Olvidar

This is a blog I apparently wrote September 12th and them promptly forgot about.  Suppose I will go ahead and publish it now, simply for posterity's sake...

I think I last left off with the funny drunk doctor. I could easily start off with him again, as I have just seen him for the first time since then. Turns out he is running for mayor. So awesome. It would be completely hysterical if he won and likely pretty entertaining to work with him for the next two years. I am of course not allowed to have an opinion on matters of politics in my host community. Wouldn't want the United States interfering in foreign governments, now would we...

The last two weeks have been as much of a merry-go-round as expected. Some days I feel completely slammed – running around, meeting people, getting shit done. Most days, however, I feel somewhat stagnant. I walk around and around my town, getting to know the hidden corners. I am getting my room more and more cozy and comfortable, preparing to live my life here, I even have electricity in my room now. I am getting to know my family and feeling more normalized into my situation. My Spanish is improving. Things seem to be plugging along. Slowly.

My mother, who is also my work contact, is often gone. She works in the caserios a lot, and has disappeared to Chiclayo and now Lima, too. She will disappear for days. She has only actually been here a day or two since I last wrote. When she is here, she is a bit tough to nail down. I finally was able to sit with her for awhile last night and talk about the work I am feeling ready to get started on. We have an Artisan Fair at the US Embassy in Lima to go to in less than 2 months and I needed to figure out how prepared my artisans will be and what I need to teach them. As I suspected, they are pretty ready. My main group doesn't really need me much – but that's alright, I will find others, and hopefully soon. I get to meet my coffee farmers on the 20^th. For now, I am returning all focus to my community diagnostic. I just wrote outlines for the many, many interviews I will be conducting around town this week.

I spent two of the only days that my mother was available puking my guts out sick. I suppose it was my turn to get it bad. Afterward, I was very weak for a day or two. Ashley visited and I was the most pathetic hiking buddy ever, stopping every 20 minutes to will myself not to vomit. It sure was a beautiful hike like always though.

I went to town. And I had a birthday. I suppose those are things. I went in to Chota for just one night, mainly to purchase a mattress. It's our big city, only 4 harrowing hours away and all of 30,000 people. Ashley went with me and we met up with the two volunteers who live there – Mark and Christie – and two others in the area who came in - Chris and Annalise. It was pretty exciting to eat out, have laundry done, take hot showers, flush toilets, have wireless internet, drink a beer, stay in a hotel, and just speak friggin' English for a night. Absurdly exciting. We also did quite a bit of shopping. I did buy a mattress (really just a glorified piece of foam), as well as a new pillow and a sheet set. Ash got a whole stove and kitchen set-up, so when the two of us loaded back on the bus that evening to head home, we were packing heavy. I did manage to load my mattress on to the top of a mototaxi (“Just reach up and hold it on,” seems to be the simple solution for mattress-meets-motorcycle...), and had no problem getting on the bus and getting home. It was funny – one night in town and I was pretty much super ready to be home again. Getting into my new, fresh bed was the most luxurious and amazing thing ever.

The next morning was my birthday. My family made me a delicious breakfast of these little fried things that were somewhere in between pancake and doughnut; they were apparently called, “tortillas,” as is everything else, though I have never seen what I know of as a tortilla in this country. Then they presented me with a very nice bright purple sweater. Of course, I wore it all day for them and of course it was the hottest day I have ever seen here. I decided that since it was both Friday and my birthday, it was fully appropriate to pretty much stay in bed all day and watch movies – this new bed is just way too comfortable... So I bought some yarn and a slice of cake and did exactly that.

The next day was my host father's birthday. I went down to the bakery and bought him a whole cake. I watched our ama de casa slaughter a very large duck, and we pretty much feasted all day. I don't know how old he turned, so the cake had one “0” candle on it. This prompted my father to have a long philosophical discussion with me about wasted youth and the universal desire to turn back time. Sometimes speaking Spanish makes me so tired.

Today is market day and I explored it thoroughly, though I am still holding my breath in parts of the meat sections – I will get tougher. Fresh herbs are still eluding me. People keep saying they know where to find sage and rosemary, but then they were of course lying. So, I went and watched the mayoral debates going on in the plaza. There were hundreds of people watching. There are about 10 candidates, the election is in less than a month, and it is so strange to be so removed. I did realize that I do know most of the candidates, but I really don't know much about their political stances. I suppose it's okay that I am not allowed to have an opinion, because I really don't.

I swung into our beautiful Catholic Church on my way home just know and though there were only about 3 people in the pews, there was a woman belting out the most beautiful Ave Maria. Apparently she is practicing for a concert tonight. I am going. Very exciting.

Mostly, life just seems so normal now. I am not sure what else to write. I have stopped paying as much attention to the daily strangeness. I think I saw a gringo last night in my plaza and that is about the weirdest thing that has happened in a while.

El Penal

This is a completely random series of pictures.  Figured I should share some since I am lying all day in my hotel, watching college football.  Regional meetings are an awesome excuse to get a real bed, a hot shower or nine, and some internet.

Fiesta day in Catache:

Random - I think from a bis ride between Santa Cruz and Catache:

Fireworks for sale:

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Making aji on rocks in the campo:

This is an eight story tall tower of fireworks.  They spend all day building these things and then they burn them down at like 2am.  They are extremely impressive.  See all the little spinny thingies and there are flapping birds on top and a waterfall thingie.  It all animates on fire:

Nightclub in Caja City on FBT.  Volunteer buddies and random Swiss grad student:

Hiking:

We do a lot of hiking.  This is Ashley, she is the closest volunteer to me:

Good buddies Ashley, Ellen, Biz, and Ryan:

Screaming Mummy:

It's the smallest soda ever:

Ryan made it:

My baby sister Sylvana, after playing in the coal pile:

Market:

Night in the Wasteland, near the end of training:

Very dramatic flower pictures from my hikes:

Ash and Mark and my bday feast:

That's my town from the top of the mountain.  The trail disappeared and we just bailed up the side of the mountain.  It was pretty good.  Cows.

I don't ever feel like blogging anymore.  Coming back to town on the first, I think.  Will update maybe then.

La Madrugada (¡Ahora con fotos!)

I am finally here at site, getting here on Wednesday after journeying the fabled Hero's Quest in order to arrive. I hear it's official that a few of us out in this area are the very most remote of the Peru volunteers. It took me days to get to site this time... 16 hours of cama cama and ten hours of dirt roads later, falta muchas break-downs but including a lovely man next to me barfing in a bag, and an extra night in a hotel in order to catch the 4am combi for the last crazy stretch... and now, finally, I am exactly where I want to be. I arrived to my house just in time to met the town pastor, eat a late breakfast, and get delivered a solicitud. It seems my work is really starting off at breakneck speed. This was from a campo gentleman who had come from afar because he had heard of my impending presence and was sent to request help organizing a group of bee-keepers and cuy farmers. I am so in.

After I agreed to meet with his group in Chancay Baños on Sunday, I went to catch a quick rest as that last windy and crowded stretch of road had been my least comfortable ever and had been less than optimally placed in the middle of the friggin' night. I woke up in time to grab lunch and then hit the town with my little sister, Iris, to do some very important market and hardware store scouring. It took awhile to find a bucket of bright red paint for my room, and quite an extraordinary number of strange looks. People here really like to whitewash inside. So boring. So, we got all our paint supplies, a lamp, and many other little things, and headed back home with our wares and with ice cream cones in hand. I already don't know how I'd survive without my sister – even with her disturbing Beiber-fever.

I then rushed off to a Fair Commission meeting, which didn't actually take place due to the extraordinary circumstance of this being Perú. I spent the rest of the evening and a large percentage of the next day deep in planning mode. Felt like the beginning of a campaign. I made electronic and giant hard copy versions of a three-month plan. It took eons, as usual. I realized during the process how glad I am to have a background in planning and organizing while jumping into this immense project with very little instruction. I thought about it as I did it, but even more over the next day, as I spoke with my compañeros on the phone, that this is a HUGE gap in our training. Seems that everyone I have spoken with is feeling at a loss of how exactly to begin. They even told us that this is the biggest problem with getting to site. I don't know why they don't just teach the basic set of planning tools that we all learned back home. I am going to see what I can do to get this implemented. I am glad I feel like I know exactly what I am doing and what is next, it's a pretty decent comfort when I am sleeping on straw covered in a sheet and washing myself from a bucket.

Friday morning I went to Ashley's site, an hour away. The drive is amazing – absolutely breathtaking. She lives on the other side of the range from me, and the climate is totally different. You go over the pass and you are suddenly in the gorgeous canyons and sheer golden and red cliffs of northern New Mexico and Arizona. You follow a beautiful whitewater river the whole way there and pass through little oases of farms pulled straight from visions of Shangri La. So, of course, the first thing we did was go on a hike. I am not even going to bother trying to describe how awesome the hike was. We'll just go with the literal interpretation of awe-some. I was actually there for an afternoon meeting with our artisan group, but I was stoked the only buses went so early in the day.

When we arrived to the meeting, we found out that there is this wonderful man from the Peruvian government who is already doing our job for us! Suddenly we understand why our random group of mountain women are the most well-organized artisan association we have encountered. This guy sat and taught them the very stuff I was planning on teaching them as soon as I finished my diagnostic/improved my Spanish. And he did it very well. It was also quite educational to watch. I have a new work partner and will be spending more of my time focusing on the less organized groups. Fantastic.

I stayed the night in her town and the annual town fiesta was in full effect. One thing. They built a six story high structure covered in crazy spinning and flying fireworks with flame waterfalls and other finery and then they pretty much burnt it down. I love them. Another thing. Women don't drink in towns this small, so while the men got hammered, we pounded coffee and partied like no tomorrow. Yet another. Gringas are the most interesting thing on Earth apparently. At one point, I got up on a bench to take a photo of the crowd and as soon as my flash went off (the town electricity of course went out as soon as the party started) a bunch of flashes went off back at me. They all took pictures of me. Look! A gringa! There is also epic staring. Standing and staring, one foot in front of you. Also. They say that being in Peace Corps involves lots of embarrassing the hell out of yourself, so we embraced it and let them teach us a traditional dance while hundreds watched and laughed. This involved a giant sombrero. Last thing. These people party. We went to sleep around 2am and it had barely started. Definitely still raging when we woke up at eight.

We went on another hike in the morning and then it was about time for me to return home. Ash is jealous of my site because it is bigger so people don't stare as intensely or yell “Gringa!” quite as loudly as I walk around. I am jealous of her because it is so much easier to make friends. People here aren't nearly as interested in talking to me. I already miss all my friends from her site – William (who is just like Pablito!), and his funny friend Diana; Arturo, Ashley's rockstar cousin from Lima; Diego, the brilliant little boy who gave me a regalo before I got on the bus; and even John, the suspiciously friendly cop. They were waving me off as the bus pulled out. It was the sweetest.

My baby sister ran up the road yelling, “Co! Co!” when I got home though, so that worked. I busted ass for the rest of the day getting my room how I want it. I painted it bright red, which makes my parents crack up every single time they walk by the door. It's a crap paint job. Tip: when painting a room in a house made out of mud, just realize that chunks of the wall will continuously fall off as you go and just keep going. Oh well. Then I cleaned and decorated. Then I wrote this. Man. Every day. So full. I am exhausted. Good night.
By the way. A tortilla isn't a tortilla. A tortilla is scrambled eggs, sometimes with some spinach in them. There are no tortillas. Mosquitos are also having an identity crisis. A mosquito is actually any small bug, while those filthy little bastards that suck your blood are zancudos. Somos Perú.

Post Script. Wow. I was going to post that blog this morning, but instead got pulled into the whirlwind that is Perú. Today, I believe, would have tried even someone who had a mountain of patience. For me, a rank amateur on the patience front, it was a great test of will. I learned a lot. I learned that even if you wait for your town doctor for two hours in the morning on a random curb in order to go on a trip an hour each way to a caserio, this doesn't mean you won't wait for him for FIVE MORE HOURS after the meeting. But, I enjoyed the rain, I enjoyed the company of my sister, my mom's friend Percy, and the cab driver, Edison, I enjoyed a bit of my book, I gave another speech in Spanish and even fielded questions, I received gifts of mountains of fresh honey from my new association, and I spent a lot of time focusing on slowly breathing away my frustration. I mostly enjoyed watching the good doctor eat dinner quite drunk when he finally returned from whatever he was doing. This guy is definitely the most brilliant and hilarious Peruvian I have come across (for my compañeros, this was Mark and Jorge's love child of hilarity). This doctor told me that Peruvian serve up the hot sugar water to help the diabetes and the platos full of grease for your cholesterol. He also told me that my life wasn't worth living without love and to find a boyfriend and stop working so much or else curl up and die. He is now off to hit the town and play matchmaker. I got home to a million voicemails from my mom, as of course she finally got through and the caserios have no cell service. Ugh!!!

I just bought the ingredients for an amazing American breakfast in the morning – tomorrow is my mom's birthday and I am teaching a six am cooking class for one of my presents. They are very excited. I hope they own a spatula...

Before shot of my room

After - Much better!

My awesome family

Random choice of many pics I have of how awesomely gorgeous this place is:

Post Post Script:  After originally posting this, I went home and took up journaling.  For now on, I plan on keeping my activities there and focusing on pictures here.  I feel like I am torturing the void when I post this crap.  Love you all out there in the tubes.

Al Fin

Today I become a Peace Corps Volunteer. Training is over. Ten weeks in and now it is actually time to join the Peace Corps. This afternoon we all head in to Lima with our bags all packed and wearing our finest whatever-we-could-scrounge-togethers and we go to the US Embassy, where many fancy people will be waiting to mingle with us, and where we will take an oath to serve our country abroad for the next two years. Whew. I am so excited to get to work and so sad to be leaving this lovely little community we have built together.

The past couple of weeks. After site assignments, it was time to go actually see where we'd be living for the next couple of years. I got on a bus with some compañeros and headed off to Cajamarca. Sixteen hours to the city. Then a bus to Chota, further north. Six more hours. It is so beautiful in the Chota area that the trip is more than worth it. We stayed the night in Chota in preparation for meeting our socios in the morning. Our socios are the people who have requested Peace Corps assistance and who represent whatever organization we may be working with a little or a lot at our sites. They are also known as counterparts.

My socio is also my new mom. Her name is Rosa and she is the President of an association of women artisans called “Mujeres Virtuosas.” At our little “Socio Day” we did all sorts of dinámicas and other little Peace Corps-ish things to discuss the expectations and roles of the Volunteers and the Counterparts.

In the evening, I headed off with Rosa onto another bus to get to my site. Four more hours. This puts me a total of 10 hours from my capital city. This makes me officially WAY in the boondocks. This is awesome. I am in a perfect paradise in the sierra but nestled perfectly between la costa and the selva. This means I have huge green mountains, tons of tropical plants and minor junglyness, and perfect weather – 75 degrees and sunny every day. And who knew of this forest that is a stunning mix of ponderosa pines, banana palms, and tall eucalyptus? There are calla lilies and hydrangea growing wildly through the fields. The bougainvillea is taking over. Everything is gorgeous.

My family is super-fantastic. My mother, Rosa, is an amazing woman. She is 35 years old, from the deep mountains of Cajamarca, and seems to be a strong and amazing organizer. She just got back from an artisan fair in DC! Next month, she is going to Japan for 20 days for a leadership conference! Who is this crazy awesome little Peruvian woman? She is very interested in me teaching classes on women’s empowerment and self-esteem. My father, César, is older, in his 50's and a giant of a man. He is a teacher and he is superbly easy to understand. He told me the Inca legend of the camote (sweet potato) over breakfast. What a great guy. He wants me teaching classes at the high school to boys to teach them to respect women and how to be good fathers. He is pro-gay marriage, which is practically unheard of here.

I have two little sisters. Iris is 14 and so far we get along famously. She even cuddled up with me to watch a chick flick in her room one night. I haven't had a little sister before and I think it's going to be great. She explained to me all about the square root of negative one and walks around town with me helping me understand the campo Spanish better. My baby sister, Sylvana, is a year and ten months. She is the cutest thing you've ever seen and likes to hang out in my bed and pretend to read while I am sitting and reading. She can count too. By the time I leave, I will have been in half of her life. Weird, huh?

My house is also the artisan's workshop. There are always a bunch of women around – weaving, knitting, and caring for children. These are going to be my friends and they seem rather great so far. My house is small and rustic, but I think it will suit me fine. We are very close to a bustling (though stinky) market with tons of fruit and vegetables. Running water for just a little bit every morning, so I will be bucket showering for two years. No flush toilet either. I really am going to be in the Peace Corps now.

I had meetings with the mayor, the directors of the two high schools, and the guy who runs the health center. Mostly just an introduction and whatnot. I went and met my cops too. This is a hilariously intentional way to live a life. I had two radio interviews. My Spanish is still pretty awful so this was really fun. I think I can survive anything now. I went to a big meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture, where I was made a vocale on a commission with my city to help plan the town fair. My friend Ashley, who lives about an hour away, happened to be visiting me right then, so she is a vocale now too. Our fair is going to have food and artisenia booths, a bull fight, live animal shows – including something that involves putting the best cuy in a dress and then killing it and eating it, music, dancing, gauchos, and who knows what other awesomeness. I am pretty stoked on this project and my next meeting is in just a few days. All of this was in 2 days. Because I travel so far, I only got two days at site for visit week.

It seemed a little silly in theory that we were traveling all the way back for just one more week of training, but I was super happy to be able to come back and be able to try and wrap my head around the whirlwind of my new life. It was also amazing to get to hear about everyone else's weeks. This week has just been about closing down shop. Final language interviews, final medical briefings, admin briefings about logistics, lots of paperwork, photos taken for our Peruvian Ids, writing ourselves letters, party for the host families here, and Bridge to Service, whatever that means (haven't done that yet).

I feel like mostly we are saying goodbye to each other. I have some epic friends here. Fortunately, many of them will be nearby. Quite a few will not, however. Either way, we won't be seeing other volunteers very often no matter where we are, as it is time to get down to business.

This night, however, we all stay at a hotel in Lima. This will be my first night actually hanging out in Lima. Wish us luck. There is no internet where I am going in the mountains. There is an internet cafe where I can pay. I will write my blogs in documents and see how often I can still stay in touch. Shoot me an email if you want my phone number. I will update my address soon but for now it's fine to keep using the same one – stuff will get to me relatively quickly. I am breathing deeply.

I am joining the Peace Corps.

Mi Hermano Perdido

It's been a rough week - the very definition of emotional rollercoaster.  I have cried this week and I have also been so excited that I literally almost threw up.  Let's start with the good stuff.

WE GOT SITE ASSIGNMENTS THIS WEEK!!!!  I will be living in the town of Santa Cruz, in the department of Cajamarca for the next two years.  I will be living there with a family of four and working with a group of artisans.  I have two sisters, one that is 14 and one that is only 2 years old.  My host mother there is also the President of the artisans association and reportedly a pretty amazing woman.  I am the first volunteer ever sent to this town.

This is all very exciting and somewhat away from what I expected.  I had requested to live in the smallest town possible and this place has over 10,000 people.  I had hoped to work in agribusiness and instead will be helping an already decently well-formed business group.  I am in gorgeous mountains, as I had hoped.  Even better, I am in the same department at Ashley and Biz and Ellen, so I will get to see them all often.  I am confident that I will love my site and my work, even though they aren't exactly what I had requested.  I just may have to garden on my roof is all.

The build up to finding out site assignments was crazy.  We found out on Tuesday and many of us barely slept the night before.  It was like Christmas Eve times a thousand.  The morning of, we had to have classes and a huge taco feast before we found out.  I had gotten myself so worked up by the time we knew that I had overproduced adrenaline and had to spend the next few hours trying not to throw up.  It was absurd.

The next couple of days we went over expectations of our counterparts and our new host families, and discussed more safety and health stuff.  Our standard days, but now we were divided up by region instead of program.  It is becoming clear that many of us will likely never see each other again.  On Thursday, we got cell phones, which was extraordinarily exciting.  We can now communicate with each other without having to wander around to each other's houses constantly.  Of course, I have to walk out to the street to use mine anyways.  Directly after receiving these, we took off to Lima to meet some artisans and then have a pizza party at Papa Johns after.  It was time for us to say goodbye to our amazing tech trainer, Bron.  She is off to grad school in Switzerland.  We will miss her.  There were tears at this point.

Right when we got to pizza, we received some devastating news.  Our new cell phones starting ringing with people back in the center, in youth development, telling us that our friend had been fired and was being sent home.  I think I mentioned him in my first blog - the biggest class clown of our group.  He is a huge personality and at first when I met him I couldn't say anything but, "This guy..."  Once you got to know him a little bit, however, he was one of the coolest, kindest, and biggest-hearted dudes out here.  I think our superiors never really got to know him.  I think they were worried about his brash exterior.  I think they really blew it by sending him home.  He would have been spectacular at site.

He was also in a serious relationship here, with another friend of mine.  She has decided to leave as well.  I wish them both the best of luck and hope they come back and visit us both.  It has been pretty sad around here the last couple of days and it feels as if the higher-ups aren't particularly willing to answer questions about it.  Suppose we all just need to watch out for ourselves.  We already miss our friends.

Friday night we had a sleepover at the training center, which was pretty rad.  Today I leave to visit my site for a week.  I am nervous.  I am excited.  It is time to really test out my Spanish skills, meet my new people, and find out what it really is gonna be like.  Soon I will be a real Peace Corps Volunteer.  When we coe back in a week, we have one more week of debrief, then our swearing in at the US Embassy in Lima.  And then it's on.

Besos

I don't think I've mentioned that I get kissed a hundred times a day.  Every time you meet anyone, every time someone enters the room, you kiss each other on the cheek.  This is the same for people you know.  Even if they only leave for awhile.  They get kisses upon their return, and so do you.  Often it's a huge pain because even if you walk into a room with 60 strangers in it, you make the rounds.  It takes a long time.

Mostly, though, I like it.

Puerco de Caz en Cajamarca

I am back home in Huascaran after a long, eventful, exhilarating, exhausting, amazing week in Field Based Training in the department of Cajamarca.  I am officially in love with that place.  I partially very, very much hope I get placed there and am partially thrilled to get to see the rest of this fantastic country.  I am intimidated at the notion of writing a blog of this week.  So many perfect moments and so much amazing adventure.  I realized within 24 hours that I had to take notes and now I have this cryptic page of hilarious and unintelligible partial statements.  I will see if I can even begin to do it justice.

First, a random pic that was still on my camera of Ryan and Biz and Ryan's host brothers when they finished setting up the sheet and projector and we were just sitting down to watch the Universitario vs Alianza game.  That was before the trip.  Thumbs up.

The trip started off rather auspiciously as Mark, Chris Boston, and I headed into Lima in a cab and almost ran down a two year old who was just wandering unattended in the middle of the Carretera Central (the crazy big wild and loud highway.)  All of the cars were just swerving around the little guy and honking rather than trying to get him out of the street.  I decided to believe he was rescued after we drove out of sight.

When we got to Lima, there was another unsettling moment as we heard that a few of our companions had been attacked by piranhas nearby earlier in the day.  Piranhas are packs of little kids who mob you all at once to steal your things - they will even get you down and take your shoes.  Some police firing blanks intervened and the children scattered, but our friends were apparently a bit shook up.

So, we got on the bus.  Sixteen hours ahead of us, we were anxious to see the set up.  OH MAN, WAS IT SWEET.  This bus was a Super VIP, also known as a cama cama.  Our seats laid all the way down into beds, we got to pick out movies to watch, and they even served us wine in bed.  It was the most comfortable I have been yet in this country.  Fantastic bus ride.  I sat next to Tim the whole way there and back - he's my bus buddy and we had a pretty great time.

Our hostel in Cajamarca City the first night of the trip and the last.  Right on the plaza with balconies overlooking the street in our rooms.  The room the last night was particularly epic with me and the two other girls sharing a room that could sleep six.  It did prove to be a great place for us all to hang out.

Climbing a hill in Caja City.  This was a beautiful city.  I think Mallory nailed it when she said it reminded her of Antigua, Guatemala.  Super colonial and gorgeous.  We spent the first day just wandering.  I had my first anticucho on the street - and it turns out that cow hearts are delicious.  We went to the regional Peace Corps meeting and were promptly kicked out.  We were shown the PC book exchange hidden above a little artesenia shop - these are in every capital town and will be my homebases for the next two years.  I think I will try to selectively leave noticeable books and possibly sneak notes into books as well.

That night we went out with a few volunteers living in the Cajamarca area - Ken, John, Edson, and Sam.  Ken is the twin (or triplet, actually) of one of my good buddies in my training group, Ryan, and there could not be two people with the same genetic code and with more different personalities.  We had a blast going out with them.  They took us up to this hotel on this mountain overlooking the city and had a bonfire in the back.  We were also with a volunteer from Peru 4, Jason, who never escaped and his pal, a random gringo chiropractor.  This hotel reminded Biz of the Shire and he wandered around it like a hobbit.  It was a beautiful spot and we could see the whole city as well as the Milky Way.  Once we got shuffled out of there, they took us to another funny bar called Full Skee with the largest beers on earth.  It was their last night in Caja City and our first.

A little town we visited, another volunteer's site.  So beautiful.  We visited a few different spots the next day before settling down in San Marcos for the week.  We went to Vann's town and helped teach an English class to little kids and went to a zipline on a farm.  Only 5 of the 13 of us actually rode the zipline (not me), as the handholds on it were a frayed rope and you had to climb way up in a tree to start off.  It was pretty fantastic, nonetheless.  Also in this town, we were served pink cake for breakfast and everyone and their mom invited us in for a gaseosa (soda) - very fancy.  I have never drank so much soda.  At the school here, we were challenged to some sporting events.  The other girls and I played volleyball against the school team while the boys played futbol.  While we were absolutely and royally crushed at volley, a marching band played on the sidelines and about 200 kids watched and laughed at the silly gringas.  It is SO intense when you're trying to serve to a deafening drumroll.

In John's site, we had a cuy (guinea pig) feast and did a community diagnostic.  It was another gorgeous and perfect town.  Quiet and beautiful with kind mountain people, cows in the street, and perfect sunsets.  We were all too exhausted to function at this point, however.

We went back to San Marcos, where we were set to stay for the week.  We then went to another bonfire with Paul, the volunteer we spent most of the week with.  He is friends with everyone.  This guy is the King of Having Connections.  So we were able to do our debriefs and have bonfires pretty much every night at this nightclub that is only open on the weekends.

Our afternoons were taken up with teaching our class at the local Instituto Technico.  We taught a four day course to about 20 students a class on how to open a small business.  We taught marketing, accounting, business plans and lots of other stuff.  Pretty exciting.  The last day, our kids were to run a business we helped them plan, after taking a loan from our Peace Corps bank.  We lost half our kids through the process, but the survivors were pretty impressive and I am happy to say that all of our kids were able to pay back their loans the next day as well as turn a tidy profit.  And the breastfeeding 17 year old wasn't in my class.  Also, this entailed me speaking Spanish for a good hour and a half in front of a room full of students.  This was intense, but I pulled it off.  Edgar only had to repeat most things I said.

Almost every morning we went hiking.  This is a few hours up and over a mountain away - a town of 100 and a sign that says foreigners aren't allowed:

This is a bridge to nowhere.  A big one.  You have to hike a good hour to get to it and Paul says if you walk three hours more you will find a village of 50.  Why they built this epic bridge in the middle of the Northern Peruvian mountains is beyond me.

Paul has an interesting host family.  He is thirty, his host dad is 25 and his host mom is 19.  His host dad is in a gang.  Also, this is his kitchen:

Still his kitchen...

Over dinner at El Buche one night, Paul randomly busts out with, "So, anyone wanna kill a cuy?"  A few of us were immediately in.  Of course, Paul knows the cuy president and we go to his house one morning to pick out our animals.

We had to hike quite a ways out to the campo with our six live cuys in a bag...

Stopping at a mud hut to buy crazy fireworks...

These amazing women were teaching how to cook campo style.  Here I am making aji between two rocks.

And then it was cuy killing time.  This was hilarious because we were at first all slightly squeamish.  Well, not all.  Biz started us off without hesitation.  Within a couple of corpses - complete with squeaking and squirting blood - we were all just enjoying watching the process.  I killed mine pretty cleanly, though had some trouble snapping its neck, so it was a bit wiggly.  When it got to Mark however, he just DECAPITATED it and everyone just started cracking up.  So surreal in hindsight.  I mean, we laughed HARD.  Ha.  I am still laughing.

After this, we had to pull the fur off, which was quite difficult and involved scalding baths.

That night we ate our cuys all fried up and they were pretty good - tasted a bit like savagery.  Paul had explained to me earlier a bizarre drinking game you could play with a dead cuy and which I was rather stoked to try.  When in Rome, right?  He said that deep down in the brain of a cuy, you could find a little bone shaped just like a little mini-cuy.  He said that you can throw this bone into a glass of beer and it sticks to the bottom.  So then you pass the glass around and do a lot of swishing and chugging, trying to drink the bone.  Whoever drinks it, gets good luck.

So I spent a long time rooting around in the brain of my cuy.  I wasn't finding anything.  Soon, it dawned on me that I was covered in brain and that Paul had pulled a good one on me.  Nope. Soon as I accused him of this, he smashed open the brain of his own cuy and pulled out not one but two itty-bitty cuy bones.  They were much smalled than I expected - just larger than a grain of salt.

Jim and Paul each drank one.  They are lucky.

Over the next couple of days, we finished up our classes (quite smoothly), had a lot of hotel picnics, and returned to Caja City.  That last night, back in the regional capital, we owned it like real Peruvians, staying out til dawn.  We started at the most amazing little bar called Usha Usha that was covered in graffiti with little old men of the mountains playing traditional music and telling us tales of folklore.  It was friggin' tiny, lit by oil lamps, and fully magical.

Then we went clubbing...  Paul, in another feat of knowing-everyone, got us all passes to a 3 story night club where we danced and sang til the sun was rising and it was time to get caldo verde from the street vendors.  We mostly laid around all day the next day before proceeding to another lengthy and cozy bus ride.  All around successful trip.

More photos, stolen from Biz:

Cuy bone (trust me)

At the hobbit bonfire place

Procession of women in Caja City

Sign welcoming us to Vann's school

Zipline

Kids at school

El Buche - Our favorite restaurant

Teaching at the Instituto

Cooked Cuy

Usha Usha

Sometimes we'd find the Youth people and kidnap Ellen and Heather - this guy was selling mattresses, I think?

It has been nice coming home and seeing everyone who went to other places for FBT and hearing their tales and terror and woe.  I have a fantastic group of friends here.  We came back just in time for condom training?  We had relay races yesterday, putting condoms on dildos.  Thank you for that, Peace Corps.  Apparently Peruvians carry lots of STDs... Fun.

Tomorrow is the first day of Fiestas Patrias, a sort of Peruvian 4th of July.  We all have tomorrow off and tonight is my friend Mallory's bday, so I think we are all headed to Chosica in a bit.  I hope everyone at home is doing well.  It hasn't been very long.  Are you all forgetting me yet?  I miss you.

I find out my site assignment a week from today.  Bittersweet as I am taken from my new friends but thrown into my new ones and my hopefully amazing project for the next two years.  Everyone cross your fingers for me that I am way up in the mountains in a tent somewhere, gardening, and maybe even learning native languages!