Sunday Morning...

This morning I am walking around like it is Sunday Morning and rightfully so, it is Sunday. I know half of the shit I write on here the average person would not understand but this blog was never meant for that person to understand, it was meant for my friends and family to understand. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Ok...that was ridiculous and pointless. This week was long and is still not over. I was in Pisco, a city an hour and a half away from where I live for three days doing some work. I came back relaxed for a day and then came back into my capital city to have our departmental meeting. Which in fact, always proves to be interesting because it´s the time of month that I get to reunite with 14 of my favorite Peace Corps Volunteers. I hope you can understand where I am going with this...I am currently feeling like poop. Last night was Saturday...today is Sunday. Ok, now that we have gotten that over with. I am good, still in Peru. I never really have anything interesting to say on this blog. This week I am planning on finishing up the diagnostic I have been doing about my community. Then I want to set up some meetings to talk to people about starting a trash program. Yup....I live in Peru :)

Middle Class Guilt from a Hotel Room Balcony

I´ve been thinking about this for a while now. I feel bad. Most of the time for being middle class, for having the opportunity to work a good job, to study, to travel, to buy expensive shoes. I feel guilty. People want to see the world, but they don´t realize the sad reality that exists underneath it all.

Taking six months off from your hollywood job to travel latin america does not make you an expert on this reality. This reality is cold even when it´s hot. These people spend all of their lives searching for something that will help them provide a better future for their children. You spend your whole life searching for someone elses reality. Doesn´t it seem so ironic. These people whose reality you need to know so badly would give their lives to escape this reality but none the less you need to see it. You need to see it, so that you can sit around with your educated friends, the ones that have traveled the world and talk about all of the sadness that exists. Or better yet you can watch it from your Hotel Room Balcony.

Things are actually good, all the while I am getting old

Contrary to popular belief, things are going well. As I´ve written/said a million times, this is hard, harder than I had imagined. More often than not I use this blog as a place where I can vent, mostly about how crazy this place is making me and from now on I will try to use it to portray the positive aspects of my experience as well.

My hardships do not take away from the fact that every day I walk through my barrio and smile at the sounds of little Peruvian children screaming my name begging me to teach them English (which I will be starting next week, by the way). I had a meeting on Monday in one of the Caserios (towns) in my Municipality. The people were really great, warm, receptive. I thanked them for accepting me in their community and joked that I love to eat, if they could please invite me over I would greatly appreciate it. They loved it!!!

I have a new vice to add along to the long list I already have- Inca Kola (a Peruvian Soft Drink that was bought by Coca Cola a few years back- google it)

I live in a primarily agricultural community. We grow everything from: Pecans, Peaches, Lucuma (Peruvian fruit- google it), Cotton, Corn, Watermelon, Mango, Avocado, and GRAPES. Oh, the infamous grape. The grape apparently, according to most Peruvians, is a great detox. As far as I am concerned the grape has officially become the most toxic fruit I have ever encountered.

Ica (the department in which I live) is known for its grapes and its PISCO. For any of you that have tasted the delightfullness that is a Pisco Sour, you know what I am talking about. Otherwise, Google it. Pisco is a liquor made of grapes, as is Wine, as is Cachina (which I affectionately like to describe as a combination of Wine and Pisco). The grape is poisonous I tell you, I will not elaborate, I will let your imagination do the work.

My 27th birthday is tomorrow and I still cannot believe how quickly time flies. (I sound like my mother) I am spending my 27th birthday in my new home...sigh. It will be good. My roomate/host sister is throwing a Fiesta for me at our house. The invitees include: Friends, family and the Mayor, of course. Listen, when you live in East Bumble Fuck Peru being a Gringa automatically makes you VIP. :) I could have never gotten this type of treatment in NYC ;)

So that´s my life folks, cat calls, childrens calls, highs, lows, you name it, we got it right here.

A short one...

I decided to take this opportunity to say something relatively positive about my life right now. The end of my night yesterday turned out to be worth it. I ended up accompanying the Mayor´s secretary to the office of the engineering company that will be working on the new water system in my community. After spending a little too much time talking to one of the more self agrandizing people I´ve met in Peru (the engineer) he offered me a complete diagnostic of the community I am living in. Score!!!! I returned to my house, popped a benadryl so that the 200 plus mosquitoe bites would not wake me in the middle of the night, said a little prayer and passed out. Woke up this morning and took it upon myself to crash a teachers meeting at the school and meet everyone and then the Chief of Police took it upon himself to make me his new friend. Things are looking up...

I think I can comfortably say...

..that I am currently living in my own personal version of hell. I just don´t get it. Whoever said that I am living in a clean culture was full of it. Granted some families are very clean there are a vast majority who in my opinion just don´t give a shit. For example, there are waterbugs in New York but there are none in my house. Wanna know why? Because I am fucking clean and do not leave open tanks of water everywhere. That´s why!!!!! I am currently living in my new site and can also say that I am miserable. I just want to hide in a corner and cry but there´s no hiding in this country because I´m the tallest, whitest thing for MILES. I can´t even write this blog anymore because I seriously might have a nervous breakdown. There is no water. I am dirty. It is about 100 degrees here. I am black with dirt and cannot wash any part of my body. I am going to go now before I really lose it. Oh yea...Merry Christmas by the way.

Completely unrelated to the Peace Corps...

I have feelings that exist outside of my experience in the Peace Corps...I think. I have already talked about sacrifising peices of my identity to assimilate to this culture. I am currently on cultural strike. I will not eat a ton of rice, I will not sacrifice my almost 27 year old body because you do not understand the meaning of POCO!!! I don´t know what´s going on right now in my life. I might not be staying at my current site for much longer and I am really conflicted about the whole situation. The reason they are contemplating moving me are very good but I can´t help but feel guilty about the situation. I don´t know, unfortunately, I really don´t have much to say. I miss my mom, my dad, my nephews and neice, my family in Lima, my friends in the states, my friends in the Peace Corps, my friends in the World...etc. Leaving Lima was really difficult and I look forward to returning.

Site visit...

I'm not even sure what I am supposed to say whenever I write these things. Do I fill them with all of the silly little anecdotes experienced in my daily Peruvian life, do I bore y'all with the awkwardness that comes with being an American in a different culture, or do I share the multiple personalities I have encountered within myself in the past 8 weeks. I really don't know. As a solution to all of the above I have decided to share what is in my heart which quite honestly is the only thing I know how to share.

As I have mentioned before there are lots of ups and downs in this journey. What I have learned this past week is that not only is my experience a means to an end but it is also a life changing experience. I'm not sure I am the same person and I am expressing that only after 8 weeks. Which means in all reality I probably will not even recognize myself in 2 years.

My friends here are amazing and I honestly do not know what I would do without them but I guess I am about to find out. I don't think I am allowed to tell you where I will be living for the next two years but I will tell you this....it's far from where I am now, it's hot, and there's malaria. I am moving next week and I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared SHITLESS but I'll be fine and I know that.

My new home is amazing and the people are great. There is a lot of work to be done and all I can do is hope and pray that I make a difference in this community. I don't have many pictures because I was a bit camera shy when I first arrived but here is a pic of 2 out of my 3 brothers...