What? A blog entry less than a month later? Crazy I know. I
really want to make it a habit of updating my blog, for your sake of course.
So as I had mentioned in my previous blog I have started
running daily and I am proud of myself I’m on my 3rd week of running
every day minus 3 days this last weekend because I was really sick on Friday
and decided it was best to wait a couple days to make sure it passed before
running again. I feel pretty lucky my sickness only kept me bed ridden for 1
day, I remember the last time I was bed ridden was Thanksgiving last year and
that was for about a week! Even though it’ll be the second year in a row I
won’t be with my family during Thanksgiving, I will be hanging out with one of
my best fellow volunteers and we will be going to see LADY GAGA!!! I’m so
excited. Our plan is for me to travel down to Trujilo (capital city of La
Libertad, a neighboring department) and spend Thanksgiving day with Ms.
Brittany; that night we will travel to Lima on the overnight bus (probably
going to spring for Super VIP- those chairs recline all the way back!) and then
arrive Friday morning in Lima and head to see Gaga later at night!
I feel like I have been more
productive lately so I’m not mentally kicking myself in the gonads. I started
handing out surveys to the students at school and have begun conducting surveys
with people in my neighborhood. From my observations I can see there is a huge
need for prevention of adolescent mothers and mejorar-ing (that’s Spanglish for
bettering) sexual education. I have a huge interest in doing projects in these
areas so I’m excited for these opportunities. However I have also learned from
just talking to people and from some surveys that there is also problem with
delinquency in Pimentel. This is a problem that makes me weary due to my
previous experience with delinquency when I worked at LSI. I don’t have any
huge ideas yet about what to do about this particular problem however I figure
that if I create fun programs for the youth to participate in, hopefully that
in itself will deter some youth from going down the wrong path. That may be too
optimistic but I’ll go with that for now.
On Sunday night I had the pleasure of skyping with some of my favorite book club ladies and Danny. Before we started chatting, Sommer asked me to open my email first and there in my inbox was an email from Amazon.com announcing my $100 gift card!!!!!! Sommer had gone around threatening to stab people at Soho to chip in for a gift card so I could buy books for my Kindle! Sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me, I nearly cried!!!! Made me really miss you my Soho friends, love you guys <3
On Monday I went to Chiclayo to see if I had anything for me
at the post office and alas! I had two packages from my sweet mother. Not
really a surprise I’ve been nagging her since I arrived from Peru to send me a
bottle of siracha :p She also sent me some baggies of cheeze-its; it seriously
took ALL the will power I have in my body to not eat all three Ziploc baggies
right there in Starbucks. (I hung out in Starbucks for a bit and opened my
packages there while I waited for a fellow volunteer.) Peace Corps has a changed my friends. If you
thought I was going to be living in a grass hut in the middle of nowhere, with
no electricity, and complete isolation-then you would be mistaken. There are
definitely volunteers that live in these kinds of conditions but less than
there were in the past. That being said, when I say things like” I was hanging
out at Starbucks”- I hope that doesn’t change your view of the meaning and
importance of Peace Corps. Even though I live pretty comfortably it doesn’t
make my experience that much easier. I am away from my home, my family, my
friends. I struggle every day with communicating with every person I
encounter. I still cry at night because
I miss people from home. I cry when none of the kids in my class seem
interested in all in what I am trying to teach them. Sometimes I feel a little
lost and useless but I’m pushing through. They say Peace Corps is the hardest
job you’ll ever love-and even though I’m a newb I believe in it
whole-heartedly. Peru is a great country; I love my host family and the people
here are generally caring. Yes it’s going to be a hard two years but I’m very
exciting for what is to come and I hope you will continue to read these blogs
to help share these experiences.
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