Back Keeping Austin Weird

Happy Holidays! It has been a whirlwind being back in the US. I got here on the 20th and I thought it would be a shock to be back but nope, reentry is no biggie. Sometimes in Peru I miss home so much that I forget all of this: my family the support and the um... dynamics, my amazing friends and their eccentricities, ginormous grocery stores with strawberries and tomatoes in the middle of winter, Target, bagels, my goddaughter and bathtubs with scented bubble bath are all here and really always will be. Right now I'm where I need to be znd it's beautiful, especially when it's hard and I'm looking forward to the next year of playing with the kiddos and talking about trash with the mayor.

Las Ladies, my New York girls who are now scattered to Los Angles, Toronto and Harlem get here tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to seeing them and showing them my town. I just realized that the friendly neighborhood homeless transvestite in Austin, Leslie is listed in Wikipedia. I hope that he's not actually still homeless as so many people know him and try to support him. Some friends of my parents actually hired him to jump out of a birthday cake a la Marylin Monroe for JFK a few years back. It's these things that pinch me with a nostalgic twinge as I consider moving back here when I finish Peace Corps. There are pros like my family, delightful and quirky fun, and an enticing music scene but also cons, like so much laid back-ness my anxiety around not being chill enough keeps me drinking copious amounts of caffeine and listening to Asleep at the Wheel all hopped up is just incongruent. I'm not actually built to be this laid back. I'm told that I'm way too much of an overachiever for this town. Overachiever is incredibly un-hip here. In fact I think that you get kicked out of the east Austin bar scene for admitting to having taken the Foreign Service Exam while refusing to wear vintage. Fortunately, I do like vintage so I pass. Sneaky, eh? There's also DC to consider.

Here's one classic Austin oddity with excellent breakfast tacos:


Other recent events in my life include the Lima Mid-service Medical Checks Extravaganza, meeting my goddaughter, family style holiday fun in St. Louis, and spending Christmas in Austin with the family.

A Return to the Land of Eternal Sunshine

After spending the most time that I have spent in a large urban area after leaving New York I'm finally back in the campo. I was in Lima for almost 2 weeks for Mid-service Meetings and Medical Checks! Now I'm in Rinconada Llícuar for just a few days before I head off to Austin for Christmas. In Lima I became a frenetic ditz and frequent Starbucks consumer. I couldn't think straight with all that big city commotion. I was pretty quick back in the Big Apple but, I think that I have been campo-afied over the last year. I can only hope that I will eventually bounce back enought to at least be able to make it in the suburbs. Highlights include a PowerPoint presentation of my work this year, no cavities, and no word on my parasite count yet. I'm deciding to assume that no news is good news. I also spent many an evening catching up until the wee hours of the morning with folks from my training class, listening to live jazz, and learning Lima's public transportation system which is quite the adventure.

I'm not gonna lie. I feel like a slacker heading off to the US in the middle of Peace Corps. I did not plan to return to the States until the end of Peace Corps. It is definitely not hardcore and I sometimes enjoy a fantasy that I am quite hardcore. After all, I do own fleece, Chacos, and a pocket knife now. But, good things happen and so it goes in the USA I'm spending quality time with my grandfather, attending goddaughter's baptism, hanging out with my brothers, spending New Year's with my girls from graduate school aka Las Ladies, stocking up on essentials like cotton undies, and doing some preparation for hiking the Inca Trail with Pragati in May. Wahoo!

In the interim I'm hoping to get my Christmas gifts all sorted out and figure out how to transport an impressive quantity of ceramics from Rinconada to Piura to Guayaquil to Miami to Dallas to Austin. Did I mention it's going to take me 3 days to get there?

Also, my cat is limping all over the place for an unknown reason and my host family has taken to calling him cojido which basically means the gimp... I’m hoping to get a different kitty-sitter for this trip.

Lima Blowing my Mind

I've been in Lima since Monday and it's totally blowing my mind. I'm sitting in a McDonald's eating a S/. 2.50 cheeseburger and posting on my blog. I haven't seen a donkey cart in nearly a week and I have showered every day for 4 days in a row! I haven't smelled this good in months. I also stay up way past my 9pm bedtime to drink wine, eat at Italian restaurants, and go out on the town to listen to live Latin jazz.

I'm staying at this hostel that's like being in a fraternity house. I was talking to a friend on the phone from the rooftop terrace and a group of not-all-that-sober guys were hanging out when one of them put on a gnome hat, took off his shirt and started jumping up and down like a monkey. I think it might be a bad sign that the funny smelling, straggly haired Spanish guy on the top bunk has become really, really hot. We're not in the campo anymore Toto.

Today I'm going to a training with an international non-profit organization called CARE so that I can go down to Ica in a couple of months and help with the earthquake relief effort. I'm excited about being able to help and learning what it is to do emergency relief work, but I'm having a hard time really being here mentally. I'm going back to the US for Christmas and New Year's and I'm so anxious and excited to go I cannot concentrate on work at all. I'm going to visit my grandparents, be the godmother for my dearest friend's baby at her baptism, and party it up on New Year's Eve with my girls from New York. Blowing my mind.

Mid-service

I just arrived in Lima early this morning on everyone's favorite mode of transportation: the overnight Ittsa bus/cama from Piura to Lima. The 15 hour bus ride has gotten normal for me, but if a year and a half ago you told me that I would take a $33 bus ride for 15 hours instead of taking a $100 plane flight for 1 hour, that is back when I was living in New York City and earning a salary, I'm pretty sure that I would have informed you of your insanity and offered to take you to see my therapist. Money has started to mean something different than it did before when I made 15 times what I make now but still school loans are still looming. I think it's a good thing as I have never been one to be overly concerned with finances. It's definitely driving the point home.

I have been here for more than a year now so I'm in Lima to have medical checkups, to go to some meetings to present what I've been doing, and to help with starting this new program called a Peer Support Network. I have also been charged with bringing new clothes back home to the host family, colors sizes and styles all specified in great detail. And you know, none of this seems all that odd or novel anymore.

What else has gotten normal now that I have been here a year?
-Having water every other day for 2 hours, when the well pump is not broken
-Sharing my patio with Chau and Fa, my disco chickens who have go-go boot shaped feathers adorning their feet
-Town wide loud speakers that start at 5:15 AM with a Christian Evangelical talk show followed by a run down of who is selling what that day and a review of the front page news
-Having a house with cement floors and a hammock and wee neighbors who visit to sing a song called "I'm a happy tree" to the tune of "I'm a Little Tea Pot"
-Having my friends from home write and call with major life events like writing their first book, losing the dream job, getting the dream job, breaking up, getting married, having babies, going blonde, turning 30, getting a new therapist, finishing graduate school, getting yet another new boyfriend or girlfriend
-Eating delicious fresh fish soup everyday for dinner
-Speaking at all public civic events and being referred to as an "autoridad" like the mayor and city council members
-Being Professora Elita or La Gordita Gringa
-Running through the rice fields and watching the sunrise
-Eating tamarind Popsicles out of little bags on the front porch of Dora's house
-Having tons of incredibly cheap and delicious fresh fruit available basically when ever I want it
-Just waking up and being in Peru

But novel stuff is still a daily thing:
I took my host family to the movies on Saturday. They had never been before and they absolutely loved it, especially the kids (Darwin 13, Pepe 8 and Ingrid 7). We rode the escalator at the shopping center and they were totally terrified but, then after the movie asked to ride it again. We saw a Disney movie that in Spanish is called Dog Fireman, but I have a feeling that is not an exact translation of the English title. Dora loved the fact that it had a moral at the end, stuff about good parenting and taking care of your family. Hopefully we will go again, next time on Discount Tuesday.