Sooo...
2 weeks ago were site vists. I actually saw my site during FBT, so it was great to have some reference going into the town. I received a wonderful welcome from everyone I met and I´m excited to start woking in Bernales. A lot of the work will be as a result of the earthquake that hit the area in 2007 - a lot of higiene work most likely. The Red Cross is also working in my town, so I´m hoping to partner with them as well. Eventually I would love to do a bathroom/letrine project (most likely composting toliets) since the majority of the people just go out to the fields to do what they gotta do. But, like everything we do, we have to spend a lot of time getting to know the community and the people and find out what their wants and needs are first.
I´m excited and also very nervous to go to site. I´ve gotten very used to my little life and routine here in Yanacoto. My new house and family are great, but different of course. My new family seems a little shy around me, but that´s to be suspected. Things I am excited about are:
- we have dairy cows so I get fresh milk every morning
- our pigs just gave birth so there are adorable piglets running around
- there is a 2 month old baby in the family. Normally I would not be excited about this, but so far I haven´t heard him cry, so he´s just adorable and fun to bounce around
This past week was great. We went to the PC office in Lima to get to know that staff and resources there. They served us chinese food for lunch and pizza and apple pie for dessert and we had a dance lesson, so all of that was awesome. This next week will consist of a lot of wrap up, packing, saying goodbye :(, swearing in and then one last night all together in Lima. After that, we all take off for our sites on Saturday. The next time all the volunteers will be together will be in March for ¨Reconnect.¨ Again, it´s so crazy to think that I´ll be living and working in a small rural town in Peru, speaking only Spanish, but it´s exciting to think about the projects I might do and the people I will get to know and work with. I´m also excited about the skills I might learn. Aside from all the professional mumbo jumbo, I´m joining a crochet group, I want to bug the local baker to let me help him, and I would love to find and join an Afro-Peruvian dance class (my region is know for this, it´s not just random)...so we´ll see. My plan so far is just to keep myself busy so that I don´t get bored and lonely.
Anyway, I hope everyone is well at home. I´m missing you all very much right now - Thanksgiving is always hard to miss for me. Eat lots of turkey, Grandma H´s cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie for me. Chau!
Unfortunately emails and facebook have taken up so much of my time today, so this will be a short post, but...I received my site assignment! I will be going to Bernales which is in the region of Ica!!! We actually visited this site during FBT and they told us that is would be someone´s site, be we had no idea whose it woudl be. I´m so excited! I´m a little jealous of the volunteers who have beautiful green sites near the mountains since I´m in the desert, but oh well. I can go sandboarding and go see the Nazca Lines which will both be awesome.
In a few hours I leave for site visits. We go to the regional capital today and hang out and then meet our counterparts and families tomorrow! I´m excited but also very nervous/anxious. I realized that unlike study abroad and training, there are acutally going to be expectations of me and I will have to perfrom and ya know, try to get something accomplished. While rationale tells me that everything will work out just fine and I´ll do great, nerves tell me things will be awkward for a while (and they undoubtedly will be). As always, starting something new is uncomfortable and there´s always an adjustment period, so once I get through that, everything will be fine I´m sure. In hopes of trying to deter some awkwardness this week, I wrote out about a million questions to ask my counterparts (who are a doctor and the mayor of my town). They were a little excessive - I started writing some questions about whether or not teens learn sex education and STIs - not exactly appriopriate for the first meeting I don´t think, not to mention I´m not a health volunteer (I just like to go on tangents).
Anyway, I have to put the last few things in my backpack and head out. Hope everyone is well in the US. I think about you all constantly! Chau!
Hi everyone. Sorry I´ve haven´t written in a while...the one post a week isn´t really happening and I kinda doubt it ever will. Anyway, so much has happened since my lat post, so I´ll try to summarize it all in a short post. I´m going to start with the most recent (since it´s the freshest in my mind)...
This past week was FBT (Field Based Training...Peace Corps is a little crazy with all the acronyms). My WATSAN (Water and Sanitation) group went to Paracas in the province of Ica, which is just south of Lima - about a 3 hour bus ride. The week was really wonderful except for Friday when about 75% of the group got food poisioning and could barely move except to go to the bathroom to give it a workout of a lifetime. Aside from that, the week was great experience in working with NGOs, doing manual labor, and talking with families door to door. I definitely feel more prepared to go to site now! I´m already so exci
ted to get to work to promote some of the things we´ve been learning during the past few months of training.
As mostly of you know, last Sunday was my birthday - thank you for all of the birthday wishes! One of my fellow aspirantes gave me a bouquet of flowers on Friday whish was awesome and totally unexpected. I woke up Sunday morning to ¨Feliz Cumpleaños¨ hugs and kisses from my host family. Soon after my extended host family came over to celebrate. I´ll tell you what, there´s nothing like delicious chocolate cake at 9am...I loved it! After that I packed to get ready for FBT. My WATSAN group wished me a Happy Birthday and we all ate dinner together in Paracas, they sang to me and I got to try my first pisco sour (Paracas is about 
half an hour away from Pisco, so you pretty much have to drink pisco sours). All in all it was a great birthday!
Last we we had 2 days of feria (not sure what the translation is) which was each language group being assigend a Peruvian province and doing a presentation on it in Spanish. My class got Arequipa which is a beautiful province in southern Peru (Arequipa is also the second largest city in the country). My group decided to present in the form of a TV news program. I was the announcer and the others were reporters. It went very well, but the best/most embarrassing part was dressing up in traditional ariquipeño clothing and doing a dance with a classmate for the entertainment of the other aspirantes and training staff. I felt ridiculous, but people seemed to enjoy it and the clothing was amazing.
I´m sure I´m leaving out some other things that have happened or that I´ve done, but those are all the highlights I can think of for the moment. In general, things are going very well. I am getting homesick which I´m pretty sure is because of the upcoming holidays, but I know I´ll be fine and get through it. I hope all is well in the US. I miss you all and am thinking of you all at home. Chau!
