Henry left early this morning.
I popped by Chivay to download some information on an NGO John and I will be presenting to next week. The informative PDF took over an hour to load, then a virus ate it and everything else saved on my USB. Failure #1
I downloaded a handful of e-mails to print off and read when I got back to site, and there wasn’t a functioning printer in town. Failure #2
Having given up, I hopped into a hotel’s shower and it was anything but the heat I was expecting. Failure #3
Shivering, the morning put me in my quiet, stormy mood.
But, Paul cheered me up with a 1 ½ hr. car ride that felt like 15 minutes. There is nothing like conversation with a good friend.
When we arrived in Madrigal we headed for the cows with my host sister. Paul’s nervousness as I handled the bulls was endearing. Such an intelligent man isn’t used to feeling so helpless.
Then we headed to lunch with Angelica y Meche. The lunch proceeded to be three of my best Peruvian friends ganging up on and making fun of me. I laughed so hard my rosy cheeks were striped with tears. Paul did some informal interviews with them for the article comparing Limeñan/Madrigaleñan lifestyle, and I did puzzles with Jesus, Meche’s son, who has finally opened up to me. It felt so good, there are no words. I found my place. This room, these people.
Nervous, I headed to the Municipality to find out why, two months later, they still didn’t have the wall up that would secure the VALE room and future library. Through the grape vine I heard they were going to move us to another room in the back of the municipality, and I was frustrated to loss such a good space. Next to the stairs as I walked up to the secretary’s office I saw a pile of plywood. I gulped the smile and didn’t allow myself to assume that those were for the library space. Of course it was. They set a promise date, the 23rd of June. I have to say I nearly skipped out of the municipality.
As I headed to a local wedding reception I was greeted by my host father, dressed to his nines, coming home with a handful of his brother’s and sisters. Laughing, we talked in the freezing plaza of Madrigal for at least half an hour.
Having missed the wedding cake, I headed back home to sleep, when Roxanna came in my room,
“Remember how you told me to tell you if there are any kids that can’t afford to buy school supplies?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The friend that came down from the ranch with the sheep for meat this week has a son.”
Having met this family, no more words needed to be said. They are the ultimate of traditional. They live on the ranch and raise sheep, goats, alpacas, and llamas to sell to the families in Madrigal. No electricity. No water but the river melted ice cap streams (that also mans no plumbing). No formal school. Tonight Elvis received more markers, pens, pencils, crayons, and glue than he could possibly use in a year, all donated by Reed Bennet. Reed, he drew a vizcacha for you. This is a rabbit creature with a long tail that are rarely spotted. Elvis says he sees them all the time on the ranch, and was all smiles while he focused on his crayon rendering.
Any frustration in this work is rapidly trumped by the beauty of the relationships built through life here.
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