At last!

5/1/13

At last!  So many things have happened at last.  Inside the mountains I have found a certain peace, mouth agape, family smiling, joy abound.  I unpack my things in this new home, my temporary placement.  A guinea pig farm, for eating only!  A houseful of mostly women, only one man to speak of, a very timid and adorable man who is in love with his wife and child.  It is here at last!  A walk through dirt roads and cables lining the street, sisters Cati and Ana Margarita dutifully carrying my bags, I see ice-capped mountains in the distance. I have a comfort zone in this incredibly foreign place.  It has not enlightened, nor thrilled, nor exhausted me yet because I have been thrown in and because it is so different.  I just might feel comfortable here soon though, with bugs biting me, walking across a dirt path from my room, adjacent to the room shared by mom, dad, and baby, to get to the dimly lit kitchen where we chat and drink coca leaf tea.  Dogs bark and fight in the distance.  I warily turn lights on, expecting the scurry of creatures.  The kitchen is full of jars and jars of spices and dried leaves, the oven built into a wall, black with soot.  Grandmother Ana Maria tells me she likes to cook everything.  Based on the massive amount of guinea pigs (cuy) she has in the back (piles of them) I’m guessing that’s one of her favorite things to cook.

In the backyard, the cuy murmur in unison.  Under each piece of cardboard box in their pen is another lump of fur!  A “mother with her babies” she would say.  I laugh and laugh (quietly so as not to offend them).  She maybe has 100 of them. By tomorrow it might jump to 150.  I am not yet grossed out by it, but I might be because they are cute, and when Ana Margarita holds one up to me I can’t help but pet it.  Is that how you treat your food?  I don’t know yet.  It is pretty precious, and terrified. Apparently they taste delicious.  The other girls I have met so far tell me they only have it on rare occasion, and in Cuzco it costs about $25 a plate. But not at Ana Maria’s!  I tell them it is my birthday on Friday, and they say they will make something for me, hopefully with a side of cuy.