The Third Continent

Well, as I came up to the weekend I was looking forward to a little unwinding time, but I should have known better! Thursday night went really well, my host mom made the hamburgers and pintarrones…which were pretty close to what I had imagined, covered in honey. 5 other volunteers from Chacrasana came and after dinner came the dancing of course and we all danced for an hour or two with some of the neighborhood kids and one of the neighbors that I really like named Carmen. Friday I had my language interview which I felt went alright, and I just found out today that I did go up a level so I’m very happy with that and with my new class. Friday evening some volunteers went out to the ‘tavern’ (appropriately named) and I got to chat with and get to know some people I hadn’t met up to now (with 56 theres still some people I havent had a decent conversation with) . One of the guys I was talking with had been in Iraq with the military prior to coming to Peru and talking with him about his experience in Iraq made me think about IRC and how much I miss some of the interpreters I was working with and Ashley, Amelia , and Trisha (and everyone else for that matter at IRC…hi if your reading ladies…) Saturday we were all off to the “agraria’ again for an ohh so interesting lecture on raising chickens…in Spanish. I was never the type of student to sleep in class but I was well on my way to snoozing an hour in and the lady kept talking for another hour and a half!!! Needless to say, I did take away some things on the lineage of chickens, nothing I think will be useful, though I would like to know how to silence my three chicken alarm clock with something other than turning them into dinner ( I still think my families terrified I consider them food since they are strictly ‘pets‘…who get fed their relatives). After that we made a massive compost pile and I used a machete (yes I’m sure it was a hilarious sight) to clear half a field of lettuce plants…and the little lechugas and radishes we planted our first week there have started to bud yay!
I decided to tag along with one of the language teachers who was taking a group into Lima for some famed Ceviche, the dish we were told not to go near until a month in so our poor stomachs would be able to handle it. Ceviche is essentially a huge mix of raw fish chopped up and put into lime which is so strong it essentially ‘cooks’ out the germs in the raw fish….its eaten with ricotta (a very hot veggie) and onions, all with a super strong limey type taste. The risk in eating it comes with the fact that its raw and that if the vendor doesn’t leave it sit in the lime long enough it will wreak havoc on your tummy. I had no idea what I was getting myself into because the language teacher took us all the way to Callao to get this ceviche (2 hours by combi and we were already in Lima) but right on the coast….We stopped in a little tiny restaurant and incapacited by hunger and such a large group, just ordered massive plates of ceviche ’mixto’ to share ( none of us still have any idea what types of fish were involved) . It was pretty delicious I have to say, and I believe I had it once when I was here in 2006 but my Spanish was so horrible then I’m not even sure, anyway this time was better and I ate my fair share. Some other people ordered muscles but I did not want to take my chances with that, plus the shell was hairy….is that normal!?!?! By this point it was 5 and I still had to get back to Chacrasana, so two hours later I was back at home having some (guess!) rice for dinner….it was a long day but fun to see some nicer parts of Lima. I’ll admit I was predisposed to not like the place, but its growing on me each time I’m thrust into it and forced to find my way out…and the other day there wasn’t the usual fog, so that helped.
Saturday night I had the usual battle of stay in/go out and so I went out to the bonfire my neighbor volunteer was having, it was a good time with of course dancing but I came home fairly early as Sunday was the baptism of my sisters son, Mathias who is one year three months. I knew the baptism started at 9, and that the old volunteer who used to live in our house was visiting at 12 and so I figured it would be a short affair with a mass and small reception. A friend had told me the night before to expect drinking profusely but I was a bit baffled at that considering the thing started at 9 am. Everybody was dressed up and looked great, including Mathias who was in a super cute white little suit. The mass was really lovely, it was in a tiny church overlooking the site of where the future church is going to be…of course since I have a camera I was designated photo taker and I took lots ( see below!). After the mass, we headed to a dusty little room in Chosica that was decorated with all sorts of celebratory baptism pictures and had little cups of mousse and such out on the table. We got there at about 10, and at 11 the first round of champagne came, soon to be followed by 5 crates of Cristal (beer here)…I made my way through an empanada at 1, then danced until 2, had rice with liquidated potatoes at 3, and danced until 4...I could not believe we were still there, but I’m just along for the ride most of the time, so when 5 finally arrived I was very glad to hear we were heading out! I probably had half the beer everyone else drank from the communal glass in all honesty and not nearly enough to make dancing with Peruvians any less embarrassing, but little did I know that things were only beginning, we got back to Chacrasana and me and 7 other people packed into a taxi to get up our hill (literally I was lying on my side with my feet in the front of the car and my arms around the back of the drivers front seat) when we got to the house Jason (old volunteer) was there and so along came the tiny but strong cups of vodka and sprite. Jason is the beloved volunteer #3, he is the reason I had pizza to live up to (and smores). He’s living in Ancash, and it was great to talk to him about his time so far (hes been here a year and four months). I also had planned on making cookies for our families with Annie, my neighbor volunteer but since I was at the baptism all day she came looking for me and got sucked into our little fiesta, then another of our volunteers came by and soon it was gringo central which means one thing-time to dance! So after what had already been 5 hours of intermittent bailando at the baptism, I was heading into another 3...around 8 or so the volunteers left and I crashed….but the reggae tone blaring in the living room did not stop until 11 ( I‘m separated from the living room by a sheet)..I absolutely love, love, love that everything here is dancing but I have to say that come 11 last night I was ready to drown it out with some music by the weepies or any other English speaking halfway mellow band. I have to give it to my family though, I feel super lucky that they have had so much stuff going on, baby showers, baptisms, birthdays, and my host mom wanting to have volunteers over….I feel fortunate!
It seems however, that all the action this weekend decided to take its toll on my tummy which decided to stage a revolt…here I have to say that it is nothing short of miraculous that I hadn’t been sick up to today having heard the horrendous details from others…anyway, as of now I’m on strict regime of boiled rice and freshly picked yerba Buena tea (literally “the good herb” I suppose)…anyway, if this is as bad as it gets I can handle it…unfortunately I think it isn’t though…we had our third ‘common health problems’ chat with our PC medical officer, Jorge (who is pretty amazing…he used to be a traveling doctor for climbers before PC plucked him and is mentioned in Lonely planets Medic section) I got to see the worm that had come out of a volunteers tummy a few months ago….Jorge loves the graphics and so I’ve seen pictures in the past month of things I would never wish upon any of you to have to see and had conversations that I would never had considered having a month ago! Luckily (for everyone except them) only 3 volunteers contracted worms this past year, so its not SUPER common. After the worm, we passed around (in a bag) a spider he happened to catch in our infirmary (so comforting) earlier in the day that turns the area around your skin where it bites black and that if you don’t get to the hospital (Jorge reminded us its usually a good 14 hours to Lima from most sites) it can cause you to have to get your limb removed….he loves this business of scaring us gringos but he always keeps stuff lighthearted and gives us practical advice. Most of the horrendous things (like the spider) that he mentions rarely are an issue but I think he enjoys seeing us cringe a bit!!!
This week we have our first ‘practice days’ in our health program and I think we are heading to health posts to shadow some health promoters, so I’ll post on how that goes soon. We have also been picking up the pace in this new language class so that will be a good and welcome challenge for me.
Anyway, I also just want to note (especially for you Jenn) that at the baptism AND the baby shower I went to there are little cartoons of redheaded blue eyed babies up on the wall which is incredibly random, but also means that having a baby with what you so fondly call “ginger-vitis” isn’t looked down upon everywhere so there!
On a side note as well, I realize how horrendous my grammar is becoming so apologies for the run on sentences!!
In other news while I’m waiting for my books to make it out of the hole that is customs here I’ve borrowed David Sedaris’ “When You Are Engulfed In Flames” so looking forward to getting through that which judging by the pace of things during training might take ages…We also had some people in my group get robbed last weekend in Chosica so I'm going to be extra careful going there next time...the robberies happened because there were several people cramped trying to get through this ticket counter or something, and they got their wallets etc. stolen....not fun.
Below are pictures from thursday nights dinner, saturday on our quest for Ceviche, and sundays Baptism of Mathias. Theres also one of me with the guinea pig at the house of my language classes today :)
Con carino