November 15: Vamos a tirar la tortuga

The activities I do in my English classes with the primaria students are obviously pretty basic and primarily designed to get all the kids practicing their English a little instead of just copying notes. One simple tool I often use is a ball of red yarn. The kids throw it around the room to pick the next student who has to talk. We keep throwing the ball until all the kids have practiced whatever we happen to be learning. This first time I used this game the kids just passed the ball from person to person, even though I said “tirar” (Spanish for “throw”). I guess they don’t do much of that in class normally….. without getting in trouble of course. So the next time I went into the class I took out the red ball of yarn and lobbed it straight across the room. Any of you who know my aiming ability understand what a risk this was :-P It worked though; they started cracking up and next thing I knew that ball was sailing around the room.

This Tuesday, however; the ball of yarn was not to be found. I needed to get to school though so I picked up the first replacement I could find….a pirate turtle named Smee. Smee and his swashbuckling cohort, Captain Jack, came to Natalie and me from the Mandalay Bay Hotel Aquarium in Las Vegas, Nevada.  In recent history Captain Jack and Smee spent most of their time discussing pirate-y things while riding the ceiling fan in Natalie and Mark’s room. Currently Smee lives on my bedside table in Peru; which is how he found himself in the role of “la Tortuga volante” this Tuesday morning. Smee got such a warm reception after I explained the missing ball of yarn that I left him to ride around on my shoulder during class. Smee offered a basic commentary of “grrrs” and “yars” depending on what the kids were up to. To fully paint the picture I offer this fairly accurate reenactment; translated (mostly) for you convenience:

Various children: look, look…it’s a pirate! The turtle is a pirate!

Me: now we’re going to throw the turtle to each other, ok?

Various children: aaa-eee…..a turtle that flies! A pirate that flies!                          Smeeeeeeeee!

Me: que dice la pirata, chicos?  YARRRRR!

Entire class: YARRRRRRRR!!!!!

November 12-13:”don’t worry, Kelly; nothing changes again until next August”

            Saturday morning I went into Huaraz for another ALMA meeting and to hang out with the new Ancash volunteers. I’m not the new kid anymore! The 18-ers were coming back through the city after their site visits so we all wanted to be around to hang out. Ali, Keren and I took Celeste, Matt and David out for lunch. Then after an afternoon of wandering around to see the city I treated them to some ice cream in the plaza. Welcome to the family new guys!

Just to keep things interesting, that weekend was also the going away party for Peter (a Peru 14-er). Bit of a revolving door effect, no? Sunday night was slightly subdued as we were all absorbing the fact that Pete’s two years were ending, the 18-ers were just starting and the rest of us are just turning circles in the middle. The 18-ers seem amazing and I’m sure Pete is going on to great things, but it’s still strange to take it all in. But it’s like Vero reminded us, we don’t get any more new volunteers until next August.  That’s almost a whole year until more pebbles get dropped in the puddle……or more to the heart of the matter, almost a whole year until more pebbles get taken out of the puddle (does this metaphor work in reverse…….)

November 11: how many casarios must we check to find the new kid?

          Friday morning Vero, Kait and I hiked up to Pete’s old site to see meet the new volunteer that’s moving in; it’s only about a two hour hike from Vero’s. When we got to Huashcao we went to Pete’s house because we didn’t actually know where the new kid was living. From there it turned into a bit of a scavenger hunt. After going to Ivan’s house we went to about 4 other houses of family members and eventually found him off in the field cutting grass with his host dad. There he was harvesting and a line of 4 gringos came walking over the hill out of nowhere….the host dad was a little surprised ha ha. We sat down in the chakra and ate the cookies and oranges we had brought to share. Ivan is part of our little volunteer cluster now, so we wanted him to feel welcomed. 

November 10: site visit…..hey there, boss lady. Oh and this is my friend Milton, he speaks quechua

               Thursday was my site visit from Lucia, the Youth Development APCD, and Evan the YD volunteer leader. I was nervous going into it, because I had organized a bunch of meeting with the leaders of my town and I just wanted it to all go well. Turns out there was no reason to be nervous. It was great to have them in site and pretty much everyone turned up to the meetings. My directora said all sorts of wonderful things to them and the kids in my class behaved really, really well. Evan, Lucia and I spent the morning walking around Mancos. I got to show off my site and they asked me all sorts of questions about what I’ve been doing. They also told me that my Spanish had gotten a lot better :-P hurray!

                That afternoon I had my English club like normal. Once again the school door was locked so we had class in my living room. Our lesson for Thursday was the body parts in English, so I got one of the students to draw a cartoon body on my little white board then they all took turns trying to name this different parts. In honor of the only boy in the class, we named him Milton :-P After English words the girls in the class started teaching me quechua words; some body parts and the numbers. Basically this consisted of them writing words down, me reading them and everyone giggling endlessly. Apparently it’s super funny to watch the gringa try to speak quechua. Fortunately I love my role as a continual source of amusement and , who knows, I might actually learn something. 

November 2: luckily my host family rocks

                So Wednesday was my attempt at World Map class numero dos. 7 kids came this time, they weren’t any of the same ones from the week before so we did the first lesson over again……but hey, 7 kids came :-P The door to the school was once again locked, but Fabiola and Aldo just cleared out of the living room and let us sit at the dining table. They even offered to let me have class at the house from now on. I’m pretty sure my host family isn’t entirely clear on what I’m doing (or saying :-P), but it’s so cool that they support me anyway. 

Oct. 30 – Nov. 1: Hocus Pocus, Candy Corn and Costumes!

                Since Halloween was on a Monday this year, we started our Huaraz weekend on Sunday. That night we had a family potluck and watched Hocus Pocus. Ali, Keren and I braved the rain and went to the market to buy ingredients.  I tried to make puppy chow, but couldn’t find ziplock bags. So I poured everything into a plastic grocery bag with promptly ripped. Luckily chocolate, peanut butter and cereal tastes good no matter how much of a mess it is :-P

                Monday everyone ran around town putting together their Halloween costumes. Turns out things are a little trickier when there is no Wal-Mart, Target or Halloween Express. There was a lot of last minute cutting and paper mache-ing Monday afternoon, but everyone sorted it out and we had some excellent costumes. There is a bar in Huaraz that has a costume contest every Halloween, so we all went. The winner for the girls was actually one of our very own PCVs! At some point in the future I will finally remember to post more photos and you guys can see the costumes. I decided to make an 80s costume and I ended up looking almost exactly like the little girl from 13 Going on 30…..any excuse to wear a side ponytail :-P

                November 1 is Dia de los Santos in Peru and classes were canceled, so we all woke up late and slowly trickled back to site. Gotta love random mid-week holidays that line up with American holidays :-) 

October 26-28: Peru 18 Health FBT……since when am I the one giving answers?

           Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the Peru 18 Health trainees had their FBT in Kaitlyn’s site, which is just up the mountain from mine. There is nowhere to stay in Mushu though, so they actually stayed in Mancos. I got to help out with their classes for the whole three days. Vero and I led a session on working with youth. We taught them some dinamicas and some craft activities and just generally talked about working with kids. Since they are health volunteers they also had the chance to build latrines and a “concina mejorada” (it’s a fairly simple way to build a wood burning  stove that ventilates better and is, therefore, better for your health). Since the idea was to have a current volunteer with the different groups at all times, I actually ended up “leading” some of these building projects. Since I know nothing about turning a pile of mud and bricks into a kitchen, this translated to me being a somewhat bilingual cheerleader. Kait would turn up with instructions and I would cheer them on. Nico and Yoss, two other health volunteers came to our sites to help out too, so there was enough health program expertise to make up for my youth development handicap. In the end the projects turned out great and I learned a thing or two along the way.

                The volunteers stayed at the hostel in Mancos called La Casa de Mi Abuela. It’s about a 20 minute walk from my house, so each night after they built stuff all day Kait, Vero, Yoss and I would go up to the hostel to teach some more crafts and eat dinner with them. On the first day we actually had a volunteer panel for the trainees. This is when a group of PCVs sit around and answer whatever questions the audience has, this was almost a weekly event throughout my training. The only difference was that this time I was on the panel.  It felt strange to be the one with some answers now. I was also a point of interest for a lot of the 18ers because I had so recently come to site. The first three months are a huge, looming question mark during training and they all wanted to talk about it. Fortunately I’ve got the gift of gab, as my mom says, so I did my best to talk with everyone throughout the three days.

                Helping with FBT was a great opportunity for me and it was SO much fun to hang out with other volunteers. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it though…..I don’t work 15 hour days anymore :-P

Good luck to all the 18ers and I can’t wait to see which if y’all are coming to Ancash!

October 25: vamos a empezar una otra vez

                Tuesday started out like normal…..I taught four English classes at the primaria school. I love those kids. They haven’t gotten to an age where they think it’s not cool to be interested.  And they’re huge on hugs :-)

                Tuesday afternoon I took another crack at my world map project. As some of you may remember the door was locked the first time I tried to do this. Everything worked out this time and we were able to get into the room. Only three students turned up, but we had a great time with the class and they really seem interested. I’ve decided to continue even if it is just with the three of them. Better to work with those who want to …….

October 23: I guess I should set the record straight

          So last month I was so excited for my one month mark that I actually wrote about it a day early. Oops :-P So the truth is that I got to my site on August 23, and that means that today is two months. I’m not sure if I am more shocked that I’ve already been here for two months or that I only have one month left to write my community diagnostic….yikes!

I think month three is going to be exciting!

October 18: the devil is in the details

           So Tuesday was an exciting day. Vero came back from Lima and she stopped in Mancos to give me a doughnut she had brought me…..a Dunkin Doughnut! Then Kait turned up to exchange materials for the FBT classes we’re preparing. I kept running out the front of my school in between classes to find them :-P That afternoon I was all set up to start my World Map class, but when I got to the school the front door was locked, bummer.  I sat on a bench outside of the school to talk to the students as they turned up and explain why we weren’t having class. I ended up wandering around town for a little while with two of the girls, so all was not lost. Later that night I watched telenovelas with my host fam while I counted school surveys…..exciting stuff! 

October 15 & 16: the corrida de bodas

                Saturday morning we had a group meeting about camp ALMA. This is a girls’ leadership camp that the PCVs in each department plan every year, where getting set to have ours here in Ancash. This year’s is going to have a “go green” theme. I’m pretty excited.

                After the meeting Kaitlyn and I went to the wedding of a lady that we both work with in site. Her name is Krus and she was a lovely bride. For a brief 15 minutes we thought we weren’t going to actually make it to the wedding though. We went to the church where we thought it was and there was another bride standing at the alter….confusing. So we went to the other big church in Huaraz, but there was no wedding there at all. We went back to the first church and finally saw someone we recognized. Turns out there was more than one wedding that day and the first one was running late…no surprise there. So we went and got snacks while we waited for the first wedding to finish :-P Kait and I went to the reception long enough to say hello to the bride and groom and participate in the toast, but then we decided to duck out early. Parties in this country have a tendency to never end, so we decided to take care of that ourselves ha ha ha.

                That night Keren, Jeff and I made dinner at the hostel. Jeff makes a pretty killer fresh tomato sauce, so we ate well. We tried to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail after dinner, but Jeff and I only made it through about 30 minutes before falling asleep :-P

                As per usually, I went to Cali for breakfast and to work on the internet for a few hours before heading back to site. Sadly when I got back I found out that my host niece was in the hospital. She had been little sick when I left for the weekend, but clearly things had gotten worse. It’s was a little strange to get this news and then see the family showing almost no emotion. People in the Sierra are just a little more reserved than I’ve been used to. 

October 14: I desfilar-ed with the sweetest kids!

              Friday morning I went up to Caraz to help out with a desfile (parade) at Brice’s CEBE. I don’t remember what the acronym stands for exactly, but it’s a special education school. Friday was the anniversary, so the school director decided to invite all the other schools in Caraz to have a parade in honor of the rights of people with a handicap. Brice and I went to the school a little earlier to help them make a few more posters. While we were working soccer team from Lima came by to visit and gave the kids new shoes and stuffed animals. The students were SO excited!  I absolutely love this school. The teachers are amazing and the students could not be sweeter.

                Around mid-morning we loaded all the students into a truck and took them to the start of the parade. From there we walked through Caraz, into the town plaza. Lots of other schools came to participate and they all had posters about inclusion and rights of disabled students. As with any good parade there was a band walking up front with us, so I got a few of the girls to dance along in the streets with me, instead of just walking. It was an incredibly uplifting way to end a week.

                I went back to Mancos for lunch with my family and then that afternoon I head into Huaraz for our bi-monthly socializing :-P 

October 9 & 10:

              Sunday was an internet work day for me, so Ali and I went in search of internet in Yungay. We could only find one place that would let me hook my own laptop and even then I had to sit in the middle of the room with the laptop balanced on a stool because the cord wouldn’t reach anywhere else :-P Needless to say I got less work done than I would’ve like too. Oh well. Ali and I ended up walking around and looking at the market for a little while and then heading back down the highway. She came and saw my site too. It’s always fun to show people around.

                Monday was a good day. I finally finished giving my survey to all the students in the secundaria……now I just have to get them all counted :-/ I also was finally ready to sit down and talk to my directora about the World Map project that I want to do. I submitted my written request for permission to have the class and paint a wall; she seemed really receptive so hopefully I will get approval!

                Monday is also exactly two months before Mom gets to Huaraz. There is a rule for PCVs that you can’t take vacation or have visitors for the first 6 months in the county. Mom joked forever about how she would be knocking on my door six months, to the day, after I left the county. ……turns out it’s not a joke, folks. I landed in Lima, Peru on June 10, 2011; Mom’s bus gets into Huaraz around 6:30 AM December 10, 2011. She’s crafty, that one :-P

October 8: Fiesta de San Miguel and Happy Birthday, Mom!

           Saturday morning we all got up and went into Huaraz for the Fiesta of San Miguel. My host sister Paula was the Mayor Domo of the fiesta; which means my host family was responsible for providing the food for the party. We went to Mass at noon….having never been to mass before I was TOTALLY lost, but it was interesting to see. After Mass we went back to an Aunt’s house to celebrate. This house by the way is one of the nicest I’ve seen since I got to Peru. It has hot water. I may or may not have stood in the bathroom with my hands in the sink for a while just because there was hot water coming out of the tap :-P There was also an electric stove and wooden cabinets. It was pretty.

Anyway, lunch was rabbit and papas. The rabbit was actually really good; I was surprised, once again, by a new food. I also surprised my entire host family with my ability to carry a tray of drinks and wrap napkins around silverware….who knew my time as a server would come in handy in the Peace Corps, Not kidding, once I started carrying around trays of drinks without spilling them, my host mom started bragging to EVERYONE that I used to be a waitress :-P (speaking of….. shout out to Harry’s, hope y’all are doing well).

This brings me to a cultural….I’ll call it quirk….I’ve noticed. So at these fiestas there is always food, tons of it. There are never tables though and sometimes not even chairs; everyone just lines the walls holding their plate in one hand and eating with the other. This is where it gets tricky. There is SO much food and it generally includes some sort of meat that is still on the bone and covered with sauce. Each person gets one little plastic fork and about half a napkin. Perfect recipe to end up wearing everything you’re eating, right? No. Saturday afternoon (and at every other fiesta I’ve been to) I watched a room full of people turn a plate piled with papas, tamales and hunks of rabbit back into a clean piece of Styrofoam with a bone lying in the middle of it……all with one hand. Meanwhile I’m gnawing on a rabbit leg and thigh that’s about as big as my face; sauce on both hands (which means it’s probably on my forehead at this point too); and my host dad is just cracking up. How do they do this?! I am mystified. Peace Corps needs to add “eating at large fiestas” to its PST classes :-P

October 7: so this time “my friends” actually turned out to be from Georgia

               Friday morning I went to the Municipality to meet with a few people. I’m trying to get plans together for the summer school program that they do around here, so I just decide to start asking questions. I get the feeling they usually wait until later to plan, but whatever; it’ll be good for them to start early :-P After that I stopped by the colegio to try to talk with the Directora about the next project I want to start, but it turned out they were having field day. I ended up hanging out for a few hours to cheer them on. At one point I actually joined in one of the games in place of a teacher who had recently had a baby. It was a race where we had to run across the volley ball court, sit on a balloon to break it and then run back. There were four balloons for each of us and I was actually running barefoot because I was wearing flip flops :-P I won though! Hopefully I have a few more fans at the school now ha ha ha.

                That afternoon Faviola told me some of “my friends” were in town. I think I’ve mentioned this in another post, but all other gringos are “my friends.” Half the time they are tourists from a country that doesn’t actually speak English, but we are all still friends according to my town :-P Anyway, I decided to walk with Faviola and Paula to the bible school class where my “friends” were going to be. Turns out it was a group of Baptists missionaries who actually are from Georgia. Crazy! What’s more, they have a sister church a few towns over, so people from this church actually come down about 3 times a year. I told them to look me up whenever they come back through.  Being as I am the only gringa in residence, it shouldn’t be too hard for them to find me :-)

October 6: Lest I ever forget that I have a very attentive guardian angel……

                So I had my first little battle with homesickness on Wednesday. I was busy for most of the day, so it sort of snuck up on me; but by dinner time I was just flat out sad. I talked on the phone with Mom and Dad for a while though……that goes a long way to help a heartache.

                Then Thursday morning, in between trips to the school to hand out my survey, my host sister knocked on my door to tell me there was someone at the front to speak with me. When I got to the front door, much to my surprise, I found a mail carrier. A little background at this point: There are maybe three post offices in all of Ancash, two on my side of the mountain and only one that I know of on the other. More than that, I have not been able to find three people in this town who actually think there ARE mail carriers that come to our town (or mail carriers in general….). However, this nice lady asked me to sign for two packages. Turns out that it was stuff Natalie sent to me in Lima almost two months ago! The main office in Lima found them and forwarded them to the only address they had for me at the time. I have no house number so the address written on the package was the family name, that the house is located next to the school and the name of my town……and the packages actually got to me :-P So after spending a full 24 hours missing home I suddenly had cards from Nat and Mark, Starburst, Jellie-Bellies, and pizza goldfish that weren’t even crunched up. “Oh yeah,” says the Cool-Aid man.

October 4: some days the highs and lows have just a little bit more distance between them…..

         Tuesday was a bit of a rough day for me. Something went wrong with my stomach and I ended up spending most of the day either lying in bed or running back and forth to the bathroom…..not so fun. What was worse is that I had agreed to teach a class for one of my friends while he was on a trip to the jungle and I had to cancel on him. Bummer. So 4 o’clock roles around and I’m still lying in bed, but at least I’m starting to feel a little better at this point. My host brother knocks on my door to tell me that some students are at the house to talk to me. Turns out they had actually listened when I said I would help with English homework and they had come looking for help! It was so cool. We sat down at the dinner table and I helped them with an English reading assignment. Yay! They even said they might come to the English club the next week…..we shall see. 

October 1 & 2: it’s like every time I turn around I’m in another month

  Ok bit of an exaggeration, but really…it’s already October and in just a few days I will have been in Peru for 4 months. That’s longer than some celebrities stay married.

                Saturday morning I woke up and counted a bunch more surveys. I’m going to have statistics coming out my ears for a little while, but I think it will be a big help when it comes time to actually write my work plan. I also can’t help but wonder what the answers would look like if I gave this interview to my old high school…..I doubt some parts of it would be very different at all. Saturday night I went back into the city. Poor planning on my part having to go twice in one week, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t love hanging out with everyone. I ran some more errands and got lots more copies of my survey made. I was particularly careful to buy more candy too; it’s amazing how a small bribe can go so far when collecting information. :-P I also remember to get some photos printed. I’ve decided to just collage my walls with photos and keepsakes (see the post from September 22 if you would like to participateJ). And Claire, just so you don’t have to wonder, the inflatable guitar has already been hung on red yarn and added to the wall. It might be part of a Halloween costume too, but we’ll have to see about that.  Sunday morning I used the internet at Cali for a while and then headed back to site. Spent some time with the host fam and then got myself organized for the coming week. 

We interrupt your regular programing …..

           Sandra Ann Smoot “Where the Wild Things Are” Tucker has purchased her ticket to Peru! That’s right, ladies and gentlemen; Christmas is coming early to this small Peruvian town…..December 10 to be exact. Get excited!!!

September 29: they actually showed up!!!

               Thursday afternoon I had the first meeting of my English club at the secundaria school. Ok, actually it’s the second, but the first time there was a bull fight in the next town over and no one came…..but really, how can I ever expect to compete with bejeweled Spaniards? So this week is the first one that counts and people actually came!! They showed up late, so I had just long enough to start feeling bad for myself…..and then wait, doth mine eyes deceive me? Six Peruvian children wandering across the volleyball court to get to my classroom. It was so cool! And I am SUCH a nerd :-P

                In other news I started giving out my youth survey in the school on Thursday as well. Let the counting of respuestas begin. Fortunately I had the brain wave to bring candy to the classes, so I think most of the completed both pages. Watch out community diagnostic……. 

September 27 & 28: I’m officially part of the knitting club …..I still only have half a scarf though

               Tuesday morning I went to the primaria school to teach English classes to the 5^th and 6^th graders. I realized that these kids would be moving up into the secundaria school during my time in Mancos, so I should start to get to know them. Also the primaria school doesn’t have a regular English teacher so they were really excited for me to come. The classes went well; younger kids participate SO much more than the older ones :-P

                Tuesday night I went into Huaraz to meet up with Ali and Giselle before they went to Lima for a few days. I needed helping editing some things I had been writing and Ali’s Spanish is way better than mine, so we decided to take our computers to dinner with us and enjoyed pizza while editing my work. The next day I used the internet for a while and then made copies of the youth survey I had been working on. There are just over 300 kids in my secundaria school so I needed to get started.

                Wednesday afternoon I got back to site in time to go to knitting class with Faviola. I was super excited to show all the ladies the work I had done on my scarf; I had almost two feet finished. I barely had the scarf out of the bag though when their eagle eyes started finding stitches I had done wrong. So I sat there and watched them pull the entire thing apart, literally. I walked in with two feet of scarf and within 20 minutes I had a ball of yarn again :-/ So I started the stich over and got a few lines done, but then they took it out of my hands and took it apart again! I nearly cried. The professor finally turned up though and restarted me with this one stitch and I was actually able to finish almost a foot before the classes ended. Towards the end of the class the women started voting on what color to make the group sweaters for the district parade that’s coming up. They actually invited Faviola and me to officially be members! I told them I doubted I would ever produce much to sell, but they said that’s ok. Of course then they told me I had to knit my sweater for the parade by the end of October…..we’ll see how that goes.  

September 25: I start walking your way, you start walking mine…..

       Sunday morning I went on a hike with Elke, Vero and Kaitlyn; three of the other volunteers that live near me. I caught a car up to one of the little towns in the mountain above me to meet up with Kaitlyn and Vero, and then the three of us walk for about 2 hours, through the mountains to meet up with Elke. We met her in another volunteer’s site so we had to walk another 2 ½ hours or so to get to her site. The whole hike was just us meandering through fields on the mountains between the two towns. It was SO beautiful. At the end of our hike we caught a car down from Elke’s site to Carhuaz. We got some lunch and went to the market for a little while. Not a bad way to spend a day! 

September 23 & 24: so…..it turns out altitude sickness is real

      Friday was “Dia de la Juventud” here in Peru. Most of the schools went on paseos for the day and my directora invited me to go along. The plans for what we were actually doing changed a few times though out the week, but I was still going where ever it was. The last my host nephew and I heard we were going to a petrified rock forest to have a look around and enjoy our picnic lunches in the sun. Accordingly I put on a pair of jeans and my converse. For those of you who have never owned converse of your own; they have ZERO traction…..we’ll get back to this later.

When I got to the school they told me we were actually going on a hike to a lake, but they said the walk would only be about 40 minutes from where we park the car, so I hardly noticed the change of plans. When we finally got into the vans the driver told us we were going to a different lake. I don’t remember the name he said, but it doesn’t much matter because it turns out that it doesn’t exist. We finally ended up at Lake Churup . Once we got there we realize that three of the vans from our school had actually gone to some other lake, so we didn’t have the school director or a third of the kids with us……..I know, right? And we’re not even out of the vans yet. 

So Lake Churup is up in Nevada Churup in the mountains on the other side of Huaraz and it sits somewhere between 4500 and 5000 meters of elevation. The drivers tell us we need to be back to the vans in three hours, which is fine because the lake is only 40 minutes away. At least that part of the plan didn’t change, right? Wrong! After an hour of climbing straight up hill my legs started getting weirdly tired; after two hours it hurt to breath; around 2 ½ hours my fingers started tingling; then around 2 hours and 40 minutes my vision started to tunnel out…..oh wait that’s me laying across a big rock to keep from passing right out. At the same time course I am trying to figure out how to explain that my house isn’t much higher than sea level in the United States. To help increase the likelihood of remaining conscious, I decided it was time to start making my decent. Not surprisingly once I turned around to head back about 40 or 50 other students decided that wasn’t such a bad idea either :-P I think at least half the kids didn’t make it all the way to the lake.

The way back down was still very slow because it’s so steep, but at least it was getting easier to breath.  No one was going to make the 3 hour dead line at this point and we were the closest to the bottom anyway, so my little group decided to take a snack break. While everyone was gathering their things to keep moving, I stop to wait on one of the many boulders that we had to climb over to get back down. Suddenly all the little tiny pebbles and broken rocks started to slid off, with me on top of them. There was nothing nearby for me to grab and no way for me to get my traction back (remember the converse?); so I did the only thing I could think of…. turn to face back up the hill, throw myself down on the rock and try to hang on so I don’t slide sideways down the mountain. Needless to say I was ready to be done with the hike :-P Fortunately we all made it home in one piece.

Saturday afternoon Jeff and Brice were both in Caraz, so I went up to meet them for a little while. We had some ice cream and used the internet…….the basic out-of-site activities :-P On my way home that day I had another one of those “life is different now” moments. It gets dark pretty fast around here; so even though I left Caraz in the day light, it was dark before I got back to site. Right about the time I was getting off the combi my host sister-in-law called my cell phone looking for me because they were all SO worried about me. Turns out they don’t think I should even be out on my own after dark…..even though, in this case, dark was about 6:30 pm. I keep forgetting I don’t quite have the same independence here that I have in the States.  

September 22: Have I mentioned how much I love mail?

       First things first: Today is one month in site! Only 23 more to go. I’m kidding….well actually I’m not kidding about the 23 months part, but I am kidding about the counting down. I’m having a blast down here :-)

      Next order of business: My address…..more specifically, post cards!

PCV: Kelly Tucker

Cuerpo de Paz

Casilla Postal 277

SerPost: Huaraz

Ancash, Peru, South America

          So it can cost a lot to send things internationally, go figure. Post cards aren’t bad though and it just so happens that I LOVE them. Even since I lived in England a few years ago I have been collecting post cards of all the places I visit. When I have the space I display them all on my wall. Once again I’m off in a new and wonderful place, only this time I’m not traveling every weekend. Just one of the many differences between an exchange program and the Peace Corps :-P This time around I’m decorating my walls with all the things people send me. So all of you out there reading my blog (which is a grand total of 5 according to my blog home page); if you feel like participating, grab a post card and send it my way. Funny, beautiful, home town, trip to the beach, any of it, all of it…..I’d love to know what you’re all up to :-) Thanks for reading by the way. This thing is more fun to write when I feel like I’m telling stories to friends.

Month two, here I come…..

September 21: Next time someone asks you to Shac Shas, just say no

    Wednesday my host family to me to …..surprise…..another town fiesta. This one was in Ranrihirca, a town about 8 minutes down the road from us. We went to listen to the bands play and there was some talk of going to the bull fight but none of us really wanted to pay 30 soles to get in. We watched the Shac Shas dancers for a little while though. This is a traditional type of dance that turns up in most town fiestas. I was having a great time watching until they came around to pull girls into one of the dances. It’s this silly song they sing about the different types of girls. It was pretty cute for a little while until 45 minutes later I was still step-touching in front a guy in a silk tunic and a head dress because this song has about a million verses. Never again :-P

September 16-18: Cowboys and Indians….Sorry, Keren, you can’t take the cat to the bar

           Friday afternoon I headed into Huaraz for the weekend. Our regional meeting was Saturday so we decided to go in the night before. I met Ali for ice cream right when I got into town….healthy lunch, right? After that we mostly just ran errands around town. I looked into getting a hand held voice recorder, but they seem to think a lot of their electronics here in Peru, so I just bought another notebook. As usual we all tried to get on the internet at the hostel at the same time so it stopped working :-P That night we actually went to a brewery just a little ways out of town. Micro-breweries aren’t really the trend in Peru like they are in the states so it was really exciting to find out that we had one nearby. The place is even staffed by gringos :-P I hope, for the owners sake, that it catches on though.

                The next morning was our regional meeting. We all collected up at CA café for breakfast and then hauled ourselves over to the park office for the meeting. We had a local professor come in to talk to us about tutoria in the schools. It’s meant to be a study hall type hour, but unfortunately it’s not generally run very well so it ends up being free hour or not happening at all. The professor was great though and I was reminded about how being excited about your work can get other people excited. Saturday afternoon was spent napping and finding costume stuff for that night’s costume party……cowboys and Indians :-) For some reason I actually packed bandanas with me, so Ali and I went as bandits. Before heading out to the western bar (yeah, we were surprised there was one too) we had a family potluck dinner in the hostel. Yum! We spent the rest of the night dancing and pretending to have fights between the cowboys and Indians. There were even fake guns and bows with suction cup bullets and arrows. Classic! I also might have put on a show by doing the Soulja Boy in the middle of a bar. Coming from the South, where EVERYONE knows that dance, it still amazes me that I can impress people with it :-P The cowboy hat I was wearing at the time might have made it a little bit more amusing too……..

                Sunday was meant to be internet work day, but we woke up to a power outage in Huaraz. Apparently they schedule these from time to time…… we just didn’t get a copy of the schedule :-P So instead of working we decided to make breakfast and hang out on the back porch for a while. Hurray for gas stoves! The power goes out frequently enough around here that people have just learned how to carry on with their daily business. The market was lite by candles and the ATMs were put on generators, so after breakfast we went to do our shopping.  I’m actually pretty sad that I didn’t have my camera with me in the market; all the candles were beautiful. Around mid-afternoon California Café actually turned on their generator just so we could have internet. They PCVs of Ancash are super loyal to this café so they tend to look after us. That night I caught the combi back to site and got myself settled back in. My host dad was home for the day so we all had dinner together. 

September 15: they came to pick me up in the ambulance

            Not because I’m sick. It was my ride to training with the staff of the health post. I squished in the back with about 5 other health post employees; sat on the gurney with the doctor, in fact :-P The health post staff had training at a recreo in Tingua, so I went along to participate. Most of it was over projects that I know nothing about, but I got a lot of time to talk with the doctor about health care in Mancos. It was an interesting mix of English and Spanish and I absolutely loved being able to ask intelligent questions without needing to look something up in a dictionary. We had pachamanca for lunch. It’s one of the most famous traditional Peruvian dishes and I actually hadn’t tried it yet. Think of it as a Peruvian luau. Basically they dig a big hole in the ground then fill it with meat, potatoes, a variety of other veggies and hot rocks. Then you cover the hole back up and wait. Did I mention you eat the whole thing with your hands?  According to my English speaking, doctor friend all the ladies were impressed that I ate some of everything. They assumed that I wouldn’t…..or at least that’s how Alfredo translated the riotous laughter that ensued as I pawed my way through the mounds of food. Mom, Dad, Nat and anyone else who watched my pick my way through food in the states, y’all would’ve fallen out of your chairs laughing at me when I was given this platter of food :-P Google pachamanca…..i’m sure there is a Wikipedia page for it. 

September 12-14: so the students are on vacation….again

          My week was a pretty low key one. The kids are all out of school for a week of vacation so there were no classes to help with. I got to use the internet in the school on Monday though, since the kids weren’t in class…that was nice. Since I didn’t have to focus on any classes I used the time to get some things together for my community diagnostic. We have to give surveys to gather information and I’m hoping to be ready to give those pretty soon. I also had the chance to talk with Doriza and Doctor Alfredo at the health post about my diagnostic. I think they have a good idea of what I’m working on now and will be able to get me some good information. Also it turns out Alfredo speaks a fair bit of English. That was extremely helpful when it came to asking about illnesses because I didn’t have to ask in Spanish :-P I think I’m going to start helping him with his English some, not that he really needs it, but he wants conversation practice. Considering how good his English is, I might have just set up the easiest project I will do for my whole Peace Corps service. :-P

Tuesday evening I went out to a cemetery with my host family to place flowers on the grandmother’s grave. The cemetery is in a place called Campo Santo. Back in the 70s there was an earth quake that caused an avalanche that completely leveled the old town of Yungay. The cemetery is built up on a hill though, so it’s the one thing that didn’t get destroyed. From the top of the cemetery you can actually still see the path left by the avalanche. It’s a memory garden now that tourists come to see.  It generally costs for tourists (that’s code for gringo around here) to get in, but not for families to visit the graves of their loved ones; so my host family told me to carry the flowers in so I wouldn’t have to pay. I briefly wondered if this was wrong on some level, but it’s their family member so I decided it was their choice.

Wednesday I went back into Yungay with Jon Paul to watch the parade for a school’s anniversary. Some of the students from Mancos were invited to march in the other school’s parade so we went to see them. That afternoon I went back to knitting class with Faviola. I’m actually starting a scarf now. The ladies have all taken me on as their little project, so they take turns sitting with me to make sure I don’t screw up whatever they’ve been teaching me :-P Not only am I making friends and learning a new hobby; but I’m already gaining support for projects I haven’t even planned yet. How’s that for multitasking?

September 11: Where we you ten years ago?

       So it’s been ten years. I know exactly where I was when I heard.

Do you?

Probably.

 That’s just not something you forget. I was in the ninth grade, in Ms. Nix’s physical science class. I even remember what seat I was sitting and who came into our class room to tell us what was happening; his name is Elliot. Now here I am, ten years later, living in Peru; a country that was partial controlled by terrorists for most of the 80s. Hate hurts people. I saw it in the States and now I see the pain left here in Peru. Everyone…everyone…. has to find a way to do better; otherwise we all just keep getting hurt. On days like today I couldn’t be prouder to part of the PEACE  Corps.

Do I sound like a crazy hippie yet? :-P I’ve officially been a PCV for about three weeks now, I suppose it’s time. 

September 10: the spiders just keep getting bigger!

          Saturday morning I went for a hike with Aldo, Faviola, Jon Paul and Paula. There are some prehistoric cave paintings in the mountains just behind the house, so they took me to see them. The walk was beautiful and the view, or course, was spectacular. There wasn’t too much wildlife to look at along the way, but I did get the chance to confirm that tarantulas do in fact live in the mountains here. This one was about 5 or 6 inches long and roughly the color of the sand. How close to you think I was before I realized it was a spider? :-P

The cave is pretty interesting. Sadly it hasn’t been taken care of very well, so now mostly what you see is graffiti of people’s names. We were able to pick out pieces of a few of the actual paintings though. According to my host brother, this cave is the oldest pre-historic cave paintings in South America. I’m going to do some research on that though and get back to you. We left the cave and hiked down to another town on the main road. It was about 3 hours all the way around. In Tingua we went to a livestock…farm? Not exactly sure what to call it. They raise livestock to sell, but it’s also a research center for the university in Huaraz. We went to look at the animals though and I blew everyone’s mind when I explained that not only had I seen cows before, but that my very own grandfather had raised them :-P My host brother asked me to explain myself about four times before he finally believed me. I guess they think we’re all from the city….who knows? We caught a combi back to Mancos and I spent most of the rest of the day copying school statistics into excel. Not everything in the Peace Corps is worth writing home about…..except that I just did.

September 9: how long can a town council meeting REALLY last?!

          The answer is four hours in case you were curious. Friday morning I went to a meeting of the Alcalde and the 5 town regidores. I thought I was just going to introduce myself to the council, but I ended up sitting in for the entire meeting. It was actually a really good thing that I stayed the whole time though. I got to see how decisions are made and I got a glimpse into the personalities of each of these 6 people. Super informative. Also waiting for the meeting gave me more face time with the Alcalde’s secretary……she’s the gate keeper, I need her to like me :-) Before the meeting I stopped by the school to say hello to the director. I showed her a copy of the community diagnostic requirements and she was able to give me a book of school statistics. It’s going to be VERY helpful with the education portion of my paper. Yay! 

September 6 -8 : strange things keep happening….

           Tuesday I spent the whole day in Huaraz; most of it working on the internet at CA Café. I treated myself to a big breakfast with half a carafe of French press coffee and caught up on all things web related. I finally posted photos from all of training on my facebook, so take a look. It was just me and a few backpackers holding down the fort, by which I mean lovely, comfy couches, when the kitchen staff came running out in a cloud of smoke. Apparently the gas tank had started leaking and part of the kitchen was on fire. Luckily one of the guys was able to pull the pin out of the fire extinguisher for them and they put out the fire before it got too big. They were able to start selling food again within about an hour, but things were really tense there for a minute. It was a weird 24 hours…..i forgot to check if the moon was full. After the café I went by the market to grab a few things and went to Cruz del Sur to pick up my box of stuff the Peace Corps had mailed to me. I finally have all my belongings :-) That night back at site I started the process of covering my fruit crate shelves with colored plastic I had bought at the market. Poco a poco I’m going to have this whole room in order.

                Wednesday I spent most of the day sorting through all the papers and manuals that had picked up in Huaraz the day before. I also set up a quick meeting with the Alcalde of my town. I just went by to give him an official letter of introduction from the Peace Corps and to say hello. He seems super nice and interested in working with me. Fingers crossed! That afternoon I went back to knitting class with Faviola. I learned a new stitch and I think I actually get to start making a scarf next week. Turns out this knitting group is actually an NGO that works with women groups to help them produce and sell knitted items. It’s a really interesting organization and the word on the street is that the greatest portion of the proceeds actually makes it back to the women that make the clothes. I’m a fan.

                The highlight of Thursday is that a woman stopped to talk to me while I was walking in the morning, about the fact that I was walking. She said she had seen me a few times now and wondered where I was going each time :-P I told her I was most definitely walking in circles; but that it was for my health, so not to worry. Maybe she’ll join me some morning. Other than that I tried to talk with my socio at the health post, but when she told me we would go to the primaria school to do health monitoring visit she actually just forgot about me…..oh well. I got a lot of studying done. I’ll go back and try again next week.

September 5: the episode where my host mom gets attacked by a dog……yikes!

             Monday was my host sister Paula’s birthday, so I spent the morning working before her birthday lunch. I went up to the health post to interview the obstetrician, Zoila. She was a little too busy to put much thought into the answers she was giving me, but she said I could come back with my USB to get some of the health statistics; which should be a big help with my diagnostic. Lunch was our family and some staff from my health post and the health post where Paula works. After lunch they broke out the huayno music and the beer and had a good old fashioned drinking circle. The dancing was fun, but I have to admit…..huayno all starts to sound the same to me after a little while :-/ shhh, don’t tell anyone. Anyway, Paula invited me to go out dancing with all of her friends in Huaraz. I was already planning to go into the city the next day and after about 10 the next combi back from Huaraz isn’t until 4 AM; so I just decided to back my backpack and stay in the city.  We finally left Mancos around 7:30 to go to dinner, but when we got to Huaraz it turns out we have to go meet everyone at my host uncle’s house for “just a minute.” We end up hanging around the uncle’s house for about an hour and when we are finally about to walk out the door; the dog that lives on the roof gets loose. A little bit of info: Here in Peru lots of people keep dogs on their roofs to protect their houses.  They are not pets and you don’t play with them. Back to the story…..This dog is the size of a small horse and had realized there were people in the building that don’t normally live there. It chases my host mom, screaming, down the hall and bites her before she can lock herself in the bathroom. It then runs back down the hall and starts jumping at the doors of the room that I’m in. I’m trying to hide on a chair behind a TV stand, when my host Aunt makes me run into the kitchen. We have to hold the doors shut and wait for my host uncle to get the dog back upstairs before we can go out. At this point I’m pretty much ready to call it quits and head back to Mancos, but no; we patch up my host mom and go out for pollo a la brasa. Sheesh! I guess good food is the best way to go after an alarming evening :-P After dinner Paula and I met up with one of her friends and went dancing for about an hour. Not really the all-nighter she had planned, but I was sort of ok with that. 

September 4: together at last, together forever…..

         Alright I’m exaggerating a bit….it had really only been about two weeks since all 5 of us hung out.  However, coming from the world of PST where we were under each other’s feet at all times, two weeks felt like ages :-P Jeff, Brice, Ali, Keren and I all spent the day in Caraz. It’s probably the second biggest city in Ancash, which doesn’t mean it’s actually that big; but it’s near Jeff and Brice’s sites so we decided to go for a visit. We went to the market in the morning and I got some awesome shelves made out of metal rods and woven plastic. The amusing part was me wandering through town with a set of shelves until I could talk a restaurant owner until letting me store them in his shop until we left that afternoon :-) The tradeoff was that we ate lunch there. After lunch we were done shopping and had seen most of the town, but no one was ready to go back to site so we sat and ate ice cream on the balcony of a shop beside the plaza. Someone got the bright idea (actually I think you can blame me for this one :-P) for all of us to rest out chins on the balcony railing and try to take a picture. It was a great idea until I realized neither Keren nor Jeff, the two on either end, were taking the picture. The five of us were just sitting with our chins on a railing for what looked like no reason at all :-P Sadly that story doesn’t translate so well into writing, because it’s the hardest I’ve laughed in a LONG time. Around 4:00 Keren, Ali and I caught a combi back down the main road to our sites. That night I spent some more time organizing my room with my new shelves. I am SO close to have things all set up that way I want. Just a few more fruit crates…..

September 2 & 3: little bit of nothing and that’s ok sometimes

            Friday morning I woke up and had breakfast with my host mom as usual. Then I decided to clean up my room a bit. My regional coordinator was coming for a visit, so I thought I should made a little effort :-P Nelly (the RC) and Emily (new PCVL) came to see me around mid-morning. We sat in my room and she asked me questions about how I was adjusting to life at site and how things were going with my host family. I’m doing well, but it was nice to have the chance to talk about things with them and it’s always great to see familiar faces. Oh and Emily brought me Sour Patch Kids! I also took them for a walk to the town plaza; which was great for me. I realized that I already feel proud of where I’m living. I loved being able to show them around and actually know a little of what we were walking by. After Nelly and Emily left I went to the school to help out with an English class. Now that the teacher is back I do a lot of dictation for her during the class. I’m happy to do it because I know I’m the best resource they have for pronunciation right now, but hopefully we can plan some lessons where I get to teach too. I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes though, so I’ll have to figure that one out. Friday night I finally called Jorge about my cold…..apparently two weeks is my limit. Still have to wait a few more days until I go to a city to buy medicine though. Oh well :-)

                Saturday morning I woke up and went for a walk. I’ve decided to just walk up and down the paved section of the road that goes up the mountain. The main road has too much traffic and I don’t want to walk out past the mines; not very safe for me by myself. So now I just walk laps. I figure within a few weeks it’ll seem less strange to everyone :-P When I got back to the house I started typing up the notes I’ve been keeping for myself. I think things will be easier down the way if I keep all the new information organized. I spent the rest of the day alternating between reading Harry Potter 4 in Spanish and watching TV with Jon Paul. Sometimes it’s nice to have less to do. 

September 1: profe, hay pinta en tu cara! You don’t say…..

(alternate working title: i’m realizing my potential as a human paper weight right now, but i’m out of appendages so you’re going to have to go get that yourself…..)

Thursday morning rang in yet another month here in Peru…..still can’t believe that sometimes. Anyway I went walking right after breakfast. Not a lot of people around here exercise so I had been a little hesitant to draw more attention to myself; but the very act of walking out my front door gets noticed by at least five people, so I’ve given up worrying. Maybe my example will inspire some other people. Who knows? After my walk the power had come back on, so I got to take a shower. I’ve already decided that when the power goes out I’m just not showering. My hands go numb sometimes when I’m just washing them; I’m not trying to stick my whole body in that water. That’s what baby wipes are for :-P After my shower I went to interview the woman that runs the Vaso de Leche. This is an organization that provides milk and oatmeal to families with young kids and expectant mothers. Just trying to get that community diagnostic started. After my interview I caught the combi to another town on the main road to hang out with Kyle, John William and Joanna. They invited me out to make lunch and see one of John William’s projects. Lunch was chocolate chip pancakes and the project was painting with 6 year olds. Good day? I think so. Back at my house that night I helped JP with some English homework. We worked on the verb “to have.” If we keep going like this, my own host brother might be my most successful project :-P Before bed I decided to try doing yoga. I got a yoga book from a third year volunteer who was leaving. Who knows if I’m doing any of it right, but I have some free time on my hands now so why not learn a few new things, right?

August 31: knitting by the light of my headlamp…..

           Wednesday I had two English classes planned for the first years at the school. Turns out the teacher is already back from having her baby though, so I just ended up helping her with her lesson. That afternoon I discovered the Mancos library. It’s the near the plaza and hopefully I’ll be able to find some more info about the town for my diagnostic. Also I think it would be a great space to have youth group meetings….i intend to go back next week with cookies for the librarian :-P In the afternoon I went to a knitting class with Faviola. There is a group of about 12 women who knit things to sell in artisan markets and they meet every Wednesday. So I bought some yarn and needles so I could start learning. I sat in the corner with Faviola for about the first twenty minutes while we untangled and balled my newly purchased yarn. Then the teacher came over to show me the first step. All the women started watching at this point and were completely amazed when I responded to Spanish commands. None of them thought I could speak Spanish J I really don’t see me getting good enough to actually contribute anything to sell but they invited me back and one of the women offered me her brother….so I guess I’m in. The power had been out all day, so we ate dinner by candle light that night and then I sat with my host brother Jon Paul and translated song titles for him. It’s good practice for me as well, because some English phrases take a lot of explanation. JP says he understood all of my translations; which is good news. Hopefully he wasn’t just being polite :-P Before bed that night I decided to practice knitting a little bit more. I hear sticking my tongue out in concentration isn’t actually essential to knitting correctly, but that seems to be the stage I’m in right now. My homework is to complete 10 cm by next Wednesday so I can learn the next stitch. The power was still down so I busted out the head lamp and worked those needles. You know you wish you were as cool as me…..

August 30: ok it was just two cows, but they ran right at us…..

              Tuesday was the Dia de Santa Rosa; who is either the saint of the nurses or the police, depending on who you ask. There was no school so I went up to Tumpa, one of the other towns in Huascaran. Vero is the PCV there and I went to help make masamora morada and arroz con leche with her and the staff from the health post. They were selling these desserts at the town festival as a fund raiser. I wasn’t able to stick around for the selling, but I helped them get started cooking and then walked around to see Vero’s site. The ride up and down the mountain was its own adventure too. I think if the road was paved it would only be a 15 or 20 minute drive, but right now it takes about 45 minutes. Sort of feels like your teeth might rattle out of your head, but the view is unbelievable!

                I got back Tuesday afternoon just in time to go over to the fiesta for the police in our town. There was a band and all the older ladies I’m friends with were there. It’s a little silly, but it felt great to walk into a room and see familiar faces instead of lots more strangers. Paula and I danced a bunch. It’s sort of a bummer that she lives so far away because she and I get along really well. It’ll be nice to have a friend my own age come into town once a week. While Paula and I were walking back to the house….which, btw, isn’t even 100 yards from the party and just means walking the length of the black top in front of the school…..a dog came racing around the corner followed closely by two running cows. We were exactly in their path so Paula and I had a matter of seconds to run sideways and stand between the pillars of the school. Once the cows ran past we scurried the last 50 feet or so to the house. Only the farmer, who we hadn’t seen at first, had scared the cows back the other direction; so they were now running back in our direction! Paula and I fell through the door laughing. I let her explain what had happened…..my Spanish level doesn’t cover stampeding livestock yet :-P

August 29: the Peruvian version of a Target run….

              Monday morning I had another English class. This one was actually with my host brother’s class. I think it went pretty well. The kids participated and by the end of it some of the older kids were staring in the window……not sure why they weren’t in their own class, but that’s a question I ask a lot around here :-P  After class I walked up to the health post to speak with Sra. Doriza, but they are in the process of finishing some sort of annual report so she was super busy. Turns out there was another American at the post that day. She’s traveling Peru and broke her ankle a few weeks ago. She made friends with the doctor who helped her and then decided to come help him out during a clinic day at our health post. The poor lady then went and got food poisoning from something she ate….yikes. Anyway, I helped her talk to the nurse while they were setting up her IV in the health post. She didn’t speak much Spanish at all, so I’m glad I was able to help.

                That afternoon my host sister Paula came back into town for a few days. She actually works at the health post in my friend Jeff’s site, so she’s only around about once a week. And yes, before you get too confused, there are two Paulas…..a 3 year old and a 25 year old. Anyway Paula, Dona Norca, Faviola, Paulita and I all walked down to the river behind the town so they could show me the bridge. It’s gorgeous and I got to see more of the town. After our trip to the river I went in search of fruit crates to use as shelves. Furniture is fairly expensive so apparently PCVs use these crates all the time. Anyway, we wound our way through the little paths between the town chacras for a good 30-40 minutes to get to the right place to cross the main road to get to the home of the man in our town that sells enough fruit to have the crates as well. I then had to carry them back to town, wash them in the outside sink and find some nails to secure a few of the boards. Somewhere between jumping from rock to rock to cross a stream and trying to keep my little host sister away from a monkey, I had a memory flash of buying shelves from Target  for my college dorm room…..it was A LOT easier, but somehow not quite as exciting.

                On our way back through town I also bought the last of the ingredients I need to make no-bake cookies. I’m going to take them around town with me when I start doing interviews. Chocolate usually helps people warm up a little faster :-P That night Dona Norca, Paula (the older one) and I took a taxi up the mountain to Mushu to see the fireworks for another Saint’s festival. When we got there though, the power was out in the whole town and they hadn’t set up the fireworks. We walked around in the dark for a little while and listened to some music before deciding to just head back. Bit of a bummer, but at the rate they’ve been going I’m sure there will be another festival next week :-P

August 28: my first time going back to site…..

          I woke up early Sunday morning, so I took my laptop to Cali to drink some tea and use the internet. Brice and Vero turned up after a little while so we all hung out for a little bit. I had some things I need to buy so I went the market and then went back to the café to use the internet again. Gotta use it when we can :-P Also more of the crowd was there this time and I wanted to hang out. I was dragging my feet on leaving the city; I’ll admit it. I was starting to get nervous, all over again, about going back to site. People started trickling out of the city after lunch though so I went back to the hostel to gather my things. My friend Kyle helped me find the right combi and off I went. When I got back to Mancos I met my host dad for the first time. He works in Huaraz and lives there during the weeks. He is incredibly nice and all my nerves about coming back just went out the window while I was eating dinner with my host parents. I got to talk to Mom, Dad and Natalie for a long time Sunday night as well. I love you guys <3 Time to get set for my first whole week…..

August 27: this game is called “how many times can we make John William run around a chair”

           Saturday morning I went back into Huaraz for an information session on the Girl Scouts program in Peru; I’m thinking about starting a troop as one of my activities. On my way in it took me a while to find a combi with enough room for me and even then I ended up sitting backwards on the front bench and leaning across the knees of two women so I could use the windowsill to keep my balance…..public transportation is always an adventure :-P In the city I met up with everyone at the café for coffee before the class. They actually have to go cups there so I even took a cup of coffee with me to class. Small joys. Turns out that Anna Maria, one of the tech trainers from my PST, came to teach us. The 17-ers were so excited to see a familiar face. Oh and the other lady that taught the class just happened to be Lucia’s mom…..our boss’s boss as Anna Maria said :-P The training was lots of fun. We were learning about the Girls Scouts program so naturally we played games, sang songs and tied knots. Yep, you all wish your job training was this much fun ;-) That night we celebrated Vero’s birthday. Went out for pizza and then ate cake at the hostel. I am just amazed at the quality of food that some of these volunteers have figured out how to make on campo stoves. Once again I had a great time hanging out with the other Ancash PCVs. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…..the five 17-ers walked into an amazing group.

August 25 &26: trying to figure it all out

Thursday morning I got up to teach my first English class at the segundaria. I think it went fairly well. Teenagers in large groups don’t warm up super quickly, but at least they are more familiar with me now. I think I’m going to teach some English classes throughout my diagnostic in hopes that the students will get more accustomed to me (and me to them, let’s be honest.) Later that morning Kyle stopped by to see me. It was nice to show someone around my site and it’s always nice to talk to someone who has been in the position I’m in now. Apparently everyone is confused for a little while when they get to site, so I shouldn’t feel alarmed :-P Thursday afternoon I went for a walk. Exercising doesn’t seem to be very common around here, but since everything I do will be perceived as somewhat strange I might as well add it to the list. My goal is to actually be able to jog some, but at this point I’m just still working on breathing. I also went to Yungay with Dona Norca and Faviola. It’s a larger city about ten minutes up the road. There seem to be a lot of interesting places near my site and I I can’t to start visiting them.
Friday I had two more English classes. The fourth year of segundaria is broken up into three sections so I taught the same lesson to all of them. My second class on Friday was the best of the three by far. I’m sure I felt a little more comfortable by then, but also the students seemed more interested in participating. Not a bad start I guess. During lunch my host mom handed me a Spanish cook book, so I spent some time reading that. I think I might try out a few of the recipes sometime, they looked easy enough.

August 24: now I just have to figure out how to start

Wednesday morning I made my rounds to say hello to my socios. At the school I talked with Sra. Yolanda about getting into some English classes. The English professor just had her baby, so they were very willing to have me come to the classes some. From the school I walked up to the posta de salud to catch up with Sra. Doriza. I ended up having a cup of coffee with Doriza and Cruz, the obstetrician. From there I just decided to walk through town and introduce myself to whoever I could, I sort of think this is something I will be repeating for a while. I ended up sitting in one of the tiendas for about an hour talking with the woman who owns it. She’s pretty convinced that I need to study psychology so everyone can tell me their problems while I’m here. I was flattered she thought I was smart enough learn all that from a book, but I was careful to explain to her that that was not my role in the town. Apparently PCVs get asked weird stuff like this all the time……It’s a good thing I was listening during those conversations or I might’ve been really shocked :-P That afternoon I went for the usual walk with my host family and on our way home we got invited to a party for dinner. That night, while on the phone with me, Mom had the chance to hear firsthand as the band paraded down the street and into the house; followed closely by the fireworks the get set off at any and all events. At the party I made friends with some more of the ladies in the town. I’m considering changing my program to adult development. Women over the age of 40 in this town think I’m the greatest; whereas the kids just still think I’m weird. I basically am going to be the “weird kid” for the next two years so I might as well just embrace it  I danced some more at the party (anyone surprised?). My new best friends, Nadie, Nelly and Alice, all set on the bench and cheered me on while my host mom just beamed. After a little while it was time to parade up through the town to the shrine they had moved the day before. So I was sent sprinting back to our house to get more jackets for everyone. No one seems to get that I still can’t breathe up here. After a dead sprint both ways I certainly didn’t need a jacket anymore, but one doesn’t naysay a collection of Peruvian Doñas :-P We started to follow the band up the mountain, but we never got all the way there. Paula, the 3-year-old, fell asleep on her mom’s shoulders so we headed back to the house. Don’t worry, I hear they carry Saints around for a lot of holidays, so I’m sure I’ll get another chance.

August 23: Hi ho, Hi ho, it’s off to site I go

Tuesday morning Jeff, Ali and I got breakfast before we finished our shopping. I got a ropero and hangers for my clothes (there are no shelves in my room). It’s pretty amazing how quickly our moving in allowance goes away and that’s even with some fairly successful bargaining. For lunch the three of us discovered yet another wonderful café in Huaraz. We hung out for a little while before they helped me load my stuff into a taxi and sent me on my way. I had a huge suitcase, hiking backpack, ropero, mattress and a market bag of stuff….. luckily there was room for me in the front seat. :-P I got to Mancos about 4 in the afternoon and had just enough time to haul my stuff into my room before my host mom took me to the fiesta at the school. From the school we went to the town plaza to watch some dancing and then join the procession as the men carried a giant wooden San Roque up the hill. During site visit my host mom discovered that I can dance, so now every time music turns on she makes me get up and dance. This time happened to be in the town plaza with a guy wearing a two foot headdress, a gold tunic and beads tied to his shins. Did I mention we were the only ones dancing and it was in front of the entire town? Being inconspicuous….ever…. is not a trait retained by many PCVs.

August 22: how many beds can you fit in one taxi?

Monday morning I forced myself out of bed to go shopping with John William, Keren and Ali. John William had offered to help us find everything, so I didn’t want to miss out. On our way to the market we ran into Kyle, who reminded us that there was still cake at CA Café; which we promptly went and ate. Nothing like a healthy breakfast to start the day, huh? We actually did a great job on a shopping adventure. I bought a mattress, sheets, blanket and the other girls bought bed frames. It turns out that in Peru, if you want to test out a mattress, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask for the mattress to be put down on the ground or even the road if the store is too small. Sometimes you even get to go up tiny, creepy stair cases into weird storage attics too look at MORE mattresses. This is why I do everything in groups in Peru :-P
After piling all of our purchases into some taxis and storing them at the hostel, we decided to take the guys out to lunch to say thanks for all their help. Nothing like a little menú in the afternoon. Menú is just a set of meals you can pick from for a set price. It’s pretty cheap and generally good, both very important when living on a peace corps budget :-P
That night we mostly just hung around the hostel. There’s internet at the hostel, so we all got caught up on emails and stuff. There’s also a kitchen so we cooked instead of going out. I think there were plans to watch a movie, but after multiple nights of little sleep I was in bed before ten. Excellent!

August 21: Welcome to Huaraz….there may have been some line dancing involved

We got into the city around 6 am and hauled all over our stuff up to the storage room in the hostel; we got there too early for a room to be ready. Then, following the usual steps, we went to CA Café for breakfast. We met some more Ancash volunteers or tried to at least, we sort of ended up half asleep on couches. Before the regional meeting Ali, Keren and I tried to go in search of a lock and a knit hat. By the time we got to the plaza we were all so confused that I just bought a lollipop and we went straight back to the cafe. This whole event was even more amusing because as we were standing in a circle, pointing three different directions, one of the other volunteers was just sitting on a bench watching. He eventually asked if we were lost, but we couldn’t even explain why were in the plaza in the first place.……can anyone say sleep deprivation? :-P
After breakfast was the regional meeting. The five of us got to meet pretty much everyone that lives in Ancash and they made us cards! In general I think the regional meetings are going to be very useful, but that morning the five of us were doing everything we could just to keep our eyes open. The last week of PST is not a restful time. Luckily we were able to go take naps as soon as the meeting was over….and showers. Have a mentioned that our hostel has hot showers. Love it!
Once we were rested and clean and generally human again we joined in for the evening’s festivities. Sophie, the Ancahs PCVC, is leaving us; so Sunday night was her going away party. We cooked in the hostel and then went back to the CA Café for a potluck and a talent show. Being the new kids in the group, we figured we should perform, so Brice taught as all some country line dance. I can safely say it was a hit  I also did the tap routine I had made up for the host family celebration in Lima. Turns out its way harder to tap dance at higher elevations, of course breathing in general is harder too. After the talent show we stopped back by the hostel to drop off the food containers before heading to some other local Huaraz hang out for a while. Overall we basically got the best welcome anyone could have asked for and I can’t wait to spend more time with the Ancash family.

August 20: I’m leaving on a jet plane….well, actually it’s just another Cruz del Sur bus

Saturday morning I woke up WAY earlier than I wanted to, considering how late we’d all stayed out the night before. No one wanted to say good-bye, so we just waited for as long as possible. I spent most of the day packing up all of my stuff and cleaning my room. Mid-morning I went to Kelsey’s and we decided to take one last trip to our local tienda for junk food. We sat on the curb for a while before returning to our packing. I didn’t have to leave until later afternoon, so I took a break from packing to help my host mom cook Causa, it’s one of my favorite Peruvian dishes so they decided to make it for our last lunch together. Before lunch I went back over to Kelsey’s for our prearranged time to say good bye…..neither of us felt like crying before we had too. Kelsey and I were neighbors and in the same group for everything during training, so saying goodbye to her was about as much fun as one would think. Looks like I’ll be taking some vacations to Piura during my two years  Went back to my house, lunch was amazing; I actually ate till it hurt. Then I really had nothing left to do but finish packing because Jon and Kelsey had already left the neighborhood. Keren and Jeff met up at my house for the three of us to catch a cab to Lima. We went to the PC office before the bus station, so I got to see Kelsey and Kyle again. Yay! Then we went to catch our bus. We got first floor this time; which means the seats have more space and learn father back. Wahoo! Still didn’t sleep very much, but at least I was comfortable while I was awake this time :-P

August 19: Swearing in – The world called and today we answered.

Friday morning started with taking the official photos for our Peru visas and signing the volunteer oath. We also had a meeting with Sanjay, the country director, where he talked a little bit more about the history of the Peace Corps. After his talk we had a quick meeting to give each of the staff members a certificate of appreciation for their work during training. The whole training staff is absolutely wonderful and I know for a fact that I am going to be a better volunteer because of them. Muchisimas gracias por todos! After the meeting some of us went over to the campestre nearby for lunch. We thought we’d celebrate the day with a nice meal. After lunch we went back to the center to get changed into our nice clothes; we clean up pretty well if I do say so myself :-P There was something very surreal about the whole afternoon. We were in the same garden and buildings that we’d been in for ten weeks; but this time the girls were in dresses, the guys were wearing suits and we were all getting ready to swear in as volunteers. We finally got there. And we got there as a whole group too. I am proud to say that we are the first group in almost ten years to make it all the way through training without a trainee going home. Way to go Peru 17!
The ceremony was at 3 in the afternoon and our host parents were invited to watch. The American Ambassador to Peru came to the ceremony to lead us in our oath. She’s was kept to a very strict schedule due to security reasons, but I was actually one of the few of us that got to speak with her when I gave her a copy of our group photo. Pretty cool. During the ceremony, in addition to the Ambassador, Kathleen and Sanjay gave speeches to represent the staff; Ali and Patrick spoke for the trainees; and Kelsey’s dad spoke for the host families. Then they called all of us to the front of the room, by name, to take our oath as Peace Corps Volunteers. It was a pretty overwhelming moment. While I was taking my oath I was looking at the faces of the staff that helped me prepare to start this journey and at the faces of my friends who are going with me. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I know I’ll never, ever forget it.
After the ceremony there was a reception in the garden. We took a TON of photos and did a little bit more crying. Emotions are tough little buggers to control sometimes :-P We said bye to all the staff and bye to the training center. It’s so hard to wrap my head around the fact that now things are starting…or maybe they’re just starting again…..or maybe they never stopped……. am I leaving or arriving….can I do both at the same time? One things is for sure, before we got to the Santa Eulalia training center someone told me it looked a little like the jungle when you walked in; they weren’t lying and I’m going to miss it.
After leaving the center Kelsey and I went into Chosica to run some more errands and then went back to our respective houses to eat dinner with the host families. That night though was our night. The last time we were all going to be together in Chosica. So we roamed around town going to all our favorite haunts. Dancing, eating, drinking, laughing….all the things we do well in a group. Love you guys!

August 18: Host Family Party or “Juntos….somos….an equipo de doble animales”

Thursday was our last TAPs group meeting with our Tech Trainers….sniff. Lindsay wrote us all a note saying bye and we took a photo of our whole TAPs group in a pyramid. It was much harder to stage that photo than you might think. We also had a meeting with Lucia and Evan (our new PCVC) about the first three months at site and how we need to always remember to behave. I suppose it’s good to be reminded of this from time to time :-P After our meetings we started getting ready for the host family party. Everyone was finishing up their food and we rearranged the chairs so all of our families could sit in the garden. A bunch of the staff came to the party as well and Luis brought me the package of mine that had been in customs forever. Hurray! Cedric is finally in Peru!!
During the party we had a few acts put together to entertain our families. Faith sang a few songs in Spanish; the advanced Spanish class performed a skit they had written; Zach, Matt and Jon played their own translations of I Believe I Can Fly and Lean on Me; and I tap danced. It’s been ages since I’ve done any tap dancing so it was great to have a chance. After our performances we served the food, which was absolute madness for a few a little while because there were so many people there. It went well though and everyone said the food was really good.
After cleaning up the center we all headed home. I worked on packing some of my things and then I went to bed early. I’ll be honest; I got a little homesick when I started thinking about the swearing in ceremony the next day. It’s another big step for all of us and it felt weird to know that my parents wouldn’t be there for it.

August 17: “put some brain in it”

Wednesday morning was our final exam, of sorts. We had a few quizzes and then we had to go through a series of interviews/ simulations to see how we handle them. It was things like finding a safe taxi, explaining the Peace Corps, dealing with inappropriate comments…..all in Spanish of course. After test time we had our last medical charla with Jorge. I am going to miss the comedic relief provided by the PCMOs. Hopefully I don’t turn into one of the crazy stories they tell the new training class :-P After lunch we had a little fiesta with our Spanish classes. Our group and the class right above us worked together a fair bit, so we had our fiesta together. We had tons of snacks and we taught Giovana and Karim how to Soulja Boy and electric slide…… American dance culture at its finest. We also had a cuy shaped piñata and played a game of dizzy bat. Helpful hint: after stuffing yourself with pringles, brownies and besos de mosas (imagine a smores bon bon); wait at least an hour before attempting dizzy bat. Otherwise you’ll throw up 
After class Kelsey and I went to Chosica again to pick up our photos and buy stuff for the host family party. Gotta say, Wal-Mart is convenient, but I could really get used to this market shopping thing. It’s like a little scavenger hunt and you get to haggle at the end. After the market I met up with some of the other trainees at a restaurant we all call the pizza-taco place. None of us have ever eaten the pizza and the tacos are actually burritos, but the name stuck. This was the first time I’d gone and I’m a little sad about it…..the tacos are crazy good and now I don’t have all that much time to eat more of them :-P After dinner I went home to make no-bake cookies with Jon and Kelsey. It’s a super easy recipe were you just melt all the ingredients, add oatmeal and then spoon them out to dry overnight. They are A-mazing and I will most certainly be repeating them at my site. I had a great time cooking with Kelsey and Jon too. We should’ve done it way earlier in training; made things feel very home-y.

August 15 & 16: “Where’s Waldo? Maybe he knows. His name is Sandro….”

Monday morning was back in our very own Santa Eulalia training center. We each had our third language interview that morning and when we weren’t in the interviews we worked on our CD projects. Luckily I wrote a fair bit of mine before site visit; I knew that I wasn’t going to have any interest in writing a paper during the last week of training. We had a long lunch and some of us watched Tangled while we ate. Such a great Disney movie! Lunch break got even better when Carl turned up with the mail. I got all sorts of wonderful things. Love you guys!<3 After lunch we had a debrief with Lucia and Miriam about our site visits. I was great to hear a little about everyone’s adventure. I think we’re all in for an interesting two years :-P We also had our last general assembly to make sure everything was sorted out for the host family party later in the week. Later that night I went to my friend Jeff’s house to steal movies and TV shows off of his hard drive…..we all want to watch a movie from time to time and there’s no blockbuster in Peru.
Tuesday we all turned in our community diagnostic projects and presented them in small groups. It’s so nice to be done with that :-P No more homework…..for like 6 days. We had our mental health chat with the doctors; theories on how to keep us sane. Of course that’s assuming that we were all sane when we got here. There is some debate on this point. After class Kelsey and I went into Chosica to get our group photo printed as a gift for our host families. We really lucked out with this project. Turns out some host cousin of Kelsey’s has a photo printing store, so we got a great deal. That night Kelsey and I hung out and swapped photos in her room for a while.

August 14: get ready, get set…..week 10

Sunday morning we got into Lima around 5 am….once again our bus had some air conditioning issues. Ugh! We went by the Peace Corps office to use the internet; which wasn’t working so well so Jeff, Keren and I just caught a cab back to Santa Eulalia. My host family didn’t think I was getting home until later so they were pretty surprised when I walked through the door at 7:30 in the morning :-P I ate breakfast with Sra. Isabel and told her all about my new site. I spent the rest of the day catching up on writing my blog and finishing up my community diagnostic. I also went to Kelsey’s when she finally got back to we could dish about our respective sites. I’m really going to miss that girl. I also said bye to my host brother Luis. He spends his weeks in Lima, so I wasn’t going to see him again before I moved. Strange……

August 13: back to the big city…..and then back to the bigger city

Saturday morning I woke up and headed back into Huaraz fairly early. We all wanted to spend some more time looking around the city. I dropped my stuff off at the hostel and then met Jeff for coffee at the wonderful California Café. Ali, Keren and Brice started trickling into the city as well. We mostly spent the mornings taking showers and enjoying a long breakfast. I’m gonna love capital city weekends :-P That afternoon we walked around the markets to look at prices on the things we will need for our rooms….the market here has all sorts of stuff! Later we had a meeting with Nelly in the hostel to talk about our site visits. It sounds like everyone really had a good week and that we’re all going to like out sites. Fingers crossed! For dinner we decided to make Kraft Mac and Cheese; the real kind, straight out of the blue box. We found it in the market  We cooked and then hung out on the back porch of the hostel until it was time to catch our bus back to Lima for a last week of training. Crazy!

August 12: and I thought alarm clocks were bad…..

Friday morning started with me being woken by a hog being slaughtered in the side yard of the house. Not a noise I ever want to hear again. My watch alarm hadn’t gone off at this point, but I was wide awake so I got up. After breakfast I met up with Lucy, one of the techs at the health post so we could catch a combi together to another town in the district. We were supposed to meet up with Doriza around 8 to go visit houses in the area to look at the kitchen improvements. After looking through all the Avon magazines and moving party decorations across the street to another building; we headed out on visits around 11. The first house we went to was SO beautifully campo. We had to walk down this narrow, winding path between a stream and the various chacras. On the way up the path we passed the sheep with a tiny lamb, a big pig and a tiny puppy; all roaming in the yard. The only way I can think to explain it is that if some tourist trap wanted to have a reenactment of a Quechua house it would look like this, except this one was real. You couldn’t even see the highway from the front yard. It was great. We ended up walking around to about 15 houses altogether. This was another big cultural lesson for me, to see the way different people live around here. After the house visits we came back to the health post for lunch….cuy and papa of course. I actually had my own half a cuy this time. I’ll be honest, the flavor is not bad, but it takes SO much work to get that tiny little bit of meat. I think I’ll stick with chicken, thanks. After lunch I headed back to Mancos with Lucy. I’m glad that I’m slowly meeting more and more people that work at the health post. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. I watched some TV with my host brother and took a walk with the ladies in my host fam. This seems to be turning into a routine and I’m not mad about it. It gets may face out around the community and it’s a chance for me to get to know my family more.