Still Alive

So its been a while since my last blog, I apologize, and start this blog by declaring that I am still alive and running. I try to keep busy in my site because I have decided a busy volunteer is a happy volunteer. It gets hard and lonely when theres nothign to do and it rains ALL day. It rains all day everyday and they say rainy season hasn't even started. That really scares me. So many of you might be wondering what am I doing? Or what is life like? Well, I can't give you an average day because everyday is different, but my main activities in town include:

1) working with 2 artisan groups forming better products and pricing strategies, along with accounting and what-have-you,

2) starting up a microempresa (small sole-propriorship) with an apple group who makes the most amazing apple jelly, apple wine, apple vinagre, etc.,

3) teaching English twice a week to 5th grade students, and

4) teaching business in an post-high school 'college-like' institute.

5) Repainting a world map that old Peace Corps volunteers made in site

6) Getting to know all the people in my site, hanging out and learning about the Peruvian culture, oh and speaking lots of spanish!

Work is going pretty good. I recently went to Lima (the capital of Peru, about 20 hrs away) with my artisan to try to sell products in a fair:

Unfortunatly sales weren't very high, but we learned about the products and what products sell (cotten baby clothes for example) and what products don't (nylon). So they are now motivated to work with cotten and alpaca which is where the market is, baby steps. Here is a foto of the apple group I work with,Yummy!!! Heres a coupld more pics of my site as well:

The little kidlings in school, although school is nearly always canceled....

Repainting the world map that Peace Corps volunteers Michael and Alison made, they are my awesome sitemates that leave next week, and I am going to miss them dearly in Contumaza. They are leaving me solo......
Heres my town plaza:

Town bull fight, and yes they do actually kill the bulls infront of us. I don't knwo what is crazier, that or the drunks jumping in the ring to show thier 'manlihood': The views driving up to my site:


Here is Cajamarca city, the capital city I getaway to once a month for some sanity and internet, its about 6 hours away from my site:

And here is my best friend and second half, Leanna:

The support network in Peace Corps is amazing, or atleast between the volunteers. It does get lonely, and if it weren't for my friends here I could never do it. I miss friends and family so much, and think about you all everyday. Happy Thanksgiving, you should hear from me again around Christmas time. Much love.

Kelly

This is my life!

Contumaza, Peru:

So this is where I live!!!!! woot woot! isnt it amazing?! I am such a spoiled peace corps volunteer...I have everything: cell phone service, somewhat paved roads, 9,000ppl, a discoteca, real toleits that sometimes flush, and even hot water! is this the peace corps? Anyway, my counterpart's family is amazing, here is a pic of them:Oh, and did I mention, the sunsets are alright:

Life is good. Really Good.

SITE!

MY SITE IS AWESOME! So, for the next two years I will be living in the Andes mountains of Cajamarca in a small town called Contumaza. It is located very close to where I did my FBT training (see map below.) The town has 9,000 people in the city and 8,000 more in the surrouding mountain houses. I am working with a few different organizations including 2 artisan groups, a milk product asociation, the municipality and an apple growing organization. In addition, I am replacing an environment volunteer who is helping create 'cocinas mejoradas' around the town (a gas-free stove cooking solution). My counterpart is absolutly incredible and has takin me in as apart of her family. She will be working with me through everything and is very excited! I couldn't be happier with my site, and I am finally ready for my new life to begin. There are two volunteers at my site right now, both leaving in November of this year. Both volunteers are awesome, and I feel they will be a great help to me in aclimating to this new way of life. I have cell phone coverage, and extremely slow internet at site, so I will be able to keep in touch..for the most part. I am a fortunate volunteer, I even have a toliet!! Many are very jealous. I can't wait to tell you more about what it is like! This Friday we officially become Peace Corps Volunteers! Can't believe how fast this time has flown by. Saturday I am off to Contumaza! (23 hours of traveling from Lima...) Oh, did I mention that I am in the middle of nowhere?! Oh yes, its about 5-6hrs from the Capital City of the Dept. of Cajamarca and about 3-4 hrs from the closest volunteer aside from those at my site who are leaving soon! Talk about independence. Anyways, I will show pics when I can! Love you all and I will try to post pics when I can!

FBT: Field Base Training

Field Base Training (FBT) was one week in the Andes Mountains in northern Peru in a department called Cajamarca. We travelled 23 hours to get there! Above, the red arrow is where I have been training for the past 2 months, and the yellow arrow is where we went for FBT. Basically, FBT gives us trainees an idea of what life is like serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was a challenging week, but by far the most exciting week yet! We stayed in a beautiful town of about 17,000 ppl, where a current Peace Corps Volunteer resides. Here is a pic of San Miguel, Cajamarca:

I LOVE THIS TOWN! Believe it or not, me and two of my other classmates taught business to 24 college students! Each day of the 3 class days, we taught for 6 hours in Spanish the themes of:
-Entrepreneurship/ What is an Entrepreneur?
-Feasibility
-Market Analysis
-Finance
-Accounting
-Marketing
My amazing co-professors and I in being silly in San Miguel, and here I am teaching class:

The fourth day, we had the students actually apply what they learned and start a small business. We split our class into four groups of 6 students each, and gave them each a loan of up to $30 in which they had a day to pursue their business and repay the loan to us with 2% interest. I remember doubting one group who wanted to do a free movie showing in which they would sell their products. I thought it was a great idea, but their break-even point of sales was over 300 popcorn/tomales/and juices! I was sure they were absurd to think this could be reached on a Wednesday night, but sure enough:

300 ppl showed up to watch Titanic and our business group easily surpassed their break-even point, and ended the night with huge profits! It blew my mind, watching the movie was the biggest high I have felt since I have joined the Peace Corps. It was so rewarding! I hope that these kids can continue to apply their abilities and make this a sustainable business. 17,000 ppl in a town with no movie theatre and 6 months of rainy season = great market! I am so proud of them! We also had 2 teams make typical Peruvian dishes (of course including Ginnea Pig!) and 1 team make Popsicles, which we were lucky enough to spend a couple hours with them actually making the popsicles from scratch!

In San Miguel, there were 3 teams of 3 peace corps trainees/professors teaching 25 students. In total there were 13 small businesses who were all able to pay back their loan, and on top of that, made earnings totalling 750 Soles (about $250, which is so much money here!) At the end each student received a certificate which stated that they were trained in business by American Gov’t –or of some sorts J Here is my fellow professors, Salvador, James and I with our class:

Yay we survived FBT and it was a success!

The last night in San Miguel, our students threw us a dancing party! We had a campfire and danced all night! Sure am gonna miss those kids…

Unfortnaltly my biggest high was shortly followed by my biggest low—I finally got sick. Friday morning I woke up vomiting and #2-ing like crazy…the worst part was we had 6 hours of mountain bus travelling! At one point I even told a taxi driver to pull over and got out of the car to vomit in front of everyone! In a different bus I was used as a baby diaper changing table for the Peruvian mother next to me. I soon explained to the woman that if she didn’t get her child off my lap I would probably vomit on it. When this lady finally got off the bus, another woman walked one with a baby pig in a plastic bag! I just wanted the day to end.

Fortunatly, sickness is only temporary. By the end of the day in hell, I was starting to feel better. We met up with the other 9 business volunteers in Trujillo (refer to map above) and got to spend a day and a half relaxing at the beach! The boys went surfing, while the 4 of us girls watched and chilled out. It was a great way to finish the trip.

Peruvian kayaks:
(This will probably be the closest I get to white-water playboating!)

Training Classes

So training classes aren’t exactly like your typical college class. Our classes are pretty entertaining. We do a lot of hands-on type learning, especially when it comes to culture:















And in-class cooking lessons! Here is a delicious typical dish of Peru which we cooked called Ahi de gallina:














We even have presentations on different departments of Peru to learn different customs and traditions. Here I am wearing the traditional clothing of the dept. Ancash:



















Quite flattering don’t ya think? I am looking forward to rocking this at site. Below, we are acting out a tradition in Northern Peru where people dance around a tree and each person hits stump with an axe and when the tree falls, the person who hit it last becomes the patron of next years fiesta! Because the patron must pay and plan for the entire festival the following year, each person barely taps the tree with the axe! Don’t worry though, us Peace Corps wouldn’t actually act it out and kill a tree:














Something that I just had to add to my blog because its just too funny…Peace Corps reviews a lot of HIV/AIDS and STD education, and with that proper CONDOM USAGE! To ensure we are retaining the information, we had a mandatory relay race in which we split into 3 teams and each person ran down, put a condom on a dildo (for lack of a better word), took it off, tied it, and ran back. Unfortunately, our team lost the relay race, but the experience was just unforgettable:














Sometimes we go on fieldtrips! Just the other day we went to Lima to check out an artisan fair, where 3 volunteers came from all over Peru with their artisan groups which they work with at site. The artisans here make the most incredible goods:















Some school days are even followed by guitar classes from fellow PC trainees. They are teaching all 10 or so of us inspired Peace Corps Trainees guitar basics so that during the downtime of our 2 year service we can become pretty badass guitar players. Here’s a little insight into guitar lessons with Sal and James:














So as you can see, life is good over here. I will try to post tomorrow about the incredible Field Base Training which I just got back from. It is late now though, I am going to sleep in my beautiful bed (imagine me sleeping):

Fun Times and Good pics

Fun times before FBT
Callahuanca
So I have realized I haven’t posted many pics, and have just been writing too much. Don’t you kids worry, cuz this is about to change. So I mentioned before I took a field trip to Callahuanca to see a trout farm, and see how business works in mountain areas. It was amazing, and heres some pics to show for it! And a group shot:

This makes me want to be live in the mountains so badly! I can’t wait to learn where my site is! Also, here’s a trout farm we learned about:

Also, there are incredible Incan ruins and carvings at this site. The rock formations were stunning, and you can also see how big my heart is.

Take a look at the rock formations! Can you see a dog?

So this town was incredible, I am excited for site!

Lima
I mentioned that I am about an hour and a half from Lima, (really no more than 30min in taxi w/o traffic, but that’s just unrealistic and expensive). So, you are probably thinking what is Lima like? Its big, bad, beautiful and crazy:

So, these are the nicest pictures of Lima. The city itself is pretty dangerous. The higher touristy areas are defiantly safer, but theft is a problem, and one must always be aware of their surroundings. As I may have mentioned before, right outside of Lima, almost every Saturday, we attend an agriculture institute where we are learning how to farm and grow sustainable agriculture. Here are some pics from this learning adventure:

Maybe they just want us to do their dirty work. Just kidding, its been a lot of fun.

Training and home:

My host family loves me dearly, and I love them too J I know I’ve mentioned they are overprotective, but that’s just how it is here. I believe I mentioned before I made my family pancakes one day which is defiantly is picture worthy for those of you that have lived with me and know my (lack of) cooking skills…:

Needless to say, my host family loved the banana pancakes dripped in honey! The good cooking doesn’t end there. Of the 38 volunteers in training in Peru right now, 9 of us live in Huascaran (pictured in a previous post). The other trainees live in nearby neighbourhoods. The Huascaran-ers (pronounced West-Koran-ers) decided to unite together and make our host families burritos one Sunday. What a success!! All the families showed up, and each voulunteer brought a different ingredient or cooked goodness to the table. It was quite a hit, and heres some pics to prove it:

Upon popular belief, most Peruvians have never eaten burritos! Below is a picture of the nine of us and our families which showed up to our big lunch bash!

Huascaran neighbourhood Volunteers!

Check out my buddy, James Ofczar...? 's blog --click the link on the right, hes great at posting! good times...