The Peace Corps poster you'll never see.

"Life is calling...how far will you go" the saying for Peace Corps calls. Since 1961, young and old people from various parts of the United States and Puerto Rico have left their homes,families and everything they knew to give two years of their lives for adventure and the opportunity to try to be better people, to do something for someone else that they've never met. The posts and advertisements show Americans with a group of locals sitting together at a table enjoying a meal, or crowded by young children with one up on their shoulders. And I knew before coming here, that it wouldn't all be as pretty as it seems in the pictures. The manual for PCVs goes into great detail of how you'll be sick, and disrespected, lonely, and depressed nearly at every step of the game - intimidating reading material, but necessary.

We don't hear much about how disappointing Peace Corps service can be at times - that you can work hard, and have projects that you loved and are proud of and still feel so upset with the lack of community interest. I gave my final presentation of all my work yesterday to my community - the trees and trash, radio shows, environmental classes and festivals, the PTA classes, the "Ama Tu Peru" tv commercials, billboards, the youth development program that Carolyn and I created that has and will be replicated all over Peru by other volunteers. I told them how much I cared about them, and how I'd take them everywhere in my heart and share them with my friends, family, and future students in the United States.

Then came the time to honor the 8 families that had made small-landfills at their houses and give them fruit trees as their reward. The 75 people at the meeting rushed me and Tina (the other volunteer who was helping me) to take the trees intended for those families. When I tried to explain they were bought specifically for people who had completed the requirements, they each took a turn telling me off and calling me "bad". One of the women that I thought was my friend is still telling everyone how terrible I was for not giving her a plant. The irony is that I had originally written a grant for over 2000 soles to give every family in Corral de Arena trees. We got the money, and I presented the project at several meetings, visited people at their houses, put announcements on the radio - each time explaining the simple rules. All they had to do was dig a hole 1 meter by 1 meter by 1 meter to bury their trash instead of burn it. After 7 months of trying to get people to make the holes, only 8 families did it. So, I wrote another grant proposal so that we wouldn't lose the money. We used the money to make tv commercials for my "Ama Tu Peru" campaign. Two of the videos feature people from Corral de Arena.

After two years of service, my last meeting ended with the townspeople leaving the room angry at me for the 2 fruit trees (valued at 1 dollar each) that they didn't receive for the work they didn't do.

If given the choice to do Peace Corps all over again, I'm not sure that I could (well, at least not in Corral de Arena). I'd have requested a bigger site with more interest in working. But, I'm still glad I did Peace Corps. The other saying - "the hardest job you'll ever love" - is right on the money. I know that being here has changed the lives of many of my high school students, and especially my host brother Anderson. I just wish these weren't the final words from that meeting. After two years, I wish they would have been more interested in saying goodbye than asking what I was going to give them and yelling at me.

If you're reading this and thinking about doing Peace Corps, do it! No, seriously. It is by far the most meaningful thing I have ever done with my life. But keep in mind that you're probably going to poop your pants (didn't actually happen to me, but to most of my friends), people in your community will probably steal from you at some point, and even towards the end of your service there will be some people who still see you as a dollar sign.

On the positive side, my momma and sis will be here in just a couple of weeks to travel Peru with me. Also, here is one of the videos from the "Ama Tu Peru" campaign, which was my last project. Thanks to all of the volunteers especially Sara, Annie, and Tina, USAID, and the PC staff for making these possible.

The Best Kind of Chicken Sandwich

My birthday was last week, the last birthday I will celebrate as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru by the way. My friends came to my house in Peru, and Dr. Sara made this chicken sandwich that she promised me last year as my birthday gift that she would make for me again. It's this incredible sandwich she created with a salsa from passion-fruit (maracuya), cucumbers, sauteed onions and her handmade flat bread! Yum! I absolutely love this sandwich! After we ate the sandwiches, we had this amazing beetcake (you just have to try it) and brownies and Tina's fancy mac-n-cheese with a layer of crunched bacon. I looked around at all my friends sitting near the fire telling funny stories. A few of my primary students showed up and we taught them how to make smores. We sang the U.S. and Peruvian National Anthems and danced around the fire. One of my sitemates, Annie, made a touching speech about why she loved and appreciated me. I carried my sweet 7 year-old host brother to his mom after he fell asleep around the campfire, too excited to go to bed. I went to sleep on the hard ground in our tent feeling so very loved.

I think about the ways in which Jesus used food, and who he invited to dine with him. There is this one story (parable) that Jesus tells where a man invites honored guests to a dinner, but they all one-by-one find different reasons to not attend. And so the guy decides to invite random people from the streets and the alleyways to his dinner instead (Luke 14). When I think about what it will be like to sit down and eat a chicken sandwich with Jesus (and we will eat chicken sandwiches!), I imagine many different things. I can imagine my great appreciation of just having that moment. I can imagine myself moments before crying at his feet, cleaning his feet with my tears like that woman in the Bible. I imagine feeling loved and accepted, with one of his arms around me. But I will never for even a moment imagine a Jesus that would greet me with anything other than a with a great celebration that we're finally together. And he knows my voice all too well. He hears me when I beat my chest in my room and cry out for the ways that I am selfish, and the ways that I hurt others or don't do what I should. Jesus hears me when I pray for new ways to feed the hungry, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned and clothe the naked (see Matt. 25).

And one day, I hope we can eat a chicken sandwich together and he can teach me more about how to bring this Kingdom of God in my every move...or maybe just enjoy laughing together. For those of you who are from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered community who have associated chicken sandwiches differently with Jesus this week, I hope this gives you a different image. You are loved. You are not sick. And one day, the chicken sandwich will reign supreme again.

And if you are reading this right now and ate a chicken sandwich this week to make a point about free speech. Here's to freedom of speech. And here's to finding ways to encourage free speech that don't make others hate Christianity and the Church even more. Here's to breaking bread with all of our brothers and sisters, and not alienating people. I got online and felt so hurt, and sick to my stomach. And none of those photos of people with chicken sandwiches made me want to pray with those people or go to their churches - the opposite in fact. And then I thought about my friends making me that chicken sandwich, and what it would be like to share some "sandwich time" with the Creator of the Universe. And I think I might want to go pick one up at the Peruvian chicken stand tonight for dinner after all.

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.

Out of Touch

I went to pay for my landline phone the other day (yes, those do still exist...at least they do in Peru anyway), and they had cut my line for being 4 days late paying. And then yesterday, a mototaxi driver from my community and his family stole my cellphone I accidentally left in his moto. This same family apparently stole my camera that I left in their moto last year. I went back to them last year and they told me they didn't have the camera. This morning, I told my host brother about the cellphone and he replies, "and they have your camera, too". He's seen them using it at events at the school. My host family doesn't seem angry that they took the camera, but more that I would be stupid enough to lose my camera and cellphone in the moto.

Here in lies the difference: impoverished communities make way for a "finders keepers" way of handling lost goods. You leave your things out or in plain sight alone for a few minutes, and it is free game. The honor system is just plain different here. And my first reaction was ferocious anger with body shakes. Losing both of my means of communication at once along with the large amount of projects and responsibilities I have right now was just about enough for a breakdown.
Then I come in to our (as in the gringo's) local hangout in Olmos to talk to our friend Beto. He listens to me, offers to lend me a phone. He's sitting at his computer watching this inspirational video about passing on good deeds - kinda like the movie "Pay It Forward". I didn't realize that working in Peru would make me so bitter towards Peruvians. And I've come to expect that people are more likely to blow me off instead of contribute to projects, more likely to steal than return something I drop, more likely to see me as a walking dollar bill than a person. Being this cynical and untrusting isn't something I expected from Peace Corps. One volunteer from my group said, "I'm leaving this country more racist than I came in" and, honestly it can be really hard not to pre-judge Peruvians after all we see and go through. For example, I don't even try to start conversations with Peruvian men I don't know anymore, because I know that most will take that as a sign they should hit on me.

But the truth is that the problem isn't that Peruvians are bad people or that poor people of other countries would act differently. The truth is that dishonesty lies at all levels, but perhaps hides in more elegant ways with the rich. Truth be told, the real crime is that a family might have to decide between stealing a camera or not having a means to take photos of their growing children. It set me back 600 soles (about 200 dollars) to buy a replacement camera, but a family of 5-8 survives on about 400 soles a month in my community. Whether I like it or not, I represent the disparity between those who have plenty and those who barely get by.

I recently went to Lima, and it is incredible the difference between areas like Miraflores (the rich part of Lima) and the conditions of other parts of Lima, much less of my community. In Miraflores, I ate foods from all over the world, got a bacon cheeseburger and a mango-pineapple-passionfruit smoothie on the beach in the park of love. People talk about bigger ideas, politics, religion, music, art whereas in my community they don't even talk about what they are eating for lunch because it's just whatever they have that day. They talk about how this guy went to town, and pass the latest gossip. There's no room for bigger ideas when the basics of a healthy life can't even be met. I get frustrated that my little host brother can't remember how to play games, but the bigger problem is that he hasn't received the vegetables and fruits he needs to develop.

This is the struggle of living in a second or third world country and trying to work in development. You see the problems so clearly, and yet the solution is muddy - the causes of each problem are so complex. We as Peace Corps volunteers have to constantly remind ourselves that if development was easy, that there wouldn't be a problem. Greed, wealth disparity, and corruption become relative terms, because they appear in different forms at every level. I hear that the mayor of a small community is pocketing some of the money for a local project, but I also know how much the municipality pays him to support his family and can imagine how his family struggles.

If presented with the opportunity to take that camera back from the family, I wonder if God wouldn't be more upset with me for not just letting it go. I'm a bit out of touch, by I'm betting the "you don't need more than one tunic" Jesus feels the same about cameras.

Holiness in the hands of a dirty sinner.

What better time to write about holiness than while I´m at the Peruvian version of Mardi Gras, right? Holiness has been a topic on my mind lately - not how holy I should try to be, but how very unholy I am, how unholy I will be for the rest of this life. It has always been my heart´s desire to go into ministry. I am forever destined to be in love with God. But I am disappointed in the ways that it doesn´t show in my life. After a year and a half living in Peru, my heart has closed quite a bit. I am numb to the needs and pains of the people around me. I´ve grown skeptical, and untrusting of strangers, avoiding eye contact and feeling inconvenienced when they try to talk to me. And I wonder how I could love God so much and forget God´s people so easily. Then I remember verses that say that I can´t. I cannot love God and forget God´s people.

So, I´m trying to find that seemingly impossible balance between giving more than I´m comfortable and giving all I have (wondering all the while if I´m really supposed to be giving it all, but not really willing). What would it look like if I was walking side by side with Jesus in my dusty town? Who would he have stopped to talked to? What am I missing that is right in front of me?

My summer school classes started a few weeks ago. I was waiting for my high schools kids to show up. We are doing this program a volunteer Sara Lev. and I made up called ¨We Are Super Stars¨. It´s a trash/reforestation/youth development campaign, which includes classes like self-esteem, healthy dating, future planning, abstinence, fidelity and proper condom-use. I was playing some praise music before they showed up, kinda overwhelmed by how many seats were in the classroom. The director had left me a classroom full of too many desks and chairs. I stacked the desks together in the back and lined the sides of the room with all these chairs. I sat with my hands together waiting for the kids to show, looking at all those chairs we just didn´t need. And then this image entered my head of all those chairs being filled by angels who were there eager to see our classes begin. The room was holy. And suddenly, talking about self-esteem, STDs and teen pregnancy became the work of God. I wish every moment was like that - when our mission and us being used as the hand of God was overwhelming and holy. If only every moment felt like we were breaking bread and sharing.

I pray that we all get closer to that feeling of holiness. Honestly, I might always be a mess, making bad choices about what I let in and out of my body. I may always swear like a sailor, do a bad job of managing what I eat and drink, do and think the wrong thing. But, in general, I pray that my desire to respond to the needs around me will overpower my cravings of consumption...and even self-preservation. Sometimes there can be no more dangerous of an excuse to not respond to the needs of others than self-preservation. If we´re going to pray ¨Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done¨, we have to be willing to take risks,to live less for ourselves. And, to tell you the truth, I am really bad about making myself available to people beyond my normal routine. I´ll make time for my high school kids, family and friends. But there is no room for that lady who is just asking me for money ´cause I´m white, or that kid who is too pushy and whiny in selling me a pack of gum, that man who is caked in the filth of a third world street. Even worse is when I give without even looking them in the eye, not even acknowledging them as living human beings who experience pain and love.

Here´s to us pushing past our own selfishness. Here´s to allowing the Spirit to bring the kingdom of God to our hearts and us becoming the helpers who get to bring it to God´s people...and not waiting until we are holy enough to carry out the work of a perfect Creator. Here´s to finding holiness in our dirty hands reaching out to another´s.

Lima, te quiero mucho

I am sitting in a McDonald´s in Lima. That´s right. For the first time in over a year and a half, I just devoured a Big Mac with 2 sides of pickles(which I had yet to find in Perú), fries and a lovely Coca-cola. I don´t know what kind of addictive substance they add to the Big Mac to make is so delicious, but I know some sort of trigger went off in my brain after tasting the first bite. ¨Aw yes, there it is!¨ We´re in Lima for our mid-service medical checks and dental exams. This is the first time in a long time that I´ve left the dentist with nothing more than a cleaning! Who knew all you had to do was floss regularly? (Answer: Every dentist I´ve ever been to who has looked at my teeth before.) I don´t know why it took so long for me to pick up that little habit. But I decided to celebrate my clean bill of health (so far so good) and my cleaner teeth with some junk food and a big soda.

I´ve got one more year of service, and it should go by relatively fast. I´m a bit nervous about Bulla leaving, but she´s got some big plans to do whale research in a lab in Olympia, Washington. Keep your fingers crossed that her interview goes well next week. I think she´s got the intership in the bag. I hope she goes to Alaska next year, too.

I finished Project Ironman/Ironwoman with my kids last week. We went to the beach at Pimentel. 13 of my 44 kids completed all the components: diaries, reading ¨The Diary of Anne Frank¨, running a 5K, doing tons of push-ups and sit-ups, going to a list of youth development classes, a doing good works. They´ve learned about self-esteem, leadership, abstinence, fidelity, condom-use, healthy dating, caring for the environment, how to start a small business, the process of going to collegeor a technical school, and so much more. I´m so very proud of them. What a journey it has been, and I can´t wait to make the program more sustainable and successful next year! The program is being recognized by Peace Corps Perú, and will hopefully be replicated by more volunteers in the future. Carolyn and I worked so very hard at creat the program, and it would be amazing to see more and more volunteers take it on.

The ¨Ama Tu Perú¨ campaign is going well. I´m hoping to get the 2 billboards made, though I´m nervous about not getting a response yet from my email to the Passion Fruit company that is paying for the billboards. We had 2 students win the competition and they have been informed, so I´m gonna do my best to follow the project through.

I´m so grateful to have this kind of opportunity to do real grassroots work. It´s amazing how much flexibility and freedom I have to create my own projects/programs. The Peace Corps gives us all the tools we need, but it is probably one of the few jobs in the world where you can do good in your own way. I wake up every morning and get to decide how best to use it. What a blessing this experience has been.

Next year will definitely be different. Sarah Bulla won´t be here, and neither will Carolyn. Carol is headed to Lima to lead the environment program next year. I´m excited for her, and have realized how much I love Lima. For me, Lima means food, food, food. So much good food that I miss so much. I´m getting sushi tonight! Heck yes!

Courts for Kids: Anyone insterested in helping some kids get a court?

I submitted an application for this non-governmental organization called Courts for Kids that pays for ball courts constructed by school groups, service clubs, church groups, sports teams, sorority and frat groups, adult groups, etc who raise money and go to Perú to build them in rural communities.

My community, Corral de Arena, has applied. We just got word that our application is good, however, there is a waiting list of like 26 courts before mine. So the likelihood that we would have a group come before my Peace Corps service ends in November 2012 is not very high. Do any of you have an interest (or know anyone who might) to use a group of 12 people or more to raise funds to build a cement soccer court and come to Perú to make it while staying in my community?

If so, check out this website and get back to me. http://www.courtsforkids.org/ I would like to find a group of people while I am in the States for Christmas. I think the project itself is gonna cost around 35 thousand dollars and I don´t know yet about trasportation costs, but will be updating this blog post accordingly.

If not, don´t worry. I will have other projects (like books, clothes and educational toys) I will be asking for help to finance in the future as well.