Saturday morning is when Kim and I discovered that there was no hot water to be had in our room. Apparently some other volunteers had more luck than we did, but I’ll probably be taking cold showers for the next two years so I guess Saturday was as good a time to start as any. On our way to breakfast we got another surprise…..it was so dark when we arrived the night before that no one realized we were in a little valley between two huge mountains. As breakfast progressed the fog receded and the mountains just went higher and higher. Amazing! (There will be pictures eventually, but I’m still trying to sort that one out.) Saturday was all meetings and when I think about it in my head it seems like more than one day. We met all of our training staff and we had our introduction to Peace Corps Peru. We broke into our program groups to discuss more of those specifics. We also met with our Peace Corps Medical Officers (PCMOs), the language facilitators, the safety and security officer and a lady named Anna Maria, who is fondly known as the “money lady.” The best part is that we all managed to laugh and goof off as well; we made full use of our breaks. Add that to the fact that we’d behaved the same way through out Thursday and Friday, and you might’ve thought we had known each other for years by the end of the day on Saturday :-P
Saturday at lunch gave me my first opportunity to confront my fear of Peruvian food. I am happy to report that I ate some of every meal put in front of me….Mom, are you listening? I ate a steak. Well actually there was some discussion on this. We know it was beef, but it was closer to jerky than anything else really, so we use the term “steak” loosely. But I ate it none the less! And that night I ate rice and some meat that we couldn’t conclusively identify (consensus said pork). What’s more? I actually liked most of it and didn’t mind the rest of it! Progress? I think so.
Saturday night I was able to spend some time on the computer. There was one building in the Villa that had wireless, so we all congregated with our laptops to skype home. I also took the time to add a few books to my Kindle; you never know when you’ll have WiFi around here. After some time on the computer I played a game of Yahtzee with Kat, Hallie, Zach, Sabrina and Nicole. I don’t even remember the last time I played Yahtzee. Which might explain why I had a little beginners luck…I won by a landslide :-P One game of Yahtzee was enough for me though, and I went to bed soon after. Apparently a week straight of very little sleep catches up with you in a serious way. I fell so soundly asleep that my little camp bed could have been a 5-star hotel for all I knew that night.
Sunday morning we woke up for breakfast and a few more meetings. I also braved the ice cold water for a shower. I hear it gets easier. We had a meeting about living with our host families and there was a Q&A with a panel of PCVs. After numerous questions relating to how to stay clean during PC service if we always have cold water, one volunteer advised that we should just simply wash the parts that might mold and get used to the rest. Not sure how I feel about that yet :-P After our meetings we repacked our bags and piled into the buses once again. The small business development kids went to their center in Chaclacayo and the youth development kids went to our center In Santa Eulalia. The bus drivers had music playing so there was a lot of singing, dancing and general shenanigans. You could tell everyone was feeling the excitement and nerves of leaving out little orientation compound to live with our host families. Super sad to leave the small business group though; we don’t train together.
We got to the training center around lunch time and all the different host families were waiting to meet us. Mine showed up just a little late, so there were a few of us that got an early tour of the training center. I don’t think there is anything quite like leaving a group of English speaking friends to get into a car with and entire family of Spanish speaking Peruvians. It is honestly one of the more terrifying things I think I’ve ever done :-P It was fine though. The familia Guzman Doria is very nice and they are super understanding of the language barrier. I’m something like the tenth PCT they’ve had in their house, so they pretty much know the drill. I live in a barrio named Russell Bayard and I have my own little room with a window that looks out over a river. My host Mom and Dad are Julio and Isabel. I have two host brothers, Julio Cesear and Luis, and a host sister Yesenia. My host sister is married to a guy named Ramiro and they have a three year old son named Piero. I sat in the living room with Julio Cesear and Piero for a while that night. We discussed American music and cars and tried to put together a puzzle of the United States that I bought in the airport. It’s going to be an interesting adventure.
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