Kate - On Faith

I came to JVC seeking both reconciliation with the Catholic faith of my childhood and absolute fear that JVC would brainwash me into "becoming Catholic".

I was raised Catholic, but from a very social justice orientation. I attended gay right protests, woke up to migrant workers sleeping in our playroom, and by the 2nd grade had written a book on racism and sexism. At the same time, I did not make the connection between justice and faith. What I remember about faith was receiving a Bible in preparation for my First Communion and randomly flipping it open to the section about how a wife should obey her husband. I couldn't believe that this was the book everyone believed in. In my First Communion class, I also asked the teacher if we could change the Lord's prayer (not knowing you can't change it) to say as we TRY to forgive those who trespass against us, because we don't always forgive them. Religion and I were not off to a good start.

As I grew older, I drifted from Catholicism but maintained a belief in justice. I still considered myself a very spiritual person, but it was mostly a personal practice for me. When I thought of Christianity I immediately thought of anti-gay, anti women-rights, and generally close-minded people. I must admit that I came to JVC with these prejudices. At the same time, I believed so strongly in the four values, and I genuinely wanted reconciliation with Catholicism.

What I have loved about spirituality within JVC is that I feel as though I am given the space and the time to explore it fully. No one is telling me: "This is what you have to believe". Instead they are asking, "What is it you believe?" How do those beliefs sustain you? What can you do to go deeper into faith? I feel as though so often in our lives we are not given the time and space to ask these questions, and yet JVC asks that we do.

There are many different things I have come to understand about Catholicism this year. I have met so many incredible people who identify as Catholic or Christian, thus shattering my pre-conceived notions about what it means to be religious. I have loved the connection to social justice and the idea of approaching justice from a faith-based place. This connection is one of hope; and I feel that it is hope that ultimately allows me to keep doing this work even in moments of despair.

At the same time, I am not sure I want to identify as Catholic. Sometimes I go to Church and feel very much at peace, and other times I just get angry. Why would I want to be part of something that is telling me women are second-class citizens? Why would I want to be part of an institution that is against gay marriage? If I say I am Catholic, aren’t I automatically saying I am these things too?

I suppose as with any institution, the Catholic Church is not perfect. And it will never change if everyone who disagrees with it as a whole just chooses to leave. I can chose to either fight from the inside or from the outside. I can say: I am not Catholic because there are some issues I institutionally do not agree with and therefore do not want to be identified with, or I can say: I am Catholic, and I want others to understand that to be Catholic is ultimately about the people and the message and not necessarily the institution.

I haven't yet decided where I want to stand. I do know there is so much more I want to learn about Catholicism, and that I love having a community element to my spirituality. I suppose my reconciliation is this: to be Catholic should ultimately be a call to radically love. If you go to the Gospels, and look right at Jesus' message, it is pretty radical and beautiful. It is a call to love all people, to recognize their human dignity, and to especially recognize that in the people who have been marginalized by society. It is a message of hospitality and the idea that we are all family. And I personally don’t think you need to believe in Jesus to believe in these things. I think faith in something, whether it is god or humanity or this earth, ultimately should be a call to radically love one another.

Learn more about Kate here.

Dermot - The Peruvian Girlfriend

As a Jesuit Volunteer, the greatest mistake I almost made was to start dating a Peruvian. It took the advice of my community and family, coupled with some honest introspection, to prevent my insecurities from getting the better of my good judgment.

What follows may seem like a prudish, anachronistic, or even insulting justification of Jesuit Volunteers International's counsel to eschew all "significant relationships" while in the field. Nevertheless, after having almost broken this rule, I more fully understand its purpose, not as a paternalistic norm designed to control the libidos of free-spirited twenty-somethings, but rather as a healthy means of challenging volunteers to question the "amorous" feelings that can fool them into an attraction based more on external stresses than on true romantic chemistry.

It all started with a favor for a friend. In September of last year, a male acquaintance asked me to help a young woman with her application for an April 2008 placement in an au pair program in the US. I said yes and, through my male friend, started to help her with the project. One night, she came to a party we had in our house.

By then, it was late November. I had just greeted the new JV arrivals, while I was preparing to say goodbye to the two veteran volunteers who had accompanied me through my first year. It was a stressful time, during which I felt like I was being pulled between the needs of my old community and the desire to integrate with the community we would form in 2008. Things seemed to come to a head at this party; and I ended up pouring my soul out to my new friend, talking to her until the wee hours of the morning. A week later, I bought her an ice cream. A few days later, we exchanged gifts for our birthdays (two days apart) and I started thinking about the nature of our friendship.

To be clear: I had all the power to make the decision about what to do next. I was the one with the English skills she wanted. I was the one with the US passport and all the prestige and expectations that come with it. I was the one who had the economic power (my family would visit me later in the month, at a cost out of reach to most Peruvians). I was the super star. As one former JV uncouthly put it, "You are a Backstreet boy for 2 years; enjoy it while you can."

She told me that she got a kick out of hanging out with the tallest man in Tacna. Being around a beautiful girl made me feel special. More disturbingly, at one point, she even told me that we could "be" whatever I wanted us to "be." She was willing to do anything to call herself my girlfriend. This scared the hell out of me. Even after one private encounter, the friendship started to feel so one-way and almost manipulative.

In the midst of these confused feelings, I thought constantly about the JVI handbook, whose regulations I had agreed to uphold. Under JVI guidelines, I would have a week to inform the JVI office if I pursued a "significant relationship." If I procrastinated, it would be the responsibility of my community-mates to fulfill this requirement "out of care and concern for the JV in the relationship."

Assuming that my community or I would inform the office, I began to weigh my chances in a debate with the three members of the JVI Program Team in Washington, DC. I knew that pretty much every year in JVI Tacna´s recent past,

there has been a relationship between a North American and a Peruvian. Some have been fruitful, some quite hurtful, and some have even ended in marriage (as a side note, of the six marriages I know of between North Americans and Peruvians, two have ended in divorce).

I told myself that if I was willing to "take on" the office, I could eventually get my way. I immediately created an adversarial lens with which to view the JVI staff, anticipating a fight to get what I wanted. The poor people in DC hadn´t even done anything to me. And they seem, for the most part, like nice folks. I was definitely acting weirdly.

My arguments for "being with" my friend were based in everything from Bill-Clintonesque semantics ("it depends on what your definition of ´significant´ is") to idiotic nonchalance ("it doesn't mean anything that I have bought her ice cream; I buy ice creams for people all the time; this isn't so serious"). In short, I had an array of rhetorically bankrupt justifications in favor of pursuing a relationship.

Questioning both my misplaced aggression toward the office and my inadequate reasons for starting a relationship, I began to look for a deeper rationale to explain the feelings I was having. I concluded that the stresses of being in Peru were finally playing upon a weakness I rarely acknowledge.

Let me preface this analysis by postulating that a long-term volunteer program like JVI will exacerbate insecurities you didn´t even know you had. If you binge drink in the States, you are more likely to drink excessively in country. If you have a problem with depression, it can be intensified by two years away from home.

For me, my insecurity concerned relationships with women. I do not have too many close, female friends. I have never had a serious girlfriend and felt "defective" for this apparent "failure." Add to this insecurity the pressures of culture shock and the stress of transitioning communities and you find the textbook explanation of why I was seeking a special friendship. I started to look more objectively at the situation and realized that it would be manipulative and unfair to use my friend as a means of dealing with my inquietudes.

In the end, perhaps my mom put the final nail in the coffin on my vacillations as to the future of my "relationship." In the Lima airport, ten minutes before I would say good bye to my family for another year and a half, my Mom took me aside to give me two bits of patented Anne Lynch advice.

First, invoking the counsel passed through Irish mothers for centuries, she told me to "beeeee careful during this coming year" (the Irish brogue turns "be" into a 4 syllable word). Per usual, I have failed to follow her advice.

Second, and more importantly, she told me, "Now, Dermot, if you don´t stop fooling with the emotions of that Peruvian girl, I´ll………………….…….." To keep this blog PG-rated, let´s just say that my mother can be very convincing and horrifyingly creative when she is both angry and holds the moral high ground.

I left Lima with a sober vision of what I would need to tell my friend. I had a hard, but honest talk with her. She accepted the platonic friendship I offered; and I have helped her complete the visa requirements to travel to the US as an au pair. She will be leaving Tacna in a month. I hope that she truly does forgive and understand me.

For better or worse, I have come out of the experience knowing much more about what makes me tick. More importantly, the process has allowed me to realize the value of the JVI handbook: a practical document not written by those who wish to "dictate morality," but rather by those who bring with them decades of experience the problems inherent to long-term distance from home.

I am back at school now enjoying my second year with my Peruvian kids. I wish you all a Happy Easter season and a pleasant spring. I went fishing last week for a Good Friday catch. The Peruvian man I went with said that I would be a better "fisher of men" than fisherman. I didn´t even catch one fish to his 15.

The photos included in this blog are from various recent travels, since returning from Mes de Misión. The first is a shot with my community-mates before boarding our transport home from a recent retreat. We passed 3 cops with all this cargo and were not stopped by one of them. Asies la vida en la America Latina. The second is my appearance as our Savior in a Domingo de Ramos celebration.

Learn more about Dermot here.

Dermot - Mes de Misión

Since last we spoke, I´ve experienced quite a bit in the Peruvian campo, working with students from my high school in the town of Locumba (pop. 500). I was given the opportunity to travel to these towns as part of a program called Mes de Misión (in English, "Mission Month"), a four-week service project that all students at my school must complete during the summer between the equivalent of their freshmen and sophomore years of high school. The purpose of Mes de Misión is to give the students the opportunity to help people in poorer areas of Tacna, while challenging them to live independently, away from their families.

For me, living in rural Peru this past month was like entering another world, where the main lodging was often huts made from cane, with dirt floors and communal, outdoor plumbing; where the primary means of transit was in the back of a rickety camion, which would race down narrow, unpaved, and dangerously sinuous roads to towns in which few Westerners have ever stayed; and where the natural beauty of the valley where Locumba is located was matched only by the hospitality with which our group was greeted by many of the locals. Mes de Misión was, in short, the greatest adventure of my life: a journey back in time and a very close encounter with people who live without the daily stresses and comforts that we are accustomed to in the West.

Now, before you start to think that this month was some romantic tour of the idyllic Peruvian countryside, let me give you a taste of how I experienced rural third world poverty, and how I endured what was easily the most challenging month of my life.

One of the most difficult things about the month was the diet. I ate a lot of rice and potatoes, and pretty much nothing else. I went a month without protein. The month-long fast would have been manageable on its own, were it not for the tough requirements of the manual labor. Most of my month was consumed by the construction or filling-in of zanjas (big ditches) that would be used to bring water to a small town outside Locumba. To dig these zanjas, we had available pick axes, shovels, crow bars and about 60 sets of scrawny 14-year-old arms. Needless to say, I became well acquainted with construction methods used in the US in the middle of the last century, and spent days toiling on projects that could have been accomplished by a mechanized backhoe in a few hours. I personally had an intimate, four-week relationship with a pick-ax that left my hands blistered and my unchallenged mind craving both the climate control and intellectual stimulation of good desk job.

Finally, on top of both hunger and exhaustion, there were, of course, the "chookies." Perhaps you remember the B-listed 1980s horror film about a demonic doll named Chucky? Peruvian professors love this film and have adopted the name of the lead character (pronounced "chooky" in Spanish) to refer to their equally devilish students. I certainly had my fair share of run-ins with the chookies, to the extent that I often felt that if Sartre is right, and hell really is the eternal presence of other people, then the deepest darkest circle of my own personal inferno is one inhabited by Peruvian 14 year olds. These kids' teasing, their lack of focus, their raging hormones, their constant need for direction (from 5am until 9pm) left me more emotionally and physically sapped than the manual labor. Thankfully, I have a slight respite from them, until classes start in March.

Well, I have now given you 500 words of complaining about Mes de Misión. And that's often what I did during the month: bitch. Self-pity was my constant companion in January. Be it my rumbling stomach, my often rumbling bowels (yes, even a diet of only carbs can make a gringo sick), or the constant presence of the chookies, I always had a way to feel sorry for myself. It was not until half-way through the month that I actually tried to enter more fully into the experience and rely on my faith to keep me from getting completely overwhelmed. For, yes, I was malnourished; yes, I was emotionally drained; yes, I will never look at a ditch in the same way again; but, at the same time, I had moments in this month where I could not have felt more spiritually alive.

In the end, I concluded that you could choose to look at Mes de Misión as a taxing and absurd obligation which is unhealthy, unhelpful (professional workers could have done our work in half the time and with a tenth of the drama), and, thus, unnecessary. I know some of the kids I led felt this way. Some part of me agrees with them, too.

What made the effort at times fruitful was that I forced myself to believe in a prayer from Saint Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits), which I recited every morning and which I have provided you below. Among other spiritually uplifting Jesuit mottos, I forced myself to remember this prayer whenever I questioned the utility of the construction project, the sanity of the chookies or even my rationale for spending two years in Peru.During those times when I rejected the temptation of self-pity, this month was very spiritually powerful for me. Like St. Ignatius suggests, I was able to realize that I could offer up to God all that I loved (i.e., a balanced diet, contact with my family, my health, my liberty) and feel blessed and honored in the sacrifice. Perhaps I´m crazy or just gullible enough to believe in Jesuitical trickery. I prefer to think that I genuinely grew closer to God in the past four weeks and know that I helped some of the kids to do the same. All the same, I am happy that I have finished the two Mes de Mision experiences that I will have in Peru.

I wish you a blessed and (hopefully) warm month. I am conscious, however, that there are probably around 150 potential JVs out there, who are in the middle of a demanding discernment process. You all have a lot of questions, probably which you would like to ask me anomously, instead of risking a misstep with the dreaded JVI office (they´re not THAT evil). Ask me anything, no question is out of bounds (and all will be kept in confidence). Email me at dlynchper06@yahoo.com. I will try to respond to your quesitons in the JVI blog next month. In the meantime enjoy the prayer below as a tranquil way to reflect on the discernment process you are undertaking at present.

Prayer of Saint Ignatius of Loyola

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,
my memory, my understanding, and my entire will.
All I have and call my own.
Whatever I have or hold, you have given me.
I restore it all to you and surrender it wholly
to be governed by your will.
Give me only your love and grace
and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.

Learn more about Dermot here.

Daniel - Life in Community

February 18, 2008 “That’s a lot of estrogen”

Saturday, February 16: I sit in my living room, wrapped in a blanket, eating chocolate and watching a romantic comedy with four green-faced women. No, they have not all come down with the flu or a bad case of food poisoning, but rather, all have decided to indulge their skin with avocado-based face masks.

The wait is over—I have decided to spill the beans on my life living with five women. With a female to male ratio in the East this year of nearly four to one, it was bound to happen. In fact, it’s occurred twice this year, with Boston sporting a house of five girls to one guy. You’re my boy, Chris.

Monday, February 18: Jim Carey is appearing on Oprah today as I write this blog. He scans the audience and declares, “That’s a lot of estrogen.” His reaction takes me to last summer when I received the Newark community bios in the mail, which read: Alison, Francesca, Jacqueline, Jenna, Claire and Daniel. –You said it Jim, “That’s a lot of estrogen.”

When I inform people that I live with five women - it doesn’t matter if they’re family or friends, male or female - the reaction is always the same. “Ooohhh, man!?!? How is that? That’s got to be rough.” This is accompanied with a look of sympathy, disbelief and a little bit of horror. It’s as if I just told people that I was living with a pack of wild, ravenous wolves.

I can tell you right now that the women I live with are---brace yourself---normal people. Five women living under one roof do not turn into a vicious monster. Actually they turn into five—kidding. I honestly thought that I was in for a rude awakening. I grew up with four brothers and two sisters. The television was dominated by Oakland A’s baseball, Notre Dame football and ESPN. Testosterone prevailed. When I received the roommate list, I pictured God snickering. I felt as though I was entering the female version of “How the Other Half Lives.”

When I think about living in community with five women, the image that comes into my head is of us talking. I know it sounds common, but that’s it. We talk during breakfast, at work through emails, g-chat and phone calls. After work, during rides home, in the living room before dinner, for well over an hour during and after dinner we are talking. Ohh—and how could I ever forget pillow talk?

If you find yourself in a similar situation, get ready for a marathon of talking and listening. A helpful hint: don’t just listen with a blank stare and nod of the head…it doesn’t count. Be ready to offer advice, insight and your feelings on an endless list of topics, including: news, weather, celebrities, men, male and female stereotypes, feminism, books, men, bras, clothing, movies, doing dishes, not doing dishes, men, music, siblings, relationships, families, parents, ex-boyfriends, boys that happen to be friends and of course, the boys we want to be more than friends.

But—isn’t that what people do? We talk about issues in our lives, things on our mind, people we like, we don’t like, what happened during our day, insecurities we battle and compliments we try our best to believe. We are people; communication is our tool---male, female, it doesn’t matter.

So—when I tell people that it is going well, this is the image I have. I like the talking and I am learning to appreciate the level of description that goes into stories. Now, I know I might be walking the dangerous line of gender stereotypes, but what I am learning is that women are all about detail. A story’s minute aspects are dissected, prodded, rolled over, turned upside down and inside out over and over again.

I’m learning. They have been patient with me and I with them. We are people. We are a community.

Learn more about Daniel here.

Gisella - Lessons I learned at AFG

It has been six months since I started working at Alternatives for Girls (AFG) and after all this time has passed, I could not see myself anywhere else. AFG is a shelter for homeless women aged 15-21. My job requires a lot of energy and flexibility because I never know when one of my clients will need something from me. As a case planner I assist the young ladies under my care in managing their lives. (At the same time, I am attempting to manage my own!) Even though my clients don’t realize it, we are both trying to make the most out of our lives, and so we can help each other to grow.

I have learned many valuable lessons while working with these homeless young ladies. First of all they have taught me that being present to them and their needs can be enough for them. Sometimes I wish I could do something when my clients come and talk to me about all their problems but as one of my clients told me, the fact that I can be there for them, to hear them when they need me, is enough. This has been a difficult lesson because I wish I could do something tangible, something that I can see helps to take their pain away. However, thanks to my client, I have learned that by being present I am doing a lot, even if I don’t realize it at first.

Another thing I have learned is the real value of sharing. I always thought I knew what sharing meant until I had a profound experience with one of my clients. One day when I was assisting my client with an online job search, I mentioned I was hungry, not expecting any response. Without hesitation my client said she had her Bridge card (food stamps card) with her, and that she would walk to the store a block away to buy me some food. I told her not to worry about it, but in my mind I couldn’t help but think how a young lady who has only $155 a month for food was willing to spend it on me when I said I was hungry, even though that act of kindness might mean she would have no food the next day. I thought about this incident for a while and wondered if I would have done the same. I was ashamed to realize that I would probably not have made the same offer. This young lady taught me a lesson on the value of sharing that I will never forget.

One final lesson I have learned from working at AFG is the value of being part of the daily lives of the people I serve. Due to the loss of some grants I had to work an RA shift in the homeless shelter. At first I was a little hesitant about it because the shift includes staying until 10pm on Thursday nights. What I didn’t realize was how much I would end up loving being an RA for the girls. Because I stay with them throughout one full day I am able to share with them in meals, playing games and the task I love the most: taking care of babies J. When I came to the shelter there were 5 pregnant ladies and now all the babies are born. It is such a blessing to be part of their lives, to be able to feed them, burp them (yes, babies need to be burped often – who knew!), read to them and even become mother number four to a very special baby. Kenyon is the baby of the first young lady I met as I started my job; it is for that reason that I feel such a strong connection with him. He is now a big baby, 5 months old, and yesterday we had his first photo session eating real food!!! Enjoy the pictures of my babies that bring so much joy to my JVC life.

Learn more about Gisella here.

Kathleen - On the Job

Flexibility. That is the key.

It is difficult to explain what my job entails, much less a “day in the life.” Every day is different and something unexpected often comes up. My job entails many different responsibilities and it’s often a juggling act.

One highlight of my week is the ESL class. As a not-for-profit women’s center, we don’t have too much money for English books, and I haven’t found an ESL book that I like—most are aimed at kids and don’t incorporate the day to day English we use. So I am always thinking about the language and terminology I use. It’s pretty easy in El Paso; I just ask myself if I know how to do everyday things in Spanish, and create a lesson out of that. How do I find out the bus route I need to get to work? How can tell a doctor when I don’t feel well? How can I sell something to a customer? After brainstorming lesson ideas, I start piecing together a lesson plan with handouts and activities. Often, they are so itching for knowledge that I spend the class answering questions. A big one is the pronunciation of words that sound similar, such as: beer, bear, bird, board, bored, and border. Sometimes I wonder if they actually are learning as I contort my face with the different vowel sounds and try to think of motions to help them remember—beer has a guttural sound, so I act like I have a big belly; bird has an airy vowel sound, so I flap little wings as I say it; bored sounds like a yawn. It all makes me think of our language as mouth candy and understand why it is confusing to go from a language that has five vowel sounds to one that has numerous sounds with different spellings (ever think about how you pronounce bought, through, and rough differently even though they all have “–ough” at the end?).

Taking programs to other agencies in El Paso has also been a wonderful part of my week. Mondays, I ride my bike to the bridge (maybe 1 ½ miles), walk across to Cuidad Juaréz, and take the bus out to Siglo XXI (a neighborhood in Cd. Juaréz that lacks infrastructure) to meet with the women there. It is always strange to ride the bus along the Rio Grande, staring at El Paso’s skyscrapers looming behind the fences, trains, and Border Patrol cars. I cannot imagine what it would be like to see the disparities every day—to hear that education in El Paso is affordable, to know that some food in El Paso costs less because they have Wal-Mart, to see El Paso’s buildings seem cleaner and well-maintained—and all that naturally separates you is a river.

The women meet in a little chapel when they can to make crafts, watercolor, or just talk about life. They are a support to one another, and I have been so fortunate that they let me walk with them. They are teaching me a lot about how Americans are viewed and how the border and American economic policies affect their lives.

Another group of women have also let me into their lives to see the challenges they face. Twice a week I facilitate an arts and crafts class at the Opportunity Center, a shelter that essentially takes in the most marginalized—those who have been turned away from other shelters in El Paso. Some days, the women are in bad moods. It’s hard to have nearly 20 women sleeping on mats in a space the size of my living room. Those days, I might make some origami by myself or paint with one other woman. Other days, the women are happy and talkative. It helps that I am not on staff at the Opportunity Center; they have nothing to lose by unloading on me. I hope they enjoy the time to just do something with their hands and be creative, since many say they don’t have much going on. They give me a lot to think about as far as the connection between mental health and homelessness and prison, as many of them have chemical imbalances.

I have been inspired by the strong women I meet with for our self-esteem workshop. They all have so much power. My role is to pose questions or do different activities to get the women thinking about their lives and talking to one another. I am not there to tell them what they need; they have it already in each other. I have been so fortunate to be alongside these women as they share personal stories and encourage one another to use the power they have.

There is so much more to this job than I can fully describe in a blog, but the women I have had the pleasure of accompanying have given me much more than I could ever give them.

Learn more about Kathleen here.

Dermot - The Latin Kiss

Let me start with a Christmas admission, from under some Peruvian mistletoe. I have kissed more women in Latin America—way more—than I ever will in the United States. To start with, I have kissed every one of the profesoras at Cristo Rey, every señorita in my host family, many a married woman, all of my lucky female community-mates, a surprising number of nuns and Latin grannies, at least one member of the Jesuit Volunteers International (JVI) staff, quite a few strangers on the street, and maybe even a few women who didn´t deserve the Dermot mark of approval, but received it anyway. What can I say? I´m a generous guy.

If I were in the United States, between my personal and professional life, I would probably have violated every sexual harassment law in the country. But before JVI picks up the chastity hotline to put an end to the wanton lasciviousness of this philandering gringo, let me qualify comments made in the above paragraph with a note on cultural sensitivity. In Peru , you must kiss women when you meet them. To not do so is considered rude and highly impersonal. It is just one way I observe this country to be a much more "tactile" place. The people want—expect—more than a moribund and guarded handshake. They want the gift of your touch and are happy to give it, too.

Peru engenders none of the interpersonal distance that I see in the US. I recently learned that North Americans require an unoccupied space, 30 inches in diameter, to feel unthreatened and comfortable. You get within 1.5 feet of someone in the US and we reach for the mace. Down south, they think much less of it. Peruvians require you to give them a robust embrace, a passionate conversation, and an almost immediate closeness that would make many North Americans flee to a quiet and solitary refuge. So, if you plan on joining JVI Peru, get ready to pucker up: a Latin´s lips—and hips—never lie…at least in the opening salutation.

Before I continue, I should probably share with you the best way to kiss a Peruvian woman ( I never thought I´d use that line in the JVI blog). Stop laughing. Kissing is serious stuff in Peru . To effectively navigate this delicate maneuver, you must approach the Latina , embrace her, touch her right cheek to yours, and blow a kiss approximately toward her ear. Don´t blow the kiss too hard and make sure you don´t have spit in your mouth. You don´t want to give the poor girl a wet willy. Confront the task like a salsa dancer. Do it suavemente (smoothly) and she will be encantada (let´s say, very thankful).

Also, an important corollary: do not plant the kiss on her cheek with your lips. It took me about six months in Peru to realize that the platonic kiss is normally meant for the air, not the woman. A kiss on the cheek is a sign that you might be looking for passion in more than just the conversation. Oops! Mea culpa. I may have given some poor Hermanas de la Merced (Sisters of Mercy) the wrong idea on how I feel about their vow of celibacy.

Having given you a brief introduction to Latin philematology, let´s continue with more Peruvian rules of etiquette. When you arrive late (if that is possible in this country) and find a group of Peruvians has already arrived at an engagement, you must make sure to greet each of them individually. In these situations, the typical formation Peruvians adopt is what I call the "circle of death." Perhaps it´s a sociological curiosity endemic to this country, but when Peruvians mingle, they don´t form small groups like in the US; rather, they almost always create large circles where everyone can see everyone else and note which reproached Latina the gringo forgets to kiss. If I am going to end the night on good terms with all, I must proceed around the entire circle (at times, upwards of 30 people), making sure to kiss the women and embrace the men. This process can be more involved, prolonged, and subtle than Middle East peacekeeping. Moreover, if you get it wrong, the Latinas might forgive, but they will never forget.

I probably have kissing on the brain in this blog, because, today, I gave some of my longest anticipated kisses of the year. My family touched down in Tacna´s Airport at 7:20 AM today (but who was counting the hours?). You can be damn sure that my mom and two sisters benefited greatly from the great kissing education I received during the past year. Needless to say, this Christmas will be very special for me, as it will be one in which I get to share my gringo family with the Peruvian one which has adopted me during the past year. I am excited to continue with another year of JVI and am already feeling refreshed from the energy boost my family has given me.

In my last blog, I promised a rebuttal to Ivan Illich´s indictment of volunteer programs . Sorry to disappoint, but I´m not ready to offer it up, yet. I´ll make it a New Years resolution to tackle these issues, after a long conversation with my parents.

Learn more about Dermot here.