And it felt like that decision was selfish and there is this
embarrassment I feel for being a quitter.
However, having spent a lot of time thinking about the decision I know
it is the right one for me. Leaving Peru
is difficult, but the prospect of staying here for 4 months longer just to stay
doesn’t seem worth it. When I talked
with the director of Peace Corps Peru I told him I felt ‘defeated’ and that I
just didn’t feel like I could start over from nothing again. Going back to school and going home certainly
factored into my decision too. I just
want to feel happy with my work again and I don’t think things will change in
the next 4 months here.
I just spent my last week in Tacabamba. It hasn’t really sunk in that I probably will
never see this place or these people again.
I went to go visit my first host family recently. I didn’t stay for long, because it was too
hard. When I first got to Peru I was
helpless; I couldn’t express myself, I didn’t know how things worked, I got
sick all the time, I was scared and lonely, but that family took care of
me. Those people opened not only their
home, but their family to me and I got to be a part of their lives for my time
here. I had been dreading going to visit
them for a while-since I made the call to my boss in Lima. I had to go thank my family for including me
in their lives, loving me, and also make it clear that we may never see each
other again.
I had prepared these little speeches to tell each family
member how much they mean to me. I told
my host brother and little cousin that they are important, intelligent, and
that I am sure that they will achieve whatever they set their minds to in the
future. People don’t really say those
things so much here and I felt like it was important for them to hear it from
me. I told them I was proud to be their
sister, daughter, niece, and friend. We
all cried.
I arrived on a Friday afternoon. Witman, Eduar, and I awkwardly hung around
not talking about my leaving playing Frisbee and helping carry baskets of bread
from the host grandparent’s adobe oven.
We wanted to bake a cake, but the electric oven wasn’t working and the
wood oven had cooled. We all ate dinner
and after we watched the Peru vs. Ecuador soccer game. The next morning I taught my host mom how to
make pancakes. And then I tried to
leave, because I knew the longer I stayed the more difficult it would be. I gave my little speeches at my host family’s
house, my host aunt and uncle’s house, and my host grandparent’s house (they
all live close on the same little block) I kept getting choked up. The worst part was after all the goodbye’s
there were no cars to leave. So I just
sat waiting with my host aunt my eyes all red and wiping snot from myself. My host brother gave me a piece of bread
while I was waiting and I asked him if he wanted to sit with me. He told me ‘no, it’s too difficult,’ and
walked away.
I think part of the reason-and I don’t want to diminish the
relationship formed with my host family- that the bonds are so strong is that
when a volunteer arrives they are in such a completely vulnerable place. These deep connections are formed out of a
basic necessity for human relationships.
And yes, my host family would annoy me because we would have the same
conversations over and over again. There
wasn’t a whole lot we had in common so we had to work with what we could share;
it was often jokes with us. We laughed a
lot and every night after dinner my host mom Dalila and I would dance outside
in the dark. Dalila has a huge crazy
inappropriate made up vocabulary, her own personal ‘jerga’ or ‘slang’ she calls
it.
I was really careful to use my subjunctive tense grammar to
express that I don’t know when or if I will be able to visit. That was the question they asked me again and
again ‘you’re not going to forget us are you, when are you going to
visit?’ My host grandfather got very
defensive, because last year a previous volunteer that lived with them promised
to visit and he was unable to follow through on the promise. They were crushed. Although now that I have been thinking about
the whole scenario I’m not so sure that is exactly what happened. I did not ever really confirm that this guy
did promise to visit; I just heard it second hand from them. And things can easily get lost in
translation.
This last week in site I spent a lot of time hiding. It wears you down to tell people over and
over that you are leaving to be met with questions such as; ‘you won’t forget
us will you?’ ‘why don’t you just stay here,’ and ‘what was your job here
anyways?’ There is this snap opportunity
for you to make the last impression on the people here; they will either
remember me as the girl who left early because A) she wasn’t acostumbrada
(accustomed), B) she doesn’t like us/this place/ and/or she is only here for
money (I think they think I make money at this job), C) she worked here and
liked living here/us/our country. It’s a
lot of pressure.
Also I get a lot of demands.
People complain to me about how they haven’t heard from the previous
volunteer since she left in November.
WHAT??? Why would she keep in
contact with every acquaintance she made here?
And yet that is the expectation that people have sometimes. I think because we (volunteers) are seen as
having the ability to be mobile there is this idea that we can just travel back
to rural northern Peru whenever we want to just to come visit. And no matter how many times I repeat how
expensive the flights are, or how long and hard it is to travel so far, or how
I hope to have a job/be a home owner/have a family the impression is burned
into everyone’s minds that if I don’t visit them in their future it is because
I forgot them.
I can’t exactly explain why that is such a painful thing for
me to imagine. The idea of leaving
family, neighbors, friends, colleagues, acquaintances behind all believing that
I just forgot them or that I didn’t care about them stresses me out. So sorry for being a drama queen, but moving
internationally is a little emotionally exhausting, bah!
When I started giving my things away I decided to give what
I like to call my ‘big ticket items’; my dresser, book shelf, water heater, the
basins I use to wash laundry, to the women that work in my host family’s
restaurant. I figured they don’t have as
much as my family and they could really use the stuff. They took everything I laid out, including
some socks and underwear that I personally considered unsalvageable and was
planning to throw away. However, when my
host mom found out that I was giving my dresser and bookcase away to Dena and
Miguelina she was kind of upset. She came by my room to ask me what I was doing
with my dresser and before I could answers she said ‘I thought that was for my
Yossy, I wanted her to have it for her room,’ and I had to tell her I had
already promised to give it to her employees.
She sort of lingered outside my door for a while. I felt very uncomfortable and proceeded to
try to call any volunteer friend I could think of. Finally one picked up and I thought maybe I
would appear to be busy so my host mom would walk away.
The weird part of all this is that I felt strangely guilty
as if I owed my host family that stuff.
Even Migue and Dena when they were going through my stuff where all sneaky
about it and wanted to hide it from Rosa.
So I caused a lot of drama between my host mom and her employees. I found out later that Dena told Rosa off
when Rosa asked them about my giving them the furniture. Also that Rosa told Miguelina; who is a 20
year old girl from a small town with no electricity 4 hours walking distance
whose mother has epilepsy and cannot work so Miguelina never finished high
school because she left to make money to support her younger siblings and is
now doing a correspondence class to get her high school diploma while she works
all day at the restaurant, that she should pay for a ‘going away/goodbye’ or
despedida for me since she would make money off my dresser. So Miguelina was too nervous to come to the
party that Rosa and my host sister Yanet put on for me, because she was worried
they would ask her to pay for the food or drinks.
I just feel really sad that my host mom treated these women
like that. Why does she need to bully a
20 year old girl when she has a successful restaurant, store, her own home, 2
of her kids went to college and work as professionals. I think that because Miguelina is uneducated
and she is from a small community in the campo she is considered to be less
than someone from town. I know my host
mom is not a monster; in fact she is a generally nice lady. I guess I cannot please everyone-no matter
how hard I try someone’s feelings are going to get hurt in all this leaving
business.
I feel so lucky that I have such a loving wonderful Peruvian
family as well as my American one. They
helped me to cope with the loneliness and the difficulties of find my way in a
foreign world. On some level that is what Peace Corps is all about;
forming relationships. So at least I did
well at that part of the job. I am happy
to be on my way back to the USA and sad for leaving my host country. The guilt hold of being an ‘early
terminating’ (i.e. quitter) volunteer is slowing falling away.
See everyone soon.
Thanks for reading and chau for now,
kb
This is my host uncle, cousin, and brother snuggled up to watch the futbol game when I visited my old site last week. |
With my host mom Rosa and sister Yossy at the despedida party they threw for me |
host dad Sergio and Manuel bought the first caja of beer of the night |
Diamonte dancing with my host sis Janne |
with my host bro |
dancing up a storm |
I love the circle dancing at parties-I'm totally bringing that back to the US |
with my best Tacabambino friend Manuel! |
he was probably telling me a joke |
my host brother took this one while I was starting to fall asleep in my chair |