A Taste of Life as a Volunteer

So two weeks ago (Monday, August 7th) we left to go on a 10-day trip up north for Field Based Training (FBT) and our site visits. The small business volunteers did their FBT in two different departments of Peru, but the youth development group all traveled together. During FBT we visited current volunteers to get a better feel for what life is really like as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Our first stop was in a city called Chiclayo in the department of Lambayeque (sp?). It's on the coast and very much has the feel of a beach town. Although more than 500,000 people live there, it didn't feel like a big city. The people there were really warm and friendly. While in Chiclayo, we listened to a panel of 4 current volunteers about some projects they've done in their sites with youth. It was really interesting and gave me a lot of good ideas. Had we not listened to their experiences, I would have thought I could never do the things they described (radio programs, candle making and other crafts, selling friendship bracelets, summer art programs, etc.), but I realized it doesn't matter if I know how to do those things, I can learn with the people and we can do it together. It was really exciting for me to figure this out because before I was getting really worried that I didn't have any "skills" to bring to the table and kept thinking, what in the heck am I going to do with these people? I felt really relieved after our panels and realized I really can do this. (Sorry that was pretty cheesy, but I need to keep telling myself that....)

During our stay in Chiclayo, we split into two groups and went on an overnight trip to two different communities about an hour outside of the city to shadow a volunteer and do a few hands on projects with them. I happened to go to a girl's site who lived with my same host family last year when she was in training. I was so excited to finally meet here because she is practically a celebrity in this household. I'm pretty sure not a day goes by without me hearing a story about her (I'm pretty sure I could tell them all by now) so it was nice to be able to put a face to all of these stories. I sure hope they talk about me as much as they talk about her!! Hopefully they'll remember me for other things other than breaking the family heirloom - just kidding. It was nice to be at her site because she's been living there for almost a year so has really integrated into the community. We got to visit the Centro de Salud where she works and attend one of her youth group meetings. Visiting the health center was a big shock because I didn't realize how much we take for granted how sterile our hospitals are. I'm sure it wasn't as bad as we thought it was, but I was pretty shocked to see pee samples in empty glass coke bottles.

The youth group meeting was fun because we don't get to work with kids very much in training - we usually just practice our stuff on each other. It's so much more valuable to actually work with kids and put all of our training into action. The kids are really shy, but took a lot of interest in us and were so cute (around the ages of 12-18). We played lots of games with them and then did a project of painting our feelings. Children here are rarely given the opportunity to be creative. In the schools, they are taught by rote memorization so are used to just copying whatever they are told to write down. We talked about different colors and what feelings we associate with certain colors. The task was really open and we purposely showed them very abstract examples so they couldn't copy what we did (we did it the day before in our panel). Of course about 80% of the kids did the same thing (painting stripes of the same colors in the same order on their sheet), but they still had fun and got to see all of the different things that can come out of it because we each did one too. It was really interesting to watch the process. They're all so shy, but the volunteers told us that poco a poco you get to see them change and it's so rewarding. Watching the volunteers with the kids and seeing what great relationships they had made with them made me really excited to get to my site and start building the same relationships.

Before leaving Chongoyape (the town we were visiting), we did charlas at a private school. My group was in the 5th grade of high school so the kids we worked with were about to graduate. We did this exercise called "An interview with myself in 10 years" to help the kids understand the importance of having goals for the future. It went incredibly well. The kids behaved really well and participated without copying each other's answers. There was one girl in our group who was so cute and really into the project. She wanted to move to Lima and work as an arcqueologist (sp?)! I was so proud of her for having such an ambitious goal because all the other kids just wanted to stay in the area or move to Chiclayo. They reminded us afterwards that it was a private school so we were working with kids whose parents put a lot of emphasis in education and their futures. It would have been really interesting to then go and do it in a public school and see how different the answers are between the two groups.

From Chiclayo we traveled to Piura (the capital city of the department of Piura). Piura is further north than Chiclayo and a much bigger city. It's going to be Hana's capital city for the next two years so we were scoping out all of the good eateries for her! We met up with 4 more volunteers in Piura for another panel. These volunteers are called "center-based volunteers" which means they are assigned to work with a center (like a home for street kids, a police station, or a ymca-type thing). On the other hand, I'm called a "community-based volunteer" because my work is a little more flexible as I don't have a specific organization I have to work with (we're still assigned to the Centro de Salud though to have a mentor in the community). The panel didn't seem that informative because it was very repetitive of what we had heard from the other volunteers in Chiclayo. I also won't be living in a big city or working at a center so it didn't seem as beneficial to me.

While in Piura, I visited two different centers with volunteers. The first one was a YMCA-type place that has an after school program for children from poor families. Their parents have to pay for the program, but it's really cheap and they get fed a big meal so their parents like to send them there. The volunteer we were visiting has done a lot of things to help those children. She's worked primarily with the adolescents in issues like self-esteem, values, HIV/AIDS, etc. We spent the whole day hanging out at her center to see what types of projects she has done and play with the kids. In the afternoon we did a charla on the physical, emotional, and financial costs of drinking alcohol. The kids were really well behaved and it was obvious how much work the volunteer had done with them. It was really interesting to be there, but I definitely am glad I won't be working in a center. I did get a lot of great ideas from the volunteer though that I might be able to use in my site as well.

The next day we worked at a police station where another volunteer is placed. The police station has a school there and he works with the children at the school, but on Saturday mornings there are over 100 kids that just come to play and eat lunch and then go home after they eat. We were there to help him with that. Good lord was that hard work. First of all it was so hot outside (mind you this is the coldest month of the year here - I would probably die if I lived in Piura) and then the kids were running around like maniacs. He said it's usually more crowd control than anything on those mornings. We broke the kids and ourselves into groups and had 6 stations of games for the kids to rotate between. Even though we were supposed to do the same game every round, we ended up changing our game every time because for one reason or another, they just weren't working. It was pretty funny, but we started to get frustrated because it was so hot and it was so hard to get the kids to cooperate. We were also in the same room they were cooking the lunch so that was making it even hotter. We were only supposed to do that for about an hour, but then the police came and filled the huge courtyard where we had set up soccer and volleyball nets. The police were doing all of these formations and stuff so we couldn't play there. The volunteer said this never happens, but of course it happened that day. We were lucky in that there was a room where we could escape to the shade for a minute and collect our thoughts away from the kids, but the poor kids were stuck out in the hot sun without any water! I felt really bad for them. They all kept running into the bathroom and sticking their heads under the sick to cool down a bit. When it was finally time for lunch, they all had to stand in a long line to wait to enter the little cafeteria thing to eat. Unfortunately it can only fit so many kids so they have to eat in rounds (this was true the day before also). Some of the kids had to wait 45 minutes longer than the others because they had to wait for the first kids to finish eating before they could go in. Peruvians eat a lot slower than we do so that's a long wait. I felt so bad for the kids because it was so hot and even I was getting cranky from not eating so I can't imagine how they felt. I've noticed though that Peruvians don't seem to be aware of this in general (that's obviously a huge stereotype). The day Hana and I went to Lima with my host mom and siblings and didn't eat lunch until almost 3 pm, we were starving and so cranky, but it doesn't seem to phase them at all. I don't get it - I'm always hungry and wanting a snack! I hate to say this, or even think about it, but perhaps some of them are used to such hunger pangs and don't let it bother them. You can tell a lot of children here are malnourished just by looking at them. One of the girls I was playing with I was sure was no more than 8 years old, but she told me she was actually 12. It's really sad because you wish there was something you could do for them. They have the sweetest hearts.

The police station was interesting in that it also was nothing how we picture a police station in the states. None of the bathrooms were very clean and it just didn't seem to have the strict reglas and protocol (for lack of a better word - my English is escaping me already) that we do in the States. We saw a bunch of people in handcuffs being driven into the main courtyard (yes the one full of young kids) and dropped off, perhaps to go into some sort of jail they had there. We were all pretty shocked by this, but the kids just kept saying, "oh he's a drunk or he's a drug dealer". Pretty sad.

On a side note, one of the girls called me a "Chinita" (little chinese girl) because I took off my sunglasses to show her my eye color and I was squinting a lot from the sun. I told her I wasn't Chinese, but she kept insisting I was. It's a term of endearment here so I figured it was best to just let it go. Another term of endearment here is "gorda" or "gordita" (fat one). I'd be much more offended if she called me gordita even if she meant it in a nice way. That's one thing that will take a little more time to get used to. Another girl kept commenting how "gringa" I am and asked me "is your whole body really gringa like that?" I wasn't quite sure what that meant, but I said yes anyway.

All in all Piura was a fun city. The best part was probably that we had HOT showers and cable TV at our hostal - with HBO, MTV, WB, and other channels in English. I'm not going to lie, that was pretty incredible for us. We felt really spoiled. Also, we found some amazing eateries that must cater to gringos like us. We found burritos, a great breakfast place with the biggest fruit salads and delicious egg sandwiches, huge and fresh salads, mouth watering brownies, cakes, and pies, and an awesome ice cream place that let us try about 25 flavors before we chose one! Can you tell I'm missing some of the food from home?

One of the nights we were in town, Hana, Lindsay, and I went with our friends Josh and Cheridyn to get ice cream and then here live music at some bar in a nice hotel in the Plaza de Armas. The band was a little Peruvian group that played a lot of traditional music. They even asked Josh to get up and dance a song with them and later Lindsay did too because she was dying to dance with them. The bar looked like it came right out of some European country and was really expensive, but it was really fun anyway (besides for the cover charge they made us pay).

After our long day at the police station, we had a panel by the current volunteers on some of their projects and ideas for us and then we had an hour to relax before we left for our site visits. We each visited our own individual future sites, but those of us who are going to be in Cajamarca all traveled together to the department capital. We left Piura at 6 pm and didn't arrive in Cajamarca city until 4 am. The bus we took from 10 pm to 4 am didn't have a bathroom and I was feeling really sick. I wasn't sure if I was going to have diarrhea or throw up, but I felt horrible. It was a rough ride, but luckily I hung in there and didn't get sick. We bought the economy tickets so our seats only reclined slightly (like on an airplane) so you can imagine I didn't get the best sleep that night.

I'll save the rest of my stories for the next entry. I have lots to say about my site visit so it'll be another long one.....what a surprise, right?