The gringa kidnapper

I have a little down time waiting to meet up with a friend so I guess I'll write again. Yesterday evening I finally got in touch with my friend Vladi, who had (understandably I guess) been sleeping all day, and we walked and drove around until we finally found a place that was open and served Pisco Sours, to celebrate my arrival in Peru. Once we ordered the Pisco I insisted on also ordering a plate of Anticucho, grilled cow's heart. Peruvian specialty. Yuuummmmmm. OK, I admit, I mostly mentioned that to gross people out, but it is actually surprisingly good.

I just got done eating lunch in the house of the family I am staying with (until tonight, when my room is overtaken by another relative and I move to a hostel) and I was reminded of one of my not-so-favorite parts of Peruvian culture: being expected to gorge yourself with food at every meal. The food is good, but man, there is always so much of it. As I tried to forcefeed myself as much of my soup and giant plate of food as I could, I watched the nanny forcefeeding the two-year-old grandaughter of Cecilia, Destiny. For at least a half hour before I went out to use the internet, the nanny was goading the child to eat more and more and more, using every threat and scare tactic possible. I didn't dare interrupt to say that I thought Destiny had probably eaten enough already, but I was somewhat taken aback when the nanny told the girl that if she didn't eat, 'la senorita' (me) was going to carry her away in my suitcase. Destiny looked at me with wide eyes, and I wasn't quite sure how to act, having just been painted as an evil gringa kidnapper. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a guy I randomly met on a bus when I was travelling in Bolivia. He grew up in the isolated desert town of Uyuni just as tourism there was beginning to boom, and he said his mother used to warn him not to go near the gringos, because the reason they carry those big backpacks is to kidnap children. Or if they didn't kidnap you, they'd take your picture so they could put it on the internet and somehow make a lot of money from it. Well, apparently this kidnapping thing is a perpetuated myth in Peru. Maybe the nanny, too, was told when she was a kid that she might be kidnapped by gringos. She kept repeating to Destiny that even as she spoke I was packing my suitcase, and if she didn't eat I would put her in and take her with me to my country. Eventually I started to play along, just because I figured the damage to my reputation was already done. I'm not sure if Destiny believed any of it, but you could tell it was making her think. Crazy Peruvians.