Happy Anniversary to Me!

Many of you sent me “Happy Anniversary” messages last month, and it really warmed my heart that so many of you remembered. June 5^th, to be exact. Some days it feels like time is flying, and then some days it feels like the Earth has stood still. Thankfully, more the former than the latter. Also, it is a little disheartening when you hit your year anniversary and still lack more than a year, but it is still a great milestone! I have my pictures organized in my computer by month, and it was really cool to have 2 Junes!

This month was busy, stressful, and disappointment-filled. I went to Chiclayo a lot for Peace Corps meeting and events. In the last weekend of the month, we hosted a 3-day female leadership camp for girls aged 12-17. There was much planning involved. I wanted to be more involved than was possible because they kept scheduling meeting during the week when I work. Also, we had our regular monthly meeting.

This is the time of year when the new groups (youth development and economic development) are entering and the old groups are exiting. This process occurs again in September with the health and environment groups. So, we had to have a little send-off party for the “19ers.” (My group is 21). It was really nice. We put our money together and several of us stayed in a condo in Pimentel, a beach town about 20 minutes west of Chiclayo. We hung out on the beach and did a roast and toast of each member of the Lambayeque, Peru 19 group. Good times were had by all.

I was told to be the coordinator of the newbies field-based training (FBT). This was a disaster from the start. First, when the idea was first presented to me to just have the FBT in Lambayeque, my response was, “Well, two of the youth development volunteers are leaving in mid-July (2 of the 19ers), and I don’t know when FBT will be, but if it is after they leave, there will only be two youth development volunteers in all of Lambayeque left.” I got an email about a week later thanking me for accepting the position as FBT coordinator. What the hey? OK, I guess. At first I kind of thought it was an honor, but I think I was just the lesser of two evils. To make a long story short, ALL of the bosses and facilitators in the youth development program are new. My program assistant, Giovana, is a nice lady and only moderately new, but she went on vacation or something shortly after I was elected to this position, so the majority of the coordination was left in the hands of a tech trainer in the training office in Lima. This woman was very inflexible in the scheduling, considering I had the task of filling a 5½ day work week for 12 trainees that had to include at least three practicums (giving charlas) with two volunteers in the region. She also handed down responsibilities to me that I found out later are in no way supposed to be my responsibilities (e.g., booking the bus trips to and from Lima, doing the budget), and would change her opinions, rules, and desires on a day to day basis. I literally made myself sick from stress. I finally had it down to where I was missing only two hours in the schedule (due to the aid of the other amazing volunteers), and she changed something AGAIN, making six hours of holes in my schedule instead of two. I wrote a point by point numbered list of my concerns and why they were concerns and how they could possibly be alleviated, followed by a paragraph of expressing my desire to continue and help the new volunteers in any way I could, but I could NOT continue working on the schedule in these circumstances. Please understand also that this woman called me or sent me emails (sometimes 3 or 4 times a day) practically every day for two weeks. I have only quit one job in my entire life, but after that (and the fact that I spent about 35 hours working on a grant proposal and filling out the application and telling all my Peruvian socios that we were most likely going to receive funding for our sex ed program, then getting an email that the funding had run out since the month before when I sat through three days of training on the subject), I was seriously on the verge of packing my bags. The tech trainer called me the next day, and I didn’t answer for my own mental and, at this point, physical health. I did, however, receive a call from my program assistant the following day. I was still upset, and wanting to avoid the topic altogether, but she insisted on coming all the way to my site to talk about it. She said she agreed 100% with all my points that I listed in the email, and that if we just sat down together for an hour or so, we could probably get the schedule knocked out. I was resistant, but relented. It was a good thing she was so persistent because in less than an hour, we had it all straightened out and had my nerves under control. It felt really good to know that my concerns were justified and that I was not the person being obstinate, unrealistic, and uncooperative. We have had a few hiccups in the last week, but with Giovana’s help, we have worked them out easily, and I am now really looking forward to FBT next week. I am going to get to meet and get to know 12 of the new people, one of which will be my new “site mate,” more or less. I know for sure that one person is going to be placed in Pátapo (my district capital 20 minutes west of La Cria). Also, I get to stay in the hostel for a week with wifi and hot showers. Woo hoo!

The elementary school had their school anniversary celebration this month. You may recall from my blog from October, that school anniversaries are a big deal here. The students spend (at least) one week preparing and one week celebrating. I came for the game day. There is a very popular television show here called, “Esto es Guerra,” This is War. It is basically a watered-down version of American Gladiators meets Day of our Lives. It reminds me of professional wrestling – ridiculous soap-opera style melodrama, but with physical challenges. Anyway, some of the games they play on the show were imitated on game day – cup pyramid stacking, spinning a butterfly nut down a grooved metal pole, blowing a ping pong ball over upturned glasses into an upright glass, etc. etc. You know, typical war games. I had waaaaaayyy more fun watching how serious the kids take these games than just watching them play. I also attended fiesta day. There was a clown for the kids in fourth and fifth grades that was super fun, and I hung out and danced with the kids from sixth. Of course, I went home with two pieces of cake (after eating one piece at the party) and a Halloween haul of candy.

Classic field games

Cup stacking, yet another classic

Soccer is a celebration must . . .

as well are clowns . . .

and dancing!

The butterfly nut down the 'ol metal pole game.
My lil sis is on the far left. She didn't win :(

Spelling championships. Backwards letters count too!

The determined look of champion cup stackers . . .

I'm super hard to spot.

Team cheers

The all-girls leadership camp was the real highlight of the month. Minus a few volunteers irritating me and getting about 5 hours of sleep in three days, it was phenomenal! We arrived early-ish Friday morning. The camp took place in a nature center with a few animals (no, no llamas) and several different types of plant and vegetable fields. Girl Rising. If you haven’t seen it, it is a must. It is very well done with Liam Neeson as narrator along with the voices of Meryl Streep, Penelope Cruz, Cate Blanchett , and others. The film follows the suffering and ultimate triumph (mentally, at least) of girls from numerous different countries – an earthquake survivor from Haiti, a rape victim from Egypt, a slave from India, a girl sold into marriage at age 10 in Afghanistan, etc. It’s a tearjerker, but will never leave you. We began the next day with a volleyball tournament, followed by more charlas from a Peruvian female psychologist, then an obstetrician, then we planted beans and other plants, made “borro,” the mud thatch used to construct many buildings here, stuffed plastic bottles full of trash that will be used in place of bricks to build a wall, and picked fruit. That night we had a bonfire, and helped 50 Peruvian teenage girls make their first s’mores and sang songs ‘til midnight. By Sunday, we were pretty much exhausted. To ensure safety and security, the volunteers did rounds throughout the night. Luckily, there were enough of us that each person only had to do it once, but it still sucked. Sunday, we had a round robin with successful Peruvian women from various occupations – an ecologist, a teenaged entrepreneur, a nurse, a psychologist, university students, and others. Afterwards, we picked up our trash, packed up, and headed home. It was a great experience. All four of the girls that I brought had never spent one night away from home! It was amazing watching all of them make new friends and learn so much about themselves and the world. We will probably never know, but I like to think that some girl’s lives are forever changed for the better because of one little weekend.

My team was the red team

Learning to make jam

Doin a little yoga

6:00am volleyball

Probably my fav activity

Learning about feminine hygiene and health

Speaking with successful female business owners

Nope! The smores were my favorite!

Dirty, but constructive

We settled in and did intros. Then we were split into teams. The idea behind this was to expose the girls to the possibility of new friendships, other than the girls from their own communities. Later there were charlas given by successful Peruvian women about vocational orientation, and the girls took a job interest inventory which we evaluated and returned to them on the last day. We ate a ton of food that day, so much so that we asked for less on the following days. Like I’ve explained before, our “snack” was a 4’x 5’ “causa,” basically a tuna salad sandwich with mashed potatoes instead of bread and double the mayo. We had oranges the next two days. In the evening, we did some yoga, and then watched a documentary called

This is all for June. I will be sure to update soon to let you all know how FBT went. Keep your fingers crossed for me!