This week half of Peru 18 health volunteers attended In-service Training (IST) in Piura.  Piura is a departamento northwest of my department (Cajamarca) and although we are next door neighbors it took about 17 hours to travel to our destination.  During this particular training event each volunteer brought a socio comunitario with them; someone in their community who they plan on working with on projects.  The trip itself is a little stressful, but throw in the responsibility of making small talk with someone from your town and the awkwardness of them not wanting to eat breakfast for example because the prices seem very expensive compared to prices in the campo was hectic. 

Before we left I was really worried about so much time with my socio for the 3 days of training.  I brought a Rogerio; a man who is involved in Juntos in my town, with me to Piura.  I didn't know him very well before the training.  We sat together on the overnight bus and in the morning I found him sitting in a different seat.  He told me I was snoring to loud for him to sleep-that was a little embarrassing.  Then at breakfast the whole group of us 5 volunteers and 5 Peruvians got to know each other better.  We talked about food; which is a pretty easy topic generally speaking when I can't think of what to talk about with Peruvians food is my go to, and I told everyone about how my family in northern Michigan hunts and eats lots of different animals.  In Peru we eat guinea pig so I didn't think turtle soup would cause such a commotion, but Peruvians and Americans alike were disgusted and/or intrigued. 

Anyhow, now I feel like I can joke around with Rogerio or ask him for help with a project.  We bonded over 3 days of rural technologies trainings in the heat.  They split us up into small groups and in the groups we rotated each day on a different topic; gardens and small animal husbandry, latrines, and improved cook stoves. 

One of my favorite things we did was on the gardens/small animal husbandry day, we learned how to deparasite turkeys and chickens.  We had spent the morning making beds for a garden and two different types of compost in the yard of a local family and in the afternoon the instructors showed us a cheap anti-parasitic medicine for dunking the birds.  I'm not sure if turkeys lack the muscle lining in their esophagus or if it is just a nervous/stress response, but when I picked up a turkey it just began vomiting everywhere.  It was really gross and funny to see the turkey's continuous stream and the poor guy only had water and corn kernels in his stomach.  Then I had to dunk the poor guy into a basin of water, he was very unhappy by the end of his bath.

On the cook stove day was spent the morning talking about theories, but in the afternoon we built an entire stove.  We went to a family's home and they had prepared adobe bricks and mud.  I was surprised how fast the construction process was-it only took us about 3 hours to build a bricked wood burning stove.  The improved cook stoves are made out of adobe bricks, mud, and rocks.  The stove top is metal and there is a metal chimney too to funnel the smoke outside.  There is a big push in the Peruvian Ministry of Health for the construction of these stoves, because it reduces respiratory problems for women by making conditions less smokey and it burns more efficiently with less firewood.  

The whole event went really well.  In the evenings we would come back exhausted sweaty and sunburned.  The place where we stayed had a pool and a lot of the volunteers played in the water in the evenings for the 3 nights we were there.  On the last night Peace Corps presented each of the socios a diploma or certificate saying that they were trained in rural technologies and we took lots of pictures.  

The trainings were good, but more importantly the socios seemed to feel more confident in their abilities to lead projects back in the communities. A lot of the people who attended had never traveled outside of their departments before and I could see a really big change in my socio in the course of only 3 days.  By the last day he was raising his hand all the time contributing his thoughts and ideas.  He was generally more outgoing.  I am really happy I had the opportunity to spend some time this way with someone from my town.  It is difficult sometime for people in my town to really get to know me, because we don't have much in common and they don't really know why I'm here in Peru.  Rogerio got to really see what Peace Corps is about and meet a ton of other American volunteers.  I think it helped him understand me-errr my job a little better.  Also it made it more clear that any project I might do is NOT my project, it is in fact the community's project and I am merely a facilitator.  That is a really big deal that someone in my town knows that is how it all works.

The second half of the week we are in the city doing a training/workshop on how to plan and execute projects in our communities.  The socios went home, but we'll be here until Saturday.  This half of the training is more like theoretical behavior change, goal setting, project writing, and grant writing topics.  

I am looking forward to getting back to Cajamarca and getting out of this heat!  It is brutal here.  On the bright side this training is helping me to get my project plans organized and it feels a lot easier to work out ideas with a group of other volunteers than by myself in my town.  When I get back to Cajamarca I'll be able to get started on a planning a big scale health project and although I am nervous I also feel relieved to just get going with it all.

I have a lot of mail to send out-sorry I'm running behind.  I'm blowing through my paychecks pretty fast so I might email in response to some.  Also pictures below!

Chau for now,

kb

happy volunteers waiting for our combe (van) to take us out to do our construction projects

Katie H. brought her host mom as her socio comunitario

the town where we did the training is called La Union

the landscape is super different from Cajamarca

the municipality or city hall of the town where we worked had portraits hung up all over, we thought this one was funny-Peruvian Jeff Goldbloom

group shot with the cocina we built on the left

Rogerio receiving his certificate

Allison and Ellie talking with the kids at the home were we built the latrine

the baby's name is Lazarus, like from the Bible his older sister told us

the lone male volunteer Matt with baby Lazarus, there are several other guys in  Peru 18 but they have split us into two groups and they'll receive this training in May.

goofing off on the bus

Ready for May...

Last week I got back from a Semana Santa (Easter) vacation at the beach.  Volunteers had 4 days off, because Semana Santa is a federal holiday in Peru.  In order to get to the beach myself and 4 other volunteers from my area spent 3 hours in a combe to get to Cajamarca, from Cajamarca a 10 hour overnight bus to Chiclayo, from Chiclayo a 3 hour bus to Piura, and from Piura a 2 1/2ish hour van to Mancora.  Whew, it was a long trip.  Mancora is a very touristy beach town in far northern Peru.  It's pretty close to the border with Ecuador.

The hostel we stayed at was filled with thin, tanned, rich European 20-somethings year olds.  Most of whom came for the great surfing.  It was fun listening to all the accents.  The food is really good in Mancora, because it is so touristy.  We ate steak, swordfish, Thai food, salad,  diet coke, and most importantly BURRITOS!!!!  It was awesome.

After two days in Mancora we were all beached out and we went back into Piura city.  The heat on the coast was incredible.  The only time there was a bit of a break was at night, but even then it was hot enough to make it difficult to fall asleep.  Visiting the coast definitely made me appreciate living in the mountains yet again.  We may not have toilets or high speed internet, but the weather is so beautiful and so are the views.  On the coast it's nothing, but sand and scraggly trees (at least where we were-I don't want to bash the entire coastline of Peru, who knows what the rest of it is like).  In the big city we got to go to the movies....twice!  We saw The Hunger Games and This Means War.  I'm sure the predictable Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy would have been annoying if I was living in the states, but due to the extreme lack of American culture  in my diet I thought it was hilarious.  And we didn't even have to watch those movies dubbed, instead they had spanish subtitles.

We made the 20 hour trip back to Cajamarca Monday through Tuesday.  I made it back to my site Tuesday mid-morning, because the overnight buses pull in at around 5 am.  On Tuesday afternoon I gave my first official charla or talk to a group of moms and the topic was early childhood stimulation.  I thought the charla went okay.  That is until the nurse from the health post apologized to all the women for how bad my spanish is, telling them that I was still learning and they needed to give me more time.  I was pretty upset.  I guess I deserved it for not practicing more or looking over my materials while I was on vacation.  So if I had any doubts before about whether my spanish was improving, it is very clear now that I need to get to work in my grammar books.

The rest of the week was pretty slow.  There was another strike in my department against the mines that are contaminating the water.  During the strikes they close down health posts, schools, and sometimes even block the roads.  On the day of the strike I hung out around my house.  In the afternoon a group of people slaughtered a cow in the Plaza de Armas.  I watched the process with a group of kids and dogs that had gathered around the men and women.  It was quite gory.  I have pictures to post below-but if you do not like blood please skip my pictures this post.  

The cow was slaughtered for another town party.  This time in honor of a new transportation business that will begin serving my town; bringing people to and from Bambamarca (the bigger town down the mountain, that has a market and for me internet!).  Everyone is very excited for these new cars, because it will mean more mobility for the people and possibly lower prices.  

On Thursday a group of probably 30 women cooked the beef, rice, and potatoes in large cast iron pots in the street over little fires.  There was enough food for lunch and dinner for anyone that showed up in the plaza to claim their plate.  At night there was dancing again, but I skipped it this time.  Since the last party everyone in my town (people I know and strangers on the street) have been commenting about how I danced last time.  I also heard some men making fun of Grisero (the man I danced with before) for dancing with the gringa.  I was a little miffed at the whole group of them for teasing me when they were too embarrassed to even dance themselves.  It really bothers me that they like to pressure me to dance only to laugh at me.  Sometimes it's no big deal being the silly gringa and getting a laugh out of everyone, but playing that part tires me out other times.

Friday was my english teaching day and I was teaching the kids colors.  When I could tell I had lost their attention I called them all outside to try to play color-tag.  However, either due to my bad spanish or possibly kids don't play the same kinds of games in Peru, they could not understand how to play.  I tried acting it out and some kids picked it up, but the majority of the class just stood there and didn't run or ran away from the school instead of the other side of the playing field.  I finally gave up and asked them to draw me pictures and label the colors they used.  

In the afternoon on Friday was my first youth group meeting and it didn't have a very good turn out.  I suppose it was my fault for not advertising more at the high school.  I put up a poster with information for the time and place.  Also I went to the two 4th grade (equivalent to high school sophomores, around 15 or 16 years old) classrooms and invited those students.  Only 5 kids showed up, and they were all the kids that had participated in the previous volunteer's youth group.  I was disappointed in not getting any new interest, but the kids that did show up seemed really enthusiastic and genuinely interested in being health promoters.

This weekend I came into Chota with the other Peru 18ers and other health volunteers.  I went to the post office and I had soo much mail.  Thank you everyone for the letters and packages (Aunt Jenny, Sesame x 2, Mom, Ainsley, Babu and Beepa, Cherny, Annie, and Mrs. Moran).  The jealousy among the other volunteers at how much mail I receive is now a running joke. 

I have some interesting photos below.

Chau for now,

kb

Brunch at a cafe on the beach

My first solo charla.  Afterward the nurse apologized profusely for how bad my spanish was-sad day...

some of the rowdy noisy kids that disrupted my charla-they're pretty cute huh?

It's not a party until ya slaughter a cow in the plaza de armas!

this teenage boy joined in with the adults hacking the cow into manageable pieces with axes.

Can you see my favorite dog Messi across the way sitting on top of the crumbling wall of the church?

Eduar and I climbed around what's left of the catholic church in my town.  They are in the process of tearing it down right now to rebuild a new one out of 'materiales nobles' ie. cement or brick instead of adobe.

Here is a shot of what was the inside of the church, now filled with blocks of adobe bricks.  

Apparently the adobe is formed into bricks before it is covered over with more mud/straw mixture.

Here is what the front of the church looks like.

Handwashing charla at the primary school

two kids from each class were picked to be vigilantes-err at least I think that's what it translates to in english.  Either way this is my team of health promoters!

     

Anniversario de la Ronda Campesina

 The verb rondar means to patrol.  In rural Peruvian communities like mine there are no police instead we have the Ronda.  The Ronda is a highly organized community group that is made up of male representatives of every household.  The have several meetings a month at the level of individual sectors of my town and a bigger one with the entire centro poblado.  Men take turns patrolling the streets at night.  They carry machetes, coca leaves to chew, rope (apparently to tie someone up if need be), and little notebooks to write offenders names if they encounter anyone trying any funny business. 

From what I can tell the Ronda is quite effective in keeping the crime rate down.  There is not a whole lot of breaking and entering, or stuff like cattle theft.  It is pretty tranquillo around here.  This week was the anniversary of the Ronda in my town.  It was a very big party.  The party started during the daytime on Thursday.  The men had a soccer tournament and the teams were divided by the sectors where the ronderos live.  In the evening my grandparents hosted a dinner for everyone in our sector of town; sector centro (we live a block within the Plaza de Armas or town square), we ate normal party food giant plates of rice, potatoes, and instead of cuy (guinea pig) we had lamb.

At around 8pm people started gathering in the Plaza from all the various sectors.  Each sector had a banner, a Peruvian flag, lots of fireworks, and a small band.  My neighbors asked me to carry the flag for our sector.  I was a little nervous and said to them ‘but I’m not Peruvian,’ and they told me they wanted me to carry the flag anyway.  I was in the front of our group, just behind my neighbor Segundo who was lighting off fireworks and shooting them into the air from his bare hands.  Don’t worry I asked my brother Witman to take pictures and he got a video of one of the ronderos shooting off the fireworks.

After each sector had had it’s turn to parade around the Plaza there were some speeches made and several small groups of people sang songs over the sound system.  Then each sector with their own little band danced.  In the past when I have attended dances a song would end and the dancers could take a break if they chose to do so.  This time was different the music never seemed to stop.  My first dance partner quit on me after about 15 minutes, then I had a second dance partner and he was probably about 9 years old, my third dance partner was a neighbor who I am guessing is in his sixties.  Griserio is his name and we danced for more than an hour straight.  After I realized that the song just kept on going I thought it might be some kind of dance competition.  Then new dance pairs would join in and I realized it was just non-stop dancing with no competitive edge.  Boo, I love a good dance-off!

I think Griserio must have been chewing coca leaves or something, because I can’t think of any other explanation for how he had so much energy.  He and I were definitely the most energetic dancers.  My host grandmother Niceda and a neighbor named Juan danced next to Griserio and I, only we were jumping around sweating while the others moved their feet slowly.  The ronderos chew coca leaves when they have to stay up all night.  In Peru coca leaves are not illegal and I have been told the effects are like having an espresso shot. 

At midnight when Griserio and live band showed no signs of stopping I had to bow out.  My feet hurt and I was covered in sweat.  It was fun.  And I think I earned some Peruvian street cred from my neighbors.  The vast majority of people just stood and watched the dancing.  There were probably only 8 pairs of dancers at any given time.  The dance that we did is called Huayno.  It’s pretty easy.  You stand facing your partner; there are only male/female pairs-when I tried to dance with my grandma once she told me it was not alright for 2 women to dance together, and stamp your feet around.  Every so often you switch sides with your partner.  Also everyone dances in a long line.

I’m not a big fan of Huayno music, but the dancing is easy and fun.  I’ll be sure to bring back some Huanyo music videos to the states.  My understanding is that Huayno is vastly more popular in the sierras than on the coast.  On the coast they listen and dance to other types of music called Cumbia, Marinara, and Reggatone (not sure on the spelling). 

All in all it was a fun party.  The Peruvians sure know how to have a good time.  I went home after midnight, but the party went on until 4am.  Then the kids all went to school on Friday morning bright and early.  The party continued on all day on Friday and seemed to wind down at night.  I don’t know how they do it here, but I guess if there’s a will to party they’ll find a way to party.

Chau for now,

kb

Diamond and I giving a presentation about Peace Corps to a municipality health  reform group in Bambamarca.

Sector Centro!  My cousin Eduar on the left and neighbor boy Willian on the right.  

Witman took this picture.  The guy in the poncho with the hat is Griserio who I danced with.  The young guy is holding the fireworks that the men were all lighting and shooting out of their hands.

Witman took lots of pictures of the parade for me...

This little boy was in my summer school english class.  His name is Edder.

It's difficult to see, but that is me marching in the front with the Peruvian red and white flag.

Two of my favorite neighbor boys; Willian and Nilton, arm wrestling while we waited for other sectors to  parade around the Plaza de Armas.

Yessie is my favorite neighbor girls and the star student of my english summer classes.   She and Willian are my next door neighbors.  She's about the same age as my sister Jessie.




P.S. the internet in Bambamarca will take forever to upload youtube videos-so I'll put them online next week.  For Easter we get a 4 day weekend and a bunch of us are going to the beach in a neighboring department called Piura.  In the bigger cities the internet is always way better.  

cuy food and engordaring

Today was an organized strike in my district and maybe in all the department of Cajamarca.  The strikes are against the mines in this area.  The mines are planning on draining a lake that is the water source for a large population in the Hualgayoc district (that’s where I live, yikes!).  The schools and the health post were closed to show their solidarity with the cause. 

So I spent the day hanging out with my host family.  I went with my brother Witman to the corn field to bring back food for the cuys; which seemed like plain old normal grass that grew in between the stalks of corn.  I sat around with my host mom and croquetted.  Witman helped me go over some grammar points in Spanish.  It was the first time I have cracked open my Spanish grammar book in a couple months.  I wrote some letters (Aunt Linda and Sesame, hopefully I’ll get those mailed out next week).  Then after lunch Witman and I played soccer-err futbol- with a bunch of neighborhood boys.  I tried to get some of the girls to play with us, but they just wanted to watch.

I didn’t get a whole lot of ‘work’ done, but I felt like it was a good bonding day with the host family.  Right now any real work is in the planning stages.  I feel overwhelmed by all the project ideas getting tossed around and I know that I just need to pick somewhere and start.  Waiting around for someone else to take the lead is not going to work, because it’ll never happen.  That’s the whole reason why I’m here.  I am a professional; at least that’s what Peace Corps keeps telling me, but I am living here with a whole lot of free time on my hands to get projects going.  The people that live in my town and the professionals at the schools and health post work very hard.  Taking an initiative on some kind of volunteer community project is not high on a subsistence farmer’s priority list. 

Even though I feel like project-wise I am moving super slowly, time is going by quickly.  Next month for Semana Santa or Easter, a group of us Peru 18ers are going to the beach!  I am looking forward to the face time with Americans and food that is not rice or potatoes.  I’m trying to do P90X workout videos in my room to get rid of my potato belly.  Plus, Witman promised to help me by playing soccer or frisbee every afternoon.  He is so sweet. 

I am slowly stepping in the kitchen more to learn how to cook on our wood burning stove and without refrigeration.  My ulterior motive in helping in the kitchen is influencing Dalila to prepare more vegetables.  I made a salad on Sunday night and it went over pretty well.  Witman wouldn’t eat any of it except the carrots, but Joel and Dalila ate it all.  So, maybe if I’m lucky people will stop telling me on the street in my town that I am fattening up so nicely…I know they mean it as a compliment, but I am still not a fan of hearing it from my neighbors.  I asked my host family about it and they said that the previous volunteer that lived with them started daily runs at 6am in order to loose potato weight.  It’s just throws me off, because I always associated living in a developing country with loosing a lot of weight.  I guess I need to climb some more mountains for that to happen.

Some days I feel like I want to smack a Peruvian in the face I am so frustrated here, but other days like today I feel very peaceful.  I need to remember to take a step back and enjoy the mountains, the people, and the cuys!  Thanks for listening, hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to post about next time.

Chau for now,

kb

Dalila and I working on our skirts.

Witman goofiing off with my croquetting and sombero

hauling cuy food campo style; tied to my back with a blanket

Witman borrowed my camera and strangely enough took pictures of his Aunt Esperanza just standing around  at her house....

but I thought it would be good to include them, just to give people more examples of how Peruvian homes look where I live.

Peace Corps loves it's acronyms

This week is my first Peace Corps In-Service Training or IST.  All the volunteers from my training group in Lima (we’re Peru 18, the 18^th group of volunteers to come through the training center since Peru was re-opened for Peace Corps my President Toledo and I can’t remember what year that was).  We haven’t seen each other in 3 months and we are spread out all over the country in very different climates, cultures, and completely different Peace Corps Peru experiences.  It is exciting to see everyone again.  It’s like our own private little America when we get together.  It kind of feels like summer camp with our training schedule; we have all our meals together, we room together, and activities all day.

I live out in the campo (campo= country) and up in the mountains in Cajamarca.  I have animals and lots of green plants around me, but the technology and development in my area is significantly less than the volunteers that live on the coastal desert climates.  The population of my town is about 4,000, but there are people that live in very urban areas with much larger population size.  It is really interesting to compare notes with the other volunteers on their experiences.  On the coast they have toilets, showers, and internet, but they also have HIV, a whole different type of desnutrición from all the processed food, and they have to live in the heat, yuck!  I’m feeling really happy with being a Cajamarquina right about now; I’d pick sierras over desert any day of the week.

Our IST is in a costal tourist town.  The beach is nice, but beyond the main drag of surf shops and restaurants is just desert.  There are mountains all around, but they are barren dirt mountains-like the ones in Lima.  On Sunday after getting off the Saturday night bus we went to the beach.  It was amazing to get some sun and go in the water.  I think the majority of us have gained some weight during the first 3 months, and all the potato bellies came out yesterday.  I got to show off my flea bites too. 

Last week my cell phone was robbed and I went into Bambamarca to do the police report or denuncia.  Then I had to go to Serpost to send a hard copy to Lima.  In Chota I met up with some of the other volunteers and my friend Jennifer Cobb received a very special package.  Her mother sent her a device that allows women to pee standing up.  The extra special part was that the package came in on International Women’s Day.  So she opened it up in Serpost and the two Peruvian employees were very interested.  Jennifer had to explain to these two Peruvian women the pee funnel her mother sent her in Spanish while Diamond and I laughed our butts off.

Later that day on my way back to my site an elderly woman grilled me in the truck on the way back up to my town.  We went through the usual interrogation I get from the Peruvians; why are you here, where are you from,  how old are you, do you have kids, are you married, are looking for a man, do you like Peruvian men?  My usual response is no I am not interested or looking for a man, but just for the hell of it I told her I did like Peruvian men and I was looking.  This woman was so excited.  She told me she was going to give me a man.  The verb she used was ‘regalar’ which translates to ‘to gift’, so she is going to ‘gift me a man’.  I have never met this lady before, but now she knows who I am and where I live.  I guess we’ll see what happens with the man-gift situation, the ball is in her court.

Anyhow, although they are keeping us busy this week for the training, I am thoroughly enjoying my time here.  We have nice comfortable beds, sun, beach, showers, and high speed internet.  Plus, I am not eating rice and potatoes at every meal!  I’m speaking English and swapping external hard drives.  Aren’t you all glad to know your tax dollars are hard at work putting up this volunteer in a hostel on the beach of La Libertad?!

I should be able to update soon with all this internet, woot!  Thanks for all the mail; Aunt Linda, Mom, and Sesame.  Expect some letters back. 

Chau for now,

kb

I can't believe it's already March!

This week went by really fast.  On Monday I had my site visit with the regional director for Cajamarca, which went really well.  On Tuesday and Wednesday I spent the days finishing up my encuestas in a sector of my town that is about a half hour up the mountain from my house.  I have never done so many door to door surveys in such little time before.  I was so determined to get them done, that I actually encuesta-ed 11 families on Thursday between 9am and 12pm.  Typically I get about 5 done in 3 hours.  That’s right, I am a super volunteer.

So I finally finished my community diagnostic report and I just need to get my Spanish proof read.  The director of the elementary school told me he’d help me out with it, since I typed up a solicitude back in December.  He’s not so handy with typing, but I’m crossing my fingers he’ll just sit with me and read through while I type the changes.

On Thursday I hung out at the health post and attended a meeting for the gardening project that I am going to be helping with.  I also started work on finishing drawing a world map that the previous volunteer; Annie, started but didn’t get the chance to finish.  She drew out a grid and painted the ocean.  She even finished South America, most of Africa, and Asia.  It was the northern hemisphere that my host brother and I finished up sketching in block by block. 

Next week we’ll start painting the countries in, and I’m a little nervous that somehow we’ll mess it up.  I couldn’t find washable paint at the hardware store (or ferritería).  I’m crossing my fingers we don’t get too dirty and don’t smear the map.  I’ll try to take pictures.

Next week is going to be really busy, because the first week of the month is typically when all the various groups in town have their meetings.  On Monday night (first Monday of the month) I am going to go to the Ronda meeting with my host day Joel.  The Ronda is basically this highly organized neighborhood watch type system.  All the men in the community need to send someone in attendance to the meetings and depending on how much money your family can pay-they need to spend several nights a month patrolling the streets after dark.  There are no police where I live, but the Ronda does a good job of keeping crime down. 

The Ronda meetings are all men and they begin at 8-8:30pm and last until usually around 2am.  I’m not looking forward to that, maybe I can figure out a polite way to make my spiel and get the hell out of there before it’s the middle of the night.  My goal is to introduce myself and give a short explanation of Peace Corps, but also to try to introduce the idea of a campaign to improve the water system.  The Ronda is in charge of the water and right now the vast majority of the kids have parasites, because the water is untreated.  If the Ronda got itself organized and motivated the people, funds could be raised to buy powdered chlorine to sanitize the drinking water.  Then on Tuesday is the meeting for Juntos in Tucupampa; a independent sector of my town, and I’m hoping to work with them the way I am working with Juntos in the other sectors of San Juan.

On Wednesay I am going into Chota; a neighboring bigger town about an hour away, to go to Serpost and so I can meet Hayden’s friend.  One of the other volunteer’s best friend from college is coming to visit her and we are all excited to have some American time and just to meet her. 

Thursday and Friday I need to get the map finished up.  And Friday in the morning I am going to my friend Diamond’s site for a parade and charla, she and her health post are putting on for International Women’s Day (which was actually yesterday, but we’re on Peru time here).  Then Saturday I am leaving town with the other Cajamaraca training group 18ers to go to a Peace Corps training event in a big city in another department.  We are all super excited to get out Cajamarca and see how the rest of our training group is doing in their various departments throughout Peru. 

The main thing is that time is finally starting to speed up.  I feel like I am a little busy now.  I’m almost starting projects (we’re talking about gardening, but it hasn’t begun yet) and at this point I recognize practically everyone’s face and know some names.  I guess what it is-I’m starting to feel like a real volunteer.  I’ve got a long ways to go, but it’s a nice place to be. 

Don’t get me wrong, I still day dream about visiting Michigan, seeing friends and family, and just living like an American.  I can see now that these months before I get to come home and visit in December will go by much faster than these painfully slow first few.  I spend all week looking forward to skyping on the weekends.  Which is sort of sad and pathetic, but it almost feels like I will need to give up more of my American self in order to make room for Peru in my life.  So maybe I’ll start cutting back on my skype time and spend my weeks looking forward to cooking with my host mom or Frisbee with Witmanskpye-let alone give it up, but it’s something to think about.

Chau for now, I hope to update next week after I get back from Trujillo.

kb

Post paint war shot.

We hung out on the balcony for a while in the morning shooting passersby.

Cajamarca 18ers

Jennifer Cobb and I figured out how to use the public transit in Cajamarca city.   I was pretty proud of us.