Feel free to stalk me follow me via:
Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Skype, e-mail, or you can be old-school and just write me letters. The email is SarahFGSmith@gmail.com
We have a phone here in Peru, the area code is 51 and our number is 9898-60724. Feel free to call!!
If you are considering sending me a care package, here are some friendly suggestions =)
- Art supplies: markers, stickers, stencils, pens, pencils etc.
- Magazines (which double as art supplies)
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips for baking
- Travel size toiletries
- Good books
- Granola bars/energy bars/trail mix
- Also bottles (or boxes) of cheap to mid-range wine would be greatly appreciated if at all possible
But keep in mind, shipping can be expensive. This comes straight out of my volunteer handbook:
Do not have money or other valuable items sent to you through the mail. Electrical appliances cannot be sent through the mail, as they are prohibited items and could be subject to a custom fine. Letters and packages are sometimes opened by postal workers, and valuable items occasionally disappear. In addition, the process of retrieving a package at the post office can be time consuming, and customs duties may exceed the value of the items sent. Peace Corps has advised that volunteers NOT have packages sent via FEDex, DHS, UPS, as it is difficult to clear customs and can cost a fortune.
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Ah, Sarah, you still don’t realize how fortunate you are. –Well, maybe I should say, how fortunate you can be. There is in all likelihood a time when you will look back on your PC experience and classify it as the Most Valuable Experience of My Life. I think you’ll be that fortunate from what I’ve read so far because I think you have the “right stuff” to fully benefit from what’s happening to you and what you’re doing. Your cave adventure and your observations re the people and the countryside around you speak very clearly and loudly of your level of curiosity and your willingness to learn, while things aren’t exactly going your way. Now, work on your level of acceptance. That’ll come in due time and all will get easier. True, you may never be able to teach what you want and to the extent you feel you should teach, but you must understand you’re bucking an enormous wave of cultural history that dates back many centuries. Those of us who came before you like to smugly believe that we were the real saviors and that our legacies were permanent and we made Great Social and Economic Change. Mierda. And pura mierda at that. We bucked the same wave. From yours and other PCH blogs and stories I can readily see that the wave hasn’t diminished in the slightest. True change will have to come from within. We made a difference, yes, just as you and your peers will. A good difference, a positive one, and one that has value. But you won’t change anything to any serious, noticeable degree. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you will change things, that you will solve montones de problemas sociales. You will be disappointed and that will diminish the greatest value of your PC experience, namely the growth and expansion of yourself. Your maturity, if you will. Relax. Enjoy. Savor. Work, but play. Above all, travel and look and listen.
And stop complaining about minor things. You get $277 for settling in expenses? We got about $50, as I recall. My “salary” as you call it was $75, or 150 Lempiras at the time. Our “readjustment allowance” accruing for us for our return was $75 a month. We educators also got no funds for supplies, books, devices, et al, and had to beg, borrow, steal, appeal to corporate America and to charities. We had poor healthcare, although a very good US physician was available to us through embassy or agency largesse. But of great interest to me is that as I type this, on the page opposite this section is a photo of a very attractive young middle-aged senora at a table of food on a clean tablecloth, and behind her is a bottled water stand and a refrigerator! Dios mio, what we would have given for such treasures! By the way, there is no such thing as a “semi-automatic M16.” All M16s are fully automatic. The semi version is called the AR15. Caves with skulls are not as uncommon as you might think — Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and Yucatan are full of them. The “glowing skulls” are not unique, but the sheer number of them in one spot is a phenomenon well worth studying. Calcite crystals will reflect certain colors under certain lighting conditions, with, I think, a green or bluish-green being the most typical. I found one in a cave in Sta. Barbara and covered it up to protect it. (The same cave also contained a smashed Colonial Spanish wine or brandy bottle and, of all things, a broken modern light bulb. The latter is probably from a previous investigation by an American female archeologist whose name escapes me now.)
By the way, the Peace Corps Handbook section on cuidado at the Aduana apparently hasn’t changed a bit since our Handbook. That was in the early 1960′s, from the birth of the Corps. It just proves the old adage, The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Take care of yourself. Pay attention and grab at opportunity when it comes your way or even gets close. You will never, ever be back that way again, and you cannot relive the past. Get out that good camera and take millions of photos.
Best of luck – que te vaya bien. Jim Couzzourt, RPCV, health education services, Honduras V (1965-67, training at St. Louis University and Puerto Rico). Oh, yeah, I think in our day, when real hippies abounded (but not in the Corps — the Corps represented work!), your “protected areas management” volunteer would most likely have been called a “community development specialist,” which was what most of us were. Seat-of-the-pants, do what you’re big enough to do, damn the lethargy and bureaucracy!