FBT in La Libertad + Site Assignments

Finally, more than 5 minutes with a computer and internet access!  I’ve been meaning to update the blog, but it’s been impossible the last few weeks.  After FBT (field-based training), everything has been breezing by and all of a sudden I find myself at site. I’ll recap the last few weeks:

FBT

Field-based training is meant to have trainees exercise all the skills they’ve been acquiring the first 5 weeks of training.  Youth volunteers were split up into 3 groups of 10 and each sent to different regions of Peru to meet current volunteers and have pre-arranged facilitations at different schools/educational centers.  Our group of 10 was sent to La Libertad (northern coast), while the other groups went to Ancash (the mountains) and Ica (southern coast). I was really excited the week leading up to FBT and then really stressed the week after we got back from FBT. It was a great opportunity to see other parts of Peru, because Lima isn’t at all representative of the country, BUT it’s an exhausting trip. Seriously, Im tired just thinkinggggg about how tired I was that week.

Things I liked about FBT:

• hang out with current volunteers
• being out of the training center
• see new parts of Peru
• traveling with friends
• hot showers in the hostels
• delicious meals
• painting a Peru map with special ed kids

Things I did NOT like about FBT:

• hauling luggage from one hostel to the next every day
• carrying school supplies for our facilitations
• waking up extremely early every day
• only having a few hours to prepare for lessons
• traveling twice a day sometimes

In La Libertad we visited:

1. Trujillo (departamental capital)
2. San Pedro de Lloc
3. Guadalupe
4. Puerto Malabrigo
5. Bello Horizonte
6. Pacasmayo
7. Huanchaco

Trujillo is amazing! For those of you coming to visit, we’ll probably head up there. The beach, Huanchaco, is only about 15 minutes away and heavily populated by tourists because of all the surfing.

Site Assignments

Up until Week 8, the only thing on a trainee’s mind is finding out where the heck they’re going to live the next two years.  In addition to talking about it endlessly amongst ourselves, we had current volunteers talk to us about how amazing their departments are and we met with our APCD (read:boss) about our interests in projects and what kind of site we would like (I asked for warm weather, pleaseeee). We also had the priviledge of having current volunteers visit our training center and present the work they did in their communities. Speare Hodges, one of the earliest visits we had, stood out in my mind as an exemplary volunteer.  The recipient of the Volunteer Excellence Award, he dedicated himself to changing the lives of Peruvian teens by developing a comprehensive sexual education campaign that significantly reduced the teen pregnancy rate in Olmos, Lambayeque. His service would be finished in August and he informed us that a member of Peru 19 would be replacing him…

Fast forward to the day we got our site assignments…guess who was the lucky volunteer chosen to replace Speare in his site. ME! Everyone kept saying ‘oh wow!’ with a big look of surprise so you know it was a big deal. Although nerve-wracking at first, I’ve come to see the positives of replacing a great volunteer, like the fact that he left a wonderful impression of the Peace Corps and a plethora of motivated contacts to work with.

So there it was, with only a few weeks left of training, I found out I’d be spending the next two years with the wonderful people of Olmos, Lambayeque, Peru!