love | perusing peru...

09/09/2013

love

i’m on my way.

there are very few experiences in life where we can consciously note that they are profound and changing us, while we are simultaneously experiencing them. that is what peace corps has been for me. for the past 15 months, i have had one of the most incredible life-changing experiences. i arrived to a country not being able to express myself in the local language, with exception of two key phrases, and now i have spent the past week expressing with deep and emotional thought my feelings and gratitude to my community, family and friends.

i recall a charla during training about how individual each peace corps experience is for each person, and that for some their service is only two or three months, others it’s two years and for others it may be three, and in the past month or so i have come to realize my length of time for my service is 15 months. during my time in peru, i have learned a new language, a new way to love, how to serve, created lasting friendships with both volunteers and people in my community, and created a new peruvian family. i, my friends, am the luckiest. i fell in love with an ancient culture, and talk about it with pride as though it were my own. my views on the world have been turned upside down, and i love the new view. i feel so enriched, and hope that i can continue to carry all that i have come to learn with me always. i have given 1000% of myself, and as my projects have come to a natural end, so has my time in peru. i have come and experienced all that i set out to experience, and now i am leaving this country more in love with it than i did when i arrived. i am changed. and i am grateful.

so, i leave the dust bowl of peru with my eyes full of tears (not because of the dust irritation in my eyes), and with a full heart, and i take that as a sign of a service well-served. i am sad as this chapter is coming to a close, but also so excited for the next chapter that awaits…whatever that is. i am forever indebted to the people of tucume, to this country and to my fellow volunteers, who truly made this a transformative experience for me. peace and love. peace and love.

see you soon u.s.a.

02/09/2013

pause.

mike and i both took a pause from our schedules, and we spent 4 days in lima together! hooray! but really, i am just grateful that he was willing to travel all the way down to peru for just 4 short days…which flew by way too fast. we had a blast! we stayed in a condo with an ocean-view in miraflores, walked around town a lot, went bowling, explored barranco, finally visited the ministerio de cultura to visit the shining path exhibit, ate ceviche, and drank plenty of chicha morada. we had another grand finale feast at another top restaurant in peru, this time at central restaurante. it was named as one of the 2013 top 50 restaurants in the world, and the number one overall restaurant in peru. honestly, it was incredible. personally, i thought it was better than astrid y gaston, because they paid attention to every final detail, including the presentation. i still find myself salivating over all of our dishes…mmmmmm…

enoying the ocean-view from our balcony.

exploring barranco.

one of these things is not like the others.

enjoying the plaza in barranco.

the ministerio de cultura.

i asked mike to feel how soft my hair is, and this is how he responded…so romantic…

i had a really hard time with the front door to our condo building…as in it intimidated me…but seriously, it was HUGE!

i had such an incredible time with him, and now i have reacomstombrared myself with the life in the norte. it’s tan caliente right now, and i am counting down the days until we get to see each other again!!!

Tagged lima, long distance relationship, love, peace corps, peace corps volunteer, peru, vacation

03/08/2013

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adventure, family, food, happiness, la libertad, lambayeque, love, madre de dios, relax, rio tambopata, selva, túcume, vacation

la gran experiencia!

the fancy hotel room that lan put us in when our first delayed flight caused us to miss our connecting one.

my gran came to visit!!!! hold on. i am going to repeat that for you, so it can sink in: MY GRAN CAME TO VISIT!!!!!!! and my goodness, did she have quite the experience! before coming to visit me, she spent 2 weeks traveling with another tour group that went to cusco, machu picchu, puno, and bolivia! then she headed up north to the coastal desert, where we hung out. she attended my classes and meetings with me. in fact, i think she got as close as one can get to having the “peace corps experience.” we stayed at my house, and she slept in my bed, and i made use of the tile floor. we hung out with my family and friends, and she became the local celebrity. we also took the time to see some of the local sites out here, since my region is rich in history and filled with archeological sites.

enjoying her first ceviche!

breakfast with mi familia.

enjoying the pyramid ruins in tucume.

another cute photo with my family.

loving the museo de tumbes reales.

we then took a day trip to trujillo, where we visited the ruins of chan chan and also, took time to walk around the city and, of course, ate delicious food!

enjoying the ruins at chan chan.

the view of the plaza.

just a couple of gals taking over trujillo!

after taking over the coast, we then traveled to a region in the south eastern part of the country, madre de dios. we stayed at a couple of lodges on the rio tambopata in the amazon rainforest basin. we were just tucked away in one of the few untouched parts of the amazon rainforest, and we were just a stone’s throw from puno and bolivia. needless to say, it was one of the most incredible vacations i have ever been on. we saw more than 70+ species while we were there, and saw various types of ecosystems. if you ever have a chance to travel there, i highly recommend it!

gran is all ready for the 3 hour boat ride to our first lodge!

enjoying our boat ride!

our incredible room at refugio. it was extremely relaxing, so much so that i ended up reading 4 books while on vacation! yes, please.

birdwatching with our guide.

oxbow lake.

a log covered in bats.

with a kepok tree.

i used a machete to break open a brazilian nut and it only took me 3 tries!!!

i love this picture. i asked our guide what a certain fruit was and before he even finished to say whether or not it was edible, gran decided to go ahead and pop a seed into her mouth. the seeds are actually used for dyes and paint because of it’s brilliant color. gran is modeling it on her lips.

the fruit in question.

we eventually headed 4 more hours down the river to stay at the tambopata research center. it was one of the most incredible places i have been to. it was so tranquil and beautiful. on our boat ride there, there was quite the rain storm brewing.

our room at the research center.

the research center focuses its studies on the macaws, specifically the macaw clay licks. in the amazon, much of the wildlife feeds off the clay, which is unique to only this region. when the center first started, they handfed some macaws that were abandoned by their mothers. as a result, many of those macaws still visit and pass time at the center.

enjoying a muddy hike!

parrots and macaws feeding on the clay.

fashion queen! but seriously.

enjoying the view of puno.

honestly. the best part of the entire vacation was getting to spend time with my gran. she is incredible and vivacious and i hope that i have inherited her good health. but really. i have always had a close relationship with my gran, so i am so glad that we were able to have a chance to share this time together, and also that she was able to see the life that i have forged for myself here. love her. and miss her.

Tagged ancient burial grounds, animals, coastal desert, environment, nature, outdoors, peace corps, peace corps experience, peace corps volunteer, peru, travel

30/05/2013

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adventure, artisans, birthday, campo, caserios, family, friendship, happenings, happiness, home, love, mp, pyramids, sex ed, túcume, update, vacation, youth group

the great may escape.

goodness gracious. my, oh, my how time has escaped us…or really just me.

after celebrating the most incredible peruvian birthday, i hopped on a plane to visit friends and family in the us. i was overwhelmed in general, but also by the love of those closest to me. bu seriously, i was pretty overwhelmed culturally as well. being in the peace corps, you get so used to a certain pace of life, a very slow one, and also that about 90% of your time is spent independent of all other americans and in solitude in your country’s culture. another 5% is spent with any volunteer that may be near you, who you may see with varying frequency (once a week or once every month or so depending on schedules). and the final 5% is with other volunteers once or twice month, who are all living the same life of solitude as you, so really we are pretty not self-aware of how strangely awkward we have become. so, to put me in a situation where i was constantly interacting with people, by the end of the 3rd day in a row, i slept for almost a full 24 hours to catch up. though, i am not complaining. it was so wonderful to see all of my family. and i am so blessed that my brother and close friend both flew in from nyc to see me.

it was especially nice to get to spend time with mp, who was my main reason to visit the us. when mp last left, we went to cusco and lima, and now it was my turn to pay him a visit. though, he kept me quite busy and even gave me a second birthday surprise! he coordinated with a local animal sanctuary to do an at-home visit with a SLOTH and FENNEC FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think it should also be noted that i got my hair cut for the first time in almost a year, and saw it straightened and cleaned, and i felt like a new woman. but obviously with the animals above i was on another level of excitement that was out of this world. eventually all good (read: great) things have to come to an end, and a very reluctant to leave girl was pushed on to her plane by an amazing mp to return to peru.

i arrived back to peru in one piece, and had a few days in site to remind everyone that i was still here and wanting to work, and also coordinate and prepare for our PEPFAR (president’s emergency plan for aids relief) training. with this training, my socia and i were able to take away a number of great new resources and statistics to share with our community, and now have the opportunity to receive aid money for our project.

doris and i after she received her certificate of completion!

the following week, we jump started our 6 classes of our sex ed leadership training program, but unfortunately later that week, she received news that she was being transfered to another post far from my site, so now i am still spearheading this training, but more so solo-style, since my health post is dramatically understaffed, and have them help out when it needed. but if anything, this motivates me even more to get my youth promoters trained, so they then can be doing this part and alleviate some of the stress from the health post as well.

i have been terrible about using my camera lately, so i will succinctly describe the other activities that have been keeping me quite busy:

i have been giving business charlas to the artisans, and helping them figure out what the costs of their products are and how to determine what they should be setting as their prices. and goodness, they were in need of this. one artisan had been selling these beautifully embroidered bread covers for only 10 soles, when the cost alone to make them was 35 soles.
6 classes of pasos a week keeps a girl busy. let’s just leave it at that.
i have been working with my youth leadership council (ADEPZORT) on helping them with their community diagnostic. we have been visiting the most rural caserios and my goodness, you never get used to seeing the amount of poverty that exists in this country, or in any country, but you can’t help but want to give so many more opportunities to these people.
celebrated dia internacional de los museos with other volunteers, and finally visited my museum’s pyramids.
weekly youth group meetings with my mochumi young women’s group.
coordinating a 5-pueblo job fair for september
coordinating an environmental awareness event with my colegio for next week.
working on a website for the artisans
working on a video for the museum
and of course, camp ALMA!!!!!!!!!!! (which will be covered in it’s own post)

so i have been busy, busy girl and for that i am grateful. i have also been able to watch all of the new arrested development…superb! as a parting gift, here is a picture from the top of one of my pyramids:

Tagged ancient burial grounds, animals, birthday, birthday surprise, caserios, community, community service, culture, environment, fennec fox, fox, foxes, health post, home, nature, outdoors, peace corps, people, peru, poverty, school, sloths, travel, tucume, vacation

23/04/2013

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birthday, earth day, family, friendship, happenings, love

(b)earth day.

where to even start? yesterday was an incredible (and long) day, and i felt love from all over the world. a birthday is quite the holiday in peru. in fact, legally, people are free from all work for the day…unless you are a peace corps volunteer.

it all started the night before where mp presented me a video of all those i love and have loved throughout my life wishing me a happy birthday. there were friends from high school, college and beyond, and people fro seattle, nyc, boston, utah, all over texas and everywhere in between. within seconds of seeing hans dialing the phone (the opening shot of the video), i was left in tears. tears of feeling so much love from back home. for those four minutes, the usa and all those i love there no longer seemed so far away. it was the best way to start the day.

samia barged into my room to show off her new brigadir uniform, which then followed with my host mom running in to hug me and sing happy birthday to me. i then worked on finalizing the details of my earth day event for the morning, and i learned with about 10 minutes in advance that the ong that was coming to speak about reforestation in the bosque was not going to make it…so i had 10 minutes to come up with an hour-long charla about the environment.

luckily, you learn to get pretty creative on the fly in peace corps. additionally, i was greeted with 70 students at my colegio singing happy birthday to me!

say, what?!

for the charla, i had an environmental youtube video i showed, then spent 30 minutes rambling about the ecosystem and reforestation. i also had us play a game outside…which went…well…let’s just say i was able to tie it all back in.

afterwards, we planned a pasacalle in conjunction with the primeria, and my students followed behind and cleaned up trash on the streets, while the primary kids, ironically, used more resources to look cute in earth day costumes and posters…and was burning trash to show the consequences of doing so…i still haven’t figured that one out yet…

me with some of my alumnos ready to pick up the litter!

me with some of my alumnas ready to pick up the litter!

blanca with her cutiepatootie students!

seriously. i don’t get the burning things to make a point act, but it’s peru…so it does kind of make sense…

taking over the pan-american highway…it’s what we do best.

you know, if one’s peace corps service was determined by the number of pasacalles one does…then i would be the pcv all-star…only because my site loves them, and is pretty reluctant to try something else…pero poco a poco we will see what we can do about that…

after an exhausting morning of corralling the alumnos around town and cleaning the streets, i came home and watched samia all afternoon. and she really demonstrated what it means to be four…tears…all day…for no reason…well, honestly, it was because she was exhausted, but i felt the consequences of that. for 3 1/2 hours straight it was just tears. at about the 2 hour mark it just became impressive.

also, our pesky chanchito has gotten bigger, stronger and smarter and keeps escaping. so i had to run after him a couple of times yesterday and redo his stake in the ground, which resulted him in getting his piggy-ness all over me…gross…

hammering the stake back into the ground…he was too close for my liking…

later that evening my family returned home, and they surprised me with my favorite meal: pollo a la brasa and of course, some birthday cake!

mi mama, yo y samia!

millie did such a great job on picking out the cake

i gave samia the reigns on my camera. i look like a giant in a 4-year-old’s eyes…not complaining…

the johnsons wished me an extra special birthday with a special blog post on cat’s website. it still makes me smile!

later, i went to mochumi to visit with my branch president. sunday, after church, a lady there randomly asked me when my birthday was and so i responded with “tomorrow.” this caused my branch president to run after me in the street and invite me back the chapel the next day for “something.” i figured it was going to be cake, and when i was walking up i could here some of the kids say “ella viene!, ella viene!” but then the lights went out and it was just my branch president. he then proceeded to pretend to “interview” me/have a birthday chat. we then went downstairs, and they hit the lights, and i was greeted by everyone in my branch for a surprise party. it was great! there was a saxophone. and decorations. it was the best. they made me dance in the middle with every male in the room (per tradition). they pushed my face into my cake (per peruvian tradition). we danced to the saxophone some cumbia, huayno and marinera. everyone gave some palabras (per peruvian custom).

my branch president and family. love these people so much.

listening to the wonderful words of people in my branch.

danixa giving her palabras.

seriously. love this girl.

lourdes, jasmin and their sister. some of the girls i work with.

making my wish and getting ready to blow out my candle…

lucho wanted me to play his saxophone in our picture. seriously. this man has some great talent.

not an awkward picture with the elders. ha.

the leftovers.

it was just so incredible. my heart was so full. in fact, it is still so full of all the outpouring of love i received yesterday. i wish i could stress just how small the world felt yesterday, because i truly felt love from all those all around the world. i have been less than enthused about turning 28 (for the first time in my life i feel old…), but i couldn’t have had a better day…including the chasing down our pig. also, i realized that birthdays are really just days to celebrate your relationship with all of those around you in your life, and i am grateful that i was able to do so!

peru. i fell more in love with you yesterday. every one else, thank you for making me feel so loved and cared for. i am so blessed.

Tagged birthday, birthday cake, church, community, culture, earth day, environment, family, food, home, host mom, love, nature, outdoors, parade, peace corps, peace corps volunteer, people, peru, pig, tucume

perusing peru…

…through the eyes of a peace corps volunteer.

Category Archives: love

i’m on my way.

pause.

la gran experiencia!

the great may escape.

(b)earth day.

perusing peru…

…through the eyes of a peace corps volunteer.

Category Archives: love

i’m on my way.

yes. please.

Like this:

pause.

yes. please.

Like this:

la gran experiencia!

yes. please.

Like this:

the great may escape.

yes. please.

Like this:

(b)earth day.

yes. please.

Like this: