January 15, 2007- ¨Lindsay, did you just say you were 2500 meters tall?¨

Yes, in fact, that is precisely what I said. Hmmmm…2500 meters. One tall girl I am, that´s for sure. I wish I could blame my response on confusion about the metric system, but after nearly seven months here, I have that system under control. What I don´t seem to have under control is simple conversation, such as answering the question, ¨How tall are you?¨ Somehow the question sounded like ¨At what altitude do you live at?¨ to me, and boy did I feel smart when I knew the answer to that question. When the nurse that asked me the question started arguing with me, I was wondering why she even asked if she knew the answer, but then I realized that I had misinterpreted her question and she was merely pointing out that I was about 2499 meters off in my height estimation. It was very reminiscent to a situation that my friend Rob encountered while we were in Argentina. After we went skydiving for the first time, we excitedly returned home to tell our host families all about it. Rob, to his unenthused host parents who hated him for some reason and liked to see him flounder language-wise, accidentally exclaimed that he had just jumped 10 million meters out of a plane. They just sat there unamused, probably thinking, ¨So your plane was circling around outerspace then? What the hell are you talking about?¨ Mistakes like this happen to the best of us, I guess.

It is only logical to assume that the more comfortable you become with your surroundings, the less opportunity you will have to find yourself in ridiculous situations. You know what they say about assuming though. Just this week I have found myself in some starkly silly situations, so I guess my familiarity with my environment is aiding me in no way whatsoever. First, my family made a huge deal out of planning an excursion for us to some nearby tourist attractions. They were doing this mainly for my benefit, and I felt honored that my host parents were actually considering leaving the farm for a whole day. It is nearly unfeasible to convince them that they could always dig their millions of potatoes out of the ground the next day (as if we need any more spuds in our diet, anyway). On the morning of our outing, we packed a picnic lunch and piled the 8 of us into a rented truck. With the sun as strong as it was that day, I thought it might be a nice time to debut my Christmas present from them, a slightly gaudy sun hat. As ridiculous as I looked all day, I was happy to be wearing it for two reasons: 1. My scalp would have instantaneously combusted without it, and 2. They were so appreciative that I was getting use out of it, and told me that before that day, they had thought I hated their gift to me. On our last stop as we were circling around a large laguna, a huge gust of wind came and blew their present into the middle of the lake. So much for showing my appreciation, eh? Even though we paid money to tour this site, my family became obsessed instead with retrieving this hat. We won´t let it go, don´t worry gringa. Uh, I hate to tell you guys, but I sort of let it go the second it became entangled in muddy algae, about ten seconds after the first seagull took a shit on it. Really, let´s go to the petting zoo and I´ll buy a new hat later.

But nooooooooooo…..my 11 year old cousin who forgot to mention that he couldn’t swim (or even float for that matter) decided to strip down to his superman underwear and take the plunge. What a frigging hero, attempting to save my already ruined hat, an act that almost resulted in me jumping in to save his drowning ass in the 3.5 feet of water (feet, not meters, this time I am not confused). I finally convinced my incorrigible family members that I was over it and that we should walk around and enjoy the rest of our trip. Just when I thought the scenario had been erased from their memories (two hours later), they insisted that we stop by the laguna to see if my hat had floated to the edge. I didn’t want the hat after it was in the infested water for a mere 2 minutes, but sure, I´ll wear it after its been in there for three hours. Why not? I walked/ran ahead of them, and quickly glanced at the lake before exclaiming, ¨Nope, its not here, must´ve sank, let´s go home and call it a day.¨ But Lindsay, you didn’t check over here….OH MY GOD, HERE IT IS! We´ll save it for you and you can wear it tomorrow! And that is precisely how I came to wear a moldy hat on a daily basis.

On to other topics, like the killer rat that lives in my room. My room is really cozy when I don´t have a rat clawing at my face as I sleep. It started out as no big deal. It was just a little guy back in the day, maybe even something that I would describe as cute (Natalie, you understand how cute these sorts of things can be, don´t you?). Occasionally, I would wake up in the middle of the night to see it scurrying about in my corner, causing nobody any harm. All of the sudden (I am convinced that it swallowed my kitten who has been missing for a few weeks now) the rat resurfaced as larger than my head (insert jokes about my big head here, I´m used to it). This here rat, as soon as I get comfy in my bed each night, exits its habitat in whatever wall it hides in, and takes a running leap onto my bed. Aside from the diseases that it is most likely carrying, what gets me most is its thick, long, snake-like tail that slithers over my face as it is making itself at home on my pillow. Many people theorize that intelligence can be judged by how quickly a person adjusts to habitual and startling occurrences that they encounter. By this theory, I am a raging moron because I have not adjusted AT ALL to this ¨habitual and startling occurrence,¨ unless convulsing and screaming for my host parents connotes a healthy adjustment. Every night, at approximately 2am, they come up to my bedroom with huge sticks to annihilate the rat, and every night, the rat outsmarts us. Last night, my host mom came up with a more immediate solution.

Graciela (host mom): ¨Lindsay, just rub this powder all over your sheets and body.¨
Lindsay: ¨Is this potent rat poison powder, Graciela?¨
Graciela: ¨Why, yes it is…so you are familiar with it then?
Lindsay: ¨Um, I am familiar with it being toxic enough to kill a person, if they, I don´t know, RUB IT ALL OVER THEIR BODY.¨
Graciela: ¨Silly gringa, it will do you no harm. Trust me, we do this all the time.
Lindsay: ¨All right then¨ (as I lather myself in some rather pungent rat poison).

Good news: For the first time in weeks, the rat didn´t attempt to bunk up with me.
Bad news: My skin is very obviously enflamed and I might die (but probably not).

Ahhh…just another ordinary day in Peru…