August 9: Socio Day and my first glimpse of Mancos

Tuesday we had meetings at a nearby hotel with each of our community partners. It was SUCH a strange feeling to wait in the room knowing that our socios were on their way to meet us. It felt real all over again (a common thread throughout site visit :-P). My socios are Senora Doriza from the health post and Senora Yolanda for the secondary school. Both women seem friendly and I am sincerely looking forward to working with them. Tuesday’s meetings discussed the roles of the volunteer in a site and the roles of the community counterpart. There was also a discussion of the types of things volunteers won’t be doing, which can be just as important for everyone to know. We did skits during the meeting and it was great to see all the socios participating and being a little silly. It bodes well for our lives as youth volunteers. Another task during the meetings was to create schedules for ourselves for site visit and for our first week at site. I have a lot to do :-P That afternoon we all went to our separate sites and I’ll admit to tearing up just a teeny bit when the five of us circled up before leaving. Feeling that excited and that nervous at the same time can bring the emotional walls down just a little bit. Sra. Yolanda and I caught a combi to Mancos; only one hour. Overall I really lucked out with the logistics of my site. Mancos is beautiful. It’s a small little town that basically serves as the gate into the Huascaran Mountain; which, incidentally, is breathtaking and can be seen from my house  My house is directly next to the school and its very nice. My family seems great and the cherry on top is that I have a calientador. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a machine that makes the water hot in the shower. Wahoo! Although I can say with certainty that these machines are more common in Ancash than Lima, so the odds were in my favor. The water around here was recently glacial, so it’s downright reasonable to have a way to warm it up. I actually went to sleep by around 9 that night. After all the nerves and excitement of the day, my brain just could stay awake any longer :-P
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but overall meeting my socios and seeing my site left me more excited than anything else. That’s a good start right?