Mission Accomplished

I can safely say that I have at least temporarily answered the million dollar question.  I have decided to stay.  I realized that I cannot judge a 2 year experience on just 2 weeks.  I knew there were going to be tough times when I applied- it’s what I signed up for.  Life is never going to be 100% happy or awesome, so I don’t know why I thought the Peace Corps should be that way.  Can I absolutely say that I will stay the entire two years? Of course not.  I have no idea what the future holds.  Can I say that for now I’m sticking it out and giving it a shot? Absolutely.  I owe myself and the Peace Corps that much.

Now I didn’t come to this decision on my own.  I had the advice and kinds words from many people that I love, and I can’t tell you how much that means to me.  I am so very lucky to have that kind of support and love.  Thank you.

I’ll give you all a short update of what I’ve been doing the past week or so.  Last Wednesday I decided to do something to get out of my funk, so I headed to the Municipality to talk to my socios.  I told them that I’d like to start doing something, possibly teaching English classes to the students.  I thought it would be difficult to convince them to take me to the schools to talk to the Directors, but no sooner had I asked than they turned around and headed straight to the first school.  The mayor is actually the director of the Primaria School, so she was 100% on board with the idea.  All it took was 3 minutes to ask and they were ready for me to start the next week!  Then we headed to the Secundaria School and got the exact same response.  He handed me their schedule and basically said, “Come whenever you want!”  It was very encouraging to have their support and desire.  This experience helped me realize that all I have to do is ask.

With an uplifted spirit I headed to Piura City that weekend for our first regional meeting with other Volunteers.  I’ll tell you what, it sure is nice to stay in a hostel and take warm (sometimes) showers and not have to combat the mosquitoes.  The weekend helped me feel like a real person again.  It was nice to talk to other Volunteers and share our experiences; funny, sad, uplifting, and even depressing.  Not only do I have my amazing support system at home, but I also have these other Volunteers that I can turn to.  The weekend was filled with running lots of errands, spending tons of time on the internet, and basically just relaxing.  It was a much needed mini-vacation.

Sunday I arrived back at site to realize that I hadn’t prepared anything for my 5 English classes on Monday, so I stayed up relatively late preparing for them, only to wake up the next morning with the stomach ache from hell.  Needless to say I didn’t end up going to the school but instead slept all day.  When my host-sister got back from school she told me to go to the health post because, and I quote, “You haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, you could be dying.”  A slight exaggeration on her part.  But to appease her I headed, begrudgingly, to the health post.  To my surprise and excitement, it was closed.  Thankfully I began feeling better and actually managed to stomach some rice that night.

Tuesday I headed to the town of Paita with another Volunteer, Kyle, to do some bed and dresser shopping.  We had both been sleeping on excuses for mattresses and I badly needed somewhere to put my clothes, so we decided to hit up the market.  Everyone kept telling us to be careful and that it’s very dangerous, but we managed to navigate everything with no problems.  We both bought mattresses and I got a pretty nice dresser and mirror.  It was quite the accomplishment because we both thought we were going to get hosed because we are gringos and both of us had been dreading the outing.  But it just proved to us that we could do it!  Mission accomplished. We were both on a pretty big high when we got back to our respective houses that night!  Speaking of houses, I experienced my first bout of site envy when I went to Kyle’s site.  He has a beautiful two-story house in which the upstairs is basically his own bachelor pad with a kitchen and a beautiful balcony.  Not to mention that his family is super nice and helpful.  It made coming back to my dungeon of a room that much harder.  But instead of being jealous I’m trying to remind myself that I have a roof and 3 ½ walls, running water (some of the time), a toilet, and a family that does care about me.  It may not be the Ritz but it does the job, and it’s definitely not as primitive as other Volunteers in other countries.

Wednesday I gave my first English classes!  I was very nervous because the entire school thought that I was an English professor and was going to be teaching English for the next two years.  I had to explain to them that I am most definitely NOT a teacher and I would probably only be teaching English for the first few months until I can get some other projects going.  Also, my Spanish still isn’t awesome so it’s embarrassing to stand in front of a class of 25 Peruvian youth and try to teach them when I don’t even know their language.  But, the classes were very receptive and patient with me, so it wasn’t too bad.  There are undeniably things that I need to improve on, but all in all they went well.  Then right after classes I headed to Tamorindo, a town about 20 minutes away where another Volunteer lives.  She was heading to Sullana to get herself a dresser with her socios and invited me to go.  Since I already had a dresser I just decided to tag along for the ride.  We spent all afternoon there, had some dinner, and got home pretty late.  It was nice to be able to explore other towns so that I know the different options I have in terms of shopping for certain things.

This morning (Thursday) I was supposed to go to the Primaria School and start teaching English there, but my stomach was bothering me again.  I figured that if I went I’d either vomit on a kid or have to run to the bathroom to avoid pooping my pants, so I didn’t go.  I’m feeling much better now so I’m a little disappointed in myself for not going, but I guess it’s better to avoid the situation than do something incredibly embarrassing on the first day.  I’ll be going to both the primaria and secundaria schools tomorrow to teach a couple classes, so I better not be sick again when I wake up!

I think I’m going to be pretty busy with all of these English classes, so I’ll probably have to cut back on them after a few weeks so I don’t get burnt out.  Also, I still have to do my community diagnostic which is going to be a lot of work, so I need to make sure I have time for that.  For now though, I’m glad that I have something tangible to do!  Meeting with all of the kids has given me some pretty cool ideas for different projects I could do so I’m excited to settle in and get the ball rolling on those! 

I’m definitely not depressed anymore, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t miss you guys every single day.  Please keep the prayers and warm thoughts coming my way.  Know that I’m doing the same for every one of you and think about you all constantly.  Miss you and love you SO MUCH!