the new junta directiva, the local alcaldes, and other community members that have offered their support to the new group
the reason why i came back to site early was to put on an event to jump start a youth group that i am starting with the PRE. we spent the couple weeks before preparing and promoting it. going to all the colegios in the caserios, as well as meeting with the neighboring district’s mayors. and guess what…IT TURNED OUT GREAT! i really needed a project to take off. in fact, it softened the blow that i had yet another socio leave my site, which put a halt to my earth day project…so that means within the last month 3 out of the 4 people i have been working with have left my town…lucky, me! but back to the event.
at the event, more than 90 people from the caserios showed up. my socio, myself, and the alcaldes all gave speeches on the importance of looking ahead, and that they can change their futures. generally speaking, living in the caserios insinuates that they live in poverty. many of the homes have dirt floors, are sometimes made of adobe, there is limited, and sometimes no electricity. running water is a luxury and a bathroom inside the house does not exist. these families work hard for the things they do have. the idea of this youth group, is to combine a group of students (both secundaria and university age) and young professionals to be leaders and mentors in their communities. they are from a variety of caserios, spanning across 4 districts. with this group, we will work to disseminate more knowledge to share with the members of the community to raise the standard of living. they will work to determine what those needs are (e.g. family planning, sewing lessons, cuy raising, job skill training, etc.), and myself and the other members of the community will work to help provide them with the knowledge and skill sets to better life in their caserio.
this is just the beginning of this project, so i am excited to see where it goes. i am also just as delighted to have found a member of the community who is extremely enthusiastic and motivated to work towards sustainable change. see, didn’t i tell you that i could sense the winds were changing direction????
one thing that should be noted about peace corps. each of our experiences is unique. no two services are the same. even those of us who serve so closely together. there are numerous reasons why this is, which i won’t go into. but just as no two services are the same, the length needed to serve also varies from volunteer-to-volunteer. some volunteers feel the need to serve the maximum 5 years of service, and others it’s just mere months, but normally most people complete 2 full years of service. the experiences we gain here are so unique, yet we form a strong bond of unity with one another, because on some levels we do understand the challenges and accomplishments we experience.
casey, sam and steve at lunch.
oh heyyyyyy ladiesssss.
for my dear friend, sam, his time has come to an end. he is the bravest volunteer i know. he has overcome numerous obstacles and made such an impression not only on the lives in his community, but also in his fellow volunteers’ lives. he has such a positive personality that is always ready to take advantage of whatever life has in store for him and to live every moment to its fullest. his enthusiasm is infectious, and he is irreplaceable. also, i think it’s also important to note that he is my fellow texan, and that is bond that i can never be broken.
the three musketeers.
sam. lambayeque won’t be the same without you. peru 19 won’t be the same without you. peru won’t be the same without you. but i am so happy that you get to share your greatness elsewhere (maybe even hawaii?). i can’t wait to be reunited with you again…because it WILL HAPPEN, and let’s be honest, it will probably look like this:
thursday marked my first valentine’s day in peru. here in peru, it is also dia de la amistad (day of friendship). so a few other volunteers and i decided to get together and spend the day at the beach, since 3 of us had valentine’s that we could not celebrate with. however, that did not leave me without surprises, which made me the luckiest girl at least out of our group, but i am just going to say in the whole world. the volunteers were coordinated to show up with flowers or balloons for me to receive from them throughout the day, and then lunch was taken care of, which made all the other volunteers extremely happy. at first it caught me by surprise and i didn’t believe and thought it all to be a joke, but then each time my heart kept melting. the best part though was that i was able to share my valentine’s with everyone, and we were all able to partake in the happiness.
i came out of the bathroom, and all the volunteers set up their balloons and flowers for me. ha. ps. the balloons are SUPER popular here for valentine’s. there were people selling them everywhere.
the post-lunch damage. ceviche, arroz con mariscos, tortillas de choclo, papas fritas, camote fritos, pisco sours, and a 1/2 jar of fresh mango juice for me. needless to say, we were all quite full after.
we then spent a couple of hours at the beach in puerto eten. and i was able to boogie board!
we arrived in lima, miraflores to be exact, on new years eve. peruvians have all sorts of traditions for new years. first of all, everyone wears yellow (we obviously dropped the ball on this one, as noted above), and that especially includes yellow underwear…stands selling the garments littered the streets. at midnight there’s a lot of fireworks and many eat 12 grapes for good luck and run around the town fountain (sometimes with suitcases) in order to bring great travels in the new year. in my site, many people had miniature dolls that they burned in the middle of the street signifying leaving the old behind in 2012 and becoming anew in 2013. having it be that we were in lima, we just stuck with the grapes and the fireworks…but it was still a lot of fun. in fact, i woke up at 5:30 am to all of lima still celebrating!
some of the crowd sporting their yellow.
just after it struck midnight! i can’t believe it is 2013 already.
this picture really doesn’t do the fireworks justice. not only could we see fireworks along he coastline, but they were happening right behind us too. so much so, that it was hard to watch without getting debris in our eyes, but still so much fun!
samia was chosen as the queen of her class for her school’s anniversary. part of her duties included being featured in the parade, on the stage at the serrenata and dancing a few dances with her classmate. and you know what? she was a PERFECT little queen! so proud of her…
after doing a charla the other week, the professor at the school saw my camera and asked me to return to take photos of the 5th graders (equivalent to seniors in high school) for the upcoming promoción (equivalent to graduation). of course i obliged. it was a lot a of fun, and i have taken it as my given place in my community now….community photographer…haha.
one of the classes.
for some reason, peruvians never smile in their pictures. so i took this one after they all started giggling uncontrollably when i asked them to smile…
i think i have hit that amount of time in site/service, where what is considered normal/appropriate conversation is no longer filtered before leaving my mouth. in the past 3 days i have noticed that i have become exponentially more awkward, and honestly, not for the better. this makes me hesitant to have any conversations with any normal human being.
1. on sunday i met with my country director at an event. he made a comment on how i appear to have lost weight (honestly, god bless him because i feel the opposite with all the starches and sugar i take in), to which i made a quick response without thinking, “thanks. i have just been enjoying the food here and EVERYTHING that comes with it.” i immediately did a face palm. we, as volunteers, are accustomed to our bowel problems and talking about it openly with each other. however, i would say sharing such information with your country director is a whole other story. after i made this overshare of a quip, he repeated the phrase slowly to himself to make sense of it, and then realized the undertone of the message and started laughing. i was red with embarrassment and quickly switched the subject to his family. woops.
2. last night was my town’s iñikuk. this is a native pageant that showcases the moche language and culture and as well as the girls’ talents as well. they were kind enough to showcase me as well. they gave me a formal introduction and had me stand up and the hundreds of people their applauded. this was the opposite of my preferred stay in invisible as much as a gringa can mentality. then i was asked to hand all the candidates their questions for the question and answer portion. the mc then started asking me a lot questions, to which he asked if texas was near mexico. i said yes, and also new mexico and oklahoma. why???? the mc was starting to chuckle a bit. my nerves, they just got to me. why would anyone find oklahoma relevant here (no offense) or even new mexico??? yet, i still used them as a point of reference while i had a lot of blank stares. i just wanted to run. but instead i tried to gracefully give the girls their question cards. also, i wish there was warning about my stage debut….i would have brushed my teeth or put on some makeup or something….
anyways, moral of the story is that i am awkward. i am embracing it. so should you.
as mentioned previously, i was asked to work on some sex ed charlas for the colegio. since i lack in the needed spanish language vocabulary for this, i had doris, my socia at the health post, take care of the technical stuff and i did all the dinamicas.
our icebreaker dinamica was a hit. new favorite icebreaker FOUND.
doris taking it away! such a super star.
in regards to the dianamicas i helped with changing up the feel for the charla, so it wasn’t just her lecturing about the consequences of adolescent pregnancy. we put questions in balloons and would pass the balloons around the classroom like hot potato and when the music stopped the kids had to pop the balloon and ask the question that was inside the balloon. this worked especially well since the kids are incredibly shy…relatively speaking.
i have had a number of people mention in the interviews that i had with them that adolescent pregnancy is a problem in tucume. in my surveys, it’s become quite apparent that the kids have little to no understanding of contraceptives, but have also been (thankfully) honest in stating that if the opportunity presented itself they would engage in sexual relations with their partner. honestly, the latter-half isn’t a surprise, as it is just as common in the us. it’s the preventative part that worries me. we didn’t have much time with the kids, but it was really important to me that we talk about contraceptives and to really think about the responsibility that comes with sexual activity. after the serious part of my soap box, i did what every teenager dreams of (but actually fears), i held a condom race!
really the point behind the race is to give an opportunity to all the students to hold, handle and practice using a condom (with a banana of course). this way the idea of using a condom is not a foreign idea…plus condoms are free at the health post…FREE. anyways, it’s also great because it relieves the pressure of practicing this in a room full of people as well.
giving some tips on how to apply the condom.
all-in-all, we taught this lesson to all the 4th years in secondaria…more than 125 students in total. hopefully it will help some students in their decision making process in regards to not only their sexual health but also their future.
you guys. i know. i know. it’s been a while. i’m sorry. i wish i could say it was all because i was busy, which is probably about ¾ true, however it is also finding the time and patience to upload photos.
overall life is good. and busy. but good. i have been spending most of my free time working on my community diagnostic, which will ultimately be a very lengthy document about my community, which i will have written in spanish. needless to say, it takes up most of my energy and time. especially processing and analyzing all of my surveys. translation: a lot of tedious paperwork.
but here are some pictures and anecdotes about what filled my time when i wasn’t working on my diagnostic:
despedida!
i attended peru 16’s despedida (a goodbye party for peru 16…to put into context i am peru 19). it was a lot of fun. we all learned the gangnam style dance and went around chiclayo and performed the dance.
practicing for our big debut.
dancing in the parque principal in the center of town in font of a crowd of people.
we went all around town and ended up getting a huge crowd and following. after, we went to ICPNA (the english school that is partnered with the us embassy) and there was a break dancing group that performed for us. after, we all got pizza, hung out at the hostel and then went out to a club and just danced the night away and into the morning. i have never been a going out person, but i have since found it to be quite a release of mounted up energy from being in site all the time.
hanging out at the hostel.
artesanos de tucume.
my friend, cinthia, asked me to help her take pictures of her and the other artisan’s products at the museum in lambayeque. their products are quite impressive and all made by hand and out of organic material. the materials are dyed using local, natural, organic resources and the women turn the organic cotton into the thread that is used to make the products. they are an incredible group of women who take their craft very seriously and i am so excited to be working with them and to learn more about all that they hope to achieve while i am here and help them realize their potential. i also helped them set up a facebook page, check it out here!!!!! (also, don’t forget to like it!) i am also grateful for the friendship of cinthia.
just an example of their style/color palette of their products.
an example of the silver working as well. also all made by hand.
getting around town.
i finally got it. i have my own cruiser…a mountain bike that is. and to that end i am grateful. it has cut my travel time to the museum in half, and it is nice to get out and about and see more of the rural parts of tucume. i had my site visit today with my supervisors and people repeatedly made commentary about me and my bike…i guess they now know that i make good use of it…
my family got a kick out of me, my bike, my helmet and my camelback. samia seriously took an entire photo shoot of me on my bike.
speaking of samia and bicycles…in true bff form, as soon as i started speeding around town on my bike, samia decided that she wanted to start using her bike as well. i carried her bike all the way across town and to the outskirts to the grifo to use their air machine to fill her bike’s tires. then i carried it all the way home. we then spent the afternoon at the park, where i taught her to ride the bike. there is still training wheels, as i am teaching her how to pedal (she likes to pedal forward once and then pedal backwards a lot).
watch out tucume!
bike mongers.
halloweeenie.
fact, my second favorite holiday is halloween. luckily, my friend, casey, had a halloween parade and party planned with the youth leadership group in his site, patapo. i dressed as cat, and made ears out of my hair and drew a nose and whiskers on my face. little did i realize that this would ultimately result in me drawing cat nose and whiskers on 30+ teenage girls’ faces as well. needless to say, i am professional cat whisker drawer….don’t worry, i will be adding that to my resume.
all of the volunteers with the mayor of patapo.
stephen and i on the back of mototaxi. riding through town shouting happy halloween to everyone.
michelle and i at the halloween party. i was so exhausted that i am pretty sure i was passed out shortly after this photo was taken.
all of the volunteers at the party!
the day after.
the day following halloween was dio de los muertos for peru, which meant a federal holiday here. this meant that most of our families ventured to the cemeteries to pay homage to their lost loved ones. this also meant that none of us had anything really going on in our sites. so we decided to go up to changoyape and visit stephen and tina.
changoyape is right on the border of cajamarca and kind of where the sierra region begins. stephen gave us the grand tour and it was just breathtakingly beautiful there.
the volunteers visiting changoyape.
while we were getting the grand tour, i found an odd spiky looking fruit growing. so i did what any normal person would do, which was to break it open. i still couldn’t decide if it was edible or not, so i did the next most sensible thing: i walked over to the old man pulling guava from his tree and asked him if i could eat the fruit in my hands. while he was explaining that i should not eat the new found fruit, i realized that he was pulling guava for his pet monkey. let me repeat that for you: his pet MONKEY. needless to say i won the award for best find of the day.
dreams coming true!
oh you know. best friends just hanging out and being natural, you know.
before we left, the old man was super kind and took a long reed pole and pulled down some guava for us to take on the road with us.
starting to enjoy the fruits of our labor
for those of you who have never actually seen real guava. it looks like a giant pea pod, and you stick the giant seeds in your mouth, but you only eat the white part. then you spit the seeds, which are a little bigger than the size of a quarter.
tippy taps.
i am still going on caserio visits with vaso de leche, but now i am trying to work with the ladies on making tippy taps for their homes. water is not readily accessible and with tippy taps it will help them save and have accessible clean water to wash their hands. these are made by using household items that they already have lying around. a HUGE challenge with this is getting the ladies to bring their plastic bottles. but the good news is that plenty of cute kids still come!
mujeres jovenes.
i just love my mujeres jovenes. thursday nights we have our activity nights. every month has a value theme and the first week of every month we work on a personal progress experience within that value, and the other weeks we do fun activities. i only have 3 young women, but i hope that it slowly expands. right now the three that i do have are so incredible and have such amazing testimonies.
for the month of november, we are concentrating on knowledge. for last week’s activity, i brought a bag full of ingredients for a dessert. i turned it into an object lesson for the importance of directions and following those directions and seeking out knowledge and direction as well. then we made homemade whipped cream with strawberries. it was their first time to try whipped cream. it was an obvious success.
enjoying the fruits of their labor (budunching!)…
loving it!
as soon as their mom’s heard i was teaching them a dessert to make, they were quick to join as well. it’s true, food really is the way to the heart here.
honorable mentions.
not mentioned above but of note, is that i have been working on getting my world map realized for the past 6 weeks. it has been an exhausting going to the muni daily to follow-up in order to get things done. last monday ended with a frustrated erin in the park crying (a normal peace corps response…honest), and an equally frustrating one that i am currently addressing.
i have been working on the iñikuk pageant that is going on tonight. this has included multiple meetings and rehearsals for the girls.
i had my site visit today, and overall it was just fine. i just need to keep on trucking on with my diagnostic. guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
i have started to work with the museum, and i am working on an environment club for this summer.
i am busy in the colegio doing charlas. i have done a number on self-esteem, including a fun activity with balloons. apparently it was a hit with the kids, as i was asked to come back to do the sex ed charlas. (read the sex ed charla to learn more on the outcome of this).
i voted. and then watched election night with all of the volunteers. it was a lot of fun and involved a lot chips and guacamole.
i think this more or less brings us up to date. hopefully i can keep up with this. whew. glad we made it through that one.
perusing peru... 