-Chicken foot soup for breakfast!
-Bright pink hot dogs (unidentified meat) = LIKE!
-Very public defecation! (not me…just observation)
-Flea bites. Again.
-I found myself crammed in a combi (think: old falling apart VW van) with 32 other people, chickens, and a bag of guinea pigs. New record!
-The nuns were robbed at gunpoint on the way home from the bank today.
-Now using toxic amount of deet bug spray in order to survive the hour of insect attacks sitting in church.
-Good looking man and then… I see the fanny pack. Dang it.
-Peruvian karaoke parties are wildly popular- think Backstreet Boys or Beyonce + Spanish accents!
-A wild dog ran across the altar and trotted through the pews in the middle of mass, but nobody batted an eye.
-Guns…armed people everywhere.
-Peruvians like to whistle, and to publicly nurse babies on bumpy combi rides.
-...looked down to find a huge cockroach on my foot!
-“No, the mosquitoes attack you because you are WHITE.” - Nun
-Overfed by three different sets of aunts and uncles today!
-One step forward, two steps back (the birds pooped all over my hand-washed laundry again).
-Facial paralysis caused by stress? Back pain ‘all in your head’? Starting to wonder about these doctors…
-Fingerprints to sign work documents!
-…where I consumed one quarter of a whole chicken, a mountain of French fries, a huge salad and a liter of Inca Cola in one sitting…
I like to try and bring a little humor into my experiences here, but the honest truth is I am completely enamored with the culture, the good BUT also the not so good. It’s an incredible place and while transportation and sanitation realities may not be ideal, what I don’t put into lists are the people that make this culture so unique and beautiful…
The woman with a large hat and three teeth who gives me a big grin as she shucks corn in the market. “Buen dia” from the old men who sit and talk outside the corner house. My favorite lady who sells me freshly squeezed juice from her cart on my way to work. My 90-year old patient who sings to me in Spanish. My patients, co-workers, colleagues and friends who share their stories, their lives, their food, their hospitality with me. Uncensored observations included, these people and their tough, hard-working, family-based values are the face of Perú I’ve come to know – and love.
Your list of moments are so funny. It's good to keep a sense of humor, specially in a place where experiences & ways of life are different from your own. I think the older I get, the more we need a sense of humor. Why cry when you can laugh.
ReplyDelete