South America is calling
This is the first of a series of articles about the discoveries
and experiences of an adventurous UC Santa Barbara international relations
graduate as she travels and works in Peru.
We held hands, Danielle and I, as we nervously clicked the
confirmation button and watched our round-trip airfare to Lima, Peru, process
online.
“That’s it… We’re going,” I said.
“Yep,” she said. And we both quaked with incredulous,
uncomfortable laughter.
We had enough money together to buy a pack of peanuts at a circus
and maybe a press-on tattoo from a quarter machine. But worth more than the
dwindling numbers on my bank statement was that fact that we had a plan. Well,
I guess ‘commitment’ would be a better word, because we didn’t have a carefully
delineated itinerary, just a ticket from LAX on Oct. 6. Our trip would be the
first long-term plan I had made since I graduated from UCSB three months ago. A
non-plan, we called it.
We will begin our trip in Lima by helping a friend decorate his
apartment in exchange for free accommodation. Then, we’re headed north to
Trujillo, where we will work as language assistants at a local school for three
weeks.
Afterward, we are cruising south to build houses in Pisco, looping
around through Arequipa, past Lake Titicaca (I still can’t say the name of that
landmark without feeling like a pervert and laughing), and moving on to Cuzco
to explore Machu Pichu.
If our two months afford us sufficient time, we will wander over
to Buenos Aires, Argentina, at least for a few days. But life since graduation
has been random, and I don’t expect the stakes to change abroad.
Personally, going to South America had been a long-time dream I
was going to get around to fulfilling next year, imagining I would stop
procrastinating eventually. But I had reached the end of my career options in
Santa Barbara, and it was time to stop mulling around my apartment looking
under my roommate’s moldy dishes for answers.
I got jobs then quit them, sent my resume to 13,000 companies with
no response, got an internship that did not pay, and turned down opportunities
time and time again that didn’t sound like me. In the meantime, I was a
personal assistant / dog walker for a writer who neurotically sprayed her house
down with a hose; a bratwurst-and-beer-selling German girl (yes, I wore
lederhosen in public); and a cigarette girl selling raffle tickets for a
diamond ring at a James Bond party, which was held at a church (yes, there was
alcohol, gambling, and a go-go dancer).
Many of my friends already had begun fulfilling their life-long
aspirations of becoming whatever they needed to be to pursue a reputable,
prestigious career option. When I was younger, I wanted to be a whale trainer,
which doesn’t adequately fit into such an equation. Neither do the words, “I
don’t know.” My views on animals rights, however, have changed since the time I
was eight years old — another reason why working at SeaWorld was out—and
besides, I no longer envision myself jumping 30 feet up in the air off a Killer
Whale’s mouth into ice water. Now I am left with, “I don’t know.”
As I continued attempting to solve life’s equation, my mother
reminded me to “tighten my belt,” as America was plunging into a deep economic
recession. I told her that if my belt were any tighter, circulation would be
cut off to everything south of my waistline and my legs would turn blue.
Depressed about my economic shortcomings, I texted my friend one
day after completing two unsuccessful interviews and said, “Hey, do you want to
go to Peru in October.” When she replied in the affirmative, that was that. In
case I needed to tighten the money belt a few more notches, I could bring a
hole punch. Until that point, I figured I would work as many random jobs as
possible to fund the trip — and, mind you, I already had.
Now, I leave for Peru with an appetite for Spanish language and
different food selections, including guinea pig and purple potatoes.
Hopefully, I
will have an opportunity to hug an alpaca, but that just may be another
objective in my post-graduate non-plan.