Hola a todos!
I’ve officially made it through the first two weeks of pre-service training (PST)! It took me a little less than 1 week after landing in Peru to get my first gastrointestinal problems. I have a famously weak stomach, so this did not come as a surprise whatsoever. I knew it was bound to happen, but dang, I was not expecting it to be that fast. Luckily, the Peace Corps medical team gave us giant kits pretty much the second we got off the plane, so I had plenty of meds to help get through it. My wonderful host mom was also very attentive and even made me chicken noodle soup! While slurping down my bowl of soup, we had a fun moment of culture exchange as I shared that chicken noodle soup is my go-to for sick days in the U.S. too! I loved having this little unexpected taste of home.
So far PST has been super busy and engaging, despite the occasional stomach ache. The days are packed pretty much from the second I wake up until I go to bed at night. Not all is work-related, but there is a lot to balance between training, spending time with other trainees, spending time my host family, and keeping in touch with everyone back home. I figured as part of this blog post, I’d give what a typical day-in-the-life looks like for me right now:
6:00 AM
My alarm goes off, I get dressed and ready for the day, and I head downstairs. I’m normally greeted by Bruno, one of my host family’s dogs and my host mom, who has already been up cooking for quite some time. Normally breakfast is some sort of fresh fruit smoothie, tea, toast with jam or avocado, and an egg. Yummy and filling!
6:50 AM
My site compañeros all meet up. Three other trainees live in the town that I’m staying in, so we typically all meet up for the commute to the center. I live the furthest down the mountain, so we all congregate outside of my house to finish the journey. Bruno always comes out to greet all the chicos before we head down to the main road.
7:00 AM
The peaceful walk down the hill is interrupted by the approaching combi. A horn that really sounds like something that should be coming out of a clown car honks repeatedly as the combi screeches to a stop and one of the combi employees that is hanging off the side of the bus yells SUBE SUBE SUBE (GET ON GET ON GET ON) until everyone on the stop is on the bus. A combi could probably sit about 20 people comfortably, but realistically, at least 30-35 people are shoved in most of the time. Imagine human sardines, pack them in a bit tighter, and there you go: you have a typical combi ride. If we are lucky, we find a seat, but typically, we just hang onto the railings for the short ride to the center. Lucky for me, although I am much taller than the average Peruvian, I still have about 3 inches between my head and the ceiling when I am standing up. The small bus can be a bit of a bummer for the taller guys who have to crouch over for the entirety of the trip.
Combis are well known for being hot-spots for pick pocketing, so I have not braved taking my phone out to snap a picture. Luckily though, I found some pictures on Google to help illustrate what I am working with:
The combi ride is a little stressful and awakening, like a first shot of caffeine in the morning. I could probably do an entire post on the combi experience, but I think I have painted a good enough picture for now.
7:15-7:20 AM
After jumping of the combi, the group has a short walk to the training center. We are supposed to be there by 7:30, although sometimes it gets cut a bit closer to 8 when classes start. When we arrive early though, we can sit on the patio, work any miscellaneous homework that didn’t get completed the night before, or just hang out with the other volunteers while soaking in the view (and maybe some caffeine).
8:00 – 12:30
Classes are starting! Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, our classes are mostly language-based or sector-based. The blocks on these days are 3-4 hours – one block before lunch and one after. The trainers are pretty good about giving us breaks, but it can still be a lot of information to soak in during that amount of time.
I have really been enjoying the language classes – there are three of us in my language group (they are broken up by specific sectors and then by skill-level). The small group set up gives us lots of opportunities to practice the language as well as pepper our teacher with lots of questions about Peru, things we see in our daily life, and occasionally some language stuff as well.
The WASH classes have also been really interesting and have given us more of a vision of what our lives and sites might look like for the next couple of years. The classroom material tends to be pretty technical, but is preparing us for field-based activities.
Wednesday is health, safety, security, general admin, and pretty much any miscellaneous session they might need to give us. Wednesday can be kind of fun because it’s really the only day that we get to spend together as an entire cohort. We also have fun sessions on topics such as Peruvian cuisine, how to not get scammed by taxi drivers, and how to deal with diarrhea (I’m not kidding, we had a 1.5 hour class on that).
Thursdays are WASH immersion day! My immersion group is spending our time in a district called San Jeronimo de Surco, located about 2 hours east of Lima. We’ve gone two times so far, once to talk to some people from the main municipality, and once to visit the water system in a small annex within the district. The point of these days is to show us what kind of roles our counterparts might have in our future sites and what kind of activities we might be doing on a day-to-day basis. If my site has mountains like this, I will be absolutely thrilled:
12:30 PM
Lunch ime! It’s mad rush to the microwaves so we can all warm up the lunches that our host moms carefully prepared and packed for us. It’s always fun to compare what everyone has to eat that particular day. In Peru, lunch is typically the biggest meal of the day, so a lot of volunteers are sent with 3+ Tupperwares filled with rice, meat, potatoes, salad, fruit, etc.
Some currently serving volunteers have been visiting the center each week of training. During lunch, they often mingle and give their unfiltered and candid perspectives about service, the different sites they are located in, and how they navigated certain challenges that they faced in different moments.
1:30-4:30 PM
The afternoon sessions are always the hardest! Although it’s fun to have such an elaborate lunch packed for you, the post-lunch food coma is tough. Back in my college days in the U.S., I would pack little candies to keep my blood sugar up and wake me up a bit during a lull in class. However, eating during classes in Peru is considered a rude practice, unless the teacher provides the food. Sometimes the trainers bring us little snacks and other times I sneak some mints during a bathroom break.
4:30 PM
All done with classes for the day! For a couple hours after training, a lot of the trainees hang around the center. Sometimes we go explore the businesses in Chaclacayo to get to know more of the neighborhood. Below are some pics of the group getting some alfajores from the local bakery (if you know, you know) and celebrating one of the trainee’s birthdays!
There are also quite a few people who enjoy running, so a lot of times a group will go to the park down the road. There’s a nice track for running and some grassy areas to do other exercises as well. Our trainee group has also been making good use of the volleyball net at the center for some post-training volleyball games.
6:00 PM
Time to head home for the day! Going home, we repeat the whole combi process over agin. Somehow, the drivers have not gotten worn out from the day on the road and are yelling with just as much enthusiasm as they were at 7:00 AM. Sometimes though in the evening depending on how hectic the rush is, we might be lucky enough to snag a seat on the bus!
7:00 PM
After getting home and showering (I am lucky enough to have a hot shower), I head downstairs to hang out with my host family. After some conversation about our day, we normally flip on the TV and watch some telenovelas. Right now my favorite is called “Todo por mi Familia”, which is essentially like an overly dramatic version of Modern Family, where half of the family seems to have it out for the others for reasons that I have not been able to comprehend yet.
8:00 PM
Dinner time! Although dinner is typically a bit smaller than lunch, there is still often more food than I can eat. So far, I have been eating some sort of soup, often accompanied by deliciously cooked meat, some veggies, and a large bed of rice. There is also a lot of Asian influence in the food in Peru. Below is a picture one of my favorite dishes so far! The plate is called Chaufa (similar to fried rice) that my host mom cooked this week with a side of some fresh juice!
9:00 PM
I head upstairs to finish up some homework that might require more focus and to catch up on any messages that I might have not gotten a chance to respond to yet.
10:00 PM
That’s it for the day! I set my alarm and normally pass out immediately.
It’s super easy to get lost in the schedule of the day. Of course this is a very generalized schedule and every day presents something new or unexpected. One of the Peace Corps’ core principles is flexibility, and they are making sure we are learning how to flex those muscles and go with the flow that each day brings.
I was planning on talking about all of the fun things that I have been up to outside of training, but based on the length of this post, I think that will have to wait until next time for now.
Hasta pronto!
