I remember the day I swore into the Peace Corps. I left training with such excitement to really start my service as a volunteer. As a trainee, freshly out of training, you don't really see the bumps in the road that you may end up facing in the future. I certainly didn't expect this 8 months at site.
On April 10th, 2012 I will be leaving Tamarindo, Piura to move into my new site of Vice, Piura.
This decision was not easy and I've been wavering for months on what was best. I certainly didn't want to give up on my town and leave people that had so badly wanted a volunteer in the first place. However, through this whole ordeal, I learned that it is extremely important to put myself and my health first. For months I've been struggling to stay healthy.
Yes, as most of you are probably thinking… why don't you just change host families? I am in love with my host family and the thought of having to change host families again (it would be my 3rd) in such a small site made me extremely upset.
During the last month, before I had emailed the Lima office, I had debated ending my service early. Daily, I went back and forth. Changing sites would be hard. I'm already 8 months into site. I have great relationships with people in my site, but being constantly sick was affecting the work that I really wanted to be doing. I wasn't sure if I was prepared to completely start over and reintegrate in a different site almost half way though my service. Of course it would be easier to just give up and go back to America. However, the people who know me best in this world… know I can't quit. And I won't.
There are a few people I want to thank for talking all the options through with me and for making it clear that no matter the decision I made they would stand by me 100 percent. I owe it to my parents, Lucas Stellar and Kelsey Goering for putting up with my constant back and forth and finally giving me the courage to pack up and start all over again. I can't express my gratefulness to you all more.
This whole process is bittersweet and I know that in the future there will be moments where I felt like I gave up, but most importantly, I need to care of myself. Tamarindo is a community filled with people with big hearts and open minds. I have formed relationships that I will never, ever forget. I had a host family, especially my host mother Juana, that took me in as their own and never once made me feel like just a paying resident.
My host mother recently turned 60 years old and during the blowing out of the candles the Torres family has a tradition. They have all the siblings gather around while Juana blows the candles out Right before Juana blew out the candles she waved me up to stand with her 6 children because I'm "the 7th child". I was touched. Leaving them is going to be the hardest part of this process.
Tamarindo will always be my first, real Peruvian home.
However, I'm excited to really start doing the work of a Peace Corps volunteer in my site of Vice, Piura with my new site mate Jessica (a Peru 17er in the Small Business Development program). This is where I also need to thank Jessica for putting in the work to get a Youth Volutneer in her site and for going out and finding family options for me. I am also forever grateful to her. Nothing about a site change is easy, but this certainly took away from a lot of the stress.
Vice is about 40 minutes SOUTH of the capital city of Piura and is a bigger site than Tamarindo.
Jessica has been in this site since August and has a blog if anyone is curious about Vice
http://www.themodernword.org/modernword_wordpress/?p=380
I recently just got back from In Service Training in the mountains of Ancash. I got to be reunited with volunteers and enjoy being surrounded by snow capped mountains and now I'm in Lima for Semana Santa (Easter). The next couple of days after I return to Piura from this trip are going to be crazy. I'm nervous and excited for it.
Wish me luck.
There are better things ahead than any we leave behind. -C. S. Lewis
Until next time,
Brielle
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