As of late, I’ve been having those, “What am I doing here?” experiences. Not to be misunderstood as a fear or uncertainty, but rather a feeling of complete fascination with my surroundings. One night at dinner, we were joined by my host mother, Santa’s, parents for a scintillating round of Quechua. Eating my soup and looking around the kitchen, trying to pick up any pieces of conversation that would indicate the subject matter, I found myself smirking with the realization of the absurdness of my situation. My “grandfather” in a very Andean poncho and traditional hat with a colorfully-stitched ribbon encircling it. My “grandmother” wearing the traditional women’s hat, a Peruvian skirt embroidered with a pattern common to this region, and a button-up sweater to keep the chill off. Her long black hair is braided like a school-girl’s, with strands of silvery gray throughout and nicely tied bows at each end. Santa is wearing seemingly modern clothing of jeans and a baseball cap, but around her shoulders she is sporting a hot magenta blanket that serves as anything from a coat, to carrying children, or transporting implausible amounts of produce. They are discussing raising pigs, because the selling price per kilo is good right now. Santa already has one pig that she grows, and I wonder if they will get a mate for that one. I think it had a litter already, judging from the photographic evidence I have. I wonder what happened to the piglets.
So what’s it really like to live here?
On a typical day, I wake up at 8:00am to have breakfast of bread and hot cocoa/coffee/or tea. The bread toppings range from jam & butter, to avocado, my favorite! I usually wash my own dishes.
Then I return to my bedroom to contemplate clothing. Should I wear what I wore yesterday and the six days prior to yesterday? Yes. I take a baby-wipe shower and change my underwear, making me feel slightly clean as I put on the same clothes I’ve been wearing for a week.
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and assess my hair. If I’m making a public appearance such as a meeting, I’ll wash it.
The other day, fellow volunteer Callie came into my town for a meeting. It started at 9:00 am and was about a 30 minute walk. We chatted in my room and left promptly at 9:05 am. No need in being the first ones there.
Lumbering through town, I recognize several men, one after another, who are supposed to be at the meeting. I ask each if they’re going. They say yes, see you there. Each continues with his business as Callie and I continue walking. Hmm.
I see the park toll booth collector. He’s standing on a rock peering over a wall. I ask what’s up, and feel comfortable enough to invite myself to pry and take a peek myself before he answers. On the other side of the wall, in someone’s yard, there are 5 men standing around a dead horse and a big hole. It doesn’t phase me that there is a dead horse lying there, which also happens to be skinned and missing a leg that is located a short distance away. I greet the men and say, “That’s a big horse.” I ask what happened to it, and I’m told it died from a hit. My spanish is not good enough to decipher if it was sick and put out of its misery, or someone hit it and it accidently died. I believe it to be the former, because Peruvians seem to be very kind to animals. I’m assured they don’t eat horse here. Yes, just the question I was thinking.
Callie and I continue on our way and we discuss why that wasn’t weird at all but should’ve been.
Right around the corner from our destination, we spot cactus with ripe fruit. Callie, a city girl, likes to collect these and feel like she’s living off the land. I agree. They’re delicious. We’re not very good at it, but the miniscule spikes in our fingers are worth it.
During our venture into the cactus forest, I greet a person walking in the opposite direction from the meeting. I ask if there’s a meeting. He says yes and confirms the start time as 9:00 am. It’s past 9:30 and he’s walking in the wrong direction. I love Peru. We turn the corner and sure enough...we’re the first ones there. We sit down to enjoy the literal fruits of our labor. A man approaches the two white girls hurting themselves on their fruit, and tells us he will collect better ones for us. We follow him down the hill to his house, where he gets us a dozen, cleans them properly, and has his daughter put them into bags for us. The women in the yard ask where we’re traveling to. Here’s my favorite part of Peace Corps: We say, “We live here.” I point to my house across the way. The woman’s jaw drops, and she calls me a liar in disbelief. I laugh and tell her I live in Cashapampa, we’re volunteers. They get really happy and ask if we’ll come work in their town up the road. Sure, maybe. We tell them we have to go to a meeting about opening a Kiwicha cookie factory, and the man says he’s going also. Back on the road, people are arriving from all corners carrying long benches. They are setting up as someone walks by carrying a brand new table, obviously not part of the meeting and walking briskly. to bring this finished product to whoever bought it. He is convinced to let us borrow it for an hour. I wonder where it was going, and how it will get to where it’s supposed to go, and what this guy’s going to do arriving to town empty-handed without his table.
The meeting starts only an hour behind schedule. There is a lot of raucous because the president is missing and the engineers from the NGO want to know where he is. I keep my mouth shut because I know that he went to visit his dad yesterday and hasn’t returned. I’m waiting uncomfortably for someone to figure out the absent president is my host father. Awkward.
The remainder of a typical day involves lunch, reading, exploring, and dinner. Santa is an amazing cook. Food is usually rice & potatoes with a main course. Staple foods are onions, tomatoes, peas, eggs, chicken, tuna, pasta. It’s amazing the million tasty combinations that are created with these ingredients. I tried to cook a few times, but let’s just say now I leave that up to the professional.
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