Mudd Butt

Dec.31

An hour until the New Year and it’s looking like I’ll be in bed reading, maybe sleeping. Supposedly they burn effigies of famous people, like a politician they don’t like, and throw coins and candy into the air. Fireworks go without saying. Maybe I should be caring more, or maybe part of me is trying to stomp out desire. At any rate tonight’s been pretty good. Had a nice dinner with the extended host family, and by the lack of timidity Tonio (my host bro) had over post-meal farts (go figure, they’re funny in Peru, too), it seems like we’re reaching a comfortable point in our relationship. Things have been on an upswing since I got over being sick; a dramatic past few days, but tomorrow will be ok. Ah what the hell, only a half hour left now and I’ve got an episode of Always Sunny to fill the void. Advice to myself: Keep the music on, keep moving, take it all in, take what you can get, know what makes you happy and do it. Happy New Year, make the best of it.

The effigies were totally worth staying up for—stuffed with fireworks, doused in gasoline.

Jan.2

It must be the rainy season that’s awakening these monstrosities from their underworld. Five tarantulas in the carretera today, all but one smashed by some passerby, the one huge bastard that scared the crap out of me when I stepped inches from its salivating jaws, swift limbs, fuzzy abdomen. I let out nearly every curse I knew, hexed it real good-like, and then spared its treacherous life, granting it the right to terrorize another hapless soul. May this queen bee spread word throughout her kingdom of my kind and gentle feet.

Jan.4

“…a life in the past cannot be shared with the present. Each person who gets stuck in time gets stuck alone.” – Einstein’s Dreams

A man in his element—Juan Carlos, local DJ of Radio Rondera, pumping out district hits from his shoebox studio, the whiney Peruvian jams blaring directly at him not through headphones but two large amps. Barely able to hear me at shouting voice, his head in perpetual swagger, like Milhous in the pup-tent or the Budabi Brothers in Night at the Roxbury. From now on this dude it my main form of communication with the boombox-toting campesinos always tuned into either this station or Radio Chalaco, the Rondera broadcasting important municipal messages from 5-6 at night, with 1-2 seconds of loud music filling up all sentence pauses in the announcements since the technology is not there to play it lightly in the background.

Some muchachos later got me to show them whatever tricks I could do on the most busted skateboard I’ve ever been on. No grip tape, warped deck, broken bearings, cracked wheels. Within minutes I snapped one of the rusted trucks, making it finally unusable.

Jan.6

There’s that good ol’ fashioned natural high again. I gave my first presentation tonight in a nearby small casarío, Chimulque, about Peace Corps and my role as a volunteer. Though it took the customary hora peruana for everyone to arrive, to my amazement almost 30 people showed up. Do I owe this to Juan Carlos’ radio magic? Or maybe Chimulque just has it together, knows about Peace Corps, and really wants clean-water access and someplace decent to take a dump? Though I felt pretty intimidated in a room full of tight-knit community members 10-50 years older than me, the short presentation went off with few Spanish errors and zero of the shaky voice syndrome that occasionally haunts my talks with peers. When I was done, instead of asking questions on the community diagnostic process or what exactly I can help them with, the assembly broke into a free-for-all session on all the stuff they want to see changed. So I can’t say for sure yet but it seems like when I go back on Tuesday I’ll get the formal go ahead (document signed and stamped by 3 parties, of course), saying I can come in and do interviews and such. While tomorrow’s presentation to Portachuelo, a distant casarío that distrusts gringos, probably won’t be as easy, I’ll have the advantage of a respected health-post worker, Chemo, backing me up. Plus Chemo said some folks there heard the announcement on the radio, so the meeting is definitely on. And that’s tomorrow. Now feels pretty good, some lucky night.

Jan.7

Portachuelo didn’t go so hot. Only 7 people showed up, two of them being Chemo and his wife, who on the bright side, I must say, warmed up the crowd quite nicely during the hora peruana with heaps of anecdotes. I’m giving it one more shot in a couple weeks. I’m just glad I got home safe hiking in the foggy dark on unfamiliar, steep, slippery paths, even if I arrived with a mean case of the mudd butt (literal).