Building A Home

Living for 3 years in a different culture, a second language, starting from zero to make friends, foster family and build a community, is an experience like no other. Even for an independent-minded person like me, it challenged me in ways I couldn’t have predicted. One of those was challenging and changing my ideas of “home”.

What do you think of when you think of home? Maybe a house. Probably a certain place like a neighborhood or a city? Usually we think of a place.

But maybe it’s an atmosphere of comfort, usually created by certain people, like family, friends, or community.

I moved away from home at age 18 to go to college in another state, where I fairly easily felt at home in the university atmosphere, surrounded by other people my age in a very similar situation far from where they grew up and looking to meet new people and make new friends, in a place that had been adapted over the decades to make students away from home feel at home.

Later I moved to DC, where I adopted a family and made incredible friends pretty rapidly thanks to some good friends I had made in college. Though I didn’t own a home in DC, I felt part of a community of really great people and I really felt at home. Even though my family lived far away, we were able to see each other a few times a year and of course I could pick up the phone and call at any time.

Despite being content at my home in DC, the time came to fulfill a some of my life goals: to live in another country, immersed in a different culture and a different language and to serve in the Peace Corps. The times I had traveled to new places for a few weeks at a time I had always had the great experience of being welcomed by people and to feel like I had a home away from home wherever I had gone. Now I would put myself to the test and see if I could make a home not only for a few weeks in a completely different place and culture, but for a few years.

My sadness at leaving my friends and family for a few years was counter-balanced by the great excitement for the adventure ahead, the opportunity to fulfill important personal goals, to try to share my knowledge and experience to help improve the lives of others, and the certainty that I would return.

 

Building Home

When I moved to my new home in Oxapampa, I adapted fairly quickly to the place – a beautiful site with really friendly people, much more peaceful and slower paced than all the big cities I had ever lived in, but I was happy for a slower pace especially while trying to learn the language (which is exhausting in its own right). I had my own room with a bathroom, I could walk across the town in 20 minutes and I could find all the basics that I needed, which all helped for a smooth transition.

There were a few inconveniences to adapt to. While I only had cold water to shower with, we sometimes didn’t have water for hours (without any warning), there were a ton of mosquitoes buzzing around my head every night, the meals were carb heavy and lacked vegetables (and I had been a vegetarian before arriving), people often burned brush and trash at night, filling the air with horrible smoke, when it didn’t rain dust filled the air when a motorcycle passed by, public bathrooms didn’t have toilet paper or soap so I had to carry around toilet paper and hand sanitizer every time I left the house, and in the rainy season clothes rarely dried completely (no dryers) and any heavy fabric had a permanent smell from not drying completely (to name a few of the most obvious challenges).

But for me, these were minor inconveniences that I adapted to pretty quickly, especially because they were compensated for by friendly people, the beautiful landscapes, being able to connect with good people, and having my own space when I needed it.

While conveniences and inconveniences played a role in adapting to my new home, the biggest factor that affected whether I felt at home or not had nothing to do with physical comfort and everything to do with the people around me.

I was really lucky to live with a family that was patient with my language and created a space for me to feel at home, with family meals and conversations, asking about my work and my daily experiences, inviting me to extended family events, and treating me like an adopted daughter. This made the transition incredibly smooth, despite the frustrations of trying to work in a professional atmosphere where people didn’t respect my ideas and intelligence because of my low language level.

I was incredibly content with and thankful for my relationship with my host family, so when I started to make friends my age, I was surprised that I suddenly felt even more fulfilled, in a way that I hadn’t before. Even though I had felt that I could share anything with my host family, being able to converse and connect emotionally and intellectually with people my age turned out to be another essential piece of “home” that I needed.

A few months later I made friends that loved biking in the outdoors as much as I do, and we started to go on outdoor excursions – long bike rides through the beautiful hills of Oxapampa. Unsurprisingly, this took me to a whole different level of feeling connected and feeling at home – finding those friends with whom we shared the same passions and ways of de-stressing and having fun on the weekends.

In addition to all these great relationships I made, I always had my best friends from my Peace Corps cohort. My phone service was terrible and I didn’t get to talk to them very often, but when I did get a chance to have a real conversation it was a whole different dimension of feeling connected and understood and supported. Suddenly I had the ability to talk to someone going through something similar, and express myself in my native language, with all the humor and cultural references and slang that I couldn’t skillfully insert into conversations (or pick up on) in Spanish with friends and family.

Similarly, when I was able to talk to my family or long-time friends from home, it filled an even different important space, being able to talk to those people that have known me decades – or since birth! Those that I have known for years, we share long-term memories and experiences, we have seen each other change and seen what stays the same, and they could offer a long-term perspective on some of the things I was feeling and experiencing.

Maybe a year into my service, I started dating, realizing that with all the great relationships I had, I was still missing having a deeper level of emotional intimacy with someone. I had never “dated” before because my partners had always been friends of friends, and for the first time in my life I actually was interested in trying to date. I realized that I had new feelings about relationships and the types of partners I wanted during this time, and I suspect that it had something to do with the unique situation in which I was in, being in a new place and needing to find or build a community around me.

Defining Home

Even within the first few months of the transition to my new home, I had already realized that the best part of my life was the relationships I had made – the best part of a day was connecting and sharing with someone – and having those positive relationships was the foundation for my happiness, (especially in this situation of starting a whole new life from scratch…but in life in general too).

A few years later, having lived here for three years, I have adapted and gotten used to my site, having the newness wear off, having days where I am so busy I forget to appreciate the beauty that surrounds me, where I get caught up in the day-to-day. I know how to navigate a lot of the culture and the way things work, and that makes things smoother but some of the little things aren’t as exciting. And yet, even without the newness and excitement, I still love this place. Probably even more than before. I sometimes catch myself when I forget to appreciate the beauty around me and I have to stop and breathe, and drink it all in for a minute. When I get frustrated with the inconveniences, I remember all the perks.

Similarly, my relationships have passed the initial phase of a new relationship where you only show and see the best side of a person. Having overcome some of the real challenges of a deeper relationships where you have to adapt to people’s idiosyncrasies and talk through differences, I have a deeper level of trust and emotional connection with my closest friends and host family here.

I still don’t have the history of growing up here and I don’t know everyone – which is different from most people here. I still don’t understand all the cultural references and slang. I am still somewhat of an outsider, but since there are actually quite a few “immigrants” from Lima, from the mountains, and even from other countries, it’s not so strange to be an outsider here.

All in all, I really do feel at home here. I really feel equally or more at home here as I did in Nashville, where I lived for six years, or in DC, where I lived for seven years. I have found another home in the world.

And now it is time for me to leave home. Again.

Some people, like many of my friends and family in Oxapampa, live in one city for all their lives, and their home changes as they change their physical house and/or as their immediate family changes, getting married or having kids. Some people, like many of my colleagues that work for Peace Corps or international development organizations, make their homes in completely different countries every few years. However drastic the changes, we all go through changes in the nature of our “home” throughout our lives.

However those changes happen, home is not just the place where we live, it is where we get our comfort and with whom. It is that place where we are comfortable with ourselves, it is those people who help us feel comfortable with ourselves.

And like life, it’s not always constant, it changes throughout our lives as the circumstances of our lives change. It is not something we build once and forget about; we are actually always building and maintaining our home – always working to maintain and enrich the important relationships in our lives, always working to build positive communities around us, and always working to have a positive relationship with ourselves, so that we can always feel at home in this world.

Go Bananas

The other day I needed to buy 100 bananas to give out as a breakfast snack at a huge training for water committees. So I went to my friend who is a water committee president and sells fruit in the feria (farmers market), and she said she’d help me get them at a good price. We went and found a few bunches of good-looking bananas and she got me a great price!

When I got home my family asked me about all the bananas I had brought home, and I explained what I was going to use them for. They asked me if I was going to fry all those bananas, and I said: “No way! I’m just going to hand them out for people to peel and eat as a morning breakfast snack.”

“But those are for frying or boiling,” they told me.

My jaw dropped. Face palm.

I had just bought 100 PLANTAINS.

You see, most people in Peru just call any type of banana “plátano”, whether it’s a peel-and-eat banana or a plantain for frying or boiling (yes, you can boil bananas and they’re actually pretty delicious!) Also, it is more common to eat fried plantains for breakfast here than to peel and eat a banana for breakfast, which had added to the confusion of everything.

So even after 3 years, I’m still making cultural and language snafus! And I apparently still haven’t figured out my bananas.

When I lived in the US and I went to add bananas to my cart in the grocery store, the only decision I had to make was between organic and non-organic bananas. While there are plantains in most grocery stores (and every now and then I would buy plantains to fry), they are much bigger and fatter than bananas and it’s kind of hard to confuse them.

HOWEVER, in the feria in Oxapampa, there are at least SEVEN different types of peel-and-eat bananas and two different types of plantains…and there are probably more that I haven’t heard of! (Now, that is nothing compared to the thousands of different types of potatoes in Peru, but that’s a whole different article, right now we’re talking bananas.)

For my own vindication and for your reading and viewing pleasure, let me introduce you to the NINE different types of bananas I have heard of or encountered in Peru.

Let’s start with the EIGHT different (peel-and-eat) “baNAnas”…

The banana that most Americans are familiar with is the “plátano seda”. That’s the one that Chiquita has taken and made the super banana crop. They taste differently (sweeter) when you buy them from the feria (farmer’s markets) here because they aren’t artificially gas ripened, and they’re just a lot fresher. However, if you buy them in a supermarket in Lima or a big city, they taste pretty much the same as in the US because I think they are processed the same way.

plátano seda

The next peel-and-eat banana is the “plátano isla”. Fatter than the plátano seda, a little orangish color on the inside, this banana is delicious. I actually didn’t like it at first, but it grew on me and now I usually prefer it over the plátano seda.

plátano isla

Similar to the plátano isla is the “plátano palillo” or “plátano Guyaquil”, which is just a little bit fatter than the plátano isla. I admit that I haven’t tried this one yet, so I’ll have to test drive (test eat?) it before I leave.

plátano palillo

Now you might have actually come across some miniature bananas in a grocery store in the US… here in Oxapampa those are called “canelito“ or “biscocho”, or “calbito”. Who knows what other names they might have in other parts… They are deliciously sweet and bite-sized.

Slightly larger than the canelitos are the “plátano manazana”. Yes, that translates to “the apple banana”. Supposedly this banana tastes like an apple. To me it still tastes like banana, but I’m still refining my banana taste…(remember I went from just one banana variety to nine, so I need some time to adjust.)

There’s also a redish-pinkish-purplish colored banana called the “platano morado”. (Translated as “purple banana”). I’m not a huge fan of this banana because for me it’s way too sweet, but then again I’ve only tried it once, so it could have just been the batch I was eating was excessively ripe. I will have to give it another try before I leave.

plátano morado

Finally, the plátano brasil, which I have heard of but have not tried. It is supposedly similar to the plátano seda, so your challenge when you visit South America is to find the plátano Brasil and try it.

Finally, the two type of plantains I have encountered are those that are for frying (plátano frito), boiling (plátano sancochado), or making banana chips (chifles).

plátano sancochado
chifles
chifles – a high-energy snack, great for a long day

The most common (and many claim is the most delicious), is the “plátano largo”. Most commonly, it is boiled or fried. This is the one that I mistook for plátano seda because we happened to come across some particularly small ones that highly resembled plátano seda (at least to my untrained eye.)

Plátano largo

And finally, the plátano bellaco is also for frying and also commonly used to make banana chips, or also to prepare tacacho – a typical plate in the selva (jungle) region of a thick smashed plantain ball combined with pieces of pork and fried.

Tacacho

 

Now for the quiz. Can you identify each type of plátano in this photo?  (Now you’re not laughing at my banana confusion, are you???)

Now that you know your plátanos, you are ready to come explore Peru! And I hear there’s an even greater variety of bananas in Ecuador, so I guess I will have to go investigate…and I’ll let you know!

 

 

And, here are the answers, for those curious minds:

 

*This post was updated to clarify that here the plátano Guyaquil is the same as the palillo.