First month in Peace Corps site

So it has been almost a month in my site! Updates on my blog will be a little less frequent because I do not live as close to the city and transportation is forever! (-_-) But so far things have been going well and I have been pasear-ing (visiting) to get to know my community and figure out more about their families. My community is about 200 people and the majority of the people that live here are family members. Many have cousins, parents, sisters, and grandparents all living either in one house or as neighbors.

I thought this picture was so cute! They are a few of my new best friends here ;)

I have started on my little garden, or huerto, about two weeks ago! I built terraces with a little help from my neighbors which took me about a week to create. I am planning to grow some peppers, beans, zapallo (which is like a squash), and sweet potatoes! Before growing anything, I have talked to my community members which I think is important to know which months are the best to grow things since they have lived here for so long or most of their lives. Additionally, they even say that you have to plant according to the lunar cycle because of the pull of the moon will have impact the growth of your produce!

However, this is all the trash that I have collected from within the ground. When I was cleaning out the area where I wanted to put my garden, I was sad to see all this trash. No matter how deep I dug there were shoes, glass bottles, chip bags, etc. deep in the soil! I was starting to think that the land was just made of trash! I see that this is something that I can work on with my community because they are willing to make their community cleaner but they are unsure how to do it.

And the kids play futbol near the river...

Or at the casa comunal, which is community meeting house.

Earlier this week I went with one of my host families to look for another water source and start work on an aqueduct project. Part of the community does not have water in the summer so they need another working aqueduct besides the current one.

And three weeks later I have beans growing in my garden! I will start on sweet potatoes, zapallo, and a few other plants soon too!

 Also, I am hoping to grow some of these beautiful flowers near my house as well. My host mother says I need to plant the flower branch with the roots in the ground so hopefully that will work.