This past Sunday, I found myself at 18,656 feet above sea level at sunrise. I sat at the peak (cumbre, in Spanish) of Vallunaraju, one of the snow-capped mountains I see from my bedroom window. I looked down at my home, Huaraz, as though I was seeing it from an airplane. A Year of Uphill It’s quite amazing what the body can do. During my past 7 months in Huaraz, I have put mine to the test over and over…
It has been an embarrassingly long time since I last wrote. 7 months, to be exact. As one may imagine, a lot has happened since then. Here’s the recap: World Food Day: Culminating My Grant For those who remember, I spent much of 2025 dedicated to my Peace Corps grant which focused on hands-on nutrition training for both mothers and community health workers. Schlepping a portable cooktop, cookware, gas tank and ingredients across the district over the course of 8…
A couple of weeks ago, I checked off one of the major Ancash bucket list items: the Huayhuash Trek – an 8-day, 115km (70 mile) trek that takes you through 8,000ft of elevation gain and a maximum altitude of 16,732ft (5,100m). I did it alongside 7 other volunteers, and a guide team run by a 68 year-old man named Yoder, who is host family to one of the volunteers. To our delight, Yoder was a chef on treks for decades…
For the final quarter of 2024, I spent one too many hours applying for the Peace Corps Small Grant, a maximum $2,500 sum towards any project within my objectives as a Community Health Volunteer (which are teen health and anemia prevention). After many discussions with friends, family, and local counterparts, I had my idea: improving household nutrition practices through Community Health Workers, otherwise known as CHWs. The idea is that we hold trainings (doubled as a cooking class) for the…
Not every kid can say that they grew up searching for fake landmines on Easter. But alas, alongside the candy-filled, colored plastic eggs of my childhood were Chinese PNM 72 anti-personnel (toe-popper) mines, stake trip wire mines, anti-tankers, Soviet butterfly mines, you name it. $5 for the soft ones and $10 for the hard, but not before a landmine awareness speech from our dear father. All followed by one of mom’s famous breakfasts and maybe even a church service. While…
When one hears about Carnival, they may think of Italy, Brazil, Spain, even New Orleans. But let us not forget Peru. For an entire month leading up to lent, or 40 days before Easter, Peru partakes in their own colorful version of Carnival, which was brought hundreds of years ago during Spanish colonization (1532-1821). The highlight of Peruvian Carnival are the “Yunzas”, or parties defined by a tree that sits in the middle of the event space (these parties are…
In mid-December, I trekked 4 days and 3 nights to one of the 7 Modern Wonders of the World, Machu Picchu. This marks World Wonder number 3 for me, after Petra and Chichen Itza. Just missing the Colosseum, Great Wall of China, Christ the Redeemer, and the Taj Mahal. I went on this adventure alongside Kersten, my BFF since day 1 at UVA. After spending a week at an animal rescue shelter in the southern Amazon Rainforest, she met me…
I’ve talked to more than a few people interested in the Peace Corps, and I’m always asked “What’s a normal day like?” As one may expect, my answer is the classic “There’s no ‘normal day’, every day is different”. In honor of this response, I dedicate this post to today. A day that is the textbook definition of “every day is different”. 6am: Wake up 6:10am: Go to the bathroom and realize the recent rains have turned our water brown….
As I look back on the past year, and forward into the next, it is an opportunity to make the most of the time I have left. So, this post is dedicated to the do’s, the don’t’s, the greats, the failures, and the what’s to come. (lock in, this post is half informing the reader and half wrapping my head around my endless thoughts)