Officially a Peace Corps Volunteer - Oath and All

Where do I even begin this time, so much has happened since I last posted… (trust me I am aware that if I posted more frequently it would be less daunting, but where is the challenge in that?)

First off, the training class for PC Peru 13 has officially sworn is as Peace Corps Volunteers. It’s official, we’re here for the long haul :) Come hell or high water… you know or both

For our last week of training we basically did nothing, sorry trainers but it’s true. The program lost any semblance of structure there at the end, not that I am complaining mind you, just observing. It was a pretty bittersweet week all around. On one hand you are thrilled to finally be done with classes and schedules and feeling like a kid, but at the same time going to site means leaving behind the safe little peace corps world we all built with each other where you can speak in spanglish and be perfectly understood, compare the randomness of your lunches but eat it all anyway, and discuss bowel issues without so much as a second thought. It’s not a world anyone can understand from the outside, and it was hard to say goodbye to it, no matter how excited we all were to get to our sites.

Virginia, Me, Christie and Frank - those people I'm gonna have the toughest time doing without :(

The girls and Vann - the faces in this are priceless

More partying in Yanacoto...we seriously were the most tranquilo group they have had in a while

This is one of those lunches I was talking about...don't ask questions -eat

One of the host dads made that - pretty badass if you ask me

The second to last day of training we had a party for our host families, my mom, sister and cousin all came out and we spent the last hour of the party doing a Peruvian style photo shoot (very popular among the adolescent female population). We also performed a quite impressive rendition of the thriller dance choreographed by one of the volunteers. There is a video, it will be on youtube, I will post the link soon :).

The ridiculous amount of cookies we made for the host family party


The ridiculous amount of fruit salad we made for the host fam party


One of many pictures of my host fam from the party, and I mean many...


Mid-Thriller performance


Host sister Lily

Our last day in Chaclacayo we had our official peace corps swearing in ceremony, which was actually pretty emotional. One of the host moms spoke and could barely finish because she started crying. It makes you take a step back and realize the potential we really have to do something meaningful here. For me at least, that gets a little lost in the mundane-ness of training, so that was a nice reminder before leaving for site. From the swearing in ceremony they basically shove you straight on a bus to Lima. It’s the craziest emotional moment so say goodbye to the families in the rush of leaving. I was struck by how truly sad all of the host families were. Every family I had ever visited said goodbye and knew me by name. My host my was crying as I left, not something I really expected coming into this experience. They truly take you in as a member of the family, it’s pretty crazy.

Basically the night in Lima is created to drink, there is just no way around that. It’s the first time the trainers are allowed to go out with out, and it’s our last night together until Close of Service in 2 years. So it’s kind of a big deal. Every single member of our group ended up out at the same bar, (expect for poor Jen who got sick) and it was a ridiculous night from the stories the next day, which I was blessedly only an observer – rare for me I am aware. The next day we all ended up at the hostel to say our slow, teary goodbyes as each group left by department. Nope, I didn’t cry – just doesn’t happen. But it was really hard to see everyone go…

The boys... short 2

Our elected speaker Lisette, as we all stand and watch awkwardly

My Spanish teacher - Ivan

My Tech traniners Isa and Angelica

Virginia and Christie and Me in front of our awesome American flag stage

Yup - we have matching track suits, and you are jealous


Our last night together :(

And of course nothing takes your mind off sad goodbyes like a nice robbery :) Yup, got robbed on my way to the bus station. My cab stopped at a red light, the window was down and some guy reached in and grabbed my bag off my lap. However, while he did take things that I am going to miss dearly, I am not sure how much he will be able to get for a sweater, some pictures of my friends and a gift from my community partner. Everything that was important (computer, money, ipod, camera, etc) was in my other bag on the floor of the cab. So, I decided I have gotten my robbery quota filled for a while and did not lose anything too important. And Ill never forget to roll up my window again :)

After that lovely segue to site, we arrived in Piura Sunday morning. Some of the girls are lacking basic life needs, like beds so we did some shopping for supplies. We had no welcoming committee this time which was a little depressing, but we have all decided to change that for Peru 14 when they come in a few months. It’s crazy that in less than 2 weeks we won’t be the newbies anymore…

I have met my students at the Special Ed school finally… it was a very interesting day to say the least. I watched teenagers trace letters and color for 2 hours, during part of which the teacher was on her cell phone. Its every special ed teachers worst nightmare. However, I am now faced with the reality that I know how to facilitate inclusion, not teacher kids with severe disabilities. I know that what they are doing, at least in the class I observed, isn’t great, but I don’t know what to tell them to do. However, I did talk to the psychologist about visiting some of the inclusion schools so maybe I can alter my focus to things I understand better. The bright side – the kids are adorable. I already have a few favorites and an entire fan club that follows me around the school.

I also went back to La Molina. There is a lot of potential to really have an impact out there, but unfortunately the only kids that are coming right now are between 5 and 8. Adorable, but not my target audience for workshops on healthy lifestyles and leadership skills… However, I am working with another college student to really revap the ludoteca so hopefully we can recruit some older kids soon. I am still a little nervous to take my camera out there, but I cannot fully describe the situation without photos, so I might bring it there this week.

If you have made it this far reading, I will close with the ridiculous story of my first weekend here in Piura. My host cousin came into town to celebrate his birthday, so we went out to a bar. The combination of drinking and dancing resulted in having my host cousin knock my beer class out of my hand where it conveniently broke on my foot. After several feeble protests from me, my host cousins had me in a cab on the way to the emergency room where I got stitches on my foot – without anesthesia… hey it is the 3^rd world after all. We woke the sleeping doctor up, he wiped a little alcohol on my foot, sewed me up and sent me off. Then on Sunday, I went to my cousin’s birthday party at my host grandma’s house where every single person asked me how my foot was, news spreads fast here :)

So all in all, in my first week as a Peace Corps Volunteer I have gotten robbed and been to the emergency room, bring on the next 2 years…

The "workshop in basic skills" class


The Centro Educativa Basico Especial - Castilla

On a side note:

Things I am slightly sick of…

1. Being stared at in the street

2. Being spoken to in broken English

3. Having to respond to broken English in broken Spanish because I speak English too quickly

4. Telling people that I have two older sisters, and North Carolina is a beautiful state with weather similar to Piura at the moment – these are apparently the most important questions to ask when you meet someone new

5. Feeling awkward

Things that entertain me about life in Piura:

1. That I have started to love burgers, and the owner of the burger place knows me by name, and I have drank with him

2. That buying a 12pack (yes they call it that) and drinking it on the street corner is in no way unusual or low class

3. There is nothing you cannot buy in the Mercado, seriously try me – if they sell it in Peru it’s at the market

4. I live in a country that produces coffee but I have to have my parents send me dunkin’ donuts coffee because they export all the good stuff

5. Random neighbors you meet in the street will invite you to visit their house anytime

Visits to Sites (and Cock Fights)

The sign in our hostel from the other PCVs

Park in Downtown Piura

So this is way delayed, and I apologize to anyone who really does read this for the fact that I never update…
Anyway, I got back last Sunday from my first visit to my site, and I was AMAZING. I really love the city of Piura, it’s a big place with a lot going on, but it kind of reminds me of Boston in terms of the size and I feel like I will be able to learn it pretty fast. I do have to take a lot of public transportation to my jobs, which is a terrible thing to have to say in this country because public transportation is not an enjoyable experience. If you are wondering why, scroll up to the last post about FBT and look at the picture of the combi. No bueno…
But, onto more pleasant aspects of my trip. I have 2 socio-comunitarias, aka counterparts, in my site who help me set up projects and work with me over the next two years. I definitely lucked out with mine, they both arrived on time (no small feat around here) and seem really enthusiastic and excited to be working with me. Our second day in our sites, everyone was still in the capital with me, and we all spent the day in the worlds longest conference meeting our counterparts and getting to know each other in the ever exciting structured activity setting. One of my socios, Amparo, is the director of the special ed school where I will be working, and she is a sassy little woman in her late 50s. My other counterpart, Lucilia, is the executive director of an NGO which works to improve different aspects of education. She is such a warm wonderful person. She kept telling me that this experience is more than just the work and I really need to do whatever I can to know Peru and Piura better. The only problem that I am going to have with her is that she speaks Spanish like I speak English. So I basically understand about 24% of what she says to me. The best part is she knows that my Spanish isn’t good, and always reminds people we meet to speak clearly but she just can’t speak slower… I understand this problem though.


My family is adorable! There is nothing Peace Corps about my family situation though. I live with a very well educated retired couple. My father is so cute, and loves to talk, to an excessive degree. But I don’t mind it yet, from what Jah tells me (the volunteer I am replacing in the house) it gets old after a while but I’m thrilled right now. My host mom writes poetry and draws really well, she reminds me a lot of my grandma in the states actually. She is half Italian and speaks English pretty well, yet another thing I did not expect. I went to the going away party of Jah and met other extended family members. They have big family dinners every Sunday which I am looking forward to. By the way, I have wireless internet in my house…peace corps what?
Mi Casa (the top 2 floors are rented out)

I went to visit the special education school where I am going to be working, but of course this being PC Peru, things did not go according to plan. Originally my schedule for the week said that I was going to have to speak in front of everyone at this big ceremony. As it turned out, since there were no kids in school due to the swine flu (yup still on vacation…), the big ceremony turned out to be 8 teachers sitting outside in the courtyard to meet me. However, I much preferred this situation to any situation in which I have to present things in Spanish. I actually thought it was pretty amazing that they all showed up during their vacation just to talk to me, and they really seemed excited to have me there. As soon as I get a chance to meet my kids I can post some pictures of the school. It is not as bad as I expected, but it is pretty shabby in terms of what schools in the states are like. From what I can understand, the school has 41 kids with severe and profound disabilities, ages 5 to about 18. But, I think they only have classes up to third grade, and then it seems like they just lump them altogether for life skills. I am excited to start working with them next week, but I am nervous because I have so little experience with students with severe disabilities. I may be pleading for ideas and materials from all my teacher friends soon :)

Because there were no kids I had the third day free, but being the overachieving PC volunteer that I am, I went to help out one of the volunteers that I am replacing, Jah, finish the mural he his painting. As part of youth development, we all have to paint a world map, and he decided to have the kids paint a whole mural of some of the 7 wonders of the world to go with it. The whole thing is actually pretty cool, and I am looking forward to making my world map. Some people just get the thing up there in a week, paining it mostly themselves, but yall know me, I want to do a whole cultural unit to go with it. The only problem I have right now, is the shanty town where my second job is, is a little lacking in walls to paint on… vamos a ver.

Speaking of my second job, I went to the office of the NGO and met a bunch of the employees, who all seem pretty awesome. One of the workers is a volunteer about my age from Spain. There are a TON of international volunteers in Piura. Jah introduced me to a few of his friends from Spain, Germany and France who all live near my neighborhood. I think I am going to have the chance to meet some interesting people from all over the world here, that I did not expect. Anyway, Lucilia took me out to one of the afterschool programs where I will be spending most of my time in La Molina. The difference between where I am living in Piura and a 20 minutes combi ride out to the shanty town is hard to actually believe. I am really upset I didn’t have my camera, but Lucilia had terrified me so much with threats that I would be sure to get robbed out there that I did not want to risk losing it. The theme of the program is Art for All, the idea of me working there is hilarious if you have ever seen me try and draw, but I think I will be able to do a lot of intereting things with the kids. It’s a really interesting group of kids, ages ranging from 4 to about 15. Some of them ran right up to me and asked questions and others were still terrified after 2 hours with me. I do love being around kids though, they don’t judge your Spanish grammar.

Friday night in my site I actually had a chance to meet the US ambassador to Peru who had agreed to meet with all the Piura volunteers. He’s actually a really interesting man, and he decided to hold the meeting in the hotel bar rather than the conference room and bought us several rounds of beer. Not what I expected from the night. Friday I went out into Piura with a bunch of current PCVs and people from Peru 9 who are about to end their service…It is going to be an interesting 2 years living in the city that’s all I have to say about that night ;)

My final day in site, Lucilia decided to take me out to see Catacaos, which is a smaller town about 20 minutes from my site. It’s a huge artesian location with tons of street vendors that sell jewelry, bags, pottery, straw hats, etc. She was born there and wanted me to have a chance to see a little more of the cuture of Piura. Despite the fact that I still do not understand the women, I had the most amazing day. She is just such a fun person to be around. I love that she took an entire Saturday just to sightsee with me, how many bosses in the states would really do that?? It is a beautiful little town, and any time people come to visit we are definitely going there.

To jump back in time a little, because I am the worst updater ever, a few weeks ago I attended my first cock fight in Peru, which are perfectly legal here. The dad of one of the other volunteers raises these lovely fighting chickens so a bunch of us went out to see the fight. That night officially goes down as one of the top 5 most ridiculous nights of training. At first we walked in and the PC girls were the only females in the whole place, shocking I know. The first few rounds were actually relatively dull, and none of the chickens died within 10 minutes so the whole thing is just a draw. After a while most people left, but the volunteer’s dad had not gone yet so I stayed with 2 of the guys in our group. Somehow we all ended up in a Peruvian drinking circle, which goes something like this:

1. Get a 650mL bottle of beer
2. Get 1 cup
3. Form a circle
4. Fill the cup with beer
5. Down it
6. Pass the cup and beer to the next person in the circle
7. Continue until beer is gone
8. Buy another beer
9. Repeat steps 1 to 8
10. Spread diseases (well that’s not really a step, but it seems like a pretty obvious result)

If you are a girl, these are pretty easy to avoid, and they generally should be, but if you are a guy there is no way to get out of them, you just have to learn to sneakily not drink much. Anyway, eventually Justin’s dad went and both of his chickens won, meaning they killed the other one. One actually did it in under a minute, so his dad won 400 soles. That was not something I ever expected to do in my life, but there you are…and don’t get all animals rights on me – there are bigger issues in the world than fighting chickens