Navidad

Feliz Navidad!
(ok... I´m a little behind schedule. Anyway, I had a nice holiday season. Hope you did too.)

My host family, my uncle`s family (the one that Rodrigo belongs to), and my boyfriend, Bryan (who I admit, looks a little creepy in these photos), celebrated in my house in Rica Playa by having dinner at midnight. They didn`t really wrap and upwrap gifts but I know they gave each other gifts. I gave my host parents a creche (nativity scenes are big here), Lorena, swimming goggles, and Adrian, plastic sea creatures, which he enjoyed.

El campo

Here the words el campo refer to the natural landscape found in the park. I`m lucky to get to go exploring there often because it is so close to where I live. These pictures are of a time when my friend Karen, who is a park ranger, and Adrian, my host brother, went with me to Bocana Carrillos (the spot by the river) and the Mirador (a lookout spot).

Bailamos

Yup. I`m learning to dance Peruvian style from some of the best. They practice the same songs over and over. The current hit is La Pompa, which my host brother and sister practice with their friends and me, who needs the most practice. :) I heard the song blasted at 9 or 10 every night for about a week when I had first moved in. You would think I could sing the song in my sleep... not quite there yet though.

Ñaña

If you would ask me about the best part of my site, apart from the beautiful landscape, I would have to say the people. I´m getting to know more of them poco a poco. It helps to have a family that is related to about 60% of the town, which is only 140 families or so in total. Here people refer to each other brother and sister. My favorite is the affectionate term used for sister, ñaña, because my 2 year-old cousin, Rodrigo, calls me that now. He used to be scared of me. For a couple days, he would shyly hide his eyes when I was around. Now he points to me and says ñaña really loud with a big smile. My family says he even knocks on my door when he comes to visit when I am gone.

Here are pictures of Rodrigo (who we call Yagnur), my other cousins, Carol, John Marcos and Mario, and my host siblings, Lorena and Adrian.

Ceviche

Ceviche mixto - a variety of seafood, a Peruvian specialty.

The INRENA welcome dinner clan - Erin, myself, my boss Oscar, Edgar, Bryan, and Aldo

I have been really spoiled by my boss up here. Upon my first visit here and my first weekend when I came back to stay, we went to eat ceviche on the beach. Talk about perks of the job! Ceviche is most definitely my favorite food here in Peru . Seafood (fish, clams, squid, octopus, shrimp) ¨cooked¨in lemon and onion tastes divine... especially when served with popcorn and crisp homemade banana chips and followed by a swim in the ocean. Gotta love ¨beach corps¨.

Don`t get too jealous now. I don`t get to indulge like this all the time.

Por fin, yo he llegado!

Hey all. Here are photos of my site! I have been sent to the hot, arid north of Peru, the frontier. When my host family down south found out where I was to be sent, they told me I was going to the land of the monos. No, there aren´t a lot of monkeys here. It´s just close to Ecuador, where the people eat a lot of bananas. The Peruvians teasingly call the Ecuadorians ¨monkeys¨.

I am up here in the North to work with a national park called Cerros de Amotape. My counterpart is the head of INRENA (like the National Park Service). I get to give a lot of presentations, promote tourism of the park, and teach environmental education in the school in my town of Rica Playa, as well as several other towns in the same school district. All the towns border the grand (by Peruvian standards) River Tumbes, which converts the dry landscape into lush fertile ground where mangos, lemons, and platanos are grown in abundance.