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...

Gettin' to See the Real Peru!!!

So we just got back earlier today from our Field Based Training in Cajamarca. I was in a group with three other volunteers, our tour guides were a 3rd year volunteer Devina, and our language instructor Pablo. We traveled up to Cajamarca, a department in the north of Peru in the area called the sierra, it's pretty high in the andes, I think we topped out at higher than 3,000 meters while driving between towns. It's the rainy season up there so we got to see rain for the first time in our time here in Peru.....actually there might have been a lil' too much rain. Us future volunteers weren't all that well prepared and were wandering around fields of mud wearing our running shoes and chacos. Would have been more fun if I had a pair of rubber boots that everyone around there were wearing, but I just got laughed at when I asked if they had size 48 (they use the funky european sizing down here). During our week long adventure we build a latrine, a wood burning kitchen, helped turn a field of grass into a garden, and gave classes to children about self esteem and STD's. The second was quite awkward because it was...a talk about STD's with 14-15 year old kids....and it was in spanish. Wasn't able to field the questions quite as well as the other people in the group but I think we the job done pretty well. Saw some beautiful scenery, rode some wild buses on muddy roads along side some big cliffs, and most importantly got to see what life is like for the actual volunteers that are already working here in Peru. We were able to visit the sites of three different volunteers and were actually able to spend the night with two of them. It was also great to get outside of the training center near lima and have a break from the grind of classes.

After all the fun stuff out and about in the field....most of us still don't know where we'll be working for the next two years. We will find out this thursday and I hope I'll be able to work up in cajamarca in the area that we just got back from visiting. The week after next we will be traveling again, this time individually to our actual sites. This'll probably be pretty awkward, to the peruvians of my future community I'll be this funny looking, abnormally tall gringo that can't speak well but is coming to live with them. During my visit to my site there's not too much to do beyond meet the family I'll be living with for the next two years and meet people in the community that will be important to know to get projects off the ground and what not, just an exercise in making connections.

That's pretty much it for now, we're all getting quite excited about getting out into the field and doing some actual work, and this next week of class in going to be awfully boring compared to our travels in Peru, slowly but surely we're getting down with this training stuff.

Climbing Hills and Eating Raw Fish...

So today is one of our precious few off days, and I wanted to take advantage of it by sleeping in. There was a quincinera last night, but it didn't kick off until midnight, and it was also a b-day party for a 15 year old girl, so I passed on that. Got to bed relatively early and tried to sleep in but that was foiled by the synergy of the chapel bells next door and Mario, my 8 year old brother, banging stuff outside my door. Had breakfast of onions, tuna, and bread for breakfast (not as bad as it sounds), and was going to tidy up my room when my host mother came in and told me to head downstairs and watch her dad make cerviche. Peru has what many consider a national drink and a national dish. The drink is called a pisco sour, it tastes somewhat like a margarita with too much ?????, but is quite delicious. The dish is called cerviche, it's raw fish and shrimp with lemon juice served on a bed of onions with seaweed on top. It's actually pretty good, my only complaint is that the seaweed is supposed to be rinsed thoroughly, I don't think it was, and at times it tasted a lil' too much like the sea. A lil' too quickly after downing a large plate of raw fish, we left on a trip to climb the hill behind our neighborhood. The group consisted of myself, another volunteer named Brad, and the family of the neighboorhood party animal Chi-chi. This is a fella that the PC has warned us about hanging out with and is personally responsible for the current number of volunteers in the barrio being 5, it used to be 12 but there were too many parties and what not at this guys house that the PC was worried about the bad influence. In my opinion he's a friendly guy that likes to have gringo friends, but he was a great tour guide and we hiked for just over an hour to get to the top of the hill near our neighborhood. Within 5 minutes of being on the trail we already found many ceramic pieces that were once part of incan pottery over 1,000 years ago. There were stones stacked to form walls and it was very obvious where rooms once stood. The way of living has somewhat changed since then. At the top of the hill we were able to see into the exclusive club that is situated just above our barrio, where almost every house has a pool and I believe I was able to see 5-6 red clay courts. So I'm gonna have to see if I can find a way to sweet talk my way in there to play....after I find some shoes....racquets...and someone else to play with, should be easy.

Things have been going well since the last post. Got bumped up in my language level to "intermediate medium", which is the minimum level that a trainee must achieve before being allowed to exit training. So that's good and all but tricks on them....I still don't know spanish well, so I'll see what I can scramble and pick up in the 6 weeks of training we have left. We just passed the 5 week mark and the time has been flying by already, I can't believe it is half way through october already.

Oooh....big news I almost forgot about. We've got this thing called Field Based Training (FBT), where we split off into smaller groups and go out into the Field and do some...Training. We'll be shadowing some volunteers at their sites, giving informational sessions, building latrines and stoves. I'm in a group with 3 other trainees and we're heading the Cajamarca, it's a department in the sierra (the region of the country in the Andes). So that should be a great change of pace and a chance to see in person what we're doing all this training for. I promise to have my camera going and should have some pictures that are a bit more exciting than the ones I have up at the moment.

Alright, I'm off to learn me some spanish, hope everyone is doing well back in the states.

Still Truckin'

So we've almost made it four weeks through training and got about 7 left. We were treated to a holiday yesterday. It was a federal holiday to commemorate the battle of angamos. I thought the peruvians had won the battle, but they actually lost it. It was a naval battle and one peruvian ironclad had held of the Chilean navy for five months, this heroic ship was finally defeated. It made much more sense to celebrate it after I found out the back story.

Things are going quite well here, we're actually getting into the meat of our health program education. Learning about the extreme prevalence of anemia in not only pregnant mothers but children as well. The importance of well rounded nutrition to avoid stunting and irreversible impediments in cognitive development of children. It's actually really cool stuff, I've been finding out that this public health education stuff might be pretty fun. If anyone wants a fun book to read on the topic check out "Mountains beyond Mountains." It's about a doctor named Paul Farmer who did a lot of work for public health in Haiti, Russia, and even Peru. I think it's gonna be awhile before someone is bored enough to write a book about my life.

Spanish is coming along well, we had another round of language interviews today to gauge our progress and possibly move up (hopefully) or down (hopefully not) depending on how the interview goes. It was a pretty relaxed interview and the interviewer poses pretty open ended questions, I think we started with describing my host family and eventually the conversation got around to me attempting to describe my worst EMS call, which I sure don't have the vocabulary for. I spent my free day reviewing the vocab for how to tell about my daily routine (shower, eat, walk to class, etc.) So I should have known to stick to my topics and only mention things that I could speak well on.

We've got another weekend coming up and I think I'm gonna use it to catch up on some sleep and do some reading, I've been doing pretty well not getting sick as of yet and I want to try to keep it that way if possible. Of course I say this now, knowing full well that there is a concert saturday night that I will most likely be attending. I'm off to read harry potter in spanish...took me about 20 minutes to get through the first 2-3 pages yesterday, I'm gonna see if I can once more break the land speed record for reading spanish. Hope everyone is doing well where ever you're at.

Public Speaking 101...en español...

So things are going pretty well down here in the southern hemisphere. Staying busy, but having a great time. Last night there was a fiesta in my neighborhood to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the barrio. The soccer tournament that we were involved in was a prequel to the fiesta last night. Our team performed quite well, I believe we had 3 wins, 3 loses, 4 ties and a forfeit mixed in there somewhere (due to a combination of miscommunication and schedule conflict with the presidential debate...yes, we have TV down here). Though we performed well we were definitely not the best team in the tournament, but some representatives from the neighborhood chose to give us an award for sportsmanship. And for this they gave us some sharp looking jerseys with the name of the barrio written on them. A great gift, they were given to us during the fiesta last night, and for this they expected someone from the team to speak. This someone happened to be the captain....who happened to be me. At this point I have been studying spanish in university for one year, and have lived in a spanish speaking country for all of three weeks, this surely has not prepared me for speaking in front of 100+ people. After some encouragement and teasing from my friends, mixed with a bit of liquid courage I was ready to take the stage, grab the mic, and butcher the three or four sentences that I had planned out. It probably wasn't all that bad but it was an unexpected surprise. This was followed by fireworks, drinking, and dancing For some reason the dancing area was comprised almost entirely of gringos (many were wearing the recently gifted jerseys). The way people drink here is a bit different than in the states, the men will gather together in a small circle of 4-6 people and pass a large bottle and glass around the circle. They don't have personal size bottles and it's taboo to drink directly from the bottle, though I believe we smashed a couple cultural boundaries last night. After receiving the cup in the circle you fill it about one third full, drink it, shake it out and pass it to the next person. This allows for everyone involved to share both conversation and germs (sorry grandma :) ). There are often many of these circles that will form at a fiesta, and each would like nothing more than to pull in a gringo, especially to tease him about the public display of poor spanish (the people are actually very understanding and patient with us as we struggle to learn spanish). So of course as I'm trying to walk across the fiesta area I will get pulled into three or four different drinking circles and a 35 yard walk will take 40 minutes. It's not a bad thing, just a little different. At about three in the morning I called it quits and went to bed, my host parents were somewhat surprised that I went to bed so early. I need to thank the volunteer that lived with them before me, he drank much more than me, more frequently, and I went to bed much later than I. Because of this I've got a little bit more wiggle room than I was expecting, which is nice.

It's not all fiestas down here, that's just the break that we have been looking forward to after three long weeks of classes about first aid, agriculture, composting, safety, health, spanish (of course), with a bunch of vaccinations mixed in as well. We will find out our site assignments November 6th, though a few people already know where they will be stationed for the next two years, the rest of us are excited to know where we'll be. That's when the real peace corps stuff starts, we've been told by many current volunteers that training is a necessary evil and the actual service is much more fun. But honestly this has felt like summer camp up to this point, new friends, new places, and for the most part every part of your day is dictated by someone else and we don't really have all that much responsibility yet. Aside from showing up on time (which means 20 minutes late is ok) and a little bit of spanish homework. It's nice to have a gradual increase in the expectations of us rather than throwing us in over our heads. At times it feels quite slow but it's probably for the best.

I will now try to get a few more pictures up that I promised last time. Hope everyone back hope is doing great with school, jobs, looking for jobs, and everything else. Oh...and don't forget to register to vote.

Peruvians listen to some bad American music...

So I woke up this morning to the sounds of some really bad '80's american music.  Peruvians don't know the words to these songs but they must love the sound of them because they are played all the time.  It must be somewhat similar to us (in the states) listening to bad reggaeton or other music from these countries, but they love boy george, and many others much worse than that.  I'm not able to pick out exactly who the bands are, but I can tell it's in english and it's gotta be from the 80's....music around here is more like.... http://hk.youtube.com/watch?v=eVZHsc34icQ ....if that doesn't work youtube grupo cinco te vas, it's the first hit.

But Peru has much more to offer than their music, this country is amazing.  The people are extremely friendly, seem to be quite understanding of my bad spanish, and the scenery is amazing.  I'll be trying to get some more pics up soon.  We are living in a neighborhood near the training center, they split our group of 47 into 4 different barrios.  Ours is quite active, we have a soccer game involved in a tournament with a game tonight...in 20 minutes actually.  Luckily everything starts late around here.  This barrio is quite accustomed to a couple gringos wandering around because the peace corps often uses it to house volunteers.  This first struck me when my host mother after knowing me for less than an hour left her 8 year old son with me to go on a walk with some other gringos while she headed back home.  The level of trust they have for others is amazing.  

Ahora my spanish ain't all that great, but I really think this is the best way to learn, as hard as it is at times.  We had 4 hours of spanish class this morning, followed by lunch, and a couple hours of lectures for our health positions, then followed by an hour of spanish tutoring and whatever other spanish I speak with my family, at the soccer game, on the way home, chatting with kids, etc.  It's slow going, but poco a poco I think it's all falling together.  

I'm gonna wrap this up, got some e-mails to check and gonna try to put some pictures up as well, they can be found at http://gallery.me.com/rjohara/100020 ...at this time it's easier to post there than facebook...I'll get to that later...

Livin' it up in Peru

My name is Ryan O'Hara, and this is my blog. I am currently undergoing training in Chaclacayo, Peru to be a Rural Community Health Promotion Volunteer for the Peace Corps. Nearly everyone has heard of the peace corps but many aren't exactly sure what it is. It's a government agency, not ministry work (...not that there's anything wrong with that), that puts Americans with college level education into communities in developing countries that request assistance developing health programs, environmental protection, or water and sanitation programs, just to give a few examples. I will be serving in Peru for 27 months, which is broken down into 3 months of training at my current location followed by 2 years of service in a site that will be announced to us in a few weeks. At this time my plan after the completion of my peace corps service is to find a spot at a medical school, hopefully in the states somewhere.

So I've safely made it to Peru and have been here for two weeks now. This should show that the Peace Corps is doing a great job of keeping us busy during training. We've got a good mix of ~4 hours of spanish each day, 4-5 hours of safety/security, health, or training specific classes, hanging out with a host family, and trying to compete in a soccer tournament. During the entire duration of service in peru volunteers live with host families and I am currently living with a great family in the barrio of 3 de octobre. My 'hood has been declared the "beverly hills" of the area. This only means that we have toilets that flush and warm water showers brought to us by electricity. This is a weird thing because each time before taking a shower I must flip a pretty serious looking switch clearly labeled "600 Volts"...which to me means it really wants to kill me. This allows me to shower in water that is not cold...but is surely not warm either. In my family I have two parents, susanna, and cesar, and three brothers, mario 8, cesar 13, and gabriel 14. At times it's good to have kids around because they are often more patient with my bad spanish, much less likely to laugh, give up and walk away while muttering something about stupid gringo under their breath.

Para mi, a normal day consists of waking up around 6:30, saying goodbye to the oldest host brothers who are usually on the way out the door to their school which is about 30 minutes away. I eat a breakfast of coffee and bread with butter and chat with my host mom before leaving the house around 730. I meet up with the 4 other volunteers that live in my neighborhood for the 30 minute walk to class. Class lasts from 8:00 - 5:00 with an hour for lunch, and sometimes if I'm lucky I've got an hour of spanish tutorials afterwards because I'm just that awesome at speaking spanish. During the last week we have got ourselves involved in a soccer tournament and had a game every night last week, we took friday off to catch the debate at a friends house.

Last night was a neighborhood party which involved traditional dances, a group of 12-14 saxophonists playing music, fireworks, and a lot of drunk peruvians who just loved to pull a couple gringos into their drinking circle to speak incomprehensible spanish to. We had a strong showing for awhile, probably pushing almost 20 people, but spent most of our time hanging out at a house in the neighborhood, we finally got to the party in the town center once every one was ready for dancing. Unfortunately our group just dissolved into a search for street food. Because the volunteers live in several different barrios some had to head back to their respective areas before it got too late. This was probably one in the morning by now and I spot my host mom. I tried to have a conversation with her father, but due to the combination of my bad spanish and the loud music I was unable to comprehend what he was saying, and he gave me the typical older adult response of shaking his head and muttering something about "no me entiendes (you don't understand me)" or stupid gringo. My one goal for last night was to stay out later than my host mother, but by three in the morning after some dancing and several conversations, with people I couldn't hear much less understand, I had to call it quits. I woke up this morning at 9 to the sound of what I thought was saxophones tuning in the street outside my window. I don't think they were tuning because they continued this for a few hours, they were just playing the same three notes in succession with each other. A nice little peruvian alarm clock for me.

So far the experience here has been amazing and it feels like I have been here for months rather than only two weeks. My group is Peru group 12 which consists of 47 amazing people from all over the country. Some have studied abroad or lived abroad, many in peru, and for a couple this trip to peru was their first time out of the country. After talking with other people it seems like everyone has their moments when they look around and are suddenly reminded that we are in peru and this is now our home, for one girl it was when she could sit in the bathroom of her house and see the moon through a hole in the ceiling. For me it was after a run yesterday when I was sitting and cooling down in the park, I was watching some guys set up the stage for the concert and when I look back to the kids in the park there was a single black and white sheep chasing the kids around the monkey bars and swings. Can't wait to see what the rest of today and the rest of service will bring...