A little dose of the real world...campo style

This past week we left Lima for our official field based training and site visits. For the first three days we traveled around the departments where we will be living with all of the other volunteers going to that area. We were chaperoned by current volunteers who showed us their sites and coordinated activities to introduce us to life as a Peace Corps volunteer. On Saturday I boarded a bus with four other volunteers and on Sunday morning I woke up in the city of Chiclayo, Lambayeque, our regional capitol.
Our first day of field based training started off with a trip to Starbucks, the hang out for PCVs in Lambayeque. After spending an entire day's allowance on a coffee, we headed to the town of Olmos, about 3 hours by combi (a public, very crowded van). Two of the volunteers I was with will be living in small villages in this district. During our stay in Olmos, we ate amazing street food, planted trees, and stayed with local host families. There was no electricity in the village we stayed in which turned out to be relaxing and refreshing. As it turned out, the volunteer who coordinated this part of the training had gotten the entire village excited about a United States V. Peru volleyball game. Upon our arrival, the Peruvians all got really worried because, compared to them, we are all enormous. In the end they had no reason to be nervous since not one of us plays volleyball. We ended up losing all three games but the scores were at least close. I hope that when I move to my site I will be able to start a pickup volleyball game so that I can learn to play.
After two nights in Olmos, we headed back down to a village outside of the town where I will be living to stay at another volunteer's site. This village is located right on the national historical sanctuary so many of the people who live there work as volunteer park guards in exchange for rice and other foods. While the men do rounds patrolling the forest, women volunteer park guards generally sweep the forest floor but, in this village, the volunteer that lives there has gotten them composting and building a tree nursery to help with reforestation of the park. Since I will be living so close I will be helping maintain the tree nursery project for the volunteer who is leaving. I am very lucky to have this project already in place so that I don't have to start from scratch.
After working at the nursery we went for a hike into the national historical sanctuary to see some of the ruins from the Sican Culture. The adobe pyramids dating back to pre Incan times have now eroded substantially but it is obvious that they were massive and of incredible cultural importance. One of the pyramids is called the Pyramid of Kneeling Women because it was found filled with women who had been sacrificed in the kneeling position. This national historical sanctuary will provide excellent opportunities for me to work in reforestation as well as environmental and cultural awareness.
During my three days of field based training I had a few moments where it hit me that I am living in a different world now. The first of these happened when I was riding between one of the small rural villages and the district capitol in a mototaxi (a motorcycle converted into a carriage style tricycle). As we were bouncing along the dusty road, I all of a sudden felt a scurrying over my feet and around my ankles. I shrieked and looked down to see a burlap sack moving around at my feet. As it turns out, this mototaxi was also serving to transport guinea pigs. The next day during breakfast I had a similar moment of realization when, during breakfast, a neighbor boy ran into the dining room with a screaming goat dangling from his arms yelling "it's dying!" The woman who I was staying with calmly stated that it had been that way since yesterday and there was nothing that could be done. Perhaps the funniest of these encounters occurred when, over lunch with all of the Peace Corps volunteers at the house of one of the volunteer park guards, we realized that what we had though was pepper in our rice were actually tons of dead ants. We all got a little extra protein that day along with our dose of reality. The field based training left me with a little better idea of what life in rural Peru is like but, more than anything, the people were so welcoming and gracious that I got more excited than ever to move into my community.