Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
the Peru 18 Health trainees had their FBT in Kaitlyn’s site, which is just up
the mountain from mine. There is nowhere to stay in Mushu though, so they
actually stayed in Mancos. I got to help out with their classes for the whole
three days. Vero and I led a session on working with youth. We taught them some
dinamicas and some craft activities and just generally talked about working
with kids. Since they are health volunteers they also had the chance to build
latrines and a “concina mejorada” (it’s a fairly simple way to build a wood
burning stove that ventilates better and
is, therefore, better for your health). Since the idea was to have a current
volunteer with the different groups at all times, I actually ended up “leading”
some of these building projects. Since I know nothing about turning a pile of
mud and bricks into a kitchen, this translated to me being a somewhat bilingual
cheerleader. Kait would turn up with instructions and I would cheer them on. Nico
and Yoss, two other health volunteers came to our sites to help out too, so
there was enough health program expertise to make up for my youth development
handicap. In the end the projects turned out great and I learned a thing or two
along the way.
The
volunteers stayed at the hostel in Mancos called La Casa de Mi Abuela. It’s
about a 20 minute walk from my house, so each night after they built stuff all
day Kait, Vero, Yoss and I would go up to the hostel to teach some more crafts
and eat dinner with them. On the first day we actually had a volunteer panel
for the trainees. This is when a group of PCVs sit around and answer whatever
questions the audience has, this was almost a weekly event throughout my
training. The only difference was that this time I was on the panel. It felt
strange to be the one with some answers now. I was also a point of interest for
a lot of the 18ers because I had so recently come to site. The first three
months are a huge, looming question mark during training and they all wanted to
talk about it. Fortunately I’ve got the gift of gab, as my mom says, so I did
my best to talk with everyone throughout the three days.
Helping
with FBT was a great opportunity for me and it was SO much fun to hang out with
other volunteers. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of it though…..I don’t
work 15 hour days anymore :-P
Good luck to all the 18ers and I
can’t wait to see which if y’all are coming to Ancash!
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