drunk driving is not fun when you´re sober

Okay so im still here in tumbes… its been a little over a week now and im still going strong. My family is finally starting to realize my sense of humor and now they laugh at my jokes. Im not saying im a funny person or anything, but sometimes I think my jokes are humorous and when I get little to no response from the Peruvian peanut gallery, its a little discouraging. But once again, I think that is due to the fact that I have the Spanish speaking capacity as the 3 year old girl with the speech impediment that lives down the street.
Each day here is a new adventure. so I could probably talk about what has been going on here for eons; however I neither have the patience nor, well, the patience to do that. I will let you know that a random parrot flew into our house a few days ago and has become a third pet (behind polly the terrible parrot and blanco the dog). This means there is twice as much noise coming from the devil-parrots every day and twice as much harrasment for me. I say devil parrots because I really do believe they are evil and refer to polly as “Diablo” or “Satan” in English. Blanco is pretty chill and I want to be friends with him. Yesterday I was patting him and asked my mom what all the red spots were on his fur. I THOUGHT she said it was from eating berries. What is REALLY was, was goat blood that had dripped all over him while he was licking the floor below the goat that had been skinned, cleaned, and cut in half, and was now hanging from my grandma’s doorway. With its brain hanging out mind you. I should have taken a picture of myself playing pogs (yes they play pogs here) next to the dead, hollowed out goat later that day.

This past Saturday I went to my first Peruvian baptism. I went to the market that day, bought the loosest fitting shirt I could find (all of the clothes here should be worn only by preteens if by anyone- they are small as hell, tight fitting, and made out of that terrible fabric that forever 21 sometimes sells where it makes you sweat and is really cheap feeling/looking) and headed out with my family to a neighboring town, Cerro Blanco. I can say without doubt this was the most painful night of my stay here in Peru (minus the health issues). The baptism itself was two and a half hours long, and the only thing that helped pass the time was laughing quietly to myself when stray dogs would wander in and walk around the church. Afterwards we went got dinner from a food tent. I was asked if I prefered goat or fried pig. Wanting neither, I chose goat because the pigs here are disgusting, eat poop, and have trichinosis and I didn’t feel like having worms crawl through my brain in a few weeks. However, I’m not sure if the goat was that much better or a choice. I would have rather eaten cat food than approach my cena (dinner). So I politely ate the rice and said I was full. Sorry, I eat ceviche, majao, and can ALMOST deal with a chicken foot in my soup but I also know when to draw the line.

So needless to say, I was in a pissy mood after not having eaten and not liking boring baptisms slash not understanding a damn thing the priest was saying into his almost non-functional microphone. So my mom, sister and I took a walk around the main plaza of Cerro Blanco since there was a big party going on for its anniversary. While watching people sing on stage, fireworks started going off. I say fireworks, but really I mean fireBOMBS. They must have had a blind person setting these things off because they were shooting them directly at the crowd of people in the plaza. At one point, a firework was set off, started going in an upward direction, but hit its vertical limit way too early and went off right into a group of people. This was fun (note sarcasm). No one was hurt or burned or anything but people were all crowding around this one couple who weren’t able to hear anything afterwards and who knows what else. I couldn’t really see what was going on.

Having enough of waiting around, I joined my father and the godparents of the baptized kiddo at the outdoor bar. Everyone had been there for a good two hours and after another hour and a half with me there, everyone (minus me and the 3 year old) were borracho (drunk off their asses). This included the mother of the baptisee who was throwing up in the middle of our drinking circle, where I got to see goat and rice for the second time. We just continued to drink around her/her bodily fluids. At 1:30 am, my family called it quits and my father (drunk), asked me (sober) if I knew how to drive stick shift aka the car he drove us over in. I bet you can see where this is going. Replying no, I only drove automatic cars slash was not allowed to drive around Peru in general, this left him as the designated drunk driver to get us back to San Juan- about 8 km away. Though that doesn’t seem far, it was the longest drive of my life. My father asked me to “avisale” (advise him) and tell if he was driving alright or not. The only time I said anything while gripping my seat in the car was when we managed to drive on the left hand side of the road while another car was coming in our direction. I thought of that as an appropriate move. So yeah, that was fun. Kind of.

In other Peruvian news, we celebrated World AIDS day yesterday and the day before. I participated in a march around my down with some students in secondaria (ages 14-16). My socio communitario (Peruvian health promoter counterpart) and I made posters of giant condoms that said “Use me” and made red ribbons to hand out to people. It was really fun! I’m pretty sure most of my work here will be HIV AIDS related which is pretty exciting.

Also notable: I had decent pizza the other night at a restaurant, I have more bugbites on my feet that are seriously so terrible its hard to sleep, I have an HIV AIDS workshop that two other volunteers have been working on all year on Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday I’m headed to Piura city to have my monthly regional meeting with other health volunteers from the departments of Piura and Tumbes. Also, even though it’s hot as an oven here, people are starting to decorate for Christmas! We put up our fake tree today!!!! My sister Prixi also put my name in a secret santa hat between her and her girlfriends so I’ve got to do some shopping for “Susan” in the next few days. I almost feel like I have friends aside from PC peeps.

Okay so yeah, that was long- hope you all didn’t fall asleep while reading this or just stop halfway through! Have a great day/ weekend everyone- talk to you later. P.S. Everyone wish Meghan well! Her procedure went well and I am happy about that- yay for no life-long colon problems.