Two Weeks Down....LOTS to go!!

So I survived two weeks in my site and as a reward to myself I decided to make the trek down to Cajamarca city and have a gringo filled weekend! Haha...just kidding....we really had a meeting here so it was the perfect excuse to get away, eat some good food, speak English, have hot showers, and visit Lindsay! Is it bad that the weekends spent with all my fellow volunteers are always my best weekends here? I guess I haven't really given my site a chance yet on the weekends since I've been gone for the past two, but now that I'm back, I'm going to do something crazy and try to stay in my site until Oct. 21st when we have a going away party for the Peru 4 volunteers who are about to leave. That's 5 whole weeks! I hope I can survive. I figure though that after that things are going to start getting really busy with our leadership camp in early November, a possible visit from Hana (woo hoo), and a Peru 7 reunion over Thanksgiving break! And then it'll be less than month until I leave to go home and visit for Christmas (definitely my motivation to get through every day)! Wow so much excitement to look forward to. I owe it to my site to give them the next 5 weeks of my undivided attention since I'm such a star here. Haha. The doctor at the health center always calls me the "reina" (queen) of the health center - haha.

I must admit that I've been remarkably busy at my site. Rita is fabulous and invites me to tag along on all of her outtings and introduces me to tons of people in the community. The other day I told her I wanted to start observing classes in the school because I think it will help me get to know a lot of the adolescents whom I'll be working with. The next morning she took me to the school and we met with the director who agreed to let me observe classes. That day I only got to "observe" one class, and by observing I mean the teacher presented me to the class, we each talked about my work here for about 2 minutes, and then the kids left to have a lab and I went back to the director's office who told me to wait until next week to observe more classes. Rita was annoyed that he didn't let me go into other classes so that night she took me to her friend's house who is also a teacher at the school. The teacher, Maria, was very nice and really excited about the work I'm going to do at the school. She says the kids desperately need some help in terms of self-esteem and values and offered to let me observe her class anytime. She and her daughter also just about begged me to live with them. Rita told them I can change houses after 3 months so after we visited with them for an hour and a half, they said, "see you in 3 months when you move in"! It was cute, but a little overwhelming since I don't even know them. I am really starting to enjoy my family and think I would like to stay there for the whole time if it weren't for the fact that I took my host mom's room. I just found out that her sister is also moving in with us. She used to live in Cajamarca and run an internet cafe, but they're moving it from the city into our house and the sister is going to live there to run it! I guess that's good for me that we'll have internet, but it's also one more person in the house. She seems really sweet though and she'll be around much more than my host mom is. I'm looking forward to getting to know her because I think we'll be good friends.

Last week I also had the opportunity to talk on a radio show! On Tuesday night I met with these two guys who are the leaders of a youth group in the area. They invited me to the radio station on Wednesday night to see how they do their weekly radio show. I didn't really want to go because it had been a long day, but I said I would be there so I thought I better. I took my 12 year old host brother with me to use an excuse to go home. (Sidenote: I think he might have a crush on me because he went to his room to change his clothes right before we left and came downstairs wearing cologne!) Anyway, before I knew it they were calling me into the room and interviewing me on air! I was completely taken off guard and sounded like a complete fool, but what are you going to do? Welcome to the Peace Corps. I guess it was good practice though for the next day when I was put on the spot two more times to speak at two different community meetings we attended! I've realized this is something I better get used to so I need to start rehearsing a little speech at home so I don't sound like such an idiot. Rita told me that she met someone the other day who was asking her when the gringa who spoke on the radio was going to visit their town. Haha.

Going out into the community with Rita has been so much fun. It's incredible to see the different areas around Bambamarca because they are all so different. We went to two different sites in the campo and they were very distinct from one another. One was very green and lush while the other had much more straw and wheat growing so it looked very different. It's really fun to go out into the community because it feels like an entirely different world even though we're only an hour or so from the bustling metropolis of Bambamarca. On the first outing to Alan, I had such a "Peace Corps" moment as I was sitting there in a plastic kids lawn chair listening to the doctor speak about getting people to sign up for health insurance, looking out at the community members sitting there in their traditional attire on the playground at the school with the incredible mountains as the backdrop. I kept thinking, "Is this for real? Is this really my life right now?" How lucky am I?

The next outing we took was to visit the house of one of the health promoters in the area. Each community that pertains to our health center has elected a health promoter to help their fellow community members in simple health issues when they can't come into the center. The promotors are trained by health center staff to assist these people and also teach them about issues such as higene (both personally and in their houses). Maybe people in the campo live in a house where chickens, guinea pigs, and what have you are running around the living room/bedrooms/kitchens. Many of them also cook over leña (firewood) right on the floor and keep all of their dishes on the floor. Handwashing is not a well practiced habit here so combine that with the other factors, and many people get sick. It's really sad because it's not laziness, it's just their lack of education. Many of them don't know how to live any other way. This is where the health center has come in with their program of health promoters to help change this reality. Rita and I have talked a lot about this program and the success they've had in helping people improve their living conditions. She told me it's a joint program with PRODIA (an NGO here from Spain) who plays a major role in teaching these people how to improve their houses. PRODIA doesn't give the people money to fix their houses because then it's not sustainable. However, they give them the knowledge and tell them that if they make all of these improvements, then they will pay for solar panels or something else to help them out. It's really an incredible program. Rita told me that when they first started the program, they had to drag people to the community meetings, but now the people ask the health center to come because they see the changes that are possible and want it for themselves.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit one of these houses and I couldn't believe what I saw. It was so clean and organized - really impressive! Each of the kids had their own room (sectioned off, but much better than the traditional everyone living in the same room) with their clothes organized and hanging on hooks. They also had different values pasted all over the walls so the kids could learn. The latrine had toilet paper in it (the bathroom in my house doesn't even have this) and a cover to go over the hole so the smell doesn't escape. They had built a sectioned off corner in the kitchen to keep the cuys and rabits and had all of their dishes on shelves so they weren't on the floor. Perhaps the most impressive thing was that they had built a system to collect and filter their own water. No one else in the community has water. I was so impressed with the house and the incredible resourcefulness they demonstrated. We were invited to visit the house that day because they were having a community meeting to show other people what their houses could look like if they are willing to put in the extra effort. It's sad to think that many of these people live in ways that we think are absolutely unacceptable, not because they want to, but because they don't know any better. It made me really happy to see that they really do want to change and how willing others are to help them improve their lives.

That day was really fun, but tiring because we had to walk an hour into the community and an hour out to where we had parked the car. The 1.5 hour car ride there and back felt like we were on a roller coaster so the trip took a lot out of me. As soon as we got back into town we ran to see Melany (Rita's daughter) in a parade for her school. The kids all carry confetti with them and then throw it at people for "fun". Well since I'm the gringa, of course I attract a lot of attention and just about every kid that passed me threw it in my face. Let me tell you, that was NOT fun. I was so annoyed because I coulnd't see anything and it was all down my shirt and pants. Luckily when I got back to Rita's house, she offered me a hot shower to get all of the dirt from the campo off of me and obviously, the pica pica (confetti) too. I just found some more of it today in my bag....remnants of last week! I ended up spending the night at Rita's house that night too because it started raining around 7:30 and she didn't think the storm would pass until at least 11 or 12 that night. She told me it would just be better to spend the night since her husband was out of town and I could sleep in her daughter's bed. So at 8 o'clock I got into Melany's Barbie bed with Rita's "sweet dreams" pajamas on (she insisted I wear them). Of course by 9 o'clock the storm was over, but what was I going to do? I left at 6 the next morning to run home and pack my stuff before our weekend in Cajamarca.

As I mentioned earlier, Cajamarca was a blast. The best part of the weekend were the massages Lindsay and I got at this resort called Laguna Seca at these hot thermal springs right outside of the city. It was amazing, but we were both feeling slightly guilty since it's a far cry from your stereotypical Peace Corps experience, but hey, who doesn't like a little pampering every once and a while? Lindsay treated me to it for my birthday so how could I possibly turn her down? We realized we were way out of our league as soon as we stepped on the property, but decided to go for it anyway. They gave us white bathrobes and little slippers to wear and then brought us to another room. They asked us if we like it fuerte (strong) or suave (soft) and Lindsay said, "oh definitely fuerte, bien fuerte". Turns out they weren't talking about the massage, they were talking about the sauna that you sit in for 10 minutes before the massage. We walked in and immediately turned as red as a lobster. The lady started laughing at us and said, "suave?". YES PLEASE!!! Although I sweated more than I ever have in my life, it actually felt really nice. We were positive she had forgotten about us though so we left early - turns out 8 minutes in the sauna really feels like an hour and a half! The massages were incredible after that and I can't wait to go back. We made a promise to only go for each other's birthdays though. We'll see how long that lasts. I'm sure Lindsay will be keeping them in business over the next two years since she lives so close. Lucky for me (or not), I live 4 hours away. (By the way, the whole thing cost $16 each!)

On top of that, the highlights of the weekend were finding a fabulous Italian restaurant, eating at our favorite ice cream place twice, and definitely picking up my 6 packages at the post office (thank you for the AWESOME birthday presents everyone - it meant so much to me that so many of you were thinking of me)! I also went out to visit Lindsay at her site and somehow got roped into working at a restaurant in her town with her starting at 6:30 am. Let me tell you, that is way to early to see dead cuy (organs, teeth and all) stacked on a counter ready to be fried up for lunch! Some things I don't think I'll ever get used to. Finding a big grocery store with lots of foods I miss was also a huge highlight of the trip. Who knew it was so interesting to everyone to see what the gringas like to buy. Everyone who walked by our cart would look to see what we had and would often touch the stuff inside. My friend Heidi was getting so annoyed and kept asking people what was so interesting about our food. Hahaha. That definitely scared them away. They definitely have no shame though. Later that night we went to see The Break-Up in English with popcorn and all! It was so exciting and felt so natural that I honestly tricked myself into thinking that I was back in the States. It was quite the culture shock to walk out of the theater and realize I'm still in Peru. As much fun as I had, it was definitely time to get back to my site. Too much spoiling of myself in one weekend isn't good for me.

So here I am, back in good old Bambamarca. I must admit that it was nice to get back. Walking into the health center the afternoon I arrived and having the doctor say, "la reina! we missed you!" was just the thing I needed to hear.

More to come soon. I promise that I'm going to try to start updating more often so the entries aren't as long. I miss you all very much. Pictures coming soon!