Another beautiful day in Cajamarca! This morning we went to an all-boys school to deliver education sessions about leadership. As soon as we walked in the doors of the school, we were swarmed with students who were completely fascinated by the influx of “gringos” in their school. An all-boys school was definitely interesting, but our session ended up going pretty well. Leadership development is one of the main goals of Peace Corps, and even this brief interaction with these Peruvian students indicated the drastic difference in the idea of “leadership” between here and back home. We began our session asking for volunteers to explain what their personal definition of leadership was and what adjectives described a leader. Nearly every student in the class defined a leader as someone who “controls others” or “orders people”. When asked if any of them consider themselves to be leaders, no one raised their hands. They explained that presidents, governors, police, principals, etc. are leaders, but could not identify leaders among their peers.

Although the idea of leadership can be complicated, I think as Americans we are encouraged to take leadership positions from an early age. It was interesting that the Peruvian students’ idea of leaders were limited only to those with official power to control others and make decisions. I think empowering youth as leaders will give them more autonomy in the decisions they make and help them learn to shape the community and environment around them. We stressed the importance of leading by example, and helped facilitate a discussion about embodying quality traits of a leader, which may be honesty, integrity, teamwork, ambition, fairness, etc.

Following this presentation, we visited a local all-girls school where many of the students from rural mountain villages attend. Many of the students at this school walk more than four hours in their round-trip commute to school every day. Schools do not typically provide lunches, so many of the students at this school do not eat anything between 4am and 4pm. Teachers commented that some of the students are so famished that they can barely stay awake during their class sessions. One of the current Peace Corps volunteers in this site is working to develop a “comedor estudiantil” at this particular school in an effort to combat the prevalent issue of hunger for many students. This project involves setting up a lunch program at the school that provides low-cost meals for students which would be run by the parents and community. Limited funding is available, so the volunteer has developed various creative plans to acquire cooking equipment, food, and people to prepare and serve lunches. The school principal and local municipality have become involved in this program, so it should hopefully be up and running soon. For less than 1 sole per day (which equates to about 35 cents) a student can receive a full meal, which may in turn improve their attentiveness in class and thus their overall academic success.

After spending some time in this school, we had the afternoon to enjoy Cajabamba. We ate lunch at the restaurant owned by Virginia’s host parents, and I tried goat for the first time. It was pretty good, I think I prefer goat to guinea pig. The longer I am in Peru the more I realize that you really can’t be a picky eater. After lunch, we went on a beautiful hike to surrounding waterfalls. We followed a small river that turned through rocky gorges and provided incredible views of the surrounding mountains. We ended at the waterfalls, which we could climb up because the type of rocks that composed the waterfall were completely different than anything else I’ve seen. Regardless of how wet or muddy the rocks were they somehow provided awesome traction, so we could literally climb right up on the waterfall.

Later that evening I was walking through Cajabamba with Libby, another girl in my training group who also happens to be blonde. Especially in smaller towns, very few people have seen many Americans, so being white, tall, and blonde (which we both are) attracts lots of interesting looks. As we were walking through the center of town, a group of little girls came running up to us and asking us all kind of questions about America and why we were visiting Cajabamba. Before long, the group of girls was joined by their mothers, who were dressed in the traditional “Sierra” clothing of braids, large hats, and full skirts. Libby and I were standing in the middle of the growing circle of Peruvians who were incredibly warm, welcoming, and interested in our presence in their community. After a few more minutes, even more people had joined the circle around us and soon entire families were listening to us explain why we were visiting and what we would be doing in Peru for the next two years. Our audience grew to about 30 people before we left, but it was such an encouraging sign that people were so receptive (or at least interested) to our presence and anxious to hear our impression of Peru and its people. It made me really excited to become a part of my own Peruvian community in a few weeks.