Huallanca Love

My room!! 

View from my patio

More of my room

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer living in a small town is kind of like being somewhat of a celebrity. During training we were told this by current volunteers but it was hard to imagine what that would be like and I didn’t believe them but after living in Huallanca for two weeks now, I now see what they mean.  Everywhere you go people stare at you, want to meet you, want to be your friend, want to know every detail about your life, and everything that you do is heavily observed by those around you and gossiped about. Every day that I work in the high school, I have students tell me things like “Señorita Kendra yesterday I saw you going for a run”, “Last night I saw you talking on your cell phone in the plaza”, “Yesterday I saw you taking pictures by the river with a little girl”, “Yesterday I saw you buying bread with your family”, etc. These were all random moments when I had no idea people were watching me and it made me realize that people here really do watch my every move. This is not something to be excited about because I am not perfect in anyway and the idea of every move I make being observed is kind of scary. I am hoping that once my town gets use to me, they will no longer heavily observe my every move, stare at me everywhere I go, and that they won’t call me “gringa” anymore. Something cool about being such an exciting new attraction is that my site mate and I got interviewed on the local radio station! We talked about why we will be here in Huallanca for the next two years, what the Peace Corps is, and what we plan to do here.

We were interviewed on the local radio station!

My family in Huallanca is wonderful. I am really happy with them and I feel so lucky to get to be a part of their family. They are a HUGE family and I swear we have relatives on every block so everywhere I go I am being introduced to another aunt, uncle or cousin. Everyone in our huge family is so friendly and respectful to me and very interested to talk with me and ask me many questions. It’s really fun to be a part of such a big family because there are always lots of people to hang out with.

My little sister and I...Melany wanted to be just like her big sis and have a Peace Corps shirt so she had a patch sew on to her polo too :) 

My aunt and my cousin that invite me over to eat when my family is out of town :) 

Meet Billy...my wild little cousin who is an every day joy for me. He lives in the house attached to our house and I spend as much time with him as I can because he is so fun and silly. 

Billy's littler sister, my baby cousin Mercedes

At a neighborhood fiesta with my little sis and cousin

For my community diagnostic, I have been initiating formal and informal interviews with teachers, youth, workers in the municipality, the health center, and just about anyone in the community that I get a chance to talk with, asking them all the same questions: “What kind of problems do you feel exist for the youth in Huallanca?” and “What kinds of programs, activities, and workshops do the youth of Huallanca need?”. So far I have interviewed about twenty or so people and I have gotten many different but also similar responses. There are two things that I want to get started very soon: Vocational classes for the high school seniors who are about to graduate as well as classes on recycling and the environment. After talked with a lot of the students, I have noticed that most of the high school seniors have no idea what they are going to do after they graduate in a few months. I have also noticed that people don’t recycle at all let alone even put their garbage in a trash bin. Youth (as well as adults) are constantly throwing garbage in the streets. This is due to a lack of education and a lack of trash bins in public places and it’s definitely something that I want to try to change asap. Of course a big obvious problem is also the teen pregnancy in Huallanca, but I need to start with the smaller things and let the town and the youth get to know me as I gain a reputation, trust, and their confidence before I start teaching youth how to use condoms and birth control and start things like parenting classes. In addition to doing interviews for my community diagnostic, I spent every possible moment in the high school helping out in the English and Tutor classes. I want to spend a lot of time in the classes to get to know the students, and gain their trust. I also want to gain a reputation as being a teacher because then I think people will be even more likely to take me seriously and to respect me. The students love me being in their class and they all cheer and surround me every time I walk into a class room. I am sure that will change once they get use to me but for now it’s nice to feel the love from the students.

Some of my students

More of my students in a different grade

Teaching our own English class (with  my site mate). 

I really do adore Huallanca. I could not have gotten a better site J