July 11, 2008- On the Way Out

June 23rd marked exactly two years in country, and my group is currently closing its service and preparing for its departure from Peru. Some Volunteers from my group are receiving replacement Volunteers to continue the projects they started at site, and these replacements are currently training in Lima. It is hard to believe that they are at the beginning of their Peace Corps journeys, and we are at the end of ours. It seems surreal, to say the least. To be honest, there was very little severance between thinking my service would never end and its actual conclusion. I really expected everything to unfold in a more gradual manner, with me conscious of each passing moment (especially considering the lack of diversion and distraction here). Frankly, I am really taken aback that two years passed me by with such rapidity. It seems like just yesterday that I came, but at the same time, I almost forgot that I would one day leave.

We started with 37 Volunteers and are ending with 32, which is not too shabby of a record. I think all of us are currently pondering how Peru has changed us, and how we have affected our little niches in Peru. From day one of training, we were taught that if we impacted just one person in two years at site, that this would be a true accomplishment. In the beginning, I naively viewed this as an underachiever’s opinion, but now I believe it to be accurately aligned with my experience. It is hard to believe that with all the work and effort I put in, probably only a few people from my community were truly touched. It took me a long time to be okay with that.

In terms of the effect that Peru has had on me, I believe this will take awhile to fully surface. I see small changes in my attributional style and general mentality, but nothing too notable. Today as I was on a combi back to my site, a few traditionally-dressed campo women were staring at me with wide grins spread across their faces. I thought, ¨There must be some food on my face,¨ and tried to see my reflection in the window to rectify the problem. Two years ago, I would have thought, ¨How much longer are these people going to find entertainment in how white I am, or what I am wearing, or how much water I have consumed in the short period that I have been in their presence?¨ Now, for some reason, when I consider how I appear to the outside world, I always think that I look just like the women from my site. This could be no further from the truth, considering I have in no way changed my appearance since arriving (aside from gaining 20 pounds of pure rice and potato weight), and also taking into account that they are some of the most indigenous human beings I have ever met. Delusions such as my thinking that we bear any likeness in appearance might signify that I have been here a little too long.

I suppose I have adequately expressed my confusion at where all the time went, so I will move on. Things have been a little uncomfortable with my host family. I am the third Volunteer to live in their house, and I think they are over having house guests. At first, gringas were such a novelty to them, but now they seem genuinely bored. I guess it has finally occurred to them that people are people, no matter their origin. I wish they could have waited a bit longer to have this epiphany because it has made for some tension in the house. I think they feel really conflicted about how to treat me, and I have been receiving some seriously mixed messages from them. When I am here, they often forget to feed me, and when my starved self surfaces, they look pissed as if my existence presents a huge burden to them. Keep in mind that I pay rent, and usually eat a mere tea plate full of food per day. If I were not here, that food would still exist, and would be fed to our chickens. If I pose an imposition to them, I can´t figure out why or how. I get excited to tell them if I have a trip to the capital city planned, because I think it will relieve them of an inconvenience, but then they complain about me being gone. Should I stay or should I go? Make up your mind, people. And if I am doing something to so horrifically bother you, just tell me. I am a flexible person. I can change.

As I have expressed in just about every other blog entry, communication style has been a big source of frustration for me here. I was relieved when my host aunt confided in me, without me prompting the discussion, that my host parents were not normal communicators and that I should not consider passive aggression a cultural characteristic of Peru, but a personal one. This made me smile for a while, until I realized that this knowledge was in no way alleviating how uncomfortable they sometimes make me feel. I think I finally figured it out tonight though, after only two full years in site. Whenever my host dad is irked with me, I have noticed a pattern in his behavior. He tells me, ¨Tienes que ir a la iglesia conmigo esta noche.¨ This does not translate to, ¨Hey Lindsay, there is going to be a cool presentation in church tonight. You can accompany me if you want.¨ It actually translates to, ¨You are a sinner and there is no way out of coming to church with me tonight.¨ So tonight, as with many other Friday nights, I sat in church for hours on end. However, I didn´t realize until tonight that this was a necessary step in restoring the equilibrium of my household ambiance. I will never know what I do that pisses them off so consistently, but tonight I can rest assured that it only takes five hours in a very painful church ceremony to right my wrongs. I feel cleansed, and yes, that last admission is dripping in sarcasm.

Since our church services usually consist of singing the same song over and over again for three to five hours, and I memorized that melodic gem after my first time hearing it, I usually come up with other activities that I can subtly perform from my pew to keep myself from going crazy. Some nights, I count all of the right angles in the church (there are thousands!), and other nights (but only when I am feeling especially imaginative), I try my hardest to envision the traditionally-attired women in flared or skinny jeans and a fitted top, with make-up, straightened or curled hair, and stiletto heels. It is like a mental game of paper dolls, but with three-dimensional characters. It might seem shallow and materialistic, but think about it. These women, for some reason, exert no form of individuality. Each and every one of them, each and every day, wears a layered knee-length skirt, sandals made from recycled tires, a white button-down shirt, and a cardigan sweater. It is hard to believe that I have never seen a woman at my site wearing pants, and that because their clothes are so bulky, I have no real concept of how their bodies are shaped. They all wear their hair in a long single braid down their backs, and as I was in church today staring at the back of their heads and preparing myself for another rousing round of mental dress-up, I realized that I could not tell which one was my host mom. It started freaking me out, like I had stumbled upon the Peruvian-version of Stepford Wives, or whatever that creepy story/movie is called. I love that Peruvian culture is so intact here, but I wish it didn´t come at the expense of women enjoying no form of individual expression. Kids and men seem to be able to wear whatever they want, and act like idiots if they so desire, but as soon as girls hit a certain age, they quite suddenly settle down and transform into cookie-cutter campo women. In my classes, it is nearly impossible to get the girls to contribute their ideas, and the teachers don´t scold this lack of active participation, as though it is proper and expected for girls to keep their mouths shut. I would almost pay money to see a girl walk into class one day with a lip ring or Mohawk. I don´t know why we criticize kids in the states for strange behavioral outbursts. At least they have unique personalities. At least they feel comfortable straying from the norm. My hope for Peru is that it can maintain its rich cultural components while liberating its women and rewarding creativity and individuality in its children.

Following this thought, I recently administered a vocational exam to my two oldest groups of students. They had to answer 60 questions about their likes and dislikes, and their tabulated responses led to a list of professions they might enjoy or be good at. I was watching them so I know they weren´t copying from one another, but somehow, most of them arrived at the same list of professions, when there were nine different lists in all. What is it about my community that is creating such robotic personalities? It is really disappointing to see a group of children who aren´t being introduced to their full potentials. It is even more disappointing that I hit such resistance from teachers and community members when I try to introduce anything special to the school system. I need more than just two years. I need a lifetime!