What the heck are they doing out there!?

September 04, 2018

What the heck are they doing out there!?

What in the world do Peace Corps volunteers do, you ask? Well, we can share a bit about what the reality is for us since the work and opportunities vary widely from site to site. No, we’re not “saving the world”, but we’re hoping that we leave small seeds in the our pueblo that will grow into more confident teenagers and adults, better nourished children, empowered parents that raise healthy kids, and a positive feeling towards those “gringos” norteamericanos (yes, even Angelica is a “gringa” here in Peru, strangely enough) that lived among the community and shared their North American and Mexican-American cultures.

As part of the process of getting to know our pueblo, we were both busy with our community diagnostic research, which is conducted by all Peru Peace Corps volunteers during the first three-to-six months at site to learn about the issues, realities, needs, strengths, etc. of their local communities. Most of this research is done with community-based participatory tools, like interviews with community and institutional leaders, surveys, etc. as well as using statistics from the regional health department.

Angelica is a community health volunteer and has two major projects to carry out throughout her time here. She will be working with health center staff on efforts to eliminate childhood anemia and malnutrition (huge issues in rural Peru) and prevent diseases related to respiratory and diarrheic infections with families that have children under 3 years old and pregnant women. She’ll also be carrying out early childhood stimulation activities. All this will be through home visits, educational and demonstrative sessions, chats, and a wide range of health promotion activities with our community. The second big project is developing youth health promoters at the local high school. She’ll be training them on the Pasos Adelante manual (a project/manual developed for Peruvian youth in partnership with Peace Corps and the Peruvian departments of education and health) on life skills and sexual and reproductive health with the aim of reducing teenage pregnancy and supporting the next generation of youth that are better equipped to make healthy decisions for a healthier future.

Chris is a youth development volunteer, which means he has been given the task of shaping the young minds of tomorrow’s leaders in a language he’s still figuring out. His primary focus is on developing youth leadership groups and, as mentioned a little further down, supporting teachers with life-skills classes. It’s an extremely flexible program with lots of possible approaches, which makes the work more interesting. At the moment, Chris is working with a teacher-leader at the high school to do a training on project development and implementation as well as a leadership group on the environment with youth. The next couple of months should prove to be busy and exciting.

One of our biggest successes so far is executing the summer camp or “Vacaciones Utiles” (roughly translates into “useful vacations”; it sounds better in Spanish) at the high school during summer vacation in the months of January and February. We thank the director of the high school for being on board with this and opening up the space for us to conduct this. We had an average of 17 kids in each session, which is pretty good considering that almost half the town is gone during this time in the campo to tend their animals, plant and grow food in the fields and/or are away in some nearby city. We held sessions on arts and craft, drawing, English, cooking, games and sports, and first aid/vital signs that our partner at the health center provided. Cool stuff. The kids seemed to enjoy it. Plus, we caught a glimpse of how the Peruvian educational system works, at least in our site, with many kids on the shyer side who needed buckets of encouragement for participating depending on the activity and with bright enthusiasm for learning English and new U.S. outdoor games.

At the moment, we are also implementing the Pasos Adelante (mentioned above) manual during the school hour scheduled life-skills classes (which all Peruvian schools have). Chris and I share responsibilities for coordinating with teachers before each session so that we can deliver the material to the students in an equal manner. So far, we’ve co-facilitated sessions on “Recognizing our Strengths” and “Self-Esteem.” Again, the students seem to like these sessions since they are full of dynamic activities and with a more participative teaching style (less typical in the schools in rural Peru).

In between these activities, we do a whole bunch of other stuff that people ask us to do; we rarely turn anything down. One example, we helped provide a “Handwashing 101” session with elementary school kids, first and second graders to be specific. For the first 20 minutes, the kids paid attention. But afterwards, even with the English teaching session that we provided after “Handwashing”, they were running amok all over the room, shrieking in delight as the gringos lost control of their attention and energetic little bodies. At one point, Chris was dragging kids by the ankles as they tried to wedge themselves under tiny chairs. I was sitting on the floor with a group of kids who were ready to climb on me in a human mountain. This was all while the health center’s dentist and psychologist were trying to complete their check-ups with the little ones. We were inexperienced babysitters dealing with impossible conditions: keep 5 and 6-year old kids quiet, in their chairs, they cannot go outside, without toys nor culturally-relevant songs/games for entertainment, for over an hour and a half. We rose to the challenge, did terribly, and laughed at length about it at home that evening. We’ve also cleaned many closets at the health center (finding an ancient portable x-ray machine and a sizeable tarantula in the process); participated as judges for spelling bee, food, dance, and artisan contests; climbed 1,000 hills to bring a cross down for a saint’s holiday; and much more. Jack and Jill of all trades, we are.