sweat, toilets, and raw eggs

How do I explain everything that has happened to me over the last few days? I really don´t think it´s possible and it´s something you have to experience for youself like my fellow volunteers, but I will do my best to at least give you some sort of a shadow into my last few days. When we finally arrived in Paraguay Wedndesday morning, I had had about 11 hours of sleep in the past 3 days and it had been probably at least 24 hours since my last real meal. Although I would have gladly curled up in a ball on the airport floor and passed out (trust me, at that point I probably could have), I couldn´t help but smile at the group of people waiting outside to greet us and cheer for us. I think it was a needed reminder to why I wanted to be here in the first place.
I won´t go into all of the details of my training and host family not only because it would probably be just as boring for me to write it as it would be for you to read it, but also because it would take way to long to describe everything. So,I´ll try and give you just a few highlights. There have been very few moments since my arrival that I have not been very aware of the fact that I am a foreigner. The ever present one is the sweat. I started sweating the second I stepped off the plane and I haven´t stopped since except for the few minutes spent in the shower. (Yes, I shower every day now out of necessity). As soon as you step out of the shower you start sweating again. The first time I took a shower here, I think I dried myself of at least 3 times and kept getting confused as to why I was still wet. Finally I realized it wasn´t water, but sweat and I wouldn´t get dry until I went outside and sat in the shade and drank terere.
I know some of you have been wondering whether I actually have running water and a toilet. Good news for me! I do, and it´s great! The shower is really more of a constant dribble of water out of a shower head than a fawcet, and it´s close enough to touch the toilet with your foot while you are showering. And like most countries in South America, you have to throw away your toilet paper when you´re done. But, it works and I´m thankful.
Another constant reminder is the food. I´m not sure if I´m going to get used to the food here. Today for lunch I had fried eggplant and mashed potatoes and it was delicous. It reminded me a little bit of home. Last night though, I had some sort of mixture that was rice, beans, and I think raw eggs all warmed up. I truly tried my best to finish it but couldn´t and I went to bed hungry.
Everything is different here, and a lot of things are turning out to be strange and hard, but I love it here. Everything is green except for the bright red dirt roads and to a girl that has seen stop lights and parking lots instead of trees and feilds, the change is welcome. The people here are incredibly friendly and everyone wants to know everything about me.
I wish I could write more, but I have to catch a bus back to my house... hopefully there won´t be 50 people on it like there was yesterday with barely enough room to move around...

toilets, raw eggs, and sweat

day 1 complete

So day one is officially completed. I think I got a full 4 hours of sleep to get me ready for my first day of shock (aka what am I doing??), so I’m feeling a little out of it. Once I said goodbye to my uncle and my mom at the airport, it got harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other and keep walking toward security. I’ve never questioned whether I wanted to do this or not, I’m just realizing more and more how hard it is to actually go through with it. Once we took off, I had to hold the tears back as I watched the Pacific coastline disappear, knowing that I probably won’t see that again for a very long time. I felt like the whole day I kept going through waves of different emotions ranging between excitement, dread, curiosity, fear and sadness. For a while I had to shut my emotions off so I wouldn’t find myself freaking out on the plane. But, all that said, my plane landed safely, I got to the hotel, and I was able to hold myself together the whole time… well, almost the whole time.
Tonight I had my first Peace Corps “event.” It wasn’t really so much an event as it was a turn-in-your-paperwork and get-your-passport-back type of thing. (Yes, that’s right. I have not had my passport since I sent it to the Peace Corps in November.) I think in the midst of turning in paperwork and signing more paperwork I met about 15 new people. Problem is, I don’t think I remember anyone’s name. Luckily for me, that seemed a common trend so I guess everyone is ok with telling everyone else their name 10 times because no one can remember anything at this point. A pretty large group of us walked across the street for dinner/drinks and started to get to know each other. I can’t say how comforting it was to find out that everyone else seemed to be in the same boat. Forgot all your Spanish? Good, me too. You still don’t feel like you know what you’re doing so you keep telling people stuff like, “you know, I’m teaching them about washing their hands,” silently praying they don’t ask anymore questions because you still don’t know the answers. Awesome, that’s what I’ve been doing too. You feel like you forgot something? Yah, me too… oh no, I actually did remember my underwear. How did you forget that?? Everyone still seemed in a little bit of a shock trying to grasp the reality of how long 27 months really was and what that meant while at the same time wanting to forget reality for just a little while longer.
But, ready or not, we are leaving tomorrow night!! Less than 24 hours and I will be on my way along with my newly found friends (even if I can’t remember any of their names) to Paraguay! In the mean time, I’m going to try and catch up on some of that sleep I should have gotten last night.

how to fit your life in a suitcase

First, compile a list of everything you might possibly want or need for the next two years in a developing country. Next, go to REI and Target and empty your bank account on all the glorious items those stores have to offer. Third, buy the biggest pieces of luggage you can find. Finally, pray that you can actually fit it all in the required TSA guidelines for luggage.
I’m probably a hypocrite for writing this because I haven’t actually started packing… actually, that’s a lie. I put my sleeping bag in a suitcase, but that’s the extent of my packing so far. I’ve realized I have issues packing until I have every single item out and since I still have a couple more items to buy, I can’t pack anything (except for said sleeping bag). I keep looking at the slowly accumulating pile of stuff on my floor thinking about how it’s all going to fit but not actually doing anything about it. I even took a picture of all the stuff I have to pack sitting next to the bags I’m going to pack it in. I have a feeling the whole experience of packing is going to be some sick and twisted version of a tetris game/jigsaw puzzle. Luckily, I’m good at both, so I promise I will win, not the suitcase or the pile of accumulated stuff.
I must say, this month has been an interesting one to say the least. I thought having a month off would give me a good amount of free time to relax before I left but I feel like I’ve been busier this month than when I was working. It takes a lot more time than I realized to compile a list of everything you might want or need for the next two years and an even longer time to go out and buy it. Not to mention you have to factor in the unanticipated yet unavoidable returns as well as multiple visits to the same store because you realized you forgot something or added to the list of things you didn’t know you needed. Then I made sure to meet up with almost everyone in my life to say goodbye for the next two years. (I must say, I’ve gotten quite a few free coffees, lunches, and dinners out of this month. Thanks guys! Maybe I should do this whole leaving thing more often.)
As I am collecting and packing everything up, I’m realizing how easy it is to define myself by my stuff. Suddenly I’m cutting all of my belongings down to two check-ons, a carry-on, and a “personal item.” My definition just got a whole lot smaller. And, my definition has to follow TSA guidelines and rules. I can’t put my cat in my suitcase even though he technically fits. There is still a piece of me that’s struggling with letting go of part of my identity so I can fully embrace the culture of Paraguay. As excited as I am to live in another country and learn another language, I’m still having a hard time imagining my life without peanut butter and frozen yogurt and I’m still weirded out when I look in a mirror and no long see a nose ring (I had to take it out because facial piercings are offensive in Paraguay). I guess it’s one step at a time. Even if I don’t have a constant supply of electrical energy, immediate access to the internet or a jar of peanut butter handy, I’ll still live. It’s part of the experience anyway, right? Well, that said, I’m off to pack my life into a suitcase… or maybe I’ll go find dessert first and then I'll start packing…

for those of you who don't already know my timeline...

I think this is boring information, but people keep asking questions about this, so maybe you all want to know. If you don’t care, please skip this blog. I don’t’ want to bore you.
I will be leaving California Feb 8th for Miami where I will have what they call “staging” Feb 9. Staging is basically a brief orientation/ turn-in-all-the-required-papers day. My flight leaves from Miami for Paraguay the evening of the 9th and I will arrive in Paraguay Feb 10. From there, I will go to Guarambaré (an hour away from the capital) where I will meet my host family for the next couple months and begin 11 weeks of intense language, job, and culture training. After those 11 weeks I will be sworn in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer (crazy I know, it’s not official until the end of April, and I even have to pass tests to be sworn in). Finally, in May I will be placed in my site and move in with another host family living in that community and I will get to start my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer!

lessons from a 5th grade classroom

My friend Mary is a 5th grade teacher at a private school and she recently asked me to come talk to her kids about the Peace Corps. She likes to do things like make her kids write letters to soldiers in Iraq and tries to give them an idea of a world outside of the small, self-entitled one that they are used to. When she first asked me, I initially thought, “I could do that! I have an abundance of wisdom and knowledge that I am happy to pass on to young and impressionable minds. I could be that cool friend of their teacher traveling to some exotic land and 20 years later they would look back at that day, remembering me fondly.” The day before I went into her class, I started thinking about it, realizing I was totally nervous to talk to 11 year olds. What was I going to say? What if they didn’t care? And worst of all, what if I wasn’t entertaining? Suddenly, I was questioning my abundant wisdom and knowledge, very aware of how sometimes it’s much easier it is to talk to “grownups” rather than kids, especially when you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Ready or not, the fateful day came and I made my way to the classroom to pretend I knew what I was doing and to inspire the future generation. I gave them a two minute introduction to what I was doing, not really knowing what to tell them and how much information to give them, partly because I didn’t even know how to give details about a job that I still don’t understand. When my mind went blank, I decided a Q and A would be the best mode of instruction.
They asked about animals, so I told them about the flying cockroaches and huge spiders that I was recently informed of. Their faces looked like mine when I found out, eyes wide and mouths open, and many of them pushed themselves a few inches back as if to distance themselves from the horrid spiders I was destined face in the near future. I got to tell them about how I wouldn’t have a car for two years but instead would use a bike or public transportation, laughing inside at their looks of disgust and thinking that their idea of public transportation was probably much preferable to what I am about to encounter. I have visions of buses breaking down on creaky and rotting bridges either in blistering heat or pouring down rain. (If it’s going to break down it has to be the worst possible conditions right?) It seemed however, that their main concern was the airplane ride.
Boy in the second row: “How long is the airplane ride?”
Me: “Well, I have to fly to Miami and from there I have a 8 hour flight to Brazil and then a 3 hour flight to Paraguay.” Truthfully, I wasn’t sure that was correct information, I was just repeating the parts I remembered.
Girl sitting next to him: “How long is your flight?”
Heads simultaneously swiveled to stare at her, with looks of disbelief.
Me: “Um, I just answered that question.”
Boy in the back row: “How long is your flight to Miami?”
Me: “Um… I don’t… know. 4… hours?”
Two minutes later… “Why do you have to stop in Brazil?”
I then went into a discussion of international airports and the necessity to fly into an international airport from the United States, you know, one like LAX.
“So why can’t you just fly to Brazil from LAX?”
Me: “Because I have to go to Miami for a day of orientation first.”
Nonobservant girl: “So how long would your flight be if you just flew from LAX to Paraguay?”
Me: “Um, I have no idea.”
Five minutes later, quiet boy on the left: “Will you be able to see the jungle from the airplane?”
Me: “Well, I’ll be flying at night, so probably not, but will be flying over it.”
“So how much of your plane ride is over the ocean?”
Me: “This part of it,” I said, dragging my finger across a map, to show the projected plane ride over the ocean and jungle I wouldn’t be able to see at night.
After about half an hour of discussing my undefined job and flight plans, we called it quits and I was out of the spotlight. Later during their homework time, one girl came up to me and asked, “Um… If you were in danger, would they let you come home?” I smiled and responded with a yes. A look of relief washed over her face and she ran back to her seat smiling, happy to know I wasn’t putting my life in danger by building outhouses. I went home processing the events and questions of the day, laughing at their obsession with airplanes and touched by their concern for my safety. Still reflecting on my previous nervousness, I realized the irony of my thought process. Mary asked me to come to share with them so they could see something past self-entitlement and my main concern was being entertaining. Even more ironic is the fact that part of my reasons for joining the Peace Corps is so that I can see a world outside of myself and help other people. I don’t know if I really did share any of my supposed wisdom or knowledge or if they will remember me in 20 years. Some of them have probably already forgotten me and that’s ok. Hopefully though some of them will remember that there are other people in the world who need help and that it is worth it to endure flying cockroaches, long plane rides over dark jungles, and public transportation in order to do that.

goodbye orange county, hello uncertainty!

A couple days ago, I moved back to my mom’s house in Camarillo. It seemed rather appropriate, considering the timing of the new year, but I found myself dreading it just a little bit. It’s not that I don’t want to be here, I just know that this move is one big step in the transition for me in moving to Paraguay. After saying goodbyes in Orange County, and moving an hour and a half away from the life that I’m used to, I’m starting to realize that it’s a lot harder to say goodbye than I thought it was. How do you just end one chapter of your life and move onto the next without feeling some sorrow for what you are leaving behind? I’m realizing it takes a different kind of courage to leave everything you know and are comfortable with. I’m so excited to leave, but I’m terrified at the same time and I feel like I’ve moved into a whirlwind of emotions. This morning I was talking with my mom and a wave of fear came crashing down on me and tears started rolling down my cheeks. Suddenly for no apparent reason, I was missing people already and terrified to move to another country and speak a language I don’t understand.
It’s this weird mix of emotions that I haven’t figured out how to sort out yet. I keep on thinking, “WHAT. am. I. DOing??” The answer is, I have no idea, but I’m doing it anyway. When I tell people I’m going into the Peace Corps, a lot of people say, “oh I wish I could do something like that!” The thing is, “something like that” always sounds better on paper than it feels in real life. It’s those fears though that make it as exciting as it is and make me want to do it even more. I’m scared, but isn’t it that uncertainty that makes it worth it? Don’t the challenges make it all the more exciting? Isn’t that why I wanted to do this in the first place? Maybe that’s what life is about, taking challenges and running with them, taking those fears and overcoming them. Whether it is or not, that’s what I’m doing. I don’t really know what Paraguay holds for me, but I’m going there anyway. 36 days and counting!!!