Chirimoya

I swear I am not running for President of the I-Love-Peru fan club, but seeing that I will be home in 7 months, it´s hard not to reflect. US is like a big, scary world of adults…and, truth be told, I am TERRIFIED of it! I´m not going to name any names, but sometimes, when I talk to the peeps back home, they all sound so stressed, sighing and grunting over work and this and that. Meanwhile, my day sometimes just consist of doing project-related stuff in the morning, eating lunch, taking a siesta (It´s what everyone else does after lunch!), go to the gym, shower, eat again, read or watch a DVD or study my Spanish (or sometimes all 3), and then going to bed until the roosters wake me up at 7 a.m. Yay, happy as a clown!

(Really, the most exciting thing that happened today probably occurred over breakfast. I was eating a Peruvian fruit, chirimoya, and a little worm squirmed out. I said a silent prayer that I hadn´t ingested more of them and that none were growing in my stomach at that exact moment, flicked that sucker away, and just kept right on eating…I ain´t going to waste a perfectly good fruit! Money doesn´t grow on trees here, you know!)

And, then, I think about home again…work, make money, pay off my billions in student loans, rent or buy a place, track down car insurance prices, avoid getting all road-vengeful at rush hour, having barely 15 minutes to scarf down a lunch…and, yes, sighing and grunting (or in my case, snapping) my way through the day. One time, my dad said ¨hi¨ to me while I was studying and I chewed him out for having the audacity to interrupt me. (Bad daughter!)

Recently, when I expressed to one of my US counterparts how much I liked Peru´s lifestyle, I was told that I´m too young to live like this. I mean, when has a healthy balance between work and life equate to laziness? I´m sure that when I come back to the US, I´ll get a rush from working 60 hour weeks again. (It´s hard to believe that I used to like working so much!) But, in the meantime, have I mentioned how much I love living in Cajabamba, Peru? Seriously, if it wasn´t for the fam, friends, and food, I really think I could live here for a long time.