Swearing in and leaving Lima

Well, I am now officially a Peace Corps volunteer after the swearing in ceremony last Friday. We gathered under a red, white and blue canopy, sang the Peruvian and US national anthems, heard words from the embassy rep, the Peace Corps director for Peru, one of the host mothers, and a representative from our group. Then we all took the oath to represent the US well and partied with our host families. After very tearful goodbyes to families and staff, we were trucked to a hostel in Lima for the night.

This is such an unpredictable experience! The hostel was a pretty dingy place with a couple of bathrooms down the hall and rooms full of bunkbeds. I was so tired that I wanted a less chaotic room so I shared the night with one other volunteer, Douglas who had a fever and was vomiting. In fact, he threw up right before the ceremony, went on to give a terrific speech and then threw up the rest of the evening! And shared a room with one very tired woman.

Saturday, we spent saying goodbyes to each other as many of us will not have much contact from now on except by cell phone which we can use free to call each other. When my host mom looked at our group photo with my white hair in the midst of this big group, she said, "you have 45 new kids" and I answered, "no, I have 2 kids in the US and 45 new friends here" which is quite true. So at 4PM, the 5 of us headed for Tumbes got on a bus for a 20 hour bus ride. Yep, you got that right, 4PM until noon the following day. We were greeted in Tumbes by two other volunteers who took us to a hostel for a shower, out for cerviche, and a bit of rest. Then the other Sarah in our group was robbed of her money and ID as she was walking down the street, also getting one leg banged up as she fell in this incident. We did our best to patch her up and then I took off for my new home.

My new family is huge. 7 people in the house but extended family on all sides with lots of kids and adults in and out all day. I have a room on the side of the living room with 3/4 wall so there are no noise filters. There is no running water, in fact water is in short supply so I will have bucket baths for 2 years. And all this is offset by the incredible support and warmth of this big family.

Today, my first day, I started by going along in an ambulance to the nearest hospital with a woman in preterm labor. Then met more community people, detailed out more of my work plan and participated in a world AIDS day march complete with stilt walkers and all the kids from a big primary school. At the end of the march the staff from the health center did rapid HIV tests in front of a big crowd, including giving results. One of the prometoras (educators) from the health clinic was corralling people to give a short talk on HIV. I have a great picture of her giving a talk to a young man on a motorcycle surrounded by grade school kids.

So at the end of the day, I went to the beach with a few of the children in my big family to run and play in the waves. Then supper of tea, bread and banana. Now, I am about to collapse after I clean off my sandy feet and put in earplugs.

I am not bored...

Cheers
Sara