Off To Site We Go

So as you know from my last, very short, post I found out my site! My new home will be in Contumaza in the department of Cajamarca. Cajamarca is a department in the northern sierra, or highlands, of Peru. There are 12 volunteers heading to the department and actually 2 of us heading to my site. The majority of volunteers don’t have site mates and very few have someone from the same training group in the same city. It will be me and a business volunteer and then the next closest volunteer is 3-4 hrs away. Ironically, right now we live in the same community and our host moms are even sisters. The city is about 7000 people so it’s pretty good size as far as sites go. From what I’ve seen it’s pretty green and the altitude is just under 9,000 ft. I wanted to run at site but I’m thinking I’m going to have to start with walking without being out of breathe for the first month. It's not that high but when you come from Illinois....

We’ll both be taking the place of small business volunteer that was there about a year ago. I’m pretty excited because I received some information from her and it sounds like there are going to be some pretty great community partners to work with. Those kinds of things change all the time though so we’ll see what it’s like when I’m actually there. The regional director also told me that he was excited that I have a background in anthropology because the community is decently modern but is also really rich in Andean culture and they really want to preserve and promote that. There also may be some archeological sites nearby!

Looks like ill have the basics i.e. electricity, some type of bathroom, and internet in the city. Although I have all these I know to take it with a grain of salt. Bathroom could mean a bucket flush, electricity could mean for 4 hours a day, and internet could mean 20 min to open a web page. It’s funny though because as a peace corps volunteer you almost feel guilty the more comforts you have, like you aren’t a real volunteer or you’re not roughing it enough. Current volunteers always stress that we shouldn’t feel like we have to suffer. That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to help facilitate positive change in the communities where we work.

I’m hesitant to say too much about my site now because Sunday we leave for a week of site visits! We’ll get to see our sites, meet our partners, and get to know our new host family. I can’t believe things are winding down in training. Its hard to believe in 2 weeks we’ll be off to our sites for good!

Fun fact about Cajamarca- It’s a huge cheese producing region.