SO…

The semester has ended, my life is packed into my car and scattered between storage sites.  I am officially homeless and about to fly 4,300 miles to live in a new country for the summer with a family I’ve never met, to work in a clinic in which I don’t speak the language.Now, as much as I’d love to say I was completely composed at this point in my life, I was not. I was the definition of a hot mess.

I procrastinated packing my bags and my life up until the day of my flight, in hopes that at some point before, I would magically have this feeling of competency consume me and give me the courage to know that I was doing the right thing. But the feeling didn’t come, and hours before my 2PM flight from Reno to Vegas, I began packing my belongings into my far-too-small-for-all-my-clothes car. Then during the short three days in Vegas something beautiful happened. It wasn’t the feeling I was hoping for, but more like

a collection of tiny moments that proved that my decision to leave Reno, spend my summer abroad and come back to start a new path in Las Vegas is going to lead me through a beautiful adventure.

SO NOW… I am in the enthralling city of Trujillo, Peru.

Let me begin by saying Peru is nothing and everything that I expected at the same time. People here are crazy. Traffic for one, really makes you live by the edge of your seat on a daily basis. There are no traffic signs, no rules, no blinkers and no courtesy’s. Everything EVERYTHING is a race to the finish and the common rule of traffic communication is horns and whistles. And I love it.

Its funny how such a minuscule thing like my commute to work everyday really makes me stop and smell the… actually I can’t really describe the smell… but whatever it is, its just another thing I appreciate about this country.

My first week, it just seemed like absolute chaos. I got lost on my way to work by taking the wrong bus… which generally wouldn’t really be that big of an issue, except the people telling me I was on the wrong bus were telling me in Spanish, and I don’t exactly speak Spanish. I’d like to think I do, and sometimes I can really convince myself that I do, but then I try to have anything resembling a conversation and I realize my “ability to speak Spanish” is really a barley recognizable ability to string words together and use my hands to get very simple minded ideas across to people.

Then, as if by some cruel cosmic joke, the next day my body decided to get gut wrenching food-poisoning that lasted for at least 72 hours. It really was the most proper welcome to the world of foreign traveling, if there ever were one.

I have now been here for 23 days and I realize that that chaotic disaster that once scared the living hell out of me is now a beautiful organized chaos and not only have I mastered the art of getting to work but I embrace all parts of the chaos in a “grab life by the horns” kind of way.

Living in a foreign country is a CRAZY experience. All the home comforts  you are used to are gone, all at once. But this crazy experience is one that opens little parts of you up to the people, the culture, the customs and every time you travel, if you do it right, you’ll change a little piece of you forever.