Surquillo, Lima, Peru

Irene shares a journal entry:

Surquillo, Lima, Peru. It sounds like such a grand place. Maybe up a great path, ending in an open meadow with children playing with lambs. Or the location of a magnificent palace where kings and queens have been blessing their ancestors for centuries with the gift of royalty. I may have thought that yesterday, but today I think of it as home for the next six weeks.

Home is no longer Amish country. It is not a place where I can play the Mennonite Game and realize I’m related to half the people in the room. I can’t go visit my dad at work at the family business and walk across the street to get fresh ice cream right off the line. I can’t make delicious mozarella and basil pizza with my mom and argue over how thick the tomato slices should be. I can’t go on runs with my sister and have competitions to see who can do [blanks] for the longest.

But here is what I can do in my new home in Surquillo that I can’t do in my home in Kidron, Ohio, the United States. I can watch movies dubbed over in Spanish and see the joy this brings to my host family. I can learn the gift of patience and forgiveness as I continue to make dumb mistakes in front of my family. I can get lost while running in a massive city and submit myself to the humility of calling my host mother, Rosario, to tell her I’m lost — in Spanish nonetheless!

I can learn how hard it is to convince myself I don’t need to email my boyfriend or parents or sister today because it is through that that I will gain strength and independence. I can eat beans and rice and fresh fruit and not have a bowel movement for three days and not worry about it. I can choose not to freak out about my poor directional skills, even though I know that somehow I need to get to class on Monday.

I can make new relationships with people, even if there is a good chance we will never see each other again in our lives because we all have so much to teach each other. I can wear clothes that look like something my mom would wear because really I couldn’t care less. I can just be — whether with myself or with others — and what a privilege that is. When will I get to do that in the way that I can at this moment in my life?

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness” is a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen monk, teacher and poet that I wrote down before the adventure of SST. While it is particularly true of my time in Lima, in reality it is always true. I do not need my family or my things to be at home. Home is where my needs are met and where I’m accepted. So for now, Peru is very much my home.