Close of service

This past week the volunteers of Peace Corps Peru 9 (the group I went through training with) descended to Lima for our final meeting - "Close of Service". That means we have 3 months left. As you would imagine, it was a great meeting simply because we were all together as a group. Being in Peace Corps on the same time-line and in the same country creates a strong bond even though we are dispersed throughout the country and have rarely seen each other throughout our two years.

The meeting was mainly how to finish Peace Corps - since it is a government agency, it has the bureaucratic paperwork. There was a lot of talk about our experiences and how we've developed as people, our accomplishments, and the benefits of being a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. We had a 30 minute picture slideshow that a fellow Ancash volunteer put together to top off the meeting. Every night was a party.

Our official end-date is August 23...but, if you have a reason, you can finish in the last month of your service, 29 days before the final end date. I'm not exactly sure yet when my "final date" will be, but it will be sometime around August 15th. It has been a long journey - and thanks for those who've kept reading my blog and for all the positive comments. I'll keep it going for the next three months - and for the two months while I'm heading home.

To make this blog somewhat funny - here are some pictures. I've mentioned this before, but Peru has a bit of a different culture around drinking. Getting black-out drunk and passing out in random places isn't just reserved for college. Here are a few pictures.
Much love,
Jake

Website and other stuff

I recently put the website for the artisan association on the web. There are a few problems right now because of the Spanish tilde (the accent mark). Every word that has a tilde creates a different symbol. I’ll be fixing that soon, but I’m booked up for the next couple weeks so it won't be fixed until then. The website is: www.joyasdebarro.com. It’s nothing complex because the artisans will have to upkeep it once I’m gone, so I tried to make it as simple as possible. Plus, the idea of the website is to attract visitors to Tarica (where we live), and that's it. Unfortunately, the artisans are not ready to be taking orders through the web, so that service is not there. They still screw up orders that are made by people nearby. Things like quality control, timing, etc, still don't seem to matter much after close to two years of Peruvian consultants and me trying to instill them. Unfortunately, I can't make the products for them.

Other interesting happenings of late:
- One volunteer that lives in the same department recently coughed up a worm, which means that he has a lot of them residing within his body…once again, proving our bodies are like science experiments while living here.

- Another volunteer in my area was told that unicorns actually do exist.

- A taxi driver told me that swine flu was sent by God (I'm sure there are plenty of people in the US that believe that also – kinda like Pat Robertson saying hurricane Katrina was sent by God to punish us). Because of the swine flu hysteria, the US Govt mandated that all Peace Corps volunteers get the medicine just in case. We also got issued face masks.

- Someone told me that sex is a lot better when there is a full moon. I could probably write a few pages of all the ridiculous things I've been told by the men here about sex.

-Another Jehovah's Witness stopped by my door today. This is the 3rd or 4th one. The last one told me the bible is literal word of god because it says so in the bible.

- One of the cafés in town is having a Bob Dylan birthday bash with live music – and I’ll be performing a song! I’ll be performing “Masters of War”. Let’s hope I don’t embarrass myself too much.

- Someone called me Senor Gringo the other day. I think I've mentioned this before, but in this culture, people call you what you look like if they don't know your name. If you're fat, they call you "fat" – and it's not meant as an insult. Similar to other poor countries, if you're fat, it's a sign that you're also rich. The old lady next door often calls me, "Kalla Pecta", which is Quechua for baldy.

- A different volunteer was talking to someone about fishing in a nearby lake – and the person said the easiest way to catch fish is to just poor bleach into the lake…then the fishes just float up! That means that they are eating fish killed with bleach and eventually, killing most, if not all forms of life within that lake.

-We recently had a meeting for the volunteers in Ancash, so we hiked up to a lake to have the meeting. It's not an easy hike if you're not in shape or not acclimatized to the altitude, but everyone made it in one piece…and then 10 out of the 13 skinny dipped in the lake! That's me, grabbing the bull by the horns.
Much love, Jake

Mindful Breathing

Before coming to Peru, I knew I was going to have more free time than in my past and I planned on practicing meditation while here. Buddhist monks have always intrigued me as I wonder about the power of meditation. Does Zen or nirvana really exist? Are we capable of reaching those states? Is it worthy of our time? Would the world be a better place if everyone wasn’t in such a hurry or is the constant busyness good for us? Can we improve the value of our lives through meditation? Could we improve our society and our world by promoting and practicing meditation?

Unfortunately, our society doesn’t really place much value on the idea. Our mentality is something like, “Don’t just sit there, do something!” whereas the idea of meditation, in a sense, is, “Don’t just do something, sit there!” Similar to most things in life, standing outside and observing only gets us so far – in order to truly understand something, we have to put ourselves into it (kind of like being in love, you don’t really know it until you’ve been through it).

I’ve read a couple books on meditation by a Vietnamese monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. The story of his life is inspirational and his words, while simple, carry a profound meaning and an enlightened path. His books describe ways on how to practice meditation in our busy lives. His approach towards meditation is to begin focusing on our breathing, through what he calls, “mindful breathing”. The first steps are to recognize and control our respiration, while letting go of everything else. It sounds easy but it’s quite difficult. I suggest trying it for half an hour, not thinking of all the things that happened during the day or what you will be doing after, or about our relationships with others or about what is happening this weekend or the work still to do before bed – just focus on the moment. “As I breathe in, I am sitting. As I breathe out, I am alive. As I breathe in I nourish my body. As I breathe out I am in control. As I breathe in, I smile. As I breathe out, I relax.”

The longest I’ve been able to truly maintain a pure focus is about 5 minutes, then often my concentration gets broken and thoughts not related to the moment enter my mind and I begin anew to focus on my breath. I’ve had to build up to those 5 minutes also. It's tough to do. But, by focusing on your breath and the moment, you can enter deeper thoughts, while maintaining a focus on your breathing and the now.

After an hour, I feel exhausted, relaxed, and energized. It’s a unique feeling. My goals for practicing meditation are too many to list here. A few though are: I am trying to learn to enjoy the moment more, without thinking or worrying or hoping about the future (though of course, we all have to plan for the future). Happiness is now. I focus on living with more compassion and understanding. I sometimes focus on the sources of anger and frustration within me, in order to understand it and control it, not ignore it - thus lessening it. I focus on love and how I can bring more into my life while giving more to others. I often try to focus on energy - both scientifically and spiritually – which is what we are and is all around us. We are a bunch of cells...broken down further – molecules...broken down further – atoms, which can be broken down further and further. We are made up of the same things that make up everything around us – so, in a sense, we are the same, and we are one. (something neat to think about, not necessarily during meditation is this: Imagine a moment from your childhood – think about what you were doing, how you felt, etc. Then, realize that every single atom that was within you at that moment has since left your body and is somewhere else – so in reality, all the parts that made you then no longer exist within you now. Weird, huh?)

My routine is basically this, sometime between 6 to 8 PM, I’ll turn off the lights, close my laptop, turn off my phone (though set an alarm), light a candle or two, and sit for 30 minutes to an hour. It’s tough to maintain – and when I get back to the States and begin the life there again, it’ll be even tougher to maintain. As Thich Nhat Hanh teaches though, we can practice meditation while walking, while washing the dishes, folding the laundry, while cooking, or any other time. Through practice, we can include mindful breathing into all of our activities. If we are to continue leading lives the way we are, we need to find sanctuaries within our busy lives and mindful breathing is a great way.

I decided to share all this because I figure it might interest others to bring into their lives as well - and I think practicing meditation is very beneficial, calming, and helps make us better people.

Thanks for reading,
Much Love,
Jake