Happy Holidays!

Happy New Year!! Everyone have their yellow underwear on for good luck? Or is that just a Peruvian thing? The markets switched from red and green garlands to a sea of yellow ribbons, necklaces, glasses, and of course, yellow underwear of every imaginable variety and level of indecency. I settled for a moderate pair, no lace. Hope they bring me luck this year. I certainly am going to need it.

Although life in site has been pretty smooth so far, the first month in Sacsa has still been a real challenge. There is a lot to get adjusted to, most of all the incredibly slow pace of life. The first three months or so are dedicated to getting to know the community, rather than starting any projects, which means I spend a lot of time wandering around aimlessly or sitting on a log outside my house reading a book. This strategy actually works pretty well for starting conversations with the neighbors, since everyone is very curious about the fact that I actually read for FUN. People always ask if I am working, and since I started reading "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," which is thick and hard-covered, several people have asked if they could borrow my Bible.

Christmas was also an interesting experience. There were a few parties in town, but mostly on the days between Christmas and New Year's. On Christmas itself there was a bit of dancing (and a lot of drinking) at the school, and I got my first chance to embarrass myself dancing in front of half the town. Then we ate some paneton, which is like an oversized, super dry muffin studded with red and green candied fruit and raisins. Not my favorite holiday treat, and I have eaten it either for breakfast or dinner or both every day for the past two weeks. Reason #1 I am glad the holidays are over. I am looking forward to moving into my second month in Sacsa without the pressure of the holidays hanging over my head, and hopefully getting started with some little projects to keep me busy. My current initiative involves encouraging my little sisters to brush their teeth. Starting small.

Happy holidays to everyone!

Welcome to Sacsa

It has been a while, and so much has happened in the past three weeks. All 47 volunteers in my training group swore in as PC volunteers on November 28th, and from there we all went our separate ways. I moved up to Ancash with 8 other volunteers from Peru 12, and we did all our pre-site shopping in the capital city of Huaraz, buying mattresses, sheets, and other necessities. Then on December 2nd, Erica and I hired a taxi for the three hour journey to our sites. I can only imagine what people must have thought about the two strange white girls driving around with two mattresses on top of a stationwagon. But we made it, and have managed to settle into our respective homes in towns about 20 minutes apart from each other.

So about life in Sacsa- things are pretty calm in a town of perhaps 500 people, and my main responsibilities right now involve smiling and saying "buenos dias" to everyone and trying to remember names and faces. I spend a lot of time hanging out at the kitchen table, which is in an open-air patio in my adobe house, talking to my host parents and my two little host sisters, who are 5 and 3 and love to chat. They have been a big help in introducing me to the kids in town, and now I can't even walk out the front door without some kid yelling my name from down the street. I also read in the plaza a lot, just trying to get myself out there. If there's one thing I have learned in the past two weeks, it is that you never know what will happen once you set foot outside. On Thursday, for example, I took the ten minute hike out to the hilltop where I get cell phone reception, thinking I would just make a quick call and then walk to Erica's house for a relaxing evening with her host family. Instead, I walked past the school and ended up getting pulled into the primary school's graduation party and sitting with a family I had never met and then eating soup and guinea pig at a table with the 12-yr-old graduates in front of the entire gathering. I am really bad at eating guinea pig. There is definitely an art to it that I have NOT mastered. Something to work on in order to fit in better, I guess.

My first three months in site will be dedicated to these sorts of awkward activities- meeting the important figures in town, starting to develop relationships with the various organizations with which I hope to work, and just figuring out how to survive in general. So far, so good. The people of Sacsa have been so friendly (an older woman approached me in the plaza to give me cookies and I could have cried I felt so welcomed) and the landscape is absolutely stunning. On a clear day, I can see the tips of six snow-capped mountains from my cell phone rock.

Me talking on the phone with the nevados in the background.
And with my neighbor, Erica, taking advantage of the cell reception.

I will also need to start learning Quechua, since most of the adults in my town converse with one another in the Andean tongue, and I would like to know exactly what people are saying about me when they converse with each other in Quechua, glancing at me and throwing in key spanish phrases like "cuerpo de paz" and "estados unidos." But one step at a time.

New mailing address

Hey hey everyone! I am only five days away from becoming a REAL volunteer, and as such, I will be moving to the very very very small town of Sacsa in the department of Ancash. If you are looking for it on a map, you probably won't find it. But if you look just to the north and east of the city of Caraz, I am in that general area. I got the chance to visit two weeks ago and see my new home and meet my new family. So while I am totally scared out of my mind, at least I know what I am in for. I leave for the department capital city, Huaraz, with a group of other Ancash volunteers on Saturday night, and from there I am on my own as I head to my site, probably on the 2nd of December. I will put up some pics and a more detailed post once I get to Huaraz, but for now I just wanted to call attention to my new mailing address, which is posted on the right, just in case...

back from the campo

I just got back from a week of field-based training in the department of Lambayeque, up in northern Peru, and what a crazy week it was. We got to explore the department capital city, Chiclayo, and visit three volunteers in their sites in the bosque seco (dry forest). Our activities for the week included getting blisters digging a garden plot, more blisters chopping wood with machetes (which is not as easy as the Peruvians make it seem), presenting a lesson and game to a class of 40 school kids, blisters on top of the other blisters digging holes and putting in fence posts, trying to control over 100 children during a garbage pick-up, and then sorting through that garbage bare-handed to pick out the recycling.

Here we are after conquering the bosque seco with our machetes. And another photo of our little group captivating the peruvian children with a lesson about trees.

Ah yes... I almost forgot about the donkey. The one that i rode for over two hours. In the dark. Yes mom, I know I promised that I wouldn't wander around the campo by myself at night, yet somehow I found myself, on my first night out in the country, seated on the back of a little burro named Reina with my twelve-year-old host sister, going out to the store to buy food for dinner. Little did I know that the store was over an hour away, and that it would be pitch dark by the time we got home at 8:30 PM. The whole time I just kept hoping that I wouldn't become another tally mark under the category of Peace Corps volunteers lost or injured due to stupidity. And all we bought was a bag of rice and some sweet potatoes. And we didn't even eat the the rice. After all that work, just potatoes for dinner. That is my life.

A couple more photos, just to prove that I am actually alive and well. Above I am with my travel group, plus a few more volunteers, putting my feet all over some ancient pre-incan petroglyphs. And again with a couple girls from one of the schools we worked at. The girl on the far right is my host sister, Victoria. The one who protected me on the donkey. In other news, I am excited about the elections tomorrow, finding out my site on Thursday, and going to visit it for the first time on Sunday!!! Until next time...

Nothing too exciting lately- just the usual madness. I went to a concert Saturday night that featured a group modeled after a cross between Ricky Martin and the Backstreet Boys. A line of men in tight white pants, t-shirts and blazers, and lots of choreographed pelvis shaking. Pretty painful, but entertaining. The local teens seemed to enjoy it. A couple pics to share with everyone- here is my host mom helping set the table for the delicious breakfast I made, and also a shot of my mom and me with her sobrino.

And here I am wearing my Cotting t-shirt, jumping off a rock on top of a mountain. Naturally.

We get busier and busier every day, and it isn't going to settle down any time soon. At the end of October we get to travel to rural sites with a few other volunteers to learn more about how to work with small communities. It will be nice to have a change of scenery for a week. And after that, there are the elections, of course, which we are all eagerly awaiting. I feel a bit guilty having such easy access to cable TV and internet, but it sure is nice to be able to follow the presidential race so easily. After Nov. 4th they can take away my technology and I swear I won't complain.

Life goes on here in Peru, and every day I feel a bit more prepared for what lies ahead. No, I haven´t gotten any better at washing my clothes, but everything else is coming along nicely. During our technical training, we have been learning about how to develop or manage waste management programs in small communities, starting with a diagnostic in order to decide whether we should dig personal landfills, or use a collection system (with carts pulled by donkeys, for example). Trying to manage recycling efficiently and effectively is also a huge part of our job. For more hands-on training, we go to the agrarian university near Lima every Saturday and have so far planted trays of lettuce to learn how to transplant seedlings properly, discussed different methods of effective organic gardening, and made compost heaps. Although 730 AM is a bit of an early start for a Saturday, the Agraria work is definitely one of the most interesting and engaging parts of training. I can´t wait to have a garden in my host community. We also get lots of training in personal safety (so mom and dad you can stop worrying), and of course, we have LOTS of Spanish classes.

Just to give you an idea of where I am, a map of Peru- my current local is just east of the city of Lima, which is located right about the middle of the coastline. The country is about 3 times the size of California, and as we learned yesterday in class, it is one of only 14 countries in the world that is considered an ecologically and geographically mega-diverse country. The coastline is almost entirely desert, the Andes mountains run vertically down the center of the country, and the eastern half is entirely rainforest. The population of the country is about 30 million, but almost a third of those people live in or around the city of Lima. The mountains and jungle are much less populated. I don´t know exactly where my site will be, but most likely in the central Andes region. Fingers crossed, because I would really like to be in a mountain site, even if it is a bit colder at 4,000 meters altitude.

The host family gets better and better every day- my host mother is a real riot- fiesty and independent, so we get along well. She tells me that I should be an ambassador after I finish the Peace Corps. We´ll see about that. At this point, I am really excited about 2 things: First, I made a delicious omelette for breakfast, which earned me big points with the mama. And 2nd, the rooster that has been waking me up every morning at 5AM is being served for lunch today. Hooray! Maybe now I´ll actually be able to sleep.

Here are a few pics just to give you a feel for my life right now. Today I climbed one of the hills that surround my neighborhood. This is a view of my barrio from above. As you can see, it is all pretty dry and brown, but the neighborhood is still being developed, so someday perhaps it will be green and well-paved like the neighboring areas.

The house is, obviously, the house that I am staying in, with my host mom Manuela and my grandma. Today I learned how to wash my clothes properly using a bucket, a board, and a bar of soap. After that I got to fight of the chickens to hang my laundry out to dry on the roof.

The best part of the whole laundry experience was when I walked out and saw my mom holding my socks, telling me that they were mal lavado and that I would have to rinse everything again. Oh the shame of being an incompetent American who can´t even get the soap out of her underwear. Better luck next time, I guess. Tomorrow we start our second week of training, and I will be learning in greater detail how to build landfills, start tree nurseries, and teach children in Spanish about protecting the environment. Can´t wait!

bienvenidos a peru

Hi everyone! I have just a few minutes between classes, but I thought I would give a quick update on where I am and what I am doing. I arrived in Peru one week ago, and am now living with my host family in the city of Chaclacayo about 30 minutes east of Lima. My days are currently filled by training activities, which include 4 hours of language classes in the morning, then 4 hours of technical training, safety instruction, and medical information in the afternoons. The days are long, but the instructors are incredible, and my fellow volunteers are some of the most interesting and friendly people I have ever met. I am pretty tired, partly because the chickens and guinea pigs that live on the roof over my room make so much noise in the mornings that I have been awake at about 5 every morning. Speaking Spanish all the time is also exhausting right now, but I know that will get easier. Hopefully I will learn to sleep through the animal noises as well.

The next 11 weeks I will be living in Chaclacayo, training every day and getting ready for my site placement. We volunteers in the medio ambiente (environmental) field have been warned that our sites will most likely be among the most rustic in the country, so we are enjoying electricity and running water and internet access while we still can. We don´t know our specific sites yet, so therefore do not know exactly what kind of work will be needed in our placements, but the three main focal points of the environmental program are 1) waste management and recycling 2) environmental education, and 3) reforestation. I can´t wait. For now, I am off to lunch and then class. Chau chau!

on my way...

Today is my last day in Minneapolis, and it hasn't really sunk in yet that I am leaving. But whether I believe it or not, my two suitcases are packed and waiting by the door, and I have a plane to catch at 7 AM tomorrow. I will then spend 2 days in Washington DC filling out papers and getting stuck with vaccinations, and then I am off to Lima on Friday with the rest of my training group. I don't really know what to expect yet for training. I know there will be a lot of intensive language classes (Spanish and possibly Quechua or Aymara) and also technical training for whatever work I will be doing as an environmental volunteer. Other than that, quien sabe. I guess I will just have to take things as they come. My main concern right now is trying to figure out how to look like a professional in the "business casual" outfit required for staging events- dressing up isn't really my thing. So wish me the best with my button-ups and slacks. For now I am going to try to get some sleep so I'm not too crabby for my first day. chau!

Welcome to my very bare blog!

Well, the first step of my transition from college to the Peace Corps is complete- I said goodbye to my luxurious Boston existence on Thursday, flying home to Minneapolis for my last month in the states. I leave on September 10th for two days of staging in Washington DC, and then it is on to Peru for three months of training outside of Lima. After that, it is anyone's guess as to where I will end up or what I will be doing. All I know is that I will be somewhere in Peru working in the environmental management sector, whatever that means. So... lots of unknowns lurking in the near future, but that's part of what makes the whole thing so exciting. I will do my best to stay current on my blog to keep you all posted on where I am and what I am doing, and please please please send me emails and letters so I can stay connected. I don't know how much access I will have to internet, but I promise if you write to me, I will write back as soon I can! I don't know my mailing address quite yet, but will post it as soon as I figure it out.

For now, I am focused on spending time with the fam, finding the perfect pair of hiking shoes, and trying to figure out how to pack for two years in two suitcases. Check back for more updates soon!