My First Lesson in Humility

When I first decided on the Peace Corps, I knew I was going to have my eyes opened. The US is a privileged nation. I had no doubts whatsoever that I would be humbled by my experience.

My humbling came about two weeks ago during my field-based training. We were divided in groups of four and sent to the far corners of Peru (hyperbole added) to work with current volunteers in their sites.

Our first stop was Potrerillo with Lizzi — an incredible volunteer who's already been in her site for two years and heads home this month (We'll miss you, Lizzi!). In the mornings, people come out with their buckets and burros to a small canal running through the town to carry water back to their homes. In the afternoons, they bathe and wash their clothes in the same canal. It is the lifeblood of the village. Despite being in a fairly arid region, there were fields of rice, stacked in Andean steps up the hillside.

Lizzi's main project was working with Plan International to build approximately 150 latrines in the area. It was absolutely incredible to see the work the town had accomplished.

After a few days in Bajo Piura, we went up (literally) to Sicchez, a small village in the sierra of Peru. Surrounded by chacras, the main industry is agriculture, and many of the families worked out in the fields all day with coffee and bananas. There are two telephones for the entire community, and a loud speaker announces five minute warnings for those who have calls coming in. The roads are pure mud during the rainy season. The insects are brutal. And teen pregnancy is prevalent.

I was placed with an adorable couple who gave me the last bit of red meat they had. The floors were dirt and the walls of adobe. A hole in the ground served as the toilet; a small faucet in the middle of the yard was the shower; and I slept in an empty room with a hard-as-rock bed and at least 50 spiders.

Silly side note about the spiders: The first night, I could barely sleep because I thought they were going to bite me. I slept with my hood up, long pants and high socks. The second night, I decided to just kill them all before I went to bed so that I wouldn't have to sleep in fear. I walked up to the first, huge, juicy one (literally two inches in size, with a big, fat body), and held up my shoe to crush it. But I couldn't do it. What if I don't kill all of them and the rest of them (surely hiding beneath my bedpost) revolt against in me in the night? I thought. So I made a truce with them. I'll spare your lives, spiders, I said. But that means you must spare mine.

I went to bed that night with my pants tucked in my socks. My undershirt tucked into my pants. And my hood closed so tight around my head only my nose peeked through. ... I still was bitten on the cheek.

Anyway the humbling experience was centered around my interactions. The people were incredibly friendly and generous — embracing us as friends and feeding us way too much of what little they had. We ate bananas picked straight from the tree and fresh coffee beans from the recent harvest. We spent hours after dinner talking about the United States and Peru. My host father was floored that we have over 300,000,000 people in our country and truly couldn't believe that "fast food" existed in such a prominent way in our culture.

I'd like to think that I would be able to survive — maybe even be successful — in a town like Sicchez. The truth is: I was miserable. I got sick from the food, the water supply was littered with insects and fecal matter (and had to be sifted even after boiling), I couldn't shower for days and slept in absolute fear of the creatures that lived in every crevice.

I left Sicchez incredibly proud of the volunteers there (Brian and Angela) and impressed by the unbelievable warmth and generosity of the people. But also with a very startling realization of what I might actually be able to handle.