Work Update

My job...what exactly do I do for work here? Well, I do a variety of things depending on the day. Being a Peace Corps Volunteers calls for being very flexible and having an open mind to doing just about any kind of job from teaching, to painting and decorating, to working in the fields and with farm animals, to giving lectures and presentations and a large variety of other things. While my job can be really challenging and frustrating at times because of the lack of organization and punctuality that tends to exist in Peru, I truly feel like I have the best job in the world. My program in the Peace Corps is youth development which means that I get to hang out with youth all day, and take action to try to better their lives and future. In my opinion, I could not have asked for a better job! :) 

Where I spend 90% of my time: The school where I teach classes 

During these past few months, I have been spending the large majority of my time teaching classes at the local high school as well as working on my community diagnostic and "getting to know" Huallanca as a community. I've been teaching classes on subjects like: English (of course!), domestic violence, self-esteem, the environment, and I've started to touch a little bit on sex ed. I also recently have started a world map painting project. We are going to paint a world map on the outside of  a wall at the school. This is a Peace Corps tradition that was started in the late 1980s and is done by Peace Corps Volunteers all over the world. So far we have only sanded and prime painted out wall but we will soon be out there with out students painting the world :) 

Sanding down the wall where we are going to paint the world map :) 

I recently started a self esteem project with some of my students that we are all really enjoying. I am doing it in three different classrooms of the  younger students at my high school. We fist learned about what self esteem is and why it is important to have positive self esteem. We then decorated "self esteem folders" and each week we work on projects that help to boost their self esteem and self identity. Thanks to the people who sent me stickers-my students LOVED using them to help decorate their folders.

Decorating their self esteem folders

Something not so fun that I have been working really hard on lately is my community diagnostic. The community diagnostic is a very long report/presentation that I will turn into the Peace Corps about what I have learned about my community during the first three months. Over these past three months I have been giving surveys to my students and doing a lot of formal and informal interviews to learn more about Huallanca  and the problems that exist for the youth here. My community diagnostic is due in about 2 weeks which means its time to put all that I have learned into a big report. It also means entering into excel the 500 surveys  (with 50 questions each) that I gave out to my students in order to find out some data and overall conclusions about the youth in Huallanca. 

Entering surveys into excel has been my life for the past week.

Here are some photos of some adorable little girls that I pass on my way to work every day :) 

In the US most little girls play with baby dolls that they push in strollers like. Here most little girls put their baby dolls on their backs like they see their mom's do :)

My precious little Billy turned 5 a few days ago :) 

 I eat many weird animals parts living where I do...stomach is one of my least favorites. Just look at the texture and you'll understand why...I also think I don't like it because I've seen them clean out cow stomachs and its quite disgusting to say the least. I am definitely getting more used to eating weird things though. Five months ago if you would have served me cow stomach for dinner, I definitely would not have been able to eat it. Now I can "stomach" just about anything. 

Cow stomach has a very odd texture...I mean just look at it!! There are also some vegetables and french fries mixed in there but you can easily spot the stomach because it has the odd texture.