LATRINES GALORE!

Work has recently taken off and I am a super busy bee.  This is wonderful because it keeps me from twiddling my thumbs, I get to feel productive instead of castigating myself constantly for my lack of productivity (that was in part my fault, but also the fault of the work culture and disinterest in health promotion), and it helps the time fly by, getting me closer and closer to my visit home.  Having a kind of deadline has been helpful in getting me out there and pushing forward with everything.  I think I'm just going to to need to make up firm deadlines for the future.  It's hard when you get lost sometimes in the "oh my god I have more than another year of this" kind of thinking...

So what exactly am I up to right now?

Healthy Schools - I am working on a healthy schools project as a secondary activity for quite awhile.  I originally was just teaching the teachers at the school once a month with the hope that they would replicate my "charlas" or "lessons" and do them in the classroom with their own kids.  I suppose I was being a little too optimistic with that approach, so I started teaching them about the common health issues the kids had from the year before that I got of a statistics sheet from our health post, and started teaching charlas to the kids at the school.  I've taught two at this point with the students from the 3rd-6th grade.  One was about self-esteem and values, and the most recent one that I gave was about waste management, the difference between organic and inorganic trash, and the importance of taking care of the environment.  Coming up, I have a charla on oral hygiene, and I just bought 81 toothbrushes this morning for all the students in the school.  Peace Corps doesn't really encourage volunteers to use their money like that, and it was originally going to be part of a bigger project where I was going to ask for money from the municipality, but the other things we planned on buying kind of fell through due to the fact that the Director and I can't agree on how we should provide safe drinking water to the kids, and the only land they have for a vegetable garden is over their septic system.  So.  After teaching this kids and seeing rotting teeth in most of their smiles, I decided that putting 10% of my monthly stipend into toothbrushes was a good use of my money.  The school is going to make it obligatory that each kid brushes their teeth at school at least once during the day.  We haven't figured out the timing, but I suppose each class could have their own.  At the very least, that means that each kid will be brushing their teeth once a day, even if they don't at home.

Pasos Adelante - The sexual health class I've been teaching at the high school in Cabracancha has finally finished.  I've been teaching since MAY, and it was only supposed to take 24 weeks.  With all the strikes we had with no school, it has taken much longer than originally planned.  However, they've finally finished and I have been working on planning their graduation ceremony for them.  The DISA, or head of health care and health posts in the entire district of Chota has offered to give us money to buy them tshirts, which I'm really excited about.  Karen, the obstetriz I've been working with, who is also a good friend of mine, has helped a lot in pulling together the planning for the graduation.  We wrote "oficios" to representatives of a bunch of different health related organizations in Chota as well as the Alcalde to invite them to come to our graduation.  All of my students are currently planning their own sexual health sessions to teach in the school to their peers the morning of their graduation.  They are in groups of two or three and will be teaching each of the five grades about either self-esteem, teen pregnancy, STIs, HIV/AIDS, or how to use a condom.  I'm super proud of them and can't wait to watch them teach their first charlas.

Last Wednesday I had them all take the post-test, which was identical to their pre-test.  The pre-tests were horrific.  I remember thinking, "Good lord I have my work cut out for me."  I just finished grading their post-tests and half my kids got 100%, and the other half missed just one part of one question.  SO proud of them and so pleased to see that they did learn something.

Step two to the Pasos Adelante project is for them to start teaching what they learned to their peers in school. I know a bunch of them are really excited about it.  Two of them that I brought to the Pasos Adelante Conference a month or two ago actually dragged me into the Director's office in an attempt to organize their classes.  I was so impressed with their eagerness.  I'm hoping they will help me to train a new group of youth health promoters as well.  I think they will.  Other than that, we're just going to put on health promotional events and I'll have more people to work with!  I'm really really excited with how this has all worked out.

Healthy Homes Project - I have finally started moving forward on my first BIG project.  When I first arrived in site, the volunteer I was replacing told me that everyone had latrines and cook stoves and I didn't have many options for work other than that.  For most of my service I've been sort of stumped on what to do.  My boss came to visit all of us in August and she suggested that I do a "maintenance" project, so instead of constructing new latrines or cook stoves, I see what has fallen apart and replace that, for example if the chimney for the stove broke, I could replace it...that sort of thing.  As a program, we are all supposed to focus on mothers with children under 3 and pregnant women.  I got a list of about 30 moms who have kids under 3 who are high risk for chronic malnutrition and a list of pregnant women.  I've spent the last month and some change walking ALL OVER my mountain visiting the houses of these moms, and doing an initial survey with them to see what their knowledge base is, and what their stoves or latrines are lacking.  Turns out, the majority don't have latrines, or if they do, they are in desperate need of some help.  Most of the stoves are ok, but many need new chimneys.  I'm now doing a project that is a little bit bigger than I would like because I started under the impression that everyone had latrines.  Ah well.

The way it works: I have about 30 moms.  They are going to come to meetings once or twice a month to learn about a new topic.  I'm also going to give them homework to improve things in their home, like to have a place where all their toothbrushes and toothpaste are in the same place, or to prepare their land to plant a vegetable garden, that kind of thing.  Twice a month, they are each going to receive a house visit (one from me, one from a health post worker...god willing).  In each visit, we will check for the changes I asked for in their "homework", and check their learning from the educative session that I gave.  If they all attend the sessions without fail and complete their house visits, at the end of the project, I will construct (hopefully with help from a local NGO), their new latrines and do the maintenance that their cook stoves need.  I'm also going to be giving them seeds for a vegetable garden and a kind of bucket to keep their boiled water in.

It feels good to get going on something big in my town because most people don't know about my work in Cabracancha and think I'm just hanging out in Chota.  It's been weird with some moms, I'll go to visit, I know they are home, and they just pretend not to be home.  A couple moms have flat out said that they aren't interested, which doesn't make any sense to me...but I've got a good list of moms at this point.  It's a lot of work and I'm really worried about getting funding for it.  I'm going to ask the municipality but if that doesn't work out, I'm going to have to apply for an outside grant, which is always way messier and makes most people crazy.

I thought I would share with you some of my favorite latrine pictures from my house visits.  These are the moms who DO have latrines and will be getting new ones...there are plenty of moms who do not have latrines who will also be getting new ones..

This one took the calamina (green tin) off the ceiling and door to make a shelter for their pigs....

This is recently constructed, but doesn't qualify as a legitimate latrine and the mom is pregnant.

This photo and the next are of the Leaning Tower of Poop

...aka a straight up death trap

Anyone else feel a breeze? 

"Look Mom!  I built a fort!"

This is hard to understand...but is just a shallow hole in the ground...above their farmland...so when it rains everyday....(you piece it together)

This looks like some sort of trap for unsuspecting gringos...it's only a matter of time before someone falls through that trap door. 

Tiny bit Homesick

Another American Holiday came and went and I hardly noticed, until a few days after when everyone started posting their photos of costumes and pumpkins and parties.  It made me homesick.  By the time I get home in the end of 2013, I will have missed three Halloweens.  That seems like a stupid thing to miss, but it just sort of brings up all the things I'm missing at the moment, like the fun of being a 20-something-year-old in some city, working and hanging out with friends, living in an apartment and cooking for myself.  All of those things seem like a privilege now, a life you lead if you are really really lucky.  I know I am on a giant adventure, learning things and experiencing things that most people never experience.  I am grateful, but I am also reaching that point in my service where I just feel tired.  I've been here for almost 14 months and I miss my home.  I actually had a dream the other night about the magic of taking laundry out of a dryer when it is still warm, is clean and smells good, and just putting it on my body.  That seems so trivial, but rainy season has started again so my clothes take forever to dry and are usually a little damp when I finally just take them off the line.  It is so hard to get them clean and smelling good when I wash them myself.  I really can't wait to do laundry.

And what about washing dishes when I get home?  Is the sink inside? Am I going to be rained on while I wash the dishes?  Is there a sponge or do I have to use my fingernails? Do I have to walk through mud to get to the sink?  Who could possibly be bothered by doing dishes when you get to be inside, use a dishwasher, and not find random internal organs from previously gutted chickens or guinea pigs in the drain?

I'm just so excited to go home, to be around all the people that love me the most and be reassured that I haven't lost my place at home.  I want to hear how everyone is doing, catch back up on everything I've missed.  I'm excited to have Christmas and do all the Christmasy things our family does for the first time in two years.  I want to bake cookies, I want to DRIVE, I want to decorate the Christmas tree, I want to drink really delicious beer, go shopping in stores that have clothes long enough for me, sit in front of our woodstove, hug my mom, see my friends.  I'm so so excited to go home.

And yet, at the same time, I'm also sort of freaked out.  What is going to be different?  How much have I missed?  Am I going to feel weird in my own home, with my own family, in my own country?  Is my spot still there waiting for me to fill it up again?  How hard is it going to be to come back to Peru after being home?  And in addition to what seems to me like such silly anxieties, I am also worried about how little time there is left before I go home for the holidays.  I have SO much to do and so little time to do it!  I am currently sick and trying to pull everything off, but I'm worried I'm going to leave some loose ends and that makes me nervous.

Really, I think I need a nap.

Peruvian Baby Hayden

I recently learned that in Cabracancha, where I teach my Pasos class, a woman recently gave birth and decided to name her daughter after me.  Apparently it is still sort of pending because the father isn’t around and they have to wait till he gets back and approves the name.  Either way, I was incredibly touched by that, but I’m a little concerned for this girl because no one is ever going to be able to say her name. I was asked by the health post nurse, Eli (pronounced Ellie), to write my name down so she could tell the mom how to spell it.  The whole thing was really sweet and I am really really flattered.  It makes me feel appreciated and honored in a way I can’t really articulate!   

Pasos Adelante Conference and a Death Declaration

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.

The Essence of my Peace Corps Experience

In March, or maybe April, I hit a hard wall in my Peace Corps service while on vacation during Semana Santa at one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet with alcoholic slushies available for just a glimpse at my wrist band (until I checked out, of course).  I should have been super happy to finally get out of site after months, to get some sun after 6 months of constant rain, to see other volunteers that I hadn't seen since November.  It wasn't like that.  I ended up sitting in a pile of sand in the dark, getting eaten alive by some sort of awful sand bug, and calling my big brother.  It was the first time I ever said, "I want to go home." It was also the only time I've ever really meant it. Up until that point, I'd tried really hard to put on a brave face, to be the Peace Corps volunteer I envisioned myself to be, and to keep my chin up when I talked to my older brothers.  I wanted them to be proud of me and a part of me thought that Jamey would be way better at being a volunteer than I was.  

Jamey told me a lot of things.  I think I took him a little off-guard with the phone call.  One of the things he said was that being in your 20s after college sucks.  There are plenty of fun parts about it, but there is a ton of growing up that has to be done and it happens slowly and super painfully.  He told me I was just doing it all at super speed.  I was going through that decade of growing up in two years instead.  At the time, I didn't really know how I felt about that explanation, but regardless, he convinced me to stay.

Since then, I've definitely said, "I want to go home" again, but the only time I really meant it was when I knew my dog was going to die.  I wanted to be there for her, for my mom, and for a friend who's life had taken a rough turn and needed support.  That time, however, I didn't mean go home for good, just to visit.  And in moments of hardship or sadness or whatever, I've said it, but I haven't really meant it, more that it would be WAYYYYYY easier if I was home than dealing with this crap right now.

The essence of Peace Corps...I think has a lot to do with what my brother said, that Peace Corps provides the opportunity for accelerated growth, which can be so painful, but is fundamentally a good thing.  We also battle with all sorts of realities that aren't normal, like, for example, how I feel like I am part of a poor rural community in the middle of the Andes, but I have a Yale education and a much more comfortable life I'm still holding onto in the States.  I have to struggle with the shame and guilt of the relief I feel that I don't have to stay here forever.

But then there are all these other challenges, defeating moments, homesickness, anxiety, confusion, and constant battles to feel like the same intelligent person I was when I left the States.  I have to remind myself that just because I'm functioning in another language, in another culture, doing things I've never done, it doesn't make me stupid, it just makes everything harder.  Peace Corps service has pushed me so far out my comfort zone that I had to build a new comfort zone.  It seems that every time I get comfortable, something comes crashing down and I have to rebuild myself back up again.  But in the middle of all that mayhem, all that destruction and reconstruction, I'm rebuilding myself into someone better.  I am adding something that makes me stronger, more resilient, more competent, braver.  It's maddening, but there is one quote I have on my wall that keeps me sane.  It is the essence of my Peace Corps service:

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”

It's so insanely true.  Every time something comes crashing down, I'm dazed and frustrated for a little while, and then I start making lists and finding ways to move forward and the end result is always better than where I was before.  That quote keeps me sane.  Fundamentally, it's something we've all heard before, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  We all know that quote, but I have never continuously experienced the truth of that statement in my life like I have in Peace Corps.  It reminds me that in all the adversity I experience, I have to look for the good, for the new strength. 

Right now, I'm in a rebuilding stage.  All the recent struggles I've had have lit a fire under my ass and got me moving like never before and I'm feeling really proud of the progress!   

Statement, Observation, Confession

I'm sitting in Starbucks in Lima, trying to gear myself up to write Part 2 of my work updates and decided I had one frustrated statement, one strange observation, and one slightly embarrassing confession.  We'll start with the bad, end with the easily mocked.

One Frustrated Statement:

I am sitting in Starbucks, and across the table from me are a group of teenage girls decked out in fancy headbands and bangles and necklaces, drinking S/.13 frappacinos and frequently taking breaks from the group homework they have to check their blackberries and fancy iphones.  I keep thinking about where I was yesterday, in my town where not everyone has a dirt hole to go to the bathroom in.  Where the moms cook with firewood. Where many of the kids don't wear shoes to school and have one pair of clothes.  Where they drink crude water and are constantly sick with diarrhea and parasites.  Where they spend their time outside of school helping their parents with the manual labor to get form day to day and taking care of their siblings. Where most of them have big black cavities in their teeth because they are rotting out and are on a steady countdown to the year when their first adult tooth needs to be covered over in shining metal, but only when they can afford it.  These girls have beautiful white teeth, one even has braces, painted fingernails, fancy shoes, matching clean clothes, and get to spend their time hanging out in Starbucks on a Saturday afternoon.  I don't blame them, they are lucky to have been born with the privilege they were born with.  I'm not an idiot, I know this all applies to me as well, but that doesn't make me less angry.  What would a child from my town do with a life like the one I was given?  A life of privilege like these girls have?  It makes me sad.  I know there are similar situations in the States, I'm not naive, but I actually move back and forth between two different worlds in the same country on a regular basis.  Lima is like this other universe, another prosperous neighboring country to the profound poverty that exists all throughout the rest of the country.  It's SO centralized, all the power, all the wealth, all the resources. Of course, capital cities all have their tiny wealthy population, but compared to Lima, to Miraflores (district in Lima), it can hardly be compared.

I was in Lima a week ago and I walked into a department store.  I walked by the electronics section.  There was a giant HD flat screen TV and looking at the clarity and magnitude of it, I literally got dizzy.  It was too much, too clear, after staring at the teeny tiny fuzzy black and white box we have in the kitchen in my house in Iraca.  That was before I slipped and fell on my ass because I forgot how to walk on a slippery mall floor.

It just makes me sad.  I guess that's it.  That some of us can live like we do, and others have to live as they do, struggling and working so hard to improve their lives.  It may seem obvious, but it's weird to feel like I'm on the other side.  I live with a Peruvian family, I have more liquid resources than they do but not too much more, I live in that town, I work with those people, I feel part of that poverty.  What makes me different is that I know it isn't permanent.  It also makes me a little ashamed.  I'm here, I'm living it, but I'm relieved by the knowledge that it isn't forever.  I'm going to leave, and leave them here.  I dunno.  I can't really explain it.


One Strange Observation:
A few months ago, we were supposed to bring members of our community to a big training.  We were passing through a city to get to our final destination and we stopped to get lunch.  We ended up near a mall and decided to bring all these campo men and women, who had rarely in their lives left our sites, to ride an escalator.  A few of them were terrified and ended up staggering their way onto the escalator and then looking around in wonder as they steadily rose to the second floor.  It was really endearing to watch.

A week ago, when I was in Lima, I was at a mall looking for an iStore because my charger crapped out, and there were about 15 esclators that no one was stumbling up or down.  I sort of realized that the ability to comfortably ride an escalator and/or the knowledge of what an escalator is is an indication of wealth or close proximity to wealth.  You don't have escalators in poor areas, and you don't use them a lot here unless you are in a shopping mall.  You don't go to a shopping mall unless you have money to spend...or you're like me and you just want to look at things that belong in a world you haven't been in for over a year.  As for people in the campo, most of them don't get to the capital cities because they can't afford it, have too many responsibilities in their home, or just have no reason to go because they don't know anyone.  Or if they do go, they are certainly not going to go to the mall, where there is nothing they can afford.

Here, it seems, escalator familiarity is a sign of wealth.

One Slightly Embarrassing Confession:
What do I do if I happen to be in a big city and I'm feeling sort of crappy?  I go to Pay Less Shoes and I try on everything they have in my size, especially the heels, and I wander around the store in them.  Yep. I know. Pathetic.  However, there are three miracles involved in this one process.

Miracle #1: I used to shop at payless shoes all the time in the States and it is a wonderful comfort to go back into a store I know from home and try on shoes.  The only thing that wrecks the momentary escape is that the price stickers are in soles (that's peruvian money...not the bottom of the shoe).

Miracle #2: Pay Less actually has sizes that fit me unlike everything else clothing related in this country.  Clothes, for whatever reason, cost so much money here (or maybe it just feels like it), and I can't afford to buy anything anywhere with the money I get for my living allowance from Peace Corps.  Also, even if I did, it is impossible anywhere but Pay Less to find pants, shoes, shirts, sweaters, whatever, that fit me.  I love that I can walk in there and find my size without a problem. Woot.

Miracle #3: When do I EVER get to wear heels? I don't. ever. When do I get to feel pretty?  Hardly ever. It's nice, for 10 seconds to feel a little flirty because most of my time is spent in sneakers and athletic pants or jeans and a tshirt. It is also just nice to put on something completely unnecessary, something extra.  It grosses me out a little bit how much excess I had in my life before I joined Peace Corps...and how gluttonous so many of us are without realizing it, but I still can't lie. Pay Less is my guilty pleasure.

General Conclusion:

I realize that frustrated statement and slightly embarrassing confession are at strange odds with each other and the conclusion ultimately means I'm an ass, but I'm still working out the glitches of being who I am now and who I was, and this is just a good example of how those two worlds tend to smash into each other, mostly causing guilt and a little bit of shame.

Long Awaited Update - WORK Part 1

I should probably start by saying sorry for how long it has been since I updated.  So much has happened that I can't even begin to cover but I am really grateful to everyone who has cared enough to keep checking for updates.  Sometimes just seeing page views on my blog is a comfort, as strange as that sounds...

I figured this update will be an update on work related things for the most part and hopefully it will jump-start me back into regular blog updates. We'll focus this update on just what I've done as far as trainings in Lima are concerned.

The last time I updated, I was on my way to Lima to meet up with other members of the Peace Corps committee that I'm on, previously known as WID/GAD, or Women in Development/Gender Analysis and Development.  It's a worldwide committee, so every Peace Corps country has the same group.  Unfortunately, Peace Corps Washington, aka The Mother Ship, decided to rename us Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment.  That now makes us, the ever lovely and professional-sounding, GEWE, or "Gooey".  Awesome.   When I was here last, we gave a training to the entire Peace Corps staff on how to better support LGBT volunteers.  We've had some situations that were not particularly well-informed, if you know what I mean, and as a committee we felt like working on those issues within Peace Corps would be a good first step to helping LGBT volunteers feel better supported and more comfortable in already strenuous circumstances.

The staff training went pretty well, and I got to meet the new Peru volunteers who came in June when I went to give a diversity training.  Why is the blond, green-eyed, white girl on diversity panel?  For one thing, it was because I was already in Lima, but I did come up with a good reason.   I came here a significantly larger woman, and I'm super tall, and in the rural places we end up in, that attracts a lot of harassment and attention.  For those of you who have read my blog, you know what I mean by that.  So, I thought warning other larger volunteers what they would be in for was a pretty decent reason to be there.  The LGBT volunteers had their representative, the African American volunteers had theirs, someone they could call when they were being harassed and needed to talk, why shouldn't heavier volunteers have their own?  I'd be more than happy to get a phone call from some volunteer sitting in a cornfield sobbing because they've just been treated horrifically because of their weight.  I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had someone to call when I was sitting in my corn field because all I could think was "I want to go hoooommeeee." Another reason I rationalized was that I am a woman in a machismo culture and I'm going to be treated differently accordingly.  The last reason I had was that I am white, and for the first time in my life, I'm a minority.  That's a pretty significant deal.

Giving the diversity panel was a lot of fun, and I gave another training with my committee to the new volunteers on what is the GEWE committee and what do we do.  We also talked about gender politics in rural Peru and the kinds of things they could expect.  It was fun meeting them, and I must have done a decent job on the diversity panel because I was asked back to give a diversity training in October to the new group of volunteers that showed up on the 14th of September.  I really like being able to spend time with the new volunteers, to answer their questions and try and make them feel more comfortable.

Literally a week ago, I was in Lima for a medical visit that resulted in nothing worrisome but the doctors wanted to be sure.  I came down here (which involves a 25 minute mototaxi ride down my mountain, a 4 hour combi ride from Chota to Cajamarca, a three hour wait, and then a 16 hour bus ride from Cajamarca to Lima overnight).  The day after I got to Lima, the new health volunteers showed up from the United States.  The way the rotation works is that every September, the new round of health volunteers, environmental volunteers, and water & sanitation volunteers show up to start training, and every June, the business and youth development volunteers come to start their two months of training.  Each new group has a number.  I am a Peru 18 volunteer, the youth development and business volunteers that showed up in June were Peru 19 volunteers, and Peru 20, showed up a week ago.

I got super lucky, and was asked to go help out on their first day.  I drove with the health team staff to the retreat center that I had gone to the first night I showed up, and got to meet all the new volunteers.  It was crazy to be in the same room, the one I had stood in 1 year before, and be a resource and source of support for the new volunteers.  I had been in their place exactly a year before.   It was a strange feeling to see how much has changed, and it made me feel old.  I'm sort of blown away by how much can change in just a year.  In a way, it still feels like yesterday that I said goodbye to my dog for the last time and hugged my mom in the airport, and at the same time, I feel so so different from that girl who said goodbye to her family and her life in the States to start this crazy adventure.  But really, what perfect closure to my first year completed in Peace Corps!

The next day I was invited back to chat with the group of 57 new volunteers to talk about what it was like to live with host families, what to keep in mind, what to avoid talking about, some of the crazy things they could expect.  They were all a bit nervous, understandably so.  They had just come to the training center for the first time from the retreat center, and their new host families were going to pick them up in a few hours.  They had a lot of good questions and concerns, and I tried to keep them laughing to eliminate some of the stress.  After our session with them (I was with one other volunteer from Peru 18 and one from Peru 17), their host families came to pick them up.  While I hung out, I saw my host mom and sister (Mama Rosa and Angela) from my time in training show up.  I hid behind a tree until after they had met their new volunteer, a super sweet girl, and then jumped out and surprised them.  They were so so excited to see me, which made me feel awesome.  I gave them a hug, and my host mom said, "I was just telling Angela how the new girl looks like you."  Their new volunteer does not look like me, she's absolutely beautiful with strawberry blond/red hair and adorable freckles.

"But look at her hair!" I said.
"It's something about the face." She said.
"They think we look alike." I told the new volunteer.  She giggled. "They think white people look the same." I laughed.
"Oh." And she giggled nervously again.

I have often been asked if I am the sister of a past volunteer from our area, and the reason is usually that we both have small noses.  I guess small noses are about as unusual as blond hair around where I live, or white skin, so anyone who shares one of those characteristics, or two, I guess, is my twin.

I helped the new volunteer walk her stuff outside to where my host dad, Cesear, was waiting with the car.  He is truly the most adorable little man.  He saw me through the car windshield, a HUGE smile broke across his face, and put his hands together and started bowing back and forth.  I get confused about why he does that...I feel like if you put him in some robes he could be a monk somewhere.  He got out of the car and gave me a big hug.  They kept asking if I was coming to stay that night but I needed to head back.  I felt really guilty about spoiling that moment for the new volunteer, but I hoped if nothing else, she got a chance to see that although it's awkward at first, it gets way better with time.  She seems like such a doll, I feel like they'll all love each other by the end.

I was helping another volunteer with her stuff and helping her talk to her host mom.  At a break in our conversation, she said with awe, "You're practically fluent..."  I couldn't help laughing, because I'm no where near fluent, but I remember getting in that car and having a hard time saying anything.  I remember listening to Mama Rosa say to Cesear, "Oh, she can't speak Spanish..."  It was a strange moment to think about how far I'd come from the day my first host family came to pick me up.

"I promise that you'll be where I am, if not far far better, in a year. I promise!"
She looked dubious.

So all of that happened.  It was weird and wonderful and a bit mind boggling.  I get to see them two more times, once for the diversity session again, and once for the GEWE training where we introduce them to our committee and to gender politics stuff like the training we did with Peru 19.  I'm excited to see them again :)  Five of them will eventually, in the end of November after they swear in, come up to Cajamarca and join the five Peru 18er Cajamarca ladies (including myself)!!  I'm excited and I think they are such a lovely group, we are going to be lucky with whoever comes!

So what am I doing in Lima right now?  In the same meeting in February when we decided as a committee to put a focus on better supporting LGBT volunteers within Peace Corps, we came up with the idea of doing a Safe Zone training with the Peace Corps staff.  Safe Zone, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is a program often used in US Universities to train staff members to be LGBT allies.  This provides volunteers with a safe space to go among Peace Corps staff when they need to talk about something or need advice.  Being a Peace Corps volunteer is not an easy life in itself, but there is an added complication for LGBT volunteers, especially those put in rural areas, where they are told to recloset themselves for their own safety.  I can't imagine what that process is like in itself, but imagine trying to develop relationships with people in a foreign country, and even with your closest Peruvian friends and family, you are forced to lie about a significant part of who you are?  I have a hard time sometimes with the aspects of my life I find hard to share just because they are so different and therefore difficult for members of my community to understand.  I find it frustrating to feel that kind of wall between me and those I am closest to, and I don't have to hide a piece of my identity.  Not all volunteers have the same experience because it is so dependent on who you are with and who you are, but for those who do struggle, they should have a safe place to go an talk about it.  We felt like training the staff who elected to be allies would be important, because acceptance and understanding of LGBT people has not advanced in Peru as it has in the United States (I'm also not suggesting that things are perfect in the US, only that they are farther along.)

Richard and I have been really excited about this from the beginning and so the two of us have been working on the training for a while.  We got really lucky, and Wendy, our Director of Programming and Training (aka #2 in all of Peace Corps Peru), got really excited about the training and has been so incredibly supportive.  We have gotten a lot of staff involved and we are going to give the training on Monday.  She told me when I met with her a week ago that she was hoping that the Peace Corps staff would understand that this training was not just applicable to a Peace Corps/American thing, but in general to their lives outside of Peace Corps.  One thing most people don't realize is that almost all the Peace Corps Peru staff is Peruvian, with the exception of our Country Director, Wendy, and the 3rd year volunteers who work in positions called "PCVC" or Peace Corps Volunteer Coordinator.  They develop materials to aide volunteers in the field, edit grant proposals, design project frameworks, work part time in an NGO in Lima or for a governmental organization like the Ministry of Health, and serve in general as work and life support for volunteers.

Safe Zone training is coming up on Monday, I'm doing prep work and trying to catch back up on my real life.  But as for trainings in Lima, that's the full update of what I've been up to.  More to come!....