I truly must stop ordering chocolate cake in Peru. I am continually disappointed. However I cannot stop. Instead I am quickly converting to icecream (I´m thinking half the calories right?). The other day I was walking down the street from the CCS house (after a morning at the wawa) towards Mery´s house and I was quite enjoying a marvelous chocolate ice cream sandwich when a little boy passing by bossily ordered that I give him half my ice cream. I was so startled that I impulsively shouted ¨NO,¨ to which he replied ¨SI!¨ I quickened my step, watching my back the rest of the block. I mean, maybe had he asked nicely...
This morning, like every single morning since I´ve been here, I awoke at about 7:40 a.m. to a squeaky (yet loud) young voice, ¨Mamita!?? Mamita!? PAPITO!!!! Donde esta mi chato???!!¨ Mery´s youngest son Esteban is two-years-old and in all my years babysitting ... well, he is something special. He calls his dad ¨chato¨which I think translates to something like ¨shorty.¨ He is a menace and it has taken me five days to even remotely take to him. He screams ¨ayudame!!!!!¨ for absolutely no reason and I daintily step around him after a stern stare (I wish Mery and Carlos would do the same). He basically has a vocabulary consisting of ¨punta¨(bad word), ¨chato,¨ ¨hermanito, mamita, papito,¨and ¨ayudame,¨ and he likes to scream them all over and over and over all friggin day. Adoreable.
But, even so, I am accomodating to life with the Lopez family quite nicely. I have been here for five days and I feel completely adjusted and newly enamored with Mery, the unlikely best friend I found back in Ayacucho. We now have a lovely little routine. Each day we walk to the plaza or the market and for a couple hours she helps me on whatever mission I have for that day, whether it is comparing prices and times for buses to Arequipa (I leave Monday night), finding earplugs (for some reason they were stolen too, and I probably miss them the most), pricing children´s outfits or choosing the perfect Peruvian piece of art for my dream house which I hope to have by the time I´m, I dunno, 40? All the while we take turns practicing English and Spanish and learning about each other´s lives. In the morning I have even gotten used to the breakfast routine. A plate of eggs mixed with rice or hot dogs or whatever (I don´t even care anymore) is placed in the center of the table next to a bag of bread rolls (pretty much how I have been sustaining myself for 3 weeks) and a mug of boiled water for each person. The options are haphazardly spread across the table there-after: jelly, butter, hot cocoa, instant coffee, strange ¨mild coffee¨mix which I am as-yet unable to identify, yet able to vouch for, and each person is given a fork. My first day I was utterly perplexed and nervous about a meal cooked outside the CCS house. I politely sat and waited for individual plates to be placed in front of each person or for the tea bags to arrive center stage. Until, to my dismay, Carlos looked at me and urged me to serve myself. Ooooookkkkeydoke....I went for the bread first and just cut it open and buttered it. That´s safe. That I know. I sneakily watched as Carlos grabbed a roll, ripped it in two and stuffed it with the egg mixture. Egg-and-rice-stuffed roll in left hand, instant coffee in right hand. Duh. Why bother with extra plates which will need washing? How have I never thought of that? Wait ... I know how, because in America I have CEREAL for breakfast every single day. Oh, how I miss my milk and granola in the mornings. I feel rude even mentioning the option of milk with my coffee or God-forbid in my tea. (Katherine that is all your fault.) But, on a different note, I now expect lunch at 3:30 p.m. and dinner at 10, and eat without caution. I think my stomach has surrendered. I´m gonna be O.K..
The past two days were particularly intense. Yesterday Mery joined Bertha and her two children (Dayana and Diego, Mariella had school), her neice Naomi and myself as we spent the day together. We went to Mirador which is a sort of lookout high above the city where Diego insisted on washing his face with stagnant fountain water. Mery has a make-shift camera, with a broken screen and so we guestimated as we took pictures high above the city and then at lunch and over cake for Naomi´s birthday two weeks ago. I asked Naomi if she had had a party (no), cake? (no), and so I told her that that day we would feast on cake. Which you see, leads back to my opening sentence about the inadequate quality of the chocolate cake in this place. Anyway, it was nice to spend the day with both Bertha and Mery, and might I add Mery´s English is improving by leaps and bounds...
Today was the day before D-day. I went to the bank and transferred the rest of my donation money into soles and Mery and I went to the central market (affectionately known by tourists as the ¨smelly mar
ket¨) and bought outfits for each of the children and a nice sweater for Bertha and one for Tanaya´s madre last year, Gloria. It was a massive project and took about two hours and 645 soles. We got pretty good prices and very good quality clothes. That is a picture of Mery working her number magic in the clothes store and calculating a deal. I have some leftover donations and I had an idea while we were shopping on where to use them. Yesterday, when I met Bertha at her house in Covadonga, she was a little upset and told me her friend died late last night from what I have deduced (through extensive questioning and help from Mery) to be stomach cancer. She was sick for only two weeks before she died and she has left behind six children and a husband who doesn´t work and abused his wife even in her last two weeks. How does that happen? I don´t know. Mery and Bertha both agreed and said that it is just how the men are here. (Not to discount the men, like Carlos, who DO work and DON´T beat their wives, but from what I´ve been told they are the minority.) I asked Bertha who will take care of the children and she had no answer. Now, I know first-hand, that after a death in the family, one of the most appreciated and underestimated things people can do to help is to bring food to the house. Cooking is a chore, leaving the house is out of the question and even getting out of bed is optional, so ... I will bring them food. Mery and I will go to the market tomorrow (again) and embark on a project similar to the one Imar, Jimmy, Peter and I undertook in Pisco, but this time it should be much much easier and for me, the results will nearly be tangible. I would never show up at their door with money (their father would probably squander it on alcohol), but food I can do. They are probably forgetting to eat as it is ... a common symptom of grief.
This morning, like every single morning since I´ve been here, I awoke at about 7:40 a.m. to a squeaky (yet loud) young voice, ¨Mamita!?? Mamita!? PAPITO!!!! Donde esta mi chato???!!¨ Mery´s youngest son Esteban is two-years-old and in all my years babysitting ... well, he is something special. He calls his dad ¨chato¨which I think translates to something like ¨shorty.¨ He is a menace and it has taken me five days to even remotely take to him. He screams ¨ayudame!!!!!¨ for absolutely no reason and I daintily step around him after a stern stare (I wish Mery and Carlos would do the same). He basically has a vocabulary consisting of ¨punta¨(bad word), ¨chato,¨ ¨hermanito, mamita, papito,¨and ¨ayudame,¨ and he likes to scream them all over and over and over all friggin day. Adoreable.
But, even so, I am accomodating to life with the Lopez family quite nicely. I have been here for five days and I feel completely adjusted and newly enamored with Mery, the unlikely best friend I found back in Ayacucho. We now have a lovely little routine. Each day we walk to the plaza or the market and for a couple hours she helps me on whatever mission I have for that day, whether it is comparing prices and times for buses to Arequipa (I leave Monday night), finding earplugs (for some reason they were stolen too, and I probably miss them the most), pricing children´s outfits or choosing the perfect Peruvian piece of art for my dream house which I hope to have by the time I´m, I dunno, 40? All the while we take turns practicing English and Spanish and learning about each other´s lives. In the morning I have even gotten used to the breakfast routine. A plate of eggs mixed with rice or hot dogs or whatever (I don´t even care anymore) is placed in the center of the table next to a bag of bread rolls (pretty much how I have been sustaining myself for 3 weeks) and a mug of boiled water for each person. The options are haphazardly spread across the table there-after: jelly, butter, hot cocoa, instant coffee, strange ¨mild coffee¨mix which I am as-yet unable to identify, yet able to vouch for, and each person is given a fork. My first day I was utterly perplexed and nervous about a meal cooked outside the CCS house. I politely sat and waited for individual plates to be placed in front of each person or for the tea bags to arrive center stage. Until, to my dismay, Carlos looked at me and urged me to serve myself. Ooooookkkkeydoke....I went for the bread first and just cut it open and buttered it. That´s safe. That I know. I sneakily watched as Carlos grabbed a roll, ripped it in two and stuffed it with the egg mixture. Egg-and-rice-stuffed roll in left hand, instant coffee in right hand. Duh. Why bother with extra plates which will need washing? How have I never thought of that? Wait ... I know how, because in America I have CEREAL for breakfast every single day. Oh, how I miss my milk and granola in the mornings. I feel rude even mentioning the option of milk with my coffee or God-forbid in my tea. (Katherine that is all your fault.) But, on a different note, I now expect lunch at 3:30 p.m. and dinner at 10, and eat without caution. I think my stomach has surrendered. I´m gonna be O.K..
The past two days were particularly intense. Yesterday Mery joined Bertha and her two children (Dayana and Diego, Mariella had school), her neice Naomi and myself as we spent the day together. We went to Mirador which is a sort of lookout high above the city where Diego insisted on washing his face with stagnant fountain water. Mery has a make-shift camera, with a broken screen and so we guestimated as we took pictures high above the city and then at lunch and over cake for Naomi´s birthday two weeks ago. I asked Naomi if she had had a party (no), cake? (no), and so I told her that that day we would feast on cake. Which you see, leads back to my opening sentence about the inadequate quality of the chocolate cake in this place. Anyway, it was nice to spend the day with both Bertha and Mery, and might I add Mery´s English is improving by leaps and bounds...
Today was the day before D-day. I went to the bank and transferred the rest of my donation money into soles and Mery and I went to the central market (affectionately known by tourists as the ¨smelly mar
ket¨) and bought outfits for each of the children and a nice sweater for Bertha and one for Tanaya´s madre last year, Gloria. It was a massive project and took about two hours and 645 soles. We got pretty good prices and very good quality clothes. That is a picture of Mery working her number magic in the clothes store and calculating a deal. I have some leftover donations and I had an idea while we were shopping on where to use them. Yesterday, when I met Bertha at her house in Covadonga, she was a little upset and told me her friend died late last night from what I have deduced (through extensive questioning and help from Mery) to be stomach cancer. She was sick for only two weeks before she died and she has left behind six children and a husband who doesn´t work and abused his wife even in her last two weeks. How does that happen? I don´t know. Mery and Bertha both agreed and said that it is just how the men are here. (Not to discount the men, like Carlos, who DO work and DON´T beat their wives, but from what I´ve been told they are the minority.) I asked Bertha who will take care of the children and she had no answer. Now, I know first-hand, that after a death in the family, one of the most appreciated and underestimated things people can do to help is to bring food to the house. Cooking is a chore, leaving the house is out of the question and even getting out of bed is optional, so ... I will bring them food. Mery and I will go to the market tomorrow (again) and embark on a project similar to the one Imar, Jimmy, Peter and I undertook in Pisco, but this time it should be much much easier and for me, the results will nearly be tangible. I would never show up at their door with money (their father would probably squander it on alcohol), but food I can do. They are probably forgetting to eat as it is ... a common symptom of grief.
1 comment:
Gervase,
It sounds like your days are filled with interesting moments and challenges. Thank you for sharing your adventures with us through your blog. We send hugs and lots of love and trust God is blessing the community you are serving with your unique and generous gifts of selfless love and service.
Saludos to your extended family,
Linda & Alejandro
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