Long overdue update! We're still alive...

September 04, 2018

Long overdue update! We're still alive...

Chris and I have been in Peru for over a year now, 10 of those at our designated living and working site. Peace Corps has advised us not to broadcast our whereabouts in a public place (like a blog), so for now, we’ll call it “our pueblo.” It is a tiny town (under 1,000 people) in the Andes in the department of Cajamarca along the northern border of Peru.

To say it has been a challenging experience is putting it lightly; it’s more of an intense living experience where your physical body, mind and emotions take deep dives and upswings (rollercoaster!) to unknown territories and your usual coping mechanisms don’t work so well. However, with all the not-so-pleasant as well as the delightful experiences, we have been blessed with newfound friendships, warm hospitality, a sense of community and deep personal growth. We are incredibly grateful for all of it.

We’ve been meaning to post updates but with the whirlwind that is “integration” and getting accustomed to so much here, we just haven’t set the time aside. We’ll try to be better about that.

A “quick” re-cap of what’s been going on here is kind of impossible, so we’ll focus on a few highlights.

· Hablas castellano?: Chris is a lean mean Spanish-speaking machine! It’s pretty awesome to see. It makes my heart burst with even more love for this guy. I had to put that in there because it is hard to learn a language and use it fluently. He is rocking it!

· Superheroes: We were sick for most of the first few months at site…you know, the regular diarrhea, respiratory infections, fever, etc., just our bodies adapting to a new environment and pervasive critterlings that get into our system no matter how careful we are. Worse thing is probably the emotional hit you take when your body just doesn’t feel good. No joke, we’ve hit rock bottom here, physically and emotionally, but we’re still alive and stronger (we like to think). Yup, there was a lot of crying happening at random moments, sometimes for nothing at all. It’s kinda funny now. Things are so much better, thank goodness! ~~Fewer~~ No more tears.

· The hustle: We posted a separate blog post about our work.

· A home away from home: Not mentioning real names for privacy, but we’re living with Ana who is near-retirement age who is the coordinator for all the pre-schools in the campos (annexes of our pueblo) as well as with Camila, housekeeper/friend of 20 years, she’s a quiet person and a heck of a cook and knitter. Ana is a firecracker when she needs to defend her work and when local government officials need a little bit of a tongue-lashing. Camila’s nephew joins us during the week so he can attend high school (the only one for miles around) and not have to walk an hour plus each way from his family’s home. They are awesome people, they treat us like their family and also respect our privacy. We have a pretty large room we can call our home that we’ve equipped with the basics to make it a personalized, comfy refuge.

· Yummy yum: We are eating boatloads of bread and rice. This used to bother us, but now we look forward to (some of) it; I guess your body craves what you give it. We’ve been blessed with plenty of delicious food to eat, Camila rocks in the kitchen. Food in Peru deserves another blog post (a year from now at the rate we’re going…).

· Planes, trains and combis*: We’ve frequently seen the cities of Lima and Cajamarca due to work and volunteer duties, but our first real vacation was in Arequipa in April! Gorgeous city and, dare I say it, culinary capital of Peru. Our families visited us in May and got to visit Cusco: Macchu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, many pre-Incan and Incan ruins, and an indigenous Quechua-speaking community of weavers (one of the highlights); and Puno: it’s floating man-made islands; Lake Titicaca, and pre-Incan ruins. Ancash has blindingly white beautiful glaciers and high-altitude, heart-pumping hikes. If you want our itinerary for this trip for your future planning, shoot us an email. At the end of July, we’ll be visiting the Amazon rainforest!! Can’t wait for that.
(*Combis are our main transportation source; it’s a small van, always jam packed with people, leg room appropriate for people under 4’9’’, and with drivers aspiring to be pilots…they fly through curvy mountain roads. Dramamine is Chris’s best friend in Peru.)

· Precious hearts: Last but not least, we have made the best of friends here with other volunteers. The shared moments in expressing our hardships, unconditional moral support, the unspoken understanding of mutually shitty and exhilarating experiences, travelling together, celebrating hard-won successes, de-stressing, and more amount to treasured connections with volunteers. We couldn’t do it without these guys. Our hearts beam with love for them.