With my feet in the cement gutter, my butt on the sidewalk, and my nose in a book, I distracted myself from the constant stares and soaked up some rare and much needed sunshine. In the midst of the rainy season, when I can actually get my skin warm in sunshine, it feels like a kiss from God, or a combination of the sweet release of lying down when you’re exhausted and then waking up warm and content after a perfect nap. Pure deliciousness.
I had taken a brief brake from my nap and closed my eyes to relish the feeling of sun on my skin, when I heard a terribly butchered version of my name (something that sounded like I-deen) and opened my eyes to see Ellie, the head of the Cabracancha health post, walking towards me with a friend. I somewhat regretfully put my book away in my backpack and stood up to greet her. She was wearing a sweater over her bright blue scrub top, a pencil skirt that was far too long for her, and platform, thick strappy sandles with bright blue patterned socks. I smiled a bit to myself, and then gave them both a kiss on the cheek. Ellie did the classic Peruvian move, and asked me the obvious.
“You’re reading a book?”
“Yes, I was.”
“It’s all in English?!” She asked, surprised.
“Yes. It’s all in English.”
I’m not really sure why everyone is always so shocked that I can read books in English. I would think they would be shocked I can read Spanish…
Ellie tried to pressure her coworker into having coffee with us at her house, but the girl managed to get out of it. I’ve realized that politely declining is really ineffective here. Apparently, if I say, “nooooooooooooo” in a REALLY whiney voice a bunch of times with a pouty look on my face people will listen to me when I say no.
I’m sort of concerned about what I’m going to be like when I leave this country in two years if whiney and pouty is how I need to be to be listened to…
Ellie took me around the corner from the Iraca Grande/Cabracancha mototaxi stop in Chota to her house. She lives down what I guess is technically an alley, but is really just a mudslide between buildings that we somehow managed to get down without falling.
We were greeted by her four-year-old son, Marcos, and their tiny little dog, Estrella. Her husband, Norman, was also sitting in the main room on their computer. Ellie sat me down on a bench and just started talking at me…for three hours. My eyes unfocused as I concentrated hard to make sense of the words that were spilling out her mouth and tripping over each other in my head. After three hours, I deduced that she wanted my help because health promoters in other communities were having more success than she was with her group of health promoters. She was clearly frustrated and wanted me to help her, but I sat there not knowing what to tell her, partly because I wasn’t really sure what I was talking about when it came to health promoters, and partly because I hadn’t been able to absorb all the things she had told me in the last three hours. I also found myself a bit frustrated because I was working so hard to understand her continuous and mind bogglingly fast Spanish, and she didn’t appear to have the patience to wait for me to answer a question. She would talk and talk, and when she asked me a question, she would interrupt me when I tried to answer and start talking again. Not to mention, her son was biking into me over and over again, or climbing behind me and pushing me so that I had to stand up, while Ellie said nothing.
She finally decided she wanted to show me every photo that she had on her computer, which were not just a couple. I sat there, grinding my teeth to try and find some kind of outlet for my own impatience as she struggled to use her computer and talked and talked at me about how Cabracancha needs help and this is wrong and this other thing is wrong. I knew she wanted help for Cabracancha, where she is in charge of the health post, and I appreciated how eagerly she was asking for it, but Cabracancha already had three volunteers, and I sort of felt like I was being manipulated. She started talking about how she needed help with the health workers, and there is a library that was started but never finished and that needs to be fixed. I told her I would be happy to help, but that I first need to focus on my own community, Iraca, and if there is extra time I can see what I can do in Cabracancha. The worst of it was that she would say something, I would respond the word I could get in edgewise, and then she would say it again and stare at me, waiting for another response, so I would start to try and say something more in depth, and she would cut me off. It was completely maddening.
We went into the kitchen to start cooking, and her son brought his bike into the kitchen in the middle of everything and started biking into me again. I stopped responding and he got bored, so he just dropped the bike in the only walking space in the center of the kitchen. The whole kitchen, including sink and shelves and little table was probably seven by five feet. Ellie would propose something to Marco, like drawing or something, and he would just scream at her. As the night wore on I was more and more appalled at his behavior, especially directed at Ellie. I tried distracting him by tickling him, which he liked and I actually got a smile, but this ended in him picking his dog up by it’s two front legs and trying to put her in my lap. He then started hitting me with things, with no word from Ellie. (In the US, the hitting behavior is only tolerable because the parents always say something and are embarrassed…not so much the case here.) At one point, I couldn’t really stand his behavior and her tolerance for it anymore and I said very calmly and sweetly to him, “Marco, why are you yelling?” as if I was actually curious. He had been mid screech at his mom and went quiet. I thought for a brief moment about my great grandmother, infamous for her sweet, benign delivery of pointed comments or questions. I never met her, but I feel her close by often. I think I would probably make even more sense to myself if I had met her.
One thing about Marco, he loves the dog, but is so aggressive with her it borders on violence. He was pretty much throwing her around the kitchen, or dragging her by a leg, and every three minutes or so I would jump from the sound of Estrella screeching in pain.
“He loves his dog.” Ellie would say fondly in response.
I wanted to rescue that dog, but knew it wasn’t possible.
Marco had been dragging around his dad’s cell phone and playing a soccer game on it, which he always claimed he was winning but was actually just pushing random buttons. I took the opportunity for a brief respite from Ellie talking and pulled out my cell phone next to Marco. I played the one game my cell phone has on it, and after a little while, Marco became interested but tried to hide it by saying that his cell phone and his game were cooler. I agreed with him because I thought it would be easier. Nonetheless, he eventually asked if we could switch cell phones. I responded with, “but your cell phone and the game are so much better than mine!”
Ellie thought I hadn’t understood and said, “No, he wants to switch cell phones with you.” She said this in a way that made me think she expected me to hand my cell phone to her four year old, and so in response to her clarification, I said, “I know,” with a smile, and continued playing my game. Ellie started giggling, in a slightly surprised way, which further gave me the impression that most people didn’t say no to her son, her especially. It wasn’t long before Marco started screaming that his phone and game were cooler than mine. I just said, “I know,” and kept playing my game.
We had dinner, which Ellie had made especially to please me. It was pretty much just vegetable stirfry, but given than I don’t get vegetables very often, I thought I had never tasted anything so delicious. Mid-dinner, Ellie realized that Marco hadn’t washed his hands before he ate and I thought she might have a heart attack or cry. I couldn’t tell if her distraught response was because I was there, and she was worried what I was thinking, or if hand washing was really that devastating a topic. She tried to get Marco to go wash his hands but he glared at her defiantly and then started yelling, and Ellie’s husband, Norman, told her to just leave him alone. It wasn’t the first time that night that Marco got away with being a little terrorist because his father told Ellie to back off. The only time all night that Ellie said anything reprimanding, it was a very quiet, “You shouldn’t talk to your mother like that,” as though she was hesitant or afraid to say anything at all, especially in front of her husband. I was pretty shocked at how machismo manifests itself, and although I had heard stories from other volunteers about tyrannical kids and rough host parent relationships, I had yet to be up-close and personal with it. My host dad in Lima had both his daughters college educated and was a complete cupcake of a man – total sweetheart. My host dad here in Iraca is an artistic soul, sweet and gentle, kind, and his son, Edwin, is too. When Edwin visited, he helped out his mom constantly, was a bit shy, but sweet. At my house, Celina clearly wears the pants.
I’ll be frank, I did not like my first full-on exposure to machismo. Ellie may talk until my ears bleed, but she’s an eager, kind woman, who doesn’t deserve to be treated with disrespect by anyone, especially her son.
After dinner, but still sitting at the table, I was thinking hopefully of a bed. It was around then that Marco got up from playing with toys in the corner, walked out the door to their kitchen, and peed in the hallway on the floor. Technically it is sort of outside because there isn’t roof over every part of that hallway, but he definitely peed on cement floor in a corner that would definitely count as inside. I was horrified and more ready for bed. However, Ellie wanted to show me the powerpoints she had in mind for her health promoters the next day. She had three she wanted to give, which would probably take over an hour to do all three, so I suggested for retention purposes, that she only give two of them at most. She settled on one powerpoint about tuberculosis, and another about “Vigilancia Comunitaria”, which is basically community health monitoring by health workers. I didn’t realize that Ellie didn’t want to just let me get the idea of the powerpoints she planned on giving, she wanted to READ EVERY SLIDE to me word for word, and then talk about it. We sat there for two hours while she did exactly what she’d done earlier, she read a slide to me, talked about it forever, and then asked me a question, but wouldn’t let me finish the answer. She kept saying things that were clearly prodding for promises to help, but I couldn’t give them to her. I told her I would give her advice about her promoters after I spent a day with them and had a chance to talk to my boss, but that was it. And it went on…
We got to the point where I was yawning more than I was taking regular breaths, but she was not getting the hint my body was forcefully giving. She then told me she wanted me to give the summary of the powerpoints. What sense did that make? The summary, for people who have trouble absorbing a lot of information, needs to be concise and exact. Don’t give that part to someone who can’t do anything concisely or precisely in Spanish! To keep me sane, I got up to go to the bathroom.
When I came back, it was almost 11:30 at night, and I knew I couldn’t take it anymore. I told her I needed to go to bed, and I did. But after falling asleep on my arms, she came in around midnight and woke me up to give me a pillow.
I went to bed ready to get the hell out of there.
No comments:
Post a Comment