It’s Official

So this past Friday I and 50 other trainees officially became Peace Corps volunteers after our swearing in Ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in Lima. It was nice to see the embassy, which is apparently the second largest in the world after the U.S. Embassy in Russia. The ceremony itself was short and sweet and was a nice way to wrap things up. So after our swearing in we all got the chance to spend on last night in Lima together before heading off to our various sites around the country. It was certainly a bittersweet feeling, getting to start a new adventure yet saying goodbye to a lot of new found friends. On Saturday we all said our goodbyes throughout the day as people were leaving on their busses. Mine was one of the later ones so I got to stay around the whole day and relax a little before embarking. So on Saturday me, and my fellow La Libertad volunteers, left on our overnight bus and arrived in Trujillo early in the morning on Sunday. There we were greeted by our regional coordinator who helped us get back to the hostel. Then we had a nice little barbeque at her house near the center of the city. We got the chance to meet the current volunteers in the region again and to stuff ourselves with some good food. Then we started doing our shopping to get situated into our new home for the next two years. Now the places and rooms that we are staying vary quite a bit from volunteer to volunteer but almost everyone needs to buy some things like beds, tables, or desks, so Peace Corps gives us a little ‘settling in allowance’ to help us with this. I personally needed to buy a bed and still need to by a desk but beyond that I shouldn’t need much else. Some people have dirt floors and choose to make them concrete with some finish but mine are already pretty good so luckily I won’t have to deal with that. However, the bed was an adventure in itself.

Me and the other volunteers looked all throughout the city essentially to find the cheapest beds we could find and in the end with a bit of haggling we got some decent ones for a good price. However, that was just the beginning since I needed to find a way to ship to my site which is about two hours away. Luckily the bus lines will take larger items such as beds and I decided to go that route. So after transporting by taxi to the station, along with all my other stuff I then had to find out how much it would actually be. According to the company’s sign on the wall it should have been 30 soles. However, the guy behind the desk kept lowering the price to my surprise and only charged me 15 for the mattress and my 80 pound bag which could barely be lifted. He then wrote 10 on my receipt and pocketed five and said ‘between friends’. So I imagine this practice is pretty common and I’ve realized it’s a lot more accepted here. Peru also has a problem with bribery by police officials. I’ve constantly heard that police officers will pull people over for no reason and threaten to write a large ticket to the drivers. Then the drivers will offer them a bribe or ‘coima’ to get out of it. Unfortunately it’s a vicious cycle that’s hard to be break because police officers are paid pretty little and no one wants to pay a big ticket. But anyway, I got to my site and had my host dad help me take everything back to the place. I’ve been working on the room little by little and its slowly starting to feel like home. It still hasn’t quite hit me yet that I’ll be spending the next two years of my life here but after a few weeks I’m sure it will begin to feel like it. I’ve also realized how different the Spanish can be from region to region. My host family in Lima had joked the people in the north had distinct accents and would imitate them. After just a little time here I’ve realized that there certainly is some truth to their jests and have already had some trouble understanding the Spanish. For example my host father speaks really quickly with some slang thrown in here and there which makes it difficult to decipher sometimes. In last couple weeks of training we got a ‘jerga diccionario’ which I realized I’m going to have to learn sooner than later to understand some of the people around here.

So now I just have to begin the adjustment process and start to get myself into a routine. There isn’t much structure for the first three months for us. We just need to write a report called a community diagnostic which is a comprehensive report on our community from social and health issues to economic factors. But beyond that we’re just supposed to meet as many people as we can and start to integrate ourselves into the community. It’s been good so far but I’ve realized that some people may take a while to warm-up to me. But among all I’m just excited to have the opportunity and know I just need to stay positive and not be afraid to embarrass myself here and there. One of the past volunteer’s had told us that we are essentially free entertainment if nothing else as people observe us trying to learn the customs and laugh as we stumble through it but as long as I’m able to help along the way I’m sure its going to be worth it.