After a jaunt to the beach...

So I arrived back in site yesterday morning after a brief trip to Tumbes, the most northern (and hottest) department in Peru. As I mentioned in my last post, we were heading out that way to see some of the projects that fellow volunteers have going concerning PEPFAR (Presidents Emergency Plan for Aids Relief). The volunteers in that area have done a great job coordinating with community members to form committees that are working with various activities to promote education about HIV/ADIS in the general population. This might involve working with youth groups that give educational sessions to other youth, radio spots (we were on the radio twice in three days, and I got the laugh track from the DJ after goofing on some spanish), parades, and even a graffiti mural contest. Tumbes is situated along the ecuadorian border of peru and is a hub for commerce and trade, sadly those locations are often hotbeds for STD's and other communicable diseases. Fortunately this area is a bit more open minded to talk of sexual education, which makes the work of these volunteers somewhat easier. Here in the sierra of Peru such educational tactics wouldn't be greeted so warmly by the general population, so us volunteers in the mountainous areas might have to be a little more tactful with our presentation of such ideas.

After 3 days of touring volunteers sites and chatting with health personnel in Tumbes I made a mad dash to get back to site to open the library during the town anniversary, yesterday the 17th of October. It took about two days to get home and I picked up the books (donated by the peruvian government) on the way back. As I hop off a truck, and finish the 20-hour trip back home, I walk straight into the whole municipality staff including the mayor as they are dressed very nicely and parading around the plaza. I on the other hand, looked very much as if I had just traveled 20 hours of buses over the last two days (with very little sleep). I was juggling various bags and boxes but I was able to snap a picture before scampering off to ditch my things in my room and set up the library for an opening ceremony that was going to take place that afternoon. A fellow volunteer James from a neighboring town came by to help me organize the library. We were able to get it done in time and set to waiting for people to show up, as I understood various important people from the community were going to show up as well as the mayor and a priest who was going to bless the books (something I never forget to do before reading my books :) ). The bummer of the deal is that I had to have a community member organize the ceremony while I was gone in Tumbes, community members aren't peace corps volunteers and usually have another job that takes up most of their time. This ceremony wasn't terribly well planned, the professor responsible for planning it showed up (after drinking a couple early afternoon beers), as well as a 2-3 other workers from the municipality but it was not enough to conduct the ceremony. So we're going to try again tomorrow afternoon and focus more on students than adults, the target population of the library is students anyways. I surprised myself by not really being that irritated that the ceremony fell through, I was actually relieved just to get the project finally (almost) completed. There has been rumors of repeating the project in a couple of the communities surrounding tacabamba, but we'll see if that actually comes together. I will hopefully have some pictures up of the completed library being used by students in the next few days. (Until then you guys can enjoy these wedding pics from a wedding I attended earlier this month.)

Today has been pretty calm, was able to clean up the room a bit as well as get some clothes washed that have been neglected for quite some time. Tomorrow will be quite a bit more busy, so I'm going to take advantage of the down time and knock out some reading.

Currently Reading: Crepúsculo (Twilight) By: Stephenine Meyer

Yep...same book...kinda sad...