There are no good-byes, where ever we are, you’ll always be in my heart.

This is a long one guys hope you enjoy

Last Saturday I left for Lambayeque to conocer my new site. Before leaving Lima Erin, Brittany and I saw Dark Knight Rises, if you haven’t seen it yet, finish reading this and GO SEE IT!!! It’s amahzing, I thought it wouldn’t compare to Dark Knight (one of my favorite movies) but it totally does. Anyways back to my site visit. I got into Chiclayo (capital of the department Lambayeque-Peru is split up into different departments kinda like states) on Sunday morning around 7:30am. We got off of the bus and took a taxi to our hotel but they said we couldn’t check in until 4pm so we walked around Chiclayo for a bit and then went to the beach in Pimentel (my site). It was a pretty relaxing day, the beach we went to is actually only two blocks away from where I’m going to live so I’m pretty stoked about that. 

On Monday we met the current volunteers in Lambayeque; they seemed really cool but some of them are leaving in September so that’s kinda a bummer. Tuesday we had our “socio day”.  This is when people from each site come to greet the volunteer and learn about the Peace Corps and what expectations to have about the volunteer. My socios (people I’ll possibly be working with in my site) that came were a doctor from the Health Center, a director of one of the colegios, and 2 people who work at the municipality. My host sister and host mother came as well. Overall Tuesday was really overwhelming. All at once I met these people and they are speaking super fast Spanish and I was feeling super lost; when I got into my room in Pimentel I cried a bit just for the shock of it all. My host family is reallllllly nice though and super caring. I feel a little nervous because they also speak really rapidly and even though I ask them to slow down it is still hard to understand. As most things in life this will get easier with time. Today Kimberly (another trainee who is also going to Lambayeque) pointed out the fact that time is always on your side, most everything in life is made easier with the passage of time. This is something I’m glad to have learned before coming here because I think this experience would be unbearable if I didn’t think it would get easier. Obviously there will be hard things to deal with down the road but this Spanish thing has got me down.

 Anyways on Wednesday I went to one of the high schools in Pimentel. The director and my socio from the municipalidad went with me to each classroom and introduced me to the students which was a little scary but also awesome. After that I was exhausted and went to my house and passed out for 3 hours before dinner. On Thursday morning I went to the municipality and met a bunch of people; in the afternoon I went to the health center and met with the doctor, psychologist, nurse and obstetriz (ya I don’t know how to spell this is Spanish ni English I had to look it up). On Friday morning I went back to the municipality and waited an hour and half for a van to come pick us up so we could go to the different programas sociales in the community. I visited with about 6 presidents of different sectors of Vasos de Leche and 2 presidents of comedores populares. Vasos de Leche is a government program that provides milk/formula to mothers in the community for children under the age of 7, comedores populares are kinda like food kitchens, one woman in the community will cook a large of amount of food and then sell it at a very low price to those in need in the community. I headed back to Chiclayo on Friday night but not before my new host family kept asking me if I was returning and then when I assured them I was they told me to come back soon- it’s incredible how much they want to care for me. I feel like once I get more comfortable with my Spanish I’ll fit right in.

Friday night when we all got back from site visits we hung out and later went dancing until four in the morning; it was a flipping blast! No bar close is a wonderful and terrible thing. I definitely paid for it on Saturday though; I felt like a zombie/vampire the sun was not my friend and I was moving pretty slowly but I’d have to say it was worth it and anyhow I slept great on the bus on the way back to Lima.

Overall thoughts about my site visit: I’m looking forward to working with the health post and colegio the most because I want to work on things like sexual health education and prevention of pregnancy/STDs. My socios are super intense but I’ve been told they will slow their roll after time passes they just get a little too enthusiastic when a volunteer first arrives. Don’t get me wrong enthusiasm is great but I feel like they were putting me on this pedestal and I’m gonna save the town which I’m definitely going to try but not in my capabilities to fix all the problems in the town. My family is great-it will take some getting used to because they are really overprotective of me but I think that’s a good thing because it just means they care a lot. My house is pretty good for Peace Corps standards, the bathroom is enclosed and there is a shower however we only have running water from 6-8amish, 12-1pmish, 6-7pmish and it’s cold. There is no refrigerator but I think we have a washing machine, in my opinion I’d rather have a refrigerator. No matter the condition of my house I’m just happy to live so close to the beach and McDonalds and Pizza Hut are only a short 30 minute combi ride away so I can’t really complain! Yes I realize those things shouldn’t be in important but as quoted in Zombieland: Enjoy the little things.

Michelle (also a fellow trainee) is HILARIOUS I hadn’t spent time with her at all before this trip because she is a business trainee but she is great, she kept dropping these one-liners that made me LOL, literally. Also I think we have a really good mix of  new volunteers going to Lambayeque and I’m really excited to start my 2 year adventure!!!!

With my family in the US, Huascaran, and Pimentel, I now have 5 parents, 10 brothers/sisters, about a million aunts/uncles/cousins, please note that these numbers do not include anyone I’m biologically related to.

PS Last night my host sister (in Lima) and I karaoke-d in the living room to Selena, Spice Girls, Blink-182, and Beyonce why have we not done this for the past 9 weeks!!?!? SO much fun I’m going to miss Rosa soooo freaking much L

Today I found out another trainee is going home. Even though I will miss her dearly I will never forget her. She was my roommate the first night in D.C. and I won't forget the kindness she has shown in the past 10 weeks. We'll miss you Jess xoxo