Monday, September 29, 2008

19 days already?

So, i´ve been in Peru for two and a half weeks and it has just flown by. Everyday we have training from 8 to 5 and we have saturday morning sessions in Lima. Life is very busy, especially with the soccer tournament we´re in. We have games almost every night and many of our family members come and support our team when we play. The tournament ends this week, with a large party on Friday night in the neighborhood where we play. We haven´t lost in the last 3 games, winning one and tying 2. There is actually a lot of gossip about our team, because we are gringos and i think other teams are embarrassed when they don´t beat us. We´re actually not bad though.
Saturday we had a training session at the University of Agriculture outside of Lima. We learned many names for fruits and vegetables that are grown in Peru, both native and non-native. We also learned how to plant seeds, which is the same as in the U.S. but will be useful for the tree planting portion of my service. Saturday evening we attended a neighborhood party that involved a stage, 2 bands, and lots of fireworks. There was a large wooden tower that shot fireworks in every direction, including into the crowd, but nobody seemed too worried about it. Then, ¨toro loco¨happened, which is a wooden bull that a man (who´d had a few) runs around in and fireworks shoot out in all directions. With this the fireworks are very close to the crowd and sparks are flying everywhere. It reminded me of a quote from my sisters Thai host family, ¨In America, safety first. In Thailand, no problem!¨ That quote also seems to apply to Peru.
Sunday was another family day, except in the afternoon i went to s professional soccer game with my older host brother. It was fun and there were of course ridiculous air horns and drums being played the entire time, which really spiced things up.
As of today, all training sessions are now in Spanish, which makes it much more difficult to pay attention. For me, language is the most important aspect of my training. The other parts of training involve learning how to approach people and work in groups...kind of like camp. I have even taught a few camp games to the Environmental group, becuase a large part of what we´ll be doing is working with/educating youth. As a whole, training is going well and we are having a pretty good time. Language is the only thing that gets overwhelming at times, becuase we learn so much vocab every day that their isn´t time to practice everything. I´m doing a lot of selective learning that this point of what is going to be important at this time. I figure I have 2 years to learn vocab.
That´s about it for now. I´ll try to get some pictures up soon, but we´ll see.

Peace

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I laughed so hard I cried. The celebrations bring back many memories of the ones I attended and some organized. I guess edging on the danger part really gets the adrenalin going. Good luck with the language. I feel your pain. You seem to have good approach dealing with it.

Thanks for the update, Jared. I am glad you are enjoying the experience.

Noo

DoraKripapuri said...

Jared, you're great. I hope that one of your next years you will don the wooden bull and make our family proud. You've always been toro loco, next year is time to prove it! Love the updates! -Dora