So the past two weeks have been busy ones. I went out with my health post and did a district-wide census (I wouldn’t recommend it), I taught my first tai-chi class, celebrated my six month anniversary in Peru, and my family got the plague.
We can start out with the present. Yesterday was my grandma’s 65th birthday. Along with being a great-grandmother, she also is the town butcher. We call her “mamita.” So I woke up early yesterday morning, eager to embrace the day. I went into my health post, jacked some markers and went to town on a baller card. I’m not sure if I’ve let you all know, but the whole card industry is practically non-existent. To find a decent card whether it be birthday/funeral/hello related, is about as easy as finding a job in Detroit. So, I have started card maker, inc. This means writing happy birthday in big, bubble letters and getting the family to sign it.
But since it was “la mamitas” cumpleaños, we made a poster, and I got EVERYONE in my family (roughly 30 people including my cousin in jail) to sign the poster. Granted, my jailed cousin didn’t actually write his name down, but his mom did. He was there in spirit. But it was a great day; we all hung out, ate lunch (goat and noodles mmmm), listened to music, and drank beer. I mainly hung out with my 16 year old cousin because a. I’m in love with her baby (yes, she has a baby) and b. she likes to talk about America. She asked me at one point which clothing style I liked more and I unguardedly told her American. I couldn’t tell her why though. How do I explain that I haven’t liked polyester, tight clothing, or tube tops with sparkles all that much since I went to dances at St. Elizabeth’s in the eighth grade (and God forbid you wear any of those clothes to those dances, the chaperones would gladly supply you with a dirty gym t shit from the lost and found; however, it always seemed that the cool girls got away with the “Peruvian approved” clothing, while I wore less than flattering oxfords covering an Old Navy tank top with “mother-approved khakis”).
But on a serious note, this girl is cool and I feel badly that she got stuck in such a bad situation when she was so young. She got pregnant at fourteen (not uncommon here mind you) and well, that’s that. Abortion (no matter what your stance) is illegal here (not to say that it doesn’t happen though), so yep, young girls do have babies and I would be shocked if I ever saw the father help pay for the child. Sucks. However, this baby (named Dannaé) is the chubbiest, happiest baby I’ve ever seen and I want to eat her fat chubby thunder-thighs.
Okay moving on… someone in my health post decided there needed to be a district- wide census conducted during the hottest part of the year. This means my town, and it’s four “caserios” (neighboring, smaller, satellite towns). I was about as excited for this as I would be to chew mud. This is a door- to –door event. Trick is, my town is no Woody Guthrie’s “Little Boxes” neighborhood. We have people living in entropy (science major reference)- in the woods, on the river, and up on hills in the middle of nowhere that harbor potentially mean dogs. So we went out, with sticks, hats, sunglasses and clipboards and for five days nonstop knocked on doors to find who lived where, how many lived in each house, if they had health insurance, what their economic sitch (abbreviation) was like, and all that jazz. After each five hours of work, we got a juice box and a package of saltines. How’s about that for some incentive! But well, it needed to be done and by the end I got a lot closer with my health promoters and I actually feel like I have Peruvian friends.
I had to take one morning off form the census though because I came down with “the plague.” My family calls it dengue, I don’t believe it, but it was something. It started on a Monday with my uncle Rene not feeling too hot. Slowly but surely, each day, someone else felt sick. Symptoms include: fever, chills, soreness of the muscles, bones and vision (sounds weird but it’s true, my eyes hurt), headaches, rash, body itching and vomiting. With each day, I watched as one by one, someone else would feel sick and I was dealing out Ibuprofen lie candy. I knew I was doomed when my mom didn’t make me breakfast one morning. It had entered my house and soon enough, I got it too. And let me tell you, it sucks having a fever and having to lie in a bed, sweating, with no ginger ale (forget about ice in it) and flies buzzing all around. Miz. Lucky for me, I just felt bad for one day- poor uncle Ruco though. He actually got dengue and I am forever terrified of mosquitoes as a result. His skin got dark red and bubbly and had to get rushed to the Tumbes hospital with dehydration. And they say dengue hits gringos worse. DEET + mosquito net = my best friends.
Side note: my mosquito net has also been my best protection against the cockroaches and crickets that roam my floor in the middle of the night.
Lastly and most recently, today I taught my first tai chi class with the “Adultos Mayores” (old people). You may think to yourself, “Now I never knew Lindsey practiced tai chi.” That’s because I never have. God bless YouTube and cd- burning technology. We started at ten this morning and for 25 minutes, we “flowed like butterflies in the wind” (actual words said). I think it went well! So were meeting again this next Saturday.
You all are probably beginning to feel the first inklings of spring and the trees are getting ready to bloom. That’s my favorite time of the year. I talked to Maggie on the internet the other day and couldn’t help but freak out and say that we graduated college almost a year ago. Time flies. The 11th was my six-month anniversary in Peru and I ‘m happy to say that joining the Peace Corps (other than going to Miami and meeting my best friends) is probably the best decision I’ve ever made. Not because I love the U.S. government- that’s definitely not it. Not that I love diarrhea or being far from home- but because I really am amazed that I get to live in a foreign country, travel to the jungle for Semana Santa with great friends (wahoo!), speak Spanish, and teach yoga to little kids. Hopefully the next six months will go just as well! Peace out folks.
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