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.
No comments:
Post a Comment