Friday, March 23, 2012

Hunting for 'Eggs'

Now I must warn you, the title may be a little misleading here as I did not actually participate in an Easter Egg hunt. In fact I am just writing this blog because I thought you might miss hearing about the silly things I say in Spanish. School is back in session and so is the inappropriateness!

To give a little context last night we were teaching our adult English class about how to say things like "I am going to..." and then had them write about what they are going to be doing during Holy Week. We then broke into groups and discussed what they had written. My group then asked me what kind of things we do in the United States and about our customs for Easter. So I told them about several things and was concluding with Easter egg hunts. I didn't at the time know the Spanish word for 'hunt,' so I said the word for search. A discussion then ensued and they taught me the real word for hunt, which is cazar. I wrote it on the board to make sure I was spelling it right.

One of the students then asked me, "te gusta cazar" (do you like to hunt?) and I responded with a simple "si, por huevos" (yes, for eggs) of course referring to the Easter egg hunts I had just described. The group erupted with uncontrollable laughter and it took me a second to realize why....

Huevos (eggs) is slang for testicles.

Some of the male students then proceeded to leave covering themselves and laughing at me.

That is all.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The First, the Second, and certainly not the last times

Hello Friends, Family, and other random people who may have stumbled upon this blog somehow,

I know I said there would be another blog coming around this time, and I still will be doing that (once I get a more completed schedule worked out) but in the meantime I have a couple requests for anyone interesting, willing, and/or able. We have a couple projects coming up over June and July and right now we are working on some fundraising to make sure that we can do these projects.

The first is a youth camp for boys that will be taking place in June. We are looking for funds/materials both to run the camp and to get youth there. We do two camps a year, one for boys and one for girls. The girls' camp was right after I got to my site last year so I didn't get a chance to bring anyone, but I did get to participate a little bit and see what the camp was like. Needless to say the girls loved it and I think it made an impact in some of their lives. Now it is coming time for the boys, and since I have been in site for some time I am going to have the chance to bring two boys from my site to the camp.

The second is a project that my site mate, Ana Madrid, has applied for through an NGO in the U.S. called Courts for Kids. You may remember me mentioning this project in previous blogs. Right now we are in the preparation stage and we need some help with funds getting the ground leveled out and prepared and what not. The volunteers from the NGO will be coming the last week of July and everything has to be ready by then, so we are trying to get a jump on things now that rainy season is starting to clear up.

So anything you could help us out with would be great. The two websites are listed below where you can go and donate online by credit card. Or if you prefer you can always send check or money orders (sounds like an infomercial), however I figured it would be easier for everyone to just do it through the websites. Also that way I won't know how much you are donating (or how cheap you are being...just kidding).

Please help out if you can, but if the timing is not right, remember I have a year and a half left of service (today I have officially been in Peru for 9 months) so there will be plenty more opportunities to come!

Here is the website for those looking to support our youth camp, V.A.L.O.R.
https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=527-087


For the court donations go to http://www.courtsforkids.org/ go to the donation tab, and when making your donation indicate that it is for La Conga, Peru. There is also some information there about the project if you would like to read more.

Thanks in advance! Let me know if there are any questions about the donating process or about exactly how we will be spending the funds.