So Wednesday was the day of reckoning…..site assignments. Ah! Of course we had a whole morning of Spanish class to get through before they would tell us anything. Sheesh! No I’m kidding. That morning’s lesson was actually really interesting. In my class we each did a quick presentation on the departments that Youth Development works in and then the language facilitators did a presentation over some of the more mystical(?) sides of Peruvian culture. They talked about the practice of passing the cuy or passing the egg over someone’s body to discover what ails them. I actually was one of the volunteers for the passing of the egg….It’s a pretty interesting practice. I don’t personally believe in the effectiveness of these two practices, but I would never underestimate the power a person’s beliefs can hold over them, so it was super interesting to learn about. We also talked about the tri-part cosmovision the holds over from the Inca culture.
The small business group and the whole training staff turned up just before lunch, so we all had lunch followed by cake and ice cream. The food was great and who doesn’t love ice cream…..but man were we ready for some information. After lunch, we got to it. The APCDs don’t just read off a list though, there is always some activity involved. Ours started by each language group having to find their instructor; all of whom were hiding. The instructors gave each of us a paper slice of pizza with different toppings, I was cheese. Then we had to run around the garden to find the rest of the people that made up our pizza. This got tricky because some of the lang. instructors were really hard to find, so that left the rest of us running back and forth shouting pizza toppings for like 5 minutes. “Cheese!” “Pepperoni?” “Tomato?!” “Ah, where is Edith?” ha ha ha. Completing the whole cheese pizza put me, Keren, Jeff, Ali and Brice in a group. On the back of the pizza was a number to letter code we had to break; which sent us in search of Anna Maria, another tech trainer. Anna Maria had the pizza box for us with a riddle inside. Finally we had to unscramble some letters to get the name of our department. I’m moving to Ancash!!!!!!!!!! Of course all of the trainers and upper staff from Lima came out to watch the madness, so they were all taking pictures of us going crazy as each group figured out where we were going.
After the scavenger hunt we met with our regional coordinator Nelly to get our actual site specifics. I am moving to Mancos, Ancash. It’s an hour out of Huaraz, the capital city, and its right at the base of the Huascaran Mountain. Ah!! For the next few hours we alternated between asking Nelly questions and racing around the center to see where our friends were placed. Sadly Kels and I are basically on opposite ends of Peru, but the volunteers in my group are amazing and I think it’s going to be great hanging out with them during the next two years!
Clearly that was the last activity for the day, so once the adrenaline wore off people started trickling out. Kelsey, Jon and I actually went up to the health post in Santa Eulalia to do a quick interview for our community diagnostic project (gotta be a little productive each day :-P). Then we killed some time before heading over to Chaclacayo for dinner. Since Wednesday was such a HUGE day both groups decided to go to a nice dinner together at an Italian restaurant. It was lots of fun and the pizza was fantastic.
I cannot believe I now know where I’ll be living for the next two years! Ancash in better!
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