Tuesday is the Day

To Begin: some photos from my Field Based Training in the lovely province of Cajamarca

Me with baby cow in Cajabamba K-6 school in La Grama, Cajamarca

Kids at an all boys school in Cauday, near Cajabamba

Some lovely bed covers on display draw a large crowd (also thanks to the salesman with a bullhorn) on market day in La Grama

Lovely family in the chacra (field)

Me with the mountains in the distance!

Cajamarca City

More market vendors, the famous clay pots and kettles made by hand

Another volunteer helping organize a massive game of redlight, greenlight

Peru is beautiful

Who wants a soda!?

The countdown is on until we all discover where we will be placed for the next two years, Tuesday is the day. We have had three interviews in which we had the opportunity to express any preferences, etc. regarding our time in Peru. The likelihood I´m going to the mountains is high, I have agreed to be placed in a Quechua speaking region. However, no one knows exactly what community they will be placed in until they give us our asignments. Peace Corps loves ambiguity and intrigue.

Appart from this semi-anxiety and excitement producing period of training, things are going smoothly. This last week Peru celebrated their Independence from Spain with the ¨Fiesta´s Patrias,¨ this invlolved us making a Pachamanca feast at the training center, I was honored with the role of ¨madrina¨ or Godmother of this event. I described a bit of this previously...Pachamanca is a pit oven cooked meal of goodness, filled with potatoes, yams, fava beans, chicken, and other meats. You need blazing hot rocks and then you cover it all up and two + hours later it´s all uncovered and devoured with aji (chilli sauce). As the madrina I was asked to thank the tierra madre Pachamama (mother earth) for all the food we were lucky to have on that day.

The rest of the day we explored more of what is the ¨Cosmovision Andina¨or the Andean beliefs and worldvision. We learned about medicinal plants and some shamanic rituals as well as the sincronistic religious beliefs crossing both Catholisism and indigenous beliefs. This topic is endless and I can´t wait to discover more.