Last week ended with a Pasos Adelante conference, which
completely sapped me of all my energy.
I think that had something to do with the fact that I slept two nights
in a dorm room packed full of teenage girls. I had a little bit more sympathy for my mom when she would
come downstairs glaring daggers and tell me and the rest of my sleepover party
to KEEP IT DOWN. Pretty sure it
was made worse by the fact that these were girls from the campo, used to
getting up early in the morning and helping their moms. 5:00 am came around and girls were up
chatting, giggling, showering, hair-braiding, and playing music. I am confident Peace Corps would have
kicked me out if I had brutally murdered a room of Peruvian teenagers. The volunteers settled for more
peaceful measures, like “WE’RE STILL SLEEPING! SHUT UP!”
What exactly is a Pasos Adelante conference? Good question. Each volunteer in Cajamarca who had a
Pasos Adelante class, the class I’ve been teaching about life skills and sexual
education aimed at preventing HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy, could bring 2-3 of
their students. These students are
ultimately going to be “PEPs”, which stands for Promotores Educadores Pares,
which is essentially Peer Educator Promoters, or something along those lines. They will continue to work with
volunteers to train their peers in sex education and other health promotion
activities. The conference was
geared towards giving them tools they need to be good health promoters, how to
plan a project and think about root causes of health problems in order to
combat them, how to use non-formal education, how to teach good sessions, or
“charlas”, facts about teen pregnancy in Cajamarca, and a ton of other
things. I brought two of my
students, Greysey and Yulesi. They
made me super super proud all weekend long. They were well behaved, they always sat in the front row,
they worked so hard, they participated, and they learned a lot. I’m really glad that I brought
them.
 |
| (L-R) Yulesi, Me, and Greysey after they received their participation certificates!! |
The great part about the Pasos Adelante conference, other
than how awesome my kids did, was that it was the first we have ever had in the
north of Cajamarca and we had a lot of participation from the RED and DISA of
Chota, who are essentially the administrative bigshots in healthcare in our
region. It was great to
collaborate with them on something, and our conference just happened to fall on
the month the Ministry of Health has dedicated to adolescents. Nice touch. It was great to see my kids get motivated by the conference
and also feel special to be there.
I think it was a unique opportunity for them to meet kids from other
parts of their department as well.
I’m glad we did it and I hope we do it again next year.
So I finished that conference totally burnt out. I headed back up to Iraca ready to
sleep until Christmas. I was
hanging out outside chatting with Celina, who was literally just standing
outside watching the sky and complaining that the rain hadn’t come yet. Truth be told, I really wanted the rain
to come for the people in my town.
Everyone was waiting for the rain to plant their corn and I was worried
we were seeing some impact of global warming…which of course spiraled me off
into terror that what if it eventually stops raining in Cajamarca and no one in
my town can survive anymore because they can’t grow their crops? Overreaction, but I did want the rain,
for their sake. For me, however, I
was pumped that the rain was holding off.
I’m not looking forward to six months straight of rain again. I can’t forget how desperate I felt for
sunshine during those first six months of service, and how completely perfect
any day with a little bit of sun was.
That was a horribly structured sentence…
While chatting with Celina, Mishel came up behind me and
started darting from side to side while I kept looking over both
shoulders. I finally turned around
to pick her up and throw her over my shoulder, and TOBY BIT ME. My family’s dog BIT me. Awesome. My first dog bite.
Granted, it wasn’t hard though it has bruised a bit. At least he didn’t break the skin. This little moment was followed by the
announcement that Chihuahua has finally given birth to her puppies.
“Guess how many there are.” Celina growled.
“Five?” I have no idea how many puppies dogs usually
have…especially not malnourished and poorly treated dogs…
“EIGHT.”
“…wow.”
“I’m going to kill her.” Celina stated frankly, then did the
ever cliché finger across the neck move.”
I just stared at her wide-eyed. I must have somehow misinterpreted all of that…
“You’re what?”
“I’m going to kill her. She eats all the chicken eggs, she’s a bad dog, and I don’t
want anymore puppies.”
I just stared at her wide-eyed.
“Oh.”
“I’ve never had a female dog. I only like boy dogs.”
…well maybe she should have thought of that before she
brought Chihuahua home from Chota?
“Um…couldn’t you just get her fixed or something?”
“There are pills that can kill her. Or I can just hit her really hard over
the head.”
“Oh.”
Yet another moment where I started thinking about how angry
PETA members would be at the people in my town.
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