Striving for More

There's more to my life in Tacna as I know it than I can see right at this present moment. Nothing too philosophical to that statement, simply a reflection as I sit in my new home, the jv house where Emily and I have finally moved into a month after our arrival. It is hard to sum up my first month here because there are days where it feels like I've been here for months and there are days where I feel I have just arrived.

There's more to the bread man on a bicycle that strolls through my neighborhood with the biggest basket you have ever seen piled high with an assortment of breads. There's more to my familia Pilon of a host family that I lived with for three weeks.  There's more to the community of support that surrounds me.  I hope there's more to living in the upstairs room ( we like to call it the penthouse) where I am awakened to the sounds of Tacna and its people early in the mornings. There's more to the awesome team of people I will work with who so enthusiastically zumba-ed with me at the end of the year Christmas Compartir (get-together to share food & most often times dance). There's more to buying corn at the market (say choclo not maiz, “para pollo” means to feed the chickens, not to cook chicken..) Most importantly though, there has to be more to the horn I hear in the neighborhood that sounds like its straight out of Narnia! Quite a lovely surprise when I found out that the Narnia horn announces the arrival of none other than the ice cream man (who sells ice cream out of a bright yellow banana looking cooler/tri-cycle).

As I have dived head first into a new country, a new place to call home, it is no surprise that there have been things that I have had to become accustomed to.  For example, when we have menu here (lunch at the market, or any restaurant) the names of dishes will sound incredibly foreign and asking the casera (hostess) what's in it... well you really are better off just picking a dish and being surprised because 99% of the time it's very different than anything you've ever had and unless it's cuy (guinea pig) you will probably like it. (*disclaimer* some people actually enjoy guinea pig, my 5 yr old host sister loves it, I however am too accustomed to having a cuy as “ una mascota,” a pet... hmm)

Besides trying new foods and learning new spanish words like “chompa” meaning sweater, this Christmas I was blessed to be living with a new family who I shared the holiday with, my host family (3 aunts, 2 uncles, 1 grandpa, 2 little daughters, 1 cousin around my age with an 11 month old baby, 3 dogs, 1 cat, 4 kittens all under ONE roof).  The other volunteers have always told us of how great of an opportunity it is to have a host family and how wonderful the experience is.  After learning to be ok with being a guest, not feeling bad about being given things, and after some dancing with my new little sisters I think I finally got comfortable.

When it came time for me to move out and into the jv house, it was a flashback to move-in day at Spring Hill minus all the stuff.  7 people in a small taxi pulled into Habitat, my neighborhood.  With promises to visit and dance again and much gratitude for their hospitality, I took a picture with my host family outside our house and hugged them goodbye.

My little sister Mikaela started crying and hugged me tight and I knew,

I knew there was more to this. More to this whole host family thing.  SO much more to these two years where I will visit my host family and BE a part of their lives. It is so easy for them to call me their new sister and for every extended family to ask to speak to me on the phone and also wish ME a Merry Christmas. I learned so much from them in such a short time about culture and about life.  They were given to me just as I was given to them. But they also learned from me, the cuban-american from alabama who paints her eyebrows on, whose cooking skills amount to tres leches cake, and likes to dance. 

In fact, there's not much more in this life that you need than good people, the one's who take you in, care for you, feed you, love you, offering you THEIR best. Their best may not be your best but its given with all their heart.

Con Corazon baby.

***me and my host sister Mika pictured above :)