Meeting and Eating

The Gringo – a sausage also known more formally as salchicha  – is thusly named for his pink, round self. Laura, the socia who introduced me to the fat lil guy, serves him to her customers on picnic tables outside her front door. The Pucallpa people love to dine al fresco and many of the socias I interview earn their livings selling food to their neighbors and passersby at small tables they set outside their homes. They cook el gringo on grills along with anticuchos (beef heart skewers) and chicken fillets. They also serve juanes – or delicious mixtures of rice, chicken, eggs and olives wrapped in bihaul leaves and steamed in their own juices and spices. A touch of aji de cocona, or spicy fruit chili mayonnaise, and you have yourself an amazing meal.

I also like the yuca con paiche – mashed yucca with bits of river fish again wrapped in the bihaul leaf. It’s the size and shape of a tamale but it was has the texture of the humitas that I tried up in the sierras. It’s savory and excellent and the whole experience is made even better when you’re outside sitting at a picnic table with other passersby who’ve stopped for dinner.

It was a night like this when I stopped by Asuncion Rengife Rios’ table to have some yuca con paiche when I met her neighbor and her grandson. We chatted for a while and shared our backgrounds – I’ve noticed that people are extremely friendly and open here – much more so than in Trujillo. Andres, my dinner companion this evening, is my newest acquaintance. He tells me he’s come around tonight because no one is at home and he likes having company. I found him – he’s no more than 18 years old – sitting and chatting with Asuncion, a woman fifty years his senior, as though they were the best of friends. They’ve been neighbors all his life and Asuncion tells me the baby he’s bouncing on his hip is his sister’s child.

Andres leans over his plate and begins to tell me his sister died of cancer two months ago; the illness came suddenly and took them all by surprise. One day she was fine and the next she had emerged from the bathroom with a nosebleed and, then all of a sudden, an earbleed too. The doctors had told them her cancer was advanced and that she would not live. Within weeks she had died and left behind months old Alexandra. Andres tells me he is this baby girl’s madre-padre (mother and father): he feeds her, clothes her, washes her, looks after her every day. All this he does while studying and working too. I watch him feeding her a little of his meal and it’s true! He looks like a natural mother: chatting away with me while calmly ignoring her gurgling and cooing as she squirms in his arms.

I also met Asuncion’s grandson who shows me a picture of his grandfather, an ex-Nazi soldier who fled to Peru in the closing days of the war. He says his abuelo barely escaped “the enemy” (US soldiers? Russian? British? Allies, to be sure!). Here he found safe haven and settled down with a Peruvian woman and had his family. I wonder if he’s talking about Asuncion’s husband or his paternal grandmother’s husband. I’d known before that a lot of Germans fled their crumbling empire for Argentina or Brazil but it’s the first I heard, or considered, them coming to Peru. Strangely enough, I met a young man named Hitler last week. I had asked him to repeat his name a couple of times because I found it so unexpected though he didn’t think it was remarkable at all.

I’m through with my yuca con paiche by now and Asuncion has loaded up my plate with juanes.  *siiiigh* I’m noticing that I’m getting fattened up by all the socias’ friendliness and generosity.  When I go on home visits I’m not permitted to leave the house without eating the jello, drinking the soda or having the meal that the family has offered me.  I’m loving the conversations we have although my own story is boring me to the teeth having heard it from my own mouth at least a hundred times already.  So two days ago, still full to the gills with food and drink from the day before, I joined Erika’s Spa – a gym a few blocks from my hotel.

Today I tried out a step class – or tried to try a step class.  The stereo wasn’t working and we showed up at 6:30 am for naught.  But instead of trudging to the elipticals everyone stayed around in the exercise room and gossiped and chatted.  I met a nurse and a (what a coincidence!) a woman who used to work for Manuela Ramos.  The instructor practiced her English on me and I suggested a little intercambio.  The regulars make me promise to return next week to try out the class and in return they promise to help me with the routines which they say are quite advanced.  Oh man what am I getting into?… Hopefully a cute bathing suit at the nearby Yarinacocha Lake next weekend, I guess.  Anyway, at the end of the half hour when I broke away to run off last night’s cheesecake on the eliptical machine I had an invitation to a Christmas party and two new friends.  What fun, no?

Yesterday, I met this adorable monkey in a restaurant where I was having lunch.  His name is Lolo and you can’t tell from these pictures but his diaper has a hole cut out of the back for his little tail!  He coos to me and I love him.  The waiter – or rather, son of the restaurant’s owner – and I get to talking  and the monkey all the while is playing jungle gym in his dreadlocks.  He wants me to come to the bar tonight to meet his friends and tell me about his upcoming trip to Bolivia but I say no.  The last three nights I’ve been out and about drinking and socializing with the uber-friendly, ultra-social Pucallpans.  I need a night to curl up with my book for goodness sakes!

But when I get home there’s a immediately a ring on my telephone.  It’s the hotel advising me that my friend gringo friend Erik is downstairs waiting to pay me a visit.  Yesterday, he dropped by with Caricia, Winston’s daughter and we spent the evening drinking beers outside Caricia’s friend’s bodega down the road.  Tonight it’s just him and we go to the hamburger place to grab some dinner.  We’re mulling over his lovelife: he has a new girlfriend (of two weeks!) that he’s considering marrying and taking to Canada with him.  Afterwards we pass by the tiny amusement park on the Plaza de las Armas and decide to go in for a game of foosball.  We ended up shooting some BBs at a photocopy of a Bullseye taped to a wall for $0.75 per round.  When all our BBs are out we get to keep the paper perforated with holes.  I love that at the top of the photocopy are the capital letters “…BULL…”.  I think I’ll keep it forever, but I end up throwing it away almost immediately.  It became my makeshift napkin when Erik and I got threw up on when we wandered under the ferris wheel.  Can you believe it?!  Vomitosis!  Erik got it worse than me, which was only just dribbles and droplets anyway, but we’re thinking maybe it’s time to call it a night and hit the showers.  But first a trip to the Ces Si Bon coffee shop bathroom to sponge off and while we’re here why not a cup of coffee?

Today I’m ready for my long-awaited meet and greet with Paul!  He arrives tonight and I’ll be there in the airport fresh off the plan from Pucallpa and waiting for him!  We plan to head down south to some national parks and cities.  We’ll also be fulfilling Paul’s longtime dream of seeing the Nazca lines.  I probably will be posting sporadically if at all till next week when I return.  So till then….

XOXOXOXOXO

I love you, Pucallpa

Blue eyeshadow, I love the way you match the shirt and the shoes just so.  And I love how you pay no mind to that tired faux pas rule cuz you look damn good and you know it, too!

Gorgeous sunsets, you’re the best. How do you do it? Is that what the afternoon rainstorms are for? To set the stage  – everyday without fail – with clouds to hang a gorgeous golden, purple, and rose sunset – a Michaelangelo sky.

“People of the Jungle” – is that what you call yourselves?  Well, that I love – it reminds me of Tarzan.  And you do love that platano, I’ve noticed.  But above all I love your iambs and your dactyls – yes y’all, i had to look up my metric feet (poetry not centimeters) to find those words, but you don’t have to.  Just imagine a linguistic lovechild of Italian, Shakespearean iambic pentameter, and maybe also a dramatic telenovela actress.  That’s what you sound like: sing-songy delicious.  “VA-moose haa-CER una CO-zaa” Le *sigh*, I swoon when you talk to me.

Two hour lunches, you are perfect.  You are the exact amount of time needed for a little stroll, a lolly-gagging lunch, and then that sweet, sweet heat-induced nap with the fan set just so it lulls me to sleep.  And still – you’re so good to me – you fit in that extra fifteen minutes at the end to get up, shake it off and squeeze in an ice cream cone during the brisk walk back to the office.

And, oooooh Socias of Manuela Ramos- you’re so generous and so affectionate.  You make me feel at home and I knew from the first day that I’m the most lucky and most rapidly fattening girl in the world.  You guys bestow more honors and food on me than I deserve.  The chocolate demonstrations complete with tastings! The juanes – leafy packets stuffed with rice and chicken and olives – that stuff me in turn!  When I visit your fruit stand you ask me if I’ve ever tried the juice of the “fill in the blank” (camu camu? cocoma? aguaje? guayabana? maracuya?) and when I say no you’ve produced a brimming glass for me to gulp down.  You even help me up and sponge off my backside with a washcloth when I fell today in the mud in front of your house!  You even give me a ring with your initials for me to remember you by! I feel sheepish when you applaud my introduction in meetings and when you serve me the first slice of birthday cake before the birthday socia.  But I hope you know how much I appreciate and am flattered to meet you.  That it’s nothing of consequence to be from America, which you say it is, but I think it’s far more impressive to have three businesses, five kids, and still enough time and courtesy to accompany me to my next stop in the road. Plus you got that blue eyeshadow thing going on, so you know I have a thing for you!

And my darling, scalding hot sun.  You want to beat it out of me, but I refuse to keep loving you!  I’ve been waiting for you through three constant years of San Francisco “fall”.  If I’m going to give up seasons it’s going to be here with you, Sun!  You start the sweats right out the shower and you remind me of swampy summers in DC and North Carolina.  You’ve browned me out, and thank God because I thought I was fading to a forever yellow beneath the San Francisco fog!  I don’t care if the weather channel says it’s “88, but it feels like 97” for as long as I’m here I’m stepping out in the sunshine!  Just don’t judge me when I walk in the shade.

And last but not least, Pucallpa… What is it about you?  I swear you remind me of Greensboro, North Carolina.  Is it the red mud and the green grass and the quiet streets?  And then sometimes I think I’m in West Africa or Thailand, though well, I don’t know what either is like – but it’s the swirling dust and then the sudden crazy storms and then even crazier swarms of mototaxis (which are basically motorized rickshaws) that infest the streets. I want to take a walk next week through your night markets with your random mix of animals: guinea pigs from the sierras, thousands of chickens, and the poor turtle-soup-doomed turtle that they don’t bother to chase when he lumbers away at his useless pace.  You’re filled with evangelical missions and Catholic churches.  And lunch and dinner are served outside under the sky.  There’s just enough of you to have some nice music and bars and you’re just small enough to still retain a star-ful sky…. Just quit with the moths/cockroaches/mosquitos, eh?

Yikes

poor paul had to listen to me screaming and then heaving and grunting as i murdered this the largest cockroach i’ve ever seen.  paul says he’s seen bigger, but he’s not here to kill it for me!  so i whacked it once with my flop and thought i got it, but when i went to scoop it up it had disappeared, scurrying for its life under my bed. i made sure the second time around that it was dead for sure.  on paul’s good advice (who was – poor guy – still with me through the whole ordeal) i dumped it out the window to ward off an invasion of ants that would surely have poured in through the cracks under the doors to feast on that big old carcass.

Bout It

The women in these banks are about their business.

Tonight I visited with the Las Americas communal bank.  They are thirty women strong and have a history of being behind in payments.  Mind you, this isn’t all of them, but some three or four women have fallen behind this currrent cycle.  In order to stay in good stead with Manuela Ramos, the members of the communal bank have withdrawn money from their communal savings account to cover the amounts owed by the delinquent socias.  But now the non-paying bank members owe their debt to their fellow socias.

As is often the case when a socia has had a financial or familial problem that causes her to default, these defaulted socias have retired from the bank and no longer attend the meetings.  How will the remaining socias recuperate their outstanding savings you ask?

By rolling up en masse on the former socia’s house!  That’s right, ten socias and the loan officer and me in tow sidled up to not one but two ladies’ homes tonight.  They are polite during their unannounced visit, of course, but it is also obviously intimidating to have a dozen women roll up in your house to ask you when and how you plan on satisfying your debt (which you no longer owe to Manuela Ramos but to your neighbors’ savings accounts).

Carmen, the loan officer, tells me that one of ex-socia is “fresh”- she literally said fresca! – and it reminds me of my grandmother scolding me for my bratty attitude.  Nevertheless, the pressure is on, and by the end of our visit the woman agrees to settle up by the end of the month.

Now, I don’t want to promote the picture that these women are descending on one unfortunate woman whose life has been derailed financially for some reason or another while they heartlessly swarm round her and harangue her for her misdeeds. No, it’s nothing like that.  The point is that the delinquent socia – “fresh”, repentant or otherwise – sees and understands the number of people that depend on her.  There’s no opportunity for out of sight out of mind: here we are and yes we know you’re in a tough spot but so are we and when will you bring back our money?

With the “fresh” ex-socia, the bank members leave triumphantly, but at the second woman’s house it is a different story.  She is uncomfortable upon our arrival and she seems torn between indignance and shame.  Her family is struggling and she explains to all that she is having trouble week to week with her husband’s sporadic work and several mouths to feed.  She is one of many perfect examples of what happens when misfortune befalls people on the border between stability and poverty.  An illness, a robbery, a death, or even more lives – in the form of babies – can tear down what these women have worked so hard to build up.  The socias don’t want to embarass anyone here; the shift their feet and uncross their arms. And yet, they say gently to the woman, no matter what happens to any of us which Lord knows what could happen to any of us, don’t we still bear that same responsibility to one another?

I interviewed a woman today who tells me proudly that she still made her payments to the bank even though she was incapacitated for several months.  During this period, her small grocery store folded while she was in the hospital battling typhoid – and yet, she still found a way to satisfy her debt obligations.  She plans to restart her store in January once she has rested and fully recuperated.  For now, she is attending meetings as an ahorrista or “saver” and joining the home visits to make sure her fellow socias honor their debts just as she did hers.

And so goes the process.  Each holding the others accountable through thick and through thin.  I find myself vacilating between  thinking debts should be forgiven or paid based on the individuals’ situation.  But I suppose more and more I realize that being steadfast, as these women are, is the only way to keep themselves faithful and the bank intact.

Welcome to the Jungle

Well here I am! The sweltering, tropical, humid jungle capital of Pucallpa. A former Kiva fellow hooked me up with a family here in the heart of the Amazon and I’m staying with them for the next couple of days.

The father picked me up from the airport and ushered me (mercifully!) through the hoards of mototaxi drivers out to the main road where we caught a ride for less then half the price hawked at the airport’s front doors.

I notice immediately that almost all transportation here is via mototaxi- where Trujillo had seven taxis for every car on the road, Pucallpa has the same ratio of mototaxis to regular cars.

The sun was setting just as I arrived and the air was muggy, but still fresh. It’s hotter than a Florida summer here and I think my existence in Pucallpa is going to be defined by a constant and hopefully light sweat.

As we buzz down the road in our mototaxi I notice how different this town looks from Trujillo. It’s much newer having sprung up since the 1950’s when the paved highway linking the rivertown to Lima was completed. There are no colonial buildings or pedestrian byways around here. It’s dusty and full of people walking, running, chatting, eating, laughing.

Winston my host and I arrive at his house where he generously offers up his daughter’s room as my quarters for a couple of days. He and his wife entertain me over a couple of cold mangos and dang they’re delicious!

The next day, Sunday, I trekked all over the city looking for housing. Here in the Amazon basin where the temperature wavers around 88 degrees ona daily basis, rooms with airconditioning are double the price of rooms with fans.  The prices are surprisingly high and I decide my budget will allow for a non-airconditioned room only.  I will think of my new home as a breezy sauna where I’m sweating out all of my toxins nightly. I traipsed around town for several hours and finally – a bucket of sweat, a heat rash and a few breaks in the shade later – I decide on the Hotel “Happy Days”.  The name bodes well doesn’t it?

After my marathon trek around the city I settle down for happy days and take a quick glance in the mirror – phew I’m looking beat! This heat is going to wilt me daily, I cant tell!  The weather channel always says, “85 degrees but feels like 95 or 96 or 98”.  That hot sun is no joke and only gets better when it rains.  I got caught in my first rain shower yesterday and it was a ducha abierta or downpour the likes of an “open shower”.  I was caught totally off guard and literally had an ankle deep dash through streets in mid-miniflood as I raced for my hostel and my umbrella.  From now on I’m carrying around my raincoat and sneakers should the skies open up and let loose on me again.

On Monday, I was presented most graciously to all the women of the Manuela Ramos branch here in Pucallpa.  The office is located in the city’s center which is humble as far as downtowns go.  That afternoon I took my first trip out to the asentamiento humano Bolognesi.

Asentamientos humanos, or legalized squatter settlements, are formed when immigrants from other parts of the country invaden, or literally “invade” an abandoned section of land outside the main urban perifery.  These immigrants may come from other Peruvian metropolises or more often from villages in the nearby jungle; but, all come with the dual purpose of finding work and owning their own home.  The groups of families – two to five hundred people at a time – organize among themselves and form a neighborhood council that is charged with dividing the unused land into equally sized lots, one for each family.  Once the land is equally partitioned, the families purchase the lots and register titles with the city government.  Invasions have been occurring in Peruvian cities for decades; some asentamientos are decades old while others, like one I’m visiting Tuesday are only two or three years old.  These days families are paying around $400 for a 2,300 sq.ft. dirt lot.

This photograph was taken in the asentamiento Villa Oriente where an al fresco meeting of the Damas del Oriente was held Tuesday.

The socias are listening to Rosa, the loan officer, explain the five “P”s of marketing – it’s like business school classes all over again!  These women own and operate all types of businesses: roadside restaurants, door-to-door beauty product sales, lingerie shops, fish shipping, cheese making – you name it and a Manuela Ramos socia is doing it.  I know now that I will continually be impressed by their creativity, energy and sheer will to work several jobs, take care of several children and support this unbearable heat!

I met 71 year old Asuncion Rengifo Marin (pictured above) at the Damas del Oriente meeting yesterday and interviewed about her Kiva loan.  We talked about her restaurant business where she works seven days a week from dawn to 11:00 pm preparing and selling breakfast, lunch and dinner.  She tells me her daughter asks her all the time when she will retire and that always responds: “when my fingers and arms fall off my body, I’ll quit the kitchen!”

After a month in Trujillo, I’m really looking forward to being in the office with a little bit more experience under my belt.  I’m so excited to go find the bank members and find out about their lives, their families, and their business plans.  Mirtha, Winston’s wife tells me that the women of la selva (the jungle) are dangerously beautiful and fiercely hard-working.  After this first meeting, I see it and believe.

Zooming Through Lima

Before I move into Pucallpa for the next month, I took a quick dash through Lima compliments of Cesar, a local chauffeur I got connected with thanks to JenGuss. He scooped me at the bus station and for $5 per hour whisked me through breakfast, two museums, two malls and finally the airport parkng lot.

The first stop after breakfast was the Spanish Inquisition Museum. It wasn’t large or detailed, but it did have life size figurines re-enacting various forms of torture employed by the Inquisition.

Next we headed to the Museo Larco, or Archaeological Museum which is gorgeous and totally worth the $10 to get in. The pottery and jewelry collections are extensive. It’s also set in a lovely garden and has a modern, fancy restaurant-café attached to it. I have tons of pictures from the museum that I will make into a separate gallery for anyone interested in seeing some of the pieces. The erotic pottery exhibit was the most interesting and surprising. The pieces depict everything from sex between animals, to necrophilia, to venereal diseases, to masturbation, to breastfeeding, to hermaphrodites. Crazy.

The ancients didn’t mess around when it came to jewelry either. The nose ornaments and earrings are so big they made my face ache just looking at them. The gold and silver work is intricate and gorgeous. No wonder the Spanish were so eager and greedy to get at their riches.

After the museums I returned to the one cookie shop I’ve found in this country and treated myself to a chocolate chip cookie at the Cookie Factory at LarcoMar mall. It was a gorgeous day and I thoroughly enjoyed my outdoor lunch and stroll.

From there it was on to the airport and on to the jungle. I can’t wait to see what Pucallpa is all about!

Hasta Luego, Trujillo!

Ebele and Jen left on Thursday and I am a mad woman both Thursday and Friday trying to wrap everything up: submitting my final reports, running errands, packing, planning. It’s been a busy couple days trying to get myself ready for Pucallpa. On Thursday I made my last few visits to the neighborhoods of Trujillo.

I met women of the Florencia de Mora district, a twenty-five year old neighborhood that was colonized by immigrant families from the sierras in the seventies. The area was literally colonized in a process known as invasion. Dozens of families would arrive at the ever expanding border of Trujillo and form small neighborhood councils. Each newly formed council would organize among themselves to divide several hectares of dusty nothingness into plots of equal size for each family. The families would then stake out their plot and guard it day and night against squatters. In this way entire suburbs were formed; it reminds me of claim jumpers and squatters in the Western US in the 1800’s.

Florencia is a dangerous neighborhood plagued by drugs and drug addicts in the outskirts and by opportunistic criminals in the interior. One of the bank members I spoke to on Thursday told me that she joined Manuela Ramos because her son was attacked just in front of her house and she depleted her savings paying his medical bills. It turns out that the attacker was her neighbor’s son; in a drug-induced craze he mugged the bank member’s son and stabbed him in the ear. I ask her if the police ever did anything about it and she says the justice system here in Perú is feeble; apparently, the perpetrator is still roaming free in the neighborhood. The woman tells me relations between her and her neighbor are strained to this day, three years after the incident occurred. The upside to this story is that her son is alive and well. She has been able to rehabilitate her shoe-making business through capital loans from Manuela Ramos and her son works side-by-side with her making up to 40 dozen shoes per week.

On Friday, I turned in a journal account of this woman’s story as well as all the other outstanding profiles that I’ve been working on in the past week. It’s time to say goodbye to the promotoras and they bid me farewell just as warmly as they welcomed me. I have also had to say goodbye to my internet café friends, my hotel manager friends and my neighborhood bakery. I get one last surprise invitation from Amelia, the director of the regional office: she wants me to come to her house tonight for dinner and her mother’s birthday celebration in the Los Jardines neighborhood.

I’m surprised and flattered and so glad that I get to visit with her family. She has one daughter that is my niece Ally’s age (3) and another that is still in high school. Her mother is a cool and beautiful lady of 67. We’re also dining with her in-laws and her nieces. I eat my weight in tamales and also taste a delicious cocktail that looks like Bailey’s but tastes like… gosh, I don’t even know how to describe it or even what the name of the fruit it was made from but it was GREAT! We sang happy birthday over the craziest cake I’ve had the chance to eat: it had layers of Jell-O and cheesecake interspersed with pound cake – wowza!

After dinner I said my last goodbyes – to Amelia, to my room, to the city – and got on my night bus to Lima. I’ve truly loved this gorgeous, coastal, colonial city. Maybe one day I’ll be back to rehash old times. But for now, my first four weeks is up and I’m about to begin the second leg of my trip: onward to the Amazooooooon!

Adventures with Ebele and Jen

Phewf, so much to catch up on after a whirlwind week! My sweet, sweet friends Ebele and Jen arrived Sunday night at my hostel and I got my first taste of good old home, sweet home. The ladies were fresh off the bus from Lima which they valiantly had jumped on within hours of landing.

We took it easy the first night and started off next morning at the largest pre-Incan ruin in the country: Chan Chan. It’s just ten minutes down the road from Trujillo; but, it is immense. Tens of thousands of inhabitants used to worship, work and play here. I don’t know too much about the site because we decided to pass up the guided tour…. The better to stage fun action shots with…

We also posted up with these wooden figurines.

Granted, we didn’t learn too much since we were relying on our tour book only. But we had a grand, old time all in all.

That afternoon, I took the girls to the mall where we ate some pretty crappola Papa John’s (beware! It’s NOT the same!) and then headed out to work to meet some more socias. Jen and Ebele got lost in the meantime and I ended up tracking them down at an internet café across town. How, you ask? You can thank Gchat for that one.

We grabbed some dessert, some snack for our upcoming trip and some dinner (eating is going to big with this crowd! Or at least with anyone who’s with me J ).

Lastly, we packed up our bags and headed out to the bus station for a night bus up the coast to Máncora.

Ahhhh, here we are in paradise. Máncora is a small, but popular surfing town in the north near Ecuador. I had no idea how much of a surfing culture Perú has, but it is a live and well all up and down the coast and especially here in Máncora. The sun shines everyday and the heat is on, so it’s a go to spot for anyone craving beach (US!).

We stayed at the Hotel Sunset, a serene, comfortable and clean spot just 2 miles south of the city center. We mototaxied there when we arrived in town to freshen up and get ready to get our surf on!

Here we are at Robbie Muñoz’ Surf Rider shop. Our teacher is a Ventura, CA born and raised pro-surfer. We were so excited and ready to get in the water. He drove us in this ole beater to a deserted beach 20 minutes south of Máncora to a town called Los Organitos.

This town doesn’t get a lot of tourists and that means that we have the beach pretty much all to ourselves. We park our car behind some fancy beach chalets (which for future reference sleep 10 and rent for $100 per night, ahem ahem ahem – bachelorette party!).

Here we are posting up like surfer girls before the lesson. Robbie started us off with a “quick run” – when he told us what was happening I was like, ummm – did I sign up for this? Of course it didn’t faze Jen or Ebele at all and off we all went plus a Swiss girl named Karen to jog up and down the beach a little. Afterwards, we got some lessons paddling, jumping up, and standing. It seems easy enough.

In fact, it wasn’t too bad with Robbie in the water launching us into the waves. Here’s me paddling out and Jen and Ebele getting up.

The hard part in surfing apparently is the actual catching the wave part. We spent the better part of our lesson struggling to catch just one, just ONE wave! Actually… I lie, because at this point the waves started getting way too big for us to handle. We were seriously struggling just to get onto our boards at some points. Ebele swears she had a brush with death and Robbie says at one point he looked up and said we looked like dolls getting tossed in a washing machine. I, for one, was just laughing hysterically every time I could get up for air.

We called it quits after a little while and all went to eat some lunch. Robbie turned out to be a super chill and nice (no surprise here?) guy and we ended up making plans to have dinner at one of his favorite spots. We also decided we had so much fun that day that we scheduled another surfing outing for the next day.

On the way home we saw this crazy looking dog which is supposedly a typically Peruvian breed. He looks like an albino hyena to me – an evil character out of a Disney movie or something.

We made it back to our hotel in time for a gorgeous sunset – eat your heart out suckers! Yes, it was as gorgeous as it looks and we watched the whole thing. I was in luck because it was also a full moon that night.

Dinner was some yummy ceviche, patacones and chaufa or Chinese/Peruvian fried rice. Afterwards we tried our luck at a couple bars in town.

But we turned in after a few rounds and a few songs – are we old ladies now? I keed I keed.

Next morning we had a lovely poolside breakfast and just took our time relaxing and savoring the day. Our midday we mototaxied into town to meet up with Robbie for another surfing lesson.

I had big dreams of getting up on my own and paddling my heart out to catch my dream wave. It’s hard work, man! After several missed attempts, I saw my wave coming and I went for it. “You caught it?!” you say?… No. I wish. Instead I got hives. Can you believe that crap?! I wiped out and swallowed a bunch of water and my body said, that’s it, I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to do acting like a fish swimming around and eating mouthfuls of water, but it tastes like shrimp and I’m going to swell up your face and your eyes, so there! Daaaaaaang.

But thankfully I have gracious, not-easily-astonished friends and Jen sat me on the beach and made sure I got my Benadryl. So the other girls are still valiantly hunting waves and I’m sunning on the beach and willing away a face full of hives. Again, thankfully, Benadryl is a miracle medicine and I didn’t have to wait long to look like a normal human being again. If any of you saw me that fateful Saint Patrick’s day when I turned into a hive-monster, don’t worry, it was nothing like that. Phewf!

Goodbye Robbie, our awesome instructor. Hello night bus L. We were not ready to head back; I know all of us could have stood at least a couple more days in beautiful Peruvian beach paradise.

But, Trujillo isn’t so bad: you can buy pastries out the back of a car! Ebele and Jen left the next day, again in night bus back to Lima where they plan to catch flight to Cuzco to begin a four day hike up to Machu Pichu.

It was so wonderful having them here – I’ve been such loner, which don’t get me wrong, I definitely like. But even if it was just a few days with friends, made all the difference in wrapping up my Trujillo experience. In showing them where and how I live it was kinda like graduation, funnily enough. I only wish we could’ve stayed together longer…

Thanks so much for visiting, girlies! Xoxoxo

The Weekend in Review

Woohoo- I’m going out with a bang!  Karaoke, guinea pigs, salsa and mototaxis – I’m trying to pack it all in before Ebele and Jen arrive and I round out my last few days on the Peruvian coast.

 

On Friday night I met up with my teacher buddies and we went to a local bar where bands play “Spanish Rock” on the weekends.  I think the singer in the striped shirt looked kind of like Rob Wrobel.  What do you think?

 

Saturday, I met up with the women of Manuela Ramos around noon to have lunch. They’d spent the morning doing a promotional caravan in the neighborhood markets of La Esperanza – an outer suburb (and sometimes slum) of Trujillo.  Because it’s my last week coming up, they were kind enough to take me out on the town both for lunch and dinner/drinks/karaoke/dancing!

 

Well, here it is my first cuy.  The skin reminds me of a pork rind on a Christmas ham and the meat reminds me of chicken thigh: dark and juicy but too light to be meat.  That’s it’s little foot sticking out there.  He’s deep fried and he tastes pretty good.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get psyched out sometimes while I was chowing down.  It seems silly though, because it was good! Just remembering those little cutey pies at Señora Elda’s house in the sierras… It made me hesitate… and burp.

 

Fresia ordered a side of cuy head.  Which to me looks like more like a hippo than a guinea pig… Hey, if pigs and hippos are related, does that mean guineas pigs are too?  Check out the ears – they made me giggle.

 

Lunch was really nice and it was good to finally spend some more social time with the promotoras (loan officers) and directors.  I wish I had taken the initiative to do something like that sooner.  It’s a pity I’ll be leaving them all in a week to go to Pucallpa.  But my lesson is learned – no more being shy!

 

I spent the rest of the afternoon traipsing around taking pictures of underwear and street taffy.

 

I also paid another visit to El Cortijo trying to track down the members of the Nuevo Peru bank.  I don’t know why I thought it was deserted before because this time it was teeming with children, street vendors and pit bulls.

 

One of the girls in the foreground is the daughter of one of the women who I’m looking for to interview.  The momma is a no show so it means another trip back this Monday.

 

But no time to worry, it’s on to the night! I must wear my love for karaoke on my sleeve, because the promotoras have known I’ve wanted to go since the first day I arrived.  We made plans to meet up for dinner and then a little singy-singy that night.

 

Here we are at the office getting ready to get our party on.  Everyone in Perú asks me how tall I am and because of the incessant questioning I have looked up my metric height: 1.67m.  In the picture above I’m head and shoulders above the promotoras and that’s pretty much the case everywhere I go.  I’m really more on par with the men than the women and even then I have a lot of the guys beat.  Not bad for 5’6”, no?

 

Dinner was another food adventure: beef heart kebabs, otherwise known as anticuchos.  They’re yummy, just like any other beef kebab except way, way chewier.

 

After dinner we walked over to a …. Casino?!?!  Yes, the karaoke lounge is in a small casino just off the Plaza de las Armas.  It’s like a tiny version of a Las Vegas casino complete with one lounge and one dance hall in addition two gaming floors.  The whole thing is the size of a flagship Gap store.

 

Here we are having fun at the karaoke lounge.  This was I think my first time not in a private karaoke room. I’m not sure if it was the extra audience or not enough drinking beforehand but I handily butchered CRAZY by Aerosmith to start the night off.  Okay, I pulled it together halfway through, but I was totally unprepared when my song came on and ended up surprising myself with a my own sour start. Ha!

 

I should have gone with my normal Four Non-Blondes but nobody knew that song and they were begging either for Crazy or November Rain.  I don’t even know who sings November Rain (I know, I’m an embarrassment) so of course I went Aerosmith.  So the end was not at all terrible, but the beginning was- wow – I wish you could have seen (and not heard?) it.

 

I’m harping on it so much because it was my only chance to sing.  That’s the downside to these open lounges, the whole bar has to sing before it’s your turn again.  We were tired out after two rounds.

 

So three pitchers of sangria and two hours of karaoke later we headed up to the discoteque to shake our groove thang!  The band was awesome and, unfortunately, had a shortage of anniversaries and birthdays to dedicate songs to.  So “Welcome, Jenny frrrrom Amerrricaaaaa” was too frequently the cause to call the dancers to the floor.  It’s too bad my camera batteries ran out because we had a great time cutting the rug.  One of the loan officers tells me (blush blush!) I dance better than some Peruvians.  Hot diggety dog!

 

We were dancing for another couple of hours and getting completely tired out.  One of the loan officers, Flor, completely ghosted without telling anyone she was leaving and, oh how it made me think of my sweet, sweet California home! Ha ha ha ha!

 

We called a taxi from inside the club even though there are tons waiting outside.  Good tidbit for any travelers to Trujillo: get a cab driver recommendation for late night pick ups and drop offs.  There are taxistas out there who will rob you right in the backseat of the car on your way home!  Yikes.  I’m thankful that one of the loan officers’ neighbors is here to come pick us up and take us all safely, one by one to our homes.

So that´s the weekend so far.  Ebele and Jen come tonight and I cant´t wiat for the adventures we´re going to make together.  Stay tuned for scenes from our upcoming trip to surfing mecca Máncora.

Scenes from this Week – the Trujillo Penultimate!

I can’t believe it will be my last week in Trujillo soon.  I’m not ready to head to the jungle yet – actually, I’d love to get some hot sun and see the Amazon basin – but I could also stand a few more weeks here.

 

This week was lovely just like the others.  I felt like this week I worked more than most: going to meetings, tracking down bank members through random markets and neighborhoods and a (last?) trip up to the Sierras on Thursday.

 

I’m so surprised and flattered by how warm and inviting most of the socias are within five minutes of meeting.  I’ve definitely also noticed an initial caution from almost everyone I’ve met – I think any stranger knocking on your door is automatically met with wariness.  Maybe it’s something we disguise in the US and we grin no matter who is approaching; but for me it was a little intimidating at first to be regarded somberly and with sidelong glances when I entered meetings or homes.  Maybe that’s why I’m so surprised when – after I’ve explained myself and chatted with her for a few minutes – the mood changes completely.

 

This Señora was as somber as they come when I knocked on her door.  She opened the window and asked me what, when, why and who before she dropped the curtain, closed the window and then scared the bejesus out of me when she popped out the side door to let me in.  But soon we’re chatting away over leftover birthday cake and Inca Kola while Barney is blaring in the background.  She tells me she loves brown people – I never would’ve guessed just going on our first few moments’ interaction.  The little boy is her grandson; she minds him while her daughter works in the city.

 

This is a picture of the El Cortijo neighborhood.  It looks deserted right? I was convinced no one lived here; but ten minutes down this road I did manage to find some people.  Too further my surprise I found out they were farmers – but where? We’re across the street from the mall!  We weeded through some backyards and brick houses and sure enough, there are one and two acre tracts of vegetables growing here and there.  This woman grows broccoli, spring onions and coriander on this leased plot.

 

In running around Trujillo this week I finally remembered to take this picture.  These guys sit outside along a block of government buildings typing forms for petitioners, lil old ladies in knee high stockings and campesinos in tall hats and ponchos.

 

Yesterday I went to the Sierra for another dose of motorcycles and rain.  I can’t complain though.  A 56-year old woman in this meeting told me afterwards that she was about to start her three hour walk home to a “nearby” hamlet named Catarata, or waterfall.  I was dreading three hours on the bus; but here she is pointing to a huge hill, donning her hat and telling me she’s about to trudge through the downpour to where she lives on the other side of the rise.

 

The day started off with some heart-breaker sunshine.  We had a meeting at 7 am here in a bakery one of the women owns in Mache.  I broke away halfway through to track down a woman who had missed another meeting we’d held last week.

 

I ended up tracking down her son at school and here he is leading me to her house.  By the time I finished interviewing her and Mara finished the bank meeting we were too late for the bus.  So we took a forty minute tandem ride to Agallpampa.  This time I got my picture taken on the bike a la Peruana: no smiles… Well, I tried.

serio

 

This one is a la Jenny, no?!

I rode at the back of the moto which stinks because there are no foot pedals.  These bikes (like the people?) are fairly short.   To keep my feet from dragging through the mud I was either lifting my legs until they tired or holding my ankles in my hands until my arms got tired.  Like-a Zheese…

 

In Agalllpampa I interviewed Señora Nila who was gutting guineas pig during out conversation. I don’t think they’re so cute anymore.  When she was working with the head, she would turn it on its back and break its jaw by knocking it a couple of times under the chin with the blunt side of the blade.  This made it easier for her to then insert the knife in the little guys mouth and cut off his lower jaw and throat.  From then, he gets cleaned like any other animal: cut from butt to belly to get the insides out and Voila! A rodent ready for roasting.

 

From there we headed to Motil just as the weather started to change.  You can see the clouds about to let loose here.

 

Our next meeting was in this outdoor area under a corrugated tin roof.  The rain was thunderous, we could barely hear each other.  It’s so cold too! I wonder who picks the meeting places and why they’re all content to wear skirts and ponchos.  I would love a neck to toes down puffer right now.  And I don’t know how sandals or loafers are appropriate either.  But they’re way more used to the wet and the cold then me; one woman said to me today, “Well, without the rain we won’t get the potatoes.”  They do have amazing potatoes here…