Jenny Chapman, Peace Corp Volunteer in Peru

Sent: March 9, 2003
Subject: Thank goodness for Clairol!?!?!

Hello everyone! Well it has been awhile since my last email. I have been pretty busy getting settled into my village, Santa Rosa. I have now moved into my house. It is pretty nice except I have been rather frustrated and scared every night facing a pending invasion of the 8-legged critters. I am however amazed with my improvement of dealing with my fear. I have now even reached the point where I can kill them myself. Every night, armed with a cannister of Raid
or hair spray and a broom, I spot check my house over and over again. They seem to prefer night invasions. I have now found myself talking to them and often in not so nice language. "You ------ ------! I cannot believe you came in here. Now I am going to have to kill you --- -- -----." I then spray them with my Clairol Herbal Essence hair spray (I don't even use hair spray but I knew it would come in handy somehow). I have found that the hairspray paralyzes them or
maybe it just makes them so sticky they can't move. I then swat them with the broom and sweep away the remains. I am beginning to conquer my severe Arachnaphobia. Don't get me wrong, as great as this all sounds, I still am pretty darn scared. I even woke up at 5am one morning and cried for an hour about wanting to come home back to the States. That was after I had killed 3 S's in the same night (and they were big boys too).

Well enough talk about arachnids. I also have survived Carnaval in Santa Rosa besides the fact that I drank rubbing alcohol?!?! Yep, that's right...rubbing alcohol. People in my town are too poor to afford regular liquor so they buy rubbing alcohol and mix it into their already fermented/alcoholic corn moonshine. Needless to say the cocktail did not delight my taste buds and I spent most of the time faking drinking.

Besides the corn moonshine/rubbing alcohol drink (commonly referred to as Chicha) Santa Rosa also had a band. We spent the afternoon hiking up the mountain to the cementary with a 10ft cross, the band and yes, the corn moonshine! Everyone was throwing talc power. We all looked ancient with our white hair. Later that night the band played on and the chicha continued to flow as the men in the town began to loose consciousness (figuratively and literally). I, on the other hand, sober as can be got stuck dancing with an old man who had no teeth and could barely stand up. The unfortunate part was that every time he snapped out of his stupor and remembered that he was dancing with me he would try to talk. The end result was I ended up with spit all over my face while smelling his rubbing alcohol breath even from the great distance I
maintained.

Well it's been pretty depressing here lately. It rains pretty heavily every afternoon. I keep setting
mini-goals for myself to pass the time and to make it through. Due to the rain, cold and darkness of night I have to urinate in a plastic tupperware thingy in my room at night. Shouldn't that be enough to scare the S's away??????

Well, signing out from Huaraz Peru. I better get back to my village. Tonight we have a town meeting where we are going to elect committee memebers for the Health and Development Committee I will support. Till next time folks.

Miss you all tons,
Jenny

P.S. I made my first scrambled egg the other day! But then realized it was way too much effort after having to wash my fork, plate, and frying pan by hand in a plastic tub outside in the dirt (all for one lousy egg)!