Hello! For those of you reading my blog... BIENVENIDOS! WELCOME! I will be leaving for the Peace Corps in Peru in exactly one month from today. My job title is Water and Sanitation Volunteer (aka "WATSAN"). I will have two main objectives over the next few years: 1) Assisting local communities in the design, construction, operation, and management of water systems, latrines, sanitary landfills, and rain-water catchments, and 2) Working with teachers and health workers to provide health and hygiene education through community outreach programs and workshops. My work is cut out for me as at least 70% of the water services in rural areas require urgent rehabilitation or maintanence. Let's do it.
I have pre-service staging in Washington, DC for a couple days where all of the PCV's (Peace Corps Volunteers) going to Peru will meet up and get acquainted with our fellow coworkers and staff before they throw us to the lions. From there we will all travel to Lima, Peru (the capital city) where we will have pre-service training for the next 12 weeks. Training will consist of further education and skill development in the areas of techinical, language, cross-cultural, diversity, health, and safety training. More will be explained as I go through the process.
Un mes. One month. That seems like a lot of time, but with the never-ending list of things I need to do from now until then-- it definitely doesn't feel like a lot!
There are a lot of things needed to be done in order to prepare. The Peace Corps is really good about tryin to fill us in about what we are actually getting ourselves into. They want us to be as informed as possible so we can decide NOW if this is right/wrong for us before we get in deeper with this. Separating the girl llamas from the women llamas... as some may say. They have given me booklet upon booklet to read about the challenges I will face, the Peruvian culture, the rules of the PC, what to pack, how to act... you name it! On top of the mental preparation, emotional preparation and the tying of loose ends with friends and family (goodbyes are never fun)... there is also the whole packing thing. They say to pack as light as possible- 80lbs is the max! I'm shootin for 60-70 to keep it easy. We'll see how it goes. First, I guess I should probably unpack from college... ;)
I look forward to the journey ahead and am glad you can sort of join in on the journey with me through this blog.
Hasta luego mis amigos~
