I don´t know what I want

I am supposed to be in Lima now with my host mom. However, the director of the environment program didn't have time to interview me on Thursday so he had to do it today after lunch. Unfortunately, my host mom had been planning on our leaving right after lunch and had a bunch of errands to run and couldn´t wait for me. She felt worried about leaving me alone and I think I´m supposed to be at her sister´s house now, but I´m enjoying the independence. I am even going to be warming up leftovers myself, woohoo! So here I am, still in my town, and consoled by the fact that I get to take naps today, got chocolate and peanut butter candies from the environment program director, and can feel refreshed when I meet everyone else at 9:30, half an hour before bedtime, for a night out in a discoteca in Chosica.

So my interview was interesting and damn, I always forget to say things during interviews that are so important. The interview was supposed to let him know what I want to get out of my 2 year PC experience, where I will function well and other things to help him place me in a certain site. I told him about how I´m interested in international development in general and that I hate the cold. I think I threw in a ¨I´d really love to be near the ocean¨ in there but I don´t think I stressed it enough. The problem is that I think I´m pretty easygoing and can adapt well to anything. So he asked if I´d be ok in a city or a mid-sized town and I said yes, although I should have qualified that with a ¨as long as it´s next to the ocean¨. I wish I also specified that I don´t want to teach in classrooms and I really want to work to make a protected area successful or to work on a project related to income generation. Well, I get one more interview before he reveals his fate to us. What worries me the most is that he asked me if I want to be near other volunteers or by myself. I started on this long explanation about how I want to have little contact with other volunteers so I don´t have to hear them complain or watch them be culturally insensitive (so insensitive of me!)...then he interrupted me saying, ¨uh, but how will you do working as a team?¨ ¨Huh?¨ ¨If you have to work as a team with another volunteer, how will that make you feel?¨ ¨I can work as a team. Well, I´d rather not. Oh, it depends on the person.¨ So now I´m worried that he´ll pair me with someone else in my group that I don´t want to spend 2 years with, which is honestly most people. Not that I hate them all, but I just want to focus on the community and do things myself. He told me to keep who I would want to work with in mind for our next interview. Ahhh, what does that mean!? Last question he asked me was ¨Is there anything I should know in advance that might become a problem within the next two years, anything emotional, physical or the like?¨ I couldn´t really think of anything so I just said that if I really believe in something, I can be really stubborn. So he probably wrote ¨stubborn¨ down on his sheet of paper. Yup, I will admit I can be stubborn. And, well, if I turn out not to be so stubborn then he will be pleasantly surprised.

Today we only had training in the morning. We learned all about organic gardening! Since my dad comes from many generations of farmers, I am excited to learn the art. I wouldn´t say I will love gardening...I´m not exactly the most patient person... but I do want to know how to do it successfully. Some methods we learned to make natural pesticides were to lay out bowls of beer, put out empty bottles with water and sugar in it, spread ash on the leaves once a week, and to grind up ¨recoto¨ which is some really hot chili pepper here and use the juice to spray (I think) it on. We got a whole packet on organic gardening. There is a competition between small groups to grow the best gardens behind the training center. I´m not sure what we´re going to grow but our choices are spinach (yay), beets, carrots, cabbage and some Peruvian herbs. We will also be making our own organic fertilizer using organic compost, which we learned how to make today. If you use the crap from rabbit or guinea pig (which is a delicacy in Peru) you don´t even have to add any organic materials. That is the best crap to use in the countryside, since people there feed their leftover waste to animals. We also started ¨huertos urbanos,¨ or ¨urban gardens,¨ which is basically growing seeds in an old plastic bottle. I forget what I´m planting in mine. It might be radish or beet and some Peruvian herb. All I know is that I painted red fish and a blue swirl on it. It felt like I was in kindergarten again, but hopefully it will grow and I can eat it. I feel so hippie-ish now, but that´s ok, haha.