Pocas horas quedan...

44 hours until I'm officially a United States Peace Corps Volunteer. This day has been over 2 years in the making. These past 11 weeks have flown by. In that time, Yanacoto has become home, the wonderful Quispes have become family, and my fellow trainees and even staff at the center have become friends and confidants. On Friday, all that will be uprooted and I'll be heading off to Lambayeque, 12 hours to the north, to make a new home, family, and friends. I'm excited and terrified, oh so ready and yet oh so hesitant. Training is safe. We're surrounded by gringos and people who more or less understand them and their idiosyncracies, that understand all the transitions we're going through and are accomodating. We have a fixed schedule, and as much as we all despise the damn COTE at times, it provides consistency to our lives. We'll be leaving for site in a few days and when we get there, we'll most likely be the only gringos there, we'll have to explain our role as a PCV and also every single one of our idiosyncracies over and over again, and we'll also be on our own to fill our days which at first could be pretty empty. We'll spend 3 months doing an analysis of our community, but no one will make us get out of bed each day and go talk to school directors or nurses and doctors at the health post. We've had our hands held for 3 months as we've gotten used to life in Peru, learned about Peace Corps Peru, memorized our program goals and objectives (in Spanish and English!), improved our Spanish, and toughed out various illnesses. We've had all sorts of "check for learnings" to test what we've learned, but Friday we begin the biggest test of all-- 2 years as Peace Corps Volunteers.