Site Visit and trip to Sicchez

Sorry, but prepare for another long post. This one is about my work in Sicchez and my first visit to my future home for the next 2 years! I suggest the days of Nov 7, Nov 10 and Nov 12 because those seem to be the most interesting and entertaining.

Nov 3 and Nov 4
Before I left for Lima Rigel and I hung out for a little bit. Now that I have a cell phone it’s easier to coordinate times and places. The bus ride to Piura was 15 hours, but since we left at 5pm it wasn’t as bad because most of the traveling I was sleeping. The people from the health group in the same department as me are Jillian, Bj, Joann, Amy and Aman. Once in Piura we got to Piura we had a 6 hour bus ride to a city called Sicchez where we would meet the current volunteers Emma and Chris for more training.
Our bus looked like it was made from spare parts. There wasn’t glass in my window so they were kind enough to tape some plastic over it for me. The engine was loud enough it could have competed with a Boeing 747. We stopped half way to let the engine cool down a little bit. Once we got there we went to the hostel and all 6 of us girls were in the same room. It felt a lot like an orphanage. The mattresses were made out of hay so they had the same comfort as curling up in a pile of concrete. Since there isn’t running water after 4:30pm you have to use a bucket of water to flush everything. Fun fun at 3AM.

Nov 5
I woke up at 3AM to thousands of roosters. It felt like they were on the opposite side of my wall. I hate roosters. We all woke up at 6AM to a loudspeaker announcing that they found a woman’s donkey. That morning we went to a school and did a strength tree to help them build up self-esteem. We drew a tree on the board and then gave them leaves. They had to write one of their strengths on the leaf and then tape it too the tree. The point was to show all the strengths on the tree and how working together will make them all stronger. Then we had extra time and they sang the Peruvian national anthem and then they wanted us to sing the American national anthem. It was pretty awesome.
We all went to the plaza and while sitting there a girl walked up selling raffle tickets. The winning ticket gets a chicken! Fingers crossed! We also started building water filters for the schools and worked in the community garden too. We had to break up the ground and add some fertilizer. I guess you know you’re starting to adapt when you see poop in the street and your first thought is, “Oh. Do I need that for the garden?” After all of that we started planting some veggies! Dinner I found out was some kind of fish and wait for it…it was good!! Poco-a-poco. Let’s hope my stomach agrees!

Nov 6
Breakfast was kinda gross so I basically fed it to the cat, who is now my best friend. We loaded up in the ambulance and headed to a city near Sicchez. On the way we almost crashed into a motorcycle, but no one went off the mountain so we were good to keep on trucking. Once we got to the health post we divided the moms into 3 groups and started working on our charlas. In my group we taught them how to make mobiles out of plastic drink bottles and fabric. The moms went crazy and loved it. The purpose is to get the moms stimulating their kids. When people have babies here they usually think of them more as objects and don’t play with them a lot which leaves a lot of their motor skills under-developed so mobiles will help! Kids develop the most when they are 5 years and under so these are critical years.

Nov 7
Alright. It’s well known between the volunteers and I that I hate roosters. They make horrible noises at ungodly hours and they’re ugly. Roosters serve no purpose. Let’s set the scene. I’m at the hostel and my room is on the second floor. Across from the door is the first floor tin roof and when you turn right there are steps that are beyond steep. Everything is wooden and super loud. So I walk out of my room around 3AM and it’s pitch black. I take my first step and a rooster crows and flaps up in the air at what seemed to be a few feet from my face. I basically did a round off backhand-spring down the steps and finished in a perfect landing. Luckily I didn’t pee on myself, but when I opened the door to the bathroom I found an old man with a sombrero the size of the bathroom on his head. I could only see him by the light of my flashlight so it was super awkward. I just gave up on going to the bathroom and headed back to bed.
Once I finally got up I met up with Emma and we headed to a lady’s house to learn how to make tortillas. It was super easy and they were super delicious. I can’t wait to try them on my own. Then we all headed to the health post to meet up with the workers and help them learn how to make a sustainable plan for projects. There was a lot of confusions, but I think they eventually figured it out.
We went to pack our bags and head back to Piura when we noticed that our drivers were drunk. We made a plan that if Jorge (our director) drove then we would go back that day. After a few hours of thinking about it they agreed. We stuck the drunks in the back of the van and took off on the 6 hour journey. It’s crazy how often the people here drive drunk. The hostel in Piura is where all the PCV’s stay and it’s super nice. There is an exchange library and movie area. There is also free wifi and hot showers! That night I went to this amazing pizza place with Emma and a guy who is about to finish his service.

Nov 8
Eric is the Piura 3rd year volunteer who kinda helps us with our projects and other things in our community. He is amazing and today took us on a mini tour of the city of Piura. We saw the hospital PC uses for PCV’s, the pharmacy and also a touristy market that oddly enough had a lot of penis shaped items. For lunch we went to a place that only has seafood. Now if you know me, you know I hate seafood, but it’s a personal goal to start eating it. Poco-a-poco. I tried shrimp and fish and actually kinda like it! It was way better fried though. We also had some type of chichcimori type drink which is like an alcohol. It comes in a clay pot and you drink it out of this wooden bowl. It was pretty good and not too strong. For dinner me Chris, Chelsey, Anna and David all went to the supermarket to get food to make the best sandwiches in the world!!

Nov 9
Today I met both of my socios. Socios are the people from my community who are supposed to help me meet people in my community and also help me with my projects. My first socio works at the health post and her name is Rocío. She is super fun and chatty. My other socio is Beto and he is the director of the secondaria school. He is ready to work and can’t wait for me to start on projects. We had meetings all day about our different roles and how PC is involved in each. For dinner a huge group of us went to a place called Cappuccinos. I had a REAL salad and a delicious cappuccino. Best dinner in a while.

Nov 10
I met up with Rocío in the lobby of the hostel and everyone who was headed in my general direction loaded up on a bus for our sites. On the bus there was a guy who was rattling off riddles and Rocío knew the answer to one of them and won me a mini llama necklace charm. We rocked and rolled our way up the mountains swaying to the left and swaying to the right. These roads are by far the worst I have traveled on so far. We floored it over pot holes the size of mini craters. I know insanely dangerous this is, but all I can do is laugh because this is my life now. The higher we climbed the hotter it got and you would be a fool to think this bus had AC because it hardly had an engine. When I finally got to town the entire city was at church. All 234 people were in the church and when I walked in I tried my best to blend it, but for some reason that just didn’t work. After the service and being sprinkled with holy water I started meeting EVERYONE. We all went to the main plaza and started the party. There were tons of songs, dances and speeches. In the speech they would greet the mayor, priest, director of the school and me. Some girls from the school even drew me a picture! After the speeches they passed around these mini glasses with what I thought was this popular drink of Peru I call mud water. Mud water looks like, well mud water and it has a weird corn flavor. I don’t really care for it so when it was time to drink I threw it back like I would a glass of water to find out it was alcohol. Talk about being surprised …not to mention the look on people’s faces when I killed that drink in one swig. Whoops.
After all of that fun I hung out with Beto and his friends talking about everything. They were a fun group of people and seemed super excited to have me in their city. Needing a breaking from all the celebrating I went to my bedroom and plopped down on my bed to catch eyes with a rat in the rafters of my ceiling. We both had the same look on our faces like, “What are you doing here?” Unless rats can spiderman their way up and down 10 foot walls then I have nothing to worry about. I have a tin roof, but under that there are rafters and then blue tarps. I wonder what the rainy season will brink? Hopefully I won’t get flooded. There is also a giant beam that goes across my room and it sure does look perfect for a hammock. Win! My house is two stories and has a normal bathroom, but it’s not attached to the back of the house. Sometimes the water doesn’t work so you have to use a pitcher of water to flush. My mom owns a restaurant and a store. Jackpot! After the rat incident when I went to the bathroom I realized the priest lives in my house and is my brother! He is moving to Lima this week to work. He is 26 and the oldest. I also have one other brother and 3 sisters. Only one of the sisters, Etel, will be living with us and she is only 14. All of the other siblings study and work in Lima. Etel and I bonded over Jonas Brothers, Justin Beiber and Twilight. I am going to buy her the movies so we can watch them when I return. Also, the cat in my mom’s restaurant is sooo sweet. It loves to just lay in my lap. I think this is a good sign.

Nov 11
I slept pretty well. The bed I have is super comfy, but I still was woken up by the wretched roosters right outside of my window. Maybe he will be killed soon. Today I went to the primaria (elementary school) and secondaria (high school) schools and met the teachers and kids. I also went to the puesto de salud (health post) and met the people there. The puesto de salud is like a health clinic. It’s the only medical place in town, but I think about an hour away is a hospital. When going around the city a lady invited me to some tortillas and cheese with coffee. It was super delicious. Later I was talking to some guy about how I love bananas and he went to his house and gave me two bananas from his banana trees. YES! They were perfectly rip and delicious. Another lady invited me into her little tienda (store) and let me have a soda. Luckily I had all of that food because lunch with my family was horrible. It was the traditional Peruvian dish, ceviche. That is raw fish soaked in pepper and lemon. I almost puked on myself. Wasn’t quite ready for that. I went back to my room afterwards and ate the bananas and watched some House. That night for dinner about 15 people met up at my mom’s restaurant for a dinner. It seemed to be the group of people that I am with the most and will most likely be working with the most. They included, Velalo, Rocío and her husband, my family, Jluis, Dante and a lot more people. It was a good dinner and we had more of the mud water alcohol, but this time I didn’t kill it instantly. I forgot to mention that the town police officer’s name is Jesus. How convenient. After dinner I went to the most boring town meeting ever. I hardly stayed awake.

Nov 12
Today had soo many ups and downs. Rocío said to be ready to leave at 7AM because I was going with her, her husband and another lady, Betty, from the health post to another community called Tunyale. I woke up around 6AM to find the shower didn’t have running water yet so I just got ready and went to breakfast. To make it short, Rocío wasn’t ready to leave until 9AM. I was slightly pissed because that meant two things. The first being, I could have had more time to sleep and the second, I could have had time to wait for the water to kick on. Oh well. They told me this Tunyale was only about an hour away (walking because there isn’t a road for cars) and that it was an easy walk. They lied. I didn’t know that a one hour easy walk meant, “Let’s go kill ourselves and walk 3 hours in the jungle-like area up and the biggest mountains around.” We had to walk up and down some of the steepest dirt paths, climb up rocks, walk through creeks and grass taller than me. I wish they would have at least said bring some crackers, water oh and a freaking backpack, not a purse. On the way we found a 15 foot snake that was a silver color and black. As soon as I saw it I almost vomited on my own feet while standing in donkey crap. We finally got to this hell hole city to give a charla on what types of food to feed kids and how to wash your hands. It went really well and I mostly observed, but I was distracted by a 2 year old girl beside me named Claudia. At first she didn’t really care for me, but by the end of the 2 hour charla we were best friends. I fed her peaches and bananas at the end and she was so excited to share her dirt covered sucker with me. (Yes I licked on a dirt covered sucker and it was delicious). After all that excitement a mom had us over for lunch. It was rice, chicken and potatoes, go figure. I asked to use the bathroom and she took me out back and said to just go anywhere. I had to pee in the field and for some reason all the chickens started surrounding me. It’s kinda hard to squat in a field in the open to pee, keep your balance and not pee on yourself while chickens are coming around you.
After lunch we had that wretched hike back, but once we finally got there a lady and husband served us this flan mixed with some type of jello and it was actually cold! It was super delicious and afterwards I just wanted to go home and shower, but yet again, there wasn’t water so I went to my family’s restaurant and took a bucket bath there. Once I finally got to my house I went to the bathroom and as I walked back I realized I left the door to the house open and 3 chickens had wondered into my bedroom. I spent the next 10 minutes shooing them out of the house and feathers were going everywhere. I hate chickens. For dinner we just hung around and didn’t do much. I spent a lot of time with my brother and sister listening to music. When I went to bed it started raining on my tin roof and it was awesome!! Tomorrow I leave at 3AM and head to Piura to go to Lima!
Also, here are the questions I was asked most often…in order…
1. What is your name
2. What religion are you?
3. Do you have a boyfriend
4. How old are you?
I also accidently overheard people talking about me and this is what was said, “She likes cats.” Then another lady chimed in and said, “She likes tortillas too.” Awesome.