Tour de Despedidas [Week Four]

Hello All. It hurt like hell to leave Peru.

And it felt amazing this time to do it on my own terms.

I have a lot to unpack, but for now…

Top Ten Highlights from Week Four

10. Paying attention to the signs. The odd connections between the symbols of Oxapampa, Peru and Lander, Wyoming…

9. Being a healthy, more at-peace version of me. Getting three solid weeks of doing 3x reps (1500 stairs) daily on el Mirador, outside my host family’s home:

8. Watching the South American solar eclipse with my host family on July 2nd

7. Making jokes (in Spanish) about how people think my host sister is “not working” while she has maybe 7 jobs, including decorating for daily ceremonial events:

6. Realizing I after just short of a year in-site, I actually integrated. Watching semi-finals of Peru qualifying for America’s Cup finals with local friends:

5. Living a regular life at site without Peace Corps. Taking glamor photo shots of the things we don’t have back in the U.S.

4. Deeper conversations with Site Mate A about how it feels to leave this amazing place at our Close of Service. (Angeline extended a third year and leaves in August.) We both realized it is the first time in our lives we were leaving a place when we were not ready to leave.

3. Seeking Closure. I found my stuff in the Peace Corps Lima office and managed to ship it to Wyoming via SerPost, hopefully circumventing another three months in bureaucratic purgatory.

2. The cleaver of leaving service early. Getting some good hugs / farewells from my Peru 31 cohort since my timing in Lima landed during Midservice Training (MST) and medical appointments in Lima.

My host family hosting a “surprise birthday party USA” on the Fourth of July, complete with pizza and lemonade and Jello…During my return visit, without PC, I realized I always have a Home here.