…Maybe It Was The Chu-cha

The bad thing about being sick in the Peace Corps is that 90% of the time, we really have no clue what made us sick. We can have a pretty good guess, but we’re never sure. This is a new country with new sickness-causing-issues. In the States, if my head hurt it was probably because I had just spent a good 6 hours staring at a computer screen trying to get a MatLab program to work listening to country music way too loud to try and keep me awake because its 2:00 in the morning. Here in Peru its anything from the sun’s too bright, the weather’s too hot, or I spent too much time in the shade (don’t ask me, it’s what people in my town tell me). In the States if my stomach hurt, well for one thing it was a rare occasion that it did, but it means that I’m sick. Cold sick. Not I just ate something really strange that I know will come to bit me in the tail, which more often than not seems to be the case here in Peru.

Now every time I get sick I have to do a mini scientific analysis on my day’s food intake. Well it could have been that orange I ate and didn’t wash the peel first before I peeled it…No wait, it was probably that Jello that the nice old guy by the mural I’m working on gave me. Bet he didn’t boil that water for 3 minutes to make it like he’s supposed to...No wait, it was defiantly that puppy I stopped to pet. Did I wash my hands before I picked up my water bottle…or was that after? Gah, as you can tell the list just goes on and on. But usually before you get sick here, you get…well for lack of a better phrase…a gut feeling. It’s a grumbling/gurgling feeling that comes from deep down in your stomach that’s the bodily equivalent of a flare gun going off.

Like right now for example. The flare has gone up, I’m about 99% sure that I’ll be hating myself tonight and becoming good friends with my bathroom…again. Dern, I was on such a good streak. 2 months without a stomach problem. But today I went fishing with some friends…seemed like a good idea. And in the infamous words of a Miss Wendy Drake: what had happened was…

Today I walked a good 2 hours to “the good part” of the river that runs by my town in search of Chu-chas. Now I had no clue what a chu-cha was. I was just told that they’re A. Tastey, and B. easy as heck to catch because they don’t swim that fast. My kinda fish. I should mention fishing here doesn’t involve a fishing pole. It involves one of two methods. There is the throwing a fishing net with weights on the end to trap a bunch and fish out the big ones method. Or there is the Noodling method. For those of you unaware of what is Noodling, just let Google be your guide. It’s a “crazy redneck” method of fishing where you stick your fingers (hand, arm…whatever really) into a hole in the bed of a river (you know, under a rock, under a branch) and hope to god that whatever’s under there doesn’t have sharp teeth when it bites on so you can pull it out and say, “hey Bubba looky what I caught.” Ok so we do it a lil different here in Peru, you stick your hand under a rock, or whatever, and if it’s a squishy blob that doesn’t bite back it’s a fish, not a crab or crayfish. Then you try to trap it in a corner or pin it to a rock and get it from your hand to the bucket or bag as fast as possible before you lose it. Sounds simple right? Well with a little practice and strategy, yes it is.

The strategy you might ask? Why block off a feeder creek to the river with rocks and mud of course! Yes, there is a fork in our river where 3 feeder streams meet and turn into the big daddy river of Nanchoc. So we hiked up to the top and piled up rocks and river sand and stopped the water flow with a fishing net waiting at the bottom. The lil fishies had no where to go. Then what do you do you might ask? Well you go from pool or water to pool of water and turn over rocks and feel around for the squishy blob and try and get it out.

This is where I should say that a Chu-cha is not a squishy blob. In fact the first Chu-cha I caught, really it caught me…it stabbed me. A Chu-Ca is nothing more than what I call a Sucker fish back in the States. You know those little brown guys you can buy at the fish store that suck on the wall of your dirty fish tanks? The algae eaters. When you buy them they’re so little (if you’re cheap and get the $2 one like me) but if you leave them there long enough then get REALLY big. Apparently when they get big enough they have big old spines. Yes that cute looking lil fin on the top of a lil one turns into a gringa-stabbing instrument when they are older. Who knew. Then what’s even worse, who knew people would think they’re…good to eat. I mean, let’s do a little thinking here. They eat pond scum. And fish poo. And…you want me to eat one? Now I didn’t study biology, but to me that screams: I am a pond scum eating fish who has a ton of bad things living in my body so don’t you dare eat me! But I guess that’s just me…cause damn if they didn’t cook that thing up and serve me one…

Now I’m sure I’ve mentioned that in Peru, when you’re invited to eat something…you eat it. The family saying we have is “you’ll eat it and you’ll like it.” So I ate this fish. The Chu-cha. And the whole time I was eating I was thinking, “In about 4 hours this is NOT going to be a good day.” I finished the whole thing, except for the head, I have a personal issue eating the head of any animal…I don’t like it when they’re staring at me like that.

I was close, 5 hours later is when the flare went up. After acting like I enjoyed the fish (it tastes like what I imagine algae tastes like…can’t say I’ve ever eaten algae) and sitting around listening to stories, while trying to get the fish bone out from between my back two teeth without anyone noticing for an hour or two, we left to start walking back. The walk back always takes more time when you’re tired. Worse when your stomach hurts. I figured I was the only one who had had the flare gun go off. After all I was the only gringa in the group. I went with my best friend in site Cati, her boyfriend, and Carmen. But then Segundo (the boyfriend) mentioned that his stomach felt bad, followed by the rest of us admitting that ours too, felt horrible.

Needless to say, I’m going to qualify this as one of the 10% of the times that I’m 100% sure of what made me sick. Chu-cha…pond scum sucking fish of the devil (yeah that’s its new name in my book). The end result for chu-cha: they’re really fun to catch…not so much fun to eat.

For now, I’m going to go lay down and hope it’s not a bad night…

4x6

I’ve become somewhat of the unofficial photographer of my site. Not that I mind it, I love to take pictures, and occasionally I even get a really good one out of the deal. I even get a real smile out of some of the people I take pictures of, not the stone faced Peruvian glare that usually comes out when you take someone’s picture here. My town’s started opening up one photo at a time.

I was originally hesitant to bust out my Nikon D40. I mean, the camera costs the same as the proposed new addition to the high school. I was worried in what bringing out my camera would say to the people in my town. I’m supposed to be the broke volunteer, a flashy camera might counteract that. Or so I thought.

I did have a few people call me out on how expensive the camera must have been, I just wrote it off as a gift. Saying that I didn’t buy it. Which I didn’t. So it’s not a lie. In hindsight I’m mad that I waited as long as I did to bring out my camera. I waited almost 6 months, wanting the town to get to know me as the volunteer before the gringo with the fancy camera.

May 1st was the anniversary of the High School here in town, and then June 7th was the day of the flag. I took a ton of pictures, probably near 1000 in total to document both for myself and to give to friends. It’s rare for a family here in the campo of Peru to have more than one or 2 photos of their kids. It’s getting less rare in this cell phone/camera day and age. But let’s face it, cell phone pictures aren’t always the greatest. So I’ve started trying to get one or 2 good pictures of every kid that performs at a school function or community event. Then I of course take any other cute kids picture. Anyone that asks me to take their picture I will. Under one circumstance: they said “Jennifer take my picture” and not “gringa take my picture.” Who would have known the fastest way for EVERY single student at the high school to learn my name was to bring my camera.

These kids are just so photogenic. There are the occasional “strike a model pose” that I try to get them to avoid. Only super models look good pocking their hips out at that angle anyways. I like the photos the best when it catches them off guard. I get a glimpse of who they really are, before they have a chance to turn on the stone cold Peruvian face for photos.

I’ll let the pictures do the talking from here on out:


Dancing at the High School


The Little Ones waiting to march in the parade


Waiting to perform


Eddie listening to a speech

Holy Ice Sickles Batman!

Showers in site. There are Volunteers who maybe (that’s a big maybe) take a shower once a week. That is if it’s a shower, it’s probably a bucket bath in all reality. Now before you go calling us gross, I would like to speak out on the part of that poor weekly-showering (bucketing)volunteer and say that he/she probably does the “crucial parts” scrub down with a washcloth on a daily basis (so I hope). Then there are the once every few days shower-ers (bucket-ers). There are defiantly a lot more of them out there. And then there is the rare breed of the everyday or more showers(buckets).

Until recently I was a daily or more shower-er (bucket-er) due to it just being so dern hot in my site, with temperatures over 100 there was just nothing quite like a cold shower (yeah cold) to just make you feel human again. I even occasionally found myself taking a “longer” shower (when we had running water) of 8 or 9 minutes just to enjoy the water. I never thought I’d admit to liking a cold shower, but when it’s that hot, it’s really all you have to keep from going crazy. I can actually remember one day that I took 3 showers…but that day had an unusual amount of dirt and mud involved.

Upon return from Cusco, I’ve noticed one big difference in my site. Just about everything else is the same. But it got cold. It’s like someone flipped a switch on the nights here. Its gets brrr chilly (as we say in the Schwartz family household) during the night and stays that way until about 10 in the morning. Now I was originally happy, I love the cold weather after all, it’s way easier to put on another shirt or jacket when you’re cold than to want to take off a layer of skin to cool off on hot days. During the day now it’s…dare I say it?...nice outside. It’s a mid 60 or 70 most days, today it probably hit 80 again, but that’s a rare thing I hear. But it’s been nice. I don’t sweat when sitting still eating my lunch anymore. I actually don’t mind that the soup is piping hot and practically boiling, at least the temperature’s not.

The thing I forget when I say that I love cold weather is cold showers in cold weather. In the States we have this amazing thing called a hot water heater…those don’t exist in the campo of Peru. I can now say I’m starting to understand how it is that some volunteers go a week without showering (while stating that I’ve not actually resorted to that yet). Glacier cold water on a cold day is not ideal for many things, a long nice shower is defiantly one of them. So my daily showering has turned into a bi-daily, ok well really, I wash my body every day (thank goodness for washcloths) and skip the hair occasionally. After all, ask any of us female volunteers, and the worst part to wash when it’s cold is your head. It’s like an instant brain freeze…which suck even when you have ice cream as a reward.

Maybe I’ll get used to the cold showers, I mean the guys in Ancash did right? So I’ll suck it up and enjoy the nice weather. And try to only shower in the warm part of the day.

Mmm Smells Like Home

There’s not many times I find myself thinking: man, this tastes JUST like it does back home.

Everything here taste’s different—even when theoretically it should taste the same. Coca Cola taste different, Sprite taste different. The peanut butter is different. The chocolate’s not that good, but we still eat it because we’re away from home and it makes us feel better. Almost every food tastes different here. I tried to make biscuits…different. My cookies, different. I’ve just now got all the kinks almost worked out and food that I make are starting to taste like (or close enough) to how it does in the states.

Now that’s not always a bad thing. I do tend to love Peruvian food. There’s nothing in the states that tastes like my favorite plate here: Aji de Gallina. The fruit here tastes better, the veggies taste better (well ok I still don’t like olives). That’s probably to due with how fresh they are. But tonight I had a taste of home. We ate soup for dinner, no big deal usually. It’s almost always the same when it’s the “dinner time soup.” Its rice, chicken, and a mix of veggies and potatoes. It’s always good. Tonight it was better. Not because my host mom did something extremely different. I’m sure only one ingredient changed. Green Beans are in season.

They were cooked so long that they were that brown-green color of pond algae. Which if you think about it is actually a really gross color for anything other than really well cooked green beans. I’m not sure what it was in the soup, my host mom doesn’t use butter )my host dad doesn’t like it), but when I had a spoonful of green beans (intentionally just to see if the taste was the same) I had a flashback to Bullocks. Bullocks is a barbeque place near my house that I used to love(for those of you reading who’ve either never lived in Durham, or who live in a cave in Durham and were unaware). Unfortunately due to either a change in cook staff or a change in management, I’m not sure which, the family favorite has fallen a little bit out of favor, its just not like it used to be.

But I remember how it used to be: Steaming hot hushpuppies that had just the right ratio of onion to sugar served with honey butter in those little plastic tubs by the basketful. I always got the BBQ with a rotation of sides, it depended in the night of course. There was the sweet corn, baked apples, green beans, lima beans, black eyed peas, cole slaw, well the list just goes on and on, but those are the ones I remember. The corn, green beans and apples being my favorites of the list. The BBQ came out hot, just right—Eastern North Carolina style (the only way in my book). Then we topped off the BBQ high with a Tootsie Roll pop that you bought for a quarter by the cash register.

Half of Bullocks still had that smoked filled, donw home dinner feel, the other half was only lacking the smoke. The line to get in was always long on a Friday night. My family and I probably have eaten there enough Friday nights in our lives to fill a calendar year—ok that could be a slight exaggeration, but it’s at least half a year. I’m not sure how many years its’ been since I’ve eaten at Bullocks. Like I said, we stopped going when the food changed. But tonight, those green beans were JUST the same. That green-brown, slow cooked to death taste. It was amazing. When my host mom asked me if I liked the soup, I said yes and thought for a second to try and explain Bullocks, and the familiar taste…but then figured it was too hard to explain to someone outside of the BBQ Culture. Maybe one of these days I’ll figure out how I can make a campo-pig cooker and try and explain it to them by showing them…till Google and I hit gold, I’ll just have to settle on old memories and wait until Late 2010 when I can get me some of Eastern North Carolina’s best--probably homemade by a Mr. Tom Myers out back of his house if I play my cards right.

Cusco 2009 with NCSU Crew

So as I probably told a few of you: I was invited by NC State to return to Cusco to help with the Summer Study Abroad Program that they have here in Peru. Besides the whole “free vacation” aspect of it, I was really looking forward to seeing my professors Kay and Leo along with their daughter Isabel, and the Program director Carlos again. Not to mention the whole “YAY there’s gringos!” aspect of it.

But the trip started out with a visit to the rest of my host family in Lima (the sons and daughters of my host mom here in Nanchoc) to stop in and bring a few presents from the farm—namely a turkey and some tamale-like things called humitas. I was super excited to see the whole host family. I got to spend some time with my host niece Luciana, my host sister Consuelo and her husband Miguel, along with my two really cool host brothers Juan and Albert. I felt really bad that I kicked the boys out of their room, and had them both sharing a twin sized mattress on the floor…but they’re Peruvian gentlemen and gave me the real bed to sleep in. How sweet. Their mama raised them good.

I went with Consuelo to Ripely (think the world’s largest Macy’s…or maybe it’s not that big, it was just big for me) to buy a present for her husband. This is a 6 story mall--like straight out of New York or something. Needless to say after spending the past 9 months living in the not-so-city parts of Peru, the shiny, loud, and bustling Ripely was more than this Peace Corps Volunteer could take. I will admit it. I had a mini panic attack. There were probably over 2,000 people in this place, American music; it felt like a Macy’s...just WAY bigger than any store I’ve ever been in in my entire life. I mean, I thought since Chiclayo is a rather large city I wasn’t going to have the shock of going back to Lima…WRONG. Oh well, I survived, just left with a racing heart and sweaty palms. Oh yeah, Consuelo found a button up shirt for her husband too. I don’t think she noticed the gringa was nearly ready to pass out from the stress.

But later that day I met up with the NCSU crew at a VERY (and I mean VERY) nice hotel in Lima. Now I’m 100% sure it’s the same hotel that I stayed in when I went on this trip in 2006—I’m also 100% sure that they’ve added a ton of upgrades since I was there. I’ve never stayed in a bed so big before in my life. I actually called my friend Erica (the only other Peru-12er that’s near me) to brag about the bed size. Seeing as how we usually share a double bed when ever we’re both in Chiclayo (hey it’s the cheapest option…and we make next to nothing) the concept of not kicking each other at night was intriguing. So I enjoyed the king bed all to my lonesome—because its way nicer than my hay mattress here in Nanchoc. But just like last time, bright and early in the am we left the shiny pretty hotel and went on a plane to Cusco.

Now here’s where if I believed in omens, I would have turned around and gone back to Nanchoc. But I don’t, so I stuck around…my bad. We were broken up into 2 buses, the first 2 early flights on one bus, and the later flight on the smaller one. I stayed behind on the small bus (there had been a few forgotten passports that we were waiting for) and got a phone call: “Jenny, you’re on the first flight! It leaves in an hour.” Yeah, I freaked out a lil. I’m now in the late bus, leaving for Cusco soon…yikes. Thanks to the rather Peruvian like driving of our bus driver we managed to do the hour long bus ride to the airport in less than 35 minutes—way to go short dude! And I made it on the flight (thanks to the flight getting delayed by bad weather). I rested into my seat in the aisle. I am not a huge fan of flying…and when I do fly, I like the aisle. In a very Schwartz-family like feeling: If I’m going to die I wanna see it happen! I was nervous until the plane finally made it above all the foul weather of Lima and I saw the Andes below the wings.

By 10 I was on the ground in Cusco waiting patiently with a group of 15ish students for the other 2 planes. 11:00, nothing. We had taken over a corner of the airport that was largely unused. Only largely unused due to the rotating “Authentic Andean Band” playing at whatever baggage claim opened next. I have issues calling them authentic due to the cell phones nicer than mine they were all using and the laptop one had in his bag. 12:00, nothing. Half of the students had taken to napping on the floor propped up against their luggage, the other half alternated between going in search of food and listening to iPods. 1:00, I finally called Carlos to see where they all were. The other flights had gotten delayed, there should (should) be another group arriving in the next 10 minutes, and we were to go find the bus driver in the parking lot and head to the hotel. At this point I’m extremely happy that my Spanish is a hell of a lot better than in my first trip to Peru. I was able to track down our bus driver (and even got to explain that he could stop talking English at a 3 year old level because I speak Spanish!) and we made it to the hotel. The last group of students (and the 3 other adults on the group) arrived about 2 hours later. We were all tired, but we made it!

The next few days were nothing but a blur of traveling and site seeing. We went to Pisac (both the name of ruins and the name of the town we were staying in) to do a hike to some ruins, and shop in the big weekend market they have there ever Sunday. At the Pisac hike we had the first few cases of altitude sickness set in, but fortunately nothing too bad. We also had one slight…we’ll call it a traffic accident. We had told the students that lunch was to be in a café in the main plaza, and that it was first come first serve for eating. Now when we said that, we meant that the students could take their time looking in the market before eating if they so choose, or go directly to eating…well the hungry Wolfpack took that as a “THEN LET’S RUN TO TOWN TO GO EAT FIRST!” So needless to say when you have around 50 18-22 year olds running down a mountain with varying fitness levels, there’s going to be a few problems. We had 2 girls fall down, one scrapped her knees up pretty bad. Thankfully the domino effect of the falling stopped at 2 and we weren’t patching up 100 knees after lunch.

The rest of the Pisac portion of the trip included visiting salt mines and a pottery workshop. I remembered the salt mine hike to be the hardest of the trip last time I had gone. Not because of the distance or because it was that hard of a hike (don’t get me wrong I remember it being mostly uphill) but because we did it RIGHT after lunch. And after eating the LAST thing you want to do is hiking up a mountain…usually. But this year the program had decided to cut the hiking part of the salt mines and we just took the bus ride up. Now it could be because life here in Peru has taught me a few things, or it could just be because I’d been there before. But the road to the salt mines, which if you ask Kay is the SCARIEST road in all of Peru, wasn’t as bad as everyone made it out to be. Yeah we were in a rather large bus, and the road is tiny. My mom would hate it because there’s not a single guard rail the entire way up, and the bus was going fast. But my time here in Peru has taught me something: for the most part, the bus drivers know their stuff. They could parallel park that thing in the middle of the NC State campus if we asked them to. And I know a few good ol boys with big ol trucks who can’t even say that.

After the Pisac weekend we went back to Cusco, and did all the good sites: Saqsayhuaman, Tipon, Pakuapukara, Tambomachay, Moray, and a few museums. Now I could go into detail, but honestly to anyone who’s not there or to hasn’t read at least a little bit on the sites, there (unfortunately) all going to sound the same to you. I will say that Saqsayhuaman is the site with the HUGE rocks piled up in giant terraces. It’s probably one of my favorite days of the trip, not just because I love Incan architecture--the rocks are all so perfectly carved that you can’t fit a knife blade between them—but because we do horseback riding that day. I remember being a little nervous the last time I went, a friend had told me he’d take me riding before so I could look like I knew what I was doing…that didn’t happen. So a combination of it was my first time on a horse (in the 2006 trip) and my horse’s name was Rebel, we’ll just say I was happy it was over with quickly last trip. This time was different. I’m now an expert donkey rider, so the transition to a horse wasn’t too incredibly hard, it was aided by the fact that my hose was nicer and seemed to know the trail like the back of his hoof.


Then of course there’s the Inca Trail! The highlight of my first trip to Peru. The Inca Trail’s what made me decide to do the Outdoor Leadership minor at State. The idea that people’s jobs are to guide beautiful hikes was fascinating (even though I knew that I’d never do it for a living—don’t worry mom). The hike this time was just as beautiful. The mountains were just as tall. The only difference I noticed: The Nevadas, the ice capped mountains we can see for most of the trail, had an obvious lack of ice on their slopes. I recall the entire mountain being snow capped and white, this time, they looked more brown than white. Less snow capped and more snow speckled. I tried to pretend like it was just in my head. But when I got back to site, I looked at an old picture from the first trip, and one from this time. Global Warming’s real dad. I got photo evidence.

On a slightly cooler note: In my first trip we say people making adobe bricks to build their house, and on this trip I saw their completed house. Also, I had taken a picture of a little boy washing his hands in a irrigation ditch in my first trip, and I saw his again this trip. Lauren S, you’ll be happy to know I gave him a candy again…I’m sure if he’d of remembered me he’d be wanting a Pringle.

The trail went reasonably well. We had a few girls who were struggling along the way. Every year we tell the students how hard the trail’s going to be, but the returned students seem to forget how much they complained on the trail and how hard it actually was. Every year when the returned students come to talk to the newbies the, “Oh my God it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done! I hated day 2! God I’ll never do it again!” turns magically into “It was the most amazing this I’ve ever done, I’d recommend that everyone does it. It really wasn’t that hard.” Now don’t get me wrong. I agree. The Inca trail is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done in my life. I loved every minute of it. I loved every blister I got the first time and the second time. But I love hiking, I love being outside, and I love being away from the city. That could not be said for every student that’s ever done an NCSU Peru Study Abroad.

There was a fair share of whining and grumpiness throughout the trip, a few medical scares (we had a few people faint on me during day 2—the hardest day of the trip) but everyone seemed to make it to the end genuinely happy that they came on the trail and glad that they finished. I also had at least one, “Goddamnit I’ll never do that again!” but that’s to be expected I guess.

We had planned to spend 2 days in Aguas calientes, the town below Machu Picchu—but transportation strikes that have been going on around the country seemed to not like that plan. We had to squish the 2 days into one afternoon. All of the tired and unshowered Wolfpack had around 5 hours to take in Machu Picchu before we left on a train—the last trail out of Augas Calientes before the strike started. We all sat, tired, dirty, and hungry in the train station for a good 3 hours waiting to hear if the train could leave or not. Some people had come in early (yeah the strikes are “planned” here) and blocked the tracks before they were supposed to, so we were waiting for the tracks to get cleared. By 11 finally we boarded the train. After a long train ride, and a long bus ride, we finally were back in the hotel in Cusco by 3am.

I’d like to say that I managed to sleep in, but I’ve gotten used to taking up by 6am at the latest, so me making it to 8 seemed like a blessing. I showered (I figured there was no point in doing to when we arrived, there were 40 something other girls wanting the hot water, I was already dirty…what’s another few hours right?) and then went to eat breakfast and heard the news. Due to the strike, we were on lockdown in the hotel. No leaving until 1. So at that point I tried to go back to bed, failed, and called my mom and dad from my cell phone to catch up.

The trip went by in a blur-- honestly the 2 weeks went by so fast. When I left the group I was happy that I had gone with them, but I was homesick--and strangely not homesick for Durham, North Carolina. I missed Nanchoc, Cajamarca. I’ve developed some great friendships here, and I missed my friends, my work…and I never thought I’d say this about my hay mattress…but I missed by bed. Not for its comfort, because we all know (I’m sure I’ve complained about it outside of this blog entry) but more for the sleeping in a familiar environment. I don’t sleep well in new places, so Cusco was a time of not very rewarding sleep. Now that I’m back in site, it feels good to realize that everyone here missed me. When I walk the streets and run into someone I haven’t seen since I got back I get the familiar, “My oh my, where have you been missy!” and then get to tell stories of all my new friends from NCSU and our adventures in Cusco, and explain that I’m sorry and I couldn’t bring everyone back something because I’m a broke Volunteer and Cusco’s an expensive city.

All in all I’ve decided a few things: I’m really glad I got to go with another group of NCSUers. I love my University, and I love the students with all my heart. I believe that the Study Abroad program was one of the most rewarding experiences in my life, and probably if I hadn’t gone in 2006, I wouldn’t of had the nerve to click the SUMBIT button at the bottom of the Peace Corps Online Application. But I also know that I will never leave my site for 2 weeks again. The vacation was nice and deserved…but it’s too long to be away from my new home and my work that I love.