Peace Corps

So, I have gotten a couple of comments lately asking what exactly I am doing here in Peru with the Peace Corps. I remember that when I left I still didn't exactly know what I was coming here for. So, this brief entry is for a run down of that.

As of tomorrow, I will be starting my two year Peace Corps service working as an Environmental Management volunteer in the department of Lambayeque, Peru. What this means is that I will be attempting to fulfill three goals; Environmental Education, Waste Management and Reforestation in the form of planting one thousand trees, preferably native species.

In all three specific goals, the Peace Corps aims to develop our project sustainably, and from what I understand, that means having the community be able to go through all of the steps of initiating and completing a project on their own with little assistance. In other words, I am here to "facilitate" more than lead. The goal is that when I leave, the community I work in will be able to have better environmental practices without my help. In my mind, that means education will be the most important aspect because in any part of the world, no one wants to act on environmental issues without understanding why it is important.

So, in other words, I will be planting trees, building landfills, and working with youth and adults about basic environmental education. I am VERY excited to start, especially the education part. I want to thank you all for your support in me being here, and for you love in the form of emails and thoughts.

Love you all, thanks for reading!

My site!

Oh my goodness where to begin.

I went to Lambayeque and finally saw my new home and work place for the next two years! But before I went, me and the other Lambayeque volunteers had a few days of training in other sites around the area. It was really nice to see the protected forest, some ancient ruins, and stay with a few different families every night. I remember when we first got to the town closest to my pueblo, I was soooo happy because I just thought it was sooo beautiful. I love Lambayeque, it is beautiful and has a great climate! We went to a volunteers site who has finished her two years (almost) and played a game of volleyball with a few of the town members while everyone watched. It was so funny because I think they thought we were some kind of American volleyball team originally… but when we lost every game they realized their mistake. Also, the food was interesting every time. One afternoon, after a 3 hour walk, we got fed a big thing of rice and chicken. I was scarfing it down gratefully, noting the black things that looked like some kind of spice, but not caring too much about it. When I slowed down and took a closer look, I realized my food was FULL of dead ants. I gagged a little and couldn’t eat anymore. I shouldn’t have cared so much but eep, it was just not the time. Then I worried a little about my site’s food…

Luckily, my site is fantastic! I spent a night alone in my capital site of Chiclayo and in the morning I was picked up by my community partners, one of which is my new host Dad! We took the 3 hour trip together and when we got close to the town, the stopped the little moto taxi we were in and called someone… then I was worried. And worried for a good reason because when we arrive, the entire primary school was out in the street in their uniforms with signs saying “Bienvenidos Carolym!” Yes you read correctly, on every sign they spelled my name with an ‘m’… it was very comical! I proceeded to be very uncomfortable as I kissed all the teachers in greeting and stood awkwardly in front of all the kids who were staring at my with their big brown eyes. We all walked together to the school, where they set up a presentation for me. I stood around not knowing exactly what to do and the kids crowded around me as close as they could without touching me and without talking to me. When I tried to ask them questions, none of them said a word out of shyness. After a little probing, some of then finally said a few things to me like “when is your birthday?” and other questions like that. Then they proceeded to sing my the national anthem, do a dramatic poem, sing me a song, and do a meringue dance. The dance was my favorite part because I was sooo impressed with the little boy dancing like a bro. Afterwards, I found out that little boy is one of my host brothers!! Then all the administrative people said a few words saying how thankful they were that I was there and how I was going to do lots of good things. I was very uncomfortable, but also so overwhelmed by the kindness of it all. I said a few words to thank them all in bad, nervous Spanish. I then went to an awkward lunch with a bunch of community members where I wasn’t sure what to say and had a big piece of sheep meat.

After all the festivities, I went to my new host families house and was thrilled to meet all my adorable siblings and my new host Mom! I have 6 siblings in all, aged 5, 7, 12, 14, 16 and 18. They are all super sweet. That day, they took me down to the river to “bath.” Because I didn’t know what that entailed, I didn’t bring any bathing stuff with me, just three on some shorts and went with all my siblings. Turns out bathing means that we all swim in the river (the girls all wear shirts and shorts and the boys stay in their underwear) and they splash around playfully and wash their hair and stuff. Over the next three days with them, bathing became my favorite part of the day! We would go down and I would watch as the boys run around with spears catching fish in the river.

I feel like I am the luckiest volunteer in Peru. Even without running water or electricity. My site is BEAUTIFUL, there are banana trees, mango trees, coconut trees and avocado trees everywhere! When I walked to the river the first time, I felt like I was in a dream world. I have never seen fruit trees like that before. The best part is that all the kids in my area run around and collect fruit for me. I came back to Lima with a bag full of avocados to share with my family here. And oh my goodness the kids. They are sooo increadible. They are all so strong and work outside with the animals all the time. It’s soooo cool to see. At first it was a little strange to watch my 7 year old sister playing with a machete, but I got used to it because she is probably more skilled with that thing then I will ever be. It is so cool to watch how hard they work and how much fun they have with simple things like playing marbles outside or climbing up my window to see everything I’m doing. One of my favorite things I did while I was there was teach them a few new card games… their favorite of which was Egyptian Rat Screw. I had NOOO idea what to call it in Spanish, so I ended up calling it Guerra which means War. We played that until 11pm on Saturday night and then any other time they got the chance. It got a little old for me but I was just so happy to spend time with them and chat with them.

The other thing that makes my town awesome is that they LOVE soccer. I have already been solicited to be on the women’s team, but unfortunately our first game fell through so I haven’t played with them yet. But most of the young men in the town it seems like play every day from 5pm until dark. And on the weekends they have games against other towns, and they are serious. They were uniforms and have a set team and everything. Sunday I went to go watch the games while getting my nails done by my host sister and her friends.

Overall, I couldn’t ask for a better town. I am soooo happy with my family and my community. I cant wait to get to know them all better and improve my Spanish with them. Ever after just three days of pure Spanish, I feel like I have improved a lot… so that just says how much better I’ll be even three months from now!

Love you all, thanks for reading!

English lessons

This Tuesday was my favorite day of training so far. I had such an amazing day! It all started weeks ago when I told my host brother that teaches English that I really wanted to come to his school and see him teach sometime. But, sadly, PC training doesn’t allow much time for day visits to schools. So, as it turns out, PC arranged for us to have to teach an English class because about 90% or something of volunteers are asked to teach English in their communities. I told my host brother about this and he said I could come teach at his school, and so could other people if they wanted to. So, with only one day to plan, I told all the volunteers in the environment program that they could come teach at my brother’s school and almost all of them (pressed for time) agreed.

Entonces, when I went to his school this morning with a group of PC volunteers ready to teach, I was shocked at how we were greeted. The first thing we saw were kids leaning out of the windows of the school excitedly counting how many gringo’s there were. When we entered the school, we were met with stares, smiles, excited and shy students. We went to the classroom of my host brother, where the kids had all made themselves mini American flags and a welcome sign for us. They all said “good morning” and presented themselves to us, announcing what they knew about the environment in a very organized manner (it was sooo cute!). Then, me and my team members proceeded to teach classes. My class taught the “head, shoulders, knees and toes” song. It went over really well, teaching them different parts of the body and face, as well as getting them to stand up and move around. The others had good presentation ideas. The following two hours were almost a blur of more volunteer presentations and laughing at ourselves. When we asked the kids if they had any questions, some of then were easy like “can you sing your national anthem”… and yes, we all stood up and sang the anthem…. Very off key. Then, they sang their anthem (much better than us!) for us. It was so great. Some of the other questions were more difficult, like “how are the schools in the U.S.?” or “how many forests are there in the U.S.?” or “How hot does it get in the U.S.?” Then, after each class, they offered us snacks that they had prepared for us and then swarmed us for autographs. Yes, I said it. Autographs. They wanted us to sign their notebooks and American flags that they made, etc. It was soooo funny. I have never felt like more of a celebrity in my life. We were all literally swarmed.




Now let me say after the first two hours/classes, my fellow volunteers all went home to take the afternoon off (one of our only free afternoons!). But, I had promised my host brother that I would stay and see his classes, etc. As it turned out, every class in the school, even the ones that were not his, wanted to meet the Gringa. So, I was paraded around to each class to say hello, talk about Peace Corps, and in some cases, teach the song by myself. At first I was nervous to talk to groups of students by myself in Spanish, but I actually ended up really liking it. Kids are the most forgiving of all, they don’t care if I have a terrible accent or if I don’t make sense sometimes. Most classes had snacks for me, so I was eating all day. And every class had me take a picture with all of them, where the young girl students would always run up to grab my arm or try to be next to me or something. But I think the last class was my favorite because there were only about 7 kids in the class. I started out talking about Peace Corps and what it was, and then taught the song. Then I had to sit and eat the food they made me awkwardly in front of the whole class… so instead I put it in my lap and asked them if they had the most questions. Turned out they were the most inquisitive group. On my own, I drew a map of the U.S. and described the climates in different areas. I told them about American schools and food and NASA… because some of them had a big interest in space travel. And they taught me words for space ships, and different sports and foods. It was the most interactive I got to be with students and I instantly was in love with Peruvian Youth.

I guess I just loved the whole experience because I have never felt so interesting. Kids from other classes were peeking in windows to see me (or the other volunteers when they were there), they wanted my email and phone number, etc. They wanted me to sign things for heaven sakes. It might have been a little over the top, but it was really fun and I felt like I had really good interactions with most of the classes.

So, on the high of having a great day at my brothers school, I ran off to study Spanish with my fun teacher and then went directly to play a long soccer game in which my other host brother came and we all had a really good time… I even scored! My first goal against a Peruvian team! It was great.


This Saturday I leave for Feild based training in Lambayeque for a week! And I will get to see my future home for two years for the first time! Wish me luck.

Andes mountain voyages

I am going into week 7 of training and what a week 6 it was!

I started out by going to the zoo on Tuesday with my Spanish class and another class. It was a really good time and I really enjoyed seeing all the animals and just doing something other than study and learn how to be good volunteers. Then, Wednesday night, all of MAC (environment group) and Salud (health group) left for a trip to Ankash! Ankash is an Andes mountain region, and we were going to visit volunteers and get some field practice in real volunteer sites. We went on an overnight bus, which as impressive in terms of how comfortable it was and I slept the ENTIRE way.

I cannot express how beautiful it was there. These volunteers live in regions between 3,000 and 4,000 meters above sea level (and I don’t know what that is in feet, probably over 10,000 for sure). They have clear views when there are no clouds of ice capped mountains. One volunteer even has a national park nearby with a beautiful view of the mountains and a gorgeous glacier lake. The first site we went to, right after an overnight bus and feeling a little queesy from the altitude, we had to give presentations to little kids about trash, how to sort it, store it, etc. It was nerve racking, but we had to give three, and by the third one, we all felt a lot better. Afterwards we did a trash pick up with the kids in the town and it was an amazing amount of trash! The kids seemed to really enjoy it, and I hung out with some very shy little girls, helping them find stuff to fill up their trash bags. The next site was the one with the beautiful lake and mountain views, where we got up at 5:30 in the morning the next day to help with a community clean up (more trash!). Afterwards, we went to the school where two different classes presented numerous songs in Spanish and Quechua. They also were incredibly environmentally forwards in this school, having recycled goods all over the classroom and sorting their trash between organic and inorganic. I was very impressed. We then spent the rest of the day mostly walking around and looking and pretty things like animals and mountains. The third day was Halloween, and then volunteer was already in costume when we arrived, giving us talks about tree planting as a pirate! It was pretty comical.

In terms of altitude, the PC doctors gave us all pills to take to help with altitude sickness, which include nausea, headaches, and soreness. I didn’t really want to take them, but I did, and unfortunately, I still got a little sickness. Most of us did actually, mostly because of the new types of foods we were eating and how high we were. I found I was exhausted all the time and was never hungry. Every meal I had to force myself to eat a little and nothing ever looked appetizing (although, I’m sure in Lima it would have looked great… my stomach was just not up for much). The MAC group spent the two nights in sites either sleeping in peoples houses in their guest beds, or sleeping on the floors of the volunteers rooms. Lucky for me, I got a bed both nights. But, none of us had showers, and none of us had toilets for about 4 days. I guess it is a good thing to get used to because I wont have either of those things on a regular basis for two years! But really, going to the bathroom in a hole is not bad at all, it is almost comfortable. Salud on the other hand, apparently had hotels with HOT showers, which I am still envious about. Oh, and did I mention is was COLD. I was a little unprepared because I don’t have a coat, but I wore about 3 layers for two days and the second day I was freezing cold allllll day long. Luckily, the third day was a lot warmer and sunnier. We spent Halloween day and night in the main city of Huaras and wandered around looking at markets and cafes. A group of us eventually found a place for dinner that felt like a ski lodge, was warm, and had pretty Americanized food like sandwiches and quesadillas! After having no appetite and stomach pain for days, a change from Peruvian food was highly welcomed. We spent the night on the bus again, arrive home at 5:30 in the morning and I went directly home to sleep for another 2-3 hours.

Oh… and did I mention I have a cell phone now? Thank you Peace Corps! It has free incoming calls and texts from anywhere, so if you want to call me (long distance…), just shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you the number! Love you all!