September 12
Let me write this down. Some times:
I walk up to my café, Señora Luz’s house, to find a skinless pig on the sidewalk, on it’s back, chest being broken into by a small machete and the internal organs being scooped out, along with handfuls of blood, into pots and pans.
Another day I’m drinking coffee alone with Idelma in Tía Luz’a kitchen as she signs to me and tells me something that happened recently, maybe about her son playing in the street too late or her teenage daughter moving back in with her. All the while she mercilessly hunts pesky house flies, rejoicing in each kill, impressively swatting over 30 before I finish my cup.
Later, from the same seat, sipping coffee, I try not to glance at this heavy set mom who took a moment away from making bread and cookie dough to breastfeed her adorable baby girl. Her older daughter is preparing suspiros, or lil’ breaths of whipped sugar and egg with a dusting of sprinkles on top, when the baby abruptly looses thirst and pulls away, exposing the breast completely. The mom just hangs out for a while and tries to entice her kid back to the teat, but baby’s uninterested, so the older daughter dips her finger in the suspiro mix and puts some on the nipple as an allure. Then we all have a fine laugh over it for a good couple minutes, the baby too.
Sometimes I take pleasure in cursing excessively at rocky soil, in English, while digging out bathroom foundations, then in eating two portions of soup in dark kitchens with elderly folks that believe they’re about a century old, that still haul wood to light the stove to make heavily sweetened coffee and that same soup every day and keep the smoke billowing up to soot the walls and dry the cheese, who cry softly and confide in me their life’s sadnesses and physical pains because I’m the only young person around helping them out; because their sons and daughters left to work in the jungle or in Lima and don’t even call.
One time the preschool kids surprised me by singing a song about taking care of the environment at the end of a charla on throwing away trash and the 5 R’s of recycling, reducing, reusing, repairing and rejecting. And other times the other grades got the idea, too. That spells success in my book.
To celebrate Santa Rosa de Lima my buddy Chris and I went camping by this small stone church up on a cliff that overlooks all of Chalaco and Santo Domingo, the town where Chris lives. We climbed on top a skinny pillar and stood with our arms the span of the full rainbow facing us just before night fell. Then we hiked up to the Meseta Andina (Andean Table) and wandered around that strange, wind-swept and barren country among alpacas and their quiet, estranged herders while passively looking for a lake at the end of the river to practice fly fishing, in order to prepare for the real deal, on the Amazon in October.
I got to see my 22-year old socio, Gino, read a poem about self-esteem to a group of about 25 high school students, and then, on a separate occasion, explain to them the difference between sex and gender. I lent him 8 bucks a while back, so he owes me. This week he’s talking about myths and beliefs surrounding the act of sex.
Back in mid-August I spent a day total on busses to get down to region Ica. It was totally worth it because I learned how to build a cocina mejorada and some other neat stuff, and then ride in a beast dune buggy that took us sandboarding in an endless desert. On the way back to site I stopped over in Huanchaco to visit my buddy Eliot and go surfing. We were the only ones out there, getting destroyed by gnarly storm waves and a killer rip, but it was much needed.
Y’kno what’s funny—Dancing. Like when you’re at a club called Bongos and your partner unexpectedly throws herself into a dip and you try to hold her up but the balance is too far gone, so with no choice you give in and fall down with her and stay on the floor a second just laughing about why people do this stuff anyway.
