2008: A Year for Starting Over

Looking back on this past year, I feel like I'm halfway through a complete life makeover. After nearly ten years in New York and 13 months in Peru as a missionary, I came home this year to embark on a nation-wide, six-month job hunt. Now I have a job, but am still trying to decide whether to relocate to the West Coast or the East Coast next year. After two years of big changes, it boggles my mind how many directions my life can still go in 2009.

I'm not alone, however; the whole country seems to be starting over with me! This year our consumption-based lifestyle, based on cheap gas and cheap credit, finally became unsustainable. Wall Street crashed, taking millions of nest eggs and jobs with it. Many of my friends in New York who did not quit their jobs to become missionaries are now being laid off anyway, and are facing similar questions about moving home with parents and starting over in a brand new career. And of course, we elected our country's first African-American, first Gen X, and first postmodern president, a guy with so many connections to the poor and marginalized that I still can't believe he's taking the most powerful office in the world. The world isn't just flat, it's been turned upside down!

I used to call the working life "a hamster wheel" rather than a rat race, because my friends and I all seemed to be running to stand still, working ever longer hours in big corporations in order to pay ever increasing rents, using 401K's and real estate as security blankets which doubled as golden handcuffs, keeping us in this exhausting keeping-up-with-the-Joneses lifestyle. Well, I am glad the hamster wheel has come undone and we are now rolling forward, as unpredictable and scary as it is. I'm hopeful that the next few years, which will most definitely be bumpy ones, will force us to grow and adapt, take better care of our finances, our environment, and each other. And I'm grateful for the lessons I learned in Peru, which I have a feeling will serve me well in this less-financially-secure world.

So What Does a Missionary Do Next?

About two years ago, when I first decided to give up a career in publishing and spend a year abroad in Peru, I had a vague idea that I when I came back home I could find another job in publishing, or switch to non-profit work if I really enjoyed my time with the mission. Of course I didn't realize that I'd come back to the worst economy since 9/11 (coincidentally, the last time I was looking for a job!).

I also didn't realize how much Peru would change me. Getting back into the mindset of interviews and salary negotiations after living in a largely poor, informal economy feels a little wrong. To go back to a shiny office building or a company with a work force in the hundreds or thousands where you might never see your suppliers or customers face to face just seems so impersonal, and I think probably takes away much of the joy of working.

In Peru there are very few corporations, and the vast majority of the economy is informal – that is, totally unregulated and untaxed manual labor or street businesses. With so little rule of law, carrying out business or charity or almost any kind of work involves tons of individual relationship-building and flexibility. Picking up some of those traits seems to have helped me in my personal life, but they don't exactly translate to the working world here.

I soon realized I would probably feel the most at home in a small startup, where the pace is as unpredictable, and the multi-tasking as extreme, as what I experienced in Peru. One type of job that I kept coming back to, through referrals from friends or responses to my resume, were jobs working for churches and ministries. Peru Mission was focused on helping people, particularly the marginalized or isolated, form communities and relationships in the context of the church. It sounds cliche, but having experienced both a "rich" and "poor" country, money is definitely not the answer; and all peoples, whether slum-dwellers in poor nations or alienated yuppies in the developed world, could benefit from more churches that are building up their communities. (Side note: I acknowledge a lot of churches aren't doing a very good job of that, but that's all the more reason to try to help change things, right?)

After talking to several different ministries over the past few months, I'm thrilled to finally have a job with Redeemer Labs, a pilot project of my old church in New York, Redeemer Presbyterian. (See the recent books published by our senior pastor Tim Keller, The Reason for God and The Prodigal God.) Basically I'll help to build an online resource, and an online community, that will serve people trying to do ministry in cities all over the world. I can envision this kind of web portal being used by the Peruvians I worked alongside with, which for me is the ultimate measure of success.

Working for a church will not exactly be a path to financial or job security in this economy. But Peru greatly increased my risk-tolerance and sense of adventure, so we'll see where this path takes me... I can't wait.

My Stint as an Election Day Official

This year, inspired like so many other young Americans to contribute to my country's political process, I volunteered to help man a polling station in nearby Missouri City, a suburb of Houston, Texas. Well actually, I was recruited by a couple at church who run their precinct's polling station every election. What a great thing to do!

So, a few observations about my experience on this historic Election Day:

The people working the polls included two observers (one Republican, one Democrat), a judge to make sure we were following all of the rules, an assistant judge, and a few random people (myself included) to sign people in and get them in and out of the voting stations. We filled out a form and I believe will later be paid $8/hr for our time.

The polls were open from 7am-7pm. My shift was 7am to noon, so I showed up around 6:45am, and there was already a small line outside. Before letting anyone in, we all swore an oath not to use any candidate's name, or in any way, through word or gesture, try to influence any vote. Then we set to work.

A lot of people have commented on the amount of early voting this year. At our precinct of about 1200 voters, an amazing 60% had voted early! So we were expecting a record turnout on Election Day, but during my five-hour shift, a steady trickle of only about 65 voters came in. (We had to send many away because they showed up at the wrong precinct. Texans, please note: early voting is okay anywhere in your county, but voting on Election Day MUST be at your assigned precinct, so look it up first!) We ended up chatting during long breaks, eating kolaches and donuts a devoted neighbor brought us, at one point even entertaining a friskly yellow lab who came running right into the voting booth area. Seems that everyone wants a say in this election.

Apparently all precincts in Fort Bend County are supposed to have a Spanish speaker on hand, so I proudly wore my "Se Habla Español" sticker, but everyone spoke perfect English and I didn't get to use my language skillz. (Apparently it would have been a little bit awkward; I'd have to explain the voting in Spanish, then translate everything I just said to the observers to make sure I wasn't secretly telling them who to vote for. They would literally be standing over my shoulder.) Overall, however, I was impressed with the precautions taken to make sure voting was conducted fairly, and feel more confident about the voting process now that I've seen it from the other side.

For me the most poignant moment was when two different African-American mothers brought in their 18-year-old sons to vote for the first time. They were so proud. What an election year to cast your first vote!

fuzzy cellphone photo of me wearing my Election Day "bling"

America, Cutting Back

So now in America we are in the midst of a full-on economic (and political) crisis. The failure of Wall Street and our financial system has been compared to that of a third-world country, the kind that have to get bailed out by the World Bank and IMF. I've heard that many retirees have already had their 401K's and savings cut 20%.

Given the high, and increasing, cost of living in the United States, I think we might start having to ask the kinds of questions, and making the kinds of sacrifices, that they make in other less-rich parts of the world. Maybe not the kinds they make in Peru, where they put their children to work collecting scrap metal out of trash heaps. But maybe the kinds they make in Korea, where my family is from.

For instance: living with your extended family. My grandmother lives with one of my aunts in Seoul, and all of her children help take care of her. I saw a news report recently that says an increasing amount of elderly in America can't afford to live on their own and are moving in with adult children. I think this kind of sacrifice is probably a good thing. Americans don't honor their family obligations nearly as much as either Koreans or Peruvians, and I think not having the money to live on our own might force us to deal with family relationships that have long been strained or just inactive. (I think a big part of the problem is that we move out of our parents' house at age 18, so our relationships with our parents remain frozen in an adolescent, rebellious-teenager state.)

Another possible sacrifice (for those not doing so already) might be living in an apartment instead of a house, and taking public transport instead of driving your own car. This will be a tough transition since so many of our cities are built around cars and sprawl. In Korea they've built massive condo towers throughout Seoul and other cities which allow millions to live in modern, comfortable, affordable units and either drive or take their excellent subway system.

I wonder if we'll also see some emigration. The US has already seen immigration drop off and some immigrants have even returned to their home countries as a result of the bad economy. Despite South Korea's economic success, competition for schools and jobs is still fierce, and many young people move abroad for better job opportunities. Might we start seeing more Americans work abroad during the coming recession, where economies are growing and the cost of living is lower?

America is over two generations removed from the Great Depression; South Korea is only about one generation removed from poverty, and accordingly South Koreans still work incredibly hard to avoid falling back into it. (You pretty much miss out on your youth in South Korea; when my cousins were in high school they went to class around 7am-4pm and to "cram school" from 5-10pm.) Hopefully America won't quite go to that extreme, but we can probably no longer assume that we'll be more successful than our parents without even trying.

Disasters and their consequences

Well, here I am, seven years after 9/11, five years after the Great Blackout of 2003, one year after traveling to the earthquake zone around Chincha, Peru, and once again in the midst of a disaster zone: Houston after Hurricane Ike.

I've been living in Sugar Land, just southwest of Houston, all summer. I've been job-hunting and planning on moving to either the East or West coast. However, a variety of factors has kept me here longer than anticipated. I'm beginning to suspect that one of them is that God intends for me to experience as many different kinds of disasters as possible. I have to say, as much pain and stress as they entail, I've learned a lot and may even be grateful for each disaster I've experienced.

I think 9/11, as I've shared below, gave me a framework to understand suffering and tragedy, and the possible redemptive effects of it. It also gave me a sense of what's really important in life at an early age, when my friendships were not yet very deep and my aspirations were vague and directionless.

The blackout in New York City showed me the resilience of New Yorkers, a people who after all had the perspective of having been through a terrorist attack. Work and busy schedules ceased, people held block parties and took in their neighbors. Hotel patrons locked outside of their rooms (the downside of electronic keycards) actually slept outside on the steps or sidewalks of New York and passed the night in safety. Everyone took a break from their TVs and laptops and engage in old-fashioned pastimes like conversation by candlelight or board games.

The earthquake in Peru, the only disaster in which I was an aid worker/reporter and not a resident, was more like a bird's-eye view of what disaster does to the have-nots. I learned that millions of dollars in aid don't do much good if they're stolen or distributed inefficiently. I saw that the real problem was not the earthquake event itself, but the poverty and exclusion which led people to build their homes out of mud in shantytowns in the first place (which of course promptly fell down in the quake while more expensive brick and concrete structures survived). Over a year later, most of their neighborhoods have not been rebuilt; both a cause and an effect is that these people have hardly any voice in the political process. I learned, as we saw in our own country from Katrina, that the poor do not have many resources with which to build their lives, and therefore are forgotten more quickly and suffer more profoundly than the rich.

Now, in a large and fairly prosperous American city which has been hit by a hurricane, I am learning the limitations of our very lifestyle. After 9/11 or the blackout, the solution was to go back to living our normal lives as soon as possible. Now, in light of energy crises and economic crises, I'm not sure how sustainable that is. In the capital of oil, we are suffering gas shortages. In a city built around cars and sprawl, we are experiencing the disadvantages of scale. With our infrastructure down, and electricity being restored agonizingly slowly, one wonders whether we have the money or political will for the major overhaul our infrastructure needs. Over time I'm sure Houston will be able to repair most of the damage. But what if hurricanes start hitting Houston more frequently? New Orleans is still not the same three years later; what will happen to Houston after a few more Ikes or Katrinas? Maybe I'm being pessimistic, but I think we may all start to feel a little more vulnerable and less self-sufficient from now on. (I write these lines from the house of a friend from my parents' church, who has generously taken us in until our power is back on.)

All in all, there is much that we can take from disasters. I hope we don't become so afraid of them, or caught up in just their economic costs, that we fail to recognize the obvious implications: that we are not in control of our own destinies, much as we would like to believe we are, and that we have to support each other (which requires forming actual relationships with our neighbors instead of holing up in our own homes and lives) sooner or later in this unpredictable world.

Hurricane Ike struck late Friday night (Sept. 12). This map refers to power restored by this Friday (Sept. 19), Monday (Sept. 22), or even later. My neighborhood is in Fort Bend County, in the "by Monday" category.

Remembering 9/11

A pause to commemorate the seventh anniversary of September 11, 2001.

I was in Brooklyn that day, staying with my sister not long after graduating from NYU, and looking for a job in the midst of the Dotcom crash. My sister lived in Williamsburg, a trendy warehouse district right across the East River from Lower Manhattan. Looking down Metropolitan Avenue, the main cross-street near her apartment, one had a stark, clear view of the World Trade Center while walking to and from the subway. The two towers were beautiful in their simplicity, especially lit up at night. They were the mountains of our concrete jungle, our clearest tallest landmarks in the city.

My sister had already left for her job in the city that morning. I got up a little later and walked up Union Ave to the subway, hoping to head into Manhattan to do some job research at NYU. I was surprised to find police tape across all of the subway entrances. The New York City subway never shuts down, much less at the start of a weekday. It was a busy station, and a few other riders were milling around, similarly puzzled.

I decided to walk about 12 minutes to the next subway stop to see if that was open. At that point, walking west toward the city, I looked up and saw the World Trade Center, only instead of the usual two towers, there was only one tower standing, pouring smoke. I literally didn't comprehend what I was seeing. It didn't even occur to me to be afraid; I was just confused. It must be an optical illusion, I decided. Some chimney in Brooklyn is pouring smoke, and there's some logical explanation for why I can't see the second tower.

When I got to the Lorimer St. stop, which is the last stop in Brooklyn before going under the East River into Manhattan, and saw that it too was closed, I finally began to suspect something was wrong. At this point, probably about 9:30am, everyone on the street was still acting perfectly normally, not realizing what was happening across the river. I decided to hang out for a while until I could figure out what was going on. I went into a shop to look for something to eat.

The shop, a typical hole in the wall selling newspapers and cigarettes, was empty. The radio was on high volume, and the shopkeeper was immobile. The broadcaster on the radio was having a nervous breakdown. "Lower Manhattan is in ruins!" is all I remember hearing clearly. From the description it sounded like an atomic bomb had detonated.

Still confused, I went outside to look at the World Trade Center again, and this time nothing was there but an enormous column of smoke. It was finally sinking in that something terrible had happened, yet many walking along Lorimer were still oblivious to what was going on, making the whole experience even more surreal. I started to walk back to my sister's apartment, understanding at least that I was not going to get a subway into Manhattan, and I started to pass some old-timers sitting outside on their stoops, also with their radios turned up, and heard more broadcasters' unnervingly distraught voices as I walked by. The people on their stoops, like the shopkeeper, were not crying or talking; they were just sitting and listening, not moving. I realize in retrospect they must have been in shock and disbelief, as I was.

I also remember wondering to myself as I walked, if some end-of-the-world disaster had happened, why aren't I upset or crying? I had never been through any major tragedy, and probably like so many of my generation, found it hard to relate to or feel anything when disasters occurred in other parts of the world. I would remember this later as a trait of my pre-9/11 self.

When I got home I discovered our TV wasn't working. The World Trade Center, aside from being a huge office complex with a rooftop restaurant and observation deck and a mall in the basement, was also the largest antenna and TV/cellphone tower in Manhattan. Consequently no one's cellphone was working, and most of the TV broadcast signals were out. We were only getting reception on one channel, CBS, grainy but a lifeline of information. My sister arrived home in the afternoon, cranky after having sat in a parked subway car under the East River for a few hours with no explanation of what had happened, then having to walk several hours home across the Williamsburg Bridge. She seemed to think what had happened was a small-scale bomb or threat. When the scale of the bloodshed became clear, and the news unceasingly grim, she opted to leave town with some friends for a few days. It was interesting to see how people reacted; some had to get out of New York right away, and others had to come closer to Ground Zero to help or just express their solidarity, even if it meant driving for hundreds of miles.

As for me, I couldn't tear myself away from the news. I sat and watched TV morning to night, with few breaks, for two weeks solid (no one was hiring anyway). I saw every familiar anchor, from Peter Jennings to the local TV weatherman, covered in ashes with tears streaming down their faces. They played the footage of the planes plowing into those towers over and over again. Later they stopped, realizing they were causing millions of people to be traumatized, but I think we needed to watch it again and again before we could believe what had happened. My friends and I were emailing each other to make sure we were alright. Some of them, living in one of the NYU dorms down in the Financial District, were not allowed to go home for a few months. NYU put them up in hotels and gave them money to buy new clothes. Some had seen the planes fly into the buildings from close range.

As soon as they began lifting restrictions and allowing people below 14th Street, I went into the city to walk around the NYU area, my old home. New York City had become a no-fly zone, but the occasional roar of military jets overhead kept us on edge. Also, less than two miles north of Ground Zero, there was a strange smell hanging in the air, which was some strange putrid burnt chemical smell. The air felt thick and unclean to breathe. The smell lasted for weeks.

First I walked around Union Square, which had become an impromptu shrine and gathering place. The sidewalks were covered with candles, flowers, and missing persons signs. The signs were the worst: smiling pictures of beloved fathers and mothers, brothers and sons, sisters and fiances. There were also signs pleading for peace, despite what had happened. Our hearts were broken, and we couldn't stand the thought of more death.

It must have been at least a month after 9/11 when the perimeter of Ground Zero was opened up again to foot traffic. As you got closer to Ground Zero, all of the awnings and windows facing the explosion, many stories high, were covered with a fine ash. It looked like a dirty, gray snowfall had covered the city. The sight of the ruins was something I'll never forget, and no tribute they build will ever do justice to it. To witness "The Pile", a smoking metal inferno of twisted steel beams shooting about fifteen stories into the air, was like witnessing the gates of hell. But at the same time it was like being on hallowed ground; everyone was silent, many tearful, unable to forget the thousands of ordinary New Yorkers who were buried in unrecognizable form, somewhere in that gnarled mess. Those missing persons signs were still up on every corner, reminding us what their faces looked like.

It didn't take me long to realize some things had changed inside of me. For one thing, I had never clenched my jaw or ground my teeth before 9/11. Afterward I did both, probably an unconscious reaction to the stress and fear of our new reality, and had some dental issues because of it. Also, that detachment I had observed in myself on the morning of 9/11 had vanished. To this day, a mere mention or photographic image of 9/11 is enough to start the tears (and those who know me know I'm not a cryer). The grief we went through as a city, as well as the depths of love and compassion we experienced from the rest of the world, was an emotional experience we could never forget.

For those of us in New York City, I think for almost a full year we couldn't believe it, and took every opportunity to talk about it. I'm pretty sure that millions of us were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. During a coffee break, on the subway, socializing after work, we would ask each other, "Where were you on 9/11?" and mulled over every detail. As anyone who's lived in New York knows, having total strangers open up to each other like this was unprecedented. I'm convinced we were all just trying to process, and comprehend, the incomprehensible. I remember my pastor Tim Keller summing up how everyone felt when he said, "After 9/11, things I was certain could never happen are now entirely possible." The world was turned on its head. I kept looking up at the Empire State Building to make sure it was still there, and knew that my own little life could be snuffed out at any moment.

As the years passed, some New Yorkers moved away and others moved in, and bit by bit that sense of camaraderie, that sharing in suffering, began to fade. After holding our breath for the next attack for so long, we began to allow ourselves to go "back to normal" when it didn't happen. But the city had changed. As cheesy as it sounds, a lot of us really did reevaluate our priorities. Many found solace in faith; my own church and many others swelled overnight. We all learned how vulnerable, and how strong, we could be. To quote my pastor again, the best narrative for what had happened was not a narrative of retaliation and revenge, but of resurrection; the belief that the tragedy would not bring the city to a halt but rather could make the city a better place. (See his five-year anniversary message, delivered to victims' families and President Bush, here.)

My New Greatest Hits

People ask me all the time if I miss Peru. The truth is, there's a lot that I miss, and a lot I don't miss. (Most of what I miss has to do with people, and most of what I don't miss has to do with a lack of creature comforts, like hot running water, A/C & paved roads... I never fail to appreciate a beautiful clean bathroom now.)

It took me a month or two to get over not being able to see my friends every day, but now I am in "US mode" and don't expect to see my friends nearly as often (sadly enough). It also helps that I've managed to keep in touch with many of my Peruvian and missionary friends via blogs, email and Facebook. (In fact, anyone would think I was still in Peru from a look at my home page feed on Facebook. It's usually at least half in Spanish.)

But what really sends me back to Peru, and warms the cockles of my heart, is music. Unfortunately I don't hear a lot of cumbia or Grupo Cinco in Texas, but I do hear a random assortment of pop music that recalls many a silly moment at one of Trujillo's premier karaoke establishments. (A classic night out in Peru for a lower-to-middle-class family is a trip to the polleria, a rotisserie & fried chicken joint which sometimes boasts a dance floor and a karaoke area, with an end product that feels a little like Chuck-E-Cheese for grownups.)

Just as most of us have songs that take us back to when we were in high school or even early childhood, I've formed many Peruvian associations with the extremely random selection of our favorite karaoke joints. Some of my fellow missionaries will fondly recall renditions of "Celebrate!", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" or "Total Eclipse of the Heart". (Or even more memorable interpretations of "Walk This Way" and "Eye of the Tiger".) Of course, there were Latin pop favorites as well, old-school classics such as "Tu Carcel", "Penelope" and "Quiero Dormir Cansado", and more recent pop hits like "Camisa Negra" by Juanes or "Nada Fue Un Error" by Coti. Those don't get as much air play on easy-listening FM stations, but I do have them on my iTunes.

These songs, and the memories they bring about, can come upon me at any time. Just recently I was visiting New York City and heard the strains of a popular cumbia song blaring from a passing car window in Washington Heights (a predominantly Dominican neighborhood). It was yet another moment that conjured memories, and brought a smile to my face.

It's a Small World After All

The fact that Americans are talking so much these days about our global predicament (ie climate change, our dependence on foreign oil, and the fact that Budweiser's been sold to the Belgians) has actually made my transition back much easier. I used to feel like America was in a different world than, well, the rest of the world. Today I think our global interconnectedness, whether it's about economics or politics or pop culture, is making what's outside our borders more relateable, and in fact crucial to know.

An extreme example of this connectedness: I just saw the craziest report about "Wombs for Rent", a new industry on the rise in India, where poor women are paid $6,000 by infertile couples from around the world to be their surrogate and carry their child (see story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22441355). I really don't know how I feel about this – it's undeniably disturbing, yet apparently allows these women to build homes and escape poverty – but it's yet another bizarre effect of globalization, and example of how our lives and livelihoods are now dependent on someone on the other side of the globe, whom our parents would never have even dreamed of communicating with.

I read another article recently (and by the way, I do miss being overseas and seeing stuff for myself!) about how some immigrants from Latin America are actually going back home because of the economic downturn in the US and the ability to make a better living back home where the cost of living is cheap. When I used to work for a British publishing company, an Indian-British colleague of mine used to joke that in 30 years all the Britons will have to retire to India because England will be too expensive. Maybe in the next 30 years, as millions of Baby Boomers retire and see their Social Security dry up, we'll see massive emigration to developing countries where their dollar goes three or four times farther.

Subtle Changes

So I've now been home for just over three weeks, and as almost always happens when I travel from one continent to another, it's been difficult to integrate the two worlds. While you're in one place, the other feels like a dream, or like another world, which I suppose it is.

So for instance, while I was living in South America, I slowly began to forget the kinds of food I ate in North America, my favorite TV shows, or that it was the opposite season back home (winter in Peru = summer in US). Now that I'm back, my memories of Peru are still vivid, but they feel so out of sync with my current surroundings that they're getting pushed to the background. Perhaps this is why I've had so many dreams about Peru and the people there since coming back – that's the only place I can really feel immersed in it.

I do, however, feel like Peru has changed me in subtle ways, and I see differences even in the few months since my last visit home at Christmas. I automatically view everything through a double-lens now, with both the American and Peruvian points of view. For example, at the grocery store, I notice both what is available and what is missing here compared to Peru. I find myself checking the labels to see where products are from (turns out most of the bananas sold in Houston supermarkets are grown in Guatemala). I wish I could show all my Peruvian friends what's available here, including an impressive array of imported Asian groceries. But I also wish we had Peru's cheap, fresh tropical fruits, delicious chilis (or aji), and huge, ripe avocados.

Thanks to this double-perspective, many problems in America now seem less scary to me (gas prices high? At least we can afford to eat! I'm serious, by the way), and there's lots of amusement to be had when you look at our culture from an outsider's perspective. For example, the 24-hr news channels where anchors regularly make mountains out of molehills. (A terrorist fist jab? Really?) Or, a Dixie paper plate commercial I just saw where a mother proudly declares, "Rather than spend my time washing dishes, I choose to put my kids first." (Any Peruvian mother would be absolutely horrified by this kind of wastefulness/laziness as a model of mother-love.)

I'm also enjoying being able to listen to, and follow along with, Spanish-language radio and TV for the first time. (Even with my previous Spanish studies, I could never keep up with the motormouth commercials before.) Since these are geared toward the immigrant community, people like the ones I've met in Mexico and Peru who now find themselves fish out of water in this country (just as I was in theirs), I feel a new sympathy with them. The broad sitcoms on Telemundo, the Latin pop ballads, and the immigration lawyers or English-learning services are now strangely nostalgic for me.

A number of Peruvian students at the mission's English language school were applying for visas to the US, including two older ladies who were in a weekly Bible study with me. One often cried as she told us about her husband and son who were far away in New York City (Flushing, to be exact); she didn't know when she'd be able to join them. I wonder when they'll actually immigrate, whether I might ever bump into them again, and how they'll respond to their new life, here on the Other Side.

Another Month of Despedidas

A year ago, I wrote about the goodbyes I made as I was leaving New York, and the series of "despedidas" for interns who were finishing up their year at the mission when I arrived in Peru. Now, a year later, it's my turn to say goodbye to Peru, and it has been surprisingly difficult. It seems that the connections I made in our small missions community in Trujillo have made up in intensity what they lacked in duration.

I saw many of the missionaries here multiple times a week, and other interns and Peruvians in our church/English school community almost every day. We worked together, had fun together, went to church together, and supported each other through homesickness, burnout and personal tragedy. It felt like nothing so much as an old-fashioned family – one I did not pick and choose nor confine to one area of my life, but whom I was constantly around and tied to through good times and bad. I was surprised at how much emotion I felt leaving Trujillo, and it wasn't so much for the end of a life-changing experience as it was for the people I met.

Sadly, it seems to me that this type of community will be very hard to replicate in the US. We're so mobile, and independent, it would be hard to reach this level of reliance on each other even if we tried (which plenty of people wouldn't!). However, I am forever grateful to the people at Peru Mission for what they've taught me, and I will hopefully find ways to foster community, wherever I end up back home.

with the missionary wives...

& with some of Peru Mission's interns and Peruvian church members at the bus station, the night I left Trujillo.

Welcome to the Jungle

18 months ago, when I first decided to live in South America, my two travel goals were to visit Buenos Aires and the Galapagos Islands. This was before I realized how expensive both would be to visit, even from Peru. (Tourism to major destinations in South America is still somewhat of a luxury item, reserved for businessmen and foreigners.) What has turned out to be a lot more cost-effective, and adventurous, has been travel within Peru. Peru has lots of beaches, mountains, and ruins to visit, often with a smaller, cheaper tourist industry and more local flavor.

My friend Karen, a science teacher from New York, and I had first researched going to the Galapagos, but decided a tour of the Amazon would be far cheaper and just as packed with exotic animals. A Peruvian friend from the jungle told me I had to try this itinerary: a 16-hour bus (or 2 plane rides) to Tarapoto, followed by a van to Yurimaguas, where we could take a boat down the river for 2-3 days to Iquitos, and fly back from there. With images of The Motorcycle Diaries dancing through my brain, I decided to take Karen along with me on this voyage, and her friend Julie who also jumped at the opportunity.

There was only one catch. The jungle is a fun, but slightly lawless, place. In Peru it is almost seen as a separate country from the mountains and the coast, where most of the population and formal institutions are concentrated. In the jungle the gov't is nearly absent, illegal trade abounds, and "selvaticos" (people from the jungle) approach life with a casualness that borders on carelessness. (Case in point: everybody in the jungle rides motorcycles, but no one wears helmets or protective gear because "it's too hot".) So I asked my friend Lenin, a native of Moyobamba and a selvatico who's been living in Trujillo for the past 5 years, to come with us as our tour guide and bodyguard to keep us from getting ourselves completely lost or in trouble. He promised us a "Peruvian-style" tour, cheap and "a real adventure".

It would take too long to detail everything that happened, but it became an unforgettable trip. Over the next week we found ourselves without hot water, being eaten up by mosquitos, in close quarters with wild animals (and illegal animal products), being nearly swindled, riding to the airport in a "mototaxi" in such pouring rain that our luggage took a day and a half to dry, so coated in DEET and sunscreen that touching my camera made some of the button labels melt off, once covered in mud, usually covered in sweat, and on a few occasions in danger of landslides, piranha-infested waters, and generally unpredictable jungle conditions. However, we also saw pink dolphins, a wet sloth in our boat, an entire floating neighborhood right on the Amazon, and perhaps most memorably, an entire way of life that still exists in the Peruvian jungle (villagers paddling dugout canoes to market, workers carrying cargo barefoot with loads on their backs held in place by a strap across their foreheads, children swimming in the river as if it were their backyard).

Traveling "off the beaten track", especially in towns like Yurimaguas, is more than just "adventure travel" to me, especially after living in Peru for a year and befriending so many who are from the mountains and the jungle. The interior of the country is where lifestyles have changed the slowest, where the American fast food chains and Chilean department stores of Lima (and now Trujillo) have not yet replaced the village market or the street vendor. My friend Lenin told us ghost stories from the jungle and pointed out the woven palm roofs which reminded him of his grandmother's house, and we were transported to a completely different time and culture – one so exotic to a New Yorker, yet so palpable on this trip.

I can honestly say that the trip we made was a little too risky for me to recommend to any other American friends – and I'm somewhat relieved, because I know that the day the jungle becomes readily accessible and "safe" for tourists, it will have lost its distinctive charm. The jungle has actually undergone and survived one "cultural invasion" in the past, when the Spaniards pursued the Incas deep into the jungles to stamp them out, and both eventually intermingled with the population, forming cities and leaving behind a legacy of Spanish and Quechua speakers. I wonder if, fifty years from now, Lenin's grandchildren will still be able to swim in the rivers under a vibrant jungle canopy... or if they'll be living in sprawling cities doing deals on Wall Street instead.

Trip to the Peruvian Amazon

A few highlights from my recent trip to the birthplace of the Amazon River:

Navigating a jungle marsh...



Traditional way of calling for help in the jungle...



Freshwater dolphin sightings...






More to come on my trip in a future post...

Report on our Trip to Ica, Peru

Finally got to head down south again, and see the results of our project for ourselves! I think when I look back on my year in Peru, this earthquake relief effort will be rank as one of the projects I'm proudest of. Here's my official report on what we did last week.

*****

The team in front of a house with roofing provided by SBP.

On Thursday, February 7, a group representing the Misión Reformada en el Perú joined Sociedad Biblica Peruana on their eleventh voyage to the south, to deliver aid to the victims of the August 15 earthquake. The group from MRP consisted of Missionary Bill Bradford, Pastor and Administrator Jaime Avellaneda, Lawson Konvalinka of our Microfinance program, and Clara Lee in Communications. The group from SBP included project manager Manuel Ortiz, María Chamán, Fiorella Pomareda, and Sonia León from MISIUR.

The Misión Reformada en el Perú (MRP) is based in Trujillo, in the north of Peru. We had sent out a call for help to our supporters in the United States shortly after the earthquake, and Pastor Jaime Avellaneda had made two previous trips to the earthquake zone, but the mission was located too far away to execute an aid project. Therefore we decided to support Sociedad Biblica's project to bring aid to the rural regions of Castrovirreyna in Huancavelica, and the areas surrounding Ica. This was our first opportunity to join SBP on one of their voyages to see the impact that the project was having.

We left Lima around 5am in two rented 4x4 pickup trucks and drove south along the Panamericana Highway, passing more and more piles of rubble and empty lots where buildings had fallen down. It appeared that some cleanup had taken place, and water, roads and electricity all seemed to be back to normal, but not much reconstruction had actually been accomplished. We finally arrived in the town of San Jose de los Molinos outside of Ica around 10am. Here Manuel Ortiz, SBP's project manager, convened with the local authorities before we headed on to Galagarza, a farming community under the jurisdiction of San Jose de los Molinos.

The community consisted of a number of shelters made of woven straw mats and plastic sheets, held together by wooden poles. There were a few conspicuous new brick buildings, unfinished, which had been built by an NGO but were still lacking roofs. The residents told us our calaminas (corrugated metal roofing material) were an answer to prayer!

After a word of greeting and encouragement from Manuel and Fiorella Pomareda (also of SBP), we began to unload the truck and register the aid recipients. Each family had pre-registered with the municipal government to receive 30 square meters of calaminas, as well as a Bible and one blanket per child. Now they had to line up and sign the registry before receiving a ticket to claim their aid at the truck.

It was near midday, and the sun was blazing hot as the young men hired with the truck hauled nearly 1500 pieces of sheet metal and heavy bundles of blankets out for distribution. The team from MRP and SBP helped distribute Bibles, blankets and nails and took pictures of each recipient as an additional record-keeping measure. Most of the residents claiming their aid were women with children, some of them elderly; most of the men in the community were out working. There was also a crowd of children, teenagers and stray dogs gathered to watch the excitement.


After nearly five hours of distribution, we enjoyed some fresh watermelon and packed up the truck. Over 100 families had received roofing. As we gathered in a local bodega to eat a lunch prepared for us, about ten women filed in to thank us for bringing help. They particularly thanked us for the Bibles, and expressed their excitement at being able to read the word of God for themselves for the first time. Throughout the trip we were struck by the people's openness and desire for Bibles and Christian teaching. Perhaps the earthquake, with both the suffering and the aid that had followed, had opened their hearts to their need for God and for answers beyond this life.

Afterwards we visited a few more communities, some of them possibilities for future aid trips, before spending the night in Ica and heading back to Lima the next day. After seeing so much destruction, and so many people reduced to living in straw huts, we felt newly moved by the need there, as well as greatly encouraged by the organization, transparency, and foresight of Sociedad Biblica's project. To date nearly 900 families have received roofing, blankets and Bibles, many of them in time for the season of heavy rains. We thank God for this project, and for the honor of being a small part of His plan to restore the lives of the campesinos of Southern Peru.

Contrast the sheltering capabilities of a typical straw-and-plastic house...

...with a new sheet-metal roof.

Fun for No Money

I've commented in a previous blog entry that everything Americans do for fun costs money. In New York, for example, people hang out at restaurants, theaters and bars. (This is actually more of a necessity than an extravagance; they usually don't have the time to cook, the space to host in their crash-pad apartments, or live too far out in the outer boroughs, Jersey or Long Island, and end up "commuting" to social functions in Manhattan.)

Peruvians have some of the same hosting limitations, but don't have the financial resources to go out to eat whenever they want. Fortunately, when everybody's got limited cash, everyone has more incentive to get creative, and usually no one makes plans that cost more than about 5 soles ($1.75) without warning everyone in advance or finding ways to cover those who can't pay. Some examples of creative ways to have fun for little (or no) money:

• Take up a collection (pass the hat!) to split on a group meal, such as a pizza or a whole rotisserie chicken.
• Cook for everyone, and take up a collection afterward for the cost of the groceries (usually quite cheap. This is also, by the way, how most fundraisers here are done).
• A good old-fashioned game of fulbito (that's football/soccer, modified to play on a neighborhood basketball court).
  
• Stuff 6 people to a cab, or take public transportation, to the beach or other hangout (and bring lunch with you).
• Buy a bootleg karaoke DVD (~$1) and invite everyone over to your house to enjoy some classics of Latin pop, rock or reggaeton.
• Invite everyone over to your house for a party and play someone's bootleg MP3's, or throw a "pijamada" (a slumber party, which is surprisingly popular among adult women here, probably because it costs little or no money).

The classic example of fun for no money, however, is the Peruvian birthday party. I've been to a bunch of them, either for other American interns within the mission or for Peruvian friends from the local churches, and together they have caused me more culture shock than any wedding, church service, or other social function I can think of!

For one thing, they're often spontaneous, usually planned the day of. As in, "Hey, it's so-and-so's birthday, let's all go to so-and-so's house tonight, the more the merrier..." In New York you need to plan a month in advance if you want anyone to show up, and even so half your guest list will be working late or out of town. Also, Peruvian birthday parties start late and end even later (staying til midnight is traditional), and it's rude to leave early!

Second, almost none of the parties I've been to had gifts. It's simply not expected! Some people dress up a little, but many wear the same outfit you see them in every other day. Third, everyone always sits in a big circle. You walk in, greet every single person in the room with a handshake or a kiss on the cheek, and take a seat in one of the chairs lined up against the wall. You may try to make polite conversation with the people near you, or you may just talk across the room until whoever's serving as the emcee gets up, and the games begin.

The games, by the way, are the fullest expression of fun for no money. A game may involve anything from drawing an embarrassing task out of a hat (like getting down on one knee to "declare your love" to whoever the emcee feels like picking on that night), to "mind volleyball" where you call out people's names and they respond by calling out the next person's without missing a beat, to the "hueco", a physical game like musical chairs but more fun. One game involves borrowing two people's sweaters or neckties, and having a "race" to see when the second sweater (which each person must tie around their neck once, then pass it on) will catch up with the first sweater (which each person must double-knot and untie before passing it on, thereby traveling slower). Another game involves tossing a glove around the circle, to which the recipient responds, "Por qué me tiras el guante?" (Why did you throw me the glove?), to which the thrower must think of something clever to say which rhymes with glove, or "guante". (This game would be more fun if I knew Spanish well enough to be clever, or to understand others' clever remarks.)

The purpose of all of these games is not to win, but to punish whoever loses. It's called the "castigo". Whoever messes up their line, or gets caught with the balloon, or the two sweaters, or gets caught out of their seat during the "hueco" game, has to undergo some sort of public humiliation. If you're lucky, you'll get off with doing a little dance where you have to shake your tailfeather (or "colita"); if you're not you may end up blindfolded and undergoing a prank, or forced to leave the room while the emcee points to random people saying, "Do you want to marry him? How about him?" while you call out every insult and embarrassing reason you can think of, much to the delight of everyone in the room.

Obviously these games get very silly, and these parties in general are the polar opposite of the trendy dinner-and-drinks birthday parties that are popular in New York. I don't very much like getting "punished" in the ways described above, but I can also see how we New Yorkers or Westerners have become so image-conscious that we've lost the ability to be silly & embarrass ourselves in front of people (which it turns out is a very effective group-bonding mechanism). These parties also include everyone present from start to finish, instead of leaving guests on their own, to form cliques or choose who they want to talk to, often leaving out the rest.

Among the other embarrassing birthday traditions here are the "huevo" - cracking a raw egg on the birthday boy or girl's head - and the "mordida", making the birthday boy or girl take a bite out of the cake after blowing out the candles, and while in mid-bite, partially shoving it in their face. Cruel, or all in good fun? It all depends on how self-conscious, and individualistic vs. group-oriented, you are.

A final aspect of these parties is the speech-making. Toward the end of the party, everyone goes around in a circle sharing some personal sentiments about the birthday boy or girl. Sometimes these are pretty contrived, but sometimes they are truly touching or sweet.

At the end of the day, despite the risk of getting "punished" or feeling lost in the midst of all the chatter and joking in Spanish, I find myself looking forward to these social gatherings, and I often leave feeling a little closer to my group of friends here in Peru, and only a few soles poorer.


***Note: Since posting this blog, I have been told that the games described above are a feature of evangelical churches in Peru, not Peruvians in general, and that the custom of silly group activities may have been imported by Baptist missionaries! This is intriguing, because the Korean churches I grew up in also played silly games, which were not typical of Korean culture in general - might this also be the work of foreign missionaries? If anybody finds out, let me know...

Fun with Spanish

Two of my favorite words in Spanish are picar (to bite) and rico (rich), because they can be used in all kinds of colorful ways. Some examples (feel free to comment if I've got these wrong, or if you've got more):

1. "picar":

¡Se pica el ceviche!
This ceviche is tart/spicy! (The related picante is the word for spicy.)

Pica los tomates.
Chop up the tomatoes.

Me pica la piel.
My skin itches.

Las piedras pican mis pies.
These rocks are sharp (literally, "they're biting my feet").

Se pica el mar.
The sea is getting rough.

"Los Picapiedras"
The Flintstones!

2. "rico":

Que rica la comida.
This food is delicious.

Que rico vestido.
What a gorgeous dress.

¡Que rico tu bebé!
What an adorable baby!

Que rica la siesta.
That nap felt so good.

I know we have some versatile words in English, but the Spanish language in general strikes me as more malleable and playful. People here make jokes using puns all the time. I think the Brits have the same custom, but we Americans not so much.

Report on Earthquake Reconstruction Project, Five Months Later


(photos courtesy of Manuel Ortiz, earthquake project manager for SBP)

For those of you who remember Peru Mission's earthquake relief fund, following the earthquake which struck Southern Peru on August 15, there is progress to report. After our initial $1,000 aid run to Chincha (see my entry of August 28), we contacted various organizations within Peru whom we considered trustworthy to see what types of long-term reconstruction projects we could partner on. (There have unfortunately been many news reports of looting or hoarding donations, or of aid never reaching the affected regions, which I can only imagine are typical of disasters in less-developed countries with largely informal economies.)

We decided to join a coalition headed by the United Bible Society in Peru (Sociedad Biblica Peruana, or SBP for short), which hired a professional constructor within the church named Manuel Ortiz to scope out and complete an aid project. They decided to work in Huancavelica, a rural part of the mountains inland from the epicenter in Ica, which was much more difficult to access than the coastal cities of Chincha and Pisco and had consequently received much less attention and aid.

Peru Mission has raised just over $25,000 to date in our earthquake relief fund, and so far has spent about half that money on the project described in Manuel's report below, focusing on roofing material, blankets and Bibles. In the next few months we will spend the other half with SBP on expanding this project to other villages and/or follow-up trips to these 758 families.

Why roofing material? As far as I can tell, despite lavish promises from the government to provide everyone with a new home, even the cheapest pre-fabricated housing materials are prohibitively expensive to deliver to thousands of poor families. (How many Katrina victims are still without their own home?) So many of the poor have made the only practical choice within their means: rebuilding their own houses out of the same adobe that collapsed the first time around. With the rainy season rapidly approaching in the mountains, there's really no other option. The sheet-metal roofing which they are now receiving is a cost-effective way to make a marked improvement over their previous homes. Blankets and Bibles have also been distributed, and aid given to the local churches so that they can provide much-needed emotional and spiritual resources to the communities as well.

Our mission's administrator Pastor Jaime Avellaneda and I have remained in close touch with SBP, partly because we've been in Lima the most often. I've met with Manuel Ortiz in Lima at SBP's offices, got copies of his photos (see above), and personally seen the registries where each family has signed (or left a fingerprint) to show the receipt of their roofing materials and blankets. I've even been invited to join several of these mountain trips, which I've declined so far due to my health not being 100%. All in all I've been very impressed with their management of the project, and have learned that when it comes to foreign aid in a high-corruption context, it helps to have contacts through the local church or some other trustworthy body, the ability to follow-up, and meticulous documentation of everything that's taken place.

Below are translated portions of Manuel's latest report, sent on Dec. 28.

****

REPORT ON THE 8TH & 9TH TRIPS TO THE EMERGENCY ZONE OF ICA
SAN JOSE DE LOS MOLINOS
Dec. 28, 2007

Summary of families assisted:

• Tantara (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 222 Families; 27 Elderly or Disabled
• Chupamarca (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 165 Families; 28 Elderly or Disabled
• Ticrapo (Castrovirreyna, Huancavelica) = 265 Families; 53 Elderly or Disabled
• San José de los Molinos (ICA) = 171 Families, 26 Elderly or Disabled

In total we’ve assisted 758 Families and 119 elderly or disabled. We’ve exceeded our goal, thanks to our God!

Materials Delivered:

• Bibles (“Dios Habla Hoy”) = 760
• Devotionals (“Dios es nuestro Refugio y Fortaleza”) = 2,850
• Sheet metal roofing = 8,712 units (3 x 0.80 square meters each)
• Nails for metal roofing (2.5") = 501 Kgs.
• Heavyweight blankets, double bed size = 2,140

General objective:

It is important to note what has transpired during the two months since our first trip. During this time we have completed nine journeys total. The first three were for delivering humanitarian aid (food, blankets), after which the Peruvian Bible Society and the John Calvin Presbytery of Lima decided upon the project objective: to assist 500 families, delivering to each one 30 square meters of sheet metal roofing for their roofs, plus blankets, Bibles and devotionals.

The main objective has now been completed. We express our gratitude to our God for accompanying us in all of these journeys and for giving us the opportunity to serve and bring words of comfort and support to the families affected by the earthquake, in the following areas of Huancavelica (a rural mountainous region in southern Peru) and Ica: Tantará, Chupamarca and Ticrapo; and San José de los Molinos.

Report on the [Latest] Trip to los Molinos:

• Departure: Saturday Dec. 22, 2007, 05:00 pm.
• Return: Sunday Dec. 23, 2007, 11.00 pm
• Distance covered: 795 Kms

Trip objective:

• To deliver 13 pieces of sheet metal to each family affected by the earthquake, who are registered with the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To deliver thick blankets for the cold to each family affected by the earthquake, according to the number of children registered in the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To deliver Bibles and devotionals to each person affected by the earthquake, as well as schoolteachers and local authorities in the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní
• To make contact with the villages of the district which have not yet received aid, and to verify if other people affected by the earthquake have not been helped with their most urgent needs.

Narrative:

As mentioned in the above paragraphs, after a trip to verify and confirm the situation in the towns of San José de los Molinos, we coordinated with the mayor to deliver sheet metal, blankets, Bibles and devotionals to the towns of Casa Blanca and Huamaní.

The team left for Ica on Saturday Dec. 22 and stopped overnight before making the climb to Los Molinos early on Sunday Dec. 23, so that as arranged with the authorities, the affected families would be waiting at 10am. Before arriving in Casa Blanca and Huamaní, we had a meeting with Mayor Felix Escobar and the Deputy Mayor and his advisors, to draft a statement of our presence.

Our first point of delivery of the sheet metal, blankets, Bibles & devotionals was in Casa Blanca, where all of the houses were destroyed by the earthquake. We delivered items to 91 families; we also delivered 30 pieces of sheet metal and 10 Bibles to the local Assemblies of God church.

The following destination was Huamani, another town where the adobe houses had collapsed. We delivered items to 106 affected families. In this town we could not aid the local Catholic church [with roofing] because part of its structure had been knocked down.

Conclusions:

Assignment completed. As you can see in this report, we’ve surpassed our objective of assisting 500 affected families, and we give thanks to our Creator for having been so generous as to assist more than 758 families, and for having watched over our travels to different parts of the Andes over difficult or dangerous roads.

We also give thanks to our God and Father for providing people, directly or indirectly, who’ve collaborated in this project with their donations, time, and prayers.

Glory be to our God!

Faithfully Yours,

Juan Manuel Ortiz Guzmán
PROYECTO DE EMERGENCIA
Sociedad Biblica Peruana, A.C.

Thoughts on Coming Home

I am currently wrapping up a three-week "furlough", as we refer to trips back to the States, and have found being back home both comfortingly familiar and oddly strange. It's as if I'm slipping easily back into old ways, but seeing them with new eyes, now that I have something completely different to compare them with.

Here are some of my most honest first impressions upon coming home and spending time in both Houston and New York:

• I find myself gawking like any immigrant at how clean, shiny, glistening & modern everything looks: roads, cars, buildings, the electronic gadgets that are literally everywhere...
• It's striking how many different ethnicities there are, and also distinct styles or subcultures. In Peru most people dress pretty simply; here you have everything from gangster chic, to baggy & grungy, to stylish and professional. (I remember this struck me in Santiago also - there seems to be much greater emphasis on and variety in fashion in a developed country.)
• Americans (or estadounidenses to be more precise) keep to themselves and don't interact with strangers much, particularly people of other races and classes. In contrast, Peruvians don't interact much across class lines, but absolutely love talking to foreigners. (I am also newly aware of the Latino immigrant community, who are everywhere, mostly in service positions.)
• The infrastructure here is amazing: transportation, communication, & technology are all available, efficient, easy, relatively safe & cheap! And the indoor heating, safe-to-drink tap water and 24/7 hot running water truly make me feel much less likely to get sick or have health problems (which of course means people get more work done and take less time off - one of the subtle ways that a rich society can keep perpetuating its own success).
• The negative side of wealth: it isolates. How can you have a sense of community when everyone drives around in their own car, has their own house or condo, and spends their spare time shopping, watching TV & surfing their hi-speed Internet? Especially after living in a more traditional society, this strikes me as really unnatural.
• Marketing and commercialization are literally everywhere. So are legal disclaimers. As my friend Andrew reminds me, the US would not be the biggest economy in the world if it wasn't also selling and marketing all kinds of unnecessary products!
• On a related note, nearly all enjoyment here requires spending money. No wonder making money is such a national obsession, and saving so painful, and debt so common! I hope, when I move back to the States, to do more activities with my friends that cost no money; good old activities which are now probably considered nerdy, like conversation, book clubs, or board games.
  
• The food... It is so convenient, yet so unnatural. How bizarre that most of what we buy at the supermarket has traveled long distances, uses preservatives or hormones, and comes in wasteful packaging. I realize that Americans are willing to pay a premium on convenience and on exotic goods, and that globalization, specialization, and corporate farming (and subsidies) make food a lot cheaper, but at some point the old-fashioned village market, where farmers & traders bring their fresh, natural, local wares to sell to their neighbors, just makes more sense and seems less... well, odd!
• Beauty & image - way more emphasized here. In Peru a much broader range of women are considered good-looking. It appears that more developed countries do get more self-conscious about image. I listened almost in shock as some of my most beautiful friends ticked off worries about their appearance.
• Despite the increasing diversity of the US, especially in the urban areas, we are still very much a country of Anglo heritage. People are definitely more tactful/repressed, or can't speak as frankly or jokingly on as wide a range of subjects, as Peruvians.
• Elevator music is everywhere. One of the most tangible differences for me between the US & Peru is the kind of music you hear in places like cabs, stores & people's homes. Goodbye cumbia, chicha, salsa & Latin dancehall - hello canned jazz!

Over all, I have a newfound appreciation for the immigrant experience - both the rich culture & community they leave behind, and the strong pull of economic opportunity in the US. Who wouldn't want their kids to be safer, have better education, and be almost guaranteed a job if they work hard? At the same time I can see how much is lost in the process of becoming American, and how culture shock, language barriers, and raising children who don't understand you can become a lifelong (and lonely) part of the immigrant experience.