All about the IST

A scene from one of the final skits from our Theatre IST.

Every Peace Corps group in Peru gets one In-Service Training during their service. Peru 9 Youth Development’s was last week. It was held up in Piura, and yours truly plus two of my good friends from Peru 9 lead and taught it. The IST was about starting a Teen Theatre group in these small communities to talk about social issues. It was a three day workshop taught entirely in Spanish as volunteers were required to bring a Peruvian Community Partner with whom they would start a Teen Theatre group upon returning from the IST.

My Community Partner and I. Elba is so much fun. I'm glad I took her.

I am most proud of the fact that my Spanish managed to hold up, and that I did one of my favorite workshops entirely in Spanish. I'm really proud of our efforts to make it the best IST possible, and we heard that this is the first time PC-Peru has used volunteers to teach the Workshop. So we're very excited that this will be replicated with Peru 11, and that they will have our Peru 11 trainers.

But I think pictures say it best, I mean theatre really is all about action.

Volunteers playing the improv game "Machines".

Jamar and Jah playing props as Peruvian Cumbia Singers in a Music Video.

Ali, Elena, and me the three Volunteer trainers. We had such a good time, really NAILED IT.

All in all, I feel like people had a really good time. I didn't hear a negative comment the entire time, and people who were only doing it to do it, said they learned a lot and are excited to go back to their sites and use it. So I think we should be pretty happy. I think there are ways we can fix it before the Peru 11 IST, but that will come when it comes.

The Final FBT Chapter...Finally

Friday was the big day. The trainees would work with 200 students from Colegio Virgen de Las Mercedes in Jangas in the areas of self-esteem and team building. They decided the day before that they would break up into teams of two with a stronger speaker and weaker speaker as teammates. And the students broke into grade levels and moved around to the different groups. Leanna and Alex did a team over-under game with a ball (I hope you can imagine what I'm talking about). Milene and Kelly did a self-esteem exercised where a box with self-reflective questions on it was passed around the music and when the music stopped the student with the box had to answer one of the questions. Erin and Elizabeth did the spiderweb game where you receive a ball of twine, say your name and something about yourself and then pass it to someone else, keeping part of the twine. When everyone has participated you have a spiderweb with the twine. Jason and Margret did a number of team building exercises like sitting on each other's laps in one big circle. And Kat and Glenn put together a puppet show (in less than 24 hours) about a young girl who learns that beauty is found on the inside not on the outside.

Who knows if the students really enjoyed it, but I was speaking with two of my favorite teachers and they were asking me about using games in their classes. I hope to springboard this into a class for teachers to lean how to use icebreakers and games to teach and review themes in their classes. I've already spoken with my main counterpart at the school and the Directora and they're both on board.

Afterwards, they ate lunch and met a friend of my fellow Peru 9-er Jake's (who lives across the river from me) and heard more about the issues facing the youth of Peru. The trainees said they really learned a lot from this discussion, so I'm really glad that we had this talk in place. The friend did a really good job of highlighting for the trainees all that young people in Peru deal with, their misconceptions about sex, the lack of support and help from the local and national governments, the difficulty getting into and then paying for college, etc. The trainees later stated that it was a real wake up call for them about what exactly they will be dealing with their two years in Peru.

After lunch we went on a tour of Jake's artisan studio. Jake works with ceramicists here in Ancash. He is a Small Business Volunteer, and it was good for the trainees to get to see what he does. Then we followed it up with a conversation about working across cultures. The rest of the night they had free to hang out and do what they pleased, after working so hard that day, they deserved it.

The next day, our final day together, we all became tourists and headed up to this gorgeous glacial lake called Llanganuco. It's a glowing crystal blue, and we all walked around it, and a couple of the trainees even had the courage to jump into the ice cold waters (with bathing suits, of course). We had more sickness on Friday, some people dealing with altitude sickness and some with food that hadn't agreed with them. So not all were present for our little excursion. We then returned to Tarica where they all got packed up and then we headed into Huaraz for them to get to know this gorgeous capital city.

Me and Jake at Llanganuco. Isn't it beautiful? By the way, before you all email me - we're just friends.

When I knew the last combis would be heading out of Huaraz, I said my good-byes and left. They wouldn't leave until 11:00 that night. All in all, I had a great time. I made a bunch of new Peace Corps friends, and I learned that I really like that aspect of training. I would love to be a trainer in the future, but it is all so dependent on schedule and getting the job.

I have since seen the trainees, and as of yesterday, they have been sworn in and are now officially volunteers. They had their big ceremony yesterday. Congrats you guys! I have so enjoyed getting to know you.


And now onto other topics.

The Third Installment of the FBT Chronicles

Alright, so after a very long silence, I’m back in Jangas. I want to finish talking about FBT before I post about my thoughts after a year in country, my vacation for Fiestas Patrias, and my time in Lima for our one year med checks and program updates.
I left off with us still in Caraz…
All 14 trainees, 2 volunteers (Vishal and myself), plus the two trainers left Caraz early Wednesday morning to Carhuaz and then we all caught a combi to Shilla, Vishal’s site. A quick note about Vishal: He’s one of my good friends from training. We had the same language class together and we both lived in Yanacoto. So it’s been cool to move to Ancash and to be nearer to him and to Frank, both of whom I rank as really good friends. Shilla is a very small town of around 1,000 people who still speak a lot of Quechua. He has the most amazing view of Huascaran, and the people there are very friendly. They all greeted us as their donkeys passed by carrying food for the guinea pigs. The trainees didn’t get much time to settle in; they quickly threw their stuff down in Vishal’s house and headed directly to the colegio. The night before, as the trainees were planning, they made the decision to split up into two teaching groups based on language ability and those that had the courage to discuss sexuality with a group of 16 and 17 year olds that they didn’t know.
The lower level Spanish speakers taught a Nutrition class, and they did a really good job. They had a great class planned with activities that had the children moving, running, and learning about the four food groups. They used a house as a metaphor for the importance of the food groups, and they had a “check for learning activity” where the children had to find the foods scattered outside and come back to their groups to place their food in the proper place in the food pyramid. The kids really seemed to enjoy this activity. I was impressed with the activities this group chose, and I plan on stealing a few and using them with the kids here. The advanced speakers had the difficult task of giving a charla on sexuality. They used magazines to talk about the images used to portray sexuality. They then talked a little about a definition of sexuality, and then they answered what questions they could about things related to sex and sexuality. This was really just a starter class getting the students amped to work with Vishal more in depth on this particular topic. With this group, I was impressed with their courage to tackle this topic especially in a mountain community – which are known to be a little bit more conservative and closed.
After both groups finished teaching, we settled into the hostel where we ate some lunch and the trainees enjoyed the rabbits hanging out in a lofted caged area. After lunch, Vishal lead us on a hike just outside of Shilla. It was a really beautiful hike with a gorgeous view of the surrounding area and of course Huascaran was just in your face. Maybe the best part is that I spent the entire hike with Isa, the tech trainer (who was one of our language trainers), and we talked about a lot of different things from how training was going to what I would be doing in the future. I really got to know Isa well on the hike, and she tried to talk me into becoming a trainer in the future. The truth is, I would love to, but it all depends on how it all ends here and what I do in the year after I finish. When we returned from the hike, the trainees wrote their first solicitudes (these are important, bureaucratic documents that really are a pain in the ass of any volunteer – they help you get things). They also planned their sessions for the next day. Later that night we ate dinner with Vishal’s family, and many of the volunteers ate their first cuy. The trainees returned and went to bed, and many of them passed a sleepless night because of the cold Ancash night.
The next morning they got up early, ate breakfast, and we headed to Jangas. The trip was very quick and the trainees got settled into their third and final hostel while I headed into Jangas to arrange some last minute details. We re-met around 9:00am and the trainees got to know the colegio where I work. They also got to meet some of my favorite teachers, and they also got their first bump in the road.
I wanted to give them a real-to-life volunteer experience (which means that something would fall through or everything would change) and that’s exactly what we got. Within the first few minutes that we got there, we discovered that the Director of the school needed to change the times for the culminating field day event as the students were preparing for a parade; also, she decided that instead of a few classes doing the field day event on Friday, the whole colegio would participate. This would mean that this group of trainees would work with 200 kids within a two hour period. Luckily, they still had a day to figure it out, but that’s truly what happens. I will often walk in to a class to do one thing and end up needing to prepare myself for something else. Or even more commonly, I get used to having to put off a class because the kids are preparing for a parade.
Even while working through the administrative details for the next day, they still had a class they had to teach. Again they broke up into groups based on Spanish language ability and they taught classes on self-esteem. When they finished with those classes, one of my counterparts (Professora Elba) and I gave them an opportunity to improve their lessons and give the same one again to another class. Both groups took the opportunity and improved their first classes a little bit. I was very proud of them for accepting the challenge, and I know it was a great experience for the students as well.
The rest of that day they either planned for their field day or we took a tour of Jangas. My counterpart, Milton, and some of the youth from the association took them around Jangas and into the Cordiellera Negra to see the view of the Callajon de Hualas. I really enjoyed this part of the trip as I felt like I needed breaks throughout the day from planning and organizing. Plus, it gave me more of an opportunity to get to know the trainees on an individual basis. This has become so long and boring, I think I need to write a Part IV. So forgive me, I’m going to have to post again another day to finish the last two days. I’m somewhat backed up on blogs. I have more things to talk about than I have time to post. More to come!

FBT Training - BLOG # 2

For a while there it felt like I had nothing to talk about, and now all of the sudden there is a flurry of activity in my Peace Corps service that I want to report about on this blog. I’ll try to divide all of these new topics up into different blog entries in order to give you bite size chunks in the place of one long rant. But let’s start with Field Based Training Peru 11.
As you might or might not remember the first 11 weeks are only training for PCT (Peace Corps Trainees). It is a time to improve your language skills, get a better understanding of your host culture, and to get to know the people who will be spending the next two years and three months with you. Around week six the trainees are sent to different locations around Peru to get their first taste of life as an actual Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV). Because as hard as they might try in training, and as close as they get with the resources they have, there is still a huge gap between what life is like in training and what life is like as an actual PCV. So each training round APCD’s call up groups of volunteers and ask them to prepare a week for a given number of trainees. I received this call the weeks before I left Catilluc.
Monday, July 14th, 10 Youth Development PCTs with one Technical trainer and one Language and Culture trainer arrived in Huaraz tired (from the long and sleepless overnight bus ride), but eager to spend a week outside of Lima walking in the shoes of current PCVs. We immediately exposed them to the 9,000(+) feet difference in altitude to walk to the combi stop that has combis heading to Caraz. It was the first test of whether or not they would hold up to the high altitudes where they would be staying for the next week. In Caraz, they met Frank, a PCV from my training group, he immediately gave them a small, two-hour community analysis for them to go into the community and learn about Caraz and what opportunities there are to do Youth based work based off of information obtained in the community from citizens themselves. This is one of the first small glimpses PCTs receive before entering their communities to do their own community diagnostic.
After lunch, they heard a few words from Frank’s counterpart and a number of the PCVs in Ancash came to do a Volunteer panel. I’m not sure how helpful that particular panel went. A volunteer panel includes volunteers sitting before the trainees fielding any and all questions about PC life. I felt like it was one of the weaker aspects of the week. But if they learned just a little bit then that is a good thing. Also, it gave them a chance to meet some of the Health, Small Business, and Environmental Volunteers.
We put them to work right away. Monday night they discovered that the PCTs would be dividing into two groups and would be teaching a hand washing charla to second graders the next day. The divided up and worked together to plan what elements they would use to teach kids to wash their hands, a big problem in Peru and other developing nations…and sometimes even that person who walks out of the public restroom without washing his/her hands. You all know what I’m talking about. Anyway, they spent a couple hours working on their lessons for the next day and finally got some much sleep that night.
At this time I think it’s important to talk about this group of Trainees and how impressed I was with them. Here in Ancash, we received three male and seven female trainees. In the group, there isn’t one bad one amongst them. I was so pleased at how hard they all worked, and how excited they all are to be here and to get started. And still they are very appreciative of the training they are receiving. At this point a year ago, I was so sick of training and so ready to be a volunteer. But these PCTs all spoke about how they are enjoying training and can’t wait to go back and learn. They also loved the beauty of Ancash and seemed to enjoy their FBT. I can’t even say that there were standouts. At different points throughout the week I felt that each of them stepped up to take over a class or to do something impressive outside of the classes or our interactions with each other. I did have a strong connection with Leanna. She became a friend that I hope to maintain throughout the years. We had so much in common from our love of movies to our understanding of development work. I was impressed with her drive to improve her Spanish, and she motivated me to work on my Spanish again. There have been very few Volunteers that I have had an instant connection with, and I’m really hoping that she gets placed in Ancash so we can go hiking, camping, and get our nails done together (yes, I still have my girly moments).
On Tuesday we stayed in Caraz, one to allow the PCTs to give their charla in one of Frank’s schools, but also to give them more time to plan for their next day in Shilla with PCV Vishal (also from my training group). One day I’ll get a picture up of these all-stars so you can see them for yourselves. Tuesday night we also had a great little barbeque. It was nice to get some casual time with the PCTs to get to know them better, as well as to give them a few minutes throughout the week to chill and not think about working with children. Well, as you might be able to tell, I spent last week with the PCTs so I didn’t do anything at site. I need to plan some lessons so part II will come in a few more days.

Just a little taste of FBT....

So I don't have a lot of time to write. I need to process through this last week. I will say this though. I had an absolutely fabulous time. Peru 11 rocks and they are going to be a great group to work with.

Half of the group giving a charla to a third grade class in Jangas. (r-l. Erin, Kelly, Kat, Jason, and Alex). They did a fabulous job.

Jason and Kat playing human knot with the students at Virgen de las Mercedes in Jangas.

The Young Adult assosciation in Jangas surprised me with roses. They like me! They really like me!

More to come! Plus Fiestas Patrias (Peruvian Independence Day!) is coming up. There will be a lot of picture opportunities again.

New Trainees New FBT

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write. With my extended time in Lima and trying to plan Field Based Training (FBT) for 10 Peru-11 youth Development Trainees my time and mental capacity have been limited.

The good news is that Peru 11 will be here on Monday, and I'm very excited to get to know them better and to get to see them in action. Of course, I'm stressed out bcause I've only been here for a couple of months and I'm going to be introducing these trainees to classes I have yet to work with. It's a lot of work to put together a week of FBT, but more than that, I feel like my FBT was really strong. So I of course, want to help these guys have a good FBT as well.

Wish me luck! More to come!

Training can feel sooooooooooooo long sometimes

So just another quick post today...

Lately I've been bemoaning training. Don't get me wrong I appreciate training, I just want it to end very soon. Apparently this is very common among trainees. It seems to get to a point where you just want to be at your site doing your work, but fortunately (and sometimes unfortunately) they need to teach you how to do your job. I know this sounds like I'm complaining about a good thing. And maybe I am, but I want to be honest about the trials as much as the successes and this is one of them. Training can feel soooooooooooooooo long sometimes.

But we only have three more weeks left. And we find out our new sites on Friday. Interesting story behind sites. It's a somewhat common topic of conversation among bowel movements and food we love from Peru and miss about the States. We are all speculating about where we could possibly go. Our APCDs (Associate Peace Corps Directors) work very hard to find the right placement for the right volunteer. This is important because if a volunteer isn't a good fit with their site things can get messy. Like the volunteer being incredibly frustrated and give up or leaving (which is always bad for any given site as there is a good chance they won't host again). Sometimes when the fit is not as good as it could be, the APCD will make an exception and move the volunteer. My APCD allegedly has a great track record at this, and to this point I have no reason to doubt her. I am one of the few youth volunteers that doesn't have even the slightest clue where I am headed next week (for site visits, one week only and then we return to training). So Friday is going to be like Christmas the years I don't make a list and leave it to fate. So everyone wish me luck.

Chincha Part II

On Wednesday we went to Laran a town just outside of Chincha and we worked with a much poorer subset of children at a Campo (farm) de niños. This was a different experience because we were working with an environmental volunteer who liked working with kids and one of her projects involves working with these kids on recycling and cultivating a farm. Her name is Abby and she’s amazing. Anyway, we paired up with a couple of the children and went out into the community to collect recyclables. Let me just say this, we could have done this all day. There was garbage on every street corner, but we certainly grabbed a lot of recyclables and brought them back to the campo. Then the trainees (us in Peru 9) put on a sketch about hand washing and we did an activity where we put a little oil on the kids hands and they pressed them on a sheet of clean paper to see how dirty their hands were. Then we actually washed hands and ate oranges. I liked this kind of environment for working with kids. This is definitely more of a community-based approach, which I’m starting to believe I want to see what it’s all about.

On Thursday we worked with kids in a cemetery. These are street kids of their own kind. Many of them living in the cemetery with their parents who work in the cemetery selling flowers, candy, or washing the graves while some of the kids selling candy on the streets of Chincha. These kids were very active and somewhat difficult to manage, but it’s not that big of a deal ultimately. I’ve certainly dealt with tougher in the United States. We performed the same skit from Wednesday and played similar games to those we played on Tuesday, learning from our mistakes I must say. Both Wednesday and Thursday we had glitches with water, but that’s part of the learning curve I guess.

Friday was the big event. We took a collection of children from all three sites and held a festival for us, planned solely by us (except for the details – thanks ladies of Ica you rock!) By far one of the coolest experiences I have had is riding the bus with all of those kids and the looks on their faces and the sound of awe in their voices. Definitely a true Peace Corps moment…need to put that one in the heart to call on when it gets tough out there.

We did a new skit this time. It was one that I’ve seen done a number of times, but the kids really liked it. And we played various games with various dynamics. To say the least it was fairly difficult with so many kids and so many volunteers, but so worth it. One of the important reminders we received came at the end of our time there, as another group showed up and proceeded to leave shortly after the arrived. Allegedly, a group of 70 students decided to jump on a suspension bridge that our group had crossed nearly an hour earlier. Needless to say the suspense bridge couldn’t handle the jumping and collapsed taking the kids with it. There were some serious injuries, teeth gone, bloody bodies, broken bones, but thankfully no deaths. It’s a reminder that we are responsible for the safety of the children we come into contact with.
I’m sick today. It’s not fun to be sick, but it’s kind of fun to think I have a parasite…how’s that for a cliff hanger?

Cooking with Edith

Today was a busy day. We started off by attending classes de idoma y cultura (language and culture). In this class we learned to cook two traditional Peruvian dishes. We cooked papas rellanos, these great stuff, fried potatoes, and arroz con leche (very similar to tapioca pudding, but a little better). My teacher Edith is the best. She’s been so supportive and helpful during this training period. We got to eat our product, and I’m telling you, I am one heck of a cook…when I have people directing me and cooking with me. This is one of many exercises we do in utter and total Spanish. It’s a great exercise, and I love to learn how to cook here. Peruvian food is so good. I have a feeling my Spanish will really improve when we get to site and we’re not speaking so much English. I’ve kind of taken the pressure off myself and feel a little better.
Another training activity, which is new to trainees in Peru, is that we have Youth Groups we go to and teach the objectives of the Peace Corps Youth Development Program in Peru. We are broken up into our "core groups" which for me includes two other people. Every week we go to a local school and play games, educate them about health, jobs, and other things. This has been the best learning activity so far. It is very hands on, sink or swim with the students in our community. Of course it is slightly difficult to hold a youth group when the teachers are striking, but that's a long story that I will save for another post. Talk about educational drama, this is pretty interesting.

We are also required to find a Community Contact (DCC) and find some way to build our community and do research at the same time (CDA) all while learning a language and cultural customs. It's no small task to be a Peace Corps Volunteer during training. Remind me and I'll try to talk about both of these activities down the road.

With all humor...I'd like to note that there is a sport down here that is almost unheard of in the United States. It's called "futbol" or otherwise known as soccer. Now I know we are all aware that we have a women's soccer team in the US (and they're pretty good), but I think we are unaware that we have a men's soccer team from the US. And apparently this "men's futbol team" plays in tournaments with other countries like Peru. Actually, they play a lot of tournaments that I've never heard of like the CopaAmerica or the PanAmerica Copa (which is allegedly taking place in the US - can you believe it). In fact, I'm pretty sure there is a "men's futbol" tournament at any given time of the year. Of course the US "men's futbol team" isn't very good which is why none of us have heard of them. They keep getting beat by countries like Argentina and Mexico. Didn't we invade these countries at one point? Anyway, just wanted to let you know about a little, unknown sport that is happening under our own noses in the US. Once again that is "men's futbol/soccer". All jokes aside, it's kind of fun to learn more about this sport. I wished I was here during the World Cup until I learned that Peru isn't very good in futbol/soccer either. Why do my teams always lose?

Take care, I love hearing from you.

Another Post Without Pictures...sorry

Training is an intense process. At the beginning of training I heard that some people think it’s harder than their graduate programs. Now, I won’t go that far, but I will say I am being put into fairly normal situations but unable to communicate in the way in which I would most like to. For example, in order to prepare us to work with youth groups (not just a religious term in the Peace Corps) they have broken all of the members of the Youth Development area into smaller groups to go to schools around Chaclacayo and lead class for one hour a week. Not much, right? Unless you factor in that I can barely speak the language right now, and if you put me in front of a classroom of 15 year olds I get nervous and am even more unable to communicate. Today my group and I made our introductions and all went well, but I was barely speaking. I was communicating through smiles and head nods. My Spanish just feels so limited right now. Once again, I’m trying to be patient with myself, but I don’t think I’m speaking enough Spanish throughout my day. At the end of class, the kids wanted to hear our National Anthem. Let´s just say I was more willing to sing THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER, than to open my mouth to communicate.

Another key assignment involves each individual person developing a relationship with someone in Peru is working with youth. I found this great house for girls, and I think that I will try to continue to return there to meet with the Housemom, but my Spanish today was awful. Luckily, Loly was with me so I hope she got a lot of it and can re-explain it to me. I return in a week, and I hope that my Spanish is much better then.

We have a number of other small projects, research, and we have intense classes of learning Spanish. I try to remind myself that we’ve only been here a week and a half and that my Spanish will come, but sometimes it feels like we’ve been here for months. I’m trying really hard not to play the comparison game with the other volunteers, but it’s hard because so many of them speak so well or are picking it up quickly. Plus, there is always Peruvians around to remind that I’m not speaking to a full proficiency. Soon enough these worries won’t make much of a difference. I have a ton of time before I’m sent to my site.