As some of you might recall, I attempted a “Year of Yes” a couple years back. Admittedly this was more to improve my dating life than due to a renewed outlook on life, and it didn’t quite go as planned. Instead of meeting the love of my life and writing a best-selling book about my hilarious romantic adventures and life-altering realizations (by the way Jim Carrey, you’re welcome for the movie idea), I ended up in the Peace Corps. Life works in mysterious ways. Now that I’m in site, I’ve decided the best way to integrate is to say yes! to any and all invitations passed my way. I usually don’t understand what I’m agreeing to, but that makes it all the more fun. I am often confused and completely, conspicuously out of place…but hey, I think I’m developing a reputation as an easygoing, up-for-anything kind of girl. And I’ve had some interesting adventures. Read on for highlights from the first few weeks of my newly reinstated Year of Yes.
· Dead birthday party. I was resting in my room one Sunday afternoon (i.e., watching Arrested Development or Weeds on my laptop), when my host mom knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to go to Pucula with her. Not sure what or where Pucula was, I readily accepted. I headed out the door in my typical Peace Corps-attire; dirty jeans, flip flops, messy braid and uber-cool Ray Bans, noticing after a few minutes that my mom was wearing her nice jeans and makeup. Slightly confused, I asked her where we were going. Pucula, she said, and pointed across the river. Ah, Pucula is a nearby town. We reached the river and everyone starts taking off their shoes and rolling up their pants. My mom hands me her jacket and purse, hoists her grandson on her hips and makes for the water. I follow and manage not to fall down, thankfully, since everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch the gringa cross. Safely across, if not slightly damp (I don’t know how I was the only one to get my pants wet seeing how I’m a good six inches taller. Practice, I guess), we forge ahead, picking up more family members along the way. I still have no idea where we’re going when we get into a moto taxi and head for the cemetery. Visiting dead relatives on Sundays is a very popular activity in Peru, so I figured we were probably just going to put some flowers on a grave. We get to the cemetery and follow a large number of people through the gates. I begin to suspect something different is going on when all the people are heading for the same gravesite. I didn’t think I’d heard that anyone died recently and I was praying (haha) that we weren’t headed for a funeral. Talk about awkward, and long. We join the back of the crowd circling the grave. Looking around, no one seems particularly sad or teary-eyed. I shrug and strike my “ah, this is interesting and I understand everything that’s happening” pose, punctuated by a thoughtful nod every few minutes. I was particularly entertained each time the leather jacket-wearing priest belted out some Peruvian Christian rock on the synthesized electric keyboard he’d brought along for the occasion. After about an hour we started singing Happy Birthday (in English and Spanish) and I finally figured out that today was the birthday of a recently deceased family member. A son got up and said some words and then we all took shots of rum and ate rum-soaked olives. We even got birthday presents – a framed picture of tía Rosa super-imposed over a celestial background. Obviously, this keepsake has a prime spot in my room. Then the whole gang trouped over to the family home for a birthday party, complete with dinner and drinking circles. No dancing though, that would just be disrespectful. It turned out to be a really fun evening and everyone kept joking how in the U.S. we bury our dead and then wipe our hands of them, but in Peru we’ll do anything for a party.
· Optometrist convention. I’ve latched on to one of my artisans, a 60-year-old woman named Maria who makes and sells algarroba (kind of like a mixture between honey and maple syrup) products. She’s slightly crazy and spends most days muttering to herself (perhaps I sense a kindred spirit), but she’s really sweet and lets me sit in her workshop for hours on end making (and tasting) toffees and cookies. I accompanied her to an artisan fair at a university about an hour away last week and I think she now sees me as her personal assistant. So she invited me to help her at an event at the “Casa de Sipan” last weekend. The Casa de Sipan is a house/farm on the river that hosts and caters private events, and the owners invited some of the artisans to set up tables and sell their goods throughout the event. None of the details were shared with me; I just knew we were supposed to be there around 11 (so, close to 1pm Peruvian time) to set up and there were to be about 400 people. I was blown away when I got there – the place is beautiful. It’s like out of a destination-wedding magazine, and it’s less than 5 minutes from my house (hint, hint all my engaged friends – if you want something totally unique and a chance to visit me too…I could probably hook you up. I’m kind of a big deal here.). The event turned out to be the wrap-up party of a three-day optometrist convention held in Chiclayo. It was an interesting paradox to see these well-off Peruvian doctors unload from their buses, start throwing back Pisco Sours and goat, and then look across the river to the shanties that are without power or running water. I also felt conflicted because it was proven again that no matter where I am or what I’m doing; I will always be given preferential treatment as a white foreigner. Sitting at the tables with my artisans, I was continually invited my some of the guests to have a drink and talk some more about my work, Peace Corps, etc. I mingled with a few drunken docs and somehow agreed to help one doctor with a cataract campaign in my town. How I am supposed to help, I have no idea. Total number of projects I’ve agreed to work on: approximately 17. Total number of projects I’ve agreed to work on for which I am absolutely unqualified: approximately 17.
· Baile popular. My host brother invited me to a party in a neighboring town, Saltur, last Saturday night. I figured this would be a typical Peruvian party: people sitting quietly in a drinking circle for the first hour, then cranking the music and dancing until 3am. Which is cool. I’ve perfected the art of the drinking circle and even know a few cumbia songs. But this was a different sort of party. We get to Saltur with a few of his friends and head for a basketball court where there is a live band set up. There’s a fence all around the court and no one is actually inside. We stand around outside the fence for a good 30 minutes and then make our way over to the entrance. Turns out you have to pay to get into the dancing area…even though you can see and hear the band perfectly fine from outside the gate. Whatever, just another custom that my US-grown brain will never comprehend. We go in and start dancing, a couple hours later I am suddenly overcome with the feeling that I am going to throw up. Whether is was from the shots of lukewarm beer, the mystery meat from dinner, the hours of dancing or some combination of the three, I don’t know, but I thought I was going to die. I sprinted from the court and sought solace on a pile of rocks around a corner. I’m sitting there gulping for air when my host bro and a friend come careening around the corner and start yelling at me for leaving without saying anything. Touched by their concern and too tired to try to explain myself in Spanish, I apologized and meekly followed them back. They were convinced that I would feel better if I just kept on dancing. Ugh. I tried, but then I had to explain that I really didn’t feel well. So they turned over the beer crate and made me sit in the middle of the circle while they continued dancing and drinking. Talk about feeling like an out-of-place loser. Luckily I started feeling a little better and found that incredibly, they were right; I did feel better if I moved around some. I found out on Monday that one of the hundred videos and/or pictures I posed for ended up on the local news. My sweet dance skills are slowly becoming a national phenomenon.
· Fun with farm animals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to stop by someone’s house or walk with them to their farm in order to conocer the town better. These walks usually lead to a lot of awkward chatter, lots of hugs, a piece of fruit and/or bread and an unwavering generosity from my neighbors. I’m also learning a lot about livestock. Last week, for instance, found me in the middle of a pen of guinea pigs learning how to check their sex by squeezing a certain way in a certain area. I think one of the male cuyes was coming on to me. I then had a long chat with the cuy owner about the tragedy that struck just a few days earlier – someone broke into his pen and stole two cuyes. The next day another neighbor suffered a similar theft. My host family was very concerned since we also raise cuyes. I also spent a very odd hour or two at the home of a family member of a woman who works with one of my artisans (got all that?). No one was there except for her five-year-old son. We fed some cows and some pigs. Then he told me to sit on a bench outside the house and wait. Sitting on that bench by myself in the middle of a farm with chickens literally pecking at my feet, I looked around and though for the hundredth time that day, “where the hell am I?” Then I left. I am still unsure what I was waiting for.
Despite all the above, one of the oddest things I’ve discovered in the past couple weeks is that my host mom is an Avon saleslady. This is so incongruous with her appearance and circumstance that I was positive I’d misunderstood until she proudly showed me all her Avon catalogs. Apparently she buys products from Chiclayo and then sells them out here in the campo. Not being familiar with the Avon pyramid structure, I don’t know if she makes an income or just gets free stuff after selling a certain value. I smell another potential project. The upshot of all this is that there’s now a poster of Patrick Dempsey (who is apparently a model for an Avon cologne) on the wall of the “kitchen,” right next to the creepy kitten calendar and Jesus watercolor. I can just see him winking at me as I choke down various entrails. Patrick is proud of me.
Suffice to say, the last few weeks have been entertaining and eye opening. I still have a long way to go to feeling comfortable in my role here, but I’m along for the ride. And it is quite a ride. Yes we can.
