Anxiety over my site placement

All the volunteers from Peru 5 like reinforce that the 11 weeks of training is not peace corps. Good. This definitely feels like I’m studying abroad again. Going to class everyday, having a very strict, busy schedule and hanging out with Americans. The people who have studied abroad whether in a Spanish speaking country or not are in general having a much easier time than those who haven’t. The year I spent abroad in Spain was probably the best thing I have ever done. Not only was it wonderful preparation for the peace corps and speaking Spanish, but the overall emotional maturity I gained was priceless. It’s that emotional maturity I credit the ease of my transition into the peace corps. But as we reminded daily, this isn’t peace corps. I am very excited to get out to my site so I can experience new challenges and obstacles. Right now, I feel like I’ve done this all before and I’m ready for something new. It’s also terrifying, cause I’m going to go from comfortable into a completely unknown world. It’s possible that I will get sent to a city and a lot won’t change, but I have a feeling I’m being sent to the campo (meaning out in the middle of no where, a town of 500 way up in the mountains). The things I have heard about the campo sound like the peace corps I had always imagined in my head. Not this Cable television, swimming pool and American luxuries around every corner.
The campo is where you have no running water, cooking over an actual fire, wash your clothes in the river, a balanced meal is considered rice and potatoes, domestic violence and sexual abuse is not just common but excepted, illiteracy is high and children have never been asked in their whole life what they want to do when they grow up because it goes without saying that they will work in the field just like the past 20 generations of their family have. The campo is hard core and most people are terrified of getting sent there. It’s scary not knowing where you’re going to get sent, especially since there are such extremes like living a life with all the luxuries you have back in the states to having to go to the bathroom in a hole you dig yourself cause there aren’t any latrines in your community. We’ve had one interview about our placement with our program director Kitty. What Kitty told me during out meeting, was that this interview was not about our placement, she was just getting to know a little more about us and our back round. She asked me questions like why I joined the peace corps and about my experience with kids. The only thing she asked me about placement was if I had a preference about working in community based or center based. I was definitely nervous the first two weeks about my placement. I finally dealt with this major issue by just excepting that there is a good chance I will get sent to the campo. I did join the peace corps after all, and though there is still a part of me that would love running water and internet that isn’t a nauseating 2 hour bus ride away, I know that where ever I go, there will be challenges and rewards. I am already starting to view things like money and possessions as things that are more abstract than tangible. Having “money” is so relative. As Americans, we associate money and positions with happiness. I get an allowance of $2.50 a day. I’ve had to cut out a lot of the frivolous things I spent money on in the states but I hardly notice it. I say that now, but I wonder what I will say when I am living amongst extreme poverty.
Something that is so frustrating to me right now, is how all the other Americans are dealing with the stress of not knowing where they are getting sent. To me it’s obvious who the people are that absolutely do not want to get sent to the campo. It’s obvious to me because they never shut up about it, and not just about how they are nervous, they have some how convinced themselves that they already have a set placement and it’s not the campo. During out first interview, they took something that Kitty said to them and ran with it. They only heard what they wanted to hear and molded what was said to make themselves feel better about where they are going. 20 times a day, I hear some one say “I’m going to the coast” “I’m going to be center based” “I’m taken the place of so and so from Peru 5”. If you ask them how they know, they say “oh, cause I told kitty I don’t want to learn ketchuwa, so I’m going to the coast”. It’s frustrating to us who genuinely have no idea where we are being sent. I want to scream at them that nobody knows where they are being sent and that there are so few city sites that only 20% of us will get sent to cities even though 60% of people have told me they know they’re going to a city. I am doing better now cause I realized that when people tell me they know they are going to the coast, they don’t actually know. They´re just really hoping. Plus, I try to think about that no matter where I get sent, there is always going to be some one at another site that has something I don’t and I will be jealous of that. Jealousy is completely natural. But again I try to remind myself that just because they have a few more luxury items, doesn’t mean they are missing home any less than me, or having an easier time learning Spanish or they aren’t struggling with work. I do think a select few do have a reasonable idea about where they are going. Tom was approached by Kitty this week who told him she has these 3 brand new sites way up in the mountains and are very remote and very primitive. She asked Tom how he would feel about going to one of these sites. Tom and I had a long talk I it seemed like Tom had the same mentality about being nervous about placement but finally settling on the acceptance that wherever we get sent will be a life changing experience and we shouldn’t bother worrying about it when there is little we can do. It’s gonna be hard regardless of where we get sent. So Tom told Kitty it would be okay if he got sent there. That still doesn’t mean he’s %100 going there, but it’s probably likely.
I don’t even know where I want to go. Every place has an upside and a down side. It would be sweet to go to the coast, but the coast here is desert and it is unbearably hot for most of the year, and it’s just dirt and sand. I would miss having trees and grass around. It would be nice to go to a city cause I would have access to a lot more resources and western amenities. But cities are also a lot more dangerous. I wouldn’t be able to go out at night alone. They’re big and crowded and I wouldn’t get a sense of community that I would in a small town. The mountains would be cool cause I could hike around every day and have community gardens, but I am less likely to have a bathroom and access to familiar amenities like the kind of cereal like and soy milk. Most people that live out in the campo make the hour to 3 hour trip into the nearest city every week to buy things like vegetables and lotion and things that aren’t available in the campo. The only thing I have decided I would really like to have would be to have a other volunteers close to me. There is one department (state) where there are 10 different volunteers all within 2 hours of each other. That is where I go.

Bye Bye Mike

Today we had our language class at mikes house. It´s really neat actually. We have small language classes and instead of having all out classes in the boring old taining center, we have them in different houses in different communities so we can get to see other houses and neighborhoods other than our own. At the end of class today, Mike asked us to go outside cause he had an announcement. He told us he was going back to the United States. He said it in spanish, so that combined with the gavity of the statement took a second to actually set in. I didn´t see it comming. I knew not every person was going to make it till the end, but it never seemed like anyone would actually leave. Mike´s a great guy and I´d been meaning to share some of his stories on my blog, cause he has some of the best. Mike is in small business development, but he got placed in a house with 15 girls. He was the only boy. Of those 15, there was the mother, the aunt and a few girls in their late teens, but the rest of them were all young girls. I can maybe see somebody from youth development getting that house, but it just seemed like a misfit for mike. He has some trully hilarous stories from living with these 15 peruvian women, like one of the 3 year olds running around naked and throwing her clothes into the fire. Or Tom would say, that he would go over to Mikes and the house would be pure chaos, but Mike would just be sitting at the table drinking coffee and say "hey Tom" as if nothing at all was strange. The picture above is my language class in Mike´s house. Mike´s the one in the middle, this was taken 10 minutes after he told us he was leaving. Mike said it didn´t have anything to do with Peru, he said he just didn´t wanted to do small business development, it just wasn´t the direction he wanted to go with his life. Well, we´re all sad to see you go Mike. I wish you luck back in the states.

In other news, my mom sent me my camera cord so I can post my own photos finally. She also sent me my new ATM card, but she didn´t put in a letter or anyother kind of sentiment from home. Come on mom, you can do better than that. Danielle´s mom however, sent me a letter saying how much she enjoyed my blog and she sent me a piece of candy. Thank you Robin, I enjoyed your letter very much. I´ve posted this picture of Danielle with all the mail she recieved, to show my mom how happy we are when we get mail.

The past two days at training we´ve had volunteers come in and talk to us from Peru 5. They just finished their close of service conference and all them will be leaving in a few months. They had a lot of wisdom to pass on to us and we were very eager to pick their brains. This a picture of a our group doing a skit on brushing your teath. Training definetly feels like we are back in elementary school, but since I read at a third grade reading level in spanish, I´m okay with it. And doing skits and games keeps the 8-5 schedule from getting too boring.

This is a picture from two weekends ago with Adriane and me went to the Zoo with my host family. That little boy is her host family. That was a silly day. I guess if training makes me feel like I´m back in elementary school, going to the zoo is only appropriate.

Well, I will post more picture and what not later. Kristen and Evan it was great to here from you both. Congrats on your exam Evan, now you can enjoy your last month in the states. I hope your not freaking out to much. I´m going to Chosica for a goodbye night with Mike. He only told the three other people in our language group so most people are going out tonight and they have no idea why we´re making them go. Um, as much as I would like to abc check this entry, the abc check is for spanish and I don´t have time to go proof read. But you guys all know me and love me regardless of the fact that I can´t spell to save my life. Miss you guys!

Lima!

Yesterday our group went to Lima in our language groups as part of a cultural excursion. I had a pretty stressful week but that was the farthest thing from my mind, I had such a nice day. I didn’t really know what to expect about Lima, I had heard a lot of different things. For the most part, Lima is a big, dirty, crowded, dangerous city. But of course we only visited the nice parts of it. Driving into the city from where we live is down right intimidating. The sprawling barrios that stretch out from the center of lima are composed of shanties and ugly cement blocks that barely pass for buildings. I saw two things I have never seen before on my trip into Lima: the first was a group of boys that ran out into the middle of the intersection during a red light and started to doing acrobatics on the pavement. Doing back flips on cement is dangerous enough, but doing it in a Peruvian intersection is a death wish, but it was entertaining non the less. The second thing I saw was a lady walking around completely naked. It was about 8 in the morning and she was just walking down the side walk like it was perfectly normal.
We were put onto two different buses and each group went to different a area of Lima. One of the married couples got split up for this excursion and the guy was complaining about how mad he was that he never got to do anything with his wife. Unfortunately for him, since it was so early in the morning and also because many of us left a significant other back in the states, he didn’t get much sympathy out of us. My group went to the part of Lima called Mira Flores. It was a nice area right on the beach. We split into our language groups and since Mike was sick there were only three of us. We walked down to the beach, the whole time talking about Lima and the area. We actually ended up at the Marriott right on the ocean which was cool cause that’s where my parents are going to stay when they come. I’ve been a little hesitant about my parents coming because Peru is a developing country and I just don’t see my mom and dad enjoying much here. But the Marriott is located in a great place and there’s a mall that goes down the side of a cliff right in front of it. We went to this mall and got Starbucks. The Starbucks was definitely the high light of my whole day. I’ve been really good since I’ve been here, in not indulging in comfort food aka chocolate, soda and chips, the things that remind us all of home. I’m kind of a health nut as it is, and I don’t think it’s emotionally that healthy to leave it up to junk food to make me feel happy. So, Starbucks was the first time I really treated myself here. I got a vanilla latte and an orange muffin with chocolate chunks. Words do not describe how freakin awesome it was. The combo cost me 16 soles (about 5 American dollars), considering I only get 8 soles a day as my living allowance, it was kind of a splurge, but well worth it. At Starbucks, our teacher gave us our missions for the morning. We had to interview 5 people in Mira Flores and ask them all these questions. I really hate going up to complete strangers, but luckily I was with Tom and he has no problem with it. We interviewed a group of 20 something year old chefs that were lounging around Starbucks. They were really receptive to us and had just as many questions for us as we did them. We counted that one group interview as the 5 different people we were supposed to talk with, so Tom dragged me to an arcade for the rest of the time. That was actually really fun. A bunch of kids in the arcade came up to us and asked to take their picture with us. In total, I was asked by 3 different groups of people yesterday to take photos with them. Weird. The next assignment we had to do was practice negotiating with taxi drivers. We had to learn to tell the safer taxis from the sketchier ones. The taxi’s here don’t have meters, you have to set the price with the driver before you go, so lot’s of gringos get taken for way more than they should because they don’t know any better. Bargaining and negotiating is another something I’m not good at, but I’m glad I was made to do the exercise, because I ended up getting most taxi drivers to lower the price to half of what they initially said. We also had to ask how long and what route they were gonna take to make sure they don´t take some crazy route and charge us more money. A lot of robberies happen in taxi cabs, it’s pretty scary. After we were done with all of our exercises, we were taken to the center of Lima and met up with the rest of the group. We all had lunch and walked around, I had my first pisco sour, the national drink. It was good, it’s tastes just like a margarita. My face hurt at the end of the day cause I was smiling so much. We took the bus back, but there was no one in my group from Huascaran so I walked from the bus to my house alone, and my mom was mad. Then all the other moms from Huascaran came over and wanted to know why their kids hadn’t come home too, and then they all got mad. I told my host mom that I was going to one of the other neighborhoods that evening for a BBQ and she was even more mad cause she didn’t want me to go. The only way I got to go was that Jamar and his host brother came too, but they left early and went to chosica to go to club, so I got Jah to take me home. I told my host mom I’d be home by 11 but I got home at 11:20 and she was mad again. The BBQ ended up being super fun. It was in the really nice neighborhood were all the houses are bigger than the ones we live in back in the states. Most of these people have warm water and internet in their houses, and it’s the only neighborhood that has paved roads. I met the families of the people that lived there and they seem so much more chill than all the families where I live. A lot of people are jealous of the group members that live here, but I try not to be. Just cause they have a few more luxuries than other’s doesn’t mean they are having an easier time adjusting to the culture or not missing home. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with the host family situation. My host mother does not like the fact that I am very independent and like to do things my way. I know she may not be too happy, but she needs to learn that I can’t have my hand held every step of the way. I have explained to her that I understand she wants to make sure I am safe, but I am moving to some place very far from here and I am going to have to do the vast majority of things alone when I am there, so I need to start figuring out how to take of myself alone. There’s this weird fraise they say here about being in love with your boyfriend, which is supposed to mean you are a forgetful person. I’m not sure if it’s an insult or endearing. My host mom doesn’t like the fact that I am so forgetful and she lets me know. It’s hard for me, cause I don’t like to forget things, I don’t like to feel stupid, but it’s who I am and as hard as I try I will always be a little forgetful. She makes me feel really bad about it. I knew when I found out I had to live in a home stay, it was going to be a big adjustment and cultural compromises, but I don’t think my host mom was really expecting she was going to have cultural adjusting to do too. But even when I get frustrated it doesn´t last very long. I was a little aggrivated with her this morning, but tonight she sewed my pants for me and sat and watched TV with me. She always lets me pick the channel I want to watch. My happiness is very important to her, and that´s the main reason I feel at home in her house.
Today I went with Adriane’s family to this private sports/camping park. It was nice cause it was green. I miss grass and trees and flowers. They had a pool too, it was freezing cold but I’m getting used to freezing cold water. I taught Adriane’s little host sister how to swim, that was pretty cool. We had a picnic lunch and they fed me next to nothing. Adriane said that was pretty normal, and I realized how lucky I am cause I get such great food. When my family took Adriane and her little brother to the zoo last week, my family paid for everything, even the souvenir photos. The other people in my neighborhood said they’re families have a little animosity towards my family because we have a little more money than they do and because my mother is a know it all. Anyways, we stayed at the park all day and I took a nap on my towel on the grass in the sun. That was probably the highlight of my day. I’m pretty warn out tonight so I’m looking forward to eating and going to bed. My host sister and I are becoming good friends. She´s only 13 but we really get along. We go to the internet cafe a lot together, and we always walk arm in arm. She told me that I´m the only sister she´s ever had.
I’m gonna call my family tonight, and tomorrow is Eric’s birthday so I’m gonna call him too. I’m pretty sad I’m missing his birthday, one of many occasions in the next 27 months that I’m gonna miss. Well, happy birthday Eric, sorry I can’t be there for it and I miss you!

First Peruvian class experience

I´ll start by claritying that I went to Danielle´s birthday party the other not, not Daniel´s. Sorry I don´t always have enought time to edit before I get kicked off the computer.
Yesterday I had my first meeting with a Peruvian class. I´m in a group of three people and I am the person that speaks spanish the best in my group. Because of this, I was down right terrified that we were gonna get up infront of this class and I was gonna have to do most of the talking. Well, the day didn´t go as well as the other two were expecting, but I some how knew that things would happen the way they did. We showed up to the school and the director led us to a classroom and told us to wait there. After an hour of waiting, the director came in and told us we were in the wrong room and that we missed the class we were supposed to meet with. So he took us around the school and started asking different teachers if we could go in their class and teach something. The teacher that said ok asked me what we going to teach. I said nothing. We were just there to do introductions and play a game. He opened the door to the class and all the uniform clad kids stood up. The teacher said nothing about us, just grabbed his stuff and took off. It was totally weird. So I just started talking, I introduced myself as did the rest of my group. It was definetly awkward, these kids had no idea who we were or why we were there. Jamar tried to explain what the peace corps was, but I don´t think they got any of it. So I just went right in to starting the first game. The kids weren´t reseptive some of the stuff we planned so I had to a bit of quick thinking and change some stuff around. After being a bit stand offish, they ended up really liking the games. I had to be the on to explain everything, which was really nerve wracking cause I don´t think my spanish is quite there. If the kids wanted to, they could have teared me apart. Luckily, they really liked getting out of their math class to play games with these americans.
After the games were all over, our planned 45 minutes were up, but the teacher was gone. I asked were their teacher was and they all laughed and told us it was okay, that they didn´t need a teacher. There was no way I was leaving, so the other two asked if anyone had any questions (great, meaning I was gonna have to be the one to answer them all). So I stood up there trying to keep the class from getting to roudy, but it was hard. I felt very along up there even though I was in a group. It´s not my groups fault. I know they felf horrible afterwards cause they weren´t able to communicate the things they wanted to. I think they may have been resentful that I was doing all the talking, but it´s not fair cause I didn´t want to be the one who had to do all the talking. Regardless, it was a really good learning experience, and the kids liked us and didn´t want us to leave. We told them we´d be back next week to actually teach something, and I´m even more nervous about that.
Tomorrow we´re going to Lima. I´m really excited about that. Training in general is tough so it will be nice to take a little exursion. Everything else is going well. Nothing to exciting to report with my host family. I went upstairs in the house for the first time last night, and it´s really nice. All the other bed rooms are upstairs, I definetly I have the smallest ickies room, but it´s not bad. I really like talking to my host dad. He is so cheerful and sweet and very smart. Well, will post more after my trip to Lima!

gettin to know the locals

First, I´m gonna start with a shout out to Daniel´s mom. Hi, thanks for reading my blog and I´m sorry Daniel doesn´t post more! Yesterday was Daniel´s birthday, so we all went out to Chosica to celebrate. There were probably 20 of us there and it was really fun. We had a little beer (some more than others) and danced a little (some more than others). Which one did I do more of? I´ll put it this way, today Jake told me his host brothers liked me. I askd why cause I didn´t even meet them. He said that they liked the "active one". I think calling me active is an understatement. I look at nights in the disco as a way to get out all my pent up enegery and get a great work out. When I get stressed, I definetly like to dance it off every now and then.
I got pretty stressed out today. Training is very intensive and I have tons of work, and it´s scary work. They make us go out in our communities and actually do stuff! Obviously, this is why I signed up for the peace corps, but actually walking up to a complete stranger who speaks a language other than yours and trying to interview them and symltaneously have them except you into their community as one of their own, is a little intimidating when it comes time to do it. Tomorrow I am getting up in from of 30 peruvian kids and have to entertian them for 45 minuets with out them hating me of just laughing at me. This too is very intimidating. But I´ll say this, at least it´s hands on training and when I get to my site I will hopefully feel prepared to be out on my own.
Some days I feel like my spanish is very good. Others I feel like I am the biggest idiot in the world. I can´t really think of much to report. My excitment has definetly given way to the every day bump and grind. But I get excited when I think about getting my site assignemt and moving into my future community. We had two returned PCV´s from Peru 2 come and talk to us today. The girl said that out of her group, 5 girls ended up marrying Peruvians, 2 volunteers married each other and she was dating and probably going to marry a volunteer as well. Don´t worry guys, I have zero intrest in dating while I´m here. But my whole group is pretty obsessed with dating and sex over the next 27 months. 2+ years is a long time for people in their 20´s to go without either, so everybody´s romantic escapades should become a great sorce of entertainmenmt in the future. Like I said I don´t have much to report, I´m just rambling so I guess will end it on that.

This is the whole group in philadelphia, so you can get an idea of how many people are in my group and what they look like. Can you tell which person went to Davis besides me? And this is a picture of me Heather, Sam and Ari eating breakfast the first morning at our retreat.

Huascaran, represent!

This is the neighborhood that I live in. Notice the dirt. There is a lot of it. I talked to my parents on the phone last night for the first time and my mom asked me if where i live is pretty. I laughed. A lot of people think of jungles and mountains, but they´s a desert too, and guess where I live! I live about 30 minutes east of Lima. Lima is actually the second driest capital city in the world. Our training center is in the richest area I´ve seen in Peru, it is green and full of mansions and pools. Just a 20 minute walk and you get to my neighborhood and the paved streets disappear. There are 3 other neighborhoods that the other 31 volunteers live in, and ours is definitely the most ghetto. At street level, it looks horrible, I know. But I have a really nice house. It´s nicer than the house i lived in in spain. I will post a picture of my house and room when my mom sends me the cord for my camera. I have some great pictures to post. This is a picture adrian took.

Thanks to everyone who reads my blog. I love that you guys care so much. Keep the comments coming. Even if you have nothing to say about the entry, just say hi!

Cultural Exchanges

(written sunday, June 16)
One of the major themes we get to experience as peace corps volunteers, is the constant cultural exchanges. Normally, these exchanges are ordinary day to day encounters like “in California, all the young people where flip flops” or “oh! You actually eat guinea pigs here?”. But every once in a while, you get to have some pretty classic cultural exchanges. Saturday was laundry day. As part of their contract with peace corps, the are required to wash our clothes, but we are responsible for washing our own underwear and socks, since 95% of us don’t have washing machines. So my host mom came in my room and told me to give me all my dirty clothes and my bag cause it was dirty. She stood there as I took all my stuff out of my bag and when I took out the tampons I’ve been toting around, she grabbed it out of my hands and asked “what’s this?”. I told her they were "tampax", cause that’s what they were called in Spain. But I saw that it didn’t register and it occurred to me that this 50 year old woman had never seen a tampon in her life. So an awkward 30 second pause ensued while I tried to think of the best way to fraise it. Finally I came up with "it´s for that time of the month". I saw a light bulb go off above her head but she still seemed both confused and horrified. All of us girls were warned to bring as many tampons as we could cram in our suitcases because tampons are almost impossible to find except in really metropolitan areas, and even there they are very expensive. So many girls such as myself came with big zip lock bags full of all different sizes and kinds. Adrian’s sister found one of these bags, and cause her tampons came in wrappers that had different colors for different sizes, she thought they were candy. Adriane couldn’t come up with quite as graceful an explanation as myself, so she said it was for menstrual bleeding. But her host sister was still confused and asked “but what do you do with it” and Adriane had to explain how it is placed inside not outside. She said it was so embarasing
So, back to my laundry day. I have no problem washing my own panties. I was actually looking forward to it, you know, washing things by hand is SO peace corps and all. Not to mention it’s embarrassing to have some one else wash your private stuff. Well, my host mother thinks I am 100% incompetent in everything in the world from showing to packing my own book bag for school. So she rewashed all the underwear I had already washed two more times. I don’t think my underwear have ever been cleaner. Well, I have a lot of different types of underwear. They’re all different. A lot of them are bright colors, half of them have words or phrases written across the butt , and a handful of them are thongs. Cotton thongs, sheer thongs, red thongs with black lace on them, you get the idea. That was another fun exchange, having to explain to my host mom why I wear thongs. The truth is, I don’t know. I wear thongs just cause I consider them like any other panty. And, as dorky as it sounds, all the cool kids wear thongs. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been made fun of for having granny panties. At our freshman initiation, we had to put our underwear on the outside of our clothes and then we were divided into two groups, thongs and non-thongs. I couldn’t really see myself explaining this to my host mom, so just told her they’re for when I wear something tight and I don’t want a panty line. She laughed and proceeded to show me her panty line. That was a little too much of a cultural exchange for me. She also wanted to know what all the stuff on the back of my underwear said. Next week, I hope she lets me wash my underwear alone.
I went to another neighborhood last night called chacrasana where about 10 other peace corps people live. They were having a festival call el Corazon de Jesus. So me, Heather, heathers 5 year old host brother and both our moms went. Non of us are allowed to do anything along. But it’s okay, Jamar is moving into our neighborhood tomorrow and then we’ll have a big guy that can go our with us so we don’t need to be babysat by our moms. The festival was okay. We shared some beers with our moms and danced to the band. I had my first experience where kids were just coming up to me in droves. They all wanted to know what my name was and what I was doing here. I can see how this job is going to be so exhausting. There was also fireworks and this 3 story tall thing that was constructed out of bamboo and covered in fireworks. They lit it on fire but we missed it. We were the last Americans to leave and we left at 1 cause Heather and her brother fell asleep on their mom. It would have been cool to see that thing go up in flames.
Today was fathers day, which is a really big deal around here. But cause both my parents aren’t from around here, they don’t have any family close so we didn’t do family stuff like lots of other people. I went to the market with my mom. I tried really hard not to be too grossed out by the meet. The meet is covered in flies and all the chickens still have their talons and beaks and all. I watched the butcher lady cut an entire chicken down to just it’s breasts. I wouldn’t say I was grossed out exactly, I just had never seen that first hand. I made myself feel better by thinking that these birds are probably so much better tasting and better for me than the genetically altered, beakless foster farms chickens I eat back home. And I don’t envy the vegetarians here. Adriane pretty much eats potatoes, rice and bread and that’s all. I have a pretty diverse diet. I get a lot of lean meet and vegetables, all cooked of course. My mom asked me if there was anything I wanted to get and I jumped at the opportunity to get cereal, say milk and plain, sugar free yogurt. The cereal I got was the same cereal that I ate in Spain. I love this cereal and I will be so happy to eat that every morning with bananas in it, and a glass of plain yogurt and a cup of café con leche. Wow, I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight so I can wake up and eat breakfast. It will be much better than the tuna and onion sandwich I had this morning.
For lunch we had a delicious mix of beets, green beans and carrots with rice and beef. Cause it was fathers day my dad busted out this big bottle of wine and I had to glasses of it. It was a Peruvian red wine but it was so sweet I would classify it as a desert wine, man was it good. Then they gave me a beer, which I didn’t refuse either. After we had a couple drinks in us, we took Adrian and her little host brother along with my 21 year old host brother to the zoo. That’s right, we celebrated fathers day by going to the zoo. Call it dumb, but it was so sweet. I monkeys and jaguars and cheetahs and kangaroos and freaking awesome birds. I got an ice cream cone and rode a paddle boat that was in the form of a pink swan, and my host mom bought me and Adrian on of those souvenir pictures of us on the swan. The whole day was silly, but freakin’ sweet. I’m super tired though, and have a long week of training ahead of me. I’m looking forward to taking it easy tonight and getting a good night sleep.

A little hygiene, a little history

I had to cut my fingernails today. They were so long and pretty I was sad to see them go. Long pretty nails are one of my girlier traits. I had to cut them for sanitary reasons. Dirt and bacteria hide too easily there and that last thing I need are pockets of germs hanging out on my finger tips. Especially since I’m the kind of figity person that’s always touching my face and all it’s holes which I would rather they remain uninfected. One thing I don’t have is hand sanitizer. I thought we were getting some in our medical kit but no. We got floss and a whistle, but no sanitizer. But I’m thinking it’s not so bad because I don’t want to become immune to any things that will help the bacteria go away when I need. Plus I need to build ammunity to everything here anyways. To give you guys an idea of things I have to do to try and keep myself from getting sick…..I have to boil all the water I drink. I’m not even supposed to brush my teeth with it. All the fruit I eat has to be the kind of fruit I can peel, like bananas and oranges. Apples and pears our out. I can only eat vegetables that are cooked, so no salad. This makes me sad too. I did get cooked broccoli in my lunch today. It was one of the first vegetables I’ve got from my host mom. I told her that I really liked vegetables today, so hopefully she’ll keep them coming.
I took my first “hot shower” today. This means this morning, I went to the kitchen and asked her if I could have a bucket of hot water. She said she would heat some up for me and bring it in. It was a 5 gallon bucket that she put the boiling water in and then diluted with regular water so that it was barely warm. I guess it was better than a freezing cold shower, but not by much. She gave me the bucket that we use to scoop water into the toilet to flush it. Grossed out by this idea, I was using the little tin cup I use when I brush my teeth. I was just poring water on my legs so I could shave them for the first time since I arrived in Peru, and I guess she herd me putting the tin cup down on the tile in the bathroom cause she yelled at me through the bathroom window that I need to use the big bucket not the tin cup. It was a little disturbing not just in the fact that she was telling me how to bathe but that she was actually listening to me bathing. My seniora is very insisting when it comes to doing things her way. Most time I don’t get a choice, she just does them. It hasn’t really bothered me so far, but since I am a person who doesn’t like to be told what to do, I can see how this may soon get on my nerves. Today for example, I had my book bag all packed to go to training. It was stuffed pretty full cause I have a lot of books and dictionaries and what not I lug around with me. But me seniora gave me two bags of food to take. She realized it was a lot to carry so she said I should just put it in my bag. I told her it was already full and I would carry the bags of food. But she didn’t believe me that my bag was full, so she went into my room and started taking stuff out of my bag saying I didn’t need this or that. She proceeded to take everything out of my bag so that the only thing in there was the food and told me to carry the books. Anyways, that’s just an example of the daily occurences. The peace corps says if you want to do something a certain way, do it. Be firm with your senora. I know this. I’ve been there. But I just decided that since I’m only with this seniora for 11 weeks I’m just gonna do everything she says so I can soak in all the Peruvian culture I can so I can be better prepared for my site.
We started getting all of our assignmets that we’re gonna have to do in training. It is a lot. We were told it was intensive. I have to start making contacts in my community already. I have all these different projects that I have to start to prepare myself for my host community to come. But going out and talking to people I don’t know and talking in a language I’m not very good at? And creating projects that don’t exsist. I don’t have the slightest idea how my community works. Part of my home work tonight was to find out about the school system. I talked with my 13 year host sister. She told me that you graduate their form of high school at 16. They give grades on a scale of 0-20. They have a two month summer break in January and February. All pubic school, at least in the lima area, wear uniforms and are taught religion in school. It’s interesting, but at the same time scary at how little I know about how this country works, and I’m supposed to change it and make a difference if I don’t even know what needs changing?
I’m also learning about the political history of Peru. And by history I mean the past 30 years. For those of you who don´t like reading stop, cause I´m about to go off on a llittle history. It may be confusing, cause it is. There´s a lot of stuff that happend in the last 30 years and it´s really interesting, but there´s a lot of it. It can also help ive those of you an idea of why I am in this country and why the peace corps does what it does. During the 70‘s, the government didn’t take very good care of the people and there were a lot of problems politically, economically and socially. Unrest grew and the normal revolutionary acts began to occur like big national stikes and protests. This was also the time when south america was heavily influenced by communism and maxsist revolutions. I’m sure the US government had a hand in all of this political instability. I don’t know if any of the Military leaders attended the school of Americas of not, but it’s likely. Anyways, in 1980 the first terrorist group emmerged called the shinning path and then in 1985 the terrorist group Tupac Amaru formed. The 80’s was a decade of blood shed and chaos. The government couldn’t controll the terrorist and at the same time they were locking up and killing innocent people all over the place. In one very famous massacre, the government military went into a town and killed every single student in the university. They just figured all students were terrorists and needed to die. By the 90’s everyone was tired of all the violence that they allowed a guy named Fujimora take control of the government. This guy was just as bad as the terrorists some say. He was very curroupt and ihs administrations carried out many exucutions and did some crazy stuff like dismantled the public transportation and made it all privatized. So all ths busses I take are private and there is no governing body over them besides supply and demand. I will tell you about the bus rides here in a different entry. So anyways, things are better politically here. Not so much economically, but that’s why the peace corps is here. It’s actually pretty cool. Peace corps was in peru from 1962 until 1980 something when they had to pull all persons out for safetly reasons. After all the violence and curruption ended, the president Toledo asked peace corps to come back to Peru. When Toledo was growing up, there were peace corps volunteers in his community in the 60’s that he got to work with. So peace corps returned in 2002. I’m part of the 9th group since then to come in. The president has since stepped down and is now working on his memiors at Stanford.
I think it´s pretty cool. And there is definetly a lot to be done here. So I hope I learn a lot in training and am able to get some great programs going when I get to my site.

Shots!

This entry was written on tuesday, but for technical reasons I couldn´t post it till today!
Today I got a rabies shot. I was pretty terrified to come to training today only to find out that it was the first immunization day and I was the first person on the list. It ended up not hurting at all but I think it’s pretty cool I got a rabies shot. Some how in my head this makes me PCV cool. Before all the Cameroon kids got on an airplane, they had to stop at the clinic and get a whole bunch of shots. Once again, thank god I am not in Cameroon.
As you may have gathered from my previous blog posts, I am doing well. Much better than I expected. I’m not sure what it was that made me so prepared for this, I’m sure it was a combination of living with hosts families in Spain, volunteering in Mexico and having a high level of Spanish coming in. There are a couple of people that are really struggling with it. Unfortunatnly two of them are my really good friends. They’re a whole mess of emotions and are crying a lot. It makes me sad cause it’s not the kind of bumbed out you can take your friends out to coffee and let them get everything off their chest kind of bumbed out. I can’t tell if talking about it is actually worse or not. My two friends that are really struggling with the adjustment having very low speaking skills. I also don’t think either one of them have ever lived outside the US. One of the girls lives 4 houses up the road from me and I can hang out with her at night and walk to and from school with her, but the other lives in a bario far far away. I don’t think I am immune the culture shock or sadness of being away from home, I just don’t think it has hit me yet. I struggled so much in Spain I have a hard time believing it’s not going to hit me like a brick wall and I’ll just want to go home. I think about my future site, where I’ll be spending my 2 years of service away from all the Americans. They say that’s when the loneliness kicks in. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
I also can’t help but wonder who from my group isn’t going to make it. Chances are, somebody will drop out before training ends. I have my money on some people, but for the sake of everyone, I hope we all attend our going home party 27 months from now
We got our language group assignments today. I got put in advanced. There are only 7 of us out of 35. Well technically I’m not advanced. I’m intermediate high, but since there are no other people in my category they put me with the advanced. I don’t really know how I feel about it, it’s definitely hard. There are native speakers in my group to give you an idea of what I have to work with. The advanced group is also the only group that does a mini project during training. I still don’t really know what that is, from what I gather we actually go out into the communities where we live now and do what we are going to do out in the field. Again, really hard. The teenage student in me doesn’t want to have to do something harder than everyone else is doing. But In the long run, nothing can prepare me better for being out there, speaking Spanish with only native speakers and getting experience for my job. But at the end of the day, the director of language and culture came up to me and said if I want to try the intermediate mid class I can. So on Friday I’m going to try it out. There is definitely some stuff I still need to learn and might be better for me if I just skip over it all. But maybe it’s better for me it I do. That’s why I’m going to try the other class on Friday and make my decision then.
I had my first case of GI yesterday. I was slightly relieved when I didn’t get sick immediately when I stepped of the plane like I was expecting. Yesterday we were given our big old first aid kits with just about everything you can think of in it. Then Javier gave us a 2 hour lecture on the illness most common in all of peace corps….diarrhea. And guess what I got 20 minuets after the end of the power point presentations. Talk about the power of suggestion. It was pretty bad I think. I’ve never gone to the bathroom so much in my life. But on the plus side, it seems to have only lasted a half a day; although I’m sure it will return in the not so far off future.
Things with my host family are great. My host mom is really understanding of my being sick but she still can’t figure out why I eat so little. For instance, she for my lunch today she packed me two sandwiches, two pieces of fruit and a bottle of juice that she squeezed her self in the morning. But then at lunch time she showed up at the training center with more food! There was a big bowl of Peruvian style chicken noodle soup, another container or rice, lentils and chicken and a Gatorade that she said she bought especially cause I was sick and probably needed electrolytes. By the way, the soup was piping hot when I opened it, and we live a 20 minute walk away. I feel pretty lucky that she is so great. I watched some TV with the family last night. I always thought americans watched a lot of tv but it seems that Spaniards and Peruvians watch way more tv than americans. Last night we switched back and forth between a zorro soup opera that takes place in the 1800’s and lost with Spanish subtitles. We live pretty far away from everyone else in our group and even then I don’t feel that comfortable going on my own at night. I’m definetly a little jealous of the bigger groups of people that live together. But at the same time, I think it’s good that I get used to spending time with my family and not a lot of time with americans. It’s going to make the transition to site so much easier. On that note, it’s Bron’s birhtday today and we are meeting a different city. My host mom is gonna take us cause we don’t know how to get there.

I´m gonna figure out this computer thing

Yeah, it didn´t even realize that when I posted the last one, that it wasn´t going to have any spaces. I spent a long time writing these entries in my room at home at I dont´want to rewrite them when I have to pay for using the computer. However, the time I spent yesterday trying to figure it all out was probably the amount of time I would have spent rewriting it. But that´s not the point. I like to write it when it´s fresh in my mind. There is so much going on that one day passes and it´s already a blur. So I´m not going to touch on the other two blogs I have written, but write just a short summary of some other stuff.
Today we were assigned partners and had to go out into Chaclacyo (it´s pronounced like chocolate cow without the ¨te¨in the chocolate) with different scenarios to get used to getting to know people in the community. My partner John and I had to go to a supermercado, which here are smaller than many convenient stores back home. W had to ask some one all these questions about how stuff works and what not. We found out that you can try any fruit you want in the store and the only fruit you purchase half of is the water melon. I was really surprised to see the variety of fruits and veggies they have. But I´ve been told that when we go to our isolated site, there isn´t going to be much of a selection. Every group had to go to a school and talk to some one to see how the school system works. All the schools here are surrounded by cement walls and are very intimidating to go into. My partner is in the novice level of spanish where as I am in advanced, so you can guess who did all the talking. But it´s great practice and it went very well. I already had an idea about the school system cause I talked with my host sister last night.
All and all it´s good. I´m getting to know the community I live in. I asked my señora if she knows anyone in out little town that works with kids and she says she knows a PE teacher so she´s gonna talk to her today to try to arrange a meeting. Well that´s all for now I guess. Hopefully I will figure this stupid CD thing soon.

Peace Corps Lite

A quick apology. I wrote this very quickly without taking time to correct mistakes and I don´t have time ABC check, sorry!

The other group at staging in Philadelphia was going to Cameroon, and they refered o us volunteers going to Peru as Peace Corps lite. Right they were. I can only imagine what type of situation they are in over there. The first place I stayed in Peru was kind of a hotel compound thing. We shared little bungalos and in this gated area that had a park, pool, discoteca, restaurat and horses. Clearly I knew this was just orientation and I was a little afraid of my future home, but it was better than I had pictured in my head. We met all the training staff and they went over basic introductions of people and the programs. It was all very exciting. I know, I´ve used that word a lot. It´s already kind of a blur and it was only 3 days ago, but a lot has happened in those 3 days. I was curios what peru looked like outside the walls of the compound. I soon found out on sunday morning as we took a bus to the training center in Chaclacayo. I had seen pictures of it on the internet and it looked nice, but they moved the training center and we are the first group to use it. It is better than nice. It´s amazing. It´s an beautiful gated house that belonged to some old rich lady. The house is giant and the lot is giant too. It has a pool. A pool in the peace corps? As far as I was concerend this wasn´t peace corps lite, it was peace corps luxery. We had more introductory meetings and then divided up into groups based on the language tests we had at the compound. I got placed in what seemed to be the advanced group, but I feel so far from advanced. We ate lunch with our groups under several different canapies in the back yard. Oh, and the backyard is so beautiful. It´s like 70 degrees year round so all the plants are tropical and flourish year round. It´s hard to believe it´s winter here.
Anways, at lunch we sat with an instuctor who told us about our families. Since the training center is in a new town, all the families are new to having PCVs. During lunch, our instuctor told us our families had arrived and we had to hurry and finish. It seemed o happen without warning, that we were leaving the sanctity of Americans and the Peace Corps staff. Some People were really scarred. I saw a few cry. I was really excited thougt (I need to look up excited in the glossary so my posts don´t seem so redundant). Once again, I was suprised and happy about my excitement. Since I arrived in Peru I wasn´t ever sad, scarred or really missing home. I met the my host brother and my middle child David, 21 and we rode to our house. We rode out of the beautiful gated houses and paved road part of the city, and turned onto dirt roads where the houses were made or bricks and cement and most of them seemed to be started but not finished.
My hosue ended up being quite nice, considering what I was expecting . It was two stories with tiled floors and painted walls. It has electricity and running water. It even has cable television with a ton of american channels not dubbed in spanish. I don´t think I will have much time to watch tv, it´s just nice to know that when I am sick and have to spend the day lying down, I can do it on the couch in front of american tv. The only non modern thing about the house is that it has not hot water and the toilet doesn´t flush . There is a big cylander of water next to the tiolet and you have to use a bucket to put water in the tiolet so it automatically flushes. I´m glad I didn´t figure that out in too embarasing a way. Yesterdy I spent most of the afternoon watching the Animal Planet (dubbed in español) with different members of my family. Edgar is 23 and speaks english. When I have a hard time understanding him and I ask him to repreat it a few times, he just tells me very impaciently in english. The accent here is very different than what I´m used to and the words are significantly different too. Yesterday I struggled to understand a lot, but already today my brain is warming up to it and I am feeling a little better. Nataly is 13 and said nothing to me all day even though she watched tv with me all day and sat at the dinner table with me. But after dinner she asked me if I wanted help unpacking and I said or course and she came in my room and just started talking and didn´t stop. It was great though, I like it. She really likes hindi music so she brought a CD in my room and we listened to it on my lap top. She is going to be my biggest helper in peruvian spanish I think. She´s so patient and she doesn´t mind helping me sound things out. She´s already taught me some great sland.
I also went to church last night with my family. They had a very hard time understanding the fact that I didn´t have a religion. But I think they really liked that I went with them. There are a lot of dogs here. Just on my way to the internet cafe I saw the biggest dogfight I´ve ever seen. There were like 10 dogs just going at it. Anyways, at church, when everone was kneeling, a stray dog that had wandered into the church, jumped up on the benches and was a walking around during prayer. At some point this big dog came and sat right on my legs.
Today at the training center we got to talk about all out different living situations. Some people are so lucky. They have Hot water, Internet, a washing machine, some people even have their own living rooms. But at the other end of the scale there are those who don´t have running water or have to live with 12 little girls or don´t have a toilet indoors or have a tin roof that sit´s a foot above the walls so all the bugs can come in. I think I´m pretty lucky. Most people live in an area with a whole bunch of other PCVs, but I live in an area with only two other girls. One of them is heather, my roomate from Philadelphia who a like a lot, she lives just 3 houses up the street from me. She´s not doing very well. Her spanish is not great and she´s really freaked out by the whole situation. Shoot, I have so much more to say but it will have to wait because my time is up. I will try to write more tomorrow. Miss you all!

"Give me liberty or give me death"

Patrick Henry said this famous line to the 2nd continental congress when he was trying to gain support for the revolutionary war. How do I know this? Cause I am a giant history nerd, and I strangely remember my 8th grade student teacher dressed in a minute man militia get up, reciting the whole speech in her best Irish accent. This memory came back to me as I was touring Independent hall, the place where all our four fathers signed the declaration of independence. It's weird how these life changing transitions cause me to have all kinds of flash backs on my life. Anyways, When I first found out my staging event was going to be in Philadelphia, I was kind of bummed. It was either supposed to be in Miami or Washington DC, which in my opinion would have been way cooler. But I guess on any old vacation I'd be more likely to go to either of those cities, so I'm grateful I was given the opportunity to come to Philadelphia, which I may never have come to on my own. And Philadelphia is pretty cool. I only had a small chunk of time to explore the city, but I did my best with out spreading myself too thin.
After having a very low key first night, I got up early on wednesday and fully introduced myself to my roommate who(m?) I first met half asleep just a few hours before. Her name is heather pack and she is from a small town called hughson just out side of modesto. A small town girl from nor-cal, what are the chances?! She went to UCLA and has been living down there ever since and she wants to be a doctor. All and all, she's pretty cool. I met up with some other girls, all from California and we went to a cereal bar. It had so many cool concoctions, but I was boring and got Cheerios with banana. I've totally turned into my mom by eating that, and I guess my oma too. Then we rode the subway downtown (our hotel is in the penn state area). We saw the Liberty bell, independence hall and ben franklins privy. For lunch I had a real philly cheesesteak. Well, from what I've been told, real philly's are made with cheese wip, gross, I couldnt' bring myself to eat one of those.
At 1:30 we checked into our staging event and met every one. It was so excited. Exciting, exciting, exciting! That was the only feeling pulsing through my veins. I was even excited that I was excited. I was unsure of how I would feel. I was expecting I would be nervous or anxious or something else, but not completely excited. It was relieving and did I mention it was exciting? The group is pretty much split between boys and girls and Had the group is youth development and half is small business development. We went through a very basic welcome and introduction. It's all kind of blur now, but I was happy, that's what I remember most. I went out to dinner with new friends and a drink afterwards. Everyone was so tired from traveling, and the day was pretty intense so we were home by 11 and I was up doing girly talk with heather till 12:30 or so.
Today the nerves set in. The welcome faded and the warnings began. I now know about a hundred things I can do that will get me kicked out of the peace corps with out a second thought. things from talking to the media without getting permission from my country director to riding on the back of a motorcycle. No joke, I guess the main cause of PC deaths back in the day were motorcycle accidents, so we're not allowed to go anywhere near them now. It was such an intense day, and I felt like I was back in elementary school at times. I guess it's just a tiny preview of on site training, which is six days a week, 8-5.
I had another miner freak out tonight. But I felt a lot better after talking to my mom. I wasn't freaking out about going to Peru, but just the stress of everything I think. Thanks mom, by the way. So I have to wake up at 3 this morning to take the bus to JFK so I can fly to Miami and then onto Peru where I take a 2 hour bus ride to my retreat. All and all, I'll be traveling for about 22 hours or so. Completely unnecessary, the things peace corp will do to save a few bucks. by the way, it's 10:30 here, I have to wake up in 4 and half hours already. That's it! 4 and a half hours and I'm finally on my way to peru. This is my last blog from the US for a while, so wish me luck and you'll be hearing from me probably after my retreat after this weekend. Should be an interesting week.....

Philadelphia Freedom

A fresh brewed pot of hotel room coffee is the only thing keeping me going right now. These past few days have been frantic and stressful yet some how still enjoyable and oddly peaceful. Non the less, I am in Philadelphia and I am tired. I am trying oh so hard not fall asleep early so I won't be wide awake and miserable at 2 in the morning. My goal is to make it till at least 9 if not 10, but these sheraton beds are looking pretty comfy. Yesterday and this morning were hard, but not as bad as I thought they would be. I guess it all starts back on saturday though. My grand going away party. I wanted to it be as stress free as possible, which is hard when you have over 30 guests coming to your house while you are trying to get ready to move to a foreign country. I wish somebody's going away present to me, would have been the planning of that party. But it was wonderful. It was really low key but lovely. It was hard in the sense that I couldn't just sit back and enjoy, I had to make sure I talked with everyone enough, because it was going to be the last time I saw many of my family members and friends for a long time. I cried a lot after the party. Saying goodbye's is one of my least favorite activities in the world. I think I would rather hold a snake than have to say goodbye to my whole family and all of my best freinds.
One of the more shocking things of the evening, was that I didn't want to go out. Me, miss social, Miss never says no to a drink. Well, for some strange reason the thought of alcohol makes my stomach turn. Anyways, instead of staying up all night with my friends and partying till the sun came up, I went home at midnight and went right to bed. I felt so sad that night, I needed to go to bed and wake up refreshed. And I did.
Sunday morning, me, Eric and my family all went to my favorite breakfast place in Winters "putah creek cafe". It was really nice. I did a fairly good job the next two days of not being sad. I really feel ready for the peace corps, this is something I've wanted for a long time, I just get sad when I think how long I have to be away from everyone I love so much. The rest of Sunday was made up shopping with my family and dad for some last minute things like shoes. Eric helped me pack up my room and my bags so I wouldn't be freaking out come Monday night. He was definitely the biggest help in getting me organized. Monday was mainly tying up loose ends. I finally finished packing and cleaning out my room. I think I deliberately left that till the end cause when I was all packed up I was really sad. It hit me that I was leaving and not coming back for a long time.
Monday night, my last night, I spent with my family and Eric. We ordered food from four seasons and ate it out on the back patio. It was weird. The light heartedness of family dining was gone and there was a somber sense that I would have rather ignored. I wanted my last night just to be like any other night. But it was sad, we all new the inevitable. Amber and Dave came over and visited for a few hours. I didn't want to have the whole of my friends come around one last time. I did all of my goodbyes Saturday, and it would have been too sad and overwhelming to go through them again. I had an hour of panic when I was making sure I had everything for my departure in less than 8 hours, not so much in the sense I wasn't ready, but in the sense that I was ready and it was almost time. I went back to Eric's and planned to be up all night. But to my surprise I was tired and I feel asleep and at midnight and didn't wake up till right before the alarm at 3:30. I don't think Eric slept as well as I did. I don't really know what was going through his mind these past couple of days, I just know he was sad. I was sad too. We had a very teary goodbye just before 4 am, and I drove to yet another teary goodbye.
After a shower, I crawled into bed with my dad as my mom strangely was putting curlers in her hair, even though she said she was going back to bed at the airport. I talked to my parents for a half hour, about nothing really. The puppy was up and so excited that everyone was awake so early and he was racing around and chewing on everything in sight. I woke my brother up and hugged him goodbye, but my sisters door was closed so I didn't say goodbye to her. Lastly I said good bye to Berny, I'm gonna miss that dog. He took a break from his racing around to sit on my lad and let me cuddle with him while I said goodbye.
The trip to the airport was surreal, as I was trying to take in that those were actual last moments with my parents for a long long time. We waited in a much longer than usual security line at the Sacramento airport and a man who felt the need to talk to my parents about his stupid kids in New York was waisting the my goodbye. All the sudden I got to the front of the line and had to do a very quick goodbye and didn't feel it was adequate. But maybe it was better that way, like riping off the band aid. Ouch. I only cried a little cause it was so sudden and then I was along, and I didn't want to look super lame crying all by myself at the airport, so I quickly sucked it up.
My flights were good, I slept most of the way. It felt so good to get off the plane, my whole body was stiff from sleeping in the same upright position for 6 hours. I felt a little queezy from all the stress of being gone and all the sudden being in a new city all alone, but I made my way through the very large Philadelphia airport and quickly got my bags and found stop for my shuttle. There were two people standing there, a man and a woman about my age, both with a lot of luggage and travel back packs. I met my first fellow PCV's (peace corps volunteers) wes and cass, a married couple from billings MT. We ended up splitting a cab to the hotel. After getting settled in, Cass called me and invited me to grab a bite to eat with them. We had pizza and beer and talked for long time exchanging stories, questions and fears. They seem like such wonderful people and I am so looking forward to meeting everyone else.
I feel great. Though I'm still very sad and missing everyone from home. I am happy and excited. Wes was telling me that all the returned volunteers he's talked to say that PC training is crazier than living in the dorms. I can 't wait. Philadelphia seems like such a great city. I'm staying on the 16th floor of the Sheraton in university city and have a wonderful view of the pen state campus. I've decided to take it easy tonight though I'm quite tempted to go out and explore. I haven't had a down evening in a long time I feel I won't have another one for while as well, so I'm forcing myself to stay in the hotel and relax. I'm gonna take a hot bath and watch some TV. Hopefully my roommate gets here soon so I can meet her and talk to her before I got to bed. I feel more awake that now than when i started writing this. Maybe it was the emotional retelling of the past three days that woke me up, oh well it worked and it is probably very therapeutic. And on that note, I miss you all and to hear from you!

Ready or not here I come!

I leave for my staging event in Philadelphia in 4 days. I am trying to get everything I need to get done while simultaneously not freak out. I'm doing well considering what a huge life changing adventure I'm embarking on. I definitely think the two times I left this country to study abroad are helping me tremendously. I feel ready, although I am no where near packed. There are still a boat load of things I want to buy like shoes, an ipod, gifts for my host family and well, I guess not a boat load cause that's pretty much it. I bought a lap top two days ago. It was pretty momentous because I basically decided I wanted one the day before I got it. I am a little nervous about bringing it cause I don't know how much access to electricity I will have, but I figured if I don't have it at my house, I will have it somewhere I work. My battery only lasts 2 hours. So if I don't have it at home I will have to take to work with me everyday to charge. But I feel the benefits will greatly out weigh the downsides. On lonely nights, I can watch a movie, play free cell, or write a really big letter for me to post on my blog when I get Internet access. So hopefully this will be my greatest tool for people to know how I'm doing. I'm probably wasting time by writing my first blog entry and should probably get back to packing so hopefully I will write more before I leave.