Today is my first day of summer after completing my sophomore year of college, and I leave for Peru in a mere week. Things on my checklist to prepare for Peru include: buying multiple bottles of strong insect repellent (prepare to be overwhelmed with fear and confusion, loser mosquitos!), catching up on sleep lost from finals and packing up my dorm room, doing loads and loads of laundry, purchasing all sorts of travel guides and maps, talking myself out of going and then back into going out of the country by myself for the first time. I'm sure the days will go by quickly, especially if I end up sleeping in until 10 every morning, as I did today! But I know that next Saturday, whether I feel it or not, I will be ready to embark on this exciting adventure of living and teaching music in Trujillo, Peru for 5 weeks this summer.
For those of you who may not know the details of why I am going to Peru or what I am doing there, let me explain. ;) I will be volunteering with a program called VivePeru, a nonprofit organization "dedicated to fostering understanding of Latin American and Peruvian culture and providing much-needed aid to Peruvian communities". I will be working with Peruvian children at a local conservatory in Trujillo, teaching cellists privately and helping them in orchestra workshops. These kids have grown up in the "marginal urban sector" of Peru- a place with not many opportunities or life goals except most likely becoming involved in crime, alcohol, drugs, or prostitution. Only middle and upper-class families in Peru can afford to explore their musical interests and even turn this hobby into a plausible career goal, so bringing free music lessons to these less privileged areas can literally change the course of these kids' lives. Here is more information about the organization and what I will be doing with my music down there: http://viveperu.org/programs.html.
As some of you may know, I have become very passionate about using my musical skills and education to reach kids in the lower-class communities around me and create more hopeful futures for them. I currently volunteer with a program founded in Chicago known as People's Music School. People's Music School has recently begun a new project known as the YOURS Project, where music teachers (including many college student volunteers like me) come into local Chicago public schools and teach orchestra, band, music theory, and specific instruments in group lessons after school each day. I have been going to Ames Middle School for the past two years and have been teaching three middle school girls once a week how to learn the basics of cello. It has been super rewarding and has revealed to me that music is a wonderful way to open my hands and help others.
Needless to say, the sense of reward and joy one feels when helping others and seeing their work make a difference can become very addicting, and I wanted to stay on that "emotional high" somewhere outside the country this summer. Then, one magical day this winter, a colleague of mine in the DePaul cello studio told us all about a program he had volunteered and taught with last summer, and I was hooked! I applied to VivePeru, received an email from the program director who expressed great excitement over my experience and passions one day later, and I was accepted two days later.
As I physically prepare for this journey of teaching and sightseeing, homesickness and trials, I am also trying to prepare myself emotionally and spiritually. There are questions that are continually running through my mind (especially when I'm trying to fall asleep!): What can I give to these children/ What do they need from me? Who will I meet and whose life can be changed because I decided to spend my summer this way? Who will I meet who will change my life this summer? How can I use my cello to provide hope in the hopeless places of others' lives? Above all, I want to be open to learn, to love these people- children and adults- and I want to shine a light in any dark places revealed to me while I'm there.
I have many itineraries and documents to print, multiple toiletries to stock up on, and I have many emails to read before I feel ready to leave for Trujillo, and I feel pretty nervous that I will get trapped in some obscure airport because I forgot that one document I accidentally left in my Detroit bedroom or that I will get the ominous plague of "traveler's diarrhea" everyone is warning me about... But I have a feeling that no matter how scary, chaotic, or physically-grueling my month in Peru is, it will be worth it, and I will be just where I'm meant to be.
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