Preliminary site info

I had a meeting with Emilia, my director, today, and found out some clues about my future site. She told me that she has a site for me and thinks it will be a great fit. I can’t help but wonder how much of that sentiment is true versus how much is merely trying to reassure me. As she described the area, I got really excited, but am still nervous about site visits in a week. She told me that I will be in a hot climate and I will be living in a valley with a big river, it will be on the coast about 70 km from the beach. I will be living in a regional capital, about 3 hours from the department capital. My city will have electricity, water, and internet, as well as cell service. The health center employs about 30 people, which is relatively large. My sociocommunitaria, or community work partner, will be a woman, Gabi, who works at a larger hospital nearby and will be overseeing the other two volunteers who will be part of my cluster. One girl who also studied psychology will be living about 20 min away, and I think it’s Emily, who was with me over FBT. Another volunteer will be within 2-3 hours, and I think that will be Greg, who will be living up the mountain above my city, which is at the bottom of the valley. It’s a new site, so all three of us are from Peru 10, a Salud group that is now of 19 (Paul left today). I will be working on psychology projects, and will be working closely with a catholic group from either Spain or Canada. The padre in charge of the group speaks 5 languages, including English. I’m excited about the variety of projects that will be available to me in the city. There is an institute for computers and English, and there seems to be a good relationship between the health post and the school. From the info I’ve gathered so far, it may be that this site is in Piura, which is a coastal department in the north. The house that I am going to be living in is on the second floor with a family billiards business on the first floor. Mi madre nueva is 45 and has a 29 year old son, but it seems her husband is a bit older. From what Emilia said, mi madre is excited to have a volunteer and is fairly active in the community. Emilia said she was worried initially because the house is a bit loud (am I living on top of a bar?), but the two volunteers who went with her to check the place out really liked the woman and said it would be a good house for a volunteer. I have my own room, not sure if there is a separate entrance for it, but at least I won’t be inside the room of mi madre. I also have my own bathroom, which is awesome. I’m excited to start with psyc work because it’s more technical and I’ll need to learn and study more than simply giving handwashing charlas for 2 years, which has seemed to be a theme throughout training. Sites are looking up, and I’ll get all the details on Tuesday.