Mi Vida: Huascata

Here is a shot of my Peruvian family (who are awesome), my house, and my hood (Huascata). The younger guy on the left is my house brother, Manuel, my dad Virginio is next to him, my mom, Celia is next to him holding my niece, Ariana, who is 20 months old. This is only part of the family. We also have three other brothers and one brother's wife. I don't know who the lady on the right is, but she works at the Monastery with my house parents. When I say that they work at the monastery, don't automatically assume I am doing mission work in Peru. I have already been dubbed the name Mormon John and am routinely confused with evangelical groups. So please, don't join that band wagon. My house dad works the fields (chacra) at this Benedictine Monastery below. This is awesome, because that means we get fresh herbs, veggies, and fruits right from the field sometimes.

My road is dirt right now, but should be paved by the end of the month if all goes to plan. My house is on the left where that lady is sticking her head out. Everyone made my community out to be pretty dangerous, but I never really feel like I'm in danger- Probably because I am so intimidating with my backpack and lunch pale I'm usually carrying. Apparently Huascata used to be like the wild west, with a lot of neighborhood justice that went on, so I think it still holds a pretty mean reputation...I always just say I'm here to clean up Gotham.

This is my house dad at the office. He could probably take on at least 10 of me in a fight and still have energy to work the chacra all day.

So My Journey Begins

Hey my family, friends, future Peace Corps Volunteers, and random people!

Welcome to my blog that I am finally publishing. I miss you all, but really can't say that I'm home sick yet. I have been in Peru since June 4th and it is incredible here, so I'm going to use this blog to keep you all updated. I already have a ton of pictures, letters and stories built up that I guess I should first catch ya'll up on, so I'll get started. Here goes nothing...

As I was wrapping up my Undergrad at good ol' TCU in December of 2009, I decided to apply to the Peace Corps. Actually I was talking to Maury in Doctor Thompson's marketing class when I figured out that I wanted to join the Peace Corps to be a Business Volunteer...and after that everything happened really fast. I had my interview in February where I was nominated to go to Latin America in June, and around mid March they told me I was leaving on June 4th to Peru as a Small Business Volunteer (6 months!). The Peace Corps has this crazy way of keeping you in the dark about pretty much everthing you're getting yourself into so these past 7 months have been really wild. For example: I still do not know were I am going to work as a volunteer for the next 2 years, and I've been here for nearly 2 months (maybe I'm an optimist, but it makes it way more exciting this way).

Until August 21st, and for the past two months, I will be in training in a town called Chaclacayo that is outsided of Lima, Peru. I live with a great peruvian family in a little community and I love it here. By the way, if your computer won't load the pictures of my community, just drive down Paisano in El Paso, look across the river into Juarez, and that should be pretty close. It is weird how similar it is, and I think I could stay here for ever. Right now I am usually in Spanish classes from about 8:15-noon, and then from about 1:30-5:00, I'm in Business or Peruvian culture classes.

After training I will be sent to a village somewhere in Peru (that I will find out on July 24th), where I will live for the next two years. I get to give a little bit of imput as to where I would like to live, but the final decision is up to the Small Business Coordinator, Alfredo...who, if you are reading this Alfredo, is really cool, my role model, wise beyond his years, really funny, and I assume excellent with the lady's. We'll see where I end up!

For my job, I'm going to live and work in a community with Small Business Consulting, Youth Entrepreneurship, and Community Economic Development. That all sounds pretty technical, so I promise to post some pictures and to give some real life descriptions later.

If you read that, sorry it was so long winded but I wanted to give you some sort of quick set up for what you are about to experience.

So My Journey Begins: Airport

This is me on June 3, 2009 at the El Paso International Airport with my mom and brother Greg. Mom, you look great in the picture, and I'm sorry I didn't get these pictures up sooner. Look at me...happy, fearless, motivated, innocent...wow I look pretty hardcore. At this point, I do not know who else is volunteering with me, who I’m going to be living with, or even the name of the city that I am going to be living or working in for the next 2 years. I pretty much just know that I hardly slept the night before, I probably forgot something at home, and that 27 months in Peru is a really long time.

The night before this, Greg stayed up most of the night with me as I pieced together everything that I might need for the next 27 months (Thanks dude, and the rest of the fam. as well). It turns out that it is really tough to hold up something, look at it, and decide if you can do without it for the next two years or not. I know that in the picture it doesn’t look like much, but that is literally everything I own here. When I packed up my house in Fort Worth, I filled my entire Suburban and a big U-Haul with all of my stuff, and now I’m down to these 3 bags…it is really sorta weird, but I like it.

I flew to Washington DC for “Staging”, where I met the other 35 volunteers and had my first day working for the Peace Corps. At staging, we participated in a bunch of ice-breakers, had a crash course in Peace Corps rules, got some advice, signed a bunch of papers, and then went out for our final taste of US food and beers. I got the chance to hang out with my old buddy Pete Lechez and Haley Hearsburger, which was awesome even though I had a little resaca (hangover) at my first day of staging.