countdown . . .

So i'm leaving peru in exactly two weeks. It's been a great ride, but I'm ready to go home, get back to America: my friends, rotations, American junk mail magazines, a sweltering Boston summer, driving my car, hip-hop music, everything.

I got so frustrated on friday that I packed one of my two bags, to calm myself down. Someone tried to break into the research offices on our ward, since the whole ward has been emptied out due to the potential for swine flu. There's no one there at night now, and the hospital security doesn't really go to that corner, so we had to empty out all our valuables and files and they are now sitting in my room. We couldn't get out our scanner though, after 6 weeks waiting to get a permission letter, the people who stamp it are always at lunch when we try to take it out. Frustrating . . . so it's sitting there where it might get stolen but there is zippo I can do about it.

anyhow . . .

In the tradition of Heather and Erica, here is my list of things I will and won't miss, in no particular order.

Will miss

• Cumbia
• Peruvian big-heartedness: invites to dinner, mother's day celebrations, coffee, and help with any kind of situation
• Peruvian work ethic. sincerely hard workers.
  
• Cheap buses that run day and night, on every possible route
• Peruvian food: ceviche, tacu tacu, chupe de camarones, lomo saltado, caldo de gallina, any lucuma dessert, carapulcra, amazing bread, tamales, chifles, anticucho, arroz con mariscos, cremoladas, seemingly endless varieties of fresh spicy sauces (aji). to DIE for.
• Menú lunches: apetizer, main course, and drink for $2-3
• Hierba luisa, muña, and coca teas
  
• Alaska popsicles, maracuya flavor, bought off a beach vendor and eaten fast since they are already melty.
  
• Exotic fruits: maracuya, chirimoya, granadilla, pepino melon, super-fresh figs, tiny sweet bananas, tomate d'arbe, lucuma, camu camu, tuna,
  
• Buying any drink or snack I need right through the bus window
• Polvos azules: peruvian bazaar for shoes, jeans, tees, pirated dvds, everything under the sun
  
• Inca market: amazing gifts for all my dearest friends and family
  
• Sunshine
• Being the sole representative of my nation and how that gets me into strange conversations. Like "Oh, wow - you have a really high arch. Your country must have different shoes. Peruvians don't have high arches like that." "No, it's not all French - just me"
  
• Pisco sours
  
• Men who can not only dance, but lead
• Having " a guy" for everything: money changing, shoe fixing, tailoring, lawyer, etc.
• Living on $10 a day
• The expat community: wonderful, adventurous and open-hearted people who become near-instant friends and are there for you in a pinch
• For occasional pampering: manicures at Toque for less than $3.
  
• My patients and their families - have gotten to know them all very well and I am sad I won't get to see them all hopefully get better
• Not needing to carry ID every time I go out (I swear I finally look over 21)
• Surfing
• Peruvian children: almost without exception extremely well behaved and pleasant to be around
  
• The sincere politeness and generosity of Peruvians. Today on the bus I asked my neighbor if I could borrow his pen for a sec (to write down ideas for this blog). His response: "Please keep it - a gift from me"
• The astonishing amount of valuables women manage to store in their bras: I've seen women pull out wallets, phones, keys, all kinds of things
• The peruvian aversion to swearing, quite charming with quasi-swears such as: "miercoles!" instead of "mierda", "pucha" instead of "puta", "A su" instead of "A su madre". Think I've heard peruvians swearing twice this whole year
  
• Free medical care as a courtesy since I'm in medicine
• Living 200 meters from the Pacific Ocean
• Jeans being appropriate to 100% of occasions
  

Won't miss

• Single-ply napkins
• Having to throw out TP in a trash can instead of the toilet
• Pollution
• Insane herky-jerky driving with eternal games of intersection chicken
  
• Plumbing nightmares
• 1.5-2 hour commutes (each way)
• Paying all my bills at the bank or grocery store
• Electric sparks every time I plug in anything
• Keeping on high-alert every time I go anywhere with my laptop in my backpack
• Getting my phone stolen every 3 months or so
  
• Running out of drinking water on a regular basis
• Peruvian wine. undrinkable.
• That dirty, dirty way some men have of saying "preciosa", "mi reina" or something of the sort under their breath as you walk past (others manage to do it in a flattering way)
  
• Being sick: altitude sickness, flus, mono, diarrhea, and parasites. can do without
• Bargaining 12 times in a row for a cab. (My limit of tolerance is 3)
• Peruvian obsession with receipts and documentation, carbon copied in triplicate and individually signed and stamped (once got a receipt for $0.02 copy)
  

Ok off to see my friend Paty . . . the goodbyes continue.