This Peruvian Life: Lejos de Ti

At this moment I am in my new room lying on my new comforter in my new bed and I’m feeling all sorts of emotions. I feel so lucky (I live like 2 blocks from the beach and it’s beautiful.) I feel cared for (my new family is so sweet and caring. I feel scared (my Spanish needs improvement) I feel sad (I miss my family in the states, my family in Lima, other volunteers, my friends in the states. I feel pressure (my socio completely freaked me out; only 1 hour after arriving with all my things he drops by my house to ask me when we are

getting started with work and I’m like dude “slow your roll” I need to relajar for a bit!

The last week of training was kinda a blur; it went by so fast. It was pretty much filling out evaluations and completing tests. On Thursday we had a party for our host families which was pretty fun.

The night before swearing in I had to say good-bye to my Huascaran family because only one member of the family was allowed to come to the swearing in ceremony and yes, I cried.

In the morning of swearing in I left my house in Huascaran with all my things and headed to the training center. We all exchanged words of wisdom to each other. (watch for my next post “Words of Wisdom.”

We loaded the bus to Lima around 12:30 and I pretty much slept the whole way there. We got to U.S. ambassador’s house right before 2pm when the ceremony began. Let me tell ya, that’s a nice house. I can’t believe my tax dollars are going to that! I would have taken pictures but we weren’t allowed to bring electronics inside, we had to go through security/metal detector. Inside the house we were all seated and they called our names one at a time and we proceeded to swear in as a group. Did you know that the Peace Corps oath is the same as the oath for swearing into the army? Anyway after that we hung out in the patio and they served us little appetizers, (a glass of champagne would have been nice but I understand why they didn’t serve booze-and anywho the celebrating came later that night :P ) They served a few different kinds of sandwiches but I kept going back to the caprese sandwiches nom nom nom. After an hour or so they scooted us out of there and we said good-bye to the host family member who came-in my case it was my host mom. I seriously didn’t think I was going to cry and I didn’t want to (I was actually wearing make-up that day) but it happened. She told me not to cry and she proceeded to wipe at my eyes with her hand roughly and at the moment I thought vainly- crap my mascara and then shortly after, crap she makes me laugh I’m going to miss her! There were crying girls everywhere while we were all loading the buses to our hostals in Lima; which is one thing that makes Peace Corps so great because we all knew what each other were going through and understood and comforted each other. After wiping our tears and fixing our makeup back at the hostal we headed to the country director’s house (Sanjay) for a reception. I was nervous it would be kinda stiff but it was fun. Sanjay’s house was awesome; he has a huge backyard and a platform to dance on. It took us a forever to get a taxi to his house so some of us didn’t get there til after 7 even though it started at 6, oh well fashionably late. Guess what is delicious? Cow heart! Seriously don’t knock til you try it, I thought it was gonna be really sketch but actually it was AMAHZING! Nom nom nom. Anyways after stuffing my face, taking pics, dancing with volunteers and PC staff we headed back to the hostal. Brittany and I went to the store to buy some refreshments for the night; it’s just so much cheaper than to buy refreshments at the bar!

First we went to a bar in Mira Flores and then went back to hostal around 12:30ish to rest and went back out to Barrognk (a district of Lima) and we were out dancing until about 4:00am. It was a blast. I’d like to give a shout out to Brittany and Morgan for being my wing women that night, you girls are awesome.

The bus to Lambayeque left at 7:30pm on Saturday, so I woke up early and spent the day hanging out with other volunteers (I figured I could sleep on the bus!) It was a good last day but I didn’t get to say good-bye to everyone because we were all hanging in different parts of Lima L I’ll miss you fellow 19ers you guys rock!

On Sunday when we arrived in Chiclayo (capitol city of the department I live in) the current Lambayeque volunteers greeted us at the bus station and we went out for breakfast. We were all still really exhausted I laid in bed pretty much the whole day.

On Monday we went mattress shopping and then I headed to Pimentel and now I’m here for the next two years and I’ll do my best to keep this updated and tell you all about what I’m doing here.

Please everyone, keep in touch. I’m going to need all the support I can get!!! Love you all and miss you!!!! xoxo

enjoy my pics below