Festina Lente

First I want to say goodbye to my pal Samantha who has called it quits with Peace Corps. She decided to head home yesterday and is flying out tonight or tomorrow. I think it has been difficult for her to adjust to life abroad and working with Peace Corps but she was a trooper and stuck it out for over six weeks. I’m proud that she got through the field based training last week because it was a good barometer for what life might be like in site, and I think it gave her a good final opportunity to weigh costs and benefits of continuing with Peace Corps. Good luck to you Sam and definitely stay in touch.

The big drama in my life as of late has been waiting and wondering just where in this big country I’ll be working and living for the next two years. Today we had our final ‘conversations’ (they feel more like interviews) with the small business director and learned a bit more about potential sites. With Sam gone, the business group is down to fifteen people, and I think there are eighteen sights total. A couple of people have a pretty good idea of what they want and I, true to form, have no clue. Everything sounds interesting to me, and I can find pros and cons in every type of job and every type of sight (mostly pros). Some of the questions we’ve had to consider are:

• type of work: artisan groups, beekeeping, tourism, agriculture, weavers, ceramics, etc
• new or replacement volunteer: do we want to replace a current volunteer and continue with an ongoing project, or start somewhere new from scratch
• location, location, location: sierra (mountains) or la costa (coast)
• size of community: small (~1,000 population), medium (~5,000), or large (~8,000-12,000)

I have wavered between both extremes on all of those questions; I think all types of work could be interesting. I would have more tangible successes if I took over for someone on an ongoing project, but it would also be nice to start things off fresh and really leave my mark on something. Sierra is beautiful, the people and cultures and traditions are fascinating, but it is cold half the year and rains the other half. On the coast, the people are generally more open to newcomers and more open to change, but it is hotter than hell during the summer. In a small community, I could get to really know the people well, and really become an integrated part of the community, but with a larger community I’d have more resources available to me, more opportunities for side projects, and it sounds unimportant, but a wider variety of foods (especially fruits and vegetables) available to me.

Some of the people in my group know exactly what they want, and I am sure of basically nothing. After my interview/conversation today, I am no closer to knowing where I’m going and I’m leaving the decision in the hands of Alfredo (the director), and God I suppose. I’m just trying to keep an open mind and to remember that I had only a little input into what area of the world I was going to, and zero input into which country I’d be living in. So to be told I’m headed to a specific locale for two years for my service isn’t much more of a stretch beyond that. Nevertheless, I am and I’ve been a bit anxious about this impending decision and I’ll be glad when it is all said and done. At the end of the day, what I’ve been told is important is not so much whether you are in mountains or coast, or whether you have running water, but how much you like your counterparts at work, and how much you can integrate into your community. Success in these areas will depend partly on the chemistry between me and my new friends and neighbors, but for the most part the responsibility lies within me to make the best of whatever situation I’m placed into, and to take advantage of all resources available to me. By keeping in mind that a lot of my success as a volunteer depends on my attitude and efforts, my anxieties about site placement are slightly ameliorated.

All will be decided by August third, about a week and a half from now. We’ll be having a talent show and then we’ll be getting our site assignments. Either that Saturday (the next day) or Sunday we will head out to our sites for a couple of days to meet our new families and get to know the community a little bit before returning to Chaclacayo to finish with training and to get sworn in. And then, voila! I’m a peace corps volunteer and you can write ‘PCV Danielle Howard’ on my mail, and I’ll stop shaving my armpits, and wear hemp necklaces and love all breeds of animals and humans and plants.