Out of Site...Out of Mind

I’ve discussed this with other volunteers, but it is really weird to think that we’ve been in Peru for almost half a year. The normal changes occur such as loss of weight (I’ve lost 12 pounds since November), hair growth (I haven’t cut my hair since September), and how comfortable I am at site. Its difficult to go across the plaza of my town without some sort of greeting, which feels very nice. Although I couldn’t say that it feels like home, I’m feeling a lot more comfortable at my site.

Work is going okay for me so far. I’ve spent the majority of my time taking pictures of my site and my annexes for my presentation at Reconnect. I have to give a presentation along with the other volunteers on our communities. This presentation basically shows what our reality is living at our sites. Each site has its own strengths and weaknesses, and something that makes it unique. Hopefully I do a good job of displaying my community, and tie up all the loose ends of my community diagnostic.

The past week and a half, I’ve spent away from site. The good/bad thing about being at site is that there is a routine. Being Peace Corps Volunteers, you can say we are used to being comfortable in uncomfortable situations, but being in site allows us to develop some sort of routine. Although we can’t predict when a person isn’t going to show up for a meeting, or when the mayor is going to invite you for lunch out of the blue to discuss future projects, there are certain things volunteers do to pass the day. For me, it means waking up at 7, running my 6 miles, eating a breakfast (bread and peanut butter usually), and taking a shower (if water is available). After, I go to the health post or municipality for a morning meeting or to start surveys. If I don’t have someone accompanying me for surveys, I usually use the internet at the municipality’s computer lab (4 computers, 2 w/ LAN lines) or go around talking to people and take pictures. Integrating is our job, so this also means for me, playing pick up volleyball, and teaching kids how to play basketball.

One thing that surprised me about the Peace Corps was how dependent we are on technology. Knowing the fact that we were going to be in rural communities, volunteers still have to find ways to use the internet since the majority of our communication is done through email, cell phone, or a specific website. Monthly reports to vacation requests, all this stuff is done online. I don’t really mind though, since it also allows me to keep in touch with people at home.

Anyway, I kind of got carried away there…I spent 3 days last week with the volunteers of Lima doing surveys called BARRIER analysis. These surveys are new to Peace Corps and basically are supposed to be surveys that can judge behavioral change a little better than the surveys we have now. We spent these 3 days gathering data to see if this survey can work for us. If it is a success, it looks like we’ll be implementing these surveys for future volunteers in the future in other countries including Peru.

After the surveys, we had our monthly meeting in Ica. My friends from “home” can probably relate to this more than others, but I was just having one of those irritating days. Put that together with 15 people and you get me not in my best moments. Hopefully I can avoid these in the future because I love the volunteers in my region. We still ended up having a great night. Some people felt a little sick, and were not themselves, but a majority of the people enjoyed themselves.

The day after the meeting, a group of us went to Lake Huacachina. I can only speak for myself, but it seemed like it was a very enjoyable time for everyone and I can’t wait to go again. We spent the day sandboarding these massive sand dunes, and dunebuggying it up. If you guys are planning to visit Peru, this should definitely be something you should do. These include volunteers who might be reading this.

After, I spent the day with the Yaoyos peeps at the beach at Cerro Azul before they headed up to their site. I got to site and did some surveys and spent the day after going to the beach again. This time though, it was with my whole community. I can’t wait to post pictures up of this, but basically my whole town went to the beach. It reminded me of when football teams in small towns make the playoffs and the whole town follows the team by caravan. We fit our town in 4 huge buses and went down to Paracas to spend the day. It was a very enjoyable time, but to tell you the truth, it feels good to spend a day actually doing nothing at site.

That’s pretty much it for the last 3 weeks for me in Peru. I want to thank Angela, Heather, and my family for the mail and care packages. I’ll try to get back to you guys as soon as I can. It’ll be about three weeks until Reconnect, so hopefully I get my presentation done by then. It’ll be nice to see the rest of the volunteers, and get a haircut. Having long hair during the summer in the desert of Peru is not very comfortable, but a competition is a competition, and I really hate losing. Take care guys and for all you fellow Catholics out there…have a great Lenten season. Aloha y hasta pronto.

Here is a link for pictures of sandboarding...enjoy!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2108322&id=19510535&l=e05ab