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...