Weird Foods Kassel Has Eaten: Tokush edition

Last night I was called up to dinner.  Since it was raining and path from my room to the stairs leading up to the kitchen is rather mud and chicken and cuy poop-filled I pulled on my black galoshes and made my way up the stairs.  I was immediately confronted by the worst smell I’ve ever, and I mean EVER, encountered in my entire life.  I must have accidentally and unwittingly stepped in a dead animal’s rotting intestines on the way up to dinner.  I was clearly dragging whatever I had stepped in all around the floor, and yet no one seemed to notice that I had brought the stench of putrid, rotting for a month death to dinner.  Wanna know why that was?  Because that smell was dinner.  It was tokush.

Tokush is essentially a form of pudding, called masamora, that consists of corn that has been left to ferment in water for a month.  Tokush=fermented corn pudding.

Thankfully, all Peruvians know that no one except for themselves likes tokush.  I think they take a certain pride in that.  Even St. Nicole (the volunteer who worked in my site before me and who, as far as I’ve heard, could and can do no wrong) didn’t like tokush.  So there was a back-up meal prepared for me. Whew!

Final opinion:  I will say that it tastes better than it smells, but as I’ve said, it smells like death died so that’s not saying much. 

But don’t take my word for it.  I’ve decided that I am going to do my damnedest to insure that anyone who visits gets the chance to try it.  You will try it.  You will hate it.  And you will be a better person for it.

Besos!

The Cat Died.

Yesterday, one of my family’s kittens died.  We’re not sure why, theories range from the fact that it was only four weeks old and if you separate it from its mother at that age you’re kind of asking for trouble (mine), the fact that my oldest host sister gave it concentrated canned milk without diluting it first (my host mom’s), and that it missed its mom (my host sister Nicoll’s). 

I couldn’t quite bear the thought of it dying alone outside, so I brought it into my room and proceeded to use other people’s internet to google what could be wrong. (Big thanks to Laurel Galaty and Ashley Wallis).  The general internet consensus seemed to be that it was probably having digestive problems and was unable to poop.  So I firmly rubbed his stomach and butt with warm washcloth to no avail.  I held him close and hoped my body heat would keep him warm.  His whole little body was limp and his mews were heartbreaking. 

  

He hung on through the afternoon, long enough that my host sister was able to take him to her grandmother’s where his mother still lives.  He drank a little milk, got to say goodbye, and came back to my room where he spent his last hours.  They were not very pleasant hours. He vomited up the milk and began to seize with increasing force as the night went on.  My youngest host sister came down and she and I had a very sad heart-to-heart, as hers was absolutely breaking.  But we talked about how he knew that he was loved and that the most important thing was for him to not be in pain—however that came about.  (He was one of the replacement cats for when her parents got rid of her other cat, Pelusa, because they thought she was eating the baby guinea pigs.  Turns out it was actually the neighbor’s cat, who they now plan to poison.  Life’s not easy for a cat in Perú, especially those in my family’s orbit).  Around ten o’clock, I decided to go to bed, and as a last goodbye to a very young kitten I read the only poem I have on hand, sent to me in a letter from Danielle Bernert.  It’s by e. e. cummings and goes like this,

You are tired 

(I think)

Of all the always puzzle of living and doing;

And so am I.

Come with me, then,

And we’ll leave it far and far away—

(Only you and I understand!)

You have played,

(I think)

And broke the toys you were fondest of,

And are a little tired now;

Tired of things that break, and—

Just tired.

So am I.

But I come with a dream in my eyes tonight,

And knock with a rose at the hopeless gate if your heart—

Open to me!

For I will show you the places Nobody knows,

And, if you like, the perfect places of Sleep,

Ah! come with me!

I’ll blow you that wonderful bubble, the moon,

That floats forever and a day;

I’ll sing you the jacinth song

Of the probable stars;

I will attempt the unstartled steppes of dream

Until I find the Only Flower

Which shall keep (I think) your little heart

While the moon comes out of the sea.

I padded the Toms box I had with washcloths and placed him as softly as I could inside, trying to give him as much space as I could above his head, as each of his contractions shot him forward.  A little after midnight I dreamed that he was recovering and I woke up.  I lay still for about fifteen minutes, not sure if I wanted to know what would come from checking on him.  His body was so hard and still warm.

Next morning I let everyone know, and they asked, since I am the town walker (along with typist), if I would take him up on my next walk.  I said of course and at 2 p.m. I walked up one of my favorite hikes.  It heads north along the mountain side and at the point where I stopped it opens onto one of the most breathtaking vistas of the Cordillera Blanca I’ve seen yet—though today it was blocked by distant rain clouds.  I set the box down, and being without a shovel, piled rocks around him.  His name given to him by my host sister was Delancy, named after a character in a Barbie movie.  I think it’s a terrible name, but I can’t think of anything better.  He wasn’t with us very long. But this is where he rests; he's under the smaller pile of rocks in the center.

I wasn’t very attached to him, I don’t think I’d even touched him before he was sick—it was a flea thing.  But he was small and he was dying and I like to think that when we have the chance to be kind we should be.  Even if all it does is make us feel better. 

Besos!

Introducing a new segment we like to call “Weird Foods Kassel Has Eaten.”

There is a lake at the top of a mountain, placed at the foot of a cross, where water is found in a form not of steam, liquid, or ice.  It is called ururupa.

I have no idea what it is, my best guess is a strange sort of algae.  But everyone I have asked has told me that it’s water, that, in this area at least, it can only be found in this one lake, and that when it is taken out of liquid, aka normal, water it turns back into liquid water.

It tastes like water, essentially nothing in other words, and as far as I am now concerned, that is all she wrote.  Physicists, Chemists, Biologists, and all Scientifically Inclined People worldwide prepare to marvel. 

Besos!

Kassel Actually is an English Teacher

Well folks, it’s official.  Six times a week, for an hour each go around, I am an English teacher.  So far I have taught:

• ·         Greetings
• ·         Conversation
• ·         Animals
• ·         Numbers
• ·         Colors
• ·         Days of the Week
• ·         Body Parts
• ·         Family Members
• ·         Months of the Year

Classes usually go along these lines:

1)      I write the words and their Spanish translations on the board.

2)      One by one we go through and pronounce them. First as a group, then individually.  Sometimes this is utterly hilarious, but I hold in my laughter for the kids’ sake.

3)      I desperately think up games that remotely involve English so as to keep their attention.

Look at all the lovely pictures of children happily learning:

Things usually go smooth as silk, as if I truly knew what I was doing.  But there have the occasional…incidents, some of which I would oh so love to share with you.

1)      Do you remember how to play Red Light Green Light?  It goes like this: One person, at one end of the field, blacktop, street, whathaveyou, yells “Green Light” and turns their back.  While their back is turned, the rest of the kids run towards them until the first kids\ turns around again, yelling “Red Light,” at which point the kids have to stop.  IF they are seen moving by the Light-person they have to return to the beginning.  We play this game A LOT in my class, substituting “Red Light” and “Green Light” for whatever English words we’ve learned that day.  Usually I hang near the back playing referee, but one day, when an especially fickle, picky, and otherwise unfair child was in charge of yelling the words out, I decided to go for it.  I’d run, I’d win, and we’d get a new kid in ASAP.  I began to run straight ahead, ignoring the inevitable mud splash from the puddle ahead of me.  After all, this was for the kids.  Lo and behold, there was no mud splash.  There was me, slipping in the mud and landing flat on my ass.  I stood up, as the kids looked on unsure of what to do.  I was very much covered in mud, very much blushing, and very much wanting to rewind to three seconds ago and just let Mister Picky and Unfair be as Picky and Unfair as he wanted to be.   Instead I had to walk one of my youngest students back to the health post where her mom worked and show off my mud-covered butt to everyone in the town square.

2)      As you know, Quechua is the first language of the majority of the people in my town.  Which means that when the teenage boys in my high school want to be little shits they say vulgar things in Quechua.  Now, I may not be able to understand much in Quechua, but rani, aka penis, is now one of the words I recognize most easily.  Also, making the OK sign here in Perú means something VERY different.   They learn English, I learn when to be offended.

3)      After a month of playing Red Light, Green Light I decided to shake things up.  I introduced a game, normally used as an icebreaker, where someone, standing in the middle of a circle, says a word in English.  Once it’s said, everyone has to stand up from their chairs and find a new one to sit in.  The person without a seat then has to say the Spanish definition and a new English word, and so and so forth.  It was going splendidly until a girl’s nose collided with a boy’s head.  Head was fine, nose not so much.  The blood poured from it.  I was cupping my hands beneath her nose trying, unsuccessfully, to stop the blood from getting on her coat.  As I try to calmly get her to where my toilet paper is stashed, the rest of the kids kept playing without any encouragement.  They were un-con-cerned. We finally get to the classroom and with my blood-covered hands I unzip my backpack and pull out the TP.  The bloodstains may one day get out of my backpack:

[I thought about asking her to pose for a picture but it seemed a little inappropriate]

Standing outside the classroom I have to keep telling her to hold her head back because she wanted nothing more than to lean forward and create a small lake of her blood on the cement. 

So watch out guys, English can kill you (or maybe it’s just when I teach it…)

Besos!

Peruvian-isms

Things I have learned from my host family:

 1)      If you take a cold shower when you’re really hot and sweaty, you will probably die.

 2)      If you take a shower (warm or cold) after eating a meal, you will probably die.  My host mother heard from this one guy that he knew this old guy who died after he showered right after lunch.

 3)      If your ears are hot, that means that someone is insulting you.  You must pinch your ear very hard, at which point the insulter will bite their tongue (literal translation, not sure if it’s meant literally).

 4)      If a snake crosses your path, you have to kill it or else someone in your family will die. (This does not apply if it is slithering along next to you—so no worries Galaty clan, my one snake encounter will not result in any of your deaths.)

Having only showered three times in site, I am sure that future showerings will bring new rules.  I’ll keep you updated.

Besos!

Just Dance

There are a few songs in the world that I just can’t sit still to.  One of them is “Joy to the World” by Three Dog Night.  I highly recommend it as your wake-up alarm. 

The other is “Footloose” from the movie Footloose.

After finishing the movie Pocahontas with my host sisters, we began to search through my music collection to find any and all Spanish songs I had—turns out I have “Colores Del Viento” and oh was that a hit.  But then the shuffle button was hit, bringing about a whole new world of music—all of which I had to show them how I would dance to them.

Shaking my hair in their faces was a great hit when The Ramones came on, as was hitting the lights and waving my headlamp around when Ellie Goulding made her entrance.  I waltzed around the room with my youngest host sister’s feet on mine to Sleeping Beauty’s “Once Upon a Dream.”  But I can safely say that the best was “Footloose.” 

I’d been working so hard, punching my hypothetical card.  Usually less than eight hours for work—but don’t tell me what a gal. I had this feeling that time was just holding me down. I couldn’t hold in the feeling or else I’d tear up the town. So I cut loose, footloose, and kicked off my Sunday shoes. Lesslye, she pulled me up from my knees.

You get the picture. 

Here’s a shot of my youngest host sister wearing my rain boots, and a quick sketch I did of them both.

Besos!

Kassel Decides to be an English Teacher. Otherwise known as Adventures in Miscommunication, the Importance of Following Through, and How to Take a Chill Pill.

The Peace Corps encourages us to participate in “Vacaciones Utiles,” a Peruvian program that translates to “Useful Vacations.”  Everyone in my town thought that me teaching English during this time was a FABULOUS idea, so I did my due diligence.  I submitted official solicitudes to the municipality, the head of Social Programs, and to the Director of the high school, whose classroom I hoped to use.  One by one they were all approved.  I managed to get a set of keys to the high school the day before New Year’s, and I set out to celebrate knowing that I was well set to start planning my classes and preparing my classroom after the 2^nd.

Wrong.

Those keys I mentioned?  Not for the front gate to the high school.  The only key I need in fact, is to the front gate, and yet that is the one key that I do not have.  Does the principal answer his cell phone when I call to ask for his help?  No.  No he does not.  As I walk back to my house, feeling slightly lost and bewildered, I run into Señor Feliciano, the gatekeeper to the high school during the regular school year.  I show him the keys and he tells me that they are for the auditorium.  Oh, well, if I ever get into the front gate it turns out I can open the auditorium.  Woop-de-Doo.  He walks off and I arrive at home where I promptly complain to my host mother.  Oh, she says, Señor Feliciano should have a key to the front gate, he looks after the school.  Is she talking about the same Señor Feliciano that I talked to just moments ago? Yes, yes she is. Oh, but that place he was walking off to?  According to his wife, that place is his chakra, no she’s not sure when he’ll be back.  Alrighty then, I will be visiting your house tomorrow morning.  P.S. Tomorrow morning is the 5^th, and I’ve already announced over the town loudspeaker that classes will be starting in the high school on the 6^th.  F me.

Enter tomorrow morning—I go to Señor Feliciano’s house, where lo and behold, he is not at.  He has gone to the chakra (always, always the damn chakra), because it rained last night for the first time in over a week and everyone is super excited and visiting their chakras. Great.  Guess I’ll come back at dinnertime and hope this somehow works out.

I head back to my room to start planning my English classes.  Do I know where I will be teaching?  Nope.  Do I know how many kids will be coming? Nope, because I totally glossed over the whole “sign-up” part of summer classes.  Cool.  I can definitely make learning how to say “My name is…” last for an hour.  As I am busy pitying myself, (which turns into anger-pitying because are my problems really that terrible? No, they’re not.) someone starts to bang at the front gate.  I usually ignore door-banging, but at one point I swear I hear English words.  ENGLISH?!?! Maybe it is for me.  I’m like a puppy scrambling for the door. 

The guy at the door is definitely not speaking English and leaves as soon as I explain that none of my family is home at the moment.  As he turns away, who do I see walking by but Señor Feliciano! Never have I been gladder to open my door.  I rush out and explain my dilemma.  Is there any way he can lend me his key?

--Ah, gringa, estoy en vacaciones, no estoy trabajando.  Trans: Oh, white girl, I’m on vacation, I’m not working. 

Oh, I say as my heart sinks. 

--Pero, la Señora Elena está trabajando en la biblioteca cada día de las ocho hasta el uno.  Trans: But, Mrs. Elena is working in the library everyday from eight to one.  

Every day you say? As in today?

--No, gringa, hoy es domingo.  Pero mañana a las ocho ella va estar.  Cada día el portón está abierto. Trans: No, white girl, today is Sunday.  But tomorrow at eight she will be there.  The gate is open every day.

So I can get inside the high school at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, a half hour before my class is supposed to start in order to clean and organize the classroom?  Well, Señor, that is technically better than nothing. 

So here I am, waiting for Monday (aka tomorrow) to come.  I’ve set up a possible back-up plan with the health post, where, if the high school doesn’t pan out, I can use the second story of the health post.  There are no chairs, tables, or chalk/whiteboards in this space.  But given that the rain has decided to return, I will settle for a roof.  I’m slightly kicking myself for not pushing Señor Feliciano a little harder on the lending me his key question.  Because while he may be on vacation, does that mean his key is too?  If he’s on vacation doesn’t that just mean that he has no need for the key?  All these points I could have brought up.  Damn you Spanish for slowing my brain down. 

But while by my standards this feels ridiculous and frustrating, the truth is, everything is probably going to work itself out.  And if it doesn’t, well, I think we’ll all live. 

And yes, by writing this, I am procrastinating from planning my classes that start, oh right, tomorrow.

Besos!

(Update: It all worked out.) 

My what an elaborate tunnel system you have (Visiting the UNESCO World Heritage Site at Chavin de Huantar)

In terms of ruins, Machu Picchu tends to dominant the Peruvian ruin scene.  That said, the Chavin ruins, a mere hour away from me, are probably considered ruin destination No. 2. Enjoy some tantalizing photos of them.

The last head-nail left at the Chavin site.  The rest have been excavated and can be found at the official museum (which oddly enough was partly sponsored by the Japanese government)

The upper-ground portion of the Chavin ruins.  Lovely, but the real treasure lies below...

In the elaborate tunnel system!

Which is well-lighted in places, though not in all, which can result in... 

forehead injuries that hopefully a Health Peace Corps Volunteer can help you with.

Besos!

The Cinnamon Challenge (December 30th, 2013)

Have any of you heard of the Cinnamon Challenge?  It goes like this: I bet you can’t swallow a tablespoon of pure cinnamon. Some people hear that and say, “Yeah, you’re probably right, but I guess we’ll never know because I’m not going to try.”  Others hear that and say, “Wanna bet?”  Guess which one bored Peace Corps Volunteers say? 

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

That’s Michelle and Daniel starting us off.  We only have two spoons so I will soon be taking Daniel’s spoon and filling it with my own cinnamon.

This is me choking on the cinnamon

That’s Daniel and Michelle wondering if it’s funny or if I’m dying

That’s me alive with no regrets

That’s Daniel giving in and spitting it out

Turns out you can swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon, because Michelle did it!

Turns out I can’t though.

And please, try this at home.  I’m curious.

Besos!