Peru, Day 119

Monday morning I woke up with something so foul in my system, my body decided it needed to be ousted immediately. Operation purification was underway, blitzkrieg style. The only time I left my bed was when I needed to go to the bathroom, which was way more often than I would have liked. I even experienced a rite of passage all PCV’s must endure at least once during their service. I soiled myself. Now who wants to compare that with their bad case of the Mondays? Whatever it was that was disagreeing with my body so much has seemed to lost its battle to extrapolating all foreign substance from my system and 22 hours of sleep.

The bad thing is I think I did this to myself. I finally decided I was gonna take charge of my eating situation. I couldn’t take any more rice, potatoes and really weird animal parts. I went to the market and bought a good 20 soles worth of food. I came home and made a weeks supply of chicken breast, spinach and egg quiche and sweet potatoes. It must have been one of these three things that unleashed the demon in my system. Sadly, I don’t know which one and have to throw out all my food. Making it not only a waste of time, money and effort, but it also discourages me from cooking for myself. But the icing on the cake is that this morning I woke up feeling a bit better and decided I would try eating a piece of fruit I bought. Except when I went down stairs, all my fruit was gone. Not only do I not get to enjoy the food I have to throw away, but my family ate the 7 pieces of fruit I had bought for the week on the day I was sick.

Patience and flexibility are two of the most important qualities one can have at site, but the whole ordeal of being sick and having my family eat all my friut in one day was a bit much, I wanted to cry. I don’t think my body was hydrated enough to cry, luckily. Aside from all the bad news, there have been plenty of happy times as well. After my stay at the ambassadors house I resumed my workshops at the Hogars. I tough my first real self-esteem wor shop at the home for sexually abused girls and it went okay, I guess. I honestly don’t feel I’m ready have stepped right into this role. I wish was allowed more time to assimilate and even work on my language skills. I could have I’m sure, but the expectations are high and I didn’t want to let any one down. So I’m trying to step out of my prescribed roles and into areas where I feel more comfortable. I have officially joined a bogie boarding club and am going to start working with the NGO WAVES for development which gives surf boards to under privileged kids in Peru. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself here, but I think I may have found my niche.

I had a really nice weekend. All the business volunteers were in town for a fair at the embassy. I didn’t go to the fair cause I had spent the whole previous week in Lima and attended another fair with various business volunteers, but I did meet up with a handful of friends during the evening. I had planned to go back to the training center with the majority of the group for a party at one of our former hosts families. But instead I ended up spending the evening with Rachelle and Danielle at a friends apartment in Lima. Danielle’s friend’s parents were staying at her apartment as well, which was really cool. Even though we all live with families, there’s something about being with a mom and dad from your own country that really makes it feel familiar. We all watched a movie together at night and all had breakfast together in the morning. Then in the afternoon me and the girls took a long walk along the cliffs of lima. All the modern high rise buildings on one side, the beach and the pacific on the other. I felt so removed from my site, when really it’s only 25 miles away.

We had lunch with our old language professor and her sister. One of the big things that’s surprised me so far about my Peace Corps experience, is all the people I’ve met. I knew I would meet interesting people, but I assumed they would be Peruvians. While I’ve met a ballparks worth a Peruvians, the people who have impacted me the most have been people from the international community. And I love it.

This weekend was more like therapy than anything else. We talked a lot about our most recent friend to go home. It was a pretty serious situation, and it’s better that we were able to talk about it amongst our fellow PCV’s because the Peruvians that we’ve talked to about it didn’t seem to find the gravity of the situation, which only made us feel worse. We did some intense griping about what bothers us in our communities and in the Peruvian culture. It wasn’t so much complaining about petty things, but discussing really pressing matters like machismo and sexual harassment. Every female volunteer already has at least one story of how their security and their integrity have been jeopardized by the cultural norms of machismo.

At the end of the weekend, we weren´t looking forward to going back to site. After spending time in the world of modernity, of hot showers, of paved streets and of people with whom you feel at home, it’s hard to go back. We’re at that point in our service were it’s really tough. We’ve made it through 50 days at site. And while things have become more familiar they haven’t gotten any easier. Having two of my closest friends return back to the US doesn’t help either. But even on my worst days, I don’t think about going home. I think about home a lot, all my friends and my favorite places, but I don’t really have a desire to go home. I really like it hear. Yes, site is a struggle, but that’s what makes it worth it. I’ve been hear 119 days and everyday has been an adventure. I wouldn’t have it any other way.