irrational

Peace Corps sure wreaks havoc on my emotional state. Well I guess that isn’t fair. Some famous person, maybe Eleanor Roosevelt (I don’t remember) said that no one can make you feel anything you don’t allow yourself to feel. With that said, I guess I allow my PC experience to wreak havoc on my emotions. How’s that for taking responsibility? So back to the point.

I like to think of my self as a fairly rational person. I don’t generally like chaos, I try to keep things orderly and base my decisions on logic and try to keep relatively cool and, rational about things. I haven’t been doing so well in that realm these days. There’s always been a list of things that get me really riled up and send me into long, passionate, sometimes angry, rants. That list is being augmented at an unprecedented rate. Little things send me into a tailspin these days.

As an example: In one of my most recent trips to Chiclayo I spent the day visiting with my PC friends and enjoying good food (vegetables are great!) and relaxing. I ended the day with some quality time with Skype (a true gift from the gods) talking with my dad and my long lost friends in the States, whom I miss sometimes unbearably. To sum it all up, I left the café where I use the internet in a great mood, headed back out site. Because it was late and dark, a Peruvian friend of mine, Leo, offered to accompany me. Some background, Leo is fairly well educated, really intelligent, the farthest thing from the stereotypical machistic Peruvian male. He’s great. And he puts up with a lot of my shit. So we head out into the street and the first 2 taxis I hail try to charge me more than double the normal rate. My blood started heating up but I was in front of a nice hotel so I have them the benefit of the doubt and tried to let it go. My friend, noticing how annoyed I was (and knowing how much I hate when people try to rip me off) decided to try to hail a cab, with the hopes they wouldn’t be as eager to rip off a Peruvian as they are a random blonde wandering around. Here my irrationality began. I got frustrated with him, and blamed his actions on his machismo (instead of his honest desire to help me) and began to spout out the reasons why Peru bothers me.

He, as always, allowed me to whine and exaggerate and we continued trying to get a cab. Finally someone agrees so a fair fee and I head off. Well there are two places where I can catch my bus. The first (where I normally go) is a terminal that’s pretty dangerous outside but once I’m in I feel safe because the people know me and watch out for me. The second is on a corner on the outside of the time. I hate going there. I have watched drunk men beat the shit out of each other; drunk men beat the shit out of women, drunk men crash cars, etc. from the windows of my bus as we pass by. I don’t like being there in the day, it’s worse at night. (I also don’t like drunk men. Machismo stinks; drunken machismo is the most awful thing I’ve experienced in this country). So for times sake I have to go the second place. Again blood boiling. My head is scanning the many (irrational) reasons why I sometimes hate Peru.

Get to the terminal and just in time catch my bus. It’s full. Not just full, packed. There’s not even really standing room. Luckily for me, I spent a large part of my time at the U of M riding overcrowded campus busses. Standing on a bus doesn’t bother me. Except this time. The bus is short. I’m to tall. I can’t even stand; it only goes to about my shoulder. Then a drunk guy pushes me so he can get on. Here my blood is at a rolling boil. I cuss at him in Spanish (I am learning useful things). Irrational. The bus is filled with 15ish year old boys who begin to giggle and point at me and take pictures of me with their cell phones (damn all those nifty gadgets that cell phones have). I try to remember my conversation with my friends in the States. Try to picture my friend he drank, played volleyball, and talked to me at the same time. He has a distinct laugh when he’s drinking that always makes me smile, I try to think of that. My blood still boils. I try to think of my dad golfing and meeting people from his tiny home town, but the sound of the 15 year olds giggling eats away at me. Irrational.

I ride the whole 45 minutes that way. Smacking my head against the metal bar every few minutes. I’m incredibly annoyed by this point. In my head I’m reciting the mean things I want to say the drunk man standing next to me (and trying to smell his breath). I am thinking of everything I hate about Peru and how much I want to go home. I kept trying to think of good things but it wasn’t working.

I finally get home and my host family (that never drinks) is having a party. There are drunk people everywhere. No one says anything to me. No one invites me in. They don’t even say hello. I go inside to drop my stuff off, knowing that I’m in an irrational state of mind, and go outside again. Again, no one says anything. Fine they don’t want me at their stupid party. I don’t want to be there anyway. I go back inside and watch a movie on my computer. Still angry, sad, frustrated, annoyed etc. And the feelings are amplified because I know how silly it is to get so worked up by this stuff and I ‘m mad I can’t control that better.

Well the story continues in the same manner. My irrational anger basically follows me into the next morning and into the afternoon. Slowly it loses steam and I begin to cool down. And that’s it. I never really resolve anything I just kinda cool off. Now, in my more rational state of mind, I see how foolish it all was and feel slightly embarrassed of my anger. All this did make me realize that I am letting myself give way to too many of these negative emotions. I need to focus more on things that make me happy and healthy ways (pouting in my room alone doesn’t qualify) to combat my increasingly illogical emotions. I breath, I run, I think of home, and the most effective, hang out with my amazingly cute puppy. It’s slightly ridiculous how much a dog can mean to me and affect my overall state of being. But I suppose that’s not necessarily and unhealthy actualization of irrationality. Lesson learned. Anti-climatic huh?

Oh yeah, and drunken machismo is still one of the ugliest things in the world.

Life is a (half) marathon

Guess what I did. I ran a half marathon. That’s right 21k. I didn’t do it very quickly. I certainly didn’t win the race but I at least finished it. For me that is something. So I know I can do 21k now I need to train and see if next year I can run the full 42k.

Another volunteer from my group, Steve, planned this amazing international marathon in this beach town where he lives called Pacasmayo. It was amazing. There were about 140 runners in total running 5, 10, 21, or 42 kilometers on a not quite so easy course. It used to be packed sand but with the rain etc. it was essentially a sand path with a decent number of hills, but hey I did it so it can’t be that hard. Another amazing part of the marathon was getting to see other volunteers. It made me realize how lucky I am to be apart of this group of PC volunteers in Peru, specifically Peru 9. They’re great people and it’s always great to see them.

So that was my fun weekend vacation. Then it was back to real life. Real life started when my cell phone went haywire last Thursday. I know, I know, I can’t complain, I’m a Peace Corps volunteer with a cell phone, but after having one for so long you come to rely on it. I am/was in the middle of planning this big event in my site (which I’ll explain in a bit) so I couldn’t get a hold of anyone for that. I also couldn’t call my host family to let them know I’d be coming back late so they were kinda worried. It was just kind of a pain. Once I got back into Chiclayo I got a hold of Peace Corps and the man in charge of cell phones. He told me to go to the telephone company and he would send them an email letting them know I was on my way and needed to figure out the cell phone thing. Well I went to the big office, waited 15 minutes for someone to answer my question, only to be told I had to go to the other office on the other side of town. At this point my legs were still kinda sore from the marathon and I was just generally very tired from a long weekend, so that seemed like a big deal to have to go to the other side of town. Once I got there it took another 30 minutes for me to meet up with someone, where I was told I would have to wait a few hours until she received an email from the Embassy telling her what to do. I took advantage of the time to eat lunch in a park, where I was thoroughly stared at and returned 3 hours later, as instructed. I waited another 30 minutes to talk to the senorita where she told me she was still waiting for a second response and I should have a seat and she’d call me once she received the response. There I waited another 45minutes. Finally she told me I was authorized to get a new cell phone. I had to go to the cashier, tell them my number. They then gave me a receipt which I took to another part of the building to receive my phone and then had to go to yet another part of the building to test my SIM card to see if everything worked. Of course, it didn’t. It was back to the first senorita to wait for another email. Then repeating the process of cashier, receiving my new SIM card, going back to the senorita so she could authorize it, and more waiting. Finally, she said everything was set. I could leave, I would just need to wait 20minutes for the SIM card to be registered and for my phone to work. Well 20 minutes ended up being about 3 hours but finally I am again with a working cell phone. And I know I can’t complain because I’m really lucky to have cell phone to start with and Peace Corps took care of all of the arrangements etc. but it took about 6 hours of running around and waiting and chaos. While Peru is incredibly beautiful and growing everyday, there are still some major efficiency issues. For example if you go to the pharmacy, first you need to talk to a pharmacist who tells you what he/she can give you. Then you go to another window where you pay for your medications. They you go to yet another window where you receive them. The process to buy aspirin for headache usually takes about 30 hours and amplifies your headache. That’s progress I suppose. A lot of waiting and inefficient trial and error until you finally get it right.

So here I am with my working cell phone trying to plan an event. My counterpart agency, Cáritas, is about to inaugurate their project and will be holding a 3 day event to celebrate. This event includes a cocktail party in my community, to be attended by the interim ambassador of Italia, other dignitaries, heads of organizations, and maybe even the President of Peru, Alan Garcia. I poured all my energy into coordinating with the community to form a budget, plan events for the night, organize cleaning efforts, etc. Then came the heads of Cáritas, who reversed all of my work and basically told us to start over. It’s a long story, but a pretty typical example of my relationship with Cáritas. I plan and work and have to be their messenger and tell the community all the bad news (mandates that come from Cáritas), then come the bosses who go back on everything they have told me and make me look like the bad guy who’s lying to the community and stomping on their ideas. It’s incredibly… discouraging. Finally I spoke with the member or Cáritas, Omar, who is my direct counterpart within Cáritas and explained my frustrations and told him I would leave this even to him. He understood and agreed with me (he is also frequently the scapegoat of Cáritas’s bad decisions) but I can tell he’s upset. Since I got a working cell phone I have received at least 2 calls a day from him asking for help, and I usually oblige. And so goes my work with Cáritas. This event is absorbing most of my time but I have decided that it is time to find new projects and a new path that I really believe in. What good would it to for me to abandon everything I know and love, and a job that actually pays me to come to Peru and do something I don’t believe in, that will never help anyone except the pocketbooks of the bosses of an international beneficiary? I could do that in the States and get paid. And so it’s back to square 1. AGAIN. And I’m lost. I have no idea how or where to start over again. I know I’ll figure it out and there are some great people in the community who are willing to help me out. I’m sure I will end up working more with children, which scares me to death. I’m not really a big fan of kids at this point of my life, and even less so children who are not used to discipline and rules (that don’t involve beating the crap out of them when they do anything that displeases their parents). I’m not about to beat on kids but I don’t know how to make them listen to me. It definitely makes me appreciate my parents more. I don’t know how they put up with me. I was a pain in the ass but somewhere they found (and sometimes lost) the patience to deal with me. I was lucky to have such a great family. I wished I would have realized it sooner.

And speaking of my great family, my dad bought tickets for my sister, brother, and him to come visit me! They get to Ecuador on Christmas Day and will be spending almost a month with me. That is the best news I have heard in over a year. I can’t wait. If nothing else I will keep trucking along because I know I can count down the days until my dad gets here!

starting over in the middle

I know this Peace Corps experience will change me; however, some things about me will never change. For example, my amazing ability to procrastinate despite my Type A personality. Once upon a year and some months ago I told everyone I would start a blog about my experiences here in Peace Corps to keep anyone who was interested updated and not flood the inboxes of those who aren’t particularly interested. Well after a few inbox invasions and about a year of putting it off, I present to you (drum roll please) my blog. I don’t promise that it will be overly entertaining or complex. Due to my limited internet access it may not be updated that often but en fin, it is and that is what is important.

So backtracking a year or so to explain why I feel I am experiencing something worthy of being shared with people, I joined the Peace Corps. In May of 2007 I received a letter telling me that I was invited to serve in Peace Corps Peru and I had ten days to decide whether I would accept and fly out less than a month later or pass it up for another opportunity. I was living in Eau Claire, Wisconsin at the time. I had just returned from Argentina, where I spent my last semester of college and was working at an adequate job. I had signed a lease on my first real place all to my self and when I mentioned the Peace Corps to my boss, they offered me a really great promotion. Somehow, Peru won. I quit my job, got out of my lease, packed my bags, said goodbye to everyone, again, and here I am.

After three months of training with an amazing group in Lima (and living with the best host family anyone could even hope for), I was sent to Huaca Rajada/Sipan, Lambeyeque as a business volunteer. Huaca Rajada is a major archeological site, complete with some incredible tombs and a ton of history. I have been here working to develop tourism and help with the 5 production workshops that an international beneficiary, Cáritas, started. It’s been a trip.

So far in this year I have:
Lived with 2 families
Bathed an average of 2 times a week in the duck coral
Survived 2 turkey attacks (1 of which occurred while bathing in said coral)
Learned to miss rice
Seen the discovery of a very important tomb!
Been to 1 wedding and 2 funerals
Had 1 child named after me
Survived countless stomach illnesses
Taken a lot of bus trips
And met some incredible people.

With all that I have already done, I am realizing I have a lot more to get done and am going to go through a lot more changes. I have recently realized that my current projects aren’t really taking off as planned and are really more stress than they are worth so I am searching out more projects and ideas (maybe something with kids, or turkeys). I am abandoning a lot of my old work colleagues to start moving in a new direction and to start over, in the middle of my service.

Here I go again.