Underneath the Wreckage: The True Story of a Girl With Mismatched Socks

I'm looking at only 4 months left until the end of my service. It's that time when we have to, as Peace Corps volunteers, start thinking about what we're going to do after service. What do I want to apply for in terms of jobs? What am I actually qualified for? Where do I want to live? And it's also time to look back at what I've accomplished and what just didn't end up happening for whatever reason. My Iron Man project with Carol is looking good in terms of potentially becoming a Peace Corps Peru program for future volunteers. I really hope that more volunteers and high school students get to benefit from this program. And if I had to pick one thing that I'm leaving as my legacy, this is my baby. But I'm also proud of our radio program "The Ecological Hour" and a few other things like working with the environmental schools network.


But lately, I've felt disconnected from my community. I feel more judged than understood by the adults. And I seem to get more easily frustrated with the students who just aren't into participating. I've been going through a bit of a hard time personally and feel my anxiety building at the potential of having to make conversation. It didn't help that I got dengue from the mosquitoes and was in bed for a week. My small landfill project attracted basically no interest among the adults in my town. (Apparently, a few free trees and reducing the risks of cancer for their family members wasn't an attractive enough reason to dig in tough dirt in the beating Olmos sun for a couple hours.)


Do you ever just have those times when you don't know what you're good at? My friend Katrina, I sorta follow her life in the States from facebook. And she's always taking these amazing photos, or painting something, or refurbishing something ugly, bringing the class. I feel this pressure building to find the thing I'm good at, wondering to myself if we're all actually good at something or if I drew the short stick.


I feel myself get restless thinking about the "should 'ave, could 'aves" of my time here in Peru. And, to be honest, this hasn't exactly been the best week for building up the 'ole self-esteem. (Getting dumped on top of it all just makes me feel like I can't get anything right.) But I feel like this place is an important space to be - that in-between space - just praying that the clarity will come. I can feel God assuring me that it is ok that I just don't really know what to do for a living or this week for that matter. We come from a culture that only accepts the happy face...unless it's a reality show, and then people get to pick and choose what to tune into. Sometimes, I just need to be reminded that it is ok to be a mess, to burst into tears, to not know what to say, to "over-share".


On June 30th, I sang in front of 10,000 people waiting excitedly in front of their houses and in the center of the town of Olmos. We had this car in a float for the parade and this nice guy from the municipality got us "sonido" - that is, huge speakers to blast the entire town with the songs from our environmental radio show. I sang N'SYNC's "Bye, Bye, Bye" with a message about deforestation, The Red Hot Chili Pepper's song "Californication" about desertification and The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights" about biodiversity. And it turns out, that my voice isn't as great on those huge speakers as it sounds in our tiny radio studio, or jamming by myself in my room. It really didn't help that I had practically lost my voice the entire week before from being sick. But I sang loud and enthusiastically anyway. I jammed out and it was one of the most incredible experiences to share myself and our songs like that. Annie and Sarita were the queens of the environment and recycling. Both of their paper dresses ripped before the event had ended...Annie's while she was taking a photo with the mayor ripped in the frontal crotch region. But it was one of those moments when we were a wreck, and there was nowhere else we'd rather be.