Greetings, greetings, greetings...and just think, in a few days, I will be giving salutations to some of you in person. However, to relieve myself of some redundant explanations, I'll give you a quick update of what I've been doing around these parts in that last few weeks.
Myself, in collaboration with the other volunteers in my department, have been traveling all over the department conducting a theatrical performance in each of our sites. And, in between, we even made a stop at some ancient ruins of the per-Inca society
of Chavin de Huantar. Now, I wouldn't go so far as to say we're ready for Hollywood, but as far as performances in a foreign language go, I would say we did pretty well! So well in fact, that we were treated like celebrities...autographs, pictures, and the whole works.
Our little burlesque had a very serious message, but of course, we kept it comical. In addition to sharing an important message, this endeavor proved to be an excellent opportunity to visit one another's sites and get to know the people, projects, and area in general. More so, I found it to be a great bonding experience for all of us. I still maintain the belief that you can't really know somebody until you have traveled with them. And, well, I guess I've gotten to know a few people a little better. Let's just say, that we did more than our fair share of waiting for busses.
The message we were sharing with the people from our communities was gender equality. Generally speaking, this subject is rather closeted in this area. So much so, in fact, that most of the people in our communities strictly follow stereotypical gender roles. Men, for example, are the breadwinners. They feel obligated to do the "manly" things like work the fields and bring home the bacon, so to speak. Meanwhile, the women do the cleaning, the child rearing, and often feel restrained in pursuits of their dreams. In some cases, the matter is so deeply rooted that women haven't even been given the opportunity to learn Spanish and only communicate in Quechua. In my opinion, this is a tremendous setback in the overall development and well-being of a country and its people. Therefore, we set off with the mission to educate via satire how men can easily help out around the house, and how females are just as capable as men in both physical and intellectual capacities.
I won't go into the details of our production, but I will let you know that I played the role of "Huascar", the profound and wise mountain (named after Huascaran, the highest mountain in the area, and the World's highest tropical mountain). More so, I will apprise that there was a bit of cross-dressing and role reversal conducted by other members of the team.
Overall, everything went swimmingly. Most interesting to me were the faces of middle aged men in the audience when we reinforced the fact that they too can cook, clean, and assist with the children; some didn't seem to enthused about that little newsflash. Nonetheless, the youth definitely got the message.
Oh Peace Corps! You never cease to send me down previously unexplored personal paths! I've determined that development work is best conducted when oneself steps outside-of-the-box in order to help others step out of theirs.
