I don't care about money, I just want to BE WONDERFUL- Marilyn Monroe: June Recap

It's finally cooling down a little bit up North. June was a chillier month with lots going on. Twas my favorite month weather-wise so far. I kept up on the blog better than usual last month, so you already know most of what went on, but aside from what I've already written, here's what I have to report-

-Started out the month with our second English teacher workshop of four that we will do for the school year. Jake and Teddy came to help, which was awesome of them. We had a good time and the teachers did too. They are a fun group. It's cool how Jake, Teddy, and I are getting to know the English teachers. Later in the month, Jake and I ran into one of them in Casa Grande (neighboring town) and chatted for awhile. My English teachers in Ascope have been a huge help to me too after getting to know them through these workshops. Another one of the teachers sends her son to the classes I teach in Casa Grande. Good things. All good things.

-Corn prices are down 25 centimos. Kind of a big deal around these parts. Abuelo has gone to protest and I've seen marches in Trujillo at least twice now.

-June 2nd was my friend Erin's birthday. A group of us headed over to her beach site to hang out with her and celebrate with her host family for the day. They pulled off a great surprise party for her by using our (volunteer friends') taco dinner as a decoy party... which means double dinner for us, but it was worth it to see Erin so surprised. Her host family loves her so much. It was fun to be a part of her day. And you never have to push me too hard to get me to go to Puerto Chicama ;) Oh, and not only did we eat two dinners, but a few of us managed to get 3 birthday cakes that day. Between her surf school, her psychologist socio, and her host family, there was plenty of cake to be eaten that day. And yes, I smashed her face into one of them... but just one, that's better than all three, right? ;)

-Went to my first wake in Peru. One of my socio's lost his mother last month. Sad. It was an experience I value though.

-June 19th was abuelo's birthday. He has a ton of relative's I hadn't met yet who came over for an afternoon party. I'm always game for mid-week parties. Things were well underway after lunch. Before I left for my class at 3, I was asked to take shots, I played with a Boston Terrier that someone brought with them, and I got to enjoy an afternoon serenade by a cool old uncle who had brought his guitar with him. By the time I got back around 6pm, everyone was thoroughly enjoying themselves and they had saved me a piece of jello cake and the single 30 year-old cousin for a dance. I took the cake first, naturally. Except Willy interrupted me for his dance. Best way to not get a second dance outta me, and perhaps an unenthusiastic first dance, is to deny me food. Especially after an afternoon with teenagers. My stress eating habits + jello cake = a very distracted dance for cousin Willy. He was a cool guy though and a fun dancer, so I let the cake mistake slide eventually. Overall, a good party. I was bummed I missed most of it, but what I got to be a part of was cool. Abuelo is a great person and it was nice to see him so happy with all of his family there on his day. I love birthdays.

-June 10th marked my anniversary in Peru! One year! I celebrated with the other Peru 17ers in La Libertad by getting fancy drinks. Nicole's parents got free drink tickets during their visit here that they weren't able to use. I love it when things like that work out :)

-I got cheese in the mail :) I wrote about this once already, but I had to throw it in again. It was good cheese too. In it's final and most recent use, it was the star item in a group grill-out. Cheeseburgers! Nom! I made a cheese and potato sandwich, which was also delicious.

-I taught a load of English classes this month. My after-school classes at the high school continued and I started teaching in the neighboring town of Casa Grande.

-About the Casa Grande English classes, a lot of June was spent working out an agreement with the Casa Grande sugar company for these classes. Jake and I are teaching English to local kids & teens and the company is supporting our projects for us. Wheeling and dealing to get a fair agreement that works for everyone though was a process, and actually is something we're still kind of working on. After coming to an agreement and beginning the classes, they kind of exploded and we have more students than we can handle. We don't have enough chairs for all of the kids, much less classroom space. This is a good thing though, and we are working on accommodating everyone. It's fun and exciting to have so much interest and support.

-June 5th was World Environment Day. I celebrated with the Red Ambiental. The meeting that day featured a presentation by an environmental engineer. I love the Red Ambiental.

-June/ July is visitor season for pcv's in Peru! I am loving this. In June, I met the the other Brittany's family, one of Teddy's friends, the Slack family (Amanda's fam, including her TWIN sister), Jake's family, and a handful of other volunteers' visitors as they pass through La Libertad for one reason or another. It's been great spending time with families and getting to know the people other volunteers are missing so much.

-I was very busy with a recycling project this month. This project was part one of a series of things I will be doing with the high school on recycling. We did a trash diagnostic project in which I gave about 200 kids plastic garbage bags to save their trash in for one week and return to me. The idea was to get them to see what they use, then to analyze it and discuss, of the items we use, what we can reduce, reuse, and recycle. It worked about as well as I thought it would. Of the 200 bags I gave out, I received 64 of them back the following week. It's better than nothing, and I'm optimistic about the project in general. I think it was good for them to really think about what we use, and to see their use. To have to dig through it and count what they consumed made them think, and that was the point. I'm not totally discounting the ones who didn't bring their bags back. And between the two weeks of presentations I gave on decomposition times and the 3 R's, I'm hoping they took something out of it. I'll keep you updated on this project as it is only just getting started.

-CAMP VALOR happened successfully. The teen boys I took are still talking about how cool it was. Awesome experience.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but this is already too long. I leave you to the pictures, as usual...