It’s been a busy week here in el mundo de Cuerpo de Paz (FYI Cuerpo de Paz is what we call Peace Corps in Spanish). This past week was field based training which is when we travel to a department to visit a current volunteer’s sites. All this time we have been in country we’ve only been in the Lima area so this was everyone’s first chance to see more of Peru. We were split into 3 small groups to travel to 3 different departments; Lambayeque, Piura, and Cajamarca. There were about 10 volunteers in each group with 1 technical trainer and 1 language facilitator (aka the Spanish police) and through most of the trip we were accompanied by the volunteers whose sites we were visiting and who did a lot of the planning. I went to Lambayeque which is a department in the North of Peru and considered to be mainly a coastal area. We took a 14 hour overnight bus and arrived in the regional capital, Chiclayo, last Sunday. In general volunteers head to their regional capitals about twice a month and Chiclayo is pretty big city so they have a lot of the things you would want (i.e. Pizza Hut, Starbucks, a movie theatre…). At the same time we are still in Peru and we arrived to find out that the electricity was out in the entire city. I can’t tell you how upsetting it was to be sitting in a Starbucks and not be able to get anything. For lunch I got to try Peruvian cebiche for the first time! Cebiche is considered kind of a national dish here and for those of you who don’t know, cebiche is basically a plate full of raw goodies from the sea (fish, shellfish, octopus ect…) marinated in lime with onions and a type of corn. Delicious.

We spent the first and last nights in Lambayeque in Chiclayo but the rest of the week was spent at 4 different volunteer sites. The first was Puerto Eten and it is truly coastal site. It’s a beach town of about 3,000 that receives a ton of tourists during the summer. Since its winter now it feels like a ghost town. There we did our first talk with a group of youth health promoters at the secondary school. We split into 5 and 5 and had to do a health talk that the health promoters were expected to learn and teach to the other group. Let’s just say it didn’t go as smoothly as it could have but it was our first at this type of thing. We also got to see the health post in Puerto Eten. Not to be confused with a hospital this is basically just a clinic that serves the area. From the outside it looked really fantastic. Brand new big buildings but surprise! For the most part they were virtually empty. The health post had received funds for this extremely nice expansion but doesn’t have money to fill it with the necessary equipment or supplies. This post also only has 2 actual doctors which can’t help but make you wonder how worthwhile this beautiful addition is.

From Puerto Eten we headed to Zana where we spent the next few nights. We visited the city of Cayalti which is about 16,000 so a much bigger site. In Cayalti we were given about a half hour to prepare for a talk we would be giving to a secondary school class about values. This went sooooo much better than the first and I know I felt much more comfortable talking and teaching the lesson. While visiting the various sites we ate all our meals with the families of the current volunteers which was for the most part a great experience and great food although the lack of fruits or veggies for a week wreaked havoc on everyone’s digestive systems. Oh and the maggots that were in our juice during one meal….whoops. We could have probably used the protein anyway.

We also spent a day with the current volunteer Zana which was really great because she literally is like a super-volunteer. In general being a PCV and trying to initiate projects is a frustrating process and making them success is even harder. This volunteer has managed to initiate quite a few really successful projects in her site so it was great to see what she’s been doing first hand. In general Zana has a pretty rich history and one of her projects has been creating a Youth Tourism group for Zana. Zana also has a strong Afro-Peruvian history and has the first museum devoted to this. We got to go on a tour with one her tour guides to see the museum, the old monastery ruins and we had the opportunity to listen to some really great traditional Peruvian/ Afro-Peruvian music. We also planned activities for her youth group that night.

The next day it was off to Bolivar which is actually in the department of Cajamarca but much closer to Chiclayo then Cajamarca City. It was only 2.5 hours in the combi. Ahhh yes I should take a minute to talk about the wonderful combis in Lambayeque. I will never again complain about Lima combis. These combis were much much smaller, really more like vans than buses. It’s got a wonderful sardine can ambiance to it and the seats were not made for anyone over 5 ft tall which isn’t really a big problem for Peruvians but you can see where we might have some issues. In these combis you are squeezed in and basically you have to try to stick your legs were ever you can and try not to move. Not an awesome position for 2.5 hours but oh well. Some of you may know of my tendency to get car sick…. About half way to Bolivar the roads get really twisty and bumpy because you start heading into a more sierra area. Let’s just say it was lucky someone had a plastic bag and I was located next to the window. Bolivar is only about 400 people and located in an area that is much more sierra so had a much different feeling. Also, a girl from my training group is going to be placed there which is pretty intimidating because the current built a LIBRARY. Yup, it’s going to be interesting for the volunteer who follows that. When we got there we were given a “surprise” assignment. We split into groups of 3 each group taking 15 minutes in a class of 5 year olds. The first taught the English words rock, paper, and scissors. The second group taught the game. The third group had to come up with a short play to do with the class. I was in the 3^rd group and it was actually a ton of fun despite not being able to plan. We did “The 3 little pigs and the big bad wolf” and it was a big hit with the kids. Apparently we translated big bad wolf poorly and ended up repeatedly saying “the 3 little pigs and the damn wolf” to a bunch 5 years olds. Oops.

We ended our trip back in Chiclayo were we got to hang out with a bunch of other Lambayeque volunteers including the girl what had my host family before we. We got a chance to talk to them about their volunteer experience at Starbucks which was super ironic. I think we all came out of the trip with a much better idea of what service might be like. It feels a little more real that in 4 weeks or so we move to our own sites to start our service!