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| First night costumes |
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| The beach in front of the pool |
The weekend of the first through third was my first AIESEC conference abroad. All of the trainees piled onto a huge bus with the AIESECers from Pacifico and headed to el club de la Marina en Ancón, Perú (some sort of Marine family or training retreat I believe) for three days of AIESEC, AIESEC, AIESEC. We taught classes on Friday, but took that Saturday off so we could attend the conference. When we stepped off the bus that night, it was to the sound of shouting and chanting. Different LCs were hanging off of the balconies welcoming us as energetically as possible. That night, we watched every LC present their roll call. I might be biased, but CLPA definitely killed it. The trainees then presented our own (awesome) roll call. This apparently hasn't been done before in Perú conference history... so everyone was pretty impressed. We had choreographed it that afternoon, so it was a bit rough, but I think it went relatively well. We all knew the moves, even if we had to look to Alena fro timing. I'm pretty sure that even though it wasn't perfect, everyone loved that the trainees took the time to make up their own roll call.
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| The view of our hotel/resort from the lighthouse island |
After the plenary, we searched in vain for food. It was around midnight and most of had only eaten an early lunch. Luckily Fio came to our rescue with a cardboard box of Inca Corn and Tampico. Mmmmm. Delicious *ahem*. But we barely had time to worry about it. That night, there was a themed party. And we hadn't come unprepared. The trainees all dressed up like pirates (we all had matching costumes that we rented in Chosica). We all had our share of struggling with understanding slang spanish over blaring music, but by then, my listening skills had sharpened a bit, so I made it through with minimal "Más despacio, por favor"'s. A patient AIESECer from Lima even taught me a little more salsa.
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| Los trainees |
After the party, we were beat. We all passed out on top of our sheets and tried to grab a couple hours of sleep. The next day was chock full of sessions. Although most of the trainees are decent with spanish, we learned very quickly that sitting listening to hours of spanish on end was extremely draining. So we spent part of the day roaming around. We were situated right on the beach, so Jose took a dip, then we walked across a board walk to the faro. The faro (lighthouse) was on a rock island with steps leading to the top. The view was beautiful, but the smell was awful. The island is home to a rather large bird population, and you can imagine why the island was almost unbearably smelly unless you were on top where the wind kindly took care of the odor. Needless to say, we didn't stay long.
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| Gala dinner |
That night was a gala dinner and another themed party. Everyone cleaned up and brought out the dinner jackets, ties, dresses, and heels. I must say, we didn't look too shabby. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling too well, but I didn't want to miss the festivities, so we all headed down to dinner. It was held on the covered outcropping in which we always ate meals. This room was special because it was entirely windows except on the part that directly connected to the building. From there we had an unobstructed view of the beach and the ocean. I can tell you that the first course looked nice, but I wouldn't know after that because I apparently looked as bad as I felt, and it was deemed necessary that I take a little trip to the doctor. I can only guess it was a combination of the foods I ate that weekend. Whatever it was, it was not getting along well with my stomach.
