On Wednesday I arrived back in Sorochuco. I was very apprehensive about doing so because I had been gone so long, but it was like nothing had changed. I had the good fortune to be given a ride by Jose Tarfur, our regional director in Cajamarca. He was driving an SUV and we could bring up all my stuff and the new mattress I bought in Cajamarca. The mattresses that are common here are these foam boxes which sink in in the middle, forming a lovely “V” by the morning’s light. However, what I neglected to see in the store while buying it was how small it is. It’s like a glorified cot, or sofa where one might pass out after a night of festivities.
There were tons of children waiting for me and I got help from no less than 8 kids carrying my luggage into my room. I got tons of handshakes from all the 6-year olds and questions when we’d play some basketball. We made our way into my family’s restaurant where I got a warm welcome and began putting stuff away in my room. It was like the last 2 months hadn’t occurred. Of course I lived in Sorochuco. That’s me. I’m a Sorochucino. I found myself thinking of how easy it is to fall back into patterns. It was the same way when I got home to the states. It was like “we’re so glad to see you!!!” followed by “the yard needs to be raked.”
Spent the rest of the time BS-ing with the crew at the health post and fielding questions from people about my absence. Questions fell into three categories:
1.) “Where have you been? We thought you left us”
2.) “How is your Dad? Is he better? Me allegro that he’s better.”
3.) “How was your stomach surgery? Have you recovered yet?”
…..or a combination of all three. The stomach surgery was exciting news to me, but it’s nice to know they cared enough to make stuff up.
On Friday, I got up at 5:30 and headed down to the fields with my host father. While I was cursing the cows for feeling that they needed to be milked at this hour, I noticed the throves of people already out. They were brushing dirt off the dirt roads and moving heavy pieces of wood back and forth. My host father greeted everyone warmly and before long, we were in front of some cows.
We saddled up next to a cow, knelt down and grabbed a handful. I was expecting some type of tutelage on how not to hurt the cow, but there was none. He just said “here, this is how you do it.” You grab, squeeze and pull. The milk then sprays out into the jar. Then you do this a thousand times. Its quite a hand workout and between cow milking and washing clothes, I’ll have Popeye-like forearms after 2 years. I’m really glad that I got to do this because it feels like a rite of passage for a Peace Corps volunteer. I would be really bummed if I were to take out my “to-do” list on my death bed and wasn’t able to check of “milked a cow.
We stayed for another 2 hours digging a canal for the water to run down from the river to the animals. Afterwards, we hiked back up just as the sun was really emerging and shining a light over the clouds hugging the mountaintops. Now that the rains have stopped, Sorochuco is gorgeous. It is hard not to notice the rugged beauty now that the town is not shrouded in rain. We all came in at a difficult time because there were no kids and tons of rain. Now those two things have reversed and I see the sierra in a different light.
Later that day I was invited last-minute to a meeting in the municipality. This was a HUGE step that I was actually sought out and invited to a meeting, which to me means that I’m becoming more and more accepted. It was a meeting run by 2 representatives from Celendin who had created a presentation on the nutritional deficiencies in Sorochuco. We all learned that 60% of the kids where I live are malnourished in one form or another. This shocked us into the realization that Sorochuco isn’t in the greatest position.
As per Peruvian meeting etiquette, it ran 2.5 hours late. People began to get very animated about the topic of malnourishment, problems with the infrastructure in Sorochuco and airing their personal grievances. I drifted on and off after hour 4, but the conversation pretty much went something like this. I’ll paraphrase:
Guy 1: “My caserillo is really poor!! My kids can’t eat and I work all day!.”
Guy 2: “My caserillo is even poorer!!! It rains all the time and my arm hurts!”
Guy 1: “Shut up and let me finish!” (loses train of thought)
Guy 3: “Peru is in a terrible situation! It’s the government’s fault!”
(Interrupted by a worker below banging a hammer into the ceiling and a the director banging on the floor to counteract the noise, creating an even noisier situation )
Guy 2: “In my caserillo we don’t even have a government. Or electricity. Or food.”
Guy 4: “Brian, what do you think about this? What’s your plan to help us out?”
(Cut to Brian being jolted awake and uttering something about helping out the kids and thinking about the future, all in less-than-desirable Spanish.)
…and so on. We eventually adjourned the meeting because people were too hungry to pay attention. I found some humor in the fact that we had to stop a meeting about malnourishment because we were all famished.
The next day I was on 5:30AM cow-milking detail again. I had seen how much work my host father puts in before I traditionally roll out of bed and wanted to give him a hand. Of course, he really didn’t need a hand because people here work 16 hours a day every day and think nothing of it. You shake their hands and it’s like rubbing sandpaper with fancy city slicker-like hands. I see people coming up from Salacat in bare feet with enough mud caked on their feet that they don’t feel a thing. These are tough folks.
We went down to the chakra and I did my job. Horacio, my 17-year-old host brother was home from studying law in Cajamarca and came with us. We then got assigned firewood detail. Don Benjamin, my host father, whipped out a 2’ machete and hacked at a eucalyptus tree which he clearly had felled with the same knife a few days beforehand. Horacio and I made two separate piles of firewood, tied them up and then lugged them back up to the house. This was much tougher than anticipated because the chakra is way down in the valley and we’re way up in the plaza. However, I passed several men whom I know and all gave me some mumbled Spanish affirmations which I think meant that they thought it was good I was lugging firewood. So if this ingratiates me with the community, I’ll do it every day. It’s cool to see the sun rise as you’re walking down a gorgeous mountain anyway and I won’t have this experience forever.
Later that day, I made the pilgrimage up to Salacat to work on an international project that Joy and I are starting at the grade school up there. This hike is a death march straight up but rewards you with an incredible panorama of Sorochuco more than a thousand feet below you and gives glimpses of houses so remote that they don’t really belong to any caserillo. It’s quiet, beautiful, and totally subsistence living. Additionally, you get the chance to meet some interesting people on this walk. I’ve encountered men so drunk they can’t see straight, yet are walking up a dangerous path over a mountain and women racing down the path on horses screaming at nobody. This time I met Fernando. We had a pleasant conversation on the mountaintop about the US and Peru and he invited me to his annexo, which is a sub-village of a caserillo. This basically translates into a group of 3 houses which stand alone because they’re too far and too small from a caserillo to be their own. Fernando had pine tree-green teeth from years of coca chewing and a burro who looked just as old as the mountain. He offered me his wrist, an open invitation for papas and arroz and we bid adieu.
It had been misty when I started for Salacat, but was pouring down rain when I got there. I arrived miserable, freezing and eyeing the mountains from Joy’s house with a sense of dread. We did our planning and I kept looking out the window as to when it might clear up and I could go back. That time never came and I eventually waited for the combi to take me down to Sorochuco. I was put to work on the combi loading and unloading some random guy’s firewood, but rewarded with the tropical paradise which was Sorochuco in comparison to Salacat.
Sunday was market day. I went and bought my usual arsenal of fruit, the majority of which goes to waste because I buy too much. Afterwards, I met Joy again who had come down for market day and we went to watch the championship soccer game between Salacat and Sorochuco. I have said before that these exhibitions are just fistfights which are occasionally interrupted by soccer games and Sunday was no exception. One of our guys got kicked out for fighting with the guy who raises the flag when the ball goes out of bounds. One of the Salacat guys got kicked out for fighting with the other guy who raises with the flag. Those were pretty stupid fights and the game was interrupted both times by swarms of people with nothing better to do. It was a dirty game and I made the mistake of sitting with the Salacat contingent. When we scored our first (and only) goal, I was up clapping and yelling and getting dirty looks. The guy behind me said something to the extent of “One for Sorochuco, but 20 more for Salacat.” Traditionally, Salacat wins this tournament and then gets crushed when they play Celendin, who has the luxury of actual training and fields which aren’t on a 15 degree angle. Tradition held on because we then got crushed.
Midway through the game, I decided that yes, I wanted some of that ceviche that I saw the local schoolkids selling by the entrance. Ceviche may be my favorite Peruvian food of all time. It’s a delicious fish or seafood mix with dried corn, sweet potatoes and onions. Well Brian was hungry and at the time, it seemed like a great idea to buy this meal for a sol. Midway through the plate, I realized that not only was I consuming seafood in an area not even remotely close to any type of ocean, but I was also consuming seafood which had been out in the sun all day and been handled by schoolchildren. So, I did the smart thing and shrugged my shoulders and kept on eating. It seems I have to get back in practice of really watching what I eat. Later on that day, I began regretting it, as my stomach began making noises loud enough for other people to hear and not treating me well. As I sit now in my room and write this, there’s still rumbling and I hope it goes away before my 4AM wake-up call to Celendin tomorrow. Nothing beats stomach issues at 4AM with chickens running around your feet and the smell of the campo.
Finished off the day by doing maybe half my laundry which had slowly accumulated and did some English homework with a few kids from the local Secudaria. In true Peru form, I was then in bed by 8:30.
All in all, an excellent welcome back to Sorochuco. The days have passed by much faster than they did at first and I am beginning to see this is going to go by quick. But if a cow-milking emergency comes up, I’ll be well prepared.
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