Monday, August 27, 2007

Swearing In


They changed training this time around from 10 weeks to 11. In my opinion, the 11th week was a bit of a waste. But it was great cause it allowed us to screw around with our friends and put off site for 7 more days. We finished up language classes in week 10 and all we did for youth development activities was wrap up stuff. Week 10 was pretty and crazy. We were in Lima a lot doing interviews and stuff that at least seemed important. Week 11 we got there an hour late, took a two hour lunch and went home two hours early. Bunch of people came from the main office to talk to us about a bunch of admin stuff. We seriously laid around most of the day. But night time was a different story.
We had 3 birthdays this week, plus a all the going away stuff. There were big parties every night. They were classic training parties. The host families do all this work to decorate, cook and buy alcohol and then all the Americans come, put on English music and eat and drink everything and take off without thanking the host properly. The best party was by far Drew’s birthday. His dad had been throwing the best parties all of training. Drew’s birthday isn’t until the 29th, but his parents insisted on throwing a party. It was out side under a big tent with lights and a disco ball, the works. Everyone came to training the next day, many of them still drunk, and all anyone could talk about was the party. Of course, I missed it. My host mom asked me to pick a day that would be good to go out to dinner. Going out to dinner, at least at the economic level we live in, is a big deal. There are so many nice restaurants in Chaclacayo, but when we started walking in the opposite direction, I asked where we were going and my host mom said “lobolo”. I had no idea where Lobolo was, but I had heard of it. We left at seven and I was really hoping to make it to the party. We rode on the combi all the way to Lima. Wow, we must be going to a really special place if we are going to Lima, I thought. My host mom was super dressed up. We ended up going to a friend chicken place, right on the freeway. I couldn’t believe it. We came all this way to go to a upscale KFC? There are so many places like this 5 minuets away from our house. It was good food at least, and I really enjoyed the time with my family.
Thursday we had planned a party for the host families. It was really simple, just a way of saying thanks. I was in charge of getting the flower bouquets. It was a new experience doing the flower thing here in Peru. We each presented the attending member of our families, said a few words of thanks in front of everyone, and gave them flowers and picture of the group. Then we did a few of our skits from the talent show and then ate some food. We had PB&J sandwiches, guacamole and chocolate chip cookies. It was a sweet American spread. It was kind of awkward though, cause my host mom pulled some crazy stuff and the result was that my, Jamar’s and Heather’s mom no longer speak to Adrienne’s mom. Apart from that, it was a nice party, short and sweet.
Friday was the big day.
Swearing in. We came in in the morning, had a session where we said thank you to all the staff members, followed by yet another admin session but we got our cell phones. Then we all took off to get ready for the ceremony. For most girls, getting ready for a big moment that required you to dress up, is a big to do. It was really weird, after being a peace corps trainee and not wearing make up or anything else cute, getting “girly” for the first time in months. I felt really strange, not quite comfortable and old. I packed up all my stuff at some point in all this. We got SO MANY books and training stuff it is an absolute miracle I was able to pack it all in the bags that I had brought. So with Adrienne and Heather, I said goodbye to Huascaran. I remember how scared I felt when the peace corps driver dropped me off that first day two and half years months ago. I don’t know what it was that made me feel so comfortable there so fast. It’s easy to pass it off as just having Americans around, but in the all the time I spent in Spain, I never felt as comfortable as I do here, and I was just as surrounded by Americans in Spain. For whatever reason, I hope I feel just as at home at my new site as I did during training, although know it will take a lot more time now that all the Americans are gone. The swearing in Ceremony was very short as well, no more than a half an hour. They built a big tent in the backyard of the training center and one of the American Ambassadors spoke, so it seemed like it should be a big deal, but it all happened so fast I was like, Is that it? We all got announced one by one, and then together we said the oath where we swore allegiance to the constitution and promised to always defend the United States against enemies, so help me God.

The ambassador spoke in spanish, as we all did as our host families attended. But after he did the formalities of the speech, he apologized to all the spanish speakers because he wanted to speak to us in English. He Basically told us that a lot of countries don´t hold the US with a high regard. We are lucky as PCVs that we are serving in a country that still likes the US and that part of our job was showing the world that we´re not all missile carrying oil tycoons. He encouraged us to stay active in international affairs throughout our life. It was one of the more honest speechesve heard in a while, I liked it. Then, just like that,we were officially Peace Corps volunteers.

We had about a half hour to eat and mingle and then we said goodbye to our host families. Some host moms and volunteers cried. I didn´t. I felt pretty numb, l knew what was going on and I was sad to be leaving, but I think I was too nervous to feel really sad. We hopped on the bus and of course got lost. The last 4 times I have taken a combi with my PC group, we´ve gotten lost. but we eventually got there and went right to dinner. We made reservations at a place built into a cliff overlooking the water. It was nice, but bittersweet. The drinking began immediately. I had been looking forward to this night for a long time, but when it finally rolled around I wasn´t feeling my usual party self. I was so exhausted from everything plus I was nervous about what was coming. I drank a bit and even went out to a sports bar while everyone else went out to the clubs. Our technical trainer for youth development,who is a 3rd year volunteer was there. I really enjoyed our talk. He loved his experience so much as a PCV that is was reassuring to listen to him. Bet after him and Baby grande finished their beers, I went back to the hotel and they went to meet up with the group. It was 2 AM but I felt really lame for going home early.

5 AM rolled around and I was back up. I heard a bunch of drunken English, so I had to get up and see what was going on. My group was the first group in recent PC Peru history to not have any hook ups. But swearing in blew that out of the water. Practically all of Youth development made out with some one else from Youth developemt or a peruvian or some one. And there was drama! I´m not gonna say what, but in the end I´m glad I went home early.

Saturday was weird. It was nice to wake up in Miraflores and walk to the beach and get a Starbucks. But I had site looming over me, and couldn´t fully enjoy it. I convinced the people who are staying an extra week at training from Quechua training to spend another night in Lima with me. So Saturday we crashed at a hostel a bit less glamorous than the PC had put us up in, and had a relaxing night. We bought pizza and popcorn and watched Simpson's the movie and little miss sunshine, it was really nice. The next morning, we ate breakfast together, and then they were gone. Time for site..... Today is Monday, I got here yesterday afternoon. I´m gonna safe if for my next blog, hopefully tomorrow. Keep reading and keep sending the love, I´m gonna need it more this first month than ever before.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Pachamanca and sleepover


My Peace Corps Peru 9 Family. I love my group. They make everyday of training worth it.


















We had a traditional Pachamanca on Friday. It starts by digging a hole in the ground, building a fire and heating up rocks on top












Then, you take the hot hot rocks off, and scoop out all the ash and wood from the hole so you can fill it up with comida.









Then you fill the whole with all kinds of crazy food. Franks puttin in the potatoes. He was the official padrino (godfather) of the pachamanca, cause he´s gonna be out in the campo where they do this sort of thing regularly. He has already done 4 at site visit alone.




This is the raw chicken we put in. Every layer of food is followed by green Herbs and the hot hot rocks.







Then you bury the whole thing with dirt. Doesn´t sound to sanitary does it. It´s not. The best part is, after you unbury it, not only is everything covered with dirt, you eat with your hands too.









then you have some crazy native ceremony to bless the gods. We did some funny praying stuff and paid tributes to the Inca gods. Although, I think it resembled a lesbian common law wedding more than anything else






This is me and my girls saturday night at our slumber party.












This is the group sitting down for dinner like the family that we are.

This is the next morning, with everyones tent pitched in the backyard of the training center. That´s frank just roughing it in the orange sleeping bag, he was made for the campo.

Friday, August 17, 2007

whole lot a shakin´ going on

As you may have heard, Peru got hit by a pretty wicked earthquake. I am fine and all the other volunteers are okay as well. Considering the magnitude of the situation, I couldn’t have been in a better situation for this to have happened. At the time, it really seemed like no big deal. Even now, I feel like it wasn’t that bad. But I was lucky, it could have been a lot worse.
My whole group was spending the entire day in Lima. During the morning and day, we were in the PC headquarters having interviews, workshops and shots. At night, we broke into out technical groups to have Pizza parties at our bosses house. We were an hour and half late, cause this is Peru and nothing ever happens on time. I was with my fellow 17 youth development volunteers and my trainers when the earthquake first started. We were sitting in our mini-bus, stopped in traffic. At first we thought there was something wrong with the combi(bus). I remember thinking that it felt really weird and I had never feel a car make this kind of motion. I overheard some one make a comment about what part of the engine he thought was doing it and no body was concerned. After about a minute, it got worse. Simultaneously I realized there was no way this a car could make this strong a shaking and I looked out the windows and saw everything else around me moving. Light posts, signs even building were all rocking pretty violently. It seems strange that I did notice people were out in the streets from the beginning but didn’t make the connection for a whole minute. Everyone seemed to realize at the same time that it was an earthquake, but most people were excited not scared. We were all in a safe location and we were all together so we didn’t have any reason to be scared. In fact, it was kind of fun. The earthquake lasted a full two minutes, it was crazy. We were all just looking around thinking when it was going to end, but it just kept going on and on.
We were in rich, residential area of Lima and there was no damage to any of the buildings around us. After everything stopped, the traffic started moving and we rolled up to our bosses house a few minutes later. This was the first time we realized it was a bigger deal than we all had thought. Kitty lives in a sweet embassy house, which is a three story apartment atop a building. When we got there, Kitty and Bianca were still outside the building. They were on the 5 floor when it hit and they said it was totally freaky. But we didn’t waist anytime, we all just marched up all those flights of stairs and dug into our pizza like nothing had happened. Kitty really worried, one thing that did effect our area was that all the phone lines went down. Peace Corps has to account for all it’s volunteers immediately after a natural disaster, so we were lucky that we were all together. Had we been in our communities with our host families like we would be every other night, they would have had to sent an official out to each and everyone of our houses to make sure we were alright. Non of us were to worried that our parents would be freaking out.
We figured non of our parents followed international events that closely. But after a 20 minutes it was all over not just the Spanish channels, but the English news networks too. This was the first time any of us realized how big it was. 7.9, really? Then people started getting nervous. Not only were people worried about an even bigger one that might hit or the tsunami warning, but people were now nervous about what our families were gonna think back home. The news was portraying a very scary picture, and I’m sure in fact it was pretty scary in some places. But we were all fine, hanging out together in a luxury earthquake proof embassy house, eating Pizza and brownies. We all wanted to let everyone we knew that we were okay, but all land lines, internet and cell phones were down. We eventually headed back to our perspective host families, who were as well worried sick about us. When we were leaving Kitty’s house I got my first sense of uneasy feeling. I realized how lucky I was to be with all my friends when it happened. It would have been so scary for t his to happen in my remote little community with a family that’s not really mine. I didn’t really want to go back to this family either. I felt more comfortable with my friends. Lying alone in my little bed on the first floor of a poorly built brick and cement house, was not my idea of feeling secure after such a big earthquake. I thought about how nice it would be, to stay in Kitty’s house. I felt transported from Peru when I was there, it was so nice. But then I thought about Kitty. She was more worried than any of us. And when we left, she would be all alone too. I thought even though Kitty has an incredibly sweet set up, that when she went to bed that night, she would feel more alone in her big bed in her 3 story luxury apartment, with no strange Peruvian family, than I would in my poor little house.
I didn’t feel all that lonely after all. My host family had been so worried about me in Lima, but I was so tired I did little more than tell them I was okay and excused myself to my room. I turned on my cell phone from home, which usually gets full signal, but it had no service. Every once in a while a bar of signal would pop up, but didn’t last long enough to make a phone call. I really wanted to talk to some one from home. I didn’t them to worry as much as I just wanted to talk to some I love.
The aftermath of the earthquake has been a big cultural learning experience. There was little to no damage where we live. The biggest thing that happened was that the phone lines went down. The next morning all us Americans woke up bright and early and went to the training center for a jam packed day of training. But all the Peruvian schools were closed not just yesterday, but today too! There is no reason for the schools to be closed. I come from such a fast pace, time is money society that I have a hard time understanding the logic behind it all, but that’s all part of the cultural experience.
So, all in all. I am fine. I was very touched by everyone’s concern over me. Really, I didn’t even think most people would have heard about anything going on in little ole Peru, but for everyone who called my parents or sent me an email. Thanks.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Putting it all in perspective

I was very relived to get back to training. I´ve only been in Peru for 9 weeks but already I´ve grown so used to my host family here and my friends in Peace Corps that it felt like I was coming home. I figure if I was able to adjust to my environment so quickly here, I will hopefully get used to my new home too. It was so wonderful to see all my friends and here about their site visits. Some people absolutely loved there sites and said they didn´t want to come back to training. But I´d say the majority of us were a little freaked out and were nervous about the next two years. I´m happy to report not a single person hated their site, or at least confessed to it. Some people have really great set ups with all the amenities one could hope. Some one even has a maid working in their house! But once again, the majority of us have a lot of things that´ll take some getting used to. I really feel for the people who got sent to the Ketchawa communities. I can´t imagine learning all this spanish and then going somewhere your own host family doesn´t speak spanish and having to start from scratch all over again. Some people didn´t have bedrooms of their own. One girl has to shower in the river wearing clothes. It definitely put a lot of things in perspective but more than anything, it´s priceless to have so many people going through the same things I am.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Site Visit: the long and the short

Okay, it´s really the long and the long. I´ll be impressed if any one other than my mom reads this whole thing. I´m not even giving my dad the bennifit of the doubt on this one. I´m sure my mom will just dictate. By the way: Mom, Kristen, Amber and Laura, thank you for the wonderful words of encouragement!
I don’t think I was shocked when I got to site. I think I had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be like, but even so, almost immediately upon arrival I freaked out. This is the view of my new house from above. That square room on the left with the white wall is my bedroom. I’m still trying to determined the cause of my freak out, but regardless or the catalyst, the first two days at site I was convinced I wasn’t going to make it the full to years. Heck, I wasn’t sure I was even going to survive the first week. I had a continuous 2 day anxiety attack. Because of this, I’m pretty sure my new host mom thinks I’m anorexic because I didn’t eat anything the 4 nights I stayed there. That’s not true, I had half a bowl of soup the first night. The full on panic attack didn’t set in till half way through dinner. The exact moment went it hit was when I took a bite into the lentil and rice dish I was served. For some reason, it tasted like fish. And from that moment on, I didn’t even attempt another bite of dinner for the rest of my stay. I did drink 5 cups of chamomile tea a day, so maybe that makes up for my lack of eating.

Right. It all started innocently enough. Every one else from my group left for there sites on Sunday. They all took over night buses except for the 4 who flew to Arequipa cause a bus ride there is about 18 hours. I didn’t leave till Tuesday when at 8 o’clock in the morning I got picked up by the peace corps driver in our very nice SUV. Tuesday morning and afternoon was filled with counterpart day at the headquarters in Lima, where I met my people with whom I’ll be working closest with over the next two years. Every department capital held a counterpart day for the volunteers to meet their new colleagues and for the peace corps to introduce the roll of the counterpart. In most capitals, this was a big event with 6 or more volunteers and groups of 20+ people. Since I’m the only new volunteer in Lima, my group was a little lonely. But Bianca, the girl I’m replacing, was there with her new counterpart and Jorge, a volunteer from Peru 7 with his counter part. I had three counterparts come. The psychologist from the abused girls home and two nuns from the orphanage. I never dreamed I would ever work with nuns. One of the nuns was 22 and the other was probably in her 60’s, but they were both super cool. All of my counterparts are absolutely wonderful people, which is a good thing, not all volunteers are so lucky.

This was my first time at the headquarters, it was pretty nice. Here, I randomly bumped into Dennis, the business volunteer from Peru 5 who’s extending his service till march and is living close to Lurin as well. He was getting ready to leave for a vacation but said he was so happy I was moving to Lurin and told me about the surf board project. I was feeling really excited as Bianca and I got on the bus for my new site. But when we got off, it was dark and we were in the middle of a farm. As we walked through the smelly, dark, fields, it started to sink in. This was it, my new home. It was scary. When we got to the row of houses that make up my “town” called Buena Vista, the anxiety grew. And when we came into the house, my stomach dropped. It really isn’t that bad, it’s just different. It’s less homey and less modern than my house now. However, my new room is cozier. It has a really nice feel to it, but it is pretty small. So Bianca introduced me to the family, showed me my room, told me to feel free to use anything I wanted of hers and she took off. It was 6 o’clock in the evening, I was in the middle of no where, what was I gonna do? I attempted to eat dinner, but as I stated earlier, that didn’t work out so well. I took a tour of the “town” with my new host sister and watched some Simpson’s.

This is the view from my room out onto the "town" of Buena Vista. Notice the gray skies. The sun doesn´t come out for 4 months strait. But on the plus side, it´s almost spring!
I think it’s sad to admit, but one of the big reasons I was disappointed with my new house is that it doesn’t have cable TV. Cable TV is such a luxury. It’s an escape from the Spanish world and a window to my estranged country. Here at training I like to wake up in the morning and watch CNN in English as I eat my corn flakes. CNN even runs episodes of the Daily Show. How will I pass the time as I eat breakfast now? I tried to keep it in perspective, cause I know a lot of volunteers don’t even have regular TV. But perspective couldn’t save me from my imminent anxiety attacks. Another thing I tried to keep in perspective was the bathroom situation. I have one! That’s great, cause a lot of volunteers don’t. Many use latrines a good walk away from their houses. And Frank, up in the campo in Ancash doesn’t even have a latrine. He has to walk into the field and squat in the brush. My bathroom is a one big room with the kitchen and is only divided by a an almost see through shower curtain. There’s no toilet seat and of course it’s a bucket flush. I’m not even sure how many people exactly live in the house, but it’s around 10 and we all share one bathroom. Later that night when I was feeling sick to my stomach, I thought I was going to die waiting for the toilet to be free. Again, I tried to keep it in perspective, I am very lucky to have a toilet in the house. So that was the first night. My mind was fighting against all my emotions to stay calm. I was truly panicked. I felt trapped, I felt like I was so removed from civilization. In the back of my mind I knew everything was going to be okay, but at the time it was absolutely horrible, I felt defeated.

This is the view of the upstairs hall outside my room.

The next morning I went to the first Hogar where I will be working, the orphanage for kids under the age of 12. Non of the kids were there though, they were all on vacation with various family members. We had a meeting with all the nuns and volunteers. I think I paid attention for the first 15 minuets, at which point my mind wondered off, my thoughts took over and I was panicking again. After this Bianca took me into the small city of Lurin which is a 20 minute walk from my house. Lurin is really great, and the moment I set foot there, I told myself that me moving into the city of Lurin was crucial to my survival in the Peace Corps. That was it, the answer. I would move into Lurin. Into a nice modern house on paved roads with hot water and cable TV. Living in Buena Vista is hard because walking into Lurin at night is not safe. But if I lived in Lurin, I could go to the internet cafĂ©, the gym, a restaurant, a casino, a dance class or a bar with out putting myself in danger. I was convinced the only way I wasn’t going to go crazy was to move onto Lurin.
What are the chances of Kitty letting me move right off the bat into Lurin? Slim, I guessed. I’d have to really convince her how miserable I was to let me move without waiting the standard 3 month trial period. That night, as I sat abandoned in my room, the only time I could calm myself down out of the anxiety attacks was when I convinced myself I was going to be able to move into Lurin and everything would be fine. The next morning Bianca took me to the other girls Hogar and I observed her doing a self esteem workshop. My whole body was in pain from the anxiety. That evening I decided to let my guard down and confide in Bianca. I really didn’t want her thinking I was a wimp. After all, she had toughed it out in Buena Vista for two years, and she lived the first year in even worse conditions than the house she was in now. Luckily, she was very understanding. She admitted she would be a bit disappointed if I moved out of Buena Vista and didn’t continue the community work she had started there. She was in no way judgmental and asked what she could do to help me. Unfortunately, there isn’t much anybody can do to calm down panic attacks.
My room. See it´s not bad.
My mental state didn’t help my purpose for being there. Bianca was introducing me to everyone I need to know and showing me all the tricks of the trade. But I couldn’t take any of it in, I couldn’t even breath. The third night I apologized to my host mother for being so rude and not eating or even showing my face downstairs. I tried to explain to her how I was feeling without hurting her feelings. She seems like a wonderful woman. She too was very understanding. She said I could eat whenever I felt ready and there was no pressure to do anything I wasn’t comfortable with doing. That night as I was hiding out in my room, one of my host cousins and later one of my host sisters came to visit me to see what I was doing. Up until this point they had been very shy, I think my mom sent them up to check on my to make sure I was doing okay. I don’t know what it was but around 10 o’clock that night, I started to feel okay for the first time. Finally the panicky feeling went away and I started to feel a little confident that I could do this.
The next day I went back to orphanage. Bianca kept herself hidden. I was supposed to be learning to do things on my own. I sat a table with the 6th grade boys and helped with homework. All though I was starting to feel confident that I could at least survive, but my job is still really really hard and brings it‘s own set or anxiety. That afternoon we went into Lima. We went to the PC headquarters and talked to Kitty, which was a big mistake. Talking to her kind of spun me back into the sick to my stomach, overwhelming feeling. On top of that, there were two girls from Peru 5 saying there goodbyes. They had finished their 27 month stay and were flying out that night. My two years seemed light years away and I once again thought I wasn’t going to make it. To try and take my mind off things, Bianca took me to Jockey plaza which is the only modern/American style mall in all of Peru. We went to Starbucks, and I’m sure the last thing I needed was caffeine, but I got a Venti vanilla latte. After that we went to see Evan Almighty at the movie theaters.
We got back to the Buena Vista area around nine. We were walking the same dirt road we walked the first night we arrived and it wasn’t until that moment, the same place I first started to freak out, that I calmed down. Really calmed down. That night I spent time with my host family and went to my room happy and fell asleep thinking about all the wonderful things I will be able to do in the next two years. Even the next day when we went back to orphanage I felt okay. I left back for my host family in Huascaran feeling content. Feeling that I can do this, I will survive and it will be great.

All in all I am grateful I went through such a rough few days. I know I will have more bad days, maybe weeks, they may even be worse. But I know I can survive them. I had Bianca there to show me ropes. I’m lucky that I’m a replacement volunteer. Bianca got to site and had to figure everything out on her own. Plus, Bianca is staying as a 3rd year as volunteer coordinator and is only a phone call or a 45 minute bus ride away. She said I am welcome stay at her place in Lima if I ever need a break. I am a little embarrassed I freaked out so bad, but I think now, with some perspective I have a better idea why, and I feel that it was relatively healthy. To sum it all up, the reasons I think I got so scared were

A. It was a lot to take in all at once and very overwhelming
B. It’s a big change and regardless, it will take a lot of adjusting
C. No more Americans, no more English
D. Isolation, physical and emotional

E Bianca and I are polar opposites. She is an uber home body. I got scared of her lifestyle, passing every night alone in Buena Vista. But I realized I get to make my experience my own. I can make it as fun and action packed as I can. There’s a beach I can bike to, a cool city to explore, great people to make friends with and endless opportunities at work.

I have to two weeks until I move permanently to Buena Vista. Hopefully I can maintain my positive perspective and enjoy my last two weeks of training panic attack free.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

2 Days into site visit

Okay, it´s time to shed my peace corps lite image. I´ve been at my future site and it is very clear to me that things are going to get a lot tougher. I´ve been really surprised at how easy my transition has been so far. I really love training and everyone in my group. But the first night I arrived in my site and sat alone in my room for about 6 hours For the first time since I arrived in Peru, I wanted to go home. Not actually go home, but it´s the first time I really missed it with every fiber of my body. I had my first full on panic attack, and it wasn´t the kind that came and went and then I felf better. It was the kind of panic that lasted for two strait days. I couldn´t eat anything and I felt like I was going to throw up for most of the day. I finally confided in Bianca how I was feeling, although I was sure she was gonna think I am the biggest wimp. Maybe I am.
First, in order to understand how I was feeling let me explain the situation. Even though my site is an hour south of Lima, it is very rural. My "town¨is a scattering of houses that are extremely poor and built into the back of an all dirt mountain. There are farms stretching every direction and lots of livestock. Most of the houses here have no electricity or running water. My house does have electricity and running water but it down right scares me. I can´t even tell how many people live there. I think 10 but it feels like so many more cause there are people constantly coming in and out. I´ve determined that the scariest thing to me is that I am to far away from the main town. After I come home from work around 6 there is NOTHING for me to do but sit around. Anyone that knows me know I cannot just sit around. I go absolutely crazy. The town is to far to walk to at night safely. But ther town, Lurin, is relatively nice. it´s got a cute main plaza, lot´s of restaurants, Internet cafe´s, a great market and a gym. The Gym I feel will be my saving grace. It is what saved my sanity in Spain and it will hopefully work out well. The panicking sensation finally started to calm down once I went to the gym and got the hours of the classes and everything. It will be great to go the gym in the evening and release all that stress.
Another positive aspect that I´m constantly reminding myself of is I technically have a site mate. His name is Dennis and I thought he was living south of me, but turns out he´s in a little town in the opposite direction of me from Lurin. He´s about a half hours walk. During counterpart day at the center in Lima, I just happened to walk into the room where he was talking with one of the doctors and met him by luck. He seemed so energetic and very happy. He was even talking to me about this project he had with an NGO that was donating 300 surf boards to poor kids. I have no idea if I´ll actually do anything with that project but it´s nice to think about. Dennis is very active and hopefully he can introduce me to a lot of stuff to do in the area so I don´t go crazy. Plus, hopefully he will be a good friend when I need an American to just sit down and have a drink. Okay, that´s all I have time for. It´s lunch time at the hogar and I´m gonna go eat with the girls. I´ll post again when I get back from site visit.

Saturday, August 4, 2007

¿Lima?

Drum roll please........Yep, I´m staying in Lima. I´m pretty shocked to say the least and I´ll admit, it was the one place out of all the other 32 sites I was terrified of getting. All this anxiety and uncertainty about getting sent some place so rural and far away from anything familiar and circumstances will change only slightly from what they are now. There are 7 different departments (states) that PCV got sent to. Out of the 32 volunteers in Peru 9, I am the only one to be placed the department of Lima. To clarify, I will not be living in the city of Lima, but a half an hour south right on the coast. The next closest person from my group is about 8-10 hours away. To the south east, there are 4 volunteers in Arequipa way up at around 13,000 feet. To the north of me there are 3 other volunteers in Ancash all living at around 10,000-12,000 feet. It makes me feel very boring to be living at sea level. In the picture with me is Bianca in front of a map of the department of Lima. I am taking Bianca´s place as a replacement site. Bianca is staying a third year and will be living in the city of Lima and working at peace corps headquarters.
Disappointment aside, it really is a great site. Now that the shock is wearing off I can start to appreciate it for what it is. I´m so close to the beach! I´m close to Lima so at a moments notice I can go in for the day and get a starbucks, a book in english or pretty much any other comfort amenity I might crave. I´m so close to the headquarters of Peace corps. Although there aren´t any volunteers from my group in Lima, there are a handful of PCV´s from other groups as well as 3rth year administrative volunteers. Plus, people have to come to Lima all the time for med checks, administrative reasons and vacations. Whenever anyone comes to Lima they can call me and I´ll probably have more visitors than anyone else. I look at it like it was when we all went away to college and I was the only one who stayed close to home. Yeah, there was a big part of me that was really bumbed out I didn´t go far away, but I made up for it by traveling a lot and visiting all of my friends who did go away. And whenever anyone came back to good old woodland, they called me up and I had the party planned in Davis. The Peace Corps has tapped one of my finest skills, social event coordination.
The real reason my site is going to be so wonderful is not the location but the job. I have a fabulous job lined up that I couldn´t be more excited about. I working with both an orphanage and a center for sexually abused girls as well as community work. It seems so exciting although I don´t feel the least bit qualified to work with these kinds of kids. Maybe all those years of listening to love line may actually come into play finally.
Yesterday was totally crazy. They made us come in at 8 and have to hours of language class before they gave away our site assignments. We were completely unable to concentrate. This is a picture of Tom correcting a some common grammatical errors on the board cause we were too preoccupied to do any critical thinking. Tom came dressed in his suit for the occasion. Not only did we get our site assignments yesterday but we had our group picture as well. This picture will hang next to the other 8 groups of volunteers that have served in Peru. But of course, being Wacky Peru 9 we had to do something special for our picture. All the guys grew out their mustaches (some needed a little help in the way of an eye brow pencil) and wore their sport coats. The girls all wore neck ties. We also had a talent show to showcase our spanish abilities after two months. But really, we showed off our ridiculous sense of humor. Every one´s skit was hilarious. We all needed a good laugh after the build up of site assignments. They couldn´t simply tell s where we were going. They made us stand on one side of the pool while all

the staff members watched as we one by one fished Styrofoam fish out of the pool with our sites on them. It´s a cute idea in theory, for 5 year olds. But when you have waited months to know your site it´s pretty freaking annoying.
When I came home I told my host mom that I was staying in Lima. I thought ´my family would be disappointed because they´re from Piura and have been talking about how much they want me to go to Piura so they can come visit me. Just like everyone else, it took a moment for it to sink in with my host mom that I was just headed down the road. Once it hit, she grabbed me and gave me the biggest hug and told me ¡Felicitaciones! She was so excited for me and happy that I could come visit whenever. She offered to have me come for Christmas. I was really touched at the out pouring of effection she had for me and it was nice in the absence of my own parents to have a nurturing figure there for the relatively emotional day. All and all I am happy. True, I am a bit bummed out that I won´t be living as exotic a life as I had imagined, but I know my work in the next years will be more rewarding than I ever could have hoped for.

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Okay really, I´m ready to know

I didn´t think I was that nervous about my site assignment. Obviously I care, but I went to great measures convincing myself that anywhere I get sent will be fine. I had a few scattered days where I was consumed by thinking about it. Knowing that worrying would do me no good I resigned my fears and concerns. Or so I thought. Last night,I had nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. They weren´t the scary kind of nightmare, but the kind that make you feel so anxious you wake up every hour. So, I guess deep down, I still am pretty nervous. I talked to Tom about it today and we decided at least the root of my fear. I wish I could have learned this earlier about myself so I could have told this to my boss and avoided this area. According to my subconscious, there is a site I am pretty afraid I´ll get sent to. I don´t want to say what that site is cause if I get sent there, then everyone will know it´s not where I want to be. But consciously, any site I get sent to will be fine...right? Why can´t they just tell us where we are going?!
I got a sweet package in the mail from my mom yesterday. I got a big costco bag of dried blueberries which was perfect timing. Just this past weekend after I was modeling peanut butter I found in a market, and my family asked me about other foods we had in the US that didn´t exist in Peru. On the spot I struggled to come up with something all the sudden came up with blueberry. Of course I had no idea what to call the fruit seeing as it does not have a name in Peru and tried to describe it them. They I had no idea what I was talking about so it was great when the dried blueberries showed up with a pictures on the bag and everything. It was also a great cultural exchange, my family really enjoyed getting to try something that was special and only found in the US.
Today is the first day of August. Usually when august hits, there is a strange sentiment of sadness that probably comes from all those years in school which signified that summer was flying by and soon classes would start again. August is always characterized by long, hot, lazy days and a disbelief that the warm weather would ever end. This August first, I have an even stranger sentiment I can´t put my finger on. It can´t really be August? Nothing about my body tells me it´s August. It is going to be so weird to actually have the weather get warmer from here on out. Thanksgiving in spring time? The only thing about the end of the "summer" is the change of schedule I´ve grown so accustomed to. Only this time instead of transitioning from vacation to school, I´m transitioning from training to site. If only I knew where I was going....