Site visit

08/11/2008

A big Peruvian “Happy 16th” to my little sis. As dad likes to say, your present’s “in the mail.”

And way to go, America. We watched the election results the other night at our regular bar/restaurant near the training center. Pretty incredible. I’ll leave it at that, in the interest of the Peace Corps neutrality policy.

It’s been big week around here, both because of the elections and because we found out on Thursday where we’re going to be living and working for the next two years. As I suspected, I was placed way up north in the department of Piura, up in the mountains. I couldn’t be more stoked. I had talked with Jorge, our Wat/San jefe or APCD (Associate Peace Corps Director …gotta love the government acronyms) a few times about wanting to get up out of the desert region and into some green stuff if at all possible, and from the sound of it, he hooked me up big time. The site is at about 2,200 meters (7,000 ft give or take) and super-green from what I’ve heard. Depending on the year, it can rain straight for three to six months, starting right about now. The town I will be living in is called Chalaco (pop. 1,500), and it’s the district capital which serves several dozen smaller towns around it. I think I’m probably going to be doing a lot of work in these smaller communities, which will be awesome. Also, there are a ton of us either already working there, or heading to the same region. I’ll be within an hour or two of several other volunteers – pretty ideal. Tomorrow we’re heading out on our week-long site visits, where we’ll learn a whole lot more. As for now, just packing up and getting ready for an 18-hour bus ride north. Hell yeah.