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.