Typical day in Pre-Service Training (PST)

So, I wake up at 6:30 every morning. I eat breakfast with my host mom. Rebecca and family live actually live up the mountain a ways. They have a small house on the property of the owners that Rebecca works for. Rebecca wakes up at 5:00am every morning to fix all of us breakfast and our lunches to go. Carlos, Yerlin, and Ganellia are out the door by 6:45. Rebecca eats her breakfast with me. We are both huge coffee fans. I must note that I am a little disappointed with the coffee here. I guess since we are so close to Columbia I was picturing Juan Valdez climbing down the mountain every morning to grind my coffee beans and prepare it over an open fire, but there is more instant coffee here than freshly ground. I then take a “combi” (the main source of public transportation here - a van-bus hybrid thingy) to the training center.

 

A combi

My first combi experience – My host mom escorted all the volunteers in my neighborhood to the traiing center on our first day. We have to cross the “caraterra” (the main 4-lane highway that runs through town) which is extremely busy at 7:30 in the morning. There are 7 of us. We hop on the first combi that stops that is already packed to the brim with people. I am the last to get on board, and no sooner than I had one foot on the entryway to the combi, the “cobradora” (the money taker) is screaming “Vamos, vamos, vamos!” (“Let’s go”) to the bus driver. I am barely hanging on to the above head railing, the combi doors are wide open, and a teeny Peruvian woman (the cobradora) is hanging completely out of the combi behind me pushing me in and up on the next step while we are going at least 20 miles an hour! I was absolutely horrified, but strangely exhilarated at the same time. LOL. It is only 50 “centimos” (cents) to ride the combi to the training center, but my trip there and back is 1/7 of my daily pay. I do have plenty of money though. All my lodging and food is paid for.

Once I am at the training center, I have language class for 4 hours. I love my class. Scotney, Caroline, Rebecca, and I are all “novatas” (novices). We have a lot of fun while learning a lot. We are going to have class in each one of our houses. I am excited for that because that means that I can sleep til 6:45! Also, we will take some fun cultural trips sponsored by the language people. Our instructor is Pablo. I like Pablo very much. He is funny and obviously extremely patient. Four hours is a long time, but Pablo makes it fly by.

 

PABLO!!

 

We have lunch at noon. Lunch is the main meal of the day here in Peru. Breakfast is substantial, dinner is basically nonexistent, but lunch is not lunch without a huge heaping pile of rice (or pasta) and a half dozen potatoes in some form. I may be exaggerating a bit, but I am writing this in retrospect, and I am crying starch right now.

At 1:00 we are back in class. The afternoon classes vary. Sometimes the topic is safety and security, sometimes we break up into our specialty groups (business or youth development), sometimes they are about health. We had an hour-long presentation about poop. Seriously. Check out the Bristol Stool Chart online sometime. If we call our doctor with digestive problems, we are supposed to identify our feces according to this chart. LOL! Sorry to those of your with weak stomachs, but I am just sharing my experience. Between the novel bacteria and the enormous mounds of rice in our intestines, bowel movements are a daily topic around here.

We are out of class for the day by 5:00. Most days we either have a Zumba class that my language instructor, Pablo, leads or some people brought Insanity. All the novice Spanish speakers have to have tutoring a couple of times a week. I think that my tutor, Isabel, is the best. Our sessions are very informal, but also extremely helpful. We usually walk down the street to a little café and drink coffee and split a piece of cake while chatting (totally in Spanish, of course). She wants to go back to school someday to get her degree in psychology, so we share our own opinions about different psychological theories and theorists and practices. She is amazing!

ISABEL!!

I get home around 6:30 or 7:00, I take a cold shower on some days, (Don’t judge me until you have taken a cold shower.) I have a little snack with Rebecca, I do my homework, and I go to bed. Usually I watch part of movie while playing a game on my tablet or I read some of a novel. (I have already read Frankenstein and over half of War of the Worlds, which is more novel reading that I have done than in the past three years. Thanks grad school!) I am usually fast asleep by 10:30 or 11:00. I have turned into an old lady…Really though, having to translate every word that comes out of every person’s mouth is extremely tiring. I know that with time I will not have to translate, but for now, I am mentally exhausted. There is so much information being thrown at us right now from such a variety of topics. I want to concentrate most on Spanish because this is my biggest weakness, but there is so much other stuff that I am supposed to be learning also. While I tried to have no expectations going into this, this is more challenging than I expected. Lol.

Thanks to everyone who commented on my last few blogs. I love and miss you all. I am truly enjoying my experience here, but I think I get the biggest smiles when I hear from those most familiar to me. Thanks for all the support. I have a little free time today (for a change). I will try to get another blog post up and more pics. I have been traveling around Peru! I'll be sure to post 3000 scenery pics just for you, Mom! LOL.