Mistake Making

10.28.10

Wow. It’s amazing to me that it’s been an entire month since I last posted a blog entry. I’m sorry to have left you all on such a sour note--that English class nonsense was quite the debaucle. But you’ll be happy to know that things have been moving along nicely since then. No run-ins with the aforementioned creepy English teacher and many more successes than frustrations.

I just celebrated my two-month anniversary here in Bolivar and am happy to have almost five months under my belt here in Peru. Yes, I’m still counting the weeks and months but every day the urge to cross out another day on my calendar fades just a little bit. And if an entire month without a blog entry means anything, it’s that I’ve been busy. Which is true.

The month of October has been filled with art classes with the second grade, typing classes with the second grade teacher, Monopoly with my host sister, and lots of knitting…and then re-knitting with my host mom, Rosa. Also this month I attended one college fair, one dental hygiene fair, two quincinera celebrations, and, somewhere in there, one round of karaoke in Chiclayo.

Things here are good. A little slow at times but definitely steady as I head into my official site visit next week from Youth Development’s Program Specialist and Volunteer Coordinator. I’m looking forward to their visit, eager to share my ideas and, excited for the beginning of a new month and the many possibilities it will bring because basically, while things here are good, I’m realizing that I need a jumpstart.

Peace Corps gives us three months to really get to know our community, to meet our host families, improve our Spanish, and write our Community Diagnostics. Somewhere along the way we are also supposed to have begun some “early win” projects, simple projects that volunteers have used again and again to quickly get involved in the community. I think I’ve done my share of early wins, tutoring in the preschool, teaching in the elementary school, typing away in the library, but I think I know deep down that I could be doing more. I know too that I’ll be happier here when I’m doing more.

It’s harder than I thought it would be to stay motivated. Especially because being motivated doesn’t just mean making sure you are waking up every morning, taking those cold showers, still speaking Spanish, and eating rice for the 12^th meal in a row. I think it’s supposed to mean that you are making sure you’re putting yourself out there again and again, risking something new every single day. And while I can acknowledge that it’s a risk just being here, I think I know deep down that I’m not putting myself out there the way I should be.

The other night Jorge Luis, a neighbor and a member of the Library Committee here, asked if I ever thought I’d end up somewhere like this. And I remembered that actually when I came to visit Bolivar during our week of Field Based Training, I got off the bus and said, “This is it. This is what I want in a site.” I saw so much potential for work, for projects, for continuing something really great that the past volunteers had gotten started. Yes, I did think, even hoped, that I’d end up somewhere like this.

I know a lot more now—more about Bolivar, more about just how hard these two years might be and why. But I still think that this is the site for me. I still think I have great ideas that have the potential to be realized here with the help of great people. I only have to get started.

I think so far my fears of falling short of my goals have kept me from really taking chances. I’m endlessly planning and brainstorming, always looking ahead to a better time to start a youth group or a toothbrushing project, in hopes of somehow creating a perfect two years here in Bolivar. And that idea of perfection is something I just need to let go of. Instead, these two years will be a series of trials and errors that need to begin now.

Being a volunteer here in Bolivar will be about taking risks. It will be all about making mistakes and realizing that with each mistake I am becoming a better volunteer. I will start where the doors are already open, where the obstacles seem small, the goals achievable. And I’ll remind myself that maybe, while I’m learning from my many mistakes in doing the do-able, doors will open to achieving what now seems impossible. I’ll start today.