Thursday, I packed up my stuff, and despite Teodolinda's insistence that I eat lunch before I leave, I left to head down to town. I stopped briefly by the health post to say hi and bye for the weekend, and Natalia said she was leaving so we decided to wait for a moto together. One came but didn't have enough room for all of us so I rode down in the first moto that came down and she waited for the second.
I got into to town and got a room for myself and for Kate, who was coming in from Bambamarca, in Hostel Angel. I was given a room, but after sitting on the bed in there for ten minutes, I realized they had put me in the room next to a room that was under construction, and someone was literally hammering against my wall. I took a moment to look up how to say "to hammer" in Spanish, and then went out to ask for another room. I apparently looked up a verb that doesn't exist in Perú, but got my point across and he gave me a different room with a different TV remote. When I got up there, the TV remote didn't work. It also happened to be the same room that I had my melt down in when I first got to site in the beginning of December. It was strange how far away that day felt, when it had only been a month and some change.
I hung out for a bit and then took a trip to go get some food. I brought my Kindle. I had just started reading Water for Elephants and I was still in the "anything can happen", honeymoon phase that comes with starting a new book. I was sort of surprised how quickly I was getting through it, though it was the first time since April that I had read a book under 1000 pages. As much as I love reading physical books, the smell of the pages, the feel of the book in my hand, Kindles are pretty sweet. I think I'll probably usually opt for a real physical book when I'm back in the States, but for Perú and for traveling, the Kindle is awesome, not to mention there is something satisfying about being able to click the next page button more often than you can turn a page in a book.
I sat in Rockie's and read my book while I drank fresh pineapple orange juice. After about forty-five minutes, Kate called me and said she had made it to Chota. I headed back to the hostel, and we spent the rest of the afternoon catching up, chatting, skyping with friends and family, showering, snacking, and writing letters home. We took a brief break to grab some dinner, and then picked up where we left off. Late that night, when we were both clean and had finished most of the letters we wanted to write, we turned the lights off and chatted for another hour or so about ridiculous things. It felt like a high school sleepover, but was so nice to just unwind speaking English and talking about things that we can talk about with anyone in our own communities. It also just felt good to giggle.
When I was in Lima, I found a way to be completely myself and I could crack jokes with my family all the time. I got to be funny, and I got to laugh, which made me feel so at home. In my community, they don't have the same sense of humor, and when they do makes jokes, they are usually sort of mean and they are laughing at someone. Sometimes it is me, sometimes it is someone else. Either way, they don't have the same sense of humor and I find that I can't make jokes here because it's either not funny, or they don't understand me. I find as many occasions as I can to smile, but laughing definitely doesn't happen as often. It's easier with the health workers, and that might be one of the reasons I spend so much time there, but lately they have been a lot more tense, arguing with each other with their noses buried deep in endless piles of paperwork. I can't blame them, if I had to do that much paperwork all the time, I would be a little irritable too.
Anyway - it was great to just unwind and laugh with Kate, and I went to bed clean and refreshed all the way through.
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