ferria de culturas

This week at the training center, we put on a culture fair. All of the language classes were assigned a department (region) in Peru to research. My group researched La Libertad, (a department famous for La Marinera Norteña (a dance), and winning Peru’s liberty). The fair was an opportunity for all of the trainees to learn about the country, as well as practice planning ways to teach about a theme with non-formal education.

A group of us were also asked to participate in a dance. Those of you who know me know I was all about that! After many hours of practice last week, we performed an Afro-Peruvian dance from the department of Ica. We had a drummer and a guitarist accompany us. It was a lot of fun! Definitely one of my favorite parts of training so far.

picnic

This past Sunday, all of the host families and trainees in our community got together for a picnic. It was organized by our madres. There was parilla (bbq), swimming, games, etc. It was really nice to have the families all come together. Our families, especially our mothers, don’t often get a chance to get out of the house and have some fun. So, it was a big to-do. All of the host mothers had a 3 hour meeting last week to plan the menu, the games (like tug-of-war Gringos vs. Peruvians), it was really cute! All of the gringos and families have really bonded with each other. It´s definitely going to be hard to leave these families when we go off to our sites.

aniversario en vitarte

I am beginning to realize that Peruvians love to celebrate. The first fiesta I went to was a big deal for me, but now I understand that I am going to get the opportunity to go to a lot of these parties (After only a month, I’ve been to five anniversary parties with music and traditional dance)! After a long night celebrating and watching musical performances in Chosica, my family and I went to Vitarte (another neighboring town where my family has more family) to celebrate another anniversary. Diosabel’s brother’s family lives in Vitarte and his son’s school was putting on an anniversary show. There were dozens of little kids dressed up in traditional clothes doing folkloric dances from all over Peru. It was amazing. I’ll let the pictures and video express it for themselves....

¡un mes!

I can’t believe that I’ve been in Perú for a whole month! Part of me feels like the time has flown by and I just got here… while another part of me feels like I’ve been here forever. I certainly miss friends and family from home. But I’m enjoying myself and looking forward to getting to know the country and its people and culture even more.

I’m getting more and more comfortable living in my community of Huascaran. Our training group is also getting pretty close. We are all getting used to being called Gringos everywhere we go, as well as standing out as the whitest and tallest people in our communities. Even though we will all disperse to our various sites in Perú, I think we will all stay in touch and serve as a support system for each other. Once we get to our individual sites in the provinces, we could be 1 hour to 5 hours away from the closest volunteer. Here are some random pictures of my community and the other volunteers.

aniversario de chosica

Chosica is one of the larger towns outside of Lima. It is about 20 minutes from my town of Huascaran. This past weekend Chosica celebrated its anniversary. Thousands of people, including my family and I, went to Chosica to join in the festivities. There were many famous musical groups performing. My favorite was actually a Cuban salsa group (check out the video below).

The festivities lasted well into the morning. I have friends who didn’t get home till 8 in the morning! I was with my familia, and my 11 year old sister was falling asleep, so we got back “early” at 1 am. Here are some pics of Chosica and the concert.

¡fiesta de graffiti!

One of our fellow PC trainees had a birthday on Tuesday. He had all of us over to his family’s house for a birthday party. We were instructed to wear blank white t-shirts and bring markers. At this graffiti birthday party, we all drew on each other while enjoying cumbia and salsa music, a piñata, and cerveza. It was a good time!

terremoto…

On Monday, I experienced my first earthquake. We were eating dinner when all of a sudden everything started shaking. We jumped up and ran outside. On the street, all of the families also stood outside of their houses waiting for the shaking to pass. It lasted for less than a minute. It wasn’t really that scary, my family stayed pretty calm. They told me that they have been worse in the past. I’m glad I now know the protocol for this new natural disaster.

The earthquake’s epicenter was in Southeast Lima with a 4 Richter scale.