The REAL Peruvian Experience Begins....

After ten weeks of constant stress and continous training my friends and I have finally become volunteers. Following our graduation ceremony we all shared laughs and cries as we began to realize that our weeks together were finally over. Although I thought I would be estatic to end Peace Corps training, a major part of me wanted to continue, due solely to the friendships I had made (which were being forced to end as we became volunteers) during the ten weeks of training. While I pride myself on my ability to stay calm and mentally tough, I could not have been more of an emotional train wreck. As I was saying goodbye to two of my good buddies (who I probably wont see for at least one year) I realized how close we had all become in such a short span of time. For 10 weeks we had endured the ups and downs of training and had managed to become blood brothers/members of a united wolf pack. Now like 7 year old spartan warriors we were being asked to prove ourselves out in the wild, better known as Peru...Hopefully like King Leonidus we will be able to conquer our fears (not to mention kill a wolf-300 reference) and feelings of loneliness on our quest to become successful PC volunteers.

Following our graduation and of course my emotional breakdown, the Piura volunteers and I took a bus ride that we would never forget. Although I thought I would have trouble sleeping due to my nerves, I never would have imagined that a 1 yr old baby (Devils son) would be the cause of my restlessness. Lets just say for three hours I was deciding which pillow would work best to suffocate this devil child... Hopefully the first hours of my service as a PC volunteer are not a precursor for the rest of my time here in Peru....

After spending two days in Piura City buying groceries and flea repellent, Megan and I (sitemate) finally set off to Sicchez, which would be our home for the next two years...Following our 7 hours bus ride into the sierra of Peru we arrived in Sicchez ready for our Peruvian experience to begin...

Although previous volunteers have told us that the first weeks start off really slow, my time in Sicchez has been nothing but fast paced. Not only have I met a majority of the town leaders but I have also met with floor contractors, who will hopefully finish putting concrete on my floors before Sicchez becomes overrun with rain and mud. In addition to meeting many "important" people in my town, I have had my fair shair of run-ins with the town drunks, whose drink of choice is Cunyaso, a cheap but deadly alcoholic beverage. Cunyaso, which I believe is made out of everclear, volcanic lava and baboons ass is the worst drink I have tasted in my life. While discussing U.S immigration policies with 5 Peruvians, I was forced to drink Cunyaso, which made me want to rip out my stomach and cry for my mom. Not only did it taste like acid but it also made me think that I had superpowers...which I definitely dont have...Following my last shot of Cunyaso I decided that I had enough jumping ability to cross over an entire draining canal, which separated the house from the street. However, just as the movie white man cant jump shows, my white ass cant jump even when I am charged up with an out of this world drink...


P.S. Yesterday was the first glimpse that I got of what Sicchez will look like in the raining season. Although my family told me that the rain was weak in comparison to the storms they recieve in March, I still got an idea of what my town will look like in the raining season...lets just say I am going to be doing alot of reading, writing and watching movies (1/3 of my town leaves during the raining season to visit family elsewhere)

Chipillico, Piura and Alto Puria

I just got back from alta Piura! What an exhausting trip! During the trip I had the pleasure of spending 3 days in Chipillico, a small town in alta Piura where three volunteers are living in close proximity. During the first three days we did some house visits and charlas (talks to kids in local school about some health issue) about self esteem. While these were not that interesting we did have the chance to make a radio spot in the town, which would be broadcasted to the entire valley sometime after we left. The radio spot went pretty well although i definitely realized how gringo my accent is when compared to native speakers. I sometimes have a problem pronunciating every word instead of just flowing every word into the next, which will be something I will have to work on. Following the radio spot we were forced to work the next day (mid day in the searing heat) in a biohuerto (garden) ,which I believe contributed to my bacterial illness, due to the fact that I was already exhausted (immune system was down) and I didnt get to properly wash my hands before eating a popsicle that I rubbed my hands all over (the popsicle is encapsulated in plastic and you have to rip at it to open it up). Consequently, I got a bacterial infection, which almost caused me to pass out the next day when we had meetings with our future socios (future site work companions)... I shouldn´t have gone in the first place to the meetings, however my APCD strongly advised me to attend due to the fact that my socios had come 7 hours away in Sicchez to meet me...So I went and definitely felt like vomiting/passing out the entire time..What a great first impression! Following our meetings I went back to the hostal with some other sick volunteers and we spent the entire afternoon/night glued to our beds (thankfully we did due to the fact that our hostel got robbed that afternoon by two gunmen).

After spending the night in Piura, Megan and I (we are site mates) took the long6 hour journey to Sicchez with our socios. Following the journey we were brought to our host families for a short introduction before heading to the town muncipality in order to meet all the local leaders and most importantly give a speech to the public. Thankfully my speech was a success and all the people enjoyed my enthusiasm and sense of humor...I still dont know how I was able to muster any energy due to my bacterial infection which made every action seemingly impossible. However, I got through it and although I still feel symptoms of nausea a week after contracting the virus...I am still alive and well completely exhausted still...

New Sites to Come...

            Tomorrow morning we are heading to the Peru headquarters in order to find out where we will be living for the next two years of our lives. Although I have done a great job of being unbiased towards 95% of the sites there is one site that I truly hope not to live in…While I don’t feel comfortable saying the name of the town I will say that it looks like a place from the movie Mad Max (As my friend Pat proclaimed when we were showed video of this particular site, “Where is the Thunder dome”). As everyone keeps saying though…you can only hope and pray that you won’t be send there…and if you are, you will just have to re-group and find the good aspects of your site.

            Wish me well!!!

Ancash (Mato, Musho, Juarez)

Following my ass of fire debacle, I had the chance to finally do something new, which came in the form of a 3 day trip to Ancash with my fellow Health colleagues. On the first day we separated into small groups of two in order to teach mothers about childhood stimulation (constantly saying new words in front of your kid, exercising your child’s senses, etc). While I was not able to meet with the two mothers I was assigned to talk with (Peace Corps doesn’t take into account that doing host visits right near lunch hour on a busy workday is not a good idea) I did have a great time participating in a photo shoot with my friend Emily. Although we didn’t perform our task, we sure did get pictures of Mato (first town we visited in Ancash) and ourselves. In the afternoon, my health group of 6 people hung out with kids in the community and made piñata’s, which ended up being pretty fun. Following our arts and crafts session we all had dinner in Mato. Then for whatever reason, following dinner, I got called out to talk to these Peruvian ladies who had assembled outside the place we were eating. Since I didn’t feel like saying a speech in front of 12 Peruvian ladies, I decided to do the next best thing, which was dance erotically in front of them…sadly my erotic dancing provoked them to ask for more thrusting and shirt swinging. Although Peruvians are very reserved people generally, they do love it when people act ‘unreserved’.

After my swinger’s moment in Mato, my health group and I went to Musho early in the morning in order to learn how to build latrines. The volunteer living in Musho was a nice guy who told us some great pointers to get through service and help the maximum amount of people. While he showed us the techniques of building latrines, his best contribution to our group was his advice “Your not here for the goals of the Health program…You are here in order to improve the town in the most ways possible even if it doesn’t correspond necessarily with the health goals”. That was amazing to hear because we are constantly told we need to try and fulfill these set goals even when in some cases the towns already have sufficient amounts of cocina mejoradas or latrines. In addition to his great device, he also helped bake some amazing cupcakes, which were fantastic (mainly due to the fact that Peru does not sell cupcakes or sadly…chocolate chip cookies).

Following our day in Musho we returned to Mato in order to build cocina mejoradas and learn the proper techniques of performing a community diagnostic. While the community diagnostic was nothing to write home about, the cocinas project was informative and quite fun. Since there were only two guys in my group I had to do most of the manual labor work, which consisted of tearing down the existing cocina mejorada and building it back up, primarily with a mix of dried and wet mud. While the cocina is made up of seemingly stone-age materials, it functions well and prevents a majority of the smoke from staying in the kitchen. Let’s just say it works a lot better than the fire-pit method, which makes people want to rip their eyes out from the continued exposure to smoke.

Shortly after building our cocina mejorada in Mato, the health groups were whisked off to Juarez in order to take red eye buses back to Lima. Thankfully, our program directors allowed us to spend a few hours in Juarez to eat and chill out after such an energy-consuming trip. While in Juarez some volunteers and I went to a restaurant called Café Indino, which made us some of the best breakfast burritos and banana pancakes I have ever had in my life. ¡Talk about bon appetite! I felt like going missing in Juarez for awhile just so I could keep going back to that place in the morning…Sadly I think that might be the best breakfast food I might have here in Peru…Pero…¡Espero que no!

El Bosque

Last Sunday I was invited to the annual Bingo day at El Bosque, a private club right near my pueblo. It was quite an amazing and at the same time hilarious experience, due to the fact that I got to swim in a gigantic (more than Olympic size) pool while my family continues to run out of water on a weekly basis. Sadly Yanacoto residents

 only receive water 2 times per week while the country club, El Bosque, has enough water to maintain a lake, two gigantic swimming pools and a forest. While spending time at the pool, I could not help laughing at the situation I was in…Here I was swimming in this private pool in Peru next to barren hillsides which are home to not only my host family but also hundreds more. I felt like an oil tycoon living the high life in some foreign country while the country inhab

itants scrap for food and water…Basically the exact opposite thing I want to achieve while I am in Peru…

            Following my graceful swim in the pool, my buddy Patrick and I went to the main event area where we enjoyed the oddest game I have ever seen in my life. The game consisted of 50 or more boxes surrounding a disoriented cuye (guinea pig). I know…you are saying cruel maybe even inhumane… but I know that you are also saying dam that sounds interesting tell me more. So I will…So the cuye gets put in a designated box right in the middle of 50 other boxes which form a circle around him. After people set their bets on numbers like it’s a roulette table the game master sets down the cuye and the game begins. Following 30 seconds of disorientation, the cuye finally figures out that 40 people, plus the game master are watching him, so it scrambles to the closest box in order to evade the terror that has overcome him…Let’s just say this will only be seen in Peru! I hope!

            After spending time watching the guinea pig run around we participated in a giant game of bingo and then headed off to the cafeteria in order to get some “American” food. While eating my hamburger I had this weird feeling that I was eating an uncooked burger and that I would be paying for this lapse in culinary skills at some point in the near future. Boy could I have been more right…About 2 hours after eating my burger I had Hiroshima rumbles in my stomach, which basically notified me that if you don’t find yourself a bathroom in the next few minutes your bowel system will be surprising you with a good ol’ poo in your pants (Supposedly 70% of Peru volunteers poop their pants at one time during their 2 year service- we have already had two kids join this club due to incidents like this one). Thankfully I arrived just in time to pee out of my butt (sorry about the graphic imagery). Talk about blowing fire from your anus…I felt like I was going to get a second-degree burn it came out so hot. ¡NO BUENO! Following my incident I spent the next two days with major chaffing and an upset stomach, which made me fearful that my upcoming trip in Ancash would be disastrous/unforgettably disastrous.