Tacabambina Baby: 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.