And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

The years following my Peace Corps service in Peru have quickly added up and this blog has yet to find the closure it deserves. Reading through my last post, written over two years ago, I can see that the promised stories and photos chronicling the many goodbyes and the travels that followed with my cousin Gabriel never found their way here. Though I do intend to follow through on that promise, I’m gonna skip ahead for now and explain how I ended back up in Peru for a third time (that’s right, Round Three!). So much has happened in the past couple years that Peru: Round Two never even hit the radar of this blog! But I’m getting ahead of myself again. Let’s rewind just a bit…

After the goodbyes, the close of service paperwork, and the wild travel adventures, I made it back home by mid-November 2014; just in time to celebrate my niece Lotus’s 4^th birthday, send my sister off to her senior year winter formal, and enjoy a long-awaited, gluttonous Perez Family holiday season. Anyone who’s been far from home for a decent chunk of time knows how deliciously surreal those dreamt-about first meals back can be when they come to life. I believe upon my arrival to the States, my parents drove me immediately from SFO to In-N-Out and I chowed down on a #2 with grilled onions, animal-style fries and a root beer. It was perfection.

Too pumped to handle for Marlee's winter formal

Cheesing it up with Gabriel at the annual Perez Family Pre-Christmas Dinner

Post-holiday season and a whirlwind of catch-up chats later, I found myself back in Pacifica living with my original roomies (my parents and sister), unemployed and with only a slightly stronger sense of direction for my future than when I had left for the Peace Corps. At this point, I began simultaneously applying to jobs and graduate school programs. The positions I looked into were in the public sector at the city and county level but the graduate school programs I was interested in would mean a significant change in my career path from civil engineering to international development.

College visits with Michael J.

I applied to several positions and graduate programs at University of San Francisco, UC San Diego, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, and University of Denver. Each of the four schools had similar programs and opportunities and two even offered special fellowships for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). The job search is rough and the public sector often takes months to get back to applicants. Tired of feeling useless around the house and without a source of income, I worked as a nanny for a family in the city while I waited to hear back. At this time, my sister was also waiting to hear back from the undergraduate programs she had applied to, reminding me of the nerves I had experienced eight years prior as a senior in high school, terrified each letter I received would be filled with disappointment in rejection. To my surprise, I was accepted to each of the programs I had applied to and received my first acceptance the same week as my sister! We celebrated our relief and avoided failure over craft root beer and pazookie. We had made it!

Relishing the relief of college acceptances

A few months and a grueling housing search later, I found myself in Monterey preparing for my first semester at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) as a Peace Corps Fellow and candidate for an MA in International Policy and Development (MAIPD). Lucky for me, one of my friends from Peace Corps, Addy, a health volunteer from my training cohort, was also enrolled and we quickly commiserated over our pre-school jitters and excitement for this new chapter we were about to begin, reliving our Peru days and soaking in those Monterey summer days as we awaited the beginning of our first semester. We were nervous but we were ready.

Addy and I kicking off the school year with the first of many grad school happy hours

For the sake of getting to the point a little quicker and trying to fully answer the question of how I have found myself back in the heart of Peru, I’ll spare you the boring, and often anxiety-ridden, details of my first semester as a grad student. MIIS offers a variety of opportunities to travel abroad for course credit, many of which take place during the January portion of winter break called J-Term. Mid-way through my first semester, I learned about a research trip to Peru that involved working with an organization called the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development (AASD). Two MIIS alumni, Aaron and Adam, formally founded the organization in 2011 and have partnered with MIIS and Middlebury College students since its conception. The research trip, called the Peru Wraparound, involved a Fall course developing tools of inquiry surrounding a specific research question, the trip itself to collect the necessary data, and a Spring course compiling, analyzing, and presenting our findings. Within a week of hearing about the project, I was convinced; I needed to go on this trip.

So last January, I came back to Peru with a group of six of my MIIS classmates and two Middlebury College students to work with the AASD in the small town of Calca just an hour away from the city of Cusco. We surveyed and interviewed farmers in the small, rural communities of the surrounding area to gain a better understanding of how or if the effects of climate change were impacting their agricultural livelihoods. Our group of MIIS students then spent the following Spring semester making sense of and analyzing our findings to provide recommendations for future research for the AASD. This field experience was quite different than my time in the Peace Corps both in the region I was living in and the work I was doing but I welcomed the change and feel it was an extremely worthwhile experience.

Team Peru 2016

MIIS meets Midd

Hiking through llama territory to survey the surrounding communities

The month went by quickly and though I was unable to visit my host family in Guadalupe due to distance and time constraints, I was able to stop by the Peace Corps Peru headquarters and spend some time with one of my Pacas Crew gals, Scotney, who was in the middle of her third-year leadership position, in Lima for a few days. Coming back to Peru was an incredible experience and a reminder of how beneficial my time in the Peace Corps was. During my service as a PCV, it was so easy to get caught up in the daily grind and to get frustrated and tired of the situation I was in. The second time around, I had had some distance between that trying period in my life and was able to look back on my experience much more fondly. While I was in Calca last January, I called my host family as much as I could, bonded with the host family we were living with that month, and was reminded of the love I have for Peruvian culture and this country as a whole. I needed to come back with a clear head and an openness to properly soak it all in.

Tea time with my Pacas gal, Scotney!

Back in Monterey this Fall, my classmates were all abuzz about what their plans for their final semesters might be. Our program does not require a thesis but instead allows us to complete a practicum project in our final semester. There are many options for this project and many students choose to take a practicum course on campus, too; however, I was hoping to complete mine off campus. MIIS is full of incredibly talented, go-getter students from all over the world and it was easy to get caught up in the possibilities and amazing opportunities my classmates were pursuing. I initially intended to get back to the Bay to find an internship that might get me one step closer to an actual job where I hope to end up someday for good but by the middle of the semester I had Peru back on my mind. Aaron and Adam were making their annual visit to MIIS and we organized a happy hour reunion for our Team Peru crew. Over burgers, beers, and pickle back shots, I found myself talking to the guys about my practicum prospects. Next thing you know, bada-bing bada-boom, I’ve been offered a potential internship at the AASD for the following Spring semester!

Just a few of my kick ass classmates

Pickle back shots to celebrate the Team Peru 2016 Reunion

There’s a lot more preparation, coordination, and planning that went into securing this practicum project, of course, but I’ll do my best to skip the lengthy logistical details. Towards the end of the Fall semester, another friend (Shaun, a MIIS classmate, fellow engineering major, and RPCV Panama) and I were planning to do a project before I would be leaving for Peru that partnered us with an electrical engineering undergraduate department of a nearby college. It was a research-heavy project that would have involved us traveling to Vanuatu, a small chain of about 80 islands in the South Pacific, for a month or so to collect the data the electrical engineering students needed. Long story short, the funding for the project fell through and we were forced to seek and secure other practicum options, and quickly. Lucky for me, the AASD was flexible enough with my timeline to allow me to come down a month earlier.

Since I spent the month of January simultaneously researching for a project that was never realized, taking a three-week intensive course (my last class on-campus at MIIS), and cleaning and packing up my apartment, I gave myself a few weeks at home with the family before heading back to Peru to begin my work with the AASD. I also used this time to re-write my practicum project, design my final deliverables and get it all approved by my advisor for the semester. Some highlights from my time at home include: watching the Super Bowl with my fam, spending time with my cousins, nieces and nephews, catching up with some of my Bay Area bbs, hitting up an RPCV career fair to get that job search rolling early, spending a weekend in the city for a killer bachelorette party weekend (involving a drag show, wigs, and amazing SF cuisine), re-watching Stranger Things with my dad as he recuperated from a knee surgery, drinking whiskey sours with my mom almost every night and co-habitating with my sister during her visits home in her room formerly known as my room more peacefully than we ever have. The time with my family was much needed (mostly for my parents but I guess for me, as well, jk jk) and it helped me better prepare for my return to the country that’s become my second home.

PC Peru loves rewarding ourselves with a sweet treat after the RPCV Career Fair

Hitching a ride on the trolly for Anne's wild bachelorette party weekend in the city

Spending some much needed time with my gal Erin and SLO partner-in-crime

The transition this time around has been much easier than any major move I’ve made in the past. The goodbyes, the packing (anyone who knows me knows this is a major issue of mine often deserving of procrastination by any means necessary), the traveling, and even the settling in; it’s all becoming second nature. I’m almost positive my mom won’t like to hear that because she wants to keep her babies close to home but she and my dad have seen me struggle through transitions from high school to college, Pacifica to Peru, and unemployment to grad school, and can point to how much progress I’ve made at each step. I’m by no means looking forward to another round of the job search when I get back to the States but I have a feeling my parents will be so happy to have me back in the country that they won’t mind me bumming around on the couch, once again. (Just kidding! Don’t worry parents, I’ll be working real hard not to be an unemployed mooch for long!)

Now, here I am, back for Peru: Round Three! It’s been a couple weeks since I arrived to Calca and I’ve been able to dive right into my work here. Upon my arrival on a Monday afternoon just two weeks ago, I was asked to help prepare a workshop that I’d be assisting in giving the following day. I immediately felt useful and was pleased to be able to put into practice things I had learned at MIIS so quickly. I live at the AASD’s office with two other awesome ladies who know how to have a good time even after we've spent the entire work day together. All together, there are about seven staff members, besides myself, in and out of the office throughout the day, working hard and often partaking in family-style meals. My official title is Program Development Consultant and I have been tasked with working on fundraising strategy and grant writing for the organization but I’ll get more into that another time.

The AASD office and my home for the next few months

For now, I am more than happy to be here. I’m enjoying the work that I’m doing and the people that I work with. Peru has taught me a lot and I’m pumped to do what I can to give a little back. Since my arrival, I’ve already taken a trip to the jungle (photos coming soon!), made more kick ass friends, and have a MIIS Mafia reunion trip in the works for the upcoming Easter vacation with the rest of my South America practicum crew working for an assortment of amazing organizations in international development in Ecuador, Lima and Boliva. As I settle into my daily routine, I’ve sat down at our kitchen table early in the morning with my coffee to write this post over the past few days. When I look out the kitchen windows I see the giant, green mountains of the Andes on all sides surrounding the Sacred Valley I now call home. I think about what it’s taken me to get here and it makes me happy. This life is beautiful and I’m thrilled to be back in it.

Calca, Cusco, Peru