Picture Time!

Doing my godmotherly duties and holding the baby. Who was sound asleep until the padre poured cold water on his head.

Segundo, Yadira, Baby Randy, Me, and Alex (the godfather). He was always apart in all the pictures.

The formal picture. I'm the only one smiling, notice?

Me with ANDY YAIPEN from GRUPO CINCO!!! This is like getting your picture taken with NSYNC back in the day. They came to my site right after the anniversary. So now I have seen both Hermanos Yaipen and Grupo Cinco in my site.. sweet!

My Health Promoters! Not all of them finished, but here they are, with Anna (to the right of the banner) and Humberto (sitting in the middle) from Viviendo en Positivo from Chiclayo.

Employing "non-formal education techniques" to show how HIV works in the body to destroy your immune system. Thank you Victor and Yilda for volunteering!

My Community Diagnostic presentation. Of the people you can see, two are relatives and one is my AMAZING site mate Nicole. My socio told me I was "toda congresista" because I was dressed up.

Me and my friend Yilda. She really helps lift my spirits when I'm wondering what the heck I'm doing here. She's bound to do great things in this world! :-)

CARAMELO!! This was when he was newly adopted, so he was rather mangey still. He's been eating better and plays with me so he's happy and now, even without treatment (or a bath! I'm a bad doggy mommy) his mange is clearing up. I thought he looked like a CowTail (the candy) but I couldn't call him that, because that would just be weird.. and worse in Spanish (Cola de Vaca) so I decided on Caramelo, or caramel in Spanish. But here it also means any small candy, so they were still confused. Oh well. He's a cutey. And follows me EVERYWHERE! even into the school director's office and to the Combi stop!

Health Promoters Graduation. These aren't all of them, just the ones that didn't get perfect attendance.. haha. In the back row with me are the town Governor and Ana. I was really sick that day and had a bad fever. Still had to give speeches and smile though!

Yilda and I helped Nicole with an HIV charla she did with the women in a rural part of her site. The woman was so gung-ho about getting the condom ALL the way down the banana that the banana popped out of my hands and went flying.

Pretty good save though, and all the women thought it was hysterical. I had previously mentioned that I really like giving charlas about condom use, because it really empowers women and gives the information they can teach their daughters and granddaughters and thereby is empowering generations of women. So it was even better, when I was so "excited" about doing a condom demonstration that I couldn't hold on to it.

Peru 13 and our counterparts at our Project Design and Management conference. See if you can spot my forehead! My socio is the third from the left kneeling and my boss is the woman in the orange shirt on the right.

My nephew/godson, Randy, bathing and enjoying the water

Despite having a ton of plastic balls to play with, Randy decided that a carrot makes a good toy and that he wanted to share it with me :)

More of Randy bathing. It's hysterical how he jumps up when the water drips down his face! *Naked Baby Alert*

Is anyone still reading this??

So I just realized that it’s been about 2.5 months since I last posted on my blog. Ooops. Of course, a lot has happened. February was pretty much just finishing up my Health Promoters course and not much else. They had their clausura (graduation) on March 6th with a ceremony in the municipality along with Nicole’s Health Promoters since they never got a clausura. We finished with 13 Health Promoters, 11 youth and 2 women, and they all presented final projects. The mayor wasn’t there because he went to Spain, and we had to drag the assistant mayor (is that a term??) out of her office to come and say a few words. No one from the Health Post came and neither did they come from the schools. The cable people came and filmed it and it was live on TV!

I had a fever and it was really hot that day and I broke my phone. Let’s just say that sweat and phone screens don’t get along very well. After many emails and phone calls and trips to Chiclayo, I have a “new” phone which is really just an old phone from a volunteer that left. I call it the piedra—the rock—because it pretty much is. It’s an old school Nokia, but much more practical for PCV life than the flip phone I had before; I don’t have Tetris anymore, but I’ve got a FLASHLIGHT!!!

So for my Health Promoters I made a manual for them, to help them when they do their talks and what not. I showed to my APCD (my boss in PC speak) and she liked it and wants to send it off to Washington to make it available to volunteers in other countries. I’m gonna be famous! At least in the Spanish-speaking Peace Corps world… lol.

OH! I forgot that towards the end of February I presented my Community Diagnostic, a 50ish page document, all in Spanish that took me 3 months to research and write. This should be more important for the people of my town, than for me, but of the 35 institutions that I invited, only 5 bothered to show up. Mind you, that inviting 35 institutions means writing a formal “oficio” or letter and making copies and THEN walking all over town in the sun and heat handing them out and making sure everyone signs the “cargo” (my copy) to prove they got it. Just handing them out was an all day affair. (I did the same for my health promoters graduation with worse results…) So for the presentation I got all dressed, put on make up, heels, slacks, and a blouse I had to IRON. I was nervous mostly because I know how judgmental my town can be and knew that no matter what I did or didn’t do it wouldn’t be right or sufficient. And I was right. After presenting, I opened it up for questions and the first comment I got was, “I congratulate you for what you’ve done, but there’s a lot of holes in it and it still lacks a lot.” Well gee thanks. Glad I spent 3 months of my life doing something that no one here has ever attempted to do, oh and I did preface by saying it’s a living document and in no way am I pretending that it’s complete. The joys of being a volunteer… you’re likely the one most invested in what you are doing in the community.

Since the end of March, I haven’t been in site very much. I left on Sunday March 21 (happy bday mom!) for a dentist appointment and a meeting in Lima. I was back in site Thursday morning and left that Wednesday morning (the 31st) for vacation! We got 4 free vacation days for Semana Santa (Holy Week) and so I took advantage and went to Mancora, a sunny beach in Piura. I ate a lot of yummy food, got some sun and went out until the wee hours of the morning. Easter Sunday I had an omelet at a restaurant owned by gringos called Green Eggs and Ham, but it was nothing like Easter at home. No Peeps and chocolate crosses and jelly beans (though mom says they’re on the way!). Then I travelled back to Piura and had a delicious salad at Cappuccinos (third time eating there in 5 days.. yes!) and then got on a bus back to Chiclayo and back to site. I luckily have no crazy Semana Santa stories, unlike others from my group that got lost in the Colca Canyon or were stuck on a dugout canoe for 18 hours with 14 people in the Jungle.

On the way to Lima, my laptop got a “golpe”, it was hit somehow, and the screen broke, it was white and had lines going across it. I took it to get fixed before heading on vacation, and $210 later I have a shiny new laptop screen!

So I came back from vacation Sunday night and left again Monday afternoon for PDM- Project and Design Management- a training we had in Lima and had to bring a counterpart from our sites. I brought Felix, the treasurer from the Association of People with Disabilities. We planned a project to train the association members in different types of crafts and artesania so that they can sell them and improve their economic situation. It was a long 2.5 days. I was supposed to have a dentist appointment on Monday (I have to get a crown remade) but since there were no bus tickets for Easter Sunday I had to travel on Monday. Instead my dentist appointment was Friday, after the training. It’s a series of 3 appointments and the second was yesterday. Unfortunately something happened, the mould wasn’t right or something, but the tooth base didn’t fit right, so they had to re-make the form and send it out again. So I have another appointment on Monday to do what was supposed to happen yesterday. After that, there’s one more appointment… hopefully on Wednesday. If not, it will be Thursday. Thursday and Friday I have a meeting of Special Ed volunteers to plan training for Peru 15 and talk about best practices etc. So I need to be out of Lima Wednesday night. That and I’m getting tired of Lima. It’ll have been over 2 weeks in Lima… and about 3 weeks out of site (4 if we don’t count the fact that I was there for like 20 hours…)

To break it up, last weekend I went to see my host sister Yadira and my nephews Bryam and Randy. It was nice to see them after not seeing them for a few months and also to get out of the touristy section of Lima for a bit. I’m going to go see my training host family this weekend since I only got to see them for about 2 hours when we were in Chaclacayo for PDM. I’m really excited to get to spend some real time with them and get out of the hostel for a night or two.

When I finally get back to site, I’ll be starting a Vocational Orientation class with all of the 5th graders (last year of HS) at San Martin, one of the public High Schools. It was supposed to start the 13th, but I was stuck in Lima still. I’ll be working with about 100 students, hopefully helping them to learn to set goals and figure out what they want to do when they graduate in December. Most kids in my community want to be “great professionals” but don’t know what they want to be exactly or aren’t doing anything to help reach that goal of being a great professional. Teen pregnancy in my site is at about 9.5% and went from 30 cases in 2008 to 77 cases in 2009. Kids are having sex at a very young age and not thinking about the consequences. I want them to set goals for their lives and realize that having a baby is going to make it hard to go to college or even the institute and will change their lives forever. I’m going to work in some HIV/AIDS and general sex ed sessions so hopefully that will help on that front.

The best part is that my site mate and I are planning an awesome Career/College Fair in October to bring representatives from the colleges and institutes in the area to my town to give the kids a chance to get information from them without having to go all the way to Chiclayo. We’re also going to have a parent session about how to pay for it and other worries parents have. We want to invite a couple of professionals (based on the kids’ interests) to come and talk about their profession and also how they got to where they are. Like I said, it’s gonna be amazing!
While I’ve been on a “sabbatical” in Lima, I was informed that there is now dengue in my site. Dengue is carried by mosquitoes (which LOVE my blood!) that bite during the day. It’s treatable the first time, but according to our PC doctor, the second time you’re pretty much guaranteed to die. I will be bathing even more in bug repellent than I did before!

I’ll post some pictures in a separate post since this one is already so long. Sorry if it’s an incredibly boring post but not too much exciting has been going on. Especially not here alone in Lima…

I miss everyone incredibly and am counting down the days until my mommy comes (64 days!!) and waiting anxiously until my sister figures out when she is coming. It will be so amazing to see my family again. And also get clothes that fit properly!!!

Until the next time,
Sarita

Who has the turtle? and I AM NOT MOLLY!

January has been an interesting month. My town´s anniversary was this past week (central day being the 29th) meaning that the past 2 weeks have had various events and festivities planned and not a whole lot of people working on anything outside of the anniversary.

Despite this, I managed to get a group of Health Promoters focused in the promotion of healthy lifestyles and the prevention of HIV, AIDS and STDs. We have about 20 youth and 5 adults participating and it seems to be going well. I had to fight with the municipality to let us use the auditorium because the Miss Cayaltí candidates had practice, despite the municipality signing an agreement with an organization in Chiclayo and 2 other districts saying they would support HIV/AIDS prevention efforts and having previously agreed to let us use the auditorium for Health Promoters. In the end I have a signed note from one of the guys in the municipality saying to let us use the space. We´re working with the organization that the Municipality signed an agreement with, Viviendo en Positivo (Living Positive), which is formed of people living with HIV and AIDs and also gays and sex workers. They obviously have more experience with the topic than I do and probably more than the obstetrician or nurse do. Even higher ups in the health system are incredibly underskilled. Bringing me to my next topic.

I am continually amazed/frustrated at what passes as a professional here. Respected and experienced doctors and health professionals regularly insist that someone has a cold because of sleeping with a fan on, eating ice cream, eating hot food and drinking a cold drink, being embarrassed among other things. These are people that should know the basics of health that sicknesses are caused by viruses and bacteria. I understand when a layperson says that; its lore that´s been passed down for generations. But really. If you have completed training to be a nurse and especially if you are a doctor, you should know that a bacteria or virus getting past someone´s immune system is what causes colds, flu, and respiratory infections. Maybe eating ice cream could give you a stomach ache if the dairy wasn´t properly pasteurized but again that would be the culprit of a bacteria! I find it a really sad state of affairs when my high school health education is superior than that of a trained nurse. I know I´m here to help, but I´m also supposed to have people in the community to work with. I could spend two years trying to train health professionals (which I´m really not qualified to do at all...).

Molly. Molly was a really great volunteer from Peru 5 I believe, meaning she left 2 years ago. There was another volunteer that came after her from Peru 9 but she was only here for 3 months and then went home, so no one really remembers her. But Molly was very outgoing, liked to run and play sports, and had no qualms about being dragged out in front of the whole town to dance Marinera or Huayno. I am not Molly. I´m less than outgoing and am not at all athletic. And most of all I really don´t like dancing, especially in front of the whole town. More and more I´ve been getting people calling me Molly or telling me "why don´t you do such and such, Molly used to" Or You´re the same as Molly , right? No. I am not Molly. I am Sara. I have my own personality, my own likes and dislikes and my own strengths and weaknesses. This has come to a culmination lately with the anniversary. A group of old women sitting on a bench in the park while a band was playing yelled to me "Profe! why aren´t you dancing? Why aren´t you like Molly.. Molly liked to dance!" Between wanting to correct them-- I am not a profe-- and wanting to hit them in the face I calmly, though probably a bit tersly replied that I am not Molly, I am Sara. We´re different. And anyways, you´re not dancing either! Goodbye. That, and they must have not seen when I did get pulled out to dance Huayno after the parade in front of everyone and though really not wanting to, went without a fight and put on a smile, because it was the respectful thing to do.

More and more I´m craving people that understand me and don´t pick apart my every move or laugh at me all the time. The difficulties of December have continued, but in a different form. At least now I have some mini successes to reflect on and I at least feel somewhat useful.

Now for some funnies. So this past week I went to the city of Piura for a conference on Monitoring and Evaluation of Projects, specifically those funded by PEPFAR (President´s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief), ie my Health Promoters. Well, we were supposed to bring community partners, but no one wanted to leave Cayalti for the anniversary (great timing!) so I went alone. I travelled with the people Nicole (my site mate in Zaña) was bringing since she was already up in Piura for HIV Initiative Committee meetings. One of them was a minor (one of her health promoters) and we didn´t know that to get on an interprovincial bus she would need notarized permision from her mother or father. Well, she was intent on going. She wanted us to say that the other woman was her aunt, that her mom was waiting in Piura, that we should forge a document, that we should combi hop. I was like no no no. This will not do. 1. combi hopping (the most viable option) can be dangerous and we were travelling with luggage .. i had my computer and 2. interprovincially I have to travel on approved busses. So she finally more or less accepted her fate that she´d have to go back to Zaña. I accompanied her to the terminal and put her on a bus. Well, at the door of the bus was a clown. A clown very insitent on saying hi to me. Despite replying to his Hola, he insisted again.. maybe I didn´t say hola loud enough. Either way, it was weird first having to have the clown move so she could get on the bus and then having the little hola match. So I get back to the bus station, we buy tickets and wait about 30 mins for the bus. Meanwhile, the security guard is walking around asking "Who has the turtle??" I look up, confused, and see two women with a small carboard box under their feet with various nickel sized holes cut into it. Then I heard them say "Better we don´t admit to it..." They topped this off by trying to give it water, a process which involved spilling a great deal of water on the box and lots of giggling. Unfortunately they weren´t on our bus so I didn´t get to see if the turtle caused any more drama or not. The best part of Piura though was a really yummy restaurant where I had an amazing salad and an ice cream place that has amazing milkshakes.

In other news, I have decided that it would be a good time to start stressing myself out about what to do come August 2011. Namely what do I want to go back to school for and which test will be required so that I can start studying.

Oh, and have I mentioned how ungodly hot it is? Really it´s probably only 85-90º, but there´s no AC and the sun is ridiculously strong (hence 2 sunburns in 1 week...). Adobe is a great insulater, but unfortunately my room is like a jail cell and there is no air flow what so ever and I can only put up with so much of my family in the living room where there is airflow. TV, music on the computer and a nephew playing cajon on every imaginable surface and whining is a bit much.

Please February, be kind to this Peace Corps Volunteer....

Merry? Christmas and Happy New Year!

So the holidays have past and I'm rather glad to be done with them. I really struggled with Christmas this year; it was a lot harder being away from my family than I thought it would be. It's not the first time I've spent Christmas away from my family (as I explained various time to my Peruvian family) but the other time was when I was in Chile. The 25th I was in Chile with my amazing host family, but by the 28th or 29th I was home and was able to have a late Christmas with my family. It's not the same when you know you won't being seeing your family for another 6 months (thank God my mommy is coming in June!!!). Add to that a bratty nephew who couldn't stop bickering for the evening or even just for the meal- despite me asking him to be peaceful for 20 minutes. It reminded me of everything I hated about Christmas with my step family. I was miserable. I tried to put on a happy face and enjoy experiencing a different Christmas, but it was really really hard. When my mom was finally able to get through to call me on the 25th at night (stupid Pingo kept cutting out and she had to call direct... the sacrifices mommies make for their kids:)) I answered the phone bawling. I needed to hear her voice and at least have a little bit of a virtual Christmas. That was probably the most expensive phone call I've ever received or made, but it helped me forget how much at that moment i was thinking about calling it quits and going home.

So, besides the bratty nephew, here's Christmas in Peru. For starters, they celebrate on the 24th with a dinner at midnight. We didn't have a tree- the old one was trashed and my sister didn't get paid in time to get a new one and Christmas merchandise is not in stores as late as it is in the States, so by the time I realized we weren't getting a tree and offered to buy one, there weren't any to be bought. We didn't even put our Nativity up until about 5pm on Christmas Eve, finished just in time to go to mass. So we went to mass, came back and hung around until midnight when we "hugged" (like half body pat on the back) and said Merry Christmas and then ate. We had some wine, my host sister's boyfriend came over and he and my host dad downed two bottles of wine, while I went to bed. Most interesting part of Christmas in Peru: the nativity scenes. They aren't the basic Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, 3 Kings. No no. They are sometimes 3 or 4 levels, include houses, townspeople, and all sorts of animals-- even saw a giraffe in one..

Nativity Scene in the church

Giraffe in the church Nativity Scene

My host sister proudly displaying the Nativity she put together

Close up of our Nativity

Christmas Dinner Before

And After (hot chocolate, shot of wine, chicken, bread, sweet empanada, paneton)

My youth association (youth workers assoc.) did a secret santa or here, amigo secreto (secret friend) and I got a picture frame. Gotta print some pictures since my frame count is now to 2. I would have never thought 15/16 year old girls would go gaga for stuffed animals, but most of the girls wanted stuffed animals and were really happy when that's what they got. Here, when you buy a stuffed animal, they spray it with perfume and wrap it for you. All for 10 soles ($3.50).

New Years. Much like Christmas with the dinner at midnight thing and fake hugs, but this time Happy Year is said. But there are a lot of traditions for New Year's in Peru. Things you should do to celebrate New Year's in Peru.

1. Wear yellow. Yellow underwear are even more lucky than just yellow clothes. Everything is Yellow. Unfortunately, my only yellow shirt and yellow undies were in the dirty clothes pile. That and I think the yellow undies are supposed to be new...

2. Burn a "Muneca". Take your old clothes and fill them with hay (make a scarecrow) put it in the street and at midnight light it on fire. This is to get rid of all the bad from the previous year and start anew. When every street has a burning doll in the middle of it and firecrackers are going off, it also has the effect of making the town look like a war zone.

3. Run around the block with a suitcase. This is to ensure that you will travel in the coming year. And also makes you look like a complete idiot.

4. Eat 12 grapes while making a wish with each grape. After 3 grapes, someone asked what my wishes were and I realized that I had forgotten to make wishes and was just eating grapes. Oops.

5. Drink. This goes without saying or explanation.

New Year's was better than Christmas, mostly because it's not as big of a family holiday and I accepted the fact that my nephew would be a pain. We had more paneton and empanadas but didn't have chocolate this time, just tea.

The holiday season also included a wedding and a baptism, details about those to follow.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year's! I'm sad I didn't get to see the White Christmas we had at home this year. Instead I had my sweaty Christmas :) I love and miss everyone back home, and the holidays only reiterated this fact even more.

Rain

24 November 2009
Today I woke up to the familiar sound of rain falling. Familiar in another life. Here in my desert home in Northern Peru it’s a very foreign sound. I awoke and thought the sound I heard was the water coming from the tap someone left open until it ran dry yesterday morning or maybe that I was delusional. I looked out my window through the mesh I duct taped in to keep the bugs out and looked at my “backyard”, which is really a small area we call a corral where we raise ducks and guinea pigs and noticed that the ducks were drenched and the dirt floor was now mud. At first I was glum; trekking around in the rain is not my favorite thing to do because then you’re stuck in wet clothes. But then I realized I’d finally get to break out my spiffy raincoat to wear as I made my way to the special school. I stepped out of my room and grabbed my tea cup, since it oddly wasn’t yet on the table. No sooner than I set the cup on the table, my host mom comes running into the “dining room” fretting that the water isn’t boiled yet because she thought I wouldn’t be getting up early. Confused, I stood there; she knows that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I go to the special school at 9 and am up somewhere between 8 and 8:30. Then, with a chuckle, I realize it’s because of the rain. Because it’s raining, there probably won’t be school. I must have looked surprised or incredulous because she tells me, “Ven. Mira!” as she directs me to the door to look at the lake forming in front of our door and rain continuing to come down. With a laugh I think, “What the crap… we’re not in Cajamarca!”, and follow instructions to go back to bed despite wanting to go play in the rain. Cajamarca is another department, in the mountains of Peru, where it is currently wet season and volunteers make good use of their raincoats.
Later, as we’re eating lunch, my host mom asks if it rains like that in the states to which I say yes. My host sister asks if we have thunder and lightning storms, and I tell her I LOVE THEM. Then my host mom asks if I like to go out and play in the rain. I LOVE PLAYING IN THE RAIN! Laughing and slightly embarrassed, I tell her that I wanted to go play in the rain, but didn’t want the neighbors to think I’ve completely lost it. She told me I should have gone and played in the rain anyway and that she likes to go stand in the rain and get wet. So now I know, the next time it rains cats and dogs in the desert I’m taking my host mom to go play in the rain.

So November has been flying by. I have about 2 weeks to finish and turn in a draft of my diagnostic and then another week to turn in the final copy. December is looking to be rather full as well! Pretty much everyday there is something booked and for about a week I'll be out of site.

One of the other volunteers working in Special Ed is organizing a conference in her site about Disability and we'll each bring people from our site to participate. The following day, we're having a meeting among volunteers to work on best practices manuals and starting to organize the Disability Committee. THEN I leave that night for our Early IST which is our meeting after 4 months. It'll be the first time in 4 months I'll be seeing most of the youth volunteers and I'll also have to present my community diagnostic and turn in my final draft. I'm going to stay a couple days to visit my training host family.

I'm currently "gestionar-ing" or organizing for a group from the US to come to my site and help our youth out with hearing aids! It all started with a comment from the Deaf-Mute class teacher about wanting hearing aids for her students. I did some research and sent an email for more information and they wrote back asking about transport and how many people etc. It's still up in the air, but they are coordinating with one of their team members who has connections to Peru to see when his next trip to Lima is planned. (!!!!) All crossable parts of my body are crossed that it ends up working out.

My town was recently invaded by 14 gringos and 34 more Peruvians from Trujillo. My community's Disability Association coordinated with a group from Trujillo (Corazones Unidos con Personas con Discapacidad) and a group from the US (Joni and Friends: Wheels for the World) to come and donate wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches to a ton of people from Cayalti and the area. I have mixed opinions on it. The people did great things for my town's people with disability, but one in particular was less than open to my presence. I was talking to a 12 year old boy who was getting a wheelchair and his grandmother to find out if he goes to the Special School and to introduce myself (do my job... get to know community and those I'm serving) and he told me I couldn't be in that area "so as not to interrupt the job they are doing". The effect of the assistive devices continues after they leave as does the person's life. They were there 4 days, I'll be here 2 years. These are the people I'll be working with and it helps my job to be able to know their situations. Unfortunately, this one person (not gringo!) made what should have been a joyous event be a rather unpleasant memory. (AND the grandma brought her grandson the next week to school and there I was able to continue talking with her and building a relationship!)

I haven't put many pictures up recently (though I did just find a post that had pictures that was saved but never published and published it) but I've been working on a video to show before I present my diagnostic to my community. Seeing as Peruvians are notoriously late to meetings, I figured I'd aprovechar (take advantage) of it to show a video of pictures of my past 3 months in site and some of the things the youth are doing. I'll be adding more to it up until I have to present, but here's the sneak peek!

So it´s been over a month since I´ve written, and I´m not really sure what to update on. I don´t really know what I did this month. I made a little progress on my diagnostic and have even started writing the introduction, but still lack the basic demographic and health information. I helped out with an Escuela de Lideres (School of Leaders) workshop and was able to get some diagnostic info from the students there. Recently helped with Escuela de Padres (school of parents) and got some info from the parents. Other than that diagnostic stuff I´ve been going to the special school twice a week and teaching my english class.

I feel well adjusted to my town, but am still searching for how exactly I fit in with the
organizations I´ll be working with. I don´t want to just be another set of hands at the special school but don´t yet have the confianza with the teachers to try and make any changes. The school year is winding down (dec. 30ish it ends) and so I think I´ll continue observing and thinking of things for next year. I participated in a march for inclusion a couple weeks back in Chiclayo, but nothing was done IN my town for the week of inclusion.

My english classes are going. And while it´s not exactly what I want to be doing it gives me something to do and for the most part the kids seem to enjoy it. They are doing demolition and then reconstructing in the school, so our classroom has changed. They now study in the afternoon and are in a room the size of a closet. there is barely room to pass through the 2 rows of double desks. BUT we now have a white board!! I greatly prefer white boards to chalk boards in the states, but here the preference is even greater. In the states, at least chalk boards are typically smooth and you can more or less read what is written on them. Here, the chalk board is part of the plaster wall that has been painted with chalk board paint and is bumpy and makes the writing almost illegible.

I have pictures to post and stories to go along with them, but will do that later. Just wanted you all (those few that read this.. haha) to know I´m alive and well and enjoying my peruvian life.

Also, if you get the ganas (desire) to send me anything, I would love crossword puzzles. I did the one in the newspaper almost daily before, but the crossword puzzles here are weird- and in spanish. So if someone wants to clip their daily puzzle, save up a few and send them to me I would be forever grateful. Other things that make my life happy: chocolate, notes about what´s going on, magazines you´ve already read- I don´t really get much world news down here, swedish fish, and if someone could figure out how to send chicken harvest soup and the salad bar from prospector´s I would be in love! :)

Love and miss everyone and hope you´re enjoying Fall while I sweat my butt off down here.