Sunday, October 25, 2009

hi everyone. hope everything in the US is good. Things in Peru have been going pretty well. Training is flying by--only 3 weeks left. We have started to get a lot more hands on experience, doing site visits and practicing various skill sets. over the past few weeks we (the 19 environment volunteers) have done hands on garbage management, planted 100 trees, visited a national park and a protected wetlands and learned a lot related to all of those topics. On these field trips I also got to see an eagle and I swam in the Pacific for the first time in a couple years, so that was awesome.

the other thing that´s starting to be emphasized is giving educational sessions. Last week i gave a 20 minute session about trees, in spanish, to a bunch of 8-12 years olds in an after school program. it went ok, but it´s hard to teach and it´s especially hard to teach in a language that isn´t english. This week we are going to Ancash, a province in the Andes, for a few days and we are going to be teaching a few more times, so hopefully the practice will do me good. it´s also supposed to be really beautiful and about 4000 meters high, so I´m really excited for that

Other notable things that happened: I turned 23 last week, which was fun. my host family threw me a party on the roof of their house and a bunch of volunteers came over. it was fun and it was nice that they were willing to do something special for me. a few of my friends also surprised me with some homemade pizza and a cake, both of which were delicious, so I was well taken care of on my birthday

and the last cool thing of late was that I ran a half marathon today in lima. I don´t think it was notably different than a half marathon in America, but for reasons that are still unclear to me, i got interviewed by a Peruvian TV network at the finish line and my host family said they saw me on TV. I´m pretty sure I embarrassed myself cuz i was too tired to think or speak in any language but oh well.

so yea, that´s it. hope this finds you all well

--alex

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government




yea so that´s it. life is good. miss you all and I hope

Thursday, October 8, 2009

1 month

hard to believe it´s been that long eh? one down, 26 to go...
na, things here are actually going really well. for example, i know how to take the bus back and forth from the training center, i know what foods i do and don´t like, i learned how to build a tree nursery and i mostly know how much money to pay for things and what the denominations look like
and beyond that, spanish is coming along pretty well too. I can have basic to slightly more than basic conversations , I am starting to get to know somepeople around my community and i´m getting along really well with my host family, who have continued to make me feel really welcome here
I have also started to get around Lima alittle bit. last week I went with some other volunteers to check out the catacombs at the big fransiscan monestary here. it was a museum, but there were lots of skulls so I didn´t get bored. Today was a pretty cool day too--we only had a half day of training cuz it´s a national holiday (peru beat chile in a battle that I don´t completely understand because everything was explained to me in Spanish). So after a big lunch of ceviche (raw fish kind f cooked in lime juice--very good) I went with my host brother and father and 2 friends to Lima. We went to a big market that had just about everything you could imagine. I was aqble to buy a full season of simpsons dvds for about US $2, so you can imagine how happy I am. After that we walked out of the market and we bought 3 bags of fresh hard boiled quial eggs to splitas a snack. they were delicous and it was one of those moments where I was just stuck thinking--wow, being in peru is fun and slightly overwhelming and just different.

so yea, that´s life. thanks to everyone who e-mailed after my last post, and I do appreciate it even if I didn´t write back. oh and I don´t know if this will work, but this is a link to some pictures...http://www1.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=1536836015/a=10989002_10989002/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfish/ . and as always, I hope you are all well and Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government

--alex

Thursday, October 1, 2009

I´m in peru

hi everybody. It´s been about three weeks since I left the bronx, and I figured it was about time to update everyone on my life a little bit since I left. I am currently a trainee in the Peace Corps´ community based environmental management program in Peru. We have 10 weeks of training about 1.5 hours outside of lima, and then I will be shipped off to a location that is as of now still a mystery to me for the next two years.
my days are pretty straightforward--4 hours of spnish training in the AM, technical, health and safety training in the afternoons, with visits to the local ag college on the weekends to learn some farming/gardening. The ag school is a cool place, reminds me a bit of Cornell but in Spanish
Peru definitely isn´t the US. THe smell of burning garbage is always kind of lingering, there is a rooster who lives about 50 feet away from my room who I would LOVE to throw a rock at, the market is way more colorful and lively than any farmer´s market I have been to in the US. But i do have a hot shower and water and electricity and while life here may be simpler, I´m not roughing it too bad, at least not yet.
I´m living with a super nice family in a small town called treis de octubre (3rd of October, the day they became incorperated. ¡look i learned some Spanish!). my hosts are a couple probably a few years younger than my parents with a son who is 23 and studies a lot of math that I don´t understand at a university in Lima. They have been very welcoming and very patient as I stumble along in Spanish. The town in tranquil and in a pretty little valley near a very polluted river and a bunch of small hills. I have been getting to run, which is always nice, and They have been feeding me very well--mountains of potatoes and rice.
and yea, that´s the basics. nothing too crazy or overwhelming so far, or if there has been my brain is handling it extremely well. there are 57 kids in my training class, which is big enough so that it´s a challenge to get to know everybody, but there are cool people around and I´m sure they will only get cooler as I get to know them better.

That´s the basics, sorry if it´s not too scinitiallating, but I wanted to get something out and I need to go eat dinner in 5 minutes. hope all is well whereever you are and i check e-mail on occasion, so feel free to write, although I may be late or never in getting back to you (sorry)

--Alex

Disclaimer: This post reflects solely my own opinions, not those of the Peace Corps or the US government