If I had a sol (Peruvian currency) for every time someone said I was going to find myself a Peruvian man, get married, and never leave, I’d be rich. Well, yesterday I got to see my future by attending my very first Peruvian wedding! To my surprise, there are many couples here that aren’t married. There are also many who have gotten married “civically”, though not in the church, which have two VERY different meanings. There is not much hoot and holler when it comes to civic marriages, but getting married in the church is a huge deal. That is what I experienced yesterday. The whole celebration actually doubled as a marriage/baptism, starting with a 9am mass. At 11am, everyone moved to the losa, or concrete court used for any and every community event, where we danced until 4pm (though I took a break from about 2-4pm to retreat to my house and rest).

At 4pm, everyone mobilized to the family’s home in Coirocsho, a small community 30 minutes up the mountain by car, though some walked/danced their way an hour up the mountain (including the band). They arrived sweaty, and so drunk. Every 10 minutes a group of 3 dudes would pass me – the drunkest in the middle and the flankers doing their best in their inebriated state to keep the middle guy from falling over. It was a site to see. To feed the crowd, the family killed 350 guinea pigs and 11 sheep … I am not joking. The food was followed by more dancing, and my host aunt and uncle and I retreated back down the mountain around 9pm as the party continued on to who knows what hour.

It seems as though each month gets busier and busier. If you know me, you know I like my days jam-packed, so this is a great thing. In the past month, I have done a number of jobs in the health post – equally as many related to, as not related to, my job description: checking in and weighing patients, making posters for International Hand Washing Day, setting up logistics for a adolescent health campaign, searching through the medical system to identify teens with anemia, evaluating the school’s snack kiosks and cafeteria, the list goes on. I’ve kind of turned into the health post assistant, which I truly don’t mind. If there are a ton of patients, I help weigh them, measure their height, and fill out their admission papers. Outside of that, I just bee-line it to the obstetrician’s office in the morning to see what needs to be done. Many times, I find myself just keeping them company, chatting about any and everything and waiting for something to come up.

The other day, I was so close to seeing my first birth. I saw the baby within its first hour, as the mother had given birth in the back of a car on her way to the health post. They don’t do births at the post where I work, as there is a bigger hospital only 25 minutes away, but they do what they can during emergencies. As it all went down, I just stood in the corner and watched all the commotion – checking the baby’s vitals, administering its first vaccines, hooking the mother up with an IV drip. To be honest, I went into Peace Corps thinking I may have to help deliver a baby, but in all reality I would have no idea what I was doing. Nonetheless, seeing the little creature in its first hour was a beautiful thing.

Speaking of babies, my host sister will be giving birth any day now!! She is at 37 weeks, so it could be in 2 days or 2 weeks, we’ll just have to see. It’s a boy, though we were all wishing it were a girl as she already has a chaotic, havoc-wreaking little 4 year old boy. However, there is no doubt that the baby will be showered with love.

On the school side of things, I have 3 classes with adolescents (13-16 years old), each of which meet for 1.5 hours once a week. So far, we’ve talked about self-esteem, emotional intelligence, recognizing individual and cultural similarities and differences, and utilizing personal strengths. Plenty of other sessions have also been full of non-health related things, such as celebrating birthdays, preparing gifts for Mother’s Day, discussing classroom norms, playing games, and organizing class-wide soccer jerseys. For right now, my main goal is to just get on their good side, gain their trust and respect.

I also have an English class with a group of 10 year olds, and an after-school English club for elementary schoolers aged 8-11. With the little ones, it’s so darn easy and natural. I can talk about anything, they love me, and I love them. With the adolescents, it’s a whole other story. They have attitudes, sometimes look at me like I’m an idiot, and the most challenging part is when they are quiet – something which never happens with the younger ones. Getting their participation is half the battle, and it’s harder when I have to do it all in Spanish and within a topic that adolescents around the world, for centuries, have not cared to talk about. Remember the awkward silences in high school sex-ed? Or during the talks about mental health or bullying? Try getting around those, as a teacher, in a 2nd language. Not the easiest, but if there is one good thing, it is teaching me resilience and confidence – not to mention the fire it puts under my arse to expand my Spanish vocabulary.

Along the theme of school, I’ve participated in two super fun events with the professors over the past couple of weeks. I teeter on the opinion that in the U.S., we should do more activities such as that, while on the other hand, it feels like the school here uses any reason to not have legitimate class and instead give the teachers reason to hang out. First, Mother’s Day was a school-wide celebration where kids made gifts for their mothers, then all gathered in the auditorium for 2 hours of dances, songs, and other performances. This all ended around 12pm (on a Friday) at which point all of the professors got in cars to an event where we ate pachamanca, drank, and danced until nightfall. The male teachers paid for everything, and the female teachers will repay the act on Father’s Day. It was a blast and I definitely gained some cool-kid points with my dancing skills.

Second, last Friday a large group of professors travelled to Huanayó, a smaller community up in the mountains, to play volleyball and soccer against other schools as part of Huanayó’s anniversary. Every school here is named after a Saint, and thereby have a date to celebrate them. This is a multi-day affair, with one day including a sports tournament between teachers. The volleyball enthusiast I am, I travelled with them at 9am, not getting back until 5pm. The men played soccer, then women and men played volleyball, and everyone ate and drank – as you may tell, drinking is a HUGE part of the culture here. I pick and choose when to partake, though the pressure to indulge in drinking is always very high. That is actually one of my least favorite things about Peruvian culture – the peer pressure to engage is unhealthy behavior. In the U.S., I feel like we left peer-pressure in high school, or college at the latest, but here, the pressure to drink continues until the grave. Anyway, I slayed in volleyball, to the point where 3 other schools asked me to play for them. More cool kid points.

In non-work related news, about 3 weeks ago I spent a weekend camping near Olleros, Ancash, Peru as a volunteer for a marathon in the mountains. There’s an American/English guy that has been living in Huaraz, the regional capital, for 25 nears and has known Peace Corps volunteers for just as long. So, he paid for everything if we agreed to volunteer: sleeping bag and tent rentals, cooking stove and gas, and more. We left Hauraz in a van at 5am, and by 7am we set off on a 9km hike to our campsite – donkeys hauling our supplies. The landscape was vast grassy fields surrounded by mountains – with no one in site for as far as the eye could see. A group of men were guiding the donkeys and horses, and eventually dropped us off at our campsite – myself, my volunteer friend Carrie, and a 16-year old Peruvian girl whose family is in with the Huaraz outdoorsy community. Once our tents were up, the men peeled off to set up the next post/campsite along the running route. For the rest of the day, the 3 of us were left to our own devices – to explore, cook, fetch water, and play cards. We stayed up late, laying outside the tent in our sleeping bags and pointing out shooting stars, solving the world’s problems, all the things one does when there is no service and nothing but nature for miles. At 6am the next morning, we set up the food and water tent and waited for the runners to pass. From 8:30am-10:30am, runners from Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, among other countries, passed us. They passed heaving, and in one case, with altitude sickness (our post was at 4,200m or 13,800 feet). We gave them provisions, recorded their bib numbers, and they went on their way to complete the final 26km.

It was my favorite weekend in Peru, despite having a cough that made me feel like a kid with asthma. At one point, when Carrie and the other girl set off on a little hike once all the runners passed, I stood on top of a big hill and looked out for miles and miles, no one in site. Now that, was bliss.

Over the next two months, I have so much to look forward to. June 10-14 is our next volunteer training, where I’ll get to see everyone again after 3 months. A few of us are tacking on a 3 day trek following training, where we’ll camp out and just live in the mountains in Ancash for a few days. Most importantly, Kim and Ken get here June 22!! They are coming just in time to experience my school’s anniversary, which will be full of parades, fireworks, dancing, food, and more. We’ll spend a week in Ancash, and another week in Iquitos, the jungle. Right after their departure, I’ll be running in a half-marathon! My second half-marathon, but first one training at 8000+ feet and never-ending hills. I better be super-human by the time I get to that starting line.