A Change Of Season

This past weekend I went to the beach at my site for the first time. Well, I have been to the beach before, but this time I actually wore a bikini as it is finally beach weather. It was New Years Eve weekend which is apparently the biggest beach weekend here in Lima. I went with a male friend named Coco who lives in Lima. He took me to a little beach town, which is right next to the town I live in, but had never visited before. It was a super cute little beach town with such an awesome atmosphere that almost made me feel like I was in a BoHo beach town in California. Of course the ambiance probably had something to do with the entirely young population of beach goers that were there for the weekend for the sole reason to go to the beach by day and party by night.

The majority of the beach goers were middle class and from Lima, although I spotted a handful of Americans. It was very easy for me to distinguish the Limenos from the local, poorer population. And I was shocked to see so many pregnant teenagers. This is just the town next to mine and I feel I haven’t seen any pregnant teens in my site. But in one day in Punta Hermosa, I must have seen 7 pregnant teens, who were clearly locals.

I knew teen pregnancy is a big problem in Peru. Something like 65% of the population is under the age of 24 and it is easy to tell. There are kids everywhere and it seems like every other woman I see is pregnant. Half the time I am lucky enough to snag a seat while riding the micro-buses, I end up having to give it up to either a pregnant woman or a woman with a small child. Speaking of which, I just found out one of my host sisters is 3 months pregnant. I can’t even imagine that come June there will be another baby in this house. But at least with all the kids running around, it makes me feel like my job is important as a youth development volunteer.

So my friend Coco is my first male Peruvian friend. Of course he’s from Lima. I can’t imagine having a legitimate male friend at site, the rules are just different here about male/female friendships. Coco was educated in English and has spent time in America we‘re on more of the same page then the average Peruvian man. He’s actually leaving for California in February to visit his American girlfriend in San Francisco and our friendship unfortunately will end. He quit his job working for the Peruvian government and is traveling around the states for months. After that he will be starting Grad school in California. He applied to the Latin America studies programs at UCLA, Cal, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara. I’m pushing for San Diego because then he would be in the same program as Emily Erickson. They would totally know each other and that would be so crazy to me. But even though he speaks perfect English, we speak Spanish 80% of the time. I love having Peruvian friends because I do most of my learning with them. It’s especially nice to have a Peruvian who speaks perfect English cause they double as a dictionary.

So I have a lot more free time on my hands now that the kids from the orphanage are on summer vacation and I only have my work at the other Hogar. It’s weird, I don’t really know what to do with myself and lately I have been having overwhelming feelings that I am the worst Peace Corps volunteer in Peru. I recently posted the difficulties I’ve been having with the nuns at the orphanage. On Tuesday I stopped by to drop off some paper work. I sat down with the head nun for what I thought was a simple chat, but turned into her just ripping me apart for an entire hour. I was stunned by the horrible things she said about me, essentially calling me lazy, irresponsible, unproductive and even a liar. Dealing with the things she said to be have been difficult. But I was talking to a friend and she reminded me that I am hear to make a difference and that requires change. In order to create change you must challenge the system and people aren’t always going to be happy. All the criticism I received was just the nuns way of trying to bully me into coming in more days a week and conforming to their traditional methods, I think. Whatever her motives are, she definitely has the catholic guilt thing down.

I will continue to maintain my main principals but will also try to be flexible and adapt to what I can with the nuns. I want to work things out and have a smooth relationship with my counterparts. If things don’t get better the only ones who will suffer will be the kids and that is the last things I want. So within the next two months I hope to develop a proper work plan that will please both the nuns, the Peace Corps and of course me and the kids.