I've just finished my first full day in Chaclacayo, Peru! We arrived at this "retreat" center last night at midnight after an 1 1/2 bus ride from the Lima airport. We're staying in small twin rooms with 2 beds each, plus a bathroom with full shower, flush toilet, and electricity. A few people have gotten warm water but I haven't been that lucky. Overall this place is pretty plush compared to what we will get used to. We spent today doing get-to-know you games, learning how to recognize false money, and learning medical and safety basics. Tomorrow I will be moving a little closer to Lima with the other 16 small business volunteers, and we may not see the youth volunteers again until the 4th of July :(
My group of 51 people is an AWESOME collection of characters. We have a very young group, all in between 22 and 33. People are from all over the country, from California to Puerto Rico to New Jersey to Minnesota. There's at least 5 people including myself from Northern Virginia, plus two more from Maryland. Also, one of my business mentors/3rd year Volunteers graduated from UVA in 2008 and was part of the group that started the Nicaragua microfinance project I worked on! Everyone is incredibly energetic, good humored, and from all kinds of academic and professional backgrounds.
I meet my host family tomorrow and move in with them! The staff keeps emphasizing that it is completely fine if we are any degree of vegetarian, my lunch was a delicious avocado and omelette today. I think the non-vegetarians are considering converting, because the lunch meat today was the consistency of beef jerky.
I don't know when my next update will be, but wanted to let you all know that I am having a great time so far! If you want to get my blog updates by email, check out the right-hand column and submit your email address.
Love you all!
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