Mini-FBT: First Peruvian Vacation

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, and stayed there from Saturday to Wednesday. We were able to chat with several PCVs stationed in Cañete and were also joined by some third-year volunteers who work in the main office in Lima. It was great to see what projects current volunteers are working on and, because their projects happen to be pretty successful, it was also motivating; however, the MOST amazing part of the trip was that we got to stay in a hotel with… HOT WATER!!! I took a hot shower every night and each night I never wanted to get out. It was glorious to say the least.

On our first full day, Sunday, a PCV named Dan showed us around his site and the projects he’s been working on. He’s from Peru 16 and he and his wife, Carrie, are wrapping up their service and getting ready to head home around the time my group, Peru 20, is heading out to site. Our day with Dan was crazy cold and sprinkly and we were scheduled to clean out a water tank at his site. I was all ready to get dirty until I realized we had to climb up to this skinny ledge in order to get into the tank. Everyone else was just standing on the ledge looking down like it was nothing but I couldn’t even get myself to the top rung of the ladder without shaking nervously or imagining myself slipping to my doom. Long story short, I was a baby on Sunday and never got in the tank and have zero pictures to prove how scary the ledge was. Lame.

Kristen, a solid member of the team and always ready for a snack

Day 2, Monday, was MUCH better. We met Will, a Cañete PCV from Peru 18 who’s about mid-way through his service. As WASH volunteers one of our objectives includes promoting better cookstoves or cocina mejoradas. Traditional cookstoves can use up a lot of wood, have a longer start-up time and allow CO₂/smoke/ash to build up inside houses. Cocina mejoradas use less wood, are much more efficient and have kick ass chimneys to allow smoke to safely exit the houses. We split into 4 groups each led by one of the current PCVs and spent all day constructing cookstoves out of adobe, bricks and lots of mud for 4 families of a small community on the edge of Cañete. We were elbow deep in mud and donkey poop. My cheeks got crazy burnt and, I still don’t understand how this happened, so did the inside of my elbows. Que extraño.

We worked on our cocinas from about 10am to 6 or 6:30pm. The only thing we couldn’t finish was the stove top because the concrete needed more time to set and dry but, at the end of the day, it was pretty cool to see that we had made something that could, if used properly, provide so much to someone else and their family. It was also nice to spend the day working alongside current PCVs and get a better sense of what service is going to be like. Three out of four of the PCVs we were working with are coming to the close of their service and probably look back on their experience with a stronger sense of nostalgia so their advice may have been slightly sugar-coated, but I’m down with that.

The Final Product

That night our volunteers began dropping like flies, some with food poisoning and some with the flu. By Tuesday we were a much smaller group but we went back to the houses to give a short charla (educational presentations that we’ll be giving throughout service) to each of the families about the daily usage and maintenance of their cocinas. My group presented to a sweet abuelita who was very receptive, understanding and patient with our Spanish skills.

Another hard-working member of the team

Later that day, we went to Carrie’s site to check out her projects. She is a MAC (environment) volunteer. Throughout her service she’s worked closely with her municipality to initiate a tree nursery, recycling program and a composting program. Along with a committee she put together, she has worked on encouraging people to donate their recycling instead of throwing it away or selling it themselves in exchange for the planting of trees in their communities or even at their houses. This reduces the amount of trash disposed by each household and the money collected from the recycling provides the support to sustain the tree nursery. One of our own MAC volunteers from Peru 20 will be stationed at Carrie’s site in just a few short weeks.

After Carrie shared her projects with us, Dan took us to another one of his projects at a local vineyard. He and the owner of the vineyard had constructed a biodigestor. I won’t go into all the details of how it works because I’d probably get some of them wrong and end up confusing you more but basically it acts as a stomach. They use manure (and maybe a mixture of other nutrients?) to feed the “stomach” and microorganisms break down the food just like worms in a composting system. Once the food is broken down the “stomach” provides nutrient rich soil to help fertilize the crops; however, the coolest part was that, like all stomachs, the biodigestor also provides gas, which can be used to supply fuel for the household. How awesome is that? Their was a pipe running from the biodegestor to another storage tank for the gas and then piped into the house to power their stoves. It was pretty cool.

Our private combi for the trip

Our final day was spent with Greg/Gregorio/Goyo, another WASH volunteer living nearby. We got to check out some crazy cool stuff around his site and a lot of it wasn’t even related to WASH. I feel like this last day was designed to keep us hooked and interested, as if our program directors were trying to say, “Hey, it’s not all hard work and pooping your pants!” Let me give you an idea of some of the crazy cool stuff we could be doing when we’re not facing the impending obstacles of the typical PCV:

-We could be discovering ancient Peruvian culture! Not too far from Goyo’s site is an archaeological site protected only by a faded sign at the bottom of the hill. As we climbed up the mountain we passed a few bones and a broken piece of pottery or two but that was nothing compared to what we found at the top. There were human skulls everywhere and some even still had hair on them! Ribs, femurs, skulls, spines and more. And we were just picking them up and taking pictures with them! I left the experience feeling very desensitized but also with lots of interesting pictures.

This skull still had hair on it!!!

Me and Taylor tired of bones

-We could be eating delicious and fresh goat cheese and yogurt! We went to a goat farm for lunch and had the wonderful pleasure of trying strawberry and peach flavored goat yogurt as well as fresh goat cheese. I don’t even like goats but these little goat kiddos were just the cutest things. We even ate bananas straight off this branch or vine or stalk, whatever you want to call it. It was a good time.

Our lunch was cooked on a cocina mejorada and a stove powered by a biodigestor

President Olga snacking on some platanos

-We could be kickin it on the beach! The goat farm was located right on the beach and it happened to be a beautiful day. Some people in our group had never taken a dip in the Pacific and were stoked to get the chance. I was just happy to feel at home, getting a feel for the same ocean I grew up next to all these years in a completely new place. It’s amazing how comforting that can be.

Coastal Llama

Sorry for the crazy long post but if you made it this far, thanks! All the comments and support, even from a distance, are always so encouraging.

Miss you much and love you lots.