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