September 7, 2006- Lunch is served and I want nothing to do with it.

I almost succeeded in avoiding it for 3 months, but today, much to my chagrin, fried guinea pig (cuy frito) showed up on my plate for lunch. Poor little passive guinea pig- I am sure you did nothing to deserve this! Its smell is what struck me first. It was a bit swampy and amphibian-like in its stench (man, I love when my food reeks of marsh matter!), and to be honest, eating it reminded me of dissecting frogs in junior high. There wasn’t much meat on the bone, which I was grateful for, because it wasn’t too obvious that I only ate a morsel. Every time I peeled its thick skin back to reach the meat, it would come flinging back at me, and I found myself wishing I had little pushpins, such as the ones we were provided in science class, to hold the skin down. The final straw for me was when I picked it up by its foot to start gnawing on its leg, and a toenail fell off into my rice. This is what I have to look forward to every Thursday, because it is our regional dish, and the people of Jesus (minus me) count down the days until their next serving of cuy frito. I consider myself the least finicky eater of all of my friends, and maybe of anyone I know, but something has got to give here. My town does not eat fruit, dairy products, or vegetables, and I don’t want to offend my family by bringing these things back from the city each time I visit. Am I going to have to start a clandestine cornucopia of vitamin-enriched foods in my bedroom? One thing is for sure. I can’t eat chicken noodle soup, rice, and dry white potatoes for the next two years. WHAAAAAAAAA! (I’m crying).

Perhaps you want to hear about how my work is coming along. It’s at a standstill, because I am a coward around my counterpart, Dr. Cesar. I believe I may have mentioned him before in all of his striking beauty. When I finally gain enough courage to go to the Centro de Salud to talk to him, my courage never stretches to cover obstacles (like him being on a home visit), so when I am told by the nurse that he will be back in 20 minutes, my nervously neurotic nature won’t allow for me to wait for him. I scribble an illegible note on a napkin for him, and run out of the office like the socially awkward maniac I am. We have since been communication through writing notes to one another and sliding them under each other’s doors. I hear this is a really effective mode of communication, especially since the majority of his notes to me slid down our basement stairs, only for me to find a stack of them today, all of which were awaiting prompt responses from me. Our official reunion with him and the rest of the Centro de Salud crew is set for Monday. If only we could do it over the phone! If only my town had phones!

On to more exciting topics. The Peace Corps provided us all with some pretty nice cell phones. From what I have heard from past volunteers, we will probably all be robbed of these. I thought that I would only be able to use mine when I went into the city two times a week, but in all of my explorations, I found one pea-sized spot on my roof where I get some mottled reception (yes, this means that my family is the only family in my whole town that gets cell phone reception- a tiny bit). The interesting thing about this spot is that I can’t stand upright in it if I want to have an uninterrupted conversation with someone. What I have to do is bend over 45 degrees, face to the west, straddle this electrical structure we have up there on the roof, and tilt my head rather uncomfortably to the right. Someday soon, I am going to have someone take a picture of me in that exact position so you all can appreciate the lengths I go through to make a phone call.

From 10pm to 2am my first night here, I helped my dad and his posse paint his name and political sign on houses and buildings in our town in anticipation of the November elections, when he is running for mayor. During that time, I acquired a stalker. He is this really jittery fellow, around my age, who is always talking really loudly and laughing when not provoked. Quite a catch, eh? When my dad told him I was from Pennsylvania, you would have thought the guy was in the audience at a stand-up comedy show. For the next hour or so, he repeated “Pennsylvania” innumerable times, and cackled like a hyena about it. What’s so funny? As I was telling another Peace Corps volunteer that I painted like it was my job that night, he reminded me that the Peace Corps told us it was dangerous to express a political affiliation in our towns. In how therapeutic painting is for me, that detail slipped my mind. I think if the townspeople choose to hate me for helping my host dad paint his symbol, they probably aren’t going to like me living with him either, so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much about it. Regarding my stalker though, here is the conversation that ensued yesterday between my host dad and I about him.

Manuel (host dad): “Lindsay, you probably shouldn’t hang out with him that much, he is a little bit outside of reality, and doesn’t have a good reputation in the town.”
Lindsay: “Why is his reputation bad?”
M: “Because he is insane.”
L: “Oh, what is his name?”
M: “Insane.”
L: “No, his name.”
M: “Oh, I see. His name is crazy.”
L: “No, seriously, what is his birthname?”
M: “His name is psycho.”
L: “One more time. What name did his mother give him after he exited her birth canal?”
M: “Ohhhhh….Tito. Tito is his name.”

Isn’t it lovely how mental illness is treated in my little mountain town?

Signing off in Cajamarca for the day. More later.