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!