First Weekend with the Family

2-5-11

Today was a Saturday, so I tested out how late I could sleep in. My room is right next door to the kitchen so I woke up really early, around 6, when they started to bustle around. However, I didn’t get showered, dressed, and ready to eat til 10. I still feel like that’s pretty early. I’ve felt sort of paranoid about the whole family aspect of this, and to what extent should I bind myself to their rules. They’re very nice and lenient so far, and McClain told me something that made me feel much more comfortable. She said that no one else who we pay room and board to would have so much say over our daily lives, so why should they? Obviously I will still be respectful, but I think I should give myself the freedom to do what I want to do.

That being said, after breakfast and helping to peel some enormous beans, I took a taxi to the center to meet a couple of people at the market. Then it started to rain sooooooo hard! The thunder scared me! I’m pretty used to thunder, but wow! The streets were rivers! They weren’t kidding about this rainy season stuff. I was totally unprepared and got soaked, as it took a long time to get in touch with and then meet up with the people that were going to be at the market. In fact, by the time I finally found them I had to go home to eat lunch! A bunch of us left, in the rain, to get a taxi home. Because of the rain almost all taxis were full so it was difficult. Olivia seemed impressed that I’d done all that on my own, but I suppose that I might as well be independent if we’re going to be here for so long. That, however, seemed to backfire today.

I went home to eat lunch with my family, then at three we went to the church to attend the Baptism of Victor. I found it quite hilarious that when all eleven or so of us were piled into the huge van on the way to the church "Fuck You" by Cee Lo Green was playing on the radio. They don't bleep it out here at all! I also think I'm the only one in the car who understood what was being said. I’m not sure what relation Victor is to the family, but now Farina and Edward (parents of Sebas) are his godparents. I hope they don’t make me go to church because I nearly fell asleep many many times throughout the ceremony. It’s hard enough to pay attention, but when you have to listen to a foreign language it’s much harder! After the baptism we came home to talk and eat lunch. Then we proceeded, the whole family plus about eight extra family members, to sit in the living room for about the next five hours and occasionally drinking this sickly sweet red wine or pisco sours. I think I prefer Caipirinhas to pisco sours.

Lunch was interesting though, even if I was very bored. I was overwhelmed by people so didn’t speak much, but I did try the food they gave me. Cuy! I tried cuy! Cuy is guinea pig and one of the oldest domesticated animals in the world. It sort of just tasted like chicken’s dark meat. The crispy skin got to me a bit. On my plate my host mom had also put a sausage, so I asked about it. She explained that it was a sausage made out of the kidneys and heart of that same guinea pig. I ate one bite of it to be nice, but though the flavor was ok, I couldn’t eat any more. Not only have I now had cuy, but also heart and kidney!

During those long hours my host dad, Victor, told me that tomorrow we are going to leave early in the morning to go to a temple. I wasn’t going to go out since I had to get up early, but after sooo many hours with the family, I needed to get out. Missed connections and communications, as well as me being dumb, led to a delayed start. However, we finally went dancing and eventually found this place called InkaTeam, which was nice. Unfortunately, I now have to wake up in three hours.

Good night!

xo Claire