A Week Through My Eyes

This past week was kind of a crazy week. Well, to be perfectly honest, every week in Peace Corps is kind of a crazy week in some way or another. However, I still think you guys will find this last week interesting. Thus, to give you an idea of what my life is like here, I'm going to share some pictures/stories from the week. This past week I...

• Prepared and planted 300 tara tree seeds with my secondary and primary students
• Had a meeting with my secondary school teachers
• Got to see Mike(this unfortunately does not happen every week)
• Traveled to the mountains of La Libertad to learn how to install a biodigester
• Helped a fellow volunteer install half a biodigester in a super cool community with a yogurt/cheese factory
• By the way! we filled the biodigester using the wind instead of a pump. It was super neat and I included photos!
• Uninstalled half a biodigester (mala suerte- bad luck!)
• Rode in the bed of a truck for 2+ hours as it flew down some scary mountain roads while dust blew in our faces and then we got rained on
• Got sick yet again
• Celebrated Mike and I's 9-monthiversary with sushi where we got an awesome discount from our new friend, the sushi chef!
• Came home to find a little lizard hanging out in my room
• Checked on a few stores in my town to make sure they had hung my "take care of our beaches" posters
• Cooked dinner with Mike for my host family 
• Got fleas from my favorite Peruvian street dog! 
• Had my weekly radio program with my site neighbor
• & Organized my most successful beach cleanup yet despite not having bags/gloves at the beginning!

The week was a very typical Peace Corps week where not everything went according to plan; some plans fell through, and others while looking like they were about to fall through unexpectedly succeeded. This experience is filled with frustrations, occasional tears, exhaustion and more. But, it is also filled with little surprises, small wins, and some adventures that I will never forget. Today was an especially hard day for me because I found out that of the 200 trees we planted at my primary school, ~60 survived the weekend. Some 4 year old terrors had emptied all of the dirt/seeds from the bags and we now have to replant next week. While this was an incredibly frustrating experience, now that I'm finally settling into my site, I am learning not to dwell on these experiences but to focus on and appreciate the small wins. These little wins can be anything from one of my students excitedly bringing me an article on zooplankton a week after I taught him about it, or another student bragging to her teacher about how much we cleaned up (22 giant garbage bags by the way!) or students stealing some of my seeds and excitedly informing me they sprouted over the weekend.  I realize that the successes feel greater because of all these difficulties, and so, I am learning to appreciate these frustrating experiences in their own way.

Digging up some dirt and filling the bags

The little ones doing the same thing

The beautiful mountains of Otuzco

The wonderful DeeDee Duvuyst teaching us all about biodigesters

Hilary helping the socios staple down the insulating sheet

We filled the biodigester au-natural using the wind! It was superrr chevre (cool)

Filling the biodigester

Lining the trench with straw to insulate the biodigester

Digging trenches for the PVC piping that will funnel the gas to the farm's kitchen

Our delicious lunch of mountain trout!

Hanging out after lunch

Hands down one of the coolest communities I have ever met. They all work together as a collective on every project.

Mike and I enjoying some little Peruvian potatoes from our favorite papitas lady in Otuzco

Our delicious 9 monthiversary feast! Green tea, miso soup, and rolls.

My new roommate. He is pretty adorable

Super excited my town's pizza place has hung this! This place is always crowded,  it will be great publicity for my campaign.

The kiddos cleaning under the pier

These garbage bags were HUGE

and we filled 22 of them!!