Where I'm at.

I haven't blogged in a while.  I figured maybe this is a better way to express myself since I've been getting some flack for my new habit of posting to facebook.  To be fair people, I just uprooted my whole life and moved myself to a place where I am confined to about a 3 mile radius of my apartment (due to lack of a vehicle) and I don't know anyone here, and mostly, the people I am surrounded with every day are not people who belong to my normal peer group (i.e. they are undergraduates).  This is my blog, so if I'm not allowed to update about me here, I give up. haha

I woke up this morning to a skype call from Dany.  I'm really loving the fact that we are finally able to skype.  I wish I could say the delay wasn't due to the fact that Dany didn't realize he could just use his skype username and shouldn't put his email...but I can't.  He's not particularly technologically savvy but we're working on it.  Lucky for me he has a great learning curve.  Regardless, I'm so happy we are finally able to see each other on the regular and waking up to his face and his voice was lovely.  However, I could tell, after we hung up, that today was going to be a nostalgia day and I was right.

I've spent most of today thinking about Peru, about my Peace Corps friends, my host family, that pace of life, that job, and my fiance and wishing I could go back to it.  I miss that pace, I miss that lifestyle, I miss all the control I had.  I was talking to my friend Sam the other day about how I'm doing these days and I think more than anything, I miss the active involvement I had in making my own schedule on a day to day basis.  I miss that freedom and control.  Here, my life is dictated by assignment due dates, class schedules, and exams.  I don't get to decide what I'm going to do every day.  I am back to the lifestyle of planning down to the minute, taking advantage of every second I have because there aren't enough hours in the day.  I guess the best way to describe it, is that I used to feel like I had too many hours in the day and now I feel like there aren't enough.  I miss the old feeling haha

I sort of bumbled around this morning.  I was feeling low and sort of wallowing around in my nostalgia, which always seems to render me unproductive and unmotivated.  I watched an episode of Glee and then made some coffee.  The coffee helped and I got myself going on Physiology homework I have due Wednesday.  I spent forever on that homework and by the time I got through it and started studying for my physiology test that I have tomorrow, I had gotten myself through three cups of coffee.  My tolerance has still not really come back from pre-Peace Corps times and three cups of coffee have sort of done me in.  I kept drinking it hoping it would take away the weight I feel pressing down on the top of my head and shoulders.  Right about now, I realize that weight is just sadness and nostalgia for Peru and Peace Corps.  It is distracting, and exhausting to carry around.  I also was hoping that the coffee would somehow expand my mind and allow me to pack a whole lot more information in there, but all it managed to do was get me to a point where I have slightly less control over my hands because they are shaking a little.  Coffee makes me feel like the whole inside of my body is bouncing around, vibrating, and that my skin is the only thing that keeps all my cells from flinging themselves out into oblivion in every direction.  It's sort of disconcerting.  Definitely overestimated my tolerance.

The rest of this evening I'll be cramming physiology into my head, which is hard at this point because my mind has been so incredibly saturated with information, but physiology is SO fascinating.  It feels good to be studying this stuff.  I feel like I am finally studying what I should be studying.  I've always so admired my mom's passion for plant biology and her incredible ability to remember SO many details about plants, latin names, cellular mechanisms, etc etc etc.  Truthfully, I've found it a little irritating too (like spending an hour looking at glass models of plants and watching her cry and actually say "these are my friends" while she tenderly touches the exhibit case).  However, I've finally found what makes me shamelessly nerdy like my mother.  I am exactly the same way she is, except about the human body instead of plants.  It's exciting, really, because I'm settling into what I am supposed to do, what is right for me to do.  I'm finding my place and all the time I've spent agonizing over deciding what I want to do with myself, has luckily ended in me finding it.  I know where I belong, intellectually.  I don't think I was aware of how scared I was that I would be wrong, that I somehow wouldn't be able to connect with this material, or it wouldn't interest me, or I wouldn't learn it, until I loved it despite how hard it is. I never really understood people who found classes really hard but loved them anyway.  Best example I can think of are people who like organic chemistry.  I always just looked at them like they were crazy.  If it's so hard, why do you like it?  I get it.  Organic Chemistry, Cell Biology, Physiology...they're all a headache.  There's so much information, so much going on, so much to remember and organize and it all takes so much time, but it's FASCINATING.  Knowing why our body works like it does, how it does, is stuff I've always wanted to know and understand and despite all the late nights and crazy explanations about which voltage-gated Na+ channel works for which action potential associated with which neuron from which system, I LOVE IT.  Makes me crazy and I love it and I'm excited to think about and engage this stuff forever.  I've always hated puzzles, but this is one puzzle I am really really interested in piecing together (sudoku is my only other puzzle exception).

Honestly, I think my time in Peace Corps has had an even bigger impact on me that I ever thought possible.  I think it taught me to think more creatively and have more perseverance.  I think it got me away from the habit of thinking "i don't get it, so I quit".  It gave me a kind of confidence and determination I've never had before and a different and better developed ability to think outside the box.  I think differently.  Things I used to struggle to understand click with me now.  I just get it.  It's great.

I miss Peru and my life there and all the people involved in it so much.  I miss Dany all the time.  I am so grateful for that whole experience because it helped me grow into the person that I need to be now to push on towards my career.  Peace Corps made me so resilient and so strong.  Despite the fact that reverse culture shock and uprooting and attempting to reroot has been pulling me apart in a lot of ways, I'm resilient and smart and I know what I need to do to make everything I have planned and want for myself come true.  One long, overplanned, turbulent day at a time.

Waiting for the hit

I'm coming home.  It's real.  I'll be in the States, in my house, in 13 days.  It's sort of weird that after so long I've decided now is the time to write a blog post because I don't feel like I have anything to say...  There is so much rumbling deep deep inside of me and I'm constantly shaken by it but I can't locate it, can't break it open and see what is inside, can't peel back the layers and bring them to the light of my consciousness, embrace them, address them, and set them down outside of me.  Occasionally the thunder gets a little louder, a little closer to my conscious and I feel the pressure build behind my eyes but the tears don't come, as badly as I wish they would.  There is so much to feel and to process it has just rendered me stagnant with my hair standing on end, skin tingling, waiting for the storm to hit.

It's like that moment when you know you're about to get hit hard by something but it's too late to get out of the way.  Your stomach jumps into your throat, your face starts to cringe, and somewhere deep inside you think "shit, this is going to hurt, but here it comes."  I'm stuck in the expectation phase, just thinking about everything that is about to happen to me, everything that is about to come and I want the slam to just hit me, to bowl me over, so that I can lick my wounds and start trying to pick myself back up and move forward. I think the only reason that it hasn't come is there is a small irrational hope that I'm not going to get hit, that somehow I'll escape unscathed from this enormous upheaval and there's a denial that it's going to happen at all.

I keep trying to remind myself that this is just like leaving the States when I came to Peru for the first time but it's not.  I try to read journal entries and put myself back in that time and place, back in the shoes of that person, but after two years of frustration, loneliness, struggle, hope, and determination, my feet have grown too big or warped or calloused to fit in those shoes and I can try and squeeze but it's not the same fit.  I'm too different now.

It's just not the same.  I'm not going to the same place, I'm not the same person, I don't have the same expectations, the experience is going to be different.  Everything is different.  The only thing that is the same is that both transitions involved goodbyes with people I loved, a lot of time on airplanes, the use of a passport, and carting around a lot of crap.

I don't know where to start with how I feel.  Or how to address it because I'm numb with something explosive bubbling under the surface and every time I feel like I identify an emotion, there is a new one that pops up that is its opposite.  And it's all capped and contained by a sincere sense of denial.

I'm waiting for it to hit me, but the expectation is killing me.
  

A Day in the Sun

On Wednesday morning, I woke up super early, got dressed, and headed to Cabracancha, the town where I teach sex ed.  Last year I trained a group of 12 kids to be youth health promoters, primarily in sexual education.  I've spent the last few months training health post workers all over the Chota district to form the same kind of group.  About a week ago we had Physical Activity Day, but the activities the DISA had scheduled for that day they rescheduled for this past Wednesday and invited me to come with my youth promoters.  I arranged it with the Director of the colegio, and of course the kids had no problem missing a day of school.

I took a combi up to the high school, met up with my kids, and hiked them all back down to Chota (about 45...all the boys had rocks in their shoes...metaphorically speaking).  We got ourselves to the DISA right as the parade was starting around 9am (was scheduled to start at 8...classic peruvian style).  We walked in a parade around the Plaza de Armas behind a truck that was shouting out of a speaker about the event and playing music.  Little did my kids and I know, this parade would eventually take us about 6 miles away from Chota.  We were walking for what felt like forever...after they had walked all the way to Chota that morning.  My legs pretty quickly turned to jelly, but the walk offered a really unique opportunity to just chat with my kids.  We're always on a tight schedule, we don't ever get the opportunity to just hang out.  I talked to them about their plans after graduation.  One wants to be a civil engineer, another a doctor, and another wants to take a few extra classes to pass the exam to work in the mines and then get to work alongside his father.

When the parade finally ended it brought us to a field and a small basketball court.  We hung out for a little while and then played some start-up volleyball.  I'm really not great at volleyball.  We played about a million games but it was a lot of fun and I think I surprised the kids a little bit.  They've only ever really known me as a teacher.  That's always funny...surprising kids that you have a life...I remember that surprise with teachers in my own life.

Volleyball Players for the day!

We played volleyball for a long time, hung out for a little while more, ate lunch, and then I shoved them all into mototaxis and regular taxis to get back to Chota so they could get home and study for a test they had the next day.  A couple kids during all this took some time to tell me how grateful they were for the opportunity I had given them by teaching them in Pasos Adelante.  They said it was just a really great experience.  We talked about planning a couple movie nights in the future to just spend time together, and they were all really excited about that idea.

Everyone Eating lunch

Two Doctors from Chota, Karen the OB, me, and Gabby, another PCV

 

I ended the day absolutely exhausted but so fulfilled and content.  It really was a great day!

My Promoters, minus 2 

Home is where the Heart is.

Facebook.  I'm grateful for it.  This isn't just so that I can satisfy random spikes of curiosity about that kid I went to elementary school with and haven't talked to in 12 years, or for sending funny videos about an adorable slow loris or serious videos promoting girls' right to education, or expressing outrage at Congress when they try and control my body and how I care for it through proposed laws.  It isn't even because Facebook gives me a place to post music quotes that apply directly to my life that no one gives a shit about, or because I can share photos of my Peace Corps experience and keep in touch with those friends and family from home who seem incapable of writing letters for whatever reason (that is not all inclusive of all my friends and family, just to be clear).  I'm grateful for Facebook for those days when I open it up and find out about things going on at home that I wouldn't have known about otherwise.  It keeps me in the loop.

Tuesday afternoon I went to an internet cafe expecting to check my email and browse around on Facebook.  When the page loaded, I was blasted with "Stay safe, Boston" and some of my best friends posting things like, "I'm ok, I'm safe, just shaken."  "I can't believe this happened." Panic. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED IN BOSTON???!!!  I pulled up another browser window and typed Boston into Google search with my heart bumping around frantically against my ribs.  I started running through all the names of people I know in Boston while the page loaded painfully slowly.

"BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING"
....
....
WHAT?

I started pulling up news story after news story simultaneously checking facebook pages of people I know in Boston to see if they'd put up updates.  I sat in my internet carrel my head in my hand reading the horrifying reports of what had happened in Boston.  I'm from New Hampshire, and we technically have our own cities, but I've always thought of Boston as my city.  So many friends from high school relocated there after college, my brother lived there for a while, my aunt and her family have always lived there.  My first boyfriend was from Boston.  Boston is my city.

It is really hard to explain the strangeness of watching your home get attacked and being so far away.  When I heard about the North and South Korea conflict and our role in it from my Peruvian host brother (that was a little embarrassing), it felt different, still strange, but didn't leave me feeling quite so helpless.  Knowing that I have friends and family who are currently shut up in their houses with their doors locked and a bomber running around evading the FBI and SWAT teams, hijacking cars and murdering people leaves me with a strangled feeling.  I know I would probably feel just as helpless if I was at my mother's house and this was happening in Boston, but for whatever reason it feels worse being so far away.  I want to at least be able to pick up my phone and call my friends, support them somehow, and instead I am so far away, so far away from home.  I guess this is sort of what it feels like for a mother trapped at work who knows that their kid is in the hospital.  She can't do anything about it but she is panic stricken and feels like she is not where she needs to be, that she is falling short in her duty.

It just serves as a strong reminder that my home will always be in the US, that my heart is there with my family and friends, and it is pulling at that empty spot in my chest right now.  I'm sorry I can't be there with you all, but I love you.

 

Traces of a Footprint

One of the biggest fears we have as Peace Corps volunteers is that we really don't make a difference.  In those first few months when your only job is to not pack up your stuff and run, you go crazy thinking about wasted time, how you're never going to make a difference if you spend it sitting around your house, sitting in the health post, or just wandering around your town feeling homesick and missing toilets and american food.  Then you start to get a little bit done and you feel a little more confident teaching your English class during Vacaciones Utiles.  But then their vacation ends and school starts, and you realize all you did the last two or three months was teach some 7 year olds how to say "My name is ________" and "Teacher".  You look at the list of Peace Corps goals for your program with it's big list of objectives and have no idea where to start.  Every attempt made is snuffed by the community's lack of enthusiasm, a complete lack of support, or just sheer wheel spinning with the ever intimidating "I don't know where to start and I don't speak Spanish!"  You look at solicitud and oficio models that Peace Corps gave us to use as a reference but you aren't exactly sure which you use for which, or how exactly it should look in this particular case.  You write up monthly informes that look heartbreakingly blank and don't seem to really show all the hopes and plans that you have and all the unsuccessful attempts that you've made.  Time ticks by and a fluttery panic sets in, "I'm not doing enough", "Why doesn't anything work?", "Why won't anyone help me?", "Why are all the people on the coast getting stuff done? How do they do it?" A bitterness sets in that just by location, being set in the mountains where things happen slowly and the majority of professionals have grown up with or become accustomed to this glacial pace, you look like a less successful and productive volunteer than your peers working on the coast.  That if you had been placed in a dry, arid, sweaty place, you'd have ten more accomplishments to put on that report.  Just doesn't seem fair does it?

Eventually you find a way to muscle your way around and get things done, whether that means calling and reminding people of things 3 times a day, going to their place of work and reminding them 3 times a day, just doing things alone knowing you can't count on anyone, or finally finding that one person that actually seems interested in working with you and making a difference.  So you work the way you can and try not to completely burn yourself out, realizing that "thank you" isn't really part of this job description, and recognition is usually ripped away from you by the health post and claimed on their monthly reports to their superiors.  At first it makes you crazy, the empty promises of support, the false assurances that yes, they are going to come and help you out, and then watching them take credit for whatever work they left you on your own to do.  Eventually you get tired of being upset about it and you just accept that it's the way it is, and that at least someone is getting the work done.  And you just keep at it, keep grinding away.

Then a day comes when you finally get a piece of recognition in an unexpected way.  Sometimes it's a passing comment, "You know, it's really great that you come to the RONDA meetings.  The last volunteer never did that." or a mom who mentions at the end of a session, "That was a really great charla."  These little comments happened every so often last year but more frequently I got the ones that stung, and continued to sting for weeks.  I handed the president of my RONDA a report of my activities from the last few months.  His response? "What am I going to read in here?  You've haven't done anything."  Or walking into the health post with a researcher from Lima to process stool samples for free parasite analysis for the community.  I'd been planning it for months together with the health post, even let them pick the dates, but when I showed up with the researcher, the head of the health post starts scolding me, telling me I never told her about it, that I'm terrible at communicating, she didn't know it was happening, and could the researcher go back to Lima and come back in a few weeks?  Or those day when I get screamed at because I refuse to spend my own money to print out pictures of my work that the health post wants to take credit for in their reports.  I still told them that I would give them all the pictures but that they could print them.  Apparently that meant I was terrible at collaborating with the health post, that I wasn't doing my job as a Peace Corps volunteer...

Thus was most of year one.  What did I learn?  To find satisfaction in a job well done and not wait around for recognition.  To be confident in the fact that I was always doing my best and to stand up for myself when people wanted to try and knock my feet out from under me.  And most of all, I've really learned to put pride to the side because in a place where just being me is a threat to the professionals I work with, there isn't space to be proud.

At the end of 2012, I watched my 12 health promoters graduate from the Pasos Adelante program, the class I taught them starting in May.  I saw changes in many of them, a better focus, a new and beautiful sincerity, a blossoming confidence, a novel sense of responsibility and ownership of what it means to be a leader.  I was so proud of them and that day, watching them get their certificates, a couple of them standing and crying while they expressed their gratitude and love for the experience we had all shared together.  That was all the recognition I needed.  Apparently three of my twelve kids are sexually active and all three are using protection.  Given that most of them thought that showering after sex or the pull-out method were effective forms of birth control, I'm allowing myself to feel partly responsible for that.  A few months later, watching that same group get excited about teaching their peers and coming with me to the new sophomore class to tell them how great Pasos Adelante is, how they learned things that changed their lives, was another reward.

When I got back from the holidays in the States, I came back to find out that the work I had done in the last year achieved two important things.  One, the project I did with the local elementary school won them the title of "Healthy School", and that my health post got first place for health promotion in the entire district of Chota in its class.  I may not have been recognized for my work on a daily basis, and Violeta may have gotten the credit for the health promotion award, but I know that I am largely responsible and that made it all worth it.

In February, I was asked by the local health administrators (RED) to go to Cajamarca city to talk with all the representatives of the REDs in the entire department about the conference we put on the year before for Pasos Adelante students.  We gave a presentation, were congratulated by a few people in the audience, and we left.  Yesterday, I was thanked by one of the RED workers in Chota, saying that our presentation got the word out about Pasos Adelante to the whole department and that there was now an interest throughout the entire department to do Pasos Adelante.  That's something I really want to happen.  Sexual education is not a priority here, but things are slowly changing and I feel like I'm a part of it.  I was so excited to hear that our presentation had been a key part of getting the word out and getting people excited to work with Pasos Adelante.

As of yesterday, I have given two separate training sessions to health post workers on how to form, teach, and train a group of kids in their local high schools in Pasos Adelante to form health promoters.  The local health administrators see me as an expert in this at this point.  I was sort of amused yesterday at the end of my presentation when all the health post workers were then asking that I go out to all their health posts and form their Pasos groups for them.  I'm not allowed to do all that traveling and I don't have time for it.  They all were feeling really timid about it, thinking that the Director of the high school would turn them down or that they didn't know the teachers very well.  I finally piped up with, "I started this group in May last year when I couldn't really speak Spanish, had never been to the town before, and knew one health post worker.  You guys are way more prepared than I was.  Just do it!"  Some were then asking if I could come and just do the first session.  Apparently working with moms is way different than working with adolescents and that's freaking them out.  We ended up setting a date when we'll all get together and I, along with some other volunteers, will help them prepare their materials for their first two classes.  Then we're taking of the training wheels and letting them figure it out on their own.  It was pretty cool to be where I was this time a year ago, and be where I am now.  I was still in my "try not to run" stage in April last year and now I'm training health post workers to do what I did.  Feels good.

I also have a healthy homes project going on. I applied to the municipality for S/.15,000, which is approximately $6,000 to provide my families with seeds for a vegetable garden and build or fix their improved cookstoves and latrines.  The municipality said they would give me the money but wanted to review my budget first.  I'm just waiting now.

I guess just seeing my own progress, knowing where I was and where I am now, and seeing the slow formation of my footprint, some small indicator that I was here and there is a little change for the better because of that, is enough for me.


  

Privilege

It is amazing the things that are slowly revealing themselves as luxuries to me.  There are the obvious things - like toilets, consistent running water, hot water, showers, sinks inside, dishwashers, microwaves, ovens, stoves, cupboards, rugs, individual chairs instead of benches, wood floors, wood-stoves or furnaces, ceilings that don't leak, raincoats instead of sheets of plastic, windows, lamps, refrigerators, cars, enforced traffic laws, a decent education, a nutritious diet - or enough food to maintain a healthy weight, washing machines, dryers, couches, printers, well maintained roads, decent public transportation, a good mattress, a lack of flees, safe drinking water, a vacuum cleaner, the ability to have a dog for affection and not to guard your house against thieves, and a cat for snuggling and not to eat the rats.

But then there are things that aren't so obvious, or at least weren't to me - but come to me slowly.  For example, I'm freaking out a little right now about what I will do with myself when I finish service.  I don't know where I'm headed from here and don't know what will make me happy.  But that's the thing.  So many of us in the United States agonize over what to chose that will make us happy.  That's a luxury.  It is a luxury to pick a career based on how fulfilled it will make us, how best it matches our interests and strengths, where here, in large part, you take whatever job, whatever opportunity you find that will put some money in your pocket, some tin over your head, and some pancito in your mouth.  People with gifts, bright individuals haven't received an education that stretches their mind, that piques their interest, that inspires them, lose interest in school and find whatever job they can that makes money, unable to hone their skills and contribute something incredible.  It makes me angry.

Here I am, laboring over what I'm going to do with my Yale degree.  I have all the opportunities in the world, although it sometimes feels harder than that, and I am so concerned about finding the career that will fulfill me the most, knowing that overall, money will not be a concern for me.  I will find a job that pays enough to get by.  I don't have to worry about taking the first opportunity or fighting for that one opportunity.  I will work to get where I want to go, but I don't have to worry about tomorrow, about where the money will come from.  I have the luxury of choosing what I think will make me the most happy.  If that's not a sign of privilege, I don't know what is.

Rain & Professional Development

Rainy season has come on full force.  Although it's not as bad as last year, it still does mean that I'm living in a swamp with the daily threat of my feet flying out in front of me and my rump landing hard in a giant squishy mix of animal crap, mud, and water.  My host sister left her tiny little butt print in the side of our hill the other day and I have not been anxious to repeat that artistic endeavor.  What adds insult to injury (there's been a lot of that happening lately), we have been going weeks without water...which doesn't make any sense because there is so much falling from the sky.  We collect the rain water in big dirty buckets (yay!) but we seem to always run out anyway...and then when we're eating things like soup for dinner, I get nervous about where that water came from.  I'm pretty sure it's from a spring we have halfway down the hill from my house, but I have been to that spring, and aside from the fact that they tie their cows up nearby to chew grass and poop everywhere, there are so many things swimming around and growing in that spring, I don't even want to wash my laundry with that water.  Oh Peru.

Aside from being water logged on a daily basis, I'm incredibly busy.  It's a great thing, because I'm busy, I'm getting a lot done, and I can feel good about that.  It's a bad thing now because on days where I wake up and the sky outside is falling...I still have to get out from under my down comforter and go out and hike around in that mess.  Staying dry is an art form.  Seriously.

On the 16th of February, I had a meeting with all of the health post workers in charge of health promotion from my class of health post to teach them how to use Pasos Adelante, the manual and sex ed program that I used last year to train high school kids in Cabracancha to be youth peer promoters. This year, the RED, which is essentially in charge of health promotion in the entire district, has made Pasos Adelante one of its goals, meaning that all the health posts need to try to do it in their sites.  Karen, the OB I've been working with in Cabracancha, helped me give a presentation to all these workers about classroom management, our experiences with the manual and the program, how to use the manual, the first steps for forming a group, working with the municipality & RED/DISA, etc.  Karen, in classic peruvian style, had prepared a powerpoint, but there was no projector...so we sat around for an hour and a half waiting for one.  We had fun with the presentation and I think people learned a lot.  I'm really excited about getting Pasos Adelante out there, because there is no sexual education for these kids, and they need it...especially in a machismo society.  Here are some photos from that day.

Here we're doing a fun activity at the beginning to set the tone for a NOT
super boring charla

I'm reviewing what we'll be talking about
during the session.

 

We played HIV/AIDS Jeopardy at the end, and they were harder to control
than my adolescents. I had to threaten point deduction every 30 seconds.

Here I'm talking about the first steps for forming
the group. 

Explaining how to play Jeopardy.  They can't say that
word at all, which makes me giggle. 

I think someone was trying to get away with a terrible
answer to one of the questions and I wasn't having it...hahah

They really were harder to control than a group of 12 adolescents, which gave me a good opportunity to show them how to manage a class of adolescents - with humor, not with authority or strictness or impatience.  I think they got the drift.  

I was really excited for the opportunity to teach them because I think that it was a really blatant example of professional development that I offered them and I don't always get that opportunity.  I've tried something along the same lines with the teachers at the primary school in Iraca, teaching them how to give educational sessions on health topics to their kids, showing them exactly how to do it, but they don't get into it.  They don't try it themselves.  I'm going to try and come at it from a different angle with them this year, but I'm glad I got to introduce these health post workers to Pasos Adelante, with my own success story so they know it is possible and doable.  

More to come later! 

English Class

I got back from break, and irritated by some of the gossip circulating about me, I decided that I would suck up to my town and teach English Class.  I taught it last year, and although it helped in a lot of ways, I didn't really enjoy it.  However, teaching English is a quick and easy way to get everyone to like you in Peru.  So, I'm teaching English every Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9-10:30 to any kids who want to come.  I'm averaging about 13 kids every class, which is great, and they've already learned a lot of the basics.  Amazing how much easier it is to teach English when I can speak Spanish with reasonable ability. 

They're an adorable bunch.  I had one of them, Jimena, stay behind in class the other day to hand me a homemade envelope (complete with tinkerbell sticker) with a letter inside.  This adorable little girl doesn't learn very well and doesn't ever speak above the sound of a whisper, but is super sweet. The letter had some drawings on it I couldn't quite make out and some silver clouds she had glued on and drawn faces on.  I could only understand part of what she wrote, which said, "tu profesora es linda y bonita y yo lo quiero mucho. hablas ingles y estas....."  That means, "You, teacher, are wonderful and pretty and I love you a lot, you speak english and you are.." and then I have no idea what it says after that.  That little girl gave me that card, and I read it, and I almost started to cry.  So freaking sweet!  Most of my girl students have started giving me a big kiss on the cheek as they leave too, which I find absolutely adorable.  

Below are some photos of my kids hard at work.

My Borderline Unhealthy Relationship...with Peru

There are two things that have been on my mind.  I’ll write one down here.

I was sitting on a combi the other day thinking about how I am in a relationship with Peru, a relationship so tumultuous and inconsistent, slightly abusive, and unpredictable that it is exciting, but one that if my mom knew the whole truth about, she would sit me down with a glass of wine and tell me that Peru wasn’t good for me, that I deserved to have a more dependable, consistently loving relationship.  This isn’t to say that I think Peru isn’t good enough for me, but we clearly aren’t the right match.  It’s not a “forever” thing.

Peru has a lot of habits that at first I knew I hated, and then I just sort of got used to out of necessity, but my irritation still flares up unexpectedly in response to all the little things I hadn’t said anything about.  Like the other day, crammed into a combi, shoulders crumpled so far in my cleavage line made it all the way to my neck, huayno music blaring out of the speakers, and the guy sitting next to me decides he is also going to turn on his personal radio and blast that…so it becomes this giant mess of clashing notes that doesn’t seem to phase anyone but me.  Makes me think about all those car trips I took with my brothers, where we would complain if the sibling next to us was blasting their music on their personal walkman, complete with headphones, loud enough that we could actually tell they were listening to music.  Or how we would complain we didn’t have enough space when we had a whole seat plus a little of the middle room…

Ellie and I - currently using a microphone to explain to
explain to everyone the Vision of Pasos Adelante

Or the other day, I, along with my friend Ellie, were invited to a big meeting of all the health professionals in our entire department, to give a presentation about a conference the Peace Corps volunteers put on last year to make one health professional look super awesome in front of all her peers.  So we went, as a favor to her.  We got on a combi, (sat in the road for an hour and a half waiting to get by construction that only stopped for lunch break…apparently “detour” is an advanced concept that has not yet made it here), we road 6 hours down to the capital city, we paid to stay in a hostel, we prepared a presentation, we got up early to get to the meeting at 9 am when we were told to get there for our 11 am presentation.  We had been calling Hermelinda, the woman that asked us to come, all morning because we weren’t sure how to get there, and she hadn’t picked up.  When we got there, everyone was in suits, there was a podium and microphones, and a screen with a time limit countdown.  We were asked to sit in the front row and all the photographers couldn’t help but snap a billion pictures of the two white people in the front row.  Ellie and I freaked out a little bit.  We sat, waiting to present, listening to presentation after presentation of hospital efficacy indicators.  By 12:30, we weren’t sure what was going on, so Ellie went to go find a schedule.  She came back, we were on the schedule for 5:30 pm. 

Side note: In Peru, this kind of thing happens all the time.  Times change, no one tells you.  Times don’t change but no one can do anything on time so you end up presenting about 3 hours later than you planned (this is why we waited until 12:30 to find a schedule).  This is one of those moments where you role your eyes, say “Welp, got Peru-ed again”, and just wait some more.  I, however, had hit some kind of threshold of Peru tolerance that day, and this incidence, instead of making me role my eyes, made me absolutely livid.  The assumption, is that I have nothing better to do.  If I had known we weren’t presenting until 5:30, we wouldn’t have come down the day before and paid for a hostel.  Presenting at 5:30 meant that we would have to stay in Cajamarca again that night, and not get back until the next day, but I had English class in the morning and had no way of telling my kids that class was canceled.  It messed up everything.  On top of that, the schedule we had, had yesterday’s schedule also printed on it, which meant that Herlinda had known the day before what time we were presenting and didn’t bother to tell us.  We had made the whole trip as a FAVOR to her.

I went outside, out of ear range, and called my friend Kate who is always supportive when I start thinking seriously about breaking up with Peru...or at least threatening to.  Talking to Kate helped calm me down a bit, and then I called Alonso, one of my many bosses.  He acknowledged that what had happened was a lack of respect, which made me feel better.  He called my regional coordinator, who tried to call Herlinda…who didn’t pick up.  He called me and asked if I could take Burga Express back to Chota that night.  This is a freezing, awful bus that leaves at 9pm from Cajamarca City and gets you into Chota at 3 am.  I really really didn’t want to do that, but resigned myself to it if I didn’t have another option. 

Currently explaining what we did in the Conference

When I walked back inside, a woman came up to me to confirm our presentation time.  I begged her if we could move it up, at least to right after lunch.  Herlinda finally showed up.  We moved the presentation to 2:45, which means 3pm Peru time.  Ellie and I sat through presentations until 1:30, when Herlinda helped us find a combi that we could buy tickets for and would leave around 5pm and take us straight to Chota.  I was grateful for her help.  We ate lunch, went back, and gave the presentation in front of all the health bigshots in the entire department.  I only fumbled on the word “sustainability” in Spanish…which I did with a smile.  At the end, people were allowed to ask questions and make comments.  We had three.  Two were “felicitaciones” or congratulations on our great work and one was a woman asking for a volunteer where she lives and works.

Receiving comments and questions

I felt great about it. We had gotten Peace Corps’ name out there, we had talked about the work we did with Pasos Adelante, spreading the word about that Peace Corps program as a tool for teaching sex ed while simultaneously spreading the word about volunteer successes, and we talked about the conference that the RED and DISA (health bigshots) had helped with, and probably helped assure their participation and financial contribution for this year.  Ellie and I were both super happy it was over, and we started our super long journey home, starting with a 2 hour wait in a bus station. 

When you ask people about their life as a volunteer, most will whip out the cliché but completely accurate, “it’s a rollercoaster”.  I think it is probably equally accurate to say it is like a completely unhealthy relationship that you learn a lot from.  One second, everything is fine, the next second you’re livid, you feel taken advantage of, manipulated, used, disrespected, and unimportant.  It’s the worst day ever.  Then wait 10 seconds and you feel rewarded, important, appreciated, proud, respected and like you just accomplished something.  It’s the best day ever.  Have a big fight, kiss and make up.  When something goes right in Peru, it’s like having someone who never gives you praise tell you that they are proud of you, or that weird family member who hates physical affection give you a hug.  Or being a C average student who just got an A+ on a paper.  It makes you want to keep working at it, it makes you want to put up with the crap. 

It also teaches you to be grateful and happy about tiny things.  I’ve been organizing a project with moms in my community who have kids under 5 years old.  It’s a “Healthy Homes” project, which consists of a lot of educational sessions to teach about all sorts of different important health themes, and will end in the construction of latrines and improved cook stoves.  We had our first meeting to form our committee (it’s a formality here, but Peace Corps encourages it so that local community members can learn how to design, write, and manage a project).  About half my moms showed up, and the majority was over an hour late.  I started by explaining the nature of the project.  When I got to forming the committee, Natalia, the health post worker, cut me off, and said everything I had just said over again, throwing in a lot more condescending comments and talking to them like misbehaving children.  All the moms kept glancing at me, I think because they didn’t understand why Natalia was repeating what I was saying, a couple moms even murmured, “yeah, we understood her…”  Then Natalia started talking about all sorts of other stuff we hadn’t even gotten to yet.  She just completely took over.  This is not the first time this has happened, and not wanting to give her the green light on the “walk all over me” habit, I interrupted her and asked politely if we could talk about that subject later and stick to organizing the committee.  

 I had invited Don Juan to come because I wanted him to be President of my committee.  If anyone is going to do a project like this in the future, he’s going to be involved.  We had talked about it ahead of time and he had said that it depended on what the moms wanted.  He ended up being the first one nominated as president and he straight up turned it down.  No warning, no heads up.  Just turned it down.  He said that the moms should be the ones in charge, and on one hand, I do agree.  On the other hand, I know my community well enough to know that no woman would ever initiate, much less lead/organize, a project like this.  I was totally taken off-guard and really upset.  We then sat around for like 25 minutes while all the women refused to be part of the committee, saying that they never showed up on time as their excuse.  I started to get really frustrated.  Various members of my community have been nagging me to do a project like this for a long time, promising their support, but what really happens is they nag me, and when the time comes for support, they’re no where to be found.  What they want, is for me to do all the work.  I maintain that the vast majority of my community has been ruined by NGOs, and they want handouts without having to do anything in return.  This started to get to me while everyone refused to be part of the committee.  I interjected to the peer pressure disaster that was happening and said something along the lines of, “I’m not asking you to form a committee for formality’s sake.  I have to form a committee so that some members of the community are involved in the process, and should you ever wish to do a project like this in the future, you have some people with experience and an understanding of how it works to make it happen.  I’m here until November and then I’m gone, so I can’t do another project like this, and you all will inevitably need something new for your homes in the future.  As for all the women turning down nominations because they say that they can’t make it on time, you all are about to sign a contract that says you will be at every educational session and you will be there no later than 15 minutes after our start time or you will be kicked out of the project.  I don’t want to have to do that to anyone, but that’s how it will be.” 

I think it was clear I was upset. 

Natalia, the health post worker eventually pressured four women into being on the committee and we moved on to other things.  I ended the meeting feeling glad it was over, glad I had finally done it and had taken a step in a productive direction on my project, but sort of upset with Natalia, and the moms, and Don Juan. 

On the first of February, we had our first educational session, or “charla”.  The subject was “EDAs”, or “Enfermedades Diarreicas Agudas”, that essentially means acute diarrhea, which is a big problem here. I planned my charla, feeling really anxious, hoping the moms actually showed up, and hoping they would somehow learn from me.  I got down there early, and there were a bunch of moms waiting!  They had showed up EARLY.  For those who don’t live or work in Peru, you can hardly understand what an epic victory that was.  These are the same women that had showed up an hour late to the last meeting.  I was ecstatic, because it showed that at least a handful were taking me and my project seriously.  We had to wait a little while for the key to the “Casa comunal”, or meeting house.  I had trouble getting my posters to stick to the wall because it was so heavily caked in dust nothing would stick.  One of the moms helped me out. 

The session ended up being a lot of fun. The beginning was awkward because no one wanted to participate and everyone was sort of stiff. I fell into my slightly playful teacher role, and the moms had a good time with it, laughing and joking around with each other.  I think I showed them a side none had seen, and also didn’t expect after knowing Barbara, the last volunteer who I have heard from them was super serious. 

We talked about ways to prevent diarrhea, we talked about handwashing (how it should be done, and when), we talked about ways to treat diarrhea, how to make “suero casero” or rehydration fluids, we talked about signs of dehydration, and they learned how to make a tippy top, which is just an upsidedown bottle you fill with water and use as a handwashing station.  I had saved all the big water bottles I had bought over the last year and half, and handed them out to moms who could answer my questions.  Their homework was to put a tippytap in their kitchen and outside of their latrine.  It went really well, and by the end of it, we went over everything and they, as a group, could answer all the questions I had.  We finished early, which I think they appreciated, and a couple moms hung around to help me take everything down.  Natalia had come, as I asked, and instead of take over the whole thing like she had before and belittle me by repeating everything I said, she came, sat in the back, and when it was all over, came up to me to tell me how great it was, how I should save my materials, and that she would be happy to take pictures for my monthly report next time.  I walked home feeling like a superstar, even though a good chunk of my moms didn’t show up and I’m sure they didn’t learn as much as I had hoped.  I just felt energized in a way I haven’t for a long time, and it made me wish I had started working with moms like this earlier. 

See what I mean?  Things are either “eh”, “SO GOOOOODDD”, or “this is the worst day of my life”, but not on a big month-to-month type flow.  No.  It’s second by second.  Not super healthy, but seems to be the general experience for most volunteers

Because you think you know what went wrong

I have been blessed to grow up spending every summer in heaven.  My great grandfather bought a place in Maine long ago, and my grandmother, my mother, and I have all enjoyed beautiful crisp summers on a lake in Maine.  I spent my days covering my fingers in worm poop and for lack of a better term "death juice" as I speared them on the ends of hooks and went fishing off the dock with my cousins.  I spent afternoons roasting under the sun on our clay tennis court, trying to get that damn ball over the net and keep up with my older brothers.  I played house in what used to be the truck storage space in the last century.  Perhaps most memorable, was "dock time", which we spent diving around, playing "rickety rockety" with an inner tube, putting on masks and exploring what was essentially just rocks and gush (but we thought was fascinating), and enjoying all manner of boat/water sport energetically overseen by my crazy Auntie Sare.  We'd going "bicing", which was essentially three or more cousins piled on an old windsurfing board being dragged behind the boat using a waterski rope... all the fun was in falling off.  We went tubing and participated in whatever random water sport my little cousin had created (he really tried being dragged in all manner of strange objects behind the boat).  The classic go-to was waterskiing.  Auntie Sare can waterski like no one you've ever met, and her kids somehow were passed that ability.  My brothers were awesome at it too.  For whatever reason, probably somehow related to the fact that my BMI has not really ever been "normal" or "healthy", I always sucked at waterskiing.  I would go up there every summer, determined that this year would BE THE YEAR! And spend my days face planting, crashing, dragging, and generally ingesting far too much lake water.  Yet, I saw that everyone else could do it, so I figured I could do it too.  So I persevered.  I put on that wet dripping life jacket and shoved my feet into the rubber of the waterski, declared confidently to my aunt that I was, indeed, "ready", and held on for dear life...until I face-planted and had to let go, or my ski popped off, or I leaned too far to the right, or I leaned too far back, all ending it a big watery crash.  Eventually, the day finally came when I got up and I would hold on in utter terror to the rope, frozen in whatever position I had gotten up in, and just wait for it to end, praying I didn't some how end up crashing and not being able to get up again...thus having to be wedgie grabbed and dragged into the boat and shamefully driven back to the dock.   But of course I did fall.  I would usually fall, and it would hurt more than when I was just trying to get up (i was going faster...) and I dreaded the "what happened?" question that all my cousins and siblings would ask when I got back to the dock, cold, dripping, and still spitting up lake water.  What would I do the next day?  Try again.  The next summer? Try again...

Where is this all going? 

I've decided that Peace Corps service is like trying to learn to waterski.  When you first start, you're nervous but you see everyone around you can do it so you figure you've just got to keep trying.  Getting up, or getting going in Peace Corps is so hard.  You stumble and fall, you drown a little bit, you crash, you sort of get dragged along in it, you face plant, your ski pops off, and yet you just keep trying.  Eventually, one day, you'll feel like you finally got up, you finally "are doing it", and you'll just sort of freeze there, trying to figure out how you got to that spot and how to maintain it, terrified it will some how mess up and you'll face plant again.  You do fall, inevitably, and it hurts way more than it did when you were just getting going because you THOUGHT you had it, but you're not sure you can get it again, but you're determined to try.  So you try, and you suck water and get dragged but eventually you get up again, but then you get comfortable, and you lean too far and you fall flat on your back and it hurts like hell, but you try not to cry because you don't want anyone to know how much it hurt.  But you think you know what went wrong, so you try again...

Thus is Peace Corps.  You get smacked in the face, pushed over, knocked over, beaten, and you're tired, so tired, but you get back up because you have to and you think you know how to do it right this time. 

The New Year

I know it has been too long since I last posted, and a lot has happened.  I got to go home to the States and visit my family for the first time in 15 months, enjoying every second I had surrounded by the people I love and desperately miss.  There were a lot of strange "reverse-culture shock" moments that I couldn't quite explain.  I had been dreaming of the COOP, the grocery store my mom and I have always gone to, but when I finally got there, I felt like I was either going to have a panic attack, die of happiness, or start to cry hysterically.  It was totally bizarre.  My mom sweetly saying, "why don't you pick the kind of chai you'd like," completely threw me over the edge and I started hyperventilating.  I didn't want to touch anything, didn't want to pick anything out, I just wanted to leave.  So weird.  I couldn't explain it.

Everything in my town looked smaller.  All the buildings were smaller than I remembered them.  I also didn't feel the same desperate pull to things that I had before.  Ever since I started rowing in high school, I have felt a really deep love and connection to the Connecticut River, where I sweated out many mornings under the moon and rounding one big bend in the river to a beautiful rising sun.  Since graduating, I always felt a deep longing for those exhausting mornings I had in high school, a desire to go back, but it wasn't there like it had been before.

It was weird driving into my town and finding everything pretty much how I had left it.  I started to breathe quickly on the road up to my house, wanting to get there immediately and being afraid to at the same time.  There is one big curve in the road and then the quiet little neighborly cluster of houses that make up Lyme Center line up in front of you.  I burst into tears and by the time I put on my blinker to turn left into our driveway, I was trying to stifle what was no longer a ladylike stream of tears down my face.  It wasn't excitement I felt, it wasn't joy either, I think it was pure and overwhelming relief.  I knew that walking in that door I wouldn't just be dropping the weight of my backpack.  Writing about it right now makes me want to cry again...

I was scared to walk in the door because I knew Summer, my golden retriever, wouldn't be there to greet me, and in her place, Cedar, the 3 year-old golden my mom adopted.  I didn't want my mom to feel sad or guilty or anything but I knew it would probably make me cry.  Summer was always the best part about coming home, her puppy-like excitement, even when she was 14 years old, always put the cherry on top of the "it's wonderful to be home" cake.  I had a feeling the only reason I had gotten myself through her death in April was by convincing myself she hadn't actually died.  I wouldn't be able to hide behind that lie anymore.

I walked in the door and I saw the brown coat of a dog too small to be mine come running to the door.  Mom was right behind me and started talking to her and petting her.  I dropped my bag and had to get away.  I walked myself to the kitchen with my eyes squeezed tight hoping the hand clapped over my mouth would keep it all down.  Wishful thinking.  Mom came into the kitchen and saw me leaning against the counter.  "Summer?" She asked, quietly.  I just nodded and she gave me a big hug.  

It was hard not to have Summer there, but I'm really glad my mom has Cedar.  I needed an outlet for all the love I had saved up for Summer while I was gone, and I know that Cedar is a companion my mom really needs.  She's a wonderful dog.  Although no dog will ever measure up to Summer, she's pretty great.  

I had a great time at home visiting everyone, and naturally, it went by way too fast.  I was a bit of a useless lump the night before I left.  Coming home from Peru in December, I felt so burnt out, so tired.  While home I felt so full of life, so energetic, so healthy.  As I watched my mom pull away from the airport, a forced supportive smile plastered on both our faces, I felt all that weight, all that exhaustion crawl up my back and settle itself comfortably back on my shoulders.  I dragged myself through check-in and security, each step taking me farther from home, knowing I needed to go back, not just because I made a commitment to Peace Corps and my town, but because I know it is where I'm supposed to be right now and I have things I want to accomplish.  It didn't shake that weight and exhaustion though.  I did what anyone would do, I went to a bar and I bought myself a blue moon with an orange slice.  

So skip through everything else and here I am, back in site.  It hasn't been easy.  I keep having insane emotional responses to things and feeling generally miserable.  I got back and hid in my room for a day just excessively cleaning everything, throwing away the bottom layer of clothes that had rotted through in my absence, and bleaching down my little food shelf thing because there was rat poop everywhere.  Unfortunately, we didn't have any water for the first 4 days I was back, so I couldn't wash any clothes or sheets or anything...or me for that matter.  I ended up finally rousing myself to work out one day, and pulled a muscle so badly in my leg I spent two days pretty much unable to walk.  Then, yesterday, I completely messed up the ankle on that same leg.  

It's Carnaval in February, which means for most of January, you have to walk around knowing at any time you could get aggressively water bombed by anyone.  I was walking down the street in my town and a gang of boys on a hill decided to water bomb me.  I was running to get away from them but watching the water come and, given the horrible state of the roads in my town, I stepped a bit wonky on a rock and ended up running on the outside of my foot, which snapped something in my ankle.  It didn't hurt too bad right away, but by the end of the day I literally couldn't put any weight on it.  Lucky for me, the doctors had prescribed me muscle relaxers for my leg, and they helped a lot that night with the bad pain in my ankle.  It's not preferable...

I've gotten a chance to get to know the 20ers who showed up to start service in December.  They are a really awesome group of girls - super laid back, so so sweet, and so easy to be around.  I'm really excited they have joined our Cajamarca family and think they are going to add a lot of fun and love to the next year of service.  

I came back, like I said above, and felt mostly like hiding in my room.  I didn't know where to start, didn't want to start...I think there is a not so secret fear that if I try this viviendas saludables (healthy homes) project, I'm going to fail...and then what do I do.  It's illogical and put me in "overanalysis paralysis", as my mother says, for a few days.  But then I got a nice little motivational present that I wasn't expecting. 

I went to the health post to have a meeting with the health post workers about the health promotional work we should do in the coming year.  I was expecting them to make me feel like an inconvenience.  I ended up finding them super enthused about the year to come and all the health promotional work.  They were promising adamantly that they were going to help with things this year and participate and whatever.  I even told them about a mini project idea I had and Violeta responded with, "if it's health promotion, we're going to do it."  They mentioned a meeting the next day that they wanted me to go to.  It turns out, after the evaluations they went through for the last year of work, my town, Iraca Grande, was ranked #1 of all the health posts in our class in the district of Chota for their health promotional work.  AWESOME.  That was a giant pat on the back I had not been expecting, and a really awesome way of acknowledging all the work I did last year.  As a result of this, all the other health posts were saying the only reason Iraca was first is because they have a Peace Corps volunteer, so they called a meeting to persuade me to go work in all their health posts.  Flattering, for sure.  

I called my boss, who told me I can't work in all their health posts, as I already knew.  So I went to a meeting, and each health post representative was telling me their own individual stories about how they can't do X because the director of the high school is difficult to work with, or X hasn't happened because this person won't help, or they have this problem.  It was so weird to sit there, and have them ask me for help with these things...because they are all problems I've had and have probably been harder to cope with because I'm NOT peruvian.  I had to tell them all repeatedly that I can't come work in all their health posts and do all their promotional work for them...but I did say I'd always be willing to meet with them in Chota to talk about a project or plan something or exchange resources.  I also promised them all that I'd teach them how to use the Pasos Adelante manual, which is the sex-ed manual/program that I've been using the last year.  So, in February, we're all getting together and I'm training them how to use it.  A couple of the 20ers want to come too and bring their community partners.  I'm excited about this, because it is more what I expected Peace Corps to be, capacity building.  It's so much more efficient this way because they will learn from  me and then go into their communities to use those resources.  I'm a little nervous but I am confidant at the same time.  It just makes me feel more like the professional that I am.  I don't have the same wide-eyed lost feeling this year, which is exciting.  I feel like I'm actually prepared to get the work done that I need to.  

Other good thing that happened, was that I got an email from the Country Director of Peace Corps Peru, congratulating me on a presentation I did about Peace Corps while I was home for the holidays.  It meant a lot for someone in the Peace Corps office to recognize something I did well and take the time to let me know what he thought.  He said it sent on the report I wrote about my presentation to the Peace Corps office in Washington.  :)  

I am slowly getting settled back in and feeling better about where I stand for this new year.  It is going to be hard, and interesting, and exciting, and frustrating, and exhausting...it's going to be another year of Peace Corps. 

Bring on the personal and professional growth! 

Love you all,

H