One Month In - A Letter to Myself

Jorge Rios, a business student at Fordham, opens his second blog in first person. He writes a letter to himself, reflecting on goals, memories, and his time in Andahuaylillas -

Dear past self,

It has been a little over a month since we arrived to Andahuaylillas. This is the longest time we’ve spent abroad, and I’ve learned a lot, as cliché as it sounds. 

Our goal for this trip was to find out what it was going to teach us and you actually ended up writing about how we struggled with it when we first arrived. After a while we decided it was to be present, to live in the moment and enjoy being in a new environment with new people. Though, we still struggle to live up to that goal at times, or maybe it’s just been the past couple of days. We sometimes still catch ourselves on our phone or listening to music when we should be looking out our window and just admiring that there is literally a mountain outside. 

In terms of building better habits, we’ve kind of hit a plateau with our reading goal, but don’t worry, I’m going to go read right after work today to hopefully finish our book by Friday. So, while our goals may not have been as easy to stick to as we thought, we still have one month left. 

Though, one of the goals we have been consistent with has been strengthening the relationships with the Peruvians here. We’ve gotten to know the names of a lot more of our students and neighbors. Recently, we had a huge festival for Dia de San Pedro which consisted of a lot of eating and dancing. The night before the festival we had a campfire and danced, laughed, and just enjoyed each other’s company. The day of the festival, we got to meet a lot of our student’s families and actually played upwards of 30 games of foosball with some of them. We made a bet that whichever team wins the most games out of 10 would get a snack, just to make it a little more competitive. (We didn’t end up winning so now we have to train for next time). What I really enjoyed though was after we lost, the kids who won the snack (which was a big bag of Nacho Cheese Doritos and a 1-liter bottle of Coca-Cola) brought it back to El Caijo (the parish) and shared it all with the rest of the kids who played with us, all while cracking jokes and talking about school, the festival, and the dance they were about to perform.

 It’s really the small things like playing foosball, making huatias, etc. that really just make us feel right at home - like we belong.

I could recall many other times that I’ve felt like I was family to the people here and I’m so blessed that I can say that. So, in these last three weeks we have left, I want to make sure to spend as much time off my phone and just cherish these friendships I’ve been lucky enough to form.

 

Truly yours,

 

Present Day Jorge