Grinnin´Gringa

And so it continues. I’ve survived my first week and am plodding steadily along. The days are starting to move a bit quicker as routine slowly settles in and some (SOME) of the awkwardness dissipates. There are still plenty of times that all I can do is laugh and shrug my shoulders because I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Case in point: my family and I went to grandma’s house last Sunday. I was under the impression that we were just going over for lunch and to chat for a couple hours so I could meet some of the extended family. Which I did. We ate, we talked and then we stayed. And stayed. And stayed. We were there for over six hours. Grandma was snoring on the couch. We watched Rambo in Spanish. We watched some futbal. We watched an episode of Lost. Grandma has cable magico (lots of channels, some with English programming with subtitles! Oh, the luxury.). My family watches a LOT of TV. Well, more like illegal bootlegs of movies since my house does not have cable. I’ve averaged a movie a day since arriving. Some are better than others. We watched Creoposculo (Twilight) a few days ago. Ratatouille was a good one, but someone in the front of the theater kept walking in front of the camera so that was kind of distracting.

Anyway, Sunday was a nice day, but it’s hard to tell if that’s what everyone wanted to do or if they were trying to accommodate the mute gringa in the corner. But everyone is so incredibly nice and welcoming. They all kept telling me I was so pretty and tall and skinny and looked way younger than 27. I will go back every Sunday to have people tell me those things. Funnily enough, my dad told me last night that we are going back on Sunday for dia del padre. After we go to the cemetery for a few hours in the morning. What a life.

We get these random assignments from PC aimed to teach us ways to integrate into communities and get to know the local business owners, municipal workers, etc. For our business class we’ve been given a long term assignment to spend at least an hour a week with someone from our community talking about their business, their challenges, hopes, etc. So I asked mi papi if he knew of anyone I could talk to -- he told me his brother-in-law works for a plataria (I don’t know the exact English word, someone who works with silver. Yes, it’s true; I can’t speak Spanish OR English.) but he makes his own jewelry on the side. Perfect, I thought, this will be easy and convenient since we’re related. By the way, I´m related to approximately half of my town and many people in neighboring towns. I´m kind of a big deal. So uncle Juan lives at grandma’s house, which is a three-story compound with separate “apartments” on each floor. I’m not sure what my host dad told Juan or what my host dad misunderstood from my explanation, but I ended up in Juan’s workshop for about an hour as he painstakingly took me through the process of how he sizes rings, where he finds his materials, how hot he has to get the metal in order to bend it. I had terrible flashbacks to the jewelry making class I nearly failed in Italy. Solder is not my friend. So instead of a nice casual chat about his clients and how he operates his business, I got a crash course in silversmithing (is that a word?). Interesting, but hardly useful for my business journal. I think Juan felt sorry for me because he did give me a pair of handmade, beautiful earrings. People are so generous. Back to the drawing board for my community partner. I might have to go at this one alone. Vidal just isn’t getting the picture.

Showers are still cold. Still doing a lot of squatting, but I’ve gotten a lot better. Hardly a drop of water on the bathroom floor now. We’ve started a little running club after classes at the training center. My friend Kim is leading a yoga class this afternoon. Staying after to get some exercise has been crucial in breaking up the days and getting to unwind before heading home. It’s also a good way to break it to dad that I will not be coming home at 5.30 every day. I got in trouble last Friday for not getting home until 7pm. But we’ve talked a little and now that I’m more familiar with the area, I can go out with friends. So he says. I´ve yet to test him on that one. Who knew I´d move all the way to Peru and have to abide by another respect hour (don´t worry Dad, I´m following). All the trainees are going to Lima on Saturday, which I’m really excited about. Big city lights! I’m sure we have some sort of activity, but hopefully there will be some free time. I’m dying to eat in a restaurant and actually order what I want to eat. Ah food, how you make me laugh.

One of my family’s favorite games to play every day is “what will the gringa eat?” About 90 percent of our conversations revolve around food. Some of the food is good. Some is bad. Mostly it’s just a lot. A lot of rice. A lot of potatoes. Usually both in the same meal. After a couple of days I had to have a little talk with my family about portion size. They can put away some serious rice. I cannot. But I have tried everything they’ve put in front of me and they like to brag to their friends and family that their gringo eats everything. Not a lot of everything, but she tries. I play little mind games with my food…if I eat four more bites of rice in the next two minutes, then I can mix in some mystery meat, take four more bites and hey, I’m a fourth of the way done. As I’ve gotten more comfortable with my family and with my Spanish, I’ve been able to express sheer delight at some foods (tomatoes, avocados) in the hope that they will take this as a sign that they should serve more of that. And I’ve already told them that I do NOT like bologna or hot dogs, which had started showing up in the fried rice. The aji (hot sauce) here is amazing, so now that they know I like picante, it’s on the table for every meal. A few dollops of aji makes the rice much more palatable. The food is actually not bad, but it´s always a crapshoot on how the day will go (we eat the same thing for lunch and dinner). And I’m very proud of myself for being a trooper. Not that I really have a choice, but I like to applaud myself for the things that I do have control over since much of my day is spent nodding in acquiescence to who knows what. Pretty sure I’ve already committed myself to spending Christmas here. Oh, and my friend Paul just bought some pregnant guinea pigs. I’m going to claim one of the babies as my own, raise it and kill it for an end-of-training fiesta. That’s right. I’m super hard core.

A few photos from my first couple weeks. Stay tuned. XOXO