¡yay obama!

fiesta de cumpleaños y halloween

On Sunday, after returning from Piura, my family hosted a birthday/Halloween party at hour house. Everyone dressed up for Halloween (we had a costume contest with a bottle of pisco as a prize). Some of the top costumes included Miss America, Barney, Bop-it/Twist-it man, Peruvian football players. My favorite costume was my sister Ana’s. She dressed up as me (check out the pics!). My madre made pisco sours for everyone and also got a birthday cake. We even had Halloween decorations with spider webs and Halloween balloons. It was great to celebrate with my family and friends here. Although it wasn’t the same as celebrating Halloween and my birthday at home, it was definitely very special.

mi cumpleaños en piura

This past Saturday was my 23rd birthday. I was a little ambivalent about spending my first birthday away from friends and family. And what was more; I would be spending it in a very isolated site in the farms of Piura.
On the 31st, my FBT group , Lizzy, and my trainer Jorge planned a surprise for my birthday. Jorge told us that we had to immediately leave Lizzy’s site because we had to have an emergency meeting with the Peace Corps Peru Director and our Associate Program Director back in Piura City. I got really nervous and confused (and more confused about why no one else was nervous about this emergency meeting). I wondered what could have happened that we had to immediately leave the Lizzy’s isolated site to go to the city. After 6 hours of exhausting and stressful travel back to the city, we went to a fancy restaurant to “meet the director.” When we sat down at our table and everyone raised their glasses and made a toast. They explained to me that there was no meeting with the director; we were simply in the city to celebrate and go out for my birthday! It was a wonderful surprise. After a very nice dinner (I finally got to have a real salad and not worry about getting sick), we went out to a discoteca and danced till 5 in the morning.

potrerillo

After Jilili, we traveled on very bumpy roads to visit another volunteer, Lizzy. Lizzy’s site. Potrerillo, was also amazing. She’s finishing up her service at the end of November, and one of us will actually be replacing her. It was very inspiring to see how much work Lizzy has accomplished in two years. During our visit, we did an HIV/Aids talk in her local high school, did an educational session about clean water and trash management for the members of a nearby community, watched the construction of a “cocina mejorada” (improved kitchen), and observed and learned all about the latrine project that Lizzy facilitated during her service.

Overall, I learned a lot during field based training and it made me even more excited about getting out into the field and starting my own projects. Hearing about and actually seeing the projects of other Peace Corps volunteers was definitely encouraging.

jilili

Last week, we had field based training. It was great finally got to get out of Lima and experience Peace Corps sites. I went to the department Piura (northern Peru, next to Ecuador) with four other volunteers and our trainer, Jorge. First, we visited a PC volunteer, Brian, working in the small town of Jilili. Jilili is a beautiful site in the mountains of Piura, about six hours (a VERY bumpy ride) away from Piura City. At Brian’s site, we visited the local health post, did some educational sessions in the local high school, hiked to other communities to work on a latrine project, visited some community gardens, as well as learned a lot about what its really like to be a volunteer, especially in such an isolated site. It made all of us very excited to get out into the field.