First moments in site

(I published this post along with the next one on the same day, but the content is about things that happened about two weeks apart).... I’ve been in site now for almost a week now, and I could have packed the world with me and nothing I would have brought could have helped me with the life changing decision being a volunteer signifies. Of course we try and picture ourselves in rustic conditions with Kodak moments of serendipity with local farmers or laughing children, but to me all of that seemed so distant and surreal as I traveled up the mountain 6 people deep in a 4 person station wagon traveling 4 hours from the nearest city. My site is a wonderful mountain town situated quaintly in a valley next to a roaring river. The main activity here is farming and child rearing, and is about as rustic as you can get. My room is a fairly good size, a bed, a desk, dirt floors and rock walls. My new host family consists of my madre Yolanda, my padre Ramilo, and my hermanas Gaby and Pati and my hermano Ramilo Jr. There are about 300 people in my town, and is one of the “newest” towns in Yauyos since it was formed in the 1900’s! I’ll be primarily working with Peru’s National Park Guard equivalent, called SERNAP Park Guards. So far the food has been agreeable (it could use a little less salt and grease), the people have been open to the idea of a gringo strolling their streets randomly coming up to them and explaining why the hell a gringo is this far from a city, and it seems that if you talk to enough people you’ll eventually find something interesting to do. I think the hardest part so far is not having a structured calendar. Though I am part of the US Government, with all its bureaucratic tendencies, all structure flew out the window the hour in my site. I still haven’t met the Mayor because he’s been on vacation, I’ve talked to my community partner once (in passing as he whizzed off on a motorcycle), and I ended up teaching a class on English my second day here without any notice. But that is why the Peace Corps needs driven, independent, and most importantly flexible people. These first few months are probably going to be a big test of my fortitude and patience. The first part of the Peace Corps experience is also the hardest, and that is simply being integrated into your community; all of my future projects will depend on how well I can pass this first test…No pressure.
As for practical advice, all I can say is give me a few weeks and I’ll get back to you! Honestly, right now I don’t think any training, packing, or mental preparation could probably help me (or the reader of this blog) truly prepare for the first few moments in site…I can say bring a rain coat, its rained every afternoon so far.

Offically a Volunteer

I will officially be a Peace Corps volunteer November 22nd, 2009. We have our swearing in ceremony in the morning then we head off to our sites for the next two years. To say we are excited can hardly encompass the extremes of emotion that have filled the training center with a omnipotent tension that seems to linger over everyone’s heads. Each person has gone and survived their Field Based Training and Site Visits at their future sites last week, and we seem to all have experienced a nice quick reality slap when we finally saw where exactly we were being placed…in fact let me back up a bit…
So we all had Field Based Training II and Site Visits with our Site Group Clusters. A Site Group Clusters is how the Peace Corps is striving to optimize the experience by placing 3-5 volunteers within hiking distance of one another. These clusters went to meet and greet the mayors, community partners, and usually introduce themselves to the schools in their towns. It was a nice 8 day roller coaster ride of hand shakes, pictures, and a ton of introductions. I went with my pseudo-cluster (because my actual cluster in Yauyos is a different group of 2nd year volunteers that have lived in Yauyos for a year already) to their sites in Junin for 4 days and then shot over to my site in Miraflores, Yauyos for the next 4 days. In Junin we had an amazing tour of the massive lake there, which is situated on a sweeping valley bed between two mountain tops that easily reach over 4000m (over 13000 ft.). For me it was just a nice vacation because it wasn’t my actual site and I didn’t really have to worry about impressing anyone we met, but once I started heading to my site I couldn’t help to get more and more excited and nervous, to say the least. I took 15 months of an application process and 2.5 months of training and I was finally about to see the true reality of my decision to join the Peace Corps. I was about to see the community that has asked for a volunteer to make a difference, I was about to meet the mayor that might have un-attainable expectations of me, I was about to see my house and host family where I’ll be spending most of my leisure time; all of these factors could easily make or break a volunteer´s experience, and they were all about to land in my lap. My heart was obviously pounding as we pulled in the town square, but was immediately put at ease as I simply looked up at the beautiful surroundings I had been placed in. My community is situated in a steep valley with towering mountains on both sides and a river roaring on the side of it. It’s a pueblo of 350 people, but it does have a health post, electricity, and “full speedy” internet at the Municipality building. There are Andean (Andes Mountains) terraced farming and Incan ruins all around me, and the town seems truly excited to have a volunteer living with them, especially my host family. At my new house I’ll have three siblings, a mom and dad. My dad is a jack of all trades, including carpentry and blacksmithing, and my mom is a traditional stay at home mom. I’ll be living in a very, very, very rural setting- I’m talking dirt floors, adobe buildings, chickens in the front yard kind of setting, but there is running water and a toilet…
….So now lets resume where we left off considering you now know why this was such a reality check for so many people. Many people didn’t have the scenery I had, or running water, or even a room that was ready for them! Many people, including myself, finally had that romantic vision of the Peace Corps turned into a concrete reality; for me especially when I randomly found myself one day milking cows with a neighbor, or staring down a bowl of 25 potatoes for breakfast, (I’m not joking I had a bowl of potatoes for breakfast). We actually lost 2 volunteers after their site visits, it was enough to make them realize they’d made the wrong decision. But for most of us, we survived and returned to put it all into perspective. A positive perspective where we realized that we don’t have to take this experience as a 2 year chunk, but that like most demanding situations, you take it day by day. And as we returned and shared our stories of who will have what in their communities or who saw the most random of Peruvian behavior, the excited tension started to form. The tension of knowing that many of the friends we’ve made over these past 2 months won’t be seen again for atleast a year, or the hope that training has given us the tools to succeed, or even the quiet contemplative tension of everyone’s inner voice saying, “am I ready? Is THIS why I joined the Peace Corps?” But I personally feel completely ready, because I have been proven time and again that if you’re patient enough and understanding enough your experiences will usually pan out for the best. I know that this omniscient tension will definitely need a knife to cut it, but I also think that knife will be our swearing in ceremonies where we change our title from “trainee” to “volunteer” and head out with our bags packed, once again to begin the simple but venerated duty that John F. Kennedy intended for in 1961 which was to spread understanding and respect between two cultures…and hopefully having a few laughs along the way.

First field based training

So we did our first ¨Field Based Training,¨ in the region of Ancash. It was amazing to see the snow covered peaks, the glaciers, and the aqua-marine glacial lakes. Everyday we did a little ¨follow the leader¨ with park guards of the protected areas or the community leaders from the places we visited. My group presented some talks on trash management, learned some cultivation techniques and plant names from the farmers, and of course we had several amazing hikes. I think the best parts were finding a steal cup I could buy off one of the camposino women after one of my breakfasts, talking to motivated volunteers in thier sites and all of thier projects, and definitly sitting around an open fire kitchen and dirt floors, eating guinea pig (cuy), drinking tea, and having a truely Peace Corps experience talking to one of the volunteer´s host mom as she sat across from us in her traditional camposino clothing and smiling.

As for packing advice, several other folks had light weight sleeping bags that saved space on the plane to Peru but made thier montain nights pretty chilly. I reccomend a good low-degree sleeping bag and sleeping mat, especially as we do more site visists these coming days and weeks. Also the steal cup is amazing, since here in Peru you find yourself needing a cup for random reasons and really wishing you had your own that you know where its been!

As for training, only a few more weeks left and I couldn´t be more ready. Standing out in the night air, on top of a mountain, over 11,000 ft. high, a full moon and nothing but the sound of a river behind me definitly put me in the right mood to head to my site after my offical swearing in mid-november.