COS Conference

Last Volunteer Gathering

Hola a todos!

We just finished celebrating Semana Santa and what a busy week it was! I took advantage of the free days to explore some parts of my site a bit. We are just starting to come out of rainy season, so I thought it would be fun to visit some places that I hadn’t seen yet. One day I went with some friends to a circuit of a few different waterfalls a bit out of the city center. However, once we got there, we saw the first waterfall, and then realized that the river had washed away the bridge to reach the other two…I guess I’ll have to try again in a few months. What we did see was still beautiful though!

Before Semana Santa, I went to Lima for a week to participate in my group’s Close of Service (COS) Conference. We are still a few months out from the actual end of our service – many volunteers are finishing at the beginning of June, a couple of stragglers, like myself, are hanging around until the end of July, and a few are even extending several months to a year! Due to our different COS dates, this conference was the last time that everyone in my group will be together at the same time.

The first couple of days were filled with medical checks, dentist appointments, meetings with our program managers, language exams, and any other miscellaneous appointments that we needed to complete before the end of our service. Apart from our appointments, we had time to spend together in Lima. There are several volunteers that I haven’t seen since our swearing-in ceremony almost two years ago, so it was fun to be able to catch up with some of them!

The days after we had some sessions to learn about life and adjustment post-Peace Corps. We also had some fun activities like a potluck with staff and a trip to Chaclacayo to visit the training center. While in Chaclacayo, we also got to visit with some more staff, spend time with our host families, and finally take advantage of the pool (we weren’t allowed to use it during training).

We also organized some superlatives voted on by the cohort. I got awarded Most Integrated Volunteer – shout out to my host fam and friends in site who helped make that happen! Some of the other awards included most productive volunteer, most musical, most likely to be voted mayor of their town, biggest bookworm, most cuys eaten, etc. We also did a round of peor-latives (peor = worse in Spanish). Some of the peor-latives included most likely to fall off Rainbow mountain, most/least likely to break Peace Corps rules, most likely to be in Lima, and most likely to Irish-exit from the country, etc.

I can’t believe my time in Peru is coming to an end – time has really flown by, especially this past year. We just reached our 2-year mark in Peru a few days ago. Now that I have started to make some goodbye’s with other volunteers, the end really feels near. For now though, I am trying to make the most out of my time in site and enjoy every moment.

Hasta pronto!