Sun, Friends and Turkey!

Reconnect. I don't even know where to begin. It would have been a fabulous vacation even if I hadn't been a Peace Corps volunteer who'd spent the last 6 months living out of her comfort zone in a crazy new country. But the second I stepped onto the overnight bus bound for trujio, I felt back in my element. Probably because I was with Danielle and I always feel more at home when I´m with a good friend

She had an artisan fair that she came in for last saturday, so my vacation started the moment I saw her. Our reconnect was held in the beach town Huanchaco, which is right outside one of the main cities, Trujio. Danielle and I arrived at our Hotel at 7 in the morning. When we walked into the gate and we were greated with cheers from 10 other volunteers who had arrived even earlier than we had. They were eating breakfast by the pool. I was elated from that moment, and the feeling never left. We had all of sunday free to explore the town, see the sights and prepare for our presentations. But instead we spent the day at the beach and by the pool, drinking boxed wine. It was a productive day because we were "reconnecting".

I had a big first in Huanchaco, my first ceviche. For those of you who have no idea what ceviche is, it is the most famous dish from Peru. Usually within the first conversation I have with a Peruvian, after they ask me if I'm religous and how much I weigh, they ask me if I've tried ceviche yet. It is a dish of mixed raw fish with onions and lemons juice. I was pretty scared to try it cause I've heard many horror stories about ceviches gone bad and days spooing the toilet. But I felt the time had come try this infamous delicacy. It was delicous and I didn't get sick. Success! I even ate it again afterwards. Apart from the ceviche, I really treated myself food wise. Because Huanchaco is full of restaurants run by expats, there is no shortage of American comfort food. I had the best french toast of my life and cannot wait to return to this charming beach town if only for the cuisine.

The actual event of reconnect was nice. We were able to share our experiences of our first three months at site and find new motivation to go back. The group dinamic of Peru 9 was really tested this past week. Since our swearing in, we have had three peru 9ers go back to the states. We spent an entire afternoon digesting one of the more serious cases, and for me, it was desperately needed group therapy. I had been trying to deal with the stuff that has happened alone in my room and it wasn´t doing me any good. After a lot of tears and talking through our thoughts and fears, I think all of us are processing what has happened better. We also had a group member open up to us and share something very important and I feel this revelation brought us even closer together as a group. All and all it was a very significant reunion for all of us.

But we didn´t let all this seriousness take over the vacation. We´ve all had too much serious time at site that when we weren´t in tech sessions, we were being as silly as we possibly could be. Our guys are some of the funniest people I have ever met and when they are together they are an unstopable force of nature. There was an entire night where they dicided to be pirates and not one of them broke character for a full 3 hours. We had the privaleg of hearing one of the greatest pirate, improve, monologes preformed by Vishal to a table of American ladies sitting next to us at dinner one night. I did my part of crazy debatchery by, of course, skinny dipping with the girls in the ocean late one night.

This Thanksgiving will probably remain one of the more memorable one´s of my life. It was significant mainly because I was able to spend it with the people I love the most in this country. We spent the day on the beach, drank beer and ate ceviche. We arranged for an Ex-pat with a restaurant to make our thanksgiving dinner. It had all the classic trimmings and after our meal we sat around a bon fire eating our pumpkim and peacan pies.

It was pretty sad to go home after such an amazing week. But I will be seeing everyone again soon. At least half of my group will be in Lima at one point or another in the month of December. And then a big group will be spending New Years together at a beach resort on the north coast. When I went home on saturday, I arrived so late in Lima I didn´t feel it was safe to head back to site, so I called a friend to see if I could crash at her place. Turns out, she was celebrating Thanksgiving dinner that night with a bunch of Americans and Peruvians, so I got two Turkey dinners. And we ended up going out till 4 in the morning. I felt that my vacation was complete cause Huanchaco was more of a tranquil vacation and I didn´t party very hard. I returned to site today feeling very fulfulled and conent. I´m ready to go back to work and I look forward to the upcoming holiday season here in Peru.