24 Hours in Site

Hello again, Everyone!

I have now officially been at my site for a little over twenty-four hours and it has made me nothing short of ecstatic to spent the next two years here.  My host family is incredible and the people that I have been given as my Socios (i.e. counterparts) seem to be great thus far. 

I arrived to my house yesterday at about 4 or 5 pm.  My town is a 15 minute taxi ride from our Regional Capital city of Chiclayo which is perfect because often times those can be the only places where you can buy the things you will need (i.e. a bed, groceries, etc).  To give you a bit of an update, I actually ended up with a completely different family from that I had described in the previous post.  Good thing I said that that information was subject to change.  Turns out the previous family had only wanted a girl volunteer (suckers), so now I am with a new family. 

My family now has a mom, dad, sister, brother, and a live-in sister/housekeeper who used to live in the Sierra (mountainous region), but has been living with my family for quite a few years in exchange for education and housing (or so I understand the situation to be at the moment).  Within the first 5 minutes of being with my family, my mom already called me her new son, told me that we have complete "confianza" (a word that I understand to mean as trust/peruvian confidence), and showed me their absolutely incredible house.  The contrast of housing here is pretty remarkable.  One volunteer nearby just received electricity in her site about a week ago for the first time.  She was able to turn on a light switch for the first time in a year in her room and was exhuberant about the whole thing (understandable, of course).  I, on the other hand, have a house that is MTV Cribs worthy, especially for Peru.  The front of the house is adorned with these metallic purple gates and the inside is all white tile floors and littered with flowers and other nice arrangements.  My room has its own bathroom that rivals damn near every bathroom I have had the pleasure of using in the states and there is even a hot water shower and water that runs 24 hours a day.  Additionally, there is satellite TV and wireless internet at my disposal.  All of which, I am getting at an absolute bargain. 

My mom is a PR person for the Ministry of Health in Ferreñafe and the sister-in-law for the newly coming mayor of Ferreñafe (score!).  Her uncle is also the outgoing mayor for a nearby town called Pueblo Nuevo, and he was quite a friendly person to meet this morning.  I left his office with his number in my phone and an odd excited-dog like Peruvian hug (the kind where two arms go up in the air and crash down over you).  I also met with some directors of various schools, the head of the police in Ferreñafe, and many other people from the municipality who spoke lots of words to me.  "Mucho Gusto" is a fine way to get by with not saying much ... too bad it won't work for the rest of the times I will have to converse with them. 

There is also apparently a Japanese equivalent to the Peace Corps, so I was able to meet with the girl who has been here for a year and has been working on community development issues in and around Ferreñafe.  If you want to experience a very mind-tickling thing, try conversing with a native Japanese speaker in a language you both butcher equally.  Also, the Japanese inflections make for a very interesting dialect ... and I am now more accutely aware of how odd I potentially sound. 

One interesting thing about Peruvian culture (or perhaps, just the particular jokester I spent my morning with) is that everyone likes to ask if I have a girlfriend back home or something about a girlfriend out here.  I said that I was indeed without one at the moment (and try to explain that many women in the states are not to fond of the idea of having their significant other gone for 27 months), so my one Socio, Victor, made it his secondary duty (sometimes putting it ahead of actually explaining who I was, why I was there, and what I was there to do) to inform every female from the age of 18-60ish that I was 'soltero' (a single guy) and that they have two years to woo a relationship and trip to the states out of me.  I expect a grand amount of courting once I return in two weeks now, haha.  It was all in jest, but he was having one hell of a time of the whole show and I will admit it did allow for some comic relief throughout my intense staring and trying to understand the various conversations that were being had about me. 

Oh, and one other random thing that came up is that apparently my new host mom and I share the exact same birthday.  Random, right?

Chau for now,

Bob

Site Assignments - i.e. ¨Life is Calling, how far will you go ... to tweet¨

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the delay in writing (again).  By the time I get home from training most days, I have other things to do or simply can´t decide on what exactly to write about.  Last week we found out our site assignments and I will be spending the next two years in a town called Ferreñafe, which is located in the department of Lambayeque.  My next host family consists of 4 other people:

1. Dad - roughly 60ish years old, agrocultural engineer.
2. Mom - also roughly 60ish years old, clothing designer/worker
3. Brother - 35 years old, Biologist for a local non-profit (or so my paperwork says)
4. Sister - 23 years old, graphic designer. 

I will be one of two volunteers from the Peru 16´s MAC group that will be living in a ´small city´.  What that means is that whereas other volunteers will have approximately 300-1000 people in their villages, I will be living in a town of just under 32,000.  I will be working at a headquarters for SERNANP which is like the protected areas and environmental agency for Peru´s govenment.  I will be working alongside one of the bosses for the Bosque de Pomac which is a dry forest nearby my site.  (I apologize if I come back in ten days and change all this info, but as of right now I think I have the majority of that correct).  The good news is that I will be in an area with all the amenities and my boss for PC mentioned something about me using facebook and twitter to help SERNANP do outreach and whatnot.  I have very little idea what exactly I will be doing, but I´m hoping they aren´t counting on my superb spanish skills to do any sort of PR stuff - ¨queso taco arboles, apartamento salsa siempre¨ tweets SERNANP. 

This past weekend the environment group went to visit a place called Marcahuasi, which is just over 12,000 feet above sea level.  The views were gorgeous and the town we visited beforehand - San Pedro de Casta - was equally enjoyable.  Another trainee and myself taught a lesson about trees to some very receptive 3rd graders who were, in my opinion, more content to stare at my orange-haired face than learn anything about trees, lol.  Again, I have pictures, but the computer I am using is too slow to upload them.  300 or more to come once I get a good internet connection. 

I leave in just under an hour to go to Lima´s bus station where we will catch a roughly 12 hour bus ride to the capital of Lambayeque - Chiclayo.  We will be spending tomorrow night in a zoo, followed by another night in the Bosque de Pomac.  I´m very excited to see where I will be living for the next few years and meet my next host family. 

Well, there is a very impatient four year old who is rather tired of watching her pet gringo write in an alien language, so I must be going.  Love and miss you all.

Love,

Bobby

PS - thanks to all those who wrote me an e-mail in these past few weeks.  Always nice to hear from friends and family back home.