Workin´ like a caballo

After "raising the national flag" and singing the national anthem - of which I proudly know 60% - on Sunday, my town released the marathon runners and cyclists, who competed without me, all the way to the mangroves. It´s about 18km. Although a lot of people were hoping I´d do the bike race, I decided it was a very bad idea considering my body had already been through enough stresses during the past few weeks. Plus, I wasn´t sure whether or not I still had the Nasty-D. So I rode in the municipality truck with the Queens of my town and the two neighboring towns. About 10 different photojournalists precariously stood on the back of the truck looking for the perfect action shot. There were about 20 people in the marathon, some of who were in their teens, at least one father-son combo, and about 3 women. I was upset that Prima didn´t run the marathon, because I knew she would do well and kick most of the boys´ traseros. However, she was feeling some out-of-site guilt, so she passed it up.

After a delicious and Nasty-D-friendly boiled chicken and rice lunch, I went back to the mangroves with my host family in a mototaxi that was so slow, the last-placed marathon runner could have beat it to the beach. When I woke up, the beach beyond the mangrove area was completely saturated with people, food stands, trucks, taxis and a band that few people were dancing to. It was amazing how many people were crammed onto the beach, which reminded me of the Jersey Shore. I craved funnel cake like nothing else. My host sister thought it was too cold to enter the water. So as of today, I still have only entered my feet into the Peruvian ocean. I´m pathetic. The mayor estimated that there were 12,000 people there. The newspaper estimated at least 5,000. Sound like the U.S., anyone?

On Sunday night, the extended host family kids opened my door with me thankfully not undressing behind it, and proceeded to play with the puppets from our mangrove puppet show. Which was cute until the 5 year old ripped off one of the heron´s legs, which I dealt with very well. Then they started rolling around in my mosquito net, which I usually roll up into a bag but had been too lazy to do so that particular day. No rips, however. So as I usually do when I start panicking about my material goods in Perú, I asked the 3 kiddies whether they wanted to draw. My childhood collection of crayons was one of the most brilliant things I packed. I think I´m a very cruel big person. I laughed pretty hard when the 7-year old boy scared his 4-year old sister with the puppets, which she apparently developed a fear to during our puppet show. Then he had a lot of fun putting on my laundry gloves and made lobster claws, which she also was afraid of. I laughed both times. I´m mean. However, I admit that I had a lot of fun with their rampant childhood imaginations that made my room into something more exciting than McDonald´s stupid Playland.

My plans for the rest of the week involved 3 things: sleeping, laundry and reading. And maybe going to Piura to pick up my long-neglected mail. Basically, me time. Because my body and my spirit needed it, dammit. Unfortunately, my counterpart called me at 8:50AM on Monday telling me to go join him in Piura for a 9AM meeting with the regional government. My head felt light for lack of nourishment and a diet that has my jeans riding lower than ever before. Plus, I was pissed at his a) lack of articulation and clarity when speaking to me on the phone so it took me forever to understand him, b) lack of telling me in advance about this meeting, and c) telling me, yet again, to do something that I had no idea what it was about nor why I was doing it. Shamefully, I was pretty excited when the secretary told me that the truck was in Piura and there was no money to send me to the meeting. No hard feelings. Really. I read 225 pages of The Nanny Diaries, which one of the volunteers left on my floor. Sorry Jeff Sachs, not in the mood.

OK, so one day of "me time" was all I got, but thanks to not talking much to anybody yesterday and Cipro, I´ve lost my loogies and gained my bathroom dignity back. Back to my counterpart driving me nuts. And scaring me. Apparently he wants environmental workshops in every single school in the municipality at all the different grade levels. That´s about 18 schools, and a ton of classes. No chance I´ll get to learn who the kids are nor be able to notice any sort of behavior changes. Hmph. No asking my opinion on the subject, no asking me what I hoped to accomplish, just telling me what we´re going to do. And by "we," he means WE. ME AND HIM. ME AND HIM DOING THE WORKSHOPS. TO GE THER. Uhhhhhhhh uh. I refuse to work with that high blood-pressured, anti-timeline-ed, anti-strategic planning-ed litterbug on environmental workshops. I had planned to work independently more or less after the Festival. So it´s just me, myself and the China, honey. That´s what I´m going to tell him. Soon.