Old Lady Attack

As you may, or may not, know, I have a tremendously difficult time getting up my mountain to my house.  Part of it, is that the mototaxi drivers are complete jerks and just refuse to go up the mountain.  Part of it is that the road is in such terrible conditions that even if the drivers were not jerks, they wouldn’t really want to drive up there anyway.  Lastly, the only nice mototaxi driver I know, nice because he is friendly with a volunteer, has quit driving his mototaxi and now drives a less frequent combi, and his reliable brother is spending more and more time drinking beer.  So where does that leave me?  Trying to get a seat in one of the trucks that go up the hill.  The problem, is that there are only 4 available seats, 6 if they make you squeeze, and Peace Corps doesn’t allow us to ride in the back of the truck (which doesn’t bother me too much because I watched someone fall out of the back of a truck once and crack their head open on a rock).  The final problem, is that I think everyone has something against me.  I can’t decide if it is because I’m a gringa, or because I’m fat and they think I’ll take up more space than I’ll pay for.  Either way, no one ever wants to take me up the mountain and it drives me nuts.  I end up waiting about two hours every time I want to go home.

This one time, I felt like I’d made friends with the guy who seems responsible for shoveling people into the trucks and combis that go up my mountain.  He led me to a truck that was going up, and some guy jumped in the truck in front of me and shut the door.  I was pissed.  He looked out the window at me completely expressionless while I just looked longingly at his seat.  I went around the other side but it was already full and the driver told me I couldn’t get in.  So I went back around the other side and said in a clearly frustrated voice, “I can never get up that hill!!  No one will ever take me!”  In response, one of the guys I had chatted a bit with, said, “If you can’t get up in this truck, I’ll take you.” I thought my eyebrows were making a run for it, it was so surprised.  It was so nice!!  It felt like someone actually cared about what I needed! I thanked him profusely, and then by some strange miracle, the guy inside the truck who had taken my seat opened the door and said, “Do you want my seat? I can ride in the back.”  I immediately felt bad for being angry inside my head at this guy, so I told him not to worry.  He asked again, and I took it.  I couldn’t believe it!  It was so gentlemanly! That was literally the first moment since I got to Perú where someone did something like that for me.  I really can’t explain how warm I felt in that moment, and grateful. 

I tried getting into the truck next to this super old lady who was all sprawled out in the middle with bags and bags of bread.  Some of the bread bags had fallen on my seat and I didn’t want to move her things, so I tried to slide in next to it and she started yelling at me.  I waited for her to move her bags, which took about ten minutes, while I stood, back arched, off the seat, waiting.  When I finally sat down, this lady thought my dark jeans were more of her black bags and she repeatedly reached her wrinkled hands between my legs and actually grabbed my lady parts.  I couldn’t tell if she was being creepy or just blind, her persistence suggested the first, but her blue eyes suggested the second.  Either way, I firmly told her, “that’s my BODY,” and shifted my body toward the window so if she grabbed anything it would be my thigh or hip, and not my lady goodies.