Today was our first official day of training and we spent the day learning about some of the details of our program and we had a chance to meet our language facilitators and some of the other staff with whom we will be working. Each day of training will be a pretty long day, from 8:00 to 5:00, but it seems like it’ll be interesting and should be a lot of hands-on learning. After training my Papa picked me up to walk me home, and I felt as though I was in Kindergarten, but I felt pretty loved when Grease ran down the street screaming “hermanita, hermanita.”

I talked with my Papa for most of the night about my decision to join the Peace Corps, my family and background, and other things about America. It can be frustrating to have my language skills limit my range of expression, but I can already tell that living here will be an incredible way to improve. There are so many cultural differences between Peru and America which are comical to discuss. In Peru, a woman doesn’t change her name when she gets married, and a child takes one part of each parent’s name. When I explained that my name was “Kelsi Ward” with no other “apellido” or last name, my Papa couldn’t understand that I did in fact have a mother. Also, they are really blunt in their descriptions and much less tactful when describing someone physically. Multiple times I’ve heard reference to a “gordita,” which essentially translates to “little fat one.” Papa also keeps telling me that I need to eat more, and his last host daughter gained some weight while she was here and looked much nicer. The food has been pretty good so far, but they love their carbohydrates: lots of rice and potatoes. Too bad I’m not training for a marathon now!