The Million Dollar Question

Phew, been quite a long time.  A lot has happened in the past few weeks.  I went to and returned from site visit, completed my last week of training, swore-in as a real Volunteer, and moved permanently to my new town.  Talk about a whirlwind of emotions.  We’ll start with site visit… what a crazy week!  I arrived in El Arenal with my socios (see dictionary) and was dropped off at my new house.  It’s definitely a little different than my house in Lima, and it couldn’t be more different from my home in the USA.  Let me describe it to you all:  You walk in the front door to a large room that only has a couch, love seat, and chair.  From the living room there are two bedrooms; one belonging to my 68 year-old host parents, and the other is unoccupied except for a few times every couple months when one of their daughters visits from Lima.  Behind the living room is the dining room and kitchen.  Definitely not a four-star kitchen, but it has an oven and refrigerator so it does the trick.  It’s not the cleanest of kitchens, but I think it’s sanitary enough.  Then you exit the kitchen to an outside “patio” of sorts, and I use the term patio loosely.  Here is where I brush my teeth, wash and dry my clothes, and shower.  Yes, the bathroom is outside.  It’s basically in a shed with about a 12 inch opening under the roof.  This means that every time I use the bathroom or shower I have to combat hundreds of mosquitoes, at which I am becoming quite good.  The toilet does not have a flusher so I have to pour buckets of water into it in order to make it flush.  Because of this the bathroom always smells like burning trash and poop combined, so I’ve also become a pro at holding my breath while I’m in there.  The plus side is that it’s so hot here that a cold shower is now something to look forward to instead of dread every day.  Across the “patio” from the bathroom is another makeshift door that leads to my “room.”  You enter the door and step foot in the room that belongs to my 34 year-old sister and her 14 year-old daughter.  Yes, I have to walk through their room to get to mine.  Through the next door is where I lay my head on the most uncomfortable bed in the world.  Every morning I wake up stuck in a giant dip/hole in the middle of my bed.  The walls are made of brick and the floor is cement that is always dusty.  The wall separating my room from the other room doesn’t reach the ceiling, in fact there’s about a three or four foot gap.  Because of this I can hear and see basically everything that goes on in their room and it has forced me to wake up at 6am when they’re getting ready for school.  You can imagine how much I enjoy that…  Anyway, back to site visit.  I arrived in the evening and was told that the next day there would be a large welcoming celebration for me.  As if I wasn’t already nervous, they threw that my way!  And what a ceremony it was!  I walked into the Municipality the next morning to find balloons, ribbons, streamers, and a huge sign that said WELCOME KELSEY (in Spanish, or course).  So I sat at the head table with the mayor herself and everyone else in the room stared back at me.  The mayor gave a speech welcoming me and then I had to say a few words.  Thank goodness I had written something out beforehand just in case.  I was really nervous but the speech went surprisingly well.  Afterwards every representative of every organization introduced themselves to me and was allowed to ask me questions.  This is what had me the most nervous because I didn’t understand everything they were asking me and it was embarrassing because everyone was waiting for my responses.  But it wasn’t so bad, and one of the teachers explained to them that I am still learning Spanish and to take it easy on me.  Afterwards we all ate lunch and then every single person in the room took a picture with me.  I think it’s safe to say that I took over 100 photos there, and they’ll all probably be hung up somewhere at some point in the next 2 years.  Later that day I had another ceremony with even more decorations but less people in an annex of El Arenal.  Basically the entire week was planned around me.  There was a sports tourney in my honor, I was presented to every person within a 10 mile radius, and I was even taken to the beach on my last day.  Overall it was an exhausting yet promising week.  Everyone seemed very eager to work with me and to have me in their community for the next 2 years.  So that sums up site visit.

I returned to Lima for my last week of training, which went by way too quickly.  All I wanted was more time to spend with my new friends and my host family, but it felt like there was no time whatsoever.  That last week was pretty trying because there was so much to get done and so little time to do it.  But I made it through to Friday and our Swearing-In Ceremony.  Our group, Peru 17, is the first group of Trainees in a long time to have 100% of the Trainees swear-in as Volunteers!  That means that every single one of us made it through training without going home, which is a pretty huge accomplishment.  Swearing-in took about 45 minutes in which our Country Director spoke, the Ambassador of the USA gave a speech, two of our Trainees spoke, and a host family representative spoke.  Turns out the host family rep was my host dad!  I guess he wanted to surprise me because I had no idea he was going to give a speech until I saw him chatting it up with the Ambassador.  My first thought was, “Silly Hebert, what is he doing up there with the Ambassador?”  Haha well he was an “honored guest” so he could talk to whomever he wanted to!  After all the speeches all 51 of us took our vow and were officially sworn in as Volunteers of the United States Peace Corps.  It was such a surreal moment because we had all worked so hard to get to that moment, yet none of us really knew what was in store for us.  It was so bittersweet because we all wanted to be Volunteers more than anything, but none of us wanted to leave the comfortable life we had made for ourselves in Santa Eulalia.  For me I think that moment was extra hard because my real family wasn’t there.  This was such a huge moment in my life, and it felt so weird not to have my family right there beside me.  In the last 23 years, my family has not missed one big event in my life.  In that moment I realized how lucky I have been to be able to share all the big things in my life with my entire family, and for that I will be forever grateful.  I remember turning around at one point looking for my mom and dad, but all I saw were Peruvians.  Definitely a weird feeling.  But enough of that... after the ceremony and reception I went home and had one last dinner with my host family and of course went out with all of the other Volunteers to celebrate!

Then Saturday I packed up all of my things and headed to Lima to catch the overnight bus to Piura.  I’ll tell ya, saying goodbye to my host family was a lot harder than I expected it to be.  In the past 10 weeks I had grown to respect and love every member of that family.  If I could have, I would have chosen to stay there and complete my two years of service with them.  It was especially hard to say goodbye to the little ones, and every single one of us was crying.  I think it hit me the hardest when I looked back at my host mom and saw her and Alysa (5) both bawling.  I am going to miss them a lot and will never forget all they did for me in those 10 weeks.

So that brings us to Sunday and our arrival in Piura.  Basically we had the rest of Sunday to rest up and get ourselves ready to head to site on Monday.  Monday afternoon came and our socios arrived to take us away to our respective sites.  I don’t think I’ve ever dreaded and looked forward to a moment as much as I did that one.  I didn’t want to leave my friends and face the unknown of the next 2 years, but I was also so excited to dive in and get started. 

So here I am, one week into my two years of service.  I don’t think I can explain all of the emotions that I’ve experienced in the past seven days.  I’ve had my lowest low, and some pretty high highs.  Some moments I’m so eager to fully learn Spanish and live here, and other moments I’m so lonely and depressed.  Sometimes I feel like I’m definitely going to be able to make a difference here, and other times I question what I’m doing.  I really can’t fully describe how I’m feeling.  I’ve contemplated coming home more than I probably should and can think of a million reasons to leave, but there’s always that little voice telling me I should stay; that I CAN do this.  And I know I can do it, I KNOW I can.  All I need to do is step outside of my comfort zone a little bit and lose my inhibitions.  And while I know that I am capable of doing this, I wonder sometimes if I WANT to do this.  Do I want to live here, in less than desirable conditions, for the next two years?  Do I want to continue to sound like a fool every time I speak Spanish?  Do I want to live in a fishbowl for the next 2 years, under constant scrutiny?  Is the Peace Corps really what I expected it to be?  The only answer I have is I don’t know.  I don’t know what I want.  I know that if I stay I will experience the lowest lows that I will have in my entire life.  But I also know that for every low there will be an even greater high.  I know that if I stick it out I WILL learn this language and I WILL be able to communicate freely.  I will eventually make friends in my town and I will gain their confidence and trust.  This town will start to feel like home.  I know that I will experience things here that I could never even dream of experiencing in the USA.  But I also know that for every new experience I have here, I will be missing out on an experience back home.  Am I prepared to miss all of those big events?  Babies, weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, engagements, holidays, everything.  And all of the times when nothing is happening; all of the little things.  The conversations about nothing and everything, the random hangout times, road trips, movie nights, nights out, nights when we do absolutely nothing.  I’m going to miss absolutely everything.  I know that I can hear about everything and I definitely appreciate and love all of the updates, but there’s no way to relive and experience everything that I’m missing.  And it’s true that I will be experiencing things that I won’t be able to do justice with words, but I’ll be experiencing these things alone, without all of the people that I love.  I wish I could bring every single one of you over here to do this with me and be with me throughout it all.  The hardest part is being alone over here when all of the people I love are together back in the States.  As selfish as it is, I am so jealous.  I want to be there with all of you guys; I don’t want to be doing this alone. 

So I guess the million dollar question is this; do I stay or do I go?  Time and lots of praying and thinking will lead to the answer.  I could definitely use any advice you have to give me, and I’ll never turn down a prayer or seven!  Missing you always…


PS- I wrote this a few days ago when I was really depressed, but I'm much better now! Don't be too concerned!