I am already in love with my site, the beautiful small town
of Huallanca, Bolognesi, Ancash!! Huallanca sits in a small valley nestled
among the gorgeous mountains in the Sierra. It takes about four hours to get
there on the bus from the capital city Huaraz. The bus ride to Huallanca is
STUNNING. The entire bus ride there my nose was pressed to the window as I
stared out the window with mouth open and eyes wide in awe of the beautiful
mountains, streams, rivers, lakes and picturesque views. After seeing only
mountains, huts made of straw and rock, and indigenous farmers tending to their
sheep , you suddenly turn a corner and there is cute little Huallanca. The town
has a very small feel and within a few days I already felt acquainted to it. I
can’t wait to explore it more and get to know as many people as I can and build
relationships with the locals!
The day before heading to Huallanca, we had what the Peace
Corps calls “socio day” in Huaraz. The Peace Corps sets us up with “socios” who
are counterparts from our community that we will work with during our two
years. They are people like school directors, nurses from the local health
post, and people who work at the local municipality. Our socios will be a huge
resource for us and a big “in” to the community. I had four socios show up from
my community for socio day and all day we talked about what the Peace Corps is
and we made plans for my first few weeks in the community. After spending the
day with them, we took the bus to Huallanca and I saw it for the first time and
stayed for the rest of the week. I spent a lot of time with my nurse socio who
I can already tell is going to be a HUGE resource for me. At the health center,
she primarily works with pregnant woman and infants and I can’t wait to partner
with her to start support groups and nutrition classes for young moms. Never in
my life have I seen so many pregnant young women and babies EVERYWHERE! It was
shocking! I also spent a lot of time with the people who work at the
municipality and a few of them even gave me a tour of the town. My socios
already seem awesome! Everyone is so welcoming and excited to work with me! I
feel so lucky to be in such a beautiful town with such awesome people to work
with!
I got to meet my new host family when I was in Huallanca as
well! I didn’t stay with them because they were leaving for vacation (I stayed
with my nurse socio) but I did get to meet them and see the house and my room.
Something shocking for me is the amount of money they seem to have…for my Peace
Corps living experience, I was hoping for something rustic and simple. Like
dirt floors, an adobe house, a hole in the ground for a toilet, etc. Instead of
this, I am pretty sure my family is the wealthiest family in the town! We’re
talking a big and fancy modern house, a flat screen TV, a brand new SUV, and
even a WASHING MACHINE! This is not what I was expecting at all and to be
honest I am a little bit disappointed because I wanted something very different
from the way I live in the states. I also don’t want the people in my community
to think “oh of course the white girl is living with the richest family in town”.
However, the family seems very sweet and I know that I will get along with them
very well and when it comes down to it that is what’s most important.
My site mate Tyler also really enjoyed our visit to
Huallanca and we are both really excited to move there and get settled and
started on our work. Tyler and I agreed that we will only speak in Spanish to
each other when we are in our site. Now let me tell you, it is a bit odd to
speak with another American in Spanish 24/7 but we agreed to this for several
reasons the first being that I did not come all the way to Peru to speak in
English with other Americans. The best way for language to improve is to speak
only that language all the time and I don’t want to jeopardize my Spanish
skills. Another reason that we don’t want to speak in English while in our site
is because it would seem pretty darn rude to the locals of the community if we
walked through town speaking English.
This Friday those of us who have made it through training
and have decided that being a Peace Corps volunteers is really what we want to
dedicate ourselves to for the next two years swear in as an official Peace
Corps volunteers at the US embassy in Lima!! The next day we will all get on
buses and move to our different sites all over Peru. That means this week we
are finishing up training, saying goodbye to our host families and saying
goodbye to each other. It is all very bitter sweet. I am super sad about having
to part ways with my best friend Kaeli who has become my other half and my
biggest support system over these past ten weeks. She is moving to the north of
Peru to Piura and we will be about a 16 hour bus ride away from each other. And it doesn’t help that I don’t get cell
service in my site so we won’t be able to talk on the phone very often L
These past ten weeks have been a mixture of every possible
emotion and while I am sad to say goodbye to my host family here in Lima and my
wonderful volunteer friends that I have been in training with, I am so excited
to get to my site and begin life as an official volunteer!! Here’s to two amazing and challenging
years!!!
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