Black Forest Fire

Sometimes, it is hard being far from home.  Birthday, holidays, special events.  I can hardly believe that for the first time since I can remember, I didn’t ski a single day this winter.  But with seasons being not only backwards, but also simply different, ski season passed by and I hardly noticed.  It’s no wonder, then, that when I first heard of the Black Forest Fire, my initial reaction was How strange that there’s a fire in the middle of winter. 

Growing up in Colorado, forest fires are a way of life.  I remember the Hayman Fire like it was yesterday, and 8 years after it burned, I worked at a summer camp where the damage was still incredibly evident.  Last summer, the Waldo Canyon Fire became Colorado’s most destructive fire, and we sat in the living room glued to the television, and watched the eerie glow on the mountainside from our porch for days.  This year, the Black Forest Fire blew that record out of the water.

2012's Waldo Canyon Fire from our back porch

I first heard about the fire Wednesday morning when I got an email from my mom.  The email told me that there was a fire, some family friends had been evacuated, and there were some pictures.  Unfortunately, the internet in my community is frustratingly slow, and all I could read was the subject line: Black Forest Fire.  My imagination went wild.  I immediately called a friend in Lima who looked up information online, while I anxiously waited for my emails to load. 

The hardest part for me was lack of information.  In the age of multimedia that we live in, most news updates were videos, which my internet can’t load.  It also wasn’t possible for me to sit in my Municipality checking for updates all day.  Most of the time, I found myself imagining the worst and wishing I knew more between scattered texts from my mom saying things like We are on mandatory evac, packing the house now.  Got your stuff as much as I could.

Black Forest Fire from the front door

Even stranger was when the fire made it onto Peruvian news.  Suddenly a large number of people have seen videos of where I live, but under the worst circumstances.

 Lack of connectedness is always a struggle.  It is hard hearing about major life events like cousins getting pregnant or friends getting engaged, and knowing that I will still be in Peru when the baby is born or the wedding takes place.  But  through all the stress of hearing about the Black Forest Fire from very far away, there was one incredibly amazing consequence.

People who I work with saw my face during those days and asked me what was wrong.  By Thursday morning, everyone who I saw (from Health Center staff to the woman who cleans the Municipality) stopped me to ask how things were going.  I got daily calls from a few different Volunteers to check how I was doing, and everyone who works for the local NGO stopped to give me a hug whenever they passed.  

Helicopters dipping buckets into the pond

Sometimes, it is hard being far from home.  But the Black Forest Fire showed to me the number of people here who care for me and are concerned for my wellbeing.  It reminded me that I may be missing some things back in the States, but I am also gaining so much by being here in Peru.  It made me truly feel that maybe I’m not that far from home after all.

I am incredibly grateful that my parents are back at home, and that thanks to the hard work of many, the fire is now 85% contained.  My heart goes out to those who lost homes in this terrible fire.  Know that tucked in the  mountains of Peru, there is a tiny little community filled with wonderful people who have you in their prayers.