The Invitation: Camila's Next Big Adventure

It’s January again, time for this JV to fill her hiking backpack with as many warm clothes as possible.  Mes de Misión  is about to begin, a grueling mission month in which Jesuit volunteers accompany students from third grade secondary of Colegio Miguel Pro as they spend part of their summer vacation in service to others out in the mountain regions of Tacna.   I remember the summer camp of my childhood - archery, sports, arts and crafts, theatre— fun, educational activities out in the Sequoia National Park. This is not that kind of summer camp. For the next 28 days, my 14 year-old students will wake early, often before daybreak, to cook meals over open fire, swing machetes and pick-axes on local farms, and participate in communal life.   My students will often give me heart attacks (usually when swinging sharp objects) and I will find myself arguing over some non-sensical subject: “no, you can’t get a ride on a stranger’s motorcycle”; “no, you can’t play...

"Hey, did my letter make it to you yet?” I received that message on my phone a while ago. It was not the first time receiving a message like that, nor will it be the last. The irony of receiving an instant message, checking in about a handwritten letter is not lost on me: couldn’t that person simply have sent me an email with all of their updates, worries, and concerns? Also, if they need to know when it arrives, doesn’t that take a little fun out of the surprise? Anyone who has known me for a number of years is probably aware of my love for writing a good old-fashioned letter. E-mail? I don’t usually take the time to write out an essay-long recap of my life. Something about staring at a computer screen kills my commitment to finish a lengthy and personalized  update. Messaging? Spotty responses and even worse now that I’m in Peru. Phone calls? Yes, if you can figure out what time-change we’re in and catch me in the off hours I’m physically at home. An av...

It’s been about a year since I moved to Peru. Here, as the year closes out and we get closer and closer to Christmas, the days have begun to heat up. Paletas have made a comeback (ice cream popsicles that come in thin tubes of plastic- a childhood joy of frozen go-gurts brought back to life). I’ve spent this last year teaching English, something I never thought I’d do. Before coming here I remember having declared on numerous occasions that I was not made to be a teacher (the jury’s still out on that verdict). It’s been a year of many mistakes, of facing days filled with unknowns. There has been so much laughter. There have been many days marked by doubt and uncertainty. In all of this, I’ve come to one conclusion: you can take the theatre kid away from the drama, but you can’t take the drama away from the theatre kid. In this past year I have found myself yearning for the theatre world that I lived in so fully in university. I find myself waffling back and forth: teach Eng...

The view from our bus ride home. Almost a full year into my service with JVC, I look around on my bus ride home and realize I am the only passenger not looking down at my phone. I have only dusty scenery or people-watching for entertainment. All over the planet, we are accustomed to reaching for our phones unconsciously, sometimes it's the first thing we grab when we wake up. If we want to know what other film that actor has been in, we open up our web browser. If we feel uncomfortable in a public setting, swipe, unlock and pretend that something is keeping us busy enough that we’ve tuned out our surroundings. One of the values of the JVC community is Simple Living, which is usually our explanation for why we don’t have cell phones. “We want to live in solidarity with our neighbors” or “We don’t need the luxuries of our lives back home”. But technology is cheap. And many members of the Habitat community and beyond who may have little access to water, food, or other...

The constant drip of the faucet when the water pressure is too low can drive a JV insane.  Over 20 years ago my neighborhood, Habitat, was constructed by Habitat for Humanity. When it was built, this neighborhood was the last frontier of the city of Tacna. Beyond Habitat was dirt, farms, and somewhere out there, the Peruvian-Chilean border.   Today, Habitat stands strong as its own community and is no longer the last neighborhood as others have sprung up throughout the years, creeping further out into the desert. But even as Habitat has developed, there remains one point of contention in the neighborhood that has yet to be solved: water.   During summer, water cuts are normal throughout the city. We know that in our house we won’t even  get a trickle from our faucets past 11 am. We’re used to the rhythm of waking up early and filling as many buckets as we can so that we have water for the rest of our day.  But it’s winter now, turning into sp...

“Like teachers from the beginning of time, I got more out of these classes than my students.” - Twyla Tharp I have always been fascinated by dreams.   How is it that our brain can invent stories, people, places that we never seemed to encounter in our waking life? How is it that I can close my eyes and find myself in a world defying gravity, filled with things my rather mundane and ordinary imagination could never conceive of?   My dreams usually lean towards the fantastic: there’s magic; I’m invincible; I’m fighting to save the world. My nightmares are pretty darn terrifying.   But lately, in the past few months, I’ve begun to experience the most terrifying of nightmares, one that plagues me in my day to day life. In this nightmare I’m teaching a regular bunch of my students at Colegio Miguel Pro and I happen to teach SUPERLATIVES AND COMPARATIVES INCORRECTLY. My students confuse the two and can’t compare the heights of their favorite soccer pl...

“I’ll tell you now: YOU. CAN. NEVER. HIDE.” My worksite, Colegio Miguel Pro, is about three blocks from our house. On an average day, if I leave at about 7:53am and am not stopped by any neighbors or students, I arrive with a few minutes to spare before the bell rings. It’s a unique privilege to live and work in the same neighborhood, called Habitat. I know the faces I pass by on the street not only as my neighbors but the parents of the children I work with each and every day.   It’s sometimes hard to explain how intertwined Miguel Pro and the Habitat community are. It’s a unique experience to have at least one of my alumnos ( students) living in every house on my block. This closeness between my worksite and home usually means that my quiet afternoons are interrupted by the pounding of little fists on my door, hoping to come over and play a game of Uno. If I leave the window open in the evening I will no doubt have a small head poking through the bars ...