A Year in the Life of Valerie

Soon after turning 7...

Cousin time! (July)

Tipón, Perú (July)

Halloween costume! (October)

With crochet chain she made (August?)

Twirl Girl!

School assignment

Superhero!

Nuevo Colon, Boyacá (October)

End of school year, Bogotá (December)

Dajti (January)

With friends in Tirana (January)

Cusco (Tambomachay)

With Grandma in Peru (January)

First day of school (February)

Happy 8th Birthday Valerie!

Cusco 2016

One of my goals for this year is to blog more and Facebook less. Trying for more depth instead of the glib status updates. So I didn't put up a lot of photos of our January travels; catching up now. 

It's becoming a tradition to take the kids to this rock formation near (in?) Sacsayhuaman. You can see Gabriel in yellow and Valerie in pink and Terry in black climbing up there. It got really cold with the wind but thankfully we didn't get rained on. It's fun to think of all the generations of people who have polished these stones with their backsides. 

My camera started doing weird things while in Albania, it shows most when zooming in but it can make a cool effect too. This is at Pukapukara outside of Cusco. We had a great day that afternoon driving around in the yellow VW bug. Making memories.

The same day, at Tambomachay. Gabriel said it was the best day of his life, jumping from rock to rock up the stream towards the ruins. Valerie got tired of it before he did and climbed up the bank to join me where I was on the walking path. At one point Terry took off his socks and shoes to wade through and carry Gabe across a deep pool, so they were able to go a lot farther.

I was standing above with my heart in my throat picturing falls and concussions and all that, but then I remembered that my very favorite memories of childhood are of doing exactly this - playing in a rocky creek with sun-dappled shade and how much it lifted my spirits. I want my kids to have those kinds of joyful memories too.

My mom made Valerie this beautiful dress! The fabric she used is from things my grandmother had in storage. So it is extra meaningful as well as beautiful. Val was so proud and happy to wear it to church last Sunday.

Outlet

Well! I ended up unplugging for much more than a week - more like a month! It was fantastic. And hard to get back into the swing of regular e-mail reading etc. But we're back at the office now, although it's been quite quiet since a lot of people are at MWC Assembly at the moment.

I'll be back over the next half of the month to post more about the delegation that came, our trip to Peru, Gabriel's fifth birthday, and more - meanwhile here are some "sneak peek" photos of all of the above.

10-year anniversary of Sembrandopaz in Sincelejo, Colombia

The community of Pichilín shares their hopes and dreams for sustainable life while remembering lives lost in a massacre ten years ago.

Feria de Huancaro in Cusco, Peru! My sister and nieces in background

Gabriel's fifth birthday and first piñata!

One of our favorite spots - the stone slides at Sacsahuayman above Cusco

Cousin time!

At a retreat center in Bochica, Colombia

Impressions

Gabriel loved watching the airplanes passing by overhead - and there were a lot of them!

Whenever I get off an airplane, I'm always aware of my reactions to the sights, sounds, and smells. Traveling between Peru and the US during my growing up years made me aware of how the familiar can become strange through absence. My clearest memories of this are of getting off the plane in Pucallpa, in the Peruvian Amazon, and feeling the warm, humid, tropical air hit my whole body like a soft pillow. Hearing frogs and crickets in cacophony, seeing the tall grasses and mango trees by the side of the road as we drove to the mission center. My other set of memories are the aerial views coming into the States - the enormous swaths of wide, smooth gray interstate highways snaking everywhere below, looping through on- and off-ramps, edged by grassy green.

At some point in my 20s I had gone back and forth enough that the familiar just stayed familiar. Or maybe I was transitioning more often. It's been a long time since I've spent more than two years within the boundaries of any one nation.

But I did have some fresh impressions of the US on this last trip, and of Albania upon our return.

Driving to the heart of Pennsylvania from Newark, again I was struck by the vast swaths of smooth gray interstate edged by grassy green. Everything was so very, very clean. Not a scrap of litter to be seen anywhere. The road was so smooth and wide. Then, in Akron, again everything so clean and green. But the coffee!!!!  Pale brown dishwater! Weak and tasteless. I felt like I had not actually drunk any coffee, just something warm and coffee-like. And even though I was thrilled beyond belief by the plump, sweet blueberries we had almost every day, the carrots and other produce seemed tasteless in comparison to what we've become used to here. And the fruit juice selections were always a bit disappointing - apple, grape, or orange, and never any pulp in any of them. I missed our wide selection here which includes the kids' favorites, sour cherry and apricot!

When we landed in Albania, memories flooded back about our first arrival almost two years ago. I remember scrutinizing every detail from the moment I could begin to make out the shape of the landscape from the airplane, the whole drive into the city. I remember that time looking for things that seemed different, strange, exotic - things that would tell me I was in a new place the like of which I had never been before. I recall being a little disappointed that it wasn't all that different - concrete block buildings, people, oleander bushes. The main thing that stood out to me then (besides not being able to decipher any of the signage) was all the laundry hanging out to dry from every window, it seemed.

This time, I was looking for a sense of familiarity - recognition - the feeling of coming back to a known place. A comfortable feeling. And I found it.

It's been interesting processing our trip with Valerie. She mostly talks about N., a little girl her age that she played with a lot, especially towards the end. She talks about the toy room, and about the airplane trip itself. And always she concludes with these words: "And then we went home. To Tirana."

~::~

The next few months will be interesting. Maybe "interesting" isn't the right word... we'll see how things pan out! Terry's contract here is up in mid-September. We're planning to move back to the US at the end of August - at least the kids and I will, he may stay on to wrap things up a bit. We'll be staying for 2 months back in the 'Burg, and then in early November we are to begin a 5-year term with the Mennonite Central Committee in Colombia! This decision came about very quickly over the past few months and so we are still in a way processing all the implications of it. We had a great orientation session at the MCC campus in Akron; it was especially fun trading stories with all the other outgoing volunteers (we'll be national program directors, it's a shared position, so everyone else there was also going into leadership). One thing I learned through the trip to Akron was that my kids are way, way more resilient and adaptable than I give them credit for being. They did so well during the trip and during our stay there (of course there were a lot of factors that played into making both successful), I was encouraged tremendously to see that. So, stay tuned, it's sure to be... interesting!

Passport

I went to the US Embassy in Tirana yesterday just past noon to renew my passport, which will expire in December, inside the six months recommended. As I walked up towards the high yellow walls along Rruga e Elbasanit, I could feel the sweat start to trickle down my back, and I couldn’t help but think how different this was from my visit last November, when I went for an affidavit of something or other as part of my residency visa application. Then it was cold, wet, and windy; I was wrapped up in warm woolen layers (scarf, hat, sweater, coat). Yesterday was a warm, clear summer day, and this change of seasons more than anything else makes me feel like we’ve been here for a solidly long time.

So I arrived at the back entrance to the complex, the entrance for visa and citizen services, and had to wait in a narrow alley in the hot sun with about thirty other people – all Albanians, as far as I could tell – since the office was still closed for lunch. It was moderately interesting to see how different people reacted differently to the situation; the woman whose swollen feet strained in her cheap black shoes humbly took her place in line; the woman carrying an expensive purse and the prosperous-looking man with his cell phone in a belt holster stood in the shade near the wall until the security guard told them to move; then they stood at the edge of the sidewalk (still in the shade) about six inches closer to the rest of us but nowhere near the rest of us, on the other side of the alley where they’d been told to go.

At five minutes to 1:00, the guard (heavy night-stick, but no gun) motioned me over towards the entrance and asked “citizen?” I said yes, and he nodded and opened the heavy door for me. At the security booth I relinquished my cell phone, went through the metal detector, and was in. As I walked across a small, shaded courtyard, I could see obliquely the long line of Albanians watching me through the gate.

It’s a weird feeling, getting shunted to the front of the line. I remember the same thing happening to me in Peru when I was 19 and had to renew my US passport while there on a break from college. The difference is that I am also a Peruvian citizen, and the long line of people I walked past that time were all Peruvians. And it felt wrong. It felt wrong to have a privilege that these men, women, and children didn’t have, as I walked past them feeling in the pit of my being “I am one of you, too!” and knowing at the same time that in many ways I am not.

If you think the DMV is a strange place, the visa application office at the US Embassy in Albania is even stranger. It’s a small room, with six glassed-in windows. 1-4 are for visa services, 5 is for citizen services and the sixth is the teller where you pay the fees. There are eleven chairs, but the ebb and flow of people means that up to 25 or so can stuff themselves in at once. Framed photos on the wall of Barak Obama, Joe Biden, and Hilary Clinton smile with shining teeth across from a painting of an girl in traditional Albanian costume holding a sheep, her long flowing brown hair enveloping a dove. You wonder if staunch Republicans waiting in this room for citizenship services feel more, or less, at home when they see the photos.

There is no real privacy. You can hear every conversation that takes place. The woman trying to explain to the visa officer where she actually lives, since she spends part of the year in her home in Albania and part of the year in her home in Macedonia (where her husband lives and works); the man applying for a visa for his young wife and three-month-old baby who is told he has to “bring proof that you were in Albania during the dates you say you were,” even though he has everything the web site said he should bring; the family of three who talk in nearly-perfect English with the visa officers but in Albanian with each other; the man answering extremely personal questions about his relationship history with his American wife; you can hear everything they say, and it feels awkward and wrong to be privy to the complexities of these strangers’ lives.

You think about the performance each interaction entails; wondering how people decided what to wear that day; noting body language, tone of voice, the phrasing of responses. You notice yourself acting more American – using colloquialisms, making unabashed eye contact with a strange man to show you are a liberated American woman. Even with the security guard, you say “thank you” when you retrieve your cell phone, not “Faleminderit.” Like every other applicant there, you are extremely polite.

I left the Embassy just short of an hour after I had arrived, with a receipt to pick up my new passport in a couple of weeks. I realized I was hungry since I’d left for my 1:15 appointment (which is kind of a joke, since up to four people can have an appointment for the same time slot, and they just take you in the order you show up; but since everybody wants to be on time, it’s a weird mad little scramble as all four jockey for their place in line) without eating. Dealing with bureaucrats is always unnerving, even when you have in your hand that magical talisman, that blue and gold passport; even when you know that the minute you open your mouth to speak the American officer behind the window will smile and you will see him relax just the tiniest little bit and he will meet your gaze with friendliness and regard, and you know he will be thinking “oh, she’s American; she’s an expat in Albania, like me,” and you will let him think that you are just like him, because it will help you get what you want.

Someday my Shqip will come

Today marks my 500th post on this blog, and TWO MONTHS in Albania!

Whence the pun in the post title? (Shqip is the Albanian word for the Albanian language; the q is pronounced like a shch).

When I was a little kid in Peru, people used to talk about their barrels coming. It was common practice to ship barrels of stuff I presume on an actual boat when moving overseas for what was then assumed to be a career-long or even life-long commitment to another country, another culture, another people. We even had barrels one time, I think sent down to the jungle from the mountains? I should check with my folks about this - all I remember is that we had some dolls and toys that came around Christmastime when I was 4 or 5, and they had undergone some water damage but were generally ok.

We are still waiting for our shipment to come, four boxes of stuff (mainly all my academic texts, plus about 50 books for Valerie, more of her toys, clothes for Gabriel to grow into, and sundry various other random things). It's all tied up in bureaucratic red tape as far as I can tell, mainly on the receiving end. Hopefully it will come before Christmas.

Viva el Peru!

In Peru, everyone is celebrating the Veintiocho de Julio - 28th of July, Independence Day.

Lima, near the Plaza de Armas

Cusco, Plaza de Armas

A Bit Hazy

Yesterday afternoon around 5 I put my head down on my keyboard and cried, because the entire essay I'd been working on all week was crap. Kind of like when you hold up the sweater you've been knitting away at for, like, ever, and you realize that you've failed to get gauge and it's way to small/big/ugly to ever wear. I texted Terry and he called right back and within a few hours he'd helped me figure out a different approach to kind of reframe what I'd been writing about. I tried it and it actually worked... so I'm 2 days past when the essay was due, but I will turn it in tonight. The prof said I could go over.

These exams are like some kind of crazy hazing ritual. Like when Anita and Phoebe had made up this game called "Bloompes," and I so wanted to be a Bloompe too, but in order to become one I had to run up and down the Banana Patch trail (between the main road and the print shop). No big deal, except that to provide traction for motorcycles during rainy season they'd spread crushed bricks all over the trail. And we went everywhere barefoot. Have you ever walked across crushed bricks barefoot? OUCH is all I have to say about that. Only rubber nut shells were sharper. It was worth it though, to subsequently be permitted to make (imaginary) stomach bag beezle nut pickle nut brew, collect golden cups (a certain kind of yellow flower), and do arm piggy-wiggy (if you have to ask you obviously were not a Bloompe).

Now I want to be a PhD candidate so I have to write these punishing essays. No big deal, except that about a month from now I'll be sitting in front of a panel of my advisor, two committee memebers, and a field representative for the oral defense. SCARY, is all I have to say about that. It will hopefully be worth it, though, to subsequently be permitted to conduct original field research, write and defend a dissertation, and earn the title of Doctor Phelps. Mmmmm... yeah, that sounds pretty cool to me.

blogging will resume on or around May 14

This is my "gone fishing" sign. (You know, I've only ever been fishing twice? Once we tried to catch piranhas in Lake Yarinacocha using raw liver for bait, and the other time we caught a bucket full of sunnies (?) at "Sheila's" lake using cigarette butts for bait. Oh, wait! Then there was that time in the Chumbakiwi creek with Ariela, using a net! We caught a little catfish, I think. But I digress.) I'm not really going fishing, though. I'm starting my first A-exam on Monday. Wish me luck!

Interesting Times!

Look at my new socks! They have come with me to Peru and kept my toes warm in the mountains.

So... we have definitely been having some adventures:

Item 1: The day before leaving the US, one of our students did not have her passport. She ended up going in person to the National Passport Center in DC at 7:30 a.m. and getting in line. By 9:00 she had her passport in hand and was able to join us at the airport 90 minutes before our flight!

Item 2: Once we arrived in country, Terry and I made an optimistic change of plans - to take the night bus from Huaraz to Lima in order to catch our flight to Cuzco a few hours later that same morning. (The original plan was to take the day bus, spend a night in Lima, and head out in the morning.) But our optimism was to be sorely tested!
- 2a: Our bus, while quite comfy, got TWO flat tires during the night! I was astonished at the speed of repair, but even so my heart was in my throat during the whole night as I wondered if the delays would mean missing our flight. However, fate was smiling upon us as we reached Lima with a generous 2 1/2 hours to spare. Which we would end up needing, because...
- 2b: When we went to check in, quite early, we learned that our travel agent had made a mistake and changed our reservation at the last minute from the the 9th to the 12th!!! HOW does this happen, you ask? It´s another long story, but it took the better part of an hour to straighten it all out. I pretty much flipped my lid which doesn´t happen too often. This left us just enough time to pay the airport tax, go through security, find our gate, with 15 minutes to spare for the students to get some kind of breakfast.

I have to say, our group is really good. They have kept up quite positive attitudes and good spirits despite the laundry list of the following:
- sunburned lips that blistered and provoked fever
- a running total of about 5 unanticipated hours of uphill hiking, some with luggage
- a lost (new) digital camera with photos of graduation still on it
- sunscreen spilled all over the interior of a bag
- honey spilled all over the interior of a backpack
- a pretty steady diet of potatoes, broad beans, soup, and bread for 3 days in a rural village
- a case of amoebas
- three cases of wool allergy (sleeping under wool blankets - had to swap out for other people´s sleeping bags)
- one case of exercise-induced asthma

That´s all I can think of right now... I feel like I´m not taking very good care of my kids here!

On the other hand, we have had some quite wonderful times as well:
- incredible beauty: green mountains with snow-capped peaks, cold mountain streams, rocky outcroppings, little patchwork fields
- spending time with Quechua farmers in their homes
- eating fresh honey harvested the same day from the hive
- chewing on corn stalks (almost as sweet as sugar cane here, without the chemical fertilizers)
- experiencing a pachamanca (earth oven) celebration with dancing
- hanging out with our local guide, Jhonny, who impressed the students with his detailed knowledge of local history
- being erroneously but persistently identified as Cornell students :-)
- seeing the incredibly bright and clear stars through the thin mountain air

Now we are in Cuzco and Terry and I are a little more relaxed now we´ve shuffled off the kids to various host families. Today we went to Sacsayhuaman where there were actual condors that someone had caught and domesticated hanging out there (I´m really not sure I quite liked that, actually). Tomorrow is a free day but everybody´s going to a local soccer match - even me!

running amok

Yesterday I:
- was a bad immigrant activist and missed any and all May 1 protests / celebrations / demonstrations, etc.
- showed the apartment to a potential sub-letter. Five hours later I moved out, and she moved in!
- attended my last class of the year at CU
- turned in 3 of my 4 final papers and sundry reading responses
- drove to VA and packed for Peru
- finished a knitting project (sorry no pictures yet)
- planned the orientation for the Peru students

Terry, bless his heart, drove to NY to pick me up Monday night, then we returned together. He drove the whole way back, too, while I slept for 3 hours.

Today we:
- oriented the Peru students (everything you need to know, in 2 hours!)
- did crisis management for one student whose passport isn't here yet (we leave at 11 tomorrow)
- ran around like crazy tying up the thousand little threads of paperwork etc that need to get done (like, I had to fill out another I-9 form at EMU)

Spring is in full bore here - flowers, flowers, flowers, and leaves everywhere - dandelions galore - my yard is FULL of weeds. That will have to wait until we get back, however!

But I think we're in good shape, so far...

Regalia

So today was the fabulous inauguration of Cornell's new president, David J. Skorton. I have no idea who this guy in the picture is but obviously someone famous. You can tell because he's carrying a scepter... I happened to walk through the ag quad while all this fanfare was going on; fortuitously I happened to be right by the walkway where all the Important People processed. It really tickled my fancy that the three visiting Quechua men from Vicos, Peru, were practically at the head of the parade! You can see them at the far right of the photo above! I am going to be giving them a tour of campus tomorrow morning so you can see what an Important Person I am, by association :-). I thought it was really nice that they were honored in this way, but I imagine they got pretty bored during the hour+ of speechifying that followed (which I fortunately missed most of, thanks to a coffee date with some folks from my department). I came back for the last half hour or so, just in time to see the crowd lining up for the free food: And after that, the live dance performances!!! There was a group of about 10 Asian guys who did an amazing breakdance performance, then a merengue group of 3 couples, and then THIS: It was the most joyful, lively, athletic thing I've seen since the last time Terry vacuumed the apartment. I am overusing the word amazing, but it was. Too bad these pictures are so bad - basically it was 8 Middle Eastern men dancing Bhangra, in these fantastic costumes. Just marvelous, and totally worth standing in the hot sun for. I do like the statue in the background of this picture, A. D. White looking on in bemusement. Great contrast.