1st site visit

Every peace corps volunteer in Peru is supposed to receive 2 site visits during their service from their APCD (their program boss). After having to cancel in February due to the rain, my APCD Kitty and Jose, our regional coordinator in Cajamarca, finally made their way out to my site the other day. Ideally you are supposed to plan something for them to observe and schedule meetings with important people in your community. However I decided not to plan anything because last time I rearranged my whole schedule only to have it fall through. It's a good thing I didn't have anything planned because they ended up arriving an hour later than I thought they would. I was a little worried that there wouldn't be much to do because I live in a small site but overall the site visit went extremely well. Another PCV, Sarah, also came along so that was a nice surprise because I hardly ever get visitors. Even though they didn't talk to everyone, everyone saw that they came and it was the talk of the town for days to come. The municipalidad even printed out a photo they took of me, Kitty and the mayor and hung it on the wall.

We basically just spent the day talking to the director in the colegio, visiting the health post, long lunch at my counterparts house, and then ended it by stopping by to see the mayor. On the way a bunch of the kids on my street came out due to curiosity and were talking me up. This really impressed Kitty because she could see how well I had integrated into the town. So while this wasn't planned, it was nice to be able to show her how well I knew the kids. However, I have to admit that when you live in a fishbowl it's not that easy to hide and of course everyone knows who you are. The mayor was down the street drinking and having an impromptu fiesta with a couple of guys playing guitar from Cajamarca. I thought that we were just going to say hi and that's it, but then they started dancing with Kitty and singing and we ended up staying there for a few hours.

Meeting with the health post

Dancing with the mayor. Notice everyone taking photos with their camera phone or filming.