Rush To The Finish Line

After wrapping up my Peace Corps service on November 4th, I spent a week and a half traveling around Perú with my cousin, Gabriel, saying farewell to this beautiful country I called home for the last two years. The past two weeks have been spent soaking in my return to the States and enjoying some much needed family time as the holiday season begins. But before I detail the adventures of Jamie and Gabriel and my long awaited arrival home, there are some larger details I haven't had the time to share from my last month in site. So it's time to play a little catch-up.

My last few weeks in site were pretty wild. It was a whirlwind of finishing up last minute projects, helping with trainings, packing the past two years into three small bags and saying goodbye to my friends and family who helped me through this experience. Time flew by in that last month, as time tends to slip away when you need it the most, and I was nervous I wouldn't be able to get it all done. Luckily, I had more than enough support from neighboring PCVs, my work counterparts, host family and even my cousin to finish up and make it to Lima for my med checks and COS (close of service) in one piece!

In an act of classic procrastination I left two project uncompleted until the very last minute. Both projects were to be done in a small primary school in Casa Blanca where I had been working since my arrival to site (as shown here, here and here). The first project was the setting up of two biosand filters to treat the kids' drinking water and the second was a mural. Yes, I had slowly been collecting materials and coordinating with the school's director, Paula, but the bulk of the work had yet to begin. By the time October rolled around I realized it was now or never and decided to start with the biosand filters.

A biosand filter is a water filtration system that incorporated a biological element. Untreated water is not only filtered by passing through levels of different sizes of sand and rock but pathogens in the contaminated water are also eaten by the micro-organisms in the biolayer that grows over the top level of sand. We had learned about them in training and completing my own had since been a daunting goal on my Peace Corps Bucket List. The school in Casa Blanca is without running water and relies on a small well for drinking water and the rest of their water needs (cooking, handwashing, toilet flushing, etc.) and drank it without any sort of treatment. So I went to the municipality and was able to get enough funds to put together two household biosand filters.

The process of putting together a biosand filter is, frankly, ridiculous. First you gather rocks and pebbles of various sizes and a bunch of sand. And then you wash it. Now maybe you're thinking, washing a bunch of rocks and some buckets of sand doesn't sound so bad. How hard could it be? It's HARD. Let me remind you that the entire town of Casa Blanca does not have running water and everyone depends on their own personal wells for their daily needs. On top of that the irrigation canals were completely dry and, to my unfortunate surprise, the well in the actual school was almost dry. Whenever we needed water the kids ran around the neighborhood asking door-to-door if they could "borrow" some water from other people's wells. They ran back and forth from neighbors' homes to the school carrying empty paint cans of water. But that's not even the ridiculous part.

Collecting rocks and pebbles

Washing rocks and pebbles

Little Fernando waiting for the rest of the kids to come back with buckets of water for washing

Have you ever washed sand? Even with a never-ending supply of water it's a task I don't ever want to be responsible for again. You throw just a couple handfuls at a time in a bowl, pour some water over it and swirl it around. Then you let it settle and pour the water out. You repeat this process until the water looks clean once the sand settles. This process took days and it was rough. Thankfully, the kids enjoyed it and even fought over who's turn it was to wash the sand.

Washing sand

Washing more sand

My host dad had helped me prep the buckets. I cut pieces of 1/2" PVC pipe and connected them to form the shape of a "Z" with the bottom piece of pipe sitting on the bottom of the bucket and the top piece sticking out of a hole my host dad and I had cut at the top of the bucket to act as a sort of faucet.

We used a knife heated up on the stove to cut the holes

Once the rocks, pebbles and sand were all finally washed we layered them biggest to smallest into 2 twenty liter buckets. The idea is that the untreated water passes through each of the layers (biolayer, sand, pebbles, rock) as it moves down to the bottom of the bucket. The biolayer eats the pathogens and the other layers filter out suspended solids (aka dirt) in the water. I drilled holes into the pipe piece at the bottom of the pipe for the water to enter in and get pushed out of the connecting pipe that acts like a faucet. This is all due to pressure from the water level at the top of the bucket, gravity and fluid mechanics I haven't got into since junior year of college. So we'll leave it at that.

Adding in the layers of washed rocks and pebbles

The beginning of the sand layer

Though I didn't have enough time to completely finish both of the biosand filters, we washed enough sand to finish one and fill the second bucket with about half of the sand layer. I trained the director on how to properly use and maintain the filters and made the kids promise to keep washing the sand and finish the second one after I left. It was a long and tedious process but those kids know how to make even the most mundane tasks an adventure.

Not the prettiest of filters but it'll work

 Lucky for my students, our last project together was much more fun than washing sand. Remember way back when I decided I was going to paint a mural? I had raised funds from two movie events held for Earth Day and Environmental Day and was going to have an environmental theme. Click here for a refresher on the details. Well, over a year passed and I still had not put these funds to use. I had been coordinating with different groups and people in the municipality who seemed interested but our ideas and plans always ended up falling through. Thankfully, the director of Casa Blanca is down for all creative activities and her students love any excuse to get out of class.

I enlisted the rest of the Pacas Crew (the group of volunteers who live in my area and keep me sane) and with their help and support the seemingly impossible task of painting a last-minute mural became fun and simple. I also sought out the advice of one of my favorite RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer), Dee Dee, who also found herself painting a mural her last week in site the previous year. She sent me a beautiful and easy idea for a mural of a tree using handprints for the leaves. It was perfect!

Tim hard at work painting the trunk of the tree

Prepping the first few handprints

Scotney manning the hand washing station like a boss

Natalie and the always adorable Fernando

As beautiful as the tree turned out, I couldn't leave it as is with no phrase or positive message to go with it. Natalie, an environment volunteer, happened to be wearing a shirt from her summer school classes with the motto "Salva la tierra, la solución está en ti" (Save the Earth, the solution is in you) written on it. She and Scotney quickly edited it to say "Salva la tierra, la solución está en tus manos" (Save the Earth, the solution is in your hands) to better serve our tree and its handprint leaves and it was perfect! After a year and a half of procrastinating, completing this project with these amazing students and the support of some of my favorite PCVs will forever stand out as one of my proudest moments in Peace Corps.

Salva La Tierra; La solución está en tus manos!

La Libertad Ladies

In addition to these two last minute projects, I was given the opportunity to help out with (or chaperone is how I like to think of it) the field-based training, or FBT, for the incoming WASH volunteers of Perú 24. Volunteer support has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my service so of course I was thrilled to help out. We visited projects of other WASH volunteers from my group, Perú 20, and celebrated Global Handwashing Day. As the trainees learned about cleaning reservoirs and eco-latrines and asked questions about the ups and downs of daily life in site, I reminisced with my fellow WASH 20ers in the background. Just two years ago we were visiting the sites of WASH 16ers and 18ers on our FBT asking the same questions nervous and excited at the same time.

Getting pumped for Global Handwashing Day in Virú, the lovely site of Ms. Kristen Jackson

We hiked up to the ruins of a castillo overlooking Virú

Learning about water system cleanings and chlorination in Poroto with Read

Interviewing the system's operator

These lucky trainees got to get inside the tank and clean it out with brooms and buckets of chlorinated water

This device basically acts as a giant chlorine-filled tea bag which steeps in the tank and treats the water for the town

It was a packed week of closely scheduled training sessions and making new friends, a huge change from my extremely chill daily routine in Guadalupe in which I am my own boss and set my own schedule but I felt that my knowledge and experiences as a second-year volunteer were useful to these new trainees and that made me feel good. It also helped that WASH 24 has some kick ass and awesome volunteers so there was never a dull moment. Just last Friday, their group finished up Pre-Service Training and were all officially sworn in as PCVs and this week are settling into the sites which will be their homes for the next two years. Felicitaciones, WASH 24! I know you're gonna kill it!

At the end of the WASH 24 FBT, I headed to a recreation center in Trujillo where we were holding our girls' youth camp. I arrived a day late and was not able to take any girls from Guadalupe with me, but the girls that were there had an amazing time. They performed skits about positive Peruvian females who fought for equality and against social injustice, visited and toured universities in Trujillo, learned about sexual health, future planning and making positive choices and met girls from all over the La Libertad region.

Thank you to all who supported us and helped make this camp possible by donating and spreading the word. It was a huge success and I was happy to be a part of one last camp before closing my service. It was just another reminder of how much the people from back home motivate us through these two years even from so far away. Thank you for all that you do!

"Camina como un bebé!"

Early morning stretches

Early morning relays

Peruanas Poderosas Skits

Kick boxing with Scotney

Romina, a camper from last year and member of my winning Team Amarillo (woot woot!) came back this year as a jr. counselor to help support the girls. She was awesome and a great help!

Happy Campers

 Because I was late to the camp, I acted as back-up support or an extra set of hands whenever needed instead of a team leader. This allowed me to attend other leaders' sessions and see my friends and fellow volunteers in action. La Libertad is made up of some amazing, hard-working PCVs and maybe it's just typical sentimental me or this period of closure surrounding me but I was and am so proud of all of them. So for any of you La Libbers who actually read this, I love you//miss you and am very proud of you. Hugs on hugs and lots of knee pats.

Leaders getting loco, the usual

 More to come on my last week in site, saying goodbye and the grand adventures of Jamie and Gabriel soon! So stay tuned, ya'll!