When I arrived back at the house yesterday afternoon, I found Ana in the kitchen area with her mother and about 10 dead guinea pigs at their feet. The proceeded to dip the cuy in boiling water, pluck the hair off of them and set them to the side. This morning, Shura and I traipsed down to the community oven (literally a huge fire oven in the house of a local woman) and put the cuy and some potatoes in to roast. Ana splits the cuy open, takes out the non-edible insides and stuffs them with herbs to be roasted. As I had never observed the full preparations for roasted cuy, I was quite intrigued. And today, as we ate them for lunch, I have to say it was quite delicious. I also spent most of my morning shelling abas (soy beans) and peeling the outer layer of choclo off. Choclo is large-kernel sweet corn. We made "crema de maiz" today and the soup tastes better when the choclo is peeled. I told Ana that this time, I am going to pay very close attention to how to cook some of these dishes so I can do so at home.
Ana's sister Norma, her husband Manuel, and their 4 year old daughter Maria Fernanda also joined us for lunch and the rest of the afternoon. MaFe (nickname for Maria Fernanda) is adorable so she and I played a lot. I spent part of the afternoon remembering my least favorite aspect of living in Ollanta -- washing my clothes by hand. I only washed my underwear and believe me, this is the easiest to wash by hand, but it still is a pain in the butt. Plus, it is the rainy season which means it rains off and on all day long. My underwear is currently hanging on a line in my room. I think I may resort to taking my other clothes over to Sylvia to pay her for washing them. Sylvia gives a discount to Awamaki volunteers. I get embarrassed to do that because I feel like Ana is disappointed in me that I don't wash my own clothes. I will take the disappointment!
This time around, Shura and I are sharing a room. She is 17 now and has graduated from high school in December. She is currently studying for the entrance exams for university. The exams are in March. She hasn't studied as much as she is supposed to so she doesn't feel very confident about her scores. She most likely will have to do a training course (I look at it like a Kaplan course for GREs, MCATs, etc) in Cusco starting in April. Getting into University here is very difficult. This exam is very, very important. So we shall see how she does. If she does have to do the course in Cusco, she will rent a room there throughout the week and just come home on the weekends.
Little Fabricio seems to be doing better today. He took a turn for the worse last night and ended up having to go to the hospital in Urubamba for urgent care. Today he is much happier and talkative. He is still having diarrhea but he has only vomited once today. It is just so sad when little babies are sick. Ana was very worried last night, but since he seems much better today, everyone is back to being happy. He only talks baby gibberish, but he will take a cell phone up to his ear and say something that sounds a lot like "hallo". He says "ma" too. It is my goal to have him saying "Tia Ali" (Aunt Ali) by the time I leave!
I haven't been able to have my introductory meeting with the health coordinator Sunny, the volunteer coordinator Kaitlyn and Noah, the director yet. I know Noah from last year and I just met Kaitlyn today, but both Sunny and Noah are sick with stomach issues so we will hopefully meet up on Friday. I am going to go to the clinic on Friday for the regular chocolatada. I am not in a huge rush this week to jump into things. It is nice to chill and spend time with the family and see my friends.
There is a little festival in one of the mountain communities tomorrow so we are going to pack up a lunch and head up there as a family. I hope it doesn't rain too much or we may not go.
Here are my parting words for today -- I took my first freezing cold shower this morning since last July. My alarm clock which has a thermometer on it tells me that my room is a toasty 60 degrees. It is funny how quickly I forget my dislike of hot beverages when I return here. My frozen fingers like the warmth of a hot mug of tea.
Regardless of the clothes washing, the regular rains, and the pervasive wet chill, I am very happy to be back. As my friend Marjo says, this is the price I have to pay so deal with it!
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