Voluntario

Well the day finally came. I swore in. I am officially a Peace Corps volunteer. The first lady of Peru spoke at our swaring in cerimony, it was really nice. She slipped on the way to the podium. I had to do every thing in my power not to laugh. If she had hit the groud there is no way I could of held it in. It was not too hard to say good bye to my old family, but it was not easy either. We had a nice final lunch of salad and papa rellena. It was delicious. After we swore in they rented us a bus to send us of to Lima. With all of our gear this bus would of seated 20 comfortably. The Problem was that there was 37 of us. We quickly realized that the bus would not fit our gear where need be so we packed it Beverly Hill'billie style and were on our way.The night of swaring in they put us up in a really great place in a really nice part of town (Lima, Mira Flores). Needless to say we let loose. The next day we all set off for our reigonal capitals. To stay for a couple of days and collect our ¨thaughts¨.

Picture 1 is of Peru 10. To be modest, I believe it to be the best Peace Corps group ever. This is Enviornment and Health. The second picture is of my first spanish class. We became known as "Los Super Machos", for good reason. Our profesora, Edith, was at one time a nun. You would never have guessed it. I remember the day we were learning about body barts. We all had formal education when studying Spanish so we only knew the medical terms for the unmentionables. By the end of our lesson Edith was fondaling herself yell, "C´mon what are these!? What do you call these?" We responded like and group of young men dubed "Los Super Machos" would, "We don´t know please god tell us." The urgency was not so much perverted as it was to get her to stop. I learned a importnat lesson that day (No it is not the 30 different ways to say breasts in Spanish). It was that even though you may be called a super macho, a fifty-five year old woman can make you seem timid. The third picture is where I lived in Chalacayo. Actually I lived in the pool house off to the left. I know Huh? This is Peace Corps? Actually my family did not live here. My mom is the cleaning lady. The lady who owns the house lives in Lima, but raised here children in the house. Durning this time she became great friends with my mom. My mom now has free reign to the property durning most of the year. This includes my sister LLisela who lived in between the Avacado trees in the back of the house, in one of the three other "mini" houses. When I arrived the pool was much different. Actually it was half filled with emerald green mosquito water. I asked the Peace Corps doctor, Jorge, at least ten differnt times if I was going to die of malaria. He assured me that malaria was not in Lima and sent me on my way. I did not believe him. Once I got to know my mother and relaized how great of a person she was I decided to claen the pool as a gift to the lady for letting my mom use it to house volunteers. I "Peruvian rigged" the house pump to the pool and got the water out. This success was shortly lived. For some reason my mom has my very preagnat sister do some house work. This includes watering the lawn. One day she was watering and the hose became disconnected. The pool was filled, and was living in fear of malaria all over again. It took some time, but I finally drained the pool again, with a lot of help from my co-volunteer Brett (Super Macho on the far left). When we got down to the bottom it was a mix of what I can only discribe as living awefulness. We then hand sanded the pool. After that we washed it three times and painted it. Then we filled it and threw the greatest Peace Corps party that I will experience just two days before swaring in. The forth picture is Peace corps 10 Enviornment with the First Lady of Peru. The last picutre (way over due is my family minus Maria Antuanette who really reminds me of my real sister Martha. I think in large part of the family dynamic and the way she reacts to it.) On the left is my dad Rafeal. He is a airplane mechanic at Lima International. He is a very complicated guy. By that I mean he is either really happy and personable, or extremly angry and verbally abusive (to his family not me). There is no middle ground. On My right is Maria Mariujenia. She is 16 and wants to study chemistry or Phisics. I did not talk to her as much as the others because she was always lip locked with her boyfriend (I guess some things transend culture) Antonio, who I call Antonia because I saw pictures of him in full make-up and would not let him live it down. Not Like I ever did that, and then went to school in my sister´s dress. Sometimes it is fun to be hypocritical. My mother Lidia is on the right of Maru. She is a kindered spirit. She embodies evrything that a strong woman in Peruvian culture should. She was my rock during training and I will always keep in touch with her. On the far right is my older sister Maria LLisela. She is married to this dude that I could not stand, and my family barely put up with. He is a human leech and suffers from extrme machismo. Also he is not very intellegent. The family and I would have a great time making fun of him. She on the other hand is a very loving mother and has a great playful personality. This concludes my Posts on tranning and I will now focus on my time in site. Expect another post shortly to let you know how my first week in site went.

Matt