtful answers and were very respectful, and they all participated! I want to share a few of the questions and their responses, because it shows that times are changing and the younger generations are learning about and thinking progressively about gender equality, health, the environment, and their communities.

A person can have a good job without finishing high school.

>> The majority disagreed saying that jobs usually asked for your credentials proving you had finished high school, but a few (most of the boys) took the position of being unsure, explaining their reasoning by recounting stories of people who had not finished school but had become very rich.

Women should sometimes pay the expenses for a date.

>>Unsurprisingly, all the boys agreed with this one! The majority agreed, but about 4-5 girls disagreed saying that men traditionally pay, and as that is the custom, they should always pay. A few were unsure saying it depended on the situation.

Throwing trash out the window of a car doesn’t really impact the environment.

>>Everyone disagreed, saying that trash needed to be thrown in the trash can.

Men can be good secretaries or nurses.

>>All the boys agreed with this one! And the majority of the class agreed with this, but about 5-6 girls were unsure and said that sometimes boys were less responsible or didn’t have sufficient education and so there might be cases were it wasn’t true.

If they decide to have kids, women should stay at home and raise the children.

>>No one agreed with this one; they said that women could have kids and do other things too.

One person is not responsible for the health of others.

>>All but one person disagreed with this, giving examples of how someone who doesn’t wash their hands can pass germs to others, affecting their health. Also, one of the girls pointed out that sometimes we have to care for our family members who are sick. One boy was unsure because he said if a person lives all alone on his farm and has no contact with others, he might not impact the health of others.

Men should know how to cook and wash clothes.

>>Everyone agreed with this!

A citizen can’t affect change in their community.

>>Everyone disagreed with this one, though there was a really great discussion about whether one person alone could affect change; they agreed that one person could start the change and encourage others, but more than one person is needed to create change.

In summary, the responses and the discussion by these bright 12-17-year-olds cleared my head and left me feeling inspired and hopeful about the future of Oxapampa, the future of Peru, and the future of the world!