1.) Be a 5’10” white girl
2.) Go out into your barrio (neighborhood) and take photos of La Fiesta Para La Virgin
3.) Slip on a driveway and fall flat on your ass in front of all of the people you were just photographing.
After you make a fool of yourself in front of everyone hopefully you will be handed a beer and asked to dance. Because you know there was a 30-hour party with dancing in neon versions of traditional outfits and beer to celebrate the Virgin. Although I’m not sure which Virgin, apparently there is more than one. Silly me majoring in Religion and thinking the only Virgin was Mary.
My first week in Peru has been filled with bewilderment, minor miscommunication and friendly Peruvians making a valiant effort to talk to the giant gringo. My host father, or my little man (don’t worry I do not call him this to his face) comes up roughly to my boobs and has had seven volunteers before me. Every time I say something that is downright incorrect he says he had a volunteer who could only say “hola!” and now lives in Peru. Poco a Poco. I’m glad he is so forgiving because roughly every time he tells me plans and pertinent details they either completely changes or I totally miss what is actually going on.
For instance- I thought that all of his 6 daughters live in Argentina. This is in fact false. So when one of his daughters casually showed up for dinner I asked her how her trip from Argentina was. She didn’t exactly know how to respond to this and said I live near the Peace Corps Center, roughly a 7-minute drive away. Not the 7-day bus trek I had imagined. Or the mysterious whereabouts of my host mother- she is in Argentina visiting her 5 daughters that live there and every 3 days or so her return date changes dramatically and she may or may not have found a job. Who knows. I’m just waiting for her to appear one day when I get home.
And then there are the rules of the house. After the first 2 days I asked my little man if there were any rule I should abide by. When he was talking he just sat back stoically in his chair and began speaking in a very profound tone. Honestly all I got was “nothing bad happens here.” The whole time he talked instead of translating Spanish in my head all I could focus on was how he reminded me of a munchkin mixed with The Godfather. I know none of the rules of the house. Since I had a well-rounded dinner of beer on Saturday night, followed by a 2am serving of my actual dinner I’m not the most concerned I didn’t understand what he said.
My normal morning consists of waking up to café con leche, which is instant coffee, condensed milk and lots of sugar. About as good as it sounds. And whatever my little man cooks for me in the morning. He makes a valiant effort but the only thing he really knows how to cook for breakfast is fried eggs. So my breakfast is either a fried egg with juice and coffee or something far far more interesting such as bread with olives, a bowl of warm milk, bread with some sort of caramel spread. You just never know. At least we discuss all the light apolitical topics bright and early such as genocide in Sudan, the houses of Congress, crystal meth, the cocaine trade and prostitution, just to name a few. You know the fluffy topics that are easy to talk about in a different language at 6:30am. And don’t worry I told him there are 500 states in the USA instead of 50. I amended my error after I realized someone should not be so startled by 50 states in one nation.
Finally, the past week was also filled with an exorbitant amount of bathroom talk. I know you are all dyyyiiiinnngggg to know what I’m talking about so I’ll enlighten you. No worries. It started out with the Peace Corps telling us that we should ask our host family how to flush the toilet during the first hour of our stay because all bathrooms are not created equally. Mine is a pour flush toilet; which literally means that I am supposed to pour water into the bowl aiming at the center and it will hypothetically disappear. Its terrifying. I avoid it like the plague.
And then there was the 45 min lecture about diarrhea. Ya know how I said that the Peace Corps said you would poop your pants. I wasn’t lying. At all. There was a 45 min lecture discussing how I would poop my pants that included video testimony and songs discussing this pending doom from volunteers. Yup this is my life. Pretending I can speak Spanish, having 8 hours of class a day that sometimes leave me more perplexed than the day before and worrying about pooping my pants. It’s like high school with a splash of preschool.
Oh and don’t worry I just got a lecture from my 5 year old host sister about how I have too many cuts on my lets and need to be more careful. This coming from the girl who has 3 cuts on her face from slinging the cat over her shoulder like a purse.
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