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.