I heart the beach

I was fortunate enough to escape the cold rainy mountains for the past week and go to the beach. All of Peru 9 had a meeting in Huanchaco near Trujillo for 3 days. This meeting was called Reconnect and it was just a time to meet with staff and go over our first 3 months in site. They were smart and arranged for us to stay in a nice hotel on the beach. Since Thanksgiving was after, we were allowed to stick around for a few more days before heading back to site.

I left last Saturday and headed to Cajamarca to take an overnight bus to Trujillo. The only problem is that Trujillo is only 6 hours away so you arrive at 4:30am. Luckily the hotel in Huanchaco opened up a room for us and we just chilled there as people started to trickle in. The hotel was really nice and had a pool and wireless internet. Wireless internet is everywhere in Peru, except the hotel we normally stay in and my site. I wonder if they would let me buy a router for them. I stay there enough that it would be worth it.

Anyways, Sunday we just hung out by the pool and beach. Monday-Wednesday was the actual reconnect with meetings and presentations on our sites. Nothing really exciting happened on Reconnect. It was just great to see everyone after 3 months. However, we've lost 3 people since swearing in and you could really feel their absences, especially since 2 of them were Youth Development girls.

Huanchaco is a tourist location and it was really weird to see so many tourists. You don't encounter that many tourists in Cajamarca but here everyone seemed to speak English. That was also probably because we kept going to American owned restaurants. Regardless, after a week of speaking 96% english, my spanish will definitely be rusty back in site.

One of the days a group of girls decided to go surfing and take lessons. Even though I've surfed maybe once or twice in my life, the lesson was definitely worth it because the waves were so tiny that the only way we were going to catch them was if someone pushed us. It was a lot of fun and I wish I had pictures of it. Oh well, I'm sure there will be other opportunities in Peru.

Oh and in case you were all wondering, we did get to eat Turkey on thanksgiving. We befriended one of the many expats in the community and he agreed to serve us thanksgiving dinner, with turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie! We weren't very organized but it all worked out in the end. I wasn't even a big fan of thanksgiving dinner, but as I've come to realize, I enjoy a lot of food here that I didn't in the states...anything is better than rice and potatoes!

Chilling in a hammock and talking on skype while waiting for our 11pm bus. Most people left during the day, but the only transportation back to my site is at 4pm and the day buses get into Cajamarca after that, so I was left to take the overnight bus. But better to spend a day on the beach than a day in a bus.

These are the reed boats that a traditional to the fisherman of Huanchaco. Now they are mainly just a tourist thing and they stick styrofoam inside to help them float better.

The beach in Huanchaco

In front of the reed boats

All of the Peru 9 Youth Development Volunteers and our APCD and a couple of 3rd year volunteers.

in a rut

Sometimes I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say. I usually go into the capital city of Cajamarca every two weeks, and the time in site just seems to fly by. However, when I try to think back at what I've done, nothing seems to stick out! My biggest, and well only, project lately has been trying to organize computer classes during vacations. The high school just received 5 computers this year but no one really knows how to use them. The kids are pretty busy during the school year but they have 2 months of vacations coming up in January and February. I went to ask the director if I could hold computer classes during the vacation for the kids that don't travel, and he said, "no, it's prohibited" and "kids won't come because they aren't used to having things to do during break." Such a negative attitude kind of sucked, but the reason I'm here is because there aren't things for kids to do, so I definitely didn't take no for an answer. A few days later I walked into his office with the town doctor, obstetriz, nurse, governor, and the secretary from the municipalidad. Basically all the authorities in town bombarded him. This time around he never said no, and now I am trying to organize my computer classes for january and february. It's going to be difficult because there are so few computers and while I want to teach as many people as possible, they won't learn much if there are more than 2 to a computer. A lot of people travel during vacations but many kids stay and seem to be very excited. I am probably being very optimistic, but if all the kids end up showing up...I am going to be pretty busy.

The other day I went to one of the elementary schools in one of the caserios. My counterpart's husband teaches there and has to walk the hour there every day. It was my first time going into one of the caserios and the difference there is amazing. Most of these kids had never seen me before because they live so far away from the main town. I brought my digital camera with me and that did the trick to break away some of their shyness. I don't think they had ever seen a digital camera before and loved how they could see the pictures right away. There were about 30 kids in the school, and 6 different grades. There are only 2 teachers, so each teacher has to to teach 3 different grades. Think one room school house, but two rooms instead.

I've also become quite the baker in town. I finally perfected the chocolate chip cookies here and they are quickly becoming everyone's new favorite treat. Many people even want to sell them but they don't understand that the chocolate is relatively expensive so people won't by them. Oh and as a warning, if anyone was thinking of sending me chocolate chips...don't bother. My parents sent me some and when I got them they had basically melted into one mishapen blob of chocolate. I'll still eat it of course, but it kind of defeats the purpose of the chocolate chips.

Some of the kids from the escuela in the caserio on a paseo.

Just a picture I took on my bike ride.

Riding my PC issued bike (with helmet of course)

This is the road to San Miguel. This is why when it rains there is no transportation...

Google Earth

I came into Cajamarca yesterday and we had to stay at a different, slightly more expensive hotel because our normal hotel has been booked forever because this is field trip season. Anyways, it was definitely worth it because this hotel is right on the plaza and has wireless internet! I never thought I would be so excited to have wireless internet. I don't even want to leave the hotel room and I was up until 5am last night on the internet. I'm a big dork but you probably all already know that.

So while trying to find a map of my site in order to fill out my site locator form, I decided to check out google earth. To my amazement, my tiny little site is on there, and it's crystal clear! I think this is because I am only about an hour and a half away from the the 3rd biggest gold mine in the world, as well as 2.5 hours from the capital city of the department. So for those of you who are interested, here are some ariel shots of my site. You should be able to click on them to see them bigger.

This is the bustling metropolis of Cochan. It's basically just one street so everyone knows when someone comes and goes.

Here is a more zoomed out view of the surrounding area. It's just a lot of green and cows. I would zoom out even more but then my town would be too tiny to see. I really do live in the middle of nowhere.

Dia de los Muertos

Here in Peru November 1st is a holiday, also known as all Saints Day. However, the more important day is November 2nd, Day of the Dead. One more person in our group decided to go home and the Cajamarca gang decided to meet up in the city to have a despedida for him before he headed out to Lima. Unfortunately he decided to go home on a Peruvian holiday. My host mom's mother passed away about a month before I came to site so I decided to stay in Cochan to participate in their customs and go to Cajamarca the next day.

Anyways, here they have a day where everyone, and I mean everyone goes to the cementery to pay their respects to their family that has passed away. It's pretty much an all day affair the begins in the morning and ends well into the night. People come in from all over. My host sister who lives in Trujillo and several of my host mom's brothers and sisters came in for the this day.

So everyone got in their sunday best (i even put on a polo shirt for the occasion) and we headed up to the cementery in the morning. It's also a tradition that they have tons of stands up there and people sell cuy, trout, and sweets. My host dad and sister had a stand outside the cementery and they must have sold thousands of cookies. We were all up until midnight the night before filling and assembling the cookies, so I know first hand how many there were!

From early in the morning until early afternoon people just kept piling into the cementery. I think the population of Cochan must have tripled because so many people came in from out of town. Everyone just goes around and visits their family that has died and lights candles and drops water on the graves. Since everyone is related here, there were a lot of graves to visit!

After that the party moved outside the cementery where the drinking and eating frenzy began. I am also proud to say that I used my first latrine in Peru up in the cementery. It was literally just a hole in the ground and afterwords I definitely noticed that the bottom of my jeans were a little wet. It's a good thing I decided to wear my dirty jeans. I don't think I've quite yet mastered the peeing in a whole concept yet.

Here is my host dad selling all the sweets that they make. This was early in the day before the crowd started swarming!

Here are some people reflecting by a recent grave. It's custom here to wear black for a year, red is a big no no, and you also can't dance for a whole year as well. I think that must be why everyone seems to love the color red....because you can't wear it when someone dies.

The cementery was packed! I was a little worried about being culturally insensitive and taking photos but everyone wanted me to take photos so I assume that it's ok.