The last couple of weeks have been filled with my first Peruvian election experience, a trip to Lima to help train new volunteers, and a few personal challenges. The mix of professional success personal obstacles has been typical of the Peace Corps experience. While I work to change host families due to "irreconcilable differences," I am focusing on the professional triumphs that I have had lately. Along with advancing in my HIV/AIDS work, I have gotten closer to getting environmental murals in one of the schools, I have started recycling in another school, and I am getting closer to actually constructing a model improved kitchen in one of my counterpart's houses. I know there will be obstacles but for now I am happy with what I have accomplished recently.

I am in the process of submitting a grant for starting a recycling collection project and soon I will have funding to make real progress on that but right now I am looking for ways to spend money for my school recycling project. As a PCV who supposedly has no money, it is nice to find that I stress over how to spend all the money I currently have and will be receiving in the near future. In the next year I will have money coming from the participatory budget and the Peace Corps Small Projects Assistance program, which I am thrilled about but now comes the hard part, finding a group of people who will voluntarily help me execute these projects. One big challenge is that when people see that you have funded projects, they expect that there is funding to pay those who work on the projects. I have a core group willing to work with me but, just as it is anywhere, it is difficult to get people to give up their leisure time to sort recycling and go to educational presentations about the environment.

One upside of my recent experience is that the regional elections went smoothly and we have a new very motivated mayor who actually gave me shout outs in his campaign speeches. I am hoping that he will consider trash management more carefully than the previous mayor has. It is also encouraging that his family and friends are some of my best friends in town so I am optimistic about the open lines of communication that I will have with the local government. Peruvian politics is fascinating because, like Latin America in general, they have experienced a lot of corruption, upheaval, and even a couple of coups. Their political reality is so different than what I am willing to accept as a functional democracy that it is hard to grasp how people can be complacent with some of the things that occur here. For example, there are tons of examples from this most recent election of candidates literally paying people to come in from different municipalities and giving them an id document with a new address so that they can vote for the candidate. Every time I talk politics here, I realize how lucky I am to live in such a stable country where, even if I don't agree with the leadership, I do not live in fear of collapse and/or government overthrow. The Peace Corps has made me realize what a bubble the United States is and I feel lucky to have been born there.

Probably the most exciting project that I have been working on is not in my site but on a national level. I am part of the Women in Development/Gender and Development Committee, a PC worldwide initiative meaning that it operates in many countries where PC has a presence. I recently became what we refer to as the "point of contact" or head of the committee. Our big project this year has been putting together a calendar featuring twelve women nominated by PCV's from all the departments where PC works. In order to unveil the calendar and celebrate the women who were selected, we will be holding a conference and empowerment workshop in November. So far, we have a family law organization who will be giving a workshop about women's rights, a celebratory luncheon, and an address by the US ambassador who happens to be a woman. The conference is being held at the embassy, which will make it all the more special. Some of the women have selected and invited to the conference have never left the villages where they live and one even speaks Quechua (an indigenous language from the Andes) and not Spanish. I am thrilled to be a part of such a huge project. Our dream is to make this calendar and celebratory empowerment conference an annual event and in order for it to be sustainable, we will be selling future calendars to fund what we cannot get donated and put the rest of the money in a scholarship fund for young women. I will be notifying all of you as soon as we have calendars for sale. THEY ARE REALLY COOL AND IT'S FOR A GOOD CAUSE SO GET EXCITED! That is my plug, I hope everyone is interested.

In less happy news, I experienced my first robbery since being here in Peru. I have let my guard down quite a bit after living here for a year and I felt the consequences yesterday when my purse was snatched from my shoulder in broad daylight with tons of people watching. I was walking from the hostel we stay at to Starbucks after a regional meeting, a walk that I have done 1,000 times, and I felt a tug at my purse. I thought I had caught it on something. When I turned around to look, there was a man behind me yanking on it and I resisted. He tripped me and dragged me on the ground while over a hundred people watched. I finally let go of the bag and am in the process of getting my passport and other important items replaced. I guess life isn't all sunshine and rainbows in developing countries…