June 14 & 15

On Tuesday things really got rolling. We divided into our language groups and our TAPs groups. They broke up our language groups according to the phone interviews we had before arriving in Peru. I am in intermediate-mid. This is great because it the level we have to achieve in order to be allowed to go to site, but it’s also scary because I would SO lost if I went to site right now. Hopefully there is nowhere to go but up. My group is me, Kelsey, Jeff and Faith. Our teacher is Giovanna, she’s great but just a little bit intimidating because she speaks so fast. It will be good for me though. Our TAPs groups are the small groups that we have our program training in and they are the same people we will travel with for field based training. FBT is a week spent traveling around to other Peace Corps sites so we can meet other PCVs and see how their projects are going. Super exciting! Tuesday night I spent about an hour over dinner trying to figure out how to get to and from Chosica on my own. We were going to have a project in town later that week and I had NO idea where I was going. There was a lot of drawing of maps that eventually ended with my host dad walking me to the bus stop just so I could see it. The bus/combi system in Peru is loco and I was just a little terrified of ending up in some far flung place ☺

On Wednesday Kelsey and I ran into Jeff and Faith on the way to the center…..one small step towards figuring out where everyone actually lives. We don’t have cellphones yet, so it is unbelievably complicated to sort out social plans. I’m really not sure how people used to manage :-P We had four more hours of Spanish class and I probably could’ve used more. There was also a seminar on the politics in Peru. I realized that, living in the States, it’s easy to forget that most other countries live in some sort of political turmoil. It’s a big deal around here that they’ve had ten consecutive years of democracy. Sort adds a different perspective to things, doesn’t it? We also started with our program training (which I will most likely refer to as tech training). We discussed the various roles that make up the work of a volunteer. On our way home we had to wait with one of the girls at her house because no one was there to let her in. I actually walked back to tell the guard what was going on…..that’s right, I volunteered to speak with someone knowing that they speak no English. More than that, it turned out fine! Once Mary Kate’s host mom turned up the rest of us walked on and met up with some other PCTs at a little tienda on the way home. It’s nice to talk with the other PCTs about things unrelated to our training, after 9 hours of class most of us need a break. When I got home I sat with my host sister in her little bodega for a while. She’s about my age so it was really nice to talk with her. She gave me the insider info about all the other PCTs they’ve had at their house. From the sound of things I might actually be remembered as the book worm :-P well….maybe not actually, because I don’t think that phrase makes any sense here. Something similar though. I do homework most nights and I’m usually asleep pretty early because I have to get up around 6:30 each morning. It sounds like many of the others were….less than concerned with these sorts of things. To each their own ….