Today is a strange day. Peru is administering a census, and the entire country is on house arrest until 6:00 pm. Yeah, no kidding, if you are found outside your house you will get in trouble with the police. It’s crazy to have all the highways completely clear, and to see the news of downtown Lima, which is usually worse than the 101 at rush hour, and it’s completely devoid of cars. I’m considered a guest, so I get to be part of the census as well. It’s such a strange concept to me that they force all the stores to close and people to stay in their homes ALL DAY, even after their census has bee administered. Our buses leave tonight from Lima, so we have to leave as soon as the transportation ban is lifted at 6 in order to get to the bus station on time tonight. The trip should be fun.


Yesterday we had our class at the Agriculture University in Lima and we checked on the progress of the plants we had replanted, and also learned how to make compost. It was really interesting, even if we were all covered by a dusty layer or horse poop by the end, because that is what we used to layer with old vegetable waste, like the leaves after the vegetable has been harvested. Afterwards we went into Lima and had to buy sleeping bags for this week – I haven’t opened mine up yet but I hope I fit in it . . . it sucks to be so tall and try to shop here.

Work is going well – it’s tiring but each week I feel more confident about going off to my site and being able to contribute to my community. We are going on a trip this week for ‘Field Based Training’, where we are going to visit volunteers in their sites to learn about their projects. I’m especially excited to learn about a project building improved kitchen stoves. We will also give a couple talks about nutrition, computers, and English. It’s really difficult to try to plan a workshop on computers or English with no knowledge of the community skill level or resources, but we’ll have to make do. I think we’ll have time to visit some of the ruins in the area as well, so it should be a good week. (I just got distracted by Alfredo coming out of the kitchen with his hair in a Mohawk, wearing his t-shirt that says “I love Party Girls”, and he had a wooden spoon in one hand and an apron wrapped around his waist . . . guess he’s cooking me lunch)

I like a lot of the volunteers, and it’s fun to be able to go out and have a beer with them after work. There are 38 in my training group, and 20 of us are health volunteers while the other 18 are working on sustainable environmental projects. Last night we went to a reggae concert in a nearby town, which was a riot. It was these two old euro-peruvian white guys named Ponchi and Coky who covered Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff the best they could. Two songs into the concert, which was held in the small local library, the stage lights came crashing down and almost lit the building on fire, so the rest of the show was played with the house lights on. It was hilarious, and it’s events like that that give us a little bit of a break from constantly thinking about our Peace Corps projects.