I blinked awake and immediately wished to be unconscious again. The air was suffocatingly thick with sleepy exhales, my stomach was in knots, and my eyes burned, raw and restless. I was afraid I was going to throw up, but terrified that if I moved to try and get myself a bag, I probably would. I sat there for a while, willing myself to keep it together. Took a rather unpleasant trip to the bathroom, and then came back and realized I could open my window. I opened it a crack and thanked god for the fresh air.
An hour and a half later, we finally pulled up to the Burga Express "station" in Chiclayo. Karen, the midwife from the health post in Cabracancha who has started helping out with my Pasos Adelante (sex ed) classes, and I ended up sitting in the bus bay for a while, waiting for her uncle to come get her. I was a little worried about when she left, because it was only 5 am, and I didn't really feel like getting into a taxi on my own and riding to Linea. I had packed the pepperspray that my friend's mom gave me in high school when she found out I would be living in New Haven for four years, but I honestly don't ever want to have to use that stuff. I don't think I would do well harming someone that severely unless I was 100% confident that they were trying to harm me...and in that situation...it would probably be too late.
Karen and I hung out for a bit, chatted about how becoming a doctor works in the US, and how poverty here differs from poverty in the States. It was weird to explain to her that healthy food is more expensive in the States than crap food, and that in a lot of our poorest places, obesity is a problem because it's so much cheaper to eat crap. Here, McDonalds is super expensive, so are places like Pizza Hut and KFC and all that. You only find those things in big cities and they cost a lot. I don't think it really made sense to her to think that rural places have restaurants like that. I didn't blame her.
When her uncle showed up, she offered to give me a ride to the bus station. I gratefully jumped in and fished out some money for the cab. They dropped me at the station, and I ended up finding out that the only kind of bus they have that goes to Lima (10 hour trip...again) is one of the super uncomfortable ones, not "Bus Cama", which have lazyboy seats that fully recline into "beds". So I sat down, and sent some emails, taking advantage of the fact that the bus station magically had internet.
Around 7:30 am, I got in a cab and headed to the mall where there is a Starbucks, forgetting that it is Saturday and they wouldn't be open for a while (Our Sunday is like their Saturday). So then the cab driver got all chatty with me, told me I didn't have to pay him for the ride because my presence was payment enough. I paid him anyway and as I was getting out, he asked, "Tienes un enamorado peruano?" Do I have a Peruvian boyfriend?
"Yep...sorry." and I popped out of the car. Given the little that I know about Peruvian men, a "no" to that question would give them far too much hope and given how persistent they are...we're not going to go there.
The following is not supposed to sound arrogant at all, but sometime in the last like 2 weeks, I suddenly became attractive to Peruvian men. Before I would always get the occasional cat call or whistle or whatever, but suddenly men are literally stopping their cars to try to talk to me, or hitting on me while they drive me somewhere, or yelling out "linda", or making kissing noises. I literally don't understand what happened in the last two weeks that suddenly makes me a super target. I turned 23? What does that make me baby-making age by peruvian standards and suddenly their tom cats and I'm in heat? It's so weeiiiird. It is literally like a switch went off. I don't get it.
So, all that being said...it's 8:56 am and I'm exhausted. What am I going to do for the rest of the day? I will definitely be hitting up Starbucks and maybe wander around in the Peruvian version of a Pier 1 (I love that place). I'm going to work on my Healthy School project plan and write blog posts. Tonight, I am going to get on another bus and ride it all night long to Lima. Tomorrow I'm getting together with other members of my committee and making final plans for the staff training we're giving. Monday I'm really looking forward to meeting the new Peace Corps Peru volunteers and staying the night with my Lima host family!
That's it for now. Sending tons of love to you all
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