day 80: y empezo mi segunda semana

so, i'm trying to do this whole "immersion" thing into the language, but i figure most of the people who read this do not speak or read spanish... ah well~

week 2 has begun on site! considering how very little i have done in week 1, i was really hoping to be productive this week. unfortunately, school is out for today because it's the anniversary of... something. i'm not too sure. i asked my sis and she just looked at me like, "of course there's no school, it's the anniversario" and wouldn't go into any more detail.

part of me wonders if even she knows why she doesn't have classes. but she doesn't have school so she's not one to ask questions.

last night, i stayed up with her and her friends to bake them cookies. i mean, it was supposed to be them baking cookies and there were plans to sell them so they could get some money to go do something, but it turned into me baking cookies and them proceeding to devour them. me thinks there is a serious lack in cookies in this town. still, it was fun and it got 2 of the kids talking about a radio show they do down in chepen. apparently, they have a theme every week and have someone come down to talk about said theme. these themes have varied, from environmental to school related and so forth, and they've decided that i am the theme this week.

i don't know if i mentioned this here, but on facebook i gave a quick status update that said i was going to be broadcasted yesterday for an interview i did that they recorded. well, it was decided that asking me just 3 or 4 quick questions will not do. instead, i went to church and came back to a list of 12 or so questions that they had prepared. now i gotta go and figure out responses because it's gonna be live, on air, this saturday.

an example of some of the questions i must prepare myself for:

1. could you please tell us the history of peace corps, who founded it, who were the key players in its establishment, and why the name "peace corps"?

2. why have you joined the peace corps?

3. as a volunteer, what projects do you plan on implementing here in your site? what is your 2 year plan?

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........................................

i can barely answer these in english. in castellano? that'll be interesting. at least they gave me the questions beforehand rather than springing it on me, so that's kind of nice!

but actually, in regards to that third question, i have to do a community diagnostic in the next 3 months that will be formally presented to not only peace corps, but also my community. in spanish. yea, that "in spanish" part is what always throws me. i'm hoping, though, with this whole "immersion" plan that i'm starting to formulate, my spanish is going to improve in leaps and bounds. this is me being very positive. it's step 1 of the plan.

however, in order to do the diagnostic, i really need to kick into gear the "get yourself introduced to everyone and their mom" portion. that's the official title of my mission impossible #1:

Mission: Get Yourself Introduced to Everyone
(and Their Mom)

1. Walk around your community and say hello to everyone

note: try to avoid those weird old guys who keep asking you for money.

especially that one guy who refuses to put on pants...

2. go visit the health post

3. go visit the baker

4. go buy some snacks. seriously. snack time.

5. call your socio in santa theresa and stop by, say hello, introduce yourself to the director

6. bake some cookies and deliver them to the municipality. drop off the CD with yaeel's informe final to the alcalde. say hello to the alcalde. give him a cookie.

7. bake some cookies and deliver them to the 2 schools

8. bake some cookies or a pie and eat them with your fam.

9. go to the police station and say hello. more cookies. also find that one woman you met last time with that family in pacasmayo so you can go to pacasmayo and say hello.

10. bake some cookies and take em to the UGEL and say hello.

there we go, my 10 goals for the week. if i can complete at least 4 of them, i will have been extremely successful. well, not including number 4, because you know that's gonna happen in the next hour or so... besides all of that, i also need to go buy some things for my room, do laundry, and figure out how and where i can buy a guitar, resistance bands, and a set of light weights. i should mention that if anyone's gonna be in peru the next 2 years and is looking for a fairly easy job for some side cash, i really really really would love a personal assistant...

also, i want some pudding right now and there's a recipe for it in the perú recipe book we got. that is so happening. awesome.

peace and love.

day 78: first week over

my keyboard is acting weird. all the symbols are being screwy. whatever.

so today, i went on a paseo and got to see basically all of the province of pacasmayo, which was great. i went to the beach and walked on this wicked old pier that just made you think... this thing is made of wood. rotting, old wood. there are many missing planks. i just might die.

but that was kind of actually really fun.

what´s also great was seeing all the stuff that the fisherman caught that day. like fish. and other things...

regarding that seahorse... one of the kids bought it and i asked, do you eat this? to which she responded, no... i think they´re endangered or something. to which i could only respond by looking at her with a rather incredulous expression. and then she got a waterbottle out, put a little bit of ocean water in it and shoved the seahorse inside. it was sad and weird.

anyway, after that we went to a bunch of other places and ended up back home to eat a quick lunch and veg out. i did nothing again all day but whaddyagonnado.

on another note, please please PLEASE watch my friend´s youtube video. it´s hilarious and extremely accurate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bStf7-XD2M&feature=player_embedded

miss you all.

love and peace.

day 75: parting thoughts

this is what the entire 2 years will probs feel like for most, if not all, peace corps volunteers,

summed up quite beautifully by a short clip from the Disney movie, Tangled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTHmHZaheC4&feature=player_embedded

enjoy

peace and love.

day 75: earthquakes and stolen light

so here's a fun fact,

sometimes my house doesn't have light because there are areas around the center that will steal light for a few moments by digging into the ground, finding the wires, and rerouting them. first of all, that kind of talent should be put to use. secondly, i was well prepared and had my handy dandy flashlight all ready to go. it was just my siblings and me in the house, with phonecalls from the parents to check that they were ok. i grabbed some m&ms, my sis took out some grapes, and we just sat around a candle at the kitchen table and ate/chatted until the lights came back on.

then today, i went to a poetry contest at a school at another site. poetry here was pretty intense, with a lot of theatrical hand waving and voices on the verge of tears. unfortunately, the judges were pretty harsh in the sense that they marked points off for extreme theatrics, focusing on the delivery of the words and less on the acting. makes sense.

i spent most of my morning/afternoon there, got to see another volunteer who lives in the area (after a fiasco of trying to figure out where she lived, and dealing with my rather insistent host mother... i still don't understand why she wanted me to see her so badly but ah well, i won't complain that i got to see one of my 17ers), ate lunch (duck and a pile of rice so high, i could have sworn it was for all of us to share, except we all got the same amount. i ate half of it before i just had to quit), and now i'm back home.

i don't know how to feel about this. i feel like i should be busy, meeting people and places around the area, but as of yet, i haven't. my socios are the ones who are supposed to help me out on that end, but one of them has straight up disappeared from this planet, and the other is my host mom who's taking me along to all the events she goes to.

i'm thinking of just forgoing the "wait for my socio" part of all this and taking hold of the reigns. so here's my new plan:

tomorrow, i will go see the medical post. i don't remember where it is, so it may take me some time to figure that bit out. we'll see. i will also go to church to say hello to the father, and the bakery to say hello to the baker. i wonder if i can hit up the municipality but i have no idea what i would do there... maybe check out vasos de leche and ask if there's anything they're doing? not sure yet.

you know what'd be awesome? if i could speak spanish. that'd be so legit. i think i'm going to go sit around in the plaza and study some spanish from my spanish book. i might also try to go for a run in the morning. i was so going to do it this morning, but my alarm woke me up and i just went... it's still night time, and passed out again.

woops.

anyway, i was saying before that i went to this poetry contest at this school, when suddenly there were these tremors. first one, and then a few moments later, a second one. here's what's funny though: i didn't feel either of them. everyone around me commented after the poetry contest that they had felt something, others chiming in and agreeing. we wondered where it came from, i nodded my head and said that it was strange. but i swear, i felt nothing.

this may be due to the fact that i don't actually sit still much of the time. i'm constantly fidgeting, crossing one leg over the other, readjusting and stretching my back, rolling my shoulders and neck, sitting on my hands then moving my hands onto my lap then playing with my nails, and shifting my weight around the chair just to get comfortable. amid all of this, it's no wonder i didn't feel the floor start to rock and roll. it wasn't a big shake where i was anyway, but it was calculated to be a 6.8 (i believe) and in northern perú.

weird.

dear earth,

calmate. en serio.

sincerely,

sue

peace and love.

day 74: my room

my room is a mess.

all my stuff is just sitting on the floor and i'm cowering on my bed, too afraid to do anything about it. the state of my room usually reflects the state of my mind, and right now, both of them are freakishly out of sorts.

why?

well, let's take a moment to explain.

when i first arrived during site visit, i was crashing in the room upstairs, but was told that my room would ultimately be downstairs. taking a glace at my soon to be room, i noticed that it was a bit smaller and had the same feel of a prison. before i left to return to lima, i asked them if it would be at all possible for me to stay in the room i was then currently occupying. the response was, yes! of course! there are plenty of rooms for you to choose, so take your pick.

fast forward a week later and here i am, trying to understand why my rent is being raised and why they want me in that prison room so badly. let's just say i'm not happy with a few things that occurred during the week, and a lot (read: all) of it is due to things on the agency's end, which i'm not going to go into.

long story short, this was the first thing i had to sit down and discuss after the bus ride over, my spanish is not what i want it to be, and my throbbing head ache was getting worse and worse as that weird white light in my prison room and the crazy intense echo started jabbing at my senses... like needles into my eyes and ears. so yea, i just said... f it. put me in the prison room, i'll figure something out.

now i've slept here for a night and have discovered quite a few pleasant things about this room and have convinced myself that i actually do like it here. i call it being optimistic. you might call it stockholm syndrome. for some reason, i think they're kind of synonymous.

1. i can't hear the roosters. thank the almighty baby jesus.

2. that echo disappeared once a bed was in there to absorb the sounds. nonetheless, the acoustics were kind of epic when i had my music blasting to calm my nerves a bit.

3. there's another room next to me that's going to be rented out to my soon to be host aunt, but i'm wondering if i can rent the room for myself and turn it into an office of sorts... how awesome would that be? kind of really epic awesome, i think. but how do i convince this family member that she should not rent that room and let me have it...? suggestions would be welcome.

4. i have a window that overlooks a door. this house used to be a school, so some of the structures are just odd and one is that my prison window (hazy, obscured, bars) looks out into... a door. so i don't actually get any light into my room, but i do get air! so at least there's that.

5. i can hear every conversation that occurs downstairs. if someone is at the door, i know before everyone else. if a meal is ready, i am well aware of it before i am called. it makes me feel really prepared. and if it's getting loud... well, i'll just get used to it like i planned to do with the roosters anyway.

6. actually, the noise is good. i'm going to try to get back to running in the mornings (5am, what what!) and i'm dragging my lil sis with me! so the noise will be incentive to get up before the house does. i love mornings anyway

7. i have my own bathroom. once host aunt gets in, we'll share it, but until then, that bathroom is mine. they also just installed a new toilet (with a toilet seat!!! yeeeesss!!!!) and a sink, plus the shower has more pressure to it than the one i was using on the second floor. still all cold water, but i need a bit of water pressure so that's super nice. plus since the kitchen is down here, if i ever want hot water then the process of boiling the water and taking it to the shower will be so much easier!

making a list of pros is awesome.

just a quick note: i just had lunche (not quite cena aka dinner because i don't really eat at night) and had some fresh baked bread, olives from the market, and a slice of the most amazing cheese from cajamarca. wtf, cajamarca volunteers all better be fat and happy when i see them in 3 months because that cheese is definitely something i'd eat every day. like legit buy a block, eat all of it, go back for some more the next day. sharp, creamy, and heavenly cheese....

see me be jealous.

but you just wait until the day i get to try some lizard ceviche. i will definitely be posting about that experience.

peace and love.

day 73: 1st day in site

exhausted. have internet. called home.

need to buy bed, desk, everything.

tiny room, one window overlooking.... a door.

can't decide if i should pay more for that room i stayed in last time, or stick to this one.

pros and cons. too tired to think them through.

it's 1am. stayed up to help my new lil sis bake cookies that she has to have for tomorrow.

if this doesn't make me part of the family, i don't know what will.

time to sleep.

peace and love.

day 70: lean on me is my theme song

a day of goodbyes.

ugh.

tears everywhere.

gross.

you would think after 23 years of life, i'd be able to get a grip and not explode into tears after every hug goodbye.

ugh. emotions suck. this makes me wish i were a robot, more and more.

speaking of robots, just a plug to help my friend along:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/6dot/6dot-braille-labeler-a-sight-for-sore-eyes

it's a crazy amazing idea that just seems so obvious! please give what you can and even better yet, spread the word!! a quick copy and paste could help hundreds and thousands of people!

i will write more once i've moved out of lima and into la libertad. argh. less than 12 hours until i'm sitting on a bus towards my future for the next 2 years. i will get myself under control. or, i will dehydrate myself so the tears just don't exist anymore.

but yea, check out her site and let's do what we can to make the world a better place <3

love and peace.