World Water Day

Last Thursday, March 22nd, was World Water Day. A day created by the UN to observe and recognize the importance of water. To commemorate this day, this month's Red Ambiental events focussed on water. The way the Red Ambiental (Environment Club) works is that every month each of the 8 districts in my province has an event to draw attention to two issues, one being an environmental issue and the other, a health issue. Because the 22nd was World Water Day and the 24th was Tuberculosis Day, the events of this month focussed on those two issues. Last week I was busy preparing and planing these events, which all took place on Thursday and Friday. I presented at two of the events to discuss water with the kids of 2 districts. At each event, I was preceded by the local doctor and health promotors who taught about Tuberculosis: its effects, causes, symptoms, and preventions. 

The events all follow the same basic format that include presentations from local officials from the municipality, health post, and hosting school, as well as the school district, myself, and local students. The format of the Red Ambiental has changed this year to reach more students, so we are now working with kids from kindergarten through the high schools, whereas before we only worked with high school students. Because these events were the first of their kind for this school year, they took a little more planning and were a good learning experience for me and the school district staff that I work with on the Red Ambiental. 

That said, I had a lot of fun with these events and am really proud to be a part of the Red Ambiental. While there have been a lot of meetings to re-format the way the Red works, get things together for this year's activities, and organize events on a fairly large scale, I am only a small part of the team that puts all of this together. My community partner from the school district put the Red Ambiental together a few years ago and I am just happy to be able to help her along as it grows into something bigger than what it has been. It's also really fantastic to see the way the communities have supported and worked with the Red Ambiental. The way the local doctors are able to join in on our events and use them as a resource to reach the children of the community makes me proud of the way these events are working. They bring people together to draw attention to issues and provide education from trusted local sources that the kids otherwise might not have gotten on important social problems. We are even seeing some mothers attending these events, which is even better. Having the parents there and watching them work with their kids to teach them about the issues at hand is wonderful to see. 

Now that I've gushed about the Red Ambiental, I want to mention World Water Day. First of all, I live in an area that has been described as 'water stressed.' To me this is something new. But to the children who live here, it's all they know. When preparing for World Water Day events, I was coming across facts like, "people in water stressed regions are forced to use unsafe water sources and live in unsanitary conditions" or lists of medical conditions dirty water can cause, or numbers on the amount of water wasted in the United States. I couldn't use any of that material in my presentations because it is either common sense here, or irrelevant. Talking about how much water there is to waste in the US alone would have been a sore subject that I wouldn't want to bring up. When asked how they can save water, the kids here didn't have as many examples as the kids in the States do, because here there really isn't any water to waste. "Not letting the water run" while brushing your teeth, doing dishes, etc, isn't even possible for most families, because a lot of households don't have water that runs from a faucet, they have buckets or cylinders full of water to use by scooping it out with smaller buckets, an idea that would be lost on kids in the States. I'm not saying all of this to be preachy, I am sharing it because I think it is important, and it has been a significant aspect of my experience here so far. As I write this, I sit in my sweaty bedroom after having realized this morning that I haven't taken a bucket bath since Monday. My friend who lives about 30 minutes away has the same situation. We are smelly. This is normal. We also live in nicer houses that actually have water tanks, not everyone here has that luxury. It's not that we don't bathe because we don't want to, trust me, we do (Well, I do. It's questionable with Kerri ;). We are smelly because there is no water to bathe with.  It has been a great experience for me to see how precious water is and how important it is to take care of it. Spending World Water Day here and discussing this topic with people who have lived in this reality their whole lives is just another part of that experience. 

I have literally hundreds of pictures I took last week, so it's hard to choose just a handful to share, but here they are. 

My friend Ysela from the school district working with one of the groups from Magdalena de Cao.

I loved those hats...

...so much that they gave me my own to wear. Awesome (:

When you ask Ascope for a parade, they show up. 

Main street in Ascope, March 23 2012

"Water is life." True story. 

The third grade play :)

Game I made them play with too many people and a very small "pond" to fit everyone on. They really freaked out when I folded it in half after they "used too much of their water." Ah, dinamicas. 

I love non-formal education :)

Summer School Art Classes

One thing I learned about the Peruvian classroom right away is that it is much less participatory than your average US classroom. Participation, critical thinking, and creativity are not encouraged in classes here like they are in the States. Teachers write notes on the board, kids write the notes in their notebooks, and that's about it. From working with the school district, I know that at least in Ascope, they are trying to change this. My school district is trying to support critical thinking and creativity in the classroom. This is a goal I support wholeheartedly. To do what I can in this regard, I asked the directora of the high school if I could teach summer art classes in addition to the English classes they asked me to teach. She was cool with it and gave me the classroom (I even got my own key!) and helped me promote my class ahead of time to get kids to come. She liked my cause of creativity and was very supportive, for which I am so grateful. 

One thing I learned about the students right away is that they are better at art and more creative than they get credit for. The problem is not uncreative kids, it's kids who have not been asked to be creative before. Once I figured that out, I had a field day. Because kids are used to copying things, I started by having them draw cartoons that they could duplicate with step-by-step instructions. When they got bored with that and finished it way faster than I had planned, I figured out that I was the one who had to be more creative. With no funding for these classes, I had to be really thrifty. Most of our activities were paper/ pencil projects, but they didn't seem to mind. I did spend a few of my beach hours in January collecting seashells for the kids to make frames, which they loved, and I got a few random things that I could use in my class from a neighbor friend who wanted to help me out and had some random stuff sitting around that could be used for an art class. Fruit is cheap here, so I may have stopped at the market once or twice and made them draw fruit. Like I said, I had to get creative. Kids bore quickly. The easiest part of this class was the class time itself, what took way more time than I anticipated was the preparation. Like I said before, teachers work hard and they work a lot. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back with that statement. I'm more so saying, I could never be a full time teacher. For summer school though, this was perfect. 

What I liked about our projects is that whenever I thought I had something that they would hate or that would be too hard for them, they loved it and it kept them very engaged. They never hated it. I liked challenging them, and I think they liked being challenged. At the end of the day, they had some pretty cool stuff. Off the top of my head I can remember doing the following: tessellations, cartoons, comic strips, crazy faces, seashell frames, Valentines, drawing to scale, drawing letters, collages, finishing the photo from a magazine picture cut in half, making a photo out of one shape on a page, designing product packaging, drawing fruit, using random objects to build things- then draw them, and drawing/ coloring a world map on a large scale. I'm forgetting a bunch, but you get the idea. 

Anyway, as with the English class, the kids were great and we had a lot of fun. I had kids from age 7 to 17, so it was a bit of a balance to keep them all busy and engaged all the time, but that was part of the fun. It was a really relaxed atmosphere with a fun bunch of kids. Also like the morning class, after awhile, the kids really opened up and weren't afraid do take a few more risks. Sometimes it took some subtle pushing on my part to get them to think outside the box, but when it worked, it was awesome. For example, when drawing comic strips, one of my little 7 year olds was lost when it came to making a story. I asked her to start by picking out a few characters. She picked a cat and a mouse. Then I asked her what a mouse would have to say to a cat and she said, "Don't eat me!" Her story then turned into the cat chasing after the mouse, then running into a dog, at which point the cat says, "Don't eat me!" It's no Mafalda, but I was happy with it. Her creative process rubbed off on her brother who had chosen a dog and a lion. The dog asked the lion if it knew his dog relatives from Africa, because the lion was visiting from Africa, naturally. I liked that one too :) It was so much fun helping them out with that process and getting them to be creative.

In the end, I was really happy with our class and the kids were asking me to keep it going throughout the school year. I hope I can work with them on murals, coloring contests, or other art projects that will tie into my work with the Red Ambiental, but we will see. I also hope I can do this one again next summer. At least for me, it was a lot of fun and a great summer project. 

Ratón Mickey

He was one of our first projects. Minnie was there too. 

Drawing to scale.

Fresh Fruit 

Fresh fruit in black and white. 

Sex can wait, tessellate! :p

Building drawing models with random objects. 

Seashell Frames

Summer School English Classes

Even though my summer English course has been over for a month now, I still want to tell you about it. I've been meaning to write this post for awhile now, but have gotten busy with work/ life, you know how it goes... 

For nine weeks of the summer break, I taught a 2 hour English class each morning, Monday- Friday. As I was told would happen, my class started with 3 students, grew to 6, then 12, then 20 by the end of the first week. After a few weeks it fell to 15 then to a solid 10 or 12 who stuck around for the remainder of the course. I wasn't offended by the falling numbers, mostly because they could be explained by summer trips to visit relatives, teens who had to stay home to watch their siblings, kids with other extra-curricular commitments, teens who had to help in the fields when it was time to plant/ fumigate, etc. Most of the kids who had to stop coming had big explanations like the ones I mentioned.  Others still came, just not regularly. So it goes with summer activities. Like I said, not offended. That was to be expected. 

The core group of kids I had for the whole 9 weeks was fantastic. They tried hard, put themselves out there (after a few weeks), and had fun. In Peru, it is very common for kids to be very shy and unwilling to speak up in class. For that reason, and many more, I focussed on activities to get them to talk and practice speaking English in front of the group. The small class size worked in my favor there. Our activities centered on vocabulary and included a ton of practice. My goal was quality, not quantity for the material they learned. We had 1 new theme per week, then reviewed and practiced our material cumulatively. 

They loved competitions and games, so we did a lot of races, "find the word" games, and of course, we played BINGO every day. The stickers I got in the mail from Annah and Sara were a big motivator for class participation, but nothing motivates people more than a good old fashioned game of BINGO with a lollipop for the prize. Gotta take advantage of the optimistic little gambler in us all, right? I learned my Spanish numbers by playing hours of BINGO in Mrs. Scheur's 7th grade Spanish class, so I thought I'd try that out on my kids. Turns out, it still works. We also used a jump rope to practice numbers, which I thought was fun. One brave student jumps, and the rest of them count their jumps out loud. Our record is 52. For animals and food we played a lot of charades and Pictionary. "Simon Says" and "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes" were favorites for the body parts week. We also went over colors, greetings, days of the week, months of the year, and of course, the alphabet.

I learned a lot with this class and really enjoyed it. I found that having more material than you need is always better than not having enough material, you always need a plan (even when you think you don't), kids need breaks and variety, kids are forgiving with my Spanish mistakes, and so much more. Like I said, the group of kids I had was great. They responded well to reinforcement and punishment, they helped each other, they enjoyed being there, and they were generally very respectful. They taught me a lot and I'm pretty sure they learned at least a little bit. Even if they can't recite a bunch of English vocabulary, I hope this class gave them a little more confidence to talk in front of a group, to try, to make mistakes, and to not be so hard on themselves. Maybe I'm being too optimistic with that, but I can dream. At least in small part, I could see by the end of the class that they seemed to have more confidence, how long that stuck around after the class was over is another story, but I was happy with the progress we made as a group. They made a few friends in the process and had fun, so that in itself makes me happy. I gave them something to do and kept them out of trouble for awhile, so if nothing else, I have that :p 

Anyway, I am planning to do some English teaching throughout the school year and will probably repeat this class next summer, so this was a great way to get started. This was also a good way to get to know the kids in the area, and their parents too. I had at least 3 different schools represented there, so that was nice too. There is something awesome about running into the kids from my class around town and getting their random hugs and 5 minute conversations. Oh, and people around town call me 'profe' or 'profesora' (teacher) now, so that's fun too :)

Jump rope counting

Body part labeling

Word races 

Vocabulary review

Some of my kids on the last day with the certificates :)

WORK

I have noticed that the blog is all about fun and doesn't say a lot about work. I can explain this a few ways:

A- Writing about work stuff feels like it's either complaining or bragging, neither of which I want to do on my blog. Sure, I brag about fresh fruit and beaches, but that's just showing off good fortune, not stuff I do, so that's different. 

B- Writing about the fun stuff is way easier and, obviously, way more fun. 

However, so that you all don't think I'm just hanging out in Peru on the taxpayers' dime, I figured it's about time to talk a little bit about what I'm doing here. 

I'm planning on making my next few posts work-related, mostly because I have been meaning to tell you about my summer school classes since they ended about a month ago, and I haven't yet. Before I get to new posts, though, I'll give you a little run-down on what it is that I've been doing so far and what I'm planning to fill my next 18 months with. 

A few of my projects so far-

-English teacher trainings for high school English teachers of my province (like a county).

-Summer school classes in English and art 5 days a week for 9 weeks.

-Working with the school district's Red Ambiental, which is like a club for student leaders to meet and discuss social problems. This one takes a lot of my time because it is a provincial project, but I love it. 

-Painting a World Map. This is something I started in November but got road blocked on. Hoping we can pick it up again soon. 

-Presenting/ teaching during the school hours on social/ health/ leadership themes. This is something I will be doing a lot more of this school year. 

-Right now I'm in the planning stages for large-scale recycling and sexual health education projects that I am planning to carry out with my school district's Red Ambiental. The Red gives me the structure of local committees made of health and education professionals who can help me execute activities throughout the school year in the schools and communities throughout the province. I hope the pile of meetings I've been having/ attending for all of this starts to show some fruits pretty soon. 

Anyway, that's a little preview for you. Each of the items I mentioned will be written about in the future in more detail. I just wanted to put this out there so you know that beaches and food aren't the only things I have been enjoying in Peru :) 

February Recap

I'm a little slow on this one, but it's better late than never. February was a busy month with a nice combination of work and fun with my summer school classes and a trip to Cusco. Here are a few things that stand out-

-It's HOT here. I've said it before, but I'll keep saying it until it gets cooler. Hot like 90-100 degrees. Like all the time. I sweat all day, every day. I'm getting used to it though, slowly but surely. 

-Summer school classes were awesome. The kids in my classes were fantastic and I hope to work with each of them again in the future. Teaching was a lot of fun and this summer course renewed my love of English teaching. 

-Kids are more creative than they get credit for here. I think the problem is not the kids, but rather the fact that they are never asked or encouraged to be creative. 

-Teaching is a lot of work. To the teachers out there, I tip my hat. Sure, 4 hours of teaching every day doesn't sound like much, but when you throw in all the planning, preparing, material buying, internet research, etc., teaching is a lot of work. Find your local teacher and hug him or her. Thanks :) 

-I got to watch the Superbowl... and it was completely underwhelming. Sure the 4th quarter was good, but by that point I had left for a sandwich, so I only saw that part of the game in replays... probably because it was the only part worth replaying. 

-I rode out mango season until it's bitter end... and I'll be ok if I don't see a mango for awhile. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. 

-I got to spend a tiny smattering of time in Lima before and after my Cusco trip. This means I got to go to a big fancy supermarket that felt like another one of those Miraflores trapdoors that lands me into the US. I found myself some bleu cheese, dark chocolate, and red wine. Om nom nom. 

-Cusco is as cool as they say it is, though it felt a little bit like the Disney version of the Peru I know. That was weird, like a parallel universe. 

-I was at Machu Picchu the same day Bono (of U2) was there. I did not see him, and that is totally ok. 

-Having a visit from a friend from home was wonderful, as expected. It's so nice to have the familiarity and comfort of an old friend in a new place. It's also nice to see my friends doing so well. Her awesome job brought her to Peru for a week and I'm so happy for her to have found such a good fit, profession wise. 

-The relatives from Cajamarca came at the beginning of the month. Their little baby is growing fast and was really fun this time. She likes me. The next time I talk to my brother Bryan, I will brag about this. He is not the only Nigon who babies love. Ha. 

-Valentines day was fun this year! I mean, it's Valentine's day and I still think it's a lame holiday, but it was fun spending it with my summer classes and sharing American traditions with them. 

-Two trips in one month: Cusco and Ancash! I'm so fortunate :) ...and both of those places are cold. Such a treat for me in this brutal summer heat of the North. 

That's all I've got for February. Great month. March is shaping out to be even better. Stay tuned... 

Beach Clean Up

Last Friday I was lucky enough to join a group of high school students from a neighboring town on a beach clean up organized by the local government. I am working closely with the Red Ambiental of my province, which is an environmental group organized by the school district to promote prevention and discussion of social, health, and environmental issues. Working with this group is one of my main projects and I have spent the past couple of months getting things ready for the school year that just began. I am very excited to get to know the kids in this year's group and get started with the year's activities. The first event with the Red Ambiental groups from each school will be a series of World Water Day activities this week. While at a meeting last week to plan some of those activities, I was invited to Friday's beach clean up. This was a perfect way to get to know some of the teens and to find another one of La Libertad's lovely hidden beaches. Magdalena de Cao is a tiny town about a half an hour from my site. They don't have a Peace Corps volunteer right now but they have had them in the past and are very enthusiastic about PC, so I like going there. The pretty beaches and awesome ceviche don't hurt either ;)

Anyway, I went with 11 students, a couple of people from the municipality who had organized this, and the science teacher who is also the Red Ambiental advisor for this school. We collected trash and painted the restroom facilities, but still made time to catch a few jumbo shrimp from the stream and enjoy some fresh ceviche at the end of the morning. This beach is a nice little secret to anyone but locals and there is only one restaurant and a few 'summer homes' there, but not much else. The one restaurant was home to some very nice people who prepared the shrimp for the kids who caught them to eat while we were painting the bathrooms. The municipality (local government) is trying to let the secret out about this beach to generate tourism, and that is why their tourism committee organized this clean up. With Holy Week coming up, they are hoping to get some more beach traffic. Friday's activity was one in a series of 4 events they have planned to clean the local beaches. At the end of the month, trash cans will be placed on the beaches which makes me very happy :) There are three beaches in Magdalena de Cao besides this one that I hope to meet sometime in the future. For now, I will leave you with these pictures. Enjoy :)

Friday, March 16 2012 

Playa La Bocana- Magdalena de Cao

Gross. 

(PS- No gloves. I'm a badass.)

Breezy, overcast day. 

Nice break from the sun and high temps we've had all month.

Jumbo shrimp, anyone?

Painting the bathroom hut. 

That little stamp on the left is free promotion for the Red Ambiental. Love it :) 

February Packages

Just wanted to show some love for those of you who sent such GREAT packages last month. I think other volunteers are starting to hate me a little bit. I'm so spoiled. I did manage to share a lot of this month's treats though, so that's progress. 

(Anti) Valentine's Day package from Eva. All of my favorite guilty pleasures ;)

Another random card from Sara and some stickers that my summer school students LOVED. 

AWESOME package from Steve and Annah. Thanks guys! The stickers were a big hit with my students and even with the teachers I work with :)

Package #2 from Steve and Annah. Yeah, I ate the candy before I got it home to take pictures :p

Thanks again to everyone who thought of me last month and sent these wonderful treats. You guys are the best! 

The Same, But Different

I often have the thought that Peru is like the States was in the 90's in a lot of ways. A lot of social issues that are prominent here right now were prominent social topics during my childhood in the 90s. I think Peru is on it's way. The way I see it, they are developing and things are getting better. But even though the rate at which things are happening here seems to be a couple decades slower than the rate at which the US is coming along, sometimes I can't help but think about how similar things are in both places. 

This general theme popped into my mind yesterday, as it often does, while I was at the high school. I was in a teacher's office at the end of the school day discussing plans for the school year when 3 young men came in timidly begging for their cell phones. Cell phones are prohibited at school, and if students get caught with them, the phone is taken away. The first time is a warning and they get their phone back at the end of the day. If it happens again, the threat is that they won't get their phone back until the end of the school year. With school having started on March 1st, the unlucky gents whose phones were in jail today just screwed themselves if they ever want to bring their phones back to school. I couldn't help but think of high schools in the States and how cell phones + teenagers is a problem everywhere. The other thing about this that felt a little familiar was that the cell phones these kids were looking to rescue were really nice phones. All three were smart phones that made my tiny little Peace Corps-issued mobile nervous to even show it's face. I joked with the kids and told them if it happened again and they lost their phones for good, I'd take their phones and let them have mine ;) They didn't like that idea so much. Anyway, it was cool to see this system at work. The teacher I'm working with is a new community partner for me and I'll be doing a lot with him throughout the school year. He is great with the kids, as was obvious in the cell phone encounter, and should be a big help in the projects I'm planning for the school year. The cell phone thing isn't the only occurrence this week that has me comparing Peru and the States, though. 

Monday I was invited to an event in Trujillo with my community partner from the school district and one of the local nurses. This event was a launch for a program to promote healthy kiosks in the schools of La Libertad. Because the school day ends around 1, the kids eat lunch at home. Even though there is no public lunch plan, every school has a kiosk that sells snacks. Typically, the kiosks sell a lot of really bad food like soda, chips, candy, fried food, noodles, etc. The Healthy Kioks (Quioscos Saludables) initiative aims to change the food that is sold in schools to fruits/ vegetables, healthy sandwiches, fresh juices, etc. The presentation given on Monday not only included the President of La Libertad and actors dressed like super healthy super heroes (which the kids loved), but also the vice ministers of Health and Education who had come from Lima to be a part of this event. Watching all of this and hearing the stats on children who are overweight or obese in Peru sent my mind on another ride on the "this sounds familiar" train. 

The whole world has problems, and it seems to me like they are more similar than we realize. 

This is a subject I could yammer on about for hours, and it's a theory of my that gets reinforced almost everyday. I just thought I'd touch on it for today and share this link on Monday's event for anyone who is bored and likes reading articles in Spanish. I forgot my camera that day so this is the best I could do ;) 

http://www.noticiastrujillo.pe/?q=trujillo/exitoso-lanzamiento-de-programa-quioscos-saludables-en-trujillo

Very Important Peruvians: The president of La Libertad shaking hands with Peru's Vice Minister of Education (sitting) and Vice Minister of Health. 

Sunday at the Beach

I have been away for the past few weekends and was looking to spend some time in Ascope this weekend catching up with the host fam. Turns out, I picked a good weekend for it because today was beach day at our house. As the boys have recently gone back to school and the summer beach crowds are starting to thin, today was the perfect day for an escape to a neighboring beach town. This worked out well for me because I was coming off of a very long, busy, and stressful week. I will never turn down an invitation to the beach, but this weekend especially a trip to the beach was a very welcome idea. 

I will let the photos do the explaining, but it was pretty much the perfect beach day. I taught Piere how to make a killer sand castle, I learned how to catch some weird little shellfish (but was unsuccessful in actually getting one), I bobbed around the waves with Farid, helped bury Piere in sand, picked up a few baby jellyfish, and "guarded the stuff," which is actually just an excuse to lay in the sun whilst allowing the fam some bonding time in the water ;) I even had time to pop into Erin's house to say hi, because yes she is lucky enough to live right on the beach in this awesome town. 

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday, I must say ;)

Sand Construction 101

Baby jellyfish that we found on shore and returned to the sea :)

Little man and me with our creation.

The Sand Man. 

Wave jumping with Farid.

Erin LIVES here. Lucky duck. Oh, and she's from Wisconsin too :)

Sea creatures. We caught at least 50 of them to make ceviche. I held the bucket while they caught them.

Brothers. 

Macaroni Saturday

I've lived with my host family for 6 months now and haven't cooked or baked anything for them. This has to do with my host mom/ grandma being awesome cooks, my Peace Corps budget, and the fact that I'm sort of intimidated by a kitchen that two women share. You know, that whole 'too many cooks in the kitchen' thing? Well, I finally decided to man up and make the easiest food to prepare aside from toast or a frozen pizza: macaroni and cheese. 

I bought two boxes of the good stuff in the blue box: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, what else? My position 2 hours from Trujillo with a big Target-style box store lovingly referred to as Tottus allows me access to Kraft products and almost anything else American I could want (just bought some Nature's Valley granola bars as a little treat last week. Nom!). 

Anyway, Saturday morning after a quick trip to the market, about 2 blocks from where I live, my host mom and I set to work on our little project. It was as easy as I promised her it would be and the box was printed in Spanish, so she could double check my instructions- which she did, I assure you ;)

My favorite part of this entire endeavor was the moment I discovered via the blue box that the cheese powder, aka the best part, was produced in none other than...drumroll please... Wausau Wisconsin! Right next door to the place I called home. You can be sure I mentioned that about 16 times throughout the rest of the day. 

In the end, I had about a 50% approval rating on the mac and cheese. Our neighbor (in the picture below) liked it so much he had seconds, as did my host dad, and later the grandpa. Two more refused to try it, and the remaining two ate about a half a noodle and decided they "liked it" but not enough for a whole plate. "Too much cheese" or "I don't like cheese" were statements thrown out there. These are also statements I do not believe in. And yes, I realize that the numbers I just gave you don't match my percentage, but if you're reading this, you probably know that I hate math. Figure out the percentage and I'll send you a post card. 

My second favorite part of this adventure, behind the Wisconsin cheddar, happened at dinner time when it was time for round 2 of the mac and cheese. I walked into the kitchen to find our beautiful cheesy carbs... served with rice. Why wouldn't they be? I couldn't hold my giggles in about the irony of this. And you know, it didn't taste as bad as you might think it would. 

Wisconsin meets Peru. Pretty much perfect. 

Anything look... local? ;)

Away For Awhile...

Hey guys, 

Sorry I've been away from the blog for awhile. This has been a really busy time of year for me, with summer school classes winding down and school starting last week, things have been kind of crazy. On top of that, I had a Peace Corps training this past week which was really great for 2 reasons-

A- I got to take an awesome community partner with me and we had 3 days to plan our projects for the school year. Here she is being fantastic. I'm really looking forward to working with her and her colleagues on the project we have planned. More details to come when more time presents itself :)

B- I got to see some of my fabulous Peru 17 friends! Here we have Tina from way up North, and Richard from way down South. It was so nice seeing them again, meeting their community partners, and hearing about the great things they are doing in their sites. And don't worry Mom, I didn't make crazy face on the clock or in front of anyone of influence ;) 

Oh, and I guess there was a third perk I should mention- Ancash. For the third time in my almost nine months here (we'll have 9 months in-country this Saturday!), I spent a week in Ancash. The mountains alone are enough to make me happy about an Ancash visit, but what makes Ancash a nice place to be this time of year for me is the weather. Last week brought a very welcome break from the desert heat. I don't think I could handle the cold rainy wetness for a full rainy season, but a week of fun scarves and Smartwool socks was just long enough. 

The rest of this week and the one that follows are just as busy with meetings for the school year, a 2-day English workshop I'm holding for the high school English teachers of the province, and planning for the big giant project I started last weekend. So if the blog is blank for another week, I'm sorry. I'll do my best to keep you updated, but I'm sorry in advance if that doesn't happen ;) 

PS-This is random, but fun, so I will share. While I write this both host brothers are periodically coming in my room to show off their new school supplies that I missed out on seeing while I was away. Adorable. Missed them!