Words of Wisdom

Good advice I´ve recieved from previous Peace Corps Volunteers:

1.) Wash the parts that fold.
This is of course referring to effective bathing procedures employed when one has to utilize freezing cold water to clean one´s body. There´s nothing like blasting yourself in the crotch with freezing cold water every morning to get your day started off right.

2.) Never trust a fart.
See above in my second blog post entitled ¨La Bicicleta¨ should you be confused as to why this is a particularly good bit of advice for Peace Corps Volunteers.

3.) Always keep an eye on your valuables.
Yeahhhhhh, so... this is a particularly important one of late. Perhaps you´ve noticed my scarcity of pictures in this blog post. Well, as you have probably guessed by now, I managed to get my camera stolen.

It actually happened two Saturdays ago during some particularly fun festivities at a restaurant/bar down the street from my house where one of my volunteer friends lives. A big group of Peace Corps gringos had gotten together to take advantage of the large dance floor at said bar. Over the course of the night, much merriment ensued and at some point, a small contingent of local Peruvian guys showed up. I had my camera in my back pocket most of the night but decided to put it in my sweater at my seat where a bunch of volunteers were sitting while I went to help a friend of mine who had had a little too much cerveza. I was gone for probably about 30-45 mins. and when I came back, everyone had left and my sweater with my camera had left as well. I assumed that one of my fellow compatriots might have gathered up the jackets that were at the table for safe-keeping and that surely I would see my camera again on Monday.

So, come Monday, I ask around. No one has my sweater. Tuesday, no. Wednesday, still no sweater. At this point, my optimism is fading and I let my host dad know what happened. He goes and questions the restaurant owner and informs me that the random Peruvians that showed up at the gringofest were some of the local miscreants who like to rob stupid gringos such as myself. Eventually, we get around to talking to the police to obtain a police report so I can file the incident with my insurance. That was yesterday and involved me sitting in the police station staring at a wall for three hours while all of my friends got to have fun at the 4th of July festivities planned for us. More on that later. Regardless, I got the report and am in the process of filing with my insurance who will hopefully reimburse me for the loss of the camera and I can get another one, which I will never take out in public for fear of it getting stolen.

Anyway, the whole fiasco was a good lesson early on in taking that third bit of Peace Corps Volunteer advice seriously.

On to the awesome stuff!


There were mountains and mountains of potatoes

Last Saturday, we went back into Lima for a two hour introduction to an amazing agency that works with kids who live and work on the streets. We split into small groups of 5 and went with one of the workers through the madhouse that is Lima´s La Parada. It´s essentially a humongous outdoor market underneath some newly built train tracks. I´m not sure I could ever properly describe the vibe of this place. In a strange way I kind of liked it. It´s definitely something to be experienced. All the pics included here I found online:

An example of some of the kids that live/work in the streets

Just imagine mud and cars and people and sheer choas. It was pretty difficult to think about and to see how some of the children live there in the grime and madness making centimos to shine shoes or scavenging for vegetables that have fallen off of carts to bring back to their parents to sell on the street. The worker that went with us was amazing with the kids. She was so affectionate with them and really made an effort to show them they were cared about. I was glad to have had the experience because it put a real face on some of the issues we´ve been learning about in our classes.

After that, I met up with my host family who happened to be in Lima for my Peruvian grandpa´s birthday celebration. I can´t stress enough how awesome this was. It was a little overwhelming to see the immense poverty and travesty of the children´s lives and then immediately follow it up with going to an upper middle class neighborhood to drink good wine and rum, eat amazing food and cakes and have intellectual conversation about life in Peru and Lima, but that´s the beauty of this whole experience here. My Peruvian grandpa just turned 86, but looks like he´s in his late 60s. He and I talked at length about many different topics and I´m pretty sure he wanted to adopt me because he kept hugging me. The entire family was extremely ingratiating and forgiving of my poor Castellano. We stayed until dark and then my host dad, Alfredo, drove us all home in the insane madness that is Lima´s highway system where lanes and road laws are more of a suggestion rather than something to be followed religiously.

For the 4th of July, the Peace Corps was nice enough to give us the day to play American sports and eat American food provided by the staff. Then after lunch, they gave us this amazing HUGE American flag cake that was absolutely fucking delicious. It was heavily covered in frosting on the outside and had a dulce de leche filling. Sweet jesus it was good! I ate two pieces and felt disgusted with myself. It really made me feel like home.

In other news, my Castellano is coming along a little more smoothly now, and Thursday I´ve got my second language interview to (hopefully) get moved up into a higher level class. My first interview was over the phone before I left the States and it was a nightmare because I was so nervous. My brain constricted like a sphincter and wouldn´t allow any Spanish to come out. Now, I feel more confident in my knowledge, so hopefully this one will be considerably better and come out like ¨La Bicicleta!¨ (sorry, I couldn´t resist) Wish me luck!

Feria Day

My Family´s perrita, Petisa

So I now know what total mental exhaustion feels like. After an absolutely magical first week in which every day literally felt like a dream come true, my second week kicked off with some serious mental fatigue in a way that I´m not accustomed. I felt tired all day no matter how much I slept the night before (thankfully insomnia seems like a distant memory here), my brain would not allow me to form sentences that involved communication in ANY language and I became easily frustrated at pretty much anything that did not involve eating or sleeping. By Tuesday, I was literally walking around in a fog, stumbling into things and wandering into the wrong breakout sessions at the training center. Luckily, my brain began to take hold again by Wednesday, and by Thursday, I was feeling considerably better.

Another thing you should know. Internet in Santa Eulalia is spotty at best. My updates are few and far between not for lack of trying, but more for lack of consistent internet access. I haven´t quite ascertained the reason for the temperamental internet, but as you can imagine, it makes lengthy diatribes about my week difficult to upload.

This week ended on an extremely high note in which our amazing Peace Corps facilitators and staff threw a ¨feria¨ or fair to expose us to various Peruvian customs we might encounter at our placement sights. Before the Peruvian culture part, we were asked to design our own American part to the fair where we set up different stops exhibiting common American fair games. My group did ¨Chicken in the Henhouse¨ (I believe to be one of the best parts of the fair) and other groups did ¨Red-light, Green-light¨ and ¨Musical Chairs.¨ It might not sound as awesome as it was, but when you´ve been cramming 40 hours worth of language and cultural studies into your brain everyday for the last 13 days, a little break is pretty fucking amazing. And it actually was pretty fucking amazing, so there.

The Georgia Girls (Katie and Kelly) and I just before the Feria got started

After the gringo portion, the staff kicked off their addition by demonstrating this awesome dance where women dance provocatively with a piece of paper taped above their ass and the man dances behind her creepily with a candle trying to literally light her ass on fire. I´m not kidding. Possibly the best dance ever. After that, we got to torture a guinea pig, called ¨cuy¨ (pronounced KOO-ee) here, by surrounding it with numbered boxes with holes on the front of them. People stand around the cuy torture circle and place bets on which numbered box the cuy will go into. If said cuy goes into your numbered box, you get the prize that´s on top (things like cookies or fruit or some centimos). A box is placed over the cuy in the center of the circle and someone moves it around to agitate the cuy. Then the box is removed and the cuy runs around in circles trying to flee (or in our case, it just sits in the middle of the circle until someone prods it with a stick). As much as I had my reservations about cuy torture, I still threw in my 20 centimos to bet on some cookies (I didn´t win). After that, my Spanish teacher and another language teacher recreated this amazing ritual in which people from the Sierra region of Peru get really wasted on fermented corn beer, dance around in a circle wielding a machete and hacking away at a tree with prizes attached to it until the tree falls down and gets mobbed by those in attendance who take all of the stuff attached to it. We didn´t have real alcohol, of course, but it was still pretty amazing getting to skip around in a circle with my fellow compatriots and hack away at a tree branch dressed up like a tree. I have videos of a lot of this stuff, but the internet here is pretty freaking slow and it takes me about an hour to upload eight pics, so I´m afraid to hazard a guess as to how long it would take to upload a video.

Fake Tree with machete stuck in it before the hacking circle started



Apparently cuy are averse to the number three



The hacking tree



My Language class with my teacher, Edith, dressed in Sierra-style clothing




Chilling out next to the river post-soccer game sporting the Arsenal jersey



It was pretty clear that all of us needed a break like this because we were all running around like kids again and we didn´t want the fun to stop. So, once we were done wrapping up at the training center, I suggested we go play a game of soccer at the field close to my house. This precipitated a fairly impressive gringo parade down the street to where several other volunteers and myself live. We ended up playing a fairly hilarious and enjoyable game of soccer for almost two hours. Then we followed it up by going next door to another volunteer´s uncle´s outdoor bar to sit by the river and drink cervezas. All in all, it was a pretty amazing day to say the least.





Today we went to Lima for an excursion with our language groups. We got to see the President´s Palace and the Miraflores (read:touristy) district and practice asking random strangers questions in Castellano. Not much to say about Lima other than it´s pretty much like everything I´ve read about it: polluted, crowded and incessantly covered by a dense grey haze that completely suffocates any sunlight. Oh, and it´s fucking expensive. I´d like to go back with a more experienced person because I´m sure it´s a pretty cool city if you go to the right parts. Needless to say, my fellow compatriots and I were pretty happy to get back to quaint, quiet little Santa Eulalia.

La Bicicleta

I figure I´ll start this post off on a high note since this particular topic has been on my mind a great deal recently. One thing I´ve learned over the course of my first week of training is that we talk about poop a lot. A lot. From percentages of previous Peace Corps volunteers who have crapped their pants (apparently, the number is between 70% and 95% depending on which person you ask) to an illustrated number scale of poops ranging from 1, meaning totally solid and healthy, to 7, meaning totally liquid and, well... We also started a pool where everyone puts in 2 soles (Peruvian dollars) and whoever is the last one to crap their pants gets the pool. When the (hilarious) Peruvian male doctor for our team asked me what happens when I don´t take lactaid pills, I told him I get diarrhea. He then smiled and said, ¨Yeah, well, you´re going to get diarrhea anyway, so…¨ It would seem that everyone in the Peace Corps has the same appreciation for the comedic value of a good poop joke that I do.

And speaking of number 7, that´s where I´ve been since about Monday of this week.

Yeah. I said I´d be starting this post off on a high note.

After consuming a delicious and (seemingly) nutritious smoothie composed of pineapple, papaya and carrots from an outdoor market on Monday night (first mistake), I woke up in the middle of the night to intense stomach pain resulting in me yucking my guts twice in the toilet, which is thankfully attached to my room. Since then, I´ve been riding the 7 train about 5 to 10 times a day. Only here, the slang word for ¨diarrhea¨ is ¨la bicicleta,¨ so I´ve been riding ¨la bicicleta numero siete™.¨ After informing the doctor that I was the first casualty, he walked into our next training session and said ¨We have our first case of diarrhea, if they want to stand up,¨at which point I stood up and took a bow to much applause from the other Peace Corps volunteers and staff. Like I said, my kind of sense of humor.

After consulting with the doctor again yesterday, he told me to take some antibiotics we had been given during our orientation retreat over the weekend and to check back in with him on Monday. I started the meds yesterday and as of today, I´m well on my way back up to a number 1. YAY!

Moving on…

When last I wrote, I was at the orientation retreat and the following day I would meet my host family. After a brief van ride from the orientation facility, we were transported to a beautiful training facility in Santa Eulalia that was originally intended to be a dance institute. It was here that I met my host family, or should I say, host dad, Alfredo. He came by himself because his wife and daughter were at home waiting for me, and he enveloped me in a huge hug when we were introduced. I immediately felt comfortable around him. He put my luggage into his car and drove me the 2 mins. to his house easily within walking distance to my training center. I then met his wife, Janet, and daughter, Andrea. I´ll have more pics of them later. Long story short, they´ve been absolutely incredible in all aspects of helping me acclimate to Perú.

Janet and Alfredo have been cooking me delicious veggie foods and even bought me lactose free milk for my cereal. Their house is amazing! They have a beautiful backyard with a pool, pet peacocks, toucans and an adorable little Shitzhu puppy named Petisa and a freaking avocado tree in their backyard, a fact I was extremely excited about at first, but apparently they´re everywhere and I´m a little done with avocados just about now. My room is on the bottom floor of the hotel that is attached to their house and that Janet´s brother runs. On my first day, Alfredo heard me say that I loved soccer and promptly drove me up into the mountains to watch a soccer game on a field cut into the side of a mountain (absolutely amazing!). Of course, I didn´t have my camera, so those pics will have to wait until the next game.

Most of my week is completely packed with training at the center and then I return home for a late dinner and an early bedtime (because I´m exhausted). The weather here is usually a little chilly in the morning and late afternoon with some warm sunshine from about 10 am to 3 pm. There´s apparently never rain. It just doesn´t happen here.

I have to say, I´m not sure what I was expecting, but the training we´re receiving from the Peace Corps staff has been absolutely incredible. I feel like I´ve learned a whole semester´s worth of stuff in just a week and I don´t feel (too) overwhelmed.

Last night, I went out for the first time with some of the other volunteers and several Peruano hermanos to a karaoke spot in Chosica where I got the singing started with Bryan Adams´ ¨Everything I Do, I Do It For You,¨ and Toto´s ¨Africa,¨ much to the amusement of my fellow volunteers and their hermanos. Today, I needed a little alone time to process the last week, so I did a little rock climbing up the mountain behind our house. The weather was incredible! It felt like summer. Tomorrow, we´re going to Lima to celebrate Father´s Day with Alfredo´s dad and, (hopefully) to try some ceviche!

More pics to come. I´ll try to update a little more often so these aren´t so long everytime. Love you guys!



Santa Eulalia Training Center





Santa Eulalia Training Center





Santa Eulalia Training Center



Avocado Tree in Santa Eulalia Training Center



Santa Eulalia Training Center, Language Center



Santa Eulalia Training Center, Trainee Common Area

Santa Eulalia Training Center, Front Door



My Room (that´s right, it´s pink)



My Bathroom (or as I now know it, ¨My 2nd Bedroom¨)



My Blanket (It says ¨Fairy princesses make all your dreams come true.¨)




My View Every Morning



Looking at the door to my room. My family´s house is to the right. (note the avocado tree)



My living room



My dining room

My Kitchen

Pet Peacock (they like to look at themselves in the window glass)

Bebe

Don´t worry, I´m not naked. Just catching some rays.

Perú just had presidential elections and the politicians put their ads in the mountains.

So I made it

Yes, I have officially arrived in Peru for the beginning of my 27 month service. My second night in Peru is about to draw to a close and as it turns out, our retreat villa has wifi. Go figure.

I figured I'd take this opportunity to update everyone on how things have been going.

It literally feels like weeks since I left. It's hard to explain, but time seems like a surreal concept ever since I left for orientation in D.C. on June 9th. I guess that's a good place to start.

So, on my flight from Atlanta to D.C., I was fortunate enough to be sitting across from two other Peace Corps volunteers from Georgia who were not only going to Peru, but were in my same Youth Development program. They quickly invited me to sit with them and the three of us became fast friends venting fears, anxieties and uncertainties. When we got to D.C., we met the 48 other Peace Corps in Peru volunteers representing a pretty impressive swath of the U.S.

I felt inclined initially to have a certain opinion about my fellow volunteers as it became rapidly apparent to me that I was likely one of the oldest, if not THE oldest person there, with a significant amount of them coming right out of college. Luckily, I can say after only two days of quality time spent with them, I've not only largely reversed my initial assessments, but am extremely impressed and humbled by some of their experiences. A good lesson to learn early on.

Orientation consisted of one day of multiple sessions geared at bonding us together as a group and addressing many of the questions and concerns a lot of us were feeling about our upcoming Peace Corps service. During the ice breaker portion at the beginning I quickly became known as "The Guy Who Had Only One Piece of Checked Luggage." (thanks mom!) Needless to say, orientation was cheesy at times and a little exhausting, but I see now the relevance of it in terms of building a support network once the trainers cut us loose. Also, Peace Corps gave us prepaid cards with $120 on them to recoup the cost of the taxi from the airport and additional expenses incurred. I utilized the funds for a nice meal and some wine with my good friends Honishka and Saralyn.

Friday morning we flew from D.C. to Miami and hauled ass to the next gate as our plane from Miami was leaving about 30 mins. after we landed due to a bit of a delay. Luckily, they were holding the flight for us. Apparently, leaving 51 passengers behind is frowned upon. We landed in Lima and walked through customs like kings in the diplomatic line, grabbed our bags and were quickly and easily guided through the remainder of customs checks. We were then promptly loaded onto two large buses and driven about an hour outside of Lima to our two-day retreat location somewhere just outside of Chaclacayo where everyone promptly retired for the night around 2 AM.

Today has consisted of multiple sessions to introduce us to the in-country Peace Corps workers who will be training us and providing us with security and medical assistance. First of all, I have to say, every single person we've met so far has been extremely ingratiating, but also freaking hilarious! They've also been plying us with excessive amounts of food and were accommodating of the vegetarians as well. Before dinner tonight I even managed to squeeze in a quick 3-3 game of soccer with a couple of the other volunteers.

Since landing I've felt extremely welcome and relaxed and am glad to finally be here. Of course, all of that will be put to the test tomorrow when I meet my host family who I will be staying with for the entire 10 weeks of training.

I'll leave you with some pics: the first one is of me and the Georgia girls, Katie and Kelly (from left to right), after we landed in Peru, a shot of my Peace Corps program peeps taking a break after a training session and a shot of the amazing retreat villa snuggled in between two giant mountains on both sides.