To begin with, the day I am about to describe was not a bad or terrible day; it was just awkward and stressful at the time. After being assigned to our sites, all aspiring Volunteers in Peru participate in a workshop called Counterpart Day. Trainees travel to their department capital and wait for their work partners (the first person they meet from the community in which they will serve). We spent the day with our future counterparts, learning about what Peace Corps is, what the counterparts’ roles are, what Volunteers’ roles are etc. This was the first moment I was separated from part of the Water and Sanitation group. We were far away from Lima, away from our training host families. We were meeting with complete strangers and working one-on-one. I was struggling to understand what my counterpart was saying to me while imagining what my community would actually be like. If I were to repeat Counterpart Day today, it would be a lot simpler; I could understand what’s going on; meeting strangers and working with them is a common occurrence now. Counterpart Day is absolutely essential to our Peace Corps service, but I would never choose to revisit that day with the knowledge and mentality I had back in November of 2008.
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