A couple wild days of integration...

So it's been kinda a crazy couple of days of "integrating" with my community. During my last 3 days I have held kids down while they had teeth pulled, won money off of kids during a soccer game (unintentionally), and ate guinea pig for 3 of my last 5 meals. Keep reading to find out more...

Alright, so during our first few weeks in site us new volunteers should be working to make connections with community leaders and try to find your place in the community. Eventually we will be working on our community diagnostics, which involve 100+ interviews with rural families to diagnose both the needs of the community and with which communities we would likely have the most success with (some communities are more motivated than others. But because of the christmas season, everything has been pushed back a bit. It's tough to get big stuff going like trips to communities (some are several hours away), so it's better to wait until January. This doesn't mean that we're not busy though.

On Wednesday I worked with the health center and went with a group of nurses and a doctor to the same community we had done the vaccination campaign in. We were going to set up a make-shift health post in the school for a couple hours so that the people that couldn't make the trip to town (about two hours by foot) could still get access to a doctor. We were taking vitals on kids, checking height and weight. The doctor was checking out kids with respiratory problems, ear infections, normal kid stuff, and we had a small pharmacy set up to hand out what the doctor prescribed. An obstetrician was answering questions about girlie stuff as well as giving anti-contraceptive shots. But by far, the most popular person was the dentist, who was there to take a look at teeth and pull out the trouble ones. They used lidocaine as an analgesic but these kids were getting teeth pulled out in their school desks, to their credit the majority of these kids were amazingly tough. The girls even more so than the fellas, I know if it were me I'd be crying like a baby, numbing shot or not. After a couple hours of that we headed home, but it was good to see they have programs like that to help the people of the communities that can't make the trip into town, but with more than 60 similar communities in the area, it's pretty tough to maintain all of them. The following day I went with my host dad to the school he works at. It's the equivalent of an elementary and they are winding down the school year here (remember the seasons are backwards here), so he just had to administer a final or two and then play soccer. The kind of stuff that a gringo could easily tag along with. After being told to be ready for a car to the school at 6:50 in the morning, my host dad comes strolling into the kitchen around 7:20 and sits down for breakfast....excuse the tangent but down here they work on the hora peruana (peruvian time), which means if someone says a certain time...say 6:50 am...and you show up then, you will be the only person there for at least 25 minutes. It's something I'm still adjusting to here in site. The only things that run on time are scheduled buses, and soccer games....but we were able to catch another car that took us about half way. Then we walked about a mile up hill to get to the school. There was a religion test and a music test. The religion test was 5 questions and didn't take too long, afterwards the kids had to come to the front of the room and sing a song by themselves. After hearing 30 or so kids sing I felt like I was obligated to try to do something of my own, the only song I could really remember the words to without the music was Pat Green's "Carry On" a Texas country song. I didn't know at the time, but after singing once, I was obligating myself to sing to these kids for the rest of the day, after a couple more renditions I faked a coughing spell to get out of singing more. Luckily the soccer game served as a distraction as well. Around here each player chips in a lil' bit of money, an impuesta, and the winning team takes all, at least that's how it is when the big kids play. These kids are about 5th graders, and they're peruvian which makes them even smaller. My host dad sets the teams and we're both on the same team versus a team comprised completely of kids, then he asks for the impuesta, I thought it was a lil' strange but I didn't say anything. We play a long game and end up winning, I think out of our 5 goals, 1 was scored by my host dad and 3 others were assists from one of us, just to show that the teams weren't evenly matched. After the game wraps up we start our hour and a half walk back because rain clouds were threatening, I didn't receive my share of the winnings and was happy because I thought it was just between the kids. After the long hike downhill on bad knees we arrive in site and stop at a store to grab a soda, it was here that my host dad remembered to give me my winnings, 50 centivos (about 16 cents, worth a bit more to poor peruvian kids). So....UNINTENTIONALLY.....I guess I might have gambled with kids, I'll make it up to them by throwing the game next time, won't be too hard to fake that I'm playing soccer poorly.

Yesterday morning my host parents woke me up at 6 to help with preparations for my host sisters graduation from pre-school. Around here they celebrate everything, and this is just another excuse to have a party. A party that requires a full day of preparations. My host grandmother had been cooking cakes all week, 12 in total and I spent the first couple hours yesterday sweeping an auditorium and putting decorations on walls (because I'm tall they loved having me around, opened up all kinds of new decoration schemes for them). The actual ceremony began at 2:00 pm with a service in the church and then we headed to the auditorium. There were 20 graduates, and each had a partner (boy/girl couples). At the auditorium there were a couple hours of speeches, certificates and gifts were given out before dinner (40 kids and families sitting down to eat guinea pigs, complete with head and all), dancing, and beverages, sodas and beer for the kids and adults respectively. Around midnight I had to head to bed, but the party was still going until around two o'clock in the morning. My host sister beat me, even my host brother of one and a half years, but he just fell asleep during the party so I'm not sure if that really counts. For some reason, Peruvians don't even have the need to sleep. I woke up tired this morning, and found waiting for me a plate of reheated leftovers for breakfast.

During the upcoming week I have to make a trip to the department capital to collect a box of books I've got waiting for me and run a couple errands that I can't do out here in the small towns. It's unfortunate that it's a trip of 10 hours one way and costs about 28 soles (about $9, but we receive about 35 soles daily). Also get to pick up a bike in the capital city, it will be very nice to have that to get around, as long as it doesn't rain too much on these dirt roads and trails. That's it for now, hope everything is going well with people back in the states and wherever you may find yourself. I can't believe that Christmas is less than two weeks off, doesn't feel like the holidays here quite yet but I hope everyone is having a very happy holiday season so far.


A couple pictures, but I apologize, they are in no order what so ever.

The spiral staircase leading up to my room on the second floor, haven´t yet fallen on the stairs but I know that day is coming.

The kitchen of the house, very very nice in comparison to other volunteers that place pots on rocks to make a stove.

The courtyard of my house...

Entry room of my house...

Picture of my room pt. 1...

Room pt. 2...

Picture of the house from the street with host sister and friends playing on the balcony upstairs.

Picture of room pt 3....and yes, I did clean the room before I took these pictures.

Pre-school graduates sitting down to dine on guinea pigs...

Pre-school grads and their partners dancing to american rap music in front of their families...

The host family, graduate angie, her partner, usher girls in orange and god parents...

My host brother is a lil´ lady killer when he´s dressed to the nines...

Angie and partner in the church before the service.

Me with the kids of the school...before the soccer game...

Gettin' into the Real Peace Corps Stuff...

So I haven't posted anything in awhile but that's because we've been super busy, and things have actually changed quite a bit since my last post. Our sites were announced, we spent a week visiting our sites, returned for a couple more weeks for training before my group, Peru group 12 swore in as real peace corps volunteers and shipped off to our respective sites. That's the short version, the long one is a lil' bit more fun. Around early November the Peace Corps staff announced our site assignments, there was a ceremony with most of the higher ups in peace corps peru in attendance. The magic of the ceremony was lessened somewhat because 1/3 of the trainees already knew where they were going to be working. The members of environmental promotion found out their sites long before those in health promotion and water and sanitation. For the most part everyone was extremely excited with their site placements. My site was to be Tacabamba, Cajamarca, besides being fun to say it looked like a great community according to the paperwork they gave each of us. But I was going to have to wait until site visits to actually find out what ol' tacabamba was all about. Following the site announcement ceremony we had a talent show, all in spanish of course. Each language class had to present a skit. They were quite varied and actually quite impressive, there were skits poking fun at professors, the public transit system we use every day, a dating show, and jam poetry sessions. Our group did literal translations of pop songs into spanish, such as rhiannas umbrella, don't worry be happy, and brown eyed girl. So there I was in front of the group singing along..."Oye, donde fuimos?/en los dias lluviosos/bajo en the hallow jugando un juego nuevo" some of the words didn't make the translation jump but you get the idea. After that we only had two days left to wait before heading off to our sites. The following saturday we caught an 18-hour night bus to Cajamarca city as we made our way to sites. Our group of seven trainees slowly trudges off the bus after a night of fitful sleep, especially for those tall folk who can't really fit in the bus seats all that well (peru has been made by short people for short people). In the confusion of getting our checked bags from under the bus someone was able to sneak in and steal a couple of our carry-ons (the bags that we carry on to the bus that have all the expensive stuff that we don't trust to leave in our checked bags). Between three guys, we lost three cameras, three ipods, a passport, phone, some cash, books, notes, couple pairs of prescription glasses, and other assorted items. It was quite a bummer but we learned from it...more on that in a bit. After the 18 bus ride to the department (state) capital, I've got about another 8-10 hours of travel to make it to my site. As of right now I'm actually the most remote volunteer in my department. In my site there was a small ceremony at the health center which involved introductions from the 30 or so employees that work there, a wine toast, dancing with some nurses, a dance by an 8 year old who is staring me in the eyes the whole time (somewhat awkward), and of course, a small speech given by me in poor spanish. After that I got to meet my host family in their amazing house, I feel like I've won the peace corps lottery with this family. They've got a kitchen that seems like something out of the states, I was able to choose between three different rooms, and I've got a hot shower and flushing toilet (high ticket items around here, especially when some volunteers don't even have latrines, and must use a field instead). I spent two full days in site making the rounds of introductions while being sick with a fever and what not. After site visits the last two weeks of class dragged by very slowly, after learning about our sites and what we'd actually be doing for the next two years, it was hard to get excited about seemingly silly stuff for class. Slowly we got through it and before we knew it we were celebrating thanksgiving the best we could and getting our bags packed to leave for our sites. For ol' turkey day we were actually able to get our large group together to have turkey sandwiches and be merry. The day after thanksgiving we had our swearing in ceremony, which involved our group gathered under a large patriotic tent of red white and blue listening to speeches from a representative from the US embassy, our host families, our country director, and a great speech by one of our fellow volunteers (the guy was pretty tough because he was also very sic, right after....and before his speech he was in the bathroom throwing up). The peace corps put us up for a night in lima and we were able to go out to some nice restaurants and bars in miraflores (the upper class part of lima) and celebrate our completion of training. The next day we were on the hunt for mexican food in miraflores (turns out to be the food I miss most from home), weren't able to find it but settled for a cold swim in the water of the pacific on the coast of miraflores. Later that day we hopped that long bus to cajamarca again, for some reason it took 20 hours this time. But as we got off the bus we had learned from our last trip there and were much more careful with our bags. It helped that there was a group of about 10 current volunteers already working in Cajamarca there to meet and look after us. Our friends in other groups weren't so lucky, with our new cell phones we were able to here stories of stolen laptops, money, wallets and other things, seems like we got ours out of the way early. We had a couple meetings in cajamarca city and had some time to get to know the volunteers that have been working here for a bit, and of course drill them with questions about what the heck we're supposed to be doing with our first few days in site. Again I made the long journey from Cajamarca to Tacabamba with my obscene amount of luggage. Somehow in the last three months I have accumulated more things, and had three large bags to lug around. I finally arrived at the house of my new host family this last tuesday, making this my 3rd full day in site. My host family is amazing, I've got a grandmother that can cook amazingly well, her professora daughter, who is also married to a professor, and their children, cesar (1.5) and anghie (6)....oh....how can I forget our wonderful dog bon-bon. They have this kind of dog here, it's tiny, always has an under-bite, and an annoying bark, this dog is all those things. He loves to bark and whine late at night, and he's also only got one eye because he got in a fight, with a bigger dog I'm guessing, so you gotta be careful not to sneak up on him. Especially if you're me, who he doesn't like already, he has been snapping at me and trying to pee on my things. Since I've been here I've killed the electricity in the whole house while taking a hot shower, wandered through the campo (countryside) trying to find children to give hepatitis B shots, missed viewing a childbirth by 5 minutes, and received countless strange stares and looks (especially while I was on a run today). All in all things are going very well so far, I'm extremely excited about my site, the people that I will be working with here, and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any lack of work. The difficult part at the moment is finding the work, for the moment I will be working to make connections and network in the community so that when I actually find out what the problems are in the community I'll have a broad network of people to draw on for assistance....at least it's supposed to go something like that. I hope everyone stateside is doing well, I can't believe it is December already. I was told time would fly, but I didn't think it would go this fast this soon. I will try to get posts up more frequently so that I don't have to rehash a full month in one long boring post, until then, I hope the best for everyone back home.

And as a special treat....finally....a few pics of Tacabamba!!!!


So there´s a statue of jesus up above the town, I was up chillin´with him and shot this panaromic view of tacabamba. Que bonito el pasiaje!!!!

A view from the communidad naranjo outside of tacabamba, this is where we were hunting down kids to give them shots. You can imagine that we weren´t a real popular group with the kiddies.

A view from naranjo again.

On the walk back to Tacabamba from Naranjo.

My cute lil´host sister Anghie.

My favorite mountain around the town....can´t remember the name of it though....we´ll call it Ryan´s Hill.

Franca beer welcomes you to Tacabamba.

My homies from session quinto b from the local colegio.

I was hiking along and snapped this pic, can´t see it but Ryan´s Hill is to the right...see...it´s catching on already...