March Madness

Queridos amigos!

Has it really been over a month since my last post? How super LAME of me?! My apologies. Last month was filled with one adventure after the next and, though all I know about basketball comes from Space Jam (a classic), a documentary by MCA of the Beastie Boys (which I fully recommend) and that one summer after third grade when I asked for a basketball hoop for my birthday (thank you parents for putting up with my flighty hobbies), I guess they don't call it March Madness for nothing!

The month started off with a one week training with all of WASH 20 back at the training center in Chaclacayo. It was amazing to see everyone for the first time since we left for our sites at the end of November. The biggest hugs were exchanged, beverages were had, updates were given and everyone was all smiles all week long. We stayed with our host families from training and hit up all our favorite spots like the "mexican" restaurant in Chosica, Gladys's tienda down the street from the center for all your snacking needs and Danilo's further down the street for some empanadas. It was awesome to be back in 3 de Octubre with my old host family; it really felt like I had come home for a little bit.

My present from the old host fam. It sings "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" in spanish. 

The main reason we went to the training center was to present our community diagnostics to the PC staff as well as each other. We also sat through quite a few presentations reminiscent of those long days of pre-service training way back when from the staff members themselves updating us on administrative things all made bearable by being spoiled with treats and coffee/tea breaks (truly the way to my heart). After our diagnostic presentations we headed south for Ica, a department of desert, where we stayed for the rest of the week.

In Ica we listened to presentations by other WASH volunteers, visited the current volunteer sites, learned about different chlorination treatments and installed a chlorination system in a reservoir, inspected cocinas and letrinas projects from previous volunteers and all that jazz. Aside from training business we found time to enjoy ourselves, too. We had kick ass street burgers, celebrated my friend Kristen's birthday, enjoyed a well-timed wine festival, I got my septum re-pierced (that's a whole other story which I'll explain below) and went sandboarding completely with a wild dune buggy ride! Unfortunately, I am LAME (once again) and barely took any photos. So, I've decided to steal some photos from the lovely Kristen Jackson because she's much better at capturing the moment than I will ever be and I will share them in my next post.

But I can share this lovely photo of KJ, herself, on her special day!

Training took up the first week and a half or so of March. I got back to site and barely had time to rest before heading back to Trujillo the following weekend for a youth camp. The camp was put on by El Cultural, a school in Trujillo that teaches English. Several other volunteers helped out at the camp and it was a pretty good time. The theme for the camp was Healthy Living so we chatted about healthy foods, hobbies and time-management. When I found out I was co-leading a session on healthy treats, I knew my fellow volunteers had found out what my strengths are. We made fruit kabobs, PB&J sandwiches and topped crackers off with nutella/peanut butter and bananas. The best part was watching the majority of the kids experience nutella and peanut butter for the first time ever! A delicious treat indeed. Outside of leading activities with the kids, it was super nice getting to know more of the volunteers from La Libertad and sharing wacky times like this one...

The mini-van of witch brooms.

At the end of the month I took my first real vacation for Semana Santa (basically Holy Week, the first few days leading up to Easter Sunday). In Peru, the place to be for these days is Ayacucho, a department in the southern part of the Andes, so I headed down with Kristen to meet up with about 40 other PCVs for my first trip to the sierra. The ride down was ridiculous. We took an all-day bus and ran into some road construction that had me super nervous we were going to miss our all-night bus immediately after. It was stressful but we made it to Ayacucho and were greeted by a handful of our friends at the hotel (which was probably 80% full of PCVs) the next morning.

Everything was so green and the views were beautiful! I love living on the coast because it reminds me of home but when I look around outside my house I am surrounded by mountains of dirt. Ayacucho is gorgeous and green and the way the sun hits those hills is crazy amazing. We spent the weekend drinking milkshakes and eating all the delicious foods we can't find in site and then paying for it later (troubled tums).

Isn't it gorgeous?

The obelisk in Quinua

The war memorial on the other side

The whole weekend was filled with their annual festivities and processions. The day before Easter was the wildest day of the trip and it began with running with the bulls. Yup, you heard me. We ran with the bulls. I mean, I guess I mostly ran away from the bulls by pressing myself up against the buildings along the street and trying not to get trampled by the rest of the crowd but those are just minor details. It was insane! They let one bull out at a time and each time people would be waiting right in its path. When the bull was actually released it was chaos, of course. Every time I had a chance to get a good photo I was either knocked into by a freaked out bystander or was so scared I just ended up staring at it and forgetting to push the button. It was a memorable experience, to say the least.

Waiting for the bulls!

The Peru 20 kids

Waiting for their release...

If you look closely you can see the hind legs of the bull but I was almost knocked over before I had a chance to get a good shot.

Afterward we headed to the Plaza de Armas, which was packed with people (my worst nightmare). People were being tossed high up into the air and forming human pyramids but not the kind of pyramids you're thinking of. These weren't cheerleader pyramids you see at a football game. They were pyramids formed by three levels of people standing on each others' shoulders. When the final person made it to the third level the crowd shouted, "Polo! Polo! Polo!", basically demanding the person to take off their shirt and wave it around in the air like a flag. When the person, usually a young lady, didn't take off her shirt the crowd threw cans and bottles at her. Que terrible...

Human Pyramids in the Plaza de Armas

I'm in there somewhere waiting to catch Kristen as she flies into the air

In all the commotion I was almost trampled over by a horse. As a short girl who doesn't like crowds or being jostled by strangers, I was too distracted to really even notice the horse. My hand got caught in its reins and the confused horse basically nuzzled my head until I was quickly pulled away by my freaked out friends. I didn't even realize what had happened until everyone started asking me if I was okay but it was just a little horse nuzzle.

Later that day, we hiked a giant hill of stairs to the top of this mountain where you could see the entire city. There were tents of people cooking and selling pachamanca, vegetables and meats cooked basically in the ground by an oven made of crazy hot rocks. My stomach had been feeling a little wonky that day and I had an apple in my bag (cuz family vacations have taught me to always be prepared with snacks, Marlee and Daddy, you know what I'm talking about...) so I just asked for a sweet potato. Big mistake. Everyone else, despite their mutual stomach issues, ordered heaping plates of pachamanca and I got one sweet potato. It was absolutely delicious and exactly what I needed but I didn't hear the end of it for the rest of the weekend. Anytime we went out to eat it was, "Oh, Jamie, did you want a sweet potato with that?" Oh well, haha.

View of the city

On Saturday night everyone stays up until 5 am Sunday morning to watch the procession of the risen Jesus. While you wait until those early morning hours there is a HUGE and super dangerous display of fireworks. They had built towers of firework displays that surrounded the plaza. The design of each tower was engineered amazingly, in theory, but each one had its own malfunctions. The majority of the time the towers had a piece on top which was meant to spin off of the tower, way out into the air, and eventually disintegrate into an aerial display; however, more often than not, that's not the way it played out. One piece spun off onto the roof of the church, another hit a building and landed into the crowd below and one flew into the neighboring tower right next to me and ignited it. I found myself standing between two GIANT flaming towers with sparks shooting everywhere! People were going crazzzyyy! We all ran in different directions. Vivaan, was laughing and shouting, "This is incredible!!", I hid under Nathan's jacket, Kristen was nowhere to be found (turns out she had booked it to the other side of the plaza), Eben had his camera on a tripod and was taking photos (which turned out amazing) and a man, who I can only assume had taken some part in the construction of these death traps, climbed up the tower and put out the fuse with his BARE HANDS! It was insane. And, as mentioned before, I'll be stealing some photos friends and posting them soon so you can verify the madness.

By the time we got back to the hotel, the sun was already rising. The final day of the trip was a lazy one but, true to American tradition, we went to a nice restaurant in the plaza and had Easter brunch. We spent the rest of the day buying souvenirs and postcards and then just lounged around until it was time to say goodbye once again. The rain had held off for the majority of the weekend but that last day it poured. I think the weather was mimicking my feelings. I absolutely hate saying goodbye and, true to form, Weepy McWeeperson was at it again as I waved to my friends while their taxis drove away.

Easter Sunday

Luckily, I know I've got about 20 months left of service and more than one handful of adventures to be had. Maybe I'll even be lucky enough to visit Ayacucho again someday. For now, I'm back in site and looking to keep myself busy. I've got an environmental awareness project in the works that involves a trash pick-up of  the park down the street and some mural painting as well as some more crafting with the kidlets. So I'll be keeping ya'll updated, of course.

Missin' yous.