I’m trying
something new a la Erin, to make my
blog post seem” less intimidating to read” (her words) I am posting a couple
posts at the same time rather than one big, long post. Here it goes, my first post
for life happenings for the end of July.
It’s pretty
true. Sometimes the day seems to drag on and then it’s the end of August and
I’m like, where’d the time go!? I can’t believe I’m in my second year of
service… Thankfully I’m not in the mid service slump that many of my fellow
volunteers are in, sure I miss home but it’s not the heart splitting, ache in
my stomach kind of longing that it was in my first few months; I think it helps
that I have so much to look forward to in the coming months: Amazon Raft Race
in a few weeks, Honor’s coming in October and going home to visit in December!
21ers are
here! 17ers are gone! 19er gone. To clarify, the volunteers groups are
numbered, the first group to arrive in 2001 was Peru 1 and in 2012 when my
group arrived we were named Peru 19. Anyways, there was a lot of coming and
going in August… the last of the 17ers had their despididas in their own communities; I had the honor of attending
two of these and it was incredible how impacted each community was by the
volunteers’ departures. I went to Amanda’s despidida
in the town of Mocupe; her municipality had a get together with some of the
town’s authorities, they presented her with nice plaque and provided a dinner
and cake. Us gringos were asked to
sing and believe it or not I stood up with 4 other volunteers and sang “Stand
by Me”, “Lean on Me”, “Star Spangled Banner” and “Lejos de Ti”…I’ve actually
been doing a lot of singing in public, apparently no one cares how terrible
your voice is, if it’s in English they consider your voice wonderful…I’ll take
it. I teared up when Amanda was giving her palabras;
when you become a Peace Corps volunteer your first expectation is to give your
community so much but in reality your community ends up giving you so much
more…short story…it was touching to see the impact Amanda and her community had
on each other. I also had the privilege to attend Philip’s despidida in the tiny pueblo
of Illimo, his town absolutely adores him and it was lovely to see his town
show their appreciation for him and his work.
Sadly one of my favorite fellow volunteers had to be sent home due to
medical issues and we are one 19er short here in Lambayeque….he was an incredible
volunteer and we miss him a lot!
it's only been a month or less than a month and I already miss all of them A LOT!
Volunteers
are given the choice to take free vacation days either the 4th of July weekend
or the Fiestas Patrias (Peruvian
Independence day) weekend…since I went to the 10k during the 4th of
July weekend, I was without a vacation the last weekend of July and so my
mother invited me to go to a birthday party with her to her hometown in Illimo
about 2 hours north of where we live. It was the 80th birthday of
her sister in law. We got to the party around noon and the party went on until
2 in the morning…I may have gotten a little cranky around 9:30pm but I am very
glad I went but also don’t think I will ever attend a birthday party in which I
cannot escape. Peruvian parties are a culture shock all on their own, people
are content sitting around not talking, then the all-day drinking begins and
the men don’t take no for an answer when they ask a lady to dance even though
they can’t hold themselves up…people just don’t say the word “no” here, well no
one except me… and taxi drivers when you ask them if they have change. But all
in all I did enjoy myself it’s just when I was ready for bed around midnight
and the music was so loud that the walls shook that I wanted to scream into my
pillow…
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| this is part of what I like to call the "Peruvian Party Square" |
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| Julia dancing with her husband |
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| I was seriously the tallest woman there |
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| my host mom dancing with her brother |
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| isn's she the cutest? |
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| Peruvian party spread |
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| me and my adorable host nephew Fabian |
I went with
my host nieces and my friend Erin to Festicum, an artisanal festival in the
town of Monsefú.
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| breaaad |
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| Mochican bread man |
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| Peruvian game- if you toss a heavy round coin thing and it lands on a brick you win a caja of beer...she doesn't drink but she thought she'd try it out anyway |
Well that
wraps up July, look at more pics on my “August” post.
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