PERÚ it may concern

As I mentioned before, in May I became a member of the Peer Support Network. As the PSN representative for my department, La Libertad, I'm here to call the volunteers in our department and to be available to answer calls from anyone struggling with their service or even wanting to share something awesome that happened. I'm here for chats. Every month we send out a e-magazine article written by current volunteers that touch on topics any volunteer could relate to. Last month, I got the opportunity to write my own and I decided to talk about saying goodbye, something that is CRAZY hard for me. So here's the article: Before starting my service I thought the hardest part would be actually saying goodbye and leaving home. Of course I would run into obstacles throughout my service itself but that would happen on the day-to-day no matter what country I was in. The thing is I hate goodbyes, they’re the worst, and everyone knows (really, they do) that I’m a weepy gal with tear d...

I know, it's August. Why am I writing about Mother's Day in August? Mostly because I am too lazy to tackle the crazy Perez Family Reunion in Peru post but also because I have some cute photos from this past Mother's Day and I wanted to share them with you. Amanda and I bought flowers for our host moms and they loved them. Here's Mari showing off her bouquet. Jorge, Trini and Juanita posing with mom My lovely host parents Mari and Julio Just some pictures to hold you over until I tackle the next post and update you on my crazy month of June 2013. Missing ya'll!

So. It's been a while... and a lot has happened. So I'm going to start catching you all up slowly but surely starting with MAY. Yup that was three months ago but I think you'll enjoy these photos from my  in-service training (IST) with WASH 20 in Chachapoyas, Amazonas. Beforehand, we met up in Chiclayo, Lambayeque each with a work counterpart to teach them more about Peace Corps and working with Peace Corps Volunteers. From there we took an overnight bus to Chachapoyas to visit the sites of our sierra friends and help them with their projects. We got off the bus around 6 am, hopped on a combi to Olga's site Lamud, a cute sierra town, and were put to work on fixing up a rural water system. Reservoir Times Our attitude: The quicker we get to work, the quicker we can finish up and move onto nap time My group worked on adding a cleanout line to an existing line that was feeding a house down the hill Check out that handy work! Proud of our work but mo...