Hey everyone!Well, its been a long and hard week for us new Peace Corps volunteers. Last Friday, we found out our site assignments. I am going to live in La Venta, Ica for the next two years! Its about 30 to 40 minutes south of the city Ica. Which is nice, because a current volunteer lives 10 minutes drive from me north, and another new volunteer, Kate, 5 minutes south! So I am definitely going to ask for a bike from the Peace Corps. Especially since my houes...

Hey everyone,I went on a mini trip with the WATSAN group this weekend to the department of Ica. We were in a small town of Bernalez, near the regional capital of Pisco. It was a pretty poor place, with clay houses and tin or thatch roofs. It was the middle of the desert, so you can only imagine how hot and sunny it was. All the vonunteers got sunburnt! We stayed in a community building with a basketball court, which they use to play soccer mostly. It was nic...

Hi everyone!A few new things have happened. I keep forgetting how aclimated I am to certain things in peruvian culture. Like seeing dogs do it on the streets every time I walk to and from the training center, which is two times a day. So I see street dogs, stray dogs, do it at least twice a day. can you believe that! I'm not even exaggerating. Twice a day, EVERY DAY! Thats alot of dogs having sex. (I hope this doesnt offend anyone). It struck me, yesterday, ...

Hey guys!Yesterday we had a great hike a few hours from the training center. We drove into the high mountains using peace corps vehicles. It was pretty amazing, since the mountains go almost straight down. I forgot how much I miss seeing them. It give me a sense of adventure and inspiration. Anyway, we hiked for hours up this mountain to see the water source for a village near the base. Really, we hikes 4 hours up to this mountain spring, spent 10 minutes lo...

Hey all!I had a pretty fun day of hiking up a mountain and washing tanks of water for WATSAN! We used some pretty strong chlorine. It was gas-ing me while I was in this huge tank. There were 7 of us in there at a time. It was probably 3 meters diameter and 3 meters tall. Crazy! This took place in Yanacoto, one of the communities that voluneers live in. It costs 50 sentimos to get there from Huascaran. After cleaning the tank, we set the water loose, going d...