Frazzle Dazzle

She felt it coming on slowly, crawling under her skin and scratching at her senses every day until she could no longer deny it. Her slightly lumpy bed had become the ultimate destroyer of comfort and rest, power outages turned from daily distraction to grand ruiner of work, slight aches and pains transformed to debilitating diseases and undeniable ailments, delayed home-skype dates ate away at her sanity. There would be no more denying it: it was time for a vacation.

Luckily, the final days of July brought a long awaited return to Ancash where Becca would trek, explore, and generally laugh her face right off with her two amazing friends, Gia and Michelle. As the final days passed, she tried to finish strong. She presented her project plan to the schools and formed a committee to move forward her teen health promotors project and she visited the houses of the moms in her healthy homes project, which lucky for her meant some seriously cute kids. And nothing helps a frazzled mind more than adorable children:

Except of course....a vacation.

Early "Winter" in Photos

Becca's story was beginning to tell itself in photos, but she figured that probably wasn't the worst thing that could happen. (Photos from: Día de Logro, Camp VALOR, and a friend's wedding!)

Out-takes

As part of the English Teaching Committee, Becca was part of a project to make video vignettes for English lessons. She made two stunning videos covering colors and weather with the help of a group of silly and seriously awesome kiddos, but those aren't really important - more entertaining are the out-takes: 

Learning, Failing, and Carrying On

If she was being completely honest, English class, at least as far as comprehension and any actually education, had been a bust. Though she had a suspicion at mid-term exams, the final exams confirmed it with average scores of 50% on a test of only easy vocabulary review.

It was a lesson that education is not the same in different countries, it was a lesson that a lot of parents don't put their children's education's first, it was a lesson that sometimes things fail. Hard.

The good side was that the kids were cute, a couple of them did learn a lot, and Becca remembered that teaching is a learning process too.

Camp ALMA!

This May, all of the volunteers from my region will be uniting to work on a very special project: bringing together 60 teenage girls for a 3-day leadership camp, with the theme of "Peace of Mind, Body, and Environment."

This youth camp is a special opportunity for the outstanding young leaders who attend.  There is a focus on sexual education, since the topic is commonly not addressed adequately in schools or in the family and other activities will include a career fair, recycled handicrafts, trash management, and leadership.  

It is rare that Peruvian teens in our region are allowed out of the house in the evenings, much less to sleep outside of the house for 2 nights. This is an experience that our participants will cherish for the new friends and safe space to talk honestly with their peers and Peace Corps Volunteers about their bodies, families, and futures.  

Here's where you come in.  As with all of our projects, a significant portion of the budget (40%) is coming from local community contributions and donated support.  But the rest, $2,200, we are fundraising through the following link.  All donations made through this link are secure through the Peace Corps website and tax-deductible.

DONATE HERE!

https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=13-527-015