day 194: update before xmas time

Sup amigitos,

So, guess what happens in Peru in December?

Nothing.

Seriously. Nothing.

Everything feels like it's shut down. Classes have ended, kids have graduated, and people are just all around preparing for Christmas. All I've done this month is party. No joke. I've been partying like it's my job... actually, I think it is my job. I went to a graduation (party until 5:30am at the school), had my birthday (4 or 5 solid days of party, I don't even know anymore), have gone to chocolotadas (like christmas on crack- lots of dancing, drinking hot chocolate, eating panetón, presents galore), and parties with my comisión... It's insane!

But yes yes, I am a volunteer here to work so I've also been trying to get some stuff done. I've brought up my ideas to the comisión, when we had a meeting as opposed to a party, and am excited to say that a number of them seemed to be intrigued with my ideas- we'll see how far that goes. I'm also speaking with a lawyer here about an idea he has for forming committees committed against violence (family and sexual) that we're hoping to have implemented in the schools next year. I have spoken with English teachers about starting a club for them to practice speaking, and the only thing I have left to do on my list is get the courage to go to the health post and ask them about their activities with youth.

It's the one thing I actually wish I were doing right now, and the only thing I have yet done... that's no good.

But that's just something to add to my growing list of new years resolutions! Wanna know what they are? Here's some:

1. p90x is so happening. I got my resistance band from home (p.s. I went to serpost the other day and got a supermegaawesome package from my family... so worth the hour long wait at the post office, listening to some sort of jingle bells ringtone on repeat...)

2. improve my spanish... I still haven't been practicing my subjunctives as much as I know that I should...

3. GET THEE TO THE HEALTH POST damn it.

4. get my projects a movin' movin'... MOVIN'! these include: resolution #3, youth groups on family violence, finding a place for a youth center, promoting literature and the library, working with my youth group at the church (i.e. make it not religious affiliated, and get the kids to realize it), working with my comisión on various topics like sports and environment, getting my alcalde more invested in my projects, etc.

5. save money... I'm bad at this, but I should probably work on not being flat out broke every month...

6. cut out carbs, as much as possible. It's impossible to cut out all carbs in Peru, but I'm going to try and get rid of bread and rice as much as possible. I think this might also mean, no more snacking... although that would also probably help with resolution #5.

7. apply for some MHA programs... and get in... eep. I'm actually looking forward to going back to school after my 2 years here, if only because it would be the fastest way to get more info, so that I can leave and get back out in the world and do stuff. I like this doing stuff. It's so much better than the previous sit around and learn useless info that clutters up space in my brain because I'm not doing anything with it except learning and memorizing for the sake of knowing... stuff.

aaannnddd so much more, but I don't feel like I should list every single one of them in here. So yea, I'm going to try for these and hopefully by this time next year, I can report back with stories of success... That is, assuming I'm not dead because the world has exploded into some massive fire mess of an explosion. Let's really hope not!

.................................. dude, so I walked away from this blog post real quick because the local soccer teams are having their big final showdown game tonight, and they're playing in the coliseo. It's all cement and they're playing on a court that looks smaller than a basketball court. First prize is a lamb, second is a goat, and third is a turkey. All of them are tied up and just laying around until the game ends...

That is so much more legit than a trophy. I never want a trophy again. If I ever compete, I am going to demand the sacrifice of a small, baby lamb instead of a cheap plastic trophy. Serious.

Alright, that's all for now. I'm gonna go have some morning cake (so much cake...) with my coffee, and maybe a panetón and some hot chocolate later tonight. Gotta do some document reading and teach my english class at the beneficencia too. Not much else... probably read (I've been dominating a book every day/every other day, depending on the length of the book, for the past week now. It's awesome. Feels like middle school, without all the horrors and awfulness of middle school.)

I'll probably reblog in the new year! Happy Holidays everyone, I hope you're all enjoying the winter/summer/whatever season it is, wherever you are, and here's to a FANTASTIC 2012! May we all be alive this time, next year. That, or be prepared for the zombie apocalypse.

Peace and Love, y'all.
Peace and Love.

day 184: I'M 24 YEARS OLD!!

Damas y Caballeros,

I am another year older. At the young age of 23, I had no idea what this world was like. Having now turned 24, I can assure you that I've been zapped by the holy hand of all things religious and am a much wiser, more humble and all around awesome person. 

That, and I'm pretty sure I've been celebrating my birthday for an on going 3 days now. 

Saturday: I spent the day in Trujillo/Huanchaco running my usual errands (note to self: need to go back to Serpost this week, just to see if my mail gets in on time... I'm in correspondence with a school back in the states, doing a penpal thing with a class in my site, but classes end this Wednesday so I gotta get these letters before then or else...) and hanging out with a friend of mine. Later that night, there was an ugly sweater party with the volunteers that was fun, mostly because hanging out with volunteers is always nice :) The party moved onto the bars, and I got to meet a few 18ers for the first time (p.s. love them!) 

Sunday: I went back to site, just in time for a lunch that was collaborated between my family and another. My host mom prepared my favorite meal of ceviche with tons and tons of wonderfully acidic lime juice, and the other family killed a goat for some cabrito, rice and beans. Just the sheer amount of food was enough to put me in a food coma, but that on top of the little sleep I got from the night before had me 3 seconds from passing out and possibly dying for a little bit. My host family warned me that I had to get my energy up because there would be much dancing and singing and rejoicing later that night, possibly at the clubs that exist (that I have yet to go to). Thankfully, the peruvian hour kicked in and everyone was dragging their feet about it all and by the time people were setting to leave, my host parents mandated that we couldn't go because the next day was a school day and the kids needed to go to bed. So I managed to sneak back into my room and pass out for a good 7 solid hours of sleep. 

Monday: I got up and oh boy, was I not feeling so hot... You'd think getting some sleep would have put me into tip top shape, but something had not agreed with me the day before... possibly the mountain of raw fish and slaughtered goat... in any case, I stayed in bed for the most part and gave some people a call, letting them now of my delicate state. However, what to do? There was a party being held for me by the committee I work with in the municipality. Thankfully, it started at night and I had all day to try and get better quickly. Downing hot tea and popping pills like mints eventually did the trick and I managed to get myself out of bed and to the meeting. The party wasn't rowdy (no hora loca, thank the dear baby jesus) and I didn't get caked shoved into my face or eggs smashed into my hair- it was, for the most part, pretty boring. Not in a bad way, mind, but it was perfect for the level of ability my body was currently in. Soon, though, we sat down and each person gave a small speech about me- basically, everyone in the room sat around flattering me. It was kind of awesome. That eventually moved on to jokes, and quickly became super raunchy jokes. It was getting really late and of course, that just meant more guests as the night policemen (they drive around site, I really don't know why or how often but they happened to be out and about tonight) came in. They were dressed in black (pants, jackets, sweaters, beanies, combat boots) and each of them had a shiny black shotgun strapped to their backs. But this was a relaxed occasion, so they put their guns down, grabbed a nice slice of pink birthday cake, and settled down to tell their own raunchy jokes and to listen to the others complain about the state of policemen in site. 

It was kind of weird.

But hey! It was also pretty cool. They later drove all the women to their individual locations (deeming it unsafe for us to walk alone, which was quite kind of them, actually) and now I am here, sitting in front of my computer, trying to plan for tomorrow. Sadly, I still feel mildly ill and I think the medication is starting to wear off... ah well, I'll just be sleeping so whatever.

Tomorrow is a day of travel for me. I have to get back to serpost in Trujillo to see if those letters have arrived since Wednesday is the last day I'll have a chance to get these letters to the girls. I am also hoping to make a run to another volunteer's site to help her with an english singing competition that's going down, plus to indulge in a little more bday celebrating. In between this time, I have to meet with a local lawyer here to discuss an idea of his for a youth committee sector about family and sexual violence. It's gonna be another interesting day! 

Well, that was just a quick update on my life. I think I'm going to start adding links to my friends' websites as well- a bunch of them are fantastic writers and have me laughing like a madwoman everytime I read their blogs. Seriously, hysterical. 

Alright, that's all for know. I'm hoping to get a few hours of sleep tonight before I go running around again! Love you all tons and tons and TONS! and for all those who sent me stuff for my bday... you should know that you're basically my favorite people in the entire world... if you didn't... well, there's always christmas >:P heheheh, kidding! just kidding!! LOVE YOU ALL!

Peace and Love, y'all

<3

day 175: BOOM! DONE WITH THE DIAGNOSTIC!

hola amig@s!

Fun fact, when a spanish word is written with an @ at the end, it signifies a/o (since spanish has feminine and masculine words, and feminine words traditionally end in the letter 'a' while masculine ends in 'o', the @ is a combo of the 'a' and the 'o' to indicate a gender neutral term!)

Anywhoozles, I just got back from celebrating Thanksgiving in Huanchaco and EIST (early in service training) in Olmos, Lambayeque.

Thanksgiving was a BLAST. I was simultaneously exhausted and so happy/relaxed, it made me feel like I was in another world. On Thursday, the 17ers and I met up in Trujillo where we spent the day chilling out. I went with a few girls to see Chan Chan, an archaeological site of Chimu and Moche ruins that was really cool. The ruins are constructed of adobe, so all that really remains is one of the citadels... although the others can be seen from an aerial view but only the basic architecture. It was really cool how we were able to walk around and touch a lot of what existed, although some of it was covered in tarp because it was starting to drizzle a bit and rain + adobe = mud...

Besides that, the rest of the day was spent eating, drinking, and dancing. A lot of people took a walk around Trujillo to take in what really is quite a beautiful city. We spent a lot of time on the roof/patio area at the hostal, just sitting around and talking. I took a shot or more of cañaso, which is an alcoholic beverage derived of sugar cane... and no, it does not taste of sugar cane... I'm pretty sure it could be rocket fuel. It's vile in flavor, but it warms you up real fast...

Friday was spend in Huanchaco! My favorite place in La Libertad (outside of my site, of course). Lots of beach lounging, eating some amazing fantastic food, hammock napping, and internet use was done this day. We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday, which came down to 3 hours shopping at Tottus, 2 hours frantically cleaning/cutting/peeling/preparing dishes and 2 hours in the kitchen with the oven. A turkey would have been way too pricey, so we went with pollo a la brasa which worked out really well. In the end, we had so much food I thought we might all explode. The food was given away to neighboring hostal users and people in the street, although it was sorely missed the next morning when leftovers would have been fantastic as a hangover cure.

Finally on Sunday, we all packed up our things and headed to Lambayeque for training. Training was held in Olmos, located about 2 hours from the capital city of Chiclayo. It was great because a few of the 17ers weren't able to come to Thanksgiving, so I could see their lovely faces for almost a week! During the week, we got charlas on various things, like our first 10 weeks of training but more focused on reviewing a few things and sharing charlas that we could ourselves give/do in our sites. We also presented that diagnostic.

That. Freakin. Diagnostic.

IT'S DONE! DONE DONE DONE DONE DOOOOONNNEEEE.

That's all I have to say about that. We presented ours briefly before turning in the CDs, and I sincerely hope mine is satisfactory so that I never have to look at it again. Well, that's a lie- I'm supposed to present it to my site sometime in the future. However, I'm trying to think about how exactly I would present it to my site and I just don't see how it would be conducive or even plausible to get everyone together for a presentation. For this site, I believe it would be much better if I just took the time to talk to people, one on one, to see if I can also possible get a few more people to become my socios. I need socios to work together on these projects, since they are supposed to be sustainable, but I'm starting to get worried about this... Ah well, I do have a few now who are just wonderful (e.g. a professor at one of the schools I'm working in, and my host mom) and I hope we can keep working together!

Last Thursday was the international day of HIV/AIDS awareness and we helped the PCV in Olmos with a big project thing he had going on. It involved a stage and a bunch of presentations, of which the 17ers were a part of. We were in 3 groups and each of us did something- a rap song about using condoms (¿por que? no quiero bebe, ¿por que? no quiero VIH, ¿por que? quiero protegerme!), a song given by my buddy Zack in a condom outfit on the ABCs of protection (A! Abstinencia, B! Brindar Fidelidad, C! Si vas a hacerlo, ponte un Condón!), and finally, my group- Último Pasajeros, edición VIH. This basically involved a lot of screaming, jumping around, and getting the people in the crowd super pumped and screaming for TEAM ROJO (my team. we won. yea we did.)

Hilarious. I had an awesome time.

The next day, the groups split up to go to different places. My group stayed in Olmos and we gave charlas to 3 classrooms where the PCV was teaching. The charlas were on self esteem as well as gender equality, and both were great but the gender equality one is definitely something I would like to do in my site.

Overall, it was a wonderful learning experience and I especially loved it because I love my 17ers so very, very much and it was just so amazing to be able to see all of them again! I can't wait until the next time we get to hang out together like that :)

On another note, there is a paro (a strike) in Cajamarca right now that's getting pretty serious and escalating into violence. This means that the volunteers in Cajamarca are on standby- the 17ers couldn't return to their sites after training and are currently waiting it out, trying to see what the situation is, in Chiclayo. According to the latest update I heard, they just recently let a few cars into Cajamarca with food and medicine and stuff, but only a limited number during specific hours... woah.

Hopefully they're alright and the strike does settle down so they can get back to site to do their thing.

Well, that's the latest update for now :) I'm back in site and just had some pollo a la brasa for dinner (thank goodness, I was craving it for the past 3 days and my host mom just surprises us with some! woot). I am crazy exhausted, since I didn't really sleep much during Thanksgiving (working on the diagnostic at night) or training (more diagnostic, plus chatting with my amazing buddy B about life and things) so now I am ready to just pass out and not wake up until my sleep debt has been paid in full.

Long post, but hopefully a good general outline to give you an idea of what's been up in my life lately!  Love and Peace to you all <3

p.s. my birthday is in a week. I'm so freaking PUMPED.

day 163: EIST next week, but Thanksgiving before then!

Hello my lovely readers!

So, my last blog post was super sad and a total debby downer, but I'll have you know that it's no longer so!

Well, sort of.

I got myself a weekend in Trujillo after hell week 2 and I'll just say... it added to the series of stories and experiences that I am slowly but surely collecting here in Perú. Seriously though, the States just feel so boring after all the craziness that has happened in my short time here! VIVA PERU.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this week! Sadly, it's the aniversario of my site on the day of Thanksgiving. Yes, I do want to celebrate my aniversario and a lot of people are super psyched about it here, but sadly I will be disappointing them. I love my site, I love the people here, but I really miss my friends...

Ah well, I'll celebrate the aniversario next year! It'll be fine~

But en serio, I'm mega pumped. Thanksgiving back home was all about family. It was the one time of the year that my entire family (or at least those who are in Cali) would meet up for food and drink, and just to be in each other's company. I associate Thanksgiving with family, so being thousands of miles away is hard. It sucked in college, but I think it'll suck less here.

In college, everyone left to go home. People lived close enough that they could drive or take the bus. I loved my family, but couldn't see spending money I didn't have for a plane ticket back. Thanksgiving was spent with those friends who were in the same situation as I was, and all of us were mildly miserable because of it.

Here, though, all of us are volunteers! We're here because we want to be (although cash might still be a part of that) and a whole bunch of us are gonna get together to create that family time among ourselves.

Good enough for me!

So I'm in the midst of planning our generally itinerary. Now entirely sure how much of that I'll be following myself, but I'm going to try my darn best.

Mostly I'm hoping that I'm not going to get to Thanksgiving totally ill because I'm not sleeping much, going outside, or eating well at the moment.

Kind of stressed. I still have this community diagnostic going on, but there are tons of things on my mind right now, and I am finding it really difficult to focus on collating data... I am still finding it difficult to even communicate what's on my mind. I've never been really good at that to begin with, anyway. I really enjoy talking to others and listening to their problems, but I just can't seem to do the same to others. I don't like unloading my thoughts and worries to burden others. I can't figure out why, especially because I highly encourage people to call me when they need an ear. For some reason, I can't seem to put... I don't know, would it be trust? Can I not trust others? That might be it.

I don't even know. I gotta work on that part of my life, probably.

Anyway, yea. So next week is training with the PC and I have to finish up my diagnostic for that. I just talked to someone today, actually, who mentioned that there's a jail that has been abandoned for almost 3 or so years now. I want to talk to the police station to ask what their plans are for that space. If they're going to renovate it, alright, but if there's no plan... I could totally aprovechar that space and start a kick ass youth center!

Wishful thinking, most likely. I doubt they'd let me just take such a huge, amazing open space... but a girl can dream, right?

Alright, back to the grind.
Exhausted but happy.
Love you all.

and Peace and Love!

day 156: crashing and burning... oh the humanity...

Last weekend, a volunteer in my province held a youth camp for kids from all over. There were more or less 40 kids being kids for 3 days and 2 nights. They were given various lectures and workshops, and a lot of fun stuff was thrown into the mix, and being a whole bunch of adolescents camping together, they were surprisingly well behaved.

More or less.

Last week, however, was super stressful for me. I was not only trying to get stuff done for my community diagnostic, but I also had my site visit (director of the youth program in Peru came to visit my site and observe me. She's super chill and the visit went really well, but doesn't mean having my boss visit me at work and home wasn't stressful!), I was trying to get everything ready for this camp (I found out the Sunday before that this camp was actually happening and had less than a few days to go to my municipality and ask for money for the camp, talk to the kids who were interested in the camp, talk to their parents, deal with kids calling and not calling, deal with kids not going and finding other kids who were interested in going, run around like a chicken with its head cut off, talk to the local bakery to see if they would be willing to donate bread, and so on... it was just god awful... but it got done!), and I was asked to teach at a second school all week, adding to my teaching already in another school and the comedor. On top of that, I had my normal weekly things, like meetings and such, so yea...

I was seconds from screaming and all it seemed that everyone else was doing was either adding to my pile of work or just disappointing me with bad news.

Still, the camp was a success (my emotions got the better of me for a moment there and there were about 5 seconds worth of tears, but I got my act under control pretty quickly) because it seems like the kids learned a lot and benefited from their time away from their homes, and in the company of new friends. The kids who went with me from my site have asked me to tell the other kids HELLO! but I have no idea who these other kids really are... so I just told them that yea, I totally would... pretty sure I'm totally not.

This week is round 2 of my most stressful week in my time in Peru. It kind of sucks that my 2 most stressful weeks are one right after the other, with a weekend of work instead of rest in between. I am definitely feelings its effects too. On top of that, this is the week before the week of Thanksgiving, which means a whooollleee lot of disappointment and frustration are going to be headed my way (I've made reservations for all the volunteers who are going to come up for thanksgiving, but I've already had a whole bunch cancel on me during stressful week round 1, and already more are cancelling this stressful week round 2. I expected it, though, so at least I have that... ah well, at least a ton of people I really miss are still coming up! So I'll still get a family that I love to be with during this Thnxgiving).

I think I really need a drink.

I've also more or less given up on NaNoWriMo. I just can't do it. There's too much going on right now, and none of it feels very good anymore. It would be pretty awesome to finish, but I have to get my priorities straight.

But I can truly say that right now, I am not happy. It's not a good feeling, and something I'm definitely not used to, and I just feel terrible... I don't think I deal with unhappiness very well. It's as if I can't just feel upset or sad, I have to feel intensely depressed. I have so much to do right now, but it took almost all of my energy to just get out of bed this morning. I have zero patience for anyone, and I was teaching English at the comedor and when it hit 5, class was over but the activity wasn't. The kids, however, weren't paying attention so I just grabbed my things and left. No goodbyes, no threats, nothing. I just grabbed my things and walked out because I was too tired to try calming them down so that we could finish what we were doing. I went home and tried to watch cartoons, which usually make me feel better, but ended up passing out in bed until my alarm (thank God I set it) woke me up for a meeting, which was 2 annoying hours long and I was squirming/falling asleep through the entire thing. My host mom goes to these meetings with me and she was just making everything take longer than it should, which she normally does, and when she asked me to go with her and another person because they needed to do stuff, I just looked at her and went "no."

Well, not entirely, I did explain that I was exhausted and needed to sleep. But still, I have lost all patience with people. Whenever it feels like someone's wasting my time, all I can think is, "I hate you" and nothing else. Because of this, I've had this continuous headache too. Well, the headache started last Friday, but I've been medicating myself steadily with ibuprofen and acetaminophen- definitely not good, but the only way I'm gonna get through the day.

Bah. All I do is complain. Sorry about that. Just needed to jot this down before bed, or else it would have plagued me all night. Now I'm going to go and pass out for a few hours before I wake up again and teach some more.

Great.

Love and Peace. I'm gonna need some more of those.

day 149: i'm procrastinating. it's what i do.

Second post of the day, simply because I'm procrastinating and not doing any of the things I'm supposed to be doing.

Like my community diagnostic.

Womp womp.

It's just that there's a big difference between what I want to do and what I have to do. When those things don't match up, usually want trumps have. This is probably the reason why my GPA went dooowwwn the drain in college.

Yes, Professor. I do understand that this will be on the exam. Have I learned it? No, it's boring. I did, however, really enjoy this other part that is probably going to be maybe 1 question. But I know it super well. Is that alright? You're gonna fail me? So I guess it wasn't alright. Ok then.

Ah well.

Speaking of grades, I've been thinking about my future after Peace Corps.

Yea, yea, I've only been here for like 2 months now, but still. I can't help but wonder what I'm going to be like, what my LIFE is going to be like afterwards.

What do I want? Well, when I was in college, I wanted to be a doctor. I was taking all the prerequisite classes, doing all those things that soon to be doctors are supposed to during their undergrad and then... well, and then I realized I really didn't enjoy a lot of those classes, my grades were crashing and burning, and I just didn't know WHY I was trying to be a doctor.

I realized, I really enjoy the field of health- people fascinate me, hospitals fascinate me, but I just really didn't understand it and a lot of things didn't seem to work, but I couldn't understand why.

So instead of trying to apply to medical school and jumping through loop after loop after loop, I am trying to find another way to do what I want to do in life- help people.

It's why I joined the Peace Corps. Well, that's a lie. I joined because I wanted to go and DO something. I spent years of my life, sitting under fluorescent lights and listening to teachers go on and on about how other people have done and were doing these amazing things. Sometimes, I was challenged to think. Other times, I was challenged to remember copious amounts of information that meant nothing to me and then word vomit them back onto paper or some exam.

I'm not ragging on teachers, mind you. They deserve all the praise in the world, and more. (Also, more money. Teachers, like good high school teachers, should be paid tons more) Had it not been for all the influential teachers in my life, I would never have made this decision to be where I am right now. It's just that after a while, being given copious amounts of information without actually USING any of it... it gets tiring. And I got tired pretty quickly. Somewhere around my sophmore/junior year, I realized- this sucks. I love school, I love learning, but what the hell am I going to do with all this information now in my head? I'm going to learn it, appreciate it for a moment, repeat everything you just told me back to you to prove that I read it, and then... and then I'm going to forget it next year because I'm doing all of this all over again.

So I just gave up on the repetition part. I learned it, retained what I found interesting and what I believed would be useful to me later in life, and forgot the rest. I took classes just to see if I might like it, and if I didn't? Finished it anyway and failed miserably. But you know what? It was an experience. I managed to expose myself to subjects I didn't need to do, because my major didn't require it. But who cares if my major required it or not? I would never have the opportunity to take these courses again, so I might as well take them.

That's what college was for me. An experience. It was a chance to just listen to what people had to say, to learn more about things that simply existed in this world. It didn't matter to me if I learned it or not. I don't read books to memorize every line, page by page. I read for pleasure. I get the general idea of a story, and I move on with my life. Sometimes these stories come back to me and I can apply them to a situation. My classes were just like books to me.

It's also why my grades took a plunge and went diving off the deep end. I probably should have taken easier classes (why'd I take Linear Algebra my senior year? I asked myself the same question. I answered, why not?) and fewer credits (minimum credits needed per semester was 12, the average was 15, I took 22... again, why? because I wasn't there to be scored, I was there to experience. Oh, and why not?) but I didn't. I wasn't being a smart premed kid, strategically working the system to get that allusive 4.0. Oh no, I was being... well, being me.

Being me never really works out all that well.

Anyway, now I'm trying to figure out what I want in life, and I realize that I want more schooling.

I know, right? wtf.

But seriously, I want to go back to school. Not to be a doctor, but to continue working in the field of health. I want to pursue a Masters in Hospital Administration (MHA). It's like the business aspect of health, if you want the short version of it.

I really like organizing things. I'm a big picture kind of person. And I'm still curious about how the health system works, and why parts of it don't seem to work.

Beyond that? I know nothing. I want to know more.

Sadly, I'm pretty sure my GPA's going to keep me out of most schools. Still, I guess I'm hoping at least someone will take a chance on me. We'll see. We'll hope and pray as well.

IN OTHER NEWS I'm at 7.3k words in nanowrimo, thanks to an empty saturday. It's 10pm and I still haven't organized my survey results. Woops. Gotta get on that.

Hope all is well on your end of the world, dear friend.
Love and Peace.

Sincerely,
Sue

(that's my nanowrimo name, btw. If you're participating, add me: sincerely_sue)

day 149: get baked (no really, like a cookie or something)

Dear friends,

I am having some major withdrawal. No, not from the usual vices that you may be thinking of (e.g. sex, drugs, rock and roll) but from something that I used to do so much more often back in the states:

Baking.

I love baking. Pies, cakes, scones, cupcakes, cookies, bread, all of it (check out my fb photos if you want some step by step instructions of delicious things I have baked. They're easy steps and you'll totally love me for the recipes). If it goes in the oven, I want to try my hand at it. Which is why, now that I'm living in a house with no oven, I am finding myself rolling around the floor in angst.

What's worse is that it's FALL. It's prime baking season, people. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas- these three months are my favorite because it gave me a chance to bake as much as I wanted without a shortage of ingredients in the stores (spices are always well stocked, as are canned pumpkin puree and molasses).

Now I'm in Peru, where most people celebrate Día de la Canción Criolla instead of Halloween and Thanksgiving doesn't happen. I HAVE TO WAIT FOR CHRISTMAS, which is one of my favorites so at least I've got that. Plus, my site is pretty Catholic so it should be tons of fun.

Still, I need an oven. There are these 'bubble ovens' that exist around here. They're electric, the temperature can't be controlled, but it offers heat! In an enclosed space! That's all I need! Now where to find it...

Tricky.

I'll have to keep looking, I guess.

Another thing I can't find are ingredients. You know baking soda? That thing you buy in an orange box with that bald dude on it? That thing you put in your fridge a few years back and totally forgot about because you don't use it that often and whatever, it's cheap? Yea, you have to buy those in these tiny, mildly expensive packages at the pharmacy here. If I want to bake a cookie, I need to go to the pharmacy. For serious.

All I want to do is bake. I want to cut cold butter (also kind of difficult to find here. It's all spreadable margarine. I don't like margarine. It's crap.) into flour. I want to let dough rise in a warm area. I want to roll out pastry dough. I want to let berries macerate in sugar. I want to whisk butter and sugar until fluffy. I want to glaze things.

I just wanna bake...

SIGH.

So yea, I'm always begging people for letters and packages (to be quite frank, I get really really jealous of other volunteers here who seem to get a package of assorted goods almost every week. I understand why my friends don't send them, since a lot of y'all are working to make a living and sending me a package is too much of a pricey burden, plus when people ask, I don't encourage them to send me things because they could probably use that cash to do other things but that doesn't stop me from being really sad and jealous and really really really wanting ppl to send those packages anyway...)

But for serious. I like getting packages. I know, it seems silly for me to be that ecstatic about getting some candy or spices or baking stuff (like a whisk? anyone?) in the mail, but I DO. And I honestly appreciate it so very, freakin much...

Bah, but it's not necessary. Don't send me anything. Maybe a letter, because I do love letters. Or do? Send me a package! NO don't do that.

Do or don't, I guess is the message...
brought to you by my ever conflicted brain.

Ah well, sorry for turning this blog entry into a begging festival. Won't happen again. Thanks for reading though :) I laugh a lot when I check my blog stats and I'm getting random people from like Russia sent to my blog from some weird website. So for that:

Добро пожаловать на мой блог!


Thank you google translate.

Anyway, hope you weren't too annoyed by my silly plea for unnecessary things. Guess I've just been kind of stressed and lonely lately, and packages and letters are a nice reminder that someone back in the states still remembers that I'm here : /

Hey, also, remember that part? That I'm in Peru? Yea, I totally am. Again, send me your address and I'll write as soon as I can! Plus, Christmas is coming up, and giving gifts is one of my greatest pleasures <3

THAT'S CALLED A BRIBE. SEND ME SOMETHING AND I'LL SEND YOU SOMETHING BACK.

Ahhhh, good times.
Love and Peace.

day 145: it's november!

'Sup amigitos,

So the month of November has made its way towards us, and this means a few things to me:

1. National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org) is upon us! I participated last year and got some noveling done. My story from last year isn't finished, as I spaced and stopped writing once the month was over, but whatevs. So the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad, and editing is not encouraged. Basically, for all of those would-be writers out there who just need to START something, this is it! It's all about quantity, and for someone like me who never quite knows how to expand on her ideas, this is just the charge you need to get your brain juices flowing and thinking creatively. I highly encourage you to do this! Sign up online and friend me : D I know of a few Volunteers who are taking part in this activity, which is great becaauuusssee....

2. We have our Community Diagnostic due! By the end of this month, I need to present a document that details  my diagnosis of San Pedro de Lloc. I tell people I'm in the process of sorting data and things from my surveys, but to be honest- that process sort of fizzled out after month 1... I gotta kick it back into gear and just get it done and over with. It should probably take me a solid week, actually, to write it all up once I get the data entered into my excel sheet. It's just... boring. I'd rather write my novel. Still, the results'll be interesting so I guess I'll have to get through the boring part so I can get to the fun analysis bit.

3. Totally off the theme of writing is Thanksgiving! I'm so elated to know that so many 17ers are coming to join me! yaaaay! Pictures are totally going to be epic, btw. Yea, get excited about that.

4. It's almost December! And December is my favorite month of the year! I should probably wait until at least after Thanksgiving to start blasting the Xmas music but... 

Yea, so that's what's up in November. 

Other quick updates: 

I've got this idea for a youth center in my head, and it's not shaking so I'm gonna see a gal about that. I've also started corresponding through letters with a school in Oklahoma called Noble High. There's a teacher there who I'll be working with, and we're hoping to set up a pen-pal kind of thing with some kids I have in my site. So hopefully this goes well!

I feel so useless right now, though. I just don't feel like I should start any projects around here until the new year. A lot of kids I know are going to be graduating in a little over a month and there's gonna be a new group of kids who I'm going to get to know then as well. Is it bad that I just don't feel like starting something when I know it's not going to last? Sucks, cause the kids would probably really enjoy it, but whaddyagonnado? 

Well, I'm going to go write some more. Here's a short excerpt of my current novel to give you an idea of my fiction writing style. Maybe you can help me with some ideas? I'm not 100% sure where I'm going with this story, but I figure we'll just wait and see :)

ENJOY:

The figure of a small, thin framed boy could be seen crouched on the edge of the roof of an abandoned building. One slender arm was wrapped around his malnourished legs, while the other held tight a smaller figure beside him; dark, brooding eyes scanned the city below. His knuckles whitened under the dirt that covered him as he clenched his legs tightly to his body, pulling the bundled figure besides him even closer, and willing the hunger to subside. He had always been hungry, had always assumed the constant pain in his belly was just a part of him, but he had never gone more than a few days without at least a piece of molded bread to hold him off until he could think of some way to get more.

He had also never crossed The Meek before, either. Now, not only had he not eaten for at least a week, but he also had members of The Meek searching for his fatigued body.

No, not his. They were searching for his sister.

He looked at the swathed figure beside him and gently brushed the matted, gnarly hair of the child. She had been theirs, but he had saved her from them. Now he had to find food for them both.

Another dull throb of pain from his belly swept through him and he clenched his teeth, trying to swallow but finding his mouth too dry to complete the action. He licked his lips to no avail and returned to gazing at the city before him. He had been in hiding these past few days, but he couldn’t just sit there and wait for The Meek or Death to find him. Forcing his hands to unclench, he slowly stretched out his legs and gently shook the wrapped child.

“Time to go, Momo,” he called her gently, nudging the bundle once more, “it’s time to fly.” Large, sleepy eyes peeked out of the ratty blanket and looked up at him. “Ready?”

With a slow thoughtful blink, Emily Crow nodded, unwrapped herself, and settled the sullied cloth around her shoulders. Jackson held out his dirt caked hand and grabbed ahold of hers before they eyed the edge of the roof, took a running leap, and jumped with arms outstretched into the city night.

that's all I got for now!

LOVE AND PEACE Y'ALL

<3

day 142: juntos somos un equipo de doble... animales

HUZZAH HALLOWEEN!

Goodness, I do enjoy this wonderfully fun holiday.
So last Saturday, I went to Trujillo with my family to visit my host grandpa (on my host mom's side) for his birthday. It was... interesting.

Why the ellipsis?
Because my host fam is pretty legit strange. I'd go into describing all of them and the weirdness that ensued, but  honestly, I don't feel like I should. I really don't know who's reading this! Still the fam was pretty strange and at one point, I had to stand up and give a small speech.

Derp.

Can I just say, first of all, that I'm not very good at giving speeches in English? Let alone an impromptu one in Castellano? Oh, and by the way, I totally have tonsillitis too.

Yea.

So I manage to muster a few words that compliments both the family and him, as well as wishing him a very long and wonderful life. NAILED IT. Minus the fact that it came out in warbled words and I had to stop every few seconds to try and swallow what felt like my tonsils trying to escape from my body.

Minus that part.

Anyway, we had fun and I got to meet more members of my fam before I was whisked away by my uncle in his colectivo to my hostal. My host mom accompanied me the entire way, of course, and even walked me through the doors of the hostal, up to my room and into my room. That was kind of weird. I just took it as her being really "there" for me and taking care of me.

Slept the night and woke up the next morning feeling still icky from the illness but much better than the night before. Was my condition improving? It appeared that way. Popped some ibuprofen to keep the pain at bay before taking a car to the mall. Sat around, had a cup of iced tea (Orange Blossom) and an ice cream cone from McDonald's later. Met up with the other 17er ladies and we went off to shop for our costume things! We ended up finding most of the things needed at the mall, headed back to the hostal to drop off our things and construct!

the pieces after a bit of cutting

assembled!

hola, me llamo ________ y soy... pinguina!

shaking our tail feathers to the tunes of kane west

oversized feet FORCE waddling action.
stay in character!

juntos somos un equipo de doble, ANIMALES.

Being penguins is mad fun. Sadly, I caved into my illness and went to bed a bit early. The others went out and came back with fantastic tales of being mistaken for hora loca and dancing with clowns on stilts. I know, right? Being sick really does suck the fun out of everything.

Still, I had a good time as always. I'm gonna go ahead and say it: La Libertad has the greatest volunteers in all of Peru. No joke. I wish I got to hang out with them more and get to know all of them better, but my usual anti-social self, my overactive brain, and my waning immune system seem to be united against me.

Sad.

Ah well, I'm gonna come out of my shell at some point. As soon as I feel right about it, I guess.

The day after, we had plans to go surfing but here's a fun fact: I'm broke. Literally. Didn't have enough money to pay for my room, barely had enough cash to get back home. So broke, or in the spanish slang, estoy aguja. Thankfully, 17ers got my back and were super generous with spotting me some cash to get me back home.

Jesus Christmas, I need to figure out how to spend money like a responsible adult. Seriously. I hate borrowing money, but I love spending it. LOVE LOVE LOVE spending cash. Not even on things for myself  either. I like spending on other people. I don't know why. It's just something I really enjoy doing. I'll get the next round, buy you lunch, see something that makes me think of you and all I can think about is how awesome this present will make your day.

Sigh.

It's a gift, and a curse.

Ah well, some things you just can't help doing. I just got word, by the way, that I got my monthly allowance today so not so broke anymore! I can pay back my girls, and probably create some sort of safety fund for myself, for those emergency moments...

Alright, gotta prepare for my lecture on bullying at 11am, my english workshop at 4 and presenting my world map project to the committee I'm on at 7. Tomorrow's a day off here (it's All Saint's Day) so I think I might just chill out in Pacasmayo, or maybe head back to Trujillo. We'll see.

Thanks for reading, come again soon!
Peace and Love <3

day 138: halloween is coming up!

It's almost Halloween!

: D

Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays EVER for the following reasons:
1. It's an entire day where the end goal has always been to get as much freakin candy as possible. FOR FREE.
2. Costumes are always awesome. If given the chance, I'd like to dress up every day. However, this gets me weird looks from people so I don't indulge in it as much. On Halloween, though, dressing up gets you weird looks of admiration based on how awesome your costume is. PLUS so many more people are joining you on your wardrobe choice! It's also a chance to just be someone you're not for a day. I'm gonna pretend I'm not a nervous wreck of a human being who's high strung, fairly prudish, and scared of life. It's gonna be awesome.
3. Besides Starbucks pumpkin spice latte, Halloween was always a sure sign of Fall. Not so much here, since it's spring in Perú, but I know that it is back in the states. So that's nice.
4. Parties get even better because there's a definite theme and themed parties are fantastic.
4.5 Plus, the food and drinks served have weird names and ingredients to them sometimes. I'm always a fan of adventurous food time! Halloween marks a change into fall, and we get fall ingredients! yay!
5. Decorations! This is when tons of houses will go all out to make their homes look crazy cool (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfcNoMnKjrY&feature=share) and everyone appreciates that.
6. I hate scary movies. However, some ppl like them. To each their own. I hate them.

There are more reasons, but I can't think of them. I think the thought of scary movies kind of kicked happiness out of my head.

BUT anyway, back to happy thoughts! I'm hoping to get out this weekend, and not be working and stressing about things just for a day or two, and to hang with the girls I adore here in La Libertad (17ers, what what)

That, and I gotta get my costume in order. Not gonna tell you just yet what I'm gonna be, but it's adorbz and I'm happy about it : D

That's all for now, pics and things to come soon.

Peace and Love!

day 132: wherein i talk about my future goals and then proceed to try and lower my standards...

This is causa.

These are causitas.

Sup causitas (this is slang, or jerga, for friend. Causa is actually a peruvian dish... imagine making a cake, except with mashed potatoes instead of cake bits... and mayo mixed with random veggies instead of frosting. I like it, minus the mayo with the addition of ají, or spicy sauce stuff)

SO here we go. I've been in site now for nearly 2 months, my community diagnostic (CD) is still not at all taking any sort of form and it is due in just a few more weeks. I do, however, have a gazillion and one ideas of things that I want implemented in my community.

Well, I should probably focus on the community diagnostic...

woops

Bah, I think I've got better things to do than work on the one thing that I'm actually supposed to do my first three months on site. Like eat every snack food that exists in Perú... I've almost completed this mission.

haahahahhahahahahahahaahhahahah
no, I haven't tried it yet.
hahahhahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahah

My favorite, so far, is Nik- fresa- basically strawberry wafers. I don't know what it is about these things, but I can't seem to just have one. I have to eat 6 packages. It's getting to be kind of ridiculous, and I'm considering getting myself addicted to something else, just so I'll stop spending so much Nuevo Soles (official currency of Perú) on junk food. 

It tastes so deliciously artificial...
ommmm nom nom nom nom nooommmm

But then I remind myself that spending about a US $1 on some snacks is better than spending more on something super addictive and way worse for me... like cigarettes or meth. 

Speaking of meth, I'm on season four of Breaking Bad. If you haven't watched it, go do that now. Seriously. It's crazy good. 

Where was I... oh, right. My future goals. 

1. Get a hoverboard. When is this thing going to get going?
We have the technology for it! People need to get their priorities straight
and apply science the way it should be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws6AAhTw7RA 

Let's see what's up in my head:
1. I still want to form a youth committee in my municipality. I'm currently on a committee that offers support in all things related to education, ranging from health to library to sports. We have a meeting every monday and I think I'm going to bring up this idea to see where they stand on it. 
2. I want to talk to my school officials and see how they would react to possible having alcohol suspended from the schools. It's a culture thing, though, and I don't want to step on any toes on this subject so I'll see where this goes. I might just hold off on it for a few more months, until the schools are more comfortable with me being around, before I make this a part of my projects.
3. I want youth groups. So far, I'm teaching english a lot and this is great because I'm getting to meet a lot of kids. Unfortunately, I don't want to do this forever. I would rather move into things I'm interested in, like health and art but teaching english does get me acquainted with a number of youthies. The problem is that right now, all those who are interested in hanging out with me are in their final year of colegio. If I start any projects with them, I only have until December to get them implemented and completed. It's nearly the end of October. That just seems silly, so I'm gonna go ahead and wait for 2012.
4. World Map! Word is going around that this is required for youth development peeps, but I really don't think so. Still, I wanna do it just cause it feels like something I can get done... or at least I hope I can get it done. I feel weird asking for things from my municipality. Don't ask me why, I just do! But I'll get over it. 
5. I gotta get that CD done. For serious. I don't have that much time yet. If you took at look at my agenda, the next 2 weeks just have "HARD CORE CD" written on every date. I'm gonna write up some interview questions and start taking walks around, interviewing as many ppl who'll stop and chat with the crazy asian girl who can't speak but does it anyway.
6. This is totally unrelated to all things work, but I'm super excited for Thanksgiving. Early IST is coming up (where we present our community diagnostic and get some more training stuff, I think?) but before then, we get a few days off for Thanksgiving. A bunch of 17ers are coming up to La Libertad to chill during this time and I'm trying to get that whole thing coordinated. I'm so freakin excited to see all of them, it's kind of ridiculous. Still, I can't help smiling when I think of the end of November! Plus my birthday's coming up in December (fun fact, my birthday's on a sunday! And it's during Spring/Summer in Peru! WEIRD but awesome.) and I'm thinking of joining a paseo (a walk) from Trujillo to someplace.. apparently it takes a day or two but I like walking so it's all good. Then it's Christmas and I'm thinking of visiting my host family in Lima during this time. Finally, NEW YEAR! Which I may be spending in Mancora with some more PCVs. I don't know how many vacay days I'll have by this time, but as long as I'm spending them with people I love, in a place that I enjoy, I really don't mind. 

That's just the surface of stuff going through my brain at the moment- a mixture of work and pleasure. I'm worried, though, that I'm overdoing some of it. Like, I want to be sustainable and even though a number of PCVs who have been hardened with time and experience here have told me to lower my standards... well, that's not really how I work. I have high standards, yes, and I might die of a blood vessel exploding in my brain because my expectations aren't being met even though I work at them.

lack of enthusiasm? no participation?
getting the run around? vague answers?
KAAABOOOOM!!

Still, it's what I do. Plus, reach for the stars and all that, right? And even if I miss... well, screw that, I'm not going to miss. I'll just keep working at it until my accuracy and distance improve and then? AND THEN WE'LL SEE WHO'S REACHING cause I'm gonna go all little prince and go live among the stars on my own little planet with a talking rose. That rose was a total betch, btw.... anyway, STARS! I be one of those.

Well, I gotta go teach an English class today! We're gonna be reinforcing the verb "to be" by learning the phrase "how are you?" and the response, "I am...."


I'm totally gonna make the kids play charades. For candy. Candy is like crack cocaine to children. They will do anything for it, even participate and enjoy themselves while being educated.

That's all for now. Hopefully my insanity doesn't leach through the intertubes and affects your brain. Or maybe, hopefully it does!

Love and Peace, y'all.
Love and Peace.

day 129: ants...

There are ants all over my room.

It's not really an infestation, yet. It's more like, I just keep finding a few here, a few there, and honestly? I'm getting used to it. Now I just squish em with my finger and move on with my life. But today they are bothering me more than usual...

Why?

Because they are attempting to get into my jar of peanut butter, and NO ONE touches my peanut butter except for me and maybe some other humans I like. BUT NOT ANTS.

So screw you ants. You can mosey around my table and be found dead on my ledge -

(which is weird, right? Why are there dead ants on my window ledge? It's like they go there to die... It really doesn't make any sense. My window ledge is NOT an ant graveyard! And if it is, no one told me about it.)

- but stay out of my food. I have a jar of peanut butter, some crackers to eat it with, a jar of sriracha (almost gone :( sad sad sad...), and a box of cereal (so far I've bought myself a box of froot loops that disappeared in a day, and now a box of raisin bran that has last 2 days and I think there's still a serving size left, but that'll be gone by tonight probably...). These are my precciiouuussssssssssssss and I don't feel like sharing them. So shoo, ant, go away.

Anyone know of how I can repel these little buggers without spraying every corner of my room with that ant-death in a can? Maybe I can double my efforts of keeping my room clean... Maybe I also need shelves or something. Maybe?

BAH. Ants.

Oh, fun fact! I just got my business cards and I'm gonna go on a mad spree passing them out :P I don't really know to whom, exactly, since everyone who might want my contact info has actually already met me in the last 2 months I've been here... ah well, it should be fun anyway.

Off to a meeting! Fun! Chau chau chau~

Love and Peace <3

IT'S SUCH A GOOD DAY!

...that I had to blog twice!

So yea, Perú lost against Chile (boo) and that sucked, but it wasn't enough of a downer for me to feel anything but excited, happy, and just all over ecstatic for a wonderful girl back in the states who just got ENGAGED to her boy!!

I AM SO RIDICULOUSLY HAPPY FOR HER! Plus, she's also a home owner. How did little Eaglet grow up so fast while I was away??

God, it's things like this that I knew I was going to hate missing out on. Ack, but nothing is clouding my general feelings of joy, knowing that the life of someone I know is just about to get so much more awesome than it already is.

EAGLET: I wish you and Matt the greatest, happiest marriage and I hope you do know that I'm so crazy proud and happy for you!! You are one of the kindest, most wonderful people I've ever known to cross in my life, and I don't know anyone who deserves happiness as much as you do :) Best of luck with everything!!! I'm always rooting for you, and you are dearly loved!!




On top of that awesome news, I realized that I'm going to get to see a whole bunch of 17ers during thnxgiving break! Man, life is just... so freakin awesome sometimes, I don't know if being this happy is even allowed in this universe.

I feel so lucky, sometimes, just to be alive and living this life.

day 123: Beauty and the Beast

Hola Damas y Cabellros,

So that title there isn't an analogy for anything...I totally just rewatched Beauty and the Beast today. Why? Because I only had one class to teach today (on stereotypes, discrimination, and anger… I was supposed to have a teacher in the class with me and that totally did not happen… I honestly think that I’m just playing substitute teacher but ah well, I’m okay with that for now. Hopefully that just gets me a foot in the door when I want to do my other projects and things!). So anyway, I watched it.

It was definitely one of those moments where everything just clashed with my childhood memory. As a kid, I loved Beauty and the Beast. The Disney female characters that I identified with the most where: Belle, Pocahontas, and much later, Mulan. As a child, my friends were books. I read and read and read (my mom blames the fact that I wear glasses on books since I read everywhere- even secretly so that I wouldn’t get caught and chastised for reading when I was supposed to be sleeping or eating; I even read as I walked, which made some people nervous when I was crossing streets and traversing the neighborhood with a book firmly planted in front of my face). For that reason, I loved Belle. She was a bookworm like me! However, I never noticed the little things about that movie… like the fact that it’s set in France.

What?

Yea. They speak English, but I always remembered that Lumiere had a French accent and a thing for that French maid duster. I thought it was just because Beast was really rich and had a whole bunch of foreign staff… Like if I had that kind of money and a castle, I’d totally have an English butler. Just because.

Anyway, the beginning scene has Boulangerie in it for the bread maker, who’s demanding the baguettes brought forward, and there are random French phrases scattered throughout. Considering I took French for a year in college, I just found it all surprising because I never noticed it as a child and never made the connection as I grew older.

Actually, now that I mention the Beast, that’s another thing that I didn’t think about as a kid but find weird now. The Beast’s big problem is that he’s… well, a giant scary monster who no one will love... in short, a beast. That there is a pretty big problem. Take the fact that if he doesn’t get someone to fall in love with him by the time he turns 21, he’ll be stuck that way forever and you’ve got yourself a really REALLY big problem. So why the eff is he called “Beast”? Why would he take on a nickname that just keeps pointing out his worst issue? Why doesn’t he use his real name? What IS his real name?

This I find interesting because I’m in Perú, where your most obvious physical trait is often used as a nickname to describe you. Based on your skin color (gringo, negro, moreno, cholo, etc) or your eyes (they call me chinita all the time and tug at their eyes to pull them back… seriously, but it’s not at all meant to offend) or your weight (flaco, gordo are used all the time) or any physical attribute at all. So this might be set in France, but the name thing seems Peruvian to me. Come on, Beast? Belle? Please.

The other thing is, they do this little montage to show Belle and the Beast’s time together and a montage always makes me feel like a lot of time has passed. BUT IT HASN’T! Belle’s dad leaves to get his invention into a contest, but he gets locked up that night by Beast. The next day, the horse appears and Belle realizes that something has happened to her father. The horse seems to know where the dad is and Belle goes and gets him released after promising to take his place. The dad gets back to the village later that night and rants about the beast, and then leaves to go search for them again. While that’s happening, Belle is refusing to eat dinner with the Beast and we got the greatest song in the entire movie: “Be Our Guest.” Then she goes to the west wing after being told, don’t do it by a big scary beast that is keeping her as a prisoner (kind of dumb, imho) and she runs out after being yelled at. Beast saves her from the wolves and they go back so she can treat his wounds.

So, so far it’s been 2 days.

The next day, Beast claims that he has “never felt this way about anyone.”

What!? Ok. Maybe because he’s been alone with a talking clock, a lamp, and kitchenware, he’s allowed to be a crazy and fall in love with a girl after trading her for her enslaved father, treating her like crap, and then saving her form some wolves…

So, he gives her his library, and she goes hardcore Stockholm. They have breakfast together (I can’t decide if it was the same day as the library, or the day after). Anyway, in the song “something there that wasn’t there before,” the idea of “a few days more” is mentioned. But then the next scene is Cogsworth reporting that they have 12 hours, 36 minutes and 15 seconds and that they must fall in love that night if they ever want to be human again. The castle is cleaned, Belle and Beast have their dance and then Beast releases Belle from captivity to go see to her ailing father, who’s gasping on the floor of the forest.

Ok, so the dad went searching for this castle. He doesn’t have the horse, so he must be on foot. He’s also ill, so he’s probably not travelling very quickly. Still, he passes out pretty quickly and he isn’t more than halfway between the castle and the village (if he were closer to the castle, I assume that Belle would have taken him to the castle, but since she returns to the village, he must be close enough to the village that she knows they’re close) so I’d say he’s been travelling for a day.

That means it’s been another day.

DID THEY JUST FALL IN LOVE AND GO THROUGH ALL OF THAT IN 3 DAYS TIME? 

Seriously. It’s a cartoon, but COME ON. How did I not catch that as a kid? That damn montage in the middle of them after that amazing library, that’s how. I would kill to have a library like that, and the montage threw off all sense of time.

But 3 days is all it took for them to meet, experience Stockholm crazies, tell each other they love each other, and then he got magic-ed with light shooting out of his toes and fingers and became human. Oh, and it’s raining but no one gets wet. Cause it’s magic. Fireworks erupt when they kiss and boom- magic, IT’s DAY TIME! Also, everyone’s transforming back again. Ah, and Gaston’s dead, but no one cares about that.

And he's 21! She's probably younger, Gaston has been trying to get her to marry him, I have no idea how old Gaston is, and all of this is alright because it's love, not Stockholm Syndrome, not insanity, not any of that... it's love! twoo luuuv... 

Weird… 

Weirder still is that I had time to watch a Disney movie and actually be annoyed by it. 

and that was what my day consisted of today…

Well, now I’m off to an APFA meeting (like the Peruvian equivalent of a PTSA in the states) to go an experience what that’s like.  I’ll report back soon.

Love and Peace, y’all.
Love and Peace.

edit: APAFA meeting was mad boring. It was literally some people up front, reading a sheet of paper that describes how funds were being used... a paper that everyone in the room already had... it took an hour. Now Perú is playing Chile and I'm gonna bet that things get nuts later tonight (there's bad blood between Perú and Chile, so this match is going to be interesting and how the Peruvians react to the final score will be even more so...) 

Ah well, VIVA PERÚ! VAMOS PERÚ!!!

day 121: a bday and huanchaco

Howdy everyone!

So yesterday was Britt's birthday! She's a 17er and absolutely amazing :) Yesterday, I went to her site to go visit her and do a bit of celebrating. I was just super lucky that day! To get to her site, I have to take a bus to Trujillo. However, about halfway there, I need to get off the bus and travel by car. I get off the bus, call Britt who tells me to take one of the cars there directly, only to chat with some of the people and find that there are no cars going directly there because today is a Peruvian holiday. I get into a colectivo to go to another place, and got to chatting with an older gentleman sitting next to me. We talked about the Perú/Paraguay game from yesterday (Perú won! 2-0! woo!) and discussed how insane the Perú/Chile game this coming Tuesday will be (there's a bit of bad blood between Chile and Perú, what with that war and all...). As I got off the car, the grandpa paid for my trip and told me that he really enjoyed talking. I was super thankful, of course, but had to leave and find a car to get to Britt's site! I ask the driver where to go and he points me in a direction. I follow, only to get lost because we're at a paradero or bus stop, and there are at least 25 cars just sitting around. I ask one of the men around where to go and a whole bunch of them point to 3 cars and tell me to take one. I'm ushered into and sit next to 2 women, who I get to talking to. The woman sitting next to me tells me that she knows Britt! "Ah, sí, sí! La gringita! siempre está corriendo!" After a few minutes, lady gets off and I get to talking to the other lady who tells me that she's from Cajamarca, and then leaves me with her name and number, telling me that I simply must visit the department because it's so beautiful and when I do, I should know that she can help me with anything that I need. Are people fantastic or what? Anyway, I meet up with Britt, get a tour of her site (which is super sunny and cool) and then we head to her place for the party! It was tons of fun- we danced, had some drinks, a lot of food, fun and CAKE!

birthday girl knows whats gonna happen next...

BOOM! cake in the faaaace!

such a good sport :)

Yea, so one of the many traditions that exists here is to have the birthday girl or boy take a bite out of their cake. The only reason for this, however, is to shove either his/her head into the cake or the cake into him/her. 

It makes me part worried, part excited for when I celebrate my birthday here.

But the party was great! I had to leave early, sadly, to go back to my site and work with my youth group! My little ones learned about South America and North America that day, and we practiced a bit on how to draw using the quadrant method. There is definitely problems with this youth groups, specifically that they are just all very, very young and their attention spans cannot process anything for longer than 5 minutes. It's not just the age, though. A lot of these kids grow up around constant distractions in the homes and out. They watch television that is rarely intellectual, but action packed - more explosion than story, super dramatic - the kind where they legit do the closeup of someone's eyes than someone else's eyes then back to that person's eyes and so forth, and basically, crap. Well, IMHO. Plus, a lot of the girls are at that age where they're on the top of the pecking order of their schools, like being in 8th grade in middle school. They have a very elevated sense of themselves and are more interested in doing what they believe is chévere or cool, like listening to popular music or gossiping. BLURGHHHHHHHHHHH so I'm gonna have to work around that. Still, there are about 3 or 4 kids in this group who are actually interested in learning, so I'm doing this for them mostly. They're my favorites (shhhh don't tell the others) and I'm going to try my best, for them.

After that, I got on a bus and headed to Trujillo! October 8th is the Battle of Angamos, which I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it's a holiday here and if it's a holiday for Perú, it's a holiday for me too! I went to continue the celebrations in Huanchaco, which is located just a few minutes drive from Trujillo. When I was on the bus, I got a phone call telling me to get off at Monciche, or something like that. Now, I'm thinking to myself... what? where? how? I'm separated from the bus driver and there's no worker on the bus (I was on the second level). Turns out, the woman sitting next to me is going to the same place! She's the only person on the entire second level going to Monciche (or whatever) and I happened to sit directly next to her.

Awesome.

So I get off, thank the lady, and I met up with some volunteers, we ate and hung out all night and it was just really, really nice. I didn't realize how much my brain needed a break. I think the idea of being a representative of the US to everyone at my site, 24/7, really takes a strain that I just didn't realize until I'm away from it and find myself relaxing.

Anyway, we woke up this morning, had a great breakfast, checked out of the hostal, chilled out at Starbucks and I left to go to my site. The same thing- I was on this bus and wanted to get off at San Pedro, but couldn't remember exactly when we'd be there. Turns out the lady I was sitting next to was ALSO going to San Pedro and again, she was the only one on the entire bus! How does that happen the two times I'm on a bus?? It's insane and just makes me feel even luckier than I already am! We get off the bus, and I walked back to my site with her. We talked about my work here and I explained what I was doing, she takes me to where she works and tells me to visit anytime, and I go home.

Now I'm sitting in front of my computer, exhausted, and thinking of how to prepare for my tutoría class tomorrow. Week one of this class is going to be dedicated to developing confianza or trust between the students and between the students/teacher. It'll hopefully be a lot of fun, and I think we're going to be doing things like trust falls and the like. I'm not too sure yet, so I'm gonna go prepare that. Anyway, thanks for reading and hopefully I'll make these more interesting. Yea, it's kind of text-heavy but... ah well. It is what it is!

Love and Peace.



edit: I just found out one of the La Libertad 17ers is heading back to the states due to personal events :((( I am super unhappy right now... You don't know this person, but please send good thoughts and prayers of support? Being a volunteer can be tough, but I think having to leave because of things that are out of your control... well, that just sucks... Good luck, my new and dear friend. Volunteers, especially 17ers and La Libertadians (What do we call ourselves?), are like family to me, and like family- I'll always be there for you. Best of luck <3

day 119: so you've been in site for a few weeks now, what is it that you're doing again?

Hola damas y caballeros,

So I gotta make this fast 'cause Peru and Paraguay are playing each other (fútbol, aka soccer) and I wanna go watch some of the game before I go to bed.

I feel like I should give you an update on what it is that I'm actually doing here in site. Now remember, I'm a youth development volunteer coming into a site that has already had a previous volunteer, and I've only been here for a bit less than 2 months. However, the people here are seriously awesome. Except for the creepers who will literally walk in front of me, stop, and cat call while I try to quickly step around them without tripping because I'm rolling my eyes... (don't they have anything else to do?)

Anyway, my schedule is now as follows:
Mondays I will be helping a teacher in one of the all girls Catholic school teach tutoría (which is their course on all things social, like sex ed, family violence, drug use, and so forth). He wants to implement sex ed but has asked for my help in making it interesting by using dinámicas and such, instead of him just giving a lecture. Part of me wonders for how long he's been teaching there (he's young, probably just a bit older than me) and how comfortable he is teaching a room full of teenage girls about sex. For whatever reason, he has called upon me to help and I would like to see if it's possible to implement a pasos adelantes program (it's a program that exists already... I don't know too much about it, so don't you worry your head). I will also be giving English workshops in the afternoon to a younger group of kids (think elementary to middle school). On top of that, I'm part of a committee designed to offer support in the field of education and we will be having our meetings at night. I'm not sure how I can help this group, but I can definitely learn a lot so I'm not going to say anything!

Tuesdays I will be teaching an escuela de padres (school for parents) at the school where I will also be helping with the sex ed stuff. We're going to start at the end of the month, and I'm going to have to prepare a few things on this before hand.

Wednesdays I will be going to another school to help in English classes there, along with tutoría. I also meet with the leadership club in the all girls school.

Thursdays I teach English to a group of adolescents in the afternoon

Fridays I have my youth group of adolescents

Saturdays I have my youth group of younger kids

Sundays I go meet up with volunteers and we chill out and watch football (american football).

This is what I will be doing on a weekly basis for, I don't know how long. The rest of the time is divided between sleeping, eating, preparing for my next meetings/workshops/lectures, running errands like getting paperwork in or signed, random meetings with people who I am working with or are willing to help me, and random things I have been invited to. I am trying to exercise every morning, although sometimes sleep is so much more necessary, and I haven't really been reading as much as I think I should.

Still, a busy life is a good life for me!

That's all for now, VIVA PERU! I'll let you know what else is going on later!! Oh! but also, tomorrow's a volunteer's bday so I'm gonna go visit her for a few hours, come back and go to something I was invited to before running off to my meeting with my youth group before running back to continue in that thing I was invited to and finally, going home so I can prepare for my monday class.

Whew! Awesome.

Peace and Love!

day 117: a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down... so what's a ladle of it do?

I have started running every morning. Now, this sounds like it would be something that's good for me except my runs are more like walks, as I have convinced my host sister to go on these mornings with me. She's a 15 year old who hasn't exercised much in her life time and more than half of my mornings is convincing her that she can push herself a few more yards! It's actually kind of fun, although I'm not the most motivational speaker, and she's a good sport about it- even trying a few star jumps and lunges and such, before she gets girly and embarrassed about it.

Still, I'm running every morning now, partially because I like mornings and it's a good excuse for me to go out and enjoy the tranquility, and partially because my dinners are now composed of lunche, which is different from cena because it's lighter- a cup of tea, maybe some soda crackers and cheese or something. Basically, it's like my breakfast. Why is this bad? It's not. In fact, I prefer it as this is how I liked to eat back in the states. I would rather have an egg or avocado, I suppose, but galletas with some queso isn't bad. What's bad is the tea. It's not tea. Tea is hot water and leaves. I get this interesting concoction of hot water, some sort of thickening agent (I think it's gelatin), sugar, apples or pineapples, sugar, and sugar... all of this at around 9pm.

There's so much sugar, my teeth hurt. I have no idea how to say no to this, since the entire family gets together to eat and my host mom is rather pushy when it comes to food. I'll say "no thank you" which seems to indicate "just a little bit" which is, here in my lovely home, kind of a lot. I told my host mother that I had to eat less because I was getting fat. Honestly, I have to eat less because I just can't eat the mountain of food I am given, and I hate wasting food. When my host mom makes me this drink thing, she tells me it doesn't make me fat, as she uses a ladle to add the sugar in. A LADLE.

Still, I guess I won't complain. If I get diabetes during my time in Perú, the Peace Corps will help pay for some of my medical bills (I think... Maybe not. I should re-read my rules book). And I'm getting a plate of vegetables every day for lunch after I asked if I could please have no rice (which I still get, just about half the amount I used to, which I can deal with). I'm fed and I'm happy, I just feel like how meat cows might feel- eating corn instead of grass, and growing fat but not really healthy.

Speaking of food, I've checked off one thing on my list on how to become a true San Pedronian- I have eaten a tamale from one of the street vendors! And my god, it was delicious. 

Tamale con ají and red onions 

Fanny bought me my first tamale! She's the sweetest person ever and I hope we become friends : D

All that's left to eat now, are the lizards. I'm told I should wait for summer, since that's when they come out to eat from the algarrobina trees. It's spring here, so I'll let you know as soon as those lizards are out and about!

That's about it for now. I just got my surveys for youth back from my second school and I'll be teaching english twice a week, starting tomorrow. Next monday, I'm going to be helping a teacher with his tutoría class on sex ed and getting my surveys done for the parents of the students in the second school. I'm in the process of talking with a guy about the world map, so hopefully that gets going this month, and I have my next meeting with the committee I'm somehow in (I still am not sure what it is that we do...) coming up, but it might conflict with the regional meeting... we'll see. This Saturday is Britt's birthday. She lives over in Ascope, so Slack (who lives in Guadalupe, close to me) and I are going to try and figure out how to get there and back, since I have my youth group on Saturday. I'm FINALLY going to meet up with my other youth group this Friday (at least, fingers crossed). Lastly, I'm in the process of trying to find a space for English teachers to get together once a week or so to practice. 

There's also a world championship kite surfing competition happening in the end of October in Pacasmayo!! I'm super excited and totally going to check it out! 

Well, that's about it for now. I still haven't worked myself up to going to the third school that I know of in my site, because I really don't feel like writing up a solicitúd to go say hi... Still battling with that part of my brain that doesn't feel like working with someone who doesn't explicitly want me. Stupid pride needs to go away already. 

Anyway, chau amigos.

Amor y Paz <3