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...