fiesta de san andrés

My grandfather Andrés is the father of 9 children, grandfather of 29(30, including his new host granddaughter from the US!), and great-grandfather of 3. No one exactly knows how old he is, but he is approaching his eighties. This week our family celebrated his saint’s day, day of Saint Andres. We all had a big dinner and then danced and drank until literally 5 in the morning. Peruvians continue to impress and surprise me with their abilities to party until wee-hours in the morning (even the great-grandfathers!).

día internacional de VIH/SIDA

December 1 was World Aids Day. For months, the youth health promoters and I have been preparing a Healthy Lifestyles Fair to celebrate this day. Each grade was asked to prepare some sort of presentation for the fair to demonstrate what they had learned over the past few months from the peer health promoter’s campaign about sexually transmitted diseases, prevention of teen pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and leading healthy lifestyles as adolescents. The students and teachers really impressed me with their creativity, participation and knowledge. The winning class, who all won t-shirts that have a message about the fight against HIV/Aids, did an entertaining skit about HIV. Another class did a creative radio commercial which we will air on the local radio station. After months of hard work and several bumps along the road, I am so happy that this healthy sexual lifestyles campaign ended so well.

intercambio entre el perú y los estados unidos

One of the projects I have been having the most fun with here has been a correspondence program between a fourth grade class in Virginia and the fourth grade class in Pampa Elera. I have been in touch with a teacher from my very own elementary school. Each student in her class has a pen pal with a student in the fourth grade class here. It has been a lot of fun to see what the Peruvian kids and American kids have in common and what they are curious about each other’s differences. The kids here have really gotten excited about having friends from the US and this correspondence has made them ask questions that they never even knew they had. Although I haven’t yet met the fourth graders back home, I can tell from their letters that they are also very enthusiastic about sharing with and learning from kids their age in Peru. I have found that this has been a great way to share with Americans what life is like in Peru, and vice versa, especially with kids, who have no preconceived notions about socio-economic, political, or cultural divisions.

Here are some pictures of my class here who have pen pals in the US.

noviembre en el perú

November was a very busy month for me. I was working hard preparing for World Aids Day with my youth health promoters, doing activities in the elementary school on health promotion, visiting community members, and being visited by a group of Peace Corps trainees who came to my site to see and experience the life and work of a volunteer. The month really flew by.

In addition to a lot of work, November was also a fun month for me. I started it off by celebrating my birthday/Halloween with the other volunteers in Piura. I spent a week in Lima for mid-service medical checks and program meetings. During my time in Lima, I visited with my old host family and spent time with the other Health volunteers. At the end of November, Dave came down and we celebrated Thanksgiving back in Piura on the beach.

limpieza en la comunidad

Trash contamination is one of the major environmental and health problems in my community. Littering is disgustingly normal here. It is so much more common to see a child or adult throw a piece of trash on the ground rather than in a trash can. And the trash that is actually collected is burned. This problem is not necessarily the fault of the community members. They are simply accustomed to these methods, and have never been taught different ways or reasons why these behaviors are harmful to their health and their environment. What’s more, there is no system for trash management or collection, so there are little or no options available other than throwing or burning trash on the ground.

For several months, I have been working with a committee to tackle this problem. It is a pretty big issue that cannot be solved overnight. We have met with the district municipality to discuss our options and have plans to continue to work on this issue by setting up a trash management program. We held several community-wide meetings to raise awareness about the problem and its effects on our families and environment. During these meetings, we also planned a community-wide “limpieza,” clean-up day. We made the project into a competition to motivate all of the families to participate. The community was divided into sectors and each sector competed to be the cleanest. It turned out to be a huge success and there was overwhelming community participation. Our limpieza and community meetings were first steps in working on maintaining a clean and healthy community. The committee is going to continue to work with the community and municipality to work on this problem.