Futbol, Follies and...other things that don't start with F's

Last week was pretty amazing. I met all the leaders of organizations in Corral de Arena, had meetings with the director of the school and the mayor. I started exercising, convinced that I would start training for the Peace Corps marathon that is in May. I'd put on my ipod and take off. And I found throughout the week that Corral de Arena is a bit more groovy with a little Earth, Wind and Fire. I ran everyday and still managed to play futbol and volleyball with the boys and girls in my town. Playing sports was a good way to meet a lot of kids at the school. There's always a lot of laughing and whispering that comes along with playing with the kids. Gringos are funny things to them. We talk funny. And I really don't speak Spanish very well, so that's hilarious to them. I started reminding myself of how funny foreign accents and the way their expressions used to make me laugh in the States. So there is something fun about being that goofy person. Besides, adults are always ridiculous to kids (especially ones that work at the school). I remember all those teachers that I laughed at for being dorky or whatever, and how they made a difference in my life nonetheless. Even though I laughed at them, I cared what they thought. And those silly teachers made me who I am today.

There were a lot of futbol follies, afterall, I hadn't played soccer before Peru. Often I've kicked the ball to the other team. It's very impressive that these kids are so swift playing on sand. I got tuckered out pretty quick. One game, they kids had pretty much exhausted me when I stole the ball away from one girl and kicked the ball furiously for a goal with no one to stop me. I threw my hands up and screamed, “Goal!”. But all the girls were yelling, “no, no, no.” I asked them, “is Ericka on my team?” I pointed to the girl guarding the opposite goal.
“Yes.”
“Goal!”
“But Terraza,” said the girl I stole the ball from, “I'm on your team.”

I really enjoyed how I felt after running and the places I would run to, not necessarily the running itself. I'm used to running telling myself it'll end soon. But everyday it got a little more enjoyable, and I would think about where I wanted to end up. Each day the run stretched. I liked ending my run at the empty riverbank with the trees overhanging and the mountains in the distance. One day, I decided I would try to run to La Estancia – the neighboring town with a fellow volunteer. I didn't make it, but I ran further than I thought I could. It was pretty damn far for me. I run with a stick to fend off dogs who want to attack. And I run with these dogs in mind. And the thought of taking a road that had few to no people seemed like it could either be dangerous because of the lack of a presence or good because of the lack of dogs. But I jogged keenly aware of danger. I was listening to my ipod when I noticed dog tracks in the road and, at that very moment, I heard something behind me. So I swung around kick, swinging my stick to beat the dog. It was an old man on a bicycle. We both screamed and then laughed. I apologized through my laughter, explaining that I thought he was a dog. He ended up riding into town at the speed of my stroll while we talked.

I went to classes at the highschool and daycare/kindergarten. The youngest ones were the most fun. I was probably more of a disruption in the class than a help. We made a Christmas tree out of paper cut-outs of our hands. They figured out that I would act really upset if they covered my paper hands with scraps of paper. They would do it over and over again, laughing at how upset I would act. And this turned into all the kids running over to put scraps of paper on my heading while saying “Feliz Navidad”. Man, I love these kids. And my little brother is so darn cute, too. We play all kinds of silly games. We both get a kick out of the same silly games of face-making, wiggling, tickling and mimicking.

I went to our regional meeting feeling good about my week and came back inspired by other volunteers to do great things. The next day, I sat down and created a syllabus for the seven weeks of summer school I am going to be teaching. It's exciting. I've never had such a huge responsibility, teaching grades equal to first through twelth in the United States. And I thought really hard about how to make it fun and creative. We'll be painting a mural, putting on a puppet show, having a movie night fundraiser and doing all sorts of environmental activities.

I'm excited and scared that I'm gonna screw it up. I want to do so much for these kids. And yesterday, the overwhelming feeling of all of this responsibility came over me. I met the mayor that morning to visit his fields. He shares a parcel of land with 3 other families. They've built a well that runs off of electricity rather than a gas motor. This prevents water and air contamination and is the only well like it in Corral de Arena. His field (chacra) is also organic. I was so excited to know I can buy organic produce in Corral de Arena. He told me that he wants these fields to be a model for the rest of the farming community in Corral de Arena (which makes up 70 percent of the town). And he wants me to help find the funding to make this change. Also on the list of things to do in the next two years is to created small landfills for households, combat deforestation and implement a recycling program.

I went home feeling the pressure of all that is expected of me, all the hopes these people have about having a Peace Corps volunteer. And I didn't want to leave my room. I spent the rest of my day by myself, not wanting to even speak to my family. I just wanted to escape for a day, to not feel the pressure of it all. And that just made me feel worse. By that evening, I felt like a horrible volunteer. I tried to read my Bible to feel better and I kept coming across verses that just made me feel worse. There's that one story Jesus tells about the person who doesn't know when the thief is coming in the night, or else they would've been prepared. It freaked me out, the thought of seeing Jesus while I was feeling so unmotivated. Disconnected. Producing nothing of worth. And then I went out to do something and the moon was so bright it hurt my eyes. It was so bright it was impossible not to notice. It was as if, all of a sudden, the moon was a source of light. And I could feel God telling me simply that “He” cared for me. The message in that moment was unmistakably clear. And we just looked at one another for a moment, telling each other how much we cared for the other. I'd like to say that it helped me to stop being afraid, but I still didn't want Jesus to walk through that door, not that night.

The next day, I went to a going away meeting for a fellow volunteer, Sara Mascola. Sara Mascola was a super volunteer. She spent 3 years in Olmos and ended up coordinating a eco-efficiency program that connected 20 schools all around the area. She was one of the first persons mentioned when I came to my site. And it was inspiring to see so many people who wanted to show up and thank her for the work she's done. I told her that I hope that I'm just even a portion of the volunteer she's been. And she told me that during her first 3 months of service she read 80 books. She kept a list of them all. She would stay cooped-up in her room, not wanting to interact with anyone. She said that we need those days sometimes.

Wade in the Water

I just took an hour and a half combi ride from Chiclayo to Olmos. The whole time, I kept thinking about my friend Jessie´s baptism she told me about once. It was in a cold, cold river in Montana. She wore jeans of all things. I wondered how cold that must have been. The only reference I have is a river I stepped into in Colorado this summer, and I´m sure that doesn´t compare to Montana. But I remember the feeling very vividly. My mom and brother were wading out to collect fool´s gold with my dad directing their steps. I wanted to join them and they were encouraging me to come in to where the water was at their shins. And I was trying, really trying. But everytime I got in just a bit past ankle level, the pain was unbearable. I felt every muscle tense up with sharp pains. My breaths became rapid and shallow, and pretty soon I would get dizzy. Every piece of my body was screaming to escape to the shore and I couldn´t get out fast enough.

I thought about that feeling and what it would be like to be totally immersed in the painful river. And then I thought about Jessie, wading in to that river in Montana in an expression of her commitment to Christ. It is much more common for me to associate baptism good feelings and warmth rather than pain and coldness. But in our relationship with God, both realities seem to be present, don´t they? We´re attracted to the beauty of our Creator who represents everything that is good, everything that gives us hope that love will win in the end. And people who experience this unreasonable, foolish love that God has for us are never ever the same again.

But I have been praying lately that God will bring me closer to `Em and it feels more like Jesus is taking my hand and leading me into that cold, cold river than to the warm feeling of the love of God. I am reading ¨Divine Nobodies¨ by Jim Palmer. He talks about this reality of getting to know our God. Palmer recounts an experience he had with the International Justice Mission, rescuing child sex slaves - little girls who are drugged, dressed up and forced to have sex with strangers sometimes more than 10 times a day. And he talks about getting to know a God who knows suffering. We have a God who never gets a break from the suffering and injustices of this world. God is ever-present in that cold river, always witnessing the moments that make us sick to our stomach. And we as humans check out, take mental breaks from these horrific realities, because it is just too much. We can´t handle what is a reality for our God. Somehow, God can experience the beautiful moments of our lives simultaneously with the pleas of God´s people that are suffering in ways beyond words.

This is my first week at site (granted it is nothing in comparison to what Jim described), but I still find that every part of me wants to flee, my mind wanting to be anywhere but here. Faced with the daunting task of becoming part of the answer to my own prayers, I just wanna run to shore and escape the cold waters. It is just too painful, and I´m not even knee deep yet. I can tell the young girls that they are important members of their community, but it doesn´t mean their families will send them to university. I can build landfills, but it doesn´t mean people will care about where they dump their trash. And I can work to reforest in the clear-cut areas, but it doesn´t mean that area will look any different in 10 years. On paper, I know what I am here to do, how to begin. Reality is always more complicated, and there are questions that I have about how to begin to really make a difference, wondering how to sort my priorities, how to begin to build relationships.

All the while, my prayers to be closer to God pull me deeper and deeper into the cold water. And thankfully I know I have Jesus to steady my step, to bear the pain with me, to take on the burden. In the next two years, I think I am going to see more and more of the face of God. And I am getting the sense that it will be distressing and heartbreaking than I had imagined. Because to see God is to see a holy response to God´s people who suffer and cry out for help. Please pray for me, that I´ll get in deeper, immerse myself in this experience. I hope the same for all of you reading this post, that you would be pulled in deeper too.

Family and the Warm Fuzzies of Christmas

I´m sitting at a computer in some of my new family´s house in my capital city (the house of my host mom´s sister). I came into town to buy some things for my new room (like a mattress, bedding, etc). We went to Real Plaza, which is a fancy shopping mall that is acting as my little America. They have a Pizza Hut, Starbucks, KFC, etc. By the way, because Peruvians are in love with chicken, KFC is a huge hit. My family and I shared a bit of KFC and I thought it was dinner, but apparently it was just a snack. My host mom lured me back to the house with false promises of spaghetti. I am not positive that she lied, though I am pretty sure that she did. Her Spanish is difficult to understand. My first host family spoke very clearly and slowly - gringo Spanish, if you will. But this new family speaks campo Spanish, they are from a rural farming community. So their Spanish is slurred, not necessarily correct, and very difficult for me to understand.

Whether or not we misunderstood each other, or she told me there would be spaghetti to get me to eat her rice and chicken is really irrelevant. I am learning to not be disappointed, to just expect that things won´t happen the way I normally would expect them to. In Peru, yes can be no. Solid plans are really tentative. And explicit instructions are suggestions. It isn´t something that I plan to get upset about and that is very different from how I was in the States. I used to be very easily disappointed, always expecting things to go as planned.

Back to Real Plaza. I was walking around today, looking at all the lovely, lovely things that remind me of the United States. There was Christmas music playing while I window shopped and it reminded me of all the Christmases I ran around South Plains Mall with my family - me, Logan, and Tate scrambling to complete our lists and laughing all the way. And I got really homesick. I miss that time of year with my family with a tree, comfy pajamas and cocoa. I miss walking around the mall with Tater, stopping into GameStop to check out videogames we´re not going to buy, browsing for books with Logan, talking her ear off about God knows what, and time with Mom and Dad.

I went into Starbucks and got a brownie with a special coffee that came with whipcream. I spontaneously bought a bag of Starbucks Christmas coffee because my Mom gave me a bag of it one year for Christmas. I sat down and devoured both of them, trying to take my time but consuming rapidly to comfort myself. I sat there wondering what my family was up to and hoping that, by some chance, they would call that very moment to see how I was doing. But I finished my treats and no one had called. So I decided to go browse this store that has smells that remind me of my Mom back home. The store reminds me of Martha Stewart, with things that are cute and modern and smell like candles. I ended up buying a French Press and making warm-fuzzy talk with the security guy. I acted as if we had some report, like we had seen eachother a hundred times and asked about eachothers families. And thankfully he reciprocated with warm smiles and questions. So thank you, doorman. You made my night.

Now I am about to meet the neice of my host mom. We are going to see Harry Potter (dubbed in Spanish). Hopefully that will help me to get through the homesick evening. Love you all. Hug your families. And if you can, hug mine.