8:00am
Today is my host father’s birthday.
As I am frantically tabulating all the information in my surveys and writing my community diagnostic my host mother is killing, cleaning, and preparing rabbit for dinner.
I am very frustrated that I wasn’t able to knit with her yesterday afternoon and chop up some rabbit with her this morning, but the responsible woman buried somewhere in me knows I only have 3 days to write this diagnostic for Peace Corps and two of those three days I will be on buses traveling to Early In Service Training.
Wish me luck! 20 pages of puked Spanish, here I come.
1:20pm
What is even harder than working through complicated statistical equations you haven’t studied in years? Working through complicated statistical equations you haven’t studied in years with the most annoying creature on the planet buzzing around your head, hands, computer, tea, feet, everything! Damn flies might actually cause me to lose my mind.
5:00pm
My host father came back from the fields today and when he saw my face peek over my laptop he smiled and walked over so that I could wish him a Feliz Cumpleanyos. Today was the day I ate food with the family that actually tasted good to me. Roasted hare. So delicious! I devoured my rabbit leg (yup, it still had the toes and everything, the dog got the toes, don’t worry). Dinner was followed by a series of traditions that I felt elated to be a part of. My host father kept telling me that I am a part of the family now as I helped him break apart pieces of alpaca chest, count out 6 coca leaves, wrip pine needles, count 3 corn kernels at a time and them pile them all together in a historically specific design. Then my host father whispered prayers to the small, specific pile, and poured a strong alcohol into a shell and sprinkled it over the small mountain. Then every woman in the room breathed on the pile before we threw it into a pile of incense. As the earthly gifts burned we listened carefully to the cracks. You have to hope for at least three cracks which symbolize a prosperous year to come. With each loud pop the whole room “wooped”. Today we had 6 cracks in total, a very good sign. The small ceremony was followed by drinking and dancing. They are still just tickled pink to hear me speak quechua or wear a pollera (local dress), so tonight was a particular treat to see the gringa dancing around in local exuberant attire with her 60-year-old host father in his traditional poncho. In all of the silliness, I have to say that there were these moments of unreality. Disbelief that I could really, truly be here, a part of this ancient offering. Then this strange euphoric experience as I came down out of a bounce in my pollera circling my family’s room. This utter and true happiness that you usually only feel in a familiar hug or an intimate kiss. Where the world just softens into nothingness and all you can feel are the people with you and complete happiness
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