9 months as a RPCV and working on Goal 3

Even though I've been home for 9 months, I feel that I'm just now starting to get settled in and involved with Goal 3 activities here in the US. (Peace Corps has three goals, and Goal 3 is to help promote understanding of the volunteer's host country to people in the USA.) I will admit, while Goal 3 is an important aspect of being a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, it seems like an extremely daunting task at times. There's a reason we were encouraged to come up with an "elevator speech" about our service, as there is quite a bit of disparity between all of the things one could say about their two-year service and the attention span of those listening. I have often felt I'm unable to paint the full picture (or I paint the completely wrong one) while casually talking about my service. Sadly it isn't uncommon for people to misinterpret my explanations of the conditions I lived in or the realities of life in Peru as things that would mare my experience. This leads them to say things such as, "Jeez, I never want to go there!" or ask, "Man, did you enjoy any of your service?" and the slightly discriminatory but well meaning, "Welcome back to civilization!" Of course this is kind of heartbreaking and frustrating for me, because when I say, "We often didn't have electricity or running water, and many volunteers didn't have running water at all," I didn't mean, "I was living in a hell-hole and it was terrible." I'm just trying to explain that this is the reality of the majority of the world we live in, and the bathroom situation didn't effect how I connected to people or learned to love a culture that wasn't my own. I know everyone is well meaning, I just feel like I'm doing a disservice to Peru when the outcome of my conversation is something like the aforementioned. So, as you can see, Goal 3 can be overwhelming, but the misconceptions about developing countries in the world make it all the more important to talk about and work on.

However, for every 10 people who don't "get it" there is at least one who does. I especially enjoy it when these people pop up in the most random places. Like the stranger at a coffee shop who noticed my Peace Corps patch on my bag and talked to me for 20 minutes, or meeting another RPCV or parent of a RPCV in the choir I joined. I started attending an Advanced Conversation Spanish class at the community college to keep my language abilities up (sadly you can lose a second language pretty quickly without practice). After introducing myself not only did I find out there were two other RPCV's in the class, but my teacher is Peruvian (from Cajamarca, a department right next to Lambayeque where I served) and met her husband while he was serving as one of the first Peace Corps Volunteers in her region in the 60's. I gave her so many hugs, I was so excited! We talked about Peruvian food and customs and she asked me to bring in pictures and things I had brought back to show the class. She possesses the quick and warm acceptance that I came to know from so many Peruvian mothers in my community and of fellow volunteers, and I felt so at home. Meeting her and taking her class once a week has helped me feel so much more connected to Peru, and I love hearing stories from the other RPCV's who served in the 60's in South America.

That is another incredible aspect about being a Peace Corps Volunteer; when you join you become part of a family, a brother/sisterhood, that extends beyond your two year service. Whether you served in Malaysia or Jamaica, in 1962 or 2012, there is a bond, and I am really starting to see that as I meet other RPCV's. Just yesterday I went to a Peace Corps event at Oregon State University that was a "Send-Off" party for invitees entering into service, as well as a chance for applicants, nominees, and people interested to come and learn more about Peace Corps. It was this time three years ago that I was attending events like this before leaving for Peru, all bright eyed and a ball of nerves talking to RPCV's about their service and trying to glean any sort of understanding of what I was getting into from their stories. And now I am one of those RPCV's, trying to give sage advice and a little bit of reality without overwhelming anyone, and maybe romanticizing things a bit. Other RPCV's were there, even other Peru RPCV's. It reminded me how awesome the PC community is and how happy I am that I will always have it.

These chance encounters and finding this community of people has been very comforting, and it may sound ridiculous, but I feel like I'm finally feeling more readjusted to US life. I still dream about Peru often, I'm still the person over-bundled and cold in "warm" temperatures, and Peru is never far from my mind. I hope it never is. But things feel a little easier as Justin and I spend time with friends and family, and work on our first garden together at our house. It probably doesn't hurt that I have finally gotten a job and as of May 5th I will no longer be unemployed! I will be working in admitting at the hospital. It will give me some good office experience in a medical/health setting, as well as opportunities to use my Spanish. Being unemployed for over nine months has been really stressful and maddening, but it has had its benefits and given me time to settle back in.

I'm looking forward to start my first job post-Peace Corps and learn some new skills, and in the not too distant future I'll be celebrating a whole year back home in the US. Hard to believe how the time has passed, and sometimes I feel antsy to return to visit my site, but I know I will get my chance in time. In the past months I have worried a lot about losing touch with the experience and the people involved, but I'm starting to see that things won't fall away and be erased so easily. Hopefully I'll have more opportunities to meet up with other RPCV's in the near future, as well as opportunities to work on Goal 3 to help others understand mi querido Perú. Lucky for me, as far as that is concerned, I will have the rest of my life.

Goodbye sucks, and other revelations

Two plus years of service crammed into two bags plus a backpack

I can't believe it, but this blog post is being written in the USA as I am now officially a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I finished my service in Peru on July 24th, I'm home visiting family and friends, and I've been back on US soil for a week. And it's weird. I really wanted to post one last time in Peru before I left because I anticipated there would be a storm of new emotions and things going on the second I left that would be stories of their own, but this will have to do. It's just too much for one post to talk about the end of one life and the beginning of a new one.

My last week in site was overwhelming and filled with parties and teary goodbyes, and I didn't even get to say goodbye to everyone I wanted to. It's so hard to just get up and leave from two-years of relationships and experiences, so of course it didn't go exactly as I wanted, but I left with my heart overfilled. I had a series of farewell parties thrown for me ranging from the high school, to a friend's host family in a neighboring town, to the municipality. The last week in my site was one big party filled with kind words, occasionally booze, and tears. Lots and lots of tears. (Pictures below--yes, even of the tears).

Of course some people were harder to say goodbye to than others. My host family, my really good counterparts who became my friends, my volunteer friends, and the kids from my health promoters youth group. Saying goodbye to 14 and 15 year-olds is hard because you just don't know what's going to be next for them. I can't be there for the graduation of my oldest students, I can't be with the other students as they get older and move closer to their graduation. Are they going to stay out of trouble? Are they going to finish high school? What are they going to do after high school? What is going to happen to them? I invested a lot of time and energy into relationships with these kids who are still very much in the development stage of figuring themselves out and anything could tip them in a different direction. The adult friends I made will probably have very few differences between now and the next time I see them, but the kids could become completely different people. 

This if course spun me off into thinking of all the things I could've done better during my service. No matter what you have done, there is always a way to do it better. My last week of service was filled with a lot of strong feelings and emotions, but battling off the feeling of regret was something I dealt with constantly. Did I do everything I could have? Did I try hard enough? 

Could I have ever done enough?

Like I said, it was (and still is) a battle, but I know I did what I could with what I had and what's done is done. Also, it helped to have people in my community tell me a lot of nice things I never expected to hear. A friend of mine who finished service before me said in the end of your service a bunch of people come out of the woodwork and you find out how people have felt about you and your work that you didn't know before. I've said it before, but being a volunteer is a pretty thankless job and you almost never get any sort of accolades. However in my last week of service I received more than I ever expected. Teachers whom I barely worked with told me with ernest how much of an impact I had on the students. Mother's from my escuela de padres told me how important my work was and how lucky their kids were to have me working in the school. People showered me with presents and kind words and it kept going on like that as people learned I was leaving.

But more than the kind words and presents I received as I was parting, the relationships I created in my last two years are a testament to what my time spent in Peru has meant. The people in my site and my host family will always be in my heart, and I think I'll be the same for them. Of course saying goodbye to my host family was extremely difficult. My host mom gets pretty emotional pretty easy (she always calls herself "llorona") so a lot of tears were shed there. My host dad stayed stoic to the end only demonstrating his emotional strife through excessive household projects that he worked on constantly up until the minute I left the house. He did leave me with various parting words, all of which came back to the same theme: I'm part of the family, and I am always welcomed (and expected) back at the house in the future. 

Saying goodbye sucks. And being separated from a life and friendships that you built from basically nothing over a two-year span in a foreign country is jarring and sad. Preparing yourself to leave and return home where people may not understand all of that is also hard.

All of this sadness in leaving just goes to show how much of a positive experience I've had in Peace Corps, and I really do think it goes both ways. One day I was sitting with my good friend Lupe, the obstetrician who worked with me in my health promoters youth group, and she was talking about how sad it was that I was leaving (Peruvians really like to drag out the "How sad that you're leaving. Oh how terribly sad, you're leaving a hole in our hearts, etc etc"). I was just nodding and agreeing and trying not to bawl my eyes out, and then she said something that I didn't expect but really stuck. She said, "Everyone is going to miss you so much. Did you know that everyone really likes you? I don't know a single person that can say anything bad about you. Before you came everyone thought [US] americans were rude, cold, disinterested people. But now that everyone has met you they can see that isn't true."

I know it isn't much, but that is Peace Corps Goal #2! "Helping promote a better understanding of Americans." Somehow knowing that helped me battle back some of the regret. I told Lupe how that is one of Peace Corps' goals, and now I'm heading home to work on goal #3, to promote understanding of Peru to my fellow Americans. 

On paper that is Peace Corps; three simple goals, two years, one country. But it's all the stuff in between that makes a Peace Corps service, and it's different for every single person who has done it over the last 52 years. Do I think I'll ever be able to do it justice in writing? Will I ever be able to give a "five-minute elevator speech" that truly conveys what my service was about?

Simply put, no. But maybe I'm not supposed to. Nothing will change what my time in Peru has meant for me, and I can only do so much to explain things to others who have never been there. But if I can get my small Peruvian town to think US Americans aren't a bunch of jerks, then maybe I can get the US Americans I know to understand a little about Peru and it's people and what my life was like there. The beauty of it is while I closed the chapter of my life when I was a PCV, I will forever be an RPCV, so I have time. 

****

The multiple despedidas thrown for me and the kind words said about me were more than I ever expected, and too varied to go into detail. Here are some pictures from a few of them.

My despedida at the high school. I'm sitting at the head table with one of my main counterparts and the director of the school. 

The students arranged some different performances for me. 

The back chalkboard was decorated and signed by all the teachers

Some of my favorite students dancing 

Dancing with my best teacher friends

Williams performed some songs

Another typical dance. It rounded out my experience at the school very well.

Lunch with my site mate Zack's host family plus friends (Kike and Sue!)

My health promoters youth group, Pasos Adelante, meeting one last time

One of the gifts made for me (by Gerardo)

A formal farewell at the town municipality

My host mom gave a very nice speech about me

Receiving ridiculously nice gifts I didn't expect

A plaque thanking me for my service in Mocupe 

Giving my teary farewell speech

Last dinner in site-- arroz con pato (duck and rice)-- my favorite!

My host family checking out my going away present for them-- a photo album with photos from the last two years

The host family at my host grandma's house. L-R- Host mom, host grandma, host uncle, host cousin, me, host dad, host brother, host sister

My host family! Our only photo of all of us together

A gift you can't keep

You know what the problem is with writing about Peace Corps? There is just too much to say. Way too much. It is overwhelming, especially when, like myself, you are coming to the end of your service and trying to wrap everything up in a nice cozy little package and say, "Here ya go! Here it all is, complete closure, loose-ends tied, nice and tidy."

A large part of me wants to bring all of this full-circle, bring closure to my blog in the next short 5 weeks, and to in some manner actually explain to all of you what the heck is going on in this brain of mine.

The problem is, it's not tidy. It's a mess. Peace Corps is messy, life is messy, and cleaning it up and writing it succinctly is a task that I want to take on but feels almost impossible. Life does not always have closure, so I can't expect Peace Corps to be any different.

So let me just start with this quote:

"As to the kindness you mention, I wish I could have been of more service to you then I have been, but if I had, the only thanks I should desire are that you would always be ready to serve any other person that may need your assistance, and so let good offices go around, for humankind are all a family. As for my own part, when I am employed in serving others I do not look upon myself as conferring favors but paying debts."
-Benjamin Franklin

And do I have a lot of debts to pay...

When I was in my first months of service and starting my new job of working with Peruvian youth, I couldn't stop comparing my own adolescence to those of the kids I was working with. I immediately became hyper-aware of all of the opportunities I'd been given and lessons I'd learned from adults in my life. I wanted to write every single one and thank them for the lessons they'd taught me (note to self: you should probably still do that). I couldn't (and still can't) help but feel overly privileged.

If you knew the town I grew up in, unless you spoke in terms of natural beauty, you probably wouldn't immediately call it a community of the overly privileged. A lot of people thought the community I grew up in was gravely lacking. I mean, a town of 900 people isolated in the mountains of central Idaho, surrounded by wilderness, two-and-half hours from the closest "city" doesn't always have access to all of the resources available. As one of my co-workers once stated, my hometown of Challis, Idaho has "everything you need and nothing you want." It is a rural ranching community filled with cowboys and hardworking people-- and I am pretty sure more cows than people. For my entire childhood there were no street names, you simply gave people directions via landmarks. There's no movie theater. No stop lights. The first and only chain was a Subway in a local grocery store, and that happened in the last 5 years. I couldn't even get cell-phone service at my parent's house until 2009. When I got into high school and started making friends from larger towns and cities they would make fun of me asking if we had indoor plumbing or a TV.

But it is a close community where everyone knows your name. You couldn't get away with playing hookie because whoever saw you would surely call your mom or the school. Something as simple as a high school basketball game will bring many people out of their homes on dark winter nights even with ice on the roads. The high school maybe didn't have the fanciest technology or a wide variety of clubs and groups, but I was involved in everything from sports to yearbook club. I will still say I had some of the best teachers a high school could give. Sadly, it wasn't until I was much older that I could fully appreciate being in a beautiful place with a community of people who invested in my future. To say my town was lacking is to say it didn't have the excess and material wants our society craves.

I don't think I need to go into all of the disparity in Peru and what teenagers here have to deal with, but just to get an idea: getting a full day of basic classes (approx 5 hours) in which capable teachers show up to all of their classes almost never happens on a daily basis. Teenage pregnancy and high school drop-out rates are jaw dropping. Public schools have very little in the means of resources, updated materials, libraries, computers, extra-curricular activities, and a whole slew of things we expect out of our public schools. Then there is gender inequality, issues at home with domestic abuse, illiteracy rates in parents, malnutrition, etc. But while I noticed the stark differences between my teen years and development compared to the kids I was working with, I also saw a lot of similarities. My Peruvian community is not unlike the one I grew up in. It's small and relies mostly on agriculture. Generations after generations live here, and everyone knows everyone. The kids complain about the small town and talk about how much they want to leave and live in the city. In fact, despite all the differences, it feels a lot like home. I started to see bringing kids to Camp ALMA and Camp VALOR like when my 7th grade Science teacher chose to take me to Idaho Youth Summit, a Drug-Free Leadership camp that I could easily credit for shaping much of who I am and consequently my assignment as a Youth Development Volunteer. When I started doing my Health Promoters group and vocational orientation classes I thought of all of the people in my life who talked to me about my future, family planning, goal setting, higher education, etc. The list goes on and on.

I don't need to tell you, teenagers are little shits. And I'm sure at times I was a little shit, too. I do not take it lightly that so many people in their own way passed on their wisdom to me and told me they believed in me. And now I have my kids (all of us volunteers seem to throw that phrase around--"my kids."), my youth group kids, and I see so much potential in them. I am often distraught with the disadvantages they have, with how unfair it is that life decided I be born into privilege and that they are born in a developing country where the cards are stacked against them. I want them to rise above their situation and to be happy and successful, in whatever form "happy" and "successful" is for them.  And I suppose the ultimate goal is that someday they will pass it on. And to be perfectly honest, I don't feel like I did enough to ensure that. In fact, I don't know that I did enough, period.

There is this weird thing that happens when you become a Volunteer where all of these people suddenly see you as a saint. You feel anything but saint-like, and yet everyone is so proud of you and your service-- for giving two years of your life to help others. I always hear, "you have made a difference." I will be honest when I say much of my decision on joining Peace Corps was based on the idea of everything I would get out of it. I wanted the life lessons, the experience in another culture, the language. But things changed. Once I realized the great bounty in which I had not only been given gifts my whole life, but everyday of my time in Peru, I couldn't give enough. It could all be better, it could all be more. Like Ben Franklin, "I wish I could've been of more service to you then I have been." I have received more than I could ever give while in Peace Corps. And as for my service, I see now that I was not "conferring favors but paying debts" to all those who have given to me, past and present.

Our society, US society, is all about freeing ourselves of our debts and being independent. Striking out on your own, making a name for yourself, being free of obligations to others. And I would be lying if I didn't say I joined Peace Corps under this notion of being independent, of pushing my own limits and testing myself. And yet what I have learned while I've been here is how important obligation is. How important it is to be indebted to others. Obligation is part of being in a community, part of working with others towards a common goal. Continuing the cycle of giving and receiving is part of communion with others. My Peruvian community has shown me in so many ways, through kindness and friendship and bringing me in, just how important that community bond is.

In "The Toe Bone and the Tooth" Martín Prechtel says, "The idea is to get so entangled in debt that no normal human can possibly remember who owes whom what, and how much. In our business dealings, we keep close tabs on all exchanges, but in sacred dealings we think just like nature, where all is entangled and deliciously confused, dedicated to making the Earth flower in a bigger plan of spirit beyond our minds and understanding."

Life is messy. Life is filled with unknowns. I may never get closure on my Peace Corps service or know the extent in which I have helped others, but I know in my heart how they have helped me, and because of that we are eternally bound.

May the exchanging of gifts continue, and may we all remember our debts.

Month 24

Well, here we are. In three days I will have been in Peru for two years. Just a little more than 6 weeks left in service. Peru 21, the replacement group for Peru 17, has landed in Peru and is starting training. This is it guys-- the homestretch.

I have been caught in this weird limbo where I both want to write down everything describing every emotion that runs through me, and at the same time I am seized in paralysis where I can't seem to write a single word of any of it. Like when you trip and fall and there is this moment where you don't know exactly all that is happening and are caught off guard and can't do much about it. It happens so fast, yet so many thoughts flash in that instant that they can't be quantified in normal time.

Does that make sense?

Two years of my life. A life goal almost accomplished. The end of an era.

Simply put, I am overwhelmed.

I am overrun by the past and the present and the future all at once. When you're coming to the end of an experience you can't help but look back at how far you've come; the array of good and bad days that all smash together and create this nostalgic foray that comes out any moment of the day to remind you just how amazing and complicated it has all been and how soon it will end. And the future? Well, to think of life any different than how it has been can be exciting and unsettling in it's own right. Going home, going back to life how it was but at the same time completely different. It makes you wonder if it will all just seem like a dream? All that's left is to try and live in the present, and sometimes the past and the future are pulling so hard that just taking a deep breath and looking around and saying, "this day-- this moment-- is all I have," becomes the most difficult task.

Overwhelmed indeed.

I don't know if many of you know this, but Peace Corps is probably one of the biggest, scariest goals I had set for myself in my entire life. I didn't actually know if it would be made a reality or not someday. Those of you who have known me for a good deal of time know that I can be considered a bit of a "free spirit." I make goals, I accomplish them, but I'm not a "five-year-plan" type of person. I am a "follow-your-heart-and-it-will-all-work-out" type of person. Peace Corps is probably the only thing I've done that could kind of fall under both.

My very first post about Peace Corps, my very first post on this blog, is one about my Peace Corps interview almost three years ago in Oregon; that incredibly exciting and nerve wracking first big step after applying. The very first question the interviewer asked me was: "So, why do you want to join Peace Corps?"

I wrote:

"This is the question I had spent the entire drive to Salem trying to rehearse out loud. It was incredibly difficult to verbalize my answer. How do I explain to someone what I just know to be right? How do I verbalize in a short precise answer all of the events of my past and present that have led me to this moment where this drastic step is not so drastic? .... How do I sum up that when I am older I want to look back and have the Peace Corps as my past?"

That last part, the "when I'm older I want to look back and have Peace Corps as my past" part. I can't seem to get it out of my head. No one really knows what they're getting into when they first join Peace Corps, I don't think. Every country, every region, and every person has such a different experience. It was nothing like I expected it to be, but it was everything I wanted.
And at this moment, I am conflicted on how I feel about making it my "past."

Just like anything in life, change can be scary. Hopefully I will be able to unfreeze my paralysis and write some more about what the end of this wild ride has been like. There are still so many stories to be told, and such little time to tell them.

Let me tell you 'bout ALMA

First of all, I would like to thank all of you who have donated to Lambayeque camps! Thanks to you, we just pulled off an amazing Camp ALMA (which I'm about to tell you about) and we have fully funded our all-boys' camp, VALOR! I can't thank you all enough or express to you how much you've helped us create amazing camps for amazing kids. These camps are one of the most fulfilling parts of my Peace Corps service, and I know they are very special for the kids who attend. Thank you for contributing!!

Just last weekend we had our our annual all-girls' Camp, ALMA (Actividades Liderazgos para Mujeres Adolescentes, or young women's leadership camp). Each year the volunteers from within our department design and program a three-day leadership camp and then choose two of the most deserving girls from their community to bring. Once everyone arrives to camp they are divided into teams with girls from other communities led by volunteers. Like our last year's Camp VALOR, we distinguished teams by t-shirt colors and created a point system for each team which would motivate them throughout camp to participate and be punctual to workshops.  

This year our theme was "Peace of mind, Peace of body, and Peace with the environment," and we held it at an eco-center run by a local NGO that focusses on organic farming.

The camp went great! Maybe I just think this about every camp we've had, but this one was one of the best ever. The campers were great, the volunteers all worked hard, and energy was always good and upbeat. 

One of the special things about this camp is that it is completely out of the norm for the Peruvian teens we bring. Back in the US I started attending week-long camps away from home when I was 13, and even before that I had at least stayed the night away from home on Girl Scouts trips. To stay the night away from home, especially away from family, is something many Peruvian adolescents never do. To go camping is something many of them have never done. The very fact that their parents entrusted volunteers to take them away from home to another town to stay the night for two nights is a very big deal. 

I definitely think pictures can speak louder than words on how awesome camp was, but I also want to tell you about some of the activities and workshops we had that followed our theme:

• Intensive sex-ed session with a health professional.
• A "sex question box" where girls could write anonymous questions throughout camp, and on the last day all of the questions were answered by a health professional.
• Recycling and trash management
• Volleyball tournament  
• Belly dancing, led by one of our very own volunteers
• Round robin sessions on: condom use, choosing an ideal partner, teamwork, trust, leadership, self-esteem, gardening, animal husbandry, mural painting, etc
• A session on inspirational women in Peruvian history
• A career assessment exam to help girls find their personal strengths and weaknesses for possible future employment
• Career fair with local professional Peruvian women
• Campfire with s'mores
• Talent show for the entire camp
• "Cuerpo de Pasión" a telenovela themed skit done by volunteers demonstrating the importance of safe sex.
• The infamous condom race

The girls I brought from my community. I was able to bring three as one girl came as a "super estrella" to be a leader of one of the teams since she had come to camp last year and rocked!

All teams together receiving introductory remarks

Tina, Betty, and Annie teaching belly dancing

Learning about volunteerism and helping re-paint a mural at the eco-center

Kiryssa and Kyle's session on making starter plants for a possible roof-top garden

Early-morning volleyball tournament

Equipo Verde! Zack, Steve, and I were lucky enough to be leaders of this awesome team! They were so great they "won" the entire camp with points for participation, good attitudes, punctuality, etc. Such a great group!

Julianne and my session on love, friendship, and choosing an ideal partner. A lot of talking about waiting for the right person, and how that right person should be once they find them. 

Monica and Zack talked about correct condom use and singing a little song about the "three methods of prevention," which are abstinence, fidelity, and using a condom.

A beautiful place to have camp!

Girls taking the career assessment exam

Tina showing her amazing belly dancing moves for the talent show!

My girls! They rocked at camp. So proud of them!

Some of the duckies on the farm

The infamous condom race. It's not about speed, it's about correct use!

One of the professionals invited to speak about her job during the career fair

Team Verde, winning first place! Giving some palabras on how awesome they are.

The Lamba-sexy crew! Love these volunteers! So lucky to have served in this awesome department, I am truly proud to know all of them.

On the second day of camp I realized I was exactly two months from being back in the USA, and I broke into tears. It's not that I don't want to go home, but things like camp and the love of my job makes it hard to believe this is all coming to an end very soon. Lucky for me, we still have one camp left. Three-weeks until we get to do camp all over again for the boys!

Happy Medium

So, I think I’m finally getting a hang of this whole Peace Corps thing.

Good timing, since in a mere 2 1/2 weeks I will have been in Peru for a whole year! So many new phases in the Peace Corps cycle are beginning and ending. The Peru 19ers are almost here, the 15ers are getting ready to leave, and I am feeling like I’ve finally settled in and found a happy medium.

I finally had that “Aha!” moment about what are reasonable expectations for my site. I’ve felt incompetent, guilty for down time, overwhelmed with projects I didn’t care about that I used to fill my time, angry, lonely, misunderstood, and worthless—and all of those feelings were my reflections on what I thought my Peace Corps time should be, which I was failing miserably to achieve. 

And that was the problem; I had unreasonable expectations for myself, my town, and my counterparts, and I felt guilty for not meeting those expectations.

I'm done comparing myself to other volunteers (I never should've done that to begin with, but it's really hard not to), I'm done feeling guilty for no good reason, and I'm done feeling like I'm not doing enough-- quality over quantity, my friends.

There's no point in hitting my head against the wall.

I’m lucky. I’ve found good counterparts interested in similar projects as me, and I’m getting a feel for the give and take required to get things done. It may go at a snails pace, but that's okay. It's a process.

Of course, these feelings of acceptance and understanding of my time here in Peru have followed what I consider a bit of a success in my town.

My town’s anniversary was on May 10^th (well, actually it was the 35^th anniversary of the reinstatement of the town as the county seat, after it had been reconstructed from the rubble it was reduced to by a flash flood that wiped out almost the entire town. But that’s another story) and Peru likes to party. I mean, “Lets-take-a-4-day-weekend-and-hire-a-band-because-Valentine’s-Day-lands-on-a-Tuesday,” kind of partying. So, being as it was our anniversary, we celebrated for two-weeks straight; daily events, activities, competitions, music, dancing, fireworks, beauty pageants, etc.

This is where I got lucky. See, back in the summer I was playing with the idea of having a small run/walk race in my town. My host dad, however, suggested I make it a bike ride, or a bicicletada.

 

“Not a competition, though,” he said. “Just participation, otherwise no one will do it.”

“Or people will kill each other trying to win,” my host brother added.

So, they were proposing a non-competitive biking event where no one “wins” but everyone gets a shirt and the chance to win a prize if they complete the whole thing. Different, but they know best what Peruvians like.

So I just started talking about the idea with random people in town. And those people talked to other people about it. And then one day I was walking down the street and the mayor himself stopped me and said, “So, I hear you want to have a bicicletada?”

And I said, “Yeah, I do. Wouldn’t it be great if we did it for our town anniversary?

And he said, “Yes! That’s a great idea!”

And the next thing I know, I’m on the committee to organize events for the town anniversary, and I’m in charge of the town’s first ever bicicletada.

I’m not going to go into full detail of the ridiculousness of planning this event within the three-week span of time they gave me to get everything done, but it was a really big eye-opener for me. I was working with these men who, being machismo men, wanted things their way and weren’t listening much to my suggestions at all—the person who brought the idea to them in the first place. And then my job just became the person who showed up everyday to be like, “Did you do this? Did you order this? Did you talk to so and so about such and such?” and it was frustrating, but after talking to my PCVL I finally realized how lucky I was for this to be my “problem”.  Is my worst problem really that they want too much involvement?

Of course there were still moments when I thought the whole thing was just going to fall apart and I would be the one with egg on my face, because regardless of the control the men at the municipality were taking, they weren’t always thorough, and I was still listed as in charge.

So, day of the bicicletada came. I hadn’t seen a single t-shirt, even though we had talked about ordering them for weeks. I had about 30 kids signed up but had no idea if any of them would show up. I had talked to the police station, the volunteer firefighters, and the health post and they had all agreed to help. All I had to do was wait for everyone to show up. 

So I sat in the park.

Waiting. 

Alone. 

For a long time.

Doesn’t matter if I’m running a youth group, an activity with the community, or meeting with authorities-- those first moments (or hours) waiting to see if anyone shows up are torture.

People slowly started showing up, and soon we had nine kids with their bikes, workers from the municipality, the high school P.E. teacher, policemen, and the ambulance all ready to go. And, what do you know, some pretty nice t-shirts! Nine kids aren’t exactly close to the 30 who signed up, but I could’ve kissed every single one of those nine kids, I was so happy anyone showed up at all!

It was really exciting! The ambulance did a circle around town announcing the start of our first ever bicicletada, the police turned on their sirens, and everyone came out to see what the commotion was about.

The police truck led us on our set route (part of the ride was on a major highway) and the ambulance filled with water and municipality workers followed, along with random community members on their motorcycles who wanted to come with us.

Our route was about 26K, and the kids were champs. We stopped often for water, as we were riding out through the desert, and some kids had bike troubles, but it went fairly smoothly.

I was very worried that something might happen to one of the kids, as none of them own helmets, but we only had one casualty—a kid who rode down a hill with his hands in the air. He was incredibly lucky and only had scraped elbows, but ironically enough no one in the back of the ambulance knew first aid, so he had to wait until the whole ride was finished to get fixed up.

When we made it back to the plaza, the kids received their refrigerio (snack) and we were waiting to start the prize raffle when the municipality announced that all nine participants would receive prizes.

My first two participants to arrive and get their shirts and numbers. These two girls are 11 years old, and they rocked it!

Everyone lining up and getting ready to start

The ambulance, announcing the commencement of our town's first ever bicicletada

Riding through the streets and getting ready to head out of town

Midway-point rest stop. A muni worker and my counterpart's daughter are handing out water.

The midway point--a little over 13K

The gang and our helpers. We are so tough!

The ride home. I wasn't kidding when I said I live in the desert.

Look Peace Corps Office! I'm wearing my PC regulated helmet!

All finished up. The gang minus-one (the kid who scraped up his elbows). A lot of surprise helpers came out and supported us, including my friend's dad with his bike pump (front row, to the right).

Coach (the PE teacher) leading us in a cheer post-bicicletada

The bicicletada helped solidify my relationships with the municipality, as well as in the community, and I still have kids coming up to me filled with regret that they didn’t show up, begging me to plan another one.

The whole experience was great; frustrating and stressful at times, but still great. Not to mention, the amount of community support that was shown was uplifting. There was so much positive feedback about it I can almost guarantee there will be another one next year, if not sooner.

Like I said, I think I’m getting a hang of this Peace Corps thing.