I guess its past time that I updated this blog. Things have been a little hectic since last posting. I celebrated Cruzes de Mayo, the Crosses of May, in my site. That was a lot of drinking and dancing; I've posted pictures. Things between our chef and my host mom sort of blew up in that time period, and unfortunately he left us. That's incredibly sad for me, because he was an awesome guy, one of two people I considered friends in Vicco. Even during that, I was helping my host-mom's restaurant, serving food like crazy when my own situation took a dive for the worse too. My host-grandma borrowed my keys to get into the house with my host-sister while I was busy helping the chef get food to the impatient mine workers. She came back about 20 minutes later, and gave my keys back. I continued working, and because I was so busy, asked my host-sister to put some utensils on a plate for one of the tables. I wasn't asking her to go put them on the table, just put the utensils on a plate I provided her. She ignored me, and begged for my keys so she could go back to the house. 5 minutes later, I realized I still needed utensils and asked again. She put the plate down and walked away, so I sought her out after serving some soup and asked about it. She shrugged insolently and turned away, and then she had the gall to ask me for my keys to go back to the house again. I told her no. That would be when my host-grandma flipped out and, long story short, asked me to leave her house. I think the worst part of that was, she is so small, and she refused to look me in the eye, so I felt like this giant staring down at her while she tried to evict me.
Anyways, fast-forwarding a bit, I located a suitable new home family. I asked around in the Municipality with more urgency than before, and visited the families of two Muni. workers. The first one, who is a woman working at the Muni, I would have loved to live with her. Unfortunately, she has so many siblings, her mom didn't have an empty room to rent me. The second guy turned out to be perfect. His home is very very close to the main plaza; he has a large empty room and an actual toilet. He even has a sink, and a washing machine that I think is hooked into the water supply. I might be able to wash clothes without either hauling tons of buckets or hand-scrubbing for hours! It's a miracle. I need to talk to his wife, just to be sure things are good with her, but I don't foresee any problems. Well, other than having to haul all my stuff (including my mini-kitchen) to the new place. I was worried about losing my one other friend in Vicco, since that is my current host-brother, but I don't see that being a problem either. We talked and he completely sympathizes, even to the point of telling me he can't wait till he himself can leave the home situation. In these last weeks, I have definitely come to regard Jon as the younger brother I never had.
On another note, work has been keeping me busy lately, and will keep me busy for the next month and a half. I realized that I'm now a member of 3 different important committees. I'm part of the high school's environmental committee, and I formed an Environmental Committee for all of Vicco, with representatives of all the important groups of Vicco. Also, I'm the Peace Corps representative for the Committee for the development of the National Reserve Junin (our lake/national park). Aside from that, I meet and helped a couple of guys who are planning a tourism project for Vicco, so I have some meetings coming up for that. Also, I am starting on May 24th a mini-Environmental Movie Night. That day is our day to celebrate Migratory Birds Day, so I thought it would make a great night to start movies, and show "Rio".
On top of that, I need and want to start planning a Renewable Energy project. I am currently returning from a 3 day conference in the gorgeous Huaraz, Ancash about Climate Change and Renewable Energy Education. ECPA is the Peace Corps group that hosted the event. I'm very excited to do a solar project and start some education using models and demonstrations. I guess once I have that planned out; I'll explain it more fully. I'll just say that I hope to start a solar bake sale as part of it.
Anyways, hope you are all well. I'm keeping busy, and that is the name of happiness in PC Peru.
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