Visitors, Cuy Clothes-lined, Mototaxi Chase, and Rebirth

Celina's sister, who is 26 with an 8 year old, Paula, and a 5 year old, Diana, came to visit.  Her brother also came to visit for a couple days, before they all go out to Chiclayo to visit their family and their mom, who is in the hospital.  Her brother and sister both live in Lima, and it was crazy to see how different they were as a result, they dressed completely differently, they talked differently.  The kids kept surprising me, asking their mom where the bathroom was and looking totally perplexed when they were directed to the latrine.  They complained about the food the whole time they were there and didn't really want to eat anything.  Lima really feels like a different country when you live in the campo.  The kids were loud and whiney and a bit obnoxious, and I'm used to Mishel, who is helpful and quiet.

Diana, the 5 year old, got into the habit of opening my bedroom door and staring at me.  I would ask her if she needed something and she would just stare, so I stopped paying attention to her, and she closed the door, but then quickly opened it, like I might have done something exciting while she wasn't looking.  She would open the door, stare, close the door, quickly open it, stare, close the door to a crack and spy on me through it.  It was a bit uncomfortable.  ...I'm going shopping for a lock today.

I woke up the other day to find cuyes (guinea pigs) slit down the middle and hung up on a clothes line.  You could see their teeth and internal organs...well.  A picture's worth a 1000 words, and I've got two.

Nice huh? Feelin' hungry?

I was headed down into town the morning that these showed up on the clothes line, and when I went out to tell Celina I was headed out, she jokingly asked me, "Don't you want to stay for lunch?" And gestured at the cuyes on the clothes line.  I started laughing and so did she.  Her friend had come to visit and was sitting next to her looking totally perplexed, and as I left, I heard her explaining to her friend that I used to have guinea pigs as pets.

I headed down to the health post and hung out with them for a while.  One of the nurses asked me whether or not Barbara or I was fatter.  I couldn't help rolling my eyes and looking annoyed, I thought we were past that.  They seemed surprised that I didn't like that question.  I told them it was rude in my country.  I felt bad for not sugar coating it, but seriously? Granted, these two were not the ones I had talked to the first time about how much I didn't like talking about my weight.  I'm just not having it.  I told her we have different body types and that I'm taller than she is so it's hard to compare.  That was the end of that.

We waited for three hours for a mototaxi to come up the hill to bring us down it.  I had a heavy backpack so I wasn't keen on the idea of walking, and they had asked me to go down the hill with them.  Natalia kept insisting that I come stay with her while I was in Chota, but to be honest, Chota is my escape from Peruvians, when I can lock myself in the hostel and talk to people in English.  I can eat the food I want to eat, when I want to eat it, and no more than I'm willing.  I also just think it would be stressful, being a guest in the house of a Peruvian.

By the time a moto finally came, it had started to rain, and as we got to the side of the mountain and the beginning of the switch backs, Chota was barely visible under a total downpour in the valley.  As we started going down the mountain, the rain hit us hard.  We ended up having to get out of the moto two or three times around the corners so that it could go around the tight corners empty, with less of a chance of flipping (if we flipped, likelihood is that we'd roll down the mountain).  It was absolutely ridiculous because the sky was falling again and we were getting dumped on, running after the form of transportation that should have been taking us down the mountain and keeping us dry.  I just started laughing, I smiled all the way down the hill at the ridiculousness of the situation, and Dani, the nurse who is only a year older than I am, kept asking me why I was laughing because she was petrified.  It was pretty funny.

Got into town, got a room in the hostel, watched a movie in English (there are like, 3 English channels), took a two hour shower (it was a religious experience), put on lotion, skyped, and slept a long time.  It was a magnificent rebirth into the land of the living.  I'm pretty sure this is the cleanest I have been since I got to Perú.

 Today I got the copies made of my encuesta, caught all the way up on my blog to the present moment, and I head out to Cabracancha tonight.  I was called a few days ago to come to a neighboring town to Iraca Grande to do some kind of teaching.  I can't ever understand Peruvians on the phone because they scream into them and talk really fast, and the screaming really takes away any chance I had of understanding what they are saying.  When I ask them to repeat what they are saying, they just yell louder.  It's really inconvenient.  I was asked to come out for Friday and Saturday to the town, and I'm either teaching with health promoters or I am teaching to health promoters.  I'm not sure what's going to happen, but the head of the health promoters asked me to come.  I'm meeting her at 5pm to head up to her town.  It's funny.  Cabracancha is a neighboring town to Iraca, but you can only get there by going down the mountain into Chota and going back up the mountain on a different road to Cabracancha.  I'm a bit nervous, and I'm trying to put some last minute things together for my English class at the same time, but I'm sure everything will be fine.

One source of stress? The school director has still not given me the key to my classroom for Monday.  I hope I get that sometime soon! I foresee being Perued...again.