A Wrap-Up on the Past Two Weeks

Looking back at my other postings, I just realized that I´ve been so busy and caught up in writing about my cooking disaster and food, that I´ve barely told you anything about training so here goes.

Training is very exciting, scary, overwhelming, and busy all at the same time. Based on how I feel at training, I can definitely see how these next two years are going to be a roller coaster of emotions. I often wonder while I´m sitting in training, how the heck I´ve managed to get into this. Sometimes when they talk about teaching values, self-esteem, leadership, etc. to youth I wonder if I even know how to teach those things. Luckily though, our youth development training is very helpful and each time, I feel more and more confident that I will actually be able to do this, it will just take some time. I must admit that I´m really glad to be in youth development rather than small business because when we have tech training, we learn new ice breakers and do lots of fun activities that we´ll be able to take to our sites with us, whereas, the business people hear a lot of lectures (I heard they were talking about supply and demand the other day - boring!). On Saturday we got a book full of games and activities we can do that relate to the main themes we´ll be promoting. The book is probably over 200 pages long and judging by the 4 activities we did from it on Saturday morning, I think it´s going to be my bible over the next two years. One of the things I just realized recently that I think is really important for me to keep in mind is that it´s okay if I haven´t created a project in the first 3 or even 6 months at my site. I´ve been so worried about how I´m ever going to think of a project or figure out what my community needs right away, but we´ve been talking a lot recently about how important it is and how long it takes to really get to know your community before you settle on a project. You don´t want the project to be some idea you came in with that the community doesn´t even identify as a need because then you´re not really being an effective volunteer. Our job is to fully integrate into the community and develop a project based on what they identify as their needs. I was talking to a friend the other day who is doing the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and she reminded me that 2/3 of our time in our communities is just spent getting to know the people, spending time with them, learning about their culture, and sharing with them things about yours. We can often teach people a lot just through our lifestyles alone and maybe that´s the best way to break into the community. A current volunteer reiterated the same thing when she said, watching you pick up trash and not just throw it on the street will probably have a bigger impact on the people in your community than a workshop about not throwing your trash on the street.

Anyway, enough on that tangent, back to training. Our days are spread out between Spanish class (sometimes at the center, sometimes in our homes), technical (youth development) training, learning tools for community analysis/development, presentations by the country director or other PC staff (such as the doctor about diarrhea...), focus groups, and group projects (outside of training). Our days are jam packed, but the information is very informative and they try to break things up so we´re not sitting in one classroom all day (although the other day we had Spanish class for 6 hours!!). I get up every morning around 5:30 to exercise and then walk with my friends at 6:15. Sidenote: Naomi loves to watch me do my exercises and asks me every night if I can wake her up the morning to do my exercises with me. I alway say no though because I think she needs her sleep. The other afternoon I was doing Yoga in my room after class to help me relax before I had to start homework and she knocked on my door to see what I was doing. She asked me if she could watch me do Yoga and of course I said yes. So the next day, we did it together and I´m going to try to keep doing it with her so she feels included. I come home to shower quickly, get ready for class, and eat breakfast. My host grandma cooks all of the meals for our family. She even cooks breakfast for her son (who is 10 years older than my host mom) who lives in another town with his wife and son, but comes to our house every morning to eat breakfast before work. I leave to walk to school around 7:45 with Brad, Joy, and Lindsay (who all live on my street) and then we have training from 8 am until 5 pm. We get from 12-1 off for lunch. If we´re at the center that day, our host families bring our lunch to us at school, but if we´re at home having Spanish class or doing a community activity, we eat lunch at home with our families. When I eat at home it´s only with my abuelita because my host mom, brother, and sister are all at school and they don´t eat "lunch" until they get home around 3 or 4 pm! I have no idea how they don´t die before then because I´m usually starving by 11 am and it takes all I have to make it until 12. That´s why our dinners are much smaller though because they aren´t hungry for a full meal by 7 or 8 pm.

After our long days of training, we´re all exhausted, but the day has only just begun because then we have to go home and speak in Spanish with our host families and do our homework. My host sister, Naomi (8 years old), is so cute and follows me around everywhere. She always wants to know what kind of homework I´m doing and wants to know if she can help me with it. I tell her no, but we usually do our homework together (and sometimes with her brother, Fernando (9 years old) too) so I can practice my Spanish and spend time hanging out with them. I never thought I´d love having kids that age around me so much, but they are really helpful with my Spanish. They are very patient with me and correct me when I´m wrong. They also like to teach me things. The other night Naomi got out this huge dictionary because she was trying to explain something to me and I couldn´t figure it out. The word wasn´t in the Spanish-English dictionary so she got the encyclopedia/dictionary thing. She got distracted while she was looking up the first word because she saw the swear word for "poop" and thought it was so funny and kept wanting to show me. Haha. I must say that even if I´ve had a bad day at school, usually by the time I get home and start spending time with the kids, they make me feel better (they act like I´m a celebrity)! After we do homework, we all sit down to dinner together, which even though it´s small, usually takes 1-1.5 hours because we eat and then have a cup of tea. It´s really nice though because I get to practice my Spanish (mostly listening skills, but I try to say something once and a while) and it´s a great way to unwind for the day. My family is so supportive and understanding. They are really amazing - I lucked out with them!

I´ll try to summarize some of the stuff that has happened in the past few weeks in bullet points before I get too carried away here. Feel free to just skim over them because I know it´s a lot, but this blog is also for me to journal so I want to be sure to write about all of it.

• I placed in the intermediate high level for Spanish. I was glad that I didn´t place in advanced because those people are a lot better than me and I feel like I could really use the practice of a smaller, more intimate class setting (only 4 students in my class). Our teacher told us we´re at the level where people usually plateau so I might not advance to the next level by the end of training, even though my Spanish might be better. If I´m lucky, I´ll make it to advanced low (that´s my goal).
• We had preliminary interviews with our program (youth development) director about what types of things we´d like to have in our sites (bathroom, electricity, internet, location, near other volunteers, etc.). It was good, but they obviously can´t make any promises (especially because I think more is placed on matching your skill set with a site rather than the amenities you´d like).
• I had a mental breakdown in my Spanish class because I was feeling so overwhelmed by everything. I thought I was fine until they asked me to talk about something and I just lost it. Luckily my 3 fellow classmates and my teacher were incredibly supportive. I talked to the training director (who is the nicest woman in the world) and I felt much better afterwards.
• The staff they have here is really incredible. They are so eager to help us in any regard and they all make it clear that more than our teachers/authority figures, they are our friends and really just want to help us in any way they can.
• Thursday, June 29 was a national holiday (for San Pedro and San Pablo) so instead of having class, we had a project to do in Chosica, the neighboring town (bigger than where we live). My partner and I were going to meet down there at 11 am, but when I was eating breakfast, my host mom said we were going down at 8 for Naomi´s parade. I was really confused because it was 7:50 and everyone was still in their pjs. We finally left around 8:30 and once we got down there, my host mom left me with Naomi to go home for some reason, but she said she was coming back. Turns out she was getting their dog to walk in the parade with them. The parade was for Naomi´s whole school (private, girls catholic school) and each grade dressed in the traditional clothing of one of the departments in Peru. It was really neat. I was also in the parade because it turns out the parents walk with the kids too! After the parade, each grade did a 10 minute dance followed by a volleyball tournament among the parents. We also had this dish called "pachamanca" which is a traditional national plate. It was really fun, but I was exhausted from being in the sun all day and left a little earlier than my host mom and Naomi.
• The project I had to do in town that day was visit a Catholic Church and talk to the priest about how many people attend the services, how often they have services, what kind of social services they offer, etc. We also just had to talk to some local people in the streets about the education system in the community. It was really interesting, but I wish we had spent more time on it. My partner´s sister goes to the same school as my host sister so she had been at the parade and festivities also. Her host mom is really protective of her and seemed to want us to complete the project quickly. She even came to the church with us and waited for us to finish and then seemed really hesitant to leave us alone so we could go talk to people about education. It was a good start, but I think I could have benefited a lot more if we had spent more time down there.
• I´ve been having some really great talks with my host mom over dinner and through my homework. The other night we spent a long time talking about her childhood. She is an amazing woman and seems to be a lot more liberal than many of the people I´ve met here. She was very poor when she was little and her father wasn´t very present in her life. She told her mom from the time she was 8 years old, that she´d get a great job someday so she could support herself and buy her own house. She had no desire to get married after watching the way her father treated her mom. She did end up getting married, but she also teaches knitting at a local school and works really hard. She told me at the beginning of their marriage, she paid all the bills while her husband looked for a job. She now owns her own house that her brother built for them and is raising her family here, with the help of her mom, while her husband is working in Spain. And she still has time to help the kids with their homework and take in a gringa. She´s awesome.
• We have a meeting every Friday afternoon at training to make announcements and reflect back on the week. Last week, one of the guys said that he wanted to thank everyone in the group because he doesn´t think he´s ever felt so comfortable so fast in a group as large as ours. He said he really appreciates that we´re all really genuine and open people. It was a great way to end the week.
• We learned how to create our own gardens so we can grow vegetables for ourselves at our sites since we might not be getting a lot of them. I have no idea how to garden and haven´t really done any besides the few times I´ve helped my Dad and Uncle Bruce in theirs, but the workshop really got me excited about it and I definitely want to do it. They gave us little plots of land to practice while we´re in training and use them as resources. We even learned how to make a compost pile and which vegetables are/are not compatible to grow next to one another. So cool.
• A group of 7 girls got together last week to cook an amazing dinner at Hana´s and speak english, laugh, vent, and relax. I think I wrote about it before so I won´t elaborate, but it was really fun. Afterwards we went out to two different clubs in Chosica with a couple of Peruvians (host siblings) and some other people from our group. The clubs were surprisingly really nice. I thought they´d be gross and dingy, but they weren´t at all.
• I pooed at Hana´s house and it wouldn´t flush. I´m spoiled at my house because I have a toilet seat and the water is always on so the toilet always flushes, but neither are the case at Hana´s house. Usually she just fills a bucket of water and fills up the back of the toilet and it will flush. Of course we did that 3 times before I left and it still wouldn´t work. I had to leave so I wouldn´t be home late, but I felt horrible. Hana came over 5 hours later to report it was still sitting in the toilet. Great....her family must love me....
• I already wrote about our DISASTROUS dinner. We don´t need to repeat that story again.
• We had youth development training in the park the other day. It was fun, but I started to get really overwhelmed that I´m really not qualified for this and how in the heck am I going to be able to just walk into a community and set up this meaningful program. Lindsay and Hana helped calm me down. It´s all part of the rollercoaster we´re on. As we say here, "poco a poco" (little by little).
• We had an AWESOME 4th of July celebration - probably one of the best ones I´ve ever had and we´re in Peru. We broke into 5 or so teams and then played all of these different games all morning. Our team was called "Pared de Papas" (Wall of Potatoes) and we should have won the whole thing, but they kept robbing us of our points. Oh well, it was a lot of fun and a great way to bond with some people I hadn´t spent much time with before. After the games, we had a huge picnic with hot dogs, guacamole, veggie burgers, and lots of great desserts. One girl made 4 different pies, and other people made chocolate chip cookies, brownies, and rice crispy treats. It was a delicious event. We wolfed down the food! YUM!! Later that afternoon, we went to two different friends´ houses to watch part of the World Cup games (the first I´ve seen in Perú), but didn´t stay until the end because we were exhausted from being out in the hot sun all day (it´s really strong here) and went home to take naps instead. That evening I got to go to Lindsay´s house to have a piece of this DELICIOUS tres leches cake (as if I hadn´t already had enough sweets that day) she had made for her host sister and her son´s birthdays. They also served us this delicious cocktail (made with guava, milk, cinnamon, sugar, and pisco) so we were excited.
• July 6th is a national holiday here called "Día del Maestro" (Teacher´s Day) so none of the schools are open and they have events all day long (actually all week) to celebrate teachers and all of their hard work and dedication to education. What a great holiday! I think it´s particularly interesting here where the education system is really bad. Anyway, my host mom invited me to this event at night with her, but after sitting around for 2 hours waiting for it to start and then listening to them recognize about 75 retiring teachers (one at a time) and hearing the mayor talk for at least 20 minutes, the electricity went out in the entire stadium. We sat there waiting for about 15 minutes, but there wasn´t any sign of progress being made. My stomach hurt and I was freezing (since they don´t have any heat inside their houses or public places) so I asked my host mom if it would be okay if I left to take my host sister home because she had fallen asleep on my lap about 30 minutes before the electricity came out. My host mom came home about 45 minutes after us and said they still hadn´t turned the lights back on!
• We had to do a community project the other day to ask people in the town various things about their community. My part of it was to find out about people´s daily schedule. I wasn´t having much luck with the first few people I talked to, but then I met this man, Ricardo, who is a high school math teacher and happened to be outside his house when I was walking by and started to talk to him. It turns out he has 5 daughters and does most of the cooking and cleaning in the house. He also has tons of side jobs and built his own house. He was so nice and wanted to share so much information with me. He even invited me into his house and told me I have to come back so he can show me his photo albums of his wedding, the construction of his house, and of all of his daughters! It gave me a lot of confidence that I can actually do this and things will work out for me. I definitely want to follow through and go back to his house!
• On Friday we broke into 3 smaller focus groups which will meet once a week or so to discuss various topics. Our first one was on world views and it was really interesting. We have a good group and I really like our facilitator so I´m looking forward to more of those.
• A few friends and I made a big dinner of spinach and cheese omlets and french toast on Friday night after a long week of training and it was delicious. We were so happy to be eating a meal without white rice and potatoes!
• Saturday morning we had a very informative training session about activities we can do with the youth we´ll be working with at our sites. We also received a handbook full of activities that I´m sure will serve as my bible over the next 2 years.
• And if you read the posting about the food here, you know what happened next....I got really sick and was confined to my house all weekend (running between my bed and the bathroom). The two good things about that were it allowed me to catch up on some much needed rest, and fill all of you in on my life. Maybe you don´t look at that as such a good thing though and you´ve probably spent 10 hours reading this entry. I promise I´ll try to start posting more regularly so they´re not all this crazy!

For those of you who made it to the end, congratulations! I wish I could say there is a prize waiting here for you, but I don´t think my Peace Corps stipend covers that. I miss you all and THANK YOU so much to those of you who have sent me mail! It was definitely a highlight of the week last week so keep the letters coming!