Back to Life, Back to Reality

After a grand finale of midget-bullfighting in the rain, the San Miguel town festival finally scampered off and died. The candy vendors and game booths were packed up, along with their prizes, which included Tupperware containers and stainless-steel washtubs. The marching bands have all but disappeared; I’ve only seen one in the last two weeks, when it unexpectedly appeared at Mass one night and then accompanied us, the congregation, as we took a giant portrait of Jesus for a stroll around the Plaza. Most notably, the people have gone back into nocturnal hibernation until the next party arrives. The unofficial, though strictly followed, curfew of 7 pm has been reinstated. I have to admit that I’m rather relieved. The fiesta was fun while it lasted, but if I wanted round-the-clock partying all the time, I’d move to Brazil. Just to finally close the chapter on San Miguel’s festival, I feel it necessary to disclose a conversation that I had with Uncle Tio regarding the massive amount of money that was poured into it. He explained to me that Peru is poor because it chooses to spend money on festivals and having fun (and rightly so!), while the United States is rich because we only work and have no festivals or fun. Oh, is that it? I thought maybe it was the years of corrupt leadership, poor infrastructure and lack of resource management that made Peru poor. Thanks for enlightening me Uncle Tio!


For this blog entry, I wish I had some exciting stories for you, stories that would rival those from the festival and knock your socks off in the process… but frankly I’m plum out of wild tales. Like a firework to the face, I’m afraid this blog entry may be a bit of a buzz-kill. But fear not; I will press on! Due to the shortage of amusing anecdotes, I figured this would be a good opportunity to put the spotlight on my host family here in San Miguel. I really haven’t given them the attention that they deserve; they are, individually and as a whole, fantastic. Before I begin, however, I do have a bit of exciting news… I have a functioning toilet! And get this: it flushes. Woah, Woah, Woah-ee! I haven’t had one of those since I left the northern hemisphere. I now find it difficult to walk past the bathroom without feeling an enormous urge to run in and flush the toilet just for novelty’s sake. The shower also works now, but I simply cannot and will not go back to a life of cold water bathing. I’ve become a little too accustomed to my bucket baths… at least I’m warm for the few seconds it takes to pour the hot water out of my old paint can and over my body. Call me spoiled if you must! But I digress…. Here goes my tribute to all things host-family related:



Mama Madi. My host-mama is still her over-protective self, though she has eased up a bit over the last couple of weeks. I still have to show her proof that I’m either wearing two pairs of pants or one pair made of super-thick material if I want to leave the house after 5 pm, but I am now allowed to wash my clothes all by myself. Granted, she pulls up a chair and watches me the whole time, with only the slightest hint of laughter in her eye as I struggle to get the dust out of my poor designer jeans (those things don’t know what to think as I wring their snobby little necks). She also still laughs… a lot. This works out well for me, as humor is a tough one to tackle in another language, but she’s an easy target. If I say anything even remotely witty (witty is probably a stretch… let’s say, silly, maybe?), she laughs generously. One time I even made her spit coffee out of her mouth and onto the kitchen floor. Good thing the floor is made of dirt… no clean-up required. Keep the jokes a’comin’ gringa! In addition to worrying and laughing, she also cooks. And I mean COOKS. She can spin the most delicious meals of out of basically nothing (potatoes and rice, for example?). Granted my standards have most likely dropped drastically after the hot-mess of food that my Lima family would serve, but still it’s good stuff. What’s more, every meal includes hot sauce made by hand from the peppers we grow in our yard. Like I said, she spins gold, that woman!

Jonathan. My little brother Jonathan really likes to high-five, to which I indulge him lavishly. I’ve taken it a step further and taught him the fist-pound. He took to it like a duck to water, so we’ve since added the ‘hand-explosion’ after the fist-pound. We now do this approximately 37 times per day. In addition, our communication abilities have improved drastically in the last few weeks. I now understand a good 35% of what he relays to me, which is good considering I only understand 50-60% of what other people say. We still play a lot of charades, though. Here’s a typical conversation for us: “It’s time to eat? Oh, no… you’re going to school? No. Hmmm… mom needs help in the kitchen? YES! That’s it! Fist pound!!!”

Grandma. Oh, grandma! She just may be my favorite character… 81 years old, but full of piss and vinegar. My favorite thing about her is that she swears like a sailor, especially at Gringito the cat (named such because he’s white, of course). Grandma hates Gringito. I guess you could say he’s technically mom’s cat. Likewise, the dog is my grandma’s, so mama hates him equally. The sides are clearly drawn… I’m trying to stay neutral. My second favorite thing is that she swears by the medicinal powers of an herb that she grows in her garden. The herb is not ingested, but instead placed on the skin and taken in via osmosis. Her favorite place to put it is smack-dab on the check, which means I am more often than not treated to the site of her walking around with a giant leaf on her face. I think even Gringito finds it hard to take her seriously on these particular days.
And to really seal the deal for you all, a few pics of my fab fam:

Here's Mama Madi accepting a shot of canazo

Little bro surveying the sheep population

Here he is jamming out on the guitar somebody gave him

Grandma bought herself a bottle of this canazo after taking the shot...

Grandma getting avocados off of the tree... this picture also shows my new bathroom! (just behind Grandma to the left) My bedroom is the second floor of the white building to the left of the bathroom... much closer than the old latrine, which is so far away it's not even in the photo.

My little bro and cousin, watching Uncle Tio scale the avocado tree to get the ones Grandma couldn't. This is my job when Uncle Tio isn't around... makes for an exciting Saturday.

So that's all I have for you at this time. I'll try to scrounge up some awkward moments to relay for future entries... shouldn't be overly difficult for this girl!

Until then... cheers!