Movin` Out

I love having a blog. I like it better than sending out mass emails, but at the same time there is a down side to posting things so publicly. There are a lot of things that happened, some even life changing, that I have been unable to document publicly. So for the people I don`t talk to you apart from my blog, you`re only getting half the story. I´m not sure how many people read my blog. As far as I can tell, it`s just my mom and my friends from high school. But then I´m always surpirsed when random people I´ve never met recount stories of my life to me. So in order not to offend and keep other people`s lives private, I have to be really careful with what I say.

Something I`ve been reluctant to talk about on my blog, is my living situation. A lot of people are not happy with their living situation, and therefore move after the 3 month trial period. But I´m a replacemnt volunteer and the girl I replaced lives an hour away. A situation unique to any other volunteer in Peru. And while I´m fairly miserable with where I currently live, the girl I replaced was not and comes to visit often. I hate this. I really don´t know if my feelings have merit or not. I just know I`ve been trying to break free of the mold cast by the previous volunteer, and changing families just seemed like it would make the world of a difference.

The family I live with now is not bad, their just not for me. There are a lot of people in a little house, and I just feel like I don`t fit. For example, two days ago something happened that almost never happens in the house. Nobody was watching TV. Usually, the TV is on from the moment the first person wakes up at 5:30 to the time the last person goes to bed at midnight. They air a hodgepodge of Americans shows. During the day they have Bonanza, Bewitched, Moeisha, Smallville and Full House (all dubbed of course). In the states I wouldn´t normaly watch any of these shows, but there are times here that it would be nice to come out of my room, sit on the couch and watch a show. The only thing my family watches are aweful telenovelas. I hate them, and they run all day and all night. So then two days ago I jumped on the chance to watch something I wanted to watch. I found the movie "Alexander" and had just gotten into the plot when my 12 year old host sister came inthe front door and sat on the couch. She sat for about two minuets, looked at me and saw I had the remote, and without saying anything walked up to the TV and changed the channel to a novela and sat back down on the couch. She didn´t say a single word. Just acted like I wasn´t watchig. Really, she was acting as I didn´t exsist.

This is the same 12 year old that relentlesly asked me for money the first month I lived there. She still owes me 4 soles. Recently, she started asking to borrow my Zune, well, she calls it my radio. One night she was standing out in front of her room when I walked by and asked too borrow my radio. I looked at her and said "you have a radio, it`s playing in your room right now, I can hear it!". But she just made an action with her fingers to her ears indicating she wanted to listen to the radio on head phones. After two weeks of non stop asking, I finally told her I was never going to loan it to her beccause it´s really expensive and something happened to it she wouldn´t be able to pay for it. And lately she has been picking my brain about how to loose weight. I think it´s histerical actually. She hovers around me whenever I´m in the kitchen and asks a 1,000 questions. And then she watches me eat. She just sits there and stares at me. As if watching me eat healthy is going to make her loose weight. She drives me crazy. I understand that she is 12 and that`s an awkward time of life and everyone is annoying when they are 12. But I work all day with girls like her, I don´t want to come home to it too.

And it´s not just her, there´s 10 people in the family, all of whom drive me crazy in one way or another. So after months of looking, I have finally found a new family. I spent all last weekend getting my new room ready and spending time with my new family. I can´t move in officially until some one from Peace Corps comes and okays it. But the family already calls me their daughter and my host dad grew up with Peace Corps volunteers in the 60`s. No living situation is ever perfect, I know this. But I just know the one I am in right now is not right for me. I have been reluctant to say anything up till now cause I guess I didn´t want to jinx it. But hopefully Peace corps will find no problems with my new house and I should start moving when I come from Carnivan next week.