Poetry as Inspiration

By Alisha

While Micah is spending time with his family in the States, I’m in the midst of end of the school year festivities. School is ending this week and students will have summer vacation during the months of January and February. That means graduation ceremonies and other end of the year celebrations are keeping me busy. I was even invited to be the godmother of one of the students in our youth group for his high school graduation.

Yesterday I attended an event in one of the communities outside of Chota where we have a youth group. The communication teachers put together a really interesting event. The teachers and students honored an elderly community member by putting together a poetry recital using the poems written by the community member. It was a really great idea to use poetry composed by a community member in order to inspire the students to write poetry and express themselves though art. It was also really touching to see the joy it brought to the author to see his poetry preformed at the local school. The poems were simple and about daily life and struggles. Topics included the corn harvest, discrimination, corruption, and tuberculosis. If I can get my hands on some of the poems I'll try and post them.

Very Bad News

by Micah

I am very sad to report that I am back in the U.S. for a short stay because Kim, my new stepmother, was killed in a car accident on December 3. Peace Corps was kind enough to to give me two weeks of emergency leave and pay for my trip home. I've been back for a little over a week and will return to Peru on December 20.

This is a very difficult loss for my family, especially for my dad. As readers of this blog know, he and Kim were married in October, so their time together ended almost as quickly as it began. That we lost my mom to cancer seven years ago and now Kim is devastating.

I did not have a great deal of time to get to know Kim, but I can say that I grew to love her in the short time she was in my life. Part of the reason for that is that she and my dad made each other happy, and to see my dad lose that is crushing. I wish I could express the essence of what made Kim such a wonderful person, but I don't think I'm ready to do that right now. If you follow this blog, please keep my family, especially my dad, in your thoughts.

World AIDS Day

by Alisha

World AIDS Day (December 1^st) has arrived in Chota. This year Micah and I wanted to do several activities to bring HIV and AIDS awareness to our community. Where we live there are presumed to be a low number of HIV/AIDS cases; however, reliable data isn’t kept for our region. While HIV/AIDS are thought to be of a greater program in coastal areas and in jungle regions we felt strongly about bringing more attention to these diseases. Especially necessary is more information and education in the areas of prevention and understanding that this is a disease that can effect anyone not just certain populations.

Activities started off with a parade of health workers and our youth health promoters. We handed out information on HIV/AIDS.

On World AIDS Day we ran an art contest at one of the high schools and asked students to paint pictures depicting the prevention of HIV/AIDS or something representing that people living with HIV/AIDS should not be discriminated against. We had some really great submissions from which we choose winners and finalists who will receive sets of art supplies. All of the artwork will also be displayed in the local cultural center through the month of December.

Today our group of youth health promoters presented a play to around 200 students from their school. It was great to see how each of them improved as we prepared for the shows today. All of them took pride in the endeavor and tomorrow they plan to present the play at the local jail.

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

Jimvasion!

Crazy gringos!

by Micah

This is the first of several long overdue posts. In September, Alisha and I went to Lima for our one-year medical checks (we're both fit as fiddles) and some project meetings, and we had also planned for my dad to visit us since we would already be in Lima. So once all of our medical exams and meetings were over, Alisha, my dad, and I went on a five-day trip to Cusco, which is located in the southern Andes. The vast majority of people who travel to Peru do so almost exclusively in order to visit Cusco and Machu Picchu, and now I know why this is such a popular travel destination. We visited Machu Picchu, saw lots of small towns and archaeological ruins in the Sacred Valley, and did a great deal of walking around the stunning city of Cusco. Here are some pictures:

Machu Picchu

Alisha and her new friends

Dad at Sacsayhuamán

After spending several days in Cusco, we headed to Chota so my dad could see where we live and work and meet our host family and friends. Dad accompanied us to all of our normal activities, and I must say that he was an absolute hit with everyone in Chota. He danced circles around everyone at a birthday party in the children's shelter where we work, helped us do some playacting in an English class, and generally brightened people's day. It was great to have him in Peru with us.