Hello, everyone! Long time no talk. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. From November 6-17, I was in my permanent site, Pueblo Libre. I lived with my future host family, visited the health post, K-12 school, municipality, and even talked to random ladies as they lugged alfalfa back and forth to their homes.

My town is indeed tiny. There are about 250 people there, and when I walk out of the house I can easily look up the street and see the town limits. There are no markets, no restaurants, just a couple little bodegas selling chips, ice cream, and other non-perishables. My family is huge: I don’t really have a host mom or dad, since my host mother is 86 and feels more like a host grandma. She has 8 children (in their 50s-60s), 4 of which live in Lima and the other 4 in Pueblo Libre. So, I moreso just hang out with aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews (that are older than me) and a couple little ones, 4 and 6 years old, that are technically my great nephews/nieces – this makes the whole experience 100x better.

Another huge plus is that my family has a chakra (small farm for personal use) full of AVOCADO trees. When I return in a bit over a week, they’ll be harvesting which hopefully means I’ll be eating fresh avos daily. They also have bees, eucalyptus, a few mandarin trees, and a field of alfalfa. Why alfalfa, you ask? For the 70 guinea pigs that they raise to eat, of course. We drive to the chakra every 2 days to cut alfalfa, lug it into the car with traditional Peruvian blankets, and bring it home to the little squeaky guys. I held baby guineas for the first time … couldn’t help but think I might be eating them in 6 months from now.

In terms of work for the 8 days I was there, I shadowed obstetricians (there are 3 in the health post), doctors (2 at the post), the school psychologist, and community health agents. One of the best parts was going on home visits with health workers – everyone in the health post conducts these visits at least a couple times a week. We visited 3 pregnant women to talk about their birth plan, risks, problems, etc, and also a mother with a 5 month old baby to talk about feeding post-6 months when you start introducing real foods (other than breast milk). 45% of children under 3 years old in my district have anemia, so that’ll be a huge piece of my work here. Pueblo Libre actually has a really good support system set up for mothers to properly care for their children, but work still needs to be done in terms of misconceptions regarding iron supplements, offering their baby foods other than soup (which is a huge cultural food here, I eat it twice a day), and emphasizing the importance of iron-rich foods.

In addition to home visits and anemia work, my other job lies in the schools. I chatted with the school director, teachers, the school psychologist, and people at the municipality about co-leading adolescent health sessions on topics from mental health, to self-esteem, to responsible sexual/reproductive health decisions. The school year here goes from March-December, so I’ll arrive right before the end of the year. So, during their summer months, I will likely be teaching LOTS of English each week in what they call “vacaciones útiles”, or summer school/summer camp. I’m honestly stoked to teach English. All the kids’ faces light up when I say I’m fluent, and the teachers and parents love it too. I’m hoping to also throw a volleyball or track team into the vacaciones útiles schedule too, but we’ll take this a step at a time.

Overall, I really do love my town. The biggest challenge right now is language, but that will get exponentially better once I am there and forced to speak Spanish all day, every day. Also, the community is bilingual – Quechua and Spanish. My family mainly speaks in Spanish, thank God, but will throw in Quechua phrases every once in a while. So, during my time I will also be taking Quechua lessons. I’ve actually already started this, and I tell you what, it’s a total mind boggle to be learning Quechua in Spanish.

Anywho, there are so many small details to include, but those will come with time. I’ll make the big move to Pueblo Libre on Dec. 4, the same day I “swear-in” and officially graduate from Peace Corps training to become a volunteer. Hard to believe this phase of the adventure is up, and that no doubt, the hard part is about to start.