I know my site!!!!

Well, in true Peace Corps training fashion things have been prohibitively busy this week and so this has been my first chance to post on my site!!! It all started two weeks ago in Lima, we were all at the big office in Surco to find out our sites...we did it by throwing a mini javelin at balloons and reading out the names it was fun :)I had one of those surreal moments when I heard my name, held my breath, and was very happy to hear the word Cajamarca in the name of my site! It was an emotional and fun day, with dancing and getting to know the staff at the Peace Corps office, then we were all off to our next field based training and thats where I was all last week. Sooo, since I'm officially swearing in as a volunteer in the morning and have a lot to get packed tonight I´ll give a quick rundown of where I'm going to be with lots of details to come later:

The name of my site is La Paccha and it is in the department of Cajamarca, about 5 hours north of Cajamarca city and 20 hours north of Lima by bus.

There are about 900 people in the town, and it is surrounded by mountains on all sides, and about an hour and a half to the nearest town with internet.

Im replacing another health volunteer who did great work at site including setting up a library for kids in Paccha.

My family seems great so far, and I feel kind of 'poshcorps' with my room as its cement not adobe, and very clean. I also have desagua which means a toilet with a seat so rock on!

My community partners will be a doctor and obstetriz, the doctors name is Stalin which I find rather entertaining, cant wait to find out the story behind that one, and he is from Bolivia originally but came to Paccha to work in rural health.

I already got to sit in on a charla-meeting on malnutrition in children in the nearby villages that are very poor, and I will be working most with these communities.

I think Im going to use the city of Chota as my home base for getting things done (bank, email, some phone calls), its about 3 hours away from Paccha, but has a nice hostel, the volunteers rent a room there for very cheap for when they need to stay over and Ill get a key, and theres a yummy restaurant that doesnt make me sick and has wireless.

Even though Cajamarca currently has 36 volunteers, there are only 3 of us going from my volunteer group....me, Barbara, and Annie..they are a lot of fun and Ill tell you more about them later, but we are all in the health program while many of the other cajamarquino volunteers are youth development and nearer to cities rather than in rural areas like us. Ill be about an hour and a half from Annie, so shes the closest I have to a site mate.

Everyone I spoke to in Chota about La Paccha always pointed out that its famous for its wonderful pineapples and coffee plants. While its in the mountains, its about an hour geographically from the Selva and the perfect climate for all sorts of amazing vegetation and landscapes, its beautiful. Paccha actually means waterfall in Quechua, and the name suits well as there are many nearby.

Below are pictures from Field based training in Cajamarca, four cuys had to die for our lunch and we were not spared the view...then the pictures of my site at La Paccha, and the view from my bedroom window with the mountains and roof.

I swear in officially tomorrow, its going to be a tough day as there are some people Im going to miss a lot..thankfully though I feel great about the 2 other girls going too, and my other friend Matt is about as close as possible for not being in Cajamarca, so I feel lucky about that.

Lots more pictures and news to come soon, and Ill give more details about reaching me at site, like if ill have cell reception etc. as there was none during my visit but they said thats not always the case.

My new address in Chota is below, mail makes me smile and once Im at site Ill have a lot of letters to write and send.
Con Cariño
K.


Kathryn M. Lee, PCV
Cuerpo de Paz
Casilla #48
Chota,Cajamarca-Peru