Remember Tobby?

by Alisha & Micah

Last weekend, we went on an outing with our host family to a popular place to have a picnic lunch. Tobby, the puppy you may remember from a few months ago, joined us and here are some pictures of him in the countryside.

Camp VALOR

A group of participants and volunteers at the camp's closing ceremony

by Micah

Every so often, Peace Corps volunteers from a given department get together to plan and execute a youth leadership camp. Last weekend, volunteers from Cajamarca put on a camp called VALOR for boys aged 13 to 18 from all over the department. The camp was held in Baños del Inca, which is just outside of the city of Cajamarca, and Alisha and I decided to take three boys (Frank, Alex, and Roel) who live at the orphanage that we've been working at since we arrived in Chota.

Frank, Alex, and Roel

The camp was great. In addition to activities and talks on teamwork, goal-setting, healthy lifestyles, sexuality, and ethics, the 30 boys who attended participated in a vigorous debate session so that they could put their knowledge of ethics and argumentation abilities into practice. For a number of the participants, this was both their first time in Cajamarca and their first time hanging out with other boys from different areas of the department. I'm very glad that Alisha and I were able to participate, and we hope to plan a similar camp for girls in May or June.

Alisha and I making fools of ourselves

Jenga was a HUGE hit

And so was Scrabble

Wedding Crashers

With our host parents César and Milagros

By Alisha

October was a month of weddings for Micah and I. First our host parents decided to tie the knot after being together for around 15 years. Even though Peru is around 85% Catholic our experience has been that many couples do not get married before living together and having children. This may be due to a lack of social pressure to get married or that idea that many men do not want to be tied down my marriage.

The Peace Corps Volunteers from our area at the wedding

We then traveled back to the States to visit family and because Micah's dad got married! We had a really nice time visiting friends and family in the States. We drove through Missouri, Nebraska, and South Dakota seeing as many people as we could in the 10 days we were back. Congrats Jim and Kim