It’s hard to believe that today marks the one month anniversary since we’ve arrived in Peru. Life in Santa Eulalia is never dull and from sunrise to sunset we’re busy with training, getting to know our host family and experiencing all the wonderful things Peru has to share.
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| Alpaca sighting |
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| Our view |
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| Our room |
We wake up every morning to the sounds of the chachareros (street vendors), roosters crowing, roof dogs barking and Peruvian music from the street. Our host mom Lilia makes us a hardy breakfast of quinoa, fried eggs, bread, fruit and (hallelujah!) coffee. Then we head to our training center about 30 minutes walk away with our lunch in a basket. We start with four hours of language immersion training which can mean we’re out in the community working on projects or, for example, learning how to cook Peruvian food like Pachamanca and desserts like Tres Leches. From there we go to our Technical Training and work in our specific program areas. Brian learns about water & sanitation systems and water filtration and I learn about environment projects like tree nurseries, composting, recycling and protected areas management. It’s hard work but pretty exciting.
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| Tres Leches |
There are about 30 trainees at our center and we’re a pretty diverse group. Brian and I aren’t the only married couple either! We’re already about 1/3 of the way done with training and everyone’s anxious to find out their placements for the next two years. Peru is incredibly diverse, with coastal deserts (Costa), highlands (Sierra), jungle (Selva) and everything in between. Hopefully by the next blog posting we will know where we’ll be living after training.
Last weekend was the Pachamanca Festival in Santa Eulalia and we had a great time eating, listening to live Huayno bands (Andean folk music), and experiencing the festivities. This weekend we’ll be celebrating our host mom’s birthday and making her a chocolate cake.
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| Pachamanca Festival |
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| cooking Pachamanca |
Thank you for the letters and emails from home. We love hearing from you.
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| Plaza de Armas, Lima |
