Family Fun

Hello, faithful readers. So sorry to keep my loyal following waiting...though I guess it´s only been about a week since my last and final goodbye. Time moves differently down here, at least from my perspective. I arrived in Lima Saturday at 3am (a looooong four hours spent on the tarmac in Miami waiting out a lightening storm), so it´s really only been about 6 days in Peru, but packing so much into those six days has left us all feeling like we´ve been here for weeks. The days are long and packed with new information and new people. It´s exhausting. I go to bed at 9pm, but I´m up around 6.30. I have my very own rooster alarm clock. At 4.30am. On the dot. Every day.

There are 36 trainees (we won´t be volunteers until mid August) in my group about evenly split between youth development and small business development (mine) programs. We´re all living with host families in small communities surrounding the training center. We´re about an hour from Lima. Our host families came to pick us up on Sunday afternoon from the training center. Lunch was a pretty quiet affair as we were all pretty nervous about what was sure to be an awkward afternoon with our new families. I was the first one to get picked up and as soon as I stood up my host dad was like "que altisima" (ie, she´s freakishly tall). Everyone laughed and it helped break the ice a little bit.

My family is awesome. They are so sweet, so accomodating and so patient with my language skills. The first day they showed me an empty picture frame that they´re saving for a picture of me. Adorable. Most of the families in this area have hosted volunteers before so they´re all very used to the quirks of Americans. Peace Corps also does a great job of providing them with some basic rules and guidelines, ie, we have to slowly get used to the food, we like to drink a lot of water, we need our own room, etc. etc. My family has probably told me 20 times that I am not allowed to have vegetables until week 3 (because they´re washed with tap water). They take their job of keeping me safe and healthy very seriously. The first day I was here, my dad took me on a walk around the community to show me around. I´d been drinking out of my water bottle, but left it in inside to go on our walk. Vidal (my dad´s name) ran back inside and grabbed it for me saying, I know you always like water, please take this with you. We were gone for five minutes. Apparently our (ie, gringo) repuation as tall water guzzlers precedes me. Compared to Peruvians, it´s true. They never drink water. Or anything. Only hot tea or hot chocoalte with meals.

My family consists of Vidal, who works with the municipality building some sort of wall, I think to protect the water reservoir? He´s also on a water sanitation committee, which is pretty cool. Vanessa is 24 and works as an emergency nurse in Lima. And Mayra, at 16, is the youngest. She just finished colegio and now stays home to do the cleaning and cooking. The mom, Lili, is in Argentina right now (I think for work, but it´s not really clear and they don´t really talk about it) so I won´t get to meet her, but we did talk on the phone the first day. Mayra is super cute. We´ve talked a lot about American movies and music. She gave me a frienship bracelet last night which I was pretty stoked about. They´re very popular here.

My family has a DVD player (but no hot water, go figure), so I´ve been watching a LOT of bootleg DVDs dubbed in Spanish. It´s actually a pretty good way to learn some new vocab and practice Spanish, especially if I´m familiar with the English version. Last night we watched ¨El noche en el museo." My Spanish is holding up OK. I definitely need a lot of practice, but I can already feel it improving on a daily basis. The basic knowledge is there, it´s just a matter of practicing and remembering and getting more comfortable. Poco a poco.

I leave you with a laugh for the day, because I know this is getting long. A note on showering: as I said, there´s no hot water. At all. It´s ice cold. The shower is a tub with a showerhead attached to an extremely short coil. I can´t stand up, the nozzle woulnd´t even reach my sholders. So I have to squat in this ¨tub¨and hold the nozzle above me. Meaning I can´t ease into the cold water, no, just have to squat with ice cold water running down me trying not to scream too loudly. The water pressure is basically nothing, so the process of getting shampoo out takes a good minute or two. I got water everywhere the first time, but I only have a really small camping towel right now and didn´t want to use it to wipe the floor. But I didn´t want to use all their toilet paper, so I´m sqatting again (I´m going to have some serious quads here soon) trying to sponge up some water with one square of toilet paper, then I realize that my shoes are leaving muddy marks all over the floor whenever I move, so I have to start backing out the door (I´m dressed) praying that no one will see me as I erase my muddy marks with a sopping wet square of toilet paper. I´m learning though, the second one was much cleaner. Poco a poco.

So much more to tell, but I won´t ramble further. Suffice to say, I am having a great time. Every day is new and exciting and an adventure. Definitely a lot of laughter. And a lot of learning.

I miss you all.