A 'Merhican Christmas

December 23-25, 2011

We left the taxi at about 7:30 pm and wandered down the steep road to the bus terminal in Cusco. I should have known that two nights before Christmas the entire country would be traveling. Upon entering the madhouse we quickly became worried we would be left behind and not a single bus seat would be left to take us to Arequipa. Fortunately, amongst the dozens of bus counters each with someone shouting out cities, we heard our destination and scrambled over. There were four seats left, perfect!

After a quick sandwich and trip to the ATM, we paid the terminal tax and headed to the loading station. If we thought the inside of the station was crazy, outside was ten times worse. So many people were waiting outside it was impossible to navigate past the rows of buses loading up the holiday travelers. We saw our bus waiting in a long line, looking for an opening in between the 20 loading spaces to pull in and begin the boarding process. Finally, 30 minutes after departure time, it found an opening and we climbed aboard.

Our seats were on the second level of the bus in the very front. At first, I thought, “This is great!” We could look out the window and see everything in front of us. But we had no leg room because we were so close to the front. Our seats did not turn into beds, making the next ten hours of driving through the night a dreary thought. And one piece of forensic evidence proved ominous. The spider webbed glass in front of us could only have been made by a human skull hitting it with a powerful force.

Thus began our two day vacation to Arequipa for Christmas.

Finally our bus found an opening...

Um, somehow I don't think seat belts are going to help us...

The trip was pretty awful, but we arrived in good spirits. We checked into a cheap hostel and headed off to breakfast. The sun was out and it was so hot we had to sit in the shade. Awesome. The rest of the day Kari and I went shopping while Anisha and Steve went to a few tourist sites I had already visited. A 5 block by 5 block area in downtown was shut down and filled with vendors selling everything anyone could need for Christmas. It was pretty incredible to see.

After a nap in the afternoon, we headed out to dinner with Vanessa and her friend Eleana. We ate at the same vegetarian restaurant she took me to back in November. We all had a great conversation and then headed out to the club. Eleana brought two huge loaves of Panaton which we shared with the bartenders. It is the holiday bread that EVERYONE down here eats for Christmas. It is bread with chunks of brightly colored fruit inside, and a favorite of mine. (Kind of like fruitcake, except it is actually good.) We stayed until 4:00 am.

Breakfast in the plaza

Christmas tree in the plaza at night

Eating Panaton in the club

Christmas day was the closest I’ve felt to being in the States yet. We started with a gift exchange in our room. Sitting there on the beds covered in wrapping paper and sharing gifts seemed like a pretty normal way to start Christmas. We then headed out for lunch, at BURGER KING! Yes! There are only two in Peru. Needless to say, I ate a lot. Oh processed, unhealthy food how I have missed you. I wandered outside and found a bookstore. Now, for days we have been looking for a puzzle down here with no luck, and this place had a 2000 piece puzzle! Merry Christmas to me! We then went to the mall. It must have been designed by an American architect because it looked and felt exactly like a mall from the States. We went there because it has a MOVIE THEATER! That is a tradition in my house back home to see a movie on Christmas, and we saw not one, but two in a row. And while we were waiting I played DDR and Guitar Hero in the arcade there. After the movies we ate at the food court, and I had Chinese. But not like the regular Chinese down here, it was legit, crappy American Chinese that felt like I got it at Dragon Express in Grand Haven. There are so many flavors that I have not tasted since early June. Man it was good.

So despite being 5,000 miles away from friends and family, it was a great day and the closest I will feel to being home until I get back in March.

Feliz Navidad!!

Kari getting a snake bracelet

BK!!

Bus station in Arequipa, heading home

A traveler and a conversation

December 23, 2011

A few days ago I got an email from my boss from Rustic. He said a friend of a friend is traveling through Ollantaytambo for a day or so and can he look me up? Sure. I gave him my number and Thursday he called.

We met up and ran a few errands before we grabbed dinner. It turns out Eric works for the Bay School in San Francisco which is where two of my students from last summer attend! We had a great talk over dinner and he then helped me move into my new room. (The rent is way cheaper and I am in total saving money mode right now. My mortgage is absolutely destroying me from 5,000 miles away.) Ana, Erin, Anisha, Eric and I sat in my new room and just talked all night. It was great, and we had fun explaining our little world here in Peru to him. It was interesting to sit there and realize that this is my home. I know the city, the people, and have friends and purpose here.

My new room, simple is good.

The next day Keri and I were going up to Socma to chat with the president and some families on our motorcycles. I offered Eric a ride up so he could see what the people really live like down here and not just pass through as a tourist. Of course he said yes and we planned to meet early the next morning.

The ride up was wet and muddy. It is rainy season now and it is always wet. I actually dumped my bike for the first time while moving, even though it was at 5 mph. We got up there and chatted with Nohemi’s dad and had tea. I asked about teaching classes up there in January and February, and Keri asked about doing a mobile health clinic up there as well. He told me how after two years they still don’t have electricity because of drama with the meters. I also found out that the elementary school (which is pretty nice) has been empty all year because the teacher didn’t feel like coming. Arg. It was a great trip as usual, and I love going up there time after time on the bike to hang out.

Eric and I in Socma

I tried to look at that trip from Eric’s perspective. He has two weeks in Peru to travel, and is doing a lot of the normal touristy things. But he is a great guy and jumped at the chance to experience life here from a different perspective. It is just hard to do and it was a lucky connection that we were able to meet up. But the story he will tell when he gets home is that he got his first ever motorcycle ride from some strange guy up to a tiny village high in the Andes to hang out with locals.

It got me thinking about the possible bike ride home. If I don’t manage to find those connections then it would just be me passing through. And if I did find those connections, I would have lots of adventurous stories, but I still wouldn’t be a part of those new communities. It got me thinking about how much I have become a part of this community and how badly I want to continue that relationship. I am starting to feel really good about the possibility of staying here longer.

So right now the plan is to stay until mid-February. Then I want to travel down to Chile and Argentina in order to visit the orphanage from the “best connection ever” blog post. I can return through Bolivia and leave my motorcycle in Ollantaytambo. I will fly back to the states to teach 3^rd trimester and return here in June. Then I can decide if I want to drive home or make Peru more permanent. I feel like that is the best of both worlds.

Monday night was a big Christmas party for the Awamaki volunteers to which I scored an invite. (Thanks guys.) It was great! There was a white llama gift exchange, homemade beer and pizza, a fire, and lots of incredibly interesting and intelligent people to talk to. But when you hang out with people smarter than you are, it changes you.

I was chatting with Emma about whether to go or stay, and told her how Jeff’s question was the one that I would probably use to make my decision. He simply asked, “Which choice does more good?” I thought my answer would be staying, because I would continue to help the project and be intimately involved in the girls’ continued education. But she responded with something that I had never thought of. Essentially, she said that to do the most good for the world it involves sitting in an office stuck behind a computer all day helping to create policies and systems that directly affect people’s lives. Whoa. It got me thinking, Socma and Kalkanka have great school buildings with no teachers, so the children there have no education. The teachers were hired by the government but just don’t show up and there are no consequences. I want to hold classes, find a teacher, or get the kids hooked up in a dormitory to help them get an education. I could maybe help a dozen kids by doing this. But what if someone in an office in Lima helps to pass a law that has severe penalties for teachers who don’t report to work? Or passes a benefits package that actually pays teachers a decent wage and gives them retirement and medical services? All of a sudden hundreds of schools are no longer in need of help and thousands of students are affected.

Am I thinking too small? Am I valuing the personal relationships too much when I could be doing so much more? At Storer Camps I was offered a director position but turned it down so I could stay a counselor in the cabins. I have never thought of being an administrator at my school because I want to stay in the classroom and not lose the personal relationships with the kids. I always thought connecting to other people was an important thing, but if I really want to change the world maybe I need to sit in an office all day and fight for justice. It can be boring, difficult, not personally rewarding, and frustrating. But the benefits can be overwhelming. I still am not sure how to relate this to what I do and how I interact with service, but at least I can give a huge thank you to all those in positions of power and responsibility. Thank you for laboring for the greater good. Arg, and I thought I had everything figured out.

Part II Reflection

December 17, 2011

Thus ended part II of my trip, tutoring at the dorm. What an amazing five months! Way back in college, before it was cool to have a bucket list, I did write down a few things I wanted to do before I died. I don’t think swimming the 100 butterfly in the Olympics is going to happen. But the only other item left besides having a family is living in another country for a long time. Done. I should probably get going on that family thing now.

I have been agonizing about the decision to stay or go home. I wrote the crossroads post to help myself work through it. To the many people who have given me input, thank you. It means a lot. I spent some time reflecting this week on how I came to be here. I still have a self-view of myself as just a young high school teacher who grew up in a small town in middle America trying to get it right.

But then, I started to look at my life as a body of experiences, wow. I have traveled all over the world and United States doing volunteer or cultural work. I ended up in Peru on a motorcycle. I have conversations like, “I can possibly shoot down to Argentina in February so I can visit your orphanage”, or “I want to teach math and Spanish classes in Socma in January and February”.

Wait, what?

How did I get here? I am not a world traveler, I just tagged along on a few service trips then organized a few myself. I am not some expert on the United States, I managed to travel around it because my students wanted to help. I am not a motorcycle guy, I’ve only been riding for 2 years and am constantly learning simple things. I am not a famous musician, I only learned guitar to play at summer camps. I am not a visionary, I am just a simple volunteer at a project that other people poured their hearts and time into to create. At the end of the day, there will be no books or movies written about my life, and my impact on the world will be minimal. I only mention this because I can easily be you.

You can always compare yourself to someone else and make yourself look good or bad. But when I look at my life, what I have been able to do, and especially these last six months, I am very, very happy.

So if living this type of life is so rewarding, why don’t more people do it? Let me start by saying that the perspective I come from is the one of American middle class privilege. I won every lottery that exists. I am wealthy. I have a strong support system. I have a great family. So this only applies to the tiniest percentage of people that live in this world, which happens to be my friends and family and the people I am assuming are reading this.

Is it fear that holds us back? Almost every time I have volunteered or done something outside of my comfort zone I was really, really nervous at first. When I started traveling, I have always been told that I will be killed by terrorists or drug dealers, robbed, jailed, or other terrible things will happen. And all that has happened is I have found the human race is more beautiful and more dreadful than I ever imagined. There are systems of unbelievable injustice and conflict in the world, and some individuals are capable of such evil it is tough to handle. But on the other hand there are huge numbers of kind, selfless, tough people who work tirelessly to improve the world we find ourselves in and make life better for all.

My world back home is safe and comfortable. I am surrounded by luxury and security, so much so I don’t know if I have the guts to leave it permanently. But even leaving temporarily has been amazing.

So take a chance. Let go. Do something in the name of good that would otherwise cause you great fear. If you travel, don’t be a tourist. The beach will feel good and the pictures will be beautiful, but they won’t compare with what connecting to the human condition will do to your soul. Most times the people you serve will gain little to no benefit, but don’t use that as a reason to not do it. You will grow. It will open your mind. You will eventually find ways to truly make a difference. And who knows where it will take you.

I read on another motorcyclist’s blog that the top deterrent for most people is the “What if” game. It stung as I thought of that amazing ride through the mountains to Arequipa that was tainted by me getting involved with “what if”. He is a dangerous foe, and has championed many experiences going unlived. Another posted, “If you don’t go too far, you will never know how far you can go.”

But what if we played the other side of “what if”? What if everyday life was interesting and beautiful? What if you spent one day helping a tiny community gain access to electricity, and the next was spent twisting through magnificent mountains on a motorcycle? What if you had intelligent, interesting friends from all over the world who inspired you by the lives they lived? What if a small group of young women cared deeply about you because you taught them something no one else took the time to teach them?

What if the risk is really worth it?