What does this look like to you?

So this was really one of those weeks where Peru could have swept me out with the trash and I wouldn't have put up much of a fight. I find myself clamoring in the gutter trying to reanimate myself to make it until Christmas and the home stretch, well by home stretch I suppose 10 months is not much in comparison with the 27 I will have completed by the end of this ride. I want my hammock and pineapple juice, but alas, I'm living here and reality isn't nearly as idealistic as one might think when conjouring up images of Peace Corps. To limit rambling (ha!) I'll do this chronologically:

Monday- My community partner, a nurse at the health post who is the reason Im in my community tells me he's leaving. Which means I'm on my own to design/implement/anything projects. This is a pain in the ass, and means I can probably kiss sustainability goodbye, but I'll be fine.

Tuesday- Good day, did a play in the high school with nursing students on prevention of teen pregnancy, adapted it to the 'campo' it was a big hit, and while I tried to emphasize the use of contraceptives I came up against the same buffoonery (thats now a word) I would in the states and had to tiptoe around it and just say things like be sure to go to the health post with any questions....etc. Til next year when I plan on swallowing my nerves and diving right into this subject unabashedly.

Also, tuesday afternoon a fellow volunteer and I decided to walk from my site to Chota, a good 2 1/2 hours. It felt like a good accomplishment, so all in all a good day in my weekly rollercoaster.

Wednesday- Go to a get together at my neighbors apartment where she has 3 other people over drinking, window to our Chota room gets left open....my computer gets stolen. Find out Barbara, one of our Chota crew tore her ACL and will be getting medevaced to the states and doesn't know if she'll be able to come back.

Thursday-Convene the neighbor and suspicious friends that were at the party...minus one...find he has a track record of stealing chickens (yes, chickens.) and pull some vigilante justice on him threatening to file a denuncia with the police (I couldnt have done this without the help of a good Peruvian friend I have in Chota). Chicken thief agrees to meet one of the friends in the plaza de armas where he subsequently turns over my laptop unscathed. Peru justice, completed.

By now, your likely thinking I should be happy...don't get me wrong, I was...small successes.

Friday-Go to pick up my mail at the post office, get immersed in the neverending debacle that is trying to get my packages out of the 'aduana' which is the immigration thingy here that holds packets. I was told that my packet had "several injections and suspicious vials, over 50 in quantity that pose a public health hazard." Uh, what? I hardly think my package of goodies posts a health hazard in a place that still doesn't have potable water.

I said theres no way in hell thats my packet until it hit me....the 'injections' are TAMPONS. You know the ones with the plastic applicators...they look a bit suspicious I suppose. Anyway, I spent 20 minutes trying to explain plastic tampon applicators on the telephone to some dude in Chiclayo 10 hours away, everything down to why the applicators are plastic to why they have different colored wrappers. As if that wasnt enough, I then had an extensive conversation with the post office lady about the benefits of tampon use for her teenage daughter. Its a good thing I wasn't PMSing because I definitely would have 'gone postal' Peru style up in that joint.

Its also a good thing that being a Peace Corps volunteers forces you to often leave your dignity at the door after so many illnesses and close calls far from latrines. How else could I have justified a 20 minute attempt to explain why my tampons are not a public health risk while Peruvians sat around and listened to me as my voice echoed through the post office? Anyway, they wanted me to get an official letter from the Ministry of Health here, but since I was going to the coast this weekend anyway I decided I'd suck it up and go show them how the freaking tampon works in person. Which is what I did today. Quite an impressive demonstration I may add :) I got my package, didn't have to pay the 'supposed' fee and didn't even have to flirt that much. I'd consider that fairly successful.

All in all though, I'm feeling like the score is Peru 5, me 0. I'll limit my wallowing over the whole week to the next 12 hours and be one with it, but I mean....SERIOUSLY!!?!?!??!? Remind me to include this in my application for womens health nurse practioner....'extensive description of tampon use in spanish via crappy line to masochistic postal worker....very convincing indeed.'

In other news though, my attempts to escape from the grasps of serial monogamy have been going interestingly, dating Peruvians has been working wonders for my vocabulary so maybe I'll readjust the score to Peru 4, me 1!!!

Mooooo and machetes

So the other night I was drinking my aguita and fighting off these yellow flying cockroach things that like to hit me in the face since our kitchen is outside and they are attracted to light at night when my neighbors came by to tell me that my favorite cow had died from eating too much alfafa. You might ask, why do I have a favorite cow? Well, I learned to milk with this one and walked a long side it sometimes when we were moving the cows to another pasture...and I live in the campo where one has the tendency to go slowly crazy.

There was no time to waste since the loss of a cow is loss of income (milk sells for 80 centimos a kilo to companies like GLORIA leche and Nestle) so we had to turn this cow into meat pronto. I walked the half mile to where it was in the dark under the gorgeous sky full of stars and as we got close I could see its corpse lit up by car lights....seriously looked like a sacrifice from far away...

Anyway, I watched the whole process of turning it from a beast into my next lomo saltado and the conversation when something like this:

Me (watching all the parts I never knew existed getting pulled out): sooo, what do you do with this part?

Answer: Oh, thats great in soup.

Me:oo yum.

Answer: Its delicious, thats what we do with the intestines too.

Me: So are you going to sell all this at the market in Chota?

Answer: No, we will eat most of it over the next two weeks.

Me: What about the head, I saw a furry head all cut up in Chota once but I figured they were going to burn it.

Answer: The head is one of the best parts to put in soup....come over for lunch tomorrow and you can try it with some mote.

Me: Tragically I'm going to Cajamarca tomorrow, what a pity!

I narrowly escaped being subjected to devouring every part of that creature...but talk about not wasting ANYTHING. As gross as it was, I know its still a cleaner process of prepping meat that you'd likely find in a meat factory in the states. I still ate lomo saltado (beef dish with onions, tomato etc thats pretty standard anywhere here) afterwards, blame on being protein starved from my pasta, rice, and white potato diet.

Turns out CUY isn't my worst culinary nightmare anymore! Yum.