Work Is Finally Picking Up!

Every once in a while during our two years of service, Peace Corps offers IST (In-service Training) workshops to help our work in site. So about two weeks ago I went to one of these talleres (workshops) in Lima. It was called Project Design and Management (PDM) and we learned how to design a community project from start to finish. We were supposed to bring someone from our community who is interested in working with us on a community project. It didn’t necessarily have to be our counterpart, but when I mentioned it to Rita back in February; she was really excited about it and jumped on board right away. I was a little skeptical about it because she always talks about how she doesn’t like to travel, etc. but she kept talking about it as if she was really excited. I started to get doubtful though when she was saying they’d make a family vacation out of it and take Mélany out of school for the week because she’s never been away from her for a day, let alone a week, and couldn’t just leave her at home with her dad (even though she’s eight years old). I told Rita we were staying outside of Lima and that they couldn’t stay with us, but she assured me that everything would be okay. Well I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know that she backed out on me six days before we were supposed to leave. I was really annoyed, but not surprised at all since I’d sort of been expecting this all along. There was some big meeting at the health center the following week so we really had to search for someone who could go with me. On Thursday evening around 5 pm (we were leaving at 9 am on Sunday morning), I finally got confirmation that this woman Gladys could go with me. I had only meet her twice before, for about 5 minutes each time, but she’s an obstetrician at the hospital and Rita had told me I’m going to start working with her a lot in the future. I was a little nervous that she’d stand me up on Sunday morning, but she came and it ended up being a great trip.

In order to be at the workshop on time, we had to go to Lima a day early (something we never complain about). Peace Corps gave us a little stipend for the day to buy food for ourselves and our counterparts so we decided we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to treat them to lots of good food that they can’t get in Cajamarca (and probably have never had before). The first stop on our eating extravaganza was sushi. This was a selfish choice on my and Reannon’s part because we were craving it, but we thought it’d be fun for our counterparts to try. Sushi is pretty expensive so we told them we were just going there for appetizers and we’d eat lunch somewhere else. I know this is awful, but we were secretly hoping they wouldn’t like it that much so we could fill up on it and get them something else for lunch. Of course they LOVED it though! We were really surprised and proud of them for being so adventurous. They served us marinated tofu as a complimentary appetizer and they even liked that! They even did pretty well mastering the chopsticks. We shared three different rolls to give them a sampling and there were two pieces left. We really wanted them, but thought we should offer it to them since we were treating them to know. Usually Peruvians will first refuse and insist you eat it and then they’ll accept, but not this time – they jumped at the opportunity to finish it so I guess they really liked it! Lunch was at Pizza Hut so of course that was a big hit. We finished off our three course meal with Starbucks because we had been talking about coffee and how popular it is in the U.S. Reannon’s counterpart, Elí, got a cappuccino and my counterpart got a Cinnamon Latte. They both complained that it was too bitter, which was not surprising at all since they are used to powered Nescafé with 3-5 tablespoons of sugar in a small mug (I’m not exaggerating). Elí chose not to put sugar in his because he wanted to be “authentic” but Gladys added a few tablespoons of sugar to hers and liked it a lot better. Haha! We just relaxed in the afternoon since we had spent the entire night on the bus. For dinner a group of 9 of us went to dinner at this really good Mexican restaurant owned by a Mexican woman. Mind you the capacity of this restaurant is only 12 so it was a little tight, but the food is delicious. We shared nachos with pico de gallo and guacamole and burritos. They had never tried that type of food before and loved it all! Even though we all went way over the food budget for the day, we thought it was worth it because it was really special and exciting for our counterparts.

If you get grossed out by bathroom stories (a.k.a. emergencies) please skip to the next paragraph. While I was in Lima, I wanted to be sure I ran a couple of times to keep up with my training (especially since I have been really discouraged and unmotivated lately). I wasn’t able to run the first two mornings we were in town so I made sure to get up really early on Wednesday morning to go running before everything started for the day. On top of feeling antsy that I hadn’t run in a few days, I was also constipated from traveling and thought running would help. I set out to run 6 miles, but about 20 minutes into the run, I felt the urge to go to the bathroom (number two). I asked God to please help me hold it until the end of my run because the run was feeling really good and I really needed it. The feeling went away, but kept coming back in waves. The fourth time it happened though, I couldn’t will it away. It was starting to come out and I was about a mile away from the place where we were staying. Well as you all know, when you gotta go, you gotta go so I was franticly searching for a bush or a little privacy. In the heat of the moment I had to settle on a cornfield – and by cornfield I mean a small patch of land located between two main roads where corn was growing at one time, but no longer. There was a little bush that offered me protection from one road, but I was in broad view of the other road – luckily no one came and it was a clean sweep. Needless to say, I had to cut my run short and immediately returned to the retreat center. I don’t know what it is about this country, but my body can’t handle it. That has NEVER happened to me before, and now it’s happened twice in two weeks (again when I got back)! Eww! (Sorry if that really grossed you out, but I thought it was funny.)

We all met at the Peace Corps office the next day to go the workshop (it was located about 45 minutes south of the city). The taller was three days 8:30-5 pm so as you can imagine, I was exhausted by the end since that’s normally the amount of “work” I do in a month, but it was really beneficial. The project that Gladys and I designed is the formation of a Casa de la Juventud (like an after school rec center). There is a lot of teen drinking, drug use, and pregnancy in Bambamarca so our idea is to create a place where youth can go as an alternative to the streets. Ideally, they would be able to hang out there, play music, get extra help for school, and participate in cooking, carpentry, music, computer, etc. workshops. We would like the youth to be able to run the center, for the most part, so before forming the house, we’d train some youth as Youth Health Promoters. They would be the leaders of the center and they’d also give informative sessions to their peers about important health topics for adolescents (such as sex education, goal setting, drug/alcohol abuse, self-esteem, etc.).

After going through the steps to develop this plan, we were both really excited because it seemed really feasible. We agreed that this taller was really important for both of us because we were both feeling discouraged and unmotivated, work wise, in Bambamarca so this really helped to motivate us and get us excited to start the program as soon as we got back. She returned to Bambamarca a few days after me because she had some days off that she spent in Cajamarca visiting her family. She came to visit me yesterday to tell me she doesn’t think she’ll be able to help me on this project because she’s really busy and doesn’t have time. I was obviously really frustrated and annoyed, but not really surprised. This is exactly what I get upset about all the time because I feel like we have so many good ideas and lots of potential, but no one, besides me, is willing to put in the time and commit to these projects, and it’s not sustainable if I do it alone.

Luckily I had had a really productive meeting the day before with this guy Tomy who is the new person in charge of EVA (Etapa de Vida Adolescente) – everything that has to do with working with adolescents. He is really enthusiastic about working with me and wants to start immediately. He also has the idea of forming Youth Health Promoters and instead of a Casa de la Juventud, he wants to form a CAIA (Centro de Atención Integral de la Adolescente), which is the same sort of idea, only on a smaller scale. He’s not sure we’d be able to get a house or a big building right now, so he wants to start out by asking the different colegios if they’ll give us a classroom or somewhere to start out in. As people see the success of the program, they’ll be more willing to invest the time and money into a more permanent and bigger place. I was so happy to hear him talk about this because he’s really dedicated to the cause and really wants me to help out with it – I feel like something might actually come to fruition for us. I don’t care if it takes the rest of my time here, it’ll feel so good to know I left having accomplished something. Our first step in this process is to train a team of people from the health center and hospital. These people will become the facilitators who work with and train the youth who will eventually become our health promoters. However, they will not work exclusively with the promoters, but on a more general scale, visiting many different classes of the colegios to educate more youth. I won’t be here when they capacitate the facilitators so my job right now is to prepare everything for the training sessions. Our first theme is called Habilidades Sociales (Social Skills) so I’m creating the work plan – including the topics we’ll cover and what activities we’ll do for each topic. On top of that, I’m also putting together something about the theory behind all of this and the methodology we’ll use so all of the facilitators understand why we’ve selected these topics and how we’re going to present them to the youth. So as you can imagine, I’ve actually been really busy lately! Finally!

Before all of this stuff happened, I had emailed my boss in Lima telling her that I was really frustrated with my work because I’ve now been in site for eight months and I feel like I have nothing to show for it. I told her that my girls stopped showing up for youth group meetings now that classes have started and that I frequently talk with Rita about my ideas and projects I want to do, but it seems like they just all stop at that and we never actually act upon them. I hadn’t heard back from her about it so I was getting a little worried, especially since Lindsay told me I must be losing my mind for actually admitting to my boss that I’m not doing anything. Lindsay and I thought she must be getting ready to kick me out since I hadn’t heard from her. At first I thought that might not be so bad….going home and all….just kidding! I finally talked to her the other day though and she told me that I have nothing to worry about, she thinks I’m doing “fabulous” and that it’s completely normal to get frustrated and have people stop showing up for things. She reminded me that I need to keep in mind that I’m not in the United States and I’m not going to be able to do things as quickly as I’d like, nor will I have kids commit to working with me for a whole year. She said that if I can get them to commit to eight weeks at a time and then give them a break and start something up again, it’ll be a lot more successful. She also encouraged me to look in other areas for projects if things are going well with youth groups. She reiterated numerous times that she thinks I’m doing really, really well and she loves how good I am at communicating with her so I don’t need to worry. She even nominated me to participate (as one of the two youth development representatives) on a new committee they’re forming called the Youth Initiative Committee. It’s about how we can get youth more involved in cross-sector work so there will be volunteers representing each program area (I think). Unfortunately I can’t make the first meeting because my parents will be in town, but I was really flattered she nominated me for it and I’m really looking forward to seeing what it’s all about.

So on top of all of that stuff, Peace Corps is doing a lot of work right now developing sites for Peru 9. The new group of volunteers arrives in early June and will be going to their sites in early September (just like we did). My boss is developing a site about two hours away from Bambamarca called La Paccha. Jessica and I actually went there with her in January to talk about the goals of Peace Corps and the youth development program. Tomorrow I’ll be going back their with our regional coordinator, the APCD for small business, and a man from Peace Corps’ main office in Washington, D.C. who is visiting Peru right now to do an evaluation of our program. He will be traveling around Cajamarca for about five days to visit volunteers and check everything out. I was flattered that I was selected as one of the volunteers they would visit. They were only supposed to be in town for about an hour and a half because they are visiting La Paccha in the morning. When I talked to my boss though, she told me she wants to be sure I go to La Paccha with them because she was really impressed with what I said the last time we went there and she wants me to participate in the meetings they’re going to have. The health center in Bambamarca also requested two more volunteers for two of the caseríos and my boss told me she wants me to set up meetings with those towns and go with our coordinator to meet with them. She wants me to go as her spokesperson because she loves what I have to say and thinks it’s really important for the townspeople to meet a “real live volunteer”. So if I won’t be busy enough with my other work, I now have this too. I’m really excited about it though because it’s really fun to see how they develop sites for us and know that I’ll be helping to get sites ready for new volunteers!

I also participated in a radio show about two weeks ago called “Decisiones”. The doctor at the health center told me on Friday evening that some people from the radio came by because they’d like to talk to me about my work in the community. She told me I had an interview the next morning at 11 am. So I show up the next day and notice that there were other people invited to talk at the same time and each of them had an oficio (official document inviting them to participate) with them. I started to get nervous and wonder what this was really all about. Then we go into the recording room and the host says, “Welcome to the weekly program called Decisions. This week’s topic is ‘The inclusion of women and youth in public institutions.’” Oh great – now I really felt unprepared. What was I supposed to say? The host introduced me and the two other men who were there – one works at the Ministry of Culture and the other is an economist in the Municipality. They told us not to be nervous because the idea of the show was just to brainstorm and discuss our ideas, but of course that didn’t make me feel much better – especially when they’d put the microphone right in your face and ask your opinion about something. I felt so unprepared and put right on the spot. I must admit that the show was really interesting though and whether or not I actually said anything of value, I learned a lot from it. I thought there were a lot of good ideas shared, but I’m worried that just like my work, things will end there. After the show we all sat around talking about how this is only the beginning and we can’t just leave and never think about this topic again, but we’ll see. I would love for that to be the case, but I’m skeptical. One thing I thought was really ironic is that it was about the inclusion of women and youth, but the only thing they had with youth was a couple of short interviews they had done on the street the day before, and as far as women go, I was the only woman who participated and I’m not even from the community! Here’s a thought, maybe you should start by including women in your show! I know that’s really judgmental, but it’s true. All in all though, if nothing else, it was a beneficial experience for all of us (two other men showed up after the program started, making a total of five participants).

Finally, a fun activity I’ve started is working in 6th grade of the elementary school in Profesora Meche’s class. I am really good friends with her and she invited me to come work in her class so every Friday morning I visit her class from 11:30-1 pm and do sessions about self-esteem. The kids are 10 and 11 years old and so cute. They LOVE it and really animate me. Of course they can be a little out of control at times, but it’s just because they are so excited. She stays in the class with me though and helps keep them in line. The doctor’s son, Martín, is in the class, so I was a little worried how that would be. I didn’t know if he’d try to act too cool since he knows me and is an 11 year old boy, but I think he really enjoys it because he asked me if I could bring something to his house so he could re-do it. It’s a lot of fun and a nice break from everything else.