Colegio!

Today, was an exciting day. In language class this morning we went to some local markets, and at the first one I had to interview someone using a survey we were given. I was nervous, because so far in my experience, people in the community are much harder for me to understand then those I have been speaking with daily. The lady that agreed to answer my questions was incredibly nice, and I understood every word she said and was able to stray away from my list of questions just a little bit. After that, we went to another market and had to find someone who would identify some of the fruits and vegetables we had on a list, we ended up finding two women who were incredibly helpful and showed us all kinds of stuff. They were wonderful. Later on, we had to go to a store around the park and interview someone and ask them about their daily routine. The other questions were easier, this assignment we just felt kind of dumb doing. Fortunately, my partner and I went to the store known as the "peace corp" store, because during training volunteers frequent the store and they have earned the reputation of being incredibly nice to us and helpful, and the women was that!

In the afternoon, for our technical training, we went to a local highschool and had to work with the students on a few of our training techniques we will be doing once we are in site. We actually arrived during their recess, and the kids went crazy! I was approached by a group of boys with their english homework, so I did it for them! Probably not what I should have done as a peace corp volunteer, but I definitely earned some points among the kids for doing their homework. Some of the kids were extremely affection, giving us hugs over and over, they all loved to have their pictures taken. It was funny, because we joked about how illegal it is to walk into a school in the states and start snapping pictures of children, but here it doesn't really matter. The other day we also saw a white, windowless van with the word for school on the front, and one of the guys commented on how someone in the US driving and unmarked van with no windows and school written on the front would definitely be taken away to jail!!!

The school itself was very bare, the classrooms were very colorless and there wasn't really much of anything in them other then chairs and desks, it would defintely be a boring place to go to school. But the teenages are exactly the same as in the US, taking advantage of chatting and acting up a little because there was someone new in the classroom, they draw all over their desks with white out! And the all hang out in their little cliques, and when the cute girl and class went up to the board, all the boys started whistling.

Part of our project was to see the differences between what the boys and the girls do, the girls said in their spare time they put on makeup, look up fashion, shop and help around the house. The boys said they get to know the girls and sleep a lot! It was funny!!!

Later, on my way home, I stopped and talked to my host grandpa in the street, he knew about my cold, word travels fast around here. Once I got into the house, my family was outside my room doing laundry, I sat and talked to them for awhile and I really feel like i'm finally getting somewhere with my language. Although I did keep my dictionary close to me while is sat there for words that I get stuck on. Since we don't have a living room, I am starting to find these opportunites to spend time with them and talk and get to know them better, so tonight was great! They ask me all the time if I am doing better because last week was so tough for me. I told them that I feel like a new person and I'm lucky to have them as my host family. They are so good to me! They also like to gossip, my host mom informed me that the married couple across the street (they are volunteers) are also very sick! I had no idea, so tonight a few of the other volunteers stopped by the house to see if I wanted to go walk around and two of them were the married couple and I informed them that I found out they were sick. Turns out that they are!

So no Lima until Monday now, with the elections this weekend they have told us that Lima is to dangerous for us to go to tomorrow or Saturday. Too many people, bad traffic. So I guess I'll just have to wait. I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

This morning, I got up and left the house, and as soon as I opened the door, there was this little voice at the end of the street, SCREAMING my name! It was Peilo, he is my host cousin. I referred to him earlier as Pietre, but I was wrong, it's Peilo! He is 4 and he is just the cutest thing in the world. I remember Alex always saying about Iraq that kids are the same everywhere. And that statement couldn't be more true. Although I don't always understand him, he just likes to have fun, the other day he came over and was hanging out in my room with his skateboard, he knocked everything off my walls, but he just wanted to hang out. And at the party the other night he was hanging all over me, he is definitely going to be my little buddy! Although I can't speak his language very well, there isn't a kid who doesn't like to be tossed around and stuff, so I think we were able to make a connection!! He has just such a large personality and is so much fun to be around!

So Sunday are elections for mayor in Peru, which I think translates more as the equivalent to

a governor election in the U.S. . Last night my family was watching the debates on T.V. What i found out, is that it is a requirement to vote here, it's not an option, and if you don't vote you will be fined. So people are generally very interested in politics here. Also, Saturday night, the night before the election is a "dry" night, therefore none of the bars or clubs will be open that night because they don't want people drunk going to the polls. I thought this was sort of interesting.

Today we went to a ministry of health center. These are government run facilities that are equivalent to a health department in the U.S. They treat minor illnesses, vaccinate children, treat STI's and work with mother's on breast feeding and stuff. Apparently this was one of the nice ones my language teacher kept telling us. It was relatively clean, but I don't know if it was necessarily sanitary. The U.S. still practice better sanitation, simply by changing the paper in between patients, these exam tables were covered in cloth, and there wasn't a lot of masks, gloves or gowns being used. And since i worked in a hospital I am used to hand sanitizer on every wall and a sink accessible in every room, not the case here. They also, sort of like the US have no consideration for how long, or how sick the patients are in the waiting room, they just take their sweet time.

So tomorrow afternoonn, we are going to the school to work on projects with some kids. They are having us apply the things we will be tackling once we are in site by practicing on the community here. It's kind of cool. Then Friday we are going to Lima to conduct some surveys, and saturday we are supposed to go to Lima for our agricultural training. But apparent'y that is up in the air now because sunday is mayoral elections here which is a huge deal, and one of the major issues is the traffic in Lima, so they are concerned that we will not be able to get in and out of Lima, also since they use schools to vote they are worried it may cause a problem fo us. So we are still waiting on the definitive answer. I will be disappointed it we don't go. I am so excited, it's supposedly beautiful, and very americanized, they have us stores and a starbucks! But it's a long drive, 2 hours each direction. We recently found out that between the months of october and december there are bull fights. So many of us really want to go and see that, except they kill the bull at the end in front of everyone...so i'm not so sure about that, but it's all about the experience and learning the culture.

Peruvians know how to party!

What an amazing weekend! Saturday was the surprise birthday party of my little Peruvian sister Camilla! In morning, after I got a chance to sleep in a little, I went with my host Mom to pick up some last minute things for the party. We also stopped for some Peruvian icecream, it was delicious! She also showed me how to wash my clothes, and it's actually quite a process and I'm convinced that handwashing my clothes may be cleaner then the washing machine. Plus, I have always hung dry most of my stuff, the only downfall is that things like towels and tshirts are kind of crunchy after being hung dry and I will miss a dryer for that reason.

So it turns out the party was actually in the apartment below us which belongs to the father of my host dad. His apartment is much larger and more spacious then ours. So we decorated that with all the balloons we worked on night before. It looked great. Now the party was supposed to start at 5:00, but when 5:00 rolled around no one was there. This is a concept I'm getting used to, it's called "peruvian time", which guarantees that peruvians will almost always start and hour or more later then what is requested.

As the guests arrived I was excited to see a few of them were accompanied by other peace corp volunteers, so there were 4 of us "gringos" at the party. The place ended up being packed 20 kids or more plus their parents. I didn't realize that the family had hired a clown too, and the clown was MUCH creepier then any clown I've ever seen in the United States, and not only that, the clown had an assitant who came in a tiny skirt and barely a top and knee high boots, and she danced like a hoochie, she served no other purpose. And remember this is for an 8 year olds birthday party. It was interesting. However, what I loved is that instead of acting like little jerks that most kids in the U.S. would have done, these kids loved every second of it, they danced and did everything the clown asked them to do and were so excited about it. They were all so well behaved. And the kids know how to DANCE...they put any of us "gringos" to shame. The entire party was out of control, I have never had so much fun at a little kids party in my life. Me and the other volunteers were dying laughing the entire time, at the kids, and the insane clown who kept insulting a larger woman in the crowd about her weight, and since she was really dark he kept saying she was from Africa. It was unbelieveable!

Some things were very interesting with regards to their traditions, there is a table with finger food, however people do not go up and eat it, the family serves it to you the entire time. So throughout the party I would take trays around along with the rest of the family and make sure everyone had food. It's very different. They also sing happy birthday twice, once in english and then again in spanish. I don't understand that either. Also the family makes speeches throughout and they asked us volunteers to make speeches too and that wasn't intimidating or anything with my limited spanish vocabulary! But I got through it. The whole thing was just great and i had a wonderful time.

Sunday, my host Mom served me breakfast in my room, which consisted of cake from the party, jello from the party and warm milk. I was so glad she served it to me in my room because I actually threw it away! Then, I got together with 2 other volunteers and we went to Chosica for the day and wandered through the open markets and had lunch. It was so gorgeous and such a different way of life. I took tons of pictures.

Since I told my host mom this week that I no longer needed to eat dinner, because the meals are huge and it's just too much food. She now insists that I have warm milk in place of dinner, so tonight when I say down with Camilla and Cesar and had my warm milk she insisted on giving me a gigantic bowl of animal crackers...I don't think she is getting the whole idea of me not wanting so much food! We are going to have to work on that.

It has been a great weekend off, I go back to training tomorrow and this Friday and Saturday I am going to downtown Lima to go to museums Friday and then Saturday we have our first of many agricultural traning classes at Agria college in Lima. This is so that when we are at our sites we can build vegetable garderns in our communities. I am so excited! I hear Lima is beautiful and I only got to see a small part of it when we were at the airport last friday night! So i'm sure I'll have much to report this week!

Michael Jackson is alive in Peru!

The past two days have been very exciting. On Thursday we were split into partners and given a Mission Impossible. Mine was to travel to the next town over called Chosica, and to talk to a police officer about their role in the community. This was exciting because we haven't really been outside of the neighborhoods we live in, nor the training center.

Going to Chosica consists of a "combi" ride, which are small buses or large vans, that barely come to a complete stop when they come to pick you up and drive like maniacs and constantly racing each other through the streets. So a few of us who had assignments got together to take a combi to Chosica. Chosica is a much bigger town the the one I'm living in, many stores and open markets, it was really exciting. We saw the other water and sanitation and environmental volunteers that make up Peru 16 who are staying at another training center. It was nice to catch up with them and to see fellow "gringos" wandering the streets. We also stopped by "Plaza Vea", which is the Peruvian super walmart.

Last night, when I got home my host Mom asked if I wanted to take a ride with her and my little host brother to Chosica to get things to prepare for my host sister's surprise birthday today. So I went along. We ran a bunch of errands and she took out to dinner for the most gigantic chicken I have ever seen. It was delicious!!! We also picked up 2 gigantic cakes along the way, so with those and all the bags we had I was dreading riding the combi home because it's just my luck with how clumsy I am that I would drop one of those cakes. Fortunately we took a taxi, however it was difficult to get one, because our neighborhood is in the hills, and many of the taxi's did not want to drive up here.

We dropped the stuff off for the party at her Mom's house which is a street over. Her nephew was there and he is 4 and his name is Pietre. But they call him Michael Jackson because he likes to dance. So they all hummed "Beat it" for me and he did some moonwalking and break dancing for me...until he hit his head on a chair trying to bust a move. It was cute! He was very concerned whether or not I had a boyfriend or was married, I think he was trying to hit on me!

I'm really looking forward to Camillas surprise birthday party tonight with her friends. I think there will be a lot of dancing and good salsa music. I'm hoping I can learn some latin dancing!!! I'll try and take lots of pictures and post them!

I posted a little video below of my friend Kati singing to Alicia Keys that was playing on the Combi...I'm not sure why it's sideways?!?!?

Everyone have a great weekend!

No Roosters...but Trembolas instead!!

So this morning I wasn't awakened by the normal rooster that has been driving me crazy, instead it was my family calling my name because we were experiences "trembolas"...which are tremors. Apparently they have those from time to time, not really any full blown earthquakes, I was sort of sleeping through it, but I could here the rocks falling the mountains around me and the dogs were going crazy. The only advantage to all of this, was that is screwed the rooster up and it didn't mess with me this morning!

So the past few days have been difficult for me, when you look around at the other volunteers you can tell we are all becoming a little drained. Our technical trainers has described these intense emotions and stress as extreme culture shock that we are all dealing with right now. You don't consider what emotions come to light when you are suddenly thrown in a life so incredibly different then your previous. I know I literally get headaches from working on my spanish. It will be nice when I am able to just start thinking in Spanish and it won't be so challenging to constantly be translating. And the best way to describe the rest of it is like when you are going through a break up and your body and heart ache and you feel like there is no end in sight. But I know very well with time it all passes and you heal. This is very similar to where I'm at now, and I know that there will be a point I'm looking back at all of this from a better side. One day at a time.

Tonight, in order to stay "distracted" I went to a volleyball game of another volunteer's host sister. It was interesting! Once it was time for the game a group of kids came out and literally chalked the lines in for the court. Everything is very informal, but they are all having so much fun. After the volleyball game, Carmen, also had a futbol game so we watched that too. There were so many kids hanging out, and many of them were blaring american music, I have heard so much eminem, lady gaga, and even some justin beiber tonight. It's so funny watching them sing to it, because they think they know the words and some of them you can tell don't at all. Even though I LOVE all the latin music that many of the families play in my neighborhood, it's great to hear them blaring some american too.

Mi Nuevo Familia!

Sunday I met my first host family. I will be staying with this family for my first 3 months of the Peace Corps, while I am in training. Meeting them was very nerve racking and exciting. We were waiting outside our training center and one by one the families would arrive and we would be called over to greet them. This country is very affectionate and everyone you meet gets hugs and the one cheek kiss.

My new mama and brother and sister arrived to pick me up. My new mama is Sonya and my papa is Julio, the children are Cesar who is 9 and Camilla who is 7. They do not speak any english at all. Julio drives a moto taxi for a living, which is a carriage driven by a scooter. So we all piled into that with my gigantic luggage off the back and we came to my new house. The neighborhood that we left where the training center is was very beautiful, however the closer and closer we got to my new house the rougher the neighborhood appearance would get. I will admit when we arrived at my new house it was very intimidating. The neighborhood is not very colorful, lots of dilapiated brick and cement buildings. The area looks very poor.

My house is an upstairs apartment. There is a small kitchen, a bedroom that the parents and the children share, and a bathroom that has running water and a toliet. My room is separate from the inside of the house. It's basically a room located on a rooftop deck.

My family is wonderful, the are working really well with me and the language barrier and i think they are going to be so helpful in trying to help me better my english. Apparently it is very rude to turn down food or not finish what you are given, and due to this, I am eating foods I never though I'd like because I can't say no. The portions are a little ridiculous, but it's healthy stuff and my challenge now is how to decline polietly.

This morning I was awoken by rooster perched outside my very thin bedroom wall around 4:45am. That is going to take some getting used to. This morning my new mama walked me to my first day of training. I discovered this morning that many of the volunteers live in my neighborhood, one of the guys directly across the street. It is very comforting to have so many of the volunteer in such close proximity. Tomorrow we are all going to walk to the center together.

Each day is getting more and more exciting as we find out more of what we are about to do. The other volunteers are a lot of fun and it's going to be great to be going through this with them. We did lose one volunteer last night, it was too much for her.

I will have some pictures posted soon hopefully!!

I'm HERE!

It has been the most intense 24 hours of my life. After a tearful goodbye to my parents outside the hotel lobby where I registered on Thursday, I had the opportunity to meet the rest of the volunteers (there are 78 of us!) It was fun and great too meet so many new people and many of whom will become close friends in the 27 months to come.

Friday morning we had to check out of our rooms by 6:30 am and with a little waiting around we headed to National to fly out to Miami, which ended up being delayed...and then went from Miami on a 5 hour flight to Lima Peru. It was a VERY long day, and I did not have the best seats on the plane so it was hard to get comfortable and catch up on any of the sleep I missed prior to leaving due to all the anticipation of this trip. Turns out, Lima and much of Peru is an hour behind home, so we got there 9:30 Lima time and after waiting forever in a parking lot we finally got buses out to our brief training site which was about a 2 hour ride, and put us here around 2 am. The little bit I saw of Lima at night was very disappointing, very poor and dirty.

I am at my current training site until tomorrow morning when I will travel to Chaclacayo for the next 3 months. I will be staying with my first host family tomorrow. I am very nervous, because today we had our spanish interviews and I realized how rusty I am and communicating with them may be very difficult at first. I am also a little apprehensive about leaving the other volunteers so soon. Although I will see them again monday when we start our official training.

My emotions are on overload at the moment, there is a definite homesickness that has set in because the idea of being so far away from my family for so long is very scary, and I am unsure how often I will be able to communicate with them. I am also extremely nervous, I am reminded everytime I look outside at how different of a world I am in! I am located in a valley where there are rock desert mountains towering over us and a shanty village located on the mountainside right above us, they currently have music blaring that is echoing all over the place! I know there is so much more in the days to come and I just hope to keep a postive attitude to get by.

I don't know what kind of internet access I will have but I will try and stay on top of the emails and blog as often as I can. I miss everyone!

The BIG day!!

So tomorrow is the big day and I officially become property of the Peace Corps for the next 27 months. I never thought this day would come, and I can't believe it is here! My parents are dropping me off for my staging event in DC where I will be staying and flying out Friday afternoon for Lima Peru. Once I get to Peru I will be going to a smaller town about 1 hour outside of Lima called Chacalacayo. There I'll be living with a host family and training until the end of November when I will receive my permanent assignment and location. I plan on taking millions of pictures and will do my best to update this blog when I get the opportunity! Thanks for everything from everyone!