Reflections – One Peace Corps Year Later

For those of you keeping track, I’ve been in Peru a little over a year now. And since anniversaries seem to bring about reflection, I think this is as good a time as any for my 8^th blog post ever (sorry I am the WORST at keeping this up).

I can say unequivocally that this has been the most challenging experience of my life. Sometimes I find myself wrapped up in day-to-day frustrations: Yes, I shower out of a giant red rubber trash bin that collects dirt, human hair and skin, and worse; yes, I recently discovered that I eat heart valves and intestines on a weekly basis (originally thought to be seafood); yes, the daily street harassment from men in this country makes me black out with rage from time to time; and yes, I currently have an infestation of tiny white sand bugs covering every surface of my bedroom that won’t die no matter what I spray at them. But whatever. Add these things up and they still don’t come close to the good.

Peace Corps and Peru have given me so much that I have trouble defining exactly what it is. Which may be why it’s easier to talk about the bad sometimes – they’re tangible things (and usually funny). But this experience has changed my mind and changed me, for better or for worse. I have learned so much in this year – about Peru, about the world, about what it means to be a human, but most surprisingly to me, about myself.

My heart has been opened in ways I never thought possible (can y’all imagine me speaking this way 12 months ago?? Uh, no.). I’ve made friends here that will be part of my heart and soul forever. My host mom and 3 and 6 year old host nieces have taught me so much about unconditional love that it makes my heart hurt. I’ve been amazed by the capacity for human generosity and the resilience of the human spirit. I’ve been moved by people’s faith, by their support and compassion for their neighbors in times of hardship. They are barely getting by, yet will give you anything they have to help you buy medicine for your kids. They have very little food, yet they are desperate to share their pack of soda crackers with you.

I’ve realized and changed my mind on many things, big and small, including love, time, things I’m good at, things in which I am desperately lacking, the kind of person I want to be, and what makes people happy, among others. In all honesty, if you had asked me a year ago, I would have told you needing love in your life in order to be happy was a sign of weakness. If you couldn’t go it alone, then you weren’t a strong person. But after just one year in this place, I see how ridiculous that notion is. Love is it. And I think it might literally be what makes the world go 'round.

Being here, completely stripped of everything familiar, of any comfort and all distractions, and doing this kind of work has forced me to be honest with myself. It’s exposed me to things I’m passionate about (women’s lib, amiright?!). And now, more than ever, I know how lucky I am just to have been born in America. I know how lucky I am to have a family who has supported me and made it possible to do literally anything, to have friends who believe in me and help me keep it real.

I recently went home to visit the states and that trip was up there with the most wonderful two and a half weeks of my life. I couldn’t have asked for better, and it made me see very clearly how important the people I love are in my life. I was worried that it would be really hard to come back to Peru after so much love, comfort, fun, DELICIOUS food, and luxuriousness (1500 thread count Egyptian cotton?? I mean, come on!) And surely the transition wasn’t entirely smooth. God knows I miss spicy buffalo wings already, I wish I could use my iPhone to call my friends whenever I want, and I was exhausted for 3 full days after arriving in Peru. But coming back...not as hard as I thought. As much as I love America, as much as I love the people who live there, and look forward to going back eventually; it is not the place I’m meant to be right now. I am where I’m supposed to be. Living with whatever hardships I am supposed to live with to learn whatever lessons I am supposed to learn. I am lucky to be here.

This is not to say it’s all rainbows and sunshine. As anyone who talks to me on a daily basis knows, there are many times throughout any given day when I think someone could use a good punch in the face or all I can think about is how nice it would be to take a real shower or be able to eat a vegetable without fear. But when I take a step back and think about where this journey has taken me, I know it’s been worth it. Perspective. Peace Corps and Peru helped me learn that too.

I miss you all and love you so much.

Love,

Kimberly

I Love Fan.

Well, we made it to summer. And as the days get hotter and I spend more and more time lying perfectly still on my tile floor to try and stop sweating, I finally gave in and purchased a fan. And what a glorious purchase it has been. The fan purchase is often bewildering to our Peruvian families, but so is most of what we do so since there’s no way around it I say let your freak flag fly. Cut to me doing P90X Kenpo Karate in my room while they stare at me through my window like a panda misplaced in the reptile exhibit at the zoo.

I was told summer would be slow work wise because the kids are out of school, it’s really hot, and a lot of people are on vacation, but thankfully I have found a lot to keep me busy. I realize looking at my past posts I’ve never really written about what it is that I do for work. Part of that’s because it is constantly changing and part of it’s because a big part of our work is somewhat hard to define and can’t be categorized into activities. Just being here and living and working and sharing our lives with our communities is a big part of our job. Probably the best and hardest part.

BUT let’s talk about categorical activities: right now we’re in the midst of “Vacciones Útiles”, literally useful vacations. Wednesdays I teach a geography/culture class to elementary and middle schools students. We’ve each made our own passports and every week we visit a new country and learn about their culture, history, and art, eat their food, and listen to their music. Super adorable! I also have a radio show with two other volunteers every Wednesday morning at 7:15 am (which you can listen to online here www.radiolanortena.com if you’re up that early and want to learn tips for a healthy, happy home in Spanish!).

I’m teaching an English class to high school students on Thursdays and starting next week I’ll be teaching an exercise class for women and mothers on Mondays and a dance class for  4 – 8 year olds on Tuesdays. I’m really excited for both, especially the exercise class because my hope is that it will offer these women something they can do just for themselves. They spend their whole lives taking care of other people and tend to neglect their own needs. Plus it’s healthy! Which is good because more than half the adult population in my town is overweight, I think mostly due to a diet heavy on carbs and sugar.

I’ll do all of this until March when school starts again, when I will hopefully begin what I plan to be my main project for the year: a sexual health program with my health post for the two big public schools in my town. The rate of teen pregnancy in Monsefú is super high and the information on sexual health that they have access to is horrifyingly scarce slash inaccurate. So I’m hoping this program will help to address some of these and other issues. I’m working on getting the project going now but everything in Peru is a very long, superfluously documented process. I also hope to continue with the exercise and dance classes throughout the year. But it’s all a big maybe, ya know? That’s Peru.

Anyway, this is more of a nuts and bolts type post but it seemed silly to have given you no information whatsoever about my tangible work, so here it is! I miss you and love you all so much. Thank you to all my family and friends who have been so wonderful and supportive of me. I feel like I can’t say that enough. Lastly, I AM SO FRAKIN EXCITED FOR THE ARRIVAL OF DANIELLE ZURALOW AND BRITTANY RYAN IN TWO WEEKS!!!! I JUST HOPE I DON’T STROKE OUT FROM THE ANTICIPATION BEFORE THEY GET HERE!

Peace, Love, and Ceviche,

Kimberly

OH NO IT’S HAPPENED I’VE BECOME A MYSTICALLY INCLINED HIPPY

Apologies in advance for getting philosophical up in here, but I’m in the Peace Corps now so it’s an occupational hazard. But I’d like to take this moment to say how very GRATEFUL I am to my friends and family, in America and in Peru, and to the universe for putting me on the path to this experience. I know, I said grateful to the universe. I’m just a few hippy musings away from selling healing crystals and hemp bracelets out of the back of a van.

But back to philosophy… As I’ve said before, this experience is challenging in unexpected ways. With a few more months under my belt and in talking to other volunteers, I can say with a good deal of confidence that it’s the internal, not the external, struggle that is hard. The external struggle (i.e. no running water, complete lack of infrastructure, no barriers to the elements, weird food) might exasperate it, but it’s the internal one that’s powerful. It’s not whether or not it’s too difficult that we’re all struggling with, it’s whether or not it’s worthwhile. But I think that that’s true with all things we do in life.

I think it’s a question that’s at the foundation of our experience as humans. It’s the meaning of life question that we’re all dealing with in big and small ways everyday. But being in the Peace Corps gives you A LOT of time to think, and to think on this very question. You’re alone a lot and without the distractions of your “normal” life. So instead of pondering it on my drive home from work or after one of my friends makes a big life decision, this question has been in front of me all day every day jumping up and down screaming at the top of its lungs: WHAT ARE WE HERE FOR?! And upon further consideration…I still don’t know.

But what I do know is that I have had moments of tremendous clarity in these last few weeks. I’ve been reminded of what a wonderful opportunity it is to have an experience like this, how important the people I love are in my life, how we are all connected, and the beauty of the Peace Corps mission. It’s a mission about love and friendship and world peace, and not many organizations can say that. And it’s easier to lose sight of than you might think.

It’s harder for me to see the impact that I’m making on others, but I know for me personally, this experience has already helped me see more clearly my strengths and weaknesses, it’s made me braver, it’s helped me to rediscover the courage and adventure seeking that I’ve always had but may have been in remission in these last couple years.

Even with this clarity, though, I still panic every day over whether I’ll be able to really make a difference. I worry and I think: these are insurmountable problems, I’m just one person, maybe they don’t want my help, what can I give them, what if it’s all a waste… It’s very easy to go down this path and beat yourself up, and some days I do it a lot. But then I get a message from my aunt, my friend, my dad, my mom, telling me that what I’m doing has inspired them to do XYZ and it almost brings me to tears. And I’m not a crier, as some of you know. I think about my host nieces who’ve never been read to and now come into my room every day demanding to read The Giving Tree and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, maybe they’ll have an interest in books that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think about how my host family has started eating more fruits and vegetables because I do. Or how my host mom trusted me more than the doctor when they were suggesting surgery for her sick son. I think about how our job here is essentially to inspire people to make their own lives better. These things remind me how powerful it is to be a catalyst, for people here and at home. And I think, even if it’s just these things it will have been worth it.

As much as I hope to inspire people in my work here, I have been inspired and moved by others even more. Like the time I was in the market and an old lady selling avocados broke off a piece of the sugar cane she was eating and handed it to me with a big toothless smile just because she wanted me to have it, or when the entire church came over to my house and prayed on their knees on the stone ground in the rain for an hour and a half for the health of my host mom’s son, or when I was walking in the city with some of my host family and these tiny Peruvian women formed a circle around me because they were scared I might get robbed (turns out this fear is legitimate) and they wanted to guard me. Or when my host family threw me a birthday party with a special dinner and a hot pink cake with my name on it and decorations and speeches and dancing and a video montage of pictures of my face with captions like “Kimberly is the best” after knowing me for only three weeks.

I think about all of these things, and I realize how much more I know about myself and my perspective on the world and what it means to me, in just this short time. I might doubt myself and this choice 1,000 more times during my service – but in this moment, I am just grateful.

WHEW that was a lot. You must be exhausted. But to wrap up my philosophical rumination, this is a poem that a returned Peace Corps Volunteer wrote for the 50^th anniversary of Peace Corps in 2011. I hope you like it:

50 years of Peace Corps: A Message for soon to be Volunteers 

 

Peace Corps is a twenty-seven-month-long-commitment, 

little do you know, you are in it for life. 

  

 It all starts with that spark from someone, "Uncle Dave served in Peace Corps and he loved it", "Do you know they work in Thailand?" or the best and the most simple, "You would be great in the Peace Corps." 

  

 The highest compliment, the deepest calling. 

  

 And then the paper trail begins, blazing a path through a dense bureaucratic network of uploaded dreams and poorly stated ambitions. 

  

 We trace every spark believing that it will one day lead to a full fire of intention. 

 Really, it's your first endurance test, and it is not a smooth process-believe me. 

  

 When volunteers start, their minds are wrapped around 1,000 different words for help, 

...empower, assist, aid, facilitate, uplift, 

yet no idea how to use them in a sentence.  Let alone in life. 

  

 Yes, we open borders, but more importantly, minds and hearts. 

 Winning them, earning them with the skills of our training and the purity of our efforts. 

 This is something those who are new to the family realize, and eventually, eventually, 9-12 months eventually.. 

 You will go forth from this time, and this place, toting all that you can carry of your past life and loved ones. 

  

 And then, 

you serve. 

  

 Never, will you feel more alive - it will surprise you. 

  

 It is a progression of connection. 

 at first, you are in your head and it's 

 American, meets other.  

 Then you get more grounded, and 

 volunteer, meets villager or teacher, meets student.  

 And then, if you are lucky, the simplicity settles in, and it's 

 human meets human,

 heart to heart. 

  

 It's all right there.  It's tucked into the humble corners of each day.  

 Two years- will fly by.  

 Watch carefully or you might miss it. 

 Blink twice, 

 and it's gone.. 

  

 And then, 

 you will leave those same coveted, carefully packed objects turned artifacts in the fault lines of all your cultural earthquakes.

 And then, 

 you come back. 

 You are returned volunteers, never former, and you try to trace the patterns of home and you stumble, and get dizzy, and people from the place you once knew ask...

  

 How was Malawi?  Ecuador?  Mauritania?  Poland? 

 How was Nicaragua?  Mali?  Panama?  Vanuatu?  Romania?  How was Tanzania? 

 And what did you do there? 

  

 Well, 

 and you will pause. 

   

 I changed the world. 

 I changed myself.    

 It's been 50 years of sweat and smiles, moments and memories, adventure and admiration, respect and realization  and waiting and waiting and waiting,

It's been 50 years of imagination and inspiration. 

Fifty years on paper, but we are a part of so much more. 

We bring hope to the forgotten corners of the world, 

 and find peace at our core.    

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Love,

Kimberly

Is This Real Life?

I realize this is shallow but I’m just going to go ahead and say it…I MISS MY CLOTHES! What I wouldn’t do to be able to wear a denim vest or a pair of high-waisted neon spandex. Honestly, other than my friends and family I think it’s what I miss most from home. When I told my friend that the other day he said, “Well isn’t that liberating in a way?” and no, it’s not. My closet from my former life was a beautiful thing!

It’s funny the things that make you miss home, though. It’s never the things you think. That’s also true for the things that make this experience difficult. Everyone said that the transition from training to site was going to be the hardest part, and they were right. These last few weeks have been hard. But not for anything in particular that I can pinpoint and not for the reasons I would have assumed before I got here.

It’s not the running water for 3 hours a day or "showering" with cold buckets of water out of a giant rubber trash bin, those things you get used to. It’s not the daily ridiculous cat-calling and inappropriate behavior from men, although that has surely made me want to karate chop a stranger in the neck from time to time. It’s not even the fact that everything takes SO long to do here. Something like making copies that takes maximum 10 minutes to do in the United States turns into a whole day project in Peru.

I think it’s just the day-to-day existing in a culture that is completely different from yours. The differences are stark and subtle and I actually think it’s the subtle ones that have more of an impact. The difference in the attitude towards time, for example, I think is a big one for Americans.

The other day my friend Sam was frustrated with a meeting not starting on time at his site, which is basically a given here in Peru. A Peruvian told him not to worry about it because, “Time doesn’t exist.” To this he replied, “It does in America.”

I think that about sums it up right there.

Until next time! I LOVE YOU!

Love,

Kimberly

Headache? There’s an Egg for That

Last Sunday I told Margarita that I had a headache and my host sister promptly went out to the market to buy an egg. Cut to me 5 minutes later sitting at the dinner table while Margarita rubs a whole, un-cracked egg all over my head for 10 minutes straight. It was kind of like she was scrubbing my head with the egg, in quick back-and-forth movements creating friction.

First experience with Peruvian traditional medicine, check. They explained to me that the egg takes out the pain as you “pasar” it on whatever part of your body that hurts. Sometimes, if there’s a lot of pain, the egg will break afterwards because it’s absorbed so much. Sometimes you need more than one egg if it’s really bad.

They also do this with guinea pigs. If a person is really sick, they have a guinea pig run all over your body to absorb your pain. Sometimes the guinea pig dies afterwards if the sickness is really bad (fingers crossed it doesn’t come to this with me).

I gotta say, though, my head no longer hurts so don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it. I’d say this topic deserves it’s own entry. Until next time. LOVE YOU!

Un abrazo,

Kimberly

Wait, What Just Happened?

Welp, I’m really in it now. Been walkin’ around, lookin’ around and I. am. in it. All I’m saying is that this morning I went out back and on the same line on which we hang our laundry, I saw a filleted fish dangling amongst the newly washed shirts and socks. That’s all I’m saying.

I’ve been in my permanent site for a little over two weeks now and everything is new and different and weird and exciting. I have a new host family, and after just 2 weeks I can honestly say they are wonderful people and I feel so lucky to have been placed with such an amazing family. My host mom’s name is Margarita and she’s about 60 years old and an exceptional cook, which is extremely impressive given that she makes all of our meals on a teeny gas stove or out back in pots over coals or wood. She’s an artisan who weaves sombreros with her fingers, intricate, giant sombreros that take her 10 days to make. She is the sweetest lady ever, worries about me wherever I go and last night at dinner it was just her and me and she started crying while she told me how she never in her life imagined that she would have a person from another country living in her house and that she considered me part of her family and how much she hoped I would feel loved and comfortable here. My heart just about burst.

I also have a host sister, Lorena, and a host brother, Roberto, who live in the house and are around my age and have been so helpful in everything. There are few other brothers and sisters who live in town and come over all the time and have kids of their own, so I’ve got a lot of little baby nieces and nephews running around as well.

I’ve been working on getting my room set up and in doing so have had to do a lot of superhero activity, such as getting furniture back to my house via public transportation in a third world country and painting the 12-foot walls of my room using an old wooden ladder on a tile floor propped up against the weight of my bed keeping my fingers crossed that it didn’t slide out from under me while I painted the trim. Who does that? I do. The other day I assembled furniture with both hinges AND wheels. I am feeling extremely self-impressed. More to come on my house and life, I’ve got so much to tell! I’ll try to get pictures up of my house soon too so you can see my digs. Miss you all so much. Goooo America!

Love,

Kimberly

That's Not Chicken

Yesterday, there was an earthquake and I ate guinea pig for lunch...just another typical Sunday. Sorry I haven't been keeping up with blog updates, they've been keeping us so busy here I haven't been able to write! But I vow to be more diligent from here on out. But so BIG NEWS! I got my site assignment last week and I'm headed to the coast! I will be spending the next two years in Lambayeque, which is a department in northern Peru so it's going to be HOT. My town is called Monsefú and it's 32,000 people which is a big site so I'll have my work cut out for me. It's only 15 minutes from the beach and 15 minutes from the regional capital of Chiclayo, so basically I hit the jackpot. And therefore I'm expecting visitors, this means YOU. You can google map it if you want to see where I am in the world!

I'm actually going there for a site visit on Saturday. We take an all night bus from Lima for like 15 hours (totally normal here) and then arrive in Lambayeque to meet the people we will be living and working with for the next two years! I'm super excited and nervous to meet my new host family but they sound swell on paper. Should be an awesome and awkward time. I'll be only a three hour bus ride from my BFF Mandy's site which is basically like 20 minutes in Peru travel time so we're feeling pretty good about that. The post office here has been on strike for like ever (there's always someone on strike in Peru) so if you've sent me something and I haven't reported that I've got it that's why. SUPPOSEDLY they're going back to work on August 5th though so I'll get back to you on that. Oh also, I noticed there was an old man living in the room across from me in my house for the first time two days ago. I've been living here for two months. There are THAT many people living in this house. MISS AND LOVE YOU ALL!

Un abrazo,
Kimberly