Town outside Piura....happening place.
My health post partner, Antonio and I at training on communal gardens in Piura
View I see every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner...our kitchen is outside.
Traveling nomad…the other life of a volunteer. I feel like I’ve been a nomad for the last month or so, with little bursts of time at site, but not overwhelming amounts. First, Joe came to visit July 19th and stayed for 10 days. We enjoyed good food in Lima (and I enjoyed crazy comfy beds and central heating), then headed up to Cajamarca where I learned that staying in a hotel on the plaza is not the brightest idea because Peruvians don’t understand ‘quiet’. We shared a liter of famous Cajamarca yogurt, saw some sites, ate yummy food, and then headed up to my site near Chota another 6 hours north of Cajamarca city. Joe was coerced into conquering his fear of guinea pigs (cuys) when I took him to see where they are kept and we helped make a nice lunch at the house of one of my friends at site, Deysy. After Joe left, things returned to normal for a little while as I came back to Campamento for about 2 weeks but then it was time for another training on the coast, this time in Piura up north.
For this training we were told to bring someone from our community who we are working with so I brought the nurse who is in charge of my health post, Antonio. We had a good time and both learned a lot on how to make cocinas mejoradas, community gardens, latrines, and teach youth about health topics. It was fun to see other health volunteers too, but it was a total blitz of crazy full days and we barely got to catch up. I was also dosed up on Benadryl half the time due to some strange reaction to being in a dust bowl. On the last day though our boss had a huge cake for those of us who had our birthdays this month which was super sweet.
Since I was already on the coast and live in the boonies I decided to take advantage of easy transportation and go to Trujillo in the department of La Libertad to see a favorite fellow PCV. I had a great weekend eating delicious ceviche (raw fish in lime sauce) on the beach in Huanchaco, drinking good coffee, walking around, and listening to a hilarious cover band called Big Balls who spoke no English but could apparently sing in it no problem. I also saw a washed up sealion, but that part was sad.
So yeah, I’m back at site for a few days with the exception of Cajamarca for my birthday. Seems birthdays aren’t a big deal in the campo here….I had to pry it out of my little host bros when I asked them when their birthdays were…they claimed not to know. So to avoid a day of self indulgent over reflection and consumption of chocolate at site we are going to Cajamarca to party!
Workwise though things are good, I had a very successful charla (meeting) with 20 mothers with kids younger than 5 years old in a nearby village recently and did a lesson on the importance of nutrition, breastfeeding, adding other foods after 6 months, not selling all your vegetables etc. which went well. I also talked a lot about the importance of iron since anemia in children is a huge problem here, and since Spinach is one of the vegetables with the most iron I gave a packet of seeds to each woman to begin their personal veggie gardens with vegetables that are only to be consumed, not sold! So I will check in on the progress of that as things go along. With these 20 moms I want to do a series of about 5-7 charlas on different health subjects like importance of water purification, small animal husbandry and separation of space, maintaining a clean and healthy latrine, nutrition for children and adults, healthy elimination of trash, early stimulation for children less than 3, and healthy homes. I have already told them that if they attend all the charlas and I see that there is a commitment on their behalf to learning about these topics the health post and I will begin the process of applying for a grant so that they can have cocinas mejoradas. I see the cocinas as a final end goal for these charlas…if they don’t know how to feed their kids and don’t have a healthy home and way to eliminate trash then the cocina is just something that’s being given to them without any real context of why its important. Thankfully Antonio from the health post completely agrees so we are probably going to move forward with these 20 moms and also moms in one other village as well. So I might be looking to get a grant done towards the end of this year. There are two types ok’ed by Peace Corps. One is through USAID for funds of up to 2500 dollars, the other is to solicit funds from organizations/family/friends in the states through the PC website for funds of up to 5000 dollars. I plan to try and use both for my larger projects, but first want to make sure I have a very good base of people to help make the cocinas project happen and I’m confident I will.
In other news, met a man who is interested in building a mini landfill in our centro so hope to be able to work with the schools and reiterate the importance of actually eliminating trash rather than throwing it somewhere. Also, at the end of the month Barbs, Annie, and I are meeting with an NGO here called CARITAS to see if we can collaborate on some projects. I doubt they will have a lot of funds to give, but they may have good advice and resources to share with us as they have been working in towns near Chota for several years.
I also just finished the book Living Poor and didn’t want it to end. It’s about a guy who does Peace Corps in the 1960s in Ecuador and his experiences there….It was one of those books that articulates the strangeness of Peace Corps for you which I appreciated….I would definitely recommend it. Now I’m starting Reading Lolita in Tehran and also The Shock Doctrine which is this monster of a book on disaster related economics…however the author is rather all over the place and goes off on a lot of really interesting tangents, so I’m enjoying it!
Big Balls in Trujillo...bringing 'pleather' back!
Washed up Sea Lion....sad! I had just eaten a plate of raw fish too. Delish!
Cocina Mejorada we built in Piura...we called it our 'letrina mejorada' since we built it in about 2 hours and this pic was taken before it dried.
Dusty Piura village where we did our 3 day tech training...
Vaccinating a duck....haha I know my life is so random.
