Moving on to the goings on of my life in Peru:
My Host Fam in Piura - Laly and Willy
For example, this entire past week was “The week of inclusion” celebrating the country’s move towards inclusive education. Therefore, I went to various activities in and around Piura all week with my special education school. I showed up to work on Monday expecting to head over to an exposition on the jobs that have been accomplished by people with disabilities. In true Peruvian style, we sat at the school until about 945 waiting for the kids to get dropped off (for a school that starts at 8 mind you), eventually got over to the municipality where one table was set up selling knit goods made by local women with physical disabilities, we sat for 3 hours by the table and left…so yea not exactly a rousing celebration of accomplishments. Tuesday was an improvement of sorts when we when to the CERP which is a huge rehab facility in Piura, for a drawing contest among the special ed schools. We had 6 kids participate and all of the preschoolers came to watch, but only myself and 3 other teachers were there, I still have no idea what everyone else was doing all day. None of our kids won, but they seemed to have a good time.
The "Expo": Some of my kids from the special ed school
The Drawing Contest: Mayra & Cristian and Percy
The next day was billed as a big party at the special ed school. They made snacks and invited all of the families for a party at 9. While the majority of the kids actually came to school that day (no small feat trust me) none of the parents actually stayed for the party. Oh, and it started at 1030, not 9. What I would like to stop and point out at this point in my week is that the theme of the celebration was “inclusion” no? Have I mentioned a single time when kids without disabilities were present?? We had an entire party celebrating inclusion enclosed within the walls of a special education facility representing the polar opposite of inclusion… Its encouraging to hear the terms tossed around, and conversations over the benefits. But, the man I spoke with at a meeting for the rights of the disabled workers, who ranted about “inclusion en papeles,” or inclusion on paper, pretty much summed up the situation perfectly.
Me and Amparo, the school director 
Mercedes and the kids
Cristobal... def a top 5 favorite kid (except he's actually 21)
A few of the teachers and Brenda (whose mother is the only one who seems genuinely interested in working with me)
My fav kid Sandro, we spend a good portion of our day jumping up and down from things together, don't ask - it works for us
Finally, on Friday we had a big city wide parade or “Pasacalle” in Piura to celebrate that inclusion they keep claiming exists. For reasons still unknown to me, the parade involved us dressing up as the various parts of Peru: the coast, the mountains and the jungle. I apparently look so sierran that I was assigned the mountains. I love the fact that in a parade of hundreds of teachers and children dressed in crazy costumes, people still made a concerted effort to take pictures of me…
Me and Mercedes dressed like women from the Peruvian Sierra (yes people actually still dress like this)
Scenes from the Parade through Downtown Piura (the sign says: a kid without an education is a kid without a future)
A bunch of the teachers from my school & The random group of peruvian children who surrounded me at the parade, because I am damn fascinating
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As far as my other job in La Molina goes, I am having a great time with the kids out there. We finally finished the World Map, which is one of those peace corps requirement things where every youth volunteer has to paint a wall sized map of the world with kids in their town. It took a while, and involved me covered in paint for a few days, but it got a bunch more kids to come to the ludoteca so I kind of have to side with Peace Corps on this one, it was a good idea. I figured out kids have the attention span to paint about 1.5 countries at a given time, so the process ended up looking something like this: an endless cycle of kids wandering over and asking “what can I paint [insert color]? “, painting one country and then wandering away while the other 15 kids were kicking soccer balls on the roof and fighting over who got to use the pencil sharpeners. … on a side note a box of 48 colored pencils was the best peace corps investment that I have made to date, entertains kids for HOURS literally.
So, I have around 200 photos of La Molina because the benefit of having the crappiest camera ever is that you are willing to let 8 year olds run around with it, because hell, its broken anyway. While I have a sufficient amount of photos of puzzles and eyeballs, they also took some really cute photos of eachother. So for your enjoyment: Life in La Molina in Photos - by the children of the Ludoteca:
La Molina
In order to draw the map without a projector you have to spend 2 hours drawing a huge grid. Little kids are surprising good at this part.
After we finished drawing the map in pencil (I swear there is a whole world map in the left picture.) For some reason, the map project attracted a bunch of the boys to come.
The template we used to draw the map on the grid (yes I actually colored all 12 of the sheets - i have a lot of downtime here) & Finally starting the painting process
The final mapmaking step: Labeling countries
Poor Robert whose little sisters come to play and he has gotten roped into helping out, seriously the nicest 16 boy I've ever met
At one point we took a break to play the Peruvian version of dodgeball, with its politically correct name of Mata la Gente (aka Kill the People) - Btw I have at least one kid attached to me at any given time
Lucas and Alonso - breaking hearts in about 9 years
The one unpleasant fact about La Molina is that I have tried 2 times to meet with the mothers of the kids in the program to introduce myself and attempt to make progress on the community report we have to write. Of the entire community, the number of mothers who have shown up: 3, the number who have shown up within an hour of the requested meeting time: 0. Welcome to Peru ;) The best part of all was that my boss came with me out to La Molina for both of this nonexistent meetings. His observations upon seeing my site for the first time: “wow this is very far from the city” (no kidding!), “wow there really is nothing out here” (again, shocking revelation), “this place needs to be organized and cleaned” (you mean one broken chair and a table in a room of dirt is not sufficient??), followed up by: “well at least there is a lot of work to be done with the community”… oh dear. But he did talk to the older kids and the girl I work with to get the ball rolling on organizing the ludoteca, so hopefully things will be improving. We really do have the most amazing coordinator in Piura, he is going out there again with me next Saturday morning at 730 to help with the cleanup :D
Yay for Wilfredo :)
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¿Te enseñas? ¿ Acostumbras?
The popular “how are you adjusting to Peru?” question we all get almost daily… I am adjusting to life here definitely, I have pretty much learned the basic lay of the city (conclusion: there are 2 busy parallel streets and everything else basically connects them…tricky) and I am allowed to travel to and from both jobs solo…no small feat trust me. I ride the same combi line to work every Thursday and Saturday, so given the fact that I ride nearly the entire length way out of town, the guys who collect the fare have taken a reasonable interest in me and now wave to me when I am out walking around town. I have accepted this happening because I have so far received 2 free rides on the combi as a result. Hey, that’s a free Inca Cola right there :D I also had a colectivo driver (the cabs that follow a particular route and take multiple people) tell me that I worked at the special ed school because hes seen me befor. Mind you there are TONS of colectivos in this town, i doubt i have ridden with him before… (A side note, I inwardly cringe every time I tell them to let me out at the "special school" but that is what it's called)
Transportation options in Piura
It seems crazy to believe that we have been in site 2 months, and I have been in Peru nearly 5 months. The new volunteers from Peru 14 are coming for their official site visits in 2 weeks… we are no longer going to be the new guys. Everyone is looking forward to meeting the newbies, but we are only getting 4 volunteers in Piura, so it will be a pretty small crew. I’m happy to be the city volunteer though, since I basically get to be coordinator of the welcoming committee.
Our First Trip to Cólan, Piura
Suburban Living: Peru Style
Me, Laly and my Abuela with a few family friends
It’s a strange life, but I’m getting used to the fact that it’s my life, I think that’s a good thing.
