Well… That Was Quick

So if you didn’t know by now, I have resigned from my assignment in the Peace Corps and moved on to a different chapter in my life. Although there are many reasons that I made this decision, I am going to try and outline the major reasons why I took this action.

1.Lack of Integration

This is the biggest reason why I failed to finish my two years of service with Peace Corps Perú. Perú is the first country that I had ever visited that wasn’t considered “first world”. I had experienced impoverished cities and areas, of course, in the United States and other places around the world, but none quite to the level or as quite as widespread as what I experienced here in Perú.

My first three months were in a suburb of Lima and I had a lot of the modern conveniences that I was used to: wi-fi, TV, running water, (some) paved streets. It wasn’t the same as the states (by far), but with a little bit of time it became familiar and the little things became part of the background. I then moved to my site, in July, which was supposed to have been my site for 2 years. Junín, Junín, Junín. Moving to Junín is when things started to become significantly more difficult for me. I went from living in a small neighborhood with 20 other Americans and seeing 60+ at training on a daily basis to seeing maybe one or two Americans a couple of times a week. I always considered myself a reserved person that enjoys being alone, but this was a type of alone that I had never experienced before. My Spanish level was rated at intermediate, but I was not able to effectively communicate with the people there. I was taught formal Spanish, but the people in my community spoke with many slang words and phrases. It also seemed like they exclusively used synonyms for every word that I had learned. Simple words like school, beer, and blue are translated to escuela, cerveza, and azul. These are the words that I had in my vocabulary. In Perú, school, beer, and blue (referring to eyes) translate to colegio, chela, and celeste. Never in my life, except for when I was an infant, had I not understand people or was not able to communicate my thoughts effectively. This was an extreme hindrance to my ability to integrate with people; if I can’t speak and be understood or listen and understand what they say, how am I supposed to relate to anyone?

What this led to was a gradual trend of the avoidance of people because I felt that it was pointless and the anxiety that it brought was not worth it. Over the six months that I was in site I eventually did start to understand basic things that my counterparts and host family would talk to me about, but that just led to more misunderstandings. When I told my host mom that I had been cooking my own food for ten years she literally laughed out loud at me because, “men don’t cook food”. Well at least in her world men didn’t cook food and it was very difficult to accept that and some of the other beliefs that were very prevalent in the small Andean town that I was trying to integrate myself into.

I learned that it’s a very complex issue to hold on to your own personal beliefs and still connect with others that might have 100% opposite values to that of yourself. All of these small aspects added up to be ultimately what was the biggest reason of my unhappiness/dissatisfaction/frustration/feeling of uselessness in the Peace Corps.

2.Rules

Rules are one of those things that I have a love/hate relationship with. I don’t mind having rules at all when I can clearly understand what they’re there for and how they make the system ultimately better. What I do mind is having rules forced upon me for reasons that I don’t accept as valid. In Peace Corps Peru, I feel like there are a lot of the latter.

When one signs up for the Peace Corps, they know that they will soon be “working” for the United States government and will be subject to the bureaucracy of Washington and our leaders. What I didn’t know was to what extent I was going to have to give up so much freedom in order to volunteer myself. I was/am naïve about helping the world and forgave many other opportunities in order to do what I thought would make the world a better place someway somehow, but in order to do that, one must regress in one’s life to when they were a child, rule speaking of course.

Peace Corps Peru has the disreputable title of being one of the more dangerous countries for volunteers. We have a lot of incidents that deal with rapes, theft, and other lesser petty crimes. Washington doesn’t like this and puts pressure on the PC Peru staff to get the numbers down. This, in turn, means that the volunteers here have more rules/less freedom than other countries might have. Add to that the grandness of how large Peru is and how spread out volunteers are and there are even more rules. What this led to was a feeling of breaking the rules even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong to begin with. Gossip about other volunteers gets around pretty quickly when you’re living in the Peruvian countryside  and we would hear about people getting kicked out for this reason or that person getting kicked out for that reason and what it led to was making volunteers want to communicate less with the staff.

Here is a short list of some of the rules:

1. No driving a car
2. No driving a motorcycle
3. No riding in a motorcycle
4. No leaving your department (kind of like a state)
5. No going to Lima
6. No visiting Piura even on vacation
7. No visiting Lambayeque even on vacation
8. No visiting Tumbes even on vacation
9. Living with a host family for entire 2 years
10. Texting whenever we leave our site

I could list many more, but I don’t want to bore you too much.

3. Living Circumstances

One doesn’t join the Peace Corps in order to live luxurious or high-class lives, but even though we all know that it’s going to take some adjustment to get used to, it’s still hard on most, if not all, volunteers. I’ve always thought of myself as being extremely low maintenance when it comes to lifestyle. In winter, I kept my apartment at a chilly 55 degrees and in the summer I kept it in the mid or upper 70s to conserve electricity and money. I also lived on busy highways in Knoxville, Seattle, and Miami so the noise wouldn’t be an issue. I had learned to adapt to whatever environment I was in at the moment.

Most buildings here are not built the same as they are in the US. Given the latitude that Peru is in, it is generally warm to hot all year, with the exception of the highlands. There are also a plethora of deserts along the coastline. With this combination, it isn’t completely necessary to have the houses or buildings 100% sealed from the outside. It’s not inherently a bad thing, but there are sometimes when you want to shut out the outside world and that option isn’t usually available here. My room in Chosica during training had a window missing and while thankfully there were no bugs or critters that crawled in (to my knowledge at least), there was an insane amount of noise from the street that continued at all hours of the day/night. I was routinely woken up by chickens crowing at 2:30 am or moto-taxis zipping around the corner until 3 in the morning. I slept with ear plugs every night, but the noise was so intense that it didn’t always help.

Once I moved to my house in Junín, I encountered a different set of challenges with my living circumstances. It’s high up in the Andes and only warm on its sunniest of days and frigid every single night. I’m talking about sub-0 temperatures on a nightly basis. When I showed up for the first month or so, my family was nice enough to have a bed ready for me so I wouldn’t have to buy one the first week or sleep on the floor, but the bed was, um, not adequate for my weight or height to say the least. The wooden beams holding up the pad that I slept on fell apart on me one night when I was sleeping. Talk about waking up freaked out! I also used roughly 7-8 blankets to stay warm and that usually wasn’t enough for me anyways. Peeing in the middle of the night is inconvenient normally, but here it was downright depressing to get out from the lukewarmth of my bed. One of the fellow volunteers gave me the tip to use hot water bottles under the blankets to help warm me at night: what a great idea! I starting using that and it was a lifesaver until one morning when I woke up and thought to myself, “hmm, my leg hurts…but I haven’t done anything…”. I pulled up my sweatpants leg and pulled down my knee high wool socks and discovered that I had two giant blisters on the side of my calves. WTF?! I had, at least, 2^nd degree burns that I had slept through. How is that even possible?

The combination of all of these things is what ultimately led me to decide that the Peace Corps just wasn’t for me.  It hasn’t all been bad though; I’ve met amazing people, seen amazing places, and learned more about this part of the world.

Now I have taken residence in the capital of Peru: Lima. I teach English in the city center and have found much more peace and happiness in my life. I don’t know exactly what the next step in my life is, but I’m excited to see where it takes me.

 

 

My Most Prized Possessions

As one can imagine, your life changes dramatically when you join the Peace Corps. You move to a new country and it is almost always extremely different from what you’re used to (except for the Peruvian/American Joel in our Peru 25 group), you speak a different language on a daily basis, you have to throw your used toilet paper in a trash can instead of flushing it, etc… They tell you that you will learn things about yourself that you don’t already know. I thought, “Hmm, I think I know myself pretty well after 27 years.” But it’s true! I’ve learned many new things about myself after my 7 months here in Peru.

The one thing that surprised me the most about myself is that noise affects me more than I thought it would. I’ve lived in large cities, been to deafening clubs and concerts, and been to many UT football games (specifically against our rivals) that the crowd singing Rocky Top after a touchdown or big play that I literally couldn’t even think because it was so loud. And the thing is, I had an absolute blast doing all of those things. The noise was exciting and fun. The difference that I’ve learned here in Peru is that there is a lot of noise like there is in the states, but unlike the states, it is impossible to escape.

There are so many stray dogs in the streets barking 24/7, mototaxis that are louder than lawn mowers zipping up and down the streets , fireworks going off randomly, local music (huayno) being constantly blasted that is impossible to get away from it. The buildings are usually built fairly basic which means that the walls are thin and do nothing to block the sounds away.

Every potential Peace Corps volunteer is given a basic checklist of things to bring with you when you finally move to your host country. They include all of the basic items you would think would be important: couple pairs of jeans, shorts, t-shirts, socks, undies, photos of your family, computer, camera, and other miscellaneous items that can fit into the few bags you’re allowed to bring. The one item that I am so fortunate that I brought with me is my headphones and earplugs. They are two basic items, but I don’t think I could have made it past the first week without either of them.

There is no way I could have slept without my ear plugs at night. I could still hear all of the dogs barking, mototaxis driving, and chickens crowing, but it at least allowed me to doze off still. The headphones cost me less than $100, but they are worth their weight in gold. As soon as I slip them on, my surroundings fade away and I’m transported into a completely different state of mind. I can listen to RATM to get pumped up, classical music to study, or whatever else I want to listen to depending on my mood. The headphones let me pick my mood instead of it being dictated by whatever is going on around me.

I’ve taken so many 8+ hour bus rides that I literally don’t know what I would have done without my trusty headphones. What some people like to do is get on the bus as a passenger and then once the bus starts going, they stand up in the front of the bus and talk about how great some product is that they’re selling. They don’t just try to sell it, they talk for over an hour about the benefits of whatever it is they’re selling to convince you that you can’t live without it and then sell it to you. That is literally the last thing I want to hear as I’m sitting on a hot, smelly bus.

I’m so glad that I invested in comfortable headphones and earplugs or I would probably be writing this from the states.

Junín: A Land of Opposite Extremes

Junín. Junín is a state of two extremes. On one hand you have extreme altitude sierra, on the other hand you have straight up jungle (or selva for you Spanish speakers). When I went on my site visit and for the first couple of weeks in site, I only knew the sierra. My site is at 4,100m (13,400ft) and at that altitude I learned that life is quite different. There are things that I never thought would happen, but do almost on a daily basis.

1. I get out of breath frequently. Even with my athletic background, a simple set of stairs can stop me in my tracks. It’s humbling to feel like such a slug. It feels like I’ve been a smoker for 50 years or so the way I feel here.
2. It doesn’t rain, it hails. At this altitude, one (at least I did) would think that there would be an abundance of snow, but there is none. I at least haven’t seen any and this is supposedly the coldest month of the year here in the southern hemisphere. The clouds will roll in in the mid afternoon and just start pelting you with ice. There has only been one day when it was an actual storm with thunder and lightning and all that jazz, but it’s just annoying since you get wet and it’s already cold without being wet.
3. Nighttime is when the cold really sets in. It’s not any colder than it is in the United States in winter: the only difference is that they don’t have heating of any sort here. It’s almost like continuous winter camping. I’ve gotten used to it little by little by now, but that first week consisted of waking up mid-night gasping for breath and then the cold setting in. The south, and Knoxville, TN specifically, had a pretty bad ice storm this past winter in February. The power at my apartment went out for over 2 days and it was about 32 degrees inside. It seemed like I was “roughing it” and they had emergency announcements all over the radio and TV warning people to stay warm during the power outage. Well now I live in that exact situation and no one blinks an eye at the weather or temperature. Weird.

I went to the selva for the first time with my site-mates in early August and I couldn’t believe how stark different it was compared to my new life that I had just discovered. It’s about two hours away by car or bus and what a difference that two hours make. We go from 4,100m to about ~950m in the cities of San Ramon or La Merced. Being so close to the equator and at that lower elevation leads to high temps year round, lots of sun, and an amazing break for us Peace Corps volunteers stationed in Junín.

In the program of Peace Corps Peru, we have a rule set in place that once a month, if we so choose to, we can take a 3 day 2 nights leave and visit somewhere within a 10 hour radius. For us Junín volunteers, that essentially means that we can go east to the jungle or west to Lima. I know Lima holds a lot of positive aspects, but at this point of my service I’ve seen way more of the big city Lima and less of the selva.

Back to the selva, I can’t describe in words how amazing it is to feel a waterfall beat down on you from over 100ft in the Amazon jungle. When I found out that I was going to Junín for two years, the selva never really made a big impact on my thoughts. I was very ignorant. I was so happily surprised to find out that I had this amazing area essentially in my backyard.

Even the people are very different from my sierra site. Here is a normally dressed woman from Junín mismo.

And here are normally dressed people from San Ramon.

It’s not just the dress of the people that are different, it’s their personality and cultural differences that make it that much more different.

I’ll finish this post with a slew of photos of myself and my department-mates enjoying all that the selva has to offer.

For everyone reading this that isn’t in Peru, if you come and visit me I now have another weapon in my arsenal besides Machu Picchu. You can visit the highest Peace Corps volunteer in the world, visit the Amazon rainforest, and see one of the modern 7 wonders of the world. Sounds enticing right? 😉

My Site For 2 Years: Junín, Junín

After much anticipation during the last year and a half and especially the last couple of months, I have found out where I am going to be living for the next two years! Site selection was on Wednesday of week 5 of training and it was one of the most exciting days for all of us trainees. Everyone was speculating on where they thought they were going to go. Some people seemed pretty confident while others didn’t seem to care so much. My requests to Alfredo Gutierrez (the business program manager) were that I wanted a high altitude sierra site with internet access. I know that this is the Peace Corps and that I shouldn’t expect or be so concerned with luxuries like the internet, but if it’s a possibility I would greatly appreciate being connected to the outside world and being able to share photos and info (like this blog that you’re reading right now!).

It came time to start announcing all of the sites. They started off by departments alphabetically. The departments for all of the programs in our group are: Amazonas, Ancash, Cajamarca, Junín, La Libertad, Lambayeque, and Piura. The business program doesn’t go to Amazonas or Ancash, but I was still excited to see where everyone was going so I could make excuses to go visit and see a new part of Peru. I had thoughts that I was either going to go to Cajamarca or Junín based on what hints I thought I had picked up on during FBT (field based training) and talking to Alfredo and Mike (our business PCVL). Once they went through all of the Cajamarca sites and my name wasn’t called I was pretty sure where I was going…

Before they started calling out the Junín sites, Dawn (the 2^nd in command for Peace Corps Peru) told everyone that the next site would be the highest Peace Corps site in the entire world at 4,100 meters or 13,450 ft. 20 seconds after she said that, I heard my name called. I was so happy to finally know where I was going to live and to know that I will always be able to say that I lived higher than most mountain peaks in the states!

After everyone discovered where they were placed, we had meetings with everyone in our department and talked about family specifics, town specifics, and other details. There are only 7 of us going to Junín which makes us a small group compared to the others, but Junín is already small so they will essentially be doubling the amount of volunteers there now.

Fast forward to week 9 of training.

This is the week when we get to go visit our socios, family, and town. It essentially is an introduction to what your life will be like for the next two years. Other trainees seemed to be rather nervous, but I am excited to see what my future life has to hold. I was very optimistic and it turned out that my gut feeling was right.

Junín is extremely beautiful! My family is extremely excited to have a gringo live in their house and share cultures and languages. My socios (work partners) are all three very down to Earth and excited to have me to work with. I’ll be working on the 3 goals of the Community Economic Development program of the Peace Corps, but I’ll also be working specifically in the office of tourism in the municipality and with SERNANP on eco-tourism. It’ll sort of be a blend of a business volunteer and an environmental volunteer which I am totally fine with.

I spent most of the week being toted around the area and shown Lake Junín (lago chinchaycocha), a rock forest (el bosque de pierdras), and Chacamarca (a battlefield monument signifying a battle between the Spaniards and Peruvians). It was extremely fun to travel so much every day, but also very tiring at the same time. Living at this high of elevation does some strange things to your body. The first thing I noticed was my breathing: I never think about it on a daily basis until you don’t have the same amount of oxygen. I’ll get used to that after a couple of months in site. Another thing I noticed (others were having the same problem) is that I had constant farts for the first 3 days or so. I was lucky to not have any other issues, but others were not as lucky.

All in all, I’m very happy to have been selected to Junín and I’m excited to share what I know with the people there and to learn as much as I can from the people there.

Field Based Training

So our fifth week of Pre-Service Training was a trip to a different department to get our first taste of what service will be like. Our group of 10 people were selected to go to the city of Huamachuco in the sierra of the department La Libertad. Overall, I loved seeing the mountains of Peru. When I think of this country, I immediately think of the Andes first and foremost.

The Andes did not disappoint. Huamachuco is a city of ~65,000 people at an elevation of ~10,400 ft. Upon arrival, I immediately felt the effects of the travel and altitude. We left our neighborhood around 6:30 p.m. on Saturday evening and we arrived at our site approximately at 2:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon. We had one overnight bus that was pretty luxurious and another bus that took us up into the mountain. Quickly after we got outside of the city of Trujillo, the fog/smog/clouds broke and we had clear skies the entire week. It was so gorgeous! I came to the conclusion that coastal cities = dirty and sierra sites = clean.

Our practicum for the week was a program called, “Somos Emprenedores, Somos Peru” which translates to “We Are Entrepreneurs, We Are Peru”. It’s a program designed to teach anyone how to to successfully think of, design, and write a full business plan. We had went through the entire program ourselves in the weeks before, but it was rather hasty and we didn’t know it enough to really teach it well. It is also designed into 15 sections that each take a week. We had to condense 15 weeks into 3 days. *cue mild panic attack* It was to be broken into 3, 3 hour sessions. *now I’m starting to sweat* It is also completely in Spanish and our students are at the university level. *I think I might vomit*

It turned out to be much better than I initially thought it would be. Our could quickly tell that my Spanish level wasn’t up to par, but my willingness to make an idiot out of myself and laugh with them won them over I think. I also was paired with a native Spanish speaker so thank you Joel for letting me heavily rely on you. Out of 10 (I think) groups, our group won the competition for most profitible! We were very proud of our group of girls that sold chocolate-dipped bananas.

One of the challenges added to this week was that we were a pilot program for living with host families during our training week. The family was extremely nice and I enjoyed having someone help me with my cultural integration and language, but the amenities were less than I have grown accustumed to even in my other house in Yanacoto. My room came equipped with a bed. That’s it. We didn’t have running water. I can imagine that the house is going to be nice when it’s finished, but it is in the middle of construction and it made the entire week that much more… interesting.

We capped off our busy week with two days of “immersion” days which were really fun. We were able to tour ancient ruins called Marcahuamachuco and spend a few hours in a natural hot springs in the middle of giant mountains. It was exactly what we needed to relax some and prepare for our day of travel back to Lima.

I want to thank all of the volunteers that helped out and made our time in site so much better. I can’t wait to visit Huamachuco once I have some free time during my service.

The Winning Product!

He definitely didn’t want this picture taken, haha.

Trip to Lima

The time to explore has finally arrived! I technically have already been to Lima since that is where we landed at the airport, but it was so late and I saw absolutely nothing that this was practically our first trip there. This Saturday we were whisked away on a few combis (mini buses) to explore the Government Palace and a few other sites before being released to explore the city on our own.

One day definitely isn’t enough time to get to see all of what this 9 million + city has to offer, but it was good to be in the hustle and bustle of a big city.

She had to touch every single thing made out of Alpaca.

I was trying to have some fun while we were touring a monastery.

I can always appreciate a good collection of street art.

Even though they thought my camera deemed me a “tourist”, I still took a photo of them.

Alex is sticking with American puritan values.

I’m not sure why, but Orlando likes to do handstands in front of famous buildings.

San Bartolome y El Mercado

I told him to smile and this is what he does…

This is at the very bottom of our hill in our neighborhood of Yanacoto.

Selfie

We were blinded by the sun after many days in the fog of Chaclacayo.

So many vivid colors at the market.

Some fresh fish.

*Deep breath*

This little girl was just too cute not to take a picture of.

Need some meat?

A view of my neighborhood.

Corre!

The school in San Bartolome where we spoke with and interviewed some kids.

This woman carries around lots of little knick knacks and sells them to people in the market.

Muchos frutos.

My host brother Fabian eating a little shot of Jello.

My new Argentine friend, Sebastian.

This is what you get with the rare non-foggy morning outside of my window.

My partners soaking in some view.

Sebastian makes jewelry and sells it on the street corner in Chosica.

Tag! You’re it!

This Combi ride to San Bartolome was so cramped.

My favorite view of Peru so far.

These little kids were having so much fun playing with a ball with each other.

Training Has Commenced

I have officially been in the Peace Corps first real training for one week now. It has been full of ups and downs already, but it has been exciting nonetheless. They continuously tell us not to compare our experiences here to our experiences back in the USA, to other volunteers here in Peru, or other Peace Corps volunteers in other countries. But that’s what I did ALL the time back when I was a competitive runner.

How did you place? What was your time? Which workout did you do? What was your pace? Well on that course I ran a ??:?? so it’s harder / easier than other courses.

I realize that it’s not the best thing to do in this specific situation, but I’m going to try to convey some of the very positive parts of my service/training so far and then, how shall I say, unique challenges that I’ve faced.

Positive

The people that I have met so far really are some of the coolest, most open-minded, smartest, and nicest people that I’ve ever been around. And all in one group! I’m used to having to explain myself to a lot of people in the past. I have to defend my position on most subjects controversial or not, but the other volunteers here seem to have very similar viewpoints to my own and I love that. They have decided to do the exact same thing in their life at the same exact time of their life and I’m sure that I’m going to make some life-long friends out of this ordeal.

The Peruvian people that I’ve met so far all seem to be very welcoming as well. My host family is great. They are patient with my Spanish, my need to re-charge my battery alone in my room, my weird eating habits, etc… This is the first time that they have hosted a volunteer so everything that I do, they think that is what every American does. They have met a few other volunteers that came over to pick me up for a run and everyone was 6’0″ or taller. They now think that all Americans are white, tall, and tattooed. That’s not such a bad stereotype right? They even took a picture to commemorate that one time that they had 4 gringos in their house.

Even though I still feel very lost when it comes to my language skills, I do feel like I have improved quite a bit since my arrival. I even have those few moments where I think, “Wow, this whole Spanish thing is starting to sink in.” Sadly, it’s usually followed up by a semi-depressed state after my next conversation when I don’t understand anything. C’est la vie…

Challenges

The Peace Corps staff warned us that after the retreat we probably wouldn’t have access to hot or even warm water without having to boil it on the stove first. “No big deal”, I thought. Well, I was right. It’s not the most comfortable thing, but it’s not the worst. I am also lucky enough to have wi-fi in my house. That’s posh by Peace Corps standards. What they didn’t really warn us about is actually what I dislike the most…

The noise.

So many dogs. So many chickens. So many moto-taxis. They are all so loud. I fall asleep with earplugs in and yet I’m still woken up daily by the go-cart like noise of the moto-taxis, dogs barking all throughout the night, and chickens that crow at 3:30 a.m. every. single. day. I hope that I can get used to this noise as even living on Kingston Pike didn’t prepare me for this level of constant decibels.

If noise is really the worst thing that I encounter, I’ll count my blessings. Until then, I’ll just keep on trying to learn Español (more like spanglish) and take one day at a time.

Mi Casa

This door really isn’t that narrow; it’s an optical illusion. In real life, it’s actually much more narrow.

Gotta remember the homeland.

All of my few clothes fit easily into this.

My modest computer desk set-up. Quite a ways off from my 24″ desktop…

My wrists have never hurt so much in my life.

Yes, this is a close up of my underwear. You’re welcome.

Where I washed all of my clothes.

My host brother loves to instigate fights between the cat and dog. He thinks it’s hilarious.

Finally in Perú!

It’s here. The day has finally came when all of the planning stopped and the actual travelling started. I’ve said goodbye to all of my loved ones, spent many hours packing my bags, gorged myself on delicious greasy pizza, and everything else that would prepare me for an extended trip away from my homeland. Now I have to essentially go non-stop from Knoxville, to Washington D.C., to Houston, TX, and finally arrive in Lima. Piece of cake right? Well, practically yes, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t completely drained when I arrived here.

Washington D.C. is the city that we all flew to to meet up and have our staging date. We came from all over the U.S.A. and trickled in over the course of two days. We had a few meetings, talked about expectations, and bonded over some delicious Indian food for dinner. Our group seemed to be an incredibly diverse group of people and I had a blast meeting as many as I could that first day. We had a long day of travel starting early the next morning so we tried to get to bed early that first night in Georgetown.

Waking up and not wanting to get out of bed, I reminded myself, “Ryan, get your ass out of bed! You’re moving to a new country today! Get excited!”. I was right, I quickly rolled out of bed and started re-packing. We were to meet in the hotel lobby at 7 a.m. and go back to the airport to depart around 12 p.m. Like any big group does, we had to wait around a lot and try to keep our nerves calm. We eventually make our way to our plane and thankfully have a safe flight to Houston. I was ecstatic to switch with another volunteer and sit next to the window. I always seem to become almost childlike with my gazing out the window and thinking about how crazy it really is to fly 35,000 ft in the air at over 500 mph. It also lends itself to some great photos.

After arriving in Houston, we had a short layover to get a last American meal in, talk to family on the phone, or whatever we wanted to do. Our flight lasted 6.5 hours and was more than twice as long as our first flight of the day. It was a much larger plane and seemed to have less turbulence because of that, which I was quite happy about. We finally landed around 11 p.m. local time, all very tired. After waiting around to go through immigration and customs, which always takes much longer than you think it should, we met some current Peace Corps volunteers and staff waiting for us. I had no idea that they were going to be there. I had heard some people screaming and cheering and made a comment to another volunteer that I was walking with that “those screams are for us. ha. ha.”. Well we get out of the last door, they see our Peace Corps shirts, and they start screaming like crazy for me. Shit. I’m not ready for this quite yet, I feel like I could fall over at any moment from sheer exhaustion, but I quickly snap out of it and start giving high fives, shaking hands, and conversing in broken English and Spanish. Things just got real.

After introductions, we were whisked off to a bus waiting for us and we started our excursion to our retreat where we were going to spend the next few days. It was about an hour and a half away from Lima, but I’m sure everyone passed out on the bus. The retreat consisted of more in depth meetings with our program leaders, country administration, and other important people we would be interacting and working with over the next two years. We also finally had some free time to play some games, throw around a rugby ball like it was a football, do some yoga… essentially just be able to get to know each other in a much less formal atmosphere.

It’s been a lot of fun so far, but the next big step is meeting our host family this coming Sunday morning. We’ll be living with that family for the first three months while in training and I couldn’t be more excited.