Perspective is a luxury when your head is constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons May 18, 2009

“Do you want to come to mass with us tomorrow morning?” She asks, anticipation in her eyes…
She must not know. How is this possible? Nobody invites me to church anymore. As if it’s not bad enough that I’m not Catholic, I’m also a single woman in my 20s. I may as well be the antichrist here.
“Well, 7am mass is pretty early”, I say, “But if I wake up in time, I’ll go with you”
“It’s for Salo’s mother – she died 12 years ago tomorrow”.
Oh…
I find myself waking up at 6:30 and debating it in my head. But they’re my host family and they’ve been good to me. It hurts my heart to think of not going. Damn it. I’m off.
And I’m basically the first one there. Punctuality in Peru? I don’t know why I bother.
25 minutes later we’re walking back to the house together. My host dad tells me it cost them 50 soles to have the mass for his mother (not a small sum of money, especially not in the campo). What? 50 soles for a 25 minutes half-assed mass? The priest didn’t even try – he didn’t set up a microphone, he mumbled the words to the songs (I suspect he might not know all of them), and he looked like he was just going through the movements. At least one of our dogs, Benji, followed us into the church, ran up to to the podium, full of curiosity, and proceeded to pee on the podium. For 50 soles, that dog can pee anywhere he wants, as far as I’m concerned.
Then the priest went off to give another mass in one of the caserios. It costs even more there, I’m told. This priest makes more than a doctor! Goodwill and brotherhood, my ass. I should probably leave the churchgoing to Ryan from now on… Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it absolutely terrifying.

On a sunnier note, since I’ve been back, my relationship with my host mom has changed a lot. Before, it was funny misunderstandings and awkward, frustrating “I don’t understand what you’re saying!” moments because she has a really strong campo accent and uses a LOT of slang. But I’m back and suddenly it’s like we’re old girlfriends, inside jokes, hardly any misunderstandings and a lot less annoyance. At the rate I’m going, by the time I leave Peru, I might fancy myself a cook. I already make a pretty good Chaufa and orange chicken and there’s nothing but time left to learn. However, my host grandma, Carmen, schooled me in the art of tamale making today. I failed. It is not as easy as it looks.

I’m walking through town, looking for my counterpart, printing things out, making copies, running from place to place. I walk past the old man on the corner – I’m sure to slow down so he has time to process my “buenos dias” and say it back. His eyes crinkle behind his thick glasses and the corners of his mouth turn up, hinting at a smile. Later, he’s gone and a kitten lays on the corner, keeping his spot warm for when he returns. It reminds me of how adorable everything in this town is, and I keep walking with a little extra skip in my step. And then I see it. It’s a dog. It’s convulsing. There’s a crowd gathering… “maybe it has epilepsy”, I think naively. “Ooohhh.. it was poisoned” I hear an onlooker say. Fuck. I’m just going to keep walking. I come back a half an hour later to run another errand and what do I see? The poor, helpless creature is still convulsing on the ground. “It’s almost dead now” someone says. I keep walking and hope someone puts the poor thing out of it’s misery. 10 minutes later, I have to walk by again (it’s not a big town), and it’s still convulsing. I’m repulsed. How can you spend 40 minutes of your day watching a dog die?
I get home and the doctor that lives in the house with us is crying. Jesus – so much for cute fuzzy adorable happy day. It’s been raining. A camionetta flipped over in a caserio about 40 minutes away. 3 people died. Her friend was in the car. Some days just have to be about death, I guess. The night is just a part of the day.