PERÚ it may concern

November 23, the day after Thanksgiving, Perú 20 was sworn into the Peace Corps at the Ambassador’s house in Lima. I have officially been a volunteer for a week now and I suppose it’s about time I update ya’ll on what it feels like. The final week of training was jam-packed with language interviews, final classes, Thanksgiving feasting, talent show prep and too many goodbyes. Everything was a blur of emotions and I can’t even remember exactly how it all happened but here it goes… I got back from my site visit at 6:30am on Sunday morning and we went straight to the main office in Lima. Plans for the final week got switched up a bit and we ended up staying at a retreat center all together until our swearing-in ceremony just like we had started our first weekend in Perú. It was like a week-long slumber party. Kind of a crazy switch up but in the end I was so happy to spend the final week even closer together, who knows if everyone else would say the same about me, haha. On ...

Hey ya'll, As I'll be moving to site for good in a week's time I now have a new address. Getting packages/cards/candy has been sooooo wonderful and it weren't so expensive for my volunteer budget I'd be sending ya'll some snail mail lovin, too! So here's the new address: Jamie Perez Casilla Postal 779 Serpost Trujillo Peru KIT [keep in touch]

The past week and a half has been pretty crazy. Last Tuesday, the 6th I believe, we left for our second field-based training, FBT. We took a 10-hour night bus from Lima to Trujillo which was actually quite comfortable. Everyone was all jittery about the election but luckily one of the other volunteers who was still in Chaclacayo made sure to call us when the results were in and we were able to rest assured that our country was in good hands. Once we arrived in Trujillo we sped off to have breakfast with La Libertad´s regional coordinator and volunteer leader. We separated into two groups of seven, sierra and coastal, depending on where our sites are located and we rushed into separate buses. Though I knew I was only saying goodbye for a two-day trip, I´ll admit I got a little teary-eyed and now I have no clue how I´m going to keep it together after we´re sworn in and get shipped off for to start our two years of service. I was part of the coastal group for FBT and we spent the next t...

Making our way through fall, real quick, and getting closer and closer to winter means we’re getting  into the thick of the holiday season. Luckily, on this side of the equator we’re actually making our way through spring and getting closer and closer to SUMMER. Since arriving in Perú I haven’t thought too much about how different my holidays would be but at least while we’re in training my fellow aspirantes are keeping up with traditions as usual. The last week was filled with not only Halloween prep and activities but also the celebration of El Día de la Canción Criolla which falls on the same day. Halloween celebrations started last Saturday with a costume party at a discoteca in Chosica where the Halloween committee had pulled some strings to get us all in without having to pay a cover charge. On a S/. 8 per day kinda budget (roughly $3.25) anything you can get for free is incentive enough. Probably about 30-40 people from our group showed up at some point that night...

Last week we found out which departments we would be living in. If Perú was the United States, departments would be like the states, provinces would be like the counties and districts would be like the cities. I will be living in one of the northern departments of Perú called La Libertad. A land of liberty and eternal springtime, or so I´m told. ALSO, apparently in one of the sites there is an annual pineapple festival!! How refreshing does that sound?!  A map I made weeks ago for a presentation in my Spanish class, little did I know how forshadowing it would be.         We aren´t supposed to find out which district we´ll be living in until this Thursday, but the truth is that most of the program directors already know where they plan on locating their volunteers and have been dropping weird hints to each of us. The other day I was chatting with my director and I guess he could tell that I was so distracted by my own curiosity that  he ended up ju...

It’s hard to believe that Week 5 of training is already coming to a close. We’re halfway through training and halfway to swearing-in and being released into the wild. YIKES. Mid-way through Week 4 I found myself with a case of what I would guess to be food poisoning, but who really knows. I’ve still got a ways to go before I become fully accustomed to everything I’m eating so I’m just hoping to get longer than a week before my next sick day. Unfortunately, my last sick day landed on the day I was scheduled to have my language interview. I could have rescheduled but I decided to just get it over with. I know I could have done better but the good news is I advanced to the next level (intermedio-bajo) and have only one more level to go to get to the required intermedio-medio! Poco a poco, as they say… After a couple days of recovering, the WASH program left for a short Field Based Training trip or Mini-FBT. We traveled to the coastal province of Cañete, about 3 hours south of Lima, an...