Leaving PSF

photo by Carlo Ricci

Tomorrow I will leave Pisco with the man I've come to call my boyfriend in the last couple months. We're going to travel around Peru a bit, then head to Bolivia and see what happens after that. I'm very excited to see new things, eat better food, and experience other parts of Peru that aren't the desolate, coastal desert. I think in a couple of weeks or so though, I will be missing PSF big time. I can tell already as I start wrapping things up.

In the last week, I've been handing over my job and training a new guy to make biodiesel. He's doing well, though he does have a bad habit of doing things just by memory and not re-reading the manual first (and when I'm not around to correct him, things don't always go swimmingly). I'm sure he'll be fine though. He has to be. He's the link for the next month between me and the next biodiesel manager, who must keep the project afloat. There were so many goals that I would have liked to see happen; selling biodiesel to locals and teaching Peruvians to set up their own systems. Both have just barely started, as there are always so many hiccups. I'm sad to let go of my job, but happy to not have to deal with those hiccups anymore!

I've been thinking quite a lot lately about what to say tomorrow in my goodbye speech at the morning meeting. I've been here for 5 and a half months and have heard many great speeches, so I feel like I have something to live up to. Part of me wants to complain a little about Pisco, about PSF, about the itchy sand fly bites that have scarred up my legs...and part of me wants to leave out any bitterness and just make a happy and emotional statement about my time here. I'm sure I'll leave PSF and finally see just how awesome this experience has been and how much it has changed me.

I've done so much here that I have never done before and never really expected to do. I learned how to make biodiesel! That's so rad! I helped to clean up a man who fell, drunk, cut his head open and passed out on the floor. The pool of blood on the floor and the blood covering his head and tee shirt amounted to the most blood I've ever seen in real life by far. I had my first conversations completely in Spanish and my first friends with whom I don't speak any English. I still suck at Spanish though. I have gotten to drive a tuk-tuk, a concrete mixer, and also had my first driving accident ever in the PSF work truck, whoops. I saw wild dolphins and penguins for the first time here. I can't even really think of all the "firsts" right now. Hopefully none are "lasts."

PSF really is a unique organization. It's not trite, religious, or overly do-gooder. People here are real. They work hard and play hard, just how I like it. The range of emotions (and health) that I've been through here has been pretty ridiculous (and tiring). The friends I've met here will stay with me forever and I can't wait to see many of them again (find me wherever I am in the world and come visit, I love you guys). What a start to 2011 and my mid-twenties. Ciao Pisco, another gringa is leaving. Thank you for everything (except the cat-calls and wolf-whistles!)