A delayed update

Aug 17

I sit here feeling awfully grown up for how young I must be.  Dreading this long awaited blog post, feeling the need to apologize to both the computer screen for my long absence, and to those of you who perhaps have wondered, if you have, what may have happened.  Well, too much to put in one blog post, too much to put in any amount of blog posts, so a brief list will have to suffice.  To sum it up I believe that growth has happened.  I realize that the insecurity I was feeling, that need to tread lightly over this job, this experience, this town, these people, was something that has always creeped up from within - a slight regurgitation that gurgles up like those salivary glands that act up before one vomits.  That insecurity, well my need to hide behind multiple layers of masks and tragedies, various forms of wilting flowers on a beige wall, may still be there but in the past few months as I realize that being a manager of this NGO means that I mostly have only myself to stand against when the wind blows too hard, has given me a sense of empowerment that for years I was slowly implanting in clients, partners, friends, and anyone else who would take my handouts.  Now I might be giving it back to myself. 

Since I have gone to Lima (aka since the last blog post), much has happened.  I have felt lonely, friendless, as though all the other foreigners in this town could just do “this”, live here successfully, better than I could.  Some people are better at it than me.  Acceptance can be monolithic.  I have made messes and cleaned some of them up.  I have watched the transient nature of this town unfurl, and been left broken hearted by it.  I have been alone, and sought companionship, been left alone again, and found that that process might have a healing element.  I have found an attractive part of me which I own and which is not dependent on past relationships.  I have seen immense suffering and confusion, to which our organization has tried, failed, and eventually realized we could not handle.  I have felt guilty, futile, and helpless.  I have lost my immigration card, and I don’t know what that means.  There has been a child in this town named after me.  I have filed my first ever police report, and found that support comes out of the strangest places.  I have seen in myself and others the hilarious circumstance by which Spanish and English personalities differ.  My friend has asked me to be the godmother of his new minibus, to which I gladly accepted.  I have fallen in love with the five puppies we now have in our office.  This love has only been surmounted by the love I have for my new baby lamb, Yalo – which has created a dilemma that everyone I know foresaw as I was planning on eating him in six months.  People have money placed on this!  Our organization has doubled the amount of community health workers we have, as well as the amount of communities we work in.  While in the jungle with my tios, Joe and Maureen, I saw two jaguars, a sloth, and got stung by a sting ray.  A few days later, we were walking through the snow on an impassable road near one of our communities.  I realized, through that visit, that I live in a wondrous place.  That my life is one of beauty, that my job is incredible, that my day to day is something I have been looking for for a long, long time.  I have realized that making friends is difficult, and having friends who essentially are like family can transcend countless borders. 

Excitingly, in the past few months, the thought has crossed my mind that this could be something I could actually dedicate more than a year to.