unexpected events make my life interesting

One of my host mom´s aunts died of cancer recently. I guess they didn´t invite me to the funeral because who wants to go to a funeral for fun, especially right after another funeral of a friend? However, I have been able to witness a little of what happens during the aftermath of a Peruvian death. There have been a few family members drifting in and out of the house dressed completely in black. Peruvians wear black for a week straight after the death of a family member although if husbands or other close loved ones die, women may choose to wear black for a year or so.

One night during dinner, a diminutive woman with observant eyes walked in wearing all black. She sat down to eat with us, without an introduction. With some difficulty and awkwardness, I have grown accustomed to the lack of (or extremely late) introductions to strangers. Before beginning her fish broth, she put her hands on both sides of the bowl and said a full minute´s worth of grace. I didn´t really think anything of it, nor of the fact that she inserted a lot of "thanks to the glory of God" phrases into her conversation. But like the good member I am of the newly formed PC-Perú Agnostic and Atheist Diversity Club, I immediately felt a tad bit less at ease when I found out she was evangelical. "Please God, please don´t let her ask me if I believe in God" I mumbled to the non-existent God in my head. Turned out to be an extremely interesting night, instead of painful.

She told us about how her father received God at some low point in his life and apologized for having failed his marriage and been a bastard, and made everyone cry cry cry and now he´s gone to heaven. Unfortunately, her brother never received God before his death so he´s in hell right now. Next she explained that the town of Talará once had a lot of money, more than Lima, but God doesn´t like sinners nor fornicators so now it´s a craphole in ruins. That lead to her complaining about the price of food in Sechura and how it´s much cheaper in Talará. In fact, she was trying to buy a fish in Sechura and the guy told her it was 3 soles. She informed him that that was overpriced and an injustice, you think the only thieves are in banks and state offices, no, YOU also are a thief, and God sends thieves to hell. She got the price she wanted. So since then her sister decided she should do the shopping. Anyway, she´s gone, I think, so no more getting blessed by God every time I walk out of the door. Which would´ve been alright but I don´t know what to say or do. "Thanks" and smile? Hope so. And no more hearing chanting, thinking it´s some calm peaceful prayer and then all of a sudden, "FFFFTH-UERZA!!!" mumblemumblemumble"FFFFTH-UERA!!!" and imagining that someone´s face just got spat on. And wondering whether my host family also thinks she sounds more like she´s practicing black magic. (Or that she has Tourette´s.)


At 10am this morning, the local school was supposed to make recycled paper. I had provided the teachers with instructions and brought them materials. Part of the materials included mesh with a wooden frame. I thought the Municipality would find it easily in Piura but it turns out that they had to scavenge up a big dirty wooden frame from the Municipal tool shed, sawed it up to make it the right shape, and industrially stapled the mesh onto it. It was a 3-man effort. Carrying this heavy thing to the school, I felt like my dad had just went out of his way to make sure I could complete a school project that really should´ve been a relatively simple task, like he used to do.

Anyway, I was supposed to work with 3 teachers (3 classes), representing 2 different grades -- about 100 kids. Right. Well, first of all, I didn´t realize that I was doing anything but taking pictures and giving them advice. Then as I was waiting for the teacher to figure out where to do it so we could plug in the blender, the kids who were running around bezerk told me all the teachers were in a meeting. "Uh, I guess I´ll just start" I told the teachers. Obviously, it was a disaster. Hell no, I can´t control 100 Peruvian kids running around with buckets of water and shredded soggy newspaper without any teachers present! Especially since the other grades decided to leave their classrooms and join in on our Lord of the Flies fiesta. Plus, I think I´ve used a blender once or twice in my life. Nervous that kids were going to push each other (since they were) and water would splash over the electrical sockets, I tried calming them down with an improvised mini discussion about trees and trash and the environment. After the 2nd batch of blending the soggy newspaper, I noticed that there was smoke coming out of the blender base. "That´s not right," I said. "No, it´s normal!" the kids shouted. Kind of wanting them to be right since the blender looked like a cheap piece of crap, but extremely doubting that smoke coming out of an electrical device was alright, I did one more quick batch after waiting for it to cool down. So we made 2 ugly sheets -- ugly since the mesh box thing was way too big for the project. But I didn´t tell the Municipality lest I hurt their feelings.

After making two sheets and pounding it with a brick, I started to leave because I was 30 min late for a meeting at another school. I didn´t sign up to be a substitute teacher. Plus, it was extremely necessary that I complete these meetings within the hour. It would´ve been fine if I was free. Well the kids had already been doing this a little earlier, but as soon as I stopped the demonstration, the kids started going AWOL in a soggy shreded newspaper war. Some kids were sweet and took the cloth we were using as part of the project to wipe me clean before my meetings. Then I realized that my satchel was locked in the admin office since the secretary had left to Sechura without telling me, and the director was in a meeting at the Municipality. I quickly and desperately told one of the kids I knew to bring my satchel to my house when the director came back, borrowed money from my host aunt across the street, and hopped a mototaxi to the next school feeling extremely grimy. Then I walked back home for 20 minutes in the afternoon sun without a hat or sunblock, which was definitely not the plan.

Damn disorganized disinterested schools that sneakily get me to take over their students which results in soggy crap getting thrown all over the place. At least the kids are loveable despite it all.