This is to account for time.
I came back home to Mazac and to Isidoro and Shilly and Lenin and Norly; I again became part of the patchwork of those San Pedro-shaking hills, the constant earthquake of people and plants and animals, sewn together by huayno and recuerdo and olvido.
Cope with the stunning beauty:
Now go back to your real life and leave me here to mine. It starts and ends with carnaval- that rare night when nothing matters, when old enemies again become friends, when all the hurt and danger, the car wrecks and earthquakes and mudslides (google: Yungay 1970) are forgotten and remembered and forgotten.
Sunday, February 14
Tío Fuan, Isidoro´s brother and neighbor, is mounting the tablada. This is one of three principal traditions that make Carnaval in Mazac- the others are the monte, a tree that will be dressed with treats and fell, and jugar con agua. In 2004 I fell the monte and put it back the next year with music and sheep and drunk. This is one of my strongest connections to this village. Jugar con agua is playing with water. It is the unprogrammed, chaotic campo game of soaking your friends with buckets of water from the irrigation channels. The kids love it and I used to love it but now I think it's irritating and stupid. I heard that Lima passed a law making Jugar con agua illegal and this might be the only agreement I have with Lima.
The tablada, at Tio Fuan´s house, is a raft of bamboo dressed with fruits, beer, soda, mantas, buckets, with bread in the shape of hearts and dolls and ponies at its center. The tradition starts with the slaughter of sheep- two innocent creatures are strung and bled and peeled. The sheep will render three meals: first is tsucan, a plate of boiled potatoes dressed with the sheep´s blood; then we wake up early and take Pegam Caldu, Caldo de Cabeza, sheeps' head stew, a broth of the sheep's skull and entrails garnished with cilantro and onion; finally, before carrying the tablada to the Plaza, we take another soup with the meat of the sheep. All three plates are exsquisite, and my hope for Peruvian cuisine is that one day I might arrive at Andina in Portland to take pegam caldo. For now I will take it in Mazac and it is strange and delicious and I love it.
Having taken this morning broth, Fuan invites his family to beer and his friends to some pop with rubbing alcohol. I am family here. The stomach full of pegam caldu and the sky celeste and wide open and the kids running around with their buckets of water- I'm happy and terrified to be back. There is obvious reason for my joy, but the terror is to know that I can get stuck here, that I can live and die here, right here beneath Huandoy, in this house, dancing with Oli and drinking with Tío Fuan.
Before it gets too intense I escape to walk up the hill, to take in all of Mazac from Pan de Azucar. This is my San Pedro, my clean body and pure heart. It is my peace, to be all the way up here, standing tall next to my fellow gringo, Huandoy.
Knowing that this party will last for the next 18 hours, I spend Yungay to tend to some business. In the afternoon I return to Mazac in mototaxi and the tablada is already at the Plaza. I take lonche, bread and lemongrass tea, with Leobi in his new house, made of materia noble, brick. He is my best friend here, but he´s different now, more mature, a family man. He seems sad to me at first and he doesn't want to go the Plaza to dance. Later I will realize that he's a grown up, the kind that spends his money on protein for his kids instead of beer, and I will love him more for this. I leave Leo's and walk down to the church- here Lili and Mary and Oli and Javi and Maki and Richard are dancing. These are all good friends, and I'm glad to be here with them, now night time and zapateando! We dance to all the old songs and my heart sails up into the night sky and dances with Oli´s heart, and then she crashes my heart down by singing the loveless huaynos to me as we dance. Her son Chiwi sleeps inside the chapel, wrapped up in my coat with my hat for his pillow. It rains and we all get drenched and its time to walk home, the group of us, each of us stopping whichever house along the road will take us in, Chiwi trudging along in his sleep.
Monday, February 15.
I wake early and walk up Pan de Azucar. I look up at Huandoy, down at Yungay and the road to Caraz. I feel myself inside Quebrada Ancash and feel it inside of me. These first days are full of violent recall of the life I lived here. To be back is joyous and strange, and all I want is to feel this same feeling forever, the feeling of coming back, coming home. I hope I will feel it when I get back to Oregon eventually but maybe not, maybe it's just here. I come down from the hill in time for lunch with my family. Boiled potatoes and rice and a fried egg. This is, by virtue of the egg, a good lunch.
After lunch I attempt to walk down to Yungay to buy supplies and check email. Here is where the terror begins, with the dogs. As to how I regularly walked from Mazac to Yungay and dealt with those dogs I will never know. They are skinny, angry brutes. If you know them, you know which ones are legitimate threats to bite. If not, they will all bite you. On this particular walk I have two encounters with dogs that don't back down. I pick up rocks and threaten to throw them. These dogs don't care. It is now that I realize that the rock trick does not work if it's an empty threat. You must be ready to strike and injure the dogs for the rock trick to work, and I am not interested in this. I do not have the same bond now with this place- I'm not part of its food chain and I will not kill whatever threatens my existence. I turn around, retreat to Mazac.
It does not take terribly long to remember how challenging it was to live here for two years and cope with the violence and terror of life here. It is strikingly beautiful, enough so that it´s worth it, but life here is full of fear and death. Osvaldo, who lived right on the Plaza, died a month ago with his señora in a car wreck. If you stay in Peru for 10 years, you will be in a car accident. You will be bitten by dogs and you will lose a finger or a tooth. If you stay for 20 years, your house will be destroyed in an earthquake and if you do not make good time up Pan de Azucar, you may die in the slide of mud and ice. I would like to tell you that the fear and violence make the beauty here, that there's a reason for it. But that´s not true. That´s bullshit. This place is beautiful but it's fucking terrifying.
In the afternoon I share a beer with Isidoro. I´m glad to be home, inside his home, where I ignore the prodigious spiders and bugs and fleas in my bed and sleep good sleep. Already the process is happening where my body and brain are giving in to life here, where I can no longer control things around me. And we haven´t even touched on the food and poop situation yet. It´s still too fresh in my memory for any kind of humor.
Tuesday, February 16
I meet up with an old friend, Flora, to go down to Caraz for icecream. Caraz is still celebrating Carnaval, mostly with Jugar con agua. A bunch of teenagers soak me in the plaza and ruin my raspadilla. I buy a new shirt so that I can eat lunch dry. Goddamn Jugar con agua.
In the combi on the way back to Yungay, Flora and I make plans to hike up to Huandoy. She suggests that we bring coca leaves for the altitude. I try to make a joke in Quechua about chewing coca but it is not funny and instead I've won the attention and shame of everyone in the combi. Flora is mortified. She covers her face and tells me that there´s no pill for this kind of embarassment (No hay pastilla para esa roche). Several minutes pass before we´re able to get back to any kind of conversation.
In the afternoon I tell all of this to Leo and he laughs his ass off. Algunas cosas en la vida son así.
Wednesday, 17 de Febrero
I wake up early and go to Caraz with Shilly, who sells lettuce there, and Shubi, my godson. I love going places with Shilly because it´s treat for her for her friends to meet her gringo, and because she´s funny and smart.
On our way to Caraz, the wagon´s front tire pops, the driver loses control and we slide all over the road before the car comes to a stop in the tall grass on the shoulder. Shubi is sitting on my lap in the front seat, the seatbelt loose around the two of us. I hold him tight. If there had been oncoming traffic we would have died. We all get out of the car and stand around laughing while the driver puts on a spare. Jajajajaja si viniera una combi ya fuimos. Jajajajaja.
Shubi takes video of his mom selling lettuce. When Isidoro sees the video later on he´s very proud of how his wife sells pan caliente (like hotcakes).
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqNWy__MbT8
I buy a car for Shubi- you´ve seen the video, which was not staged, by the way. I buy a volleyball for Norly and an Isabel Allende novel, Eva Luna, for Ketty. After the tire incident in the morning I just want to give them gifts to congratulate them on their capacity for survival.
At lunch, Shilly kills and guts a guinea pig, and within 30 minutes of its death, the entire cuy is in my stomach. The kids are off playing and Isidoro is working someone´s farm, so it´s just the two of us in the kitchen. I buy three litres of Inka Kola and together with Shilly we nearly finish it. I eat the guinea pig slowly and methodically. I remember my first cuarto to cuy, shared with Doug Neal on the floor of a stranger's home in Marcará- how we dreaded it and barely touched its meat. Now I work it´s skin and flesh and bones with my teeth, careful not to miss even a thread of the rodent's flesh. The only part I will not eat is the head. This is ok because Isidoro loves head.
Full of Inka Kola and Jakapicchu, I retire to my room to read Moby Dick. I love reading this book right now. Later in the afternoon I walk with Shubi up Pan de Azucar and together we hunt doves. It is a revelation that he can climb this hill. He's like a little Tom Sawyer, hunting doves with his imagination and never coming close to killing them. We become fast friends on this trip. We get back to the house in time for dinner, and there is leftover cuy. If you had told me five years ago that I´d be sitting in an adobe hut, relishing leftover, refried rodent... life is a funny thing.
Thursday, February 18
I hike to Huandoy with Flora. This really deserves its own post.
Friday, February 19
As I first gain consciousness, every inch of my body aches. My arms are decorated with cuts and bruises, and my face aches from the sun it took in they day before. I can barely get out of bed. I need water and food. I stumble to the kitchen to find bread and avocado and instant coffee. I fix myself a little breakfast, happy to find the house quiet and empty. I go to my old room and watch the Triplettes of Belleville, which I had left when I was last here and never watched. It is one of those amazing gifts that the self from the past sometimes leaves for self of the future.
Around midday I'm able to leave the house and walk as far as Tío Tomas's farm. He and family harvest potatoes. I dig about three potatoes out of the earth before we stop for lunch- to eat the same potatoes that we have harvested served with hot pepper dressing, utsu. They cook with water from the asequia, the irrigation system, full of animal shit and human shit and worms. Fuck it. I eat my potatoes and then we drink some chicha. I lay at the side of the chacra for a while and talk with Johnny. He got a good score on his teacher´s test and will have a job within several weeks. This is no small miracle. I feel the worms expanding in my abdomen, opening their cute little mouths in anticipation of the potatoes. Every meal I eat here is followed by a dull, abdominal ache.
I get back to the house and reunite with Ishmael and Ahab. I have small flask of Pisco that I nip at as I read. My body aches slightly less, the family gets home and we have dinner. Oh Shilly Oh Tomasa thank you for that vegetable soup, for the cilantro and the rocoto and the limón. Without this soup I do not survive here.
Saturday, February 20
I go to Matacoto with my family. Shilly is from Matacoto and her mom and sisters live there. Her mom is Tomasa, a strong, striking Quechuan woman. I get along well with Tomasa and this is one of the most important relationships I have in Peru, despite the fact that she lives in Matacoto, a 20 minute drive from Yungay. It is important because she is Shilly´s mom and my life here depends entirely on Shilly. Also because Matacoto produces tons of avocado and orange each year and of these tons some few kilos trickle into our kitchen.
At Matacoto I visit Ketty where she works at the internet cabinas. Her computers are dreadfully slow and she´s inattentive. I give her Eva Luna- if she´s going to spend 10 hours a day in this room, God teach her how read a book.
It is Matacoto´s carnaval and in the evening we arrive at the plaza to drink and dance. I declare that I will drink only with Tomasa or with Shilly´s sister, Tía Teo, la gorda. I love to dance with Tía Teo. More I love to dance with Abuela Tomasa because she dances at her own pace, unrushed, savoring the richness of the music and the afternoon. It pours rain and we crowd into an unfinished building where the drinking and dancing continue. My heart fills with love for Shilly and Isidoro and their three children. It gets late and I start to wonder if we might not stay in Matacoto. I picture us in a room in Tomasa´s house, all of us sleeping in a big pile. This is all I want now, to sleep in a big pile with this family. I pray for more rain and no taxis.
Finally a man called Atoq, fox in Quechua, offers to drive us home. He has not been drinking and he doesn´t even want to be paid for the service. He's running for mayor, I found out later, and these are some cheap votes. It's a miserable drive home in the rain and we pick up stray cholos on the way. Two young men get into the trunk of the wagon with their picos and fart the most dreadful campo farts I´ve ever smelled. Salty, burnt, rotten potatoes.
There are five of us in the back seat and my body is smashed up against Isidoro's. Shubi is on his lap, asleep, and I pat his head. I realize that this is as close as I will get to joining the family pile and I close my eyes and pretend to sleep. When we get back to Mazac, Shilly refries some of her mom´s chicken and we eat this with mote, hominy. We all go to sleep with full stomachs.
Sunday, February 21
After a full week, I quit Mazac and travel to Huaraz. I take my first shower of the week and eat pizza at Bruno. I catch up with Sandro and Richi at our old Peace Corps haunt, Hotel La Colmena
(the beehive). They invite me to juice and tell me all about the hotel industry. Later I find internet and get some good news.
At night, all I want to do is sleep but I´m riveted to the cable TV. It´s like that eye movement therapy, my fixed glaze tracing the images of beautiful, rich white people as they dance their skinny, strange bodies across the screen. I fall for the Dickensian Royal Pains, with its handsome, reluctant doctor and European models and money.
I go the mirror in the hotel´s bathroom. I´m withholding hope that I too could be one of these E! television specimens of wealth and beauty. Instead, staring back at me in the lonely hotel bathroom is a sunburnt, bruised, exhausted cholo. Circles droop from my eyes. My skin is red, almost brownish. I am filthy. I peel off my clothes and get into the shower. The hot water runs over my body, washing away the dirt and the dirty sequia water with which I had tried to wash away the dirt. Finally I can´t stand up in the shower any longer and I curl up in bed, turn off the cable, and sleep, sleep, sleep.
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