Carnaval games, "news", patronage, making guitars cry.

Carnaval festivities have finally come to an end, but not without a bang. On Sunday, the last day of Carnaval, Raquel and I went out looking for trouble. Unfortunately the plan to play with Mijael (formerly spelled incorrectly as “Mikhel”) and his friends fell through because Mijael had to replace someone at his other job at a hotel. But with just a little provocation, Raquel and I were able to make huge wet, foamy, chalky, confetti-covered messes of ourselves. Rosita made me fill up and carry all the balloons we had in stock, because she said I had to get some people wet for her too since she wasn’t playing. However, we used up most of the water balloons before we went out in a battle on Raquel’s patio with her dad, who had the advantage of a garden hose (luckily it was a warm day). After that we took a taxi to the Plaza de Armas to be in the center of the action. It wasn’t as crazy as I thought it would be, which may be because of something Rosita told me—apparently Carnaval gaming was officially prohibited this year because of an incident last year in which a pregnant woman’s baby was killed after someone dumped a huge bucket of water on her from a balcony. Of course this hasn’t stopped people from playing, but there’s a lot less of it than in past years. That having been said, it would have been impossible to return home unscathed even if we hadn’t been looking for trouble. Some highlights of the adventure: We witnessed a group of rambunctious tourists from somewhere in Europe spray foam on an entire tour group of elderly Japanese tourists. Needless to say they were not amused. Then we were recruited by a salsa teacher to come and throw water balloons at people from the balcony of one of the discotecas. That was fun. After we ran out of water balloons we decided we needed to buy a can of foam to spray at people. This purchase left us no cash for a taxi home, so we had no choice but to walk. There were several incidents on our way home, the most notable of which occurred right before we arrived in the community where we live. A truck full of guys stopped right next to us and loaded out onto the sidewalk with water balloons, foam, and buckets to fill with water. We ran past them and emerged wet and covered with foam, only to realize that we had passed our houses and had to go back the way from which we came. On the way back the boys were prepared with a bucket of water for each of us and plenty more foam. It was all in good fun, but I’m glad we didn’t have to walk very far after that.

This whole weekend was really fun because while my host parents were at their weekend house in Lamay I got to hang out with Rosita and Mijael. On Saturday I made brownies and bought a bottle of wine, and Jenny, Raquel, Mijael and I all sat around drinking it with our brownies, talking, and playing guitar for hours. I also had some more quality bonding time with Rosita. On Sunday night I got my first real taste of Peruvian television news; I hadn’t seen much of it before that because usually when the TV is on my family is watching American blockbuster movies dubbed into Spanish or ridiculous soap operas with titles like “Pasiones prohibidas” (“Forbidden Passions”). But on Sunday I discovered that news here is just as entertaining. Compared to this stuff, even Fox News would look like it has integrity. The first news story I saw was about a woman with breast cancer who had to have both her breasts removed. It might have been a moving story, except that the majority of the story was about how she went to this wonderful plastic surgeon who fixed her up, and after about 15 minutes I decided that this “news” story was actually more of an advertisement for plastic surgery. The second news story was about an outbreak of rabies which is being spread by vampire bats, mostly in the jungle areas of Peru (although kind of frighteningly close to the area where I am currently). This news story lasted a half hour and consisted of three parts: first, a debriefing on all the locales in which there’s a good chance you’ll be bitten by a bat; second, a series of interviews with people who had either been bitten or known someone who had been bitten by one of the bats, accompanied by some charming footage of a little girl dying of rabies in a hospital; third, a fragment entitled “The Hunting of the Bats” (I’m not kidding!) which was filmed in the style of The Blair Witch Project. Rosita told me the next morning that she hadn’t fallen asleep until 1 am the night before because she was so freaked out by the bat story.

A couple more little things: yesterday (Monday) Rosita wasn’t around for lunch because she was traveling somewhere for her thesis work. To my surprise, my host mom and dad invited Mijael to come eat with us at the table, and he did after being told that Rosita wasn’t around. Apparently the real reason he doesn’t eat with us at the table most of the time is because he doesn’t feel comfortable. Rosita explained to me that when he was in high school Mijael lived for awhile in Gabi’s house (my host mom’s daughter), and one day there was an incident in which he came home really drunk and Gabi slapped him across the face (I’m not positive I got the story right, but that’s what I understood of it anyway). So now he doesn’t like eating with the family, although he is technically always invited to—in a kind of altruistic yet patronizing way. I can’t really blame him for not wanting to eat at the table I guess. Also, I figured out that the “fish tanks” in the garage under my house are actually a pet store which is owned by Mijael’s sister (OK, so maybe the fact that I hadn’t realized this until now tells you that I am not the most observant person on earth, but in my defense, my host parents never told me). His sister rents the space from my family, and Mijael works there during the day, then goes to his other job at the hotel from 10:00 – 1:00. And somewhere in between those things, he also studies. According to him he gets a maximum of five hours of sleep a night, between 1:00 and 6:00 am. And I get bitchy on anything less than 7 hours of sleep. Man.

One last thing to end off this entry on a more cheerful note: I learned in Quechua class today that the verb you use in Quechua to say you are playing guitar literally means that you are making the guitar cry. That is one of the coolest things I have heard in a long time. Speaking of which, I have another lesson in making my guitar cry in a few minutes, for which reason I will now end this entry.