Exciting Email

If you have read some of the recent posts, you will already know that when I went to the Smithsonian Folklife Festival (Folklife Festival webpage) there was a place called the RPC village, aka Returning Peace Corps Village.  All the countries that have had volunteers had a board where people could post where they were in that country, their name, email, and a note.  I posted.  A few weeks ago, I got an email from a woman named Gloria Levin, who happens to be the president of the Peace Corps-Peru alumni association. We have since been chatting about serving in Peru, she's sent me some links to informative blogs, and has offered to put me in touch with recently returned volunteers to chat about their experience and get some words of wisdom.  It is a really wonderful bit of luck that I made that connection through posting my name on the Peru board on a whim.  I will be honest and say that I haven't made as much use of that connection as I could, largely due to my all consuming job.  I usually don't get a chance to email her back until the conference ends, and she usually doesn't reply until the next one has started up again.  I am hoping to get in contact with some recent volunteers at least through the internet since I don't think I will be able to do so in person.  When I tried to articulate my schedule so that she had an idea of when I might be free to meet up, she responded basically insisting that I should stop working because orientation and training are going to be so arduous. Well...that's not going to happen. That's not the first time I've heard about how brutal orientation and training are.
      I'm currently reading a book called "Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle" by Moritz Thomsen.  It is the best reviewed book about the Peace Corps available, and it is about a man who went to Ecuador with the Peace Corps to help with agriculture, horticulture, and raising of livestock in the late 60's.  It's beautifully written and impressively reflective.  He's got a really great sense of humor too, which is something I really appreciate.  When he described the Peace Corps training he said, "Peace Corps training is like no other training in the world, having something in common with college life, officer's training, Marine basic training, and a ninety-day jail sentence." 90 day jail sentence...good.  I suppose, honestly, that it is a lot like my job at the moment.  That's how I feel about it...so it's just more of this but about something new and exciting...not something I've already done 7 times.  I imagine it will be overwhelming, stressful, very exciting, exhausting, confusing, informative, challenging, and also fun.  Sounds good.

Just wanted to share that little piece of exciting news.  The more I talk with people associated with the Peace Corps, the more impressed I am by the strength of that network, though I can only speak for that supportive infrastructure in the States.  Everyone seems so excited about it and so willing to help me out. It's a nice change after meeting two previous volunteers who really did not enjoy their experience and then reading that one super frightening blog post online.
      Super frightening blog post? you ask.
       A couple months ago, while I was still at school, I was following a bunch of Peace Corps blogs online on this website that basically compiles them for everyone.  One guy wrote about why he left - he got sick and no one would help him despite numerous contacts, he almost watched his host sister die of something totally treatable in the country he was in, the community spoke an obscure dialect that no one could teach him so he couldn't communicate with anyone, he was sleeping in a hut with 16 other people, and there were literally tarantulas climbing all over them in their sleep.  YIKES.  I sort of spooked myself with that one for a little while, but in hindsight, now that I have learned more, read more, and thought about it more, a lot of those issues are highly likely, but not all at the same time.  It is likely that there will be huge spiders and bugs all over the place.  I'll be real, that will take adjusting to because I HATE spiders. I know it's childish but it's just true. It is also possible that I will be in a community that speaks Quechua instead of spanish, and I suck at learning languages, but I can do it.  It'll just be hard.  It's possible that a host family member or community member or friend will get deathly ill with something totally manageable in the US.  It's also likely that I will be crammed into a tiny adobe hut with a thatched roof with a ton of other people, but I am supposed to get a room to myself.  We have been promised that.    I have also heard from everyone that Peru is the best place to volunteer, and that pretty much everyone is really happy there.  Reading Peru blogs in comparison to other countries, it seems like that is a true statement.  I think I'll be one of those volunteers that loves it.  I felt that way when I was in Honduras, I'm sure I will feel that way again.  I have always wanted the opportunity to live abroad and doing something helpful - here's my chance!