Weekend of nonstop cultural experience 3/17-3/18

Like I’ve said before about Peru, every day here is an adventure, but there are certain days that just feel like one giant cultural experience; days that make you think that maybe someone in the Middlebury study abroad office, or Jean-Jacques (a silly French man who is the director of this entire SIT Peru program) is actually a puppet-master pulling some stings behind the scenes just to make your experience extra-cultural. This weekend consisted of two of those days. From about noon to 2 pm on Saturday, I sat at the kitchen table with my family, innocently studying a poem I have to memorize in Quechua, and simultaneously witnessing machismo in action. My host parents had meant to leave for their weekend house in the campo at noon, so they were running late. My host mom (Socorro) was busily preparing food to take to the campo so they could eat lunch as soon as they arrived, and my host dad (Ramiro) was sitting at the kitchen table watching her. And complaining the whole time because they were running late, and it was all Socorro’s fault because she had woken up too late, and now they weren’t even going to be able to eat lunch until around 3. And it would not be an exaggeration or use of an unnecessary profanity were I to say that Ramiro does not do shit in the house. Ever. He comes back from his work in his development program in the mines about once a week or so, and then sits there are gets served on. At the same time that Ramiro was exercising his machismo, Socorro was freaking out because she didn’t know where Rosita had gone and when she was going to get back. She was worried that she wouldn’t get back before they left, and so I might have no one to put my already-prepared lunch in the microwave for me, and God knows, I might starve.

Finally at around 2:00 they left, and about 10 minutes later Rosita showed up. I told her what had happened, and she said she had gone to visit her cousin in the hospital, who got into a horrible bus accident about a week ago. According to her she had told Socorro exactly where she was going. We started getting into a conversation about how ridiculous and crazy Socorro is, and I mentioned the four heavy duty locks on the door and said I couldn’t understand why she’s so paranoid about getting robbed all the time. Rosita explained that a few years ago, the family was robbed while everyone in the house was asleep. The robbers came in through a tiny downstairs bathroom window and took the computer, some family jewelry, and a few other things. Rosita thinks it was a political crime, because at the time Ramiro was running for mayor of Cuzco, for a progressive political party called Popular Action or something like that. I couldn’t understand why that would make the robbers want to punish him; maybe they just don’t like politicians in general. Then we kept talking about how crazy Socorro is, and I said that she thinks that I can’t do anything by myself. Rosita told me that’s probably because there are a lot of things around the house that she herself can’t do, and that she frequently calls Rosita to ask her things like how to turn on the stove and the oven.

After lunch Rosita and I went to Gabi’s (Socorro’s daughter’s) house so Rosita could help her cook, since tomorrow is her birthday and she was preparing for a big party at night. I figured out that Mijael’s sister, Erika, is the maid at Gabi’s house. Well, one of his sisters, that is; he has five of them. And three brothers on top of that. Mijael is the youngest of the whole bunch. So back to Gabi’s kitchen—I spent about an hour helping Erika put together about a hundred little cheese pastries, while Rosita cleaned the patio. When we got back Rosita went to use an internet café for a little bit, and I went down to the fish store to say hello to Mijael and show him some pictures I had taken in Manu. Sometime in the half hour I was in the store, Socorro called the house wanting to talk to me for some reason (this wasn’t even the first time she’d called to talk to me since she’d left for the campo) and Rosita said I wasn’t in the house and she didn’t know where I was. Apparently Socorro started freaking out. “How is she not in the house?!!” “I don’t know, maybe she went for a walk or something,” Rosita told her. “Or maybe she’s down in the store.” (By the way, about a week ago I was instructed by Socorro not to go down to the store too much, “because it seems like Mijael isn’t doing his work.” Bullshit.) So when I came back up to the house after about a half hour, Rosita told me what had happened and said that Socorro was going to call again soon to make sure I was in the house. She never called, but that might have been because I spent so much time using the phone to rant to friends about how nuts she is.

After that I briefly met Rosita’s friend who she is writing her thesis with—she and Rosita came back to the house with some fried chicken and French fries and we made some good conversation for about an hour. I really really like her friend, whose name is Vanesa. Among other things Vanesa asked me what I think the difference is between American and Peruvian guys, and I told her that I think Peruvians are much friendlier and easier to talk to in general, but that there is definitely a lot more machismo here. She said that she thinks Peruvian guys also lie more than American guys, which I hesitated to believe, but when she gave an example I understood: Whenever a guy tells you he doesn’t have a girlfriend, he probably does. It’s an extension of machismo. Here’s an example from my own experience: I won’t get into great detail with this anecdote, but suffice it to say that after being blatantly hit on by my 30-year-old-ish guitar teacher in most of my lessons, I called his house today to talk about lessons I had missed, and guess who answered the phone! His wife! Huh, the guy who told me he wants to go dancing on the weekends but doesn’t know who to go with has a wife. The moral of the story is that you’ve got to be careful with Peruvian guys. They talk suave but they’re usually not that innocent. Ha. Also, Rosita is completely convinced that Mijael has a secret girlfriend, a suspicion that I'm not sure whether to take seriously.

The party at Gabi’s was another cultural experience, even thought I didn’t stay very long because I was exhausted. Gabi kept insisting that I drink Pisco sour, which is the typical Peruvian alcoholic beverage, consisting of a liquor called Pisco, sprite, and lime. I kept having to explain to her that the doctor had explicitly forbidden me to drink alcohol while I am on antibiotics. Gabi was all dressed up and perfumed; she’s definitely the type who you can tell loves nothing more than throwing parties for herself. She’s a sweet person, but so upper class it makes you want to vomit. When I told her beforehand about our group’s excursion to Huilloq, for instance, she said, “You’re spending two nights there? No, Noe, it would be better if you spent the night here. It’s very dirty there.” I politely laughed it off. I’ve gotten in the habit of referring to her as “La Señora Gabi” (“Miss Gabi”) because that’s how Rosita and Mijael both refer to her. All the guests at her party sat down in the living room and were offered Pisco sours, while Rosita, Erika, and Marleni (another random sister of Mijael’s) sat in the kitchen helping out with food or went upstairs to look after the children while their parents became intoxicated. I should clarify that they, too, were offered Pisco sours, but not to drink with the rest of the guests.

At the party, Erika (Mijael’s sister, the maid) invited me to come to her sister’s house the next day (the sister who owns the fish store) because it was going to be her neice’s 4th birthday. Mijael didn't show up, evidently because of some miscommunication, although at the time I was suspicious that he had gone to visit his supposed secret girlfriend. But in any case, I had a really good time meeting the rest of Mijael’s family: four of his sisters (Erika, Marle, Elisabeth, and one other whose name I can’t remember), one husband, and several of his nieces and nephews, including the little girl who was turning four, and a month-old baby. They seem like a really nice, down to earth family—probably what you could call the Peruvian middle class if there is one. We sat down to a meal that consisted of really watery flan, chocolate pudding, hot chocolate, chocolate cake, cookies, and marshmallows. Basically it was a shitload of sugar. The whole family kept trying to ask me questions in Quechua (they all speak Spanish as a first language, but their parents spoke Quechua), and usually I would give them a blank stare for a few seconds before understanding at least a couple words of what they had said, well enough to answer the question. The good thing is that whenever I say anything correctly, they tell me I speak really well because they’re impressed I can even speak it at all. Before leaving the party I took lots of pictures of the family, and, like in Huilloq, it was a big event for them for someone to have a digital camera. Except in this case I will be able to make them a CD of the photos rather than sending it by snail mail.