My journey thus far...

It´s already been 5 days since being in Peru and so much has happened thus far. I thought I´d clue everyone in on the basics, just so you know what´s going on, but feel free to email me otherwise as I have much more to tell...

Pre-Staging
I boarded my plane to Washington D.C. on Wednesday and saying goodbye was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. I started crying as soon as I saw the airport and didn´t stop until I boarded the plane. As soon as I sat on the plane, however, talking with my neighbor and I realized that I was going on a great adventure and have so much to look forward to. As my sister said to me, it´s better to look at the possibilities ahead instead of what I´m leaving behind...so I´m choosing that as my motto whenever I get sad. Me and 56 others from around the United States met at the hotel in D.C. (5 people from Oregon) and had a small orientation to the peace corps as in what we can and cannot do. I started getting really excited when we were talking about our goals and aspirations, and again, I realized what a great opportunity I have.I had sometime in the morning on Thursday to explore the National Mall a bit, but the rest of the time was in orientation and or packing. I also got to see a good friend from college, which was an adventure in itself.

Arrival
Friday came before we knew it, and we all boarded our plane to Lima, Peru. Seven hours later, we exited the plane to find a man holding up a peace corps sign who helped us through customs, which was a relief to me since I didn´t want to think anymore....All I could think of was how funny is must of been to see 57 gringos with all there luggage walking around togther. Once we got through the airport, we had two buses waiting to take us to our retreat center, Huampani, a little bit outside of Lima. It was like going to camp becuase we all stayed in this bungaloos and had our meals together in a big mess hall. There were also horses and llamas just walking around (Photos to come). The most intimidating part of the2-day retreat was definitely our spanish interview. We had an interview to see what level of spanish we were at. Since I haven´t spoken spanish since graduating college almost a year ago, it was a bit of a stretch, but I was impressed with how much I still remembered. We also got to meet the country director, and other PC staff, which are all fantastic. They kept on telling us how lucky we were to have gotten Peru as our Peace Corps program. After two days of getting adjusted to Peru and to each other, our host families picked us up on Sunday...off to another adventure...

Host Family
So I and 8 other PC trainees live in a small community called Chacrasana. There is not much in Chacrasana. Basically two paved roads that both lead up a long hill. My host family is wonderful. I have a mama and papa along with two host siblings. My mom and dad are gone during the week in Lima, so my host sister basically takes care of everything for me. I call her my "mamacita," which makes her laugh everytime so I think I will continue to call her that. I also have three dogs staying with me. Two are 3-month old dogs called "gringo" and "petista." There is also another dog named "Marron," which doesn't care for the puppies from what I have seen. My house is nice in comparison to other volunteer houses from what I've heard so far. I have running water and electricity...and an electrical socket in my room! That apparently is gold right there! There is, however, no toilet seat, which I'm pretty sure I'm going to have muscular thighs after 2 years. And while I haven't had real coffee in Peru yet, a cold shower is a good substitute. I live upstairs along with my host sister and to get to my room, I have to go outside and greet the dogs first, which are always excited to see me. I thought after having lived in Chile for a while, I would be able to understand fast spanish, but no....I think my host sister takes the cake for talking fast. I usually just shake my head when I understand a word or two, but that's a bad habit to start becuase then they think you know more than you actually do...so now I just try to stare or ask her to repeat herself.

That is all for now. I've been trying to take lots of photos, so I'll try to upload some soon. I am also going to try to be on skype (username: anniebopannie) as much as possible, so if you have it, try to log on whenever you are online, so that we could chat. I would love to hear your voices and see faces!