The man from the press said, “We wish you success, it’s good to have the both of you back.”

Though Andrew’s and my international travels were not as harrowing as those of the namesake couple of the song quoted in the title, after a little over a week of customs lines, delayed planes, too much Dramamine, and the general suckage that is Spirit Air, I have to say getting back to Santo Domingo, Piura, Perú feels pretty good. High five, Santo Domingo. It’s Christmas Eve, too, so I’m winning some brownie points with Dominicanos for being here for the holiday after being absent the past twenty-two days (the week in the U.S. was preceded by a week and a half in Lima, more on that later). The first time I went to the U.S., in May (six months into service), I told anyone who would listen that I was going to the U.S. for my brother’s wedding but would certainly be back in two weeks. When I returned, to my great frustration, I still got a ton of “Oh, I thought you weren’t coming back.” This time, I guess because I was on Thanksgiving vacation right before I left, and because “my boyfriend’s brother’s college graduation” is not as fun to talk about as “my brother’s wedding,” I hardly told anyone I was leaving. Everyone figured it out, I guess, and all I’ve gotten since I’ve been back is, “Bienvenida! Feliz Navidad!” This, along with the observations of people’s disbelief that Ryan was leaving a year ago, leads me to believe the following about host country nationals’ sense of a PCV’s two years of service: during your first year, they think you’ll never stay; during your second year, they think you’ll never leave.

All 31 remaining members of Peru 8 spent at least a week in Lima for medical and dental checks, plus two days of mid-service meetings with our bosses. Though I got deathly ill for the first few days and couldn’t go half an hour without vomiting, it was a good time. I have neither cavities nor intestinal parasites. The environment group’s meetings went really well, I think everyone walked out of them feeling more proud of themselves and inspired to work in the coming year. We also had a meeting with CARE, the NGO, about the post-earthquake relief work we’ll be doing with them in Ica in the next couple months. From January 30th to February 13th, I’ll be in the town of Cerro Candela, Ica, working on sanitation projects, most likely latrine building/training and handwashing. I’m really excited to go and see what relief work is like on the ground, and to get to know another totally different part of Peru than the one I live in.

In the weekend between the environment group and the health group’s meetings, the whole group had permission to hang out in Lima together. We threw a big party at the backpacker hostel/drug den where we were staying. It was super fun, even though we lost the right to play our own music when we put on the traditional huayno music of the Peruvian sierra, and began to dance in the traditional huayno manner, which I can only describe as skipping in place, stomping, and putting in the occasional spin. My friend Casey exclaimed, “We never dance huayno together!” as if that is something that should, out of ethics or circumstance, happen more often. My friend Melissa gave an impassioned speech when the DJ abruptly turned the music off saying that if these backpackers couldn’t handle the huayno, then they had no business in Peru at all. I can say now, sober and not surrounded by 30 of my closest friends, that I completely understand the DJ’s decision. Huayno is pretty annoying to the untrained ear. I spent most of the rest of the party trying to convince two wilderness firefighters who were there to admit that saying the sentence “I’m a wilderness firefighter” gets them ladies all the time, to no avail.

And then we were in the Bahamas to visit Andrew’s dad, which was certainly cool, but would have been cooler had there not been a tropical depression passing through the Caribbean. The weather was mediocre and the waves were huge when we tried to go out on the boat. And then we were in North Carolina for the graduation, where I was the lone Michigan Wolverine behind Appalachian State lines, which would have been fine if the graduation speaker who mentioned the “incident” referred to it as happening at the Big House at Michigan STATE, which infuriated me just a tad. You would think Carolinians, who have their own mess of distinctive state schools, would be more sensitive. I mean, really.

And then my parents came to North Carolina! I would like to publicly give them mad props for waiting out the snowstorm for a solid seven hours in the Detroit airport, then getting a flight to an entirely different NC city, driving two and a half hours, and getting lost looking for their ridiculously hard to find hotel, all just to see ME for a day and a half. Parents are the coolest. It was snowing in North Carolina, too, which, despite twenty Michigan winters, I am no longer accustomed to, and found quite unpleasant. Every Peruvian I’ve told this too has laughed out loud at how Peruvian (Piuran, really) I have become when it comes to weather. Ay, it’s only 65 degrees out? Qué frío.

And now I’m back in Santo Domingo, where I belong for the time being. I’d missed it more than I realized. The rickety bus ride, the fresh mountain air, saying hi to everyone on the street, the endless conversations about the weather, the cheese, my neighbor’s flower garden, the view from my balcony, the Newsweek sitting on my floor open exactly to the article I was reading when I left, the donkeys, the early morning loudspeaker announcements about who’s selling beef, my hammock...it’s coming back to me piece by piece. And tonight we stay up until midnight and eat panetón and drink hot chocolate. It’s all good.