Teen Pregnancy Play

I have already written a bit about the teen pregnancy classes we have been giving. I also wrote about the competition that our high school health promoters won a couple of weeks ago. Well this past weekend they had another competition. The NGO Prenatal, which works to combat teen pregnancy in Peru, held a competition in which high school students would act out skits about teen pregnancy.

Our students decided to do a skit about a teenage girl who gets pregnant and the drama that ensues. It was a really great skit and the kids had a lot of fun. Four other high schools participated and they all did great. Well one was kind of weird, it ended with a clown on stilts and a balloon-dance party. But the others were really on point.

There was an intermission in which this 16 year old kid named Kevin sang a song about teen pregnancy. Kevin's some kind of national celebrity. Apparently he was on the Peruvian Micky Mouse Club and all the high school chicks went crazy when he sang. It was pretty funny.

Our kids ended up winning and now they get to go on a retreat to a resort-type place with a pool and everything. I think I even get to tag along which should be fun.

Chau!

Sex, Sex, and more SEX

When I first applied to the Peace Corps, I said I would do anything and go anywhere. Well that was a bit of a fib. I knew that I didn't want to teach kids about sex. It's not that I have anything against little kids or sex, I just always hated sitting through those health classes back in middle school. I always felt like we were taking part in some politically mandated class that forced the teachers to talk about something they didn't want to get into.

Well as luck would have it, one of the first projects I get to do is a series of sex-ed classes! I actually chose to do this. My two best community partners are a teacher and an obstetrician and it seemed like a natural fit to do these talks. And the kids sure do need it.

Our first step was to find out how much the kids knew about basic sexual health. I made a one page survey with questions about STI's, pregnancy, and a couple of very detailed anatomical drawings. Then I passed out the surveys to 9th and 10th graders. The results were pretty bad. Most of the boys thought the anus was the vagina and the girls couldn't identify a scrotum to save their lives. They also thought that diabetes was an STI and that a condom can protect against infection 100% of the time.

As reluctant as I was to get into sexual education back in the States, I have really enjoyed working on this project so far. It is obviously something the kids need desperately and I have awesome resources in my two community partners so there is no excuse not to do it. Our next step is to take the information we gained from the surveys and make some lesson plans to teach these kids a thing or two about their bodies. Wish me luck!

Chau!

Upcoming Projects

I've been at site for just over three weeks now. I haven't been really busy or anything, but somehow the time has gone by fast. The first three months at site are meant as an adjustment period in which we learn about our community and start to get some ideas about projects we would like to complete. We are also supposed to do smaller projects that should be pretty easy. That is where I am now.

Although I initially thought living with a host family would be annoying, I have come to see how beneficial it really is. I sometimes feel like a teenager again - like being told when and what to eat - their utility has really shown itself. Most recently, as I begin working on these smaller projects. I have just come back from the library that my dad runs. Him and I brainstormed for about a half hour and came up with some very exciting projects.

First, we will be holding a weekly movie night at the library. It will start next Friday with The Pianist. I thought this movie might be a little too mature for a younger audience (though I admit I haven't seen it), but my dad thought it would be fine for them. Since I haven't seen it and he knows the kids better than I, I trust him. My dad works for the municipality so he can borrow a projector from the municipality that we can use.

Another project will be a chess club. This was my dad's idea. I don't know much about chess, but he says the kids will love it. Apparently they had one last year, but it kind of fell off. He already has the chess boards and everything.

We are also going to start a book club. Some complain that kids in the States don't read enough, well they should see Peru. Practically nobody here reads for fun. To exacerbate the problem, books are very expensive and libraries are few (that's why I'm so lucky to have a librarian as a host dad). I'll start this project a few weeks after the movie night so that I can get to know the kids and gauge their interest. I'm really excited about this one. I myself love to read and I think it's immensely important that kids start this habit early.

The final project we came up with will require a bit more work. We want to hold a womens marathon. They held a mens marathon here a few years ago, but never one for the ladies. Because there exists a lot of machismo culture here in Peru, it would be great to hold an event just for women in which they can display their physical talent and discipline.

So all this has got me very excited. I've already bought supplies to make signs for the movie night to post around town.

Later today, I have a meeting with a group of high school students who are going to perform a play about teen pregnancy as part of a department wide competition with other schools. Our group won the first part of the competition which was to make a poster for the prevention of teen pregnancy, so hopefully we can carry the momentum over into this play.

I'll let you all know how everything goes!

Chau,
Roberto

Getting to Know the Town

As I have mentioned in previous posts, my host dad is very well-respected and known in the town. He literally knows everybody. I have met lots of people by just walking around town with him. So today when he asked me if I wanted to go meet some of his friends, of course I said yes. We started out at the house of one of his oldest friends. We picked him up and then walked over to the house of another friend who has cancer but has been getting better. We talked with him for a bit and then moved on to my dad's brother's house. On the way, we bought a bottle of wine and some cerveza (mind you it was 11AM). We got to his brother's house, but he wasn't home. Apparently he was visiting his son in the nearest big city.
Without a place to drink our wine and beer, we decided to return to the first house. We relaxed there for a bit and discussed the differences between cultures and politics in the US and Peru. For instance, they find it fascinating that people move out at 18 and start their own lives. In Peru, children usually stay in their parents' house until they are married or even then they may just move their family into their parents' house. It's not unusual for people in their 40's or 50's to live with their parents.
We talked and finished the wine (which is very sweet in Peru. It's almost like a port.). Then my dad and I walked over to his sister's house. She has a very nice house and we talked and played with her grandchildren for a little while.
After that, we walked over to the town center. It is election season and all of the different campaigns have headquarters around the main plaza. My dad is well connected with the current administration and is good friends with the mayor, so we went into his campaign headquarters. Now this is more or less against Peace Corps policy. As non-political volunteers, we shouldn't be seen to be aligned with any particular political party. With this in-mind, I planned to only stay for a little while, but I had to walk a fine line. I want to integrate within the community and spend time with my host dad, but I didn't want to appear to be supporting the mayor's reelection campaign.
I stayed in the headquarters for a bit and passed the vaso with my dad and the mayor and the campaign staff. "Passing the vaso" is the manner in which Peruvians drink. It involves passing around a bottle of beer and a vaso (glass) in a circle. After the bottle of wine and a few beers and not very much food, I was starting to feel the alcohol so I excused myself and returned home; where I started to write this blog entry. I ate some graham crackes and I'm not feeling the booze so much anymore.
We were supposed to have a pollada (a community chicken feast) so I'm going to go find that now because I'm starving.
Chau, amigos!

All Kinds of Tranquilo

I am loving life down here in Peru. I really have the perfect set-up. My site rocks, my family rocks, my community partner rocks, and all the other volunteers rock. Everything's just pretty much rockin' right now. So here are some of the rockin' things I've been doing since my last update.

I helped give some more charlas (classes) on teen pregnancy. Then on Friday I didn't have anything to do so I went for a long walk along the beach. The beach is about a 10 minute walk from my house and it is one of the most stunning, wild beaches I have ever seen. It's totally untamed and practically deserted. During the winter, which we are in down here in the good ol' SoHe (that's my cool abbreviation for Souther Hemisphere), no one goes there except for a few fisherman. So my beach starts out as a pretty normal sandy beach (that is once I pass the gnarly sand dunes and ruins of 200 year old church). Then I come across a bunch of colorful, wooden fishing boats scattered along the sand. These sit in front of Puerto Eten, the smaller town by my city and where lives another volunteer. After the boats, the beach turns into these giant cliffs. I walked along the edge of the cliffs and stared out into the vast ocean. From the top of the cliffs I could see for miles and miles. If Sarah Palin where with me should could have probably pointed out Russia.

After walking along the cliffs for a while, I came to a secluded section of beach walled-off by the cliffs. I found a little trail down to the beach and sat there and read for about an hour. Then I got hungry and returned home. I can't remember what I ate for lunch, but I'm sure it was delicious seeing as how my mom is a fantastic cook. Peruvian food is actually really good. They have just about every ingredient imaginable. Potatoes and Tomatoes were actually first grown in Peru in the Andes near the border with Ecuador.

So that was a fun day. Today I had a really productive meeting with my counterparts. I met with my counterpart the obstetrician, her staff of two nurses who are about my age, and a woman from an organization that supports abused mothers and children. We planned out a meeting that we are going to have with about 50 parents from the community. We are going to use it as a way to introduce a myself and a broader series of classes on parenting that we will be hosting. My dad, the librarian, is going to let us hold it in the town library and we are going to borrow a projector from the municipality to show a movie on family values. I'm really excited about it.

Not being a parent myself, I'm a bit worried that the parents won't listen to me, but I know if I present myself professionally and sound like I know what I'm talking about, it will work. So I'm going to study up on what I want to say to them and prepare myself well. I even bought some business cards to further my professional image.

Well that's all I have for now. Suerte a todo.

Chau!

Teen Pregnancy and the Bed Bath and Beyond of Peru

Hello there:

Feeling bloated? If that's the case, and you're a 13 year old Peruvian, you're probably pregnant. The average age at which women have children here is 16. It's really terrible because many of these girls begin having sex at a very early age and don't use protection. Many times they get pregnant on their first go.

Because teen pregnancy is such a big problem here, my community counterpart has taken the initiative to start teaching classes at the local high school on teen pregnancy and how to avoid it. My counterpart is an obstetrician and she is really on top of things. I am very lucky to have her. (A counterpart by the way is a local professional who Peace Corps finds to work with the volunteers. They can be librarians, teachers, doctors, or municipal workers, or just about anyone who is active in the community.)

When I first got to my site I was worried that I wouldn't be able to think of any meaningful projects, but thanks to my counterpart, I already have one. These classes about teen pregnancy definitely aren't something I would have started on my own, but I have helped with 3 so far and I really enjoy them. The kids also seem to be interested in the issue; perhaps because so many of them have already had experience with it.

Although the kids can be a little rowdy, they are sweet. I'm quite the novelty to them. It's very strange being so different from all of them. Sometimes they will laugh at me when I speak Spanish or even when I'm not really doing anything at all. Sometimes they treat me like a celebrity. At the end of one of the classes I had to sign a bunch of autographs for a horde of little girls. That was really weird. Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is that the kids are really strange.

After my class today, I took a taxi into the departmental capital, Chiclayo. The taxis aren't like taxis back in the states. It's just some guy who has an old Toyota who tries to make an extra buck by cramming 5 or 6 people into 4 seats. It's pretty uncomfortable for a tall gringo like me, but it's cheap (about $1 for a 20 mile trip) and I enjoy the convenience of being able to go right into town anytime I wish.

So when I arrived in Chiclayo, I went to the large shopping center called Real Plaza. This place really is ridiculous. It caters to about the top 10% of Peruvians because most things here are just insanely priced by their standards. It has a Starbucks, a KFC, a Pizza Hut, and a Long Horn Steak House. It's kind of like being in America again. I am actually writing this using the Free WiFi in Starbucks.

I went to a place called Casa & Ideas. It's a home store that resembles Bed Bath and Beyond. It's pretty pricey, but today most of the stuff was between 30 and 50% off. I bought a really comfortable blanket, some sheets, curtains, and a bunch of rugs. My room is pretty bare (those with Facebook can refer to the photos of my room for a better idea). The floor is pretty much rocks covered in cement and the walls are uncovered bricks. Lots of little critters crawl through the walls. I spider bit me in my bed the first night I was here and I found a black widow yesterday. I used to hate spiders, but now I just see them as roommates. So I bought all of the rugs to lay on the ground and I hope to use a few of them to cover the walls.

Well that's all I have for today. I'm probably going to finish up here and go back home to do some reading. I'm really lucky because my dad is a librarian and yesterday he brought me this Spanish book on the French Revolution. I'm looking forward to reading it. I think I might even take it and walk down to the beach tomorrow to read it. Take care all!

Chau!

Swearing-in

It's been a few since I last updated the blog. In that time, I have sworn-in as a Peace Corps Volunteer and have moved to my site. I am now sitting in a hostel in Chiclayo, the capital city of my department - Lambayeque. I arrived in Chiclayo this morning (well technically yesterday morning sense it is after 12:00AM) with the other 3 volunteers from my group who will be working and living in my department. We are staying the night here and then tomorrow we will all go to our respective sites.

My site is fabulous. It is exactly where I wanted to go. It is named Ciudad Eten and I visited it on for Field-Based Training a few weeks ago. At that time I did not know where I was going to go, but after visiting Eten, I knew I wanted to go there. I made it clear to my bosses that I wanted Ciudad and I was lucky enough to get it. It is literally right on the beach and it is such a tranquila city. Everyone is really chill and my host family is fantastic.

My community partner is an obstetrician who is totally on her game. She is fantastic and already has some health classes with which I will be helping her lined-up this week at the high school.

I am a bit intimidated, because I have so much freedom in what I can do. I can literally do any project that I want for the next two years as long as it involves youth development. In some respects that is liberating, but in others it is daunting. I visited Eten two weeks ago and met the mayor and lots of other important people. They all spoke of such grand expectations for me. I am worried that I won't live up to their expectations, but I am going to do my best.

The first three months at site are meant to be an integration period. We are supposed to work on a community diagnostic in which we assess the community's needs, resources, strengths, weakness, and threats. During this time we are not expected to do much in the way of actual projects, but should be focusing on the diagnostic while accomplishing early-wins. Early-wins are little projects that we can do with little preparation and training. They involve teaching English, drawing a world map on a wall with children, or teaching a few classes on simple health topics like brushing teeth or washing hands.

It's weird to think that I will be at Eten for the next two years and I don't even know what I will be doing exactly. However, I'm super excited to get out there and figure it out. I'll have internet in my new house, so I'll try to keep this thing updated so you can all know how things are proceeding.

Chau!