Walking around on US soil is unsettling in a very discreet way.  Everything is so familiar, and yet so foreign, all at the same time.  Simply sitting outside on beautiful day feels so wonderful and so wrong, because the air has a different feel.  It’s not a difference of temperature, because lately the temperature has been very similar to winter in Piura.  I think it has something to do with the scents of the mass amounts of vegetation in the area, as opposed to the dust that is normally being carried by the breeze at my Peruvian home.  Everything is so green here, so nonchalantly decadent.  The difference in the landscape is distinct, but only at first.  After that, the difference is still there, but in a way that you can’t quite put your finger on because the green is everywhere and so it fades into the background.  It’s like how you don’t notice how bright it is outside until you walk into your house and in comparison it is too dark to see.  The dryness of the desert has been so imprinted on my mind, I am so accustomed to seeing it out of the corner of my eye, that some where on the edge of my consciousness I am still looking for it, still trying to make this place match that land.  In the same way, I keep trying to fit myself into this place.
 
Similarly, my parents have recently moved to a new town, so while I have come home, I haven’t returned to the building that in my mind constitutes “home”.  This new house is filled with the same furniture as my home – the piano, the wonderful couches, the dining room set – and so at times I forget that this isn’t the same house.  Then I turn around in the kitchen and the microwave is in the wrong place or the dvd player is not hooked up, and I remember where I am.
 
My first morning back, I went to church with my parents.  As I sat there, I couldn’t get over how many gringos there were in the room.  I felt like I should know who they were, because where I lived, if there was a gringo around I either knew them or would go up and talk to them.  I had thought that when I returned I would have a sense of belonging;  that I would stop feeling like an outsider.  But sitting there, I still felt distinctly different from everyone around me.  I no longer stood out like a sore thumb (I wasn’t taller than everyone in the room, for example), but there was no connection, no sense that I was a part of that group of people. 
 
Everything is the same, yet everything is different.  I went to Walmart, which I knew would be an interesting experience.  I spent 15 minutes trying to pick out a shampoo.  The vast array of choices was confusing enough, but on top of that I kept trying to find the equivalent of the Spanish brands I had been using, trying to remember what the logo looked like without the actual words.  What color was my version of Pantene Pro-V?  Red?  Silver?  Blue?  Do they use the same color scheme no matter the country?  I find myself reminiscing about Peru the way I would about the US during my first few months of service.  At times in those months, I would search stores in hopes of finding a place that sold Dr. Pepper.  Yesterday I did the same thing, only this time I was searching for the type of yogurt that they sell in Peru.  By the afternoon I was exhausted, and it took me a while to figure out why.  Then it hit me – it was siesta time in Peru.  The stores should have been closed and I should’ve been resting.  Guess I’ll have to learn to live without my siesta from now on.  The trade off though, is that no sheep wake me up at six in the morning anymore.  I like that part.