Finally Peace Corps Volunteers!

It's Alisha's Birthday!
Our host family put together a really nice party for Alisha.
Our family's home in Chota, Cajamarca.
Micah starts his matador classes soon.

The Plaza de Armas in Chota. Complete with swans, frogs, and a mosaic fountain. What more do you need?

Well, it's been quite some time since our last post, and for that we apologize. Our site visit and the last few weeks of training were full of a lot of activity, but now that we're at site and have more time on our hands, we should be able to post more frequently.

Since our last post, quite a few important events have taken place, so here are the highlights:

• Alisha and I have successfully completed 3 years of marriage.
• Alisha turned 25, and our training host family threw her a wonderful birthday party.
• We recieved our first packages in the mail since we came to Peru (thanks to Kay, Alisha's mom). By far the best item was the Chuck Norris t-shirt (see previous entry about Mike, the guy from our training group who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Norris).
• We, along with 35 other people, swore in as Peace Corps Volunteers!

Training was a great experience for both of us. The curious thing is that before coming to Peru, I thought a lot more about the two years of service than the three months of training, so much so that, coming into the whole thing, training seemed like and afterthought. However, that afterthought became our lives for the last three months, and while we're very excited to finally be in Chota serving as Peace Corps Volunteers, the end of training also brought sadness because we've become such good friends with people from our training class, the training staff, and our host family.

But now we're in Chota, and we've begun our community diagnostic process, which will help us figure out what exactly we'll be doing here for the next two years. When we arrived at site, we had a meeting with a committee of people from different agencies that work with youth on some level. It was great to see how happy they were to have us in their community. We'll spend the next few weeks having more meetings, exploring Chota, and getting settled in. If you'd like our new address, feel free to e-mail one of us.

Site placement!

by Micah

Dust off your world atlases because Alisha and I found out last Friday where we'll be living for the next two years! (Sorry we didn't update the blog sooner; we haven't had much opportunity). We'll be Youth Development Volunteer in the beautiful city of Chota in the department (Peru's version of a state or province) of Cajamarca. Cajamarca is a mountainous department in nothern Peru (it borders Ecuador on the north), and Chota is a rural city with a population of about 30,000 located 160 km (read: 7-hr. bus ride!) from the departmental capital of Cajamarca (where Pizarro first encountered the Incas in the 16th Century). Chota is at an elevation of about 2,200 meters, and we're told that the climate is pretty temperate all year long with heavier rains from January to March.

This week we are actually visiting Chota for a few days to get some first impressions. We we in Cajamarca City earlier in the week to meet our community partner (the person who will help us get connected with entities that work with youth in Chota), and last night (Wednesday), we arrived and met our new host family. We'll spend the next few days exploring and hopefully meeting some people with whom we might be able to develop projects over the next two years. Stay tuned for pictures...