Today marks my 10th day in Ancash. I posted my first thoughts and impressions of my new site that I wrote on day one, and while I still have internet access, I guess I should try to update a bit. Since then I've felt both worse and better. I went to GLOBE training with two professors from Olleros and Willa. That was fun, as was the going-away party for the Peru 15ers. Everyone of the volunteers I met was great. I have a whole new family of individuals to learn about and support. Shortly before leaving for that though I received some calls from people in Vicco or Cerro de Pasco, which really sent me for a mental spin. It was depressing, and I had to really work to get myself moving forward again. I'm trying not to dwell on the abandonment of them. This week, I taught several classes in the school of Olleros (which is both elementary and high school, there being no middle school in Peru). I taught two English classes to the second grade of Secondary (high school), and the kids of that grade are really sweet. It was fun being back in the teaching mode, spotting the kids who are more interested, and remember more. You learn so much about the individual kids even as you teach the class as a whole. It's fascinating to me, and keeps me busy.
        
              I also taught 6th grade of Primary (elementary school) a class about Climate Change. That felt really good, in that it was more directly related to our program goals, but I could tell the kids were still a bit young to be understanding or interested much in the science. I'm hoping to capture their interest when we start a small climate monitoring study. I want to start a mini-science project thing with them. First, to teach them, we'll have a basic question about the average temperature. Then I hope to provide them with individual thermometers so they can design and carry out their own mini-experiment. They can all present their findings at the end of it. After that, we might have them carry out a long term study study collecting data as a team. We'll see how that goes. Another really cool class I taught (assisted in really), was the swimming classes Willa started yesterday. Olleros has a Municipality-owned pool down near the river, and so we took 3rd grade of Secondary class down to teach swimming. The water was pretty cold, but it was so great to be swimming, especially when it so clearly fascinated the students. I think one of them was able to swim, but he was clearly an exception. It was also excellent exercise, including doing some yoga and other basic exercises to warm up after getting out. I would say that was one of my highest points in my new site so far. I also really enjoyed playing soccer in the dirt street with 3 young kids, and making boats out of the bottoms of plastic bottles littered around to race down the mini-stream running along the dirt road outside my house.

             As of right now, I think I'm really wondering about how my host family situation is going to work out. I really hope I don't have to deal with a dirt floor my whole service, so thinking of solutions. Carpeting, putting in concrete, or perhaps just a tarp are some of my ideas. The family is so sweet; I really am trying to walk on my tippytoes for right now. Santa, who I can't decide if I should call my host mom, or sister, has a sort of tourism thing where tourists visit her from Huaraz to learn about how she makes natural dyes and knitted products. I'm very excited to think about ways I could help her improve it. I think right now, getting the word out there is the biggest thing, so I'm thinking of ways I could get her connected to guided hikes or something similar. Any ideas from out there in internet land would be most welcome though!