Festina Lente

I’m proud to announce that I was bumped up two levels in my Spanish class after the first four weeks of classes. Now I’m right below the advanced group which consists of people who habla muy bien. I’m really excited about this because a) it means my spanish has really improved (mostly everyone was only bumped up one level, or a half-level) and b) now I am cleared language-wise to go out into my site (you need to be at least intermediate-mid to become a volunteer).

Translation: The anal high school student still lives deep within me and I finished the quarter with all A’s. Mom, it looks like you did your job…. Steven and Michael, and probably Pam and Kat, if no one else, will appreciate this.

Moving on, we had a ‘field day’ of sorts on July 4th and instead of classes we played games like capture the flag and pass the orange between your neck and chin and water balloon toss. Then we had peanut butter and jelly sammys and ‘hamburgers’ (made of weird chicken-like meat), and other assorted goodies in a faux-BBQ. I have never been so happy to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Momma mia, was it good. Yesterday, I am proud to announce I joined the D-club. I’m not sure what caused it but it was either the chicken-like-weird-mushy-hamburger or this cake that we had later that night for my friend’s bday. My entry into the club wasn’t too horrible – only a day’s worth of big D. I think there are only still a handful of people in my group who have yet to be initiated, so I did pretty good making it a month into my time in Peru without joining the club, as most are now long-standing, card-carrying members.

In other news, in one week I am heading to the mountains of Ancash to a place called Chiquian for a week long business simulation training session. I’m going with the rest of the small business development folks and we will be training 90 students at the equivalent of what would be a community college. At the end of the week, we will give them a loan (the equivalent of about $30) to start a small business and they will spend a day trying to sell their goods. This will be micro-micro, like starting a popcorn or lemonade stand. Still, it will be so great to watch them put into practice all we discussed throughout the week. We will touch upon ideas about marketing, price setting, accounting, organizational development, etc. The best part about this business sim project is that we (the volunteers) get to plan out all the lessons and the accompanying games or skits to teach the material, and we get to do all of it in spanish. This will be such a great way to practice what we’ll eventually be doing in-site and I’m SO excited to go.

Tomorrow back to La Agraria in Lima to see how my spinach is doing, I’ll try to remember to bring my camera so I can take some more super-sweet photos. I’m one month in -Twenty-six more to go!!!