“When worse comes to worse, get your mom to send you a $%*# ton of chocolate.”

Today was an interesting day. Since it’s the last day before our trip to field based training it was pretty slack. We had a dental talk from Suni, our friendly neighborhood PCMO, which can be summed up into floss, floss, floss. It’s expensive to buy in Peru so don’t bother, she’ll give it to us for free…oh the joys of PC life, free floss…now I just need to get in the habit of doing it every day…it’ll make Dr. Jordan happy (my dentist from home). But after our talk we had a very animated 3rd year PCV named Joshua come in to talk to us. Let me just say this guy cracks me up! He just had some lines today that were so funny, I actually wrote them down in my notebook for the SOLE purpose of sharing them with you all faithful (I’m sure) readers of my blog. So here we go, let’s start the show:

“When worse comes to worse, get your mom to send you a $%*# ton of chocolate.”
Ok, so Joshua didn’t actually say this, his friend Cheri (I’m guessing another PCV) did. But it’s just so perfect. There is chocolate here in Peru. Every trainee in our group can tell you a Sublime bar is kinda a taste of home (think a really thick Mr. Goodbar, but way better chocolate to peanut ratio). But every now and again, we just need an M&M. In all my trips to markets and supermarcados here in Peru I’ve yet to encounter M&Ms…and I just can’t for the life of me figure out why. Its chocolate, that the Mars company swears doesn’t melt in your hands…but I can state for the record, it actually does…but its just so dern good I’m not sure how Barney has made it to this country and not M&Ms. Any way, onward to the next quote

“Don’t turn away food…you’ll give them a complex.”
So in Peru food is a VERY important part of establishing confidencia (confidence…yeah you guessed right, I love cognates too). Like I’m talking no matter how big the plate of rice and potatoes is that they put in front of you, you better darn well find room for it in your stomach to fit it. You see when I soon travel to my site for the next 2 years, the first 3 months will be spent doing what is called a Diagnostic Report, basically a written out report saying how everything works (or doesn’t work) in my soon to be barrio, and who’s who in the area. So in order to gain people’s confidence, and get to know them, what do you do in Peru? Why you go to their house for lunch, dinner, lonche, a snack, a baptism, a wedding, a birthday party…well really whatever they invite you to and you EAT. And I’ll tell you what; Peruvians can eat some rice and potatoes! But that’s ok because I’m about 98% sure I’ll never get sick of potatoes…but maybe I shouldn’t say that only a month into training…
“If you don’t care for your host family’s food then invite them to peanut butter on a regular basis. They will understand how you feel about their food.”
Ok for the most part, Peruvians are not a fan of peanut butter…no clue why, because lets face it its AMAZING. But for the most part, not big consumers of PB…que triste. But Joshua’s point was if you find your self eating the same…well untastey meal over and over again, just offer them some of you S./16 Peanut butter (yeah that’s about $5 a jar…a small jar) because most likely they aren’t going to like it either. But as part of Peruvian culture, since you are offering…they must eat it. And at some point they will reach their limit, because obviously peanut butter is WAY grosser than say chicken liver…haha. And they will ask to not have any because they aren’t really into it. Then that provides you the perfect opportunity to say: now that you mention it, I’m not really feeling the chicken liver either…no matter how much iron is has for me. Problem solved.

“Stear clear of the fridge. Its DANGEROUG….that 3 seconds of artic wind that come out when you open the door will cause you to get deathly ill.”
So to Americans the before stated will sounds crazy. How can you get sick from the fridge. The fridge keeps your food cold and actually prevents sickness from grossness that can grow in food right? WRONG. Ok so in Peru, Cold=Bad, no ifs, ands, or buts, about it. I was sick for the first 2 weeks I was here because I was wearing chacos when my mom and dad came to pick me up. I’m going to get sick because today I walked barefoot to the bathroom this morning…what I really had to go! And the list goes on. When you’re sick you can’t drink cold things, it’ll just make you worse, only hot things, so hot infact you’ll lose the linning to your mouth. But hey this is a cultural exchange so we’re all making the best of it, trying to wear our “house shoes,” not let our mom see us leave the house in chacos, you know the drill. But man, careful when you open that fridge, infact its best if you stand behind the door as you open it, use the door as a shield. And don’t stand in front of it for too long…that’ll get you sick in a heart beat.
Now let me clarify, I’m not mocking, There has to be some truth to the fear of cold, I mean I did actually get sick for a day after I went to that night soccer game in chacos and without a hat on my head…so my mom must know her stuff. It was just a shocker when we all came here to go from cold gingerale when you’re throat hurts to NOTHING COLD, ONLY HOT! But hey, I love hot tea, so it works out.

Well that’s all the insite I can share from our buddy Joshua, he was a hoot. I love hearing from the current serving PCVs because they all have so much information to share, and we all need to take in as much of it as we can…I mean we’re 6 weeks through training…only a few more left! GASP!

As for now, I’m heading to Jilili, Piura for Field Based Training. I’ll be sure to let ya’ll know how it goes!