July 25th, 2006- An answer to your requests

It seems that some people in my life are bothered by my lack of detail on this here blog when I describe my days here. This entry is designated to addressing that concern. Let’s start at the top. Typically, I wake up on weekdays at around 6am and wrestle with the gas stove for a while, which I use to boil water to take a bucket bath with. This usually takes FOREVER since my hair is long like Rupunzel’s (sp?). At 7:15, I sit down to breakfast with my host mom and sometimes my sister. My 16 year old brother is slightly antisocial, to the point of his mom ridiculing him constantly for being so timid. He never really comes out of his room when I am around, and when he does, our interactions are awkward enough to make us both want to crawl into a hole and die. After breakfast (which is usually something deliciously soupy like oatmeal or a cream of wheat look-alike, accompanied by a spinach omelet or fried sweet potatoes), I meet the volunteers who live in my neighborhood (there are 8 of us) and we walk down the mountain together to the center, where training begins at 8am. Here, the 36 of us split up into our 8 Spanish classes, and we have approximately 4 hours of class per day, which sometimes takes place in the center, and sometimes in one of our houses (in order to better integrate us into the community). These classes usually involve some sort of highly interactive experience such as taking a combi (crowded bus) to a nearby town to interview store/restaurant owners, or in my case, to chow down on any snack within sight. When we are not in Spanish class, we are having presentations at the center, given by a staff member, or a current volunteer. Some topics have been non-formal education/hidden curriculum, how to handle discrimination as a volunteer, and common illnesses and treatments within our region. Our staff is HUGE on having us play really entertaining team building games within each training session, which works nicely for me, a person with a 35 minute maximum attention span. Such short attention spans wouldn’t normally fly in 4 hour presentations, but I think the way they pattern training is really keeping my antsyness under wraps.

At 12pm on weekdays, our parents walk to the training center with our lunches, and we sit around for an hour comparing meals and chit-chatting (in English, of course). Typically I am the envy of our lunch dates because I have the only family (probably in all of Peru) who does not agree with serving rice and potatoes, because somehow they figured out that neither of these things contains nutritional value. I am extremely grateful for this realization of theirs, and everyone else in my group is jealous. Usually, my mom packs me homemade juice of pineapple, orange, or guava, along with some sort of stir-fry, soup, or salad mixed with meat. After lunch, sometimes my so-called volleyball team has practice on the volleyball court in our center. Not only are Peruvian women volleyball pros, but they also get all dolled up for the tournaments- clad in make-up and cute work-out gear. This puts our team at an extreme disadvantage, because not only can we not play volleyball, but we don’t have the capacity here with our limited resources to get all pizzazzed out with make-up and other such accessories. The Peruvians keep challenging us to a tournament, and I keep having an awful mental image of getting spiked in the face by some South American Barbie. Thankfully, my team was stood up this past weekend at a tournament, which hopefully means we will never be challenged again. I can’t really get the hang of this volleyball thing. My hands don’t seem to want to work together, so instead, I just swat at the ball with one flaccid hand, hoping that this will magically propel the ball over the net (I am sure that those of you who know me well can completely imagine the stupidity of my appearance on the court). About 25% of the time, this works during practice, but I am pretty sure during a tournament, I might not have such luck.

After school, I sometimes take the combi into Chosica, the closest town to us. I like this town, even though it has a bad reputation safety-wise. Chosica is where all the restaurants are, which are mostly chicken places, Chinese eateries, and pizzerias. The town is centered around a park with permanent amusement park rides for children, and at night time, it resembles a carnival with a bunch of food booths lining the sidewalks. A river runs next to the town, and underneath the main bridge is a cool fruit, veggie, cheese, and meat market that I frequent for treats. Across the river against a wall are these beautiful mosaics that the local universities and colegios designed. I try to pass them every time I am in Chosica, because they might be some of the nicest murals I have ever seen. In addition to the mosaics, there is a giant white Jesus statue looking over the town from the mountain, and when it’s lit up at night, it is really quite majestic.

While our families are being paid by the Peace Corps to feed us, I typically try to cook one meal a week for them, because they appreciate the cultural exchange. So far, I have cooked banana bread, tres-leches cake, pizza, chicken parmesian/cordon bleu, French toast, various stir-fries and omelettes. Tomorrow, we are having a taco party. It has been difficult to find ingredients here, so improvising has been a blast. As was expected, I am spending my entire living stipend on food, but I am okay with that. At night time, we eat dinner around 7pm, and then, I usually do some h.w., or hang out with the people in my neighborhood. It’s a pretty humbling experience to sit on the top of our mountain at night, looking down at the lit city below, so I do that with a friend quite a bit. Sometimes we watch d.v.d’s as well, because some people were a little smarter than me and packed entertainment options for themselves. On weekends, we usually have training on Saturdays, and then spend the rest of the weekend at bbq’s or parties with our families and friends, and sometimes we sing karaoke at a local bar or dance at the discotecas. This upcoming weekend is a big deal and holiday in Peru because their new president is starting his term. Many of us are going to the mountains with our families, where I am told we will get very sick and our cheeks will burn for some reason from the altitude. I have not heard anything good about this trip, but it has to be fun if we are making the 6 hour trek (starting at 3am), right? I hope I don’t fall ill during the holiday, because this weekend is the first time I will meet my host dad, because he has been away at the mines for my entire stay here. I don’t want to be lurching over a cliff during our first encounter, you know?

July 24th, 2006- Stop, drop, and roll...respectively, or it won´t work

It would be unfair for me to fail to dedicate at least one entry to parties in Peru, and how they continue to surprise and delight me so. Sometimes, like last weekend, the parties get so out of hand that people, such as myself, catch on fire. While I previously thought that our endless elementary school lessons on what to do if your body is engulfed in flames were a bit overkill, last weekend, I was quite thankful to have such lessons drilled into me. Let me preface the details of my combustion though by describing the stylistic details of the parties here. First off, community parties typically take place in outdoor enclosed soccer fields equipped with cement turfs. There is usually a live band that plays through the night, local provisions cooked by the area’s community members, and some form of additional entertainment (which last week, came in the form of homemade firework displays). Personally, I think one of the most enjoyable aspects of fireworks in the U.S. is the distance that exists between the display and its audience. In my opinion, this space is needed to fully appreciate the beauty of these dangerous entities, but strangely, no such space existed between last week’s fireworks and us partygoers. Instead of shooting them into the sky, the party organizers thought it might be fun to strap large plastic contraptions onto their bodies with which to shoot fireworks off from in every direction out into the party. To the Peace Corps volunteers that attended the event, this obviously seemed a little troubling, but considering none of the Peruvians seemed uneasy about this, we chalked our frantic shrieking and limb-flailing initial reaction up to inexperience, and finally decided to silently observe the display with the best of them. It was during this time that one of the organizers came charging at us, still spewing out fireworks. When I turned to run and seek refuge from the flames, I found myself up against a fence. It seems pretty obvious that when you shoot fire at a person, especially one who is wearing synthetic materials, that she will catch on fire, but hey, what’s the harm in that? I suppose it was all done in the name of fun, and even after a few burn holes in my fleece and a small dose of post traumatic stress disorder from the event, I can still say it was one of my best nights spent here so far.

Moving on. We are approximately half way through our training and things in that respect are going well. I am worried because I have grown quite attached to my Spanish teacher, who I spend a considerable amount of time with, and I am really wishing that I could take her to my site with me in five weeks. Last week during class, she was explaining to us how she has had thyroid cancer and how she needs to have a check-up soon to make sure that no more operations are needed. She is so young, and she is fine at the moment, but I became so filled with sadness at the thought of her suffering. The strength of my reaction really surprised me because I have never formed relationships with people so quickly. I think I may have similarly touched her as well though, because today she told me in Spanish that I had the heart of a melon. She said this with affection in her voice, so I guess it was a compliment, but I am not a big fan of the melon (particularly the watermelon), so I feel conflicted about that compliment. It’s better than comparing any part of me to the papaya though, because seriously, what a poor excuse for a fruit that one is. I digress. I feel like everything here- emotions, experiences, thoughts, are so intensified and a bit more difficult to process. I have also grown very close with two girls in my group, and since it is painful for us to go for 6 hours without venting to and laughing with one another in English, I am wondering how two years without them will be. While training is necessary, it is giving us all a false sense of what life at our sites will be like.

Speaking of our site placements, we had our second and most important interviews last week with our placement officers. In these interviews, we further articulated what we would like to have and do within our respective communities. I expressed that I would like to be in a rural community in the Andes or foothills, that I’d like to be surrounded by greenery, and that it would be cool if I had a toilet, but that I guessed that such amenities weren’t completely necessary. I don’t really remember my other requests, but I do remember how difficult it was to specify exacts, considering I still have a very limited understanding of this country and its needs. In about a week, we should all know exactly where we are going, and then we will be able to visit our sites for about a week to meet our new families and the communities we will be working with for the next two years. I suppose this will be the culmination point of our entire training- the scariest but most exciting time for all of us during these ten weeks. I look forward to it. Right now in training, we are continuing our language training, and doing practice projects within the neighborhoods we currently live in. My group is collecting information from community members (predominantly those who are parents) for young mothers, and creating an informational pamphlet that can be distributed at local clinics. During our first community meeting, I almost murdered four children who thought that it would be fun throw rocks at one another, and make an unmanageable ruckus during our discussion. Their parents didn’t seem fazed by this, which made me think that these distractions might be a constant within our presentations and projects here. That’ll surely take some getting used to. Is now a bad time to ask myself if I actually like children?

I don’t think I have described my new family here, who I can’t get enough of. They are far more liberal than the majority of the families here, and they are always encouraging me to drink and party with them, to stay out late to explore (as long as I am being safe), and to invite my friends over for dinner and sleepovers. Many volunteers are having trouble with their families because they feel as though their families are treating them like children, not letting them stay out past a certain time, and not really allowing them the same freedoms they had in the U.S. That is how my first family was, but this family is far more flexible and understanding of my situation. One thing that is considerably different here is the conclusions that people jump to when they see you with someone of the opposite sex (we are living in such a fishbowl here, and gossip is RAMPANT). They almost refuse to believe that this person is just your friend, and they continue teasing you about it for ages after the sighting. Typically, people of the opposite sex are not allowed in your bedroom, and it can even sometimes be weird to have them enter your house. My family is pretty relaxed with this, but I still get nervous about inadvertently offending them.

Yesterday provided some comic relief in our household. First, my host mom, who is small and always smiling (she reminds me of a carebear for some reason, and because of this, I naturally have the continuous urge to tickle and hug her…which is sort of strange, come to think of it) came home from work completely exhausted. She had been up all night the night before dancing at a party, and then had to put in a twelve hour work day cooking at a retreat for priests. I told her to go straight to bed and that I could prepare myself dinner, but she insisted on taking me out for pizza in the closest town, and then watching her favorite program on television. While she was viewing that program, I was talking to my dad on the phone while witnessing her eyes flicker shut and her head bob as she sat at our dining room table. Ten minutes into my conversation, she fell to the ground, knocking our entire table over with her, and landing with our placemats sprawled all over her body. “SARA! Estas bien? Que paso?!!!???,” I exclaimed. This woman leaped to her feet and stared quizzically at me as though she had never seen me before, probably wondering what the hell I was doing in her house and why the hell I was using her phone. When she finally came to, she explained to me that she had been having a nightmare that we were having an earthquake, and in her panic, I suppose she sort of created her own earthquake. Right, as I said before Sara, you should go to bed, in your bed, not at the dining room table.

The night gets even more hysterical. At around 1:30 am, I awake with a rumbling in my tummy. For some reason, people do not stock their refrigerators here, but instead, they shop everyday for food, which doesn’t seem efficient since the closest supermarket is an annoying bus ride away. This means that when I am hungry at ungodly hours of the night, the lone ketchup packet and pineapple rinds that are in the fridge probably aren’t going to satiate me. I had this brilliant idea of taking some cheese curls off of a display in my mom’s store, which is situated at the front of our living room. “I’ll just pay her tomorrow at breakfast,” I thought to myself. But before I could work out those logistics in my head, I knocked over the entire display, breaking the display, and two glass bottles beneath it. This startled me so much that I ran into my room, and reemerged (as a pathological liar, apparently) to find my sleepy host mom in our tienda, wondering what the heck had happened. “Gee Wiz, Sara! What in the world happened out here? Did Tom (our diabolical cat) wreak havoc out here, or what?” This is when she explained to me in her bewildered voice that Tom had been sleeping with her the whole night. “Oh,” I mumbled, “Well, it must have been an earthquake then,” and I ran abashedly into my room, without the cheese curls, by the way. You might think I am a bad person for lying (and I do too), but I can’t even explain how much pressure we are under to make a good impression with our families. One of the volunteers already fell through his neighbor’s roof, and that was quite a debacle, so anything I can do to keep my family viewing me in a favorable light, I will do (and that includes telling white lies, as established last night).

More lies and deception, a la Lindsay Buck. Shortly after my single-handed destruction of my host mom’s tienda, I came out to use the bathroom only to find our precious Tom batting around what looked to be a bird. But no, it couldn’t be a bird, because Tom had not been outside all day. Must be a toy, but how strange if it is a toy, because people don’t care enough about their pets here, nor do they have enough money to splurge on cat toys. All I can say for sure about the thing that was being batted around was that it was not moving. The next morning at breakfast I was informed by my host sister that Tom had gotten into our parrot cage (the cage of the parrot I didn’t know we had), and had gotten hold of their prized pet parrot. My host mom, with tears in her eyes, insisted that the bird was not dead, but instead, that it had escaped Tom’s wrath and had flown to find freedom. “Did you see anything last night, Lynchee? (oh yeah, that’s what they call me. It’s not so offensive here, as it might be in the south of the United States). “Umm….nope, nothing is coming to mind, Sara (as I sat there with the dead parrot’s image burnt into my mind). Are lies okay, sometimes? I sure as heck hope so, because just last night for me was a little out of control.

July 14th, 2006- Drama Galore!

¨Today is just a good day in disguise¨ --Paul Venghaus

On Tuesday night, my house was robbed. This came a night after my neighbor’s house was robbed of every single belonging while the inhabitants were sleeping at only 10:30pm. I was definitely awake during that time and didn’t hear a thing. I asked my host mom how it was possible that nobody on our block saw or heard anything suspicious, and she said that even if they had, it wasn’t a good idea to try to intervene because the robbers more than likely had knives or guns. I knew that our house had been burglarized two times in the past, and that our neighborhood had a peppered reputation, and I also thought that it was slightly unsettling how my family, in addition to three padlocks, would push all of the living room furniture up against the door before we turned in each night. However, it never occurred to me to report these occurrences to my Peace Corps staff because I thought there was no sense in getting paranoid about what seemed to be the inevitable. I had come to terms with most likely being robbed in Peru, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to happen in my home stay. I thought maybe it would occur on my way home from training one day, or maybe during a visit to Lima. Just in case though, I locked my bedroom door pretty religiously, even while I was inside of the room. Somehow, on Tuesday night, I either forgot to do that, or the intruder got hold of my bedroom key, because he/she definitely came through my bedroom door without a forced entry and nearly scared the living daylights out of me.

That night I was already having trouble sleeping as was, because I had stayed home from training to sleep all day because I was sick, and therefore, I could not get any rest throughout the night. At around 2am, I finally started dozing off until I was awoken by an abnormally bright light shining through my bedroom window. Before I could figure out why this annoyance was occurring, someone walked furtively into my room, ventured straight over to my desk, and began going through my compartmentalized bag that was holding all of my valuables. I was wrapped in my covers, facing the wall in the opposite direction, and praying to all things holy that the person, whoever it was, would spare me my life. He/she spent about 3 minutes going through my stuff, turning my digital camera on, and moving things around (creating quite the ruckus, if I do say so myself. After all, I was trying to sleep, and he/she was presumably trying NOT to wake me up, a detail that good criminals are heedful of). I kept thinking to myself, “Sheesh, what an amateur, does this person actually believe that he/she is not waking me up?”) After experimenting a bit with my belongings, he came to the end of my bed and slowly pulled my sleeping bag off of my body. For the first time since coming to Peru, I was not inside my sleeping bag because I had a fever and was trying to stay cool. This is when I started freaking out a bit, because there was a little too much contact for comfort between me and this starkly mad thief. I would be lying if I didn’t say that I urinated a little bit on myself. As soon as my sleeping bag was completely off of me, the dogs outside started barking (good job guarding the house when the thief was breaking and entering, guys), and a baby in my house started crying), so the thief freaked out and left my room. I sat up slowly, only to see that he had left a pile with my camera, my laptop, and my sleeping bag, so I figured that he was definitely coming back for those goodies. I stayed still in my bed for the next hour, scared out of my mind, waiting until I heard no movement downstairs, and then I ran to my host parents bedroom and did a horrific job explaining to them in Spanish what had just happened. We investigated the house, and found that the only thing that was missing was my wallet with my money, credit cards, and identification, which meant that the person had been watching me for a while, knew exactly which room I was in, and where I kept my valuables. We have no clue how he got in, because none of our doors or windows were ajar. We are thinking that he may have climbed through the roof, which has a part that is exposed to the outside, but honestly, that would make the thief comparable to spider man, or some superhero of that agile sort. A little bit alarming, to say the least.

On Wednesday, I spent half of the day in the police station, filing an official report and trying to wrap my brain around what had occurred. The Peace Corps staff was amazing in their support and in how quickly they issued a response to the situation. Our security specialist immediately came in from Lima and helped me to translate the specifics of the robbery, and to boot, he brought me caramels, which clearly indicates that he knows the way to my heart. We spent the better half of the day making light of the situation, so when the severity of the situation did finally hit me, I was in jovial spirits. In addition to the Peace Corps staff, my friends here have been quite possibly the best support system I could ever dream of, and I don’t really know what I would do without them here with me. Even the police officers were fairly friendly. I was laughing (inside) quite a bit, because we went to investigate the “crime scene” and I was standing on the curb waiting for a police car to come around, only to realize that when something happens here, you need to give the police officer a ride in your car. Hmmmm…what sense does that make? “Officer, I am being held at gunpoint, but let me go get the car and bring it around for you.” Weird. Then, we get to my house, and the officer nearly blows me away by telling me that they have a fingerprinting machine at the office, and that they were going to run my belongings for prints. After telling me that, he just stared at me for a bit, before I said, “Awesome, I hope you catch the guy.” His response, after he almost contaminated the evidence by grabbing it with his bare hands, was loosely, “I guess I should bag this, do you have a bag I could use?” It looks like this whole fingerprinting procedure is fine-tuned and effective. As if I wasn’t getting enough of a kick out of all of this, we accompanied the officer back to the station so he could slowly type up the report on the biggest and loudest typewriter I have ever seen. “You say your name is Winny Book, right?” Surrrrree, that’ll work, officer.

Needless to say, I was moved out of that house immediately, and am now residing up the mountain in a neighborhood called “Buenos Aires.” I now live with a young mother named Sarah, and her two kids, Jessica (19 years old) and Jonathan (16 years old). Sarah’s husband is a miner who is very rarely in town, and Sarah runs a little tienda out of the house that happens to sell my favorite beer and chocolate. Great. That should really help to reinforce my healthy lifestyle that I adopted a couple of days ago. Sarah and her family seem a lot less formal than my last family, and I feel considerably more safe and welcomed here. I even have a queen sized bed! No toilet seat or hot water though- you can only hope for so much here in Peru. The unfortunate thing about my move is that I am taking the place of another volunteer, who decided to leave the Peace Corps today. She was quite possibly the sweetest girl out of our group of 37, and I was incredibly sad to see her go. It seems as though she is confident in her decision though, and we all know that she will make quite the impact wherever she ends up. (Sabra- come and visit us. We will miss you, and so will Peru!!)

July 9th, 2006- Where to begin...

Things that I am still struggling to figure out:

 Spanish- and to think I have been learning it for ten years.
 How my host mom gets my clothes cleaner by scrubbing them with her hands for a few minutes, as opposed to using a washing machine. Question to ponder: do washing machines actually work?
 Why when I am only making $2 a day, I insist on spending it on chocolate or Inca Kola, which tastes like fermented toothpaste.
 Why no one drinks plain water here, and why Peruvians make fun of me for
keeping hydrated with a water bottle.
 Why we only eat potatoes upon potatoes upon potatoes when Peru seems to
have the most diverse fruit and vegetable selection I’ve ever witnessed. If they are not exporting these things, what use do they go towards?
 Why I am only fully experiencing two emotions/states of being: hunger and
exhaustion.
 How this new fruit we discovered looks like snot but tastes really delicious. Is it passion fruit, or a greenish relative of the pomegranate? Who knows!
 Why people here blast music and participate in marching bands right outside of my window at 5am (regularly, even on week nights).
 Why my host sister lets the babies play on cement stairs unsupervised.
 Why, when we all smell something a little funky, that it is invariably me, who has stepped in dogshit.

The curse

The other day our medical director gave us quite the comprehensive presentation on diarrhea, and a day later, it seems that half of us have it worse than anyone can imagine. Did he curse us by overinforming us, or is this just what life as a Peace Corps volunteer is all about? Here, there is no such thing as normal diarrhea, it only really exists in an acute form. Statistics collected over the last few years indicate that volunteers serving in my region have a 122% chance of contracting acute diarrhea. That number is so large that my brain was having trouble processing it, until, of course, I got it (acute diarrhea, not the concept). In the states, bowel movements are considered a private entity, but here, they are a hot conversation topic, so excuse me for being what some people in the states might consider crude and inappropriate. In order to get a clear picture of what my experience here is like, though, it is necessary for me to write about this at least once. And believe me you, hearing about it is nowhere near as painful as experiencing it. If you are wondering what the difference between acute and regular diarrhea is, here is the one difference that I noticed. When you have regular diarrhea, it really sucks, but you can at least envision how good life will be when it’s over. With acute diarrhea, you don’t have the energy or optimism to even value life, and death feels like a more comfortable and appealing option. I know that I have a slight knack for exaggeration, but this is no embellishment.

So…how exactly can this acute form be prevented? There are a few ways. One is to wash your hands a lot. This seems simple enough, but soap in public bathrooms is hit or miss (by that, I mean just miss), and nobody really emphasizes hand washing before cooking or after using the restroom. Do you know how we think it is such a big deal when we are in a public bathroom in the states, and from the stall, we hear someone leave the bathroom without washing their hands? If you are anything like me, you run out of the bathroom to get a good look at the dirty culprit, and then proceed to tell whoever you are with that it is simply despicable how many people fail to wash their hands after bathroom usage, such as the person you just witnessed doing so in the bathroom. Well, if I were to run to my friends after each time I encountered that circumstance here in Peru, there would be no time left to discuss anything else. We learned in training that hand washing reduces the risk of diarrhea by 40%. If I were wealthy, I would put a large chunk of my savings towards having that fact advertised all around Peru, if not just to keep Peace Corps volunteers from getting sick. Another way of preventing diarrhea is to not consume tap water or anything that has touched it. That, for us, is impossible to monitor since our host families are cooking for us. To reduce your risk further, we were advised not to eat food off the street (from street vendors, not literally off the road). One kid in my group got really ill because he insisted on eating ceviche (raw fish) from the street, when we were specifically told not to since we are not near the coast. I fooled myself into thinking that if I was just really careful about eating food outside the house, that I would be fine. So naïve I am. Thank goodness Cipro is included in our medical kits.

Anyway, onto more pleasant topics…Well actually, forget about the pleasantries for the time being. This illness has put me in a pessimistic frame of mind, and I’d rather just vent for this entire entry. Last night, my family had a huge party starting at 5pm and ending at 4am for my host grandson’s first birthday and baptism. I, of course, felt like death at around 11pm, and went upstairs and collapsed. Any progress that I had formerly made with my family was wiped out by my being a “party pooper.” If I could have come downstairs, I really would have, but dancing in the fetal position did not seem feasible, so instead, I formed a tiny ball with my body and slept. Today, I awoke to my family raving about how great some of the other Peace Corps volunteers were for staying and dancing until 4:30am, asking questions such as, “Lindsay, what is the name of that friend of yours, the one we nicknamed ‘the dancing queen’,” and “what about your other friend who was the life of the party after you disappeared?” What I am trying to say is that I have been unfairly pegged as the lamest person in all of Santa Eulalia, so now on top of all of my other projects, I have to attempt to prove that I am the real dancing queen of this town (because I am), and that I am the life of the party, not whoever else they were referring to. What a mess. I have noticed that people are very judgmental in this town. We are expected to come here and be culturally sensitive, but I feel like this sensitivity is not reciprocated at all, at least not in my case with my family. It’s hard functioning under the scrutiny of other people’s judgment, especially when it is nearly impossible to explain away any misunderstandings that inevitably occur when you are living within the confines of another culture. I have never put so much energy towards something, only to have the progress be so minute, and so easy to negate. ARGHHHHH!!!!!

Additionally, I am having trouble finding outlets here, because while I am superb at comforting myself in the states, not many comforts exist here. Most times, my family does not allow me to go out because they say that the town we live in is too dangerous. This is giving me cabin fever like you wouldn’t believe. When they do agree to me going out, there is nothing really appealing to do. There are 3 discotecas, but they are only open on weekends. There are no cafes, cool areas to explore, movie theaters, book stores, NOTHING, not even restaurants really. And the saddest thing about it is that this is technically considered a city, so imagine my actual site placement! I am going to have to take up basket weaving, or something else that takes a lot of time and attention. Sometimes when I am tense I ask myself, “Why don’t you take a warm shower and relax,” but then I remember that showers have become my most dreaded activity here. The water is so icy cold that my scalp and brain can only handle about 2 minutes of shower time, meaning that I never get all of the shampoo out. Forget about conditioner when I can’t even bear rinsing the shampoo out. That’s right, major buildup. Please, please, PLEASE, if you have any suggestions about how I can relax on bad days (don’t say reading, because depressingly enough, I couldn’t fit any books into my suitcase), send them in my direction. If you want to write your creative ideas in a letter to me, below is my address…
Lindsay Buck
Suffering Lane
Hell, Peru

I’m kidding, but today was a seriously bad day. Luckily, I have found a friend (who thank my lucky stars, is my neighbor as well) named Kristen who is just as neurotic as me, and we have come up with a plan to combat our ¨Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Days¨ (What a good book that is, no? Ah...memories!). Since single days here can sometimes be difficult, we are micromanaging one day at a time, in order to not dwell too much on the fact that we will be here for more than TWO FULL YEARS. Some of our goals are to not call family on our bad days (as to avoid having them buy us one way tickets back to the states), not to consistently eat the nearby tiendas out of chocolate bars or beer, exercising daily, and planning at least 3 things per week that excite us. These goals all sound much simpler than they are, trust me. This week, we have our first trip to Lima planned, and it just so happens that Lima has a Pizza Hut, a Starbucks and….drumroll puhlease….a DUNKIN DONUTS!!!! What luck, and yes, I plan on paying each of those places a visit, along with any other eatery that strikes my fancy along the way. I hope we can catch a movie while we are there, too. I hope we don’t get “jacked up” while we are there, though. “Jacked up” is a phrase that our staff uses to encapsulate the dangers of Lima. I haven’t listened to what this means, because I am frightened enough as is. I guess we just shouldn’t wear jewels or bring our cameras, which bums me out, because I have already missed out on so many good pics because we are discouraged from bringing our cameras out too much.

July 5, 2006: Harassment and embarrassment

¨I think young people ought to seek an experience that is going to knock them off center¨ --James A. Michener...Oh James, you would be so proud of me...

Regarding the title of this entry, it’s either one or the other for me here in Peru, I swear. In my particular case though, it’s thankfully more of the latter. From all of all the negative things I have heard about safety in Peru, though, I am gratefully surprised that my group has not encountered more issues. I have to remember to keep my optimism in check though, because after all, it’s only week two here. In terms of harassment, I have only had two encounters, both of which I can already laugh about. A few nights ago, a friend and I were attempting to do a good deed by returning our beer bottles to the vendor for recycling purposes. This vendor has a small store attached to her kiosk where people can sit to drink, and when we got there that day, we were greeted by a bunch of drunken men who in their inebriated states, thought that we were the most gorgeous creatures ever, and proceeded to yell some pretty vulgar things at us. Obviously, this is to be expected since we look so different, but it hadn’t happened so overtly up until that point, so it threw me off a bit. I didn’t really know what to do, so out of nervousness I yelled something at them like “Have some respect, don’t be gross” (wow, how sharp-tongued and elaborate, eh?). But I think the words may have gotten mixed up a bit (because I was still thinking about returning the bottles and how much money we would receive back), that I may have said “You can’t afford us”, which in retrospect, probably made us look like prostitutes. My friends weren’t too pleased with my approach, and we later decided that it might be best just to ignore such annoyances. It’s hard though, because it is a pretty major cultural adjustment to make. All comes with time though, I suppose. My next encounter with danger happened today when the same friend and I were in a nearby town and trying to take pictures of this river from a bridge. This guy came up to us while I had both cameras in my hand and essentially tried to knock us out or distract us with a fistful of coughdrops. Interesting…Luckily my friend is much more observant than I am, and was able to slyly save us from potentially losing our most valuable possessions here in Peru. Coughdrops smoughdrops, that’s all I have to say to that guy.

Onto embarrassing moments…Where oh where should I start? Coincidentally, most of these moments occurred in the kitchen. After a few friends and I cooked a delicious dinner for ourselves one night, we convinced each other that we were practically professional chefs, and with our leftover ingredients, that we should cook my friend’s host family dinner the next evening. We looked up a Thai recipe online to really knock their socks off, and went into town to get the ingredients for spicy eggplant and tofu. We improvised a bit because we couldn’t find everything we needed, but we knew that we at least had one ingredient that we needed, and that was red chili pepper. The woman that we bought it from kept saying something about it being too hot, and that we shouldn’t buy it (because it’s essentially inedible), but the recipe called for it, so we bought three. As we were cooking everything, some suspicion was arising about the peppers, because the mere scent of them coming from the pan was sending us into coughing and crying fits, but we figured that if we added sugar and every other vegetable we had in the house to the mix, that it would play down the spiciness. We were slightly panicked about what we were going to feed the family that was anxiously awaiting our concoction, but instead of coming up with a “Plan B,” we just got giggly and giddy and made lots of jokes like, “Do you wanna give Dominoes a call and let them know that we will be needing two pizzas pronto?” The more the ingredients cooked, and the more our eyes watered from the stench, the less funny the Dominoes jokes were. We were screwed. I didn’t think the family would mind the disaster too much until my friend’s host mom came home and shouted some common Peruvian hyperbole at us about how she was so hungry that she could eat all of Peru’s people, or something like that. Did that mean that she would also eat something that would instantaneously burn her tongue off? As I was wondering that, I noticed that my face and hands started burning in the worst of ways, and truly, you don’t notice how much you touch your face in the span of a half hour until you have chili pepper juice burning your skin off. After explaining to my friend’s host family the mistake we had made, they seemed very worried and not too perturbed with us, because evidently, there is a “true story” circulating in Peru about these peppers that we cooked with. The story goes…one time two friends ate that specific type of pepper and one swelled up like a balloon and turned bright red, and the other died of a heart attack. Very uplifting, don’t you think? The moral that we took from that story is that nobody in Peru eats those peppers, and that they are mainly decorative, or to be used in very small amounts (about 1/100th of the amount we used). After my host mom giving me a lemon bath to soothe my skin, I am happy to say that I am still alive.

As if my red chili-induced puffiness wasn’t enough for one week, the next day, as I was baking a cake for my host sister’s birthday, I told my host family that I am accustomed to mixing batters with my hands, and if it was alright with them, my hands were clean and I’d like to follow my trend. They gave me a bewildered look, but said sure, and off I went mixing eggs and sugar and butter by squishing it between my fingers. Considering I had not yet recovered from the burns the chili pepper juice had given me, this did not feel too good on my hands, but it was getting the job done so I didn’t complain. Twenty minutes later, when all was mixed, I went to wash my hands, but to my amazement, the butter would not, and I repeat WOULD NOT, wash off my hands. I soon noticed that my host family was staring a hole through the back of my head, so I decided to sneak upstairs to struggle with this in peace. Ten minutes later, after using everything in sight to scrape this sticky goo off my hands, my host mom knocked at the door and said something that taunted me, like, “Lindsay, how’s that butter coming?” “What butter, what are you talking about Yolanda? I haven’t thought about or touched butter in ages. What are you mentioning butter for?” At this she burst into hysterics. Oh yes, how funny that the gringa gave herself permanent butter fingers. She made me come out of my room so she could display my idiocy to the entire family, before she introduced me to something she called sandpaper soap which took the butter, along with my first layer of skin, right off. I am taking a wild guess that butter is different here, and of a higher concentration, and therefore, is not really great to wipe on your skin. Week 2, lesson #754 learned here in Peru.

While we are on the topic of food, let me mention that I am in a perpetual state of starvation, and that it is impossible to satiate my hunger here. While the food is beyond delicious here in Peru, it has little to no nutritional value, so it’s not really staying in my system for longer than, say, 15 minutes. We eat mostly starches, such as rice and papas (potatoes), and while I thought for a second that at least the vegetable sauces served over the rice and potatoes might fill me up, I soon discovered in watching my host mom cook, that the sauces are made predominantly of liquefied white bread. Lord have mercy, give me some roughage! I’m famished. One thing that is keeping my outlook shiny though is the avocadoes that my town produces. I think everyone in the world is in agreement that avocadoes are the best invention next to sliced bread or cheese or however that adage goes, but let me tell you, the world of avocadoes just got so much better. The avocadoes in my town are 5 times the size of the avocadoes in the states, and they are rounder and easier to peel and enjoy. This way I can eat five in the time in usually takes me to eat one, so I hope that my family here is not onto the fact that I am consuming enough avocadoes for our 8 person family. I wonder if my skin will turn green?

July 2, 2006- Acting a fool

It has been exactly a week since I moved in with my host family in Santa Eulalia, and it has honestly been one of the longest weeks I have had in a really long time. I can barely believe that I was in Pennslyvania two weeks ago, enjoying all that my home state has to offer right before coming here. I have had a few rough days, made better by coming home and smelling all of my laundry, which still retains the smell of home. I was even able to call home, only to have my mom ask, “Are you in Washington D.C. still?” No, mom, I am in Peru doing the Peace Corps. Apparently you don’t miss me enough to even keep track of where I am. Thanks for that. Geez Louise.

Our days, including Saturdays, have been full of training sessions and language courses. I think some of the more competent people in my group might be bothered by how many trainings we have, but they have been really useful for me. Yesterday was my favorite training so far: an interactive lesson on composting and organic gardening. The Peace Corps is really making me put more thought into the activities that I might want to implement in my future community. Each activity that we have had within training has had about 5 objectives. Gardening will be useful in our communities because it can be a source of income, it can provide a way for us to teach our communities about proper nutrition, and it can help to integrate us into our respective communities. I have always had an uncultivated interest in gardening, and after this training, I think that it might become very dear to me, maybe one of the only activities within my service to help me alleviate stress. I am excited to start practicing with my current host family. Some of the volunteers, including myself, have plans to start urban gardens in empty bottles for practice. This way while we are in Santa Eulalia, we can grow herbs and small plants that may be of use to our families here.

When we are not in training, we are encouraged to spend time with our host families, and work on the many community-involvement projects that we have been given. Because I am in such an unfamiliar environment, I am expecting things to be comfortable way too early on, and I was struggling with this a lot this week. My host family is full of very warm people, but they are not the most inclusive crowd, which leaves me feeling very lonely sometimes, especially when I have difficult days at the training center. I feel a bit like I have lost parts of my personality that make me unique, because those parts don’t shine through when I am struggling to communicate in this different dialect. I have been trying my hardest not to compare my experience to other peoples in my group, because the majority of them are having experiences that I would probably enjoy more. I spent the better half of this week trying to repair a communication glitch that occurred early on. One night, I was sleeping over a friend’s house, and thought that I had appropriately communicated this to my host mom. Unfortunately, I actually hadn’t, and she and my host dad spent almost 6 hours the next day worrying about me and asking people in the neighborhood if they had seen me. I arrived home to an angry host dad who lectured me about effective communication, addressing me as though I was a child. I really wanted to cry, or at least scream really loudly. He made me so nervous that throughout the rest of the week, I clumsily continued doing idiotic things. For instance, I misplaced my host mom’s lucky towel that she wraps around my lunch everyday before she brings it to school for me. I spent about an hour and a half searching for that, praying to the Saint of lost objects, hoping that just this time I could find what I was looking for. No such luck. I’m a hopeless case!

I am making progress, though. It is tiring how much effort I have to put into this whole integration process though. I am being forced to ignore my exhaustion in order to fit in with my family. I have not been the best at establishing boundaries because I would rather overexert myself so that my family sees that I am trying my hardest. Today I helped my hostsister cook a traditional Peruvian meal (Aji de Gallina, which incidentally, is listed in Lonely Planet as the most unique Peruvian dish. Ask me for the recipe!) for lunch. I had just stumbled home in the morning after my first weekend night out here, and all I wanted to do was lay down, but instead, I was sort of pressured into cooking for four hours with her. We slaved over the stove only to produce something that looked like a porridge that could have been thrown together in 15 minutes. It was delicious though, and totally worth spending the time with her. Tomorrow, I have plans to teach my family how to bake my favorite cake for my middle host sister’s birthday (and her son’s too, which is on the same day). I don’t know that we will be able to locate all of the ingredients here, but I suppose we will improvise. Improvising seems to be an art here, and cooking does as well.

Last night was one of my better nights spent in Santa Eulalia. Already, everyone in my group is craving foods that are not popular here. 7 of us got together for a dinner party to cook vegetable stirfry with soymeat. Vegetables other than potatoes are actually sold here, but for some reason, are not popular items amongst the people. Our bodies are definitely feeling this veggie deficiency, and our dinner was well appreciated. Unfortunately, we practically counteracted the healthy meal though by eating brownie sundaes a la mode and lots of chocolate in every form sold here. Then we hit the discotecas in Chosica to dance our worries away. Both discotecas that we visited were really neat in appearance and style, and were much more fun than any club I have been to in the states. All in all, it was a nice weekend spent in great company.

June 26th, 2006- Settling in some

Here I sit at my laptop in my very own bedroom in Santa Eulalia, a small city 45 minutes away from Lima. We arrived here yesterday morning, had a few hours of safety training, and then met our families, who we will stay with for the next 10 weeks (not three months like I thought before). Santa Eulalia is gorgeous, and is situated in a valley surrounded by the foothills of the Andes. Don’t let the term “foothills” fool you though- these things are massive. Sprinkled all up and down the mountains and through the valley are small shacks and cement houses. It really does remind me of a third world Greece, minus the water. It is around 70 degrees during the day, and 40 at night. Even though it is generally cool, there is this permanent haze that covers Santa Eulalia. It makes the mountains look fake, and more like something projected on a movie screen. We were told that the haze is not from smog, but instead from dust that gets trapped in the valley.

Our training center has major personality. It is a simple cement building with many levels and hallways, an empty inground pool, a basketball/tennis/volleyball court, and balconies that overlook the entire city. Not many of the rooms are enclosed, so our sessions are very airy and sun-filled. For meeting our families, we gathered in the basketball court, which has a balcony overlooking it. The staff stood on the balcony staring at us and waiting for our families to come in, and I honesty felt like I was a puppy waiting to be adopted, or a middle-schooler waiting to be chosen for a kickball team. It was a rocky few minutes, but it was actually really well organized on the part of the Peace Corps staff members. Our families found us right away, and mine was one of the first to come, and therefore I was not the “last one to be chosen for the kickball team,” which never stops feeling good. I was greeted by Yolanda and Valentin, my host parents. They took me home (a 15 minute walk down the mountain from the training center) and introduced me to the entire family, which had way too many people in it for me to remember names right away. Yolanda and Valentin have 7 children and 3 grandchildren. Out of those family members, 4 children and two grandchildren live in the house with the three of us. I have one host brother, Moises (16 years), three host sisters, Virginia (28 years), Patricia (20 years), Marisol (18 years), and two host nephews, Imanol (1yr), who is the son of Virginia, and Valentino (11 months), who is the son of Patricia. My house is down a dirt hill, and is the biggest on the block, which is reminiscent of a cul-de-sac in the U.S. It is square with a flat roof, and is made out of smooth grayish cement with a few textured accents near the front door. The inside is minimally decorated and has mostly cement and linoleum floors. My family has lived here for 12 years, but the house does not look lived in to that extent. I am suspecting that it may be because my family has been robbed twice recently, perhaps because they have the most fancy-looking house on the block. We have a T.V. and a computer, but most exciting is our top floor, which is a huge balcony with different levels from which to view the city. This is also where the laundry hangs to dry. We don’t have a washer, but our host moms are responsible for washing our clothes. It’s a shame, because I took a detailed lesson on clothes-washing from my grandmother before moving down here.

My host dad is especially engaging, and seems to know more about the Peace Corps than I do. He has a fantastic memory, and during our conversations, he always relates things back to what I previously told him. My host mom is a woman of few words, and so far there have already been more comfortable silences than conversations between the two of us. My host sisters are quiet and hard to get a sense from, but I have a feeling that the way to their hearts are through the two babies. I have been crawling around on the floor chasing those little rugrats quite a bit. Hopefully soon I will connect with my host sisters. My host brother, on the other hand, has taken a liking to me (I think, at least). We spent a lot of time yesterday comparing our cultures and embarrassing each other by trying our hardest to speak the other one’s language. We have both proven ourselves as language-manglers. He, like his father, seems to be gentle and polite. We shared a few laughs last night when we accompanied my hostmom to a fruit market in Chosica, a nearby city. She literally bought about 45 lbs of fruit, and we were standing behind her wondering, “How will we ever carry this all home?” When she finally finished her fruit bargaining, my host brother and I leaned down to help her, and she said, “No, I still have 10lbs of potatoes to buy. Just leave that stuff here until I am done.” WHAT THE…?

My host mom has already presented herself as a good cook. It seems we are going to be eating a lot of chicken, rice, and potatoes here, but she seasons them well so I don’t think I will mind the monotony. Ask me how I feel about those ingredients in a month, though- I really shouldn’t speak so soon. She asked me what I like to eat, but I figured I would just go with the flow in order to enjoy the local flavor instead of specifying anything. I spent an hour trying to explain the differences between North American food and Peruvian food, particularly breakfast foods, but we weren’t really connecting linguistically. With just about every household object, I tried to explain oatmeal, my favorite breakfast food, and she insisted that oatmeal did not exist, in any form, in Peru. Guess what showed up in my bowl this morning, though? That’s right, a big scoop of oatmeal, which they call Quacker, like a duck, even though we all know its Quaker, like an earth quake. Great, I thought, I need this nourishment after the exhausting conversation I had last night with her. Apparently oatmeal is alive and well in Peru. I wonder how many other familiar things exist here for me to seek comfort in? The bad news is that I have a feeling that weight gain will be unavoidable here. We seem to be consuming only starches and whole milk. And then, all we do is sit in training for 8 hours a day.

In addition to my anticipated weight gain, I have to say that I feel really hideous here in Peru, because I packed according to my expectations, which were unfounded. I didn’t bring my hairdryer and straightener (not that I am ¨that kind of girl¨, because you know I am not) so my hair is resembling something big and knotty, like an ostrich nest, if ostriches even make them. And, I didn’t bring ANY jewelry or nice clothing because I thought I might be living in a remote bat cave somewhere for the next two years. That might end up being the case, but for now, when all of Santa Eulalia seems to be fashionable and well-groomed, I look like a personified trainwreck. I need to think of a creative resolution fast, whether it be making myself some jewelry out of toilet paper, or sleeping with my hair squished between two books to straighten it.


Things that have surprised and enlightened me so far:
1. My host brother insisting that I could probably dance like Shakira. In your dreams, buddy. She’s from your continent, not mine.
2. Here, dogs are not kept as housepets. Families name them, but they are purely functional and are supposed to viciously guard the house. Mine just sleeps all day long on our doorstep, or that of our neighbor’s. What a slacker. Many dogs in the town bite, so we were told to always carry rocks with us to throw at the flesh-eating ones.
3. Gender roles are not as firm as they were made out to be during our first couple days of training. I caught my host brother ironing this morning! And women in this town seem to be quite athletically involved in the community with soccer and volleyball.
4. Here there are 10 classes of potatoes, encompassing over 100 different types. I even recently read that over 4,000 types are grown in Peru. Crazy, eh? My host family didn’t believe me when I told them we only use 3 or 4 types in the states. My favorite so far is small and yellow, with beautiful purple speckles on it.
5. The majority of our bathrooms have no toilet seats, shower curtains, or warm
water. Showers are a frigid hell (and it’s winter here right now), and toilets will be unbearable when we start getting GI (an advanced form of diarrhea), which is common here from the contaminated water. We can’t consume the water here, or anything that has touched water, like raw vegetables. We have to boil the water before drinking it, at least until our bodies get acclimated to this change.
6. Peruvians are very neat in appearance. We were told that even homeless people, who may have only one outfit, always look cleanshaven, spotless, and unwrinkled. This unfortunately means no pajamas or flipflops for me. It is a sign of respect for others to always have your shoes shined. This is difficult in a town chock full of dust.
7. In Peru, bee sting therapy is common to relieve pain in patients (OUCH!). Is this an acupuncture alternative?
8. People do not use ice in their beverages here. Today my host family bought some Inka Cola for us to share, and I downed my glass because I was mad thirsty. It had been refrigerated at the store, and so my host dad said to me, ¨Drinks that are cold like that will burn a hole in your throat. You should wait until it´s warm to drink.¨ I am happy that what he was saying is not true, for I would have a very leaky throat.

June 23, 2006 Lima or Bust

Our departure day has finally arrived. Some volunteers have waited over two years for their departure date, so I feel happy for them that this is all finally coming to fruition. I also feel happy for myself, because I am not so good at living out of a suitcase or being in limbo like this. I can’t wait to be settled in my new home! I thought that we were headed to a dormitory outside of Lima for the first three months of in-country training, but I found out yesterday that I was misinformed (probably by my imagination, and not another person). We are actually being placed with one family for training, and a different one for our 2 years of service. While it might be interesting to compare the two families, it might also be stressful to have to readjust in a few months, especially if we are entirely comfortable where we are.

Our plane conversations have been comedic, because the reality of our move is setting in even more, and we are becoming preoccupied with ridiculous details again, knowing fully that in a few months we will look back on our concerns and laugh. An even bigger joke is this whole business casual attire rule we have to follow. I understand that we are building a reputation for ourselves, but I also understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE to keep business attire from getting wrinkled during travel. We look like well-dressed bums, if there is such a thing.

Before I end here for the day, I have to say that my execution of “Group Leader” today was positively brilliant. I am not sure if its brilliance had anything to do with me, or the fact that the leader I thought might outshine me ditched us all at the airport to have a secret breakfast with his parents. He was so late that we had to have him paged. If this were a competition (which I kind of made it, just to challenge myself), I am the champion. Lindsay Leadership Buck. I am completely kidding- I just think that how the morning unfolded is hysterical. Anything in the world that makes me appear to be organized is pretty darned funny.

June 22, 2006- Hold on a second, did you say we are leaving for Peru TOMORROW?

Today my paranoia about Peru decreased, and I owe this relief mostly to the volunteers I am training with. Today during training, safety and health issues were prominently discussed, and there were about 15 issues that I hadn’t even thought to consider, two major ones being malaria and dengue fever. While this downer of a discussion would typically have freaked all of us out, we somehow made light of it. In fact, we laughed the whole day away as we partook in many interactive exercises, such as skits, songs, and role-playing. It really wasn’t as campy as it sounds, I promise. I had this irrational notion during some of our activities that if we pretended to have malaria during our skits, none of us would actually contract it. This seems to be a notion that many people have about bad things happening in their lives, a sort of superstition I guess. If you talk about bad things happening to you, and even better, if you laugh about them, they will never occur. One of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers, while we were discussing this idea, shared with me a quote from a book he is currently reading. It was this comical paragraph about how the Gods are too proud and innovative to let something happen to you that you already suspect might happen. I certainly hope this is the case.

I actually learned a great deal from each training activity today. Even more important than what was learned though was the respect that I began to build for the other volunteers today. While I continue to think that they are very different than me, I also am intrigued and amazed by each one of them. Introductions are still occurring, and as I talk to more people, my excitement grows. There are a few people in the group that have really gained my admiration, because they are leaving so much behind, and coming down with very limited language skills and travel experience. Their lightheartedness about the situation, but also their empathetic natures and honesty about their fears, have really helped to calm me down. In such an intense environment, friendships are fast-forming, but at the same time, they seem very real. I can’t say for sure, but I think that the majority of the volunteers here with me are in their mid- to late twenties, while two are older. One man is in his fifties, and is a father of three. As I interacted with him today, I couldn’t help thinking what a joy it would be to do a project like this with one of my parents. I wish that was an option in the Peace Corps.

Regardless, I think it is so neat that the Peace Corps accepts such a wide variety of people. I am excited to learn from the people in my training class, and I can’t even imagine what will become of all of us during the next three months of training while we are all still together near Lima. For the first time in my life, I actually have a genuine interest in interacting with and getting to know each person in a rather large group. I also have to mention that I am extremely impressed by the men in my group. I have not had many males in my life that have been into volunteerism, so it’s really nice to interact with these guys and learn what motivated them towards the Peace Corps. Alone, they are helping to change some gender stereotypes that I formed and subconsciously sought to reinforce over the years. Being around them is refreshing.

Training ended at around 5pm today, and we were given the rest of the evening to relax and do last minute shopping before flying to Lima tomorrow. Before training ended though, I, for some God forsaken reason, volunteered myself to be a group leader for our entire day of travel. This means that I am responsible for collecting large sums of money to tip people at our hotel, keeping track of everyone’s passports, visas, and plane tickets, and making sure no one misses either of our planes. I felt my arm floating up when the staff asked for volunteers, and my brain was fighting the idea, but it was too late to pull my arm down. I always think that opportunities like these will help to make me more organized, but they actually just aid in stressing everyone else out. I think I might spend the entire day tomorrow faking it to make it. Wait a minute….where is that manila envelope with our passports????

A few of us spent a surprisingly stress-free and casual evening together preparing for our departure and packing our suitcases that had all exploded in our hotel rooms. We had our last supper at a Lebanese restaurant in D.C., and then discovered this bar at the top of our hotel with a 360 degree view of the nation’s capitol (what better place to spend our final night in the states?). As the floor of the restaurant rotated, we enjoyed a breathtaking view, a few drinks, and a gorgeous summer lightening storm over the city. One by one, the realization of what we are getting ourselves into hit us as we sipped on our drinks. There’s no turning back now! The biggest concerns within the group right now seem to be getting ill from the water/ new foods (such as roasted guinea pig) just as we are meeting our host families, getting altitude sickness, and not knowing the language well enough. A few of us were previously concerned about theft, but I think this training has reinforced what we are actually in Peru for. While thefts are extremely common in Peru (even in churches!), we are not in Peru to take pictures with our fancy digital cameras or even to write blogs. Therefore, if our computers or cameras get stolen, our projects will not necessarily be affected. I guess I truly am my most precious resource in this case, which I don’t often consider true in the U.S. I feel as though there is an aspect of technology that has really taken away from the development of personal talent. Peru will give me a chance to get back to the basics.

On a lighter note, I consumed about 12,000 calories today trying to fit in all of my favorite foods before going abroad. Auntie Anne’s pretzels, milkshakes, baba ghanoush (sp?), kiwis, strawberries, just to name a few. What I couldn’t find, I just fantasized about. Imagine how colorful my food fantasies will be when I have been removed from my favorites for a year or so?